ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that young adult literature could and should serve as a catalyst to examining the ways two different Christian social narratives have influenced the treatment and social positioning of LGBTQ students. It describes these narratives and focuses on a Washington Post newspaper commentary by Christian Evangelical minister David Gushee. Love, without sacrifice, is no love at all”. In other words, adopting the narrative of Jesus’ commandment to love one’s neighbor means nothing without embodying the narrative of love in action and sacrifice in service of the vulnerable. One route is to engage students with nonfiction texts about the emotional and physical violence and horrors that democratic governments can perpetrate on their own citizens let alone people from other countries. Despite the New Testament’s teaching to “love thy neighbor”, the persecution of innocent people has been historically justified by governments, like Adolf Hitler’s, under the guise of Christianity.
