I have never been a big fan of fighting what has come to be called the “culture wars” in America. I find moral politics and legislative haggling to be tiresome and messy. But even more, these cultural conflicts can become for the church a terrible distraction and barrier to keeping Jesus Christ and His gospel our central concern. Recently, however, with the rapid rise of power politics and the overt legal threats brought against the free exercise of religion, I have been rethinking the role of political and legislative power.
The tension here is that many Christians see the use of political and legal power as a misunderstanding, misuse, and distortion of divine power and priorities. To some extent, that is certainly true. But in another very real sense, when enforced policies and political power moves become matters of causing harm, then at what point is the Christian obligated to use means of power—political power included—to protect the innocent and promote the common good?
There’s no doubt that at some important level, Christians have a responsibility to protect human life. Proverbs 24:11 says, “Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.” And as Genesis 1:26 makes clear, as gendered divine image bearers, we are also responsible to lovingly steward and rule over God’s creation in ways that honor Him.
In my mind, many of the recent moves to demand greater access to and funding for abortion alongside the full affirmation of the LGBT+ agenda as well as the active promotion of medical interventions to “transition” youth who are struggling with gender dysphoria are good examples of areas where real and lasting harm is being done to the people directly involved in these decisions and lifestyles.
You can call it a “culture war,” or something else, but when real and active harm is being done to people, then beyond active avenues of persuasion, all legal and political means should be used to protect those who would otherwise be harmed, even if that might mean protecting some people from themselves. This is where libertarian freedom fails to recognize that in a world suffering the consequences of the fall, unbridled liberty is an open invitation to the harm of self and others.
In short, we are all sinners, and sometimes we need to be protected not only from others, but also from ourselves. And whether or not we admit it, there is a cultural and spiritual battle being waged. This battle is not merely a set of abstract arguments for a vision of what constitutes the common good. It is a concrete battle being waged in real time and real space. Right now, specific people are being harmed and becoming casualties in the process.
Christians who claim to love God and His justice should not turn a blind, indifferent, or fearful eye away from these real-life tragedies currently unfolding before us. We must wisely and appropriately use whatever power God has graciously given us to humbly, lovingly, and courageously fight for those who need to be protected from the devilish and destructive deceptions and deeds of our time. As G. K. Chesterton reminds us, “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
The rise of LGBT+ movement in our world today has produced a growing debate within the church about the nature of sin and temptation in relation to internal desires. The silver lining is that it has forced Christians to think more deeply and reflect more biblically on the nature of these questions.
In a very basic sort of way, I used to think that when ungodly desires arise, you simply avoid sin by resisting and not fulfilling them. But as I have thought more about same-sex attraction, there is an important difference from other kinds of desires. Not only is the fulfillment of same-sex desire wrong, the desire itself is something that ethicists call, “disordered.” That is to say, the desire cuts directly against the grain of God’s original creation order and would never arise in a pre-fallen world.
Adam and Eve, for example, certainly desired one another sexually before the fall and were able to righteously fulfill those desires in the context of marriage, but pre-fall, they would never have experienced same-sex attraction. That kind of desire can only arise after sin has entered the world. Thus, the desire itself is misdirected and one of the many results of sin and evil coming into the world. But here is where it’s easy to get confused.
Some Christians have assumed that same-sex attractions will (at least eventually) subside if we only continue to wrestle against them and repeatedly affirm and live out our new identity in Christ. Thankfully, for some this does result in a profound and lasting transformation of these desires, especially over time. For many others, however, disordered desires like these persist and continue to assert themselves in powerful and intrusive ways throughout their lives, even as they seek to forsake and resist them.
We therefore need to avoid the simplistic and judgmental attitude that suggests that mere repentance and resistance will inevitably and assuredly cause the desires to cease or be transformed into properly ordered (in this case, heterosexual) desires. This can even suggest that one of the primary goals of Christian holiness is heterosexual attraction rather than godliness. Again, merely practicing repentance and continual resistance and avoidance alongside affirmation of our new nature in Christ still may not fully resolve or eradicate all same-sex desires.
However, we should not be so quick to therefore dismiss these desires as neutral or nearly harmless, just so long as they remain unfulfilled in concrete practice. Unlike desires that are appropriate to creation order so long as they are fulfilled within the parameters set up by God in His word, same-sex attraction is inherently opposed to God’s creation order. In short, the desire itself is inherently rebellious and therefore dangerous and disordered.
This helps highlight the fact that avoiding sin and moving toward holiness involves much more than merely resisting certain behaviors. It also involves resisting inappropriate attitudes and desires. Jesus was very clear when he said in Matthew 5:28 that “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” The phrase “lustful intent” (ESV) captures the idea here well. It is not the mere presence of a lustful thought, but the “lustful intent” and entertaining of that thought as well as a refusal to immediately take it captive and mortify it that results in sin. Such sin is still very real even though it is only committed within the heart and mind of the one who lusts and is prior to any concrete action to fulfill it.
To take the idea further, in Ephesians 5:3, Paul not only talks about high standards of sexual purity: “there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity,” just before this in 4:31 he also lists “bitterness, rage and anger,” as problematic, and not merely their results: “brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” “Bitterness, rage, and anger” are not behaviors per se. They are, at their root, emotional states of mind that can easily set us on a trajectory toward ungodly (re)actions. And here Paul clearly demands that we should seek, by the power of His Spirit (5:18), to eliminate them from our lives.
Is same-sex attraction parallel to these kinds of sinful emotional states? James 1:14-15 helps answer this questions when it says, “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” The progression here is that although the desire is described as “evil,” it only becomes sin after it “has conceived and gives birth” to a willful sinful mindset and not merely wrong actions leading to “death.”
It is still possible, for example, to be angry and yet not sin (see Ephesians 4:26). If I refuse to entertain same-sex attractions each time they arise, must I still repent simply because I experienced a disordered desire? Again, the desire to have sexual relations with someone of the same sex results from life in a sinful world and subverts God’s creation order. It must never be entertained, embraced, or fulfilled.
This stands in stark contrast to “normal” and “ordered” desires like heterosexual attraction. While these desires can be (and often are) badly abused and misapplied in very sinful ways, when fulfilled in their biblically-revealed (and therefore proper) contexts, they constitute the fulfillment of good and God-desired ends. A disordered desire, on the other hand, should always be resisted and understood as opposed to the goal of godliness. Thus, it is decidedly not a neutral desire.
Still, only when we let an evil desire fester and fail to take it captive does it actually become sin. As Martin Luther quipped, you cannot keep the birds from flying overhead, but you can prevent them from making a nest in your hair. The desires themselves might be wrong but having them does not automatically or inherently make me guilty of sin.
This has important implications for discipleship and how we characterize and deal with wrong and sinful desires. We know, for example, that toward the end of His earthly ministry Jesus desperately wanted to follow His own will by escaping the suffering and horrors of the cross (Luke 22:40-44). In short, He desired to do something other than God’s will. Just like the temptations at the beginning of His public earthly ministry delineated in Luke 4:1-13, it was another time of profound testing. But we also know that in the midst of that very human but clearly wrong desire to escape the cross and death, Jesus remained sinless (Hebrews 4:15).
It would be easy to simply say that every time I experience an evil desire or thought, I must repent. But that can lead to a profound sense of shame that may be unnecessary since the mere presence of a wrong and evil desire may not itself constitute sin. Yes, I might have to repent if I entertain or let that desire begin to move me away from devotion to Christ, but what I do at the moment of experiencing the desire, no matter how wrong, is what matters the most concerning whether I need to repent or simply resist and as quickly as possible find something—better, Someone—else to focus my heart and mind upon.
To briefly summarize, same-sex desire is disordered, pushing against God’s intended creation order. And while having such a desire is one result of living in a sinful world, having such a desire is not, in and of itself, automatically sinful. When desires like these come, we are called to actively resist and forsake them, taking them captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). This will often require accountability and encouragement (and perhaps rebuke at times) from other Christians also seeking to be holy, but it is a journey toward wholeness and holiness well worth taking. Praise God, we also know the One who has gone before and walks that hard road of temptation with us, our battle-tested yet still perfect and sinless Savior and loving Lord, Jesus Christ.
What is the purpose of sex? This may seem like an odd question to ask in our day and age. Almost everyone has roughly the same answer: the purpose is pleasure.
One of the key distinctives of the so-called “sexual revolution” was that sex was principally, if not exclusively, recreational. Unless you wanted children, sex was not primarily intended for procreation, but for pleasure. Even in many Christian circles, this “pursuit of pleasure” motif became very prominent. When I was preparing for marriage, for example, I was told to read a hugely popular evangelical Christian book about sex entitled, Intended for Pleasure.
At the time, this idea did not seem strange or out of place in my Christian thinking. After all, God created sex and meant it to be fun and enjoyable, right? Back then, it would have been nearly impossible to imagine (let alone purchase and read) a Christian book on sex called, Intended for Procreation.
This is unfortunate since Christians have long understood that sex is not designed merely for recreation. It is also intended for procreation. These two aspects are not a comprehensive description of its purpose, of course. Things like emotional and physical well-being, social bonding, and intimate communication are also important features of the experience. But how you frame these purposes and how you rank each one fundamentally alters your understanding of the sexual act itself. In this sense, our understanding of sex’s primary purposes makes an enormous difference in how we look at it and one another inside and outside of marriage.
If, for example, the purpose is primarily (or perhaps only) for pleasure and recreation, then it is no surprise that pregnancy becomes an unintended, inconvenient, and therefore decidedly undesirable aspect of the overall experience. The idea that sexual relations might have more consequential purposes than simply orgasms and other physiological and emotional benefits seems to be nearly forgotten in our contemporary discussions of why sex matters. If sex is only intended for pleasure, pregnancy becomes not only an unfortunate consequential byproduct, but something to be ardently avoided and ideally eliminated.
Abortion, then, becomes the “final solution” to this inconvenient “problem.” The purpose of sex is no longer to produce children, but only to experience physical pleasure and emotional satisfaction. Thus, rather than pregnancy being something to look forward to, share, and celebrate with the mother, father, and community, it becomes an annoying inconvenience, a source of shame, and something to be evaded and ultimately eliminated. Rather than a desirable sexual goal, it comes to be seen as a punitive and negative consequence. In the words of Anglican rector Barton J. Gingerich, “In the recreational view, when a woman conceives a child, it often means something has gone wrong.”
In essence, after birth control, abortion becomes the ultimate “failsafe” and guarantor that anyone and everyone can enjoy unregulated sex without fear of any lifelong repercussions. But to make the barbarous act of killing a helpless and innocent child into something socially, morally, and emotionally acceptable, the personhood of that child has to be obscured, ignored, and ultimately obliterated. This is done by describing the child in deceptively dehumanizing terms like “a fetus, ” a product of conception,” and “a ball of cells.” To further the duplicity, abortion is now being called “a medical procedure,” “women’s healthcare,” “a constitutional right,” and more recently by abortion activist, Sarah Lopez, “an act of self-love.”
To pursue and promote this kind of ethical obfuscation is, at its root, morally bankrupt and repugnant. Mothers and fathers are being openly lied to and crowd-shamed in an attempt to preserve the insidious myth that sex is simply for fun and self-fulfillment—and nearly nothing more.
Please don’t misunderstand my point. The purpose of sex is not purely for procreation any more than it is solely for pleasure. Sex has several important purposes, but when only one of those purposes is elevated above all others, it tends to destroy a holistic and healthy understanding of sex. We can also openly affirm that God invented sex to be pleasurable. The clitoris, for example, appears to be created for only one purpose: to provide pleasure for the woman during intercourse. And when sex occurs within the boundaries of a loving, safe, and secure marital between a man and a woman, it can be a truly magnificent experience for both. But when ecstasy becomes the primary or even sole focal point, the things that make sexual intercourse enduringly meaningful and significant get distorted, obscured, and sometimes altogether lost. Other important purposes become ostracized and even vilified at the almighty altar of recreational pleasure.
Up until very recently, most societies strongly affirmed that procreation was a vital and desirable aspect of sexual union, making a critical contribution to human flourishing and the common good. By separating sex from the purpose of procreation and making pregnancy an undesirable and eliminable “byproduct,” many societies now face a precipitous and precarious population decline that has become a significant national crisis.
In response, Christians must reemphasize and celebrate the necessity, beauty, and power of self-denial, personal and social responsibility, as well as the preservation and limitation of sex within the safe and enduring confines of a committed covenantal, loving, and traditional nuclear family—one man and one woman married for life, raising their children together.
In the helpful words of Anglican rector Barton J. Gingerich, “women should deny sex to men who aren’t willing to marry them and raise their kids. Men ought to oblige and accept the honorable script of marriage before sex. . . . Interestingly, all of this turns marriage into quite a productive, involved, cooperative enterprise—because it is. . . . Our forebears . . . believed in the importance of the household. Households—like sex—should be productive rather than merely recreational. A man and a woman come together in matrimony to create, build, and manage a most important enterprise, ideally cooperating with their extended family and close neighbors. This was the norm, and it must become the norm once again if our society is to flourish.”
I recently heard a Christian remark, “I agree that the Bible teaches homosexuality is wrong, but why should we make non-Christians conform to our moral standards, especially when our own Christian life is largely unaffected?” While the statement reflects several contemporary ideological and ethical assumptions that give it an appearance of wisdom, it actually conceals several significant moral perils and falsehoods.
To begin, the statement assumes that a Christian view of morality is relevant only to Christians and has no bearing upon the rest of humanity. This is both true and false, depending upon the nature of the ethical behavior under consideration. For example, Christians are often called to higher ethical standards than non-believers with respect to things like love. Christians must not only love God and one another, we must also love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44). When forced to go one mile, we ought to go two (Matthew 5:41).
We should not compel non-Christians to live up to such demanding standards of moral excellence. They are specifically Christian responsibilities that God not only expects, but through His Holy Spirit also empowers and enables believers to fulfill. But when it comes to more general ethical standards, these are designed by God to benefit every human being, regardless of religious affiliation. This is true because all humans are made in God’s image.
This assumes and affirms, however, that there is a divine creation order, something directly challenged by contemporary ideologies that claim we are not subject to any transcendent design plan. Many today suggest that we can (really, we must) create our own meaning and define our own identity. But if we are created by God in His image, then we are designed according to His purposes and plans. Our identity and meaning are grounded in our unique status as creatures stamped with this divine image.
Attempting to step away from or outside of that transcendent creation order is a recipe for difficulty and adversity. As C. S. Lewis puts it, “Moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine.” Thus, some actions are more destructive than others when it comes to human beings in general, not just for Christians in particular.
Throughout history, the nature and extent of these more universal prohibitions has been debated, but until very recently, most societies considered things like submitting to and honoring parents, preserving innocent and vulnerable life (especially human life), truth-telling, sharing with those in need, as well as sexual modesty and propriety to be good for the overall flourishing of everyone in society, religious or otherwise. The crucial question, then, is this: Is the condemnation and avoidance of homosexual behavior a uniquely Christian sexual standard, or is this standard good for humanity in general, regardless of religious beliefs and commitments?
First and foremost, it’s important to remember that human sexuality is inherent to God’s image since He created us, “in His own image . . . male and female,” (Genesis 1:27). In this light, Scripture also affirms that marriage is the union of one male and one female (Genesis 2:24, cf. Matthew 19:4-6). Furthermore, this God-determined creation order is universal, predating our fall into sin. Together, male and female sexuality is divinely designed to reflect and depict God’s nature in the world. By submitting to this gendered and sexual creation order, we actually reveal some of God’s character and nature to each other.
Consequently, homosexual behavior is not merely problematic for Christians in particular, it is destructive and harmful for the long-term well-being and flourishing of every divine image-bearer. It not only distorts a fuller reflection of God’s character as seen through both sexes, it downplays the God-designed unitive and complementary nature of the two sexes, diminishing the procreative sexual mandate to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
Historically, this debate is neither new, nor has it been especially controversial. Even when homosexuality was tolerated, it was seldom considered normal or good for society as a whole. Thus, the West’s current obsession with and widespread promotion and celebration of an ever-growing list of unbridled sexual expressions is uniquely unprecedented and perilously untested.
Returning to the original statement, it further assumes that homosexual behavior is acceptable because it is largely a private activity, having little impact on society in general or the Christian in particular. Of course, most who actively support homosexuality and same-sex marriage don’t believe this. They adamantly argue that everyone should publicly accept and actively promote the fulfillment of homosexual desires as both normal and normative. For these pro-LGBT+ advocates, anyone who disagrees with and opposes their ethical viewpoint is a villain and immoral actor in this cultural conflict. They understand perfectly well that this issue is not a private moral affair. It impacts the basic ethical and societal notions of marriage, family, and human sexuality. Since the family and our understanding of human identity are foundational to society, any fundamental change in our conceptions of them will profoundly alter the society itself. By its nature, human sexuality is decidedly not just a “private affair.” It strikes at the very heart of what it means to be genuinely human.
In a related vein, the statement also ignores the role that legislation plays in the public vision of the common good and overall human flourishing. While making or keeping something illegal will not prevent the breaking of that law, it does, on some significant level, say something very important about the nature of the activity. It helps discourage its pursuit, giving it a decidedly negative moral connotation in the general society. This is precisely why the LGBT+ lobby has worked so hard to legalize homosexuality and same-sex marriage. They clearly understand that this helps not only makes them appear socially permissible but also morally and socially acceptable.
Yet another problem with the statement is that it subtly places human freedom, the power of the will, and the (especially sexual) desires of individuals above tradition, Scripture, and history—not to mention God Himself. There is a failure to comprehend the nature of human choices and how social cohesion and general human flourishing are often contained within a moral vision that sets carefully considered and long-established boundaries around certain arenas of human desires. In short, it has long been understood that not everything we want to do—even urgently and powerfully—is good for ourselves and society.
Of course, same-sex marriage and homosexual behavior are not the only relevant threats to societal flourishing, but they are symptomatic of a bevy of moral and ideological commitments that in the name of “moral progress” and “social justice” are tearing apart the social fabric of strong and healthy communities. God is certainly patient and gracious, but radically departing from the biblical norms of such foundationally formative social aspects like human sexuality, identity, marriage, and the family will inevitably be destructive, both communally and individually.
Just how destructive and how rapidly such harms will manifest themselves is hard to say but departing from the biblical vision of these foundations always, sooner or later, results in widespread social degradation and disintegration. Therefore, Christians must display greater courage and wisdom to graciously but actively discourage the legalization and public celebration of same-sex marriage and homosexual behavior, not because we are “unloving,” “hate gays,” or are “homophobic.” To the contrary, we oppose these precisely because we deeply care about the flourishing of everyone made in God’s image—same-sex attracted people included.
I admit not all Christians agree with this conclusion. Some believe we are better off being political and social separatists. Others claim that God’s love condones or even supports homosexuality and same-sex marriage. I have argued elsewhere against this latter view and for reasons stated here consider the former view unwise and unsustainable.
I am also keenly aware that in today’s moral climate, such claims may seem not only ridiculous, but deeply offensive and even dangerous. I have no illusions about the likelihood that this (until recently widely supported) prohibitory perspective will be reembraced by western society anytime soon. This is not because it’s wrong, but because the (fallacious) contemporary western conceptions of the family, human sexuality, and identity make it seem implausible, unpopular, and perhaps even cruel and psychologically harmful.
Nevertheless, we must not ignore the dangers or even promote the lie that flouting God’s creational purposes and plans will lead to greater human flourishing. It will only do the opposite. Satan made the same false and deceptive promise to Adam and Eve in the garden (Genesis 3:1-6), and He continues to make it to us today. As Proverbs 14:12 warns, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”
God, in contrast, offers everyone a life of genuine flourishing through the arduous but infinitely rewarding path of humble submission and joyful obedience to Him, our loving and wise Creator and King. As Deuteronomy 30:19-20 puts it: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live, and that you may love the LORD your God, obey Him, and hold fast to Him. For He is your life.”
lewinkler 