Humanist writers, the scribes of secularism, often complain that Christians do not learn from history. They point to past cultures where aberrations such as homosexuality and gender confusion were treated as normal components of the community, and because such communities existed, they suggest that Christians are out of order to call homosexuality a sin. Yet there is no corresponding cry for the sacrifice of human beings whose living hearts were ripped from their chests in ancient cultures. If learning from history is such a good idea, what happened to human sacrifice?

On the other hand, humanist writers claim that human beings are evolving inexorably into better and better beings. The journalists of evolutionary progression say that recognition of homosexuality as normal is a natural outcome of human maturity. When Christians declare that homosexuality is sin, these writers scornfully consign Christians to “the wrong side of history.”

Secular thinkers call on both science and history to declare that homosexuality should be accepted as normal. Secularists ask, where do Christians get the idea that they can ignore science and history?

Christians get their ideas from the Bible.

The Bible is God’s gift to humankind to be their guide for faith and life. The Bible’s truths do not change over time; they are absolute. Whatever the Bible declares to be sin in one writer’s work is still sin when it appears later. Humans do not evolve. God does not evolve. Truth does not evolve.

Christians call homosexuality sin, along with many other sexual perversions, because the Bible calls those behaviors sin. Christians do not deny that there have been humans throughout history who have practiced sexual immorality in many different ways. They reject the idea that homosexuality, like any other sexual perversion, is normal, because the Bible says it is not normal; it is sin. The Bible teaches that humans were created male and female, by God according to God’s plan. The Bible teaches that the union of male and female is the union that fulfills every human being’s sexual potential completely, all the while modeling the relationship of God to his church, a relationship that fulfills the total potential of every human being. Against this absolute truth received by God’s revelation of himself in the Bible, secularists base their conclusions on a moving target, a relative truth that is different for each person. Secularists operate on a self-serving standard that says that each person must discover his own truth, which he will recognize when it makes him feel good.

People who are trying to make sense of the cultural discourse on this subject need to recognize two important truths:

• God created the universe and all life within it, including human beings, whom he uniquely created for relationship with him.
• The Bible is God’s revelation of himself through human instruments, and it can be understood .by reading the language as if it meant what it says.

Some Christians torture both language and scholarship in order to make the Bible appear not to call homosexuality sin, because they think that the Jesus who said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” could not have intended for homosexuals to be called sinners. They confuse the recognition of sin with justification for hatred. Too many people who claim the name of Christ do, in fact, use the Bible and teachings about sin exactly that way. They forget that while Jesus taught us to eschew sinful behavior (he told the prostitute he rescued from stoning, “Go and sin no more.”) he did not teach us to act as judge, jury and execution when we observe someone in sin. Rather, he taught each of us to get the logs out of our own eyes before we presume to pick splinters out of the eyes of others. Jesus taught us to remember that each of us is a sinner. Not enough Christians speak in public about the truth that every person is a sinner, and no sinner’s sin is less sinful than anybody else’s sin. In plain language, it doesn’t make any difference if you are homosexual or heterosexual before God; you are a sinner.

When we see sexual perversion this way, it means that we don’t even need to know if someone is homosexual or a prostitute or a banker or a thief before we share Christ with that person. We share Christ with everyone, because everyone needs Christ. Everyone is equally sinful. Where do we get that idea? We get it from the Bible.

All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23 ESV

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted. John 3:16-18 The Message