Good luck trying to make this work in Tehran.
The United Nations is set to release a report in June that, according to The Daily Caller, is about “’perceived contradictions’ between religious freedom and sexual orientation and gender identity, or SOGI, laws and is looking to push governments to fully comply with their obligations under international human rights law to protect and empower LGBT+ persons.”
The UN had an open call for LGBT+ and religious freedom organizations to submit their input to the report, which will be part of the findings released in June at the 53rd Human Rights Council. According to the announcement, the report will:
…examine long-established and emerging discourses driving perceived contradictions between FoRB (freedom of religious belief) and freedom from violence and discrimination based on SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity), with reference to legal concepts such as conscientious objection, reasonable accommodation for religious beliefs, and anti-discrimination law and public policies.
The release goes on to state:
Religious and spiritual narratives have also historically been used to promote, enable, and condone institutional and personal violence and discrimination against individuals based on sexual orientation or gender identity (real or presumed); repress sexual and gender diversity; and promote cisgendered and heteronormative norms of sexual orientation and gender identity. This has resulted in a variety of discriminatory normative constructions reinforced over time. As pointed out by the mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom Religion or Belief (SR FoRB), the exercise of rights in this manner is antithetical to the very basis of the human rights system. These practices cannot be justified under the rubric of FoRB, or indeed any other human right, to circumvent and defeat the rights of marginalized populations.
Further down it adds:
Thus, a potential first step towards legally strengthening the human rights of LGBT+ individuals at the intersection with religious freedom is to unpack the notion of an inherent contradiction between FoRB, and freedom from violence and discrimination based on SOGI.
You can read the entire report at the link above. But succinctly put, the UN is concerned about religious traditions that condemn or do not condone the LGBTQ lifestyle. It says: “The IE SOGI’s thematic report aims to introduce voices from LGBT-inclusive belief systems, indigenous communities, and LGBT+ communities of faith as key stakeholders. The IE SOGI also intends to open a space within human rights discourse and practice to better recognize and protect LGBT+ persons’ access to faith and spirituality, as persons free and equal in dignity and rights, and their access to spirituality in accordance with their own right to freedom of religion or belief.”
So, if your religious tradition is opposed to homosexuality or any of the appendant letters or lifestyles, you are officially on notice from the United Nations. The UN will now decide what you believe.
Will the UN tell Muslims that they had better get it together and fly a rainbow flag from every minaret? My guess is, no. After all, when it comes to UNESCO World Heritage sites, the UN has decided that the City of David excavation is not covered by such a designation. It flatly refuses to allow such a thing. Why? Because the archeological work being done there has done more than help prove that there are historically accurate accounts in the Bible. The work is uncovering evidence that in fact Jews originally lived in the area for years, and did not suddenly occupy the land in 1948. That goes against the prevailing anti-Israel invective and propaganda of the day. The UN would prefer that Jews and Christians relinquish any historical or spiritual claim to the area. Prager U did a deep dive into that topic, which you can view here. So I suspect that the adherents of Islam will be ignored with regard to LGBTQ acceptance.
Making faith sanitary and comfortable for everyone robs it of one of its most important tasks–transformation. If your faith consists of sitting in a mega-church on Sunday morning for a quick hit of dopamine while you sip your latte and run a highlighter over your Bible, then chances are you won’t care one way or the other what the UN does. If you’re just “doing life” together, whatever the UN recommends will have little impact on you, so long as everything looks and feels the same on Sundays. But by doing so, faith becomes yet another compartment in an unexamined life. It might as well be a Gucci knock-off handbag at that point or a pair of Stacy Adams shoes. Faith will become an accessory.
But faith isn’t meant to work that way. Suppose an LGBTQ person walks into a church. (And no one should ever be turned away from a church for their sexuality.) And let’s just say they decide not to focus on their sexuality. Let’s say they take on the incredibly frightening risk of asking God to show them their sins. They may not like what they see. After all, no matter one’s gender, orientation, or identity, everyone struggles or has struggled with lust, greed, envy, anger, and even idolatry. Or any variety of sins. And what would happen if God were to say to that person, “Let’s not talk about your sexuality. Let’s talk about your road rage. Let’s talk about your drinking or drug use. Let’s talk about the horrible thing you said about a coworker. Let’s talk about the porn you watch. Let’s talk about the person next door that you have decided to hate.” Our gay visitor probably would prefer to cut the conversation short. Most straight people would be ready to do the same thing. On a spiritual level, there is no difference between LGBTQ and straight people. In the end, we want God to confirm how wonderful we are and dole out a holy candy bar in exchange for some tepid self-serving prayer. We want to be loved just the way we are, as opposed to exercising a faith that helps us aspire to what we should be. I firmly believe that one’s sexuality should be worked out with the Almighty. That is a personal issue. But we still need to be honest with God whether we like it or not.
Consider this passage from Genesis 32:
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel,[ saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.
In wrestling with God, Jacob finds not only a new name but a new identity. Why? because God challenges him. There is a transformative process at work. And we don’t want God to challenge us or transform us. This could be why so many pastors have followed in Andy Stanley’s footsteps and unhooked the Old Testament from the New. People who wrestle with God may not be so quick to file obediently into their stalls, shout along with the latest K-LOVE or Air1 hits, and write out a check at the appointed time. I once had a pastor who thundered at me “THIS IS A NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH!” specifically concerning the story of Jacob. I decided to seek spiritual guidance elsewhere.
However, the New Testament does not offer much by way of refuge. Even if we set the Pauline Epistles aside, Jesus does not play fast and loose, either. In the story of the woman at the well, the subject of umpteen sermons by youth pastors and Bible School graduates, many people try to portray Jesus as solely giving the woman a pass for all of the horrible men that have been in her life. But Jesus notes the role that she has played in her own promiscuity. That is not to let the men off the hook, but Jesus is ministering to the person at hand. In the process of a hard conversation, the woman comes to a new life. In John 8, Jesus stops the stoning of an adulterous woman. All too often, people want to end the reading halfway through verse 11 (depending on your translation) at: “Then neither do I condemn you,” They prefer to omit the second clause: “Go and sin no more.” James wrote, “Faith without works is dead.” Without self-examination and repentance, faith is a fashion statement. Too many times I have heard “It is not my place to judge!” in the “worship space” of a church. And I have heard pastors sidestep the thorny subject of sin to entertain the goats. The ugly truth is not that these people do not want to judge others. They wish to avoid judgment of themselves. From pulpits everywhere on Sundays, preachers condemn the Pharisees of the Gospels so that no one will have to condemn themselves. No one wants to remember the line from Romans 7, “ O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
And so along comes the UN. It is preparing to tell the world what faith should and should not be. Faith must now meet the standards of man, not of God. And faith that carries the risk of self-examination also carries the risk of discernment. Better to be affirmed for another week and then go do as thou wilt. Heaven forfend we look beyond the desires of the heart. Salvation will no longer be a matter between you and your god. It will be between you and your government. In which case, it is no longer faith, but a line on your tax form.
Ironically, the UN may finally make religion the opiate of the masses.
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