Friday, June 05, 2015
From Whence Identity?
Sarah Pulliam Bailey looks at ministries that rather then "heal" homosexuals attempts to urge them to be chaste. Don't get me wrong, this is admirable and good, but when we keep shifting the language we have a problem.
Shifting the language in this way is still trying to make it "OK" to have homosexual urges. It's "OK" in the sense that all of us have sinful urges of some sort, it is compassionate to recognize that, but what this seems to want to do is change identity from "sinner under grace" to "celibate homosexual" - that's a problem. Do we really want to make our sinful urges our identity? The closest analogy I can think of is "recovering alcoholic." But most people I know in that category, eventually quit referring to it that way, they just don't drink.
But there is also a sense of shame that comes with the term "alcoholic," recovering or otherwise. Hence it is not an identity, its a diagnosis. But "celibate homosexual" has a different ring to it. Grace loves in spite of shame, it does not erase it.
The urge to sin is the second most powerful force we can experience - the first being the grace and action of the Holy Spirit. If we identify with the second most powerful force, we severely limit what the most powerful can do.
I think we should all just be "sinners under grace."
homosexuality identity sin
Shifting the language in this way is still trying to make it "OK" to have homosexual urges. It's "OK" in the sense that all of us have sinful urges of some sort, it is compassionate to recognize that, but what this seems to want to do is change identity from "sinner under grace" to "celibate homosexual" - that's a problem. Do we really want to make our sinful urges our identity? The closest analogy I can think of is "recovering alcoholic." But most people I know in that category, eventually quit referring to it that way, they just don't drink.
But there is also a sense of shame that comes with the term "alcoholic," recovering or otherwise. Hence it is not an identity, its a diagnosis. But "celibate homosexual" has a different ring to it. Grace loves in spite of shame, it does not erase it.
The urge to sin is the second most powerful force we can experience - the first being the grace and action of the Holy Spirit. If we identify with the second most powerful force, we severely limit what the most powerful can do.
I think we should all just be "sinners under grace."
homosexuality identity sin
