Is My Same-Sex Attraction a Sin?

Last week, one of my recent articles was published on The Gospel Coalition website. I have realized over the years that any time I write about the ever-controversial topic of homosexuality, I should expect a couple truckloads of criticism to come rolling into the comments section. This TGC article was no exception. I scrolled through "the aftermath" on Facebook and Twitter the day following its publishing, trying my best to humbly process the comments of some disgruntled readers.

Quite a few people commended my commitment to celibacy but also shared that they believe my ongoing experience of same-sex attraction is a sin. They believe my temptation to engage in same-sex acts persists because I am not fully submitting myself to God. Some said God will not be pleased with me, and I will not be walking in true obedience, until my same-sex attraction ceases to exist.

I mean . . . are they right? Is my mere experience of same-sex attraction a sin? Is it impossible for me to please God as long as these feelings persist?

My short answer is no, I don't think these folks are correct — but neither do I think the common counterargument is correct.

Other Christians insist there is nothing wrong with simply experiencing romantic and sexual desires for the same gender. They believe it only becomes a problem if you act on those desires. Homosexual behavior is wrong and sinful, they say, but the feelings, in and of themselves, are morally neutral. They see nothing wrong with having a "gay orientation." Though I lean more toward this camp's position, I can't fully embrace it either.

Most Christians agree the Bible clearly teaches it is a sin to engage in homosexual behavior. But what does the Bible teach about homosexual feelings within the heart? Is it a sin to simply feel romantic or sexual attraction to the same gender?

I think it can be. I don't believe a person commits sexual sin merely by experiencing an unintentional, spontaneous temptation to sin sexually. But I do think a person commits sin if, rather than refusing to crush that tempting thought, they choose to lustfully enjoy it.

The other day I was walking down the street and felt a spontaneous sexual attraction toward some guy I passed, but I immediately took that thought captive and crushed it by the power of the Spirit. I don't think I sinned. Rather, I think I glorified God by triumphing in a moment of temptation.

But what if I didn't take that thought captive? What if I had let it flesh out into a lustful fantasy . . . even if just briefly? Would I have committed a sin even though I technically did not "act"? Yes — absolutely!

"Acting" is not necessary to constitute sin. It's totally possible to sin secretly within the thoughts and intentions of your heart. Just ask Jesus: "I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart." – Matthew 5:28.

Jesus didn't condemn feeling an unintentional, spontaneous temptation to sin sexually; he condemned looking with lustful intent. Lustful intent is the key phrase here.

When I passed the guy on the street, my initial attraction to him was not intentional. It just happened! I crushed the thought by setting my mind on Christ and therefore do not believe I sinned. But had I intentionally continued to entertain that unintentional thought and allowed myself to lustfully fantasize, I would have sinned.

In summary, there is a difference between lust and temptation. Lust is intentionally allowing a sexually tempting thought to fester and grow for your own perverted enjoyment. Lust is sin. Temptation is experiencing an unintentional, spontaneous enticement toward sin. Temptation is not sin.

However, was my initial desire toward the guy I passed on the street a natural and morally neutral experience? Is it comparable to a married man being instinctively attracted to a woman who is not his wife? I don't believe so.

Though I don't believe it is a sin to experience spontaneous, unintentional same-sex desires, I also don't believe it is a natural or morally neutral experience. Homosexual desire was not part of God's initial design, but came running in on the heels of sin — it is unnatural. And though heterosexual desire can manifest in unnatural ways (think pedophilia or a desire to rape), a man's instinctive attraction toward an adult woman who is not his wife is natural.

If Adam had never fallen and human nature was never corrupted by sin, I don't believe the temptation to commit homosexual acts (or heterosexual rape and pedophilia) would exist within human hearts. When Adam sinned against God, his nature was corrupted — and every one of his descendants has inherited that corrupt nature.

We are not born good or even morally neutral; we are "brought forth in iniquity" and "conceived in sin" (Psalm 51:5).

It is from our sinful nature that sexual perversities spring up. However, some would argue that Jesus, whose nature was NOT corrupted by sin, was tempted to commit homosexual acts because Hebrews 4:15 says "in every respect [he] has been tempted as we are." If they are correct and Jesus was tempted to commit homosexual acts, it logically follows that he was also tempted to commit every other kind of sexual sin, including heterosexual rape and pedophilia. However, it's my opinion that this verse does not mean Jesus was tempted to commit every sin that every fallen person is tempted to commit.

"What is here said of the similarity of our Lord's trials to ours, does not imply an exact likeness; for he was free from that corruption of nature which, as the consequence of Adam's sin, has infected all mankind."

I don't believe the temptation experienced by Jesus, and by the pre-fallen Adam and Eve, would have involved the temptation to commit same-sex acts. I believe the temptation to commit same-sex acts is experienced only by those whose hearts and minds have been ransacked by original sin. According to Romans 1, a refusal to love and worship God preceded things like homosexual desire. Same-sex attraction is an unnatural byproduct of man's sinful nature.

"For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error." – Romans 1:21-27 (emphasis mine).

Because I believe homosexual feelings can only rise up from a fallen, sinful nature, I don't think they should be viewed as natural or "okay." Feeling sexually drawn toward the same gender is not the same as a married man feeling an unintentional, spontaneous heterosexual desire for an adult woman who is not his wife.

Again, I do not think spontaneously experiencing same-sex attraction is a sin if one continually takes those thoughts captive rather than letting them run lustfully wild. But I believe the Bible teaches that the smallest inkling of desire to engage in any level of homosexual behavior is rooted not in God's design for human sexuality, but in original sin's corruption of human sexuality. And therefore, I can't view it as a neutral or "okay" experience.

So what does this mean for people like me who experience this perverse, unnatural desire on a daily basis? Do I walk around in constant turmoil, hating myself and telling myself what an evil and godless piece of crap I am? NO!

The good news of the gospel is that though we are UTTERLY messed up, God loves us and sent his Son to save us. One day, when I have a glorified body that is free from the effects of original sin, all of my unnatural desires will cease to exist. But until that day, the unnatural desires that remain inside of me do not define me; Jesus defines me. I am no longer the corruption that lies within me; I am the righteousness of God in Christ.

I believe my same-sex attraction will continue to dwindle in intensity as God continues to sanctify me. However, if my experience is anything like the SSA strugglers who have gone before me, it's probable that this pattern of temptation will persist at some level until the day I die or Christ returns. And until either of those days come, I will cry out honestly and hopefully with the apostle Paul: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" – Romans 7:24-25

Matt Moore is a Christian blogger who was formerly engaged in a gay lifestyle. You can read more about him at www.moorematt.org.

In context, I was talking generally about the church in America, which is substantially at the point of being offended by God’s Word and acquiring teachers for itching ears.

I recall the pastor’s wife in one church I was part of getting up to say a few words on Mother’s Day one year. She couched her words very carefully when trying to tell the congregation that we shouldn’t be watching a show like “Desperate Housewives.” She introduced what she had to say about it with something like, “now I don’t want to step on any toes, but...”

And in this church, I tried to get guidance and help as a newer Christian for temporary work I was doing at the time at a puzzle company. The company did many sorts of unobjectionable puzzles, but one of the biggest sellers was from a very popular movie that appealed to children as well as adults and had, for one thing, occult themes. I went to an elder working full-time in a teen ministry, and his take on my situation was to suggest I felt convicted about being at this company, with the suggestion I was doing wrong. I told him I wasn’t sure about being convicted, because what I wanted at that point was to discuss things with someone. I worked in the factory part, and my co-workers were people trying to earn a living through legitimate work. I wasn’t sure if I refused this work that I wasn’t casting judgment on them. Someone working in a supermarket is going to be handling and selling objectionable things too.

I wanted to discuss it all, as a newer Christian, new to this church, and a single woman who needed to support herself, and what I should do, but he offered nothing but to tell me to tell the temp company to switch my assignment. He didn’t offer any moral support or discussion, but just the suggestion that I wasn’t a strong Christian if I didn’t do this. I also went to an 80-year-old woman who had been in the church for her entire life, was well-regarded, and who taught Sunday School. When I started to tell her of my concerns about working at this place, including about doing the puzzles for this movie, she got offended, saying she had just watched the movie with her pastor son and his family. The conversation pretty much ended right there. And she had been one to talk about how the church hadn’t gone to movies through the decades, except for a movie like Joni when it was in the theaters.

So this was two people who were pillars in this church, and the price for their disagreement is simply paid by someone looking for guidance and support. And while I fault the male elder, and I also know from experience that the attitude shown by him is in large part in response to the attitude of offense shown by the woman.

You encounter this in churches, and you see this wherever Christians gather today, including here. Secular entertainment is considered holy. To expose the things about it that oppose God’s Word, as we are supposed to do, brings rage like saying certain things brings Democratic rage.

Here’s some points to consider:

1. You focused mostly on part of what I wrote, the situation where I went to a couple of people for counsel and support.

What about how the church is largely embracing secular culture and those who do are offended to ever hear it called out for how it rebels against and rejects God’s Word?

There is only one form of popular entertainment that can still be exposed in the church without causing offense: pornography. EVERYTHING else apparently short of that will be zealously defended as having some noble, redeeming features or will be dismissed as “harmless entertainment with no ill effects,” and the people exposing how this entertainment opposes God’s Word will be attacked as “Pharisees.” Defenders of secular entertainment also point to that Bible verse which says, “I’m a Christian and I like it. It does me good, and so I think it’s fine. Who are you to judge? Jesus said not to.” (”Me” 1:1)

2. Now on that problem I brought to a couple of people in the church, you mention their “comfort zones.” Where does the idea of “comfort zones” come from, and how do they matter to the church?

I spoke of how the church has bought into the thinking of the world, that there’s work and there’s leisure - and leisure means being unproductive and idle, pursuing some pleasure that accomplishes nothing but bringing pleasure. The very point is that leisure isn’t work, and it must serve ourselves and indulge us, and be about us.

To say, then, that a Christian’s leisure should be productive for God’s Kingdom sounds like it isn’t leisure at all anymore, once the specter of work and being productive is brought back into it, but is that really the case? Is it God’s will for us to set aside large parts of the time and resources He has entrusted to us to being unfruitful and unproductive by design and intent? Is it His will for us to spend our lives in escapism in the free time we have when we’re not providing for our worldly needs through work? Is it His will that in the time we have outside of worldly work, we reject working for Him because it’s work, and we want leisure - that is, not to do any sort of work? What if we make our leisure about working for Him and serving His Kingdom and seeking to produce fruit for it? Is that no longer leisure then, because it is work, even though it is work for Him?

And there is another aspect to the world’s ideas about work and leisure that applies to Christians. If we accept that leisure is not to be work, and so no work is to be done, even work for Him, then not only is the unproductive accepted, but the counter-productive - that which actually works against God and His Kingdom. Accepting the idea that we need a break from everything, including from God, and we must not be productive and fruitful, even for Him, then ungodliness in leisure can be overlooked because the counter-productive is certainly unproductive.

When the world’s ideas of work and leisure, including that leisure must be unproductive, are applied to and accepted by Christians, the result is that Christians are saying in effect that in their leisure time, they will not work for God or be productive for Him. They reject anything that will be work for Him, on the principle that it’s work. The embrace of the world’s concept of leisure ultimately means not reaping for God’s Kingdom and not being spiritual fruitful.

So again, counterproductiveness, that which works against God’s Kingdom, is accepted because it is certainly not producing work for the Master, God. And that’s the story of today’s secular entertainment. It gets a lot of acceptance in the church no matter the content because it’s leisure, and so exempt from the outset from producing fruit for God. The point is leisure - a break - and not doing work, the thinking goes. As long as it’s humanly unproductive for God and pleasurable, then it can also go further and get away with rebelling against and attacking God’s Word. I mentioned Desperate Housewives. Years ago I looked up its storylines on Wikipedia. I would say it rebels against and attacks God’s Word. But it still got acceptance in the church because people can say it was leisure, and never was meant to be fruitful or productive for God and His Kingdom.

But idleness and destructiveness also go hand-in-hand. Is it possible not to be working against God somehow if we’ve decided not to work for Him?

3. Now on the church I mentioned, I was part of it for years, including years after the situation I mentioned to you. I truly didn’t expect perfect people or perfect Christians in it. But consider the parable Jesus told about the workers given a vineyard to tend and they had only to set aside some fruits for the owner for his share, but they wouldn’t. And consider how Jesus told His disciples that they had entered into the labors of workers for His Kingdom who had come before. The same thing applies when we work for the Lord today. And we are Christians because of untold number of other Christians who carried the Gospel so that we would come to hear it.

And so the possibility arises that people in the church today can merely consume what God has provided through the labors of others over the past centuries, if they decide to stop laboring and merely “enjoy the fruits” of the vineyard. Labor is nothing if not uncomfortable and unpleasurable at times, after all.

I understand, as I said, and agree that people can come into the church and just find fault. But so too can people in the church just as easily dismiss the people coming into the church. I’ve similarly seen a lot of long-time Christians in the church who only want to stand back and see which people coming in will “make it.” If they don’t, or they leave, then “they weren’t one of us after all.” And while James writes of not being partial to the rich man who comes into the church, so often in the church today the successful man who comes in, even in the cases where the overall evidence shows over time that he is uninterested in the Gospel, will be accepted with open arms as a “pillar of the community” who is invited to be a pillar in the church.

In this church I mention that was made up of middle and low-income people in a city setting there was a group of families that had been in the church for twenty or thirty years, if not more. Whenever these families experienced any problems, the whole church immediately was informed of it and help came to them.

They had about three or four series of classes while I was there that were all a version of “basic Christianity,” and these families were always in them. One series went two years, and at the beginning the class was very large, and had all sorts of newer people, both of lower and middle income. By the end, it was just made up of people from these longtime families, in the church already for decades, and me. With their social support in the church complete, and them not lacking anything, it was up to new people to try to find places for themselves, if they could, and weren’t looked as interlopers. One woman who liked singing and was a good singer wanted to sing with the praise team but the longtime members usually passed her by.

They had a church picnic a 30 minute ride away, offering no transportation for people who without it. Then they started doing “intimate dinners” of 8 or so, so “people could get to know each other better,” and almost everyone on the sign-up sheets were from those same families. Being a Christian in this world, the church is a refuge, and coming into it, one needs to find a place, and the people already in it have to be truly interested in finding a place for those who come. But having been through their adoptions so long ago, decades ago, they often aren’t so interested in doing the work of adopting others into the church. Anyone in a church knows that everyone has problems, and you will so often hear of the longtime members speaking of the troubles they have. So it is easier for them to simply turn to other longtime members, and also to the “unneedy” who come in who can “pull their own weight,” and do things like get together for golf or go on vacations with them.

When I lived as a lesbian, it caused me quite a few problems, including with employment. Several times people outside the church told me that the way I should go was deeper into the homosexual community, to seek employment there, among people who would understand my problems better and my abilities would be “put to good use.” But my experiences actually made me wary of going further into the homosexual community. I didn’t want to be there and serve it, and not being willing to, I wasn’t such a good friend to the world, which didn’t make making a living after that easy.

But I have to wonder if I had gone and served the homosexual cause, and risen in its ranks, and then either gone to church as a higher up in that world, or used it as springboard back to a more mainstream career, I would have been “better off” in coming into the church (if, that is, I ever would have escaped that life). Is worldly success, no matter how one gets there, more acceptable when coming to a church, than having suffered a lack of it because after feeling the effects of a sinful life, one starts to back off of it, and so the world is less accepting of you?

And in that church, too, I have to wonder how many of the next generation of these Christians will come to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and stay with Him. I went looking years ago at the Facebook pages of some members and their families, and so many of the younger generation likes shows such as Modern Family. And as we know, every denomination is overall on the decline today, just some much moreso than others.

The real issue is worldliness, and accepting the world’s idea of leisure is a large part of that.

It's not all that I have to say on it, but this reply discusses it:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3428640/posts?page=94#94

Where does the idea of "comfort zones" come from, and how do they matter to the church?
I spoke of how the church has bought into the thinking of the world, that there's work and there's leisure - and leisure means being unproductive and idle, pursuing some pleasure that accomplishes nothing but bringing pleasure. The very point is that leisure isn't work, and it must serve ourselves and indulge us, and be about us.
To say, then, that a Christian's leisure should be productive for God's Kingdom sounds like it isn't leisure at all anymore, once the specter of work and being productive is brought back into it, but is that really the case? Is it God's will for us to set aside large parts of the time and resources He has entrusted to us to being unfruitful and unproductive by design and intent? Is it His will for us to spend our lives in escapism in the free time we have when we're not providing for our worldly needs through work? Is it His will that in the time we have outside of worldly work, we reject working for Him because it's work, and we want leisure - that is, not to do any sort of work? What if we make our leisure about working for Him and serving His Kingdom and seeking to produce fruit for it? Is that no longer leisure then, because it is work, even though it is work for Him?
And there is another aspect to the world's ideas about work and leisure that applies to Christians. If we accept that leisure is not to be work, and so no work is to be done, even work for Him, then not only is the unproductive accepted, but the counter-productive - that which actually works against God and His Kingdom. Accepting the idea that we need a break from everything, including from God, and we must not be productive and fruitful, even for Him, then ungodliness in leisure can be overlooked because the counter-productive is certainly unproductive.
When the world's ideas of work and leisure, including that leisure must be unproductive, are applied to and accepted by Christians, the result is that Christians are saying in effect that in their leisure time, they will not work for God or be productive for Him. They reject anything that will be work for Him, on the principle that it's work. The embrace of the world's concept of leisure ultimately means not reaping for God's Kingdom and not being spiritual fruitful.
So again, counterproductiveness, that which works against God's Kingdom, is accepted because it is certainly not producing work for the Master, God. And that's the story of today's secular entertainment. It gets a lot of acceptance in the church no matter the content because it's leisure, and so exempt from the outset from producing fruit for God. The point is leisure - a break - and not doing work, the thinking goes. As long as it's humanly unproductive for God and pleasurable, then it can also go further and get away with rebelling against and attacking God's Word. I mentioned Desperate Housewives. Years ago I looked up its storylines on Wikipedia. I would say it rebels against and attacks God's Word. But it still got acceptance in the church because people can say it was leisure, and never was meant to be fruitful or productive for God and His Kingdom.
But idleness and destructiveness also go hand-in-hand. Is it possible not to be working against God somehow if we've decided not to work for Him?

This isn’t an easy thing to think or talk about, but when I mean “unthinkable,” consider a few things. First, what we have heard of ancient Rome and also ancient Greece and the acceptance of homosexuality might have been exaggerated and one-sided. It has come largely from the same secular humanists who also try to tell us who Jesus really was and what the Bible really meant and means. Overall, they like to find what they want to find. The average “Greek” or Gentile of that time, too, might be further from what’s portrayed as those in Rome, or in the Roman world of that time. Paul also wrote, too, that men who engaged in homosexual acts received physical punishment for it. In a time before modern technology and medicine, we would have to think that widespread “sexual liberation” would be self-destructive, and people would be able to observe many of the consequences of it. The Jewish religion also most strongly prohibited homosexuality, and the Jews were known throughout the Roman world, having synagogues in cities throughout the region. We have to believe that a Gentile who sincerely became a Christian, to the point of being willing to suffer persecution and death, would know that and consider homosexual conduct, including lust, to be unthinkable. Then consider, too, how Paul wrote about having a gift:

1 Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.

2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

3 Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.

4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.

5 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.

6 But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment.

7 For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. (1 Corinthians 7)

Consider, too, how we of this time might suffer if we could go back to the time of the early church and live then, under their conditions. Think of all we’d have to deal without modern society’s help, and all we’d have to do without. So many choices were so different for people then, and happiness often depends on our beliefs and how we perceive things. And, too, even the Gentiles were “superstitious” then, as Paul said, meaning that they feared the judgment of gods even though what they believed was largely error. Today the idea that there is only this life, and one should live for it by doing whatever one likes or thinks he likes, is very influential.

I’m certainly not saying that people with the rightful attraction to the opposite sex didn’t live celibate lives as part of their devotion to God. And perhaps most who did were so. Paul didn’t entirely explain even what he meant about himself. But what is called “same-sex attraction” actually accompanies a diminished attraction for the opposite sex, and it seems to me that there are so many things about life today that feed the thinking that homosexual conduct is acceptable, while the reverse was true in that time. One, as I said, is the state of medicine at that time versus our own. Another is how marriage today is founded on romance. Not to say that romance wasn’t an element back then, either, but just that to someone who might consider a homosexual relationship, not only were the real costs were in front of them, but they could also see that marriage was also about very practical concerns for everyone. How often did a man even choose his own wife?

Now likely one thing that very well may have increased temptation, especially for those more attracted to the same sex than the opposite, is the bringing together of large groups of celibate men with each other and celibate women with each other, which were in turn largely shut away from the world. When that started, I’m not certain.

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