“I can’t do this. People are going to chew me up and spit me out and tell me that I’m worthless.”

These harsh words punctuated an interview in this month’s Christianity Today with Christian pop singer Jennifer Knapp, but they had less to do with her singing career and much more to do with her decision to confirm the rumors she is gay.

Throughout the interview, Knapp expressed her firm belief that many in the Christian community – especially those in the Christian music industry – would no longer accept her because of the lifestyle she has chosen.

And she’s right. We saw the same thing happen when Amy Grant divorced her husband or when Sandi Patty admitted she’d committed adultery. Fans are fickle, and they hold their Christian “idols” to high standards. As Christians, we shouldn’t shy away from such standards; our behavior is supposed to be beyond reproach.

The problem isn’t standards. The problem is the unforgiving, unyielding attitude that many Christians, including us, have toward people who don’t have it all together – as if we did either.

In The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne recounts the story of a homeless man he met one day who told him all about the love of Christ. Claiborne noticed, however, the man kept referring to “the Christians” in third person, and finally, he asked the man if he was a Christian. The man quickly replied he was too messed up to be a Christian.

Unfortunately, that seems to be a common theme in the church. Christians, especially those in positions of authority and influence, are supposed to be beyond that whole sin issue. It’s one of the reasons we see preachers being fired for embezzling from their congregations or youth ministers resigning because of an affair with a church member.

More than likely, they didn’t wake up one morning and decide, “I’d like to commit adultery today.” But small struggles, like dominoes, can quickly topple over into one huge mess, and sadly, we usually notice only the end result.

The aforementioned youth minister was probably having problems in his marriage long before the affair, but counseling was out of the question. Parents would have questioned his ability to teach their children about Christ if he couldn’t get his act together. How much easier the healing process would have been if he had felt loved even in the midst of struggle. How many opportunities like this do we miss because of our skewed perception of what it means to be a Christian?

We don’t have to accept Jennifer Knapp’s homosexuality. But we do have the obligation and the privilege to express God’s love for her in a tangible way. The power of grace is that it teaches us to see others as God sees them: just as worthless and just as beautiful as we are.