Can you be a profession Christian and, at the same time, a practising homosexual and still go to heaven? If a person is once saved, are they always saved, regardless of how (pure) they live their lives?
These are significant questions, and they have been on many people’s lips over the past week around the globe after a significant ‘ex-gay’ ministry leader, Alan Chambers, attended a “Gay Christian” conference which Chambers had actually invited himself to. I have already written a personal opinion on the subject on my private blog.
I wish to answer this question here, because it gets to the heart of what it means to be a Christian. Today a person emailed me, in all seriousness, saying that he was a proud gay man but living with a wife in a heterosexual marriage and a “conservative evangelical”. He called me a “brother” in Christ. Am I supposed to believe him just because he says that he is what he says he is? He professes a love of all things Scriptural and ‘spiritual’, but has gone out of his way to ‘prove’ that the Greek and Hebrew endorse homosexuality.
Is such a person really a brother? What intrigued me about this man is the boastful, proud assumption underneath his claims that in spite of what God, in Scripture, has revealed about human sexuality, he knows better. He has ‘the goods’ on the last 2,000 years of Biblical interpretation, supposedly with enough ‘proof’ to throw out orthodox understanding of one of the most profound, fundamental, relationships between two adult human beings. I find it somewhat hard to believe, to say the least!
It is not traditional, orthodox Biblical interpretation that is the problem. The first 3 chapters of the Bible are emphatic that sex is only to be expressed in a marital covenant between one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others. Not between two men; not between two woman. I didn’t say it: God did in His holy word. How something so basic and so fundamental can be so twisted and misunderstood is beyond me, but that, it seems, is the issue. This is a spiritual issue here, where many are being blinded by a spirit of disobedience and love of self, just as was foretold in 2 Thess. 2:11. It uses university professors (‘experts’) and pastors/bishops to reinforce it with flimsy (mis)interpretations of the Bible to justify it, but it is still rebellion of a spiritual nature, a fulfilment of 2 Timothy 4:3-4: For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn theirears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. Those days are well and truly here.
The Bible is emphatic about many things, and the purity of sexuality (and defilement caused by sexual immorality) is there for all to see. 1 Corinthians 6:18 puts it strongly: Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. It is sin which disinherits people from God’s kingdom, among other things (Revelation 21:8, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10). It defiles relationships, marriages, families, communities, nations, and churches. All sexual sin does this, not just homosexuality, but that is its impact. The message? Sex is wonderful in its rightful place, but in the wrong place and in the wrong hands, it is nothing short of disastrous. It kills.
Sexual brokenness and addiction destroy those who do it. It robs them of life and hope, turns them inwards, and desensitises them to emotion and love of others. Daily life becomes gratification of orgasm. I know men who have almost lost their jobs and families because of their uncontrollable addictions and the mess is gigantic. If sex addicts do no overcome and desensitise themselves to God’s offer of healing, they will harden their hearts and lead themselves astray. It is not a “gay”, happy place to be in (and I can testify to this from personal experience).
Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. (Hebrews 12:14-17)
At the end of the day, sexual immorality will lead people away from their salvation. It doesn’t matter who is practising it or why. So my burgeoning question is: if this is all true, then how can anyone with any sense claim to be a “gay Christian”? It is, simply speaking, a contradiction of terms. God calls His people to be holy (1 Peter 1:16) and not to have even a hint of sexual immorality (Ephesians 5:3). I do realise that it is very hard for people trapped in addiction and sexual immorality to get out of it, but that is what ministries like Liberty sets out to do: to help people out of it. (And yes, people’s efforts to overcome sexual addiction are met with victory, despite what is said to the contrary.) Perhaps the most significant verse on this in Scripture is 1 Corinthians 5:11:
But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.
Message? Sin is serious. Yes there are a number of sins here, but the first one, the top of the list is sexual immorality. And just because it is one of many sins does not lessen the seriousness of it. Sexual addiction comes from brokenness and leads to eternal separation from God, so why would God say that a person can be gay and Christian? Why would God want them to live a life that is robbing them of life while at the same time giving them life by the death and resurrection of his son? The claims of “gay Christianity” do not add up. No, you cannot be gay and Christian.
May ‘gay Christians’ call Jesus Lord. But even Jesus said “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven”. Those who deny they sin but still claim fellowship with God are liars (1 John 1:8-10), and only those who do the will of God the Father are those who truly are friends with God (1 John 2:4). Someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works! (James 2:18). Having self-professing faith in God is insufficient.
It is no hanging offence to have same-sex attraction: everyone labours with sin and needs salvation from it and God is good to those who seek His forgiveness, strength, and healing. He is actually DRAWN to the wounded (Psalm 34:18). But He cannot abide those who deliberately sin and defiantly disobey, especially those who are of His house, which He will judge first. This is a very sobering message, but it is important to take to heart because it involves the life or death of people in eternity. The good news is that God is standing at the door, eagerly awaiting people to ask for His healing and forgiveness. But to those who refuse it and sin, calling that sin a blessing and revelling in it, I can say that the future will not be a pretty picture. Narrow is the door which leads to eternal life, the life that life is all about.
Haydn (Liberty pastoral worker).