“Without natural affection”

Please do not allow anti-gay Christians to steal your peace of mind. They love to do that by misrepresenting what the Bible says or by taking verses out of context. Some of them use the words found in Romans 1:31 and 2 Timothy 3:3 to condemn homosexuals. Their faulty thinking goes like this: It's only natural for men to love women and women to love men.

Gays and lesbians do not love that way and straight Christians can't figure out why, so they conclude that same-sex love between two men or two women is unnatural or against nature. It then becomes a knee-jerk reaction for those Christians to attack gays and lesbians by insisting that when Paul said “without natural affection,” he was talking about gays and lesbians.

Without Natural Affection?
Truth supports the gay viewpoint.

Question: Is the anti-gay view on these verses the predominant Christian view down the centuries?

No, absolutely not! In their zeal to attack lesbians and gays, many non-gay Christians assume the Bible supports their mean-spirited views when, of course, it does not. Anti-gay Christians are prisoners of their own prejudices. Regardless what some anti-gay Christians believe, many conservative Bible scholars are on record stating that Romans 1:31 and 2 Timothy 3:3 are talking about lack of love in families (something many gays have experienced), rather than homosexuality.

This page provides ammunition in writing, historical facts and quotes from conservative Christian scholars, which prove that many anti-gay conservative Christian scholars have never taught and do not teach that these verses refer to homosexuals.

The English phrase “without natural affection” translates the Greek word astorgos. It has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality or with being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transsexual. The Greek word astorgos did not refer to same-sex activity in secular Greek usage, and it does not refer to homosexuality or same-sex activity in the two verses where it occurs in Biblical Greek.

Define the Greek word ἄστοργος

astorgos: from a = without + storge = family love

Astorgos literally means “without family love” or “without natural affection for kindred” and is frequently used of parent-child relationships. Astorgos is never used in the Bible to refer to same-sex relationships, yet it could very well be used to describe the vicious way some Christians treat their gay and lesbian children.

Astorgos was used in secular Greek literature to describe women who had many love affairs and as a result did not have that nobler love for their husbands which they should have had.

“Without natural affection” in the context of Romans 1:31 and 2 Timothy 3 refers to children not loving their parents properly (3:2) and, conversely, parents not loving their children properly (3:3). How many gays and lesbians have experienced that lack of love when their parents found out their kid was gay?

And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.

Matthew 10:21

Although Jesus does not use the word astorgos in the Matthew passage, Jesus’s statement as recorded by Matthew does provide a classic example of being “without natural affection.”

Most of the Bible commentaries written over the last 2000 years do not link “without natural affection” to homosexuality. Therefore, believing that “without natural affection” refers to lack of family love instead of gay or lesbian love is not a gay viewpoint. It is the common viewpoint of most Christians for the last two thousand years.