Turbulence Ahead!
Thoughts and Concerns Regarding
“Guiding Families of LGBT+ Loved Ones”
Adventist Edition
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” (Psalm 119:105)
Having carefully read through the book Guiding Families of LGBT+ Loved Ones, and having personally attended one of Bill Henson’s Posture Shift seminars, I was impressed with the sincere focus on the need for love, compassion, understanding and dialogue in relating to loved ones who have adopted the LGBT+ culture. However, I was also left with some thoughts, questions and concerns about the approach being recommended to Christians as a way to minister to the needs of these loved ones.
The Christian community today seems to be strongly divided on this issue. So I very much appreciate God’s personal invitation found in Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, and let us reason together….” Using God’s word and His reasoning is really the only way to safely navigate the turbulent conditions in which we Christians find ourselves today in addressing the conflicting approaches to the LGBT+ issue.
Using this approach, I would like to respectfully address some of the recommendations of concern put forth in the Guiding Families Book:
1) Posture Shift. “[Christians] must shift our behavioral posture to ensure that our actions, attitudes, and words reflect those of Jesus.”
The inference here is that the church needs to change its position regarding the LGBT issue, rather than the LGBT person needing a change of heart and behavior. We often see the emphasis of this appealing doctrine to be on that of love and acceptance to the exclusion of the need for repentance, submission, and transformation of character. Laying aside every preconceived idea, we need to humbly and prayerfully seek the word of God and allow Jesus to clarify such issues. For example, the words of Jesus, “Neither do I condemn you” are words of great compassion. However, He immediately follows by saying, “Go and sin no more,” a statement which commands no compromise or accommodation for sin. No posture shift. We must be careful to not shift away from this Biblical balance of forgiveness and cleansing in an effort to promote only forgiveness, for this imbalance will result in a sure drift away from the charted course to eternal life.
2) “Learn to love and nurture our LGBT young people.”
We must ask what kind of love and nurture is here being promoted? We can love them down the broad road to destruction, OR, we can and should love them into and along the narrow way, which leads to eternal life… Our choice is then between a cheap, indulgent love, OR, a genuine, Godly love that leads to a new and transformed life in Christ.
3) “It is our responsibility not to try to change one’s LGBT orientation and/or identity.”
Orientation is a direction of choice, according to the dictionary. And a change of direction would be re-orientation, or, spiritually speaking a conversion of the heart. We must not conflate temptation with orientation, for Jesus Himself was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15) We do not identify His orientation by the nature of those temptations. So let us be consistent in our understanding with those dealing with the LGBT temptations. Every one truly coming to Christ, including the LGBT person, chooses to change orientation (direction) and identity.
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
4) “God loves them unconditionally.”
Yes, and God loves everyone who is lost. His love for LGBT people and everyone else was dramatically displayed by Jesus’ all-sufficient sacrifice on the cross. However, that transforming love and power must be accepted, or the sinner whom God loves “unconditionally” will, in the end, be consumed in his sin.
“But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” (Romans 5:8,10)
Also, “For the love of Christ constrains us…that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” (2 Corinthians 5:14,15)
5) “LGBT Christians may be deeply religious and can have a happy future.”
But we must understand that there are also deeply religious pagans, as well as Christians, who will still come up short in the end. Being deeply religious is not enough.
“Not everyone that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)
6) “Our focus on the LGBT issue should shift from causation to compassion. Your LGBT loved one needs your faithful presence, understanding, and compassion.”
The Gospel is about much more than compassion. Our true love and compassion will compel us to try to show a more meaningful and fulfilling way, a way that requires daily surrender, discipleship, resistance to temptation, victory at last and transformation of character. The word of God says,
“Present your bodies a living sacrifice…” (Romans 12:1)
“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Romans 12:2)
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus…” (Philippians 2:5)
“Bring every thought into captivity unto the obedience of Christ…” (2 Corinthians 10:5)
“For it is God which works in you to both will and to do of His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)
“Being confident of this very thing, that He which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)
Ad infinitum
7) “People can choose their behaviors but not their identity.”
I do not believe this statement can bear up under Scriptural scrutiny. I spent many years living as homosexual, both in behavior and identity. However again, the word of God says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Inspired commentary on this text says, “The new birth consists in having new motives, new tastes, and new tendencies.” And, “A genuine conversion (change…) changes both hereditary and cultivated tendencies to wrong.” (Review & Herald, 4/12/1892; Letter 105, 1893)
I have now been married for 27 years, and we have five children, (mine, hers, and ours). My orientation, which is defined as a direction of choice, is Christ-centered and heterosexual. I can not imagine ever going back to the life of self-destruction and degradation I left behind by the grace of God. (His divine, omnipotent, transforming power)
In ministry events around the world, we continually meet people who, by the same grace of God, have turned away from the LGBT behavior and now identify as new creatures in Christ. Many are happily married and well adjusted in their new lives.
8) “We believe that sharing God’s love and acceptance is a necessary condition of being faithful to the Bible”
“Love and Acceptance” is an appealing doctrine, but a dangerous one, one in which all churches, denominations and religions can unite under the headship of one leader… Though it does present an element truth, it is not the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is the kind of love that pacifies the sinner all the way down the broad way to destruction, rather than up the narrow way, which leads to life.
Why? Because the Gospel is about so much more than just love and acceptance. This is just the beginning. Yes, “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) But as a loving Father He wants what is best for His children. Therefore, He gives us instruction through His word that, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine (teaching), for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16,17)
Like those of any other loving parent, all God’s actions come from the perfect heart of a loving Father, i.e., His teachings/instructions, His reproofs, His corrections, His warnings, and, yes, even His punishments. All come from the heart of Love.
God is not willing that any should perish, that any LGBT person should perish, but that all should come to repentance. For sin, including LGBT sin, is the transgression of the law, and the wages of sin is death, eternal death. It is a cheap love that will only love and accept and dialogue, without leading one to truly accept Jesus as Lord of his life and Master, without leading one to the foot of the cross in total surrender of the heart and the will, without leading one into the discipline of discipleship that will lead to transformation of character into the image of Christ.
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