Continuing the Conversation on Homosexuality

A few months ago I spent some time looking at the issues around homosexuality and the church. This is an important issue that needs to be addressed with love and respect. In a recent issue of the Christian Chronicle, they do just that. A panel of three respondents share their thoughts and experience about how the church should respond to same-sex attraction.

Sally Gary says:

For someone who experiences same-sex attraction — even someone who has grown up in church — there’s a great deal of fear in simply admitting those feelings.
It’s critical to respond in love — the expressions on our faces, our willingness to really walk with this person, beyond a pat on the back at a worship service. We must all convey a genuine desire to understand and support the person struggling with same-sex attraction.
Spend lots of time listening and less time sharing Scriptural references. If the person has grown up with Scripture, he or she knows. And, frankly, reading verses from Ephesians 4 to me when I’m angry has never stopped me from feeling angry.
Simply love me as my Father loves me — unconditionally — and let me truly experience his love through your living life with me. Feeling that love, through a brother in Christ who was and still is willing to take me right where I am, even when I’m at my most unlovable, has made all the difference in my life.

How can you show genuine love to someone? How has unconditional love affected you?

What's with All the Talk about Homosexuality?

Over the last several days I've departed from my normal topic of preaching and using images to talk about this issues regarding homosexuality and the church. You can catch up here (1, 2, 3, 4). It's been a stirring dialog both here and on Facebook. But the truth is that it's not quite the topic for this blog. I took a bit of a field trip. Here's why.

What we talk about is as important . . . no, it's more important than how we speak. For most of the posts on this blog I assume that you know what you're going to preach. That's you're job, and you're the expert at it, so I've been focusing on how to present that message better. How to make the "what" easier to communicate to your people. However in this case I felt compelled to stop talking about "how" for a bit and to focus on "what" for a time. I'm not trying to convince you to believe in any specific way (except to never use bullet points).

What I want to do is to start conversations that we need to have. If you are preaching to a church, there are people with homosexual feelings in your congregation. That's a statistical fact. But our churches tend to project so much hatred and intolerance that they will hide forever rather than have an honest conversation. The same is true for people with depression, addiction and all sorts of sins. They are in your church. You look at them every time you get up to preach. What are you going to say to them? Are you going to speak the love of Jesus or are you going to spew out ignorance that they perceive as hate?

I feel like I've been clear in the previous posts, but let me spell it out for you here. After my study of the relevant passages of scripture, I see that homosexuality is a sexual sin. However it's no worse a sin than greed or slander, and every sin needs light to be removed. Sins will never come to light in an environment of fear, but if you have an environment of non-condemning love then people can feel free to confess their sins and find healing in the body of Christ. Also, I don't think that groups that attempt to "pray the gay away" are effective. Homosexuality doesn't appear to be a choice, but goes much deeper into genetics and core personality. It's wrong of us to ask people to change who they are at a core level. However we can empower them to use who they are for the glory of God within God's kingdom.

Homosexuality and Sex

A part of the reason that the church thinks that homosexuality is such a huge sin is that most of us aren't convinced that sex isn't sinful. We're so influenced by our culture, both secular and Christian, that tells us that sex is sinful, naughty, bad and dirty. But it's also the be-all, end-all experience in human existence. We're given this dichotomous paradoxical view with no healthy way to talk about sex.

I applaud the Simple Marriage blog for talking about things in a open manner. We need more places where we can have open dialog about sex, what it means and what it doesn't mean.

On the side of sex as wrong, the church is afraid to talk about the beauty of sex and the way that it expresses intimate, vulnerable love between two people. We fear that somehow having a conversation about it will make everyone promiscuous or something. These are really awful vestiges of our Puritanical roots that we need to get over if we're going to be God's people in this world. Sex is a creation of God and is beautiful. We need to celebrate it as such. There's an entire book of the bible devoted to the beauty of sex (Song of Solomon, if you don't already know). God wants us to know about sex. But also notice that though sex isn't shied away from in scripture, it's not the center of attention either. One of the books is enough to cover it. Sex is good, but it's not the purpose of life.

On the side that thinks sex is the ultimate goal, we see an endless string of movies that show young men seeking their first sexual conquest so they can prove themselves men indeed. Sex is the object of their quest, the proof of their manliness and the purpose of life. But all along, sex is a joke as well. Dirty jokes abound so that there's no honest conversation about sex, but just a seeking after and joking about the act. Beer ads, TV shows and billboards all spout the message that sex is our ultimate goal, but it's also a joke.

Because of our unhealthy way of talking about sex we don't have a healthy way to talk about sexual dysfunction or sexual sin. Married couples all over have huge problems in the bedroom, and most of them aren't fixed by a little blue pill. Sexual problems are all over the place, primarily because we don't have a safe place to talk about them. So too with sexual sin. Look at all the pastors that are found with pornography addictions or get caught in an affair with a member of the church. We don't have healthy, safe ways to talk about sin and temptation, so sexual sin is pushed under the surface only to bubble to the top at the most inappropriate times.

In this climate, is it any wonder that we can't have an honest, productive conversation about homosexuality?

How could we foster a climate of conversation?

Homosexuality and Bias

I've been writing lately about homosexuality and the church, Jesus and the bible because of a post that my friend Mark Adams made asking for conversation about these important issues. I've been blessed and challenged by this conversation to examine what I believe and why I believe it. I left off the conversation yesterday with a discussion of bias. Essentially the way we approach the bible is due to the biases we bring to it. The main biases of the homosexual community are that God wants us to be happy and that romantic relationships make us happy.

I want to interact with that bias a bit based on what Jesus has said and the world we live in. Jesus has never told us that we get to be happy or that God wants us to be happy. In fact he tells us that it's good to be poor, hungry, mourning and persecuted (Matt. 5). Happiness doesn't show up on his radar when he tells us that we need to die, take up our cross and follow him (Mark 8.34-5). It seems more in line with American values than Jesus' values to say that God wants us to be happy: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (Declaration of Independence) That's nearly the opposite of what Jesus calls his followers to: death, persecution and mourning.

My brother was born with a mental handicap that leaves him with the mind of a child in the body of an adult. He's just smart enough to know that he's not as smart as other people. Sometimes I can see the frustration in his eyes. He was born that way. Why would God make him that way if he can't ever be happy? What of the people born with even worse disabilities? If the chief end of life is to be happy, what do you say to the person born with no legs that only wants to run and jump? They will never be happy, according to the standards of the homosexual bias, does that mean that God doesn't love them?

What if God would rather that we be free, whole people rather than happy? He could make us all happy, automatons blissfully going through our lives with no free will and no pain. But for some reason he chose to give us freedom. The only good thing I can figure could come from our free will is the ability to love. To choose to love with doubt and questions fully intact. But because of our free will this world is horribly broken. Every human being has chosen against love, and our world is falling apart. Sickness, disease, deformity and pain are all symptoms of a broken world. God doesn't want us to be ignorantly blissful in our pigpen of a world. He wants us to be healed and whole so we can love him and each other from a place of health and beauty. We work to mend our broken world to help more people find wholeness and freedom. What if God wants to show us how to love our neighbors and what if that takes pain? What if we aren't called to be happy?

Is this a fair critique? What have I missed? Where am I wrong?

Homosexuality and the Bible

Adam and Steve in the Garden of Eden

I've been taking the last few posts on this blog to respond to a question raised by my friend Mark Adams about how the church can move forward on the homosexual issue. This issues is too important to not discuss in an open and honest manner.

When reading the bible we all have our biases that affect how we read and interpret scripture. The bias of a patriarchal society allowed some people to read the bible as teaching the subjugation of women. The bias of being slave owners allowed some people to read the bible as being in favor of slavery. As our biases change, so too does our reading and understanding of what the bible says. First it's important to look honestly at our biases and see how they're affecting our reading of God's word.

The typical Christian bias is that homosexuality is a sin and that the bible teaches against homosexual relations in a strong manner (though we saw that there are only just a few passages on the topic). It's no wonder that when we come to the bible that we see a condemnation of homosexuality if that's exactly what we expect to find there before we open the book. If we aren't willing to move the conversation to the level of bias we won't be able to move forward. What if the standard Christian bias is wrong? That's exactly the question that we're asking homosexual Christians to consider.

In conversations that I've had with homosexual people and people who interpret the bible to say that homosexuality isn't a sin I think I've identified a couple biases that inform their interpretation of scripture. Please note, this is my opinion based on personal conversations, I welcome corrections and critique. The first bias has to do with happiness. The essential argument is that God must want us to be happy and that romantic relationships are key to happiness. The second bias is that homosexuality is an innate trait rather than a chosen behavior.

There is growing evidence that homosexuality is, at least partly, controlled by genes. Numerous people have gone through gay-cure programs such as Exodus International. And while there is a good deal of debate about the "success" of such program (Exodus won't even comment on the topic), there are many who come out feeling hurt by the process of rejecting who they have been their entire lives. I couldn't choose to be heterosexual, I just am. It follows that homosexuals can't make the choice either.

The first bias of homosexual theology essentially says that God wants us to be happy. Here's where I think the conversation needs to focus. Does God really want us to be happy? Is our happiness inextricably tied to our ability to love whomever we want?

I'll keep discussing this point tomorrow. What do you think?

Homosexuality and the Church

Continuing the conversation from yesterday about Jesus and the homosexual community, I want to think a bit today about what the church needs to do. If we're going to have this conversation, it needs to be based in what the bible says. A conversation can't happen when we're shouting at each other. I learned this from Carroll Osburn in his book: Women in the Church: Reclaiming the Ideal, which looks at the different sides of the issue of women in the church in a fair and reasonable manner. Essentially the conversation can't happen between the extremists. People holding signs saying that God hates homosexual people are not likely to do anything but shout, and the radical, vociferous minority of the homosexual community won't listen or respond coherently either.

We need to have an honest, theological and scriptural discussion not an argument. Stanley Grenz has a highly recommended book that presents different biblical interpretations and lands on the idea that the church ought to be: Welcoming but Not Affirming. In it he lays out both sides of the issue and looks at the scriptural underpinnings of the debate.

The reality is that there is a dearth of scriptural teaching on this point. We have all of four passages in the bible that mention it at all: Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Romans 1:26-27. Some would also cite the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as a condemnation of homosexuality since the men of the city wanted to have sex with the angels visiting Lot. However Genesis 19 isn't clear about the reason for the destruction of the city. 

Leviticus is the most clear about what the actual act being prohibited. It only covers male homosexual acts, however and doesn't condemn all homosexuality. Some would argue that this is due to the patriarchal society which sees women as unnecessary of mention. There is thought that the homosexual practice being prohibited is not a loving, consentual relationship, but rather cultic practices that relate to the worship of the Canaanite gods. Similar to tattoos and beard trimming that were both outlawed in Leviticus for what appears to be the purpose of keeping the Israelites from idol worship. Christians have dismissed the teaching about beard trimming, by and large, and many Christians don't see a problem with tattoos. The same reasoning could be used to dismiss the commands about homosexuality in Leviticus.

In 1 Corinthians we see a list of things that will exclude people from the kingdom of heaven, one of which is being a "homosexual offender." This could be taken to mean anyone who has homosexual relations, but within gay theology they argue that this is actually in reference to homosexual pedophilia which was common in Roman and Greek culture where an older man would take a young boy as a lover.  Their argument is that Paul is outlawing, not the relationship between two adults, but the dominant relationship of a man over a boy as sinful.

Romans gives us the only teaching about female homosexuality in the bible. To me, this is the most difficult one to dismiss, as it is fairly clearly talking about both men and women and apparently adult relationships. It takes more exegetical gymnastics to get around this passage. You could say that Paul is discussing temple prostitutes again. Or it could be a discussion of the ways in which sex and rape were used to exert dominance over weaker people and to fill them with shame, pointing out that everyone is shamed by such acts.

I think that's the basis for a biblical discussion. I believe that the bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, but it is in no way a greater sin than others. Paul lumps it in with being drunk, greedy or a slanderer. Truth be told, Christians slander homosexuals regularly. It's time to stop slandering and start conversing so that we can understand each other.

What do you think?

(Note: book links earn me a small commission on any purchases).

Homosexuality and Jesus

My friend Mark Adams posted a thoughtful blog on how churches can move forward on the gay issue. You should read his post, it's well worth your time. He made four main points:

1. The church needs to reclaim an understanding of what it means to be a "redemptive community." 
2. We need to teach about how to live a Christ reflecting life more than we need to condemn wrong living. 
3. We need to think about how the "weakness" of homosexual attraction can be a strength in the kingdom of God.  
4. We need to develop a high value for single people in the church and ministry.

I want to look at the issue from a different perspective in the context of what Mark has already said so well.

Jesus spent a huge amount of his time and effort in ministry reaching to the marginalized and showing them love. Take the Samaritans for example, they were a people that were hated by the Jews and rejected from any Jewish functions so they had to find a place to worship God on their own. The Jews blasted the Samaritans for being sinful half-breeds who couldn't know God because of the way that they were born. There was no place for the Samaritans in the Jewish world, so the Samaritans created their own world parallel to, but separate from the Jewish world. Jesus rejected this separation and showed grace and love to the Samaritans. He even used the despised people as examples of right living on numerous occasions.

You probably already see the analogy I'm making. Today the homosexual community is hated by Christians and rejected from any Christian functions so they've found ways to connect to God on their own, including the creation of a Gay Church. Christians deride homosexual people for being sinners and unable to connect with God, even though there is strong evidence that they are born with homosexual feelings. There is no place for homosexuals in the Christian world so they've created their own world and society. 

What would Jesus do today? Would he call us to the marginalized again? Would he call us to see examples of right living in the homosexual community? 

Notice that Jesus never condoned sin. When he was talking with the Samaritan woman he didn't tell her that her lifestyle was good, but he treated her with respect and dignity that no one else would offer. We can, and must be people of love that show respect and dignity to everyone of God's children. Gay, straight, black, white, male or female. God loves them all with tenderness and compassion and his love is no less due to anyone's sins. 

What do you think?