Grace and Same Sex Attraction

I wrote this in response to a emailed question about Same Sex Attraction in Christians.

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I separate believers and non-believers when it comes to SSA, but of course its a journey. I believe homosexuality is a sin like any other sin. Christianity as a religion has done itself a disservice and totally misrepresented God's heart by setting homosexuality in a category of "super sins" which are extra abhorrent. I know you are asking specifically about lust but I'm setting up the background for my answer.

We spend too much time as churches, disapproving of the world in order to set ourselves apart, and very little spot-light is shown on growing as Christians ourselves. Christians are directed to look at the fruits in each other before accepting that someone is actually from Christ. We are to live closely together and grow as iron sharpens iron. I believe Christians are to be helping each other past things. I don't see anything that tells me I'm to pick on non-believers and show them my disgust at how they live. There is nothing edifying in that.

So when someone walks in the door of a church at an early stage of returning to Christ and they struggle with same sex attraction, it shouldn't be any different than if they were an alcoholic, or wife-beater, or pedophile. For that matter it shouldn't be any different than if they have one of the "acceptable sins" for Christians like neglecting your children, verbally berating your spouse, dishonoring your parents, pride, etc. It's no different than the sins Christians tolerate because they aren't very obvious like masturbation, envy, greed, or gluttony.

Same sex attraction is just a sin. It will fall away naturally as someone draws close to Christ. The things we must be weary of are the "Gateway Sins," the ones that we tolerate because we still kinda like them, or we don't know life without them, or we fear life without them. I think the big one these days is phariseeism. But pride, unbelief, and idolatry are core three. If we put our trust, fear, or hope in anything other than Christ we will fall prey to all the other sins. If we doubt that God can or will come through for us we will fall prey to the other sins.

So again the answer is "no," there is no difference between lusting after a man or lusting after a woman. The core desire of our hearts includes the desire to live in intimacy with men and women, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and if things wound our ability to experience that we are drawn to counterfeit ways of getting our needs met. True intimacy requires something of us, like trust, where lust requires nothing from us.

The best environment to deal with Same Sex Attraction in is a group of Godly men who will hold you accountable. If you are able to express your struggles and be accepted anyway you will begin to heal. The religion I grew up in constantly set themselves apart from the world by any manufactured means they could come up with. Instead of communicating God's love they came off as elitist.

One quick word about accountability though. Clearly I'm not talking about the kind of accountability that focuses on what you are doing or thinking, but the kind that focuses on where you're at. What you are suffering from is not as important as whether you are transparent about it. As long as our concern is intimacy with God we will do anything that will help including inviting our brothers into it. Conversely, if we make it about the problem then we are best served by hiding the problem and causing our brothers to feel like they need to go searching for the problem. While some friends will be able to give more targeted advice the truth is that anyone will do as a confessor as long as they can extend you grace.

For this reason Christianity has given those struggling with certain sins, especially homosexuality, nowhere to go to get better.

A. R. Bunch