A Biblical View of Homosexuality: Changed Your Mind? (Part 3)

A third reason why we may change our minds on what Scripture has historically said about the acceptability of homosexuality has to do with the company we keep. By this I mean: Consider what you’re reading, seeing, and viewing in today’s media. I’m not advocating we turn off the TV or stop reading articles and books that take positions different from our own. But we need to understand that those positions may alter our understanding of a biblical view of homosexuality—not because of their reasoning, but because of the status of the person writing the material.

One author I’ve always enjoyed for his devotional work is Henri Nouwen. During the last years of his life, however, Nouwen’s theology openly shifted—not just regarding homosexuality but also regarding the uniqueness of Christ and his work as the only way to God. Only after his death did some of the reason for that shift become apparent: Nouwen himself secretly struggled with same-sex attraction. Couple that with dabbling in eastern religions, and Nouwen began to shift away from a biblical view of homosexuality. It wasn’t so much his wrestling with Scripture that brought about this positional shift, it was what was going on in his own life. But Nouwen’s status, huge and imposing in the Christian world, had (and still has) a powerful impact on his readers.

Who we listen to really does matter. Again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t read anything that differs from our own viewpoint or anything that differs from an historic Christian doctrinal position. We need to have our own positions, and the historical Christian position is sharpened by interacting with how the current culture thinks. But we also have to be aware that when someone we admire begins to shift his or her position away from a biblical view of homosexuality, that can have a significant impact on us. We can be swayed not merely on the basis of a reasoned argument, but because we don’t want to look “out of step” with people whose thinking we have admired.

Have you ever been swayed to a different position than what the Scripture has historically taught (on anything) because someone you admired or respected took a different position?

Read more about why people may change their minds about a biblical view of homosexuality in Part One and Part Two of this series of articles.

Updated 5.10.2017