Homosexuality & The Church

Welcome to the Uncut podcast. I'm Pastor Luke and I'm Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut

podcast where we talk about faith, life, ministry in an uncut manner. We kind of hop on here and we

try and have honest conversations and with the hopes of it being beneficial to anyone who would

choose to sit in and listen to these conversations.

Today we had a number of different kind of topics we were tossing around about what should we talk about.

And Cameron, you had an article that you had ran across the other day.

And after us both reading it, we felt like it was important for us to kind of tackle

this and the article itself is kind of the, at least the jumping off point for this conversation.

Right, right.

So yeah, I came across this article, and there were a number of things in it that caused

me some pause, I guess would be the best thing to say.

And I guess we'll just get right into the article.

The article comes out of the UK, and the story here is that a Bible professor, a theology

professor at a college at Cliff College in Derbyshire.

Derbyshire, England.

Derbyshire. Derbyshire. I don't know how you pronounce it, but I think it's Derbyshire.

Dr. Aaron Edwards was dismissed from his post as professor of theology and Bible at this college

for bringing the college into disrepute on social media.

He went on, the article goes on to describe how not only was he dismissed from his position,

but there has been talk about him being placed on a.

Essentially what is the UK's version of the terrorist watch list.

Something like that. Yeah, something like that. There was some discussion as to whether or not

what he had said merited being submitted to that agency. Yeah, and so for me, it's like, wow, this guy must be.

Really off The chain off the mark or whatever and so you look at the tweets essentially

Which is what ended up getting him fired?

And you see these series of tweets which Want to talk about here so the the initial tweet that essentially got him fired was this,

he says Homosexuality is invading the church church. Evangelicals no longer see the severity of this because they're busy apologizing

for their apparently barbaric homophobia, whether or not that's true. This is a gospel

issue, by the way. If sin is no longer sin, we no longer need a savior." He follows

up those tweets after his dismissal from the college with these ones.

He says, that is the conservative view. The acceptance of homosexuality as not sinful is an invasion upon the church historically

and doctrinally.

This is not a controversial opinion. The acceptance of it is controversial.

Most of the global church, and even historically, would agree with this.

It's not homophobic to declare homosexuality sinful.

And then finally, the last tweet, I expressed the conservative view as a doctrinal issue.

For example, the implications for sin in the gospel.

It was not an attack on individuals. It was addressed to evangelicals.

It seems that holding the view that homosexuality is sinful is only welcome if it remains unexpressed.

So it says that Edwards was suspended from the school pending an investigation, the college

revealed, and that it was considering referring him to prevent which policies allegations

of terrorism in the United Kingdom.

So, um, there are several issues, uh, I think there's several issues here in this article that I,

think are worth talking about.

Um, we could talk about the issue of, uh, the, uh, freedom, the freedom to express certain views.

Yeah.

Um, we could talk about the, um, uh, we could talk We could talk about whether or not his position

is the conservative position, is the historical position,

is the evangelical position, whatever the case may be.

We could talk about the pastoral issues that are wrapped up in the church's approach to,

and response to issues of not just homosexuality but human sexuality in general.

Because the reality is that this has been, at least in my generation as a pastor, and,

I suspect even what I know historically of the church in the last 50 years, which extends

beyond my generation, is that this is not necessarily a new issue, but it certainly

has been one of the primary, both theological and political issues in the church in my generation

as a pastor for essentially the last two decades, is what does the church do with, how does

the church respond, what is the church's position on issues of human sexuality in general, probably

homosexuality most specifically has been the issue, although those issues are expanding

and have been expanding into. Right.

Homosexuality kind of being the...

In sort of the starting point for the larger conversation around sexuality that's happened over the last,

Decade or so or more than decade two days. Yeah, quite a while. Yeah Yeah, I don't I don't remember a time where has not been where it's not been and you know,

What I would consider to be like towards the top,

of the pile in terms of,

hot-button theological Topics that is talked about

And, you know, we were talking a little bit before the mics came on about even the, sometimes

the difficulty in having these conversations.

I think that's where we should start.

Yeah. This is a difficult conversation to have. For me, it's difficult because it is, you know, I have dual, kind of dual concerns.

I don't know, I think maybe one ranks higher than the other.

My two concerns are, one, is that as someone who believes that the word of God is true.

And is inspired by God, and is inerrant and infallible, and is a faithful representation of the revelation of God and His will to His people,

and coupled with the calling that I believe that God has given to me and placed on my life

to teach the word faithfully and to help proclaim the truth of God's word and the gospel is

that there is a...

I have the responsibility to say, here is how God has revealed his heart, his will,

His stance is maybe the wrong word, but his position on...

It's kind of a funny way to say it. Right? Yeah. Every issue.

God has weighed in. God has weighed in on the issue. He's not silent on the topic.

And something that I think is very poignant in the tweets that got this Dr. Edwards dismissed

from college is his assertion that the doctrinal, historical, theological position of the church

throughout history is that homosexuality specifically is a sin is correct.

From the standpoint of like understanding what the...

The biblical witnesses as well as the historical witness of the church and then the and then

orthodox what we would consider to be orthodox doctrine from a conservative evangelical perspective

is that that homosexuality being a sin is not really up for debate. I mean there certainly is

is professors, scholars, pastors, Christians,

who would use scripture and historical analysis,

to present a alternative stance that maybe it was culturally or contextually bound

to the time where the Apostle Paul was speaking, right?

You know, without explaining all of those references here.

You have to take it like whatever level of trust you have, in my opinion, or whatever, you know, I would say,

I've read quite a bit on that, quite a bit.

And those arguments in my position, from my standpoint, are pretty weak.

They're pretty weak, as in like offering an alternative understanding from the biblical

witness of scripture on homosexuality. So there's that standpoint. It's kind of unambiguously clear,

and based on the calling and my belief that this does accurately reveal the heart of God

is like it kind of pushes me into responsibility to proclaim.

And the other side over here, we have the human element or the pastoral element, which,

is I love people and my heart for them is to know the depth of God's love for them,

the depth of God's grace in Jesus Christ, the desire of God to indwell in them through

your faith in Jesus Christ by his Holy Spirit, justifying them through the work of the cross,

sanctifying them through the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit and the word,

and releasing them from the shame that comes from sin and the attack of the enemy,

and freeing them into abundant life as John, or as John recorded Jesus saying in John 10, 10.

And because There because human sexuality is so incredibly Complex personal and personal, right? It's not like it.

Can't separate someone's sexuality from their whole personhood We're not we're not here talking about someone's opinion as to whether or not they think the Marvel movies are great cinema or not

Right, right. It's like this is more personal than your opinions about you know, current superhero cinema, right?

Very deeply personal for people Extraordinarily difficult in fact impossible. I don't believe we should separate a person's,

sexuality whether they have same such same sex attraction or whether they are,

heterosexual or any any and everything in between between, the ability to separate that

from someone's personhood is like,

it'd be like separating someone from their arms, right?

That's a part of who they are.

But I have this deep desire to not, to, you know, like kind of maybe the Hippocratic Oath

that a doctor takes is to do no harm.

Right, right. Because you and I are having this conversation with each other. Right.

Right, with microphones between us. there's no actual person in the room with us who is struggling with same-sex attraction.

Or is living a homosexual lifestyle, or questioning their sexuality. There's nobody

who is currently exhibiting as a pastoral person that we're talking directly to. And when we're,

like I think sometimes

I imagine you probably ran into this in seminary, and I ran into it in Bible college.

You get young people who want to be pastors, and they think being a pastor means I get

to tell people what to do and I get to preach.

And then they, at some point, either find out that that's not the reality of what being

called to a pastor is, because you cannot be a pastor without sheep, cannot be a pastor

without people to care for and to shepherd.

And so, without a element of being a shepherd, you're just a, I don't know, you're giving

a bad TED Talk once a week.

So all that to say, we are informed in how we do ministry by who we're talking to.

Right. Right. That is the context through which we do ministry.

And so coming here and talking about a deeply personal issue without a person in front of

us to inform how we talk about this, to inform the specific avenues that we will choose to

go down to and choose not to go down, the tone in which we have, it becomes very difficult

because now we have to clarify, who are we talking to?

Right, we're talking to a general at large congregation of people that we know we interact with.

And then on a level of that, we're interacting with just general public on some level.

Yes, well, you know, and there's the additional thing is that people listening or watching only,

they're only seeing what we're showing them.

You know, it's impossible to see the personal connections.

And ministry and pastoral care and shepherding that we have done, will continue to do, are doing

with those who do have really significant questions or in regards to their own sexuality

and their own attractions and have entrusted,

those conversations to us and that we take with extraordinary care and grace.

And in an environment and context of love for that person and love for God and a desire to see them live

into who God has created them to be and who God desires them to be.

The question there is like, okay, is this...

Is this a, for instance, if we're talking about homosexuality, is this what God desires for me?

Is this who God has made me to be?

And so the question is in one way incredibly complex and in another way it's not complex at all.

It's very simple. And so I think the dichotomy between those two things,

in those two things, the human element and pastorally being, caring for other people.

And what we know to be true from God's word, they sometimes smash into each other.

And when they smash into each other, they can do a lot of damage, especially if you're

not careful or not caring for.

And I think that's been kind of, and he alluded to this, or the article alluded to it as well,

is that there is the general perception that.

I don't even think it's really a perception anymore as much as it is an opinion, in my estimation,

is that if you hold the position that homosexuality is sinful,

then you are barbarically homophobic and that you don't love those who are gay.

That's the running narrative. Yes.

Even in the church, in a lot of places. Like you are homophobic, you're afraid of them,

which is all or you're you're unloving you're not accepting them for who they are you're not,

and so this is where and this is why for me it becomes like this issue of i use this phrase

before we turn the mics on of walking through a minefield it's like how can i can we talk about

this in an honest and clear way, without being assaulted.

With, essentially assaulted with the idea that well, you guys just hate gay people,

or you're homophobic, or why don't you love them?

Which does not hold in balance the dichotomy of what we actually do in practice and ministry

that you just don't see because you can't see it and it's confidential.

But it becomes a really tricky issue to talk about.

Well, yeah, so I guess all this to say is like if you're listening and you are someone who is, you know, in some way wrestling with your sexuality, or you have a dear loved one who is homosexual or wrestling with their sexuality, we don't by any means intend significant, significant offense, or.

Or I don't want to go too down like a philosophical rabbit hole, but we intend,

and we would hope if we were having a personal conversation with you, we would do so in a way

that's honoring and loving and kind while being truthful, but just kind of acknowledging the fact

that we're not able to do that. We're coming here and having a conversation with just you,

the two of us in the room, knowing that this conversation is going to be listened to by other

people. But the thing is, is like...

This hasn't been a topic that either of us have, I think, at least, I don't know about,

at least your tenure here at Conduit and my experience in ministries thus far,

this is not a topic I've talked publicly a lot about. And I think, and for some fair reasons,

right? Like, I'm not, like, this could easily become, and it does for many people, become like

the only thing they talk about, right? And for us, it's not, right? And we don't want it to be

like this. We don't want this podcast to become the defining, the defining, or we don't want it

to be, you know, we don't want this whole show to turn into Pastor Cameron and Pastor Luke sit down

and talk about sexuality, because the topic is big enough that we could, right? That could be

the only thing we talked about for every episode here on out. It's not what we intend or want.

But we do think that there is a point at which there is so much, there's so many people talking

about this in the public sphere, putting forth different ways to think about it theologically,

personally, all of these things you are encountering if you're listening to this.

This isn't the first podcast you've probably heard on homosexuality, right? We are,

Immensely late to the game as far as that is concerned, right?

Um Yeah, and I don't I don't think that we're going to be offering anything that's completely novel,

No or insightful other than just saying like this is a dichotomy that we that we recognize,

but we do Hold a particular position So yeah, and so I guess what we do did do feel like to not.

Us not being willing to talk about it and engage with it in this sphere, even outside

of the personal context, is in some way abdicating our responsibility to disciple, to teach,

to help people think through these things.

And so, yeah, that's kind of, I guess, where that kind of goes.

I feel like that's maybe the end of that hallway. Yeah. Right.

So, I think one of the important dynamics that we can use maybe to begin to discuss this is what is the.

Maybe what you would call the historical theological position, both of the church.

And when we say the historical theological position of the church, we're not saying like, oh, the church,

like, we're saying that those historical theological positions have their basis fundamentally

in the pages of scripture.

So we're not saying that, as like, well, the church says this, but scripture says this.

I use those terms fairly synonymously, yeah.

So, we must understand that the church, the community of saints, right,

those who have expressed faith throughout history,

in Jesus Christ, who worship the monotheistic.

Trinitarian God, right?

That group of people extends far beyond our own context,

and our own experience. So we tend to think very myopically about what the church is.

Well, the church is places like Conduit, or such and such Baptist church, or such and

such Methodist church, or such and such Presbyterian or Catholic, or whatever it's, you know, and

the churches that we see in our community.

Well, we must understand that there's a historical backlog of people who have expressed and practiced

the Christian faith for upwards of 2,000 years now, right?

Of Christians. There is also now, currently, in 2023, extraordinary diversity and breadth and depth of the Christian faith. And if you were,

to put a pie graph of Christians in the world right now.

The United States.

Would occupy a very small sliver of that pie, right?

The Christian population in the world today is far greater in places like South America,

Africa, the continent of Africa, and the continent of Asia, extraordinary.

There's more Christians in China than there are in the United States.

They're hard to count.

They're hard to count, right. And so when we say, well, the 21st century.

2023 Christian church in the United States,

is the voice for Christianity as it has existed in generations past

and even as it exists in generation present

is just flat out false.

It's extraordinarily narrow. We're the ones with the TV shows,

but that doesn't mean that we're a good representation of Christians, historic or current. Exactly.

So we need to understand that when someone says something like the historic doctrinal theological position

of the church has been that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching

or considered to be a sin,

that we're not just drawing on, hey, what is the current opinion in the church

in Western New York in 2023, because that is, that's like,

you can't even put a percentage on what that is in comparison to all the history of Christianity

and Christian doctrine.

And so when you look at the historical position of the church, theological position of the church,

it is overwhelmingly affirmative that.

That BUUURP,

sexual practices like homosexuality, homosexuality itself, is considered to be either sinful or,

like some churches put in their doctrine, incompatible with Christian teaching.

And so we're not saying something, to say that homosexuality is sinful is not saying

something that's particularly novel. No, it's very old.

It's actually very, very old, but we also should make the commentary that old does not equal

antiquated. It's not like, oh, we moved on from telephones a long time ago. Why don't we move on

from that? It doesn't mean antiquated or bad. It actually gives credence to it's the fundamental

truth that lies therein, that for literally millennia, this has been the understanding

among those who hold faith in Jesus Christ and the scripture.

And so to say that now, let's say in the last 50 years of Western Christianity, we've come

to now get some kind of special revelation or better understanding of the word and Christian

doctrine than 2000 years of Christianity has had is foolish.

To say that we somehow, well, we understand it better now than maybe the Apostle Paul,

Understood it right who had an encounter with the resurrected Jesus himself, right and who was friends with Peter James John who you know,

So there is a I don't think it's.

I Think it would be the church's job To I think Christians would have to say. All right. The burden is now upon us,

to tell why 2,000 years of church doctrine and church theology and Christian faith has been wrong and we are right

rather than the other way around.

Burden of proof. Burden of proof is on us to determine what did they get wrong there?

They obviously didn't love people, which is credibly myopic in my view.

Well, and the thing is too is that in order to, I won't say that every argument for homosexuality

fits under this category, but a significant amount of them do require a hermeneutic of.

Well, they just were them back there, and they just didn't get it, and we've progressed,

and so now we can ignore that piece.

Right. And that hermeneutic is problematic because nothing is safe from it.

Nothing is safe. Nothing is safe from that.

And that includes salvation, includes God actually existing.

Because who becomes the arbiter of that, right?

And ultimately it's you or cultural sensibility. And so it's not a, if you have to use a hermeneutic that leans heavily on that sentiment or that

frame of mind when approaching those texts, you, there's nothing saying that that hermeneutic

is not justifiably applied to every other text as well.

And so you are undermining and undercutting essentially all which you can kind of stand

underneath with intellectual honesty in your interpretation of the Bible.

I do think it's worth saying, and I think this is maybe kind of what has happened, and,

it's interesting for me to see how Christian theology and talking and thinking around sexuality

has changed over the last 50 years and with inside of orthodoxy is I do think it's worth saying that.

The pastoral response to people struggling with same-sex attraction has not always been what it maybe should be. No, absolutely not.

And I think what has happened, and this is me just wondering aloud, I'm not some sort of

social expert or anything like that. But what I wonder is if we've, who hold the Orthodox position,

have had to wrestle with, okay, this is a little bit more, now that we're talking about it, and

it's not just something you don't talk about, it is more complex than maybe we're willing to admit

initially. And maybe we do need to figure out how to pastorally handle this better. But in doing so,

So in kind of making that admission and maybe kind of having to stop and retreat, we've,

maybe kind of stopped talking all together about it.

And now we're getting to a point where I feel like there is a growing population of Christians

and pastors and Christian leaders who have a more robust understanding of sexuality as a whole,

a better integration of it into biblical doctrine and pastoral care,

but we haven't yet begun to bring that forward in a really public and clear way yet.

Because we've just been apologizing for what we've been doing in the past.

Yeah, because doing so is obvious what happens, right? You get removed from a position as a,

professor of the Bible and you get potentially put on a terrorist's watch list from like,

right, crying out loud, like, what, where, what is going on here?

And to be clear, like, we're talking about this in our stream. So we're not talking about any of

the political implications of this. We're not talking about like, we're talking about this from

from a theological, biblical, pastoral perspective.

We're not, you know, we're not gonna go down a rabbit hole of like governments and making policies.

We're simply addressing what I think his initial tweet was trying to call out was like other churches,

other Christians, and saying, hello.

We- Why are we abandoning this law and held doctrine and principle?

Right. For what reason?

So that we can avoid being considered barbarically homophobic, I think that's his term.

Which I understand the sentiment, I do understand the sentiment. I want to go back to something that

you said because it reminded me of a conversation that I had, oh my gosh, this must have been

probably almost 15 years ago now, I was writing a paper.

So, I did a couple different programs in my own theological education, and one of them,

the end of it, was to write essentially an exegetical paper, which is to pick a passage

of scripture and exegete, interpret, apply, explain various viewpoints or whatever.

I chose 1 Corinthians chapter six, because at the time, issues around human sexuality

were so like, all the time.

Especially in the denomination that I was a part of at the time.

And so I chose 1 Corinthians chapter six.

Well, one of the processes that you go through when you offer a thesis like that

is that you have thesis advisors and then you have a panel of people

that read the thesis and they, essentially you go through oral arguments over like,

can you defend your thesis, can you defend it?

And I had to choose, or I didn't actually have to, but my advisor chose someone who he knew

held a different position than the one that I was putting forward because,

okay, can I defend my position?

And I was young, I was a young pastor, I was maybe 25 at that time or so, and was a little nervous about it, because this was

a scholarly person, pastor also.

He had essentially made the point or had made the argument that whether or not we were talking

about, okay, well, does Paul, who primarily speaks about homosexuality as a sin, would

Jesus agree with Paul? Yeah. You know, would Jesus agree with Paul? Yep. And so, because we don't see

Jesus mention... He doesn't mention homosexuality. He doesn't say the word homosexuality. He does

not, no. Or the Greek iterations of it. Right. What he does mention is the nature of, for instance,

marriage. That marriage should be between one man and one woman. And so this professor's position

was is that, well, you know, that they, that Paul and Jesus, and those, were reacting to.

Issues that were contextually specific to them. Mm-hmm. They were they were responding out of what was the.

You know cultural norm for their time to be homophobic essentially So the reverse argument to that is that we would then it I think what it does is especially in the case of Jesus

Is it communicates an extraordinary low?

Christology. Yes. You know, whereas, you know, Jesus, okay, now we're seeing Jesus as somehow,

misunderstanding God's will, his heart, which strikes against the whole divinity of Jesus

being one with the Father, you know, being the perfect representation of God's being,

you know, it tears apart Trinitarian belief. But also that somehow in that as well,

that God doesn't understand or that Jesus does not understand God's will. And two,

that somehow Jesus is bound by his context and can only speak into the context rather than speaking,

eternally does sort of the same thing that you said about having a hermeneutic that,

that of essentially a hermeneutic of suspicion, where now everything is fair game to deconstruct,

because it was bound in a context or in a historical context that was not as progressive

or that we don't have as much understanding.

We have more understanding than they had then.

And so I think it's important to, I guess what I'm saying is that like.

Paul and Jesus agree, and if they don't agree, then, or if we think that they don't agree,

then we have some very, we have significant problems theologically with who we believe Jesus is.

Well, and we have significant problems with the Bible.

Right. Right. Like, you, like, I don't know, not everyone listening will have run into this, but occasionally

you will run into, and it has some value, right?

So we did a class last night on Nicene Creed and the controversy of, is Jesus fully God and fully human?

And they had to argue over that.

And the argument for that, you know, Jesus was begotten, John 3, 16. Well, in answering that

question, I stayed mostly inside of the book of John to try and show that the author, John,

the apostle, was not communicating that Jesus was born, had a beginning. He was physically born. He

had a beginning in human life, but he was preexistent, right? And so I backed up and went

went to John one, right. And I did that because I wanted to show that there was some cohesion

in John's thought. But because I also believe the entire Bible is inspired, I could go to

Luke, or I could go to Paul, or I could go to anywhere in the Bible.

Or Genesis, which you did go to.

Right. Or Genesis. I went to Psalm two. Because the Bible is not at odds with one another.

People out of... I think there's some value to finding coherency in amongst authors. What.

Is Paul's train of thought in looking at Paul's literature as a whole, as opposed to the gospels?

But when we get to the point where we're saying, well, Paul opposes Jesus, and they just actually

teach totally different things, we've undercut God's weaving together of the Bible. And we've

We've said God, and we're no longer using the Bible to interpret the Bible.

We're using the Bible to fight the Bible, and that's not a place you want to be either.

Right. Well, and that's the beginning of it, is that we... You tear apart the fabric of the authority of...

Any authority that the Word of God has.

But then, like we said, you get down into deeper theological issues.

Like if Paul and Jesus didn't agree.

On something, then you either discard all of the Gospels in the life of Jesus, or you

discard the other two-thirds of the New Testament.

Yeah, who do you listen to? Right. So it just becomes a very...

And all of the theological issues that run current, the currents that run through those.

So it's much more of a significant issue than you may have been led to believe it is.

That gets into the weeds of hermeneutics and biblical interpretation and all of that.

But if we come back to the central issue then of what the scripture says and what our response to it is,

I'm curious as to how you might respond or how we might begin to deal with

like some of the sentiment around, okay, some of the sentiment around, okay,

if that's the position that you hold,

why don't you, you obviously don't love those people then.

And how do we as Christians faithfully believe something faithfully believe something,

and simultaneously maintain a heart and a spirit of love.

Okay, you know, the funny thing is is the answer to that question is painfully simple and that's why it's somewhat hard to articulate sometimes

Yes, and it's interesting because it is really difficult to find another issue.

Where we are put in a similar position of Of of saying well simply because you disagree or,

Disapprove on a moral level of the behavior of someone Means that you must hate them, right? Right like,

Let's take,

Stealing stealing That's a good one. That's that's an even less controversial one than the one I had in my mind. It's a great one,

We can all generally, as a world, even outside of Christianity, stealing no good, right?

Bad. Bad.

Stealing bad. Stealing equals bad. Don't do. Yes. Wall Street bad, right?

Like that's an easy narrative that just about anybody can easily pick up.

Let me keep what is mine, let you keep what is yours, earn what you get, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. simple, you know, like, that is not a good thing.

If someone steals something from you or from someone else, well, from you, there is more of a personal offense.

So you would probably have a harder time loving that person if they stole something personally from you.

But I find it interesting that particularly if you find, If you meet someone who has stolen something, at some point, not from you, but from just

somebody else.

Do you hate them automatically because you're like, well, I don't think that was a thing you should have done,

Yeah, right. Does that mean I hate them? No,

No, no Yeah, right It becomes really clear and easy In most situations like that, whether it be stealing or lying or whatever. Yeah that it's possible to separate,

What someone does?

From Their personhood. Who they are. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's... Right. That's the case with pretty much everything.

Yes. Like, we, you know, the example that was coming into my mind is we generally agree that alcoholism is not good. That being hooked on drugs is not good.

Right that that's not good for you. It's not good for your family. Not good for you in so many different ways and,

But that doesn't mean that because I disapprove of your abusive substances Means I can't love you. Right, right. Do you think that the difficulty in?

Using the same kind of like the same type of mindset when it comes to to same-sex attraction or human sexuality issues in general.

I think the difficulty comes from the assertion by those who do express same-sex attraction

that, no, I am not choosing to do this.

Like I would choose to steal something, but that this is who I am.

This is even how God has made me.

And therefore, if this is how God has made me, how can it possibly be wrong?

Right. Yeah, I think that is a- Is that the crux of the issue?

I think on some level. Yeah.

I'm curious, and this is maybe a side issue to the answering of that question,

but as I've grown up in the faith and in church,

I remember, and it may be it was just my experience in the churches I was like in the circles I was running in. But I remember at some point

very much understanding the Christian position to be, well, yeah, homosexuality is a choice.

And then I remember the first time I ran across somebody who had a more nuanced understanding

of that, and said that like, well, no, you didn't necessarily choose to experience same

sex attraction. But you're you are making a choice as whether or not you live that out.

Whether or not you choose to live a homosexual lifestyle, which I think, I don't know, maybe

I'm making a bigger assumption, I think that that's a fairly well-understood theological distinction.

Maybe it's not, but I remember when that theological distinction happened in the life of the church and public theology.

Do you remember that, or was it just because I was younger and growing up as it's happening?

I guess I don't even really remember when that distinction really would have been made.

I think from my experience, that's kind of always been the distinction.

I think that my feeling on it, though, is that that brings up many theological questions

that I don't really know how to answer, which would be first, like, okay.

So the assumption then is, okay, God made them this way. That's a tricky statement in and of itself, but God made them this way, and what he's

asking them is to just have.

An extraordinary level of self-control or theological understanding

so as not to express the sexuality that they experience.

Which is, feels unfair to me. It feels like a, it feels like an expectation

that I wouldn't want, you know, as a heterosexual man,

I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I would feel like well,

why, why wouldn't I express what I feel is a part of me?

So it does bring up those questions, but I don't think necessarily that it's,

it's particularly improper or incorrect to say, okay, there is a proclivity for this attraction.

And because of what I know about God and who he has made me to be,

my response to those proclivities may be different than others.

So for instance, many people know that I have a history of addiction and That,

that there's lots of questions whether or not addiction is,

Hereditary. Yes, right and it seems to be an answer Yes, and yes, yes and no, right,

And You know because I have a

History in my family a strong history in my family of addiction. And so and so I would say well, okay

Yeah, I do feel that we would call what I have an addictive personality.

And I can see that even in the sober life that I've been living for the last, you know, seven years. Yeah.

In regards to alcohol that That yeah, I have a proclivity for addiction i've made the choice to set that aside right right,

But that has not done away with this sense of,

Being addicted to other things that I see is very easy for me. Yep,

Yep, right. I have a very addictive personality across the board not just with substance,

and so can see how something that is not God's heart or desire for my life to be a part of who I am, right?

What does that speak to me theologically? It speaks to me that there is a,

that we still don't understand, and we never will,

the depth of sin's hold and pervasiveness in humanity hold and pervasiveness in humanity,

that sin goes down into our personhood.

Not just our conduct, but it affects, yes, who we perceive ourselves to be

and who we actually are outside of Christ, right?

And until faith in Christ is expressed And we...

Go through the lifelong journey of being sanctified by his spirit and in his word to be transformed

into his image and likeness, that we will always experience to some degree those proclivities,

those pulls to things that we know are not God's best for us, but we feel are still deeply

personal to who we are.

I mean, what you're articulating is a theology of sin and depravity.

Exactly. Total depravity. Total depravity.

A good Calvinist that I'm not. Right. Right? I'm not a Calvinist.

Right? Like, if I was a Calvinist, I would be like, total depravity all the way here.

Right? Right. Right. It's tea in the tulip. Tea in the tulip. Right.

That's what this is. It's total depravity.

Yeah. And so, like you said, that statement of the interlocutor, the person who's saying, well,

made me this way?" Well, yes and no, right? Like, I don't want to deny that God made you, but like,

you were born with sin. You were conceived in sin. All of us have gone astray, like she.

Following our own ways. We've all have our own proclivities of sin that are not just,

that are not just we do bad things,

but that inside of us is a broken person, a broken soul that desires bad things.

We are not basically good and we do bad things.

We are broken at our core. We are fully bad and it's Christ in us that makes us good.

Not the other way around.

And so your particular brokenness and sin.

Is going to be different from everybody else's, right? Like, for me, substance has not been,

my thing. It's never been a big issue for me. But I've definitely had my other sin struggles. Sure.

I've definitely got my other proclivities and ways in which I'm a broken person.

And I do think, I think it's really important to make this distinction, is that Christ is not,

and the Bible is not putting just a... I don't remember exactly what you were saying,

but this triggered this thought in me, but there is a... the Bible has restrictions,

on everyone's sexuality, right? Yes.

The heterosexual person has ways in which they need to limit their sexual desire,

in order to be in line with God's Word.

If that means, well, I can't just pursue anyone I feel sexually desired towards

if I'm in a covenant of marriage.

If I'm outside of a covenant of marriage, I'm not married yet, right?

I'm understanding sex to be for marriage and part of that covenant.

Well then, God is asking me to not live this out yet.

And so we're not like, there's a dichotomy there when we're saying like, well, part of my,

you're asking me to limit part of my sexuality and its expression, it's part of me. And we're

like, yeah, that's kind of the ask that we feel God is making on everyone. It's not something

that we are leveraging. Yes, there is a unique cost, an absolute unique cost that is being made,

or that is asked of someone who experienced same-sex attraction and wants to pursue.

Holy sexuality, there is a unique cost that they will know that others will not. But others still

have costs and limits in which we must say, my sexuality, my carnal flesh wants to go this

direction, but I must withhold it for Christ's sake and by His power and His strength.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Right. And then there's an underlying, there's an underlying point here I want to make.

To what I just said. And that is that the goal is, the goal is not heterosexuality.

The goal is holy sexuality. Right.

And I think I'm borrowing that language from Christopher Yuhon. He's a professor and writer

who's struggled with same sex attraction and wrote in several books on this topic.

But he makes this point of saying, like, the point isn't necessarily for the person who's experiencing same-sex attraction to become, like, a, like, you know, Mr. Heterosexual in all of the ways.

That's not necessarily the goal.

The goal is for them to find how is God called them to be holy with the sexuality that they possess.

And I think that's a really important distinction that sometimes gets lost.

Yeah, I think you're right.

Yeah, maybe the goal has been heterosexuality. That's your goal.

That's everyone's goal. Right.

Well, actually the goal is to be holy, as Jesus is holy, and be conformed in the image and likeness of God's son.

Because there's plenty of heterosexuals that have lots of sexual sin.

Oh yes, yeah, right.

That's a good point. I like that. I like that distinction. I guess, and then I think we're kind of running up on our hour that we normally hit. And I,

think that there is still a significant burden of shame and guilt in a lot of church spaces

when it comes to sexuality and sexual experiences and wrestling through them.

Mm-hmm. There's They've not really become comfortable to be part of an ordinary testimony yet, right?

Particularly if you haven't had some sort of I don't want to be dismissal if this is anybody's story, but if you've not.

Experienced a radical transition in your sexual experience and expression if you're still in a place of like,

Actually, like I'm not acting out on my same-sex attraction, but I still feel it,

But that's not a common thing that ends up in testimonies on stages.

And I think that that creates an era that can still create a space inside of churches

where people feel like, it's not okay for me to tell people that I'm experiencing this,

ask for help, ask for people to support me, what can I be doing and wrestling through,

how can I do this with other people and not doing it alone?

And so I want to take just that brief moment to say that if anyone's listening, if you're

at our church, we want to be a church where you can come and wrestle with that.

Yeah, absolutely. We want to be your pastors.

We want to love you through that. We want to be with you.

We don't want you to sit with feeling like the Bible has said one thing, and you're sitting

underneath the thumb or the hammer of God because your sexuality feels like it's not

incongruence. We want you to meet Jesus. We want you to experience Jesus and his love.

Yeah, I guess that's my shepherd's heart right there. Yeah, a hundred percent. It certainly is, you know, your point about testimonies,

like it becomes like a powerful part of a testimony for someone to say,

I'm an addict, but I'm currently living a clean and sober life.

Everyone's like, oh, bravo. I'm so encouraged and inspired by that. Someone would say,

I have homosexual attraction. I'm not acting on that attraction. Everyone's like,

they feel on the others like this. Right. And the church has not done,

done, pastors have not done a particularly good job at unblurring the lines between those

two types of statements or experiences to say, no, you are still welcome here in this community.

We desire to shepherd you and to get you closer to Jesus and allow Jesus the freedom and the

place that he desires to transform you from the inside out and to speak into your life

and to speak into your heart and to display his love for you and to call you to holiness.

And there's a... It goes back to what seems pretty simple in the church, but sometimes it's not.

It's like, well, who comes to this place?

Who gets access to the community that calls themselves Christians?

Is it those that are already good enough to be Christians, which is a misnomer in and of itself?

Or is it those coming to seek?

Like community in their pursuit of life-transforming relationship with Jesus, no matter where they are,

in that phase of their life. If you are like the poster boy for sinful expressions and habits,

you don't need to get yourself cleaned up before you come to the community of faith,

At least here at Conduit, we welcome you and love you, and we'll preach the word.

And ask that the Holy Spirit of God move upon your life, just like we would ask,

he would do to anyone. But certainly, do not allow either past experiences or,

the work of the enemy to produce incredibly heavy guilt and shame upon you,

you stop you from responding to the grace of God?

Yeah. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. A physician came to heal those who are sick,

not those who are already healthy. Not those who are already healthy, yeah.

Like that's the thing.

Well, we hope that in some ways this was.

I don't know, helpful is the right word. At the very least you have a sense of maybe some,

in which to have the conversation with others or internally in yourself and give you some

opportunities to think through it.

If you maybe appreciate conversations like this or you would appreciate that we explore

a little bit more the complexity of theological conversation and Christian faith and sexuality,

we can certainly do that. Yeah.

Or if you have a specific question, some specificity around something, you can certainly ask us.

Yeah, you can put it in the comments here or you can text it to our our mailbag line, which is seven one six,

two zero one zero five zero seven and we can either use that as a part two of this episode or we'll include it in a mailbag if it's,

if it's appropriate there, but we do thank you for listening and thank you for watching and,

We we hope that it was helpful or Or maybe it made you angry enough to think through or pray about or walk with or, I don't

know.

I don't know what I hope it did in you, but I know it's not an easy conversation for anyone

to have, but in the same regard, it is also an easy conversation.

And we hope our heart has come through on this.

We'll see you all next time. Thanks.