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Transforming Homosexuality is Denny’s new book. Are same sex attractions sinful? Is reparative therapy harmful? Can homosexuals be forgiven?
Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.
In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.
Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.
Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and as you know, we have a little slogan here. The slogan is �Always Biblical, Always Provocative, Always in that Order. I�m trying to get you to think biblically about issues, to think antithetically, to think with precision.
And so you know, on Wednesdays, we like to have authors and theologians, pastors who are ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ�s Church, and then you can get some insight from them. And today, since it�s Wednesday, we�re happy to have on the air, Denny Burke.
Denny, welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Thanks for having me on, Mike. I really appreciate it. Well, Denny, you are a Southern Baptist, teaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, or might I say, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Yeah, that�s right. And I love what the Lord has done there through men like Dr. Mohler and yourself. Tell us a little bit about what you do at the seminary, and that will lead us into questions about your current book.
Yeah, I teach a biblical studies called Boyce College, not to be confused with Boyz College, it�s Boyce, B-O-Y-C-E, named after the founder of Southern. And so I spend most of my time with undergraduates, and this issue obviously is a live issue with millennials, and a lot of Christians are trying to figure out what they think about sexuality and marriage and what the Bible says about it.
So I�m faced with that generation and those questions every day, and I�ve written a book about it.
The book is called Transforming Homosexuality. Denny wrote it with his friend Heath Lambert, forwarded by Al Mohler. And here�s an interesting question, it�s on PNR, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, how did two Baptists get into PNR?
Yeah, that�s a good question. I don�t think they make you be Presbyterian anymore. They emphasize the �P� more than the �Respiterian�, so they�ve even officially changed their name, I think, to �PNR. But no, it�s been good, we�ve been really thankful to work with them, they�ve been great.
Denny, the subtitle of the book is �What the Bible Says About Sexual Orientation and Change. I think you recently had a conference, didn�t you, and was there some pushback there? Describe to our listeners what happened.
Yeah, we had a conference here on campus at Southern Seminary, it was actually sponsored by the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors, which is led by my co-author, Heath Lambert, and it was Biblical counselors from all over the country, came to Louisville and met here, and we�re about 2 ,000 people here, to talk about the issues of transgender and homosexuality.
And we were just, we were talking about this issue from a very practical standpoint, how do we minister pastorally, how do we counsel people, in light of what the Bible teaches about these things. And the thing that�s so interesting about this conversation is, what the Bible says about these things is contested today.
And we did have some protesters who showed up on the first day of the conference, and who were there protesting because they don�t like reparative therapy, and they didn�t like it that we were promoting reparative therapy, but what they didn�t realize is that we don�t promote reparative therapy, we actually don�t advocate reparative therapy.
We�re actually, Heath and I in our book, come out pretty strongly against it. But they were there anyway to protest, but it ended up being pretty peaceful and not that disruptive at all. And the conference, I think, was a success.
Denny, let�s just say our listeners don�t know the difference between reparative therapy and other biblical approaches to change. Set the table, if you would, for us, so we can understand at kind of an intro level, why is it an issue, what are we arguing about, what are we arguing for?
Sure. You know, I think for many years, in the wake of the sexual revolution, the Church wasn�t really sure how to respond to people who were struggling with it. The fact is, if you�re in any church on planet Earth, you�re going to have all kinds of sinners that are there and people with all kinds of struggles, and that includes people who wrestle with same-sex attraction, and for a long time, churches just kind of struggled what to do with that.
It was such a taboo thing, they didn�t know, and a lot of places, and I�m not saying every place, but a lot of places sort of farmed those people out to parachurch ministries that specialized in concerns, and one of the main approaches that emerged over the last couple of decades was an approach called Reparative Therapy, and so a lot of your listeners will have heard, a couple years ago, Exodus International closed down.
It was an umbrella organization that was over a number of different, and Reparative Therapy is kind of out of favor now with secular culture, but I would argue that Christians probably all along should have been questioning the theological underpinnings of Reparative Therapy, and for a couple of reasons.
Number one, and then number two, it�s actually the consequences of having embraced it have come back to bite us with secular culture, and it�s actually presented to secular culture a false view of what we believe.
So Reparative Therapy basically is this. It�s the view that homosexuality, because they had some kind of broken relationship with their...and over time, the compensation that some people try to engage in is to, through homosexual relationships, to sort of repair what was broken with the same-sex parent.
That�s oversimplification. I�m sure other people would prefer a different explanation, but that was basically it, and the Reparative Therapists were there to repair what was...if you could just sort of experience psychological healing from that broken, early relationship, heterosexual feelings would emerge and your potential for heterosexual relationships could come forth.
And so Reparative Therapy...and here�s the bottom line, Mike. The goal of Reparative Therapy was heterosexuality. It was through a kind of a psychological procedure to get people to a place where they experienced heterosexual attractions.
And this is where I think it�s...the approach is...for Christians we meet who are experiencing same-sex attraction, the goal for them is not heterosexuality per se, but holiness. And that�s the goal.
And the ability to experience sexual attractions for a person of the opposite sex is not necessarily the goal for everybody. It�s not biblically. In fact, the absence of such attractions aren�t treated as something bad in Scripture, but they�re treated as a gift.
Read Matthew 19 or 1 Corinthians 7. And so the goal of Reparative Therapy was to get people to feel opposite-sex attractions, which is not really the biblical point. The biblical point is holiness and repentance from sinful attractions.
And whether or not those other attractions ever emerge is not the goal. The goal is holiness. And so that�s kind of the...where I think Christianity and biblical Christianity offers a counterpoint to the perspective of Reparative Therapy, and that�s why I�m not a supporter of it.
I�m talking to Denny Burke today, �Transforming Homosexuality�, that he wrote with Heath Lambert. Denny, when I think of theological issues, whether they are discussing sanctification or who we are in Christ, when I forget about the Fall, and the effects of the Fall, and how pervasive it was, and how absolute it was, it hurts me in other areas of theology.
For instance, I can�t really understand unconditional election unless I grasp complete corruption or spiritual inability or total depravity. Tell us how a right understanding of the Fall, as you address that in your book early on, when we inherit a sinful nature from Adam, you say in your book, we�re spring-loaded to sin.
So, whether homosexual, heterosexual, discuss the place of the Fall and sin nature in light of this conversation, because I think it�s critical.
You know, for a long time, evangelical Christians have treated homosexuality as if it�s a choice. Evangelicals have sort of clung to this idea that people are homosexual because they choose to be homosexual.
And I think that a lot of Christians felt that way, not mainly for biblical reasons, but because they thought that unless they held that, then they couldn�t think of homosexuality as a sin. Because if a person was born with an inclination towards sinful sexual desire, towards same-sex sexual desire, then you couldn�t have moral accountability.
But that�s just not what the Bible teaches about sin and temptation and desire. The Bible teaches that we�re sinners by nature and by choice, which means that we don�t just choose to do bad things. We don�t just choose sin.
We are sinful. And we have a sin nature that is what Jesus would say in Mark 7, �It�s not what goes into the man that defiles the man, it�s what comes out of the man that defiles the man, for from the heart flow fornications, adulteries, and foolishness.
And he lists all these things that flow, but he says the source of it is a sinful heart. And so, evangelicals, if we�re going to have a biblically-shaped worldview on issues of sexuality, we have to realize that there are people in the world who are born with all different kinds of brokenness and sexual desires that they experience emerging rather spontaneously from their nature, and they�re sinful sexual desires, and they don�t remember choosing them.
It just sort of springs up spontaneously because they�re sinners. And that applies to people who experience same-sex attraction. And unfortunately, there have been a lot of people� Homosexuality is a different category of sin than other sins, and we�re just making the case that it�s not.
All of us experience desires that are sinful that emerge spontaneously from our nature. We don�t remember choosing them. And they are nevertheless sinful if they�re contrary to God�s law. And so, the way that you distinguish a sinful desire from a good desire or a benign desire is what is it you�re desiring for.
If you�re desiring something evil, then the desire itself is evil. If you�re desiring something good, then the desire itself is good. And so, you know, a man who looks at another woman�s wife and desires her sexually is called �lust� in Matthew 5.
And the reason that it�s sinful is because he�s desiring something that God has forbidden adultery. And so, Jesus says the desire itself is evil. He calls it �lust. And we just say the same principle applies across the board to folks who experience same-sex attraction.
If they�re desiring something God�s forbidden, then that attraction itself, that desire itself is sinful and becomes an occasion for repentance. And what we�re trying to argue is that this is not a debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pen.
We�re talking about something that has immediate practical and pastoral significance for people. Because if you go and tell somebody that their desire activity is okay, you�re not helping that person.
Because the people that wage war best against indwelling sin are those who are waging war at the level of desires. And so, we wrote this book because we wanted to combat this idea among many evangelicals that only same-sex behavior is sin, but same-sex desire is an occasion for repentance.
And if people are really going to be conformed to the image of Christ, they�ve got to get down to the root issue.
Well, Denny, as you were talking about that, it reminded me of the quote that you gave from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, where they would say homosexual behavior is in and of itself sinful, but the desire for that is relabeled to objectively disordered.
That doesn�t help us at all when we think about calling sin sin, so then we can have that sin addressed by the Savior of sinners, does it?
No, it really doesn�t. And the distinction there is what theologians call the difference between a moral evil and a natural evil. And, you know, we would all recognize that a tsunami is bad, okay? We would also recognize that a murderer is bad, but they�re bad in different ways, right?
One is a natural evil, the other is a moral evil, and some people treat same-sex attraction as kind of like the tsunami or like cancer. It�s a natural evil that will be obliterated when Jesus comes back, but it�s not a moral evil.
We�re arguing that same-sex attraction, just like any kind of sinful sexual attraction, is a moral evil that should be repented of, and you can�t label it as a matter of indifference like I think the Roman Catholic Catechism does.
And so it�s interesting because what we found when writing this book and we began to think about these things is we�re really not talking about a new issue, we�re talking about old, old questions about what it means to be human, made in the image of God, and what it means that we have been and so theologians have been talking about the doctrine of man.
We�ve been talking they�ve been talking about that for 20 centuries. And so these aren�t new conversations, but they�re old conversations being applied to new challenges, and in this case the challenge has to do with sexuality.
And you know, our burden is we want the discussion about sexuality set within a biblical frame and set within a biblical anthropology. And those who are following kind of the more Roman Catholic perspective on this I think are going into an erroneous direction.
Talking to Denny Burke today, Denny, when it comes to change and how great the Gospel is to transform sinners, of course positionally, and then in their lives as well, let�s talk a little bit about 1 Corinthians chapter 6.
You have a good section in your book about myths. Myth number two, change is impossible. In light of 1 Corinthians chapter 6, here you have Paul writing, and there�s all kinds of sexual sin going on there, including homosexuality.
And then he gives those great three divine passives, washed, sanctified, justified. Tell us about that myth that people think I could never change, and then tell us about how the Gospel is applied through God�s Spirit and then does actually transform the person both positionally and then practically.
Yeah, well, at the end of, or in the middle there of 1 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul�s writing to Corinthian believers, many of whom were pagans before they were Christians. So they didn�t have a morality, they didn�t have a worldview that was rooted in the law of God, which had sexual standards, right?
The Ten Commandments, �Thou shalt not commit adultery. Leviticus 18 outlaws incest and homosexuality and all these other things that are sinful. And so these Gentiles, they didn�t have that background in God�s law, but then they came to faith in Christ.
And Paul is writing to them and he says, �Look, do you not know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God And he says, �Neither fornicators or idolaters. And then he lists the effeminate and homosexual, which are two words, and Paul�s being really explicit here actually, they�re words that refer to the two partners in a homosexual act.
And he says, �None of them inherit the kingdom of God. But then he says, �And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so Paul�s point was, �I�m looking at a group of people who�ve already experienced change. Some of you experienced same-sex attraction, some of you engaged in homosexual behavior, but God changed you and saved you and is now conforming you to the image of Christ.
And so, what the Bible depicts is the normal state of the Christian life, not just some Christians, but all Christians, the normal state is one of progressive change over time. If you have the Spirit of God in you, He�s not only worked to save you from the penalty of sin through Christ�s death, He�s also working to save you from the power of sin in the present, from things that used to come so natural to you.
And that would include, His work in that regard is for all Christians, not just some Christians. And when a person comes to Christ out of a homosexual lifestyle, Christ intends to change them. It doesn�t mean that, you know, prestle inclinations go, it doesn�t mean that for heterosexual sinners, it certainly doesn�t mean that for those who�ve experienced same-sex attraction.
Some people may have that experience, but not everybody. But I do believe that God over time works to make them more and more holy and to put to death those attractions which are contrary to His law, and to replace them with new holy desires.
And so that�s God�s plan for every single Christian, not just some Christians. And we�re trying to bring, again, that old doctrine of sanctification to bear upon this issue.
Denny, I appreciated the end of the book. There�s a chapter entitled, �How Evangelicals Can Change. And you begin with your co-author to talk about how we can love, final exhortations to love. And it�s refreshing because we know this to be true, but we so get labeled by the media as, you know, picketers and Westboro Baptist types.
Tell our listeners in the last three or four minutes that we�ve got here, some of the things you discussed there about being a friend and listen, and being compassionate and loving them. Why is that so important in every era, but especially ours today?
Well, I mean, there are 10 exhortations there. I won�t try to give all of them, but how about this? They go like this. I say, if you want to really love your same-sex attractive neighbor, you need to be a friend to them, first of all, which means be a real friend.
Don�t make changing them a condition of your friendship, which means you�re going to have to be like Jesus, have friends who have disagreements with you. And I mean, yes, we want to evangelize, but be friends to people.
And then another thing you can do is listen to them. Listen to their story. There are a lot of people who�ve had family experiences, a sense of alienation from their own sexual desires and how to reconcile that with what is normal.
You just need to listen to people�s story, and listening doesn�t mean endorsing. It just means that you�re open to learning. Another thing that folks can do is to speak the truth, and you don�t have to be prideful or condescending to speak the truth and to share the gospel with people.
You can do it in a humble way. And another thing that people can do is to make sure that they don�t avoid conflict. You know, if a real friend figures out how to communicate differences that matter, and the fact is, if you speak the gospel, that means speaking word that we�re all sinners and we�re accountable to God.
And so I give a number of things there at the end of the book where I�m trying to exhort people to neighbors with love and with compassion. But here�s the little secret there, Mike. What I wrote there applies to the way we should be treating everybody.
What�s written there is not singling out gay people. This is our obligation to everyone, okay? And I�m just trying to apply it to people who experience same-sex attraction, because for some reason, Christians can get in their little cubicles and not reach out to places that may make them uncomfortable.
And I�m just saying that we need to get over that. And we�ve got to be able to be radical Christ, which means we�ve got to get to know people that are different than us, and be willing to enter into people�s lives and be in it with them.
You know, I don�t know about you, but I know at my church, I mean, we have people that wrestle with this, and brothers and sisters, you know, brothers in Christ who wrestle with this, and they�re not less of a member of our church because this is their struggle.
What we have in common is our common devotion to Jesus and our commitment to repent and to be daily devoted to Him. And when we fall, to pick ourselves up, to pick each other up, and to move forward. And so we need to have that kind of an expectation and openness to people with all kinds of struggles.
And that�s what I�m trying to exhort at the end of the book.
Danny, thank you for your time today on No Compromise Radio. A Transforming Homosexuality. Danny Burke with Heath Lambert. It is on PNR. I�m sure you can get it at Westminster Books or Amazon or the PNR site itself.
When I think about my friends in my neighborhood who are homosexual, I do exactly that. I think it�s by the grace of God because I think my flesh might want to do something else or think different ways.
But we want to try to love them and be kind to them and be nice to them. And then when we talk about these issues, I say, �Well, I disagree with you and you disagree with me and we are to love our neighbors.
And I was glad for those final exhortations there, especially now knowing, Danny, that they�re applicable to every person, not just a specific subset of sinner. So thanks for being on No Compromise Radio today.
I really appreciate it. Oh, thank you, Mike. It was a real pleasure.
No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Avendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.
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