In Books & Culture, Wesley Hill reviews Love Is an Orientation: Elevating the Conversation with the Gay Community by Andrew Marin:
At the heart of Marin’s proposal is a plea to evangelical Christians to get serious about loving GLBT people. Peppered throughout the book are sentences like these: “Put yourself in [GLBT people’s] shoes for a moment and try to imagine the feeling of what it’s like to first realize you have a same-sex attraction.” “Even if Christians don’t agree with the GLBT community or what they might stand for, believers in Christ are supposed to know how to find real empathy for those who are going through things we can never understand.”
Hill ultimately doesn’t find Marin’s call very satisfying, especially because of its emphasis on individualized love rather than the discernment of Christian communities:
For those gay Christians who see the affirmation of their sexuality as integral to a genuine commitment to justice and equality, Marin’s proposal of simple love may appear as a cheap substitute for costly solidarity. On the other hand, for those gay Christians, like myself, who feel that their efforts to remain abstinent are bound up with their sanctification and growth in godliness, a plea for love without an attendant call for supportive pastoral accountability may sound hollow.
Continue reading at Books & Culture.