Clarity is Kindness: Christian Witness in a World of Pride [Part 2]

This is part two of a two-part series on how church leaders can faithfully engage LGBTQ+ conversations. Be sure to read the first article, Clarity is Kindness: Christian Witness in a World of Pride.

As we come to the end of Pride Month 2023, it is important to address conversations around LGBT issues (and, more importantly, how to have a loving dialogue with LGBT people) in a manner that is faithful to Scripture and deep with love and pastoral sensitivity. In the first article on this topic, we addressed how pastors must engage this topic, prioritize local engagement, and how clarity on these issues is one of the best forms of kindness we can offer.

In this piece, I want to address how to think biblically about issues of sexuality and gender. I don’t mean slapping a couple of cherry-picked proof texts onto the issue like a Band-Aid. I’m talking about seeing the Bible’s grand metanarrative––its holistic story of God’s redemptive intent for humanity. 

We often refer to this story in shorthand as Creation-Fall-Redemption-Restoration. 

Creation 

First, pastors can remind their congregation of God’s beautiful purpose in the Creation of the world and our calling to bear the image of God. 

God created the world and universe, all we see and experience, and all that is unseen and has yet to be experienced. He created every person in his image. As believers, we stand on the truth that we find our identity in God’s creative and redemptive work. This includes God’s creative plan and design, in which he made us male and female, and his plan for sex between one man and one woman in a lifetime marriage covenant. Deriving this truth from biblical texts is essential. Please hear me: animosity toward LGBT individuals does not drive our approach. Instead, our approach comes from our commitment to the fact that the word of God provides the best path for spiritual flourishing and growth. 

In the Bible’s first chapter, we read of God’s creative work, described repeatedly as “good.” Then, at the apex of creation, God made humankind in his image, and it was “very good” (Genesis 1:26-31). God explicitly made male and female (verse 27). In Genesis 2, He ordained marriage between a woman and man (verse 24), which Jesus affirmed and expanded upon (Matthew 19:4-6). Therefore, in the creation narrative––which speaks to God’s purpose for humankind more than it even does scientifically precise details about nature––God gave humanity the identity of male and female and identified marriage as between man and woman. However, the reality of the image of God in each of us, irrespective of individual acknowledgment, prohibits us from being abusive, cruel, or unloving toward others, including those in the LGBT community. 

Fall

Second, pastors can remind their congregation that all sin has been with us since the Fall. 

The Fall ushered in sin, death, and more. Nakedness moved from being a description (Genesis 2:25) to a dilemma: now humanity experienced guilt and shame (Genesis 3:7). From this tragic beginning, sin spread far and wide, including all forms of sexual immorality. The Bible condemns sexual sin not just because it denies God’s purpose in creating humanity but also because it inhibits human flourishing. God didn’t pull the sexual codes of the Old Testament from nowhere and reinforce them in the New Testament out of a desire to control the masses. He did so for one thing: protecting the stability and harmony of society. 

Sexual immorality’s destabilizing effect on the culture in the Old Testament was often economic––calling into questions issues of inheritances, birthrights, etc. While that isn’t as significant in our culture (though it remains important in other cultures around the world today), we see the culturally destabilizing effect of sexual immorality in the erosion of family harmony, the destruction of marriages, and the systemic economic disadvantage that unplanned pregnancy has on young people––especially women.

As the old song says, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” The dramatic shift of cultural norms moving further from biblical standards is shocking to the sensibilities of many Christians today. However, it is nothing new to the first readers of the Bible, nor is it without a plethora of examples throughout history. The Fall has profoundly impacted the world in which we live. That Fall impacts you, me, and everyone around us. And it also has physical and psychological ramifications that we must respond to with pastoral insight and sensitivity. 

Pastors must encourage Christians to investigate their hearts and face their sinfulness with humility and brokenness. Whether it’s sexual sin, greed, gluttony, mishandling of abuse, or any other form of wrongdoing, the ugliness of sin mars us.

We must approach conversations concerning sexual sin in our society with humility. Even while we name sin as sin, let us do so with humility. We are sinners ourselves who are the benefactors of amazing, unmatched grace. We must acknowledge that we are all in need of God’s grace. Doing so will help us wisely engage those who struggle differently than we do.

Redemption 

We must proclaim the gospel as the news that God’s reconciliatory mission has broken through in the world through Jesus the Christ. 

Left to our own devices, we inevitably seek to find validation and, ultimately, redemption in various sources. We know we are broken. Our brokenness leads us to attempt self-repair, like Adam and Eve fashioning clothes from fig leaves to cover their shame. But all attempts to fill the void sin creates within us will ultimately fail. Only Christ transforms that which was broken with the healing balm of his saving power.

The transformative work Jesus desires to do in us is not just concerned with ridding us of sinful behaviors. Our spiritual ancestors instead taught of Christ’s desire to transform our desires, affections, and longings into his image. The Christian life is about more than just avoiding sin. It’s about cultivating virtues that reflect Christ’s image to the world around us and draw us nearer to him.

Part of that transformative work is reorienting all our desires, including our sexual ones, into biblical patterns that model the character of Christ and promote human flourishing under his reign as the risen king of all creation.

Restoration

We cannot predict when Jesus will return to restore all things, but we can call our congregations to live according to and with the expectation of that future promise. We must call our congregations to be communities where people walk together toward holiness. However, we can only do so when we teach a clear, grace-filled message for women and men to grow in holiness, knowing that it has a great cost for all of us. It is even more countercultural and often more lonely for our friends grappling with questions of sexuality and gender. 

In the meantime, we must live in this broken world, patterning our lives, churches, and communities in expectation of the world to come. Only by teaching the beauty of the biblical understanding of sexuality and gender and by advocating for a better path for men and women can we guide people in this direction.

So, don’t hide your views. If your views are ill-formed and/or poorly articulated, fix that first by engaging the scriptures and well-informed voices on the topic. Then, share with biblical conviction and pastoral sensitivity, knowing that clarity is kindness for those grappling with their beliefs inside and outside the church.

©2023 Ed Stetzer. All rights reserved. Used with permission.