Posted in celibacy, culture, identity, labels, vocation on July 12, 2012 | 3 Comments »
Yesterday, the Gospel Coalition blog posted an article by Jeff Buchanan of Exodus called “The New Sexual Identity Crisis.”
Today, Matt Anderson (of MereOrthodoxy) blogged about “The Trouble with Talking about Our ‘Identity in Christ.’”
I agree with Matt that there is a lot of confusion surrounding use of the term “identity.” I want to address this issue in more depth at some point, but I don’t have the time these days. So I will just throw out a couple of (relatively) brief observations.
Posted in church, culture on May 26, 2012 | 6 Comments »
Last summer, the Commission for Doctrine of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops released a document on “Pastoral Ministry to Young People with Same-Sex Attraction” (pdf).
Various positive things could be said about the document. However, I want to draw attention to a fairly serious problem with the document itself, which reflects a much broader problem in the Church’s response to the sexual revolution in general. (To be clear, I am addressing only the manner in which the Bishops present the Church’s teaching: am not questioning the content of the teaching itself.)
Posted in church, culture on May 21, 2012 | 3 Comments »
There has been a fair amount of response to my recent piece in First Things. Much of it is positive: the responses by Elizabeth Scalia, by Rod Dreher, and most of all by those who know me are particularly laudatory. There has also been a good deal of negative response, and some of my friends have taken up the task of coming to my defense with a courage that can only be described as heroic (you know who you are). Unfortunately, such tasks tend to be endless, as the problematic attitudes are often very deeply entrenched, and people have expressed frustration over this. While beautiful cracks seem to be appearing, there is still much to be done, and I would be surprised if this problem (or any other problem in the Church or society) is entirely resolved in my lifetime.
Posted in culture, disagreement, relationships on May 20, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Most of my early experiences with discussing LGBT issues in a Christian context came from discussions on the Bridges Across the Divide e-mail lists and web forums.
The following is from “How We Agree,” which was the organization’s charter statement, written by Bob Buehler and the Bridges-Across Working Group in August of 1997. I think it still provides helpful guidelines for how people on either side of the debate can engage in positive and constructive ways.
Posted in celibacy, culture, loneliness, perseverance on May 19, 2012 | 15 Comments »
Over the last decade or so, I have had the chance to interact in one way or another with hundreds of men and women who are striving to be faithful to the traditional Christian teaching on homosexuality. For many of them, this has been a terrible burden, a source of grief, loneliness, and much else besides. Along the way, I have seen many give up on chastity, or give up on faith. I, too, have struggled many times with the question of whether it is worth it, or whether this is a misguided teaching that causes unnecessary suffering.
How should I try to make sense of this?
Posted in church, culture, tagged homophobia on May 17, 2012 | 4 Comments »
First Things has published a short piece I wrote on the recent Dan Savage debacle. Note: I did not choose the title!
Update: Elizabeth Scalia (“The Anchoress”) has picked up the article and offered her own commentary.
Update II: Rod Dreher has also responded to the article.
Posted in celibacy, church, culture on May 16, 2012 | 6 Comments »
One of the key Scriptural sources for the theology of celibacy is Matthew 19:12:
There are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it. (RSV)
Most Christian thinking about celibacy has focused on the clause about eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Within both the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, a celibate vocation is understood as a choice to give up marriage for the sake of service to God.
Because Christians who think about celibacy at all focus almost exclusively on voluntary celibacy, many gay and lesbian people object to the prohibition on gay sex in the Christian tradition on the grounds that it imposes involuntary celibacy on people who are exclusively attracted to their own sex.
But this stems, at least in part, from focusing on only a third of what Jesus has to say here. In this post, I want to think a little bit about the relevance of the other two clauses: those who were born eunuchs and those who were made eunuchs by men.
Posted in celibacy, church, culture, friendship, God, vocation on May 15, 2012 | 13 Comments »
[Guest post by Eve Tushnet]
(since apparently today is my day for Rocky Horror references.)
Anyway, I spoke in Denver at Theology on Tap! This is a quick summary of what I said. Count yourselves lucky to get it in writing btw—I am still learning how to make this presentation SHORTER and borderline coherent. A lot of this is stuff you all have heard many times from me, but people expressed interest in having a post about it. Sorry for length.
There may be video and/or a Denver Post story later so I will post that as I receive it.
Posted in culture, friendship, politics on May 10, 2012 | 15 Comments »
Rachel Held Evans recently put up a blog post expressing frustration with the overly politicized approach to homosexuality taken by many conservative Christians.
When I speak at Christian colleges, I often take time to chat with students in the cafeteria. When I ask them what issues are most important to them, they consistently report that they are frustrated by how the Church has treated their gay and lesbian friends. Some of these students would say they most identify with what groups like the Gay Christian Network term “Side A” (they believe homosexual relationships have the same value as heterosexual relations in the sight of God). Others better identify with “Side B” (they believe only male/female relationship in marriage is God’s intent for sexuality). But every single student I have spoken with believes that the Church has mishandled its response to homosexuality.
Most have close gay and lesbian friends.
Posted in culture, faith, perseverance on May 6, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Christians like conversion stories.
The plot of a conversion story usually goes something like this: we hear various bits of pre-conversion debauchery—and the better conversion stories usually include some juicy violations of the Sixth Commandment (or Seventh Commandment, for those who follow the Philonic, rather than the Augustinian numbering of the Ten Commandments).
As a result of these sins, the potential convert encounters a crisis:
The Moment of Crisis
