Perspective – Part Two

Even more important, however, than the basic physical offensiveness of homosexual acts, or of the contemptuous way in which the gay community treats the rest of us, is the spiritual component of homosexuality.

My husband and I were Baptists/evangelicals. When we were married, he was a faithful believer who spent the first part of his morning reading the Scriptures and praying. He was pro-life. He believed that homosexual acts were a sin and that people burdened with the cross of homosexual tendencies were obligated to live as celibates.

He no longer believes these things.

I became Roman Catholic ten years ago, which gives me a new and stronger vocabulary for discussing this stuff.

First, we have the issue of “natural law.” The Apostle Paul was alluding to it when he wrote to the Romans that even pagans have a law that is written on their hearts, that reveals right and truth even to people who haven’t heard the Gospel (Romans 1). Natural law also tells us that sexual relations which in nature result in procreation, must be of the sort that can result in new life if they are going to adhere to that Natural Law. Homosexual acts cannot result in procreation; therefore they violate natural law.

Then we have the historical cultural evidence. Dennis Prager, in Judaism, Homosexuality and Civilization, points out that Judaism arose out of a pagan ancient world – a world in which sexual license-to-depravity was the social norm. Remember all the Greek gods and their proclivities? The ancients just weren’t quite so sophisticated with their mythologies, but the cultures operated the same way: homosexuality, bestiality, incest, fetishism…  But out of this milieu arose a family, which became a tribe, which became a nation!… who said that they’d been formed and called by a God who commanded them to live for Him in ways which included restricting their sexual encounters to the framework of marriage: heterosexual monogamy.

So, not everyone followed the rules. Kings, for instance, like David and Solomon, were polygamous (and got into some serious trouble for it, too). But the rules themselves didn’t change. God prohibited all the ordinary events of the pagan world. The homosexuality He called “abomination,” but He also prohibited bestiality, incest, and the like.

And when the Christian Church was established, and, lo and behold! Gentiles were coming to know Jesus Christ! (and Gentiles were not “protestant jews,” they were pagans) it caused such an uproar that the first Council of the Church had to be held to figure out how to handle them. I mean, this was a MAJOR paradigm shift, from Roman/pagan to Christian! — and Peter and the rest of the Apostles put their heads together and agreed: the new converts to Christ did not have to be circumcised, the signification of the Old Covenant of Abraham; instead, they were to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from sexual immorality.

In other words, the new Christians didn’t have to have their bodies mutilated, but they did have to abandon the old paradigm and embrace a wholly new one – a paradigm of chastity.

It couldn’t have been easy. We know this because the earliest records of the Church demonstrate that private Confession (sacramental Confession) was followed up by public penance – and severe penances were placed in effect for the former pagans falling back into old habits. Severe fasting, separation from the Eucharist and from the community were some of the penances assigned to those who fell into the old ways.

There was vigorous discussion whether one could even be saved, whether penance was possible, who had fallen back into such grave sin after baptism.

Paul, again, wrote of this to the Corinthians. Now, the Corinthians were a particularly depraved group of people with a reputation so lewd that calling someone a “corinthian” was a serious insult. And Paul reminded them of what they had escaped, in I Corinthians 6:
{6:9} Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers:
{6:10} Nor the effeminate nor liers with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor railers nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom of God.

And those are the very sorts of people the Corinthians had been – But Paul goes on to remind them:

{6:11} And such some of you were. But you are washed: but you are sanctified: but you are justified: in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God.

(emphasis mine) Get a load of it: the early Gentile converts to Christianity became…

Ex-gays!

Sure, societies have deviated from the norms throughout history. History is full of examples of kings and nobles who had a decided “thing” for young boys instead of for women. But the law of the Church and the expectations of society never changed.

So – Homosexuality is a very grave sin, perhaps the gravest of sins because of its association with paganism, with following after false gods. And because I believe in a coming Judgment, I worry and grieve far more for my husband’s immortal soul than I do for the abuses he’s placed his body under – or even the ravages to his character I’ve observed in the years since our divorce.

Yet those very character deviations stand out as evidences of the great spiritual damage he – and other homosexuals – are doing to themselves.

And this grieves me most of all.