Pride and the Fall - is God anti-gay?
Dear Reader,
Of all the tensions between modern ‘progressive’ thinking and the biblical worldview none has been so contentious or has made such an impact on the church and the world as homosexuality and gay rights. Racial and female equality may have opened the door for the social justice movement but it is gay rights that is pushing the Christian faith out of the public sphere and changing the very doctrines of the church itself. From being a criminal offence in 1967 homosexuality has become a ‘protected category’; read from certain passages of the Bible in public and you are likely to be arrested for causing offence, privately teach the traditional Christian message on sex and sexuality and one can be arrested for inciting hatred (as Pastor Latzel of Bremen, Germany discovered last year.) So called ‘conversion therapy’, including prayer, is being criminalised in various countries. From being a shameful act it has become one of Pride, with marches and months all around the world and civic and corporate institutions falling over themselves to applaud it. Within the Church Bishops and denominational leaders are busy re-thinking theology, re-writing doctrine and liturgy and finding ways to ‘bless’ or ‘marry’ those they would formally have anathematised. ‘Love is love,’ it is declared, and ‘love wins.’
Two testaments, one verdict
Why is there such a disconnect between Christianity and gay rights? Christianity supports the outcasts of society and welcomes all into its fold, what is it about homosexuality that makes it such a contentious issue? Since Christian morality is an out working of the love of God, why is this form of love forbidden? Let us look at the Bible’s teaching on the subject and try and find some answers. Homosexuality is condemned in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, the primary passages being Leviticus chapter 18 and chapter 20 and First Corinthians chapter 6 verses 9 - 11
In Leviticus 18 Moses addresses the recently freed Hebrew people, warning them that they must not follow the practices of Egypt, which they have just left, nor adopt the practices of the Canaanites, the land which they are about to conquer with God’s help. It is for their degraded lifestyle that God is going to drive the Canaanites from the land, using the newly constituted nation of Israel as his instrument of judgement. After forbidding sexual relations with close relatives by nature or in law, the chapter ends with edicts against child sacrifice, sex between men and sex with animals. For any offences against these laws the offender is to be cut-off from the people. The chapter not only defends against incestuous relationships that would produce genetic illnesses and abnormalities, it also curtails unrestrained sexual appetites and the formation of abusive and controlling sexual relationships within the family. That sex between men is included with these other offences shows the gravity with which it is viewed. Leviticus chapter 20 goes further and prescibes the capital punishments for these offences, which are to be enacted by the whole community against the offender. The passage in First Corinthians is much shorter but includes men who have sex with men as those who will not inherit the Kingdom of God. The standard of morality expected remains the same, though the method of achieving it has changed from outward legal obedience to an inward transformation wrought by the Holy Spirit. Having seen that there is a continuity in the teaching between the Old and New Testaments, is there anything that Jesus, the pivot between the two covenants says?
Be fruitful and multiply
Jesus did not address the question of men having sex with men directly, it is not recorded as an issue with which He was addressed. When asked about divorce of married partners, he gave a strict interpretation from Genesis chapter 2 about man and woman being united as one flesh and followed it up with a comment that the way of celibacy is for some a better path (Matthew chapter 19, verses 1 - 11.) In other words his attitudes were stricter as regards sexual morality than even Moses. That Jesus went beyond Moses, calling Moses’ ruling on divorce a concession for the Israelites hardness of heart and took his teaching from the earliest chapters of the book of Genesis, to the period before the Fall of Man, is telling. In this matter He requires innocence – as He does in all matters (Matthew 5: 48). We can see from Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 -28 that God made man, male and female, in His own image and blessed them to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’ The very first blessing on man, made in the image of God, is to be fruitful and multiply. Why? Because the first revelation of the nature of God, in whose image we are made, is that He is creative and life-giving. To deny the creative and life-giving nature of ourselves is to deny the image of God in us. We are made to bring life, to be fruitful and multiply, homosexual relations can never achieve that. Homosexuality emasculates men, depriving them of their virility and procreative power, degrading the image of God within them.
The Old Testament describes the Fall of Man and God’s remedies of the worst consequences of that by judgement and the revelation of the Law, while preparing the ground for mankind’s restoration. With the coming of Christ, His death and resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that restoration is put into effect. The purpose of God is now to re-make fallen humanity into the likeness of Christ, the last Adam (2 Cor. 3:18 ‘And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image…’ ). God’s purpose for mankind remains the same, that we should carry the unblemished image of God, being fruitful and life-giving as He is fruitful and life-giving. God’s restoration plan is not an esoteric or mystical matter of the spirit alone, as if we were ancient pagans, gnostics or New Agers. We are created as physical beings and will one day be raised again as physical resurrected beings. We are not bodies carrying a spirit/soul person, we are our bodies and they are being redeemed and transformed as much as our spirit has been reborn and our minds are being renewed. That is why our physical actions are so important. If our sexual orientation is mis-matched to our physical structure it is due either to a problem with our physical development, a problem with our emotional and social development or both; whatever the cause the healing power of God is available to those who seek it.
Gay Orientations increasing
Arguments about despoiling the image of God in man can seem very arcane if one is not a believer in God. Gay rights activists would argue that this position is not only wrong but harmful, that it promulgates prejudice, bigotry and exclusion, causing much stress to homosexuals in society. With over 50 years having passed since the decriminalisation of gay sex and gay rights being almost universally approved and advocated within the western world, let us examine the position. Recent studies have shown that as many as 16%, one in 6, of ‘Generation Z’ (people born from 1997 onwards) identify as LGBT and that the numbers identifying as transgender are rapidly accelerating among the young (Demographic and temporal trends in transgender identities). If homosexuality – and by extension other LBTQ orientations – is sinful, this has major implications not only for the well-being of the individual but for society as a whole.
The Suffering of the LGBT people
Here are some key findings from a Stonewall UK report on LGBT mental health https://www.stonewall.org.uk/lgbt-britain-health :
Half of LGBT people (52 per cent) said they’ve experienced depression in the last year.
One in eight LGBT people aged 18-24 (13 per cent) said they’ve attempted to take their own life in the last year.
Almost half of trans people (46 per cent) have thought about taking their own life in the last year, 31 per cent of LGB people who aren’t trans said the same.
Forty-one per cent of non-binary people said they harmed themselves in the last year compared to 20 per cent of LGBT women and 12 per cent of GBT men.
One in six LGBT people (16 per cent) said they drank alcohol almost every day over the last year.
One in eight LGBT people aged 18-24 (13 per cent) took drugs at least once a month.
And here is a summary of behavioural and physical health disparities between LGBT and heterosexual people LGBT Health Disparities :
Mental Health. LGBT people are at greater risk of:
Suicide and suicidal thoughts
Mood disorders and anxiety
Eating disorders
Alcohol, tobacco, and substance abuse
Physical health. LGBT people are at greater risk for certain conditions, diseases, and infections:
LGBT people are more likely to rate their health as poor and report more chronic conditions.
Lesbian and bisexual women have higher rates of breast cancer, and transgender men and women are at greater risk.
LGBT people have higher rates of HPV infection.
Lesbian and bisexual women may have a higher risk of cervical cancer, and gay and bisexual men may have a higher risk of anal cancer.
LGBT people are more likely to be obese.
Gay and bisexual men are more likely to have HIV/AIDS.
It is clear from these reports that homosexual and other LGBT individuals suffer markedly higher rates of mental and physical ill-health than heterosexual people, are more likely to self-harm and indulge in riskier behaviours. Precise figures are hard to come by and are disputed but to be LGBT could on average cut 12 years from your life expectancy. It seems that fifty years of Gay rights activism has not impacted for the better the lives of LGBT individuals or by extension society as a whole.
The Gospel is sufficient
Looking at reports like those shown above it is easy to understand why modern society wants to ameliorate the suffering of LGBT people, they are in need. The church also should seek to alleviate such suffering, not by denying the Bible and pretending that same sex acts do not matter to God, that would be offensive to Him and lacking in love to our fellow man, but by offering the gospel unashamedly to them. That the terms homosexual and homosexuality are not found in the Bible (they are modern categories, coined in Germany in 1869) cannot be used to pretend the Bible does not speak on the issue. The Bible focuses not on the sexual orientation of the individual but on his or her sexual conduct. It is always the acting out of sinful desires that is the transgression, not the desire itself. Nor can moral guilt cannot be averted by statements that it is an innate drive, any more than a violent psychopath would be excused for his immoral actions – feelings do not justify actions. The Bible condemns the act, that is enough. In the gospel we have the power of God for salvation; in the Word of God we have everything needed for the transformation of the mind, in the person of the Holy Spirit is all the creative and transformative power required for the body and spirit. Let us not be those who know neither the scriptures nor the power of God but be the people of faith we are called to be, holding out our message of reconciliation and healing.
Further reading:
To purchase the book Building Jerusalem
