Article March 5, 1979 Issue

Healing homosexuality

STEVEN LEE FAIR

Today many people are asking if homosexuality is right or wrong. The Bible and Christian teaching in general take the latter position. To the person who intuitively feels it's wrong but is overwhelmed by homosexual desires, this question may seem ironic. What good is it to feel something is wrong if one can't keep from doing it?

The agonizing problem of a desire for morality being over-powered by confused emotions and physical desires is echoed in St. Paul's lament, "The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."^{Rom. 7:19;} It would be hard to find a more concise statement of the general dilemma facing the individual who is trying to be free from physical bondage of any kind. What, then, is the solution? For the person challenged with homosexuality it may seem that he or she must either live in constant temptation and guilt while trying to suppress the tendency, or else yield to it and so deny moral sense that knows it's sin.

But Paul offers a third way—spiritual regeneration through Christ. For, after admitting his human inability to be as good as he desires, he goes on to say: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."^{8:1, 2;}

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