The Acceptance of Sexual Sin does not equal Happiness

Today I shared a story on Facebook about a student at UC Berkeley who stood for her Christian beliefs and is currently being persecuted and asked to step down from the student senate. The same association that voted for her has also disassociated from her. One member of the association stated that he “Felt uncomfortable being validated, yet told that he wasn’t supported.” However, I need look no further than my own church’s current doctrine/discipline to find that my denomination validates people of the LGBTQA+ community as loved and of sacred worth, but not supportive of homosexual marriage. 

• ¶ 304.3: The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church. 

• ¶ 341.6: Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.

As you can see, our church doesn’t allow for the homosexual to serve as leadership in our church. In addition, to not allowing for our ministers to conduct homosexual unions. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t love homosexuals. It means that we don’t condone their actions. However, it’s not just homosexuality—it’s any sin. People are tempted by many things and being something doesn’t mean that you have to act upon it. The sin isn’t in being tempted by something it’s by acting upon that temptation. 

So as I used the example today, if I knew someone was being tempted to have an affair on their spouse and I said to them “Don’t act upon your temptation.” I am not saying “If you act, I don’t love you.” I am saying “Because I love you, I can’t support your choice to act upon your sin.”  At Liberty University, in my homiletics class the question came up about whether a gay person could be a pastor. My reply was “If the pastor is gay and celibate, then he can be ordained and maintained as a pastor however, if the pastor is acting upon his sin—giving in to his temptation—then it is wrong and he can’t  be ordained or maintained as a minister.”  So one of my friends in the class said “If you aren’t acting upon your homosexuality, then you aren’t gay!” Friends, that is like saying “If you aren’t sleeping with a man as a woman, then you aren’t a heterosexual.” We know this to be completely untrue. 

However, the question becomes, even if we accept homosexuality as a norm, will that be enough to make those who are homosexual happy?  The answer is a definite no. For this I will provide the following proofs. 

In what may be the most candid piece in Huffington Post history, Michael Hobbes, who identifies as gay, writes about what he calls an “epidemic of loneliness.” “For years,” he begins, “I’ve noticed the divergence between my straight friends and my gay friends. While one half of my social circle has disappeared into relationships, kids and suburbs, the other has struggled through isolation and anxiety, hard drugs and risky (behavior).” 

Hobbes goes on to write “Gay men everywhere, at every age, are two-to-ten-times more likely than heterosexual men to commit suicide.

And that’s just the beginning. Homosexual males also suffer from higher rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer, allergies, asthma, and a whole host of behavior-related infections and dysfunctions. They’re twice as likely to experience major depressive episodes, report having fewer close friends, and abuse drugs at an alarming rate. Sadly even though homosexual marriage has been the law in Sweden since 1971, gay men remain three times more susceptible to mood disorders and three- to ten-times more likely to engage in “suicidal self-harm.”

According to the BBC LGBT people face a greater risk of developing mental health issues, with a new report suggesting that as many as 40% of London’s LGBT community suffers mental health problems. In short, the constant pursuit of casual sex and unnatural sex acts results not only in health and emotional problems, but also in leaving many homosexuals and lesbians with no permanent life partners or adult children to care for them in their old age. To be old and alone is part of the homosexual culture and lifestyle. Why aren’t we telling our youth about this? Instead, our youth are told that homosexuality is equal to heterosexuality. It isn’t.

And while I know this article will tick off a lot of people, I am fine with that.  I felt the need to let people know that non-non-acceptance of someone’s sin does not need to be considered a threat. We need to be telling people that God is love, and that He can change their lives. We need to be calling people to repentance instead of telling them that their actions don’t have possible dire consequences. I am not writing this to hurt my friends; but to reaffirm what I believe—but as I have told many of my friends…I have told you the truth, and your acceptance or denial of such truth is between you and God.