A friend who as an educator found himself challenged with the statement: “I am a homosexual; this is how God made me.”
Grace Community International conforms to the uncompromising Biblical teaching that there are only two genders – male and female - and that there is only one normal, acceptable and God-created sexual attraction – that between a male and a female. All other sexual attractions, whether acted upon or not, are not only sinful but depraved in nature. As such, we reject as sin active homosexual behavior, so-called celibate homosexuals, so-called bi-sexual behavior and transgender or cross-dressing. GCI will not allow anyone to teach, to serve or to hold a positon of fellowship in our ministry who deviates from the clear Biblical standard by embracing, participating or condoning any of the aforementioned behavior. GCI will not knowingly minister or co-labor with any church or ministry that does not share this Biblical standard.
I. Scriptural Gender Hypocrisy The problem the church faces on this issue is that, in the modern protestant, charismatic and Pentecostal churches, their opposition to homosexuality and homosexual marriages simply comes across as arbitrary and mean-spirited to the homosexual community, the liberal religious community and the secularists. This is because of their own inconsistency and hypocrisy in applying gender-specific passages of Scripture to their own heterosexual community.
What I mean by this is that the modern Protestant church (and especially Pentecostal, charismatic and para-church movements) have arbitrarily abandoned heterosexual gender distinctions and roles based on culture. Passages concerning gender distinctions in appearance and clothing have long been discarded. (Example: 1 Corinthians 11:14-15 “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering.”) Gender distinctions in roles in the family are either openly discarded, explained away by “cultural context” or simply ignored. (Example: Ephesians 5:24 “But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.”) Gender roles in the church have either been openly discarded or are slowly being encroached upon. (Example: 1 Timothy 2:12 “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.”)
None of the compromises in these areas have been done by a deeper study and exposition of Scripture. They have been accomplished by subjecting clear Scripture to culture and psychology. The teachers simply say that these passages and others were given because of the cultural and historical circumstances of the time of their writing and are not meant to be imposed upon the modern 21st century Church. They make these claims with no Biblical authority which links Holy Scripture to the passage of time. They assert these "facts" with no Biblical authority which explains Holy Scripture in this area as specifically linked to the immediate circumstances of the passage. Rather, they expound these interpretations out of their own desire to free heterosexuals in the church from these Biblical constraints and to make the 21st century church more acceptable to 21st century western culture.
Having submitted heterosexual gender standards and roles to culture, they now want to enforce literally, across time and culture, all passages dealing with homo-sexual gender roles. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 6:9 God condemns both homosexuality and the feminization of men in dress and action: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals." You will find evangelicals using this passage to condemn homosexual behavior, transgender behavior among men, homosexual marriages and more. Yet in the very same book of the Bible, written to the same church in the exact same context of culture and time, you find a heterosexual passage which is simply set aside by the modern church: 1 Corinthians 11:8-9 “For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man; for indeed man was not created for the woman's sake, but woman for the man's sake.” And 1 Corinthians 11:14-15 “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering.” These passages are just two of a number of passages in 1 Corinthians dealing with heterosexual marriage, divorce, heterosexual roles and appearance which are routinely explained away by the evangelical church, while holding staunchly to the literal interpretation and enforcement of passages dealing with homosexuals in the same book of the Bible.
As such, modern evangelicals come across to the secularists and liberals as mean-spirited, arbitrary and bigoted. The evangelical Church will not be able to do this. They cannot at mid-point arbitrarily submit all homosexual gender roles and standards to a literal Biblical interpretation, while freeing heterosexuals in standards of dress, appearance, behavior and roles on the bases of the passage of time and the advancements of culture. Both heterosexual gender standards and homosexual gender standards take place in the context of Scripture in identical periods of time and culture. They are either all literal or they are all free from a literal interpretation on the basis of culture. We cannot arbitrarily select out and exclude heterosexuals while, at the same time, requiring homosexuals to submit to gender-specific passages.
II. Three illustrations of this Para-church organizations: It has long been the practice of para-church ministries of allowing women to teach and exercise authority over men. This includes classroom instruction of pastors and ministers in Bible colleges and seminaries. This includes conference speakers and small group leaders – not only of laypeople but of staff in the various organizations. It is not uncommon in so-called conservative para-church organizations for women to not only teach men but also to supervise and lead them spiritually. Direct organizational spiritual and administrative authority by women over men is common place.
The practice of Pentecostal, charismatic and some evangelical churches of allowing women to be pastors, preachers and ministers over mixed-gender ministries is also the norm. So-called women apostles, prophets, bishops, pastors and Bible teachers are common.
The dispute among mainstream liberal denominations over the ordination of homosexual ministers and bishops while, at the same time, condoning homosexuality as long as it does not entail church leadership is not only unscriptural but nonsensical.
The root cause is the failure on each count to hold the line on clear gender theology from the point of creation and the Scriptural application of gender theology. Once gender theology is removed from the authority of Scripture and subjected to culture and psychology, then no one may make dogmatic argument concerning gender passages on the basis of these passages alone. The problem the protestants face is that the very arguments they have used for decades to excuse themselves from gender-based heterosexual passages are now being turned on them (and justly so) in the area of gender-based homosexual passages. What the Protestants will have to do, and what they will be unwilling to do, is to return to a strict adherence to gender-based theology and practice as taught in Scripture. Because of this inability to conform to heterosexual Scripture, unless the church repents and returns to the Biblical standard, it is just a matter of time until all protestant churches succumb to the application of culture to homosexual marriages, just as they have to heterosexual.
I would, therefore, call upon all church boards, deacon boards, elder boards and ruling bodies of churches and para-church organizations to review their standards of dress, behavior and appearance of heterosexuals in their congregation and ensure that their faith and practice in this area is based on a consistent adherence to a theology of gender as described in the holy, eternal, inerrant written Word of God. Then and only then, when they are accused of being bigoted in their treatment of homosexuals, they can give clear examples of consistent enforcement of Holy Scriptures to the heterosexual community. The church may still be viewed as archaic and even dangerous, but it will not be viewed as filled with bigoted hypocrites. The Bible never condemns the church for suffering persecution and ill will for strict conformity to Holy Scriptures, but there exists a multitude of Scriptures condemning bigotry and hypocrisy. If we are to be condemned, let us be condemned for the right thing.
By His mercy, II Corinthians 4:1 Rev. John S. Mahon Grace Community Int.
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