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Part 2: Top Evangelical Gives Lukewarm Sermon

By Carman Bradley
 

Introduction
 

This is the second part of an article that continues a series of essays exploring reasons why the Christian witness made so little impact during the same-sex marriage debate.  The focus of the paper is the guidance given by Charles Price, one of Canada’s most renowned television preachers and Senior Pastor of The Peoples Church in Toronto.  On the first Sunday of May 2005, Pastor Price spoke on the topic, “The ‘Same-Sex’ Marriage Dilemma.”[i]  He did not give this presentation on camera before his national Living Truth[ii]television audience.  The talk occurred Sunday evening in The Peoples Church and was recorded on compact disc.  This article is based on the audio record of the presentation and all quotations are of Charles Price unless cited otherwise.  The premise of my article:
 

Why is this commentary important?  It is certainly not to disparage a biblical scholar and brother in Christ.  No delight comes from that notion.  This review is done in the spirit of Proverbs 27:17 and with a deep conviction that enactment of same-sex marriage is a stern judgment upon Canadian Christendom.  When one of Canada’s top biblical teachers delivers a contradictory and confusing message on marriage redefinition, particularly less than two months before the decision point in the long national debate, it should be a concern.  Embodied in “The ‘Same-Sex’ Marriage Dilemma” is a serious underestimation of the negative consequences of redefining marriage, a misleading view of its inevitability, a troubling articulation of liberal-minded thinking, and a misleading portrayal of the homosexual identity, all at the expense of a clear evangelical message.   It is to this last topic of “identity” that Part 2 is written.  In as much as any single viewpoint can symbolize the weakness of the Christian influence during the national debate, “’The Same-Sex’ Marriage Dilemma” is the poster illustration.  By the end of the evening, May 1, 2005, Christendom held four viewpoints on same-sex marriage: (1) unwaveringly against; (2) adamantly for; (3) generally indifferent and apathetic; and (4) Pastor Price’s perspective - seriously in a quandary.
 

Merriam-Webster’s defines a “dilemma” as a problem involving a difficult choice, or an argument presenting two or more equally conclusive alternatives.  The same-sex marriage decision involves a choice and there are two or more alternatives; however, Christians are not to be of double-minded opinion.[iii]  We should not be in a quandary between the identity one takes on in Christ and the habitual identity articulated in the homosexist worldview.  Christians are not to compromise biblical integrity by succumbing to notions that capture the cultural trend of the day, that seek the will of the “world” (see 1 John 2:15-17), and that drift with the flow.  Part 2 examines what Pastor Price has said regarding the “dilemma” of identity and addresses questions like:
 

What does homosexism say about same-sex identity?      What does scripture say about homosexual identity? 

What does science say about homosexual identity?       What part of homosexual attraction is of the Spirit?
 

Tackling the questions and defending the assertions requires that the presentation be broken down into manageable parts and sorted according to points-of-view.  It is important to recognize the instances when Pastor Price is: (1) conforming his guidance to scripture – in his words “where God has spoken;” (2) giving a theological opinion - “where God has not spoken clearly;” and (3) voicing opinion on purely non-theological matters – science, ideological and political issues  etc.  Towards this end, the key quotations from the sermon are colored coded inside a table in accordance with the following legend.

Christians Need To Understand That Homosexuality Is About Identity
 

While not admitting to any abandonment of the evangelical doctrinal position on homosexuality, Pastor Price attempts to narrow the gap between the totally accepting, affirming and dignifying liberal pro-gay witness and the, in his words, “unwholesome” traditional approach of orthodox churches.  The universal appeal of the following statements breaks down depending on the meaning or intent taken from key terms like affirm them as people, wholesome way, accept them totally, identity and behavior.  How far would Pastor Price go in liberalizing the evangelical witness?

To a large degree, all churches (pro-gay, Roman Catholic, evangelical) believe that homosexuals are different, they take on an identity, and their behavior follows from that identity.  And all would agree that Christians have no scriptural basis to “hate” a person living a homosexual lifestyle and that Christians must lovingly reach out to homosexuals in witness, affirming their movement towards becoming believers and towards being conformed to Christ.  However, this agreement ends when attention is placed on the end goal of Christ-like conformity.  Apostle Paul makes the goal clear when he warned that unrepentant homosexuals would not inherit the Kingdom.  Paul said of homosexual offenders:
 

And that is what your were. But your were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.[iv]
 

In Romans 1:18-28, Paul gives an explanation of the difference, the identity and the behavior of homosexuals.  Regarding these verses, Robin Scroggs, author of The New Testament and Homosexuality, makes three points of clarification.  The first is that the phrase, “God gave them up,” means that people now living in the false reality do what they choose.  God does not force them into such false actions; his judgment lies in his leaving them where they want to be, in actions, which they think to be good and right.  This is the ultimate irony of their fate.  The second, is that Paul heaps up anthropological terms – heart, body, passions, mind – apparently to indicate that this false reality permeates a person’s entire existence.  All dimensions of one’s self are distorted by the false reality in which he or she lives.  The third relates to the use of the illustrations Paul chooses.  For the unfit mind (i.e. that which cannot judge between what is true and what is false) Paul inserts the most detailed and vigorous list of vices in all his letters (Romans 1:29-32).  Scroggs further clarifies that although Paul makes judgment on homosexuals, he is “not out to get them” anymore than other sinners.[v]
 

Regrettable for an evangelical preacher, Pastor Price joins the liberal camp in his opinion of the difference and the identity, and in his down playing of the view God holds of gay and lesbian sexual behavior (oral and anal sex) – what Pastor Price calls their “own set of disfunctionality.” In 1995, Danial A. Helminiak, Ph.D., outlined the postmodern, liberal, pro-gay position, which Pastor Price now parrots:
 

We now know that homosexuality is a core aspect of the personality, probably fixed by early childhood, biologically based, and affecting a significant portion of the population in virtually every known culture.  There is no convincing evidence that sexual orientation can be changed, and there is no evidence whatsoever that homosexuality is in any way pathological….in biblical times there was no elaborated understanding of homosexuality as a sexual orientation….Our question today is about people and their relationships, not simply about sex acts…Our question is about spontaneous affection for people of the same sex and about the ethical possibility of expressing that affection in loving relationships.  Because this was not a question in the minds of the biblical authors, we cannot expect the Bible to give an answer.[vi]
 

The liberal argument says, since God’s ideal cannot always be achieved in the present sinful world, concessions or exceptions must be made in line with man’s circumstances and proclivities.  If a man finds himself possessed of a homosexual passion, is there not some appropriate – albeit less than ideal – sense in which he can exercise it.  Must he be frustrated with unfulfilled physical desires, or is there a possible exception that can be granted?  The assumption underlying this question is that man’s imperfections and personal limitations call for lowering of God’s requirements; it is assumed that secondary moral demands are suitable enough in Christian ethics when circumstances beyond an individual’s control prevent him from full obedience to God’s revealed will.  Pro-gay religious scholar Reverend Dr. William Johnson, explains the theology behind this idea:
 

…we need to acknowledge that the Gospel writers and the missionary Paul did not possess the psychological, sociological, and sexological knowledge which now inform our theological reflections about human sexuality….We know that homosexuality is part of the created order, same-gender sex acts having been observed in a multitude of species from sea gulls to porcupines.[vii]
 

Johnson comments further, “One of the legacies of the Protestant tradition is the conviction that each of us has the freedom to evolve spiritually and to nurture our own biblical understanding and theology.”[viii]This line of thinking indicates a critical failure to understand the nature of God.  Christ settles for no lowering of this unqualified standard of holiness, no rationalizations, no exceptions to God’s high demand: “You are to be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.”[ix]
 

When Derrick  Bailey published Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, in 1955, he wanted to establish a revolutionary idea of fixed, innate sexual orientations, freeing homosexuality from moral judgment.  His invert construct gained a large following in spite of contradictory scientific evidence.  The reality of the bisexual and the idea of a continuum of sexual orientation, as later developed by Alfred Kinsey and others, was problematic to Bailey’s premise and to Pastor Price’s line of argument.  Marjorie Garber points out in her book VICEVERSA, some of the breadth of sexual orientation, which explodes Bailey’s invert theory:
 

(1)   a man who after ten years of marriage declares that he is gay, moves to San Francisco, and takes up a lifestyle of multiple male partners, phone sex with men, and gay activism;

(2)     a woman who was politicized by the feminist movement in the seventies and becomes a lesbian because she believes that real intimacy in a patriarchal culture is only possible with other women;

(3)     a couple who, like Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson in the earlier part of this century, or like Time magazine’s featured pair and hundreds of others today, remain happily married to one another and each have affairs with members of their own sex; and

(4)      young men and women who ‘come out’ as bi rather than gay or straight in high school, without passing through a ‘phase’ of gay or straight identity.[x]

(5)  there is simultaneous bisexuality (having separate relations with one man and one woman during the same period of time), and serial or sequential bisexuality (having sex with just men or just women over a period of time, and just the other sex over another period of time). [xi]
 

Queer orientations further undermine the credibility of an innate homosexual identity.  Science aside, the evolution of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (GBLTQ) politics has necessitated an end to the early liberation ideology of clear cut “fixed” identities.  Surya Monro explains the utility in identifying as “Queer.”  She writes:
 

Transgender and transsexual people who envisage going beyond the gender binary system to allow for longer-term fluidity, third-sex or androgynous identities form a significant minority of the wider trans communities…I think it could easily be and will be gotten rid of (male-female).  I think like in the past or maybe even the present it’s more like a set menu ‘A’ or a set menu ‘B’ and I see the future more like an Ala Carte menu and you can make your own choice about what you have for starters, for the main course or dessert or whatever…[xii]
 

And what about a pedophilic orientation?  What keeps the “P” out of GBLTQ?  In all societies it is a fact that a portion of the adult population is oriented to having sex with children.  This fact has not led society to advocate that the pedophile condition be seen as anything other than aberrant.  Paul Waller observes the gay-rights pitch that homosexuality is biologically inborn, an involuntary condition that is “beyond the reach of moral judgment” and then argues:
 

The same logic would confer moral legitimation on pedophiles, who could also and did claim that they were made that way and therefore were unable to help themselves. [xiii]
 

Says Waller:
 

This aspect of the controversy is not peripheral.  The virtual silence about male (homosexual) pedophilia and pederasty maintained by the mental health and social-work practitioners for, lo, these many years, is scandalous.[xiv]
 

Waller also notes that among gay-rights militants, ideological rationalizations for child sexual exploitation often take rather bizarre forms:
 

Many gay men acknowledge that they have initiated encounters [with young boys].  They argue that these types of relationships offer young boys the only real possibility for healthy acculturation into homosexuality…These attitudes, so pronounced and accepted in [gay] culture…allowed a Covenant House-Father Bruce Ritter case to develop and operate for twenty years…[xv]
 

In the Netherlands, it is legal for homosexual adults to have consensual sex with anyone age 12 or older; yet in North America, the age for pedophilia is 13 and younger.  Where would Pastor Price suggest the boundary be set to totally affirm homosexuals involved in man-man relationships while not affirming man-boy relationships?  Does he differentiate man-boy relations as less wholesome than man-man relations?  How would his call for total affirmation apply to pedophiles?  These are not peripheral questions.  To parallel his words, “there are thousands of homosexual lifestyles;” if true, then there are also many pedophilic relationships.  And in an interview study conducted by Sandfort (1983) on a sample of 25 Dutch boys aged 10 to 16 involved in ongoing sexual relationships with men, the boys said that they experienced their relationships, including the sexual aspects, predominantly in positive terms.  Sandfort reported that evidence of exploitation or misuse was absent, and that the boys tended to see the pedophile as a teacher, as someone they could talk to easily and with whom they could discuss their problems.[xvi]  If this study is accurate, then there exists a degree of hypocrisy, if not paradox, in “being kind” and “affirming” to those in man-man relations, while consenting to the incarceration of all men who have sex with boys 13 or younger in Canada (12 and under in Holland).  John B. Murray, in his article “Psychological profile of pedophiles and child molesters,” described the justification peophiles used for their relations:
 

The justification given most often (by 29 per cent of the sample) was that the victim had consented.  Having been deprived of conventional sex was the rationalization of 24 per cent.  Intoxication was stated by 23 per cent, and 22 per cent claimed the victim had initiated the sexual activity.[xvii]
 

The long and the short of the issue for Christians: unrepentant homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom, sodomy and oral sex are sinful behaviours regardless of the circumstances and ages involved.  The conduct can never be affirmed.
 

But Freedom of choice is restricted to the information one has in his mind.  The human will can only choose what the mind has first grasped.  So if our minds are shielded from the truth of the Gospel, this effectively keeps us from getting to know God and from fulfilling God’s purpose for creating each of us.[xviii]   And the Gospel truth is that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior for the homosexual, no less, no more, than for heterosexuals.  This said, there is always hope in Christ, and this message is equally true for pedophiles (hetero or homosexual).  The only way that Evangelical Christians can accept and affirm homosexuals as people is in accordance with scripture.  This can be done without negatively impacting their self-esteem and at the  same time giving them hope where there is sin and shame.  Rebirth in Christ takes affirmation and acceptance to their highest levels.
 

No Choice No Change No Sin

Regretfully, Pastor Price again is voicing opinions from the liberal pro-gay camp.  He asserts that homosexuals have no choice, they know their orientation from childhood, and their chances of deliverance from that orientation are extremely rare.  To make these claims about the personhood of homosexuals and then ask his evangelical congregation to affirm them as people is a huge dilemma.  How can one have a deliverance ministry, if these ideas are the theological and scientific presuppositions?  What does helping homosexuals find their place in God and in God’s purposes mean, if not, as Apostle Paul implies, the end of same-sex sexual relations and deliverance from yielding to the temptation.  Paradoxically, after making the pro-gay assertions above, Pastor Price goes on to applaud the work of Exodus International’s homosexual deliverance ministry.
 

A number of points should be made regarding the notion that homosexuality is an identity known from youth.  FreeToBeMe.Com  has this to say about teen experimentation:
 

‘If I think I might be gay or lesbian, shouldn’t I try it out to see if I am?’ We do not recommend trying GBLTQ out.  Having sex with another of the same sex will not tell you whether you are gay or lesbian!  It will tell you your body is designed to respond to physical and sexual touch, indeed gross deception.[xix]
 

If what you are questioning is ‘Do I have a homosexual orientation’ the only way to determine that is to wait and see. Remember that    orientation is the general direction of attraction over time. Most times the best way to clarify an orientation is to give it time. Up to 25% of youth are unsure of their orientation in grade 9, but by grade 12 only 9% are still unsure.
 

The best question you can ask yourself,if you are thinking ‘Am I gay?’ is “What do I want?” Your feelings do not determine who you are. They are part of you, an important part at that, and trying to pretend they aren’t there is pointless. But they are only PART. In deciding if you want to embrace a gay identity you should think how those attractions fit in with all the other parts of you. What is most important in your life? If your attractions to the same sex fit in with those other areas, then it is likely you will feel comfortable with a gay identity.[xx]
 

Note that “comfortable” does not make the lifestyle right.  After years of study and experience, researcher Martin S. Weinberg concludes:
 

No theory of sexual preference should ignore the mundane feature of sexual pleasure.  Unfortunately, many of them do.  We believe that sexual pleasure in its various forms is ordinarily the main reason people have sex.  The role of pure physical pleasure seems much clearer for men.  Men, in all three preference groups in our research, had their first sexual experience much earlier than women.  Men thus learn early that sexual pleasure is possible with both sexes, and that given the great difficulty of getting female partners, other men may be acceptable substitutes.  This accounts for why there seemed to be a more genital focus on same-sex behavior of bisexual men. [xxi]
 

Alfred Kinsey claimed that the first few sexual encounters could be crucial to influencing the direction of sexual preference.  Negative experiences drove people away from particular practices and positive experiences reinforced behaviors.  And Phyllis Chesler argues, as do many others, that anyone can become bisexual, if not, homosexual, just by acquiring enough sexual experience.  She cites the following passage from Gilbert D. Bartell, Group Sex, in illustration:
 

When a couple is new to swinging and the woman has never been exposed to another woman, she usually says that she would find this repulsive and cannot imagine it.  After the first two or three parties where she sees women obviously enjoying each other, she is likely to modify her stand and say, ‘I do enjoy having a woman work on me, but I could never be active with another women.’  Then, when she has been in swinging for several months and attending many parties, she may well say, ‘I enjoy everything and anything with a women, either way she wants to go.’…at large open parties we observed that almost all the women were engaged in homosexual activity with obvious satisfaction, especially if a younger group is involved.[xxii]
 

Gay author Johnathan Dollimore, puts a certain perspective on the role of “experiential pleasure” in leading one away from heterosexuality and towards same-sex attraction.  He speaks of his own conversion narrative:
 

Because I’d never fantasized about that.  I never desired it.  When it happened it was just an incredible transformation…I can remember sitting down and thinking, look, if that degree of radical transformation in my sexual life is possible, where I become the unthinkable, anything is possible…So for me that was a conversion.  It changed everything.  And my life is still structured in relation to that revolutionary event.  So I can understand the conversion narrative.  What I would not tolerate, and what I would tease and be quite aggressive to is people who then embrace that sort of thing in the exclusionary identity politics mode.  You know, of saying: ‘I am now gay.  My whole life is that story.’ I just don’t believe that desire works like that.[xxiii]
 

And Joan Laird, writing for the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, also disagrees with the predominant notion of fixed homosexuality from youth.  She writes:
 

One of the problems with research in this area, which may be used to support the hypothesis that gayness or lesbianism is biological, is that it is often late adolescents or adults who are explaining their sexual orientation from a retrospective position.  Kitzinger and Wilkinson point out that ‘this focus on adolescence is a consequence of an essentialism that assumes a dormant, true lesbian self waiting to be discovered or revealed at puberty or shortly thereafter.’ It does little to explain the experiences of women who may change their self-identity from heterosexual to lesbian in early, mid-, or even late adulthood. From their research with women who made transitions from heterosexuality to lesbianism, they concluded that ‘adult women who make such transitions are no more driven by biology or subconscious urges than they are when, for instance, they change jobs; such choices could be viewed as influenced by a mixture of personal re-evaluation, practical necessity, political values, chance, and opportunity.’[xxiv]
 

In the pamphlet titled, “BE YOURSELF: Q & As for Gay, Lesbian, Two-spirited and Bisexual Alberta Youth,” Planned Parenthood Alberta and Parents For Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) give the following advice to youth:
 

There Are No Waverers Just Hardened Inverts
 

Imagine you are the senior pastor at The People’s Church.  You are holding a boys or girls youth discussion group (12-15 year-olds) after handing them the above pamphlet, wishing to now instruct them on a wholesome and affirming approach to homosexuals.  The group’s interest in sexuality is tweaked.  What will you tell them is permissible?  One possible response – experimental sex is not God’s will.  “But how will we discover our orientation?” asks a youth.   In time you will mature and fall in love with a man, or a woman, or both.  You will choose to marry one or both.  After God’s matrimonial blessing you can have sex.  The two or three of you will be bound for life - the two or three shall become one.  [I don’t think so].  A pro-gay response - experimental sex is a natural process which allows you to find out your sexuality.  God has not necessarily indicated your sexuality by the genitalia you have; therefore, only through trial and error will your true orientation be revealed.  Since the ability to experiment is constrained by the “opportunities” that come along, same-sex activities usually come first.  An astute youth, with no particular leanings either way, naively asks, “If same-sex experimentation gives us great pleasure, how much experimenting should we do before checking out the opposite sex?”  Another adds, “I thought we had to get married before engaging in sex?”  One answers before the pastor can respond, “It is okay to have pre-marital sex as long as you are honest and tell the partner you are just experimenting.”  “Does it matter if the trials are done in a group?”  “Is it okay to get an older person to explain how and what we are to do?” “So it is permissible, even if I think at the time that I am straight, to check out gay (or lesbian) sex, just to make sure?” “What if we enjoy both?” “Pastor what is lust?” “Pastor, what is sodomy?” The senior pastor is just about to say something when the question is asked “Pastor what do we need to do to conform to the likeness of Jesus Christ?”  The pastor remains speechless.  The biblical response that has stood for two millennia, homosexual acts, of any kind, at any age, under any circumstance, are a sin.
 

Like so many doctrinal issues in liberal “inclusive” or doctrinally compromised churches, it is better to not talk in detail about lifestyle choices and practicalities.  Pastor Price misses the obvious dilemma between publicly declaring scriptural guidance on homosexuality to warn wavering youth (boys and girls who could go either way) of the spiritual and ecological consequences of such behavior and simultaneously trying to fulfill his wish of totally affirming those in the homosexual lifestyle or those who see themselves as gay/lesbian identified.  He is a victim of the old liberation propaganda, which informs his opinion – wavers don’t exist, just boys and girls with clear fixed innate identities.  Neo-liberation ideology, reflected in the earlier quoted pamphlet from Planned Parenthood and PFLAG acknowledges the implausibility of ridged categories of orientation, and declares wherever you are on the sexual continuum (whatever you want) is ok, you are not alone.
 

No Identity Does Not Drive Behavior
 

Martin Weinberg writes that sexual identities – choosing to name oneself or being named in terms of the sex of the partner one chooses – are crucial to forging sexual preference.  Choosing a sexual identity is like a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Sexual identity gives meaning to a person’s sexual feelings and behaviors by defining these as signs that the individual is a special type of person – in our culture a “heterosexual,” “homosexual,” “bisexual,” “transgendered,” “queer” or “pedophile.’  For persons dealing with sexuality confusions (who are not perfectly attracted one way) a sexual identity can stabilize the sexual preference.   If you know what you are it organizes what you do.  And it allows for social support from others who identify similarly.  Sexual identities provide the social “cement” which sets sexual preference in place.[xxv]
 

Weinberg discovered that identity does not dictate behavior.  Writing under the subject, “Fluidity of Sexual Preference,” Weinberg explains the impact AIDS has had on the orientation of bisexuals.  Given that AIDS has been called a “gay disease” and that bisexuals are widely thought of as carriers of the disease, could the disease change a bisexual preference?  Was their dual attraction fixed, or could it be given up easily?  If so, were they “really” bisexual?  All these questions reflect on the wider question of the adaptability of sexual preference to environmental change.  What is changeable and what is not?  Weinberg found that the major change for the bisexuals was their avoidance of men - particularly bisexual men - as sexual partners.  Women were especially likely to do this.[xxvi]  Some comments from those interviewed include:
 

I wouldn’t sleep with bisexual men at this point and I would have in the past.  [Why?] Because they could possibly be carrying the [HIV] virus.  It seems risky to sleep with men who have been sleeping with other men.  (F)
 

It’s been comforting to be able just to relate to females and I feel that’s an easy and valid option and a safe one too.  (F)
 

Weinberg found not only did bisexual women reject men as sex partners, but to a lesser degree bisexual men did as well.  Some bisexual men said:
 

I’ve stopped having sex with men.  AIDS was a big reason.  It was just not worth it.  I was afraid that women would not want to be involved with a bisexual man.  My identity as a bisexual has diminished, as I don’t act on my bisexual feelings. (M)
 

Since I feel flexible in my sexuality and can choose between genders, I’ve made a conscious effort to choose women and avoid the AIDS problem. (M)[xxvii]
 

Thus the AIDS crisis forced many bisexuals to examine their sexual preference and to make choices.  They were aware of the flexibility of their choices, at least insofar as their sexual behavior was concerned.  All aspects of the bisexuals’ sexual preference seemed to be touched by the emergence of AIDS: their frequency of sex; their number and balance of same sex/opposite sex partners; their view of sexual pleasure versus intimacy; their choice of some sex acts over others, and so on.  And this has occurred through factors in the social environment that Weinberg described as involved relationships, group ideologies, group support, the sexual politics of minorities, and the wider community in which they became involved.  In sum, says Weinberg, “AIDS had sharply increased the importance of environmental factors.” He also found many other reasons bisexuals gave for changing their orientation.  He writes:
 

…deciding that the heterosexual label more accurately fit them; problems of self-acceptance; a result of undergoing therapy; a spiritual transformation; a desire for monogamy; wanting a traditional marriage; and having a baby.  This last case is instructive as it shows how a change in sexual preference can be affected by a typical life event, which is often underrated in academic theories of sexuality.[xxviii]

[More on AIDS and health risks later in this article.]
 

How Much Of Same-Sex Attraction Is Of The Spirit?

Pastor Price relates a story about the son of a longtime friend.  The son’s mother had explained to Pastor Price, “He left university and got a job in London; he was doing well, was part of a church; he came home three months ago and said to us I have got to tell you something, I’m homosexual and I’ve met another man and I am in love with him.”  Beyond an aching heart for the agony that the couple and their son are going through, Pastor Price backs away from placing this act in full biblical light.  The tacit implications in Pastor Price’s hesitancy: (1) since this man claims a homosexual identity he should be affirmed, loved, and supported in his new relationship; (2) this man had no choice, he cannot/should not be held to the traditional Christian moral standard, a unique moral code should apply; and (3) when same-sex attraction is strong, they should be allowed to marry.  When a married heterosexual man finds that he has a burning attraction for another woman, or another man, or a person age 13 or younger; but not for his wife, and he comes home to tell his parents the marriage is over because he is now madly in love with somebody else, how should the parents react?  What should his pastor do at the news? What should they do in the long-term, if he flatly refuses to change his mind, claiming an obsession with this new love?  Does the nature of a man’s attraction make a difference?  If he has been the victim of a terribly abusive spouse, does this matter?  How much of this man’s or the homosexual son’s burning desire is of the Spirit?  Is heterosexual adulterous desire fundamentally different in God’s eye than homosexual desire?  If so, why?  The fact that parents (friends and relatives) must ultimately make some accommodation to the new circumstances in such cases or end all relations with their son, does not make adulterous or homosexual acts righteous.  Nor does the level of burning attraction change the unrighteous nature of the choices that these sons have made.
 

Biblical Identity
 

The Bible is clear, the only identity acceptable for a Christian is an identity in Christ.  In her testimony, “Letting Go of Loneliness,” in Portraits of Freedom, Ann Phillips gives her testimony to Christ-like conformance:
 

Try as I might, I was never satisfied with their answers.  The attitudes, activities and rhetoric of the pro-gay theology movement never seemed to line up with what I was reading in Scripture and hearing in my heart.  So many of their positions seemed to be motivated by self-interest and anger.  No one appeared to be particularly concerned that they or anyone else move closer to Christ.  The focus was all about getting our acceptance and affirmation of our homosexuality from the church, regardless of cost…
 

People all around me were saying things like, “I didn’t ask to be gay” and “I was born this way.”  These were statements I had made all my adult life.  Then a woman seated right next to me made another comment I’d said many times, ‘And no one can change me.’
 

Yes “just as I am” captures the believer’s condition at the moment of conversion and Christ’s acceptance.  The background of this famous hymn sets the context for “just as I am” and is not immaterial to this review.  In 1835, Miss Charlotte Elliott was vi­sit­ing some friends in the West End of Lon­don, and there met the em­i­nent min­is­ter, Cėsar Malan.   While seat­ed at sup­per, the min­is­ter said he hoped that she was a Christ­ian. She took of­fense at this.  When they met again, three weeks lat­er, Miss Ell­i­ott told the min­is­ter that ev­er since he had spok­en to her she had been try­ing to find her Sav­iour, and that she now wished him to tell her how to come to Christ. “Just come to him as you are,” Dr. Ma­lan said. This she did, and went away re­joic­ing.  Shortly af­ter­ward she wrote the hymn:

…Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come…
 

All can agree that God’s marvelous grace under girds our conversion (“just as I am), regardless of sexual orientation.  However, the issue is what lifestyle one lives after becoming a committed Christian?  What is ambiguous in Pastor Price’s message is the relationships between recognition of sin, repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation with God, and sanctification.  Sanctification means to be set apart: “Ye shall be holy unto me; for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that ye should be mine.”[xxx]  If one keeps bringing the same set of disfunctionality before God; if three years after coming to Christ, one is “just as he or she was” - unchanged, what can be said about the sanctification process, except that it is “stalled,” if never started.  Mike Ensley’s deliverance witness sheds light on the sanctification process.  He writes in “True Love Changes You: How Jesus Christ Loved Me Out of Homosexuality:”
 

One day, when I was in one of the places I went to 'hook up,' feeling disgusted with myself but hopelessly needy, I was suddenly overcome by the presence of the Lord.  I heard this voice in my heart telling me Jesus had followed me there, even to that nasty sinful place, and wanted me to come back with Him.  This revelation about His true feelings toward me began a slow but inevitable change in my mind.  I knew I was meant for better, and for the first time dared to believe my life could change…[Now] everyone wants to know: "Do I like girls!?" The answer is: "I'll get there when I'm supposed to!"  Many aren't impressed to hear this.  You aren't supposed to be impressed with me, but with God's love, grace and power.  Heterosexuality isn't the goal, holiness is.  And I am getting there!...As I walk daily in deeper intimacy with Him, and in genuine intimacy with other guys, I experience continuing victory over this struggle. Soon I will celebrate four years of freedom.[xxxi]
 

In The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts a label on the notion of habituallybringing one’s set of disfunctionality before God.  He recognizes this phenomenon as unscriptural and labels it cheap grace.  He said:
 

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like a cheapjack's wares.  The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut-rate prices.  Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits.  Grace without price; grace without cost!  And the essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing.  Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite.  What would grace be, if it were not cheap?  In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin.  Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.  Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.  Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, (it is) baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.  Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.[xxxii]
 

In the above quote, Bonhoeffer was putting in his own words what The Book of Hebrews records will be the consequence of habitual sin:
 

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only the fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.  Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.  How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?  For we know Him who said, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge His people.’  It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.[xxxiii]
 

There Is Nothing Dignified About The Gay Lifestlye

Pastor Price’s construct of everyone with “equal dignity” before God is a curious one.  If the intent of this notion is to proclaim homosexual offenders, of no different ranking, no less dignified, their sin no more of an indignity before God than heterosexual offenders, then Amen. On the other hand pro-gay theology argues that sodomy and oral sex among consenting homosexuals, particularly if married and monogamous, holds equal dignity with heterosexual intercourse between spouses.  This theological travesty is at center of the homosexual liberation controversy and same-sex marriage symbolizes the crowning deception.  Sodomy has been legal since the release of George Klippert, jailed for gross indecency in the 1960s; however, the behavior remains no less of an offence before God.
 

The fact is the gay lifestyle is not only behaviorally undignified, but for the overwhelming majority of men, it is perilously dangerous.  The threat of HIV and AIDS within the homosexual community causes very real stress, deep depression and low self-esteem.  When  Pastor Price is trying to choose between warning young men of God’s moral guidance and the consequences of living the gay lifestyle or totally affirming those who believe homosexuality is their identity, he would be wise to factor in the health risk.  Honest, frank discussion of the hazards of the homosexual lifestyle is speaking the truth in love.
 

The twined relationship of AIDS to gay sexual behavior was first pointed out by Columbia researchers Martina Morris and Laura Dean in their ground breaking paper on the effects of behavioral change on the spread of HIV.  They said:
 

Under the optimistic scenario where the average number of new, unsafe sexual partners per year does not increase above one, the virus could affect less than five percent of the gay population by the year 2030. But with an average of two new unsafe partners per year, instead of the reported one, the virus would continue to be transmitted at epidemic levels and infect about 25 percent of younger men and about 60 percent of men who reach their late 40s.[xxxiv]
 

In Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men, Gabriel Rotello describes the dilemma for the gay community caused by the AIDS pandemic:
 

The fact is that many people do not seem able to use condoms consistently enough to stem the epidemic.  Condoms are very important in the battle against AIDS, but total reliance on the Condom Code blinds us to the fact that condoms are just one narrow possible arsenal of responses to AIDS.  The Condom Code in the gay world is, in many ways, as much a political as a medical construction.  Its dual purpose has been to prevent HIV transmission while preserving the ‘sex positivity’ of gay male culture, thereby proving that the gay sexual revolution of the seventies can continue during a fatal epidemic of a sexually transmitted disease.  But it provides virtually no room for error, and is in many respects anti-ecological, a classic ‘technological fix,’ because it has never addressed the larger factors in the gay environment that helped spread HIV. [xxxv]
 

The very behaviors that gay activists had spent years promoting seemed to have contained the seeds of disaster.  But since promiscuity and anal sex were perceived by many (thought certainly not all) gay men to be central to liberation…The question then became, if anal sex and promiscuity equal liberation, and AIDS is spreading due to anal sex and promiscuity, how can gay men control the spread of AIDS without sacrificing liberation?…These two challenges created a dual imperative that has characterized gay AIDS prevention to this day: to prevent the spread of HIV, but only in a way that defends gay men against attacks from the right and preserves the multipartnerist ethic of the gay sexual revolution.  In what was undoubtedly one of the tallest orders a prevention strategy ever had to fill, safer sex was to be a political and social as much as a medical or ecological construction.[xxxvi]
 

What community with a median age of death from AIDS of 39, and for non-AIDS deaths 42, [xxxvii] would not have some members wishing to abstain, if not escape from the lifestyle? Peoplecanchange.com offers a clear explanation of why many homosexuals want to change their orientation:
 

In so many ways, ‘gay’ just didn't work for us.  It was so easy to become sex-obsessed in the pornography- and lust-saturated culture of homosexuality.  It was so difficult to feel connected to God or some kind of higher purpose in a life where the mantra seemed to be, ‘If it feels good…nothing else matters.’  We were living in dissonance with the values, beliefs and goals we'd held for a lifetime.  We pined for love and acceptance from men, but it seemed that so many gays so idolized youth and physical perfection that we often felt more rejection from gays, not less.  Still, we kept searching, partly because we didn't know where else to look and partly because we did find moments of pleasure and moments of real connection with good, decent and kind homosexual men. Those were the moments that kept drawing us back to homosexuality, hoping and believing that maybe the next boyfriend, the next encounter, would finally make us feel whole.  But for most of us, the hole inside of us that yearned for male affirmation and acceptance just got bigger the more that we pursued healing in homosexuality. Several of us were plagued by thoughts of suicide. Some of us became sex addicts, no longer able to control our obsessive search for sex. Our lives became filled with darkness.[xxxviii]
 

Deliverance Fundamentally Does Not Affirm the Homosexual Identity
 

A true dilemma exists for those wishing to reach out in a wholesome way to these men and women struggling for deliverance without casting moral judgment on those happily gay or joyously lesbian.  The dilemma is this, each time a homosexual is sanctified (delivered from the gay lifestyle) the message sent to the remaining unrepentant friends and partners is negative; is a blow to their self-esteem; is guilt-tripping; is non-affirming.  The message sent to gay and pro-gay churches is no less negative.  It is vital to the pro-gay Christian movement that it convinces everyone, especially its critics, that homosexuality simply cannot be repented of, any more than skin color or gender can be abandoned.  Even genuine seekers and struggling Christians at The Peoples Church can fall into why-him-and-not-me despair.
 

The enemy is interested in getting people to accept second best; to give up on Christ.  The devil is a master at creating depression and low self esteem, but Christians are no longer of that realm, there is hope and victory in Christ.  Wholesome love and witness must always exalt the victories in Christ, take pride in them and reveal them for all to see.  Bob Davies of Exodus International exalts what Christ is doing:
 

Many former homosexuals tell us that there is only one genuine reason that they have been successful: they have abandoned homosexuality in obedience to God’s Word.  They see changing their homosexuality as a side effect of an even bigger goal: being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  One former homosexual said, ‘My prayer since the day I entered ex-gay ministry has been the same: ‘Lord, make me into the man of God that you created me to be.’  This man, now married for fifteen years, did not come into counseling with the primary goal of becoming straight.  He wanted to experience life in all its richness, as Jesus promised in Scriptures: ‘I have come that you might have life, and have it to the full.’ (John 10:10).[xxxix]
 

And an ex-lesbian wrote of the glory and grace of her deliverance:

Dear Sirs:

I understand that you are considering the ordination of professing homosexuals.  Please would you consider my testimony before deciding.

I grew up in the United Presbyterian Church.  It was there that I came to know and to love the Lord Jesus Christ.  At age 12 I asked God to fill me with His Holy Spirit.  I am sure that He did.  Still, while in college I was drawn into relationship with another woman.  I felt great about it at first; my sexual desires were being met, and I was still very much into filling the desires of the flesh.

It was six years before the Holy Spirit began convicting me, slowly, gently at first, then more and more powerfully until I could live with myself no longer.  I went to my minister and confessed the whole thing….The Lord gave me a Scripture at the time.  It was Revelation 21:5, ‘Behold I make all things new.’  He continues to renew our lives daily, and therefore I recognize in this other person a ‘new creature in Christ Jesus.’  Praise God!  I cannot thank Him enough for lifting me out of the mire and setting me once again on solid ground.

Homosexuality is a dead end.  While I was so busy gratifying the desires of my flesh it was impossible for God to give me the desires of my heart.  Now He is free to do so.  I have dated several young men in the past year, and have enjoyed each date.  There has been fellowship and sharing about the Lord Jesus Christ.  In addition I have a joy I could not experience before.  I can once again look forward to getting married.

God wants the best for us.  Let’s not settle for second best.  God bless you in your decision.

Sincerely in Christ[xl]

The alternative message is not wholesome, not of hope, not of change.
 

No! - For Those Wanting Deliverance Science Is On Their Side

Pastor Price’s view, anchored in pro-gay ideology, is not factual.  Science has positive things to say about reorientation success (for those wanting to change). In 1997, NARTH surveyed 882 individuals who had experienced some degree of sexual-orientation change.  Before counseling or therapy, 68 percent of the respondents perceived themselves as exclusively or almost entirely homosexual.  After treatment, only 13 percent perceived themselves as exclusively or almost entirely homosexual.  The respondents were overwhelmingly in agreement that conversion therapy had helped them cope with and reduce their homosexual attractions.  Many perceived their homosexual behaviors as an addiction.  A large majority said their religious and spiritual beliefs played a crucial, supportive role in overcoming their homosexuality.  Areas of functioning in which the respondents report significant improvement:
 

self-acceptance and self-understanding; sense of personal power and assertiveness; sense of clarity and security in gender identity; diminishment of loneliness and depression; improvement in emotional stability, self-esteem and maturity; better ability to resolve interpersonal conflicts; diminishment of homosexual thoughts, feelings and behaviors.[xli]
 

This data is totally affirming of their personhood!  What differentiates these men and women from others is they choose to not identify as gay or lesbian.
 

Isn’t it ironic, that the chief attack against the scriptural guidance on homosexuality is that the biblical characters were not as informed on the facts and science of same-sex attraction, as we are today?  What Pastor Price does in his sermon is offer his opinion, based on shallow research, by adding some negative evidence to some positive evidence and then concluding that the answer is zero – The best we can say is the jury is still out.” 
 

Neil and Briar Whitehead, authors of My Genes Made Me Do It, do not agree with Pastor Price’s conclusion.  They write:
 

There is nothing fixed or final about the homosexual orientation and its natural expression, homosexual behavior.  No one has to stay homosexual or lesbian, in orientation or behavior, if he or she doesn’t want to and informed support is available.  No politician, church leader, church member, judge, counselor, homosexual person, or friend or family of a homosexual person, needs to feel forced into a position on homosexuality based on the apparent immutability of the homosexual orientation.  Homosexuality is not inborn, not genetically dictated, not immutable.[xlii]
 

John DeCecco, editor of the Journal of Homosexuality and professor of psychology at San Francisco State University writes:
 

The idea that people are born into one type of sexual behavior is foolish.'  The move towards 'biologizing' homosexuality, he says, isn't the result of a scientific consensus, but a political consensus by those eager to label people gay or straight.  Homosexuality, he says, is a 'behavior, not a condition,' and something that some people can and do change, just like they sometimes change tastes and other personality traits.[xliii]
 

Dr. Judd Marmor writes on the work of Richard Green:
 

...a long series of studies on boys who showed effeminate behavior in childhood has demonstrated that although over half of these boys do become homosexual, a substantial minority of them do not. This indicates that gender-discordant children are not born homosexual, but rather are born with certain behavioral tendencies that, given contributory environmental factors, can predispose them towards homosexual behavior. Thus, a little boy whose behavior is effeminate, who does not like competitive athletics, and who prefers music and art, may be disappointing to a macho father, who tends to reject the boy and distance himself from him. The mother may respond by overprotecting her son. Such reactions disturb the boy's capacity to identify positively with his father and cause him to over identify with his mother. He may then ultimately develop homosexual erotic responses, which are reinforced by later experiences.[xliv]
 

Much more can and should be said on both the science of homosexuality and of deliverance.  There are choices.  There are successes for those who want to change.  To avoid evangelicals entering into a co-dependent relationship with homosexuals (preventing them from accepting responsibility for their actions and doing something to change behaviors) we need to think twice about parroting the “we didn’t choose to be this way” defense.  All Christians are born as sinners; yet, this has never been claimed as a justification to mitigate pursuit of righteousness or as a defense against judgment.  Pedophiles, drug addicts, serial adulterers, serial killers and physical abusers etc. may claim that they didn’t willing choose their behaviors.  How consequential is the issue of choice, if the goal in each case is to stop?
 

Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right

Pastor Price is right; there are very few churches offering a loving, supportive and biblically correct deliverance ministry.  He is also accurate about the need for holiness and purity within Christendom.  However, devaluing the importance of a pure and holy response to homosexuality under the line of reasoning, “let he who has not sinned cast the first stone” is hardly the way to start.  Two wrongs do not make a right.  Parading the ills of heterosexual witness within Christendom may expose hypocrisy, but it does nothing to change biblical revelation on homosexuality.
 

This commentary on “The ‘Same Sex’ Marriage Dilemma” closes on this subject of holiness and purity in the church and on the priority to be given to homosexual deliverance ministry.  Extreme caution must be exercised in how we reach out to the homosexual community.  The liberal direction that Pastor Price advocates points down a path that ends at the United Church of Canada.  This body of over 3,500 congregations purports to be the most affirming, most inclusive, and most understanding mainline protestant Christian church in Canada; yet, there is no correlation between their liberal expression of love towards homosexuals and the practice of Christian holiness and purity.  In fact the relationship is the exact opposite.  The United Church is the poster denomination for apostasy.  In addition to condoning the homosexual lifestyle, homosexual ordination and same-sex marriage, the denomination is noteworthy for other heresies: 
 

Abortion is morally justifiable. – 1971

Fidelity includes openness to secondary relationships of intimacy and potential

 genital expression but with commitment to the primary marriage. – 1980

No I don’t believe Christ is God. – UCC Moderator, 1997

 Our society is multicultural, our world is multifaith; our church community has varying

theological perspectives in it.  Some make exclusive claims to absolute truth ...

While believing that our faith is grounded in truth, our truth need

 not deny the truths of others. – FAITH TALK II, 2005

Homosexuals welcomed into a pro-gay church may be able to share openly their views about same-sex attraction, but they are neither spiritually or physically safe.  Addressing an audience of over 200 delegates from 45 different Exodus International ministries, Alan Medinger said:
 

We are in a spiritual battle of staggering proportions. ‘Until now, widespread church support for redemptive ministry to homosexuals has been lacking, but AIDS is changing that.  Voices in the church previously speaking out in defence of the homosexual lifestyle are now strangely silent….During that same time period, the theology of homosexual behavior had been fervently debated in mainline denominations, then most of the committees had turned their attention to other ‘urgent’ issues of the day.  Then came AIDS.  Suddenly, the topic of homosexuality was of crucial concern again.  Pastors around the nation were shocked to discover that members of their church had been infected with the AIDS virus, mostly through homosexual activities.  The problem of homosexuality – even in conservative churches – could no longer be ignored.[xlv]
 

There is no dilemma in advocating the truth, only in trying to pursue a compromise path.  And Neil and Briar Whitehead describe the consequence of moving along a path of liberalism:
 

We see it in homosexual people themselves, most of whom want to change their orientation at some stage.  More than a third of gays now believe they were born that way – a 400 percent increase in 50 years.  They absorb the information that their sexuality is generic, inborn, ingrained, resistant to change, and their despair and anger fuels the fight for equal freedoms, which can only be ultimately disillusioning because it is based on a powerful untruth.[xlvi]
 

We cannot be in two boats at the same time.  If we affirm deliverance it must be at the expense of condoning homosexuality.  Withholding or diminishing in any way the message of hope in Christ’s power to overcome homosexual desires is just wrong:
 

I was deceived for a number of years into believing that there was nothing I could do to change my sexual orientation...I tried counseling, but was simply told to stop fighting the homosexual feelings and accept who I was. I became trapped in the compulsion of cruising, going to the gay bars, and getting involved in a number of empty relationships...The greatest freedom came when I discovered that I could move away from the addiction of homosexual behavior, and began to see myself differently.  Armed with knowledge, hope and direction, change can be deliberate and planned. This is true for everyone and for any difficulty, not just homosexuality.[xlvii]
 

The ruler of the “world” would love to deceive Christendom into affirming homosexuality, and in this regard, the same-sex marriage decision is an enormous blow.  Giving effective Christian witness in this era of redefined marriage will be more difficult than ever.  How authentic Christian churches respond to the state adopting a homosexist worldview and to individuals with same-sex attraction is hugely important, no less crucial than the crying need to confront the general lack of holiness, purity and biblical integrity displayed by Christendom’s heterosexuals.
 

Apostle Paul put the challenge squarely:
 

By this Gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.  Otherwise, you have believed in vain.[xlviii]
 

And to those who believed in Him, Jesus said:
 

If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.  Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.[xlix]
 

There is a choice to be made, there are alternatives to choose from, there is potential for a quandary.  The era today is not unlike that depicted In the Book of First Kings.  The pagan influence on Israel had seriously eroded the nation’s fidelity to God’s covenant.  They were neither loyal nor obedient to God’s commands.  In response, Elijah, ordered Ahab to send word throughout all of Israel to summon the people and to have the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table, assembled on Mount Carmel.  Elijah came before the people and said:
 

How long will you waver between two opinions?  If the Lord is God, follow him: but if Baal is God, follow him.[l]
 

Contrary to Pastor Price’s liberal-minded point-of-view, real love for homosexuals begins with proclaiming the Gospel truth, not with notions anchored to phrases like: “Scripture notwithstanding” or “However, having said that…” no matter how sincere.

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