BP 240
“Can you be a Christian who struggles with homosexual desire and struggles faithfully in the Lord? Absolutely. And if people are being honest, everybody is struggling with something — and if you are not, you are dead” ~ Rosaria Butterfield
Today, I am simply going to weave together just a few preliminary thoughts about same sex attraction (SSA). My aim is not to stir up controversy but to approach some issues about which men and women in my church have sought clarity. I intentionally have avoided this topic for four and half years in this blog because I don’t want to be perceived as condemning one specific human struggle which some could perceive me as doing. I want to be loving toward those who wrestle with any temptation or sin no matter what it is.
I am in concert with Rosaria Butterfield and her words above. I often say, “Life would be easy if it weren’t for people . . . and I’m one of them.” So, my thoughts today are not to condemn but to hopefully elucidate. I know many individuals who deal with SSA. Some embrace it and some fight it. I love all these individuals. I just believe the latter people are going to be healthier for their decision to oppose sinful desire. I often tell others that people who are on the journey of standing up against SSA are some of the bravest individuals I know.
Okay, here are some thoughts I offer for your consideration. There is so much that could be said, and I am saying so little in this flyover.
+ It appears that there are three “levels” of SSA. Level one is realizing one is attracted to the same gender. Level two is choosing to act on those desires by entering into romantic/sexualized relationships with the same gender. Level three is embracing the belief that one is gay, i.e., believing that one’s core identity is being gay. At this point, people often say they are lesbian identified or gay identified. Their attraction is not simply a temptation to practice a behavior but a claim that this is who I am.
+ I am not always certain why a person gets to the point where they claim they are gay. I suspect that part of it is that it is a way to justify to others (maybe even more so to themselves) that their attraction is not wrong since it flows out of who they are. At worst, gay identity is neutral for these individuals. At best, in their minds it is who God made them to be and so a very good thing.
+ Claiming that practicing SSA is not sin but an identity, and the concept of homophobia are actually prisoner of war camps for those who are practicing SSA and convinced that it is who they are. Why? These two things place an impenetrable hedge around the person who claims that being gay is their identity. If you disagree with them, they have the automatic defense that it is not their choices or practices that are wrong but that the one who disagrees with them is being phobic. Sometimes I think of these two POW entities as Satan’s weapon to keep these individuals incarcerated. After all, the dark prince is the warden of this prison.
Yes, I most definitely know that there are some parents and others who overreact shamefully, angrily, and judgmentally to their loved ones inclined toward SSA. I have read letters from fathers to their gay identified sons that speak of such harsh judgment that I cringe. I am also angry. Ugh. These individuals do not reflect the love of Christ. These individuals have done great damage to those who are not walking in the light.
I would not want to meet Jesus on Judgment Day if I was practicing their condemning attitude toward those who are currently living outside of God’s will for them. After all, God Himself tells us in His word that “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.” How can we humans believe that condemnation and judgment will ever lead a heart to godly sorrow and repentance?
But to clarify, homophobia wielded as a weapon protects the person who identifies as gay because if you disagree with their identity, it is because you have a phobia. You have the issue, not them. I don’t fear the accusation of homophobia being directed at myself. Rather, I fear the claim of homophobia for gay identified people because they will hide behind homophobia instead of being open to the possibility that they are disobeying God.
In summary, both the concept of homophobia and the claim that being lesbian or gay is one’s identity are dangerous because they prevent the same sex attracted individual from listening to the voice of conviction in their hearts that what they are doing goes against their fundamental design as a man or woman created by a sovereign God.
+ When people come to me with the “issue” of SSA, I never view the SSA as the problem. I never try to “pray the gay away” or whatever people may call it. These struggles with sexual identity are secondary to far deeper issues rooted in interruptions in the development of their overall self. I need to listen carefully to the individual’s heart to hear what is going on at this deepest level. There may be 15 ingredients that fueled the vulnerability to SSA. Or 50.
What are some of these deeper issues? 1) Sexual abuse as a child; 2) a boy detaching from masculinity because his father (or some other male in his life) made masculinity odious and totally undesirable for him. This detachment from masculinity is sometimes coupled with the mother overprotecting the boy either in reaction to her husband’s emotional or physical abuse or because she wants to make her son into a “nice” boy who is tame, one who will never hurt her fragile ego. Some mothers inadvertently teach their son to be feminine instead of masculine when they raise him to be “nice.” Teaching a son to be loving is a healthy thing. Teaching a boy to be nice can be emasculating; 3) emotional pain from abandonment or hypercriticality in their environment can lead children to believe that the solution to the relief of their pain is to change their sexual identity; 4) instead of seeing their struggles with God and others as being a spiritual and relational issue that must be resolved, individuals can decide that the issue is actually about their gender instead of about separation from God or parents or other people in their lives. They make it about gender instead of about the deeper issue of relationship; 5) one other thought is that a culture that has turned its back on God and His loving order and made up its own rules is a dangerous sea to swim in for children who are trying to find their identity apart from the presence of God; 6) many individuals with SSA have had to be alone in their hearts. They have withdrawn due to a threatening environment and perceptions that they must hide themselves—some of these perceptions are accurate and maybe some of them inaccurate. Either way, the boy or girl ends up alone and more vulnerable to the lies and accusations of Satan; 7) their identities have been compromised, undermined, missed, and questioned in so many ways. Sexual identity is just one of many—maybe the most obvious one. But so much lies beneath that identity.
+ Claiming that “the issue” is not about sin but about an inborn identity can lead to a moratorium on exploring and healing deeper internal pain that is the true cause of identity confusion and distorted attractions. It can also be an end-around that relieves people from the pain of cleaning the inside of the cup and growing their true self by instead diving into and embracing a new identity that can be temporarily distracting.
+ The issue with any temptation is if we are going to trust God’s word about what is morally, relationally, spiritually, and psychologically healthy for us or if we are going to listen to our own subjective desire. We will listen to one or the other. We will serve one master or the other.
+ Should a Christian’s response to a friend who admits SSA be to say that God is angry because SSA is shameful? Should the knee-jerk reaction be to immediately inform your same sex attracted family member or loved one that they are going to hell? No. Experiencing same sex attraction/temptation is not a sinful act. It is not more shameful than other temptations that people experience. It is not a temptation that most people choose; it is inherently within them as is true of other temptations.
+ If SSA temptation morphs into acting on those desires then, like any other sin, it becomes disobedience to God. It is about surrendering to fleshly desires instead of the commands of Him who lovingly made you. Christians who experience SSA will fight against their fallen desires. They may even fall into this sin, but they will experience a godly sorrow that leads to repentance. When people choose to willingly practice same sex behaviors without remorse, they are most likely not listening to God’s voice but listening to their own voice.
+ Whether it is gay identity or any other sin, our flesh will find a way to justify it. We will guard it and defend it to the end like Gollum and the ring in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The human heart says, “I want what I want when I want it with what I want on top of it, and you can’t take it away from me. If you try to, you are a hater, and I will shoot such a messenger.” Humans will also do amazing mental and theological gymnastics with Scripture to make their desires “God approved.”
+ Does God simply want to take something away from you like your same sex identity? No. God is always about giving you something far better than what your flesh wants to settle for. You will need to come to Jesus first before you can even imagine saying no to SSA temptation and/or gay identity because you can’t give up something so strong and so practiced and so cognitively embedded in the culture until you have something better to take its place and Someone better toward whom to direct your affections.
+ As God’s word is minimized and God Himself is shrunk down into man’s image–more of a guide than a God, a co-laborer rather than the Creator of all things–men and women will decide what is true. Truth is no longer absolute and objective but subject to human opinions and desires and changeable and relative. You know the verses from the Old Testament about humans who throw off the loving authority of God and make up their own rules. Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.” In Judges 21:25, we read, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
+ God’s word and commands do not seek to take something good away from people but to instruct them away from pursuing fleeting pleasures that seem so good and so much like love but will damage their hearts and their relationships with God and others.
+ Last thought: Jesus was known as the friend of sinners. Unless someone defies you to your face or shows no remorse about their same sex behaviors or claim of lesbian and gay identity, move toward them and be a friend. Always love them (including the defiant ones) even as you stand opposed to their sin and their disobedience to your Savior.
You’re a sinner saved by grace, so approach them with grace. Love them as God loved you. How will they ever surrender their sin if your presence is judging and built on dos and don’ts instead of loving pursuit and godly service to them? Don’t minimize sin but present it to them as trusting themselves instead of an all-wise God. Feel around the rim of their souls and find out what is preventing them from trusting this wise, loving God.
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” ~ 2 Peter 1:3ff.
“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” ~ 2 Timothy 2:24ff
Resources: If you want to do some reading on SSA, check out Joe Dallas, Rosaria Butterfield, and Jackie Hill Perry as a place to begin. They are all most familiar with SSA and the gay/lesbian identity because Jesus called them out of it.