Christian Colleges and Rainbow Stickers, Part 2

In my last blog post, I pointed out that there are essentially two broad groups of professors and staff at conservative Catholic or evangelical colleges and universities that use public displays like “rainbow stickers” to identify their offices as “safe zones” for LGBTQIA+++ students. The first are those who embrace the idea that faithful, professing, Biblical believers in Jesus Christ can be practicing and positively identified homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender, pansexual, queer, and so on. It is their intent to help students live out such alternative sexual identities and/or orientations comfortably, happily, ideally (now or in the future) within and enjoying the full acceptance of the professing church. The second group understands that all these alternative sexual identities, orientations, and practices are inconsistent with faithful Biblical Christianity. True believers may struggle with these things but, by God’s grace, ought to resist and, where necessary, repent of them. Such faculty and staff post rainbow “safe zone” stickers because they hope to help those actively involved with or struggling with LGBTQIA+++ desires to turn to Christ and find ways to live faithfully as His followers in the true Biblical sense, and believe that declaring their offices to be “safe zones” can help those students and others to feel comfortable approaching them to discuss these matters. 

It is the first group I wish to address in the present post.

First, it is important to set aside for now the issue of what should be “legal” or otherwise tolerated in culture. For example, although I strongly disagree with legal homosexual marriage, I do understand that this issue can distinguished from that of whether or not such a union can ever be a true and valid marriage in the eyes of God, whether the professing church should ever bless and accept such “marriages” and so on. Similarly, the current raging controversies over whether and how self-identified transgender or gender fluid people can be accommodated can be separated from the question of whether or not believers should ever encourage a biological male to identify as female, obtain so-called “gender reassignment” surgery and treatment, and the like. In terms of college policy, it is possible, for example, for a faculty member who rejects homosexuality to believe that a Christian college may accept, instruct, and treat with civility and kindness, openly homosexual students who have no intention to change, subject to campus behavioral standards.

Second, although this would be a good topic for future blog posts, I don’t want to tackle right now the question of the motivations of those who claim, and teach others, that one can be a faithful, Biblical Christian and embrace any or all of these alternative identities and orientations. Like any other area (including opposition to LGBTQIA+++ identities and lifestyles) my assumption is that motives are many and typically mixed. I think we can, for the sake of argument, even assume nothing but the best of intentions on the part of our pro-practicing LGBTQIA+++ conservative Catholic or Evangelical college faculty and staff.

It really doesn’t matter whether their motives are pure or not. Because the plain truth is that, categorically, the Bible affirms, from beginning to end, that all sex is to be within marriage, that marriage is between male and female, and that God Himself separated humankind into male and female from the very beginning. Understanding the full beauty and intent of this plan cannot be exhausted in a lifetime, but it is what He made, and declared to be good. From the Fall, we know that human beings and creation is broken, and that all of us deviate from this plan in many ways and do so terribly enough to earn for ourselves eternal punishment apart from the grace of God. We all fail to fully be men or women as God has called us to be, but transgender ideology or not, we should never seek to become something else. We all frequently fail to govern our mind, heart, and behavior according to God's perfect sexual standards (cf. John 8:1-11; Matthew 5:27-28). But that does not mean we should embrace sexual objects that seem attractive to us other than the man or woman to whom we are or will be married, or that we can do so without terrible consequence (cf. Proverb 14:12 and 16:25).

Even if it could be shown that such sin was rooted in inborn impulses that are hard to resist, or in some kind of ingrained thought or behavioral pattern caused by the sins of others directed against LGBTQIA+++ people, that would not justify them departing from God’s plan. These kinds of causal factors certainly need to be understood with real compassion and wisdom. These kinds of “nature” or “nurture” pressures may make doing the right thing, or having appropriate feelings and desires, in the areas of sexual orientation and gender identity harder for some than for others. We must keep this in mind as we seek to help our fellow human beings with humility and love (Galatians 6:1-2). When it comes to battling sin inside and outside of ourselves, we are all “in it together” in this broken creation into which we have been born. As my mother used to tell me, “We all have our unique crosses to bear.” We are as C.S. Lewis put it, all “sons of Adam” or “daughters of Eve.” But as a Christian friend said to me some time ago, “Jesus accepts us as we are, but He doesn’t leave us as we are.” 

Telling people that their pet sin is not a sin is not love, or compassion. It is delusional and destructive. Sin is not a social construct. It is an objective fact, a real offense against a real God who does not ignore our rebellion against Him just because we choose to believe it is not a sin. He can and will forgive what we confess and forsake, but will He ignore any sin because we choose to twist reality to suit ourselves? No, never. (John 9:40-41).

This teaching should not be controversial among Christians. It does not simply flow out of “homophobia,” “transphobia,” or other supposed “isms” and “phobias” we accuse folk of in order to shut down honest discussion. Consider this joint statement issued by Pope Francis and Russian Patriarch Krill following a historic meeting in Havana in 2016. (See also Pope Francis’ The Joy of Love Sections 56, 250-51.)

The family is based on marriage, an act of freely given and faithful love between a man and a woman. It is love that seals their union and teaches them to accept one another as a gift. Marriage is a school of love and faithfulness. We regret that other forms of cohabitation have been placed on the same level as this union, while the concept, consecrated in the biblical tradition, of paternity and maternity as the distinct vocation of man and woman in marriage is being banished from the public conscience.

Given all of this, and the crystal clarity of the witness of the Scriptures and the historical Church regarding all sexual desire and behavior outside the bonds of heterosexual marriage, it is hard for me to take seriously those who claim to be faithful Christians subject to the authority of the Bible and the catholic understanding of the professing church on these matters for two millennia, while also claiming that one can embrace LGBTQIA+++ identities and lifestyles as a faithful follower of Christ. It would be easier for me to respect those who simply state that the Church and the Bible is wrong on these matters, and who reject both in favor of overt liberalism, agnosticism, atheism, or some explicitly pro-gay non-Christian religion, than it is for me to accept from one person the contradictory claims that they both believe the Bible and accept its authority, while also embracing practicing “gay Christianity,” transgenderism, or the like.

This is not to say that people who profess this mistaken idea cannot be “saved.” It is possible to fall into serious doctrinal error and still be truly Christ’s (though one would expect that, in time, the witness of the saints and the Holy Spirit to such persons will bring about repentance). Praise God that He has not given me the power or responsibility to determine in some ultimate way who are the sheep and who are the goats. Never-the-less, two things are abundantly clear.

First, such persons should be subject to warning and eventually discipline by the professing Church if they persist in holding to and teaching these aberrant doctrines. This is a matter not of hatred or meanness but of real love and compassion for them and for those they are counseling.

Second, if the Scriptures are true, then terrible results will come to them and those who follow their counsel. They will have to accept responsibility for that. Many will have to face, with serious regret, the consequences of giving false counsel.

Consider what we find Jesus, the pure expression of God’s love, saying—recorded three places in the Gospels (Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2)—that those who lead others into sin would be better off to have a millstone tied around their necks and then to be tossed into the sea and drowned. Or in both Matthew 15:14 and Luke 6:39, we are told that when the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit. This is hardly comforting imagery for those who would mislead others in the Christian faith.

Given this, it is clear that the offices of LGBTQIA+++ affirming faculty and staff at conservative Catholic or evangelical colleges are anything but “safe” havens for those struggling with LGBTQIA+++ issues. In light of eternity, there is no safety outside the revealed will of God. Telling people what makes them feel affirmed, loved, comforted, and the like is only “safe” if they are being told the truth. “Affirmation” alone does not set anyone free. Only truth does (John 8:32). Speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15)? Absolutely. But speaking truth, not comforting lies or half-truths. 

The offices of people who encourage others, in the name of Christ, to embrace homosexuality or those procedures deceptively called “gender affirmation,” or “queerness,” and so on are not “safe.” They take people away from God, not toward Him. We are safe under His wings (Psalm 91:4), not running away from them.

As I stated above, I try to assume the best motivations and intentions for those who set up “safe zones” in Christian colleges in order to counsel LGBTQIA+++ students and others that these behaviors, identities, and lifestyles are acceptable to God and consistent with living under the Lordship of Christ. I often see much else to admire, and even model, in other areas of their lives. But this type of “safe zone” literally means setting aside God’s Word in order to help those living in, or considering living in, opposition to it believe that they can be right with God without turning away from their sin. It is a terrible sin against those they are seeking to help.

Perhaps in remembering the role we have been placed in relative to the souls of our charges, the sobering, well-known text in Ezekiel 33 is worth considering:

“…if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet , and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head…But he who takes warning will save his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchmen’s hand…I have made you a watchman…therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me.”  Ezekiel 33:3b-7.