Nat Hentoff said that “Fiction is sometimes more real than fact … it can tell you more than facts.” What follows is a fictional conversation.

Cherry: Why are you proposing that we let people who identify as LGBT be ministers in our denomination?

Compromise Cleo: Compromise is a good thing. All healthy relationships require compromise.

Cherry: Yes, in a marriage, a husband and wife will compromise on things of lesser significance, but not foundational matters.

Compromise Cleo: The gospel is the foundational matter. Jesus dined with sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes. By not discriminating against pastoral candidates based on sexual orientation and gender identity, we are applying the foundational matter of the gospel in the way Jesus modeled.

Cherry: Are you sure you are applying the example of Jesus properly?

Compromise Cleo: Jesus loved everyone, even those without bourgeois sexual habits. Jesus didn’t deny the human rights of prostitutes and he wouldn’t want the church to deny the human rights of the LGBT community.

Cherry: How does requiring a person to repent of their sin deny their human rights?

Compromise Cleo: Their sexuality is part of who they are. That is why LGBT are protected classes with special non-discrimination laws. That should extend to their participation in our denomination.

Cherry: But doesn’t it detract from the church’s witness to the truth to imply that these are legitimate categories and valid definitions of human nature?

Compromise Cleo: The church’s witness is compromised when it embraces bigotry.

Cherry: Is it bigotry for the church to refuse to hire an unrepentant murderer?

Compromise Cleo: No.

Cherry: Why not?

Compromise Cleo: That would be dangerous for the congregation and it would imply that we support his sinful actions.

Cherry: But he is just a murderer-Christian. He says he believes in the Apostles Creed. Why are you denying his human rights?

Compromise Cleo: Murder is a moral category that is different from LGBT. Refusing to hire a homosexual is like refusing to hire someone based on race.

Cherry: Why is it wrong to discriminate based on race?

Compromise Cleo: Race is an anthropological category rather than a moral one. It's important to safeguard religious freedom.

Cherry: So you think sex is disconnected from moral choices?

Compromise Cleo: Our democracy only works if there is compromise. Yet there has been an unprecedented and dangerous spike in LGBT legislation in statehouses. The very least the church can do is be accepting of these people.[1] The church will gain because they are safeguarding religious freedom.

Cherry: What is the dangerous LGBT legislation in statehouses?

Compromise Cleo: Laws that don’t let biological males play on the girl’s team. Laws that don’t let transgender people receive hormone treatments. Laws that don’t let transgender people use the bathroom they are comfortable using. Some are calling this a state of emergency.[2]

Cherry: For 2000 years the church has agreed on a theological anthropology and morality. The church has recognized the biblical teaching on human nature, human identity, human dignity, human sexuality, sexual behavior, and marriage. The LGBT ideology has invented new categories to confuse human nature and normalize sexual immorality. Give and take is possible when the subject is tax rates and proper speed limits. But when the subject is about fundamental values, compromise is unachievable. One side will have to surrender its beliefs to the other.

Compromise Cleo: Culture has shifted. A lot of older people don’t understand the changes, but young people don’t get bent out of shape about the new sexuality. We worship a living God that contains multitudes, not one locked up in the Bible. Before he ascended Jesus said, “I have many more things to say to you but you cannot bear them now.” God’s truth is always unfolding. Just like there are new discoveries in medicine there are new discoveries in sexuality. Those who hesitate to shift with the culture are driven by hate. Jesus was driven by love.

Cherry: What is love?

Compromise Cleo: Love is acceptance, which is why the church should accept LGBT people as ministers in our denomination.

Cherry: Is it love to pretend we don’t know who should go to which bathroom?

Compromise Cleo: Every child of God should be welcomed in the church. Harmful language about LGBT people should not be tolerated in the church. This is why the church must be politically neutral. The way to transcend political parties is to preach the gospel while being inclusive, like Jesus did. Restrictions on marriage and ordination are not inclusive. Christians can disagree on LGBT issues, but we have to agree that this issue will not divide the church. We need to learn to live in the mystery of communion by the Holy Spirit. We have to be bridge-builders with gay Christians.

Cherry: Colossians 2:23 says, “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.” The LGBT ideology is set against the entire authority of scripture and the very structures God has given in creation itself. And that is why it is slavery; slavery to self and slavery to sin. Compromise is not a higher morality. Jesus was faithful by not compromising with the tempter when he was in the desert and Jehoiakim was wicked when he compromised with Nebuchadnezzar. If evangelicals make one compromise, the LGBT revolutionaries will expect more compromises until Christians are allies on the “right side of history.”

We reject the compromising of the faith which claims to worship God while creating a perverted humanity. Christians don’t hold compromise as a virtue, as such, for the simple reason that we are unwilling to compromise with sin. This is why politically, evangelicals are divisive. From a political perspective, democracy works when different groups meet in the center. But Christians disrupt political compromise on moral issues because they refuse to negotiate a bipartisan settlement with Moloch.

[1] https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/for-the-first-time-ever-human-rights-campaign-officially-declares-state-of-emergency-for-lgbtq-americans-issues-national-warning-and-guidebook-to-ensure-safety-for-lgbtq-residents-and-travelers

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/06/06/hrc-declares-state-of-emergency-over-laws-targeting-lgbtq-rights/70292212007/