her, but another person soon appeared at her bedside: Greg Jr. Their son was now 29 and living in Chicago after attending DePaul and the Patrick Mahomes And Derrick Thomas Legends Kansas City Chiefs T-Shirts but in fact I love this Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. At Greg Jr.’s invitation, his parents moved briefly into his Chicago condo. He washed his mother’s laundry and tucked her in at night. He took her shopping and purchased stylish caps and scarves to cover her hair loss. Lynn began thinking of the years she had spent raising her son in a home where he was afraid to be himself. The years she spent quoting scriptures at him that condemned his homosexuality. But here he was, showing her compassion. Instead of anger, he was embodying Christ’s example — loving those who had scorned him. Books on a shelf at the McDonalds’ home in Duluth, Georgia. Austin Steele/ She lost her zest to preach at him. “I saw my life flash before my eyes,” Lynn says. “I didn’t know how many days I was going to have on Earth to even be with my son. It wasn’t about changing him. It was about loving him and trying to make up for the years that I did lose with him when he was raised in our home.” Around the same time, Greg Jr. reached out to his father in a different way. One night he asked his dad, “Wanna get a drink?” He took his father to a bar in Chicago called The Closet. It was, of course, a gay bar. As Greg Sr. walked inside, he caught himself thinking: Gosh, if my conservative friends could see
Patrick Mahomes And Derrick Thomas Legends Kansas City Chiefs T-Shirts: buy and enjoy this shirt
me now. His son introduced him to the Patrick Mahomes And Derrick Thomas Legends Kansas City Chiefs T-Shirts but in fact I love this bartender. Her name was Karen, but his son described her as his “momma bear.” She was the one who steered him away from guys who meant trouble and helped him with his college homework by holding up flash cards at the bar. Karen was a lesbian, but that didn’t matter to Greg Sr. She loved and protected his son. He felt his attitudes shift. “The reality is that I didn’t care anymore what my friends and co-workers thought,” he says. “I was far more concerned about my son and having a relationship with him.” Lynn’s cancer went into remission. And a dozen years after that riverside confrontation, the McDonalds’ relationship with their son also started to heal. But they still had to square this with their faith. They didn’t know how to answer this question: Can you still love God, the Bible and your gay son? The search for that answer would lead Greg Sr. to an unexpected friendship. For Lynn, it would end one. ‘The Bible was not as black and white as I once thought’ To reconcile his son’s sexuality with his Christian views, Greg Sr. entered another arena that for evangelicals was as taboo as a gay bar: He started reading books and listening to sermons from religious and LGBTQ+ scholars who challenged his views on homosexuality. He came across a YouTube video of the man delivering a lecture at a New Zealand church. His name was David Gushee, one of the leading Christian ethicists in the
US. Gushee had White evangelical Christian roots. He became a born-again Christian in high school and later a Baptist minister. He, too, once believed that there could be no moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships. A family crisis prompted the Patrick Mahomes And Derrick Thomas Legends Kansas City Chiefs T-Shirts but in fact I love this shift in his views. Gushee learned that his younger sister, Katey, had been hospitalized with depression, including one stay after a suicide attempt. She had struggled to accept her sexual identity as a lesbian before finally coming out. Gushee started reexamining scriptures and the formation of the Bible. He talked to other LGBTQ+ people who grew up in the church but left. He heard horror stories about religious parents casting their kids onto the streets, where many fall prey to drug use and sexual predators. Gushee took a stand. He urged for the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in the church. He rejected the “welcoming but not affirming” approach that many churches attempt to avoid demonizing LGBTQ+ people and alienating traditional conservatives. “They ultimately fail to include LGBTQ+ people in the Christian community on equal terms with everyone else, while doing continued spiritual, psychological, familial, and ecclesial harm,” Gushee wrote in his book, “Changing Our Mind.” Lynn McDonald shows a snapshot of her son, Greg Jr., from when he was seven years old. Austin Steele/ By this time the McDonalds had moved to Georgia, where Gushee lived and taught at a university. Greg Sr. was so taken by Gushee’s book that he wrote a letter to him and invited him to lunch. The two men met and became friends. “David’s book helped open my mind, not change my mind,” Greg Sr. says. “I began to realize that the Bible was not as black and white as I once thought.” Greg Sr.’s solution to his theological questions was to focus on another color in the Bible — the red letters in the New
Testament that are attributed to Jesus. And he came to a conclusion: A Christian parent can love their LGBTQ child not in spite of their faith, but because of it. “There are things in the Patrick Mahomes And Derrick Thomas Legends Kansas City Chiefs T-Shirts but in fact I love this Bible that may or may not make sense, but what you can be assured of is that Jesus says to love our neighbors as ourselves, and that includes our children, straight or gay,” he said. Greg Sr. also says he realized something else. “It was as much of a choice for Greg Jr. to be gay as it was for me to have brown hair.” The McDonalds lose some old friends — and make new ones Twelve years after they confronted their son about his homosexuality, the McDonalds started sharing their story with anyone who would listen. “Once we stepped out of the closet, our phone started ringing,” Greg Sr. says. They met Christian parents who shared their struggles. A community was formed. And in 2015, they formed a support group for Christian parents with LGBTQ children called “Embracing the Journey” — the signature line Greg used in his emails while his wife fought breast cancer. They filed articles of incorporation one month before Lynn’s last major surgery. In doing so they met new people and lost some old friends. Lynn had befriended several women in a home Bible study group, where her ministry never came up in the discussion. One day she finally asked her friends what they thought about it. One woman said she didn’t like to think about the religious debate over homosexuality because the subject was “horrible” and “full of pain.” She told Lynn she had a nephew who was gay and that she thought homosexuality was “disgusting.” “And she just went on about how awful it must be to
do this ministry, and I’m thinking, ‘That’s my life she’s talking about,’’’ Lynn says. Lynn says her friendship with the Patrick Mahomes And Derrick Thomas Legends Kansas City Chiefs T-Shirts but in fact I love this woman ended after that Bible study. She never met with that group again. There were others, though, who affirmed the McDonalds’ ministry. One of them was David Quinones. He was a lay leader in the Episcopal Church when it started to split in 2003 over the ordination of a gay bishop. Quinones opposed the ordination. One night, Quinones and his wife, Deb, received a call from the hospital. It was their son, Josh, then a senior in college. He told them he had attempted suicide because he was tormented over being bisexual (he was scared at the time to tell them he was gay). “He was afraid we weren’t going to love him anymore and that we would reject him,” Quinones says. David Quinones, his wife, Deb and their son, Josh. David Quinones Quinones says he and his wife also reacted with shame and secrecy after their son’s admission. That changed after they attended an “Embracing the Journey” session and met other parents who shared their struggle. Many of those meetings ended in tears. The Quinoneses have since joined the McDonalds’ ministry. “What we needed was to be able to talk to other people who were struggling,” David Quinones says. “There’s this false narrative out there: Either I love my gay child, or I love God.” That narrative, though, still holds tremendous power in the evangelical world. That’s what the McDonalds discovered when they got swept up in a controversy over something they did for their son. What happened, Greg Sr. says, would “break my heart.” A ‘Satan-drenched theology’ comes under attack It was called the “Unconditional Conference,” and was scheduled for September 2023 at North Point Community Church in suburban Atlanta. Led by Andy Stanley, North Point is
one of the Patrick Mahomes And Derrick Thomas Legends Kansas City Chiefs T-Shirts but in fact I love this largest evangelical churches in America. The McDonalds had joined North Point during the same year they moved to Georgia. The McDonalds organized the conference with “Embracing The Journey” volunteers, and Stanley agreed to host it. The two-day event was promoted with a tagline: “In a world that makes us choose sides, experience a conference from the quieter middle.” But what happened after the conference was announced was anything but quiet. Critics pounced. One said the conference promoted “Satan-drenched theology.” Others said the McDonalds had become part of a campaign to shift traditional views on marriage and sexuality. Social media fanned the flames. Greg Sr. and Lynn McDonald speak at the Unconditional Conference in 2023. Sterling Graves One of the conference’s most prominent critics was the Rev. R. Albert Mohler, an author, podcaster and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Mohler wrote a column arguing the McDonalds’ conference was designed as a platform “for normalizing
Patrick Mahomes And Derrick Thomas Legends Kansas City Chiefs T-Shirt, Hoodie, Sweatshirt, Tank Top For Men Women Kid
