My Doodling:
PINK DOT SG is a non-profit movement that’s calling on anyone who supports the freedom for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Singaporeans to love and be loved. Apparently, this is NOT a protest or parade. Watch the publicity clip here>>>.
I’m thinking out loud if local churches should encourage their members to be there as an act of love and acceptance towards LGBT? What do you think? Would like to hear your views.
Andrew: Inside & Insights 
i personally tink that this should not be encouraged. Acceptance or support is seen as an an encuragement fo their LGBT lifestyle..
We should steer clear from such.
Hmmm… but how to explain and reconcile from what we read in the Gospels of Matthew 9:10-13 (see below) when we see Jesus mixing with tax collectors and sinners?
Possibly sinners could have include adulterers, prostitutes, gamblers or even gays.
Was Jesus encouraging their lifestyle of sin by going to their dinner and fellowshipping with them?
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples.
When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
I think both of you guys raised up very good points.
Definitely, there’s nothing against having dinner and being friends, close friends some more, with them. ‘Cos they’re fellow humans, whom God loves and likes to be with.
But think it’ll be wise not to go for this event, ‘cos even though the heart may be pure in wanting to demonstrate that the Church can and does love and accept people with alternative lifestyles… the thing is, by going to these events, wouldn’t it be taken by others as an indirect condoning of homosexuality itself per se?
Going to a house belonging to a “homosexual” and enjoying their friendship is, I think, a separate issue from attending a meeting that promotes the “freedom to love and be loved”. That may stumble some people, whether Christian or non-Christians, I think.
What do you guys think?
For me, I choose to see it (PINK DOT SG) simply as a platform to get to make more friends especially with LBGTs. And also to be able to learn abt their world in order to better understand and identify with them (c.f. Hebs 13:3).
In fact, I was thinking if only this event was headed by Christians to encourage society to love and accept LBGTs. Wow… that would have been awesome.
Hence, I think it is sad that the Church has failed to play its role in society to a certain extend since it should be the one that stands up for the oppressed, ostracized, poor and needy in society. But the reverse couldn’t be more true in non-obvious manners.
Now it seems we only sit up in an ivory tower to judge approve or disapprove what is right and wrong around us. Somehow I think we have forgotten that we have been saved for others and not for ourselves.
To your question, I think it is quite hard to give a firm YES or No answer. Cos even when Jesus mixed with the sinners (at a simple affair), others especially the Pharisees were “stumbled”. So how? It means even a meeting sure cannot lor… =P
My verdict is you cannot please everybody but need to please God first and foremost. And the Jesus I know is not afraid to love, even with the cost involved.
Just my frank opinion and thoughts.
For me, I think what andrew has thought of is a great idea to show our love and acceptance.
Personally, I have a few gay friends. Sadly, church is one of the last places they would want to go. I don’t blame them.. who would want to go to a place where you get nothing but rejection and judgement? So I guess if you sincerely want to reach out to them, you would have to go to them instead.
As a christian, I believe homosexuals are an abomination. But the truth is, I am also an abomination– we all are, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. While we are proclaiming that we do not condone homosexual lifestyle…I guess we forgot that we have our own fair share of engagment to our own insatiable appetites of flesh and compromises of the heart.
Homosexual or not, i think an even more serious issue is that underneath the skin, all of us are trying to fill the hole in our soul with something that can bring us destruction…or salvation. We are all seeking some sort of grace in our lives, something to ease the pain of our existence, our loneliness, our brokenness.So yeah…let’s stop trying to approve or disapprove what is right and wrong around us and let’s try being Christ to one another instead..