Changing Our Mind: A review and a plea

The following was originally posted on our church blog in 2014.  It has been edited slightly.

Here I offer a review of David Gushee's book followed by a plea, which is directed to those who are LGBTQIA+, along with their families and their friends. 

A Review

Gushee is not the first to change his mind on what he calls “the LGBT issue,” and he won’t be the last.  The question is, does he have a case?  Should the rest of the evangelical community follow suit?  Is this a reformation worthy of our participation?  Gushee has concluded it is, and he wants you to carefully reconsider what has been the Church’s consistent (and almost unanimous) teaching for 2000 years.  In fact, his book comes as a plea to the broader community of which Gushee has long been a part.  Should we listen to him?  As I interact with his book I want to examine three of his arguments and show why his book – far from helping - will cause more harm than good.

1. First, Gushee makes what is becoming the standard emotional plea.  Toward the end of the book he shares the story of his sister’s experience coming out to her family and to the church.  He says “My beloved baby sister, Katey, a single mother and a Christian, who had been periodically hospitalized with depression and anxiety, including one suicide attempt, came out as a lesbian in 2008.  

Her testimony is that her depression was largely caused by her inability to even acknowledge her sexuality, let alone integrate it with her faith – and this was largely caused by the Christian teaching she had received.”  He adds, “The fact that traditionalist Christian teaching produces despair in just about every gay or lesbian person who must endure is surely very relevant information for the LGBT debate.”  Earlier in his book he describes how gay and lesbian people have “endured in sad silence whatever the church taught and did in relation to them,” and he suggests that the very real suffering of "distressed LGBT" is reason to reconsider. 

I am not unsympathetic.  

We have all known friends and family who, bound as they are in sin, have been overcome with depression almost to the point of despair.  It hurts us deeply to watch them suffer, and we have mourned for them even as we have pleaded with God on their behalf with many tears.  

But is this a good reason for reconsidering our position?  Is the sadness and distress and depression that is so exacerbated by the traditional Christian teaching reason to re-examine that same traditional position?  Never!  It’s the traditional Christian teaching alone that can help them.  Have we really departed so far from an understanding of the gospel that the suffering of sinners is seen as legitimate reason to leave them in their sin?  

Sin brings misery and death, and when the sinner is confronted with his or her sin it is never cause for rejoicing.  It was the smug Pharisee who knew nothing of anguish.  The publican, on the other hand, was so overwhelmed with a sight of his sin he wouldn’t dare lift his eyes to heaven.  Instead he beat his chest and cried out for mercy.  The very first beatitude is for those "poor in spirit," and the one sacrifice God accepts is a "broken and contrite spirit."  The gospel is a savour of life unto life to some, but to others it is a savour of death unto death (2 Corinthians 2:16).  

I am amazed that the Christian community has become so biblically illiterate that we don’t know enough to recognize conviction of sin when we see it.  I remember my own spiritual journey and the season of life when confronted by my sin I was pushed to the very edge of despair.  In those days I seriously contemplated suicide.  I was so sick with the fact of sin in my heart and life and the wicked desires I couldn’t change I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I praise God that in that season I was brought to see my need of Jesus.  I cannot express how thankful I am that the Christian community didn’t tell me I was okay.  I thank God that instead of accepting me they pointed me to the Saviour of sinners, and I remain thankful that by His grace I went to Him for the deliverance from sin that He alone can give.

Gushee wants kindness and love toward the LGBT 'community' as every Christian should.  We equally deplore the hatefulness of the Westboro crowd who also need to hear the gospel.  Where I take issue with Gushee is how he understands kindness and love.  

Is it kindness to tell a terminally sick patient they are actually quite well?  Is it loving to watch a house burn down and say nothing to the family who lies peacefully asleep inside?  

In the introduction to this book Matthew Vines speaks of pastors who “decline to open their hearts, privileging their careers and reputations over meaningful engagement with the tears and trials of many we love the most.”  But these ministers are not privileging their careers and reputations.  Increasingly, they are actually putting those same careers and reputations on the line whenever they speak of the sin of homosexuality.  Nevertheless, they say what they do because to stay silent, to speak in support of the "LGBT community" would be to become complicit in  the eternal condemnation of those who make up that 'community'.  They speak the truth in love.  

It is not easy to stand against the tide of the culture and to say things that will leave us marginalized and possibly even persecuted, but we say them compelled as we are by the love the Saviour who came to seek and to save the lost warning as He did that "unless you repent you too will perish!"  

Paul warned of deception on this very point when he said, “Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

So, I would urge Gushee and anyone compelled by his argument: love those who are LGBTQIA+, and love them enough to tell them the truth.  

If you love your gay friends and family have the courage and the decency and the honesty to tell them that unless they repent they will perish.  Don’t hold signs.  Don’t be unkind.  But, do speak the truth.  Plead with them with tears and take them to the Saviour.  Show them the Christ who came to deliver men, women and children from their sin.  For the sake of the King whose name you bear do not let their suffering be the reason you change your mind.  They suffer because of their sin, and the only way you can give them help is by pointing them to Jesus who alone can deliver them.

2. Second, Gushee calls for consistency.  At one point he “wonders whether those preachers inveighing against gays and lesbians would do so if they constituted 40 percent of their congregants, as with divorce.”  

Later he observes that we have accommodated people on their 3^rd and 4^th divorce and yet remain unwilling to accommodate here.  While many say that homosexuals are going to hell, few say the same about greedy people and drunkards.  Suppose he is right.  I don’t think he is, but if Gushee has, in fact, uncovered a gross inconsistency among Christians who emphasize some biblical teachings at the expense of others, the way forward isn’t by dropping even more of what the Bible teaches.  Rather, he should be calling the Church to the standard of Scripture.  

Many of us do, in fact, inveigh against divorce, and if the Church has accommodated to 3^rd and 4^th marriages (assuming they are illegitimate) we lament that fact.  Consistency is needed, but we don’t get there by accommodating more Bible doctrines to keep in step with other areas of compromise.  Instead, let’s admit our sin and sometimes hypocrisy and pray God’s grace to raise the standard

3. Third, Gushee argues from the fact of gay experience and the impossibility of change.  Having read Kingdom Ethics I wasn’t the least bit surprised by his reasoning.  There he rejects the historic understanding of the Sermon on the Mount as representing impossible ideals that the Lord of glory would never ask of His people.  

Naturally, when he reached the conclusion that the "LGBT community" “is not capable of heterosexual attraction,” when he realized that the ex-gay movement had failed, when he looked at the many numbers of gay people who have tried to change and without success it was only logical that he would change his mind.  He has never been of the opinion that God asks the impossible.  If it cannot be done, surely God would not ask it of us.  So at least goes the argument.  He says “it is a stubborn fact that difference also exists in the human family… That small minority of people whose gender identity and sexual orientation turn out to be something different than the majority ought to be able to be accepted for who they are… This better reflects the spirit of Christ’s ministry than demanding an impossible uniformity and rejecting those who do not achieve it.”

On one hand Gushee is absolutely right.  Facts are stubborn, and the fact is there is a segment of the population whose sexual orientation is different than the majority.  As he put it, there remains a “persistent presence in human societies of women and men who experience permanent, exclusive same-sex attraction rather than opposite-sex attraction.”  Many, indeed, have tried to change themselves without success.  

I will not argue Gushee on the facts that confront him and the rest of us.  I will, however, argue Gushee on his theology.  

The truth is, people who identify as LGBTQIA+ aren’t the only ones confronted by the impossibility of holiness.  God says to all of us, “Be ye holy; for I am holy (1 Peter 1:16; Leviticus 11:44).”  The Lord Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48).”  He said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind (Matthew 22:37).”   Galatians says “Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them (3:10).”  John says, “sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4)” and Romans says “For all have sinned, and come sort of the glory of God (3:23).”  

In other words, the standard is perfection and none of us have measured up. 

Actually the problem is worse still because Paul said “the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.  So then they are that are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:7-8).  To the Ephesians he said “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins (2:1).”  John says “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil 3:19), and 1 Corinthians says “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (2:14).”  

The Bible consistently presents us with human inability.  Whether it’s a sexual orientation, a problem with anger, lust, or idolatry we are simply unable to change hearts that are – according to Scripture – deceptively wicked.  Hence the need for a Saviour!

Suppose you were confronted with a young man confounded by a mind consumed with lust.  He has tried everything to free his mind, to change his thought patterns and always without success.  He is not alone.  Facts, as Gushee put it, are stubborn; and many many men across North America are unable to exchange impure thoughts for pure.  Shall we, then, accept them as they are?  Shall we simply welcome them into our community as a legitimate subset of the Church?  Having introduced the "LGBT community" shall we now introduce the "lustful" or "pornographic" community?  Or should we, rather, call this man to repentance and show Him the Saviour who can deliver Him?  

Suppose you were confronted with a pedophile equally confounded with his wicked desires but even more distraught because of the heinousness of his particular problem.  Shall we also make him a community and accept him because of the stubborn fact of his existence and the equally stubborn fact of his inability to free himself from his problem?  And what shall we say, then, of the idolater who hates God and prefers what he has made with his own hands?  He can't love what he doesn't now love but God himself commands it of him.  

I well remember how for years anger and bitterness consumed me, but I remember, too, the day when looking to Jesus for rescue he took it away and put love in its place.  I couldn’t do it though I tried for years, and neither can the lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender do it.  But God can!  And this happens to be the offer of the gospel: that He himself will deliver those who come to Him for rescue and deliverance from sin.  

What is so particularly heinous and offensive about the teaching of men like Gushee is that they take the terminally ill (and spiritually dead) and tell them they are well; and they have the temerity to do it in the name of the Saviour who came to rescue sinners from their sin.  They speak peace where there is no peace.  Confronted with the fact of sin, they deny the sinner the Saviour who alone can save them.  This from men who claim to know and love the Saviour!  

The gospel does not say that sin can be “resolved through prayer, repentance, moral effort, or therapies designed to change their sexual orientation.”  No wonder if people have found failure in such things!  The gospels says something else entirely.  It says that Jesus saves.  We are called to repent but that call to repentance is an invitation and a command to turn from self-righteousness and self-reformation to Jesus.  We are urged to pray but pray looking unto Jesus.  We are called to obey and to strive, but we are told that it is He who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.  Only God can save, but it must be remembered that He came not for the righteous and the well but for sinners and for the sick.  

So long as we tell the gay (and lgbtqia+) people they are well just so long will they remain beyond the reach of the Physician.  

I believe with Gushee that were Jesus walking among us today He would go to the "gay community", but He would not be found among the (so-called) 'gay Christians' who have no need of the Physician.  He would be found, rather, among the broken in heart and contrite in spirit.  He would be found among the poor in spirit and among those mourning their sin.  

He did not come for those who have no need of the Saviour.  Rather He came for sinners; and He will save each and every gay (bisexual, transgender, otherwise) man or woman that comes to Him for deliverance from the sin that reigns in the heart.  

A Plea

Gushee presented his book as a kind of plea to the Christian community.  Here I will make a brief plea of my own.  

First, to those who have a heart for people identifying as LGBTQIA+:  Perhaps you are a family member or a friend of someone who is gay (or transgender or otherwise).   And you love that person.  Please don’t mistake acceptance for love.  If you truly love your family and friends tell them the truth.  Bring them to the Physician.  If you know your own heart you know the impossibility of changing the sinful desires that have plagued you, and if you know the Saviour you know what He has done for you.  You have cried out "O wretched man that I am!  who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"  And if you have been saved by God's grace you can say in answer, "I  thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."  What you couldn’t do He has done.  All around you lies a world bound in sin of all kinds: 

• people who cannot rid themselves of their bitterness; 
• people who cannot take away their own covetousness; 
• people consumed with lust, 
• full of anger, 
• dishonest, 
• idolaters,
• and so on. 

Be not deceived!  The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9).  Should they be left to themselves they will never change and they will never be well.  Please love them enough to point them to Jesus.  Love those who are LGBTQIA+ enough to show them the Saviour who alone can save.

Second, to those who are LGBTQIA+ : The God of heaven hates your sin.  He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and will not suffer the unrighteous to enter heaven.  He commands holiness.  But - He has provided a Saviour who is able to save to the uttermost all who come to God by Him.  Jesus came to save His people from their sin, and He has offered Himself freely to you.  You cannot change your desires.  You cannot measure up to His standard of holiness.  You cannot rid yourself of sin, nor can you make satisfaction for sins already committed.  As Gushee said - and as you well know - these are stubborn facts.  But Jesus can do all this.  As He died on the cross He declared that it is finished, and on the third day He rose for our justification.  He is a Priest, a Prophet and a King.    

1. As a Priest He shed His own blood that by His stripes sinners like you and me might be healed.  By the shedding of blood there is forgiveness and cleansing from sin!  Isaiah 55 says, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price...Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."  Isaiah 1 says, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow..."
2. As a Prophet He has told you that the way of salvation is found in Him, and He has commanded you to turn from your sin and come to Him.  
3. As a King He not only commands surrender, He changes hearts.  The offer of the gospel is an offer of rescue and deliverance from sin's power and condemnation.  The world wants you to believe you cannot be rescued or delivered.  They insist that they are on your side when they say you can't and shouldn't be changed.  They want you to believe that there is nothing for you to be delivered from.  Why?  Their understanding is darknened, they are "alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart (Ephesians 4:18).  The Bible says that they love their sin and want to stay in it (Romans 3).  They, too, are confronted with sinful desires that will not go away, and by giving you an excuse to go on they also (hope to) provide themselves a way out.  They are deceived.

Sadly, some in the Church have expressed a self-centered hatred toward you because they have forgotten the mercy they have received.  But some are doing you an equally hateful disservice.  They are now telling you you’re okay.  The Bible says you know different, which explains the heaviness, the anxiety and the sadness that weighs on you.  With sin comes misery.  "But God... who is rich in mercy (Ephesians 2)!"  Repent of your sin and believe the offer of the gospel.  Take these things to Jesus and call on Him to save you! 

A word about the terminology:  I have not tried to keep up with the changes in terminology, but I have deliberately chosen to use the acronym LGBTQIA+ - except where referencing Gushee who employed the shorter acronym - for the sake of those to whom such things matter.