When
young outsiders are asked their perception of Christians, the two highest
thoughts are are that Christians are judgmental and anti-homosexual.
Interestingly, these are the same perceptions that young churchgoers have of
Christians as well (unChristian 28, 34). And I don't think these views are
unwarranted.
In 2009, a bill was
introduced in Uganda that would hang people who were found guilty of having
consensual homosexual sex. Eventually, more reasonable minds prevailed and
removed that wording from the legislation although being a homosexual would
still be outlawed.
The
Los Angeles Times reports, “Anyone who counseled or abetted people in
committing homosexual acts — including landlords who rented houses or rooms to
gay people — would face seven years in jail. The bill makes it compulsory for
people to report acts of homosexuality within 24 hours of becoming aware of
them and penalizes those who fail to do so.”
In the proposed bill, gay sex in Uganda would carry a term of life in
prison.
HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE
Apparently,
the early church wrestled with homosexuality too. If not, they wouldn't have
addressed the issue. We see Paul write about it in three places. First is in
his setup to the his letter to the church at the heart of the empire of the
day, the church in Rome.
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness
suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because
God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal
power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation
of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For
although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him,
but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were
darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of
the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and
creeping things."
"Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to
the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the
truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the
Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen."
"For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their
women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and
the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with
passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving
in themselves the due penalty for their error."
"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a
debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner
of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder,
strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God,
insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish,
faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that
those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give
approval to those who practice them." Romans 1:18-32 (ESV)
What
we see here is a common, rhetorical approach. Paul is building up to declare us
all sinners (Romans 3:23) and to elaborate that God is transitioning His chosen
people from being the nation of Israel to being the church (Romans 9:6-7,
30-31). Yet he doesn't start with the lead. He is trying to convince people. In
doing so, he starts with something that they all would view as a sin,
homosexuality. That's his lead. From there he goes on to expand the list of
sins. People would agree. That was what Paul was trying to do. He's trying to
bring them along to his conclusion. But then he hits the hammer down and tells them
that they are also sinners. We're all sinners, and we can't just point our
finger at others and declare them sinners. This is the same approach that the
Old Testament prophets would use at times, a culture that Paul was inundated
with.
Paul includes homosexuality in his list of sins to the church in Corinth.
Or 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, 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,
you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of
our God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (ESV)
And here it is mentioned in his letter to his young protégé, Timothy.
Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding
this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient,
for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike
their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who
practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is
contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the
blessed God with which I have been entrusted. 1 Timothy 1:8-11 (ESV)
Using
the Old Testament story of Sodom, despite its prevalence, is not a great
analogy against homosexuality. Nor is pulling out the Old Testament law. I
understand that those sections reference the idea, but those passages come with
other baggage. There is no reason to stretch and include those section because
there is enough biblical evidence in other places. People can't relegate the
teachings of Paul to being in the Old Testament Law.
Nowhere in the Bible is homosexuality shown as being okay. The argument
to make homosexuality biblically permissible has to start by saying that the authors
of Scripture don't say what they are clearly saying. The authority of Scripture
and the historical methods of interpretation have to be attacked.
This is a method that some are willing to use. William M. Kent, at one time a
member of a committee assigned by United Methodists to study homosexuality,
declared that “the scriptural texts in the Old and New Testaments condemning
homosexual practice are neither inspired by God nor otherwise of enduring
Christian value. Considered in the light of the best biblical, theological,
scientific, and social knowledge, the biblical condemnation of homosexual
practice is better understood as representing time and place bound cultural
prejudice.”
http://www.albertmohler.com/documents/homosexualitybible.pdf
To go down this road, we can then make the
Bible say whatever we want it to say. Critics may claim that Christians already
do that, but I would argue that we don't. We have methods of interpretation
that are generally accepted.
The thing that I find telling is that the writers of the Bible will sometimes
express that homosexuality is a sin while there are no verses that seem to
imply that it is okay. There are certain issues in the modern church where we
wrestle with Scripture (like women's role in the church) and people can come to
different conclusions based upon their starting point and the way that they
read Scripture. Homosexuality really isn't an issue like this. The view in our society is definitely
changing, but the view in Scripture doesn't.
In the end, I think the issue becomes an issue
on hermeneutics (methods of studying the Bible) and how we go about that. Not
that the issue is debatable in Scripture, but those who are proponents of
homosexuality have to start discarding Scripture, as we saw in the Kent quote
above. In doing that, the way that we have gone to Scripture since the early
church is damaged.
To briefly explain, I wouldn't call myself a
literalist. For example, I do not believe in young earth creation. I do not
believe that Genesis is trying to give us a scientific view of creation when it
tells the creation story. Instead, it was giving an anthropological view to
give the original audience of the book and those who read it the same way
through time an understanding that God is the creator and He is Lord; however,
it is not trying to lay out a literal, scientific, or historical retelling of
the story of how this all came to be. It
was trying to provide a framework for us to actually learn to live by. At the
heart of this approach to Scripture, we are always looking for the principle
behind the Scripture. We never discard Scripture because it is difficult.
Instead, we wrestle with it through contemplation, study, and prayer. We
believe that it is the inspired word of God. But that does not mean that it is
always fact. Fact means that it is all 100% accurate. But that isn't the
purpose of some of the sections of Scripture. With that said, not being fact does
not mean that they don't contain truth. And it's that truth that we seek when
go to Scripture. (This is as good as I can sum a whole semester and many books
read on how to read Scripture in one paragraph.)
Another approach is to say the Jesus himself never dealt with the issue of
homosexuality. My friend, Samuel Long, who is wrapping up his PhD in Old
Testament Theology right now wrote this: "Although Jesus does not discuss
homosexuality, and it does not come up in the New Testament with any
regularity, when it does, it is clearly done so in a negative way. If God had
intended homosexuality to be a viable sexual alternative for some people, He
would not have condemned it as an abomination. It is never mentioned in
Scripture in anything but negative terms, and nowhere does the Bible even hint
at approving or giving instruction for homosexual relationships. Proponents of
homosexuality have to start by saying that the Scripture doesn’t say what it
clearly says. They have to start attacking the authority of Scripture. And
while we can interpret and apply passages differently, discounting clear
teachings out of hand make the Bible less than what it is."
Approving homosexuality, biblically speaking, always comes back to disregarding
Scripture and reading it in ways that are not good Bible study methods. I have
books pushing a pro-homosexual reading of the Bible. I have read articles doing
the same. In the end, it always comes back to this.
So biblically speaking, I do not think we can make a case using historical
Bible study methods that homosexuality is not a sin. Yet that still doesn't
make it an easy issue.
SOCIETY,
HOMOSEXUALITY, AND THE CHRISTIAN
Issues like homosexuality prove extremely difficult.
First, it does hurt a person with any sort of
empathy to tell people who disagree or are kind, loving homosexuals that
homosexuality is a sin. It hurts to alienate them over this issue. It just
hurts to be what I feel is mean. I wish I could just tell people that
homosexuality is okay for them if that is what they want. But that just isn’t
what the Scriptures teach. I surmise that the Scriptures don’t teach it is okay
because homosexuality, like all sins, is not what is best for a person’s life.
Can I explain why that is? Nope. I wish I could explain it convincingly, but I
can't.
Second, saying that homosexuality is a sin goes straight in the face of what
we are taught by our society to teach. And wrestling with our society is
difficult on any issue.
Recently, the Presbyterian Church USA, began ordaining gay, lesbians, and
transgender people.
Reverend Janet Edwards from More Light Presbyterians explained:
“We have opened up our hearts and minds to see God’s word to us now…We understand that change is a necessary part of Christian life. We are Reformed Christians. And Reformed means, ‘Always knowing that God will show us new things and call us forward.’”
“The emphasis is on the talents that these people bring and the witness of their lives…be able to sense the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and elect these candidates to ordained office.”
“The Great Commission of Christ is to proclaim God’s love to the whole world…This will strengthen our church, both within ourselves and the world, in proclaiming the gospel.”
“I know that there are those who are afraid of the future…but love casts out fear.”
“I entered into ministry convicted that God loves everyone and God’s gifts are given as God chooses, not as we do. For me, it is awesomely humbling to be active in the church in a moment when we live out our basic gift to the whole of Christendom and to the world, which is reformed, always being reformed. God has shown us in my time, a new thing, and my church is in the process of embracing it and is reforming before my eyes.”
A recent
Barna study showed that nearly half of all adults (48%) believe that sexual relations between
consenting adults of the same gender should be legal, although only half as
many say that such relations are morally acceptable (25%). Among born again
adults, one-third (34%) say that sexual relations between gay people should be
legal while just 9% say that such activity is morally appropriate.
There is a tide that we are swimming against when we think that the Bible
teaches homosexuality is a sin. A tide that I would rather not swim against,
but I can't if I still hold that the Bible is the inspired word of God. For
some, they will just reject the Bible. Others, may just reject God. I am not
comfortable rejecting either.
POLITICS, HOMESXUALITY, AND THE
CHRISTIAN
But even if homosexuality
is a sin, does that mean that we automatically leap to wanting our earthly
nation to legislating our morality. This seems to be where a lot of the
conflict in our society over the issue comes from.
I want to propose a
different approach for the church.What if we focused on God’s kingdom rather
than our earthly kingdom?
Our stance against
homosexuality becomes a problem in our mainstream culture when we try to make
our moral stance a political position, so we have to be very careful when we
decide that we should become politically active on any issue. Are we not just
hurting the gospel in our attempts to make those who don't claim to know Jesus
or those who claim to understand Scripture differently live like we think they
should live? Many Christian issues get dicey when we make them issues of
politics.
To contrast, when we talk
about abortion, we talk about how it is the responsibility of Christians to
stand up for the oppressed. Are homosexuals oppressing anyone? Or are we, in
our attempts to legislate morality actually becoming the oppressors?
Politics
and our faith can get sticky. Often people just make the leap from "that's
wrong" to "we must legislate our position." This ignores a whole
discussion that must happen in the middle of those two questions. We must
really ask ourselves whether our position is helping the oppressed and those
who can't use the instruments of power to help themselves. In those cases, we
just pursue helping those who can't help themselves.
When it comes to homosexuality, there can be a multitude of conclusions that
one can come to.
- One can believe that the Bible says
homosexuality is a sin and hate homosexuals.
- One can believe that the Bible says
homosexuality is a sin and work to make laws to prevent homosexuality in our
land.
- One can believe that the Bible says
homosexuality is a sin, yet not fight against homosexuals to be homosexuals in
society without judgment or hatred, having the ability to have all the rights
of a married heterosexual couple, while differentiating that equality in
society with an equality of service in the Kingdom.
- One can believe that the Bible says
homosexuality is not a sin yet still hate homosexuals.
- One can believe that the Bible says
homosexuality is not a sin and therefore they should have all the rights that a
heterosexual would have.
- One can believe that the Bible says
homosexuality is not a sin and believes they should adamantly fight for
equality.
- One can believe that the Bible says
homosexuality is not a sin and that it is a special class of people that needs
to be protected.
And
you may find yourself in another position. But the way it works is that we ask,
"Is homosexuality a sin?" In that question is a lot of baggage. Is
there such a thing as sin? If so, what is sin? It is a Christian's
understanding that sin can be either an act of omission or commission. Omission
is not doing something. For instance, I am supposed to love my neighbor. If I
don't do that, it is a sin of omission. Commission is actively doing something.
I am not supposed to lie. If I tell a lie, that is a sin of commission.
But
even after we get an understanding of whether an issue is or isn't a sin, we
still have the second part of the questions. What do we do with sin? How do we
treat sinners? Is there a difference between whether we accept them differently
than we do heterosexuals as fellow humans deserving of love, brothers and
sisters in Jesus, or as potential leaders in the church? Should we work to
actively ban this sin in our society?
We
should ask on each step, "What's the harm if we get this step wrong?"
"Am I being loving?" "Am I hurting or helping the mission of
Jesus?"
Homosexuality
is a different sort of issue. Instead of helping the oppressed, those who want
to legislate against homosexuality are actually wanting to force someone else
to live in the morals that we believe a Christian should live in.
We are taught only to
judge those inside of the church.
I wrote
to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of
this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would
need to go out of the world. But now I
am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if
he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard,
or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the
church whom you are to judge? God judges
those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
(ESV)
What
good does it do to force someone to live as a Christian when they really aren't
a Christian?
I
would propose that legislating issues regarding homosexuality is not the
purview of the church. As Paul clearly taught in the passage above, we are not
to judge those outside of the church. And standing up against homosexuality in
the public arena is not stopping oppression. For me, something must pass the
oppression test for me to get involved politically on behalf of Jesus on an
issue.
A LOOK AT SIN
We
often just miss the point of grace. Say that someone wants to give their life
to Jesus, yet they are gay. Would we let them? Really, I can't even believe
this is a question that I encounter.
Don't you think it's sort of hypocritical if we answered "no." Take
for instance, the way we consume material goods. Personally, I think our
materialism and the process we get our products is the gravest sin of our time.
But I'm not here to debate that. If you don't think it is that big of a sin,
imagine another sin and run a similar scenario.
When we buy imported goods that were manufactured in China or another nation
where they use this era's version of slavery, we are sinning. Our purchase
isn't just a one-time purchase of a good; our purchase is the way that a
capitalistic system votes to keep things happening the they are. We are
promoting the modern-day equivalency to slave labor just so we can save a
little money buying some product. And let's be honest, we aren't going to stop.
We can't stop. Nearly all the electronic devices, including the one that I am
typing this on, are only available as a result of this evil, flawed system.
I would say that our acceptance of and participation in a society that
promotes this behavior is worse than the sin of homosexuality.
Yet we do it. And we think nothing of it. We'll go up on stage and preach in
our slave-labor produced clothes, broadcasting words with a projector, while
using a digital device to hold the notes.
We live in a culture inundated with sin.
And if I expect grace for my sin, then I better give grace to others for
their sins. Jesus once said something similar.
"For if you forgive others their trespasses,
your heavenly Father will also forgive you,
but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your
Father forgive your trespasses" (Matthew 6:14-15 ESV).
Just because my sin is accepted and not the popular one to rail against
doesn't mean that my sin isn't terrible. It may be even worse.
A friend replied to me when talking about this: "I have no direct control
over the conditions of China. I can only have direct control over my sin."
I responded: "You have control. You could choose to live differently.
You could fight the fight to change trade laws. You choose not to because you
have accepted our society's sin. Yet you still want God to show you grace. Yet
you refuse to show grace to an unrepentant sinner, just like you albeit with a
different sin."
THE PERPETUATING DILEMMA
So let's be honest. We accept sin. We accept our own sin. We expect forgiveness
for our sins. But this doesn't really solve the situation. Because in this
whole piece, I still called homosexuality a sin. And that doesn't make one of
the crowds happy. They want to me to affirm that homosexuality is not a sin,
not just accept them as a fellow sinner.
Nor have I made the religious crowd happy. They seem to want to bash on
homosexuality. They don't want to recognize that their lives are lived in such
a way that they are equally separated from God and are only able to have a
right relationship with Him because of His grace.
A NOT SO SATISFYING SOLUTION
What
if Christians and local churches became places known for their grace and love
and not for their judgment? Do you think that would be attractive?
At
Antwerp, I had a gay friend coming to church. He wanted to help serve the
Lord's Supper. At that time, the trays holding the emblems of the body and
blood of Jesus were carried by four people and passed among the congregation.
My gay friend became one of those guys. And one of the older people became
upset because a gay person was handing out the Lord's Supper. I told him that I
want our church to be a place where gays, whores, drunks, and people like me
are welcome. He didn't like my reply because there is this tendency to make
homosexuality a greater sin than the manufacturing process of the devices we
carry around in our pockets and purses represent.
Homosexuality
is not an issue I like to address regularly. It’s not beneficial. If we have
homosexuals who come to our church (and I hope homosexuals feel comfortable coming
to our church), then that is an issue we will discuss in relationships and
counseling, not bash them with from the pulpit.
Along with grasping God's
great grace, I think the issue for Christians is their understanding of the way
that the church and state should relate to each other. For many American
Christians, the United States has almost become synonymous with the church.
This is heresy of the greatest sort, but in making this mistake a lot of
missteps are made.
If we have a proper understanding of the role of the church and the role of the
state, we will realize that we do not have to relegate our moral thinking to
the State. Just because the State says something is right or wrong, doesn't
make it right or wrong. Likewise, just because we firmly believe something is
right or wrong doesn't mean that we should automatically move to legislate it. So
we shouldn't spend our time fighting the political battles of our day. Instead,
we should lead out in our society and love. We should focus on the things of an
eternal perspective.
What happens when the
church gets hung up in trying to change the state is that the purpose of the
church gets neglected. People will continue to do the things of the state
without church intervention, but the things of the church will not get done if
the people of the church don't do them. We have to work on our perspective of
the world and not waste our time on lesser issues. We have a finite amount of
time. Do we spend it fighting gay marriage or world hunger? Do we spend it
outlawing homosexuality or spreading the gospel of Jesus?
As
I think we all recognize, the recorded teachings of Jesus and the life of the
early church show that oppressing others isn't why the church was established.
It was established to love others and be a place for God's will to be done on
earth as it is in heaven. This mission cannot be neglected to play the game of
politics.
Unfortunately,
oppression seems to be the magnetic pull of any organized beast or collective
group. Most groups -- from Communists to Libertarian, from Republican to
Democrat, from black to white, from atheist to Christian, from American to
North Korean -- want to denigrate those who disagree with them. Jesus taught an
alternative way to the sectarianism of the world. I can understand the desire
to ignore His teachings because His followers are ridiculously bad at actually living
out this radical life that we are called to live.
What
Jesus taught was countercultural, in His time and ours. We can see beautiful reflections
of His teachings throughout the church's existence. People loving where there
is no love. People helping in the midst of situations that inspire selfishness.
People being fed where there is no food. People being giving light in the midst
of great darkness, hope in the midst of hopelessness.
However,
one doesn't have to throw out believing in right teachings to still be the
church. It's those right teachings that should lead us to freedom and empower
us to be loving. People who claim to follow Jesus just have to love those who
they believe are misguided. There is no us and them. Only people like us who
need the grace of God to be right with Him.
All
of this does not ignore the complex issues surrounding such topics as
homosexuality. But it does mean that we have a new and different starting point
for our attitudes and actions: love and grace. Why? Because “God demonstrates
his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”
(Rom 5:8). Are we willing to follow his example? Are we willing to live for
others while they are still sinners?
We
need to have a biblical stance on homosexuality, but we also must realize that this
is not one of the large issues. We need to never let the biblical stance on
homosexuality overshadow our call to love one another, to love the poor, to
share the message of Jesus with the world. Unfortunately, with homosexuality,
we do disagree with the world. We have to if we are going to take the Bible
seriously. But that doesn’t mean we have to be obnoxious or hateful over the
issue. Even in our disagreements, we need to always show love.
