Where is the love?! (The Black Eyed Peas)

While away we had the chance to see the Heaven & Earth show which featured the ‘openly Gay Bishop’ from the USA, Gene Robinson. In talking about the challenge to the church presented by homosexuality the Bishop drew comparisons with previous tectonic conflicts with racism and sexism.

What got me scrambling for a pen and some paper was when he said ‘God continually challenges us to move the boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ outwards. Outwards to such an extent that there is no longer a ‘them’ – only ‘us’'.

Ding Dong!

Similarly I remember being challenged when I read Bishop Desmond Tutu’s book ‘God has a dream’. Naturally drawing upon his own experience of hatred, bigotry and persecution Tutu writes ‘the endless divisions that we create between us and that we live and die for – whether they are our religions, our ethnic groups, our nationalities – are so totally irrelevant to God. God just wants us to love each other. Many, however, say that some kinds of love are better than others, condemning the love of gays and lesbians. But whether a man loves a woman or another man, or a woman loves a man or another woman, to God it is all love, and God smiles whenever we recognize our need for one another.’

I desperately live to see God smile and so I’m left wondering ‘are some kinds of love better than others’?