Saturday Symposium: Reasons for Choosing Celibacy

Good morning, readers. By the time you see this post on Saturday morning, the two of us will be almost a full day into a weekend retreat with some of our dearest friends. Please pray for us during this time of much-needed spiritual rejuvenation. We’ll be (mostly) unplugged until Sunday evening, so it’s going to take us a bit of extra time to reply to all responses from last week’s surprisingly popular question. We’ve read them all and have spent the whole week reflecting. We’re eager to get back to you with our thoughts.

Even though we’re out of town and away from the internet for the weekend, we didn’t want to leave you without a new Saturday Symposium question:

How this works: It’s very simple. We ask a multi-part question related to a topic we’ve blogged about during the past week or are considering blogging about in the near future, and you, our readers, share your responses in the comments section. Feel free to be open, reflective, and vulnerable…and to challenge us. But as always, be mindful of the comment policy that ends each of our posts. Usually, we respond fairly quickly to each comment, but in order to give you time to think, come back, add more later if you want, and discuss with other readers, we will wait until after Monday to respond to comments on Saturday Symposium questions.

This week’s Saturday Symposium question: “Why did you choose celibacy?” is probably the most predictable question we receive, both in real time and from blog readers. It seems almost everyone involved in the conversation about Christianity and the LGBT community has an opinion about celibacy, particularly the issue of why some LGBT people choose to become celibate. There are hundreds of reasons a person might choose a celibate way of life. In your opinion, are some of these reasons better than others? Are some more problematic than others? Do a person’s reasons for choosing celibacy matter? Do they matter more for LGBT people than for heterosexual, cisgender people who choose celibacy?

We look forward to reading your responses. If you’re concerned about having your comment publicly associated with your name, please consider using the Contact Us page to submit your comment. We can post it under a pseudonym (i.e. John says, “your comment”) or summarize your comment in our own words (i.e. One person observed…). Participating in this kind of public dialogue can be risky, and we want to do what we can to protect you even if that means we preserve your anonymity. Have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings,

Sarah and Lindsey

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.