“I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, and I am eternally grateful for what I learned there — the truth that I learned and the biblical foundation that I have,” Chambers said. “But there was no way that I was ever going to tell anybody in my church growing up that I struggled with these things.

Seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr. says comments he made about homosexuality at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting reflect biblical teaching, and his remarks are receiving support from two prominent evangelical leaders who minister to the homosexual community.

In his June 15 comments at the SBC meeting, Mohler — president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. — said Christians have “not done well on this issue,” have told only “half the truth” regarding homosexuality and have practiced a “certain form of homophobia.” He went on to say it’s “clear that it’s more than a choice” and is “not something that people can just turn on and turn off.” He also was clear in calling homosexuality a sin.

“We are not a Gospel people unless we understand that only the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ gives a homosexual person any hope of release from homosexuality,” Mohler told messengers.

The three-plus minute answer — in response to a question by Georgia messenger Peter Lumpkins — has received support from Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, and from Bob Stith, the Southern Baptist Convention’s national strategist for gender issues and the representative of the convention’s Task Force on Ministry to Homosexuals.

But Mohler’s comments were called confusing in some circles, with others saying they wondered if he had changed his beliefs.

Baptist Press requested an interview with Mohler to ask him to expand on his remarks. Confusion over his remarks on “choice” could be just a matter of semantics, he said. Humans, Mohler said, don’t choose their temptations but they do choose whether to act on those temptations.

“To simply use the word ‘choice’ fits the question of behavior,” Mohler told BP. “In other words, each of us makes a choice concerning what we are going to do in the face of temptation. We are fully accountable and fully responsible for that. So when it comes to the question of homosexual acts, ‘choice’ is a fully legitimate category. But when it comes to that pattern of temptation, the reality is that all of us struggle with some kind of temptation that we have simply known from our earliest self-understanding. It could be gluttony, it could be dishonesty, it could be any number of things. But every single human being past the point of puberty has some form of sexual temptation, and we need to be honest about the fact that that pattern of sexual temptation is something that will represent a lifelong struggle.”

The same would be true, Mohler said, of someone who grew up in a family of alcoholics and faces a culture of alcoholism. Despite the temptation, he said, that person is “responsible for his or her own decisions related to drinking and to drunkenness.”

Mohler defines homophobia in the church as being “afraid of the conversation and afraid of the issue” of homosexuality. He said he was not using the word “homophobia” in the context that many others use it.

“The gay activists have used that word as a battering ram for ideological purposes,” he said. “They try to insist that any negative judgment on homosexuality is rooted in fear. Well, that is absolute nonsense. But we play in to that when we do demonstrate ourselves to be afraid of the conversation.”

Too many churches, Mohler said, have not handled the issue of homosexuality well and have created an atmosphere whereby those struggling with homosexuality are too fearful to talk to someone and request help. Those churches, Mohler said, have spoken the truth but not in love.

“The biggest problem that we have right now is not failing to state publicly what we know about the sinful status of homosexuality,” Mohler said. “Thankfully, most evangelical Christians are not following the trajectory of liberals in denying biblical truth and accommodating to the culture. But would we honestly say that our churches are a safe place for a young person struggling with same-sex attraction to come and say, ‘I am a devoted follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to live in faithfulness to Christ. What do I do with this? How do I handle this?’?

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on Baptist Press—however, the link (URL) to the original article is unavailable and has been removed.]

Michael Foust is associate editor of Baptist Press. Watch Mohler’s answer at the SBC meeting at http://bit.ly/jTv0qj. The Southern Baptist Convention has a ministry to homosexuals. Find more information at http://www.sbcthewayout.com.