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Date Written: Mar 30, 2007
Date Posted: Jun 16, 2007
Homosexuality is a pretty hot topic in America today, both inside and outside the church. This is my first major writing on the subject, so I will cover a variety of issues, some more than others because of importance. The purpose of this paper is not a major defense of our position, the primary purpose is to spur motivation for the church. Most of the content in this work was initially brought into focus during the Live Offensively tour in the summer of 2006. Joe and I grappled with the issues of homosexuality behind the booth amongst all kinds of people (some angry who didn't like our shirts) at music festivals, in the car during a rainstorms, and on the peaks of mountains in Virginia.
Originally this article began as an extended psychology assignment. I was required to read a variety of sources and interact with them. After writing over paged, I decided to further the study by going deeper. It began with some quotations from a Christian psychologist, David Myers. I started responding to some of his misunderstandings, then got into some other issues. Let's pick it up there...
Part I. On Myers and the Core Basis of Homosexuality
After some basic statistics on the subject of homosexual orientation, Myers asks a pretty provocative question, "what does it feel like to be a homosexual in a heterosexual culture?" Now, one might expect to hear a response that contains some interviews with homosexuals, or maybe some more statistics on what homosexuals think of how other people treat them in their daily lives. But, that does not appear. Instead, the author answers it by saying,
"One way for heterosexual people to understand is to imagine how they would feel if they were to be ostracized or fired for openly admitting or displaying their feelings toward someone of the other sex; if they were to over hear people making crude jokes about heterosexual people...and if their family members were pleading with them to change their heterosexual life-style and to enter into a homosexual marriage."
I think this attempt to draw a direct parallel between heterosexuals and homosexuals is bogus. The entire illustration is purely theoretical. If this was really a valid way of trying to understand homosexuals, why not logically and consistently take some of the analogies and illustrations a step further and say "...getting made fun of for not being able to start a family,"? The answer is obvious! Heterosexuals are not going to get made fun of for not being able to start a family because they inherently can start a family! Homosexuals cannot; it simply isn't within their capacity to reproduce. Thus, there are many significant discrepancies in this parallel that discredit itself. Now, understand what I am saying. I do not think we shouldn't be mindful towards homosexuals, rather, we should be very sensitive and receptive to what they have to say about their lifestyle. But, this paragraph by Myers carries little weight if one assists it to its logical end.
"Homosexuals were no more likely than heterosexuals to have been smothered by maternal love, neglected by their father, or sexually abused." (p. 334).
I think this may or may not be good data, but that's not the point. The real question is, when a child is abused, neglected, or lacks some kind of need, how does he handle that situation? Where does he turn? I believe the answer to that is the basis, the determinant if you will, of a homosexual lifestyle. Where did the man/woman turn to answer his question of validation? It's not, "well we've discovered that the same amount of bad stuff has happened to homosexuals as much as heterosexuals. So, we don't know what is really going on."
See, the problems of homosexuality (if we can assume at least, that it is a "problem") are not different than the problems of heterosexuality. Don't misunderstand this. What I'm saying is, kids and adults will search and find some kind of love and source of fathering if they aren't getting it from home or their parents, and depending on where they turn at that point leads to 1 of 3 things: a messed up heterosexual life, a messed up homosexual life, or the beginning of true healing.
Men who are abused who remain heterosexual go seek out women to hear the answer their hearts want. They desire to hear that they are real men and have what it takes. That is true for both homosexuals and heterosexuals. But, the problem then is, they can't receive satisfaction and fulfillment in their quest to fill the void in their life because neither one man or one woman, or multiple men or multiple women can truly give them that validation. This is simply because the entire structure of marriage and social relationships was never designed to do that in the first place. If you think it is, you obviously see no need for deity in any of the equation, when in fact, the Creator of all things is completely relevant to this issue – and is in fact the solution. Yes, a committed marriage between one man and one woman is the real deal. But, it becomes genuinely satisfying when you realize what true love is – and you can only know that when you see the sacrifice of Christ. In other words, true intimacy and love in a marital relationship is turned on to the max when you seek and trust in the very source and bestower of that love in the first place.
This underlying issue of searching for validation is why pornography is such a huge problem (as long as 3/5 pastors look up porn intentionally once a month, and porn consumption has grown well over 10,000%+ since 1995, don't tell me it's not a problem). The captivation men face when exposed to porn is easy to understand. Women are created to captivate men; Eve is the crown of creation and the most beautiful creature. There is nothing wrong with that in and of itself. However, the addiction to porn has very little to that, or sex. Think about it, what would drive men (and women for that matter) to have sex in so many perverse ways and with such carelessness? They obviously never have enough, right? Why so?
For men, they are taking their wounds, needs, and questions of validation to the woman on the screen who can make them feel like a real man, but unfortunately, it's not the real thing. Not only that, but it requires nothing of him. Man's relationship with woman, emotionally, sexually, and spiritually is designed in only one way: it takes the strength of a (singular mind you) real man to care for the heart of a real woman. That takes courage, strength, passion, diligence, integrity, desire, and long suffering determination. Is any of that required to view porn? No way. Men can now experience without limit or discretion the beauty of Eve with a touch of a button. Within 10 seconds a person can effortlessly watch a woman reveal and submit herself – something that would normally require years of building up trust in the real world; it takes most real women their whole lives to get to that point. That is why "porn is for posers."
Satan's primary work is enslaving souls to the forgery of God's original work. Actually, that may be his only work. In a word, Satan is in the full-time job of stealing and perverting everything that God has made great, everything from music to sex. The devil has nothing of his own, he can only corrupt and distort what God has already made. Pornography is one of those impostors. Merely getting Christians to have promiscuous sex wasn't enough. There are too many limits to that – as there are only so many easy girls and what not. So, getting them emotionally chained to porn is far, far more effective. It's accessible anywhere, anytime, and is virtually limitless in its amount and variety. So, what's the truth in all this? It takes the beauty of a real woman to arouse the courage of a real man. Porn is not real. It used to take real strength, patience, and a challenging effort to build up trust to get to that level of intimacy, now the only requirement is a PC with the Internet.
Porn cannot heal the broken hearted, nor does it give anything genuine in return. Porn makes lots of promises, but as Solomon so boldly wrote about sexual immorality, "her legs lead down to the grave." Homosexual sex doesn't give answers, neither can promiscuous heterosexual Which identifies their sin with the rest of us sexual sinners, if our addiction is not on the living God we are out looking for our 'love fix' somewhere else. That gets to the heart of the issue. Sexual orientation is virtually irrelevant – homosexuals who are often gender-confused are no different than heterosexuals who can't keep their pants on: they are looking for love in all the wrong places. Yes, I am assuming that homosexuals are for the most part, looking to treat a problem. That only confirms my encounters with the homosexuals I've met and talked with. If even if they sense a hint of "something isn't right, something happened to you," they'll snap back in your face with the same old rant, "Nothing is wrong with me! Nothing happened to me!" Granted that is only the experience I've had, but I think it does say something.
Now, I attack pornography because – although Myers won't include that information in much (or any?) of his work – there is a very, very strong correlation between homosexuals and exposure to pornography. Boys under the age of 12 have been reported trying sexual things they've seen on the Internet with their younger sisters and brothers. These reports are growing exponentially. So? Trust me, they wouldn't have done those things if they weren't' exposed to that pornography. Think about it, a 12 year old hardly has the capacity to imagine those things, and then some people want to argue that it's "natural"?
Now, in a similar way, men who turn to other men feel a sense of being fathered in areas that weren't fathered before, and they get a kind of love that comforts and nurtures them. That's the pull of homosexuality. The problem is, those men can't provide that real sense of validation and love that they truly desire either, although it may seem to have positive nurturing aspect to it. But, when you throw in sex with that gay relationship, it becomes horribly damaging. Only when we see God himself as the only being in existence that can truly validate you as a man and let you know that you have a masculine heart will true healing take place.
"Sons of homosexual men were not more likely to become gay if they lived with their gay dad, and that 9/10 children of lesbian mothers developed into heterosexuals." (p. 334)
Maybe that's the case because the children realized that wasn't the best way to be raised. I spent 4 full days and nights days with one of those people this past summer. She (now age 22) was raised by two homosexual parents and she didn't turn out to be gay. She told me straight up, "It would have been a lot better to have had a father. I didn't end up being gay like my mothers, but I totally understand that it would have been much better for all of us if I had one mom and one dad."
Part II. Dr. James Dobson's Contributions and a Further Look at Homosexuality
James' Dobson had a lot of good things to say in Bringing Up Boys. I thought his several arguments against the "gay gene" were very compelling. I never thought of how if it's really genetic it would have been erased from human existence long ago since homosexuals don't reproduce that often. The gene would logically become extinct; it has no means of continuing on in human life – at least on a biological/genetic level. I also didn't realize most homosexual twins, who have the same code, rarely both end up being gay that often. Another thing that struck me was the role of parents according to Dobson: "The truth is, Dad is more important than mom. Mothers make boys, Fathers make men," (p.120). I think that certainly is true, and John Eldredge (former member of Focus, holds MA in Counseling under Larry Crabb) certainly drives home this point in his books, especially Wild at Heart. The must profound statement I have heard yet from Dobson is this one:
"In 15 years, I have spoken with hundreds of homosexual men. I have never met one who said he had a loving respectful relationship with his father." (p. 121)
I think that speaks volumes.
I happen to be very good friends with a former homosexual of over 20 years. When he was 3 years old a relative, an older man, came to his house and bound his hands and body in a chair and sexually abused him. That certainly did incredible damage for the long run. But, he said, and I quote,
"There were several demonic strongholds within me. In fact there was one demon who was in charge of me. It's real; I can give you his name, even his rank, everything...I was enslaved. When the boys would pick on me at school in fights I would fall on the ground and role on my back and kick with my feet to defend myself because my hands were bound together by some invisible rope that no one could see...I would always play with the girls, like in sports and volleyball. One day some kid told me to my face at school, 'You are always like the girls!' I lost my masculinity that day."
That sounds awfully familiar to what happened to Jeremy in the story in the assigned reading Myth and Facts, "But he never realized how different he was until the first time someone called him "queer." It was like a devastating gunshot wound to his heart." Yes, indeed.
Anyway, he told me about a Godly woman he met who performed an exorcism on him and cast the demons out. "As I walked away from her house I felt – as true as I'm talking to you today – chains, sliding off my arms. I was free! But, listen to me now! Allah didn't save me! Buddha didn't come down and make me whole, it was Christ!" His testimony was the most powerful one I've ever heard in my 19 years of living and 5+ years of ministry related work.
A few months later (when I first met him), he became one of the counselors for the boys at a Bible camp I attended for years. We became true brothers in Christ ever and have been since then. He's still struggling with pornography, something he's been addicted to for years and has strongly contributed to his homosexuality. In fact, he knew how bad his addiction was so he never even went home last Christmas because his parents had a computer with the Internet.
I also liked Dobson's words on how "Masculinity is an achievement," (p. 122). It certainly is, it is something that takes effort. It was also eye opening to realize 1/3 of Girl Scout staff members are lesbian. It's even more bold of Dobson to say, "I don't think it is a good idea to leave your children of either sex in the care of teenage boys. Nor would I allow my teenage son to baby-sit," (p. 127). I have enough trust in Dobson as a Christian, a counselor, and a psychologist to know that he knows what he's talking about and that this is a worthy recommendation. Overall, Dobson drives home the point that homosexuality is not purely biological, because it can be reversed. Change is possible.
The other article, which I had already cited, Myths and Facts, had some good insights to the subject as well. I found it pretty interesting that they cited Dr. J. Budziszewski. I happened to have read his entire book Ask Me Anything already, which had very, very large and insightful contributions to the matter of homosexuality.
I didn't like the official position of the CRC Church on this issue. I see no clear purpose in the creed that gives support for helping homosexuals out of the self-destructive lifestyle of homosexuality.
Part III. The Three Grand Questions
The first thing we have to realize as Christians, is that there are mainly 3 very different issues with homosexuality. Each one asks different questions and poses important and different answers.
First, how do we deal with a Christian struggling with homosexual feelings in our church/community? If a Christian is identifying himself as a homosexual which according to the scriptures is identifying himself with sin and not with Christ's righteousness then this individual needs our love through rebuke. This rebuke would be the same for any heterosexual sinner identifying with his sin. Though our culture tells us not to offend anyone, the most loving thing a brother or sister in Christ can do for a homosexual in their community is to help them out of their sinful and self-destructive lifestyle that is preventing them from a closer walk with God. That isn't a recommendation, it's an obligation.
That's first and foremost. But, something just as important must also be sought after by the body of Christ: homosexual men need a real, genuine, affectionate, but non-homosexual, love from other men near to them. This is actually what they are endlessly looking for in their homosexuality, they are on search for the love and validation of good men. It is true they don't need a homosexual relationship, but they also don't need to be told to act more manly, or that their pants are too tight, their voice needs to deepen, or that they should pump more iron. Rather, men should seek fellowship with homosexuals that encourage – not their homosexuality, but who they are and what they like to do. I like hunting, drumming, and hiking. Other men like playing piano, reading, painting, and other arts. There's nothing wrong with that. Too much in our society have we made this phantom separation between the "jocks and the artsy people," especially in high school. The point is, their non-homosexual attributes, differences, and characteristics should be the object of our encouragement, not our scolding. We should seek to bring out that masculine heart within each man, homosexual and heterosexual alike. Men have a masculine heart just like women have a feminine heart, and when a group of guys spend time and love each other in a godly and real way by adventures, fellowship and conversation, it brings out the real man within them. In short, we as Christians should, by Christ's authority, seek to restore men back to the warrior/lover image that was originally imprinted on Adam's masculine soul in the garden and still remains within each and every man today.
Second, what is our message to the homosexual in the secular culture who is unsaved? First of all, let's get our priorities straight. Who cares about their homosexuality, let's preach the gospel to them so they can be saved from judgment! That's first and foremost above all. If your not a Christian, I don't care if your heterosexual, homosexual or any other combination, your soul is at stake because you've broke God's eternal law and you have hell to pay. That last thing to worry about is their homosexuality, let's talk about salvation. Through trusting in Christ alone and his work and resurrection people can claim Jesus as their substitute so they don't have to face God's justice. That's the gospel, that's Christianity. That's the good news – because since Christ is Lord over all, as my former homosexual friend said, "There's nothing so screwed up that God can't fix." Again, the fundamental problem with homosexuality isn't that much different from heterosexuality: people are looking for love in all the wrong places. Homosexuals try and find love from people of the same sex while often heterosexuals are looking for love of the different sex by developing an addiction of going from girl to girl or man to man trying to fill that same space in their lives. The covenant marriage given by God is the only true love and satisfying human-to-human relationship because that's the way God designed it right from the start. That means that love can be other-centered. Like anyone else, people desire a true love from their community and that's why homosexuals need your and God's love. See Jesus and the woman at the well in John chapter 4. A paraphrase of the story would be like, "Look, we both know you have more than one husband and you're living a sinful and unhealthy lifestyle that God doesn't like, but listen to me. I am the Christ, the one you've been waiting for. I'll show you water that is eternal and all-satisfying, so you'll never thirst again." So, we need to – it is our obligation – to lovingly point homosexuals and all sinners in our culture to Christ who is the ultimate source of love and healing.
Third, how do we define and defend marriage as Christians in this nation? Marriage is only reserved for a man and a woman. Marriage and sex is by nature God's design, which comes together in genuine other-centered love in its highest expression. It is a blessing for one man and one woman to be woven together in a covenant relationship. Thus, it follows, anything but that is a curse and offense against your own body and against God. Christians around the world are facing this issue more and more and it's time to do something – or at least be prepared – as a part of our calling to live for God.
We at Live Offensively cast judgment on the church that treats homosexuality the same as abortion. Some would prefer to live in a nation where flaming homosexuals can marry over one that kills the little babies. Isn't that the truth? Picketing homosexuals with anti-gay signs does nothing for the homosexual community nor does it defend the sanctity of marriage. Though we are not involved at all with the political defense of marriage we do support those who are defending it in congress. We also support boycotts to companies that openly support the normalization of the sin of homosexuality such as MTV. Our goal is to simply get the Church in America talking about this extensive issue. We want to educate people on how to help homosexuals come to repentance and find healing from their destructive behavior. You can help us by talking about this issue with people, and praying that God would use us to bring the light to our world and help homosexuals find the heart of God.