The Grace of Shame: 7 Ways the Church Has Failed to Love Homosexuals
Tim Bayly, Joseph Bayly, and Jürgen von Hagen
This is a book about repentance, and it is also—fittingly—a book of repentance. In it, Tim Bayly tells the story of a man under his ministry years ago, struggling with homosexual temptations. He was challenged repeatedly to abandon his homosexual liaisons, but he was never charged to abandon his general effeminacy. “I had utterly failed him, and this book is a small part of my repentance” (Loc. 2288).
To get right into it, the heart of this book revolves around a right translation and understanding of 1 Cor. 6:9-10. Here that passage is, in both the KJV and the ESV:
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9–10).
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9–10, ESV).
The KJV translates two terms with two terms—malakoi with “effeminate,” and arsenokoites with “abusers of themselves with mankind.” The ESV collapses this into just one generic sin, “men who practice homosexuality.” This rendering means that it is primarily about a particular sexual act, with both the active and passive partner condemned in the same sweep. To the contrary, this book argues that effeminacy culminates in the bedroom, but starts a long time before that. The sin involved culminates in the bedroom, but starts long before.
“Unlike the next word in the Apostle Paul’s sin list, arsenokoitai, the usage and meaning of malakoi is thoroughly documented in ancient literature” (Loc. 542).
The Grace of Shame argues, pointedly and cogently, that it is “impossible to separate God’s truths from God’s words in Scripture” (Loc. 78).
“Many pastors today have decided the best way to conserve God’s truth is to dispense with the words God uses in Scripture” (Loc. 73).
“The Bible doesn’t talk about gender identity. It doesn’t speak of homosexuality and heterosexuality. The Bible talks about male and female, man and woman, and it warns us soft men will not enter the kingdom of God” (Loc. 811).
The same thing goes for the opposite sex. Confusion there is every bit as deadly.
“Hard women will not enter the kingdom of God” (Loc. 816)
Because the general movement of the evangelical world has been toward a particular kind of sexual reductionism, we are left ill-equipped to deal with the climate of our sexual rebellions. And so, “we speak about ‘gender’ which has no reference to body parts” (Loc. 424). “We have refused to confess our manhood and womanhood outside the home” (Loc. 442). The sin of effeminacy “exists independent of homosexual intercourse” (Loc. 487). “Cultural gayness is something that can and does exist apart from homosexuality” (Loc. 483).
Denial of these things is what sets up “the sin of the ‘gay Christian’ identity movement” (Loc. 662).
“There’s a hidden premise here: the gay Christian who says he isn’t going to have gay intercourse is counting on Christians to give him a pass on his effeminacy and the direction of his sexual desires” (Loc. 977). “All that’s required of gay men is that they avoid touching” (Loc. 979). “Men burning in their desire toward one another—what we liltingly refer to as ‘the desire for same-sex intimacy’—is not morally neutral. By itself it is evil” (Loc. 991).
“Thus we are to obey our sexual identity. Yes, in our sexual coupling; but no less so in the way we live our lives” (Loc. 822).
We tend to talk as though orientation were a thing, as though we might somehow see it someday under a microscope. But the reality is the nature of temptation. Orientation just refers to the way you are pointed. Temptation refers to the immoral choices you find yourself wanting to make.
“‘Homosexual temptation’ brings back the very moral judgment ‘homosexual orientation’ so preciously works to exclude” (Loc. 1392).
So from front to back, this book is a battle against sexual reductionism.
“Sure, it’s easy to say these body parts do or don’t go with those body parts. It’s easy to condemn homosexual intercourse because the body parts don’t fit together. But God designed sex to be much more than body parts” (Loc. 830).
But the answer is not reductionism in the other direction either. The answer is not to buy a pick-up truck with a gun rack—although some who struggle with this temptation probably ought to include that. Doing that is not the answer, but the resistance to that many would have to that suggestion is most certainly part of the problem.
What is the center of the problem?
“Once we catch a vision for living out our manhood by faith as a command of God, then we begin to see that the real essence of manhood isn’t having a buff body. Rather, it’s taking initiative and responsibility for others. It’s saying no to our lusts and pleasures. It’s having faith to do things that look like they are going to absolutely destroy any future of us getting jobs or having a church. It’s calling others to follow you by faith on that same crazy path. It’s taking weight on yourself, and carrying it for other people. In a word, it’s fatherhood” (Loc. 890).
Some of his critics might say that the men who wrote this book are not very good men. It would be better to say they are not very good soft men.
“John the Baptist and Jesus were hard men—but not hard in the sense that they lacked compassion and were impossible to please” (Loc. 807). “They had their manhood and they never took it off. Or rather, they never stopped putting it on” (Loc. 810).
“Hard men build civilizations” (Loc. 897).
“Hard men preach; soft men wonder and suggest” (Loc. 898).
Just a few words about the title. Shame and guilt are God’s nerve endings for our moral system. Without the feedback of pain when we are being foolish, we would very quickly wreck ourselves. “God gave us physical pain to protect our bodies and shame to protect our souls” (Loc. 1930). “Shame is a central theme of Scripture” (Loc. 1905). “It can’t be said too often that shame is God’s grace” (Loc. 1935).
Everyone who is paying attention can see that the evangelical world is taking on water fast. Those who care to do something about it need to get this book and master its contents.
Greetings! I got the free copy the day it was released, and read it right away. Though I am not attracted to the same sex, the authors challenged me to look at my effeminacy, particularly within conflict resolution. Sadly, I think much of it in my own life stems from divorce, and the disproportionate example from Mom vs. Dad (whose own Dad’s death at 7 too it’s toll). As I too am divorced with children (boys and girls), I recognize more and more my responsibility to raise them as God wants me to, and not just what I’m comfortable with.… Read more »
Sex and gender. Orientation. Soft and hard. These things are so straightfoward as to be obvious but the fog of our culture attempts to hide it. Once someone points it out… of course its same sex temptation instead of same sex attraction. I recently read Bayly’s book on fatherhood – Daddy Tried. Pretty good. Most of it was, for me, very simple obvious stuff. I grew up with a great Christian dad – not perfect but good – and had this stuff modeled or taught. But I see a lot of guys who grew up with absent fathers or unbelieving… Read more »
Nathan, my religious training called for both men and women to be “hard” in terms of physical courage, endurance, and willingness to face danger in order to protect the weak. I can’t walk away from the plight of someone trapped in a burning building on the grounds that I am a woman and I get to be soft. On the other hand, I don’t have to join the fire department and it’s better if I don’t. If providence puts me on a sinking and there is no man on hand to surrender his place in the lifeboat, Christian charity requires… Read more »
Remember that masculine and feminine attributes are not just in the specific virtue, but where the virtue is directed. Both the man carrying the woman through the flood and the woman holding her child were protecting
Jill, allowing for some oversimplification, generalisation, bitterness, and misogyny, I still think Kipling was on to something with his ‘The Female of the Species.’ But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same; And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail, The female of the species must be deadlier than the male. She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest. These be purely male diversions—not… Read more »
Indighost. You can quote Kipling. May I throw myself into your arms and call you sister? I love Kipling. At my mother’s knee I learned: When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride He shouts to scare the monster who will often step aside; But the female thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail, For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. And, yes, I think you (and Kipling) are absolutely right. A woman defending her child is capable of violence of a pitch most men would find horrifying. My child safety guru,… Read more »
Oh, don’t give me too much credit! I couldn’t reproduce that segment from memory, I did have to look it up. The Jungle Book and the Just So Stories, on the other hand, I can quote at length. They were meat and drink to me as a child, thanks to cassette tapes on long family drives. He is so pithy, and so memorable. “One of the beauties of jungle law is that punishment settles all scores. There is no nagging afterwards.” That rang so true in my childish heart, and I try to remember it now in my own parenting.… Read more »
I only know the first verse of More Deadly than the Male by heart, although I can do huge chunks of Ballad of the East and West. I am eternally grateful that I was educated in a time when you were made to memorize poetry by the yard. I was told by my teachers, and I told my own students in my time, that there will be many times in your adult life when poetry will amuse, comfort, and sustain you. And it is very helpful if you ever end up in a Trivial Pursuit competition! Orwell wrote an interesting… Read more »
@Jill Smith, there was a long and fascinating foreword by Orwell in a poetry anthology of Kipling’s. I wonder if it was the same essay. Heart of Darkness was an education. Enjoyment might be too strong a word for my experience of it, even though I could tell it was an important book, but perhaps I read it too young. I believe that’s all the Conrad I’ve read. Anything else of his I should put on my reading list? Your words about the sustaining power of poetry reminded me of Lord A. P. Wavell, a Field Marshal in WWII, who… Read more »
Indighost, I think I can access it on Questia; I love anthologies. Like Rumpole, I believe that Oxford marmalade, the jury system, and Palmer’s Golden Treasury are the highlights of British civilization! It’s interesting how many military leaders have been sustained by poetry. General Wolfe said, on the eve of the battle of the Plains of Abraham, that he would rather have written Gray’s Elegy than to take Quebec! I have never been able to enjoy Francis Thompson, but The Immortality Ode, Arnold, and GM Hopkins have got me through a few dark hours. At this time of year I… Read more »
I admire the soldier poets. It’s interesting how many of the famous war poems of the period were not written by soldiers. I find lots of those ones grandiose or sappy. The guys in the trenches had a better handle on what was going on, and sometimes a kind of grim humour. I can’t remember who wrote this snippet but it has stuck with me: Good morning, good morning, the general said As he took his front seat on the way to the line. The soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead And we’re cursing his staff for… Read more »
Hi Indighost, thank you for the tip; I will look for her. I think that Death Comes to Pemberley is one of the worst novels I have ever read! What she did to the spritely Elizabeth doesn’t bear thinking about. You get the solid moral core but none of the wit. I don’t think there are many writers who could succeed much better, but most have too much sense to try. I would wonder about the person who warms to Adam Dalgliesh. I am sorry that she didn’t give him longer with Cordelia, for she would have humanized him. I… Read more »
I think the foibles and shameful secrets of the other characters are what keeps the murderer’s identity a mystery for so long. Everyone has a motive and is weird enough or nasty enough to have done it! I don’t remember the Big Book programme. When I searched for it to see if anything would jog my memory, it came up with the Alcoholics Anonymous book! From memory, the approach to literature was ‘a few works per year, thoroughly’. We’d do one Shakespeare play, a term of poetry, something modern, and something older like a Bronte. It was good to be… Read more »
I know what you mean. When I taught, there were long and compulsory units on analyzing ads for bias and rhetorical devices. One lesson would be fine, but not twenty. Did you go to a single-sex school? I wondered, because with all the ingenuity at my disposal, I could not get my male students to read Jane Eyre! I often wished that English classes could be single-sex because what boys and girls like to read is more sharply divided in their teens than at any other time. Our provincial curriculum tended to favor boys’ interests (which made sense because girls… Read more »
I did go to a single sex school, but the only Bronte I can remember doing is Wuthering Heights. That must have a broader appeal than Jane Eyre, which I confess I can’t bear. Give me the wild zest of Emily Bronte or the domestic charm of Jane Austen any day. I was almost alone in liking Wuthering Heights though. We might well have been better off with Hemingway (whom I like very much, especially his punchy short stories). We do have elements of standardised testing here too – they are more like minimum requirements though, with schools being judged… Read more »
I can’t walk away from the plight of someone trapped in a burning building on the grounds that I am a woman and I get to be soft. Of course you do. Why would would you think this? You would just get yourself hurt or killed. The lifeboat situation is different, completely. Not even the same question. But being hard, by which you imply manly, is not your job. I was more or less Satan in my marriage for close to a decade with my wife, but even then I never even dreamed she was expected to do something like… Read more »
Catholics–at least those of my generation–were taught to. If there is an able-bodied man who can rescue the victim, I would leave it to him and stand by ready to help. But if there isn’t, I have to do the best I can. I did get hurt once stepping into the middle of a domestic assault. This was before cell phones, and there was no one else to intervene. It wasn’t bravery because I didn’t stop to think; I reacted instinctively. And, of course, I didn’t fight like a man–which I couldn’t have even if I wanted to. All I… Read more »
Maybe so. I’m not referring to femininity at all when I mention being soft. I’m merely talking about being the wrong kind of man. The kind of man that is going to spend his time playing a video game instead of fixing the plumbing, or at least calling the plumber. The kind of man who will spend his time studying and arguing word in the greek new testament and never really put it into practice the call to fight sin in his own life and in the life of his family, his church and his community. Thats more where I’m… Read more »
I like what you said, Nathan. I have trouble with the words hard and soft because, while hardness connotes courage, endurance, and rectitude to me, softness makes me think “weak” whether male or female. When I define soft as tender-hearted, kind, and gentle, those are “feminine” virtues I want and need. But what woman wants to be weak, to be cowering in a corner when someone needs her to be brave? And, even for women, the softness is to be directed toward others; we are never to be soft on ourselves.
Nathan,
Are you the Nathan Smith I know?
Curious,
Ben Carmack
“Because the general movement of the evangelical world has been toward a particular kind of sexual reductionism, ” One of my consistent objections to evangelical culture is it seems to see the entire word through reductionism. That your measure as a Christian or as a family is based on what you don’t do. The attitude is that Christianity is about inactivity. Don’t steal. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t drink too much. Don’t listen to “bad” music (however your particular church group defines that). Don’t do this big list of things, and then you’re a good Christian. Spiritual health depends at least… Read more »
It is both “put off old ways” and “do righteousness”. There is a place for identifying sins that should be mortified. After all, God’s law emanates from His glorious holiness, and if we claim to love God, why should we not love what He loves? And if we love our brothers in Christ, should we not warn them about the sins that offend our Lord? Because we know that those who are sons will be chastised if they continue in sins. Half the battle a Christian faces is with his own indwelling sin. “One of the choicest and most important… Read more »
Earlier today I commented to a friend, that because of this world, unfaithful fathers and church charlatans; the word “manly” has been so twisted of meaning it would help if we had a better word. Same thing comes to mind when talking about hard men.
If Adam had not sinned we could be traveling amongst the stars by now.
The Second Adam was, is and will always be in perfect covenant with God the Father.
Real men would be a better way to say it.
It reminds me of, as I was dealing with some misbehavior by my son, how my pastor encouraged me by noting that boys at times need to be boys. Looks like I’ve got something to read.
I ask for people’s patience as I once again bring up my problems with this. I am truly not trying to be obstructionist, but I simply don’t get this. I do believe that homosexual acts are wrong, and I am less doctrinaire about the permanence of sexual orientation than I used to be. But… Distinguishing between effeminacy and the same sex attraction to the point that they are two separate sins seems to me to imply that the girly-girl lesbian and the Navy Seal gay man are in a better spiritual position than the gay guy who collects Barbra Streisand… Read more »
“Distinguishing between effeminacy and the same sex attraction to the point that they are two separate sins seems to me to imply that the girly-girl lesbian and the Navy Seal gay man are in a better spiritual position than the gay guy who collects Barbra Streisand posters and the lesbian who wears combat boots. ” While I think trying to accurately gauge where someone’s “spiritual position” is, is a little unwise, I would say that’s probably true. I agree with C.S. Lewis in placing internal, mental, and spiritual sins as more profoundly dangerous than fleshly sins. The outwardly modest professed… Read more »
What this discussion needs to focus on is that God Himself has declared “soft men” will not inherit the Kingdom of God. It’s all well and good to decline to define soft manhood and hard womanhood (by synecdoche), engaging in the modern morbid habit of sacrificing the normal on the altar of the abnormal. But in the end, we have God Himself declaring soft men and hard women will not inherit the kingdom of God. Which would seem to require someone somewhere to step out on the gangplank and attempt a definition of soft manhood and hard womanhood. Eh? Love,
“Which would seem to require someone somewhere to step out on the gangplank and attempt a definition of soft manhood and hard womanhood. ”
Effeminate men are easy to define. Defining the opposite of that or the norm as hardness is easy to misunderstand. Softness in men is also easy to misunderstand. I don’t think the terms help, but if the Bible really means soft when it says effeminate, then that is something else.
“John the Baptist and Jesus were hard men—but not hard in the sense that they lacked compassion and were impossible to please” (Loc. 807). “They had their manhood and they never took it off. Or rather, they never stopped putting it on” (Loc. 810).” Reading this again, helped me to understand what is meant by hard men. Men who don’t stop being men. I have been reading Getz’s The Measure of a Man, and all of what it means to be a man goes without saying… Now I think this would mean that a hard woman, is a woman who… Read more »
“The outwardly modest professed Christian who lives in various forms of sobriety and abstinence but is internally petty, jealous, vindictive, and selfish is in a much more dangerous position than the 25 year old who’s carelessly drinking and occasionally sleeping around.” I’d caution against being too cavalier with outward sins, they issue from the heart, you know. The person engaged in careless drinking lacks a sober mind before the bottle is ever opened. Fornication similarly proceeds from a heart gone astray. Both drunkenness and fornication have a tendency to make the person hard to reach, as well. These sins are… Read more »
I think it would be a huge mistake to say to oneself, “My sins are purely (or impurely) physical so I’m not going to worry about them!” I once knew a woman who interpreted “Her sins are forgiven her for she has loved much” as meaning that God smiled on the generosity and warmth of her sexual availability to all comers! But I think what Lewis was getting at is that many of the physical sins carry their own punishment which tends to be visible and uncomfortable. I think he said something to the effect that if you are a… Read more »
Justin, I agree with you and Lewis. Advancing years will take care of many temptations to sexual sin, but they find the nasty spiritual ones more deeply entrenched. If you don’t get a handle on envy while you’re young, it can become truly monstrous in the old. But doesn’t St. Paul endorse the role of the unmarried church worker? I think that, for most people, marriage is not only the most normal choice but is also the one that conduces to their personal sanctification. But I also think that some people are gifted with celibacy–meaning that they can embrace it… Read more »
One interesting perspective here would be that the Greek armies of antiquity often engaged in pederastic relationships, but somehow the Persians were persuaded that they were not in fact “soft”, at least when they put on helmet and armor and went to battle. So we would at least need to be somewhat sophisticated about our definitions.
On the flip side, I remember a World Magazine article about a man who had left (albeit temporarily) homosexuality and married, and the thing that struck me was that he was tucking in his sweater. “What is up with that”, I thought.
Bisexuality has always been the almost-exclusive context of homosexual intercourse. Read about the Spartans. Homsexual relationships were the initiation into the warrior class.
@Jill Smith,
Drop the spiritual position. But the former may have fewer sinful problems to deal with.
>>If Sir Philip Sydney had struggled with same sex attractions, would Bayly have told him to quit writing poetry?
Uh no. You claim to have read me for “years,” yet you ask this question? You should have known my Dad wrote and published poetry. You read me for years?
Similarly with your comment about Michelangelo “messing around with oil paints” Dad had oil paintings he had done hanging on the walls of our home.
Honestly.
Read the book.
Hi Mr. Bayly, thank you for responding to me, and I am sorry to have misstated your position. I wasn’t assuming you would find any lack of masculinity in a heterosexual man writing or enjoying poetry. But I did think I remembered your writing in a column a few years ago that a man with same sex attractions who happens to be a great ballet dancer (or writer of Broadway musicals or ice skater, or fashion designer, I can’t remember which) would have to reject those gifts as feminine (and therefore risky). Did I get this wrong? I often get… Read more »
Women as well as men need to be hard. When a father administers appropriate discipline, a mother ought not to soften it–not too much, anyway. Women should not yield to men’s advances. Christian women should be firm in the faith.
That’s not a function of being hard, that’s a function of letting Dad be Dad. Mom can be as soft as she wants but she doesn’t get to undermine Dad. (Preaching to self here, BTW.)
Not yielding to men inappropriately isn’t “hardness,” either, not really in the sense intended here. Firmness isn’t quite the same thing.
The terms are easy to misunderstand. It wasn’t until I read this repeatedly that I understood what is meant by hard men.
John the Baptist and Jesus were hard men—but not hard in the sense that they lacked compassion and were impossible to please” (Loc. 807). “They had their manhood and they never took it off. Or rather, they never stopped putting it on” (Loc. 810).
Hard men are men who do not stop putting on their manhood. I think that same would true of hard women; women who do not stop putting on their womanhood.
Only if putting on manhood and putting on womanhood are qualitatively almost the same thing, and I think they’re not.
The legitimate hardness of women is not hardness “in the sense intended here.” Okay. But then there is more heat than light in the use of the terms “hard” and “soft.”
Regardless of how we understand the terms hard and soft, this article is well worth reading: https://warhornmedia.com/2017/11/04/grace-shame-leading-effeminate-gays-repentance/ “If you, dear brother or sister, are struggling with same-sex desires, don’t make the terrible mistake of thinking you can limit your repentance to the physical realm. Don’t think celibacy is enough. It’s not. When you smile and laugh and make love and talk and walk and dress and get a haircut and garden and teach and drive and worship and study and draw and work and read the Bible and sing and pray, it all must be done to the glory of… Read more »