The caller to my radio program said: “I was born gay.”
I said, “No, you weren’t.”
He said, “Yes, I was.”
I said, “No, you weren’t.”
He said, Yes, I was.”
I said, “No you weren’t.”
He then asked, “But since I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember then how did I get this way?”
(I prayed for help because I knew there were several different kinds of factors that might lead a man or woman to have homosexual inclinations.)
I said, “Okay, this isn’t the only way that a boy might become gay but this is a typical way. Your father was largely absent from your life. You felt like he didn’t like you and didn’t accept you. In the mean time, your mother didn’t get along with your father that well either so she began to share her most intimate emotions with you and she began to raise you up as her little man. She undermined your masculinity and told you things like ‘if you go out and play football, the football might cave in your chest.’ And where you should have been learning sexual aggression towards women, you couldn’t be sexual with your own mother so that aspect of your personality was suppressed. Ever since, you’ve been trying to make up for feeling abandoned by your father by getting the attention of other men.”
There was a pause.
Then, quietly, he said, “That’s what happened to me.”
After the program my co-host prayed a prayer of repentance and commitment to Christ with him.
This is as close as I can remember our conversation and I tell you this because many Christians have fallen into the faulty dilemma that homosexuality is either innate (“I was born that way”) or it is a choice. Certainly for some practicing the homosexual lifestyle, it is a choice, but not for most. For most the socialization process began early and although there are different ways one might find themselves with homosexual inclinations (being molested is another common one), often it is because of what psychologists call “same sex deprivation.” In other words, the gay man or woman felt rejected by the same sex parent and is trying to make up for that loss ever since (by the way, if a girl feels rejected by her father she can become quite a flirt—or worse).
There is good news here. If a person can be socialized into having homosexual desires, with the grace of Christ he or she, in time, might, be socialized out of them. And this is where the Christian church comes in. Christian churches must accept and love those struggling with homosexual inclinations (we shouldn’t accept into fellowship the unrepentant—gay or straight) because the Christian church is the only place on planet earth where they can get what they need—intimate, loving, non-sexual relationships with both sexes. We need to love those struggling with homosexual desires just as we need to love those who are struggling with adulterous desires.
I wrote that the person with homosexual desires “might” be socialized out of them because emotions ingrained for many years just can’t be switched off by an intellectual decision. Although some people who had strong homosexual desires are now living in fulfilling heterosexual marriages, that doesn’t mean that that will happen to everyone. For a recent example of someone who left the homosexual lifestyle and is now married heterosexually see the book from professor and former lesbian activist Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert (Pittsburgh: Crown and Covenant, 2012). Individuals who continue to find the opposite sex unattractive can honor God though celibacy just as millions of unmarried heterosexuals have done and are doing. For an account of someone with homosexual inclinations who is living the celebate lifestyle see Wesley Hill, Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010). And single people aren’t second class citizens in God economy. Consider Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 7:32-35:
I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
Notice that the Scripture honors celibacy and Christian churches need to do likewise.
Whatever the case, we must accept others with humility. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in Life Together: “If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all.”
Galatians 6:2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
Amen.
For information regarding scientific studies and homosexual inclination see Stanton L. Jones, Ph.D. & Mark A. Yarhouse, Psy.D., Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church’s Moral Debate (Grand Rapids: IVP Academic, 2000); and Jeffrey Satinover, M.D., Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Grand Rapdis: Baker, 1996).