I came across Dr Rosaria Butterfield’s first book, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, several years ago, and loved it. How unlikely a convert was she? Well, she was a hardened academic who knew exactly what she thought about the Bible, but more famously, she was a practicing lesbian and a staunch campaigner for gay rights. She is now a minister’s wife, mother, and dedicated Reformed Christian.
We all face sexual temptation, and the battle of ‘straight’ Christian women is not in some way nobler or more acceptable than that of our same–sex–attracted sisters. In this excerpt from my chapter on Dr Butterfield, it’s very clear that all our sinful desires must be submitted to Christ’s Lordship.
Does God hate gay people? Are homosexuals worse than other people?
Alongside gay marches and on rare American street corners you may have seen particularly conservative Christians holding up signs with captions such as ‘God hates gays’, and verses such as Leviticus 18:22, which describes homosexuality as an abomination in God’s sight.
The Bible makes it very clear that God hates sin. He hates it in every manifestation, because he knows that sin is what enslaves his people. The ‘freer’ that society says we are to indulge our every passion, the more confused we become, like a moral Babel.
The Bible makes it very clear that God hates sin. He hates it in every manifestation, because he knows that sin is what enslaves his people. The ‘freer’ that society says we are to indulge our every passion, the more confused we become, like a moral Babel. Paul lists homosexuality alongside other sexual immorality, falsehood, and dishonouring parents as things that Christians should never be seen partaking in. You will know that, if you have told a lie or had a fight with a parent, you feel ‘enslaved’ by the secret you’re keeping or the open wound of your relationship. So it is with our sex lives too; living in sin – regardless of what kind – makes us feel dirty, enslaved, and far from God. Sin brings guilt, natural consequences such as disease and disunity, and ultimately spiritual and physical death. No wonder the God of freedom, restoration and life hates it!
Sin brings guilt, natural consequences such as disease and disunity, and ultimately spiritual and physical death. No wonder the God of freedom, restoration and life hates it!
Dr Butterfield wrote, ‘I was not converted out of homosexuality, I was converted out of unbelief.’[1] What has always struck me in her story is not that a gay woman would come to Christ, but that a committed atheistic intellectual would come to Christ, with the humility of mind that that entails. There’s a reason why Micah 6:8 says ‘What does the Lord ask of you? …to walk humbly before him.’ Regardless of our struggles with sexual temptation – and, as Sam Alberry writes, ‘We need to be clear, not just that we are all sinners, but that we are all sexual sinners’[2] – the most important thing is to walk humbly before God, asking him honestly and frequently to show us where we have sinned against him and help to repent for good.
Regardless of our struggles with sexual temptation … the most important thing is to walk humbly before God, asking him honestly and frequently to show us where we have sinned against him and help to repent for good.
[1] Openness Unhindered, p. 51
[2] Quoted in Openness Unhindered, p. 4
Dayspring MacLeod blogs at reliablenarrator.wordpress.com. She is very happy to correspond privately via the contact form, to address questions and to pray for you.
