It Would Be Different If She Didn’t Know Better!

           In April of this year Jennifer Knapp announced that she is a lesbian and has been in a same-sex relationship. She said that it was only a straw on the camels back when it came to taking a sabbatical from music, and that she had many things to consider. Many fans were beginning to wonder where she’d gone. After The Collection release of greatest hits, Jennifer (as I’ll explain later, I’ve always seen myself as connected enough to be on a first name basis with her) seemed to have disappeared. My friends and I used to joke that she was making attempt in the death metal scene. Well, we have our answer. The real one this time!

            As a teenager, I loved Jennifer’s music. Her folk sound was different from anything I’d ever heard in Christian music. Her lyrics were very heartfelt and intimate and I started to read into her testimony.  Jennifer had a rowdy background and when she found God, her life made a 180° turn. “The Bible literally saved my life,” she said. Songs of redemption and sanctuary in the Savior spoke straight to my heart.

            In fact her music inspired me to buckle down and truly learn guitar, not just the online tab kind of “learn”, true musicianship. Playing her songs, harmonizing to her voice and even using her words to worship my Lord, I felt like I knew her. Much like the staff of theMILL at New Life Church in Colorado Springs refers to Eugene Peterson as if they’re all the best of friends, she became simply Jennifer.

            I had some suspicions several years ago. Then recently when I played one of her songs at Friday Night Live and a listener mentioned a rumor about her coming out publicly as a lesbian. I found a USA Today report that confirmed it. “I’m certainly in a same-sex relationship,” she said. I was heartbroken. I had this little feeling in my heart; like when there’s a break-up or fight between friends that leads someone to tear a picture in half. A bond is severed. I didn’t even know her!

But for some reason I was deeply saddened. My brother frequently uses marijuana for “pain relief”. I know this is a completely separate issue but bear with me just as an example: As a Christian, I feel there are Biblical grounds for deciding marijuana is wrong. When he got a medical marijuana license, I was saddened for several reasons. For one, since he knows I think it’s wrong there is automatically weirdness. I think he knows that I love him and want him around, but I think he still feels like he’s judged and that it’s awkward. Second, someone I love is doing something that would put a huge distance between he and God. In fact, I have often wondered if he ever knew the God of the Bible at all.

Although I have absolutely no relationship with Jennifer, I felt much of the same regret for her! I wished I could sit down and buy her coffee like I did with my brother. I wanted to know her reasoning and her heart behind this matter. I didn’t need the conversation to result in her changing her mind. I just wanted to have a heart-to-heart girl talk.

For someone whose life was supposedly so changed by Scripture, she sure seems to avoid the Truth! She refers to verses that we (“the conservative evangelical") would quote as “clobber verses”. She maintains that as Christians we break other rules the Old Testament talks about such as eating shellfish or wearing a multitude of colors, so basically we have no right to address homosexuality. Although she admits that she isn’t capable of a theological argument, she does throw jabs at those who hold to what the scripture says. She excuses herself; “There's a spirit that overrides that for me.”

Well that’s just fine and dandy. She has a feeling that makes it ok. She thinks it’s right so she gets to ignore what God’s word says. Since it seems like she wants to attack our supposed legalism as if we’re Pharisees I’d like to bring this to light:

           

“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

                                                                                    -Romans 1:24-27 ESV

            This is a New Testament letter to the city of Rome where homosexuality was prevalent. This seems to make it black and white for me. It’s wrong, it’s shameful and those who know and disobey God’s Word will be punished. In fact, not only those who know God’s word “deserve to die” but also those who approve of their disobedience. I just hope that impressionable young Christians don’t get caught up in her “spirit” that she seems to think excuses her from obedience.