"The hetero normative life that you're living (if you're not celibate) is not one that can satisfy you, and you've convinced yourself that's ok because your satisfaction is a result of being fundamentally broken. Turning to the god that made you to be so broken and asking his forgiveness for being what he made you to be --that just doesn't make sense outside of severe psychological trauma."
Above is a (partial) comment from an atheist with whom I recently had a discussion over on the Bible Brain Facebook page. The post linked to my article "Homosexuality and smoking", and the atheist, knowing I am an ex-gay, attempted to figure out if I'd been through traumatising conversion therapy. The answer, much to his dismay, is no. Thus, as indicated by his comment above, I still don't make sense to him.
Is this atheist right? Am I somehow doomed to a life of dissatisfaction? Have I "convinced myself" that that's ok because I'm broken? Is God the one who broke me? In truth, I smiled when I read the comment, because I know, especially given experiences I've had in the recent past, exactly how wrong he is.
See, there is a lot more to life than sexual pleasure. Sex is one of many gifts God gave to man, and when enjoyed within the context of marriage, in the privacy of the marriage bed, it is a very good thing. Nevertheless, it is not the center of human thriving.
In November 2021, I was taken into hospital, where I spent 8 days. Physically, I have never suffered more in my life than I did there, or in the days leading up to it. I couldn't breathe properly. If I tried, it would trigger a coughing fit, which of course made it harder to breathe. Speaking at a normal volume was nigh impossible, and for the first four days, I could not sleep. On the second or third day (I forget which), my situation severely deteriorated, and I was swiftly taken to another, more intensive ward. I was hooked up to all sorts of medical equipment, most of which prevented normal movement. Indeed, if I needed to move, such as to be rolled over, I needed at least two nurses, one either side of the bed, to ensure I didn't rip anything out in the process, or choke myself with whatever kind of oxygen mask I happened to need at that time. And don't even get me started on the hallucinations when I needed to sleep. Suffice to say, for a man who hates hospitals at the best of times, this was not a fun time in my life.
Know what I wasn't thinking during these times? I wasn't thinking "I wish I'd had more sex". I wasn't thinking "I wish I had a boyfriend". I wasn't thinking about my sexuality at all, save for my one regret: I had a female crush, and I never confessed my feelings to her. So I swore, if I survived, I would tell her.
But even with how strong my feelings were for her, even she was merely a secondary thought to me. God, on the other hand, was always my primary focus. Even with all the pain, even with the uncertainty, even with the fact my family weren't allowed to visit me because of Covid policies, I was at peace. Not only was I satisfied with the God who supposedly broke me, but to echo the Psalmist, my cup ran over (Psalm 23:5). I made peace with death, even in its apparent imminence, even in all my pain, because the God that this man believed was so oppressive to me was by my side every second of every day.
But he, and others like him, will still claim there is something "wrong" with this regardless. After all, had I not been a Christian, I would still be gay to this day. The thought to change just wouldn't have occurred to me. Even when I became a Christian and found out what God says about homosexuality, I initially resisted. It was a fundamental part of my identity, so did I not still lose something?
The first problem with this is that it assumes homosexuality, or sin in general, is somehow "good", which is something no atheist has ever demonstrated, or indeed could ever demonstrate, because atheism erases the foundation for morality. In truth, if there is no God, morality is a matter of personal preference. Of course, in reality, it is not a matter of personal preference, but given that this is the necessary conclusion of atheism, what they're actually doing is saying "I don't like God, so He doesn't exist". Is this not just a little bit daft?
Furthermore, it is circular. In order to call homosexuality "good", or even "neutral", they must first assume God does not exist, and yet they are using their assumption that homosexuality is good/neutral in order to "prove" there is no God.
But by far the greatest problem is the assumption that something is somehow lost here. If you're an atheist reading this, I want you to temporarily grant that the Bible is true. Grant that there is a Heaven and a Hell. Let's suppose you go to Hell. Will you regret the sins you committed, or the sins you didn't? Obviously, the sins you committed. They're the ones causing you pain, and now you're fully enlightened as to why.
In Heaven, where I hope this article will lead you to choose, you also won't regret the sins you didn't commit. You'll be with God, again fully enlightened to the nature of sin, but also aware of just how little even the sins you did commit should have meant to you.
On the flip side, if all of the above is complete hogwash (which, again, no atheist has ever come close to giving us reasons to believe), and it turns out there is no afterlife, you won't have the capacity to regret anything that happens in this life. You could be basically Jesus, or you could be a serial rapist pedophile, you're not going to remember any of it after your inevitable death. In other words, in both our worldviews, nothing is lost if a person converts to Christianity.
But what is there to gain? Well, in atheism, again the answer is nothing. Let's say atheism is true, and I never rejected my homosexuality. Rather, let's imagine I embraced it. Let's say I did everything I wanted to do. Well, I die, and boom, even my very memories are gone. I gain nothing.
But what about in Christianity? Let's imagine a stone. You drop it on the ground, and it breaks in half. Rather than break the stone, all you've actually done is made two stones. A stone is not a purposeful object. Compare this with a stone wall. You can break a wall, because a wall is purposeful. Indeed, every block in the wall, usually, has been intentionally broken until its shape is ideal to be placed in the wall, like the one in the header image for this article. The builders didn't just find perfectly rectangular bricks lying around on a beach somewhere. Someone made those bricks, and they did so by breaking stones. Then, those bricks were combined with each other to make something far greater than themselves.
In the same way, God doesn't just come across a perfect Church. Rather, God finds sinners, and calls them to be His children. When that call is accepted, God changes the individual little by little. Coincidentally, the Bible also uses the analogy of us being "living stones" being built into a temple. This does require our sinful nature to be broken off, but this "breaking" is a very good thing. We, as Christians, are being slowly moulded into the image of Christ. Whereas we could have been cut off from the God who gives us life, Christ instead died on our behalf, so that all who believe in Him may inherit eternal life. I'm quite grateful to God for how He breaks me, because those breakings mean I have a bright future. And you can claim that, too.