Sinful Nature: A Pastoral Reflection on Homosexuality.
In 2014, the president of our awesome country, Uganda, categorically declared his ill feelings toward the LGBTQ+ community on international television. This was after the Parliament had passed the Anti-Homosexual Bill. The bill was passed but later quashed by the courts of law. The issue went silent for a few years only to reemerge recently with twice the fury. The new Anti-Homosexual Bill is currently awaiting the signature of this very same president.
Years ago, if I were asked whether the president’s actions were right, I would, in my bigotry, condone and fully give of my entire resources to back our dear president and Parliament on the grounds of my faith and the understanding therein.
To me, the concept of homosexuality was nothing short of a piece of hell on earth–disgusting and abhorrent. I just simply couldn’t understand or give ear to the repugnant notion that homosexuality was anything but what I knew it to be: filthy, revolting acts of disgrace that minimize the importance of true sexuality, reducing it to levels akin to primitive behavior. I challenged a dear friend then, who was questioning the intolerance of Christians towards the gay community. I let her have it, poor thing.
While my feelings toward the sexual act itself haven’t changed one bit, everything else has. Yes. I may receive criticism from the more conservative of my kind after this article is published but I must be clear: as a Christian, I am growing in the Word and I understand it better. It is that everything I am going to say here is based on my Christian identity and the Bible that undergirds my moral principles.
In the Christian faith, it is believed that “all have sinned” and not one is righteous. It is believed that since the fall of mankind, sin (the nature of missing the mark of God’s standard) entered the world and has remained steadfast to date. It is a common Christian belief that people are born sinners and in sin.
Whereas our dear president and all those he represents are right about the sinful acts embedded in homosexuality, while they may be right in condemning it as unnatural, I find criminalizing an individual, on grounds of their sexual orientation, a step too far. It is one thing to be a criminal like sex offenders, rapists, solicitors of juvenile prostitution, child trafficking, and the rest. It is also completely another being throw a person in jail because of their proclivity the “unspoken”. Not to sound like an alarmist but it brings a bit of fear to my heart that the state can determine, lawfully, which sexual orientation one must be.
I am not an advocate for LGBTQ practices (to put to rest the minds that may have termed me as such already). I do see the sacredness of proper sexuality in light of my faith. But the idea that I can dictate by law what orientation someone should be is, in my opinion, a stretch. Just because I am uncomfortable with it doesn’t mean someone must go to jail for it. Now I know the law is under scrutiny and there have been many inaccurate generalizations concerning the same law but I would hope that when a law is enacted and passed, it should protect the rights of all people, LGBTQ or not.
In the Christian faith, it is believed that “all have sinned” and not one is righteous. It is believed that since the fall of mankind, sin (the nature of missing the mark of God’s standard) entered the world and has remained steadfast to date. It is a common Christian belief that people are born sinners and in sin. We have a proclivity to endless sin and immeasurable evil. If this is true of us, then I wouldn’t put it too far from the truth that one can be born a Homosexual. For we live in a fallen world with all its depravities, how would we know which evil is natural and which one? Does it even matter?
If we can be born with the natural disposition to be selfish, adulterous, dishonest, hateful, inconsiderate, promiscuous, deceitful, and the like, then it is within the realm of possibilities that someone could be born with a disposition to sexual sin, including homosexuality. If this is indeed true, can we as Christians stand by and support a homophobic law that clearly legislates sin with what we would call malicious prejudice against those who identify as homosexual?
Homophobia by definition is a negative response to persons identifying as gay or lesbians. It involves discrimination and harassment of such persons because they present a threat to the way of life considered normal.
I wouldn’t argue with a homosexual individual who confesses how his state is what he has always known. I would treat them as I am called to treat any other sinner in need of the saving grace of our Lord and Savior…the conqueror of sin and death.
