Faulty Messengers, Dangerous Guidance

To be frank, the Bible condemns homosexuality. No amount of verbal hocus-pocus can make scriptures like Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26, 27 disappear. (See box.) But siding with current trends against the Bible, a Jesuit priest said of homosexual relationships: “They are the only possible solution for a lot of people to lead a happy and meaningful life.” Following the same line of thinking, one Episcopal bishop called homosexuality “something over which [homosexuals] have no control.” But the Bible says of some former homosexuals in the first century: “That is what some of you were. But you have been washed clean.”​—1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

Some excuse their contradicting of Bible standards on the basis of love. One priest said: “Love, especially love of the outsider and the outcast, is the essential test of our spiritual life.” He then concluded, “Homosexuality would never have been an issue for Christ. The issue for him would have been: Do these people live out their lives, whatever they are, in a truly loving way?”

But the Bible does not confuse love with sentimentality. Godly love is balanced by justice and includes a hatred for badness. The Bible forcefully admonishes, “O you lovers of Jehovah, hate what is bad.” (Psalm 97:10) True love also includes discipline, for “whom Jehovah loves he disciplines.” (Hebrews 12:6) Therefore, ministers are obligated “both to exhort by the teaching that is healthful and to reprove those who contradict.” (Titus 1:9) And remember this: When the ancient priest would faithfully discharge his duties, “many were those whom he turned back from error.”​—Malachi 2:5, 6.

[Box on page 13]

“You must not lie down with a male the same as you lie down with a woman. It is a detestable thing.”​—Leviticus 18:22

“That is why God gave them up to disgraceful sexual appetites, for both their females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature; and likewise even the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene and receiving in themselves the full recompense, which was due for their error.”​—Romans 1:26, 27