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November 19, 2004

Humility with Homosexuality

This is a copy of an email I sent to someone asking whether he should write a letter to an editor in response to an article on a local lesbian couple who married in Massachusetts. He stated that he wanted to give an example of a good heterosexual marriage in contrast to the deviant marriage of the lesbian couple. I was concerned with how he might come across, as we in American Christianity hide behind self-righteousness and judge those who are already under the judgment of God. I wanted to try to communicate humility. This is the result, with the names changed.

Shawn,

I would encourage you, in your writing, to take a very, very humble tone. I think I understand your desire to see righteousness exalted and sin derogated. That is good. But when holding up one person against another, we take tremendous risks of self-righteousness and in condemning those who are already condemned.

Something that has jumped out to me in Romans 1 is homosexuality and our relationship to it. Mark and Lori [the couple he wished to cite] are not homosexual and have not struggled with that sin; the homosexual women are clearly involved in it. But something that we must always remember before opening our mouths against homosexual people is an awareness of our own dark exchange. Try to follow my reasoning here, which I think is entirely warranted in the text.

22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

This is not just homosexual people. This is Mark. This is Lori. This is Shawn. This is Rob. There is a “natural function” of God in our lives, if you will. There is a truth about God that we have all exchanged for a lie. Instead of worshiping (being most satisfied in) and serving (with all the just actions that follow) God, we exchanged the worship of something different than ourselves for something like ourselves. This is the heart of every single human being.

God, in response, allowed some to outwardly illustrate what all have done inwardly and has allowed them, through the ages, to experience various earthly problems due to their sin.

26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Do you see the parallel between the two passages? Do you see the word “exchanged” in both? Universally, we all “exchanged” the glory of God (something different/hetero from ourselves) for images resembling creation (something similar to/homo ourselves). We were made to be heteroworshipers; that is, worshipers of something different than ourselves. But, we all became homoworshipers.

Homosexual people are only committing outwardly the very same sin I have committed inwardly. And God is very angry at the homosexual person as well as with me. We both deserve wrath and condemnation whether I ever sleep with another man or not. I cannot stand before God and say, “Because I’m not a homosexual person, You owe me something better than this man over here who is.” So we both stand waiting for God’s wrath to be revealed against us.

And my only hope is not my heterosexuality; it is in Christ’s perfect obedience and atoning death in which God’s wrath was propitiated (satisfied), and I was given a righteousness not my own whereby I am declared “Righteous!” (justified) even though I am a sinner. This is the same hope of the homosexual. And as I boast in the cross alone, the world is crucified to me and I to the world (Gal. 6:14), so that my heterosexuality is redeemed and things like pornography and masturbation and premarital sex and whatever other heterosexual sin we struggle with are all overcome more and more in our lives, just as a homosexual’s sin can be overcome by the power of the cross.

So before you open your mouth against a homosexual person, please, please feed your soul with the above truth and bank on it so that you may not stand in judgment of the homosexual but may stand with him or her in recognition that you deserve God’s wrath as much as he or she does. That is the point of the start of Romans 2. “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same thing.”

Do not get me wrong. I am not saying homosexuality is right nor that it does not deserve the wrath of God. Neither am I saying that we should accept homosexual marriage as legal and right. But if we are to fight against it, it must not be behind a mask of pride and self-righteousness. We must be broken and humble people who cling to the cross alone as our hope, not our heterosexuality.

I hope that this is helpful. By all means write the editor! I just hope that what I have shared enables you to write in the right spirit of Christlike humility that is needed to be wise with the lost.

Rob

Posted by rob at November 19, 2004 11:57 PM

Comments

thanks for your insight. very helpful. i'm a counselor. i've done work with those who battle homosexuality, and who want to glorify Jesus with their lives. this is very helpful insight. thank you!

Posted by: shiree at November 24, 2004 11:39 AM

I'm very thankful for the insight you give here, Rob. I think it's important to understand the parameters within which we must "judge" someone (if I must use that word). I think if Christians had been humble the past 50 years, we wouldn't be dealing with so many problems that evangelicalism has been facing. I hope to write a blog entry someday on the legalizing of gay marriage, and who is to decide.

Posted by: doug at November 25, 2004 11:22 PM

Word.

Posted by: nate at December 6, 2004 07:44 PM

Amen~

Posted by: Sarah~ at December 6, 2004 11:01 PM

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