It’s Genetic!

When Chris­tians involve them­selves in dis­cus­sions of homo­sex­u­al­ity, usu­ally a cou­ple things hap­pen: (1) there is a fail­ure to dis­tin­guish between homo­sex­u­al­ity as a dis­po­si­tion and homo­sex­ual acts and (2) peo­ple view it as some sort of argu­ment to assert that, since homo­sex­u­al­ity must have a genetic ori­gin, it’s accept­able and an ortho­dox read­ing of Scrip­ture on the ‘homo­sex­ual issue’ is errant. Well to answer, (1) Scrip­ture con­demns homo­sex­ual acts and thus (2) appeal­ing to one’s genes is nei­ther here nor there.

To begin, a video by Ravi Zacharias on the accep­tance of homo­sex­u­al­ity within Chris­tian­ity: is it pos­si­ble to live a Chris­t­ian life and be homo­sex­ual? As well, William Lane Craig’s pod­cast on how one can be Chris­t­ian and homo­sex­ual:

What many Chris­tians will dis­agree with (at least in my expe­ri­ence) is this notion that there should be a dis­tinc­tion cre­ated between homo­sex­u­al­ity and homo­sex­ual acts. Surely, they decry, Scrip­ture speaks against homo­sex­u­al­ity! One might begin by appeal­ing to Matthew 5:28, “but I say to you that every­one who looks at a woman with lust for her has already com­mit­ted adul­tery with her in his heart.” In one such dis­cus­sion I recently came across some­one who did appeal to Matthew 5:28, ask­ing if homo­sex­u­al­ity, “is it a state of mind or heart? As in, I’m not gay, just gay at heart? To be gay or homo­sex­ual at heart would mean you have to think it, this scrip­ture be appro­pri­ate (Matthew 5:28), and change woman to a man. There is gay or not gay and no in the mid­dle, because we all believe being gay is a sin.” This view, how­ever, is plainly mis­taken. Matthew 5:28 no more speaks against homo­sex­ual temp­ta­tion any­more than it speaks of het­ero­sex­ual temp­ta­tion. If, by Matthew 5:28 homo­sex­u­al­ity is wrong (the dis­po­si­tion, not sim­ply it’s actions) then by the same stan­dard so too is het­ero­sex­u­al­ity wrong. It would be com­mit­ting the same error even if one appealed to Proverbs 23:7. Even if we all believed ‘being gay is a sin’ were com­mit­ting two errors: (1) fail­ing to cre­ate a dis­tinc­tion between a homo­sex­ual dis­po­si­tion and (2) mis­in­ter­pret­ing scripture.

If we look at what Scrip­ture says regard­ing homo­sex­u­al­ity, we will find con­sis­tent con­dem­na­tion of homo­sex­ual behav­ior, not sim­ply ‘being gay’. Leviti­cus 18:22 says that it’s an abom­i­na­tion for a man to lie with another man as one would lie with a woman. Leviti­cus 20:13 and Gen­e­sis 19 (Sodom and Gomor­rah) say much of the same. In the new tes­ta­ment we have 1 Corinthi­ans 6:9–10, 1 Tim­o­thy 1:10 and Romans 1:24–28. How­ever, in all of these instances we find much the same con­dem­na­tion as found in Leviti­cus 18:22. The sim­ple fact of the mat­ter is that even if one is het­ero­sex­ual, one can still par­take in homo­sex­ual acts. Fur­ther­more, the ancient world prob­a­bly only knew acts, not the mod­ern phe­nom­e­non of ‘dispositions’.

To clar­ify some of the above, then, when I say Scrip­ture con­demns homo­sex­ual acts, and when I say I agree with Zacharias that one can be homo­sex­ual and a Spirit filled Chris­t­ian, what I’m say­ing, then, in the words of William Lane Craig, is that, “I’m tak­ing homo­sex­u­al­ity to be an ori­en­ta­tion or incli­na­tion of one’s sex­ual desires. Some­one who is het­ero­sex­ual is attracted sex­u­ally to mem­bers of the oppo­site sex; some­one who is homo­sex­ual is attracted sex­u­ally to mem­bers of the same sex. So my sen­tence meant that it’s pos­si­ble to be sex­u­ally attracted to mem­bers of one’s own sex and yet be a Spirit-filled Chris­t­ian”. Fur­ther­more, genetic or not, nature is fallen.

One of the major errors of soci­ety comes in defin­ing one­self as het­ero­sex­ual or homo­sex­ual. That this in some way con­sti­tutes ones iden­tity; if I did not iden­tify myself by my ‘sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion’ then I would be lying to myself, or at least not being true to myself.  On the sug­ges­tion of Craig, it is most likely bet­ter to sim­ply acknowl­edge one’s attrac­tion, but not as being con­sti­tu­tive of one’s identity.

If we bring this back to the Scrip­ture above, then one must real­ize a very basic thing. Whether I have a homo­sex­ual or het­ero­sex­ual dis­po­si­tion, I must still choose to act upon that dis­po­si­tion, thus Scripture’s con­dem­na­tion of the act, rather than the ‘dis­po­si­tion’. Con­sider for a minute the argu­ment that homo­sex­u­al­ity is genetic, would we like­wise use this argu­ment when speak­ing of an alco­holic? Of course not! An alco­holic may have a strong dis­po­si­tion towards alco­hol, but they are not inclined to indulge that dis­po­si­tion, in fact, he is expected to deny that disposition!

In the end, how­ever, make no mis­take: one can­not be a prac­tic­ing homo­sex­ual and a Spirit filled believer, or even a fol­lower of Jesus. If one has a pro­cliv­ity towards homo­sex­u­al­ity, one must deny that proclivity.

Related posts:

1. What does monogamy have to do with it?
2. Truth isn’t a club
3. Gen­e­sis 19:1–11
4. The Bible and Homo­sex­u­al­ity: Introduction
5. Say what?!