It is not possible to be a “gay Christian” or a “transgender Christian,” the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission says.
In a new social media reel posted by the ERLC, that question is answered by RaShan Frost, ERLC director of research and senior fellow “focused on issues of human dignity.”
“The short answer to the question of whether or not it’s OK to identify as a transgender or a gay Christian is no. We do not categorize our identities as Christians with sinful activity,” Frost states.
RaShan Frost
“However, there is a distinction between saying, ‘I am a Christian who suffers from gender dysphoria or same-sex attraction’ and ‘I’m a Christian who identifies as transgender or gay.’ Any ongoing identification with sinful behavior should cause any individual to prayerfully repent and question whether they have been fully obedient to Christ and laying aside their sins.
“For the Christian who struggles and yet is faithfully seeking to obey Christ there should be a recognition that this ongoing work of sanctification will not be uniform in all cases and will instead be characterized by an ongoing life of repentance as with all of our struggles against sinful behavior,” he says.
The SBC has made national headlines this month for its stand against women being considered pastors in title or function, but the nation’s largest Protestant denomination also draws a hard line against same-sex attraction and transgender identity. The ERLC, in particular, routinely denies that transgender identity is real.
The ERLC recently published an article against Pride Month and advocates for legislation banning recognition of transgender people.
In February, the ERLC published an article praising President Donald Trump: “For many opponents of our nation’s cultural embrace of radical gender ideology, the past several months have been a welcomed reprieve from the madness and a return to truth. Once sworn into office, President Trump began repealing Biden-era policies that pushed gender ideology into every corner of the federal government.”
Since the 1970s, messengers to SBC annual meetings have passed more than 40 resolutions addressing sexuality and gender issues. Among those was a 2014 resolution “On Transgender Identity” that declared “gender identity is determined by biological sex and not by one’s self-perception — a perception which is often influenced by fallen human nature in ways contrary to God’s design.”