The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society has just published an article that I have been working on for a little over a year. Even though the piece is titled “Is Homosexual Orientation Sinful?,” it’s really just an extended treatment of the ethics of sexual attraction. My contention is that the Bible speaks a clear word about our experience of sexual attraction be it heterosexual, homosexual, or otherwise. Whenever we desire something that God forbids, we are experiencing an “attraction” that is sinful and that God would have us to repent of.

If this thesis is correct, then it is an error to claim that same-sex attraction is merely a temptation that is not itself sinful. This is an issue of great pastoral urgency because it informs us how to be faithful to Christ in our experience of unwholesome sexual attractions. And that is an issue that we all must reckon with, not just those who are same-sex attracted.

The material in this article will appear later this year in a longer work that Heath Lambert and I have co-authored on the ethics of same-sex attraction:

Denny Burk and Heath Lambert, Transforming Homosexuality: How to Live Faithfully with Same-Sex Attraction (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2015).



The argument in this forthcoming book is aimed at a popular audience and further develops the pastoral implications of this particular view of same-sex attraction. Heath and I are eager for the release of this book and for evangelicals to take up this conversation in earnest. Until then, you can read the technical version in the JETS article linked below.