“Where are you from,” he asked.
“Bedford, Pennsylvania” I answered.
The architect sighed a lungful of mountain air. San Francisco sits on the west coast and is known for its famous bridge, hill topping trolleys, and homosexual community. Bedford is in the south-central Pennsylvania, where the Bible buckles its belt. If there is stigma surrounding what it means to be a homosexual from San Francisco, there is equal preconception of what it means to be a Christian from "Pennsylvania". While people in San Francisco cross the Golden Gate bridge and eat good seafood, Bedfordites go to church on Sunday and enjoy a diet rich in south-central Pennsylvania Christianity. We’re good at hospitality, but not always genuine acceptance. We sometimes get so hung up on being conservative that we forget to be compassionate.
The architect sighed, and with a smirk that obviously masked something like frustration or hurt or betrayal, he said, “Don’t worry. We’re not really as bad as they would have you believe.”
Every group has its opposite. Its rival. Its They. The architect assumed that because I share geography with them, I must also share their political opinions and moral judgments. I do not. He assumed that my culture has conditioned me to hate gay people. It has not. Although many Christians are comfortable condemning homosexuals as sinners, Jesus seems to have been comfortable associating with, touching, loving, and befriending a planet full of sinful people. Including homosexuals. And heterosexuals. And architects. And artists. And preachers. And people like me…
When we condemn those that Jesus forgives, we stand in danger of becoming the very people that Jesus himself most often condemned.
Quote of the day:
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
- Paul Valery
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