Well, where I always start is…what does the bible say? I looked up related scriptures in a concordance–I’d suggest looking them up yourself and reading them in context, but I’ll summarize what the bible says 🙂
Gen. 19: 1-11 (related: Isa 3:9, Jude 1:7) – God sends down some angels to investigate this wickedness in Sodom. They go stay with Lot, and townspople demand he send them out that they might sodomize the visitors and they wouldn’t even be appeased that he send out his virgin daughters instead. This is the precipitating event to God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. Jude calls this “gross immorality” and says these people are “undergoing punishment in eternal fire” (ie. in hell)
Lev. 18: 22, 20: 13 – in the Jewish law laying with a man the way you would a woman is expressly forbidden (along with many other types of other “improper” sexual relations).
Rom 1:26-27 – Men abandoned their “natural relations with women” and “burned in lust” for one another instead and “committed what is shameful” (sodomy?). The context of this is as an example of God giving people up to their vile passions because they suppressed the truth of God. 1:26 labels women doing what appears to be likewise as “against nature”.
1 Cor. 6: 9-10 – Homosexuals and Sodomites specifically listed among the unrighteous who will not inherit the kingdom of God
1 Tim 1:9-10 – the law is made for sinners, not the righteous. Examples of who needs the law includes sodomites and immoral men (immoral in this context = pornos in greek…often translated as fornication, and if you noticed a similarity between that and the english word pornography that’s not a coincidence…but that’s a whole ‘nother bible study)
So, based on what the scriptures say, my interpretation is that sodomy (aka to be blunt, anal sex) is sinful and acting on homosexual lusts/longings is sinful. The bible indicates to me (based on these and other scriptures) that God’s design is that one woman leave her family and cleave to her husband and procreate and fill the earth. Men marrying men or women marrying women, goes against this design of nature for man and woman to carry out the command to “procreate and fill the earth”…as well, its kind of hard to get pregnant that way (short of either having heterosexual sex or man-made doctors office ways of getting pregnant).
I find it important to differentiate living in a homosexual lifestyle from being attracted exclusively (or non-exclusively) to people of your same gender. This in many ways no different than heterosexual lust. Is it wrong for us to be attracted to other people? No. Is it wrong for us to act inappropriately on that attraction? Yes. Just because we are attracted to someone doesn’t mean we should engage in fornication or adultery with someone. Every gay person, regardless of whether or not they were “born that way”, has a choice about what they are going to do with same-sex attractions. They are not required to act on those attractions any more than a pedophiliac is “required” to fulfill their lust for sex with children.
As far as whether or not people are “born gay”, my conviction is that I think God made some people that way intentionally. How can I say that? Read 1 Corinthians 7 carefully (especially 7:35). My belief is that God has a very special purpose for those people–his righteous purpose for those people, should they choose to accept it, is to devote their lives in undivided attention to serving the Lord as an unmarried person. The alternative, of course, is suppress the truth about who God is, and choose to engage in a lifestyle of engaging in homosexual activities.
In our culture, being gay can be such a defining characteristic that it easily can become the main identity of someone, and the identity of being a son of the most high God easily gets obscured in that somewhere–which are you going to put first? Of course, which one you prioritize as more important will define a lot about your life, and how you choose to live it 😉
The bible says sin leads to death. Statistically speaking, on average gay people die significantly younger (like at 40 years old or something) than straight people (what’s that? 70 years?). Hmm, coincidence? At any rate, I’d hate to be one of those people on God’s “dead to me” list (which is what happens when God “turns you over” to your sin after you continually refuse to repent).
But that doesn’t mean you should hate on gay people. “Love the sinner, hate the sin”. I fully believe its possible to have friends who are sinners (sounds so…revolutionary, doesn’t it?) so long as they aren’t pulling you into participating in their sin (who is influencing whom in the relationship?)
I like to keep in mind that people living in a lifestyle of homosexuality are people are enslaved to sin, just like every other sinner. Its hard to break free of sin, regardless of what sin it is. These people need compassion and our prayers. Its not our job to come in and judge people for their sin–that job’s already been taken by the holy spirit. What happens when we ignore the holy spirit? Our hearts get hardened and eventually, if we do not confess our sins to God and repent, he turns us over to the sin. But we have no way of knowing which people are beyond hope…so as long as there is at least one sinner in the world, our job of praying for their salvation is far from done!
And as a final random point, its not like God singles out homosexuality more than other sins or anything. In fact, look how few scriptures God actually feels the need to devote to the topic. Compare that to how many times God discusses (heterosexual) fornication or adultery as sins! But we know God’s take on sin, and that we are instructed to flee from temptation to engage in sin.
PPS… I completely neglected the question of “gays in the church” didn’t i?
The term “in the church” is a little bit fuzzy, because it has multiple meanings. In the bible it talks about “the church” being the body of all people who believe in Jesus. But it also refers to the physical meeting place of both christian and non-christians (typically for a sunday worship service)…
Initially we should welcome everyone into the church (as in welcome to attend) with open arms–because it is so important to hear the Word of God (described in the bible as sharper than a two edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit), that they may begin a relationship with Jesus and begin some godly relationships in their lives (hey, some of us need new friends when we get saved, I know I did). How should they believe if they don’t hear the word of God? (see Romans 10)
At some point, a non-believer in the church could become a distraction and instigating to get people in the church to engage in sin or prevent godly activities (doing distracting things during service for example). At this point, the church leadership has the right to “protect their flock” and remove the disturbance so that the spiritual walk of the others in the church is not adversely affected.
At some point, over time, a person who is saved must begin to repent of sinful behavior. Are these gay people in the church engaging in sin is the million dollar question here…as with all sin, it may cost us dearly (and tear apart our lives if our lives are built around ungodly foundations), but the only biblically “acceptable” thing to do if we are in sin is to repent. Repent means more than just saying “I’m sorry”, it also indicates turning away from the sin, making changes to your life to prevent yourself from continuing in the sin. That turning away and stopping your sin, that’s the hard part.
What if the person is in your church for an extended time and you (say, a leader) know they’re totally in sin, but they just won’t repent? A procedure is clearly outlined in the bible (let me know if you need help finding the exact addresses in the bible of any of these things!) of how if a person is in sin, approach them privately, if they don’t repent, bring two or three witnesses, if they still don’t repent, bring them before the entire congregation…and failing repenting at that point, they should be treated as an unbeliever.
As such, if it comes to the point where a person must be treated as an unbeliever because of unrepentant sin, it would certainly be inappropriate for the person to have a position of leadership within the church, based on the criterion for deacons and elders and whatnot stated in the bible. (see 1 timothy). Basically, they say the leaders in the church should be of Godly character, not recent converts (first they must have time to prove their new nature), above reproach (not living in a lifestyle of sin), and so on. Also, the scriptures hold that he who teaches will be held to a higher standard of accountability…as you get into leading in the church your personal freedoms diminish because it would be bad to lead another into sinning through careless example. Kind of that thing of living a lifestyle without the appearance of evil. Billy Graham won’t let himself alone with any woman other than his wife lest it have the *appearance* of impropriety and cast doubt on his character and discredit his ministry.
Based on the conclusion you’ve reached about what consistutes sin as far as the issue of homosexuality goes, the rest of this question solves itself about whether they should be welcome in the church and to what degree and in what type of roles.