Joel Osteen’s Big Gay Problem

Illinois has approved gay marriage and it appears that Hawaii may not be far behind as well.  A Virginia has a newly elected governor who unabashedly campaigned supporting gay marriage.  The world is indeed changing.  With 15 states and the District of Columbia granting full gay marriage and numerous lawsuits challenging gay marriage bans across the country, the struggle against gay marriage may well be the Christofascists' Waterloo.  Hence their increasing efforts to export homophobia overseas in order to find new funding sources.  But not all of the self-enriching televangelists see their future in Russia or backward regions of Africa.  Salon looks at Joel Orteen's struggle to find a way forward without alienating aging Kool-Aid drinkers or killing the Christian brand in America.  Here are some article excerpts:

Joel Osteen has a problem, one that all Evangelicals in the U.S. are facing. The anti-gay position of mainstream Christianity has fallen out of favor with the public. Every reputable poll currently shows uncontested majority support for gay marriage. And the cultural shift happened more quickly than the churches can follow.

The Huffington Post’s Josh Zepps recently asked Osteen about this passage from his new book, “Break Out: 5 Keys to Go Beyond Your Barrier and Live an Extraordinary Life”: “It doesn’t matter who likes you or doesn’t like you, all that matters is that God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you.”

Zepps wanted to know if this included gay folks. “Absolutely,” Osteen offered without missing a beat. Evangelicals are notoriously tricky on the subject. It’s common theology to claim that God accepts absolutely everyone because being gay is viewed as an affliction, not an identity. What makes Osteen’s statement so unusual is his claim that God “approves” of gay folks.

The Texas megachurch pastor has always been relatively soft on the issue compared to his colleagues, notably the Evangelical behemoth Southern Baptist Convention. In the past, Osteen at the very least claimed homosexuality was unacceptable.

Some Evangelical church leaders are already going the full distance and embracing change. The controversial minister Rob Bell, also a multiple New York Times bestselling author, announced full support for marriage equality earlier this year. But he didn’t end with the endorsement. He pointedly criticized  the Evangelical church for its role in anti-gay discourse: “I think we are witnessing the death of a particular subculture that doesn’t work. I think there is a very narrow, politically intertwined, culturally ghettoized, Evangelical subculture that was told, ‘We’re gonna change the thing,’ and they haven’t … And we have supported policies and ways of viewing the world that are actually destructive. And we’ve done it in the name of God and we need to repent.”

The anti-gay position is becoming increasingly problematic in churches given support for LGBT equality among young people, even including white Evangelicals. Ministers are being forced to either embrace a dying ideology or risk ejection from their churches. The “because God says so” answers derived from the Bible’s handful of homophobic passages are headed the way of biblical slavery defenses, and young Evangelicals aren’t buying. (It’s also of note that the nation’s largest Evangelical denomination, the previously mentioned SBC, was originally formed to protect the rights of slaveholders. They’re sorry now.

Complicating matters further is Catholicism’s recent tonal shift on LGBT issues, which could create a ripple effect throughout the Christian world.

It won’t be surprising when Joel Osteen, along with the rest of the Evangelical community, announces an Obama-style evolution on the issue. While some denominations will hold onto existing prejudice until the bitter end, most are likely headed the way of the Evangelical Lutherans. Until then, many Evangelicals across the nation will be forced into an uncomfortable gray area as church leaders furiously argue over an issue the rest of the country already decided.

Putting all one's future in aging anti-gay whites is not a good plan for the future.  At some point the need to change will be the difference between death of denominations and a chance to live on at least for a while in an ever more secular, gay accepting world.