Evangelicals, Your Refusal to Love Your Transgender Neighbors is a Sin

Photo by Kyle on Unsplash

Dear Evangelicals,

I’ve often hear you extol the virtues of speaking the truth in love, so I hope you’ll receive this in the spirit in which it’s offered.

You’re supposedly familiar with the words of Jesus, so I know I’m not telling you something you don’t already know, but he said that the single greatest aspiration, the very highest calling for those who follow him, is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.

And here’s the problem, as I see it: you have transgender neighbors who you most certainly aren’t loving by any measure, rather just the opposite.

I see how angry you are, how consumed with hatred you are; how relentless, myopic, and bitter you've become.

I see how addled with fears and phobia your theology has left you.

It grieves me deeply to see you doing what you're doing, what you've been doing for so long, and what you've become as a result.

Your incessant attacks on Transgender human beings are the rotten fruit of a toxic faith that has needs an enemy to feel valid; a religion that cannot exist unless it has an imminent danger to wiped out—even if that danger is imaginary, even if the threat you rail against is fabricated.

I'm not sure how you ended up thinking that this was somehow your most noble calling or what good you believe you're accomplishing or exactly what your end game is, but I hope you hear me because I am telling you in respect, with compassion and love: you’re getting it wrong.

You're wasting daylight here.
You're squandering precious breath.
You're fighting a battle that you can't possibly win and weren't asked to wage to begin with.
God is not in this holy war with you no matter how much your pastor or politician or favorite news show host wants you to believe.

Despite what you’ve been indoctrinated into believing, someone else’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or body are simply not your business.
They're out of your jurisdiction,
they're way above your pay grade,
and they're far beyond your control.

And yet Evangelical friends, because there is so much that is within your control, here is some unsolicited but hopefully useful advice for you with whatever precious, fleeting moments you have left on this planet:

Stop working so hard to erase transgender people, to make them disappear. It isn't going to happen. They exist. They are here. They deserve to be here.

Instead, if your faith really matters to you, work that passionately to make hungry people less hungry,
physically sick people well,
lonely people not feel alone,
victimized people not feel victimized,
invisible people feel seen,
bullied people feel protected,
grieving people feel comforted.

Those things you actually can accomplish and Jesus did explicitly call you to them.
He states that this redemptive work is his business and so it should be yours.

Love is the only worthwhile expression of our theology and frankly, right now yours is devoid of it.

This is how he said he would determine your love for him: not by the culture wars you wage, the signs you hold, the insults you hurl, the coldness you deliver, the relationships you sever, the protests you mount, the havoc you wreak.

Because while you've been so busy bothering transgender people, a waiting and weary multitude has passed by you looking for the hope and help and healing you've supposed to offer them—and you have missed it all. In fact, worse than that, you have become a source of wounding. You are now a barrier to people’s belief that God is defined by love.

If you could abandon this nonsensical crusade for one moment and just look around, you’d see that the possibility for goodness is everywhere.
It's right in front of you.
You've been given this time and space and your presence all as priceless gifts.
Don't miss the chance to use them and don't waste them.

There are hopeless situations that you can step into, blessings you can provide, people you can care for, paths you can beautifully alter, healing you can accomplish, prayers you can answer, wounds you can mend, kindnesses you can extend—right now.

The question is, do you really want any of that or are you married to this ultimately fruitless cause that is doing nothing real but damaging already vulnerable people?

Friends, Transgender human beings’ existence isn’t harming you in the least, and if you could be decent enough to admit that, you might have to ask yourself what the hell you’re so angry about. You might find yourself seeing what the rest of us see: that you are the danger here. Maybe that’s your goal, but I hope not.

In over a half-century on this planet, I’ve never seen or heard a single trans person show up at your churches calling your perverts, or demanding that your right to your own bodies be taken away, or trying to legislate you out of existence.

All I’ve ever seen, are a group of people simply trying to live and asking to be allowed the same personal liberties and opportunity to exist you have. That’s pretty much what loving your neighbors and doing onto others is about. Maybe you could take a lesson from them.

Evangelicals, the clock is ticking.
The sun is fading.
Time is wasting.
People are waiting.
Your life and other’s lives are flying by.

Do something worthy of it all:

start loving your transgender neighbor.