Epiphany Epilogue: Matthew 19:8-12 -- What Jesus Says About "Born That Way"

One final question on the subject of Christians and homosexuality remains for us to ponder, beyond the epiphany I, and other evangelicals, have experienced in seeing the sin as one sin among many, not the pre-emininent sin of all, which some have made it out to be.

The question is raised by many in the Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender (LBGT) community -- they claim that they were "born this way," and, therefore, it is not a sin to live as God created a person to be.  What does contempory scientific study say about this claim?

There is increasing scientific evidence to back the claim of being born this way. “Sexual orientation is not a matter of choice, it is primarily neurobiological at birth." So said Jerome Goldstein, director of the San Francisco Clinical Research Centre, addressing 3,000 neurologists from around the world at the 21st meeting of the European Neurological Society (ENS) in Lisbon last month.


The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of recognised mental disorders almost 40 years ago in 1973 and the World Health Organisation followed suit in 1992.

If it can be shown that the brains of gay people are physiologically different from heterosexual people, the idea that they are born this way gains strength.  Is someone born into homosexuality different from the voluntary sexual acts that the Bible verses about same sex relations seem to describe?

That is one question to ponder.  The author Tony Johnson has an interesting idea about what Jesus did not say and did say about bning "Born this way.'

Johnson points out a pamphlet is titled "What Jesus Said About Homosexuality" and you open it and it's blank, page after page, blank."Of course, that's true, proclaims Johnson, "Jesus never mentioned homosexuality. Though He did mention Sodom and Gomorrah, using them as examples of inhospitality to strangers;"

Johnson continues, "So you have to wonder: if Jesus was God, as Catholics believe, Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, consubstantial with the Father,  and so gifted at least in some way with Divine Omniscience, so He'd know there would one day be a terrible problem in Christianity and culture over homosexuality, gay rights, and same-sex marriage, why didn't He say anything specific.  Why didn't He say that He was abolishing all the rules in the Old Testament EXCEPT the rule against homosexual intercourse?"

"Why didn't He distinguish between His forgiving the woman brought to him in adultery ("Let him who is without sin cast the first stone") and His wanting to continue to hold homosexuality against people?"

"Why didn't He say anything about how homosexual marriage would defile the sanctity of the relationship of man and woman? Why didn't He say anything?
Did He just keep forgetting to mention it?

The closest thing He DID say is very instructive.
In speaking about "protecting the sanctity of marriage" Jesus said:

"Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.
"And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery."

The disciples said to him, "If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry"

But He said to them, "Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. "For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it." (Matt 19: 8-12)

 "Curiously, if you look in the glossary of the Bible I just quoted from, it defines "eunuch" as "chamberlain, official." If you depended on that for a dictionary, you'd have a hard time ever understanding what Jesus was talking about. You'd think the choice was between getting married and being a politician."

 "So what were eunuchs?"

Eunuchs were men who didn't have sex with women and/or couldn't reproduce--who were therefore considered safe to be around women in the harem. Since they had no children, they had no vested interest in leaving a fortune to the next generation so they could be employed in government and civil service because they had no reason to be crooked or seek advantage for their own sons.

(Of course, not all men who don't or can't reproduce were necessarily thought of as eunuchs, though in that culture at that time and situation in history, most men were married and did reproduce. Having children was a way of serving God by increasing God's people in a world in which human beings were scarce. The point here is that when Jesus talked about eunuchs, he was certainly including men who didn't fit that norm.  He himself didn't, having no children or wife himself.)

 Eunuchs were sometimes men who'd been castrated in order to serve in these functions. That's the "eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men."
 Eunuchs were also men who just didn't look very masculine, who weren't interested in marrying or having sex with women, who were "sissies." Eunuchs included men who were obviously different.
 Those--clearly--were what Jesus referred to as "eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb."  Could homosexuals be as eunuchs?
 COULD HOMOSEXUALS ARE BORN THAT WAY!
 Johnson sums it up.  "The other class of eunuchs are those who "make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." The Catholic Church has used that quotation to justify requiring celibacy and non-sexuality of its priests".
 Johnson asks: Could some homosexuals, like eunuchs, be born that way?


Philip and the Eunuch from Acts Chapter 8