In this age of activism, there is hardly a more controversial question between the church and secular society than this: Are you born gay?
Recently, Anchored North, a faith-based media company, launched a web series called “Honest Discourse” during which two people with opposing views on difficult topics — in this case, homosexuality — debate one another in a respectful way in hopes of finding some semblance of understanding.
Greg Sukert, executive director of Anchored North, told Faithwire earlier this year that, all too often, the conversations seen between a Christian and an unbeliever end up making the religious person look bigoted or uninformed — or both.
With that in mind, Anchored North invited Emily Thomes, a formerly lesbian woman who has since become a Christian and is married to a man, to debate the morality of homosexuality with an LGBTQ activist identified only as Merilou.
The conversation began with the two women telling their own stories, Merilou explaining how she felt rejected and shamed as a young teenager, when she first started expressing her same-sex attractions, because she was raised in a conservative, immigrant household. Similarly, Thomes was raised in a Christian-ish home when she, too, began engaging romantically with other girls.
Ultimately, after Thomes’ engagement to a woman broke off, she found herself at a Bible study, where she was convicted by the contrast between her stated beliefs in Scripture and the lifestyle she was living, which was antithetical to biblical teaching.
“I realized that I was my own standard of truth at that point,” she said. “So that’s how I went from living like I did for so long, to now, where I realize this is what [God] says. I’d much rather look to a creator, perfect God than to myself and my feelings for truth.”
Similar to Thomes before her conversion, Merilou argued her feelings should dictate how she behaves and that, if she has those feelings, they can’t be wrong.
The video then went on from there, when the two women were asked about their feelings on different declarative sentences, one of which was, “Homosexuality is a sin.”
In response, Thomes pointed out that God isn’t a “cosmic killjoy” trying to take away whatever it is that matters most to us. Instead, she said, “He knows what’s good, he knows what’s right. And he says that his design is what’s right, so because it goes against him, that’s what makes it sin.”
You can watch the rest of their conversation in the video above.