I had the most interesting Christmas this year, far more interesting than any I have experienced in recent memory. I went to Indianapolis, Indiana to stay with my folks, who just relocated there last month. It snowed on Christmas Day. I nearly threw up with excitement…seriously, I was that excited.
I was with my parents for a few days before my brother and his wife and Ash flew in. It was great just to hang with them and hear about how amped they are for all the new stuff going on in their lives. (Dad going back to school, Mom starting her dream job.) They are renting this little duplex in an old Indy neighborhood called Woodruff Place, which is one of the oldest suburbs in the U.S. (It was a suburb when it was started in 1872, but it was only two miles from downtown. Now it’s just downtown.) It’s three square blocks of these incredible, rambling Victorian homes that are slowly being restored to their former glory. I love old homes, and you just don’t get ‘em in Southern California. I took a lot of walks.
I also hung out a lot with my dad’s youngest sister and her roommate, Lee. (Aunt Ruth is three years younger than me. It’s complicated.) Ruth and Lee are both gay. And Christians. While they are far from the first Jesus-following homasexshuls that I know and love, they are the first to share their journeys — personal, relational, and theological — so warmly and openly. (They are also the first to take me karaoke-ing at a gay bar. There were a lot of show tunes, but the highlight was Lee singing “The Great Adventure” by Steven Curtis Chapman. He brought the house down.) We went to Christmas dinner at their house; it was my family (my brother and sister-in-law flew in that afternoon), Ruth and Lee, plus a whole crowd of their gay friends who couldn’t afford or were not welcome to go home for the holidays. It was beautiful. In a Jesus-showed-up-and-sat-down-to-eat-turkey kind of way. (And what a turkey it was! Ruth is from Oklahoma and Lee is from Kentucky and they know how to cook with the two things Californians most fear: butter and cream. Lee’s homemade corn pudding was just this side of Glory.)
We went to midnight Mass at All Saints’ Episcopal Church on Christmas Eve. The rector there is gay, and also a helluva preacher. He spoke about setting aside our agendas (gay, straight, Right, Left, American, whatever) and gathering at the Manger to get on God’s agenda. Dad and I joked later that it was really hard to be low-church evangelicals during his sermon, since we both wanted to give him some “Amen!” shout-outs, which would have been highly inappropriate amid the clouds of incense and Latin chant. I asked my dad how he felt about suddenly finding himself on the periphery of the gay community in Indianapolis. (Dad’s been an evangelical pastor for over 30 years.) He thought about it for a minute, then he said, “Loving gay people isn’t the ministry I moved halfway across the nation to have…but it seems to be the one God’s given. That’s good enough for me.”
The last night we were there, Ash and I went with Ruth and Lee to The Peppy Grill (an all-night diner where the food is cheap and Alice the cook/waitress/busboy/dishwasher is really, really grouchy) and talked about God and life and Bill Gaither’s body of work, and chain-smoked over fried foods and bad coffee until four in the morning. My hair still smells like an ashtray, but it was the best church service I’ve been to in a long, long time.
Wow. That is QUITE the Christmas. Very cool.
That really was a great little story and I’m glad you had such a fun Christmas! (Especially the snow. Man, so lucky!) Anyway, I hope I don’t sound like a troll or drag or anything, but I just wonder how you handle the gay stuff so well. I mean, here’s my thing: I truly believe we should love all people no matter what. Gay, straight, left, right, black, white, blah, blah, blah… I mean, Jesus would right? Of course!
But where I have trouble is wondering can that thought go too far in a way. Not that we can’t love to much (there’s obviously far too little love especially from most Christians) but that we may tend to overlook too much in the name of love.
I mean Jesus loved the woman caught in the act of adultery. He forgave her and saved her from all the angry religious folks who were ready to kill her. But he also told her to go and sin no more. For me I think homosexuality is a sin. Not some instant condemning irredeemable sin. But something just like any other sin like lying, pornography, etc… Before I got married, I got involved with a married woman. Basically I committed adultery. A very “serious” sin, eh? But eventually I came back around to the Lord and found acceptance in the church. Would it have been wrong for other Christians to “support” my relationship? Yes, I think so. Would it have been wrong if other Christians had shunned and excluded me? Yes, I think so too. Fortunately for me, some truly loving folks supported and encouraged me while at the same time helped me to change my behavior and mindset.
And I guess that’s the same way that I see the whole gay Christian thing. We had better love and accept them so we don’t end up being like those who had stones in their hands ready to condemn and exclude others because their sin offends us in a different way. But how to support and accept while helping others to escape from “sinful” behaviors or lifestyles?
Man, I hope none of that sounds inflammatory or bigoted. If it does I deeply apologize. I really would love to hear others thoughts on this. The main thing I want no matter what is just to go about my life by loving God and through that loving others in a real and true way.
Mike, There is no sin in being gay. Even the most conservative people seem to agree that if gay people live celibately they are being faithful to the Lord. I didnt see in Aly’s account any mention of anything one could count as sinful.
Hey Doug. Yeah, I kind of agree with your statement about “no sin in being gay”. I guess what I meant is if you’re actively living a gay lifestyle. Does that make any sense? I have a close friend of mine who’s had gay relationships in the past but no longer does and I’ve got no beef or issues with him whatsoever. Again I go back to the example of myself. I was only “sinful” once I committed adultery by being in a relationship with that married woman. Once I engage (either by mind or act) is when I commit sin.
All I was wondering was how do you bring actively “sinful” (I know that word is strong, sorry!) people into a relationship with Jesus and other believers? And I guess when I think about it, you’re just supposed to love, right? I mean Jesus doesn’t ask us to “clean up” before he takes us in. He loved us even while we hated him. Perhaps I’m just confused on where we’re supposed to give love regardless and when we’re supposed to encourage/admonish/discipline/exhort…
Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything here. I apologize to Aly and everyone else if I turned this wonderful story into something negative. That’s truly not where my heart was while writing.
Mike - Thanks for your comments, and definitely no need to apologize. It’s obvious that you have the most loving and generous of intentions.
Neither Ruth nor Lee are celibate. Neither are currently in a relationship, but both would like to get married and have a family some day with a same sex partner. They are not interested in the stereotypical “gay lifestyle,” i.e., casual sex with multiple partners, etc. They are strong proponents of monogamy.
In answer to your questions about how I handle the gay stuff so well: I don’t know. I don’t have your same conviction that homosexuality (active or inactive) is sinful, and I don’t have the opposite conviction that it’s perfectly okay. My dad and I talked about this some, and agreed that theologically we’ve put this one on the back burner for far too long, accepting the party line that God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve, but not loving our gay brothers and sisters enough to really dig down and answer some very difficult, consequential questions. Clearly the Bible has a few harsh things to say about those who engage in same sex relations - but what does that mean, if you know what I mean. At the crux of the question is how and why we read the Bible, and I’m still figuring that one out.
I am convinced that learning and loving God is best done in community, and Ruth and Lee are a part of my community. It would be false advertising to call our relationship “community” if I was unwilling to hear their stories, their fears, their hopes, their sorrows, and their joys…and that’s just what I did this last week. (They did too, by the way. They are both excellent and wise listeners.) The truth is, God is at work in a myriad of places we’d least expect, and I want to remain open and attentive to wherever I might find Him (even a gay karaoke bar!)
I don’t know all the answers, Mike, but I feel strongly that we must pursue them together, all of us, especially those on the margins who continue to be excluded. Ruth said something beautiful a couple of days ago: “Shouting to each other across a canyon will never change any of us. But if we draw close, perhaps we can all be changed.” Until I get better advice, I’m sticking with that.
Thanks for your kind and understanding words Aly. I agree that this is one of those things (among many!) that I don’t fully understand, but that I’m searching on. All I know is that no matter what, I just want to be guided by the Lord’s love and his Word. Coming from a very conservative background and denomination, I find it challenging to question the standard answers we’ve been told, but I must say that it helps draw me closer and closer to God. So in that way it’s been cool.
And I will say that even here deep in the Bible belt there are more and more folks questioning the typical church behavior and responses. I think more people are realizing that perhaps we’ve strayed too far from the love of Jesus and others and fallen into our own Pharisee like regulations.
Again, thank you for your gentle and honest response Aly. It feels nice to be able to ask sensitive questions and not be pounded on! :) Ok, I’m done rambling. I hope everyone here has a wonderful and safe Happy New Year! Bye!
I know that, like Mike, I greatly struggle with this issue, especially within the context of a post modern or emerging church. From the start, I would wholeheartedly agree that the answer to this dilemma will not be found through purer doctrine, judgemental attitudes, or marginalization. Like with the issue of civil rights in the 50s and 60s, and AIDS in the 80s, the church has shown again how ignorant and spiteful and ugly it can be when it comes to gays.
With that said, I cannot reconsile an actively homosexual (monogomous or not) lifestyle with a relationship with Christ. I know many are able to reconsile it, and frankly, as I prefer harmony to dissonance, I often wish I could as well. It’s just another sin, in my opinion, and since I am in the personal business of trying to sin less (out of my love for and devotion to Christ) I can’t dismiss it. As evidence that homosexual behavior is sin, I like to point out the simple deviation from natural law that homosexuality represents rather than making sweeping moral judgements about people. I believe in my heart of hearts that gay Christians believe that this IS the way God made them, and I cannot imagine someone telling me that my love and physical desire for my wife, something that feels as natural as breathing in and out, is inherently sinful.
As most of you know, I still consider myself a friend to homosexuals, Christian or not. This is one of those issues that, as far as I can see, is between the individual and their maker. I shudder at the idea of excluding gays from our churches, although I confess that I do not have a well developed opinion about their roles in ministry leadership… perhaps that’s for the best.
What I do know for sure is that my docrtine isn’t worth jack shit without love.
p.s.
I apologize for furthering the stereotype about post moderns and their potty mouths… but there’s just no other way to say it.
In the most hetero… okay, okay- METROsexual way- I love you for your candid input and your transparency, Chad. You speak the very words I’ve been milling in my head since I first read the post. You KNOW it complies with the “Official Religious Doctrine Of Corey Witt” when it includes unabashed profanity.
Nice paraphrase of I Corinthians 13, Chad! You should email Eugene Petersen with that one. :)
Mike (et al), I applaud your collective sensitive efforts to love first and ask questions later. Not only have you NOT subscribed blindly to the beliefs that the conservative church has kept close for so long, but you have also NOT thrown out your convictions for the sake of ease. As a heterosexual, monogamous, religiously unaffiliated person who thinks that gay people are no different from any other kind of people, I salute your efforts to embrace true spiritual love in all its forms while staying true to your religious heritage. You have all of you chosen the harder path, I think.
So far the mainstream church has lead the way in trying to accept members of the gay community into active membership and leadership in the church. The Episcopalians with whom I’ve spent many Sundays (and I don’t speak for the entire denomination), do not believe that any scripture forbids sex between two consenting adults of the same gender (after careful study, of course - yet another case in which people can interpret scripture to the utmost of their scholarly abilities and come up with completely opposite answers), do not have much trouble at all accepting gay members into their priesthood (bishops are experiencing something of a challenge), and consider the sexual activies of all congregants to be none of their business, unless their behavior directly impinges on the spiritual health of the church. I hope that the rest of the christian church, or at least a lot of them, will come around eventually.
Cerise
And Aly, another beautifully-written window into your very interesting life. Thanks, luv.
Morphea,
Thanks for your thoughts. I hope that gays and lesbians who know me will always feel loved and accepted even if I cannot love and accept every last aspect of their lives. I know that I certainly appreciate people who love and accept me but disapprove of certain activities or habits that I keep.
P.S.
Where the hell have you been? :)
Chad, I can’t imagine anyone feeling anything other than loved and accepted in your presence.
Sorry for the hiatus - I’ve been hunkered down avoiding the Internet at all costs. Doesn’t mean I don’t love ya, man. Not in that way…
The tone and tenor of this discussion bring joy to my heart. Ever since returning to my Christian roots some six years ago, I’ve struggled with the judgmental aspects often found in evangelical/fundamentalist circles. My parents attend an Assembly of God church in Virginia, and I’ve had many arguments with them over the gay Christian thing.
My thoughts in a nutshell:
1) We tread on shaky ground when we worry about other people’s sins.
2) Maurice Nicoll has an interesting take on the word “sin,” which apparently comes from the Greek word “hamartia,” translated roughly as “missing the mark.” This conception of sin refers to believing the illusion that any of us are ever actually separate from God.
3) Homosexuality is not a choice. I once ended an argument on this with Dad by asking, “So when did you make the choice to be straight?” That being said, a promiscuous, self-destructive lifestyle is a choice. However, an individual’s choices are between him/her and God, in my opinion.
4) The gospel in one word: LOVE. Period.
I look forward to delving deeper into this blog. I appreciate the honesty and the soul-searching which seem absent from so much of our public discourse on complex issues. Hope to see you at my blog, Peace Meme!
Peace,
jc
Forgot to add this yesterday . . . Don’t know if any of you are Philip Yancey fans, but Chapter 13 of his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace is one of the most heartfelt, raw, and honest depictions of the Christian struggle with homosexuality.