Matthew Schmitz’s recent post on First Thoughts (“Evangelicals Oppose Gay Marriage, Now More than Ever”, Wednesday, July 10, 2013) noted that First Things has become the venue of choice for discussion of the pastoral issues concerning celibate gay Christians, one which has now (happily) come to include a first-person perspective. The exploration of the terminology used by the Church about the personal status of homosexuality has formed a major thread in this discussion, and has brought forth many articles. On the one hand, Daniel Mattson has written some pointed pieces arguing that the Church condemns describing a person as ‘gay’ or ‘queer’ (e.g. “Why I Don’t Call Myself a Gay Christian,” “Homosexual Orientation, or Disorientation?” and “In Defense of the Church’s Challenging Language on Homosexuality“). On the other hand, Joshua Gonnerman has written an explanation of how the omission of a word from the original Latin has led to a misreading of the English text of Homosexualitatis Problema. This would form what one might call the “general argument about identity terms.”
identity
On Coming Out
In my experience, the best predictor of emotional health for an LGBT person is generally how many people he or she has come out to. This effect is most dramatic between someone who is completely closeted and someone who is out to a few friends. To make sure it’s clear what I mean, to “come out,” short for “come out of the closet,” is simply to disclose one’s romantic or sexual feelings, regardless of one’s behavior or convictions. If a person is “closeted,” his or her sexuality is a secret, and if he or she is “out,” it has been disclosed. Neither term is all-encompassing; it is common to be out in some contexts but closeted in others.
Most of us are initially closeted as a result of fear. We are afraid that people might shun us if they knew about our sexuality. Those of us who are Christians often fear that we will be judged not to be if we come out. Our fear is often rational – I know people who have lost positions of leadership or employment upon coming out, and some have lost friends or been disowned by family. However, I think the risk is also overblown for a lot of us – I haven’t really faced any of these negative reactions myself. Nonetheless, rational or not, the fear is extremely real. I think of my own experience. Long before I actually came out to anyone, I had the sense that I needed to do so. Around the fall of 2004, I finally decided that I wasn’t going to take my secret to the grave. However, I didn’t actually build up the courage to share until the summer of 2005, after my brother initiated a deep conversation about some other things. Even once I decided the time was right, it took about half an hour to get the words out of my mouth. Coming out the next few times remained similarly difficult, although it has slowly become easier with time and practice.
Is Friendship an Unconditional Love?
Last weekend I had the privilege of speaking to the Harvard College Faith and Action student ministry (which, incidentally, makes the Boston Marathon bombings feel so much closer—I sat next to two runners on my flight there). Rarely have I encountered such a vibrant, passionate group of Christians, and I was honored by their sharp, creative responses and questions.
(One of the most moving parts of my visit was hearing a student give a testimony about being gay and Christian and wrestling with what that means for his future—celibacy? marriage? community? Afterward, it was hard to avoid tears as student after student came up and embraced him. I thought of Brandon Ambrosino’s story and how these kind of loving expressions often fly under the radar in our public debates about sex and marriage but are no less sustaining for going unremarked.)
On ‘Bilingual’ Pastoral Theology
Recently I went on a walk with a friend, both of us sipping takeaway cups of Starbucks and she pushing her youngest child, chicken pox-afflicted, in the stroller. My friend teaches theology and ethics, and we’d agreed to meet up and talk about matters LGBTQ.
It was an especially rich conversation, but for now I just wanted to mention one thing my friend said that struck me as profound and helpful. My friend began by admitting that she really struggles with what’s become a standard gay Christian testimony: “God made me this way and wants me to flourish, so God must want me to be true to myself here.”
Once more: on the label ‘gay Christian’
At a conference where I spoke this week, the question came up again: “Why would you call yourself a ‘gay Christian’?” Others have posted about this—I’m thinking of Joshua Gonnerman and Melinda Selmys and Eve Tushnet—but I never have, so here’s my brief take on the question.
First, what’s behind the question? One of my interlocutors this week suggested that a parallel case would be if someone were to label himself an “adulterous Christian” or a “stealing Christian.” Those terms are self-evidently problematic in that they make sinful behaviors part of an identity description for believers, and therefore gay Christians should find their chosen label equally problematic. My response to this is that those are not, in fact, parallel cases. “Gay” in current parlance doesn’t necessarily refer to sexual behavior; it can just as easily refer to one’s sexual orientation and say nothing, one way or the other, about how one is choosing to express that orientation. So, whereas “stealing Christian” certainly denotes the behavior of stealing, “gay Christian” may simply refer to the erotic inclinations of the Christian who claims that identity and leave open the question of whether he or she is sexually active with members of his or her own sex.
Identity questions
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.
Thomas Sundaram on friendship with Joshua Gonnerman
I don’t particularly recommend reading the comments on Joshua Gonnerman’s commentary on Dan Savage over at First Things (or at least, if you’re going to read them, I suggest you take your blood pressure medicine first).
For example, “dadfly” responds to Joshua’s statement that “Christians have appealed far too quickly to their traditional moral views to avoid offering support to gay people” with this:
i believe that Jesus has called on me to do many things (and He knows i’ve fallen horribly short many times), but none of them required that i “support” any political faction or special interest group.
When Jesus was called a friend of sinners, it did not mean that He supported sin. Gay people cannot be reduced to a political faction or special interest group. They are, first and foremost, people.
However, there are a few roses amidst the comment box thorns. One comment in particular caught my eye, because it provides a beautiful glimpse of friendship in action.
Thomas Sundaram is a straight friend of Joshua’s from their undergrad days at Thomas Aquinas College. His comment paints a picture of friendship that reminds us not only that he can support Joshua, but also that Joshua has often supported him. Friendship is a way of knowing the whole, three-dimensional, living and breathing human person. We do not befriend traits: we befriend people.
Anyhow, I strongly recommend Sundaram’s comment. It is a great example of spiritual friendship in action. Read the whole thing:
Why I call myself a gay Christian
My follow-up piece is up on First Things. There are a couple of qualms I have about the final form—for which I take full responsibility for having rubber-stamped it too quickly—which I’d like to clarify:
1) I should have spent more time emphasizing that whether one identifies as “gay” or as “struggling with same-sex attraction” depends significantly on one’s experience. I don’t want to negate the experience of those who identify as SSA; that may well be the best approach for them. Some of that is there in this piece, but it should have been clearer.
2) The quote from Melinda Selmys was not in my original draft, and on reflection I’m less sure that I’m comfortable with the role that it plays in the final piece. I would be more comfortable phrasing it thus:
Spiritual Friendship 