Homosexuals and Homosexuals
Romans 1:18-32 has a central agenda: to proclaim the Gentile world under God’s just condemnation for its sin. But that central concern is part of a larger purpose. It underscores human unfaithfulness as a startling contrast to God’s faithfulness. He purposed to bring his creation to final glory and righteousness in a “last Adam” (Jesus Christ—a purpose he began to execute in Genesis 1) and he wouldn’t walk away from it despite the human family’s treachery.
Whether
we like it or not part of God’s redeeming of the human family and
bringing it to glory is his giving it over to wallowing in its sins and
in the long (but not exhaustive) list of sins is homosexuality.
People simply have to work too hard to get around Romans 1 when they
insist that homosexuality is just as pleasing to God as honourable
heterosexuality. When we reduce human sexuality to mere animal passion
we’ve taken leave of the Bible—as we do when we reduce anything to the mere mechanical or physical.
Homosexuality
is not only our sin it is the mark of God’s judgment on a more broadly
sinful human family; it is only one of the ulcers that breaks out on the
body of the human family and tells us that down below there is a
systemic infection.
The
redemptive judgment of God and human sin go hand in hand and is a very
complex matter though it isn’t obscure. Where it appears obscure it’s complex
and its great complexity is what overwhelms us. It’s hardly worth
saying that we can’t get to the bottom of it because we’re simply not up
to it—intellectually or morally—but patient and obedient and prayerful
reflection will bring us a lot of truth and deliver us from much
ignorance.
I don’t believe the judgment of God is arbitrary.
I believe he has taught us about his character and the manner in which
he relates to the human family and we must keep that in mind as a
guideline as we draw conclusions.
As
a general truth, I don’t believe that God wakes in the morning (so to
speak) and decides to kill this or that person, maim this or that
person, send this or that calamity though I accept that he may on
occasion choose to do so (Sodom, Nadab and Abihu and others). Even on
those occasions there is nothing arbitrary about the judgment. He has
set in motion and maintains a stream of judgment against sin (Genesis 3)
that engulfs the human family (the innocent as well as the guilty).
I
know of children born with horrendous physical/mental disabilities and I
have no reason to doubt that some children are born with their sexual
wiring all shot to pieces.
I
see no wrong at all in “gender reassignment” surgery where that is the
case and where the patient means to live honourably in the role to which
their inner structure points. [Click
for a little more.] We’re happy that a child born with major organs on
the outside of its body can have surgery to fix the situation and I
think where the case is genuine we should be happy too for those who
have surgery to fix the “gender situation”.
I’ve
no reason to doubt that there are some born with the make-up that when
it is developed hungers for sexual experience with persons of the same
sex. I think this is the outworking of humanity’s rebellion under God’s redemptive judgment. I think the same is true of the terrible abnormalities we hear about every day. I don’t mean
that this is God punishing those individuals or that God arbitrarily
chooses to maim or warp these specific individuals. [The matter of human
interdependence counts heavily here.]
But
the reality of a given condition doesn’t determine that the condition
should be accepted as “normal”. Much less does it mean that conduct
stemming from such a condition (say, homosexual “wiring”) should be
regarded as “normal” or “acceptable”. A baby with an entire intestinal
tract on the outside of its body is not regarded as “normal” though it
is very real. We work to heal that situation.
I
don’t know enough about the inner workings of a human in relation to
genetic predisposition and environment to speak with complete
certainty—of course! Nor does anyone else I know about! But
I do know that those who have a profound addiction to prey on
children—however we are to explain their condition—are not to be
regarded as normal and certainly their behaviour is not be thought of as
acceptable. The
drive may be real but it must be resisted. It must be resisted no
matter how difficult that resistance is. God is able to take into
account all varying degrees of power to resist and he will judge
righteously. Heterosexual
people (apparently) are born with varying degrees of sexual hunger that
range all the way from none to profound addiction. [It seems certain
that environment would strengthen or weaken the predisposition.] This
would mean that some people are more severely tested in this area than
others. Some people will never commit sexual adultery because they don’t
have it in them. [Where that is the case the person might rightly be
happy at the abstinence but there'd be little point in bragging on it.]
There are others whose sexual appetite is very pronounced but they won’t
commit adultery because they simply refuse to do it. [The elements
involved in that great refusal are no doubt many. It’d be easy to come
up with a long list of them that would be perfectly sensible. For
example, does the spouse see to it that the other is fully satisfied, do
they have other honourable hungers that balance the sexual need? And so
forth.]
The
point I want to make here is this: it isn’t only homosexual people who
have drives that must be controlled—they are not the only people under
stress and they mustn’t think of themselves in that way; mustn't see
themselves as the only "victims" of a very powerful drive.
It’s
true that heterosexual people have avenues of satisfaction that are not
open to some (most?) homosexual people. That is, heterosexual people
can honourably satisfy their sexual hunger. That’s true, but it isn’t
true for all heterosexual people. Most Christians (I suspect) would say
that full sexual experience is to be enjoyed only between husband and
wife; at least that is the standard by which they seek to live and that
is often a severe test for single people—but hosts of them live up to
it. Then
there are those who due to health reasons aren’t able to cherish and
enjoy one another in the sexual way; they too are faced with living
without sexual satisfaction.
All of this to say: the
existence of the hunger doesn’t give us the liberty to satisfy it if
the means of satisfaction is dishonourable in the sight of God. [Of course, for those who care nothing about God there is nothing to be discussed. Everything goes—bestiality included.]
What, then, of a person with very strong homosexual drives who wants to be a Christian? They certainly can be!
But in my view, as I understand the Hebrew—Christian scriptures, they
must wrestle against the urge to do the wrong and pursue with honour the
life God is calling us all to. They must do that in the same way others
who go hungry must do it. Those who are left without sexual
satisfaction and who feel the deep hunger for it (hetero or homosexual)
must learn to live without it.
“Yes, but that’s easy for heterosexuals to say!”
Is it? Hmmm. You
understand that most of the above infuriates many homosexual activists.
They resent being told they’re “wired up” wrong. They vehemently insist
that homosexuality is a choice with them. I don’t doubt for a moment
that that’s true for that particular group and I think Romans 1 comes
right home at this point. Then there would be many homosexuals who would
say that they were born homosexual but that it's not a matter of "wrong
wiring" and that humans don't come in just one "flavour". They think it
is as normal as maleness and femaleness, as the variation in ethnic
groups. I can't share that view and think however we explain its precise
development that homosexuality is one of the markers (along with
adultery and other moral wrongs) of humanity's alienation from the God
who cares for all of us.
I’m
more concerned at this point with those who are burdened with hungers
they didn’t seek, hungers they don’t approve and who are struggling with
little help or understanding from the rest of us. At the end of the
movie Streets of Philadelphia we have Neil Young’s song in which the homosexual character makes this appeal. To Philadelphia he says:
City of brotherly love
Place I call home
Don’t turn your back on me
I don’t want to be alone.
I
find that appeal profoundly moving and I can’t help thinking that there
are those battling a great battle who long to acknowledge the City of God as
their home and they ask us not to turn our backs on them but to join
them in the great enterprise instead of holding them at arm’s length.
Heterosexual sexual sinners—though not always and everywhere—get a lot
of sympathy and compassion. Homosexuals get…?
I’m open to criticism on this—write me if you wish.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.
Note from Gary...
Jim's take on this subject is his own; I prefer to let Romans Chapter 1 just speak for its self. After being exposed to this chapter, there is a choice to be made- Shall I continue in practising this sin??? I pray those involved in this sin will make the right choice and stop sinning because of God's love for them.