Maybe you’ve heard the label “gay Christian” and thought that it’s a contradiction. If a person is gay, they can’t be Christian. And if they’re Christian, they should not call themselves gay—even if they experience same-sex attraction.
In this chapter, we will explore several questions that surround the phrase “gay Christians.” Let’s begin with the most basic question: Should nonaffirming same-sex-attracted Christians call themselves gay?
SHOULD SAME-SEX ATTRACTED CHRISTIANS CALL THEMSELVES GAY?
As you recall, in the last chapter I made a distinction between a strong and soft sense of using the term gay. A strong sense refers to one who uses the term gay to describe their core identity, central to who they are, a primary aspect of their existence as a human. I have a hard time seeing how this can be reconciled with the gospel, which shatters and shackles all other identities and submits them to Christ. We are slaves of King Jesus and find our ultimate identity in his death and resurrection (Eph. 2:4–7; cf. Gal. 3:28).
Some people, however, use the term gay in a soft sense of simply describing an aspect of how they experience the world. For instance, I am a straight man. And both my straightness and maleness affect the way I see the world. In the same way, some of my friends are also men, but attracted to the same sex, which adds a very different lens through which they see and experience the world.
So is it okay for them to call themselves “gay Christians”?
This has been a major point of contention among nonaffirming Christians. And to be honest, I’ve gone back and forth on my view. Let me open up a window into my brain to show you how I’ve thought through this question.
On the one hand, I don’t call myself a “straight Christian.” Why then should same-sex attracted Christians call themselves “gay Christians”? We are all just Christians. All other identities have the potential of muffling our primary identity in Christ. The first thing that should follow the phrase “I am” should be “Christian.”
On the other hand, God values diversity and we have all sorts of identities that are good and true and reflect God’s colorful image. Yes, my ultimate identity is in Christ. But I am also a man, an American, and a Dodgers fan—for better or worse. I am a writer, a professor, a husband, and a father. I am a pastor, a scholar, and I like to run, so sometimes I call myself a runner. When I use these labels, I always intend them to be secondary, not primary. They are all part of who I am, not the central core of my existence. These secondary labels simply describe how I experience the world, even though they are all subordinate under my primary identity: “I am in Christ.”
So here’s where I am on this question. If someone uses the term “gay” simply to mean that they are same-sex attracted, then I think it’s fine in itself. It’s simply a true statement about how they experience the world. I don’t think it is necessarily wrong to describe yourself as “gay,” if you are using the term not to speak of your core identity but your unique experience as a same-sex attracted person.
However, I also think it can be confusing and potentially misleading if your audience doesn’t know what you mean by the term and ends up reading into it a connotation you don’t intend. When we use language, we need to consider not just what we mean by our words, but how those words will be understood in the ears of others. That’s just good communication. For instance, if I referred to myself as a “warrior Christian,” this could mean different things to different people. Am I violent? Am I aggressive? Am I going to punch you in your face in the name of Christ? “No, no, I only mean that I did three tours in Iraq for the Marine Corps.” Okay, so maybe I’m not violent or aggressive, just a sacrificial patriot. In any case, the phrase “warrior Christian” will most likely miscommunicate what I am trying to say about myself.
Or more relevantly, when I tell people that I’m “nonaffirming,” this could be terribly misleading too, unless I explain exactly what I mean. It doesn’t mean that I don’t affirm people; it simply means that I don’t affirm the sanctity of same-sex sexual relations. Left unexplained, the word nonaffirming could come off as dehumanizing. Explained, the word means that I love and value all people the same, while maintaining a traditional Christian sexual ethic.
When I lived in Israel, the Jewish believers told me not to call myself a “Christian,” but rather use the term “believer.” I was initially appalled at their hypocrisy—I’m a Christian and everyone in Jerusalem is going to know it! But then they told me why they don’t use the term “Christian.” “When local Jews hear ‘Christian,’ they think back to many years of history when so-called ‘Christians’ killed Jews who didn’t convert to Christianity.” This is why they use the term “believer” instead of “Christian.” It conveys the same thing, only without all the baggage.
In the same way, the term gay may simply mean that a person experiences same-sex attraction, and therefore the label is not inherently wrong. But it also carries the potential of communicating something that the person doesn’t intend. We need to be careful about using labels that could be misleading given their wider cultural meaning.
All in all, I think we need to be sensitive to our audience when we use certain terms—especially terms that mean different things to different people. When my nonaffirming gay Christian friends use the term, I know what they mean, so I don’t bat an eye. But many people don’t know what they mean, and they are likely going to read all sorts of things into the term gay.
Whether or not you use the term gay (to describe yourself or other people), the most important thing is to look past the label to the person who is using it. If you are gay, then make someone get to know you first before they try to stuff you in a box and strap it with a label. People are way too prone to minimizing the diverse and colorful experiences of others.
Since we’ve taken the time to unpack the meaning of gay and examine its nuances, I’m going to use the term gay interchangeably with same-sex attraction for the rest of this book.
IS SAME-SEX ORIENTATION SINFUL?
Another question that often comes up is: is same-sex orientation itself sinful, or just same-sex sexual behavior? And by sinful, I mean a morally culpable sin and not just a product of the fall, like being born blind. A morally culpable sin is a concrete act of disobedience that people need to repent from. Some people say yes, same-sex orientation is a morally culpable sin. For instance, my friend Denny Burk says that same-sex orientation is itself sinful, since the Bible condemns desires that are directed at sinful objects. In his own words:
Homosexual orientation describes one who experiences an enduring sexual attraction to persons of the same-sex [sic]. Because the Bible teaches that it is sinful to have a desire for illicit sex, homosexual orientation is by definition sinful.1
Burk points to several texts to support his view (Matt. 5:27–28; Mark 7:21), but the one that is most pertinent is Romans 1:26–27, which we’ve seen before:
Because of this, God gave them over to passions of dishonor, for even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
According to Burk, this passage shows that “Sexual desire that fixates on the same sex is sinful, and that is why God’s judgment rightly falls on both desires and actions.”2 Therefore, same-sex behavior and same-sex orientation are both sinful.
Denny Burk is a good scholar and has thought through the question of homosexuality quite thoroughly.3 However, I think he is wrong on this question for several reasons.
ROMANS 1:27 DOES NOT REFER TO ORIENTATION
First, we can quickly dismiss Romans 1:27 since it’s not talking about same-sex orientation but same-sex lust. Paul uses a unique phrase in 1:27 (“burned with passion”) that refers to passions that accompany and drive sexual arousal.4 But this phrase is a far cry from what people mean by same-sex orientation today.
THE MEANING OF SAME-SEX ORIENTATION
Second, I don’t think it is accurate to equate what people mean by same-sex orientation to what the Bible says about sexual desire. Same-sex orientation is a general disposition, regardless of whether someone is acting on it or even thinking about.
For instance, when I say that I have an opposite-sex orientation, that means that I am attracted to women. It describes my sexual orientation. Whether I am sleeping or awake, studying or at the beach, I never cease to be heterosexual. I am attracted to females; that is my orientation. This doesn’t mean that I am slobbering around 24/7 wanting to hump every female I see. That would be lust, not attraction.
Put differently, my experienced (conscious) desire to have sex with someone is a narrow part of my opposite-sex orientation, but it doesn’t constitute it. Being heterosexual also doesn’t mean that I am only opposite-sex attracted to my wife. That is not what opposite-sex orientation means. My opposite-sex orientation certainly includes my wife but isn’t limited to my wife. I am opposite-sex attracted to females, although I am in love with and (should only) sexually desire my wife.
Therefore, living in the constant state of opposite-sex orientation is not sinful, even though it is only okay for me to act on that orientation with only one member of the female species. Likewise, living in the constant state of same-sex orientation doesn’t mean that someone is living in a 24/7 state of morally culpable sin. Again, one doesn’t cease to be same-sex oriented when they are sleeping. If it were a morally culpable sin, then they would need to be repenting all throughout the night. So I don’t think that our modern concept of same-sex orientation can be neatly mapped onto the sinful “desires” that the Bible talks about.
SAME-SEX ORIENTATION IS NOT JUST ABOUT SEX
Third, it would be wrong to reduce same-sex orientation to a desire to have sex. As we saw in the last chapter, same-sex orientation refers to a persistent emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attraction to someone of the same sex and includes other non-sexual relational bonds such as “affection between partners, shared goals and values, mutual support, and ongoing commitment.”5 Same-sex orientation is not just about wanting to have sex.
This is a serious confusion of categories that can be quickly solved by actually listening to LGBT people. Being gay doesn’t mean you walk around wanting to have lots of gay sex any more than being straight means that you walk around wanting to have lots of straight sex. Having a same-sex orientation includes a wealth of other virtuous emotions and desires toward members of the same sex; it cannot be narrowly reduced to a volcanic hunger for sex. Same-sex orientation includes a desire for conversational intimacy, same-sex physical touch, emotional bonds, companionship, doing life together, and expressing mutual affection toward members of the same sex. And if all of this sounds “gay” to you, then David and Jonathan really were gay, since I am alluding to 1–2 Samuel.6
David and Jonathan weren’t gay. But they did experience deep-seated, same-sex affection, and nonsexual intimacy toward each other. Same-sex oriented Christians experience similar desires only to a greater degree.
My lesbian friend Julie Rodgers, for instance, describes her same-sex attraction as
an overall draw toward someone of the same sex, which is usually a desire for a deeper level intimacy with those of the same sex. Just like a heterosexual orientation can’t be reduced to a desire for straight sex, a gay orientation can’t be reduced to a desire for gay sex. This longing for intimacy is usually experienced as a desire for nearness, for partnership, for close friendship, rich conversation, and an overall appreciation of beauty.7
Julie goes on to say:
Over the course of the 10,080 minutes that go by in a given week, very few of those minutes (if any at all) are likely comprised of sexual thoughts about other women, and moments when one dwells on those thoughts (lust) are even more rare. In those instances—those rare instances—when one dwells on lustful thoughts, we can all agree that it’s sinful.8
Most gay Christians I know say the same thing. Same-sex attraction is much broader than just a drooling desire for gay sex. Such attraction includes a virtuous desire to be intimate—in the David and Jonathan or Jesus and John sense of the phrase—with people of the same sex.9 I wonder if it’s an athletic, militaristic, MMA, independent, self-made, muscular version of (American) Christianity that has stiff-armed the very idea of two men having an intimate and affectionate relationship with each other without being labeled gay. Maybe, just maybe, straight men can learn a good deal from gay Christian men about what it means to be Christian men, who can say to each other, as David said, “Your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women” (2 Sam. 1:26).
I’ve interacted with several people who disagree with me on this issue, and I think our disagreement comes down to a confusion of categories. When I hear people talk about same-sex orientation or attraction being sinful, and I ask them to describe what they mean by such terms, they almost always describe them as an active desire for sex. But that is not what same-sex orientation means. An active desire for sex may spring from one’s orientation, but it is not the same as their orientation. Again, someone can be same-sex oriented and yet not think about sex during most hours of the day. And if being same-sex oriented is sinful, then what would repentance look like? Every second of every day confessing the sin of your very existence and waiting for God to make you straight? That’s not realistic, biblical, or pastoral.
Repent from illicit sexual desires—yes! But same-sex orientation is not the same as illicit sexual desire.
ROMANS 1 PROHIBITS THE ACTION
Fourth, Romans 1 appears to conflate desire and action. That is, Paul doesn’t seem to view a naked desire apart from a sinful action. (But same-sex attraction can exist without being acted upon.) Notice that when Paul mentions the “passions of dishonor” in 1:26 he immediately explains these desires by describing an action: “for (gar) even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.” Paul is talking about women having sex with women. He doesn’t consider the “passions of dishonor” separate from the act. It is the entire event—the act and the desire that fueled the act—that is considered to be sin.10
Paul is not talking about some sort of orientation that is not acted upon. He’s not talking about Julie’s orientation that still exists when she’s asleep at night or while she’s living the 10,000 minutes during the week where she’s not thinking about sex yet continues to be oriented to the same sex. That is, Paul doesn’t have in mind a general orientation toward members of the same sex: the preconscious, unchosen, unacted-upon orientation of Christ followers. He is describing a sinful act and includes the desire that led to that act. But he doesn’t view the general orientation that’s not acted upon as sin. That’s not what Paul is talking about.
I think this is where James 1:13–14 is helpful: “Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Notice that James distinguishes between a desire and desire that “gives birth to sin.”11 A woman may give birth to a child, but the woman herself is not the child. Likewise, in James’ own words, desire may give birth to sin, but this means that desire itself is not sin.12
Same-sex orientation can be a product of the fall—like blindness—and yet not be a morally culpable sin. Like blindness, one’s orientation might be part of a disordered creation but still contain the positive potential for uniquely seeing the world. And the same is true for gay Christians. For instance, such people often recognize more clearly the deep human need for intimate, same-sex relations. This is something all people need but few people realize. Gay Christians also experience a stronger realization that one’s primary familial identity is in the church and not in one’s nuclear family. The gay Christians I know cling to and celebrate God’s focus on the family, which was reconfigured when Jesus said, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” Believers aren’t just like a family. They are a family. Gay Christians get this and often long for such familial intimacy more than straight Christians.
God could hijack a person’s same-sex attraction and bend it to cultivate a better way of seeing and experiencing the world. Yes—God might just be that sovereign.
HOW SHOULD NONAFFIRMING CHRISTIANS VIEW AFFIRMING CHRISTIANS?
This is by far one of the hardest questions I’ve had to think through as I wrestled with this topic. It’s one thing to weep with those who experience same-sex attraction but think it’s wrong to act on it. But what about those Christians who have studied the Bible and disagree with my interpretation?13 They love Jesus, believe in God’s Word, and yet interpret the passages we’ve looked at differently. They believe that consensual, monogamous, faithful, loving, Christ-centered marriages between same-sex couples can be God-honoring.
This is, perhaps, one of the most pressing ethical questions facing the church today. A couple of decades ago, affirming Christians were a small minority. Today, a growing number of evangelical believers affirm the sanctity of monogamous same-sex unions. My guess is that it won’t be long before nonaffirming Christians will be in the minority. Whether we realize it or not, the evangelical church is on the verge of a catastrophic split. People on both sides of the debate need to think deeply about how they view those on the other side.
Are affirming Christians heretics? Wolves in sheep’s clothing? False prophets? Or is this a secondary issue that believers can disagree on—like keeping the Sabbath and baptism—and still join hands in worship? Does it come down to a simple disagreement on how to interpret a few passages? Or is it a gospel-issue that is a threat to orthodoxy?14
I don’t think I can chisel my answer in stone just yet. I am still working through all the implications of my (ongoing) study, and I am sure I will be thinking through this question for many years to come. To be clear, the more I study the Scriptures, the more I am convinced that the Bible doesn’t sanction same-sex unions. But that doesn’t in itself answer the question about how to relate to those who disagree. So instead of codifying my thoughts on Sinaitic tablets for all to obey, let me offer some conversational reflections that may help you think through this all-important question: How should nonaffirming Christians view their affirming brothers and sisters? And are they brothers and sisters?
It’s important to note that not all affirming Christians are the same. This point seems so obvious that I hesitate even saying it. But I still hear people talk about affirming Christians as if they are all from the same womb. Affirming Christians are not all the same. They may all affirm consensual, monogamous, same-sex relations, but they may have arrived at this view for many different reasons.
I’ve met some people who don’t really care what the Bible says. Experience and science (or a distorted and naive view of science) is their authority. Their Bible is: “Gay people are born gay; therefore, it’s right for them to act on it,” or “It would be unloving to tell a gay person that they can’t act on their desires,” or “If I marry a person of the same sex, God will forgive me, so I’m going to go ahead and do it.”
None of this is Christian logic, and it makes God out to be more of a sexy cheerleader on the sidelines than the King of creation who commands our morality. Before you make a judgment call about affirming Christians, you should find out why they are affirming, since not all affirming Christians ignore the Bible and crown human desire as the lord of right and wrong.
I’ll never forget reading Justin Lee’s account of how he arrived at an affirming position. It blew my socks off. Justin was raised in a healthy, loving, conservative Christian family and has been sold out for Christ since he was young. But when he hit puberty and was overwhelmed by same-sex attraction, he was devastated. He spent night after night, weeping and praying that God would take these desires away. Still, he remained attracted to men. Finally, Justin set out to truly study what the Bible said. He recalls:
If God was calling me to celibacy, I would be celibate, but I needed to be sure. To settle this issue once and for all in my own mind, I had to ignore the half-baked ideas on both sides and go straight to the source—not just a quick perusal of what the Bible had to say, but an honest, prayerful, in-depth study.15
As I read Justin’s testimony, I couldn’t help but wonder how many nonaffirming Christians have had such a humble and open posture toward God’s Word? How many traditionalists have come before God with a clean slate and said: “God, whatever your Word says, I will believe it. I’m going to thoroughly study your Word and see what it actually says about homosexuality. And whatever it says, I will believe—at all cost.”
I know of only a few.
But Justin did this, and he ended up leaning toward an affirming view. I obviously disagree with Justin’s conclusion, but any true Bible-believing Christian should be impressed with his heart and humility.
I don’t actually know Justin, though I hope to meet him someday. The only “Justin” I know is through the words of his book. But from what I can see, it seems like he has a high view of Scripture, submits to its authority, embraces the gospel, and loves Jesus.
Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he’s an impostor. Maybe you are an impostor. Only God knows. I just don’t think it’s healthy to sweep every single affirming Christian under the same rug of heretics that don’t believe the Bible. As I have said before, the debate is not about what the Bible says but what the Bible means.
I know some of my nonaffirming Christian brothers and sisters will disagree. But I still think there is room for dialogue and fellowship with those who hold different views on this topic. Maybe I will change my mind on this. But for now, I want to hold to my biblical convictions and not demonize or condemn everyone who disagrees with me about homosexuality.
WHAT ABOUT 1 CORINTHIANS 5?
Now we come to the million-dollar question: Should we “1-Corinthians-5” gay people from church?
I get really nervous when I see Christians transform whole chapters into verbs. We “Matthew-18-ed” this person and “1-Corinthians-5-ed” that person like some sort of gunslinger from the wild, wild West. We need to make sure we’re paying close attention to the specific situation explained in these chapters so that we don’t rip them out of context, shove them in our guns, and fire them at modern situations that may not reflect what Paul was thinking of.
In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul rebukes the Corinthian church for celebrating an incestuous affair between a son and his stepmother. Paul points out that this is a clear act of sexual immorality, and it is assumed throughout the passage that the person has not repented from it. In fact, the Corinthian church never addressed the sin; instead of confronting the fornicator, they boasted in the act. Paul therefore commands the church, “Expel the wicked person from among you” (1 Cor. 5:12).
Does the same command apply to gay people in the church?
Ah, did you catch it? Hopefully you didn’t answer yes or no to the question. Instead, you should have asked, “What do you mean by ‘gay people’?” After all, the phrase “gay people” includes people who experience same-sex attraction but are not acting on it, or who have engaged in same-sex behavior but are trying to repent from it.
Let’s reword the question: Does 1 Corinthians 5 apply to people who are actively engaging in sexual relations with people of the same sex and have no desire to repent from it?
Now, let’s make sure we understand what is going on in 1 Corinthians 5 before we apply it to people actively engaging in same-sex intercourse. First, this is a local church matter. The church at Corinth had probably twenty to fifty members—real members, not just folks who filled a pew on Sunday morning. The guy who was sleeping with his stepmother is “among” (5:1, 12) the Corinthians in the sense that he was an active part of the local community.
A good friend of mine from church has a daughter who is a lesbian, and my friend was wrestling with the implications of 1 Corinthians 5. Her daughter lives on the other side of the country and is not involved in a church. She has only a vague faith commitment but not a firm desire to follow Christ. “Should we ‘1-Corinthians-5’ her?” my friend asked with tears pooling up in her eyes. What would you say?
As we began talking, I acknowledged that this was a tough question. (And anyone who thinks there’s an easy answer probably hasn’t thought through it very thoroughly.) I then pointed out that if her daughter were actively engaging in a sexual relationship with another female, and if she were a member of our church, and if she publicly claimed to follow Christ, and if she had no desire to repent from her actions, then yes, 1 Corinthians might apply. But since she is not a member of our church—let alone any church—and since it’s not clear that she is even following Christ, I have a hard time applying 1 Corinthians 5 to her situation.
Second, if 1 Corinthians 5 does apply to professing believers who are actively engaging in same-sex relations, then to be consistent, we also need to apply it to everyone “guilty of sexual immorality or greed” and to the “idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler” (1 Cor. 5:11). If we are inconsistent in the values we choose to enforce, we are no better than the Pharisees, who “preach, but do not practice,” who “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” and are “full of hypocrisy” (Matt. 23:3, 24, 28).
So if we “1-Corinthians-5” everyone who is engaging in same-sex relations, then we also need to “1-Corinthians-5” all the greedy, who hoard their wealth and have no concern for the poor; and the revilers, who drop unchristian bombs in blog comments and Facebook posts, and who stab others with dehumanizing words that tear down instead of building up; and the swindlers, who cheat on their taxes and illegally download copyrighted content off the internet.
I am not saying that we leave all the other immoral people alone. Not at all. I am only saying that we need to be consistent and not single out certain sins that we think are worse than others. Jesus condemns few things more harshly than hypocrisy and selective religiosity. So if we are being pharisaical about how we decide which sins to enforce, then maybe somebody should “1-Corinthians-5” us out of the church.
I am still wrestling with the implications of 1 Corinthians 5, and I probably will be for some time. But let me be clear: If God’s Word is inspired and authoritative, and if greed, reviling, drunkenness, and sexual immorality (including same-sex relations) are sin, and if someone is engaging in these behaviors and doesn’t have desire to repent, and if your church agrees with all of these things (it’s not just one person’s opinion but is shared by the leaders of the church), then yes, in the context of love and tears and truth: the perpetually unrepentant greedy, revilers, drunks, and sexually immoral who claim to be a Jesus-follower should be “put out of your fellowship” (1 Cor. 5:2).
Even as I say those words, it feels unloving and sends chills up my spine. But even more unloving would be to cherry-pick verses from the Bible that feel right to us and ignore the rest that don’t feel loving to us. To think you are loving your neighbor without first loving God and obeying his Word is to mock the Creator’s will and scoff at true love. If we are the ultimate judges of what is right and wrong, and if we think we have a better, more updated understanding of what love is, then we are doing nothing more than replicating the sin of Eden and becoming our own moral authority—determining what is right and wrong. And God help us all.