Instead of the Christian belief that sexual identity is a given rooted in biological reality ; male and female, sexual identity is now something we as autonomous individuals choose for ourselves, based in part on latent attractions, feelings and desires. Thus, arising from the polymorphic nature of fallen human desire, we have the almost limitless varieties of 'gender' -- gay, bisexual, transgender etc. All 'gender' self definitions are exactly that - ideological self definitions, intellectual constructs. These self identifications, which are not only totally subjective and non-examinable assertions, are also contingent on a prior suppression of the truth which accords with the Creators intention. Biblical scholar Robert Gagnon has highlighted how in Romans 1:18-32 , Paul bears witness to the fact that all humans sin by suppressing the truth about themselves evident in creation and how that suppression leads to certain consequences. Gender ideology in effect rejects the divine architecture of only two complementary sexes, male and female, which are meant for each other in an exclusive and permanent heterosexual union called marriage. When people reject God's truth about themselves revealed in their bodily existence, they paradoxically invest those same bodies with the transcendent values that belong only to God -- and that of course is a form of idolatry.

To put it another way; if we say 'gay is who I am!' we conflate innate desires (even if not chosen) with identity and thus absolve the self of accountability and responsibility for our sexual behaviour. This is in fact to remove the basis for all moral accountability in a social or corporate sense. We all become the arbiters of what is right and wrong for ourselves -- we are our own gods. It is worth noting that in the Hebrew bible, baal and its cognates means "owner" or "husband" , and can relate to both ownership of physical items such as land, being lord or master of a household, or community; or it can mean the possession of certain internal qualities or traits of personality (as in Proverbs 22:24, 23:2, 24:8 ). In the contemporary understanding of the human person as a private owner of their desires and behaviour, we could well say that in such an understanding people are their own 'baals'.

The New Testament almost always, when speaking about sexual immorality, associates it with idolatry. Take Ephesians 5:5; "For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is an idolater) has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God ". The phrase sexually immoral or impure is meant as an all-encompassing phrase to include all sexual behaviour censured by the Old Testament moral code. Here, as with the almost identical Colossians 3:5, 6, Paul is warning believers that sexual immorality is a mark of the pagan lifestyle and a rejection of the Lordship of Christ. Again in Revelation 2:20, the false teacher named 'Jezebel' is accused of teaching and seducing the Thyatiran Christians into sexually immoral behaviour. Here we have a powerful intertextual reference to the Old Testament. Jezebel, of course, was the Tyrian princess whom king Ahab married and who brought into Israel the worship of Baal together with numbers of cultic prophets of Baal.

In a similar vein (1 Corinthians 10:7), Paul warns the flock, "Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play"". This is a reference to an incident in the Old Testament in which the people made offerings to Aaron's golden calf, and then indulged in the immoral practices of the Canaanite Baal cult. To make his point clear and to emphasise it he adds, "We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day", referring to Ex 32:28.

Again, the writer to the Hebrews (Ch. 12: 15, 16) issues a strong admonition; "See to it...that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau...". Sexual immorality is associated with the "bitter root" of idolatry in Deuteronomy 29:18; "Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit..."

Prophets of the Old Testament such as Elijah saw the root cause of Israel's problems as a theological one "How long will you go limping between two opinions", he says, "if Baal is god, worship him, but if YHWH is god, worship him". The Israelites did not deny YHWH nor did they destroy the sanctuaries at which YHWH was worshipped, they merely brought in the Asherah poles. Idolatry here is not disbelief in the true God, but permitting another god to stand in his presence - to paraphrase Tertullian. Thus idolatry can take on a cultic expression, but in essence it is the surrender of the will to something or someone other than God - it can mean the surrender of our will to bodily appetites and desires in place of surrendering to God's revealed will.

The first chapter of the book of Romans (verses 18-32), reveals the psycho-social dynamic that is released within a culture that suppresses the truth about the creator God. Human beings turn from worshipping the creator to worshipping the creation; in Old Testament terms they turn from worshipping Yahweh the creator to the worship of Baal who is the personification of the creative principle or the principle of generation. This has both a male and female form -- Asherah as well as Baal. The phallic symbols associated with Baal cult and other pagan fertility cults throughout the world show how this can eventually turn to the worship of human genitalia .

Idolatry is the divinization of nature, investing what is created with transcendent value which belongs to God alone. This is true not only of external nature -- the visual and corporeal, but of inner nature as well. This means our instincts and innate desires are divinized, invested with transcendent value. The practical outworking of this is that people allow their instincts to rule them, instincts of self gratification, carnal desires of every sort, the seeking after endless pleasure. Satinover accurately describes this process as a return to paganism, the worship of creation -- "In thus spiritualizing the instincts, pagan worship tends naturally to the violent, the hedonistic and the orgiastic...violent intoxication, temple prostitution, the ritual slaughter of enemies, self mutilation, even child sacrifice; all these historical phenomena can be understood not as pathological but as predictable, and points to the unfettering of human nature" . The apostle Paul warns Timothy about this very great danger of reversion within the church -- people will be lovers of self...lovers of pleasure...led astray by various passions .

Idolatry is neither a purely 'cultic' nor a purely 'individual' affair in view of its spiritual basis. An idolater is not merely one who prays to Baal, Zeus or the Buddha (although these are included); nor is it true that individual sin of idolatry has no effect on the wider church. It has a corporate dimension and a corporate effect when practiced, just as sexual immorality does. Paul describes this reality when speaking of the incident in the Corinthian church where a man's immoral sexual relationship is tolerated by the leadership. We are part of the mystical body of Christ (1 Cor 6:15) and the sexually immoral person sins against the body. A little leaven, says Paul, leavens the whole lump; this corrupting influence includes, among other sins, idolatry and sexual immorality.

Therefore the assertion which is commonly floated in contemporary debates that the New Testament only disapproves of cultic homosexuality is patently false. It introduces a separation between the physical and the spiritual, personal and corporate, that is not supported by scripture and is rather a western post-enlightenment understanding of reality.

The idea that two people who are engaged in an actively homosexual relationship can come up to the altar rail for a 'blessing' is in essence no different from the idea that two people in an adulterous or incestuous relationship can do so. It is abhorrent to both the letter and spirit of the scriptures. Wolfhard Pannenburg, arguably one of the most respected protestant theologians of the twentieth century, gave a sobering assessment of a church that permits this practice; "Here lies the boundary of a Christian church that knows itself to be bound by the authority of Scripture. Those who urge the church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church."

....In other words, it would be apostate.

Report in the Southern Mail, July 30, 2014.

Weigel, George, Reality and Public Policy, essay published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, accessed 6th May, 2013 from http://www.eppc.org/publication/reality-and-public-policy/
Weigel, op. cit.
Baal is a word used by semitic tribes , signifiying ownership or possession (especially describing a husbands taking of his wife) or a master. It came to denote the Semitic nature god who was worshipped under different aspects in various localities.
Although in the greek grammar, the phrase "which is idolatry" modifies the word "covetousness," most New Testament commentators agree that "covetousness" and thus idolatry is at the root of all the preceding vices. See for example Pao, D.W. Collossians and Philemon , Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan, 2012, pp220-221.
One wonders at the deeper spiritual significance of the recent unveiling of a golden statue representing female genitals at the Episcopal Church-affiliated Sewanee: The University of the South.
Satinover, Jeffrey, Jungians and Gnostics, First Things, October 1994.
2 Timothy 3:2-4.

Fr. Dave Doveton is rector of the parishes of St Barnabas and St Philip in the Diocese of Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He has exercised a teaching and pastoral ministry in the Anglican Province of the Indian Ocean and the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. He is a co-founder of the Southern Mission Society and a joint coordinator of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (Southern Africa). He has authored numerous articles on the crisis facing the Anglican Church, also a monograph "The Way of Balaam" which analyses the ingress of pagan thought within the western church.