Is a Gay Christian a Contradiction?

Is a gay Christian a contradiction? Yes, but not for the reason you might think.

I want to ask three questions. (1) Is a gay Christian a contradiction? (2) Is a gay Christian a reflection of the diversity of God’s love? (3) Is a hateful Christian a paradox? After asking and examining these three questions, I want to point out that this post does exactly the thing it condemns, making the quote itself bigoted and hypocritical.

• Is a gay Christian a contradiction?

For the purpose of this particular post, I don’t want to talk about whether aberrant sexual identity is sinful or holy. That is not my purpose here. I should warn well-meaning people who are easily triggered by these kinds of statements against starting an argument based on the sinfulness of homosexuality. The quote in question does not claim that homosexuality is not a sin. I don’t know what Tim Powers-Reed believes on this subject. I am examining the quote in its own right. The claim is, “A gay Christian isn’t a contradiction.” I think the claim is false, but not because I believe homosexuality is a sin. After all, every Christian still alive on this earth deals with some sin in his own life until he fully conforms to the image of Jesus Christ. So, if the quote would have said, “A Christian who has homosexual desires is not a contradiction,” I would have agreed. God absolutely loves people who have aberrant sexual desires. He absolutely loves people who suffer from any type of identity crisis or dysphoria. The Gospel teaches us that God wants to free us from all forms of bondage caused by our sinful desires. The Bible treats sin the way it does because any form of sin wreaks havoc on human emotional, physical, and mental health. Sin breeds conflict (as evidenced by the quote itself) and encourages wars. Sin facilitates hatred and injustice. Sin, anything that is sin, harms the good world God created. God hates sin not arbitrarily but because sin destroys His good work–which includes people. People disagree about whether or not homosexuality is a sin. That’s a conversational topic for another time. If it is a sin and a Christian has those desires, God does in fact love that Christian. Because He loves His people, He teaches them what is bad for them like a good parent gives wisdom to her children on this earth. He wants what is good for us, not what will harm us. If “love” meant leaving us in our ways or supporting us unconditionally, then God would Himself perpetrate the greatest injustice against His children by not warning them about the dangerous paths they are on.

In Matthew 6:16-24, Jesus taught that hypocrites put on gloomy faces so other people would know they had been fasting. They flexed their spirituality even though they taught humility. Those who lived such lives received their rewards in full on this earth. That explicitly means that they did not receive eternal life. They wanted earthly rewards, and God gave them what they wanted–at a high price to them. Jesus instructed His disciples to build up treasures in heaven instead of on earth, which explicitly meant not flexing or finding their identity on their spirituality or wealth. Jesus explains why He teaches in this way.

Where our treasures are, there our hearts are also.

God loves us. He desires us to love Him. He wants our hearts. When we identify ourselves by something that is not Him, by something within ourselves, that’s what we love instead of God. He is left loving us without true reciprocation because we have chosen to give ourselves to something else–be it our religions, traditions, politics, identities, or wealth. For any Christian to identify himself by both his spirituality and by Christ places him under two masters according to Jesus’s explicit teaching. For any Christian to identify himself by both his wealth and Christ places him under two masters according to Jesus’s explicit teaching. For any Christian to identify himself by both his sexuality (no matter what that is) and Christ is to place himself under two masters. Jesus tells us explicitly that no one can serve two masters; for either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. No one can serve both God and mammon.

So, biblically speaking, it is impossible for anyone to be a gay Christian like it is impossible for anyone to be a rich Christian. If we love Christ, we identify with him. If we love ourselves we identify with our own preferences and gain. If we try to serve two masters, we will always come to hate one of them. This is why God Himself calls all people everywhere to repentance, a turning from our ways to His. His ways are better than ours. If you don’t believe that, you are not a Christian in any sense of the word. This is precisely why we see many people, even prominent “Christian” influencers, depart from the Christian faith. They were trying to serve two masters and did not listen to Jesus’s warning. Ultimately, they chose a master other than Christ and will receive their rewards in full on this earth. I want to invite you to repent and believe the gospel. It is better than the bondage of this world and its glorification of sexuality.

• Is a gay Christian a reflection of the diversity of God’s love?

This statement intrigues me. It intrigues me because I’m wondering how many distinct loves there are that love as a thing can possibly be diverse. Perhaps the speaker meant to say that a gay Christian is a reflection of God in the way that He loves diverse groups of people–but that’s not what he said. Without asking more about what the speaker meant, it is difficult to examine this claim. I would say that God’s love is not diverse in any way, for God Himself does not change and is always the same (cf. Numbers 23:19; Psalm 119:89; Isaiah 40:8; Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8; James 1:17; etc…). It is an obvious heresy to in any way claim that God loves some people based on different standards than he loves others. If we are speaking about the diversity of the kingdom of heaven, then we should say that so we are not being ambiguous about what love is or not so people don’t have to guess what we mean when we talk about God’s love. The kingdom of God is certainly diverse. Men and women comprise it. People from every earthly tribe, nation, and tongue are given citizenship. This is not what the speaker means when he says diverse. What he means when he says diverse deals with a statement of inner identity, not of biology or nationality or language. About this, the Bible actually makes the exact opposite claim–that the kingdom of heaven is reserved only for those who identify with Christ rather than themselves. The kingdom is not diverse in how many masters are identified with. There is only one master, His name is Jesus Christ. All those who live according to their self-proclaimed sexual identities on this earth are explicitly not citizens of the kingdom. God is giving them what they want because He does love them, and they are receiving their full reward on this earth because this is where their hearts are.

Rather than being evidence of God’s singular love, a gay Christian is only evidence that people want the rewards of Christ without the actual responsibility of being Christian on this earth. We want to elevate ourselves to the place of God. But, no one can serve two masters.

• Is a hateful Christian a paradox?

I think this claim is equally as interesting as the previous one. First, I have met very few people who claim to be Christians who are hateful toward any group of people. If you have experienced hateful Christians, I am truly sorry for that. No one can bear the fruit of the Spirit that define the Christian’s lifestyle and also be hateful toward anyone. A hateful Christian cannot exist. If someone truly is hateful, hate describes his personality, he is not in Christ.

But, hate is a term tossed around frequently and used to describe people who do not actually hate anyone. I will doubtless be accused of hating people because of this post simply because I care to examine claims. I care about people enough to want the truth for them. Too often, claims of “church hurt,” bigotry, hatred, oppression, injustice, and the like are used by people who are simply told that they are wrong about something or doing something unwise. Because people don’t like to experience accountability or correction in any way–they call anyone who doesn’t support them unconditionally hateful or bigoted even if exactly the opposite is true.

In my life, evidenced by all the protests, riots, political screaming, facebook posts, and the like, I have seen much more hatred perpetrated and facilitated by the LGBTQ+ community because they want to force their agenda on everyone else. Even this social media post slings mud on Christ’s bride to advance the personal identity and status of a group as better Christians than others. This is how hatred is born. Posts like this are exactly how hatred and bigotry are propagated through social media and activist platforms. People in general can be guilty of this because we don’t often see the whole picture. When we realize we are doing something that causes hatred or facilitates hatred in any way, we live lives of repentance rather than doubling down and defending ourselves–which is a tendency exactly opposite the call of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

• On the hypocrisy of identity politics and theology.

Unfortunately in America, we live in an age of identity politics, identity theology, and identity relationships. There is a real difference between what homosexuality has become and what most other sins are because if someone has homosexual thoughts or desires, that person identifies as being a homosexual. Rather than simply being a person with some desires that may be harmful, he is a homosexual. Rarely in any other arena of life do we define the core of our existence by a desire or feeling we have–really only addicts act this way. I like games, but I would not define myself as a gamer. I like food, but I would never define myself as a glutton. I like coffee, but I would never define my existence by the fact that I have a desire to drink coffee. That would be odd. When someone who has a desire to drink alcohol defines his existence by the consumption of alcohol, we treat that person for addiction. The same is more and more true for people who get addicted to video games. Yet, society has normalized it for human sexuality such that illnesses are not being treated. It goes beyond having a desire or acting a certain way to something new in human history. By identifying themselves as other, they create an unnecessary dividing line between themselves and other groups of people–which I think is the real cause of controversy, even when people try to act lovingly toward that group.

I want to define a couple words for you.

• Hypocrite- a person who pretends to have virtues or qualities that he or she does not have in practice.
• Bigot- a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.

By definition, then, anyone who demands to be unconditionally supported based on the group identity he has assigned himself is a hypocrite because he claims to take the position of equality and love while simultaneously not respecting others’ positions on the matter. Not everyone who claims to be Christian and has homosexual feelings or tendencies is a hypocrite, but the quote in question reflects the hypocritical nature of identity politics and theology.

Also by definition, anyone who has attached himself to any identity politic or theology is a bigot. Not everyone who claims to be a Christian and has homosexual feelings or tendencies is a bigot, but the quote in question reflects such obsequious behavior and encourages anyone who identifies as part of the group to be prejudiced and antagonistic toward people who are not part of that artificial faction.

So, the very movement that often throws around words like “hypocrite” and “bigot” from their high cultural horses actually better fit the definition of those words–probably without even realizing it because they are parroting the agenda of the movement’s leaders, thinking with their feelings rather than their brains. But, I ask. If you define yourself by your own sexuality, what does that inherently communicate about the type of person you are deep down? Do you really believe the most important thing about you is what satisfies your own selfish lusts? I hate to think so. People are more than their sexuality.

Whether we are talking about politics or religion, identity affiliation is typically always a harmful thing. We see identity affiliation in the Christian nationalism of many Trump evangelicals today. We see identity affiliation in the sensationalism of the Harris campaign. We saw it as the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. We saw it in the Corinthian Church when the congregation divided over which teacher they followed. We saw it as one cause for the illegal trial of Jesus the Nazarene. Identity affiliation will always cause us to be hateful to one another. There is a better way to live–a way that calls us all out of the bondage of our own identities into the freedom Christ has to offer. There is a promise, whether you have homosexual feelings or not–all those who call upon the name of the Lord, who confess that Christ is Lord and believe He was raised from the dead will be saved, period (John 3).

This salvation is by grace through faith, so we cannot boast in any of our works or identities as if we are better than anyone else (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Once a person comes to know and follow Christ, the fruit of the Spirit is produced within him (Galatians 5). He becomes interested in doing good works rather than defending his own lusts (Ephesians 2:10-22).

In the Scriptures, I learn that anyone merely interested in defending his own dispositions has not met Christ–or worse, he has met Christ and hates him because he loves his other master.