Pastors’ Corner on Sex, Sexuality, and Transgender: Got Questions?

By Tom Gilson Published on November 7, 2022

Does any of this sound familiar?

  • It’s Sunday morning, church is about to begin, and a same-sex couple walks in holding hands. The greeters have no idea what to say to them.
  • A mom and a dad show up at your office in anger and in tears, telling you, “Our 7th-grade son wants to be a girl, and all his teachers are calling him Jenny at school now!”
  • One of your leading Bible study teachers comes asking urgently for advice: “They’re laying down the law at work. Either I sign as an ‘LGBTQ ally’ or I get fired.”
  • You’ve wrapped up your sermon on the love of Christ, and a member of your congregation accosts you with the question, “How can you say Jesus loves us when all His people hate gays and lesbians?

If you haven’t seen it happen yet, you can bet it will. What do you do then as a pastor or Christian leader?

I can’t tell you how desperately I wish there was some quick easy answer to all of this. Or if not, then at least some answer we could condense and summarize like we have with other Pastors’ Corner topics.

Maybe you’ll find an answer in this summary of Stream articles on marriage, sex, and gender. I’ve written hundreds of others besides these, plus a book, and Michael Brown has been prolific on this issue both here and elsewhere.

I’ll be honest, though. For all the information on hand, it’s really hard to wrap this one up with a bow and say, “Here’s some solid practical ministry advice for you.” The problem isn’t not so much the issue itself. We can sort out the truth about marriage, sex and sexuality easily enough, from both Bible and human experience.

What complicates it is all the history around it, the strong personal opinions, accusations flying back and forth, and especially the inordinate amount of money and politics pushing on it. That’s where the really tough questions come from. And there are a lot of them.

Send Us Your Questions!

So we’re thinking it’s time now to do sensible thing: Instead of trying to cover all possible questions, we want to hear your questions.

Do you have a ministry or leadership question, connected with these topics of marriage, sexuality, and gender? Send it to us! If it’s a real question for you, it’s probably a real question for a whole lot of other pastors and leaders.

Email your question to [email protected]. Read on first, though, so you’ll know what we’re looking for and what you can expect when you write.

Who Should Ask?

Who should ask? Anyone with a genuine ministry-related question on the topics of sex, sexuality, homosexuality, and/or transgender issues, who wants a solid answer from the biblical and traditional point of view.

You need not be a pastor to ask.

What Kind of Questions Are We Looking For?

What kind of question should you ask? Anything related to practical ministry, specifically as it connects to sex, sexuality, homosexuality and transgender issues.

This email address is for those topics only. If you have questions, comments, or thoughts on other matters, please use our contact form instead.

What Information Should You Include in Your Question?

Anything that would help us write a good, practical answer through an article here on The Stream. Let us know what you want kept private in addition to names, church name, and your location, which we’ll always hold in confidence.

How Can You Expect The Stream to Respond?

We’ll look carefully at every email. We’ll select from the best of the questions we see, and we’ll respond to them in the form of articles published at The Stream. 

Please Support The Stream: Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic, and Moral Issues of Our Day.

We will acknowledge every genuine email. Unfortunately we cannot commit to answering every email personally. The plan is to respond primarily in the form of Stream articles.

What About Those Who Want to Debate or Criticize?

Some people may take this as an opportunity to write complaining about Christian moral beliefs. This is not God’s complaint forum. Those who want to debate or criticize Christian teaching on these topics should use the contact form for that, not this “Questions” email address. We will respond there to genuine questions asked genuinely.

Rude or intolerant messages will reveal you don’t care to practice the “tolerance” claimed by most homosexual, transsexual, and allies. If you do not take your own beliefs more seriously, you ought not expect us or anyone else to take your message seriously, either.

(We reserve the right to close off this email account at any time.)

Don’t Delay!

That question you’ve been wondering about? It’s probably on your mind right at this moment. Go ahead and send it now, while it’s fresh on your mind!

We look forward to hearing from you.

 

Tom Gilson (@TomGilsonAuthor) is a senior editor with The Stream and the author or editor of six books, including Critical Conversations: A Christian Parents’ Guide to Discussing Homosexuality with Teens.

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