2010-11-2 McCance: Facebook Posting, Grace

By way of preface here is an article about the letter's recipient:

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-11-01/us/arkansas.anti.gay.resignation_1_school-board-resignation-letter-comments?_s=PM:US

Dear Mr. McCance,

I’m sure this must be one of hundreds if not thousands of letters you have received in the last several weeks. Some of those letters you have received are probably from people who wish you dead, others who agree with your Facebook postings and encourage you to defend your initial statements in the name of True Christianity against the cancer of moral decay that homosexuality, for some, represents. Still others will have written to you, as Christians, telling you that because of your actions you have no right to define yourself as a Christian. I pray that you are shielded from any of the venom in these letters and that, in each of them, you find something that gives you occasion to think.

As I watched your interview with Anderson Cooper on October 28, 2010 I saw a man in the midst of a life changing experience. I couldn’t help but think of the Apostle Paul who stood by and watched as his friends stoned to death Steven, the first Christian martyr. Paul’s life was forever changed when God appeared to him shortly thereafter from an opening in the clouds and told him that Jesus was His beloved Son. In that moment Paul knew the awesome nature of God and would spend the rest of his life as follower of Christ.

I could not write to you without saying that, while I respectfully disagree with those would call homosexuality a sin, I felt disgust and anger over the callousness of your Facebook postings. I must also say that I see you as a true Christian.

To be Christian is not to be always perfect or gentle or kind or good. If we were perfect we would not need Christianity. To be a Christian is to fall, to sin and to know that God’s grace and mercy will be our rock and our salvation. To be a Christian is to seek His mercy and to believe in His amazing grace. I believe that, in the last few weeks, you and your family have come to know God’s grace in a new way and as if for the first time.

As Paul was transformed so I hope that, through the grace of God, you will become transformed. I hope that you will continue to serve the children of Arkansas as a former member of the school board. I hope that you will help the children who are bullied for being gay as well as the teachers, administrators and school systems which have not yet experienced grace of God as you have. Speak, please, of the need to show kindness and tolerance towards gay students regardless of whether a person thinks that homosexuality is right or wrong. Speak out against the bullies and the adults who insult and demean. Speak at school boards, go to PFLAG meetings, write letters to the editor, talk to your friends.

Finally, I would like you to know that I speak to you not just as a fellow Christian with faults and flaws of my own, but as a lesbian and one of the people whose suicide you so flippantly wished for. I offer you my forgiveness for this trespass against me and I ask that you keep me in your prayers.

You are in my prayers and you have my support.