Their hate for us is real and deep
Professing a Christian view of sexuality apparently makes you unfit to hit baseballs for a living. I’m a Cubs fan. A lifelong, long-suffering Cubs fan who was never sure the day would come that my beloved Cubbies would ever win a World Series. With apologies to my friends and family in the Cleveland area, that day finally came in 2016.For those of you who don’t live and breathe the 162 game baseball season, the last few weeks have been rough for the Cubs. They haven’t played their best ball.(For all you non-baseball fans, hang with me here, I promise we’re getting to a CCV issue.)In a surprising late season move, the Cubs went out and traded for one of the best hitters in all of baseball, Daniel Murphy.You would think Cubs nation from Chicago to China would be celebrating this move – however many fans and media members condemned it. Not because they think Murphy is a bad player or can’t help the team, but because he holds a Christian view of sexuality.In 2015, Murphy was asked what he would do if he had a gay teammate. He responded the same way pretty much every Christian I know would – we would love our teammate, play hard alongside them, even if we have disagreements:
“I disagree with his lifestyle,” Murphy said. “I do disagree with the fact that Billy is a homosexual. That doesn’t mean I can’t still invest in him and get to know him. I don’t think the fact that someone is a homosexual should completely shut the door on investing in them in a relational aspect. Getting to know him. That, I would say, you can still accept them but I do disagree with the lifestyle, 100 percent.” “Maybe, as a Christian, that we haven’t been as articulate enough in describing what our actual stance is on homosexuality,” he said. “We love the people. We disagree the lifestyle. That’s the way I would describe it for me. It’s the same way that there are aspects of my life that I’m trying to surrender to Christ in my own life. There’s a great deal of many things, like my pride. I just think that as a believer trying to articulate it in a way that says just because I disagree with the lifestyle doesn’t mean I’m just never going to speak to [a gay teammate] every time he walks through the door. That’s not love. That’s not love at all.”
I still cannot find one controversial aspect in Murphy’s comments – and he is clearly trying to go out of his way to express love and warmth to any gay friends and teammates.But apparently this isn’t good enough. And these comments from three years ago make Murphy’s trade to the Cubs “controversial”:
Or the move knocks people on the floor and…upsets them.
These are some of the more tame responses...The bottom line is that anti-Christian bigotry is real in America. Murphy went out of his way to say he would be accepting and loving of any teammate, but because he’s not willing to lead the gay pride parade, he’s unfit to hit baseballs for a living.This is just one example of this bigotry playing out in America today. Across our schools, college campuses, and corporate offices, Christians are being told to not just keep their views to themselves, but to compromise their sincerely held religious beliefs.There are people today calling for Daniel Murphy to be out of the league – for him to lose his job because of his views. This is what we mean we say religious freedom is under unprecedented attack in America today. Christians are being forced out of the marketplace simply because of our Biblical views. And while it’s Murphy today, tomorrow it’s going to be one of us.
