13. The Gay Conversation
13
The Gay Conversation
Good faith Christians love their gay friends and trust God’s design for sexuality.
The moment had finally arrived, the one Gabe had been dreading.
For months, cold sweats and anxious thoughts had accompanied me through the dark hours of the night.
How should I phrase my words?
What do I really believe about this?
What questions should I be prepared for?
Could I be making a big mistake?
What on earth was I thinking when I said yes?
But now it was time to step up.
Six months before, I had received a surprising call. A campus minister at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, was on the line to invite me to be a “conversation partner” on a few topics of interest to the student body. When I read the description of the event, and who I would be having the conversation with, I knew this wouldn’t be just a friendly fireside chat.
The description on the Stanford website went something like this:
In the last year we have seen significant changes in the controversy around LGBT rights. The Supreme Court has struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California Proposition 8, the military has eliminated Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) and many states have voted to allow same-sex marriage. At the same time, some Christian churches and denominations are also becoming more welcoming and accepting, not only of LGBT ministers, but also of marriage equality. And yet many Christians believe such acceptance of LGBT rights is contrary to scripture and the norms of our tradition. Will this issue tear our churches apart? Is there any room for agreement or reconciliation? Join us for a conversation about the state of family values and marriage equality in the church today.
Against every self-preservation instinct, I accepted.
My conversation partner would be none other than Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop. The date of our conversation would fall on the tenth anniversary of his consecration to that leadership role. The timing didn’t feel like an accident, and it was hard, in those “martyr moments” we all have once in a while, not to feel like a sacrificial lamb.
I spent three months digging in. If I was going to speak publicly on sexuality, gay marriage, and biblical sexual ethics, I wanted to fully know what I believed. Frankly, when I began, I wasn’t sure where I would land—I dove in with an open heart and an open mind. I met with scholars, theologians, pastors, and gay friends on all sides of the issues. I read old books and new books, both Christian and secular. I consulted biblical historians, studied first-century culture, and walked my way through two thousand years of church history—all in an effort to understand what our older brothers and sisters in the faith believed in the past, to clarify what I believe in the present, and to communicate those beliefs heading into a contentious future.
And now the evening had arrived. It was time for a conversation most people assumed was already over. It was my opportunity to put my convictions on the line.
Painful Past, Uncertain Future
As we reported in unChristian, the attitudes of Christians toward gay people have been damaging to the church’s mission. Nine out of ten young people age sixteen to twenty-nine believed, nearly a decade ago, that Christians are antihomosexual. In some sense, their perceptions then were a prediction of the crisis today.
As we begin, we want to reaffirm the culpability of Christians in this, just as we did in our previous book. Good Faith is meant to articulate an orthodox view of humans and human sexuality, and part of that orthodoxy is condemning self-righteousness and a spirit of judgmentalism. Can we admit that Christians’ treatment of those who identify as gay has contributed to our negative reputation? We’ve heard stories from teens and adults in the LGBT community who have suffered emotional abuse, physical pain, and social discrimination—at the hands of Christians. Some have even taken their lives. This kind of treatment may not be the norm, but in every case it is unacceptable. Period.
If we are honest, we must admit that some Christians (and churches) have had a cruel, homophobic streak. Same-sex attractions and gay sex have been lumped together and treated as the unpardonable sin. As a sexual temptation that affects few parishioners (only 3 or 4 percent of people identify as LGBT1), homosexuality has been an easy target. It’s an indefensible outlier—not like divorce and remarriage, which are conveniently ignored. With biblical morality as a cover, some Christians have battered the vulnerable LGBT minority with unrelenting condemnation.
Even if we did not actively participate in homophobia—prejudice, hateful words, or even violence because of someone’s sexual orientation—many of us were slow to respond to it. We didn’t want to “condone” sin by defending sinners, or surrender to the sweeping cultural tide of sexual “freedom,” so we stayed silent when we should have challenged our sisters and brothers to put down their stones unless they could honestly say they were without sin.
The next generation noticed the church’s sidestepping. They watched (often from the pews) our hypocrisy and too-slow response to LGBT people in our communities.
We must take responsibility for any pain inflicted by Christians on those who experience gay attractions. Children should not be driven to run away from home or contemplate suicide because they were rejected by their family and faith community for feelings outside their control. We must acknowledge and repent of this shameful history.
As we repent of past mistakes, however, we should be cautious. In our rush to make right our wrongs and to restore trust after our failures, we should guard against swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction. In making a commitment to avoid hatefulness, let’s not forget any of the ingredients of love + believe + live. We want to love LGBT people, believe the truth about God and the world he created, and live as good faith Christians in relation to this topic—and in relationship with the people it most affects.
Based on our research and what we’ve been learning, we believe it is possible to be for LGBT people and to maintain the Christian faith’s historic biblical sexual ethic. We don’t have to throw faith commitments out with homophobia.
Just as we discovered in the research behind unChristian, issues surrounding sexuality are some of the (if not the) most significant challenges and opportunities facing the Christian community today. That’s why we’ve devoted three chapters in Good Faith to this issue.
Virtually every Christian parent, friend, and pastor wrestles with questions surrounding these topics. With tears and aching hearts in coffee shops, living rooms, dorm rooms, and private prayer closets, anyone who longs to follow Christ and also loves a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender friend or family member has felt the pain of unanswered questions. They struggle to know what to say, what to believe, how to think, and how to stay friends across the gap between deeply held and opposing views. People want to know how they can remain committed to orthodoxy and be a true and loyal friend to LGBT people—and if they are Christians who have same-sex attractions, how to live in a manner that is consistent with what Scripture teaches.
With the utmost care, honesty, and compassion, we hope to clarify the questions so we can move together toward true and life-giving answers. Gabe’s story at the beginning of the chapter is one illustration of how we have wrestled with this. We both feel the weight of helping our own families, churches, and organizations think well about the relationship between the church and the LGBT community. We still have a lot to learn. But we hope our transparency and open hearts will help you love, believe, and live a little better too.
Good Sex and the Bible
One of the central questions of our time—as in every age—is how people understand the Bible’s authority in relation to their lives and society. Much of what’s happening today concerning questions about sex, sexuality, and identity stems from how we think about and orient ourselves toward Scripture.
Frankly, how a person views the authority and accuracy of the Bible is the strongest predictor of what that person believes about homosexuality.
As gay sexuality has become more socially acceptable, Christians have worked hard either to explain a literal interpretation (that a sexual relationship should be only between a married man and woman) or to rationalize the Bible’s prohibitions against homosexuality (that gay relationships are a legitimate expression of God’s intention for sex).
It is urgent that Christians be able to articulate a strong, rich, vibrant theology of the human body, which includes sex and sexuality, derived from Scripture.
For those who disagree with the historic Christian understanding of these matters, we hope this book will help you to better understand what practicing Christians, and evangelicals in particular, are thinking about, based on our research. Cultural change seems to be happening in fast-forward around us, and we want to slow things down and think together about LGBT issues—and the people behind them! Doing so makes it crystal clear that we desperately need a new way forward on this difficult topic—a way forward that does not comprise orthodox beliefs or loving relationships.2
Pivoting on the Bible
It is becoming more common to find committed Christians, backed by liberally minded theologians, advocating that the church’s affirmation of gay sexual relationships is both inevitable and the right thing to do. These folks have what is described as an “affirming” theology.
While we disagree with their perspective, one of the most emotionally persuasive arguments in favor of affirming LGBT relationships goes something like this:3
Christians used the Bible to defend slavery and oppress black people. They realized later they had interpreted Scripture poorly and so changed their position to be on the right side of history.
Christians are using the Bible to defend traditional marriage and oppress gay people. They are interpreting Scripture poorly again. They will soon change their position to be on the right side of history.
This sounds pretty convincing. After all, if the church messed up on huge issues in the past, who’s to say we’re not repeating those mistakes? Didn’t the church convict Galileo of heresy for arguing, based on science, that the earth is not the center of our universe? What if we are wrong again? We meet a lot of leaders who are justifiably worried about the church’s poor track record on a range of issues, from science to rights for women and minorities and so on.
However, this argument has a problem: it doesn’t account for history or align with Scripture.
From a historical viewpoint, some Christians have certainly gotten things wrong, but others have gotten things right, often far in advance of the wider culture. In fact, Christians have regularly been a catalyst for positive social change based on their reading of the Bible. Slavery is just one example. Many Christian churches in America’s pre–Civil War North set out membership charters, based in part on the theology of the apostle Paul, that connected faith with the abolition of slavery. “All who practice slavery or justify it shall be excluded from the church and its communion.”4 William Wilberforce, the late-eighteenth-century British statesman, rooted his abolitionist movement in the Christian conviction that every human being is made equal in the image of God. Christians—especially younger believers whose passion is based squarely on biblical convictions—make up the critical mass driving today’s efforts to end human trafficking (modern-day slavery).
It simply isn’t true that Christians are always on the wrong side of history.5
Besides, the biggest issue is not guessing at a likely future so we can be on a “right side.” That’s called peer pressure. Instead, we should be most concerned with Jesus and his purposes today, as best we can discern them.
When it comes to Scripture, the error of the “wrong side of history” argument is that the Bible is counterculturally for equal social status for all people created in God’s image. Much of Paul’s teaching in the New Testament was revolutionary for its time, advocating equality before such an idea was culturally conceivable. “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). His letter to Philemon, a slave owner, does not condone slavery, as one might expect from a writer in first-century culture, but instead presents a countercultural vision for human relationships.6
From Genesis to Revelation, the trajectory is toward more freedom when it comes to oppressed social groups such as slaves and women.
On human sexuality, the trajectory of Scripture is toward more clarity on God-given constraints—that is, it illuminates a higher, more interconnected set of standards for our sexual lives.
As the story of God’s people unfolds—from the Old Testament to Jesus’s ministry to the Epistles written to the early church—the Bible’s sexual ethic grows clearer and remains in line with the Creator’s intentions. Remember when Jesus started with the seventh commandment (“You must not commit adultery”) and raised the bar to a higher standard? According to him, entertaining the fantasies of our minds is spiritually on par with committing the sin (see Matt. 5:27–30).
This was and is a revolutionary and countercultural way to think about sex, not because it offers us greater self-fulfillment but because it does just the opposite. Jesus invites us to relinquish self altogether.
More than Right Side, Wrong Side
Those with an affirming theology often try to position themselves as the counterbalance to the more conservative view and believe their view carries the same historical and theological weight as the historically orthodox perspective. And since more and more people are changing their minds, isn’t it just a matter of time before everyone does?
Not so fast.
Despite the fast-moving shifts in favor of same-sex marriage, our research shows that most practicing Christians are not persuaded.
Americans’ Views of Marriage
Which of the following best represents your view of marriage?
% All Adults
% Practicing Christians
% LGBT
A covenant before God between a man and a woman
51
86
15
A covenant before God between two adults of any gender
13
8
32
A civil agreement between a man and a woman
13
3
4
A civil agreement between two adults of any gender
18
2
44
None of these
5
2
6
N
Totals may not equal 100% due to rounding. Respondents could choose only one option.
If you are nonaffirming of gay sexual relationships, you are not alone. But compared to the wider culture, we who hold to biblical sexual ethics are considered extreme. We should realize that we face a future in which people have deeply held and passionate opinions that aren’t likely to change. This conclusion is not meant to be a threat; it’s a simple statement of fact. Some Christians have changed their minds on this issue, and more may do so. But those who work through the arguments on both sides and then remain committed to historic orthodoxy are much less likely to be persuaded.
The political arm of the gay community is likely to keep pushing, even as Christians resist. Astonishingly, one out of five Americans say that clergy should be legally compelled to marry same-sex couples. This isn’t a majority view—yet—but it represents the future of this debate.
So we need a way forward through difficult conversations.
While we believe Scripture’s sexual standards are quite high, we also believe the Bible compels us to see all people as God’s children, made in his image—and that includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.
That’s exactly what Gabe had to do when he signed up to be a conversation partner at Stanford University. He worked hard to prepare not for an abstract discussion but for a conversation with a person (Gene Robinson) and the people (the LGBT community) behind the abstractions.
About sixty minutes before my appointment with Bishop Robinson, I asked my friend Chris to quiz me. I needed a boost of confidence before I publically engaged this tough conversation in front of an audience of young, progressive-minded students.
“Ask me any question on sexual ethics. Anything.”
Chris came back, “Why shouldn’t two loving people be able to commit to one another for life? Isn’t that the most kind and compassionate thing we can do?”
My face felt hot and my hands clammy. “Ah, well, um, I think the way we have to think about this is . . . um, ah . . .” I snapped my mouth shut and thought, This is going to be a disaster!
But an hour later, walking onstage, I felt a confident peace that’s hard to describe. As a Christian, I knew the source: the Holy Spirit. I had asked God for months to give me the words, to help me be mentally sharp and relationally sensitive, to help me rely on the Spirit’s wisdom to engage this difficult topic. Now I felt his presence as I did my best to speak his truth with his love.
It would be absurd to credit every word I said to the divine, so I won’t do that. But thanks to that steadying experience of God’s presence, I was able to make a few important points that had sometimes been left out of the conversation. Bishop Robinson was smart, fun, and engaging, and graciously gave me space to offer a biblical vision for love, sex, intimacy, identity, and what sin is really all about, and instead of heckling, members of the audience responded with respect and even gratitude. There was a sense in the room that this was a legitimate conversation—not a foregone conclusion—and that the point of view I represented had something significant to contribute to the dialogue.
At the conclusion of the evening, the audience gave a round of applause. As I walked offstage and into a greeting room, dozens of people told Gene and me how much they appreciated the kind, respectful conversation they had just witnessed.
Disagreeing well around this topic is not easy. But on this one night, in this place, it happened. People were genuinely encouraged.
I don’t know what results, if any, will come from engaging the public discourse surrounding sexuality and the Christian faith, but I do know God instilled in me that night a conviction that we can trust his design and his ways and that, sometimes, being faithful means showing up for those difficult conversations.
How can we love our LGBT neighbors and remain faithful to a biblical sexual ethic? This intersection is a perfect place to live our good faith. Let’s talk about how.