Jay Bakker Writes Letter to Joel Osteen: We Should be Concerned About Those Who Feel ‘Le
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Tue, April 29, 2008
- Viewed 164
- (46) comments so far
Here’s a copy of the letter:
Rev. Joel Osteen
Lakewood Church
3700 Southwest Freeway
Houston, TX 77027
Subject: The American Family Outing
Dear Rev. Osteen and the congregation of Lakewood Church,
My name is Jay Bakker. I am pastor of Revolution Church in Brooklyn, New York. You may know me as the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.
As you might have heard, I lost my mother this year after a long battle with cancer. This has led me to reflect on the importance of family, as well as the lessons my mother taught me regarding the unconditional love of God. It is in her memory that I write you this letter today.
As a child growing up, I saw a side of the church that to me did not always reflect God’s grace. This experience has led me to be concerned for our brothers and sisters in Christ who sometimes may feel rejected and left out of the church.
It is for these reasons that I have decided to be a part of a plan to bring dozens of lesbian, gay, ########, and transgender families from around the country, as well as heterosexual families that support them, to visit your congregation on Mother’s Day Weekend (Saturday May 10 and Sunday May 11th, 2008) to create meaningful dialogue about homosexuality and Christianity.
This visit is part of the American Family Outing, a collaborative project between Soulforce, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, the National Black Justice Coalition, and COLAGE. It is my understanding that the Executive Director of Soulforce, Jeff Lutes, sent you an initial letter, dated December 3, 2007. I wanted to follow-up to let you know of my involvement in this important effort to bring true hope and prosperity to all God’s children.
So many look to you for leadership, and therefore you and your congregation have an exceptional opportunity to advance respectful and Christ-centered conversation on a topic that too often divides our families and our nation. As Jeff expressed in his letter, we hope that you will collaborate with us in structuring our time together at your church. I invite you to match the families I bring, with a roughly equal number of families from your congregation, and ask that we arrange to share a meal together on Saturday, May 10th or Sunday, May 11th, followed by structured and educational conversation. We are also planning to attend your worship service on Sunday, May 11th.
Together, we can make this an experience that will bless the lives of so many. Please contact me at (private number) or Jeff Lutes at (private number) so that we can work together on planning the details.
In John 13:35, Jesus said that your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. I invite you to reflect Christ’s unconditional love and participate with us in this event.
In Grace and Hope,
Jay Bakker
Pastor
Revolution NYC
cc: Victoria Osteen, Paul Osteen, M.D., Dodie Osteen, Kevin Comes, Lisa Comes, Duncan Dodds, Marcos Witt.
FOR YOUR INPUT: What do you think of this letter? What good could come out of these meetings? And if there IS any good, would it be the good/agenda that Soulforce is desiring?
Soulforce released an open letter over the weekend from Pastor Jay Bakker of Revolution NYC church to Rev. Joel Osteen and Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. Originally mailed in January 2008, the letter invites Osteen and families from the Lakewood congregation to share a meal with lesbian, gay, ########, transgender (LGBT) and straight-ally families over Mother's Day weekend. According to Jay Bakker, "As a child growing up, I saw a side of the church that to me did not always reflect God's grace. This experience has led me to be concerned for our brothers and sisters in Christ who sometimes may feel rejected and left out of the church."
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Derek on Tue, April 29, 2008
Jay considers his church “gay affirming” meaning he thinks homosexual behavior is compatible with the Christian Faith. In a 2006 interview with Mother Jones, Jay was asked, “How did you get to the place where you made Revolution a gay-affirming church?”
His answer…
It took me a long time to get there. I had a lot of gay friends and even had some congregation members who were gay, and I just wasn’t sure where I stood. In my heart, I was like, “How can I condemn these people for their love of one another?” I started looking deeper into the Bible and studying and then I went to a [gay-affirming] church. It all came together at one point. One of my friends came out, and I ran into one of my old camp counselors who had come out. I was like, “This is so strange—all these people who have been important parts of my life are all coming out and are being asked to leave their church or not having anything to do with their church anymore.” It kind of took a while because I knew I’d be risking everything. I knew this particular decision would cause me to lose a lot and would cause the church to hurt.
Source: http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2006/12/jaybakker.html
Randy Ehle on Tue, April 29, 2008
Leonard, I would agree with you on the type of dialogue we need to have.
A response to Jay’s response (as reported by Derek): several years ago, my sister - a pretty strong believer - was dating a non-practicing Jew. When I talked with her about that, and how it squared with scripture, she used a similar logic; namely, how could God let me feel this love for someone if it’s wrong? I didn’t have a great answer for her at the time - other than, maybe it’s not from God - but that didn’t satisfy her heart’s struggle. I don’t know if she has ever found a better answer (though they did break up eventually). The hard part is, we truly can love someone we’re not supposed to love romantically.
Ricky on Wed, April 30, 2008
Mike said:
“Why does it seem to be perfectly ok for christians to be obese and engage in church sanctioned over eating (potluck dinner anyone)?”
For one thing, Paul said that the immoral man sins against his own body and yet you will not find Paul or even Jesus equating overeating, as wrong as it may be, to immorality.
Read Romans 1 and tell me if you see fat people mentioned there.
Daniel on Wed, April 30, 2008
Brad, your comment is unhelpful and unbecoming a Christian. As a brother in Christ I ask you to apologize.
Randy—I think you’re on to something. Our romantic culture tells us that love is required for marriage. But this is a lie. As Christians, we should rather say that marriage (with all its formal structural requirements) is the prerequisite for love—for it is only in marriage that we truly learn to become loving people.
(Side note, by ‘love’ here I mean sexual love and marital love. Single folks such as Jesus and Paul were of course loving, but that’s not the kind of love I mean… hopefully that was obvious.)
If you’re attracted to your spouse before you marry them, great. But we as a Church need a more robust theology of marriage. If the ONLY reason we marry someone is because we feel we ‘love’ them, then there really is no reason to exclude gays from the blessing of marriage.
Peace,
-Daniel-
Derek on Wed, April 30, 2008
Randy,
Your story is helpful. It illustrates that Jay and others have big hearts and are well meaning Christians, but they are defining love as a “second hand emotion” instead of allowing the Scripture to define love.
There is no doubt that evangelicals NEED to go the extra mile in showing love and compassion to the homosexual community. We certainly have shot ourselves in the foot by treating homosexual people with such contempt. I have often wondered what would happen if I changed our church sign to say, “Gay, Lesbians, and Transgendered People Welcomed.”
With that said, I think we have to deal honestly and truthfully with the Scripture. I have listened to gay Christians give their exegesis on text found in Leviticus 17, Romans 1, & 1 Corinthians 6, but the exegesis seemed forced and contrived. It was apparent that they were trying to justify homosexuality in their approach to the text, instead of going to the text and allowing it to speak first.
I haven’t had a sit down biblical discussion with a gay Christian, but I would like to. I don’t know if we will end up with the same interpretation, but I would like to express to them that I am not homophobic. I don’t hate them. My reasoning for condemning homosexual behavior is simply shaped by the Scripture.
I don’t know if that will be helpful, it is such an emotionally charged issue. I think it would be hard for gay Christians to read the Scriptures any differently.
One of the compelling (but not convincing) arguments from gay Christians is comparing the issue of homosexuality with the issue of slavery. Many Christians 150 years ago were using the Scripture to justify slavery and now evangelicals are nearly unanimously opposed to slavery.
Here are some questions in that vein:
How do the Scriptures on slavery compare the Scriptures on homosexuality?
How has culture affected the writing of Scripture on these two issues?
How has culture affected the change in the church’s position on slavery?
Does our treatment of the texts on slavery help us at all in our treatment of texts on homosexuality?
Derek
Wendi on Wed, April 30, 2008
[Does anyone else think this has more of a “We’re coming whether you like it or not, how are you going to respond?” ring to it, rather than a “We’d like to come and have a dialogue, are we welcome?” tone?]
Yes, absolutely, no question about it. But isn’t that what Christian fundamentalists/evangelicals have been doing for years to people who, as Randy suggested, are “aliens and foreigners?” We have pushed our agenda into the public forum, unwilling to have genuine dialogue about what is right for American society (as if American society and Christian society were synonymous). I think Soulforce learned from the evangelicals about imposing on people one-sided “discussions” with no genuine interest in the opposing position.
Don’t we need to have a contextual approach to our discussions? Within the context of our churches we can (and must) defend the authority of scripture on this and any topic. In the public forum, where we have the same right to our views as the gay/lesbian person or advocate has to theirs, we must learn to honor and respect and even live side-by-side with people who have lifestyles that are completely opposed to our biblical values.
Wendi
Vincent Anderson on Wed, April 30, 2008
Wouldn’t it be amazing…if the scales fell off their eyes…they look in the mirror…and realize…they are reptilian…as their father.
Sorry…but this whole thing is deceptive.
Let’s see if Johnny accepts the offering from Bakker.
If my memory servers me correctly…wasn’t it a baker/Bakker that had a dream in the book of Genesis…and….....the interpretation was…death. Yet, the piper plays on. Those in the crowd of the piper cry to those who descent by saying, “We have played our music and you have not danced!”
It seems to me this baker/Bakker is diametrically opposed to the king’s cup bearer…I think I would rather follow the man with a cup in his hand…His path was life. So, break the covenant and eat the bread of a self centered gospel…I can hear the raven knocking at your door.
Brian on Wed, April 30, 2008
As someone who participated in the 2007 Equality Ride, I can tell you that my personal desire for dialogue was genuine. As a lifelong Christian, I understand that even the most fiercely anti-gay people are usually wonderfully good-hearted.
I can say that I took away much from every conversation that I had, I can only hope those I spoke with took something away as well.
I thought I would share the reactions from faculty and administrators of Fresno Pacific University in our closing meeting. Many of the other schools we met with had similar responses but these were the only ones I wrote down:
<ul>
<li>“I appreciate greatly your integrity in the process of meeting us on campus.”</li>
<li>“graciousness”</li>
<li>“appreciate the way you all have engaged our campus”</li>
<li>“impressed with how genuine” your desire for dialogue is</li>
<li>“I think it’s been a good day”</li>
<li>Some people were expecting “narrow-minded, abrasive, and in your face—and you weren’t that at all”</li>
</ul>
I hope that the leaders and members of the churches visited during the American Family Outing will take the oppurtunity to have a spirit-filled conversation about issues which are tearing up our country, our churches, and our families. And I hope other churches are inspired to begin similar conversations in their own communities.
Soulforce is an organization rooted in non-violence and thus the goal is not “victory” or “making the others take your side” but rather moving forward together. I’m excited to see the growth all around that can come out of these conversations.
Vince Anderson on Wed, April 30, 2008
Do not embrace Sodom.
The Gospel and Sodom do not mix.
Brian on Wed, April 30, 2008
Sorry about the funky comment… it looked great in the live comment preview http://www.mondaymorninginsight.com/images/smileys/smile.gif
DanielR on Wed, April 30, 2008
If you truly want dialogue, I’m all for it, let’s dialogue. But this whole thing smells of a trap set to force JO and Lakewood into either appearing to endorse their agenda or looking like intolerant homophobes.
Bakker/Soulforce says they plan to attend a service at Lakewood, what would happen if they were the only ones at the service?
Randy Ehle on Wed, April 30, 2008
Unfortunately, Vince, your soundbite comment seems to lend little to this discussion. Are you suggesting that to have a conversation with a “sinner” is to embrace Sodom? I seem to recall reading several accounts of Jesus sitting down to a meal with “sinners”, and only the Pharisees (or other religious leaders) having a problem with that. Seems to me Jesus’ words to the adulteress were quite clear: I don’t condemn you, but don’t do it anymore.
Maybe - just maybe - by the deadly (to Jesus) grace of God, we could sit down to a meal with people who - IMO - have it wrong theologically, and extend to them the same manner of grace that Jesus extended. Somehow that doesn’t seem to “embracing Sodom” or trying mix Sodom and the gospel. Somehow it seems to me that is pretty much what the gospel is all about.
CS on Wed, April 30, 2008
Randy:
“I don’t condemn you, but don’t do it anymore.”
Bingo! That is exactly the message that we should be sharing with people.
In this circumstance, though, do we believe that Bakker’s strategies are aimed at taking this message and applying it to homosexuality, or is it more of coming into churches and telling them to accept homosexuality? I think most of us have posted that we believe the intent is more of the latter.
—
CS
Leonard Lee on Wed, April 30, 2008
Wendi,
It was nice to meet you and your husband face to face, thanks for saying hello at THRIVE.
I think that much of what we see with fundamentalists is a reaction to the shift in cultural mores. In my life time abortion has become legal, homosexuality has become legal, (still not in some places) in a world of free sex and “love”. Fundamentalists still believe we live in a Christian nation and are fighting to regain that nation; they see these things as a matter of preservation. Their tools are those of a person/organization who sees this as a Christina nation whose mentality is and has been that our enemies are physical not spiritual. This mentality makes people the enemy and I begin to wrestle with flesh and blood.
Truth is we live in a post Christian nation and have for over 40 years. As such most Christians are using outdated tools and tactics for this fight.
Today we see sky high divorce rates, sky high numbers of people violently and sexually assaulted, high numbers of kids who have been molested. Since the president (Clinton) let everyone know the oral sex was not really sex we see huge numbers of teens experimenting with this form of sex. STD’s are overwhelmingly rampant and being transmitted in more common circles than previously. (no longer just in promiscuity)
Add to this an absolutely relentless campaign in the media against anything Christian, labeling it fundamental or evangelical in a negative way we can see why people do not know how to react. I meet people everyday who are trapped in some form of sinfulness, the problem is that I am a bigot or mean spirited or just a crazy fundamentalist if I say something. People love darkness over light because their deeds are evil. I know this has been true of me more than once and is very true of our post Christian culture.
Living in a post Christian era requires different tools than we evangelicals have used in the past. Jay Bakker, on the surface seems to think changing tools means changing theology. He is right in that we need not exclude people but seems to have gone a bit too far. While we must be inclusive we cannot include in such a way as to give someone love but fail to give them Christ and his transforming power. To do so would gyp people.
Brennan Manning said, Jesus loves me as I am not as I should be. I agree and a love like this transforms me into what I was meant to be. My 2 cents
Daniel on Wed, April 30, 2008
I want to second Randy’s insight. As Christians, we have inherited Jesus’ contagious purity. Against the Pharisees and other legalists who would make ‘defilement’ contagious (as if contact with sinners make us ‘dirty’), Jesus pointed continuously at the heart as the source of defilement. Therefore ‘defilement’ logic has no place in Christian witness to those on the outside of the Church. We are to be pure, to think on pure things, and to act out of Christ’s contagious purity, hoping and praying that God will bless all those with whom we come in contact.
Peace,
-Daniel-
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