How can a bunch of hypocrites cast the first stone?
A few years ago, we had a brilliant, creative young woman in our community who struggled with homosexuality. My wife, Amy, and I (Ron) saw the great potential in her and were honored to have her actively involved in our church. She was so gifted. Like everyone else, she was called to walk out her salvation in truth and grace. For a few years, “Susan” decided to deal with her same-sex struggle from a conservative evangelical perspective. She was faithful—went to both support groups and Bible studies, sought to be honest about what was going on, and from my viewpoint, began to grow and bear the fruit of discipleship.
But for a variety of reasons, she decided that she wanted to embrace her gay identity. So she did. She left our community and began to live the life she wanted to live. We still stayed connected on Facebook. Over the next several months she began to post some eye-opening statements about the church where I was a pastor. From her point of view, she saw the church as judgmental, homophobic, and filled with people who had their own sin problems and were not willing to be gracious to others. “Who are they to judge me?” she wrote. Shouldn’t we keep quiet and get our own lives in order?
It would be easy to dismiss her concerns and say that her criticism didn’t matter. After all, she was bitter. No need to listen. But she is a part of a growing chorus of voices, inside and outside the church, asking important questions, questions that need to be answered.
Susan is right. The church is filled with people who disobey Scripture. Sexual sins abound in the Christian community—infidelity, divorce, pornography, and cohabitation, to name a few. The church has a serious sin problem. We admit it. We apologize for it. This fact doesn’t change the truth that God has a plan for sexuality. What follows is an attempt to explain why the church can take a stand on the issue of homosexuality. It is by no means exhaustive, but it is a good place to start.
We Are All Struggling
For several years, I (Ron) was the pastor of the twenty-something group at a very large church in the Chicago area. Whether those who came to this group were committed to Jesus or not, many if not most had serious struggles with sin, much of it sexual. The use of pornography was rampant, and sexual intimacy among unmarried young adults was seen as something to be expected, even among Christians. Of course these young adults knew the biblical demands for purity and chastity, but their lives didn’t reflect the truth they knew in their heads. These few hundred young adults are a microcosm of an undeniable reality: The church is full of sinners. Does this mean we should be silent because we are men and women with serious areas of sin and darkness in our lives?
No. The truth still stands, even if we fail to live up to it.
C. S. Lewis helps us here. He writes,
We must, therefore, not be surprised if we find among the Christians some people who are still nasty. There is even, when you come to think it over, a reason why nasty people might be expected to turn to Christ in greater numbers than nice ones. That was what people objected to about Christ during His life on earth: He seemed to attract “such awful people.”1
Just because we can find sinners and hypocrites in any church—and if we’re honest, this describes every one of us—it does not mean that the church is without a voice. In fact, all it means is that we need to be more honest about the fact that we too have missed the mark. This doesn’t excuse us, nor does it excuse the same-sex struggler. It reveals the need we each have for Jesus.
Maybe humility is what our standing for truth needs. Donald Miller, in his book Blue Like Jazz, talks about how he and his friends set up a confessional booth, as Leadership Journal put it, “at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, a decidedly secular and highly intellectual place that Princeton Review named ‘the college where students are most likely to ignore God.’”2 Instead of getting the pagans to confess their sins, the Christians went about sharing the ways that they and many others had missed the mark of their Master, Jesus Christ.
This is the right posture to take in a world that is looking for ways to despise and disregard Christians. We need to be honest about our failures and sins. None of us lives up to the standards our faith demands. Maybe this posture of humility will gain the gospel a fresh hearing. But this honest humility does not mean there are no standards. Instead, it reveals our deep need for mercy, the kind of mercy Lewis says is so attractive to “such awful people.” Jesus is our only hope. And yes, he is the only hope for the same-sex struggler as well.
I (Ron) am a father of four boys. What is so interesting about parenting is that these boys act just like me. It isn’t so much what I say that matters. It is who I am that is shaping them. This is a sobering reality. I can tell them to be respectful to one another all day long, but if I don’t show respect for them and my wife, my word doesn’t mean much. Of course there is grace. But I want my children to grow up to be godly men, as much as I have a say in it.
What is true at home is true in the world. Our behavior speaks at least as loudly as our words. Jesus is clear: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). There is a laxity in Christian morality today that is troubling. When Christians are confronted, they use the cover of grace as an excuse for immorality. The LGBT community has a point. Why should they take what Jesus says seriously if his followers don’t? We need to take seriously the demands of Jesus. We need to decide to actually follow him. What a great refutation it would be to a world that considers Christians hypocrites if we actually began to look like Jesus.
Scripture Is Our Guide
Even a cursory reading of Scripture will tell you that homosexual activity is considered sin (the question is covered in depth in chapters 4 and 5). For the most part, both liberal and conservative theologians agree on this. No one can convincingly conclude that Paul was in favor of homosexual activity. Few scholars would argue that Jesus, a first-century Jew, would be a proponent of same-sex marriage. It is a preposterous notion. But what many liberal theologians will debate is how much weight we should give Paul and Jesus and the Scriptures that record their teachings. Some say Jesus and Paul were products of their times and must be reinterpreted by what we know now. (See what Dan Via, one of the best theologians from a liberal perspective, has to say in Robert A. J. Gagnon, Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views.)
Any serious follower of Jesus must decide how he or she views the Bible: Is it the Word of God? Is it infallible? Inerrant? A guide for life? And if so, what do these words actually mean?
The traditional view of Scripture is that it is the essential guide for truth and reality. Culture does not get to reinterpret it. Instead, the Bible is the ultimate discerner in all matters of life. It is given to us by God so that his people might know how to live life well. Kevin DeYoung writes,
Until fairly recently, Christians of every tradition have assumed the complete trustworthiness and comprehensive truthfulness of Scripture. Holding to the highest view of inspiration—as originated with God himself—was not the invention of any tradition, theologian, or school. It was simply part of what it meant to be a Christian.3
Scripture is the highest authority in all matters of life for the human person. Its claim is to be the surest knowledge available for life. The apostle Paul brings this point home:
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16–17
In the Scriptures, we can find God’s will for human sexuality. To follow Jesus is to take his view on sexuality, marriage, and relationships. His point of view is not outdated. It is simply right. No one gets to come to the Scriptures with his or her own demands. Scripture has its demands. As it relates to sexuality, Scripture is crystal clear.
Its view on sexuality, marriage, and purity are not popular today. But we can’t change Scripture because it isn’t culturally palatable. We are the ones who need to change.
Knowledge Matters
Imagine that you wanted to jump out of a plane with a parachute. The first thing you would do is research parachutes, get some practical training, and find places where you could do this activity safely. Once you felt confident that you knew what you were getting into, you would probably make a phone call and sign up to act on what you decided was safe to do. This is a step based on belief. You haven’t done anything yet, but you have the information, it seems reliable, and you are prepared to act on it. Once you go through your training and your instructors think you are ready, you will need to get in the airplane, wait for it to reach the proper altitude, open the door, and do the insane thing: jump. This is called faith. You have gathered the information, done the training, and now you are relying on what you have learned should happen. Once you jump, there is no turning back. If all goes well, the parachute will open and you will land safely. The experience will be like none other.
Today, we need people who will take the truth of Scripture concerning homosexuality and apply it to their lives. We need people not only with faith but also with knowledge.
Plenty of people have an opinion about homosexuality, informed or not. And we have good people who have faith in the Scriptures, who believe what it says concerning sexuality. This is important. But the people we need to hear from are men and women who struggle with same-sex attraction and who also have knowledge of what God can do in and through the person of Jesus Christ.
One of the primary reasons that I am writing this book with Adam is that I have knowledge of the gospel and what it can do for the sexual sinner. This is not just abstract theory for me. I have learned what it means to live with such a struggle and have found Jesus’ life and mercy in the midst of it. I have knowledge of the goodness of living in the demands, constraints, and liberty of Christian sexuality. Such people with knowledge can stand in the public square and with compassion, integrity, and conviction declare the good news of the gospel. They aren’t only sharing an opinion but also reality. They are sharing knowledge of the way things should be and can be.
Just Because It’s Difficult
I have been walking out my salvation for close to two decades, and I cannot tell you how many same-sex strugglers have simply quit fighting and decided to embrace their gay identity. For many, this seems to make the case that Christianity has very little to say to those struggling with their sexual identity. This simply is not true.
Dallas Willard writes, “To undertake the disciplines was to take our activities—our lives—seriously and to suppose that the following of Christ was at least as big a challenge as playing the violin or jogging.”4 I think many men and women who struggle with same-sex attraction conclude that because the struggle is so hard, God must not want them to continue resisting. Such a conclusion is about as far from historical Christianity as one can get. C. S. Lewis helps us see what Christ is up to:
The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”5
It is hard to walk with the reality of the same-sex struggle. But that is exactly the point. Each person who seeks to follow Jesus, if they actually try to do it, will find it quite hard. The demands of the gospel are harsh: Anyone who would follow him must die to self—that is, to their self-desire, their self-will. So the notion that the gospel doesn’t work for those who struggle with same-sex desire is simply not true. There are countless examples of men and women who have managed their brokenness and had great victory, even in the midst of great struggle and pain. Truth be told, it doesn’t work if you’re not willing to take the medicine. The medicine is strong. The cure is costly. But make no mistake: What Christ did on the cross works for every man and woman—no matter the ailment.
Conclusion
The church is made up of sinners. But this does not make the church’s voice invalid. The church must engage the culture with humility and truth. Certainly a huge cultural shift is occurring in the world today. The church’s voice on a traditional view of sexuality is being shut out for what many assert to be a more palatable reality. This is unfortunate, but it is true. The church must return to its biblical foundations, unafraid to proclaim the good, hard news of the gospel. What we share from Scripture isn’t a bunch of opinions. It is God’s Word to us. And as those with same-sex struggles—who have met Jesus in their brokenness—proclaim what Jesus has done for them, the church will find that it does have a voice in the public square.