Editor’s note: In January the bishops of the Anglican Church in North America released a pastoral statement advising against the term “gay Christian” in favor of “Christians who experience same-sex attraction” to describe celibate Christians upholding traditional church teaching. Nashville Anglican Pieter Valk (who identifies as a celibate “gay Christian”) organized an open letter signed by ACNA bishops and priests addressed to “gay Anglicans.” Valk later consulted his bishop and complied with a request to remove the open letter. Edgar Noble wrote for Juicy Ecumenism in defense of the bishops’ statement and critiquing Valk’s perspective. Here Valk responds. Noble may further respond. The debate is among Anglicans who agree that sex is only for male-female marriage but who disagree on terminology and perhaps about theological perspectives on issues like concupiscence.
Edgar Noble’s essay “Yes to Gay Identity, No to Gay Sex?” raises important questions about why leaders of the “gay-but-celibate” movement (like me) use the word gay, what that reveals about our theology, and whether we should be trusted to lead the Church to better minister to gay people.
As the author and organizer of the Dear Gay Anglicans Letter, Executive Director of EQUIP (a ministry that provides consulting and teaching on LGBT+ topics), a licensed professional counselor who meets with gay celibate Christians, and a yearly speaker at the Revoice Conference, I likely qualify as one of these questioned leaders. I am a Christian. I am gay. I am committed to a traditional sexual ethic (a belief that God’s best for every Christian is either a lifetime vocation of abstinent singleness for the sake of doing kingdom work with undivided attention or a lifetime vocation of opposite-sex marriage with an openness to raising children for the sake of the kingdom).
First, Noble seems to misunderstand our missiological effort to help churches become places where gay people can thrive according to a traditional sexual ethic, including trusting gay people and their local family of God to discern the wisest ways to describe their sexualities.
Noble repeatedly and mistakenly asserts that leaders of our missiological effort believe that God made us gay, believe we are ontologically gay, believe our attractions are not broken, and use the word gay to identify with broken attractions on a trajectory to gay sex. In contrast, leaders have repeatedly clarified the opposite: Nate Collins (President of Revoice), Greg Johnson (Pastor of Memorial PCA), Ron Belgau (Cofounder of Spiritual Friendship), and Matthew Lee Anderson (Founding Editor of Mere Orthodoxy). A quick review of my public writing and speaking reveals at least 10 times where I have contradicted Noble’s assertions.
Either the author failed to familiarize himself with primary conversation partners in our missiological effort, or he doubts the sincerity of our repeated clarifications.
Still, Noble’s careful examination of cultural identity trends over the past century poses leaders like me a legitimate question: Why do you say gay?
Finding my identity in Christ
Many have asked whether use of the phrase gay Christian compromises my identity in Christ. Identity in Christ is a theological concept developed in the 20th century, but many believers point to Galatians 3:26-29 as the central text for exploring cultural identity in light of Christ’s saving work.
Paul describes our identity as “sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” who were “baptized into Christ,” and now “belong to Christ”. This suggestion that faith and baptism are all that are required to be in Christ and signal our identity in Christ are confirmed for the Anglican (for example) in Questions 12 and 14 of the ACNA Catechism. While some suggest Paul commands Christians in verse 28 to erase any cultural identity, he instead recognizes the opposite. Male and female Christians, Jewish and Greek Christians, and enslaved and free Christians continued to live in cultural spaces where those cultural identities impacted how they worshipped, who they worshipped with, who could lead, and ultimately how they experienced Jesus. Paul did not expect these cultural realities to disappear but instead reaffirmed that identity in Christ is accomplished solely through faith in Jesus and baptism.
Despite a decade of prayer ministry and conversation therapy, my same-sex attractions persist. I need some word or phrase to efficiently name or describe or refer to this part of my story. No language or terminology communicates with absolute clarity. Ultimately, I’ve chosen to use the phrase gay Christian. Why?
1. I use gay phenomenologically, not ontologically.
When we define something phenomenologically, we are naming something based on one’s experience or what it appears to be. In contrast, when we ask who a person is ontologically, we are asking who they are innately, by design. When God first imagined me in a perfect world, He did not intend for me to experience same-sex attraction. I believe that same-sex attraction is a result of the Fall, a brokenness, a temptation. (For more, check out this discussion of my definition of same-sex attraction.) When I use gay, I am merely noticing that I am attracted to other people of the same-sex and using (in my opinion) the best word to describe that experience. Additionally, I do not believe there is anything uniquely inherent to being gay other than experiencing same-sex attraction. But God has been faithful to redeem my brokenness for my good and His glory (Genesis 50:20), I have gained spiritual gifts I might not have otherwise, including developing a deeper appreciation and capacity for healthy friendship.
2. I identify with people of shared experience, not with brokenness or sin.
I use the phrase gay Christian particularly to identify with other Christians who experienced the same shame and loneliness as a kid. I identify with other Christians who have endured the same pain and fearfully offered their whole selves to God. I identify with people of shared experience because more often than not, they are able to empathize with me and care for me best. I am not identifying with a temptation or sin.
3. I use gay Christian to testify to Christ’s worthiness.
Recognizing my same-sex attractions, submitting that brokenness to God, and collaborating with Him to steward my sexuality in redemptive ways has been the greatest source of blessing and God’s glory in my life. I cannot tell of the fullness of God’s grace and power in my life without mentioning that I am gay. Might some inaccurately assume that gay people are more sexually active than the average straight person? Sure. But then the power of my testimony only grows. When I share that despite my attractions, Jesus is Lord and I submit to His wisdom for my sexual stewardship because I am convinced His love and wisdom are the source of the truest joy, pleasure, and meaning—when I share all of these while confidently using the word gay, my testimony strengthens.
Considering reasonable objections
Many have offered reasonable objections to my testimony. As a minister committed to ensuring that I am accurately understood, these objections must be charitably addressed (discussion of additional objections is provided at the end of the article):
1. Won’t hearers assume that I am seeking out same-sex romantic and sexual activity if I call myself a gay Christian?
It’s true, the average American probably assumes that the average gay person will seek out romantic, and eventually sexual, relationships with people they are drawn to. But they also assume the same of every American, regardless of their sexual orientation. It is well documented that Christians have sex outside of marriage and get divorced at the same rates as non-Christians. Unfortunately, the phrase gay Christian is no less clear than the phrase straight Christian or merely using the word Christian. Without specifically stating one’s theological beliefs and commitments (which I do every time I teach), a Christian using any one of those phrases or words would be presumed to be just as sexually immoral as the average American.
2. Isn’t merely experiencing same-sex attraction sin in itself? Should that be reason enough not to call yourself gay?
Thankfully, the Anglican Church in North America, along with the oldest Christian traditions that represent a majority of Christians both in the United States and globally do not teach that Christians sin merely by being tempted. When I experience same-sex attractions yet resist these temptations, I am not guilty of sin. (For more, check out this discussion of questions of sinfulness and concupiscence.)
3. Why are you identifying as anything other than Christian?
All that is required to accomplish and sustain my identity in Christ is to have faith in Christ, signaled by my baptism. The Scriptures do not teach that a Christian’s identity in Christ is compromised by using a noun other than Christian to refer to oneself or using an adjective or clause in a sentence where the person refers to themselves as a Christian.
Some have objected to my use of the phrase gay Christian because they believe the word Christian should never be modified. Yet these objectors selectively apply this standard to the word gay while refusing to apply this standard to other cultural identity labels.
Moreover, author Dr. Greg Coles who studied the rhetorics of marginality has said the following: “English scholars consistently treat adjectives and relative clauses as interchangeable syntactic formations for modifying a noun. Thus, same-sex-attracted Christian (an adjectival modifier of the noun) and Christian who experiences same-sex attraction (a relative clause modifier of the noun) have no meaningful denotative difference. As for gay, most leading English dictionaries (including the Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, the American Heritage Dictionary, and Google Dictionary) treat this word as a denotative synonym of attracted to the same sex. There is thus no inherent difference in grammatical meaning between the phrases gay Christian, same-sex-attracted Christian, and Christian who experiences same-sex attraction.”
They are a distinction without a difference.
Despite these clarifications, many continue to find the word gay too scandalous. Why? Decades ago, gay was used to infer group sex parties where all of the attendees had AIDS, were addicted to drugs, and wanted nothing to do with God. While most Americans today use gay as a mere recognition of same-sex attractions (and nothing more), that word retains a powerful and problematic cultural meaning for older Christians that leads them to falsely assume sexual immorality. Yet I beg these Christians to consider bearing the burden of using gay differently than it once meant, for the sake of children and teens in our churches.
Considering the heavy burdens of gay teens
In Luke 11: 37-53, Jesus urges Pharisees to care for the souls of God’s people and take practical steps to address injustice and suffering. Instead, Jesus calls out the Pharisees’ superficial purity, using their religious power to add heavy burdens of new ritual laws that kept many away from the love and knowledge of God.
Similarly, previous generations of gay people were given heavy burdens too great to bear, leading many to lose their faith, and we risk hindering future generations of gay people from knowing Jesus in the same ways by our failure to use the most effective language for ministry.
In the mid-20th century Freudian psychoanalysts popularized the notion of being gay as a mental disorder. From this pseudo-science grew conversion therapies and reparative therapies that promised to change an individual’s sexual orientation by addressing psychological wounds.
Christian ministries then combined the pseudo-science of Freudian psychoanalysts with charismatic elements, promising to make gay Christians straight if they prayed hard enough. At first promoting ex-gay terminology, reparative therapists later developed the language ofsame-sex attraction as part of their sexual conversion process. If a person failed to become straight, they were shamed for resisting the work of the Holy Spirit. Then while churches continued to hold gay people to a traditional sexual ethic, they abandoned historical biblical teachings about procreation, celibacy, divorce, and remarriage for straight people.
Yet research has demonstrated that these therapies have been 96% ineffective at eliminating same-sex attraction while increasing the risk of suicide attempts by 92%. Moreover, Andrew Marin’s Us Versus Us reveals that while LGBT+ people are more likely that the average American to grow up in church, 54% of LGBT+ people have left the faith—and their top reasons for leaving included negative personal experiences such as ex-gay programs.
Generations of gay people have been burdened by the Church with a false promise of change using the language same-sex attraction. When older generations of gay people hear a Christian using the phrase same-sex attraction, they assume that the Christian seeks to offer these same destructive ex-gay practices and are hindered from seeing or experiencing the love of God.
Despite these challenges, some gay Christians have continued to steward their sexualities according to a traditional sexual ethic. Yet they have struggled to thrive in their churches because pastors fail to teach God’s love and wisdom for gay people, pastoral care is outsourced to therapists and parachurch ministries, and celibate aren’t offered lifelong, lived-in family—regardless of sexual orientation. Like the Pharisees of Luke 11, Christian leaders fail to take practical steps to alleviate these heavy burdens. Instead, religious elites heap on the burden of additional language policing.
I fear these heavy burdens will make it difficult for future generations of gay Christians to believe that God exists and loves them. I fear that gay teens outside of evangelical churches will see how gay celibate Christians are treated, and wonder, “If that’s how they treat celibate people, then I’m certainly not welcome,” hindering them from knowing God.
Unfortunately, studies show that gay teens today are at great risk. Gay teens are 5 times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers and religious LGBT+ youth are 38% more likely to be suicidal than their non-religious LGBT+ peers. We cannot undo the harm to gay people in the past, but we can prevent future loss of faith and life in gay teens by adopting more effective strategies, including using language that is most likely to reach the kids in our church pews.
In particular, we must eliminate the (on average) 5-year gap between when gay teens recognize their same-sex attractions versus when they share with a parent or pastor, left to make sense of their sexuality alone with the lies of culture and the Enemy. This leads to loneliness, anxiety, shame, depression, sexual sin, addiction, suicidality, and loss of faith. Instead, we must talk to every child about God’s love and wisdom for gay people so that as soon as kids recognize same-sex attractions, they share with a parent or pastor because they have heard those parents and pastors demonstrate safety, in part, by using the terminology they are familiar with.
For these reasons, I use the word gay. If you ask an 8-year-old today what the word gay means, you will most consistently hear, “a boy who likes a boy” or “a girl who likes a girl.” Modern kids and teens do not assume anything about an individual’s theological beliefs or relationship choices when using that word. But if instead I exclusively use same-sex attraction and forbid teens from using the language of their peers, I risk setting up a false dichotomy that they can either recognize their same-sex attractions or be a Christian. If I force gay teens to use terms that no one in their generation uses, instead of using language that is definitionally neutral, I will be less effective.
This attention to strategy is not foreign to the Christian or the Anglican. In 1 Corinthians 9:20-22 Paul reveals, “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews…I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” While Paul no longer lived according to Jewish Law, he followed their customs and used their language when he hoped to most effectively reach the Jews. Then in the 24th Article of the 39 Articles of Religion establishing the Anglican Church, Anglicans commit to contextualizing the gospel for each culture, instead of letting language and culture be a barrier to Christ’s love. I mirror the language of gay teens and young adults so that I can most effectively reach them.
I pray that leaders across denominations would recognize the biblical orthodoxy of this strategy and join the missiological effort to help churches becomes places where gay people can thrive according to a traditional sexual ethic, including trusting gay people and their local family of God to discern the wisest ways to describe their sexualities.
For additional Q&A, my comprehensive definition of same-sex attraction, and my discussion of sinfulness and concupisence, review this document.
Comment by Justin R. Baldwin on April 20, 2021 at 7:51 pm
Son,
When you use Paul to justify the use of a qualifier for your attraction, you are committing a false-equivalency. There is nothing inherently wrong for having been from a culture. If you are born Greek, you are not wrong because that is where you were born and raised. Nor is being a Tulsan, or Baltimorean, or Jew, or black. There is nothing inherently wrong for being male or female. Though slavery is wholly wrong, the slave being a slave is not wrong for having been a slave, nor is the free person wrong for having either sought to become free, or being born free. These things do not illicit a sin because you just ARE these things. But identifying as gay is identifying with a temptation that immediately becomes sin if acted on. They simply aren’t the same thing. They just aren’t.
Don’t hear me wrong, I read and hear your compassion for those who struggle with same-sex attraction. Such persons absolutely need that from all of us. We need to let them know that we, and God, loves them and wants better for their life. But identifying with a temptation as describing who you are confuses and misleads. No one is denying that there are people who may very well permanently struggle with such a temptation, but everyone fits that bill. We all have a thorn in our side. But creating the identifier inherently leads to an “us and them” structure, rather than becoming a “we are all faced with judgment, but God is here to save us. Let us love and disciple one another.”
Comment by Mike on April 21, 2021 at 8:40 am
Although I understand the author’s reasoning for using the term “gay Christian”, I think that it muddles his witness in many other Christians’ mind. When I hear that term used by others, I immediately think of the many very public people such as the former Bishop of New Hampshire and the current bishops and ministers of the United Methodist Church who parade their sexual perversion while insisting that they are Christians.
I am afraid that insisting that one is a “gay Christian” while simultaneously insisting that they are not in fact acting like a gay person would tend to confuse other Christians. After all, a recovering alcoholic who is a Christian does not advertise to everyone that he is an alcoholic, even though experts tell us that most alcoholics never fully overcome their addiction, but must fight the temptation the rest of their lives.
The term “gay” just carries too much baggage with it to be used in such a manner.
Comment by Joan Watson on April 21, 2021 at 9:52 am
Although I have some empathy with where the author is coming from, it still feels like that “gay Christians” are being set apart from the rest of us sinners. The analogy of alcoholics in the previous comment is a valid one. A sinner is a sinner is a sinner regardless of the sin. We have all fallen short.
To identify with who we are as sinners is counter productive when Christianity is about what God has done for us and in us through the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is about a new life in Christ. We need to focus on where we are headed and not cling to where we are coming from.
Comment by Charles Walkup Jr on April 21, 2021 at 10:49 am
Since I have to leave for prayer meeting shortly, I will have to write more later.
Briefly, I experienced same-sex attraction as a youth, but decided that God and I would work it out together. Weekly memorizing his word from pre-school years, I believed that knowing God’ Truth would set me free and it did, though it took many years. It was only after I actually confessed to God my desire (to indulge in online homosexual pornography) by not just asking forgiveness, but adding “But I really wanted to.” Then, despite past unanswered prayers for God to remove this desire, once I actually confessed my sinful desire, he acted and removed it. The next opportunity to indulge, the desire was gone.
Now I say LGBT are designations of sexual abnormalities – not identities. To help children dealing with this abnormality we need to clarify language usage and how Satan (like with Eve) is using language to mislead them. We, the church, must constantly reinforce to everyone that their true identity is God’s beloved child.
Comment by Jim T. on April 22, 2021 at 10:40 pm
Do y’all ‘read’ a difference between the two sentences below? If so, what’s the difference for you?
A) I wish to learn how to love Christians who struggle with same sex attractions better.
B) I wish to learn how to love gay Christians better.
For me, the difference I see is that if I hear someone say, A, I assume they will not be charitable, they will police me, and they see same sex attractions as a worse sin than others. I will probably not continue speaking with them. Because why else would they be avoiding the word gay?
I definitely understand others will read these sentences differently. They bring different context and connotations to the sentence. I hope others though can practice some perspective taking and see that from outside of conservative evangelical Christianity, this is how sentence A is understood. It comes off as not charitable and disconnected from the ‘conversation.’
If I hear someone say B, I assume they are someone I can enter into a conversation with. I still won’t understand fully what they think theologically. However, I at least know they are NOT someone who will provide quick/simple answers because they’re uncomfortable talking with someone who is gay/has same sex attractions. I will probably continue by asking questions and engaging in conversation. It may turn out we have different theological stances on this – but at least we’re engaged in conversation.
(For context, I am a Christian who has same sex attraction, I’ve prayed for God to remove the temptations (He hasn’t), and I’m trying to learn how to steward my sexuality well. Unfortunately, I often only hear messages like “Don’t do X,Y, and Z.” – including don’t call yourself gay. There isn’t enough – “If you’d like, I’d be happy to figure out with you how you can steward your sexuality / temptations well. Where do you want to start?” I’d love for more of that.
Also, depending on who I’m talking to, I change my word choice. If I think I’m talking to someone who won’t respond well if I describe myself as ‘gay’ I don’t use it. I’m used to changing my language for others – I’m hopeful they can try it as well sometimes.)
Comment by Sarah on April 23, 2021 at 12:23 am
Thank you for writing. I’m so encouraged by you and other gay Christians. Much love. As my dear friend always says “Gay Christians will save the chrch”
Comment by Search4Truth on April 24, 2021 at 10:32 am
The author did attribute acting out on these desires as sin and an indication of the fallen status of human beings. But adding a descriptor to the word Christian to me seems to be the equivalent of saying I am a killer Christian, I am a kleptomaniac Christian, I am an unethical business Christian. I mean where does this end? Especially considering that many groups are claiming that since God created them with such tendencies, He must have intended them to live them out. Isn’t it sufficient to say we live in a fallen world and each of us have different temptations that tend to have more power over us? In any event, Jesus is the only answer.
Comment by Garry Ingraham on April 24, 2021 at 8:59 pm
I grew up in a pretty legalistic home and church. I was exposed to hardcore porn and sex between older boys when I was 5 or 6 years old.
I was horrified when I realized I was romantically and sexually drawn toward guys. I set my mind and heart to praying for God to change me.
When the Church had no answers for me and God seemed to do nothing to help, I grew to hate both. I was kicked out of Bible College because they were afraid I was suicidal.
It wasn’t many months later that I became aware of a gay bar in a town near where I lived. I was like a moth to a flame… Desperate to find a place of belonging – something I never experience in my church, and rarely in my family. At first, it was euphoric – finding the gay community. Finally able to be “myself” for the first time in my life, Finally understood and wanted.
What started off as a desire to find Mr. Right and spend the rest of my life with him, became one broken relationship after another.
By the mercy of God, He began to show me that He was not the detached and rageful God I believed He was all my life. He is holy, but also compassionate and loving, and He was calling me out of my sin to follow Him from a place of full surrender by faith – even the surrender of my false identity as a gay man, not knowing how on earth I would ever be able to live that out.
Looking back, I see how important it was to surrender every part of myself to Him – even though there have been times/seasons since then when I didn’t always walk out a full surrender. Labels are powerful (for good or evil) and insisting on marrying an identity, that if I were to act on would be sin, to my redeemed position in Jesus Christ, made no sense to me, and would have dimished my growth in Him.
The author paints the “ex-gay” ministry world with a broad brush. I was there. Annual Exodus International conferences were a lifeline to me for more than 10 years. Some of those affiliated ministries were/are precious to me, because they gave me hope and a shared sense of walking with others on a similar journey. I was never given faulty promises of instant fix or pray the gay-away rhetoric. I was never shamed. In fact, it was common to talk about (and hear others talking about) how we were going to follow Jesus even though our same-sex attraction persisted.
As I began to find deeper healing over some years, I was surprised to experience a new and good sense of my own masculinity (something that always felt nearly non-existent for me). God was moving over all this time.
I slowly sensed that I was becoming a good gift as a man, and the hope and longing for marriage and family emerged for the first time.
It’s been a long, painful, arduous and also joyous journey… and so worth it!
God has taken me from exclusive same-sex attraction and gay-identity, to being a husband to Melissa for nearly 14 years (even writing that makes my heart leap with joy) and a father of 2 awesome boys, pastor and ministry leader.
I am convinced that an essential part of my growth and healing was surrendering the label of “gay” and not inserting that into my new identity.
I still experience some same-sex attraction, but it’s nothing like it used to be. I just shrug my shoulders and think, “big deal, every Christ-follower struggles with attractions and desires we need to daily surrender to Jesus and follow Him” .
I love the fact that I’m just a man – not some subset of a man, (gay-man). I’m simply a man among men who happens to struggle with my stuff… You struggle with your stuff, but we can walk together and encourage each other in greater sanctification with Jesus. I will not wear any label but Jesus. But I will always encourage the Church to get more real and vulnerable about our struggles, temptations and sin patterns – but none of these deserve to be elevated to identity.
Sexual morality and sex preserved only for marriage between one man and one woman is not just God’s best for us. Rather, it is His exclusive design. Any other practice of sexual expression is sin and the Bible is clear that the practice of sin leads toward destruction and death.
I believe Christian leaders and pastors should not be confused about their new identity being exclusively found in Christ. We can be redeemed. Christian leaders who have been in all kinds of addiction and sin, and brought out of those places by the grace and power of God.
How many sin areas that were once our identity will we marry to our new identity in Christ? How about the polyamorous-Christian, the A-sexual-Christian, the gender-non-binary-Christian, etc…?
Of course, not everyone who comes out of LGBTQ to follow Jesus, will marry the opposite gender. And the need for a fresh vision and practice of authentic community and truly “radical ordinary hospitality” (Rosarea Butterfield) in the Body of Christ is desperately needed. Not only by LGBTQ identified people, but certainly them as well. We all need a place of true belonging in Jesus’ Body. And showing up at a church service once or twice a week is like trying to live on a starvation diet. The Church must do far better than this.
One final comment here… Just because I believe myself and Christian leaders should be clear about our new identity, and not add anything to it, does not mean we should somehow insist or impose that understanding on a teenager in youth group or another adult showing up in church or in our small group.
Just as we don’t shove Jesus and impose a quick belief and surrender to Him on anyone, we need to give people space to be loved in healthy Christian environment and come to understand by the teaching they hear and love they experience that Jesus is inviting them into a new life and new, singular identity, as His.
Comment by Anthony James on April 24, 2021 at 11:09 pm
Wow, some of these commenters just are not getting it! There is nothing in the Bible that says being gay is a sin (despite some incorrect translations that use the term “homosexuals’ (a word that didn’t even come into usage until the 1890s, which is why you don’t find it in the King James). That translation makes it seem as if being gay is a sin, when the sin is sexual sin, not the state of being. It wasn’t until I read Greg Coles’ book “Single, Gay, Christian” (published by IntervArsity Press), that I really got it that some people areborn with same sex attraction. And that is not sinful. Why does God make some people that way? I don’t know, but unless you engage such Christians in real conversation, and get to the know them, the comments like some of those made here are the result. I fully agree with Pieter Valk that to be able to reach out to gay people, and help bring them into saving relationship with Jesus Christ, you must be respectful, and loving. Not judgemental and coming from a negative viewpoint.
Comment by Douglas Ehrhardt on April 27, 2021 at 4:21 am
I believe Gary totally gets it. Thanks for your testimony. Freedom is possible, but takes completely surrendering. I spent 30 years in addiction. You can be free.
Comment by George V on April 29, 2021 at 7:18 pm
Temptation is simply not sin. We all suffer various ones and there’s not much scripture authorizing a grading system for great and small -or- condemnation for temptation. Even Christ was tempted but without sin. The bible tells us ALL sexual intercourse not between a man and a woman married to each other is sin. No differences because it all leads to the same death. It is a foolish error to condemn homosexual attraction and unsupported by scripture. Any sex act between other than a man and woman married to each other seems to be sin without further distinction or qualification. We only alienate and repulse those we condemn for mere temptations. Not very helpful to anyone for anything.
Comment by Joe S on May 15, 2021 at 10:33 am
It is possible that gay Christians lose their faith if/when that identity is not supported because the gay identity itself is spiritually corrosive – maybe not expressed as sin in a celibate individual but always pulling them towards sin. This is the danger the identity poses – which celibate gay Christians tend to minimise or ignore. Also the argument that “This type of person will *lose their faith* if they are made to feel marginalised” is only ever said about gay people.
Many (celibate) gay Christians try to be gayer than secular/affirming gays on social media – far more than is necessary to find community with similar people. They enjoy the high status that an LGBT identity now has in our society (even though that identity is not celebrated locally in their churches). And because those churches now feel somewhat under siege by the surrounding culture (which dismisses conservative Christians as bigots), this overplaying of LGBT identities by ‘Side B’ individuals within their churches can feel threatening.
Comment by Kara Noonan on October 27, 2021 at 4:28 pm
Can we stop saying that being gay is a sin?
Killing someone is a sin; it directly harms another person by ending their life. Got it.
Someone’s decision to enter a mutually agreed upon relationship – whether friendship, marriage, emotional, sexual or otherwise – is not a sin. It’s mutual consent. They both agreed to be in each other’s lives; to support, uplift and engage in life together. If they are in relation with Christ & they’re following in His footsteps, God will be glorified through their example. It’s honestly that simple.
The sheer notion that the specific genders involved in the relationship are a direct hinderance to a relationship with God is absurd and not biblical.
Let’s talk about sex. Right now, as present-day science stands, two men or two women having sex together will not naturally create a baby. But that doesn’t stop them from being a witness to Christ. I’m in a straight-sex marriage and I’m having problems having a baby. Does that mean I’m living in sin and I’m a hinderance to the glory of God? No. It means I may have to find alternative ways – through science – to make a baby. So again, this notion that sexual relationships are where the line is drawn here? Outrageously stupid and ignorant.