The Truth About Gay Christians

The Public Rise of the Gay Christian Movement

Grace Semler Baldridge is quickly rising to the top of the Christian music scene. She's been spending a few days in the top spot on the iTunes Christian chart.

If you'd like to learn more about how Christians can both affirm the authority of the Bible and affirm their LGBTQ friends and loved ones, I invite you to join me.

And I will finish this evening by making one incredibly important point that I want you, I'll make it now, I want you to hear it, and then I will explicate it later on. This is a gospel issue.

There is a coordinated effort between professing Christians and non-Christians to change how Christians think about what the Bible teaches concerning homosexuality. Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian, is one of the most prominent voices in this movement.

Vines was invited to speak at Google, he was interviewed by PBS, and the New York Times wrote an article praising Vines. Grace Baldridge, who goes by the name Semler, is an openly queer music artist whose songs have reached the top of Christian music charts more than once.

Semler successfully pressured John Foreman of Switchfoot to essentially affirm the LGBTQ movement. It's clear that there is enormous pressure from both professing Christians and non-Christians working together to get all Christians to accept and celebrate the LGBTQ movement and lifestyle.

And because Vines presents biblical arguments that, at first glance, might appear sophisticated and scholarly, many Christians now believe that accepting the LGBTQ lifestyle is an acceptable position for Christians.

I just knew too many wonderful Christian people who are in gay relationships.

Matthew Vines' book, God and the Gay Christian, these are not certainly the only books, but they have received a tremendous amount of public attention and present the idea that the Bible does not condemn same-sex attraction, same-sex unions, same-sex activity, that no one in the Bible knew what we know today, and therefore those prohibitions in the scriptures cannot be made relevant to something that the people who wrote the scriptures didn't know anything about.

That is the primary argument of what is being called the gay Christian movement.

Recognizing Same-Sex Attraction Without Affirming Sin

Before we respond to some of the major arguments of the gay Christian movement, first, let's recognize that there are indeed people who experience same-sex attraction, and that this kind of attraction is not something that they can just turn on and off.

We need to recognize that there are individuals who experience same-sex attraction. There are individuals within the church that experience same-sex attraction. There may be people here this evening that experience same-sex attraction.

That was something we didn't admit for a long time. We didn't want to talk about it for a long time.

But let's be honest with ourselves. And second, let's point out that LGBTQ issues are unique moral issues in the sense that nobody is really trying to convince Christians to accept or celebrate things like anger, adultery, or drunkenness.

But many want Christians to accept and celebrate the LGBTQ lifestyle.

And so why do we treat homosexuality differently is what many people would say. Well, partly because I have yet to encounter the angry Christian movement that would identify anger as a gift from God that is to define me, that I'm to embrace it, that is to be something that I am to see as a gift from God.

That might be one part of the reason.

And third, let's distinguish between Christians who experience same-sex attraction yet are fighting against this temptation because they recognize it as sin, and professing Christians who embrace their identity as homosexual and openly practice homosexual behavior.

So we recognize that Christians experience temptation and desire that is against God's will. But hopefully you can see immediately that this then highlights what the real dividing line is between one that the church should be ministering to, that the church should be willing to assist, that the church wants to have in its fellowship, and those that we must exclude.

And it's very simply this. If you experience, if I as a man experience lust, then what is the proper Christian response to that? Is it for me to embrace that, allow it to define me, and then for me to demand that the Christian gospel and the Christian faith adapt itself to my nature as a lustful man?

The person who will come to Christ and will say, I bring my brokenness to you. I realize that it is not right in your sight. I want to do what is right in your sight. That is the person who will find grace and forgiveness.

We would argue that professing Christians who embrace and practice homosexual behavior are in serious rebellion against God and what God has clearly revealed in the Bible concerning human sexuality.

But the person who comes to Christ and says, I refuse to accept your authority in defining what is right and what is wrong in my desires, my behaviors, and my actions. Instead, I want to adapt the Christian faith.

I demand that the Christian faith adapt to me because I have decided that these desires are the way God made me and therefore need to be celebrated by everyone. It's a huge dividing line.

Why the “Six Verses” Argument Fails

One common argument that people on Vine's side of the debate make is that there are only six passages in the Bible that address the issue of homosexuality. So it's really a pretty minor moral issue.

I am confident, having debated a number of advocates of homosexuality, both homosexual and heterosexual, I truly believe that there has been collaboration amongst the leading presenters of this perspective to press this idea that of all the thousands and thousands of verses in the Bible, only six address homosexuality.

What's the fundamental assertion being made there without stating it? This is a minor issue and the church is majoring on minors. Just get over it. Six verses out of 34 ,000 or however many there are?

Come on, what's wrong with you people? Why are you willing to be on the wrong side of history for only six verses? Whenever you hear that kind of argumentation, I hope you see straight through it.

However, the truth is that everything the Bible says about marriage, sexuality, and male and female relates to the issue of homosexuality.

Because that is not how the Bible is interpreted. That's not how we interpret scripture. And if something is mentioned six times in scripture, it's not going to be mentioned in a vacuum. The reality is this, from Genesis to Revelation, every statement, every passing reference, the subject of marriage, the subject of God's creatorship of mankind is an affirmation of heterosexuality.

There is nothing positive said anywhere in the pages of scripture concerning homosexual relations of any kind.

Jesus, Marriage, and the Authority to Define Human Sexuality

It's common for people to argue that Jesus never addressed the issue of homosexuality.

Argument number one is the argument that Jesus never addressed homosexuality. This is a very popular approach. People will look at this and they'll say, well, you're a Christian, which means you're a follower of Christ, right?

Well, yeah, I'm a follower of Christ. Well, as a follower of Christ, it seems very strange to me that you're making a big deal out of something that Jesus never mentioned one time in the gospel. Not one time.

And for most Christians, they hear that and we're just sort of taken aback. And, you know, our response is usually something along the lines of, well, what's bad? We don't, we don't, what? We just don't know what to say, right?

However, the reality is that Jesus very clearly addressed this issue in the book of Matthew. Here's what you say.

Number one, Jesus did address homosexuality. He addressed it in Matthew chapter 5 and in Matthew chapter 19. Because in Matthew chapter 5 and Matthew chapter 19, he addressed the issue of marriage. He rooted his understanding of marriage in the teaching in Genesis chapter 2.

The teaching in Genesis chapter 2 that gave us marriage between a man and a woman for the purposes of procreation, illustration, and sanctification. He also made it very clear that what man is joined together, what God has joined together, man cannot separate.

In other words, God is the author of marriage, not man. Therefore, God is the one who defines marriage, not man. Therefore, man does not have the right to introduce the concept of same-sex marriage. Number one, because by definition, it's not marriage.

It's another thing. And number two, because by definition, it goes against what was created in Genesis chapter 2. So Jesus did address homosexuality. Like VoddieBalkan and James White,.

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Creation, Biology, and the Gospel Stakes of the Debate

Also, it should be clear that God designed marriage to be between a man and a woman, since reproduction cannot occur within a same-sex relationship.

I don't have to become graphic to point out that on any logical, rational basis, when you look at male anatomy and female anatomy, they go together. Male and male and female and female don't work, can't work and will never produce life, but can produce a whole lot of death.

Because the Bible is so clear about the issue of homosexuality, how we interpret the Bible regarding this issue is extremely important, even foundational to our understanding of the gospel, because the gospel involves an accurate understanding of what sin is.

And I will finish this evening by making one incredibly important point that I want, I will make it now, I want you to hear it, and then I will explicate it later on. This is a gospel issue. This is a gospel issue.

When you listen to what they're actually saying and follow it through, if you were to believe in that kind of interpretation, we would no longer be able to define what sin is. If you can't define what sin is, then you can't explain why there's a need for a cross, a savior, the resurrection, and the gospel itself.

Why does Jesus die upon a cross? If one of the most plain and clear violations of God's law isn't, then can't that same reasoning be used for anything else? And hence, we no longer have a basis for understanding what sin is in the first place.

Sodom and Gomorrah, Leviticus, and Romans 1

Now, let's take a look at some of the major passages at the center of this debate. First, Genesis, where Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of the sin of homosexuality. Let's go to Genesis.

And they called to Lot and said to him, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may, and this translation says, have relations with them. The term is yedah. Hebrew term is yedah.

Yedah is the normative Hebrew word to know. God, for example, speaks of the people of Israel as the only people he has known. And there, the New American Standard translates that as chosen. Name is for.

And it's also used when Adam knows Eve and she brings forth a son. So it clearly has reference to sexual intercourse. And hence, it says, bring them out to us that we may know them refers to sexual intercourse.

The counter argument is that Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed because of homosexuality, but rather because of other sins the people were guilty of.

Now, one of the revisionist arguments regarding Sodom and Gomorrah is that, for example, in Ezekiel, Sodom and Gomorrah is condemned for lack of his hospitality, not caring for the poor, etc., etc. And that's exactly true.

It's there. The problem with the counter argument is that homosexuality is certainly included in the list of sins the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty of.

Funny thing is, most of the time when those facts are cited, they don't cite the very next verse which says, and you committed toevah, that which is an abomination. In Levitical law, that term toevah, when it comes to sexual things, identified as homosexuality.

So they sort of skip that part. This is not the only thing that the Sodomites did wrong. If you approach the Bible as a group of disjointed texts, you can always come up with a way around anything. And as long as you don't have to interpret Genesis, along with Leviticus, along with Romans, then you can get away with anything.

When you look at Biblical teaching, theoretically, you can find a way around any single passage. It is the combined effect. It is the fact that you take them as a whole, as a unitary whole. That's how Jesus taught about the Bible, about Scripture.

That's where you run into the problem. That's why, inevitably, revisionists end up with a much lower view of Scripture than that which we hold. They have to. Necessary. They can't avoid it. And so what they do is they'll take this text and they'll come up with three, four, five different ways of reading it.

Sometimes the same author will offer two or three different options. But they'll never put it in context with Leviticus. They'll never put it in context with Romans. They won't allow the whole voice of Scripture to speak.

That's the only way they can do it. They can't allow Scripture to speak with one voice, this matter, because its conclusion will be plain. And so they'll always cut them up. And you just look. You look at the books.

There are chapters on this text.

We'll never make reference to that. We'll never make reference to that because you can't look at the Bible in that way. Next, Leviticus, where homosexuality is described as an abomination. One counter-argument is that Jesus abolished the Old Testament law.

Now, you will, again, encounter all sorts of arguments. Many today, like Matthew Vines, just basically say, well, Christians recognize they're no longer under the Levitical law, so these things just aren't relevant to them.

Anyone who can say that has obviously spent almost no time whatsoever reading the gospel. Jesus taught anyone who teaches you to break even the least of these commandments is at least in the kingdom of God.

He said he did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill. Well, fulfill means do away with. No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. What is the nature of the law that is written upon the heart of the believer in the new covenant?

What's that law? An extremely popular argument is that Christians are picking and choosing by saying that the laws against homosexuality are still relevant today, but the laws against things like eating shellfish are no longer relevant.

Jesus, doesn't the Bible say these people are an abomination? Oh, abomination?

Yeah, but, you know, it says the exact same thing about this shrimp cocktail.

Mmm, shrimp cocktail.

Leviticus says shellfish is an abomination.

However, again, the people making this argument are misinterpreting the Bible, which makes a distinction between different types of laws.

I pick and choose because I understand that there are three different types of law. There's moral law, there's civil law, and there's ceremonial law. You see, I understand that the moral law, which is really based on the Decalogue, is that law that transcends time and culture, and that those are things that are true for all people in all places at all times.

However, there is a civil law that God gave to Israel in the ancient Near East for them to function as a culture then and there. Those things cannot just be taken over from that culture to our own. Thirdly, there are ceremonial laws which taught Israel about its worship.

Those things cannot just be brought over whole hog either. For example, the laws in Leviticus that relate to the temple, we couldn't do those things if we wanted to. Here's where it gets very interesting.

Because I'm a Christian, I understand that Christ fulfilled those things in the ceremonial law. That he was our once-for-all sacrifice for sin. So that as a Christian, it would actually be an abomination for me to go and offer the sacrifice of a lamb or a bull or a goat when Christ died for sin once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that he might bring us back to God.

So as a Christian, I am obligated to pick and choose because Christ fulfilled the law.

Romans 1, Same-Sex Desire, and the Meaning of Arsenokoitai

Now, let's take a look at the Book of Romans, which speaks of unnatural relations between members of the same sex. The most common counter-argument regarding this passage is that it's referring to non-consensual unhealthy same-sex relations, not consensual healthy same-sex relationships.

Now, the primary revisionist argument is this. This is referring to, in Roman culture, rich Roman men who could buy young boys as slaves and engage in sex acts with them. That's the primary argument that people have made.

You'll find it in almost all the books trying to get around this text.

However, this is simply not an accurate interpretation of what Paul is saying in the Book of Romans.

Mr. Lane, could you explain, please, what it means, burned in their desire toward ais alelus, toward one another. This is not one older man desiring to have a boy toy. This is a mutual sexual desire between two men.

There's no question of it. You can't get around the language. That's what ais alelus means. Men with men. Arsenous and arson. Arson. Men with men. Not men with women. Not men with boys. Men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

There is nothing natural about homosexual relationships, biologically speaking.

Furthermore, the counter-argument does not address what Paul says about women in this passage.

The other problem with this line of argumentation, of course, is that Paul, in Romans chapter 1, also addresses women who engage in unnatural practices with other women. So if all Paul was dealing with was the practice of pederasty in the pagan Greco-Roman world where men use boys for sex, then please somebody tell me why he also addressed women who engage in that practice with other women when that wasn't the same as pederasty in the Greco-Roman world.

See, Matthew Vines is just hoping that we just sort of look over that.

1 Corinthians 6 and the Call to Repentance

Next, 1 Corinthians, where homosexuality is listed as a sin. Then here's the key text.

New American Standard says, Nor effeminate nor homosexuals. Now, up on the screen, you will see underlined in purple right before the number 10 in the Greek. Oota malakoi, oota arsenikoitai. If you have the English Standard version, instead of saying nor effeminate nor homosexuals, it will simply say, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, or I think men who practice homosexuality.

Is that what it says in ESV? Men who practice homosexuality. What they're doing in the ESV is they're recognizing something about these two terms. Malakoi is the passive partner in a homosexual sex act.

It literally means soft or effeminate. It's the one who takes the female role. You can't avoid that. And then arsenikoitai is the active role. And so the ESV is taking these two terms and saying, Paul recognizes the two roles.

And so we're simply saying men who engage in homosexuality. And so they translate it in that way. And that is a very defensible translation.

The counter argument against this passage involves misinterpreting the Greek words in this passage.

But here's what happened. You will find some of the most amazing abuse of scholarship when it comes to the meaning of the word arsenikoitai, plural, arsenikoitai is the singular. It angers me as one who has taught both Greek and Hebrew at the seminary level to see professors of seminaries abusing their knowledge of the language, not to enlighten and clarify, but to confuse and fundamentally to pervert.

We live in a culture that is doing everything it can to convince Christians that it's hateful and unloving to call homosexuality a sin. But if the Bible is clear that homosexuality is indeed a sin, then the most loving thing we can do is tell sinners the truth about their sin so that they can repent and be saved.

This is a gospel issue. We are being asked to deny the lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives and the lordship of Jesus Christ over all of humanity. And we need to start stating the case in those terms.

I know if I ever had the opportunity, and they don't call me to go on those programs, but if I ever had the opportunity and someone started off, one of my first statements would be, why are you demanding that I deny that Jesus Christ is Lord of all?

I can just see that, what? And then I'd explain exactly why and how they're doing that. We're always on the defensive. I think it's time to be on the offensive, not to be offensive for the sake of being offensive, but to stop allowing them to define the terms of the debate.

Our God defined the terms of debate a long time ago when he established marriage, when he created man as male and female. This is a gospel issue, my friends. We don't have the option of compromising. The tsunami of compromise is coming.

All that's going to do is demonstrate how much fake Christianity there's been in our land for a long time. But I hope you understand why I'm saying. I hope you can see there's no way around it. This is what the scriptures say.

God calls us to believe what he has said. And in reality, my friends, no one is showing the homosexual community, whatever that is, true love in these liberal churches who are collapsing on the gospel and denying to them the only message that could ever give them life.

That's not love. That's hatred. And I won't join in that kind of hate mongering because that's what it is.