15. Five Ways to Be Faithful
15
Five Ways to Be Faithful
Good faith Christians thoughtfully engage the most divisive issues of our time.
Before the Supreme Court decision that made same-sex marriage legal nationwide, I recall watching a well-known pastor on national television struggle to answer a reporter’s question. “Do you support New York’s gay marriage legislation?”
“As the Bible teaches us,” he replied, “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and any other arrangement is out of step with God’s best. Of course I don’t support so-called gay marriage!”
Convinced she had just interviewed another Bible-thumper with no concept of what it means to live in a pluralistic culture, the reporter shrugged and introduced the next segment.
At first glance, the pastor’s response may seem perfectly fine—faithful even. And that’s why it is a good example of the confusion surrounding how Christians should engage this complex topic. Whether on TV or at a backyard barbecue, when we’re asked a political question, our knee-jerk reaction is often to give a theological response. Clear theology matters, of course, and it should color how we see everything about the world. But how we apply that theology to specific situations requires not only theological knowledge but also prayerful wisdom.
The pastor on TV is not alone. In Barna’s survey of US clergy, only about half of Protestant and Catholic ministers report feeling very well prepared to address political questions surrounding same-sex marriage and other LGBT rights. We believe figuring this out is an urgent matter of good faith. Our inability to parse the various facets of the debate muddles our message.
If you’re not aware of the religious freedom debates that have erupted over the past couple of years around pizza shop owners (Indiana), pastry chefs (Colorado and Oregon), wedding venue operators (New York), and photographers (Arizona) who have objected, on religious grounds, to furnishing their services for gay weddings, you probably don’t have an internet connection. Many LGBT activists are yelling, “Discrimination!” and comparing such objections of conscience to “Jim Crow laws.”1 Meanwhile, some Christians are wondering if, instead of objecting, serving a gay couple’s wedding ceremony could actually be the best way to demonstrate love, kindness, and a desire for friendship.
Who’s right? Who’s wrong?
What if we could break this down and understand each of the dynamics at play? What if we could separate the politics from Christian theology and understand how our hearts for ministry can engage with new realities in the public square? We recognize that good theology impacts every other decision we make, but is there room for freedom on how to live and love well even if most practicing Christians agree on what to believe? Good faith can sort out the confusion, and instead of always giving the same “Christian answer,” good faith Christians can faithfully address the questions people are really asking.
The following framework, which we might describe as five lenses through which we can view our response to LGBT people and related topics, gives Christians a way to see through the fog. These lenses not only help us think clearly about the current sexuality debate but also provide a framework for how good faith believers can respond to current issues and to future issues that arise.
Theology
What does God’s Word and the church’s wisdom reveal about this?
Ministry
What is the proper pastoral response to people living in a fallen world?
Relationships
How should I engage friends and neighbors with whom I disagree?
Politics
What government policies, however imperfect, best empower human flourishing?
Public Square
What is the appropriate relationship between personal conviction and day-to-day interactions with those who hold different sets of beliefs?
While this framework won’t ease the burden of believing something vastly different than the dominant culture, we believe it clarifies the issues and gives good faith Christians a way forward.
Good faith Christians place the highest value on God’s view of any matter. Our theology should be top priority, rooted first in God’s Word, then bolstered by the church’s historic teaching, and, finally, buoyed by reason and experience. Pastors across the nation seem to broadly share this priority, with more than eight out of ten Protestant and Catholic ministers saying they feel well prepared to address theological questions related to LGBT issues.
Once we know what we believe, we should allow freedom for how Christ-followers apply theology to their own engagement with people, politics, and the public square. Christians will not always agree on the details of how best to live orthodox belief, so we need grace to allow for differences of opinion and differences in how the Spirit leads each of us to love our neighbor. Being dogmatic or prescriptive about second things—ministry, relationships, politics, and the public square—drives an unnecessary wedge between Christians and gives reasons for the watching world to question our unity. Let’s major on the majors (orthodox theology) and bless each other’s efforts to be faithful on the minors.
Theology
I was having coffee several years ago with the late Chuck Colson, a key mentor in my life and a stalwart in calling Christians to engage well with the wider culture. I asked him, “How should the church be thinking about all of these new issues that are raising so much debate? Like immigration, war, homosexuality, the environment, and so on?”
With a piercing look, Chuck said, “Gabe, you know these aren’t new issues, right?” With a wry smile and a fatherly tone, he continued, “Our church fathers dealt with every one of these issues. There isn’t anything new your generation will deal with that hasn’t already been wrestled down by the church. These aren’t new issues; they are old ideas that recycle through history. Sure, they may present themselves today as more or less acceptable or extreme, but they aren’t new.” And before I could get a word in, he jibed, “You really should read more old books, Gabe!”
That conversation was the kick in the pants I needed to go deeper, to stop assuming every issue in the twenty-first century is a special case requiring yet another reexamination of Scripture. We Protestants have a short history—evangelicals, even shorter. In my search for old books, I came across the Catholic Church’s Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, a large volume that synthesizes Catholic teaching on most every issue in culture, a compilation of wisdom from throughout the ages. Overwhelmed by the profound, timeless insights, I was reminded how rich a heritage we share with our Catholic brothers and sisters. And especially as we look to the days ahead, let’s not forget it. Tried and true wisdom can benefit us all.
Christians (and Muslims and Jews) have believed for millennia that sex is for one man and one woman inside a covenant marriage. In all other cases, we are to remain celibate or single and chaste.
Christopher Yuan, a transformed believer whose past includes gay prostitution, says that celibacy is a choice, but singleness is each person’s origin and destiny. “Few people are called to celibacy but everyone was single (at birth), is single (through their childhood and young adult years), and in the end will be single (in heaven). . . . Celibacy is a commitment; singleness is a state of being.”2 Some Christ-followers are called to celibacy as a vocation, but all single believers are called to chastity.
This vision for sexuality applies to every person, desire, and category. Gay, bisexual, straight, married, single, or other—everyone bears the same burden. For some, this may seem a heavier weight to carry, but, nonetheless, God’s design for sexuality applies equally to each person.
All Christians—not just lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender believers—are called by God to extraordinarily high standards of moral behavior. God’s calling on same-sex-attracted Christians is just one part of a holistic sexual ethic that applies to each of us who takes up a cross to follow Christ.
With this in mind, let’s acknowledge that Christians who hold to biblical sexual ethics are—compared to the wider culture at least—extreme. And so, to some extent, we should get comfortable with the label “extremist.” Increasingly, it will be applied to biblically committed Christians not for assassinating abortionists or carrying “God Hates Fags” signs at funerals (legitimately extreme) but for holding deep religious convictions that don’t align with the majority culture’s dogma.
Jesus never said the word homosexuality. What he did say about marriage and divorce, however, illuminates a consistent sexual ethic. So, for example, when the Pharisees ask Jesus if it is “lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason” (Matt. 19:3 NIV), he uses the occasion to teach.
At the beginning the Creator “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” . . . They are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. (Matt. 19:4–6 NIV)
Teaching against the current of religious loopholes and legal double-dealing, Jesus taught a sexual ethic that was narrow and tight, not broad and loose. He took his listeners back to the beginning, back to his created order, back to his design for human flourishing.
Some who have adopted an affirming theological approach believe that Jesus’s reference to Genesis doesn’t explicitly exclude same-sex monogamous commitments. They argue that his vision for “one flesh” could mean an “indissoluble kinship bond that shouldn’t be torn apart by divorce,”3 and, therefore, same-sex marriage shouldn’t be prohibited based on his statement.
But Jesus’s reference to the Creator making them “male and female” affirms God’s design for sexual difference in marriage. As our friend Preston Sprinkle has written, “If Jesus didn’t think that sexual difference is essential for marriage, then his quotation of Genesis 1:27, which talks about sexual difference, is unnecessary and superfluous. But Jesus does quote it, so it would seem that male-female pairing is part of what marriage is according to Jesus.”4 Jesus’s words reassert God’s design for male and female union. Any other sexual union falls short of his design for human flourishing.
This is what Christians have believed and aspired to practice for more than two thousand years. And Jews for many more.
But a new generation is questioning this wisdom. They are experiencing a crisis of belief, questioning whether they can trust the authority of Scripture and the church’s timeless wisdom.
When there is this much confusion, we must go back to the basics.
In the beginning, God created people in his own image, male and female. They were created as two opposite halves of a perfect whole, designed to come together in marriage. In a marriage, these two sexually different people form a union and, together, reflect God’s creation order. Marriages create nuclear and extended families, which have always been the building blocks of clan, tribe, neighborhood, city, and nation. Extended families and households, as described earlier, are the fundamental ingredient for human communities. These are the basics.
These principles represent God’s intention, and we must aim for that ideal in a fractured and disordered world. While some people may be quick to dispose of it, good faith Christians recognize that, even if this understanding of heterosexual marriage is unpopular, the Bible’s teaching and two thousand years’ worth of Christian wisdom means something.
Ministry
Our ministry approach must be pastoral—that is, it must shepherd each person toward a deeper love for Christ through the distortions and brokenness all human beings experience. With complete freedom, Christians should show Christ’s unconditional love to LGBT people in their lives. For some, this might mean hanging out at gay bars like my friend Chris, who is known as the unofficial “chaplain” for his city’s lesbian community. He’s on every guest list for every party. They love him. He loves them and shows it with his presence.
Beyond the important work of building relationships outside the church, how do we minister to Christians with same-sex attraction in our churches? There is only one way. We must create church cultures that reflect the culture of God’s kingdom. A kingdom culture fulfills relational longings far deeper than sexual desire.
As we touched on in previous chapters, Christians should be careful not to make marriage an idol, assuming it is every believer’s destiny. Instead, we need to cast a compelling vision for the value and vocations of single people. We must not define significance or maturity in terms of marital status. Instead, we must reorient our community’s values around spiritual gifts and service. At the same time, we must challenge married couples to open their lives and homes to those who don’t have families of their own. The church is every Christian’s first family, and this truth should be felt most intensely by those who are not or never will be married. Remember, we can live without sex but not without intimacy.
In a kingdom culture, people experiencing same-sex attractions feel welcomed, find community where they can belong, and discover a life’s calling aimed at God’s purposes.
They hear stories of other single and celibate Christians celebrated.
They are reminded, with their fellow congregants, of their first identity in Christ and are equipped to answer his call to become like him.
They experience a recovery of deep, lasting, Christian friendship.
One word of caution: while there should be great freedom in how Christians engage in ministering to the LGBT community, in what direction we choose to minister and pastorally care for people ought to reflect our theology. To take an obvious example: because we believe the church’s historic sexual ethic requires our single friends to remain chaste regardless of their attractions, we wouldn’t encourage them to pursue a sexual relationship.
In practical terms, churches committed to the biblical sexual ethic may draw clear lines that ensure theological and lifestyle alignment for those in church leadership or a discipleship role. This may at first glance appear harsh or insensitive, but consistency of practice leads to more clarity for those who are confused about how to love, believe, and live as good faith Christians.
Various churches will have different ways of relating and ministering to Christians who identify as gay. Our pastor friend Dean Curry explains why his church does baby dedications for gay couples’ children:
Baby dedications, as we do them today, are not in the Bible. We made them up to say we believe this child is blessed. So if it really is about the child, then we want to keep it focused on the child. Forget gay or straight—we dedicate people’s children all the time whose parents may be in sin. We don’t ask of heterosexuals, “Are they qualified to be great parents?” or “Are they living spotless lives?” before we bless their child. It’s a moot point for us what the parent is up to because it is about the child. . . . When two women come to us and say, “Would you dedicate our child?” we say, “Absolutely. We believe this child is blessed and a work of art by God, and we are going to pray his best over this child.”5
There are many practical questions with which pastors are wrestling. What if an already-married gay couple starts attending your church? How do you minister to them? And what if they have children? Leaders can and will disagree on how to best answer these kinds of questions, even as they hold to an orthodox theological position. That’s partly the point. The ministry lens should be viewed with some latitude because people are trying to work out the implications of theology within their communities.
These questions and the need for latitude should not be used as an excuse to be unclear about your church’s beliefs. We do a grave disservice to those who are gay and seeking to follow Jesus if we hide away the uncomfortable parts of the biblical message on sexuality. Being upfront about your community’s beliefs regarding God’s vision for sexual flourishing—without harping on it constantly—can prevent all kinds of misunderstandings and relational strife. When churches are not clear, gay couples are justified in their anger at what feels like a “bait and switch”: they’ve invested themselves in the community yet never once heard the church does not affirm gay sexual relationships. That’s a rude surprise, and it can be avoided with kind, clear teaching on matters of sexuality.
At a minimum, we should agree that the basic unit of ministry is the person, meaning that our ministry efforts should never do harm to people—especially young people—who are searching God’s truth about their sexuality. If our churches can’t be the safest place on the planet for people to talk about their feelings and experiences and to find themselves in Christ, our churches aren’t doing ministry the way Jesus did.
Relationships
Many people—perhaps you—aren’t dealing with these tensions at the church or ministry level. Instead, they just want to know how to talk with their friends, family members, and neighbors with whom they disagree. As majority culture normalizes gay relationships and minimizes gender differences, we need to know how and how not to talk about such things.
Gabe learned the hard way how difficult those conversations can be.
One evening Rebekah and I were having dinner with a couple we had enjoyed getting to know for a few years. The husband, Bill, is a news media personality, and his wife, Maria, is a doctor. Somehow Bill and I found ourselves knee deep in a conversation about where the gay sexuality question is headed in the US church. We were in the habit of discussing social issues, so this wasn’t unusual. Bill knew I was familiar with the attitudes of a younger generation of Christians, and I knew he was interested in understanding the topic more deeply. He was asking me questions in a matter-of-fact tone, and I was giving him the pulse of where I thought things are headed. Since he’s in the journalism business, the factual tone and content of our conversation seemed perfectly normal to us both.
But at a certain point, Bill’s wife, Maria, overheard an offhanded comment I made describing the theory that children aren’t born gay but that a mix of nature, nurture, and environment likely plays a role in the development of sexual orientation and gender identity. Maria interrupted, “That’s not true!” There were tears in her eyes and layers of tension in her voice.
Taken off guard, I asked for her to tell me more. “My nephew, who is only four years old, thinks he’s a girl. He loves twirling around in ballerina dresses and playing with dolls. My brother is a man’s man. It sounds like you’re saying it’s his fault my nephew thinks he’s a girl.”
“Oh no . . . I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
But the damage was done. My insensitivity had hurt the relationship. Although there was no way I could have known Maria’s story, I walked away sad and frustrated that I’d possibly hurt our budding friendship because I’d spoken too casually and made sexuality and gender identity an “issue”—not about real people.
I learned an important lesson: when it comes to relationships, tone matters as much as—if not more than—substance. Christians should be the most loving, kind, respectful, and teachable friends, always going the extra mile to understand, to listen, and to give grace far beyond what is expected.
So many in the LGBT community, and among their families, harbor anger toward the church because of the judgmental spirit levied by some Christians toward family members and friends. When this is the case, it takes extra effort to build relational bridges. If you aren’t already a friend to someone who is gay, proactively seek those friendships, regardless of your theological differences. Humbly confess and acknowledge the cruel, homophobic, and dehumanizing attitudes that have been too prevalent among Christians. Listen to and empathize with people’s very personal stories. Trying to understand another person’s point of view is not the same as endorsing it. It’s being a friend.
I sent an email to Bill later that evening apologizing profusely once again for my insensitivity and asking him to relay my apologies to Maria. He was gracious and told me no major damage had been done. It was just tough timing on this particular topic. He and Maria would forgive and forget.
Discussing an issue that needs to be solved is trivial compared to encountering a person who needs to be known.
Orientations bent toward heterosexuality or homosexuality matter little. God sees all of us as his children, whom he desperately longs for and wants to renew. He wants to bring each of us into alignment with his purpose. If we can’t see the “other” this way—as a child of God with emotions, needs, scars, and desires—we cannot truly know or be known.
Engaging with a spirit of humility will create opportunities for a new beginning with those we love most.
Politics
Perhaps the toughest arena to engage, on any issue today, is politics. But it’s essential to get our bearings with realistic expectations for how to be faithful in this contentious sphere of life.
When it comes to politics, the job of the church is not primarily to win legislative victories but to bear witness to God’s kingdom.6 It’s true that some Christians are called into politics, and it’s certainly not a bad thing to want laws that help our society flourish. We should advocate for those. But it’s easy to overemphasize the importance of politics and downplay the power of relationships.
Our theology should not be divorced from our politics, but we need to be clear about which is which. Theology is our best understanding of God’s revelation. Politics is about making wise and prudent decisions in a particular context. Theological reflection can and must inform our politics, but let’s also acknowledge that Christians in other contexts may come to different political conclusions after their own process of theological reflection.
Good faith Christians should give one another freedom to hold different views and positions when it comes to political participation.
Ross, a friend of Gabe’s, believes Christians should be on the front lines of the fight for legislation that would protect LGBT citizens from housing or employment discrimination. But another friend, Joelle, is adamant that LGBT citizens already enjoy all the rights of any other citizen, and should not be legally classified as a specially protected class. Doing so, she believes, would wrongly equate the LGBT cause with the Civil Rights movement, which sought to dismantle centuries of government-sanctioned white supremacy.
As you can see, good faith Christians will disagree on how to best engage politically—and that’s okay.
It is not the church’s job to secure law and legal policy that reflect biblical morality. Our mission is to live as citizens of God’s coming kingdom and, in so doing, proclaim what God intended and desires for his creation.7
Public Square
As most Christians recognize, our ways of thinking no longer dominate the public square. Gabe argued in his book The Next Christians that this change will ultimately be good for the church.8
The reality is that the space where we coexist with people who hold different views is becoming more turbulent. In the years ahead, Christians must learn how to share a public square with those who vehemently disagree with us. One important way we can do so is to look for common cause with those who otherwise oppose us. For example, there are plenty of issues related to LGBT rights that can divide Christians from the majority. Yet with good faith, we can find some common ground.
Over the last few years, I have developed a friendship with Andrew Sullivan, widely considered one of the heroes of the gay rights movement. He understands politics and the public square like few people I’ve ever known. In the 1980s, long before it occurred to anyone else, he implored the LGBT community to accept nothing short of marriage in its pursuit of full acceptance in the wider society.
As we anticipated the Obergefell Supreme Court decision, Andrew and I intentionally engaged in conversation about how we could model respect and friendship despite differences around such polarizing issues. He kindly accepted my invitation to join us at our Q Boston national gathering, where together we discussed how to find common ground.
In an unexpected moment of grace, Andrew publicly apologized for the times members of his community had pushed Christian leaders and institutions too far in pursuit of advancing their rights. I did the same, confessing the ways the church has not understood the LGBT community’s painful experiences with Christians. We both expressed a desire to ensure that each person, on whatever side, is humanized, even if there is disagreement on God’s best.
There are simple, clear ways to live good faith in this arena. For example, we can all agree that no child should be subjected to bullying, the target of constant name-calling, social shaming, or even physical violence. All parents ought to have confidence that the community of leaders is looking out for their child. To push back the tide of bullying that has overrun sexual minorities in schools and local communities, we can make common cause with LGBT activists. We can join with groups that give voice to the problem and call for accountable leaders to protect kids who are most at risk.
Another area where we can find common alignment is condemning discrimination against those in the LGBT community. When it comes to housing and employment, sexual orientation or identity should not prevent access. There can and should be robust debate about whether to legislate special protections for LGBT citizens, but these are basic, fundamental rights all Americans enjoy, and Christians should not hesitate to side with people who have been marginalized and excluded from these rights.
Having said that, as gay rights become more commonplace, it will be equally important to allow individual Christians, churches, and religious institutions to retain their right to freely exercise their religion. For some institutions, this will mean enforcing behavioral codes and leadership and membership standards that align with Christian orthodoxy. For others, it will mean refusing to rent their facilities for gay weddings.
One word of caution: remember that whatever standards your faith community chooses to adopt, you should be consistent. It is not discrimination for a religious community to practice its deeply held convictions, but let’s be consistent in how we practice those convictions. To onlookers, being inconsistent looks a lot like being a hypocrite.
What about the individual baker who is reluctant to bake the cake for a gay wedding? We know many Christians who say, “Bake the cake or get out of the business!” But this response trivializes religious freedom. Withholding services from gay customers is not what this debate is about, even if that’s how some would portray it. No, this is about preserving a religious person’s right not to personally participate in or contribute to an event, such as a gay wedding, that violates their conscience. Some good faith Christians believe doing so affirms such a union, and they cannot play a part without defying their deeply held beliefs. To some, this may seem discriminatory, and of course it raises all sorts of legal questions. But if we want to sort out the religious freedom debate in America, it is critical that we understand, respect, and accommodate individual freedom of conscience, as we explored in earlier chapters.
On the other hand, plenty of Christian bakers (and florists and other wedding service providers) find their contribution to a gay wedding an extraordinary opportunity to serve and build relationships with people. They also wonder if serving gay people could help to repair the Christian community’s reputation as antihomosexual.
Engagement in the public square, then, should (and does) reflect a variety of ways God is calling his people to be faithful.
We hope these five lenses help Christians more clearly see opportunities to live in good faith. As more people interact with this framework, we consistently hear an encouraging sentiment: “This is one of the clearest ways of thinking about this conversation I’ve ever heard! I don’t have to choose love of neighbor over my theology. Both can coexist and must coexist for me to be faithful.”
That’s good faith.
Like them, we hope you are encouraged to know you don’t have to be anti-gay to hold tight to your theology. No matter your opinion on what makes for good sexual ethics, we can all agree that we need to do better. We must not walk away from these difficult conversations; we must enter them with grace and truth. We need to recognize that good Christians will disagree about how to be compassionate and loving to those with whom we disagree. But for the sake of the gospel and of those who feel abandoned and unwelcome, we can all agree that compassion and love are nonnegotiable.