Some hold to the early childhood origins idea because they sincerely hope there are no innate or pre-natal causes for homosexuality. However, Christian orthodoxy is not dependent on a particular theory of homosexual causation. Last year, Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, stirred controversy when he wrote that evangelicals should be prepared to acknowledge biological factors in sexual orientation. Mohler said,

"Christians must be very careful not to claim that science can never prove a biological basis for sexual orientation. We can and must insist that no scientific finding can change the basic sinfulness of all homosexual behavior. The general trend of the research points to at least some biological factors behind sexual attraction, gender identity, and sexual orientation. This does not alter God's moral verdict on homosexual sin (or heterosexual sin, for that matter), but it does hold some promise that a deeper knowledge of homosexuality and its cause will allow for more effective ministries to those who struggle with this particular pattern of temptation."

Mohler calls for Christians to be careful researchers and consumers of the science on sexual orientation. In my view, many Christians hold to family dynamics theories because they believe their Christianity requires it. Dr. Mohler correctly calls Evangelicals to expand their thinking regarding biological factors and sexual behavior. This is apropos for heterosexuality as well given that some recent research has reported a link between a genetic aberration and lower levels of relationship commitment among straight males. It is conceivable that research will find genetic markers associated with promiscuity which might appear to excuse unfaithfulness. However, these findings will not change the historic Christian standard of fidelity in marriage.

Although some same-sex attracted people believe the failure-to-bond theory provides a good framework to help them understand their situation, others find a painful dead-end. Listen to how one family described their experience with the failure-to-bond theory:

"As parents of a same-sex-attracted son, there was no mountain too high for us to connect our son and our family to the “best help” for our issues. We found a counselor for him, and then joined him in many sessions and spent a good deal of time examining our parent – child relationships; classifying them as “close” or “distant” and figuring out why. With our broken hearts on the table each week, we looked for the magic thread, the exact moment we disabled our son’s sexuality so as to examine it, repent of it, be forgiven and put this nightmare away. Our counselor finally admitted that we were “unique” and that our son was “unique,” not fitting into the usual (how does the term “usual” apply to sexually fallen humans?) categories and that he basically did not know what else to say to help to untangle these conflicts for our son. We went on to read many books, we attended a famous conference 1000’s of miles away from our home, only to meet one of the most famous authors whose flippant response to us upon introducing ourselves to him was “Yes – I can see it, the mother who did all the research and coordination to get here, the dad who has no idea why he is here and the son who is miserable being here.”  The three of us were after words of life, not words of sarcasm.