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On Biblical Sexuality

What does Scripture teach about same-sex attraction, marriage, and sexual identity — and how should evangelical churches care for LGBTQ+ neighbors and members?

Last updated: April 17, 2026

TL;DR

Scripture presents marriage as exclusively between man and woman, with sexual intimacy reserved for that union. Evangelicals agree homosexual practice contradicts biblical teaching, though they differ on pastoral responses to same-sex attraction. Churches are called to uphold scriptural truth while extending compassionate care, hospitality, and support to all people, including LGBTQ+ individuals.

Few topics have reshaped evangelical identity faster than questions of sexuality and gender. A generation ago, evangelicals moved through cultural and theological shifts on gender roles with sustained internal debate. Today, questions about same-sex attraction, gender identity, and the definition of marriage have become urgent, personal, and pastoral. The debate is not primarily academic; it involves real people — children of evangelical pastors, beloved church members, long-time friends — wrestling with their identities in the context of Christian faith. How evangelical churches navigate this territory will shape not only doctrine but their capacity to bear witness to Christ in a pluralistic culture.

The evangelical conversation reveals genuine diversity: some churches maintain classical Christian sexual ethics and offer pastoral care to LGBTQ+ members living single; others affirm same-sex marriage as compatible with Scripture; still others occupy careful middle positions, questioning traditional boundaries while not yet arriving at affirming positions. What matters most may be less which conclusion churches reach and more whether they can reach it with honesty, compassion, and willingness to serve those whose experience differs from inherited teaching. The question for evangelicals is not whether to have a sexual ethic but whether we can articulate it in a way that preserves both biblical conviction and radical love for all people.

Key Questions This Topic Addresses

  • What does the Bible teach about same-sex relationships, and how should we interpret texts that appear to prohibit them?
  • Can a person experience same-sex attraction and live a fully flourishing Christian life? If so, what does that require?
  • How do churches balance confession of biblical truth with genuine love and hospitality toward LGBTQ+ people?
  • What authority should personal experience and identity have in shaping Christian ethics?
  • What does repentance and transformation look like for believers struggling with sexual sin or identity questions?

The Evangelical Debate

Three Evangelical Approaches to Sexuality and Scripture

Contemporary evangelicalism includes three broad approaches to biblical sexuality, each grounded in different hermeneutical commitments and pastoral convictions about how to hold Scripture's authority and Christ's love together.

Position 1
Traditional / Complementarian Sexual Ethics
Kevin DeYoung · Albert Mohler · Denny Burk · Andrew Walker
Scripture consistently teaches that sexual relations are meant for covenant marriage between a man and a woman. Same-sex relationships, while not uniquely sinful, fall outside God's design for human sexuality. This is not mere cultural preference but rooted in creation order and sustained throughout Scripture. Evangelical churches should teach this clearly while showing extravagant love to all people, including those experiencing same-sex attraction. The pastoral challenge is helping believers experiencing these attractions find identity in Christ rather than identity politics, offering authentic Christian community and the support of church discipline and grace.
Key Reads
What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? Practicing the Prohibition: Why Biblical Christians Cannot Affirm Same-Sex Marriage
Position 2
Affirming / Progressive Evangelical
Jennifer Knapp · Matthew Vines · Austin Channing Brown · Broderick Greer
Scripture was written in patriarchal contexts where gender hierarchy and homogeneous sexuality were assumed. We should interpret biblical sexual ethics through the trajectory of Scripture (toward greater inclusion and equality) and through the overarching biblical theme of radical love and justice. When we do, same-sex relationships can be affirmed as consistent with biblical values of covenant, fidelity, and mutual submission. Evangelical churches that remain anti-LGBTQ+ not only misread Scripture but participate in harm against some of the most vulnerable people. A truly biblical sexual ethic affirms that God created LGBTQ+ people as beloved and that their capacity for committed, loving relationships reflects God's image.
Key Reads
God and the Gay Christian The Gospel in an LGBT World
Position 3
Traditional with Pastoral Complexity
Sam Allberry · Rosario Butterfield · Thabiti Anyabwile · Christopher Yuan
Scripture does teach that sexual relations are for covenantal marriage between man and woman, yet this convocation does not preclude genuine Christian friendship, community, and joy for those experiencing same-sex attraction. The traditional position is true, but evangelical culture has often articulated it in ways that were unloving, judgmental, and theologically clumsy. What is needed is renewed theological clarity coupled with radical hospitality, genuine friendship across difference, and acknowledgment of where evangelical culture failed people struggling with these issues. Some traditionally-believing Christians can live celibate, fruitful lives in Christ; others will wrestle always with the tension between conviction and desire — and both deserve the church's unwavering love.
Key Reads
Is God Anti-Gay? The Gospel Comes With a House Key

What the Conversation Adds Up To

The evangelical debate over sexuality reveals genuine disagreement rooted in how Scripture is read, what weight is given to cultural context and linguistic nuance, and how tradition, reason, and experience shape doctrine. Unlike some theological debates, this one involves real people whose lives and flourishing are at stake. All evangelical positions claim fidelity to Scripture and love for LGBTQ+ people, yet they arrive at different conclusions. The deepest challenge is whether evangelical churches can maintain theological conviction while showing genuine, costly love to those whose sexual orientation or gender identity differs from inherited teaching.

What evangelicals need — across all positions — is repentance for the ways we have harmed LGBTQ+ people, conversations that treat everyone involved as beloved image-bearers rather than issues to solve, and willingness to let real relationships challenge caricatures. Whether evangelical churches remain traditionally-bound or move toward affirmation, the world watches how we treat the vulnerable. Our sexual ethics will be judged not primarily by our doctrinal precision but by whether we bore witness to a God who is radically, extravagantly, self-sacrificially loving toward all people.

The Evangelical Conversation, Curated

1
Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation
Christopher Yuan · The Gospel Coalition
Yuan takes on the claim that the Bible says nothing about sexual orientation because the term never appears in it. He argues that Paul’s category of sarx, the flesh or sinful nature, gives Christians a biblical way to understand enduring, unchosen same-sex desires without adopting the social-science framing wholesale. On gender identity, he traces the confusion to subjective self-perception eclipsing the body, while insisting that people with gender dysphoria must not be singled out for stigma.
2
5 Questions about Homosexuality
Kevin DeYoung · Crossway
Adapted from DeYoung’s What Does the Bible Teach about Homosexuality?, this Q&A handles the objections people raise most often: why Christians talk about the subject so much when the Bible says comparatively little, why Jesus never mentioned it, why gluttony gets a pass, and whether the church is not meant to be a place for broken people. DeYoung argues that the Bible’s brevity reflects how uncontroversial the prohibition was among ancient Jews and Christians, not how unimportant it was.
3
God’s Wrath and Human Sexuality in a Romans 1 Culture
Alistair Begg · Ligonier
Begg works through Romans 1, noting that Paul’s words on sexuality come only after the deeper exchange of the glory of God for idols, and that the passage is framed on both sides by the offer of grace. He argues that when we choose the parts of Scripture we like, we no longer believe the Bible but ourselves. The piece is firm on the text yet written, in his words, with caution and a measure of compassion.
4
Toward a Graciously Historic Sexual Ethic
Scott Sauls · The Gospel Coalition
Sauls examines the comparison between today’s sexual minorities and the abolition of slavery, and argues that the analogy fails: Scripture moves in a liberating direction for women, slaves, and outsiders, yet grows more conservative, not less, on sex and marriage. His way forward resists both the “inner Pharisee” who scorns a sexually broken world and the “inner Sadducee” who lets the culture disciple the church. Adapted from his book Jesus Outside the Lines.
5
Why Matthew Vines Is Wrong About the Bible and Homosexuality
Joshua Gonnerman · First Things
Writing as a gay Christian who holds the traditional ethic, Gonnerman answers the viral case Matthew Vines made for revising the church’s teaching. He tests the exegesis, noting that Paul’s coinage arsenokoitai echoes the Greek of Leviticus 18:22, but argues that the deeper flaw is a hermeneutic that treats Scripture as a puzzle to be solved. He also presses a question every traditional church has to face: what place gay believers will actually have in its life.
6
My Train Wreck Conversion
Rosaria Champagne Butterfield · Christianity Today
A former lesbian professor of English and women’s studies recounts how she came to Christ while researching the Religious Right. What broke through was not a placard at a Pride march but a kind letter from a Reformed Presbyterian pastor, Ken Smith, followed by two years of friendship and shared meals with him and his wife, Floy. The essay remains a touchstone for what costly, patient hospitality looks like.
7
The Gospel for a Gay Friend
Garrett Kell · 9Marks
Kell, a pastor, offers practical counsel for sharing Christ with a gay neighbor, co-worker, or son: ask for his story, keep Jesus rather than sexuality at the center, and hold compassion and conviction together. He insists that the goal is not to make people straight but to call them to repent and trust Christ. He also reframes the conversation around a shared condition: “We’re all sexual sinners who need Jesus.”
8
Redefining Intimacy
Ed Shaw · 9Marks
Shaw, a same-sex-attracted pastor in Bristol who has chosen celibacy, challenges the Western assumption that intimacy equals sex. Starting from David’s lament for Jonathan, he argues that God’s answer to loneliness in Genesis 2 is not only marriage but deep friendship and the family of the church. That case is what makes the celibate life plausible rather than a slow withering.
9
Homosexuality in Culture
Ed Welch · CCEF
Welch, a CCEF counselor, argues that the cultural shift on homosexuality is a reminder that Christian America is a myth, and that political belligerence is a poor substitute for witness. He urges believers to understand why the Christian position now seems capricious to their neighbors. His answer starts with listening face to face, then speaking about Jesus in a way that is surprising and inviting.