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Author: Prof Johnson Odesola
Posted to the web: 10/15/2010 4:03:30 PM


ARE HOMOSEXUAL CHRISTIANITY GENUINE: SHOULD WE ACCEPT THEM TO CHURCH?

 

There are few subjects that arouse such violent and emotional reactions as homosexuality. And as with most discussions of this kind, the homosexuality debate tends to generate more heat than light. Those of both sides of the argument are sometimes guilty of misunderstanding the facts, and the confusion that results is to nobodyâ's advantage. It will be helpful, then, to begin with one or two important distinctions.

 

Some Clarification

Perversion

The pervert is a man or woman who is basically heterosexual in orientation, but dabbles in homosexual behaviour for variety, curiosity or kicks. Inverts, by contrast, are people who have never known what it is to be attracted to members of the opposite sex. For them homosexual attraction seems perfectly natural. Many observers, bracket all homosexuality with perversion. That is unfair and confusing. The vast majority of all homosexuals are inverts, and their members are significant possibly as high as one in twenty-five of the total population.

 

Gender is determined at birth

Sex is something determined at birth, it is anatomically obvious to midwife and mother whether a new-born baby is a boy or a girl. Gender on the other hand, is a far more complex matter. It has to do with feelings, attitudes, tastes and character.

Encouraged by the media, Hollywood or Nollywood and especially by the advertisers, we tend to distinguish sharply between an approach to life which is essentially masculine and a list of character-traits and attitudes with are labelled feminine. Unfortunately, not all those who have the genital apparatus of one sex fall into the ‘right’ side of the gender divide. Some ‘men ‘find themselves trapped in female bodies, and vice versa. It could well be well that many people feel themselves to be inverting homosexual when what they really mean is that they fail to share the feelings and characteristics of their sex, as set out in the glossy periodicals.

 

Conduct

By no means has all inverted practice as homosexuals. Many try to suppress their feelings. Some get married and have children in the desperate attempt to appear ‘normal’ in a world that is still hostile to homosexuality. When we talk about accepting homosexuality, we have to distinguish between those who feel that way, and those who act on their feelings.

 

Friendship

This is the vital distinction which is difficult to draw. A kiss, an embrace or even a handshake may be the prelude to sex-union or a mark of friendship, depending on the circumstances and the attitudes of those who give and receive the gesture. It is important to distinguish homosexual behaviour from physical expression of friendship which is wholesome and right.

At this point social pressures may influence our attitudes more strongly than we think. Englishmen are not surprised when they see two girl friends exchange a kiss in the street, but they are horrified if they notice two boys doing the same. On the other side, in Africa you seldom see people embraced in the street. Our differences of social outlook must be taken into the account if our moral judgments are not to be clouded.

 

Immorality

This point follows closely on the last. It is all too easy for us to label things we find distasteful as immoral. But not everything that nauseates us is morally wrong. The sight of the man eating raw eggs may make me sick. But he has not acted immorality just because I do not like what he does.

This is a distinction we must be particularly careful to draw when we judge behaviour between two people of the same sex. Most homosexuals find the very thought of homosexual conduct disturbing if not disgusting-but that alone does not make it immoral.

 

Lasting union

It is always a mistake to dismiss other peopleâ's opinions by caricaturing them. Homosexual behaviour is often bracketed promiscuity and condemned for much the same reasons. The change sometimes sticks because lasting homosexual union seems particularly difficult to achieve. But it would be quite wrong to assume that all homosexuals only seek partners for occasional physical gratification. Many sincerely and desire a resting bond in which sex plays a minor role. We may still believe that such a life is wrong, but we must be careful not to condemn it in the same breath as we decry a one-night stand with a prostitute.

 

It is wrong

Distinctions of this kind underlie the insistent appears we hear we hear today for a more liberal approach to homosexuality. If same people are so made that they can only form intimate relationship with a number of their own sex, why should they be denied something the homosexual majorities freely enjoy? Modern scientific knowledge has helped us to understand the invert homosexual. Now is the time, we are told, to convert understanding into acceptance by revising our civil and moral law-codes, to allow homosexual to fulfil themselves in the only way they know how.

On both sides of the Atlantic prominent priests, churchmen echo these sentiments Jesus, they remind us, summed up all moral values under the heading of love. How, then, can it be wrong for two people who care for one another genuinely, and who intend to stand by one another for life, to express their affection through the physical channels God has given them?

 

Biblical view

Jesus used his Bible to unpack the true meaning of love, and we must do the same. At no time did he hint that a loving motive could make a wrong thing right. It is important therefore to sift out the Bibleâ's teaching on homosexuality in order to find out whether a ‘gay’ relationship can ever be acceptable in Godâ's sight.

 

Wherever the Bible mentions homosexuality, it bans it. What is not always so clear, however, is whether all homosexual relationships came under the biblical veto.

The Sodom incident, for example (Genesis 19,Judges 19:14-28) demonstrates the extremely serious view God takes of all homosexual assault- but it says nothing about the rightness or wrongness of a tender homosexual relationship where there is full consent on both sides. The law of Moses goes further by condemning homosexual behaviour alongside adultery and incest (either of which may involve a love-bond), but it uses the word (Abomination) which is normal reserved for idolatry (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13). In other words, Godâ's judgment on assaults and idolatry is clear. But does he also condemn a homosexual relationship where there is no attempt by one partner to force his (or her) favours on the other, and no desire to worship false gods?

Some find these doubts reflection in the New Testamentâ's teachings. Paul is very blunt in outlawing homosexual in his letters to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 6:9) and to young Timothy in Ephesus (1 Timothy 1:10). He also condemns, in the strongest language, those who have ‘exchange natural relations for un-natural’ (Romans 1:26). But do his stern words apply to the invert as well as the pervert? The invert homosexual may well feel he has no such ‘natural’ relations to exchange.

The doctrinal foundations on which Paul builds his teaching sweep all such doubts and hesitations aside. In Romans, his verdict on homosexuality is based on Godâ's creation plan for man and woman. By ‘natural relation’ he means natural to man and woman as God created them’ and homosexuality played no part in the creatorâ's scheme. In 1 Timothy, the condemnation of practicing homosexuals is build into Paulâ's own updated version of the Ten Commandments; and more commandments, as we know, reflect the main principles of creation as they are outlined for us in Genesis. It comes as no surprise to find that in 1 Corinthians the veto on homosexual conduct occurs in a list of behaviour-pattern which finds no place in Godâ's kingdom where the Creatorâ's will is perfectly done.

The conclusion is unmistakable. Deeper foundations could hardly be laid for biblical teaching on any subject. Modern distinctions, important though they are, are undercut. The New Testament puts an emphatic ban on all homosexual behaviour.

 

We must make a separation

There seems no reasonable doubt that homosexual conduct must be clearly labelled as sin. But the Bible distinguishes sharply between sin and the sinner. Everyone has weaknesses of some sort, and homosexual tendencies are not to be put in same special class of their own. As sinners we need the support from other Christians and homosexual need this supportive fellowship more than most because loneliness is their worst enemy. Some fear that the danger of ostracism, if they own up their feelings in a Christian fellowship, is too great a risk to run. Where this is true, the church bears a large measure of blame.

God accept us as we are, and his church can hardly do less. But God also seeks to change us, and again the homosexual is no exception to the rule. Some Christianâ's homosexuals find that whole sexual orientation undergoes a radical change when they open their lives to Godâ's power. Others have to fight the same old temptations, in Godâ's strength, all their lives. But, as many hetero-sexual men and women have found, the single life is not a second-best if it is part of the Godâ's will. Jesus himself lived a perfectly fulfilled human life even though he never married.

 

Further reading

Homosexuality D.J. West (Pelican)

The Homosexual Way, a Christian Option? David Field (Grove Books)

Johnson Odesola (PhD) is a Regional Coordinator in the Redeemed Christian Church of God and a Professor of Divinity with Trinity International  Institute of Advance Studies UK/US. He is presently a missionary in Southern Africa based in Zambia