A collegiate website advises young women on how to have a “happy hook-up.” Get “clear consent and mutual agreement to engage in sexual acts,” the article recommends. Then “the whole hookup experience will be more positive for everyone involved.”¹

Glancing at the author’s bio, I learned that she is a student at a conservative Christian college!

When even Christian young people are buying into the hookup culture, it’s clear that traditional ways of teaching biblical morality are no longer effective. “Just say no” is not enough. Young people don’t need simple rules; they need reasons to make sense of the rules. Which is to say, they need to be taught the worldview rationale for biblical morality. Otherwise it is possible for Christian young people to be sincere in their faith, yet thoroughly secular in their thoughts—and, consequently, in their behavior.

Every system of sexual morality depends on a prior view of nature. In Western society, until the modern age, nature was regarded as God’s handiwork, created for His purposes. To use a technical term, Christianity implies a teleological view of nature—from the Greek telos, which means a thing’s goal, purpose, or ideal state. Because humans are created in God’s image, their goal is to become true reflectors of God’s character. The moral law is simply the road map telling us how to reach that goal, the instruction manual for progressing toward God’s ideal.

That instruction manual is derived primarily, of course, from God’s communication in Scripture. But another source is creation itself. We can read signs in nature that indicate God’s original purpose—traces of God’s image that remain even in a fallen world.

For example, the biological correspondence between male and female is not some evolutionary accident. It is part of the original creation that God pronounced “very good”—morally good. Thus it provides a reference point for morality. Our physical anatomy signals a divine purpose for male and female to form covenants for mutual love and the nurturing of new life. Biblical sexual morality is not arbitrary. It reflects the purpose for which we were created.

By contrast, secular morality rests on a view of nature that rejects teleology, acknowledging only blind, material forces. Historically, the turning point was Charles Darwin. The central elements in his theory—random variations sifted out by the mechanical process of natural selection—were proposed expressly to get rid of the concept of purpose or design in biology. As cultural historian Jacques Barzun writes, the “denial of purpose is Darwin’s distinctive contention.”²

This had profound moral implications. For if nature was not the handiwork of a personal God, then it no longer bore signs of God’s good purposes—which meant it no longer provided a basis for moral truths.

The next step was crucial: because nature did not reveal God’s will, it became a morally neutral realm on which humans may impose their will. There was nothing within nature that humans were morally obligated to respect. It was merely raw material to be manipulated and controlled to serve human needs and preferences.

GETTING OFF THE GROUND FLOOR

How does this history explain the rise of liberal sexual morality? The human body is, of course, part of nature and therefore it too came to be seen as raw material subject to the choices of the autonomous self. In the words of Roger Lundin of Wheaton College, both nature and the body were recast as “essentially amoral mechanisms to be used to whatever private ends we have.”³ In other words, because the human body has no intrinsic purpose, we can use it any way we choose.

But who is this “we”—this choosing, controlling self that uses the body for its own purposes? For all its claim to be modern, liberalism has surprising affinities with the philosophy of Plato in the ancient world. Plato taught a dualism in which the soul uses the body instrumentally to affect the world—like a charioteer driving a chariot, as he put it.

An updated version of dualism stems from René Descartes. Philosopher Daniel Dennett (who himself rejects dualism) explains: “Since Descartes in the seventeenth century we have had a vision of the self as a sort of immaterial ghost that owns and controls a body the way you own and control your car.”⁴ That is, most modern people unconsciously hold a view of the human body as a form of property that can be controlled and manipulated to serve the self’s desires.

What does this dualistic view of the person mean in practice—especially in sexual practice? It has created an expectation that the self is free to use the body any way it chooses, without serious consequences. In short, it has led to the hook-up culture.

“What makes hooking up unique is that its practitioners agree that there will be no commitment, no exclusivity, no feelings,” explains an article in the Washington Post.⁵ By definition, hook-ups are purely physical encounters with no expectation of any personal relationship. Hook-up partners are referred to as “friends with benefits,” but that’s a euphemism because they are not really even friends. The unwritten etiquette is that you never meet to just talk or spend time together, explains a New York Times article. “You just keep it purely sexual, and that way people don’t have mixed expectations, and no one gets hurt.”⁶

Except, of course, that people do get hurt. The same article quotes a teenager named Melissa who was depressed because her hook-up partner had just broken up with her.

In practice, people cannot dualistically separate the self from the body. Rolling Stone magazine interviewed a college student who stated the problem succinctly: people “assume that there are two very distinct elements in a relationship, one emotional and one sexual, and they pretend like there are clean lines between them.”⁷

Do you recognize the language of dualism? Young people have come to believe that sexual relationships can be solely physical, disconnected from the mind and emotions—with “clean lines” between them.

Philosophers often illustrate dualism using the image of two stories in a building. In the lower story is the body, which since Descartes has been regarded as a biochemical machine. In the upper story is the autonomous self—with a “clean line” separating the two.

THE SELF
Mind and emotions

___________________________

 THE BODY
Biochemical machine

George Bernard Shaw recognized the problem in his 1931 play Too True to Be Good. “When men and women pick one another up just for a bit of fun, they find they’ve picked up more than they bargained for, because men and women have a top storey as well as a ground floor,” says one character. “You can’t have the one without the other. They’re always trying to; but it doesn’t work.” Today’s young people are still trying to have one without the other. But it still doesn’t work.

Of course, the fact that it does not work ought to tell us something. It means the hook-up culture rests on an inadequate conception of human nature. People are trying to live out a worldview that does not fit who they really are.

Because humans are created in God’s image, their experience will never quite “fit” a secular view of human nature. In practice, non-Christians will always bump up against some point of contradiction between their secular worldview and their real-life experience. That contradiction provides an opening to make the case that the secular worldview is flawed. It fails to explain human life and experience.

Young people like Melissa are trying to live out a worldview that does not match their true nature—and it is tearing them apart with its pain and heartache.

DISSING THE BODY

The same destructive worldview explains the current acceptance of homosexuality. Even in churches, many young people do not “get” why homosexual activity is morally wrong. The biblical rejection of homosexuality makes more sense when we understand the implicit worldview—which is, once again, a dehumanizing dualism.

Think of it this way: biologically and physiologically, males and females are clearly counterparts to one another. The male sexual and reproductive anatomy is obviously designed for a relationship with a female, and vice versa. Homosexual practice overrides that clear design built into the structure of our bodies.

As a result, it expresses a profound disrespect for our physical anatomy.  Essentially it says that anatomy has no intrinsic purpose but is just a mechanistic system of glands and organs that one can use any way one chooses.

As a result, homosexual practice requires individuals to contradict their own biology. It disconnects a person’s sexual feelings from his or her biological identity as male or female—which exerts a self-alienating and fragmenting effect on the human personality.

Some Christians propose that God creates some people as homosexuals. But if so, says Tim Wilkins of Cross Ministry (himself a former homosexual), then “God has played a cruel joke on them. He has engineered their minds and emotions for attraction to the same-sex and yet created their physiology to be in direct opposition to that attraction.”⁸

And the logic of alienation will not stop there. Already the acceptance of same-sex relationships is leading to a full-blown postmodern conception of sexuality as fluid and changing over time. In Saving Leonardo I quote a psychotherapist addressing the problem faced by individuals who had come out of the closet as homosexual, but were later attracted to heterosexual relationships again. So what am I, they asked.

The psychotherapist’s response was, essentially to not worry; it’s okay to change your sexual identity whenever you wish. In his words, today people “don’t want to fit into any boxes—not gay, straight, lesbian, or bisexual ones.” Instead “they want to be free to change their minds.”⁹

This view of sexuality, the psychotherapist stated, is “a challenge to the old, modernist way of thinking” that you were born with a gender that does not change because it is rooted in our biological identity. Instead we are moving to a postmodern view that gender is something I can choose, independent of biology. The implication is that I might have been straight yesterday, but I can be homosexual today, and maybe bisexual tomorrow. One’s psychosexual identity is said to be in constant flux.

In fact, human nature itself is thought of as a social construction, something we make up as we go along. We can call this view liberalism, employing a definition by the self-described liberal philosopher Peter Berkowitz: “Each generation of liberal thinkers” focuses on “dimensions of life previously regarded as fixed by nature,” then seeks to show that in reality they are “subject to human will and remaking.”¹⁰

In other words, previous generations thought there was a fixed, universal human nature that expressed a God-given teleology. For example, they thought heterosexual marriage was rooted in human nature. It was the way humans were created to function.

By contrast, liberalism denies that there is any fixed or universal human nature. Humans are an accidental configuration of matter, a product of blind evolutionary forces. Marriage is a social behavior that evolved because it was adaptive at some point in evolutionary history. It is not intrinsic to human nature, however. In fact, there is no human nature. Therefore we are free to redefine marriage at will. It is open to unlimited “human will and remaking.”

WHICH GENDERS HAVE YOU BEEN?

This rejection of human nature has ever-widening implications. The cutting-edge issue today is transgenderism, a movement that rejects the distinction between male and female itself as a social construction—and an oppressive one at that.

Several universities now offer separate bathrooms, housing, and sports teams for transgender students who do not identify themselves as either male or female. The New York Times reports that some schools no longer require students to check male or female on their health forms. Instead, they are asked to “describe your gender identity history.”¹¹ That is, which genders have you been over the course of your lifetime?

The concept of gender has become fluid, free-floating, completely detached from physical anatomy. This is typically presented as liberating—a way to create your own identity instead of accepting one that has been culturally assigned. A few years ago, California passed a law requiring schools to permit transgender students to use the restroom or locker room of their preferred gender, regardless of their anatomical sex. The new law¹² defined a student’s gender as including “gender related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.”¹³ Notice the assumption that a person’s sex is “assigned,” as though it were purely arbitrary instead of an anatomical fact.

The law is being used to impose a postmodern concept of the person that denies any intrinsic dignity to the unique biological capabilities inherent in being male or female. Physical anatomy is treated as insignificant, inconsequential, and completely irrelevant to gender identity. An Oakland elementary school teaches young children that “gender is not inherently nor solely connected to one’s physical anatomy.”¹⁴ This is a devastatingly disrespectful view of the physical body.

It also endangers human rights. Rights are based on the recognition that there are certain nonnegotiable givens in human nature, prior to the state, which the state is obligated to respect. But if human nature itself is merely a social construction, something we make up as we go along, including our psychosexual identity, then there is nothing in the individual that is given, which the state is obligated to respect—and thus no basis for inalienable human rights.

If America accepts practices such as same-sex “marriage,” in the process it will absorb the accompanying worldview—the redefinition of human personhood as a purely social construction—which opens the door to unlimited statism, because there is no human nature that an oppressive state could possibly offend.

GOD LIKES MATTER

Ironically, Christians and others who respect the givens of human sexuality are often dismissed as prudes and Puritans because of their “repressive” sexual morality. Yet the biblical worldview actually affirms a much higher view of the body than the secular utilitarian view. It offers the radically positive affirmation that the material world was created by God, that it will ultimately be made whole by God, and that God was actually incarnated (made flesh) in a human body.

In the ancient world, these biblical claims were so astonishing that the Gnostics rejected them. They taught that Jesus was really an avatar who only appeared to have a human body. They could not accept the idea of a Creator who actually likes matter because He created it—a God who affirms our material, biological, sexual nature.

Today, in an unexpected twist of history, it is once again Christianity that is defending a high and holistic view of the human person.

Most churches, sadly, do not communicate a high view of the person. A 2007 Barna survey of adult churchgoers under the age of thirty found that about fifty percent said, “They perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political.”

These are not critics from outside the church, but young people sitting in the pews. Moreover, the study found that this generation exhibits “a greater degree of criticism toward Christianity than did previous generations.”

Nowhere is this more true than on hot-button issues such as sexuality. Only by digging beneath the surface and refocusing on the worldview level can we show young people why secular views of sexuality are harmful and alienating. A worldview focus gives us the tools to craft a positive approach that expresses love and concern for people caught in destructive life patterns.

Nancy Pearcey’s latest book is Saving Leonardo, on which this article is based. She is also the author of the bestselling, award-winning Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. Pearcey currently teaches at Rivendell Sanctuary.

NOTES

1. Ally Karsyn, “The Drunken Hookup Double Standard,” Her Campus, April 30, 2011.
2. Jacques Barzun, Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage (New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 1941), 11.
3. Roger Lundin, The Culture of Interpretation: Christian Faith and the Postmodern World(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 102.
4. Daniel Dennett, “The Origin of Selves,” Cogito 3 (Autumn 1989): 163–73.
5. Kathy Dobie, “Going All the Way,” Washington Post, February 11, 2007.
6. Benoit Denizet-Lewis, “Friends, Friends with Benefits, and the Benefits of the Local Mall,” New York Times Magazine, May 30, 2004, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/magazine/friends-friends-with-benefits-and-the-benefits-of-the-local-mall.html.
7. Janet Reitman, “Sex and Scandal at Duke,” Rolling Stone, June 1, 2006.
8. Tim Wilkins, “Cruel Joke or Medical Anomaly?” http://www.crossministry.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69:cruel-joke-or-medical-anomaly-proponents-of-same-sex-qmarriageq-owe-us-an-nswer&catid=35:published&Itemid=65.
9. Bret Johnson, quoted by Laura Markowitz, “The Postmodern Queer Identity Movement,” Utne Reader, September/October 2000.
10. Peter Berkowitz, “Rediscovering Liberalism,” The Boston Book Review, March 1995.
11. Fred Bernstein, “On Campus, Rethinking Biology 101,” The New York Times, March 7, 2004.
12. http://leginfo.public.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/sen/sb_0751-0800/sb_777_bill_20070409_amended_sen_v98.html.
13. http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/Bills/AB_887/20112012/.
14. Russ Jones, “Parents Defenseless against Gender ‘Diversity Training,’” OneNewsNow, May 26, 2011.

First, it should be noted that while Sabbath-breaking had serious ramifications within ancient Israel, it is not a precedent for executing people today. Not only are we no longer under the civil and ceremonial laws of a Jewish theocratic form of government, but as the apostle Paul explains, the symbolism of the law has been fulfilled in Christ (Galatians 3:13-14). In his letter to the Colossian Christians, Paul underscores the Christian’s freedom from adherence to Sabbath laws by pointing out that “these are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ” (Colossians 2:17). Thus, there is an obvious difference between enduring moral principles regarding homosexuality and temporary civil and ceremonial laws relegated to a particular historical context.

Furthermore, we would do well to recognize that the God of the Bible does not condemn homosexuality in an arbitrary and capricious fashion. Rather he carefully defines the borders of human sexuality so that our joy may be complete. It does not require an advanced degree in physiology to appreciate the fact that the human body is not designed for homosexual relationships. Spurious slogans and sound bites do not change the scientific reality that homosexual relationships are devastating not only from a psychological but also from a physiological perspective.

Finally, far from being irrelevant and antiquated, the Bible’s warnings regarding homosexuality are eerily relevant and up to date. The book of Romans aptly describes both the perversion and the penalty: “Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion“(Romans 1:26-27, emphasis added). It would be difficult to miss the relationship between Paul’s words and the current health-care holocaust. More people already have died worldwide from AIDS than the United States of America has lost in all its wars combined. This is but the tip of an insidious iceberg. The homosexual lifestyle causes a host of complications including hemorrhoids, prostate damage, and infectious fissures. And even that merely scratches the surface. Nonviral infections transmitted through homosexual activity include gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis. Viral infections involve condylomata, herpes, and hepatitis A and B.

While there are attendant moral and medical problems with sexual promiscuity in general, it would be homophobic in the extreme to obscure the scientific realities concerning homosexuality. It is a hate crime of unparalleled proportions to attempt to keep a whole segment of the population in the dark concerning such issues. Thus, far from demonstrating that the Bible is out of step with the times, its warnings regarding homosexuality demonstrate that it is as relevant today as it was in the beginning.

For further study, see Joe Dallas, A Strong Delusion: Confronting the “Gay Christian” Movement (Eugene, Ore.: Harvest House Publishers, 1996). See also Hank Hanegraaff, “President Bartlett’s Fallacious Diatribe,” available at www.equip.org.

Romans 1:26-27:
“Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women
and were inflamed with lust for one another.
Men committed indecent acts with other men,
and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

First, pornography is an addictive behavior that enslaves the mind and conditions users to view others as mere objects of self-gratification. As such, our Lord warns us to guard our gaze: “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23).

Furthermore, pornography breaks the sacred bond of marriage and, as such, tears apart the very fabric of society. Moreover, when pornographic images are used to satisfy sexual desire, a marriage partner is defrauded. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus rendered lustful visual encounters the moral equivalent of extramarital sexual relations (Matthew 5:28).

Finally, just as marijuana is a precursor to experimenting with ever more dangerous substances, so pornography often leads to increasingly degrading sexual behaviors. Says James: “Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15).

Thankfully, even the strongest addiction to pornography can be overcome by taking practical steps to remove the temptation, by establishing an accountability structure, and by putting on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-20). The covering described in Scripture as the full armor of God is an impenetrable barrier against which the fiery darts of the evil one are impotent. When we are clothed in the covering, we are invincible. When we are not, we are but pawns in the devil’s malevolent schemes.

For further study, see Joe Dallas, “Darkening Our Minds: The Problem of Pornography among Christians,” Christian Research Journal 27, 3 (2004): 12-21.

1 Corinthians 10:13:
“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man.
And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.
But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

First, intersex refers to the rare condition of individuals who are born with both male and female reproductive organs and sex glands, and in even rarer cases both XX and XY chromosomes. The medical treatment for this disorder involves the surgical and hormonal “assignment” of gender, which ideally should be made on the basis of all the relevant factors (e.g., chromosomal, neural, psychological, behavioral, and the like). If there is reasonable certainty that a medical mistake was made in the assignment of gender, it would not be beyond biblical bounds to prayerfully consider reassignment. As with the treatment of any rare disorder, gender assignment is complex and subject to human error; thus, it is crucial to seek the most competent biblical and medical counsel.

Furthermore, being born with genetic, psychological, or hormonal abnormalities is no more license for sexual sin than being born with violent tendencies is license for violence. Thus, if a same-sex attraction develops, celibacy and singleness, as opposed to homosexual licentiousness, is the proper response (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:8). Indeed, anyone suffering from gender confusion should not pursue marriage until the confusion has been biblically resolved. Though this may seem harsh, it is no different than the requirement placed on all believers to die to sin and live for righteousness through the power of Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit (Romans 6).

Finally, it is crucial to recognize that all disorders, diseases, deformities, decay, and death ultimately result from the Fall. While sin, suffering, and sickness are present realities, we have the certain promise that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

For further study, see Scott B. Rae, Moral Choices, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000).

John 9:1-3:
“As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.
His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’
‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus,
‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.’”

These accusations can be rebutted by examining the incidents themselves, the known religious affiliations of all parties involved, the lack of cause and effect links in these cases, and what polls have to say about what does and does not influence modern teens. But it’s also essential that we examine ourselves and our rhetoric, to make certain that our message to homosexuals, and indeed to all people, is biblically balanced, clear, and respectful.

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Synopsis

The pressure to accept homosexual behavior is growing daily. A major argument for this acceptance is the belief that homosexuality is “inborn.” Two major areas of research often put forth to support this position deal with genetics and brain structure. The search for a gene associated with homosexuality has not shown any reproducible findings. Studies of twins did not prove to support the idea of a genetic component to homosexuality. The contribution of genetics to this behavior appears to be minimal. Neuroscientist Simon LeVay argued in 1991 that there was a specific component of the hypothalamus that differed in size between homosexual and heterosexual men, although his research has never been replicated. More recent studies of different components of the brain show differences that might have some statistical significance, but also demonstrate a great deal of overlap between heterosexual and homosexual males. Reparative therapy (or “sexual reorientation therapy”) has been shown to be somewhat effective in changing the homosexual orientation, but is strongly opposed by most of the mental health community and by gay activists. Validation of a scientific theory requires that other researchers find the same data when performing experiments. The lack of reproducibility in biological studies on homosexuality has been a major hindrance to our understanding of this disorder. Recent research in brain plasticity suggests that brain changes could be the result of experiences and environmental input. These data also have implications for new approaches to reorientation therapy. Biological processes may influence behavior, but do not determine it. Christians need to be better informed about the scientific issues, but always should couch their responses in a spirit of love.

California Supreme Court rules same-sex marriage legal. Politicians caught in homosexual activity. Celebrities headlined for possible “gayness.” Congress debates the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays in military. Prominent pastors involved in homosexual liaisons. Major splits developing in many mainline churches over homosexuality.

Christians are experiencing pressure from all sides to accept homosexual practices as just another means of expressing sexuality. Scientific data are used to imply that homosexual behavior is something that is “hard-wired” into people: “God made us this way.” Navigating through the complicated network of truths, semi-truths, and outright propaganda that are found in the debate requires reliable information.

WHO IS “GAY”?

In 1948, scientist and human sexuality researcher Alfred Kinsey had developed a seven-point classification for sexual behavior.¹ One end of the spectrum (zero or one) comprised those who are exclusively heterosexual and show no interest in any same-sex activity. The other end of the spectrum (six) is composed of those individuals who are exclusively interested in same-sex behavior, with no interest in heterosexual activities. The middle categories (scales two through five) have varying degrees of interest in both heterosexual and homosexual activities. Although flawed in some respects, the scale shows that there is no clear dividing line between “heterosexual” or “homosexual.”

It is necessary to distinguish between homosexual practice and homosexual orientation. A heterosexual individual may experiment with homosexual practices (which is especially true in adolescents), but have a definite heterosexual orientation. Prison populations see a great deal of same-sex activity that in no way indicates the sexual preferences of the individuals involved.

Language for describing people who engage in same-sex behavior is evolving. The shorthand abbreviation LGBT—which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered—currently describes the cluster of identifications that such people indicate (this article will not address bisexual or transgendered individuals). Language also now differentiates between lesbian (female) and “gay” (male) sexual practices and orientations. This is an important distinction to make because the vast majority of the research studies on causes of sexual orientation deal with male behavior.

What Is this “Gay Gene”?

A little background information is necessary before looking at research on the “gay gene.” What is a gene and why is it important? The National Library of Medicine’s Genetics Home Reference (provided by the National Institutes of Health) gives the following definition: “A gene is the basic physical and functional unit of heredity. Genes, which are made up of DNA, act as instructions to make molecules called proteins. In humans, genes vary in size from a few hundred DNA bases to more than 2 million bases. The Human Genome Project has estimated that humans have between 20,000 and 25,000 genes.”² A gene, then, directs the manufacture of another molecule. That molecule usually, but not always, is a protein. This will have some sort of effect on certain biochemical processes in the body.

If there is a “gay gene,” that segment of DNA must be responsible for the production of some biochemical that somehow influences same-sex behavior. Complex behavioral conditions, however, do not lend themselves well to this type of analysis. Schizophrenia, for example, is a disorder that has been studied intensively for decades. At present we do not know the causes of the disease. Genetic studies have not been clear-cut—there is obviously a genetic component, but this factor is not the only contributor to schizophrenia.³

GENETIC STUDIES AND “GAY GENES”

Another quick genetics lesson might be in order before exam­in­ing genetic contributions to homosexuality. The tradi­tional view concerning twins is that there are identical twins and fraternal twins. Identical twins result from the fertilization of a single egg by one individual sperm. This egg later splits in two. Fraternal twins are the product of fertilization of two different eggs by two different sperm cells. Identical twins have one-hundred percent of their genes in common, while fraternal twins have fifty percent common genes.⁴

A number of twin studies have been carried out to explore the genetic contribution to homosexuality, if there is one. Most of the early studies were very flawed because they were working with small numbers of twins, had questionable recruiting strate­gies, and were not often rigorous in their assessment of same- sex orientation.

Two recent studies were designed to overcome the criticisms of earlier research. One involved the use of a fourteen-thousand-person set found in a national Australian database.⁵ The second used the database from the 2005–2006 population survey of all adult twins in Sweden.⁶ Both studies showed that genetics contributed only thirty-five to thirty-seven percent to male sexual orientation. Neither of them provided evidence for a strong genetic basic for homosexual be­havior, but pointed strongly to individual environmental fact­ors as the major influence. To date, these studies represent the most thorough research in the field.

THE SEARCH FOR THE “GAY GENE”

In the highly politicized climate of 1973, which was created by two years of disruptive behavior by gay activists,⁷ the American Psychiatric Association declared that homosexuality was not a psychiatric disorder. There was still interest, however, in learning what caused people to become homosexual. Two major research studies in the 1990s brought renewed attention to the question. One focused on the possible existence of a “gay gene.” The other dealt with supposed differences in brain structure between homosexuals and heterosexuals. Both studies were carried out by gay activists and both studies have been strongly challenged, but they opened the door for the argument, “We’re born that way,” that is often used now in the gay community.

Geneticist Dean H. Hamer and his coworkers⁸ studied families in which there was at least one gay member. They also looked at a genetic analysis of gay brothers in another component of the study. Chromo­some analysis showed a correlation between homo­sexual be­havior (as reported to the team) and the existence of a unique site on the chromosomes of some of the research sub­jects. In addition, more than eighteen percent of the brother pairs did not show an inheritance of all the markers. Hamer’s conclusion was that “it appears that Xq28 contains a gene that contributes to homosexual orientation in males.”⁹

The tentative nature of these data can be seen in the “Discussion” part of the paper. Hamer states, “Our experiments suggest that a locus (or loci) related to sexual orientation lies within approximately 4 million base pairs of DNA on the tip of the long arm of the X chromosome…it is large enough to contain several hundred genes.”¹⁰ So there really isn’t one “gay gene”; maybe there are hundreds of different ones.

Questions about Hamer’s research came quickly. An editorial comment in a 1999 issue of Science¹¹ briefly detailed the disagreement that existed at that time between Hamer’s study and those of other researchers. Two different studies did not find the linkage that Hamer had reported.¹² Hamer argued that the other scientists had not selected their subjects in the same way and missed the maternal link that Hamer found.

Hamer continued the attempt to find a specific bio­chemical link to homosexuality at the molecular level. In 2004 he published a study looking at a specific enzyme involved in the conversion of androgens (steroid hormones that help develop masculine characteristics) to estrogens (steroid hormones involved in developing feminine characteristics).¹³ His group reasoned that there may be some differences in the prenatal exposure of the developing brain to androgens and estrogens that might explain some of the genetic data regarding male sexual orientation. No differences were found in the population studied, however, ruling out this potential biochemical explanation.

A 2005 study by Hamer and his group¹⁴ attempted to identify several candidate genes more closely than did his 1993 paper. This study, interestingly, did not confirm the linkage he had reported in 1993. Several possible genes were identified, but there was no conclusive information about the relationship of any of these genes to male sexual behavior.

A recent comprehensive article summarizes the research and the confusion.¹⁵ After surveying the literature on the gay gene and related issues, Kunzig concludes, “Right now there is no one all-inclusive solution to the Darwinian mystery of why homosexuality survives, and no grand unified theory of how it arises in a given individual.” As a footnote to the controversy, Dean Hamer has redirected his research efforts in other directions entirely.

OTHER BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

While Hamer was creating a stir on the East Coast of the United States with his “gay gene” hypothesis, another scientist was developing a different line of research on the West Coast. Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, studied the hypothalamus—a small tissue in the brain that regulates a large variety of hormonal processes, many of which are not associated with sex—and its connection, if any, to homosexuality.

LeVay’s study¹⁶ used brain tissues from autopsies in hospitals in California and New York. In most cases, he had somewhat incomplete histories of the individuals involved. Nineteen of the forty-one subjects studied were homosexual men, all of whom had died of AIDS, while sixteen were presumably heterosexual men, six of whom had died of AIDS. Six of the total subjects were women whom researchers assumed were heterosexual; one had died of AIDS. After fixing and sectioning the tissues, LeVay measured the volumes of four cell groups that were thought to be important. The only group considered to be of significance was the INAH-3 (INAH stands for “interstitial nuclei of the anterior hypothalamus”).

There are some significant problems with LeVay’s research. First, no one else has been able to replicate or repeat his study. In fact, no one else has ever seen the original slides that LeVay used to make his measurements. Second, most of his homosexual subjects had died of AIDS, but he did not show how the AIDS infection might have affected the specific brain structure. Third, the area studied had been very poorly defined anatomically; exactly what researchers were to measure was thus dependent on subjective decisions; especially since the area LeVay studied was about the size of a grain of sand. Fourth, the data showed that there was significant overlap between the size of INAH-3 in the brains of heterosexual and of homosexual men. Later studies on brain structure proved to be contradictory and inconclusive.

A 2008 study measured brain tissues and blood flow using MRI and positron emission tomography.¹⁷ This study examined possible differences in the way heterosexual and homo­sexual brains processed certain cognitive tasks; the para­meters studied were not related directly to sexual behavior. Again, although the researchers reported that homosexual men had brain struct­ures that were more closely related to hetero­sexual women, the degree of overlap between homo­sexual and hetero­sexual men was quite great. What may be significant sta­tistically does not appear to be so in actuality. These types of tests will not allow a clear differentiation between heterosexual and homosexual males.

A small series of recent studies has suggested that second sons have a higher likelihood of being homosexual.¹⁸ With the first son, the mother begins to develop a type of immunity to the male as blood from the two mixes during delivery. This immune response generates antibodies in the mother that react with male proteins during pregnancy with the second son. The studies hypothesize that these antibodies might somehow alter development of the brain in such a way that he is more likely to be born gay. At present, no specific antibodies have been identified to support this hypothesis.

A 2008 Los Angeles Times article¹⁹ looks at a variety of bio­logical and physical measurements that have been used to compare gay and straight males. The writer concludes that there is currently no indicator that allows a reliable prediction of sexual orientation.

CAN HOMOSEXUALS REALLY CHANGE?

In 1973, Robert Spitzer, a psychiatrist at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, led a successful effort to remove homosexuality from the list of psychiatric disorders. This came about in part because of Spitzer’s seminal and controversial position paper on homosexuality submitted to the American Psychiatric Association that year.²⁰ While attending the 1999 annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, he had contact with several ex-gays who were picketing the meeting.²¹ They claimed that they had changed their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Spitzer followed up and found that there was no good research literature available either to support or refute these claims, so he conducted his own research.

After studying a group of two-hundred individuals who had exper­ienced some sort of reorientation to a more heterosexual life­style, Spitzer submitted a paper reporting his results to the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.²² Journal editor Kenneth Zucker decided to publish the article along with several peer commentaries, as well as a final response by Spitzer, and to introduce the group of papers with his own editorial commentary.

The article created a great deal of controversy because Spitzer reported, “Thus, there is evidence that change in sexual orientation following some form of reparative therapy does occur in some gay men and lesbians.”²³ Many of the responses to his research were critical, coming from professionals who did not see anything wrong with homosexuality and who disliked the religious bias of many of the survey participants. Other comments were more open to the possibility that psychiatry perhaps had erred in the earlier decisions about homosexuality and the possibility of change. Spitzer received a number of personal attacks from colleagues and from gay activists.

Zucker’s editorial pointed out the significant deficiencies in the research literature regarding both “reparative therapy” (as it was called at that time) and “affirmative” therapies designed to help homosexuals adjust to their lifestyle.²⁴ He noted that both types of research lack a sound theoretical foundation and that the database is “primitive.” He thus concluded, “It is difficult to understand how professional societies can issue any clear statement that is not contaminated by rhetorical fervor.”

Research in this field has had little material added since Spitzer’s first major paper on the topic. A survey of the National Library of Medicine database shows only four references under the term “homosexual reparative therapy” more recent than 2003 other than a few articles on the ethics of the practice. Since it is less offensive to homosexuals who do not believe there is anything to “repair,” the term “sexual reorientation therapy” is coming to be more commonly used. Of the ten articles in the database that are found under “sexual reorientation therapy,”and published since 2003, only two deal with therapy outcomes (one of which is an example of successful therapy)²⁵ while seven articles in a series in the journal Christian Bioethics explore ethical issues in treatment. In a Christianity Today interview, Spitzer suggested two possible explanations for this. He stated, “The reasons are, number one, reparative therapists are not scientists—they don’t do studies. The second reason is, if somebody proposed that the National Institute of Mental Health do such a study, I think almost certainly any gays in the study section would say this is a total waste of time. They would say: We already know it’s hokum, so why do it?”²⁶

One organization that is dedicated to helping homo­sexuals who wish to change is the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). This group is comprised of psychiatrists, psychologists, behavioral scientists, and professional counselors, as well as those with backgrounds in religion, law, and education. NARTH’s mission statement, as posted on its Web site, says, “NARTH upholds the rights of individuals with unwanted homosexual attraction to receive effective psychological care, and the right of professionals to offer that care.”²⁷ The association provides a variety of online research and educational resources for anyone who is interested in this issue.

What Would Constitute Real Proof?

The ongoing debate about whether homosexuality is inborn or somehow chosen can be confusing. Contradictory studies are published. There seems to be no clear-cut way to distinguish a homosexual person from a heterosexual one. If there is a biochemical marker that would be responsible for homosexual behavior, what would be its characteristics? How would it be recognized as a real indicator? For research on the origins of homosexuality to be more reliable, it needs to implement each of the following.

The populations being studied need to be defined clearly. There currently is no clear-cut distinction between “heterosexual” and “homosexual.” The most commonly used scale for categorization has seven gradations. Most early studies did not do a scale ranking. In contrast, the 2008 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study on brain structure included a Kinsey scale and used only “maximally heterosexual” and “maximally homosexual” subjects (those scoring at one end of the scale or the other; there were no subjects with intermediate ratings). This type of care in subject selection will be necessary in order for any meaningful data to appear.

The marker must be reproducible. Different teams using different techniques should all get the same results. Using different techniques eliminates the possibility of having a measurement error in any specific method. To date, none of the research looking for any marker has been reproducible, except for studies that show a slight genetic influence, and that finding can be explained away.

The marker needs to distinguish the populations clearly. No marker to date is seen clearly in the homosexual population or in a significant number of the nonhomosexual population. Brain structure studies show considerable overlap between the two groups.

The research should allow no chance for observer bias. A neutral observer should be able to look at the data and draw conclusions based solely on the scientific evidence and not on any personal agendas. The two major areas of research, unfortunately, have been clouded by a certain amount of personal bias. Both Hamer and LeVay are open about their own homosexuality. Hamer, to his credit, knows his personal bias and recognizes the limitations of his research. In a November 1995 interview in Time magazine,²⁸ he states, “From twin studies, we already know that half or more of the variability in sexual orientation is not inherited. Our studies try to pinpoint the genetic factors, not to negate the psychosocial factors.” LeVay, on the other hand, resigned his research position, returned all his grant money, and helped form a gay activist organization within a year after his paper on brain structure was published. His writing to date focuses on broader issues of interest to the homosexual community and he is no longer doing lab research.

Brain Plasticity and Homosexual Behavior

For decades it was thought that the childhood brain could form and change, but that things became hardwired in adulthood. The only later changes would be from injury, degeneration, or changes in numbers of synapses. Recent research, however, is showing a very different picture of the adult brain. It is now being seen as fluid and changeable, responsive to new experiences.

A 2007 Time magazine article²⁹ describes a number of studies showing changes in brain structure as a result of mental stimuli. Not only was the neural activity altered in piano students who “thought” the practice of a piece of music and obsessive-com­pul­sive patients who were trained to respond mentally to their compulsive behavior, but the actual physical structure of the brain was changed. The literature on brain structure in depression shows similar data. One typical study30 showed a decrease in the size of a specific portion of the brain in patients with unipolar depression. Researchers conducted a more detailed exploration of the phenomenon in 2007.31 The take-home lesson is that the adult brain is more flexible in structure than once thought and can under­go change as a result of psychological change in the person’s life.

These lines of research have some obvious implications for the issue of homosexuality. With genetics on the sideline, research seriously must consider the question of later influences on the brain. Early childhood influences or physical or emotional experiences that could produce some alteration of brain structure —especially in susceptible individuals—are all possibilities that need to be explored. Much research obviously would be ruled out immediately on legal and ethical grounds, but some promising areas of study exist. These findings also could be useful in designing and implementing more effective ways to carry out sexual reorientation therapy.

THE FALLACY OF GENETIC DETERMINISM

As knowledge of genetics increased, there was a steady growth in the attitude, “My genes made me do it.” Research literature has reported on genes that it considered responsible for alcoholism, drug addiction, risk-taking, sexual promiscuity, infidelity, violence, and other forms of inappropriate behavior. One study even suggested that people’s political leanings are partially determined by their genes.32 There is thus a widespread belief that genes determine actions and people behave certain ways because their biochemical makeup compels that behavior.

Proof for such a belief, however, is lacking. Biological pro­cesses that fully explain behavior do not exist. There are no obvious biochemical or genetic factors that would compel a person to engage in homosexual behavior.

Even if there are genes that influence specific behaviors, do we simply excuse the behavior because of this? Of course not. We don’t just ignore the behavior of alcoholics, but try to help them. We would not excuse violent people, but get them the help they need. We all have normal sex drives, but we do not just allow them free rein. All these behaviors have adverse consequences, as does homosexual behavior.

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

There is a definite divide today in how the Christian church deals with homosexual behavior. Most mainstream Protestant denominations have adopted interpretations of Scripture that celebrate homosexuality. Conservative Christians feel that the meaning of the Bible has not changed and that sexual behavior has limits. Churches are seeing increased pressure for the performance of same-sex marriage ceremonies. Preachers who speak out against homosexual practices are being accused of hate crimes in various parts of the world.

In the midst of all this, committed Christians need to be informed and prepared. Believers need to be aware of the scientific work that is increasingly failing to show the “inborn” nature of the homosexual. They need to be aware of the liberal bias of the media and raise a voice against it in our newspapers, radio, and television stations. Christians need to be knowledgeable about the tremendous hidden health issues associated with homosexuality. These approaches require information and ideas that can come from such publications as the Christian Research Journal.

More importantly, we as Christians need to be prepared in our hearts to fight the battle in front of us: in the classroom, in the political arena, and in the churches that will not stand for traditional biblical values. The battle, however, must be fought not in anger or hatred but in love. Christians must counteract the accusation of being “homophobic” in a society that is increasingly “Christianophobic.”

Donald F. Calbreath, Ph.D., retired in 2006 after twenty-two years on the chemistry faculty at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. His research interests involve the relationships between brain neurochemistry and human behavior.

notes

1 “Kinsey’s Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale,” Research Program, The Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, http://www.indiana.edu/~kinsey/research/ak-hhscale.html.

2 “What Is a Gene?” Handbook, Cells and DNA, Genetics Home Reference, a Service of the U. S. National Library of Medicine, http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/basics/gene.

3 “The NIMH Genetic Study of Schizophrenia,” National Institute of Mental Health, http://gauss.nimh.nih.gov/sibstudy.

4 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/228983/human-genetics/50742/Identical-twins.

5 J. Michael Bailey, Michael P. Dunne, and Nicholas G. Martin, “Genetic and Environmental Influences on Sexual Orientation and Its Correlates in an Australian Twin Sample,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78, 3 (2000): 524–36.

6 Niklas. Langström, Qazi Rahman, Eva Carlström and Paul Lichtenstein “Genetic and Environmental Effects on Same-Sex Sexual Behavior: A Population Study of Twins in Sweden,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (2008) (an e-publication prior to being in print).

7 Charles W. Socarides, “Sexual Politics and Scientific Logic: The Issue of Homosexuality,” The Journal of Psychohistory 19, 3 (1992), http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/ homopolo.htm.

8 Dean H. Hamer , Stella Hu, Victoria L. Magnuson, Nan Hu, and Angela M. L. Pattatucci, et al., “A Linkage between DNA Markers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orientation,” Science 261 (1993): 321–27.

9 Ibid., 325.

10 Ibid., 326.

11 Ingrid Wickelgren, “Discovery of Gay Gene Questioned,” Science 284 (1999): 571.

12 See George Rice, Carol Anderson, Neil Risch, and George Ebers, “Male Homosexuality: Absence of Linkage to Microsatellite Markers at Xq28,” Science 284 (1999): 665–67.

13 Michael G. DuPree, Brian S. Mustanski, Sven Bocklandt, Caroline Nievergelt, and Dean H. Hamer, “A Candidate Gene Study of CYP19 (Aromatase) and Male Sexual Orientation,” Behavior Genetics 34, 3 (2004): 243–50.

14 Brian S. Mustanski, Michael G. DuPree, Caroline M. Nievergelt, Sven Bocklandt, et al., “A Genomewide Scan of Male Sexual Orientation,” Human Genetics 116 (2005): 272–78.

15 Robert Kunzig, “Finding the Switch,” Psychology Today, May/June (2008): 89–93.

16 Simon LeVay, “A Difference in Hypothalamic Structure between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men,” Science 253 (1991): 1034–37.

17 Ivanka Savic and Per Lindström, “PET and MRI Show Differences in Cerebral Asymmetry and Functional Connectivity between Homo- and Heterosexual Subjects,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105 (2008): 9403–8.

18 David A. Puts, Cynthia L. Jordan, and S. Marc Breedlove, “O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Fraternal Birth-Order Effect on Male Sexual Orientation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (2006): 10531–2.

19 Regina Nuzzo, “What Does Gay Look Like?” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2008.

20 APA document reference number 730008, accepted for inclusion in the DSM-II in 1973, http://www.psychiatryonline.com/DSMPDF/DSM-II_Homosexuality_Revision.pdf.

21 Douglas LeBlanc, “Therapeutically Incorrect—Atheist Psychiatrist Argues That Gays Can Change,” Christianity Today, April 2005, 94.

22 Robert L. Spitzer, “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Orientation? 200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 32 (2003): 403–17.

23 Ibid., 403 (abstract).

24 Kenneth Zucker, “The Politics and Science of Reparative Therapy,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 32 (2003): 399.

25 A. Dean Byrd, Joseph Nicolosi, and Richard W. Potts, “Clients’ Perceptions of How Reorientation Therapy and Self-Help Can Promote Changes in Sexual Orientation,” Psychological Reports 102, 1 (2008): 3–28.

26 LeBlanc, 94.

27 “NARTH Mission Statement,” About NARTH, National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, http://www.narth.com/menus/mission.html.

28 Hamer, quoted in Anastasia Toufexis, “New Evidence of a ‘Gay Gene,’” Time, November 13, 1995, 95.

29 Sharon Begley, “How the Brain Rewires Itself,” Time, January 29, 2007, 72.

30 Frank P. McMaster and Vivek. Kusumakar, “Hippocampal Volume in Early-Onset Depression,” BMC Medicine 2, 2 (2004): 1–6.

31 Boldizar Czeh and Paul. J. Lucassen, “What Causes the Hippocampal Volume Decrease in Depression? Are Neurogenesis, Glial Changes, and Apoptosis Implicated?” European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 257, 5 (2007): 250–60.

32 “Are Politics in Your DNA?” The Scientist Daily e-mail newsletter, January 9, 2007. No author given in original article. Available through The Scientist, Magazine of the Life Sciences, http://www.the-scientist.com/register/.

Social upheaval in California isn’t exactly news, as the state has a rich history of controversy and political volatility. But the length of its embroilment in arguments over same-sex marriage makes Proposition 8 emblematic of an exhausting debate that’s taking unprecedented financial and emotional toll.

This debate has been around for a while, though public awareness of it is relatively new. Back in 1970, Rev. Troy Perry, one of America’s foremost gay activists and the founder of the pro-homosexual denomination Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, filed a lawsuit against the state of California over its refusal to marry homosexual couples. The suit was promptly dismissed, but the level of public support for gay marriage some thirty-eight years later is testimony to Perry’s persistence in particular, and that of the gay rights movement in general.

So while the Reverend’s case didn’t get far, the issue survived, and as cultural acceptance of homosexuality escalated in the late 1990s, a number of California citizens felt it necessary to utilize the state’s initiative process to insure that marriage in California would continue to mean what it always had. Thus Proposition 22, defining marriage as “a civil contract between a man and a woman,” was placed on the ballot in March of 2000 and then passed by 61 percent of the voters.

Case closed, many sighed in relief. Not so fast, others countered. Proposition 22 was challenged and eventually overturned eight years later by the State’s Supreme Court, which found its legal definition of marriage to be unfairly exclusive. In a 4-3 decision, the Court ruled same-sex couples to be eligible for marriage, leading to approximately 18,000 gay and lesbian couples tying the knot. Predictably, the decision was challenged by the framers of Proposition 8, who sought to yank the matter out of the courts and put it back into the hands of the people, who could vote on whether or not to amend the State constitution to define marriage as a heterosexual union.

Petitioners gathered enough signatures for a ballot measure, California stopped issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and Proposition 8 was subsequently passed (and the traditional definition of marriage reaffirmed) in the November 2008 election by 52 percent of the voters. Yet another State Supreme Court challenge ensued, with advocates for gay marriage arguing that voters didn’t have the right to alter the state constitution. But on May 26, 2009, the Court ruled that the majority did indeed have that right through the initiative process, settling, at least for now, Prop 8’s constitutionality.

This time, though, no one is naïve enough to say, “Case closed.”

As of this writing, lawsuits are pending, a 2010 ballot initiative seeking to overturn Proposition 8 is in the works, and aU.S. Supreme Court showdown is a distinct possibility.

Meanwhile, conservative Christians have been feeling the heat. A number of churches were protested and even vandalized in the aftermath of November’s election, public rallies denouncing Prop. 8 supporters have been headlined by celebrities and attend ed by thousands, and Newsweek magazine’s December 15 cover story promoted a “religious” case for same-sex marriage, chiding Christians who view biblical condemnations of homo sexuality as literal and absolute. All of which presents believers with a quan dary, made up of two primary questions:(1) Do Christians have the right, much less the mandate, to see biblical values legally enforced? (2) If so, how do we decide which values to enforce?

In the interest of developing approaches to social involvement that are responsible and biblically based, let’s answer both of these concerns.

Is Legislation of Biblical Values a Christian Right or Mandate?While some professing believers are adopting a pro-gay interpretation of Scripture, most still consider homosexuality to be a violation of God’s intent revealed in both Testaments, so most Christians won’t personally accept a redefinition of marriage that includes same-sex coupling. The question for most, then, is not whether the Bible condemns homosexuality, but rather, should that condemnation be enforced through laws against gay marriage? More to the point, does Scripture command, forbid, or ignore Christian political activism?

On this point, the Bible in fact commends prioritizing rather than polarizing. The Great Commission to preach the gospel to every living creature (Matt. 28:18–20) ought not to be confused with what’s often called the Cultural Commission to be a Christlike influence in all areas of life (Matt. 5:16; Phil. 2:14–15). We needn’t polarize the two, seeing them as opposites and choosing one over the other. Rather, we should prioritize by seeing the distinction and importance of each.

The Great Commission’s importance is self-evident: humanity is dead and lost apart from Christ; the plan of salvation is made known through preaching; the Great Commission, therefore, is to preach the gospel.

The Cultural Commission is a concept author Chuck Colson articulates as follows:

God cares not only about redeeming souls but also about restoring his creation. He calls us to be agents not only of his saving grace but also of his common grace. Our job is not only to build up the church but also to build a society to the glory of God. As agents of God’s common grace, we are called to help sustain and renew his creation, to uphold the created institutions of family and society, to pursue science and scholarship, to create works of art and beauty, and to heal and help those suffering from the results of the Fall.¹

Attempting to choose between these two commissions seems akin to choosing between eating and breathing—both are required for life. Likewise, the church, when functioning properly, cannot help but express the gospel and exert its influence. Both are requisite elements of the faith. And while we can rightfully fear the extreme of seeking political power at the expense of our own integrity, our faith should still be evident in all areas of life, including our work, appearance, manner of living, and the laws we support or resist. As St. Augustine summarized: “Those who are citizens of God’s kingdom are best equipped to be citizens of the kingdom of man.”²

Yet some biblical truths are not legally enforced. It’s not illegal to not be a Christian, for example, though Jesus clearly taught we must be born again. Selfishness is a sin, yet few of us want to see it punished by law. This leads to the second relevant question:

How Do We Decide Which Values to Legislate? Common sense and Scripture both point us toward Thomas Aquinas’s concept of the Common Good, which he described as “things protecting life, preserving the state, and promoting the peace.” Behaviors that don’t violate the common good may be moral matters best left to conscience rather than law; matters that verifiably enhance or detract from the common good become legal matters. No doubt the interpretation of common good will fluctuate, sometimes imperfectly, but the concept still provides useful guidance to believers. By this definition of common good, same-sex marriage seems a matter that does, in fact, warrant concern from believers and responsible Christian activism.

If two consenting adults engage in homosexuality, it could be argued that they do no harm to the common good. Paul’s remarks regarding immorality among unbelievers might apply: “For what have I to do with judging outsiders?….God judges those outside” (1 Cor. 5:12–13 ESV). Likewise, if same-sex couples make con tractual arrangements regarding inheritance, hospital visitation, and property, few would object. But redefining marriage to in clude same-sex coupling raises the question of societal stability and the welfare of children, both of which speak directly to the common good. And if both are affected negatively by this pro posed redefinition, then Christian resistance is called for, not (primarily) because of biblical prohibitions against homosexuality, but because of the negative impact same-sex marriage would have on the common good.

Research indicates that monogamy literally stabilizes cultural life, and that heterosexual couples are far more likely to remain monogamous than homosexual ones.³ Likewise, volumes of research show children raised in a two-parent home by their biological mother and father fare better socially, academically, and emotionally than those raised in alternative arrangements.⁴

If research consistently shows that children function best when raised by their two biological parents, and that monogamy is more likely among heterosexual than homosexual couples, and if both child welfare and cultural stability impact common good, then a redefinition of marriage warrants Christian concern and response.

One can of course compare a seriously unhealthy heterosexual marriage—one featuring drug addiction, for example, or violence—to a relatively healthy same-sex relationship, and easily conclude that a child will fare better under the care of a stable homosexual couple than with an unstable heterosexual one. But pitting the worst-case scenario of one against the best-case scenario of the other hardly proves the point. One could also argue that a child is better off with a healthy single mother than with an abusive couple, but we’d still conclude that a two-parent home is more desirable.

Granted, some resist any advance in gay rights because of unwarranted prejudice against homosexuals rather than fact-based conviction. But it’s unfair and inaccurate to assume all who object to gay marriage do so out of blind prejudice, when, in fact, they could be basing their position on the reasonable premise that all citizens benefit when the definition and function of the family stays intact. And to those who object that gay marriage confers a basic right on a minority at no expense to the majority, Dr. Judith Wallerstein’s comments on the divorce experiment are apt: “We can learn a great deal by comparing these early days of the same-sex family experiment with the early days of a previous and national experiment with the family. We made radical changes in the family without realizing how it changes the experience of growing up. We embarked on a gigantic social experiment without any idea about how the next generation would be affected.”⁵

—Joe Dallas

Joe Dallas is the program director of Genesis Counseling in Tustin, California, a Christian counseling service to men dealing with sexual addiction, homosexuality, and other sexual/relational problems. He is a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors and is the author of three books on human sexuality, including Desires in Conflict (Harvest House, 1991) and A Strong Delusion (Harvest House, 1996).

notes

1 Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1999), xii.

2 Quoted in Jeffrey Myers, “Why We Need to Vote as Christians,” http://barryboucher.typepad.com/ministers_matter/government/.

3 For example, see Glenn T. Stanton and Kjerstein Oligney, “Refuting Points No One Is Making,” http://ww w.citizenlink.org/pdfs/fosi/marriage/AAP_Analysis.pdf; and Peter Sprigg and Timothy Dailey, Getting It Straight: What Research Shows about Homosexuality, Family Research Council, 2004, 96–120.

4 Ibid.

5 Judith Wallerstein, et al., The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study (New York: Hyperion, 2000), xxii.

SYNOPSIS

Transsexual advocates follow the course mapped out by their gay predecessors, advancing transsexualism through various media, the American Psychiatric Association, anti-discrimination laws, and the educational system. The predictable outcome is increased acceptance of transsexualism and intense pressure on those who dissent. The momentum of the transsexual movement challenges the church to articulate a biblical response to pro-transsexual arguments. The innateness argument states that transsexualism is inborn and unchangeable, and therefore God ordained. Christians can respond that, as likely inborn tendencies toward addiction or violence demonstrate, what is “inborn” is not necessarily “God ordained,” because human nature is tainted by original sin; further, they can respond that what one feels does not justify altering what one is. The irrelevance argument states that changing sexes is acceptable because one’s sex is only secondary, even to God. Christians can respond that humans are physical as well as spiritual beings, and that because God specifically determines one’s inward parts, one’s assigned sex reflects God’s intent, which makes it hardly irrelevant. The inevitability argument states that the only viable option for transsexuals in resolving the conflict between their bodies and their feelings is to default to their feelings and proceed with sex reassignment surgery. Christians can respond that internal conflicts often remain after surgery, lessening the efficacy of reassignment surgery to improve quality of life. Also, living in accord with one’s assigned sex and recognizing one’s feelings, rather than one’s sex, as the problem is another viable option, and the correct choice.

Kim was the most handsome client ever to step into my office. As a pastoral counselor, I work with men wanting to overcome sexual sins, many who, as a first impression, present themselves as self-absorbed, male model types, so an attractive man asking for help wasn’t unusual. But tall, muscular, and square jawed Kim immediately stood apart.

“Since this is your first appointment,” I said, while Kim completed an intake form, “let’s talk about the problem that brought you here.”

My new counselee signed the form, fixed a steady gaze on me and dropped the bomb.

“The problem is my chromosomes. I was born female.”

I was astonished, and after two decades of counseling porn addicts, homosexuals, prostitutes, and an occasional sex offender, I don’t shock easily.

“I’ve lived most of my life as a man,” she continued, “and it’s worked! I finally had sex change surgery three years ago, and I’ve been living with a woman since then. But two weeks ago I got saved at a Harvest Crusade. I’m a new Christian, so…”

My heart sank, because now I knew what Kim had come to ask and that, ultimately, my answer would hurt deeply.

“…so now what? Did I sin when I had the surgery? If I did, it can’t be undone, so how can I repent of it? Can’t I just go on living as a Christian man? If God wants me living as a woman, I don’t know how I’ll pull it off. Everyone at work knows me as a guy, so what do I do? Suddenly show up in high heels? And what about my girlfriend? Does God reject us because He considers us lesbians? What am I supposed to do?”

AN UNEXPECTED CONVERSATION

Kim’s questions caught me unprepared, and I fear “unprepared” describes many believers who may find themselves in the precarious position of explaining and defending the biblical position on transsexualism.¹ It’s a subject as unavoidable as homosexuality, as transsexual advocates follow the course mapped out by their gay predecessors. From the 1970s onward, the gay rights movement advanced itself through films, television characters, sympathetic journalists, the American Psychiatric Association, anti-discrimination laws, and the educational system. The national debate shifted accordingly, the question eventually morphing from “Is homosexuality normal?” to “Are objections to homosexuality normal?” Those who hold such objections now find themselves (and their churches) subject to intense pressure and scorn.

The gay rights movement’s success is emulated by its transsexual cousin, undoubtedly the next wave of sexual revolution.² Consider the following:

· Popular films such as the Oscar-winning Boys Don’t Cry, The Crying Game, and Normal (starring Jessica Lange as a wife who comes to terms with her husband’s need to live as a woman) portray transsexuals not as unnatural, but as victims of prejudice and circumstance.

· Television characters such as the transsexual in the highly popular Ugly Betty use the likeability factor to educate the public on the inherent “normality” of transsexualism and the ignorance of those who disapprove of it.

· Sympathetic journalism doesn’t get any better than Barbara Walters 20/20 piece, first aired in the spring of 2007, and titled “My Secret Self,” in which Ms. Walters invited viewers to “open [their] hearts and minds” to “courageous and loving parents” who allowed their transsexual children to live as the opposite sex, promising, “most of you will be moved” by their stories.³

· As gay activists did in 1973, transsexual advocates are pressuring the American Psychiatric Association to revise its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual to eliminate transsexualism (or gender identity disorder) as a classifiable disorder.⁴

· Anti-discrimination laws and educational reforms that cite transsexuals as a protected class have swept through high school and college campuses, as well as corporations and small businesses.⁵

The predictable outcome—increased acceptance of transsexualism and increased pressure on those who dissent—forces us to articulate a biblical response. This article will attempt to do so by answering three of the most commonly used pro-transsexual arguments: (1) the innateness argument: “Transsexualism is inborn and unchangeable,” (2) the irrelevance argument: “One’s biological sex is secondary, so changing it is acceptable,” and, (3) the inevitability argument: “Transsexuals’ only viable option is to default to their feelings.”

Before discussing these arguments, some preliminary clarifications are necessary. The transsexual should be distinguished from the transvestite, who enjoys wearing clothing of the opposite sex without a wish to become the opposite sex. Female impersonators (commonly called “drag queens”) likewise rarely qualify as transsexuals, since they live as men, assuming their female persona episodically, not permanently. Since most homosexuals have no desire to change their sex, they, too, are distinct from transsexuals. Complicating matters further is the trend towards lumping transsexuals, transvestites, and drag queens together under the all-inclusive term “transgendered.”

Although the transsexual population is hard to quantify its visibility grows, however, as it becomes more closely aligned with the goals and strategies of the gay rights movement, most noticeably through its inclusion in the movement’s oft used title The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Community (GLBT), and through the similarities between common pro-transsexual and gay rights arguments.

THE INNATENESS ARGUMENT:“TRANSSEXUALISM IS INBORN AND UNCHANGEABLE”

Kim was weeping while I scrambled for an answer to the questions she’d just poured out. “Let’s start with this premise, OK?” I began. “We’re born male or female by design, not accident. So we have to assume your assigned sex is your intended sex.”

“Intended?” she gasped. “That’s like saying God intended me to be a frog, so I should hop and croak! From day one, everything in me has said I’m a man, and you’re saying God made me a woman? Either you’re wrong, or God messed up.”

Trapped!

Most transsexuals feel, from early in life, “trapped” in the wrong body, hence the American Psychiatric Association’s definition of transsexualism as “strong and persistent cross-gender identification… and… persistent discomfort about one’s assigned sex.”⁶ With time, it is common for transsexuals to develop a form of depression called gender dysphoria.⁷ “I’m so mad at God,” a seven-year old laments in the Barbara Walters special, “He made a mistake.”⁸ The torment of gender dysphoria expresses itself in the question, “How can I be one way yet feel another?” Lest anyone dismiss the seriousness of this depression, it should be noted that suicide attempts, drug abuse, and horrendous efforts at self-mutilation are commonly reported among young transsexuals.⁹

Those Stubborn Chromosomes

The solution, many conclude, is a process called sex reassignment, through which the transsexual’s body is altered to conform to his or her self-perception. The sex a transsexual wants to be is the target gender, as opposed to the assigned gender with which he or she was born. Reassignment can include injections of hormones, facial reconstruction, breast implants or removal, and reconstruction of genitals. This process is widely available, although most states require a person to live (dress, work, and self identify) as a member of the opposite sex for a prescribed period before undergoing surgery, accompanied by extensive psychological counseling to determine suitability for the procedure.

The impossibility of truly becoming the opposite sex seems obvious, but so does the desperation a person such as Kim must feel to make such an attempt. Surely, castration, implants, and hormones still leave a man unable to ovulate; penile implants and breast reduction likewise won’t delete a woman’s womanhood. Chromosomes stubbornly remain unchanged, immune to surgical intervention.

Knowing all this and more, thousands still attempt reassignment, believing, as did Kim, that they were born not for the body they inhabit, but for the one they’re trying to create. At one time such a belief held little sway, the testimony of the body overriding the mind. But as we move further from the influences of Scripture and Judeo-Christian tradition, embracing a more subjective grid for decision making, however, feelings often trump facts.

Traditionally, if a man felt like a woman yet inhabited a male body, his feelings, not his body, were viewed as the problem. They were considered something to be resisted, modified if possible, and contrary to what was. Currently, what one is is being determined by what one feels – an ominous trend when one considers its implications. It is, in essence, an attempt to define reality by desire, knowledge by intuition. “I know I’m a man because I feel like one!” Kim screamed at me as our session continued, leaving me stunned that an intelligent, educated woman subordinated a verifiable truth—her born, inalterable state—to subjective (though strongly held) perceptions.

Transsexualism’s increased acceptance, combined with its early developmental appearance, leaves many professionals and laity convinced that it is an inborn trait. The jury, after all, is still out on the question of homosexuality’s origins—inborn, acquired, or a combination of the two?—and compelling arguments are made on all sides. Biological or genetic factors thus may create, or at least contribute to, this mystery as well. (As of this writing, there is no single, universally accepted theory on the origins of transsexualism.)¹⁰

Does “Inborn” also Mean “God Ordained”?

Whether inborn or acquired, however, the transsexual dilemma is more agonizing than anyone untouched by it can appreciate. If from early childhood one feels like a member of the opposite sex, and if that feeling only grows with time, doesn’t the feeling’s innate status normalize it? Kim’s “I feel this way, so I’m meant to be this way” argument has to be considered. Does “inborn” or “innate” also mean “normal” or “God ordained?”

“I can’t say it does,” I answered when Kim asked that very question. “There’s such a thing as birth defects, right?”

“I’m a defect?” she retorted.

“Unfair, Kim. I said a person can have an inborn defect. That doesn’t make the person a defect. Think about it. Aren’t some people born without limbs, or with chronic conditions?”

“Not in their heads! They’re not born feeling something they can’t stop feeling.”

“Some would disagree,” I countered. “Plenty of studies have shown addictive tendencies may be inborn. Depression seems to run in families, so it could be in the genes. Ditto for violence—did you know there are attorneys basing their client’s defense on a genetic tendency to violence? All of those are problems of the ‘head,’ as you say, but they’re not normal just because they’re inborn, are they?”¹¹

I couldn’t blame Kim for glaring at me. I was, in essence, saying that her lifelong, deeply held feelings were an error. “All I know,” she sighed, “is that God made me. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“You bet,” I nodded, “We’re all created by God, but we’re not all He created us to be. We’re a fallen race. Adam sinned, remember? Then everything about him changed, body and soul, and he passed on his corrupted nature to the rest of us. We’re all struggling with conflicts and tendencies we’ve had from day one.” (See Gen. 3:17–19, Ps. 51:5, and Rom. 5:12–19.)

“This isn’t the same as your average tendency,” Kim protested.

“No, it’s not. Some people, including you, have to deal with tendencies that are huge, and make life awfully hard. I appreciate that. But it doesn’t give you a divine permit to alter what God fashioned. In the long run, Kim, it matters less what we feel and more what He intends.”

THE IRRELEVANCE ARGUMENT:“ONE’S BIOLOGICAL SEX IS SECONDARY, SO CHANGING IT IS ACCEPTABLE”

“You talk about sex reassignment as though God’s against it, but does it really matter to Him what sex we are?” Kim pointed to the Bible on my desk. “I’ve read in the New Testament that in Christ, we’re neither male nor female. If that’s true, then God’s not even looking at my gender!”

I reached for the Bible and nodded. “You’re quoting from Galatians 3:28. Let me read it. ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’”

“Seems pretty clear to me,” Kim declared.

“But remember the context,” I argued. “Paul’s talking about justification, and he begins the paragraph by saying ‘For you are all sons through faith in Christ Jesus’ [Gal. 3: 26]. He means whatever our race, sex, or status, we’re all one in Christ. But he didn’t say race and sex have disappeared; he simply said they don’t affect our standing before God.”

Kim shook her head. “I don’t know about that. I think God cares more about my character than my sex. I’m a decent person, I’m not hurting anyone, and I’m living a responsible life, so I can’t see God caring about something as irrelevant as my body parts.”

Beyond Skin Deep

The irrelevance argument borrows from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, famous speech in which he envisioned a world where children are judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Stretching the point further than King intended (surely he wasn’t implying that African Americans should change their skin color!), some transsexuals argue that, since the importance of one’s sex pales in comparison to one’s character, sex is a trait one can change at will. One’s assigned sex of male or female thus is relegated (philosophically, not practically) to a secondary, optional status, alongside hair color or body weight, both of which can be changed at our discretion, and neither of which is primary to God.

Separating sex from character requires a dualism of body versus soul, rather than the value of body, soul, and spirit described in scripture. The first assignments of sex in history were divinely commanded and commended. In Genesis 1:27, humanity is created in God’s image, and defined by sex (“…in the image of God He created them male and female.”). Further, God applauds His handiwork when He pronounces it “very good” (Gen. 1:29). The male/female complement is thereby God ordained, expressive of both human need and divine nature. That alone tells us that one’s biological sex is hardly secondary.

One’s sex also is designated individually and specifically with God’s foreknowledge. Examples abound of instances when God or His messengers foretold the sex of a forthcoming child (Gen. 18:10; Judg. 13: 3; Luke 1:31), and His foreordination in shaping individual traits, gender included, is confirmed to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you (Jeremiah 1: 5),” and by David, “For you formed my inward parts; you covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139: 13–14).”

No Accident

Our sex, then, is no accident, nor is it irrelevant. It is a critical distinctive, endowed on each of us with God’s full knowledge and by His plan, since our bodies are in part our selves, and we, in our entirety, are foreknown and foreordained. Perhaps the broader and greater error of transsexual advocates is a denigration of the body as being subject to the whims of its owner. In this sense, transsexualism hearkens to the ancient heresy of Gnosticism, which dates back to the first century and was so despised by John in his epistles and still, under different names and guises, plagues us today.

Gnostic belief dictates that humanity’s imperfection is the fault of an imperfect creator, referred to as the demiurge, who was himself an inferior emanation of God crudely comparable to the Devil.¹² The body, to the Gnostic, is but one of the demiurge’s many flawed creations, and its inhabitants the “divine souls trapped in a material world created by an imperfect spirit.”¹³ Whereas the Bible views the body as good and preordained, Gnosticism views it as inherently bad; hence the Gnostic belief that Jesus was only a spirit who wouldn’t have inhabited an evil body, countered by John’s statement that “every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God” (I John 4: 3).

If the body is essentially evil, created by a being that got it wrong, then it is up to the individual to determine the use and purpose of the body. Gnostics, in fact, encourage reliance on intuition (what one feels) in contrast to what is physically clear, describing their practice as “the knowledge of transcendence arrived at by way of internal, intuitive means” (emphasis added).¹⁴ The created, not the creator, has the final say based on his/her sense of right and wrong, rather than an objective standard, so the “basis of action is the moral inclination of the individual.”¹⁵

Consider the pro-transsexual therapist on the Barbara Walters special who described a male child as female, admitting “I can’t say biologically, chromosomally” that the boy is female, but insisting that according to the boy’s own intuitions, he is female, and that that is enough.¹⁶ Consider, likewise, Kim’s vehement, confident assertion, “I know I’m a man because I feel like one!” and compare it to the Gnostic belief that “the true God did not fashion anything”¹⁷ and “the world is flawed because it was created in a flawed manner,”¹⁸ leaving us, autonomously and intuitively, to decide who and what we are. Biology—what obviously is—becomes irrelevant, the “inclination of the individual” being the final arbiter.

“But you’re forgetting your own argument,” Kim interrupted when I pointed this out to her. “You said we’re a fallen race. So we may have inborn traits God never meant us to have, right?”

“If those traits contradict what He intended, yes.”

“So who’s to say my sex isn’t a birth defect? You said we’re born imperfect because of the sin nature. What if God intended me to be a man, but because of fallen nature – birth defect, as you say – I was born a woman? If that’s the case, shouldn’t I correct what was wrong to begin with?”

“If the thing is wrong in and of itself, I could see that,” I agreed. “So if you’re born without a leg, a prosthetic device makes sense. If you have an inborn chemical imbalance, there’s no reason you shouldn’t correct it through medication. In fact, some of the sinful tendencies I mentioned earlier, such as violence or addictive leanings, could also be classified as defects.”

“And so could my body parts.”

“Not the same thing, Kim. If something is inherently wrong, it’s a flaw. But being male or female isn’t a handicap or a sinful tendency. We can only call something a flaw if it’s defective in and of itself. Otherwise, if something inherently natural about our body is at odds with our desires, then our desires are the problem, not vice versa.”

Transsexualism in Light of Created Intent

I couldn’t challenge Kim’s description of herself as a decent person. She struck me as kind and good-natured, in many ways living responsibly and meaning no harm. She described her love for her partner of the past three years, and while we could have debated the nature of that love—godly versus ungodly, affectionate versus erotic—I wouldn’t deny its existence. The ethical question of transsexualism, however, isn’t answered by how deeply a person loves, or by whatever good qualities a transsexual possesses; rather, it’s answered by examining transsexualism itself in the light of created intent.

We have a Creator whose will is revealed in an inspired document (2 Tim. 3:16). That document testifies to gender’s relevance by describing:

· the foreordained assignment of each person’s sex (see references above);

· the interdependence between the sexes (Gen. 2:18, 21–24);

· distinct gender roles, attributes, and responsibilities (Prov.14:1, 1Cor.11: 3–15, 1Tim.2: 9‑15,5:8, Eph.5:22–33), and

· prohibitions against blurring gender identity (Deut. 22:5).

Common sense testifies to created intent as well. People are born male or female, a distinction marking the first words referring to them as “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” Saying that one feels like something else doesn’t make it so; reassignment surgery, likewise, changes the body but not the sex, constituting, as apologist Greg Bahnsen says, “a bizarre biological masquerade.”¹⁹

Character and gender are indeed separate, but they are both critical. Our manhood or womanhood is not a suggestion to be accepted or discarded. It is an unalterable assignment, mandated by a Creator who both intended and designed it for the individual to whom He entrusted it. Oliver O’Donovan, professor of moral and pastoral theology at the University of Oxnard, emphasizes this when he asserts: “If I claim to have a ‘real sex’ which may be at war with the sex of my body and is at least in a rather uncertain relationship to it, I am shrinking from the glad acceptance of myself as a physical as well as a spiritual being, and seeking self-knowledge in a kind of Gnostic withdrawal from material creation.”²⁰

THE INEVITABILITY ARGUMENT:“TRANSSEXUALS SHOULD DEFAULT TO THEIR FEELINGS”

Our fifty-minute session stretched into two hours of arguing, listening, and, at times, weeping. Kim conceded some of my points, rejected others, and promised to consider all of them. “But,” she said, “I’ve had the surgery. What else could I have done? And what else can I do now but live with it, and with myself, just as I am?”

The Emergence of ”Transphobia”

Homosexuality used to be considered an unnatural tendency that was to be resisted, not expressed. Today, it’s widely viewed as something the homosexual should default to, lest he deny his true feelings and do himself damage. “Homophobia” is the word now applied to traditional disapproval, making the disapproval, not the sexual preference, the problem.

Transsexualism is in a similar metamorphosis. Barbara Walters, for example, commended the parents of young transsexuals for granting their children’s desire to live as the opposite sex, thus “sparing them a lifetime of misery.”²¹ The new word for disapproval of transsexualism—“transphobia”—takes an obvious cue from the oft-used term “homophobia.”²²

Defaulting to the conviction that one is trapped in the wrong body is touted as the answer to the conflicts inherent in transsexualism. Recent studies indicate that this may be a premature assumption, however. “There is no conclusive evidence that sex change operations improve the lives of transsexuals,” one such study reports, “with many people remaining severely distressed and even suicidal after the operation.”²³ As for the growing belief in reassignment surgery’s efficacy, Chris Hyde, director of the University of Birmingham’s Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility (ARIF), found that “most of the medical research on gender reassignment was poorly designed, which skewed the results to suggest that sex change operations are beneficial.”²⁴

An even blunter assessment appearing in the UK Daily Telegraph leaves one wondering what price a transsexual ultimately might pay for defaulting to her/his condition: “What many patients find is that they are left with a mutilated body, but the internal conflicts remain.”²⁵

In this light, Paul’s writings to Corinth regarding one’s calling seem both a commandment and a caution: “But as God has distributed [in Greek, apportioned, dealt, or divided] to each one, as the Lord has called each one, so let him walk. Let each one remain in the calling in which he was called” (1Cor.7:17,20).

What Else Could Kim Do?

One wonders what misery might be avoided if this advice is applied to gender. One, conversely, wonders how to answer Kim’s question: What else could she do? Succumbing to one’s own inclinations is not the only alternative in dealing with transsexualism. When I pointed this out to Kim, her reaction was understandable. “You’ve got some pretty clear answers, Joe. But tell me honestly: if I go home and break up with my girlfriend, then put on a skirt and try to live as a woman, leaving behind everything about my life as I know it, will the church be there for me? Will they welcome me, even though I’ll look like a man wearing a dress? Can I be honest with fellow Christians about the surgery I had? Will I really be a sister in Christ, or will I be the resident freak?”

I thought of my own return to the church after years of public involvement in sexual sin, and my terror that the past would color everyone’s impression of me. Kim’s apprehension had to have been greater and deeper. It was, indeed, a bleak road I was advising her to walk, but hadn’t Saul of Tarsus walked the same one, carrying with him the weight of his past persecution of Christians when he tried joining himself to the church? Hadn’t he faced skepticism as well?

It’s a rare believer who is asked to fill Paul’s sandals, yet Kim was required to do just that. I could only hope, should she say yes to her inborn gender and begin walking in it again, that believers would come alongside her, extending the right hand of fellowship to her as the friendly Barnabas did to Paul when he began his own journey. I told Kim as much; she remained unconvinced and undecided. Our session ended with her promising to prayerfully consider all we’d discussed, and to call me for a follow up appointment. She never did.

CARING FOR MANDY

Recently I came across the testimony of a pastor who discipled a transsexual who had had reassignment surgery. “Mandy” originally presented himself as a woman, was converted and baptized, then disclosed his secret to the pastor. The pastor, while making it clear that the assigned sex was the one to strive for, nonetheless continued to care for Mandy, encouraging him to disclose the truth to others gradually and pursue God’s will. As he did so, his masculine characteristics became more apparent, surgery notwithstanding. His church gathered around him, supportive and accepting, until Mandy decided to live openly as a man. As the pastor describes it: “Mandy became ‘James.’ Great was the rejoicing when a fine, be-suited young James walked to the front on the first Sunday of the year to be ‘introduced’ to the church. Fifteen months later, James announced his engagement to a girl in the church, but that’s another story.”²⁶

Mandy was blessed; his church was Christ-like. Other churches should take a cue, and respond likewise to those with this struggle who will no doubt be joining other congregations as well. As the transsexual movement picks up steam, the church as a whole must be prepared to articulate and defend the biblical position, while offering support and discipleship to repentant transsexuals. The transsexual dilemma demands a response, as the culture and the church wrestle with its many ramifications. And somewhere, amid the debate, my friend Kim—and thousands like her—face a decision of indescribable consequence.

notes

1. The American Psychiatric Association replaced the term transsexualism with the term gender identity disorder of adulthood, using the broader term gender identity disorder (GID) to describe the condition in children and people of all ages. This article uses transsexualism, however, since most of its discussion involves the adult form of the disorder. See Stuart C. Yudofsky and Robert E. Hales, The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2003), 745.

2. The pro-transsexual public health Web site “Public Health Seattle and King County,” located at http://www.metrokc.gov/health/glbt/transgender.htm#mh, for example, makes assertions about acceptance of transsexualism that parallel those that homosexuals made thirty years earlier when it reports: “Although societal acceptance of transsexual and transgendered people is far from complete, there is a growing and active community of transgendered people—particularly in the coastal areas of the United States. There are also increasing numbers of books and online information and support for people transgendered people [sic].”

3. Barbara Walters, “My Secret Self,” 20/20, April 27, 2007, ABC.

4. Kelley Winters, “Issues of GID Diagnosis for Transsexual Women and Men,” GID Reform Advocates, http://www.gidreform.org/gid30285.html.

5. See, for example, a listing of such reforms and proposals in Francisco Forrest Martin, “Breaking New Ground in International Law Protecting Transsexual Rights: Rights International’s Amicus Curiae Brief in X.Y. and Z. v. United Kingdom,” The National Journal of Sexual Orientation Law 3, 1 (1997), http://www.ibiblio.org/gaylaw/issue5/transbre.html.

6. Ibid., 576. See also “DSM IV: Gender Identity Disorder,” Diagnostic Features, Gender Identity Disorder Today, MH Today, http://www.mental-health-today.com/gender/ dsm.htm.

7. “Gender Dysphoria,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexual.

8. “My Secret Self.”

9. George J. Wilkerson, “What We Don’t Know: The Unaddressed Health Concerns of the Transgendered, ”Trans-Health.com, http://www.trans-health.com/displayarticle.php?aid=7.

10. “Causes of Transsexualism,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexual.

11. Joe Dallas, Desires in Conflict (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishing, 1991), 206-7.

12. Douglas Groothuis, “Ancient and Modern Gnosticism (Part One): Gnosticism and the Gnostic Jesus,” Christian Research Journal, 13, 2 (Fall 1990): 8, http://www.equip.org/dg040-1.

13. “Gnosticism,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism.

14. Stephan A. Hoeller, “The Gnostic World View: A Brief Summary of Gnosticism,” Gnosis, http://www.gnosis.org/gnintro.htm.

15. “Gnosticism,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism.

16. “My Secret Self.”

17. Stephan A. Hoeller, http://www.gnosis.org/gnintro.htm.

18. Ibid.

19. Greg Bahnsen “The Ethical Issue of Homosexuality,” Penpoint 6, 6 (June 1995); cited at http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Village/8295/bahnsen.html.

20. The Christian Institute, “Transsexualism,” Apologetics, The Christian Institute, http://www.christian.org.uk/briefingpapers/transsexualism.htm.

21. “My Secret Self.”

22. “Transphobia,” Answers.com, Wikipedia, http://www.answers.com/topic/transphobia.

23. David Batty, “Sex Changes Are Not Effective, Say Researchers,” Society Guardian, July 30, 2004; cited at http://society.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4982009-105965,00.html.

24. Ibid.

25. Daily Telegraph, July 15, 2002, cited in The Christian Institute, “Transsexualism,” Apologetics, The Christian Institute, http://www.christian.org.uk/briefingpapers/transsexualism.htm.

26. “Transsexualism in the Church: A Pastor Responds,” Proverbs 27:7 Issues, New Hope Outreach, http://www.newhopeoutreachtoronto.org/A_pastor_responds.html.

SYNOPSIS

Millions of people view pornographic magazines, videotapes, DVDs, and Web sites each month. What appears to be a secular problem, however, is also prevalent among Christians. Because pornography has a dependency that weakens the individual; it causes a disruption of the “one-flesh” union that weakens marriages; and it results in a distortion in thinking that weakens the ability to relate and function.

Bondage to sexual sin is a tyrant that will demand more and more territory. It can be overcome, however, by choosing to take three steps of action: First, truly repent of the sin and separate yourself from it. Second, establish a pattern of discipleship through Bible study and prayer. Third, establish a relationship in which you can be accountable to another believer. By choosing to do battle now, you can avoid a full-scale war later.

“The light of the body is they eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:22-23)¹

I remember clearly, and with inexpressible regret, the night I walked into an adult bookstore and entangled myself in the use of pornography. I was a 23-year-old former minister at the time, well on my way toward a fully backslidden state, and I was considering whether to indulge in the many sexual sins that I had, at that point, only allowed myself to imagine. That evening in the spring of 1978, my decision was sealed when I embraced what I now call the “dark magic.”

The “magical” qualities of pornography were obvious and immediate. One glance around that roomful of graphic sexual images sent a rush through my system very much like a narcotic response. The longer I gazed, the more intoxicated I became, and over the next few hours the porn brought me temporary escape and exhilaration. I’d found a new drug, and it seemed to work beyond my expectations.

The darker aspects of this newfound magic soon became clear to me. I revisited the same porn shop nightly for the next two weeks. I then spiraled into the use of prostitutes, an affair with a married woman, homosexuality, and a five-year habit of reckless, degrading sexual practices. It began with the use of pornography, a product I continued to consume during my backslidden years, and which I have come to regard much the way an addict regards a drug — a destructive vice I have to strenuously avoid, always remembering its lethal impact on my life.

THE PROBLEM THAT GROWS UNNOTICED

That same lethal impact is being felt on a broader level today as pornography’s availability has reached levels unimaginable 25 years ago. Through cable, videotape and DVD products, and the Internet, virtually anyone wanting to view porn is able to do so with minimal effort. The statistics on porn usage, therefore, while tragic, shouldn’t be surprising:

· During the single month of January 2002, 27.5 million Internet users visited pornographic Web sites.²

· Americans spent an estimated $220 million on pornographic Web sites in 2001, according to a New York-based Internet research firm. (The same firm, Jupiter Media Metrix, noted that the $220 million figure was up from $148 million in 1999; Americans are expected to spend $320 million annually on porn sites by the year 2005.)³

· In a national survey polling 1,031 adults, Zogby International and Focus on the Family found that 20 percent of the respondents had recently visited a pornographic site.⁴

Every month millions of people stop what they’re doing to look at erotic images and, in most cases, pretend that they are sexually interacting with the women or men on display. It makes St. John’s description of the world — a place dominated by the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes (1 John 2:16) — chillingly relevant.

What, at first glance, appears to be a secular problem is, in fact, a problem more commonly found among Christians than any of us would care to admit. Over 18 percent of the men polled in the Zogby/Focus survey cited above, for example, identified themselves as Christian believers.⁵ The Promise Keepers Men’s Conference conducted an informal poll during its 1996 rally and this poll yielded even more dismal results when one out of three men in attendance admitted they “struggled” with pornography.⁶ Finally, the Colorado-based Focus on the Family organization reports that 7 out of 10 pastors who call their toll-free help line claim to be addicted to porn.⁷

The use of pornography is not restricted to men, either, as is often assumed. Thirty-four percent of the readers of the popular magazine Today’s Christian Woman admitted to the use of Internet pornography,⁸ and the Zogby/Focus poll indicated one out of every six women surveyed viewed pornography regularly.⁹ James P. Draper, president of Life Way Christian Resources, was hardly exaggerating when he stated, “It appears the sin of choice among Christians today is pornography.”¹⁰

Considering the prevalence of pornography use among Christians, it’s time we examine the effect it’s having on individuals and families within the church and on our Christian witness in a secular and increasingly sexualized culture.

DEFINING PORNOGRAPHY

Webster defines pornography as “obscene literature or art.” This leaves the term “obscene” open to interpretation since a good deal of socially acceptable material may be obscene to some while artistic to others. The legal definition of obscenity, however, as established by the U. S. Supreme Court in 1973, narrows the term:

1. While applying contemporary community standards and taken as a whole, it is something that the average person would consider appeals to prurient interest.

2. The work (or material) depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way as specifically defined by the applicable state law.

3. The work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.¹¹

By this three-part standard, sexually explicit videotapes, DVDs, magazines, and Web sites qualify as porn. Honesty and common sense will also allow that any visual material used to incite an erotic response, even if the material is not generally considered obscene, becomes a form of pornography to the individual who uses it to that end. For the purposes of this article, however, we’ll use the Supreme Court’s definition as a reference point.

THE LETHAL EFFECTS OF PORNOGRAPHY

The use of pornography, I believe, weakens the church today in three significant ways: First, it creates a dependency on pornography that weakens the individual believer. Second, it causes a disruption of the “one-flesh” union that weakens Christian marriages. Third, it results in a distortion in thinking that weakens a Christian’s ability to relate and function.

A Dependency That Weakens the Individual Believer

The value of personal freedom is an ongoing biblical theme. Adam was created under God’s authority with the freedom to choose, manage, and procreate (Gen. 1:27–30); Israel’s slavery was an evil that God sent Moses to confront and dismantle (Exod. 3–15); Jesus began His public ministry by announcing He had come, among other things, to set captives free (Luke 4:18); and Paul asserted that liberty is what God has called us to, that Christian liberty should be protected, and that bondage is to be avoided (Gal.5:1,13). The Judeo-Christian ethic places a high premium on personal freedom and condemns anything that restricts or prohibits a person from reaching his or her God-given potential. If liberty is good, it stands to reason that addiction — a dependence on a certain behavior or experience — is bad; and if something can be shown to be addictive, that in itself becomes a strong argument against it.

There are limits to this argument, to be sure. Most would agree that caffeine is an addictive substance, and yet coffee drinking is generally not frowned on; nor is the use of sugar, which many consider a relatively addictive substance. What distinguishes these substances from cocaine or heroin is the degree to which their use impairs a person’s freedom and productivity.

A woman who drinks three cups of coffee daily, for example, is different than a woman with a thousand-dollar-a-day heroin habit. Both of them may be, in the strictest sense, dependent on their drug of choice, and so their freedom is impaired. The coffee drinker is not, however, in virtually all cases, significantly and functionally impaired by her drug. She can operate on the job, maintain focus and stability, and manage personal responsibilities quite well despite her habit. The heroin user, in contrast, is rendered largely dysfunctional by her drug, will often resort to illegal activities to support her use of it, and is affected by heroin in such a way that it becomes increasingly difficult for her to sustain even the most primary human relationships. Both women are in bondage to some degree, but there’s a huge contrast in the nature of their bondage and in its impact on their general abilities.

The nature of immorality and its impact on a person’s abilities are described in Scripture as “enslaving”: “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins” (Prov. 5:22). Peter described the false promise of freedom through immorality: “They allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness….While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage” (2Pet.2:18–19).

Bondage to a sexual sin — a growing dependency on the sin, similar to dependency on a drug — often goes unrecognized because addiction to a behavior is a relatively new concept to many people. Most mental health professionals agree that people can become addicted to chemicals. Many of them also recognize the possibility of becoming addicted to an experience. Those who believe in this possibility — myself included — believe addiction to an experience, such as gambling or the use of porn, follows a threefold pattern: the discovery of a hyperstimulating experience, the repetition of the experience, and an eventual dependence on the experience as a means of functioning or coping.

Discovery, Repetition, Dependence

When pornography is viewed for the first time — discovered, as it were — the viewer experiences a unique rush, accompanied by a strong sexual fantasy. The viewer is not, after all, simply enjoying the sight of another person’s body, potent as that pleasure might be. He is also creating an imaginary bond with the image he’s viewing, enjoying a false but potent connection in which he orchestrates and controls the entire sexual encounter. He has, in short, discovered a powerful and rewarding product, and like any consumer, he will be inclined to repeat its use until he no longer simply enjoys it but becomes dependent on it.

Christian counselor Robert Ellis describes this hyperstimulating experience much as one would describe a narcotic rush: “Use of pornography creates an exotic combination of internal stimulants which cascade through the bloodstream like liquid flesh. They create a sense of relief, excitement, exhilaration or pleasure — when these pleasurable, relieving surges get grooved into association with pornography, the flesh gains control over the spirit and the problem becomes one of addiction. It is not uncommon for pornography to elicit internal surges as addictive as cocaine.”¹²

This “addictive as cocaine” experience is shared by millions of pornography’s consumers, as evidenced by the National Council on Sexual Addiction Compulsivity, which estimates between six to eight percent of Americans display symptoms of sexual addiction (percentages that translate into 16 to 21 million citizens).¹³ Indeed, an MSNBC poll showed that in a sampling of 38,000 respondents, one out of every ten persons surveyed indicated they were addicted to sex on the Internet.¹⁴

Any form of sexual sin is serious, whether or not the person committing it is “addicted” to the sin or indulging it only on occasion; but when a person becomes dependent on that behavior as a source of comfort or relief, the problem of sin is now accompanied by the problem of bondage. When numerous Christians have come under such bondage, the entire church, like a body with parts that are diseased or crippled, must suffer.

A Disruption That Weakens Christian Marriages

Further problems are created when the use of pornography invades Christian marriages. It will eventually disrupt the unity, both sexual and emotional, that is vitally crucial to stable marital life.

When a group of Pharisees questioned Jesus on the ethics of divorce (Matt. 19:4–6), He articulated a basic standard for the human sexual experience: sexual union is to be heterosexual (“He made them male and female”), independent (“a man shall leave father and mother”), and monogamous (“one flesh”). Paul added that within the sanctity of a monogamous and permanent commitment, husband and wife are to attend to each other’s sexual needs (1 Cor. 7:4–5) and reserve their sexual energies for each other, thus preserving the uniqueness of their bond and avoiding moral transgressions (1 Cor. 7:2).

The benefits of a “one-flesh” union are confirmed elsewhere in Scripture. A cursory look at Old and New Testament figures confirms the wisdom of monogamy and the chaos introduced by infidelity, polygamy, or loss of sexual control, all of which play key roles in some of the Bible’s greatest tragedies. Witness the bitter rivalry between Abraham’s wife and her maid and the painful repercussions that result, the foolish loss of judgment that came with Herod’s sexual obsession with his stepdaughter, the death of a child and permanent family curse caused by David’s adultery, and the spiritual decline of Solomon’s faith because of his appetite for foreign women. A fundamental lesson emerges: The one-flesh union provides psychological safety to individuals, stabilizes the family, and enhances productivity and order within the community.

Jesus further clarified the concept of the one-flesh union when He declared that adultery is not limited to actions but can also occur in the heart: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matt. 5:27–28). Pornography, which necessitates lusting after strangers, accordingly disrupts the one-flesh union, depriving husband and wife of the very benefits the Bible promises to those who remain monogamous.

In concurrence with the Bible, a growing number of secular theorists are also celebrating the wisdom of monogamous commitment. Studies show that it enhances the life span of men and women who practice it¹⁵ and that the quality of life improves in proportion to the practice of fidelity. Drug and alcohol abuse dropped significantly among married test subjects in a University of Chicago study, and monogamous individuals made more money, had twice as much sex as their nonmonogamous counterparts, and experienced half the domestic violence of those studied who either lived together unmarried or lived alone.¹⁶

In light of this, pornography is shown to be especially crippling to marriages, as it damages the ability of its users to maintain an ongoing, committed union. The claim that it is a harmless product and practice belies the biblical and secular evidence that it violates the one-flesh standard. The man using pornography violates this standard, whether he is married or single. If he is single, he violates it by engaging in random sexual fantasies with the innumerable women he views in magazines or pornographic Web sites. He is, in essence, attempting to enjoy the ecstasy of sexual union without any of its commitments or responsibilities and thus creates a false, temporal bond with phantoms. Since a one-flesh union is both authentic and exclusive, he is falling far short of the biblical standard.

When a married man uses porn, he violates the Matthew 5 standard as well: the sexual energy he has pledged to reserve for his wife is now being invested into his private fantasies. He is, in essence, embezzling from his spouse what is rightfully hers, and is instead spending it irresponsibly, much as a gambler steals funds from his employer to support his habit. What properly belongs to one person is thus stolen, making the term “cheating” all the more applicable.

Secular studies confirm the crippling effect of pornography on a person’s ability to maintain a monogamous bond. Researchers Dolf Zimmerman and Jennings Bryant, for example, noted that continued exposure to pornography increased its user’s desires for sexual contacts and behaviors outside their marriages,¹⁷ and author Diana Russell found that pornography leads men and women to experience conflict, suffering, and sexual dissatisfaction.¹⁸

Common sense would lead to the same conclusion. Each of us contains a limited amount of sexual/emotional energy, which will either be reserved for a monogamous bond or spent elsewhere. Our ability to sustain a bond with one partner cannot help but be impacted by the level of energy we’ve reserved for that partnership.

As a counselor, I see this principle played out repeatedly. When a husband engages in the use of pornography, his wife almost always notices a certain detachment on his part: less time, less sexual interaction, less attention. She suffers; he embezzles; everyone loses. Pornography systematically weakens marriages within the body of Christ, for it disrupts the bonds crucial to a healthy marriage.

A Distortion That Darkens the Christian Mind

The eye is indeed the lamp of the body (Matt. 6:22–23). If a person’s eye is perpetually exposed to darkness, there comes an inevitable distortion in that person’s thinking. It is in this darkening of the mind that pornography makes its leap from an act that is morally repugnant to one that has frightening consequences. “Evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33), Paul warned, and the impact on the mind of a Christian consistently exposed to the wrong types of communication is immeasurable.

Zimmerman and Bryant, for example, found that continued exposure to pornography affected a male viewer’s basic beliefs about sexuality in general and women in particular.¹⁹ They likewise noted that exposure to porn increased its viewers’ desires for deviant behaviors, such as sado-masochism, and also desensitized their attitudes toward rape. Psychologist Edward Donnerstein of the University of Wisconsin came to similar conclusions, noting that even brief exposure to violent forms of pornography led to antisocial attitude and behavior.²⁰ Clinical psychologist Victor Kline concurs, noting that men who consume pornography on a regular basis experienced increased aggression in attitude and behavior, noticed an increase in “rape fantasies,” and felt increased indifference toward women in general.²¹

Like any drug, pornography’s effects vary according to the general health of the individual who uses it. In other words, while a person will be adversely affected by using an illegal drug, the specific effect will probably vary from person to person. A person already predisposed toward violence may well become more violent when intoxicated; a person more inclined to depression may find himself acutely suicidal when under the influence. Similarly, not every porn user becomes a rapist or sexual deviant, but there can be no question of its adverse effects on the user’s thinking.

I can testify to this first hand, both as a former user of pornography and as a counselor. Having discovered the “dark magic,” I found myself increasingly withdrawn from genuine interpersonal relationships and more isolated, defensive, and detached. Accustomed to the false world of phantom relations, I found real relations less and less tolerable. I also developed a callousness toward women, which I repeatedly see in my clients. They existed for me — I visually used them daily via magazines and videos; I controlled them in my fantasy world; and I became less tolerant of any defects in real women as I spent more time in the company of unreal, though perfect, images of women. I had discovered a world in which both I and all around me would be perfect. In the shadowlands of pornographic imagery, people existed for my pleasure, and I existed to rule and indulge. In short, I had adopted a mindset so far away from the mind of Christ that I decided to usurp His authority for my own, thus completing the darkening of my mind.

C. S. Lewis alluded to this self-idolatry when he described the world of sexual fantasy as being “a harem of imaginary brides. And this harem, once admitted, works against a man ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attributes which no real woman can rival. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself.”²²

PIERCING THE DARKNESS

When a person is angry enough, scared enough, or frustrated enough, that person will take action. So it is with pornography. If you recognize its impact on your life, and you are sufficiently concerned to take action, that is the beginning of true change.

The journey away from pornography, like the journey away from sexual sin in general, is so simple it escapes many people. It can be reduced to three simple principles: repentance, discipleship, and accountability.

Repentance: Reject the behavior by separating yourself from it. If you have not separated yourself from it, you haven’t repented. In practical terms, that may mean purchasing a filtering device (or switching to an Internet service provider that prohibits pornographic material from coming through), or doing away with the Internet altogether. It may mean discontinuing the cable service on your television. In short, do whatever is necessary to separate yourself from the behavior on which you’ve become dependent.

Discipleship: Establish yourself in the daily discipline of prayer and Bible study. If you do not have a regular devotional life, begin now by naming a book of the Bible you can begin reading today. If you haven’t read the Bible before, or you’ve been out of the habit for a while, let me suggest the following books, and read them in this order to get you started: the Gospel of John, Romans, Ephesians, James, and Proverbs. Follow up these daily readings with a time of prayer, following the model of prayer Christ taught in Matthew 6:9–13. Prayer and the reading of Scripture are requirements for anyone wanting to renew his or her mind; they will diffuse the power of deeply ingrained sexual images.

Accountability: Start a relationship with at least one believer who knows about your use of pornography. Have this person ask you, on a weekly basis, whether you’ve repeated this behavior and how well you’ve resisted the temptations to repeat it. Remember, sexual sin thrives in the dark. A large part of recovery from it lies in your willingness to keep your private behavior in the light of another believer’s scrutiny and prayers. This, like the daily discipline of prayer and Scripture reading, is required if you’re serious about your repentance.

A BATTLE WORTH FIGHTING

After the English Parliament’s 1938 appeasement in Czechoslovakia, Winston Churchill saw the danger of choosing peace when honor and common sense called for battle. “You have been given the choice between war and dishonor,” he said. “You have chosen dishonor, and you will have war!” History, of course, would confirm his prophetic warning: refusing to fight an honorable battle may afford a temporary peace, but in the long run it’s too costly. Delaying a necessary battle may well result in a devastating, full-scale war.

Every person who has become involved in sexual sin makes a decision between battle and dishonor. As always, dishonor looks like an easier choice. Dishonor means making peace with your sin. It means telling yourself that after so many years, it’s become such a part of your life that trying to cut it out would be too traumatic and too uncomfortable. It would mean saying goodbye to a reliable (though destructive) friend, and the battle to abstain from this “friend,” with all the temptations and struggles it would involve, seems too demanding, so a dishonorable compromise is therefore reached when a person decides to live in peaceful coexistence with his (or her) sexual sin.

Tyrants, however, never coexist peacefully; by their nature, they demand increased territory, fewer limitations, and more captives. The sin a person decides not to go to war against soon demands more territory. It begins invading career, family, health, and reputation. Now the person finds that what could have been a brief skirmish, if it had been attended to earlier, has become full-blown war. He chose dishonor over battle. In the end, he winds up with both.

If your mind has become a battlefield — darkened by the use of pornography, which has distorted your basic attitudes toward life — you have already yielded a good deal of territory, and your willingness to concede it has already cost a terrible price to you, your loved ones, and the church. God grant that today you find yourself ready to abandon the dark and see again how wonderful the true light can be.

notes

1. All Bible quotations are from the King James Version unless otherwise noted.

2. Marilyn Elias, “Cybersex Follows Mars, Venus Patterns,” USA Today, February 26, 2002.

3. Ibid.

4. “Zogby/Focus Survey Reveals Shocking Internet Sex Statistics,” Legal Facts (Family Research Council), vol. 2, no. 3, March 30, 2000, cited in National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families Web site, “Current Statistics,” http://php.eos.net/nationalcoalition/stat.phtml?ID=53.

5. Ibid.

6. “Pornography among Christians?” Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2001.

7. Ibid.

8. Ramona Richards, “Dirty Little Secret,” ChristianityToday.com, http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/ 2003/005/5.58.html.

9. Zogby.

10. James P. Draper, quoted in Tim Wilkins, “First Person: How to Surf the Internet and Avoid Wiping Out to Porn,” Baptist Press News, October 30, 2003.

11. Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

12. Robert Ellis, “The Chemical Science of Pornography,” AFA Online, http://www.afa.net/pornography/re011303.asp.

13. Alvin Cooper, et al., “Online Sexual Compulsivity: Getting Tangled in the Net,” Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity 6, 2 (1999): 79–104.

14. Linda Carroll, “Addicted to Online Porn,” June 27, 2000, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3078769/.

15. Christina Hoff Sommers, The War against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), http://www.andtheylivedhappilyeverafter.com/ 48.htm.

16. Ibid.

17. Dolf Zimmerman and Jennings Bryant, “Pornography, Sexual Callousness, and the Trivialization of Rape,” cited in “The Documented Effects of Pornography,” The Forerunner, http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0388_Effects_of_Pornograp.html.

18. Diana Russell, “Rape and Marriage,” cited in “The Documented Effects of Pornography.”

19. Zimmerman and Bryant.

20. Edward Donnerstein, “Pornography and Violence against Women,” cited in “The Documented Effects of Pornography.”

21. Victor Kline, “The Effects of Pornography,” C.A.S.E, http://www.c-a-s-e.net/The Effects of Porn.htm.

22. C. S. Lewis, quoted in Laurie Hall, An Affair of the Mind (Colorado Springs, CO: Focus on the Family, 1998), 111.

“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites…will inherit the kingdom of God” (1Cor.6:9 NKJV).

Not long ago I was designing an ethics course for a small Christian college when I had the opportunity to interview Reverend Robyn Provis of All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the topic of homosexuality and the Bible. Reverend Provis adamantly remarked on several occasions in the interview that a sure-fire way to halt interfaith dialogue in its tracks-one of the most underhanded tactics evangelicals use to justify their position-is the use of what she called the “clobbering” verses of Scripture.

Theologians Douglas Stuart and Gordon D. Fee suggest that “the recognition of a degree of cultural relativity is a valid hermeneutical procedure and is an inevitable corollary of the occasional nature of epistles.”¹They offer guidelines²for distinguishing between ideas that are relative to any given culture and ideas that are transcendent of culture and normative for Christians (and non-Christians). One of those guidelines as stated consists of documenting ideas-or the particular use of a word or phrase-about which the New Testament (NT) has a consistent witness and those about which it does not. The following is an application of this guideline to one crucial Greek word, arsenokoitai, which appears in one of the most popular so-called clobbering passages, 1Corinthians6:9-10.

Dirty Old Men? Theologian Mel White³ agrees that the Greek word arsenokoitai, used for “homosexual” in 1Corinthians6:9, seems to refer to same-sex behavior. He argues that Greek scholars don’t know exactly what it means, however, and that this simple detail is a big part of this tragic debate.⁴

He explains, “Some scholars believe Paul was coining a name to refer to customers of ‘the effeminate call boys.’ We might call them ‘dirty old men.’ Others translate the word as ‘sodomites,’ but never explain what that means.”⁵

According to White, in 1958, a translator for the New Amplified Bible set historical precedent by translating this “mysterious” Greek word into English as the word “homosexuals,” even though no such word exists in either Greek or Hebrew. It was that translator, according to White, who “placed the word homosexual in the English-language Bible for the very first time.”⁶

White blames this bad translation for the inability of many NT scholars today to make the proper, culturally relevant application of this passage in 1Corinthians. He adds, “In the past, people used Paul’s writings to oppress women and limit their role in the home, in church, and in society. Now we have to ask ourselves, ‘Is it happening again? Is a word in Greek that has no clear definition being used to reflect society’s prejudice and condemn God’s gay children?’”⁷

So what is the proper contextual meaning of this mysterious Greek word? The convincing argument from history that Paul is putting forth, White says, is a condemnation of the “married men who hired hairless young boys (malakois) for sexual pleasure just as they hired smooth-skinned young girls for that purpose.”⁸

In light of this interpretation of the meaning of arsenokoitai, White concludes with an emotional appeal: “Responsible homosexuals would join Paul in condemning anyone who uses children for sex, just as we would join anyone else in condemning the threatened gang rape in Sodom or the behavior of the sex-crazed priests and priestesses in Rome. So…this passage says…nothing about homosexuality as we understand it today.”⁹

Not Such a Mystery. Clinical psychologist and theologian Stanton L. Jones¹⁰ admits that White effectively invokes “the mystery of arsenokoitai,” the unusual word Paul uses in 1Corinthians6:9 and 1Timothy 1:10 that is commonly translated “homosexual sin.”¹¹This, however, is not such a mystery, he argues, and its unraveling reveals a more complex picture of Paul’s use of Leviticus.

Leviticus18:22and 20:13 forbid a man lying with another man as one would with a woman. Leviticus was originally written in Hebrew, but Paul was a Greek-educated Jew writing to Gentiles in Greek, the common language of the day, and probably was using the Greek translation of the Old Testament available in that day, the Septuagint, or LXX, for his Scripture quotations.

The Greek translation of these Leviticus passages condemns a man (arseno) lying with (koitai) another man (arseno); these words (excuse the pun) lie side-by-side in these passages in Leviticus. Paul joins these two words together into a neologism, a new word (as we do in saying database or software), and thus he condemns in 1Corinthians and 1Timothy what was condemned in Leviticus.

Jones believes, then, that the most credible translation of what Paul is condemning in 1Corinthians6:9 is a person doing exactly what Leviticus condemns: engaging in homosexual sex (a man being a “man-lier”). Far from dismissing the relevance of Leviticus, Paul is implicitly invoking its enduring validity for our understanding of sexual sin, and drawing on it as the foundation of his teaching on homosexual conduct. He is saying, “Remember what it said not to do in Leviticus18:22and 20:13? Don’t do that!”

Sparse and Ambiguous Evidence? Theologian John H. Elliott, Professor Emeritus of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Francisco, has written one of the most thorough studies of 1Corinthians6:9-10 to date.¹² He concludes that “nothing in 1Corinthians, or for that matter in any other biblical writing, speaks directly of the biological or psychological condition of homosexuality or homosexual ‘orientation’ as this is understood today and as it concerns believing Christian gay persons intent on worshipping and serving God.”¹³

He concludes from his research that the Bible in its entirety, as with 1Corinthians specifically, offers sparse and ambiguous evidence concerning male-male sexual relationships, and is “conditioned by cultural perceptions and behavioral patterns too alien to those of modern times to provide an adequate basis for a contemporary ethic of homosexuality as homosexuality is currently understood.”¹⁴ If a case is to be made for or against the morality of homosexuality as it is understood in contemporary society, Elliott argues, it will have to be made on evidence other than 1Corinthians6:9-10 and other similar passages contained in the Bible.

A Dubious Hope. Elliott’s argument does offer additional backing to White’s argument. However, we need search no further than theologian Robert A.J. Gagnon’s excellent rebuttal to the type of argument put forth by Elliott.¹⁵ Space constraints will not permit the development of the details of any one particular proposition he puts forth, but a summary of the most prevalent points makes a case strong enough to call in to question Elliott’s support of White’s argument and, in turn, White’s argument itself.

Proposition 1. To broaden the word arsenokoitai to include exploitive heterosexual intercourse appears unlikely in view of the unqualified nature of the Levitical prohibitions.¹⁶

Proposition 2. In every instance in which the arsenokoit word group occurs in a context that offers clues as to its meaning (i.e., beyond mere inclusion in a vice list), it denotes homosexual intercourse.¹⁷

Proposition 3. The term arsenokoitai itself indicates an inclusive sense: all men who play the active role in homosexual intercourse. Had Paul intended to single out pederasts he could have used the technical term paiderastïs.¹⁸

Proposition 4. The meaning that Paul gave to arsenokoitai has to be unpacked in light of Romans1:24-27. When Paul speaks of the sexual intercourse of “males with males” (arsenes en arsenes) in v.27, he obviously has in mind arsenokoitai.¹⁹

Based on these propositions and others he explores, Gagnon boldly states that “others would have us believe that it is an open question whether arsenokoitai in Paul’s mind would have applied to all forms of same-sex intercourse, including the kinds of non-exploitative forms allegedly manifested in our contemporary context,” but “this dubious hope has to be maintained in the face of many additional obstacles.”²⁰ Gagnon concludes that 1Corinthians6:9 confirms that Paul’s rejection of homosexual conduct is just as applicable for believers as for unbelievers and that it is self-evident, then, that the combination of terms, malakoi and arsenokoitai, are correctly understood in our contemporary context when they are applied to every conceivable type of same-sex intercourse.

Having more closely documented the particular use of the word arsenokoitai and its consistent witness in the NT, we have discovered that homosexual sin in 1Corinthians6:9-10 isn’t as culturally relevant as many who support the pro-homosexual agenda to normalize aberrant sexual behavior would have us believe.

- C. Wayne Mayhall

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NOTES

1. Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stewart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 71.

2. Ibid., 71-76.

3. Mel White is also a Christian minister and filmmaker, who describes how he reconciles his homosexuality with his Christian faith in his book Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America (New York: Plume Books, 1994).

4. See White’s “What the Bible Says-and Doesn’t Say-about Homosexuality,” available at http://www.soul-force.org/pdf/whatthebiblesays.pdf. This twenty-four page booklet is widely circulated by Soulforce, an interfaith movement founded by White, that is “committed to ending spiritual violence perpetuated by religious policies and teachings against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.”

5. Ibid., 18.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Jones is Provost of Wheaton College. His scholarly work includes coauthoring with Mark A. Yarhouse, Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church’s Moral Debate (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000).

11. Stanton L. Jones, “A Study Guide and Response to: Mel White’s “What the Bible Says-and Doesn’t Say-about Homosexuality,” available at http://www.wheaton.edu/CACE/resources/boolets/StanJonesResponsetoMelWhite.pdf. This forty-one-page booklet is circulated by the Center for Applied Christian Ethics of Wheaton College, in Wheaton, Illinois.

12. This argument appears in Elliott’s “No Kingdom of God for Softies? Or, What Was Paul Really Saying? 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 in Context,” Biblical Theology Bulletin, 34 (Spring 2004): 17-40.

13. Ibid., 38.

14. Ibid., 39.

15. This argument appears in Robert A. J. Gagnon’s The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001), 303-39. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, is also the author of the following related works: Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2003), and Does the Bible Regard Same-Sex Intercourse as Intrinsically Sinful?” in Christian Sexuality, ed. R. Saltzman (Minneapolis: Kirk House, 2003).

16. Ibid., 319.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid. 325

19. Ibid., 326.

20. Ibid., 325