Does God Hate Homosexuals?

"Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable."

- Leviticus, 18:22

With the controversy of legalized homosexual marriage celebrating its one year anniversary here in the state of Massachusetts, I thought it might be appropriate to tackle this particular question. I am sure many of us remember that Pastor who, several years ago, stormed the funeral of a recently murdered homosexual man to proclaim loud and clear that "God hates fags." I am sure many of us remember the "religious right" trying to impose its values upon all of America by pushing to protect the sanctity of marriage.

But before I go anywhere with this topic it is very important that I make a distinction that we, as a people, are in danger of forgetting: there is a big difference between disapproval and hatred. When I was growing up as a young child, I remember occasionally being a little too rambunctious and getting into trouble. When my parents grew angry occasionally they would shout, and I would be sent off to my room. But after sufficient time had passed for me to calm down and be ready to listen, my parents would always come into my room to tell me that yes, they loved me but they did not love what I had done.

In an article entitled "You Would Cry Too if it Happened to You," Peggy Noonan writes of her experience witnessing a high school graduation. A young woman, big under her graduation gown with a late-term pregnancy crossed the stage to receive her diploma to the thunderous applause of the audience. And in that moment Peggy Noonan realized that something had changed, a deep belief that had permeated American thought had changed. As she wrote, ..."applause is a right and generous response for a girl with grit and heart, a girl who kept her child and remained in school despite society's disapproval. But society wasn't disapproving, it was actually applauding... The old America had a delicate sense of the difference between official disapproval and unofficial succor. The old America would not have thunderously applauded, but some would have gone out of their way to help what used to be called "girls in trouble." For all of our talk of acceptance, we don't show much love. As we have become more open-minded, we have become more close-hearted. My message to America is this: what you applaud, you encourage - but beware of what you celebrate."

Now let me distance myself a bit from this idea of what some of you may have in mind concerning "old America." But despite her waxing romantic concerning a previous American paradigm, Peggy Noonan's article is a telling one. There is a huge difference between showing compassion for someone and applauding a lifestyle that was, at least once, considered abberent or undesirable.

You see, we all like the idea of "doing our own thing," because it leaves us free to pursue whatever we like without having to listen to anyone else tell us that it is dangerous or even wrong. But when taken to its logical extreme, as we are beginning to do, we also remove any sense of social responsibility for, as Peggy Noonan called, "girls in trouble" (or people in trouble) because, according to our new paradigm, they are no longer in trouble - they are simply doing their own thing and do not need any love or support. Quite a throwback to Aldous Huxley who said in his book "Ends and Means," "...I want this world not to have meaning because a meaninglessness world frees me to pursue my own erotic and political desires."

Quite a contrast to the Bible, where God continually calls upon his people to care for the orphans and the widows, people in danger because they were in trouble and had no one to care for them.

But to deal specifically with homosexuality - why does God forbid it? As is written in the book of Genesis, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and cleave to the woman, and the two will become as one flesh." The Bible is very clear that romantic relationships are only intended to occur between men and women who are not related to each other (Leviticus goes into detail about whom one is not allowed to lay with).

There are sociological studies that supposedly show that many people (up to one half and even more) of those who join the "homosexual culture" do so for social and psychological reasons, and not purely genetic ones. Now there are studies that supposedly show the opposite as well. But there was a brief write-up in Time magazine two years ago, or so, concerning a research project to find the source of homosexual behavior as a purely genetic one and that attempt ended in failure. When those results were published, the researchers received hundreds of angry letters - do you know why? Because if something cannot shown to be purely genetic, then free choice is part of the reason why a homosexual life is chosen, and all of a sudden homosexuals are no longer the victims of genetics but the pro-active selectors of an aberrent lifestyle.

There are also those who will argue that the only places where commandments against homosexuality are mentioned is when such behavior occures as a ritualized practice, a la temple prostitutes. This is patently absurd. Take any other specific sin in the Bible - such as lying or murder. Lying and murder are not only wrong when done in a ritualized fashion, they are wrong whenever they are done.

God does not hate homosexuals. God loves all people, of all races and walks of life. The reason why we react so strongly against the Bible on this point is that we have redefined sexuality to exclude God and include only ourselves and our partners, with no one else needing to be consulted, or whatever. But what we may forget is that God created sex! And he told people to engage in it - but only under certain conditions: in a marital relationship, as an act of love between a man and a woman. We have internalized and personalized sexuality so far that the definitions of what constitutes "right sex" have been lost.

Ravi Zacharias once gave this extrapolation of a Biblical truth that I would like to end on: There was once a young man, who was also a skeptic, who came to Jesus with a denarii coin. He asked Jesus to whom should they pay taxes? And Jesus, sensing the trap, asked in return, "whose face is on that coin?" "Ceaser's," came the reply. "Give to Ceaser what is Ceaser's, and give to God what is God's," said Jesus. But listen, if the man were not a skeptic seeking merely to trap Jesus, he would have gone on to ask "What, then belongs to God?" And Jesus, for his answer, would merely need to hold up a mirror and ask "Whose face is in this mirror?"

By the way, a real relationship with Jesus Christ does not motivate people to badger, harass, or threaten anyone. Nor does it "oppress" "natural desires" for people of the same gender. There are those who struggle with homosexuality and love Jesus Christ. There are those who have overcome their temptations through the ministry of Jesus in their lives.

How Can God Send People to Hell?

People today want a God without wrath to take man without sin into a kingdom without justice through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”
- Richard Niebuhr “The Kingdom of God in America”

Among the objections voiced against Christianity, this one is, in my experience, one of the most popular. Any objection to Hell strikes me as being made on two levels; an intellectual level and an emotional level. We object on an intellectual level because the existence of Hell does not seem to jive with a good and just God, but we also react on a visceral, powerful emotional level as well. The Bible says that God is good, and Christians seem to parrot the phrase “God loves you” or even “God is love.” How can we possibly reconcile these two extremes of love and Hell?

First and foremost, I want to make sure we are all on the same page when we say “Hell.” Just as the media has incorrectly spread the message that in Heaven people become angels and are reunited with their friends and family, so it has also spread the message that Hell is a torture chamber beyond even the cruelty of Auschwitz attended by demons and devils with cloven hooves. Both images are incorrect. As an interesting and significant aside, neither devils nor Satan “rule” Hell. There is no King of Hell, it is a prison. And while Satan may be the biggest and baddest prisoner in there, he remains a prisoner all the same subject to the power of God.

More to the point, however, no one ends up in Hell apart from his or her choice in the matter. Hell is not where people go because they just didn’t believe the right thing and play by God’s rules. God is not capricious, He is not a spoiled child with infinite power who throws a tantrum when people don’t do what He wants and so He throws them away to be tortured forever.

“’Son of man, say to the house if Israel, ‘This is what you are saying: our offenses and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?’ Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.’ Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel 33:11-11)’”

Clearly, the choice to either die or not die (that is accept or reject God) is a choice we make, or don’t make, and a choice we are responsible for.

God’s intent for His creation was life, not death; relationship with Him, not separation. Yet people decide to turn away from God and, in so doing, pave their own way to Hell. God does send people to Hell, but those who go are those who have said their whole life, in thought, word and deed, that they will not live the life God has prepared for them which is, by the way, better than the life anyone could make on his or her own. As C.S. Lewis remarked, “The gates of Hell are locked on the inside.”

Those who go to Hell are given exactly what they want; life apart from and without God’s love, light, goodness, hope and direction. Life without God. And if you turn away from the source of all light, life, goodness and hope – what you are left with is very bleak indeed. God is loving, indeed God is love, but we here in America are only willing to accept the soft virtues of compassion, tenderness, tolerance and mercy and do so in a highly sentimental way. We forget that God is also the hard virtues as well; He is just, moral, righteous and holy.

Therefore, Hell itself is not defined geographically (like a place) but relationally (like a relationship between two people). Those in Hell are, from that point on, removed totally from any relationship with God. And while God sends people into Hell who have essentially been choosing Hell their whole life (as mentioned previously), Hell is punishment but God does not himself punish anyone in Hell – he does not stand there with a whip to punish those who just didn’t believe the right thing. Hell is the natural consequence of us rejecting God our entire lives, and God gives us over to what we want – life without him. It is a poignant reminder of human finitude that we cannot be totally rid of God until, after we have died, he finally gives us just that.

Finally, even the existence of Hell testifies to God’s love for his creation in that he allows them to either choose him or not to choose him. God does not force people into Heaven who do not want to go – even Heaven would be Hell for someone who wanted to be apart and autonomous from God. J.P. Moreland compares just such a man to this experience: have you ever been at a party, where someone is more handsome than you, funnier than you, and more intelligent than you – and you hated being around that person? How much worse then, for that person, to be in the presence of God himself? It would be tortuous. Hell also demonstrates the essential worth and dignity that all humans have in the eyes of their creator, even if they choose to not enter into a relationship with that creator. God could annihilate those who do not choose him, that is erase them completely from existence (even their soul) as a sort of spiritual “mercy-killing” or to not waste space for those who did not choose him. But he allows everyone his or her choice, to choose God or to choose himself (or herself).