Safe spaces in church

Tom Buck, pastor at First Baptist Church, Lindale Texas, has a running series in which he critiques the inroads that homosexuality is making in TGC, ERLC, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, &c. It's not blatant homosexuality, but a soft, unstable, mediating position. In think Buck raises a number of valid criticisms. However, to judge by what he writes, his alternatives seem to be deficient:

Sadly, I grew up in a time when it was common for Christians to bash homosexuals rather than to lovingly call them to repentance and faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I often heard preachers stand in the pulpit and ridicule homosexuals to the laughter of the audience. Even as a teenager, I was appalled to hear many Christians openly belittle homosexuals. No one struggling with that sin would openly admit their sinful condition before a church that would treat them as nothing more than an object of derision.

When I became a pastor, I was committed to our church being a safe place to confess any sin without fear of ridicule. Churches who commit to making their congregations safe places, while remaining committed to a clear call to repentance, have seen individuals set free from homosexuality by the power of the Gospel.

http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2019/03/25/living-out-part-1/

1. I agree with him that homosexuals won't turn to a church that treats them as nothing more than objects of ridicule. 

2. That said, there's a balance to be struck. When I was a teenager, attending junior high and high school back in the 70s, normal boys openly stigmatized homosexuals, and while that can be carried too far, it can also be a useful disincentive which deterrs some closet homosexuals from going in that fateful direction. 

3. Likewise, transgenderism needs to be lampooned. 

4. I'm puzzled by what he envisions when he says church should be a safe space for homosexuals to openly confess their sinful condition before the church. In principle or practice, confession can take different forms:

i) An elder leads the congregation in the public, corporate confession of sins. The elder is the speaker. He recites a prayer of confession for generic sins, while the congregation silently assents. In my experience, that's a Presbyterian practice.

ii) The congregation recites in unison a prayer of confession for generic sins. That's a public, corporate confession of sins. That's an Anglican practice. I forget what Lutherans do.

iii) Auricular confession, where a laymen confesses his sin to a priest, in private, and receives absolution. That's a Roman Catholic practice.

iv) A parishioner who wrongs another parishioner, then seeks to be reconciled with the parishioner he wronged. That's a private transaction, between the two concerned parties. 

v) Divulging to a pastor or elder a besetting sin.

vi) Divulging to the entire congregation a besetting sin. 

5. Pastor Buck seems to envision a combination of (v-vi). If so:

i) Does he think there's a duty to confess a besetting sin to a pastor or the congregation? Why is that any of their business? This isn't a case where one person wrongs another, and then tries to make amends with the person he wronged. 

ii) Doesn't it foster a culture of gossip if everyone is privy to everyone else's misdeeds? Isn't that voyeuristic? 

iii) A pastor can't dispense magic pills to cure someone of their besetting sin. Pastor Buck talks vaguely about the mortification of sin, but that's optimistic. While there's evidence that some homosexuals are able to break free and transition to normal relationships, that's not a guarantee. 

Once again, no faithful pastor would give this counsel to a heterosexual man that is dealing with his lusts. Think of a single man telling his pastor that he finds a particular woman in the church beautiful, is sexually attracted to her, and desires to be “united to her.” I could never imagine any pastor saying, “This is simply your natural response to beauty as you were created to respond. You should appreciate the beauty, but do not let it drift into a sexual fantasy.”

http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2019/03/27/living-out-part-3/

i) To begin with, heterosexual attraction isn't morally equivalent to homosexual attraction. What exactly is wrong with appreciating a winsome member of the opposite sex, short of sexual fantasy? Buck says it's unimaginable that a pastor would say that, as if that's self-evidently wrong. Perhaps Mt 5:28 is hovering in the background. If so, I think Don Carson has the most reasonable interpretation:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/12/lusting-in-your-heart.html

ii) One thing homosexuals need is friendships with normal men and women. For instance, a homosexual male needs to have friendships with heterosexual men and women. He needs to have normal male role models and confidants. And he needs to consider the possibility of forming a normal relationship with a woman. 

What homosexuals don't need is homosexual friends. Even if that's platonic, they reinforce each other's weaknesses, as mutually deficient role models of masculinity or femininity.