Thank you for your recent comment:

“We should not condone homosexuality, but we should not single it out as if God hates it more than he hates our own arrogance.”

I completely agree.

worshiping and serving created things rather than the Creator
greed
envy
murder
strife
deceit
malice
gossip
slander
hating God
insolence
arrogant and boastful
inventing ways of doing evil
disobeying parents
senselessness
faithlessness
heartlessness
ruthlessness

Chances are, reading this list, we react by saying, “Well, that one is not so bad,” but Paul says according to “God’s righteous decree . . . those who do such things deserve death.” All these sins are symptomatic of “having known God but not glorifying him as God, nor being thankful.” As such, Paul’s indictment in Romans 1 is not only against the individual sinner, but more so against the culture. What about pop culture is not insolent and arrogant? Yet the church spends more time trying to emulate pop culture than we do condemning it.

Homosexuals become an easy target for our judgmental attitudes because their sin is visibly different than our own. When a homosexual says, “I can’t help myself,” we say, “Yes, you can! Read Romans 1!” and we turn around and gossip or slander him without acknowledging we’re condemned by Romans 1, too. We view homosexuals as a special threat, but we conduct business with those who are deceitful and even malicious. Maybe we even conduct our business in a deceitful or malicious way. We should not condone homosexuality, but we should not single it out as if God hates it more than he hates our own arrogance. Would we endorse a constitutional amendment against arrogance?

All sin is rebellion against the divine order that God has established. Yet do we truly seek to live according to divine order? Or, do we merely seek to assert our own disorder into the lives of others?

“If there is the possibility of homosexuality practiced within a marriage, without promiscuity and without exploitation of the young by the old, is it still by definition a sin?”

-I think the Bible says it still is. Homosexuality is not a new thing as if the Bible had no concept of it (obviously). I’ve heard the argument that the Bible’s writers (most specifically, Paul) would not have condemned monogamous homosexuality sinful had he had the opportunity to see it. But I just can’t accept that as a valid argument. Paul knew of homosexuality and he knew of monogamy…I think it a stretch to say that he wouldn’t have had the insight to put the two together and consider it a valid option if he truly felt it were valid.

“…how would one know whether a same-sex couple were in fact engaging in homosexual sex?”

-As in a same-sex couple who act married in all ways except they don’t have sex? While I think that might be better, I don’t think it ideal. Paul encourages believers to abstain from even the appearance of evil.

I am inclined to think that homosexuality itself is not a sin; that its negative social effects and the scriptural condemnation of it have both arisen from most societies’ denial of the right to marry, which has meant that homosexuality has only been practiced in unrecognised and often fleeting and promiscuous relationships. In my own tradition, the Bahai Faith, pederasty has been condemed, and again that relates to a society in which wealthy men commonly kept boys, and homoerotic love was normally directed to youths. But we are in a different world today, not the world of Leviticus or the New Testament or even the 19th century world in which the Bahai Faith arose. If there is the possibility of homosexuality practiced within a marriage, without promiscuity and without exploitation of the young by the old, is it still by definition a sin?

For comparison: usury is condemned. But when the elements of personal exploitation are removed, and we put our little savings in a savings bank that pays interest, is this still a sin? Or harvesting the corners of a field is forbidden, but isn’t it wasteful to leave them, if one farms in the middle of the prairie and there’s no-one for miles around who would want to glean?

Having said that – the question in California and eventually the states in general is not homosexual practice, but same-sex civil marriage. Supposing that one thought all forms of homosexual sex are sinful, and supposing one took an interest in your neighbours’ sins, how would one know whether a same-sex couple were in fact engaging in homosexual sex? Or whether they are “turning away from practicing homosexuality as a matter of obedience and love for Jesus Christ?”

Thanks so much for your comment!  I appreciate you taking the time to interact and hope that as we discuss we will give each other an enormous amount of grace.  First, I want to agree with you about how the state should not oppress those who are sinners by mere fact of them being sinners.  We are all sinners, of course. That said, I think we can agree that the state has an interest in punishing sin when such sin is oppressive of or imposes on the rights of others.  We wouldn’t call that oppression, though, we’d call it justice.  But as for the state’s job of protecting against sin, you and I agree.

Now, when it comes to the changing of hearts, I feel I must clarify something.  Please know that I clarify this not to offend yourself or anyone else, but as a matter of conviction about what I believe and what I see as I read and study the Bible.  Homosexuality is sin.  It is not the worst sin, all sin causes us to fall short of the glory of God (even the sins that we consider insignificant like white lies, greed, gluttony and the others that seem to fit rather well in American society), but the Bible maintains that it is sinful.  Once someone becomes a Christian, it is expected that they would gradually, by the power of the Holy Spirit, turn away from and repent of their sin.  With that in mind, I find a “married Christian homosexual” to be inconsistent with Scripture – at least as long as the Christian doesn’t see a problem with their homosexuality.  That is not to say that once someone becomes a Christian, they cease to have an attraction to members of the same-sex, but in order for that person’s faith to be authentically Biblical they must begin a process of turning away from practicing homosexuality as a matter of obedience and love for Jesus Christ.

Please know that I say this with the utmost love and humility.  I sincerely hope that my saying this hasn’t put you off to the point to where we are unable to dialogue about this respectfully.  If you’re still willing, I’d love to continue this conversation either here publicly or over email.  Let me know!

What do you think?

Great post…