Before getting into the substance of this essay, I want to mention how little I care for much of the terminology I’m going to use.
As a Christian humanist, there are two sources for my view of human beings: The image of God in creation, and the image of humanity in the incarnation/resurrection of Jesus. I am resistant and reluctant to speak of human beings through other identifiers, such as race or sexual preference. For example, I don’t believe terms such as “black” or “gay” accurately communicate what is most important about a human being.
A person who is sexually attracted to the same gender or has participated in sexual activities with the same gender is exactly what such sentences imply. It is wrong to use terms that imply those labeled are defined by their actions or feelings. It is a particularly postmodern twist to assert that someone’s identity should come from a label assigned by a group.
We are persons made in God’s image; persons for whom Jesus was incarnated, sacrificed and raised. These identities should dominate in all our understandings of human beings. To use other labels runs a serious risk of dehumanizing those we should be treating with the same respect as Jesus himself demonstrated and embodied.
I know some of my readers are going to have a volatile reaction to this essay. Be certain that I will not tolerate any derogatory or hateful expressions in the comments.
What do gays and lesbians hear when they listen to evangelicals?
1. They aren’t there.
Many evangelicals speak about gays and lesbians as if they are not present in church or ministry gatherings.
The number of persons in society who would be reasonably classified as homosexuals is a controversial discussion. Numbers range from 15% to 2%. While there is reason to doubt the research that provided the much-quoted Kinsey number of 10%, my experience tells me that the real number may be closer to the number of people who, at one time or another, define themselves as primarily sexually oriented to the same gender. In my work with young people, I’ve been continually convinced that the number is perhaps 3-5%, and in my culture, I’d defend that as accurate. In other geographic and cultural settings, such as urban or university areas, I would be more inclined to the 10% number.
The important fact is this: There are no places in evangelicalism–whether over coffee in a university setting or in church in a small southern town–where we can afford to act or speak as if homosexuals are not present. They are, and most of us know this.
Recently, a student who had been at our ministry for six years came out while at college. I was not surprised, but I had not suspected. I was reminded that sexual identities are in flux during some phases of life. Other people are in a struggle regarding sexual identity that they cannot acknowledge. Seldom do any of us correctly predict the person, like my former student, who “makes a decision” after he of she is safely out of range of evangelical influence.
So we cannot speak and act as if homosexuals aren’t there.
2. Their sexual orientation is entirely chosen.
Despite the fact that no intelligent person would make the case that heterosexuality is entirely chosen, it is common to say this about homosexuality. The fact is that human sexual attraction is a highly complex mixture of factors and no one, most certainly not a preacher, is going to make authoritative pronouncements on why someone is attracted to the same gender in any situation.
The likelihood that sexual attraction contains unchosen factors such as genetic predisposition and early psychological orientation is high. While social and experiential factors are also influential, we can’t assume that every person experiencing homosexual attraction is able to follow a prescription of change with equal success. Like so many other human behaviors, a person convinced it is wrong to be sexually attracted to a person of the same gender needs a network of support, encouragement and acceptance. This kind of support begins with a compassionate understanding that some aspects of sexuality just “are,” and won’t be explained away, prayed away or cast out in an exorcism. They will be lived with.
3. Gays and lesbians are the political enemies of Christians.
The development of political activism among Christians is a two-edged sword. One of the negative edges is the tendency to see persons and groups through the lens of political preferences first, in terms of politics secondarily or not at all.
Gays and lesbians who find themselves in the midst of evangelical Christians will hear about the “homosexual agenda” being put forward as a genuine threat to the well-being of families and children, and a special threat to Christians. What are the chances that gays and lesbians hearing this threat announced are involved in the political actions described or even are sympathetic to them in any way at all? Very small, especially in most places.
The politicization of homosexuality is a real phenomenon that most homosexual activists would like us to understand and appreciate. But the church preaches the Gospel, and it is unwise to politically demonize those who need to hear the message because some members of that community are politically assertive.
4. Gays and lesbians must change (and want to change) their sexual orientation, not just pursue chastity.
A few months before he died, Christian writer Henri Nouwen stated that he was homosexual in orientation, but had always lived in chastity. This honest admission certainly caused some Christians to take a moment and think carefully about what they actually believed. Isn’t it necessary for homosexuals to change their orientation, become heterosexuals and be attracted to the opposite gender before they can be Christians?
The answer, of course, is no. Like every other sinner, sexual sinners of every kind are invited to repent and believe in the Good News. No specific results of that repentance can be assigned to a schedule or scorecard. Repentance is an imperfect struggle for all of us, especially those of us who struggle with sinful addictions and life-dominating sins.
The church must be a place where sinners are forgiven, not given a list of demanded changes. Christ himself is the Lord of sanctification. The goal of purity and chastity is hardly achieved by any of us, and it is unfair and unbiblical to assign special conditions to the repentant homosexual.
5. Gays and lesbians do not consider themselves to be Christians, and those that do are not really Christians.
Many evangelicals, apparently operating on the stereotype that all gays and lesbians are hostile to Christianity, consistently say that gays and lesbians cannot be Christians.
Certainly one of the dilemmas that I feel most personally in presenting Christianity is the responsibility to invite all persons to repent and believe the Good News. At the same time, I would not say less than scripture says about the Kingdom of God and sexual sin.
Unrepentant gays and lesbians who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior present a dilemma for evangelicals. Most evangelicals, like myself, believe the teaching of scripture is clear in regard to the subjects of marriage and sexuality. Most of us do not believe these teachings are culturally conditioned, but reflect basic Trinitarian sacredness in the entire area of sexual relationships.
On the other hand, evangelicals like myself also understand that many gay and lesbian Christians read the scriptures differently than we do, and have a serious and sincere personal faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. It is nothing less than heart-breaking and painful when these values come into conflict in regard to our relationships with individuals for whom we have personal respect and affection.
I would not be a member of a church or a denomination that compromised in any way on Hebrews 13:4 or the sacredness of sexuality as a reflection of the Trinity. Nor would I want to be associated with those who rejected the professions of faith of genuine fellow Christians. It is a painful and presumptuous thing to refuse to recognize a fellow sinner as a Christian. We should be extremely reluctant to do so, even if we find ourselves being accused of being too gracious by some and too narrow by others.
Like many other evangelicals, I have no resolution to this issue. I will be offensive to gays and lesbians when I interpret what I believe scripture teaches. I will be offensive to many evangelicals when I consider gay and lesbian Christians my brothers and sisters.
Speaking only for myself, gays and lesbians–like all of us who are accountable to God for the gift of sexuality–will hear both sides of the Biblical message.
6. The reporting of sexual scandals involving gays and lesbians is done with an unmistakable agenda.
One of the inevitable results of the information age is that anyone who wants to know the worst behavior of any group can gather that information easily. If one chooses not to be judicious and cautious with such information, it is possible to make every member of a group guilty by association.
The kinds of associations made in the minds of already biased persons regarding the likelihood of homosexual persons molesting children, for example, are often irresponsible and slanderously unfair (especially in comparison to the behavior of upstanding, churchgoing heterosexuals.) It is wrong to make these associations.
For example, saying that some gays somewhere have hundreds of sexual partners has little to do with the behavior of gays that I might know. As a statement of statistical truth, it cannot be applied in a determinative way to any individual. The average preacher is well aware of the extremes of sexual sin that probably occur among heterosexuals, but few would find it as easy to speak about internet porn addiction as promiscuity in the gay community.
What this says to the gay community is simple: evangelicals aren’t interested in the truth as much as they are interested in an emotional response. There is an agenda to how we process such facts and stories into communication. I have pointed out a similar agenda in the reporting of the priest sexual abuse scandals in comparison to heterosexual sexual abuse among evangelical youth ministers and and clergy.
7. We don’t get how hard it is to be gay among evangelicals.
I really can’t add anything to that. It’s been a long journey for many of us to get past what our evangelical/fundamentalist environment gave us permission to say and think about other human beings as long as we could attach “homo” or “queer” to the sentence. It was shameful, and I’m grateful for those who have helped me get past that kind of sin to repentance and a love for those Jesus loves.
My words and the words of many other evangelicals have made it more difficult for some gays to hear the Gospel. I hope I can repent of that error better in the future. Just in inappropriate humor alone, I’ve got plenty to answer for.
8. The culture war more than the Gospel.
Undeniable. And many evangelicals like it that way and are ready to redefine evangelicalism into a culture war movement to remake moral life. The “protection” of children from the aspects of the culture they despise, oppose and fear is becoming the main business of many evangelicals, complete with accompanying rhetoric of revival, end times conflicts and spiritual warfare waged against, among others, gays and their supporters.
If you believe in a Jesus-shaped spirituality and the Grace Story more than the “I’m Good” Story, the choice of the culture war over the Gospel is a disastrous development.
One last note that is very important.
Many evangelical young people no longer share the attitudes of their parents and grandparents toward this issue. If you don’t know that, you aren’t paying attention. I am not talking about the all evangelical young people or the most conservative of them. I am talking about a significant shift in attitude that has come about, like it or not, by a lifetime of exposure to a far more visible, vocal and self-defining gay community.
These attitude changes may not go so far as to include reinterpretation of the Biblical teachings on sexuality and marriage, but they will have tremendous effects on the attitudes of younger Christians, new churches, political involvement and the overall view of how we deal with the issue of sexuality. I cannot see the concern, for example, for changing orientation as a requirement of repentance continuing into future generations with anything close to the same support.
The Internet Monk Archives 
I checked out this blog upon recommendation from another site…
MS’s original post I found to be refreshing, though I read some of his comments with great trepidation…
For me, the tone of the subsequent comments can only be described as incredibly depressing… truly depressing…
I am a 52 year old gay man. I came to Christian faith when I was 17 years old after being raised in a non-religious home. I have built a life with the man I love for the 19 years we have been together. I came to Christian faith among Evangelical Protestants; my journey has since taken me elsewhere. I am a member of a large Christian communion not generally perceived as welcoming to gay and lesbian Christians, though my own parish home is a blessed exception.
I really shouldn’t read such things… they only serve to remind me what an incredible gulf still persists between the experience of gay and lesbian people and the understanding of such large numbers of professing Christians…
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@Nikki:
well, i had to say, in another Christian forum, something about how a lot of Christians don’t understand the utter banality, from a gay person’s perspective, of having the same four verses from the same HUGE book regurgitated at them over and over again.
it’s like “say something different!”
and yeah, you hit on a lot of the reasons i reject a literal reading of the Bible. add to it the fact that many of the Old Testament myths are found in other forms in lots of other ancient belief systems.
they had to come up with some way to understand/rationalize big scaries they couldn’t interpret. so stories develop, myths arise, legends grow. it doesn’t mean the texts are irrelevant, but a literal interpretation just…you miss the poetry. you miss what’s going on between the lines.
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Personally, I think a literal interpretation of the Scriptures makes absolutely no sense. In the end, I think that a reliance upon a fundamentalist/ literal interpretation would be the ultimate destruction of the Church. The Scriptures become nothing more than a fairy tale if you expect people to view them in literal terms.
There are at least two different creation stories, there are differences in the Gospels about the same events such as the Sermon on the Mount. The story about Joshua ordering the sun to stand still is another example. We now know the sun doesn’t move, the earth rotates and if it was to stop the gravitational effects would destroy the planet.
I could go on and on but you get my point.
As Fr. John McNeil writes in “ Rescuing the Bible From Fundamentalismâ€, “Unless theological truth can be separated from pre-scientific understandings of reality, the Christian faith will be reduced to one or more ancient mythology that will take place along side the religions of Mount Olympus.â€
“The Bible relates to us the way our ancient forebearers understood and interpreted their world, made sense out of life, and thought about God. Our task is the same as theirs. We must interpret our world in light of our knowledge and suppositionsâ€.
The point that I’m trying to make is that for many people; and especially GLBT persons, the Church has simply become irrelevant to their life and experience. Too many Christians have a theology that would fit a third grader but not an educated adult. There are many issues such as sexuality, birth control, euthanasia, stem cell research etc. that require complex answers and not simplistic platitudes with a Bible verse hurled at them.
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boo
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Oh…my…
Okay! I participated in a long discussion of this posting at christianresearchnetwork.info (as opposed to the other scary dark .com place) and it didn’t cross my mind that a much larger discussion was going on here.
one: I, too, appreciate the original post and those commenters who are willing to discuss, with a sense of nuance, this extremely divisive issue. People are trying, it seems. Okay, so…
dos: I’m a young(ish) gay guy who has been on a LONG spiritual journey, starting with (and I’m using really general terms here) mainstream Christianity, fundamentalism, Calvinism, etc. Then I came out (kind of like an appendix rupturing, honestly), left the church, and honestly hated the church for a really long time. It’s only been recently that I’ve started to even consider the church again, and mostly because a formerly non-Christian friend became involved in Christianity of her own volition. In the meantime, though, I’ve done a lot of searching, a lot of research, a lot of praying, a lot of yelling at God. (Yes, to the one taking issue with the “agree to disagree” thing, I’m not shy about saying that He and I have gotten into kerfuffles before. I mean, He’s gonna win, ’cause, like, He’s GOD, but if the Old Testament teaches us anything, He likes to fight.) What’s funny is that my most intimate contact with God has come AFTER accepting myself, imperfections and talents, wisdom and foolishness, and yes, my sexuality, which I do believe is God-given. I ask God to point me in the right direction, and He does. I ask God to speak to me, and He finds a way.
trois: Add me to the group of “Every gay person raised in the American Church unless they were very, very lucky,” in that I have been severely abused by Christianity. I still hold out a complete disdain for certain members of the faith, activists and civilians, who either knowingly or unknowingly spread disinformation and bigotry to the general populace, all under the guise of a “yoo can chaaaaange!” version of love. Well, guess what? The head of Love In Action just resigned under suspicious circumstances, and if it’s shown that he was caught “acting out,” the gay community will just shrug and say “there goes another one.” This is why groups like Exodus, Love in Action, et al., aren’t very forthcoming with their statistics. That being said, though…
Fore!: God has been calling me back into dialogue with Christians lately, both in real life and on these here interwebs, and He’s been showing me where I need to have more grace, and learn to forgive; also, in weird, kinda specific ways, He seems to be introducing me pastors of churches who welcome gay people without reservation as equal members of the flock, without judgment, etc. Which is weird, since I’m in sales, but they’re coming up as my customers…
So, hm.
I’m just glad the discussion is taking place.
My beliefs are ever evolving, and I would add that I’m decidedly not a Biblical literalist, and I think the jury is still out on the canonization of the Bible.
Yet I follow Christ, where He leads me.
Anyway.
Carry on, interwebs people, carry on…
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I’m sorry to see Rod go.
It took my wife one time reading Brian’s response for her to say that she was dismayed in the presumption, the divisiveness and the hurtfulness. It took me three times reading it.
Proof perhaps that it is the author’s responsibility to ‘see’ what the reader will see?
We are youth pastors in South Florida. We have youngsters who claim to be gay and we both have siblings who are gay. I say the youngsters ‘claim’ to be as I don’t think at 15 or so, even I knew which end was up in the world.
Brian, I’d encourage you to re-read your post.
What we got from it and from what I see that Rod saw first was an attack on his relationship with God. None of us are called to that. Question perhaps, but not attack. And even then, such exchanges must be made with a Christ-like mind. We, none of us, have any idea the true nature of one another’s relationship with God and he specifically admonishes us not to consider things that are beyond our knowledge and judgment, wherein only He can render decisions. Even when the disciples pointed out others working ‘in His name’, He directed them to let them be. We are called to judge the spirits for ourselves….FOR OURSELVES.
But to be frank, it was the presumptuousness that hurt my soul to read. Again and again, you presumed to attack his relationship that you ‘did not undertand’, then you presumed to attack him because he can not know what you do or do not understand.
I’ve re-read Rod’s original post at least 10 times, but in your response you talk about ‘rationalizing as good, wholesome or acceptable’. I see none of that in his post. Once again you presume and put words into it that simply aren’t there.
Also, you presume that he’s angry! Angry? does it make you feel better to think that he’s angry and not hurt? Neither of us heard anger in the response, but a tersely worded, controlled response without judgment or name-calling…he never once questioned your relationship with God. But, yet you continued and even admit to ‘attacking’…Christians don’t “attack” reasoning.? where did that come from.?
And I suppose last and most importantly, in your response you quickly cite how Rod could not possibly know your relationship, what you’ve been through, etc., and you are essentially asking him to consider those things, but you gave him no such courtesy.
Last, and I realize we’ve rambled, but i’d suggest that perhaps the ‘agree to disagree’ is something I’ve experienced in my life as God allowing me some time and space to come to sincere knowledge of His opinion/Word on a particular subject. I mean, in my past, God has given me a short leash with very direct consequences and very quickly, and other times He has not pressured me, but allowed me to wander His pasture and find the boundaries of His love and concern on my own.
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Brian,
At the risk of stirring things up, my relationship with God is one of friendship, too.
At times.
At times, I experience God as an implacable, imponderable force of nature. At times as a parent, at times as a shepherd. God is certainly not limited by my experience, and it has never occurred to me to try to define Him or limit the ways that He is allowed to interact with me.
And, while I agree with you in principle that when I disagree with God, it is me that is wrong. But there have been more than a few times when what I was wrong about wasn’t my opinion, but God’s. There have certainly been times (lots!) when I had to change my behaviors. But there have been many others when God’s call to me was to look deeper into my understanding of His will. Sometimes my stubbornness was something to overcome, but other times, it has been a signal to better understand something more true than I understood.
I would not phrase those times as “agreeing to disagree” with God, but I would say that there are times, and issues where I am content not to be clear on everything yet and the the Spirit continue to teach me.
It seems to me that refusing to ever change my view of God’s will has as little to do with genuine submission as refusing to ever change my behavior would.
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Gosh, Rod, it is nice to meet myself. You’re quite good-looking, if I say so myself. : )
I too am gay and am active in my church and in a committed relationship. And while I am in a Baptist church, no one blinks an eye. Of course, we don’t keep slaves either or make women cover their hair and I am told many people love to eat shellfish, so we are raving heretics. Oh, and the women deacons. There’s no question where this handbasket is going.
And that’s the answer to what it is GLBT people hear.
I’m still waiting on that explanation that strange idea about sexuality and the Trinity.
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4 things I should add:
1) I’m sorry I ticked you off.
2) I just don’t get the whole “I agree to disagree with God” thing. How does that work? I mean, that’s something I can do with another human being easily, but I just don’t see how it works with an omniscient God. It’s a father-son relationship. And when the father and the son don’t see eye to eye, It’s the Son’s job (as exemplified in the Garden) to say ‘your will be done and not mine’).
3) To the mod. It’s Brian Pendell with an “e”. Not Pendall.
4) Again, I’m sorry for provoking you to anger. I just don’t understand how to easily talk about these things or question a position that doesn’t make sense without making you angry. I’m trying to attack your *reasoning*, not *you*. I am sorry I did not make that plain.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
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“You can not possibly know…and I hope you never do. The things that a homosexual Christian goes through in their mind and heart, trying to reconcile…. would cause many good men to falter, throw down not only their sword, but their very lives and turn, running.”
How can I say this …
how do you know what I do and do not understand? How do you know what sexual experiences I have and have not undergone?
It may be I know a hell of a lot more about this sort of thing than you give me credit for.
I am sorry that I am not currently in a position to discuss my sexual struggles publicly.
I will say this. Such victory as I have gained has been gained by refusing to rationalize them as ‘good’ or ‘wholesome’ or acceptable. I’m not going to claim to be victorious. Every day is a battle. But it can be done. It must be done.
May God go with you wherever you go.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
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MOD: This is intended to respond to Brian Pendall above
Thank you for completely ignoring the part of my post where i clearly said i’d tried…prayer, supplication, fasting etc. in dealing with my homosexuality. Engaging in all of these and hoping for an answer, a deliverance, a way out or up… necessarily required my obedience and mandated my surrender to Him, daily through most of my life.
Thank you, but God/Jesus is my Friend (and over 265 other names/qualifiers, etc.) to me.
Thank you for demeaning my expression of frustration by smacking me with ‘are you and God peers’?
Yes, thank you, I am so ignorant as to think God and I are peers.
Yes, thank you also for pointing out that only I could be wrong…I’ve lived a Christian life as long as I have doubting the divinity, perfection and grace of God and lifting myself above Him.
Yes, thank you for also understanding that throughout my entire life when I was wrong or became acutely aware of my ‘clay-ness’, that I was always able to count on God, to find Him and to hear clearly of Him about whatever tiny flaw or obstacle I’d found…then suddenly THIS.
Ideas, feelings, drives, emotioins… that seem so a part of me, not an act or an idea thrust upon me from somewhere else, not a ‘sin’ that shamed me, but an innerworking the likes I’d not encountered before….seemingly so deeply rooted..as to come from before I had memories..how could this possibly be the Enemy? I’m blood-washed, Spirit-filled…? how can this be?!!
You can not possibly know…and I hope you never do. The things that a homosexual Christian goes through in their mind and heart, trying to reconcile…. would cause many good men to falter, throw down not only their sword, but their very lives and turn, running.
And in the spirit of the original essay…thank you for your muted undertones, they speak so much more loudly than your words.
(I was so glad to have read this essay..thank you so much, I had hope anew for one more day. I’d told literally nearly 100 persons about this link/essay, and to each one I’d encouraged them to read the essay and skip what would most likely be intolerant, unknowing commentary, but many of them insisted I take further comfort in reading how people were responding…i wished i had not.) I will not return. Thank you and good day.
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“The shift to “God created us all the way we are†is a seismic shift in our faith and speaking personally, my faith could not survive such a shift.”
And yet, the tone of this bog thread.
I wonder if you have any way of understanding how incredibly rare it is for gay people to meet a combination of disapproval and graciousness. While we disagree on the conclusion, allow me to thank you profoundly for this.
More than once in my life, I’ve had reason to point out that it seems to me that most Christians ask entirely the wrong questions regarding homosexuality and gay people.
The critical question for people who find themselves to be gay is “How do I reconcile this with what I know to be good and true and God’s plan for me?” or “How is it possible to be gay and Christian?”
The critical question for straight Christians is not the same question, though there may be some value (especially for counselors and pastors and others who are called to help the people asking those questions) in looking at them.
The critical question for straight Christians isn’t “What is my opinion or judgment about THEM being gay?” The critical question is “Here is my neighbor. How am I called to respond?”
For some, unfortunately, the question becomes “I see gay people as my enemies. How am I called to respond?” But the Lord has answers to that one, too.
I think it is apparent that, however we disagree about the answers, Michael, you seem to be looking at the right questions. Thank you. It’s incredibly rare.
As an aside, I have real suspicions that you are wading through a lot of postings that we aren’t seeing, and that it is probably a burden for you. If so, thank you for that, as well.
Peter
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First of all, I want to say that it was quite refreshing to read this post. No, I didn’t agree with every jot and tittle of it, but I appreciated that it recognized the complexity of the issue, something I don’t hear from a lot of evangelical circles.
For full disclosure, I am gay, a Christian (though not a very good one most of the time), and fairly liberal despite being able to say the entire Nicene Creed in church without crossing my fingers or going through mental gymnastics. I’ll also acknowledge that what few relevant verses there are in Scripture are not exactly the most affirming. Now, I’m Episcopalian and firmly in the Anglican tradition, and I do believe that Scripture contains all things necessary for salvation. What I am not convinced by is that all things contained in Scripture are necessary for salvation, and most evangelicals I know don’t accept that in practice either. Now I’m not going to bring up the “shellfish” argument, but I do wonder what process people go through to judge what parts of Scripture are binding and what parts are no longer binding. To be honest, I’ve never gotten a clear answer on that.
Secondly, I do believe that all Christians are called to chastity, whether that is lifelong celibacy, marriage (or the same-sex equivalent), or abstinence in singlehood. Many say that since gays cannot marry (someone of the opposite sex, that is), they must remain celibate. That’s definitely a stance I can respect. However, celibacy (as Paul states) is a calling given to a few. My question is this: Does a sexual orientation for the same gender necessarily mean a calling to celibacy? Does the latter logically follow from the former? If so, then how is that vocation taken seriously and supported by the church community?
Finally, I wish to bring up another point. A lot of comments here seem to reduce homosexual relationships to sexual acts. Now can one say that heterosexual marriage can be reduced to a certain set of sexual acts? Certainly not. There’s a lot more that goes into a marriage: love, commitment, self-sacrifice, learning to live with another’s eccentricities and annoying habits, effective communication, etc. I would even consider these fruits of the Spirit. However, if one finds these same qualities in a committed same-sex relationship, are they not also fruits of the Spirit; and if such a relationship is inherently disordered and sinful, how can the Spirit produce such fruit in such a relationship?
I hope to add some more thoughts, but now I have to get back to a theology paper I’m writing.
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Nate,
Let me tell you about some experiences with Southern Baptists and celibacy. After some struggle, questions and a spiritual gifts test that included celibacy as one, I came to the conclusion that I was called to be celibate (for life). I was visiting a former church of mine, and quietly mentioned my discovery to one of the older women there. She was also a mature Christian. Her very first (and I don’t remember any other) remark was, “Until you meet the right man.”
I do like your ideas, but I also recognize that it will be a struggle, especially since so many singles groups are more like places to meet dates rather than just to find people to do stuff with.
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Thank you for this post. I think that perhaps the church has tended to engage with the issue of homosexuality on the basis of wrong/right, or rather WRONG/RIGHT [shouting]. Whilst I don’t disagree with the generally accepted theology on the issue I think it largely misses the point. Jesus came to offer us life and life in all its fullness. If we are to communicate that message to those around us we desperately need a better understanding of the human soul. What is homosexuality? Why does it exist? What human need is it attempting to fill? How does the Life that Jesus has to offer truly satisfy that need? I think the reason you hear the shrill voices sometimes (on both sides of the argument) is that they just don’t have any real-world answers to these questions, and think by shouting louder it will all go away.
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Nikki: I appreciate your critique. I’m sorry you feel that those who disagree with you have no choice but to reject the scriptures as they’ve been read by Christians for centuries to “embrace” you. The shift to “God created us all the way we are” is a seismic shift in our faith and speaking personally, my faith could not survive such a shift.
God bless you and consider yourself welcome and heard.
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First, let me say what a pleasure it has been to read Peter’s posts. His presence and eloquence in this comment thread are greatly appreciated.
I have serious issues with how people are defining sin, and how people are using those definitions to end the discussion. It worries me that because of their own interpretations of scripture (finding further justification by 500-year-old philosophies and cultural institutions), people no longer listen to people who are in desperate need for if not acceptance then at least the love of Christ.
Finally, the love of Christ is not contingent on skin color or religious background or any type of human distinction into an us/them dichotomy. We as Christians follow a Savior who did not look at an individual and seem them as “other.” For us to do so, even as we try to figure out why with Michael’s 8 points, is not what God intended.
Sin, as far as I can tell, is ignoring those in need, shunning those who are not like us, or in some fashion hurting others instead of loving as Christ loved. For us to add to this list is folly. For us to decide that being in an intimate relationship with people of the same sex is wrong, or allowing a woman to preach from a pulpit is evil, is not what Christ came here to share with us.
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Thanks, Michael Spencer for bringing this up.
I think you’d be interested in http://www.theotherjournal.com‘s issue on sexuality. They explore this in depth.
These are some thoughts I wrote on my blog about this in response to an article from Mars Hill Graduate School’s theotherjournal.com:
http://theotherjournal.com/article.php?id=226
Really enlightening article about how Christians have a warped view of sexuality, basically the inverse of our permissive culture’s viewpoint. We’ve bought into the lie that our identity is tied up within our sexuality.
We really don’t know what to do with single people and homosexuals. It’s a shame. I think the early church had a high view of celibate people, and they were heroes of the faith. Now, you’re supposed to be temporarily celibate, at least until you get married. Whatever happened to Christian leaders being celibate? Why is it that Protestant pastors all have to be married? Wouldn’t the apostle Paul have a problem with this phenomenon?
What about homosexuals? We’ve accepted our culture’s definition of a person by her or his sexuality, and we’ve made that an essential point of whether or not you enter God’s kingdom. Sure, it’s a complex issue, but haven’t we oversimplified heterosexuality, too?
Proposal that I’m sure is very un-PC, but it’s my best shot at the moment:
1. Let’s elevate the status of single and celibate people in our churches and acknowledge them as the full Christ-bearers that they are.
2. Let’s de-anathematize homosexuality and accept the fact that it is a huge struggle for many people, and not necessarily a black-and-white sin issue. Is every heterosexual 100% straight? Is every homosexual 100% gay?
3. Distinguish between homosexuality as an orientation and “acting outâ€, and have grace for both. Straight people are really schizophrenic about condemning homosexual behavior, but accepting of the fact that pornography, gluttony, envy, anger, etc. are “a struggleâ€
I don’t know if there are any answers there, but I gave it a shot…….
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Michael,
It’s people like you that are keeping our faith the Christ-centered, loving faith that it is.
I’d like to describe two very close friends of mine and what is a very sad story for me.
I have a straight Christian friend who is actively involved in his church. He helps whenever he can, has a close relationship with his church family, and is respected by the entire church staff. He also has sex with his girlfriend on quite a regular basis, curses the Lord’s name when he’s angry (which is often), has an uncontrollable lust for women, and though he claims to love the Lord, doesn’t really show it in the outside-of-church life I get to see.
Another friend, who is gay, has an obvious fear and love for the Lord. In everything he does, you see his fruits and every action he takes is filled with God’s love. He chose abstinence because he felt that it would help him to keep his eyes on God. And yet, though he never came out to his church publicly, he felt a great fear in doing so, since so many sermons were so condemning toward “gays”. He evenutally told his parents and they disowned him as a son, claiming that it’s not God’s way. Luckily, he’s now an adult and is able to support himself, but he struggles every day.
The most important things we can do as followers of Jesus Christ is to love God and to love others. And before we can even begin to condemn our homosexual brothers and sisters, we should first look at the sin which is inherent in each of our own lives.
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As someone (Gordo?) posted, the comments of those of us on here who are gay or lesbian have largely been ingnored.
I just want to acknowledge this comment. I’m not sure what else to do.
The $64,000 question remains out there. How do we even begin to talk to each other?
One group believes that gay people are ontologically ineligible for monogamy and another doesn’t.
It does seem like an unbridgeable gap sometimes.
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Thanks for the comments. I’d just like to add that under point #1 (“They aren’t there”), whatever the %age that we choose to accept it will underestimate the number of people affected. The issue affects a great many more people that we may be in conversation with or who are in our churches. Relatives and friends of homosexuals bring intense emotions to the issue as well. A freind recently asked our pastor about the homosexuality issue. He did not realize that her adult daughter was homosexual. His unthinking knee jerk answer was hurtful to her and to our circle of friends. If we all could learn to be more senstive in our words we’d be far better Chritians (“little Christs”).
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Matthew,
I agree homosexuality is a matter of identity, and that the identity of every disciple ought to be shaped according to Jesus Christ. However, it seems to me that our identity in Christ does not obliterate aspects of that personal identity (sexuality, ethnicity, church affiliation, talents, etc.) but rather transforms or deifies those aspects in relation to the life of the Trinity. After all, Christians don’t all just become identical because they find their identity in Christ–we each reflect the grace of God in the world in unique ways.
My reading of Genesis suggests to me that our sexual identity is not just another piece in the mosaic of our identity. When God said, “Let us make human beings in Our image, after our likeness”, He made them male and female. Our sexual identity, I think, is so central to who we are because God wired us this way; is the precise means by which we “image” Him. The fact that I’m a man, and a man called to be conformed to the image of Christ, carries far more weight than that I’m Chinese or that I belong to a particular theological tradition. My sexual identity–how I understand my “maleness”–is more than ideology; it shapes the entire way in which I approach God, others and the world around me. In your words, it is always a part of what I think about, what I talk about, and influences all my decisions.
In that sense, I think that sexual identity is no less of an issue for heterosexuals as it is for homosexuals, though the former can afford to be less self-conscious of it. Until we can acknowledge that, it seems to me, we will be denying–or perhaps rejecting–not only the sexual identity of gay and lesbian people, but a core part of our own selves.
W.H.
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I often wonder if homosexuality gets singled out for special condemnation because it is a sin that many people aren’t tempted to commit. — Angela
We always reserve our Righteous Wrath (TM) for sins we have no chance of committing ourselves.
The Unpardonable Sin (TM) is ALWAYS what YOU do that *I* don’t.
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I am almost hesitant to add my words to a post that has already attracted 80+ comments and counting.
This has hit home because perhaps I am schizoid on the entire issue. I, too, think that homosexual behavior is wrong. Even more specifically (and perhaps harsher in terms of this “conversation”) I think Acts 15 and the decision of the Jerusalem Council is a summation of Leviticus 17-18. I interpret these in much the same way as the NPP interprets the Law, these are the visible “signs” that one belongs to Jesus Christ. He does not do these behaviors. They may seem arbitrary to us (many ethnic foods use blood, and I avoid them) but they are the “signs” that God has given for Gentiles to follow, in much the same way as circumcision and the Law did for the Jews. They are not ways to get in, but signs that we are “already in.” In this, they are very important both to us and to those outside.
Yet my favorite Christian author, and the one who has changed my entire viewpoint Christian life within the world, is the late William Stringfellow. Those who take the time to read his works will be transformed. Apparently, Bill was a homosexual. You cannot tell it from his writings as he rarely touched on the issue, and what he did write indicated that he was celibate. However, when he died he was “outed” by his friends. (With friends like those….) According to these informants, he lived in this relationship with his “house-mate” who preceded him in death.
Yet, since Stringfellow did not openly practice, did he fulfill Acts 15 by not making it a “sign” for others to see? Probably a pretty weak conclusion prompted for my love of the man, or at least his writings. But then perhaps this love too will cover a multitudes of sins, his and mine.
Yet, to be a visible part of the church may only indicate our ministry and not our ultimate destination. I agree with N.T. Wright that salvation is not contained within the church but is the ministry of the church. If true, then salvation or rescue from the powers and principalities of the old age can be granted to those who somehow still belong to Jesus but are not part of his visible, ministry laden church.
As I said, I am schizoid on the whole thing.
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Very good post.
My problem with abstinance education is that it tends to go with ‘just say no’ and a bunch of scare tactics. The first part of that leaves the students ignorant (and therefore vulnerable to all matter things) and the second is usually recognized for what it is and therefore ignored.
When I was in HS, the typical sex ed class showed a movie about a girl who had sex once and then got pregnant/got an STD and her life basically ended. These were combined with ‘health class’ that showed similar movies implying one drink would make you an alcoholic who would die on skid row and one joint would lead to a herion overdose. It’s not that any of those scenarios is impossible, but that they were so wildly exaggerated as to make the whole message laughable to teenagers.
And we were in the Bible Belt so being a virgin was THE mark of being a moral person in the eyes of your church (and your parents).
What was the result? Fully 25% of the girls in my graduating class had become pregnant before graduation (it may have been more – I know several snuck away to the city for abortions). STDs were rampant.
How did that happen with a constant message, both moral and secular, of avoiding sex until marriage? Easy. Since having sex was bad, you never were allowed to think about or plan for having sex. So if you did, it was one of those things that ‘just happened’ – a momentary fall you could repent of, since it wasn’t ‘pre-mediated sex’ like the kind those sinners who used condoms had. And then there were the kids getting STDs from having every sort of sexual encounter short of actual intercourse – because of course, if it wasn’t ‘really sex’ it didn’t count. (I rather hope that after the Clinton-Lewinski thing that one at least is no longer tenable.)
Now this isn’t saying that kids can’t remain chaste. Afterall, I did (although being tall, awkward and nerdy enough to rarely date helped). But I think the approach has to take into account how the message will be received and applied. My grandmother for instance, always talked to me frankly about sex. She didn’t cast it in moral terms, but as mature vs immature choices. Doing something with potentially life-altering consequences before you are ready to handle those consequences, or worse, becuase of peer pressure or just to prove to someone else that you are ‘mature’ enough, is the ultimate in immaturity. No teen wants to think herself of immature. And even then Grandma told me about birth control. She always said ‘If you’re going to be dumb, at least be smart about it.’
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Michael,
While I do appreciate your progressive attitude towards GLBT people, I still find that it sends a very patronizing and negative message to GLBT persons. “I hate the sin, but love the sinner” is almost as bad as outright hating the sinner. That attitude creates a feeling of self shame for being GLBT, which is who God created them to be. There is no free will or choice in this matter anymore than you chose to be straight.
Gay, Straight, or Transgender sexuality is part of a normal healthy life. If the heterosexuals were completely honest, they would agree and admit that premarital sex is quite common among Christians. Celibacy is not only a challenge, I believe it is unnatural and probably psychologically and physically unhealthy. God created us as social beings and intimacy is a natural consequence. I’m not advocating promiscuity, but we no longer get married at the age of 13 or 14. Personally, I believe it is entirely normal to be sexual in the context of a committed relationship. I know may
Christians would crucify me for that but so be it.
Personally, I believe the only way to understand the Bible, is to understand it in the culture and context that it was written in. The world is not flat. Women are allowed to speak and be participants in Church. We eat shrimp and shellfish. We plant more than one type of plant in a field. We wear clothes made of more than one kind of fabric ( ie. polyester). All these things were considered an abomination in the Old Testament. What was considered an abomination several thousand years ago had more to do with preserving the Jewish religion and nation than anything else. Preservation of health without refrigeration, preserving the nation through procreation, preserving ritual purity etc. were of paramount importance and influenced the law and culture.
Since the definition of and term Homosexuality as a psychosexual orientatiom didn’t even exist until the time of Sigmund Freud in the 1800’s, the Bible simply does not discuss homosexuality as an sexual orientation because it simply was not understood any more than nuclear fusion was. The Bible condemns promiscuity, idolotry, but never addresses either Homosexuality or Transexuality.
Interestingly, the examples of same sex love which are shown by Johnathon and David and Ruth and Naomi are held as examples for Christians. Also, in the story of Jesus and the Eunuch. Eunuchs are the closest thing the Bible has comparable to a Transexual. Eunuchs were young boys who were castrated for the concubine of their rich master. Castration kept them feminine and prevented the deveopment of secondary male sexual characteristics. Jesus certainly did not shun the Eunuch. He embraced him.
Until Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender persons are embraced by the Church as another part of God’s wonderful creation, they will not feel welcomed. They are unique and special and have insights and gifts to contribute to the Church.
You asked, “What would Jesus have done?” It’s clear to me that Jesus embraced ALL of God’s creation. He embraced the outcasts as well as everyone else. We are ALL God’s children. That was the central message of Christ. That is what is so liberating and different about Christ’s message and death and resurrection. His blood was shed for all of humanity.
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“To this point, I’ve told people that God and I simply agree to disagree on the matter of my homosexuality and my Christianity and that He and I have agreed not to pester one another on the ‘little things’ or the ‘mysteries’.”
I’ve gotta ask … are you and God peers, then? Friends? ‘Cause that doesn’t sound like ‘surrender’ , or ‘thy will, not mine’.
In my life, when I disagree with God, it’s because I’m wrong, not him.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
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Jim B.
You comment that we are not responding to those who are homosexual in this thread. What would you have us say?
That we love you?- We do as fellow human beings.
That we accept your lifestyle, where it is openly sexual? No, we can’t. And I would say the same thing to a man parading his mistress around.
That we are sorry what other Christians say and do? Yes, but not at the cost of accepting your lifestyle.
That we hurt for you? Yes.
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“the sacredness of sexuality as a reflection of the Trinity.”
I am a very well educated person with a deep grounding in theology, but this went right over my head. What are you talking about?
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“in the recorded words of Jesus, very few people were specifically mentioned as condemned. One group that was clearly so was the people who followed all the rules, read all the Scriptures, and yet, didn’t feed the hungry, take care of the poor and the sick, or love their neighbor. Their salvation also involved how they treated the least among them.”
This is spot on. As a Catholic I have to say that this message is sorely needed by so many zealots of orthodoxy in my own Church. Allthough I consider myself orthodox it frightens me how easily this zeal becomes ideological. Since I have a sympathetic view of evangelical Christians I always thought that the doctrine of savation by faith (which I uphold, in keeping with my own Church’s acceptance of it in Catholic-Lutheran dialogue) was a bullwark against self-righteousness. But the very honest and thoughtful post by I Monk to which we are responding shows us how much this insidous tendancy to substitute ideology for the Gospel, tou USE the Christian message to point the finger at the sinful other and say “I thank you O lord that I am not as other men”, is prevalent in all Christian denominations, i.e. in all of US. Is anti-gay rhetoric by church leaders a new form of works-based righteousness?
To use the Sovereign Lord, God of Hosts, is surely blasphemy and might even be one manifestation of the Sin against the Holy Spirit. Yet we ought to be aware that we do it all the time. We use Him to bolster up our dangerous self-deceit and self seeking. We use Him to tell ourselves that we are ok, and that others are not. We use Him to redirect our own gaze and that of others from the terrifying fact of our own daily betrayal to the threatening otherness of those whose sin we consider worse than our own. We need to be in constant prayer all the time that God will deliver us from this blasphemous outrage. Repentance for this, as Michael you so rightly imply, is not a life-changing once and for all act but a life-changing process co-terminous with life itself. To single out one sort of sexual sin, or sexual sin itself, as the single most important item on the agenda of repentance is to make oneself blind to the more dangerous deceits of the evil one, who knows how to present himself as an angel of light.
Mathew above put it more succinctly : “Ideologies turned into identitiess will destroy us in the end. God help us because we all have a tendency to do this. Homosexuality isn’t special!” Amen!
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Michael, thanks for your thoughtful words on this matter. I am ok with people that don’t agree with me. I understand my view of sexuality and the acceptableness of homosexuality is a minority in Church tradition. And I understand its taken ME a long time to get here. I am just thankful people are willing to talk about this and be loving. I have faced much unnecessary rejection. It tests my love of the Church. And if it does that to me then there is no doubt it drives away those who don’t know Jesus. I don’t know how Christians think the way they respond with cliche phrases and condemnation can possibly point people to Jesus…
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Yay! Thank you for this insightful and enlightening post!
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These posts continue…. I agree that there is nothing like this topic to light a fire under people! But in reading through all these posts I see a lot of assumptions about how gay people feel, what we think, what we believe, etc. Has anyone bothered to ask us? As someone (Gordo?) posted, the comments of those of us on here who are gay or lesbian have largely been ingnored. And that says much about where the evangelical church is…and the message that we receive.
Pax
Jim
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Wow. Michael.
Thank you.
I was/am a non-denominational, Spirit-filled Christian. I am gay. I could no longer After 20 years of marriage and a fulfilling experience in said church above, I left both for what I feel was the betterment of both ‘institutions’.
To this point, I’ve told people that God and I simply agree to disagree on the matter of my homosexuality and my Christianity and that He and I have agreed not to pester one another on the ‘little things’ or the ‘mysteries’. I followed the prescribed methods of prayer, fasting, supplication, denial, “full-armor”, etc. and whether He did, didn’t, can’t, won’t answer, or doesn’t care to at this time….everything you’d said was/is true regarding my relationships with almost every Christian I’d met, known or worshipped with for a decade…all except my loving wife, who forever has been the most gracious, humble, loving and Christ-like person I have ever known.
Christ-like persons are out there!! But I fear they are sorely outnumbered and outgunned.
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The practice of homosexuality is a sin.
But now the questions that follow are much deeper and need to be confronted and addressed among us.
1. How do we invite the gay community to Christ without always addressing them in their sexual context?
2. How do we view a homosexual who embraces Christ?
3. How do we disciple such a one about the implications of his attractions, and what standards are man made and what are God’s?
4. Can we realize that there will be many different journeys in their lives? Some will go forward immediately, some will slip occassionally, some will struggle and they might give up. Some will desire to serve Christ in everything but that, which they will believe is acceptable. Do they mean that or do some of them that say that still struggle internally?
5. If they are living with another same sex partner how can we be a help and not a time table judge?
There are thousands, and I mean thousands, of scenarios that continue to foist themselves upon the evagelical community that historically had it all comfortably figured out. And as I said originall,the practice of homosexuality is sin. Many will have to say that in montra style in order to avoid being burned at the stake as they reach out in love and comnpassion to a community which once was shunned with effervescent self righteousness.
The captian has turned on the “buckle your seat belts” sign, there promises to be turbulence ahead!
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Just some random thoughts from someone who has struggled with SSA…
1. A committed relationship isn’t any better than promiscuity, but it does exchange some problems for others.
2. Churches can be a healing community for strugglers of SSA, but most aren’t.
3. I didn’t exactly choose my orientation, but I had a lot of input as to how much I participated in it.
4. It would have been nice if the elders of the churches I have been involved with had intervened in my life. There were many opportunities, but they were all lost.
5. I lived on two sides of the fence for way too long. I took communion not knowing the danger to my soul. Thanks be to God that I have been rescued from this to a life of chastiy. It feels good.
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I often wonder if homosexuality gets singled out for special condemnation because it is a sin that many people aren’t tempted to commit. If you’re straight, you don’t WANT to commit homosexual acts. So… set that up as the biggest sin of all! You’re never going to be in danger of committing it. You may cheat on your wife, or turn a blind eye to the needy, but at least you aren’t GAY.
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“Larger point: While I agree with a lot of what Michael is saying, this simply isn’t the battle that I have seen in church. Mostly what I have encountered is openly gay couples either married or seeking a marriage relationship stating that this is biologically natural and right, and we must accept them *as is*.”
In liberal circles, or conservative circles? I think there are different battles in different circles. Michael is talking about his circles.
If people are silently feeling offended, how will you know? If they quietly drop out of your church, there may be a reason you don’t see them.
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Very well said and well done. I used to try to tie this issue up with a pretty package and bow, believing that God wouldn’t create anybody with an inclination to sin – boy how ignorant those thoughts were. You’ve tackled a difficult issue honestly. I pray it encourages others to seek more of our Father’s understanding with regard to these issues.
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I found this post through Misty Irons. I’m glad. You raised some excellent points. Thank you for taking such a thoughtful look at this topic.
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Fr. Thomas Hopko, a well known Orthodox teacher, wrote a book last year “Christian Faith and Same Sex Attraction”. It is a short, simple little thing, but the entire spirit of the text is very simliar to what you have written. I found it, and your post, very helpful.
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Well done.
The only real exception I would take is your own self-ID being “Evangelical.” Good Evangelicals don’t speak this way, much like good Roman Catholics don’t go around denying papal authority or good Baptists don’t make arguments for paedo-baptism and retain the ID.
Like it or don’t, “Evangelical” means many things, and one of them is the absolute inability to even begin to think this way.
Zrim
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The word “homosexuality” expresses the property of being disposed, on the whole, to be sexually attracted to persons of the same sex. On one typical Christian conception of sins as actions, it makes very little sense to speak of homosexuality as a particular sinful act. It isn’t an act at all. Moreover, if it is plausible to think that homosexuality does not simply arise through simple acts of will but has a very complicated causal ancestry—including environmental and biological causes—it seems strange to hold homosexuals responsible for their particular disposition.
Of course, it does not follow from any of this that homosexual conduct isn’t sin; the Church and the Scriptures have borne witness to the fact that homosexual actions are sinful.
To those who claim that anyone who believes that homosexual conduct is permissible cannot be a Christian, I would like to see a list of moral propositions to which assent is necessary to be a Christian. I would then like an argument why belief in these propositions is necessary. Any argument with the premise that “God says so” will have to deal with the fact that for some propositions on the list, there can be reasonable disagreement about whether God has said so.
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I can vouch for the fact that we as evangelicals do not believe that homosexuals are among us. Last year I went out to lunch with some friends from church, and a lot of the conversation was about the Gay Pride Festival which was going on in our city that weekend. There was a lot of coarse joking about the things that homosexuals do at a gathering like that. I just smiled and laughed along and then ran home to my blog to say what I really think, but I now realize that such a response is not good enough. There could have been gays at the restaurant where we were eating, and if they had heard our conversation it would have only confirmed any negative stereotypes that they may have had of Christians. If something like this happens in the future I will try to be more forthright in speaking to the issue that we cannot afford to act as if gays are not among us.
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A good post.
The key issue with homosexuality is idea of identity. As Christian our identity is in Christ, heirs to Gods’s kingdom, and thus sin can only be fatal if it replaces this, and absorbs the whole of who we are.
It is true that there are some homosexuals who homosexuality occupys the core of their being. It’s all that they think about, all that they talk about, governs all of their decisions. It has eaten away their humanity and has sent them down the road to a self-chosen damnation. I have also seen people for whom Reformed Theology or Catholic Dogma has done this. Ideologys turned into identitys will destroy us in the end. God help us because we all have a tendency to do this. Homosexuality isn’t special!
I believe the average homosexual is a balanced person who doesn’t garner their identity from their sexuality, but instead seeks to be identified with humanity and/or in many cases, with Christ
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Long and fast-growing thread, IMonk.
But nothing triggers an automatic Christian Freakout response with everybody jumping in like Homosexuality, Abortion, or Evolution.
Which is why I’m staying out of it. Once the Net Drunk Syndrome gets rolling on this subject and goes self-sustaining, I can very easily turn into Fred Phelps II.
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Michael,
This is a very thought- and humility-provoking article – thanks so much. I was considering it today, and my internal monologue was much the same as I had when I read your post on abstinence education a few days ago.
The evangelical reaction to the homosexual issue seems to be that of classifying certain sins as “respectable†(to borrow a word), and others as, well, not. This goes right back to your “I’m Good†story, and whether abstinence programs make the GOSPEL clear. We have in many ways lost the Gospel and resorted to self-designed rulers to measure our relative “good-ness.â€
But is greed, or jealousy, or anger, any “better†a sin than others thought of as less respectable? Did Jesus have to die less for some sins than others? While I’m nowhere close to regularly applying that thought to all of my sin(s), it is something I am more and more aware of.
Today after work was listening to a message that John Piper preached just this weekend in California, titled “The Origin of the Unwasted Life.†You can get a copy of it
here. He was, in essence, presenting the Gospel again – all have sinned, all are depraved, and we all need a Saviour. In defining the word “depraved,†here is what he said (paraphrase): All have sinned and lack the glory of God; the best exposition of Romans 3:23 is Romans 1:23. We all have traded the glory of God, and so don’t have it as our treasure; we have images as our treasure, especially the one in the mirror.
Then at the 26:46 point comes this quote. What grabbed me was the tone with which he addressed homosexuality, as well as the repeated use of the words “we†and “all.†Here is his quote:
There’s no room in this passage for the “I’m Good†story. I personally too often prefer the beauty of creation over the beauty of God; any honest person would have to say the same thing.
So I guess I’m reiterating what others have already said – to define one type of sin as any worse than any other, and make salvation dependent on a “change first – then come†basis, entirely misses what the Word has to say about what sin is, and where our hope can be found.
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“And what we’re communicating to homosexual partners who are more committed to each other than the youth pastor, who’s addicted to porn, is to his wife is that they’re as bad as a pedophile. And while both things are still sins, that’s simply not true.”
Travis: Are you sure? What happened to “he who stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it?” Therefore homosexual sin is as bad as pedophilia is as bad as idolatry is as bad as murder. What matter how we fell off the balance beam, so long as we’re off it?
Larger point: While I agree with a lot of what Michael is saying, this simply isn’t the battle that I have seen in church. Mostly what I have encountered is openly gay couples either married or seeking a marriage relationship stating that this is biologically natural and right, and we must accept them *as is*. This isn’t people struggling with sin … this is people who openly embrace it as the right and natural way things are. And those of us who are a bit hesitant about extending fellowship are ‘mean’ or ‘bigots’ because we believe the Bible condemns that kind of practice. They also have a lot of scholarship demonstrating why this is not, in fact, true.
While I sympathize and agree with the need to reach out to people struggling with sexual issues the church world simply ignores or condemns, I am concerned that we’re rocking the boat too far the other way .. to the extent we accept rhetoric of homosexuality being biological, we are giving aid and comfort to the notion that it is natural, right, and cannot possibly be condemned, any more than eye color can.
I have met a *lot* of practicing Christians in Texas and the UK and points further who believe precisely that … that homosexuality is a purely biological phenomenon, and we are all bigots for not believing this.
That is *not* what Michael is saying. He’s saying that people struggling with homosexual sin need love, compassion, and assistance, not condemnation. I am 100% with him there. But I don’t think we do a very good job of selling the idea that homosexuality is a sin at all well. I deal with young Christians, and a lot of the up-and-coming folks don’t see it as such. That is a problem.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
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Most of the posts here include as their basis another aspect that goes completely against the direct experience of most gay and lesbian people.
That is that the entire discussion revolves around the idea of homosexuality as a behavior rather than what we actually experience – that it is an identity, and an integral and inseparable part of who we are.
Michael, I give you great credit for not falling into that misunderstanding. From your writing you are very clear that you know that when you are saying that you think that homosexual actions are sin, you are saying that the alternative is lifelong celibacy, and that God specifically made millions of people who were never to have any physical sexual expression in their lives. Thanks for at least understanding the magnitude of that, even though I disagree with your conclusions.
For the broader group:
What do gay and lesbian people hear? When we hear people say things like “Well, there are all kinds of sexual sin. We disapprove of unrepentant adultery, or divorce, or sex outside of marriage, too” we hear people saying that heterosexuals are capable of committing sins, but that their sin is a misdirected expression of something they can do right under other circumstances. But being gay is not something we do, it is someone we are. When the sweeping statement that “homosexuality is sin” is made, it isn’t about what we do but about who we are – and that, far from being able to find the fullest expression of who we are in Christ, we can only find condemnation from Christians.
The “everyone sins, and this is no different” idea doesn’t work either. Yes everyone sins. But if you were to say that being left-handed is inherently sinful, regardless of what left-handed acts you “commit”, it is not the same thing.
Yes, you can stretch Biblical writings about “becoming a new creation” to cover anything. You might as well, however say that (as has been said in the past) that being female or being of a specific race or ethnicity is sinful and that if God chose, he could recreate someone into someone entirely different. And granted, He could. The fact that He doesn’t ought to mean something.
It is extremely convenient for people to be able to decide, from no personal experience of being gay, that they can completely overlook the lived experience of millions of people and just decide to look at behavior. It is also very convenient to be able to say to someone “Well, if you were Christian, the Holy Spirit would convict you of sin, and you haven’t changed in this area, so you haven’t been convicted, so you don’t have the Holy Spirit, so you can’t be Christian.”
I seem to remember someone or other pointing out that nobody who healed on the Sabbath could possibly be from God, because everyone knows, and the Torah makes clear, that doing so is evil in God’s sight. That sort of logic didn’t really hold up over time.
Again, you all have every right to declare who is and isn’t in your particular faith community or tradition. You are less justified, but equally free, in declaring whose experience and lives meet your standards for Christianity. But, thank God, you are not the gatekeepers of God’s grace, and we don’t have to meet your approval to experience God’s love.
I do, vividly. God loves me and works daily in and through me, and in and through my relationship with my partner. I profess Jesus as my brother and Savior. But since I am not a Christian, I must be one of those “sheep in other flocks.”
Regardless of where anyone comes down on the specifics of this issue, I think it is vitally important that we all (and I do include myself) remember that in the recorded words of Jesus, very few people were specifically mentioned as condemned. One group that was clearly so was the people who followed all the rules, read all the Scriptures, and yet, didn’t feed the hungry, take care of the poor and the sick, or love their neighbor. Their salvation also involved how they treated the least among them.
I know my opinion will be obvious, but I think everyone needs to look at whether you would want to stand before Jesus when he says “I was the hungry person. I was the sick person. I was the gay person among you. And this is how you treated me.”
If your conscience is truly clear on that, then wonderful. But speaking, not as Jesus, but as the gay person among you, I think the Christian community has an awful lot to answer for.
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May I amend this text: ‘The general bottom-line here is that congregations often fall into the same sinful ‘them and us’ patterns that our theology of forgiveness and reconciliation purports to believe in.’
to
‘The general bottom-line here is that congregations often fall into the same sinful ‘them and us’ patterns as the world. We fail to live out the theology of forgiveness and reconciliation that we purport to believe in.’
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First, I’ll declare an interest on this one: I’m an out-and-out theological liberal on this issue. I know a number of gay Christian people and not one of them has not been hurt by the church. I have just heard a story of a fellow clergyperson’s adult child who was thrown out of his/her allegedly mainstream liberal church for declaring his/her sexual orientation.
That said, I suspect that probably over 50% of heterosexual people have been hurt by the church at some point in our church lives; I know that I have. The general bottom-line here is that congregations often fall into the same sinful ‘them and us’ patterns that our theology of forgiveness and reconciliation purports to believe in.
For me, the story that serves as my role-model was one I read a few years ago in ‘Christianity Today’ of a conservative minister who knowingly baptised and welcomed into membership a practising gay man. His ‘justification’ was that he was certain that this man was determined to follow Christ and that it was the Holy Spirit’s job to convict him of his sins. The man knew that the congregation thought homosexual acts were sinful but he also knew that he was accepted in that congregation.
Is it *really* so difficult to conceive of a congregation which says ‘We believe what you’re doing is sinful, but we accept you anyway’? Why does this have to be the one sin that requires us to shun people? Personally, I think cheating on one’s spouse is a far more damaging sin, but we don’t treat adulterers as unclean pariahs.
And, by the way, I know quite a number of lesbians, Christian and otherwise, and my relationship with them has been no different than with my straight female friends. I do sometimes wonder if this is also a gender difference.
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Don’t know if I can say this without sounding homophobic, etc., but here goes.
I will be the first to admit that evangelicals have in general done a miserable job at understanding, moving toward, and loving those in the Gay and Lesbian communities although, there are exceptions. A flogging may be in order, but maybe not one unto death. Nonetheless, we can, we should, and we must do better.
However, even after reading MS’s eloquent piece and all of the responses, I am still left with two large elephants in the room…the Scriptures and nature. As for the Scriptures, I respect the effort put forth by many to explain the relevant passages to seemingly prove that “non-sinful” same-sex relationships are OK. You may be right. However, I just don’t see it. Taking into account both context and culture the normal reading of these passages still leads me to the same conclusion, expressed as humbly as possible, that homosexuality itself is sin.
As for nature it is hard to ignore in the Scriptures the many references and analogies to the rightness of male-female relationship. Even from an anatomical perspective (I trust everyone knows what I mean) a Gay / Lesbian expression of intimacy is indeed unnatural. It just doesn’t work, and it seems it wasn’t intended to work that way.
Let’s also not forget that the ancient Orthodox and Catholic Churches have officially and historically held such a position. This should not be ignored.
Yes, evangelicals must do better in many ways. Yes, this is a complex issue. Yes, I still have many unanswered questions. And yes, whatever your “label” there is plenty of sin to be had. But as for the rightness of “proper” Gay and Lesbian relationships I remain unconvinced.
I will however continue to listen, to read, and be as teachable as possible.
Grace and peace to all.
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Ryan Corrigan, I think you’re onto something.
To your list you could add:
— is it morally permissible to keep slaves?
— does God care if a woman braids or cuts or uncovers her hair?
— is it permissible for a woman to speak in church?
I’m sure the list could be extended (I tried to avoid the crazier ones). I think a lot of Gays and Lesbians see an evangelical church that picks and chooses which verses “only applied to the 1st century culture or Paul’s specific letter” and which verses need to be “applied through the ages.” Some passages carry so many teeth, while some are a mouth full of gums.
I think many Gays and Lesbians hear the personal morality sermons, but they also see the how fast and loose we are when we apply the scriptures to ourselves. I think they hear the too-often-empty phrase “hate the sin, love the sinner.”
Two committed, monogamous, homosexuals who read Matthew 22, may well conclude that they can hang their relationship alongside love for God and neighbour.
We may quibble. We may even find a biblical reason to disagree, but really, we each take the best exegetical stand we can, and we TRY to live accordingly.
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just wanted to say, i totally agree with #8, particularly the last half. I am in my early twenties and my parents cannot comprehend my stance on homosexuality, which would be similar to what you describe. There is a distinct generational difference that I see everyday in my church. Thanks for an excellent blog.
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Interesting. The comments have supported the original topic of the post – What gays/lesbians hear. Comments have mostly followed number No. 4 – gays/lesbians must change with some discussion of No. 2 – sexual orientation is chosen.
No. 1 is well represented – there aren’t any here. The comments from gays/lesbians have been ignored in order to carry on a lively discussion of other matters.
It would have been more interesting to read some honest self-criticism regarding how the evangelical church has failed.
Homosexuality is to the 21st century church what slavery was to the 19th century church. You are confident in your clobber texts but your children are going in other directions and you won’t be able to hold the line.
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Upon further reflection within the prarmeters of this discussion, if we teach that a homosexual can be saved and that particular sin can be eradicated in their life would that not be a form of sinless perfectionism?
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Let us not underestimate the power of this sin. Many are born with the residual effects of the curse embodied with this attraction. It is a sin against nature that is obviously at odds with the reproductive design and the divine plan for the family itself. These facts don’t warrant a greater condemnation, they warrant a greater gospel compassion to those who are held captive.
Let’s not assign them a “greater sin” status, but let’s not pretend that this sin is just a run of the mill variety either.
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Paul: I believe all sinners can change. Imperfectly in this life.
I don’t believe homosexuals are under a command to become heterosexuals. I believe they are under a command to be celibate or live in covenant marriage.
If a person testifies they have changed in the area of sexuality to more resemble the image of God in Jesus, then I believe them.
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Paul,
I’m puzzled by your pair of comments. First, you talk about homosexuals not being able to be saved, but when you quote Scripture it talks about those who practice homosexuality.
That is two different things. A person can have same sex attraction (being homosexual) without ever acting on it (other than resisting temptation). Just the same way that a person with opposite sex attraction may never act on it (other than resisting temptation).
The attraction may or may not change, just like other kind of drives may be increased or decreased.
The challenge is how does the church help those who are tempted with sexual sin grow to make resisting it easier. And to help when it is not resisted.
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Michael,
Perhaps I did misunderstand you. If so, then please forgive me. You do give me the impression that you see little or no hope for a person caught up in homosexuality to be changed. I understand you don’t like the label, but it is a biblical label. I was a sexually immoral person. That is a label that used to describe me. Jesus changed me and I am thankful that He did.
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One of your commenters said, “About your statement that practicing homosexuals can be Christians:
One of the key aspects of the gospel is repentance, and one of the marks of a Christian is that they will seek to follow God’s commands. If a person honestly does not think that their homosexual activities are wrong, then how can they have the holy spirit inside them? Isn’t the Spirit supposed to convict us of our sin? Or does he just do it part of the time?”
Here is my question? Don’t you find it amazing that culturally we tend to be more accepting of hetrosexual couples who are having sexual relationships outside of marriage – or actually living together? But, honestly – is there really much a difference between two homosexual and two heterosexual individuals living together? As a Christian, we know that any sexual relationship outside of marriage is a sin. I know many heterosexual couples who will tell you that they know having a sexual relationship outside of marriage is wrong – but, they continue in it anyway. To be honest, I think there are many times that the Holy Spirit convicts our hearts – of many different kinds of sin – and we tend to just push it aside and continue on in our sin – but, that does not make us any less a Christian – just a Christian who is not living in the complete freedom of Jesus Christ.
Great post, Michael!
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There are many organizations that can attest to God’s power to set homosexuals free. Even the New Testament uses sin labels to describe what we once were. It even uses sin labels to identify certain sinners. (covetous, extortioners, idolaters, fornicators, eadulterers, effeminate, thieves, drunkards, etc., etc.). So although I agree with you intentions, God Himself identifies certain sinners by their most predominate practicing sin.
The answer is “yes” a homosexual can be free in Christ just as an adulterer can as well, and as you noted not always immutably free. I do agree the label does not have to be permenant, but God uses those terms to describe some sinners. You are correct that a sinner is “lost” first and “homosexual” second, but many gay people are given hope by hearing that they can overcome through Christ.
Grace and truth are brothers.
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Mr. Kurtz: What part of “We can all change imperfectly” doesn’t register with you?
>How about “Can sinners be Christians?†or “Can sinners repent and be changed?â€
Rhetorical answer is YES. I’m trying to avoid an offensive and unbiblical label. Do you think I’ve been telling people for 33 years that they can’t change?
Are you telling them they can change perfectly?
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I do not claim that anyone can or will be perfected in this life, but yes there is a real possiblility of change, even for the sexually immoral of any stripe. That is what sanctification is all about.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV
(9) Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,
(10) nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
(11) And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
I find it sad that you deny even the possibility of change. Why then be a Christian at all?
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Can homosexuals change? That question is premised on labeling people with a permanent label, which I say in the opening of the post I believe is sub-Christian. God doesn’t see us as hetero or homo. He sees us as creations and in Jesus. We are sexual sinners. And we all can repent, change, etc. Imperfectly.
Continuing the label under the discussion of “Changing homosexuals” is a problem for me. How about “Can sinners be Christians?” or “Can sinners repent and be changed?”
I’d like to change. Anyone else?
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I thought Michael’s post did a good job of addressing the unloving treatment that homosexuals often receive from the Christian community. I was disappointed that neither the post nor any of the subsequent comments seem to hold out any hope that real and genuine change is possible for homosexuals.
Thankfully, Jesus is in the business of changing hearts. If He weren’t, none of us could or would be saved. I am one who was formerly held captive to sexual sin, even though I claimed and thought myself to be a good Christian. I was enslaved to pornography for over twenty years. I thank God, that I found a ministry (SettingCaptivesFree.com) that was able to give me Biblical instruction and point me to Jesus who held the key to my freedom from sexual sin. This same ministry offers help to those who struggle with several other habitual sins including homosexuality.
Our theme verse comes from Isaiah 61.
Isaiah 61:1-3 ASV
(1) The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
(2) to proclaim the year of Jehovah’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
(3) to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of Jehovah, that he may be glorified.
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Hello Ryan,
You said:
“It is generally unwise to make a universal statement based on a single experience.”
I said:
“Finally, my own experience with homosexual men has been less than positive.”
I don’t think I was generalizing. I prefaced my experience as my own.
Thanks.
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As others have mentioned, wish I had written this post, but could not have done as good a job.
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Of course a person can be a Christian and be deceived about the approval of his lifestyle, however, that scenario is spiritually precarious. The man in Corinthians who was living with his father’s wife turned out to be saved, and Peter denied ever knowing Christ.
It is an incredible challenge of the ministry of redemption to preach the everlasting gospel without either appearing to condone or appearing to condemn specific sins. Because of the unloving attitude of the church in former days, and because of the shift in today’s theologies, there will continue to be over reactions from all quarters to the detriment of everyone and most especially the gay community.
Redemption will lie broken in the streets.
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Ben W: I tried to express the dilemma many of us feel between accepting a person’s profession of faith while believing in the Biblical definition of sexual sin. I didn’t mean to leave the impression that I viewed the sexual sin as anything other than sexual sin. These are contradictory and it presents persons like me, who want to be Gospel-centered, with a real dilemma.
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Michael,
It was my impression that you said that people who believed that the Bible was not forbidding modern-day homosexual relationships were still Christians.
“On the other hand, evangelicals like myself also understand that many gay and lesbian Christians read the scriptures differently than we do, and have a serious and sincere personal faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. It is nothing less than heart-breaking and painful when these values come into conflict in regard to our relationships with individuals for whom we have personal respect and affection.”
It is my belief that when a person has such an erroneous view of morality, and endorses and celebrates such a view, they are not Christians. That is what I was commenting on. I know that you disapprove of homosexuality.
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When I read the New Testament gospels (Mark most recently, chp. 1) I find Jesus sharing the gospel. Jesus doesn’t go around telling sinners how bad their sin is, not ranking sins in order of how bad one is compared to another. He calls for repentance in Mark 1:15, then for belief in the gospel. He isn’t fighting a culture war, either. He declares to all sinners of every type that he is the way, the truth and the life.
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Hello Peter,
I guess therein lies the rub; what is God’s design?
In response to the infertility issue, I assume you are driving at pro-creation as the reason for sexual consummation under God’s “design.” That is a fair question, but I believe that Paul was driving at sexual expression more so than pro-creation, in contrast to those who would unite themselves sexually with another outside of marriage.
The point being that sex is not contingent upon marriage, but marriage appears to be the only legitimate venue for sex. We could argue further that Paul and Christ (via the Gospels) always presupposed a man / wife relationship. Whether that presupposition is a mandate I’ll leave to others. I do think that many in the Church have a problem condoning homosexual practice, despite any sincere appeals to long-term (and loving) monogamy.
It is of course the same with heterosexual practice outside of marriage, though the bias is there and Michael addresses this rather nicely.
I appreciate your perspective, thanks.
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(having seen Peter’s comment I wished to add another thing)
Peter, I agree with you. If a person were to hold a position that the consummation of marriage could only be between a couple that could have kids, then must also hold that an infertile couple cannot get married. correct?
Cramdon, I would like to hear your thoughts on this.
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Michael Spencer:
Great post. This is a breath of fresh air in a terrible mud-slinging contest, so thank you for that.
Cramdon:
While I understand the negative situation you found yourself in, I disagree with your generalization. I personally have heterosexual attractions, but one of my good friends does not, and there has never been any sort of problem with our relationship. It is generally unwise to make a universal statement based on a single experience.
Ben Wheaton:
While I agree that the Holy Spirit guides and directs us in how to live, “Christian” morality is far from unified. for example:
– is it morally permissible to smoke or drink?
– is it morally permissible to kill people in war?
– is it morally permissible to put a criminal to death?
– is it morally permissible for a woman to be a pastor?
– is it morally permissible to be in a committed, lifelong, homosexual relationship?
Since when have Christians ever agreed on these issues? There is a need to have dialogue on these issues, and not arrogantly assume that our position must certainly be God’s position.
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Cramdon: “It must surely be a heavy load to bear knowing that you can never consummate your relation ship under God’s design. I would be curious to get a Gay Christian’s take on this.”
My response would be to ask you what your take on a heterosexual couple who, prior to marriage, became knowingly infertile (cancer and its treatment, a hysterectomy, testicular cancer, etc), through no “choice” of their own beyond accepting the reality of their life. Must they be celibate? Is it immoral for the fertile spouse to have knowingly married someone infertile?
I know that here, there will be almost universal disagreement, but for me it seems very clear that being gay is a part of God’s design, at least for me.
People are very free to declare me unwelcome in their Church community, but they do not have the authority to declare me outside of God’s love or God’s plan. (Not that you did with your question, but undeniably many do with their words and actions.)
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I know quite a few men who struggle with same-sex attraction…and do not sin. We are in a group of close intimate friendships and we confess our sins to one another. Also, we talk about our struggles before they become sin. I’ve come to realize that we are all, in some degree, reigning in our desires (hetero & homo) to come into line with God’s best intentions for us. Straight men have more in common with gay men than we think…we are all sinner’s in need of grace.
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Rick: I am not sure what you mean about church discipline. If any person persists in unrepentant sexual sin, there should be a loving response.
Should churches discipline men who struggle, but still view internet porn? Are the elders of a church the best persons to deal with issues of sexual sin if the person is struggling to do what is right?
I see discipline as applying to the those who are unrepentant and obstinate.
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Cramdon: I’m sorry for your experience, but such “ownership” issues are a problem in many relationships, esp among women. I would agree that for a gay man seeking to be celibate, the issue of friendship does contain some complexities in some cases.
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I appreciate your willingness to try to flesh out what is surely a sensitive subject w/in many Conservative / Evangelical circles. The analogy of Christ the Groom and the Church His Bride, coupled with the palpable intimacy / mystery of marriage and the marriage bed as portrayed by Paul, seems to “red flag” celibate homosexuality. A homosexual union can never be consummated in any biblical sense. Ergo, even the attraction to another robs the homosexual of any potential to realize a (in the “biblical” paradigm) “two-shall-become-one” union as described by Jesus. The heterosexual, while still a sexual sinner outside of marriage, at least has the opportunity to realize this potential.
Whether we “choose” to be homosexual is another matter. It personally seems strange to me that someone could “choose” either orientation, but I do try to view it within a biblical frame of reference. It must surely be a heavy load to bear knowing that you can never consummate your relation ship under God’s design. I would be curious to get a Gay Christian’s take on this.
Finally, my own experience with homosexual men has been less than positive. Over the course of 4 years, I became good friends with an older man (in hindsight, it sounds strange even saying that). Despite the obvious fact of my being married with two (2) kids, he began to treat me like a jealous lover, and I finally had to put an end to our friendship. According to my pastor at the time, what that gentleman needed to hear from me was that I was not gay. My relationship to my family mattered little to him.
Maybe it was my fault for being ignorant, but I have since concluded that close friendships between a straight man and a gay man are probably impossible. BTW, I also think it is very difficult for a man and a woman to be close friends as one will likely have greater expectations from the relationship.
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Michael,
Thanks for a thought provoking post. It prompted me to consider being a sinner by nature. While my theology says that I am a sinner by nature, the Christian environment in which I live really believes that we are sinners by choice. I can always do better, try harder and so stop the “big sins”. This conversation about homosexuals does not just direct my mind to “them” but to me. Is this what it means to be a sinner by my nature? Is this what grace is about when I am utterly incapable of helping myself?
We are more alike after all.
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I enjoyed reading the post and agree with many of the points you have made (although not all) I am gay, Christian and of the evangelical persuasion. Might I add that what we “hear” coming from the church is also colored by just how “out” we are ourselves, and how we ourselves have come to deal/believe/live with scriptural authority.
That said, let me say from the semi-out perspective that I know above all things that in church it is not safe to be me. I have no doubt that some would believe intently that they have the scriptural authority from God to kill me for simply being me. The message I hear – It’s ok to hate gay people because God hates us. Forget about the love the sinner/hate the sin paradigm because everyone’s actions speak a far different story.
And this is not from a Westboro Baptist church, but from a mainstream evangelical church.
The message the church thinks it is giving is very different from the message being received. And the sad thing is – there is such a hunger among the gay community for spiritual things. Unfortunately when you hear such a crass and manipulative representation of gay life and experience coming from the church (reality is that we are just as diverse as the heterosexual community) you assume that finding God in such a place is a low probability.
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Ben Wheaton/Rick:
Homosexual acts are sin, as are all sexual sins.
Unrepentant sexual sins of any kind are sin.
I never say anything in this essay that approves of homosexual acts.
The struggling to repent homosexual is no different than me or any other sexual sinner.
I did not ever suggest an unrepentant sexual sinner be comforted with the Gospel.
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I have come to the realization over the course of my life that homosexuality is just another sin amongst many.What sin does God look approvingly upon? Evangelicals will accept all those other sinners who have been guilty of and who struggle with all those sins we have all come to know and love (or accept as less defiling sins) adultery, slapping your wife around,hunting out of season, sneaking a drink when we say we are teetotalers, etc.What about Christian men who look at porn and masturbate? Percentage wise I’ll bet that is a bigger portion of the population than gay men.Sin is sin and we all struggle with it, no matter what type of sin it is, even after we become Christians.
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Have you left any room for church discipline? If you won’t deny someone’s sincere profession of faith even if they are in what you consider to be sin, then how can you (lovingly – as it always should be) practice church discipline? The way I understand 1 Cor 5 is that we shouldn’t let someone live under the false impression that they are a believer – for the sake of their soul and our congregations’. I am not talking about the repentant sinner, but the one who interprets the bible to say there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality.
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Another thing that I would like to add to your list of what we hear all too often: the assumption that we somehow simply haven’t heard that many Christians think being gay and Christian are incompatible.
I can’t tell you how many times people respond to finding out that I am gay (whether they know I am a Christian or not) with “Well, have you read Leviticus? The Bible is against that;”
Regardless of whether you agree or disagree, the assumption is insulting. It is impossible to be a gay person and not know about it. And many of us have spent a great deal of time and energy praying, reading, researching, and coming to terms with it. While it is possible that there are church-going, prayerful Christian gay people who simply never thought about it, I’ve never met one. Trust me, we’ve read Leviticus. And Paul.
It isn’t insulting to ask us how we reconcile the apparent contradictions, if you are genuinely interested. But like any other subject that concerns someone personally and intimately, chances are the average gay person has given it a great deal of thought.
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@Mike Spencer:
I just thought I should point out that you that you left out some thing son your list:
1. There is a homosexual “lifestyle” of drug abuse and reckless hedonism that all gays participate in.
2. Gays actively recruit others.
3. “They want to destroy the family” (although I guess this can fall under the “culture-war”-thing).
@Travis Pinzi:
“I can’t wait for the comments from someone who creates some sort of parallel like this: ‘Say that someone disagreed that murder in Scripture was a sin; or pedophilia; would you still call them brothers and sisters and just let them interpret differently?'”
Interestingly enough there are those who would argue that since the model for same-sex relations practiced in the Greco-Roman world of Paul’s day was pederasty what Paul was condemning was something other than homosexuality itself. I find that Robin Scrogg’s New Testament and Homosexuality argues this very well.
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I want to thank you for writing this. Coming from the other side (a gay woman), I think you express very well some of the things that I hear when I attend some (not all) Christian churches or talk to some (not all) Christians.
I would like to expand on something, though, that you somewhat touched on when you spoke about the ways that scandals involving gays and lesbians are selectively reported. I would add that in addition to the sensationalist aspect, such reporting comes across as incredibly ignorant. I recall one well meaning person sending me some statistics that “proved” that the average gay or lesbian would have over 500 sexual partners in their lifetime, as a kind of evidence of sexuality depravity in gay and lesbian and bisexual men and women. That statistics neither applies to me or anyone else I know- it has the same truth value as stating the gays or lesbians are born with goat horns, or have gigantic rainbow birthmarks on their belly. When you are given “information” like that, it makes anything else the person has to say suspect.
So I’d add that when I go into a church or am speaking with a Christian (or Muslim or anyone) who makes blanket statements about human sexuality that I know to be untrue in my own life, I am inclined to assume that they really aren’t an accurate source of information, period. It is uncomfortable to then try to ascertain- is this person just genuinely ignorant, and do I have an obligation as a person who values truth to attempt to educate them? Or is this person maliciously spreading disinformation because, actually, they have no desire or intention to include people with gay orientations into their invitation to accept Christ, and are quite content to turn their listeners against them?
I want to stress, though, that I’ve been to many churches, and spoken to many Christians, where neither the ignorance nor the percieved maliciousness exists. Like so many other things in Christianity, I think the ugliness and unkindness and divisiveness is the loud minority.
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Great post.
The last part about cultural shifts among the young is really important. I have heard older pastors speak in ways that have made me cringe. They will speak of a particular case as if it were only happening “out there” with no sense of what might be happening in the congregation. Such a pastor may not immediately lose the younger members of the congregation, but they won’t be bringing their friends, even their straight Christian friends, to visit, for fear of embarrassment.
On the other hand I have seen some very orthodox pastors avoid that altogether. And I think the lectionary is helpful here. It keeps pastors from those topical sermons that so many offer on this and other subjects.
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Michael,
I so appreciate your critical thinking on even the most painful and divisive issues in the body of Christ. I thought I had it all figured out and then God brought into my path those that did not fit my very neat, black and white view. I could not deny these folks as my brothers and sisters in Christ. We worship and pray together and are on much the same path spiritually. But they are of the LGBT variety. It did not compute. I must go back to Luther’s statement that we are all saints and sinners. God is God and I am not and he is in a better position to judge his servants.
Peace and many thanks.
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Thanks for touching on this important subject. I recently got involved in a discussion on Gene Edward Veith Blog http://www.geneveith.com/the-issues-etc-mystery/_446/ about the demise of Issues etc. I self identified as a “broad church” Anglican and unintentionally released a flood of vitriol directed at my Churches support for “sodomites”. Thankfully another commenter intervened and the discussion became much more civil. We have to be much more carefully how we talk about human sexuality and Gays in particular. We are starting to bear a unmistakable resemblance to a bunch of Pharisees at best and plain old ordinary hypocrites at worst.
God Bless
Steve in Toronto
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Michael,
About your statement that practicing homosexuals can be Christians:
One of the key aspects of the gospel is repentance, and one of the marks of a Christian is that they will seek to follow God’s commands. If a person honestly does not think that their homosexual activities are wrong, then how can they have the holy spirit inside them? Isn’t the Spirit supposed to convict us of our sin? Or does he just do it part of the time?
I thought the rest of your article was excellent, but that part made me furrow my brow, I confess.
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Nothing to add but my support for this post. I wish I’d have written it myself.
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Thanks for this very thoughtful post. One of my very best lifelong friends is gay. We’ve been friends since we were 11. We’re now in our 40’s. He “came out” in his 20’s. That didn’t put a crimp in our relationship. There have been many life issues that could have caused a wall between us. But you know what has? My becoming an evangelical Christian at 30. Though I have always loved him and will always love him and have never understood the homophobia that has permeated the church. I do understand all of the discussion about sin and redemption (of course) none of that can explain the fear and loathing that surrounds the discussion.
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I recently had a conversation with a friend who is an openly gay older man, who has been in a relationship with another gay man for 27 years, and who also lives with a much younger Asian gay male. In the past we have shared very openly and honestly about our views of Jesus and the church, and I don’t need to tell you how frequently this man has been hurt by the church in the past…you can probably guess that on your own.
Anyways, he believes almost everything you and I believe about Jesus. He believes from reading the Scriptures that Jesus was the Son of God, that he came and died for the sins of humanity and that he literally rose from the dead. With that said he openly shared with me that he cannot follow Jesus because it would require that he change his relationship with the man he has loved for 27 years. He’s simply not willing to do that regardless of the consequences. This isn’t some twenty year old kid experimenting in life. It’s a man who has thought through these issues very deeply and has a deep love for another man, probably as deep as the love many of us in the heterosexual community have for our husbands and wives. It’s because of this love that he will not submit His life to Christ.
The younger Asian man that they live with came to Christ when he was a youth in Indonesia. He was already an outsider in his culture for professing Christ in the largest muslim country in the world. While a youth he also started to feel attractions toward other men. He has frankly told me that he didn’t wake up one morning and decide “today I’m going to be attracted to men,” but that he was just attracted to men…just as most of us were attracted to the opposite sex. As he started being open about these emotions he was quickly pushed to the curb by his church. He says it wasn’t intentional on their part, they just didn’t know how to respond to him and could only see him as a gay man, and filtered everything else through that reality. He still attempts to follow Christ outside of the church, or occasionally with other gay Christians, but his faith struggles without the community that many of us take for granted.
My relationship with these men hasn’t changed my views on what the Scriptures teach in regards to homosexuality, but it has changed how I view homosexuals and the reality of their love for one another. It has helped me to see their perspective.
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I just read an amazing book called ‘Walking with Gay Friends’ by Alex Tylee – it’s an IVP book published last September. Well worth reading!
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All of us are sexually broken as a result of the fall, so there is no substantial difference at that level.
We are put together differently, making some kinds of sexual expression more appealing to individuals at various times and ways. (This is why I hate the labels. We’re all just humans with the tendency to sin sexually.) So it is more difficult to be an 18 year old young man than a 51 year old man, but I’m sexually tempted at both ages.
Hebrews 13:4 gives our two options (marriage and celebacy), which none of us fulfills perfectly, but which is commanded both for our temporal blessing, the reflection of God’s glory and the magnification of Grace.
Jesus Christ is our sexual righteousness, not being “straight,” etc.
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In the small congregation where I worship, we welcome the homosexual into the congregation. No questions asked. No demands given.
What we don’t welcome is the advocacy, and or flaunting of that sin, or any other sin. (not true of many, if not most congregations in our church body)
In fact, there are many congregations in our church body that have practicing homosexuals as pastors. This, I believe, sends the wrong message about sin (that’s it’s really no big deal and God will just wink at it).
We preach the law in it’s full force (regarding all forms of sin) and pray the the Lord will work repentance in the heart of the sinner, so that when the gospel is handed over to them (without strings), they might, by the grace of God come to a living faith. (again, and again, and again)
Thanks for the very thoughtful post, I.Monk.
– Steve M.
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Can you give the reference on your comment about Henri Nouwen. I’d like to know more of what he said and the context in which he said it.
Thanks.
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Thanks for writing this.
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Michael,
Very thought-provoking post. Thank you for sharing the struggle.
I am really wrestling with how to rightly think about this issue. One question that keeps me on a pendulum is this. Would you say that the sin is not in the sexual leaning itself but rather in the expression of that leaning (faithfulness vs promiscuity, etc)?
Press on!
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Excellent, excellent. Standing ovation.
I can’t wait for the comments from someone who creates some sort of parallel like this: “Say that someone disagreed that murder in Scripture was a sin; or pedophilia; would you still call them brothers and sisters and just let them interpret differently?”
I really think the issue of committed homosexual partners is a difficult one for Christians, and we’re not handling it well. I agree with the traditional biblical interpretation on homosexuality, but you’re right on target with this essay, Michael: what we need to discuss is what we’re communicating. And what we’re communicating to homosexual partners who are more committed to each other than the youth pastor, who’s addicted to porn, is to his wife is that they’re as bad as a pedophile. And while both things are still sins, that’s simply not true.
This is one of the few sins that no one in church can actually be honest about. I could tell a lot of stories, but I’d be betraying trust, of course. But the appalled reaction to someone’s revealing their struggle with homosexual desire is ridiculous and hypocritical. Confess your struggle with pride or laziness, and people will nod their head, share in your struggle, and pray for you. Confess to your accountability group that you struggle with heterosexual lust, and they’ll rally around you and support you. Confess homosexual desire, and you can guarantee you’ll be met with shock, with disbelief, with a few quick words of advice…and then you’ll be expected to just get over it and never bring it up again, please.
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Couple of things for people whose posts I have not posted.
1) I am not going to post mini-lectures with the usual scripture passages. I’m aware of those scriptures.
2) I am not going to post anything suggests I’m rejecting Biblical teaching.
3) I am not going to post offensive terms.
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MIchael,
Awesome post. I applaud your honesty and your emotion. Keep up the great work!
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A very nice discussion of the complexities of the issues. I have known several homosexual leaning christians who struggle in this area. It is easier to have a gospel response when you a sinner struggling with sin, but I think where we have trouble, and where the over reaction occurs is in the attempt to make it not a sin. We should not make it worse than other sins, but how do we struggle to keep others from redefining it as not a sin without seeming to put more emphasis on it? We are failing in that…..
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Great great post. And so true. Thanks so much.
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Wow Michael you are touching on some heavy stuff here
Let me describe two Christians to you and your readers both are Gay (or perhaps bisexual) and I have every reason to believe are (or were) God fearing:
One man fights the passions that he believes are sinful but occasionally falls to temptation. When he fails it is inevitably in cheep casual relationships of the most sorted type. After each affair he is overcome with guilt repents and promises God and Himself he will not fall again. Sadly he does again and again.
The Second Man accepted that his homosexuality was the result of a broken and fallen world where no mere human being could hope to be truly holy in the sight of God apart from Christ’s sacrificial blood. He determined to live a life of love and faithfulness to a man that he loves and try’s to be faithful to him.
I knew both of these men the first was my Uncle the Second was (for a brief time my Priest). The first man dead of Aids nearly 20 years ago he left a wife and three children behind and he was as an aside a pillar in his local Baptist Church.
The Second Man ministers to a small working class Anglo Catholic inner-city parish and is a chaplain at a local mental hospital. To this day he serves faithfully his partner, His church and his community.
Which of these men are the most faithfully Christian. I was once sure and am now no longer.
God Bless
I am not useing my name since I do not wish to jeopardize the reputation of either man.
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