Can One Be A ‘Committed Christian’ And a Homosexual?

Joel has the interesting report of a ‘Committed’ Christian and an Agnostic who are ‘partners’.  Joel’s more interested in the Agnostic+ Christian side of the story and I’m more interested in the ‘Committed Christian’ + Homosexual part.

The question this story raises for me is two fold really-

1- what does it mean to speak of ‘committed christians’ anymore?

and

2- can one be a committed christian and homosexual at the same time?

Concerning 1.   Once upon a time being committed meant adhering to the teaching of Scripture and life in the Spirit.  One would, and could, apply the term committed to those who did their best to live lives of devotion and fidelity to the God revealed in Scripture. Evidently the word has, however, been watered down a bit and committed now means something like ‘loosely holding to the bits of Christianity with which one agrees and scuttling those bits with which one doesn’t agree’.  Hence ‘committed’ Christians these days aren’t those who are servants of Christ; they are people who like to imagine themselves participants in some loosely defined confederation of potentially like minded somewhat part time believers in some nebulous something or other.

Concerning 2.  Not in any meaningful sense of the word ‘committed’.  Can one be a Christian and be homosexual?  I have no doubt that they can.  Any more than I doubt that people who lie, steal, murder, or fornicate can be.  But they can’t be or do those things without that uneasy feeling that always accompanies sin.  To be committed means something more than our culture wishes it meant.  Real commitment is obedience to faith.  One can be a Christian but one isn’t a committed Christian unless one is obedient to faith.  And biblical faith is biblically revealed.  If it’s faith of some other sort, it obviously isn’t Christian faith.

‘Committed Christian homosexual’ is dissonance.  Just as dissonant as ‘committed Christian idolater’ or ‘committed Christian adulterer’.

Will there be homosexuals in heaven?  Of course.  Does that mean they were ‘committed’ Christians in this life?  No.

5 thoughts on “Can One Be A ‘Committed Christian’ And a Homosexual?”

  1. newtaste

    I posted the article on Joel’s blog, not him.

    Kirby says he does have faith in God. And he probably believes he is going to Heaven.

    Could a ‘committed Christian idolater’ be a Catholic? Yes. And surely there are Catholics in Heaven.

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  2. steph

    I wonder if committed Christians are really just fundamentalists. Believing every word to be literally true. You must make no allowances for historical social context and things like birth mortality rates making ‘be fruitful and multiply’ a necessity, and things like laws being created to encourage social conformity so that communities being crucial to group identity. The heretic, doesn’t ‘pick and choose’ but reads with an appreciation of the historical context in which these texts were written.

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  3. steph

    Another thing … if you claim that there isn’t any point to the historical Jesus quest, then is it consistent to take everything the bible says about homosexuality to be literally true?

    Above I meant to say that “laws were created to encourage social conformity, which was crucial to group identity.”

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