The Bible’s View
Homosexuals and the Christian Congregation
“EPISCOPAL Panel Advises Church Not to Bar Homosexual Priests.” This headline in the June 4, 1979, issue of the New York Times was followed by a report from a 12-member national Episcopal Church commission. It endorsed the ordaining of homosexuals who “because of the enormous cultural pressure against them” do not want to be exposed, and others “who have suffered long enough and want to come out of the closet.” The report continued:
“The question, with regard to any ordinand, is whether he or she can and will lead a life which is a wholesome example to Christ’s flock. There should be no barrier to the ordination of those homosexual persons who are able and willing to conform their behavior to that which the church affirms as wholesome. Some homosexual persons can so conform their behavior and have done so, some even as they have acknowledged their homosexuality, while others cannot or will not.”
A few years ago a talk-show hostess had as a guest a man who had established a church for homosexuals. Both the panel of guests and the audience were very permissive about homosexuals being good Christians and ministers of God. However, the hostess of the show maintained her opposition to this on Biblical grounds. She received the following letter from one of the home viewers, which supplied Scriptural support for her stand:
“I appreciated your conduct of your Friday evening show, September 11. Beleaguered by both panel and audience, you stood your ground relative to homosexuality.
“The appalling thing about Troy Perry is that he forms a church for homosexuals and contends it’s God approved. He sought to justify it on your program by quoting Hebrews 10:25 about not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. He reasoned that that included homosexuals.
“The Law of Moses did not permit a homosexual to exist within the congregation of God: ‘If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.’—Leviticus 20:13, Revised Standard Version.
“The New Testament repeated the condemnation: ‘God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.’—Romans 1:26, 27.
“To have a church for homosexuals is akin to having one for murderers, robbers, adulterers, etc. Such persons may come into God’s favor, but to do so they abandon their wrongdoing: ‘Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.’—First Corinthians 6:9-11, RSV.
“In the chapter just before the above quotation Christians are told not to associate with those guilty of the above immoralities, even though they call themselves Christian brothers. They were to be put out of the congregation. This hardly sounds like assembling together with them.—First Corinthians 5:9-13.
“Homosexuality is also called sodomy, a word derived from the city of Sodom that was destroyed by God for practicing homosexuality.
“The style today is to be ultra-broadminded. June Lockhart accused you of moralizing. Today moralizing is a no-no. Homosexuality isn’t. Few things are. But moralizing is. We should expect this. In a society that is in the throes of a moral breakdown, we must expect moralizing to be grossly unpopular. We must be permissive of everything, or be accused of being harsh and cruel and void of understanding. But you don’t have to commit murder to understand it. You may be sympathetic toward those with a weakness for homosexuality without approving it.
“Do your own thing? But what if you have dedicated yourself to God and obligated yourself to His thing? All of us have weaknesses to resist and strive to overcome. The righteous man falls seven times and gets up. We must keep getting up. We must do that most difficult of things—say no to ourselves.
“But saying no to ourselves is another modern no-no. We avoid that distasteful chore by embracing a new morality. Which is only the old immorality with an ‘Approved’ label pasted on it.
“But we should not rope God into it and claim he also approves it. He may get sick and tired of us, as he did with people before us. Malachi 2:17 tells about it: ‘You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them.”’
“A permissive society may applaud the modern School of Anything Goes, but God expresses a different view, as recorded at Isaiah 5:20: ‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!’
“Virginia, I enjoy your show and I appreciate your spunk.”
The talk-show hostess replied to this letter: “Thank you for your most informative letter. I agree with you thoroughly and am most appreciative.”