One of the most prominent battles between popular culture and Christianity today is that over homosexuality. The concept is rapidly gaining acceptance by the masses, while the few people who speak out against it are either hateful or appear hateful. The controversy is even causing Christians to waver on their position. There is assuredly a serious soul war going on here, and only one side can win. However, we cannot win at the cost of more souls. We must do this right.
A Biblical Look at Homosexuality
Bible Verses on Homosexuality
Step one at addressing the modern conflict over homosexuality involves seeing what the Bible has to say about it. Fortunately, the Bible is quite clear on what God thinks of the lifestyle. It is wrong. God defined marriage as a special union between one man and one woman to represent the future relationship of Christ and the Church. See the following passages.
- "If a man sleeps with a man like a man sleeps with a woman, they have both done something disgusting. They must be executed, and their blood is on their own hands." Leviticus 20:13
- "Don't you know that the wicked will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't misunderstand: those who are sexually immoral, worshippers of idols, adulterers, weak and cowardly, Sodomites [homosexuals], thieves, greedy, cruel, or gluttons will not inherit the Kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
- "Because of this, God surrendered them to their disgusting lusts. Even the women traded their natural sexuality for the unnatural kind, and the men, abandoning natural sex with women, were passionate towards other men." Romans 1:26-27a
Resulting Christian View
In two of these passages, God referred to homosexuality as disgusting. In the second passage, homosexuals (Sodomites) were listed among the terrible people who would not go to Heaven. Obviously, then, God does not accept homosexuality. In fact, Romans makes a rather interesting statement. Paul refers to "natural sexuality." The Greek word translated as "natural" is phusikos. This word implies physical instincts, even to a point of, in modern understanding of science, being embedded in genetic code. This utterly contradicts the growing movement today that people are "born gay." For someone to be born a certain way, the trait would have to be encoded in their DNA. The word phusikos implies the exact opposite: that it is against biology and genetics for someone to be born as a homosexual. Thus we see that the Bible teaches homosexuality to be both sinful and unnatural.
Another point on the proper view of homosexuality is that it is not a special sin. There is nothing that makes homosexuality more severe or more abominable than the other things that violate God's law. In fact, many of the sins we would consider lesser are actually more highly offensive to God. "These six things Yahweh fiercely hates and these seven are disgusting to His soul: a prideful appearance, empty and deceiving speech, hands that shed innocent blood, a mind that creates mischievous plans, feet that run towards trouble, a false report telling lies, and causing problems between companions." (Proverbs 6:16-19). There is not a single sexual sin listed among this list, much less homosexuality. Obviously, then, as wrong as it is, we cannot hold homosexuality as the mother of all wrongdoings.
In light of all this, it should be apparent is that Christians cannot hold a half-hearted stance. What I mean by that is a Christian should never say, "If that is how they feel, it is okay," or maybe, "God wants them to be happy, so it's really not that bad." A Christian cannot be agnostic or supportive to homosexuality. The only Biblical standpoint is opposition. However, there is a fine line between making a stand about morality and being hateful. That is just as bad as accepting the sin.
A Biblical Look at the Haters
Biblical Verses on Love
The Bible very clearly teaches love. Since hate is the opposite of love, it makes sense that hate is therefore wrong. Let us then examine love in the Bible.
God Loves
- "See, then, God loved the world so much that He sent His one and only Son so that whoever puts his faith and trust in Him will not die, but have eternal life." John 3:16
- "Yet Yahweh your God refused to listen to Balaam, but He replaced the curse with a blessing because He loved you." Deuteronomy 23:5
- "Bless Yahweh your God, who was pleased with you to put you on His throne to be king for Yahweh God, because He loved Israel…" 2 Chronicles 9:8a
- "So Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus." John 11:5
- "…but God introduced us to His love for us when, while we were still sinners, Christ died in our place." Romans 5:8
- "What can separate us from Christ's love? Can trouble or disaster or persecution or hunger or nakedness or danger or war?" Romans 8:35
- "…God is love." 1 John 4:8b
According to these verses, God extremely loves. In fact, His love is absolutely insane. It is beyond our wildest hopes and dreams. People who go around parading signs that say, "God hates gays!" or, even worse, "God hates f—s!" are utterly denying a core element of who God is. God hates no one, but wishes that "everyone would come to repentance." God may stand ready to judge the people who reject Him, homosexuals included, but He is not happy about it. The message of the Bible seems to indicate that, when God stands up there on Judgment Day and begins sending people to their eternal destinations, His heart will break at sending people to Hell. He is just, thus He must, but His love will still cause Him sorrow. God does not hate anyone. He will judge people righteously, even when that means Hell, but He cannot hate.
We Are to Love
- "Do not take revenge or hold a grudge against your people. Instead, you must love others as much as yourself: I am Yahweh." Leviticus 19:18
- "I am giving you a new commandment:
You must love each other. In the same way that I have loved you, you must love each other." John 13:34 - "Follow these commandments:
love each other." John 15:17 - "Love each other like family, like brothers. Honor each other above yourself." Romans 12:10
- "Do not own anyone anything, except love for each other, because whoever loves others keeps the entire Law." Romans 13:8
- "See, this sentence sums up the entire Law, 'You must love others as much as yourself.'" Galatians 5:14
If you cannot see it by now, then you have something wrong with your understanding. God clearly commands us to love people. Love does not involve lying to people by telling them that our loving God hates them. That is both insulting to God and men. God has perfect love for us, and thus He wants us to have perfect love for each other. Let me clarify something: the word "others" includes homosexuals. They are not somehow sub-human. They are not primitive animals. They are human beings created in the image of God, but sinners (such as us) desperately in need of a Savior. We are not high and mighty in being saved; our God is high and mighty for saving us. We are no better than homosexuals, and we have no right to ridicule, scorn, hate, or otherwise be derogatory to them. Instead, we ought to be overwhelmed with compassion towards them. They need Jesus; otherwise they will die in their sins and spend an eternity subject to God's wrath in Hell. If you desire that for anyone, then you have not one drop of love in you. Such hatred has no place in the Church or the Kingdom of God.
A Look at the Westboro Baptist Church
Probably the poster church for hatred towards homosexuals is the WBC. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple years, you have probably heard of them. They are essentially one large family, the head of which is the pastor. Unfortunately, they have done nothing for the good of Christianity, but have instead further strengthened our reputation as hateful, bigoted, hypocritical idiots. They are the ones who run around most often with the hatred signs I mentioned previously. They protest at the funerals of fallen soldiers because they believe the soldiers are being punished for protecting a country that supports homosexuality.
I have to commend the WBC for at least one thing: they do stand up for what they believe in, and they are correct in believing that homosexuality is wrong. However, beyond that they are terrible. God is love, and to preach that God hates people is both contrary to the Gospel and alienating to the lost. God is love, and for people to protest at the funerals of honorable men who gave their lives for our freedom is utterly abominable. These people going out and making a name for themselves destroy the reputation of Jesus Christ in the process. It only makes anti-Christians sit back and laugh. It makes Satan himself sit back and laugh. I can see the scene in my mind: Satan is hard at work ruining the world. A demon advisor pulls him aside from his work.
"What is it, advisor?" Satan asks.
"It is the Westboro Baptist Church. They recently launched another protest at the funeral of a hero. The man was a devoted Christian and received a Purple Heart while alive," the advisor tells him. Satan then laughs a terrible, evil laugh.
"Well, congratulations. Your plan is going well. No one wants to join hateful bigots."
You may notice I had Satan refer to the advisor's plan. Honestly, I believe that there is demonic activity involved in the blasphemies and ridiculousness of the WBC. God is not happy with them. We ought to pray that either they lose the spotlight or they see the truth.
The Necessary Response
What, then, is the sum of all of this? We must understand the proper way to end this sin in our culture. If we merely go around preaching against homosexuality, we will likely either go unnoticed or be labeled in the same way as the WBC. If we sit back and do nothing, the problem will only get worse. The key is neither protests, nor sermons (though they ought not to be left out), nor neutrality. The only way to save our culture, our nation, from homosexuality is to lead people to Christ. We cannot change people's actions or laws without first changing their hearts. That is something only God can do. We must preach the Word to all people, not always from a pulpit, but just as often face-to-face and in living our lives. We cannot compromise on our position, but we cannot aggressively promote our position. God will save souls if we live righteously and share the Gospel, and when God saves souls, sins will be erased. The more people we lead to Christ, the less support homosexuality will have. Taking a stand in our daily lives to live and preach the love of Jesus is the only way to save the world.