Gay Christianity Debated

The Forum on Homosexuality in the Church

On behalf of Reformation Montana and our executive board, it is a pleasure to welcome you this evening to the pre-conference bonus of our conference. It is a forum on the topic of homosexuality in the church.

Can you be gay and Christian? We're especially thankful to our speakers, Dr. James White and Justin Lee, for taking time out of your busy schedules to make this possible. We're also thankful to all of you who are in attendance.

Finally, we're thankful to our moderator, Megan Tolles. She is the assistant coach for the Carroll College debate team, a .k .a. the Talking Saints, and she will be serving as our impartial moderator this evening.

Tonight, we will discuss a topic that is of extreme importance and is also a regular topic of conversation in evangelical America and also all throughout the secular world. Dr. James White is the director of Alpha Omega Ministries and the host of the popular radio program, The Dividing Line.

Dr. White is a scholar, author, and Christian apologist. He regularly engages in debates relating to religion around the world and also lecturing at various venues here and abroad. Justin Lee is the director of the Gay Christian Network.

He is also the author of a book about this very topic and other topics relating to it entitled, Torn, Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays versus Christians Debate. Dr. White resides in Arizona, Justin Lee near Raleigh, North Carolina.

Once again, we're thankful for our speakers for being able to make it for their forthcoming presentations and interactions. We have several goals for this evening's debate. The first is that the topic is to be discussed rationally, thoughtfully, respectfully.

Knowing our speakers, I believe we know very well that this will happen. They are respectful and they've promised us they will behave themselves. We know that they will anyway. Secondly, we desire this topic to be discussed honestly.

There is very little real and honest conversation being had on this topic too much of the time. We believe it is discussed through emotions and through shallow slogans. So we desire to come to the conclusion, what does God and his word say about this topic and what should the Christian believe?

And so we're going to ask for the audience participation in respecting the pre-agreed upon format. The moderator and the moderator's instructions to the audience, if it calls for it, and also to engage in a manner that is honest but respectful.

There should be no interruptions. There should be no applause or speaking during the course of tonight's presentation. Also, we would ask that you turn your cell phones off at this time, especially during the Q &A session.

Please ask honest and non-leading questions in a respectful manner. If there's any failure to follow these requests, we may have to ask you to leave. We would also ask that you wait until the forum is completely over before leaving out of respect to our presenters.

If you don't know who Reformation Montana is, we are a group of like-minded churches in Montana and also in surrounding states and the surrounding region. We desire to see God bring a spiritual reformation to the state.

We believe that it's going to be honest discussions and searching the scripture that will allow us, through God's providence, to do this. And so, once again, thank you to both speakers, to our moderator, and you in attendance.

All right, well, we'll begin today's forum with an opening remark from Justin Lee of about 20 minutes.

Justin Lee on Gay Christian Identity and the Need for Respectful Conversation

You may have heard the joke about the Christian who was driving down an old deserted road when he saw a man standing on a bridge getting ready to jump. And he pulled over in a hurry and jumped out of his car and ran up to the man and said, don't jump, don't do it.

And the man said, why? I have nothing left to live for. And the motorist said, well, surely you do. Do you believe in God? The jumper said, well, yes, I do believe in God. And the motorist said, well, so do I.

Listen, what religion are you? What do you believe? And the guy said, well, I'm a Christian. And the motorist said, well, so am I. How about that? Tell me, what denomination of Christian are you? He says, well, I'm a Baptist.

And the motorist says, how about that, so am I. God brought two Baptists together on a bridge. That's something, right? Now, forgive my asking, but what sort of Baptist are you? Are you Northern, Southern, American, Reformed?

He says, well, actually, I belong to this tiny little sect. We're Reformed Carolina Baptists. Nobody's ever heard of us. And he says, get out of town. I'm a Reformed Carolina Baptist. This is unreal. Well, what sort of Reformed Carolina Baptist are you?

Are you Reformed Carolina Baptist Church of God or Reformed Carolina Baptist Church of the Lord? The guy says, well, I'm Reformed Carolina Baptist Church of God. And the motorist says, I cannot believe this.

There are so few of us left. How is it possible that way out here I have met another Reformed Carolina Baptist Church of God member? Call me crazy, but are you Reformed Carolina Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1873 or Reformed Carolina Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1912?

And the guy says, well, I'm Reformed Carolina Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1873. And the motorist says, die, heretic, and pushes him off the bridge. Thank you to the two of you who laughed. I appreciate that.

Sometimes as Christians, we tend to focus a little too much on the issues that divide us, such that we're ready to push one another off the bridge. But at the same time, we can't just gloss over the issues that divide us, because some of them are very important.

Some of them go right to the heart of who we are as Christians, how we read the Bible, what we believe, what we believe about ourselves, about God, about the universe. So, homosexuality is one of those issues where we as Christians often struggle with how we take a firm stand on what we believe is right, without pushing one another off the bridge.

I work for an organization called the Gay Christian Network, which is dedicated to figuring out exactly how we do that on the issue of homosexuality. We are an organization of Christians who disagree with one another on this topic.

And the biggest way, we disagree in a lot of ways, but the biggest way we disagree is on the morality of gay relationships. Just out of curiosity, if I might ask, at the risk of sounding like I'm going to push some of you off the bridge, how many of you would say, I have a suspicion about how this is going to go, how many of you would say, if I ask, that you believe that gay relationships are moral and supported by scripture?

Okay, how many of you would say that you believe that gay relationships are sinful and are condemned by scripture? All right, and how many of you refuse to raise your hands for impertinent speaker's questions?

Thank you, all right. So, in this room, it seems that there is wide agreement on this topic. Within the organization that I run, there is wide disagreement, as there is in our culture at large, as I'm sure many of you know.

And so, this particular debate is something that is sometimes called the Side A, Side B debate, for reasons that I won't get into right now because I only have 20 minutes. But it's a big deal. It's an important question.

I'm sure many of you would agree, this is an important question for us as Christians. And yet, because it's a big deal, we often end up pushing others off the bridge or feeling like others are trying to push us off the bridge, calling us names or whatnot because we disagree with them.

So, within my organization, we have Christians on both sides who are working together to address the human element of the homosexuality debate without glossing over our differences or pushing one another off the bridge.

And my job is to help people on both sides understand those they disagree with. So, for instance, I talk to secular gay audiences to try to help them understand Christian theology. And I talk to straight Christian audiences to try to help them understand the experiences of gay people.

There is one thing that I do not do in my job. I don't do debates. Ever. So, when Jordan called and asked me if I would be willing to come out here to Montana and do a debate on this subject, I said, no thanks, I'm actually not very interested in that.

That's not something I do. I represent this very diverse group of people and I'm not going to take one position and debate it. And he said, well, what if instead of having a debate debate, what if we had a respectful conversation?

Because we'd really like to hear a different voice. And I thought about that and I prayed about that and I said, okay, I will come for a respectful conversation. So, tonight I'm going to try to offer a voice that maybe many of you have not heard.

Before.

Now, homosexuality in the church is a huge issue. There are lots of ways to talk about it. We could talk about what the Bible has to say on the side A, side B debate that I mentioned earlier. I'm not sure that would be the most productive use of our time, since it sounds like at this point everyone or virtually everyone here in the audience has agreed on that topic already.

I know Dr. White has done a five hour podcast on that topic. So, unless you want to stay here for five hours, it might not be the best way for us to use our time. We could talk about gay marriage and the political side of that in America.

We could talk about outreach to gay people outside of the church and what would that look like. But, the topic that we've been given to discuss tonight is, can you be gay and Christian? So, that's what I'm going to focus my remarks on and try not to get too sidetracked into all those other things so that we don't end up being here for hours.

So, can you be gay and Christian? Growing up, my answer to that question was very simple.

No.

Homosexuality is a sin, and as a Christian you shouldn't be living in sin and identifying yourself by sin. And so, I said, no, you can't be gay and Christian. I remember when I was in high school, some students put a poster up in the hall that said, it has come to our attention that there are fags and dykes in this school.

And some other students, in response to that, began circulating a pamphlet that said, we disagree with this poster. We believe that the gay students at this school should be loved and respected. And gay is okay.

Now, my reputation in school at that point was, I was the conservative Southern Baptist kid who was ready to preach to everybody about anything, anytime. And my nickname was Godboy. So, some of my friends came to me and they said, what do you think about this?

Do you agree with the poster? Do you agree with the pamphlet? And I said, you know what, I think that they're both wrong. I don't agree with hate speech as a Christian. I think hate speech is wrong.

But I also don't think gay is okay,.

Because I think the scripture is pretty clear about that. And my friends called that view homophobic. And I said, well, you know, I'm not trying to be homophobic. I don't hate or fear gay people.

I love them the way God loves them,.

And I'm trying to share God's love by sharing that this is not God's best for them. There was one thing I couldn't tell my friends that day. Because I had a secret that I thought was the secret that I would take to my grave.

Not something I would be announcing in front of all of you with this mic that I cannot exactly tell if it's working, but I will assume that it is. But I'll keep shouting at you anyway. The secret I thought I would take to my grave was that when I hit puberty, and all my guy friends started to notice girls for the first time.

You know, started to have all those feelings whenever a girl walked by. I didn't. I hit puberty the same time they did, but I didn't get any of those feelings when a girl walked by. I did get those feelings when a guy walked by.

And as a deeply committed, very conservative Christian, who believed firmly that homosexuality was a sin and a choice, I didn't understand why I was having those feelings. But I thought, you know what, puberty is a confusing time, it's a phase, I'm not going to worry about it, I will grow out of it.

And so I stayed focused on my walk with Christ. As I got older, the feelings only got stronger and stronger. And it got to the point that even if I could do my very best not to think about them, and not to feel anything during the day, I would go home, I would go to sleep at night, and then I would have dreams about guys.

And I would wake up feeling disgusted with myself. But not knowing, how do you control what you dream about? And I started thinking, what is wrong with me? And it got to the point that I was crying myself to sleep night after night, begging God, please do not let me feel these things anymore, please don't let me feel these things anymore.

I considered myself straight. I dated girls. I had a girlfriend, took her to the prom. She's a wonderful Christian girl. And I will never forget the day that I went with her best guy friend to watch one of her gym meets.

She was a gymnast. And we were there, sitting in the stands, watching her, and she was wearing her tight gymnast outfit that hugged every curve of her body. And as we were watching her do her flips and things and gymnasty things, I don't know, I'm not a gymnast, I don't know any of the language, but anyway,.

As we were watching her do this,.

Her best guy friend, who was sitting next to me, just about had drool coming out of his mouth. And he was like, man, you are so lucky to be dating her. Any guy would kill to be dating her. She's so hot.

And all I could think was, I wish I could see what it is that he sees. I wish I could feel what it is he's feeling right now, because I have no idea how to make myself feel that. And I'm trying, and I'm praying, and I'm doing everything I can, and I don't feel it.

Not just not for her, not for any girl. Completely alone, because I felt like this was something I couldn't tell anyone, because they wouldn't understand. And I thought I was the only person in the entire world who had ever experienced this.

It wasn't until I was 18, that I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, and the word gay came up, and it suddenly hit me for the first time ever in my life.

Oh my gosh.

That's what gay means. I'd always thought, when I heard the word gay, I always pictured men in thongs, in pride parades, doing all kinds of sexual things that I would never do as a good Christian kid.

I didn't feel like I had anything in common with gay people. And then suddenly, for the first time, it struck me. Oh, when my friends use the word gay, they mean someone who's attracted to the same sex.

They mean a guy who's attracted to guys. That's what they mean by the word gay. I thought they meant somebody who's doing something sexual, or something... But what they mean by gay is a guy who's attracted to guys.

And I thought, I'm not the only one who's experienced this. There are other people out there, and they're called gay. Now, I want you to understand, when I first used this term, this was not an identity.

People have said to me, well, why would you take that identity on? This was not an identity I was taking on. The way that I saw this was like a diagnosis. It's sort of like if you've ever had a strange medical symptom.

You go to every doctor, and nobody can explain why you're feeling this. Nobody can explain why you're having this weird symptom. And then finally, some doctor says, I know why you're experiencing this.

You're not the only one. There's a name for this. And this is what it's called. And it might be a horrible diagnosis. It might be a horrible disease, but there's some measure of relief in like, oh, there's a word for this.

There's a name for this. I'm not crazy. I'm not the only person to have ever experienced this. Other people know about this thing that I'm experiencing. You feel suddenly less alone. And that's how I felt.

And so I thought, if the diagnosis for the disease that I have is gay, then I have to find the cure. Now let me be clear again. When I'm using the word gay here, I'm using it to mean someone who's attracted to the same sex and not to the opposite sex.

And a lot of Christians will ask me, well, I'm not sure that's what it means. I'm not sure I would use that word for that. And so I'm happy to talk about that a little bit later on. But for now, I just want you to understand that's how I'm using the term, because that's how I was using it then.

I thought, it's time for me to start, if I'm going to get this taken care of and get this cured, I need to talk to my Christian brothers and sisters about this. I don't want to deal with this alone. And so slowly I began to share my story with the Christians I knew in hopes that they would embrace me and help me figure out what to do next, because I had no idea.

And instead, they said things like, Justin, this is something you're choosing. You chose to feel this way. God didn't design you this way, so you must have chosen to feel this way. I say, no, I didn't.

I didn't choose this. I've been trying my whole life not to feel this. I don't know why I feel it. I'm trying to get rid of it, but I haven't figured out how yet. I'm praying about it, but they didn't listen.

Or they would say, Justin, don't you know homosexuality is a sin and man should not lie with man? And I would say, but I'm not lying with anybody. I've never kissed anybody. I've never held anybody's hand.

I have this girlfriend that I've been dating for six months and we haven't kissed because I'm not attracted to her. I certainly haven't kissed a guy, nor do I have any plans to. I'm not lying with anyone.

But they wouldn't listen. People would say, Justin, don't worry about it.

You're just going to meet the right girl.

But that didn't seem to be happening, and I can tell you now I'm 35 years old and still have yet to be attracted to a woman ever in my life, even for a moment. Whatever straight men in the audience, whatever part of your brain lights up when you see a beautiful woman, I'm not talking about lust.

I'm talking about that part where you notice her and notice that she's beautiful and then make a conscious decision not to let it go to lust. That part of my brain does not light up. I don't know why it does for you and not for me.

We could argue about the science all day long,.

But all I know is it doesn't.

One of my friends, trying to be helpful, came to me with a brown paper bag and said, Justin, normally I would frown on this, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And I opened it up, and inside was a Playboy magazine.

He said, look through this, and it will awaken your natural desires. It did not. It did make me feel sick and disgusted, and it was my first exposure to pornography. I could tell you more about other kinds of therapy and ministries I looked into, but the short version is that nothing was effective.

Everything that you've ever heard that people could do to not be gay anymore, I tried. And it didn't work, nor did it work for lots of other people who I met who were in the same boat. And what I found was that when I was honest with my Christian brothers and sisters about what I was going through, many of them were uncomfortable with it.

They didn't know what to tell me, and so they would offer pat answers. They would say, well, we all have temptations. Just resist it. And I would say, well, I am resisting it. I am. I haven't had any kind of sexual activity with anybody, but what about the rest of my life?

Can I never get married? Am I going to be alone forever? I have all these questions. What does this mean? And they would say, well, just keep resisting.

Give it to God.

You'll be fine.

Bye.

Because I didn't know what to say. I would say, wait, I have so many questions. But instead of pulling me closer and embracing me when I was struggling and hurting and desperately in need of a Christian brother or sister to say, I love you, and I will listen to your story, and we'll work through this together, I found that the church, the church I loved, kept pushing me farther and farther away.

Now, I say this to tell you that, yes, there are gay Christians in the world. If by gay you mean attracted to the same sex. But there are lots of things we may disagree on. We may disagree on how they should live.

And we do disagree on how they should live. Should they pursue a same-sex relationship?

Lifelong celibacy?

A heterosexual marriage to someone they're not attracted to? Is there some kind of room for an intimate but non-sexual close friendship or something? We may disagree on what word they should use.

Should they call themselves gay,.

Or is it better to use a different term, like experiencing attraction to the same sex but not the opposite sex? By the way, I don't like the term homosexual. I'll just put that out there right now, because I feel like when somebody calls me homosexual, they're identifying me by my sexuality, and I prefer not to be referred to that way, because I don't identify myself that way.

But at the end of the day, while we may disagree on how they should live, what word they should use, we should be able to agree that such Christians exist, that they did not choose the situation they're in, that they're doing their best to follow Christ, and that they deserve the love and support of their churches in figuring out what the future holds for them.

Thank you, Justin. We'll now open up the floor for Dr. White.

Dr. White on 1 Corinthians 6, the Gospel, and Broken Sexuality

Well, thank you very much for being here this evening. It is an honor to be here, and I thank very much, Justin Lee, for making the long trip today across the nation to be with us this evening.

This is a very, very important subject.

Just a few items before I really launch into my central thoughts here. In light of what Justin just said, I just want to explain that I primarily do use the term homosexual. I do not mean it as an insult to anyone in any way, shape, or form, and I found it ironic that in the endorsements for Justin's book, the term was used by some of the endorsers, so if they didn't mean it as an insult, I certainly don't mean it as an insult.

I am simply seeking to be accurate in discussing homosexuality versus heterosexuality versus bisexuality, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't think the term gay necessarily describes any of that, at least not from back when I was young, because in the Christmas carols I sang, it meant something completely different.

So I'm not meaning to be in any way, shape, or form offensive when I say that. Let me also say that last year when Justin's book came out, I purchased it and I listened to it very, very shortly, as soon as it was available on Kindle.

Why was that? Well, because as a Christian apologist, I deal with this area. I've debated John Shelby Spong, Barry Lynn, and other individuals on this particular subject over the past number of years.

And I would like to recommend to you as Christians this evening the reading of Justin's book. How's that, Justin? Is that good? The simple reason is it really helped to communicate to me the fact that we have individuals in the church that experience same-sex attraction.

And if we're all honest with ourselves, we don't do a very good job in responding to their questions and responding to their very existence. The reality is they're there. The reason I'm here this evening is I'm concerned with the conclusions that Justin has come to, but I recognize the struggle that has been his.

And if anything comes out this evening, my hope would be that for everyone who believes the Bible is the Word of God, believes that Jesus Christ was the incarnate Son of God, and believes that the very center point of history itself was the cross of Jesus Christ, that we should understand in light of those events, the Bible's teaching on sexuality, God's sovereignty over our very desires, what it means to take up the cross and deny ourselves, and in light of all that, to be individuals who should be very quick to have a word of encouragement to those who experience any kind of temptation that would be against what we believe the Bible teaches is God's will for all of us.

I don't think the church has done a very good job. And Justin normally presents a study that was done where young people today identified the primary aspect of the Christian church as being anti-gay.

Well, I think a lot of that's due to the enemies of the church and to the media today, but still, I think that if you're going to say anything about homosexuality, your first words should be positive words about what the Bible teaches positively about marriage, about sexuality, about the fact that God made us male and female, and that he has a purpose in all of those things.

And the negative should only be based upon having presented a positive case. Now, I am going to try in a very brief period of time to focus very much, I've had the opportunity of reading through Justin's book three times.

I have listened very, very carefully. I want to focus upon what I think the most important element of his thesis is. There's all sorts of things I'd like to discuss with him if we had more time. But I want to focus upon the real issue.

This evening we're asking, can you be gay and Christian? If you define things the way that Justin just did, and that is that you are a Christian and you experience the same-sex attraction, and that makes you a gay Christian, well, I'm not even going to try to debate that this evening, because obviously that would mean that, let's consider any number of desires that we would experience.

There are men who experience a desire for more than one woman in their life, even though God's given them a wonderful wife. That is a desire that Christian men have to deal with. How about the desire for pride?

The desire to be angry? The desire to have someone else's possessions? We, as Christians, experience that abiding presence of sin in our life, which is why we need a mediator, it's why we need the Holy Spirit in our life, it's why we need constant cleansing, it's why we need the fellowship of the saints.

So if it's just a saying, well, Christians don't experience wrong desires, obviously there's no reason to argue that this evening. My concern is that there are those today who are saying, well, God made me in this way, I experience these attractions, and through what I believe Justin presents in his book as what might be called today, he's not the only one, I've read many books that do this, a hermeneutic of love.

We can come to the conclusion that to love God is to fulfill all the commandments, that's more important than God's law in regards to human sexuality, as regards to the norms of that and the boundaries of that, and therefore, as a Christian, I can honor Jesus Christ, I can honor the gospel, and yet I can, in some monogamous sense, eventually act upon these desires.

That is the issue to me, because, as we know, as the subtitle of Justin's book is, rescuing the gospel from the gays versus Christians debate. I'm here this evening because this is a gospel issue, and let me explain why I believe it is a gospel issue.

If you have a Bible with you, I would like to look at a particular passage, I'm not simply going to throw a passage at Justin, because like I said, I read his book three times, and I can tell his stories.

In fact, I can tell the story, because you used to say Reformed Baptist of 1823. I'm a Reformed Baptist, and nothing happened in 1823, I just wanted to correct that particular version of the story.

It changes every time I tell it.

Well, yes, I've heard it many times. Actually, the original one was Church of God, because they do have all these Church of God of this of 18, and that was the original version of it that I had told myself, probably while you were very young.

But anyways,.

1 Corinthians chapter 6 is a text of scripture that I think, this evening, I want to use in the very brief amount of time I have left, as the central aspect of my comments and my response to Justin in getting our conversation started this evening.

My honest hope and prayer is not only for you in the audience, but for Justin to hear. My concern is the gospel. I do not believe I have any special standing. If I get run over by a truck tomorrow, the kingdom of God is going to go on.

I am not important. But the gospel is the power of God and the salvation. And that, to me, is the only reason that I'm here this evening, is what is the gospel, and how does it speak to someone in Justin's position, and to someone in my position.

If I don't hear the gospel this evening, and you don't hear the gospel this evening, then we have pretty much wasted our time. Paul is talking about the fact that the Corinthian church is in a mess, and that they're actually suing one another, they're dragging their internal arguments out before unbelievers.

And Paul has just mentioned the fact that Christians are going to judge the world, isn't there anyone wise enough amongst you that you can judge these things, and in that context reminds them of a basic, simple thing.

He says in verse 9,. And whenever Paul says, don't you know, he's trying to say, don't you remember this is something I've explained to you before. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Now that seems like an obvious statement, but today it's not. Because Paul goes on to say, do not be deceived. Do not be led astray. Planato means to be led astray. It's the same warning he gives to the Colossians about those who would lead you astray with worldly words of wisdom.

He says, do not be led astray, do not be deceived, which means that the possibility exists, and I have debated people. One of the reasons I like Justin's book is I had already debated Bishop John Shelby Spong.

Debating a revisionist who tries to completely rewrite the Bible is not what Justin was doing in this book, and that's what I appreciated about it. In fact, he even talked about that. Even when he gave other views, other than what I would take of a certain scripture, he would say, I was concerned that maybe I was reading this in a self-serving way.

I was concerned about this. That's what made it refreshing to me and why I'm glad to share the podium with him this evening. Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers. And then we hit the two big words.

Then we hit the two big words. We know what fornication is. We know what idolatry is. But then we come to two words. Utamalakoi, utaarsanakoitai. And the ESV and the Holman Christian Standards Bible, two modern translations, have simply translated these terms as homosexuals.

Now, why do they do that? Because they understand that the terms refer to the passive and active members in a homosexual act, male homosexual act, primarily, obviously. Especially due to the fact that the term utaarsanakoitai comes from what, in essence, what men do with men in bed.

And the malakoi is the softer effeminate, and hence they're seeing it as the active and as the passive member of a homosexual union. Then he goes on, he continues, he doesn't stop there and says, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Notice this vice list is fairly wide. You have sexual sins, idolatry is included in that. I would point out that Paul, in Romans chapter 1, discusses homosexuality, including lesbianism, in light of idolatry because he views it as a fundamental twisting of the created order.

And he speaks of that in the context of idolatry. But then he says this, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God, but such were, in perfect form, I, me, were, past tense, such were some of you, but, the adversative of the law, but you were washed, you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God.

Now that tells me, folks, that this is a gospel subject. When he can say to the church at Corinth, some of you were, now you've entered into a new relationship, you've entered into a new existence. One of my biggest concerns in Justin's book was, and he will tell you this, he spends a lot of time talking about ex-gay ministries.

He spends a lot of time talking about people that, some of them I've never even heard of, this is not the area that I focus upon all the time, but in essence saying, look, it doesn't work. This is how you're made, this is what you experience, and even those people who call themselves ex-gays, all they really mean by that is that though they still have the desires, now they are married to a woman.

And he spends a lot of time talking about that. And one of my questions this evening is, how do you understand, verse 11, such were some of you? Now, Justin has said that he's taken a lot of time to look at the term arson-coita, and there has been a lot of stuff written about it.

Let me just give you a rather brief summary of the fact that I believe the vast majority of what has been written in the past 30 years in this subject only exists for one reason. It's not because we found new manuscripts, it's not because we found new papyri that shed more light on this issue.