What It Means to Be a "Side B" Christian

Please read the introduction to this series: Which Side Are You On: A, B, X, or Y?

Side B Christians support LGBTQ lifestyles as long as they don’t involve physical sex. 

They believe you can identify as gay, enjoy the “beauty” of same-sex attraction, and create lifelong covenant relationships which they call “spiritual friendships.” 

They believe it’s unloving to claim same-sex attraction is ungodly, and they think it’s abusive to insist that people seek God’s help in overcoming same-sex attraction. 

1 Corinthians 6:18 warns us to “flee from sexual immorality.” And Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 5:28 that our thoughts can be sinful even if they are not acted upon. 

If someone identifies as gay, admits to same-sex attraction, finds beauty in their mindset, and creates a lifelong relationship with another person identifying as gay, they’re sinning whether they engage in actual sex or not. Furthermore, they're embracing temptation instead of fleeing from it (1 Corinthians 6:18; James 1:14-15).  

God's design is for one man and one woman to enjoy romance, marriage, and then physical intimacy. What Side B encourages is similar to encouraging a married man to identify as an adulterer so he can date his secretary as long as he doesn't have sex with her.

 

Side B exists to please culture, not God. Those who promote it should realize that it's simply a path to Side A.

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Note: This is not at all addressing same-sex unmarried people living together as roommates or housemates for convenience and economy. This is about people who admit to same-sex attraction and see no reason to seek God in overcoming it. 

 

I believe Side B Christians can be sincere, but they are sincerely wrong and they are promoting death, not life. This point of view exists only because culture has accepted, promoted, and celebrated LGBTQ lifestyles.

I'm blessed to know that many Christian teachers are still teaching biblical truth in this area. But some well-known teachers have given in to compromise—for example, Eugene Petersen, Andy Stanley, and Timothy Keller.  

Alistair Begg probably wouldn't identify as Side B, but he used his position to influence Christians that it's loving to attend a gay wedding even though Scripture says that such a union is shameful (Romans 1:18-32).  This was a serious misuse of his position (James 3:1). 

The names are linked to explanations of their compromised beliefs.

To understand more, I recommend Alisa Childers’ interview with Rosaria Butterfield, a former lesbian: Can You Be a Gay Christian? 

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