What should the Christian world do about all of this? By “this”, I mean books, articles, websites, activists and college lectures that glamorize homosexual behavior; Apathetic Christians who prefer not to think about the dangers all of this poses for our society; Millenials who misunderstand authentic love and the Christians who know all if it is wrong but find it nearly impossible to speak about it, out of fear of backlash.

Should we build walls around our family to protect them from the culture? Should we protest and shake our fists at the ignorant politicians who follow instead of lead? Should we shout at Bishop Robinson and say, “I told you so”? Should we put up billboards, buy radio and television time and put up full-page advertisements in all the newspapers decrying the hypocrisy and dishonesty of the LGBT lifestyle?

No. While getting the truth out is important and should happen in a respectful and thoughtful way, that’s not where we need to start. We need to start with Christ. I think we all need to study Christ’s Gospel message much more deeply. In other words, we need to begin and end with prayer. We need to pray for Bishop Robinson and all those Christians who try to rewrite the bible and 2000 years of Christianity to justify homosexual behavior as morally acceptable and consistent with the message of the Gospel. If we start without a deep and profound prayer life, we will end up in the mud with the LGBT activists and lobbyists (that’s where the Westborough Baptist Church has gone). Without prayer, we will simply shout, “I told you so” and resort to personal attacks instead of respectful and thoughtful education. As bad as things are, and as bad as they are sure to get, we have to resist the urge to try to correct this trend apart from God.

I know that my critique of Bishop Robinson’s book may seem like I’m saying “I told you so”, but in reality, I’m just being honest and showing some of the many weaknesses in his arguments. I could go on and on and on…, but I won’t beat a dead horse (the LGBT agenda) any further in this blog. I don’t need to.

SSA is a powerful temptation for some people. And it is one of the most devious types of temptation because it can infiltrate every aspect of the person’s life, even their relationship with God. Because of the overwhelming power of SSA, those who suffer from it often feel unwelcome, ridiculed and ostracized because they end up judging everything and everyone by the acceptance they feel. The loneliness can cause them to make decisions and engage in behaviors that only make things worse. Those who do find safe-havens often isolate themselves within that safe-haven which only leads to a more intense and significant departure from Christ and natural law.

Who better to reach out to these people than a Christian? Unfortunately, many SSA people have come to see authentic Christianity as their greatest threat because authentic Christianity would require them to engage in a radical change to everything they have come to recognize as safe, supporting and familiar. We can’t reach out effectively if we are not led by God’s grace which we can only get through the sacraments and prayer.

And prayer is difficult. I’m not talking about occasional prayer when times get rough or praying before your meals. I’m talking about sitting (or kneeling) down with God each day, maybe several times each day, and pouring your heart out to Him. I’m also talking about sitting quietly and listening to Him. But there is something even more difficult than entering into this deeper relationship with God. Even once we develop a life of prayer, we still struggle to pray for our enemies. It is exceedingly difficult to pray for those who revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely. And if you do pray for them, your prayers are usually asking God to simply make them agree with you. But our prayers should not focus on being right. We should pray for light. We should pray that our fellow Christians take God on His word and that our culture should all stop trying to rationalize that Jesus would have accepted homosexuality, divorce, premarital sex, stem cell research, birth control, abortion, using aborted babies to produce cheap energy and mercy killing (euthanasia). We should pray that God uses us to be effective messengers of His Gospel message so that we can have the courage and strength it will take to lead people to the truth. And we should pray that God gives us the grace to lead people to Christ, not away from Him.

If you have a brother, sister, son, daughter, co-worker, friend or neighbor who is same-sex attracted, you need supernatural strength and courage. Without this, you cannot stand for truth and avoid the temptation to accept the dishonest but convenient compromise our culture currently promotes. It is only through God’s grace that you will be able to lead them to the truth instead of pushing them further away from Christ.

The culture tells us to tolerate and accept, possibly even celebrate the behavioral choices others make, in order to make sure everyone feels okay. To tolerate or accept the immoral behavior of your loved one or friend is to accept the loss of their soul without making any attempt to lead them to Christ and His salvation. In a nutshell, this is false love. False love is like any other serious deception. It is full of darkness and things like fear, selfishness and apathy. Bishop Robinson promotes this false love because it makes it easier for him to engage in behavior that is absolutely contrary to his Christian faith. But he’s not alone in this. There are a lot of us who justify our behaviors so that we can continue to self-identify as Christian or as a “good person deep down”. In fact, there are “Christian” thieves, adulterers, abusers, addicts, murderers, etc… Name any bad behavior and I can guarantee you that someone, somewhere, engages in the behavior and still self-identifies as a Christian. This is the American dream; pleasure, comfort and convenience with absolute tolerance and acceptance.

Bishop Robinson’s book is just a self-serving version of the compromise of false love we are seeing more and more often these days. I’m talking about the people who change their lifelong belief about the immorality of homosexual behavior because someone they care for announces that they are SSA. After a while, these Christians voice anger or dissatisfaction with the Christian teaching that was either acceptable or irrelevant to them before their loved one or friend announced that they were SSA. When it becomes personal, many Christians are willing to put their feelings ahead of their faith in order to avoid awkwardness, difficulty and/or growth. Show me such a Christian and I’ll show you a Christian who lacks a deep and profound prayer life.

SSA Christians and their loved ones need prayers, truth and support, in order to give them the courage and strength they will need to avoid the temptation of false love exhibited with tolerance, acceptance and rationalization. It takes an immense amount of courage because there is a very small but very aggressive, manipulative and vocal group of celebrities, media figures, politicians, activists and lobby organizations who are trying to lure us into false love with all of its tolerance, acceptance and rationalization.

It is up to us to call the LGBT bluff when it comes to Christianity and the ultimate truth that comes from God. But when we do it, we need to give SSA Christians hope. We can’t just tell them they are wrong and walk away. Bishop Robinson is wrong, but his hope is with Christ. Bishop Robinson needs to enter into prayer and develop a deep relationship with Christ so that he stops putting words into Christ’s mouth and starts to listen. The first time he listened, he heard a voice telling him to dive into the homosexual lifestyle, but the voice he heard wasn’t God, it was Bishop Robinson’s own voice. We can be certain of this because God has never told anyone to engage in immoral behavior and God has never contradicted Himself by telling anyone to sell-out for inauthentic love.

Maybe the next time Bishop Robinson hits the headlines, it will be his conversion to the truth in which he renounces false love, renounces his book and explains that the homosexual lifestyle is absolutely contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now you have something to pray for.