Q&A - Sexual Identity
July 18, 2021 Sunday Evening Study

Joan is a fifty-year-old woman who has been visiting your church for a little over a year. She sits on the third row from the back, and usually exits during the closing hymn, often with tears in her eyes. Joan approaches you after the service on Sunday to tell you that she wants to follow Jesus as her Lord. You ask Joan a series of diagnostic questions about her faith, and it is clear she understands the gospel. She still seems distressed though. When you ask if she’s repented of her sin, she starts to cry and grit her teeth.

“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know how.... I don’t know where to start.... Can I meet with you privately?” You, Joan, and a godly Titus 2-type women’s ministry leader in your church meet in your office right away, and Joan tells you her story.

She wasn’t born Joan. She was born John. From early on in John’s life, though, he felt as though he was “a woman trapped in a man’s body.” Joan says, “I don’t mean to repeat that old shopworn cliché, but it really is what I felt like.” Joan tells you that when she was twenty she began the process of “transitioning” from life as a man to life as a woman. She underwent extensive hormone therapy, followed by extensive plastic surgery—including so-called “gender reassign- ment surgery.” She has lived for the past thirty years—physically and socially—as a woman.

“I want to do whatever it takes to follow Jesus,” Joan tells you. “I want to repent.... I just, I don’t know how to do it. “I am surgically now a woman. I’ve taken hor- mones that give me the appearance and physical makeup of a woman,” she says. “Even if I were to put on a suit and tie right now, I’d just look like a woman with a suit and tie. Not to mention the fact that, well, I am physically ... a woman. “To complicate matters further,” Joan says through tears, “I adopted my daughter, Clarissa, when she was eight months old, and she’s ten years old now. She doesn’t know about my past life as ... as a man. She just knows me as her Mom. “I know the sex change surgery was wrong. I know that my life is twisted. I’m willing to do whatever Jesus would have me to do to make it right,” she says. “But what would Jesus have me to do?

Joan asks you, “Am I too messed up to repent and be saved? If not, what does it mean for me to repent and live my life as a follower of Jesus? What is right for me to do?”

Think as if you are either the pastor or the Titus 2 type woman - what should be your response? What should you be able to expect from the church body as a whole?

Question: How should the church deal with the LGBTQ challenge? Whichever side of the field you are on, there is a challenge.

In a study by Pew Research, 69% of LGBT adults said they had been made to feel unwelcome in a church or other place of worship. Many also rated specific religious groups as unfriendly toward the LGBT community, including eight-in-ten (79%) who said the Catholic Church is unfriendly toward LGBT people, and more than seven-in-ten saying the same about Evangelical churches. For interviewees to use that word – unfriendly – indicates an underlying attitude that is obvious to people who come through the doors – it is a feeling that is equated with being unwelcome.

After the 2016 shooting at an Orlando gay bar, Mike Thompson, CEO of the LGBT Community Center in Palm Springs, spoke of our human need for places of sanctuary to be around like-minded people. He stated “That is a role that churches often play for people, but LGBT people often feel ostracized from places of faith. Bars, community centers, coffee houses, can provide that. You want to be in a community, whether it's a faith community or just a neighborhood where you aren't made to feel like an 'other' or 'less than.' "  If the church has largely been a place where it has been made clear that LGBTQ individuals will not find community, then it stands to reason that they will find it elsewhere. As pride events and other initiatives centered upon the LGBTQ lifestyle continue to increase, it becomes clear that the prevailing social opinion on the matter will force the church to respond to societal pressure.

What does the Bible say? It is easy to look in a biblical concordance and find all of the passages that speak of homosexuality as being sinful, unnatural, or an abomination like Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, or within lists of vices or other sins like in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:10. We can also look at the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 and see that according to these things, homosexuality and gender dysmorphia are not ideal according to God’s law and the teachings of the early church. Part of the reason why the church in general has not been more accepting of LGBTQ people is because from the standpoint of studying scripture, most Christians do not get past this point and automatically label all homosexuality and “gender-bending” as unacceptable, thereby rejecting the people along with their sin.

If we investigate how the church should be responding to members of the LGBTQ community through the lens of Jesus’ ethical foundation, then several major themes of Jesus’ ethics are inclusion in community, deliverance, peace, justice, joy, God’s presence, and healing. It seems appropriate then to conclude that often-rejected LGBTQ persons should experience in the church welcome into community, healing of distress as they understand their own distress, deliverance from social rejection and ostracism, peace of mind and heart at last, and an end to their suffering injustices for being different from the majority. That is how Jesus ministered to people where they lived. He accepted them and treated them as people with dignity before even approaching the subject of repentance.

We are called to treat all people with dignity and to provide love and charity to all people.  In light of all this, we cannot deny that based upon what scripture says, to live as physically and outwardly homosexual or transgender in any form is in fact sin, and it violates Jesus’ ethic that God’s way is the ideal way. In no way can the church view these things as not sinful, in much the same way that the church cannot view murder, or disobedience, or stealing, or lying, or hatred of any kind as not sinful, regardless of its seriousness or its consequences. Yet, if we are to follow Jesus’ mission and employ his ethics, the church is failing as we are called to embrace sinners  as they (meaning us as well, according to Romans 3:23) are the ones most in need of Christ’s healing. 

What do you think? What about “love the sinner and hate the sin?”

Despite the popularity of the saying that we are to “Love the sinner and hate the sin,” this does not appear anywhere in the Bible, and Christians use this phrase often in defense of the church’s attitudes toward the LGBTQ community. “Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin” conveniently makes a distinction between the sinner and the sin. And this is one of the reasons that phrase is so attractive to so many Christians — it grants the appearance of generosity without the need to sacrifice (or honestly wrestle with) one’s convictions.  While this may in some ways exhibit compassion, it certainly does not exhibit grace. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus heals a crippled man by telling him that his sins are forgiven. In this, Jesus was replacing the system already in place wherein sin “debt” was paid through sacrifice – he forgave the sin in anticipation of the payment he would make on behalf of all sin debts accrued by all people. Jesus’s understanding of forgiveness was so radical because he did not need people to repent before he accepted them. He did not require a change in behavior before he loved, respected, and related to them. Yet, it was precisely this unconditional love and forgiveness that seemed so potent and transformative, often being the very act that drew people to repentance. 

So what do we do as a church?

It seems clear that if we are perceived as unfriendly, we are acting in a manner that is unfriendly whether or not it is intended. We must recognize that there are words and actions that are standard practice that create a barrier between the church and the LGBTQ community, and we must become intentional about eliminating the barrier and behaving in a more friendly manner to all. In order to shine the light on the mistakes we have made and continue to make, it begins with a return to prayer and surrender to God to show us where we must change. It then requires obedience to intentionally change the status quo. Understand - sin is still sin, and cannot be condoned, but just as we would not reject someone struggling with alcoholism or gambling addiction, this is about community. 

Jesus’ ethical stance is clear throughout His ministry. As mentioned before, in the Gospel of Mark Jesus made it clear that His mission was to those who most needed his help – the sick, the sinners, the outcasts. At no point did Jesus exclude anyone because of their job or their appearance or gender, and it is reasonable to say that he would not have based on sexual orientation given his tolerance and compassionate nature toward the lost whom He encountered. Jesus drew the lost to Himself through His humility and His charity – two things that the church is not only capable of exemplifying, but at various times throughout history were the identifying characteristics of the church. Making disciples of all people begins with the acceptance of all people and the investment in their lives leading to Jesus’ saving grace.

Ultimately, we begin with the elimination of the stigma of sexual sin as being worse or more pervasive than any other. This is not done easily and requires a reliance upon God to help us to learn and grow. We have to admit how we as a church have mishandled our responsibility to the LGBTQ community and repent of our own sin in response before we can move beyond to healing and reconciliation. We must return to our original callings as believers – to present the image of God, to show love, and to make disciples of all nations. We need to recognize the salvific work Jesus did even before the cross – promoting community, reconciliation, dignity – even real humanity as only a Savior can.

If we look back at the original scenario, I can say how the church should respond - tight-knit community, support, and prayer as they surround this family. That is truly what the church should do, but in my experience (and that of most LGBTQ people) that is not what the church would do. The sad truth is that transitioning from living as female to male, she is likely going to be more accepted and supported outside of the church than inside of it. Transgender people have resources and rights and supporters in the LGBTQ community - things they have never found in the church, and likely will not find in this scenario. People may be well-meaning, but what happens when a prominent church member unknowingly says or does something hurtful and demeaning? What if they do it intentionally? I ask these questions because this is the world we live in - Christians have done more to drive LGBTQ people away from God than we have ever done to drive them toward Him, and some will be threatened when they hear of Joan's situation. I don't mean to be overly pessimistic or contrary, but Christians love to judge, and judge they will.

Let’s also not forget our ultimate responsibility in this scenario. Before we start talking logistics and planning, we have a vulnerable and hurt person sitting before us who needs Jesus. This is our primary concern - sexuality is a large part of a person’s life, but not as large as a person’s identity with Christ.

We discuss this today because this is reality. How are we going to respond when this, or something very much like it, happens here?

How can our response help us to reach the LGBTQ community for Christ?