Battles Christians Face is the title of a book by Vaughan Roberts, which was republished earlier this year. Vaughan is a hugely respected Christian leader and Bible teacher – he has even spoken at our church! In the new preface, he says that it “is the most personal of my books … Of the many battles I could have written about, I chose to focus on eight which, to a greater or lesser degree, I face myself.” The eight battles are: image, lust, guilt, doubt, depression, pride, homosexuality and keeping spiritually fresh. It is his admission that he has battled with same-sex attraction that has raised the most eyebrows, and is the subject of an interview in October’s Evangelicals Now.
Was he right to admit this? It is a difficult judgment for a leader to know when to reveal such things, and it has to be done for the right motives. So, what good may come from it? First, it may help others who battle with same-sex attraction to think there may yet be a home for them in churches which teach, as Vaughan does, that “the Bible is consistently negative about … any sex outside heterosexual marriage.” Second, it may help those who teach to be gentler in speaking of this particular sin: to ‘love the sinner, while hating the sin’. How easy it is to condemn the sins we don’t struggle with ourselves! Third, it may help us all to distinguish temptation and sin, so that we don’t feel guilty for being tempted, but nor do we excuse sin as if we couldn’t help it. After all, our Lord himself was “tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15, NIV).