Editor’s note: The original version of this blog was published by Patheos.com. Click here to read it.
Jen Hatmaker is the new Beth Moore in many Christian ladies’ circles. She is a popular mommy blogger, Evangelical conference speaker, the author of 7, For the Love, and many more devotions and Bible studies. Hatmaker and her husband Brandon, an Austin-based pastor, even starred in their own fixer-upper HGTV show last autumn.
But it’s not her blog, books nor TV show that have religion commentators a buzz this week. It’s her Facebook page and a so-called “shift” in LGBTQ affirmation that has Evangelicals talking about her.
On Saturday, April 23, Hatmaker wrote on her Facebook page:
One things I said was that it is high time Christians opened wide their arms, wide their churches, wide their tables, wide their homes to the LGBT community. So great has our condemnation and exclusion been, that gay Christian teens are SEVEN TIMES more likely to commit suicide.
Nope. No. No ma’am. Not on my watch. No more. This is so far outside the gospel of Jesus that I don’t even recognize its reflection. I can’t. I won’t. I refuse.
I agree with Hatmaker that Christians should be loving and welcoming. But that’s not the end. She continues:
So whatever the cost and loss, this is where I am: gay teens? Gay adults? Mamas and daddies of precious gaybees? Friends and beloved neighbors of very dear LGBT folks?
Here are my arms open wide. So wide that every last one of you can jump inside. You are so dear, so beloved, so precious and important. You matter so desperately and your life is worthy and beautiful. There is nothing “wrong with you,” or in any case, nothing more right or wrong than any of us, which is to say we are all hopelessly screwed up but Jesus still loves us beyond all reason and lives to make us all new, restored, whole. Yay for Jesus!
“The end,” she concludes a little later in the post. These sentiments are not surprising. Hatmaker has made far more controversial comments on Christian sexual ethics before. While Religion News Service’s Jonathan Merritt believes Hatmaker’s post reflects a shift on LGBTQ inclusion, he also notes in a recent column that she’s made similar statements on the subject in the past. Merritt points out Hatmaker’s 2014 controversial blog response to World Vision’s reversal of its initial decision to accept same-sex marriage among its employees. In her retort to World Vision’s reversal, Hatmaker claimed:
Godly, respectable leaders have exegeted the Bible and there is absolutely not unanimity on its interpretation. There never has been. Historically, Christian theology has always been contextually bound and often inconsistent with itself; an inconvenient truth we prefer to selectively explain.
Fierce love and a call for unhindered welcomes for all into the body of Christ are to be applauded and, more importantly, emulated. The problem here is that some of Hatmaker’s sentiments seem to walk that squishy, blurry line between embracing grace and rejecting Christian moral ethics.
It’s tiring (not to mention saddening) to watch Christian leaders tell individuals that you’re born who you are, how you are, and that’s okay. Nothing is wrong with you. Essentially saying, everyone is born inherently good. But that’s a dangerously deceptive attitude. What good then is the Good News if everyone is born good and hunky-dory? What’s the point of Jesus’ suffering and dying on the cross? Christ died not only because of how much he loves us, but also to pay the price of our sin and conquer our broken humanity.
Hatmaker notes that all of us are “hopelessly screwed up,” but she doesn’t mention the need for repentance of sin. If, instead, Hatmaker’s post read, “Here are my arms open wide. Jump in so I can walk with you in love and accountability through the difficulty we all face denying sin. It will be tough to break intimate bonds with your partner, live single and celibate, but I’m here to provide you community and comfort,” then I can promise you the jubilant responses to her post, would have been phrased very differently.
But this is where many in the Church seem to be lazing about these days. It’s far easier, appealing, and popular to simply affirm sin as an identity or lifestyle choice instead of calling on our neighbors to repent of sin. There’s another way. It’s possible to show love and also speak of transformative truth. It just isn’t easy.
Thank God these were not the sentiments of the local Christian leaders who walked by my mom and dad when they were new Christians. Seeking the Church’s help after my father’s infidelity, my dad longed for Christians to love him, yes. But he also thanks God to this day for his fellow Christians who boldly told him the truth about the penalties of sin, sexual ethics, Christ’s expectations for us to live like Him, and for their love and loyal accountability through it all. As the child whose dad accepted Christ’s night-and-day transformation from a sinner to a saint, I’m grateful too.
“Lax theology is not the answer. Transformative truth is,” writes my Institute on Religion and Democracy colleague. These words ring true and personal for me and my redeemed family. So very true.
In wading through this tough discussion, I’m reminded of a Scripture verse I’d like to leave with you:
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2, ESV)
Comment by TallZeke on April 26, 2016 at 2:29 pm
Her versus the New Testament.
That was a no-brainer.
Comment by Dan on April 26, 2016 at 3:43 pm
“Essentially saying, everyone is born inherently good” is not lax theology, it is heresy, specifically Pelagianism. We need to call it out as such. Embracing ancient heresies cloaked in modern terms like being inclusive and non-judgmental is cruel and deceives people.
Comment by Mark Brooks on April 26, 2016 at 4:06 pm
Whatever the theological terms, you are quite correct, for as Paul said very explicitly in his first letter to the church in Corinth:
“Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”
Sin. Oh that inconvenient word. There is no good news without the bad news. Anyone who doesn’t believe that humankind is sinful and in need of a means to reconcile man to God doesn’t believe the gospel, the good news taught plainly in scripture. That’s a problem.
But I have to ask, has Ms. Hatmaker actually said this? One of the problems we have is that many people wallow in error. They use the word “sin” as if it just meant “personal flaw”. It is ignorance? Does this woman actually read the Bible and see how much of it is about sin, the consequences of sin, the penalty of sin, and where sin ends up?
Has she departed from the way of life, or is she simply in error?
Comment by Mark Brooks on April 26, 2016 at 3:50 pm
“Godly, respectable leaders have exegeted the Bible and there is absolutely not unanimity on its interpretation. There never has been.”
On the issue of homosexual acts, that’s not true. Did she ever actually defend that statement?
Comment by Brent White on April 27, 2016 at 1:02 pm
The first time I read this statement, I thought she was referring specifically to portions of the Bible that speak to the issue of homosexuality. I now see that she was giving us a red herring. By all means, there isn’t “unanimity” on interpretation of “the Bible,” which is, after all, a very large book.
That’s beside the point. There has always been unanimity on many parts of the Bible, one of which is its teaching related to sexuality.
Comment by Richard S. Bell on April 29, 2016 at 8:40 pm
Unanimity of interpretation can be a red herring too. Not unanimity but soundness should be our criterion of acceptability. Sound interpretation of Scripture, in accordance with traditional principles, makes plain that God wills marriage of homosexuals just as he wills marriage of heterosexuals. May I prove it to you? Send me an email and I will reply with a digital copy of my essay on the subject, read critically by more than a dozen mature and learned conservative evangelicals, including seminary professors, and not refuted by any. My address: [email protected]
Comment by Brent White on April 29, 2016 at 11:09 pm
I’ll pass, Richard. If your argument is so persuasive that it has silenced dozens of conservative evangelicals, even credentialed seminary profs, then I’m sure you can get it published in some public forum—or at least put it on a blog—where we can all judge its merits. Why keep it a secret?
Comment by Richard S. Bell on April 30, 2016 at 6:27 pm
I have not kept it secret. I have given it to dozens of conservative Christian intellectuals and offered it to you. I have no reason to keep it secret. Quite the contrary, I would have the Church conform to God’s will by marrying homosexuals just as it marries heterosexuals and I see my essay as making clear God’s will to conservative leaders of Christian opinion.
Comment by truelinguist on April 30, 2016 at 10:39 pm
You don’t worship God, you worship a fictional being that approves of sexual deviates, and that is not the Christian God.
Comment by truelinguist on April 30, 2016 at 10:38 pm
Really, God approves of homosexuals “marrying”?
And who revealed this to you? You’ll need to prove that your belief overrides the New Testament, and good luck with that.
Comment by Kyle on April 27, 2016 at 1:53 pm
She sounds like another Rachel Evans, same ploy of “people disagree about the Bible, so that means my way of interpreting it is correct.”
Comment by Strum Pluckins on April 27, 2016 at 11:15 pm
Huh, I’ve never heard of this Hatmaker before. She doesn’t strike me as a terribly deep thinker. I’m not surprised she takes the road she does.
Comment by Heidi Steinrock on April 28, 2016 at 5:23 am
Your writing reflects an extremely narrow-minded capacity for the whole of Truth. You have judged a human being who loves God with all her heart based on things she did not even say! Every criticism you brought against her were about topics you did not even ask her opinion on! How do you know what she would say about topics which you have not even given her a chance to speak on?!
To clarify: If I were to write a Facebook post on peanut butter I could not write or contain in one post all there is to know about peanut butter. I must choose the most important aspect to mention. Let’s say I chose to focus on the role of peanut butter in the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I do not mention the existence of peanut oil. Will you judge me as a liar, falling succumb to the influence of the popular PB&J sandwich over the minor popularity of peanut oil? Will you claim I don’t believe in peanut oil because I did not mention it?
The greatest writers know how to pick an angle and narrow all their words to bolster and support that angle. You know what angle Jen Hatmaker chose for her Facebook post? Love. I applaud her angle. The Bible says that of faith, hope and love, love is the greatest (1 Cor. 13:13). The two greatest commandments of Jesus are commandments to love (Matt. 22:37-39).
Yes there is a time for correction, but this happens one on one within local bodies of Christ. This beautiful care and course correction of others is flirting with being misconstrued into a nationwide, sweeping condemnation of an entire people group. The only antidote for condemnation is love. So Hatmaker chose the angle of love because that is what is most needed right now. No one runs to or receives course correction from a Savior that is condemning them. But they do respond to a Savior loving them. Hatmaker is talking about God’s love. She is accurately representing the heart of God toward those who need the message of God’s kindness that leads to repentance (Romans 2:4). Please also keep in mind this is a public post on Facebook in which Hatmaker expressed her opinions. There is a proper platform for every audience. Hatmaker was not giving one-on-one mentoring and discipleship in her Facebook post. You must take into consideration the context of her comments. How uneducated would I look if I were to judge the book of Song of Solomon in the Bible as less than the truth because it did not call people to repent and believe in Jesus? That is not the purpose of the book of Song of Solomon! So we must understand the purpose of FaceBOOK as a platform meant for a specific purpose, and that does not mean to the exclusion of truth. But the specific course correction you are seeking to be voiced is usually what takes place in one-on-one counseling and discipleship. Hatmaker was not counseling an individual. She was inviting people into God’s love. People must accept God as a good and loving God before they will ever receive his course correction.
The presumptions you judged Hatmaker with–using topics she did not even bring up–are as obtuse as if I were to judge the following about you based on your article. That you are a white-washed tomb, a viper, and a pharisaical religious person (Matt. 23:27, 33). I would never say those things about you even though such conclusions could be drawn based on what you did not say in your article (like I said we are using your own criteria here). Much like you judged Hatmaker based on what she did not say. And do you know why I would not believe such harsh things about you? Because I understand that I cannot know everything there is to know about you and your beliefs by one one article. We follow the complex nature of our God. We know his character but we are always learning more about him. You did not mention being pro-life in your article–should I judge you as an abortion activist then? Absurd! Your article wasn’t about abortion. Hatmaker’s Facebook post was about love, and you’ve judged her according to everything except love.
God told us to love one another because we too can only know the character of our fellow humans while we constantly learn more about them. God is the only judge because only He fully knows us. I know the character of Jen Hatmaker just like she knows the character of the individuals in the LGBT community: made in the image of God, valuable, precious, wanted, God’s children. That is who they are born to be. Some choose to walk in that calling and some do not. We are not to convince them of how they should walk, but we are called to convince them by exhortation that they are loved by God through Jesus Christ, and we are to encourage them to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
So, what is your complaint about Jen Hatmaker’s Facebook post? That she wrote well for her Facebook post? That instead of writing a dissertation on everything there is to write about human sexuality and Christianity and sanctification in a Facebook post she instead chose wisely one angle to write about? And that angle being the biblically correct priority of love? This is what you are mad at her about?
May I and no one else judge you by the same standard you have judged Hatmaker. The plank stuck in your own eye is probably what is limiting your capacity to see the whole of Truth. May blessing find you still as you continue pursuing sanctification in Christ, just as me and EVERYONE else pursues the same sanctification in Christ through the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who sanctifies (1 Peter 1:2), not human beings.
Speaking of human beings, I write this reply to your article because I am fired up about the example you are setting to the world–not because I’m concerned about the example Hatmaker is setting to the world. She needs no defense from me and I have zero interest in defending her. But I do have an interest in representing Truth because my God is Truth. And your article is not a good representation of the truth of my God: namely by suggesting that humans are responsible the sanctification of other humans, and placing the entirety of this burden on Hatmaker, and judging her as a failure because of her beliefs that you don’t even know because her Facebook post didn’t address the topics you’re judging her by!
When we assume the role of sanctifying Holy Spirit it is impossible for us to love because we are weighted by a responsibility that is not ours to bear. May we find our rest in Christ and devote our energy toward building up the right things of God’s Kingdom on earth and never spend our energy publicly criticizing the unsaid beliefs of our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially those we don’t know personally and have not attempted to get an interview with as is the proper form of proper writing.
Comment by Richard S. Bell on April 29, 2016 at 8:32 pm
I am a conservative evangelical Christian like you and Ms Hatmaker. I agree that Ms Hatmaker seems to embrace grace and reject Christian ethics. But, though her reasons may be wrong, her opinion may be right. Sound interpretation of Scripture, in accordance with traditional principles, makes plain that God wills marriage of homosexuals just as he wills marriage of heterosexuals. May I prove it to you? Send me an email and I will reply with a digital copy of my essay on the subject, read critically by more than a dozen mature and learned conservative evangelicals, including seminary professors, and not refuted by any. My address: [email protected]
Comment by truelinguist on April 30, 2016 at 10:40 pm
No thanks, the New Testament is sufficient for Christians.
Comment by Mark Brooks on July 6, 2016 at 10:36 am
If you have proofs of your contentions, post them on a webpage or other public link, so that everyone can see them. Or provide them here, in summary form. Otherwise it just looks like you are address farming.
Comment by Richard S. Bell on July 7, 2016 at 6:27 pm
Here is the full introductory part of my essay:
I am a conservative evangelical Christian disturbed because my fellows have misinterpreted the Bible with bad consequences. Conservative Christians have misinterpreted the Bible’s instructions for sexual conduct and so have been preachers and practicers of immorality. I grieve for this misinterpretation because it has caused harm to homosexual Christians, who are denied ministries of the Church. I grieve for it because it has caused harm to conservative Christians, who are wasting time, treasure, and talent in efforts to protect these unjustifiable practices of the Church. Most of all, I grieve for it because it displeases God, who would have his moral will understood and honored. I write this essay to state and defend a better interpretation.
Here, in a nutshell, is my thesis. God’s will for human sexual conduct is fully expressed in the Seventh Commandment. So, there is one sexual morality for all. Specifically, there is one sexual morality for heterosexuals and homosexuals, and its most general principle is that full expression of sexual desire is permitted only within marriage. God has provided the institution of marriage for all who need to express fully their sexual desires, and God wills that they all avail themselves of marriage. Therefore, it is God’s will that homosexual persons, not only heterosexual persons, marry if they do not have the gift of sexual continency. The Church should implement God’s will by treating homosexual marriage just as it treats heterosexual marriage.
My interpretation of the Bible contradicts the interpretation of almost all conservative Christians. My interpretation strikes many of them as preposterous, even shockingly so. I think it would require person-to-person dialogue for this impression to be allayed. What follows is my own side of an ideal conversation, as responsive to thoughtful, skeptical, open-minded conservatives as I can make it. In defending my interpretation, I do not insist that any words of Scripture have crabbed or otherwise implausible meanings, I do not make assertions about people’s pains and pleasures and then run accounts as if God’s morality were utilitarian, and I do not make appeals to anything like a vague law of love that is supposed to supersede moral rules and principles and make any conduct right if the actor wants very much to express a tender sentiment. I do not offer any of these fatuous lines of argument favored by revisionists; my fellow conservative evangelicals view these lines of argument with disdain, and I agree with them. Instead, I defend my interpretation of the Bible in ways that are quite consistent with standard methods. I expect reading through this essay will make my understanding of God’s will seem tenable. Moreover, because I expose and correct all the confusions and fallacies that underlie my fellow conservatives’ interpretation of the Bible, I dare hope even to convince some of them that the Church should offer marriage to both homosexual and heterosexual Christians on exactly the same terms.
Comment by Mark Brooks on July 7, 2016 at 7:02 pm
It is preposterous because the Seventh Commandment says:
“Thou shalt not commit adultery.”
I still don’t see a web page address listed. Put it up online, because your rather wordy post doesn’t contain a single argument relating to your contention.
Comment by Richard S. Bell on July 7, 2016 at 10:23 pm
Right! No argument; just a summary (thesis in a nutshell), which was what I thought you requested. I do not have time to condense my essay just for you. But I will try to post the essay where you want it. Tell me where.
Comment by Byrom on April 30, 2016 at 12:19 pm
This whole issue, as well as many others, can be summed up by stating that too many of us have become tainted by the culture around us and are both in the world and OF the world. That is clearly contrary to the teachings of Jesus. One doesn’t even have to be a Christian to recognize that men and women are different anatomically and have different purposes for those anatomies. Going along with Chelsen’s thinking, what would be the purpose of creating two different sexes, if we can be whatever we want to be? Clearly – to me, at least – anything which deviates from God’s norms for human sexuality (including marriage as between only a man and a woman) is abnormal. The Bible clearly shows that homosexual practices are a sin. The argument is sometimes made that “homosexual” is not a word found in the Bible, but then again neither is “Trinity.” However, the characteristics of each are well-described in Scripture. We can show Jesus’ love to those who are in sin, homosexual or otherwise, but we do not have to embrace or accept as normal such behavior. Jesus did not tolerate sin, but admonished sinners to go and sin no more. I’m also reminded about the Apostle Paul’s many admonitions against falling prey to false doctrines and surrounding oneself with those who would scratch itching ears with such false beliefs.
Comment by MarcoPolo on May 9, 2016 at 6:26 pm
Sadly, the typical Evangelical connotes being Gay or Lesbian with the sexual activity that some LGBT people include in their relationship. That distinction seems to elude most of the Religious Right. Not every relationship, heterosexual, or homosexual indulges in sexual activity. Like a couple of Monks!
Not everyone is born right-handed, but we no longer chastise them! Nor should we make that same mistake regarding our brothers and sisters who are not heterosexual.
History of the Human condition is going to make the position that Christians take, look primitive and hateful. Just as shameful as the Jim Crow days of yore.
Confuse not, Behavior with Being!
Comment by Jacob Liston on April 30, 2016 at 6:45 pm
This news is disappointing. I have read a few of Jen’s blog posts and watched her interview on The 700 Club and can see why she has a following; She seems like a really pleasant person, the “neighborhood mom” who passes out popsicles to kids playing outside on their summer break. Her content, however, has the same fatal flaw of so many evangelical blogs, a lack of clarity. Jen makes ample use of ambiguity, ambivalence, equivocation, and obfuscation. She seems reluctant to ever plant her flag into the dirt and declare “this is where I stand!” Even her post where she clarified her stance on the sinfulness of homosexuality (some time ago) was murky and left me with questions. It’s one thing to be nuanced, it’s another thing to be intentionally hazy. She seems cognizant that her following includes many orthodox believers and theological liberals and she seemingly trys to placate both. The Rachel Held Evans comparison is jarring but also understandable. There is enormous pressure on Christians, especially visible Christians, to capitulate on this issue. It’s scary to take a stand, I know, but remember that truth will prevail ultimately.
Comment by Supertx on May 4, 2016 at 1:43 pm
The idea is for them to be hip and cool Christians in a hip and cool town. Church planting is #1 priority over much else. Whatever issues might be a turn off must be discounted, as she is doing here.