Occasionally in sermons or in a Bible class I will reference homosexuality. When I do so, I think I’m generally pretty clear that homosexuality is sinful and is to be avoided by Christians. Nevertheless, most of us probably know homosexuals, and many have relatives or even close friends who are homosexual. Not only that, but there are homosexuals who consider and declare themselves to be Christians. To make matters more complicated, there are even some churches—although not many—which receive practicing homosexuals into membership, perform same-sex marriages, and even ordain them into the public ministry. So, good faith questions are bound to arise among faithful Christians, and some may wonder: Should homosexuality be treated differently? At the risk of beating a dead horse, I thought I would address the issue and give it some clarity.
As a kind of sin, there is nothing special about homosexuality. It is but one kind of sin among a great many others generally classified as “sexual immorality.” It is neither more heinous, nor more noble than any of the others. Like every other kind of sexual immorality, same-sex attraction is a sign of a distorted appetite. All sexual immorality is sinful and is to be avoided by Christians, homosexuality included.
That’s easier said than done, of course. Some kinds of sexual immorality are difficult for an individual to control or repress; some are very common and seemingly benign. Cultural attitudes sometimes tolerate, and sometimes approve various forms of sexually immoral behavior, making it still more difficult for a Christian to exercise self-control. Nevertheless, Christians must disavow all sexual immorality, do their best to resist it, and repent when they fail. That’s the life and the lot of every Christian.
As I said above, as a kind of sin, there is nothing special about homosexuality, including how Christians deal with it. Like all other sin, repentance and forgiveness is the way.
Homosexuality is not new; it has always been around. So why all the fuss now? A single word explains it. Approval. To the extent that our culture, our friends, family members, co-workers, and even sometimes other Christians want, seek, and even demand approval for it, the practice of homosexuality becomes infinitely more disruptive and difficult to manage. That’s why all the fuss: the demand for approval.
A person confessing a homosexual sin, or a homosexual past, or a homosexual orientation, is not seeking approval for it. A person in a same-sex marriage or an openly same-sex relationship is. A homosexual seeking God’s help to resist temptation is not seeking approval for their sinful desires. The same cannot be said for the homosexual who demands that the church accept him the way he is. For the one repenting and confessing, there is no impediment to full membership and participation in the church, right along with every other kind of sinner. But for the one wanting, seeking and demanding approval, this cannot be, and to pretend all is well between them and God would be a lie. Repentance and forgiveness is the way, not approval.
Once in a while someone will suggest that the Church is singling out homosexuality for special treatment. “Divorce is forbidden,” they note, “but look: Churches are filled with divorced people! And the church doesn’t get nearly as worked up over heterosexual extra-marital sex as it does over homosexuality!” There is some truth to this observation. Perhaps Christians have grown too lenient about these kinds of problems. But that is not quite what this person means. They are not suggesting that the Church tighten up with respect to heterosexual sins, but rather that it loosen up with respect to homosexuality. In the first place, most divorced Christians do not seek approval for their divorces, but forgiveness, and few Christians are proud of whatever immorality is in their past. Anyway, the answer to inconsistency is not for the church to relax God’s commands with respect to homosexuality, but to be more consistent in how it handles all varieties of public sexual immorality.
I have been asked a few times about a homosexual orientation, whether that in and of itself, is sinful. Yes, it is, in the same way original sin is sinful. We might well call original sin an orientation too, and it’s definitely sinful, and we’re all born with it. A sinful orientation does not imply a powerlessness over sin! A person with a homosexual orientation, but who, for Christ’s sake, does not practice homosexuality, is exactly like a heterosexual who, for Christ’s sake, practices chastity. They are both to be praised! What after all is the baptized life but this: that a person who by nature is not very much like Christ at all, being baptized, undertakes from that moment on, to try to be as Christ-like as they can be, relying always and only on grace and the forgiveness of sins, and doing it all to the glory of God. Following Christ is a life of striving to be, with God’s help, what we are not by nature, and daily repenting of our failures as we go. I say again, to deal with sin—any sin—repentance and forgiveness is the way, not approval.
It is curious, this belief of many well-meaning but uninformed Christians, that among all the vexing, intractable sins of the mind or of the flesh that people are heir to, that this one sin, homosexuality, stands in some special category. But it doesn’t. Neither the sincerity of some of its practitioners, nor the fact that they did not “choose” their orientation, nor their powerlessness to change it, exempts this behavior, or the people who seek approval for it, from the judgment of God. And the judgment of God is this: “That those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:21). And this: That “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Truly, there is nothing special about homosexuality, including how Christians should deal with it. Like all other sin, repentance and forgiveness is the way. “[D]o you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:9-11).
James D. Burns
Pastor, First Lutheran Church (LC-MS)
Benton, Arkansas
First Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) 
This is helpful as it answers some questions I had on this. I assume that the same logit would apply to transgender people?
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Yes, but there is another wrinkle in the case of transgenderism. The transgender phenomena raises the question of whether the genders of male and female have any objective validity, or are they merely social constructs. In other words, is a man who claims to be a woman “trapped in a man’s body” really a woman as they claim, or a confused man? Put another way, is this person’s problem that their mind is right–they really are a woman–but their (male) body is mismatched to that reality, or is it that their male body is right and their mind, which thinks they’re really a woman, is confused and needing treatment? To make them right, does this person need counseling or surgery? As you can see, that question is less about sexual morality than it is about the nature of reality.
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