In my dialog with Adam, I mentioned my friend Dennis. He’s been my friend since high school, and he now lives in New York City with his husband. Dennis is out, and Dennis is loud about it. He makes no claim to be a Christian whatsoever. In fact, Dennis will periodically send me email to ask me questions about things he’s seen Christians do on CNN.

Dennis doesn’t have many kind things to say about Christians, and he has his reasons. Christians haven’t been all that kind to him. He’s got a brother who won’t speak to him at all because his pastor told him it would be perceived as endorsing Dennis’s lifestyle. He’s encountered his share of religious types, people who may or may not believe the right things but definitely believe them in all the wrong ways.

I could be like Dennis’s brother and sever our relationship. But I’m trying to become more like Jesus – especially in my ability to love and be loved by God and others. I just don’t see how severing the relationship would help me do that.

So, I’m attempting something a little more difficult that is, I hope, a little bit better: maintaining the relationship, keeping my composure, refusing to compromise my beliefs, and loving Dennis with a power that can only come from Christ living in and through me.

I told Dennis this, and his response was telling, “Be prepared for a lot of skepticism.”

I get it. He’s conditioned to expect an agenda. Sadly, many Christians will be nice to you but only if you’re willing to change and become more like them. But I wonder: if it has an agenda, is it really love?

I also have a hard time believing there are people who have gone so far that we can no longer extend the love of Christ to them, that we can’t approach them without an agenda. The Apostle Paul tells us an amazing thing in 2 Corinthians 5. He said that God “reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (v. 18). He says that Jesus died for everyone, and that this was all part of God “reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (vv. 19-20).

Sometimes we become so focused on another person’s sins that we can no longer see that person. And we’re afraid that if we get too close, their sins might just rub off on us – like sin’s contagious or something. And there’s some truth to that. Sin is contagious. Get around a person who gossips or traffics in rumor, and what happens? Spend time around a person who spends money irresponsibly, and it becomes easier to rationalize your own spending habits. Sin spreads like a yawn in a traffic jam.

But – and this is actually the essence of good news – sin is not the only thing that’s contagious. Joy is contagious. Peace is contagious. Kindness and goodness are contagious. The love of God may be the most contagious thing going. It started with one man, spread to 12, then to 120, then to 3,000 and now who knows how many millions of people have been infected by it?

If God is alive and well and living in and through us, if his contagious love is in the blood that is coursing through our veins, then we can be cautious, but we have nothing to be afraid of. God’s holiness is more powerful than anyone’s sinfulness. That’s the whole message of Christianity.

Now, think about this. Being reconciled to God is like being made compatible with God, and it is only possible because of what Jesus did – not because of anything we have done or are able to do. God has made it possible to be compatible with him.

Are you really willing to say to Dennis, “You can be compatible with God, but you’ll never be compatible with me”?

I’m not.

Yesterday I let you read how my conversations with Adam started, and the conversation continued. But I want to stop here and process a bit. Adam knows that I don’t believe a person can live an actively LGBT (Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender) lifestyle (complete with the same-sex sex) and consider theirs a Christ-honoring life. He knows I would equate that to any other sin. I don’t see homosexuality as a greater sin than others, but I still see it as sin.

He knows that. And I know he knows that. So, I didn’t feel compelled to tell him that over and over again. That only serves to stop the conversation. I’d prefer to find some common ground with Adam. I’d actually like to learn some things from him about what he thinks, how he came to think what he thinks and how open he is to another way of thinking.

This is what my last publisher could not abide, and this is why you’re reading this material online instead of in printed form. But, as I’ve tried to explain, that’s conversation – an informal exchange of ideas. I want to engage in a dialogue – a two-way interaction that may involve opposing points of view. I want to employ civility – courtesy in speech and behavior. I want to walk in love – that thing which is patient and kind and willing to give someone else the benefit of the doubt.

Now, I know that’s a little different from the way we’re often taught to talk to people who don’t believe the same things we believe. We want instant conversion. But what if persuasion isn’t our primary task? What if our primary task is to grow up and be like Jesus? And what if the primary way we do that is by loving other people?

Not that love should keep me from speaking a hard truth. But what if I was committed to never telling the truth outside the context of love? After all, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is, Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). This is how I’m going to grow up.

Adam and I continued our conversation. We talked about what he believes and what I believe. As it turns out, we agree more than we disagree. We talked about his life, what’s going on, how the changes he’s made since “coming out” have impacted his life. We talked about the challenges of being a dad and about how hard it is to do ministry with integrity.

And the conversation goes on. I hope it does for a long time.

My ultimate desire, though, is not to talk Adam into agreeing with me. My ultimate goal is to demonstrate the love of Christ to Adam in the way I treat him and in the things I say to him.

Anything else is setting the bar too low.

Yesterday I introduced you to Adam. He’s gay. He also pastors a GLBT-friendly church in a major metropolitan city in America. He’s also my friend.

Over the past few years, we’ve had some really interesting conversations. For example, there was the time when I explained to Adam how I came up with the original idea for the book these blog posts were supposed to be. I had no idea then that these very conversations would be used to show why this book could never be published by a Christian publisher.

ME:     First, you have to understand that our conversation presents something of a wrinkle for my original plan. But it’s a good wrinkle, a wrinkle I should have thought of but didn’t. I initially envisioned this as a series of conversations between me (a Christian) and others (non-Christians). I hadn’t thought about how people might have difficulty having a conversation over a difficult issue (say, homosexuality) with someone who isn’t only not a non-Christian (so many negatives) but has actually been an Evangelical pastor.

ADAM:    I’m “in” but I’m “out”.

ME:     Funny. My understanding of “set theory” teaches me to be careful about labeling people “in/out” – but old habits must die hard I guess.

ADAM:     So, how did you come up with this idea in the first place?

ME:    Well, I have a very good friend from high school who now lives in New York City. He is out, and he is loud. He and I have always been able to have great conversations “across the great divide.”

ADAM:     Like what?

ME:    He’ll send me an email periodically demanding, “Can’t you people do something about Pat Robertson?”

ADAM:     Like impeach him or something?

ME:    Yeah, I guess. I’ll usually write back, “We didn’t elect him. He just buys up TV time. We’ll do something about him when you people do something about Perez Hilton, okay?”

ADAM:    Do you think your friend chose to be gay?

ME:     I cannot imagine someone choosing to be gay. Most people I know who are gay did not come out of the closet shouting, “Hooray! I get to be gay!” Most of them came out kicking and screaming, “Awww, $#%! I’m gay?!?”

ADAM:     That was my experience. I fought my own orientation for 44 years before I came out to myself. I did not want to be Gay and tried everything I knew to try and be Straight. My life would have been so much easier if I could have chosen an orientation.

ME:     What would you have chosen?

ADAM:    Oh, I would have chosen to be straight, but I didn’t choose the color of my skin either.

ME:     Yeah, here’s where I’m going to disagree with you.

ADAM:     I doubt it’ll be the last time!

ME:    I’m not so sure it’s like skin color. The studies I’ve read seem flawed or skewed or pre-determined to find what they want to find. I’m not ready to say it’s genetic (though I’m open to further evidence). But I know it’s not like we’ve sometimes thought.

ADAM:     What do you mean?

ME:     I remember being told that sometimes a young boy thinks, “Hey, I’ll try this once.” And he likes the way it feels, so he tries it again. Before he knows it, he’s hooked.

ADAM:     Like smoking?

ME:     Sort of, I guess. You can get addicted to it.

ADAM:     But it’s just behavioral, right?

ME:    Yeah, that’s what I heard when I was a kid.

ADAM:     Do you still believe that?

ME:    No, there’s something much deeper at work than merely behavior. Then again, that’s the case with most behavior, isn’t it? The human psyche is quite a mystery.

ADAM:    No matter what Dr. Freud or Jay Adams or anyone else has to say!

ME:    Hey, I may be clunky in this process. I should apologize before we go too far. I may say some things that hurt your feelings, but it will never be intentional. It’ll be because I’m being clumsy as I learn how to be more open in conversations like this.

ADAM:    No worries about being clunky or hurting my feelings. I’m pretty much over all that. My sense of self, who I am and why I am is fairly well settled at my ripe old age of…uh…51. Don’t hold back. Speak freely. Say what you think.

ME:    Thank you for that. It’s a difficult thing to stay connected with people, remain calm and keep from compromising your integrity – all at the same time.

ADAM:    My sense is that the conversation will be far more mutually productive that way, and there is no need for you to feel like you’re walking on eggshells or even that you have to be LGBT politically correct. I just ask the same level of understanding from you. I’m going to disagree with you and offer differing perspectives.

ME:    That’s the whole point.

ADAM:    Exactly. But I do not want to be disagreeable when I disagree.

Okay — deep breath — here’s our first chance to really disagree over some things, but can we take Adam’s advice and try to not be disagreeable when we disagree? Can we be respectful and treat one another with dignity like Jesus would want, please? I don’t like to moderate the comments here with a heavy hand, but I will if this gets ugly.

Question: Do you think a person can be Gay and Christian at the same time?

So I sent my friend Adam this email:

Adam,

Long time no…er…anything. Seems like the last time I heard from you was in 1999 – you were thinking of coming to the East Coast to do a Ph.D. or something. Though, who knows…sometimes I jumble actual events together with movies I see on late night cable!

Anyway, I have a special request to make of you, and I will totally understand if you choose to decline. I am writing a book. It’s titled Apology: Conversations Across some Great Divides.

I would love to enter into a dialog with you about how you’ve reconciled all of this fundamentalist upbringing with your…um…gayness(?). We could begin by trading email, but eventually I’d love to come and visit you in person.

I understand if you think this might be an unnecessary distraction to your life. But I think this is the kind of book that could help a lot of people who struggle with how to have conversations about difficult issues such as this.

Adam’s response was better than I could have hoped for:

Dear John Alan Turner,

Great to hear from you and to reconnect after nearly a decade! The PhD was something I was seriously considering at one point, but it just never came together and I’m glad it didn’t. God had other plans for me, it seems.

I would be delighted to help you in any way I can. My life is pretty much an open book these days, and if sharing my perspective and facilitating a dialogue with people who’ve had a similar journey helps you…it would be my pleasure to be involved in such a worthy project! My social network is probably a bit a-typical of many GBLT groups…which is one of the reasons I love them so. We are not an activist group and we see sexual orientation as an issue on which sincere and loving people can agree to disagree. We don’t advertise ourselves or identify ourselves by our sexual orientation…any more than any other group would or would not.  We consider ourselves Christians and many of us also happen to be GBLT. Our view is that sexual orientation is like skin color. One does not choose it and it has no bearing whatsoever on one’s acceptability as a Christian.

I personally have worked through all of the so-called “clobber” passages, but my theological perspective has never been homophobic…even when I was in the closet I openly advocated for treating GBLT folks with respect and civility.  I was a bit surprised when I came out that everyone was soooo shocked and appalled.  I think my divorce and the rumor mill had as much to do with that as anything.

I also had to come to grips with the fact that I had to learn to be gentle and patient with people. It took me a long time to accept me for who I really am…it was wrong of me to expect others not to struggle with that too.

Please count me IN. Let me know what is next and thanks for the invitation.  I am delighted!!

Grace and Peace my Brother,

Adam

That initial email volley sparked what some very productive conversations over the next few months. I’ll share some of those conversations in future posts, but I want to stop and get your input. First, do you have any gay friends? Second, do you ever talk about your faith with them? Is it ever awkward? If so, why do you think that is, and what could be done to make it less so?

Okay, I’ll stop now & listen if any of you want to join the conversation.

The best way for any of the stuff we’ve been talking about to change is for us to have actual conversations with real people. I mean actual, honest-to-goodness conversations based in humility, curiosity and honor.

My first attempt at such a conversation started during the summer of 2008, when I bumped into an old friend on Facebook. I had the idea for this book in mind and thought he might actually be a good person to include – so, my motives may not have been completely pure. But I’m at least trying to practice something before I preach it, right?

Little did I know that including this conversation would cause my publisher to disqualify the book from going to print. Apparently, some people think it’s okay to talk with people you disagree with as long as you remind them of that fact every single chance you get and use the conversation to convince them that you’re right and they’re wrong.

Sigh.

I hadn’t spoken to Adam in nearly a decade – since just after he’d “come out” to his family, friends and church. I had no idea how he would respond, but I was stepping out in faith that what I was trying to say in this book might actually work.

What began as a casual conversation with an old friend turned into a pretty interesting dialogue. A simple email exchange led to an ongoing exchange of ideas, and it encouraged me to go find other people – mostly people from my past – who held different perspectives from mine. These are folks for whom I care, but they are also folks who disagree with some of my most foundational beliefs. They’re also the very type of people churches find nearly impossible to reach.

Churches probably won’t ever be able to reach them. But I can. So, I decided it was time to take some of the things I believe about Jesus and put them into practice, reaching out in love to these people who are so far from the one they most desire – even if they don’t realize it.

I hope what follows inspires you to do something similar. There are, after all, people who will only be reached if it’s your arm that’s extended, people God intentionally placed in your path to see if you’d be willing to go a little bit out of your comfort zone. I hope to help you be brave enough to do just that.

If not, I at least hope God is glorified in how this all plays out.

Of course, I would say something like that, wouldn’t I? Typical.

I am the White Tortilla.

At least that’s what all my Mexican uncles call me.

See, I’m Mexican…sort of. My mother, she’s really Mexican. Actually, it’s my Grandmother who was really Mexican – as in, born in Mexico. Gaunajuato to be precise. My mother was born in Colton, California, and spent most of her life in San Diego.

Until she met and married a Gringo from Georgia. My dad was in the Navy and was stationed there. My mother was working at a movie theatre, and she just couldn’t resist his smooth-talking ways.

He later became a preacher and used his smooth-talking ways for more noble purposes.

Anyway, all of that is to say this: though you wouldn’t know it from looking at me, I come from Mexicans!

¡Ole!

A few years ago, my grandmother died. We all saw it coming. She was growing weaker and weaker until she eventually required hospice care. Once everyone knew the end was near, the family began to gather for the inevitable.

My sister Sandra and I were living at opposite ends of the country at the time, but we managed to get to San Diego within 48 hours of her death.

An interesting thing happened while we were there – interesting especially as it relates to the ways we have conversations.

Sandra and I were walking across the street from my grandmother’s neighborhood to a coffee shop to have some breakfast when a car pulled up to the stoplight. We could hear it coming down the street toward us, the bass was ear-splitting.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

We had to stop our conversation, because we couldn’t hear each other.

And then we looked over and saw – I’m sorry if this is offensive, but it’s the truth – about eight Mexican people in a Chevy Nova. Black. Lowered. I’m pretty sure there were fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror and a tiny statue of the Virgin Mary on the dashboard.

My sister (who actually looks a lot more Mexican than I do) stood there for a moment until the car pulled away – the driver giving me “the guy nod”. Then she said it:

“Stereotypes are always true.”

She has a point; doesn’t she? I mean, I know it’s not the most politically correct thing in the world to say, and you probably wouldn’t want to admit this to a lot of people, but still….

Nobody’s shocked when the Valedictorian is Asian. Nobody’s shocked when the guy who wins the Olympic marathon is African. If you turn on an episode of COPS (which you probably shouldn’t), you’re likely to see white people who live in trailer parks.

Statistically speaking, stereotypes exist because stereotypes are true.

And this stereotyping affects everything from the way our police officers do their jobs (don’t try to tell me that racial profiling doesn’t happen) to the way writers create characters on television and in the movies.

The hard part is that stereotyping cuts both ways.

That Bible-banging, choreography-killing preacher John Lithgow played in the movie Footloose? I’ve met that guy. I’ve heard him preach. He sounds just like that, and his daughter is that wild and rebellious.

Jack from Will and Grace? I’ve met him, too. Part of what made that character enjoyable for millions of people to watch was a sense that many of us went to college with that guy who was over-the-top twirly and drank a little too much way too often.

I don’t think I’m saying anything you haven’t thought before.

Go to an Indigo Girls concert in San Francisco. You’ll see what I’m talking about. Stereotypes are always true.

Except for when they’re not….

I have a very good friend. He’s African-American and works for a State University on the Atlantic Coast. Want to guess how he leans politically? He may be more conservative than I am.

I have another very good friend. He’s white. He grew up in the Deep South. He went to a fundamentalist Christian university and works for a very conservative church just outside of Atlanta. He’s one of the loudest supporters of liberal Democratic Party policies I’ve ever met.

Sometimes people will trip you up with their idiosyncrasies. Everyone’s peculiar and particular in some way. And that’s why it’s so vitally important to actually listen to other people – rather than listening to the pre-recorded messages we all have playing in our heads about other people.

It’s much easier to label them and say, “He grew up in northern California? I’ve got him figured out. I know what he believes. I know what he’s going to say, so I don’t really have to pay attention anymore.”

People are complicated, so that approach simply isn’t very effective. And it’s certainly not the way Jesus approached people. Jesus had lots of conversations with individuals who belonged to groups. Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin. Judas was a member of the Zealots. There was a Roman military officer, a Samaritan woman and a convicted felon. He could have made assumptions about their beliefs, but he knew better than to believe they would all simply spout their party’s line on every issue. He listened, with open ears and an open heart, treating them with respect and dignity. Perhaps this was the reason why hookers, lawyers and IRS agents flocked to him.

These are the same kinds of people who run from his followers today. That’s got to change. Maybe this blog will help speed that change up a little.

And if we’re going to talk about things our culture is obsessed with, we’ve got to talk about our bodies.

It’s a sad but true fact that more Americans are obese than ever before. This has happened at a very odd time. There are more low-calorie food options now. There are more places to work out. We know more about diet and exercise. We hear more reports about the long-term risks of being overweight. We are more aware of causes and triggers and solutions. Yet there are 1800-calorie colossal burgers out there, and we can’t seem to stop ourselves from eating them.

There is, equally sadly, another extreme. One cursory glance at primetime television or a magazine rack at your local Barnes & Noble will clue you in to how obsessed we are with physical beauty and thinness. This has prompted what one writer has called “Beautiful People Syndrome” – the idea that if you don’t look like one of the cast members of Desperate Housewives, something must be wrong with you.

Neil Postman has written about this in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. He laments how little a person’s body has to do with his or her ideas. Television is a visual medium, though, and if the image on the screen is lackluster, the ideas portrayed will be diminished. He suggests that someone like William Henry Taft, America’s 27th President, would never even be offered as a candidate in today’s world (Taft weighed upwards of 300 pounds and was the heaviest President in our nation’s history).

Postman goes so far as to suggest that television has impacted our epistemology – our ability to distinguish between a justified belief and an opinion. If something is presented to us in an aesthetically appealing package (preferably female, 36-26-36) we’re more likely to believe it’s true.

Now, of all the things we could say about this trend (and there are lots of things that could and should be said), I want to focus here on how we can take this cultural obsession and use it as a bridge for presenting the gospel.

What if Christians made a commitment to being more physically fit? You could argue in favor of doing so as a proper understanding of our bodies as God’s temple (1 Corinthians 6:9-20). You could argue in favor of doing so as a means of good stewardship (1 Corinthians 4:2). But what if we thought of physical fitness as an apologetic? What if Christians maintained a balance between feasting and fasting, protected their diets, got plenty of exercise but refused to fall prey to Beautiful People Syndrome and its unrealistic ideals of physical perfection? What if we recognized that what Postman says is true, whether we think it should be or not, that our appearance often negates our message?

The fact is, there are ways to talk to our lost friends. There are things they likely won’t hear from us (most of the things you would say to them if you knocked on their door), and there are things they just might hear from us (“I manage my money well and take care of my body, because I believe these things honor God. I can help you do the same.”) But before they hear anything from us, they need to see us listen. Because that’s what Jesus did first.

And that’s what we’ll try to do next.

If we’re going to present the gospel to our society, it would behoove us to understand its obsessions. Athenians favored rhetoric and clever ideas. Ephesians favored magic and power. What do contemporary Americans favor? And how do we use those as bridges to present the gospel?

I can think of one right off the top of my head.

I think our society is obsessed with money. This is so much the case that our standards of wealth and poverty are skewed beyond belief. I make decent money, live in a very comfortable house and drive reliable vehicles. I choose what, how much and with whom I want to eat on any given day. I have more than one pair of shoes, more than one suit of clothing. I’m sure I am wealthier than 90 percent of the planet.

And yet I feel poor. I rarely have enough at the end of the month to really do the things I’d love to do. We sometimes have to save and skimp in order to find enough to take the family vacation we want to take. Television ads constantly bombard me with the idea that there is a good life somewhere out there that I’m missing out on. Money holds an unyielding grip on my attention and on our society as well.

Could it be that money has become for Americans what clever speech was for the Athenians? If so, how can we make use of that obsession as we attempt to faithfully deliver the message of the gospel?

It can’t be like those quacks on television who say we have to be wealthier than others in order for people to take us seriously, can it?

I wonder, though, in our age of runaway consumer debt, what it would be like if Christians were the ones who had their finances in order. What if the whole world was running around like crazy, up to their eyeballs in credit card payments, mortgaged to the hilt, and Christians were the ones who always paid their bills on time and had enough to spare (maybe even enough to share) at the end of the month?

What if Christians saved so much money that they had enough to really fund a search for a cure for AIDS? What if Christians had so much money that they could finance educational programs for entire nations, bring in drinkable water and feed starving people abroad and in their own urban backyards?

What if Christians were the wisest people on the planet when it comes to money – personal and corporate finance?

I’m thinking we could use that as leverage to present something this world wants and needs to hear.

Another thing about Jesus’ approach to people is that there was no one approach, no pattern really, to follow or script to memorize.

Take his healings, for example. Jesus healed people in various ways – sometimes healing two people with the same malady in different ways. He healed some people with a word, others with a touch, others with mud he had made from his own saliva. He rarely healed the same way twice.

We tend to want a more standardized approach. Tell me how to heal blindness, and I’ll do the same thing every time. Jesus preferred to tailor his healings to suit the individual, and this is the same thing he did with his conversations.

But we want a script. Give me something I can memorize and recite when I come in contact with a non-Christian, and I will follow that script in every conversation I have. I will consider it a “win” if I make it through the script. Never mind if it’s not working.

But the Bible, Jesus and those who knew him demonstrated a decidedly different approach.

Mars Hill, in Athens, was obsessed with rhetoric and clever ideas. So, that’s how the Apostle Paul approached them with the gospel. Ephesus, on the other hand, was obsessed with magic and power. So, the Apostle Paul delivered the gospel to them in the midst of a flurry of signs and wonders.

In other words, the message of the gospel was delivered in different ways depending on the audience. No pre-packaged, ready-made, one-size-fits-all script to follow. The approach our Bible friends used required listening to and learning from the people with whom they wanted to communicate.

That has implications, doesn’t it?

Jesus loved questions, and he loved mystery. He enjoyed a good back-and-forth dialogue, and he never seemed to be reading off a script. He didn’t approach everyone the same way. He let people walk away from him, and he didn’t feel compelled to chase them down. Sometimes he used rhetorical questions, and sometimes he used questions that everyone knew the answer to.

He did this because he wanted people to think about the implications of their answers – to apply the knowledge they already had to every aspect of their lives.

He didn’t give a lot of new information. He rarely gave people out-and-out commands. And he almost never explained the ramifications of things to people. He wanted them to do a little digging on their own, so he gave them just enough to whet their appetites. If that meant he left some loose ends untied, he seemed to be fine with that.

Jesus would not do well in most preaching classes. He would do even worse in most personal evangelism courses.

Jesus didn’t see himself as a great convincer. Instead, he was a great provoker. His conversations seem to be less about teaching the way we think of teaching (“Listen to me, and I’ll give you the answers to the upcoming test”) and more about the way they used to think about teaching. Jesus wanted people to think, to really think deeply about why they lived the way they lived, why they behaved the way they behaved. What did they really believe deep down, and how would their lives change if they applied what they said they believed to every part of their lives?

I can only imagine what it would be like to be in a church led by Jesus. I imagine it would be incredibly frustrating. I don’t imagine it would be very big for very long. There wouldn’t be much stability. There would constantly be new people coming in going out. There would often be more confusion than clarity. But I know it would force me to grow in ways no other church could.