We were dismayed to see the response in your newspaper to the Unveiling the Truth conference in Olds. We were portrayed as “intolerant,” as “denouncing the LGBTQ community,” and as spreading “misinformation and hate” by people who were not even at the conference.
Even your reporter wasn't at the entirety of the presentations on homosexuality and transgenderism, nor could he have been — they were held in different rooms at the same time.
Furthermore, to write an article (“LGBTQ community members take a stand”) that quotes two anonymous sources, who characterized our message as one of “intolerance” and as saying gay and transgender people are “subpar,” is not only bad journalism, it fosters the very division and fear those sources denounced.
One critic (“Religious conference ‘goes too far'”) who was willing to be named, argued, in essence, that Christians can believe what they want, but shouldn't talk about it publicly. We would never demand to censor anybody that way, let alone the LGBTQ community, because that would be “going too far.”
All of the criticisms, however, seem based on a confusion. For instance, your editorial stated in its headline that you have “no tolerance of intolerance.” By your definition, though, that makes you intolerant. Disagreeing with people's ideas and behaviour is not hateful or “intolerant.” If that were the case, our critics would be hateful and intolerant of Christians like us.
Tolerance can't simply mean agreement. You can respect and love someone even if you disagree with them. Often it is because you love someone that you have to be willing to disagree with them. Traditionally, “tolerance” meant putting up with things you don't like. But no one wants to be merely “tolerated”. Rather, we all want to be loved and respected. And this is precisely what was taught at the conference.
Jesus commanded his followers to love their neighbours. That includes our LGBTQ neighbours. For that reason, our goal as speakers at the conference was to train Christians to learn how to dialogue with everybody, including the LGBTQ community, with gentleness and respect.
We would invite all our critics, all of those concerned by what we allegedly said at the conference, to dialogue with us, and to hear the entirety of our presentations. The churches that hosted us are more than willing to host this dialogue.
Please talk to us first instead of thinking the worst of us based on a few badly written headlines.
Jojo Ruba
Calgary
For the Faith Beyond Belief team
- The names of the people quoted in the story the letter references were deliberately withheld to protect them. We know who they are and can verify the quotes attributed to them to be accurate. Ed.
