Attraction and Orientation: Defining Our Terms

In the dialogue on gay desire in the broader church, two terms rise to the surface: attraction and orientation. Lack of definition has caused much confusion and debate among God’s people. The stakes are high, because gospel clarity is lost or found for sexual strugglers based on how we define these terms as pastors, counselors, and friends. This is a gospel discipleship issue for the church today; therefore, precision and compassion are paramount.

With the lens of God’s Word, we must carefully examine these terms and where they “live” in our language today. Consider these questions from a shame-filled, fainthearted Christian:

“Is same-sex attraction sinful?”

“If I’m attracted to the same sex, but not lusting sexually, have I sinned?”

It depends on what you mean by “attraction.”

“What if this is just my sexual orientation?”

“Is God always against me? After all, it seems that my sexual orientation has been clear since childhood: I’m gay.”

It depends on what you mean by “orientation.”

Sexual Orientation and Identity

Definitions of sexual orientation vary, but some words appear frequently, regardless of where you look. In my research for this definition, words such as “enduring,” “personal,” “pattern,” “inherent,” and even “immutable” appeared. Most definitions of “orientation” include sexual and romantic attraction, while others broaden it to include emotional attachments or an “aesthetic sense” of what is and is not beautiful—a sensibility.

The American Psychological Association adds to this idea that orientation includes “a person’s sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions.” Membership in a community, the APA adds, is simply part of sexual orientation.^[1]

Sexual orientation is now differentiated from sexual identity^[2] in modern queer theory. According to queer theory, you cannot choose your sexual orientation; it is fixed. However, you can change how you identify, based on your self-conception.

All these definitions lead Christians, especially those who experience persistent same-sex attraction, to various conclusions about their experience—each one with major discipleship implications:

“I’m gay.”

“I’ll never marry.”

“I will always feel this way.”

“I’m different; I’ll always be an outcast.”

Or, worse, some may conclude, “God is never going to be pleased with me because I’m gay.”

While our modern term “identity” does not appear in Scripture, the concept can be found in God’s Word and offers clarifying help for these tender and personal questions.

Biblical Identity: How Do You Consider Yourself?

Though we might find him a strange bedfellow for Christians, Foucault, in his 1976 work The History of Sexuality, identified that “homosexual behavior” had been shifted from a “temporary aberration” (behavior) to “a species” (category of personhood). A novel idea in 1976, this is now part of the fabric of Western contemporary thought and a foundational and foregone conclusion, even in the church. If you feel gay, you are gay. If you “do gay things,” then you are gay. Does this truth claim line up with Scripture? How should Christians consider themselves?

The very first command in the entire book of Romans is this: “So you also must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11, emphasis added).

How the Christian considers who they are is now in relation to something unchanging: their union with Christ. The implications of this are life-altering. The Christian ought not to go on identifying with the “old man” who has been “crucified with Christ,” but instead, consider themselves dead to sin.

Should We Use Orientation Language?

Isn’t this a matter of semantics? Can’t someone who has experienced lifelong sexual attraction to the same sex describe themselves using orientation language? I believe that any use of orientation language, regardless of the direction (homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual), defies the command of Romans 6:11 and produces detrimental and unintended consequences on the broader church and culture.

The use of orientation language lays far more weight on behavior and patterns of temptation than God’s Word does. For God’s people, we are no longer seen through the lens of the things we do or don’t do or the attractions we do or don’t experience, but through the lens of Christ (Gal. 2:20, Rom. 6:11). If someone chooses to identify as gay, is that the most pressing discipleship issue to correct? Probably not. However, discipleship must include, at some point, how the words we use and our self-conception are irrevocably tied.

Orientation language subtly points us toward the wrong goal in sanctification. To use orientation language makes it appear as though you must move from one “bad” orientation (homosexual) to the “good” one (heterosexual). Michael Hannon said it well: “The most pernicious aspect of the orientation-identity system is that it tends to exempt heterosexuals from moral evaluation. . . identifying as a heterosexual person today amounts to declaring oneself a member of the ‘normal group,’ against which all deviant sexual desires and attractions and temptations are to be measured.^[3]”

Ultimately, the goal is not to move from one orientation to another, but for all Christians to live in submission to a loving Lord. For desires that have no righteous end (for example, sexual attraction to a married person, to a child, to the same sex), these desires must be forsaken and put to death. For desires that have a possible righteous end (such as the desire to be relationally close to someone of the same sex, to marry, to have sexual union in marriage), these desires must be held before Jesus, knowing he knows how to satisfy our hearts from the abundance of his provision. Praise God that our attractions and desires can change as we become more like Christ. However, the orientation model unhelpfully enshrines those attractions into a category of personhood that I simply don’t see represented in Scripture.

What Is Attraction?

“Attraction” can be a slippery term, and, in recent years, the term “same-sex attraction” has served to permit a much broader use than in centuries past. Early use of “attraction” in English (circa 1400s) conveyed a drawing of one thing to another in medical contexts (for instance, drawing diseased matter to the surface of the skin).^[4] Today, however, attraction is understood in very broad terms. You can have a romantic attraction, a sexual attraction, a platonic attraction—all under the umbrella of attraction.

The way we respond to the question, “Is same-sex attraction sinful?” has significant implications. We need humility, theological precision, and Spirit-controlled words.

Attraction in Scripture

We see allure, attraction, and a sense of drawing together in the context of marital love throughout the Song of Songs:

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine; your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured out; therefore virgins love you. Draw me after you; let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers.” (Song 1:2–4a)

All sexual attraction serves as a signpost to the greatest attraction and deepest allurement: God himself, as he attracts and draws his people to himself by his sheer perfection and worth. Don’t misunderstand this: the nature of our attraction to God is not sexual. But, at its root, holiness, which proceeds from God and from the people he indwells, is the most attractive force in the universe. The things that come from God’s hand—creation, light, beauty, and flourishing—all have an attractive component. We know that every good and perfect gift, all goodness and righteousness, finds its origin in God himself. “For out of his fullness we have all received grace upon grace” (John 1:16).

Attraction (sexual, romantic, platonic) can only be righteously satisfied when it sets its object on the things God has called good, in the manner he has called good. We must employ the lens of Christ to evaluate the form and object of our attractions and desires. I fear that, instead, the church has inadvertently displaced Christ as the lens for evaluating our attractions and used a lens of “compassion.” This truncated understanding of the morality of attraction hijacks the opportunity for repentance. Our attractions and desires are not morally neutral, even if they’re unchosen. It is not simply acting on our forbidden attractions that is sinful; many of our attractions themselves are part of indwelling sin in the Christian. Thanks be to God that desiring sin and engaging in it are distinct, and choosing not to engage in sin always pleases our Father! But our definition of attraction and the moral values we ascribe to it must also be viewed through the lens of Christ.

Is Same-Sex Attraction Sin?

When we evaluate our attractions through the lens of Christ, it humbles every Christian, not just those who experience same-sex attraction. If any attraction we experience has no righteous end, then it is sinful. But what about attraction to a personality—just enjoying being around someone of the same sex? Typically, throughout history, this would be called friendship. The category for healthy same-sex friendship has been sadly abused in recent years. And for many men, it is non-existent. Thirty years ago, a majority of men (55 percent) reported having at least six close friends. Today, that number has been cut in half.^[5]

For those in the church struggling with their desires for the same sex, these lines feel blurry, and shame creeps in. Sexual attraction on one end of the spectrum and friendship on the other can provide helpful categories for defining attraction, yet what about the desires that fit between these categories? Are those attractions part of a neutral sensibility? Can they be celebrated? Where is the line?

Heart diagnostic questions can help strugglers define what they mean by the attraction they experience and examine it through the lens of Christ:

What about the same sex attracts you? Do you desire to possess them and their attributes of manhood or womanhood to soothe your insecurities and pain? Do you desire romance or exclusivity? Do you feel most at home in communities that celebrate sexual and romantic unions between people of the same sex? Is “being gay” attractive to you?

These attractions represent allurements to things that God does not bless and that will not exist in his ultimate kingdom and reign (1 Cor 6:9–10). Christians ought not to make peace with any attraction that reflects brokenness and indwelling sin. Liking showtunes and “The Golden Girls” may be morally neutral. Yet if the heart of one’s attraction to those things is about seeking a home in a community that celebrates wicked deeds, we must turn and bring these things to the God who searches hearts (Rom 8:29). Definitions matter. If we merely tell the heart that harbors these attractions, “look but don’t touch,” we rob strugglers of the fullness and freedom of bringing all their attractions, unchosen as they may be, to the light and care of our loving Savior. A life of repentance allows tremendous freedom to love deeply, show physical affection (John 13:23), live in community, and bear one another’s burdens with brothers and sisters in the household of faith.

Attraction and Orientation: Faithful Language and Faithful Living Are Connected

Throughout its history, the church has always been a strange outpost, distinct from every culture and time. Definitions are not mere semantics; the words we use and how we use them form how we view ourselves and those around us. God’s people are wise to think critically before adopting language and definitions that are foreign to Scripture. Brothers and sisters, let us speak the truth in love and grow up in every way into Christ (Eph 4:15).

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^[1] “Understanding Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality,” American Psychological Association (2008). https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbtq/orientation.

^[2] Reiter, L. “Sexual Orientation, Sexual Identity, and the Question of Choice.” Clinical Social Work Journal 17, 138–150 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00756141

^[3] Michael W. Hannon, “Against Heterosexuality,” First Things (March 1, 2014). https://firstthings.com/against-heterosexuality/

^[4] https://www.etymonline.com/word/attraction, accessed July 31, 2025

^[5] Daniel A. Cox, “The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss,” The Survey Center on American Life (June 8, 2021). https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss/