It’s striking to see conversations about #sexuality and #faith come up in important spaces – and key that we participate. pic.twitter.com/8rrJLZ9slI

— TIERs (@TIERsNigeria) September 25, 2017

This is probably the last thing you’d expect to see being promoted by a Nigerian church, even a forward thinking pentecostal church but it is real and it is happening here. The influence of the church in Nigeria is too vast and far reaching and its responsibility to all persons unsaved is too important to marginalise LGBT persons and it is important that at least the Lifepointe church in Lagos is willing to engage sexuality from a place of care and introspection rather than judgment.

In Jesus’ life, it is mentioned repeatedly that he spent his time in what was considered the worst of the worst sinners of his time; prostitutes, murderers, unmarried women and tax collectors. He set an important example of humility and inclusiveness and while the Church in Nigeria, expanding on the fundamentalist approach to christianity that our colonizers introduced the religion to us, chose to discriminate instead, there is always the opportunity to take another approach to reaching the marginalised.

We will wait and see what the Lifepointe’s objective is with their service, but for now we will stay hopefully optimistic.

Editor