HOPE FOR THE HOMOSEXUAL
BY DR. RICHARD D. DOBBINS
There is no way to reconcile an active homosexual lifestyle with Scripture, for the Word of God clearly identifies all homosexual behavior as sin. (See Romans 1:18-32.)
Clay McClain was caught up in the homosexual lifestyle for years, then he came to Christ and found that Jesus can break the yoke of homosexual bondage and set the captives free to live a normal
heterosexual life.
“The Lord Jesus Christ can set a man or woman free from anything,” Clay said. “It’s not just our sexual struggles, it’s any area of our life that needs His help and grace.”
Clay was molested as a child and attributes his later homosexuality to that repeated molestation by more than one man during his childhood. He began to hunger for God and turn toward Him in his early teens, and came to Christ in his late teens. But, “I was in my late 20s before I can honestly say I walked away from that [homosexual] behavior and embraced a full life of obedience to the Lord,” Clay said.
Clay’s experience emphasizes that it is so important to give our children healthy touches. We think of young children starving for parental affection and hugs. We can take bathing opportunities, for example, to explain to young children that their genitals are the personal, private parts of their bodies. The child can be taught to understand that when someone breaks through their privacy barrier and touches their genitals, it is the kind of bad touch their parents warned them about.
Affectionate families are vital for producing healthy heterosexual children. A husband and wife who display affection for each other and for their children model for those children healthy
heterosexuality.
Clay McClain said he grew up in a “moral fog,” watching church members who were involved in sexual perversion and activity outside the church: “Because so much of what I was seeing around me in church didn’t match the lifestyle of people out of the church, I had this mixed up idea that maybe this sexual stuff is part of what it takes to grow up.”
He also was deprived of affection and attention from his father, who he said was present but always busy with work. And, he said, there was an abundance of pornographic material available to teenagers then, as there is even more so now.
Clay said he discovered that there is a God-given hunger that can be misdirected by such pornography. “If you are struggling with same-sex attraction,” he said, “it is always rooted in a God-given hunger to connect with your own gender. I mean, God wants us to connect with our gender, which is why He gave us fathers for boys and mothers for girls. But the way you connect makes all the difference in the world.”
The devil takes advantage of children who are so starved for affection that they will accept any touch as better than no touch at all. At the root of a lot of homosexual background is a disinterested
or absentee father. Related to this is the disruption of a good male-female relationship between parents, which makes it difficult for both boys and girls to grow up with a healthy sexual identity.
THE ABUSE OF WOMEN
This breakdown or animosity between male and female in the home is often present in the families of homosexuals. When the father withdraws from the mother and the son, he creates big problems for both of them. The mother wants the attention of the male–and reaches out to her son as a substitute for the distant husband. In the process, the son becomes feminized, of course not wanting to see his mother as a sex object–so he tends not to see other women in a sexual way. He has no desire for a woman. At the same time, he becomes vulnerable to homosexuals who are always predatory, trying to enlist younger males in the homosexual lifestyle.
THE GENETIC DECEPTION
The Scripture says rebellion against God is at the root of homosexuality. “This ridiculous idea that this is some kind of genetic or psychological thing is so arbitrary,” Clay McClain said. “Romans
chapter one says that whenever a generation of people turn away from the true God, they begin to worship man.” (See Romans 1:18-32.) In fact, ancient cultures such as the Greeks began to worship the male body, its athleticism and material form, he added. “The worship of the body led them culturally into pederasty, which is older men involved with young boys, and women were denigrated and treated in general as non-issues.”
There really is no respectable body of scientific evidence that indicates homosexuality is genetic. The studies that indicate this simply are not as strong as media attention in recent years wants to
indicate.
Rejection of God, not genetics, is the root of homosexuality. The abundance of public nude statues of men in the Greco-Roman world of Paul’s day showed the extent to which men had turned away from women and begun to worship the male body. When you distort the balance God made and break the natural male-female relationship, you disturb the building blocks on which civilization stands.
It is important, if you are homosexual, to understand that Jesus Christ can help you change. If you are tired of the hollowness, the dissatisfaction, frustration, guilt and rejection–all the things that
go along with the homosexual lifestyle, God can help you turn your life around.
THE RECRUITMENT OF YOUTH
There is a strong, “evangelistic” thrust among homosexuals today to reach teenagers, according to Clay McClain. “I’ve never in my life seen such a thrust to reach the teenager with the message that homosexuality is a viable option,” he said. “We have a generation of fatherless boys out there that homosexuals want to recruit.”
Parents need to better understand just how sexually curious young males are. Once testosterone finds a dominant role in our body chemistry, it is a strong sexual stimulant and opens the young male to all kinds of sexual ventures. I doubt that there is any male in our society who grows to manhood without having some brush with pornography. And if that happens to be homosexual pornography, then the original sexual stimulus leads to an attraction to members of the same sex.
Mothers especially may deceive themselves about their sons’ sexual curiosity. But they should know that their sons need them to understand their sexuality and to help them by prayer and watchfulness. Mothers need to help their sons cultivate a healthy sexuality.
And sons need understanding, communicative fathers. Fathers have gone through growing into manhood and their sons need their compassion and understanding about the strong sexual feelings they arc grappling with. Fathers need to teach their sons that sexuality is a wonderful gift from God and that it is for marriage. Sons need fathers to warn them of the distractions and temptations they will face.
Fathers also need to show affection to their sons, through warm hugs and strong bonding. They need to warn their sons about male predators who will try to take advantage of sexual urges and curiosity.
THE Road to RECOVERY
Clay McClain has found that, just as homosexuality was a learned behavior that required reinforcement in his life, heterosexuality is a learned behavior. “I had to reinforce–and I still have to reinforce–my behavior with Truth. So I feed myself on Truth,” he said. “I feed myself on the Word of God and on healthy fellowship with godly people who know where I’ve come from and know my weaknesses.”
He feeds himself, too, with “rich, meaningful interaction with my wife and the healthy, loving same sex relationships I was looking for all along.” Clay explained that Christ did not heal him instantly “with some magic wand. He healed me when He said, ‘Clay, follow Me.’ ” Clay found that getting free from homosexuality was a sort of “by-product” of putting Christ first in his life.
Men, stay involved with your spouse and your children. You are God’s leader to them and they look up to you. As you follow the Lord, God will help them follow you.
THE ABOVE MATERIAL WAS PUBLISHED BY GUIDELINES FOR GOOD LIVING, VOL. IV, NO. 40. THIS MATERIAL IS COPYRIGHTED AND MAY BE USED FOR STUDY & RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY.
