LIFESTYLE CHOICES – Part 2

Romans Chapter 1, verses 26-32

By David Woodbury

26For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27Likewise 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. (Romans 1:26-27 - NLT)

In this day when homosexuality is promoted as a legitimate, alternate lifestyle choice, the Christian church must find a way of affirming God’s truth on this matter without sounding moralistic and judgmental. It ought to be a message that springs from love and not judgment; it cannot be put in the too-hard basket. The church cannot be in denial of God’s word on this issue, no matter how difficult it is to engage in intelligent, respectful and compassionate dialogue. However, Christians cannot allow themselves to be bullied into silence and abject acceptance by some of the vitriolic and sarcastic comments by those who support the gay lobby.

I would be the first to admit that there are some people who, for some reason we don’t understand, are born with a tendency toward homosexuality and our acceptance of them and compassionate understanding is crucial. However, I suspect that many who now adopt the gay lifestyle may do so more as a matter of choice rather than an inner tendency. The reality is with teenagers; if you give them a licence to experiment, they will. It may well be that some that choose this lifestyle do so because it is being offered as an apparently legitimate, alternate and acceptable lifestyle. In light of Paul’s teaching in this section of Romans, it is contrary to God’s way for humanity.

That leaves us with those who have this inherent tendency and Christians cannot just shut their eyes and pretend that it does not exist. We are all born defective human beings with traits and tendencies that are not consistent with God’s plan for our lives. Part of my training as a Salvation Army officer required me to spend a month ministering in an Army rehabilitation centre and it many ways it changed me more than any other facet of my training. In the lives of those in the centre, I saw myself with all my inherent weaknesses and realised that within myself was the addictive and obsessive nature that leads to substance abuse. Only the fact that I had been born into a family where total abstinence was practised had saved me from being in the same predicament as those I encountered in the rehabilitation centre.

I soon realised that the inner battle with my addictive and obsessive nature would become a life-long struggle and the words of Paul in 3:23 were inherently true: For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Whatever defects we have in our nature, and we all have them to a more obvious or more obscure degree, have to be confronted and managed with the help of a power greater than ourselves. It is only through the working of God’s grace in our lives that we learn to cope with and conquer our weaknesses and defects. It seems to me that those who have this inherent tendency toward homosexuality need the ongoing and understanding support that only those who have truly experienced the working of the grace of God in their lives can give.

Any right-thinking person must be aware that the fallout from sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis and HIV/AIDS has dramatically impacted the lives of many in the community. Its economic costs alone have been enormous without the disastrous effects on the community and families. We only have to look at the dramatic escalation in child sexual abuse to acutely realise the choice of a wrong higher power and lifestyle brings. Wrong lifestyle choices and wrong attachment to a higher power will always have a devastating price tag for others as well as ourselves.

There is nothing that Paul said about the heathen world that the heathen moralists had not themselves already said. And vice did not stop with the crude and natural vices. Society from top to bottom was riddled with unnatural vice. Fourteen out of the first fifteen Roman Emperors were homosexuals. (William Barclay – The Daily Study Bible)

28And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32 - NLT)

The list of those abandoned by God is quite long and extensive with some frightening offences included among them. Apart from the grossest sins, we notice some of the more common manifestations of wrong are often tolerated within the Christian community. Things like envy, covetousness, maliciousness, gossiping, pride, boastful, trouble makers, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, etc. Now the reality is that Christians have been guilty of such actions at times, and that is not what Paul is talking about. What he is defining here are people whose lives manifest these sins as a natural part of their lifestyle, possibly see no wrong in it and deliberately continue to practice such a lifestyle.

At the end, Paul adds another scary proviso. Approval of these habitual and practised sins is as serious in God’s sight as the sin itself.

Then reality is that humanity needs a benchmark to evaluate its conduct and lifestyle and that benchmark can only be found in God, and if humanity refuses to acknowledge God and seeks after a synthetic higher power, whatever that is, they will be abandoned to their own free-will. For those who have wilfully chosen a synthetic higher power Christians need to engage in intelligent, respectful and compassionate dialogue.