One of my favorite places in the Old Testament is Proverbs 26:4-5.
It’s right in the middle of a long list of proverbs helping us to envision what Wisdom looks like and how to walk in it, and it starts with this stark warning: “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.” Fair enough: I’ve found myself in that trap often enough, of making myself a fool by trying to respond to someone else’s folly on their terms. So I can see the wisdom there.
But the very next verse (and in the Hebrew, it uses the same words in the same form and order, so there’ll be no missing it), it offers us the exact opposite advice, as an equally wise word to live by: “Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will become wise in his own eyes.” Again, I can see the wisdom in that: sometimes you have to meet someone where they’re at, if you want to help them see the error of their ways.
So, both statements are words to the wise, but it does raise the question: which is it, Book of Proverbs? Should we answer a fool according to his folly, or should we not answer a fool according to his folly?
And with all the serenity of a quiet sea after a storm, Wisdom gives us a long slow look (I imagine her, too, with a twinkle in her eyes), and she says: well, it depends.
Who’s the fool? And what’s the nature of their folly?
Because there is something profoundly contextual about wisdom. It has absolute truths undergirding it, to be sure—the fear of the Lord is where it starts, according to Proverbs, and knowledge of the Holy One is itself understanding—but how that plays out in the real world of our lived experience, all depends on a thousand and one subjective realities that make the particular context in which we are trying to live wisely.
I have been thinking about Proverbs 26:4-5 a lot as I have worked on this series laying out the case for an integrative approach to same-sex sexuality and LGBTQ+ inclusion in the church. Not—let me be very clear—because I think of anyone as fools, regardless how this issue touches them or what side of it they are standing on. It’s just because in Proverbs 26:4-5, I hear the Bible saying something generally about wisdom that I often say, when people ask me how I see an “integrative approach” playing out in church life or discipleship.
It all depends.
One of the things I have learned as I have studied this issue, and especially as I have gotten to know LGBTQ+ people and their loved ones, is that there is no “one-size-fits-all” description of what it means to be LGBTQ+, what it looks like to carry that identity, or how it might impact your lived experience.
Some LGBTQ+ people are Christians who grew up in the church and are terrified of coming out because of the implications of what it might mean for them. Other LGBTQ+ people have next to no experience of the Christian church, and are somewhat baffled but mostly hurt by what they hear being said about them in many Christian circles. Other LGBTQ+ people are suffering profoundly from gender dysphoria, or suicidality, or just plain old loneliness and despair.
How do we respond to all these very different experiences, except to say that it depends on which experience we are responding to?
When I speak to Christians who are firmly settled in a non-affirming view, I often hear phrases like: “But the Bible says ‘it’ is a sin,” or “I just don’t agree with ‘the lifestyle.’” Such statements often leave me wondering: which of the many different experiences I described above (or the million-and-one other different experiences I might have described) do you mean when you say “it” is a sin? Which of those many different “styles of life” do you mean when you speak about “a lifestyle” with which you disagree?
Before we can say anything concrete about how to be integrative in the way I’ve been proposing in this series, we need to grapple profoundly with the highly contextual nature of what it means to be LGBTQ+, how each story is unique, and situated, and because of that, worth all the effort it may take to really understand it.
When we’ve done that kind of grappling, we will find, I think, that there is simply not a one-size-fits-all response, or position, or statement we can make about what the Bible says about “homosexuality” and how Christians ought to apply it in their lives and relationships. Each particular story will require a uniquely appropriate response, and integrating the teaching of the Scripture with the lived experience of LGBTQ+ people will always be highly contextual, profoundly personal, deeply individual.
That said, there are some practical things, by way of a consistent approach to these issues, that this series has suggested we can do. Before describing them, however, it might be helpful briefly to summarize how we got here. In this series, I have argued that, while the Bible does not give us explicit warrant to fully affirm same-sex marriage or same-sex sexual activity, and while the overarching orientation of the Bible when it comes to sex is exclusively towards heterosexual covenant unions, it is possible still to embrace LGBTQ+ people, to include them fully in the life of the community, and to respect and bless their relationships, and this without compromising our interpretation of the Bible or our commitment to its authority.
In brief: the Bible does not present same-sex sexuality as something that fulfills the creator’s intention for sex when he created human beings; however, the lived realities of the LGBTQ+ experience, and especially the pain, vulnerability, and distress LGBTQ+ people experience when they are unable to integrate their sexual identity with their sense of self, is such that compassionately embracing them, fully including them in community, and honoring their relationships does not, in and of itself, violate the Creator’s intention for us either.
Because this seems like an irreconcilable contradiction (the Bible never says it’s ok, but even so, it’s ok to make it ok for LGBTQ+ people), I have offered a few case studies of other ethical issues where we do just that: make something ok that the Bible never says is ok, or, indeed, clearly says is not ok. Divorce and remarriage, going to war, and using contraception are the ones I chose to look at. To these, if we had time, we might explore others: accumulating wealth, charging interest on loans, or (depending on your hermeneutics) freeing women to serve without restriction in the life of the church.
I have used the term “integrative” to describe our approach to these issues, because as far as I can tell, that is what we are doing: integrating the teaching of the Bible with our lived experience in the Creator’s world, a world that does not always fit neatly or simply into the straightforward categories of Scripture.
I have not tried to provide a comprehensive methodology for determining when an issue can be handled “integratively” like this, but taken together, these case studies suggest some common elements that may make such an approach justified.
1. If we are convinced that it would actually cause greater harm to adhere to the letter of the Law than it would to go against it (such as when Christians believe that remaining pacifist would cause greater harm than going to war);
2. If there are social developments or circumstances in our world that the Bible could not have spoken to and the original hearers could not have envisioned in the ancient world, which make a literal application of the Bible’s teaching untenable or uncompassionate (such as in the case of the Protestant embrace of contraception);
3. If we find ourselves in a situation where, in order to adhere to one biblical directive, we need to violate another (such as we see in the story of Ruth and Boaz);
4. If the issue in question is not a matter of Creed, to be resolved theologically, but is, rather, a question of Christian ethics, to be worked out ethically;
5. If there is reason to believe that when the Bible speaks about a particular issue, it may have something substantially different in view than how that issue occurs or is encountered in the modern world (people often make appeals like this when trying to make sense of the Bible’s “position” on slavery, arguing that slavery in the ancient world was a very different thing…).
I will leave it up to you to decide whether or not the question of LGBTQ+ inclusion meets any of these criteria, and, if so, to what extent. For my part, I am convinced that it meets all five, and I have sought an approach that welcomes, includes, embraces and honors, without denying what I understand the witness of Scripture to be.
I am tempted to say “It depends” when an impatient reader then asks me, “Ok, but what does that look like in real life?” Because in the end, it really does depend. For those of you who have stuck with me throughout this long and winding series, however, let me offer a few humble suggestions, here at the end, to help us imagine how we might actually begin to be integrative.
An integrative approach, I think, would leave LGBTQ+ people free to participate in the life of the community according to their gifting and calling, and would not make this conditional on their agreement not to seek or enter into a same-sex marriage relationship.
An integrative approach would continue to uphold the witness of the Scripture, that the Bible does not present same-sex sex as something that fulfills the creator’s intention, but it would leave the decision about whether to live singly or to pursue a same-sex covenant union up to the individual believer, per Romans 14, acknowledging that each person will give their own account to their own Master, and no Christian ought to “judge someone else’s servant,” as Paul so aptly puts it.
An integrative approach would provide spiritual support to LGBTQ+ Christians who, as a matter of faith, choose to walk a path of singleness and celibacy; and it would provide equal support to LGBTQ+ Christians who, as a matter of faith enter into a same-sex union.
A person (or church) with an integrative approach might refrain from performing same-sex marriages, as a position of conscience, though they would still honor such unions, respect them, and even bless them, as a gesture of solidarity (along the lines, perhaps, of how Pope Francis recently allowed priests to bless same-sex unions).
There are probably more points we could make, in terms of the boundaries and outer limits of what an integrative approach entails, but the more prescriptive we become, the less and less integrative we will be. Because at its heart, the integrative approach is profoundly contextual, eschewing cut-and-dry, one-size-fits-all approaches, and choosing instead to say (perhaps along with the author of Proverbs 26), a gracious, patient, compassionate, “It depends.”
It All Depends: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (X)
3 More Things and 5 More Things: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (VIII)
Occasionally when I am working through an issue in theology or ministry that requires a careful interpretation of some passage of the Bible or another, I use a little thought-experiment to help me test my hypotheses. It’s not the first step in my hermeneutical method, by any means, nor do I use it in any conclusive way. After I’ve sifted the evidence, however, and done enough exegetical and hermeneutical “heavy-lifting” that I feel I’m ready to draw some conclusions, I’ll sometimes give this mental exercise a try.
I call it the “Time Machine Test.”
Essentially, you imagine yourself stepping into a time machine and teleporting back to the first century AD, to the Apostle Paul’s study, let’s say, or to John the Evangelist’s drawing room (with full acknowledgement that both these locales are stylistic anachronisms for the sake of vividness). Once there, however, you have the opportunity to float your interpretation past the author himself (the time machine in question also happens to give you a supernatural ability to speak Koine Greek, 1st Century Aramaic, or whatever language is necessary to communicate). Sometimes the thought experiment works even better the other way around: you bring the author forward to your time and place, to get his take on how you’re teaching, implementing or otherwise putting into practice his ideas.
Given the author’s very particular way of viewing the world, shaped by his cultural schema and historical provenance, what would they think of the way you’ve come to understand what they wrote?
I freely admit that this thought experiment can be problematic. Stepping into the mind-set of a First Century Messianic Jew so completely that you could accurately guess how they would view a 21st Century Christian’s approach to matters of faith and practice is far easier said than done. On its own, the “Time Machine Test” is just as likely to generate biases in our interpretations as it is to dispel them.
After all the other necessary steps have been taken, however, including a careful study of the original uses of the original words and honest efforts understand what they’re saying in their immediate context, and then testing that against the wider teaching of the Scripture and holding it all up to the light of our theological first-principles—after all that’s been done—I find the Time Machine Test can be a helpful way of weighing your conclusions.
What would Paul, the first century messianic Jew really say, for instance, if he witnessed the modern-day phenomenon of speaking in tongues? What would he really tell us, if we asked him whether or not women should be ordained as ministers in the church?
Not that this post is attempting to settle either of those two questions. I’m only telling you about my “Time Machine Test” by way of explaining—given all I’ve said so far in this series on same-sex sexuality—why I am not, in the end affirming.
After I’ve done the kind of careful exegetical work described above on the relevant biblical data—sorting through the passages that refer to same-sex sex as best I can, researching the way the relevant words were used (or not used) in the ancient world, doing my darndest to understand what first Century Christians thought was actually happening when two people of the same-sex had sex, and trying to fit all this in to the wider witness of the Bible, taken as a whole, and sounded against my most deeply-held theological principles—after all that—when I get into my imaginary time-machine and ask someone like Paul, “But what about same-sex marriage?” I have great difficulty imagining them saying, “Yeah, that’s okay.”
In saying this, I am not suggesting that the church should reject LGBTQ people, or try to convert them into being straight, or denounce same-sex marriage, or shame same-sex couples by teaching them that their relationships are abhorrent to God, or any of the things I see happening in non-affirming circles (even the kindest of them). I am only saying that I do not believe the Bible provides us a clear warrant for being affirming, and that, if we want to respond wisely to the phenomenon of same-sex sexuality as it is experienced in the modern world, we will have to do something to integrate the witness of Scripture with our understanding of what it means to be LGBTQ+.
In an early post in this series, I attempted to explain what I mean by the second half of that sentence: “our understanding of what it means to be LGBTQ+.” In that post, I proposed the “three things” that inform my own understanding of what it means to be gay, bi, and/or trans: that it’s (1) not chosen, it’s (2) not changeable, and it’s (3) harmful to people if they are not able to accept it and embrace it as being true of themselves in some meaningful way. You can read my thoughts on that point here.
In this post I’d like to begin exploring the first half of the sentence: what really is “the witness of Scripture” on this matter?
In the spirit of my previous post, I’d like to suggest that just like there are “3 Things” and “5 Things” that are true of the LGBTQ+ experience, there are also “3 Things” and “5 Things” that are true when it comes to the Bible’s teaching about same-sex sexuality.
It seems that nothing anyone says about “same-sex sex and the Bible” is without some controversy, but at the very least, here are “3 things” about the relevant biblical data that I find nearly indisputable.
1. The Bible is exclusively oriented toward procreative, opposite-sex sex.
That is to say, whenever the Bible talks approvingly about sex, it seems to have procreative, heterosexual sex in mind. When it enjoins people to do it, it is clearly enjoining them to do it with members of the opposite sex. Likewise, there is no instance where the Bible presents a same-sex sexual relationship positively, as an example of the kind of thing people might consider pursing.
2. Whenever the Bible does talk about same-sex sex, it always speaks about it negatively.
On whether or not the Bible has mutual, exclusive, same-sex covenant relationships in mind when it speaks so negatively about same-sex-sex, see point 3 below. Even so, it is indisputable, I think, that every time the question of same-sex sex comes up, the witness of the Scripture is exclusively disapproving.
3. Usually, when the Bible does speak about same-sex sex, it is describing something very different from the same-sex covenant relationships that occur in the modern world.
This is a point that very few non-affirming thinkers will admit, but it is, in my view, as indisputable as the previous 2 points. I intend to dedicate an entire post to showing why I believe this to be true. For now, however, suffice it to say that same-sex sex in the ancient world always occurred in the context of an exploitative power dynamic (amounting to what we would call sexual abuse today), or, if not that, it was viewed as a sign of inordinate sexual desire (what we would call “lust”). Extensive research into Greco-Roman cultural practices and ancient languages show this to be true, but even a close reading of the relevant biblical passages themselves point you to this conclusion. It’s clear, for instance, that Paul is talking about men who are “inflamed with lust” in Romans 1:27, and whatever he’s thinking about in 1 Timothy 9 or 1 Corinthians 6, it’s clearly grouped with fornicators and human-traffickers, suggesting that we are dealing with some form of exploitative or abusive sex.
Those, then, are the “3 Things”: the Bible speaks positively only about opposite-sex sex; the Bible only speaks negatively about same-sex sex; the Bible never has same-sex “marriage” relationships in mind when the question of same-sex sex comes up.
The “5 things,” in response to these 3 things, are the 5 ways that Christians can try to implement these basic facts.
A Christian could conclude that:
1. The desire for same-sex sex is sinful; that even the attractions themselves are a sign of one’s sinfulness, and that having them makes one an object of God’s wrath. The solution here is to change the sinner by helping them no longer have their LGBTQ “urges.”
2. All forms of same-sex sex are inherently sinful, but it is not a sin to be tempted, only to act on one’s temptations. Therefore, having same-sex sexual desire does not make a Christian sinful, but same-sex attracted Christians must redirect, suppress or otherwise control their sexual desires and not act on them.
3. Though the Bible meant what it says when it prohibits same-sex sexuality, those prohibitions “no longer apply” today. Sometimes this takes the form of an argument that the Holy Spirit is leading us into new interpretations and applications of Scripture, like he did on the question of the Mosaic Law. Other times it appears as a more nuanced argument about the “trajectory” of the Scripture pointing us toward being affirming even though the warrant for it is not found explicitly in Scripture.
4. Because the biblical authors are not talking about same-sex covenant relationships as they occur in our world, and could not have even conceived of them in their world, the Bible simply does not address a question like same-sex marriage. In the same way that the Bible’s prohibition (let’s say) of heterosexual adultery does not mean that every form of heterosexual sex is prohibited, the Bible’s prohibition of male-male rape (for example) does not mean that all forms of male-male sex should be denounced. LGBTQ Christians should be encouraged, then, to pursue mutual, exclusive, monogamous same-sex relationships similar to the type of relationships heterosexual Christians are encouraged in.
5. Though the Bible does not approve of same-sex sex (in any form), there are other biblical principles that must also inform our response to LGBTQ+ people. These include things like: compassion for the vulnerable, mercy, agape love, hospitality, and so on. These principles out-weigh the prohibitions against same-sex sex, and direct us to make accommodations for LGBTQ+ people. Often arguments in this regard will frame the whole question as a “disputable matter,” an issue which cannot be settled by simple “chapter and verse” references to the Bible alone, and about which people with different views can make different appeals to different verses in the Bible to make an equal convincing case.
There is a lot of variation within those five views, in terms of how people hold their perspectives and what implications they draw from them, but in essence they sum up the main approaches you will find in the church these days: 1) it’s wrong even to want it; 2) it’s wrong only to do it; 3) it was wrong then, but it’s not wrong now; 4) it’s not wrong (and never was); 5) it’s still wrong, but there are worse things, so it’s not so bad.
I like to think that the integrative view I’ve been arguing for in this series is a new “6th” way forward, because it does not really fit any of these 5 conclusions. It is a bit like “thing 5,” only it does not use the language of “sin” to describe same-sex sex. I would suggest it’s far better to talk about God’s “intention” for sex, and the ways in which different sexual practices obtain or fail to obtain to that intention. The integrative approach is a bit like “thing 4,” in that it agrees that the Bible is not speaking about monogamous, exclusive, same-sex covenant unions when it prohibits homosexual sex, only it does not conclude from this fact that the biblical authors would see nothing wrong in such relationships if they could see them as they occur in the world today. The integrative view is a bit like “thing 3,” only I think it’s very problematic to talk about the Holy Spirit “leading us into something new,” or “trajectories of Scripture” that were not previously evident. My preference is to hold the witness of Scripture in tension with our experience in the world as it is, integrating the two as wisely and compassionately as possible.
Up to this point, I have argued that we do something like this on all sorts of issues, from pacifism to contraception. From this point on, I will start to suggest what I think the boundaries of such an approach are: where do we draw the line? How do we live together with Christians who see it differently? And so on.
At this very point, however, let me try to put my argument in a nutshell: the witness of the Scripture indicates that same-sex sex does not fulfill the creator’s intention for sex when he created people as sexual beings, and it offers no explicit warrant for approving of same-sex marriage; at the same time, we know that it causes many LGBTQ people profound psychological harm and/or religious trauma if they come to believe that their deepest experience of their selves—an experience they did not chose and cannot change—makes them fundamentally abhorrent to God. Because of this, wise Christians should appeal to the full breadth of the biblical witness in responding to LGBTQ+ people, remembering that God desires mercy and not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13), that the Lord has compassion on all things he has made (Psalm 145:8-9), and that agape love is the most excellent way (1 Corinthians 13). These principles suggest that we can graciously embrace LGBTQ+ people, as LGBTQ+ people, honoring and respecting any mutual, exclusive, covenant relationships they may enter into, and leaving the decision about how they can best express their sexuality as Christians between them and God (Rom 14:4).
Speaking of God: Towards an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (VII)
I came across a passage once in a book about the theological tradition of the Eastern Orthodox church that I’ve mulled over, off and on, ever since I read it. It was trying to explain the difference between the theological traditions of the eastern and the western church. I forget the exact words it used, but the gist went something like this: In the Eastern Orthodox church, theology is limited to its immediate subject: the person and nature of God. The goal of theology, in the east, is a right understanding of—so as to give proper glory to—the Divine. The direction of its gaze, so to speak, is upward.
In the west, it went on to say, theology tends to look outward as much as it looks upward, and assumes that, inasmuch as the world is the work of the Creator God, theology can also help us to understand our own human life in relation to the divine.
In the east, you might say, theology is about looking at the lightbulb, whereas in the west, theology is about trying to read by its light. That’s my analogy, not one that the passage I’m remembering used, but it did go on to say something like this: “This explains why, in the west, you can have a ‘theology of money,’ or a ‘theology of work,’ or (more to our purposes in this series) ‘a theology of sex.’” In the east, by contrast, none of these things are proper subjects for theology, because in the east, theology is much more strictly focused on the “theos” that gives the term its name: the person of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.
Maybe this is a false distinction. Certainly, giving proper glory to God includes handling our money or doing our work in ways that reflect his heart for such things. Conversely, discovering the truth about who God is should lead us to adopt a “theologically informed” view about all of life (which would include, among many other things, the way we think about stuff like marriage or sex). Nevertheless, I have found this distinction to be profoundly important. However good and useful it might be to develop a Christian view of things like family, or politics, or art, still, when we’re talking about these things we are not, technically speaking, talking about the subject that makes theology theological. To do that we would have to speak, specifically, about God.
This is a crucial point for us to grasp, I think, as we continue to sketch out the contours of an integrative view of same-sex sexuality and the church. In the strictest sense of the term, theology is the stuff we say about God. When we are saying stuff about things other than God, we are not doing theology, per se. We may be doing something adjacent to theology, something that enriches our theology, or something deeply informed by our theology, but even so, talking about money, or government, or (in this case) gender and sex, is not doing theology. It’s doing economics, or politics, or anthropology, or some other category of human knowledge. Hopefully, if those things are being done from a Christian perspective, they will be illuminated by our theology, consistent with it and informed by it. But we do ourselves a great disservice when we confuse theology with these other categories.
We are doing ourselves, actually, two great disservices. On the one hand, if it’s true that theology, as category of human knowledge, is the stuff we say about God, then framing discussions about something like wealth, say, or sex as “theological discussions” can feed the natural human temptation to elevate those types of things to divine status (the biblical term for elevating created things to the same status as the creator, of course, is idolatry). The second great disservice is this: that even if we’re not making an idol of these “other things,” it makes it very hard to think objectively and clearly about them. If we tie them that closely to our theology, then any decision we make about them will actually impact our fundamental understanding of who God is, which is a terrifying prospect.
To anyone who wants to accuse me of melodramatic handwringing over a non-issue, I’d simply point to the growing and concerning tendency I’ve observed over the last decade or so, to make one’s posture towards same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ identities a credal matter, an essential theological issue, a question of Christian orthodoxy.
I have seen a number of evangelical denominations make subtle, sometimes not-so-subtle moves to make a “traditional view of same-sex sex” a shibboleth to determine who is “in,” theologically speaking, and who is “out.” I have seen more than one evangelical denomination take steps to require their clergy, or their members, or both, “sign off” on the belief that same-sex relationships are wrong, as a matter of continued fellowship. Some have added addendums to their statements of faith, specifying what they believe about homosexuality, subtly implying that this is for them a matter of creed.
All this regardless the fact that never before has any historical creed of the church ever made one particular view of sexuality, gender, or marriage a matter of orthodox belief. If it comes to that, none of the historic creeds of the church have included any statements about ethical issues: neither in regards to the hoarding of wealth, or the evil of racism, or the necessity of peacemaking, or any one of the many profound issues about which the Christian faith has important things to say. The historic creeds contain no reference to any of these things, in part, because the creeds are theological statements, and the things we say about sex and money and power and war are not, strictly speaking, theological statements.
They are ethical statements.
So, when Christians seek to answer a question like: what’s the right or wrong way to have sex? they are not doing theology. They are doing ethics. Christian ethics, hopefully, shaped by Christian convictions and belief. We could even call it “theological ethics,” if our ethics are informed by and done in response to our theology, which hopefully they will be, but on the perils of confusing these two categories, see above. If we don’t end up making an idol, we’ll at least muddy our thinking.
I can see a few protests cresting the pass that I’d like to head off.
“I don’t care about theology,’” we might say. “I only care about God’s word, the Bible, which clearly forbids homosexual sex.”
The problem with this statement is that, in a way, it’s impossible to not have a theology. To say that the Bible is God’s Word is to make a deeply theological statement about how the Divine communicates with human beings, and how the Bible functions in relation to that Divine communication. To say that the Bible, as God’s word, “clearly forbids” something is to say a few more things about God—how does he relate to human beings?—Is he especially the divine rule-maker?—and also a few more things about how the Bible fits into that relationship—is the Bible primarily his divine rulebook?—is it always as clear as we assume it is?
Those are not rhetorical questions: they are the deep theological issues that surface when we try to make overly simplified statements about “just” following God’s word, which “clearly” prohibits some behaviors and approves of others.
“That’s all well and good,” you might say, by way of a different protest, “but saying ‘God doesn’t want us to have homosexual sex,’ is saying something theological: that God intends some things and prohibits others.”
This is true, in one sense. It is theological to speak about the revealed will of God. The problem with this statement, though, is that it still conflates theology and ethics in ways that make it hard for us to tell the difference and puts us at risk of confusing the one with the other. Before we can decide how this or that activity might relate to the revealed will of God, we will have to understand that activity on its own terms: what are the stakes? What are the implications? What are the consequences? What’s really happening when people do it? Theology proper does not answer these questions; and for Christians to answer them, we may need to listen to the psychologists, or the sociologists, or the anthropologists or the (heaven forfend) the gender studies majors, before we decide how our theology should shape our response.
This has been one of my basic, underlying convictions as I’ve written this series, and it is a “weight-bearing wall” in the integrative approach I’ve been trying to construct. Our posture toward LGBTQ+ people is not, ultimately, a theological issue. It is an ethical issue. And as with all ethical issues—should Christians go to war or not? Should Christians use contraception? Should Christians divorce?—settling these questions is not “doing theology.” A wise Christian will let their theology deeply shape how they settle such questions, but they will also keep clear on when they are doing theology and when they are not.
In saying this, I do not mean to create an air-tight chamber separating theology from ethical concerns. The best kind of Christian ethics flows naturally from our theological convictions. That God is love, for instance, should deeply influence the way Christians treat people. Nor do I mean to imply that LGBTQ+ issues are “merely” ethical, as though there are not any theological issues at stake when we address them. But this is also why I am making the distinction—because there are theological issues at stake, and our theology does influence the way we treat people. If we don’t differentiate them, we may never really examine the theology that is actually driving our ethics, or worse, we may believe we have done theology, when all we’ve really done is made ethical judgements.
If we do differentiate, though, between what is ethical and what is theological, we may discover that it is possible to embrace and include LGBTQ+ people fully in the life of the church, without it shaking to the core our most deeply held beliefs about the nature and person of God.
Where You Go I Will Go: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (VI)
In the early days of the debate about same-sex sexuality, back when it was only the “liberal Christians” who were asking whether it was permissible, you would sometimes come across arguments in favor of LGBTQ inclusion based on the Book of Ruth. These would point out Ruth’s undying devotion to Naomi and suggest that here we have a positive instance of a same-sex relationship in the Bible, one that bears all the marks of a covenant union, but is presented entirely without censure. It’s not for nothing, perhaps, that we still use Ruth’s vow to Naomi in modern-day wedding ceremonies: “Where you go, I will go … your people will be my people, and your God my God.”
Of course, the fact that Naomi herself was previously a married woman, that she is, actually, Ruth’s mother-in-law, and that she works so tirelessly to marry Ruth off—all this suggests that interpreting her relationship with Ruth as anything other than a beautuful but platonic friendship is a profound misread of the story (it’s no accident that Ruth’s name actually means “friend.”). The story gives no hint that there’s anything sexual between Ruth and her mother-in-law, and we’d only see something there if we had decided to find it before we'd started reading.
That said, I believe that among all the books of the biblical cannon, the Ruth makes one of the strongest cases in favor of the integrative approach to same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ identities that I’ve been arguing for in this series. There is a relationship in the story that leaves me convinced that something like embracing LGBTQ people, as LGBTQ people (and not as “broken straight people” who just need changing or controlling), might not be so contrary to the heart of God as we think. It’s just not the relationship between Ruth and Naomi.
It's the relationship between Ruth and Boaz.
I say this because, as the story takes great pains to point out, Ruth is a Moabitess, a woman from Moab, that is, sojourning in Israel under the protection of Naomi, her Israelite mother-in-law. If this detail does not scandalize us as modern readers, it is probably because we are not so thoroughly steeped in the teachings of Torah as Naomi and her community would have been.
Deuteronomy 23:3-6 clearly prohibits any Moabite from entering the assembly of the Lord, and it strongly implies that its off-limits for any Israelite to marry one, making Boaz’s relationship with Ruth a truly illicit affair. Certainly none of their children (among whom are Jesse, King David, and ultimately Jesus) would be permitted among the assembly of God’s people, and if there’s any doubt about the matter, Deuteronomy 23:6 strictly forbids Israel from making a treaty of friendship with Moab, let alone marrying one into the community.
Deuteronomy bases this prohibition explicitly on the fact that back in Numbers 22:1-6, Moab hired Balaam to curse Israel while they were wandering in the wilderness. Deuteronomy also seems to have Numbers 25:1-18 in the background, which relates the story about a time some Israelite men “indulged in sexual immorality with some Moabite women.” This resulted in idolatry so heinous that a priest named Phinehas slaughtered them all in righteous indignation (an act for which the text praises him warmly). Granted it’s a grim story, but the point is clear: Moabite women mean spiritual trouble, and anyone who gets involved with them risks committing an abomination before the Lord.
And yet the Book of Ruth not only celebrates Boaz’s marriage to Ruth, but seemingly holds it up as an example of fidelity and covenant faithfulness in the time of the Judges, when everyone else was doing what they saw fit in their own eyes.
To understand the dissonance here, it’s important to note another key teaching from Torah that has clearly informed the telling of Ruth's story, namely: the call to treat the foreigner in Israel with kindness and hospitality. Torah is, in fact, shot through with injunctions of this sort, reminding Israel over and over again that the Lord God defends the cause of the foreigner (i.e. the sojourner, the alien in the land), and consequently, so too must Israel. (Deut 10:17-19, Lev 19:10, etc.). Leviticus 19:34 puts it succinctly: “The stranger who dwells with you,” it says,” shall be to you as the home-born among you, and you shall love him as you love yourself.”
While the significance of the moment may be lost on modern readers, in Ruth 2:2 we find Naomi and Ruth living destitute in Bethlehem, powerless and penniless, when Ruth decides to go out to the fields to pick up any grain that may have been left behind by the harvesters. This, of course, leads to the first, poignant meeting between Ruth and Boaz, but in terms of the logic of the story, it’s not just some generic romance we’re seeing play out here. It's covenant faithfulness. In Deuteronomy 24:19-21, Israel is directed to leave some grain behind when they’re harvesting their field, so that the foreigner, who has no share in the land, can go out and gather it and so not starve (see also Leviticus 19:10, 23:22, etc.).
You may see where I’m going with this and want to head me off at the pass, by pointing out that Torah only required Boaz to make sure Ruth was taken care of as a foreigner; there’s nothing saying he has to marry her. The Book of Ruth, however, won’t let us off the hook that easily. Towards the end of the story, we find ourselves bogged down in a complicated discussion of Boaz’s legal obligations toward Naomi’s family, all of which centre around a concept called the “kinsman redeemer.” This is another detail that may be lost on modern readers but is a crucial key for unlocking the story. Because the role of the “kinsman redeemer” is also carefully laid-out in Torah. Deuteronomy 25:5 stipulates that if an Israelite man dies childless, his brother (or, presumably, his nearest next-of-kin) must marry her and fulfill the “duty of a brother-in-law” to her. Ruth was previously married to Mahlon, an Israelite man, and Boaz is, apparently, a distant relative, the next in line as Ruth’s kinsman redeemer after Mahlon’s nearest relative (the unnamed man in 4:6) declines to marry her. By marrying Ruth, then, Boaz is technically fulfilling his obligations as specified in Torah.
All of this is to say that Boaz marrying this particular Moabite woman is both a breach of Torah, on the one hand, and also an act of deep faithfulness to Torah, on the other.
I would be shocked to discover that all of this was accidental. In fact, after many years reflecting on this story, I have become convinced that one of the things it is doing is seeking to answer this crucial question: what do we do when the commands of Torah seem to be in conflict with one another, when you would have to break one of them in order to keep another, and/or vice versa?
What does covenant faithfulness look like in such circumstances, where you need to break the law in order to fulfill it?
To my mind, the Book of Ruth offers us one of the most poignant and tender answers you will find in the Hebrew Bible to this specific question. Embrace always trumps exclusion, it seems to be saying. At least, if it comes down to a choice between the two, it does. Inclusion trumps rejection; and above all else, the path that leads to the most compassionate outcome for the most vulnerable is always closest to the heart of God, the God who insisted that the one who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the Law (Rom 13:8-10).
So far in this series, I have been laying the foundation stones for what I have been calling an “integrative approach” towards same-sex sexuality. An integrative approach takes, on the one hand, the Word of God at its word (believing, for instance, that when God told the Israelites to have no relations with the Moabites, he meant it, just as much as he meant it when he told Israel to take care of the widows and the foreigners in their midst). But an integrative view also takes, on the other hand, our lived experience in a world that does not always fit neatly into the clear categories of Scripture (acknowledging, for example, that sometimes taking care of the widow and the foreigner might mean marrying a Moabitess). And then it attempts to integrate these two realities, seeking a wise way forward that honors them both.
What might this mean when it comes to the question of same-sex sexuality? In coming posts I hope to get specific, but to give you a hint, I think it means something like this: honoring, blessing, and even celebrating the same-sex marriages LGBTQ identities, even while we hold to our convictions about the what the Bible teaches when it comes to sex. If this seems like an impossible goal, I would refer you one last time to Boaz’s illicit marriage to Ruth, and its reminder that, if it comes down to an either/or, embrace is usually better than exclusion, and the most compassionate way forward is always the right way.
On Fruitfulness and Multiplication: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (V)
The birth control pill first became available for public use in 1960. Today, some 60 years later, the idea that we might safely and reliably prevent conception during intercourse has become so ingrained in our social consciousness that it’s hard to remember, let alone believe the great controversy the pill created when it came along. Canada did not legalize it—or any form of contraception, for that matter—until 1969, almost a decade later.
The Catholic church was famously opposed to the pill when it exploded on the scene, and to this day it teaches that any form of artificial contraception is intrinsically evil. Protestants were more ready to accept the pill, but even so, most Protestants traditions had only started embracing contraception some 20 or 30 years prior (the Anglicans, for instance, did not formally approve of birth control until the Lambeth Conference of 1930).
Many scholars have traced out the connective tissue between the advent of the birth control pill, on the one hand, and the sexual revolution of the 60s, on the other. Never before had there been such a safe and reliable means of preventing pregnancy, especially one that put the power in the hands of women themselves. The role this played in the social transformation that occurred in the 60s and 70s—changes in how men and women related to one another, changes in deeply-rooted sexual mores, changes in dating and marriage and family—is hard to overestimate.
Among those changes, I would argue, is the modern assumption that the psychological function of sex is separate from its procreative function, that the pleasures of intercourse, the human bonding it facilitates, and/or the emotional well-being we experience in a sexually fulfilling relationship can be enjoyed in a way completely separated from the possibility of begetting children. Even the notion that sex could be “fulfilling” without it “fulfilling” its most obvious purpose of procreation is one that could only have a stall in the marketplace of ideas, I think, because the pill made it conceivable (no pun intended), conceivable that sex could happen with no risk or potential of making babies.
At any rate, the modern view of sex—that the act of intercourse is somehow separate in function from the act of procreation—did not only create a social revolution. It also caused one in the church (the Catholic prohibition against the pill not withstanding).
When I became a pastor 20 years ago, it was not uncommon for preachers to preach from time to time on “God’s design” for sex. I’ve certainly heard more than one such sermon. Though I’m still cringing from the worst ones I’ve heard, the best of them were very tactful, sensitive, and honest, talking frankly about the pleasures of sex, the bonds it creates between people, and wounds it can create when it’s misused or abused. For the life of me, however, I cannot remember a single sermon on sex that spoke eloquently, passionately, and enthusiastically about the plain fact that the reason we humans do it is to perpetuate the species. (I lump myself in with this critique. I once preached a verse-by-verser through the Song of Solomon, and, if I recall, I did not once name baby-making as sex’s primary purpose … but more on this in a moment).
If we have followed the culture in bifurcating the psychological and procreative functions of sex, then whatever else we’re doing, we are being, in the strictest and technical sense, unbiblical.
I believe that a fulsome, sober, and unbiased reading of the Scripture would leave most objective readers with the conclusion that the reason God gave people “the gift of sex” (as so many of the aforementioned sermons like to describe it), was so that they would, and could “be fruitful and multiply.” That is to say that biblically, sex was expressly designed for the purpose of procreation, and all the other attendant goods of sex are there primarily to serve this main purpose. Sex was made to feel good (to put it crassly) so that people would be better motivated to procreate; sex forms a deep psychological bond between the partners (a little less crassly) so that the children formed by the act of intercourse would have a better chance of being raised by both parents, and so on.
Let me pause at this point to make it clear where I am not going with this line of reasoning. I am not trying to argue that contraception is wrong. I am not trying to argue that God wants us not to have sex unless it’s to make babies, or that it's a sin to have sex that is intentionally non-procreative. I have many friends, Christian and non-Christian alike, who have not had children, some for health reasons, some, tragically, because they could not conceive, others by choice, others still by some personal combination of the above. If what I have written adds pain to an already painful circumstance, or guilt to couples who have nothing to feel guilty about, this post will have failed pitifully in what it’s trying to do.
All I am trying to do is to point out that the witness of the Bible gives us to understand that the ultimate reason to have sex is to have children. Conservative Christians often argue that one reason to denounce same-sex sex is because, the exegesis of specific passages aside, the Bible is oriented exclusively toward heterosexual sex. I would argue, however, that this is not saying enough. The Bible is not oriented toward heterosexual sex, in and of itself. The Bible is oriented toward procreative sex. If we have embraced other reasons to have sex, reasons that have nothing to do with having children, it is only because we have done what Christians do on all sorts of ethical issues, something I am arguing in this series that we can and should do in regards to same-sex sexuality. We have taken the clear witness of the Scripture, on the one hand, and then integrated it with our experience of life in the world that is, on the other.
Let me make the case briefly for the first point in that preceding paragraph—that the Bible is oriented exclusively toward procreative sex—before moving on to the second. There’s not room for a full treatment of the relevant data but suffice it to say that the creation mandate in Genesis 1:27 clearly indicates that humans were to be fruitful and multiply. By implication, then, sex would be necessary if people were to fulfill this part of their human calling. From this starting point, the Bible gives us no positive example of people engaging in intercourse for non-procreative purposes. Every instance where a couple is unable to conceive is presented as a tragic loss (Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Leah, Hannah and Elkanah, etc.). By contrast, all the examples of non-procreative sex we find in the Bible are presented as horrific examples of what not to do: Onan withdrawing before ejaculation, the Persian Emperor requiring Esther to “sexually please him,” Ammon’s rape of Tamar, and so on.
Evangelicals often reach for the Song of Songs at this point in the discussion. “Not so,” we will say. “The Song of Songs is a whole entire book of the Bible celebrating God’s gift of sex and it contains no mention of childbearing whatsoever.” When we say this, however, we are giving away how deeply the contraception revolution of the last 60 years has shaped our view of sex. No ancient reader would come away from reading the Song of Songs, I think, believing that all the joy and pleasure these lovers are finding in each other was not, fundamentally, about bringing bouncing babies into the world. It’s no accident that the poem’s imagery is shot through and through with images of flourishing gardens and fruit-laden trees. Nor is it just a throwaway line when, at the outset of the poem, the beloved tells her lover that she intends to bring him “into her mother’s house,” to the place where her mother conceived her (and, by implication, the place where all mothers conceive (3:4, see also 8:2)). This is about as clear a reference to the woman’s (fertile) womb as you could expect in a poem as lyrical and symbolic as this.
Whatever else it is, the Song of Songs is an epithalamion, an ancient near eastern fertility poem, and if modern readers like us overlook all the thinly-veiled references to the fertility of this couple, it is only because we have learned to think that making love and making babies are two fundamentally different activities.
Admittedly, the picture does change somewhat in the New Testament. Contrary to popular evangelical sensibilities, though, the change is actually away from sex altogether (not, rather, a change towards non-procreative sex). Jesus clearly upholds the path of singleness and celibacy as an ideal way of following him (Matthew 19:12), and Paul underscored this teaching of our Lord (1 Cor 7:7). In both instances, though, Jesus and Paul each make it clear that only those who can receive this yoke and walk this path (those who have the “charism” of celibacy, as Paul might say it), should do so. Those who cannot are enjoined to marry and, by implication, have children (or at least have sex in a context where the possibility of childbearing exists).
Again, to be clear: I am not meaning to argue that Christians who marry must have children, or that there is anything wrong when married Christians have non-procreative sex, whether its because they’re using contraception, or for some other reason.
All I am saying is that the witness of the Bible is oriented exclusively towards seeing sex and procreation as, essentially, one and the same thing. The reason to do it is to have kids, and all the other reasons people might do it are actually there, ultimately, to serve that first reason. I do not agree with the Catholics on this one, but I am willing to admit that they are applying the witness of the Bible far more consistently than the Protestants do, when they forbid contraception. A plain reading of the whole counsel of God on the matter would certainly point you to that conclusion.
So why do Christians (excepting the Catholics) use contraception, and approve of it, and counsel newly-weds to do so (or at least, we don’t counsel them not to), and all of this without blinking an eye at the fact that our use of contraception moves fundamentally against the warp-and-woof of a biblical view of sex?
My answer is that we tend to take what I am calling an “integrative view” of contraception. An integrative view is one that acknowledges and honors the witness of Scripture—in this case, that God’s intention for sex is that it produce children—but also acknowledges the fact that we live in a world where things do not always fit neatly and tidily into biblical categories. There may be health reasons not to have children. There may be reasons related to one’s Christian vocation. There may be circumstances where it’s not possible or advisable for a couple to try to conceive. They may simply be unprepared or ill-equipped to have children. And in those instances, wise Christians acknowledge that it would not be wise or kind to suggest that such couples refrain from having sex simply because they’re not willing or able to have children when they do.
As with my previous examples of pacifism and divorce, an integrative view on the question of contraception takes the biblical witness with all seriousness, but then seeks wisely to integrate it with the complicated realities of our lived experience. And whether we realize it or not, this is what Christians are doing when we use contraception.
Of course, this series is not about contraception, per se. It is about a Christian response to LGBTQ+ identities and same-sex marriage. My ultimate point is that I think it is possible to adopt an integrative approach in our response to LGBTQ+ issues, in a way similar to what we do with these other examples I’ve discussed. If I have dwelt longer than necessary on the issue of contraception, it’s only because with this question we are getting closer to the heart of our ultimate theme. If we can find ways to integrate the witness of the Scripture and our posture toward non-procreative sex for heterosexual people, is it not possible to do something similar when it comes to our posture towards LGBTQ+ people and their experience of their sexuality?
That is not a rhetorical question. In coming posts I hope to unpack it at length and draw some conclusions. At this point in the discussion, however, suffice it simply to say this: if we really wanted to apply the Bible’s teaching on sex with the strictest of literalism, we would not simply reject same-sex sex, we would also reject any form of contraception that artificially closes heterosexual sex off from the possibility of procreation. And if we don't do so on the later, perhaps we need not do so on the former, either.
Let No Man Put Asunder: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (IV)
A few years ago, I was invited to do a presentation for the board of a Christian campground and retreat centre on the topic of “Homosexuality and the Bible.” At the time, I was deep in the throes of writing my doctoral dissertation on this topic, a document I mentioned in an earlier post in this series. Back in those days, I was exploring the theme of hospitality, specifically, as a possible way for churches with a traditional sexual ethic to respond to the LGBTQ+ people in their communities. This Christian camp was seeking to develop policies around how they might respond if LGBTQ+ people wanted to rent property on their facility, and they were hoping my research might inform their efforts.
I prepared the presentation on the assumption that this particular ministry was looking for ways to frame a policy that allowed LGBTQ+ people to rent lots, and that the board members were aware that the tenor of my work was towards including and embracing LGBTQ+ people in Christian community. As the afternoon unfolded, however, it slowly began to dawn on me that this was not the case, that the board was intending to draft a policy that restricted “practicing homosexuals” from rental agreements with their ministry, and they were hoping that my presentation might give them ideas on how to frame these restrictions “biblically.”
They listened politely to my research, and many took careful notes, but towards the end of our time together, as it became clear that my thinking and their intentions were not especially well-aligned, someone in the audience explained to me that they had seen other churches that tried to be “hospitable” in a way I was proposing, only to become full-on-affirming before they were done. He warned his fellow board members of this danger and then made it clear to me that they had no intention of falling into this trap.
The discussion continued around the specific policy proposals they were considering, and how the idea of “hospitality” might relate to it, and, realizing I was losing the crowd, I final said: “Well, whatever your board decides, it should not be more stringent or more restrictive than your policy on renting property to divorcees who have remarried.”
I meant this sincerely, in good faith, assuming that a Christian ministry that was so concerned about being “biblical” when it comes to LGBTQ+ people must surely have a policy on the question of divorce and remarriage, too.
Someone sheepishly explained to me that they didn’t have any policy on the question of divorce.
I was quite startled: “How could you be considering a policy on ‘renting to LGBTQ+ people,’” I asked, “If you don’t have a similar policy on renting to remarried divorcees?”
The same sheepish someone tried to help me see reason: “Well,” he said, “of course we can’t have a policy on renting to divorcees. That would require us to ask all kinds of personal questions about people’s private lives that are inappropriate.”
The irony—and the hypocrisy—of this statement was entirely lost on the room, but I’ve never forgotten it.
I bring it up here, in a series on developing an “integrative perspective” on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ identities because—as with my previous discussion on pacifism and wearing poppies in church—it illustrates another challenging but significant issue that most Christians today have adopted an integrative approach to, despite the fact that the teaching of the Bible on the matter is—to use a phrase that many staunch non-affirmers often use—“crystal clear.”
Jesus made no bones about it, that anyone who divorces their wife “makes her a victim of adultery,” and anyone who marries a divorced woman likewise commits adultery (Matthew 5:32). In Mark 10:11, Jesus sharpens the opposite edge of this teaching, so that it applies similarly to any woman who divorces her husband and marries another man. It is true, of course, that he offers one explicit exception to this rule, that a man who divorces a woman because of “sexual immorality” is not considered to have committed adultery if he choses to remarry. It’s not exactly clear what he means by this (the Greek is somewhat ambiguous), but from the context it sounds like he’s saying that if a woman cheats on her husband and the husband chooses to divorce her as a result, he is free to remarry. (Note that there is nothing in any of Jesus’s teaching that explicitly applies the same principle to women whose husbands cheat on them. In Mark 10, Jesus broadens his teaching about remarried divorcees committing adultery to include women who divorce their husbands, but the “sexual immorality” exception is strikingly absent from that passage. It would make sense, I suppose, to assume that the “sexual immorality” exception applies equally to wives as to husbands, but Jesus never explicitly says that it does.)
There is one other “exception” passage when it comes to divorce and remarriage that most conservative Christians tend to reach for, in addition to the “sexual immorality” exception. In 1 Corinthians 7:10-11 Paul reiterates Jesus’s teaching that husbands and wives are not to divorce (even if one is a believer and the other not), however, he explains, if an unbelieving spouse leaves the believing spouse—if a Christian is married to a non-Christian, that is, and the non-Christian abandons them—the believer is “not bound” to the marriage in that circumstance, and is (presumably) free to remarry.
These two exceptions aside, though, the New Testament is otherwise explicit and clear that (a) divorce is not God’s intention for people, and (b) those who divorce and remarry are, in all other cases, committing adultery.
I remember speaking with a fellow pastor once, who was quite firm in their non-affirming perspective on same-sex marriage, and I asked them if they had ever performed marriages for divorcees.
This pastor indicated that, yes, of course they had.
I then asked if this pastor had taken time to vet the circumstances surrounding each of these divorces, to ensure that they met the conditions for one of the two exceptions—that it was a case of “sexual immorality” or “abandonment” that had led to the person becoming divorced.
This pastor indicated (somewhat sheepishly) that, no, they had never done so.
They did not have a very satisfying answer, when I asked why, in the one case (divorce and remarriage), they seemed so at peace about violating the direct teaching of the New Testament, and in the other case (same-sex marriage) they were adamantly unwilling to budge.
Today I would suggest that the reason most pastors are willing to perform remarriages after divorce, even in cases that do not technically meet the biblical exceptions, is because we have adopted an integrative approach to this issue, one that does not hesitate to say that divorce is not the Creator’s intention for marriage, but also compassionately acknowledges that there will be instances where the circumstances of a marriage may be so fraught, dangerous, painful, abusive or otherwise destructive that divorce is the better of two evils. In such cases—even if they don’t technically meet the explicit criteria for the “exceptions” provided in the Bible—it would be cruel, actually, to add to the pain and harm that the divorcee has suffered, by forbidding them to remarry and confining them to a life of singleness and loneliness as a result of their divorce.
On this issue, an integrative view says something like this: we have no doubt that the Creator’s intent for marriage was that it be a permanent, life-long union of mutual blessing and support, but we also know that human relationships do not always obtain to the Creator’s intent. When they don’t, we do not resort blindly to a strict application of the letter of the law, rather we look for the most compassionate, gracious, and life-affirming way forward, which may include the possibility of remarriage.
If we have adopted an integrative view on the question of divorce and remarriage, we may have some small precedence for having done so. In Matthew 19, when Jesus was asked if it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife, he points out that, on the one hand, God’s plan was that no one should ever put apart what he had joined together, but, on the other hand, God knew that human hearts were prone to hardness—cruelty and selfishness and exploitation—and so he directed Moses to permit people to issue their wives a certificate of divorce (in this case, the certificate of divorce would protect the rights of the abandoned woman, by proving her husband had left her and that she was free to remarry). In some ways, Jesus’s statement here is a bit of precedence for the kind of “integrative approach” I am proposing in this series. He clearly states the Creator’s intent for marriage, but he acknowledges that the human heart does not always neatly obtain to the Creator’s intention, and in doing so he suggests that the Torah’s guidance around divorce was Moses’ attempt to integrate these two realities: the Creator’s intent and the world as we experience it.
(Some might reach quickly to the doctrine of sanctification, and the idea that, while it was true that people in Moses’s time had hard hearts which made divorce a necessity, Spirit-filled Christians on this side of the cross should have Spirit-softened hearts, making divorce no longer necessary. To this I would only suggest that none of us have yet attained to the fullness of our sanctification, and so long as we are still this side of Heaven, all of us still have hard places in our hearts that need softening. On an anecdotal level, I would also say that some of the most painful marriages I’ve seen have been so-called “Christian marriages,” between presumably “Spirit-filled Christians.”)
Of course, this is not a series on the question of divorce and remarriage. It is a series on how we can acknowledge the witness of the Scripture when it comes to the question of same-sex sexuality and integrate it wisely with what we know about people’s actual lived experience of being LGBTQ+. As with my previous post on the question of pacifism, though, I think the question of divorce and remarriage is a helpful “test-case” for an integrative approach. It helps us imagine what integration looks like, and it provides us evidence that Christians do it intuitively when it comes to other issues, often without ever realizing we do it.
Some will find the integrative approach unsatisfying, suspect, perhaps even spiritually dangerous. In coming posts, I hope to explain why it is none of these things, and how I see it working in real life. For today though, I would simply say that if we are not prepared to adopt an integrative approach when it comes to same-sex marriage, we had better be prepared not to allow church membership for all remarried divorcees, excepting only those who had been abandoned by unbelieving spouses, or men who had been cheated on by their first wives.
To do otherwise—to refuse to embrace and honor same-sex marriages or LGBTQ+ identities while willingly performing remarriages for divorcees—would make us guilty of that sin which Jesus spoke most vehemently against in his time here on earth: the sin of hypocrisy.
The 3 Things and the 5 Things: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality (II)
In my previous post in this series, I sketched out a very cursive outline for what I am calling an “integrative view” of same-sex sexuality and the Bible. By integrative, I mean a view that attempts to take the things we know to be true about the experience of same-sex sexuality, on the one hand, and integrate them with the things we believe the Bible says about same-sex sex, on the other. I intend to suggest in coming posts that Christians intuitively do this kind of “integrative” work on all kinds of other topics and issues—issues that might be as fraught and complicated as the issue of same-sex sexuality, except that we have taken an “integrative view” of them for so long that it has become second nature and we hardly notice anymore that we are doing so.
Before we get to that, though, and as a first step in filling in the contours of an integrative view on same-sex sexuality, I want to begin by discussing what I call “the 3 things and the 5 things.” When I am asked to speak, as a pastor, on the question of the Church’s posture towards LGBTQ+ people and their experience, I usually start by laying out “the 3 things and the 5 things,” as a way of honestly and (hopefully) compassionately establishing a shared understanding as a starting point for any discussion of these matters.
Not everybody accepts the 3 things and the 5 things, and a blog post is not an ideal forum for presenting the kinds of rigorous research that would be necessary to convince the unconvinced that they are true. I will say that I have come across plenty of research, both quantitative and qualitative, to convince me that they are, and as a result, they profoundly shape my own thinking on this issue.
The 3 things are:
1. That LGBTQ+ people do not chose to be L, G, B, T, or Q.
By this, I mean that the many, diverse, non-heteronormative sexual identities and orientations that fall under the umbrella term LGBTQ+-- the experience of gender dysphoria, for instance, or same-sex attraction, the experience of being queer, or two-spirit, or asexual, and so on—is not, generally speaking, something that people choose. The unconvinced may want to reach for anecdotal evidence to the contrary of this statement, and no-doubt the reasons why people identify with non-heterosexual identities are complex and varied. I believe, however, that on the whole, research shows that people who persistently experience their sexuality in ways that don’t conform with the heterosexual majority, have not chosen to be this way. Personal experience bears this out. The suffering, sacrifices, turmoil and risks involved with “coming out” as LGBTQ+ is far to great, in most cases, to suggest glibly that those enduring them for the sake of being honest about their sexual identity are doing so as a fad, or on a whim, or as a matter of personal choice.
2. The experience of being LGBTQ+ is not subject to change.
People who are gay, or trans, or queer, in other words, cannot change their identities so that they are no longer gay, or trans, or queer. Although this statement may seem highly controversial in some conservative circles, my impression both of the research and my personal experience with LGBTQ+ people is that, generally speaking, these sexual orientations are as permanent as they are persistent. They are not subject to change, and efforts to “change” LGBTQ+ people into being “straight” are almost universally harmful (psychologically traumatic, emotionally scarring, damaging to relationships, financially burdensome, and a plain waste of time).
Again, the unconvinced may reach for anecdotal evidence that “so-and-so” was gay and he “prayed the gay away.” Besides being extremely rare, however, these stories are also unfinished, and many people who claim to have been delivered from their same-sex attractions find the change is neither total nor permanent, and the attractions return, often painfully and harmfully at later points down the road. Similarly, for every story of “someone who changed,” there are multiple dozens of stories of those who tried “changing” and suffered spiritual, emotional, and psychological trauma as a result. Stories of “gay people who changed” should certainly not be held up as a normative expectation, and the risks associated with so-called conversion therapies are so great that the possibility of change is not something responsible Christians should encourage LGBTQ+ people to pursue. It’s no accident that the vast majority of Christian conversion therapy ministries ignobly closed their doors in the early 2000s, after it became painfully evident that it was not only unrealistic, but inhumane, to try to “change” LGBTQ+ people.
3. LGBTQ+ people experience harm when they are not able in some meaningful way to integrate their experience of being LGBTQ+ with their sense of personhood.
This statement may cause conservative readers to scratch their heads, but what I am trying to say is that it hurts LGBTQ+ people—emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically—to believe that their experience of their sexuality is “abnormal,” “perverse,” “abhorrent,” “shameful,” or any of the other painful messages that LGBTQ+ people so-often come to believe about themselves when they first begin to discover that they are L, G, B, T, or Q. It is no coincidence that rates both of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts are higher among LGBTQ+ people than the general population. And, whether the non-affirming church wishes to accept this fact or not, the message that LGBTQ+ people typically hear from non-affirming Christians has been shown to exacerbate the harm (it’s one thing to think there’s something wrong with you for being gay; it’s quite another to think that God hates you because of it). Studies have shown, for instance, that among suicidal young people generally, having faith is a source of help that can mitigate and help manage the suicidal ideations; however, among LGBTQ+ youth, the opposite is true, and having faith tends to intensify and exacerbate their suicidality.
Christians may be tempted to try and sweep this fact away with platitudes about how Jesus never promised us a pain-free life following him, or how the most loving thing is to tell people “the truth” even if it hurts them—but my experience of ministering in conservative Christian circles for more than 2 decades now has been that as a rule, many (maybe most?) non-affirming Christians are irresponsibly unwilling to wrestle deeply with this plain fact: no matter how gently and lovingly we try to present it, the run-of-the-mill, non-affirming Christian message hurts a lot of LGBTQ+ people. A lot.
So those are the three things we know to be true about LGBTQ+ experience: it’s not chosen, it doesn’t change, and it hurts not to be able to integrate it with your sense of self.
The 5 things are more quickly and succinctly summarized. They are the basic “options” that LGBTQ+ Christians have—people who want to follow Jesus but their experience of their sexuality is described by those previous 3 things, I mean. What are they supposed to do? Especially if they are involved in a non-affirming church, or have been taught all their lives to believe non-affirming theology?
As far as I can tell, they only have 5 basic options:
They can:
1. Stay in the closet, denying that they are LGBTQ+ and suffering in silence
2. “Come out” as LGBTQ+ but resist their “temptations” and seek to live singly and celibately
3. Leave their non-affirming community and try to find an affirming church
4. Abandon their faith and give up on living as a Christian altogether
5. Re-examine and potentially revise their understanding of what the Bible really says about being LGBTQ+
In laying out these five options, I am not meaning, at this point, to suggest which of those 5 is best; though I will say that, in my mind, option 1 is out of the question (see thing #3 above); and as a Christian pastor, I hope that no believer, LGBTQ or not, will ever find themselves in a place where option 4 seems like the only viable way forward. So hopefully we can scratch at least those two off the list from the outset.
Beyond that, however, I am simply asking at this point that we wrestle humbly with these 3 things and these 5 things before we make any pronouncements on “what the Bible says about same-sex sexuality,” and “what LGBTQ+ people should do as a result.” My own wrestling has led me to adopt an integrative view, one that seeks to support and celebrate LGBTQ+ people as cherished children of God even though I remain unconvinced by many of the arguments that support an “affirming” reading of the scripture. As I’ve said, I intend to show how and why I do this in coming posts. In the final analysis, you may find this position—the integrative view—to be unconvincing or unsatisfying, but whatever view we adopt, I believe that it must include an honest and compassionate accounting for the 3 things and the 5 things.
No Mere Hospitality: Toward an Integrative Perspective on Same-Sex Sexuality
One of the most persistent and emotionally weighty issues I deal with in my work as a pastor is the question of LGBTQ+ identities: how should the church respond to LGBTQ+ people, how should we understand and apply the teaching of the Bible when it comes to same-sex sexuality, and what is the most Christ like way to show love to our LGBTQ+ friends and neighbours?
I completed a Doctor of Ministry degree at Northeastern Seminary back in 2020, and this was, in fact, the topic of my doctoral thesis: what does meaningful ministry with/to/among LGBTQ+ people look like, and how do we do it well? At that time, I focused on the theme of hospitality, arguing essentially that as Christ’s people we are called to practice radical hospitality towards all, that the bedrock of Christian community is the hospitable welcome that God extends us in the cross, and that the moral imperative of hospitality requires us to practice radical welcome and inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in the worshiping community.
I have to be honest that oftentimes these days I wish I could disavow my doctoral dissertation. At the time when I wrote it, I felt it was offering a fresh way forward on this issue, and that it would perhaps help shed some light on the path my own denomination (the FMCiC) was journeying in seeking to adopt a biblical posture towards LGBTQ+ people. Looking back over the last four years since I published it, however, my sense is that my “hospitality thesis,” such as it was, did neither. I have some small assurance that it helped some (I certainly received multiple requests from people to read it). Even so, I know I would definitely write a different thesis a second time around, if I had to write it all over again (which, thankfully, I don’t).
In a nutshell, the problem with “hospitality” as way of framing the church’s posture towards LGBTQ+ people is that, as loving as it may seem, “hospitality” is a gesture of welcomed offered, especially, to the stranger. As I argued in my thesis: biblically, you cannot offer hospitality to a friend or a family member, because biblically, hospitality (xenophilia) is explicitly about loving and welcoming the stranger. Hospitality is perhaps a helpful starting point, but the obvious problem with it is just this: if our relationship with LGBTQ+ people is framed solely in terms of hospitality, it means that they will always remain, in some real sense, “strangers” in the community—always a guest and never a fully contributing participant.
So I would no longer make “hospitality” the controlling theme for shaping the church’s posture towards LGBTQ+ people. Instead, I have come to describe my position as an “integrative approach.” By “integrative,” I mean that I think Christians need to wisely and graciously “integrate” what they believe the Bible teaches about same-sex sexuality with what we have come to know and understand about the realities of having a non-heteronormative sexual identity, of experiencing same-sex sexual attractions or gender dysphoria, the real lived experience of LGBTQ+ people.
I do not know if I am the first to use this term—“integrative”—to describe a Christian view of same-sex sexuality. I have not encountered it in any of the many books on the topic that I’ve read, and I am not aware of any major thinkers on the issue who currently use it. This may be a sign that it is a fresh way forward, or it may be that it has already been considered and found wanting. In either case, over the next few weeks here at terra incognita, I intend to sketch out in broad contours what I mean by the term and how it shapes my own response to this particular issue in church life and ministry. You can judge for yourself whether it’s a helpful way forward or just a novel take on old ground.
The term itself comes from the realm of Christian psychology. Since 2021, I have been completing a degree in Clinical Counseling at Tyndale Seminary, and one of the first things we were asked to do early on in our studies was to write an “integrative paper,” where we articulated how we integrated the findings of contemporary psychology with the teaching of the Bible, to show how we saw the relationship between them, and how we believed that relationship ought to direct Christian counselors in their practice.
It occurred to me then that the “integrative” approach we were being asked to develop when it came to psychology generally could be mapped onto the question of LGBTQ+ identities specifically, and that rather than a simple, one-size-fits all statement on “what does the Bible say about same-sex sex,” what we really need is a gracious way to integrate the biblical witness on this matter with what we now know about what it means to be gay, or lesbian, or queer, or trans.
If you’ve read this far, I expect you’re scratching your head with all sorts of questions: what on earth does “integrative” mean? What does it look like practically? And what do you think the Bible actually teaches on this matter?
I can’t promise to answer all those questions in a format like this—blog posts are not the best venue for presenting deep, thorough, carefully researched material—but over the next series of posts, I hope to at least give readers a sense of how I would develop a full fledged “integrative approach” if I had a whole book-length format to work with.
For starters, let me say that when I talk about an “integrative approach,” I mean something that is both conceptually, and in practice, quite different from the basic options currently on hand. As far as I can tell there are essentially three. One can be “affirming,” which is to say they are supportive of same-sex relationships and/or marriage, and they believe they have a biblical warrant for being so (either because they believe that the Bible passages that apparently prohibit same-sex relationships are talking about something different than modern same-sex marriages, or because they believe there are other biblical principles that “trump” these prohibitive passages). One can be "non-affirming," which is to say they do not support same-sex relationships or marriage, primarily because they are convinced that the Bible teaches that all same-sex sex is a sin. Or one can be “accommodating,” which means that they are willing to welcome gay people into community even though they believe the Bible teaches that same-sex sex is itself sinful. Those with an accommodating posture, you might say, “accept” same-sex relationships but do not “approve” of them.
The “integrative” approach that I will be arguing for in this series is not “affirming” in the technical sense, because, as we’ll see, it does not attempt to argue for a revisionist reading of the Scriptures, but neither is it “non-affirming,” because it does not say that same-sex relationships are intrinsically or inherently sinful. Of the three current postures, my “integrative approach” is probably closest to an “accommodating” view, but it is different in that it is willing to say more than just “we can accept same-sex relationships, even though we think they’re wrong”; rather, an integrative approach takes an honest, wholistic, compassionate view of same-sex relationships, and also engages in rigorous exegesis of the scriptures, and then attempts to integrate what we know to be true about both—the experience of being LGBTQ+ and the biblical witness, together—so that we can hold up what we believe to be the Bible’s teaching on the matter, in good faith, while still sincerely embracing, blessing, and celebrating the LGBTQ+ people who are part of our community.
This may sound like an impossible goal, to some. It may sound like a wishy-washy third-way approach, to others. But after more than a decade of working and reading, study and experience on this issue, I have come to believe that an “integrative approach” holds the most promise for a healthy way forward. I don’t offer it here as a final answer to this question, but I do hope it will help others take a next step in their understanding of same-sex sexuality, and especially in their willingness to embrace and include LGBTQ+ people in authentic ways in the life of the church.
The Question of Queer Christian Representation: A Christian Conversation about Steven Universe (Part VI)
In other interviews she has spoken about how important this kind of representation is, that it is critical “that there are LGBTQIA characters in G-rated content,” because “as long as certain people are considered to be inappropriate for families and children, there is no equality.”*
In creating a show like Steven Universe, in other words, Rebecca Sugar was not simply trying to tell a fascinating story with compelling characters and universal themes—though she was trying to do that too, and succeeded—but she was also trying to use her medium to address what she saw as a social problem, and effect positive social change. And as far as I can tell, she succeeded in that, too. Alex Hirsch, the creator of the Disney Channel’s hit cartoon Gravity Falls (which we’ve also discussed on this blog) has gone on record praising Sugar for “driving a race car way, way ahead of everyone else” when it comes to the representation of queer people in cartoons.
In 2016, Steven Universe made animation history when it became the first cartoon ever to portray a same-sex marriage proposal, in its much-lauded episode “The Question.” In discussing that episode with Entertainment Weekly, Sugar wrote, “We absolutely must tell LGBTQ+ children that they belong in this world and they deserve to be loved. … We cannot wait until a child grows up to tell them they deserve to exist and that their story matters.”*
I am sharing all of this as part my on-going analysis of Steven Universe, because it illuminates a vital issue that Christians must wrestle with if they want to address LGBTQ issues biblically.
I’m thinking here of the so-called “the gay agenda.”
At least, that’s what the most ardently non-affirming Christians I’ve known would call it. The idea is that the relatively rapid shift in Canadian social mores—from viewing homosexuality as a crime up until 1969, to embracing gay marriage as a progressive leap forward in 2005—was the result of an well-organized political effort on the part of LGBTQ people, to change the world as we know it into one we no longer recognize. It is often used with an undertone of suspicion, as though those who have worked towards this goal have not just been trying to change the world but actually to destroy it.
I am writing as a Christian pastor, serving in a denomination which teaches that, biblically speaking, same-sex sexuality does not fulfill God’s creation-design for sex. In simple terms, my denomination is “non-affirming.” That needs to be on the table in the interest of full disclosure here. And to be sure, as far as I can tell, there has indeed been a very intentional effort on the part of LGBTQ people and allies over the years, to see laws changed, to have school curricula revised, to ensure that queer people will not be unfairly mistreated simply because of their sexual orientation, and so on. I think this is relatively well-documented fact and shouldn’t cause a great deal of dispute.
But even so, I want to explain why I do not think it is at all helpful to talk about a “gay agenda” and why, as a pastor in a denomination like mine, I don’t use the term. It’s because when we do, we are treating the pain, and alienation, and isolation of another human being as though it were a threat to us, turning a very real hear-cry for compassionate acknowledgement into some sort of a diabolical conspiracy theory. This does not strike me as an especially Christ-like thing to do.
And this is why a kid’s show like Steven Universe is so helpful in this conversation, because it illustrates the problem with a term like “the gay agenda.” Did Rebecca Sugar have an “agenda” when she created this show? I guess it depends on what you mean by agenda. It is well documented that she began with a particular end in mind—to help under-represented, and misrepresented children know that there was a place for them in the world, a place where they mattered just as much as anybody else. Whether or not you call that an “agenda” (in the “gay-agenda” sense of the word) depends entirely on whether or not you think this is a “manipulative” or a “subversive” thing to do.
I don’t think it is, either manipulative or subversive. In fact, I think it’s the work the church should be doing, and it’s the work that we consistently see Jesus doing. I say this without settling here whether theologically the church be affirming or non-affirming. I believe very strongly that Christians can do for LGBTQ people what Rebecca Sugar was trying to do for queer children when she created Steven Universe, and tell them that there is indeed a place where they belong, without necessarily settling the theological question about same-sex sex.
What a show like Steven Universe shows us is how important, and indeed, how beautiful it can be to do that. It also gives us a hint of what it might look like to do it well—by telling stories that include those who do not fall into our typical, or “normal” categories for gender, marriage, family and so on—to use language that acknowledges that not everyone is part of the heterosexual mainstream—by going out of our way to represent those who are not “normally” represented in our discussions of what it means authentically to follow Jesus.
It may not look like a cartoon about a band of alien superheroes dedicated to saving planet Earth, for the church to do this. I have a hunch, however, that if a church sincerely acknowledged the presence the LGBTQ people in its midst—if it included the queer experience its portrayals of what a well-lived Christian life might look like—if the church took a small cue from someone like Rebecca Sugar, I mean, and did the work of LGBTQ representation well—I think we would find we have a lot more in common with the so-called “gay agenda” than we ever realized. Not least of these would be a desire to see those who are on the edges of the social-circle brought close to the centre, those who are voiceless to be given a voice, and those who have always wondered if they were loveable, to discover that they are loved more purely and more divinely than they ever could have imagined.
A Christian Conversation about Steven Universe (Part IV): Encountering the Queer Aesthetic
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When I was a child, my list of favorite cartoons would have included some of the following titles: G-Force: Battle of the Planets, The Smurfs, Dungeons and Dragons, and, when I couldn’t get anything better, The Mighty Hercules. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any of these shows, but as a kid they filled my head with epic tales of fantasy, adventure, and heroism.
What I never considered at the time, though see quite clearly in retrospect, is that they also reinforced a certain aesthetic in my imagination. The term “aesthetic” as I’m using it here refers to the principles we draw on, or the characteristics we look for, to make value judgement about what is and what is not beautiful. By “beautiful,” however, I mean something more than simply “lovely to look at.” The “beautiful” in this sense is that which awakens our longing, excites our imagination, gives us pleasure, and elicits our joy. Aesthetic values can vary quite widely from culture to culture, which is why the carefully-balanced proportions of the Athenian Parthenon, and the kaleidoscopic spectacle of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Russia are both beautiful in their own way, though each is so unlike the other.
These are all children’s cartoons, of course, but I think it is easy to underestimate how formative the aesthetic experiences of our childhood can be on our grown-up sensibilities, subconsciously influencing the value judgement we make as grownups about what is lovely, compelling, and desirable.
I say this, because when I first started watching the show Steven Universe with my kids, I was struck by how foreign the aesthetic of the show seemed to me, and how few aesthetic categories I had that I could use to make sense of it. Rebecca Sugar, the maker of Steven Universe has said that she had set out to make a show that was “definitely not heteronormative.” This is clear in the show's broad themes and philosophical underpinnings, but it is also subtly woven through out the show’s aesthetic, from its character design to its artistic choices. It is, as my queer child once put it, the “gayest show ever,” and in this, the whole thing is working with an aesthetic unlike any cartoon I’ve ever come across.
At the same time, very few of the protagonists have any qualities associated with traditional masculinity. Indeed, an episode in the first season, called “Coach Steven” subtly deconstructs the entire trope of traditional masculinity. In this episode, Steven sets out to get himself and his friends in physical shape, adopting a “toxically masculine” drill-sergeant persona and running them through a rigorous workout regime. Through the course of the episode, however, he learns that there is a “real way” to be strong that does not require ripped abs and swole pecs, and indeed, that “muscular strength” is not the kind of “strength” he really needs.
I have to admit that when I first started watching Steven Universe, the “queer aesthetic” of the show took a long time for me to get used to. I’m a 46-year-old straight male, and hardly the target audience, I admit; but even so, I watched it with a traditional aesthetic in mind, one shaped by years of consuming narratives that presented traditional hetero-romantic, male-centric themes. As a result, I found the whole thing somewhat (in the original sense of this word) queer. All the pastel colors and glittering lights (which I would have associated, as a kid, with a “girl’s show”) coupled with all those intergalactic space adventures (which could rival even the best of G-Force for sci-fi thrills), made it hard for me to find my bearings.
If you’ve never seen the show, all this may sound somewhat bizarre, but the reason I’m talking about it at such length is because experiencing the queer aesthetic of Steven Universe helped me see my own aesthetic sensibilities in a new light. When I experience a “text,” be it a story, an image, a work of art, or a philosophical idea, I do with it what all human beings instinctively do: I try to fit it into a pre-conceived aesthetic framework that helps me to determine if it is good, true, lovely, or admirable. This aesthetic framework is largely subconscious, built from a whole network of formative experiences and aesthetic messages that I absorbed from the culture I was raised in. I was enculturated, for instance, to look for male strength as a sign that something heroic is happening, and I was enculturated, too, to pick up on intimations of heterosexual romance as a sign that the story is moving towards something desirable.
Encountering a show that deconstructed this aesthetic, like Steven Universe does, and presented an alternative in its place, helped me to see both how subjective my traditional aesthetic is, and (more importantly) how strongly I identify with it. I think it is hard to really grasp how subtly our deeply-held aesthetic values shape the way we interact with and respond to the world, determining what we think is worth striving for in life, and how we ought to go about striving for it. A music lover who has encountered the musical forms of an entirely different culture, one that does not use traditional Western intervals or rhythms, perhaps, might get what I am trying to describe here: the cognitive dissonance of encountering a form of beauty for which they have no clear aesthetic categories, but they can still clearly tell is something joyful, emotive, and good.
One of the reasons I’m exploring all this, is because my experience with the show Steven Universe has prompted me to wonder how much the church’s response to LGBTQ people in general, is less about our theology than it is about our aesthetic values. This idea is hard to put into words, but if we have been spiritually raised in a culture that consistently presents heterosexual romance as the highest ideal, and only showed one kind of masculinity as good and one kind of femininity as lovely, then coming to understand and make space for the queer people in our community may actually challenge our aesthetic convictions just as much, possibly even more so than it does, our theological convictions, such as they are.
Like a 46-year-old heterosexual male encountering Steven Universe and having to learn how to read a queer aesthetic on the fly, I think that the church will have to re-examine those things it’s always held up as ideals of beauty, if it is genuinely going to embrace LGBTQ people with the gospel. This does not mean relinquishing our responsibility to make biblical value judgement on what is a godly and what is not a godly expression of human sexuality, or accepting an entirely relative morality when it comes to sex.
At least it doesn’t have to mean that. It could simply mean acknowledging that many of the narratives we assume to be good, and true, and lovely, are really values we’ve inherited from our culture, not absolutes we’ve derived from the Bible. The presupposition, for instance, that God intends everyone to experience heterosexual romance in order to be spiritually fulfilled (when Jesus himself never married)—the assumption, perhaps, that a certain set of superficial characteristics define “biblical manhood and biblical womanhood” (when Jesus himself often crossed gender boundaries in his day, speaking to women and admitting them into his company in ways that scandalized his 1st Century culture)—these are examples of aesthetic values that the church has often taken to be theological givens.
There are probably others. As the church makes authentic space for the LGBTQ people among us, I expect we will discover more; and as we do, I expect we will find, too, that there are all kinds of beautiful things to be celebrated in our midst, things we never would have noticed as lovely, except that we let our aesthetic values be challenged in this way.