A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to be featured on a Christian TV show highlighting The Marin Foundation. Before the taping of The Marin Foundation’s segment, I had a chance to sit in the green room and talk to the man who was going to be taping an earlier segment for the same program. This man was a prominent conservative theologian, Bible scholar and professor at a major evangelical university. An opportunity to dialogue with such a person excites me, as I am always intrigued to hear what scholars who are more seasoned have to say, in order to benchmark my thoughts, feelings and theories. In discussing our respective subject matters, I brought up that I was there to speak about the GLBT community with regard to spirituality/religion and the Lord Jesus. As I spoke, this man shook his head in disagreement to everything I had to say, telling me that he disagreed with the organization’s objective towards having alliances and building bridges within the GLBT community. There are some battles worth fighting and this was not one of them; so I just continued to prepare for my segment.

Intrigued as I was with the man’s disgust for The Marin Foundation, I was very interested to hear his segment. At first, when the moderator and the guest began to talk, I just sat back and listened in order to try to gauge his stated thought processes; and everything he said seemed to go along with the general conservative Christian way of thinking. Then out of left field, the guest began to speak about his family. He said that he has two children here on Earth, and two children in Heaven. The moderator delved further, and it soon came out that his eldest daughter had committed suicide when she was thirty years old, after living her life heavily involved in drugs, alcohol and illegal prescription medication. Who was I to sit there and say that what this father believes was right or wrong? I did not know his daughter, nor did I know her relationship with the Lord; and neither did anyone else in that room. But as everyone continued to remain silent to let this man complete his story, he spoke further about finding her diary and reading her entry the day before she ended her life. As he recalled, she had written that she did not know why she did what she did, and that she did not know why she did not just follow God; but rather that it was too late for her to turn back.

Soon after, the moderator asked the father how he justified himself as a parent. The answer to this question by the father, the response received from the other guests and moderator, and the subsequent connection made within the story is the whole point for retelling this event. The father’s justification for himself as a parent was because Jesus was the best leader to ever live, and one of his own disciples had committed suicide as well. As I heard this, I sat completely puzzled, because I connected this statement to the man’s earlier assertion that his daughter was in Heaven. Was he saying that he knew his daughter still loved the Lord through all of her problems, and that is why she is in Heaven? Or maybe he was trying to say that he believes in everlasting salvation, in that once a person is saved, they are always saved? But through all of this, his statement did not come out like that. Rather, it sounded to me as though he was justifying his belief that his daughter was in Heaven because Jesus’ own disciple, Judas, also committed suicide.

What I have learned more than anything else through this encounter was that topics such as suicide can provoke reactions just as strong as the GLBT community, and with as differing of theological interpretations. This man’s comments, as I take them to their logical end, can be looked at as logically defensible as a father attempting with everything he has, to try to come to grips with his eldest daughter committing suicide. Yet, it has been the conclusion to this story that has caused me a great deal of distress. When this comment was made, every other person in the room began to nod his head in agreement with his analogy! I sat there astonished…and speechless. No matter what the intention could have been on the father’s part to explain his justification, his answer still came across as a connection to Jesus and Judas.

In almost everything I do, I try to relate my experiences to the context of The Marin Foundation, the GLBT community, and the religious community. After this occurrence, I wondered how this one person with intellectual knowledge of the word could justify himself as a parent with a child in Heaven though she by her own account had fallen away from God, and yet condemn the potential eternal salvation for those in the GLBT community without a second thought. Has our broader mindset been so skewed that we can no longer see someone’s soul, but rather we can only see someone’s sexual orientation?

I am asking you all today to take a moment to step back and assess what you truly believe. Is God’s power too weak to love the heart and soul of someone within the GLBT community? Are you going to, just as many others before you, go out of your way to find the illogical rationale to comfort your own mind, while disregarding the potential of salvation for those in the GLBT community? Together, let’s not diminish our God’s strength, power and love by passing judgments, but rather move forward in our Lord’s work for the GLBT community.

Thank you and God Bless,

Andrew Marin