ON THE FALLACY OF SEXUAL IDENTITY

CHRIST BREAKS THE SHACKLES OF BROKEN IDENTITIES AND IMPARTS LIFE THROUGH INTIMACY WITH HIMSELF

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

Being attracted to the same sex and being “homosexual” or “gay” is a very different thing. It is possible to be attracted to basically anything. This is a learned response, and is the result of dysfunctional family intimacy and, perhaps, exposure to things that interfered with normal biological development. Such is not a sin, and one can, with God’s grace, work through this issue and still lead a holy, healthy, happy life. Being “Gay” is a social and political construct that attempts to equivocate a person’s identity with their sexual attraction, and teaches in a Freudian value that not acting upon attraction is a form of suppression and oppression. This, however, is both philosophically untrue and also psychologically damaging. One can be oriented in any number of unhealthy or damaging ways, but this does not mean we must act on them for personal identity and fulfillment. Anywhere from 2% to 20% of the population has illegal and unhealthy fascinations, compulsions, and paraphilic disorders. As a society, especially as Christians, we have to teach people that self-control and mindful reorientation of our fallen desires and passions is possible, healthy, and leads to happiness. This is the hope we offer within the askesis or podvig (struggle) of the Church. That we are not defined by our negative emotions and that we have a choice. We do not have to be dominated and controlled by negative experiences, and we do not have to bend to our own base desires and lowest urges. God has made us in His image, and we can live in holiness, love and truth.

This is the constant witness of the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers. The Apostle Paul teaches, “Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). He affirms that transformation is not only possible, but expected, by the grace of God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. St. Maximos the Confessor reminds us that, “Whatever we love in a sinful way is not what God made, but what we have made of it through our own disordered will.” To make our identity out of our distorted desires is to make a false god of our wounds, and to remain trapped in the fallen self rather than putting on Christ (Romans 13:14). Our true identity is not rooted in passing passions or involuntary inclinations, but in the image of God restored in Christ Jesus. The Church calls all her children, regardless of their struggles, to the narrow path of holiness not because she denies their pain, but because she believes in their resurrection and eternal life with God and one another.

St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his profound reflections on human nature, teaches that man is not a static being, but one who is always becoming - either ascending toward the likeness of God or falling deeper into the confusion of the passions, as we either embrace death and cold materiality or life and the warmth of the life-giving Holy Spirit. “The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God,” he writes, and this likeness is achieved not by surrendering to desire but by the continual purification of the heart. St. John Damascene likewise affirms that the image of God in man is found in his rationality, freedom, and dominion over the passions - not in subjugation to them. To reduce man to his impulses is to dishonor the dignity bestowed upon him by the Creator, and to accept a fallen appetite as identity is to commit what St. Basil the Great calls “the second fall”, which is the willful endorsement of disordered inclinations as natural and good.

St. Augustine, though often cited by both sides of modern debates, clearly teaches in his Confessions that disordered desire is the effect of the fall, and that true joy comes not from indulging the flesh but from ordering one's loves rightly. “My weight is my love,” he writes, “wherever I am carried, it is this weight that carries me.” Love must be trained and directed toward the eternal good. The ordo amoris (the proper ordering of love) is the healing of the soul, and this cannot happen so long as identity is grounded in one’s brokenness rather than in the restoring grace of God.

St. Barsanuphius of Gaza, in his letters to struggling monks, often urged his spiritual children to discern between temptation and consent, between an inclination and a definition of self. He writes, “A person is not condemned for the thoughts which arise unbidden, but for the agreement of the heart with them.” This is the patristic wisdom echoed by the Hesychastic Fathers, who teach that logismoi (uninvited, wandering thoughts) are not sins in themselves, but moments of testing. The true battle is fought in the heart, and the victory is won through prayer, fasting, and silence. Through inner stillness, the heart is reordered according to divine love, and the passions, rather than being repressed, are transformed.

The modern confusion, therefore, lies not in the fact that people experience distorted affections or even deep struggles with attraction - it lies in the claim that these struggles define who they are. As the Lord said to Cain, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him” (Genesis 4:7). Sin and disordered desire crouch at the door of every heart, but the call of God is to mastery - not surrender. The Christian is not called to live in authenticity with his fallen self, but in obedience to the New Man revealed in Christ, the Second Adam, who restores the image shattered by sin.

The Early Church did not build its theology of salvation upon affirming people in their impulses, but by offering them something greater: Theosis - the transformation of the whole person in the light and life of God. St. Gregory the Theologian writes, “That which is not assumed is not healed.” Christ assumed the fullness of human nature, yet without sin, and thus redeems every aspect of our humanity - including our misdirected longings. To identify with any fallen desire is to leave that part of the soul outside the healing power of the Incarnation.

In truth, we are not our temptations, our traumas, or our urges. We are, as St. Paul says, “new creatures in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Church’s call to purity, chastity, and repentance is not cruelty - it is the path of life. And this call extends to all people, regardless of the particular form their temptations take. There is no special category of sin immune to the Cross, and no soul so distorted that the image of God cannot be restored within it. The fallacy of sexual identity is the lie that says you are your disorder. But the truth of the Gospel is that you are more - you are called to be a son or daughter of the living God, conformed to the likeness of Christ, and transfigured by His grace. That is the identity worth living and dying for.

COLLECT FOR AN IDENTITY IN CHRIST

O God, who madest man in Thine own image, and didst send Thy Son Jesus Christ to restore that which was fallen and to make all things new: Grant us grace so to reject the falsehoods of the world, the deceit of the passions, and the lies of the enemy, that we may not be conformed to the brokenness of our flesh, but transformed by the renewing of our minds, and found in Christ, not having our own righteousness, but that which is of Thee. Cleanse our hearts by Thy Spirit, subdue our disordered desires, and raise us up in the likeness of Thine only-begotten Son; that we, being crucified unto sin and alive unto righteousness, may walk in newness of life, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.