Love Into Light: The Gospel, the Homosexual and the Church

ENDORSEMENTS

For Christians struggling with a biblical grammar to shape our speech about same-sex attraction, Love into Light is a timely gift. The offerings of this book are clear yet nuanced. There is no chest-beating masculinity or homophobic anxiety fueling the argument. In fact, those in search of ammunition for such sentiments in the name of Christianity will be sorely disappointed. What one will find in these pages is the gracious and courageous voice of a pastor, a pastor who has thoughtfully engaged the Scriptures, the Christian tradition, and real people who wrestle with same-sex attraction. Love into Light is a big welcome mat at the church’s front door for people who struggle with same-sex attraction and for those who wish to love them in Christ’s name.

—DR. MARK S. GIGNILLIAT

Associate Professor of Divinity

Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

What a powerfully insightful book this is. We have needed a reliable guide to lead us discerningly to a faithful understanding of the church’s gospel-responsibilities — and opportunities — with respect to a cultural phenomenon we can no longer ignore. With counsel that is marked by rich pastoral experience and faithful, informed biblical application, Peter Hubbard here proves to be that guide. I am not aware of a more valuable first resource to help shape our thinking on this very contemporary issue.

—DR. FRED G. ZASPEL

Reformed Baptist Church, Franconia, PA

Calvary Baptist Seminary, Lansdale, PA

Love into Light

The Gospel, the Homosexual and the Church

© 2013 by Peter Hubbard

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-62020-222-7

eISBN: 978-1-62020-320-0

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good New Publishers.

Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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To my brothers and sisters in our churches who have secretly struggled with same-sex attraction—may you be drawn out of the shadows and into the light of Jesus through the love of His people. We need each other—so we can fight sin and rejoice in God’s powerful grace together.

MORE ENDORSEMENTS

This comes at just the right time. . . . Those who live under Scripture are increasingly eager to put on humility, speak with and learn from those who experience same-sex attraction, and consider what all this means for life in Christ’s Kingdom.

—DR. ED WELCH

Counselor and faculty member at CCEF

Peter Hubbard is a gifted teacher, and he wisely navigates what are uncharted waters for many Christians: How should churches relate to others with same-sex attractions?

—DR. ANDY NASELLI

Assistant Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology

Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis

We live in a day where we face challenges that require God’s wisdom. These challenges are designed by God to cause us to look to Him as to how He might use them to revive His church and equip it to be humble enough to love a broken world. This book reflects the wisdom from above which is described as both gentle and full of mercy as well as pure, unwavering, and without hypocrisy (James 3:17). It is a labor of love and contains vital truths that all of us need to hear and heed.

—DR. BILL THRASHER

Author and Professor

Moody Theological Seminary and Moody Bible Institute

Half Title Page

Endorsements

Full Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

More Endorsements

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: Gospel

Chapter 2: Heart

Chapter 3: Change

Chapter 4: Bible

Chapter 5: Labels

Chapter 6: Celibacy/Marriage

Chapter 7: Climate

Chapter 8: Community

Chapter 9: Outreach

Conclusion

About the Author

Contact Information

My wife and children have been remarkably patient with me during my writing binges. Thank you. I daily experience the love of Jesus through you, and feel spoiled to come home to such a happy place.

Ed Welch, Mike Emlet, and the other CCEF/Westminster faculty have modeled and taught the truth and grace of Jesus to me. Their influence is present in any piece of wisdom in this book. (The erroneous parts originated with me.)

My North Hills Community Church family has been a consistent encouragement. I love your heart for God and His Word and your posture of humility and compassion for the hurting. Special thanks to my friend and ministry partner Ross Robinson. You have taught me what selfless friendship looks like. May God give us 20 more years of ministry together. I could not make it through a week without your assistance, Susan Wood. Thank you. And thank you, Ben Arnold, for designing the charts and offering valuable insights. Lynn Adams, I have learned so much from your understanding and experience in gospel-saturated counseling. Jim Phillips and Daniel Hindman, you were so kind to read the rough draft and recommend needed changes.

Thank you, Andy Naselli, for the countless ways you helped and encouraged me when I doubted.

The idea for this book originated with Tim Lowry. I am grateful for your sensitivity to the Spirit and your persistence.

To God be the glory!

THE FIRST TIME I COUNSELED a man struggling with same-sex attraction (SSA), I felt awkward. I didn’t really know what to say. I wanted to help, but I wasn’t sure how. He didn’t really know what to say either. He felt defeated, yet addicted to homosexual porn and anonymous hookups. He wanted help, but he was uncomfortable talking about such a personal area of his life. We seemed so different. How could a happily married pastor help a man struggling with homosexuality? Aren’t we supposed to be enemies? Aren’t we told that my theology of sexuality is toxic to him, and that his lifestyle is destructive to everything I believe in?

So I asked him, Would you be willing to help me help you? He said, Yes. So, we began meeting for coffee or talking in my office. I asked him a lot of questions. He risked so much and shared many of his fears, joys, failures, and victories. The more I listened, the more I learned, the more I realized—we are not different. We are the same. Our specific battles and sins may vary, but our hearts are the same. And our daily need for the grace of Jesus is the same. During our conversations, I saw my own insecurities and warped thinking more clearly. God used him in my life, and God, I believe, used me in his life.

I’m not trying to scrape away the differences and paint everyone with a broad brush. Each of us experiences life differently. But when we fire our personal marketing department and peel off our masks long enough to listen and share honestly with others, a new world opens up before us. Like the born-blind man who was healed by Jesus—suddenly voices have faces, and noises have authors. People cease to be shapeless labe¹—gay, straight, queer, breeder. The image of our Creator begins to shine through our brokenness. Self-righteous pastor-sinners and self-indulgent homosexual-sinners both look to Jesus, the Healer, who opens blind eyes so we both can begin to see clearly.²

This is my longing for the church. Every day the media overflows with legal and political news regarding homosexuality. We are witnessing what New York Times writer Frank Bruni describes as a profound social and political revolution.³ As in any revolution, the temptation is to join the frenzy and begin shooting at whoever we are told is the enemy. Soon the church can become defined by what we are against, whom we oppose, and the gospel is lost in the fray.

I am not minimizing the call of Christians to be good stewards of our earthly citizenship. We have been called by God to a specific country, and if we love our neighbors, we should care enough to be engaged citizens who embody and articulate God’s heart regarding poverty, injustice, the sanctity of life, racism, marriage, etc. However, in the name of opposing this revolution, many of us have forgotten who we are and who they are. We launch verbal volleys over the trenches, and yet seem to be losing more ground than we are gaining. Our drone attacks may feel safe to us, but we remain clueless to the hearts and motivations of those we have been told to fear. And our young people pick up on this. They hear sermons, but they know people. For example, David Kinnaman writes of a seventeen-year-old who invited her gay friend to church. She later lamented,

The youth pastor knew I was going to bring him, and even though his talk really had nothing to do with homosexuality, he still found a way to insert ‘God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’ into his comments. I was sitting there dying. This happened more than once. My friend was at a point where he was interested in seeing what Jesus might offer, and the door was just slammed shut.⁴

Stories like this may help explain the Grand Canyon divide that exists between the way older Christians and younger Christians view homosexuality.⁵ It is wrong to be rude, even in the name of morality.

But we can also be mute. I have spoken to scores of men and women who have spent years worshipping in church while battling alone with SSA. They were terrified to tell anyone, and convinced that if other Christians knew their secret, they would be tagged and discarded. Imagine the trauma of believing that your struggle is unlike any other sin. The preacher makes applications in his sermons to lying, stealing, or marital selfishness. And periodically a man may testify to struggling with heterosexual lust. Or a woman may ask for prayer regarding anxiety. But these sins seem normal, understandable. And there is hope and help for change. But homosexuality seems different. When it’s mentioned in church, it’s usually associated with abomination, activism, or antagonism. Often the pronouns change from we to them. Some sins allow you to be a we, but other sins require you to be a them. The yuck factor crosses the line of acceptability.

As I have written this book, I have prayed for three things:

that pastors and ministry leaders would talk about SSA with awareness of our own sin, with biblical clarity, and with deep compassion for people,

that lonely, silent SSA strugglers within our churches would feel loved, and move toward the light of community,

and that the church, all believers, would shift from reacting to media and political stories, to proactively engaging our homosexual neighbors with the same love and the same truth that Jesus is offering to us.

This book is not a counseling manual or a comprehensive theology of homosexuality. Neither is it a political action plan. I think of it more as a plea, an appeal to the church to rethink the way we talk about SSA. What if homosexuality is not a threat but an opportunity? Could God use one of the most controversial moral issues in our nation to awaken His church rather than damage it? This requires a seismic shift in thinking, which some of us might not be eager to make. I find it much simpler to issue a commendation or condemnation while keeping a distance. But we need Spirit-empowered love to move toward those struggling with SSA without despising or excusing their sin, because their sin is our sin—our hearts are no different!

Are we willing to ask the Spirit to expose our own hearts? And will we risk our comforts to move toward the shadows in order to experience the light and love of Jesus with our hidden brothers and sisters? The way we answer these questions will tell us what we really believe about the gospel, the homosexual and the church.

¹ A standard way to summarize some of these labels is LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer). Identifying the meaning of sexual identity labels is difficult because