shades of gay

Last week I heard Dennis Jernigan, a worship leader who’s written popular choruses like “You are my all in all,” speak about his previous identification as a homosexual, his “deliverance” from it in 1981, and his ministry since then. Jernigan and his wife have nine children, so I guess the transition, um, “took” for him. (Although nine does seem like overkill; dude, we get it, you’re straight.)

I have to admit I’m skeptical of gay and lesbian “reversal;” I think some people are born with a tendency toward homosexuality. Now, before you get angry, think it through: that’s not a justification of homosexual behavior. However, it is a belief that we live in a world broken and twisted by sin, and just as some people are born more likely to become alcoholics (but can choose not to drink), others are born more likely to experience homosexual desires (but can choose not to act on them).

This is not a popular perspective among Christians because it’s not as black and white as believing gays and lesbians have simply chosen to rebel against God. It requires muddling through big questions in a larger grey area: Some homosexuals come from happy families with no history of abuse or parental neglect—if those are the triggering issues, why are they gay? What about the many healthy, heterosexual adults with childhood horror stories–why aren’t they gay?

Wrestling with this issue also forces us to rethink our blanket categorization of “them” and makes it more difficult to distance ourselves from a lifestyle we may find distasteful as well as sinful. Perhaps, as fellow rebellers-against-God, we are not as dissimilar as we’d like to think.

In a recent Relevant article, Steve Brown writes, “I have a friend who says that you see a lot of fat preachers yelling at gay folks, but very few gay folks yelling at fat preachers. He was making the point that nobody has the luxury of speaking as an outsider of the human race…” So what about church life: can a celibate, accountable homosexual serve in church leadership? If not, can an unaccountable overeater?

I’m not sure if homosexuality is biological destiny or willful choice. Either way, the church will–must–grapple with these issues in coming years. If homosexuality is a choice, we must provide a compelling alternative community to the ones currently enjoyed by people in alternative lifestyles. (In its reaction to the AIDS crisis, the gay community has modeled friendship, family and sacrificial love for each other in ways the church should have.) If it’s an inborn tendency, we must provide a well-articulated, grace-filled rationale for God’s design of one man and one woman, and offer support for gay people to choose celibacy or move this direction—with or without having enough children for their own soccer team.