In seeking to be attractive, shrewd and relevant in the public sphere, Christians face many difficulties. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in present contentions over the issue of same-sex marriages, with the possibility of a plebiscite looming here in Australia. A free-for-all is a danger, but so is too timid a response, even from those who claim to be evangelical Christians. Three points need to be made in order to re-frame the Christian response.

1. We ought to work with behavior, not identity⤒🔗

In the Bible, homosexual acts are sinful (Lev. 18:22). To that extent, they are comparable to acts of adultery (Lev. 18:20) or bestiality (Lev. 18:23). In the last few decades, homosexuality has been made a matter of identity. Homosexuals are treated like short or tall people, or Chinese or African — that is their identity, and it is wrong to call it into question, let alone criticize it. Hence any rejection of homosexuality is treated as a new kind of racism. The focus has shifted from the morality or otherwise of the sexual act to the identity of the actor. If the debate — or what is left of it — is conducted in modern terms of identity, Christians must lose, and appear to be dreadful bigots in so losing. Christians need to raise the issue of sexual morality again. It is not okay to be homosexual if this means to sanction homosexual behavior. The Bible condemns the homosexual act in the strongest terms.

2. We ought to distinguish homosexual sin and heterosexual sin←⤒🔗

Christians often say that homosexual sin is no worse than heterosexual sin. We need to be careful here, for it is clear from Scripture and common sense that not all sins are equal (e.g., John 19:11). Homosexuals can be redeemed (1 Cor. 6:9-11), but homosexual unions cannot. If an unmarried man and an unmarried woman are living together, and repent of this, they can be married and their relationship can be redeemed. That is not so with homosexual unions. They can only be repented of and broken up.

Furthermore, God’s wrath against the Canaanites was in a sense unique in that the complete iniquity of the Amorites (Gen. 15:16) called forth the ban (the herem) which meant the complete destruction of Canaanite persons and culture. There could be no compromise for it had become dreadfully debased (cf. Lev. 18). The homosexual act is specifically said to be an abomination (Lev. 18:22). Similarly, in the New Testament, the onset of homosexual sin seems to come when God gives up or gives over a people into idolatry, foolishness, and sin (Rom. 1:18-32; cf. verses 24, 26, 28). It is said to be unnatural in that it goes against the God who created us. Whereas heterosexual acts within marriage bear all the evidence of design, that is not so for homosexual and les­bian acts. As such, same-sex sexual activity appears when civilizations are going into serious decline, not when there are winds of revival.

3. We ought to be aware that to be winsome is not the same as being loving←⤒🔗

Again, one needs to be careful, but one can be winsome for selfish or cowardly reasons. It is difficult to portray Amos and John the Baptist, for example, as winsome personalities with winsome messages. The “brood of vipers” language employed by John the Baptist would be regarded as hate speech today, and he would run afoul of an Anti-Discrim­ination Board as surely as he ran afoul of the adulterous Herod Antipas. Jesus’s condemnations of the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23 is another case in point. Jesus was hardly trying to be winsome, yet He was always loving.

We are obliged to answer, if at all possible, with gentle­ness (1 Pet. 3:15), but also to remember that “better is open rebuke than love that is concealed” (Prov. 27:5). Gospel preaching aims to arouse a conviction of sin, and so does any presentation of God’s law.

The world has set the parameters for this debate, and at least some of the ground needs to be reclaimed. This is first and foremost an issue which concerns the morality or otherwise of homosexual activity. Love is obligatory at all times, but mildness is inappropriate when the house is on fire. In all things and at all times, we need to be burning and shining lights.