Recently, my son and I co-taught a class titled “What the Bible Has to Say to American Culture.” If one thinks of the scriptures as an ancient way or road, we spent the class hanging around the places where American culture intersects with it. At those intersections, we looked at cultural views of work, sexuality, success, inclusivism and diversity, and many others. Each week, we compared what American culture, especially in media and in the academy, is saying on these subjects to what the biblical writers have said.

The sessions generating the most discussion were on same-sex relationships and gender identity. There were so many comments in the class on same-sex attraction and homosexuality we could not finish in one session. This was not because the topic was more important than others but because it was where people felt the most angst.

People who espouse traditional sexual morality are feeling pressured. They believe a cultural campaign has been mounted against them to force them and their children to change their views or keep silent about them. When a couple of transgender activists bared their breasts at a recent White House Pride Month event, the rank exhibitionism disturbed traditionalists less than the president’s enthusiastic endorsement of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle.

People who hold traditional views of sexuality, believe such views are in harmony with the universe and its creator’s intention, and hope their children will share their beliefs, feel threatened. With the president himself undermining their convictions, they sense that their backs are against the wall.

And what about people who endorse a non-traditional sexual morality—do they also feel attacked? The Department of Homeland Security recently released a report stating that attacks against the LGBTQ+ community are increasing. News media outlets report a surge in threats. Activists viewed Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, the so-called “Don’t Say Gay Law,” as a political assault.

Battle lines are being drawn between the two camps and their allies. The Republicans have, for the most part, aligned themselves on the traditional morality side, the Democrats on the non-traditional. Shots have been fired back and forth. The question is whether these skirmishes will turn into an all-out war.

My son fears they will and worries about what will happen to the Church when it does. What will be its options? Offended by the violence and discrimination, it may compromise long-held convictions by choosing to believe the Bible does not prohibit same-sex sexual relationships. Or it may join the culture warriors and make a do-or-die stand against LGBTQ advances.

Some Christians have chosen the first option. They have lovely LGBTQ friends, and it is hard for them to reconcile what they were taught the Bible says with their positive relationships with gay people. So, they latch onto scholarly arguments that claim the Bible does not really prohibit same-sex sexual relationships.

But even Luke Timothy Johnson, the famously progressive New Testament scholar who affirms same-sex relationships, considers this a dead end. He writes, “I have little patience with efforts to make Scripture say something other than what it says, through appeals to linguistic or cultural subtleties … we know what the text says.” Johnson knows what the text says, but he unambiguously rejects its authority, and appeals instead “to the weight of our own experience.”

The other option, joining the attack against LGBTQ+ people, is also a dead end. The Bible is clear that God loves gay people; they must not be hated by those who claim to be his. The orthodox Christian must remember that “God so loved the world” – which includes the LGBTQ community – “that he gave his only begotten Son.”

Does this mean that legislative change should not be pursued? Not at all. But legislative change is a poor substitute for the lasting change that happens when people encounter the love of Christ. That must have priority.

The contemporary Church balances on the razor’s edge. We cannot be malicious toward LGBTQ people nor unfaithful to the Bible’s clear directives on sexuality without being disloyal to Christ. We are called to speak the truth in love. For that, we need the wisdom of the one who, on the razor’s edge himself, said, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”