More and more Christians are adopting the belief that churches should not prohibit gay marriage for disciples of Jesus. They see this as requiring too much self-denial for their brothers and sisters in Christ whose sexual orientation is toward the same sex. And many Christians who remain opposed to gay marriage for followers of Jesus are not necessarily embracing a greater degree of self-denial. This is because they combine their opposition to gay marriage with the belief that God will change the sexual orientation of gay Christians who repent of a gay lifestyle.

As long as Christians believe that sexual orientation change is available to those who pursue it, then a prohibition against gay marriage is only a prohibition against Christians with same sex orientation who do not choose to repent and seek healing and orientation change. For those Christians who do repent, they are free to pursue the fulfilling value of marriage once they become heterosexual, which is understood to be what God will do for those who pursue Him for that.

The increasing awareness that many (most?… almost all?) who have pursued such healing have not experienced it has contributed to adopting an affirmative view of gay marriage in the church. If someone’s sexual desire is gay (through no choice or fault of their own) and they are not able to become heterosexual, then it seems wrong to deny them the value of a marital relationship. Again, that is too deep of a level of self denial for people to accept as a part of following Jesus. And Christians who prohibit gay marriage, while clinging to the availability of orientation change for those who properly seek it, are also not accepting the idea that following Jesus would require such a deep level of self-denial.

Both positions are motivated by a desire for gay Christians to be able to pursue self-fulfillment in marriage. But both positions also can have a less virtuous motive. We do not want to believe that God would expect any Christians to deny themselves the expression and fulfillment of their sexual attraction through the relationship of marriage because if He could ask that of them, what does that mean He could ask of us? We do not want to believe that level of self-denial is a part of following Jesus for what that could mean for our lives.

We want God to be about our fulfillment and flourishing in this life. We want discipleship to be about experiencing His loving provision. The idea that discipleship would include a significant amount of sacrifice and suffering is anathema. (Some assign this aspect of discipleship to those who have the misfortune of living under heavy persecution and then praise God that they do not have that misfortune.)

It is natural for us to want this, but in Luke 14, Jesus presents a disturbing teaching. I have already pointed out that hating your family was a deep level of self-denial for a first century jew. And we overlook an even more disturbing teaching because we are used to the language of the cross. “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” The original audience for this message did not have the cross as a religious symbol. It was a humiliating and cruel method of execution. That is what people who heard this would be thinking about. When we realize this, then what level of self denial are we able to conclude would be too much for a loving God to ask of a follower of Jesus? What amount of sacrifice and suffering are we able to rule out?
…. I said it was disturbing… But Jesus said it.

I would love to connect with you about these posts if they have stirred any thoughts or questions. Take a minute, shoot me an email at bo@leavenedlives.org, and let’s see where that takes us.