Citing Psalm 51, prominent Pastor RA Vernon claims Scripture proves some gay people are born that way
Prominent megachurch Pastor R.A. Vernon of The Word Church in Cleveland, Ohio, said that even though he supports a biblical view of marriage and relationships, he also believes that Psalm 51 shows that some people can also be born gay.
Speaking on a recent episode of his podcast, titled “The Elephant in The Church - Homosexuality And Christianity,” Vernon said he was driven to address the topic because, as the largest predominantly African American Church in Cleveland, he also has more “lesbians, gay brothers and sisters, [and] queer Christians who attend here.”
He also identified three ways he believes people become homosexual and the first he discussed was that they were born that way.
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“No. 1 and you’ve heard this one, ‘I was born this way.’ I got a question for everybody watching, why do you have a problem with somebody telling you that? I absolutely, now this is where grandma is wrong. Sometimes grandma says, ‘you was not born that way.’ No grandma, you’re wrong there … don’t tell nobody how they were born,” Vernon began.
“He was, she was, born that way. From day one he liked dolls more than he liked G.I. Joe … but attracted to the opposite sex or the same sex at birth, that’s true in a lot of people. They were born that way,” Vernon argued.
“Pastor prove it? Psalms 51:5,” he declared. “Psalms 51:5. ‘For I was born a sinner— yes, from the moment my mother conceived me (NLT version).’
“There are people who are born, anthropologically, biologically and their arm broke. There are people who are born and they’ve got mental stuff. Why is it so hard for us to believe, if you believe that it is sin … that you can be born with sexual brokenness?” he asked. “That you attracted to what you are attracted to, that you like what you like. I’m not the pastor who doesn’t believe people were born that way. I believe that. I believe that.”
Vernon, whose Word Church is “one of the fastest-growing churches in the history of Cleveland, with campuses and daughter churches throughout Northeast Ohio” acknowledged the ongoing debate over his controversial position. He also said early on in the podcast that “you can be saved and gay.”
“I’ll start right away and say you can be saved and gay. Anybody that tells you differently, they haven’t read enough or they are just overly, extremely homophobic, even theologically homophobic, which is crazy because you just can’t get that from Scripture that you can’t have a struggle if you consider it a struggle,” he said.
While Vernon is fully convinced about the “born this way” theory on homosexuality, J. Alan Branch, professor of Christian Ethics at Midwestern Seminary, argued in his 2016 book, Born this Way? Homosexuality, Science, and the Scriptures that “while there are genetic and biological factors that correlate with a higher incidence of same-sex attraction and homosexual behavior, as of yet there is no proof of genetic or biological causation for homosexuality.”
Vernon himself also contends that he has learned from his 20 years of experience leading his church that some people engage in homosexual behavior to experiment, while there are others who were introduced to the lifestyle through abuse.
Despite his controversial beliefs about homosexuality, Vernon said the position of his church is that the lifestyle is sinful.
“There are churches like the Word Church who are accepting and affirming in one sense, but very honest about the fact that we see biblical marriage as between a man and a woman and we see same gender lovemaking as sin. Don’t bite your tongue. Say what it is. We see it as sin,” he said. “But I don’t necessarily see the people as totally sinful.”
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