Some Wisdom From The Stories of Four Gay Christians

In this crazy world of fear and mistrust, we often lash out at people who are different from us.

This is a mistake.

This talk calls us back to loving, listening, and praying, no matter the differences.

Three of the four in this talk have written books on same-sex attraction and the Christian life. I have included my review of their books below.

Rosaria Champagne was a very successful tenured professor at Syracuse University. Holding a Ph.D. in English literature and cultural studies, she was the key professor in the critical theory department. Her specialty was queer theory. (a post-modern form of gay and lesbian studies) She endeared herself to “radical leftist ideology,” embracing the philosophical & political views of Freud, Marx, and Darwin. She genuinely believed that her perspective and her activism were making the world a better place. As a result, she was deeply loved by the LGBT community and served as faculty advisor for all the gay and lesbian organizations on campus. She was a sought-after keynote speaker at gay pride parades and a desired visiting lecturer at such reputable schools as Harvard.

But all that changed. The local newspaper printed her scathing assessment of the “gender politics” displayed by a national evangelical Christian organization. As usual, mail that hated her, and adored her poured in. However, there was one letter that didn’t seem to fit in either pile. The letter from pastor Ken Smith suggested that she explore and defend the presuppositions that undergirded her conclusions. The letter was gentle, open, inquisitive, and challenging. Rosaria was unable to let the letter leave her mind. Life moved forward, and Rosaria decided to write a book on the religious right. She believed that religion was as Marx wrote. “The opiate of the masses” an imperialist social construction made to soothe the existential angst of the intellectually impaired. But in the interest of good scholarship, she knew she must study. She learned Greek, started reading the Bible and tried to immerse herself in this thinking that was so foreign to her. It didn’t take long before she knew she needed a tutor. She thought of Ken Smith, Rosaria, suspected all Christians to be narrow-minded, bigoted, and anti-intellectual, but maybe, just maybe, Ken was different. She called and started blasting him with questions. Ken responded, “These are the kinds of questions that need to be talked about in my living room in front of the fireplace after dinner. Would you come?” And so it began, the remarkable friendship between a 36-year-old lesbian feminist and a 70-year-old reformed Presbyterian minister. After 2 years, Rosaria converted to Christianity. She describes her conversion as a “train wreck” because of the massive destruction that it wrought in every aspect of her life. “When you die to yourself you have nothing from your past to use as clay out of which to shape your future.” As Rosaria reflects on her incredible transformation, she has a multitude of wisdom for us:

"Where everyone thinks the same, nobody thinks very much.

There is a core difference between sharing the gospel with the lost and imposing a specific moral standard on the unconverted.

In the court of public opinion, Christians have lost the war on intellectual integrity...I couldn’t come to church; it was too threatening, too weird, too much. So, Ken was willing to bring the church to me. Ken Smith spent time with me- and not just spare time. He spent pricey time- real time. He didn’t hide behind bumper stickers or slogans.

How do you have the strength of character to repent for a sin that, at that time, didn’t feel like a sin at all? It felt like life, plain and simple.

Sins of identity take a while

Christians still scare me when they reduce Christianity to a lifestyle and claim that God is on the side of those who attend to the rules of the lifestyle they have invented or claim to find in the Bible.

God’s people surrounded me—not to manipulate, not to badger, but to love, to listen, to watch, and to pray.

Pride and not sexual orientation was the root of my problem.

Rosaria had come to see herself as the controlling, manipulative, arrogant, rebellious person she was. She stopped justifying herself and repented even when the feelings were not there. Differences in her were duly noted by her network of friends. Her lover suggested she take a holiday. Her drag queen friend told her she was sick. Eventually, Rosaria knew she had to “come out.” She picked the graduate student orientation convocation as the time and place to do it. She was the keynote speaker. Towards the end of her speech, which landed like a bombshell in the ears of all her listeners, she said:

“I discovered that God isn’t just a narrative we pick like summer berries or leave for the next person; nor is God a set of social conventions tailored for the weak of mind; nor is God a consumerist social construct who exists in the service of Christian imperialist ideologies and right-wing politics. Rather, I discovered that God through Jesus Christ exists, the triune God of the Bible exists, whether we acknowledge him or not. I discovered that God wasn’t very happy with me.” (August 1999, Graduate Student Orientation Convocation) Syracuse

Not long after that, she resigned, married a Reformed minister, adopted four kids, and became a homeschool mom, author, and conference speaker.

Vines firmly believes that the Bible’s prohibitions against homosexuality do not envision or encompass gay monogamous Christian relationships. According to him, the Bible condemns sexual excess, not sexual orientation. It is, therefore, no sin to act out on same-sex impulses, provided they are safely within a covenant of marriage.

A reinterpretation of formerly held beliefs is nothing new; the Bible can still be authoritative even though we might understand it differently than before.

• We were wrong about slavery. We changed, and the Bible is still authoritative.

• We were wrong about the earth being the centre of the universe. We changed, and the Bible is still authoritative.

• We were wrong about strict patriarchy and the role of women in the Church. We changed, and the Bible is still authoritative.

• Therefore, it is entirely possible that we could be wrong about condemning monogamous gay marriage, that we could change and still have the Bible be authoritative.

  God wouldn't do this to his children.

According to the author, it is "bad fruit" to condemn a Christian person to a life of celibacy against their will just because that person happens to be same-sex attracted. It is not "good fruit" for man to be alone! So there must be a better interpretation for those Scriptures that appear to prohibit homosexual activity. A good God would not create a rule that produces the rotten fruit of loneliness and perpetual banishment from the intimate belonging God gifts to human beings in marriage. Monogamous gay marriage doesn't hurt or damage anyone, therefore it's "good fruit" The early Church initially thought that Christianity was a Jewish cultural thing, but as the early Church listened to God and looked at their own experiences they decided it was "bad fruit" to force Gentiles to keep Jewish laws and get circumcised. Those were unnecessary restrictions, and so they fell away.

In the same way, it's bad fruit to force Gay Christians to keep unnecessary sexual laws that, technically, if you look at Scripture closely enough, don't even apply to a Gay Christian in the 21st century.

Gay people cannot change their sexual desires.

"Sexual orientation is both fixed and unchosen…it is impossible for same-sex attracted people to be attracted to opposite sex people."

Many have tried and failed, creating even more problems. He cites the complete failure of the ex-gay movement "Exodus International" as evidence.

But this is not true; Rosaria Butterfield and Deborah Hirsch are two notable examples to the contrary. Also, I’ve just learned that Christopher Yuan, featured here, is now married to a woman.

It seems to me that human sexuality is both more complex and flexible than Vines allows with his short definitive statements about sexual attraction.

What about what the Scripture says?

According to Vines, all six of the no gay sex passages don't mean no gay sex, they mean no bad gay sex. Bad gay sex is whatever happens outside of marriage.

As for the male and female, one flesh marriage thing, that can go away too as an argument against homosexuality because that isn't really about biology; it's about covenant keeping. Moses, Jesus, and Paul, when they talk about leaving and cleaving and one fleshing, they are talking about keeping promises, not anatomical body parts that naturally fit together. Promise-keeping is a big part of it, but is that all that’s in mind with these passages? I don’t think so. He spent a lot of time attempting to debunk the need for gender complementarity in marriage, and his insistence that the terminology is simply about promise-keeping remains particularly unconvincing.

The Levitical passages against gay sex are tossed out with the shellfish laws; they don't apply. Vines rejects the non-biblical man-made distinction that eliminates civil and ceremonial laws but keeps the moral ones. According to his hermeneutics, you don't get to keep some rules and toss out the others.

What about Sodom? — The thirteen O.T. passages that condemn Sodom speak against its arrogance, its pride, its violence, its inhospitality, its uncaring attitude, and its abuse of the marginalized. They don't dwell on same-sex behaviour much at all. It's not until 1st century A.D. that this link is made. Indeed the term "sodomite" according to Vines, is a term from the 11th century A.D.

The words for "abomination" and "despicable actions," which seem to have obvious links to sexual behaviour, are reinterpreted to mean sexual excess. It would be excessive to gang rape someone, or as one scholar suggested to have sex with an angel. Evidently, it wouldn't have been so bad if one man had come to the door with a marriage proposal for Lot’s guests.

In the New Testament passages, it's more of the same. The sin is not in the act itself; sexual excess is the problem. According to Vines, homosexual activity was always considered excessive in the first century. It was always about men who needed more than what they were getting in their marriages. There was no category of orientation and no understanding of gay marriage. It was always sexual "overflow." To be faithful to the Scriptures' original intent, this passage and all the rest should only be used to condemn sexual excess.

I’m not convinced. Paul is condemning the action — period. I would rather walk away from Scripture than twist it so badly here. Yes, Paul didn't think in terms of sexual orientation, and he didn't give identity language to behaviour or assume that it could be limited to loving monogamy, but all this talk is irrelevant to the text. What concerned Paul was the behaviour. Paul gives it a thumbs down. Matthew Vines answers with a "yeah, but" and then tries valiantly to say that our 21st-century context is different. I can't get on board. He quotes Philo, Plutarch and Clement, who all seem to think that the great sin of homosexuality was not the act itself. It was that one of the men had to "become a woman" for the act to happen, and nothing was more degrading than that. This perceived sin had its roots in misogyny. To be considered womanly was the great sin. Not gay sex per se. As near as I can gather, the point is that we have evolved from such misogynistic notions now, so active and passive sexual partners are not the offence that they would have been in a patriarchal culture. So, it's all good now.

If someone wants to believe this is true, they will. Vines gives enough supporting evidence to justify the change, or at least to create enough confusion that Christians will say it doesn't matter so much anymore. Matthew has worked very hard and presented as strong a case as possible to justify his experience while at the same time receiving the approving applause of Scripture. I'm sympathetic to Matthew Vines and appreciate his diligent work in many ways. I even hope he is right! But to me, it's just too much to swallow. He holds a high view of Scripture, but his interpretations seem to speak lies to his claim.

He is gay, and that’s not cool by his Asian American parents. There is a nasty blow-up. He moves out, gets into the gay club party scene, discovers drugs, and excels at selling them. Life is perfect for Christopher: money, power, drugs, gay sex and complete acceptance.

All of that ends with an arrest, incarceration and an HIV diagnosis. In prison, he finds a Bible in a trash can, reads it, and accepts Jesus as his saviour. He also finds a man to help him grow in his newfound faith. The man tells Chris to become a minister when he gets out of prison. At first, this idea sounds preposterous, but Chris’s prison ministry grows, and he wonders if it might be possible. But don’t Christians like gays? The chaplain at the prison says “not a problem” and gives Chris a book teaching that Christianity was for gay love and not against it. However, the more Chris studied his Bible, the more he discovered the opposite. The chaplain’s book ended up in the trash can. Chris got out of prison and became an internationally respected conference speaker and theology professor at a Christian university.

Christopher will tell you that he remains gay. However, he has become content to resist those attractions and remain celibate. He believes that celibacy is a legitimate option for human beings and that he as a person is in no way incomplete, unfulfilled or somehow deficient just because he is not sexually active. His allegiance to Jesus and God’s Word has led him to deny himself in this area. Self-denial, of course, is a central tenet of Christianity, so he doesn’t feel he is different from any other Christian.

Chris thinks it’s unhelpful and unhealthy for humans to be identified primarily by their sexual orientation. Chris does not want his identity to be “homosexual” or “heterosexual.” His identity is that he is a child of God. He is also emphatic that singleness is not a curse or a burden. There is only one thing Chris can’t live without: God. Everything else can go. For so many years, Chris was a prisoner to his need for popularity, dance music, sex and drugs. Liberation came when he tore those idols down and began to follow the God who is love. Ironically, true freedom came for Chris while he was in prison.