Church officers have a responsibility to protect church members by shepherding them in all areas, including the area of biblical sexual ethics. Church members know the emphasis of God’s Word places on purity; they need church leaders to be clear on this expectation. This means that receiving a minister who self-identifies with a homosexual-orientation should not be approved to serve the church as a pastor.

Many Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) members are stunned, if not shocked, about why it would take so long for the shepherds of Christ’s flock to deliberate on the subject of sexual identity for church officers.  This relates to the question of receiving into the EPC a minister who unabashedly identifies himself with a homosexual-orientation.  Why would it take so long to decide on an issue that God’s divine revelation communicates with simplicity and clarity? As the pastor in question came out of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), which dealt with this issue in a biblically decisively manner.

A seminary education is not needed to decide whether a minister with a professed homosexual orientation is qualified to serve as a pastor. God’s divine revelation is easily understood by even the least educated. God made His truths clear enough to us; it is man who has made it complex.  The Ten Commandments state God’s ethical will clearly. Jesus’ disciples and other followers were not highly educated; they were average men and women.  If anything, it was the religious leaders in Jesus’ day who were the more obtuse regarding Christ’s teachings. Yet, it appears that the biblical truth on sexual ethics was clearly communicated and understood. Consider the following.

First, appellation gay, as applied to homosexuality, is a soft-pedaled euphemism to cover up the utter depravity of the sin. Leviticus 18: 22 and Romans 1: 24-26, for example, teach God’s perspective on homosexuality. No theological degree is required to assert this.

Secondly, a professed believer’s position in Christ is not identified biblically by sexual prefixes.  There is no biblical basis for professing Christians to define or identify their position in Christ sexually.  If one uses gay Christian, why not hetero Christian, binary Christian, or incestuous Christian?

Thirdly, by identifying oneself with a homosexual orientation, even if he abstains from practicing this orientation, this does not resolve the real issue that this orientation is inconsistent with God’s design for human sexuality. It is also possible that the sin of pride can keep a professing believer from conforming to God’s design for sexual expression. This is not a biblically healthy position from which a church officer should shepherd his flock.

God’s divine revelation is clear in both Old and New Testaments:  that no form of sexual immorality, whether heterosexual or homosexual, is ever consistent with biblical sexual ethics. I Corinthians 6:9-11 makes it clear that no form of sexual immorality is pleasing to God; but, in fact, urges professing believers to recognize that an immoral sexual lifestyle is what “you used to be” but it is no longer what characterizes you.

So, church officers have a responsibility to protect church members by shepherding them in all areas, including the area of biblical sexual ethics. Church members know the emphasis of God’s Word places on purity; they need church leaders to be clear on this expectation. This means that receiving a minister who self-identifies with a homosexual-orientation should not be approved to serve the church as a pastor.

Lastly, church member do not need a seminary degree or theological education to understand and confront this issue. I have a degree in biblical education, but it wasn’t the theological degree that gave me my knowledge of biblical sexual ethics. I learned it through my regular reading and studying of God’s law; it was there that the principles of sexual morality were made absolutely clear to me. I believe these truths are clear to most Christians who study the Bible, regardless of their formal educational background.

Here is what we in the EPC desire of our church officers: Shepherd our beloved denomination and its members with singleness of motive: to remain pure, to remain faithful to God’s precepts, and to be a model of integrity you relate  God’s Word to Christ’s flock.

Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.