Why Christians are angry about 'Ellen'

By MIKE COPE / Guest Columnist

Recently a woman stopped my wife and asked, "What is Highland going to do about Ellen?" Without meaning to insult the question, she immediately replied, "Not watch it." Since we have church activities on Wednesday evening, that was a fairly safe response!

Ellen DeGeneres has come out of the closet. Tonight, Ellen Morgan, her television character, will do the same. As a result, e-mails, faxes and petitions have been flying around Abilene churches.

What are we going to do about it?

I'd like to step back a bit and make three observations.

First, Christians tend to become passionate about issues that cost them nothing.

A church in Canada has asked its members not to vacation in Florida because of the way Cuban immigrants have been treated. The members are being asked - as a statement of social justice - to travel to Cuba instead.

Now there's a bold moral stand! What does this cost them? Nothing! Church members can still take their nice vacation and will probably get more entertainment bang for the buck in the process.

That seems easier to me than asking them to make a social statement by caring for the homeless and poor around them. That's a bit more costly.

Likewise, taking a strong moral stand against this episode of "Ellen" in a conservative southern city doesn't require a lot of moral fortitude on our part, it doesn't seem to me. At least it doesn't seem as costly as, say, getting close to people who are tortured by their sexual identities, by listening to them and by loving them.

Now that would be courageous! Is the church up to the task? It's much easier and less costly to sit back and condemn.

Second, Christians tend to become passionate about issues that tempt them least.

I wonder where the moral outrage would be if Ellen were coming out tonight as a racist or a liar or a gossip or a bitter person or a person who struggles with lust or a greedy, materialistic individual. Can you imagine - a prime time television character who admitted being greedy and uncaring about the poor? Surely the church would then protest and picket!

I've noticed that those who will take the time to get to know someone who struggles with their sexual identity tend to quickly get off the crusade bandwagon. While holding to their biblical convictions about sexual ethics (sexual relations in a marriage between a husband and wife or celibacy), they no longer demonize "the gays."

Instead, their first impulse is to hurt with those who can't figure out who they are and with those who teeter-totter on the brink of suicide.

Third, Christians tend to become passionate about preserving their own purity by policing the world. Growing up, I heard constant emphasis on how women ought to dress so men wouldn't lust.

Have you ever noticed this isn't a huge concern to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount? He just tells his followers, male and female, to control their lust. The way to deal with lust isn't to scold the world for the way it dresses, but to deal with our own thought processes.

Christians need to realize that the hope for the world isn't how "Christian" the government is, how wise the Supreme Court is, how daring the Legislature is or how moral Hollywood is. Rather, our hope is in the kingdom of God that has broken into this world through the ministry of Jesus Christ!

Paul knew that the church would always find it easier to attack the morality of the world than to deal with its own sins. But his perspective is clear: "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside" (I Cor. 5:12f).

So what is Highland going to do about Ellen? Just continue to try to be the church. Ellen DeGeneres isn't the enemy!

(My guess is that calling her Ellen DeGenerate, as one popular fundamentalist minister has done, doesn't really inch her any closer to Christianity.)

I don't know exactly what to do about the fictional Ellen Morgan.

But if you run into the real Ellen, please invite her to church for me. Let her know that God deeply loves her.

Mike Cope is a minister at Highland Church of Christ in Abilene.