Reacting to the Day of Silence?

Last year I blogged about the Christian response to “The Day of Silence.” It’s called “The Day of Truth,” and I’ll tell you up front… I’m not a big fan. This year I’ve been getting emails about both days… so in response to the inquiries, I’m reposting last year’s blog. Here goes…

The Day of What? (modified from it’s original 4/21/2008 version)

Why is it that Christians always feel that they need to “stand up for their rights” and speak out against organizations, or governments that are caught up in sin?

Where is this in the Bible?

It’s probably no secret to some of you that today was the pro-homosexual tolerance Day of Silence. This day brings attention to the anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. I’m not going to address the issue of homo-sexuality in this blog. I’ve addressed it before in blogs and articles. In this blog I’m simply addressing our RESPONSE to the world when we don’t like what we see. (and I’m going to highlight an example of how NOT to respond)

Why do Christians think that picket signs or protesting is the answer?

Let me ask you: name one person you know that accepted Christ because someone “protested” them into the Kingdom.

So why do Christians feel the need to do this?

Oh… I know why. It’s because when Jesus looked at the corrupt government of his day (Are you aware of what was going on in Herod’s house at the time?) he must have responded by gathering a mob and picketing the immoral lifestyle… wait… just a second… you mean… he didn’t? Well maybe he started a website, organizing people to protest in another way? No?

Hmmmmmm.

Well, Christians have created their own day in response to the Day of Silence called The Day of Truth. On Monday, April 20, 2009, some Christians have decided to establish this day to “counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective… The Day of Truth provides an opportunity to publicly exercise our free speech rights.”

When I saw this I immediately thought of a few conversations I’ve had with Dan Kimball on the subject. Dan is a Christian speaker and author who believes engaging in homosexual acts is a sin, but shows incredible compassion and love to the homosexual community (He touches on this in our podcast with him, Podcast Episode #12 and in his powerful book, They Like Jesus, But Not the Church). I asked Dan his opinion about this Christian response- The Day of Truth. Dan gave me some quick thoughts:

i think those types of things end up doing more harm than good. i would encourage parents to be talking with their teenagers and youth leaders addressing it wisely in their ministries, but doing a public event at a high school i am not sure is beneficial to the direction of hope.  i would encourage the Christian teenagers to simply be friends with gay students and pro-gay students, and in the context of friendships the message of jesus will come through. I don’t know if formalizing a date to do it only reinforces things and we lose our voice. 

I can’t agree more.

Earlier this year many of us saw statistics of just how bad we look to the rest of the world. Only 16% of unchurched people had positive things to say about Christians. The majority of them used words like “hypocrite” and “judgemental” to describe us. The other term they use is “anti-homosexual.”

It all comes down to this. The Day of Truth web site is not without good intentions. They seem to be seeking conversation with homosexuals. Their cards bear this as part of their message:

It’s time for an honest conversation about homosexuality.
There’s freedom to change if you want to.
Let’s talk.

I think talking is good. But here’s what I’ll leave you with: If our goal is conversations, do you really think a formal day of “speaking out” will create conversations with homo-sexuals? Or will it build walls?

Some great comments to this blog last year here.