The question of how to love a gay friend will offend lots of people. For those who identify as “gay,” this should not even be a question in the first place. “Just love us for who we are,” they might say. For some Christians, another answer is equally obvious: “Tell them the truth—what they are doing is sin.”
Though the Bible is clear that homosexuality is a sin, love in a broken world is rarely so black-and-white and requires great wisdom. Here are a few ideas for threading this needle:
1.) Be a friend without an immediate agenda.
Our present culture demands accusation or acquittal without examination or deliberation. Back when the battle over gay marriage was a thing, Christians were often led to think they had to address the sin right away or else they were condoning it. In the same way, Christians are often pushed to offer blanket acceptance of homosexuality by the culture and by their gay friends.
In both cases, sexuality is made paramount to all other issues and homosexuality receives different treatment than all other sins. What if we didn’t buy the line that sexuality is the most important thing about a person? What if we engaged the rest of a person’s story without making sexuality the only plotline?
We are so much more than our sexuality. Get to know your friends. Have a drink. Go for a run together.Find comfort in your own identity as a Christian and speak openly of the hope that you have in Christ. Make the person and work of Jesus the decisive factor with which we all must wrestle—not sexuality. The first will inevitably lead to the latter.
2.) Dig deeper than sexuality.
The problem with our past era of purity rings for teenagers was not that those rings encouraged abstinence, but that those rings often made abstinence ultimate, as if our very lives in Christ hinged upon whether we remained sexually pure. Unwittingly, the “moral majority” of Christians were buying into the same lie that guided the sexual revolution: Sexuality is identity.
But we are each so much more than our passing sexual desires. Even though mankind was generally created to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28), there are those who, like the apostle Paul, are called to singlehood and may not exercise their sexuality. Our ultimate purpose is neither sexual recreation nor procreation, but as the Westminster Shorter Catechism aptly puts it in the first question and answer: “To glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
You do your homosexual friends a disservice when you assume their sexuality to be their primary identity. Treat them as you would other friends. Learn about their backgrounds, their struggles, their hopes, and their dreams. Discern the outline of their own belief system. It turns out that the human person is incredibly complex and much more than a simply sexual being. Loving someone means loving their complexity as well.
3.) Aim for the right salvation.
Just as sexuality is not fundamental to our identity and purpose, it is neither at the root of our sin nor at the crux of our salvation. It is an expression—and not always even the most obvious—of our deeper world of sinful desires. There is a reason why adultery and idolatry are often mentioned in the same breath throughout the Old Testament. In pursuing sexually immoral relationships, God’s people were idolatrously pursuing false gods. And those who exchange the worship of God for that of created things will find themselves given over to the lusts of their flesh (see Rom. 1:21–32).
As Christians, we must get at this broader idolatry and worship of the creature rather than the Creator. We must see our friend’s broken spirituality in its entirety, not just as it pertains to their sexuality. This is also easier for the Christian than engaging sexuality head-on because we have the same fundamental struggle.
If we get at the sin beneath homosexuality, we can also aim for salvation beyond sexuality. Should we be happy with the friend who forsakes one sexuality for another but never embraces Christ? I would rather a friend worship Christ and struggle with their sexuality than resolve their sexuality and forsake Christ.
Jesus can and will sanctify his people by the power of his word and the Holy Spirit. But that is the key. We don’t perform our way to Christ. We don’t straighten our paths to find him. We seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to us. He will conform us to his image in all areas, including our sexual desires and behaviors.
