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Homosexuals and Transgenders: Is the Church to Bless, Require Repentance, or Reject?

 

The latest innovations of those departing from the faith once for all delivered to the saints is to bless same sex unions.  Not to be outdone by the Church of England, which began this blessing of sin in December, the Vatican has followed.  The different reasoning for this aside, both signal by such an action an approval of a sin forbidden by the Church for two thousand years and by God’s people long before (cf. Leviticus 18.22; 20.13). 

In the Apostolic Constitutions of the Christian Church from the late 4th century, same sex relations (sodomy) and transgenderism (effeminacy) were condemned rather than blessed, along with activities of sorcerers.  The pertinent text reads:

He that is guilty of sins not to be named, a sodomite, an effeminate person, a magician, an enchanter, an astrologer, a diviner, an user of magic verses, a juggler, a mountebank, one that makes amulets, a charmer, a soothsayer, a fortune-teller, an observer of palmistry; he that, when he meets you, observes defects in the eyes or feet of the birds or cats, or noises, or symbolic sounds: let these be proved for some time, for this sort of wickedness is hard to be washed away; and if they leave off those practices, let them be received; but if they will not agree to that, let them be rejected (Apostolic Constitutions VIII.XXXII).[1]

The text groups such sins together because they are examples of besetting sins.  Such sins are often difficult to overcome, though we recognise God’s power to transform the sinner’s desires beyond his or her efforts through spiritual disciplines.  Otherwise, the person is not only to repent and show contrition but to prove himself or herself over time as a person living in righteousness before our holy God.

Instead of showing sinners the path to righteousness, the blessing of persons recognised in their sin and for their sin affirms them in their sin and their continuation in it.  The Apostolic Constitutions is a gracious document, allowing space for sinners to repent and be received back into fellowship, but it is clear that those rejecting correction are to be rejected from communion.  To bless a homosexual in a same sex relationship or a transsexual identifying as a woman is equivalent to blessing a person practicing sorcery and augury. The Church has never considered either—until this present generation.  In so doing, it shows itself not the be the Church at all but a mocking imitation of the body of Christ.


[1] The translation may be found online: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07158.htm (accessed 5 February, 2024).

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