Either-or

When something seems gross to you there are two possibilities: Either you are a hater, or it is gross. If the sight of two men kissing or of a person in mid-transgender state produces an instant response in your endocrine system, you are either a homophobe (or a transphobe, or both) or you are reacting like a person made in God’s image is meant to react to what goes against His created order.

We have to consider both possibilities. We must consider the possibility that a negative visceral reaction to the new sexual mores is a God-given response to perversion. And we have to consider the possibility that a negative visceral reaction to the new sexual mores is straight-up Neanderthal bigotry. How do we decide which is the answer? Are the Christians who continue to decry LGBT behavior in need of enlarging their minds, or are the Christians who have warmed toward LGBT behavior been seduced? What is the best explanation of the comprehensive data?

The data are these:

The Christian must ask himself which conclusion regarding the current state of affairs best fits the facts. Is it the stick-in-the-mud-bigoted-gay-hater evaluation of the Christian who resists the modern trend? Or is it the deluded-renegade-society evaluation of people who champion the LGBT cause?

We are not talking here about a question of “sincerity.” I watched Bruce Jenner’s interview with Diane Sawyer back in April and it is no use arguing that he is not “sincere”; the man was crying. But salvation has never been about sincere; it is about the Word of God, which calls every man to repentance from evil deeds, to faith in Christ, and to walking with Him in His yoke.

Are the Christians who are frantically clambering on the LGBT bandwagon merely the embarrassed tail end of the Enlightenment? Or is it more likely—more biblically—the case that, not wanting to be left behind in the New Enlightenment and not willing to “go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured” (Hebrews 13:12-13, ESV), they have abandoned their first love in preference for worldly respectability?

It’s either-or.