9. What is your answer for gay Christians who struggled for years to live out a celibacy mandate but were driven to suicidal despair in the process? This is a heartrending issue that I do not take lightly, but my answer is that anyone who says, “I will kill myself unless I can have sex and be intimate with another human being” is not taking hold of what God has for them. Generally speaking, it’s also true that people who commit suicide are struggling with other emotional issues; otherwise, no matter how acute their problems, they would not take their own lives. Ultimately, though, I cannot see our Father responding positively to the threat of, “Unless you let me have a relationship that satisfies me, I will kill myself.”
10. Has mandatory celibacy produced good fruit in the lives of most gay Christians you know? Again, I object to the term “mandatory celibacy,” and I believe the term “gay Christian” is misleading and unhelpful, but yes, the single Christians I know who are still same-sex attracted are enjoying the Lord, enjoying healthy friendships, and are really quite vibrant. Others have seen a shift (or complete change) in their attractions, and they are happily married to their heterosexual partner. I’ve been quite close with some of them over the years.
11. How many married same-sex couples do you know? Only a few on a fairly personal level, but I’ve read as many stories as I can to try to hear their hearts and enter into their worlds. When I have spent time with them, the wrongness of the relationship was underscored to me, along with the depth of my love for them.
12. Do you believe that same-sex couples’ relationships can show the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? I believe that humanly speaking, some of these couples are probably exemplary, similar to some religious Jewish couples I know (and probably similar to some atheist couples, Muslim couples, Mormon couples, and others). Do I believe they are being supernaturally empowered by the Spirit to walk in a same-sex relationship? Certainly not. The Spirit would not back or empower that.
13. Do you believe that it is possible to be a Christian and support same-sex marriage in the church? Not a Christian that is walking fully in the light of God’s Word and God’s Spirit. Only a Christian walking in some level of ignorance could support something that is a fundamental violation of God’s heart and intent for marriage, and there are certainly well meaning, misinformed Christians that do that very thing.
14. Do you believe that it is possible to be Christian and support slavery? In Old Testament times, it was right for faithful believers to support the God-ordered system under the Torah, which was closer to that of indentured servants than to the modern slave trade, but it was never proper for a Christian walking fully in the Word and Spirit to support the barbaric African slave trade (or other related forms).
15. If not, do you believe that Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards were not actually Christians because they supported slavery? They were Christians with blind spots, some very serious, to the point that Luther’s words were used verbatim by Adolph Hitler in his violent against the Jews, beginning November 9th-10th, 1938). Do we therefore support murderous Jew-hatred today because of Luther’s virulent anti-Semitic writings?
16. Do you think supporting same-sex marriage is a more serious problem than supporting slavery? They are both very serious problems. In fact, because of Old Testament laws concerning slavery and New Testament guidelines for dealing with slavery, misguided Christians actually had verses to use when they argued wrongly for barbaric slavery practices. In contrast, there is not a single verse in the Bible supporting same-sex “marriage” while the entire, positive testimony of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation opposes homosexual relationships. Moreover, while the Bible clearly points to liberation of slavery as a good thing and even a fruit of the gospel, advocates of same-sex “marriage” can point to no such themes or texts in Scripture to support their position.
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