Because we are fallen by nature, the fact that something is natural to us, the fact that we are born with it, is not a moral justification. Indeed, the fact that something is natural to natural-born sinners seems a good reason to suspect it, not support it.
If, for example, someone is born a pedophile or a sexual sociopath of some other sort, that fact is neither an exoneration nor an excuse to let their preferred activity proceed unabated, much less to endorse it with government protection. Sex is too important and too powerful a thing to leave to our fallen nature. It needs redemption too. It needs to be transformed and domesticated or else by it we will ruin ourselves and others. It takes only a moment to notice the pathetic litany of misery, betrayal, disease, guilt, conflict, and death that sex has scrawled across human history.
We all are born pagan, and our sexual desires, like everything else about us, desperately need the redemptive and transforming grace of God. It's not what we are born that is the measure of good and bad, but the things that God wills us to be once we are born again, the things into which He is re-creating us, that show us the direction we ought to go. The measure here is the mind and character of Christ, into whose image we are being transformed, and not what proclivities we have at birth. We are duty bound to stand with Him. When we see Him either endorse or practice things like homosexual activity and homosexual marriage, then we can endorse it too.
Until then, when it comes to sexual sin, we must tell ourselves and others what He told the woman caught in adultery: “Go and sin no more” (John 8: 11).
It won’t be easy to do, either in our own personal practice or in our address to others. But that is our obligation
18 comments:
Bless you for posting this! I was labelled a homophobe by a niece and "defriended" on Facebook by both her and her sister for saying some of these same things. The Truth is the Truth whether it's popular or not.
I'm sorry you've run into such opposition, Kim. I wonder, are they Christophobes?
As good as I've seen, in such a brief manner, thank you Dr. Bauman.
Kim, I know what you mean. I have been "defriended" about issues like this, i.e. abortion etc...
Yet I'm sure you've already realized that we still need to share what is good and true, (especially as it proceeds from our faith in Christ - so of course we always respect the reader), knowing that if what we say isn't what they want to hear...they will get angry. I'm with you on this.
Keep talking.
Many thanks for your kind and supportive words, Flo, which I appreciate.
You make a good point, Dr. Bauman, and its validity is obvious. How would you reply to a non-Christian asking you what makes acts of homosexuality wrong? While true, saying that it's not the way God intended, may not be very persuasive.
If they wish to leave morals out of it altogether (and normally they do not -- normally they want to leave your morals out of altogether and leave in their own), then I would go (A) to the health argument (the spread of disease) and (B) to the cultural argument: Children need mothers and fathers. Just because Daddy say he loves a man or is having sex with that man, it does not mean that that man is therefore a suitable substitute for Mommy. And just because Mommy loves and is having sex with a woman, it does not mean that that woman is a suitable substitute for Daddy.
For example, in homes without fathers, the child's chances of dropping out of school, of taking and dealing drugs, of going to prison, and of being unemployed or underemployed (and therefore poor) all skyrocket. Mommy and Daddy are not easily replaceable, and the next generation will suffer if you try to replace them
Hi Dr. B. Great post. Mind if I share a few thoughts? Just thinking about whether the unregenerate have the same conscience about "being born with sin." I don't think they understand they are sinful. So, telling an unbeliever "to go and sin no more," comes across as hateful homophobia. It's not, but to the sexually-identified, it is their defense mechanism. Secondly, do we have any record of what sex would have been like prior to the Fall? So, has it always been subject to sin between humans? I wonder what "perfect sexuality" would be like. Oh wait, "Jesus is our model." Sex is not based on practice or orientation. It is much more in my thinking. Third, I agree that we must trust our Lord on matters. As Christians, we must never buy into the lie that because we believe we were made a certain way, that this becomes our identity. Cultural identities change like the wind. Also, because we are born in sin, we cannot escape the natural, even as we are born-again in the supernatural. Thanks for this post. Hopefuly it wakes up many believers who claim tobe homosexual because God made them that way. I conclude that God made us all "sexual," period.
Great article!
Dr. Bauman, I recall reading a short article by Dr. John Frame some years ago; I think it might have been in TableTalk magazine. He presented the argument that....because someone is "born" with a specific condition doesn't make it "good. He discussed the possibility that if it were ever proven that homosexuals were born that way, that would not make it "good". He compared that situation to a baby being born with a congenital heart defect....which we would not consider "good". And we would go to every effot to correct the condition. I was stunned by this argument because up until that time, I had assumed that "being born" that way would make homosexuality acceptable and good.
Janie,
Thanks for pointing out John Frame's explanation. From what you say, I endorse it heartily, as I do many things he writes.
The most common deflection I hear to this argument is that, with high stats for premarital sex, adultery, and divorce, Christians have also defiled God's "supposed" intended plan for sex. The question I hear most is, "If it's just a matter of opposing God's plan, why aren't you this angrily opposed to heterosexual sin?"
I haven't come up with an answer that doesn't just sound like a self-justifying excuse.
It's hard to imagine anyone saying that Christians aren't opposed to heterosexual sin. There are, literally, millions upon millions of examples of Christians opposing those things both publicly and privately, in many, many different ways, over many, many centuries, across many, many cultures. Of course we oppose those sins.
It's simply fatuous for someone to argue that because heterosexuals commit sins or injure families that therefore it ought to be OK for homosexuals to do the same. No, it's not OK for anyone to do it.
But, but, but! ... if "gays" are "born that way", with the implication, or even the assertion, that they therefore cannot be held morally culpable for engaging in homosexual behavior, then why is it not also the case that we "homophobes" are "born that way", and thus cannot be judged or condemned for being grossed-out by homosexual behavior?
For that matter, normal people tend to be grossed-out even when assaulted with heterosexual behavior.
I completely agree. If the "I was born this way" argument works, it works both ways.
Of course, it works in neither direction. But we continue to hear it anyway.
"Of course, it works in neither direction."
My point, exactly.
I have always embraced the truth of natural law when the subject of homosexuality is on the table. I once worked with a militant gay man, and he would always say, "I was born that way, so take it up with mother nature!" How ironic he would actually say, "Mother Nature." he would get quite upset when I would say in response, Oh, you mean a female is actually needed to create gay men?
Obviously the means by which humans come into the world is through heterosexual copulation, and yes, a main function of sex is procreation. The pleasure part of it is God's gift in the process.
It seems to me that a sperm and an egg producing a human being conforms to natural law. When we consider what gay men do together (perhaps we don't want to consider it), I am at a loss as to how that conforms to natural law.
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