I suspect one of the reasons that the opposition to sodomy that was once the default position of all professing Christians is in such retreat says more than we suspect. We’re now being encouraged to be silent on the issue, for the sake of the gospel, to nuance the issue for the sake of our witness, to rethink Paul for the sake of our credibility. And all this is wrapped up on the one all consuming law of evangelicalism- you have to be nice. We have found that hating the sin and loving the sinner just doesn’t work anymore because sodomites define themselves by their sin.
Some have argued that we need to resurrect the ick factor. I not too long ago foolishly thought the ick factor would prove to be a stalwart ally to us, only to see it fleeing the battlefield before a shot was even fired. As Al Mohler once said, the trouble with the ick factor is that it can be changed. We have the capacity to change what makes us go “eww,” and so broadly speaking the culture has.
The ick factor wilted in large part because it was hidden. For years now we have seen a parade of homosexual characters, actors, pundits all putting their orientation on display but never their behavior. We have come to think that homosexuality is all about being clever, biting, witty and sophisticated. Instead homosexuality is all about sexual confusion. I would argue that we ought to force ourselves to consider the sexual acts of these broken not to up our ick, but to, ironically, up our compassion.
The problem with sodomy isn’t that it’s a delightful, pleasurable thing that is bad because God is uptight and is opposed to it. Nor is the problem that it still makes some of us go “ick.” While it is true that God opposes sexual perversion the immediate problem is that it is a repugnant, destructive thing for those engaged in it.
If we love the sinner we cannot simply look past the sin. Indeed it is because we love the sinner that we call them to turn from their destructive behavior. It is compassion for those who destroy their bodies through misuse that calls us to call them to cease from doing so. It is compassion that proclaims forgiveness in Christ for those who repent and rest in Him.
The permissive “love” that the world offers is no more loving than if we “loved” those who cut themselves and others by looking the other way. We love those who starve themselves and others by calling them to repent. It is no more loving to “accept” this confusion than it would be to accept the confusion of those who think themselves an animal trapped in a human’s body. We are to expose such deeds (Eph. 5:11).
Love calls those caught up in destructive sin (which is, of course, every last one of us) to repent, to turn from that sin and turn to Christ. But if the sexually confused will not turn to Christ, we still call them to turn from that sin, to cease from destroying themselves. Love means understanding that homo-sex isn’t just an odd adaptation of the normal, but a manifestation of the love of death (Prov. 8:36).
Love calls we who love Christ to be willing to be hated by both those caught up in the sin of homo-sex and those caught up in its apologetical propaganda. Loving the sinner means taking on the “sin” of what they call, in defense of their perversion, hate. Let us love the sexually confused, even as they hate us as haters.