The subject of homosexuality is enormously complex, touching on many aspects of human existence: biological, psychological, and spiritual. Nonetheless, we can present our conclusions in the form of 12 propositions. These are:
- The general condition “homosexuality” is a loosely defined aspect of the overall polymorphism of human sexuality.
- Given the present state of human nature, sexual polymorphism is natural.
- Each individual’s homosexuality is the likely result of a complex mixture of genetic, intrauterine, and extrauterine biological factors combined with familial and social factors as well as repeatedly reinforced choices. These create a particular blend of impulses. The role of genetic influence is small, and in any event means very little in terms of compelling an individual to become homosexual.
- The godly standard of moral sexual behavior is much more narrowly defined than the great variety and natural polymorphism of human sexuality. Sexuality in the state of nature is therefore commonly sinful. Sanctified, it is one of God’s greatest gifts.
- Homosexual behavior is difficult to modify because, like other forms of compulsive behavior, it involves innate impulses and reinforced choices by which sinful activities become embedded in the brain.
- Ethical demands require homosexuals, like all people, to resist their natural sinful impulses.
- Homosexuality is not a true illness, though it may be thought an illness in the spiritual sense of “soul sickness,” innate to fallen human nature. Its treatment thus opens directly into the domain of the “cure of souls.”
- Because deeply engraved behaviors are so difficult to modify, homosexuals, like all people, have two choices: to capitulate to the behavior and its consequences or to depend on others, and on God, for help.
- Secular programs that modify homosexual behavior are more numerous and more effective than popular opinion is led to believe.
- Spiritual programs that lead people into dependency on God, and support them there, are even more effective. The best of these integrate into their spiritual approach the best that is offered by the secular approaches as well.
- A pastoral understanding of the “cure” of a soul, which unfolds progressively over a lifetime, is more than the alleviation of particular symptoms; it consists of growing ever more closely toward the divinely ordained configuration that God intended for us from the beginning — and which is largely “unnatural,” not only in the area of sexuality. This process is without question a reality; it is a reality that occurs in secular settings as well as in religious ones. It is a reality no less pertinent — and lifegiving — to every person, whatever his particular brokenness, than to those struggling with homosexuality.
- The modern change in opinion concerning homosexuality, though presented as a scientific advance, is contradicted rather than supported by science. It is a transformation in public morals consistent with widespread abandonment of the Judeo-Christian ethic upon which our civilization is based. Though hailed as “progress,” it is really a reversion to ancient pagan practices supported by a modern restatement of gnostic moral relativism.
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers.
Deuteronomy 30: 19-20
Satinover, J. (2004). Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books.
