Can someone be Homosexual and Religious?
In a recent comment on another post, someone who is Christian and questioning their sexuality asked the million dollar question:
“Can someone be Homosexual and Religious?”
Oh, that hurts me. Right in my gut, I feel it. If someone can be addicted to Porn and religious, a gossip and religious, be cheating on their spouse Saturday night and still preach with conviction Sunday morning- how is homosexuality different? “But wait, Lindsey”, I can just hear someone say. “Those people are clearly not all that religious, or they wouldn’t be guilty of such obvious sin.”
Oh, Really?
As long as there has been faith, there have been flawed people of faith. As long as there has been sin, there has been sinners. And as long as there has been Jesus, there has been God’s love poured out on a weak and undeserving people. Who was it that said that thing about healthy people needing no doctor? Who was it that said, “he who has not sinned…” When we start to put prerequisites on faith we abolish the need for it entirely. Broken and hopelessly flawed people have to be able to live out religion, it’s they that need it!
Now, to continue on to some of Renegade’s other questions, we will go on a journey together. It starts with conception and birth. God is weaving together all of the fine strands that make the potential for who a person is. He weaves A with B even though A and B mean “gay”. Do you think he meant to? I think he probably did. Now we can argue about whether or not this is “unnatural” or whether God meant it as permission or a test all day long. Some people contest that Homosexuality is not found in nature- they are wrong. I’ve seen very nice, cuddly, obviously gay dogs that prefer to sniff the underparts of other boy dogs more than girls. (Whether or not that is a fair comparison to human sexuality is another post entirely.)
Is the act of homosexual sex inherently sinful? I’m not a scholar, so I will refer you to a wonderful page on SisterFriends-Together.org, which discusses in depth the meaning and intent of passages used to describe homosexuality as sinful. This page, “The Bible and Homosexuality“, makes a far better argument than I would expect to on my own. I will repeat the words of that site’s founder and simply say, “Christian and Gay? It’s not a contradiction, and neither are you.”
I realize that not everyone agrees. Some Christians will say that homosexual feelings are not sinful, but acting them out is. Or they would say that the feelings are sinful. They would say that we must “unbend” our sinful nature and return to the straight and narrow that God intended. Perhaps this is what you, oh commenter, feel. Perhaps it is not.
This is what I would suggest:
Find a quiet place. Sit down, and center yourself with God. Pray. Ask these questions:
- God, do you see me struggling with this?
- What was your intent in giving me this burden?
- Who do you want me to be?
- Should I be gay, straight? Stranded in between?
- Am I sinning?
You may not hear an audible answer right away. You may spend days, weeks, months, even years continuing to ask these questions of God over and over. But trust in the fact that when we ask in sincerity God always answers. It may not be the answer you expect, I expect, anyone expects, and it may not come in a form that is easily recognized. But the answer is out there.
In the meantime, rest in Christ’s love for you. Rest in the people who love you. Rest in the knowledge that you will be cared for, and your needs will be met.
You will find love.
God is love.
You will be held by God.
