What If We Were More Concerned With The Plight Of The Poor Than We Are With Sex?
by Roy Howard
Raise your hand if you think the Church is obsessed with sex, and especially homosexuality. If you read the news reports with any regularity you might think there is absolutely nothing else worth discussing in the minds of church folks. Okay. I admit that’s a bit over the top; but not by far. Every other day there is a news report about some church fight over what to do with gay and lesbians Christians who might actually desire to serve the people of God in leadership. Last week it was the struggles of the Episcopal Church to carefully avoid a schism that would further the current bizarre situation of having a Nigerian bishop providing pastoral guidance for a congregation in the marshlands of South Carolina.
During the same week the Presbyterians were scrupulously interrogating candidates for ordinations to ensure compliance with ordination standards barring homosexual candidates. We are not alone – all the churches seem obsessed with the same subject – and last week the international community got involved when one of the world’s more despicable leaders spoke at Columbia. Of all the outrageous things he said, the one that seemed to create the most buzz had to do with … guess what … homosexuality, or the absence thereof.
What is the deal? Okay, I admit, it was a laughable moment but I wish the buzz were about some of his other not-so laughable moments that seriously threaten the planet, not to mention Israel and Jews everywhere.
While I respect the desire for high moral standards among clergy and hear the vigorous disagreement over what that means with regard to sexual orientation, I am certain there are more pressing matters that the people of God might attend to if we weren’t otherwise distracted by such scrupulously narrow attention to gay and lesbian Christians. Perhaps it is our unfailing ability to be distracted that allows us to avoid the disturbing realities of the world’s poor that are at our doorstep. Endless discussions over who to bar from serving the Church, quibbling over obscure biblical passages, demanding a righteousness among some that no one, other than Jesus could match, distracts serious attention to the fact that 6 million people are dying each year from preventable diseases malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.
I think we should focus our attention on that fact alone just long enough for it to make us seriously uncomfortable. Do not reach for the remote control, don’t fast forward to the celebrity news or switch to the game. Let us simply sit with the fact that according to the best estimates of medical experts 6 million people, many of them children, will die from lack of vaccines for malaria, tuberculosis and HIV. Why? Because good vaccines to treat these diseases don’t even exist.
Do you think just maybe God would even be pleased if we paid more attention to that problem than figuring out how many ways we can distract ourselves over sex?