I remember the moment Charlene told me she was bisexual (because that was easier than telling me she was lesbian, she said later.)
Before Charlene, I had never been friends with a non-straight person. Learning her sexuality opened a world of questions in my mind. Is homosexuality wrong? If so, how is that fair when a person can’t help their attractions? Is a person born homosexual or do they become homosexual?
I started to notice things about myself, like: I don’t actually care if I never have sex. I don’t think I care much about guys. I like how it feels when Charlene admires me. I wondered if I was homosexual.
Charlene and I talked about homosexuality once in a while after that. We concluded that according to the Bible, having sex with a member of the same sex was wrong.
I won’t say more about that. I know that most of my blog readers, a largely conservative Christian bunch, will agree with me. A few of you will not.
But instead of focusing in this post on whether homosexual sex is right or wrong, I want to focus on homosexuality as an identity. I want to ask some of the questions I asked when I thought I might be homosexual, when just that possibility—even though I wasn’t caught up in lust, even though I hadn’t experimented sexually—made me feel bad and dirty and different.
I asked two people questions that I myself have asked, and I will share their answers with you. If you have questions about your own sexuality, perhaps their answers will help you to sort them out. If you are friends with a non-straight person, maybe their answers will help you to relate to that person in a kind and Biblical way.
Ken Brubacher was married to a woman and had children with her before he came out into the open with his long-standing same-sex attractions and an illicit relationship. Jesus filled him with the knowledge of his love and took his same-sex desires away.
My questions and his answers:
- If I deal with gender confusion or same-sex attraction, are those feelings a sin? Definitely not!
- How can I change the way I feel, or shouldn’t I try? No, I don’t think you should try. That’s like saying, I’m feeling angry, instead of asking why I’m angry. Overcoming anger can be a life-long task for some people, and over a long period of time, they build a relationship with God that changes them. Other people find victory from anger in a desperate moment of crying out to God, and their life changes on the spot. Why, I do not know. Just know that Jesus can take you from familiar into something radically different if you’re willing to let go of familiar.
- Can you clarify the difference between sexual attraction, lusting, and acting? There are many legitimate experiences that can shape and validate the feelings of gender confusion or same-sex attraction. But there’s a very clear line between feeling a thing and lusting about a thing. It’s an uncomfortable idea to most, to imagine that Jesus actually meant what he said, when he said that lusting is no different than committing adultery. The only real difference is the consequences. Remember that every lustful thought would, if it could. This means the line falls between feeling and lusting, not between lusting and physically committing.
- Are homosexuals born or made? I do not know the answer to this question. Sometimes I think some of both, then I conclude that we’re all born broken in some way into this world. The only way the answer to this question matters is if we’re going to define ourselves by the answer or if we’re trying to rationalize a reason for the “cause”.
Gregory Coles, author of Single, Gay, Christian and No Longer Strangers, is open about his same-sex orientation and his decision to live a celibate life. His writing shouts his love for Jesus.
My questions and his answers:
- Are homosexuals born or made? I’d want to carefully distinguish between same-sex attraction or orientation and same-sex sexual behavior. A person isn’t born engaging in any kind of sexual behavior, and we certainly make choices about the ways we steward our bodies. When it comes to same-sex orientation, all the best science seems to suggest that the formation of sexual attraction is a complex combination of both nature and nurture. (One good place to look into this interplay of biological and non-biological factors is in recent work from Christian psychologist Mark Yarhouse.) For instance, the fact that I am a male with two older brothers makes me statistically more likely to have a same-sex orientation than one of my older brothers, which seems to suggest a womb environment component in sexuality.
- Is homosexuality a sickness? As in, is it a deviation from God’s original order of creation, similar to someone being born with a handicap? It seems to me that, after the Fall of humankind, every experience of human sexuality is in some way fallen. The fact that I sometimes experience temptation to lust after people of the same sex is, for instance, a component of my experience of sexuality that is fallen. But the capacity of a straight person to experience temptation to lust after people of the opposite sex to whom they aren’t married is a component of their experience of sexuality that is fallen. And notable, a straight person’s temptation to lust after the opposite sex is something I’ve never experienced; I don’t wrestle with that particular temptation. So then, after the Fall, we all bear marks of the Fall where we diverge from God’s perfect intention for us; but we also all bear the fingerprints of a God who put us together and declared us “very good”!
What has your experience been? What authors or Bible passages have helped you to better understand your own and others’ sexuality?
Ken Brubacher lives with his family in southern Ontario. He experienced same-sex desires from the time he was a little boy until Jesus took those feelings away. You can hear more of his story, titled “Does Jesus Love Homosexuals?” on the Unfeigned Christianity podcast with Asher Witmer. Ken is pictured at left with his wife Carolyn and their children. Contact Ken by emailing ken@kenbrubacher.com.
Gregory Coles is a “tangle of identities.” The author of Single, Gay, Christian and No Longer Strangers, he frequently collaborates with organizations like Revoice and The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender. You can contact Gregory or hear more of his story through podcasts, articles, and excerpts, at gregorycoles.com.
Turtle Heart, the story of my friendship with Charlene, is coming out this summer. If you are already subscribed to my blog, you will hear about launch day details as they develop. If you are not subscribed and want to be, drop me your email address below.
I love and agree with what you have written as truth. Some authors that I enjoy reading on this subject are: Christopher Yuan, Jackie Hill Perry, and Rosalia Butterfield. We interact with numerous young people in the children’s ministry at our church that have these temptations, and I pray that they can feel our love and know the power of Jesus in their lives.
Thank you, Wendy! And thanks for the names. I’ve been wanting to read Jackie Hill Perry’s book for a while now, and writing this post really brought her to my mind again.
I really appreciate you addressing this issue and I appreciate the thoughts and ideas presented. It is a complicated issue and one that needs to be more openly discussed in our churches. It’s easy to throw stones until you imagine being that young boy or girl who discovers they have the wrong kind of feelings towards their same sex. How horrifying and how they need people to love and care and understand and walk with them. Shame and secrecy only increases the pain and loneliness and give Satan opportunities he shouldn’t have. I do not struggle with this but someone very near and dear to me does. It changes everything to have a front row seat to the pain. But God! I believe in a biblical view of homosexuality very much as you described above. I also know my own besetting sins and by the grace of God he is walking me on a path to more and more victorious living. I’m so thankful. And I believe his power can transform any life and any struggle. Sometimes miraculously all at once and sometimes a lifelong journey. I have a lot of thoughts on this but I’ll let it go at that.
Thank you, Kim. I so understand what you are saying when you say it changes everything to have a front row seat to the pain. When we talk about someone in harsh condemnation, it’s usually because we don’t know them or their struggle personally. And we are all broken. Me too.
Wow!
“We are all born broken in some way”
” . . . Every experience of human sexuality is in some way fallen”
These two thoughts are key, I believe. I have struggled with some of these questions as well, and my thoughts are very similar to yours. I think the Bible is quite clear that all of us will struggle with sin (I know I do, in every single area of life), and it will be a lifelong battle. If we aren’t battling sin, we may be false converts. If only we could all see this, “legalists” and “liberals” alike.
I found an article recently that was fascinating to me. It’s long, but I’d be curious what you think of it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4028725/
Thank you favorite cousin Rodney. ;)
I will read the article. I started it, but it is long, so I’ll come back and finish later. Appreciate your thoughts.
It sounds as though you are asexual. Paul talked of those who were born eunuchs and I believe he was referring to asexuality.
Not asexual. :) But for me, my sexual desire goes hand in hand with an emotional connection and relationship. I think for many people, sexuality is not set in stone. We learn responses and emotions according to what we have experienced sexually.
I’m glad you addressed this very relevant topic. I feel it’s a subject that conservative Mennonites don’t talk about nearly enough and it’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. It’s a real issue and we need to be open about it if we’re ever going to find victory. I’m also glad someone brought Jackie Hill Perry’s name up. I also love listening to her and her husband discuss these issues in their podcast Thirty Minutes with the Perrys. And I’ll definitely be checking those other names out!
Thank you, Trenda. I so agree that openness is important and healing.
Wow, thank you for putting this out on the table!
So glad to see you tackle this one! And in such a good way.
One of the most helpful people in my life was an old Minister who has now gone on to Glory. And this was when I was in my early twenties still dealing with the fallout of sexual abuse and sexual confusion. He told me that everyone has a sin that was so easily beset them if they let it. He was of course referring to the scripture in Hebrews that tells us to lay aside every weight in the sin that does so easily beset us. This was helpful for two reasons. The first is that it placed same-sex attractions in the proper light of a temptation pattern. The second reason it was helpful is because he said it squarely in the context of everyone having something that would overcome them if they let it. Not just me. He did not make me feel like a pariah. He basically lumped us all together. We all need a Savior, and the Savior is strong and can help us and keep us above temptation. But we shouldn’t feel shame about the temptation itself.
Thanks, Daniel. I appreciate your thoughts.
What folly.
You might as well “explore” the “feelings” of a murderer while you’re at it.
You lack spiritual understanding, and therefore are quite unqualified to speak as a teacher.
Be wise, forsake the foolish and live
Pingback: What I Think about Homosexuality - Lucinda J Kinsinger
Thank you Luci for tackling this subject here and in the more recent post.
Very true. Wow.
Dennis Jernigan’s story Sing Over Me agrees with what you write. Any one that doubts if God loves a homosexual sinner should read the story where the sinner prays with his head down “God be merciful to me a sinner”.
He found grace when the self righteous Pharisee/Mennonite doesn’t. Wow.
A doubter should listen to Dennis Jernigan’s story too.
God bless you for bravely sharing the truth. The powerful truth of love.
“A little Light will conquer darkness. Darkness will never conquer Light.”