Blog/Apologetics: How the Church Should Respond to LGBTQ+.

Oh, joy. It’s June. You know what that means.

It means that for an entire month we get to bombarded with videos of people proudly and publicly putting their sexual fetishes on display for everyone (including children) to see while also burning our eyes with the ugliest combinations of colors I’ve ever seen on random flags. Yippee. I’m sure you can feel the excitement just oozing from my pores as I write this.

On the bright side of this, at least I get a bunch of topics to write about this month. So that’s nice.

If you’ve been reading the Tanuki Corner for a while, you know that I am not a fan of LGBTQ+ by any stretch of the imagination. Does that mean that I hate everyone in that group? No. I’ll judge you like I judge everyone else which is by your character irrespective of your gender or sexuality. What it does mean, however, is that I’m not a fan of all the hyper-sexualization that goes on in that community, how it often protects abusers, it’s ties to the occult, and how sex/gender/sexuality has increasingly become an identity that you can just put on like a hat. I plan to write more in-depth about some of the other things I just listed, but for now, I want to focus on how it’s currently treated by the church versus how the church should deal with it.

One of the things I’ve observed when it comes to how the church deals with this problem is that most churches either fall into two camps. The first is the camp where if you’re part of the LGBTQ+ community, you’re encouraged to stay in the closet, LGBTQ+ seems to be treated worse than other sexual sins, and overall, you’re just overly judged. The other camp lands on the other extreme and seems to be growing more common; where LGBTQ+ isn’t judged at all but is rather accepted just as much as it is in secular circles. In fact, when my family and I were looking for a new church back in 2022, most of the churches in my area were of the latter group.

The problem with this is that neither extreme is the correct way to be dealing with LGBTQ+ and those who struggle with it. One condemns it to the point where no compassion is shown at all and is part of the reason why there’s quite a few deconstructers in the LGBTQ+ community while the other applauds it even though the Bible is very clear that LGBTQ+ is sin. Where’s the middle ground? Is there one? Is a middle ground even Biblical?

The answer is a middle ground is absolutely possible and Biblical for the church in dealing with LGBTQ+. The first thing that the church needs to understand is that LGBTQ+ is a sin and the Bible has some very harsh words about it. Some examples include:

Leviticus 18:22 – “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Leviticus 20:13 – “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

Romans 1:26-27 – “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. “

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 – “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who have sex with men, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

These verses aren’t addressing pedophiles or abusive partners who happen to be homosexual as some have claimed. These verses are addressing all homosexual behavior, period. However, before anyone in the comments starts saying that this is super homophobic and asks, “Why does God hate LGBTQ+ people so much, but not straight people who are also doing similar stuff?”, let me include some verses condemning sexual sins committed by straight people.

Exodus 20:14 – “You shall not commit adultery.”

Proverbs 6:32 – “But a man who commits adultery has no sense; whoever does so destroys himself.”

Hebrews 13:4 – “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.”

Matthew 5:27-28 – “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

1 Corinthians 6:18 – “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.”

Galatians 5:19 – “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery.”

Ephesians 5:3 – “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.”

1 Thessalonians 4:3 – “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality.”

And these are just a handful of examples. From this, we can derive the second point that the church needs to better understand. It’s clear that the Bible isn’t just singling out LGBTQ+ people, but all sexual sin is sin in God’s eyes because it goes against his plan for sex and marriage. LGBTQ+ behavior is just a different version of the same sin of lust that every person on Earth struggles with at one point or the other.

Because of this, we can understand that the Bible sees this as sin. However, it doesn’t mean that we should be jerks to LGBTQ+ people just because of what they struggle with. Just like how we wouldn’t be jerks to a straight friend who struggles with sleeping around, we shouldn’t be jerks to LGBTQ+ people who struggle with their sexuality. That doesn’t mean that we compromise on what the Bible says and condone their lifestyle or behavior, but rather we show them the same respect, kindness, and love that Jesus showed us.

Until next time,

M.J.