Archive for category: Voices from the Gay Co…

Talking about LGBT people and Christianity is a big part of my job.

As executive director of The Gay Christian Network, I spend a lot of my time in situations—public and private—where I’m asked to discuss topics like sexual orientation with people who disagree with me.

I do it willingly, of course. As a Christian, I believe these are important conversations to have. But, if I’m honest, these conversations can frequently be downright miserable. I’ve watched too many people—many of them self-professed Christians—talk to others with derision and disdain, claiming to represent truth and love while treating others in ways no one would want to be treated themselves. 

In far too many of these conversations, the Golden Rule is nowhere to be found—on either side.

And that’s what I appreciate most about this conversation with Eve. Over this series of essays, Eve and I have disagreed on topics of deep personal and theological significance for both of us. I know where Eve stands, and I know that she thinks I’m very wrong on some important points. Never once, though, have I felt belittled, disparaged, or dehumanized by Eve. She disagrees, but she also understands, and that makes all the difference.

A lot of people on all sides of these debates think that disparaging your opponent makes your argument sound stronger. It doesn’t. It just makes people less likely to listen to you unless they agreed with you from the start. Eve, thankfully, understands that. I felt heard and respected by her in this conversation, and though we still don’t agree, having this dialogue has only increased my respect and appreciation for her. I wish all conversations on these questions were so respectful!

 

That said…

Of course, respect does not mean agreement. Eve and I still disagree on several things.

Eve believes the church needs to do more to recognize non-romantic forms of love, and I agree with that. It’s important for all of us, and especially for those who are celibate—by choice or by circumstance. But I don’t think that’s a sufficient answer to the challenges gay Christians face. As I argued in my original article, I believe romantic love is also a critically important part of the puzzle, and I’m very concerned that it’s been neglected in many church discussions of LGBT people.  All too often, the arguments focus only on sex, and that speaks to me of misplaced priorities. I’d far rather endure a life without sex than a life without romance, but I don’t think we should be asking people to choose between them anyway. The two should go together, finding their home in marriage.

In her response to my article, Eve challenged my emphasis on romance, saying that my “approach is still too much shaped by contemporary American culture.” I disagree. Though the language and specifics have changed over the centuries, romance is hardly a modern American invention. It is, rather, a deeply ingrained part of the human condition. We see it in Shakespeare. We see it in Greek mythology. And we see it in the Bible.

When Genesis 29:20 tells us that “Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her,” what is that other than a description of passionately romantic love (though filtered through an unfortunately paternalistic culture)? And what is Song of Songs if not an extended poem about romance and erotic love? There is certainly romantic love in the Bible, even if the word “romance” itself doesn’t appear.

When I write about the importance of romance, I’m not talking about some mythical Hollywood rom-com fantasy. I’m talking about the kind of driving force that would make a man agree to work for seven years—fourteen years by the end of the story—merely to be with the woman he loves. I’m talking about a force far more powerful than sex, something that has been part of humanity since God created Adam and noted that it wasn’t good for him to be alone. 

There are other ways to not be alone, yes, and there are other ways to love. Not every person needs or wants a romance, and some who do want it don’t ever get it. But that reality must not lead us to underestimate the importance of romance or to deny its very possibility to those who eagerly seek it. Romantic love matters. That’s not cultural, and it’s not new. It’s human.

 

Romance is unique

Perhaps some of Eve’s disagreement with me is really about terms; maybe she would use different words to describe the same concept. I call it “romance” (or “romantic love”) because the English word “love” by itself can be rather imprecise: We say we “love” pizza, our pets, and our parents, and we mean very different things in each case. We are called to love our neighbors and to serve one another in love, and these are all good things. But the sort of love we describe as romance is unique. I might also have called it eros, but the point would be the same. It is a kind of love people have longed for throughout human history, and though there are many other kinds of love, none of them is a good substitute.

To be clear, by saying there is no good substitute for romantic love, I’m not holding up romance—or marriage—as a “gold standard” by which other loves should be measured. Quite the opposite. I agree with Eve that friendship, service, and so on should be measured on their own terms, not on their ability to approximate something they can never be. But that is precisely my point. Just as romance is no substitute for family, friendship, or service, those other loves are no substitute for romance.

Some individuals may, indeed, find fulfillment in other loves and feel no need for romance. Others may long for romance and yet accept other paths as a concession. But recognizing that some people can thrive without romance does not mean that all people can or should. Paul didn’t expect it of everyone, and neither should we.

Of course, I think marriage is the best and most stable place for long-term romantic love to thrive. But to those Christians who cannot accept marriage as a possibility for same-sex couples, I would argue that nonsexual romance must at least be a possibility.

Eve criticizes this idea of nonsexual romance as “marriage minus sex,” something that aspires to be like marriage but can never live up to the ideal. I agree with her on that, actually. I don’t advocate nonsexual romance as the solution; I advocate marriage as the solution. Nonsexual romance is, in my eyes, a less-than-ideal “next best thing.” Personally, I don’t think it’s a great solution, and in some ways, I think it’s a very bad solution. But I believe the alternative—asking people to be content only with other paths—is no solution at all. It may work for some, but it certainly doesn’t work for everyone.

 

The gift of celibacy?

I know that Eve disagrees with me on this point. She writes that “The more you talk to people who have actually vowed themselves to celibacy, the less you believe that celibacy is only meant for people who have a special ‘gift’ for it or who perceive a special calling to it.”

But this has been the opposite of my experience. Over the years, I’ve known a number of gay Christians who have committed themselves to lifelong celibacy, including several very close friends. The more time I’ve spent with them, the more I’ve noticed that those who have successfully made celibacy work long-term share certain traits in common—they do seem quite clearly to have a “gift of celibacy” not present in the general population. The trends are so strong that simply knowing these people caused me to believe in the existence of such a gift, even though I didn’t believe in it initially.

Eve points out that even those who feel called to celibacy may still struggle with celibacy. I have no doubt this is true. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t also gifted; it simply means that a gift of celibacy is no guarantee that the path will be easy. 

Today, I’m thoroughly convinced that there is a gift of celibacy. I do believe God calls some people to celibacy, and that those who are so called are also gifted to be able to follow that call and face its challenges. But I do not believe all people have the gift of celibacy, and I think we should follow Paul’s lead in not trying to force everyone onto a path they are neither called to nor equipped for.

 

Lingering questions

If this weren’t the final round of our conversation on this site, there’s a lot I’d still love to discuss with Eve. What strikes me more than our disagreements (on romance, celibacy, same-sex relationships, and the church) is the very different approaches we take to understanding the questions themselves.

Throughout this conversation, for instance, I’ve noticed elements of Eve’s writing that remind me of my good friends Ron Belgau and Wesley Hill, both celibate gay Christians who write at the blog Spiritual Friendship. In the past, I’ve joked with Ron and Wes that they tend to write about subjects like romance rather analytically and dispassionately, putting types of relationships into theological categories and working out the best scholarly language to describe this or that conceptualization of love.

Ron and Wes are not dispassionate people, but their writings (on a subject I find very stirring) could easily give that impression. Perhaps the difference between their approach and mine has to do with church backgrounds; Ron, like Eve, is Catholic, and Wes is Anglican. Or perhaps it has to do with occupation; Ron teaches philosophy and Wes teaches biblical studies. Whatever the reason, the difference between how Ron and Wes approach these topics and how I do is noticeable, and I’ve often wondered how much of it is due to their unique situations and how much reflects deeper differences in our theologies—or even something intrinsic to the experience of being a celibate Side B gay Christian in today’s world.

Given that background, I was fascinated when Eve responded to my discussion of romance by asking, “What is romance for him, as a theological category? What work is it doing that ‘love’ or ‘self-gift’ could not do?”

Hopefully I have answered her question already in this essay by explaining what I mean by “romance” and why I think it’s so important. But the question itself intrigues me, because it’s not at all how I approach the topic. Why, I wonder, does romance need to be a “theological category”? Why does it need to be doing a particular kind of “work”? Moreover, is its significance to the conversation not self-evident?

As a Christian, I certainly do approach the whole subject theologically; I hope that has been clear throughout this conversation. But I strongly believe that good theology is practical theology. Just as Christ met people where they were, caring not only for their spiritual needs but also for their practical, physical needs, I believe our theology must do likewise. Given that Eve’s own writing has been filled with practical concern for the well-being of celibate gay Christians, I suspect she’d agree with me. And yet this question sounds oddly detached to me. It makes me want to ask her a dozen more questions—about her own understanding of romance, about the thought process behind the question, and about whether she thinks I’m imagining a kind of detachment in Side B writings, or if not, why it exists. I think there’s a doorway here to a world of conversation about how Eve and I approach things differently, and I’d love to explore it.

In the end, my own approach to these questions is surely influenced not only by my evangelical faith, but also by the work I do. 

I oversee an organization full of LGBT Christians, all coming from different backgrounds and all having different temperaments and spiritual gifts. Although I’ve never set myself up as a “pastor,” my position has often pushed me into a pastoral role.

In that role, I often find myself being asked to give advice to gay Christians who feel deeply and desperately called to marriage—and who, in many cases, have fallen in love with someone in particular—but who are still struggling with their church’s condemnation of same-sex relationships.

For me, therefore, this isn’t just about philosophy or theology in the abstract, or even about what might work in my own life. It’s about how the church can support millions of LGBT people who want to please God. 

Might celibacy be a good choice for some of them? Yes, just as the monks Eve wrote about found fulfillment in their situations. But we were not all made to be monks, and as a Christian leader in a pastoral role, I simply cannot support a blanket denial of one of the most fundamental kinds of human relationship to all of them. 

On paper, it may seem reasonable. In practice, I am certain it is not.

So as I wrap up my part in this conversation, I find myself deeply moved. I am moved by Eve’s grace in disagreement and her friendship to me as we challenge one another. I am encouraged, too, by the depth of conversation we’ve been able to have in six simple articles. But I’m also reminded why these conversations are so important in the first place. Many hurting, lonely people’s lives hang in the balance.

My own position on this topic hasn’t changed, but my appreciation for Eve and understanding of her view has certainly increased, and I’d say that’s worth it. Respectful conversation of this sort is hugely undervalued in the church. It may not always change minds, but it is powerful and effective. Given the importance of this topic, we can’t afford not to listen to each other.

We are, after all, supposed to be known by our love.

(Oh, and Eve, if you ever do start a game show called “Arena of Sanctification,” let me know. I’m so there!)

Let’s Talk About Monks, Baby

 

I loved a lot of things about Justin’s first contribution to this discussion. I’m going to give a kind of slantwise rather than head-on response. First I want to highlight the areas where he is modeling the way this conversation should go. Then I do want to suggest a way in which his approach is still too much shaped by contemporary American culture. And finally I will offer a different angle from which to approach the question.

 

Repentance

 

Justin began by detailing his own mistakes and failures in approaching gay people in the past. I endorse his first and second points completely. Moreover, in general this is an area where both churches and individuals would do well to start with introspection and repentance.

 

I was extraordinarily lucky to come into the Church in a community where being gay was not treated as shameful or sinful. I was not sent to psychiatrists who claimed they could fix my sexuality; I was not told to fear friendship as a “near occasion of sin”; I was not ostracized, bullied, disowned, or even much gossiped about by people who claimed they were acting for my own good in the name of Jesus. Out of all the gay or same-sex attracted people I know who are seeking to lead lives faithful to the Catholic sexual ethic on homosexuality, I am the one with the least contact with “ex-gay” movements and ideologies by far.

 

And yet there came a point when I realized that I had been given only negative guidance in how to understand my sexuality and my future as a Christian. I had been told what I couldn’t do. Nobody had seemed interested in asking what I would do instead. And I myself had not even raised this as a question. I had asked a lot of questions about sex, and done my best to listen and obey. But I had asked very few questions about love and about my future.

 

This failure of imagination affected how I approached other gay people, in ways similar to the ones Justin noted in his own piece. I thought I was being blunt and even humble when I said that Christian life requires sacrifice and the important thing is to take up your cross willingly. In reality I was being naïve at best. What I was saying was true enough, but it ignored people’s need—including my own need—for guidance and support in what seemed like a trackless wilderness.

 

I had one of the least-harmful experiences as a gay Catholic of anybody I know. (That’s one of those sad little things in itself, isn’t it? Our churches should be the best places to be gay because they should be the best places to be anybody. Instead we wryly note, “It wasn’t so bad,” and do our best to be grateful.) And even so, I was harmed by the near-complete silence in my church on vocations—pathways of sacrificial love and devoted caregiving—for gay people. In turn I harmed others and myself by failing to raise this question, How can I give and receive love?

 

Justin has done so much good for people who have been harmed far more deeply by their churches than I was. This year I went to the Gay Christian Network conference for the first time. I was amazed and deeply grateful for the experience. I saw people recovering from years of shame and self-hatred, which had been reinforced by their families and churches. You hear a lot about “healing” in the context of same-sex attraction and Christianity. GCN is a different kind of healing ministry for gay people—where people are healed not of their same-sex attractions, but of despair, shame, resentment, corrosive anger, and self-loathing.

 

I hope that makes clear my deep gratitude toward Justin. He is doing so much good. But we are still not quite speaking the same language, I think—we have still not even “achieved disagreement” on what a Christian sexual ethic looks like.

 

Romance?

 

I don’t plan to argue with Justin’s approach to Scripture. He raises good points; he wisely hints that if we want to know why he ended up where he is we should read his book rather than relying on one article; and I assume we both agree that there’s a difference between what Catholics would call “development of doctrine” (the working out of the implications of our faith over time, guided by the Holy Spirit) and culturally-influenced deviance from orthodoxy. We disagree on which things fall where, but we presumably also disagree on how doctrine develops in the first place, and I am not confident in my ability to re-adjudicate the Reformation.

 

And so this question, of whether gay marriage represents a development or a distortion of doctrine, is not one I will attempt to resolve. Instead I will try to use this article to suggest different vocabularies we might use and different images we might turn to in order to understand vocation generally.

 

For example, I wonder why Justin uses the word “romance” so often in place of “love,” “marriage,” or “self-gift.” There’s a hidden slippage in his writing, I think, among romance, intimacy, and sex. What is romance for him, as a theological category? What work is it doing that “love” or “self-gift” could not do?

 

These are tendencies of language and thought, not tightly-argued points in a syllogism, but let me express a reservation about the way Justin describes same-sex relationships. By focusing on “romance,” he seems to set up marriage as the gold standard and other relationships are judged by how closely they conform to the marital ideal. By this standard a same-sex relationship that’s “romantic” is closer, more intimate, quasi-marital, and therefore better, even if the couple doesn’t have sex for religious reasons.

 

I know we’re all exploring difficult territory, and if a particular person finds that “romance” language can help them grow in holiness in their relationships—for example, by helping them recognize the sublimation of their erotic desire into prayer and service—it’s not my job to tell them they need to use different words. But I strongly suspect that striving for “marriage minus sex” will often lead to disappointment. Marriage will always be better at being marriage than non-marriage will. The job of friendship or celibate life in partnership is not to be “as much marriage as possible under the circumstances”; these relationships have their own structure and integrity. I’ve learned a lot about how to be a friend by watching my friends learn how to be married, but I don’t model my friendships after marriages and I think it would be a bad idea to do so.

 

What We Don’t Talk About When We Don’t Talk About Monks

 

What if we looked not at marriage but at monasticism? Flourishing Christian communities rely on vowed religious—sorry to go all Catholic on you, y’all, but I gotta do me. There’s a reason that great Christian literature like The Brothers Karamazov, Kristin Lavransdatter, and that great gray grandfather of the gay Catholic canon Brideshead Revisited all show their secular characters existing under the long shadow of the monastery.

 

How would our conversation around sexual ethics in general, and marriage vs. celibacy in particular, change if we took monasticism seriously? Again, I don’t plan to answer the question, “But why do gay people have to be celibate?”—my answer to that question depends on how I read Scripture and how I relate to the Church, as I’ve already described. Instead I’d like to explore the experience of monastic celibacy for the individual who accepts it.

 

Monastics know that they experience astonishingly—sometimes kind of awfully—intense intimacy not only with God but with one another. Their celibacy heightens this intimacy rather than diminishing it.

 

Monasticism helps us see that both marriage and celibacy are eschatological witnesses that point us toward Heaven. In both ways of life we serve others, but we also offer images of the life to come. Marriage is an image of the wedding feast of the Lamb; celibacy is an image of the communal life of Heaven, where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Both ways of life are purgatorial in the sense that they’re preparatory: They are the arenas, we trust and pray, of our sanctification.

 

This language should suggest that neither way of life will come easily to us. The more you talk to people who have actually vowed themselves to celibacy, the less you believe that celibacy is only meant for people who have a special “gift” for it or who perceive a special calling to it. The fact that someone really struggles with celibacy doesn’t mean she hasn’t been called to it, any more than the fact that someone really struggles with keeping his marriage vows or being a good parent means that he wasn’t called to those ways of life. Plenty of people in religious life felt no specific attraction to celibacy, but they knew they were called to the priesthood or a religious order, and celibacy came as a consequence of that call.

 

Which arena of sanctification we end up in is determined, in most people’s lives, by many factors outside of our control. (“Arena of Sanctification” should be a reality show, by the way. Like “American Gladiator,” but for your soul.)

 

The more honest we are about the difficulties of religious life, including difficulties with celibacy, the more we are reminded of God’s grace. Monastics are people in radical confrontation with their own failures and imperfections, their self-will and wishful thinking; this may be one reason that monasteries have so often been refuges for penitents. Lifelong Christian sexual discipline is pretty much impossible for nearly everybody. Failure is the normal condition. This universal failure should teach us not that the discipline is too hard, but that we must be merciful with one another. (It’s this mercy and solidarity which have been so signally lacking in the way most Christian communities have responded to their gay members—so while we’re repenting of stuff we can return to my first section and repent of that.)

 

My goal here is not to say that all vocations other than marriage are directly parallel to monasticism. But overlooking monasticism makes it much harder to understand how a life without marriage (or romance) can be a life filled with love and intimacy.

 

Anyone seeking to forge a life in friendship, community, or celibate partnership should look to monastic life as well as married life in order to learn how to make a radical gift of self to God and others. If we took monasticism seriously in this conversation, we would immediately take ourselves out of the contemporary American context in which marriage is the only gold standard for love—and for intimacy and commitment. We would reconnect with the richness of Christian practice throughout history, and enrich our imaginations and vocabularies: We would learn a new language of love.

 

I have no idea how much of this language Justin and I could share! But I think asking that question might be a fruitful step forward.

Growing up, I used to believe that the most serious, committed Christians were the ones who could give unambiguously clear-cut answers to controversial questions. I saw nuance as a form of wishy-washiness. Black-and-white moral questions needed black-and-white answers, I thought. If someone asked a question about the morality of homosexual relationships, for instance, and someone else began their response with “Well, it’s complicated…” I would have been quick to jump in with, “No, it’s not complicated. It’s wrong. The Bible forbids it. God condemns it. That’s all you need to know. Truth isn’t relative.” 

I still believe in Ultimate Truth. I still believe God has the final word and that the Bible is morally authoritative for us as Christians. But these days, I also believe a lot of things truly are complicated. These days, I’d argue that the most mature, thoughtful Christians are the ones who aren’t so quick to jump to conclusions. They look for the complexity. They listen before they speak. They consider the specifics of the situation, not just a general moral principle. They aren’t afraid to say “It’s complicated,” or “I don’t know,” or “I was wrong.”

With that background in mind, I don’t want to just jump directly into a “yes” or “no” response to the question of gay relationships. Instead, I’d like to begin with an “It’s complicated” coupled with an “I was wrong.”

In this article, I want to look at three major ways I got this question wrong in the past, and where I believe correcting those mistakes should take us as a Christian community.

 

Mistake #1: I treated gay people as an issue instead of as people.

Growing up, I didn’t have any gay friends. As far as I was aware, I didn’t know any gay people.

I grew up in a Christian home with devoutly evangelical Christian parents. I accepted Christ at a young age, and as far back as I can remember, I understood my relationship with Christ to be my number-one priority in life. A friend in high school nicknamed me “God Boy” because I was the Bible-toting goody-two-shoes Christian who didn’t smoke, drink, curse, have sex, or shut up about God.

For me, “homosexuality” was one of a number of issues I believed Christians ought to take moral stands on, along with other controversial topics like abortion and evolution. I had read enough about these issues that I knew what my position was on each one, and I knew how to argue against the things people on the other side might say.

My view of homosexuality was simple: God created male and female for each other. Our bodies were designed to fit together in that way, and the Bible made it clear that using our sexuality in ways outside of God’s design was a sin—whether that meant premarital sex, adultery, or homosexuality.

My job as a Christian, I thought, was to stand up against homosexuality and (lovingly) tell gay people why they were wrong.

My heart was in the right place. I wasn’t a homophobe, even though some of my friends called my view homophobic. I didn’t hate or fear gay people; I simply believed that they were making a sinful choice with their lives, and that by speaking out in a loving way, I could call their attention to it and help bring them back to God. 

My heart was in the right place, yes, but my approach to the topic was all wrong. It was issue-based, not person-based.

I remember the first time I met someone who told me she was gay. I didn’t even wait to hear her story before launching into a mini-sermon about why she was wrong. I quoted Bible passages about sexual immorality, I talked about marriage as a God-ordained institution for one man and one woman, and I told her with confidence that she could be straight if she trusted God. Foolishly, I thought I knew more about homosexuality than she did.

I had spent a lot of time thinking about the Bible’s stance on the issue of homosexuality, but I had spent very little time thinking about the actual day-to-day lives of gay people, asking why they had decided to call themselves gay, what their life options were, and how words like mine were coming across. I intended to be loving, but because I was more focused on speaking than on listening, I failed to come across as loving.

It was easy for me to ignore the personal side of the issue, because it wasn’t personal for me. 

Until it was.

I had a deep, dark secret I had never shared with anyone: From the moment I hit puberty, my attractions had been for guys, not girls. For years, I believed it was a quirk of adolescence that I’d grow out of. But even though I considered myself straight and dated girls, the feelings didn’t change as I got older. They only got stronger. Eventually, I was crying myself to sleep every night, begging God to give me attractions to girls instead. Even then, I didn’t see any connection between my secret and the issue of homosexuality I was preaching against.

It never occurred to me that I might be gay; I was a Christian! It wasn’t until I was 18 that I finally made the connection, realizing that when people said “gay,” that’s what they meant: someone with exclusively same-sex attractions. (That is how I use the word today.)

Still, I was convinced it would change. I was sure that God didn’t design me to be gay, so I pursued every avenue and every ministry I could find to help me become straight. After all, God can do anything!

The hard truth was that it doesn’t work that way. Yes, God can do anything, but that doesn’t mean God always does what we expect. Despite my prayers and efforts, God didn’t make me straight. Even if I never acted on my feelings, I was still gay.

And though my orientation didn’t change, my perspective did. This wasn’t an issue anymore; this was about my life.

Over the years, I’ve met thousands upon thousands of Christians in the same situation, and in 2001, we formed an organization: The Gay Christian Network. Nearly all of us had been misunderstood and even wounded by our fellow Christians who thought we had “chosen” our orientation or assumed we were living a particular “lifestyle.” We all knew what it felt like to be treated as issues rather than as people.

Today, I work to help other Christians avoid making that mistake.

 

Mistake #2: I treated a complex set of questions as if it were only one question. 

Christians are not monolithic; we disagree with each other on many things. Years ago, an organization called Bridges Across the Divide came up with terms to describe one of those disagreements. 

Christians on “Side A” believe that God will bless a consummated same-sex relationship for those who feel called to one.

Christians on “Side B” believe that sex is reserved for heterosexual marriage alone, and that there is therefore no situation in which it would be appropriate for a same-sex couple to be sexually intimate.

The Side A/Side B disagreement is an important one. Essentially, it’s a disagreement about sexual morality. Is there ever an appropriate time and place for a gay couple to be sexually intimate? Side A says yes. Side B says no. For Christians, sexual morality matters—and for gay Christians, this question is important because of what it says about how we can live our lives in a manner pleasing to God. 

But this isn’t the only question. It’s not even the most important question.

As a gay Christian, I’m more concerned with bigger questions about my future that aren’t about sex. Can I have romance in my life, for instance? And where is my place in the church? What is my vocation? What does my future look like? If I’m single for the rest of my life, what happens when I get old? Who will take care of me? 

As a church, we have bigger questions, too. We need to do more than just tell people not to have sex. We need to be talking about how we can love the gay people in our midst—and the broader LGBT community—how we can provide them support, understanding, unconditional love, and sanctuary.

Too often, we’ve tried to answer all of these questions by simply pointing to the question about sex and letting it stand for everything else. 

That’s what I did when I was growing up. When I thought about the issue of homosexuality, I considered exactly one question—what does the Bible say about same-sex sex?—and lumped everything else under that same umbrella. After coming to the conclusion that the Bible condemned gay sex, it didn’t even occur to me to consider the question of gay romance as a separate issue. Nor did I spend any time thinking about what a Christian vocation for gay people might be. And how did I think the church could show love to the gay community? By telling them that their sex lives were sinful, of course. Essentially, I had boiled all the questions facing gay people and the church down to a single question about sex. With that question answered, I didn’t think I had any more thinking to do.

Until, of course, I realized that I was gay. Then there was a lot more thinking to do.

 

Mistake #3: I tried to interpret Scripture in a vacuum rather than in the context of real people’s lives.

I don’t have space in this article to get into a discussion of all the biblical passages that have been applied to gay relationships and the Side A/Side B debate. But that’s okay; other people were asked to write their articles about the Bible, and I’m happy to cede that portion of the conversation to them.

I do, however, want to say something about how we interpret the Bible in general.

It is tempting, in this conversation and in many others, to find Bible passages we can quote, take them at face value, and let that be the end of the conversation. That’s what I did at first: “Here’s the passage. The Bible is clear. That settles it.” 

But history shows us that that sort of approach has often led us astray.

Church historian Mark Noll reminds us that during the Civil War, for instance, the biblical arguments made for keeping slavery were much more convincing than the arguments for abolition. After all, slavery enjoys a consistent witness in Old and New Testaments and plenty of specific passages allowing it and requiring slaves to obey their masters. Christian abolitionists appealed to broader biblical themes of love and freedom, but according to Noll, the idea that an anti-slavery spirit of the law could trump a pro-slavery letter of the law “was not only a minority position; it was also widely perceived as a theologically dangerous position.” So much so that Moses Stuart, “widely recognized as the nation’s most learned biblical scholar” according to Noll, said abolitionists “must give up the New Testament authority, or abandon the fiery course which they are pursuing.”

Our history shows us that when hurting people’s lives are involved, a compelling Scriptural argument in the abstract is not enough. What matters is not just that we interpret the Scriptures, but how we interpret the Scriptures. We must interpret them within the context of real people’s lives, not in the abstract or in a vacuum.

In Luke 14, when Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath, the Pharisees are incensed—you’re not supposed to work on the Sabbath! Jesus responds, “If your son fell into a well on the Sabbath, wouldn’t you pull him out?”

The Pharisees’ theology begins with the abstract: Is Sabbath work forbidden in Scripture? Yes. Is healing work? Yes. Therefore healing on the Sabbath is forbidden—and now we apply that conclusion to this man in front of us.

Jesus’ approach begins with the person: Here is a hurting person in front of me. What does he need? How can I help? Ah, but it’s the Sabbath. Let me now take this man’s unique situation to the Scriptures—and when we do that, we can see that the purpose of the Sabbath law is to honor God, not to cause this man to suffer.

This seems to be Jesus’ general approach to the Scriptures. In Mark 2, he points to the Old Testament story of David and the Bread of the Presence. God’s rule had been unequivocal: No one but priests could eat the Bread of the Presence. But David was hungry and had no other food. What should he have done? 

The Pharisees’ approach would have begun with the rule (“only priests can eat this”) and applied it to David (“you aren’t a priest, so you can’t eat this”). If he had complained of hunger, perhaps they would have reminded him that following God requires sacrifice, or encouraged him that God would provide some kind of nourishment in the future in recognition of his faithfulness.

Jesus, however, begins first with the needs of the actual human being: David was hungry. He needed food. And the only food available required breaking the rule. So he broke the rule, and Jesus approves of this. Not only does Jesus approve of David’s actions, he suggests that the Pharisees should take this same approach to other biblical rules like the Sabbath. According to Jesus, God wants people to come first, not rules. 

This doesn’t mean that Jesus was “soft on sin”; quite the contrary. Often, he encouraged people to hold themselves to even higher standards than the law did. But Jesus’ approach to sin and Scripture was nuanced. He didn’t just look at a rule or passage in a vacuum; he looked at people’s hearts, motives, and situations in deciding how to interpret and apply Scripture.

An approach like the Pharisees’—interpreting the Scriptures in a vacuum, without regard for people’s unique situations—leads to the kind of legalism that misses the forest for the trees. It leads to the kind of coldness that could tell a parent to leave their child in a well on the Sabbath, tell a battered wife she must stay with her husband because the Bible doesn’t list abuse as a justification for divorce, tell a slave they must stay with their master because there are Bible passages that clearly say so, and tell a gay person that they can never have romance in their life because “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” All of these arguments seem to have biblical justification. But I believe they all take the wrong approach to Scripture.

 

So what does all this mean? 

If we look at “homosexuality” as an abstract issue, a single question about sexual morality, it’s easy to find biblical arguments to condemn same-sex sex, then simply refer back to those arguments when questions arise about same-sex romance, gay identity, or the place of gay people in the church. This approach feels logical and consistent, but it offers gay people very little guidance about how to live as Christians; it only tells them what not to do. 

It is also the same approach that led previous generations of Christians to condone slavery, require silence and head coverings for women, or demand that adult Gentile men be circumcised. All of these arguments seemed logically and biblically consistent, but in the end, I believe they were wrong in every case. 

Instead, I believe we must take Jesus’ approach, maintaining a high view of Scripture while interpreting it carefully within the context of real people’s lives. That means we must consider gay people’s stories and experiences and recognize that this isn’t one single question but rather a complex set of questions about how gay Christians should live and how the church should treat them.

When we do that, here’s what I think we’ll see:

 

1. There is a set of Christians for whom heterosexual romance is not a realistic option. They don’t have a choice between being gay and straight; their choice is between having a same-sex romance and having no romance. 

This does not necessarily apply to all people with same-sex attractions, but it is undeniably true of a significant portion of them.

 

2. The Bible acknowledges that intimate human companionship is a deeply ingrained need for many people.

After creating Adam, God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone,” and then created a romantic partner for him. God didn’t simply expect Adam to be content with God alone, nor did God expect Adam to be content with a friend.

Of course, celibacy also has a long history in the church, but it is definitely not for everyone. Even Paul, who was celibate himself and praised celibacy for others, remarked that “it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” Paul seems to have regarded marriage as a less-than-ideal state, but even he recognized that asking everyone to abstain from marriage would prove too great a burden.

 

3. Although the Bible praises self-sacrifice, both Jesus and the early Christians were very concerned about the dangers of putting too many burdens on people.

In his blistering attack on the Pharisees’ approach to morality in Matthew 23, Jesus said they “shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces” and “tie up heavy burdens and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”

Paul, likewise, repeatedly sided with Christians who wanted freedom to follow their consciences and against those whose interpretations of Scripture created significant obstacles to people coming to Christ. On the hotly debated question of circumcision, for instance, he wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

The early church apostles and elders also struggled with how to uphold moral standards in a way that didn’t overburden people (Acts 15). Their ultimate decision was to write a letter outlining only four simple things for people to avoid, giving them “no greater burden” than that.

 

4. If we do not give gay people a reasonable path to human intimacy, we are not only overburdening them; we are standing in the way of people coming to Christ.

If we oversimplify the question of gay relationships as just one of “sexual immorality,” it’s easy to dismiss it entirely—the Bible is clear in condemning sexual immorality.

But if we look through the lens of burdens we’re placing on people, there’s a much bigger issue at stake: We aren’t just asking people to wait on sex, avoid promiscuity, or stay faithful to a spouse; we’re potentially denying a whole group of people any option for the kind of human intimacy the Bible itself says people shouldn’t be denied.

As burdens go, that’s a much greater burden than circumcision or the kinds of rules Jesus criticized the Pharisees for. It is one of the greatest emotional burdens we could put on any class of human beings, and in so doing, we are pushing them and their loved ones away from Christ.

Considering that James’s argument for the simple rules in Acts 15 was “that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God,” this seems worth a serious reexamination.

 

5. For all these reasons, at least some form of same-sex romance needs to be on the table.

Side A Christians (those who support marriage for same-sex couples) would obviously agree with this. But even those Christians who take a Side B stance on sex ought to be able to at least advocate for some form of nonsexual intimacy for gay people.

After all, although there are (hotly debated) Scripture passages addressing same-sex sex, there are no passages that criticize any form of same-sex romance. Unfortunately, there’s been disappointingly little conversation about the topic in evangelical circles.

I know of a number of gay people who have formed some form of intimate, nonsexual  partnership as a way of staying true to their Side B beliefs while still having the human intimacy they need. There are challenges with this arrangement, of course, but it strikes me as a significantly healthier option than enforced singleness for all gay people.

These sorts of relationships may go by many names (“nonsexual romance,” “covenant partnership,” “intimate friendship,” etc.) but they offer a kind of intimacy—and perhaps a special kind of commitment—beyond what a normal friendship would offer.

 

6. Ultimately, marriage offers the healthiest and most stable form of romance.

I know this is where Side B Christians will not be able to continue with me. Marriage necessarily involves sexual intimacy, so if you believe that the Bible unequivocally condemns all same-sex sexual intimacy, you won’t be able to take this final logical step with me. 

However, I am convinced that marriage is a good and stabilizing force in romantic relationships, and that is no less true for same-sex couples. The commitment of marriage is not about sexual immorality; it is about self-sacrifice and fidelity. It is, I believe, an inherent moral good that points us toward Christ.

My belief on this point is partly dependent, of course, on addressing what the Bible has to say about same-sex sexuality. I have addressed this in my book, and others will be addressing it in these dialogues, but I recognize that for many Christians, it will feel like the missing puzzle piece in this paper. What I will simply say here is that over many years of study, I have come to view those passages in much the same way I view passages requiring slaves to obey their masters and women to remain silent in churches, passages which meant something quite different in their cultural context than they seem to mean today, and which would have a disastrous impact on people’s lives if we were to apply them today without understanding that context.

 

7. Whatever our views on marriage, we must continue to listen to and support one another.

This is a difficult question for many Christians. We cannot afford to let it continue to divide us or to dehumanize people. We need to hear one another’s stories and hearts, so that even if you and I disagree with one another, we can both accept that the other is sincerely seeking to do what they believe God is calling them to do.

Ultimately, I believe the church must give gay people the opportunity for the same marital commitment and intimacy that straight people have—not because of anything cultural, but because it is the right thing to do in following Christ. But I also know that many of my brothers and sisters in Christ will disagree with me. My commitment to all of you is that I will continue to listen, to dialogue, and to seek the best in you even as we disagree. I hope that you will do the same.