But Christian parental love denies neither the child nor God’s law. It insists on loving both child and God’s law, which may be the hardest challenge of all, requiring strength, flexibility, tenacity, resilience, hope, faith. Such love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Cor. 13:7). So, love your gay child as your child—unconditionally. And then love him or her most of all by calling for repentance and faith, because true life will only be found in Christ, not in the satisfaction of any of this world’s desires.

From time to time I hear about Christian parents disowning, cutting off, or permanently shunning a son or daughter who adopts a gay lifestyle. Is that the right thing to do? Is this a requirement of biblical faithfulness?

I believe the basic answer is “no.” It is not the biblical and right thing to do. And I believe that’s the case whether or not the son or daughter professes to be a Christian.

To be clear, I believe the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin. And a person who chooses to pursue homosexual activity cannot remain in good standing in a local church, as with anyone living in any significant and unrepentant sin.

But God established one set of institutions for all creation, and another set for his new covenant people. And these separate institutions impose separate obligations on those of us who belong to each. The parent-child bond, like the husband-wife bond, God established for all humanity, whether or not one belongs to a church. And these obligations subsist irrespective of church membership. Our church relations depend upon the promises of the new covenant and the authorization of the keys of the kingdom. Here we find a different set of duties and obligations, and each set of obligations—creation and new creation—needs to be respected for its own sake.

Whether or not a gay son, daughter, or other family member calls himself or herself a Christian, Christians should love them as family members, even as we lovingly deny them membership in a church, should they want it.

AN ILLUSTRATION BORROWED FROM MARRIAGE

Think of Paul’s command to a woman who becomes a Christian with reference to her unbelieving husband: “if any woman has an unbelieving husband and he is willing to live with her, she must not leave her husband” (1 Cor. 7:13; see also 1 Peter 3:1-4). You might say that this wife has certain obligations to her unbelieving husband by virtue of the creation institution of marriage, even if he does not share in the new covenant institution of the church with her. In a sense, this is the whole point of 1 Corinthians 7: the new society of relationships that we share in the local church do not abrogate all other stations, situations, and stewardships in life.

So try switching up the scenario that Paul has in mind in 1 Corinthians 7:13. Suppose both husband and wife are professing Christians and members of the same church, and then the husband is excommunicated. Should the wife continue to live with her husband if he is willing? One might wonder since, just two chapters earlier, Paul tells Christians “not even to eat” with someone who continues to call him or herself a “Christian” after being excommunicated. Should the wife stop eating with the husband, or being his wife generally? Of course not. She should remain his wife, which includes sharing meals with him. Paul is not addressing this explicitly in 7:13, but I take it as a pretty clear implication.

The command not to eat forbids Christian fellowship. That at least includes the Lord’s Supper and church membership, but probably also any kind of fellowship that risks affirming someone as a fellow Christian. And the wife of an excommunicated husband needs to do just this: to make sure that she doesn’t treat her husband in a way that makes him think that she thinks that he’s a Christian. So, yes, share the Thanksgiving turkey; but no, don’t ask him to pray over it. Yes, continue to fulfill all the obligations of marriage; but no, don’t do anything to insinuate that he’s “fine with God,” or that the church was “probably overreacting in its decision.” A wife of an excommunicated husband wants him to know that she loves him utterly and that she supports the church’s decision to exclude him. Striking this balance will prove difficult, to be sure. It’s a narrow path with canyons on both sides. But that’s her path. And I have seen women lovingly take this path.

BUY BIRTHDAY PRESENTS, NOT WEDDING PRESENTS

It is this same assignment that belongs to Christian parents with a son or daughter who adopts a gay or other forms of an immoral lifestyle. The parents must both love the child utterly and do nothing to affirm or support the lifestyle, financially or otherwise. They must care and provide for him or her as parents (as appropriate to their season of life—one thing for a minor, another thing for a major) and warn him or her about the coming Day of Judgment. They should buy birthday presents and explain why they cannot buy a wedding present, should it come to that.

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