God’s Love is Fully Inclusive & Not Abusive
Introduction
Recently, I’ve been hearing the phrase “God’s love is fully inclusive” everywhere in the queer Christian community and I really like it. It’s even a part of one of my first listings on Etsy! Look!
This phrase isn’t only important for queer Christians, though. While it can also function as a valuable phrase for Christians who are part of other minorities, too, I want to focus on full inclusion of queer Christians. What I didn’t know until recently was that this concept can be seen throughout the whole entire bible (maybe the bible is progressive after all). Before I start, I should mention that if you think being a queer Christian is an oxymoron, then you’re a moron. Just kidding. Anyway, read this post and you’ll see that it’s not.
The Definition of Full Inclusion
Ferris State University defines inclusion as “involvement and empowerment, where the inherent worth and dignity of all people are recognized.” In the context of everyday life, full inclusion for Christians takes this definition one step further. Not only is the inherent worth and dignity of all people recognized, but it remains even if some people change, develop new beliefs, and/or become our opponents. Yes, God’s vision for the world involves us loving and accepting our opponents, too. I know that’s probably not what you thought you would be reading in this post today, but I think it’s important enough to bring up at least once.
Full Inclusion in Romans 11
If you couldn’t guess by the subheading, Romans 11 is the chapter that mentions the actual words “full inclusion.” We’re not going to go through the whole entire chapter together, but I do recommend reading it because there’s a beautiful metaphor about a giant tree that thrives while other branches are grafted on.
In Romans 11, Paul is discussing the ever-painful tensions in his time between the Jews and the Gentiles. Paul begins by giving himself credibility with his ancestry for the Jewish readers. Then, it starts to get a little weird. Paul suggests that God has purposefully allowed His own chosen people to suffer. You know all that wandering in the desert and being enslaved? God was doing that out of kindness. Okay, Karen. That on its own would really suck and if that was the whole story, I’d be very confused about how Christianity became one of the world’s major religions.
The first point Paul makes is that just because it seems like none of the Jews at the time were obeying God, doesn’t mean that there weren’t a few or a “remnant” that did. Then, he throws a bombshell, “So I ask, did they [Israel] stumble in order that they might fall? By no means!” (Romans 11:11a). Basically, there’s a difference between stumbling and falling. God only let His people stumble so that He would be able to save the rest of the world AND His people. If they had fallen, they wouldn’t have been able to reach for their LifeAlert (God) and get back up on their feet. All of those horrible, painful things were a necessary part of the process of creating the perfect storm for Jesus to walk into.
At first, I thought this still sounded kind of awful. He purposefully rejected His own people, That’s really not nice. The thing is that that’s not the focus of the story. God allowing Israel to flail like a fish out of water was a result of the Israelites repeatedly breaking their covenant with God. Yes, He was angry, but it’s only because of the box that they put God into. If you’ve actually read the old testament, you might notice that God has these beautiful, restorative ideas. The issue is that His laws must serve His people’s needs and they were not ready for laws that were more progressive than the ones in Leviticus. So, in practice, this looks more like destroying every last person.
Anyway, back on topic. Have you ever lived through something so difficult that people don’t know how you’re still able to function? It might’ve been when your mom died or you failed out of your dream school or relapsed. I don’t know what it is, but take a second to pick one that you have a fair amount of distance from. Let me ask you this: are you grateful this happened? Would you be the person you are today if this had never happened? Just because something was painful doesn’t mean that there’s not beauty in your healing, redemption, or becoming. Now, consider this: where would queer Christians–or queer people as a whole–be today without being oppressed (physically we wouldn’t have our own micronation, look up the history of The Coral Sea Islands)? What would we be like if we didn’t have to band together for our survival? Would we be better or worse off for it? As a community, we would not be the same. This is what God was doing when He allowed horrible things to happen to His people. He saw the whole story and wasn’t willing to sacrifice temporary pain for greater joy. This pain made Jesus an even more beautiful symbol of full inclusion in Christ–because He includes us in every part of the story.
Now, A Moment for Silly Parables with Jesus
I don’t know about you, but this chapter reminds me an awful lot of the story of the prodigal son. We’ve got the loving father (God), the bitter brother (Israel), and the unholy brother (the Gentiles). In this story, the bitter brother is upset because his father never celebrated him and chose to celebrate his runaway brother instead (something Paul warns could happen for Israel). The thing is that the father in this story always wanted to show–and did show–love to his sons, but the older brother wanted more. When he didn’t say anything, nothing changed and he grew bitter. The reason why I’m sharing this is because the focus of this story is usually the prodigal son, not the bitter brother (just like we focus on God’s love for every nation in Romans 11). Additionally, the father was never angry with or unloving towards the older brother. This is just how he interpreted the feast for his “sinful” brother. The point of this story is like what Paul says in Romans 11: works do not grant grace!
When Paul goes on to describe the Gentiles joining the Jews in the Abraham covenant, he says that the Gentiles are being grafted into Israel’s tree. This means that the roots of the tree are supporting both the Gentiles and the Jews or the prodigal son and the bitter brother. Neither brother is able to say that the other is not holy and wholly loved by God without also saying it about themselves, too. Just like the father loved both of his sons–the faith by works & the faith by grace personifications–in Jesus’ parable, Romans 11 is about how God loves both the Jews & the Gentiles. In His mind, they are both part of the same tree, the same family.
Back to Full Inclusion
You may be wondering when I’ll actually get to the fully inclusive part. It’s coming I promise. Just one last thing. The second point Paul brings up about why God allowed the Israelites to struggle it’s because they’re about to have the biggest home-coming of all. See what God did there? Finally, let’s look at the verse.
“Now if their [Israel’s] trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!”
Romans 11:12
A lot of you may have thought that the “full inclusion” phrase may have been referring to the Gentiles, but nope. God decided to include the–those of us who weren’t in the original covenant–first. God chose to fully include the sinners, the prostitutes, the queer, the disabled, the homeless, and the refugees before His own flesh and blood were included. No wonder their full inclusion is gonna be monumental! Don’t quite get it yet? That’s okay. I have one last example. Imagine going to an Olympic event and watching one country win every single medal. Something weird happens when they go to accept the awards, though. Instead of them getting the recognition they worked so hard for, you see the competitor’s from your country standing with medals around their necks and everyone is clapping like crazy–as if your people placed in first, second, and third. At the very end, the country that really won walks out and takes a bow without asking for their medals or anything else. What does the audience do? They roar with applause and stand to their feet–blown away by what just happened. This is exactly what full inclusion looks like according to Paul–both the Jews and the Gentiles being genuinely celebrated.
God’s Love is Fully Inclusive & Not Abusive
You might recognize this phrase from my printable above. As a queer Christian, I know I’m not the first to say that we tend to get a lot of flack for everything we believe from people of all kinds of beliefs. However, the people who are usually the worst about this (at least in my life) are the Christians showing “God’s love” to me. That’s why I wanted to clarify something that can be pretty confusing. Even though, the bible tells us that God’s love is, in fact, fully inclusive. Sometimes, people hear a different phrase that rhymes, but is less fun: fully abusive. I know it’s a lot to take in, but I’ll say it again for all the people in the back, God’s love is fully inclusive and not abusive. This means it’s time to stop hating friends, relatives, and coworkers who are gay. Conversion therapy is never a good idea. Instead, we should show up at [insert the name of a queer person you know]’s wedding without protest. Jesus will be right there with them, maybe even the best man, because His love is fully inclusive and not abusive.
Conclusion
To the queer Christian reading this: I wish it was that easy to convince people that God doesn’t want them to be abusive and supports full inclusion, but it’s usually not. That’s why I, first, want to share these crisis lines with you (specifically, call the Trevor Project if you need someone who can understand LGBT+ issues to talk to you). Second, watch Love, Victor on Hulu and listen to my podcast episode about it. Third, God loves you exactly as you are–an ally, a queer Christian, or somewhere in between.
