The Review

Andrew Marin is sure to ruffle some evangelical feathers with Love is an Orientation. This book asks – and tries to answer – some very tough questions about the contentious relationship between the evangelical church and the LGBT community. In it, Marin takes exception to the “love the sinner, hate the sin” mentality that has shaped much of the Christian thinking around homosexuality, seeking instead for a way to “elevate the dialogue” between the two communities beyond its current state of animosity.

Marin’s concern for ministry in the gay community began during his college years, when three of his closest friends came out to him within three months. He was stunned, not knowing how to deal with the fact that three people he cared deeply about were suddenly in a category of person he’d been taught to condemn.

Over the years that followed, Marin spent a lot of time listening to gay people. Not preaching at, listening to. And before anyone jumps to conclusions, no, he is not a theological liberal trying to prove that God promotes homosexuality. His concerned is with how to build a bridge between evangelicals and the gay community, because he thinks that what we’ve been doing doesn’t seem to be working. Love is an Orientation distills a lot of what he has learned through years of dialogue and through leading Bible studies for people in the LGBT community. Basically, it’s about loving people when love is risky and when they might well not love you back. It’s from the heart, thoughtful, and groundbreaking. Read it with an open mind. I loved it!

Q&A With Andrew Marin

I love the book but as I was reading I kept wondering, why is this not common sense? Why does the church struggle with this so much?

A big part of the reason is that divisiveness has clouded the culture war. When that happens, common sense doesn’t come to mind. Sometimes, someone needs to come into the conversation with a new perspective. I spent eight and a half years of my life looking at this issue and trying to figure out how to reconcile myself with it. What I found is that culture, the world, and both the gay and Christian communities were all waiting for someone or something to let them know that they each have a part in the conversation. Outside all the debate, there needs to be another medium of conversation, and we, the Christian community, need to be the ones who own this.

There is mainstream secular culture, and there is mainstream evangelical culture, and secular culture always points to evangelical culture as being close-minded bad guys. What the secular culture sees is the Glenn Becks and the Jerry Falwells arguing back, and it’s a fight. What we need to do as a Christian community is step into humility and elevate the conversation to reclaim the simple things that we believe about loving others. What I’ve learned is that all areas of my life are working toward biblical reconciliation with others.

In the book you talk a great deal about elevating the conversation with the gay community. Can you talk a little bit about what that means?

Well, first of all sexuality is an infinite continuum. Infinite meaning it goes on and on, and continuum meaning it starts at the far left and moves to the far right. Each individual’s personal beliefs, behaviors, and ideas about sexuality fall somewhere on that continuum, and that’s where we get our identity. Ultimately, all of this is about changing the conversation while still holding on to what we believe. But we need to find a new starting point with broader kingdom principles, as a broader, holistic community. And that is uncomfortable. We need to get to a point where we are OK living in that tension.

One of the problems with the church is that we are often having a conversation about the gay community without including them. So how do we maintain who we are but actually bring them into a conversation about spiritual things? Humility is difficult because it’s not satisfying, and on top of that, we don’t really know what it looks like to live with our enemies. Proverbs 16:7 says, “When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his enemies live at peace with him.” What we’re taught to do is live at peace with our enemies and, in turn, have our enemies live at peace with us. When we’re able to do that, reconciliation happens. That’s the embodiment of Christ. Jesus came into the earth not as the prince everybody thought he would come as, but as a humble baby born in a barn. We think of his death on the cross as reconciliation between us and God, which is true and critically important. But we miss that his life up to that point was about showing us how to reconcile us human to human.

Is building bridges between the church and the gay community difficult?

It shouldn’t be. It’s something we’ve done a million times before all over the world with other groups. We’ve had this humble, service-oriented type approach to inner cities and foreign missions. It’s all been done before. We have to get past being resistant to serving this community. The lesson of Jonah 4 is about how to be in an authentic community with your enemies. In that passage we see what God’s compassion is like for those enemies. That’s our model, not what we see on Fox News or in the mainstream evangelical culture movement. Our example is God.

What role do you think the church should play in engaging with the LGBT community?

Andrew Marin is the author of Love is an Orientation and the President and Founder of The Marin Foundation, a non-profit organization that seeks to build bridges between the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) and religious communities through scientific research and biblical and social education. The foundations unique approach partners with both religious and GLBT organizations striving to make a sustainable, structural difference for the Kingdom in today’s socially driven secular and religious cultures. The foundation is also conducting the largest national scientific research study ever done in the GLBT community regarding spirituality and religion.

Follow Andrew on Facebook, Twitter, and his blog and pick up his book on Amazon.com