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William Lane Craig

A frank attempt to deal with the question of whether homosexuality is immoral.

One of the most volatile and important issues facing the Church today is the question of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle. The Church cannot duck this question. Events like the brutal murder of Matthew Shepherd, the homosexual student in Wyoming, or the recent spate of scandals involving ***** priests, which has rocked the Catholic Church, serve to thrust this question to the front and center of American culture.

Christians who reject the legitimacy of the homosexual lifestyle are routinely denounced a homophobic, intolerant, even hateful. There is thus tremendous intimidation concerning this issue. Some churches have even endorsed the homosexual lifestyle and welcome those who practice it to be their ministers.

And don’t think this is happening just in liberal churches. One homosexual group called Evangelicals Concerned is a group of people who are to all appearances born-again, Bible-believing Christians, but also practicing homosexuals. They claim that the Bible doesn’t forbid homosexual activity or that its commands aren’t valid for today, but were just a reflection of the culture in which it was written. These people can be orthodox about Jesus and every other area of teaching; but they just think it’s all right to be a practicing homosexual. I recall hearing a New Testament scholar at a professional conference relate the story of his speaking in one of their meetings. “Folks were really concerned about what you were going to say,” his host said after the meeting. “Why?” he asked in surprise. “You know I’m not homophobic!” “Oh, no, that wasn’t the concern,” his host reassured him. “They were afraid you’d be too historical-critical!”

So who are we to say that these apparently earnest Christians are wrong?

Now that’s a very good question. Who are we to say that they are wrong? But this question raises an even deeper question, which we’ve got to answer first: do right and wrong really exist? Before you can determine what is right and wrong, you have to know that there really is right and wrong.

Well, what is the basis for saying that right and wrong exist, that there really is a difference between these two? Traditionally, the answer has been that moral values are based in God. God is by His very nature perfectly holy and good. He is just, loving, patient, merciful, generous—all that is good comes from Him and is a reflection of His character. Now God’s perfectly good nature issues forth in commandments to us, which become our moral duties, for example, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength,” “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” “You shall not murder, steal, or commit adultery.” These things are right or wrong based on God’s commandments, and God’s commandments are not arbitrary but flow necessarily out of His perfect nature.

This is the Christian understanding of right and wrong. There really is such a being as God, who created the world and made us to know Him. He really has commanded certain things. We really are morally obligated to do certain things (and not to do others). Morality isn’t just in your mind. It’s real. When we fail to keep God’s commandments, we really are morally guilty before Him and need His forgiveness. The problem isn’t just that we feel guilty; we really are guilty, regardless of how we feel. I might not feel guilty because I have an insensitive conscience, one that’s dulled by sin; but if I’ve broken God’s law, I am guilty, regardless of how I feel.

So, for example, if the Nazis had won World War II and succeeded in brainwashing or exterminating everyone who disagreed with them, so that everybody would think the Holocaust had been good, it would still have been wrong, because God says it is wrong, regardless of human opinion. Morality is based in God, and so real right and wrong exist and are unaffected by human opinions.

I’ve emphasized this point because it’s so foreign to what a lot of people in our society think today. Today so many people think of right and wrong, not as matters of fact, but as matters of taste. For example, there isn’t any objective fact that broccoli tastes good. It tastes good to some people, but tastes bad to others. It may taste bad to you, but it tastes good to me! People think it’s the same with moral values. Something may seem wrong to you, but right to me. There isn’t any real right or wrong. It’s just a matter of opinion.

Now if there is no God, then I think these people are absolutely correct. In the absence of God everything becomes relative. Right and wrong become relative to different cultures and societies. Without God who is to say that one culture’s values are better than another’s? Who’s to say who is right and who is wrong? Where do right and wrong come from? Richard Taylor, who is a prominent American philosopher—and not a Christian by the way—, makes this point very forcefully. Look carefully at what he says:

The idea of . . . moral obligation is clear enough, provided that reference to some lawmaker higher . . . than those of the state is understood. In other words, our moral obligations can . . . be understood as those that are imposed by God. . . . But what if this higher-than-human lawgiver is no longer taken into account? Does the concept of a moral obligation . . . still make sense?1
He says the answer is “No.” I quote: “The concept of moral obligation is unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain, but their meaning is gone.”2

He goes on to say:

The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, without noticing that in casting God aside they have also abolished the meaningfulness of right and wrong as well. Thus, even educated persons sometimes declare that such things as war, or abortion, or the violation of certain human rights are morally wrong, and they imagine that they have said something true and meaningful. Educated people do not need to be told, however, that questions such as these have never been answered outside of religion.3

Do you catch what even this non-Christian philosopher is saying? If there is no God, no divine lawgiver, then there is no moral law. If there is no moral law, then there is no real right and wrong. Right and wrong are just human customs and laws that vary from society to society. Even if they all agree, they’re still just human inventions.

So if God does not exist, right and wrong do not exist either. Anything goes, including homosexuality. So one of the best ways to defend the legitimacy of the homosexual lifestyle is to become an atheist. But the problem is that many defenders of homosexuality don’t want to become atheists. In particular, they do want to affirm that right and wrong exist. So you hear them making moral judgements all the time, for example: “It is wrong to discriminate against homosexuals.” And these moral judgements aren’t meant to be just relative to a culture or society. They would condemn a society like Nazi Germany which threw homosexuals into concentration camps, along with Jews and other undesirables. When Colorado passed an amendment prohibiting special rights for homosexuals, Barbara Streisand called for a boycott of the state, saying, “The moral climate in Colorado has become unacceptable.”

But we’ve seen that these kinds of value judgements cannot be meaningfully made unless God exists. If God does not exist, anything goes, including discrimination and persecution of homosexuals. But it doesn’t stop there: murder, rape, torture, child abuse—none of these things would be wrong, because without God right and wrong do not exist. Everything is permitted.

So if we want to be able to make moral judgements about what’s right or wrong, we’ve got to affirm that God exists. But then the same question we started with—“Who are you to say that homosexuality is wrong?”—can be put back to homosexual activists: “Who are you to say that homosexuality is right?” If God exists, then we cannot ignore what He has to say about the subject. The correct answer to the “Who are you . . ?” question is to say, “Me? I’m nobody! God determines what’s right and wrong, and I’m just interested in learning and obeying what He says.”

So let me recap what we’ve seen so far. The question of the legitimacy of the homosexual lifestyle is a question of what God has to say about it. If there is no God, then there is no right and wrong, and it doesn’t make any difference what lifestyle you choose—the persecutor of homosexuals is morally equivalent to the advocate of homosexuality. But if God does exist, we can no longer go just on the basis of our own opinions. We have to find out what God thinks on the issue.

So how do you find out what God thinks? The Christian says, you look in the Bible. And the Bible tells us that God forbids homosexual acts. Therefore, they are wrong.

So basically the reasoning goes like this:

(1) We are all obligated to do God’s will.

(2) God’s will is expressed in the Bible.

(3) The Bible forbids homosexual behavior.

(4) Therefore, homosexual behavior is against God’s will, or is wrong.

Now if someone is going to resist this reasoning, he’s got to deny either that (2) God’s will is expressed in the Bible or else that (3) the Bible forbids homosexual behavior.

Let’s look at point (3) first: Does the Bible in fact forbid homosexual behavior? Now notice how I put that question. I did not ask, does the Bible forbid homosexuality, but rather does the Bible forbid homosexual behavior? This is an important distinction. Being homosexual is a state or an orientation; a person who has a homosexual orientation might not ever express that orientation in actions. By contrast, a person could engage in homosexual acts even if he has a heterosexual orientation. Now what the Bible condemns is homosexual actions or behavior, not having a homosexual orientation. The idea of a person’s being a homosexual by orientation is a feature of modern psychology and may have been unknown to people in the ancient world. What they were familiar with was homosexual acts, and this is what the Bible forbids.

Now this has enormous implications. For one thing, it means that the whole debate about whether homosexuality is something you were born with or is a result of how you were raised really doesn’t matter in the end. The important thing is not how you got your orientation, but what you do with it. Some defenders of homosexuality are very anxious to prove that your genes, not your upbringing, determine if you’re homosexual because then homosexual behavior is normal and right. But this conclusion doesn’t follow at all. Just because you’re genetically disposed to some behavior doesn’t mean that behavior is morally right. To give an example, some researchers suspect there may be a gene which predisposes some people to alcoholism. Does that mean that it’s all right for someone with such predisposition to go ahead and drink to his heart’s content and become an alcoholic? Obviously not! If anything, it ought to alert him to abstain from alcohol so as to prevent this from happening. Now the sober truth of the matter is that we don’t fully understand the roles of heredity and environment in producing homosexuality. But that doesn’t really matter. Even if homosexuality were completely genetic, that fact alone still wouldn’t make it any different than a birth defect, like a cleft palate or epilepsy. That doesn’t mean it’s normal and that we shouldn’t try to correct it.

If any case, whether homosexuality results from genetics or upbringing, people don’t generally choose to be homosexual. Many homosexuals testify how agonizing it is to find yourself with these desires and to fight against them, and they’ll tell you they would never choose to be that way. And the Bible doesn’t condemn a person because he has a homosexual orientation. What it condemns is homosexual acts. It is perfectly possible to be a homosexual and be a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian.

Just as an alcoholic who is dry will still stand up at an AA meeting and say, “I am an alcoholic,” so a homosexual who is living straight and keeping himself pure ought to be able to stand up in a prayer meeting and say, “I am a homosexual. But by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, I’m living chastely for Christ.” And I hope we’d have the courage and love to welcome him or her as a brother or sister in Christ.

So, once more, the question is: Does the Bible forbid homosexual behavior? Well, I’ve already said that it does. The Bible is so realistic! You might not expect it to mention a topic like homosexual behavior, but in fact there are six places in the Bible—three in the Old Testament and three in the New Testament—where this issue is directly addressed—not to mention all the passages dealing with marriage and sexuality which have implications for this issue. In all six of these passages homosexual acts are unequivocally condemned.

In Leviticus 18.22 it says that it is an abomination for a man to lie with another man as with a woman. In Lev. 20.13 the death penalty is prescribed in Israel for such an act, along with adultery, incest, and bestiality. Now sometimes homosexual advocates make light of these prohibitions by comparing them to prohibitions in the Old Testament against having contact with unclean animals like pigs. Just as Christians today don’t obey all of the Old Testament ceremonial laws, so, they say, we don’t have to obey the prohibitions of homosexual actions. But the problem with this argument is that the New Testament reaffirms the validity of the Old Testament prohibitions of homosexual behavior, as we’ll see below. This shows they were not just part of the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, which were done away with, but were part of God’s everlasting moral law. Homosexual behavior is in God’s sight a serious sin. The third place where homosexual acts are mentioned in the Old Testament is the horrifying story in Genesis 19 of the attempted gang rape of Lot’s visitors by the men of Sodom, from which our word sodomy derives. God destroyed the city of Sodom because of their wickedness.

Now if this weren’t enough, the New Testament also forbids homosexual behavior. In I Cor. 6.9-10 Paul writes, “ Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be decieved: neither the sexually immoral,nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God.” The words in the list translated “men who practice homosexuality” refer in Greek literature to the passive and the active partners in male homosexual intercourse. (As I said, the Bible is very realistic!) The second of these two words is also listed in I Tim. 1.10 along with fornicators, slave traders, liars, and murderers as “contrary to the sound teaching of the Gospel.” The most lengthy treatment of homosexual activity comes in Romans 1.24-28. Here Paul talks about how people have turned away from the Creator God and begun to worship instead false gods of their own making. He says,

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Liberal scholars have done acrobatics to try to explain away the clear sense of these verses. Some have said that Paul is only condemning the pagan practice of men’s sexually exploiting young boys. But such an interpretation is obviously wrong, since Paul says in verses 24 and 27 that these homosexual acts by men were committed “with one another” and in verse 26 he speaks of lesbian homosexual acts as well. Other scholars have said Paul is only condemning heterosexuals who engage in homosexual acts, not homosexuals who do. But this interpretation is contrived and anachronistic. We’ve already said that it was only in modern times that the idea of homosexual or heterosexual orientation developed. What Paul is condemning is homosexual acts, regardless of orientation. Given the Old Testament background to this passage as well as what Paul says in I Cor. 6.9-10 and I Tim. 1.10, it is clear that Paul is here forbidding all such acts. He sees this behavior as the evidence of a corrupted mind which has turned away from God and been abandoned by Him to moral degeneracy.

So the Bible is very forthright and clear when it comes to homosexual behavior. It is contrary to God’s design and is sin. Even if there weren’t all these explicit passages dealing with homosexual acts, such acts would still be forbidden under the commandment “You shall not commit adultery.” God’s plan for human sexual activity is that it is reserved for marriage: any sexual activity outside of the security of the marriage bond—whether pre-marital sex or extra-marital sex, whether heterosexual or homosexual—is forbidden. Sex is designed by God for marriage.

Someone might say that if God intended sex for marriage, then just let homosexuals marry each other and they would not be committing adultery! But this suggestion completely misunderstands God’s intention for marriage. In the creation story in Genesis, it tells of how God made woman as a suitable mate for man, his perfect, God-given complement. Then it says, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall become one flesh.” This is God’s pattern for marriage, and in the New Testament Paul quotes this very passage and then says, “This is a great mystery and I am applying it to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5.32). Paul says that the union between a man and his wife is a living symbol of the unity of Christ with his people, the Church. When we think about this, we can see what a terrible sacrilege, what a mockery of God’s plan, a homosexual union is. It flies in the face of God’s intention for humanity from the moment of creation.

The above also shows how silly it is when some homosexual advocates say, “Jesus never condemned homosexual behavior, so why should we?” Jesus did not specifically mention lots of things which we know to be wrong, like bestiality or torture, but that doesn’t mean he approved of them. What Jesus does do is quote from Genesis to affirm God’s pattern for marriage as the basis for his own teaching on divorce. In Mark 10.6-8, He says, “From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become one flesh. Consequently, they are no longer two, but one flesh.” For two men to become one flesh in homosexual intercourse would be a violation of God’s created order and intent. He created man and woman to be indissolubly united in marriage, not two men or two women.

To recap, then, the Bible clearly and consistently forbids homosexual activity. So if God’s will is expressed in the Bible, it follows that homosexual behavior is against God’s will.

But suppose someone denies point (2) that God’s will is expressed in the Bible. Suppose he says that the prohibitions against homosexual behavior were valid for that time and that culture but are no longer valid today. After all, most of us would probably agree that certain commands in the Bible are relative to the culture. For example, the Bible says that Christian women should not wear jewelry and men should not have long hair. But most of us would say that while these commands do have a timelessly valid core—like, say, the injuction to dress modestly—that core principle may be differently expressed in different cultures. In the same way, some people are saying that the Bible’s prohibitions against homosexual behavior are no longer valid for our day and age.

But I think this objection represents a serious misunderstanding. There’s no evidence that Paul’s commands concerning homosexual acts are culturally relative. Far from being a reflection of the culture in which he wrote, Paul’s commands are downright counter-cultural! Homosexual activity was as widespread in ancient Greek and Roman society as it is today in the U.S., and yet Paul stood up against the culture and opposed it. More importantly, we’ve seen that the Bible’s prohibitions against homosexual activity are rooted, not in culture, but in the God-given pattern for marriage established at creation. You can’t deny that the Bible’s forbidding homosexual relations expresses God’s will unless you also reject that marriage itself expresses God’s will.

Well, suppose someone goes the whole way and says, “I believe in God, but not the God of the Bible. So I don’t believe the Bible expresses God’s will.” What do you say to such a person?

It seems to me that there are two ways to respond. First, you could try to show that God has revealed Himself in the Bible. This is the task of Christian Apologetics. You could talk about the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus or fulfilled prophecy. Scripture actually commands us as believers to have a such defense ready to share with anyone who should ask us about why we believe as we do (I Pet.3.15).

Or secondly, you could try to show that homosexual behavior is wrong by appealing to generally accepted moral truths which even people who don’t believe in the Bible accept. While this approach is more difficult, nevertheless I think that it is crucial if we as Christians are to have an impact on our contemporary culture. We are living in a society which is more and more secular, more and more post-Christian. We can’t just appeal to the Bible if we’re going to influence lawmakers or public schools or other institutions because most people don’t believe in the Bible anymore. We need to give reasons which have a broader appeal.

For example, I think many people would agree with the principle that it’s wrong to engage in self-destructive behavior. For such behavior destroys a human being who is inherently valuable. Thus, many people, I think, would say that it is wrong to become an alcoholic or a chain-smoker. They would say that it’s good to eat right and stay fit. Moreover, I think almost everybody would agree with the principle that it’s wrong to engage in behavior that harms another person. For example, we restrict smoking to certain areas or ban it altogether so other people won’t have to inhale second-hand smoke, and we pass laws against drunk driving so innocent people won’t be hurt. Almost everybody agrees that you have no right to engage in a behavior that is destructive to another human being.

But it’s not hard to show that homosexual behavior is one of the most self-destructive and harmful behaviors a person could engage in. This fact is not widely publicized. Hollywood and the media are relentlessly bent on putting a happy face on homosexuality, whereas in fact it is a dark, twisted, and dangerous lifestyle, just as addictive and destructive as alcoholism or smoking. The sobering statistics I’m about to share with you are all fully documented by Dr. Thomas Schmidt in his remarkable book Straight and Narrow?4

To begin with, there is an almost compulsive promiscuity associated with homosexual behavior. 75% of homosexual men have more than 100 sexual partners during their lifetime. More than half of these partners are strangers. Only 8% of homosexual men and 7% of homosexual women ever have relationships lasting more than three years. Nobody knows the reason for this strange, obsessive promiscuity. It may be that homosexuals are trying to satisfy a deep psychological need by sexual encounters, and it just is not fulfilling. Male homosexuals average over 20 partners a year. According to Dr. Schmidt,

The number of homosexual men who experience anything like lifelong fidelity becomes, statistically speaking, almost meaningless. Promiscuity among homosexual men is not a mere stereotype, and it is not merely the majority experience—it is virtually the only experience. Lifelong faithfulness is almost non-existent in the homosexual experience.

Associated with this compulsive promiscuity is widespread drug use by homosexuals to heighten their sexual experiences. Homosexuals in general are three times as likely to be problem drinkers as the general population. Studies show that 47% of male homosexuals have a history of alcohol abuse and 51% have a history of drug abuse. There is a direct correlation between the number of partners and the amount of drugs consumed.

Moreover, according to Schmidt, “There is overwhelming evidence that certain mental disorders occur with much higher frequency among homosexuals.” For example, 40% of homosexual men have a history of major depression. That compares with only 3% for men in general. Similarly 37% of female homosexuals have a history of depression. This leads in turn to heightened suicide rates. Homosexuals are three times as likely to contemplate suicide as the general population. In fact homosexual men have an attempted suicide rate six times that of heterosexual men, and homosexual women attempt suicide twice as often as heterosexual women. Nor are depression and suicide the only problems. Studies show that homosexuals are much more likely to be ***** than heterosexual men. Whatever the causes of these disorders, the fact remains that anyone contemplating a homosexual lifestyle should have no illusions about what he is getting into.

Another well-kept secret is how physically dangerous homosexual behavior is. I’m not going to describe the kinds of sexual activity practiced by homosexuals, but just let me say that our bodies, male and female, are designed for sexual intercourse in a way that two male bodies are not. As a result, homosexual activity, 80% of which is carried out by men, is very destructive, resulting eventually in such problems as prostate damage, ulcers and ruptures, and chronic incontinence and diarrhea.

In addition to these physical problems, sexually transmitted diseases are rampant among the homosexual population. 75% of homosexual men carry one or more sexually transmitted diseases, wholly apart from AIDS. These include all sorts of non-viral infections like gonorrhea, syphilis, bacterial infections, and parasites. Also common among homosexuals are viral infections like herpes and hepatitis B (which afflicts 65% of homosexual men), both of which are incurable, as well as hepatitis A and a**l warts, which afflict 40% of homosexual men. And I haven’t even included AIDS. Perhaps the most shocking and frightening statistic is that, leaving aside those who die from AIDS, the life expectancy for a homosexual male is about 45 years of age. That compares to a life expectancy of around 70 for men in general. If you include those who die of AIDS, which now infects 30% of homosexual men, the life expectancy drops to 39 years of age.

So I think a very good case can be made out on the basis of generally accepted moral principles that homosexual behavior is wrong. It is horribly self-destructive and injurious to another person. Thus, wholly apart from the Bible’s prohibition, there are sound, sensible reasons to regard homosexual activity as wrong.

Now this has very important implications for public policy concerning homosexual behavior. For public laws and policies are based on such generally accepted moral principles. That’s why, for example, we have laws regulating the sale of alcohol in various ways or laws prohibiting gambling or regulations which restrict smoking. These restrictions on individual freedom are imposed for the general good. In the same way, some states, like our home state of Georgia, have laws prohibiting sodomy, and the Supreme Court has ruled that such laws are constitutional. Though such a law is undoubtedly unenforceable, it is legal in light of the health risks posed by such behavior.

Now in other cases, enforceable laws governing homosexuality might be proposed, and Christians will have to think hard about these on an individual basis. For example, a Christian might not see any good reason why equal opportunity in buying or renting housing should not be guaranteed to persons who are homosexuals. But I could well imagine that a Christian might oppose a bill guaranteeing equal employment opportunities for homosexuals. For some jobs might be inappropriate for such persons. For example, would you want a practicing lesbian to be your daughter’s physical education teacher at school? Would you want your son’s coach to be a homosexual, who would be in the locker room with the boys? I, for one, wouldn’t support a law which could force public schools to hire such individuals.

Or again, should health classes in public schools teach that homosexuality is a legitimate lifestyle, or should students be given reading like Heather has Two Mommies? Should homosexual unions be recognized as being on a legal par with heterosexual marriages? Should homosexuals be allowed to adopt children? In all these cases, one might argue for restrictions on homosexual liberties on the basis of the general public good and health. This is not a matter of imposing one’s personal values on others, since it is based on the same general moral principles that are used, for example, to ban drug use or pass gun laws. Liberty does not mean the license to engage in actions that harm other people.

To sum up, we’ve seen, first, that right and wrong are real because they are based in God. So if we want to find out what is right or wrong, we should look at what God says about it. Second, we saw that the Bible consistently and clearly forbids homosexual acts, just as it does all sexual acts outside marriage. Third, we saw that the Bible’s prohibition of such behavior can’t be explained away as just the reflection of the time and culture in which it was written because it is grounded in God’s divine plan for man-woman marriage. Moreover, even apart from the Bible, there are generally accepted moral principles which imply that homosexual behavior is wrong.

Now what practical application does all this have for us as individuals?

First, if you are a homosexual or feel that inclination, keep yourself pure. If you are unmarried, you should practice abstinence from all sexual activity. I know this is difficult, but really what God is asking you to do is pretty much the same thing that he requires of all single people. That means not only keeping your body pure, but especially your mind. Just as heterosexual men should avoid pornography and fantasizing, you, too, need to keep your thought-life clean. Resist the temptation to rationalize sin by saying, “God made me this way.” God has made it very clear that He does not want you to indulge your desires, but to honor Him by keeping your mind and body pure. Finally, seek professional Christian counseling. With time and effort, you can come to enjoy normal, heterosexual relations with your spouse. There is hope.

Second, for those of us who are heterosexual, we need to remember that being homosexual is as such no sin. Most homosexuals did not choose such an orientation and would like to change it if they could. We need to accept and lovingly support brothers and sisters who are struggling with this problem. And in general, we need to extend God’s love to homosexual people. Vulgar words or jokes about homosexuals should never pass the lips of a Christian. If you find yourself feeling glad when some affliction befalls a homosexual person or you find feelings of hatred welling up in your heart toward homosexual people, then you need to reflect long and hard on the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew: “it will be more tolerable on the Day of Judgement for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you” (Mt. 10.15; 11.24).


Notes

1 Richard Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), pp. 83-4.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid., pp. 2-3.

4 Thomas Schmidt, Straight and Narrow? (Downer’s Gove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1995).

by William Lane Craig


Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/a-christian-perspective-on-homosexuality#ixzz2yhw4fTr1

The article belongs to William Lane Craig, but he put it in the public domain as from what I gather as an apologetics tool so I don't see why you can not post it elsewhere as long as you give him credit for the article.

Here in Norway also this is what the church have been made to make a public decision on. Just recently there was a vote if the church should be performing same sex marriages, and the majority vote was against. It seems like the public will not accept it, and many people are now leaving the church because they did not agree with the outcome of the voting. I have to say I am impressed that the church was able to come to the decision they did. There is a lot of pressure to adapt to societal changes, and to focus less on God's word or as you say water it down and reinterpret it, to make it more comfortable for man.
We are not in a position to do so. Even if we try to twist Scripture to somehow make it more acceptable, it will always be wrong because it has its basis as something wrong in the unchanging nature of God. So if we all changed our minds and we all agreed that it is now good, it would still be wrong.

I am sure many people will disagree with the data and the statistics. It won't be accepted by people as evidence.

I came across a study on; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1556756

"the ratio of heterosexual to homosexual ***** was calculated to be approximately 11:1. This suggests that the resulting proportion of true ***** among persons with a homosexual erotic development is greater than that in persons who develop heterosexually."

It goes on to say; "This, of course, would not indicate that androphilic males have a greater propensity (natural tendency) to offend against children".

If the ratio is 11:1 vs 20:1 then I don't think we have a basis to say that androphilic males do not have a greater propensity to offend against Children.

Thank you for posting this, for I myself am struggling with this, it has definitely opened my eyes a little more.

And I truly believe those statistics are accurate.