"PASTORAL THEOLOGY & PRACTICE" PROF. HAROLD SENKBEIL & DR. RICHARD WARNECK CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY: CAPTION FIRST, INC. P.O. BOX 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 1-800-825-7234 * * * * * This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings * * * * >> ERIC: One more question along these lines if you are willing to bear with me. If a congregation member shares with me in confidence as his pastor that he feels himself to be homosexual; that is, he experiences urgent homosexual desires, but then he adds that he has never acted upon a temptation toward homosexual behavior, am I to regard him as homosexual or not? I am woefully unprepared by experience or formal learning to handle such matters. Your insights will be so very much appreciated.? >> DR. WARNECK: Eric, that kind of question and situation you may expect will be posed for you as a pastor and for your colleagues in the pastoral ministry in preparing for the pastoral office. How can we be prepared to respond to a person who confides in us very personally their sexual orientation? And in this instance, so to speak, "coming out" and disclosing to us that which perhaps is not known by the rest of the congregation or, for that matter, sometimes a person will come to their pastor and reveal a sexual orientation that their family does not even know and the family is not even aware. So you're asking about a very real situation. First, as the question indicates, the pastor will want to receive this information and this disclosure in strictest confidence. The person is coming to the pastor with that understanding. And that is our calling when we minister to our people, to keep such things that they reveal and disclose to us in strictest confidence. I suppose, then, when a person such as this is looking for guidance in their life as to how to handle their sexual orientation, we would revert back to some of the principles that we shared in an earlier discussion and urge a Christian in this mode or this disposition to keep themselves pure. I think the apostle's exhortation there just about covers the waterfront. And to encourage the individual to live a chaste and decent life as a Christian and to refrain from temptations or yielding to temptation, which is everywhere, to involve themselves in actual homosexual behavior. We want to spare them of that. And so we would gently and patiently counsel them to remain, as we said in the last�-- in a previous discussion�-- remain simply sell e bat with regard to sexual behavior. And as difficult as that may be, that has to be our counsel to them. Lest�they fall into a terrible and horrible patterns of life which the Lord has said in his Word he just will not countenance. And persons who risk, for the heterosexual a promiscuous life in fornication or for the homosexual person a relationship that involves them in illicit, intimate relations, the Lord is very clear. We can be so overtaken in those lifestyles that we forfeit the kingdom of God. And we want to prezer many a person�from those horrible pitfalls. So I think your encouragement, Eric, to a person who came to you as you describe would be along the lines of living out of their baptism as a Christian and as a new person in Jesus Christ, we're not the same person bound to the sins of the flesh in baptism we're delivered and raised above all of that as the apostle teaches Romans 6 in his discussion following his great statements about baptism unto the death and resurrection of our Lord. There's a new life here. And that's their life now. And then direct them to lead a life of purity as we have stated and emphasized again. I hesitate to say a lot more about the counsel that a pastor might give. You could direct persons of this kind to others who are struggling with the same issues possibly, to other Christians who are attempting to lead a chaste and decent life, yeah, that would be a possibility. And as I said in the previous discussion, whether you raise the issue of pursuing therapies for these individuals would be a judgment call. But your primary pastoral responsibility and care for the person is to help them live out of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. * * * * * This is being provided in a rough-draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in Order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings * * * *