LIE: People with same-sex attractions are rebellious, are mistakes and are rejected by God

Lie:      People with same-sex attractions are rebellious, are mistakes and are rejected by God.

Truth: People with same-sex attractions are not rejected by God and may be modern-day eunuchs.

God made every human being on earth as a unique masterpiece – no two of us are alike. We differ in so many ways: in our outward appearance, our personality, our likes and dislikes, our health conditions and more. That said, most of us still have two eyes, a nose and a mouth – though a few of us do not. Also, most of us are born and develop in a generally healthy way – we learn to crawl, walk, and then run, but yet a few of us don’t, (and more than a few in some parts of the world). And most of us are clearly born as a boy or a girl, yet (surprise!) some of us are not. We call these babies hermaphrodites or now, ‘intersex’ (those who have characteristics of both male and female organs, genitalia or chromosomes).

These exceptions are a reality in our world; no one would dispute this. But let me go one step farther: most of us grow up with an opposite-sex attraction, but (again, surprise!) some of us do not. Some can only remember – even from childhood – having a same-sex attraction or little to no sexual attraction at all. This also is a reality in our world, yet for too long, the church has tried to either deny or ignore this fact and in the process of that denial many who are caught in this struggle either lose their faith, reject the church or God or both and, desperate for understanding and acceptance, choose to receive the false ‘acceptance’ of the world. The church lost this ‘culture war’ in large part because we refused to deal with reality, and instead, insisted that any same-sex attraction was simply and purely a sinful lifestyle choice which must be corrected.

But before I go any further, it’s important to state clearly that the Word teaches that sex between two men or two women is sinful. Marriage between one man and one woman is the only holy and acceptable sex.

We Christians tend to shy away from subjects that we can’t easily classify – subjects that contain no pat answers. Consequently this subject of sexual orientation has languished until now, when we find ourselves in a fight that we can’t avoid. This issue is now splitting the evangelical church. So we need to look at it with fresh eyes and with the truth of God’s word as our foundation.

Let me offer six points that I hope will make you think again about this issue:

1  I believe we as Christians must acknowledge the reality of people whose legitimate and unforced sexual desire is toward the same sex and not condemn them for having such attractions. For too long we have mistreated and rejected these men and women, dismissing, forcing them into a box or a vacuum (no box at all), which God never intended for them. We must repent of our lack of care and compassion for those caught in this struggle.

2  We must also acknowledge the goodness of God’s created order and the truth that God makes no mistakes. Even the hermaphrodite, those now called intersex, is no accident. God grants life to the severely deformed, the Down syndrome child, the blind, the deaf and any number of others considered to be abnormal. Though initially distressing to any parent, most learn to sincerely accept these children as gifts from God. I’ll bring out more on this in points four and five.

3  We must stop classifying people as ‘gay’ or ‘straight.’ We must treat each individual soul with compassion and care, with no prior agenda, believing that God loves each one and has a purpose for their lives. All of us are broken and sinful in strange ways and must come to Jesus Christ for our salvation.

4  We must accept the reality that various environmental factors may be a cause of shifting sexual orientations. Although same-sex orientation has been around since antiquity (though not named as such until recently), many man-made chemical compounds are relatively new. These chemicals shape our environmental landscape and affect our human sex hormones in ways we do not completely understand. One such compound is Bisphenol A (BPA). First developed in 1891 by the Russian chemist A. P. Dianin, it attained commercial use in 1957 in the production of plastics. Its similarity to estrogen was noticed early on, yet it found its way into a variety of consumer packaging. Then in 1997, adverse affects were first noticed in lab animals. BPA has been called an ‘estrogen mimicker’ and has been cited as a possible cause of the feminization of various species and declining fertility rates.

Obviously BPA is not the only man-made compound in our environment that compromises our metabolism and may be causing sexual hormone disruptions; there are likely many others. But in the final analysis, we don’t fully know what is happening. What we do know is, whether as a result of our genes (which are affected by our environment), environmental causes, changing social norms or a mix of all three, something is happening to change the sexual habits and patterns in our culture.

5  We must recover and re-establish the legitimacy and acceptance of those who remain single. Jesus, who was himself never married, taught us the reality of the eunuch:

His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” But He said to them, “All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.” — Matthew 19:10–12

In this statement Jesus affirms that:

Eunuchs, those who either physically cannot marry or choose not to marry, are a reality in our world, and regardless of their origins, need to be properly affirmed as Jesus commanded. And though the origin and identity of those Jesus identified as eunuchs is not fully understood by us, they are apparently identified primarily by the individual him- or herself: ‘. . . the one who is able to accept it, let him accept it.’ But they may, at least in part, be recognized as those who either have same-sex attractions, have no attraction to the opposite sex, have physical traits of both sexes, or have damaged genitalia.

These persons must be affirmed, not as accidents or ‘freaks of nature,’ but as beloved and specially marked by their Creator to be set apart for the kingdom of God. In the passage quoted above, Jesus himself affirms and loves them and sets them apart for himself. Unless the church properly affirms them they remain increasingly vulnerable to the world’s reductive narrative that they must identify as either ‘L-G-B-T or Q.’ How demeaning to be classified by a single letter!

6  We must not capitulate to the LGBTQ agenda, gay marriage or fluid genders. Clearly, God imprinted maleness and femaleness throughout the created order. The anatomical complementarian nature of the animal kingdom in particular, is powerful witness to this essential male-female bond. Male and female, slight variations notwithstanding, is normative and makes possible the reproductive cycle. That male-female bond in the marriage covenant is sacred and any attempt to call same-sex bonds as ‘marriage’ is an empty fantasy. It is not marriage. Marriage cannot be co-opted simply because we want to be ‘fair’ and ‘loving.’ It would be more honest and loving to refuse to give hollow promises to a same-sex couple. And if that same-sex couple get ‘married’ they forfeit the promise and mission that Jesus wants to give each of them.

It’s also not hard to see that at the heart of male and female sits a powerful sexual attraction that God created in the beginning. The variations that we see – and that we must not deny – do not entitle us to reshuffle the whole deck and make everything variable. But we should be careful not to call that variation a mistake. It very well may be that those variations – those who call themselves ‘gay’ or ‘trans’ or ‘queer’ – are the eunuchs who cry out for acceptance. That acceptance is found in Jesus’ personal invitation to seek him and his kingdom.

See also the introduction to this category: Lies attacking our self-understanding.