Responding to the LGBT Challenges with Grace & Truth
T.K. Fenske, MD, FRCPC, FCCP, FACC
As a symbol representing “the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth” (Gen 9:16), the rainbow is a magnificent one. The glowing prismatic display arching across the sky is breath-taking to behold, and particularly after a vicious storm. I recall one such spectacle when I was a child. Unaware we were in Tornado Alley, my family stopped to visit a fair in Bemidji Minnesota. Our tilt-a-whirl ride was prematurely brought to an abrupt halt due to a flash downpour, forcing my siblings and I to take cover in our family camper. We watched stunned as the sky turned dark grey and then a surreal turquoise green, while the rain pelted loud on the tin roof and gale-force winds rocked our little trailer back and forth. Just as we feared we might all be blown over and away, the storm suddenly stopped, and the sun came out bright and warm. And with it, a stunning rainbow appeared set against the purple-black sky of the receding storm. It was as 18th century poet, Charles Lamb who aptly expressed, “After the tempest in the sky/ how sweet yon rainbow to the eye!”[1]
Although secularized over the years to signify dreamy pot-o-gold optimism or new beginnings Somewhere over the Rainbow, it wasn’t until the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade celebration in 1978 that the rainbow symbol was co-opted by the non-heterosexual lobby group. In 1994, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Greenwich Village Stonewall riots of 1969, the rainbow flag was internationally established as the symbol for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) cultural movement. As the abbreviation has expanded to 2SLGBTQi (adding the 2S aboriginal two-spirited to the beginning of the older contraction, and Qi denoting queer and intersex at the end), so too, has the spread of the rainbow. These days, rainbow flags seem ubiquitous, flying not just at gay rallies, or during Pride summer, but all year round and in all places, including schools, public libraries, businesses, and even draped over the chancels of some liberalized churches. Reminiscent of National Socialism in Germany with the widespread parading of Swastika flags in the public square (churches included), the Pride Flag invasion is nothing less than a foisting of an ideology diametrically opposed to the Creator of the universe and his covenantal promises. It’s a distorted rainbow revolution, pridefully boasting of what God condemns.
A Christian response to our culture’s LGBT embrace is rife with challenges, both on the political front, as we attempt to winsomely defend Biblical truth in the public sphere, and on the home front, as we walk alongside and attempt to provide gentle counsel to those struggling with their sexual identity in our personal circle. The LGBT movement has targeted Christianity and is intentionally and systematically deconstructing family, marriage, parenthood, and gender. It’s a daunting opposition to face, particularly since it demands not only passive tolerance, but complete and active acceptance and even celebration. And these demands aren’t merely idle threats. With the passing of the so-called Conversion Therapy Bill C-4,[2] there is in Canada, a present risk of imprisonment for those who are deemed to have ‘offended.’ From faithful corporate preaching of the Word, to compassionate counsel, and even private family discussions, Bill C-4 is poised to criminalize Christian communication, including the Great Commission’s call to Gospel witness. As a result, LGBT activists have effectively silenced concerned opposition, and as a result, threaten to rescind our hard-won freedom of speech. The ambition of this essay is to discuss these challenges, and provide an approach to how we might effectively communicate our concerns to a growing anti-Christian culture. My hope is to provide the necessary equipping for the Christian community to not only meet this formidable challenge, but to recognize in the process opportunities for Gospel witness and favor.
The LGBT movement represents the logical outworking of the me-focussed sexual revolution of 1960s, and parallels the rise in demand for personal autonomy – to be a law unto ourselves and “be as God” (Gen 3:5). At its core, the movement is grounded on an anti-Christian worldview, steeped in pagan ideology, with roots in the fertility cults of antiquity. Like the tip of an iceberg, the immoral sexual behaviors promoted by the LGBT activists represent the visible surface-level aspects of a much larger underlying worldview, which directly challenges the Biblical sexual ethic. The celebration of non-heterosexual expression is in line with Plato’s Symposium, where the love of a man for a woman is considered the base and “lower form of love,” whereas the love of a man for a man a “heavenly and higher love.”[3] Such ideas have consequences, which permeate every aspect of culture, including the social, political, medical, psychological, moral, and spiritual landscape of our society. As explained by Dr. Peter Jones in his book Whose Rainbow? the decline in Christianity and rise in personal autonomy necessarily produces paganism. He comments, “Homosexuality is presented as part of a blossoming Western defence of civil and human rights and as an essential and beneficial building block of a progressive moral agenda… but it is not civil rights. It is the abandonment of theism in the last two generations of Western history, and the embrace of the spirituality of Eastern paganism.”[4]
Biblical Sexual Ethic
To better appreciate the stark contrast between the Christian sexual ethic and the LGBT movement, a head-to-head comparison is instructive. To think Christianly about sex we need to begin not with the contemporary sensibilities of our society, nor with what might seem reasonable to us and how we feel, but with the transcendent words of Holy Scripture, which represent the authoritative foundation for our understanding of sexuality and sexual behaviour. Three important points to keep in mind are the following:
First, the Biblical sexual ethic mirrors God’s nature, including his creativity. God’s act of creation involved the separation of light from darkness, land from water, day from night, and woman from man. Our sexuality is grounded in God’s creational design of humankinds’ binary reality, created in the image of God, “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). Jesus emphasized this sacred distinction when responding to his testing by the Pharisees on the matter of divorce, saying, “at the beginning the Creator made them male and female… for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh… therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matt 19:4-6). Right down to the DNA blueprint of every individual cell in our bodies (with very rare genetic-error exceptions), our sex chromosomes read either 46XY for male or 46XX for female.[5] There is no rational denial of this iron-clad fact. And this is for good reason, since only within this biological reality of man and woman can humankind reproduce. From a biological standpoint, sex is about babies. Fundamental to our sexuality is the central role of procreation – God’s invitation to us to participate in the mystery of creation. “Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him” (Psalm 127:3), and we have been called to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). Infertility is the product of the Fall and an unfortunate exception that proves this rule.
Second, our sexuality reflects God’s covenantal love. God is personal in his relational Trinitarian reality, and our sexuality is to be personal, as well, protected within the covenantal relationship of marriage between one man and one woman. While spouses don’t complete each other (since each is already complete in Christ), they are to, nonetheless, complement one another, and in so doing, reflect a fuller image of God than either can alone (Gen 2:18). Since God is triune – three in one, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and created us for fellowship and intimate relationship, sex is intended to be not only an intimate physical act, but a covenantal spiritual union. As they “become one flesh” (Gen 2:24), husband and wife reflect the very mystery of the Trinity. While each spouse retains their individual sacred distinction, as they join together in marriage, they become one inseparable and holy functional unit, husband and wife. And when held fast by the power of the Holy Spirit, as King Solomon reflected, “a cord of three strands is not easily broken (Eccl. 4:12).
Third, our sexuality mirrors God’s sacrificial and sacred nature. Since we are created in his image, our sexuality and sexual behaviour have been designed as one way we can reflect his reality to the rest of creation. Sex within the marriage covenant is to be self-giving, and in so doing, functions as a central metaphor for Christ’s sacrificial love for the Church. As Apostle Paul exhorted, “as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands,” and likewise, husbands are to “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Eph 5:24-5). As understood in Biblical terms, sex is to be held sacred, and to represent nothing less than a God-ordained holy union. Christ redeemed our sexuality by placing it within the protection of monogamous heterosexual covenantal relationship. As a result, “Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Heb 13:4). The Biblical boundaries around sexual expression are for our flourishing. These protections not only allow for the strengthening of the marriage bond, but they provide clarity about the nature of healthy relationships outside of marriage. Rather than being constricting, as Rebecca McLaughlin explains, God’s boundaries “give us great freedom to pursue nonsexual intimacy.” Since sex is only to be experienced within the covenantal marriage relationship of man and wife, all other relationships are, by definition, non sexual, and can be developed and celebrated on that level, same-sex relationships included. In summary, God blesses only two sexual lifestyles: heterosexual monogamy between one man and one woman within the confines of marriage, and chastity. Sexual behaviour outside of these two forms is not appropriate for the follower of Christ.
LGBT Narrative
In contrast to the Biblical creative, covenantal, sacrificial and sacred characteristics of sexuality, the pagan worldview of the LBGT movement promotes the opposite. The LGBT narrative rejects the Bible and celebrates the very antithesis of the Christian sexual ethic. Central to this celebration is the emphatic non-binary pronouncement of sexuality. Instead of the sacred male and female distinction, there is a blurring of all boundaries, epitomized by androgyny, where male and female reduce down to a neither-nor neutral sexually- undefined person. Since this ideology flies in the face of reality, indoctrination needs to begin early and be propped up by repeated reinforcement. This is why pre-schoolers are read LGBT children’s literature by drag queens in our public libraries, and why school children are daily encouraged to pick their own pronouns, play for either the boys or girls’ sports team, use either the male or female washroom, and choose whichever changeroom they’d prefer.[6] Otherwise, it’s feared, children wouldn’t give their gender or sexuality a second thought and simply be content with their God-given design, girls playing with dolls and skipping rope and boys playing with sticks and skipping rocks.
With loss of male/female distinction, comes loss of function. Same-sex couples can’t biologically reproduce, and mutilated, transgendered genitalia will never function in that elegant and complex capacity, either. Since having babies is no longer possible, this central role of our sexuality gets discarded. Rather than seen as a means of procreation, sex is strictly considered a form of recreation. As journalist, Gregory Herdt observed, “only by disengaging sexuality from the traditions of family, reproduction, and parenthood was the evolution of the gay movement a social and historical likelihood.”[7] Separated from God’s design of male and female, sex is disengaged from family structure, and no longer functions for reproduction and child rearing, but merely hedonistic pleasure. Instead of being protected within a covenantal relationship, sex is let loose and considered an impersonal act, even a commodity, where masturbation and the use of pornography are legitimized and encouraged. Rather than one-flesh covenantal fidelity, promiscuity is celebrated. Children are provided graphic material on sexual practices, positions, and products, and told “not to knock it till you try it.”[8] Instead of self-giving, sex is all about self-gratification. No longer a means of tangibly expressing one’s love for one’s spouse, sex becomes an end in itself, and an idol. Deposing purity, honor and sacredness, sex becomes dirty, profane and perverse; men with other men, women with women, mixing and matching of multiple partners and orgies, with no taboos or limits, joining what God has separated, and separating what God has joined.
Impoverished Church Response
As disturbing as this flagrant abuse of God’s good gift of sex is to consider, what’s even more troubling are the disappointing ways in which the church has responded to the LGBT movement. Instead of fulfilling its God-ordained role “to proclaim the Gospel, observe the ordinances, and make disciples,”[9] winsomely serving as a counterpoint and corrective for societal transgressions, the church has, more often than not, missed the mark. Some churches have chosen to simply condemn non-heterosexuality – no dialog, no engagement, no nothing, end of discussion. Others, in an attempt to avoid conflict, have tried to keep a neutral ground and remain silent on the issue, hoping it might just go away. Still others, trying to extend grace in some sort of misdirected way, have chosen to affirm the gender identity confusion of those who struggle with their sexuality, and have even resorted to raising the rainbow flag and joining in on the Pride celebration.
Although the hostile anti-Christian attacks lobbed by the LBGT lobby groups can be vicious, our response to them shouldn’t be. We have to guard ourselves from trying to fight fire with fire, and retorting to their taunting “Oh Yah?” with an even louder “Yah!” Protesting in the streets with vulgar placards which read “God hates…” or the trite, “God didn’t create Adam and Steve,” accomplishes no good thing. Profanity, sarcasm, pettiness, and ridicule should have no place in our vocabularies. Rather, we need to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, which is first patient and kind, gentle and self-controlled (Gal 5:22-23). As Apostle Paul reminds us, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world” (2 Cor 10:3-4). This necessitates, regardless of how our opposition may choose to operate, that we restrict ourselves to the high-road. William Ralph Inge observed that “The enemies of freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot.” However, our means to advance the Kingdom of God can’t be accomplished with hostile protests or petty argumentation. It’s important that we remain Biblically-faithful and ensure that our methods reflect our Gospel message. Otherwise, we misrepresent Christ to the world, and only end up adding fuel to the leftist’s fire in their branding of all Christians as “haters” and “bigots.”
The attempt of the church to be neutral and avoid the LGBT controversies has been regarded as a thoughtful and gracious approach. In an interview on HuffPost, former President Jimmy Carter tried to argue that since “Jesus never said a word about homosexuality,” we shouldn’t either, particularly a harsh or condemning word.[10] As a skilled statesman and peacemaker, this long-lived politician shined like few others, but as an expositor of Scripture trying to handle the word of God, he shows his limitations. While the red letters of Jesus didn’t include the word “homosexuality” per se, Jesus had plenty to say about condemning sexual immorality, and significantly raised the bar of sexual purity, pronouncing that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:28). The Bible, taken as a whole, represents the authoritative Word of God with the voice of Jesus throughout, and places homosexuality clearly under the banner of sexual immorality, and condemns it explicitly (Lev 18:22; Lev 20:13; Ro 1:26; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 9). While such proof texts shouldn’t be used to clobber people, ignorance of God’s word needs to be countered. As the Christian influence on our culture wanes, so too, has the understanding of Scripture. Biblical illiteracy has become the norm in our society and even churches, and with it, many Christian churches suffer from doctrinal confusion and have become prone to liberal trends, such as actually believing the societal lie that “homophobia is the problem, not homosexuality,” or the slogan “love is love.” Slogans make for impoverished thinking. Love as some ill-defined passion may, indeed, equate with itself, but it isn’t necessarily good. Afterall, someone could love to cheat, to steal, to use pornography… Only God is good and only the Biblical definition of love – that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8) – should be our guiding principle for the concern for others.
While the silent treatment some churches give to these challenges may derive from a superficial treatment of Scripture, or possibly even represents an ignorance as to our fundamental calling to be salt and light in the world (Matt 5:13-6) – to preserve what’s godly and expose what’s not – more likely, however, their “no comment” represents plain old cowardice, and betrays a fear of man. No one wants to offend others or be seen as harsh, but as the Bible makes clear, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe” (Prov 29:25). When we allow the fear-of-man to dominate our concerns, instead of the fear-of-the-Lord, we are no longer trusting in God or believing that He reigns sovereign. Using our own wits and wisdom as a moral guide, we enter into tiger country, leaving ourselves wide open to temptation, compromise, and eternal destruction. Jesus warned not to fear man, but to fear God, “who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). And make no mistake, although trying to dance around LGBT controversy might provide some temporary side-stepping of conflict and maintenance of our charitable status-quo, in the end, this anemic approach will prove futile. LGBT activism is on the forward move. Just as the gay rights activists in Canada weren’t satisfied with merely Pierre Trudeau’s concession to decriminalize sodomy in 1969, so too, the LGBT activists won’t be satisfied with our present state of non-heterosexual affirmation and Pride celebration. They won’t stop until all obstacles have been completely removed from their steady forward advance into sexual depravity. The political sphere has already caved to their present demands, as has law, healthcare, arts and entertainment, media, business, and education. The church of Christ represents the final remaining bastion of truth and decency, and they’ve got us in their sights. As gay columnist, Paul Varnell summarized, “The chief opposition to gay equality is religious. We may conduct our liberation efforts in the political sphere and even the cultural sphere, but always undergirding those and slowing our progress is the moral religious sphere. If we could hasten the pace of change there, our overall progress would accelerate – in fact, it would be assured.”[11] And assured it has become, in part, thanks to the silent church.
The response of some churches to affirm and celebrate the LGBT movement has led to a fundamental compromise of the Gospel of Christ. Proponents maintain that the Bible is fallible, and that it represents a book of it’s time, and that it isn’t particularly clear on the moral status of homosexuality. They assert the ancient sexual ethic of the Christian church is “irrelevant and offends moderns too much to be useful.” They hold that because the Bible was misused in the past to justify slavery and anti-Semitism, it can’t be regarded as a societal standard for contemporary human sexuality. Pastor Brian McClaren of the so-called Emerging Church stated, for example, that the beliefs of traditional evangelicals represent a “reactive, combative brand of religious fundamentalism that preoccupies itself with sexuality” and that “evangelicals who consider homosexuals sinners are really just looking for an enemy – a scapegoat.”[12] A flagrant example of Gospel compromise would be the recent promotion of the so-called Sparkle Creed by a liberal Lutheran church.[13] This heretical mockery of the Apostle’s Creed refers to God to as “non-binary,” Jesus as having “two dads,” and the Holy Spirit as the “rainbow spirit” with the proclamation that “that love is love is love, so beloved let us love.”
The Gay Gospel
In an attempt to reconcile pagan sexuality with the Christian worldview, gay advocates reinterpret Scripture to align with their autonomous desires. Treating the Bible as if it were some wax nose to be shaped any which way, they render homosexuality as simply another expression of God’s diversity in the created order to be celebrated. In their “fresh understanding of the Bible,” they propose that the sin of Sodom, for example (Gen 19), wasn’t in regards to homosexuality at all, but was about rape, inhospitality, or general wickedness, and the homosexuality cited in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 referred to prostitution or an idolatrous form of homosexuality. These proponents of the Gay Gospel suggest that when Jesus healed the Centurion’s servant (who they suggest was “highly valued” because he was the soldier’s gay lover), that Jesus gave tacit approval of homosexuality. So, too, they consider the comments Jesus made about eunuchs (Matt 19:12) a favorable view of homosexuality, even though, of course, castration and sexual orientation are not at all one in the same. They go on to claim that Apostle Paul’s comment about “men abandoning natural relations” (Ro 1:26) was in reference to heterosexuals who practice homosexuality, not born-that-way genuine homosexuals doing so. Their mistreatment of Scripture is a shameful attack on the integrity, sufficiency and authority of the Bible.[14] In essence, “they are turning to a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all… and are throwing people into confusion and trying to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Gal 16-7). Not surprisingly, their twisted and tortured exegesis has no credible scholarly support.[15]
The fruit of the Gay Gospel has been bitter. This watering down and distortion of the Gospel has proven to be detrimental for the liberalized churches, dividing leadership, splitting congregations, impairing Gospel witness, invalidating missional outreach, and decimating membership and church attendance. Homosexuality is a critical watershed issue of our time. By endorsing the LGBT movement, the church has accelerated it’s own steady and swift decline in the West.[16] Leading this decline has been the United Church of Canada (UCC), which ordained openly-gay clergy as early as 1992. Over the decade prior to the 2005 legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada, the UCC provided liturgical covenants for same-sex couples, and then in 2012, elected an openly-gay moderator. Once the largest Protestant denomination in the country, the UCC is now but a dying remnant, forced to sell off its church real estate in order to desperately keep afloat. Shrinking faster than any other denomination, the UCC lost over 40 percent of it’s affiliates in the past decade, with nationwide attendance declining to under 120,000 people, most of whom are elderly with no desire or means to move on.[17] The Anglican church of Canada has followed suit, both in their allegiance to the LGBT narrative, and with their resultant steep decline in parishioner base.[18] So too, the Lutheran Church in North America is also on the steep decline.[19] With the recent decision to bless same-sex couples, the Church of England isn’t likely very far behind this decline, either. And why should it be otherwise? As Greg Bahnsen wisely said, “When the church begins to look and act like society, there is no reason for it’s continued existence.”[20]
Responding with Grace and Truth
As followers of Jesus, our response to the LGBT challenges needs to be one of grace and truth. It’s critical that we maintain the tension between the exclusive truth claims of Christ and the inclusive grace of Christ. Although far easier to do only one or just the other – either hold hard to the letter of Scriptural law and present a cold wall of opposition, or offer warm unqualified welcoming open-armed grace – neither of these singular approaches are effective nor biblically faithful. It’s not one or the other, but a measure of both, together. Jesus didn’t dismiss the woman accused of adultery with disdain and disgust, saying “Go.” Nor did he affirm her sexual behaviour and celebrate her lifestyle, saying “Go and sin.” Rather, he protected her from harm’s way and offered her abundant life free from the slavery of sin, saying, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11). Therefore, our response to the LGBT challenges mustn’t be one of cold condemnation, nor gushing affirmation; but rather, without compromising the Biblical sexual ethic, we need to respond winsomely, communicating both our concern for Biblical truth and care for struggling individuals. “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). If we capitulate on Biblical truth, we forfeit the Gospel and its redeeming power, and risk losing a soul to eternal judgement; and if we fail to reach out in compassion and care, we miss the opportunity to witness and share the Gospel’s redeeming message. Analogous to an archer’s cross-bow, which is only useful under the tension of the bowstring (otherwise is but a weird bent stick, not even suitable for walking), as faithful followers of Christ, we need to hold fast to both Biblical truth and winsome engagement in balanced tension. If we fail to do so, our efforts will yield little. We’ll either shut down dialog completely or get shut down ourselves, and run the risk of being compromised on one hand, or cancelled on the other. In either case, we’ll join the sorry ranks of “those who do not turn to the most High, are like a bow gone slack” (Hosea 7:16).
Next, as we consider our response to the LGBT challenges, it’s important to separate out our response to the activist movement, on the one side, from our response to someone who is struggling with their sexuality, on the other. We need to realize that these are two very separate conversations, both set on the same foundation, but expressed with different language and means. I came to this realization when I had an intense exposure to the non-heterosexual community. It was in the mid-80s during the height of the AIDS epidemic in Canada. I was a medical student at St. Paul’s hospital in downtown Vancouver, and did my clerkship before the introduction of anti-retroviral therapy, when acquiring HIV was akin to being given a death sentence. During that same time, my father, who was a United Church minister, was faithfully preaching the full counsel of Scripture and actively pushing back against the encroaching Gay Gospel. Our frequent late-night conversations equipped me to easily recognize the worldview challenges posed by the gay movement, but did little to prepare me in my conversations with gay patients. That required the frontline experience which I acquired during those harrowing times.
As a student intern, I directly followed 8 to 10 patients at a time, the majority of whom were gay men about my age, dying of AIDS. It was heart wrenching watching their opportunistic infections and cancers progress and, despite our best efforts, consume them. During this training time, while I was trying to memorize my differential diagnosis lists and develop my physical exam techniques, I witnessed the devastation of this pitiless disease on the human condition. All of my patients died, and I was often the one called by the nurses to pronounce them dead. It was a brutal boot camp for learning medicine, to be sure, but the experience gave me on-the-job training in humility and compassion, as I endeavored to respond to the suffering of my patients. As well, I had repeated opportunities to have conversations with them, long conversations, which went well beyond the surface medical management of their disease, and touched on their existential suffering. This is because as a student, I had a certain luxury of time, and I spent mine, not just chasing down lab results and writing up histories, but at my patients’ bedsides, talking with them, getting to know their families, their lovers, and meeting their extensive friend groups and community of support. I learned something of their struggles, their frustrations and brokenness, and their desperate desire for acceptance. And as I spent time with them, listening to their stories, and developing a relationship with them, I was able to get past the initial facades, breaching topics of identity and faith. I shared my testimony with many of them, and at poignant moments, even prayed with some. Although I never agreed with their sexual confusion nor gay lifestyles, my heart broke for them, nonetheless, and I have since felt drawn to reach out to LGBT patients with care and compassion.
Responding to the Struggling Individual
If we want to meaningfully engage those within the LGBT community and have constructive conversations with them, we need to be generous and communicate sentiments of concern. Opening our interactions with divisive comments about the causation of non-heterosexuality or arguments about the changeability of sexual orientation will unlikely be fruitful, and add more heat than light to the discussion. It’s not us against them, after all; non-heterosexuals are not the enemy. Sexual brokenness comes from our sinful nature magnified by our sexualized culture. It’s been estimated that over 1/3 of the internet band width is devoted to viewing pornography, which has infiltrated every part of our society, the church included.[21] We are all sexually broken to some extent, and if left to our own devices can easily fall into temptations of sinful sexual thoughts, even deeds. As Apostle Paul reminds, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). We are all in need of Christ’s redemption and the ongoing sanctifying work of Holy Spirit, and we won’t completely escape the conundrum of sexual sin until heaven and earth are made new. So, we would do well to adopt a posture of humility, “quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (Jas 1:19). As we listen, we should do so not with the intent of winning an argument, but in order to make points of contact that will allow us to steer the conversation towards Jesus, the ultimate remedy. We need to endeavor to make Jesus the issue, not sexuality. As Mark Yarhouse wisely emphasizes about these difficult conversations, “the goal is not heterosexuality, but holiness.”[22]
Gender confusion and the sinful behaviour that ensues are but symptoms of a far larger problem, namely, misplaced identity. The prevailing messaging promoted by our LGBT-embracing culture is that same-sex attractions are natural, even God-given, and that such feelings not only indicate one’s true-you core identity, but that sexual behaviour is the central means to fulfillment. This so-called Gay script conflates the three distinct elements of sexual attraction, sexual behaviour, and gay identity into an all-in-one package. Even though these are each clearly distinct, if feelings are felt, it is suggested, behaviour and even permanent lifestyle adoption must inevitably follow. Of course, this just isn’t true. Feelings don’t mandate behaviour. Just because some scantily-clad woman walking past me in the grocery store might transiently catch my attention, it doesn’t mean that I, a married man, should necessarily follow her into the produce section to check out the tomatoes and get her phone number, nor that I should make a lifestyle of hanging out at the deli in the hopes of making bacon. A fleeting reflex feeling or thought doesn’t necessitate an adulterous behavioural response, nor a swinger lifestyle. We are not victims of instinct, confined to a programmed script of behaviour, but have been created in God’s image, and therefore have the freedom to choose our actions. Same-sex attractions represent temptations not destiny. Like all other temptations, such as over-indulgence of alcohol, over-eating pastries, binging TV, or lining up for Sunday blow-out shopping extravaganzas, they can’t be given a life of their own and remain unchecked. No matter how much like “thorns in the flesh” same-sex attractions may be, they don’t need to result in homosexual behaviour, and certainly not a gay lifestyle. Those who hold up sexuality as ultimate are doomed to disappointment. It’s not just Mick Jagger who can’t get no satisfaction; no one can on those terms. No sexual experience – heterosexual or non-heterosexual – can live up to such dizzyingly-high expectations, and identities formed around them won’t be able to satisfy our fundamental needs as human beings.
By opposing God’s design for sexuality, our culture has set into motion an unparalleled identity crisis, and at the same time, opened up a giant Gospel opportunity for the Christian community to witness God’s love to broken people. Our task, as followers of the Risen Lord, is to provide an alternative script for those who struggle in sexual sin. We need to emphasize that it’s not sex that’s ultimate, but God, as revealed in the life, death, resurrection and calling of Jesus Christ. At its center, our identity is not a sexual issue at all, but a creational one that can only be truly defined by our Creator. While we are undeniably sexual beings, our core identity doesn’t reside in our sexuality, but is contained within the eternal relationship of the Triune living God. By necessity, our I am must be grounded in the Great I am. When we fail to grasp this Biblical reality, choosing instead something smaller or distorted, such as our perceived gender or preferred sexual behaviour, we generate within ourselves an unquenchable misdirected thirst for personal significance, social acceptance, and individual security.[23] While the LGBT community attempts to provide these by affirming same-sex feelings, celebrating non-binary gender choices, and validating non-heterosexual relationships and gay lifestyle experiences, desperate emptiness remains. It’s well-documented that the LGBT group, taken as a whole, is at a substantially higher risk for poor health outcomes as compared to the general population.[24] Not only do they suffer from higher rates of depression, but also substance addictions, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder and sexual abuse, and they have a staggeringly high suicide rate. Despite the propagated narrative that all this stems from societal stigmatization, these tragic problems are seen to occur at the same rates in the most LGBT-affirming of countries, as well.[25]
It’s imperative then, that we communicate the need for an identity in Christ, and let those who label themselves within the LGBT umbrella know that they are children of God, first created in his image, fearfully and wonderfully made, and dearly loved by Him, the lover of their souls. Sharing our own personal testimony of faith is a powerful means to do so. As we tell of our own struggles with sin over the years and our own experiences with misplaced identity, such as with a work-based identity, a family-role-based identity, or a fitness-based identity, for example, we can forge points of contact, and begin “to make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive” (Titus 2:10). Jesus was a single celibate male and lived the perfect life, completely obedient to the law of God and completely fulfilled in every way. He didn’t come to earth for acceptance, significance, nor security, but to glorify God and to have mercy on sinners. With this in mind, we need to underscore that our core identity – including our essential needs for acceptance, significance, and security –be formed around a personal relationship with Christ, and Christ alone.
At the base of our engagement with members of the LGBT community, must be our concern for not only their present wholeness, but their eternal hope of salvation. God has given us the Biblical sexual ethic for both our present flourishing and to prepare us for eternal communion with Him in glory. This mandates that we don’t just leave our conversations on the superficial plane of climate and Coke, but go deeper and address the essential matters of sin and salvation. Jesus was a friend to sinners, to be sure. However, he didn’t leave them in their sins, but called all people to “repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). If all our friendship with non-heterosexuals does is comfort them in their sins, we’ve done them a serious disservice, and not acted as a friend, at all. Homosexual behaviour is sexual sin. And like other sexual sins, including adultery, heterosexual promiscuity, serial monogamy, premarital sex, and masturbation, it needs to be called out as a sin requiring confession. Apostle Paul exhorts us to “flee from sexual immorality,” emphasizing that “all other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body,” reminding us that we “were bought at a price… therefore honor God with your body” (1 Cor 18-20). It doesn’t matter if they claim they were “born that way.” We are all born into a sinful nature inherited from our first parents and “must be born again” (John 3:3). This requires a 180-degree about-face turning away from our old sinful identity to embrace our new true identity in Christ. As Apostle Paul clarified, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17). A gay lifestyle, no matter if it’s “monogamous and sincere,” is still misdirected and sinful. The same applies to gay marriage… raising the thorny issue of what to do if one receives an invitation to a “gay marriage” celebration.
Responding to an Invitation to a Gay Wedding
A wedding is not like a dinner invitation or a graduation open house or a retirement party. A Christian wedding is, first and foremost, a worship service from beginning to end, celebrating the holy union between one man and one woman with God at the centre. As God’s first institution, marriage bookends the beginning of the Bible and the end, and represents the fundamental building block of human community and has historically been the foundation of Western civilization.[26] Those present at the solemnization of matrimony are not just casual observers, but are witnesses who are granting their approval and support for the holy vows that are being made. Worship of God and celebration of a holy union cannot be done if God’s Word is profaned. Since the gay union being celebrated can’t be biblically sanctioned as an act of worship, our participation in the service lends credence to a lie. Out of obedience to Christ and because of the nature of the wedding event itself, we cannot in good conscience participate in a service of false worship, nor celebrate a union that shouldn’t be celebrated.
This is true for secular gay weddings, as well. There’s nothing in the secular nature of a wedding ceremony that makes it any less of a celebration of a union. When we attend such a wedding, like it or not, we are publicly endorsing the gay union before a watching world. Although attending a non-Christian heterosexual wedding poses certain challenges for the Christian attendee in terms of the misdirection of the ceremony, at least God’s design of husband and wife is still being upheld. As a result, we can hope and pray that the couple will in time be convicted by the Holy Spirit and come to a saving faith in Christ, and lead Christian lives as a couple. However, the same can not be said for the homosexual couple. For non-heterosexuals, our prayer would be that they would come to a saving faith in Christ and leave their lives of sin, their gay relationships included. If this all sounds “not very loving,” we need to understand that genuine love means telling the truth, not condoning a lie. Just as we must not buy into the contemporary word games of using imaginary gender designations, nor conflicting pronouns, so too, we shouldn’t fuel sexual sin by celebrating a gay union. This even holds true for Christian families with gay or transgendered children. We need to communicate our sincere love and concern for them and do our utmost to maintain our relationship with them, but we can’t condone their sexual sin nor celebrate their sinful lifestyle or union. Besides, “loving across our differences” is a two-way street. We should take time to listen to the gay couple and hear why our attendance means so much to them, by all means; but to be fair, they also need to listen to us, and understand why our faith in Christ and obedience to the Bible mandate our declining to attend. In all of these considerations, we mustn’t lose sight of the eternal wedding promised by Jesus, that we as the Church of Christ and His Bride, have been “invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev 19:19).
Responding to the LGBT Movement
As we broaden our discussion to address the LGBT movement and consider the challenges it poses to our society and our responses to them, it’s important that we continue to balance grace and truth in tension. We need to keep in mind that in the middle of the movement are broken people. We mustn’t be seen as the cold and callous frozen chosen. Rather, as we discuss this inflammatory topic, the first thing out of our mouths must be concern for those who are suffering in gender confusion and struggling in sexual sin. At the same time, we can’t just be bleeding hearts and open doormats to every sort of doctrinal distortion and cultural denigration. We need to honor King Jesus, both in our words of compassion, as well as in our faithful witnessing of His revealed truth. It’s critical to realize what’s at stake here, both on earth and in heaven. Sexuality is a Gospel issue! The LGBT movement outright rejects the Gospel of Christ and challenges the church’s very identity, purpose, and view of the Word of God. This spirit of rebellion is doing harm to numerous vulnerable groups within our society, including our children, who are being indoctrinated into this pagan ideology and at risk for sexual exploitation. But also, there are those within the LGBT community who have been abandoned and continue to struggle with gender dysphoria and same-sex attraction, and others who are left to deal with the aftermath of cross-sex hormonal manipulation therapy and its inherent havoc and side effects, or to the horror of their gender-transitioned mutilation.[27] And most to be pitied are those who have transitioned to the opposite sex, and in the process, have come to realize their vast mistake, deeply regretting their decision. This de-transitioning group continues to experience levels of stigmatization from the heterosexual community, while simultaneously being shunned from the LGBT community, which accepts gender transition as a one-way street only.[28]
With the rejection of the Biblical sexual ethic, society’s flood gates have been opened for unbridled sexual depravity. Although slippery slope arguments for gay marriage were heavily criticized, we need only look back over the past fifty years since the removal of homosexuality from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistics Manuel) list of psychiatric disorders in 1973, to see the reality of those concerns.[29] Unlike the wildly inaccurate COVID-19 pandemic predictions of population decimation or the exaggerated forecasting for global warming, the fears raised about where homosexuality might lead our society have proven prophetically accurate.[30] What once was unthinkable in private, is now celebrated in public. This includes the embrace of: sadism, masochism, exhibitionism, and voyeurism, polygamy, conjoint marriage (union of three or more individuals), and polyamory (multiple simultaneous partners), with pedophilia, and incest not far behind, and zoophilia (sexual attraction to animals) and bestiality fast approaching.[31],[32] No perverse sexual fetish, no matter how disturbing to our contemporary sensibilities, will remain so for much longer. Sin is progressive, and offence, as it gets repeated, tends to lessen over time.
Resistance is certainly required, and some is already occurring in various places in our society. This has included students participating in the National Pride Flag Walk-Out Day, pro-family rallies of Christians and Muslims joining together to protest against LGBT ideology in school curricula, and NHL hockey players refusing to wear Pride jerseys during games.[33] In addition, there have been successful boycotts against the clothing store, Target, the LA Dodgers baseball franchise, and Disney enterprise, as well as with Anheuser-Busch customers making their distaste known about the company’s Pride marketing, by buying beer other than Bud Lite.[34] As a Christian community, though, our best form of push back is through the faithful proclamation of the Gospel and the unwavering commitment to educate our children in Biblical truth. Never more than now, the church of Christ needs to be the church of Christ, welcoming all sinners, yet “unashamed of the Gospel… the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16). This means preaching the entire counsel of Scripture, emphasizing our creational reality and including the portions of Scripture considered “too inflammatory to read.” Out of solidarity, many churches across North America have committed to annually preaching on the Biblical sexual ethic in January as a way of marking the anniversary of the passing of “anti-conversion” Bill C-4, the Canadian legislation that equates Biblical truth to myth and criminalizes Christian conversation. While this is well and good, such faithful preaching of the Word shouldn’t be limited to but one day a year, but define the Christian pulpit year-round. There is risk here, but if the Church doesn’t stand strong, how can we expect our surrounding society to?
As for teaching our children, we would do well to heed the model provided in the Torah, to teach the words of Scripture “diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deut 6:7). Although I endorsed the public school system when my own boys were school-aged, twenty years ago, it has become increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for Christian parents to rationalize sending their children to public school today. I used to hold to the notion that vibrant family discussion around the dinner table could undo the school’s indoctrination. While this may have been naïve in the past, such thinking today is plainly foolhardy and borders on irresponsible. With few exceptions, the anti-Christian agenda is rife and unrelenting in the public school system. This is even true for Roman Catholic schools, as evidenced by student, Josh Alexander’s suspension and serial arrests for protesting against biological males sharing school washrooms and change rooms with females.[35] So, we need to not only defend our right to teach our own children, but we have to do it and do it well. And as we do, its critical we don’t aim to just shelter them from the LGBT onslaught, but prepare them to think Christianly and be able to engage the posed challenges wisely. We need to equip them to be soldiers of the cross for the dark and desperate times that lie ahead, and “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks them to give the reason for the hope that they have… with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).
Answering Questions of Gender Diversity and Homosexual Causation
In our present confused era, questions of biological gender diversity and non-heterosexual causation will need to be addressed. Children are being taught that the sexual characteristics of biology, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual attractions all operate on a spectrum, and that they must define these terms for themselves. While advocating certain ideologies can cause people’s convictions to bend with the breeze of the times, biology doesn’t bend. There is only male and female. Exceptions, while they exist, are rare and serve to prove this immutable reality. Sexual developmental disorders, grouped together under the umbrella term “Intersex,” are commonly highlighted to make an argument for biological gender diversity. However, intersex conditions represent developmental disorders, not examples of normal biology. They occur if there is either a hormonal imbalance or a genetic error, and are considered disorders because of the resultant dysfunction. With increasing biological aberrancy comes a decrease in sexual function. As a result, the vast majority of intersex individuals are unable to reproduce. Examples include the hormonal disorder Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) in which there is an over-production of cortisol (which is converted to androgen) and causes some degree of virilisation of female genitalia. As well, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (testicular feminization syndrome) is caused by non-functional testosterone receptors. The endogenous testosterone is converted to estrogen which causes the development of female secondary sex characteristics, including female genitalia. Although these patients are unable to menstruate, they are usually raised as female and generally adopt a sexual orientation no different than normal 46XX genotype females. Other rarer forms of hormonal imbalance can give rise to hermaphrodism, in which there is a discrepancy between the external and internal sexual and genital organs, sometimes resulting in ambiguous genitalia. Examples of genetic anomalies that cause sexual developmental disorders include, Turner’s Syndrome where females are missing an X chromosome (46X_), and Klinefelter’s Syndrome where males have an extra X chromosome (47XXY), both of which are associated with infertility. In any case, making an argument that intersex conditions represent examples of biological diversity would be analogous to making the ridiculous assertion that congenital heart defects, which produce cardiac inefficiency in mild cases and fatality in severe, represent a spectrum of normal cardiac morphologies. While there is, indeed, a range of normality seen in medicine, it remains critical to be able to differentiate normal function from dysfunction. Intersex conditions are, by definition, disorders characterized by dysfunction.
In terms of non-heterosexual causation, the verdict is still out. Numerous studies have been undertaken over the years to investigate this question including, biological studies involving twins, molecular genetics, hormonal effects, and brain structure. The findings indicated that if genetics do play a role, they require a certain social context for their expression, such as a less-gendered childhood socialization. As well, extensive environmental studies have been undertaken assessing correlation of adverse childhood experiences, social and cultural environments, and parental influences to sexual orientation. Most striking was the finding that non-heterosexuals are about two to three times more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse as compared to heterosexuals, suggesting that this is a significant contributing factor in many cases.[36] However, taken together, multiple pathways seem to contribute to a particular person experiencing same-sex attractions and homosexual orientation, where no one path fits all. The claim that sexual orientation as an innate, biologically fixed property of human beings – the idea that people are “born that way” – is certainly not supported by scientific evidence.[37] In fact, longitudinal studies of adolescents suggest that, if anything, sexual orientation may be quite fluid over the lifespan of some people, with one study estimating that as many as 80% of male adolescents who report same-sex attractions no longer do so as adults.[38] Lead researcher, Lisa Diamond of the American Psychological Association (APA) and avowed lesbian activist, stated that “viewing sexuality as exclusively two types – heterosexual and homosexual – that are rigid and unchangeable no longer applies,” and is telling LGBT activists to “stop promoting the myth.”[39] Certainly then, the church shouldn’t be promoting such myths either.
In conclusion, the devil wants people to think that they’re either too good for the Gospel, eliminating the need for repentance, or too bad, undermining the need for faith. In this fallen world of sexual brokenness, none of us are ‘straight’ in a certain sense – but “all, like sheep, have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6) – and are in desperate need of salvation. Fortunately, God’s promises stand and are available to all who are forgiven of sin by faith in Jesus Christ. The rainbow functions to both remind God of his covenant relationship with us, and to remind us of his great mercy, grace, and power. We mustn’t forget that the rainbow belongs to God and not the LGBT activists. Our mandate, then, is to reclaim the promise of the rainbow, and be the church that God intended us to be. We need to see these present LGBT challenges as opportunities to witness God’s saving love, and demonstrate care and compassion to those in need; leaning on the Gospel message, so that human flourishing and abundant life might displace misery and devastation. Judgement is surely coming, but it won’t be with water this time. So, we must implore those caught up in sexual sin to give their hearts to Jesus that they might be set free from the bondage of sin, and saved from God’s wrath. Soli Deo Gloria.
[1] Lamb, Charles. The Rainbow. https://interestingliterature.com/2019/10/9-of-the-best-poems-about-rainbows
[2] https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/pl/charter-charte/c4_1.html
[3] Plato’s Symposium. Translator Christopher Gill. Penguin Classics @ 2003.
[4] Jones, Peter. Whose Rainbow? God’s Gift of Sexuality: A Divine Calling. Ezra Press ©2020.
[5] the number/letter designation here refers to the 23 pairs of human chromosomes, which carry DNA, 46 in total, divided into 22 numbered autosomal pairs and one pair of sex chromosomes, X and Y; where one chromosome comes from each parent to make a pair
[6] https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/9781460126240
[7] Homosexuality/heterosexuality: Concepts of sexual orientation. McWhirter, Sanders and Reinisch, eds., Oxford University Press, © 1996.
[8] https://teachers-ab.libguides.com/lgbtq/general
[9] The London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. https://www.chapellibrary.org/pdf
[10] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/president-jimmy-carter-bible-book_n_1349570
[11] Dallas, Joe. The Complete Guide to Understanding Homosexuality: a Biblical and Compassionate Response to Same-Sex Attraction. Harvest House Publishers ©2010. page 462.
[12] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/why-evangelicals-should-ignore-brian-mclaren-how-the-new-testament-requires/
[13] https://washingtonstand.com/commentary/progressive-christians-can-now-confess-heresy-with-sparkle-creed
[14] Gilson, R. Born Again This Way. The Good Book Company © 2020.
[15] Dallas, Joe. The Gay Gospel: How Pro-Gay Advocates Misread the Bible, Harvest House © 2007.
[16] Jones, P. The God of Sex: How Spirituality Defines your Sexuality. Escondido, CA: Main Entry Editions ©2006.
[17] https://broadview.org/inside-united-church-decline/
[18] https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2022/12/14/anglican-church-of-canada-membership-fell-10-each-year-in-2020-and-2021-data-show/
[19] https://www.canadianlutheran.ca/decline-and-growth-a-look-at-the-lutheran-world-today/
[20] Bahnsen, G. L. Always: Directions for Defending the Faith. American Vision and Covenant Media. ©1996.
[21] http://www.covenanteyes.com/pornstats/
[22] Yarhouse, M. Homosexuality and the Christian: A Guide for Parents, Pastors, and Friends. Bethany House©2010.
[23] Anderson, Neil T. Living Free in Christ ©1993 Regal Books.
[24] The Fenway Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Health, 2nd Edition.
[25] Dhejne, C, et.al. Cohort Study in Sweden. 2011; 6(2).
[26] Zimmerman, CC. Family and Civilization. Intercollegiate Studies Institute ©2008.
[27] Jaclyn M. White Hughto and Sari L. Reisner. Transgender Health Vol. 1, No. 1 A Systematic Review of the Effects of Hormone Therapy on Psychological Functioning and Quality of Life in Transgender Individuals. Jan. 2006.
[28] Vandenbussche, E. (2021) Detransition-Related Needs and Support: A Cross-Sectional Online Survey, Journal of Homosexuality, DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2021.1919479.
[29] Drescher, J. Out of DSM: Depathologizing Homosexuality. Behav Sci (Basel). 2015 Dec; 5(4): 565–575.
[30] Bahnsen. GL. Homosexuality: a Biblical View, Baker Books © 1978.
[31] Miller D. Sexual Depravity Continues to Expand. https://apologeticspress.org/sexual-depravity-continues-to-expand-2691/
[32] Holoyda, BJ. Bestiality Law in the United States: Evolving Legislation with Scientific Limitations. Animals (Basel). 2022 Jun; 12(12): 1525.
[33] https://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/ Massive Resistance to LGBTQ Pride sparked
[34] https://fortune.com/2023/06/30/bud-light-target-rainbow-capitalism-dimmed-june-2023/
[35] https://libertycoalitioncanada.com/i-stand-with-josh-alexander/
[36] Andrea L. Roberts, M. Maria Glymour, and Karestan C. Koenen, “Does Maltreatment in Childhood Affect Sexual Orientation in Adulthood?,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 42, no. 2 (2013): 161 – 171, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10508-012-0021-9.
[37] Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences. The New Atlantis (Special Report) – Lawrence Mayer and Paul McHugh. August 2016 (http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/number-50-fall-2016).
[38] Ritch C. Savin-Williams and Geoffrey L. Ream, “Prevalence and Stability of Sexual Orientation Components During Adolescence and Young Adulthood,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 36, no. 3 (2007): 385 – 394, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10508-006-9088-5.
[39] Lisa M. Diamond, Sexual Fluidity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008), 52.