Just found out my religious friend is (sort of) anti-gay

March 18, 2012 11:19 AM

My somewhat newly religious friend told me that because of his spiritual beliefs he now believes that homosexuality is wrong because God planned men and women to procreate, and gay relationships don't follow that plan. He also said he is pro gay marriage because he views that as more of a political or practical issue and doesn't think that religion should be used as a justification for laws that also govern the non-religious. How should I take this?

I've observed this friend becoming more religious over the past few years, and I'd always thought it was pretty cool that a friend found religion and was really getting into a community like that. The other day we were talking about how christianity has changed his views on the world when he offered the above opinion about homosexuality. It was the "God's plan" part of the explanation that really struck me, because to me it sounds completely crazy.

I guess I was just surprised because he's been going to what I could loosely describe as a "hipster church" in our big city, full of young people who I kind of assumed were in that kind of congregation precisely because they didn't want to build a church that espoused conservative or repressive dogmas.

How common is this? Am I just off base about what sort of Church my friend has become a part of, or is this pretty standard, even in what look like outwardly liberal congregations? Do I just not understand what a liberal church is? I guess I'd assumed there were lots of churches that promoted tolerance and inclusive interpretations of scripture and that my friend had joined one of those. I'm not looking to argue with my friend, but I am now trying to understand the character of the organization he's become a part of. Thanks especially to anyone with personal experience with the matter.

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (44 answers total)

I have a friend who attends what seems to be a trendy hipster church filled with young people, but it's actually very fundamentalist. You never knows what a church teaches until you attend.
posted by christinetheslp at 11:25 AM on March 18, 2012 [7 favorites]

doesn't think that religion should be used as a justification for laws that also govern the non-religious.

I've never heard any person of faith say this, ever.
This is would be a very liberal church.
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 11:27 AM on March 18, 2012 [8 favorites]

Hmmm. What first struck me about this was that even though he is personally against homosexuality, he acknowledges that whether or not he or others are against it should have no bearings on politics or what the government does. That seems fairly liberal and accepting to me--that even though HE thinks it's morally wrong, that doesn't mean he's going to prevent other people from doing what they want.
posted by Emms at 11:28 AM on March 18, 2012 [17 favorites]

Mod note: Folks, thread is for answering the question not getting at he OP's friend's issues. Please answer the question being asked, I know it pushes some people's buttons.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:28 AM on March 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

In order to understand what a church teaches, you need to visit, probably a bunch of times. Seriously. In very specific, denomination-provided cases, you can probably get by with generalization-by-group-affiliation (there are far fewer differences between any two Mormon congregations than between any two Unitarian Universalist congregations, and again fewer between two UU congregations than two random non-denominational Christian churches.)

Oh, and the "homosexual activity is wrong in the eyes of God" and "but gay marriage is OK" or "and marriage shouldn't involve the state at all" or "and we don't object to civil unions but marriage is a special thing" positions are really, really, really commonly held in American religious communities.

I agree that this is a very, very liberal church in terms of what you will find in American churches which identify as actively religious (and not just spiritual.) I sort of suspect that you were thinking that "liberal church" means "we don't believe in God really, in the sense of an actual personage of some kind." These are two very different concepts.
posted by SMPA at 11:33 AM on March 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

Are you, or any of your mutual friends, homosexual? If no, then, I don't think you need to be concerned with his opinion.

As for his church, maybe sit in on a service or talk to another church member? Might be hard to pinpoint what the exact character of the organization is without getting that info from a first hand source. (Assuming you can't just speak to your friend about it)
posted by Funky Claude at 11:34 AM on March 18, 2012

or is this pretty standard, even in what look like outwardly liberal congregations?

I'm with christinetheslp - there's not necessarily any relationship between a "liberal looking" church and actually progressive teachings. Mark Driscoll, for example, is the young "hipster pastor" of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, and he has surprisingly medieval views on women. There are legitimately inclusive congregations out there, but your friend doesn't belong to one.
posted by theodolite at 11:35 AM on March 18, 2012 [6 favorites]

Without knowing the denomination of the church in question it's difficult to weigh in. I've never heard of a church which condemns homosexuality as against god's plan but is also pro-gay marriage; that's rather intriguing.

There are some churches where the creed is pretty much whatever the minister thinks, and since ministers are human there's an infinite array of possibilities. Your friend has stumbled across one of them.
posted by bunderful at 11:41 AM on March 18, 2012

In my area (I'm in the UK) the only 'hip' churches are evangelical/fundamentalist in some vein; the more fusty, traditional-seeming churches have a wider variety of doctrine positions. So yet another vote for "packaging does not necessarily reflect box contents".

I think that the internet is often your friend in these cases (especially in the case of 'hip' churches) - if the church leader has a blog, or if they put event recordings up on YouTube you can get a better idea of their doctrine positions.
posted by Coobeastie at 11:49 AM on March 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've never heard of a church which condemns homosexuality as against god's plan but is also pro-gay marriage; that's rather intriguing.

I've never heard of a church that did, but I have known individuals who did. I actually think this isn't terribly uncommon among young evangelical Christians.

I've also heard the whole "sure, gay sex is a sin, but lots of things are sins. I, for instance, sometimes gossip and think unkind thoughts. Since I'm a sinner, too, I won't judge" thing, which I think would probably not impress their pastors but which seems to allow them to reconcile their religious beliefs with the realities of living in diverse communities.
posted by craichead at 11:49 AM on March 18, 2012 [6 favorites]

Given that the foundation of any Christian church is millennia-old dogma, I don't think you should be very surprised when it turns out the church advocates supporting the dogma.

You can argue the point all you want (people have procreate to an adequate degree, god's plan has been fulfilled, we are now free to continue on with other aspects of our lives), but it is pointless. The goal of religion is not reason, but the long-established dogma. The only reason they even bother to come up with justifications for things like "gay people are evil sinners" in he first place is to try and convince outsiders like yourself. Your friend's church doesn't really care *why* gay people are bad, just *that* gay people are bad.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 11:51 AM on March 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

I guess I was just surprised because he's been going to what I could loosely describe as a "hipster church" in our big city, full of young people who I kind of assumed were in that kind of congregation precisely because they didn't want to build a church that espoused conservative or repressive dogmas.

Is this one of those churches with some video screens and a huge "Young Singles" or "Young Adult" social club and a worship band with electric guitars? Because those are often UBER-conservative. All the fun stuff makes the very traditional theology go down easier. Well, I should be more charitable. Put another way, the social atmosphere of the church and the theology are not connected in the way a secular liberal person would expect, although I would say they are definitely connected.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 12:01 PM on March 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

I propose that the person might be liberal more than the church is. Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist and called himself born again, but he also believed strongly in separation of church and state. If you don't bring religion into your policy decisions, then gay marriage is a given.
posted by Mercaptan at 12:06 PM on March 18, 2012 [3 favorites]

As a young Methodist, I've got to fundamentally disagree with most of the answers so far. Being against the gay is no longer the norm for young Christians in the US and hasn't been for some time. Even among Evangelicals nearly half of 18-29 year-olds are in active support of gay marriage.

There are a lot of good reasons why. Being opposed to gay marriage in light of a modern understanding of what it means to be gay can only really be sustained as a result of theology that is either lazy, ignorant, or manipulative.

That said, in my own anecdotal experience from by brief time in a very conservative church that actively marketed to college age students, this was a not uncommon way to square the received theological instruction with a more honestly Christian desire to not be an asshole.
posted by Blasdelb at 12:10 PM on March 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

> In order to understand what a church teaches, you need to visit, probably a bunch of times.

Are you asking this question because you want to better understand your friend’s religious and spiritual beliefs?

Absolutely! This would also be essential to gaining better understanding of your friend’s religions/spiritual beliefs. I have attended a number of religious services with a friend in order to better understand her religious transformation. I still don’t get it, but I understand why it works for her, and I’m like 95% sure it’s not actually a cult (I'm fairly anti-organized religon FWIW)…so now I’m just genuinely happy she’s found something that she has real passion for.

Say to your friend "Friend, I'm an interested in learning more about this church you're so passionate about. Could I attend a relgious service with you?" I would personally add in that I was not interested in coverting.
posted by OsoMeaty at 12:12 PM on March 18, 2012

It's not as uncommon as you think. It can best be described as "containment" -- so long as the gays are not in our churches and we don't have to marry them, the government that's going to fail us anyway can do what they want. The idea of civil unions but not marriage is similar, only with the idea that marriage is a sacrament.

I've heard people from the aforementioned Mars Hill say exactly what I've read above. Even with a place as hyper-Reformed as Mars Hill you will see shades of gray.

I would note, though, that if your friend is moving that direction, it's only a matter of time before he's anti-gay marriage. He seems to be drifting right at a steady clip.
posted by dw at 12:18 PM on March 18, 2012

The church may not have had any bearing on your newly religious friend's pragmatic attitude towards gay marriage. There are denominations that are very inclusive (Episcopalian, Unitarian), and there are churches that maintain a traditional stance on homosexuality or gay marriage, but whose congregants support the separation of church and state. Many of my Gen-X/Gen-Y friends who are religious (Christian and Muslim) believe that homosexuality is a sin, but have no problems with gay rights and will never think of participating in a movement curtailing those rights. They tend to be college-educated city dwellers though.

A couple of my friends identify with the Christian Left, and a couple of them have left the church because of the homophobia (they are straight). People of faith aren't monolithic; they have different ways of reconciling their religious beliefs and progressive ideals, or they don't.
posted by peripathetic at 12:19 PM on March 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

My experience with American Christians is that basically the more hip-seeming the Christian, the more likely they are to be what I consider to be fundamentalist. Dorky white/middle-aged Episcopalian in full robes, smelling of incense=totally pro-the-gays. Really hip young person with full sleeves who talks persuasively about Jesus in modern life=may be an anti-gay Creationist.

I have found this kind of flabbergasting, personally, so I understand your confusion.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 12:19 PM on March 18, 2012 [32 favorites]

I have a friend who attends what seems to be a trendy hipster church filled with young people, but it's actually very fundamentalist. You never knows what a church teaches until you attend.

Definitely. I had a gay friend get burned pretty badly at one of those "hipster" churches.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:19 PM on March 18, 2012

If you want to understand the level of fundamentalism of his church, you have to answer a few questions (either asking your friend, going to the church, asking for church's literature, or visiting their website):

1) Is the Bible literal? (Noah and Jonah stories are good ones to test this point)
2) Are you a Creationist? (this is related to #1, bringing it to a more extreme level)
3) Is contraception a sin?

If the answer to those three questions is yes, then it is a fundamentalism church, and the view that your friend expressed about gay marriage might be his own, not the church's, as some people indicated upthread. The fact that your friend could be able to hold an independent opinion different from that of the church is a relatively positive sign that that church, as fundamentalism as it might be, is not a cult or cultish.

I think those things are not black and white, but occur in a continuum. Your friend could get more or less extreme is his views with time, I guess.

There's a more detailed fundie test here that might be helpful!
posted by TheGoodBlood at 12:21 PM on March 18, 2012 [6 favorites]

doesn't think that religion should be used as a justification for laws that also govern the non-religious.

I've never heard any person of faith say this, ever.

This is said all the time by many religious people, and it makes a lot of sense. Andrew Sullivan is an example. Also, Rick Santorum said this in one of the debates (and I'm not saying he actually puts this into practice, but the very fact that he thought it'd be strategically useful to express it in a presidential debate shows it's at least somewhat popular). E.J. Dionne would probably agree with it too. Notice that these people have different political ideologies: Sullivan is a passionate libertarian, Santorum is considered very conservative, and Dionne is decidedly liberal. You couldn't find two people who are more strongly opposed to each other on the issue of same-sex marriage than Sullivan and Santorum, but if you asked them in general whether the law should simply enact a specific religion's doctrines, they'd both say no. I'm also pretty sure Mitt Romney would be opposed to a law prohibiting caffeine or alcohol, which as a Mormon he's forbidden from consuming (and my understanding is he has always followed these rules). So it's not only something that very liberal people who happen to be mildly religious would subscribe to. As for your friend, he either found an excuse to espouse anti-gay beliefs which he might have had before, or his church might have a veneer of liberalism with underlying retrograde doctrines.
posted by John Cohen at 12:25 PM on March 18, 2012 [5 favorites]

My experience with American Christians is that basically the more hip-seeming the Christian, the more likely they are to be what I consider to be fundamentalist. Dorky white/middle-aged Episcopalian in full robes, smelling of incense=totally pro-the-gays. Really hip young person with full sleeves who talks persuasively about Jesus in modern life=may be an anti-gay Creationist.

heartily seconding thehmsbeagle. this has been exactly my experience.
posted by iahtl at 12:33 PM on March 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

How common is this? Am I just off base about what sort of Church my friend has become a part of, or is this pretty standard, even in what look like outwardly liberal congregations? Do I just not understand what a liberal church is?

I think some of the answers above have done a good job answering parts of your question. The fact that your friend is socially conservative but doesn't feel his beliefs should impact the gay marriage debate is does not mean he goes to a "liberal" church. Rather, it means that he's very much into the split between the private/public view of religion which is more a product of individualism rather than traditional theology. As long as his group doesn't have to marry/handle/interact seriously with people who are not part of their cultural group (i.e. young, hip, etc), they allow others to be "different." Being hip and full of young people doesn't actually make a place inclusive. The more inclusive a congregation is, the more different kind of people you will find there. If a congregation is stuck in a certain age, or place, then they might not be that opening to others. The test for a true socially liberal church is to see what they promote. If they're pushing social justice, have leadership that actually looks different from each other (the "we're all individuals so we're all unique" nonsense won't work), and pray for others (not to convert others), the congregation might be considered socially liberal. I am involved in two congregations, both socially liberal, even though the worship style can be traditional, formal, and the people in worship look as middle American as all get-out. When it comes to be inclusive and welcoming, the outside looks really don't matter.
posted by Stynxno at 12:35 PM on March 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

Keep in mind churches don't actually force a plank of beliefs on people. Especially in a more liberal church, people are going to have differing beliefs within the basic framework of the religion.

I have several friends who go to liberal hip churches in L.A. One has a very open-minded view towards gay people and gay rights, has gay friends, etc. The other couple sometimes comes out with very backwards-sounding statements about gay people, despite being otherwise politically liberal. They are probably less accepting of gays then their church. And I know for a fact it's upbringing- the wife's parents were homophobic to the point of not allowing them to play with a little girl because her parents were lesbians! It's hard to shake off stuff like that in one generation. (This is not an excuse, their behavior puzzles and angers me. But it is an explanation.)
posted by drjimmy11 at 12:55 PM on March 18, 2012

When I was younger, I had a couple of friends who went to hip churches: they had bands that played Christian rock, encouraged kids to listen to Christian rock (eschewing traditional hymns or whatever), and had hip young youth ministers who taught the Sunday school programs. The sermons were very relevant and clear, and used plain language. These churches were all very fundamentalist, and I would even say, hateful. That's not to say the people were. At any given church, there will be a wide range of people with belief systems that vary from 100% in agreement with the church to 0%.

My parents, on the other hand, attend an old fuddy-duddy Presbyterian church. They sing traditional songs, the average age of the congregation is probably over 60, and the sermons, while accessible, are much less direct and more vague. The Presbyterian church is one of the more liberal churches.

In other words, you can't judge a church purely by its demographics. If you want to know what kind of church this is, talk to your friend, or attend a few services.
posted by !Jim at 1:01 PM on March 18, 2012

Making something illegal doesn't make it any more (or less) immoral. This is simple legal positivism. Some Christians recognize this, and see no need to make laws against every single thing that their religion prohibits. (Others, of course, disagree.)
posted by matlock expressway at 1:06 PM on March 18, 2012 [3 favorites]

To add on to what others have said, those hip, trendy churches are actually much more likely to be very conservative in their theology. The move to a cooler worship style is an intentional attempt to sell fundamentalist thinking in a modern, upbeat package. Your real theological liberals usually found in musty high-church settings. There are many exceptions, of course, but if I see a church with a rock band and a hipster pastor, my first assumption is that they are hard-core fundamentalists until I learn otherwise.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 1:09 PM on March 18, 2012 [8 favorites]

Seems like he is, for now, allowing practicality (and more importantly) common sense to govern his political views. His new personal choice is odious, though you may want to stick around with the guy to see if his personal choice poisons his political choices over time.
posted by Slackermagee at 1:09 PM on March 18, 2012

How common is this?

I can't speak to Christianity, but lots of Orthodox Jews, including young hip ones, would believe that homosexuality is forbidden (though it's a matter of some controversy what the Torah actually has to say about this) while having no interest whatsoever in how the secular state regulates marriage. This kind of stance has a long history and I don't think I'd even call it particularly "liberal."
posted by escabeche at 1:11 PM on March 18, 2012 [5 favorites]

Since the second part of your question has to do with the likely character of your friend's church,

I've found that Hipster churches tend to be either non-denominational or claim to be, which can be a red flag for an abusive community. Most of what we now consider to be mainline denominations in the US started out as backwoods evangelicals riding by the seat of their pants and figuring it out as they went along in the 1800s. They slowly, and often painfully, wisened up and built complex but effective institutional structures to do two primary things, prevent the nuttiest of crazy unorthodoxy but also more importantly to stamp out the abusive, the corrupt, and the cultish among their clergy and lay leaders.

Today, mainline denominations do a pretty fantastic job of this and even the nuttier among us, looking at you Southern Baptists, are rarely ever truly terrible. While going non-denominational does have benefits, to start with all that structure ain't free, it carries a whole lot of risk, even for communities with genuinely well meaning people. Mainline denominations require things like meaningful financial accountability with regular independent audits, some form of independent lay leadership in every congregation actively checking the authority of head pastors, and have pretty sophisticated systems of due process and judgement by independent peers when things do go wrong. It is really easy for church communities that don't have these systems in place to fall under the sway of charismatic preachers, something that is itself strongly condemned in the bible, and start doing terrible things. Churches that market to non-Christians and the previously unchurched are especially vulnerable because new members often don't know what to look for to see signs of dysfunction. More conservative churches also have an easier time building up a world view of them against the world that can lead to an unhealthy siege mentality that abusive preachers rely on.

This is not to say that all non-denominational churches are cults, but many are at least on that edge. Some good signs to the cluefull to look for:

Are they open and honest about their finances? Individual salaries can be a touchy subject for good reason but you should be able to easily find out the total budget spent on salaries, which should be a high percentage of the total, and a full accounting of everything else.

They have a habit of applying 'Church Discipline'. If it is applied to non-leaders in any case whatsoever this is a really big red flag for insanely unhealthy dynamics.

The head pastor has 'enemies' real or imagined

Ask about Satan and their doctrine relating to him, abusive churches very predictably get really dramatic ideas about Satan that 'are not easy to communicate to outsiders'

The church community does not have a body of leaders with the explicit authority to sack the head pastor. You also need to figure out if this is a body representative of the plurality of the church with regular non-dramatic attrition.

There anything presented as spontaneous that looks like it was actually scripted.

Members want to be just like the head pastor, in a healthy church community this is totally absurd.

Members don't seem to have friends outside of the church community

Other warning signs of a cult

If your friend is in trouble there are things that you can do to help, namely not arguing with him, making sure you can be a resource for him, and asking thoughtful questions.
posted by Blasdelb at 1:28 PM on March 18, 2012 [11 favorites]

I'm going to answer your initial question of "how should I take this?" with a hypothetical scenario.

Suppose your friend joined a religion that didn't believe in interracial marriages - mixing the races was against "God's plan". How would you take that? You probably have an idea how you would take that, and you should take this the exact same way.

How would you take your friend saying that he believes racism shouldn't be tolerated by the states....but then goes and associates with the KKK every Sunday?

Unfortunately I really can't tell you how to take it - it really depends on your level of tolerance for bigotry. Me, I don't really tolerate it, period. I had a similar situation - a friend joined a new, "hip", "free-thinking" church, and she realized they were very slowly telling her that other religions were wrong (which she was cool with), being gay was wrong (which she was less cool with), and that being a woman was wrong (the young men's groups would routinely be allowed to shove the young girls out of spaces they'd reserved, and rape victims were slut-shamed). My friend persisted in staying with this group though, so I broke it off.

Another comment said that if you don't know any gays then it shouldn't bother you....but usually bigotry doesn't stop at one group - it extends to all non-similar.
posted by Lt. Bunny Wigglesworth at 1:33 PM on March 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

First of all, I commend you for seeking to understand your friend's new faith. You sound like a good friend.

It sounds like your friend's church subscribes to some Thomistic-based theology. Meaning that "God's Plan" can be found in the way things are made. (With the basic assumption that the world was created with purpose and intention.) Sexual practices that go against the natural way things are made (certain parts "go together" and others, well, don't. Contraception involves chemically or physically "cutting off" natural body functions, etc.) This is some pretty basic stuff from early in the Church's history, so theologically they sounds pretty mainstream.

Politically, though they sound kind of liberal. They may be easy on the mandate to politicize morality or they just may have other priorities (like social justice, etc.)

I find that these "emergent churches" vary widely. They likely have a website and there is likely a statement of belief. These church's beliefs, in my experiance, have tended to be very personality and community driven, so the church "dogma" can be just about anything within the spectrum of Trinitarian Christianity.

If you're asking because you need to know whether to be worried, I'd focus on the relative stress on New Testament as completion of the Old Testament scripture, whether they talk about following what Jesus actually taught (good sign), and whether mercy is more important than justice, whether loving is more important than being righteous (or that you can't separate the two in either case.) All of these are signs that your friend will be pretty okay, although you may have to disagree on a few things. Hopefully their Church will teach them that being a good friend is more important than being "right."
posted by cross_impact at 1:56 PM on March 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

Agreed that the demographics should not be a barometer. In general, youth can = going to extremes and the older you get, the more you tend to realize the folly of extremity. This is why older congregations can be much more accepting and tolerant than hipsters, who can be tunnel-visioned and forget who Jesus spent most of his time with.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 2:07 PM on March 18, 2012

marriage is a convention--were Adam and Eve married, and if so, by whom? So too religious teaching....ideas, religious and secular, evolve, change, over time.
posted by Postroad at 2:40 PM on March 18, 2012

From past experience you just have to let this one play itself out. I've seen friends go down odd paths because of their new religious community. I watch on at the moment as an old friend of mine posts cultish looking facebook updates. It's scary, and disheartening because you feel like you have lost a part of yourself, like part of them has gone into a realm you cannot, and will not, follow; like you might have been wrong about everyone, all along. It's not a nice feeling.

The main thing is to continue showing him your views, but don't expect your views are going to change his. Be the niggling voice in the back of his head: never preaching, never dismissive: an empathetic devil's advocate who is willing to say, quite bluntly, "I love you, but I find your views on this subject to be abhorrent".

If he is happy then that is the emotion that will drive him. And this is the main thing: he has to make his own mistakes. If he never realises they are mistakes, then there is nothing you could ever have said to change his path.

To summarise:

Voice your opinions, tell him how his opinions make you feel, be rational with the emotional connection you have as a bolster.

Be there to support him should he ever retract his views. Be the rock.

Don't blame yourself if his opinions become even more extreme and incompatible with yours. There is nothing you could have done. Those view may be abhorrent to you, but they are not wrong. Long may we live in a world where beliefs are not deemed as wrong.

Good luck
posted by 0bvious at 2:46 PM on March 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

As you get older your high school/ college/ early 20s friends are going to grow apart. Some will become fundamentalists, some alcoholics, some will get married at 22 and have 8 children, some will hook up with a partner you can't stand, some will move overseas, some will get injured or die and many, many, many of them will adopt their parents beliefs that they actively rejected in their youth. In the US this last one means many of them will suddenly start voting republican and joining questionable congregations. The US is an incredibly diverse place and people move around a lot so their cultural identity is usually very fractured and not readily ascertained. Young people focus on their similarities and want to fit in places so you often don't really know the people you know ages 18-25, or at least not very deeply. Coming from a small EU country I find this deeply weird and it's been unsettling to see people I thought I knew "change" and then realize I only knew them in their sowing the wild oats phase and that fate probably did intend for them to move to Orange County, wear pastel capris and vote for George Bush because that's what people from their community-of-origin do when they grow up.

Does this mean you can't be friends? Absolutely not! But they need to respect your beliefs too and not dismiss them as childish things that you should have put away by now. I have friends that I disagree with on all kinds of stuff and sometimes we discuss it and sometimes we don't and sometimes we get our feathers ruffled and don't talk for a while but it's OK as long as the underlying respect that they are a decent person who is entitled to their own opinion and civil rights remains. Of course you have to have limits and you are not required to maintain a friendship with someone who's beliefs abhor, frighten or threaten you.

Also in the US if someone identifies as "Christian" rather than a specific denomination like Methodist or Catholic I assume they belong to Pastor Billy Bob's Corner Church of Teh Crazy because they usually do. All those unaffiliated churches are basically just one guys opinion, and it's usually not a particularly thoughtful one. Those preachers are salesmen with delusions, not people who truly care about spirituality or the community.
posted by fshgrl at 3:04 PM on March 18, 2012 [5 favorites]

In my experience "hipster" style churches - large, full of young people, modern in their music, non-traditional in their service style - are almost always very fundamentalist in their teachings. Is it possible that the "homosexuality is wrong" teaching is coming from his church, and the "but the laws shouldn't be based on religion" idea is his own? If he's only recently become religious he may not yet realise (or maybe doesn't care) how much that latter concept conflicts with what his church teaches.
posted by lollusc at 4:27 PM on March 18, 2012

I'm not looking to argue with my friend, but I am now trying to understand the character of the organization he's become a part of. Thanks especially to anyone with personal experience with the matter.

I think that visiting the church with your friend would be the best way for you to find this out, as others have said.

Also, I think going to this church and telling you about how his worldview has changed shows that your friend is trying to find a philosophy that works for him. You feel good about this, and I get that, because as Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living". Your friend is taking a good hard look at himself, and that's got to be a good thing!

Except it doesn't sound like your friend knows a lot of gays personally or has any gay friends. He just says he feels this way "about homosexuals", based on his understanding of the Bible and its teachings--which is coming from this church. He probably feels pretty good about himself because, after all, he's not out there taking any action against any homosexuals personally, right? He even says they should marry if they want to!

Which, as you rightly point out, is kinda scary. This church is not liberal. It's teaching that homosexuality is against the Bible, taking it as a given that gays are somehow less and other, and then throwing out a bone in the form of, "But hey, if those homosexuals want to marry, we won't stop them!"

If it is not openly advocating against gay rights, it's still doing a disservice to gays everywhere with this position, and frankly this insidious intolerance can be harder to fight than outright bigotry.

Your friend isn't really examining his life, so much as rationalizing his prejudices.

So go to your friend's church with him, and as you do, try to get him to take a good hard look at this bubble he's in. Find out why he chose THIS church. Ask him where he's getting all these opinions about gay people. Does he even know anyone gay? If this is really a big city you're in, you'd think he'd number some gay people among his acquaintances, wouldn't you?

You still might not change his mind, but at least you can make him really think.
posted by misha at 4:36 PM on March 18, 2012

I think your friend's saying "I don't think everyone needs to live according to my religion's dictates as I understand them" is actually pretty cool and something the world needs more of.

The part where he feels the need to say to you (and presumably other people who don't share his beliefs) that same-sex relationships are "wrong" in the abstract (as opposed to something his religious beliefs would keep him from being part of for himself) is where he's being an ass in my opinion.

But what do I know? I'm an Episcopalian, and we have openly gay and lesbian bishops. This is, in my opinion, a very insightful critique of why Paul's First Letter to the Romans doesn't seem, in context, to be a blanket condemnation of all same-sex relationships.
posted by Sidhedevil at 4:49 PM on March 18, 2012 [4 favorites]

Yeah, my experience had been that, especially in big cities, churches that go out of their way to brand themselves as "cool," are really charismatic and evangelical. I've especially had to re-calibrate my sense of what "non-denominational" means. I used to think of a non-denominational service as a kind of fuzzy ecumenical service, like the convocation at my secular liberal arts college. When a church calls itself non-denominational, however, you're generally looking at something that borders on Pentecostalism.

I disagree with people who are suggesting you argue theology with your friend. Doing so grants the premise that this sort of bigotry would be ok if it had biblical support. As for what you can do, well, your friend is a bigot. I wouldn't be friends with someone like that, but we can't really tell you whether or not you should be.
posted by Ragged Richard at 5:37 PM on March 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

I say that "my faith is my own thing and does not require legislating" thing all the time, including *here* in some fashion or another, and that is by far not the most liberal thing about my theology.

Let your friend live according to what he thinks God's plan for him is, whatever that happens to be. There are lots of "hip" churches that have more conservative beliefs, but you know, if it works for the individual and they're not trying to apply it to anyone else... so what? Lots of Jewish people I know who aren't hugely conservative still don't eat shellfish. They aren't trying to tell me not to, and so hey, I think they're missing out but whatever.

If you aren't really interested in religion, there's no reason to make any more of a fuss of it than, "I"m glad you found what works for you and that it's not going to get in the way of our friendship," and move on.
posted by gracedissolved at 6:11 PM on March 18, 2012

Mod note: Folks, do not make this thread your stand against Christianity and just answer the question asked please? Thank you.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:50 PM on March 18, 2012

Response by poster: How common is this? Am I just off base about what sort of Church my friend has become a part of, or is this pretty standard, even in what look like outwardly liberal congregations? Do I just not understand what a liberal church is?

Nearly all religions have their own denominations or sects, each of which hold different ideas about interpretation of texts, proselytizing, judging of the "sinner", etc etc etc. This is especially true for Christianity. It is not a line that travels between "Totes liberal, gay marriage is cool, separation of church and state, evolution is God's way of shaping the world, the Bible is the word of God interpreted by man and a collection of many different texts written by historic Christians and should not be taken literally" and "The Bible is the Exact Word Of God, adulters should be stoned, we need to take over the government and establish a Christian empire".

Some Christians will hold very conservative beliefs about the Bible, but feel the path to becoming a Christian is individual and should not be pushed on anyone else. Others might be more liberal in their interpretation but strongly believe in pushing conversion and faith-based teachings. You've got multiple lines on which someone's faith can fall, from the necessity of a faith-based government to literalism and the Bible to evangelicalism to even the validity of the Old versus the New Testament in forming the basis of a Christian belief system.

Keep in mind that one of the reasons you rarely hear about non-militant, non-proselytizing Christian conservatives like your friend is because they're busy quietly worshiping and going about their lives, rather than running megachurches, performing Quran-burning publicity stunts, and lobbying Congress to return the USA to the Dark Ages.
posted by Anonymous at 7:42 AM on March 19, 2012

I disagree with people who are suggesting you argue theology with your friend.

To be clear, my link above wasn't meant for the OP to use to argue theology with the friend. It was to make it clear to the OP that not everyone who is a devout Christian believes that "the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong."
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:25 AM on March 19, 2012