Discipleship for Wayfarers

Posted by

11

I recently talked with Matt Woodley of Preaching Today about how pastors might approach the topic of homosexuality in sermons and other parish teaching opportunities. (The interview is available for free, but you might have to register at the site to access it in its entirety.)

For those who have heard me talk about these matters before, there won’t be much that’s new here. But I thought it would be valuable to try to restate, specifically for an audience of preachers and pastors, some of my gradually-coalescing musings on friendship.

Here’s an excerpt:

I think we need to have an approach to pastoral ministry that allows for a long-term sense of waiting and enduring something that we wish were otherwise. For me, for example, there are many ways in which I just don’t feel that I am made for celibacy. I mean, it often leads to loneliness, to difficulty. The natural impulse of a pastor is to want to say to a person who is suffering, “Let’s make this better. Let’s fix this condition of celibacy so that it’s not so painful anymore.” I think that comes from a good motivation, but the most helpful pastors in my life have recognized there are many situations that people find themselves in that you can’t fix. So the pastoral strategy then becomes not “how do we rescue this person out of this terrible condition?” but “how do we help this person flourish and find love?”

Paul talks a lot in 2 Corinthians about being weak, and you never get the sense from him that God has delivered him from weakness. In fact, God said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in your weakness”—not by rescuing you out of your weakness. I find it helpful when a pastor can recognize that being gay is not something we’re going to fix. There may be a diminishment of same-sex attraction that some people experience, or there may not. But either way, it’s not something that you can just fix. So the question is, How do we help this person find grace and hope in the midst of a situation that may never be what they would wish for?

Continue reading →

To Tell A Different Story

Posted by

4

“Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, so I chose to tell myself a different story.”  – Cheryl Strayed

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a fair share of fears. And if you happen to be a gay Christian, a number of those fears surface when you’re open about your sexuality in the context of a Christian community. While I might not base my theology on the words of Cheryl Strayed, I resonate with her desire to tell a different story than the one my fears impose.

Continue reading →

Instincts, Ethics, and the “Yuck Factor”: A Tentative Consideration

Posted by

2

In light of earlier comments concerning Thabiti Anyabwile’s article, I thought it might be productive to say a few things about the role of instinctual judgments in the moral life, particularly in issues of sexual sin. There has been a lot said on the matter of his role as a pastor, etc., and I think there is nothing I need add on the matter. There are, however, a few provisos which can clarify the role of instinct in the general discussion.

When we confront a sin, we are morally bound to be disgusted by it rationally speaking, that is, according to what we know discursively. If I am put into a situation where it seems as though murder will be a nice way out for all concerned (except, perhaps, for the victim), I ought to know, by my rationality, that murdering someone is an offense against the God who became man that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. And we are morally bound to seek this disgust of the reason; this is called the duty of forming our conscience.

Continue reading →

Some tools of chaste living: Turning toward God

Posted by

0

I recently started a series of posts about graced realities which I have found to be helpful in the pursuit of chastity, defined deeply as the mastery through grace of internal sexual desires and passions, and their ordering according to the will of God. When people are married in the Church, they undergo marriage counseling; when people enter religious life, they have a period of intensive formation. Yet for people in the most difficult situation within which to pursue chastity, cut off from both marriage and the support of a religious community, there is little discussion of how to make this sustainable in a lifelong way. In previous posts, I discussed friendship, stress management, and ascesis.

In my previous posts this week, I have talked a bit about things which I have found helpful in striving to live chastely despite the relative lack of support structures of a celibate life lived outside a religious order.

In my last post, I want to explore the fundamental concern for direction in life and a turn towards God which the Christian tradition has inherited from Neoplatonic philosophy.

Continue reading →

Some tools of chaste living: Ascesis

Posted by

2

I recently started a series of posts about graced realities which I have found to be helpful in the pursuit of chastity, defined deeply as the mastery through grace of internal sexual desires and passions, and their ordering according to the will of God. When people are married in the Church, they undergo marriage counseling; when people enter religious life, they have a period of intensive formation. Yet for people in the most difficult situation within which to pursue chastity, cut off from both marriage and the support of a religious community, there is little discussion of how to make this sustainable in a lifelong way. In previous posts, I discussed friendship and stress management.

The third graced reality I would like to discuss is ascesis. We can sometimes think about asceticism in terms of a denigration of the physical, or an advanced practice which belongs only to monks and hermits. In fact, the heart of asceticism is an attempt to imbue a life with structure and to train us in the graced exercise of a certain measure of control over our desires, and it is something which we can practice even in little ways, whatever life we are living. The task is of course significantly more daunting when it comes to chastity, for (in the case of a gay person), there is no fulfillment of libidinal desires which conforms to the divine will.

Continue reading →

“Celibates Lead Us in Our Anticipation of That Eternal Joy”

Posted by

1

My friend Fr. Stewart Ruch III, the newly elected Anglican (ACNA) bishop of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest, was recently interviewed about a sermon he gave on celibacy. For many years, Fr. Stewart has been the rector of Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois, and in this interview he draws on several conversations he had with celibate members of his parish.

Here’s a taste:

I wanted to talk about a larger issue than just human marriage or singleness. I wanted to talk about the very goal of human personhood. God in Christ wants to marry humanity. He chose spiritual marriage, the great marriage of our souls with God, as a kind of beatific vision, the end goal of all of our personhood. Marriage with God is a dramatic biblical metaphor for God’s relationship with his people.

The concept of “singleness” can’t do justice to this. For one thing, no one is autonomous or truly “single.” When we realize this, we begin to see that every person is profoundly connected, and has the ultimate destiny of absolute communion with God.

Often, the problem in the church is that “singles” get left behind. We subtly communicate that marriage and raising a family is the “big deal” of Christianity. That’s incomplete. Celibacy, just like marriage, points us towards the real big deal—the marriage of God in Christ with humanity. A celibate Christian can be a sign of living faithfully into that marriage. Celibacy is a far more rounded, nuanced, positive word to say what our theology calls us into. I call those embracing this lifestyle “celibate” because they’re actually being called to live in full marriage with God as a picture of what we’re all going to be when there’s no giving and taking of marriage in heaven.

Read the whole thing.

The Question of Truth

Posted by

8

In his excellent posts from Monday (Celibacy Is Not the Gospel and Celibacy in Light of the Resurrection), Wes attempted to respond to the following concern: “If we’re going to ask gay Christians to give up gay sex, that self-denial must be demonstrably good for us.” I liked what he had to say in response, but I think there is something more fundamental that ought to be said.

In “Christian Apologetics” (collected in God in the Dock), C. S. Lewis stresses the importance of focusing first of all on the claim that Christianity is true:

One of the great difficulties is to keep before the audience’s mind the question of truth. They always think you are recommending Christianity not because you think it is true but because it is good. And in the discussion they will at every moment try to escape from the issue ‘True—or False’ into stuff about a good society, or morals, or the incomes of Bishops, or the Spanish Inquisition, or France, or Poland — or anything whatever. You have to keep forcing them back, and again back, to the real point. Only thus will you be able to undermine … [t]heir belief that a certain amount of ‘religion’ is desirable but one mustn’t carry it too far. One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.

Continue reading →

Some tools of chaste living: Stress management

Posted by

6

I recently started a series of posts about graced realities which I have found to be helpful in the pursuit of chastity, defined deeply as the mastery through grace of internal sexual desires and passions, and their ordering according to the will of God. When people are married in the Church, they undergo marriage counseling; when people enter religious life, they have a period of intensive formation. Yet for people in the most difficult situation within which to pursue chastity, cut off from both marriage and the support of a religious community, there is little discussion of how to make this sustainable in a lifelong way. In a previous post, I discussed friendship.

My second post in the series is on a much more mundane subject, but one which, in my experience, is real enough and relevant enough to warrant a place in this project: stress management. As I have progressed in the academic life, I have learned that this progression results in more and more things that need my attention. Put simply, a PhD student reaches a point where he or she is never “done;” there are always more projects that needs tending to, and any time spent doing something else becomes time stolen from academic work. Like Lady Violet on Downton Abbey, we too can ask “What is a weekend,” though for entirely different reasons! This is the nature of a vocation: it permeates a person’s entire existence, and provides it with structure. The vocation overpowers us, but also invigorates us. I expect this to grow truer after I graduate and, God willing, get a position at a college or university.

Continue reading →

Some tools of chaste living: Friendship

Posted by

13

I recently started a series of posts about graced realities which I have found to helpful in the pursuit of chastity, defined deeply as the mastery through grace of internal sexual desires and passions, and their ordering according to the will of God. When people are married in the Church, they undergo marriage counseling; when people enter religious life, they have a period of intensive formation. Yet for people in the most difficult situation within which to pursue chastity, cut off from both marriage and the support of a religious community, there is little discussion of how to make this sustainable in a lifelong way.

To regular readers (or indeed, readers who saw the URL!), it may come as no surprise that the first graced reality I will talk about is friendship. In the little book from which this blog takes its name, St. Aelred of Rievaulx defines friendship as “that virtue through which by a covenant of sweetest love our very spirits are united, and from many are made one.” Like other contributors to this blog, I find St. Aelred’s vision of spiritual friendship, rooted in in a shared life in Christ and drawing the friends into communion with Christ as two souls knit into one to be deeply sustaining.

Continue reading →