Rev. Lyndan Syiem
The Church has always given paramount importance to Christian Spirituality. We have sermons, seminars, retreats and revival services. The Church has not given corresponding importance to human sexuality, the biblical standards, guidelines and limitations. Perhaps we are at fault for not adequately educating our congregationson what our Scriptures teachabout biblical sexuality. Apart from the usual platitudes at church weddings and that one session at the annual Youth Week or Bible Camp, there really is no substantial engagement on this issue. So when the LGBTQ community asks difficult questions on sexual choice and identity, manyof us are left floundering. Granted this is the age of the internet where you can find instant answers to difficult questions. But then you will also find an opposite opinion, an opposite conclusion from a similar research. What is required therefore is a prayerful, reasonedand consistent defence of our faithand moralsbased upon the authority of Scripture over believers, as theEarly Churchdid inthe encounter between Jerusalem and Athens.
Over the past week I have spoken with some church leaders and many laypersons. What I write comes from a consensus that is biblical, inter-denominational and hopefully sensitive to sincere seekers from the LGBTQ community. Readers will perhaps know that this writer takes a biblically orthodox stand on various issues and that he tries to present the responsible, conservative church position. If readers prefer a radical, iconoclastic opinion, there are plenty to choose from in the free market of the internet and the social media. We must respect all opinions, although this does not mean that all opinions are true.Because the clear, consistent teaching of the Christian Scriptures for its followersis that marriage is a holy institution ordained by God between one man and one woman, within which alone are sexual relations permitted. In Matthew 19:4-5, Jesus pointedly quoted Genesis 1:27 and 2:24,which clearlyaffirmed the Old Testament binary of male and female and the heterosexual nature of marriage expected of his followers. For those who, for reasons of choice, circumstances, injury or vocation, cannot or choose not to marry, the only biblical option is celibacy. The only way to get around the weight of Scriptural witness is to distort the plain, clear meaning of the Bible and to resort to fanciful, subjective interpretations.
On social media there have been many ‘new interpretations’ of the Bible, alleging homosexual relations between David and Jonathan, between the Roman centurion and the servant that Jesus healed. Even dear old Naomi, grieving after the loss of her husband and sons, is not spared from having relations with her recently-widowed daughter in law, Ruth. I wonder which faithbesides Christianity will tolerate its religiousfigures to be so distorted from the clear meaning of Scripture. Christians are naturally upset over these but unfortunately they have been pushed on the defensive by the dictum that if you love someone you must accept them as they are.Really? Canyouactually apply this to all of humankind? In any case, the Bibleteaches repentance before acceptance, loving correction over indiscriminate affirmation. Love in the biblical sense is not blanket acceptance;it meansleading people into the holiness of God.
Another term commonly used nowadays is ‘unconditional love’ –that Jesus would have accepted everyone irrespective of their lifestyle and practices. But the Bible does not teach unconditional love!Everlasting love, yes; steadfast love, yes; sacrificial love, yes; but love-without-conditions, no. In fact the whole New Testament is monotonously filled with repeated calls to repentance and faith as a condition of salvation. Christians are enjoined to love everyone even if the other person doesn’t accept or reciprocate. But they are not called to sacrifice the truth of God’s Word in order to please that other person. Love actuallyrequires correction if we know that the person is on the wrong path. Writing on secular mediarequires clarification that in the biblical sense, love does not necessarily mean acceptance; and thatthecommonly-used concept of ‘unconditional love’actually does not have biblical content.
Much has been made of Jesus’ teaching on eunuchs in Matthew 19:11-12, that hesupposedly accepted alternative sexual identities. The conditionsdescribed arethreefold: congenital defect, forcible castrationand voluntary celibacy. This is not affirmation of alternative sexual identities and activities. If you read the preceding verse 10, it is clear that the immediate context is the issue of singleness. Far from accepting alternative identities and alternative sexual activities, Jesus is actually advocating singleness and chastity for those who cannot fit within the boundaries of heterosexual marriage. Not a very useful text for the LGBTQ agenda once you read the disciples’ comment in verse 10 that provoked Jesus’ reply in verses 11-12.
What then are eunuchs? Are they the third gender? The cumulative counsel of Scripture says no. In Galatians 3:28, Paul juxtaposes the identities of Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female; there is nothing in between. Jesus clearly defined eunuchs (first and second condition) as a disruption of the male-female binary. How in God’s world could this happen? The orthodox Christian explanation is that this is not the perfect world that God originally created. It is a fallen world, where there is sin and suffering, and where there are many disruptions in body structure and health, disruptions in mind and behaviour. All of us suffer the effects of the Fall and therefore we face congenital illness, communicable diseases, ageing and eventually death.
Does the Bible then still offer hope for people who struggle with and within the male-female categorization? Yes. We read in Acts 8:26-38 of the Ethiopian eunuch who received Christ and was baptized. There is an interesting prophecy in Isaiah 56:3-5, where eunuchs who truly follow the Lord are promised, “to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name.” The whole point from these and other passages is that sexuality and our struggles with sexual identification is not an eternal factor but a temporal condition that we will outgrow in eternity (Matthew 22:30). That is why Christians are called to live by faith because certain effects of the Fall will not be resolved in our brief earthly existence but in eternity. That is why if we truly seek acceptance from God rather than acceptance from the world, we must learn to sublimate certain desires in humble obedience. Am I dividing the world into saints who conform and sinners who dissent? No way. The Bible says we are all sinners, starting with this writer: we are either repentant sinners or unrepentant sinners.