Sexual and trans ethics

Dear Editor,

I was deeply moved by the anonymously written ‘I am same-sex attracted, committed to celibacy: please hear my voice’ (en February 2022).

However, I would want to push back on a couple of points in the article. Towards the end we are exhorted to put the pastoral before the doctrinal. This is impossible, as our doctrine tells us how to be pastoral. Our pastoral medicine is true doctrine. If we don’t define our terms and don’t do so Biblically, we get in a mess, as in fact the article demonstrates. The author rightly stands by homosexual actions (and wilful thought patterns) as being sin (missing the mark) and transgression (crossing a line), but by identifying as ‘gay celibate Christian’ may be obscuring what the Bible says about iniquity (staining/disordered). For this reason, Rosaria Butterfield and others have warned against this sort of language.

In this sense homosexual sin and temptation is no different to any other. Our desires are disordered (each of us disordered differently) and need to be repented of: to call myself a ‘gay celibate Christian’, is to tie our identity to our disorder. We are not defined by our struggles, but by Christ. By stating who we are in Christ we announce the victory, even if we’re not yet enjoying all of its benefits.

What would help people like the anonymous author is room in the church to be honest about their battle and progress and to be received as a brother/sister into the homes and lives of fellow deeply-stained people who together can say ‘we were’, but are now together washed.

Yours sincerely,
Darren Moore Chelmsford

Dear Editor,

I am glad that en has grasped the thorny issue of homosexuality and allowing open debate on the issue. But I was mystified by a letter in the March issue which linked homosexual behaviour and the issue of transgender people. I will be naïve and say that, while homosexual behaviour is clearly condemned in the Bible, the issue of whether you feel male or female is not. I see the latter as a psychological issue, nor a moral one.

One verse which I have heard quoted is Genesis 1:27, but surely the word ‘and’ there is inclusive not exclusive. Whatever our sexuality, God has created us. And if our psychological condition leads to wrong actions, that is another matter. But why is it wrong to have feelings which differ from our biological sex? I expect a large postbag in reply!

Yours sincerely,
Roland Morriss Rosendale