Is Christianity Homophobic?
In a previous post, we discussed how reprehensible Christian conduct has driven large portions of my generation to terminally deconstruct. The conversation on conduct will continue in this entry, but instead of bringing to light conduct that has objectively, tangibly damaged others inside and outside the Church, our focus will shift to perceived Christian conduct–to be more specific, mainstream culture’s perception on Christian conduct. These perceptions are not necessarily correct, but they are nonetheless widely felt, especially within Generation Z, as nobody is more in tune with mainstream culture than us.
Since we live in a rapidly secularizing society, it is unavoidable that the traditional Judeo-Christian faith on which Western civilization is based and the “follow your truth” philosophy currently reigning supreme within modern thought will clash. They are at odds with one another on an existential level–literally, the existence of one threatens the existence of the other.
This is not a blog about politics. On a personal note, I generally squirm in my seat when churches or pastors wade into political matters unless it involves taking a position that is explicitly based in scripture to combat a position that is explicitly antithetical to scripture.
But while this is not a blog about politics, this is a discussion about the secular culture that bombards Gen Z twenty-four-seven and how it negatively affects their view of the Christian faith–and politics are snugly intertwined with culture inasmuch as the latter greatly influences the values of the former. The famous and controversial journalist Andrew Breitbart often said “politics is downstream from culture,” and as far as I can tell, he was correct.
Politics are too intimately connected with culture for me to ignore. In fact, the political realm is the aspect of culture in which Christianity is most relentlessly criticized, and, in the minds of many culturally savvy Gen Zers who are struggling with their faith, delegitimized.
I will pull no punches in my choice of words. Popular culture states that the Christian worldview is both stupid and bigoted. The Christian who refuses to compromise on their scriptural convictions in the name of “tolerance” is an out-of-touch idiot stuck in the 1950s. Consequently, the Gen Zers who receive this message from their social media apps, the movies they watch, and the pop stars they love to follow equate following Jesus with hate. This cultural attitude is categorically false.
Most times, it is not arbitrary, spiteful Christian prejudice at the root of these clashes between believers and popular culture; it is the Christian’s love of absolute Truth and ardent belief that God’s structure for virtuous conduct is more conducive to human flourishing than culture’s ever-changing political ideologies.
In the next few posts, I will detail a different reason as to why popular culture unfairly smears Christianity as small-minded and hateful. Almost all of them have to do with sexual conduct, as that is front-and-center in contemporary political discourse. I hope to offer an antidote to this way of thinking and demonstrate the actual reasons believers–if you’ll excuse the redundancy in my language here–believe what they believe.
Is the Christian View of Homosexuality Unjust?
This issue in particular is a huge hangup for Gen Zers who would otherwise be inclined to follow Jesus. Many of them know someone who is gay–a friend, family member, classmate, or coworker–if they themselves are not. Gen Zers are more likely than any previous generation to identify as something other than heterosexual. This issue hits close to home for them, and any perceived opposition to it can be interpreted as an attack against themselves or their loved ones. In their mind, the Christian view on this topic is just too narrow-minded. Too extreme. Too discriminatory.
To determine if this assessment is correct, we must actually know the Christian perspective on homosexuality. I am not convinced that many of its critics truly do–it seems to me they take the cultural perception of what Christians think and then run with that. And really, who can blame them? Popular culture has been so relentless, especially through media and celebrities, at painting a negative picture of the Church’s position.
The first time I realized this was the case was when I watched NBC’s flagship comedy Parks and Recreation, a delightfully funny and heartfelt television series popular with many members of my generation. Early on, the series introduces a recurring character named Marcia Langman. She is heavily implied to be a conservative Christian, although the show never outright says it. She is portrayed as a dumb, overly sensitive prude who is adamantly opposed to gay marriage, dimwittedly stating that when gay people get married, “it ruins marriage for the rest of us.”
As another example, Taylor Swift, who is at the time of this writing probably the biggest pop-star on the planet, released a music video titled “You Need To Calm Down” in 2019. It currently boasts well over three hundred million plays on YouTube alone, and it depicts several gay people going about their daily lives as a mob of raggedy-looking, screaming hillbillies follows them–some of them carrying crudely designed signs with such messaging as “Homasekualty is sin,” “Hell,” and “Get a brain morans.” These misspelled mantras, of course, are meant to demonstrate the unsophisticated stupidity of what Taylor Swift and her team evidently believe to be the Christian view on this matter.
Combine these less-than-charitable depictions in popular culture with nationally reported news stories about fringe hate-groups like the Westboro Baptist Church, an organization that regularly violates the ethics of scripture to target gay people and Jews. These stories receive so much attention and critics use them as examples of the hateful vitriol Christians exhibit against anyone who is not straight. But the people of these organizations are not Christians. The Westboro Baptist Church is no more representative of genuine Christianity than the conduct of Al-Qaeda, Hamas, or ISIS is indicative of your typical Muslim.
So what, then, is the Christian stance on homosexuality? We must look to scripture in order to find the answer, observing the events that follow shortly after God declares “it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:19).
Genesis 20b-22
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
God saw that man, by himself, was incomplete. He needed a complimentary life partner–not someone so drastically different from him as an animal, as he already had plenty of those around and they clearly were not enough; but not something as identical to him as another male, or else God would have simply made for him another man to be his “suitable” partner.
That’s why God provided Adam with the best of both worlds: it wasn’t someone so completely foreign to who he was that he would have no ability to relate to her or share life with her–it was instead someone uniquely relatable yet uniquely distinct from him. Another human, but another kind of human. God, in His foreknowledge and wisdom, knew exactly what partner man needs. Just take a look at Adam’s response!
Genesis 2:23-24
The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Here, God established the natural order of creation. A man is to leave his father and mother and cleave to the woman he loves, they are to produce offspring together through their physical union, and they are to raise their children up to follow the Lord, with both husband and wife contributing their unique skill set to the childrearing process. This is the blueprint for a flourishing, virtuous society, and until recently the nuclear family consisting of man, woman, and child stood as the bedrock of Western Civilization.
The union of man and woman is God’s intended structure for creation. Deviation from that order is deviation from the highest Good. It is the misalignment of one’s will from the will of God. There is no getting around this, despite the attempts of some more progressive “pastors” to do so. Scripture is clear on the matter.
Leviticus 18:22
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God (emphasis mine).
Romans 1:26-27
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
At this point, some may be stroking their proverbial (or literal) beards and saying something along the lines of “well, this seems pretty close to popular culture’s depiction of what Christians think about homosexuality, doesn’t it?”
It is not close. Popular culture takes one truth (Christians believe homosexuality is a sin) and wildly extrapolates on it to suggest Christians hate gay people, intolerant of their very existence itself. This cannot, by definition, be the Christian view. If a viewpoint harbors hatred and self-righteous judgment towards anyone of any creed, then it ceases to be a Christian perspective, as those attributes violate the ethics of scripture.
The Christian view on homosexuality is that it runs counter to God’s design, and acting on it is sinful–but the Christian must also acknowledge their nature is just as fallen as anyone else’s. They must exercise humility, remembering the deep mire of sin and dysfunction in which they were drowning before Jesus pulled them out. The true believer understands they are not “better” people than those who are not saved; it just so happens that the perfect blood of Jesus Christ is covering them.
As I write this, a story from the Gospel of John comes to mind. Some biblical scholars dispute its authenticity since it was not included in the earliest existent documents, so it is often included as a footnote in many Bibles instead of within the regular text. Well, its dubious status as inspired scripture notwithstanding, I still think it captures the essence of a core Christian principle.
John 8:2-11
At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
So beautiful is this story, and so cohesive is it with the rest of Jesus’ teaching and what we know of His character, I am inclined to believe it is authentic. But that’s not the point. The core Christian principle this passage so wonderfully conveys rings true: love others as God loves you, regardless of where they have been or what they have done. That is the philosophy of every Christ-follower–every choice they make, every word they utter. It even undergirds our disagreement with others, when we say things like “homosexuality is a sin.” We say this not to condemn but to make more clear the pathway one must take in order to pursue the highest Good.
Holding a biblical worldview does not mean one is hateful. There is a disturbing trend within modern discourse that states disagreeing with someone’s lifestyle translates to invalidating their personhood. Christians do not set out to do such a thing, nor does our worldview advocate for it. We are not invalidating gay individuals as people, just as atheists are not invalidating Christians as people by asserting their personal convictions of godlessness.
Under Christianity, gay people are not worthless. Under Christianity, gay people are not irredeemable less-than-human monsters. Under Christianity, our personal proclivities and our sinful desires do not define us; the grace of Jesus Christ defines us. Under Christianity, God sees past our sins and fiercely loves us anyway–while still calling us into deeper obedience as we grow in our faith.
