Digging deeper A cultural issue?
Were thinking here about L, B as well as G attraction and want to come at this trying to understand what the Bible says both in its general message and in specific verses. We might feel more comfortable just accepting the current cultural imperatives and assuming the Bible is referring to a culturally-specific situation - like the injunction for women to wear headscarves
However "Nobody could read the Bible from Genesis-Revelation and conclude that God delights in homosexuality." Trevor Sheatz. The headscarf thing is culturally specific though it's important at the time because of the strong cultural baggage associated with it, and Paul treats it as such, appealing to their sense of propriety. This is not the same with same-sex attraction, where Paul in Romans is echoing the earlier unequivocal passage in Leviticus (
The fact that Leviticus and Genesis (Sodom) have reference to it in Semitic culture, as does Romans in a Greek/Latin one, shows that same-sex attraction has been present over that time and identified as outside God's will - as with other sexual activity outside male+female marriage. Sometimes references to it in Greek or Roman culture are cited as showing approval - and while there may be varying degrees of tolerance it never seems to have been treated as normative.
In some cultures today it has become tolerated as a 'civil rights' issue, ie to do with equality, and there is no longer prohibition in the West, instead legislation that prohibits discrimination. It seems activists are not happy with that and insist on forcing acceptance on those who do not agree - with accusations of 'homophobia' and indeed making it impossible to avoid the celebrating of it. So from first demanding tolerance, some are now intolerant of those who disagree. Recently we've seen a fuller extent of this with the declaration that "heteronormativity" is wrong. Same-sex attracted people say that for them that is natural, but activists want to deny that what is natural for the other 97% is 'normal' - when clearly it is by any definition of the word.
Wider issues
And there is something else going on here - the idea of 'queering' the culture - subverting it from what is (in this case) biologically and emotionally logical and straightforward.
In 1997, gay activist Paula Ettelbrick outlined the aims of the gay movement with a clearly-defined "queer" cosmology: Being queer is more than sleeping with a person of the same gender...it means transforming the very fabric of our society...the goal [is the] radically reordering society's view of family.' (The Other Worldview by Peter Jones)
It is also claimed by Critical Theory, along with Race, Disability and Fatism as vectors to accuse of oppression and demand obsequence & restitution (see article on CRT).
There is also a stand-off between LGB and T+ - with a new LGB Alliance organisation being formed to stand against the idea that same-sex attracted people are really opposite-sex attracted but in the wrong bodies. There are all sorts of things going on about identity, and how we feel, and in a sense these contradictions point to the need to discover who we really are - and can only really be made sense of with our creator.
This is undoubtedly not the intent of most same-sex attracted people, but it does point to a much wider issue that we now see with gender, identity and 'social justice'.
True love
We've seen in the Church many leaders adopting the wider cultural fashion - one is Michael Curry an American bishop. Gavin Ashenden (a past Chaplain to the Queen) comments:
This matters very much. Curry’s Jesus is preoccupied with social Justice and the celebration of romance and sexual love wherever it finds you. The real Jesus warned that social justice would never happen in this world, that heterosexual marriage was to be between a man and a woman, and that equality had nothing to do with the Kingdom of Heaven.
Curry twists that round and turns it upside down. He says Jesus likes homosexual marriage and favours the quest for equality that left-wing politicians have made their life’s work. Curry says wherever you find ‘love’ you have found God. But when Jesus defines love it sounds very different from Curry.
Love for Jesus starts with honouring and obeying the Father who created us and renouncing anything that displeases Him and pollutes his holiness.
Jesus warned his followers time and time again against people who would come in His name and teach different things.
God is not 'phobic' about us, even at our worse, nor unable to protect his holiness. But he - much more than us - recognises the source of our rejection of him and the damage it does to us. For a religious figure to pretend this is not so, and to teach it, is not a good look.
An alternative
There are many stories of people who have recovered their physically determined sex attraction and have recognised God’s best way for them. The group X-OUT-LOUD help with this - here's an example: https://www.xoutloud.com/matthew-grech/
Another Australian activist turned from this lifestyle and when asked why said that while sitting in a cafe he had a radical encounter with Jesus. He went on to study theology in the UK.
A good deal of opposite-sex emotional endorsement comes from peer groups, being part of the scene, so it's not just an individualistic process but one of understanding the group pressures, both intellectual and emotional, and recognising the fundamentally stronger call of God working through, supporting that with friendship and counsel.
