Landan Land The Personal Blog of Landan Crosslin

Authenticity Redux

I've written on Authenticity before.

I feel that the church is missing that a lot of times. This isn't a pointing of fingers either, I'm part of the problem as well. There's something about Church and being around other religious people that makes me afraid to open up. It's as if my salvation depends on the validation of the people around me rather than on God.

My Dad was talking to me recently about how he had visited one of the older people's Sunday morning classes. I guess he was expecting little drops of wisdom from them. His thinking was that they'd lived life longer, had more experience, so they must be wiser. Unfortunately, all he heard throughout the whole class was canned responses. There may have been correct doctrine, but it was separated from feeling and experience.

Many of my friends from high school don't come from religious families or have separated themselves from their parent's religious beliefs. A portion of these friends are transgendered or homosexuals. This has been a challenge to me. It's been challenging because these lifestyles are condemned in scripture. When you put a face upon homosexuality or trans-sexuality it's harder to view it as sinful. Much of this has to do with our skewed vision of  what exactly sin is and what sinful people are like.

It's also hard because of the way many Christians talk about transgendered and homosexual people. They speak of them with contempt and derision. They talk about them as if they were an enemy that we must irradicate or as if they were monsters who we must fear and protect our children from. I've heard Christians make jokes about gays going to hell and I even heard a girl laughingly blame Katrina on the homosexuals living in New Orleans. They don't even think about how terrible Christians are at following their own sexual ideals (e.g. There's an 11% increase in porn consumption in states that have passed anti-gay legislation).

I have a great amount of respect for the homosexuals and transsexuals I know. They are open and honest. They are more likely to stand up for what they believe in the face of opposition. Maybe this is just coming from my disenchanted viewpoint, but I feel that many of them are even more compassionate. Why is that I'm more likely to receive a hug from a lesbian who I've only met a few times than from someone else who I've known at church for years. Why does there seem to be a wall in one place that does not seem to exist elsewhere? Is the problem mine?

I think there's some stuff we could learn from them about authenticity.