I did something bold last week, at least I would consider it bold for me. Or possibly stupid. I’ll let you, the Gentle Reader, be the judge.
Last week I spent the week at Liberty University taking the last course of my counseling MA. Even though my counseling classes through LU have been appropriately challenging and almost completely free of fundamentalist propaganda, I have had a sense of dread each time I have prepared to depart for my week long intensive courses. It was less intense this time because when I revealed to a small group in my class last year that I didn’t fit neatly into the mold of fundamentalist Christianity, I found overwhelming acceptance and a real sense of belonging to a larger faithgroup than that which specific secondary doctrines often allow.
Almost every counseling course contains a lecture regarding ethics in counseling: don’t work outside your areas of competency, break confidentiality only under certain circumstances, make sure you are not imposing your values on your clients, etc. Our class was listening to the obligatory lecture on ethics (which I can probably give in my sleep by this point in my MA), when our prof presented several situations that she believed might be ethical problems for Christians.
This is the situation: A gay man comes to you wanting counseling because he and his lover are fighting, and he wants to improve their relationship. Of course the standard conservative answer is that if you choose to counsel this person, you may be helping him to stay in a sinful relationship. When she opened it up to the class for comments, I raised my hand. I said (in a tentative voice), “Isn’t part of the business of Christ to reconcile human beings to one another? Isn’t there some good that could come out of teaching this man good communication skills and how to function in a more healthy manner?†The prof then replied that one would have to decide if one was contributing to the person’s sin. If I was quicker on my feet, I might possibly have come back with a question that asked if one would be passing up an opportunity to contribute to a person’s wholeness.
I don’t mean to imply that homosexuality is good and healthy, but I wonder why it is treated as a greater sin than, oh, say, gluttony by conservative Christians. Perhaps it is all part of the need to point someone else out as being worse than we are so that we can feel better about ourselves and more loved by God. Or perhaps it is because fewer Christians struggle with homosexuality than those that do battle (or not) with gluttony. I suppose the rationale may be “Many Christians struggle with gluttony, so it must not be that bad.†And yet, I can’t imagine a Christian counselor, because of ethical issues, turning a gluttonous client down for treatment because he wanted to have a healthier relationship with food (or possessions, or whatever the source of gluttony).
And by the way, why should we expect to hold those who do not follow Christ to the standards of Christ?
Especially when those of us who do follow Christ have such a difficult time not failing.
As it turns out, I was not put on the Jerry Falwell Blacklist because of my comment. (At least I don’t think so. I haven’t seen any hooded men parked in front of my house since I’ve been home.) The discussion ended at that point, but my classmates continued to eat lunch with me, talk with me, and even offered to take me to urgent care when I broke out in a significant rash, induced by only-God-knows-what. So whether it was bold or stupid, once again, I found a surprising level of acceptance from the body of Christ in the counseling department at LU.
But then again, I think counselors are just cool people in general.