Years ago, one of my favorite friendships grew out of a difficult question we got during a weekend message where I was a part of a panel of pastors who answered questions from the audience. The big question was about homosexuality. I promised that day a response to every question, and I intentionally didn’t address the question that day, because I didn’t want the response to be incomplete since our format necessitated short answers. I later met the person for coffee…and the conversation wasn’t perfect, but it was far better than a monologue. That’s my first advice for you: anytime you get a faith question that’s complicated, try to always have a conversation where you do as much listening as you do talking.

Today however, I will attempt to write a response (moreso to challenge myself as a writer than to provide a perfect answer) and at the end, I’ll also share the question and answer from years ago:

Why do you (as a Christian) not accept my being gay?

Thank you, for such and honest question! My closest friends in this world are people I don’t see eye-to-eye with on issues big and small. Please don’t take our difference in perspective as any indication that I view you negatively, because I don’t. I am glad that it’s important to you that we discuss this issue together. But let’s agree now to take our time talking through it. I value you too much to give you a short conclusion without walking you through my thought process, and I want very much to hear your thoughts and the experiences that have led you to your current mindset. You are God’s creation, He loves you, and you’ll find that my behavior will reflect that. Let’s start with you. Why do you feel differently that I do. Tell me about the experiences and information you’ve processed to come to your conclusions!

Before I explain my reasoning, let me first apologize for the actions of others in my camp. I know that some Christians have been outspoken and offensive in their opposition to your lifestyle, and I’m sorry. We all tend to want to fixate on some things in life, and several groups chose to fixate and make a big deal out of this issue, killing conversation and communicating that Christians don’t value people who see relationships differently than they do.

Personally, I really struggle to want to judge a different set of things that are socially acceptable. My struggle with judging others is biggest in the areas of alcohol, parents who’s kids are always on tablets, and with guys who father but don’t parent their children. Society is ok with things like that, but I’ve seen the worst of those things, so it’s hard for me not to be angry or devalue those people. Given too much influence, I would lead a movement to abolish alcohol, or get too involved in a campaign to outlaw phones and tablets for kids under 21.

Not only do we all have our fixations on who or what behaviors we would judge, we also have our own weak areas that we are tempted and drawn into bad behaviors more easily than others. It’s easy for me to judge alcohol, because I’m not tempted or addicted to it. It is harder for me to judge lust and infidelity because I enjoy the little spikes of adrenaline that come with physical attraction and society has made us think that its normal through their movies, tv, and advertising. The average person would even argue that we are genetically programmed to lust, and that genetic predisposition justifies our behavior. “God created us that way,” many would argue. I, on the other hand, would have to agree with my pastor friend, who said that although, “I have a genetic predisposition to want to have sex with every attractive woman I meet, that is just my flesh (a sinful inpulse in my life I’m responsible to deny).”

I don’t believe that just because our genetics cause us to be bent toward alcoholism, lust, or same sex attraction, it makes it acceptable. In most cases, it just makes following God really hard! And although I want everyone to be happy and healthy spiritually, relationally, and emotionally, I believe that happiness is only truly found to it’s fullest in the way God designed the world to function. Unfortunately in our broken world with a broken genetic code, that means often fighting our own nature to follow God’s design. The Bible very plainly calls out sex and marriage as only belonging between a man and a woman. I do believe it’s wrong to live a same sex lifestyle, in the same way it’s wrong for me to lust, or pursue sex outside of marriage.

Your struggle and your sin doesn’t alienate you from God any more than mine. It does not deserve public condemnation or excommunication from the church any more than other sins. In fact, I’d readily vote that there are far more damaging behaviors that people engage in. That sin won’t keep you from heaven. And it’s fine to be a Christian–to be trusting Christ to save you and change you–and be working out your perspective on this, struggling with it, or even actively living in opposition to it. Trusting Christ and believing in God doesn’t mean we have everything worked out. God has us on a journey, and I’ve found He leads us in a way that helps us see as He sees one step at a time.

More than anything, I want you to know and walk with God so that you have eternal life. If that’s all the two of us ever see eye to eye on, I would be thrilled…and we can always ask God to sort out the rest for us when we get to heaven. However, I believe that if you will trust Christ and read the Bible, God will convict you, change you, and lead you to a place of greater joy by living according to His design in this life too. I’m living proof of how amazing that lifestyle is, which is why I want it so bad for you. I want something HUGE for you: God’s best.

If you feel you need to solve this issue now and you’d be open to looking through the Bible at all the Scripture on this topic, I’d be happy to do that with you. If there’s a more pressing issue, or you need time to think about it, then I’m hoping you’ll keep our present disagreement from being a barrier to friendship. I would love to get to know you better. I would love to encourage you in your faith. And I promise not to make this a topic that we have to solve or agree upon.

Can we pray together for God to give us both a heart of understanding?

The Original Question and Written Answer

“I am openly gay and love god I have struggled a long time with that and finding a church home I have been coming here for several months and really feel at home I want to become a member and am considering baptism but i’m afraid of being open at church and losing my church home. Any advice?”

First and foremost—we are a church for people who don’t go to church. In a world where most religious people would condemn you for your lifestyle choice, know that we are THRILLED that you are comfortable worshipping with us and hearing God’s truth. We don’t condemn people who are searching for and getting to know God. You are exactly who we created Sunday morning worship for. You’re exactly the person Jesus would have wanted in his audience as he traveled and taught the multitude.

We hope that your love of God comes from your understanding and trust in the fact that Jesus died to restore you to a relationship with God—because that’s what baptism represents—receiving God’s gift of life everlasting through the sacrifice of Jesus. If that’s the case, there’s nothing preventing you from being baptized—and telling the world that you are following Jesus.

When you enter a relationship with God—and God’s gift of the Holy Spirit enters your life, it will rock your world! God’s love living inside of us truly is amazing and transformative. And God’s great love compels us to make our lives pleasing to Him—to remove every barrier that stands in the way of our intimacy with Him. While we don’t judge those who are outside the church and struggle to believe, we are called to push our family of believers—the insiders—to be all God has called them to be—because membership in God’s family only works well when we all strive to reflect God’s character of trustworthiness, honesty, selflessness, etc.

Your homosexual lifestyle won’t keep you from having a relationship with God, but just like issues that include alcoholism, pornography, adultery, and drug abuse, your lifestyle stands between you and intimacy with God. If you make us your church family and join us here, we won’t kick you out because of this issue, but you can expect us to do everything we can to encourage you to work through it…and you can expect us to be limited in how well we can relate to you until you come to a place where you see all of life the way God sees it.

It’s hard to have a close relationship with a God who values and created us for a man to woman relationship—and asks us to save sex exclusively for a marriage that reflects this—if we are openly ignoring His values. And its hard to be a part of a family that values relationships in this same way, if you are openly mocking everyone’s values in the way you live.

There are a lot of places in the Bible where homosexuality, drunkenness, adultery, sexual immorality and other sins are discussed. I won’t list them here. But you always have an open invitation to contact any of our staff to discuss this issue specifically, again, knowing that we are more interested in getting you connected to God than proving a point. Let us know when you are ready to schedule that baptism!

(End of response)

As a staff, we later created a message called, “What Would Jesus Say to Ellen DeGeneres” that you can watch too! The person who originally asked this question helped us craft the message.