Don't take your moral cues from animals

“Don't take your moral cues from animals.”

Never a truer word than this, spoken by Christopher Yuan in a video I was watching last week, which explored yet another one of the reasons given by some Christians for the acceptance of homosexual behaviour as being from God. (Video now available on our resources page)

I was honestly surprised that he felt the need to make this video, as I have not heard this one particular argument much before.  However, to my surprise, at a speaking engagement this weekend where I was talking about how to make our churches spacious places for people to explore faith, one of the leaders of a gay affirming church in Blackpool, stood up and challenged what I was saying.  You guessed it, she tried to argue that because animals exhibit homosexual behaviour it must be a God-given and natural behaviour for us as humans.

I love how Christopher Yuan responds to this, so will not try and reinvent the wheel, have a look at the video.  But what I do want to remind you of is the fact that there is so much deceit in the world, and people are looking for the answers they want to hear. Most often they will hear what their community tells them and work with it. If members of the LGBTQ+ community find a church that publicise itself as gay affirming, of course they are going to be surrounded by those who will tell them, “what their itching ears want to hear.” (2 Timothy 4:3).
 
Our huge challenge is to make our churches attractive and welcoming places where people are shown love and acceptance, but where they won't be deceived.  We need to make our churches gay friendly and welcoming, but not gay affirming.

Of course, this is difficult but not impossible and I could share many testimonies of people who found churches where they were given space to hear from God for themselves.  Let's not worry about how we help someone from the LGBTQ+ community to find their way to Jesus.  All we need to do is to make sure that they find a loving community who will speak truthfully in love to them, trusting that the Holy Spirit does the work of conviction.

Check out our teaching resources on how to make your church a Spacious Place.