Doug Wilson and Homosexuality

In Doug Wilson’s article Owning the Curse: Rethinking Same-Sex Marriage, Wilson rethinks the same-sex issue right into the church camp.

Not only does he claim that the outbreak of homosexuality in America is largely the fault of the American Christian tradition, he also insists that it is Christian fathers, specifically, who are “the primary cause of the curse of homosexuality”.

I find these to be pretty amazing claims, especially as they are unsupported by any evidence. That makes me skeptical of Wilson’s statements, such as “Even in our own congregations, fathers are provoking their children not only to sin, but into patterns of resentment, into the patterns of homosexuality", and "For generations, we, as fathers, have lied about God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through our refusal to live self-sacrificially."

Doug Wilson, by the way, claims that his perspective is that of classical Protestantism. I hope he’s wrong.

And this isn’t all. I don’t know if Wilson claims a Reformed theological viewpoint as well as a Protestant, but his views on homosexuality seem a natural outgrowth of that view. He says that homosexuality is, indeed, a genetic problem—in fact, he “grant[s] any and all scientific claims about the genetic basis” of homosexuality, on the grounds that since God controls everything, genetically-caused homosexuality is part of the “providence of God”.

To top everything off, his solution for the church’s “sin” is just dandy—not only should we “not…stand with those seeking to ban same-sex marriage” (because to do so would oppose God’s will, which imposed the curse), but we should “[confess] publicly before the non-Christian community that we are the problem.”

I can just see what a hey-day the media would have with that one.

If, indeed, Wilson is right that the church was ordained by God to lead culture, then perhaps his suggestions would be valid. But he has yet to prove scripturally the most basic of his presuppositions—that God has, indeed, made the church responsible for the misdeeds of culture, and that homosexuality is actually a curse directed towards the church, not towards a wicked society, as Romans 1:18-32 seems to make very obvious.

When Doug Wilson can provide scripture to back up his statements, that will be time enough to start thinking about making public confession for the sins of others.