November/December 2012

PRISM November/December 2012

PRISMmagazine.org

Getting What do you real about want to taxes make today?

Just eating: Environmentalism at the table

S L E B A L D N O Y BE c h r i st, in y t i t n e d i r fi n d i n g o u n o i t a t n e i or l a u x e s t no

Discerning God’s voice Voices from the margins in the midst of the Listening to and learning from struggle sexual minorities in the church

PRISM Vol. 19, No. 6 Nov/Dec 2012

Editor Creative Director Copy Editor Deputy Director Publisher Assistant to Publisher

Kristyn Komarnicki Rhian Tomassetti Leslie Hammond Sarah Withrow King Ronald J. Sider Josh Cradic

Contributing Editors Christine Aroney-Sine Myron Augsburger

Clive Calver

Rudy Carrasco

Andy Crouch J. James DeConto

Gloria Gaither David P. Gushee

Jan Johnson

Craig S. Keener Peter Larson

Richard Mouw

Philip Olson Jenell Williams Paris

Christine Pohl

James Skillen

Al Tizon

Jim Wallis

Issac Canales M. Daniel Carroll R. Paul Alexander James Edwards Perry Glanzer Ben Hartley Stanley Hauerwas Jo Kadlecek Marcie Macolino Mary Naber Earl Palmer Derek Perkins Elizabeth D. Rios Lisa Thompson Heidi Rolland Unruh Bruce Wydick

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A Publication of Evangelicals for Social Action The Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy www.EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University

All contents © 2012 ESA/PRISM magazine.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

Philippians 2: 1-4

Contents 2 Reflections

Love Renders Us Worthy

3 Talk Back Letters to the Editor 4 Music Notes Real Christian Music 5 Art & Soul What Do You Want to Make Today?

November / december 2012

6 oriented to love

What happens when a group of Christians—male and female, gay and straight, representing a variety of “theological orientations”—gather to listen to each other’s stories rather than convince each other of a particular stance? Hope happens.

14 do i have a story?

As long as the narratives offered by the church continue to focus either on heterosexualization or burden/struggle, the gospel will continue to fall outside the realm of possibility for most gay people.

18 adventures in ex-gayland

43 Making a Difference

Where the Young Mentor the Younger

In spite of their good intentions, when Christians promise gay people orientation change— when what they really mean is behavior change—they do a grave disservice to this already misunderstood segment of Christ’s body.

44 ministry matters

26 a difficult curriculum

Generous Spaciousness

46 off the shelf Book Reviews

Seeing with the eyes of faith means believing that we may learn something when dealing with the issue of homosexuality in the church and that contending faithfully with its challenges may yield a blessing.

32 Devoutly Mormon. Happily Married. Undeniably Gay.

50 Kingdom Ethics On Covenant

A traditionally married gay man answers FAQs and gets real about authenticity and intimacy, sex and sacrifice, obedience and joy.

51 Global Positions

38 Evangelicals and Gay Marriage

52 Washington Watch

40 Walking on the Edge for the Lord

Towards an Evangelical Theology of Advocacy Getting Real about Taxes

53 may I have a word?

Spirit of Truth, Come

54 faithful citizenship Reaching for the Infinite

56 Ron Sider

Evangelicals and Homosexuality: A Proposal

Ron Sider invites the church to repent of its smoke-and-mirrors hypocrisy and deal with the real threat to traditional marriage.

Although honesty about her sexual orientation has placed her on the margins of the church she loves, a gay Christian feels called to be an unashamed presence in the evangelical spaces that struggle with her very existence.

“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Colossians 3:11-12

Reflections from the Editor

Love Renders Us Worthy Thomas Merton once wrote to Dorothy Day, “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy if anything can.”

This issue of PRISM is about learning to love, because only love will render the church worthy of being called the body of Christ. Specifically it is about loving the gay people in our midst. Even more specifically, it is about loving those gay people who know and love Jesus (or want to).

Most people are scaredy cats. Some of us are afraid to take a stand, preferring to stay on the sidelines and hoping for the best. Some of us are afraid of offending, so we cater to those around us and never really figure out who we are, what we believe, or why. Others of us attempt to overcome our fears by taking control, raising our voices, and making sure everyone knows how we feel—and why we’re right—about everything.

Of course, God has given us a prescription to combat our fear—perfect love! Yet we often don’t appreciate, trust, or even give a try to the remedy.

But God is gracious.

When I moved with my family into an urban neighborhood 13 years ago, I harbored visions of our home as a central gathering place for kids.

We’d have an open-door policy, and all would be welcome—the latchkey kids, the troubled kids, the loners, the losers, the brokenhearted. In these visions the windows of our home emitted a Thomas Kincaidian glow, and love was triumphant.

Then the kids came over—in droves. Real kids, loud kids, sassy kids, many of them with absolutely no training in “how to behave in a neighbor’s

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house.” They climbed on the furniture, explored the refrigerator, raided the fruit bowl.

At first I was too afraid to say anything lest they feel unwelcome. Then I became angry.

Spiritual arteriosclerosis set in, and eventually I ended up screaming shrilly (was that my voice?) at a big group of kids out in my yard, “Get off my property!” (Neighbors down the street heard me and phoned to commiserate.) I felt humiliated, defeated, and distinctly unchristian.

Then I stumbled on something else by Thomas Merton that hit home (quite literally) and that I have never forgotten. A firm believer in the art of hospitality, Merton wrote that when we invite someone into our home, we must not hide our values, convictions, or way of living. If we do, we are offering our guests a kind of ghost house from which the true spirit of the owner has been withdrawn.

My reluctance to inform the neighborhood kids of my belief that one should respect others’ spaces or ask before one takes not only prevented them from knowing their hostess but also resulted in them becoming unwelcome in my home. My desire to be “nice” robbed them of the opportunity to learn from their visit and robbed all of us of the chance to enjoy a mutual embrace.

This is applicable to other kinds of hospitality as well. Many of us are afraid to let “outsiders” in—sometimes because we fear offending them with our views, sometimes because we don’t want our neat little world to be altered or challenged in any way. But inviting those with differing theological and/or sexual orientations into our hearts does not require us to relinquish who we are. However, it does require a certain amount of stretching and inconvenience. We need to move the furniture around to make room for our guests; we’ll need to offer up for scrutiny what’s in our fruit bowl. We’ll be challenged to relinquish the labels that have helped us keep certain people at a safe distance. We may want to hold on to our right to be “right,” but that is simply incompatible with hospitality, love, and unity.

Remember Jesus’ prayer that “they may all be one, Father, even as you and I are one”? We can’t genuinely have unity unless we practice hos-

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pitality, and we can’t practice hospitality without giving up some of our own idols of control and “correct theology.” When we open our hearts to others, life gets messy. Sometimes both the fruit and the furniture begin to migrate in ways we never could have anticipated. This is called growth. God loves us enough to allow us to experience this discomfort.

In January I traveled to Orlando to attend the annual conference put on by the Gay Christian Network. Although I’d been in active dialogue with gay Christians for about a year by that time, this was still uncharted territory for me. Worshiping God with 400 gay people, I was struck by the beauty, faith, and joy that filled the room. I heard the stories of Christians who know something of God’s grace that I have not yet been forced to discover. I reveled in the diversity of the Christian gay community and spoke with dozens of believers who told me, “I just want to serve God; whatever God wants for me is what I want for me.” I was deeply moved by the creativity, intelligence, and graciousness of the leadership.

But when the largely pro-same-sex-relationship crowd gave a standing ovation to a speaker who made it clear she does not believe God approves of same-sex relationships, I knew I was on holy ground. Talk about hospitality! A straight woman I’d met earlier grabbed my arm and said, “There’s going to be a revival in the church, and it’s going to start in the gay community.” If she had said that to me even a day earlier I would have said she was crazy. But on that day, I believed her. And I still do. We have so much to learn from gay Christians as they wrestle authentically with their faith and their sexuality in ways that most of us will never have to.

How (and whether) the larger church deals with this community will say much about the resiliency, vitality, and relevance of the body of Christ in today’s world. Will we embody Christ for our gay brothers and sisters, loving and encouraging them regardless of how we read the Bible? Will we listen to and learn from them? How will we respond to the sexual purity (abstinent until covenanted) movement within the gay community? Will we lay down our litmus-tests (and our need to be “right”) and love them as Christ does? ♥

Kristyn Komarnicki has gained so much from having her beliefs and assumptions challenged that she is finally learning to relinquish her need to be right. One of her favorite TED Talks is by “wrongologist” Kathryn Schultz, author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error (HarperCollins, 2011).

Your September/October cover story about Sudan is a very important article, and I hope its content gets picked up by other media and put before an audience larger than your own readership. How naive we humans are to think that Hitler and the Holocaust were aberrations, defeated once and for all by our brave armed forces and the world made free of such atrocities. The more I learn, the more I see that such evil has been around forever and will keep on asserting itself until Christ returns. But I also see that the only earthly way to fight it begins with uncompromising exposure such as PRISM is contributing. I’m proud of you!

— Eve Sidwich Catonsville, Md.

yYou r view on youtube Re: Ron Sider’s “Rich Christians, Global Poverty, and God” talk posted on YouTube.com—This guy is one of a very rare breed; an actual Christian.

Not just one of the millions of [fakes].

He understands. If you think you are a Christian, look at your bank account and car, then think again while the poor starve. God bless him.

— Dr. Plastic- Glenn V. S.

+ DEFINING MATTERS Intergenerational Justice (n): in ter gen er a tion al jus tice [in-ter-jen-uh-rey-shuh-nl] [juhs-tis]

A moral quality such that one generation does not benefit or suffer unfairly at the cost of another. For instance, today's federal debts, environmental degradation, and cultures of violence threaten not only the present generation, but our children and generations unborn.

Learn more about ESA’s Intergenerational Justice Campaign at EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org/MoralDeficit

I am a subscriber to PRISM magazine, and I want to express my deep appreciation for your coverage of the refugee experience in the “Changing Places” article in the July/August issue. The refugee experience is actually very near and dear to my heart because I currently work for a nonprofit organization called Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), which works with partners on the ground in China to rescue North Korean refugees through a modern-day underground railroad. LiNK then brings the refugees to a shelter in Southeast Asia, where we provide them with education to prepare them for resettlement in the US or South Korea. Once they have resettled, we provide them with supplementary resettlement assistance such as scholarships, case management, and micro-grants.

I have met and even lived with some of these North Korean refugees myself, and I have had the chance to be there with them in times of struggle and times of victory as they have learned to adjust to life in America. In fact, three refugees we rescued last year recently arrived in the US and have found invaluable support through a local church.

We recently visited them to see how they are doing, and in this difficult period of transition a local church has pulled through to be their support network and provide them with care and love.

I strongly believe in the importance and impact of LiNK’s work as it changes lives, but I agree that we, as the body of Christ, need to step it up and help refugees who need us.

— Andrew Quan Torrance, Calif.

Editors Note: Read more about the situation in North Korea, and learn about LiNK, in the January/February 2011 cover story, “How to Save a Life” at PRISMmagazine.org/ Archives/Trafficking.

Thank you for Bruce Friedrich’s wonderful essay, “Living our Environment at Every Meal.” Indeed, a meatless meal is completely consistent with biblical teachings, laws, and traditions.

The Lord’s very first commandment in Genesis was that the creatures “be fruitful and multiply” (1:22). His first commandment to humans (1:28), was to “replenish the earth ... and have dominion” over other creatures. Although this latter verse has often been cited as a right to control, dominate, or even despoil the environment, the mandate clearly refers to human stewardship responsibilities over the earth, to care for and protect God’s handiwork.

Talk Back

@ Letters

Even the Ten Commandments require that farmed animals be allowed to enjoy a day of rest on the Sabbath (Exodus 23:12, Deuteronomy 5:14). So the Almighty must have felt that kindness to animals was not a trivial matter.

Jesus is twice quoted (Luke 12:6, Matt.10:29) as saying that the Lord cares for all his creatures, even the “lowliest” of them: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?

And not one of them is forgotten before God.” Today, tragically, human activities threaten the existence of various entire species of wildlife and endanger the earth’s critical biological and life support systems essential to our own survival. Considering how we have dealt with this trust placed into our hands, can we expect the Lord someday to say to us, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant”?

—Lewis Regenstein, president Interfaith Council for the Protection of Animals and Nature (ICPANonline.org) Atlanta, Ga.

c c Join the Conversation

@ Email the editor at KKomarni@Eastern.edu f Like us on facebook.com/PRISMmagazine t Follow us on Twitter @PRISMMag1 e Sign up for ePistle, ESA’s free weekly e-news packed with provacative essays and practical ideas.

EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org/ePistle.

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Music Notes

Worship is the only thing that gets us out of ourselves, praise the only thing as powerful as suffering. the landscape of his home in the Pacific Northwest. He offered this album free (yes, free) for a whole year after its release to show his gratitude to the fans who had funded the entire effort. You’ll find romance (“Million Miles”), rapid-fire cultural questioning (“The Resistance”), and personal struggles set to metaphor (“Ulysses”). On Love & War, Garrels makes it clear that Christ is the center of his life. On the bouncy “Pilot Me” he sings, Over the waves and through every sorrow, Savior please pilot me. He reworks the old chorus “Farther Along” into his own creation, opening with both question and proclamation: Tempted and tried, I wondered why the good man died, the bad man thrives / and Jesus cries because he loves ’em both, we’re all castaways in need of rope. Garrels’ work is not driven by mainstream demand but by musical ingenuity and a passion for God. The second artist to find me was Jon Foreman, his song “My Love Goes Free” a highlight of the closing credits to the movie Bella. He is best known as the lead singer of Switchfoot, a popular Christian band, and his voice is unmistakable. But the similarities between the work of Switchfoot and Foreman’s solo efforts (done in series of two EPs, Spring/Summer and Fall/ Winter) ends with his distinctive voice—here there is no radio-friendly stadium rock. Instead the listener is confronted with aching portraits of unglossed humanity—some set to bare acoustic arrangements; others soaring with strings, woodwinds, horns, and choirs. Foreman gives up screaming for hushed tones, sometimes almost a whisper. He narrates a conversation with

Real Christian Music For most of my all-knowing 20s, I thought it was trendy to be a Christian who scoffed at Christian music. I banned anything that smelled like K-Love from my radio, instead plumbing the depths of secular music for spiritual themes.

Though I eventually surrendered my youthful arrogance, I still found it difficult to find Christian artists whose music sounded as if it was created in the real world and not on The Truman Show.

But then they began to find me.

The first was Josh Garrels. Watching an interpretive dance performance not long ago, I was intrigued by the soulful music that narrated the movement. When I heard the line “Never have I found another one like you, Jesus,” I was stunned—could this possibly be a Christian artist? He had the raw vocal energy of Howlin’ Wolf with a reggae flare. I scrawled down some of the lyrics and found him online. I first ordered Jacaranda. This album showcases Garrels’ eclectic songwriting, from folk to R&B. He lifts up biblical imagery on the satirical hip-hop of “Zion and Babylon”: I’m a poor child, I’m a lost son / I refuse to give my love to anyone / fight for the truth or help the weaker ones / because I love my Babylon. On the slow folk cadence of “Desert Father” he acknowledges the reality of suffering for faith: The Lord’s spirit calls / he’s singing follow my road to sorrow and joy. “Centipede” is a danceable Paul Simon-esque instrumental, one of many of Garrels’ imaginative wordless tracks.

His newest release, Love & War & the Sea in Between, is a collection of 18 songs as diverse as

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a dying friend in “Learning How to Die,” the friend sharing her reality: All along I thought I was learning how to take / how to bend not how to break, how to live not how to cry / but really I’ve been learning how to die. In “Lord Save Me From Myself” the writer acknowledges his place in a culture awash in distraction: My eyes have seen the glory of this hollow modern shell / and sex is a grand production, but I’m bored with that as well.

“Somebody’s Baby” is maybe the most raw of them all, telling a story of a woman lost in prostitution and addiction. The song ends in her death. Foreman sings, She dreams about heaven, remembering hell / as a nightmare she visits and knows all too well / every now and again when she’s sober she brushes her teeth. He also consistently exposes his own weaknesses and the allure of coping mechanisms, as on “The Cure For Pain”: I’ve spent 10 years trying to sing these doubts away, but the water keeps on falling from my eyes / and heaven knows, heaven knows I try to find a cure for the pain.

Mixed in with these brooding numbers are songs of unashamed worship. “House of God, Forever” is a delicate rendition of Psalm 23, perfect for early morning devotion. “Your Love Is Strong” tells of a sustaining God: The kingdom of the heavens is buried treasure / would you sell yourself to buy the one you found / two things you told me, that you are strong and that you love me. At first, I found the thematic contrast abrupt. And then I realized—contrast is the point. Foreman offers no explanations of how to find faith, no generic “I’m struggling but I know God is there” lyrics. The songs of lament and tragedy stand on their own, as do the songs of praise. We find the same pattern in scripture: Psalm 88 ends with “the darkness is my closest friend,” and Psalm 89 begins with “I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever.” Worship is the only thing that gets us out of ourselves, praise the only thing as powerful as suffering.

Like the creative masters of centuries past, for Garrels and Foreman faith is front and center in art that is honest, innovative, and timeless.

Levi Gangi is a chaplain resident at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY, and a US Army reservist. He is also a singer-songwriter with the Folk/ Americana band The Lonely Ones; find him at ReverbNation.com/LeviGangi.

marcusjehrlander.deviantart.com

At Beacon High School, a charter school in New York City, incoming freshman are led on their first day into an art room located at the center of the school. There they are asked, “What do you want to make today?”

According to the art teacher at Beacon, it usually takes several months for a student to answer that question. It’s not easy to answer, because we are used to following instructions, doing what’s required.

We live in a pragmatic, utilitarian world in which our bottom-line questions usually deal with usefulness or profitability, and often these decisions are born of a Darwinian spirit of competition to see who can beat out the others to be the most powerful, to take what they can from life. In the scarcity mindset of such a dehumanized system, we usually ask, “What can I take today?” and “How can I minimize my efforts while maximizing my results?” But rarely do we ask, “What do I want to make today?”

The art teacher explains that once the student decides what she wants to pursue—let’s say, photography—a series of questions follows: “What type of photography? Why photography? What do you want to say through your photograph?”

According to how the student answers these questions, she is then connected with other teachers. A math and physics teacher will take up a conversation on optics and refraction; a history teacher will show how photography has changed since its early silver-print days; and a chemistry teacher will help the student understand how chemical reactions induce such remarkable results in silver-print photography. He says his best art student is now pursuing chemistry at Columbia University, and he considers this student to be his greatest success as an art teacher.

Imagine that—answering a simple question about making something in art class can lead to years of pursuing answers, discovering the world,

and finding one’s place in it. “What do you want to make today?” is not just a question; it is inquiry, a way of life.

Imagine sitting in that art room, surrounded by colorful paint, oversized jars of glue, bins of scissors—materials and technology designed to help you think creatively. You are 13 and wondering who you are and what you’re going to do with yourself. You’re sitting in a confused daze, and someone asks you, “What do you want to make today?”

It’s disarming. Many of the children sitting in that room are “Ground Zero” residents.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, two forces of imagination collided: on the one hand, destroyers who dreamed up and executed a plan of destruction, and on the other hand, men and women who prepared and trained themselves to perform the art of supreme, heroic sacrifice. We swim in the ecosystem of imagined actions, and at every moment we are invited to choose life or death.

“What do you want to make today?” If you have been traumatized—or simply caught in the degenerative spiral of negativity that pervades our culture—what kind of hope does that question imply? It is not an idealist’s invitation to escape from reality. It is a quiet and positive resistance to the destructive fears dominating our world. We must answer that question with faith that we can help create the future. Hope is the foundational material on which we build, whether it be on the ashes of Ground Zero or in a classroom.

“What do you want to make today?” What if every person crossing the threshold of a church on Sunday morning were asked the same question? What if the church was ready to respond to their answers with resources and a network of experts? What if we asked and answered this question while filled with

Art & Soul

What do you want to make today?

the creative, Holy Spirit of God every moment that we are awake, and helped others to do the same?

Would the world be more beautiful, compassionate, and daring? Would we view our occupations differently?

Would we see our universities differently? Would we see our motherhood, our fatherhood, our brotherhood, and sisterhood differently?

My sister-in-law, an accountant, recently told me of the thrill she gets in making numbers come out just right; she sees a kind of beauty in the numbers and their order. No matter what we are called to do, we are not only Homo sapiens (human knowers) but also Homo faber (human makers). We are marked by our capacity to make, and we are all artists in that sense.

Will you make, today, a future that is worth beholding? Will you choose to dedicate your days to creating a world that is worth passing on to your children?

Do not give in to apathy, entropy, and decay.

Instead, in the quiet of your daily service, give so that others may live. Art is not a frivolous, peripheral activity but part of our deepest core. Making art is to love yourself and your neighbors. Art makes us human, and when we are fully human we make things.

We either create toward God’s love or away from that love. If we ignore this reality, we abdicate our responsibility to steward culture. To fail to create, while all the while consuming culture, is to let commercial forces determine our identity.

So instead of consuming, go and create. Be an entrepreneur, a nurse, a teacher, or a missionary.

Be an engineer, a politician, a scientist, or a chef. Are you called to the arts? Do not forget to ask yourself daily, “What do I want to make today?” Focus on creating art that only you can do.

To create is to choose life; to create is to love.

“What do you want to make today?”

Makoto Fujimura is an artist, writer, speaker, and the founder of the International Arts Movement (IAMNY. org). This essay was adapted from his commencement address to Biola University undergraduates in May 2012.

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Oriented

To Love

A conversation with Christ at the center 6

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M

In the Absence of an Agenda

It’s one thing to issue a position statement: This is where we stand, this is who we are, and we shall not be moved. There it is in black and white, all signed, sealed, and delivered. It’s comforting, clear, and sometimes necessary.

But it’s quite another to put out an invitation to our brothers and sisters in Christ, asking them to enter into conversation, not so that we can convince each other of our various stances on an issue but instead so we can listen to each other’s stories—reserving judgment, suspending our point of view for a handful of hours—in order to begin to love each other, something that is only possible when we begin to truly see each other and the unique ways in which we reflect the image of God. “Oriented to Love” was such an invitation.

The idea for this dialogue was birthed when we realized that while ESA has an official stance on what constitutes a marriage (a man and a woman covenanted for life) and Ron Sider has signed the Manhattan Declaration (which articulates that position), we had no organizational alliances with anyone in the gay community—whether Christian or secular. We had never allied ourselves in any real way with any of the issues that most concern the gay community—AIDS education or housing rights, for example—and among our staff we had very few close personal relationships with anyone gay. Upon reflection we realized it was important to make an effort to know the gay community, in particular gay Christians with whom we share a Savior.

Thus, praying for humility and for guidance, we began to make inquiries among the few gay Christians and straight allies (those straight folks who are adamant about walking alongside gay folks in love) that we knew personally or had heard of. We sought people who put Christ at the center of their lives and who were willing to have their stereotypes challenged. In the end we were an even dozen: men and women; married, widowed, and single (some celibate by choice, others seeking partners); heterosexual, bi-sexual, gay, and questioning; in our 20s to 50s; hailing from the West Coast, the Midwest, and the Northeast.

As you’ll read in the following reflections by some of the participants, our (modest?) goal was met—we were all stretched…and inspired. In gathering in a small group and creating a safe place for each other’s stories, in listening with love and open hearts for how God is at work in each other’s lives, we discovered that we were on to something—something important, something hopeful, and something replicable. As we met in our final circle, with a candle representing Christ in the center as a reminder of the One who holds all the spokes of the wheel together, we reflected on what we’d learned, what hope had been planted in our hearts, what we yearned for still, and how we thought our time together might nurture and help realize those hopes. The result is a mini retreat guide, called “Oriented to Love,” which is available for free download from our website at PRISMmagazine. org/orientedtolove. If you, too, feel called to expanding the conversation and learning to listen with love around the issue of sexual diversity within the body of Christ, you have a tried-and-tested resource with which to begin.

Please let us know if you pursue this path and what it teaches you on your faith journey. ♥ — Kristyn Komarnicki.

by Julian Forth

Square Circle by Edward Ancher Nelson (AncherArt.com)

“

y goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge...”

Colossians 2:2-3

Imagine 12 strangers from across the country suddenly finding themselves in close quarters, sharing meals, and talking about sex. With such a small number of participants, it was as difficult to hide oneself as it was to demonize the others. Over a period of 42 hours we listened to each others’ experiences of grief and comfort; we playfully exposed the stereotypes we held of each other and opened up avenues to appreciating our shared humanity.

We began to see each other not as opposites or threats or judges, but as mutually vulnerable, well-intentioned, and, of course, imperfect brothers and sisters in Christ. The setting, activities, and expressed goals of the retreat created a sincere bond among us which, I believe, provided an indispensable foundation for our dialogue about faith and sexuality.

As we began to move past our initially perceived barriers to listen to each other, we found richness in our shared stories. We differed greatly in our religious experiences and their effects upon us, in our sexual orientations, our struggles, and our convictions. And during our brief time together, we grappled with a wide range of topics—from celibacy to non-monogamy, from the church’s abusiveness to its welcoming gestures; we discussed gay rights, gender identity, ecumenical differences, and much more. Learning about and navigating through these complex issues As we met in our was no small task, but through our dialogue final circle, with a candle we gained opportunities to walk in each representing Christ in the others’ shoes. And in those instances when center as a reminder of the One it was difficult to find common ground, we who holds all the spokes of the were able to accept our differences. What wheel together, we reflected on made this dynamic hospitality possible what we’d learned, what hope were the relationships we were quickly had been planted in our hearts, building with each other—allowing each what we yearned for still, person to be honest, to ask questions and how we thought our time without judgment and without demanding together might nurture and change from one another. help realize those hopes.

It’s important to note that the richness of this dialogue was also made possible by what was absent. The intentional lack of an “agenda” (it was very clear from the outset that our goal was not to change anyone’s mind, to convert, or to save

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“We began to see each other not as opposites or threats or judges, but as mutually vulnerable, well-intentioned, and, of course, imperfect brothers and sisters in Christ.”

others from their “errors”) and the fact that no final “product” was required to emerge from our discussions removed a lot of pressure from the participants. What’s more, there were no investments—that is, no one had any professional, personal, or financial ties that restricted him/her from honest and full participation. In my experience, such factors are often the chains that inhibit pastors, Christian educators, and institutions from creating truly open and safe spaces for discussing sexuality. In many contexts, the possibility for conversation is curtailed by the fear of consequences such as losing employment or losing funding. The absence of these influences made this retreat a much needed oasis among Christians communities.

I regret that we never got a chance to discuss transgender identity, an aspect that is no less imperative for Christian communities to address; nor did our group include any transgendered persons. However, the dialogue’s success lies in the model it offers, with the hope of carrying this conversation into other Christian communities. As most of us know all too well, discussions regarding the LGBQ presence in the church are frequently approached in more or less unhealthy ways. Oriented to Love showed me that the discussions about gay and lesbian sexuality and Christian faith are best had in small, hospitable groups with close bonds and no agenda. It’s my hope that this retreat won’t be the last of its kind but will continue in one form or another among Christians. And I hope that, even when we disagree profoundly, we can discuss sexuality and faith in spaces where our relationships allow us to be gracious with each other and with ourselves.♥

Julian Forth received his M.Div in 2009 from Duke Divinity School, has taught theology at Messiah College, and now works in housing rights and volunteers his time in peace activism. He currently lives in Washington, DC, and participates in various Christian worship communities.

From Chains to Garlands

by Eve Tushnet I’m Catholic, lesbian, and celibate due to my religious convictions, and I write about those things fairly often, so I’ve seen a fair number of gatherings dealing with the intersection of Christian life and same-sex attraction. And most of those gatherings have been about presenting settled positions.

Even where emotional support and intellectual challenge coexisted, they took turns—one presentation would be pastoral and one would be theological, for example. There’s definitely a place for those approaches. And yet for me, a lot of the value of Oriented to Love came from its balance and intermingling of emotional, intellectual, and spiritual work. It was an exploration, rather than a series of presentations, and so while I didn’t come away with one Big

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Idea, I don’t think finding that big idea was the point.

Instead, here are a few smaller things I think I learned, places where I was helpfully provoked: The need for healing isn’t always where you might expect it would be.

Most of our conversation was focused on how to live in Christ today, and yet at unexpected moments the past would intrude. People who have been hurt by a culture of sexual permissiveness or religious authoritarianism—or both—can be especially sensitive to anything that seems to defend those values.

It takes a lot of trust for a gay person to describe the specific ways in which she/he was taught to consider her/his perspective unworthy of respect. It takes a lot of trust for people to put aside their assumptions about why someone would accept celibacy. (I was surprised myself at some of the other participants’ self-descriptions!) Several exercises at the retreat were designed to get us past our assumptions about one another and help us trust so that we could share even the more painful aspects of our spiritual lives and our pasts.

It takes a lot of trust for heterosexuals to be truly vulnerable, too.

There’s a scene in David Lodge’s novel How Far Can You Go? in which two Catholic characters, spiritual wanderers in the post-Vatican II wilderness, confront one another. One is straight, one is gay, and both have found their sexual desires to be a source of deep conflict and pain. The outside world sees a married man and a stolid monk, two people leading good and normal lives in ordinary religious institutions. And yet they look at each other, with their hearts in turmoil, and think, “You have no idea what it’s like!” There were moments during Oriented to Love where I thought that several of the heterosexual participants were surprised at the ubiquity of certain kinds of pain in gay people’s lives (for example, the frequency of hate crimes)—and there were moments when I was startled when the conversation struck a nerve with some of the “straights.” Sexuality is a site of intense vulnerability, a part of us that is so easy to abuse. A lot of gentleness is needed when we discuss it.

It “gets better” if we make it better. I don’t think any of us described growing up in churches where Christian hope was offered, specifically, to same-sex-attracted people. I wasn’t raised Christian; for most of the participants, who were, silence or condemnation was the norm. So I took away from the retreat a desire to speak directly to the next generation.

We talked briefly about Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project, which began as a YouTube campaign to create videos in which LGBT adults described how they overcame bullying and homophobia to lead fruitful and fulfilling lives. The project bypasses schools and parents, authority figures who might have little interest in presenting hope or little ability to do so, and speaks directly to the teens who need it the most. I wonder what can be done to present specifically Christian hope to LGBT teens, especially those whose churches, communities, and families are not willing or able to speak to them.

That might look like talking with the counselors at your kid’s school.

It might look like donating books to the school or public library—I haven’t found a ton of good books on this subject, but one recent contribution I’d highly recommend is Wesley Hill’s hopeful, personal Washed and Waiting: Re-

Julian Forth

Tim Timmerman

flections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (Zondervan, 2010). It might look like talking directly with your children, asking what the climate is like in their school for kids perceived as gay, or, if they have openly gay friends, making sure those friends know that your home is a place of welcome. It might look like presenting your testimony at church, on YouTube, to the PTA, or to your young adults’ ministry.

And maybe one thing young people need most of all is to see the Christian church as a place of beauty and a place where suffering is acknowledged and given meaning. All the Scriptural interpretation in the world won’t mean as much, I think, as the longing to be sheltered in Christ’s wounds or tenderly cared for by Christ’s family.

LGBT teens need personal testimonies of faithful, joyful, and sacrificial gay Christian life; they also need Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales, Therese of Lisieux’s spiritual fire, the lurid physicality of the Anima Christi, and the tender mysteries of prayer. I took my confirmation name partly as homage to Jean Genet’s novel The Miracle of the Rose, in which a convict’s shackles are transformed into garlands of roses. Do we still believe that the church is where our chains become garlands?

Hope requires a vision of the future.

In Catholic circles you often hear the term “vocations crisis,” referring to the need for new priests. But our entire culture suffers from a vocations crisis: We don’t know how to be adults, how to find and accept the pathways in life which God has set for us. I generally think of vocation as the call to pour out your love for God and for specific other people. Thus priesthood and marriage are vocations, but so too are friendship and service to the poor, among others. Vocation always carries with it specific joys and specific sufferings—a crown and a cross. Vocation is always sacrificial.

Our culture has narrowed the vocations available for heterosexuals down to (delayed) marriage and (optional) childbearing. Friendship is trivialized and service to the poor is professionalized. For LGBT people, Christian communities too often give no vision of vocation at all.

We all need a deeper sense that friendship can be a site of beauty and sacrifice. Christ himself said that there is no greater love than to give one’s life for one’s friends. How much would our own lives change if we believed him? How much would we have to change if we tried to live in sacrificial love for the neediest in our community? Maybe the emergence of gay voices in the church can challenge us to renew or develop vocations outside of marriage—a development that would serve Christians of all sexual orientations.♥ Eve Tushnet ( Eve-Tushnet.blogspot.com) was raised in Washington, DC, where she works as a freelance writer.

She was received into the Catholic Church in 1998. She has written for Commonweal, First Things, USA Today, the Washington Blade, the Weekly Standard, and other publications.

The Gift That Comes with the Need

by Tim Timmerman I have received a gift of faith in Christ, and a gift of being a sexual adult male. For those like myself who can find they are sexually attracted to their own gender, navigating the water where religious and sexual conviction meet can be quite tricky. So I was honored to be included in the dialogue that ESA set up around this difficult confluence that few Christians seem willing to chart.

It was a cordial conversation where I believe we each felt we were given the space to share our journey without the concern that someone would belittle our view or critique our choices.

I personally came away with a clearer understanding of “All the Scriptural interpretation in the world won’t how I approach my own sexuality, clarified in the light of mean as much as the longing to be sheltered in Christ’s how others approach theirs.

I was struck in our wounds or tenderly cared for by Christ’s family.” dialogue that sexual sins get Eve Tushnet

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a lot of airtime in our churches. Those we may judge as having aberrant sexual behaviors are seen as exceptionally sinful compared to others. And yet Jesus targeted the Pharisees and their hypocrisy more than anyone else he addressed. A more Christ-like approach seems to be to walk with individuals in their pain and sexual brokenness, gaining understanding in the matter, holding them, and committing for the long haul, rather than wagging fingers.

In the midst of struggling with my need to connect deeply with other men, I often wondered if I should try to either pray the need away or embrace it as a sexual desire. But both those conclusions threaten to eclipse the gift that comes with the need—the human gift of being created for intimate connection with others. Yes, that connection can be expressed sexually, but that is only one way and, as Jesus points out, the greatest expression of love is not sex but self-sacrifice for the other: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

My own story involves coming to understand, through trials and tears, that my sexual desires for my own gender are, at their core, not about sex. They are about meeting childhood needs that were never met. It turned out that my same-sex needs were brotherly rather than sexual, and I would never discover who I was as a man by having sex with my gender-mates. It’s hard and ongoing work, but when I allowed myself to face the horrible messages I received growing up with a negligent father and to simply fall weeping in the arms of a loving brother who stood in for my father, it was beautiful, as is being released from the tyranny of sexualizing that impulse.

But I get why so many people end up embracing a gay identity and having sex with their gender-mates. Little is offered by the church in the way of shamefree nonsexual touch and support, and who wants to spend their life alone or without sex? It’s a double bind with no good solution in a cultural climate that’s toxic.

But I can’t deny that I’ve felt my sexual urges for men go completely away. Have I found that if I’m hungry, angry, lonely, or tired my sexual impulses for men can come back? Certainly, but I also know that the dog I feed is the one that grows the strongest.

God has challenged me to seek covenants and community using a bigger framework, one that moves beyond a sexual relationship. I feel that most Christians are stupid in regards to loving and walking with those who struggle with being sexually attracted to their own gender. One Christian camp says, “Come back when you’re better.” The other camp says, “Find a lover and settle down.” I believe neither is helpful.

While the experiences and approaches to dealing with same-sex desires varied greatly within our dialogue, I found it refreshing that in our discussions we often came back to the deep need we all have for community. What does that kind of community look like? It’s a core group of people who understand you, your Martha Hopler angels, and your demons and choose to walk with you for the long haul. Specifically for those of us who can find ourselves sexualizing our own gender, finding those long-term compatriots can be difficult work. I know I had fear that the very nature of the struggle was going to push away those I needed the most. But such people do exist, and those relationships have been life-giving.

It is my hope that dialogues like Oriented to Love can be part of a movement to create a body of Christians who are willing to be a refuge and shelter for those who struggle with their sexual identity. The first step is simply to begin walking with someone who is on that journey.

Something that came up in conversation that was helpful for me to see firsthand was that kind and sensitive Christians will choose to self-identify as “gay” or other such titles. I say that this was constructive for me, because my own journey has been in many ways to push against the 20th-century fad of creating and using the title “gay” to group a largely incongruous bunch of people together. But I saw in some of these men and women that taking on the title of gay, queer, or LGBT finally gave them peace and a place, a community to be a part of. That gave me pause. Why have we not grafted such beautiful people into our families and faith and called them our own? ♥

"

Why have we not grafted such beautiful people into our families and faith and called them our own?”

“The ground is level at the foot of the cross and all are welcome at Christ’s table.”

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Tim Timmerman is a visual artist, a professor of art at George Fox University in Newberg, Oreg., and the author of A Bigger World Yet: Faith, Brotherhood, and Same-Sex Needs (Bird Dog Press, 2011).

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Reading that encourages dialogue Reasoning Together: A Conversation on Homosexuality, edited by Ted Grimsrud and Mark Theissen Nation (Herald Press, 2008) Stumbling Toward a Genuine Conversation on Homosexuality, edited by Michael A. King (Cascadia, 2007)

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James Cates

A Good First Chapter

Great and Hidden Things

by Martha Hopler

by James Cates

“Many Christians, especially in America, believe that in Christ all our differences should disappear. We should think alike, act alike, feel alike. This belief is tied to the myth of the Great American Melting Pot in which everyone becomes part of one uniform identity. Our tolerance for diversity is therefore often quite low. If some people do not have exactly the same theology or order of worship or type of music, or the same views on the military or homosexuality, then they may not be Christians at all, we say.”

- Thom Hopler in A World of Difference

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”

Jer. 33:3

I was invited to join a group of men and women, friends and strangers, to discuss the topic of sexual diversity in the church, but in a way where stories, and not debates, would take center stage.

Some of us came with knowledge drawn from data, others from intuition, some from personal experience. Some of us were very secure in our stance on the issues; others acknowledged we are on a journey of discovery rather than committed to one particular stance. Some were able to articulate their stories, while others struggled in the presence of so many voices. All of us came with questions that would not be answered over the two-day retreat but left with armfuls of stories and some new friends.

What made this conversation different from any other I had been a part of before was that it was organized with one purpose in mind and one purpose only—to create a safe space in which we could hear and experience the other. We were encouraged to simply show up and be in relationship with others in way that invited us to drop any pretenses or agendas. In leaving our “shoulds,” arguments, and demands at the door, we found that our fears, too, diminished. Two activities that we did were particularly helpful in drawing each of us into the circle of community. In one, we passed a heavy canvas sack, full of rocks, around the circle, noting how wearying it would be to bear such a burden alone. The second time we passed it around, each person removed a rock from the bag and then shared with the group a difficult burden that he or she was dealing with at the moment. Eventually the bag was empty, and we all felt the value not only of lightening our load by sharing with each other but also of acknowledging that each of us, no matter how it appears to others, is carrying something around with us every day. In another exercise we were invited to bring something—a photograph, song, any object that expressed something about where our heart or life was at that moment. In sharing these things with each other, we were all reminded that although we come with very different stories and from different places in life, the ground is level at the foot of the cross and all are welcome at Christ’s table.

The story sparked by the dialogue has just begun. How much of it I write will be my choice, but together and by the grace of the God of the universe, we have written a really good first chapter. ♥

A Christian dialogue on homosexuality conjures vivid images, I am sure, for any person considering such an oxymoron. And yet the interactions at Oriented to Love demonstrate that our imaginations only limit what God can do.

For approximately 42 hours a disparate group of 12 Christians met with unity of spirit at a small retreat center. They bridged the gap between those who believe God looks equally favorably on same-sex and heterosexual relationships, and those who believe same-sex relationships lie outside God’s will. And yet in that span of time it seemed that the issue of same-sex involvement was peripheral to a more fundamental issue—namely, how do we, as followers of Christ in the postmodern world, grapple with the truth in/of relationships? As we shared our sorrows and our joys, it became clear that we were united in the struggle to find acceptance and nurturing and in our struggle to understand what such time-honored truths as fidelity and loving our neighbor mean in a world that seems increasingly complex.

To be sure, we had our moments of disagreement. And yet it seemed no greater number than the disagreements that are fundamental to any group of people who seek God’s will and ask each other, “What does he really want from us?” In so doing we see into the souls of those who believe, fervently and earnestly, in a God who embraces us all and in a love that encompasses beliefs that on the surface are disparate but beneath share a common thread of devotion to the Master and a desire to do God’s will.

We also recognized that although we focused with a single purpose, our journeys lead us home by so many directions. Theology, background, tradition, and even culture separate us from one another in the paths we pursue. It can be painful to recognize that separation, but there is also joy in discovering a new path by walking alongside one another or even in another’s shoes. The experience of trusting that God is at work in each other’s lives allows us to love each other as friend, neighbor, and fellow sojourning Christian.

We did not leave with answers, nor should we have done so. To have answers would imply that these deeply personal questions are facile and answerable! Instead, they plumb the depths of what God expects when he calls us to be in prayerful relationship to one another. We left to find ourselves humbled, renewed, and—perhaps most of all—loved. ♥

James Cates is a psychologist living in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Martha Hopler works as a medical case manager and a clinical therapist in Seattle, Wash.

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When Grace Dances

by Tim Otto

Tim Otto

“In the end, I suspect it was that each person (often after a journey of profound pain and perseverance) was fully convinced of God’s grace and love toward him or her and, relaxing in that, was able to listen charitably to challenging differences.”

I’m surprised you are reading this. When a discussion of homosexuality comes up, I find that most Christians are exhausted by it. Are there any words left that might accomplish anything? Words that would resolve it, reconcile us, and put the matter to rest?

And the few Christians who aren’t exhausted tend to be exhausting. They tend to be the true believers (on either the right or the left), who are utterly convinced they are right and willing to evangelize endlessly to the point that one is tempted to respond, “Okay, okay, I’ll agree if you’ll just stop talking!”

So I was surprised to leave a dialogue on homosexuality—in which a flood of words was exchanged—feeling hopeful. I felt this way because the full range of views was present (and a full range of people along the straight/LGBQ spectrum), and yet people listened to each other intently and non-defensively.

Months later, I still feel astonished. No one played the victim card. No subtle snubs communicated, “You are inferior because you think that.” Plenty of emotions were expressed, but few if any felt calculated to coerce.

How did a group of flawed human beings humbly listen to each other with a desire to get to truth—especially on this oh-so-fraught and personal of issues?

My mind goes to the obvious things first: It was a beautiful retreat center, the facilitation was expert and empathetic, the participants were carefully chosen. Those things certainly helped, but they don’t completely account for it. Those things alone could not have achieved such a grace-full conversation.

In the end, I suspect it was that each person (often after a journey of profound pain and perseverance) was fully convinced of God’s grace and love toward him or her and, relaxing in that, was able to listen charitably to challenging differences.

It reminds me of something my mentor Jack Bernard used to say. When confronted by others, he would sometimes smile and reply, “You may have some of the details wrong, but I’m sure I’m as big a sinner as you think I am.” Jack was so in touch with God’s grace that he was able to listen with complete openness to others, believing that they might offer valuable help on how he might grow. And his attitude disarmed his critics, making for fruitful conversations.

It was that spirit of grace that animated ESA’s dialogue on homosexuality. And that gives me hope for the larger conversation in the evangelical church. While the evangelical church might at first appear to be an unpromising prospect for such a conversation, it possesses the most important ingredient—an emphasis on God’s grace.

As I think about the future of the conversation in the evangelical church, my exhaustion has been replaced by a cautious hope. I resonate with the words of W.H. Auden, a Christian who struggled with homosexuality: “I know nothing, except what everyone knows—if there when Grace dances, I should dance.” ♥

Tim Otto is a part-time pastor of the Church of the Sojourners, a live-together Christian community in San Francisco, and a part-time home health RN. He is writing a book tentatively entitled Oriented to Faith: What the Debate about Homosexuality Can Teach the Church. He wrote “A Difficult Curriculum” on page 26.

John Backman

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Watching that encourages dialogue Pastors’ Conversation: Navigating LGBT issues & questions. (DVD)

The Youth Room Has a Closet: Talking with youth about homosexuality (DVD) Bridging the Gap: Conversations on Befriending our Gay Neighbors (DVD) (All three are available at NewDirection.ca)

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It is possible to truly listen…

“It seems nearly impossible to truly listen to a story from the soul of another and not be moved by it. Our stories connect us to each other; they change us and the relationship. That makes dialogue risky and frightening….[but if we use ‘dialogue’ simply as] a code word for ‘change your mind’…suspicion is an appropriate response. Some of us forget that it is possible to truly listen, understand, respect, and empathize without accepting as one’s own the views of the other.”

— Carolyn Schrock-Shenk (professor of peace, justice, and conflict studies at Goshen College) “It is a deep expression of my love for another when I create a welcoming space for her to express disagreement, when I take the trouble to get to know her sufficiently to understand her position by empathetically putting myself in her shoes, and when I seek treasures in her point of view, hoping that she also finds treasures in my point of view.”

—Dr. Harold Heie (Gordon College’s Center for Faith and Inquiry; RespectfulConversations.net)

Living in the Questions

by John Backman The 12 people who took part in Oriented to Love defied simple description, and our conversation gave me a taste of the astounding complexity behind our sexuality.

I learned about gay and lesbian people who, while fully owning their orientation, have chosen celibacy because of a deep fealty to their faith tradition. I learned about gay people who, out of a deep and undeniable love, married their closest friends—of the opposite sex. I heard how our culture has so corrupted our view of sexuality that we have no idea how to touch one another in a physical yet asexual way—to “greet one another with a holy kiss”— no matter how much we crave it. I learned more about the definition of “queer” and about what lies at the core of the argument that marriage should be between one man and one woman.

The twist, for me, was that all the people who taught me these things are striving to live faithfully to the call of Christ.

It’s tempting to scramble for a logical resolution to such a paradox—to filter all the words and perspectives and proceed efficiently to an opinion. I would submit that a great deal of what passes for dialogue on this issue has done precisely that. Hence people are quick to conclude that those on the other side are “rationalizing their lifestyle” or “trying to get with the times” or “hiding behind the Bible to avoid change” or simply “pushing their political agenda.”

Yes, there are people who do these things, but my 11 companions in this dialogue were not among them.

We did not seek a logical solution but rather lived with the

paradox. While sharing our personal stories of sexuality and gender with one another, we also explored thoughts I have rarely, if ever, heard in this context: our stubborn desire for reductive simplicity in the face of such disconcerting complexity, the value of surrendering our vision of what wholeness looks like, the daunting task of living authentically when social systems favor people who are not you, the need for the church’s repentance of the way it has treated LGBTQ people.

“Stop defining. Start listening.”

What if we all started living with the paradox for a while—the paradox of people with myriad different practices and viewpoints living faithfully in the midst of them? Out of these paradoxes, new questions often emerge. Here are a few that have emerged for me since the dialogue: How many orientations are there? Can they change over time?

How many ways are there to live out each orientation—sexual or gender vocations, as it were?

Can we affirm every one of these vocations as a gift from God? If not, why not?

Why do we resist complexity? Is it because a simple one-size-fits-all answer actually exists, or because accepting the complexity requires us to keep our hearts stretched too large?

What if the Christian church threw open its doors to all people, asking only that they be faithful to the call of Christ in their lives?

Why do we feel the need to reconcile opposing views?

How do we live in community with one another—perhaps the most compelling imperative of the Christian faith—when we hold radically different beliefs about the way to be in the world?

Is dogma important? Is authority important? Why or why not?

At one point during Oriented to Love, a fellow participant—who knew about my background in advertising—asked me what I’d write as a headline to describe the dialogue. While he meant the question as a joke, it got me thinking. And what I came up with was this: Stop defining.

Start listening.

I invite you, the reader, to grapple with the questions above, or raise your own. I ask only that you avoid being simplistic. Live with the paradox and speak out of it. Maybe we can break new ground in hearing one another—as Oriented to Love did in such an extraordinary way. ♥

John Backman is the author of Why Can’t We Talk? Christian Wisdom on Dialogue as a Habit of the Heart (SkyLight Paths), out this fall. He blogs regularly for Huffington Post Religion, serves on the board of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, maintains his own site at DialogueVenture.com, and is an associate of an Episcopal monastery in upstate New York, where he lives with his wife of 31 years.

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DO I HAVE A STORY?

by Joshua Gonnerman

Can the church learn to listen to gay Christians and to offer them livable narratives for life in the body?

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"Broken Photography 1" by Egor Shapovalov (Shapovalov.deviantart.com)

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omosexuality has become an increasingly significant focus in the public arena, far more so than one would expect considering the small percentage of people who experience same-sex attraction. With the fight about same-sex marriage bitterly underway, the controversial repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, explosive debates over Chick-Fil-A’s stance in favor of traditional marriage, and growing concerns over the bullying of youth who are (or are perceived to be) gay, the question “How do we relate to gay people?” is more pertinent and visible than ever.

But the conversation tends to be dominated by polarized responses that are either pro-gay or anti-gay. Folks on the left affirm same-sex sexual relationships and advocate for gay marriage, while folks on the right tend to respond slowly to troubling issues like gaybullying and even oppressive systems (think Uganda), ignoring or minimizing the unjust treatment of gays and/or promoting questionable “ex-gay” ideologies and conversion therapies.

As acceptance of gay relationships gains increasing ground in the Western world and in older Protestant denominations, believers of a more traditional bent find themselves faced with a dilemma. Do they maintain their vision of sexual ethics and place themselves in the anti-gay camp—proudly patronizing Chick-Fil-A restaurants, universalizing individual stories that confirm their prejudices, and ignoring the realities of anti-gay violence (whether physical, professional, psychological, or spiritual)? Or do they switch sides and place themselves in the pro-gay camp, adopting an affirming stance, making an idol of the word “marriage,” and turning words like “hate,” “homophobe,” and “bigot” into weapons to be mercilessly deployed against all who disagree?

The current cultural climate makes it clear that the questions have been framed badly. When the Barna Group asked non-Christians aged 1629 to identify the first concept they associated with the church, 91 percent responded with “anti-homosexual.” Even more alarming, the same was true for 80 percent of Christians in that same age bracket. When this is how even our own young people view the church, structural changes simply must be made in order for us to engage in genuine conversation.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that more and more gay Christians are standing up, telling their stories, and pushing back (with varying degrees of delicacy) on the standard approaches of Christian conservatives. Particularly striking is the emergence of a contingency of gay (or queer) Christians who are committed to the traditional Christian sexual ethic. In the past few years, we have seen books by Wesley Hill (Washed and Waiting) and Melinda Selmys (Sexual Authenticity). Online commentary has also appeared by Josh Weed and Eve Tushnet (both featured in this issue),

by Ron Belgau and, more recently, myself.

When I speak on these matters, my fundamental desire is to change the fact that living the gospel is not a real option for most gay people. If

The stories offered to gay people by mainstream religion and secular society are enticing, offering hope of acceptance, fulfillment, pride, and, most recently, marriage. The stories the more traditionally inclined churches have offered have tended towards either heterosexualization or stories focused on burden/struggle. As long as matters are framed thus, the gospel will continue to be outside the realm of possibility for most gay people. How far this is from the gospel where Christ declares, “I have come that they might have life, and that more abundantly”!

we hope to change this sad reality, our response to homosexuality can no longer be a simple “no.” Nor can it be a concrete “no” and an abstract “yes,” as with those who propose the “yes” of chastity or the “yes” of the cross. While secular society and affirming churches offer a clear, tangible, and attractive picture of what it means to be a gay person, the traditional church—if it hopes to be able to speak to the gay community—must strive to offer a clear, tangible, and attractive picture of what it means to live as a gay person who affirms traditional sexual ethics.

A posture of listening In order for the conversation to become more fruitful, the church must adopt a posture of listening. A shouting match ceases only when one party stops shouting and starts listening. Surely the onus is on us, as the body of Christ, to be the “bigger man” here, as it were. To truly listen to the stories of others changes the dynamic of our relationship with them, and they become concretely humanized rather than abstractly demonized. Volunteering at a community center run primarily by and for transgendered persons, becoming friends with Christians of an emergent bent, and having a brother who is an atheist have been transformative experiences for me, because they transformed the issues of transgender, emergent theology, and atheism from theoretical ideas into flesh-and-blood people in my world—and all conversations must take place between people. Even when disagreement remains, it is imperative that relationship must abide.

Those disagreements must also be balanced by agreements wherever possible, and for this to happen we must learn to listen with generosity.

When a spirit of generosity rather than fear animates our conversation, we

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allow the freedom which is due a Christian—a freedom which sees the work of the Spirit as particular to each person, rather than trying to force him or her into a mold which we have named “the work of the Spirit.” Concerns over a socalled “gay agenda” must give way to a deep respect for gay people, a respect that enables them to tell their own stories and to speak of their lives as they choose. It may be necessary for us to disagree with a particular conclusion in the story they tell (for instance, equating joy in a sexual relationship with divine approval of that relationship), but we must practice a deep self-examination to make sure that we are speaking because it is necessary and not simply because we are uncomfortable. Insistence on the use of certain language (such as “same-sex attraction” or “struggling with homosexuality”), concepts (such as “burden” and “disability”), and narratives (such as “brokenness,” “distant father/ overbearing mother,” and “deficient gender identity”) must fall away before authenticity can occur.

We must take this stance of listening with generosity even further into a relationship of solidarity, where conscience permits it.

One of the great tragedies of the current climate is that responses to homosexuality have become so deeply connected to the debate over same-sex marriage. This results in the one side feeling justified in its automatic “no” to gay people, because a “yes” would be to compromise a deeply held value of marriage being a heterosexual-only affair. On the other side, it results in enormous amounts of energy and money being poured into a single rights issue when far more serious rights issues remain unchecked in society. In many places, for example, gay people still do not have employment or housing protection. Perhaps most heartbreaking in this country is that in most cities, 25-40 percent of homeless youth are sexual minorities—a prime example of the need for conversations to shift from being rights-centered to needs-centered.

My ethical stance does not permit me to support same-sex marriage, and so I must pass on the dominant gay concern of our day. But by refusing to grant this question the centrality it currently enjoys, I find that a world of opportunities opens up where I can provide support for gay people.

All our lives are journeys that involve challenges, but more difficult still is the life of the person who finds herself, inexplicably, part of a minority. In order to achieve some measure of integration, she must put a significant amount of effort into changing her understanding of herself and the path

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she will walk in life, but sadly she must do so with relatively little support from those around her. As a result, the stories of gay folks are prone to a certain fragility and often need to be handled with kid gloves. It may be that offering support in this journey of self-acceptance is one of the most important things the church—that is, you and I—can offer to gay people.

Alienation and acceptance Many gay people struggle with the experience of deep alienation. This is powerfully evoked by Wesley Hill in Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality, when he writes of looking at the lives of his friends as if he were looking through a glass door—exposed to a reality at once entirely visible but entirely inaccessible to him. It seems to me that the experience of alienation is, most fundamentally, the experience of difference, considered as a negative concept. If we can come to see difference as a valuable and positive thing, not simply as a deprivation or handicap, then we may have the first beginnings of an attempt to overcome the gap in the perceived value of a gay person’s life. If we can allow a gay person to embrace his unusual character and unique gifts as a valuable difference, then we shall have won a great deal of ground in the struggle to improve the conversation. By helping a particular person discern his or her own peculiar calling, we provide a significant step towards helping gay people lead life-giving lives in the church.

A person’s story requires more than an understanding of what has happened up to this point. We also need a plot outline and trajectory, to help us sense how the rest of our lives might unfold. The body of Christ must help those within it discern life narratives that are Christ-honoring.

We can certainly accept people who engage in activity we believe to be immoral. Indeed, we must accept them, if we hope to be worthy of the name Christian, and we must do so without reservation. But we cannot condone or encourage what we believe is outside of God's plan. Instead, we must offer Christ-giving alternatives.

The stories offered to gay people by mainstream religion and secular society are enticing, offering hope of acceptance, fulfillment, pride, and, most recently, marriage. The stories the more traditionally inclined churches have offered have tended towards either heterosexualization or stories focused on burden/struggle. As long as matters are framed thus, the gospel will continue to be outside the realm of possibility for most gay people. How far this is from the gospel where Christ declares, “I have come that they might have life, and that more abundantly”! We can do better.

Valuing singleness Most Christians have models for living in accordance with traditional sexual ethics. Gay Christians have few or no models. We propose to them that they must not enter into sexual relationships, but we do not propose to them what their lives should look like.

We have forgotten that marriage is not particularly important in the New Testament, except insofar as it images the relationship between Christ and his church. Today, on the other hand, the church has embraced an idolization of the nuclear family, which relegates those who are not part of a family unit to a significantly marginalized position within the church. As a result, loneliness is one of the deepest struggles faced by gay people in the church. The kind of life and relationship that we value in the traditional church is closed off to a gay person.

Of course, this is not a matter limited to gay people in the church.

What we know today as “the single life” is a fairly recent phenomenon, but

"Broken Photography 0" by Egor Shapovalov (Shapovalov.deviantart.com)

one that grows more common every year. It is time to recognize the assets that single people possess, such as the kind of mobility and flexibility that can greatly enhance the mission of the church and its service to the world. In the kingdom of God, “freedom from” one thing—in this case marriage— automatically implies means “freedom for” some other kind of communion, service, connection. Single people also provide a visible reminder that our journey is not over and that we are all still longing for final consummation at the return of Christ.

When we as a church come to truly and deeply value the lives of single people, and the particular freedoms they have to offer, then we will find ourselves better positioned to speak to the lives of gay people. We need to recognize in singleness a lifegiving and Christ-honoring model that we can propose as an alternative to those who are ill-suited to traditional marriage, whether because they are gay or for some other reason. We must overcome our tendency to see a single person as incomplete, as lacking their “other half.”

While we must learn to value the single life, we must also acknowledge that it is not well-equipped to meet the deep relational needs that all humans possess as creatures made in the image of a relational God. What models can we propose to help remedy this danger?

We find the beginning of an answer in the Gospel of John, where Christ says to his disciples, “No longer do I call you slaves, … but I have called you friends.” The impact of this statement is lost on us because we have forgotten the depth and riches of friendship. I’m not talking here about the need for connection on a congregational level, although that is important.

My focus here is more individual: I am concerned with friendship between two people.

Many people hearken back to their college days as a time when intimate and powerful friendships were formed, often powerful enough to be maintained, albeit in diminished form, for years or even decades after graduation. But why does this kind of personal connection need to be restricted to a particular time in life?

Aelred of Rievaulx, a medieval abbot, reminds us that while celibacy can be challenging, it need not be lonely. His little book, On Spiritual Friendship, is a hymn sung to the depths and joys and treasures of friendship. For him, a Christ-centered friendship has such riches to offer and provides an opportunity for such intimacy and connection that he echoes marital language, describing it as “that virtue through which, by a covenant of sweetest love, our very spirits are united, and from many are made one.” What marriage provides for the body, friendship provides for the soul. Here, the

relational needs of a human being can be met so fully that Aelred suggests we read of it in John 1, where we are told that “Those who abide in friendship abide in God, and God abides in them.”

When we, as a church, come to truly value both intimate friendships and the single life, while at the same time being aware of the need to root deeply them in Christ, we will finally be able to offer an authentic “yes” to gay people instead of the “no” they have too often heard from the church.

We will at last be equipped to offer an attractive alternative to the narratives offered by the world and to render the gospel a viable life for our dear gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

Joshua Gonnerman lives in Washington, DC, where he is pursuing a doctorate in historical theology at the Catholic University of America. He is an occasional contributor to the online “Spiritual Friendship” blog, in the pursuit of a better conversation about homosexuality in the church.

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Š2009-2012 ~DeinReichKommtNicht

ADVENTURES IN EX-GAYLAND offering hope shouldn’t require sacrificing truth

by Justin Lee

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rowing up in a conservative Christian home, I was confident that being gay was both a sin and a choice. I spoke out about it, wanting to lovingly encourage gay people that, in Christ, they didn't have to be gay. I believed that with all my heart.

Even as I said these words, however, I was wrestling with my own same-sex attractions. For years I had told myself that they were merely a phase I'd grow out of. It wasn't until I was 18 that I finally recognized that they weren't going away and that there was a word for guys who are only attracted to other guys. That word was "gay." And it turned my world upside down.

I couldn't understand how this had happened. I had a strong and vibrant faith and a personal relationship with Jesus. I had wonderful, healthy relationships with both of my parents. I had never been sexually abused.

How could a good Christian boy like me—nicknamed “God Boy” by a high school classmate—be gay? The word "gay" for me didn't represent a chosen identity; it was the diagnosis for the disease I had, the name for the attractions I desperately wanted to be rid of. I had no idea what had caused me to be gay, but I was sure of one thing: Somehow I was going to become straight.

Or so I thought.

I poured myself into learning about groups known as "ex-gay ministries," Christian organizations that offered to help gay people become straight. Their websites promised "freedom from homosexuality" for all who wanted it.

“That could be me!” I thought.

But a local ex-gay group turned out to be a big disappointment, filled with middle-aged men desperate to feel attraction to their wives that they just didn't feel, even after years of therapy. Even so, I reminded myself, they were still in therapy. They weren’t done yet. Perhaps the real success stories were the ones I had heard about on Christian radio and read about

in Christian magazines, the ones who were now leading ex-gay groups instead of attending them. I had to find out.

I discovered another local ex-gay ministry and gave them a call. A kind-sounding man on the other end of the phone listened to my story before apologetically informing me that, no, there wasn’t anything they could do for a 19-year-old with no sexual experience. Everyone in their group was much older and struggling with a lifetime of sexual addiction. Their focus was on changing those behaviors. They didn’t have any resources for a teenage virgin who just didn’t want to be gay.

Undeterred, I continued to research ex-gays through the internet and in books. I nervously came out to my parents, and once they recovered from the shock, they agreed to do whatever it took to help me in my quest to learn more and ultimately become straight. They made phone calls, wrote letters, and read even more books. They helped set up opportunities for me to meet with high-profile leaders in the ex-gay movement, and they offered to spare no expense to send me to any ex-gay conference I wanted to go to. One way or another, we were going to get this problem fixed and put it behind us. And with that attitude, we took our first bold steps into the ex-gay world—a world many Christians have heard of but few know the truth about.

A roomful of parents My parents went with me to my first ex-gay conference. I was anxious.

Spending a weekend discussing sexuality—particularly my sexuality— with my parents was not my idea of a good time! Even so, I knew it was important for me to go.

This particular conference was advertised for ex-gays and their parents. As it turned out, most of the attendees I met there were parents whose children were living openly gay lives. Their children hadn’t come with them, but the parents were there to learn what they could do to help bring their children back to the Lord.

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Elizabeth Moberly’s Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic which proposed The conference opened with a praise and worship session. Here, in the that gays had poor parental relationships. “Everything we’re going to tell midst of so many Christians singing their songs of praise to God together, you this afternoon is based on these two books,” he said.

I felt much more at ease. This—this—was what it was to be a Christian: I hadn’t yet read Moberly’s book, but I had read about it on the broken, hurting, imperfect people, united in love and gratitude to God. I internet, and I knew it didn’t fit me. It made me uneasy that the speaker could have worshiped forever in that room. I felt peace. came across as equating that one unproven theory with the Bible.

Alas, it was not to last. The keynote address was more about conEach of the men told his story. Both had distant fathers. Both had troversial political issues of the day than about how to support Christians overbearing mothers. For 45 minutes, they explained the classic reparative wrestling with their sexuality. The speaker charged his audience to fight drive theory in great detail, insisting that this distant father/overbearing against the “gay agenda,” painting the world in simplistic “us vs. them” mother paradigm explained every gay man in the world. terms: We were the Christians. They were the gays. They must be stopped I squirmed in my seat, annoyed at the misinformation. I didn’t have at all costs. a distant father or an overbearing mother. I had wonderful, loving parents.

“I think,” he said with a broad grin, “that ultimately our values are How could they make claims about going to prevail.” everyone based on their own limited His mostly straight audience the PICTURE experiences? cheered. I felt uneasy. More and more, I THEY PAINTED “Homosexuality,” one of them said, felt as if the gay people out there maybe “is an inability to relate to the same weren’t so different from me. I was still of gay-tosex.” He explained that gay men are a Christian, and I still stood for Christian straight gay because they’re unable to properly values, but I was also gay. This polarizing change WASN’T relate to other men, leading them to language didn’t sit well with me. It didn’t “sexualize their emotional needs for male seem very much like Jesus.

QUITE REALITY. companionship.”

I imagined a gay conference meeting i’m sure their at the same time, with a speaker saying Unable to properly relate to other intentions those exact same words: “Ultimately our men? I had always had plenty of close, values are going to prevail.” If this was to healthy male friendships. I had more were good. but be a battle of Gays vs. Christians, where male friends than female friends, though THE DECEPTION, did I fit in?

I had plenty of each. I’d always had close even if Other speakers followed, many of guy friends and never felt unable to rethem self-professed ex-gays. The ex-gays late to them. Nothing about this sounded unintentional, spoke often about the childhood traumas like me at all.

HAD DISASTROUS they believed had caused them to become The fact that their theory didn’t CONSEQUENCES. gay—nearly always sexual abuse, poor fit me was one thing, but what really parenting, or some combination of bothered me was watching how this talk both. Being gay, they insisted, was not was affecting the parents in the room. A something you were born with; it was something that happened to you as large percentage of the attendees were straight parents of gay sons, and a child. according to these guys, it was their fault that their sons were gay. Judging This theme permeated the conference. After one of the sessions, from their faces, many of them were taking it pretty hard.

I picked up one of the ministry’s brochures. Inside was a question-andAs I looked around, the parents’ expressions seemed to be registeranswer section. Among the questions, I saw this: ing a mixture of hope and concern. On one hand, these men were offering them hope that their gay sons could still become straight with the right Q: Is homosexuality preventable in my child? therapy. On the other hand, they were hearing that it was their own fault— A: Absolutely. Show unconditional love for your child and ensure that he and especially the fault of the fathers—that their sons were gay. One or she has positive and healthy doses of love from both parents. single mom had shared with me earlier that her gay son now had AIDS. In other words, if your child is gay, then you must not have done your I wondered how she was feeling right now, thinking that her only son’s job right as a parent. untimely death might be her fault for not providing a male role model.

I had to say something. I couldn’t watch these parents struggle with needI wondered if that was really a healthy message to be sending at a less guilt. If I didn’t reassure them, who would? conference full of parents who were already worried about their gay kids. I The presenters opened the floor for questions. I nervously raised had never been sexually abused or experienced any trauma. I had wondermy hand, and they called on me. I stood up and introduced myself. “The ful parents. What would these people say if they heard my story? model you’ve described doesn’t sound like my childhood at all,” I said.

When the time came for breakout sessions, my parents chose one “I’m attracted to the same sex, and I don’t know why. But I do know that I geared toward parents, while I went to the intriguingly titled session “The always had a good relationship with both of my parents, and I always felt Root Causes of Male Homosexuality.” This session was being taught by fully loved and accepted by them. And it just really bothers me to see all two friendly, clean-cut young gentlemen. As the session started, one of of these parents here feeling guilty and thinking that they didn’t show their them held up two books. In one hand, he held a Bible; in the other, he held kids enough love and that it’s their fault that their kids are gay. I mean,

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“Whirly” toxic-designs-redux.deviantart.com

“Change isn’t the absence of struggle” answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire. And He will deliver us out of your hand, O King.” This is my favorite part though. “But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O King, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden images that you have set up.”

Do not bow your knee because change didn’t come in the way that you expected it would or prayed it would or were told that it would. And don’t bow your knee to the golden idol of change. ... Change is possible for every believer who has a relationship with Jesus Christ if we allow that change to take root in our heart and our lives, but I’m not talking about attraction or orientation or whatever you want to call it. I’m talking about the kind of change that lasts forever.

The greatest part of my story is not that I stand before you today as someone who doesn’t struggle anymore with same-sex attraction, because the truth of the matter is, I do…It’s just my reality. Can I tell you how much those same-sex attractions impact my daily life? Very, very little.

Even on days when they are strong—and there are still days when they are—I don’t give a hoot about them. They do not define me. I don’t live my life based upon them rearing their ugly head. I don’t plan my day around them. … They don’t overwhelm my every thought. They don’t overwhelm my marriage.

They simply serve to inform the life I live and how I live it. I think we’ve made a golden idol out of change …

My hope is that as we move forward, we will help those who are impacted by these things and the church not to do that anymore.

toxic-designs-redux.deviantart.com

Exodus International, founded over three decades ago and the most prominent of the ex-gay ministries, has long promised people that “change is possible” through prayer and what is known as “reparative” therapy. So Exodus President Alan Chambers made the news earlier this year with two controversial statements: (1) He himself still experiences same-sex attraction; and (2) Exodus is distancing itself from “reparative therapy.” Below is an excerpt from his opening night address at the Exodus Freedom Conference in Minneapolis, in June of this year.

For anybody who has a relationship with Jesus Christ, change is possible. But what does that change look like? Does that mean you’ll never be tempted again? Does that mean you won’t ever struggle again? Does that mean you’re … guaranteed heterosexual attractions?

Does that mean you’re guaranteed a spouse? Does that mean the marriage that you’re in now will be miraculously transformed and you won’t ever have to deal with [same-sex attractions] again?

No, of course it doesn’t. Change isn’t the absence of struggle. It’s the freedom in the midst of that struggle to make a different decision. God’s given us the power to make different decisions. He’s given us the power to overcome the temptations that we face every day.

It doesn’t mean we will do that perfectly, and I don’t know what time frame it will be until you are mature in the areas that you are immature in today. What I do know is that when we surrender our hearts and our minds and our feelings and our emotions and our struggles and our temptations and our desires and everything else to the lordship of Christ, he gives us the ability to overcome. It’s a simple message. For some people that will look very differently than [it will for] others. There are some whose temptations and struggles won’t ever change. And we’ve been guilty in the body of Christ of shaming people for that. We’ve been guilty in the body of Christ—and at times we’ve been guilty at Exodus—of making people feel “less than” because they still struggle.

I don’t know of any greater testimony than the person who’s stuck in the wheelchair, praying every day that they will be freed from that wheelchair and yet in the midst of it raising their hands and praising the Lord. That will be some of your realities. Others of you will experience a different reality—a change in your temptations, freedom in areas that others won’t experience, the kind of freedom that they’ve prayed for…

Daniel 3:16-18 is one of my very favorite passages of all time. It says, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, ‘Oh Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an

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what if it’s not that? What if it’s something else? I don’t know what, but something else. I just think we should consider that possibility. I hate for all these parents to blame themselves.”

I suddenly realized that I was giving a speech more than asking a question. My face got hot and I sat down. The presenters seemed perturbed, but I had said what I needed to say. They dismissively agreed that parents shouldn’t focus on self-blame, then quickly moved to another question.

I wondered if I had done the right thing. I hadn’t meant to be confrontational or argumentative.

As if in answer to my silent question, a man in front of me turned around and spoke to me as the session ended. “I’m so glad you said what you did,” he said. “If you hadn’t, I was going to.” He leaned in to tell me his story. “The stuff these guys were talking about, that fits my childhood to a T. My father was cold and distant. He was never there for me. I never felt loved by him. I didn’t have a good male role model in my life. My mother was bossy and overprotective. Every little thing those guys talked about sounded exactly like how I grew up.”

His eyes lit up as he arrived at the twist in his story. “I’m heterosexual,” he said. “Never had a gay thought or feeling in my life. When I got married and had a son, I didn’t want him to have the kind of childhood I did, so I made sure I was always there for him. Everything my father wasn’t. My son and I have a terrific relationship. He says so, and I know so. A few years ago, I found out that he’s gay. According to these guys, I should have been gay, not him!” He chuckled wistfully.

People were getting up to leave the room. A college-aged girl walked over and shook my hand. “Thank you,” she said to me. “My brother is gay, and our parents aren’t anything like those guys said. It’s very good to know that there are other gay people who didn’t have that kind of family either. I thought I was crazy, listening to them describe something that sounds nothing at all like my family.” She introduced me to her mother, and the three of us had lunch together.

Later that day I ran into Jesse, one of the presenters of the “Root Causes” workshop. He recognized me and walked over, glancing at my name tag.

“Justin,” he said, the slight edge to his voice belying his gentle smile, “I know you have your own beliefs, but during this weekend I think it would be helpful if you would just listen to what we teach.”

His tone caught me off guard. I tried to be conciliatory. “Oh, gosh, I honestly didn’t mean to sound confrontational this morning,” I said. “I just didn’t want all those parents to feel guilty, you know?”

“Well, the people you’ve been talking to may have told you things that are different from what we teach, but you’re only here for three days, and I think it would be most worthwhile to you to just listen for the time you have left here.”

The people I’d been talking to? “Wait a second,” I said. “I didn’t say that stuff because of anyone I’ve been talking to. This is coming from me.

I don’t fit the Moberly theory. That’s just my life. I didn’t have a distant father or any of that stuff.”

“I didn’t think I did either,” he replied coolly, “until I got into therapy and started looking harder.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

What kind of ministry takes a person who thinks he has a wonderful relationship with his father and convinces him that he actually has a bad one? This was feeling less and less like the work of God to me.

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in wonderland, words mean whatever the characters choose for them to mean, regardless of their USUAL DEFINITIONS. this results in much CONFUSION for poor alice, who has no way of seeing into their heads. in the real world, communication depends on a SHARED UNDERSTANDING of what a word means.

As I met more people at this conference and others, I discovered that I was far from alone. Many people told me similar stories of growing up happily, having healthy relationships with their parents, and then being pressured by ex-gay groups to find fault with their upbringing. But even as the evidence piled up that there were plenty of gay people without distant fathers and overbearing mothers, that paradigm remained far and away the most popular explanation these ministries had for our gay feelings. The people I kept meeting who didn’t fit that pattern were largely ignored or shoehorned in, forced to revisit their childhood memories over and over until they found some sort of problem to blame everything on. Challenge that, and you just might be labeled a heretic.

As it was, I was losing my faith. Not in God but in ex-gays.

Down the rabbit hole In one of my favorite scenes in Through the Looking-Glass, the second of Lewis Carroll’s two Alice books, Alice meets Humpty Dumpty, who perplexes her by using the word "glory" to mean "a nice knock-down argument."

When she protests the definition, he replies, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

In Wonderland, words mean whatever the characters choose for them to mean, regardless of their usual definitions. This results in much confusion for poor Alice, who has no way of seeing into their heads. In the real world, communication depends on a shared understanding of what a word means.

Word meanings do change over time as our culture changes, but these are gradual shifts. Any meaning of a word must be widely understood before we can safely use that word to communicate. If I suddenly start using a word to mean something different from what most people mean by that word, I’ll only confuse people at best. At worst, by choosing a definition that’s more convenient for me, I could deliberately mislead them.

The word “gay” in our culture usually means “attracted to the same sex.” In movies and on television, when characters say they’re gay, we understand that that means they’re attracted to their own sex. If a teenage boy says, “Mom, Dad, I think I’m gay,” he’s saying that he’s attracted

to his own sex.

So when I first heard the testimonies of people who said they “used to be gay” but weren’t anymore, I interpreted that to mean that they used to be attracted to the same sex, and now they weren’t. I thought that “exgays” were people who used to be gay but now were straight—attracted to the opposite sex.

That turned out not to be true.

Online and at ex-gay conferences, I did hear a number of testimonies of people who said they had been healed of their homosexuality—the “success stories” of the movement. I listened to them carefully, asking lots of questions when possible. But what I heard wasn’t what I had expected.

Most of the men’s stories followed a predictable pattern. Like me, they had developed attractions to other guys at puberty, but unlike me, nearly all of them had decided to act on those feelings at some point. Many had sordid stories of promiscuous, anonymous sex and/or drug and alcohol abuse.

In their minds, these addictive and risky behaviors represented what it meant to be gay, and they had found that lifestyle to be woefully unfulfilling.

Somewhere along the way, they had become Christians or reignited their faith, prompting them to feel convicted that the lives they were leading were sinful. With the help of ex-gay groups, therapy, and prayer, they had walked away from their past behaviors.

The testimonies were powerful reminders of how God changes lives.

It was largely faith in God that enabled them to overcome a history of sexual addiction and substance abuse. Their behaviors had completely changed, and they were happier for it.

But there was one thing missing in all of their testimonies. None of them seemed to be becoming straight. They had changed their behaviors, sometimes in dramatic ways. Some had not had any sexual contact in years. Others had gone so far as to date and marry a member of the opposite sex. But almost universally, when I asked, they confessed that they still had the same kind of same-sex attractions I did.

In ex-gay circles, I learned, the word “gay” didn’t mean “attracted to the same sex.” At ex-gay conferences, I often ran into ex-gay leaders who publicly testified that they were “no longer gay” even while privately confessing that they still had same-sex attractions. How was this possible?

Were they just lying to everyone? No, not exactly. But like Humpty Dumpty, they had redefined their terms without explaining what they meant.

Instead of using “gay” to mean “attracted to the same sex,” they redefined it to refer to sexual behaviors they were no longer engaging in or a loosely defined cultural “identity” they didn’t accept. According to their new definitions, anyone who attended an ex-gay group could call themselves “no longer gay” without ever experiencing any change in their attractions. Even the ex-gays who sometimes slipped up and gave in to their temptations through occasional sexual trysts still considered themselves “not gay” because they didn’t “identify that way.”

I could understand that they didn’t want to identify with their former way of life. In their minds, “gay” encompassed a whole sinful and selfdestructive lifestyle. But by giving public testimony that they weren’t “gay” anymore, they were leading millions of Christians to believe that they had become straight, when that wasn’t true. And those misleading testimonies were getting a lot of attention on Christian radio, in Christian magazines, and in churches around the world.

Part of the problem was that neither these leaders, nor their audiences, were careful to distinguish between sexual behaviors and sexual attractions. When people like me said we were gay, it was because of our

attractions. When the ex-gay leaders said they weren’t gay, it was because of their behaviors.

When other Christians heard these testimonies of men who used to live promiscuous gay lives but had experienced “healing” and were now married to women, they naturally assumed that the men’s attractions had changed as well and that they were now straight. That wasn’t true, but no one seemed particularly interested in correcting the misconception.

The ex-gays knew, of course, that they were still attracted to the same sex, but many of them dismissed this as “residual temptations” resulting from a lifetime of behaving badly. “Those years of gay life will always have some effect on me,” one ex-gay leader explained to me. “I will never be as if I didn’t have that in my past.” Another leader insisted that same-sex-attracted Christians like me who hadn’t acted on their feelings would have a relatively easy time ridding themselves of those feelings and becoming completely straight. He didn’t actually know anyone who had done it, but still…

Other ex-gays explained their continuing attractions as part of a “process” or “journey.” Although they hadn’t fully changed their attractions yet, they were sure that they were in the process of changing and that these attractions didn’t have quite as much of a hold on them as they had in the past.

In one sense, I have no doubt this was true. In the past, many of them had experienced their attractions as something like an addiction or compulsion. With therapy and prayer, they had broken the stranglehold their sex drives had once had on their behavior. They were in control now, not their sex drives, and that was a freeing and healthy experience. In addition, many of these men were getting older, and their libidos no longer felt as urgent as they had in their teenage years. But if a heterosexual woman overcomes a life of sexual addiction, that doesn’t mean she is becoming less heterosexual, and if a heterosexual man finds that the urgency of his sex drive toward women isn’t as strong at age 68 as it was at 18, that doesn’t mean his orientation has changed. It’s just a natural part of life.

For all the ex-gay talk of this journey toward becoming straight, no one ever seemed to actually get there.

That wasn’t the message the Christians back home heard, though.

They heard that thousands upon thousands of people were “leaving homosexuality” and that those ex-gays’ lives provided proof that there was hope for their gay loved ones to become straight too.

Christians really are a compassionate bunch, even though the cultural reputation we have right now doesn’t reflect that. Because so many Christians—especially evangelical Christians like me—believed that gay relationships were sinful, they also wanted to believe that there was some way that gay people could become straight so that they could legitimately enjoy all the benefits of romance and marriage. The ex-gays, too, wanted to believe this and to provide hope to others. Unfortunately, sometimes that desire for hope got in the way of being completely honest.

I wasn’t immune to this. In 1996, shortly after realizing I was gay, I read a column by advice columnist Ann Landers in which parents of a gay son asked about counseling to help him become straight. “A 20-year-old male who has romantic fantasies about other males is unquestionably homosexual,” Landers wrote in response. “Counseling will not ‘straighten him around.’ Nor is there any medication that will perform that magic.”

At the time, I was convinced Landers was wrong. I worried about all the struggling teens out there like me, and I knew I needed to set the record

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If a heterosexual woman overcomes a life of sexual addiction, that doesn’t mean she is becoming less heterosexual, and if a heterosexual man finds that the urgency of his sex drive toward women isn’t as strong at age 68 as it was at 18, that doesn’t mean his orientation has changed. It’s just a natural part of life. straight (so to speak) and tell them that change was possible. I wrote a letter identifying myself as a gay teen who was becoming straight, urging others to trust God and have hope that they, too, could become straight like me. My life was proof.

The letter sat on my desk for days. I couldn’t quite bring myself to mail it. At the time, I believed with all my heart that I was going to become straight and that I was in the process already. But in the letter I had exaggerated the amount of “change” I was actually experiencing. I hadn’t lied, but I hadn’t been completely honest either. The trouble was, if I was honest about the lack of attraction change I had experienced so far, I knew no one would take my story seriously. They would write me off as deceiving myself. If I waited until after my feelings had changed before writing, I’d be too late to respond to this column. I had to respond right away, and I was so certain that I was in the process of becoming straight that it didn’t feel like a lie to lead people to believe that I was further along in the process than was actually true.

In the end, I couldn’t send the letter. It felt too much like deception, and as a Christian I believed it was wrong to lie, even for what I was sure was a good cause.

I thought back to that letter when I later noticed the differences between some ex-gay men’s public testimonies and the real-life struggles they shared in private. I’m convinced that many of them, like me, didn’t really want to be deceptive; they just wanted to provide hope, and sometimes that meant not quite telling people everything. They’d minimize the amount of same-sex attraction they still felt, for instance, and focus on their commitment to their wives without mentioning their lack of sexual attraction to the female form or the related impact on their marriages.

It seemed justified. Who would expect them to reveal such intimate

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struggles? And yet the end result was that the picture they painted of gay-to-straight change wasn’t quite the reality. I’m sure their intentions were good. But the deception, even if unintentional, had disastrous consequences.

Truth in advertising To this day, many ex-gay organizations continue to promote a mixed message when it comes to orientation change. Some leaders within these ministries have been pushing for years for more openness and honesty about the reality that therapy can’t make gay people straight and that what’s typically happening is behavior change, not orientation (that is, attraction) change. They’ve argued for more “truth in advertising,” urging their organizations to stop leading people to believe they can become straight and to focus instead on helping people overcome sexual addictions and improve their relationship with God. Unfortunately those people have been frequently outnumbered by those who find the “anyone can change” message to be too appealing to resist.

The Christians who continue to recommend ex-gay ministries to people do so with the best of intentions. They’ve heard testimonies by ex-gay leaders or seen ads promising “hope for change,” and they’ve believed it.

Every time I see one of those ads, I think of the companies who market diet “miracle pills” promising to melt away the unwanted pounds.

Less reputable companies have been known to pay fit models to temporarily gain weight for a “before” picture, then return to their normal exercise and eating habits, leaving them looking muscular and trim for an “after” picture that in reality has little if anything to do with the drug. The ad crows about how many pounds they lost in only a few weeks, while fine print at the bottom warns “Results not typical.”

If they were being completely honest, ex-gay organizations would put “results not typical” at the bottom of their published testimonies as well. Like the diet ads, those testimonies often don’t tell the whole story, and even if they did, they don’t represent what happens to most people who go through these ministries. If Christians were truly aware of what does happen, they’d abandon the ex-gay approach and never recommend these ministries again.

Justin Lee is the founder and executive director of the Gay Christian Network (GayChristian.net), a nonprofit, interdenominational organization serving LGBT Christians and those who care about them. Focusing on building bridges between those who disagree, Lee has been featured in numerous national print, radio, and television venues. This article was adapted from Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate, © 2012 by Justin Lee, just released by Jericho Books (JerichoBooks.com). It appears here by kind permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. Learn more and follow Lee’s weblog at TornBook.com.

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A Difficult CuRriculum Discerning God’s voice in the midst of the struggle

by Tim Otto

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“But the serpent said to the woman. ‘You will not die; for the God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”

Genesis 3:4 “...we seek a truth system with which to defend ourselves as those who possess it, rather than being claimed by a Lord who calls us to join him in his condescension.”

- John Howard Yoder in To Hear the Word

I am

a gay man and a deeply committed follower of Jesus and member of his church.

The debate and division in the church over homosexuality is very personal to me. I feel that the whole debate—not just one side of it—has taken a very wrong turn.

I remember sitting at a restaurant table on an evening I had hoped to enjoy, being angrily lectured by a young woman whose goal was to help students at her seminary become more sensitive to gays and lesbians. I had made the mistake of admitting to her that I, a gay man, after years of study on the issue, was still sympathetic to both sides. That wasn’t acceptable. Those who held the traditional view of homosexuality were [fill in a few epithets], oppressors, on the wrong side of the defining civil rights struggle of our time. And on she went, as I began to wonder whether I should say something rude to get her to stop.

And she really thought she was sensitive to gay people.

I remember sitting in a classroom hearing a pastor tell the story, told in a tone of heroic martyrdom, of how he had split his church over the issue. When the question came up among his parishioners, he had “preached the Scripture,” dividing the church down the middle. After some drama he’d resigned and started a new church just blocks away—at which 300 members of his former congregation “just showed up.” “That is the cost you must sometimes pay when you preach the gospel,” he said. I sat there staring at him, wondering where in all this was the call to love the LGBT community as Christ loves them.

And he really thought he loved Christ’s church.

Something is wrong.

In 1988, at the age of 23, I made my way to San Francisco, where my mentor Jack Bernard lived, with knots in my stomach. For me the debate over homosexuality was not an abstract debate but a live question about how I was going to live my life. I had told few people about being gay, and I was on the verge of giving up my faith. Still, I had a slim hope: Jack.

Jack was the ace of all trades. He had been a pilot, a racecar driver, an accomplished climber, skier, biker, and woodworker. When he became a Christian, he set out to “ace” Christianity as well: He went to seminary and then became a missionary.

But he quickly realized that, in spite of his discipline and talents, he wasn’t acing Christianity. He would repeatedly set out with great resolve to “become a good Christian” but then would quickly stall out due to distraction with small things. This happened so often that he began to despair. He despaired not so much of God but of himself.

And it was despairing of himself that most transformed him. He began to see all his frantic efforts at achievement—at “getting it right,” at “making the grade”—as his own pathetic efforts at being God and at

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creating his own salvation. And so Jack determined that he would learn the way of faith. He became clear that God would be the one to save him, and not his own discipline, doings, or doctrines.

Although Jack was an area director for the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society, I was never sure, given his radical faith, how he would respond to any particular dilemma. I had never told Jack about being gay, and all I knew was that from Jack I could expect the unexpected.

Since I had last seen him, Jack and his wife had moved into a little Christian community that was trying to live out God’s love in the Mission District of San Francisco. I had arranged to live with the community for a time, in order to sort out my life.

At one of the first community meetings I attended, I gathered my courage and said, “I’m Christian, and I’m gay, and I have no idea how those two things might go together. If possible I’d like to try to figure that out with you all.”

After the meeting Jack took me aside. “I don’t know what all to think about homosexuality," he told me, “but I am convinced that it is God’s gift to you, and you are God’s gift to us.”

At that crucial point in my life, Jack instinctively took on the lens of faith and asked the question “What is God doing in you and in us?”

Confident that God’s first concern was not that we “get it right” but that we trust, Jack was able to believe that God was at work even in this.

I suspect that the church at large is at a similar crucial point. Our first instinct is to sort out what God thinks about homosexuality in an attempt to be good and get it right. It is understandable that our first question or declaration will have to do with whether gay acts are “right or wrong.”

On the traditional side there is the concern that, in the words of 1 Corinthians 6:9, “sodomites” will “not inherit the kingdom of God.” To those on the traditional side, it seems obvious that those who affirm gay unions are ignoring the plain sense of Scripture and endangering their own salvation as well as that of others.

On the affirming side there is the concern that, like the Pharisees of the 1st century, the traditionalists are reading Scripture in literalist ways that don’t apply to people who have a natural and normal variation on human sexuality. In the words of Matthew 23:4, “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.”

For both sides the “right or wrong” question seems like the essential question, and any other approach is a cowardly and harmful evasion.

But, to borrow a metaphor from Oliver O’ Donovan, the “right or wrong” question may, like a breach birth, put the whole matter at the wrong angle. We may need to turn the question before any helpful answer is delivered.

At present it seems to me that the church is bloodied and worn out from the internal war over this issue, that gays and lesbians on both the conservative and liberal sides of the church have experienced little “good news,” and that our witness to the world is in terrible disarray.

It is time to try a different approach.

I propose that, following Jack’s example, a better first question might be: “Given that the church has members who are gay, and given the controversy in the church related to homosexuality, how might God be working for the good?”

I think there are at least three good reasons for doing this.

The first reason is that it puts faith first. The most fundamental

marker of God’s people is that we are a people who live by faith, not that we have everything figured out. As Genesis 3:4 suggests, Adam and Eve’s sin was not primarily that they chose evil in place of good. (In some sense, they did not yet know good from evil.) It was that they didn’t trust God. They believed that somehow God was holding out on them. In part, it was their desire to define good and evil for themselves that led them away from God. It led them away from a childlike trust in God’s goodness to a desire

hy do Christians disagree about a matter central to living W out the Christian life—either their own life or the lives of others who claim the name of Christ? …

Is dimness on [the issue of homosexuality] and other issues a result of the Fall? Or is this a disguised blessing? Could our divergence of perspectives become a resource for Christian discipleship? When you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? When you love those who share your views on matters you think central to the faith, what credit is that to you?

You don’t need grace for that. We do need grace and mercy and wisdom, and a life saturated with prayerful seeking, to live out our life together in light of our very real disagreements.

I’ve often thought about the parable of the prodigal son as a story that is meant to enrich our compassion for God. When the prodigal returns, his elder brother exits the house as the father prepares the welcome feast. How does a father feel when he cannot keep his sons both living in the same house, having the same celebration? Will a shared eternity of enjoying God be possible for all those whom God longs to have fellowship with if we cannot love one another and be in fellowship despite our differences? The kingdom of heaven is a realm in which all those present can be unconditionally joyful about sharing the same “space.” Can we Christians take baby steps to being able to do that here on earth? Can those of us who think we know God’s will on this matter speak that truth in loving ways that are not themselves arrogant or dismissive of alternative views? Can those of us who find this issue profoundly confusing continue to seek wisdom rather than avoiding hard questions and issues? Aren’t we obliged to take such steps by our praying as Jesus taught us to pray: “Your kingdom come; your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”?

-from Bringing Sex Into Focus by Caroline J. Simon, © 2012. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, IVPress.com.

to be little gods themselves—defining good from evil.

I suggest that we begin by admitting that we are fallen—that we are not God and that our best reasoning about Scripture, tradition, and good and evil is human and fallible. But we trust that God is with us—especially in the most difficult of times—and that God is working for the good even in something like the struggle the church is facing regarding homosexuality.

Secondly, the question “How might God be working for the good?” helps us toward a more complete picture of God’s will than just asking the “right or wrong” question does. Single pieces of knowledge like “It’s wrong to cross the street on red” or “It’s okay to cross on green” are useful as far as they go. They may help us avoid terrible accidents. But if you don’t know where you are going, obeying all the rules won’t get you home.

Asking “How is God working for the good?” is a way of asking “Which way is home, and what would it look like if we got there?” It helps us pay attention to direction and obstacles and all sorts of things we might miss if we are only focused on the rule.

Thirdly, the question “How might God be working for the good?” helps us pay attention to actual people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who wrote The Cost of Discipleship and was killed by the Nazis for his opposition to Hitler, wrote in his Ethics: “Christ did not, like a moralist, love a theory of good, but he loved the real man. He was not, like a philosopher, interested in the ‘universally valid,’ but rather in that which is of help to the real and concrete human being.”

Hopefully my proposal means that we may, like Christ, be more willing to enter into the midst of struggle with our brothers and sisters rather than simply make moral pronouncements on them.

Early in my own experience I told an older Christian woman about my attraction to guys. She sat me down and carefully explained the dangers of rebellion. She pointed out the Scripture verses that condemn homosexuality. At the time I believed that she was probably right; yet I was surprised by how much I disliked her instant diagnosis of me as rebellious because I was gay, and how much I disliked her dispensing of verses like pills.

How unlike my experience with Jack. When I told Jack of my struggle, his eyes sparkled with a curiosity that seemed to say, “I wonder what God is up to in Tim!” In that vulnerable moment, when I opened up to Jack and the community, Jack acknowledged the difficult ethical problem, but he didn’t see me as the ethical problem. As Jack and the community struggled to listen to me, think with me, walk with me (and on occasion say very difficult things to me), I felt I was encountering the love and care of Jesus. At that crucial moment an opening appeared in my life, an opening that has allowed me to walk forward into faith.

To begin by seeing with the eyes of faith means believing that even in this difficult struggle we might learn something, and that as we struggle with it in faith, it may yield a blessing. If, as Luther said, even the devil is God’s devil, then perhaps God is using our Christian brothers and sisters who disagree with us to teach us something.

Eugene Rodgers has said that a charitable view of the traditional side is that it is concerned for righteousness. A charitable view of the affirming side is that it is concerned for justice.

Interestingly, justice and righteousness are both possible translations for the same Hebrew and Greek words. As I’ve struggled with both sides for decades, I’ve come to believe that both sides need each other for all of us to get closer to God’s truth.

I have both conservative and liberal Christian friends and have seen

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eyes of faith

To begin by seeing with the means believing that even in this difficult struggle we might learn something, and that as we struggle with it in faith, it may . Perhaps God is using our Christian brothers and sisters who disagree with us to .

a blessing

yield

teach us something

something of what they have to offer each other. The fact that conservative Christians often feel closer to politically conservative non-Christians than to liberal sisters and brothers in Christ, and vice versa, makes me think that we’re all more immersed in worldly ways of reasoning than in the Christian story. I hope that by putting aside the question of “right and wrong” for a brief moment we can get closer to a Christian account of sexuality, and therefore closer to a truly Christian conversation on the topic.

After hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of reading, prayer, and conversation, I’ve come to believe that central arguments of both the left and right are based on the faulty story of the Enlightenment rather than the Christian story. I’ve also realized that coming to a final “answer” as to the morality of homosexual practice is far more difficult than most of us imagine.

But I do think that the faith question will lead us into truth. Truth which, surprisingly enough, may be bigger than the “right or wrong” question. Truth that will require not simply the ease of “right” judgments but costly changes in how we all live. Flannery O’Connor said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you odd.”

Specifically, I think that if Christians are going to make any kind of intelligible case one way or the other, it will mean forming faith communities that demand far more of all Christians—communities that make us odd, generous blessings to the world.

Mostly, though, I want to see you deal with the actual individuals God brings into your life. Maybe you are a youth minister who knows that one of your kids is gay or lesbian. Even if you are fairly confident that you know the answer to whether God approves of or condemns same-sex relationships, I hope you will first ask, “What is God doing in this kid’s life, and how do I cooperate with that?” Maybe you are in a denomination that is debating the ordination of openly gay or lesbian pastors. Perhaps you are firmly convinced of one side or the other. Still, I would urge you to ask, “What is God doing in giving us this struggle?” Maybe you are gay or lesbian. I hope that you are asking, “What is God doing in giving this gift to me?”

One way I’ve experienced homosexuality as a gift is that it has helped me see my need for God. A conservative perspective might agree with St. Thérèse of Lisieux who said, “Take a list of all your good traits and bad. Attribute the good traits to Christ. Keep all the bad traits as your treasures. They are the very source of God’s mercy in your life.”

Perhaps some of you think you already know what God is doing.

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The traditionalist might say, “God is asking that we be holy and respect Scripture!” The affirming person might respond, “God has always been on the side of the oppressed; God wants us to do justice!” While there may be something to both of these perspectives, those quick answers are a way of conducting the same old argument by other means. It makes the “right or wrong” question primary, and then bases the answer to “What might God be doing?” on that.

But faith isn’t only about debating truth. Faith is also about believing that God is with us—right in the middle of all the difficulty and uncertainty.

Faith is about trying to discern what God might be doing in the midst of us.

My friend Eric gave me a good example of this. Eric is bipolar and told me about a manic episode he had. He hardly slept for weeks, bought hundreds of CDs, stalked a girl he was interested in, and alienated his pastor.

Reflecting on all this, Eric realized his need for community and structure.

He concluded his story by telling me, “God has given me a difficult curriculum.” Eric chose to believe that God had not abandoned him but rather was using the difficulty of a manic episode to accomplish his purposes in Eric’s life.

I suspect that in each of our lives there is a “difficult curriculum” which can either harden and embitter us or, if we choose the eyes of faith, can grow us into the people God intends us to be. I’ve experienced homosexuality as a difficult curriculum. But as “curriculum” implies, I’ve come to see homosexuality as a gift that has grown me, matured me, and helped me see truth that I otherwise would have missed.

I think the church is in the same position. This can be another sad chapter in church history of fighting and factionalism. Or we can realize that we have a tremendous opportunity ahead of us and, by exercising faith, grow even in this situation because of our God’s goodness and grace.

Tim Otto is the preaching-teaching pastor at Church of the Sojourners, a live-together church community in San Francisco, Calif. He participated in ESA’s Oriented to Love dialogue; you can read his reflection on that experience on page 12.

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Devoutly Mormon.

Happily Married.

Undeniably Gay.

by Josh Weed

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“Body Language” by Sean McGrath (SeanMcGrath.ca)

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After 10 years of marriage, a gay man and his wife share their story

L

olly and I have several reasons for opening up about this part of our lives. First and foremost, my clinical work as a therapist is taking me in the direction of helping clients who want to reconcile their sexual orientation with their religious beliefs, and I have decided to be open with these clients about my own homosexuality. The second reason is that the issue of homosexuality is not very well understood, and we want to add our voice and experience to the dialogue. Thirdly, I have found that sharing this part of me allows my relationships with others to be more authentic; it has deepened my friendships, enhanced my interactions, and given others the opportunity to choose to accept me for who I really am.

Below are some of the questions we’re most frequently asked. We hope that answering these will help you understand how we make sense of this delicate and complicated issue in our lives.

1. What do you mean when you say you’re “gay”?

When I say I am gay or same-sex attracted, I refer specifically to sexual orientation. It’s really as simple as what a girl asked me in junior high: “So, if everyone in this room took off their clothes, would you be turned on by the girls or the guys?” My answer, which I didn’t say out loud, was unquestionably the guys. And it was unquestionably not the girls. And that still is my answer. It’s really not very complicated. Most people just don’t think about their sexual orientation because they don’t have any reason to.

2. When did you know you were gay?

I knew I was gay when I was 11 or 12. For a little while I was waiting for the attraction to girls to set in, because that’s what everyone said would happen at puberty, but then there was a sinking moment of realization— the girl thing wasn’t going to happen, but the guy thing was totally happening. I told my parents shortly thereafter, when it seemed pretty clear that my sexuality wasn’t playing a trick on me. My father was a lay leader in the Mormon Church at the time, but my parents were incredibly loving and supportive, which is part of why I believe I’m so well adjusted today.

I never felt judged or unwanted or that they wished to change anything about me. That’s partly why I have never been ashamed about this part of myself. I feel plenty of shame about other irrational things, like the fact that I can’t catch a ball or change a tire (and I’m working on that stuff, because toxic shame isn’t a good thing), but I’ve never felt shame about who I am or about this feature of me, which is a critical part of my person in the same way that sexuality is a critical part of any person.

3. If you’re happily married to a woman, how can you really be gay?

Some people assume that because I’m married to a woman I must be bisexual. This would be true if sexual orientation was defined by sexual experience, but it is defined not by experience but rather by attraction.

In my case, I am attracted sexually to men. Period. Yet my marriage is wonderful, and Lolly and I have an extremely healthy and robust sex life.

How can this be?

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What people are really asking with the above question is “How can you be gay if your primary sex partner is a woman?” I didn’t fully understand the answer to this question until I was doing research on sexuality in grad school, even though I had been happily married for almost five years at that point. I knew that I was gay, and I also knew that sex with my wife was enjoyable. But I didn’t understand how that was happening.

Here is the basic reality that I think many people could use a lesson in: Sex is about more than just visual attraction, lust, passion, and infatuation. When sex is done right, it is at its deepest level about intimacy. It is a beautiful physical manifestation of two people being connected because they love each other profoundly. It is bodies connecting and souls connecting. It is beautiful and rich and fulfilling and spiritual. Many people never get to this point in their sex lives, because it requires high levels of communication, trust, and vulnerability. And Lolly and I have had that from day one, mostly because we weren’t distracted by the powerful chemicals of infatuation and obsession that usually bring a couple together but dwindle dramatically after the first few years of marriage anyway.

So, in a weird way, the circumstances of our marriage allowed us to build a sexual relationship based on everything partners should want in their sex life: intimacy, communication, and genuine love and affection. This has resulted in us having a better sex life than most people I personally know—most of whom are straight. Go figure.

4. Did your wife know you were gay when you married her?

Yes. I told Lolly about my homosexuality when I was 16 and we were on a date. That may have been the most important day of my life. Everything I have in life that I cherish—the love of my life, my career, my education, coming home to three beautiful daughters screaming “Daddy, Daddy!” with glee—hinged on that fateful day at Pizza Hut and on a wonderful girl who was compassionate and open-minded and willing to listen to a young gay kid who was lonely and desperate for a soft place to land and to be heard.

(See “Lolly’s Turn” on opposite page for Lolly’s side of the story.)

5. Why do you not choose to be “true to yourself” and live the gay lifestyle?

First of all, I understand that when people refer to a “gay lifestyle” they are talking about a lifestyle that includes gay romantic and sexual relationships. But I want to point out that because I am gay any lifestyle I choose is technically a “gay lifestyle.” Mine just looks different from those of other gay people. My hope is that other gays will be as accepting of my choices as they hope others would be of theirs.

But that doesn’t really answer the question. And it is an important question. One of the sad truths about being gay is that no matter what you decide for your future, you have to sacrifice something. I think this is true of life in general, but with homosexuality the choices seem to be a little bit more mutually exclusive. If you are Mormon and you choose to live out your faith, you are sacrificing the ability to have a romantic rela-

Lolly’s Turn: Why would a woman choose to marry a gay man?

I have known Josh and loved him for a very long time. We met as small children when we lived on the same street. In high school we went on our first date, and that is when Josh told me that he was gay. I was the first person he told, aside from his own parents. I will never forget the look on his face during the first moments of that conversation. From that look, I knew that he was feeling extremely vulnerable in what he had just shared and that what he was dealing with was very hard and very real for him. Knowing Josh’s beliefs in our church, the first question that came to my mind was “What are you going to do about it?”

We talked at length that night about the reality of being gay in the Mormon Church. Josh told me that he believed in the doctrine of the church and that he wanted to do what God wanted him to do. During the course of that conversation, my mind became overwhelmed by the complexities of the issue he was facing and how alone he felt in facing them.

I was determined to be an ally and friend to him in regards to this issue. We spent many hours over the course of several years hammering out what it meant in general and what it meant for him. Why was he gay? What did God expect him to do?

Josh’s commitment to God was so apparent to me as we discussed the choices ahead of him. My admiration and respect deepened immensely for him. Our friendship grew, and I truly loved him. He told me he wanted to go on a mission for the church and that he would also like to get married and have a family. I believed that those things were possible for him, but I never thought it would be with me.

The possibility of us becoming more than friends would come up every now and then, but I would dismiss it quickly. My parents taught me that sex is sacred, enjoyable, and something to look forward to in marriage. I saw the important role that intimacy played in successful marriages, and that was one aspect of marriage I was greatly anticipating. Therefore, in my mind, marrying someone gay was completely out of the question.

One day Josh asked me, “If you won’t consider marrying me, then who will?” I responded with, “I’m sure there is someone out there for you.

It’s just not me. Maybe you need to find someone who doesn’t care about sex.” He thought that line of thinking was wrong, but I couldn’t think of another solution for him.

Josh’s first year at college, he got a girlfriend who also happened to be my best friend. I loved both of them very much and was very happy for them. Yet, something unexpected happened. I started to feel jealous. They ended up breaking up shortly after the semester ended, but the feelings of jealousy that I had experienced in regards to their relationship threw me off guard. I started to seriously examine my feelings for Josh.

In a moment of honest reflection, I realized that Josh was everything I wanted in a husband—except for the huge fact that he was gay. He was dedicated to God above all else and loved his Savior deeply. He was kind, sincere, honest, and so much fun. I connected with him in ways I did not connect with anyone else. But he was gay, and I didn’t know if I could handle that in a marriage.

I ended up confessing my feelings to him one day on a whim. He admitted that he felt the same for me—that I was everything he wanted in a wife. I had never been more excited or confused. It was an amazing experience for both of us, falling in love with our best friend.

Before he left on his mission, I was still not sure if I could actually marry him. The intimacy factor was so important to me. During the course of dating, we held hands and kissed. It was promising, but I didn’t know if we had enough chemistry.

One day, Josh asked simply, “Am I worth it to you?” I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that question. We then talked about how you are accepting a person as a package deal when you get married—the good, the bad, the hard, the terrific, and the imperfect. He wanted to know if I loved the rest of him enough that I could deal with the realities his homosexuality would bring to our marriage. I honestly could not answer him then.

A few months later I asked a good friend of mine, “I can find someone else like Josh, right? Someone else to love like I love him?” She said, “You could find someone else to love, sure. But you will never have with someone else what you and Josh have. Because no one else is Josh.” When she said that, I knew the answer to his question “Am I worth it?”

I knew that I loved Josh—all of him. I wanted to marry him because I loved the man he was and everything that made him him. I didn’t want anyone else. I knew we had the kind of relationship that could survive trials and difficult circumstances. I had faith in him and in our love.

I did not choose to marry someone who is gay. I chose to marry Josh Weed, the man I love, and to accept all of him. I have never regretted it.

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tionship with a same-sex partner. If you choose a same-sex partner, you are sacrificing the ability to have a biological family with the one you love.

And so on. No matter what path you choose, you are giving up things that are basic. I chose not to “live the gay lifestyle,” as it were, because I found that what I would have to give up wasn’t worth the sacrifice for me. The things I wasn’t willing to part with were my faith, my traditional views, and Lolly.

I believe the doctrine of the Mormon Church is true. One of the key doctrines of the church is that “marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of his children.” Another is that “children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.” Time and time again, my experience has shown me that when I follow the teachings I know in the deepest part of my soul to be true, my life is blessed and I find immense joy and peace. Deciding not to give up these profound spiritual beliefs in favor of my sexual orientation required a great deal of faith, but I can honestly say that for me it has been completely worth it—and I thank God for blessing me for my obedience.

I am a traditionalist at heart. I wanted a wife. I wanted to raise children who were biologically the product of me and the one I love.

Thankfully, Lolly was willing to marry me, and we found ourselves able to conceive children. Sometimes as I wrestle in the living room with my three daughters, or watch them eat cookies with chocolaty mouths and lots of giggles, or read them stories before tucking them into their beds, I find myself in awe of how lucky I am. But I believe it is more than luck. My life is filled with genuine, vibrant joy, and I believe this joy stems from living the Gospel of Jesus Christ and trusting God and his plan for me even when it was really hard and scary.

I find that when I think of what alternative lifestyles could offer me, they pale in comparison to the bounteous life I live. I love Lolly, and I want to grow old by her side. I wouldn’t trade her for any human on earth— male or female. She is my best friend, my lover, and my greatest gift.

Anyone who knows us can attest to the fact that our love is real, vibrant, and very apparent. Aside from my relationship with God, she is my every-

A&W Photography (ashleyandwendelsphotography.blogspot.com)

Josh and Lolly Weed and their three daughters.

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thing, and nothing I do or receive in my life will ever compare to her and her love for me. Thus, I believe that to live my life this way is being true to myself, and to go down any other path would be egregiously inauthentic and self-deceptive.

About two years ago, I saw a psychologist to get medication for my ADHD-I. She was a lesbian, and when I told her that I was a gay man in a heterosexual marriage, she spent an entire session hammering me with questions about my situation in a genuine effort to make sure I was happy.

I didn’t like that she did this, but as a clinician myself I understood where she was coming from.

During our conversation, she told me about her life with her former partner, with whom she lived for only three years. She spoke of the biological child of her ex-lover, whom she considered to be her daughter, too, of how much she loved her daughter but how infrequently she got to see her. And eventually, when talking about my sex life, she said, “Well, that’s good you enjoy sex with your wife, but I think it’s sad that you have to settle for something that is counterfeit.”

I was a little taken aback. In response, I jokingly said, “And I’m sorry that you have to settle for a counterfeit family.” She immediately saw my point and apologized for that comment. Obviously I don’t actually think a family with nonbiological members is counterfeit in any way. I also don’t feel that my sex life is counterfeit. They are both examples of something that is different from the ideal. I made that joke to illustrate a point. If you are gay, you will have to choose to fill in the gaps somewhere. She chose to have a family in a way that is different from the ideal. I choose to enjoy sex in a way that is different from the ideal for a gay man.

Loving your gay friends and family well If you know and love somebody who is gay and a person of faith, show your love in word and deed. Embrace them, both literally and figuratively.

I promise they need it—and they need to feel they can figure out this part of themselves in a safe way without ridicule and judgment. It’s what Christ would do. It’s what your loved one needs. Accept them. Love them.

Genuinely and totally.

In junior high a bully actively spread a rumor around the entire school that I was a “woman trapped in a man’s body.”

This was unbelievably horrific and traumatizing, and I was harassed every single day about it, often by perfect strangers. I was more effeminate, played the violin, didn’t play sports, was never interested in girls and didn’t hang out with guys, and so people glommed onto that rumor and ruthlessly harassed me for the entire year, culminating in a yearbook filled with breathtakingly insensitive taunts. Being the gay kid in junior high is really, really hard. If you know one, give them a hug and tell them you love them. I assure you they could use it.

If you are a parent or guardian, in appropriate moments (and with the Spirit) teach your children what you know to be true, but then let go and let them govern themselves. Trust that they can find their own path. Let them live their life and have the experiences they need to learn and grow. Trust that they are in charge of their own agency and destiny. I promise you they will thank you. I also promise that pressuring

Time and time again, my experience has shown me that when I follow the teachings I know in the deepest part of my soul to be true, my life is blessed and I find immense joy and peace. them to live the life you want them to lead will only hamper their ability to make a genuine and authentic choice for their own future, be it what you hope for them or not. You will never, ever give your gay loved one a better gift than to love and accept them for who they are, right now, no matter what—period. The friends and family who did that for me at varying points in my journey, including very recently, are cherished and will go down in the history of my life as the people who truly loved me and helped me on my path. (Incidentally, some of them are not technically even Christian, but to me they are like Christ in their actions.)

Loving your gay self well If you are gay and a person of faith, I want you to know how much I admire you. I know how hard it is to be where you are, and I want you to take a deep breath, look in the mirror, and accept yourself as you are. You are you, and your attractions are part of you. I want you to stop battling with this part of you that you may have understood as being sinful. Being gay does not mean that you are evil. Sin is in action, not in temptation or attraction. I feel this is a very important distinction. You don’t get to choose your circumstances, but you do get to choose what you do with them.

I want you to know that God loves you and that even though you are attracted to people of the same gender, you are a completely legitimate individual, worthy of God’s love, your family’s love, and the love of your friends. You are no more broken than any other person you meet. You are a beautiful child of God. Please don’t be ashamed. Know that you can be forgiven for any mistakes you have made and that God is not judging you.

God has a plan specifically for you. He wants you to be happy, and he will take you by the hand and guide you step by step to where you need to be if you trust him. God knows you completely, every part, even the parts you wish you could keep hidden. God knows it all, and he is not angry with you.

God couldn’t love you any more than he does, and he is proud of you for your courage. I wish you could know my sincerity as I write these words and how deeply I feel compassion for you.

It’s okay to feel what you feel Perhaps you’re someone who has never met a gay person whose opinion you trust, and you are having trouble believing that a man or woman could actually be sexually attracted to their same gender. Or perhaps it’s hard for you to accept the idea that people do not choose to be gay, because assuming it’s a matter of choice has helped you to understand this issue.

It’s okay if you feel that way.

Perhaps it is hard for you to believe that a man who regularly has sex with a woman could actually be a gay person who has chosen to live

with a woman he loves and that there’s no way I could feel what I claim to feel. It’s okay if you feel that way.

Perhaps you are someone who has been affected by a gay loved one who married a person of the opposite gender under false pretenses and then left his or her family. Your feelings are raw, and my story makes you angry because you worry that anybody in these circumstances is in for an eventual rude awakening and horrible consequences.

Or perhaps it makes you feel even deeper pain and loss to imagine that while this type of marriage didn’t work for someone you love, it is working well for someone else, and so it’s easier to dismiss our story as something that is bound to fail. It’s okay if you feel that way.

Perhaps you are someone who has trouble believing a Mormon or Christian could actually be gay, so it is difficult for you to take my story at face value. It’s okay if you feel that way.

Perhaps you are gay, and you once had desires to have a family with biological children of your own. But you gave that dream up long ago, and maybe it upsets you that I would even suggest that this is possible for those who want it. It’s okay if you feel that way.

Perhaps you have had none of these emotions and are totally supportive of me and my chosen life. Maybe you are even excited to see this being talked about so openly. Or perhaps you have felt something entirely different from anything mentioned. Wherever you find yourself, know that it is okay to feel what you are feeling. This issue is a very complex and emotional one.

Whatever your feelings on the subject may be, you are reading the words of a real live person who is telling the truth. I have no reason whatsoever to share this with you besides to add a voice to the global discussion and help someone who might feel hopeless and lonely and devoid of role models or voices to trust. I do so at great risk. I do so in spite of probable backlash from people I know, as well as from perfect strangers. I do so knowing that I will be misunderstood and possibly maligned—called Satanic or deceived or told that my most intimate relationships are a sham.

Until now, Lolly and I have had 10 wonderful years of isolation, where we have enjoyed the goodness of our love and our life together in private. We have had chances to come out before in loud ways—we’ve been featured anonymously in news stories, been invited to be on radio interviews and documentaries, and were even asked to be on a national talk show. But it wasn’t time. We needed to have those years to ourselves, to live outside of any scrutiny and just be ourselves.

But now we know that it’s time for us to begin a new phase of openness and authenticity. We aren’t sure why, but we both know without question that this is what we are supposed to do. Maybe somebody needs to hear our story. Maybe you are that somebody. If so, thank you for reading, and thank you for letting us share this intimate piece of our lives with you.

Joshua Weed is a marriage and family therapist in Auburn, Wash. You can read more of his story, including an unabridged version of this article titled “Club Unicorn,” at his blog, JoshWeed.com.

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Evangelicals and Gay Marriage

by Ron Sider

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any people predict that gay marriage will soon be legal everywhere in the United States. I believe that would be a fundamental mistake. But why should a state such as ours, which does not and should not use the law to promote or discourage particular religious beliefs, not legalize marriage for gay people?

Every society requires an ongoing supply of babies who grow up to be good citizens. Every civilization has known what contemporary sociologists now demonstrate—that children grow best into healthy adults when they live with their biological mother and father. Marriage law is a crucial way the state promotes the sound nurturing of the next generation of citizens.

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Legalizing gay marriage would weaken the connection between marriage and procreation and between biological parents and their biological children, which is why court cases in support of gay marriage typically downgrade the role of procreation. When Canada legalized same-sex marriage, it tossed out the definition of “natural” parent and replaced it with “legal” parent.

Embracing gay marriage will almost certainly change what is taught in the public schools. If gay marriages are equal under law to marriages of men and women, then the schools will certainly teach that to all our children as the proper view for every good citizen.

Most legal scholars agree that if gay marriage receives the sanction of law, “gay rights” will be pitted against the rights of religious freedom—and, more often than not, will win. Gay activists will argue that government cannot “subsidize discrimination,” and the courts will generally agree. Religious institutions will find that freedom to practice and even say what they believe about sexuality and marriage will increasingly be restricted. Already, in Canada and Sweden, pastors have been taken to court and charged with hate crimes because they preached sermons condemning homosexual practice as sin.

Nobody thinks churches or ministers will be forced to marry gay couples. But through licensure and government grants, a wide variety of faith-based organizations will face growing pressure to abandon their stand on homosexual practice and gay marriage. Faith-based organizations eventually may lose their tax-exempt status.

Tragically, because of our own mistakes and sin, we evangelicals have almost no credibility on this topic. If Satan had designed a plan to undermine evangelical credibility on the issue of homosexuality, he could hardly have done better than we have. We have tolerated genuine hatred of gay people, largely remaining silent when we should have taken the lead in condemning gay bashing; we have neglected to act in gentle love with people among us struggling with their sexual identity; and we have used the gay community as a foil to raise funds for political campaigns. We have made it easy for the media to suggest that the fanatics who carry signs announcing “God hates fags” actually speak for large numbers of evangelicals.

Worst of all, we have failed to deal honestly with the greatest threat to marriage and the family: heterosexual adultery and divorce. Evangelicals divorce at the same rate as the rest of the population. Many evangelical leaders have failed to speak against cheap divorce because they and their people were getting divorced just like everyone else. And yet we have had the gall to use the tiny (5 percent or less) gay community as a whipping boy that we labeled as the great threat to marriage.

What a farce. It is hardly surprising that young non-Christians’ most common perception (held by 91 percent) about contemporary Christianity is that we are “anti-homosexual.”

Even more disturbing is the fact that 80 percent of young churchgoers agree.

We did not need to do this to ourselves. We could have preached against hatred of gay people, taken the lead in combating gay bashing, and been the most active community lovingly caring for people with AIDS. We could have taken marriage more seriously. We could have shown the world that Christians could defend marriage while loving those who wanted to live a different way.

The former vice president of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, Ed Dobson, got it right (see “A Journey of Love” in the May/June 1995 issue of PRISM). After he left Liberty to become pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., he and his church developed an active compassionate ministry to gay people suffering from AIDS. An editorial that appeared in

the local gay and lesbian newsletter noted that Dobson and Calvary Church believed gay sexual activity was sinful but thanked Calvary Church for inviting gay people to their services.

They knew that Dobson and his church loved them, because they ministered to the people dying of AIDS. Think of the impact if most evangelicals in the last three decades had followed Dobson’s example. Then, maybe, when non-Christians heard the word “evangelical,” they would think, “Oh, they are the folks who love gay people.” Tragically, as Dobson says, we have been better at hating than loving. As a consequence, we cannot respond effectively, with any public credibility, to the challenge to the historic understanding of marriage.

Many Americans, including substantial numbers of evangelical youth, think that the law should allow gay people to marry. “How does granting a state marriage license to that 5 percent of the population that is gay hurt the 95 percent that is heterosexual?” they ask.

“How can we deny the rights and privileges of marriage to gay people without violating the principles of justice, equality, and respect for individual freedom?” Many Americans embrace the libertarian principle that we should maximize the freedom of each individual except where that harms others. Many, perhaps most, people now believe that marriage is not about raising children but is “primarily a way in which two adults affirm their emotional commitment to one another,” as gay activist Andrew Sullivan has written.

If that is the proper definition of marriage, it is indeed unfair for the state to deny that privilege to a few when it grants it to the majority. But everything depends on the definition of marriage. If marriage is not about bringing up children but about how adults solemnize their emotional commitment to each other, gay marriage becomes plausible. Other relationships become plausible as well. Why should marriage be limited to two people, for example?

In fact, in 2006, prominent pro-gay activists, including Gloria Steinem and professors at Yale and Columbia, urged the state to recognize polygamous marriages and relationships of multiple sex partners.

Is emotional commitment between two adults what the state should care about in marriage? What should a state that does not establish any religion understand marriage to be? I think the answer is clear. The state must promote the best setting in which to nurture the next generation of healthy citizens.

In a fascinating article in The Public Interest called “The Liberal Case Against Gay Marriage” (Summer 2004), Susan Shell argues that the state’s central concern is to secure “the relation between a child and a particular set of parents.” In marriage, Shell notes, “A husband is, until otherwise proven, the acknowledged father of his wife’s offspring, with recognized rights and duties that may vary from society to society but always exist in some form. And a wife is a woman who can expect a certain specified sort of help from her husband in the raising of her offspring. All other functions of marriage borrow from or build upon this one.”

She asks: “Can those who are not even potentially partners in reproduction, and who could never under any circumstances have been so, actually ‘marry’?” Her answer is no. Whatever else one may want to say positively about the emotional commitment of two men or two women to each other, it is simply not marriage. If the central concern of the state in marriage law is to secure a good relationship between a child and its biological parents, then by definition marriage can only involve a man and a woman.

We have neglected to act in gentle love with people among us struggling with their sexual identity; and we have used the gay community as a foil to raise funds for political campaigns.

Continued on page 49

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Walking on the Edge for the Lord

by Tonetta Landis

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Celestial by Tamara Natalie Madden (TamaraNatalieMadden.com)

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t happened in the large but very ordinary fellowship hall of my Southern church, bright with florescent lights. Long tables had been arranged in a U, the same tables that I had set up and broken down dozens of times as a church youth worker. There were 15 of us, joined by the dozens of those people each of us loved the most along with people we did not know. Pastors and church elders and Bible teachers. All of them men.

Our small group of young people had spent that summer in an intensive training course modeled on Paul’s challenge to Timothy to entrust the things he had learned from Paul to “reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” At the time I did not give a second thought to the fact that I was a woman who would later need to grapple with the specifics of that verse as well as the qualifications to be an elder that Paul listed in his previous letter. I considered the fact that I was black in a nearly all-white context incidental. The fact that I was gay was something I kept as far from the forefront of my mind as possible. Perhaps a part of me sensed that the words “reliable” and “qualified” would be stripped from me if others knew. In any case, I knew that being gay was sinful, and I wanted to pursue righteousness.

We had spent weeks together dedicated to exegesis and ecclesiology, prophesy and mission. I had read and memorized Scripture. I had prayed often in groups and prayed often alone. I had talked at length to a mentor.

That evening in the fellowship hall a sort of informal graduation was the program’s conclusion, a public proclamation of our internal commitment.

After dinner there were speeches, which I have since forgotten. But what remains clear in my heart is the sense of calling and consecration. Each of us, one at a time, was asked to come forward. A leader in our group of churches, a man who possessed the spiritual gift of prophecy, laid hands on each of us, prayed, and then proclaimed what he felt the Holy Spirit saying. It was a long process, filled with mystery and awe. When it was my turn, I went forward and waited. The man placed his hands on my forehead, prayed, and began to speak with ease things that I had been contemplating in the quietness of my heart. Then he said, “You will walk on the edge for the Lord.”

Four years later, when I was 24, I stood in front of the sanctuary at the same church on a Sunday morning. In the years since the summer program, I had been preparing myself to live overseas as a missionary.

That is what I had been contemplating in the months leading up to the graduation. I had traveled widely, met Christian people of various faith stripes, and trained in West and North Africa. My heart had turned toward the desert places. I loved Isaiah’s prophecies about the barren places and parched lands and the always attendant promises of water that followed them. On that Sunday morning, I stood before the people I loved most in the world outside of my blood kin, and I told them, in Hudson Taylor fashion, that if I had 10,000 lives I would give them all for North Africa. I was leaving my church to go to graduate school and that was what I had wanted most to say. I could not have imagined how much that leaving would change everything.

During the first week of graduate school, one of my professors assigned the class a project and asked for volunteers to work together. My hand went up to work on a chapter about conflict in West Africa. A woman I had never noticed before also raised her hand. We exchanged information before leaving. We worked on that project and then another. And I found myself struggling with feelings for her that I knew to be inappropriate.

I had fallen in love before, each time making me more frightened and

The man placed his hands on my forehead, prayed, and began to speak with ease things that I had been contemplating in the quietness of my heart. Then he said, “You will walk on the edge for the Lord.” desperate. There had been years of depression, thoughts of suicide, and numbness. As a teenager, I had told people I trusted about my attraction to women, nearly as soon as my relatives’ laughter about “those people” taught me what it meant. For years I had read Christian books about how to resist temptation and change my attractions. I had sought prayer. I had even dated a boy for a time. In every sense I had been a “successful” Christian, sensing a call to fulltime ministry early, working in the church, being chosen for special training. In every sense, that is, except for one.

My outside did not match my inside.

I did not pursue romance with my project partner. But in an irony I still do not fully understand, I decided to be honest with her and tell her of my feelings. One question from her undid me. “Why is that so bad?” After nearly a decade of studied resistance, of fortifying myself with theology and Scripture, I realized that I could not truly answer that question. One plus one did not equal two, and that deep personal sense that something was off kilter led me back to Scripture and study and began a two-year process through which an adult love for Christ and for myself would be forged. At the end of it I would come out as a Christian and unashamedly gay woman.

Lately I have begun to take seriously the ramifications of that honest decision. I am older, and things like professional security and personal reputation have begun to matter more. I attempt to look further ahead and discern what is to come, as if some amount of planning might strengthen me. I still believe in the statements of the Apostles’ Creed and the beauty of the church and the mystery of Christian marriage. I can feel more distinctly the reality that grace has come; I sense it in my bones. I have also begun taking stock. I am not a pastor or a missionary as I had once envisioned. The decision to live fully and indivisibly as a Christian and as a gay person has been devastating in the most profoundly shattering ways and in the most furiously lovely ways.

Accepting that I am a gay woman has made me vulnerable in ways that no one would choose for themselves. A few years ago, over the course of just a few months, I read several stories about hate crimes in my city, crimes targeted at people like me, gay people or gender-nonconforming people. Knowing that they had occurred on streets that I routinely walk frightened me. One night during a phone conversation with a friend (a gay man), we discussed the logistics of the crimes and what areas of town they took place in. We discussed what could be done if we found ourselves

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Be indivisible. Your Christian world will insist that you cannot be gay. Your gay world will view you with suspicion because you are a Christian. You will feel the pulling in your chest. When this happens, keep in mind that for any part of you to survive authentically, all of you must survive relentlessly.

- Tonetta Landis in “Battle Hymn: A Queer Christian’s Guide to More Than Survival” published in RAW, A Poetic Journey: Finding a Way from Conflict to Revelation (NuWine Press, 2011) in such a situation. It seemed that I would be more likely subject to rape, and I flatly did not know what I would do. He decided that he, like the people in the articles, might be beaten. If there were one or two of them, he said, staying on his feet would be of first importance. Falling would be the thing to avoid. If there were three of them he felt he wouldn’t really have much of a chance.

That conversation has stayed with me. Its matter-of-factness has stayed. The image of being kicked to death has stayed, too. In the weeks following Easter this past year, I read about a young woman in South Africa who had been brutally raped and murdered on Easter morning—because she was gay. While I was putting on my Sunday best, she had already been killed. She was black and a woman and many more of the things that I am.

That too has stayed.

For me, fear has been the main hardship of being gay. Fear of being assaulted. Fear of the wrong person at work finding out that I am gay.

Fear that I will say too much at church and be alienated from the people with whom I seek the Lord. Fear that I will not say enough and thus be complicit in the intentional and unintentional silencing that happens in many places of worship. Church entails a sort of bargaining for me. Will I choose to be accepted, or will I choose to be honest?

I attend a wonderful church these days that I love. I can be honest about my sexuality there. The elders and I have an understanding. I can be honest, and in exchange I have agreed that I can never become a member or serve in any of the ministries of the church. I have agreed to this because I have such a strong sense of God’s presence there, and I feel it is, for all of the struggle, the right place for me at the moment. I carry the fear into church. Often I feel heavy with it. Then I raise my hands in worship, listen intently to hear God speaking in my pastor’s message, and mill about with my friends after church. Every Sunday I have the opportunity to let God take my fear and create something else that cannot be crafted by my own hands. Every Sunday I get to experience resurrection in a way that feels close and specific and desperately needed.

And that is just it. Any attempt I make to parse out the good and the bad of being a gay Christian woman very soon runs into problems. The fear and vulnerability, the feelings of exile, and the reality of exclusion are real. Still, even though I am no longer “reliable” and may never again be considered qualified to teach others, the sense of calling to fulltime ministry has not left. The need to give my body, to take fully a missional posture, to walk on the edge for the Lord is still potent.

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Perhaps I actually have a clearer opportunity than most American Christians to follow in the way of Jesus. He who was despised and rejected calls out to me clearly as I am despised and rejected. More times than I care to count, I eat with people, friends, who I know will ultimately betray me by being silent in the face of injustices against gay people. I am aware strongly of God’s upside-down kingdom where the first will be last and the last first. I remember that I am called fortunate because I do mourn and need so deeply for God’s righteous justice to become food. My calling is not to build bridges these days but rather to allow my body itself to become a bridge. My calling has become presence, mere existence in spaces where people like me aren’t supposed to stand. Evangelical spaces. I pray to lead a dying life for the sake of the kingdom, and I wait for resurrection in the very places that are still struggling to recognize that I exist.

I still love the Middle East and North Africa, but these days I think that the possibility of walking on the edge for the Lord is not nearly so distant. I remember the man who laid his hands on me and spoke those words over me more than 11 years ago. These days I think that he and I may not be so far apart, even though he likely still oversees several churches and I cannot even become a member of mine. We both desperately want to live in the tradition of the best prophets, being a sign for our generations, and we both deeply want to help build the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I dream simply of one day meeting GLBT people in evangelical spaces and of them being able to live indivisible lives of passion for Christ.

And I dream that it will no longer be people like me on that edge alone.

I pray that we would together become a people of honest questions and honest lives—walking on the edge for the Lord but always clinging to the One who makes water “gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.” Clinging to the God of Resurrection.

Tonetta Landis, a native of North Carolina, is a high school teacher and freelance writer. She is interested in issues of identity in marginalized communities in the United States as well as in the developing world. She currently resides in Washington, DC.

into places where “the siblings to grow spiritually. In this way, the lack of first and the next gena consistent pastoral leadership actually enabled erations grow togethmozying to take root in this youth group. er.” Korean American A practice of inclusion seems to grow out congregations are well of the practice of sibling love among Midwest aware that the best people to minister to their youth members. Timothy, who grew up in this It is Friday night at Midwest Presbyterian Church young are second-generation Korean Americans youth group and became a youth pastor of a (USA). Every room is abuzz with one small group themselves—young adults who grew up speakKorean American church, told me, “I took a lot or another. I am immersed in a Bible study with ing English and who share similar identities with of pride in this—the shy people, quiet people, four teenagers and their pastor when he calls for the people they seek to serve. The unfortunate uncool people, they got a lot of attention bea break shortly before 9 p.m. A stampede enreality, however, is that there cause a lot of people were trying to reach out sues. I follow, curious about are not enough second-gento them. So many people who would be alienated where they are headed and While eration pastors to satisfy the in other groups were able to be the core part why they are in such a hurry. other forms of needs of all Korean American of our group. When we had fellowship activities, As a veteran in youth minismentoring might churches. people who were in leadership made sure that try, I have my hunch that food focus on only Midwest is a congregathere would be no one who was being left out.” must lie at the end of this one generation, tion that takes seriously the The practice of inclusion is particularly quest. “mozying” is desire to meet the needs of meaningful, considering the fact that the memThe teens arrive in the about a chain of younger generations.

Foundbers of this youth group might often feel excluchildren’s room. At the center mentoring that ed in 1972, it is a mediumsion within US society. As part of an immigrant of the table is a basket of continues from the sized church in Park Ridge, community, members of this youth group often steaming Korean yams and older generation Ill., a northern suburb of Chifelt marginalized in their schools and among their a large pitcher of orange to the next in a cago.

Most of its adult memAmerican peers.

At the same time, they often juice. I think smugly that I am repeating pattern. bers come from the same vilalso felt alienated when visiting Korea. This youth right—food, indeed, was the lage of Korea and have been close friends since group has been one of the only places where destination of this exuberant footrace. But then before their immigration. In and out of church, they feel included, because the members intenthese teenagers surprise me. One at a time they they and their families have shared lives. In this tionally tried to include one another as precious take a cup and fill it with juice, not for themselves, way, all members of this congregation have ex“core parts.” but to hand to one of the 12 young children perienced what they describe as a genuine love Midwest is a congregation that nurtures seated around the table. They carefully peel the for and a strong bond with one another. Perhaps young leaders by making use of its own particuskins of the yams, again passing them along to because of this feeling of solidarity, members of lar context. A group of immigrants brought to the children. “They’re feeding the kids—not Midwest take to heart the vision of ministering their new community the beliefs and practices themselves?” I ask myself. “What on earth is gofully to both the first and the next generation. integral to their identity. In addition to passing on ing on here?”

This hope is reflected in its motto: “A community their faith, these first-generation Korean AmeriAs my learning at Midwest progressed, I where the first and the next generation grow tocans passed on the unique cultural practice of witnessed older youth regularly—and with degether.” investing eldest siblings with a privileged role, as lightful abandon—engaging in such acts of role The leadership of Midwest youth grew in well as a burden to care for younger siblings. As modeling that both cared for and shaped the the face of what could have been adversity—the young adults practiced mozying in the family-like behavior of younger children. The scene that consistent lack of pastoral leadership which is a setting that is Midwest, they became leaders. so impressed me on this particular evening was common and chronic issue among many Korean Today, many of them are serving the church as merely a hint of a particular kind of mentoring American churches. But in the case of Midwest, chaplains, pastors, educators, and missionaries. practice that has a long and powerful history it served as an opportunity for the congregation A new generation of teens is mozying, continuhere. The mozies—a Korean word for older sibto train leaders from within. For the most part, ing to adapt an ancient practice, recycling it for lings—take care of the young. While other forms teens took charge of tasks such as organizing a new day. of mentoring might focus on only one generafunctions and facilitating groups. They had to, tion, “mozying,” as I came to call it, is about a wanted to, and actually chain of mentoring that continues from the older did fill the void to help “Making a Difference” profiles congregations that put arms and legs on generation to the next in a repeating pattern. the gospel. Nominate a church by emailing PRISM@Eastern.edu. their beloved younger Throughout the history of this youth group, in every generation, a group of older youth has always taken care of, invested in, and been role Sinai Chung grew up in Seoul, South Korea. She has served as youth pastor at models for their younger “siblings.” several Korean American churches and taught at colleges in the US and KoKorean American congregations today face rea. She is an adjunct professor at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Ill. the stark challenge of re-identifying themselves: This column was adapted from Greenhouses of Hope: Congregations that Grow They can no longer remain first-generation-cenYoung Leaders Who Will Change the World, edited by Dori Grinenko Baker (Alban tered. To sustain themselves, they must transition Institute, 2010; Alban.org). Reproduced here by kind permission of the publisher.

Making a Difference

Where the Young Mentor the Younger

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Ministry Matters

Generous Spaciousness South, and there are things that we can offer. For me, it’s all about posture and language and tone and ethos in how we have the conversation together.

W

endy Gritter heads up New Direction of Canada, a ministry that exists to nurture “safe and spacious places for those outside the heterosexual mainstream to explore and grow in faith in Jesus Christ.” The ministry began in 1985 as a small Bible study for people of faith addressing personal questions of sexuality and has grown to be an international presence in the conversation about sexual diversity. Wendy Gritter has brought New Direction through various seasons to where they are today, committed to seeing “sexual minorities encounter and grow in Christ-centered discipleship marked by radical trust, robust hope, and fearless love.”

What draws you to work with sexual minorities?

I hope that anyone who is a follower of Jesus, regardless of whether they have experienced marginalization themselves, will see as an intrinsic part of the gospel that we are to go to the margins—whatever those margins may be. Unfortunately, particularly in the evangelical church, those who do not fit neatly into the heterosexual majority continue to find themselves on the edges. But I don’t want to ghettoize this one area of engagement as some unique special area for ministry. We are to go, not with a patronizing attitude of “helping,” but to identify with and become friends with all those who find themselves on the margins.

When we do this, we are fundamentally changed. It is spiritually formational for us, because we’re often so impoverished in the luxury of our dominant majority status. In going to those margins, we discover that instead of bringing God to that place, we meet God in that place, and he changes us.

He changes who we are and how we engage the world. I’ve learned more than I’ve offered in the years that I’ve served in this area.

Can you give an example of something you have learned?

I’ve learned that the conversation around sexual diversity is incredibly complex. We need humility, discernment, and grace to do it well.

I’ve learned that we need to listen to one another’s context. There are things that can be learned from every part of the body of Christ, and there are things that need to be learned by every part of the body of Christ. My hope is that the global conversation within the church can have that kind of honorable tenor to it—a willingness to both learn from and offer to—because we need each other. For example, there are things that we in the West need to rediscover in our interaction with followers of Jesus from the global

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You talk about nurturing “generous spaciousness.” What does that mean, and why do you believe it's so important?

After a number of years working for the ministry, I increasingly felt the tensions that come from Christians presenting you with their orthodoxy test, which you must pass before they will engage in any kind of conversation with you. I needed to prove that I believed the exact same things they did about gay marriage before they would trust me enough to have a conversation with me. I knew this was a similar experience that many sexual-minority persons experienced in the church. It seemed the expectation was that you had to give the right answers, with a degree of certainty, before you could really engage your questions and wrestle with different perspectives. This expectation simply shuts down real conversation and can alienate those who genuinely want to wrestle with the implications of the Christian faith.

So I’ve developed the concept of generous spaciousness from the belief that the Holy Spirit can be trusted to work in people’s lives and to lead them where they need to be. That means that we, as human beings, can offer the gift of space to those who are wrestling with deep questions, uncertainty, and doubt. On the question of how the Christian faith is worked out in the life of a gay person, this space is essential. When people are expected to conform to a standard of orthodoxy without having the freedom to really question, wrestle with, and own their beliefs and convictions, the typical result is a shallow, works-based faith that cannot sustain the storms of life. So many gay people who do have an open heart to Jesus have walked away from the Christian faith because there was no room for them to really wrestle with God, Scripture, and the tradition of the church.

Additionally, many Christians with gay friends are also struggling to clarify what they believe and why—and they need a safe place to continue to process and work through these questions. Generous spaciousness challenges the church to offer that kind of room, with the conviction that God is pleased with a fully engaged mind and heart, that God will lead and guide people. We don’t need to try to control what people believe, because when spiritual exploration and discernment are encouraged a much more robust and owned faith emerges.

Generous spaciousness seeks to dismantle a sense of polarity that creates winners and losers, those who are “in” and those who are “out.” In the culture wars around homosexuality, inevitably someone feels marginalized and that their voice is not being heard. Today it is often conservative Christians who feel their voice is drowned out in an increasingly gay-positive culture. Generous spaciousness chooses to live in the tension of our differences—and prioritizes that all the voices in the conversation need to be heard, honored, and respected—even if we disagree with some people’s conclusions. Rather than assuming the worst of people and judging their hearts and their motives, generous spaciousness expects the best by encouraging everyone in the conversation to be centered on Christ, willing to lay down our privilege and status, willing to listen for the Spirit in the other, willing to wait for God to bring clarity and understanding. Generous spa-

The posture of generosity allows us to glimpse and encourage connection with God, where the evangelical church at large essentially has no voice. ciousness understands that different theological starting points may result in different conclusions—despite both parties sharing a deep commitment to Christ and a high regard for the Scriptures. This understanding allows us to be generous with one another, take the risk to listen to one another, and trust that the Holy Spirit will continue to lead us into all truth.

How has your ministry—and your heart—grown or changed since you started working within this posture of generous spaciousness?

I am so very grateful to have grown as I’ve learned to embody the posture of generous spaciousness. I serve a much bigger God than I once believed in. This means that I have a more fearless and confident faith. I’ve been enlarged in my own capacity for generosity, humility, and extending grace to those with whom I disagree. I feel I’ve been given the freedom to grow in the fruit of the Spirit where previously there was a sense of tension and vigilance to protect myself from ideas and beliefs that were too liberal. This protective mode kept me in a place of control and anxiety rather than the freedom to trust the Holy Spirit and be open to listen and learn.

In terms of the ministry, I believe God has honored our taking the risk to be more generous. Today, we have people across a very diverse spectrum of belief and practice who connect with us for conversation. Prior to generous spaciousness, many of these individuals would have been cynical or distrustful of a Christian ministry like ours. These conversations are priceless to us. We get to see the fingerprints of Jesus all over so many different people. We have new eyes. And we get to gently stir up faith in these conversations. We get to be ambassadors of reconciliation. While there are many caricatures of the gay community, and certainly you can see a variety of reactionary excesses on display in events like Gay Pride parades, we get to connect with one heart at a time. And each heart is created to be in relationship with its Creator. Sensitivity, capacity for faith, and a longing for worship—when we encounter this in a person, it is profoundly beautiful.

So we are very grateful that the posture of generosity allows us to glimpse and encourage connection with God, where the evangelical church at large essentially has no voice.

A few years back, you changed your focus from trying to help gay people find freedom from their orientation to encouraging them to explore and grow in relationship with Christ. What led to that shift?

This shift was primarily energized by our missional passion. We became increasingly concerned with how our messaging, language, attitudes, and postures were perceived by those who were outside the Christian community. We recognized that we are called to be incarnationally present in the world, but if we’re constantly alienating our neighbors, it is hard to become a vital part of the neighborhood.

In relating to LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) people, the most alienating part of the old message was the issue of orientation change. As long as we were associated with the idea of promoting orientation change—which was perceived as a validation for being against civil rights for LGBTQ people—it created barriers with sexual minorities. We needed to be very clear that we were NOT emphasizing orientation change, because (1) the research is not bearing out the claims that orientation can be changed, and (2) because it is being perceived as a message that insists on people living inauthentic lives. It became an issue of our own integrity

because we did not see a focus on orientation change as being consistent with the good news of the gospel.

The evangelical church says to sexual minorities, “Don’t define yourselves by your sexuality identity.” But nearly every evangelical ministry initiative or program has been completely focused on sexuality.

I am deeply concerned with deconstructing a reductionistic sense of sexuality by helping the broader church understand that same-sex sexuality is an aspect of the personhood of sexual minorities. It isn’t only or primarily about what people might want to do in terms of sexual activity, but is a way of being in the world, of viewing relationships, expressing creativity, humor, all those aspects of who we are as a human.

We need to find new ways, new wineskins, to relate to people across the spectrum of sexual orientation simply as human beings. If we can find points of connection that are meaningful—not just talking about the weather but actually having conversations about things that matter—we can focus on seeing one another through the lens of our shared humanity.

How have sexual minorities outside the church—whether they left the church at some point or were never a part of it—responded to your outreach efforts?

We have a lot of credibility-building to do. We have trust to earn. We have people watching us and testing us all across the spectrum. But I’ve found that when we posture ourselves relationally, generously, and humbly, people respond to that.

Sometimes I shake my head and wonder, “Why do they trust me? Why do they share their lives with me?” But I’m grateful that they do. I think it says something about the power of language and posture and attitude.

You take a creative approach to engaging people in conversation. Tell us about some of the ways you do this.

At New Direction we are committed to finding mutually respectful and innovative opportunities for engagement. Two of our initiatives particularly embody this commitment. The first is an online conversation forum around the arts, where we invite a team of contributors to submit their reflections on a piece of art and invite others to respond. Often, this is a piece the contributor has created.

The second is an online community focused on matters of social justice. We invite our connections to share about projects they are involved with and invite others to catch the vision. I went to Cambodia in 2011 to develop relationship with a few agencies that we especially wanted to highlight for our networks. In Southeast Asia there is a group of prostitutes called LadyBoys who are transgender. These are very vulnerable individuals who endure sexual assault and beatings and extreme social isolation. But there are some wonderful Christian groups who are offering a safe place, job training, and a new start to those who want to leave the sex trade. In raising awareness and support for the groups that work with this population, we can join in mobilizing the compassion and resources of gay Christians to bring justice and shalom.

Wendy Gritter was interviewed by Josh MacIvor-Andersen, a freelance writer and assistant professor of English at Northern Michigan University, Marquette, Mich.

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Off the Shelf

America and Its Guns

by James Atwood Cascade Books

The End of Sexual Identity

by Jenell Williams Paris InterVarsity Press

Reviewed by Drick Boyd

Reviewed by David P. Gushee

In the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin case and the mass shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin, many people are again asking how deadly weapons get into the hands of ordinary citizens and what can be done to control access to guns used in these terrible tragedies. In America and Its Guns: A Theological Exposé pastor James Atwood addresses this issue with the clarity and power of an Old Testament prophet.

Contrary to those in the church who consider gun violence to be a political issue—and therefore outside the focus of the church—Atwood contends that gun violence is also a deeply spiritual issue. He places guns and gun culture, which he calls the “Gun Empire,” in a theological context, drawing on the work of Walter Wink, John Calvin, and Martin Luther. At the same time he provides valuable insight into the workings of the gun lobby, particularly the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the culture of violence it supports and cultivates. As a gun owner himself, Atwood makes clear he is not opposed to gun ownership but rather the rigid absolutist stands characterized by the NRA’s rejection of any limitations or regulation on the ownership or use of guns.

Atwood analyzes US culture, demonstrating a gun and violence fixation that is a uniquely American phenomenon rooted in the history of European expansion, slavery, and the “Wild West.” The heart of the book lies in chapters 8-13, in which Atwood delves into the nature of guns as an idol. Analyzing the Gun Empire through the lens of Walter Wink’s interpretation of the principalities and powers, Atwood weaves together a biblical perspective on idols and a piercing analysis of the history and strategy of the NRA. Like other idols the Gun Empire seeks divine status; uses fear, deception, and manipulation to motivate its members; and distorts facts. Like other idols the Gun Empire makes the false promise of safety and security while negatively impacting US culture and taxing the economy. Atwood further criticizes the District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court decision, which affirmed the Second Amendment, as focusing on the right to bear arms but failing to regulate the use of those arms properly.

In the penultimate chapter Atwood appeals to the 75 percent of the NRA membership which polls show do not support the rigid absolutist NRA agenda, calling them to rein in the actions and rhetoric of their leadership. Finally, Atwood turns his attention to the church, calling upon the body of Christ to be the moral voice of the nation, while placing the issue of gun violence in an eschatological context, proclaiming that God in Christ has promised his followers ultimate victory over the forces of death, in this case over the idolatrous Gun Empire.

While gun violence and theology are both complex topics, Atwood is able to present his insights in language accessible to non-experts who are interested

“America has an abominable record of balancing an individual’s right to have a gun with the public’s inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Public safety in the company of 300 million guns should not be a wish or the pipe dream it is today.”— James Atwood in thinking about the issue of gun violence in the context of their faith. He intersperses personal stories with relevant statistical evidence and clear analysis. I hope this book can be used by Sunday school classes, small group studies, and Continued on page 55

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On a first reading, I became convinced that this was the book that would change the evangelical conversation about “homosexuality.” It may not be quite that. But it is very clear that The End of Sexual Identity, a deceptively concise book of just 160 pages, will become indispensable reading among evangelicals who want to have an intelligent conversation about sexuality circa 2012. It is also the voice of a new generation.

Jenell Paris’ hypothesis is crystalline in its clarity: Step One – Writing from a cultural anthropology perspective, Paris argues that the way we (westerners, North Americans) talk about sexuality, using a heterosexual-homosexual binary tightly linked to human identity, is an oversimplified and misleading social construction that ultimately can be traced to medical circles in the 19th century. We can know this by doing basic intellectual history on the use of the terminology. But we can know it more deeply by comparing this binary to the way sexuality has been understood in other cultures, both today and in the past. Paris supplies us with utterly convincing, documented examples, leaving it impossible for this reader to ever again use the phrases “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” without quotation marks. For that matter, any other labels one might use to define sexual identity (“LGBTQ”) are also social constructions.

Step Two – Paris goes on to note that Christians have been arguing fruitlessly about the moral- “Sexuality has taken ity of “homosexuality” for decades. In so doing, she on new meaning as an says, we have simply conformed to the “patterns essential force that exof this world” (Rom. 12:1-2). We have endured de- ists not between percades of bitter Christian arguments about a 19th- sons but within each century social construction which we have treated individual, one that is as “real.” In so doing we have capitulated to culture expected to provide rather than making culture (cf. Andy Crouch). personal identity and Step Three – If we seek to “be transformed by happiness.” the renewing of [our] minds,” we must move toward - Jenell Williams Paris “the end of sexual identity.” We must stop defining ourselves or others in terms of debatable sexual identity categories or labels.

Instead, Christians should take their identity from the love God demonstrates for us in Jesus Christ. We are “beloved,” not “gays,” “straights,” etc. Though a married mother of three, Paris herself now eschews the label of “heterosexual” when describing her own identity. This is certainly a new kind of voice in evangelical life!

Step Four – If we no longer evaluate people morally according to a socially constructed identity label, what normative framework shall we use? Paris identifies her norm as “sexual holiness,” defined as when “we seek to give and receive love with God and with other people in and through our sexuality.” In a very important claim, she goes on to say that “in post-sexual identity Christian communities, sexual holiness becomes a common standard for all believers.”

Along the way, Paris deals with a wide range of other issues, such as the relative (in)significance of sexual desire, the myth of mind-blowing marital sex for Christians (guaranteed for those who “stay pure” before marriage), and the kind of Christian community that would be required to sustain a plausible celibate life today.

The most convincing takeaway of this book is the claim that the very terms Continued on page 55

Broken Hallelujahs

by Christian Scharen Brazos Press

Counseling and Christianity Stephen P. Greggo and Timothy A. Sisemore, eds.

Intervarsity Press

Reviewed by Efrem Smith Reviewed by G. Peter Schreck Although the church is meant to be an expression of God’s reconciling and unifying work in the world, it is no stranger to conflict. How and what kind of music is used within the corporate worship experience is at the top of the list when it comes to clashes within the church.

Another cause for division is the appropriateness of enjoying popular music after the Christian conversion experience. Many believers join or leave churches over the issue of music. Whether we acknowledge it or not, these conflicts arise out of a combination of musical preference, culture, and practical theology.

“We desperately need imagination that looks the brokenness of humanity and the groaning of creation straight in the face but that also knows mercy and reconciliation have been offered by God in Christ, who through the Holy Spirit is working in the midst of all our sorrows even now.”— Christian Scharen In Broken Hallelujahs: Why Popular Music Matters to Those Seeking God, Christian Scharen provides us with a new and much-needed approach to an issue that has been around for a long time. By taking a biblical look at culture, specifically through the lens of popular music, he invites the church to join in God’s work of love and justice. By listening more closely to the cries of despair and the messages of hope found in popular music, the church can understand not only the places of need in the world but also God’s call for the church to be an agent of transformation. By shutting out these messages, the church risks missing out on what and where God is speaking.

Scharen suggests that Christians who cast all culture outside the church bubble as the enemy, and so-called secular music along with it, run the risk of being held captive by what he calls “a constricted imagination.” Instead, he calls us into the freedom of a “vibrant and imaginative theology of grace.” This builds the discussion on deep theological foundations rather than launching yet another worship-wars discussion.

As an African American pastor and a member of the hip-hop generation, I enjoyed Scharen’s stories of artists in the genres of the blues, jazz, and hip hop and how they wrestle with God, love, injustice, and dark nights of the soul through their music. I especially relished his chapter on the life and music of Billie Holiday, in which Scharen shows us where the blues, jazz, the black church, Jim Crow segregation, and the God of justice all converge. But it left me hungry for more. I believe the author could have strengthened his thesis by diving even deeper into the black church, popular black music, justice, and how God is present in culture.

Later in the book he looks at Focus on the Family as an example of how one faction of evangelicalism lives out a constricted imagination by viewing popular culture as the enemy, in turn missing an opportunity to hear the fuller voice of God. In my opinion, too many people “throw the baby out with the bathwater” by dismissing hip hop culture and rap music because of those rappers whose lyrics degrade women and glorify illegal activity. Their concerns about those rappers are valid, but the whole community loses when we eliminate hip hop entirely based on the failings of one faction.

Scharen concludes the book with multiple invitations to hear God speak Continued on page 55

Two years after IVP published Eric Johnson’s Psychology and Christianity: Five Views, it has released Counseling and Christianity, a sequel intent on exploring the relationship between Christian belief and what Johnson calls the most “controversial” subdiscipline of psychology—counseling or therapy. While the first book explores the interface of faith and psychology at a theoretical level, this second book goes beyond the concepts to ask what contemporary counseling looks like when practiced by Christians.

To answer the question in a creative, yet highly informative manner, editors Greggo and Sisemore have recruited five experienced practitioners, each of whom identifies in some significant way with one of five clinical views, as contributors to this volume. Each writes from the perspective of a consultant to a hypothetical Christian counselor working with a hypothetical client, “Jake,” whose case is much more complex and challenging than the initial presenting problem would suggest.

In their roles as consultants, they have each been asked to address specific clinical issues as well as to indicate how and where their Christian worldview influences them as clinicians. Consequently each comments on topics such as the nature and process of change, the goal of counseling, assessment, case conceptualization, treatment plan, therapeutic techniques, and evaluation and follow-up. But they also give voice to their beliefs about God and Jesus, revelation and authority, the nature of persons and relationships, sin and brokenness, healing and wholeness, and the role of community and church.

In this way particular psychological assumptions and theological commitments emerge that determine what the interface of counseling and Christian faith looks like for each of the five (four men and one woman) as they do the work of counseling. Not surprisingly, five approaches appear, characterized by both commonalities and differences—and these give the book its core content and lively dynamic. (Whether intended or not, the approaches are presented in a continuum from less to more conservative theology, as evidenced especially by the Christology and the view and use of Scripture espoused by each therapist.)

But editors Greggo and Sisemore also contribute to the discussion in ways that help shape the book’s structure and give more cohesion to its content. By way of introduction, they identify the history of the church’s conflict with the emerging science of psychology (and the mutual skepticism that resulted) as the necessary backdrop for understanding and appreciating the integrative efforts represented by the five approaches. Likewise, their summary discussion section, which follows the chapters setting forth the various approaches, brings cohesion to the diversity and focuses the challenge of both identifying the approach that most resonates with the reader and understanding why that is. In effect, the editors’ chapters provide substantive “bookends” that hold the content together nicely.

Counseling and Christianity is intended to engage those who counsel—particularly those committed to bringing their personal Christian faith into creative, yet disciplined, interaction with their social science training.

Continued on page 55

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Totally Forgiving God

by R.T. Kendall Charisma House Reviewed by Michele Howe

R.T. Kendall, who was pastor of London’s Westminster Chapel for 25 years, was educated at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Oxford University. Kendall is the author of more than 55 books, including Total Forgiveness and How to Forgive Ourselves—Totally.

In his latest offering, Totally Forgiving God: When It Seems He Has Betrayed You, the author completes his trilogy on forgiveness. With sound theological reasoning, he discusses the many reasons why most honest believers struggle with forgiving God at some point in their lives. Kendall delves into the problem of complete forgiveness, first from our limited human perspective, then from God’s perspective, then from an attempt to understand the perspective of the “other”; finally, he looks at how we might find the strength to let God off the hook.

Musing on why a sovereign God allows evil to touch our lives, Kendall livens up the text with numerous personal anecdotal accounts. He reminisces about his mother’s early death—when he firmly believed God told him (and others) that she would be healed—and how this tragedy affected his faith. He also shares freely about the supernatural visions he experienced and how some came true while others didn’t. This inconsistency in ultimate outcomes begs the question of whether or not Kendall heard God correctly and why God allowed him to believe and experience insights that would not come to pass. Kendall offers no “for sure” answers to his ponderings and admits that, while there is much about God that Christians cannot ever know or understand, it is this very fact that makes stalwart faith in God’s goodness so essential.

One of the strongest elements of this text is the ongoing thread of Habakkuk’s dilemma as found in the first chapter of that book: How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? (vs. 2-3) Here Kendall weaves this human cry for relief from injustice (personal and worldwide) into the basic goals of his book: to affirm God’s integrity; to help readers understand that God has reasons for not answering all our questions; to help Christ-followers recover from any bitterness they hold toward God; and to help Christians release God for painful things he has allowed to happen to them.

Habakkuk, like every Christian today, faced unanswered prayer, having to endure injustice, and God’s tolerance of evil. None of these is easy to understand or accept from the human perspective.

Kendall’s work here is heartfelt and sincerely presented. Readers will value the care he takes to present their side of the equation as he attempts to defend God’s integrity despite evidence to the contrary from the human, finite standpoint.

Michele Howe is the coauthor of Burdens Do a Body Good: Meeting Life’s Challenges with Strength and Soul (Hendrickson, 2010), which offers women inspirational and practical insights on handling life’s “weightier” challenges.

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Ultimate Price

by Annemarie Kidder Orbis Reviewed by Casey Hobbs What was it like to be a Christian living in Adolf Hitler’s Germany? Would you make your stand along with the Dietrich Bonhoeffers of the world, or would you regret a missed opportunity to speak against injustice, like Martin Niemoller, who lamented, “When they came for the Jews, I did not speak out because I was not a Jew; and then they came for me—and no one was left to speak for me”? The reader is brought not only to this question but also to our ever-present question, “What does it mean to be a Christian today?”

Dr. Annemarie Kidder brings the Christian commu“Words teach, but nity a gem in her new work, Ultimate Price: Testimonies personal example of Christians Who Resisted the Third Reich. The content shows their meanof the book is every bit as stirring as the name would ing. Even if we are suggest.

The writings she has selected give heart and as silent as a wall, soul to stories with which we are sadly unfamiliar. we can nevertheKidder tells the story of the rise of Nazism and the less do much fall of the church at the brink of World War II. Both the good.”

Catholic and Protestant leadership, as a whole, fell victim - Sophie Scholl, as to the lies of a madman who promised peace in a new quoted in Ultimate nationalistic society.

These leaders were smitten with a Price blind pride in their nation that would cost more than they could know. Adolf Hitler pulled the proverbial wool over the eyes of the shepherds of Germany, but a handful were not so blind.

Their stories in Kidder’s book provide the reader with an intensely personal vantage point into the lives and hearts of men and women who were bold enough to make a stand against a tyrant in their own land.

In Ultimate Price, we meet seven different martyrs for the faith and sit with them as they write letters from prison to wives, parents, boyfriends, friends, and even civil authorities as high up as Hitler himself! The characters range from the well-known and admired theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer to the unheralded poet and hymnist Jochen Klepper. Their moments of strength are as inspiring as their times of doubt are endearing.

Perhaps the most remarkable life Kidder lets the reader into is that of Sophie Scholl, a 21-year-old student in Munich. Her boyfriend was a soldier, sent to the Russian front, and her brother was an anti-war activist with a message and a printing machine. Her reservations about her soldier boyfriend and her own passions for justice met as she joined with her brother in his anti-war efforts. Caught scattering leaflets that urged her countrymen to stand against the Furher, she was executed along with her brother four days later. Her faith and her struggle epitomize the deep beauty that is found throughout the pages of Ultimate Price.

In reading this book, our question becomes whether we are willing to join in this story of justice, peace, and gospel work among those who do not have a voice.

Where is the voice of Christ calling us here, now, today?

A resident of Seattle, Wash., Casey Hobbs (CaseyHobbs.com) describes himself as “somewhere between a disciple and a groupie of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”

His ministry career has focused on walking with men through discipleship and recovery.

Continued from page 39

Our argument that the tiny gay community undermines marriage is hypocritical unless we admit that by far the greatest threat to marriage and family is the sinful failure of husbands and wives to keep their marriage vows. If we cannot resist adultery and divorce and model healthy, joyful family life, we should admit that we have nothing credible to say in the public discussion of marriage.

Other things being equal, it is better for children to grow up with their biological parents. Marriage to the mother is by far the best way to ensure responsible fatherhood.

When not married to the mother, few men are effective fathers. As far as the state is concerned, the first concern of marriage law must be to protect the interests of children and thereby create an ongoing stable, healthy social order.

It has been argued that if the state’s central interest in marriage is the raising of healthy citizens, it should not grant a marriage license to sterile couples, those who choose not to have children, or older people who no longer can conceive children. Because the advocates of traditional marriage will not say this, the argument goes, their claims are invalid.

In fact, the reason we do not say this is that our argument actually does not imply it. The state cannot know which married men and women will be sterile. By granting couples who do not want children the status of marriage, the state recognizes that they have the kind of union that characteristically produces children, even if they choose not to have any. By granting that status to older people no longer capable of conceiving a child, the state encourages the view that sex should be limited to married persons because that strengthens the likelihood that children will be raised by their biological parents.

It also has been argued that arguments such as mine belittle adoption. My wife and I have a wonderful adopted daughter. In many situations (including abuse, neglect, and financial deprivation), adoption is much better for a child than remaining with one or both biological parents—but that does not change the fact that, other things being equal, it is better for a child to grow up with both biological parents. Even the best adoptive homes recognize that the absence of biological parents brings painful struggles.

Many gay partners argue that their home is just as good for children as that of a married man and woman. We do not have the careful, longitudinal comparative studies to demonstrate empirically whether they are right or wrong, but we know that adopted children in even the “best” families experience emotional anguish at the loss of their biological parents, and family systems studies show that adolescents develop their own sexual identity best when they have both male and female role models. It is certainly reasonable, on the basis of what we now know, to make the claim that (again, other things being equal), it is better for children to grow up with both biological parents.

The evidence, as we have seen, is clear: The legal redefinition of marriage would have far-reaching negative consequences. Abandoning what every civilization for millennia has understood marriage to be (i.e. between a man and a woman) would harm children and undermine religious freedom. What can we evangelicals, who have lost almost all our credibility to speak on this topic, do to promote the historic understanding of marriage?

First, we must truly repent of the deep, widespread anti-gay prejudice in evangelical circles. We must ask forgiveness for our failure to condemn gay bashing, repent of our refusal to walk gently and lovingly with young people in our churches struggling with their sexual identity, and stop elevating the sin of homosexual practice above other sins. The model of Ed Dobson’s Calvary Church should become the norm for evangelical congregations.

In the life of the local church, we must distinguish homosexual ori-

entation from homosexual practice. Someone who is publicly known to have a gay orientation but lives a celibate life should be just as eligible for church leadership as a heterosexual person who has been promiscuous but now lives in a faithful heterosexual marriage or remains celibate.

We should develop church settings where celibate persons with a gay orientation can experience strong, supportive Christian community.

Second, we must set our own house in order by dramatically reducing the devastation and havoc in our families caused by heterosexual disobedience. Our argument that the tiny gay community undermines marriage is hypocritical unless we admit that by far the greatest threat to marriage and family is the sinful failure of husbands and wives to keep their marriage vows. If we cannot resist adultery and divorce and model healthy, joyful family life, we should admit that we have nothing credible to say in the public discussion of marriage.

Third, we should seek to change the divorce laws, especially no-fault divorce. When children are involved, the law should deny no-fault divorce and in other ways make divorce more difficult. This, not gay marriage, is the area of marriage law that affects the vast majority of our children. We should be spending the overwhelming majority of the time we devote to marriage law to changing the law that permits cheap divorce for heterosexuals, championing, for example, the kind of covenant marriage laws found in Louisiana and some other states.

Finally, we must treat gay people fairly. Gay couples want to have, and deserve to have, such basic rights as the family member or spouse’s right to visit a loved one in the hospital. One significant way to give them these rights would be to support the legal recognition of civil unions.

Other legal procedures might meet gay people’s concerns. But I see no problem with a carefully written law that defines a number of rights as part of a legally recognized civil union. That does not mean that those rights should include everything but the name of marriage. Given the purpose of marriage law, some rights and benefits—specifically those designed to strengthen the likelihood that children grow up with both biological parents—belong only to those who are married and not to those in civil unions.

That would be fair—and also a test. If the gay community’s real agenda is to legitimize homosexual behavior, the community will reject civil unions. If the agenda is, as many now claim, to gain appropriate benefits and rights, the gay community will accept civil unions and not press for gay marriage.

Ron Sider is founder and president of Evangelicals for Social Action.

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Kingdom Ethics

In April I entered the fray over sexual ethics by helping to organize and lead a “[Baptist] Conference on Sexuality and Covenant.” This was essentially an opportunity for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) to reflect prayerfully together about how to address the sexual ethics issues roiling most Christian fellowships/denominations as well as the broader society.

We did a few things differently at this conference, leading to what I believe was a better outcome. We did not restrict our discussion to homosexuality but rather broadened it to all kinds of sexual ethics issues.

We did not vote on any resolutions or policy statements. We did not address public issues such as gay marriage or gays in the military.

And we did not undertake conversation from the floor, instead directing all discussion to carefully facilitated small groups. We have since been told by non-Baptist veterans of other traumatized denominations that the model we offered could be very useful elsewhere. That was encouraging to hear.

Probably the most important difference in our approach was the focus on covenant.

This was fundamentally important to me and to CBF organizers, and it was what I focused on in my address. I want to camp out here for the remainder of this reflection.

I have believed for two decades that the erosion of the practice of covenant, in marriage and beyond, is one of the gravest moral challenges facing the church—and indeed the broader culture. Restricting my comments here to the church and Christian marriage, I claim that historic Christianity brought forward into modern civilization an understanding of marriage that was covenantal at its core. Marriage was the voluntary agreement by two Christians, in consultation with their families and under the lordship of Christ, to pledge themselves by sacred oath to God and one another to undertake the obligations of Christian marriage together. A Christian marriage covenant was a sacred pact to behave in certain ways (love, honor, cherish) and to refrain from behaving in other ways (cruelty, abandonment, criminality, adultery) over the course of a lifetime. This sacred pact was recognized as binding and obligatory by the

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londonxpress.deviantart.com

On Covenant

but that the entire individuals, families, community, Christian sexual church, and state. It shaped marethic should be reriages, laws, and cultures. cast, for everyone.

The erosion of deep ChrisIf “just love,” then tian influence in Western culture, the standard is not together with the hegemony of lifetime covenant concepts of personal autonomy but essentially a reand self-fulfillment, have shatlationship (of whattered the power of this covenantal The erosion of ever duration) that understanding of marriage, first the practice is non-exploitative, in the culture and eventually in of covenant, in fair, reciprocal, and the church and among Christians marriage and loving; if liberationwho marry. The very idea that beyond, is one of ist, then the paraone could bind oneself to lifetime the gravest moral digm is essentially obligations by one’s sacred oath challenges facing throwing off the at a tender age became increas- the church. shackles of historic ingly inconceivable. What remains Christian sexual repressiveness, especially of today is the form of a marital oath without a previously marginalized groups. shared understanding of or commitment to So here is an acute dilemma. If we its historic substance. This is both symptom understand “the homosexuality debate” as and cause of the decline of marriage to what about inviting gay and lesbian Christians to amounts to the commitment level of a dating make the same kinds of deeply counterculrelationship, symbolized most powerfully by tural, permanent, exclusive, monogamous 80-day celebrity “marriages.” covenants that we are calling straight ChrisNow, the “homosexuality issue” takes tians to make, and thus as a path to strengthmany forms. One form is the question of ening Christian sexual ethics overall, that is whether the church should recognize gay and one thing; but if the issue is instead acceptlesbian relationships as marriages; another ing the final abandonment of covenantalism is whether the church should welcome, afin Christian sexual ethics, that is quite anfirm, and accept as leaders gays and lesbians other. who are in committed sexual partnerships, Many of us find ourselves enticed by some of which are covenantal in form. Anthe expressed desire for committed relationother still is whether the church will advocate ships—because we wish that was the agenda for the legalization of gay marriage so that of the LGBT activist community and because those who want to legitimize their covenantal we know and love some committed gay and relationships can do so. lesbian couples and have a hard time denying At our conference last spring, I encounthem what we know to be the good fruit of tered gays and lesbians who simply want to committed relationships. But there is a growbe welcomed into the historic Christian coving suspicion among some of us that while we enantal understanding of marriage, some are allowing ourselves to be enticed by these of whom are deeply committed to such reappealing promises, what is actually taking lationships. They evoke in me an instinctive up residence even more deeply among us respect. But from other voices, including a as debates about homosexuality continue— few key platform speakers, I heard much thanks to academicians teaching liberationist greater discomfort with the constraints of and other noncovenantal perspectives—is a covenantal paradigm. And it is fair to say an abandonment of Christian sexual ethics. that most of the literature emerging in elite Christian sexual ethics today is not written from a covenantal perspective, but from a David P. Gushee is director “just love” (Margaret Farley) or liberationist of the Center for Theology perspective. and Public Life at Mercer In such cases, the claim is not that gays University. He recently and lesbians should be invited into bindreleased A New Evangelical ing, lifetime covenantal Christian marriage Manifesto (Chalice, 2012).

Photos from left: Kendra Rinas / Laura Elizabeth Pohl

We are seeing a rising tide of awareness and response to social needs sweeping through evangelical churches in the United States.

Several factors have combined to spark this movement, including the soaring popularity of short-term missions that have exposed believers to dimensions of poverty about which they were previously unaware, diverse perspectives brought to the table by a growing population of Christians in the Global South, and the impacts of globalization on media and education that have increasingly focused on poverty and conflict.

Evangelicals have responded by rediscovering the biblical meaning of discipleship with a renewed consideration of the social dimension—caring for the needs of the poor, feeding the hungry, visiting the prisoner, accepting the foreigner, protecting the orphan and the widow, and helping those in need within the body of believers.

This increase in social action is underpinned by an evangelical theology that seeks to entwine adoration for God, proclamation of the good news, and care for the poor as mandated in Christ’s two-fold instruction to love both God and neighbor. Evangelicals increasingly agree that these social activities are not uniquely separate from the church’s responsibilities to gather, worship, teach, and equip its members for every kind of work to which God calls us. Rather, they are sparked and nourished by the knowledge of God’s character, our ongoing transformation by the Holy Spirit, and our constant encounters with God and neighbor.

And yet one dimension of this work (and the theology that supports it) is still missing—a dimension that has bedeviled evangelicals for years. In this kind of social and spiritual work, sooner or later one will come up against, and have to decide how to deal with, those who use their power in society to create situations of injustice. They do this by means of downright violence and oppression, through corruption of justice, and/or by limiting opportunities available to the vulnerable to work themselves out of their condition of need. And, more often

than not, as Scripture clearly points out (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah), poverty and injustice are created and perpetuated by the use of government power. Given this, addressing poverty and injustice and laboring with God for the righteousness of God’s reign on earth, even as it is in heaven, includes confrontation of the various powers that perpetuate sin, corruption, and unjustness.

Evangelicals, therefore, will sooner or later be forced to decide where they stand on a theology of advocacy. It is our view that the church’s mission Our privileged includes a position as responsibility to citizens of a equip its members and seek God’s democratic specific role for nation them as individuals that wields and communities in tremendous the work for peace, power around reconciliation, and the world protection for the most marginalized. also offers an This involves a opportunity to prophetic call to advocate for name injustice and our neighbors to point toward suffering from righteousness, as well as mobilization poverty and and participation marginalization. in the influence of policies, laws, and culture. The church must also confront the unseen powers, faithfully addressing them through prayer, fasting, advocacy, and other disciplines of both spirit and deed. Understanding advocacy as part of the moral imperative of Christ’s commissioning of his disciples demands that followers of God recognize the role of championing justice as part of the larger framework of being ambassadors of God’s kingdom reign.

Nevertheless, we also understand that there will be deep differences among evangelicals on whether, how, and on what matters to engage government. For this reason,

Global Positions

Towards an Evangelical Theology of Advocacy we at Eastern University joined efforts with Asbury Theological Seminary and Bread for the World to create EvangelicalAdvocacy.org. This newly launched website is designed to serve as a resource to help evangelicals think and pray through the issue of advocacy, especially in relationship to US foreign assistance and its efforts to combat hunger and poverty. It serves as a kind of a clearinghouse of written and video materials and includes course syllabi from evangelical scholars, historical documentation of how church fathers and mothers have dealt with issues of public witness, and documents representing current thinking and practice by social change organizations. The materials are organized into four areas (and backed by a powerful search engine): Theology of Poverty in Today’s World; Christians Engaging Government; Government Initiatives against Global Poverty; and Advocacy on US Government Foreign Assistance.

As we American evangelicals strive to serve Christ in word and deed, we acknowledge our dual citizenship in our heavenly country and our earthly nation. Our privileged position as citizens of a democratic nation that wields tremendous power around the world also offers an opportunity to advocate for our neighbors suffering from poverty and marginalization. We hope and pray that this website will help believers in their individual and corporate processes of prayerful discernment around advocacy.

David Bronkema is chair of the School of Leadership & Development at Eastern University.

Amanda Kaminski is a PhD candidate in Christian spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif.

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Washington Watch

“Give me neither poverty nor riches, but my daily bread. For if I have too little I may steal and dishonor God, and if I have too much I will say, ‘Who is God? I don’t need God.’”

Getting Real About Taxes As arguments about the expiration of the socalled Bush tax cuts heat up yet again, I’d like for us to look at some hard numbers and imbibe some crisp, cool theology. First, the numbers: A September 2012 report by the Congressional Research Service* found that lower tax rates for the wealthiest (the top 0.1 percent and the top 0.01 percent) correlates with wider income and wealth disparity. In the concluding remarks, the report states: The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth.

The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie.

However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.

It is simply untrue that tax cuts for the wealthiest create more jobs, income, and wealth for the middle class and working poor. Data since 1945 bears this out. The report further concludes: Throughout the late-1940s and 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was typically above 90 percent; today it is 35 percent. Additionally, the top capital gains tax rate was 25 percent

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in the 1950s and 1960s, 35 percent in the 1970s; today it is 15 percent. The average tax rate faced by the top 0.01 percent of taxpayers was above 40 percent until the mid-1980s; today it is below 25 percent.

Tax rates affecting taxpayers at the top of the income distribution are currently at their lowest levels since the end of the Second World War….

As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1 percent [top tenth of one percent] of US families increased from 4.2 percent in 1945 to 12.3 percent by 2007. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1 percent fell from over 50 percent in 1945 to about 25 percent in 2009.

Tax policy does indeed have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates are associated with greater income disparities.

Does God have an opinion about this?

Christians are supposed to think so. I think God’s opinion is that the wealthiest should live more simply and that the poorest should have safe shelter, nutritious food, quality education, and accessible and affordable healthcare. In the Hebrew Scriptures, God’s prophets tell kings and rich people not to gather so much wealth into multiple barns, palaces, and fields but to redistribute it. Redistribute it? Yes! The biblical Jubilee teaching requires a redistribution of land every 50 years so that some families do not get exceedingly wealthy while others remain desolately

poor. Society had a system that prevented extremes, balancing wealth so that more people had enough and fewer people suffered from extreme riches and extreme poverty. A powerful yet seemingly un-American proverb (30:8-9) is “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but my daily bread. For if I have too little I may steal and dishonor God, and if I have too much I will say, ‘Who is God? I don’t need God.’” Taxation is a system by which governments can help fulfill this wise proverb. God is on the side of the people who suffer, and people often suffer because systems are in place that allow low, non-livable wages and that allow the wealthiest to amass exorbitant wealth while not having to support to a sufficient degree the nation and citizens that enabled them to profit so much.

Governments can tax the wealthiest at a higher rate and help them out by reducing exorbitant riches, and governments can provide safety nets for the poorest and education and healthcare for everyone. It can be done, and when it is done I think God is quite happy. And we should be too. *Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945 by Thomas L. Hungerford (Congressional Research Service; September 14, 2012; available at tinyurl.com/9uxatwn)

Paul Alexander is professor of Christian ethics and public policy at Eastern University’s Palmer Theological Seminary as well as director of public policy at the Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy.

Yvonne Valenza

On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples that he would be leaving them soon. The news of Jesus’ upcoming departure upset his disciples, and I can imagine their concern. They had had direct access to their teacher for the past few years. How could he leave them now? But Jesus promised that with his departure they would receive a new teacher, the Holy Spirit. “When the Spirit of truth comes,” Jesus reassured them, “he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13).

I often wish that I were one of the disciples. I think to myself, “If only I could walk up to Jesus and ask him a question.” One of the topics I want to pick his brain on is sexuality. My questions to him are not theoretical; their answers deeply impact my life. As his follower, how should I respond to the fact that I have attractions to men?

For the last few decades the debate has raged on this subject. Judgments have been passed. Battles have been fought and refought. Churches and denominations have split. Families have divided.

Jesus, in all of this, where is your Spirit that will guide us into all truth?

Discussions of sexuality often seem driven by attitudes of certainty.

People on both sides are convinced of their own point of view. They speak as if their perspective is obvious: “How could a follower of Jesus believe anything else?” To be honest, it doesn’t often feel as if the Spirit is doing much guiding or leading. It’s as if people are asking, “Why do we need the Spirit when the Bible is so clear or when our instincts are so decisive about what to believe about our sexuality?”

At times I wonder if our posture of certainty in discussions of sexual-

May I Have a Word?

Spirit of Truth, Come

ity is often driven by our fears. We are often unwilling even to listen to a different point of view, as if the very act of listening will threaten our own perspective. Why would we want to understand those we disagree with?

Spirit of truth, do we not trust your guidance? Are you limited in your power to protect us from deception? Do we not believe that you can and will guide us into all truth?

Both sides seem eager to demonize the other. Words such as depraved, homophobe, unrepentant, bigot, deceived, and ignorant are tossed around. The faith of those who disagree with us is called into question because we believe that “true Christians” would agree with us. We believe that those who “really take the Bible seriously” must come to the same conclusions as we do. Is the Spirit of truth and his guidance available to all believers or just to those who share our point of view? Did Jesus mean that the Spirit of truth would guide all believers or just a select few?

I believe that God keeps his promises; therefore I believe that the Spirit of truth is here. He is ready and available, and I believe he wants to guide us. May each of us cry out to God and humbly ask him for his direction, his discernment, and his wisdom. May we let go of pride and the desire to win arguments, and may we honestly ask the Spirit to reveal his truth.

May we be sensitive to his leading and direction even in places and people where we least expect it.

I don’t believe that submitting to the Spirit’s leading will bring about easy answers or a miraculous consensus.

Though we may be surprised by how much we Spirit of truth, agree with those who are on the other side, the do we not trust discussion will still involve wrestling with Scrip- your guidance? ture and its interpretation. We will still have Are you limited to use our God-given minds and reason. We in your power to will challenge each other in our understandings of God’s truth. However, through this process protect us from our ideas will be refined and ultimately we will deception? Do we be refined. And, as promised, the Spirit will not believe that produce fruit. Imagine a discussion of sexual- you can and will ity that is marked by love, joy, gentleness, and guide us into all kindness! truth?

As we become convinced of God’s truth, we must seek to communicate that truth with gentleness and respect. May we truly believe the Spirit of God is at work in people and that in his time he will guide them into all truth. May we stop trying to be the Holy Spirit for other people and rather trust the Holy Spirit to do his work in their lives.

At times he may speak through us; at times we must be patient and silent.

May we realize that none of us has arrived at a perfect understanding and that we all need to continue to grow. May love be our motivator so that our words do not become like a resounding gong or a clanging symbol.

The Spirit is the great comforter, the teacher, the one who comes alongside each one of us on our journey of faith.

Spirit of Truth, come, guide us into all truth.

Shane Bauman teaches mathematics at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He is on the board of New Direction Canada (see page 44) and in leadership at The Living Room, the church he attends in Kitchener, Ontario.

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Faithful Citizenship

"It is a repudiation of the Resurrection," thundered Father Washington, "to suggest that my destiny is in the hands of anyone but the Risen Christ!"

Reaching for the Infinite

by Harold Dean Trulear Several months after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981, Fr. Paul Washington, the rector of the Church of the Advocate in North Philadelphia, rose to the pulpit. Fr. Washington, who died in 2002, had gained quite a reputation as a radical church and community leader, having hosted several Black Power conferences in the 1960s and hosted the so-called “Irregular Ordinations” of the first female Episcopal priests in 1974.

Peering over his glasses, he scanned the congregation, preparing to make a point.

“I attended a banquet last week,” he intoned, “and the speaker declared that, with the election of President Reagan, our destiny is now in the hands of a madman.” Many in the congregation nodded in assent and waited for the good rector to elaborate on his thesis. And elaborate he did—but not on the so-called madness of Reagan. Instead, he chose to focus on destiny.

“It is a repudiation of the Resurrection,” thundered Fr. Washington, his voice rising, "to suggest that my destiny is in the hands of anyone but the Risen Christ!"

The congregation sat stunned. They expected a denunciation of America's far-right turn, but instead they received something better—a stern reminder that destiny—national and individual, political and communal—

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belongs to God, whose definitive statement of victory over death establishes the ground of all hope.

While some might consider such a statement to be a spiritualizing salve in the face of harsh political reality, Fr. Washington's track record as an activist belied any such interpretation. Rather, it is an authentic call to look beyond the political sphere to a transcendent reality when it comes to envisioning the future.

How relevant such a statement is in this season of elections, with its attendant hopes and disappointments! With battle lines again drawn along constituencies of race and ethnicity, religion and class, the temptation ever exists to exalt too highly or mourn too deeply the choices of the American electorate. This should not suggest that it makes no difference whom we elect—but it does tell us that political practice and public policy reside within the context of finitude. And Christian citizenship always looks beyond the finite for its sense of hope and destiny.

As someone active in research, writing, and mobilization concerning faith and criminal justice, I was excited by Obama’s election in 2008, especially when he named Eric Holder as attorney general. But that excitement diminished to a more cautionary posture when I saw how he handled such public policy issues as prisoner reentry, mass incarceration, and alternative sentencing. Silence on gun control, especially in the wake of the shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin, betrayed a realpolitik that frames positions on issues squarely within the limits (another word for "finitude") of campaigning and electability.

Maybe I expected too much. Presidents

are not kings (perhaps the only kings left in America are prison wardens). The Founding Fathers saw to that through the establishment of checks and balances.

Neither are presidents mere celebrities—a charge brought against Obama in his 2008 campaign. They have a role in governance that affects the lives of many. But the elections of our various leaders in November 2012—and their subsequent inaugurations, installations, and seatings—must always be relativized by the presence to which Fr. Washington pointed on that Sunday in 1981.

And they must always be in conversation with the power of that presence as it energizes the faithful to continue our efforts at mobilization and change on behalf of the poor, the sick, the prisoner, and all families affected by lack of access to services, visibility to the powerful, and platform for their voices. The inauguration of Jesus does not occur every four years on a chilly January in Washington. Rather, one discerns Christ's eternal establishment before the world began, his glorification on a Roman cross, his exaltation in the Resurrection, and ultimate coronation in the book of Revelation.

And from such an eternal Lordship, Christian citizens draw strength to pray and work, to meditate and mediate, to act and prophesy.

Fr. Washington was right—it is a repudiation of the resurrection to assign ultimacy to election results. But it is also a denial of the power of the Resurrection to sit idly by and let politics run its course. Rather, each election becomes an opportunity to take stock of a newly emerging political configuration, recognize its finitude, and then reach for the power of the infinite. These next four years will reflect either an engagement of the life of the Resurrection through ongoing activity, or a repudiation of its reality through undue celebration of benign resignation.

Choose life!

Harold Dean Trulear is associate professor of applied theology at Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, DC, and director of the Healing Communities Prisoner Reentry Initiative at the Philadelphia Leadership Foundation HealingCommunitiesUSA.org).

America and Its Guns continued from page 46: college students to gain a clearer perspective on the issues presented.

In America and Its Guns, James Atwood has sounded the alarm to those of us who have stood on the sidelines, remained apathetic, or are sound asleep to the violence around us. May his words begin to awaken us to the call and responsibility to put our faith into action against those forces that would constrain and ultimately destroy us.

Drick Boyd is associate professor of Urban & Interdisciplinary Studies at Eastern University’s Philadelphia campus and a founding member of Heeding God’s Call, a multi-faith gun violence prevention movement (HeedingGodsCall.org).

The End of Sexual Identity continued from page 46: we have been arguing about are relatively recent social constructions that must be transcended by thoughtful Christians. But Paris’ deeper moral agenda seems to be to find a way to get evangelicals to level the moral playing field between “gays” and “straights” and evaluate all sexual morality by the test of love. In the evangelical world, this is a very brave project. My hope is that you are now intrigued (angry? astounded?) enough to go out and read the book for yourself. Please do so, prepared to be challenged in unexpected ways.

A regular columnist for PRISM, David P. Gushee is director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University, Atlanta, Ga., where he is also a professor of Christian ethics.His latest book is A New Evangelical Manifesto: A Kingdom Vision for the Common Good, just released

by Chalice Press.

Broken Hallelujahs continued from page 47: in popular culture through music, movies, and other art forms. A study guide is available for download at BrazosPress.com, making Broken Hallelujahs an excellent tool for discussion and for stretching the imagination—and the witness—of the church.

An expert on issues of multi-ethnicity, leadership, and community development, Efrem Smith is the superintendent of the Pacific Southwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church and the author of three books, including The Hip Hop Church (IVP, 2005).

Counseling and Christianity continued from page 47: And readers currently working with complex cases like “Jake’s” will find it impossible to read this book without being repeatedly challenged to reflect on their own work in light of the clinical/faith interface options demonstrated by the “consultants” and discussed by the editors.

G. Peter Schreck is professor emeritus of pastoral care and counseling at Eastern University’s Palmer Theological Seminary.

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Ron Sider

Evangelicals and Homosexuality: A Proposal ESA has not spent much time on the issue of homosexuality in the past. And we do not plan to make it a primary focus in the future.

So why a whole issue on this topic now?

Today this topic provokes intense debate and disagreement in both church and society. It tears churches apart and helps shape elections.

The widespread perception that evangelicals are hostile to homosexuals weakens our witness and even drives people away from Christ.

Unfortunately evangelicals are largely to blame for the widespread view that we are homophobic and hostile to gay people. We have not vigorously condemned the hateful fringe groups among us or opposed the abuse of the LGBT persons. We have failed to distinguish gay orientation from gay sexual activity. (There is nothing sinful in having a gay orientation where one is sexually attracted to a person of the same sex. Gay sexual practice, not gay orientation, is the important issue.)

We have failed to take the lead in ministering to gay people suffering from AIDS, and Jerry Falwell even denounced the use of government funds to search for a cure. And some evangelicals had the gall to imply that gay people were a primary (or even the primary) cause of the collapse of marriage and family even though the facts clearly show otherwise (see my feature on page 38).

Some believe that the evangelical track record is so bad that we should just remain silent on this issue. But that would mean abandoning our submission to biblical revelation. ESA believes that the Bible teaches that sexual activity belongs exclusively in a lifelong marriage between a man and a woman. (Some of the best detailed exegetical statements are in Welcoming but Not Affirming by Stanley Grenz, The Bible and Homosexual Practice

by Robert Gagnon, and The Moral Vision of the New Testament, chapter 16, by Richard Hays.)

But simply repeating this biblical truth is not very helpful. We need a whole new approach.

For starters, we must do whatever it takes to nurture a generation of evangelicals who keep their marriage vows and model healthy family life.

Second, we need to find ways to love and listen to gay people, especially gay Christians, in a way that most of us have not done. (Andrew Marin’s Love Is an Orientation issues a passionate summons to do that.) That is why ESA (led by PRISM editor Kristyn Komarnicki) has engaged in an extended conversation with both gay and

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straight Christians who embrace a variety of views on whether gay sexual activity is proper for Christians. In this issue we share some of the material that has emerged from this conversation.

In addition to living faithful marriages and engaging in loving conversation, I believe evangelicals must take the lead in a cluster of vigorous, public activities related to gay people.

We ought to take the lead in condemning and combating verbal or physical abuse of gay people.

We ought to develop model programs so that evangelical congregations are known as the best place in the world for gay and questioning youth (and adults) to seek God’s will in a context

hateful.

For some, “welcoming but not affirming” is unacceptable. For many in our relativistic society (where relativism is confused with tolerance and “love” trumps truth), any statement, no matter how gentle and loving, that says certain behavior is sinful is rejected as uncivil, hateful, and violent.

We must beg the Holy Spirit to teach us better ways to be gentle and loving. But we also must realize that any condemnation of sin will sometimes be rejected as unloving by those who embrace that sin.

Some Christians who have rightly learned to listen to and love gay people say that all we should do is love gay people and let the Holy Spirit teach each gay person how they should act.

That is far too individualistic. The church through the centuries has always believed that interpreting the Bible and nurturing biblical behavior is a communal task. We are supposed to watch over one another in love, as Wesley said. The Christian community must discern how to understand biblical sexual teaching and then nurture Christians who live it—but always with love and gentleness.

And also patience. We are often in too big a hurry to summon people to live biblical ethics. All of us, if we look inward with honest hearts, recognize that the Holy Spirit has been very patient, slowly reshaping our tangled character in the image of Christ. We should not be in a hurry to talk about biblical norms. We should love, pray, and listen, waiting patiently for the Holy Spirit to speak and act.

But that does not mean never talking about biblical sexual standards. It means waiting for the Spirit’s timing.

I hope and pray that the Lord of the church and the world will somehow weave truth and fidelity out of the tangled strands that we currently face today on this issue. I ask God to show ESA how to play a new role in a new movement to embrace gay people in a loving, biblical way. And I trust that this issue of PRISM will be a first step on that important journey. ✍ Ron Sider is president of ESA and professor of theology/ public policy at Palmer Seminary of Eastern University. He is the author of the bestseller Rich

We must beg the Holy Spirit to teach us better ways to be gentle and loving. that embraces, loves, and listens rather than shames, denounces, and excludes. Surely we can ask the Holy Spirit to show us how to teach and nurture biblical sexual practice without ignoring, marginalizing, and driving away from Christ those who struggle with biblical norms.

Our churches should be widely known as places where people with a gay orientation can be open about their orientation and feel truly welcomed and embraced. Of course, Christians who engage in unbiblical sexual practices (whether heterosexual or gay Christians) should be discipled (and disciplined) by the church and not allowed to be leaders or members in good standing if they persist in their sin. (The same should be said for those who engage in unbiblical practices of any kind, sexual or otherwise.) However, Christians who openly acknowledge a gay orientation but commit themselves to celibacy should be eligible for any role in the church that their spiritual gifts suggest. Imagine the impact if evangelical churches were widely known to be the best place in the world to find love, support, and full affirmation of gifts if one is an openly, unashamedly gay, celibate Christian.

That, very briefly, is what I believe our Lord calls biblical Christians to do on this fiercely debated, highly controversial topic. That is what ESA wants to help the church do.

We have no illusions that this approach will be easy. Many conservative Christians want only to condemn. Many gay people consider anything short of affirming gay practice to be intolerant and

Christians in an Age of Hunger.

PRISM Vol. 19, No. 6

Nov/Dec 2012

Editorial Board

Miriam Adeney

Tony Campolo

Luis Cortés

Richard Foster G. Gaebelein Hull

Karen Mains

Vinay Samuel

Tom Sine

Eldin Villafane

George Barna Rodney Clapp Samuel Escobar William Frey Roberta Hestenes John Perkins Amy Sherman Vinson Synan Harold DeanTrulear

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A Publication of Evangelicals for Social Action The Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy www.EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University

All contents © 2012 ESA/PRISM magazine.