Is Homosexuality Wrong?

August 17, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple

Note: This is the latest in a series on homosexuality and Christianity. See the introduction and first, second and third parts.

I recently began a series of blog posts on Christianity and homosexuality, and then left off for a while.  The truth is that I’ve been dreading writing the next installment — this one — in the series.  Absolutely dreading it.  Why?  Many of my friends, colleagues and former students are homosexual.  I respect them, admire them, like them, and love them.  They are good people.  And while many of them would object to other parts of the series so far, this is the part that will bother them the most.  It pains me to think of paining them.

Yet the question in this case is not whether I dislike homosexuals.  (I do not.)  The question is whether homosexuality, in my view of things, is wrong.  My responsibility is to speak the truth as well as I can understand it.  Since I am far from infallible, since I am a limited creature and not immune to any number of wrong or irrational influences, and since I respect the opinions of many who have come to different conclusions on this question, I have to speak with humility.  Yet I do have to speak, in part because of the social importance of the subject, in part because I believe the truth matters for individuals and their own welfare, and in part because I began this series and many people have asked me to continue.  They wonder, for instance, how to speak with their gay friend or their lesbian sister, in view of their commitment to Christian teachings.  So let me try not only to give an answer, but to model a way of delivering that answer.

Is homosexuality wrong?  The answer is NO — and YES.

In other words, it’s time again for some finer distinctions.  In the question “Is homosexuality wrong?”, it’s imperative to define what we mean by “homosexuality” and by “wrong.”  (Fan though I am of Clintonian distinctions, I’ll assume we know what “is” means here.)  I’m going to use a similar but slightly different set of distinctions here than the one I used when we were asking whether homosexuality is voluntary.  It is:

  1. Homosexual desire: a single, discrete sexual desire for a person of the same sex.
  2. Homosexual inclination: an enduring predilection toward homosexual desires.
  3. Homosexual behavior: acting on a homosexual desire (this would be a single homosexual act) or acting regularly on homosexual inclinations (entering into homosexual relationships, whether serial or monogamous).
  4. Homosexual marriage: committing before God to a lifelong sexual, practical and spiritual covenant with one other person.

What, then, do we mean by wrong?  It’s important to distinguish what is unintended — meaning that this is not what God intended for creation from the start — from what is morally wrong or against God’s will now.  There may be some things which God did not intend, but which are morally justified in a fallen world under certain conditions.  For instance, I do not believe that God intended for divorce; divorce is not ideal in an ultimate sense; in a fallen world, however, and under certain conditions, divorce may be the right thing to do.  And let me be perfectly clear that whether something is wrong, and whether it is or ought to be illegal, are related but different questions.  I am leaving the state out of (4), for instance, because the question here is not legality but morality.  I can justify this at greater length in the comments, if someone has a challenge.

HOMOSEXUAL DESIRE: First comes the NO.  It is not wrong to have a homosexual desire.  Many people, even people who live their entire lives happily as married heterosexuals, have experienced, once upon a time, a spark of attraction for a person of the same sex.  Since conservative Christians who care enough to write about homosexuality are often accused of fighting their own repressed urges, I have to say, in all honesty, that I have never experienced such a desire myself.  When I look at other men, I feel no sense of sexual attraction, in the same way that some gay friends (they tell me) cannot imagine being attracted to someone of the opposite sex.

But I do not judge those who do feel such an attraction.  If I am right in what I’ve written in this series thus far, people who feel homosexual attractions probably do so because of a complicated interaction between genetic inheritance, perhaps the birth environment, and certainly their environment in early life.  You cannot be held morally accountable for these things.  Whether or not they will experience same-sex desires is probably, at least in most cases, determined before they have become conscious of themselves as free and sexual creatures.  It is not literally true, but is experientially true, that they were “born this way,” because they cannot remember ever feeling otherwise.

HOMOSEXUAL INCLINATION: Neither — for the same reasons — do I believe it’s wrong to experience an enduring proclivity toward same-sex desires.  I know some men who very much wish they did not experience these desires, but the desires are there and they cannot simply wish them away.

To be clear, I do not believe that homosexual desires or homosexual inclinations were intended by God from the beginning.  Here is where I am going to begin (if I have not already) to upset my gay friends.  So please understand: This is a question of what I feel bound to believe according to the authorities in my life.  I believe there is a Creator; in fact, I think it’s fairly obvious.  I also believe — though this is less obvious — that this Creator communicated his love and his grace, but also his will and his Truth, in Jesus Christ and through the books now gathered together in the Christian scriptures.  I spent many years studying the reasons why people reject these beliefs, but I feel that I have good reasons for them.  The consequence is that I am bound to submit my understanding of true and false, right and wrong, to the Christian scriptures.  Are they tough to interpret?  Of course.  But I do my best, and in many cases the proper interpretation is easily discerned.

I won’t go into the reasons now — I’ll save that for another part of this series — but I have come to believe that the scriptures depict sexual desire as something that men and women were intended to have for one another.  In their difference, in their creative complementarity, in their companionship, and in their capacity (in general) to produce life, I believe that men and women were intended to unite and become one flesh.  While I do not believe it is wrong to experience a homosexual inclination, neither do I believe that it’s what God intended.

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR: Here comes the YES.  Behavior is not merely to experience a desire or inclination, but to act upon it.  We are not always free to choose our desires or inclinations, but we are generally free in — and morally accountable for — our actions.  This is not to say we are completely uninfluenced by external factors, or internal factors over which we have no control; but it is to say that we have some remainder of free agency, an ability to do otherwise than our desires and inclinations would lead us to do.  So, I do not blame an alcoholic for wanting a drink, and I don’t blame a teenager for wanting to have sex with his girlfriend, any more than I blame a starving person for wanting to eat.  But we are morally accountable for what we do with our desires.  Do we act upon them at all?  Do we direct them rightly?  And if we find our desires are misdirected, or out of control, or leading us to harm ourselves or others, do we take the initiative to restrain or redirect or even refuse to satisfy those desires?  So just as we’re responsible for how we act upon our desires, we are also responsible for the extent to which we are able to cultivate our desires over time.  If it’s wrong to act upon a same-sex desire, then a person ought, if possible, to seek to diminish those desires and redirect them (cultivating his desires through a thousand minute decisions) over time.  If I sin consistently by looking at other women, then I should not act upon those desires, and I should seek over time to diminish and/or re-train those desires.

I hasten to add: while I believe it is a sin to act upon homosexual desires, I also believe that I sin in a thousand-and-one ways every day.  I do not believe that my gay friends are worse sinners than I am.  In fact, in a very real sense, that sort of comparison is meaningless.  St. Paul refers to himself as “the chief of sinners,” and the chief of sinners is always me myself.  The longer you spend striving to live out the will of God (whether out of legalism or out of gratitude), the more you understand just how sinful you are.  I’ve never been unfaithful to my wife, but I have many times fallen short in my thoughts and deeds.  So I have no interest in judging other people.  But I do have an interest in upholding the Truth.

I also hasten to add: I do not believe that homosexual sin cuts a person off from fellowship with God.  I was good friends with a dormmate my freshman year, and she “came out” in her sophomore year.  We met again in our senior year, and she told a heartbreaking story of how her Bible-belt church essentially told her that she could have no relationship with God until she stopped acting upon her desires.  This is insensitive, counter-productive, and theological nonsense.  We are always sinners — all of us, always, even when we are not counted as such in the grace of God — and we are often confused on what is right and wrong.  Those who have gay friends or relatives wrestling with their sexual and religious identities should not require them to stop sinning sexually before they can turn to God, but should encourage them to spend even more time with God everyday.  If we are right that gay behavior is against God’s will, then we should encourage our gay brothers and sisters to keep praying, keep worshipping, and keep listening — and we should trust that God will convince them in due time.  He is the author and perfecter of their faith — not us.

It is, ultimately, not my job to convict another person of sin.  The Holy Spirit will work through “the Law,” even “the law written upon their hearts,” to convict people of their need for grace.  I am sometimes asked, “Do I need to tell my sister that she’s sinning?”  In the majority of cases, people know when they’re sinning.  They can feel it in their heart of hearts.  And in those cases where they are confused, it is not our job to deliver the Law.  If we are asked, we should speak the truth we have come to know.  But generally people know, and generally people know what we believe.  More importantly, it’s goodness that leads to repentance (Romans 2:4).  It is not condemnation, threats and fear, hellfire and brimstone, that lead to genuine confession and transformation.  It’s the grace of God that saves and the grace of God that sanctifies.

I’m going to save HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE for the next part of this series.  Then I’ll explain some of the reasons why I believe the Bible makes clear that homosexuality is not intended and why acting upon same-sex desires is wrong.  What I’ve provided above is really just a formal analysis of the logic of my own position.  I’ve explained (in part) what I believe is wrong, but I’ve not yet explained why I believe it’s wrong.  I owe you that.

In conclusion, whatever I might want to believe (and, to be honest, I want to believe that same-sex inclinations and behaviors are perfectly okay), I am convinced that this is the truth of the matter.  C. S. Lewis called himself “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England,” and I likewise come to this view with great reluctance.  It doesn’t make me popular in intellectual circles, and it certainly doesn’t help my case with any future faculty hiring committees (not that I’m looking to re-enter academia right now).  So why speak up at all?  Why not keep my mouth shut, and just say the nice stuff about grace?

Because, ultimately, I think it’s self-destructive to do what is wrong.  I believe that God communicates his will to us for our own benefit.  We are most truly ourselves, living the life we were intended to live, when we are acting in obedience.  If disobedience is self-destruction, and if you care about someone, and they are acting in disobedient / self-destructive ways, and they ask you whether you think they’re doing something wrong, you owe them your true conviction.  The false binds us in confusion and sin; the truth sets free.  So, yes, I believe that my gay friends, my friends who act upon their homosexual inclinations, are doing harm to themselves.  I believe they are acting in self-destructive ways.  I know they feel otherwise, and they will not like me for saying this.  But I hope they believe me when I say that I only tell them this because I sincerely believe it’s the truth, and I sincerely believe the truth leads to freedom.

And because I care for them.  I don’t like conflict, and I don’t need the controversy.  If I did not care, I would just shut my mouth.

Filed Under: Christianity and Homosexuality Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Is Homosexuality Voluntary?

June 28, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple
Note: This is part of a series on Christianity and Homosexuality.  See the introduction and first and second parts.

I’ve stated as clearly as I can (links above) that the church should confess for its poor treatment of gays, that the church should express the extravagant and self-sacrificial love of Christ for gays as for all people, and that being or becoming homosexual cannot be reduced to a simple matter of choice.  The proper question is whether homosexuality is voluntary.  Whereas a choice is “a discrete and generally thoughtful and intentional decision between alternatives,” something is voluntary but not a choice if it “is a slow migration in one direction that emerges in aggregate from countless minute choices.”  So, now: is homosexuality voluntary?

First, let’s define terms.  Homosexual desire is, of course, a desire to have sexual relations with the same sex.  A homosexual inclination is persistent or habitual homosexual desire — not merely a desire here and there, but a constant or consistent desire for same-sex sexual relations.  Homosexual identity is a cultural and psychological construct; it is when an individual has embraced the notion that he is homosexual and takes up what that means in society.  Then homosexual behavior refers to sexual acts with people of the same sex.

When we ask whether homosexuality is voluntary, we begin with the inclination toward homosexual desire.  Without a persistent desire, neither the identity nor the behavior will enter the picture.  So the question is now: Is homosexual inclination — an inclination to desire same-sex sexual relations — voluntary?

It would take too long to explain how I interpret the studies in genetic, hormonal, environmental and social-psychological factors influencing sexual orientation.  So I’ll simply state my view.  Neither homosexual identity nor homosexual behavior are inherited; one cannot inherit — genetically or hormonally in utero — a cultural construct or pattern of action.  One can only inherit an inclination toward desires (a preference), as well as needs and capacities, attributes and the like.  I inherit a need and habitual desire for food, but I can refuse those desires and starve myself to death.  I do not inherit the behavior of eating, or the cultural construct/identity of “overeater” or “foodie” or etc.

When it comes to homosexual inclination, I do not believe there is a “gay gene.”  Complex factors of human personality, like persistent desires and inclinations, emerge from multiple genes and from the ways in which those genes interact with upbringing and environment.  Just as there is no “lawyer gene,” or “desire to cook” gene, so there is no “gay gene” or “desire for same-sex sexual relations” gene.  It’s not that simple.  There may be a set of genes, and in some cases that set may be dispositive (i.e., it may ‘make you gay’), but in the vast majority of cases I believe that the inclination toward same-sex desires emerges over time through a thousand-and-one subtle interactions between nature and nurture.

Yet I have still not said whether or not homosexual inclination is voluntary.

Here’s the problem.  I know plenty of people who identify themselves as gay and who tell me that they have never experienced a desire for a person of the opposite sex.  It would be prejudicial dismiss their testimony just because it’s not what I want to hear.  Yet I also know plenty of people who identify as gay but say they have experienced opposite-sex desire at some point in their lives — and dismissing their testimony would be prejudicial as well.  Similarly, I know of folks who sought to reform their same-sex desires and found they could not.  Yet I also know of folks who have, through much struggle and over the course of years, cultivated their desires away from same-sex desires and toward opposite-sex desires, and have been happily married for many years.  I think all of these stories are legitimate and reflect genuine experience.

In other words, I believe there’s a spectrum.  On the one end are people who have only experienced sexual desire for people of the opposite sex.  I cannot imagine being attracted to someone of the same sex.  But I believe my friends who tell me they cannot imagine being attracted to people of the opposite sex.  And then there are various points in-between.  A young man who has always loved women but once had an attraction to one friend; a young woman who explored lesbianism in college and never afterward; the man who has desires for both sexes but chooses one or the other; etc.  Identities and desires are, to some extent and for some people, malleable over the course of time.  While moderns and postmoderns tend to think of ethics in terms of discrete decisions (“choices” as I defined them in the last post), the ancients (such as Aristotle) thought of ethics largely in terms of the cultivation of the proper desires over time (the “voluntary” as I defined it).  Certain disciplines, practiced consistently for years, could prune some desires, redirect others, and nurture nascent desires into life.  That is, when the voluntary is pressed persistently in the same direction, some people can accomplish some (limited) change in identity, inclination and desire.

So where does this leave us?  Let’s divide this into two questions.  Is it voluntary to ‘become‘ homosexual? Here are my views. Homosexual inclination is probably not genetically programmed, but emerges through the interaction of nature and nurture.  However, that inclination may be fully and even irrevocably formed by the time a person has become fully self-conscious and morally accountable for himself or herself.  In other words, even for people who are not ‘born that way’, developing the inclination to same-sex desires may not be voluntary, because they find those desires fully and exclusively rooted within themselves by the time they conscious of any sexual desires at all.

To give an analogy, imagine that a person only developed the ability to see colors when he turned 10 years old.  If his parents painted him red on the night before his 10th birthday, he might well assume that he has been red all along, because he has only seen himself in red and never in another color.  The same could be true here.  Since the same-sex inclination developed prior to the age of moral and sexual self-consciousness, they honestly cannot remember (and may not have felt) any sexual desires for people of the opposite sex.  It seems as though they have always been this way.

However, for other people, there may have been a voluntary element in the development of their inclination to same-sex desires.  This is not the boy who “knows” he’s gay at 8 years old.  This is the female college student who decides to experiment with lesbianism; or a 15-year-old boy who has mostly experienced heterosexual attractions, but who suddenly finds himself attracted to a male friend; or perhaps even someone with strong homosexual desires, but in whom those desires were not as early and as deeply rooted.  The long-term voluntary cultivation of sexual inclinations very clearly (to my mind) has a role to play in those in the middle of the spectrum (the lesbian-until-graduation, the bisexual, etc.); I think it may also have a role to play in some whose same-sex desires emerge a little later and more mixed.  But, again, there are likely others who will feel no voluntary element whatsoever in the way they ‘became’ homosexual.

Second, is it voluntary to ‘be‘ (or to remain) homosexual? After a person has recognized that he’s inclined to same-sex desires, is it possible to cultivate different desires over time?  My answer to this can only be: I’ve known people of both kinds.  For some people, the inclination seems so deeply rooted, and so thoroughly regnant over their sexuality, that it seems they will never be able to cultivate a different inclination.  Yet for other people, there does seem to be the possibility of cultivating a different sexual inclination over the course of time.  Perhaps the same-sex inclination is not as deeply rooted within them, or perhaps they have the roots of both inclinations and can choose to nurture one set of roots and not another.

Many are the stories of people who have sought to change their same-sex desires and found no success.  Traditionalist Christians have too often dismissed those stories, as though the individuals simply did not try hard enough.  And many are the stories of people who have sought to cultivate opposite-sex desires and who have found success.  This does not mean that they never felt same-sex desires again, but that they have seen those desires diminish and their opposite-sex desires grow.  Gay-rights activists have too often dismissed those stories.  To me, both sets of stories have legitimacy, and both reflect real experience.  Convenient though it would be for one side or the other to paint it black-and-white, the world is a good deal more messy and complicated.  For some people, there seems to be a voluntary component in developing and maintaining the inclination toward same-sex sexual relationships; for others there seems to be — at least by the time they become morally and sexually self-conscious individuals — no voluntary component at all.

Now, all of this has been to speak of inclinations, not actions.  A person may be inclined toward a desire, and never act upon that desire.  So the question now becomes — and I’ll turn to this in the next installment — is it still possible to speak of homosexuality being “wrong”?

Filed Under: Christianity and Homosexuality, Homosexuality, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

"Is Homosexuality a Choice?" is Not the Right Question

June 23, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple
Note: This is part of a series on Christianity and Homosexuality.  See the introduction and first installment.

If you haven’t read the earlier parts of the series (links above), please do check them out.  Now, moving on…

“Do you think I just woke up one morning and chose to be gay?  Why on earth would anyone choose to be scorned and outcast, to face the prejudice, to be disowned, to give up the ‘perfect’ wedding and the ‘perfect’ kids?  It would be so much easier if I were straight, but I can’t just turn it on and off like flipping a light switch.”

We’ve all heard objection before, on television, in the movies, or in real life from friends, family members or perfect strangers.  It’s very powerful rhetoric.  It has at least one problem.  The human mind is an exceedingly complex thing, and the motivations for identity-shaping decisions are among the most inscrutable.  In other words, people choose to do all sorts of things that are not apparently in their self-interest.  ”Do you think I would just choose to be a Muslim/Mormon/Pagan/Atheist in a society where that’s frowned upon?  It would have been so much easier to remain a Protestant.”  ”Do you think I would just choose to become a communist in a family of capitalists?”  ”…a drug addict?”  ”…a career criminal?”  ”…a servant to the poor in Calcutta?”  I’m not likening homosexuals and drug addicts — so let’s not play that game.  I’m saying that people do all sorts of things with adverse consequences for all sorts of reasons.  To express our independence, to spite our parents, to give society the middle-finger, to express anger, to express hatred, to identify with a favored victim group, to draw closer to a loved one, to run away from a loved one, do distract ourselves, to numb the pain, and even to destroy ourselves.  Why does a person choose to become a suicide bomber?

But sometimes poor arguments are offered for true propositions.  The basic point is correct: No one simply chooses to become any of those things.  But that doesn’t mean they bear no moral responsibility for what they have become, and it certainly doesn’t mean they have no responsibility for what they become henceforth.

Now, don’t respond yet to what I wrote in the above paragraph, because you don’t know where I’m going with this.  Let’s do something difficult: Forget for a moment that we’re talking about homosexuality.  Bracket that question.  I want to make a very simple but powerful and important conceptual distinction — and then, in the next post, return to the homosexuality question.  I am going to claim: We should not be considering whether homosexuality is a free choice.  We should be considering whether it’s voluntary. I’ll share my answer that question in the next part of this series — and the answer may surprise you.

The distinction that’s so important here is between what is chosen and what is voluntary.  (For philosophy buffs out there: it’s best if you forget the Aristotelian distinction here, as well as Augustine’s distinction between Libertas and Liberum Arbitrium.  What I’m making here are related, overlapping but not identical distinctions, hopefully more informed by modern psychology.)

Choice refers to a discrete and generally thoughtful and intentional decision between alternatives.  By “discrete” I mean that it is a single decision at a particular time.  You make a choice of which cereals to eat for breakfast at a specific time and place.  By “generally thoughtful and intentional” I mean that we’re generally aware (especially if asked) that we’re making a decision, and there are generally some rational processes involved for assessing reasons for and against different possible decisions.  By “between alternatives” I mean that when we make a genuine choice.  Whatever we choose, we were “free to do otherwise.”

Something is voluntary but not chosen if is more of a slow migration in one direction that emerges from a million minuscule choices.  Take, for example, someone who is addicted to sex with prostitutes.  No one “wakes up in the morning and chooses” to be a sex addict — but that doesn’t mean it’s not voluntary.  A person becomes an addict incrementally.  He may have inherited a certain predilection to addictive behaviors, but he gave in to that predilection when he agreed to go to the party where prostitutes were invited, decided to surround himself with friends who frequent prostitutes, decided to try it for the first time — and the second — and the third, and then chose to find other ways to fund his addiction, and chose not to get treatment for his addiction…and so on.  He may not have been free of negative influences (a genetic disposition, say) at the beginning, and his freedom to do otherwise may be all but extinguished at the end.  Ask him to stop, and he’s nearly, perhaps even completely, unable to do so by himself.  Yet, although he did not become an addict by choice, he did become an addict voluntarily.  There was no one moment when he became an addict, so it feels to him as though he had very little freedom in the matter.  And whether he “could have done otherwise” at any particular juncture, he could have done otherwise overall if he had made consistent choices in another direction.

Very few complex identity movements, positive or negative (toward becoming an addict, a teacher, a person of faith, even a parent), can be represented as a choice.  Most are voluntary.  There was no single moment when I chose to marry my wife.  I can point to turning points in our relationship, but I became a married man out of the aggregate of countless decisions made over the course of years.  In fact, eventually it seemed as though there was no decision to be made; it was just obvious that we had become a committed couple for life.

So the question becomes: Is a same-sex orientation (something I’ll define better in the next installment) more like right-handedness or eye color, or is it something more like an identity movement?  It’s not a choice.  And by the time a person has traveled the long route to homosexuality, he cannot simply “choose” to be heterosexual any more than he simply “chose” to be homosexual.

Now that the distinction between what is chosen and what is voluntary is set out, the next question is: Is homosexuality voluntary, or are gay men and women “born this way”?  And can a homosexual individual voluntarily, over the course of time, cultivate other desires and identities?  Again, check back tomorrow for the next installment, and please don’t attack me on the basis of what you assume I’m going to say without waiting to hear me out.

Filed Under: Christianity and Homosexuality, Homosexuality, With Distinction Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Have Evangelicals Loved the Gay Community?

June 21, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple
Note: This is part of a series on Christianity and Homosexuality.  See the introduction here.

This question — Have we loved the gay community? — is, to my mind, the first and most important question we must ask when it comes to the thicket of entangled issues and controversies found in the relationship between Christianity and homosexuality.  We worship as God incarnate a person who taught us to look first to the plank in our own eyes before we look to the motes in the eyes of others.  Our concern with sin is always firstly and fundamentally with our own sin.  The Apostle Paul called himself the chief of sinners.  This was no pose.  To speak of the chief of sinners is always, Christianly speaking, always to speak in the first person.

This does not mean that I cannot speak of others’ sins.  Sometimes we must uphold the truth when it is under assault.  It’s important to be able to say that Anthony Weiner’s treatment of women was sinful; that a priest or pastor or teacher’s abuse of children is sinful; that a businessperson’s deceit is sinful; and, yes, that certain sexual behaviors are sinful.  But it means that I cannot speak of the sins of others until I have spoken first of my own, until I am profoundly humbled by the width, depth and breadth of my own sin.  And it means that I can never cast stones, because I am not without sin.  I can only speak as one sinner to another, not casting judgment, for it is not mine to judge, but confessing my own sin, conveying the truth of scripture, and looking hopefully to our redemption from sin together.

And evangelicals have abundant reason for confession when it comes to the matter of homosexuality.  One of my students at Harvard could not go home over the holidays because his Christian parents had cut him from their lives when he told them he was gay.  A fellow student when I was an undergrad wept in my dorm room at how hatefully her Tennessee church had treated her after she came out.  Some have suffered verbal and physical abuse, some are told that “God Hates F**s,” and the list goes on.  There are many gays I love and respect and am grateful to have in my life.  Ask any of them, ask just about any gay person, and they can give you a list of the times when they’ve been mistreated and maligned by Christians.  Granted, not everything that is called hateful actually is hateful.  But sometimes Christians have been hateful toward gays, and if you think the church has nothing to do with this, then I think you’re fooling yourself.  We have a collective responsibility for the culture around the issue.  Do you really think the church has done everything it could to oppose anti-homosexual bigotry within its ranks, and everything it should to demonstrate the love of Christ toward gays?

I’ve posted this once before, but consider this story from the 1980s:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – They begin to arrive before sunset, shuffling in out of the dark streets of the Haight-Ashbury district and into the half-lit ward, because they know that is when their friends awaken to another day of unrelenting pain. They gather in the cold foyer to pray. “Let our hands be your hands,” pastor Allen whispers, “let our words be your words. Help us to love our friends and bring life and joy into this place.”

They are members of the Castro Community Church. Some visit the AIDS ward on Ashbury Street every day before work, and others bring their families on weekends. They represent a nationwide movement of evangelical Christians who believe that they are called by God to love the men and women dying in the AIDS wards in the same way that Jesus, they say, loved the sick and the ostracized in ancient Palestine.

Pastor Allen is there every day. Is he not afraid, I ask him, of becoming infected? Scientists are still struggling to understand how HIV spreads. “Jesus went among the diseased,” he answers. “Our church building is just around the corner. These are our neighbors, our friends.”

What about the fact, I say, that many of these men are gay? Does he not believe they’re sinners? “I am a sinner. We are all sinners. That’s not what matters right now. What matters is that these men are suffering and dying and need care. They need to hear that God loves them and offers them grace.” We are sitting in an empty waiting room, and pastor Allen has been visiting patients for two hours. When I ask whether this is all just a proselytization strategy, he shakes his head. “This is about answering the call of God to love our neighbors and lay down our lives for our brothers. If some come to know the love of Jesus through our actions, then great. But regardless, we’re called to love our neighbors and care for the sick.”

When was this story written?  Never.  But I wish it had been.  How different would our relationship be with the gay community if we had been the first to serve them in the midst of the AIDS crisis?  Some evangelicals — even in ex-gay ministries like Exodus International — actively served the people (many of them gay) who were dying in the AIDS wards.  But they were the exceptions.  By and large, Christians sat on their hands.  AIDS, they said, is God’s punishment for druggies and gays.  I know because I once said the same thing, when I was a kid, and the Christians around me nodded their heads.  I heard it frequently.

The church has been one of the most beautiful and redemptive things in my life.  I am not one of those writers who’s made a career of selling scorn for conservative Christianity.  But I do think we have to confess here.  I know I do.  Have we always stood against those who speak hatefully of gays?  Have we also stood up for gays when they are harassed or abused?  Have we explained ourselves with compassion and humility?  Have we fully supported those who wrestle with same-sex attraction and wish to live in faithfulness?

We should love all people with the love of Christ, should we not?  Yet the love of Christ is an extravagant, overflowing, shockingly forgiving, and radically self-sacrificial love.  While the love of Christ does not call evil things good or sinful things pure, it always seeks to heal and reconcile and redeem.  I just don’t think we’ve demonstrated that kind of love toward gays.

To be sure, evangelicals have not always deserved the accusation of bigotry.  Neither evangelicals nor gays are blameless in this relationship.  Yet we are Christians, defined by a God-man who died for those who condemned him.  We should always be the first to put aside our grievances and seek reconciliation.  Until we’ve laid down our lives for our gay brothers and sisters, until we’ve fashioned relationships of love and respect, until we’ve communicated the extravagant love of God not only through our words but also through our deeds, even words spoken in love and concern will be heard as hatred and condemnation.  Even our loving words will not be heard as love unless we’ve demonstrated our love first.

Next up: “Why ‘Is Homosexuality a Choice?’ Is Not the Right Question” — but I’ll finish with this.  God did not require me to overcome my sins before he loved me.  Shouldn’t I have the same grace with others?

Filed Under: Christianity and Homosexuality, Homosexuality Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Al Mohler is Right: We Have Not Loved Gays As We Should

June 21, 2011 By Timothy Dalrymple

Al Mohler is President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, an intellectual leader of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), and one of the pillars of theological and social conservatism within the denomination.  Yet he’s fallen in hot water with recent comments condemning the ways in which conservative Christians have spoken of homosexuality.  Here’s what he told Jonathan Merritt in an interview:

“We’ve lied about the nature of homosexuality and have practiced what can only be described as a form of homophobia…We’ve used the ‘choice’ language when it is clear that sexual orientation is a deep inner struggle and not merely a matter of choice.”

SBC flamethrower Peter Lumpkins, upset, roundly condemned Jonathan Merritt’s approach to the gay community and suggested that Merritt might have lied or misconstrued Al Mohler’s words, or else Mohler had a lot of explaining to do.  Lumpkins issued this threat: “Jonathan must also understand this: I am prepared to take this issue all the way to the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention in Phoenix.”

Which he did.  After Mohler delivered a report on the state of the seminary, Lumpkins took to the microphone and asked Mohler to confirm whether or not he had said those words, and — if he did say them — to explain how exactly Southern Baptists have lied about homosexuality and misused the language of “choice”?

Mohler’s response was not uncharitable, but several of the attendants said Lumpkins was “Mohlerized” or received a “well-deserved beatdown” or a public verbal “spanking.”  Lumpkins afterward condemned the “culture of intimidation” that stifles debate, and said he would be “digesting” Mohler’s response for a long time.  While Lumpkins makes a fair point about the “beatdown” and “spanking” comments, it does bring to mind a certain saying regarding pots and kettles.

So what did Mohler say?  ”I’m thankful for the question, my brother, and I am glad to tell you, that I was asked that question, and I made those statements. They’re not alleged statements; they are actual statements…[While] there is no way anyone in fair mindedness can be confused about what I believe about homosexuality” — because he has written over 200 articles explaining the historical biblical view that homosexual acts are sinful and marriage is intended for a man and a woman — “I believed then and I believe now with my whole heart that that…we now face the responsibility not only to preach the truth about homosexuality but to minister to a very militant community of homosexuals, and also to a large number of persons in our churches…who are struggling with this issue.  The reality is that we as Christian churches have not done well on this issue.”  He goes on:

Evangelicals, thankfully, have failed to take the liberal trajectory of lying about homosexuality and its sinfulness…We know that the Bible clearly declares – not only in isolated verses but in the totality of its comprehensive presentation – the fact that homosexuality not only is not God’s best for us, as some try to say, but it is sin…But we as evangelicals have a very sad history in dealing with this issue…We have told not the truth, but we have told about half the truth. We’ve told the biblical truth, and that’s important, but we haven’t applied it in the biblical way.

We have said to people that homosexuality is just a choice. It’s clear that it’s more than a choice. That doesn’t mean it’s any less sinful, but it does mean it’s not something people can just turn on and turn off. We are not a gospel people unless we understand that only the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ gives a homosexual person any hope of release from homosexuality.

Churches have not done their job until “there are those who have been trapped in that sin sitting among us.”  Southern Baptists, Mohler has said, need to repent for their treatment of gays.  Even at the SBC, one of the most conservative sectors of American evangelicalism, Mohler’s comments received strong applause.

Lumpkins professes to be “confused” by Mohler’s response, but I think the points he’s making are fairly clear.  Mohler rejects the notion that is homophobic and bigoted to hold the historically orthodox view that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are against God’s design.  It’s not wrong to say homosexuality is wrong; it’s wrong to say it in the way Christians have said it.  Christians are right to uphold biblical truths; Christians are wrong, even sinful, in the scorn and prejudice they have too often exhibited toward homosexuals.

It may be unnecessarily inflammatory to say that conservative Christians have “lied” about the nature of homosexuality.  It is one thing to be mistaken, and another to lie.  Also, I’m not a fan of the language of “homophobia,” because it’s conveniently applied to anyone who believes homosexual acts are sinful.  It is (as Mohler agrees) not always hateful or fearful to tell a person that he has gone down a wayward path; sometimes, when the heart is right, this is the most loving thing one person can say to another.  Yet there are homophobes in the church.  The church does need to repent for the fear and enmity that gays have too often received from Christians.

I’m going to use this occasion to begin a series on Christianity and homosexuality.  This is one of the most important and explosive topics in the church today.  It stands at the fault-line between warring theological, political, and social-cultural camps in the church, and it generates a great deal of the animosity between them.  Thoughtful, humble, charitable engagement with this issue is paramount for the future of the church.

This will be a lengthy series, so I strongly recommend you subscribe via RSS or email.  These will be the first six parts.  (1) Have Evangelicals Loved the Gay Community? (2) Why “Is Homosexuality a Choice?” is Not the Right Question.  (3) Is Homosexuality Voluntary?  (4) Is Homosexuality Wrong?  (5) Is It Possible to Leave Homosexuality?  (6) Is it Wrong to “Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner”?

PS.  You can see the video of Lumpkins’ question, and the beginning of Mohler’s response, here:

Filed Under: Christian Approach to Politics, Christianity and Homosexuality, Homosexuality Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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