­
The Church and Homosexuality | The Outlook Magazine The Church and Homosexuality – The Outlook Magazine homeapartmentpencilmagic-wanddroplighterpoopsunmooncloudcloud-uploadcloud-downloadcloud-synccloud-checkdatabaselockcogtrashdiceheartstarstar-halfstar-emptyflagenvelopepaperclipinboxeyeprinterfile-emptyfile-addenterexitgraduation-hatlicensemusic-notefilm-playcamera-videocamerapicturebookbookmarkuserusersshirtstorecarttagphone-handsetphonepushpinmap-markermaplocationcalendar-fullkeyboardspell-checkscreensmartphonetabletlaptoplaptop-phonepower-switchbubbleheart-pulseconstructionpie-chartchart-barsgiftdiamondlineariconsdinnercoffee-cupleafpawrocketbriefcasebuscartrainbicyclewheelchairselectearthsmilesadneutralmustachealarmbullhornvolume-highvolume-mediumvolume-lowvolumemichourglassundoredosynchistoryclockdownloaduploadenter-downexit-upbugcodelinkunlinkthumbs-upthumbs-downmagnifiercrossmenulistchevron-upchevron-downchevron-leftchevron-rightarrow-uparrow-downarrow-leftarrow-rightmovewarningquestion-circlemenu-circlecheckmark-circlecross-circleplus-circlecircle-minusarrow-up-circlearrow-down-circlearrow-left-circlearrow-right-circlechevron-up-circlechevron-down-circlechevron-left-circlechevron-right-circlecropframe-expandframe-contractlayersfunneltext-formattext-format-removetext-sizebolditalicunderlinestrikethroughhighlighttext-align-lefttext-align-centertext-align-righttext-align-justifyline-spacingindent-increaseindent-decreasepilcrowdirection-ltrdirection-rtlpage-breaksort-alpha-ascsort-amount-aschandpointer-uppointer-rightpointer-downpointer-left
FILTER BY:

The Church and Homosexuality

Our dealing with the current flood of vice, including homosexual vice, will not be helped by a soft, confused approach to it. It must be met with the forthright condemnation of the gospel and the call of that gospel to repentance and deliverance from it.

Diverse Reactions – “Synod Accepts Homosexuals As Full Church Members” announced the Grand Rapids Press. The announcement that the CRC Synod had accepted its committee report on Homosexuality has been greeted by hundreds of its members and many others with baffled amazement and prompted the Laymen’s Association to call for the resignation of seminary professors-Some members of Synod, in turn, arc deploring this shocked reaction of so many members as a complete misunderstanding of the report and The Banner editor has even defended it as a “clarion call to hold the line against ‘gay-lib’ tendencies rising everywhere . . . .” How does it come about that the result of a three year study, accepted by the Synod, presumably to give guidance, can provoke so much confusion?



The Antichristian Background – It seems to me that in trying to understand and evaluate this report and the subject with which it deals we need to give some critical consideration, as the Synod unfortunately did not do, to the kind of psychological and sociological theory that has long dominated study of this subject.

Dr. Jay E. Adams of Westminster Theological Seminary has aptly pointed out how modern psychology has largely followed Freud whose “most fundamental premise is that a man is not responsible for what he does. Instead, someone else is. If he behaves badly, the counselee must not be blamed for this. Peculiar, irritating, dangerous or bizaare behavior stems back to a constellation of events that have taken place in the past. Others have misused the ‘patient’; he is a victim. His maladaptive behavior is the direct result of what others therefore have done to him. Grandma has had a bad influence upon him, his parents certainly must have had a deleterious influence upon him, the church has been a baneful influence in his past and probably a variety of other influences (traumatic or otherwise) have made him what he is today. Because he is the product of these destructive influences, Freud’s poor, sick patient certainly is not responsible for whatever it is that he (as such) has done. He is a man under the influence of his past!”

The “patient” therefore. deserves sympathy, not blame. And “the therapist resocializes the patient by chopping down to size the overly strict, victimizing conscience that his mother and the church and others have built into him.” Adams goes on to show how totally non-Christian this viewpoint is, rejecting as it does everything the Bible teaches about sin and man’s responsibility to God (The Big Umbrella, Jay E. Adams, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1972, pp. 50–52).

Adams observes that “the ethical chaos and helplessness which has resulted” from this prevailing psychological theory “is seen even in the humor of our time. A modem folk song by Ann Russel, for example, characterized the period in which we live . . .”

I went to my psychiatrist to be psychoanalyzed
To find out why I killed the cat and blacked my husband’s eyes.
He laid me on a downy couch to see what he could find,
And this is what he dredged up from my subconscious mind:
When I was one, my mommie hid my dolly in a trunk,
And so it follows naturally that I am always drunk.
When I was two, I saw my father kiss the maid one day,
And that is why I suffer now from kleptomania. At three, I had the feeling of ambivalence toward my brothers, And so it follows naturally I poison all my lovers. But I am happy; now I’ve learned the lesson this has taught; That everything I do that’s wrong is someone else’s fault.”

(Competent to Counsel by Jay E. Adams, Baker Book House, 1970, pp. 8, 9).

Adams’ Suggested Approach – Dr. Adams takes the position that this whole modern psychological approach which insists on treating sin as sickness for which one is not responsible must be outspokenly rejected by the Christian as false. In line with this viewpoint he approaches the subject of homosexuality from the teaching of the Bible in Romans 1:26–28, 32. “In verse 26 Paul speaks of homosexuality as a ‘degrading passion,’ in verse 27, as an ‘indecent act’ and ‘an error . . . . in verse 28, the improper activity of a ‘depraved mind’ and in verse 32 he declares it is ‘worthy of death.’” One is not a homosexual constitutionally any more than one is an adulterer constitutionally. Homosexuality is not considered to be a condition, but an act. It is viewed as a sinful practice which can become a way of life. The homosexual act. like the act of adultery, is the reason for calling one a homosexual (of course one may commit homosexual sins of the heart, just as one may commit adultery in his heart. He may lust after a man in his heart as another may lust after a woman). But precisely because homosexuality, like adultery, is learned behavior into which men with sinful natures are prone to wander, homosexuality can be forgiven in Christ, and the pattern can be abandoned and in its place proper patterns can be reestablished by the Holy Spirit. Some homosexuals have lost hope because of the reluctance of Christian counselors to represent homosexuality as sin” (Competent to Counsel, p. 139).

The Basic Assumption of the Report – If we now turn to the report of Synod’s committee (Report 42, Agenda for Synod 1973, pp. 475–499; Acts of Synod 1973, pp. 609–633). We are almost startled by the extent of the contrast between it and the effort at a Christian evaluation of the subject suggested by Dr. Adams. Instead of observing at the outset the radical difference between the point of view of the Christian who recognizes men’s responsibility to God and the reality of sin and the approach of the modern psychologist who rejects them, the committee’s report begins by discussing current views of the subject as though such a difference did not exist. Although it admits that “experts are not agreed on . . . the causes of homosexuality” and that “in fact, its origin is so unclear as to be finally a mystery” (p. 479) its evaluation is mostly just a summary of the opinions of these “experts.” Attempting to make a sharp distinction between homosexuality as a condition of personal identity and homosexualism as explicit homosexual behavior, it proceeds to devote almost all of its attention to this education.

This condition is described in a way which (following the general trend the psychiatric theory to which we have referred earlier) denies that the individual is in any way responsible for it: “It is important to understand that homosexuality is not the result of any conscious choice or decision on the part of the person to be homosexual . . . .” “Whether a person becomes homosexual because of some innate condition or because of his early environment and his response to this environment, or because of a combination of these, the fact is he is not responsible insofar for his resulting homosexuality.” The plight of this poor homosexual is then described, the frustrated desires for which he is in no way to blame, his suffering, much of it “caused by the strong disapproval and often harsh condemnation that society imposes upon him” (p. 480).

Accommodating the Bible – Having simply assumed this current “scientific” evaluation of the homosexual activity, the report goes on to question whether this material is normative for us. especially since our understanding of the difference between homosexuality and homosexualism was not known. “Whether the judgment which the Old Testament makes on homosexualism would be the same if such a distinction had been known we cannot say at this point” (p. 484).

Then turning to the New Testament material (especially Romans 1:26, 27) the report proceeds to raise similar questions regarding whether its stern condemnations still apply: “But again we need to ask whether the judgment of Paul applies to those who are homosexuals as we have defined them, i.e., those who are constitutionally homosexual in their sex orientation. Does the exchange from the natural to the unnatural which Paul deems dishonorable apply to such persons?” “How then ought we to regard the acts of those who engage in what according to the creation order is judged ‘unnatural,’ but is in fact ‘natural’ for them in their disordered condition?” In other words we are told that it is doubtful whether Paul’s condemnation applies because he was condemning only the homosexual acts of those who were not homosexuals! If this sounds ridiculous, it is because it is. It demonstrates the ridiculous interpretations of plain Bible teaching that become necessary to make it harmonize with the current opinion of “scientific experts” that homosexuality is a condition for which the homosexual is not responsible.

Confusing Conclusions – Further along in the report the question is raised whether for people who arc in this “condition,” homosexual “marriages” may not be permissible. The case of approving of such arrangements is argued in the report so sympathetically and at such length that some have jumped to the conclusion that the committee was actually approving of them: “Love, it is sometimes said, seeks the fulfillment of the neighbor and is ready always to satisfy such wants as lie close to the center of his being. When the satisfaction of these wants integrates personality, reduces his suffering, and works no apparent social harm, love requires that this satisfaction be licensed; no veto from the side of law may be tolerated” (p. 497).

Does the committee approve of such an arrangement? Read further and discover that it does not but for some very interesting reasons: “Moreover, as has already been indicated, biblical injunctions and prohibitions are to be honored in every instance where they are not overborne of either external necessity or by a higher value (Italics are mine). In cases of homosexualism there is no evidence that a person will in fact and from a long range perspective be helped by the practice of it, and it is clear both that the Bible condemns it and that love can discover no warrant in either necessity or value to make an exception to the prohibition against it. Obedience to the revealed will of God will bring its own reward.” In other words, the conclusion is that we still ought to follow the Bible, not unconditionally because it is God’s word, but as long as we can find no grounds in necessity or higher values to do otherwise! To this kind of qualified obedience to the Bible, our last year’s Synod’s compromising decision on its authority now brings us in dealing with the moral problem of homosexuality!

The report proceeds to its conclusions that these homosexuals are to be above all regarded and treated sympathetically, welcomed to the church and even its offices, but that “homosexual practice—must be condemned as incompatible with obedience to the will of God as revealed in Holy Scripture.” “The Church should speak the Word of God prophetically to a society and culture which glorifies sexuality and sexual gratification. It should foster a wholesome appreciation of sex and expose and condemn the idolatrous sexualism and the current celebration of homosexualism . . . .”

An Evaluation – What does this report mean? Did the Synod by endorsing it align us with other liberal churches who are ordaining homosexual preachers and endorsing homosexual congregations? Did it sound “a clarion call to hold the line against ‘gay-lib’ tendencies rising everywhere?” It did neither. Although the increasing flood of homosexual vice threatens to engulf our society (as it did that of ancient Greece and Rome) and although the church in the world increasingly needs to be warned that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all such ungodliness and unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18) and although the Word of God warns us: “Do not be deceived; neither the immoral . . . nor adulterers, nor homosexuals . . . will inherit the kingdom of God” (I Cor. 6:9, 10), the church committee has presented and the Synod has adopted a compromise whose structure and analysis presents not the moral, right-wrong standards of the Bible, but the a-moral (or immoral) Antichristian theories that prevail in modern psychology and sociology. At the same time the report attempts somewhat inconsistently to tack on to this fundamentally Antichristian approach a weak conclusion that, although one can’t blame such people for being what they are or feeling as they do, homosexual activity should not be condoned by Christians. Far from being the “clarion call” of God’s Word, the tenor of the report rather recalls the weak, ineffectual protests of an Eli against the blatant immorality of his sons which God condemned as an ablication of responsibility demanding His judgment. The weakness of the report and of the Synod’s decision in denouncing sin invites the confusion it has produced.

But don’t we have to recognize a distinction between the homosexual condition and homosexual activity? As was brought out at the Synod, it is by no means sure that there is such a distinct condition that permanently characterizes certain personalities -this is an unproved psychiatric theory. Although there are personality and emotional disorders, according to the Bible one who is a homosexual is no more free from responsibility for his condition than a sinner is thereby freed from responsibility or blame for being a sinner. Illicit desires as well as such actions are sins (Matt. 5:28).

Ought we not to be sympathetic with such people? Of course, we should, just as we are to be sympathetic with any other sinner, since we ourselves are by nature no better than any of them. But this does not mean that we should condone, or “accept” or take a tolerant attitude toward their sins of this kind any more than we should take such an attitude toward our own sins. Jesus’ admonition “Judge not!” does not mean, as it is often misconstrued as saying, that we should just condone or ignore sin. Instead He tells us that we are to “cast out first the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye” (Matt. 7:1, 5). Our concern is to be for the deliverance from sin, not learning to live with it.

Furthermore the Bible as it unmasks sins, these homosexual vices as well as every other kind, calls us to turn to Christ for deliverance. And as we and others are brought to do that, we must not continue to use the labels of our sins to describe one another. The same Scripture that warns that no homosexual, nor thief nor drunkard “shall inherit the kingdom of God” (I Cor. 6:10ff.) goes on to say, “And such were some of you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.”

The Bible does not instruct us, as we come to belong to Christ, to continue calling one another sinners, it tells us to regard one another as saints. It does not continue to call an ex-thief a “thief” or an “ex-adulterer” an “adulterer.” No more should we as Christians continue to label fellow Christians “homosexuals!”

Our dealing with the current flood of vice, including homosexual vice, will not he helped by a soft, confused approach to it. It must be met with the’ forthright condemnations of the gospel and the call of that gospel to repentance and deliverance from it. And then instead of continuing to talk about this and similar matters the Bible says, “But fornication, and all uncleanness Of covetousness, let it not even be named among you as becometh saints . . . for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of” (Eph. 5:3, 12). Such a godly life and testimony, instead of eliciting the confusion, ridicule, and offense that this report has aroused, will be an unmistakable testimony against the mounting wickedness of our society and to the Lord who delivers us and others from it.

Peter De Jong is pastor of the Christian Reformed Church of Dutton, Michigan.