Are Christians the Cause of Homosexuals' Pain?

Many “Christian homosexuals” who “come out” blame Christian teaching on sexuality for their problems. They argue that the teaching that homosexuality is a sin forced them to try to suppress and hide their natural feelings and thus resulted in psychological problems. The British newspaper The Independent calls this “psychological torture ... imposed from a supposedly godly environment” (“Christian Rock Star ‘I’m Gay,”The Independent, Aug. 16, 2014). Vicky Beeching, mentioned in the previous report, even blames a disease (linear scoleroderma morphea) on church teaching. Beginning in Sunday School, she was taught that homosexuality is such a great sin that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for it. After becoming a contemporary Christian musician at age 16, she hid her homosexuality, and she believes that the resulting stress caused psychological and physical problems. When she was diagnosed with the aforementioned disease at age 35 and had to take chemotherapy, she said, “I looked at my life, and thought, ‘I have to come to terms with who I am.’” She determined to “come out” and stop “living as a shadow of a person.” While the stress of living a lie and abiding in unconfessed sin will doubtless cause problems in an individual’s life, the stress cannot be blamed on “the church.” The cause of the stress is not the law but the sin. It is like being in the habit of running red lights because you are “a red-light runner by nature” and blaming the resulting crash on the light. The confusion of “Christian homosexuality” is prophesied in Scripture. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

(Friday Church News Notes, August 22, 2014, www.wayoflife.orgfbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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