Christian Living
For all have sinned
It is my concern these days that the church has compromised with God’s standards. This is especially in relation to some Christian’s stance that the homosexual lifestyle is acceptable to God if it is not promiscuous but faithful to one partner. God has put a hedge around sexual relationships, that it has to be between one man and one woman for life. Outside that context, sexual relations are morally wrong.
There are some Christians who deny or downplay this. I am not going to discuss the biblical data but I want to mention that these new interpretations go against Christian teaching throughout the ages, that homosexual practice is a sin and homosexual desires are sinful. A homosexual man lusting after another man is just as guilty before God as a heterosexual married man lusting after a woman other than his wife. Both of them are called to repent of those desires.
Christians who support homosexual practice confined to a monogamous relationship liken this issue to slave trading where the church was supposedly accepting of slave trading but then opposed it. The proponents of changing the church’s view on homosexuality did not mention that the battle about slave trading went in the opposite direction- something that was “thought” right was declared to be wrong. Also, even my previous statement is not entirely accurate. There were voices in the Christian church that decried the practice of slave trading and found it repugnant from the beginning. The church was more silent than accepting of the practice.
My concern is not just the compromise but the reasoning behind this acceptance. To summarize one psychologist- homosexual desires are resistant to change (the American Psychological association have stopped classifying homosexuality as deviant) and that it is not affected by spirituality (a strong Christian can have homosexual desires). Therefore, it should be likened to left-handedness (not a moral issue as long as it is not promiscuous). I have two responses to that.
1. It is naïve to think that a strong Christian conviction makes a person less vulnerable to sinful desires. I know there are Christians who believe that the believer becomes more and more perfect (not sinning). I believe this is inaccurate and could be disproved by honest self-assessment. A strong Christian married man could still be tempted to lust after another woman, for whatever reason. He is called to repent of that sin and bring himself to the God who can help him to be more faithful in his desires. The same is true for the man with homosexual tendencies. He is called to repent of his homosexual desires and to bring himself to the God who can help him be more faithful in his desires. I believe that the sinful tendencies of a Christian does not go away but coexist with new desires put there by the work of the Holy Spirit. What we are called to do is not to redefine sin so as to eliminate guilt, but to live a life of ongoing repentance for our sinful thoughts and actions.
2. Is the American Psychological Association really the standard of what is a mentally healthy human being? I believe this puts another authority above what Christians should consider his highest authority, the bible. In scriptures, humans are made in the image of God and Christians are called to conform to the image of God. That is what moral health is – to be more and more like God. This relates to moral issues- God is faithful in his relationships and the morally healthy man is faithful in his relationships. What does this mean then for the man with homosexual desires? Is the man with homosexual desires conformed to the image of God if he confines his relationship to one other man? My response is that God is humble. He shows that by serving humanity, even those who hate him, to the point of dying on the cross for people who hate him. We are to be humble if we are to reflect God’s image. God says that we are to put hedges around our sexual relationships and to ignore that is an act of pride. It is okay to bring our protest to God (why do I have to abandon my desires? I really love him/her) but we need to be humble about it by submitting and asking God for help. We are not the arbiters of right and wrong, God is). My message to the church is the same thing. BE HUMBLE! Submit to God’s word instead of trying to change it. I know it is hard for many reasons. It is hard for me to submit and sometimes try to justify disobedience to God. But that is wrong and a failure to reflect God’s humility, something to be repented of.
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