If a man feels honestly compelled to describe himself as a homosexual Christian, and the description is accurate, we heartily commend his honesty and desire to help him overcome this sin, but he is not qualified to hold office in the Presbyterian Church in America. If, however, homosexual lust no longer dominates a man, he should gladly drop the shameful description and hate such a perverse label.

Some ordained officers in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) are publicly describing themselves as “gay Christians.” Is this acceptable? Should men who describe themselves as homosexuals hold office in the church? The answer is no, for the following reasons.

If the word ‘homosexual’ accurately describes a man, then he is not qualified for church office.
Homosexual sin is biblically akin to bestiality and incest.
If officers identify as homosexuals, then homosexual perversity will be further normalized in the PCA.

If the word ‘homosexual’ accurately describes a man, then he is not qualified for church office
Currently, all officers in the PCA publicly confess that homosexual acts are sinful, and the Scriptures clearly support this understanding. Leviticus 20:13 says, “If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.”
God’s Word not only condemns homosexual acts but also condemns the desire for such acts. Romans 1:26-27 says, “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”
The desire for homosexual sex is a manifestation of an unnatural and vile passion, and if these perverse sexual desires characterize a man to such an extent that he thinks he should publicly identify with them, then he is not fit to hold office in the church.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says, “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 homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.”
If a man can be accurately described as a fornicator, idolater, adulterer, homosexual, etc., then he will not inherit the kingdom of God. If this is the case, then he obviously is not fit for office in Christ’s church.
One might object, “The homosexual Christian no longer practices these sins!” If so, then calling himself a “homosexual” is inaccurate and even insulting. If they say this description is justified because a desire for perverse sex still characterizes him, then this dominant lust would disqualify him for office, too. If perverse sexual desires characterize a man and the description of “homosexual” is accurate, then he should not hold office in the church. If, however, a man sometimes struggles with a sinful desire, which is not characteristic of his life, then it is wrong and even insulting to make that sin his self-description.
If a man who is an adulterer trusts in Christ and stops committing adultery, he should not describe himself as an adulterous Christian.” If the term adulterer still accurately describes the daily ongoing dominance of this lust, so that it honesty compels him to identify as an “adulterous Christian,” then he is not qualified for office. If, however, he sometimes struggles with lust for women who are not his wife, but it does not characterize him and he mortifies these lusts, then the description of “adulterous Christian” is no longer accurate and to call him such is an insult.
So, if a man feels honestly compelled to describe himself as a homosexual Christian, and the description is accurate, we heartily commend his honesty and desire to help him overcome this sin, but he is not qualified to hold office in the Presbyterian Church in America. If, however, homosexual lust no longer dominates a man, he should gladly drop the shameful description and hate such a perverse label.
And that brings us to a very important point that is lost on many who have been seduced by the LGBTQ+ juggernaut that has swept the nation: Homosexual desire is a shameful sexual perversion.
Homosexual sin is biblically akin to Bestiality and Incest
Leviticus 20:12-15 says, “If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death. They have committed perversion. Their blood shall be upon them. If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. If a man marries a woman and her mother, it is wickedness. They shall be burned with fire, both he and they, that there may be no wickedness among you. If a man mates with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal.”
In this passage where God condemns homosexuality, note the two other sexual sins that are akin to it: bestiality and incest. Some people in the world have bestial or incestuous sexual attractions. They may even have had these attractions from an early age. According to the new philosophy infiltrating the PCA, the man who experiences such sinful sexual attractions should be encouraged (or at least permitted) to describe himself by that attraction. If this is true, then a Christian should be permitted the self-description of “Incestuously Attracted Christian” or “Bestially Attracted Christian.” Currently, I know of no officer in the PCA who thinks officers should be permitted to use either of these self-descriptions.
This raises an important question. Why is it acceptable for an ordained officer to describe himself as homosexual, but not acceptable to describe himself as “beasto-sexual” or “incestuo-sexual”? The answer lies in a 40-year long publicity campaign that has successfully normalized homosexuality in American culture. Sadly, this campaign to normalize homosexual perversion has influenced some PCA officers and members, who now believe officers should be permitted to describe themselves as homosexuals. If these men have their way, they will win a great victory for the homosexual movement and further corrupt Christ’s church.
If officers identify as homosexuals, then homosexual perversity will be further normalized in the PCA
The most obvious thing about homosexuality is that it is all about perverse sexual desires and acts. In order to normalize homosexuality, homosexual activists have long recognized the necessity of downplaying the perversity of what homosexual men want to do to one another.
Two homosexual activists named Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen openly acknowledged this strategy in their 1987 article, The Overhauling of Straight America, in which they state: “At least in the beginning, we are seeking public desensitization and nothing more… As far as desensitization is concerned, the medium is the message—of normalcy… In the early stages of any campaign to reach straight America, the masses should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex should be downplayed and gay rights should be reduced to an abstract social question as much as possible. First let the camel get his nose inside the tent–only later his unsightly derriere!”
The first two points of this essay have been attempts to uncover the “unsightly derriere” of homosexuality and awaken God’s people to the perversity of homosexual sin. I fear that some in the PCA have been seduced by the propaganda of homosexual activists. They think homosexuality is about civil rights for oppressed sexual minorities, or simply a different way of looking at the world—maybe an appreciation of masculine beauty and aesthetics or a desire for male friendship. That is not what it is about. Homosexuality is about a vile and shameful desire to have sex with someone of the same sex. This desire is biblically akin to incestuous and bestial sexual desires. This is the unsightly derriere of the homosexual camel.
If officers in the PCA are permitted to identify as homosexuals it will have the effect of “Overhauling the Straight PCA.” God’s people will be further desensitized to sexual perversity and the enemies of God will gain another foothold in the church of Christ.
Therefore, the addition of 7-4 to the Book of Church Order is needed to make clear to the church that: “Men who describe themselves as homosexual, even those who describe themselves as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy by refraining from homosexual conduct, are disqualified from holding office in the Presbyterian Church in America.”
Steven Warhurst is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is pastor of Westminster PCA in Kingsport, Tenn.
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While God occasionally displays his glory through miracles, he far more commonly displays it through the beauty of providence. Look for it and you will see it; see it and you will praise him for it.

I suppose it is possible that I have witnessed a miracle in my lifetime, but if so, I’m not aware of it. If a miracle is a “supernatural, extraordinary event that diverges from observed natural processes,” then I can’t think of a time that I’ve seen a clear example of one. That’s not to say that God can’t work miracles today or that he doesn’t. That’s not to say he hasn’t worked around and about me in extraordinary ways. It’s simply to say that I can’t look at a particular event in my life and say, “That was a miracle.”
And if I’m honest, this doesn’t bother me in the least. It doesn’t bother me in the least because on many occasions I’ve witnessed something I count equally significant or perhaps even more so: I have witnessed the evidence and the intricacy and the perfect timing of God’s providence. I have witnessed how God has carefully arranged circumstances so that events unfolded in a way that proved his detailed involvement in the affairs of man. I have witnessed situations in which things “just so happened” in such a way that I could only conclude, “The Lord did this.”
I recount one of these in Seasons of Sorrow, in the chapter I title “Angels Unaware.” I tell of a day when Aileen and I were particularly sorrowful, particularly overcome with grief. We went to the cemetery to mark what would have been Nick’s wedding day. And as we stood there weeping together, a lovely Christian couple approached us and explained that they had been reading my updates. They showed us where their son was buried nearby and then they prayed for us—prayed down God’s comfort upon us.
This was no miracle. This was not a supernatural, extraordinary event that diverged from observed natural processes. God did not summon these people from heaven or fabricate them from thin air or instantly transport them from afar. Rather, he arranged that they would visit their son’s grave on this day and at this time (even though this was not their custom) and that Aileen and I would visit our son’s grave on this day and at this time (even though this was not our custom). Long prior to this he had arranged that our sons would be buried close to one another—close enough that this couple would spot us across just a few rows of graves. He had arranged that they would be familiar with my website and with our story and that they would recognize our faces. He arranged all this so that, when we most needed comfort, two of his people would be there to provide it.
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Written by R. R. Reno |
Thursday, October 27, 2022
We have deliberately deregulated our culture. The old, culturally ­reinforced pathways to normalcy have been dismantled. We have restructured our society to cater to the “sexually marginalized.” The normal has been recast as “repressive.” This project has been sold as noble. Many progressive Christians have declared it to be a fulfillment of the gospel. But it has meant transferring resources, social prestige, political power, and legal privileges to those whose desires are disordered. H.R. 8404 is one example.

Our ruling class seems determined to drive our country into a ditch. H.R. 8404, the Respect for Marriage Act, is a case in point. Ostensibly, the bill is meant to codify the right to same-sex marriage that was discovered by the Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges. In view of present realities, it serves little purpose other than to flaunt the power of the Rainbow Reich.
Gay marriage is a luxury good in our society, largely the province of professional men and women. Meanwhile, among Americans without college degrees, marriage is collapsing. The decline is not happening because heterosexual men and women are co-habiting in stable relationships. Recent studies show that the number of individuals between the ages of twenty-four and fifty-four who are living alone is increasing, and now approaches 40 percent. Not surprisingly, fertility and family formation are declining as well.
These hard numbers point to a reality only the willfully blind refuse to see: the increasingly dysfunctional relations between men and women. Why the male–­female dance has broken down over the past generation is not easy to explain. But it does not take a graduate degree in psychology to recognize that children need clear pathways toward adult life as men and women. Nor does it take a degree in sociology to see that those pathways are precisely what we have systematically denied to children, often in the interest of making our society more “inclusive.”
Gay marriage is not an innocent innovation, a ­win-win for society that, as many claimed, would strengthen the institution of marriage by making it more available. It was always implausible to imagine that our society could celebrate homosexuality and honor it with the institution of marriage without undermining the socialization of children into healthy patterns of male–female reciprocity. Given the ambition of the Rainbow Reich to restructure social attitudes, transgender ideology and the current epidemic of gender dysphoria were entirely predictable. Gay liberation was never solely about legal rights. It undermines the normative status of heterosexuality. As the more honest activists always insisted, the goal was to “queer” society.
Well, we’ve gone a long way toward achieving that goal. Spend a few hours with mainstream media, and you’d think a third or more of people were ­homosexual. The messaging has been effective. The rate of people identifying as LGBT has risen dramatically, especially among the impressionable young. A recent Gallup poll has more than 20 percent of Gen Z checking the LGBT box.

No doubt the severe decline of norms that privilege marriage, family, and heterosexual coupling has been beneficial for a small class of people whose desires are abnormal. But for the majority of Americans these changes have come at a great cost.

Family offers a safe harbor in the rough seas of life. For most, it’s a reliable place of comfort and a source of profound satisfaction. Public health officials scratch their heads, trying to explain the extraordinary decline in life expectancy in the United States, a shocking trend for a country so rich. Their captivity to progressive ­ideology makes them invincibly ignorant. They cannot acknowledge the obvious truth, which is that ­isolated, disoriented individuals deprived of the norms that would guide them toward marriage and family have dim prospects. They are more likely to stumble through life and engage in self-destructive behavior.
Count me among those who are no longer willing to pretend. We need to reckon with a harsh reality: Their premature deaths are by design. That is, our elites have destroyed the structures that foster healthy lives. Our educational ideologies celebrate critical methods that “disorient” and “deconstruct.” That’s what “queering” means. Our elites applaud Drag Queen Story Hour, believing that putatively stultifying “stereotypes” are being shattered and children are learning to be more “open-minded.” As the data accumulate, showing how bad life has become for ordinary Americans, those who repeat progressive platitudes are complicit in their neighbors’ misery.
Things will get worse, I’m afraid. We have deliberately deregulated our culture. The old, culturally ­reinforced pathways to normalcy have been dismantled. We have restructured our society to cater to the “sexually marginalized.” The normal has been recast as “repressive.” This project has been sold as noble. Many progressive Christians have declared it to be a fulfillment of the gospel. But it has meant transferring resources, social prestige, political power, and legal privileges to those whose desires are disordered. H.R. 8404 is one example.
No man is an island. We respond to incentives and social signals. Our cultural elites cheer Rachel Levine, the Biden administration’s assistant secretary for health. A man with two children who was divorced in 2013 and refashioned himself as a woman, Levine is held up as an exemplary American, heroically loyal to himself and a pioneer of liberation. Are we surprised that increasing numbers of people, especially those who lack social capital or are psychologically vulnerable, are now living dysfunctional and self-destructive lives?
Sexual minorities are people, made in the image and likeness of God. But we must not remain silent about the great costs that the imperatives of “inclusion” have imposed, often on the most vulnerable.
In the first chapter of his letter to the Romans, St. Paul gives an account of our descent into bondage to sin. ­Verses 18–32 draw upon the Wisdom of Solomon, which gives an extended account of the spiritual, moral, and social disaster of idolatry. In his compressed version, Paul explains how humanity turned away from the invisible nature and eternal power of God, which is clearly manifest in ­creation. Our minds darkened; we became fools. Claiming to be wise, we raised up graven images, exchanging worship of the living God for devotion to dead idols.
The Bible often uses the term “vanity” to denote the spiritual import of idolatry. We assume that “vanity” refers to a conceited self-regard. But in its literal sense, vanity means emptiness or nothingness. Idol worship is thus vain in a metaphysical sense, a spiritual project oriented toward emptiness, a dead end that sucks the life out of us.
In his perfect justice, God honors our choice to exchange worship of the source of life for worship of dead idols. As Paul explains, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity [patheatimias—­dishonorable passions].” We get what we want, an emptiness that we fill with disordered desires. Paul goes on to specify, playing on the theme of exchange: “Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and their 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 their own persons the due penalty for their error.”
Paul, who goes on to list a host of vices, is not saying that homosexual acts are the sole form of impurity. He is identifying same-sex eroticism as emblematic. For just as idols are lifeless, homosexual acts are intrinsically sterile. The life-giving potential of our instinctual drive to act upon our sexual desires is perverted, made vain, which is to say empty and fruitless. In this way, homosexual acts typify the dead end of sinful transgression.
It is important to read this passage correctly. Because of the power of instinct, in most instances sexual sins are far less grave than those committed with premeditation and malice. Homosexual acts are, however, metaphysically singular, serving as a “condensed symbol” of our fallen condition.
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