Engaging the Gay Community :: Andrew Marin

by Tim Schraeder on 04/30/2010 in Q with 8 Comments

Andrew Marin | The Marin Foundation
Andrew Marin is the President and Founder of The Marin Foundation (www.themarinfoundation.org) a non-profit that seeks to build bridges between the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and religious communities. Andrew has appeared on various national radio and TV programs, and his sermon Homophobia and Bridging from within the Evangelical Church—given on Capitol Hill the night before the Inauguration of President Barack Obama—is archived in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. He is the author of the award winning book Love is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community, blogs daily at www.loveisanorientation.com and lives in the Boystown neighborhood of Chicago with his wife.

Andrew opened in complete silence for the first 45 seconds of a 3-minute presentation. He then said the following:

I stand silent to give dignity to a moment many Christians take for granted.

There are only a few sacred moments in one’s life—one of them is when you know in your heart that you’ve been set apart to dare to be remarkable by doing nothing other than believing in a just and powerful God.

The last great Roman satirical poet, Juvenal, commented about power by saying:

“But who is to guard the guards themselves?”

I am standing in a room with 600 gatekeepers to our faith. 600 influencers. 600 people that stand amongst and above the rest.

Maybe you don’t feel as such in your own mind.

But the Christian hierarchy proves different.

Jesus said that: “wisdom will be proven right by her actions.”

Well, our actions have only proven that ‘wisdom’ must be an elite group of predominantly white upper class individuals who care about their “Christian brands.”

I don’t care about your Christian brand, and neither does the Lord.

God says to Isaiah:

“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder.

The wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.”

You all are the best; you are all the brightest that our faith has. And yet where are your hearts with the gay community?

How have your tangible actions proven the Lord’s wisdom right?

Is the culture war it too political? Too divisive? Too scary? Too unknown to stop us from changing our medium of engagement with gays and lesbians.

In his famous speech apologizing to America after his sex scandal, Bill Clinton said:

“This has gone on too long, cost too much and hurt too many innocent people.”

Friends, I plead with you today that you stop being a gatekeeper and start acting like Jesus.

Much love.

[ via LoveisAnOrientation.com ]

Tim Schraeder
Tim Schraeder is passionately committed to helping churches effectively communicate the timeless message of the Gospel in a way that’s relevant to our ever-changing culture. He presently serves as the co-director of the Center for Church Communication and is the creator and general editor of Outspoken: Conversations on Church Communication, a field guide for church communication leaders. Tim lives in Chicago where he can be found in any neighborhood coffee shop that has free wifi. Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Sign Up for My Newsletter
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  • http://intensedebate.com/profiles/jennyrain jennyrain

    Great post… This "seems" like such a "tightrope walking exercise" for evangelicals… I wrote a post about my dad two weeks ago and was amazed at the response to it… it showed me that people were really interested in talking about this issue more, understanding it, understanding the families behind it, and finding their place in the discussion… (see below)

    I'm a huge fan of Andrew Marin… he has taken some wonderfully redemptive risks with the gay community my dad is a part of and the evangelical community I'm a part of to build bridges. Thanks for posting this!

    My post: Will they laugh if I call you daddy? Growing up with a gay father:http://jennyrain.com/2010/04/12/will-they-laugh-i…

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/dannyjbixby dannyjbixby

    Love Andrew Marin. Powerful stuff.

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  • http://theviewfromher.com j a n

    If you hadn't posted the transcript of what Andrew read, I couldn't have told you what he said. Several people at my table were asking who he was, and what he was talking about. It just wasn't clear. I've met Andrew, and fully support what he's about, but unfortunately I thought this was an example of making a "statement" without enough context to communicate meaning. I love what he's doing, but thought this was a missed opportunity with a key audience…

  • http://www.loveisanorientation.com Andrew Marin

    Part 1 of my Response:

    Hi Jan. Here's the problem: I had 180 seconds to talk about the most divisive topic in the church today. 180 seconds. So with that, I could have done 1 of 2 things….. 1) Try to give the bland 'pitch' about my work and my organization trying to win all of those influencers over to my side, like what every single one of the other 3 mintue presenters did, or 2) Do what I did.

    I'm not trying to sell my organization in 3 minutes to anyone. It's a slap in the face. I don't care who the audience is or how much percieved "influence" they have (which in many cases is in their minds greater than in actuality). God gives me influence. He has since the beginning of my work when 0 people believed in it; and the moment I start trying to sell my organization to human influencers in 180 seconds is the moment I become a sell-out. Maybe I should have tried to sell it? Maybe I could have gotten a huge donation out of it that could have changed the course of my work?

    But I'm not giving in to any of that. I don't play in those metrics. I made a point. A very clear point.

  • http://www.loveisanorientation.com Andrew Marin

    Part 2 of my Response:

    Yes, some people and tables didn't understand it; didn't "get" it. And that's totally ok with me because there were quite a few people in that audience who did, and many more who did "get" it because they knew I was talking about them – and thus, those same people vocalized how much they didn't "get" it to cover their butts. I'm not saying you're one of those people, because I know for a fact you're not one of those people. But what I did and said needed to be done and said. Consequences come with everything, and this was one of those times I knew I was in the right – especially in that setting with that audience.

    I still don't care about anyone's Christian brand, and neither does the Lord.

    I promise you (and I can say this with 100% certainty because of the emails/Facebooks/Twitters I've received since Q), those words will never be forgotten by the overwhelming majority of the people there – some of whom strongly agree with me and some of whom strongly care about growing and sustaining their Christian brand and hated every word I said.

  • http://www.loveisanorientation.com Andrew Marin

    Part 1 of my Response:

    Hi Jan. Here's the problem: I had 180 seconds to talk about the most divisive topic in the church today. 180 seconds. So with that, I could have done 1 of 2 things….. 1) Try to give the bland 'pitch' about my work and my organization trying to win all of those influencers over to my side, like what every single one of the other 3 mintue presenters did, or 2) Do what I did.

    I'm not trying to sell my organization in 3 minutes to anyone. It's a slap in the face. I don't care who the audience is or how much percieved "influence" they have (which in many cases is in their minds greater than in actuality). God gives me influence. He has since the beginning of my work when 0 people believed in it; and the moment I start trying to sell my organization to human influencers in 180 seconds is the moment I become a sell-out. Maybe I should have tried to sell it? Maybe I could have gotten a huge donation out of it that could have changed the course of my work?

    But I'm not giving in to any of that. I don't play in those metrics. I made a point. A very clear point.

  • http://www.loveisanorientation.com Andrew Marin

    Part 2 of my Response:

    Yes, some people and tables didn't understand it; didn't "get" it. And that's totally ok with me because there were quite a few people in that audience who did, and many more who did "get" it because they knew I was talking about them – and thus, those same people vocalized how much they didn't "get" it to cover their butts. I'm not saying you're one of those people, because I know for a fact you're not one of those people. But what I did and said needed to be done and said. Consequences come with everything, and this was one of those times I knew I was in the right – especially in that setting with that audience.

    I still don't care about anyone's Christian brand, and neither does the Lord.

    I promise you (and I can say this with 100% certainty because of the emails/Facebooks/Twitters I've received since Q), those words will never be forgotten by the overwhelming majority of the people there – some of whom strongly agree with me and some of whom strongly care about growing and sustaining their Christian brand and hated every word I said.

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