At this cultural moment, the rising generation of Christian young adults is deconverting from biblical Christianity into atheism or Progressive Christianity at alarming rates. Researchers have discovered that those leaving the faith are not only doubting whether Christianity is TRUE but whether Christianity is GOOD. Professor Thaddeus Williams observes,
“If I were raised deep in the Amazon jungles, and suddenly dropped in the middle of Los Angeles and handed a smart phone and a Twitter account, I’d draw some clear conclusions about Christianity—namely Christians are bigots, phobics, and haters. This is a common caricature of Christianity (Before You Lose Your Faith).
In today’s world, the biblical view of homosexuality is assumed to be outdated, archaic, and oppressive of “sexual minorities” namely the members of the LGBTQ+ community. Many of those who claim to be Christians have abandoned confidence in Scripture’s teaching about gender roles and homosexuality, while still others, attempting to stand on biblical truth come across as intolerant and hateful. How do WE get this balance right? And how do we help OUR KIDS—the generation that will be shaping the future get it right? That is our goal in this episode.
I want to begin with the true story of a 15-year-old who came to the conclusion that he was gay. His story began with his friendship with his high school music teacher:
“Here was a man different from Dad or my brothers—he was gentle, soft-spoken, and warm towards me. He invited me into conversation. He told me of his world of teaching, ballet, music, and artist friends. I told him about my family, thoughts, hurts, and fears. He listened and encouraged me to confide in him. On a snowy evening, he escorted me to the Academy of Music to see Swan Lake. I was so excited. I had never been to the theater…After the ballet, my teacher called my parents and suggested that I stay with him for the night since the roads were unsafe. They agreed, not suspecting that he would unleash his lust on their son before dawn. He did. Sunrise witnessed my tear-stained face attempting to resume its self-protective mask of stoicism as my teacher cautioned me to keep our secret. He explained to me the “truth” that I was gay like him. He promised to help me but said I needed to keep our special relationship under cover. I didn’t believe I had a choice.” (David Longrace, But Such Were Some of You).
CHRISTIANS MUST BE WELCOMING
A. I begin with Rick’s story because in addressing homosexuality we must begin with mercy and compassion. Many homosexuals were raped as children. Even if they weren’t, our response to one whose sexuality is broken must be sorrow. Jesus’ compassion for sexual strugglers is modeled at the well of Samaria. Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (John 4:5-9).
In just these few verses, Jesus models a welcoming paradigm for every Christian to follow who has a gay or transgender relative, friend, or work associate. It is an example our children need to see in us. Note what Jesus’ welcoming attitude did not do: immediately express his disapproval of her lifestyle. Some confused Christians seem to feel an urgency to express their disagreement with a gay friend or relative’s lifestyle, before he has gotten to know anything else about him. That was the opposite of Jesus’ approach. Instead, he first takes three steps to affirm the woman’s value. These steps open her heart to discuss spiritual things:
- Jesus went out of his way to go into her world. When any reputable Jew traveled from Judea north to Galilee, he would go around the Samaritans who were considered unclean idolaters, just below dogs on the social status scale. But Jesus affirmed the worth of the Samaritan woman and her culture by walking among them. He didn’t stay in Jerusalem demanding that they clean up their act before he would speak to them. In fact, the incarnation of Christ is the very picture of holiness coming down to and bringing God’s love to the morally broken. Instead of treating homosexuals and the transgendered like lepers, we need to take the first step toward friendship with them.
- Jesus took the initiative to speak to her. Instead of disrespecting her by ignoring her, Jesus’ asks, “Will you give me a drink?” To dignify her by speaking to her was radically countercultural. No self-respecting rabbi would ever speak to a woman in public, much less a Samaritan, and one living in sexual sin. Scorned by the other women, she came to the well in the heat of the day alone. But Jesus speaks to her. He doesn’t avert his eyes and look away. He doesn’t condemn her. Jesus overcomes social stereotypes and treats her with a level of dignity she probably had never experienced.
- Jesus overwhelmed her with acceptance. More astonishing than the fact that Jesus spoke to her was what he said. He asked to drink from her cup. According to the tradition of the Jews, drinking from the cup of a Gentile would make Jesus ceremonially unclean. Jesus’ request sent her a message: she was clean enough for holiness itself to put his lips to her cup. Jesus did not push her away; he welcomed her into friendship with him. After Jesus opened her heart this way, he could address her sin.
B. Jesus refused to stigmatize her because she was sexually broken. Jesus did not put her into a special category called “sexual sinners” as if adulterers, fornicators, and homosexuals were bottom-rung sinners, lower than everyone else. When he confronted her sin and she repented, he welcomed her into the family of God. In fact, the rest of John 4 says that her conversion story led to a great gospel harvest.
In today’s church most same-sex-attracted teens know they will be stigmatized if they share this struggle in their youth group. Internally such teens are filled with questions like: Why do I feel attraction toward others of the same sex? How do I reconcile my same-sex attraction with my Christian faith? Why doesn’t God answer my prayers to take same-sex attraction away? If such a teen does not feel that he has a safe place in the Body of Christ to discuss such questions because homosexual sin is stigmatized, research shows that he will likely turn to the “I’m gay” identity script offered by the LGBTQ movement and feel like he belongs with those in the LGBTQ life instead of with Christians. The LGBTQ identity script reads:
- Your attractions reside at the core of your identity, your sense of self.
- If you are gay, it makes sense to follow through and act on what you feel. because you are expressing and enjoying who you are.
- You are born gay—it’s just a matter of discovering this about yourself.
- If you have same-sex attractions but don’t identify as gay, then you are in denial or not yet ready to be honest with yourself about who you are.
It is critical that Christians not stigmatize those whose sin nature produces same-sex desire. However, this refusal to stigmatize has led many too far the other way.
THE DANGER OF OVER-EMPATHIZING
While Christians are to try to understand what it is like to struggle with sinful same-sex desire, an over-emphasis on empathy harms the one we are seeking to understand. Rosaria Butterfield, in her book, The Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age, points to the way that in our culture empathy has mistakenly been elevated to the highest form of love. She observes, “Empathy means standing in someone else’s shoes. In a world where kindness is the most important virtue, empathy is the highest manifestation of this love.” But empathizing is NOT the highest form of love. If you see a person drowning, you can empathize with the drowning victim all day; but love pulls the victim out of the water. Similarly, when your daughter comes home from college claiming that she is a male in a woman’s body, the LGBTQ+ propaganda says your highest moral virtue is empathy, trying to understand how she feels and not making her FEEL WORSE. But love recognizes the truth: something is terribly wrong with your daughter.
Elevating empathy as the highest virtue, instead of love, which the Biblical worldview does, goes hand in hand with critical theory which divides humanity into oppressors and victims because we empathize with victims. Who wants to empathize with a murderer, thief, or rapist? The folly of over-emphasizing empathy is also seen in the parent who doesn’t want to hurt a child or make him feel bad by correcting him. But Proverbs 13:24 says, Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. The TRUTH is that allowing a child’s wrong behavior go unpunished teaches him that he can violated God’s moral order and succeed—steering him down the path of destruction. Empathy without truth is never love. Scripture tells us, “Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). I believe that over-empathizing with those in the LGBTQ+ community has led some to abandon the truth of Scripture about homosexuality. Rosaria Butterfield summarizes their beliefs:
THE FALSE TEACHING OF GAY CHRISTIANITY
“A movement began in 2002 that helped support the lie that homosexual orientation is a God-blessed category of humanity. That movement gave moral credence to homosexuality by making the claim that the Bible condones—indeed, even blesses—homosexual sin, either at the level of practice (dubbed “Side A” Gay Christianity), or at the level of identity (dubbed “Side B” Gay Christianity). The Gay Christian movement—Side A or Side B—presents a false religion, a different religion from biblical Christianity….Without the evangelical endorsement of Gay Christianity, we would not be in the confusing mess that we are in today.” (Ibid).
Side A Gay “Christianity” really began back in the 1970’s when Second Wave Feminism caused some evangelical leaders discomfort with Paul’s teaching that only men were to lead the church. They rationalized away Paul’s words, I do not permit a woman to teach or be in a position of authority over men, by saying Paul’s teaching on gender roles was cultural. Next, they became full egalitarians, rationalizing away God’s teaching, The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church. Now, Side A Gay Christians rationalize away Scripture’s clear teaching about homosexuality, saying that the Bible reflects uninformed cultural biases about sexuality. There is no limit to the human ability to suppress the truth of God in order to justify sin or to be loved by the world. Never mind the clarity of verses like Leviticus 20:13, If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death.
Side B Gay Christianity is more troubling because it is held by those who claim to believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. It does correctly recognize that homosexual practice is sin; yet it embraces an unbiblical category of homosexual identity. This view is rooted in the unbiblical concept of sexual orientation, which produces an unbiblical view of the identity of Christians who experience same-sex desire.
A. The anti-biblical term sexual orientation is a man-made theory that WHO YOU ARE is determined by the object of your sexual desire. It is rooted in Darwin’s view of humans as merely biological organisms, and Freud’s understanding of sexuality to be at the core of human experience. John Money, who is considered the father of the transgender movement and was also proved to be a pedophile, intentionally changed the term sexual preference to sexual orientation, implying that one has no choice in the matter, one is simply directed a certain way from birth. What society and all other major religions, including Christianity, had taught was a moral choice—i.e. a decision to be sexually engaged with another, was now deemed an orientation, an organic drive over which you have no control. The impact of this change in language was massive: Consider how same-sex desire is now justified:
- If it is an orientation, for God (or anyone) to say it is morally wrong is unfair.
- If it is an orientation, which defines your very personhood, it is an assault upon your dignity for homosexual desire and behavior to be condemned.
- If it is an orientation, your sexual minority status needs to be protected.
However, the TRUTH is that homosexual desire and practice are not a category of PERSONHOOD but a category of EVIL. Paul warns, Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor 6:9-11). Even if a person struggles with same-sex attraction from birth, the explanation is that we are born with a sin nature. Biblically, homosexual orientation is not a category of human personhood that needs to be valued but a sinful inclination that needs to be put to death. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness (Col 3:5). Butterfield observes,
“You will not find the concept of sexual orientation in the Bible. Instead, the Bible mentions sexuality in the creation ordinance as a covenant between one man and one woman. Biblical sexuality is natural, God-blessed, and procreative. The goodness of heterosexuality is found in our unique and distinct biology as men and women and the procreative power God gives, while its holiness is found in the covenant of marriage. In contrast, homosexuality is unnatural, sinful, and barren.”
The anti-biblical categorization of same-sex sinful desire and practice as sexual orientation leads to further wrong thinking about one’s human identity.
B. Using the term gay Christian to describe the identify of Christians who struggle with the sin of same-sex attraction is wrong. Though Side B Gay Christians admit that gay sex is wrong, choosing to remain celibate, they heartily embrace homosexual orientation. They want to participate in gay culture (including gay PRIDE parades) and bring gay culture into the church. “Side B Gay Christianity redefines sin merely as sexual action and denies that sin acts with affections, feelings, attractions, and desires” (Ibid). Side B Gay Christians, like those involved in the Revoice movement, use this unbiblical categorization of personhood—one’s sexual orientation—to then over-empathize with humans who experience sinful same-sex attraction. But we are never called to empathize with sin; we are called to hate it. The true marks of repentance, sorrow for sin, grief over sin, abhorring sin, feeling shame over sin, don’t seem consistent with insisting that one’s identity is to be a gay Christian. What group of Christians who struggle with porn addition want their identity to be Porn-loving Christians?
The true identity of a same-sex attracted Christian is 1) being an image-bearer of God and 2) a forgiven child of God in the process of being made holy. It does not mean God will replace his homosexual desires with heterosexual desires, any more than God sets porn addicts completely free from sinful lust in this life. But it does mean learning to loathe his same-sex desire—not using it as a basis for one’s identify.
EXPLODING THE MYTH THAT HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS ARE NORMAL
1. Sex has historically been seen as more than a bodily function; it is a MORAL CHOICE. Like most religions of the world, Christianity teaches that lust, adultery, polygamy, pedophilia, and homosexuality are wrong expressions of sexual desire. Same-sex attraction is like many wrong sexual attractions—to my neighbor’s wife, to my sister-in-law or to the idea of having multiple sex partners in an orgy.
2. Nature tells everyone that homosexual sex is a perversion. I hate to be crass, but sometimes the obvious needs to be stated. The female vagina was made to receive the male penis. Making love with your heterosexual partner makes the home where children are conceived a place where both mom and dad are present and in love. Homosexual sex places the penis in the part of the body intended to release excrement. This fact says everything.
3. Gay Marriage is Bad for Children. Sociologists have proven that both moms and dads are required for kids to flourish. From the way that they communicate, to how they play, to how they discipline, dad and mom offer distinct complementary benefits to children. Men don’t mother. Women don’t father. Kids need both.
4. The gay lifestyle is NOT just as normal and healthy as the heterosexual lifestyle. Monogamy is almost non-existent in gay relationships.
- 4.5 % of men currently in a homosexual relationship report being faithful. 75% of men in heterosexual relationships reported being faithful.
- A study of the sexual profiles of 2,583 older homosexuals found that only 2.7 of those men reported having sex with only one partner.
- Between 75 and 90 percent of lesbians report sexual activity with men as well as with women. Gay sex is NOT about MONOGAMY.
- Homosexual practice is also loaded with disease. Gay and bisexual men make up about 2% of the population but account for 55% of HIV infections (A Practical Guide to Culture). Monkeypox, like AIDS, is spread by gay men having multiple partners.
- In addition, the CDC found the following to be more prevalent among lesbian, gay, and bisexual students than heterosexual ones.
---Serious contemplation of suicide (42.8% compared to 14.8%).
---Suicide attempts (29.4% compared to 6.4%).
In view of the facts about homosexual practice, dissuading someone from pursuing the gay life is an act of love.
For Further Prayerful Thought:
- What stood out to you about the way Jesus exhibited a welcoming attitude towards the woman at the well and refused to stigmatize her. How would you try to make the church a safe place for rising teens who experience same-sex attraction?
- How would you explain to other Christians that the category sexual orientation is a false characterization of personhood? How does that perspective of the sin of homosexuality get in the way of one repenting over his or her same sex desires and practices?
- If all Christians are sinners, which means some are guilty of the sin of same-sex desire, why is calling those who struggle with this particular sin, “Gay Christians,” wrong?
- Which facts about the homosexual life stood out to you?
