AP

State Governments across Australia are introducing legislation which will make it illegal for Christians to call on people to repent of their sin and follow the Lord Jesus Christ. A raft of legislation is being introduced across the country which means that Christians cannot preach the gospel to homosexual and gender-confused people. See, for example, the following video produced by the Victorian government:

The situation in Tasmania looks to be just as dire, regardless of who wins the upcoming election. The Tasmanian Law Reform Institute has already published its final report which can be accessed here. The implications for Christians being able to share the Gospel with homosexual and gender-confused people is just as restrictive as the Victorian legislation. David Robertson has published a three part series outlining the plethora of problems here, here and here.

Tasmania was the last state in Australia to de-criminalise homosexuality in 1997. But incredibly, just over a quarter of a century later, it could be one of the first to make it a criminal offence to speak against it!

The Conversion Business

Being a Christian has always meant being in the business of conversion, of doing all that we can to persuade people to turn from their sin and trust in Christ as their Saviour and Lord.^[1] But at the centre of this legislation is a ban on what it actually means to preach the Gospel to homosexual and gender-confused people.

As the Rev. Dr. Peter Barnes, the former Moderator-General for the Presbyterian Church of Australia, has written to various members of the NSW Parliament:

There is no need for this bill which is deliberately vague, so that the judiciary can determine what ‘suppression’ means. It is not designed to protect homosexuals from a non-existent threat, but to coerce and intimidate Christians and others who seek to help those who seek help. It is not a cry for freedom, but a demand for affirmation. It will lead to someone being singled out and punished, while many others cower. 

The Challenge of Costly Grace

This is obviously a significant moment for Christians of all denominations in Australia. For not only must we decide whether we’ll obey God and not man (Acts 5:29), but as Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote, we must count the cost of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. In the words of Bonhoeffer:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate…

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.^[2]

Bonhoeffer experienced the meaning of these words firsthand. As a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany, he took an activist stance against Hitler’s regime and hence was executed just before the war ended.

We Must Seek the Conversion of LGTIQ People

What is beyond all debate, is that Reformed Christians cannot obey the various state governments legislation which effectively bans the preaching of the Gospel to LGBIQ+ people. As such, what follows are ten truths which need to be reaffirmed by all Christians who are seeking to be faithful to God’s Word:

1. Affirm that the Gospel is the power of God for salvation (Rom. 1:16-17). A power that provides forgiveness from both general and particular sin, giving people the ability to repent of both their sinful actions as well as their disordered desires (1 Cor. 6:9-11).^[3]
2. Affirm that ministers of the Gospel should continue to intentionally call on everyone—including LGBTIQ+ people—to repent and what’s more, to pray, counsel and persuade everyone to grace to embrace the Gospel (Acts. 17:30; Jam. 5:19-20).
3. Affirm that there are serious health risks connected with same-sex behaviour^[4] as well as the irreversible hormonal and surgical ramifications involved with transgenderism.^[5] As such, it is loving, wise and right to warn people of their many dangers.
4. Affirm that practices such as prayer, Christian counselling and personal persuasion are intrinsically good, being key components in the reduction of self-harm for people struggling with their gender and sexuality.^[6]
5. Affirm that the intentions of our evangelistic practices are to change not only a person’s behaviour, but also their desires relating to their sexuality and gender. 
6. Affirm that the presence of same sex desire and practice is an expression of the judgment of God, being a perversion of the natural order and a direct consequence of mankind’s idolatry in worshipping the creation rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:18-25).
7. Affirm that all acceptance, tolerance, consent to or affirmation of sexual sin is itself sinful (Rom. 1:28-32).
8. Affirm that because we must first obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29), that every follower of Christ should never submit to any government legislation which expressly contravenes God’s law, and we should count it a privilege to suffer for Christ’s Name (Acts 5:40-42).
9. Affirm that religious freedom is a wonderful blessing and something which should be prayed for as it promotes the preaching of the Gospel (1 Tim. 2:1-5).
10. Affirm that it is prudent for individual congregations and denominational bodies to establish special funds to financially support those who are subsequently prosecuted. 

If these ‘Gay Conversion Bills’ pass, churches must engage in civil disobedience by continuing to evangelize all people everywhere, calling on them to repent. In short, it is fantasy for Christians in Australia to respond to this legislation by seeking more and more concessions—thereby enabling or excusing sin. 

The Pastor as Prophet

We must be uncompromising with the Gospel and not comply with these unjust laws. People’s eternal destinies are at stake! This may and probably will lead to prosecution from the state. However, we must remember that this is precisely the type of thing the Lord Jesus Christ warned would occur (Matt. 10:16-18). As Zwingli wrote at the time of the Reformation:

What more dreadful things can be said to the flesh than “You will be placed before councils, before councils, princes, king, and will be betrayed and scourged. A brother will give the other into death, and the father the son, and in return the sons to the fathers.” And he says in addition, “They will be defenseless with regard to the body in the midst of the enemy, just like sheep among wolves. They have no mercy with the little sheep, however pitiable, virtuous and innocent an animal it might be. Thus will the shepherds and servants of God also find no mercy with the godless, but will be considered as sheep ordained for the butcher. Everyone who kills them will think that they have performed a service to God.^[7]

The LGBTIQ+ agenda was never going to stop at the re-definition of marriage. Its goal is to look for a total silencing and criminalization of anyone who did not wholeheartedly affirm the new morality. As Winston Churchill once famously said: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping that it will eat him last.”

Mark Powell

^[1] The 2023 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia helpfully responded this issue and produced a report on what the Bible teaches on Gender and Sexuality. A copy of the report can be found here.

^[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (1937), 44-45.

^[3] See Westminster Confession of Faith 15.5, “Men ought not to content themselves with a general repentance, but it is every man’s duty to endeavour to repent of his particular sins particularly.”

^[4] Jeffrey Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Baker Books, 1996).

^[5] Abigail Shrier, Irreversible damage: The transgender craze seducing our daughters (Simon and Schuster, 2020).

^[6] For example, see the research by here and here and here and here, as well as anecdotally here and especially here.

^[7] Pipkin, Huldrych Zwingli Writings Volume II: In Search of True Religion: Reformation, Pastoral and Eucharistic Writings, 103. I am indebted to the Rev. Joe Mock for the English translation regarding this reference.