by Julia Smith
Statements Against Heterosexual Marriages Only
Statement
For more than ten years Julia worked with LGBTQ+ students at Calvin University. She focusses her video on one sentence in the report (page 46): God who made all people in his image hates violence. Especially when it is done to the vulnerable.
2:30 One expects the Report to apply the same principle to LGBTQ+ people. It doesn’t. It increases harm to the vulnerable. Students in schools are harassed at alarming rates. 3:30 99% hear the term gay used as a slur. In the home many parents reject their children who come out. 30-43% using homeless facilities are LGBTQ+. They have run away from home or have been kicked out. LGBTQ+ people are almost five times as likely to turn to suicide.
5:27 The Report is all but silent on this matter. They did report on the Trevor Project which reports over 60% of the LGBTQ community considers or engages in self-harm (page 71). Instead of addressing the problem, the Report simply sympathizes with parents of transgender people.
8:27 “The Report’s theology linking LGBTQ+ people in a special way to the Fall and denying them the full image of God pathologizes a whole category of people.” Creates second class image bearers.
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Response
Having worked that long with members of the LGBTQ+ community Julia clearly has things she can teach us, who have not had that opportunity. There are two things here that merit our attention.
First, as far as harassments and bullying etc. are concerned, it is good for us to take note of some of the statements in the Human Sexuality Report. One such statement is as follows:
A word to congregations 1. Repentance The church’s response to homosexuality must begin with confession and lament. Despite repeated and strong exhortations of past study committee reports to love and care for brothers and sisters who are attracted to the same sex as equal members of the body of Christ, the church has all-too-often ostracized, shunned, or ignored such Jesus-followers. Congregations need to honestly examine their attitudes and actions toward people who are attracted to the same sex and need to repent when such attitudes and actions are sinful: treating homosexuals as if they are worse sinners than those who are caught up in pornography, premarital, or extramarital sex; overlooking them for positions of leadership, including those of pastor, elder, and deacon instead of considering whether they are, like all office bearers need to be, living holy and godly lives; keeping them physically and emotionally at a distance because they make some feel uncomfortable; failing to stand in solidarity with them as fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. For all of these and many other inappropriate ways the church has typically treated persons in its midst who are attracted to the same sex, congregations must recognize their attitude and actions for what they are—sin—and ask God for forgiveness and healing. (Pages 114-115.)
There are a number of such statements in the Report.
The second observation is this. The tone of her position suggests the LGBTQ+ lifestyle is not sinful. This is critical to her entire presentation. If I Cor. 6 is true, then the greatest harm we could do to this group is to tell them such a lifestyle is good.
Those who desire change in the church’s position need to help us to understand how homosexuality is not sinful. Note her comments towards the end above in which she refers to the Report linking the LGBTQ+ style with the Fall. It is at that point that we currently part ways, and in a very significant way. Until we successfully bridge that gap, we will always be talking past one another and no progress will be possible. The plight of an individual who is same-sex attracted, is it a matter equivalent in some sense to the individual having a cancerous, life-threatening tumor, or is it simply a matter that this individual is left-handed? The appropriate response will be very different, one from the other. If one is in fact facing a lifestyle that is eternally life-threatening, then what is needed is repentance. On the other hand, if the situation at hand is simply an equivalent matter to being left-handed, then there is no issue at all. Until we can come to an agreement on just what the nature of same-sex attracted is, we will not be able to agree on how the situation is to be handle, if any response is needed at all.
Presenters in this video series are predominantly of the position that Rom. 1 only prohibits exploitative acts. However, as the HSR points out, the language of Rom. 1:27 is very much the language of mutually loving relationships: “. . . the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another . . .” (italics added). (Page 104) It is essential that we agree on the nature of the issue in front of us if we are to agree concerning how it is to be handled.