The church is supposed to be a place for broken people.

Succinct statements like that come from Christians who try to encapsulate the role of the church for society today.  Also these thoughts can come from non-believers who like to look from outside the church and criticize the fact that some Christians are not as accepting of “broken” people as much as they should be.  In short, some churches are accused of excluding some members of society.

Why does Kevin DeYoung entitle his Chapter Nine* “The church is supposed to be a place for broken people.”  DeYoung is a pastor, and he is very aware of the role of the church and what it is supposed to be doing.  DeYoung is also aware that the church has been criticized for not doing enough for “the broken.”  However, DeYoung considers all the people in his church “broken” and he also considers homosexuals outside of his church broken.

DeYoung does not welcome LGBTQ+ community members into his church as pastors and does not condone gay marriage.  For him, homosexuality is a grievous sin.

He knows his church is full of broken people but there is a big difference between his church members and the LGBTQ+ community.

He states the members of the LGBTQ+ community don’t repent of their sin.

For anyone who does not understand Christianity, it may seem hypocritical to not welcome the broken (until one begins to unravel what it means to be a Christian).  For DeYoung, membership in a church begins with repentance.  For many outside the church, this makes no sense.  They want to be saved by Christ without any impact on their lifestyle.  They argue, “No one’s perfect; we all fall short of the glory of God.”  We all need God’s grace.  There is no need to repent.

Part of those statements is true, we are all imperfect.  We are all sinners but members of the church (“communicant members”) are born-again repentant sinners.  DeYoung feels that a pastor can preach to “unconcerned, impenitent sinners” and tell them they can find Jesus without forsaking their sin but that is not based on what he calls the “apostolic gospel.” 

I am a member of a church and I am a sinner.  I am joyful that I sin less today than I did years ago but I am not sinless.  What progress I have made in my life is due to repentance and my increasing desire to forsake the sins I continue to commit. However, I don’t revel in them.  I would like to be sin-free. DeYoung says “It’s much easier to get a crowd by leaving out the repentance part of conversion, but it’s not faithful to Christ.  It’s not even Christianity” [99]. 

Giving one’s life to Christ and repenting begins the process of an increasing desire, a “journey to righteous living” that will never be over.  DeYoung calls this “lifelong repentance” and truly that is what it is.

This past Sunday I taught a Sunday school class on R.C. Sproul’s Holiness of God, how some realize that in Jesus we have a perfect role model to strive for.  However we know we are not perfect like Him and we never will be.  When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they introduced evil into every human’s life and insured that we would always have to live with sin.  The more we compare ourselves to Jesus the more we realize that we fall short.  He understands this because He existed on earth in human form [God incarnate].  Even though He and His Father are willing to extend grace to us to help us with our “sin problem,” He expects us to make the effort to grow in our faith.  DeYoung calls this “a break with the old and a start of something new.”  When you begin your relationship with God, you begin to change your mind about yourself [“I need to make fundamental changes to be a better person”].   When you begin your relationship with God, you begin to change your mind about sin [I am responsible for my own actions and I know my actions are truly sinful].  When you begin your relationship with God you begin to change your mind about God [God is trustworthy, He will forgive me and save me if I put forth the effort].   I believe in His Son Jesus Christ.  I owe Him my life and my allegiance.  I am His adopted child and He is my Father.  I exist to serve Him.  I will follow Him no matter the cost.

DeYoung refers to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who writes about what he calls “cheap grace.”  Too often in the church we get the idea that we can be forgiven without repentance.  “We can be baptized without discipline. We can take communion with confession and absolution without our own personal confession.”  [Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship].  For DeYoung, the homosexual who wants to live the life of a Christian should want to repent of their sin.  The problem is that many Christians treat homosexuality as an “allowable” sin or simply “less” than God’s best.   For DeYoung, this is not realistic.  For him, the homosexual is not living a life that is God’s best by a long shot.  He posits the idea that same-sex relationships are comparable to other sins like ethnic prejudice, economic exploitation and violence against women.  We don’t say those are “allowable.”  Then DeYoung says this: “We cannot live like the Devil on earth and expect to meet God in heaven.”

He admits that some Christians are trapped in an endless quest for something they will never achieve; “We are justified by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone and this grace that grants us faith will invariably be a grace that causes us to change.” [101].  The catch is this grace will be a grace that causes us to want to change.  Can we earn our way into heaven with tons of good works?  No we cannot.  Can we earn our way into heaven living like the Devil?  No we cannot.  The key is to try to do better, knowing that sometimes we will fail.  We want to try to do better because we feel a deep-seated need to do better.  God honors that effort even though it can never be enough. 

The Apostle Paul said “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  To run a race, one has to move toward a finish line.  The key words are “one has to move.”  Paul did not think that running the race was impossible, but it did require commitment, it did require change, it did require repentance. 

For Kevin DeYoung, homosexual behavior is a sin and “allowing” it, accepting it and/or ignoring it will not move us any closer toward “finishing our race.” 

Affirming people may disagree but DeYoung is calling for the homosexual to begin a “true” relationship with God with the following eight heartfelt words: “Forgive me God, for I am a sinner.”

After that is said, members of the LGBTQ+ community may come into DeYoung’s church and sit with the rest of the broken people.

*from Kevin DeYoung, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?