Same-Sex Relationships: The Debate

Begin with the facts, stated plainly. The historic teaching of the Christian church, from the early centuries until the late twentieth century, was that sexual relationships between people of the same sex are outside God's will, and that sexual union belongs only within the marriage of a man and a woman. That remains the present teaching of the great majority of the world's Christians. The Catholic Church holds it, in its Catechism (paragraphs 2357 to 2359). The Orthodox churches hold it. Most Protestant churches hold it, including nearly all the churches of the global south, where most of the world's Christians now live. The Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops in 1998, in its Resolution I.10, rejected same-sex sexual practice as incompatible with scripture by a very large majority, and the bishops of Africa and Asia were among its strongest supporters.

It is also a fact that a minority of churches, mostly in Western Europe and North America, have changed their teaching. Among them are the Episcopal Church in the United States, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Methodist Church in Britain and the Church of Scotland, which now permit or conduct same-sex marriages or blessings in some form, and the United Methodist Church, which removed its prohibitions in 2024. The Church of England in 2023 approved prayers of blessing for same-sex couples, the Prayers of Love and Faith, for use in its services while keeping its teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman. These changes have led to divisions: new churches and networks, such as the Anglican Church in North America and the Global Methodist Church, and alliances of global south churches such as GAFCON, whose Jerusalem Declaration of 2008 restated the traditional teaching. When the Vatican's 2023 declaration Fiducia Supplicans permitted brief, non-liturgical blessings of couples in irregular situations, including same-sex couples, while restating Catholic teaching on marriage, the Catholic bishops of Africa and Madagascar, through their continental symposium (SECAM), declared together in January 2024 that such blessings would not be given in their churches.

So the numbers are not even, and this lesson does not pretend they are. Why then set out both readings at full strength? For three reasons. First, the affirming reading is held by serious Christians, including scholars who accept the authority of scripture, and a student who meets it should be able to say what it actually argues, not a caricature of it. Second, a student who holds the affirming view should be able to say what the traditional reading actually argues, for the same reason. Third, students in every country will meet both readings, through the internet, through study abroad and through members of their own churches, and a pastor who cannot state either position fairly will be trusted by neither side.

Some things are not in dispute between the two readings, and they should be said before anything else. Gay and lesbian people are made in God's image and loved by him, as every person is. Most report that their attractions were not chosen, and serious people on both sides accept that testimony. Many are Christians, in every country and in every kind of church, often hidden and often afraid. Contempt, mockery and violence toward them are sins. The question that divides the church is not whether gay people are welcome to hear the gospel, or whether they may belong to Christ. It is whether a same-sex sexual relationship, including a faithful and lifelong one, can be holy before God. Both readings claim the anchor. Both say that God's will is our holiness. They disagree about what holiness requires here.

The traditional reading begins not with the few texts that mention same-sex conduct but with creation. 'So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them' (Genesis 1:27). The man and the woman are made for one another, and 'they will become one flesh' (Genesis 2:24). On this reading, sexual difference is not incidental to marriage but the heart of it: the union of the two halves of humanity, open to new life, and an image, according to Ephesians 5:31-32, of the union of Christ and his church, which are not the same as each other. When Jesus is asked about marriage, he goes back to exactly these two verses (Matthew 19:4-5). Robert Gagnon, whose The Bible and Homosexual Practice (2001) is the most detailed defence of this reading, argues that the whole biblical witness on sexuality rests on this complementarity of male and female, and that the explicit prohibitions only make visible what creation already teaches.

Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 forbid a man to lie with a man as with a woman. Traditional readers note that these laws stand among others the New Testament plainly continues, against adultery and close-family unions, not among the food and purity laws it sets aside, and that they are addressed to Israel and to the foreigner living among them alike (Leviticus 18:26). The apostolic council of Acts 15, which freed Gentile believers from the law of Moses, still required them to abstain from sexual immorality (15:29), porneia, a word that in Jewish usage covered the forbidden unions of Leviticus 18. On this reading, the church's freedom from the ceremonial law never extended to its sexual ethics.

Romans 1:18-32 is, on this reading, the most important text. Paul describes humanity's refusal to honour the Creator: 'They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator' (1:25). Then, as a sign of that exchange, he describes women who 'exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones' and men who 'abandoned natural relations with women' (1:26-27). The word nature, physis, sits within an argument about creation, from 1:20 onward, so it means the created order, not personal temperament or social custom. Paul is not describing individual biographies, as though each person had first known God and then turned; he is describing what humanity as a whole has done, and he goes straight on in 2:1 to say that the reader who judges others is no better. Richard B. Hays, in The Moral Vision of the New Testament (1996), argued that the New Testament's witness here is consistent and that the church has no warrant to set it aside. Late in life Hays changed his view, as section 3 notes, but his 1996 argument remains one of the most cited statements of this reading.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 lists among those who will not inherit the kingdom 'men who submit to or perform homosexual acts', which is how the BSB renders two Greek words, malakoi and arsenokoitai. The second, as the inquiry showed, is built from the words of the Greek translation of Leviticus 20:13, a link the scholar David F. Wright set out in a 1984 study. Traditional readers take the two words together as covering both partners in same-sex sexual acts, without reference to age or status, and 1 Timothy 1:10 uses the second word in a list that many commentators see as following the order of the Ten Commandments. And the very next verse is the gospel: 'And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God' (6:11). The list includes the greedy and drunkards. No one is beyond grace, and no one is exempt from repentance.

Traditional writers also answer the claim that the biblical writers knew nothing of committed same-sex relationships. Gagnon and others point to ancient texts, including the speech of Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium, which imagine people as drawn by nature to one sex or the other, and to evidence of lasting adult relationships in the Greco-Roman world. Paul's language, they argue, is general: it condemns the act regardless of motive or circumstance. Todd Wilson, in Mere Sexuality (2017), and Preston Sprinkle, in People to Be Loved (2015), have each set out the traditional view with particular care for gay and lesbian people, and Sprinkle in particular has insisted that the church's failures of love toward gay people are themselves a grave sin. Their conclusion is that the call of Christ to a gay or lesbian Christian is the call he gives to every unmarried Christian: to chastity, which means celibacy outside the marriage of a man and a woman, lived within a church that truly becomes family.

The affirming reading, sometimes called the revisionist reading by its critics, begins with the same scriptures and asks what they were addressing. Its defenders accept the authority of the Bible. They argue that the texts that mention same-sex conduct were written about practices that are not the same as a faithful, lifelong, mutual partnership between two adults, and that the church can reach a new judgment, as it did when it received the Gentiles, without overturning scripture. Matthew Vines, in God and the Gay Christian (2014), set this out for a popular audience; James Brownson, a Reformed New Testament scholar, gave it detailed exegetical form in Bible, Gender, Sexuality (2013); and David Gushee, a Baptist ethicist who long held the traditional view, explained his change of mind in Changing Our Mind (2014).

On Genesis, affirming readers argue that the first problem God names is loneliness: 'It is not good for the man to be alone' (Genesis 2:18). Brownson argues that one flesh in Genesis 2:24 describes a new kinship bond, the forming of a household, rather than requiring that the two be anatomically different, and that the man's cry 'bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh' (2:23) is about likeness, not difference. Genesis describes the first marriage, which was between a man and a woman, without forbidding other covenant bonds that serve the same purposes of companionship, faithfulness and mutual care. Jesus' citation of these verses in Matthew 19, they argue, answers a question about divorce, not about who may marry.

On Leviticus, affirming readers note that 18:22 and 20:13 belong to the holiness code that also forbids mixed fabrics (19:19), that 20:13 prescribes death, which no church now applies, and that Christians already distinguish within this code on grounds the code itself does not give. Many argue that the prohibitions reflect concerns specific to ancient Israel: male honour, the waste of seed, and separation from the practices of the nations (18:3). On this reading, they belong with the laws that Christ fulfilled rather than with the moral law that binds all people.

On Romans 1, Brownson and others argue that Paul is describing excess: people who 'burned with lust' (1:27), whose desires spilled beyond their ordinary bounds, within a passage about idolatry and the dishonour that follows it. Nature, they say, can mean custom and convention, as in 1 Corinthians 11:14, where it teaches that long hair disgraces a man, and Paul uses the same phrase, contrary to nature, of God's own grafting of the Gentiles in Romans 11:24. Paul's concern was the exchange of the natural for the unnatural by people for whom the natural was available. That, they argue, does not describe a person whose orientation has never been toward the other sex, or a relationship of faithful love. On 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10, writers such as Robin Scroggs, in The New Testament and Homosexuality (1983), and Dale Martin argued that the words most likely referred to exploitative forms common in the Greco-Roman world, such as the use of boys and slaves, or that their meaning is too uncertain to bear the weight placed on them.

Not every affirming scholar argues that the texts mean something other than what they have traditionally been taken to mean. William Loader, an Australian New Testament scholar whose multi-volume study of sexuality in early Judaism and Christianity is among the most thorough ever written, concluded that Paul very probably did disapprove of all same-sex sexual relations, including mutual ones, because he shared the assumptions of his time about nature and about men and women. Loader nonetheless argues that the church may revise its practice in the light of what is now known about sexual orientation, much as it has revised other teachings that rested on ancient assumptions. Luke Timothy Johnson made a similar argument in 2007. Richard Hays, whose earlier argument appears in section 2, reached an affirming conclusion in The Widening of God's Mercy (2024), written with his son Christopher Hays, an Old Testament scholar. They argued that scripture itself shows God widening his mercy beyond boundaries his people once held, an argument that, as its reviewers on both sides noticed, rests less on new readings of the prohibiting texts than on the direction of the whole biblical story. This is a different kind of affirming argument, resting less on new exegesis and more on how scripture's authority works when the world it addressed differs from ours.

Affirming readers also make an argument from the church's own history. In Acts 10 and 15 the apostles saw the Spirit given to uncircumcised Gentiles, and Peter concluded that God 'made no distinction between us and them, for He cleansed their hearts by faith' (Acts 15:9). The church changed a practice grounded in clear scripture because it saw God's work in people it had excluded. Gushee and others argue that the faith, love and fruitfulness of gay Christians in committed partnerships is a comparable sign, and they appeal to Jesus' test, 'By their fruit you will recognize them' (Matthew 7:16). They add that mandatory lifelong celibacy is, in Paul's own terms, a gift that is given to some and not to all (1 Corinthians 7:7-9), and that requiring it of every gay person turns a gift into a law.

Most of the debate comes down to a few questions. A student who understands them can follow any argument on either side, and can see why sincere readers reach different conclusions. Each question is set out with both answers.

Is sexual difference essential to marriage? The traditional answer is yes: Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 together define marriage as the union of male and female, Jesus joins them when he speaks of what marriage is, and Ephesians 5 makes the difference between husband and wife an image of the difference between Christ and the church. The affirming answer is that what Genesis 2 stresses is likeness and companionship, that the purposes of marriage named in scripture, faithfulness, mutual help and self-giving love, can be fulfilled by two people of the same sex, and that Jesus was answering a question about divorce. To this the traditional reader replies that Jesus answered the question about divorce precisely by saying what marriage is.

Did the biblical writers know of relationships like those the church is now asked to bless? The affirming answer is that the dominant forms they knew were unequal and exploitative, and that the concept of a lasting orientation was unknown to them, so their words cannot simply be applied to faithful partnerships today. The traditional answer is that ancient writers did know of lasting attraction and long-term adult relationships, that Paul's language in Romans 1 is general and grounded in creation rather than in particular abuses, and that Leviticus makes no distinction of age or status. To this the affirming reader replies that even if some ancients knew of such relationships, the texts were not written with them in view.

How should the Old Testament law be read? The traditional answer is that the New Testament continues the sexual ethics of Leviticus 18 while setting aside its purity laws, and that Acts 15 and the vice lists show this. The affirming answer is that Christians already draw lines within the holiness code on grounds the code does not give, and that the reasons behind 18:22 belong to Israel's setting. To this the traditional reader replies that the line is drawn by the New Testament itself, which repeats the sexual prohibitions and never the purity laws.

Is the Gentile analogy apt? The affirming answer is that in Acts the church changed a practice rooted in scripture because it saw the Spirit at work, and that the same discernment is called for now. The traditional answer is that the inclusion of the Gentiles was promised in the Old Testament itself (Acts 15:15-17 quotes Amos), that the council kept the prohibition of sexual immorality in the same decree, and that gay people are already fully welcomed by the gospel, as Gentiles were, without any change in the ethic it calls all believers to. To this the affirming reader replies that the council also kept rules about food that the church later set aside, so the decree cannot settle what the church may revise.

A student should notice what each side owes the other. A traditional reader owes the affirming reader the recognition that many affirming Christians hold their view because of scripture, not in spite of it, and that the church has often treated gay people cruelly. An affirming reader owes the traditional reader the recognition that the traditional view is not a phobia or a prejudice but the reading of nearly every Christian in history, held by many who love gay people deeply, including many gay Christians themselves. Both should be able to state the other's case in words the other would sign.

Among gay and lesbian Christians themselves, there is a group whose voice is often missed in this debate: those who hold the traditional view and live by it. The terms Side A and Side B, which arose in conversations among gay Christians, distinguish those who affirm same-sex marriage from those who believe they are called to celibacy or to marriage with someone of the other sex. Wesley Hill, a New Testament scholar, described his life as a celibate gay Christian in Washed and Waiting (2010), and argued in Spiritual Friendship (2015) that the church must recover deep, committed friendship as a real form of love and belonging. Sam Allberry, a pastor who has written of his own same-sex attraction, made a similar case. Their witness is that celibacy is costly, that it is possible, and that it requires a church that truly becomes family, as the lesson on singleness described.

Side B is debated on both sides. Affirming Christians argue that it asks of gay people a lifelong celibacy that most Christians are never asked to bear. Traditional Christians reply that many unmarried believers, the widowed, the never-married and those whose circumstances prevent marriage, are asked the same without having chosen it, and that on one reading of 1 Corinthians 7:7, set out in the lesson on singleness, the gift is the state God has given a person rather than a capacity some lack. Some traditional Christians also object, to the use of gay as an identity by Christians, or to treating same-sex attraction as morally neutral, and when the Revoice conference for gay Christians holding the traditional view began in 2018 it was criticised from both directions. A pastor should know that these debates exist within the traditional camp itself, and should listen to celibate gay Christians rather than speaking about them.

One further point is now widely agreed. For decades some ministries promised that sexual orientation could be changed through prayer, counselling or therapy. Exodus International, the largest such network, closed in 2013, and its president apologised for the harm its promises had caused. Many traditional Christians now warn against promising orientation change, and against any coercive or shaming practice. The traditional call is to holiness, not to a change of attraction, and a church that tells a gay member that his faith is weak because his attractions have not changed has added a burden scripture does not lay on him.

Then the law. About sixty-five countries, by the Human Dignity Trust's count in 2025, still treat consensual same-sex relations between adults as a crime, many of them in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and in some the penalties include long imprisonment or death; Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 provides the death penalty for what it calls aggravated cases, and its Constitutional Court declined to strike the law down in 2024. Some church leaders have supported such laws. This lesson argues, with the Catholic Church and the Anglican primates, that they are wrong. The Catechism says that every sign of unjust discrimination against gay people should be avoided, and Pope Francis said in 2023 that laws criminalising homosexuality are unjust. The primates of the Anglican Communion, meeting in 2016, condemned homophobic prejudice and violence and reaffirmed their rejection of criminal sanctions against same-sex attracted people. Those are traditional churches, and their judgment rests on traditional grounds.

The reasons are these. Paul draws a sharp line between the church's discipline of its members and judgment of the world: 'What business of mine is it to judge those outside the church?' (1 Corinthians 5:12). The ruler's sword is given to punish the wrongdoer who harms others (Romans 13:4), and the state does not punish every sin; it does not imprison the greedy or the proud. Laws against consensual relations between adults expose people to blackmail, to beatings by mobs who believe the law is on their side, and to police abuse, and they drive people away from the very pastors and churches who might care for them. And no one can hear the gospel from a church that is calling for him to be jailed. Whatever a church teaches its own members, it must never call for violence against gay people, never join a mob, and never stay silent when one forms. 'Open your mouth for those with no voice' (Proverbs 31:8).

Within the church, dignity means simple things. Gay and lesbian people are welcome to worship and to hear the word. They are spoken of, from the pulpit and in conversation, with the respect owed to anyone made in God's image, never as the punchline of a joke. A young person who confides in a pastor is protected, never exposed. Where a church practises discipline, it applies the same standards to sexual sin of every kind, and to the greed and slander in the same lists, without singling out one group. And where a young person in distress speaks of not wanting to live, the pastor treats it as urgent and follows the Pastoral Care lesson When Someone Wants to Die.

This is the most delicate page you will write in your casebook, so the rules first. Do not write the name of any person. Do not write anything sexual. Write nothing that would harm someone if the notebook were lost; in some countries, that could put a person in real danger.

Title the page Same-sex relationships. Copy 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 from the BSB at the top. Under it, write the traditional reading in five sentences, using the texts from section 2, in words a traditional scholar would accept. Then write the affirming reading in five sentences, using the texts from section 3, in words an affirming scholar would accept. If one summary is noticeably shorter or weaker than the other, go back and strengthen it.

Under those, write what your own church teaches, and then write the four questions from section 4 and your church's answer to each. Where you are not sure of your church's answer, write the question you will ask your pastor.

Finally, write a composite case about your church's care, not about anyone's private life. For example: a young man in your congregation has told a leader that he is attracted to men and is afraid of what will happen if anyone finds out. Write what he needs from the church in the first week, whatever your church teaches; what your church would say to him about how to live; and what your church must never do to him. Then write one thing your church would need to change to become a safe place for him to belong.