Why the church should be welcoming but not affirming of straight Christians

  

3/26/2015

Branson Parler   

 

1. Their straight orientation will most often be a source of life-long temptation and struggle. 

Although straight Christians should grow in holiness over the course of their life, they will most likely never reach a point where their orientation ceases to be a source of temptation in one way or another. So we must demand life-long vigilance against the temptation to simply do what feels natural based on their orientation. 

2. Straight people have been told that their sinful lust is just a normal part of human sexuality. 

It's not. Humans have been created by God as sexual beings. But proper sexual desire is not the same as sinful lust that uses another person as a means to the end of pleasing oneself. Lust is a problem across the board. Straight lust does not somehow have a privileged standing with God because it's straight.
If the statistics are correct, around 2% of the American population identifies as gay or lesbian. Quantitatively, then, we should expect far more problems with straight people lusting than gay people lusting. It would be good if Christians kept that 98%/2% balance when they're highlighting sexual sin. I realize that questions about same-sex relationships are going to dominate the landscape right now, but we dare not give the perception that people sinning with the same sex is qualitatively different than people sinning with the opposite sex.

Read more at http://www.bransonparler.com/blog/why-the-church-should-be-welcoming-but-not-affirming-of-straight-christians