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Homosexuality and Christianity:
09/02/2007
I applaud my church’s courage in inviting Joe Dallas (http://www.joedallas.com/) to discuss with us his views on how the church today should respond to the growing influence of homosexuality on our culture. It is a highly controversial topic and one which I feel strongly about but doctrines vary widely. So I looked forward to hearing him with a mix of fear and anticipation. Fear that it might be just another wishy-washy example of Peter Pan theology (“just keep your happy thoughts”) but hopeful anticipation that maybe he might bring something of substance.
Joe spent the entire day with us (speaking at the two morning services, a 4:00 Q & A for families with homosexual members, and a 6:00 service addressing pro-gay theology) which made me admire his endurance. I attended each meeting and took notes during the last two. I love my church and I wanted to ensure that the teachings on these matters were sound. There is a pandemic of false teachers today teaching from warped theological viewpoints who simply tell desperate people what they want to hear and I wanted to ensure that this did not occur at my church.
Matthew 7:15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
Jeremiah 6:14 “They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, saying, 'Peace, peace,' but there is no peace.”
Before I go further, allow me to state for the record that the Bible is very clear about how God feels about homosexuality. He calls it sin and hates it. This is reinforced in both the Old and New Testament.
1 Corinthians 6:9,10 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
Sunday Morning Service
His Sunday morning service was mostly taken from his message “How Then Should We Respond? Developing An Effective Answer to the Gay Rights Movement” (http://www.joedallas.com/resources/How%20Should%20We%20Then%20Respond-Article.pdf) which was first delivered in 2002 at the “Love Won Out” conference on homosexuality sponsored by Focus on the Family. It expounded on the following principles:
After his testimony, he opened the floor to questions. The questions were almost as painful and complicated as the answers:
“How should I treat my son’s lover? Should I invite him for family holidays? Should I allow him to stay over? What boundaries should I set?”
“Should I attend my daughter’s union ceremony?”
“My adolescent grandson wants to know if he’s gay…what should I tell him?”
“My son is homosexual but a Spirit-filled Christian…what can I say to him?”
Joe fielded the questions as best he could but on some of them all he could do is offer Biblical principles to guide them. However, I think that the sheer act of asking the questions and sharing them with people who knew their pain was beneficial in itself.
Pro-gay Theology
The evening service was focused on Pro-gay Theology and how to respond to it. It was extremely informative and I recommend that you read the text. You can find it in three parts below:
Responding to Pro-Gay Theology, Part I: Social Justice Arguments
In a nutshell, Pro-gay Theology “takes scriptures we are all familiar with, gives them an entirely new interpretation, backs its claims with well-credentialed scholars, and gives birth to a new sexual ethic.” Joe Dallas has an emphatic call for the church: “With the love Christ showed while weeping over Jerusalem, and the anger He displayed when clearing the Temple, the Church must respond.”
Concerns
There were a couple of issues which concerned me. I started to ask a question about it but decided it might be better to ask him privately via e-mail. However he is a very busy man and I have not received a reply as of this writing.
One point which was reiterated in the family and evening sessions said in so many words that if your homosexual loved one is unsaved, then the Gospel is primary and their homosexuality is secondary. One is a salvation issue and the other is a corrective issue. Intended or not, I’m afraid that it left the audience with the impression that you can accept Christ as your savior, be filled with the Spirit, and on your way to heaven without ever acknowledging and repenting of the sin of homosexuality. It’s sort of like a man having an affair on his wife accepting Christ but never acknowledging that there was anything wrong with the affair or ever ending it. Is it possible for someone who is actively engaged in homosexual behavior to be born again (as opposed to just adopting the trappings of Christian culture) without acknowledging homosexuality as sin and coming to God with a sincere desire to repent of it? Of course, the question is rhetorical. I understand that with homosexuality (just as with other vices) that people often struggle with the sin for years. Just because you are born again and sincerely desire to be holy before your God doesn’t mean that you won’t stumble ever again. But I think it’s important for people to understand that being born of the Spirit can not occur without the person being honest with themselves and with God about their sin and sincerely seeking to repent of it. You can’t “get saved” and then worry about dealing with your homosexual sin later. If so, then perhaps we need to go with the Pro-gay interpretation of 1 Corinthians 6:9,10…it obviously doesn’t mean what it says…
Of course, once you become a Christian, it is possible to become entangled in various sinful activities? Yes. Does that mean that you lose your salvation? No! But it does mean that God WILL discipline you to whatever extent you make it necessary in order to bring you to repentance up to and including taking your life. Just look at the history of Israel, the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5, 1 Corinthians 5, or Hebrews 10 and 12.
Another point which was brought up was how we need to reach out to the homosexual community and bring them into our church. I agree that we want everyone who will to come in the hope that they will come to repentance. They should feel right at home sitting next to the liars, the swindlers, the greedy, and the fornicators. However, my fear is that unless the church leadership is unabashedly preaching God’s Word about sin and repentance and willing to exercise church discipline, then the end result will be a church full of people living comfortably in all sorts of sin including homosexuality resting in the confidence that no one will ever say anything that might offend them. The church would become just another “feel good” humanitarian organization and that is already too true of the majority of our churches.
In conclusion, Joe Dallas has a powerful message which needs to be heard and acted upon by Christians within the church today. The homosexual agenda is becoming bolder and more prevalent with each passing day and the church is showing it’s true colors by rolling over and playing dead…or maybe it’s not playing. But we must make it clear that there is NO salvation without repentance and that if you come to our church openly living in sin then you will not be comfortable here because we will “preach the Word in season and out.”
Review of a Joe Dallas Seminar
1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
After spending the better part of a day listening to Joe, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I agreed with the vast majority of what he had to say. For the most part, I found it to be a scripturally and doctrinally sound balance that maintained the necessity of an uncompromised Biblical view of homosexuality while maintaining a relationship with those who are homosexual.
Romans 1:26-28 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper…
But one should also note that He lumped it in there with fornicating, being a drunkard, and swindling. He hates those sins, too. For those of you who know me, you know that I usually attend Gay Pride parades where I pass out Christian tracts. The reason that I do this is not because I have a particular problem with homosexuals, but that I have a particular problem with sin. Especially when it involves a parade with churches shouting to the world that God smiles on the sin and gives it His blessing. If they were having an Adulterer’s Pride parade or a Thieve’s Pride parade I’d be there for that one, too. But I digress…
I invite you to read it in its entirety by click on the link above. However, he summed it up well in the final paragraph.
“Our willingness to repent of our own sin, love without rancor, and stand for truth in the
face of danger, will indicate our broader commitment to Christ-like living in a fallen
world. God grant that now, more than ever, that commitment remains intact.”
Family Session
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The session for those with family members who are homosexual was smaller and more casual. There were a little less than a hundred people all of whom were painfully struggling with a loved one who had “come out.” Joe started with the above quote from the Gospel of John emphasizing that Jesus was full of grace AND truth. In no way did he compromise His holiness but He spoke the truth while still showing grace to the sinners He came to save…a perfect balance which we must also have in our relationship to homosexuals. He then gave a bit of his own testimony. He had been raped by a man as a young boy and had many homosexual relationships with older men as a young teenager. However, a few years later, he accepted the Lord and soon found himself married and in ministry. When his marriage fell apart, he soon found himself back in the gay lifestyle and eventually became active in a gay church. There he learned the pro-gay arguments and theology. However, in 1984, God brought him to repentance. Since that time he has felt called to minister to those in sexual addiction and to homosexuals in particular.
Responding to Pro-Gay Theology, Part II: General Religious Arguments
Responding to Pro-Gay Theology, Part III: Scriptural Arguments