We are clay

“Mom, what if when I grow up I find out I’m gay?”

A twelve-year-old girl in our church asked her mom this recently. I asked the mother what she said in response to the question. She said, “First, I want to be clear about one thing: I’ll love you no matter what. Second, I don’t think that’s how it works. How do you think it works?”

That question—“How do you think sexual attraction and/or orientation works?”—is no minor issue. Nowadays, “gay” or “queer” is often assumed to be some inborn or genetic “condition” that one can’t help but “have” or “be.” We can see this playing out in two different ways in pop culture: first, “the medical model” wherein someone “finds out” they have a tumor despite being asymptomatic because they had an MRI. The second is “the genetic model” in which someone who identified with their Italian heritage gets their 23andMe results back and “discovers” they’re only 15% Italian. “Whoops! I was wrong about ‘who I am.’”

But “gay” is neither a medical condition nor is it a genetic fact. It describes a pattern of sexual desires that are contrary to nature. These desires, not merely these behaviors, are judged in Scripture. Paul labels them “dishonorable passions” that then are doubly sinful when acted on such that they are “dishonoring their bodies” (Romans 1:24, 26).

In 1976, Michel Foucault, a pedophile apologist regarded by many as the Father of Queer Theory, observed how an Enlightenment, rationalistic technological analysis of sexuality created a species-within-a-species dynamic as it relates to sexual behavior and desire. In History of Sexuality he writes, “The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species” (emphasis mine). He laments this fact and resists this “speciesization” of persons with non-typical sexual attractions. That’s an important point.

Tim Keller gave a thought experiment I find helpful here. Imagine a man who has two strong desires: the first desire is to have sex with men. The second desire is to kill men. If that man is born in Manhattan, his friends, family, and therapists will tell him one of those desires “is him” but the other desire is “not him.” One desire is expressed; the other desire is repressed. One desire is regarded as good; the other desire is regarded as evil. Sexuality is fixed; violence is fluid. It’s healthy to repress the violence; healthy to express the sexuality. One is deemed natural; the other deemed unnatural.

Imagine that exact same man is born into a 10th century Viking community. He has the same two desires. His elders, family, and friends tell him that one of those desires “is him” but the other desire is “not him.” The script is flipped. Violence is good; homosexuality is evil. Violence is fixed; sexuality is fluid. Express the violence; repress the sexuality. Violence is natural; sodomy is against nature.

Sociologically derived values shape how we interpret our desires. But which sociology is right? Which culture holds the trump card on rightly interpreting inclinations? Which desires ought we repress and which ones ought we express?

A basic, secular view of the mind understands that desires that are blessed, acted on, and met with positive feedback create “ruts” or “trenches” in the mind that strengthen and perpetuate the desires, thus reinforcing our behaviors. This why we can train dogs. This is why we can cultivate new habits in ourselves. People can change, and our culture knows this—hence why so many people spend so much money on therapy, nutritional supplements, and education. We are clay. The big question is: What or who will be the potter?

Even Dr. Lisa Diamond, self-identified Lesbian sex researcher out of the University of Utah, wrote in her work Sexual Fluidity that, “There are genetic influences, but they are not deterministic. There is a lot of evidence for fluidity and change in people's experiences of same-sex attraction.”

Secular liberals like Foucault and Diamond understand that there’s no such thing as “born this way” and that developmental factors and ongoing personal agency don’t just influence but create and sustain desires and bodily self-concept; one's psychology is a moving target. Good neuroscience understands that the mind is “plastic” (changeable) and thus the fact of neuroplasticity means that the mind can change.

What is another word for “change of mind”? The Greek word “metanoia,” which appears in most English Bibles as “repentance.” Desires are capable of being disciplined and cultivated, and they are fundamentally plastic.

The creation of a fixed subspecies of humans based on self-defined identities and preferences, as in “LGBT People,” is a category error that we shouldn’t buy into. “Gay” is not like “six foot two” or “brown eyes” or “we have found a tumor.”