Jen Hatmaker, Christian pastor, speaker and author faced backlash in 2016 when she departed from traditional Christian teachings and declared same-sex marriage to be “holy”.
One of her daughters, Sydney recently revealed she is gay. At the introduction of the lengthy conversation between Hatmaker and her daughter Sydney, the “For the Love” podcast host said the episode was not “an announcement,” because her family has known for quite some time that Sydney is homosexual. It was, though, the first time she’d shared the revelation with her listeners and readers.
Sydney Hatmaker , with the agreement of her mother, said it’s “not enough” for pastors and Christians to just love LGBT people; they need to also fully embrace their lifestyles.
Hatmaker explained that it is “maybe even more cruel” to love LGBT people while also believing homosexuality to be contrary to biblical teaching.
“It is not enough, Christians, to say, ‘Well, we love you, anyway,’” she said. “I don’t want to be ‘loved anyway.’”
All of this comes on the heels of the release of Hatmaker’s newest book, “Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire: The Guide to Being Glorious You.” She wrote in the book that she has largely exchanged evangelical theology for “the wild terrain of the wilderness.”
Sydney explained a particular moment, which Hatmaker described as “a terrible day,” when she picked up a book by an unnamed pastor who “didn’t know where he landed [on homosexuality] but knew that he loved the gay people in his life, systematically going through the Bible and, verse by verse, coming to the conclusion that gayness is sin.”
“That was just — destroyed me,” she told her mom, recalling having a “full meltdown” that day. “[I] read the whole thing in one day, just fully feeling in that moment like God didn’t love me.”
Hatmaker argued many pastors preach as if only heterosexual people are in their congregations, when, in reality, “every single church is just filled with gay kids and gay moms and dads.”
“It’s just so irresponsible to break their hearts,” she added.
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