Justin Lee > Quotes

“Today's young people have gay friends whom they love. If they view the church as an unsafe for them, a place more focused on politics than on people, we just might be raising the most anti-Christian generation America has ever seen, a generation that believes they have to choose between loving and being Christian.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-Vs.-Christians Debate

“...the story serves as an important reminder to all of us that sometimes, when people are hurting, they don't need our advice and theological theorizing as much as they need our understanding and comfort.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-Vs.-Christians Debate

“In a Gays-vs.-Christians world, admitting you’re gay makes you the enemy of Christians.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

“But there shouldn’t be a clash between “God’s Truth” and “more loving.” In the Bible, Truth and Love are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other. God’s Truth is all about God’s Love for us and the Love we ought to have for one another. We are being untrue to that Truth if we treat people unlovingly. And we are missing out on the full extent of that Love if we try to divorce it from Ultimate Truth. We Christians must work to repair this schism in the church. If the church is to survive much longer in our culture, it must teach and model the Christianity of Jesus—a faith that combines Truth and Love in the person of Jesus Christ, revealed to us in the Bible and lived out in the everyday lives of his followers. That is what we say we believe. It’s time we start acting like it.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

“... challenge the church to do better, be more of who Christ wants us to be ...”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-Vs.-Christians Debate

“My choices, it seemed, were to be branded a sinner and live my life alone; to abandon my faith, the one thing I held most dear in the entire world; or to lie to everyone, pretend I was straight, and forget about it all.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-Vs.-Christians Debate

“This is disturbing news for all of us in the Christian community. Jesus wasn’t known for his disdain for people; he was known for his unconditional love for everyone, especially outcasts and sinners. One of the charges Jesus’ opponents had against him was that he was “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”2 Surely the faith he founded should never be known for looking down on anyone.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

“It’s easy to decide that the other side’s real motivation on an issue is prejudice or selfishness or greed. And sometimes, unflattering descriptions may in fact be true. Unabashed racism or sexism or selfishness or cruelty may in fact be someone’s primary motivator. But unless they see themselves as unabashedly racist or sexist or selfish or cruel, there’s still an unanswered question, the question of what they think their motivations are. There’s nearly always more to the story.”
― Justin Lee, Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World

“Have you ever been in the middle of an argument, when the other person made a good point but you couldn’t bring yourself to admit that they might be right because you were afraid of looking foolish? If so, then you’ve experienced the ego-protection barrier firsthand.”
― Justin Lee, Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World

“God's truth!' one side shouts.
'More loving!' comes the response.
'God's truth!'
'More loving!'
'God's truth!'
'More loving!'
But there shouldn't be a clash between 'God's truth' and 'More loving.' In the Bible, Truth and Love are two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other. God's Truth is all about God's Love for us and the Love we ought to have for one another. We are being untrue to that Truth if we treat people unlovingly. And we are missing out on the full extent of that Love if we try to divorce it from Ultimate Truth.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-Vs.-Christians Debate

“Even when we know certain people well as individuals, we don’t understand their echo chambers well enough to change their minds on the things we care about, so we end up surprised when they’re not persuaded by arguments that seem obvious to us. Each side is so focused on fighting the other that there doesn’t seem to be any room for understanding them. As a result, each side unwittingly sabotages their own efforts to change the other side’s mind.”
― Justin Lee, Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World

“I pray that Christian parents will heed the message of this parable and treat their children with that kind of love, even when they disagree on issues like homosexuality. If we can’t get this right within our own families, how are we supposed to get it right on a larger scale? A loving response must start at home.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

“Unfortunately, some churches are now so worried about being arrogant and unbending like certain other Christians that they fail to stand for anything at all. They hang question marks over all the major doctrines of the faith or throw them out entirely. Bit by bit, they lose the things that set them apart as Christians.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-Vs.-Christians Debate

“In an echo-chamber world, objective truth carries less weight than truth-as-defined-by-my-social-circles.”
― Justin Lee, Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World

“If anyone had a right to lecture people about their sin, it was the sinless son of God. If even he could meet sinners as equals, how much more should we Christians---all sinners ourselves---treat as equals the people we encounter in our lives?”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-Vs.-Christians Debate

“Increasingly, we take our disagreements not to the people we disagree with but to our own echo chambers—spaces where we can talk about, rather than to, the other side—where like-minded people echo our own beliefs right back to us.”
― Justin Lee, Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World

“There’s something weird about arguments: They’re the first thing we reach for when we want to change someone’s mind, and yet they’re not very effective at actually changing minds. The more desperate we are to change someone’s mind, the more passionately we argue. And the more passionately we argue, the more defensive each side gets. It’s as if we’re trying to force them into our way of thinking by making our words louder and harsher, but in so doing, we only cause them to dig in their heels more and more, as both sides grow increasingly angry and irrational.”
― Justin Lee, Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World

“In a Gays-vs.-Christians world, admitting you’re gay makes you the enemy of Christians. After hearing some of these people’s horror stories, I’m amazed that any of them have any faith left at all.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

“It’s important to distinguish between explaining and excusing. Explaining why something happened is vital if you want to stop it from happening in the future. If a train derails, experts are going to do their best to determine what went wrong—they want to explain the wreck. The more accurately they can explain it, the better chance they have of making sure it doesn’t happen again. However, by explaining it they’re not lending it any kind of legitimacy or taking away from the tragedy of what happened. They’re just trying to understand why it happened.

The same is true for people. It’s possible that there’s no excuse for the behavior of someone you’re talking to on the other side. Okay, then. Don’t excuse it. But it’s still important to try to understand and explain why they do what they do—what they understand to be motivating their behavior—even if you completely disagree with their rationale.”
― Justin Lee, Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World

“I tried not to laugh. I thought about how my Southern Baptist friends would respond to the suggestion that their entire denomination was making people gay.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-Vs.-Christians Debate

“Even with a more traditional reading that condemns gay sex, the Bible never condemns gay people for who they are and what they feel. We may disagree on whether the Bible can be reconciled with same-sex marriage, but we should be able to agree that the Bible is not homophobic and does not justify the unkind attitudes some Christians have become known for.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

“The ego-protection barrier can be easily summed up in a few simple sentences:
Nobody wants to look foolish.
Nobody wants to be wrong.
Nobody wants to feel manipulated.”
― Justin Lee, Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World

“Whatever mistakes her son might make in life, Cindy was sure God would have mercy on him. The church, she feared, might not.”
― Justin Lee

“Grace sees people for what makes them uniquely beautiful to God, not for all the ways they’re flawed or all the ways I disagree with them. That kind of grace is what enables loving bridges to be built over the strongest disagreements.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

“We must be willing, too, to seek common ground and shared interests. Perhaps you and the other person have very different views on some things but both share a concern for the emotional health of gay people who feel hurt by the church. If so, that’s a starting point. You can find ways to build on that without having to compromise on your most deeply held values. This kind of gracious dialogue is hard for a lot of people. It feels wishy-washy to them, as if it requires that they stop thinking the other side is wrong. However, it’s not as if there are only two ways of relating to a person—either agree on everything, or preach at them about the things you disagree on. We already know this. Every day, we all interact with many people in our lives, and we probably disagree with the vast majority of them on a lot of things: politics, religion, sex, relationships, morality, you name it. Very few of my friends share my theological beliefs, and yet I don’t feel compelled to bring those differences up time and time again, making them feel self-conscious about them. If I did, I’d probably lose those people as friends. Most of the time, I’m not even thinking about our differences; I’m just thinking about who they are as people and the many reasons I like them. Grace sees people for what makes them uniquely beautiful to God, not for all the ways they’re flawed or all the ways I disagree with them. That kind of grace is what enables loving bridges to be built over the strongest disagreements. Gracious dialogue is hard work. It requires effort and patience, and it’s tempting to put it off. All of us have busy lives and a lot of other issues to address. But for anyone who cares about the future of the church, this can’t be put off. The next generation is watching how we handle these questions, and they’re using that to determine how they should treat people and whether this Christianity business is something they want to be involved in. Moms like Cindy are waiting to know that their churches are willing to stand with them in working through a difficult issue. And gay Christians everywhere, in every church and denomination, are trying to find their place in the world. Will we rise to the challenge? Will we represent Jesus well? Or will we be more like modern-day Pharisees?”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

“Job’s friends make the mistake of putting their own theology ahead of the testimony of their friend.”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

“Similarly, it can help people be more honest with themselves when you talk about their past behavior as perfectly understandable given the circumstances: “Of course you supported that cause. So many of us did! But now that this new information is coming out, I think it’s time for all of us to rethink our support.”

Or: “There’s no way you could have known about the damage that group is doing. Who has time to do all that research, especially with a busy schedule like yours? That’s why I knew you’d want to hear about this.”

The point is, you’re not blaming them for the past, so they don’t have to get defensive. Even if you do privately blame them for things in the past, playing the blame game doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s better to offer them a narrative that allows them to change their mind and still save face. Their past behavior is understandable, and now there’s a reason to do something different—and they still get to be the protagonist.”
― Justin Lee, Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World

“Outsiders say our hostility toward gays—not just opposition to homosexual politics and behaviors but disdain for gay individuals—has become virtually synonymous with the Christian faith.1”
― Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate

“If the person you’re talking to has been motivated by patriotism or economic need or a desire to protect children, show them how a new course of action is actually the most patriotic, the most economically beneficial, or the most protective of children. This way, they’re still working for the same underlying cause, even if they’re shifting course. That’s much easier to swallow than “all your past effort was wasted.”
― Justin Lee, Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World

“She may not have been emotionally prepared to consider in that moment that she was wrong—but maybe my comment prompted her to look it up and learn the truth once she was back at home. (Have you ever insisted something was true, only to look it up later and discover you were wrong? Boy, is that embarrassing.)”
― Justin Lee, Talking Across the Divide: How to Communicate with People You Disagree with and Maybe Even Change the World