Talk:Christianity and homosexuality

Surplus

• Overall, Catholics are split on whether homosexual behavior is a sin. More than four-in-ten (44%, including 59% of weekly Mass attenders) say it is, but nearly as many (39%) say it is not.
  • "U.S. Catholics Open to Non-Traditional Families". Pew Research Center. 2015.

• For example, when your children are being repeatedly told about the virtues of LBGT behaviors or "same-sex marriage is a civil right," what are you going to say to them? Do same-sex behaviors and marriages present God's vision for His people? A well-informed family chaplain knows enough to say, "Let's talk about this. Because first of all, the Bible is clear about such behavior and second, I don't think you know much about the civil rights era or what a 'civil right' really is." I was around during the civil rights movement and maybe you were, too. But if not, you'll have to do your homework. That way you're able to say, "OK, I've studied this. So, let me explain to you what the civil rights movement was all about. It was about people not being given equal freedoms and opportunities because of the color of their skin. You can explain how those who were deprived of their rights didn't choose to be that color – black, brown, whatever – any more than some of us turned out to be white. But of this we can be sure; we are all made in the image of God- just the way we are.
  • William G. Boykin, Man to Man: Rediscovering Masculinity in a Challenging World (2020), p. 158-159

• With that in mind, is it okay to say those who are involved in homosexual relationships were created that way and therefore they have a "civil right" to do whatever they feel like doing? No, that's not what the Bible teaches us. The Bible frames homosexual behavior as a choice- and not a good choice. That chosen behavior is not godly, because the Scripture is clear about the sinful nature of homosexuality. By the way, it's no different, and no worse, than the guy who's sleeping with his secretary instead of his wife. It's all sexual sin and it's covered in Romans I and elsewhere in the Bible. Now let me be clear on a couple things at this point, since I know already that I will be criticized for even raising the issue of homosexuality. First of all, sin is sin, period. I know; I am guilty of committing many of them. Christians need to see homosexuality in the context of all the sins listed in the Bible. Some have greater consequences, but all sin is wrong and separates us from the closeness to God that we should be seeking in our lives. If you are a practicing homosexual and I am a fornicator, who has committed the greater sin? Well, I hope you get to the point that we are equally sinners. It is all wrong and displeasing to God.
  • William G. Boykin, Man to Man: Rediscovering Masculinity in a Challenging World (2020), p. 159-160

• There are books out now, and there are those making speeches who accuse me of putting down homosexuals and making them out to be second-class citizens. They say I have shown no compassion to homosexuals. We are said to be giving out hysterical misinformation and making judgments and pronouncements without knowing or understanding what we are talking about. They say we are lacking in understanding. We are labeled as generating hatred and using Christianity as a way of discrimination. We are said to have tremendous hostility and hatred for the homosexual. I cannot tell you how this saddens me. I truly do love the homosexual, and all sinners for that matter. It has been said that I am a one-issue person, which is not true. I hate "sins" in the plural just as Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, and other public religious figures have expressed. I have spoken out on the issue of homosexuality because it is the one we were confronted with. I have said it hundreds of times, and I'll go on saying it. I love the homosexual too much not to tell him the truth. I love these people enough to care about where they're going to spend eternity. And I love them enough to want to do something to help them.
  • Anita Bryant, At Any Cost (1978) by Anita Bryant and Bob Green, p. 17-18

• When I repeat what the Bible says about sin- including homosexual acts- and emphasize that God calls for repentance (which means a feeling of sorrow and changing one's ways), I do so with compassion. Deliberate and unrepentant sin of any kind is contrary to the will of God, and until we admit and forsake our sin we cannot experience the forgiveness of God in Christ. Such statements on my part do not reveal a poverty of compassion. What my critics' statements reveal is the depths of depravity to which the human mind will go to justify and hang onto one's self-centered sexuality. The biblical truths of which I speak do not originate with me. This call for repentance is not my idea. My source book of truth is the Word of God.
  • Anita Bryant, At Any Cost (1978) by Anita Bryant and Bob Green, p. 18

• There are well-known church leaders who are saying the church must counter my statements. One such woman leader stated: "Society doesn't have enough knowledge about homosexuality to consider it without being judgmental. This is one of those areas that we don't know enough about now. I don't know why, but God makes people feel this way, and I know He loves them, and I don't feel like being judgmental about it... This is a misuse of religion that we have had through all of the centuries about anything we don't like. In terms of loving people, I think it's a terribly unloving way to behave." God makes people this way... What could be more erroneous than to blame God for the sin of homosexuality? No one can lay that charge to the Almighty. Research data consistently shows that homosexuals must make a choice whether to act out their sexual preference or to keep it under control. Jerry Kirk in the book The Homosexual Crisis in the Mainline Church states that righteousness, not research, will decide where the church must stand. As of now the claims of scientists and researchers are contradictory. Either the church stands on the claims of the Word of God and faces up to the fact that God calls for moral responsibility, or it will be held accountable for failure to hold up the standards of righteousness.
  • Anita Bryant, At Any Cost (1978) by Anita Bryant and Bob Green, p. 35

• If I saw a man drowning, and I had it within my power to rescue that man, but I turned my back and walked away, what kind of a person would I be? That's love in action? Just so, I see the homosexual as a victim who needs help. I have it within my power to hold out to the homosexual, in Christlike compassion, that which will rescue him from eternal punishment. My way of showing love may not necessarily be the same as someone else's, but who is being judgmental when they accuse me of unloving behavior?
  • Anita Bryant, At Any Cost (1978) by Anita Bryant and Bob Green, p. 37

• The Bryant campaign [of 1977] shows something of the techniques and the stages through which the "Religious Right" came to dominate American electoral politics by defending the family, that is, fatherly (or Fatherly) regulation of sex and gender. It should be no surprise that Anita's immediate supporters included the televangelists Jim Bakker and Pat Robertson. [[Jerry Falwell] not only invited her to his show, he lent her experienced campaign staff. Dade County was a laboratory for the Religious Right, in which it learned the usefulness of homosexuality as a wedge issue for both churchly and secular politics- or rather for the fusion of the two. But the Bryant campaign has also been read in the opposite direction, so far as she provoked a new rhetoric of national gay and lesbian politics not quite a decade after Stonewall. During the campaign, activists claimed Bryant provided a national rallying point around which various queer groups could converge- including, importantly, both lesbian and gay groups. The electoral defeat over the ordinance led to much more important electoral victories, including the defeat of the Briggs Initiative in California in the fall of 1978. Or so the stories go.
  • Mark D. Jordan, Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk About Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), p. 136

• I am more interested in how the Bryant campaign clarifies the continuing history of church debates over homosexuality. It rearticulates decisively the rhetorical devices that some Christian groups had used for decades to "battle" sexual danger. Bryant's performance displays in their mature forms many features of churchly condemnation of homosexuality. She quotes scriptures and rehearses what are supposed to be arguments. She lends her considerable stage presence to the repertoire of inherited topics. But more importantly she performs a rhetoric of compassion and cursing that claims the vulnerability of the young as justification for waging war on homosexuals. The Bryant campaign deploys the professedly, aggressively "Christian" rhetoric that still surrounds us, that still works in us and on us.
  • Mark D. Jordan, Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk About Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), p. 136

• Now let us ask the question: Is there "no room" for the homosexual in the kingdom of God, and therefore, no room in the church? Scripture says both no and yes. All sinners are welcome at the Cross, but only repentant sinners are invited to become members of Christ's church. Calvin commented, "The wicked do, indeed, inherit the kingdom of God, but only after they have been turned to the Lord in true repentance and justified after their conversion and so cease to be wicked." Scripture says no to the avowed, practicing, and unrepentant just as it says no to the practicing, unrepentant adulterer, robber, or idolator. But the answer is yes to the homosexual who, by the grace and love of God and the prayers and support of the Christian community, will repent of his or her behavior, turn to Christ, and seek God's power for a new lifestyle of wholeness.
  • Jerry Kirk, The Homosexual Crisis In the Mainline Church (1978). Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc. Publishers, p. 73

• Most of us struggle with self-love, but the gay struggle is of a greater intensity. In much of the literature that has been written, gays seem to put the blame for their lack of self-acceptance on the attitudes of the church and the society. This is undoubtedly partially true of the many people who loathe and reject homosexuality and all that surrounds it. Some are in the church and some are in the society. They have been influenced by both the church and the society. In addition, the Bible has had a profound influence upon the moral values esteemed by people.
  However, I also want to make a plea for gays to look more honestly at themselves and more responsibly to the Scriptures. Because the underlying reason for their lack of self-acceptance is sin, and the true moral guilt that comes with it, gays need to know that all of us find it difficult to accept ourselves and love ourselves. We find it most difficult when we are rebelling against God and living in sin.
  Gays accuse us of focusing upon their sin and not facing our own. They say, "why don't you face your sins of fornication and adultery as seriously as you want us to face our homosexuality? Why aren't you concerned about your inability to love us the way Jesus calls you to love us? Is that not as serious as our sin?" Yes, it is.
  Sin does reach the church. However, when we face our own sins squarely and gratefully accept God's grace, then we are set free to love fellow sinners. So I must say to the homosexual, if you are truly concerned over straight people's sins, turn your own sin over to Jesus Christ and then, please come help us! Should I not say the same thing to the rest of us? If we are truly concerned over homosexual sins, let us turn our sin over to Jesus Christ, and then, please come help them!
  • Jerry Kirk, The Homosexual Crisis In the Mainline Church (1978). Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc. Publishers, p. 103

• It was nearing midnight. We had been talking, praying, and reading the Scriptures for nearly two hours. I carefully shared the idea with Sam that maybe he had indeed been born that way, not as a "homosexual," but as a "eunuch." I explained what eunuchs were, and I assured Sam that they were made uniquely by God for a special purpose. I told him that in my study of the subject, I had come to believe that many young men, who thought they must be homosexuals, were actually eunuchs. I will never forget what happened that night. Sam began to weep. I could see something different in his eyes. He read Matthew 19:12 over and over again, and then he began to shiver. He looked up at me and then turned to his mother and, through his tears, Sam said, "Mom, I'm not gay." His mom and grandmother began to weep. All of us were crying. He said, "I'm a eunuch. I guess God did make me special." What an amazing moment it was for all of us.
  The joy was soon turned to conviction because Sam asked me a question that would redefine my ministry. With reddened eyes and a trembling voice, Sam asked, "Preacher, why didn't someone show this to me when I was younger? This could have saved me so much regret." At that moment, I knew a ministry had been born by the work of the Holy Spirit. It is amazing to think that someone like me who had so often treated "gays" as outcast and perverts would now commit myself to helping them understand they were indeed not born gay, but that maybe they were created "different' and special- as natural eunuchs. I will never forget the joy of that first experience, when I saw Sam come to the realization that he was born that way after all.
  • David J. Nixon, Born That Way After All (2016). David J. Nixon with R.G. Hamm, p. 12

• Hopefully, all Christians are concerned about the treatment of marriage in making same sex unions legal in this country. However, long before society devalued this institution, the churches did so in the way we sold it to our kids. By worshiping marriage, we devalued it. Worshiping anything not meant to be worshiped is the same as devaluing it. We took away the sacredness of marriage by pushing the idea that it is some kind of sensual, romantic byproduct that is somehow necessary for everyone.
  • David J. Nixon, Born That Way After All (2016). David J. Nixon with R.G. Hamm, p. 123

• No one can make a choice for us as to how we react with the truth we learn. Once it is learned, we are left with the fact that we can never again make excuses. Let's confirm the truth that you are able to be pure before God, no matter how far into sin you have gone. If you were deep into the "homosexual" or "lesbian" lifestyle, you have absolute liberty to return to Christ and be cleansed. You do not have to live in guilt or shame, because you can be completely forgiven. However, that liberty comes from a single and extremely misunderstood word- repentance. You must repent. Now that does not mean that you must do penance of some kind or crawl on your hands and knees back to God. Repentance is a change of mind.
  • David J. Nixon, Born That Way After All (2016). David J. Nixon with R.G. Hamm, p. 193