Tonight, our life group skipped our normal routine to watch a documentary purportedly on the relationship between homosexuality and religion called For the Bible Tells Me So However, the documentary was actually on the relationship between homosexuality and the conservative/fundamentalist “Christian right.”

Basically, the title calls to mind the song Jesus Loves Me (which should communicate that God loves us) in contrast to the words of those who would claim homosexuality is an “abomination” simply because “the Bible tells me so.”

Since I have already written a few articles on the topic, I won’t take the time to rehash my position. However, I need to make a couple comments.

The major claims of the film were these:

1. The Bible doesn’t actually oppose homosexuality.
2. Sexual orientation is an inborn condition and cannot be changed.
3. Love and sex go together.
4. Opponents of homosexuality are dangerous to society and should be stopped.

Let me briefly address these claims:

1. “The Bible doesn’t actually oppose homosexuality.”

Basically, the full claim from the movie is that the passages in the Bible addressing homosexuality are not relevant for today because they have been mistranslated, misunderstood, or misapplied. However, I could make the same claim about the way the documentary dealt with the Bible. It’s always possible to reshape the text of the Bible to support a person’s convictions, but there’s one biblical truth that overshadows them all: People are helpless sinners, ignorant of God and his will, and we need the forgiveness and restoration made possible by Jesus’ death on the cross. Our propensity to sin will always lead us to reinterpret what we read in the direction of our greatest comfort. Therefore, the best course of action is the one which involves the least amount of “interpretation” possible.

2. “Sexual orientation is inborn and can’t be changed.”

I partially agree with this statement. I agree that humans have many different temptations. I agree that some people are tempted by drink, some by drugs, some by power, some by heterosexual relations, and some by homosexual relations. I also believe that a person’s predominant temptations are unlikely to change throughout life.

However, regardless of the style or intensity of temptation, we can resist. We are not animals.

3. “Love and sex go together.”

Our society has blended love and sex so closely as to make them indistinguishable (sometimes). Our culture will allow for sex without love (among consenting adults) but can’t imagine love without sex.

Of course, it does not need to be this way, and in fact, it should not be. I find it dangerous to connect the two closely. Many women have fallen for the guy’s request “if you love me, you’ll sleep with me.”

4. “Opponents to homosexuality are dangerous and should be stopped.”

Of course, this is the sentence that scares me the most because it’s easy to replace words:

• Opponents of the President are dangerous and should be stopped.
• Opponents of Free Speech are dangerous and should be stopped.
• Opponents of secular humanism are dangerous and should be stopped.

It scares me because it characterizes me as a member of a class that is dangerous as a whole. It scares me because it labels me as someone worth discriminating against.

Conclusion

I wish this post were more articulate and more carefully written, but I want to get my response out now so the conversation can flow more quickly.

Have any of you seen the film? What did you think?

The victim was a young man who had tried unsuccessfully to “recover” from homosexuality through the counseling and support of a religious group called Regenesis. One of the supporters of the organization was a local doctor who had been promoting research that homosexuality was a reversible condition.

Along the way, the show took a few cheap shots at moral conservatives. Here are the two things that offended me the most:

1. They connected the concepts of “Regenesis” and homosexual “recovery” to the attitudes of the vicious anti-gay religious protesters such as the infamous “God Hates Fags” pastor Fred Phelps. In so doing, they were trying to say that whether your methods are “acceptable” or not, a negative perspective of homosexuality in any sense is “unacceptable.” It’s the basic TV belief that tolerance is paramount (of course, the exception to this rule is that we must be intolerant of the intolerant).
2. They directly attacked the efforts (not the research or the results as much) of the homosexual recovery agencies. In fact, they basically said that it was stupid for anyone to think a homosexual could “change.” I think they presented the “Regenesis” group in a good light but then quickly tore them down as being just as unaccepting, bigoted, and irrational as the Fred Phelps types.

I’m offended by these things because I feel they are dealing with a religious / moral issue as if it were a rational one. They are downplaying the heart of love many Christians have for homosexuals if it is ever combined with a belief that homosexuality is, as the Bible claims, an unnatural behavior. They are basically saying that people have to be idiots, bigots, or something worse to think that homosexuals can change or even control themselves.

I for one, have a higher view of both God and people than that. Yes, I unashamedly believe that people can change. I am a sin-aholic. My body is addicted to so many sins that I can’t even get into it all here. But I am undoubtedly addicted to sin. However, an amazing thing is true for me. My love for God oftens outpaces my desire to sin. There have been times in my life when I have been strongly tempted to sin but have instead resisted and claimed the promise God gives me—resist the devil and he will flee from you!

My point is simply this: We are all sinners. Each of us struggles with different sins with different levels of consequences in this present world. So what if the jury is still out on the present-day consequences of homosexual behavior? The jury is still out on the present-day consequences of coveting too! But that’s why God didn’t tell us to decide these things based on a jury. He’s simply told us what he wants, and we need to find our place in his will as we are set free from sin by the power of the cross and bound to righteousness by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

I’d love to hear your comments on this one. Is there recovery for homosexual people? Do you know anyone? Have you experienced it yourself? Please write some thoughts and help me make this blog entry a helpful one for others too.

1. What is Scripture’s major theme and purpose?
2. How would you defend the authority of Scripture?
3. Where do you stand on the inerrancy of Scripture? Why?
4. What were the standards followed to develop the canon of Scripture?
5. Explain and defend your view of the Trinity.
6. How do you understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit and His gifts in the church today?
7. What are the conditions of salvation? (believe? repent? confess? surrender? subsequent obedience?)
8. Assurance of salvation: Can I lose my salvation if I continue to sin?
   How can someone know with confidence that he or she is a Christian?
9. What is your understanding of church government? (a) Can women be elders in your church? Why or why not? (b) Does the pastor have a greater authority than other leadership positions? (c) What are the functions and qualifications for your leaders?
10. Support the ministry priorities of your church from Scripture.
11. Under what conditions would you discipline someone from your church? How?
12. Which is more important: numerical growth in your church or the spiritual growth of the people you already have coming? If your church grows, how will you insure the spiritual growth of your people? In other words, how do you understand the process of sanctification?
13. Eschatology: What is your basic understanding of end times and how central will issues
    related to end times be to your ministry?
14. Explain and defend the concept of believer’s baptism.
15. What is your theology of stewardship? tithing?
16. What will you require of those wishing to be married under your ministry? Live-ins, divorced.
17. What is Biblically acceptable worship? What is the Biblical basis for contemporary music in worship?
18. What is your position on social issues: abortion, homosexuality, cloning, surrogacy, genetic engineering, war, nuclear weapons, death penalty, feminism, masturbation, use of alcohol, dancing, Halloween, Christmas decor, religious symbols & art, etc.
19. If a person from any of the following groups were to challenge you to show them at least three major differences between what you believe and what they believe, what major differences would you delineate? Mainline Christian denominations, Catholicism, Liberal Christianity, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Scientology, New Age Movement, Occultism, Free Masonry, Eastern Mystics, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam
20. Define and defend the concept of “justification by faith.”
21. How do you determine God’s vision for your church? How will you know it is from God?
22. What is the role and importance of prayer in the planting of a church and seeing lives
    changed?
23. To whom are you accountable? Who has authority over you?
24. Describe the role of God’s sovereignty and human free will in the process of salvation.

It makes me think of the song by U2 called “Grace”

Grace
She takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

Grace
It's a name for a girl
It's also a thought that
Changed the world

And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness
In everything

Grace
She's got the walk
Not on a wrapper on chalk
She's got the time to talk

She travels outside
Of karma, karma
She travels outside
Of karma

When she goes to work
You can hear the strings
Grace finds beauty
In everything

Grace
She carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips
Between her fingertips

She carries a pearl
In perfect condition
What once was hers
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stains

Because grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace finds beauty
In everything

Grace finds goodness
In everything

Grace finds beauty and goodness in everything. More than that. Grace makes beauty out of ugly things!

American Beauty somehow is a story of grace. No one in the story deserved anything. They were all inconceivably messed up, but somehow beauty finds its way into the lives of a couple people and changes them. At the end of the movie, the husband says that his life is “Great.”

It takes grace to really notice beauty.

The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you. - Deuteronomy 7:7-8a

God saw beauty in people when there was none.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

How hard is it to find beauty in this world? On the one hand, it seems to be very hard. We truly live in messed up times, and sin has done a great deal of damage. I certainly thought that way about the movie. I had completely written off the movie as a glorification of sinfulness and wickedness, but in reality the movie had a very beautiful aspect to it that I never would have known if I hadn’t taken a closer look.

In fact, that’s the subtitle of the movie: “Look Closer.”

On the other hand, beauty is all around us and it is rather easy to see it. I see beauty in the faces of my wife and kids. I see beauty in the leaves on the trees. But that’s not the kind of beauty that matters most to God. God, in his grace, sees the beauty that lies just beneath the sinful surface. He sees beauty in every person. He sees the beauty that I don’t see and frankly don’t want to see.

That’s the kind of beauty that is the most difficult for us to see. It’s the beauty of other people. I will admit that I am one critical individual. If you are feeling good about yourself, spend a few minutes with me and I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with half a dozen things that are wrong with you. (I’m sure you’d do the same for me.) But people are beautiful. How beautiful? So beautiful that Jesus would die for us.

What does he see in us?

For my part, whatever he sees in you, I want to see it too. I guess I’ll just have to look closer. I guess I’ll have to look through the eyes of grace. I want to see your beauty.

Actually, I wasn’t able to give it the time it deserves in the brief message or two I was able to address it, so I thought I would go into a little more detail here on my blog.

During my senior year of college, one of my best friends sat me down to talk with me one night. I listened to him tell me how that he had struggled his whole life with a strange desire to be with other men. He flirted with girls and dated a lot, but never wanted to get close to any of them. Instead, he always wanted to be close with another guy. He confessed to me that night that he was a homosexual.

Within the next five years of my life, four other friends of mine shared the same basic story with me. I was regularly heartbroken to hear the stories about the struggles my friends had with their feelings, their desires to do what is right, and in one case a strong belief that God hated him.

I’ve spoken with men dealing with homosexuality. I’ve cried with them. I’ve engaged them on deeply spiritual issues.

I’ve also read books about it, done research, and cried some on my own. I’m not fully qualified to give the world’s best answer to this issue. But it is on my heart, and I think I have something worthwhile to say anyway.

What’s the authority?

When it comes to the issue of homosexuality, we have to realize that apart from some spiritual authority, there is almost no practical way that any discussion can be anything more than the sharing of opinions. However, we also have to realize that among those who accept the Bible as their spiritual authority, there are differing points of view. What I want to do is approach the issue from two sides to do justice to both arguments.

Before I do, though, I want to say that I will not be wasting my time trying to refute the extremists. I completely disagree with the fellow who runs the “God Hates Fags” website and “ministry.” However, I also completely disagree with the majority of the homosexual lobby. There are clearly extremes on both sides of the issue, but there are also people who are really trying to find some middle ground. Those are the people I want to address.

Two Approaches to the Bible

On the one side of the argument, you have people who believe that the Bible clearly teaches a prohibition against homosexuality. Not only is this the most traditional view of the teaching of the Bible, but it is also the one that seems to take the Bible with the more “literal” of interpretations. Here are the key points they generally make:

• The Bible clearly outlaws all forms of sexual interaction except for that between a husband and a wife.
• The key passages relating to this are Leviticus 18:22-23 and Romans 1:26-27 where sexual relationships between men and men are put in parallel to sexual relationships between women and animals.

However, there are those who argue that the Bible makes room for those who practice homosexual monogamy akin to heterosexual monogamy. Usually, their reasons are these:

• There is no passage in the Bible that talks about wholesome, loving, monogamous homosexuality.
• Sexual orientation is not chosen. Your sexual orientation is just who you are. Therefore, homosexuals are “naturally” homosexual. When Paul mentions homosexuality, he was talking about either temple prostitution or pedophilia or perhaps heterosexual men having sexual relations with other heterosexual men. Two heterosexual men engaging in sexual activity would be acting “against their nature” but two homosexual men doing so would be acting in accord with their nature.

Now, I can understand the approach of those who believe homosexuality should be accepted; but I cannot agree with their conclusions. In fact, I feel that their arguments in support of the acceptance of modern day homosexuality are weak for the following reasons.

• Homosexual monogamy is not discussed in the Bible because God never addressed homosexual love from a “relationship” or “commitment” aspect. God only addressed the physical sexual act. In fact, there is never any prohibition in the Bible about men loving other men. The prohibition is focused on the physical act.
• Homosexuality, however powerful of an innate feeling it may be, is not natural according to either God’s design in Creation or God’s revealed will for human beings.
• Loving, homosexual monogamy is largely a myth. There are exceptions to this, but the majority of homosexuality is practiced with high levels of promiscuity.

What is love?

Homosexuality is not an easy issue to deal with today because there is no doubt that the people who call themselves homosexual have strong internal feelings that they have experienced in most cases “all their lives.” Additionally, they often have discovered those feelings most profoundly in the relationship with one key individual who has sparked a real sense of love within them. There can be no denying their sexual urges or their feelings of love. Therefore, if God is love, and if “that’s the way he made them,” shouldn’t they be allowed to live out that love? Why would God be so cruel as to give them desires that can never be lived out? As a result of that kind of thinking, a large number of people who believe in the Bible want to warmly accept homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle, and those are the people who seem to be showing the most love—those are the people who seem to be “acting Christianly.”

Is that really love, though? Let me give an extreme example to illustrate my point. Every individual on earth has extremely powerful urges within them to drink. The infant’s first experience of love comes from drinking her mother’s milk. Thirst is more powerful than hunger. There can be no denying that the urge to drink is powerful and universal.

However, there are some people in this world who have extremely powerful urges within them to consume alcohol as that drink. There are powerful biological forces that are driving them to pursue the buzz brought on by alcohol. They have great friendships that have developed around alcohol. However, it is ruining their lives. Take a person like that, and it isn’t hard to imagine that those who love that person the most are also the ones who will confront him with the inappropriateness of his behavior and maybe even stage an “intervention.” Through counseling and support, that person may be able to defeat the biological urges and even the memory of past experiences for the sake of greater good.

Likewise, one might say that all human beings have a powerful internal drive to experience sex. The problem is that while most people have their sexual drive attuned to members of the opposite gender, there are some who feel that attraction toward members of the same gender. If the analogy with alcoholism holds, then those who most love the homosexual will be the ones to confront the homosexual with the inappropriateness of his behavior.

So then, does the analogy with alcoholism hold? In order for the analogy to hold, two things must be true:

1. Homosexuality must be an unnatural and damaging behavior.
2. Homosexuality must be a mindset that can be controlled or at least managed.

Homosexuality is unnatural and damaging

Regarding #1, the clearest teaching of the Bible is that homosexual behavior is both unnatural and damaging—Romans 1:26-27 & 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul argues that those who engage in homosexual activity (again note that it is not those who are tempted with homosexual feelings, but those who become “offenders” by indulging those feelings) will not enter the kingdom of heaven. That’s a pretty strong claim. Of course, those who use this verse to point fingers at homosexuals should be sure to read the context where Paul also says that greed, slander, and drunkenness are also things that will disqualify a person from heaven!

Now, there are those who will say that homosexuality as practiced today is “natural” and “wholesome;” however, if the Creator calls it unnatural, then it’s unnatural, and if it might land someone in eternal punishment, that seems to be damaging. If nothing else, doing something that is outside of God’s will is clearly going to be something that causes spiritual damage to a person’s soul.

Homosexuality can be controlled or modified

Regarding #2, all sexual behavior can be controlled. Ascetic monks, of course have been doing it for centuries, but throughout human history, there are countless examples of men and women who have restrained themselves from indulging their sexual desires until their wedding dates or in fact for their whole lives. Controlling sexual behavior is clearly possible. This does not guarantee that the desires can ever be changed although there is a significant body of evidence developing that supports both the claim that homosexuality is not based in biology alone but also in environmental and social aspects of a person’s early childhood and also the claim that homosexual tendencies can actually be lessened or even reversed through sensitive psychological counseling! There are a number of well-documented cases where just such a reversal has taken place.

If I had the time, I would review my old research and do new research to grab some of the best cases and make them available here, but a quick Google search should reveal a number. Try looking up “testimony of a former homosexual” and see what that gets you. You might also want to check out Focus on the Family to see the research they have on the topic.

As it stands now, these are just my thoughts on the matter. I don’t have an academic paper to which I can refer you, but I do have the Bible and my own logical thinking. I’d love to interact with you about this more. Just post a comment below, and let’s start the conversation.