Rejection

I posted this as a comment in the "Faith" Forum but I thought it might be insightful if not helpful if seen here as well.  

The quote below from Richard Lovelace caught my attention.  Even though it wasn’t directed at being transgender within the Christian church it goes a long way toward explaining what’s going on when we experience vitriolic rejection from segments of the church community. 

“Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously insecure persons—much less secure that non—Christians—because they have too much light to rest easily under the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have.  Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce defensive criticism of others.  They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger.  They cling desperately to legal, Pharisaical righteousness.  But envy, jealousy and other branches on the tree of sin grow out of their fundamental insecurity.” 

Who is Richard Lovelace?  This is from a review of his book:

Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal by Richard Lovelace challenges, inspires, educates, and dares to undermine sacred cows.  Lovelace is emeritus professor of Church History at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and brings a keen eye for theology and pastoral insight along with his training as a historian to the writing of this landmark book. Dynamics of Spiritual Life is still used as a seminary textbook in many classes throughout the world. Its purpose statement, from the first sentence of the preface, declares it to be “a manual of spiritual theology, a discipline combining the history and the theology of Christian experience” (p. 11).