When we talk about LGBTQ+ people in the Church, who exactly are we talking about? I count two main camps of LGBTQ+ Christians in the Church today. First, there are those who profess faith in Christ but who also, for a host of different reasons, selectively reject biblical teaching and tradition regarding homosexuality and choose to live as active homosexuals, possibly in same-sex marriages. For this camp, identity—such as it is perceived—is given priority in virtually all questions of faith and discernment. Where identity disagrees with scripture, scripture must be argued with or declared inapplicable, outdated, or simply wrong. Let’s call this the Identity-first model of discernment. Here are some quotations reflecting the Identity-first position:
“Being gay is not a sin. And for a gay person to desire and pursue love and marriage and family is no more selfish or sinful than when a straight person desires and pursues the very same things.”
—Matthew Vines, Christian author
“That you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. (...) You have to be happy with who you are.”
—Pope Francis, statement to a gay man, 2018
“I believe that God does, in fact, bless same-sex relationships.”
—Matthew Hunsberger, Christians for Social Action
The second camp of LGBTQ+ Christians I observe in the Church today includes those who profess faith in Christ but choose not to defer to identity in matters of faith and discernment. Or, more accurately, they accept the imago dei (image of God) as divinely defined and non-negotiable. By giving the imago dei primacy in their daily lives, these Christians deny "alternative" identities and sexualities, and aspire to live chaste lives in accordance with scripture. We’ll call this the Faith-first model of discernment. Here are some quotations from LGBTQ+ Christians who advocate this perspective:
“Being true to yourself is nothing short of idolatry. Oh, isn’t a child molester just being true to himself? A rapist? A thief? A greedy person? And on it goes. So no thank you. I don’t want to be true to myself. I want to be true to God and His Word.”
—Becket Cook, author of A Change of Affection
“When I want to live life as a gay man, to embrace the whole modern identity and lifestyle, God’s Word assures me that it will not make me happy.... That’s why I’m seeking to make God’s Word the authority in my life rather than what I (or any other human being) might think will bring me happiness.”
—Ed Shaw, Ministry Director of Living Out (UK)
“If we truly love Scripture, we have to love it enough to let it prove us wrong. And at the same time, we have to love it enough to let it tell us what we don't want to hear.”
—Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian
It is easy to dismiss the Identity-first model as a 21st century invention. It has, however, been around a while, even figuring importantly in Church history. This is not to say that it is a model to embrace in all circumstances. To the contrary, Church history reveals that as a metric in faith decisions, elevating identity over faith requires caution and discernment. Perhaps the best example of the Identity-first model being used in a faith decision was at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. There scripture tells us that Gentiles would not be required to keep most of the Mosaic Law. In other words, the identity of the Gentiles was sufficent to relieve them from keeping parts of the Law. That's elevating identity over scripture (faith)—a significant break with tradition!
This was not a flippant decision, however. When the apostles and elders ruled in favor of the Gentiles in this matter, they were actually ruling on the integrity of the Mosaic Law itself. If we look closer at the Council’s findings, we find, tellingly, that the Jerusalem elders did not see all parts of the Mosaic Law as eternally binding. This is obvious from the four exclusions, the four laws that Gentiles would continue to be responsible for in spirit. One of these, as we know, was the blanket prohibition of porneia, usually translated as sexual immorality.
This ruling—actually a ruling and a small list of exceptions—has important ramifications for how we engage with questions of faith and identity today, especially with regard to the question of whether homosexual practice aligns with scripture and therefore with the will of God. If we accept the Council of Jerusalem’s ruling as still applicable in the 21st century, then we can’t easily sweep questions of sexual (im)morality under the rug. Those who cling to the Identity-first model know this, so they seldom waste time arguing that there is no sexual morality in force, but rather focus their energies on redefining what exactly is meant by the Greek word porneia.
The most common Identity-first position is that sexual acts enumerated in the Mosaic Law were immoral because they were inherently exploitative or violent. Framed in this way, the prohibition on "men lying with men" (Leviticus 18: 22; 20: 13) can be read as limited to prostitution or male-on-male rape. As the argument goes, same-sex relationships and marriages are not characterized by these types of violence and therefore are not sinful. This is an argument that can be pursued from many angles, but the key to making sense of the debate is clarifying what sexual morality is rather than what sexual immorality isn’t. In the 1st century Church, only two things were sexually moral: faithfulness in the marriage of one man and one woman, or chastity in singleness. With such a narrow definition of sexual morality, it makes sense that Jesus never spoke directly on all the different types of sexual immorality, such as homosexuality, bestiality, incest, and masturbation. After Jesus preached on the framework for marriage, his disciples were puzzled—not about what did and didn't qualify as sexual morality, but rather about the implications of sexual morality for the life of the believer:
His followers said to Him, “If that is the way of a man with his wife, it is better not to be married.” But Jesus said to them, “Not all men are able to do this, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are some men who from birth will never be able to have children. There are some men who have been made so by men. There are some men who have had themselves made that way because of the holy nation of heaven. The one who is able to do this, let him do it.”
—Matthew 19: 10–12
It's easy to miss the core of what Jesus is saying here because we assume that both He and his audience saw sexual morality as something textured and nuanced. But they did not. The point Jesus is making was not controversial at the time he made it: a person can either marry someone of the opposite sex and be held to the moral standard for godly marriage OR they can become like a eunuch, living a life of voluntary sexual abstinence.
Paul was speaking from the same corner when he urged the Corinthians to "flee from sexual immorality" (1 Corinthians 6: 8). He expected the church at Corinth to understand that sexual immorality encompassed everything outside of the marriage of one man and one woman. The writer of Hebrews juxtaposed the purity of the marriage bed on one hand and sexual immorality on the other, with nothing in between:
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
—Hebrews 13: 4
The Council of Jerusalem informs us that while the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem Church were open to "affirming" the identity of Gentiles in order to honor their faith in Christ, they also understood that identity did not outweigh faith in all circumstances, and in fact certain cornerstones of faith would remain in effect indefinitely for the benefit of all believers.
—by Rick E.
Rick is the director of Free in Christ Ministries
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