The important point in those three verses is that some of these specific Corinthians used to be part of the gay community (“some of you were once like that”). But they became new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). They were no longer gay, or at least they no longer practiced homosexuality. That male prostitute near the Moulin Rouge could have trusted in the reality behind this passage.

I come at this issue not as a psychologist, but as someone who can claim some level of biblical scholarship and has a teaching ministry, and as a straight man who has experienced God’s grace. So my concern in this article is the church context, not the counselor’s office detached from it.

Back in the day, I lived in Paris, France for over a year, helping out churches, going to school, touring, and sight-seeing. For a brief time I was even a kind of substitute pastor of a small church in the twelfth arrondissement before I left for home. Sometimes a small group of us would go out on the streets, sharing our faith in bad neighborhoods.

One Friday or Saturday evening, near the Moulin Rouge, I saw someone emerge out of the shadows. He or she had longish platinum hair, heavy makeup, a leopard-skin top, tight black leather pants, and black high heels. Yes, he or she had breast features (of sorts). As she or he approached me, I shared the simple gospel. He said with a husky voice, in English, with a German or Scandinavian accent, “How can I change? Look at me!” I assured him that God could do it. We chatted a little longer. He looked pensive and walked away.

Since then, I sometimes think about him. I hope my words had some influence on his life. But we don’t need to let this extreme case be our guide.

Recently, I saw a crawler go across the screen on a news broadcast that mentioned “pray away the gay.” From the context, the words had an incredulous tone (“Does that still go on, in this day and age?”). The made-up saying gives the impression that it offers a quick, easy, and shallow solution. Even the extra-clever rhyme and meter has a slightly mocking attitude behind it.

California just passed a law banning reparative therapy of homosexuality for anyone under 18. Gov. Brown, at the signing ceremony, called such therapy “quackery.”

Then I read reports about segments of the church that are muchmoreaccepting of the gay lifestyle. I know from personal observation that aggressive gay and lesbian recruitment goes on among students at Christian colleges.

There seems to be a campaign, coordinated or not, to push this lifestyle onto the church. And if you don’t accept it as they say you should, you’re…what? A troglodyte? A fundamentalist stone-thrower? Unloving? A quack?

I’m all in favor of love and grace and acceptance, but do we allow “cheap grace” (Bonhoeffer’s expression) that sits there, inert, and doesn’t transform us? If the gospel doesn’t do that, what good is it? Yes, all sinners, straight or otherwise, need to be accepted in our churches, but grace does not leave them where they are. Grace is everyone’s reparative therapy.

To understand the gospel of grace, we need to look at the spiritual side of Christianity: pneumatology (doctrine of the Spirit). When we preach and practice it, it includes these elements: transformation of the heart and subsequent improved moral behavior. The foundation of this doctrine comes from Scripture and then develops along historical lines, keeping a remarkable consistency, broadly speaking. None of these passages deals with counseling as such, but they can have a bearing on our lives — even our sex lives.

We begin with the “founder” of our religion. Jesus said we must be born again, an experience that is the work of the Spirit:

⁵ Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. ⁷ You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:5-8)

This experience with the Spirit is powerful and transformational. It can lead to dramatic changes in a person’s life, whether gradual or instantaneous.

You’ve heard of the saying “Our body’s a temple”? It comes from one of Paul’s epistles:

¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. ¹⁹ Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? (1 Corinthians 6:18-19)

It’s the Spirit’s indwelling presence that makes the body sacred, not working out at the gym or eating right (though those do no harm).

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