Marc Barnes’ recent post on learning to see with Eucharistic Eyes got me thinking about our reactions to those we find hardest to love (and truly see) in our given subculture. Particularly, I wondered what application this theology of seeing Christ play “in ten thousand places” might have in light of recent Supreme Court events. Wherever you stand on the issue, it can’t be denied that the legalization of gay marriage garnered a loud response from all quarters, ranging from elation and celebration to weeping and gnashing of teeth.
But weirdly enough, the conservative Christian response to the gay rights movement and the progressive call-back to it are eerily similar, when you strip the content and just look at the bare attitude. We are all so desperate to prove how unlike one another we are that we have become blind to how like each other we really are. Because we’re the same, remember? We’re all part of one race: humanity. We’re the ones that create the illusion of being fundamentally different things. Most of us are all about defending our given ideals to the death, but what we should be defending to the death is the dignity of the people standing on the other side of the line.
Oh, yes, we differ substantially on many things, and we should not disrespect one another by trivializing those differences. Even basic psychology will tell you that healthy relationships require a tolerance for real, sometimes even problematic differences, without explaining them away or destroying each other over them. Life is messy, and the sooner we come to terms with that, the sooner we’ll make real progress in understanding each other and being understood.
Particularly I want to speak to many of my fellow Christians, and ask you to especially pause if you’ve found yourself bristling with righteousness in response to this issue.
Because that is not what we are called to. We’re called to start somewhere much humbler. It’s somewhere different from either progressive relativism or neo-conservative championism. We’ve been confusing self-righteousness with righteousness, pride with values and principles, stubbornness with moral or doctrinal steadfastness.
The reality is, maintaining consistency on difficult truths need not translate to competition to be proved right. In fact, if we are really taking seriously what the Bride of Christ is called to (and therefore what we are), we will understand that it never amounts to that. But I am afraid exactly this sort of unloving competition has become the standard so-called Evangelical response to anything in culture perceived to be “ungodly” (read: threat to our right to exercise free religion). Ironically, the attitude itself couldn’t be more anti-Gospel, and therefore couldn’t do worse in living up to the name “Evangelical”. Indeed, Evangelicalism today is very far from living up to its name, and I’m talking mainstream, conservative Evangelicalism here.
Yes, sometimes the truth is hard to swallow. Jesus, after all, did not call any of his followers to be liked, or to success, but to faithfulness. But woe to us if we make it harder to swallow than it need be, if we make it look like poison because we see principles to defend instead of holy icons of God to love. When was the last time you looked at a Gay Pride parade and saw, not “the ungodly,” or worse, “the gay agenda”, but holy icons of God?
Being made in God’s image isn’t something any of us has a say in: it has been decreed from all eternity that every human to walk the earth should bear that title — that reality. Therefore it is decreed that the Bride of Christ honor His Image everywhere she encounters it. Everywhere. It has not been decreed that she should usurp the place of her Bridegroom as Judge of the World. Only Christ knows who has rejected or accepted him.
Jesus said to them, “ … My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven … he who eats this bread will live forever.” … As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. …”
Perhaps we ought to rethink who the truth of Christ might be hard for, who might have trouble swallowing it. In Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican and Eastern theology, Christ comes to us in the Eucharist — really present, so that we consume Him. Faith believes and receives where eyes have trouble seeing. And yet, how often will Christ come to us not just in forms that require faith, but that also require obedience?
Jesus did not promise that every time we encountered him, it would be in the familiar, the comforting, or even the holy. Where is the ultimate victory of God over the reign of Death to be found? In murder. If Christ must be found there, he must 
be found everywhere, “lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his.” We know the degree to which the Gospel has effected its transformation in us by how ready we are to see Christ’s loveliness where we do not expect.
There is nothing the church can offer the world if it does not start here. Without this, we are nothing more than noise and poison in the air. We will be held accountable for those we drive away from Christ by our blindness to Him. After all, we are all equally subjects of mercy. If we do not start as the recipients of it, we cannot offer it, and our righteousness turns to pride. The sin that cast the Morning Star from heaven. That’s serious. We might as well forget about “teaching truth” if we cannot get this straight. Knowledge without love is nothing — worse than nothing. We teach truth with as much reverence as if we were teaching it to Christ Himself — or we do not teach it at all.
So we come full circle. The question is not whether Christ is to be found in the other, not just the not-me but the truly other, the one on the other side of the line. The question is whether I will see him there and do him reverence where he deigns to appear to me.
“You do not want to go away also, do you?”
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”
Musings of a Catholic Protestant 
Noelle, I see you are trying to see Christ in our neighbor no matter who. However, it is a crossing of a line to call an immoral act marriage. Sodomy is clearly condemned. When we see a gay parade I see souls that have lost the sight of their dignity. That have been deceived by desires of the that the are not in accordance with the Truth. I see a hurting and wounded Christ. I see your good intentions but we need to be careful we don’t cross a line that brings one to blasphemy. With lots of love, please take this with lots of love.
Lily, because I know you and your kind and loving heart, I hear what you’re saying as such. Unfortunately, others reading your comment might not. So please bear with my explanation of why I think “gay marriage” is an appropriate term to use in this discussion, even if one morally disagrees with sexual relationships between those of the same sex.
When speaking across lines on difficult, personal, and moral issues, it is important to understand what our words communicate to all concerned in the conversation. You understand using the term “marriage” to describe gay unions as wrong. You believe it undermines human dignity by misconstruing the subject at hand.
However, though this is the effect you hope to achieve, for many gay people, an unconditional concern to uphold their inviolable dignity at all costs is not what that choice of language conveys. In fact, it often conveys the diametric opposite.
For many in this community, the experience of being fundamentally ostracized, condemned, and rejected has been the primary — maybe only — context in which they have ever experienced the pointed refusal to use terms like “marriage” to refer to gay union (and also, even more so, in the use of words such as “sodomy”.)
It is important not just to understand what you mean when you use those words (or refuse to use them), but also what their use or avoidance practically communicates to those to which you are speaking. If, even without intending to, one’s words convey to the intended recipients an attitude which you do not hold, then it’s necessary to change one’s language to ensure that is what is conveyed. My argument is that, for those who want to separate themselves from all un-christlike attitudes toward other human beings, it’s necessary to distance ourselves from the language of those who use certain terms or rhetoric to champion causes that are diametrically opposed to what followers of Christ stand for.
I would argue that such language has become loaded with many meanings you would never intend to convey.
In my case, and in this context, I believe that “gay marriage” is an appropriate referent for an article that does not intend to get into the details as to why people argue for or against the morals of a same-sex union — nor into the details of my own position on the matter. It is a choice not to open that particular can of worms by using the most commonly used term to refer to a topic all will understand. To do otherwise would dismiss certain audiences out of hand, and I intend my audience for this blog to be broad. By choosing that term, I am not making my stance explicit, but rather following conventional use in the interest of remaining accessible to a wide range of audiences. It would have detracted from the topic and purpose of this article to pointedly change my language so as to draw attention to the moral/semantic arguments about gay unions and my own stance on it. The topic of this article is the attitude all Christians need to have toward the debate as a whole — prior to the details of that debate or the conclusions to be drawn from it.
It is not saying that the details of the debate, or its conclusion, are irrelevant. It is simply saying that this is not this article’s calling.
I believe, as you do, that among a Christian’s chief callings is the one to fight to uphold human dignity in our society — consistently, and insistently. Many times, however, this calling requires nuance in the use of our language. This is not simply in order to be a crowd pleaser, but because language is about effective communication, and if our choice of language honors an abstract definition, but in its actual use fails to convey the intended message or indeed conveys the opposite of what is intended, then much harm is done and we may undermine the original purpose we first set out with.
I would be happy to continue this conversation via private message 🙂 Let’s keep the exchange short here on the blog.