- I plan to do a series of posts on the topic of homosexuality, gay Christians, and the Church, and I invite your comments.
- Please watch (below) or listen to the sermon before making a comment.
- Please do not “Internet troll” the comment section. There are plenty of forums out there for that and it won’t be tolerated on this page, from either side of the spectrum. It simply isn’t loving or productive. Those posts will be deleted.
- There are more things I wanted to say than I could fit into this sermon, and I know Jim felt the same. There are also some things I wish I would have emphasized more that I didn’t. These are things I will post in my next post in this series and will funnel responses to your comments to that post and future posts, but feel free to comment here.
Audio only:
All of the posts in this “Gay Christian” series:
- Gay Christian? A sermon by Noah Filipiak and Jim Decke
- Jim on Nature vs. Nurture
- Thoughts on gay marriage
- Is legalizing gay marriage the same as legalizing polygamy?
- Can a gay Christian still identify themselves as “Gay”?
- Are there different levels of being gay?
Related posts:
How is your church talking about gay marriage & homosexuality?
What does the Bible say about homosexuality?
Ep. 41: Interview with Wesley Hill on Covenant Friendships as a Biblical Path of Love for Celibate G...
Ep. 43: Interview with Laurie Krieg on what a mixed-orientation marriage can teach us about love and...
Gay Christian follow-up from Jim Decke, part 1 - Nature vs. Nurture
Founding Pastor at Mosaic Church
Noah is the founding pastor of Mosaic Church, a multi-ethnic church in urban Grand Rapids, MI. He is a grad of Grand Rapids Theological Seminary.
He is:
Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
Host of the The Flip Side Podcast
Join an online men's small group led by Noah and team at BeyondTheBattle.net
He is:
Author of Beyond the Battle: A man's guide to his identity in Christ in an oversexualized world
Host of the The Flip Side Podcast
Join an online men's small group led by Noah and team at BeyondTheBattle.net
Latest posts by Noah Filipiak (see all)
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Thank you for tackling this topic head on and I look forward to reading the followup posts. One specific that I’d like to see you and/or Jim expand on is the whole idea of “nature vs nurture” when it comes to homosexuality. It’s hard to argue with Jim’s personal testimony of “…I didn’t choose this” but I don’t think that is the same as saying “I was born this way” or is it? One reason I’d like to explore this further is because of the phrasing in Romans 1 – “exchanging the natural for the unnatural”. I can just hear the argument that if people (or animals for that matter) are born “that way” how can it be considered unnatural? What follows from that is a school of thought that homosexual relationships within the confines of a monogamous marriage is okay.
Ironically even as I write this the age old question comes to mind – are we sinners because we sin or do we sin because we are sinners? Regardless Jesus is the answer to the broken world we live in.
Thanks for addressing this topic! Too often it seems like churches stay away from topics like these but it’s important to talk about. One question: What if the person doesn’t recognize that homosexuality is a sin or something they “struggle” with? I like the way the Jim deals with it and we can still, as believers, approach those who struggle with homosexuality the same way (as equal sinners) but the chances are they won’t recognize it as sin.
Hi Amanda, that question has an easy answer and a hard answer. If they are a non-Christian, the answer is easy to me. I just treat them like I treat any other non-Christian friend of mind. I don’t judge them for their behavior, or even feel the need to confront them. It’s like confronting a non-Christian friend who is sleeping with their boyfriend or girlfriend, it’s just not something I see any point in. I want them to know Jesus so I tell them about Jesus, regardless of whatever list of sins they are involved in. But I can’t expect them to abide by Christ’s words if they are not Christ-followers. The hard answer to your question is what to say to them if they are Christians, yet they still don’t acknowledge what the Bible says about this behavior being a sin. Maybe Jim can shed some light on that? My real life answer is that it is going to depend on the situation, how mature of a Christian are they? How long have they been a Christian? Etc. But in general, up to this point, my best answer to that is to refer them to a church who also doesn’t believe the behavior is a sin, but I’m not sure if that is a good response or not. In either case, I try to treat it like I would any other sin issue, one way for a Christian and another way for a non-Christian.
Thanks Noah for responding! I do know of homosexuals who are Christians and don’t believe their behavior to be a sin so it’s hard. There is sin in my own life that I’m sure I’m not fully aware of myself and might be upset if someone called me out on it. I also agree with what you said about those who are non-believers. I can’t hold them to Christian standards if they aren’t one. I think the most important thing is the rely on the fact that I don’t consider myself any better than them because I have my own sin, in hopes that they may see hope for themselves in that through Christ. Do you plan on having anymore sermons on this topic in the weeks to come, I’d like to come if you do!
A good movie that helps to understand Christians that are fully affirming to their homosexual brothers and sisters is Fish Out of Water, i’m not saying their views are valid or convincing to everyone but its a good overview. fishoutofwaterfilm.com/
Thanks for the video recommendation Zane, Jen and I watched it tonight. This was a really difficult movie for me to watch… there were some good things in it, most notably hearing the stories and the pain that gays and lesbians endured by the negative response of their Christian parents… but the video was so biased and slanted that it made it hard for me to respect. They set up a lot of straw men by arguing against verses that no one actually uses to teach against homosexuality, which was annoying. And their argument about the New Testament verses that are against homosexuality was that they said the word “homosexuality” wasn’t coined until the 1900’s and Paul wrote in the 50’s A.D. so how could that have been what he meant? Which is silly, because there are tons of English words in the English Bible that weren’t coined until the 1900’s, and no one questions those. It’s why we do scholarly biblical interpretation where meaning for meaning is given from what was written to the English words that the modern reader actually uses. And they gave that nut-job baptist church from Colorado, the “God Hates Fags” church soooo much video coverage, and even interviewing their pastor, I lost a lot of respect for the documentary’s methodology of arguing. They presented him like he’s a Christian thought-leader or something, whereas in reality that church has around 30 people in it and they are all related, and 100% of Christians think they are nut-jobs. But they don’t present them that way. And the “religious scholars” they interviewed are definitely scholars but they are from Vanderbilt University and Valparaiso University, which are both big universities that, while they may have Christian roots (like 90% of colleges do), these are secular schools now, and thus their religious professors are going to be extremely slanted toward a secular / liberal / P.C. viewpoint. I don’t have a problem with those views being presented, but they should have also interviewed some Evangelical Christian scholars as well from well known respected Evangelical institutions, actual respected scholars within the Christian community. As well as some well respected, well known pastors in the Christian community, not some podunk pastor, who is now speaking for all of Christianity. Like I said there were some good things in there, but it’s unfortunate because to me they get really lost by the overall cynical mood of the movie and the bias way it presents its arguments.
Hey Amanda, I’m hoping to be able to get Noah to let me do another message on homosexuality. There is so much more that I wanted to talk about and even what I did discuss was not as thorough as I wanted it to be. There wasn’t enought time.
Very good presentation – honest, frank, and courageous. Thanks for speaking up about a topic that so many Christians are afraid to address, either for fear of offending homosexuals or of stirring up a hornets nest. You’re so right that sin is sin and let’s just call it was it is, but also that the grace of Jesus is sufficient. I especially appreciated Jim talking about his frustration and anger with God when God didn’t take away this temptation. God can handle the honest frustration and anger just fine; I think he’d rather have that than someone continue in willful sinful behavior.
Hi Noah,
Thanks for posting the sermon. It’s funny for me to think about how you do a sermon about homosexuality every couple years. I remember before we visited Barefoot (probably 5 years ago), I listened to a podcasted sermon you had done (maybe even with Jim?) and decided that I could give it a try. (We never heard one while we were there, so there must be one or two between these that I missed). Just as I did five years ago, I find your clear love for people, the seriousness with which you take all sin, and your conveyance of God’s grace to speak clearly to my heart. I’m thankful that you are still at it. Likewise, I’m thankful for Jim’s honesty and the unique ministry that God has clearly called him to.
I have a couple of reactions:
I think you let Christians off the hook somewhat by making a caricature of the conservative Christian reaction. To be sure, there may be some who make posters protesting homosexuality, but they are few and far between–the extreme that Jim talked about being careful to avoid. Most evangelicals don’t do that. But many evangelicals do oppose gays serving openly in the military, or protecting homosexuals from discrimination in housing or employment, or allowing homosexuals to foster or adopt children, or–yes–have their relationships recognized by the government as marriages so that they can have things like estates transferred, hospital visitations, tax benefits for homes, that straight people take for granted. Please bear with me–I’m not trying to make a political point, but a spiritual one–that our opposition to those things which borders on being reflexive is a result of our own prideful sin.
Your argument that we must call homosexual behavior a sin because it appears that God says so in his Bible is completely reasonable (I have more doubts about what the New Testament is really saying about this, but that’s not my point here). In fact, at its core I think you are saying that’s what sin is–choosing what we want over what God wants. And if we want to be faithful to scripture, you’re saying, then we must call sin those things that God does. Hey person in the Old Testament, eating shrimp is a sin–why because they taste so good, you ask? Because God said it was and that must be good enough. Hey 21st century twenty-five year old, having sex with the person you love and intend to marry is sin–why because I’m in love and committed, you ask? Because God said it should be that way and that must be good enough. We can’t make the Bible say what we want, and sin isn’t about our own or our culture’s prerogative.
Your equally important point, however, is your righteous call to make sure that saying that homosexuality is a sin doesn’t elevate us over anyone else, because we are all sinners. We all hold the same status before God. I’m a world-class sinner (I don’t want to quibble over silver or bronze–but I’m world class). So is everyone I know.
And I would never argue that someone who sleeps with someone of the opposite sex outside of marriage, or someone who gets angry easily and often, or someone who is lazy, or someone who dwells on impure thoughts, or someone who uses porn, or someone who lies often to make themselves look better, or someone who gossips shouldn’t be able to serve his country, live where she wants, adopt children, or have their relationships recognized by the government on the basis that they are also world-class sinners. So why then would I oppose those things for homosexuals? To me the answer is clear: because I don’t really see myself as being a world-class sinner, that I see homosexuals as being in a class worse than me, more unholy, less deserving of being treated well. I’m willing to stone the adulteress woman as Jesus looks on.
So this isn’t to say that one might oppose any of the policies I’m picking on for legitimate policy reasons–that there might not be some convincing non-sin-based reason why you might discriminate against homosexuals. (For example, you might argue that studies show that children raised by homosexual couples in adoptions don’t do as well–although that isn’t what the studies show at all–but you could imagine such an argument.) But I don’t think that explains why evangelicals have historically taken such strong stances at all. We take those stances–I’m arguing–because we think there’s something wrong with homosexuals without recognizing that there’s something equally wrong with us. And in doing so, we are hurting people who are loved by God and doing it worst of all in the name of Jesus.
I have other reactions I might have talked about, but I’ve gone on long enough. Thanks for your good work.
Peace, Jeff
you da man Jeff. why are you always making me think so hard and wrestle with such deep issues? 🙂 i pasted some of your comment into my follow-up post. thank you for pushing me, i really mean that.
Most of you don’t know me so before I get started I think I need to clarify my beliefs. I am religious. I believe that God exists. I go to church almost every
Sunday. However, I’m a picker and chooser. I think that most of the religious documents were created by men, for their own purpose, for their own time and
need to be viewed in that light. Joseph Smith’s main problem was he tried to do this in a time when there was already too much information sharing available.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable. I go to a Christian church, because I think that Jesus’s teaching are the most consistent with my own beliefs, although most wouldn’t define me a Christian based on the popular understanding of the word (namely the whole Son of God thing and dying for sins things). Last week in church I heard a good Abe Lincoln quote that sums things up fairly nicely. “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” This is a bit longer of a preamble than I planned but I think it is necessary to get out there as it is probably a different viewpoint than most of you. I am also a married straight man.
I approach this from a different angle, because I don’t take anything in the Bible as sacred, I’m less interested in what this passage or that passage says. I think that Noah makes some good points about no one being perfect and homosexuality being easy to pick on. It is something that doesn’t appeal to most people and frankly the thought of participating is repulsive to many, so if you are looking to gather a following it is good dividing line. You can also make some good societal arguments about how it decreases the survivability of some culture by lowering the reproductive rates (although this only works in very low resource/population situations and the counter argument can be made in “easier” times.)
The reason that I am writing this is that last night I was thinking about the question of what is different between homosexuality and divorce. Although I agree with the sentiment that divorce is popular so people don’t rally against it, I think there are differences that makes divorce harder to pick out. They
aren’t good reasons to pick on homosexual activity but they are reasons for why it easier to do so. First divorce isn’t always controllable by you. Your partner can divorce you over your objections and you can’t stop it (in today’s
society), however partaking in sexual activity (or any variety other than rape)
is your choice.
The other is the time factor, once divorced you are always divorced, however because you partake in homosexual activity once, doesn’t mean you always going to. It is (some believe) “fixable” and therefore (some believe) should be, unlike divorce which once it happens can’t be fixed. Finally because it doesn’t result in offspring, institutions like marriage were never setup so there isn’t anything to “defend.” This also makes all homosexual activity “premarital sex” by definition which we all know is bad. Granted it can’t result in children born out of wedlock and not having a social safety net in place to help raise them, which is the primary argument against premarital sex but it still suffers from the stigma. (Note: I think this is actually an argument to legalize gay marriage, in that it will result in more stability and less prejudice in relationships which is good for society IMO).
Anyways, this has been longer than I wanted and skip over much of the discussion about being gay and Christian because in my mind they aren’t even related, however I hope it adds to the discussion by pointing out some of the reasons why it is easy and popular to single the group out.
These are good thoughts Paul and helpful to the discussion, thanks for sharing them. While I obviously disagree with you about Jesus and the Bible, I appreciate you being transparent with readers as it also helps nuance your view. You bring up an interesting point in my mind, you didn’t say it this way directly, but it makes me think of how homosexuals have been ostracized in non-Christian / secular culture as well. My sermon hit on the Church’s response, and how we as a universal Church have messed up when it comes to loving well, but it’s an interesting part of the conversation to think of the prejudices and hate that exist against homosexuals outside of the Church / in the secular world as well.
I think that is a very valid point as well. The church tends to be slower to change (for a number of reasons, some good, some bad) than society but is still a reflection of social norms in many ways. Because it is slower to change it is to pick on as being out of touch despite the fact that its views were perfectly normal a few years back. Rather than blame the church for the hate I think the blame belongs on people who are scared and uninformed. I would argue the churches failing is in not taking a stand rather than creating the prejudice in the first place (and in using the societal prejudice for its own gain). Unfortunately this is a fairly common failing.
Temptation shouldn’t be shameful because Jesus was tempted by Satan. Temptation is not sin. I’m tracking with that.
I cannot however understand why Jim would want to be held captive, confined, or chained to the label of gay Christian. Gay is not who you are! Our identity should be in Christ. All those other labels should fall away. You are a Christian, a child of God. You just so happen to struggle with homosexual temptations. We’re all sinners, so why highlight this sin as if it’s more unique than any other sin? Isn’t that the SAME thing that so-called Christian gay-bashers are doing!?!?! Sin was not knitted into your being. Homosexuality was not knitted into your being. However, it would seem that free will, the yearning for acceptance, and a God-shaped void were knitted into our being. We have this free will right? We want so badly to feel accepted. We grow up searching for acceptance and along the way for things to place in this God-shaped void. Usually we try to fill it with all the wrong things before we can’t deny that it is in fact a void that only God can fill. We are not genetically predisposed to one form of sinning over the other that is one of satan’s lies.
Following Christ is your lifestyle, right? Not homosexuality. So the label Gay Christian seems paradoxical. Might as well say Sinner Christian. Or for people who have murdered: Killer Christian. Or for people who struggle with lying: Triffling Christian. Get my drift? Your mind is renewed everyday by the Holy Spirit. Gay does not define you or God’s purpose for your life. Specific sins or temptation- past, present, future, do not define you, if you don’t let it.
You’re chosen, bought with a price, loved so much that God sent His son for you and the redemption of all mankind. I’m not saying that you should put up this “straight” front or facade that you don’t struggle with homosexual tendencies, but I hear hints of pride (not making a joke) in the label Gay Christian. Don’t be ashamed of the temptation you face, because you can be thankful of each battle you win with God’s strength! He gets the glory! It would be like a slap in the face to say, I’m calling myself a Gay Christian because I still struggle with this temptation that I can’t eradicate myself and I don’t want to be ashamed of myself and satan is only sort of defeated. God is vying to win the war that satan’s waging in your heart and mind for your soul. Surrender to God’s will, not your limited understanding of His purpose for your life.
Whew, okay. Enough with the technicalities! That paradox was just bothering me the whole discussion.
Perhaps the ignorance and hatred towards Christians who struggle with homosexuality or people declaring that people cannot be gay and Christian- that it’s somehow a disqualifier (totally laughing at that thought that some people actually think it’s a disqualifier!-so sad that they think that Jesus’ blood somehow doesn’t cover that particular sin! What a limited view of God’s limitless grace and mercy!!!) will cease when self proclaimed homosexuals and heterosexuals stop making it some unique sin. That’s when I think that this one sin that is just soooo taboo that we can’t address it or extend LOVE to these other sinners (you know, like all of us lol) will cease to exclude millions of God’s beloved from learning about Him and being actually accepted into the body of Christ!
Generally speaking, like what you’d hear in the media or culturally, not towards Jim specifically, I don’t think people, Christian’s specifically, are going to sympathize with the point that it’s who I am, I was born this way, I can’t control being homosexual, etc. This form of thinking sets sinners apart into subset sinner categories and causes discrimination among said sinner population! I can’t control being a sinner all by my strength anymore than the next person with the next temptation. The reason I say that is because, every person is tempted with sin, and the difference is that I know that it’s certainly not by my strength that I or we fight temptation. I don’t know how to articulate this better, but it kind of sounds like an excuse to hear that whole “I was born this way,” argument because we’re all tempted.
On another note, I’m trying to find a correlation between this and porn addiction. In Shellie Warren’s Pure Heart: A woman’s guide to sexual integrity, Shellie talks about how before she was into porn she never entertained the thoughts of homosexuality, not until after becoming desensitized to the actions she watched on screen. What are your thoughts on this Noah?
P.S. Sorry for the novella
Hi Carolena, thanks for the comments and the questions you bring up. I started writing a reply and it got long enough to make into it’s own new post. I’ll do this when my comments get really long sometimes as it allows a bigger audience to read and keep the conversation going. Here’s the post: http://www.cutthereligiouscheese.com/can-a-gay-christian-still-identify-themselves-as-gay/ –I’ll do a separate post on the Shellie Warren stuff as well, probably tomorrow.
I can identify, but in my early Christian life I married my wife of 43 years now, believing that God would give me healing and re-orientation. It didn’t happen. She knew before we married and believed the same way. All male Christian friends that I told, and they were few, distanced themselves from me.
Hi Rich, thank you for sharing. I’m sorry to hear about how your male Christian friends distanced themselves from you 🙁 That is definitely not the heart of God.