Homosexual people are among those who desire to be full partners in American society. Many of them have successfully come out of the closet and have openly acknowledged their orientation. In the political arena, they have been able to craft a powerful lobbying force, resulting in a significant change in the legal attitude toward homosexual people. However, there is still a large segment of the populace that considers homosexuality to be immoral, or at least distasteful, and therefore unwelcome.
To combat resistance, the gay community has waged a campaign to redefine the concept of homosexuality in the mind of the public. It claims that homosexuality is not a behavior but a state of being. Scientific research is used to show a connection between a homosexual orientation and a person’s genes, making it as natural as the color of a person’s skin. The conclusion they derive from this is that the gay community deserves an equal status with other identifiable groups meriting rights, privileges and protection as they interact within society.
Perhaps as a means of appeasing their own consciences, many members of the gay community seek an affirming relationship with Christianity. They desire the same privileges as heterosexuals in church membership, marriage and ordination. They want to be full partners in the Body of Christ, while maintaining their homosexual lifestyle.
As part of this quest, Holy Scripture has been reinterpreted with a favorable view of homosexuality. Eunuchs are identified as the scriptural equivalents of people with homosexual orientations. Sodomites are changed from homosexuals to people with inhospitable attitudes. Abusive homosexual activity is condemned, but the Bible now is viewed as affirming natural, wholesome same sex love.
God warned us that in the last days we would face perilous times. Included in this would be the distortion of natural affection among those who subscribe to a form of godliness. Traditionally, homosexuality has been understood to be part of the unnatural affection that would contaminate the church? Is this correct? Does the Bible characterize homosexuality as immoral, or have Bible scholars been wrong for thousands of years?
Homosexuality Is Not an Orientation
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The Contention
A person can be held responsible for choices he makes, but for those things over which he has no control, it is unethical to make a value judgement. For example, if a person is short or tall, black or white, or born into a particular family, he had no choice about it, and there is no basis for judging these things to be right or wrong. On the other hand, if a man chooses one behavior over another, it is fair for society to judge whether or not he was acting responsibly.
This principle is at the heart of determining the morality of homosexuality. If homosexuality is genetic, a condition of a person’s life over which he had no control, then no one has the moral right to condemn those who are of this orientation. However, if it is not inherited, but is, rather, a chosen lifestyle, behavior is fair game for moral scrutiny.
Participants in the gay community understand this principle and are frantically attempting to prove that their lifestyle was determined for them not chosen by them. Coming to their assistance, Time Magazine published an article in their July 26, 1993 issue entitled “Born Gay?” It began with these words:
“What makes people gay? To conservative moralists, homosexuality is a sin, a willful choice of godless evil. To many orthodox behaviorists, homosexuality is a result of a misguided upbringing, a detour from a straight path to marital adulthood; indeed, until 1974 the American Psychiatric Association listed it as a mental disorder. To gays themselves, homosexuality is neither a choice nor a disease but an identity, deeply felt for as far back as their memory can reach. To them, it is not just behavior, not merely what they do in lovemaking, but who they are as people, pervading every moment of their perception, every aspect of their character.”
The article then sites a study by the National Cancer Institute’s Laboratory of Biochemistry that suggests a genetic origin for homosexuality. Even though the scope of the research is very limited and is insufficient to claim to be scientific proof, it has provided the gay community with a powerful tool to influence the public attitude toward homosexual people.
Adopting this premise, “Christian” homosexuals use the Bible to “prove” that God endorses their identity. In a pamphlet entitled “Christianity & Homosexuality” Michael Piazza contends that homosexuality as an identity cannot be condemned because the Bible never addresses “the idea of persons being homosexual”.
“Nowhere in the Bible is the idea of persons being homosexual addressed. The statements are, without exception, directed at certain homosexual acts. Early writers had no understanding of homosexuality as a psycho-sexual orientation… The biblical authors were referring to homosexual acts performed by persons they assumed were heterosexuals.”
Mr. Piazza tries to add Biblical affirmation for the homosexual identity by suggesting that the eunuchs of the Bible were homosexual people (contradicting his own contention that the Bible never refers to people as being homosexual). He claims one of the earliest converts to Christianity was a gay person, the Ethiopian Eunuch. He also claims that Jesus offered his approval and acceptance of homosexuals by saying “some eunuchs were born so; others had been made eunuchs and still others choose to be eunuchs for the Kingdom’s sake.”
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The Truth
The truth is that the Bible never refers to a homosexual identity because there is no such thing. Obviously, the Bible would not talk about something that does not exist. Early Biblical writers did not merely assume that certain people were heterosexual, they knew that this is the only kind of people God made. By Divine decree, every human being is heterosexual regardless of what he thinks he is (Genesis 1:27; 2:24-25). Scripture condemns homosexual acts because they are behavioral perversions of God’s heterosexual design for the human race. This is why it is referred to in Romans 1:26 and 27 as
women changing the natural use into that which is against nature: and men leaving the natural use of the woman, burning in lust one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly
.Concerning eunuchs, the Bible always portrays them as people without a sexual identity. Kings made servants into eunuchs not to change their sexual orientation but to eliminate it. Physically, eunuchs may have retained some capacity to function sexually, In a technical sense, there is absolutely no basis for saying that any remaing sexual interest was automatically homosexual in nature. Actually, the psychological effect often eliminated their sexual interest altogether. When Jesus referred to eunuchs in Matthew 19, it was in utter contrast to marriage and the implied sexual activity of that union. The eunuchs Jesus had in mind were totally celibate. They had rendered sexual activity irrelevant in their lives so that no sexual orientation was part of their identity. He was affirming that those who are born with the ability to live celibate lives are free from the desire to be sexually active and have the advantage of serving
the Lord with all of their energy, escaping some of the cares of this world.Homosexuality Is a Behaviour
The Bible condemns all homosexuality as an activity that is an abomination to the Lord. Scripture offers no favorable argument in support of the gay community of our day and the silence of Scripture is no argument at all.
Long after the city of Sodom had been destroyed, the Bible talked about sodomites. For thousands of years, the accepted definition of a sodomite was one who violated the intended nature of human sexuality. The gay community wants to change this definition to have it refer to “bigoted people, ready to discriminate against those they detest”, but changing the definition of words does not alter Divine Law.
Regardless of what other sins the men of Sodom may have been guilty (and no doubt there were many), the context in Genesis 19 clearly refers to their desire for perverted sexual activity. Gay people argue that Lot’s offer of his daughters to the men of the street proves they were not homosexual. Actually, it proves their sexual intent and contradicts the theory of inhospitality. In addition, a large segment of those who participate in homosexual activity consider themselves to be bi-sexual. Using Lot’s daughters to fulfill their perverted sexual passions would not have been an unheard of alternative. They could have as easily “sodomized” the girls as they would have the men.
The Real Issue!
Liberal minded people of our day have contrived a new code of social ethics: To love someone is to acknowledge all of their behavior as morally acceptable. To accuse someone of immorality is to hate them.
They have created a god to their own purposes; one who loves everybody and accepts them just as they are; one who never points the finger of blame. Their god offers only a list of “things to do”, and has completely eliminated all “thou shalt nots” from his commandments.
Conservative Christians are in conflict with the liberal community, not because we do not love them, but because we worship a different God than they do. Our God loves people just as they are, but he does not accept them on that basis. Our God is also very passionate about the distinction between right and wrong. In His Book, He describes the errors of human behaviour in great detail. In the New Testament letters alone, He points the finger of accusation over 800 times. Among these is the abomination of homosexual activity.
As God’s children, our passion for right and wrong does not make us hate those we call sinners, but with God, we have great compassion for them. We point to their sin, not to condemn them, but to help them understand the desperation of their condition. We want to rescue homosexuals (as well as those guilty of other sins) because they are burning in a carnal passion that brings eternal destruction. We love the people — but we hate the sin that has blinded their eyes to the truth; and we want to help them escape this terrible bondage.
Conclusion
As long as they subscribe to the identity doctrine, there will remain a great gulf between homosexual people and us who are conservative Christians. They will continue to insist that they do not need to be rescued and will refuse to accept anything less than a full endorsement of their lifestyle. We will try to convince them that they are wrong.
The difference between us is not who we are but what we believe. They have convinced themselves that God agrees with them and they resent anyone who arouses feelings of guilt concerning the identity they claim. We believe the only real identity any of us can claim as human beings is that of a sinner. We believe God is right when he condemns what we do and labels us as sinners because of it.
As a first step in bridging this gap, we must convince homosexual people that while we believe what they do is wrong, we still love them as people. We must show them that this is the same disctinction God made when He commended His love to the world, calling us sinners and in the same breath sending His Son to die for us (Romans 5:8). They must understand that when God declares us to be guilty, His love immediately intensifies, and so does ours.
To complete the rescue, we must show them that God’s love does not affirm people in their sinful behavior but rescues them from it. When a person receives Jesus Christ as his Savior, all that is wrong is forgiven and the sinner is changed into a new creature. Carnality is displaced by an ability to conform to the righteous standards of God; and by this transformation, the human being is brought into fellowship with the holiness of the Almighty.
Far from being hate, this is the greatest love anyone could ever know. Homosexual people need not be afraid of us. We extend to them open arms of compassion and invite them to come to the truth and be free.