Others were less enthusiastic. Author John Pavlovitz tweeted, “Gender identity and sexual orientation aside, @MattWalshBlog is a lousy human.” Walsh retweeted the statement and replied, “And you’re a sniveling pathetic weakling begging for approval while you languish in irrelevance and obscurity.”
Though Walsh’s views on gender and sexuality are congruent with the convictions that most Christians hold, some Christian authors and pastors stand in contrast to Walsh by emphasizing empathy and compassion when engaging in this conversation.
Last year, ChurchLeaders interviewed pastor and author Caleb Kaltenbach to discuss how Christians can love those within the LGBTQ community without compromising what the Bible says.
Kaltenbach, whose parents both went into same-sex relationships after they divorced when Kaltenbach was a young child, said of his childhood experiences with Christians, “I learned this real quick from my parents: if you are not like Christians, they will not like you.”
After coming to faith in high school, Kaltenbach became passionate about helping leaders and churches walk in the tension of grace and truth. He emphasizes that acceptance doesn’t always require agreement and says that Christians should have relationships with people in the LGBTQ community that are marked by love and kindness.
“[Empathy] is extremely important,” Kaltenbach said. “I think that it’s real hard to preach on things if you don’t have moral authority to preach on those things—and the experience. Because without the experience, you’re not going to have the empathy. Because nobody’s empathetic from a distance.”
ChurchLeaders has reached out to Matt Walsh for comment and will update this article in the event of his reply.
