This relatively short book packs a lot of theological punch and takes no prisoners along the way.

LGBT saturation

Roberts boldly critiques LGBT ideology in a forthright and uncompromising manner. What makes this study somewhat unusual is the author’s willingness to criticise the way in which much of the evangelical church has naively accepted or adopted some of the un-biblical ideas promoted by LGBT activists.

It is obvious that we are living in a highly sexualised culture saturated with LGBT ideology. Television dramas have normalised LGBT lifestyles for decades and it is nearly ten years since the legalisation of same-sex ‘marriage’. Writing towards the close of Pride month, progressive LGBT flags are ubiquitous in London. Children are indoctrinated with LGBT ideology and pressured into becoming LGBT ‘allies’ from a very young age. Many young people sympathise with allowing people to change gender and have either adopted LGBT identities themselves or have many friends who have done so.

How is the Church to respond biblically and faithfully to the increasingly anti-Christian sexualisation of our culture? Well, to start with, we need to ensure that we are thinking biblically and clearly about these issues without allowing the culture to compromise where we stand. That is what this book seeks to address.

A crisis of worship

The book is structured in two parts. In Part 1: Defined by Worship, Roberts expounds a biblical perspective on identity, worship and desire. Roberts’ key thesis is that “Since who we are is defined by our duty to worship God, our crisis of identity is at root a crisis of worship.” (p16). We are created in the image of God to be worshippers of God. But we rebel against this identity and set up rival identities and rival idols to worship instead.

To start with, we need to ensure that we are thinking biblically and clearly about these issues without allowing the culture to compromise where we stand.

Roberts explains:

“All sin is a form of pride: the exalting of self above God. Every choice to disobey God does this; every idol carved by us in our image implicitly does the same. But to make the Self and its Freedom the very idol that we worship would seem to be pride expressed in a particularly pure form.” (p42)

It follows that:

“To claim our sexual inclinations are our fundamental identity is to ascribe to ourselves ultimate significance, to declare ourselves to be our own creators.” (p46)

This is the essence of Pride and LGBT ideology. The deification of self. The belief that we can create ourselves to be who we want to be. Criticising someone’s LGBT identity is actually a form of blasphemy – against their self-deification – which is why people get so upset about it. Preaching the gospel in this context means calling people to turn from their idols to worship the living God (p47). This will necessarily offend their idolatrous deification of self.

Love and lust

Much of Part 1 is a useful discussion of the nature of sin and idolatry and how the Pride movement is inherently sinful and idolatrous. Where Christians seek to justify their LGBT identities, Roberts is clear. We are, biblically speaking, either male or female. We should not accept identities based on sinful desires. To affirm sinful desires as ‘core to our identity’ is plain wrong.

We should not accept identities based on sinful desires. To affirm sinful desires as ‘core to our identity’ is plain wrong.

Roberts explains:

“The Pride movement has a thoroughly Pelagian view of human nature. It is all about the conviction that our natural desires, far from being sinful, and something to be ashamed of, are something to be proud of. Nothing that is in us naturally can be bad.” (p62).

This is a denial of the crucial doctrine of original sin. We do all have sinful desires, but that is not to say that God is responsible for them, still less that we should build our identities around them.

Lustful desires or inclinations are sinful in themselves, as Roberts explains. He writes: “There is a moral distinction between sinful desire resisted and sinful desire indulged, but it is a difference only of degree.” (p78). “Since our sinful desires are sin, we need to repent of them.” (p79). This is a key point. Roberts is clear:

"The idea that there is a moral equivalence between a loving husband wanting to share the delights of the marriage bed with his wife, a godly single man hoping to find a wife, another man looking to satisfy his lust with an unknown Tinder date, and another desiring to commit sodomy, is one that is so extraordinary from a biblical worldview, and that of the Christian church very nearly up to the present day, that it has required the invention of a whole new vocabulary to first articulate and then to normalise it." (pp80-81).

There is a moral distinction between sinful desire resisted and sinful desire indulged, but it is a difference only of degree.

Also:

"Love and lust are not the same thing rotated slightly. We cannot speak of them as 'orientations' any more than we should say that kindness and cruelty, thankfulness and gluttony, humility and pride, or even righteousness and sin are just different 'orientations'. They are diametric opposites. Neutral language is not appropriate to describe such things." (p81).

Sadly, there are too few Christians willing to say such things. And we are reaping the consequences in the Church today.

Same-sex attractions

Part 2: Restored to be true worshippers, is about how we can find redemption from the mess of sinful identities and desires. What do we say to someone who identities as gay? What is the good news for them?

Roberts is characteristically forthright:

"Christians have by and large accepted the category of 'sexual orientation' to such a degree that they have assumed that those who think of themselves as 'gay' (or 'same-sex attracted') could not possibly marry. The oft-repeated claim that 'same-sex attracted' Christians must be celibate is an example of this. It is, biblically speaking, nonsense. Like all Christians, they must avoid sin, including all sexual sins. But 'celibate' is certainly not the right word for that; historically, it refers principally to abstaining from marriage, not abstaining from sodomy or any other extra-marital sexual activity which is, after all, simply sin. And Scripture is quite clear that no-one is forbidden to marry. Men who desire homosexual encounters are no exception. There is no reason at all why such a man may not court and marry a godly woman and, God willing, become a father. If temptations to illicit sexual pleasure were a bar to that then no-one could marry. Of course, there is no compulsion for him to do so, but nor is it in any sense ruled out by the existence of immoral sexual desires." (pp104-105)

(celibacy) historically ... refers principally to abstaining from marriage, not abstaining from sodomy or any other extra-marital sexual activity

This is right - and there are many formerly LGBT-identifying Christians who are now happily heterosexually married with children. Perhaps some in your church? But this is sadly not what is preached from many pulpits today. Telling people that their sexual identities are unchangeable and essential to their nature is a betrayal of the gospel. It is condoning idolatry.

As Roberts says:

“Thus it is integral for someone who identifies himself by one of the LGBT+ identities, on becoming a Christian, to give that identity up.” (p131)

This is just repentance. Christians should repent of accepting sinful identities.

Conversion therapy

Towards the end, Roberts discusses various pastoral approaches to the redemption of identity. Here it seems that he has uncritically accepted the false narrative that therapy does not and cannot help people with deeply ingrained sinful habits and thought patterns (p142). He cites a couple of anecdotal testimonies as evidence that such therapies are harmful, without engaging at all with the peer-reviewed literature on the subject.

He cites a couple of anecdotal testimonies as evidence that such therapies are harmful, without engaging at all with the peer-reviewed literature on the subject.

A good summary of the evidence against the false narrative that therapy for unwanted sexual desires is harmful can be found on the Free to Talk website here. The most robust studies show that such therapy is significantly more psychologically helpful than harmful. Even when the therapy is ineffective, the evidence is that it is more helpful than harmful.

In spite of this error, I would recommend this book. It is a helpful antidote to the poisonous LGBT ideology, and even LGBT theology, that has infiltrated the Church as well as the culture.

Roberts speaks with a biblical clarity that is not heard in many churches today. I hope this book encourages more Christians to articulate a robustly biblical position on sexual identities. At stake is nothing less than the heart of the gospel.

Tim Dieppe is Head of Public Policy at Christian Concern