GAY TRUTH

A couple of months ago, I began responding to a couple of popular arguments for why some believe that homosexuality is reconcilable with Christianity. My hope was (and still is) that I might be able to serve those who are mistaken in this regard by helping them to see that faith in Jesus and His Word cannot be reconciled with attempts to legitimize homosexuality. I had addressed the semi-sarcastic objection that we as Christians are inconsistent in condemning homosexuality on the basis of the Levitical law, since we don’t also condemn eating shellfish and mixing fabrics . I also addressed the objection that in condemning homosexuality Christians are being unloving —getting caught up in the details while forgetting that our cardinal Christian virtue is love. If you haven’t read those, I hope you will. But today I want to address another popular argument for reconciling homosexuality with true Christianity. And that is the objection that Jesus Himself never said a word about homosexu

Are you aware of how the apostle Paul ’s logic goes against the cultural logic of his day and ours: What we desire or do sexually is not who we are. When Paul addresses a catalog of sins in the Corinthian church, including “the sexually immoral” and “men who practice homosexuality,” he says—with emphasis on the past tense—“And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God ” (1 Cor. 6:11, ESV ).  Today many Christians interpret that process of repentance (metanoia) through the framework of sexual identity categories, as if the decisive change is one of sexual orientation rather than conformity to the image of Christ . What matters is not whether a person can boast of being an “ ex-gay ”—a bizarre appellation—but whether, after undergoing burial and resurrection with Christ, he or she “[walks] in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4, ESV). The gay self—and its binary opposite, the straight