Conservative Mennonite Conference

Statement on Homosexuality

1. Questions of ethics and morality must be answered by the revelation, authority, and faithful interpretation of the Scriptures.
2. Human sexuality is good, as created by God, but can be perverted and corrupted in human attitude and behavior.
3. Whatever the causes of homosexuality, it is a condition outside of God's creational intent.

4.Homosexual orientation is deviant from God's plan for human sexuality, and should not be considered as a gift of God. The behavior naturally educed by homosexual orientation is described in Scripture as "shameful" and "against nature" (Rom. 1:26, 27 (NIV).
5. Response to homosexual orientation should recognize the condition as falling short of the plan of God and should seek reorientation through transformation through prayer, God's grace, therapy, and the love and support of brothers and sisters in the body of Christ.
6. A believer who is afflicted with homosexual orientation can respond by:
1. Refusing to entertain the orientation as satisfactory or as a gift from God
2. Repenting of ways in which the individual may have enhanced the orientation
3. Renouncing the identity and control of the orientation and any notion of having been created to be homosexual
4. Working toward reorientation by God's grace and the help of fellow-believers
5. Seeking release from the bondage of factors which may have caused the orientation
6. Committing the problem of homosexual orientation to the Lordship of Jesus for growth in the experiential reality of being a new creature in Christ (II Cor. 5:17).
7. The church is responsible to minister compassionately and redemptively to the homosexual.
1.by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with those who are not believers
2. by renouncing homosexual behavior as sin and recognizing homosexual orientation as abnormal (not a gift of God)
3. by leading the homosexual to God's grace for deliverance
4. through ministries such as counseling or support groups in the body of Christ. These ministries include a call to holiness, sympathetic understanding of those in voluntarily caught in homosexual orientation, renouncing homosexual behavior, and providing minis try (specialized or within the church) for reorientation.

Adopted at the CMC business meeting, August 11, 1995

June 22, 2000