It's a question I posed to someone who linked to this post today on Facebook:
What is the difference between welcoming and affirming?
Welcoming but not affirming feels like a lot like a cunningly set trap. “Welcoming but not affirming”
tells me that it is cool to come to church and that you might not be outwardly mean to me but that you are still praying for me to change into someone contrary to who God created me to be in order to get into your idea of heaven.”Welcoming but not affirming” leaves room for people to to tell me that my “lifestyle” is contrary to the will of God (do they mean this lifestyle? - or maybe this one?), to pray that my marriage will be broken, that my children will be subjected to a broken home and for me to live into a falsehood that in fact would be exchanging my natural passions for unnatural ones. “Welcoming but not affirming” leaves dangerous room for people to abuse my children with notions that their mamma’s marriage is not real. It leaves room for saccharin-sweet folks to look my babies in the eyes and tell them to be praying real hard or their mammas to change so we don’t all go to hell… For this mamma, a’int none of that gonna fly no matter how we play our pretty marbles of semantics. The difference between being welcoming and affirming is all about whether or one can regard me as a fully human or not. The difference is between whether or not those who merely “welcome” can go so far as to acknowledge that I am a child of God created equal to them, capable of living into my Christian faith as a lesbian with a wife and family. If someone were to invite me to a church that is “welcoming but not affirming” I simply could not worship alongside people who can only “welcome” me and not affirm my full personhood, can not truly affirm my love for my wife or affirm the reality of my shared parenthood with her. If someone truly believes I have no access to heaven, or that my wife and children are not fully worthy of the sacraments of the church (or that the sacraments are going to magically “cure” us) as long as we are living as we have been created to live then they are relegating us to a second class personhood that is not ok with me and never a place I would bring my family to worship because I would not be free to worship with my whole self. I would never consider subjecting myself to that level of degradation.
I do not want or need a person or church to magnanimously grant me their shallow welcome. Thankfully I am surrounded by Christians and a whole host of other loving, compassionate folks – family, friends, church and wider community – who already affirm what I know in my heart of hearts (through my own personal, tangible experience of God’s presence) to be real and true. I am living into God’s will for my life as faithfully and fitfully as this world and mortal coil will allow.
What’s the difference between welcoming and affirming? Equality.
I posed the title question at the post as well, it'll be interesting to see how it's answered.
There are things in life that from a moral perspective cannot be affirmed and I'm sure we can each come up with examples yet the author of this piece is demanding that homosexuality be affirmed by all while implicity declaring unequivocally that anyone who disagrees with her should not be.
Does anyone see the disconnect?
We who disagree with her should affirm. She who disagrees with us clearly should not.
Why is that?
We should be tolerant and accepting. She should not.
Why is that?