Submission, Justification, and Homosexuality

The past month has been one of the most challenging friendship-maintenance months on record. Over the past 6-12 months, I've been watching friends, and church family members close to me, deny the moral truths of Scripture to support their own need for completeness. I understand the struggle to deny one's self as a sacrifice to our Lord, Jesus Christ, and I know how tempting it is to want to justify sinful actions so that we won't have to battle them anymore. But because of the Christian family I'm a part of, and the conviction of the Spirit I try to be sensitive to as I read the Bible, I stand strong in the truth of Scripture and the morality is prescribes.

A great deal of understanding is required to discern what biblical moral principles apply to all people at all times, and what others apply only to the culture in which it was written (or was written for). The most prevalent struggle in Seattle is that of same-sex attraction (SSA). I've read books written by people on each side of the issue. Some Christian authors reinterpret Scripture with a strong bias toward justifying homosexuality, and have managed to twist Scripture to say what suits them. Satan has this old trick down pat. I've also read (ex-gay) authors who did not let themselves be deceived by the lies and, as a result, they have found freedom from their sin. By freedom, I mean that although they probably still struggle with SSA to a point; but they don't indulge in its lustful desires, they don't let it destroy their marriages/families, and they don't justify their perverted passions - they submit to Christ. All people struggle with lust or some other habitual sin, but neither can we indulge, fantasize, act on, or especially justify those desires if we are to gain victory over them.

Whatever your take on homosexuality though, the more frightening part is that many of them use their SSA as an excuse to commit other sins more blatantly forbidden in the Bible. If one made the mistake of marrying a person of the opposite sex while still hiding their same-sex attraction, that doesn't give them the right to violate their marriage covenant through divorce or adultery - yet that's exactly what's happening! Unless I'm mistaken, there's no small print in the vows that states "if I'm attracted to my own gender, then divorce or adultery is permissible."

Take the case of a married man with SSA. If he chooses to act on his same sex passions and fantasies, and cheats on his wife, he's guilty of adultery! Some have justified this and even called their adulterous lovers "a gift from God." How sad. Now, if the couple divorces as a direct result of the infidelity, I think that keeps the woman out of sin, but the husband is still guilty of breaking the marriage covenant. Even if the man doesn't commit adultery, if the couple agrees to a divorce, then the man (and maybe the woman too) are both guilty of sin. Unfortunately, Seattle, and many other places around the world, disregard Scripture in this case because "homosexuals can't help it." Isn't that the same excuse heterosexual adultery is using to justify its infidelity? - I couldn't help it.

So what are we, the church, called to do to and for our struggling friends? What should our response be to those who embrace their SSA as a gift from God? What about for those who divorce for this reason? Adulterers? Should they be cast out of the church for embracing their sin? Certainly we should remember that they are still God's children and we are to love them as brothers and sisters, but what does that look like?