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The Church and Homosexuality
Ruth Dickinson takes the temperature of evangelical opinion on the subject of homosexuality and the Church.
There’s a theory that hardly anyone in
the UK Christian Church actually
wants to talk about homosexuality.
Many preachers quake at the thought
of having to tackle the subject either in
a pastoral setting or from the pulpit,
for fear of how they will be interpreted.
In his December interview in
Christianity, Jeffrey John, the Dean of
St Albans, who is in a homosexual
relationship, said he thought that many
bishops privately were much more
supportive of such relationships than
they were publicly prepared to admit.
Steve Chalke, who writes in this
magazine about the liberalising of his
views on homosexuality, says he
initially stayed silent for fear of losing
friends or platform if he spoke out. The
writer and activist Brian McLaren, who
blessed his son’s gay wedding in 2012
(coming under a good deal of fire for
doing so) claims that that is also the
case in America.
‘I’m sensitive to [the silence of many
Church leaders], because I struggled
with that for many years myself,’ he
told Christianity. ‘I was tacitly
complicit in the conservative view, even
though I didn’t hold it – ever, really. I
never was [fully] conservative on the
gay issue, but I tried to walk a pastoral
road, where I would not drive either
gay people away from the Church or
conservatives away from the Church.
So I think it’s a hard road to walk.’
It’s not just those who are liberal on
the issue. A number of more
conservative leaders have expressed a
nervousness about speaking out, for
fear of being pilloried in the secular
press, who certainly don’t understand
the rhetoric of ‘love the sinner, hate the
sin’, or getting lumped in with
Westboro Baptist Church and their
appalling ‘God Hates Fags’ signs.
‘I have no doubt that some
Christian leaders have felt restrained
from expressing their views on this
matter for fear of being labelled
homophobic or bigoted,’ says Rev Ian
Coffey, vice principal (strategy) and
director of leadership training at
Moorlands College and a regular
speaker at Keswick and Spring Harvest.
‘When those who hold traditional
views on homosexuality are dismissed
by some as “bigots”, it suggests that
reasonable debate is no longer welcome
within our democratic system. That is a
serious state of affairs. It’s always hard
to swim against the tide, and in the
debate on homosexual lifestyle it feels,
at times, more like a tsunami.’
‘Some evangelicals probably do find
it difficult to discuss homosexuality,’
agrees RT Kendall, the former minister
of Westminster Chapel, who is now
semi-retired and lives in the US.
Kendall, the author of more than 40
books including Is God for the
homosexual? published more than 20
years ago, takes the stance that gay
people must remain celibate. ‘I don’t
relish talking about it but I am certainly
willing. It is an issue that is not going
to go away – ever; we must not live in
denial.’
Pastoral Issues
While Kendall’s book was applauded
by some in the gay community, others
did not welcome it, he says. It
illustrates that one of the difficulties
with publicly expressing the
conservative view, even within the
Church, is that it can appear pastorally
insensitive.
It’s easy for people who are more
liberal on this issue to claim the
pastoral high ground (indeed, Chalke’s
piece is partly pastorally motivated),
but that ignores many who will be hurt
to read his change of view, and what
they will regard as a sharp shift from
scripture. Conservatives we spoke to
who experience same-sex attraction
testified to how helpful and pastoral
their own churches had been as they
came to terms with it.
‘Over time, I became convicted that
the Bible could be trusted and that if
what is written in the Bible is true, then
regardless of my feelings, I had to
believe what the Bible says about
homosexuality,’ says one male in his
20s who asked to remain anonymous.
‘I looked very much at both sides of the
argument regarding if it was ok to be a
Christian in an active gay relationship,
particularly because I was in a
relationship with a guy at the time. But
ultimately, I had an experience where I
believe God showed me that the things
I was looking for in a relationship with
a man could only be satisfied in him.’
He continues: ‘It’s been very hard. It
wasn’t as if as soon as I made a
commitment to God that everything
got better immediately. But I would say
that my identity has changed: I see
myself as a son of God, not as a gay
man any more…The sexual
temptations are still there, but my
desire to be in a relationship with a guy
has decreased significantly over the
years.’
Some will feel that it undermines
his, and others’, commitment to living
celibate lives to suggest that the Bible
says they don’t have to. For others
struggling with this issue, it may be
seen as pastorally unhelpful, or
confusing, as they try to work through
what God wants for them, to read
something which suggests gay
relationships are permissible.
Why does it matter for church
leaders, outside of pastoral issues they
may face in their own congregations?
In other words, why do we care what
other Christians might think? One
answer is that it raises issues of biblical
primacy, as well as church unity.
According to a recent Evangelical
Alliance survey, ‘It is common for
evangelical Christians to distinguish
between homosexual “feelings” and
“actions”. The results reveal that while
the majority of evangelicals do not
consider homosexual feelings to be
“wrong”, the majority do believe that
homosexual actions are “wrong”.’
Chalke is going against the majority
of UK evangelical opinion.
Furthermore, many see this as a
primary issue, not a secondary one, and
one for which liberals will suffer grave
consequences and the judgement of
God for ‘softening’ on.
‘I think the Bible is very, very clear
on it,’ says Sam Allberry, associate
minister of St Mary’s Church,
Maidenhead, who experiences samesex
attraction. ‘I think people trying to
sanction it are going against the grain
of many deep issues in scripture. I fear
for Christian leaders who are
commending any kind of homosexual
lifestyle. If my reading of the New
Testament is correct, such Christian
leaders are leading people into
destruction. I have to treat this as a
gospel issue.’
So where do we go from here?
How do we talk about this most
sensitive of issues in a way that respects
individual pastoral situations, as well
as the authority of scripture and
Christ’s desire for a unified Church?
‘By just doing it! And remaining
gracious,’ says RT Kendall. ‘This is
surely the only Christian way of doing
things. We must be willing to
give an answer on any
subject – as in 1 Peter
3:15 – assuming we
know what we are
talking about. If
we don’t know
the answer we
should say “I
don’t know”
but I cannot
imagine a good
reason not to
face questions
people ask –
whether they are
Christians or not. I don’t
want to be unfair, but if we
cannot open our mouths without
losing our tempers we should
disqualify ourselves from claiming to
be thinking Christians.’
‘Some have spoken out with
courage,’ says Coffey. ‘We are blessed
with organisations such as the
Evangelical Alliance, CARE, Christian
Concern and others who seek to
present the biblical case for marriage
and family clearly and intelligently.’
Part of the Evangelical Alliance’s
response to the issue has been its
leaders’ resource Biblical and pastoral
responses to homosexuality (edited by
Andrew Goddard and Don Horrocks),
which, along with expressing regret for
the Church’s past and present failures
regarding gay people, seeks to foster
better engagement while upholding
traditional biblical teaching. For most
evangelicals, this is the heart of the
challenge.
‘I have received a lot of love and
compassion from people within the
Church, but I’m also aware that other
people haven’t, and leaders often don’t
know how to respond to people
struggling with this,’ says our
anonymous interviewee. ‘We need to
discuss this issue with shed-loads of
love and compassion, examine what
the core issues are here and ultimately
look at what God is saying about it in
his word.’
‘One of the key things for churches
is to realise this is not just a political
issue, it’s a personal issue, and
therefore we mustn’t only speak of it in
terms of government proposals and
societal trends; this is an issue many of
us in our churches are wrestling with at
a personal level,’ says Allberry. ‘That’s
what we’ve not been great at.
If, as churches, we get
better at being family
and being
community, that
will give us the
prophetic voice
to then speak
into society; we
will have a
credible
witness.’
‘All
discussions about
human sexuality
need to be handled
with care, as they speak
into deep areas of our
humanity and identity,’ says Steve
Clifford, general director of the
Evangelical Alliance. ‘These are not
discussions to be taken lightly, but with
sensitivity, allowing God to shed light,
so we can hear both truth and grace…
Human sexuality should not be
reduced to soundbites, the challenge of
following Jesus speaks to each of us
and affects every area of our lives.’
Could we even dare to believe that
positive things may come from such
discussions?
‘I’m actually encouraged by the
way evangelicals (especially younger
ones) engage with these issues,’ says
Andrew Wilson, an elder at Kings
Church Eastbourne (part of the
Newfrontiers stream of churches).
Wilson experienced same-sex
attraction as a teenager but is now
married with children. ‘My experience
is that talking about Jesus a lot – his
love of those on the margins, his call to
give up everything in order to follow
him, and his example as someone who
renounced sex for the sake of the
kingdom – helps both gay and straight
people see what radical discipleship
looks like.’
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