In 2015, the Supreme Court (in Obergefell v. Hodges) voted to legalize so-called same-sex marriage in all fifty states. With this decision came the concept of “dignitary harm,” declaring the failure to affirm LGBTQ+ identity a damaging harm to those who define themselves by these letters. While the gospel of Jesus Christ affirms only one fundamental identity — male or female image-bearers of a holy God (Genesis 1:27) — the laws of the land declare that how you feel is now who you are.

In 2020, the Supreme Court (in Bostock v. Clayton) added LGBTQ+ to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, thus making that which God calls sin a protected civil right. This decision led to changes in Title 9, the landmark federal civil-rights law of 1972 that prohibited sex-based discrimination in government schools and sports programs. Americans live in a nation of redefined terms, including “sex,” which now means “gender identity.” This explains why it is legal for biological men to play women’s sports and undress in women’s locker rooms.

In 2021, the U.S. government, following Bostock and the redefined Title 9, promoted a federally mandated anti-bullying program for use in government schools — all of them. A “bully” is now someone who refuses to be an ally to the LGBTQ+ movement.

Such are the times in which we live. And we are tempted to believe that these cultural circumstances make us strangers and exiles in a world that once embraced our values. But that’s not the whole story.

What Makes Us Strangers?

Biblical giants such as Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Sarah, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and others “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). When political dangers in a post-Christian society threaten loss of reputation, job, or even life, we are tempted to conclude that our pilgrim and exile status came through recent circumstances.

But that misses the all-important point: we are exiles and strangers not primarily by circumstance but by confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is no doubt that the personal relationship believers have with Jesus Christ is our greatest comfort in this world — and the next one. But there is an additional side to our Christian witness that we must not neglect — the side that understands the ascended Christ sitting at the right hand of God the Father. Christ’s exaltation — his heavenly enthronement at God’s right hand — positions him as Head over all things, in fulfillment of the Great Commission, for the sake of his bride, the church, and the blessing of the world (Ephesians 1:22; Matthew 28:18).

Our station as exiles and strangers surely tests our faith. And this test may tempt us to take cover in one of two extremes: hiding with passive piety in private or fighting with worldly anger in public. The former elevates our personal relationship with our Lord and Savior over his state of exaltation (Psalm 2:10–12). The latter elevates the exaltation of Christ as King as something separate from the Great Commission.

Exiles with an Open Door

Practicing hospitality — loving strangers — is one vital way to bring together our personal relationship with Jesus with honoring him as King. We can practice hospitality with joy in a post-Christian society — and we must.

Where should we start?

1. Your Church

Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. (Romans 12:13)

On many a Lord’s Day, you meet strangers at church, visitors who may have traveled a long way to arrive at the pew next to you. Get into the regular practice of having your house ready to provide spontaneous guests with a meal after church. The meal does not have to be elaborate. A short respite of fruit and snacks along with Christian fellowship and prayer is a welcome treat for weary travelers.

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (Hebrews 13:1–2)

God commands us to show hospitality to strangers — a category that includes both believers and unbelievers — and he has set aside blessings for us when we obey. Who are the people in your church easy to neglect? Older and younger singles? Shut-ins? Young mothers? Work with your church to develop consistent opportunities for singles to be in your home, and together develop an outreach to those unable to leave their homes.

Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. (1 Peter 4:9)

Often, we fall into grumbling when we feel that we are shouldering a hard task alone. Don’t practice hospitality alone. Have you considered organizing a regular Lord’s Day lunch after worship for all who wish to join? This can be done at the church building directly after worship, and if you do this every week, the routine becomes something that everyone looks forward to. Every household could simply bring a Crock-Pot with a favorite dish. Sharing the hospitality duties with others makes for more joy, less awkwardness, and no grumbling.

2. Your Neighborhood

For over a decade now, my husband and I have invited neighbors over for food and fellowship. Last year, we invited neighbors to join us in Christmas caroling. We delivered handmade cards and invited everyone on the block to come over before going out to sing. Over thirty people came, some even bringing extended family members from out of town.

“Hospitality is a command for a reason: it never fails to show Christian compassion to the stranger in need.”

We gathered in the house, and our associate pastor, Drew Poplin, delivered an evangelistic message, reading from Luke 2 and introducing Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save sinners just like us. We prayed, distributed songbooks, and headed out the door. The children squealed in delight, ringing sleigh bells, forging ahead of the grown-ups to gather at open, welcoming doors. Accompanied by our pastor’s guitar and strong voice, we sang our hearts out, sometimes even in four-part harmony! When it was too dark to keep a careful eye on children and dogs, we returned to our house for coffee and cookies.

My new neighbor, Jacob, asked if I would hold his sleepy toddler, Jimmy, while he poured himself a cup of coffee. After some small talk about where they live, when they moved in, and general glee about the fun night we were all experiencing, Jacob said, “Hey, I read about you in the newspaper, and I have a question for you.”

I told him to ask me anything.

“You seem like a nice lady. So, why do you hate trans folks?” Jacob asked.

“I don’t hate anyone,” I replied. “I’m a Christian, and I truly love all of my neighbors. But I hate worldviews that lie to people about who we are — image-bearers of God. Because worldviews have consequences and bad ones have casualties, I hate transgender ideology.”

“Why?” Jacob inquired.

I shifted Jimmy on my hip and held him up, saying, “This is why. Jimmy is a boy, and I will defend his right to be a boy.”

Jacob nodded in complete agreement. It turns out that Jacob works in the school system, and he, a young white man, feels both the squeeze of political correctness and the threat of job loss.

“So why do you speak at school-board meetings when they hate you?” he asked.

“I believe that my job as a Christian is to restore truth to the public square. I worked on the bill that became the Parental Rights Law. I think parents have the right to protect their children and that enrolling a child in public schools does not make the school a co-parent.”

Jacob nodded his head and said that finding truth in the public square seems harder and harder. I introduced him to some of the other Christians in the neighborhood, also milling about the kitchen looking for coffee and cookies, and soon we had a lively discussion about parental rights underway, with phone numbers swapped and invitations to churches pouring out.

3. Your City

I’m a twenty-year veteran of homeschooling, but I care deeply about the Christians whose children are enrolled in the public school system for the simple reason that I am a Christian. We are called to let our reasonableness be known to all men (Philippians 4:5), and some of those men (and women) are on the school board.

Parental-rights laws across the nation have been hotly contested by school boards. Last year, I and others from local churches in Durham prepared three-minute speeches explaining and defending parental rights and responsibilities and the concerns we all had about the activist “science” behind transgenderism. Although these meetings are stressful, we stick around to talk to the people who oppose our message. “This is the world that Jesus came to save,” my 21-year-old son, who accompanies me to these meetings, often reminds me. We have found that people are people, and that all people need Christ.

Last year, we had the privilege of having dinner with a family whose gender-anxious and autistic son had been living a secret life as a girl at school. It took the parents two years to uncover the truth, and they were flabbergasted to realize that concealing this important information from them was legal under Title 9. They happily received our invitation to talk, and we exchanged phone numbers and addresses. When the night arrived to host this family, we were delighted to discover that we shared many things in common. Throughout the dinner, the parents peppered us with questions about God: Who is he? Does he care about me? After dinner, my husband led in family devotions: Bible reading and prayer.

We learned that parents are often treated like the enemy by the transgender movement, and they — and their children — are in great need of the gospel. For many people who have been ferried down the transgender conveyor belt — traveling from social transition (false pronouns and clothes) to hormonal transition (cross-sex hormones) to surgical transition (genital mutilation) — the great promise of glory, of a new heaven and a new earth where souls and bodies of believers are reunited and glorified, is uniquely cherished. That family we invited to dinner after a school board meeting is now attending church, and their son is healing from the hurt of those years.

Hospitality is a command for a reason: it never fails to show Christian compassion to the stranger in need. Practicing hospitality in a post-Christian society loves the stranger while remembering that we too are strangers and exiles by confession and not merely circumstance.

The Christian grandmother, talking with me about her daughter and grandson, was heartbroken.

As her daughter unveiled her new life, beliefs, and rules, this grandmother felt the ground was no longer solid. She raised this prayed-for daughter in the church. As a teenager, her daughter made a profession of faith. But then everything changed. The daughter rapid-fired her war against “heterosexism” and the new rules that would be mandatory for any future relationship. She demanded exclusive use of preferred names and pronouns. And she told her mother she could never share Bible verses or church lessons that contradicted LGBTQ+ beliefs.

This grandmother was sure she couldn’t keep the rules straight in her head even if she tried. She could barely understand what “heterosexism” was, although her daughter had explained it many times as “the dangerous belief that heterosexuality is normal.” Why would anyone go to war against this? the grandmother wondered.

Wrong Side of History

The ultimatums and blackmail landed hard: failure to comply resulted in being cut out, disowned. Her daughter, Jade, declared herself “non-binary” and used the pronouns “they” and “he.” Her three-year-old grandson, Allan, would now be raised as a girl and addressed as Sierra, presumably because he wore a tiara at a child’s birthday party and liked it. None of this made sense. The grandmother was sure her daughter was deluded by some social contagion.

This grandmother wanted to do the right thing. She tried to find the middle road and walk the thin line that allowed her to retain a relationship with her daughter, but she wondered: Am I on the wrong side of history? Should I comply with my daughter when I believe she is seriously deluded? And what about my grandson? Is he a “trans” child or an abused one? She asked herself, What if I get it wrong?

When the grandmother reached out to her pastor, he didn’t know what to say. He told her to extend empathy and try to see things from her daughter’s point of view. The small group she attended was divided on what to do as well. Some people in her small group even warned her against being “transphobic” and told her anyone can be trans and Christian, or gay and Christian. Is this true? she wondered. Some people in her small group treated her like she caused her daughter’s problems.

Life in the War Zone

I know there are many sides to stories like these.

I know for years some evangelical leaders have wanted to understand this story from the LGBTQ+ perspective, some even sponsoring gay-sensitivity checklists and conferences. But what about the grandmother? Does her point of view matter? And what about God’s? Romans 3:4 makes God’s perspective the priority: “Let God be true though every one were a liar.” What God reveals about our lives is the true truth. The Bible knows us and our needs better than we do. And that is the very best news of all.

This grandmother’s family and church life had suddenly become a war zone, and she is not alone. I hear stories like this almost every day. If you, like the grandmother, have ever felt that you live amid a civil war, you are not alone either. On the one hand, we expect the church to conflict with the world. Indeed, John Calvin tells us to “count the rage of the whole world as nothing” (365 Days with Calvin, March 19). We see the rage of unbelief all around us. We understand the rage of the world because we remember when we were once God’s enemy.

It’s not conflict with the world that surprises us; the division within the visible church confounds us. Our Lord calls us to walk in unity amid this “crooked and twisted generation” (Philippians 2:15). He does not ask us to become compliant with its perversion, and especially when the world demands as much. Jesus calls us to model the fathomless unity of the holy Trinity: “that they may be one even as we are one” (John 17:22). But how can we do this when some use the Bible to call sinners to repentance and others use the Bible to call the repentant to sin?

These are the times in which we live, and Christians must face the facts.

Three Subtle Reasons

I believe there are three reasons for our divided churches. And these three reasons have unleashed five lies that many evangelical churches have embraced.

Because I have believed all these lies at different points in my life, I understand how seductive they are. God knows the times in which we live and has provided a solution. Our calling is to repent of the lies that we have believed and attempt to stay connected with loved ones lost to them — and without our becoming indoctrinated. Easy to say, but impossible to do without God’s help. What are the three reasons?

REASON 1

First, we have failed to see that the seeds of the gospel are in the garden.

Many of us foolishly believed that we could reinvent our calling as men and women, render men and women interchangeable, defy God’s pattern and purpose for the sexes, and somehow reap God’s blessing.

God’s plan for men and women — the creation ordinance — is first found in Genesis 1, and it is central — not peripheral — to the gospel of Jesus Christ: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it’” (Genesis 1:27–28).

We bear the image of God by growing in the knowledge, righteousness, and holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:24). Homosexuality and transgenderism represent forms of rebellion against God’s creation ordinance and image-bearing. They are manifestations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and must be repented of, not celebrated.

Homosexuality and transgenderism are not part of anyone’s creational design, no matter what our feelings say. Our feelings are not free of sin, and they don’t trump God’s truth. Christ promises to forgive and restore all who repent and trust in him for salvation. Christ does not make an ally with the sins his blood crushes on the cross and washes clean. There is hope for all in the gospel.

REASON 2

Second, we have failed to read the times in which we live (Romans 13:11–14; Luke 12:56).

In the 2015 case Obergefell v. Hodges, the United States Supreme Court declared so-called gay marriage the law of the land. It also introduced the idea of “dignitary harm.” According to Obergefell, we are harming someone’s dignity by failing to “affirm” their LGBTQ+ identity.

In our post-Obergefell world, we now have two competing ideas of what it means to be human — and these ideas have collided. The Freudian/Obergefell idea is that sexual orientation is an accurate category of personhood; LGBTQ+ is who you are rather than how you feel. After Obergefell, laws quickly were put in place to honor, affirm, and celebrate being LGBTQ+. The biblical idea, however, is that bearing the image of God according to eternal and creational categories of man or woman determines who you are. It’s Obergefell or Christ: you either celebrate and affirm your sin nature, or you repent of the culpable and unchosen sin nature you inherit in Adam.

REASON 3

Third, we have failed to love our enemies and instead pretended that our enemies are our friends.

Many of us have failed to understand that loving our enemies is an act of godly confrontation, a weapon of our warfare and a great kindness (2 Corinthians 10:4). Christian love destroys arguments and lofty opinions raised against Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Christian love doesn’t pretend that the world is a safe place or that the enemies of Christ are harmless — even if they are your daughter. Christian love seeks to make friends out of enemies through repentance and forgiveness. Christian love doesn’t delude us into believing that sin is no big deal, or that we are more merciful than God. Pretending our enemies are our friends is a cowardly cop-out.

Five Seductive Lies

These three reasons have introduced five lies into far too many evangelical churches. The five lies coalesce in rejection of biblical authority, defiance against Christ, and celebration of pride.

Lie #1: Homosexuality is a normal sexual variant.Lie #2: Being a “spiritual person” is kinder than being a biblical Christian.Lie #3: Feminism is good for the church and the world.Lie #4: Transgenderism is a normal gender variant.Lie #5: Modesty is an outdated burden that serves male dominance and holds women back.

These five lies rely on several false claims, but the biggest is the feminist invention that “gender” is distinct from biological sex. To create false categories of personhood, and then try to build a Christian life on top of them, is futile and foolish. As pastor Christopher J. Gordon puts it in The New Reformation Catechism on Human Sexuality, “To introduce gender as a new category of personhood, separate from the biological category of sex, in pursuit of a different sexual identity, is unnatural to the creation order and harmful for the purpose for which God made us” (13).

God promises that lies — even prominent ones that have become foundational to powerful governments and academic institutions — do not have the last word. He tells us that only the truth will set us free. As Jesus says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32). Jesus does not say freedom will come if you stand in the shoes of your “non-binary” grandchild by inviting a “gay Christian” ministry into your church, or if you march in the pride parade with your lesbian daughter, or if you go to your son’s gay wedding. It’s not kindness to stand in someone’s shoes when that person needs to be rescued.

Freed from the Fear of Man

The Bible calls the fear of man a snare (Proverbs 29:25) — an instrument of execution from which you cannot extricate yourself. But as my husband says a lot, the gospel sets you free from the fear of man. So, if you find yourself wondering if you are on the wrong side of history, and if you have all of this wrong, remember the blood of Christ. Remember how it bore down on demons and delivered you from hell. Remember how Jesus became a curse so that you could receive blessing. Remember that the truth of Christ sets you free, not compliance with lies.

Understand the times. Know the reasons. Defy the lies. And love your enemies well enough to tell the truth.

But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. (Luke 6:27–28)

Over two decades ago, on an unusually hot July evening in Syracuse, New York, I stood on Pastor Ken Smith’s porch and knocked on the door. I had been doing this for months, dining with my enemies.

I was a lesbian feminist activist English professor at Syracuse University. I thought I was doing research on this odd tribe of people called Christians, people who stood in the way of full civil rights for gay people like me. Ken was the pastor of the Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian Church. On that July night, Ken opened the door and warmly embraced me and welcomed me inside. Dining with my enemies was a fascinating experience. It made me feel like a bona fide liberal.

I knew I was on enemy territory. But I didn’t believe that I was the enemy. How could I be? I was on the side of social justice, reparations for the disempowered, racial reconciliation, and equitable inclusion for all.

Identifying the Enemy

For years — and before I became a believer and Ken became my pastor — I enjoyed the company of the Smiths’ table fellowship. I sat under Ken’s family devotions and joined in the Psalm singing. And then, at this July dinner, I realized it. I wasn’t the victim dining with my persecutors. I wasn’t at the enemy’s table. I was the enemy.

I thought I was on the right side of history. It was my undoing to finally realize that it was Jesus I was persecuting the whole time. Not some historical figure named Jesus. But King Jesus. The Jesus who was this world’s sovereign King and would become my Lord. My Jesus. My Prophet, Priest, King, Friend, Brother, and Savior. That Jesus.

I don’t like thinking about the fact that I was the enemy who hated, the enemy who cursed, and the enemy who abused. But it’s true. And instead of hating me back, Ken Smith assembled such a wide team of prayer warriors that I likely won’t meet all of the believers who prayed for my salvation until heaven.

From Cursing to Cursed

As soon as the Lord claimed me for himself, I had the opportunity to model what had been given to me: to love, do good, bless, and pray for those who curse me. It’s a lot harder than it sounds.

Everyone from the lesbian partner I broke up with, to the graduate students in Queer Theory whose Ph.D. dissertations I could no longer supervise, to the LGBTQ+ undergraduate student groups I could no longer support felt the stunning betrayal. I had changed my allegiance. Were their secrets still safe with me? I was disappointing almost everyone I loved because I believed in Jesus — the real Jesus who reveals himself in the Bible. My treachery to my lesbian community was only bearable through my union with Christ.

In such circumstances, union with Christ is the source of a Christian’s love that overcomes hatred: spiritual, unbreakable, irreplaceable, and eternal. It springs from the power of Christ’s resurrection, in which every believer abides. Conflict with others is never pleasant. It is disarming, disillusioning, and depressing. Union with Christ is our active comfort.

Cursing Continues

More recently (about a year ago), I found myself under attack again, and this time on three different fronts.

A national LGBTQ+ rights group grew angry with me as the 2020 PRIDE Parade was canceled for the first time in fifty years. Christians from a discernment ministry believed that I was too charitable in my evangelism in the LGBTQ community. Self-described gay Christians believed that I was too harsh in my rejection of “gay Christianity.” It was tempting to handle this in the flesh — to wish that all of these people could be locked in the same room and wrestle it out.

But that is not what God calls us to do when we’re under attack. God calls us to love our enemies. This season was spiritually rich with Psalm singing and reflection, repentance, and prayer. As the negative attacks intensified, the words of the great Puritan John Owen started to make sense. Owen considers union with Christ “the cause of all other graces a believer receives” (A Puritan Theology, 485). This is because union with Christ depends first on Christ knowing you.

Known by Christ

The issue for the suffering Christian isn’t first if you know Christ. Rather, the first issue is: does Christ know you? Union with Christ is first about Christ knowing you. Suffering for Christ is a great privilege. It is the privilege of John 10:27: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” Because Jesus knows the believer, we hear him, we follow him, and we suffer with him.

“God’s comfort is power. It’s not meant merely to make us feel better. It’s meant to make us more like Jesus.”

Do you want to know why the church lacks unity? Because we try to build our unity on issues — on where we stand on pressing matters of the day. But unity does not and will never derive from shared loyalty to issues. Christian unity flows from our union with Christ because he alone equips us to die to ourselves.

The comfort we find in Christ is not a passive repose in our favorite recliner. Even in the English language, comfort is an old word hearkening from the Middle Ages and referring to needed moral and physical strengthening. Comfort is active. God gives us comfort because we are too weak to go on, and his comfort enlivens us. God’s comfort is power. It’s not meant merely to make us feel better. It’s meant to make us more like Jesus.

Fellowship of Suffering

The Heidelberg Catechism declares that our “only comfort in life and death” will not be found in any of the values to which I had decades ago committed my life: social justice, reparations for the disempowered, racial reconciliation, and equitable inclusion for all. No. My only comfort in life and death, says the majestic Heidelberg, is

that I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who with his precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, wherefore by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him. (emphasis added)

What’s the big difference between a believer and an unbeliever? The believer does not belong to himself.

What does the experience of hatred, abuse, slander, and unjust discrimination mean to a believer? It means that, under God’s providence, these painful circumstances are “subservient to my salvation.” The hatred that a believer receives is subservient, which means that it is instrumental; it is a means to an end. And what is that end? To join in the “fellowship of his suffering” (Philippians 3:10 KJV). To grow in sanctification. To become more like Jesus.

Persecution Has a Master

Luke’s words are directed only to believers, to “you who hear.” Someone with a new heart, receptive ears, and bright eyes. We live in a noisy world — podcasts, television, social media, and so on — but Jesus is telling us to hear him.

“Persecution is subservient — it is a means to an end. And that end is your sanctification.”

What an amazing privilege it is to be someone chosen, elected, saved, justified, sanctified, and daily guided by the King of kings and Lord of lords. If nothing else is good in your life except that Jesus has unstopped your ears, you are already more blessed than any persecution or persecutor that comes your way. Persecution is subservient — it is a means to an end. And that end is your sanctification.

In God’s providence, as believers, we will have many opportunities to love, do good, bless, and pray for those who hate us. And as God enlarges our hearts by his Spirit, comforting us through union with Christ and assuring us of his sovereignty, we will not fail to do so.