Friend,

This is all hard. I am thankful for many good years, but I grieve that you have gone down this path. I am committed to maintaining our friendship, but even that shifts in nature because of the spiritual rift.

As I said earlier, I don’t think LGBTQ / same-sex marriage affirmation is isolated. Marriage and male/female normative sexuality is an integral thread of the fabric of Christianity. To pull that thread out is to quickly unravel the whole cloth.

Its hermeneutic and attitude inevitably bring a package of different positions regarding the verbal inspiration of Scripture, the nature of obedient submission, the creation account and Conquest, the unity of the (c)atholic and historic church, proper shame, “mortification of the flesh,” hell, and atonement. This demonstrably plays out in openly LGBTQ-affirming denominations.

It calls into question the whole arc of the Bible, from protology to eschatology—from the prototype and archetype of Adam and Eve, to the dramatic words of Jesus in Matthew 19 during Holy Week, to the “anti-type” of marriage in Christ (the Groom) and the Church (The Bride). As Robert Gagnon puts it, “To convey the legitimacy of homoerotic unions, a different kind of creation story is needed—the kind of story spun by Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium where an original male-male, female-female, and male-female are split.”

It celebrates what the Bible dramatically highlights as a sin. To be handed over to same-sex lusts is more than a basis for judgment. It is itself a judgment, according to Paul (Romans 1:23). “Same-sex marriage is good” is a modern variation of “Caesar is Lord,” an expression of a competing loyalty that reflects the spirit of the age—an offering of incense to the cultural gods.

For all these reasons, it is tragically schismatic, unbiblical, and unnatural. I lament that.

I will struggle against it—its claims, its attitudes, its cultural currents, and the spiritual forces behind it—for as long as I live. It grieves me to oppose you in this regard.

Let me be upfront with you: I will pray for you as a prodigal or heretic who should repent and submit your heart, will, and intellect under God’s word. “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.” (Leviticus 19:17)

I still hope to enjoy other affinities that God has given us, and to maintain good rapport and long-term friendship.

With sincerity of heart,

Aaron