Answer to someone who has written to this website for help with thinking about homosexuality

Hello XXX,

Thank you again for your email asking about homosexuality. Your main worry seems to be that if people are born like that how can we (or more importantly - God) blame them.

First, let’s be clear that there is no scientific evidence for the idea that people are born with homosexual tendencies. In fact, the gay community wants to deny that anyone is born like it. They want it to be understood as a life-style choice.  Your observations of the 5 year old boy are interesting but worthy of comment. It depends what you mean that you saw in him. Young boys often go through stages when they prefer men. I have seen it in my own male children and grandchildren. It is a well known fact.  If you mean that he shows female type interests, that is not unusual either, but it does not indicate a homosexual predilection. Within the normal range of sexuality there can be more-feminine type men and more-masculine type women. There can even be people who are hardly sexual at all. None of this indicates a homosexual tendency. I do accept however, that some men become homosexual because they had no loving relationship with their father. But that doesn’t make it right to practise it as a way of life if God says that is wrong. We all suffer from inherited or acquired faults but ought not just give in to them. 

But, second, let’s examine you basic tenet – that if someone is born with a tendency of some sort they cannot be blamed for being like it or exercising it. Or that God will therefore consider it to be OK to live that way? Well, let’s suppose that someone is born with a tendency to be bad tempered or with criminal propensities. Are we to suppose that that makes it OK for them to live like that? Do we not want them to change? So why should we pick out a supposed innate tendency to be homosexual as all right, but not other things, especially when God speaks so clearly against it? At this point I do want to make clear that a temptation to be homosexual is not in itself sinful. As with so many other temptations, it is giving in and committing the offence (in this case same-sex congenital acts) that makes it sinful. We are all sinners and need God’s forgiveness. It is not our job to judge other people about their sins, that’s God job, but we love them best by warning them of the consequences if they will listen.

After all, it is because we are all born with a tendency to sin, and to live in accordance with it, that Jesus Christ came to die for us, so that we can be forgiven and reconciled to God. (I take it that you do understand that? – if not please email me for further explanation – or follow up many of the articles on my website.) Moreover, the New Testament is full of teaching that shows that God expects us, once we have come to faith in Christ, to change to be more in conformity with the character of Christ. The Bible calls it 'holiness'.That is the purpose of us being saved. We are not to thank God for saving us and then simply go on living the way we did before. We need to change: you do: I do. So I am afraid that your basic principle that being born in any particular way makes it all right to do it, cannot be right. I say again, to make it clear. It is not sinful to have same-sex temptations: it is giving in and committing same-sex acts that is sinful according to the Bible.

Now in 2 Cor.6:9,10 Paul lists a number of lifestyles that will disqualify any person from entering heaven. Notice I did say ‘lifestyle’ because he is not saying that anyone who ever got drunk cannot go to heaven. Any sin can be repented of, forgiven and forgotten by God. But it is the deliberate intention to pursue what is condemned as a way of life that shuts the person out. But notice too that Paul says (in v.11) that although some of the church members he is writing to in Corinth were like that, they have been changed by God as they have repented and sought to live differently. There are people around (even in our churches) who have same-sex attractions and are trying to live pure lives, but the way the gay community talks makes it very difficult for them. In Britain the gay community condemns any suggestion that someone might want to be changed from being homosexual.

You also say that you find it difficult to know how to relate to these people because they are ‘good hearted and believe in God’. Well, I am very glad that they are good hearted. I am not suggesting for a moment that a homosexual person must be all bad, through and through. But of course being good hearted is not the way to acceptance with God. Only faith in Christ can put us right with God. Further, you say that some of them believe in God. Which God is it they believe in? Is it some Christian-like god of their own invention, or is it the God of the Bible who has standards of righteousness that require us to be forgiven before we can be reconciled to Him.  Or is it the God of the Bible, but they do not believe that the Bible is the final authority on what we believe and how we live. I know there are many practising homosexuals and lesbians who say they are Christians but see no need to change. But these people either do not accept that the Bible teaches that such behaviour is wrong or that we have misunderstood the Bible, or do not believe that God speaks through the Bible ie that it is not His Word to us. Sometimes people seem to think that the only characteristic of God is his love and that he will put up with anything. But the Bible also describes God as blazingly righteous and holy.

I can understand the difficulties of you work situation. But try to keep your own mind clean: love the homosexuals as people; we can love people without approving of their lifestyle  - Jesus does! Don’t give them the impression that you are in a constant state of judgement of them. Just accept them for who they are. It won’t do them any good to oppose them.

  I hope all this is of some help to you.

  John C.