Gay Christianity Debated

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, aka 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. It 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's 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. We desire to come to the conclusion, what does

God and his word say about this topic and what should the Christian believe?

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 in 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 for about 20 minutes.

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. I do believe in God. And the motorist said, well so do

I. Listen, what religion are you? What do you believe? The guy said, well I'm a

Christian. 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 a Reformed Carolina Baptist Church of God or Reformed Carolina Baptist Church of the Lord? The guy says, well

I'm a 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 a Reformed Carolina Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1873 or a

Reformed Carolina Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1912? And the guy says, well I'm a

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 it. 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.

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 respect 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 at everybody about anything, anytime. And my nickname was

God boy. 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's 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.

But 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. I took her to the prom.

She was 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.

I felt 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 and 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, you know, 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 and you go to every doctor and nobody can explain why you're feeling this.

Nobody can explain what this, 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.

It's, 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 or 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, you know, 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 said, 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.

Now, 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, I, 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. 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.

Now 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 helps 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 the way, 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 has 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 us 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 vs. 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, and I'm not simply going to throw passages 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 he 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 told myself, probably while you was 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, or do you not know, and whatever 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, plenao 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 him. 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 in the Holman Christian Standards Bible, two modern translations, have simply translated these terms as homosexuals.

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 of I, me, were, past tense, such were some of you, but, the adversative of Allah, but you were washed, but 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 in Corinth, some of you were this, but 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 a mate, 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 ars mikoitai, 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 the subject only exists for one reason.

It's not because we've found new manuscripts, it's not because we've found new papyri that shed more light on this issue. It's for political reasons and none other.

There really isn't any question about what this word means. Most people think the first person to coin it was the

Apostle Paul himself. There is one possible source outside of this. I did a study in the

Thesaurus Lingua Grecca a number of years ago on this particular subject to see the use and utilization of the term. It seems to me to be beyond question.

The Apostle Paul, who is soaked in the language of the Greek Septuagint, who quotes the Greek translation of the

Old Testament as his primary text, especially as he's writing to the Corinthians, who the only text in the Bible they're going to have is the

Greek Septuagint, is going to utilize the terminologies that come directly from that text. And when we look back at the

Levitical law, at Leviticus 18, at Leviticus 20, when we look at the texts that specifically were understood by the

Jews in Paul's day, by all the Jews in Paul's day, there is no exception to this rule, as condemning homosexual unions as against the will of God, when we look at those terms that were used in the

Greek Septuagint, we find both arsenos and koiteo being used in that context, both in the verbal form and the noun form.

And there can really be no question, if we use the exact same hermeneutics that we would use to defend the resurrection, the deity of Christ, the sonship of Christ, justification by faith, the atonement of Christ, if we use the very same standards of hermeneutics, in looking at the meaning of this word that we use in all those other areas, we would be forced by the evidence itself to recognize the

Septuagint background of Paul's utilization of this term and to recognize he is talking about homosexuality.

There can really be no question of that. And especially when you join this together with his comments in Romans, and again, all the revisionist attempts aside, it is very, very clear that in Romans he is not only addressing lesbianism directly, but when he addresses homosexuality, male homosexuality, he's not talking about pederasty, he's not talking about a master -slave relationship, he's talking about men lusting after, burning in passion after one another.

This is a mutual thing. It was well -known in Paul's day, it is very, very common, thanks to really bad books by Skenzonian, Mollenkot, Boswell, and other people like that, to say that, oh, they didn't even know about those type of things back there.

That is utterly untrue. They did know about orientation and things like that in Paul's day.

He wasn't ignorant of these things, and he used biblical language to describe it. Now, if that is the case, and I do not believe that a meaningful argument can be made against it,

I've debated some of the leading proponents on this, and generally they were just upset that they weren't getting softball questions like they were used to on CNN.

If that is the case, if that's consistent with Paul's context, that's consistent with his historical context and Second Temple Judaism, and all the external evidence indicates that it is, then here's the question.

Why did Paul put it into the gospel context? He said, but you were washed, but you were made holy, hagiadzo, but you were justified, dikayaho.

Why does Paul present this clear break between what they were, it's in the imperfect tense, which means this was the bent of their life, this was their experience, but it's not any longer.

It's not any longer. Now, am I saying that every true

Christian at regeneration will automatically lose all desires for evil things?

I'm not saying that. But my concern this evening is, if you use the term gay

Christian, if you say I'm a Christian and I have these desires and I don't think that they are against God's purpose, then

Paul's words make no sense. Because what he should have said, and such are some of you, but he said such were.

He made a clear break between what their life was before and what their life is now.

There's nothing here about monogamous relationships or anything like that at all. Because I think Justin would admit that the vast majority, especially of male homosexual experience in that quote unquote community, though I personally struggle with identifying any community by its sexual orientation and sexual activity, but be that as it may, within the community that calls itself that, the vast majority of male homosexual experience is not monogamous in any way, shape, or form.

And so what was Paul talking about? Why does he place it in the context of the gospel?

In the last few moments I have, here's where it really matters to me. And this is why no matter what happens in our land,

I believe we as Christians are going to have to pay the price of discipleship and not give in on this issue.

My friends, if we cannot define what sin is, we cannot present the cross of Jesus Christ as the solution to something we can't define.

The reason the cross is the center point of history, the reason that Jesus had to be the

God -man was so that all of the wrath and justice and holiness of God could be illustrated and seen with clarity at that one place at the same time as the fullness of his love, mercy, and grace.

That's why it is an absolutely unique place and he was an absolutely unique person. And the wrath, if you, when you look at the cross of Christ, if you don't see the wrath of God against sin, you are only seeing half the cross.

It is the wrath of God against sin which makes the love of God illustrated in the cross so absolutely magnificent and so deep.

But what drove Jesus there? He said it is necessary the son of man go.

Why? There had to be a sacrifice. God's law had to be honored or his justice and his holiness could not be seen.

And if God's law says, as Jesus did, male and female created he them, a man shall leave his father and his mother, cling to his wife, the two shall become one flesh.

That's the only union that God blesses. If that's the law that was spurned and broken, that Jesus' broken body fulfills it so that it is verified, it is shown to be holy and just and righteous, then what we are talking about tonight is vitally important.

Vitally important. We cannot compromise. Do we need to love the just and lees of the world?

Do we need, as ministers in the church, to be open to talking to them about what 1

Corinthians 6 means? Yes. But fundamentally, it's a gospel issue.

And that's what brings me here this evening. And I am thankful that you are here this evening as well. Thank you very much. I would like to thank

Dr. White for his remarks and open the floor up to Justin for a 10 minute response. I think

Dr. White has just done an admirable job of presenting a sometimes complicated topic from the

Bible in not a very long time. It certainly was shorter than the five hour podcast.

Though to be fair, you weren't having to respond to an hour long talk at the same time. As I said when

I opened, I did not come here to argue whatsoever with the position that Dr.

White has just presented with regard to the scripture and same sex relationships.

Within the organization that I represent, both sides exist. And one of the things that I had to be very clear with the

Reformation Montana folks about before I agreed to come is that I cannot come and sort of debate for one side or the other when

I'm representing an organization that includes folks on both sides. I did in my book explore a little bit of both sides and why

I as a Christian feel conflicted now more than I did. So Dr.

White is correct in saying that were we to do a debate specifically on that topic, probably there are a few points that we would banter back and forth on a little bit.

But for the purpose of our discussion tonight, I'm perfectly willing to say, okay, let's begin with the assumption that the

Bible is clear in condemning sexual relationships between people of the same sex.

The question I think for us then is what does that mean for the folks right here?

Dr. White said, if we cannot define what sin is, we cannot present the gospel. I agree, the gospel requires us to understand that we have a sin nature, that we do sinful things, that the only way out of our sin is

Jesus Christ. At the same time, if we cannot also show people the grace of Christ, even when they are in the midst of their sin, we are missing arguably the most important part of the gospel.

I think of the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. There's no question in this story that the woman had sinned.

She knew it, the crowd knew it, Jesus knew it. What I find interesting is how

Jesus responds. Because Jesus's response to the crowd is different from Jesus's response to the woman.

To the crowd, Jesus says, why are you sitting here in judgment of her ready to stone her?

Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone. Jesus's response to the crowd is to say, you're so focused on her sin, you've forgotten to show grace.

You've forgotten about the plank in your own eye because you're so busy worrying about what's in her eye. Then the crowd leaves and Jesus says to the woman, go and sin no more.

You have to have both pieces. And what I find is so often the case in these kinds of debates is that we are presented with the option of either saying that this isn't a sin, or focus on it and talk only about how sinful it is and how disgusting and immoral these folks are, and we love them by telling them over and over and over again how sinful they are.

But when it comes to the question of what can we do as a church to love them other than that, what needs do they have?

What grace do they need to be shown? We don't have a lot of answers. I think about how the church has somewhat shifted its approach to divorce.

Now there's some churches that don't teach that divorce is a sin, but my church continues to teach that divorce is a sin.

But one of the things my church does now that it might not have done several decades ago is it recognizes that while divorce may be a sin, the people who have just gone through a divorce are often in tremendous pain and have a lot of needs that the church can meet.

And the church can do something other than just talk about how sinful the divorce was. The church can focus on, hey, tell us your story, help us meet your needs, tell us what we can do for you.

And that's a wonderful thing when it happens in the case of divorce. I find as a gay person that it rarely happens for gay folks.

Now, the passages that Dr. White brought up, there are

Christians within my organization who would argue that those passages do not condemn a modern -day monogamous, loving, committed relationship.

And as I said, I explore that a little bit in my book in one chapter out of 13.

But it's not really what I wanted to focus on in my book. Because what I wanted to focus on is if what we can agree on is that those passages deal with people's sexual activity.

Now, when I'm standing before you, I'm not engaged in any sexual activity. I'm single.

I use the word gay for myself. And I'll tell you why. Because I needed a word that was shorthand for,

I am attracted to other members of the same sex and I am not attracted to members of the opposite sex. Because it's kind of a mouthful.

And one of the things that often happens in these kinds of conversations is I find that other Christians focus just on one part of that and not on the other.

They talk over and over about resisting the temptation of my same -sex attractions. But they forget about why it might be an issue for me that I have no opposite -sex attractions.

They focus on resisting the urge to have sex. As if being gay were all about wanting to have sex all the time.

But they don't think about the emotional needs that I might have. Am I to be celibate and single for the rest of my life?

If so, if that's what God calls me to, I'm certainly willing to accept whatever God calls me to.

But surely everybody would understand why that would be a challenge. And why that might not be something I would want to do.

And why I might have needs emotionally and want the church to be there for me. After all, my mom is right now dying from a horrible progressive brain disease that may be genetic.

If I contract the same disease when I'm in my fifties, who will take care of me the way that my dad takes care of my mom?

If the church's message to me is, resist your temptations, be celibate and everything will be fine, who's going to be there to support me when my friends are all married off and raising their kids?

These are questions that many of my straight Christian friends haven't really thought about. And I don't blame them, but this is the kind of stuff that I think we should be talking about.

And I think it's telling that when we talk about homosexuality in the church, so often the conversation goes back over and over to, let's debate about Romans 1 and 1

Corinthians 6 and all of this, but we don't talk a whole lot about what can we do to move forward in a way that's loving and productive and supportive of everybody.

There's a lot I want to say about this and I don't have time, but I will say one other thing.

The word gay has shifted in its meaning significantly. I find that folks who have been around for a while still associate it with a certain political identity because at one time it had that identity.

I find when I talk to young folks today that they understand it in a very different way.

Young folks today understand the word gay to be defined as someone who is attracted exclusively to the same sex.

And so for a young person today to say, I'm attracted to the same sex but I don't identify as gay, doesn't make any sense.

And one of the reasons I talk in my book about ex -gays and why the term ex -gay is going away and why we need to rethink how we talk about these issues is that the church is losing a lot of young people who when they hear the church talk about gay folks only in terms of sexual behavior or say that same sex attracted people aren't really gay, the young folks today think that we're out of touch in terms of the language at best and at worst that we're being deceitful as Christians.

And that's part of the reputation we have. And that's one of the reasons that when I use the word, I want to use the language that folks today are using.

And I want to say, look, these other folks who may be doing lots of things that I disagree with and that you disagree with, they are like me.

I know what it's like to be them. And I don't want to put a wall and say, hey, I'm the good guy and they're the bad guys.

I want to say we're all in the same boat. We've made different decisions. And how can we show grace to everyone who's going through this?

Thank you, Justin. We'll now welcome Dr. White to come up for a ten -minute response. The debater in me would like to address some of the things that Justin said in his book, some of the texts that he quoted.

But since he hasn't presented them, that really wouldn't be appropriate for me to do. If you'd ever like to know what someone like me thought of especially the hermeneutic of love material that you presented,

I would be happy to correspond with you about that. What I would like to do in light of what

Justin just said is to try as best I can as a minister of the gospel to speak to someone like Justin and to do something more than just say, hey, well, the illustration that Justin uses

I guess came from a cartoon that none of you have ever watched because we're Christians called

South Park. I guess something, because I honestly have not seen this, but evidently at one point someone teaches their dog to sit and then yells at their dog, don't be gay.

And they say, it still looks gay to me. And Justin basically said, well, that's all anybody ever said to me.

Just don't do it. Don't be gay. But that's what I feel. That's my experience. How can

I not be that? Justin, all the time, and I had a very good relationship with my parents.

My mom's passed away now. But I remember listening to your first telling of sneaking out the house to get to the meeting at the church and how badly you felt about your dad having told you to have done something, but you had to sneak out of the house anyways.

You know what I'm referring to, of course. I know how that would have been because I had that kind of relationship with my parents. They told me to do something.

I would do it. And if in all of those meetings that you had, all those conversations you had, no one said these things to you, then

I apologize. But let me say them now. Whether Lord can use them now or not,

I don't know. My understanding of what it means to be a

Christian is that Jesus said, take up the cross, deny yourself, and follow me.

Now, the first class I had the opportunity of teaching many, many years ago after I graduated from seminary was church history.

And I know a little something about what was going on back then. I happen to know that the term to crucify was a term that was extremely repulsive in polite society in that day.

Only the worst people were crucified. To take up the cross meant to step out of the mainstream of society, to enter into the dregs, to join the death march.

It's a radical call. It's a radical call. So much so that Jesus even talked about people making themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake.

Yes, actually doing something that would cause them to never fulfill what our society has made to be our greatest goal, and that is our sexual fulfillment, our happiness.

There are things greater than that. There are a lot of things greater than that. Now, you can say that's a very easy view to say you've been married for 31 years, you've got kids and a grandchild.

You can say that. I'm not saying it's easy. What I am saying is this.

To be a Christian, as a person who has died to themselves, we see ourselves having been united with Christ.

Paul said in Galatians chapter 2, I have been crucified with Christ. What does that mean?

How does that have an impact upon my life? What do I mean when I say I have died with Christ?

What do I mean by my union with him? I have had the opportunity over the past number of years to be preaching through the book of Hebrews.

Yes, I'm a Reformed Baptist, so I'm still preaching through the book of Hebrews. I probably will be for a while to come. And as I consider those texts that talk about the sacrificial work of Christ, propitiation, the fact that he is our mediator and my union with him and his entering into the holy place and my place and all the fulfillment of the law in the sacrifice of Christ, when

I consider all of those things and all the wrath that was due to me, and yet it falls upon my substitute in my place,

I start really understanding that I should hate my sin.

Most of us Christians are way too comfortable with it. We are way too comfortable with its presence in our life.

We should have a passionate hatred for our sin, even when it exists only in our hearts, because Jesus said to look on a woman for lust after is to have committed adultery with her already in your heart.

Yes, a comfortable Christianity will not have much of a basis for addressing this issue without engaging in hypocrisy.

I understand that. What I'm saying is this.

If true Christianity is dying with Christ, recognizing him for who he is, recognizing the amazing statement that we as Christians are saying the very creator of this universe, the one who created all things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, principalities, powers, dominions, authorities, all things created by him and for him, he is before all things, in him all things, soonest they can, they hold together, that one entered into human flesh to die as a substitute for every person who will repent and believe in him.

That's an amazing statement. That's foolishness to the world. But it's true.

How could I be united with him? How could I die to self? How could I be crucified with him without that having a massive impact upon how

I live and what my priorities are? And I hear you, Justin, when you say, who's going to take care of me in old age?

Who's going to be there for me? Can't I have that kind of relationship? My response to that would be drawn from an area of study that I don't think you have the opportunity to do.

I started studying Islam because I started studying the persecuted church. When you study the persecuted church today, you know that there is many a believer, many a fellow believer, a brother and sister of us in this room this evening, that tonight are separated from father and mother and husband and wife and children and friends for one simple reason.

They confess that Jesus Christ, the son of God. In Syria today, my

Herbert Tudor, Syrian pastor, his parents are still over there. We pray for them. They're suffering.

And when they're imprisoned, the very key to the door to freedom is placed in their hand.

All they have to say is, la ilaha illallah. It's all they have to say.

Yeah, they have to say it in that language. Because that is the shahada. That's the confession of faith in Islam.

And as soon as they would say there's only one God worthy of worship, Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger, the door would swing open and they could walk out and be reunited.

But they sacrifice those relationships and they sit alone in that cell.

In many ways, my friends, they have a closer relationship to Jesus Christ than you and I will ever know, because he meets their needs.

He comes to them in their prison. Who will you have,

Justin? Jesus, it better be enough for any one of us because anyone else is going to let us down.

Anyone else is going to let us down. Oh, I would hope and pray that you would be in such a solid church, that you would have the brothers and sisters who would gather around you to be of assistance in that way.

But Jesus is all Christian needs. And again, we come back to the main issue.

Justin says, well, I'm not going to argue this. Oh, okay. I hope Justin will at least say, you know, you accurately represented my book.

You did read it, you tried to understand, and I have tried to understand. And I hope that I have communicated to you and to Justin my real concern this evening.

Justin says, our organization has people who disagree about this. Okay. My question is, if the scripture is the ultimate authority, and Jesus said it was, he judged men by what

God had spoken to them in the scriptures. Jesus has the highest view of scripture. If that is our authority, and it must be for anyone who truly calls himself a

Christian, can there be any question about what God's intention for man and woman is?

This is a gospel issue. The past tense of that verb is still there. It's still inspired.

That really to me is the issue this evening. Thank you for listening as I've attempted to explain that.

This portion of today's forum, we're going to have each of the speakers get 10 minutes to address their other colleagues on stage in order to ask and receive answers to the questions that they have so we can have a more direct dialogue.

So we're going to invite Justin to start off by asking questions directed at Dr. White. Cool. Can you hear me okay on this?

Okay. So I like this part a lot better because I'm more of a dialogue person.

I'm a conversation person. Can you talk without moving your hands? No. Okay. Maybe I need a label for that.

Yeah, I'm not a debater. I, you know, this is the first thing like this I've done.

You clearly have done very many. Thank you for being gracious to me. Um, so I'm, I have a lot of questions for you and I'm hoping that this will be a really kind of helpful conversation.

And I guess one of my first questions is you were talking there, um, towards the end about, uh, lusting in your heart that for woman is a sin, which

I certainly agree. Um, obviously that's scriptural. Um, would you, since you've read some of my stuff,

I know you know, you know how I would answer this. Yes. Would you distinguish between being attracted to somebody and the lusting after them?

Yes. Yes, I would. Um, do you want me to expand upon that a little bit? Because I would, okay.

Let me, let me, let me expand upon that just a little bit. Um, I think there is a natural,

I don't think there's something wrong when a man recognizes that a woman is beautiful. Um, I think we know where the line is, where we go beyond that, where we start desiring that woman in a way that is inappropriate, in a way that, um, violates what

God has said to us. I would make a difference. I would make a differentiation. Would you mind if I use a story from your book?

Sure. You, you mentioned, I believe it was, uh, was it Mike Olivia Smith concert that you were, you were at?

And I'm afraid there's like half of this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but I actually invited everybody to read your book.

I mean, you, you will have to go back and tell everyone at GCN, the guy actually said to read my book. I can't believe he did that.

But, um, you, you, I won't use that specific situation, but you know what

I'm talking about. I would say that in light of God's revelation, let me tell, let me put personally, we are all broken sexually because we fell in Adam.

I have a beautiful wife. I wish she could be here, but she works full time so I can have health insurance so I can do stuff like this.

Um, no, that's absolutely the case. Um, and, uh, uh, but she's gorgeous.

Somewhere along the line, I signed an agreement to do all the aging for the group. So, uh, she's, uh, she's now looks like my daughter instead of my wife.

So it's terrible. But anyways, um, if I have a lustful desire for a woman other than my wife,

I am in demonstrating the brokenness of my sexuality, even as a believer, because God has given me anything, everything

I could possibly desire to have. And yet to want to go beyond that is,

I believe, a part of my broken sexuality that will only be fully healed in the consummation of all things.

So I would say that any desire for something that is beyond what

God has given to us demonstrates a broken sexuality. And so I would say that homosexual desire, even if it's not lust, is still a function of a broken sexuality because we're all broken.

So in other words, it's not, it's not, as you put it, just me. It's a recognition that all of us have a broken sexuality in different ways.

But I would say that to desire something that God has specifically said is not, is not right.

It only flows from the fact that I fell without him. Here's, I guess, where this is a challenge for me, though.

And maybe you can help me understand better how you see this. One of the reasons that it was important to me not to let this debate end up being just, you know, let's debate about, you know,

Romans 1 and are gay relationships okay? One of the reasons I wanted to say, let's go ahead and just agree for the purpose of this discussion that they're not okay and then move forward from that, is that I know many people who identify themselves as gay

Christians, who have committed themselves to lifelong celibacy, are fully in agreement that for them to ever act on their feelings or let them become lost or anything is sinful.

And yet, it seems to me that folks in that situation are doing everything that they can possibly do as Christians to handle the situation that they're in, in a way that would be in alignment with all that you've said, scripturally.

And yet, it feels to me like when you and some other folks talk about what it's like for us and talk about our broken sexuality and stuff, it feels to me like there's a certain like, even if you're doing everything you're supposed to do, you're still, there's something negative there.

Not just negative in the sense of like you're a victim of the fall and bad things that happen to you, but negative in the sense of like you're not as good of a

Christian or you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. Or that you're experiencing something that is very rare and can be indicative.

And again, I have to go to Romans 1 for this. One of the reasons that Paul addresses that issue there is he's speaking of the nature of what the rebellion of man against God's created order looks like.

And that's one of the examples he uses because what he's saying is, we know who

God is and we katakonto, we suppress that knowledge and that results in a change in us.

And so he utilizes an illustration where you have a created gender which comes from God, and yet that represents

God's authority and there's a change on the part of the creature. And so I hear what you're saying and what it flows from is the unusualness.

Notice in 126 when Paul says, for even their women, that term wouldn't be there if this was not some illustration of what he's saying of the extremes to which the change in the relationship between the creator and the creation goes because of sin.

And so what you're hearing, and I'm sorry that you interpret it in the way that you do, but I understand what you're saying.

What you're hearing is the recognition that the lust of a man for a woman is of a different character creation -wise than the lust of a man for a man.

Doesn't mean either one of them is not going to separate you from God. Do you hear what

I'm saying? Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying. Let me maybe phrase my question slightly differently. Let me put it this way.

When you speak of, let's talk about this in the context of someone who has always been a committed

Christian, discovers that he has attractions to the guys and not to girls, does his best not to lust, never acts on them, commits himself to lifelong celibacy.

I understand speaking about that as a,

I understand where you're talking about broken, where the term broken is coming from. The Catholic Church I think talks about disordered sexuality.

I understand where that's coming from. What I'm asking, I guess, is from you, when you speak about that as being broken in the sense that it's divergent from the created order, do you mean in the same way that a deaf person not being able to hear is broken and a result of the fall, though not their own fault?

Or do you mean in a way that you are suggesting that this individual, in spite of the fact that he's done everything feasibly that he could do to follow the scriptures and to follow

Christ, in spite of his temptations, that he is somehow still responsible that it's broken because of his sin?

No, my focus when I talk about, the focus I just tried to place upon it is the nature of the desire.

It has nothing to do with whether this person has done as much as this person over here to not look at pornography or to not inflame their desires or anything along those lines.

I think what you're hearing when you hear us talking about this particular subject is the fact that it's used as an illustration of the twisting of the creator -creation relationship and that there is a clear created order in the male and female relationship that is being twisted in this situation.

And that is not the same thing as saying, well you just haven't done enough. Because I know people like you just described.

But would, well, I'm out of time and it's my turn to start I guess, but is that alright?

We reset and go from there? Sure. Okay, alright, so let me ask you a question and we can just continue on with it.

Would you see, especially in light of what we see of the homosexual community,

I don't like that term because it's too diverse and it's, as you say, you don't want to be held accountable for the guys in the gay pride march and I don't like the broad brush.

But most of the homosexual studies that I've heard, like the Macquarie State study, indicate that, especially amongst male homosexuals, there is a tremendously elevated amount of promiscuity as far as number of partners and things like that on average.

Would you not agree that there seems to be a much elevated danger of taking this set of desires and identifying the entirety of one's life on the basis of those desires over against almost any other sin that we could talk about?

So I would say there are kind of two things in there I would want to respond to. The first one is the idea that there's all this promiscuity in the gay community.

There certainly is promiscuity among gay men. But it's also been,

I think the studies have shown, vastly overstated.

One of the studies that's been cited quite frequently, I think including by you, and I'm not sure which study you were referring to just now.

The Macquarie State University study? Yeah, I'll have to look that one up. That's from Australia. Australians are weird, so maybe that's...

Sure. But, you know, well, without... the specific studies aren't even that important as far as to say that in many of these cases we're looking at folks who...

we're looking at studies that have very specific parameters. Studies where, for instance, they were interviewing gay men and the gay men being interviewed were gay men who were going to a clinic because of fears of HIV and AIDS or something like that.

Many of the studies, monogamous folks were explicitly excluded. I mean, there are a lot of things.

Now, I would have to look up that specific study, and I could do that. But I just wanted...

to be fair, I think it's important not to overstate things and suggest that gay men, on the average, have just tons and tons of partners.

Quite recently, in fact, there was a study done by OkCupid, of all things, a dating site which has a lot of young members, of their many, many, many members, and they found that the number of self -reported sexual partners among gay folks was exactly the same as the number of self -reported sexual partners of straight folks.

Now, as a Christian, I believe that that number being more than one, or if we're talking about gay folks in the context of saying gay sex is always sinful, that number being more than zero is sinful regardless.

But I don't think it's fair to just sort of paint with a broad brush and suggest gay men are all sort of promiscuous and all this kind of stuff.

I do know a lot of folks who are monogamous, I know lots of folks who are celibate, so I think that's important.

In terms of identity, you know, like I said earlier, one of the reasons that I don't like the word homosexual in that context is that, to me, that is an identity with a sexual behavior or at the very least a sexual feeling.

Which, to me, the word gay has a much broader meaning than that in terms of when

I tell you that I'm gay, you know a lot of things about me. You know that my brain is, for whatever reason, apparently wired differently from most men's.

You know that I am not attracted to women, in addition to the fact that I am attracted to men.

You know not to try to set me up with that nice girl at church, which is what happens if you're a 35 year old man who is single and you don't tell people that you're gay.

One of the reasons that it's important to me to be open about being gay is that if I don't say that I'm gay, rumors happen anyway.

People will talk about it. People will talk about it in the church. And I would rather be honest than be the subject of rumors, and I would rather not have those awkward moments where people are trying to set me up with their best friend who's, you know, a wonderful girl and she's single, and I would rather guys know why

I'm not comfortable, to be honest, going into the bathroom with them and standing next to them at the urinal with no dividers.

I mean, there are a lot of practical things that I have to take into consideration as someone who's gay, and so for me, having a single word that I can say that communicates all of that information very quickly is important to me.

So that's why I use it. So, I understand all the practical ramifications there, but when we use the term gay

Christian, isn't there, and you say, you know, the organization you represent has all sorts of different perspectives, there are people who contradict each other in their views, and I'm not sure how you hold all those folks together and things like that, but when you use the term gay

Christian, do you, how is that, in your mind, different than if more men in the church were honest about their problems with lust, they're identifying themselves as lustful

Christians. I mean, if I'm a lustful Christian, shouldn't you, and you're 35 years old, you don't want to set your nice friend up with him either, for even better reasons, actually, come to think of it.

I mean, it just seems to me that in the church, I was just in a church,

I think I mentioned to you in an email, I was just in a church, where as soon as I got to the church, I spent an entire evening over dinner with a fellow there who experiences same -sex attraction, and I was very thankful for the hours of conversation we had, but he doesn't use that terminology of himself, for the very reason that it communicates something beyond that.

Are you open, I mean, let's just go with that first, and I'll have a follow -up question, we'll have time.

So, first of all, one thing is that I don't typically, or at least I try not to refer to myself as a gay

Christian, as if that were sort of, you know, one thing, you know what I mean? Like, I consider myself to be a

Christian who is, yes, also gay, but also white, and male, and 35, and American, and, you know.

But, there are a few things that are different between using the word lustful to describe yourself versus using the word gay.

Lust is a sin. To lust is a sin. To commit adultery is a sin.

So if I were to call myself an adulterous Christian, adultery is a behavior that is itself separate.

Being gay, as it is used today in America, and this may not have been true several decades ago,

I'm still hopefully young enough that I can get away with saying I wouldn't know, but as it is used today, being gay does not connote that someone is sexually active.

If you watch movies on television, if you go to any high school today and ask kids, what does it mean to be gay, it's very clear that while gay people might be having sex, the word gay itself does not connote that they are having sex.

So even if we are, you know, even understanding gay sex as sinful, saying

I'm gay is not the same as saying I'm having gay sex. It is saying these are the attractions I have. So it's different from lust or adultery or something, which is itself a sin.

There's also another, I mean, there are a few other things.

I have one minute. How do I get them all in? Very quickly, I'll say one of the other big things to me, one of the most important reasons to me is that I feel like I need to stand in solidarity with the other folks who are in the same position.

Young people today who discover they're attracted to the same sex identify as gay. Whether or not you or I or anyone in this room thinks that's the right word for them, that is the word they use, that's the word they know, that's the only word they've heard growing up to describe those folks.

If the only people out there in the world who identify themselves as gay are not

Christian and live a life that is not Christian, that is the only image they see that is available to them.

If I identify myself as gay and other people, like Wesley Hill, who recently wrote a book called

Washing Waiting, published by Zondervan, about his life as a Christian who is also gay and has committed himself to lifelong celibacy.

If people like us don't identify ourselves as gay, those kids, when they realize that they're gay, they don't have any role models.

If we do, they look to us and say, hey, the fact that I'm gay does not mean that I can't be a

Christian and live a holy life. We'll turn it back over to Justin to begin asking questions for Dr.

White. Gosh, I was so busy answering that I forgot what I... I really wanted to know what your next question was.

And I hope I'm not too old to forget what it was by the time we get through this. So let me ask you this then.

If you were in my shoes, I understand that you would certainly not engage in a same -sex sexual relationship.

And I understand that you might not use the word gay to identify yourself.

You might use other words or you might not tell anybody what you were going through. Do you think that in addition to those two things, there are other things that you would do differently that you would recommend to people in my position that they do differently?

Yeah, I think that's what I was trying to say in my response, was

I think there is a deeper understanding of what it means to die with Christ and to live for him.

That is the only answer for anyone in that situation or in a number of other situations that would preclude them from experiencing what people that we would call who have a normal life experience.

For example, I have a friend, I actually know two people, actually no more than that, but at least have gotten to know two people who are just extremely physically disabled.

And they never complain. They never whine or gripe. They are the most incredible testimonies to the sufficiency of God.

And yet they'll never experience most of the things I experience, not only sexually, but in many other ways. I mean,

I'm an athlete, I love riding a bike, and they can't do that, and they can't experience the thrill of those types of things.

And yet they're absolutely shaming to me in the contentedness that is theirs in service of Christ.

And I think when someone comes to me and they are struggling with either assurance of salvation issues or sexual issues or whatever else it might be, my first reaction is to point them to an ever deeper contemplation of the sufferings of Christ on their behalf and their position as being united with him.

I also strongly emphasize the issue of repentance because it's unfortunately an issue that in many churches today is made to be a secondary issue.

In fact, there's a teaching out there that says you don't even have to be repentant. You can just believe in Christ and you don't have to repent.

I consider that false gospel. But what does it mean to be repentant? What does that mean to be that way in every aspect of your life?

That's a transformational thing, and it's radical. But I do think we've made an idol out of the fulfillment of sexual desire, even within the church.

I really do. My happiness has to come from a much higher level than the mere fulfillment of physical desires.

That's why I mentioned the martyrs today. They don't get to fulfill any of those things.

Struck a chord there. I'm afraid I don't want to know the answer to this. But it does strike a chord a little bit.

Not in a good way, I'm afraid. When you say that, because I guess...

Well, my question is, what is it that gives you the impression that Christians who experience same -sex attraction abstain from sex, commit themselves to celibacy, stay strong in Christ, go deeper into the scriptures, are trusting

Christ with their lives, but want to be honest about what they're going through, and are speaking out to help the church understand what they're going through, what makes you think that they are not doing those things that you just said?

Well, you had asked me what I would do, and my concern is... Well, I asked you what you would do differently.

Well, I'm not sure... differently than what you listed to me. I am, unfortunately, quite well aware of the fact that much of evangelicalism presents a very surface -level

Christianity. What I'm saying is, for example, the theology of the cross in many churches is far more emotional than it is biblical.

I feel that there is a tremendous depth in the biblical teaching of the atonement that is missing for many, many people.

All I'm saying is, when people speak to me about these things, I direct them to the contemplation of, for example, the intercessory work of Christ, our union with Him, what these things mean, which are not, unfortunately, part and parcel of the normative preaching in a lot of evangelical churches.

They may mention the cross, but to go into the in -depth issues that the

Bible does, unfortunately, my experience is that's not overly common. So I was just simply stating,

I thought, in response to your question, what would I emphasize, what would I do?

And that, to me, is the best direction to go. That helps me understand better.

Thank you. This is something I honestly don't know how you feel about, because we have not discussed this.

I kind of thought it would come up by now, and it hasn't. One of the things I talked about is that, because I don't have any attraction to women, and I didn't actually say this as explicitly as I could have, but because I don't have any attraction to women,

I feel like it would be wrong of me, and really selfish, actually, of me, to marry someone who

I had no attraction to. Do you think that someone who has no attraction to the opposite sex should marry a member of the opposite sex anyway, or do you think that that other person has a right to be in a relationship with someone who can see them the way that, typically, a husband is supposed to see his wife?

If that was not something that was completely known between the two of them, obviously that would be wrong.

But I could certainly see a situation, especially in many countries outside the U .S., where a marriage situation could be extremely important in just simply the maintenance of life itself.

But I could certainly see a situation, as long as there is honesty in it, where an individual who does not have a sexual attraction to the other could still be a tremendous partner and a tremendous protector and a tremendous person to take care of in old age, etc.,

etc. That's why, for example, even outside the parameters of being able to still have children or something like that, that it's still wonderful when people are joined together in that particular fashion.

So I could certainly see a situation where, let's say the man has same -sex attraction and is honest about that with the woman.

I could still see a situation where they would be married, but here's the difference. I believe that, as a

Christian, I should look at what God's ideal is and continue to seek to pursue it.

It's when I stop. That's, I think, one of the questions that, in a minute and 37 seconds,

I might need to try to get to, is when do you give up on that?

Because it sounds like what you're saying is you tried and tried, it doesn't matter. You give up.

And that's one of my questions is, because I couldn't tell from your book, and I guess

I can't finish asking this question if you want to get... I have one more question for you. You have one more? Yeah. Okay, go ahead.

Then I'll ask, if I can remember. So, one of my contentions, and the reason

I bring all this up, is not at all to say, you know, my life is terrible and I want people to feel sorry for me.

My life is actually wonderful. My relationship with Christ is wonderful. God has really blessed the work that I'm doing, trying to build bridges and stuff, and it's something

I love doing. The reason I do this is because I want to speak to my

Christian brothers and sisters and say, I believe that we as a church could do better than we're doing at ministering to folks in this situation.

Is that a point we can agree on? Would you agree with me that we as a church can do better in ministering to folks than we're doing now?

Well, I said at the beginning of my statement that the church has primarily ignored the reality of the fact that there can be people who experience all sorts of temptations and desires and have focused primarily only upon the acting out of those things and not those who choose not to act out of those things.

So, there's no question of that fact. My concern, and it's a concern that is very, very deep, is that what

I have seen almost ubiquitously amongst those who have that, who raise these issues, is to define the church and the gospel in light of their experience rather than defining their experience in light of the church and the gospel.

Let me switch over to my time here, and maybe I can...

This is the last ten minutes. I want to expand on that. I'll try to expand on that in my closing statement if I don't get around to it.

First question. I couldn't tell from your book. There's only really two major questions I want to... I feel like we really need to get through.

I couldn't tell from your book at the end. I almost... The first time

I listened to it, I thought I had not recorded all of it because it was like... And then I discovered

I was in the footnotes, so I had to be in the end. I'm going to quote you in the next edition of the book. I wish there was more.

Put that right next to Brian McLaren's endorsement. But anyways... You should listen to my debate with Brian on the

Unbelievable Radio Broadcast. It was fun. Anyways, here's my question. You've changed some of your views.

Are you open to the possibility of your entering into a same -sex relationship with another man as a

Christian now? So... Because I couldn't tell from the book.

Yeah. So here's the challenge for me in answering that.

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is yes, and I realize that raises a whole ton of questions that I can't get into in this forum because I'm here representing the organization that I'm representing in the way that I'm representing it.

And so I'm representing a lot of people who would strongly disagree with me on that point. And so I don't want to turn this forum into a forum on kind of where am

I currently in my scriptural views on that as much as I want to represent folks like Wesley who would strongly condemn me in that and who is my friend.

Would there ever be a context where you could? Yeah. Could you ever foresee one? Absolutely.

Absolutely. But it would have to be the right time and place, the right context.

Because I think it's important to... Will you keep me in mind when that time comes? In mind, yes.

I make no other promises than that. I got that message loud and clear.

Okay. I'll keep you in mind. Okay. I think one question that really, really does...

And I can't see how this is a violation of your position in light of the fact that you did address it in your book and you are an author.

Would you have comfort to at least explain how you understand 1 Corinthians 6 and the past tense of the verb that is used?

And such were some of you. I mean, do you just simply say, well, we can't know because we don't know what arsenikoites means?

Or why does Paul use the past tense? Because the subtitle of the book is

Rescuing the Gospel. And clearly, I doubt you would disagree with me, that washing, making holy, and justifying are all gospel terms.

So how do you understand that such were some of you? Well, I think...

One thing that I think that you and I can agree on, I hope, is that the folks you're talking about were doing something.

That they were doing something. That the word is not just describing temptations that they had.

So I think it's pretty clear that Paul is saying what they were doing was sinful and they no longer are doing it.

To me, that's very clear. So the

Corinthians who had been arsenikoites and malakoi no longer acted in light of the meaning of those words now that they were in the church and in Christ.

I think that's fair, yes. Okay. All right. Okay, so...

And I'm afraid, again, that we've lost half the audience going. I have no idea what they're talking about. Oh, I don't know. I never, ever, ever put it past an audience.

Maybe I've underestimated the audience. In which case, I deeply apologize. Although I do notice that about a quarter of you were going, no, no, and the rest of you were just kind of going like this.

No, I think most... I think the day is already here where all

Christians have to think a whole lot more about this than they ever had before simply because it's being forced upon us.

There's no question about that. But, all right, in light of these things, and I'm trying to honor your desire not to engage in a discussion of texts, though that, of course, is odd in light of the fact that you said in the book that you were deathly afraid when you started your biblical study of two dangers.

The one danger would be if the Bible is really saying these things and I tell people it's okay, then

I'm leading them down the road to hell. And if the Bible isn't condemning homosexuality, then

I'm a legalist. Correct? I mean, something to that effect.

Oh, how would you change that? How would you state it differently? Go ahead and ask your question.

Okay, well, in light of that, do you see what

I said this evening as illustrative of a position of legalism and hence possibly a violation of the proclamation of the

Gospels? I feel like... Come on, come on, don't...

Doctor, I feel like you're trying very, very hard to get me into a debate on a particular chapter in my book in which

I talk about the... Justin, do you know how much I wish most of my opponents had even read one of my books?

So to have it quoted to you, please, I'm just honestly trying to deal with what you actually said.

I know, but part of the challenge for me is that, you know, I'm here heading up an organization of many, many gay

Christians and other Christians who deeply disagree on those texts.

And I've written a book separately as an individual in which

I talk about my journey. It's not a book about those texts. It's a book about my journey.

But I do mention in that chapter sort of the struggles that I had with trying to understand the texts and different conclusions that I could have come to and, you know, whatnot.

But what I'm trying to avoid is getting into a debate about my own journey on those texts when

I'm here not to represent my book but to represent an organization and a lot of gay Christians. When the topic that was set up for discussion tonight wasn't

Justin's book, is it worth a buy, yes or no, but can you be both gay and Christian?

But can you understand why I think most of us in this room would define...

Oh, it's hugely important. ...would define our Christianity based upon the fact that God has made a revelation of himself in Jesus Christ and specifically in the written word of God.

And that's what I appreciate about you, Justin, was that you said that in your book.

Yes, and believe me, I'm very, very big on Scripture and I'm not trying to get out of arguing or talking about Scripture.

We just have to put the microphones down to be able to do it. Well, what I'm trying to... Here's my issue, though, is

I feel like, and this is part of what I was trying to say at the beginning, is that every time that the subject of homosexuality in the church comes up,

I feel like we spend so much time debating about what does 1

Corinthians 6 -9 mean, what does Romans 1 mean, and very little time, if any, talking about what does this look like for someone who is same -sex attracted in the church and how do we as a church respond to that.

And to me, that's the equivalent of, let's spend all of our time surrounding the woman caught in adultery talking about whether or not her adultery was sin rather than talking about how should we better respond to her.

And what I'm saying is, I'm willing, for the purpose of the discussion tonight, to 100 % grant you everything you've said on those texts.

What I want to talk about is, given that, how do we then respond to someone who experiences same -sex attraction in the church?

The only problem I have with that in the last 45 seconds here, very briefly, is I don't know that we can, honestly, just say, okay,

I will grant that for the purposes of this evening because, from my perspective, the whole reason that I am concerned about this subject to the depth that I am, that I'd be willing to be here this evening, is because of the fact that I see a tremendous amount of force being pushed upon me and everyone in the church to not make that the highest authority.

I mean, I don't know if you saw the open letter to the church from the young homosexual in South Dakota that was published just a few weeks ago.

But it basically said, you're losing all of us, and if I have to make a choice between my gay friends and the

Bible, I take my gay friends. Are you familiar with that one? I haven't seen that one particularly, but I would argue that that is the case, and that it is not because of taking a stance on the sinfulness or not sinfulness of gay relationships.

It is because of the way that the church responds to gay people, and I think a lot of Christians don't get that, and that's part of what

I'm trying to get at. All right. We now welcome the audience to ask questions of each of the speakers.

There's a microphone set up in the middle of the room. I can't wait.

Now, are we going to do this to where we've got to discuss this? I apologize, to where you identify the person it's directed to.

It can be either directed at one of the speakers, or you can ask an open question to both. Will both people have an opportunity to respond?

Okay. Justin, I need to warn you about this guy.

Just be careful. My question is for Justin, and first of all

I want to thank you for coming and for your candidness in speaking about your same -sex attraction.

You told a story that in school that there was somebody who put a poster up talking about fags and dykes, and I think one of your salient points was that the rhetoric there was really out of bounds, but I noticed something both in your opening statement where you talked about the guy in the bridge as well as your allusion to, and talking about throwing stones, and I think it's important to note that in both illustrations, the guy in the bridge, he's killed.

The throwing of stones, the woman caught in adultery, that results in the death of the adulteress, if that were to happen.

And I noticed that in both cases, you're equating people who are talking about the sinfulness of homosexuality with, rhetorically, the desire to kill homosexuals or people who are gay.

Do you see a disconnect with your rhetoric? Is that rhetoric appropriate? Is it constructive and right?

Or do you think it's hypocritical on your part? Well, let me be very clear. That was not at all the parallel I was intending to draw.

In fact, when I was thinking about the guy, throwing the other guy off the bridge, what I specifically had in mind was gay people accusing

Christians of being homophobes just for saying that they believe that homosexuality is a sin.

I think it goes both ways. I think there's some hateful rhetoric. I mean, we've seen Westboro Baptists with their

God hates fags signs, you know, and... I mean, that's one sort of very salient example, but we see that kind of thing in terms of hurtful, harmful rhetoric, sometimes from Christians aimed at gay folks, sometimes from gay folks aimed at Christians, and I don't believe in either case that the folks who are using that kind of rhetoric represent the entire community.

So I wasn't at all intending to say... I certainly wasn't intending to say that Christians taking a stance that homosexual relationships, gay relationships are sinful are...

that that's equivalent to hate speech or equivalent to killing anybody. This is one of the reasons that I keep going back to, and I know you're all sick of hearing it, but I keep going back to the fact that the gay

Christian network includes many folks who believe that same -sex relationships are sinful, and I'm here trying to represent them as much as the other side as well, because I believe both sides, in my mind at least, have to be present at the table if there's going to be dialogue, and so I don't believe at all that taking that stance is equivalent to killing folks.

I do think that the stakes are very high for all of us, and I do think that when

Christians are not very good at talking about these matters, it can result in depression, it can result in suicide, it can result in people walking away from the church, but I don't pin any of that on somebody taking a stance that gay sex is sinful.

I pin that on people who are, sometimes unintentionally, hurtful in the way that they talk about that, and so that's something that I do want to draw the church's attention to.

But again, I think it goes both ways, and when I talk to gay groups, I talk to them about how they're hurtful to Christians and how their language needs to change, so I don't mean to come across as being sort of too hard on the

Christians. If I'm ever harder on Christians than on gay folks, it's both because my central identity is as a

Christian rather than as a gay person, so I'm kind of harder on those who I feel like are part of my group, and because I hold

Christians to a higher standard, to be perfectly honest. I hope that answers your question. I will just very, very briefly comment.

Last year, a video appeared of Douglas Wilson speaking at the University of Indiana.

I don't know if you saw that. The way that he was treated and the response he got from the audience was absolutely amazing to me.

I honestly think that everyone should look up. It was called Designed... What was it, Designed?

Sexual Abidement. Sexual Abidement. Thank you very much. I just had it mixed around. It is one of the most educational and yet depressing things

I have ever seen in the response that he got to trying to reason with people, and if you've not seen it,

Justin, you've got to watch it. As the head of the Gay Christian Network, I just simply say to you, you've got to find the time to watch what happened at the

University of Indiana last year, or it might have been the year before, but it was within the past 18 months, I think, when

Douglas Wilson, a pastor from Moscow, Idaho, attempted to give a presentation on human sexuality from a biblical perspective, and it was one of the most amazing things

I've ever seen, so I would really encourage you to take a look at it if you haven't seen it. Hey, I would like to get your,

Justin, and yours and Dr. White's interpretation of the sufficiency of Christ, because I think that's what this boils down to.

Sufficiency of Christ. Sufficiency of Christ. So, I believe

Christ is sufficient for us. I do not believe that I or anyone else needs a romantic partner or sexual activity or money or anything else in order to be happy.

I believe that often a lot of the things that we think are going to bring us happiness and joy turn out not to as much as we think that they will, and I think that we need to be relying ultimately on Christ for the things that we need in our lives.

That said, I also feel like it's important for me to acknowledge the world that we live in, and just as I think, you know, if someone in the church has gone through a divorce, if their spouse has died or their parent has died or they're sick with cancer or they've been through any kind of difficult thing, we as a church, part of what we do is we support them.

We, yes, acknowledge that Christ is sufficient, but we also say, as the body of Christ in the world, we're going to go and comfort this person.

And I think that we've done that very well in some situations and not as well in other situations. And so, when

I say these things and I say I want us to think more about the struggles of the gay person in the church, it's not because I think that without us worrying about them that Christ won't be sufficient for them, but it's because I think that Christ calls us to do so.

Well, very briefly, I would define the sufficiency of Christ. First, in his person, the fact that he, as the

God -man, is sufficient to do exactly what the Father's will for him is, and that is to be a perfect Savior who saves his people perfectly and without loss.

The sufficiency of Christ then functionally becomes, for believers, in light of who he is, the fact that everything that we need we find in him, in union with him, forgiveness, eternal life.

He is to be our all in all. There is to be nothing that we add to him or subtract from him. And at least in the context of this debate, as the argument

I've made is, for those who would say that the church needs to change its view of the law or sin, that's not something that Justin has said, but that many people are attempting to say today, for us to be accepted in this culture or to be up -to -date with the modern generation, is to say that Christ is not enough.

And I reject that. And I think it comes from a really misunderstanding of who

Jesus is. When we present a surface -level Jesus, we shouldn't be overly surprised when people then respond with not being able to find him sufficient in all things.

We need to present Jesus as he truly is. And that's everything. The fact that he rules the nations with a rod of iron as well needs to be a part of our presentation.

I think we've shot ourselves in the foot. The Jesus carrying the little lamb picture, it's not enough.

It's not enough. So first I want to say I appreciate both of you gentlemen and what you've brought to the discussion.

Justin, I really appreciate bringing the perspective that somebody can have these thoughts, not act upon them, and don't deal with it as anybody deals with temptation and sin in their life.

But the question that keeps surfacing is, or that keeps coming back to me, because I deal a lot on the

Internet with young kids and the younger generation, and LGBT is all. I mean, kids wear their sexual identity on their sleeves.

It's the most important things in their life. And both of you have spoken to this to a certain level. And I just wonder if Justin, you, and you can talk to this as well, but when you say

I'm a gay Christian, or you put such a heavy emphasis on it, I heard what you said about being a

Christian and then being gay and understand what you're trying to say about that. But don't you think that by focusing on the sarcs and on the flesh and on the desires of the world, that we're really validating something that we should be striving to teach this generation, that we need to drive deeper, and that I don't care what your inner thoughts are.

I don't want to see them broadcast. And if you're struggling with any kind of sin, I'm there to be on your side, not to gossip about you because you're 35 and you don't have a companion, because guess what?

I have friends that are celibate that are 35 and 40 and 45, and I don't question their sexuality.

They're celibate, right? And as a Christian, that's the way we're supposed to be. But can you kind of talk about where the generation's at?

Justin, you kind of talked about it. Because it just seems to me that we're making, it becomes a very shallow thing when we start making sexuality all that we are.

Well, I 100 % agree with you that if we make sexuality all that we are, then we've missed the boat entirely.

And that's one reason that, you know, I always want to be clear that when I say that I'm gay,

I'm not saying my identity and all that I am is gay. It's an adjective.

It's not, you know, I was invited to come here specifically to talk about that, but it's, you know, and obviously it's something

I talk about a lot in my job. But in my everyday life, it's not something, you know, I don't go around introducing myself to folks and saying,

Hi, my name is Justin and I'm gay, just so you know, you know. But you do tell people you're bald, including when you were a server, right?

No, I don't like to identify myself by my baldness. I refer to myself as struggling with follicle challenge and not struggling with follicle overgrowth.

Anyway, the very issue that you raise about kids is one of the reasons that I think it's important for Christians who are committed

Christians and are gay to be open about it, because I really do believe that they need role models.

If I don't call myself gay, if I keep it to myself, and if folks like Wesley Hill, who

I referred to earlier, if he doesn't call himself gay and he keeps it to himself, that's not going to stop any of these kids who've been raised in a glee generation from identifying themselves as gay.

What it is going to do is stop them from feeling like they have any role models that they can look to who are Christians and who have stayed

Christians. And unfortunately right now, a lot of kids are growing up honestly believing that Christians hate gay people, which is not true.

And I know that even though in this room the consensus is that gay sex, that homosexual relationships are sinful,

I also know that in this room is a lot of love for gay people. And I know that you wouldn't be here sitting here unless you wanted to show

Christ's love to gay people. That's not the message, though, that a lot of these kids have gotten for a variety of reasons, and we could talk about that all night.

But for me, it's important to counter that message and to say that's not the case and to be honest about being gay.

Just very, very briefly, when we talk about role models, I would like to point out a recent book that was published that I think people should be aware of.

It's called The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosario Champagne Butterfield. She was a lesbian women's studies professor, and she has been converted to Christ, and a rather radical conversion.

And I would point that out as an excellent example of what

Christ can do in someone's life as far as change. And then the other thing I'll just mention we have not even touched upon, but we need to be thinking about.

As someone already used the beginning of the ever -expanding list of acronyms, LGBTQI, RSTUV, I can't even keep up with it anymore.

But we've only talked about G and maybe touched on L. But from a

Christian perspective, I can't see how you can even start on B and T from a biblical perspective.

We can't get into that. But I think it's something that most people haven't even started thinking about because we're only starting to get into thinking about this.

But when you start talking about bisexuality and transgenderism and things like that, now you're starting to talk about different sets of passages, and you're starting to talk about Jesus' teaching in Matthew 19 and his quotation from Genesis 2 and the creation narrative and all of those things.

And that's all up for grabs for many people in our culture today. And that's something we need to be thinking about as well.

This question is for Justin. Sorry about this.

It's okay. I am too. I want to first say thank you for the spirit.

It's not a loving, caring debate. It's not.

I actually had tears coming because of the debate. Not knowing what to expect.

And I want to say thank you very much. And I know that the church is sent.

I grew up in Indiana, 75 miles away from Brian White, who died of AIDS.

And there was the hostility of the church members attacking this poor little boy because he had a blood transfusion.

And there's such a hatred towards homosexuality in this that because of the pain that people have gone through, not being recognized that the people attacking them are just as much a sinner as they are.

Sin is equal on every aspect. Every human being falls short. Everyone sins.

And we sin a lot. And we don't even realize it. And I really, truly believe because of the hostility during those 80s and 90s, it arose to the hostility in Indiana in the

Doug Wilson debate. Which was actually just a presentation. It wasn't a debate.

Right, yeah, that's true. It would have been really rough if it had been a debate. But anyhow,

I came up here. There's something that you had said in your talk about you want to recognize yourself as a gay

Christian. Well, I'll just be honest. I'm an idolatrous

Christian. And I know we haven't gotten into the

Bible, but God has really shared with me some tremendous things through my life.

All right, I'll try to read. Well, idolatry is listed within the bad fruits, along with other sins and self -control.

And it's listed as there's good fruits. Patience, love, kindness, and such.

And we live as in Romans 12 .1,

it says, That you teach your brother to give yourselves.

I'm sorry. To present your body as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. Which is the reason it wasn't serviced. Right. And then in the second, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Right. And that's through the word of God. Is your question about whether?

Well, I'm almost there. I'm almost there. So when we present our bodies on the living altar, we're dead to sin.

We're dead to sin. We're no longer living in the spirit. And as soon as we start seeing those bad fruits, our living sacrifice is crawling off the altar.

So, and because it says here, and those who belong to Christ, Christ Jesus, have crucified the flesh with its passions.

But previously, if you look, it says, whoever does the bad spirit or the bad fruits, they will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So when it come off. So what you're saying to me, when you say I'm a gay Christian, and I say

I'm an adulterous Christian, I'm not recognizing that Christ died for that sin.

That I'm a new creature. You're a new creature. And so what you're doing is you're pulling

Christ through the mud. And I honestly believe that. Because you're a new creature in Christ.

All things have passed away. You're a new person. I don't know.

Maybe you don't see it that way. But you are new Christ. And there's nothing wrong with being single.

There's nothing wrong. Paul himself was single. You know, there's nothing wrong with it. It's society.

Don't listen to society. Thank you. I think you said a lot of really important things about how we're not defined by our sins or by our temptations.

And I think you're exactly right about that. And, yes, you're exactly right that there's nothing wrong with being single.

And, in fact, gay people are not the only ones in the church who sometimes experience feeling a little left out if you're single, especially past a certain age.

And it's something that we can work on, you know. But I want to say also, really briefly, thank you for your outpouring of compassion to me because I hear the compassion in your voice.

Even though you and I may not agree on whether this is the right word for me to use, I appreciate that.

And you were nervous coming up there and nervous about how this would go. I joked with one of my friends yesterday before getting on the plane this morning that I hoped that I wouldn't get shot.

And I was only partially kidding. Honestly.

I really was afraid of coming here and how I would be received.

These are scary conversations to have. And I appreciate your willingness to be open and honest about that because sometimes

I'm afraid to admit that I'm afraid in this kind of situation. But it is scary.

It's scary to talk about this stuff. So, anyway, thank you for that. I don't know that I have anything specific to add on why

I use the word gay because I've tried to explain why I use it. But I do want to say that I very much understand why other people may choose not to use it.

And I have friends who are Christians who are same -sex attracted who say, I do not want to use the word gay.

And then I have other friends who look at them and say, I think that person is being dishonest because they don't use the word gay.

And it's tough. And at some point, we're going to disagree on the language, but I hope that you can hear my heart, and I certainly hope that I've heard yours.

So, thank you. Let's go with my question. My question is for you, Dr. White. See, I knew it.

And I guess I was just looking for maybe a little bit of clarity. I'm kind of confused. I feel like Justin tried to ask you a few times and kind of cuts to the heart of this debate of do you believe, just yes or no, that you can be attracted to a person of the same sex and not be sinful?

I believe that an attraction to a person of the same sex is a result of broken sexuality.

I don't believe that Adam would have been attracted to another Adam or Eve to another

Eve prior to the fall. So the only reason that that orientation or desire exists is because of our fall in Adam.

There's a difference between experiencing those attractions and then moving to the level of lust and then moving to the level of action, but there is something disordered and broken about any attraction that violates

God's natural purpose in the creation of male and female. So it is a result of the fall, but that's what

I was trying to explain earlier, is what I think Justin is hearing is because Paul in Romans 1 specifically uses that as an illustration of the twistedness of the creator -creation distinction, that somehow that means we are being unfair or unkind or saying you're not as good of a

Christian or something along those lines. All of us are broken sexually, but that particular orientation away from the natural orientation, that a person is supposed to have, is right there used in Scripture as a warning against the results of that creator -creation distinction twisting.

So I'm sorry it's not a yes or no question, because the answer requires an understanding of the created order as it's revealed in Scripture.

All right, we'll now invite our last question for this portion of the forum. Thank you both for your time.

I really appreciate you coming here. I could definitely understand not only your fear of being shot, but when you asked at the beginning how many people had an opposing view and 99 % raised their hands,

I was surprised that you didn't kind of make your way to the back door. A lot of people in the face of that, it's pretty difficult, and I really appreciate you doing that.

An observation and then a comment. We talked about a lot of times that people in the church need to consider their attitude and their treatment of gay and lesbian people.

Recently, I've gone through a divorce, and I've been looking for a new church so that I'm somewhere separate from where my wife is.

In the process of doing that, I have an adult niece and nephew who both are gay and lesbian.

So some of those things have been in my mind as I've looked for a church home. I was in a church for the second time this past Sunday, waiting for church to start, standing kind of in the back, kind of getting in the lay of the land.

The senior pastor of that church was standing back there and waiting to greet another older gentleman and had held a stand out, and when that guy came over, he said,

I'm getting ready for my visit to California. That stereotype is still so strong.

You look at people coming into a church body and wanting to know whether there's love and acceptance there, and I think that the church really does still have a lot to do to recognize that what comes out of their mouth can be blessing and can be cursing, can show love and can show acceptance.

So that was just a brief observation. And the other may is kind of in line with the last question, really, because, again, in the courtesy that you've shown one another,

I think that there was great caution in trying not to hurt feelings, but one of the comments,

Dr. White, that you had made was talking about homosexual relationships. You said the vast majority of the male sexual experience is not monogamous whatsoever.

In light of that, and in talking about much of what Justin has talked about, would it make a difference in that gay relationship were it monogamous?

Because it seemed like he kept trying to entice you to say, OK, if everything else is in alignment with God's order and a gay -identified male wants to be in a monogamous relationship with another male, is that OK?

Thank you. No, I see absolutely nothing in Scripture that would overturn

Jesus' own divine interpretation of the creation narrative in Genesis 1 and 2, which specifically states that a man will leave his father and his mother, be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

The union that makes one flesh is not just sexual, though that's a very important part and that's what creates life.

And I am concerned that much of the broad non -Christian homosexual movement is a part of the culture of death, because it cannot produce life.

That is something I'm very, very concerned about. But in answer to your question, the oneness, the union that exists is a divine union.

Sexual, yes, but it's not just physical, it's also spiritual and mental as well.

It is a covenant and it has been the desecration of marriage in our society that has led to the current discussion of the redefinition of marriage, which we didn't get into this evening, but it's a vitally important issue as well.

But from a biblical perspective, I see absolutely no evidence whatsoever that you could ever redefine the union of man and woman as man with man or woman with woman, because of the fact that that is a mirror image.

And there is something, believe me, I know this experientially and I believe the Bible represents this, a woman is different than I am.

And to live with that woman and love that woman changes me. I am not meant to love a mirror image of myself.

And so I stand on Matthew 19 and Jesus' teaching on that subject and I see nothing in Scripture.

And remember, Paul knew, the apostles knew, especially Paul would have known, of those who claimed otherwise.

And there is absolutely no indication that from a scriptural perspective that would be something that could be considered to be appropriate or within the realm of Christian ethics and morality.

Well, thank you. Did you want to comment on that? Then we will invite you up for your closing remarks.

You know what, I can just make them from right here. I'm not going to take, how much time do

I have, ten minutes? I'm not going to take ten minutes because I feel like a lot has been said and it's been a long evening and I don't know about you, but it seems to me like folks are getting a little bit restless.

So let me just say this. I am so thankful to all of you for giving me the chance to be here and for listening and for asking good questions.

I know that many of you probably disagreed with many of the things I said. And I thank you for listening and having compassion in your faces as you listened to me, even if you disagreed with every single thing that I said.

To me, that is Christian love. And that is something I would love to see more of in the church.

Ever since when I was 18 and I first realized that I was gay and I wasn't sure what word to use and I wasn't sure how to identify myself or what my future would be like or what the

Bible said on this and I went back and forth on all of those things, I've experienced one situation after another where Christians didn't show me love, where Christians didn't show me empathy.

And it broke my heart because until that point, my experience had always been that Christians were the most loving people in the world.

And that when people outside of the church didn't see that, I thought it was just their own sin blinding them.

And when I saw myself that sometimes Christians are not as loving as I had always thought we were, it made me rethink a lot of things about how

I behaved as a Christian. So my hope tonight was to give you a little taste of that and to maybe give you a different way of thinking about this issue.

But I know we're still going to disagree on a lot of things. Feel free to read my book if you want.

You'll probably agree with some of it and disagree with other parts of it. I have a blog. You can follow me on there and post stuff on my blog and disagree with that too.

Sorry, what? I thought you said something. I'm hearing voices now because I'm so tired. I've been up since 2 this morning your time.

So anyway, but I just want to say thank you and thank you to you,

Dr. White. I know some parts of the discussion were not maybe where you wanted them to be, but I appreciate your understanding.

I'll end with this. If you remember anything from this,

I ask that you remember that when we talk about homosexuality, that gay people are not just an issue that we need to have a position on.

We do need to have positions on these things. The scripture is very important and I appreciate Dr. White bringing all of that into it, but we're not just an issue, we're people.

And these are difficult questions for all of us. Not just for gay people, but for the friends and family members of gay people who are wrestling with how to show them love.

And so this is a question that we're going to have to continue to wrestle with. I hope we can continue to do it with love.

And to remember the words of my friend Tony Campolo, who says, you know, people always talk about love the sinner and hate the sin, and I think that's interesting.

I'm not going to do my Tony Campolo impression. I know you were waiting for it. But he says that people always say love the sinner and hate the sin, but I think that's interesting because that's not what

Jesus said. Jesus didn't say love the sinner and hate the sin. Jesus said love the sinner and hate your own sin.

And I like that. It kind of glosses over the very important fact that we do need to take a stand on sin, but I think it helps us keep our focus in the right place.

So thanks very much for all of your love and for your time. Awesome.

We'll now recognize Dr. White for his closing remarks as well. Well, first of all, thank you very much for coming out this evening.

Some of you have flown in from other states to be here this evening. I hope that you have heard the discussion in the way that it was intended to be heard.

Obviously, I think there are issues that need to be addressed that we have not been able to get to this evening.

I believe that as Christians, we definitely need to know our Bibles. I don't think it's just a half dozen verses that we need to know.

I think there is a positive pan -canonical. The entirety of Scripture testifies to God's intention and the creation of male and female, the family.

I don't know how long, to be perfectly honest with you, in our society, we are going to be able to have dialogues like this.

There are already people who are beginning to identify the position I hold as hate speech. There are people being told that in nations or in states where gay marriage has been defined and allowed, that we are now promoting bigotry and things like that.

If we dare to say these things, I don't know how long we're going to have these freedoms. I really, really don't. It's a frightening thing to me to consider that.

But while we have the freedom, we need to be very open in understanding what the Scriptures teach. I believe this is a

Gospel issue. I believe that the vast majority of pro -homosexual writing undercuts the authority of the

Bible. This is the first time I've actually had a debate on this subject, where the authority of the Bible didn't come up.

When I debated Barry Lynn, Barry Lynn, United Church of Christ minister, said he receives revelations on the same level as the

Apostle Paul, and that Paul was over the top in the book of Galatians. He then tried to sue us to suppress the videos of that particular debate.

And when I debated John Shelby Spong, Bishop Spong, really holds what

I would call a neo -pagan view of the Bible. He's even written a book called The Sins of Scripture. So it was nice to actually be able to address the topic from a position where I wasn't having to engage my apologetic defense of the integrity of the

Bible or its revelation. But at the same time, we were not able to get into the reality of the consistent testimony of Scripture.

And I believe that that is something we need to consider. Is there a consistent testimony of Scripture?

Is there something that we can trace from beginning to end? Certainly, when we talk about the Gospel, we say that there is.

We say to the world that we have a Savior. And the reason He is the only Savior is because all of us are sinners, and all of us have broken the same law.

Because of that, we need to know what that law says. But unfortunately, for many today, we don't know.

We can't tell what that law says. That was just for that time. It was just for that day. And that's why you have all the revisionist literature that's out there, a massive mountain that has been produced.

I wrote a book called The Same -Sex Controversy, co -authored in 2001. I couldn't believe the amount of literature that was coming out then.

That was a dozen years ago. It needs a revision, but my goodness, I don't know if anybody can keep up with the amount of stuff that's come out since then.

And unfortunately, it's not new research. It's rehashing old things just in new ways.

But one thing I want to say in closing that concerns me greatly. I'm obviously concerned about the witness of the

Church and the world. But I also recognize that Jesus said, the world will hate you because it hated me first.

I am very concerned when we start defining the Gospel and the worship of the Church and the function of the

Church based upon polls of 20 -year -olds. 20 -year -olds shouldn't be polled.

I'm old enough now to be able to say that. I'm not even certain they should be driving, to be perfectly honest with you. But the reality is, our young generation is so deeply influenced by rock stars and the

Internet, rather than having been taught to have respect for the past, to read the great classics, to not overthrow everything, that if the

Church starts trying to form itself in such an image as to be attractive to people who don't even think about history and think that no one before them has ever understood anything, the

Church is going to be in real trouble. Serious young people who recognize that they're not going to live forever and who recognize that they need to look for something that is unchanging would like to find people who do not compromise what they believe.

Now, Justin has said, you know, there were a lot of people who didn't show me love.

I know what it means not to be shown love. I really do. But let me tell you something.

The world's definition of love is not the Bible's definition of love. And when

I speak God's truth as a redeemed sinner, not saying

I'm any better than anyone else, but I'm fully dependent upon Christ for my salvation, when I speak

God's truth, that is a loving thing. I do not believe that it is a loving thing for one man to engage in sexual activity with another man.

I believe that is destructive of both of them. It's not life -affirming, it's not life -creating, and it's destructive.

Our culture today has an emotionally defined definition of love. Jesus showed us you don't define love by emotion.

He said to his disciples, it is necessary that I go to Jerusalem.

It is necessary that I be betrayed in the hands of men, and that I die and rise again the third day.

Those of you who have been married as long as I have know, sometimes love forces you to do things you don't want to do.

But that's what real love is. And that's why real love lasts. Does it bring emotion?

It can. But you better remain loving even when the emotion isn't there, because it's a commitment.

Aren't you glad God's love for us is not based on emotion? That it is new every morning?

That it is a covenantal love? That's my concern, is that many in the church today have a worldly view of what love is.

I've told people straight up front, what you're saying is destructive of human life.

You're a hater! No, you're irrational. I'm not a hater. Identifying the truth as hate is irrational.

And yet that's what we're seeing, not from Justin, but from many people in the world today. So he sort of said, yeah,

I'll remember you. I know exactly what he meant. And he said, maybe someday, maybe someday.

But Justin, the door's open. The invitation's there. I would love to go beyond where we could go, if you ever have the desire to do so, and you feel that it's time to address these things.

And especially if you decide to take the position, you know what, Arson of Coites doesn't mean that, and Paul didn't mean this in Romans chapter 1.

I hope you'll be open, because I believe that to show love for Scripture is to address it fully and to debate the issues.

I don't think debate is a bad thing. I know that you have a problem with the word. You see, your use of the word is not my use of the word.

I've done almost 130 of these. And when I stood in the East London Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe, one week to the day after the

Benghazi attack, when there's riots all around the world, and stood in front of a mixed audience of Christians and Muslims and told the

Muslims in the room, the Koran is wrong, and Mohammed is not prophesied in the

Bible, that was an act of love, not hatred. It was an act of love for my

God. It was an act of love for my fellow believers. It was an act of love for every

Muslim in that room. That is not hate speech. That is building bridges.

Debate can be done respectfully. Debate can be done properly. The Apostle Paul engaged in debate according to the

Scriptures. And by so doing, he encouraged the hearts of those who had believed by grace.

And so that's why I continue doing this. There's one other reason why we should do it, because I'm not sure how long we're going to have the freedom to continue doing it.

We see this freedom being shut down in Europe and other places. There are many people who would like to see our freedom to do this in this land, curtailed as well.

So while I have life and breath, I am going to give testimony to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And I believe this issue is a gospel issue. Such were some of you.

Are there same -sex attracted people in the church? Yes, there are. Do they need to be loved?

Yes. Do they need to be told that their same -sex attraction cannot define the worship and teaching of the church?

Yes. All those things are true. And they can be said, first of all, with love for God.

Love for the work of Christ upon the cross. And then love for those who will come to Christ in repentance and faith.

Thank you very much for being here this evening. Well, on behalf of Reformation Montana, thank you so much for coming tonight.

I hope you had an edifying time. I would ask that if you didn't register on your way in tonight, that you stop on your way out and register there also.

If you're going to be coming to the conference tomorrow and you did register tonight, be sure to pick up your packet, name tag, all of that stuff when you come in tomorrow morning.