Same-Sex Identity and Pastoral Care
This is a lightly edited manuscript of a training talk I delivered to my presbytery on Saturday, April 27th 2024 on same-sex identity and pastoral care. The audio can be found here. The assumed audience is a mix of pastors and lay elders who have a passing familiarity with the topic. They were provided this reading list in advance. This talk doesn’t nearly hit everything related to this subject (I’ve written a good bit on other aspects of it here) but was aimed at providing a Reformed, Westminsterian framework for ministry to those who are same-sex attracted. As an aside, I am very aware that I mispronounced “concupiscence” in my talk; alas, it is a mistake I slip into all too often!
Introduction
I’d like us to imagine two pastoral situations, that if you haven’t already encountered, you’re likely to. First, a man in your congregation comes to you and says “I believe in the traditional Christian sexual ethic, that sex is reserved for marriage and marriage is the monogamous union of a man and a woman. But I’ve always struggled with same-sex attraction. I don’t indulge that desire in thought or action, but that compulsion or orientation to same-sex attraction has been present with me my entire adult life. Pastor, do I need to repent of that orientation?”
A lot of us are wondering what the big deal with the question is. Half are probably thinking, “He’s not acting on it, so of course he doesn’t need to repent! He’s already given up so much for Jesus, it’s cruel to add new laws on top of him.” The other half are probably thinking “Of course he needs to repent! A same-sex orientation is sinful, and ignoring any remnant of sin is a form of indulging sin!…”
Same Sex Attraction and Mortification: Article Up at the World Reformed Fellowship
The World Reformed Fellowship published my 10 Theses on Same Sex Attraction and Mortification (it only was made visible yesterday to the public, though published in December). This a slight variation on the version of the theses I published last summer. My hope is to build common ground across denominations who may disagree over whether people need to repent of their same sex attraction. The category of mortification is much more helpful and allows more consensus building.
10 Theses on Mortification and the Gay Christian
I wrote 10 theses on same sex attraction, mortification, and the gay Christian. The larger context can be found in the original post and in my essays on the subject. I thought it would be helpful to have the 10 theses as a separate post for ease of reading.
1) Sexual activity outside of marriage is sinful. “Activity” includes encouraging or cultivating erotic desire outside the bounds of God’s design and end for marriage. Encouraging or fostering an orientation to sinful sexual activity is itself sinful.
2) Sinful desire is both the result of original, indwelling sin, and is itself sin. Sinful desire must be hated, denied, and lamented.
3) Orientation towards sexual sin, including sinful desire, is a result of sin, and may be properly sin itself. The sinful condition of misery in which humanity finds itself is manifested in propensity towards sin springing up from within the person, as well as a tendency towards frailty with temptation being inflicted upon the person from the brokenness of the world around them…
Loving v. Obergefell (Or: Interracial v. Gay Marriage)
From John Roberts’ dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015):
This Court’s precedents have repeatedly described marriage in ways that are consistent only with its traditional meaning. Early cases on the subject referred to marriage as “the union for life of one man and one woman,” Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 45 (1885), which forms “the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress,” Maynard v. Hill, 125 U. S. 190, 211 (1888). We later described marriage as “fundamental to our very existence and survival,” an understanding that necessarily implies a procreative component. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 12 (1967)… More recent cases have directly connected the right to marry with the “right to procreate….
Moving On: Mortification and the Gay Christian
Last week Jake Meador urged the PCA and the broader confessionally Reformed, Protestant world to move on from the human sexuality debates. He says,
[T]he best thing that could happen right now is if reformed protestants in the US treated those [the PCA’s and ACNA Bishops’] reports as consensus documents that are broadly representative of where we are on these matters. There’s no reason that pastors in the PCA, OPC, EPC, ECO, ARP, REC, and ACNA can’t begin using these two statements in their ministry as a way of helping church members and visitors understand where they basically stand on these matters. Collectively, those seven communions number over a million weekly attendees. Given the disastrous ways evangelicals have often discussed matters of sexuality in the past, it would be an enormous win if a critical mass of our reformed congregations began to use these two statements more regularly.
I think Jake’s impulse is right, but there are still several legitimate barriers to doing that. There is not unanimity, and sometimes there is silence, on the pastoral question of whether someone should repent of an LGBT/SSA orientation. I have written extensively on this subject, but my argument is that orientation and desire/affection are distinct (something many Side B proponents also argue), that LGBT/SSA orientation may be sin, but may also describe an externally inflicted propensity, that mortification of sin and the flesh is the best pastoral category in addressing this subject, and that Westminsterian confessionalism bears this out…
