Well, never doubt the power of the media. My recent article on homosexuality ignited a firestorm in the public square. Why? We may never know – but the controversy represents both a challenge and an opportunity.
I must admit much frustration about the way many in the media have handled the issue. Headlines proclaimed "Seminary President Says Babies Born Gay" – something I neither believe nor said. Other articles and reports claimed that I suggested that homosexuality may be genetic in origin and that genetic therapies should be used to create customized and corrected babies. I never even mentioned genetic therapies or germ-line experiments, and I am adamantly opposed to genetic therapies of such a sort – real or hypothetical. Reading these reports and headlines was a painful and exasperating experience. If I believed those things attributed to me, I would not agree with myself and would condemn myself.
I am even more frustrated with many conservative Christians who read the secular headlines without even bothering to read my article. They jumped to conclusions that I do not hold and castigated me for advocating things I have opposed all my life. I have received a great deal of hate mail from those identifying themselves as homosexuals outraged that I believe homosexual acts to be unconditionally sinful. But I also received mail that can only be described as hateful from those who identified themselves as Christians – people who clearly had never read my article and simply jumped to conclusions or accepted misrepresentations. Furthermore, some who identified themselves as Christians spoke of homosexuality and homosexuals with hate-filled language that literally made me shudder. Do we really love sinners? Do we not understand ourselves to be sinners saved by grace?
I have been gratified by those who have articulated serious concerns, but who later, after reading my actual article, expressed gratitude for a serious attempt to think through these urgent issues from a biblical perspective.
There is no way that I can answer the avalanche of questions and issues individually, but here are a few thoughts that might help us think together.
To my fellow evangelical Christians:
1. Let's get this straight – God's condemnation of sin is not determined by science, but by God's Word. The Bible could not be more clear – all forms of homosexual behavior are expressly condemned as sin. In so doing the Bible uses its strongest vocabulary and places this condemnation in the larger context of the Creator's rightful expectation of our stewardship of the sexual gift. All manifestations of homosexuality are thus representations of human sinfulness and rebellion against God's express will. Nothing can alter this fact, and no discovery in science or any other human endeavor can change God's verdict.
2. There is no conclusive research that indicates any biological basis for sexual orientation. But – and this is a big "if" here – if science were ever to discover a correlation or causation with biological factors, Christians should not be surprised. We believe in the catastrophic and comprehensive effects of the Fall and God's judgment upon sin.
