The ruling in San Francisco a few weeks ago has once again brought homosexuality in the public to the forefront. Should homosexuals be allowed to marry or not? Is it a civil rights issue or a state issue? Is homosexuality even wrong?
In Christianity many Christians are either shying away from the issue or becoming a bit too extremist (much like the abortion issue). While an extreme camp of Christians says that homosexuality is not a sin, on the far right people say one cannot be a homosexual and be saved. In the middle are people asking if we can really know or if it really matters.
Though in our modern confusion because of epistemic constructionism within morality deems that homosexuality isn’t a sin or, at best, we really can’t know, the Bible is very clear on the issue; the practice of homosexuality is most definitely a sin.
Astute readers will note that I said the practice of homosexuality and not homosexuality in general. Why is this? The most basic definition of homosexuality is “one attracted to one’s own gender.” In other words, a homosexual is one that happens to have an attraction to his or her own sex – this does not mean one inherently lusts after one’s own gender, but instead one has a preference for it.
Having a preference, Biblically, is not a sin. For instance, a married man still has a preference for women – he is attracted to women (not any one in particular, but the gender), if he were to lose his wife he would pursue another woman (assuming he got past the grief and was young enough), and he will still turn his head if a woman walks into his field of vision. This does not mean he has sinned, lusted, committed adultery, was unfaithful to his wife, or broke his marriage vows in any manner. If he is single, it still does not mean he has committed some form of sin – he is merely attracted to women.
Likewise, a homosexual male or female might have a preference for his or her own gender. He might notice when an attractive male walks into his field of vision. She might appreciate the beauty of another woman. In all this it is possible for them not to lust or commit sin.
The Bible does, however, forbid homosexual actions and lust. Often times people point to Leviticus and then to its surrounding verses in a mocking attempt to show that homosexuality was only forbidden in the Old Testament, under the Old Covenant. Instead of going into detail here, I want to deal with common objections to an orthodox Christian view of homosexuality: Read the rest of this entry »
