If there is one thing I hope remains true no matter how much I grow, evolve, or change, it is this: may my heart continue to expand in compassion, may my roots grow deeper in agape love, and may I never lose the courage to stand beside those the world has cast aside.
I will use my voice to defend the innocent, protect the vulnerable, and advocate for those society labels as “the least of these.” Not because it is popular, but because it is right. It is what the great teachers, prophets, and mystics throughout history taught.
And in the words of a dear friend I once knew: “Maybe, Finn, like Esther, you were born for such a time as this. Maybe the voice you’re afraid to use is the very one you’re meant to use.”
It never ceases to amaze me how easily people can justify hatred simply because someone chooses to express themselves differently. What grieves me most is that these conversations are not merely theological debates. Real people live with the consequences of the beliefs we preach.
There are people who have spent years believing they were a mistake in the eyes of God. People who were told they were broken, sinful, or an abomination before they were old enough to understand who they were. People who were rejected by their families, disowned by their parents, abandoned by their communities, and left carrying wounds that no human being should have to carry.
Some never recovered from that rejection. Some have spent years battling shame, self-hatred, and despair because they were taught that the God who created them could never truly love them as they are. Some have spent their lives carrying wounds inflicted in the name of faith, desperately trying to earn a love they were told was conditional. And some people, including that dear friend of mine, lost their battle against self-abandonment. Not because they lacked strength or because they lacked worth. But because they were convinced that who they were was something to be ashamed of. No one should have to choose between being loved and being themselves.
That should concern us far more than whether someone fits neatly into our theological framework. If your theology moves you further away from compassion, further away from understanding, further away from life itself, then the problem is not with humanity.
The problem is with the theology.
History has shown us that some of humanity’s greatest atrocities began with the belief that one group was more worthy of love, dignity, or belonging than another. There is no exclusive claim on divine love. No monopoly on truth. No single people chosen above the rest.
We are all chosen, deeply loved, valuable and wonderfully beautiful.
The way someone is born is natural. Hatred, however, is learned. And unlike being gay, being an asshole is actually curable.
— Finn 🤍
