National Prayer, Love, and LGBTQ
By: James Finn
Tags: Social Justice, Religion, LGBTQ, Equality, Christianity

Today, the first Thursday in May, is the National of Day of Prayer, created in 1952 by a joint resolution of the United States Congress, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman.

Christian leaders have been gathering in Washington DC and around the United States all week, preparing for the event that is themed this year as “Love One Another.”

Ronnie Floyd, the president of the National Day of Prayer Task Force announced the theme last October, saying:

Love can change America. We need a baptism of love by the Holy Spirit that will immerse the entire Church of Jesus Christ in America and a baptism of love that will immerse all of America today.

That sentiment sounds so warm and inviting —

Surely the United States could benefit from a “Baptism of Love.” My own writing often focuses on love, on the succoring of the suffering, of care for the least among us.

By the least, I’m thinking of homeless LGBTQ youth and suicidal transgender people rejected by friends and family. I’m thinking of exhausted, hungry refugee families torn apart at our southern border then summarily denied the asylum they have the legal right to apply for.

Sometimes my inboxes fill up with so many howls of pain and despair that I have a hard time writing. I’d rather curl up in a ball and cry.

I’m thinking of people of color who live in fear of white nationalists and racists. Of churches burned to the ground and synagogues shot up. Of Black youths executed by police officers as they sleep in their cars.

I’m thinking I’m living in a world bereft of love —

And I’m thinking that whatever the National Day of Prayer may stand for, it doesn’t stand for me, people like me, or people I love and care about. I wish it did. I sincerely wish I were included in that “Baptism of Love.”

But I know I’m not.

Ronnie Floyd, who announced the theme of “Love One Another,” has made previous announcements that force me to question what “love” truly means to him. Let me show you his words:

Satan has taken his tool of homosexuality, a gross and evil sin, and done a con job on the American Culture, making it seem like all is okay when you are gay. I hope you are aware that what was once subtle has now turned into the rage of a lion as brazen and threatening as anything in our culture. I must sound the trumpet loud and clear, praying that we do not run in retreat, but march in the truth of God valiantly. This is not a skirmish or a conflict or a disagreement, but it is a war.

I am a gay man, an activist and an artist —

I write fiction for LGBTQ youth. I write advice columns for LGBTQ teenagers and young adults. I counsel kids to accept themselves for who they are and to learn to love themselves despite being surrounded by messages that they’re broken, sick, or sinful.

Sometimes my inboxes fill up with so many howls of pain and despair that I have a hard time writing. I’d rather curl up in a ball and cry.

So when Ronnie Floyd calls the nation to prayer and love, all I can hear is, “gross and evil sin.” All I can hear is his war cry against harmless and oppressed people.

All I can hear are the statistics echoing inside my head, whispering the plight of homeless LGBTQ youth rejected by conservative Christian families. They make up an astounding 40% of all homeless youth in North America. I hear the cries of rejected LGBT youth in the US who contemplate and attempt suicide at frightening rates — five times higher than other youth.

While Floyd presides over prayers today, I’ll know that his words are not about love in the way I understand love.

Floyd will be joined by Sammy Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. I’ll think of his harsh and insulting words opposing marriage for gay people like me. I’ll think about how he rejects love.

Jay Strack, the head of Orlando’s Student Leadership University will also be participating. I’ll think about how he wrote a book, Mercury Rising: 8 Issues That Are Too Hot To Handle, touting ex-gay ministries as a way to deal with “teen homosexuality,” directing teens to seek help at Exodus International. I’ll think about how conversion or reparative therapy has only one proven outcome — elevated suicide rates in vulnerable young people.

The evangelist daughter of Billy Graham, Anne Graham Lotz, will be on stage praying. I’ll think about how she once warned in an interview that the terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels and San Bernardino and “things that are happening in our weather” are “wake-up calls” from God to Christians who have turned away from Him and failed to stop advances in LGBTQ rights in America.

I could cite more examples of Christian leaders who will be praying today in Washington. I could tell you more stories about how they seem to focus beams of hatred rather than of love on vulnerable LGBTQ people.

I’m a gay man, and I don’t feel loved today —

I feel stigmatized, scapegoated, and held up by Christian leaders as a symbol of all that is wrong with the United States. A “Baptism of Love?” Perhaps, but the water isn’t for me or the likes of me. The organizers of the Day of Prayer make that crystal clear.

And that brings me to something of a point. The United States clearly does need a baptism of love. We clearly are divided and at war in our own house. I was raised Christian, although I fled organized Christianity long ago, injured and doing my best to defend myself.

Given my background, I can’t help but understand that the Christian principles of love, compassion, and care I learned about as a boy could go a long way toward quenching the fires of hate that burn in our land today.

I know that the Jesus of the New Testament would never behave in the ways the current leaders of the National Day of Prayer have behaved and are behaving.

I’m not a Christian anymore because of leaders like them —

I’m not challenging them with that statement or trying to throw it in their faces. I’m just suggesting that’s not the effect they’re looking for. I’m suggesting that when they call for a baptism of love, they misunderstand or have lost sight of the profound Christian meaning of what they propose.

I’m also observing that more and more young people are abandoning Christianity because they can’t find love in it. I’m suggesting that Evangelical Christian leaders have lost the ability to evangelize and are instead driving people away.

I join Pastor Ken Wilson in noting that religious affiliation rates in the US are in steep decline , and that Millennials and post-Millennials are leaving Christianity because the Church feels mean to them instead of loving.

As a gay man and a long-time advocate for LGBTQ people of all stripes, I’m asking the Evangelical leaders heading up today’s National Day of Prayer to drop their war hammers.

I’m exhausted from fighting, and I never asked to be in a war. I never asked to succor casualties. I never asked to spend my days fighting for the right to simply BE.

All I ask is to be loved for who I am.

So, Ronnie Floyd, when you pray today, and you ask God for that baptism of love, will you include all of God’s children, please? Will you soften your heart and cease your war cries?