“It is not the task of the kingdom people to rip out the non-kingdom people.” Amen!

As a fan of Jennifer’s for many years now, and who supports her still, I appreciate your looking at the issue in this way. I’ve had to delete one comment from my youtube page with her videos on it because of abusive language. I’m grateful for the Christians who have behaved Christianly in addressing this, but I’m also not surprised at the abusive Christians. The issue of homosexuality seems to bring out the worst in people and they seem to think they can behave in deeply anti-Christian ways just because of that issue. Vary sad.

If I could answer a question with a question (as we all know, something our Lord sometimes did) I would simply ask “Has her music blessed you? Did she help you to love Jesus more?” No good tree can bear bad fruit.

In this example, living amongst the wheat and tares means that we:
1) Each wrestle with what the text of Scripture says about homosexuality, 2)Passionately argue our position with love and compassion–recognizing that every person we meet is someone for whom Christ died, and 3) Rest in the providence of God that He will sort it all out.
Myself, convinced that homosexual acts are sin that grieve the heart of God and put one at risk for being excluded from the kingdom, believe…
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men and women.” –2 Corinthians 5:10-11.

Definitely a relevant parable. From a practical perspective, does being unrepentant (of any sin) disqualify one from participating in communion or Christian fellowship? (I personally haven’t resolved this question)
It’s interesting how more traditional churches are quite particular in who they administer the Lord’s Supper to, while most “free-churches” don’t have this level of control (unless they have bouncers guard the doors!).

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
? Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956)
Another saying of Jesus comes to mind; something about attempting to remove a splinter from another’s eye while there’s a log in our own.
Who among us is not fully in need of grace for the sin that resides in our flesh? On what grounds do we justify then, not showing grace to each other?

Great post and good comments. We just can’t make that judgment. Who is to say when one crosses the line? I’m convinced that for the most part people who are attracted to the same sex find themselves that way and often battle and battle against it. How do we work this out pastorally and in a church context? We certainly can’t cut them off from the table of Jesus if that’s where they want to gather. What I’m trying to say is how do we work this out, not only in our own heads so that we’re not condemning someone like Jennifer Knapp, but how do we work it out in a church context should, say a gay couple come to our gathering. What is the outworking of the parable in a church context?
And we have to think in a church context, because after all, that is our orientation as those who are in Christ. Not a bunch of individuals walking around, but we’re members of all who are in Christ, as well as of Christ himself.

….on second thought maybe that’s my fundamentalist past (in the distant past) tricking me in my thinking. Maybe I am intruding in an area in which you, Scot, in your brief exposition of the parable here, make clear that this is about how we judge people living in the world. It does seem to be in terms more of mission than in ecclesiological terms. Paul does make abundantly clear that we must judge all sin in the church, seeking to bring repentance and restoration.
So I take back my initial thoughts, even while still wrestling with just how we receive gay folks in a way Jesus would.

I’ve always found it odd what sins we vehemently attach and which sins we ignore. Even if Ted is right – and he may be – then why should we only judge this particular sin. I would find the anti-gay position much more credible if they were as consistent and as passionate about exposing and resisting all sin and not just this one.

A larger question in this context is “How do we treat people who disagree with us regarding our interpretation of what constitutes a biblical sin?” Whether it’s sexual sin, some kind of physical abuse, evil heart attitudes that are evidenced by words and deeds – whatever – how do we deal individually and corporately with those who declare something a sin that we don’t or vice-versa?
Imagine being overweight like me (for various reasons, some my fault and some not) in a congregation that emphasizes the importance of physical fitness and the evils and dangers of being overweight. I’m strong enough in my faith to deal with a lot of the condemnation, etc., but others would feel less than welcome and rather offended and put out by that. Yet others would be attracted to find a group of people who validate their already held belief.
I’m still working through a lot of this – trying to have empathy for people who have felt the sting of condemnation their whole lives culturally and who are looking for love and acceptance, while at the same time acknowledging that yielding to certain temptations is contrary to the way of Jesus and/or Torah-based shalom. To love without condemnation, to be patient with others as God has been patient with me…

I think it’s obvious that Matthew 13 isn’t the only passage that has implications for this (and similar) situations. Arent’ Paul’s instructions in 1 Corinthians 5 at least as clearly and probably more directly applicable?

Great question. In a culture of constant talk, the knee-jerk reaction of “stating our position on the issue” seems seriously shallow and un-kingdom like. Seems like the right thing to do is to be quiet and welcome her. If you know her, invite her to coffee, listen to her story and ask how she’s doing. If you don’t, be careful to speak words of goodness about her. She’s not an abstract position. She’s a person. Exactly.

Here the label of hypocrite is written across our foreheads. The church is more hospital than gathering of eagles(the irony of Rock Hudson as the leader intended-even though satire is misunderstood when blogging).

Scot, is there a difference between trying to judge a person’s ultimate standing with God and making pragmatic judgments about who should have a role in leading God’s people? Many of the NT epistles, after all, are all about guarding against false teaching, and much of the false teaching addressed in the NT involved sexual immorality….

dopderbeck, I would agree that there’s a difference. And the rules for bishops are not rules for “lay folks.” But 1 Cor 5 isn’t about a leader either.
The issues here are two-fold: (1) loving the other/neighbor and (2) intent of language. Is it simply to mark off the wheat from the weeds or is it to reconcile and heal? If the latter, we need a different rhetoric.

Great post and sorta what I was after in the other thread, though I was far less eloquent and probably less charitable. :\ I think we often consider “condemn” and “condone” as binary positions where you have to do one or the other, with the individual in question suffering the consequences of that decision. While I’m not able at this point to see a way around the biblical position on homosexuality as sin, I’ve found letting Jesus deal with that while loving and including the person to be far, far more effective than being a judgmental jerk (even a gentle one).
Barry (11): I think we have to be very careful when dealing with Paul. He’s speaking to a specific situation within a specific context. If we wanted to take every piece of advice he gives as an actual principle, women will have to go back to wearing head coverings and never speak in church, pastoral staff will never be allowed to have a beer, and the first time your pastor’s kid gets in trouble, he’s fired. Besides, Jennifer isn’t part of most of our churches, so it’d be kinda hard to expel her.

#16,
Don’t forget Paul’s encouragement for Timothy to take a little wine too, little confusing.
#14 Dopderbeck,
My thoughts exactly.
#15 Scot,
Great response. However, how do we work this in body and as a pastor. If I had someone living a homosexual lifestyle conscience free in my congregation, what do you do? Tell them you believe they are wrong and not let them serve but attend?

dopderbeck (not to pick on you particularly),
This issue of leadership is a tough one isn’t it? – and one that is mired in time and place. Personally I think that Martin Luther was an unrepentant sinner unworthy of leadership in any Christian sense. The vehemence of his antisemitism is repulsive. How in the world could God use the leadership of one such as he?
To give a taste from wikipedia – In 1543 Luther published On the Jews and Their Lies in which he says that the Jews are a “base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, … They are full of the “devil’s feces … which they wallow in like swine.” … He argues that their synagogues and schools be set on fire, their prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes razed, and property and money confiscated. They should be shown no mercy or kindness, afforded no legal protection, and these “poisonous envenomed worms” should be drafted into forced labor or expelled for all time. He also seems to advocate their murder, writing “[w]e are at fault in not slaying them.”
Yet God did use such leadership – and use it powerfully. For all of Luther’s unrepentant sin and error in his leadership, he was used by God. Of course his unrepentant sin also hurt the church deeply.
If you heard a church leader today voice such an opinion – would you call him on it and see him as unfit for leadership? My guess is that you would – at least if expressed as vehemently as Luther did.
But this issue of unrepentant sin and leadership is a tough one – the church is and has been full of leaders who are unrepentant sinners. They just successfully rationalize their sins – and convince others they are right.
Now I’ve taken this far afield – except that I think that the sin of “othering” humans created in the image of God for a wide range of reasons has been the deepest unrepented sin within the people of God – and we still battle it at every turn. It crops up constantly.
A singer admitting and maintaining a homosexual relationship in a context that values people and relationship (i.e. does not use others as objects for personal gratification) is a piddling little issue in the grand scheme.

Interesting discussion. We really need to decide whether something is sinful or just different. If I like to have sex with other agreeable partners then who am I hurting? We are in a loving relationship. My body is my own right? The reference to 1 Cor 5 is good. Does 1 Cor 6 have any relevance?

Those are great questions Scot. This parable seems to address the reality that “not-kingdom people” still lay claim to the kingdom, and that is not something God is going to settle on this side of eternity by somehow visibly removing them. On the other hand, kingdom people still appear to have the responsibility of setting appropriate identity markers. The church retains its ability to discern the truth, but before the world the lines seem blurred. My understanding.
The church may not need to remove her songs from its iPods, but it does need to be unambiguous in its pronouncement that she is living in sin and practice some form of disassociation…however that’s supposed to look in the 21st century. Maybe not hosting her concerts would be a start.

From personal experience, justification of sin or turning a blind eye to it (be it sex, money, power etc) very quickly sees that person (or group of people) fall away from faith.
In the history of the Church, persecution from society at large often sees her respond by being strict on matters of membership/fellowship. Interesting times…

I find the whole idea of openly condeming self professed queers to be odd. Especially people who state their stance and maintain otherwise Christian views. The people who are dangerous are not typically the ones who admit guilt. To think these people are dangerous is to be naive about the nature of evil in some people. Have you (a condeming christian) not seen the real evil that people do?
To me the point of the parable is that we ae not to issue condemnation to weeds that are not otherwise hurting the wheat. They are just being weeds, and that is their sin. In the same chapter Jesus illustrates that people can have the KoG and then fall out of it (shallow ground etc.). I presume he would agree with the thought that one could be transplanted from shallow ground to good soil and be saved.
What I don’t see in these parables is what to do if the weeds are actively hurting the wheat.
Dave

It seems that if we conclude homosexuality is indeed sinful, the same way that some heterosexual activity is, then we need to be careful how we approach the person. Jesus had some pretty stiff rebukes for religious leaders who sinned. But then Paul said “the Lord’s leader must gently instruct those who oppose him” (2 Tim 2). Does our response to sinful behavior depend, at least in part, upon whether there is any acknowledgment of sin and/or a desire to repent?

@Danny, weball sin. The quesiton is not whether one does or does not sin, all sin. Also, we are not to judge whether someone is repentant or not. Not our issue. We are not to judge the motivations of others. Some will lie about their motivations, others will have good motivation and remain quiet. We can’t judge that.
IMO, all we can do is see if it is harming others. I believe the reason Jesus harshly rebuked teachers of the law is because they are causing the greatest harm of all in teaching wrongly about the KoG.

I can honestly say that the response I’ve seen has been disappointment and concern for Jennifer as a person much more than condemnation. I’m sure it’s out there but I’ve been kind of avoiding it. I’ve only read a couple blogs about it.
I was not familiar with Bob Botsford. When I saw that there was going to be a preacher on LKL that represented the position that Jennifer is in sin, I cringed, immediately assuming it would be some stereotypical fighting fundy. When I read his blog, I was impressed that he seemed to me to genuinely care about her and at the same time was expressing his deeply-held convictions. I saw one excerpt from LKL in which tone of voice and body language both indicated to me that Jennifer was more agressive to Bob than the other way around. In fact, I thought she was being rather rude and unkind, but I only saw one small clip. I’m sure there was give and take.
I appreciate this reminder that kingdom people are not the wheat police. We are not the last line of defense for good wheat to somehow persevere into the last day – that’s up to the King. I think this spirit is consistent with Scot’s non-defensive mentality in general, a good thing. But I do wonder if this parable is the whole story. Paul instructed the Corinthians to discipline someone, then later he had to help them take him back. Jesus in Matthew 18 speaks to church discipline. The extremes are ugly – either never address sin (in which case victims of sin suffer under your nose while you fail to stick up for them) or else attack and condemn everything that rubs you the wrong way (church of one, coming right up!).
Gal 6 speaks to restoring gently. Is there tension between this parable and Gal 6?

DRT @24, Of course we all sin. The question I ask is whether or not we are all talking about sin or just a lifestyle choice. If I choose a lifestyle that is pleasing to me, do you have any responsibility or is it just between me and God? Was Paul out of line in how he treated the situation at Corinth? or at Galatia? What exactly was Jesus talking about in Matt. 18.

Scot,
Great questions and I am glad you are asking them. I, too, have been deeply troubled (and angered!) by the hateful rhetoric being spewed at Jennifer and anyone who comes to her defense. This has been an despicable witness to the grace and love of the Lord we all claim to follow.
Your questions remind me of the concluding paragraph of an essay I wrote last year entitled: “Homosexuality: God’s Gift to the Church.” I’ll paste it here along with a link to the entire essay if anyone is interested. Grace and peace.
Homosexuality is God?s gift to the church. By accepting it as a gift rather than a threat we avail ourselves to what the Holy Spirit desires to teach us as she continues to lead us into truth. It is a gift that in this time and place has called into question our understanding of family, sex and marriage. It has forced us to ask tough questions about the telos of all our relationships while illuminating the role of the church in how well or how poorly she speaks the truth in love. It forces us to consider what exactly is sin and how might two people who love each other, who are living into the very design their Creator has given them, be nurtured in such a way that they may blossom in sanctifying grace and communion just as heterosexuals are. The role of the church should be no less than providing the seedbed from which disciples can be made, pointing to the author and finisher of our faith, the grand Story Teller. Perhaps if we listen closely we can hear our own sinfulness being called out ? our own refusal to accept what God has already accepted and declared ?good.? Perhaps homosexuality is a gift to the Church in the same way Amy?s tongue speaking was a gift to me ? by exploding the lid off my faith and enabling me to see God?s grace at work despite myself and in people whom I had long considered beyond God?s care. Will the Church be humble as she looks upon the stranger?
http://chadholtz.net/?p=956

I think we all, including Scot, are aware of the different views on homosexuality and Christians–some rigidly condemning to others in good conscience welcoming and even affirming. This is not Scot’s concern in his post.
The concern is the rhetoric we use when we oppose someone’s practice. No matter how stringently we may disagree with someone, we must not let *any* unwholesome speech come out of our mouths or computers. “Life and death are in the power of the tongue (i.e., speech written or spoken).”
I am a slow learner in this myself. To demonize or villify an image bearer of God is out of bounds whether we agree with that image bearer or not in terms of beliefs or practice.

Danny, I take Matthew 18 to be something that is causing harm to the other. But even if it is not, what does Jesus mean about treating the person as a tax collector or a pagan?
Dave

MatthewS #25 wrote:
“I can honestly say that the response I’ve seen has been disappointment and concern for Jennifer as a person much more than condemnation. I’m sure it’s out there but I’ve been kind of avoiding it. I’ve only read a couple blogs about it.”
I agree. Although people seem to holding to their existing views on the issue, there does appear to be a shift in tone in how the issue is handled.

DRT @29, It’s too bad we don’t have any examples of Jesus dealing with tax-collectors. Oh wait …. How do you suppose Paul dealt with the sexual misconduct at Corinth? We do know what he said in 2 Tim 2 about how to treat those who oppose Timothy. How exactly do you confront someone about their sin (again, I am not convinced we all agree homosexuality is sin). Let’s all agree you don’t pound them up. But does this then lead us to say “sin is not sin” or that it is a private affair between them and their lover? Paul wrote about people accumulating teachers who would suit their own passions. Life is a lot more pleasant if we never talk to a brother or sister about sin in their life.

Danny,
How about we at least begin relationally, like Paul and Jesus did. There was no discipline in the church outside of being intimately knowledgeable of the people involved. And there is no preaching from street corners on particular “pet sins.”
So, to begin, deal with this when a gay person shows up at your church (which, if it is known in the community that this or that church is unfriendly towards gay people the chances of them ever darkening your doorway is slim) and have a meal with them – talk it out.
It starts with relationship. Any judging or condemning done from the blogosphere misses the point, I think

So that boldface text. Was that in the original?

“… still wrestling with just how we receive gay folks in a way Jesus would.”
People are wrestling with how to receive *openly* gay folks. There are gay people in the pews every Sunday, you just don’t know it. There’s no “gay lifestyle” that allows you to spot them. They look like everyone else and live the same boring middle-class commuting working paying-the-bill lives.

To Journey Pastor,
TALLENT is different than CHARACTER (1Cor 13.1ff), being GIFTED is different than being GRACED. Lifestyle comes from the root (the heart). Lifestyle is fruit.
I know Jennifer is talented, I am praying she is also graced. May the Lord bless Jennifer.

“Another saying of Jesus comes to mind; something about attempting to remove a splinter from another’s eye while there’s a log in our own.
Who among us is not fully in need of grace for the sin that resides in our flesh? On what grounds do we justify then, not showing grace to each other?”
A couple of points:
First, let’s look at the splinter/log verse. What do a splinter and a log have in common? They are both made from wood. What differentiates them? A splinter is very small, and a log is very large.
Nonetheless, splinters don’t belong in eyes. Jesus is not preaching that we should never call out a sin, or urge repentance, but rather making the obvious point that we should not do so while actively engaged in the same sin.
I think we should certainly extend grace to Jennifer. But extending grace means recognizing the sin. It is rather condescending to extend grace to someone who is doing nothing wrong.
What I have seen in response to Knapp’s “announcement” is disappointment and regret. Of course, expressed disappointment can also be veiled condemnation, but I think a number of her fans are sincerely sad that she has chosen to go this route.
Should they be sad? Should they have any opinion at all? That’s a bit tricky.
A Christian artist certainly endeavors to put herself in the public eye. Does that entail a certain behavioral standard? The scriptures don’t really contend with the issue of someone who is famous but not a leader.
Keep in mind that there are those (e.g. Tony Jones) who have voiced their public support for her decision. He is a leader, and people have the right to dissect his opinions insofar as he makes them public.
Is that dragging Jennifer Knapp into the crosshairs? Perhaps, but at a certain point, that is the risk inherent in making one’s self a public personality.

“but I think a number of her fans are sincerely sad that she has chosen to go this route.”
That is like saying fans are sincerely sad that she has chosen to be a white person, or female, or right handed.

“:First, let’s look at the splinter/log verse. What do a splinter and a log have in common? They are both made from wood. What differentiates them? A splinter is very small, and a log is very large. :”
Kevin, for a second there I thought you were going down the Monty Python and the Holy Grail Witch conversation….
Dave

To Chad (#27):
You write: “Homosexuality is God?s gift to the church. By accepting it as a gift rather than a threat we avail ourselves to what the Holy Spirit desires to teach us as she continues to lead us into truth.”
I honestly had to reread that several times, because I can’t fathom how that gels with what’s in the Bible. And I don’t write that from sass, but from honest confusion with the points you’re attempting to make.
First, how can sin ever be a gift from God? Certainly God uses our sin to bring us out of it (i.e. 1 Corinthians 5), but if we were meant to live in sin instead of in the lifestyle and arrangements mankind began in, why didn’t God start us out in sin to begin with? As it’s been commonly said, “God can draw straight using crooked lines,” but that doesn’t mean His preference was to use crooked lines.
Second, where in Scripture is the Holy Spirit referred to as a “she?” I know man and woman are made in the image of God, but help me understand where the Holy Spirit is specifically mentioned to be a she?
Both of these points underscore an issue I see you and others struggling with… “How do I take my worldview and spiritualize it?” Jen Knapp presented herself on Larry King as an example of someone who sees life a certain way and is hoping to find enough loopholes in the translation of Scripture to justify it. Shouldn’t our approach be the other way around? Shouldn’t we start with Scripture and become okay with even the things we’re currently not okay with culturally?
Your appeals seem emotionally based… I struggle to understand why what we feel about people and our sense of what their civil rights should be has more merit than what God has said.

I?ve always been impressed with the importance of the parable of the wheat and the tares. With so little information in the New Testament about what was going to happen in the church age, this seemed like an important prophecy to me. However, I don?t know how it applies to Jennifer Knapp or others in a similar situation.
The parable doesn?t tell us about how we are supposed to act toward the weeds; not that I can tell. One could surmise that the presence of the tares probably will cut the production of the wheat. Something I thought about reading this parable was that with time both the wheat and the tares mature. Prophetically speaking, I think we can see that that phenomenon has occurred. Christianity has grown up with time, but evil has become more sophisticated as well. And, once a weed becomes mature, it spreads its seeds by the millions.

Wheat and Tares is a parable I’ve not heard injected into the gay/faith conversation.
Thanks for bringing that it, b/c it describes where we are with this.
Christians don’t have ONE answer regarding whether or not homosexuality is a sin.
Some think that anything that produces love and falls under “love your neighbor as yourself” is A-OK. Others think that the Bible clearly condemns all homosexual activity.
Yet, we are all Christians.
Reminds me of Paul’s words about eating food that was sacrificed to idols. Different people see things differently. And, hopefully, we are all growing in our faith, undersanding and love of one another.
Like the wheat and tares, we’re all in this together. God alone is Judge. In the meantime, I’m busy trying to love better and more gracefully, in community.

RJS (#18) — we need to be careful about confusing “qualifications for leadership” and “providence.” We also need to be careful about anachronism when dealing with someone like Luther, who became increasingly unstable in his later years. And I agree with everyone who’s noted that hateful rhetoric has no place in the discussion regardless of one’s views.
God has providentially used many sinful people to move His mission forward. Indeed, we are all sinful people; none of us has achieved anything close to perfect sanctification. But this doesn’t mean we approve of sin. We rightly condemn the paranoid anti-Semitic rantings of Luther’s later years. We are rightly grieved that there is such a stain on the legacy of Luther’s witness and such a blight on the history of the Church.
We are in a time when the Church in North America is in the midst of a crisis over sexuality. I mean by this not only homosexuality, but also heterosexual conduct such as pornographic addiction, marital infidelity, and epidemic levels of divorce. In this climate, it seems to me highly deleterious for a Christian leader / celebrity to declare that her homosexual practice is consistent with her Christian discipleship. I would feel exactly the same if she were engaged in an active sexual relationship with a man who is not her husband.
I would feel very differently if she had said “sexual sin is one of my struggles, but I seek God’s grace and the community’s support to live with purity in this area.” That’s the kind of humble leadership we need. I think young people today need to understand that life in general, and Christian discipleship in particular, involves struggle. What we don’t need, IMHO, is the easy answer, which always seems to turn “sin” into nothing but a social preference.

What is wrong with referring to the Holy Spirit as she?
If God is neither man nor woman but both and more, then so goes the Spirit. And if so, all all we’re really talking about is the form of address, and to make that exclusively male is to place limits and blinders on ourselves.
Just because the ancient Hebrews were unable to think of the divine as being anything but male does not mean we have to as well.

I guess Ephesians 4:15 about “speaking the truth in love,” is the issue for me (and I’m told that the Greek doesn’t translate well here … should be more like “truthing in love.”)
We are called to do two things that place us considerable tension: Hold to the truth and love the other. We usually escape the tension via two means. Either we hold firmly to what we believe to be the truth while distancing ourselves in relationship from (if not openly attacking and “othering”) those who disagree or we embrace those we think have been “othered” and distance ourselves from anyone perceived as doing the “othering.” Holding firmly to the truth and remaining steadfast in relationship is one of the biggest struggles in my life.
The parable that comes to my mind is Luke 15 and the Prodigal. Henri Nouwen’s little book asks us who we think we are in the story. Nouwen observes that he would see himself as both of the sons but then it dawned on him that point of view Jesus’ wanted us to take was the perspective of the father in the story. We are to be the ones desperately hoping and working for the return of (as Kenneth Bailey puts it) law-breaking sinners (younger brother) and law-keeping sinners (older brother.) The father’s posture is extension of grace to these two sons who have each in their own cultural acts announced they wished their father were dead.
If our response is othering condemnation or love absent the truth, then we are not the loving father in the parable. How easy to write. How hard to live.

#37 Chad
“That is like saying fans are sincerely sad that she has chosen to be a white person, or female, or right handed.”
All of us are oriented towards all sorts of things. Some these orientations likely have varying degrees of genetic predisposition. But there are many orientations we curb, deny, or otherwise manage for moral reasons. Saying someone has a genetic orientation toward a particular behavior doesn’t legitimate anything.

I struggle mightily with sin – my own and the sins of others. I don’t know how to respond. I’m sad about Jennifer Knapp. I’m also sad about Fred Phelps and Anne Lamott and the now-deceased Enron guy. I’m sad about (the now repentant) Sandy Patty and Michael English. I’m sad when a pastor kills his wife. I’m sad when the church treasurer runs away with the church’s money and the organist. I’m sad when a pharmacist dilutes cancer drugs so he can give more money to the church. I’m sad when priests abuse children or when a child molester is made an elder. I’m sad when a church puts one sin in a higher category than other sins. I’m sad when we try to incorporate a person into a denomination rather than the body of Christ. I’m sad when I give more prominence to my dreams than I give to God. But I honestly don’t know how to react. Part of my problem is not what to do with the weeds, but that it gets harder and harder to tell the wheat from the weeds. And being sad about sin doesn’t mean that we are hateful or condemning. I constantly have to go back to the story of the Publican and the Sinner and say, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Jen Knapp presented herself on Larry King as an example of someone who sees life a certain way and is hoping to find enough loopholes in the translation of Scripture to justify it. Shouldn’t our approach be the other way around? Shouldn’t we start with Scripture and become okay with even the things we’re currently not okay with culturally?
I haven’t seen the Larry King interview, so forgive me to the extent I write out of ignorance. But I have a hard time believing that Knapp would find that description–that she “is hoping to find enough loopholes in the translation of Scripture to justify” the way she sees life–as the way she would self-describe her position.
That’s not to say that people aren’t guilty of “looking for loopholes,” but I don’t think many of us think of ourselves as “looking for loopholes.”
The fact is, Scripture isn’t as easy to interpret as we often think it is. Two thousand years of difference between language and culture separate us. I am convinced that a great deal of Scripture has been misinterpreted by many of us, and only by God’s grace can we work to correct those errors.
Now, maybe Knapp is guilty of “looking for loopholes.” I don’t know. But the question “shouldn’t our approach be the other way around?” only works if we’re aware that’s what we are (or may be?) doing.

dopderbeck,
Sexuality is a crisis issue – and a devastating one on many levels, personal and relational. But on your list of sexual sins – well it seems to me that monogamous homosexual relationship is near the bottom.
Marital infidelity, epidemic levels of divorce, abuse scandals, pornography – these are all issues that tear apart relationships and often turn people into objects. Some will argue that pornography is a private sin, but it objectifies people – and that makes it anything but a private problem.
I brought up the issue of Luther’s antisemitism because I think the log in our eye is the pervasive and insidious nature of these sins that allow us to rationalize an “us” vs “them” view of the world – and in important ways dehumanize “them”. Luther is just one example – we can look to the history of race in the US, imperialism, and on and on. This isn’t simply a problem of the past – it dogs us today on so many levels as well.
Monogamous homosexual relationship is a speck in comparison.
We can talk about all sins being equally abhorrent in the eyes of God – and certainly on one level this is true. But in terms of lasting ramifications and consequences?
I certainly think we should look to leaders who are not active in unrepentant sin … but I am also sure that most of our leaders are and sometimes we are complicit in condoning the sin, perhaps not even realizing that it is sin.

Good thoughts, Michael … right on the money, bro!
Interesting post, Scot!
One of the challenges I see with this parable, beyond trying to figure out who the tares/weeds actually are, has not been mentioned yet, so I’ll throw my two cents worth in to the pot:
The reason for not pulling out the tares/weed is not an issue of restraining judgment — it is an issue of preserving the wheat. Pulling out the tares/weeks will result of pulling out the wheat nearby, whose roots have intertwined.
The parable clearly says that in the early days the wheat and tares look the same. It is only when it is time to harvest them that they can be seen by their fruit: wheat berries on the wheat sheaves and weed seeds on the tares. Kind of like: by their fruit will you know them, eh?
God is content to let them grow together — growing next to a tare does not change the DNA of the wheat plant. It is not contagious.
Pulling out the tares, however, will pull out wheat plants … and God is not willing for any of the wheat to be destroyed over this problem.
And that is pretty much how I see this. Followers of Christ are the wheat that has been planted in this parable. We are not the harvesters this time. That is a job for God/Jesus.
We need to but out of God’s “field management”, lest we destroy ourselves and other wheat NEEDLESSLY.
Does that make sense?

Tony re: #39,
All is gift. Yes, even sin can be seen as a gift (I recommend reading Sam Well’s “Improvisation” for a fuller treatment of “gift”).
I used to think homosexuality in and of itself was sin. I no longer do. And I believe scripture, when rightly understood, doesn’t see what we are calling as sin today (monogamous, loving, same-sex relations) as sin. In fact, Scripture does not address such scenarios at all. My essay, of which you read only the conclusion, covers each passage in Scripture in detail and makes a strong case that the black and white (and modern) reading of those 6 passages is wrong, and quite honestly, completely misses the point of why homosexuality (as understood in the Bible) is an abomination.
This has nothing to do with making the Bible fit our culture but about being faithful to the Gospel. When you ask: “Shouldn’t we start with Scripture and become okay with even the things we’re currently not okay with culturally?” the answer is, of course, yes. The problem, however, Scripture must be interpreted. It is not black and white. The moral world of the Bible is very different from our world today. In Scripture, getting married out of love is a foreign concept. In the Bible marriage was about furthering an agrarian society or making a relationship “normal” or ensuring the survival of our race or to bring together families at odds (or in some cases, to quell the lustful urges of a young man, as Paul instructs). Today, all of those reasons would be bad reasons to marry and we would be right to instruct a man against getting married just so that he can have sex. Agreed?
All this to say the moral world of the Bible is very different than ours and we make a huge error when we just try to transplant that world into our own. It misses the point of the Gospel, for starters.
As for pronouns for God, I’m not going to get into that here. I have a sneaky suspicion that had I said “he” when referring to the Holy Spirit you would not have reacted. Both are equally blasphemous.
peace,
Chad

…which is also to say that we cannot make this parable say more than this parable says.
It is not about speaking the truth in love to brothers and sisters who err. It is not about taking the log out of our own eye so that we might help another with the speck in their eye. It is not about confronting and reconciling. They each have their own “parable” as it were.
This is a parable about wisdom and discernment and restraint by humans and leaving the gathering of the tares/weeds to the angelic harvesters.

Michael, #45:
It’s not a matter of legitimization. It’s about coming to terms with the way in which God has made you and then learning to live faithfully within that. I am a heterosexual. I have always been attracted to women. This is how God made me. I have lived into that “being” in destructive ways throughout my life, hurting people I love and cared for. That is sin. But I have also learned to live into my “being” in faithful ways, both to God and neighbor. This is righteous living.
Gay people are not choosing to be gay but this is who they are. God, for whatever reason, made them this way. They are not defective, sick or deluded. This is who they are. As such, they have choices to make. They can live recklessly in their “being” as I did, or they can choose to live faithfully, where God and neighbor are honored.
It is cruel for any of us, especially we who are allowed to love freely within our “being,” to insist that someone must either pretend to love and be intimate with that which does not suit them (I can’t imagine being told that if I want to have a family I must learn to love another man or just remain celibate all my life!) or remain celibate all their lives and devoid of the sort of intimacy I enjoy with my wife. That, I would argue, is a far worse sin than anything people are bickering over about Jennifer Knapp.

In the parable, the owner of the field does not disagree with the slaves’ identification of weeds amongst the wheat. This parable only indicates who’s responsible for what.
A big problem is, do we really know who the weeds are? What makes a weed? Or who exhibits the characteristics of a weed? According to the parable, there doesn’t seem to be any wrong in just being able to identify it. Dangerous? Yes. Necessary? I don’t know.
So, is homosexuality a sin or not? If it is, does it automatically make someone a weed? Or are they in process? Very complicated.
Ultimately, this parable tells us to dwell with everyone (in love). God does the weeding. Also, the parable shows that if we try to pull the weeds ourselves we will ultimately cause harm to…ourselves. I believe, it’s best to live at peace with everyone…if we can.
This parable is amazing. Does it answer whether or not Homosexuality is wrong? No. It doesn’t answer how we are to dwell, it just says we are to dwell.

RJS #48 -
“Marital infidelity, epidemic levels of divorce, abuse scandals, pornography – these are all issues that tear apart relationships and often turn people into objects….Monogamous homosexual relationship is a speck in comparison.”
The key difference I see between your list of other moral issues and the gay debate is this: Gay Christians like J Knapp make this primarily an IDENTITY issue (e.g., “This is who I am, how God made me…”), not MORAL BEHAVIOR issue. E.g., No one goes on Larry King telling the world that God made them an adulterer, spouse abuser, or porn addict to justify that lifestyle.
I absolutely adore Jennifer Knapp as a musician and artist. But even with her grasp of biblical knowledge and deep love for Christ, it seems apparent that she doesn’t acknowledge Michael W. Kruse’s (#45) foundational biblical starting point for understanding our fallen human nature:
“All of us are oriented towards all sorts of things. Some these orientations likely have varying degrees of genetic predisposition. But there are many orientations we curb, deny, or otherwise manage for moral reasons. Saying someone has a genetic orientation toward a particular behavior doesn’t legitimate anything.”
How many disagree with Michael’s point? This seems to be the key issue in the debate: It’s those who believe,”This is how God made me so I guess its alright” vs. Those who believe, “I’m a sinner with a disposition toward this or that sinful behavior, but by God’s grace I can live another way by the power of the Spirit.”

Jeremy,
The problem with your “This is how God made me” analogy is that we can think of all sorts of reasons why saying “God made me an adulterer” or addict or whatever don’t measure up. You cannot live faithfully as an adulterer and still honor God and your neighbor. You end up hurting and abusing the people who love you and it violates covenants made which are meant to reflect a Covenanting God. A gay person is not the same. A gay person does not choose who they are attracted to just as you don’t choose to be attracted to women (I’m assuming you are a hetero male). You and I can live faithfully as God has designed us or destructively. That’s the question.

RJS said: Monogamous homosexual relationship is a speck in comparison.
I respond: I really can’t agree with this sort of comparison. Nobody is defending Luther’s antisemitism, or the other things you mention (e.g. slavery). The question is, what pressing issues does the Church in North America face today? There are many, and the breakdown of marriages and sexuality is a significant one. Our society is hyper-sexualized. “Monogamous homosexual relationship” in this context isn’t just a “speck” because it goes to the heart of the nature of God’s design for human sexuality. This does NOT mean, BTW, that I approve of the culture war tactics of the religious right on this issue: I don’t.
Chad (#52) — I’m sorry but I don’t think this logic cuts it. Every one of us lives with various inclinations that make our moral lives difficult. The fact that this particular inclination relates to sex doesn’t make it uniquely central to personal identity in such a way as to override other ethical imperatives. That IMHO reflects a lie of our culture: that our sexuality is the most central and inviolable feature of personal identity. Sex in our culture is a false god.

Dopderdeck,
The only people I see making sexuality the most central part of one’s identity are those who insist gay people can’t be Christians. Unfortunately, such people have made the conversation be about this, and so until we can get over that hump it must be discussed.
I assume you are a heterosexual, yes? Can that part of your identity be simply laid aside and ignored when it comes to being in an intimate, loving relationship? Or is that part of who you are? The exact same thing is true for the homosexual. Why is this so hard to understand?

#49,
God is content to let them grow together — growing next to a tare does not change the DNA of the wheat plant. It is not contagious.
Thanks especially for this bit. I think it hits at one of the great tensions of Jesus’ teachings in the gospels. Although Jesus does indeed have a lot to say about obedience to God, there is also this consistent thread that what matters is who God’s people are. That is to say, a “state of being” that is apparently set. A binary either/or designation.
I’m not trying to get into predestination and election, so much as to say that this “either/or” nature is emphasized. Yet, if we are to put the emphasis on obedience, it quickly becomes apparent that 1) NO ONE is fully obedient, and 2) even among “God’s people” there seem to be gray areas of obedience. People who fail (and thus need redemption) and so on….

Peggy,
Thanks for your comments. Yes, I agree: the parable’s concern is not damaging weeds but damaging the wheat. But, the fundamental resolution of the parable is (1) the recognition of the difference between weeds and wheat and (2) the need to wait it out and let God do the judging. There is a moral implication here that we are not judges, and we need to learn to co-exist without tearing the field to pieces.
Chad,
The issue here is “as God designed us.” I do agree that Christian ethics don’t begin in anthropology or esp in self-perceived anthropology, but in Jesus Christ in Israel’s Story and in the context of God’s telos of establishing the kingdom, where all the “cracks” in the Eikon will be healed.
For me the issue with Jennifer Knapp, since she knows what traditional Christians think, is how best to respond to and relate to her in light of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.

Thanks for this Scot, it’s very wise and much needed grace for this discussion!
I remember reading the interview in CT and one thing struck me more than anything else, and that is that was the brokenness that lay behind some of her comments, especially those about burning out due to the pressure, it broke my heart.
It seemed to me that she faced a multiplication of the pressure that we all face due to her fame and the strong opinions about this particular struggle, and ultimately it became too much and she gave in. I can’t help but feel compassion and sadness, even if I disagree deeply with the route she has taken.
I know sometimes I reach a point of feeling like giving up when times are hard and just giving up fighting temptation, depression, culture, etc. So yeah I feel for her hugely…

Danny @#19 – “My body is my own right?” Wrong. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 has a great deal of relevance.
Scot, re your focused concern on how to respond and relate to JK – Personally I respond that I do not view her as a leader (referring back now to the comments about “leadership” standards being different). Perhaps at one point she had something of a leadership role, but not in the context of the text. She is an artist and a poet. It is the business of artists and poets to create art that expresses. She does that, and pretty well. I can still affirm her artistry, and the moments when her art expresses truth, I can applaud that. But while I affirm the artistry, I can’t affirm the choice she has made to define herself in terms of what I understand to be part of the crack in her eikon. I am compassionate for the pain she carries as a consequence.

“I am compassionate for the pain she carries as a consequence.”
Pain caused by the church, no less.

R, are you saying that you should not support her as an artist then? I can see some groups not putting her as a leader, that is up to them, but to not support her as an artist?
Dave

It strikes me that some Christians struggle with how to be around those with whom they disagree with because they feel they must not somehow disappoint God by enforcing the rules. However, do we ever stop to think that we’re disappointing God when we don’t love “the least of these”? Remember, it was Jesus who was described as the “friend of sinners”.

There is an entire chapter on this topic in “What’s So Amazing About Grace”. I highly recommend reading it because I was and am conflicted. It sure helped me understand and be a more grace-full person.

Chad,
I must say something because I don’t think your comment is clear to me. Do you mean she’s a victim in saying her pain was “caused” by the church?
C’mon, it’s not that simple. She has chosen (sure, we can debate this but there’s still some choice) to act in ways she knows the Bible does not support, or the way most read the Bible, and so her “pain” (real as it is) is not simply a church-imposed pain but a dialectic between her behaviors etc and the church’s stance.
All of this notwithstanding, the issue is how to relate to her. Love and disagreement can walk hand in hand in what I would call a “paracletic ministry or love.”

Chad (#57) said: The only people I see making sexuality the most central part of one’s identity are those who insist gay people can’t be Christians.
I respond: c’mon Chad — here in the U.S., personal identity is all about four things: sexuality and sex (whether gay or straight), money, career, and sexuality and sex. Turn on the TV during prime time, or look at the Cosmo and People magazines by the supermarket check-out counter. You can’t miss it.
Moreover, I have not “insisted” much less implied that “gay people can’t be Christians.” I have gay friends who are Christians and who live in heterosexual marriages. And I have non-celibate gay friends who are Christians but who IMHO should not be in a position of public Christian leadership.
I also have unmarried straight friends who are Christians and who are celibate, some of whom are middle-aged evangelical men, some of whom are Catholic Priests, and some of whom are older missionary ladies. And I have some married straight friends who are Christians and who are estranged from their spouses because of pornography and affairs, and who also IMHO should not be in positions of public Christian leadership.

I keep getting comments stuck in the spam queue, I suppose because we’re using “dangerous” words!
Scot (#66) — I agree with you entirely. We should be clear, though, that it is not necessarily unloving to limit a person’s access to leadership and the public spotlight. Sometimes love requires discipline or censure.

Dopderbeck,
Presumably many “defects” in humans go against God’s design for human community, from hemophilia, to muscular dystrophy, to deafness.
Have you heard about the controversy within the deaf community about issues of identity and deaf culture? Is deafness a disability to be corrected – or the way God made a person to be claimed as identity?
As a person who can hear I instinctively think disability to be corrected. But within the deaf community many view it very differently and this has caused substantial controversy. Identity becomes very important.
I don’t particularly want to defend the choices that Jennifer Knapp has made, or the forum for speaking out, but there are profound biological issues here – it is not simply “choice” for many. In this sense I can understand, whether I agree or not, with the importance of identity.
We can look at Genesis 1-4 and many other Biblical passages and find homosexual desires a consequence of fallen humanity. But is it a consequence of the fall in the sense that deafness is a consequence of the fall, or in the sense that greed is a consequence of the fall? Or perhaps some of both?
How then do we live within this reality? These are the kinds of issues I think we need to wrestle with here. I agree with you on the issue of leadership – but I also think we have many inappropriate Christian “leaders”.

Scot,
Who else has caused the pain she describes? Those who are affirming her or a teaching within the Church that needs to change (just as our teaching with regards to slavery and women has changed over time – thank God).
I reject the notion that she has in some way “chosen” and has brought this pain upon herself. The only thing she is guilty of is being honest about who she really is instead of parading as someone the church thinks she ought to be.
I have talked with a number of gay Christians and the intense psychological pain that is involved leading up to their decision to come out of the closet and then the condemnation they receive when they do would be more than I could ever take. It’s no wonder that suicide rates are so high among closeted gays, particularly youths.
So yes, I blame the Church for this pain. It is something we will eventually need to repent of once people get real with this and stop parroting the same tired lines, refusing to see anything other than what they are convinced is a “black and white, open and shut” matter. It’s not. And we are blind when we say it is.

Scot,
Who else has caused the pain she describes? Those who are affirming her or a teaching within the Church that needs to change (just as our teaching with regards to slavery and women has changed over time – thank God).
I reject the notion that she has in some way “chosen” and has brought this pain upon herself. The only thing she is guilty of is being honest about who she really is instead of parading as someone the church thinks she ought to be.
I have talked with a number of gay Christians and the intense psychological pain that is involved leading up to their decision to come out of the closet and then the condemnation they receive when they do would be more than I could ever take. It’s no wonder that suicide rates are so high among closeted gays, particularly youths.
So yes, I blame the Church for this pain. It is something we will eventually need to repent of once people get real with this and stop parroting the same tired lines, refusing to see anything other than what they are convinced is a “black and white, open and shut” matter. It’s not. And we are blind when we say it is.

#67
Of course that is true – but you are speaking of the culture, not the Church. For the Church, one’s identity should not be about their sexuality (gay vs. straight) but about their baptism. Of course the culture places emphasis on the four things you mentioned and sadly, as I tried to point out to you, the only people within the Church who are emphasizing sexuality are those on the “right.”
Our baptism is what identifies us – not our sexuality.

RJS (#69) — I don’t think it’s impossible to distinguish the ethical questions relating to homosexuality from those relating to muscular dystrophy and those relating to deafness. The issue of deaf identity, BTW, is near and dear to my heart, since my son’s neurological disability causes him to communicate largely in sign.
With a disease like muscular dystrophy, a person loses control of her faculties, and the resulting condition simply isn’t amenable to any conscious action. This can’t imply any ethical lapse.
With the deaf community, I think it is no violation of God’s design for humanity to develop a unique language and culture based on shared geographic, physical, or other circumstances. So, if a deaf person refuses a corrective surgery because she feels more comfortable in deaf culture, I don’t think that is necessarily “sin.” And I bristle at any suggestion that my son is simply “defective” because of “the Fall.” That reflects a shallow view of God’s sovereignty.
I think I would say the same about homosexuality. It is complicated. It’s horrible for those of us who don’t have homosexual inclinations to treat gay people as though this is “just” a choice or merely a “curable defect.” Yet, at the same time, I’d say it’s just as patronizing for us to suggest that this is the same as something like muscular dystrophy. The will is affected, but not erased.
The same is true for heterosexual sexuality. There are very few things in human experience that are more powerful than sex. Yet, even though God wired us this way, He values a certain kind of community highly enough that He built into the design of human relationships and into the moral law a difficult set of ethical limitations around sex. It’s just like God, isn’t it, that at the point of our greatest desire, He asks us to desire Him even more.

I think some need to be aware that when your identity is not a challenged one, it’s very easy to minimize that part of your identity. While I’m not going to go all the way over to Chad’s way of thinking, I will readily admit that to dismiss homosexual identity as a non-starter brought about entirely by culture is completely misunderstanding how much of your own identity is wrapped up in your sexuality…Just because your sexuality is unchallenged and wholly accepted does not mean that it is not extremely important.
It’s sort of like Derrida’s point about obvious interpretation. We’re doing it even if we don’t think we are. Human sexuality is a core piece of our identity, whether it be family, intimacy, how we deal with people, our views of the world in general, and our personal struggles.
It is disingenous to claim that all homosexuality is genetically determined and that no choice is involved, but it is equally so to dismiss it as just another sexual immorality to be overcome. (disingenous is probably the wrong word, but I hope my point is clear)
That said, I don’t think homosexuals should serve as church leaders. It IS dangerous to begin to simply declare sins that make us uncomfortable as no longer sins. I just think the issue of identity is not one that can be easily dismissed.

I don’t know about all of you, but as this has developed over the past couple decades, I have had to come to grips with the thought I had of having a homosexual person held up as an example of an acceptable lifestyle for my children. I had an intuitive feeling that I did not want that example to be put up so they would not think about it. It would make my life more complicated to have to explain to them that some people are gay, some are straight, and that sounds like a difficult conversation to have.
As my kids have been raising me, I have come to realize that the 10 seconds for that conversation is actually intuitive for my kids, at least. They say, oh, well, thats not for me. And they go on.
So much like what Chad is saying when he says it is the church that is causing the pain, it was my perspective that was causing the pain.
When someone shares their innermost feelings with the world they are inherently giving a tremendous gift, particularly at this point in history on this issue. We should have great respect and humility that they shared this.
Dave

Brad Sargent (Futuristguy) has a new post up that I think some of you would find relevant here. It is rather dense but I feel it is an important addition to the conversation.
“Response to David Fitch on LGBT and the Mission-Shaped Church” http://bit.ly/dCm4S0

@scot
“C’mon, it’s not that simple. She has chosen (sure, we can debate this but there’s still some choice) to act in ways she knows the Bible does not support, or the way most read the Bible, and so her “pain” (real as it is) is not simply a church-imposed pain but a dialectic between her behaviors etc and the church’s stance. ”
This is probably the most compelling synopsis of this issue I have read.
Chad, you are asserting what you need to prove. Until you are willing to engage what Scot has written above, you will not be persuasive.

“Kevin, for a second there I thought you were going down the Monty Python and the Holy Grail Witch conversation….”
I have had friends try to subject me to Monty Python. It’s not in my wheelhouse. If there is a Holy Witch scene, I have referenced it accidentally.

Chad, Kevin, you are asserting what you need to prove. Until you are willing to engage what Scot I have written above, you will not be persuasive.

Shooot. HTML tags must not be supported here.
The above comment was meant to simply say: Kevin, you are asserting what you need to prove. Until you are willing to engage what Chad has written above, you will not be persuasive.
Thanks for your advice, Kevin, but I don’t find it all that helpful.

dopderbeck (#73),
I struggle with this issue because I am not sure where hard wiring leaves off and “sexual sin” starts.
With issues like marital infidelity, pornography, abuse, prostitution, etc. it is a fairly easy call. I think it is an easy call with promiscuity and a take-it or leave-it shack up culture as well. And this goes for homosexual or heterosexual behavior. These behaviors dehumanize – and are rampant on various levels within our culture.
Neither of us are claiming urges alone (homosexual or heterosexual) are sin – the hard wiring isn’t sin.
Now the hard part…where I have no clean answers. On the basis of scripture I take a relatively conservative view – but I hold it loosely. And I am not sure that this parable actually provides any guidance – as it assumes that the slaves can discern the difference between wheat and weeds – and I am not so sure we can discern (and this is where my comments about Luther et al. figure into my thinking).

I have been struggling with this “coming out” story and the implications of Jennifer Knapp’s testimony for over a week now. I have always enjoyed Knapp’s music. I also have several gay people in my life and I struggle with how to present the gospel message in word and in deed so that I stand firm against the sin, but remain committed to love the sinner.
As important as it is to have this public discussion about sin, sinners, grace and repentance, one cynical thought about this whole “coming out story” is that the purpose (as evidenced by the timing of the story) seems to be to generate publicity for the release of Knapp’s new album, rather than an honest confession of either a personal struggle with sin or an honest (though misguided) statement of identity and purpose for her life. This “coming out” story would have been more authentic to me if Knapp would have initiated it eight years ago when she left for Australia or even two years ago when she did not have a record to sell us.
Although I am grateful that Knapp’s story has generated public discussion about the gospel and what it means to follow Jesus, I am a little disgusted that the sins of greed, idolatry, materialism and selfishness are being overlooked. I hope Knapp and her promoters enjoy the 30 pieces of silver they receive for their efforts. I pray that God will convict their hearts of this sin and they repent.

Dave #63 (DRT) wrote “R, are you saying that you should not support her as an artist then? I can see some groups not putting her as a leader, that is up to them, but to not support her as an artist?”
I reply: What does it mean to support someone as an artist? I am guessing that some people will no longer feel comfortable featuring her in concert venues. Others will feel more comfortable featuring her in concert venues. Some people will / will not buy her art. Some stations will / will not play her music.
Personally, I will recognize and appreciate good writing both lyrically and musically. I’ve never bought a CD of hers; I know her from one song that was getting a lot of airplay about 10 years ago. I am probably less likely to attend a concert event but I was never all that likely to attend one before.

Dave Opderbeck, among others, has represented well the church’s historic view re human sexuality, which is consistent with the arc of the biblical narrative on the whole.
A significant issue is the effect of abandoning the position that same-sex relations are sinful on those who are seeking to be faithful to Christ as they struggle with same-sex attraction. Another important matter is our relationship with our brothers and sisters in the rest of the world, who are not interested in revision in this area.

Something we can learn from this discussion is what it means to say that we are sinners. When Jennifer [and those like her] hears it, she responds, ?this is who I am. You?re telling me there?s something wrong with me ? at my core, in my being ? that I cannot help or change.? And the answer is ?yes? ? to Jennifer and to all of us.
There?s a fair amount of self-righteousness at work in this conversation, but not only the type we normally associate with it. At our core, we think we?re pretty okay folks, who just need God to help us with our weaknesses and sins. When we?re not quite measuring up to where we think we should be, we want to feel good about ourselves ? and that?s where Jesus comes in.
We live in a time when people who are experiencing same-sex attraction are rightly appropriating the Scriptural diagnosis concerning the human condition overall as it applies to themselves, and they are offended, even outraged. There are many who try to live in and with this tension and, like Jennifer, find it intolerable. If we understood it, maybe we too would be outraged and find it intolerable.
What the Scriptures tell us is that our plight is deep, intractable and awful. This is why we need God himself to come and to enter into our experience and to die and then rise from the dead. We require something so radical as the life of God himself to do for us what we are incapable of doing for ourselves. We must have death and resurrection, regeneration, new creation.
And yet it is in this same stunning intervention that we really discover our value and dignity and significance to God. We are loved, even as this same love both requires and enables us to become whole new selves. The charge of sinner would be hopelessly condemning if it were not met with such persistent, patient, indestructible love.
This discussion is not only about a particular behavior, but it concerns the sinfulness of sin and the lavishness of grace.
“I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin?what a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God ? through Jesus Christ our Lord!?

Johnhanna,
I assume you are heterosexual, yes?
Imagine being told that the way you are wired is an abomination before God and that your attractions are sinful and that if you want to please God you need to remain single and celibate all your life or become attracted to men.
How would you respond?

Chad (#86),
If it were the Word of God telling me that, then yes, I would do my best to remain single and celibate to the glory of God.
I think Trevin Wax has the best article I’ve read on this issue. He says:
1. We need to shift emphasis from the truth that ?everyone is a sinner? to the necessity of repentance.
2. We must not allow ourselves to be defined by our sexual attractions.
3. We must expose the arrogance and judgmentalism of those who would so flippantly dismiss the witness of Christians for two thousand years.
4. We need soft hearts toward Christians struggling with same-sex attraction.
Read the explanation for these points here.

Chad (#86) — I think you’re mixing problems of rhetoric and self-righteousness up with the bigger point. Of course, every one of us naturally bristles at the Bible-thumping moralist who seems to be ignorant of his or her own faults. This is why I deplore the culture war rhetoric around the issue of homosexuality. But I don’t think John (#85) is doing that. I think he’s saying what our faith tells us: we are all naturally hostile to God. Someone once said that evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. This should be our posture. Yet the truth is that we are all beggars. Many will be offended at this notion, whether their god is sexuality or money or status. This is the truth that ultimately sets us free.
I am not gay. But that doesn’t make me “better” than a gay man. I am “wired” in many other ways that are sinful and self-destructive. Many days my inclinations tell me that I should be “free” from the burdens of my family, that I’m not monogamous by nature, that the broader world around me offers endless opportunities for gratification that I’m wired to desire. My twenty years of marriage have been sometimes glorious, sometimes heart-stoppingly sad, sometimes monotonous. The struggle is part of what makes it deeply gratifying to speak of twenty years of marriage.
Other people have different struggles. But sanctification is always a long and difficult process. The fact that this can be a difficult pill to swallow doesn’t mean the medicine is the problem.

Dopderdeck,
I believe it was Willimon that said that – one of my bishops. And I agree with everything you said. I’m a Methodist pastor who believes in Christian perfection for crying out loud!
This issue here, however, is you nor I feel the need to be “saved” from our heterosexuality. That is just part of who we are in the same way that I am a male, I’m white, and I’m right handed and I am also color-blind. I can’t change those things about me.
What I need to be saved from, however, is my “natural” impulses to use my sexuality in idolatrous and destructive ways that do not bring life but death. The homosexual person must be saved from the same natural impulses. There are healthy, life giving ways to live into the sort of creature we have been created as.
Where does the homosexual learn this if the church will not even take a step towards them and first affirm that the way they are wired as a gay person is not something that God abhors but loves?
It comes down to the long held misinterpretations of those 6 “Clobber verses.” They need to be reexamined – and thank God they are! – and people need to come out of the dark ages and see that the Bible is not condemning same-sex loving relationships. It’s just not. If you have never studied it you can read on on my blog a detailed working through of each of those 6 verses along with historical and theological and philosophical considerations.

Chad [#85], you ask a fair question.
Your question I think assumes an inability to relate to the situation faced by someone who’s gay. In the particular, I can’t, but in general I can stand next to the gay person and say that we are, as dopderbeck describes [#88], exactly alike. “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.”
Now if I thought I were a decent guy just doing his best, and if I shared the the assumption of my cultural upbringing that the lack of fulfillment of sexual desire is unthinkable, then I would find the situation you describe unacceptable.
The earlier reference, also by Dave Opderbeck, to our society’s sex god is pertinent. The sex god, in his enslaving rule, says to us that we cannot resist him, that ultimately we must submit. There is no voice or opinion above his permitted to contradict him. The fact that our sexual desires are so powerful and tied up to our common humanity makes us susceptible to the sex god’s claim to being a liberator, instead of our calling him out for being the tyrant he is.
The fact is that it is not simply my sexual wiring that is an abomination, but that I am a slave to sin, self-absorbed and twisted. So yes, I know what it means to have my desires and attractions declared sinful. At the same time, I know there is a real God, who is greater than the sex god. My sexual desires, as powerful as they might be, are not ultimate. They have someone who lovingly addresses them and puts me in touch with reality. It is possible to say “no” because his self-sacrificing goodness and truth and mercy are greater. And, in this case, I am listening to the voice of one who can sympathize with our weakness, as he was tempted in every way yet without sin.
For myself personally, I find the clarity of a commandment particularly helpful. If I know that something is clearly sinful and not an option to act on, it helps to not have to wrestle in my mind as to the rightness or wrongfulness of the action, even if tempted. In other words, I don’t think the absence of clarity re human sexuality is helpful to any of us.

John and Dob,
I think we are missing the forest for the trees, here.
It is SO easy for you and I to sit here and talk about not submitting to the “sex god” when we are at liberty to do so because no one is telling us it is an abomination to express our love to another woman!
Earlier someone said that we should not make this all about sex but this is all I see you and other doing. My marriage to my wife is not about sex. Why should we assume that a gay couple’s relationship is all about sex? I am free to be in unity with another human being and share love that God has given us. Why should I inhibit a gay person from finding the same sort of unity in another human being and expressing their God-givne sexuality in healthy, honoring ways?
When you and I have sex with our spouses we are considered normal and are not bowing to some “sex god” as you call it. But when the gay person does the same thing with their partner they are in some way idolatrous and submitting to evil.
I’m sorry, but don’t you see how painful that sort of worldview, as it is generally espoused by the Church, would be to a homosexual? And don’t you find it the least bit arrogant and oppressive?

John: I think the cultural effect of our sexualization has been to convince us that it is nothing, when in fact, it is exactly the opposite. The devaluation of sex is affecting Christian thought just as much as secular. Sex is nothing and is just something to be controlled and denied as necessary. If it’s nothing, then it can not be an integral part of our identity, right?
I will put forward this though: In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul recognizes the fact that many will find sexual desire something they cannot control. He states that those should marry rather than fall into sin. This puts a bit of a wrench in the idea that it is purely our culture that thinks sexual fulfillment is unthinkable. There is a clear directive for an accepted (and acceptable!) unquenchable sexual desire.
Homosexuals don’t get the same directive, but it seems problematic to dismiss sexual desire as something they should just get under control. My guess is that the number of homosexuals capable of denying their sexuality is about the same number Paul recognizes as capable of denying their heterosexuality.
Obviously, we hope for a redeemed humanity, but the fact is that there are a lot of people out there that are Christians and homosexual and God is clearly not delivering them from it. Does this detract from it being a sin? No, but I think you and David are dismissive of the gravity of human sexuality, even if you’re not being judgmental.
Caveat: I resonate a great deal with what David says in 88. I just think that we need to accept that sexuality IS a major part of our identity and we are foolish to think otherwise.

oops…I meant lack of sexual fulfillment in paragraph 2.

If Jennifer embezzled money from her church, or murdered someone. Her sin would be dealt with by the laws of our land and she would be appropriately dealt with. But, because her sin is immorality which is acceptable in our society there will not be any prosecution by any civil authority because no laws have been broken. And those of us Christians who still believe the Bible; are a bunch of judgmental, ignorant, intolerant, fools, because we know that theft, murder, lying, adultery and homosexuality are all sins regardless of whether our society agrees with that position. We also know that sin brings death, and that Christ?s very reason for coming was to deliver us from sin, so that we can have a relationship with Him. Sin still separates us from God. People choose their sins, and become deceived. The Bible teaches that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. So, all of us are in the same boat. We all have a propensity to sin, and all of us are sinners. Jennifer is no worse than the rest of us. She can receive forgiveness just like anyone. It is too bad that she doesn?t understand that homosexuality is a sin and that she thinks she can remain in that place of separation. The most loving and merciful thing that I could say to Jennifer is come home to Jesus, don?t believe the lie. My heart is broken for you, Jesus loves you, don?t stay in your sin.

re: celibacy
For those of us who are born heterosexual, we get the CHOICE of being celibate or not. Celibacy has long been considered a sanctifying grace – something that some people enter into for a lifetime as a way of showing their devotion to God alone as the love of their life. Some people, I believe, are called to such action and God bless them if they willing enter into this sacrificial way of life.
The Church’s position regarding homosexuality robs homosexuals of the freedom to choose this sacrificial way of life or even the opportunity to discern as individuals and in a community whether or not God is calling them to this way of life. Rather, we insist that by virtue of how they were born they MUST remain celibate all their life in singleness or else they are living in disobedience to God and the Church.
Some gay people may in fact choose a life of celibacy. May God bless them in that call. But if we make it nonnegotiable that they do than we diminish the call on some people’s lives to live as such. Other gay people may fall in love and feel their call is to married life and family life – much like many of us here. May God bless them in that call.
I’m not insinuating this of anyone commenting here but you would be surprised the number of Christians I talk to who assume that gay couples are having nothing but perverted orgies in the woods behind porn stores. That is the image the church has sort of marketed and put forward as the “deluded” lifestyle of gay people. It’s just ridiculous. Gay couples have the same sort of lives you and I have in our marriages. They go to work, they pay bills, they worry about their retirement, they go to church, they pray, they watch TV before going to bed, along with a whole host of other mundane daily living things, and every now and then they make love.

“For those of us who are born heterosexual, we get the CHOICE of being celibate or not. ”
Not necessarily. Someone else has to choose whether they will marry you.
That different people have different circumstances, and different demands of them based on their own desires is not problematic in terms of interpreting scripture.

Christ did not only come to earth to save us from our sins, but to give us the power and example of how to live for God and for heaven. As one who still needs His saving grace I will admit that it’s a challenge, but still we need to have obedience and repentance as a very strong desire in our hearts. His Spirit will be our comforter and guide. Heterosexual or homosexual doesn’t matter any sin is alienation from God and it’s about our motives: do we justify sin of any kind or do we seek his pity, grace and strength to repent. I know that the closer we grow to God (Christ) the more we hate anything that offends Him (sin).
As the church we should be a “hospital” seeking to help each other grow closer to God and find the joy of salvation in Him. We are running a race that means team work– those who are strong reach back and hold on tight to your brethren who are struggling. Beating each other down with self-righteousness will be a road to hell. We are all in need of God’s grace. “Strong” means those with great humility, love and compassion not those who think they are sin free, they only lie to themselves.

Jeremy [#92], you make good points. I [and I don't think Dave either] am not dismissive re the significance of sexuality. It’s just hard to say everything [do we ever get to do that?] in this format. Human sexuality is remarkably powerful – heck, it’s what brings each of us into existence. That’s why at the same time it can be subject to distortion.
The fact is the life of faith and obedience is a contentious battle, a war. If my writing makes it seems as if I think this is easy or casual, that is not my intention or understanding. Also, while there are those who testify by God’s grace that their sexual desires have been reoriented – they have been and are being set free – I don’t think that kind of deliverance is necessarily the goal. The goal for all of us is to live by faith as we struggle with temptations and wayward desires.
Chad, you are convinced that same-sex desires and the acts that follow should be removed from the category of sin and the ongoing battle that ensues. The entire Scriptures testify to the male-female bond as the proper expression of human sexuality, and as the picture of the relationships beween God and his people, Christ and his church. The community of Christ arose in an environment that directly challenged this. And we find the writing in the NT directly addressing this challenge. The testimony of the Church throughout her entire history has been to affirm this teaching. The overwhelming position of Christians today across the globe is to uphold marriage as the union of male-female. And yes, I do think it matters significantly that those challenging this predominantly arise in and from societies where gratification of desires is expected and deeply embedded.

Ok, ‘dismissive’ was the wrong word, I apologize. That carries some negative connotations I didn’t wish to convey.
I am more after the idea that we tend to underestimate sexuality when we take issue with homosexuals placing it as part of their identity. This is something very hard to understand unless you are part of some group that is socially challenged. We tend to think of a lot of things as not-identity simply because no one is telling us we’re unacceptable.
To try to put it into some sort of context (and probably fail miserable), lets look at height. I am short. I did not choose to be this way, it simply is. Most people don’t even think about their height, much less consider how it affects their mental processes. I am, in many ways, socially challenged…I am often respected less initially than others, my dating life was silly at times, I get laughed at when I can’t reach something. I’ve grown used to this over time, but it has formed the way I think, who I am, and how I interact with the world. Hell, people think my wife and I look odd as she’s 3 inches taller than me and beautiful, as if I’m supposed to have some short and unattractive thing if I’m married at all. “Short” is part of my identity, in some ways precisely because society looks down on it and treats it as lesser.
That obviously doesn’t answer the sin question since being short isn’t a sin last time I checked, but the identity question is serious business. Most people simply don’t get it, but that’s not really surprising since they have no frame of reference. This lack of understanding is seriously problematic when dealing with homosexuals and their (and our!) struggle to understand God and scripture.

My kingdom for an edit button…

John,
I don’t think it should be removed from the “ongoing battle” any more than I believe my only sexual urges and desires need to be brought under control and used rightly. But yes, I don’t believe a gay couple is living in sin when they use their God-given sexuality responsibly.
As far as tradition or history goes, the Church has been wrong on many matters. Augustine wrote that the only purpose a woman served was to bear children. If a person from biblical times were transported into our modern world today they would be shocked by the ways we think of marriage. Marriage was not a free choice made in love but something to further survival and equip an agrarian society. None of us today would counsel a young man to marry the girl he lusts after (as Paul does). All this to say that even marriage has taken on a very different meaning from the biblical witness.
Slavery was thought to be a given – a cultural and biblical norm – based on how one was created. If you read the anti-abolitionist writers (many of whom were pastors!) you will find many of the same themes in their arguments that are found against homosexuals. Same goes for the ways we treat women and their roles/functions within the church. All of these changes have only happened recently when compared to thousands of years of entrenched slavery and patriarchy/misogyny.
As far as “gratification of desires” having an impact on this, what does that mean? This point would only have any credibility if it were ONLY homosexuals making the case. I’m not gay nor are many of the Christian pastors and scholars who are coming out of the closet, so to speak, and calling the Church to rethink it’s long held, outdated, misreadings of these 6 texts.
One such re-reading of these texts can be found on my blog. I linked to it once but I have done extensive research on this (I once was convinced of your position, not more than 2 years ago) and wrote an essay in my ethics class at Duke Divinity about this very issue. I’ve yet to find anyone who can flat out disprove my exegesis (several dismiss it as nonsense in favor of their black and white reading but no one has shown why it is nonsense). Please feel free to let me know why the reading I offer is an impossibility.
http://chadholtz.net/?p=956

“I do think it matters significantly that those challenging this predominantly arise in and from societies where gratification of desires is expected and deeply embedded.”
One more thought: What you describe here, John, is hardly a new phenomena. Gratification of desires is as old as Eden.

The Word of God is not ambiguous about what sin is and what not sin. Nor is the Bible ambiguous about God?s design for sexuality. There is no credible science regarding genetics and the homosexual, it is a social view that homosexuality is an orientation. This is not a Biblical concept. God created heterosexuals?the problem is that many heterosexuals choose homosexuality because of lust?please read Romans Chapter 1:18-32?the problem with the Non-Biblical world view that seems to dominate these discussions is the belief that the Bible is not truly the word of God. There are many people who call themselves Christians who redefine Biblical standards to fit their own social views, so that they can fulfill their own lustful desires. The truth of God?s word brings freedom, not repression, the freedom is from sin, not acceptance of sin?The truth cannot be redefined because I am uncomfortable with it?God?s mercy is rich and powerful, and it doesn?t matter what the sin is, Jesus went to the cross because of His intense love for us, and His extreme desire for us not to die in our sin. The redemptive purpose of God can release us from the deception that sinful lifestyles are God?s plan. God?s redemptive plan is for everyone, accepts everyone, and the demand that rests on all of us is to repent of that sin and turn from it.

Jerry,
With all due respect, your comment is uninformed and is nothing more than sticking one’s head in the sand.
There are plenty of people who love ALL of Scripture and take it and sin and redemption very seriously (I am one such person) and yet come to very different conclusions than you, and for very good reasons that have nothing to do with wanting to just make excuses for sin.

Thank you, please instruct me Biblically, (not socially or psychologically) where is homosexuality not defined as sin in Scripture? And where is it defined as an orientation in Scripture? (Chapter and Verse Please) You won?t find it. I am not hiding my head in the sand I know what our modern society says about homosexuality, I have looked at the research, and I know the conclusions many have come to (claiming a love for Scripture.) You may love it but you don?t believe it. I challenge your belief system, and world view as non-Biblical. I have had the distinct privilege of leading several homosexuals to Christ, and the best thing that ever happened to them was the freedom they experienced in repenting of their sin, and seeing the wonderful life transformation, when they stopped believing the lie. The mercy of God is fully experienced in repentance. Not denial or redefinition of truth?you are free to believe what you want, but don?t say those beliefs are Biblical when the Bible doesn?t teach them. Not trying to make you feel bad, but truth is not about how you feel; truth is based on Biblical authority, and as I said before the Bible is not ambiguous on this topic.

Wow, great conversation.
How about masturbation? Does that help? I mean isn’t that sorta lika a similar thing?
Dave

I mean, not to equate masturbators with gay or vice versa, just to say that it is a sexual act without a victom that is generally condemmed by religion. I assume that you all think that is sin, right? So back to the main question, how do we relate to masturbators? And do we relate to them differently if they are fantasizing about different things?
Dave

uhhh…that’s an odd assumption. “All” would be a stretch at best.

Jeremy, I guess I am going back to my catholic upbringing where it was emphatically taught to be a sin…has that changed?
How about two people doing that in the same room? Do they have to touch each other for it to be a sin? How about on the phone at the same time? How about only one doing it? How about two people agreeing that they are going to go to their separate houses and do it?
Where is the sin line?

Jeremy, sorry I get it. When I said “you all” I meant “y’all”

On the Catholic side, no. On the Protestant side, even James Dobson has said it isn’t a sin.
As for the line, it’s lust. If we expand on Jesus’ statement regarding lust and marriage (lust is committing adultery in your heart), then actively lusting after someone is pretty on par with having sex with them…though the consequences are obviously different.
Note that lust is different from desire. A small number of Christians view all desire as evil, but most of us know better.
Also, my Captcha is “Mr Pungency.” This is quite awesome.

ahhh…ya’ll I understand.

Friends,
Does anybody here believe our hardwiring is cross-wired by sin, and therefore we can’t assume that’s “how God made us” and therefore desires us to be?
Chad – You’ve been very articulate and generous with your views. But I’m still wondering how you respond to Michael’s basic point:
“All of us are oriented towards all sorts of things. Some these orientations likely have varying degrees of genetic predisposition. But there are many orientations we curb, deny, or otherwise manage for moral reasons. Saying someone has a genetic orientation toward a particular behavior doesn’t legitimate anything.”
Thoughts?

JL,
Thank you for your compliment. It’s much easier on a forum like this where the rhetoric isn’t ramped up to insane degrees (check out Jennifer’s facebook fan page for a taste of the darkside)
To answer your question, I believe the place to begin is with Scripture (contrary to Jerry’s suspicion of me or others who hold my view). I believe when the Scriptures are seriously studied on this issue of homosexuality we learn that it is not addressing what we are talking about today (a loving, committed, same-sex relationship). The behavior it is addressing has to do with pagan liturgical practices and/or abusive, dominating sex done not out of love but to either intimidate or worship (and these acts, Paul notes, are against the nature of the people doing them).
So that is the starting point. With that said, Scripture has much to say about how we can live faithfully in relationship with God and our neighbor (including a “spouse”).
But let’s look at this another way. Rather than talking in abstracts, as I think Michael’s point does, let’s bring it down to some concrete realities. What specific orientations do we curb or deny because they are sinful which we can then compare with the orientation of loving someone of the same gender? Can you give some specific examples of these? I think that would be helpful.
thanks

Chad,
That is where I was trying to go with the masturbation issue. Where is the line? If it is lust, as Jeremy said, then do we condemn everyone who admits lusting a same sex person?
Thanks for your patient and articulate conversation.
Dave

Dave, Yes, I see what you are getting at. And how do people police lust? (they can’t. something about letting God be the judge?)
But to flesh this idea of desires or orientations we try to curb because they are sinful, let’s consider a few (JL or Michael or anyone else, feel free to add others or let me know if I am missing your point)…
Food. Some people might have an inborn desire to eat a lot – to be gluttonous. So, they try to curb this desire because they see it has a hold over them. Why? Perhaps because they realize food has become an idol and they think about it more than anything else. Perhaps because they realize this is an unhealthy way to live and it is not honoring their body. These are good, righteous reasons to curb this desire.
Stealing. Some people are kleptomaniacs. They can’t help but steal. They might say this is just how they are wired. But why is this wrong? Stealing robs another person of their belongings. It is to take something that is not yours, which violates a fundamental character of being a good neighbor and loving people in community (notice I did not need to quote Scripture to show why stealing is sinful and not an activity that belongs in Kingdom living).
Lust or Adultery. One of the common arguments made by people convinced homosexuality is a sin is they say “Well, if we can do anything we want why not say adultery is OK? After all, my inborn desire is to lust after other women and the heart wants what the heart wants – so why can’t I be promiscuous?”
To answer, adultery breaks a covenant made between two people before God. It violates the trust of our neighbor (in this case, a spouse) and leaves families in ruin, causing heart ache and pain. And for what? To satisfy someone’s selfish needs that should be met within the confines of marriage. (note again that I did not quote Scripture to say adultery is sinful, yet it is clear that it is).
These are just 3 examples and I’m sure we could think of many more. But how do any of these compare to a person who is wired to love and be attracted to someone of the same sex entering into a loving, committed relationship with that person? Can you explain to me why that is sin without quoting Scripture in the same way I described the above desires as sin without quoting Scripture?

Chad and JL,
Don’t we have an interplay of hardwiring, hardwiring crosswired by sin, and God’s ideal for humanity? I have a problem with this issue because it is so hard to know where to draw the lines.
Alcoholism is cause in large part by hardwiring – not everyone is destined to alcoholism, but not everyone who is hardwired in that direction will foster the behaviors that lead to a destructive condition.
Genetically caused deafness is hardwired – and no one, no matter how they behave, can influence that fact without artificial intervention. Hardwiring is firmly determinative.
Sexual behavior and orientation is some mix, or seems to be some mix, of “absolute and uncontrollable hardwiring” and behavior and history reinforcing and building specific “brain pathways” so to speak. Gender and orientation are not black and white issues (no matter how much some want to make it this simple).
In fact someone on one of these posts commented that he thought this issue raises such a response because so many deal with conflicted attractions themselves. Frankly, I think that orientation and attraction is something of a continuum and we cannot rule out a role for both uncontrollable hardwiring and behavior and history modified consequence (i.e. crosswiring as a result of sin).
The response of the church is (or should be) much different if we are talking about an uncontrollable genetic, biochemical hardwiring than if we are talking about a behavior modified brain and body response. In general God does not “fix hardwiring” upon conversion. He seems to leave us with our thorns.
We reach God’s ideal within the constraints of this world.

RJS,
Good thoughts. As the rabbi who teaches my rabbinic wisdom course is fond of saying, those are far better questions than any one answer.
Alcoholism brings up an interesting contrast, I think. An alcoholic is always an alcoholic, even if they are dry. I suppose one could argue that a homosexual is always a homosexual even if they are chaste and remain single (as the church demands they do). The similarity breaks down, I think, when we consider the effects of what happens when either case, the alcoholic or homosexual, actually ACTS in the way they are wired. Should the alcoholic actually BE an alcoholic the effect is disastrous for their life. They might lose their job, their family – everything – and end up wasting their life away in a bottle. Those who affirm or empower the alcoholic to just be what they are wired to be are only cheering a person on to their own demise as they become consumed by their addict.
Is the same true of the homosexual? What if the homosexual were to actually BE a homosexual? Well, they might meet someone and fall in love. They might have love returned to them in a way that is fulfilling and life giving. They might start a family, perhaps adopting orphans that nobody else wants. Rather than living a lie and pretending to be attracted to a woman (should they choose to find intimacy somewhere) they could live with integrity. Those who affirm or empower them, such as a church, could model healthy relationships and pray with the couple that they love God and neighbor and continue to nurture sanctifying grace in their bond with each other and the God they serve.
Does this make sense? I confess that this is the first time I have thought some of these things through in the way I am processing it here on Scot’s blog. What holes might anyone see in the above scenarios?

I can’t help but think that the act itself is not the issue. The issue is the effect. As it is permissible to eat meat sacrificed to idols unless it causes another to sin I believe we can make the act of being in a same sex relationship not a sin just by the way we represent and react to it.
If society treats it as a sin, then there is a good chance that it causes sin and is therefore sin. If society treats monogomous same sex relationships as not sin, then it most likely does not cause sin and therefore is not sin.
Alcoholism clearly causes sin and suffering.
Dave

Dave,
I think there is a lot of truth to what you are saying. It reminds me of Jesus’ words about “binding” and “loosing.”