I don’t know how many times the author uses the phrase “tension between grace and truth” but it was considerable. But he uses and re-uses this phrase to emphasize a point, and that point is that loving people the way Jesus wants His bride to love others can and will be messy. It’s not all about love and it’s not all about standing firm for the truth as presented in God’s word. Being a disciple of Christ means that we will, at times, maybe most times, need to balance grace (the love) with truth (God’s truth). This tension is present because people aren’t one-dimensional targets like social media tends to paint the “others” as being. People are deep, complicated and desperately in need of the love of God, regardless of their political stance, background, skin color, or sexual attraction. First and foremost, everyone, every human is a sinner in need of God’s love and forgiveness.
The Bride of Christ has struggled to demonstrate to the LGBTQ community the love of Christ. And this failure is probably for a couple of reasons. First, there’s a big push by society to make the LGBTQ lifestyle a normality and acceptable. And anytime someone pushes, our natural tendency as humans is to push back. Second, we feel like anything that is beneficial to us, should be good for everyone else. And while God’s love and holiness is beneficial for everyone, only those who are indwelled by the Holy Spirit have the power to live holy lives. To everyone else, this is a practice in futility and frustration. Lastly, in the Bride of Christ, there’s a tendency to forget who were as old creations, and this forgetfulness does not translate well in dealing with those outside the church.
Caleb Kaltenbach has much to teach the Bride of Christ in the tension of grace and truth when sharing the love of Christ to the LGBTQ community and, honestly, to anyone outside the church. Why? Because Caleb knows what it’s like to feel hatred from the Christian community. He knows what it’s like to feel like an outsider, to be mocked and ridiculed by those who call themselves by the name of Jesus. Caleb was raised in the LGBTQ community and saw first hand the slights, the awkwardness and the downright hateful attitude often demonstrated by those who profess the love of Jesus. And, through God’s direction and love, Caleb not only came to know the love of Christ but also came to be a pastor.
The church, frankly, has a terrible track record when it comes to demonstrating the love of Christ to those it considers to be antagonistic. At least the modern church is lacking and the Bride certainly needs a prodding. The problem comes when we attempt to fix the deficits we see in the modern church that we want to go to the extreme of being completely loving to the point where we value love over God’s truth. But as Christians, we can’t really have the grace without the truth. The Bible is our revelation from a holy God to a sinful people. It’s not only a revelation of the problem of sinfulness but a revelation of the solution of the substitutionary death of Jesus. We really can’t have the problem without the solution or the solution without the problem.
Caleb masterfully handles the tension of grace and truth by urging the Bride to form relationships, reach out that hand of friendship to those in the LGBTQ community and do so with the full knowledge of the truth of God because they are equally as deserving the solution to our universal problem of sin and separation. Caleb calls the church to love like Jesus loved, with grace and truth. In the age of social media, of us-versus-them, God’s love should transcend our base emotions and reach everyone. After all, the Bride of Christ was not saved just so we could receive eternal life and we could receive the peace of Christ. We were saved so we could share that love to everyone and anyone, friend or enemy, in the tension of grace and truth.