The Church and Homosexuality
by Martin Hallett

ANGRY RESPONSES
A typical television chat show is focussing yet again on 'the gay issue and Christianity'. A Christian is proclaiming, "The Bible's teaching is absolutely clear. Homosexuality is a sin, but we love the sinner." The audience stirs and angry voices are clamouring to be heard... "How dare you deny us the right to love! It's about time Christians stopped persecuting gays!" A young man nervously stands up and says, "I was told that God would make me heterosexual and I struggled for years believing that... My life was miserable... Now I've found a Christian partner and he loves me... At last I feel whole and I'm closer to God than ever before... Surely, God is love... We're not hurting anyone else... Scripture only condemns promiscuous homosexuality." Then the presenter introduces us to a couple of older women (everyone's favourite grandmothers). They work tirelessly for the church and their local community. "Elsie and Mavis have been in a monogamous lesbian relationship for the last forty years and served their church faithfully. Can you really say they are an abomination to God?" Then a young woman nervously says, "I used to be lesbian, but God has changed me and now I'm married." The uneasiness of many Christians in the audience turns to smiles of encouragement towards their sister, but before long the studio erupts with angry voices clamouring for attention again... "I used to believe that!" " You're living in denial!" "Your sort just encourage people to commit suicide!"

Few issues generate so much anger towards Christians and Christianity. The conflict won't go away and the media loves its entertainment value. How should we respond? How do we respond? How would Jesus respond? Saying we love the sinner but hate the sin, doesn't seem to impress too many gay people. Perhaps we should start by asking God what He is saying through all this? Listening to the voices in this debate should make us realise that sexuality and homosexuality relate to many fundamental Christian issues, including the meaning and authority of Scripture, the quality of love and relationships, and wholeness and healing. Perhaps even more vitally, they relate to our love for God and ourselves.

MY STORY

Over the last twenty-three years I have met many Christians who testify to God changing their sexual orientation, enabling them to marry and have children. Often this is seen as the major source of hope for the homosexual who is seeking Christ. However, I meet many more Christians who marry hoping and praying that God will thus bring 'normality' into their lives and make homosexual issues a thing of the past. Sadly, often the result is even more frustration, a lack of self identity, anger, disillusionment and frequently divorce. Some Christians take part in 'healing programmes' and many find God's love and healing for various broken emotions. However, often there is still a sense of incompleteness as they search and live in hope for heterosexuality. Yet again many end up angry and disillusioned. Often they reject Christianity altogether, saying it makes them feel a continual sense of failure and guilt.

CHRISTIANS CONFORMING TO THE WORLD
Many Christians have experienced changes in their sexual orientation, but probably many more have not, despite a lot of prayer, ministry, hope and trust. What is God saying to what often seems a minefield of human pain and frustration? I wonder if one of our problems in the church today is the tendency to conform to a world that demands answers and solutions for all life's difficulties? A world, too, that says we need sex for personal fulfilment. As Bible believing Christians we would probably want to deny this type of thinking, but perhaps we have been affected by it. Maybe we say... "You must be married in order to be fulfilled as a person, unless you are one of the few called by God to be single. If you cannot have a legitimate sexual relationship because you are homosexual, you can become heterosexual and marry."

OUR SEXUAL DRIVERS AND PROGRAMMING
As Christians we need to understand much more of what drives our sexual feelings and desires. It is not just the obvious search for love and companionship. It connects with many other issues, including our sense of value and identity. My experience tells me that everyone's sexuality is unique, a bit like a fingerprint. The computer jargon may sound a bit corny, but our 'sexual drivers' are there because of the 'programming' our life experiences and relationships have influenced. This accounts for the uniqueness of our sexuality. As Christians we need to stop conforming to a world that feels secure behind a sexuality label, even a 'Christianised' one. When I first became a Christian I struggled to find a label that fitted. Saying, "I am homosexual", implied being sexually involved. Calling myself "A non practising homosexual" sounded as if I had given up trying to get it right! Saying, "I am ex-gay", sounded slightly dishonest. Nowadays, if I choose to share anything about my sexual feelings and desires, it will be not just as a label.

If the 'drivers' and 'programming' for homosexuality are unique for every person, what are the major influences?

Relationships with our parents are usually cited as the root for all our ills. Who would be a parent these days? I'm sure there are lots of joys in parenting, but also lots of anxiety and frustration. "How can I stop them making the same mistakes I made or how can I make sure they don't end up like me?" No one is perfect and our imperfections, or probably more fairly, our insecurities and fears influence and affect the very people we love most. I find it helpful to see these influences in terms of messages given and received. Messages received are not always what were intended to be given. For example, John loves his son Mark and wants the very best for him. He wants him to be a better footballer than he was. In a sense that would not be too difficult as John was not good at football and lacked confidence. When he sees a similar lack of confidence in his son Mark he puts pressure on him to do better. John also finds it difficult to be affectionate with Mark. He fears being rejected and retreats into his own private world. Mark's mother (Susan) has a strong personality and attracts his attention in a way his father does not. She spends a lot more time with him because of John's heavy job commitments.

The messages we received from our same sex parent or parental role model about our value and personhood are especially significant. This person is 'our standard' to whom we look for permission to 'be who we are'. This person can also give us 'permission' to be different. It needs to be a positively affirming relationship. The message John was seeking to give Mark was, "I love you more than I love myself!" The message received was, "I can never be what he wants me to be!" Susan's strong personality attracted Mark and he withdrew even more from John. As Mark grew up, he started to admire other guys with a strong personality and wanted to be like them. Eventually these attractions became erotic. Mark's homosexuality was not, however, caused simply by his lack of affirmation from John - many children in similar situations do not develop homosexual feelings. Likewise, his strong mother was not the only cause of Mark's homosexual feelings, nor even his father's absence at work. It was probably a complex combination of all these factors and others, maybe even influenced by some genes. However the result is that Mark, like most of us, has a degree of low self esteem or image. One expression of this is his homosexuality.

SEXUAL FEELINGS CAN CHANGE
Nobody has perfect parental relationships and childhood experiences. Therefore nobody should assume they will never have homosexual feelings. Likewise, sometimes a change in self image may result in a change towards heterosexuality. However, because there are many factors involved in the development of our sexuality, no one can predict how we will respond to life's experiences and changes. We are all wonderfully unique and this includes our sexuality. This means the person to whom the homosexual man or woman is attracted is usually the person he or she would like to be, or like to have been. In other words, there is a complex link between homosexual attraction, self image and life experiences. This means sexual feelings and desires have a significant message to give the person concerned about fundamental issues of personhood and identity. This does not mean we use our sexuality as a 'label'. Sexuality helps to show us the person we believe ourselves to be, but that can be a misconception. Heterosexual attraction will often have components of admiration of the other's qualities, but in homosexuality, it is a much more powerful driving force.

A SEARCH FOR LOVE
I now believe God's way forward is not just through fulfilling non erotic same sex relationships, or in finding heterosexuality. The hope Scripture encourages us to have, through Christ, is much more than that. God has created us to receive and give love in relationships. The powerful driving force of homosexual love can seem to be a legitimate search for this God created need. As with all our desires for love, they are inevitably affected by our unmet needs from childhood, or our 'brokenness'. In homosexual relationships, many have felt loved and affirmed in a powerful way. Often the quality of love and commitment may be greater than in some heterosexual marriages. If our theology is strongly influenced by feelings of well being, we may become convinced that God could not condemn this. We may have heard Christians argue that homosexual relationships do not work and cause even more frustration and heartache. Whilst this is certainly true in many instances, it is not always so.

GOD IS LOVE
God's nature and love is different to ours. Human minds are not 'programmed' to fully understand it. God's sovereignty is an example of this. He hates sin, but allows it and wants us to overcome it. He hates us to suffer, but allows it to happen. He created Satan, who is ultimately under His control. There are so many apparent paradoxes, from a human point of view. We can only accept them and seek to obey God, even though it may at times (not always) conflict with our human logic.

THE BIBLE AND HOMOSEXUALITY
The penis and vagina were clearly designed to work together, as a part of what the Bible calls a 'one flesh' relationship. Genesis 2 defines heterosexual marriage as, ideally, the lifelong setting for this. However, why should a homosexual relationship offend God, especially when it may bring so much fulfilment? I wonder if it's because in the Genesis narrative we see much more than a lifelong monogamous relationship of love? Perhaps even more than a potentially procreative relationship? Perhaps God also originally intended sex (ie an orgasm) to be mankind celebrating the very act of God's creation? It is not simply a means of procreation or of expressing love. Therefore any sex outside this ideal, profanes God's purposes for sex, no matter how loving and pleasing it may be from a human point of view. In a sense it's a 'spiritual' or 'theological' prohibition, rather than a 'sociological' one.

This is why Paul mentions male and female homosexual acts in Romans 1, alongside many other examples of human disobedience, resulting from the Fall. Ways in which we "..exchange the truth of God for a lie and worship created things, rather than the Creator" (Romans 1:25). I guess Paul wants to show us why we need the Gospel. An often misunderstood biblical reference to homosexuality is in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Paul lists behaviour, which is not compatible with God's Kingdom, including idiolatry (pride), greed and stealing. He then uses two Greek words, often translated as 'homosexual offenders' and 'male prostitutes' (NIV). The first word is unusual, but similar to one in the Greek translation of Leviticus 18:22. It describes the behaviour of a man (probably a 'macho' personality) using another man sexually as if he (the other) was a woman. Such behaviour was not uncommon in the Greek culture and the 'macho' person concerned would not necessarily have been disrespected. However, the other Greek word describes the behaviour of a man submitting to the aforementioned homosexual behaviour. In other words, the more passive partner, not necessarily a 'male prostitute'. This person would have been ridiculed and not respected in Paul's culture.

WONDERFUL REDEMPTION
Paul doesn't just condemn this sinful behaviour: he says his readers have forsaken those lifestyles. Nor does he say whether they were still struggling with the sins or not. He does say, however, they are wonderfully redeemed by using very strong words of redemption through the Cross of Christ - "...you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:11). That would have been extraordinary for the Corinthians to hear, especially in terms of the ridiculed homosexuals. He is affirming them as redeemed people and later as functioning parts of the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). Oh that we could give the same example in our churches today!

REDEMPTION IS HEALING
Homosexuality is one manifestation of a low self image. This is why some homosexuals feel liberated by saying, "I'm glad to be gay." Many people with a low sense of self worth are perfectionists. They may obsessively chase solutions, often 'Christian healing programmes', desperately hoping they will feel more acceptable. A perfectionist often longs for order and predictability, and what is perceived as failure and criticism can be traumatically painful. There may be times when he or she believes they are close to achieving their ideal. Many Christian healing programmes work with the Holy Spirit and deal with past hurts. Sadly, many give the impression the way forward is easily defined and there seems little room for the person's uniqueness and God's unique way of responding. Often, if the Christian experience does not appear to deliver what was promised, it is rejected. "It doesn't work!", is the response. Perhaps what is really being said is, "I have not failed!"

Healing must involve an acceptance of the amazing paradoxes of God's Grace. It must involve an acceptance of God's sovereignty as the 'storyteller'. Healing must also involve accepting the value of our unique story, good and bad. This includes our sexuality and all it tells us about ourselves and others. In other words our unique sexuality is a part of our unique value, as a member of Christ's body. That is not simply true for tomorrow, when it may or may not have changed, but today. We believe we are valued and loved by God, because of our uniqueness, not despite it or because we feel it.

RELATIONSHIPS
I used to believe God's way forward is primarily through affirming Christian relationships which meet the previously unmet human needs. The problem with this ideal is the practical outcome. I take into those relationships my insecurities, sexual desires and emotional needs. They are likely to draw me to the person whom I feel will fulfil my needs. The other person's response is also influenced by their own similar issues. Sometimes it can seem to be effective and I may feel loved and affirmed by other people and therefore by God. However, I now believe my sense of value and identity must come firstly from my relationship with God and myself. I must accept and then act on, the truth of God's unique love for me, not simply through my feelings. Then this value can and should be affirmed through special human relationships, which also involve commitment.

As I find my value and identity with God and then others, through my unique story, it will include my sexuality. Some feelings, including sexual ones, may change and some may not, but I will know love and fulfilment with God and within His Body and Kingdom. This is healing for homosexuality and heterosexuality.

Martin Hallett
February 2000