I think you have missed the mark on this one. If someone is claiming to identify as an “LGBT+” (as you refer to them) or a “homosexual”, then they are not finding their identity in Christ, and they have not died to themselves and been raised a new creation in Christ.
I was once a drug addict who struggled with all kinds of sexual sin that followed suite, but Christ rescued me and gave me a new life and a new identity. The last thing I would ever do, or ever want my church to do, is to identify me as any of those things I once was. I HAVE BEEN BORN AGAIN! This should be our ultimate desire for anyone struggling with sexual sin, or with any sin in our churches: that they would be set free from them and identify as a Child of God!
I am shocked that this rhetoric is now coming out of the Abide Project, which I thought was standing firm on the Bible. Stop using the cultures language, and speak the words of Scripture. God calls them sodomites, idolators, and homosexuals for a reason, and it is an abomination in the sight of our Holy God, and so too should it be in our eyes. There is a reason Paul discusses homosexual relations in Romans 1 as his main example of what happens when man rejects the obvious truth of God and chooses to worship the creation instead.
Of course this does not mean that we are to hate people struggling with sins of any kind - we are called to love even our enemies. But we are to abhor what is evil. Maybe we do need to revisit the 1973 decision on these matters. There is a way to take a truly loving approach that is truly Biblical, and what you have articulated here does not make sense and does not mesh with the example of Jesus, nor with any of His apostles or His Word.
If I have misunderstood, or mis-read what you have presented in this article please correct me . I have always been a supporter and reader of the Abide Project, and pray that I am mistaken about what you are trying to say.
Hey Nathan, thanks for engaging. I'm always careful about presuming to speak "for the Abide Project" but I am a part of the education team for Abide. I'm grateful for your testimony; that's powerful and awesome.
I share your concern about same-sex desires becoming core to someone's identity. I think that is not only false (as you say) but that it creates all kinds of genuinely harmful confusion. And like you, there was a time in which I would have been quite quick to react to Christians using the label of lesbian or gay...either for themselves or for someone else. To this day, my go-to description is "same-sex attracted"...because it helps me think properly about who and what we're talking about; namely, NOT a separate category of human beings, but an experience (albeit a very powerful and pervasive experience) that some fellow-image-bearers have that others do not.
However, in recent years I have backed off on some of my insistence that this is the "right" way to do it and that all use of LGBT+ or otherwise is inherently wrong or problematic. First of all, it isn't necessarily the case that someone who uses the LGBT+ acronym is conceding that this is core to someone's identity, and though I don't know Brandon well, I very much suspect that was not his intent. But secondly, as other wise brothers and sisters in Christ have helped me understand, no matter what description we choose, it will have potential for unhealthy baggage. The phrase "same-sex attracted" has a history with various forms of conversion therapy...and so some, when they hear that phrase, assume the person using it is someone who thinks that homosexual desires are fickle things that can and ought to be changed into heterosexual desires. Thus, whenever I use the phrase "same-sex attracted," I have to be clear that this isn't what I'm implying.
So in short, I think I can safely say on behalf of the Abide Project that we agree with your concern about finding our identity in Christ. Where we might have more disagreement (even internally in Abide) is whether the language Brandon chose can be used without making or perpetuating a false assumption about identity.
Thanks again for engaging with us, Nathan, and for joining with us in striving to remain faithful to God and his word.
Thank you, Craig, for your gracious response and clarification. I’m glad to hear we are more or less on the same page on this issue.
My concern with the idea of being “same-sex attracted” is that we are still falling into the trap of allowing pagan cultural ideas to influence the way we think about this sin. No one is born a homosexual, I think that is obvious (at least I hope). I know from my experience with falling deep into sin that these sins and identities usually form over time as we walk in darkness apart from God’s light and truth. We fall into these sins for various reasons - all of which are the result of sin: poor upbringings, bad influences, reactions to being sinned against, seeking to fulfil misplaced desires for love that should be found in the Lord, and sometimes purely out of our own darkened hearts. The more we engage in these sin patterns over time, the more defined these paths become, and even when we turn to Christ and are rescued from our sin, our flesh desires to return to these paths or old habits that we have developed over time. However, just like a trail in the woods, when you no longer walk these paths and instead walk with Christ, over time these paths are covered over and completely forgotten about until they disappear altogether, and true restoration can occur as we are sanctified by His Spirit. Christ came to defeat sin and free us from it. He created man and he created women so man wouldn’t be alone, and the two are meant to join together, be fruitful and multiply, and to be a representation of His image, and of relationship that Christ has with His Church. I know endless people who have thought they were homosexual, but as they were restored and made new, God gave them good desires again for a normal, God-pleasing heterosexual relationship. Ultimately love is a choice, not a feeling, and we put way too much emphasis on “sexual attraction” these days in our sex crazed world. Every married couple knows that the “attraction” isn’t always there, and yet Paul instructs us not to deny our spouses because our bodies belong to one another. A Christian’s heart should be set on obeying Christ above all, and so if their desires are contrary to Christ, they need to repent and ask Him to change those desires so that they can faithfully serve Him. If I have a desire for murder in my heart, Jesus says that itself is a sin, and I do not simply need to learn how to live with it and faithfully resist that desire, but to have Christ remove that desire from my heart so I would no longer sin in my heart against the Lord and against my brother.
Someone struggling with the sin of sexual idolatry of any kind is a sinner just like everyone else, and they need to repent and trust in Christ and freed from their sins, like everyone else. And yes we can and should be willing to walk alongside any kind of sinner desiring to be set free, but part of being set free means no longer identifying with who you once were and instead finding your identity solely in Christ. This is what the Church should be on about, and this is where I see Brandon sorely missing the mark in this article.
I think you have missed the mark on this one. If someone is claiming to identify as an “LGBT+” (as you refer to them) or a “homosexual”, then they are not finding their identity in Christ, and they have not died to themselves and been raised a new creation in Christ.
I was once a drug addict who struggled with all kinds of sexual sin that followed suite, but Christ rescued me and gave me a new life and a new identity. The last thing I would ever do, or ever want my church to do, is to identify me as any of those things I once was. I HAVE BEEN BORN AGAIN! This should be our ultimate desire for anyone struggling with sexual sin, or with any sin in our churches: that they would be set free from them and identify as a Child of God!
I am shocked that this rhetoric is now coming out of the Abide Project, which I thought was standing firm on the Bible. Stop using the cultures language, and speak the words of Scripture. God calls them sodomites, idolators, and homosexuals for a reason, and it is an abomination in the sight of our Holy God, and so too should it be in our eyes. There is a reason Paul discusses homosexual relations in Romans 1 as his main example of what happens when man rejects the obvious truth of God and chooses to worship the creation instead.
Of course this does not mean that we are to hate people struggling with sins of any kind - we are called to love even our enemies. But we are to abhor what is evil. Maybe we do need to revisit the 1973 decision on these matters. There is a way to take a truly loving approach that is truly Biblical, and what you have articulated here does not make sense and does not mesh with the example of Jesus, nor with any of His apostles or His Word.
If I have misunderstood, or mis-read what you have presented in this article please correct me . I have always been a supporter and reader of the Abide Project, and pray that I am mistaken about what you are trying to say.
Hey Nathan, thanks for engaging. I'm always careful about presuming to speak "for the Abide Project" but I am a part of the education team for Abide. I'm grateful for your testimony; that's powerful and awesome.
I share your concern about same-sex desires becoming core to someone's identity. I think that is not only false (as you say) but that it creates all kinds of genuinely harmful confusion. And like you, there was a time in which I would have been quite quick to react to Christians using the label of lesbian or gay...either for themselves or for someone else. To this day, my go-to description is "same-sex attracted"...because it helps me think properly about who and what we're talking about; namely, NOT a separate category of human beings, but an experience (albeit a very powerful and pervasive experience) that some fellow-image-bearers have that others do not.
However, in recent years I have backed off on some of my insistence that this is the "right" way to do it and that all use of LGBT+ or otherwise is inherently wrong or problematic. First of all, it isn't necessarily the case that someone who uses the LGBT+ acronym is conceding that this is core to someone's identity, and though I don't know Brandon well, I very much suspect that was not his intent. But secondly, as other wise brothers and sisters in Christ have helped me understand, no matter what description we choose, it will have potential for unhealthy baggage. The phrase "same-sex attracted" has a history with various forms of conversion therapy...and so some, when they hear that phrase, assume the person using it is someone who thinks that homosexual desires are fickle things that can and ought to be changed into heterosexual desires. Thus, whenever I use the phrase "same-sex attracted," I have to be clear that this isn't what I'm implying.
So in short, I think I can safely say on behalf of the Abide Project that we agree with your concern about finding our identity in Christ. Where we might have more disagreement (even internally in Abide) is whether the language Brandon chose can be used without making or perpetuating a false assumption about identity.
Thanks again for engaging with us, Nathan, and for joining with us in striving to remain faithful to God and his word.
Thank you, Craig, for your gracious response and clarification. I’m glad to hear we are more or less on the same page on this issue.
My concern with the idea of being “same-sex attracted” is that we are still falling into the trap of allowing pagan cultural ideas to influence the way we think about this sin. No one is born a homosexual, I think that is obvious (at least I hope). I know from my experience with falling deep into sin that these sins and identities usually form over time as we walk in darkness apart from God’s light and truth. We fall into these sins for various reasons - all of which are the result of sin: poor upbringings, bad influences, reactions to being sinned against, seeking to fulfil misplaced desires for love that should be found in the Lord, and sometimes purely out of our own darkened hearts. The more we engage in these sin patterns over time, the more defined these paths become, and even when we turn to Christ and are rescued from our sin, our flesh desires to return to these paths or old habits that we have developed over time. However, just like a trail in the woods, when you no longer walk these paths and instead walk with Christ, over time these paths are covered over and completely forgotten about until they disappear altogether, and true restoration can occur as we are sanctified by His Spirit. Christ came to defeat sin and free us from it. He created man and he created women so man wouldn’t be alone, and the two are meant to join together, be fruitful and multiply, and to be a representation of His image, and of relationship that Christ has with His Church. I know endless people who have thought they were homosexual, but as they were restored and made new, God gave them good desires again for a normal, God-pleasing heterosexual relationship. Ultimately love is a choice, not a feeling, and we put way too much emphasis on “sexual attraction” these days in our sex crazed world. Every married couple knows that the “attraction” isn’t always there, and yet Paul instructs us not to deny our spouses because our bodies belong to one another. A Christian’s heart should be set on obeying Christ above all, and so if their desires are contrary to Christ, they need to repent and ask Him to change those desires so that they can faithfully serve Him. If I have a desire for murder in my heart, Jesus says that itself is a sin, and I do not simply need to learn how to live with it and faithfully resist that desire, but to have Christ remove that desire from my heart so I would no longer sin in my heart against the Lord and against my brother.
Someone struggling with the sin of sexual idolatry of any kind is a sinner just like everyone else, and they need to repent and trust in Christ and freed from their sins, like everyone else. And yes we can and should be willing to walk alongside any kind of sinner desiring to be set free, but part of being set free means no longer identifying with who you once were and instead finding your identity solely in Christ. This is what the Church should be on about, and this is where I see Brandon sorely missing the mark in this article.