MysteriousFaith

Part 2: Let’s Talk About Sex - Can a Christian Homosexual Exist?

In this essay I explore the second of eight questions I am asking the Christian church to ask itself: do you believe such a thing as a Christian homosexual exists?

Question #2: Can you believe such a thing as a Christian homosexual exists?

“The Church is only for the majority and is always measuring up to conformity. I have no place to go, and it’s impossible to become an atheist. First of all, every guy has got to have some place to go, even if he is not a devout and saintly person. Going to Church and confession sort of makes a person feel he isn’t alone. After all, a bed partner is only for a couple of minutes, hours or for a whole night - but God lasts forever. If the Church would only recognize that we are all members of the flock. They don’t have to bless homosexuality or say it’s fine, but just say: You are a little spotted, but you are children of the flock.” (pages 154-155, The Church and the Homosexual, John J. McNeill, emphasis mine)

Believing that someone can be both homosexual and a Christian, in particular an active participant in either, is closely related to why homosexuality is such a super-sin within the Church today. Homosexuality has taken on so much latent hate that for many within the church it is viewed as a sin only non-Christians can commit. I want to directly challenge this idea as I believe it is at the root of deep prejudice and what I frankly feel is bigotry within the church on this issue. If Christians can believe that other Christians are homosexuals, that their desires are in-born and that they struggle to put their faith before their own sexuality, I believe the potential exists to personalize this issue and change some deeply held beliefs that amount to little more than naked prejudice. Perhaps the first prejudice that should fall is that a person can not be both a Christian and a homosexual.

Can you believe that genuinely godly men and women struggle mightily with their own sexuality? Base desires that initially exhibit themselves during adolescence as they come to realize their particular sensitivity is not to those of the opposite sex, but to their own sex. Desires that come to them as naturally as you or I first experienced our own biological response to what it is we find attractive. Can you appreciate what it is like to have these base persuasions and yet be told from all around you culturally and personally that such a persuasion is unnatural? Do you think all homosexuals are simply given over to lust; that they have become so perverted that they have lost sight of the original designs God has for our natural sexual desires? If you feel that all homosexuality is a perversion that people come to by abusing their inborn sexuality, I encourage you to avoid interacting with homosexuals (in particular homosexual teenagers - their struggles are particularly acute and difficult to pass off as a self-inflicted perversion). If you feel that homosexuals choose their persuasion, I encourage you to avoid reading books by Mel White or Bruce Bawer. When you have to read about the difficulties these people go through in the interests of being anything other than what they were born to be, you will be forced to re-appraise your opinions. But we all avoid difficulties that lay outside of our respective comfort zones. We intentionally avoid those people and situations where we know our prejudices will be challenged. My simple challenge to the Christian church relative to homosexuality is this: get dirty! Get involved with the lives of those around you who desire to be a part of the body of faith, but who are denied that community because of their homosexuality. Set your prejudices and hatred aside. Involve yourself with those the church has said are untouchable. Jesus was known as a wine-bibber and friend of some shady characters. He did not get such a reputation through accidental choices or playing it safe; he got dirty. One of the reasons today’s church can not afford to get dirty is that too many churches are little more than the religious equivalent of the Rotary Club. It is easy to determine who gets in and who has to stay out. Outward signs and symbols make it clear who is a member and who is an outsider. You can be a member if you fit all the entry requirements; one of the church’s is you can not be a homosexual.

My frustration over how the Christian church has, and continues to, handle the homosexual community is in large part because I believe the church unwittingly is creating an environment that will prevent precisely that which they say they desire: the integration of homosexuals into a community of faith, into an environment where they can struggle with their own questions of self and spirituality - questions we all have and that most of us feel can be resolved within the confines of a church. To have this option taken away from a large group of people on the basis of a “sin” (one that deserves to be seen from a more balanced and culturally nuanced perspective by those within the church) is simply unnecessary. Where with almost any other sin, Christians would be willing to accommodate struggling but still professing Christians into their community of faith, with homosexuals no such introduction is possible. We do not realize that our actions double damn those who desire to be honest about their struggles and their own questions of faith. These people have spiritual questions that exist, as do those questions of heterosexuals, outside of their sexual identity. If for a normal heterosexual the question of God, His desires, His will, His plans, His revealed truth all compose difficult issues most of us will wrestle with our entire lives, a Christian homosexual’s struggle is fundamentally more difficult. If he has been raised in a Calvinist environment he will have been taught that some are created by the Creator for damnation and others for salvation. Believing his identity as a homosexual is in-born, the homosexual Christian teenager will recognize that his life is one of the damned and become quickly reckless or worse, suicidal (hat tip to Tony Campolo who makes this point eloquently in his most recent book Speaking My Mind).

Christianity professes much. It has been, since very early in its inception, a religious tradition very consumed with questions of theology and orthodoxy. Through the centuries mankind has become increasingly honest about the loneliness of our individual spiritual journeys. We all are guilty of employing various metaphors to characterize what is, if we are honest, a very one sided spiritual experience. It is lonely, solitary, a conversation that goes one way - up. I reinforce this point because it is critical to understanding why Christian homosexuals increasingly feel that they must give up their faith if they are to live a life with any degree of authenticity. Why? Because compared to the ambiguous spiritual experience we all hold in common, we can very directly, distinctly and clearly define those things within our lives that make us individuals: I can easily state my goals, my ideas, my beliefs, my desires - my own sexuality being one of the easiest desires I can characterize. If we so desire, here we may find a searching, questioning homosexual who desires to follow the path of Christianity but can not find a place of worship where he will be accepted and can work out his own identity issues. On one hand exists the very ethereal faith experience; on the other the direct self-knowledge of your sexual identity. One is loose, hard to explain and subject to man’s interpretations. The other is specific; you know this about yourself. What would you choose? Frankly, any of you reading this essay who have ever chosen any form of sexual sin over the path of purity (I am certainly included within that group) have already answered that - we will choose self-gratification. But what if that compulsion was not a choice? What if it was a deep, even spiritual, part of who you are as a person? We should not be surprised that homosexuals see little of value in a church that tells them to engage in a life long spiritual journey that is marked by solitude and lack of feedback instead of a path that promises recognizing your most authentic self. The church must provide opportunities for people to not have to make this choice, which of course first necessitates dealing with those cultural and religious issues that stand in the way of this accommodation.

Finally, I want to directly challenge pastors and theologians who present the idea of relationship as being key to the idea of why God originally created the universe; who see relationship as the key to understanding the Trinity; who see relationship as key to the story of Christ coming to earth. If you are going to hold out relationship as such as critical component of the Christian experience, your current handling of homosexuality is damning these brothers and sisters to a life of torment. If you could but for a moment not see these people as sexual beings and instead see them as people who desire relationships with those of the same sex, and recognize that this desire is not their choice, you would realize that you are telling them the central idea behind all of creation - that of relationship - is not accessible to them in their lives. I am disgusted by Christians who equate homosexuality to one of the consequences of the Fall as if homosexuality is to be seen in the same vein as death and cancer. Forget the damnation homosexuals feel at the hands of Calvinist theology; the normal Christian theological discourse leaves them with the same message - that which defines your sense of yourself, your deepest need to be loved, is a mistake. You are a mistake. Your existence is a mistake.

Theology that does not help people live better lives is useless. Ideas have to have consequences or they are flatulence in the wind. It is time for theologians and members of the Christian community to stand up and get rid of the tired theologies that stand in the way of embracing our homosexual family members. The trauma is not going to be in having to accept them, it is going to be in having to divorce ourselves of certain ideas we have held up for so long. High up on that list is the idea that you can not be a real Christian and be a homosexual. Even those who believe homosexuality is a sin have to recognize that this is no different than saying you can not be a real Christian and sin. It is a silly mistake and one that is made because of what homosexuality represents to the church and to the people who hold power within institutionalized religion. It is time for the church to change. The first step for the church is to invite homosexuals into communion with them; the second is to seriously struggle with whether or not their sexual identities are mistakes.

previous post: Christmas 2004 Letter
next post: Is This of God?

• Posted in Theology
• no comments
• Trackback
• January 1, 2005

• Bookmark on del.icio.us
• Bookmark on Digg

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website