This current series of blogs is intended to look at the themes I covered in my original essay written between 2015 and ~2020, and which proved foundational to my understanding of God’s love for the LGBTQ+ community. These blogs are aimed to bring it up to date, but in a shorter form.
Recently, I considered the perceived tensions between the Bible and science and concluded that neither was a threat to the other. Then I looked at the concept of marriage and concluded that although God wants us to hold marriage in a high regard and not break it, God doesn’t prescribe the specific form that marriage should take. It’s fascinating that since we see so many types of marriage described in the Bible, God remains silent about some of those forms of marriage we might be uncomfortable with. The main take-away was that whatever form our marriage takes, it should be one where both parties love and respect each other, building each other up so that each partner fulfils their potential in the relationship. There is no room for selfish domination of the other partner, as this would be antithetical to any understanding of the teachings of Jesus, and God, his Father.
One of the primary problems the traditional church has in regard to our community is around this issue of marriage. If you embrace gay and lesbian people (along with non-binary and trans etc.) you then have to work through the issue of what you do when they enter relationships, and what you then call it?
This is an example of where we have lost the plot in many of our churches. In Anglican circles the word “marriage” can only be used in the context of one male and one female. On the other hand, outside of church structures, many seem reconciled to the concept of gay people marrying – providing that it happens somewhere else. Away from a church setting, like talking over a meal, they’ll agree they are in a legal, permanent, monogamistic relationship, but usually refuse to call it a marriage. The rest of us are quite happy to call that a marriage, but there seems to be a wriggle and squirm about using the word “marriage” for the permanent relationship the couple are living in. They try and avoid the word “marriage” because they’ll argue that can only be the case between a man and a woman, and instead, use expressions like: a same-sex couple; a couple in a civil marriage; a civilly married same-sex couple; people in a civil partnership; partners; people in a same-sex relationship; or some other expression. Some of those expressions I find a bit disingenuous because they hint at a lack of permanent commitment.
I find it a little incongruous, because that label “marriage” gets attached to any other legally recognised ceremony. So, a couple meeting on a bus to Las Vegas, and apparently “falling in love”, can marry a few days later in Vegas! When they get home a short time later, nobody at all would doubt that in their own mind that they were married, but a gay couple who have been together for years, will be refused marriage in many churches. Okay that’s possibly an extreme illustration, but I’m making a point.
Legally we have seen people marry inanimate objects: Erika Eiffel marrying the Eiffel Tower in 2007, and Linda Ducharme marrying a Ferris wheel called Bruce! Yes, it’s bizarre! However, when we apply a biblical perspective, I really don’t see how marrying a structure or an object, like a car, a rock, or Ferris wheel or the like, is a relationship that offers any guidance with decisions, mutual support, love and commitment, and I have to question the validity.
Having said all that, I think my own thinking might have elements of hypocrisy! Whilst the law and society might allow someone to marry an inanimate object, I would have to say that, because I have a strong view of following Biblical example, I would not easily recognise that type of marriage since I believe the Bible teaches the requirement that both partners share a mutual love and support, building one another up, seeking the best and honouring each other, etc. So, I guess I don’t agree with every form of marriage society allows for, and the difference is down to interpretation of scripture – but I’ll still argue for a consistent theological interpretation!
But let’s move the discussion into a different, but related, area. Through my lifetime the church has been growing increasingly antagonistic towards those identifying as LGBTQ+. When I was young, nobody spoke about it. Homosexuality was utterly wrongly seen as linked to child molestation. I think this was wholly due to ignorance. Gay men had to hide away for fear of police charging them with “gross indecency”, and if you listen to the podcast series “The Log Books” you can hear stories of police entrapment, where they actively sought out homosexual men. A couple od days ago, the acting Chief Constable of West Midlands Police issdued a public apology for the historic “mistreatment of LGBTQ+ communities across the region”. All this time female homosexuals seemingly got a relatively freer ride, because society isn’t nearly so bothered – which is odd. Over time, the hostility largely drained away, but now, in the age of Trump, Christian Nationalism and the influence of right-wing Evangelicalism, initially in the US, but now here as well, we are seeing attitudes hardening again.
There is a kind of church and societal hypocrisy here, in that it seems women who love women are treated slightly differently to men who love men. My impression is that there is a personal prejudice, and perhaps naivety surrounding the act of sex, rather than anything else. Perhaps this is because no-one wants to talk about it, and it’s a tricky issue to address. However, I feel the church in general, has completely failed in its duty of care towards the LGBTQ+ community. So, as I write this, I want to focus on a number of major themes.
1 – The Church has often failed LGBTQ+ people through condemnation rather than grace
A couple of years ago someone from a group of street preachers was verbally abusive to me at Pride. I wasn’t that bothered, but he did that before even talking to me and finding out where I stood. On the other hand, many people attending church have not studied the texts in their Bibles and rely on their church leaders to steer their thinking. If the leaders have no close experience of interacting with anyone in the LGBTQ+ community or their allies, they will tend to rely on a superficial understanding of what they think the Bible says, or what earlier writers have said. If you are a church leader, but are very busy, you won’t spend any real time looking at issues that don’t directly affect you or your congregation, because you are too busy juggling lots of local issues, along with meetings of various groups in the church, and you probably can’t relate to them anyway, unless you have a gay family member. Tragically the naivety continues and is perpetuated as leaders tell their church the same things they learned, without recognising the dreadful harm that is doing to people. The congregants of the church in turn may in turn bump into people identifying as LGBTQ+ and, in turn, without knowing the real Bible background, end up being quite offensive in their way of defending their views, claiming that they are remaining faithful to the God they believe in. Come Hell or high water, they will cling on without questioning anything, because the Bible is “absolutely clear”. But they are wrong. Through this piece I’ll quote extracts from my essay, though probably editing it a bit. From my experience I would argue that non‑affirming conservative Christians should be behaving better, rather than displaying ‘ungrace’ – a word that Philip Yancey coined, in “What’s so amazing about Grace?” (Brilliant book – If you haven’t yet done so, read it!)
There are some other issues I would want to highlight, but I need to take care about how long this gets, so, in summary, these are that:
- Christians often speak about LGBTQ+ people in ways that are demeaning and harmful. I have provided illustrations of this in various earlier blogs.
- The Church has held institutional power and therefore bears far greater responsibility for the damage caused. The church knows what God wants because it preaches about it week after week. However, it has power structures and can appoint people to positions within the church, and yet its prejudice prevents the gay person from even coming through the door, let alone putting a foot on the first rung of the ladder, forcing people like Rev Richard Coles (and how many others?) to lie, when they have so much to offer the body of Christ. Remember how Richard Coles explained how he lied about his own celibacy when he and his partner (also a minister) were in ministry. That link was to a selection of articles you can choose from, but I would start with this one, or this.
- Jesus consistently showed compassion to marginalised people, while reserving his harshest criticism for religious leaders.
- Christian disagreement should be marked by humility, respect, and love rather than condemnation.
2 – Biblical interpretation requires deeper study and context
Just now I referred to some Christians who seem to display ungrace. They frequently claim to be the only ones who can hear what God is saying, because, they say that we (the LGBTQ+ community), have listened to the spirit of the age, since it’s clear “The Bible says gays can’t be Christians!” However, they seem unwilling to explore why the Bible seems to say that? They defend themselves by just shouting louder and repeating their accusations – a similar style to a certain President I can think of. They don’t seem able to discuss the issues:
- Exactly what is the ‘badness’ the Bible is addressing?
- Is what we understand the Bible to be saying, the same as the originally hearers and readers?
- If we didn’t choose our sexuality (and I didn’t choose mine, I am simply male and always have been), we must accept that God made us this way, so what does that mean for our understanding?
- Does the Bible really say gays can’t be Christians? Where? Chapter and verse please. This is important, because we’re not playing games. Lives are affected and at risk.
I suspect the issue is that their faith is very shallow, perhaps because they have never been allowed or encouraged to ask questions, and they don’t know what to do or how to answer the issue. They feel the very foundations of their theology is under threat, and they must defend it at all costs, to demonstrate their faith to God. There is quite a militaristic mentality prevalent in some churches that see Christians under permanent threat, and that we … just … need … to … stand … our … ground. So, verses like Ephesians 6: 13 are the go-to passages: “For this reason, take up the full armour of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand.” Yes, there are definately times when that teaching is appropriate, such when people might put you under pressure to leave your faith behind, but this is not that type of scenario. However, this is “I want you to deepen your faith and understand why it can, and must be, more real”.
The problem of not digging into the meaning of texts is that it leaves your position very weak. The line people get fed is: if the text seems crystal clear, you can take it at face value, but if it’s not clear, here’s a book to explain it – and it never gets read! This is very shallow, because we all look at text from the vantage of an English speaking 21st Century Western culture. Then we read documents that are 2-3 thousand years old which were originally written in Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic, not in English. Unfortunately, there are sometimes translation problems where the Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic word used has no literal modern English equivalent. In many of our English Bibles we usually have footnotes adding details of alternative renderings, so make sure you read them. When you next get the chance and you need to look up a passage, go to Bible Gateway put in the reference, and change the default version to show the New English Translation (NET). That version has a huge number of footnotes – please use them. I usually use the New International version for these blogs, but for this one I am only using the NET.
Sometimes churches welcome LGBTQ+ people but won’t allow them to actually contribute to church life. Others will only accept a gay man if they are celibate, which is all kinds of messed up, because what happens if two-years down the track this person finds their life partner‽ Presumably, the church will ask them to leave, doing untold damage. Given that we are frequently taught about God’s unconditional love for humanity, it is strange how Christians frequently deny this teaching when talking about the LGBTQ+ community. They would object to my comment and strongly affirm that they “love the sinner, but hate the sin”, but their verbal attitude says something different. It is an elitist attitude that says, “your sin is far more heinous than mine, because I’ve been forgiven, and you can never be – the Bible says so”. When does the church model Jesus, and show unconditional love to the gay man, the lesbian, the Trans person, etc.? Instead, many churches force the community to lie about their relationships, as seen in the example of Richard Coles, who I mentioned earlier.
I would therefore want to conclude this section by saying:
- Scripture should never be read merely at face value.
- Historical, cultural, linguistic, and social context matter.
- Christians already apply contextual interpretation to many other passages but need to extend that into areas they are uncomfortable with. If God is who we believe him to be, why should we fear?
- The same careful treatment should be given to texts traditionally used against LGBTQ+ people, because as I have shown in many previous blogs, things aren’t always as they appear when you read a passage superficially. In essence: “If we dig deeper into other difficult passages, why not these ones too?” This becomes the foundation for questioning traditional interpretations. God gave you the innate ability to ask questions. You use this all the time, so why not with the Bible? You will learn so much.
3 – Theology must reflect the character of God
Beneath all this discussion is a theological argument. Tell me about God. What do we know about him (or her)? Just to digress there. I’m being a bit mischievous there, but there is a serious intent. We talk about God using masculine words, but what makes him masculine? We have all these passionate arguments about those identifying as trans and we are told: “the important thing is: what was their gender at birth”? A doctor looked at the child at birth and if it had a penis, it was a boy and if it had a vagina, it was a girl. God has no need of either, so what makes God male? I did a blog in 2023 about this. If you say he is male because he says he is, why do you have a problem about a Trans person self-identifying? God is clearly, and absolutely not, male, using the crieria we use to identify gender. People will argue that the Bible uses male language, but that isn’t an answer. The writers lived in a patriarchal environment, so you really wouldn’t expect anything else. Why did they think God was male? Some of God’s attributes are actually very feminine, and indeed Jesus uses feminine imagery as well: Matthew 23:37 (also Luke 13:34). Jesus says He longed to gather Jerusalem’s people “as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” So:
- What does God’s love look like? It is caring, protective and passionate to start with, and a whole blog could be written answering that question!
- Can a theology be correct if it produces exclusion, shame, and despair? This is one of the major problems I have with the church in general given its attitude to the community. The obvious answer is a resounding “No!”. And then for the person with integrity, what follows is a need to go back and thoroughly examine all the scriptures with an open-minded curiosity.
- How should Christians understand the image of God (Imago Dei) in LGBTQ+ people? This again is a fundamental argument against the attitude of exclusion. LGBTQ+ people didn’t choose their sexuality or gender, they must just learn to accept themselves, but the Imago Dei is as much a part of them as anyone, so how can you possibly treat them with malign intent, when God is clearly in love with them, because they were made in his image.
- Does traditional teaching align with Jesus’ character?
I would therefore suggest that theology should be tested not only against isolated biblical texts but also against the much broader biblical themes of:
- Grace
- Love
- Human dignity
- Inclusion
- Compassion
- Truthfulness about human experience
4 – LGBTQ+ identity is natural, innate, and part of human diversity
This is the nub of the problem, if as we have been saying, LGBTQ+ identities are natural and innate as science and reliable testimony has shown, you cannot apply rules that are designed to change behaviour assuming “choice” is the driver. In a sense, this too acts as a kind of proof, in that if people have tried repeatedly to live hetero-typical lifestyles and totally failed, and instead developed poor mental health problems, with some tragically taking their own lives, you MUST question your premise. You are obliged before God to fully examine your theology. This is the God who says:
- “Love your neighbour as yourself” Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; and James 2:8
- “Love one another” (This is not just saying words but demonstrated by action. Attitude and behaviour.) John 13:34-35; 1 John 3:17-19; 1 John 4:7-8; Ephesians 4:31-32; James 2:14-17.
- “Be patient with one another” and “carry one another’s burdens” Colossians 3:12-14; Galatians 6: 2-3.
There are no Bible verses saying you can or should impose your views on others. There are a couple of verses talking about persuading others, but there’s no hint of aggression. Instead, the writer of Philippians says, “let your gentleness be evident to all” (Ch 4:5)
Instead, to summarise:
- To be clear, sexual orientation is not a choice – LGBTQ+ people are born as they are.
- Historical evidence shows same-sex relationships have existed across cultures and throughout history. Even though many African churches see homosexuality as brought in as part of European colonialism, there is documentary evidence to show many instances of people we would define as LGBTQ+ in the years prior to colonialism. In my essay, this chapter is quite long and detailed (to no-one’s surprise!) as I quote some of the documents.
- Current evidence best fits a multifactor developmental model: multiple biological influences (including genetics and early developmental processes) contribute to sexual orientation, while social factors mainly influence how people understand, express, and live it rather than being the cause of homosexuality. (Understanding the source document is above my pay-grade!)
- Same-sex behaviour is not limited to humans and it has been observed throughout the animal kingdom. (Currently the broad estimate is in excess of 1,500+ non-human animal species are reported to show same-sex sexual behaviour. Did they choose? In my mind that must make it natural!
- Attempts to portray homosexuality as “unnatural” are factually incorrect.
5 – Final thoughts
So, if people do not choose their sexuality, Christian theology must account for that reality and adapt itself. The church needs to reflect on the fact that human diversity is a spectrum. As we have said before that spectrum is as wide as you want it to be, from the different proportions of every part of my body, when compared with that of the person next to me (we are not all modelled on Adonis!). Outside of our physical state, we all have different interests, skills and abilities. When you look inside our heads we all have differing abilities to imagine, learn and communicate. We have differing abilities to process mathematics and learn languages. Some can mentally tot up their grocery bill as they shop, and others wait till they get to the checkout! How many people have you met that are identical to you in every way?
In conclusion, I want to see Christians moving from a traditional non-affirming view of LGBTQ+ people toward a more affirming position by re-examining Scripture carefully, recognising sexuality as an innate part of human diversity, and prioritising the grace, compassion, and inclusiveness exemplified by Jesus.
If you think I have missed some important aspect, or have a question, drop me a line via the Contact page and tell me.
Next month you will get a month off from this Blog, as will I! (You can always go back and read an older blog!) I am involved in the background at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, so won’t have time to study for, and write a blog, but will be back in August to give you something to read while you’re on the beach.
Changing Minds 