 This week I came across a video with a guy who looked strangely familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. The video intrigued me nonetheless, so I kept watching. It was a debate, basically, about religion and their perspective on LGBT issues. As I was watching the video, all of a sudden it struck me. I know who this guy is. In fact, I was a subscriber of his years and years ago. At the time, Hunter Avalon was a self-proclaimed Christian and conservative. He'd make videos about his political beliefs, talking about wokeness and progressives and stuff like that, and also talking about how his faith impacted his beliefs as well. And so, for me, as a Christian conservative homeschooler at the time, who loved watching YouTube, I subscribed, but as time went on, I began to see his content get more aggressive and hostile to those he disagreed with. And also, his content got a little bit more crass, or maybe my conscience just got more sensitive, but either way, I decided that I was going to unsubscribe and not watch his content anymore. Now, it was definitely a surprise to rediscover Hunter and realize that, okay, man, he has gone from one end of the spectrum to the complete other end of the spectrum. One of the things that he has touted that he values quite highly is being authentic with what he believes, and he is really outspoken about the fact that he no longer believes Christianity. And now, the vast majority of clips I see from him, at least on TikTok, are him talking about Christianity and how harmful and just awful it is. If they're religious and they believe homosexuality is a sin, that's not bigoted. Yes, it is. Religion is bigoted? Religious people are bigoted? No, religious beliefs that homosexuality is a sin is absolutely bigoted. So all Catholics are bigoted? If you believe that homosexuality is a sin, that belief is bigoted. So people who believe in the Bible, they're all bigoted? That's silly. I mean, listen, there are people who believe that... I mean, a lot of the population is religious and hold... I personally don't... And who's the least accepting of gay people? It's the white evangelicals. Again, no. US Muslims are more accepting of gay people in this country. That's how religious people feel about homosexuality, though. And that's wrong. That's incorrect. Well, it's not up to you to judge that, though. Wait, it's not up to you to judge that. So how are they determining that it's wrong? Listen, it's not up to you to define for them how they feel about behavior. It's not up to them to define for you. I don't care how they feel. Facts don't care about your feelings. Okay, so Hunter here is making a moral accusation against Christians. He's saying, okay, because you guys don't accept homosexuality as an appropriate lifestyle, you think that it's a sin, that's a bigoted behavior, that's a bigoted thing to believe, that's wrong, that's hateful, and you're wrong for believing that. But according to him, in an atheistic worldview, why is bigotry wrong? Why is being hateful wrong? Stick with me here. If we're just all primordial lose, it's evolved over millions of years, animals with no intrinsic worth or meaning or dignity or value. If we're just chemical reactions inside of meat bags, who says that being bigoted towards a certain group is wrong? Who says that hating someone who's different from you is wrong? Now, I know what you're saying. Isaac, Isaac, are you saying that bigotry's not wrong? Is that what you're trying to convince us of? No, I'm saying that from an atheistic worldview, you have no foundation to say that it is. So now we turn to God, who gave us a moral foundation and how we should live our lives based on his character. So when we talk about hate, yeah, God says, do not hate your brother, do not hate those around you because they're created in the image of God. And the term bigoted has been so manipulated. To now it just means that you disagree with somebody's lifestyle. That's all it takes to make you bigoted. But if we're going to get concrete, objective morality, we can't look within to find that. We need to look out there and we need to look to God. Who is the creator of the universe? He is the sovereign, the alpha and the omega. When we look at the Bible, it's revelation that he's given to us. It's evidently clear that homosexuality is a sin. And no, I don't think for a second that somehow people that experience homosexual desires are incapable of being forgiven or somehow worse than everybody else. The truth is the scripture says that we've all fallen short of the glory of God and that because of our sin, we stand guilty before him. But the good news of the gospel is that we don't have to be slaves to that sin anymore because of Jesus' payment on the cross on our behalf so that we can be made new. We can be given a new identity where we don't need to identify with who we once were and the sins of old, but now we can step into this new creation that God is transforming us into. Now, even after saying all that, I fully expect that people will call me bigoted or call my perspectives bigoted. That's honestly really okay. Look, in a lot of ways, the church has understandably gotten a bad rap in terms of how they've interacted with folks from the LGBTQ community. But at the same time, I know so many solid brothers and sisters and churches that are welcoming people in or inviting them to experience Jesus, but they do need to know that that welcoming isn't just total approval of every one of their behaviors. Part of the role of the church and the Christian body is to encourage one another to spur one another on to holiness, to call unbelievers, to repentance and faith to preach the gospel like this is all part of it. It's not a matter of justification of sin to make you feel better about yourself. That's not truly loving to push out full acceptance and total approval just because you don't want to need to feel bad. Yes, we accept people where they're at, but we don't want them to stay there because we know that God is calling them to something more, to repent, to turn to Him in faith, to be transformed. This is the exciting journey that we're inviting people into regardless of their struggle, regardless of their temptation that they can be saved and be invited into God's family. My oldest son, he's 18 now. He came out as gay. I will tell you it was really uncomfortable for me at first. I didn't want to talk about it. I shut down. Eventually I had to realize, I love my kid no matter what. I have to accept him for who he is. And so everything that has been taught to me religiously, that is, when it comes to the gay community, I had to throw that out the window. And it was difficult for both of us, but we came to an understanding now that it's not even a problem for me anymore. And I hate that I thought that way at one point. I really do. The fact that you had these deep-seated beliefs that maybe weren't all that rational but were kind of instilled in you through dogma whenever you were growing up, and the fact that you were able to confront that and reorient those beliefs based around the fact that you recognize your son was gay and your relationship with your son was way more important than those beliefs, like that alone speaks volumes. It actually took conscious effort. And I think in a way that's even more powerful. The idea that the role of a parent is to just hand out their total acceptance of every one of their child's behaviors is just so wrong. And it's such a war perspective of what that relationship looks like. I don't doubt that it's extremely difficult. I've never been in that situation. I can imagine it's really, really painful. But at the same time, you think about a child-and-parent relationship. From the time you're young, you're doing all sorts of things. You're having these behaviors. You're saying these things. And your parent is there to correct you, to help guide you, to not be mean or hateful or judgmental or try to kick you out of the house the second you do something wrong, but to say, hey, like, this is the way that you should go, right? Train up a child in the way that they should go. And when they are old, they will not depart from it. And this is the calling of a parent. And then even as that child progressed and they get older and maybe they become an adult, that relationship does change. But at the same time, even within a friend relationship, love doesn't mean, oh, I'm going to give you my full approval of your lifestyle because that's what it means to really love you. No, not if I disagree with it. Not if it's going to be harmful for you. True love is saying, hey, like, buddy, I'm here with you. I'm your friend. And I won't leave you. But I want you to know, like, this is not going to be the best for you because God's got a better design. He's got a better way. But all of a sudden, these parents, they're being confronted with this really challenging situation, really challenging situation. And you see terrible examples of the opposite side of this, of Christian parents that are just like spewing hate towards their child or kicking them out of the house because they're just saying that they're gay or whatever at 16 years old or something. And that's awful, right? Nobody in their right mind supports that kind of behavior. But at the same time, we need to say, hey, I can be with you. I can support you as a person, but I can't support your lifestyle. And I'm going to love you, but I don't love your lifestyle. And I admit, that's a hard thing to say because people connect this aspect of how they feel or their attraction so intimately with their identity. And because of that, it feels to them that you're rejecting the wholesale person of who they are. But we need to be sharing with them, too, that it doesn't have to be their identity. It doesn't have to be their wholesale identity. I know that's the message that the world has given us, but even in terms of other things, like other sins that the Bible points out, like, you know, you experience lust or you watch pornography or maybe you're addicted to pornography. That doesn't have to be your identity. That doesn't have to be your thing, just because you feel that way or you're involved in this. That doesn't have to be you. Christ wants to make us into a new creation, right? Like, that's what he's inviting us into where we don't have to identify with the temptations of the past, but we can step into who God's creating us to be. Thanks so much for watching this video, guys. If you enjoyed it, subscribe because I'm putting out new videos like this all the time. A huge shout out to everyone who supports me on Patreon. It is the way that I'm able to continue on my mission of equipping people to follow Jesus daily. So if that's something you want to get behind, click the link in my description and you can also access all sorts of rewards for certain tears. It's a lot of fun over there, so I encourage you to check it out. It would be a huge blessing. Now, I will see you guys next time. God bless.