I loved this answer so much! Thank you for sharing it!
This thread reminds me of several years ago when a young single mother here on CC posted that when her young son had a medical emergency, not a single person from their church would give them a ride to the hospital. The reason given was that she was a single mother with a child born out of wedlock, and apparently they didn't want any of "HER" sin to "taint" them. Apparently they believed that helping her would somehow cause her sinful contagion to spread and give the impression that they were approving of her sin.
Never mind that this young woman was on her own and the very reason she was in that church was because she was trying to put the past behind her and move forward in her Christian walk.
A good friend was talking today about a sermon in which it was said that the early church was known for its love, whereas the church of today is known mostly for what it is against.
I certainly understand that as Christians, we must stand against sin.
But in this example, I would hope I would simply see this as a human being in need and someone I could help, since God had given me the blessing of a day off and a working car that could make it that far. And who knows? Maybe the conversation along the way could open a door.
If we start filtering for sins before we help someone in a case like this, where do we start drawing lines?
In another thread, I was talking about a pastor's convention in which over 90% of the hotel rooms ordered pay-per-view porn during their stay (the entire hotel was booked for this event, so everyone there had something to do with this pastor's meeting, and this was before the days of the internet so porn took a lot more effort and expense to get.)
If we changed this scenario from a homosexual needing a ride to the hospital to a straight pastor who had watched pornographic movies all weekend, would the answer change?
And if so, why?