The Jennifer Knapp Dilemma

After a hiatus of many years from the recording industry Jennifer Knapp has returned with a new album.  In and of itself, this is a run of the mill event, as artists leave and return many years later all the time.  She left the industry at the height of her popularity for a plethora of reasons, and she stayed away for reasons that made sense and were rational to at least her. 

When she left, she was largely a Contemporary Christian music artist.  She has accompanied her return with an announcement, in extensive interviews in both Christianity Today, and The Advocate  , that she is a lesbian, so most experts are unsure as to where to classify her music right now.  Is it pop, is it rock, is it still contemporary Christian music, most don’t know and aren’t sure.  And when our culture isn’t sure how to label something, isn’t sure which category, which pigeon-hole in which something belongs, chaos ensues.

I sincerely hope I am wrong about what seems to be coming down the pipeline to a theater near you and me, but…  I believe that in the coming weeks and months there is likely to be a heated discussion between the gay community, and mainstream Christianity revolving around Ms. Knapp.  It is likely to be angry, vitriolic, vicious, and bloody.  We are likely to hear some of the worst things possible from both camps about each side.  It has happened before and it is likely that it will happen.  It’s almost as if we can hear the knives being sharpened on both sides for the rhetorical bloodbath that is to come.  It’s as we can almost hear the tools at work preparing the battlements, digging the trenches, and filling the moats to defend each position.

And if that is what this situation boils down to, I think it will be a disgrace.  If this whole matter becomes nothing more than another culture war slugfest between these camps, it will be another black eye for both communities.  It will end up being a box on both houses.  And it will serve as a distinct reminder to the world of how cold and callous we all can be to one another.  It will remind everyone that for six thousand years of recorded history we have advanced in brotherhood so very little.  It will be as repugnant is it repellant to the broader world if this situation devolves into that sort of melodrama.

And let me be clear, I am not taking sides in this debate, and I do not favor any one individual perspective.  I do not favor people of faith not speaking the truth.  My problem is that these debates always seem so far away from the manner and tone in which Jesus responded to them.  When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, there was not condemnation in his voice for her.  He didn’t bang his fist into the side of the well, and speak judgment of her situation, as was his right.  He showed a deep and abiding compassion for the woman.  He was willing to break all the laws of Jewish society in his time in order to speak with her.  From the text it is obvious that Jesus displayed a delicate and tender touch as he laid out the truth.

And that delicate and tender touch is, from my perspective, what is missing from how mainstream Christianity deals with this issue in general.  The leaders of most faith communities pontificate on this issue more akin to the Pharisees of Jesus time with their vicious hate filled diatribes.  I can almost see them ceremonially rending their garments and covering their heads with ash as the customary Pharisee might have as they speak their position.  It makes me cringe every time I hear these people speak.  It makes me wonder about the sum total of my faith if that expression is what Christianity is supposed to be about.

Honestly, I wish the hate-mongers and religious zealots and downright whack-a-loons could just shut up.  It makes me reach for my remote every time I hear it.  In truth, I think the Church should not engage in this debate at all.  I believe that Christianity is ill-served in every encounter on this subject.  For obvious reasons, the tenderness with which our savior would approach this situation is absent in our discussion of it.  There is little if any love or compassion in our speech on this subject.  And all it does is leave those who fall into this category feeling ostracized, feeling like an outsider, and feeling like a leper.

That isn’t the character we see abundant in the ministry of Jesus at all.  Jesus dealt with these situations usually quietly away from the crush and press of the crowd.  In the rare instance in which he was forced to deal with it publicly, he didn’t take the sinner to task.  He took the accusers to task.  He challenged their right to stand in the judgment seat at all.  He said powerful things like, “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.”  I picture him with a stone in his hand saying that, ready to offer it to the first person willing to step up to the plate, knowing full well that none could or would.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say that Jesus did speak the truth to the individuals in these narratives.  However, as a member of the Trinity he had every right to.  He was there at creation.  He was present when God turned the lights on.  He was present when God recorded the details of the lives of every human being to ever live.  He knew everything about Jennifer Knapp before she ever came to be.  He will one day be part of the great white throne judgment of all humanity.  He will be sitting on that throne.  Neither I nor anyone that acts as an accuser in this life will.  It is God’s right alone to judge humanity.  The power of acceptance and condemnation fall solely in the realm of almighty God.  And we as Christians should get truth.  We should bathe in it.  We should let it sink into the fabric of our being.

Christianity should be spending more of its time trying to live the life they claim to.  They should be spending their life smoking what they’re selling.  They should be dwelling in the rich and verdant garden that is a life spent in communion with their creator.  They should be seeking to ensure that the Fruits of the Spirit are growing in abundance in their lives.  They should be spending time learning to show the love of Christ to others.  Not the phony, fake, plastic thing that passes as love, but leaves people feeling cold and alone, but rather the warm, nurturing, and dare I say intimate, kind of love that leaves no one feeling as such.  The kind of love that was abundant in the ministry of Christ.  The kind of love that turned ordinary Galilean fishermen into apostolic giants in their time is what’s needed here.  The kind of love that turned the world on its head in the first century, as it upended the political, social, and cultural world of its day is what’s called for now.

If you need evidence for this, the people of Antioch called the followers of Jesus, ‘christians’ because they had love one for another.  The nature of the faith they espoused was so characterized by the love of their rabbi that the world couldn’t help but label and identify them as such.  (As an aside, it is worthy of noting that the text says that the people, not the followers of Jesus came up with that moniker.)  The apostle John also says that we show our identification with Christ when we have love one for another.

How does the venomous diatribes that those who claim to lead our faith, measure up to this standard?  How do we measure up to this standard, when we do the same?  I know I am painting with a broad brush here.  I do however feel comfortable in doing so, because the brush I am using also covers me, as I am just as guilty of being like this as anyone.

The path out of this quagmire is simple though.  We need to accept that we are all broken and battered recipients of the stunning grace of almighty God.  We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.  We have all failed God in numerous ways.  And the collective sum of our failures put Jesus on the cross.  There is no single sin that put Jesus there more than any other.  The sin of homosexuality is no more revolting to God, than any other sin under heaven.  The truth is that all sin is an abomination to God.  All sin serves to separate the sinner from their creator.  I am no better than anyone else and my sin God finds just as nauseating as any other person’s. 

Honestly, if I haven’t sinned numerous times before I leave the house in the morning, it’s a good day.  I thank God daily for the grace he displays for my sin.  Should I be any less graceful to others?  Am I being the unmerciful servant when I refuse to accept the grace of God as it falls on others, or in my dealings with others that have committed more obvious sin?  My sins committed in secret being just as detestable to God as any other.  How big is my God when I approach my life in such a fashion?  Is there room for the omnipotent God of heaven and earth in such a faith?

We shouldn’t allow this situation to become a binary black versus white debate.  We shouldn’t allow Satan the power to divide us in such a fashion.  A black and white debate fails to bring healing, and unity, and brotherhood.  It fails to provide a vehicle for the love that should be the hallmark of our faith to be expressed.  In the end, such a debate leaves everyone and everything looking like some dime store caricature of what our creator intended.  It allows the wolves in sheep’s clothing in both camps to lead us into the abyss that is a morass of hate and anger and failure.

In reality, the truth of the situation is obvious.  The facts are clear.  We members of the community of faith don’t need to fight to express them here.  What has to be said has been said.  It doesn’t need to be spoken again and again and again.  What we need to do now, is defy the stereotype that people have for us.  We need to show that are not small minded bigots and homophobes.  We need to focus on showing the love of Christ wherever and whenever we have the occasion.  We need to reach out to all our neighbors, regardless of where we find them.  We need to remember that we have planks in our eyes, and we can’t extract the speck in our brother’s or sister’s eye without causing harm to them.  The work that needs to be done here belongs to God.  All that we can and should be doing right now is show the love of God until he comes again without comment or controversy.

In truth, what Jennifer Knapp chooses to do with her life, and how she is working out her salvation with fear and trembling, is not for me to judge.  At the end of her life, she will give an account of herself to her creator, and it will be in the midst of that intimate private audience with the one who breathed the breath of life into her nostrils that it will be conducted.  I won’t be there to accuse her, and no one else will either.  The one that knew her before the foundations of the world, the one who loved her with an abundant and awe-inspiring grace will.  I don’t know how it will turn out precisely, because distilling a mysteriously righteous and holy yet loving and benevolent God is a hard thing that doesn’t fit easily into our finite temporal brains.

At least for me, I plan to pray for her as I do many people.  Not because she is in any more need of prayer than me or anyone else, but rather, because I want to ask God to show His love for her.  I want God to remind her how much He cares for her.  I want her to feel the sheer abundance of that love falling on her like a flood, such that she could never deny from whence it came.  I also plan to enjoy her music.  I plan to revel in her success.  I plan to weep with her failures.   Just as I think God in heaven will.  The rest is beyond my right or my role to comment upon.