The Christian and LGBT+ Communities--Mark Yarhouse's Forester Lecture

This past Thursday, I attended Mark Yarhouse's Forester Lecture at College Park Church. Considered to be the leading expert on sexual and gender identity, Yarhouse discussed how the Christian community should learn to coexist with the LGBT+ community.

From my experience, these two communities have done nothing but clash. I grew up in a fairly conservative area, an area which was not very open to diversity. There was some racial and religious diversity, but it wasn't welcomed with open arms. And if even those diversities couldn't be accepted, then sexual and gender diversity certainly wasn't accepted. The students of my high school were incredibly bigoted, and my gay friends were the subjects of relentless bullying. I hoped that I would find that the "real world" after high school would be different, but found that this conservative community is actually a lot worse. The kind of discrimination that LGBT+ people face on this campus is so outrageous that many have to turn to counseling to be able to comprehend the pain they go through.

Because of this, I think that Yarhouse's lecture was absolutely necessary. He provided necessary information about sexual and gender identity for people on either side of the debate, and heavily pushed the fact that Christians need to be compassionate to people of the LGBT+ community.