How Should The Church Treat Homosexuals?

The first question I think we should ask ourselves is this;

Does the Holy Bible support homosexuality as honorable or does the Word of God call homosexuality a grievous sin? As a Christian, you know without any doubt, homosexuality is sinful and everything about it is condemned in God’s Word.

Now that brings us to the next question;

When Homosexuals infiltrated the Boy Scouts of America; was that a good thing or was it a bad thing? I feel confident that almost all Christians would agree; that was a bad thing.

And when homosexuals infiltrated the public school system; was that a good thing or a bad thing? And once again I think almost all Christians would agree; that too was a bad thing.

I really don’t think I have to tell you why. We know why. And many Christians have pulled their children out of public schools, choosing instead to home school their children.

Now I ask you to think on this question. What will we do with our children when the homosexuals infiltrate the church of Christ? Will we “home church” them?

Homosexuals are coming. The church of Christ is one of the “last mountains to climb” for the HGLBT organization. They will not come looking for salvation and rescue from their condemnation of living a homosexual lifestyle. They will come looking for acceptance of their sinful form of existence. Make no mistake, the homosexual community knows full well how to perpetuate acceptance of their lifestyle. They seem to thrive in environments of government controlled organizations and especially in places where there are children. They know that children are very susceptible to the indoctrination and propaganda they constantly teach. No wonder Christians have elected to remove their children from the public schools.

Homosexuals will target the Churches. Christians everywhere are unsure how they should respond when homosexuals come into their midst. On the one hand we understand the serious danger to our families and our loved ones and yet we are teaching a confusing doctrine of love and acceptance and we are unsure just what that means. On the one hand we are taught that we must love our enemies and we read in Corinthians where Paul said that homosexuality is a sin that will prevent you from being saved and he followed up by saying “such were some of you”. But then we read in 1 Corinthians where Paul criticized the church for allowing a sexual offender to remain in their midst and demanded that they “deliver him to Satan” for his sexual misconduct.

The answer to all this is really very clear. But understand this, all sin is not equal. The Bible is clear on that point but it is another study which I have written about already in the past. Sinners of this type are not to be part of our church community. We should cast them out from among us to protect our children and our families and loved ones from the deadly influence of their venom which is highly contagious.

But wait a minute you might ask. What about love for all men? Aren’t we supposed to have that love? And the answer is, “of course we are”. God is love and so are we. And we know this, obedience is love. The love for God is obedience. When homosexuals show a genuine desire to repent and to change from their sinful behavior then we need to help them to obey the Gospel.  I don’t think I know any Christian who would not want all men to be saved and that includes homosexuals, pedophiles, and even serial killers. But let’s not deceive ourselves and our children in the process, unless homosexuals have a desire to hear and be obedient to the Gospel and renounce their attachment to any form whatsoever of the homosexual lifestyle, they need to stay away from our families and our children.

Doesn’t common sense tell us this is true? Of course it does. Even non-Christians know and accept this concept to a degree. Even the laws of our land forbid a pedophile or a sexual offender from being found around schools or Bible camps where children will be found. Why would this be so? It’s because they will very likely do harm to our children, that’s why. And it used to be that way for homosexuals as well. But the culture and the laws of our land have changed and homosexuals are no longer looked at as perverts by most of the population. But Christians know better. They most certainly pose a threat to our children. The Apostle Paul knew that and that is why he gave us this command,

1 Corinthians 5:9-13

             I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. ¹⁰ Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. ¹¹ But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner–not even to eat with such a person. ¹² For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? ¹³ But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.”^[

Paul knew the danger of associations with sin. Judge for yourself. What happens when a person watches movies or TV filled with bad language? We all know they become acclimated to it and it ceases to shock them when they hear it.

We will not neglect to teach Homosexuals and sexual perverts and we will go anywhere they ask to do so, but bringing them into our families and our assemblies will cause weak and unsure Christians to acclimate and to accept their behavior as normal.

Furthermore, when a homosexual is converted to Christ they should drop the reference to themselves as homosexuals. They should be totally repentant and ashamed of their old sinful lifestyle to the point that no further reference connects them to the old life that has died to sin. They should not refer to themselves as “recovering homosexuals”, or “non-practicing homosexuals” or any other term or title that makes it seem like there is an approval of a homosexual mindset when it might be in some stage of recovering mode. To do so will give insecure and immature Christians the thoughts that in some way homosexuality is accepted as long as the person abstains from practicing it. Everything about an HGLBT lifestyle is a grievous sin and so shameful that it should not be named among Christian people.

Remember this; Christian love is obedience to God’s commands. It is not, and never has been “tolerance and fellowship”. We do not tolerate and fellowship false religious organizations, but that in no way judges us as people who do not have Christian love for all men.

We are not neglecting to teach homosexuals and sexual perverts the Gospel. We have circulated numerous books and magazine publications and written articles by many men. There are also videos produced by the thousands as well as several TV shows designed to teach the lost. Don’t let anyone tell you that a great effort is not being done already to try to save those guilty of sexual sin. But the homosexual community themselves are doing all they can to override and overpower any amount of teaching the Christian community can produce.

May God help us to keep our congregations free from sexual perverts. Every congregation should be an oasis of safety for our children and our loved ones where we can bring our families without fear of contamination from individuals with a sinful lifestyle.

Carl O. Cooper