Loving Your LGBT Child with Grace and Truth – I

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John Fuller: This is John Fuller and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website. Today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, we’re tackling an issue that has overrun our culture like a tsunami. Families and friends have become divided over this, and there’s been a lot of confusion about what’s true and what’s not true. The subject matter isn’t appropriate for younger listeners, so we’ll recommend you direct their attention elsewhere. Now, perhaps as we begin, you’ve been hearing comments like these.
Guest (Female): We raised our son in a godly home. When he suddenly announced he was gay, I was devastated.
Guest (Male): This LGBT stuff is everywhere. How do I protect my children?
Guest (Female): Christians lie about love. When I came out a year ago, my family wouldn’t have anything to do with me.
Guest (Female): What do I say to my college-aged son who claims to be a gay Christian? What does that even mean?
Jim Daly: John, you can hear the emotions in responses like those. It's anger, it's fear, it's pain, it's probably a sense of helplessness. A lot of families are wrestling with this question: What do I do when my child says I'm gay? Now that can happen at any age. I mean nine, 11, 17, 18, 23, but those are the ranges that now families are experiencing this expression of where I feel I'm at today. Often spurred on by the public school system to encourage them in their gender identity, their sexual identity. We just feel it's time now to address this so that parents are better equipped, and grandparents, to manage the situation. It's going to be different for everybody. It's kind of like a fingerprint. There's not one size fits all, and we don't want to make it sound that way, but I think it's an incredibly important topic. Let's go at it headlong and look at what biblical truth says, what God's heart is for these families.
John Fuller: We have a colleague and guest who is quite wise in these matters. He’s going to help us address this. Rob Jackson is a member of the Focus on the Family counseling team and has more than 40 years experience as a counselor and life coach helping men and women find integrated healing spiritually, psychologically, behaviorally, and relationally. He’s written a book for Focus on the Family and Tyndale House called *When Grace Meets Conviction: Loving God and Your LGBT Child*. We’re going to have information about Rob and this resource at our website.
Jim Daly: Rob, welcome back to Focus on the Family. It’s been 20 years since you were on the program, but what have you been doing?
Rob Jackson: I’ve been aging and I’ve been learning and I’ve been doing life.
Jim Daly: I so appreciate you being part of the counseling team here at Focus. There's over 20, there's 22, 23 people that are doing that all day long. Often for the viewers and the listeners, when I leave for lunch or something, I'll see one of the counselors walking the property. I've been told that the team is just getting a break, fresh air, just trying to clear their heads because for eight hours they're talking to people that are in some very difficult situations. Not just the LGBT issue, but affairs and other things. As we tip in now to sexual issues and as John said, good to move little ones away and put your earbuds on or listen later. You can do that by getting the app to Focus or go to the website, etc. It's accessible, you just need to find it. Sexual issues grip the human condition like nothing else. I mean, you look at Christian leaders who have fallen. Let's be honest. It's grabbed them. People in the pew, it's grabbed them. It's like there's no immunity in this area of sexuality. We're all vulnerable to it. And yet the Lord wants us to discipline our appetites, to put them in the context of marriage between one man, one woman, and to learn the discipline of righteousness in that context, right?
Rob Jackson: Absolutely. But it doesn't always work that way. What do you see in your observations of parents who are calling Focus and they're saying my teenager just came out to us and he said he's gay? What does that look like in the counseling? One of the first questions I want to ask is how did that land on you? What's that doing to you? Because, Jim, what we're finding is the grief that they're experiencing is just profound. There's grief, there's shock, there's frustration. Many times they're just rattling off, "But we raised them in a Christian home and we took them to church and we homeschooled or they were in a private Christian school or they're attending a Christian university now or they walked the aisle or they were baptized." It is earth-shattering. Ssunami, earthquake, tornado.
Jim Daly: The key in that and I want to make sure we get this out on the table for that child, whatever their age, to come to the parent and say, "I'm gay" takes a lot of courage. I mean, think of it from their perspective. They did grow up in a Christian home. They did go to church. They did get baptized. What is the angst that they're feeling?
Rob Jackson: That is one of the most important questions I think we're going to deal with because many times they're going to feel misunderstood. They're going to feel prejudiced. They will have already been told, "Your parents are going to kick you out." And by the way, I have never had a parent tell me, "We kicked our kid out." That's not happening when these first conversations are occurring. They're telling me we've expressed that we love our child unconditionally. They're saying most of the right things. We can color some of it and tweak some of it, but most of it is really coming off quite well. And still it's like, what am I going to do with this? How can I change this? How can I engage my child? But the child who's coming out today has been carrying this for days, weeks, months, and years and are typically further down the road than the parent has any clue of. And they do love their parent in most cases and know it's going to break their parents' hearts.
Jim Daly: But to hear that, "Dad, Mom, I'm..." fill in the blank, LGBT, whatever. How do you wrestle that down in that moment to not react with "What?" What do you recommend that first word out of your mouth has to be?
Rob Jackson: Well, unfortunately, some parents get it wrong. The first word, the first conversation, the first day, the first week, the first month. I mean, for some parents they will admit I really blew this and now I'm trying to backtrack. But we're wanting parents to understand that this is difficult for their child and they also need to have some grace for themselves realizing I'm not going to do this perfectly. But one of the things I need to say right off the bat, "Wow, I bet that was hard for you telling me this. I really appreciate the courage it took." See, Jim and John, one of the things when problems are complicated, we need to simplify them and slow them down. But the urge is to just roll in there with the answer that's supposed to solve this in a moment.
Jim Daly: I want to pick up on something you said to make sure the finer touches are put on this. When you talked about the kids going to Christian school, private school, what have you, going to church, Sunday school, getting baptized, the rhythm of that. We as parents tend to think formulaically. I've tried now to be consistent saying these are predictive things to do so that you have a predictive outcome and it works sometimes. But it's not a formula. You can't say A plus B plus C equals a great Christian committed child. I mean, think of the Lord creating Adam and Eve. It was all perfect and then they chose sin. So there's so many things at work in this. I mean even the Lord's dealing with your child. What valley are you allowing them to go to so that they might meet Christ there? And so how do we have that long view as a parent when our 15-year-old is experiencing this and we're thinking, okay, I mean the pillow talk between husband and wife has to be stressful.
Rob Jackson: Well, I'm always asking where are the two of you as parents? And then where are you as brother and sister in Christ? I'm not going to assume you're absolutely on the bullseye with each other because you're two separate people. So let's talk about that. Is one of you tending towards being a little more conservative, is one tending to be a little bit more liberal? Are you finding a way to meet in the middle without compromising your convictions, without compromising the Word of God? And do you realize this could make or break your marriage? This is huge. It will unsettle you before you find peace.
Jim Daly: In that regard, it's important I would think for that couple to get some support and help. Counseling is a good thing so you can bounce ideas off one another, the counselor, talk about biblical understanding. I mean a Christian counselor is what I'm talking about, somebody who knows the Lord. But you would say amen, that'd be really good to go.
Rob Jackson: Amen. And one of the first places for the parent is to work through their grief. And of course, theoretically there are stages of grief, but I've had parents who say things like, "You know, my child told me not to call him by his dead name."
Jim Daly: His dead name. Wow.
Rob Jackson: And then the next sentence or two is, "And it really does feel like there's been a death in the family." I mean, he's asked me to take all the childhood photographs, all the family photographs of him down, remove them from the home. So it's aggressive. And then they say, "This is harder than when I lost my mom or my dad to cancer. I never knew this was going to be so hard." And then some will go on to say, "It's like I've had a loss and there's a funeral, but there's not a body to bury." And then, "But what about Christmas? Do we invite both of them?" All that with the adult.
Jim Daly: In that context as a counselor again, what is that grief source? The loss of hopes and dreams? The loss of what you thought the future would be? The loss of your child?
Rob Jackson: And sometimes the loss of how I have viewed God. Kind of like I thought if I did all of this, he would do that. And it's unfortunate that our faith sometimes is transactional. But in the American evangelical culture, it is. "I've done the right things, God. I feel like you owe me." And so that's always a time that I get really concerned because now it's not just about a child, but it's about the interior and the spiritual formation of that Christian parent.
Jim Daly: Rob, as a counselor, people might say, well, that's good. You've read some books, Rob, and you've got a degree and that's all good, but you've never had this happen to you. But you have. You had an extended family member who came out and the family had to deal with it. Putting that hat on, family member, not counselor, what did you go through?
Rob Jackson: Well, that story started back when I was in middle school and high school. And there was so many times like, I wonder, is he gay? We just really didn't know.
Jim Daly: So you had doubts before?
Rob Jackson: Had doubts before. There were some signs, if you will. And then eventually by the time I was in college, he told me. And so with great respect, it had to be incredibly difficult for him, but it was difficult for me. And of course, back in that day, I mean, we're talking 40 years ago. It wasn't as acceptable and also I didn't have the books that I had been reading, right? I didn't have the degree. And so I was really pressured to how do I respond biblically? And I wish that I had known, and this is an important thing, I wish that I had known how to respond in the spirit of Christ, not just with the Bible.
Jim Daly: Explain that.
Rob Jackson: Well, we can go just with the Bible and have all the right answers and not have a great posture. And so while I didn't say horrible things, I think the division was greater than it would have had to be if I had been able to say, "I don't know what this is like to be you. Thank you for telling me. I'm not sure how this is going to impact our relationship. Let's sort it out." Now, it got complicated over time and I owned that I was a part of that. This is never about one person, right? But for those who haven't read the books, haven't gone to college and grad school to deal with this, my heart is for you. I know this story is difficult. It's always been difficult to find yourself at odds with someone that you love.
John Fuller: Our guest today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly is Rob Jackson, and we’re so glad to have him here talking about his experience and story. He’s captured much of this in a resource that is called *When Grace Meets Conviction: Loving God and Your LGBT Child*. And, of course, this is going to be a very helpful resource for each of us to have at hand because these moments do come up in families around us and perhaps in your own family. So get a copy of the book from us today. We also have a free download you can get called *When a Loved One Says I'm Gay*, and you can access both of these resources and more when you stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim Daly: Rob, again, setting the picture here, we've been deep, we've been personal. I so appreciate that vulnerability. I want to speak just to the issue when you look at research, for example. I think just back recently the UK, ages 18 to 24, 50% of that age group said that they were not 100% heterosexual. 50%. Now, before your jaw goes down, a third of that same age group, 18 to 24, in the US said they're not 100% heterosexual. Dr. Dobson had a PhD from the University of Southern California in child development. He and I talked often about this dilemma and he said one of the things that is an outlier for homosexuality, LGBT issues, is it becomes episodic in culture. In other words, you have decades of this kind of promiscuity. The Roman Empire, the Greek Empire, the US now, the West is experiencing it. He said if it was genetic, it wouldn't have that episodic feature. It would be like a normal 2%, 3% of the population. It's genetic. Twin studies show, identical twin studies, one is gay, one is not. Same DNA material. So there is evidence, mounting evidence suggesting that this is not a genetic issue. Where is the science today and what is for us as Christians as we try to look at causality, what should we know?
Rob Jackson: Well, it's a great question and you've set it up so well from both Dr. Dobson and the studies that you're talking about. So yeah, there's no science really bearing out that there's a gay gene, right? And instead of talking about what causes this, we need to talk about what's correlated to it or with it. And so from the cause, we can go back to the fallen nature of humanity. We can say there's a cause for all of our sin, this rebellion. And so we have a need to work with the rebellion, but then we get into a need to work through the woundedness. And the woundedness is where so many of these people are struggling. And so it can be the child who wasn't maybe masculine enough and was called gay. Or maybe he was the musician. I was a piano player in the sixth grade and so forth and not the football guy. And so I know some of that and like, I don't want anybody to know that I play the piano. And then by high school, I was known for playing the piano, right? But it was difficult at times to not have that macho athletic reputation. Sometimes it's the girl, she's a little tomboyish, not as feminine as some, and she gets labeled. And so we've got a lot of peer pressure, a lot of bullying that's going on. And some of that is correlated to how a person comes to see himself even at a young age. And this goes to the heart of who am I? And that raises the question, who am I in relationship to God? Getting down to the basis of what is a Christian identity? Of what does it mean to be created by God who made them male and female and said, go be fruitful, go bear children, right? And then find ourselves in a fallen world with desires that are not only deceitful because of original sin, but disordered further and wounded further by the culture that we live in.
Jim Daly: When I think about this and I'm not a scientist, I did my MBA, so I want to make sure everybody... you are the scientist, you did your counseling background. In that context, are we talking more about compulsions? I mean, even uncontrollable compulsions? And what's that distinction? I mean, let's face it, everybody, the church has its issues as well. Leaders in the church, people in the pews, like I said, you hear too regularly of Christian leaders having affairs, etc. It does a lot of damage. And the question is here, it's all compulsion. I mean, if we were logical, spiritual, we would not do those things.
Rob Jackson: That's right. And that's Paul: why do I do the things that I do because I have come to hate them? But here's the thing. I agree with you, it is a compulsion, but let's back up. Every behavior can become a habit if it's repeated enough. Why is it becoming a habit, though? What is it feeding? What is it doing inside, even neurologically? But get this. Every habit can become a compulsion if it's repeated enough.
Jim Daly: Sounds like a cul-de-sac you can't get out of.
Rob Jackson: But we're not through. What if every compulsion is repeated? Now we're looking at an addiction. And so sometimes we talk about I have a fallen nature, I have a besetting sin, we use the language from our Christian faith. But by the time this begins to really roll and turn over and morph and increase, we're moving from behavior to habit to compulsion to addiction. And it's moving into even the brain and the nervous system.
Jim Daly: Now this is true across the board for every behavior. That's why I'm concerned that we create a super sin out of LGBT activity. It's sin. It's sin. But here's the thing, sexual sin, and let's talk about sexual sin broadly, heterosexual for example. We have no reason to pick on the LGBT community. But sexual behavior impacts the whole person differently than anything else. Even 1 Corinthians 6:18 speaks to how sexual sin is different, it's a sin against the body. What does that mean? It's different than if I go to my neighbor's house and I break in. I do that with my body, but it's not happening inside me. It's not becoming all of this neurochemistry of making attachments and bonds and those kinds of things. It's not leaving me with body memories, good and bad. It's just an act. But when we have something go off sexually, it accumulates. Like I believe that God is so faithful to forgive us when we have sin of any kind, including sexual sins. He's faithful to forgive us. But, Jim, I believe that our sexual behaviors accumulate, good and bad. They can accumulate well and make for a loving husband and wife marital relationship. They can accumulate poorly in the life of an individual who's looking at pornography and self-gratifying and so forth. And then it becomes like a Trojan horse, it gets inside the person and begins to take over.
Jim Daly: It's powerful. But the question, I think, is we need to show love to our kids in that moment. They're not mature. For the LGBT child 15, 16 coming out, 23-year-old coming out. How do we do that effectively? We kind of started here, but I want to end with hope for day one here. We're going to come back next time. But what's the long view?
Rob Jackson: Well, God did not raise us on a formula either. God who's omniscient, he had a plan and he did it through a person, God himself, Father, Son, and Spirit. Even before Jesus becomes flesh is relational community. And so I think the parent who overreacts and regrets it, the parent who really loses it and hurts the child. I mean, I've made mistakes with my own children. I can't even think about the topic without realizing some of my mistakes, right? But we go back and we apologize and we say, "You know, I wish I could do that differently because I would like to have met you with greater love. I think I treated you like a project and I'm sorry." Boy, that's all of us in our parenting, though. And so those who react the most may have really a very deep, deep love for the child. They just haven't yet done the interior work to realize my Father is not treating me like a project. He is not raising me up in Christ with a formula. And I'm messing up in so many ways that I can't even know because there's this thing called sins of omission, right? I don't even know all my sin. And yet he meets me relationally where I am. And that is the goal that I have as a parent toward my children.
Jim Daly: Reminds me in the scripture where it refers to the lavish love of God. We don't really think about that, but it says the lavish love of God. That to me becomes almost incomprehensible because of all of my wounds, all of my sin. Really? You could love me lavishly?
Rob Jackson: Well, the father of the prodigal son and his return home... I mean, the story never ceases to teach me something new. It's so full of hope.
Jim Daly: Rob, this has been a great start. I hope you have appreciated the heart and the tone in which we've approached this. We're sinners saved by grace. We want to express love and hope to everybody we can. We want to be true to scripture and not bend on those principles that God has clearly laid out. We're not going to go back and say the Greek and the Latin actually said it's okay and I would caution people, Christians, not to embrace that because the withering effect of culture in our direction right now. We’ve got to stand firm. But you can stand firm and still be loving and kind. Rob’s book, *When Grace Meets Conviction: Loving God and Your LGBT Child*, you need to read it. And certainly if you have friends that are in this spot, get a copy from us. Your church library probably needs a few copies just so people, parents, grandparents can get better equipped on what to do. People are crying out for help right now. Just put your ears up and you'll hear it.
John Fuller: Well, and Jim, part of our mandate here at Focus on the Family is to equip believers to live out their faith in a culture that has turned away from God’s design for sexuality and his moral laws. Thanks to the generous support of our donor community, we’ve helped three-quarters of a million people in the past 12 months to help elevate biblical and pro-family values. It’s amazing and that’s what happens when we work together to transform single adults, dads, moms, and children for Christ, right? And that’s why I want to invite you to make a monthly pledge to Focus on the Family today. All year long people are contacting us for help and that’s a great thing. With their marriages, with parenting issues, spiritual growth and so much more. Thanks to our monthly sustainers, we’re able to respond and provide the resources these families really need. By giving to Focus on the Family today, you’re able to do ministry through us. Think about the tremendous impact we can have through that partnership. So, please, donate today with a monthly pledge or a one-time gift. Whatever you can afford, everything helps. When you make that contribution to this ministry, we’ll say thanks by sending a copy of Rob’s book *When Grace Meets Conviction*. Our number is 800, the letter A, and the word family or donate at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. We also mentioned our counseling team and if you’d like to speak with one of our caring Christian counselors, we can set up that call for you when you get in touch. Rob, thanks again for being with us. We’ll come back and keep the conversation going.
Rob Jackson: I look forward to it, Jim. Thank you.
John Fuller: And on behalf of the team, plan to join us next time as we want to again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
Guest (Male): The preceding program was sponsored by Focus on the Family.