A piece that appeared in the New York Times on October 7, 2014, written by Sheryl Stolberg, began, “There are countless churches but not much openly gay life in this city by the banks of the Tennessee River.” The byline was “Florence, Alabama.” Stolberg went on to reveal the work of “the gay rights movement” to “push for equality and acceptance in hostile territory, especially in the Deep South.” Alabama is called a “low equality state” “where religion is woven deeply into the fabric of life and gay people who come out often split from their families and churches.” To overcome what the group thinks is discrimination based on sexual orientation, they say they “must get people in places like Florence to live more open lives.”
The “openly gay life” is a problem for God-fearing Christians. Homosexuals are not hated any more than adulterers. There were homosexual Christians in the church in Corinth, but they had been washed, sanctified, and justified “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11). Before their conversions, some had been “men who practice homosexuality.” Evidently, the power of the word of God and the grace of God had turned them away from sexual immorality.
Christians look at homosexuals the same way God does. Christians are not God and do not condemn, but for the love of the souls of men, they share God’s truth with those who should hear it. And their “open” lifestyles reflect the purity within. God has no particular disdain for the sexually immoral. He said that when women exchange “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,” they are committing shameless acts (Rom. 1:26, 27), and God has given them up as long as they do so. We notice, however, that along with that unrighteousness, God included covetousness (Rom. 1:29). A covetous person is one who keeps (or desires) for himself what belongs to God (or to someone else). The covetous are not so openly opposed (even though there are some in the Lord’s church), because the life is not so openly expressed. The door to the kingdom of God is shut to those who continue in fornication, idolatry, adultery, homosexuality, thievery, covetousness, drinking alcoholic beverages, and swindling (1 Cor. 6:9-11). If this is true, then adultery is just as distasteful to God as homosexuality. Yet, adultery is common today. Why is it not openly opposed as God’s word opposes it? One reason is because it is generally accepted by the world. Another is because it is not so openly expressed and crammed down our throats. It is no longer demanding acceptance by an “openly adulterous life.”
There is an undeniable conflict between an “openly gay life” and an “openly Christian life.” There is no justification for hatred and certainly not for death threats. That is not the Christ-like way. The openly Christian life demands correcting opponents with gentleness (2 Tim. 2:25). It demands that God’s children teach Bible truth with meekness so people will turn from wickedness and be saved from sin. The openly Christian life requires that saints avoid “lovers of self, lovers of money (covetous, A.K.), proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” people (2 Tim. 3:1-5). The “openly gay life” displays many of those sinful traits, and no amount of flaunting it before the eyes of good people will make it better. Still, God’s people love the unhappy, “gay” people and want them to confess their sins and “walk in the light,” and the blood of Jesus will cleanse them (1 John 1:7, 8).