Author Archives: Sarah and Lindsey

The Story of Our Gravatar Icon

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We believe that inside jokes can be great fun, and our readers who have been with us since our first month are well aware of this. Once early on in our blogging adventure, we shared about why we think it essential for us to bring a camel to church. Since it’s Friday and we’re sure some of you are just as in need of a smile as we are, we thought it would be fun to let you all in on another of our inside jokes.

If you follow us on Facebook or happen to glance at our Gravatar icon here or our profile photo on Twitter, then you may have seen a curious image. For quite some time, we’ve had a few observant readers contacting us to inquire about this seemingly random pair of rodents.

A Cambodian striped squirrel and a Dzhungarian hamster

A Cambodian striped squirrel and a Dzhungarian hamster at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC

Why in the world would we have a squirrel and a hamster standing together on a platform as our chosen Gravatar, Twitter, and Facebook images? As you might expect, the story of this photo is a bit of a wandering tale.

We are two quirky nerds who love doing life together. Very early on in our friendship, we started talking about introverts. The ever-extroverted Sarah was having trouble understanding why anyone would want to hide in a room after a day at work interacting with a lot of people. Lindsey responded to Sarah’s confusion by sharing Dr. Carmella’s Guide to Understanding the Introverted. This extremely helpful cartoon guide opens with, “Introverted people live in a human-sized hamster ball.”  We talked about how it’s always important to respect an introvert’s hamster ball by not invading personal space too quickly. Since Lindsey is an introvert, it became a routine for Sarah to ask, “May I come into the hamster ball?” when wanting to occupy a seat on the same sofa, or enter into a Skype conversation (as we weren’t living in the same city at the time). It wasn’t too long before Lindsey became known as “Hamster.”

Lindsey’s honestly rubbish about making up nicknames of any kind. We spent many hours talking during our early days of friendship. One of the first things Lindsey learned about Sarah was that Sarah loves wildlife. Lindsey wanted to think of an animal that described Sarah, but was struggling until Lindsey noticed Sarah’s big, thick, bushy hair. When it’s tied up in a ponytail high on Sarah’s head, it looks like a squirrel’s tail. And because we already knew about our mutual love of kids’ movies, Lindsey decided to pay homage to Up and start calling Sarah, “Squirrel.”

Ever since, we’ve been constantly referring to ourselves as Hamster and Squirrel. Over time, this odd little inside joke has expanded to include some of our closest mutual friends. Sarah, the wildlife nerd, memorized the information on hundreds of animal profile cards as a child and can still recall all of it, so it didn’t take long before we started seeing admirable animal (specifically rodent) qualities in people who play significant roles in our lives. One of our friends is tall and lanky and conducts himself much like a ferret. Another friend is soft, cuddly, and warm like a chinchilla. Sometimes we let our friends pick their own creatures. We have friends who have chosen capybara, agouti, kangaroo rat, and the like. With so many fun creatures, we decided to start looking for the array of our friends’ animals whenever we would visit zoos, pet stores, or museums. Photos of said animals make great accompaniments for “We miss you and you should come visit us soon!” text messages.

The National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC has a Hall of Mammals. This exhibit has hundreds of specimens on display. Naturally, on one of our visits there, we started looking for our friends’ respective rodents. We were rather impressed that we found a ferret, a capybara, and a chinchilla. Not surprisingly, Lindsey wondered whether the museum had a hamster. We continued our search and discovered that, yes, the Museum of Natural History does, in fact, have a hamster on display…and the hamster even stands next to a squirrel. We knew immediately that we had to snap a photo.

This story might sound silly, immature, and perhaps trivial. But having fun together is an essential part of an authentic relationship. One of the reasons why we love our adventures in spotting members of the order rodentia is that this inside joke has extended far beyond the two of us and marks out our family of choice. Sharing life together involves celebrating our mutual quirkiness. Finding people who appreciate your unique qualities can be challenging. We’re interested in hearing from you in the comments about seemingly trivial or unusual aspects of life that, odd as they may be, are important components in the bonds you share with your own family of choice. Have you seen any signature quirks extend far beyond the small group where they originated?

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.

Some Thoughts about “Third Way” Churches

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A reflection by Lindsey

As I’ve been hanging around Twitter, I’ve seen a number of people asking questions like, “What does it mean to be a Third Way Church?” The question comes after a Southern Baptist church in California decided to adopt Ken Wilson’s approach to questions of LGBT people in the Church. Wilson proposes a Third Way where the hallmarks include “welcoming and embracing” LGBT people rather than adopting an “open and affirming” position. From what I can tell, many of the Third Way churches are trying to shift thinking found in Evangelical churches. It’s worth noting that Wilson’s book is arguing for a different approach than a Roman Catholic documentary by the same title. I have a soft-spot for what Wilson is trying to do because Wilson pastors a Vineyard church. In college, I used to attend a Vineyard church before coming into my current Christian tradition. A significant number of my close friends identify strongly with Evangelical traditions, and my reflection here should be read as coming from the perspective of an outsider musing on different things I’ve observed.

Culture war issues invite binary thinking. Many commentators say, “You either affirm gay marriage or you don’t,” or “You teach homosexuality is a sin or you don’t.” Within the binaries, I think it’s fair to say that there is no middle ground. However, I am no stranger to the conversation about LGBT people in the Church. I’d posit that approaches like Third Way and Generous Spaciousness are trying to move people away from asking binary questions about LGBT Christians. In the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t had any time to actually read Ken Wilson’s A Letter to My Congregation yet, and I don’t intend to describe his exact approach in this post. Nevertheless, I think Third Way approaches are becoming increasingly common.

Many evangelical churches have a Third Way style approach to questions of baptism. Whether a particular congregation would prefer to perform adult baptisms, many churches argue rather strongly for the idea that a person should only be baptized once. If a person has grown up in the church and was baptized as an infant, many congregations accept the newcomer through a letter of transfer. Some churches ask every newcomer to meet with the pastor, choosing to acknowledge a new member through a public affirmation of faith. Churches that strongly prefer adult baptisms frequently perform infant dedications or adopt a posture of quietly looking away when parents visit a church associated with members of their extended family to have the child baptized. Equally, it’s common for churches that have infant baptism to wait for parents to make a decision about whether and when a child should be baptized. There’s generosity in giving people space to discern their timing.

Relative to questions of LGBT Christians, I think many Third Way evangelical churches consider the status of various newcomers to their communities. Has an LGBT couple been married in another Christian tradition? Is civil same-sex marriage available in communities around the church? Does an LGBT couple have children they want to raise in the Christian faith? From what I can see of authors advocating a Third Way, these authors would say, “Let these families come and participate in the life of our church.” The communities generally strive to maintain uniform expectations for everyone in the church. If membership requires serving on a ministry team, then LGBT families are welcome to serve on a ministry team. If pastors ask people to participate using their various gifts and talents, then the pastors consider everyone’s gifts and talents. If the church has a newsletter that gets mailed, perhaps the church includes the names of everyone in the household on the address label. The choice to receive everyone who comes through the door with open arms seems to be a driving motivator of churches to adopt a Third Way approach.

Third Way approaches to certain issues do seem to be remarkably viable over the long term, at least in certain communities. I lived in England when I worked towards my Master’s degree. As such, I was invited to attend services at a lot of Church of England parishes. I was rather amazed at how the Anglican church takes a Third Way approach to the elements of communion. I remember attending one service where the person on my left was a strident defender of the belief that the Eucharistic elements became the body and blood of Christ while the person on my right thought the wafer was a poor substitute for Passover bread. Personally, I was experiencing a huge deal of cognitive dissonance. Things started to click together when the celebrant offered the Eucharistic prayers that had contained wordings very similar to the following:

“Accept our praises, heavenly Father, through thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, and as we follow his example and obey his command, grant that by the power of thy Holy Spirit these gifts of bread and wine may be unto us his body and his blood…

Wherefore, O Lord and heavenly Father, we remember his offering of himself made once for all upon the cross; we proclaim his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension; we look for the coming of his kingdom and with this bread and this cup we make the memorial of Christ thy Son our Lord.”

In the wordings of the prayers, the theology was communicated as body and blood AND bread and wine. It seemed to me like the people on my right and on my left were self-selecting what parts of the prayers to pay attention to. As I queried different celebrants, I consistently heard answers that the English people had quite enough of Protestants killing Catholics and vice versa, and that the current approach allows people from different perspectives to worship together peacefully. These clerics thought it was admirable to bring previously warring people to the same table and to have a wide tent. While I can see where these clerics were coming from, I was still inclined to look at the situation more than a bit cross-eyed and would posit that most Catholic and Orthodox believers would resist this line of reasoning. One challenge of Third Way approaches is that they compel Christian traditions to determine where there is and is not space for disputable matters.

Suffice it to say, I do think Third Way churches are welcoming a great deal of liturgical soul-searching (for lack of a better word). How do these churches understand marriage? Might they take an approach of answering questions in the particular (i.e. Should we extend our blessing on these two men to share life together?) rather than saying, “Yes, we absolutely affirm the rights of all LGBT people to get married in our church.” Would a pastor consent to officiating a service held in a venue other than the church? Might the church adopt an approach of providing LGBT couples with legal counsel to navigate different ways of recognizing the relationship? Does the church want to dive deeply into exploring visions of celibate vocations that can be truly life-giving? Would the church consider crafting rites to allow people to enter a celibate vocation?

Here at A Queer Calling, we’re constantly talking about the need to help LGBT people discover truly life-giving vocations that empower them to live into the fullness of the Gospel. In my opinion, churches seeking a Third Way are trying to transition from a legal binary of “Yes/No” into a more holistic view of Christian discipleship. I think churches with a traditional sexual ethic do well to look at the fullness of their traditions in an effort to move beyond mandating LGBT people to a “vocation of No.” I also think that churches with a modern, liberal sexual ethic might consider listening to people seeking guidance in discerning vocation. As an observer looking in on the conversations, it seems like many people with a modern, liberal sexual ethic would say that LGBT people should be able to marry without providing any support to LGBT people who want guidance about living a celibate vocation. Likewise, many people with a traditional sexual ethic would say that all LGBT people should either be celibate or enter into opposite-sex marriages without considering the question, “What if a legally married same-sex couple came to my church, encountered Jesus in a real way, and sensed that God was asking them to grow in faith within the context of my Christian tradition?”

I’ve been in communities that I regard as Third Way communities. The Gay Christian Network works tirelessly to ensure that LGBT Christians feel welcome, independent of their conclusions on sexual ethics, providing support to LGBT people with both traditional and progressive sexual ethics as well as those who are still grappling with the questions. As a community, we’re committed to doing life together. Different people make various decisions about what to do in certain situations. However, we also know that every invitation to share life together is considered independently. Passing on one gathering does not mean that a person won’t be at the next. Despite differences in how we approach sexual ethics, we know that we’re diverse in just about every other way imaginable as well. For all of our diverse approaches, we hold in good faith that everyone is interested in growing towards Christ wherever he may lead. I think the community continues to exist because the people gathered constantly assert that as long as we all focus on Christ, we’re going to get even that much closer to living our lives in accordance with His will.

To be sure, there benefits and drawbacks to a Third Way approach. I completely agree that there are some issues where it does not make sense to try and work towards a Third Way. Even in this post, I shared that I am absolutely uncomfortable when communities try to take a Third Way approach to what happens to the Eucharistic elements. However, I do think that there are issues where it can be absolutely beneficial to take a Third Way approach. When communities take a Third Way approach, I see them saying, “You know, as we’re listening to the Holy Spirit together, we seem to be raising many different kinds of pastoral considerations. It’s worth moving prayerfully and humbly towards Christ in the midst of all these questions. We can be okay that we all feel like we’re trying to find our way in a fog. Let’s commit to remaining a community together as we focus on Christ and trust Him to guide us along the way.”

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.

What’s in a Name? LGBT, SSA, and Alphabet Soup

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Sharing one’s story as a celibate LGBT or same-sex attracted Christian, single or coupled, rarely comes without controversy. Many people experience a good deal of cognitive dissonance when they first meet folks like us, often navigating some degree of paradox. How can a person be both LGBT and celibate? Why is it so important to talk about issues of sexuality in the first place? Why might a same-sex couple regard celibacy as an important aspect of their partnership? As we’ve been blogging, we have seen several different attempts to reconcile our own story, and the language we use to tell it, with a range of preconceived notions about sexual orientation, gender identity, spirituality, and theology.

Celibate people navigating questions of sexual orientation and gender identity frequently choose between two sets of descriptors. Increasingly, people have shown willingness to use one or more LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) terms to describe their experiences. However, many others prefer to describe themselves as SSA (same-sex attracted) or struggling with SSA. Because the two of us prefer LGBT language and do not view our sexualities as struggles, people ask us a barrage of questions: “What do you think about people who advocate for gay marriage? If you’re celibate, shouldn’t you shun all language associated with the LGBT community, including partnership? Why don’t you spend more time describing your struggles against homosexual sins? Shouldn’t you describe yourselves as people who experience same-sex attraction instead of LGBT?” At the same time, we’ve noticed that people who have stories markedly different from ours also get bombarded with questions: “If you’re a guy who’s sexually attracted to guys, what’s the big deal with saying that you’re gay? Wouldn’t it be better for you to get a boyfriend and settle down? Are you simply using the language your church wants you to use in a desperate attempt to please people?”

Questions are not bad things. But at times, those who pose questions do so in attempt to convince the recipient to change his or her mind. Every leading question hides myriad assumptions about what is best while also asserting, whether implicitly or explicitly, that the questioner already has the answers. We’ve noted that this conversation trend seems especially pronounced when people discuss what labels best describe a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity, or inquire as to whether any label should be used at all. Even among celibate LGBT/SSA people, there can be considerable controversy regarding labels. Some people feel very strongly about always using particular monikers, while other people see the language they choose as a question of “What fits best, so I can communicate with my current audience?”

LGBT/SSA Christians navigate their personal questions of coming out very differently. Within some conservative Christian traditions, there are concerns that using LGBT language could lead a person could adopt an ungodly identity. People on both sides of the linguistic divide can appoint themselves representatives of the language police. Overlapping concerns of sexual orientation and gender identity can lead to questions about how gender is used in the world practically. Voices from all corners can forget that particular terminology arose in response to specific cultural controversies. Equally, people have navigated questions about what terms mean in diverse contexts. For example, the word “gay” is likely to have a different meaning for a person who used to frequent gay bars in order to find nightly hookups than it has for a person whose introduction to LGBT people happened at an inclusive church.

Because non-celibate people do not always understand why celibate LGBT/SSA people choose the language we use to describe ourselves, we thought sharing a bit about our own processes might be helpful. From our perspective, it is important that all people have language they can use to their describe their own experiences as they understand them. We respect that every person has unique considerations when determining what language he or she is going to use. We believe that fostering civil conversation about LGBT/SSA people and the Church requires telling stories with integrity. We would never deny an individual the opportunity to tell his or her personal story, and we resist weaponizing narratives from a certain subset of the population to enforce a single linguistic code as uniformly acceptable.

Growing up, Lindsey did not have much exposure to the LGBT community. Once Lindsey started exploring sexuality-related questions in high school, Lindsey resisted counsel from secular gay organizations that seemed to advocate for sexually active relationships as a necessary means of self-acceptance. An introvert, Lindsey has never had any particular interest in going to gay bars or attending any event where the only commonality between people is sexual orientation. Lindsey has typically gravitated much more towards opportunities for Christian fellowship, but in college found resistance within a number of ministries aimed at young people. Many of these ministry organizations considered any LGBT affiliation a cause for scandal but tried to help people conform themselves to cisgender, heterosexual norms. These groups taught that a subset of cisgender, heterosexual people occasionally “struggled with same-gender attractions” but that Christ could empower everyone to live a holy life. Lindsey grew increasingly disillusioned about how these groups treated Scripture, failed to establish any sense of positive community, and constantly assumed everyone was seconds away from acting out sexually. Eventually, Lindsey connected with the Gay Christian Network and appreciated how this organization encouraged LGBT people to focus on Christ’s light and love as empowering holy living. Lindsey has always had a slightly complicated relationship with various letters of the alphabet soup, but appreciates the umbrella nature of LGBT to capture the nuances of Lindsey’s experience, however imperfectly.

Sarah had no exposure to the broader LGBT community until college. During Sarah’s formative years, Sarah heard significant vitriol from family members and occasionally from folks at church anytime the word “gay” arose in conversation. Within religious contexts sexuality was never discussed, so it took Sarah several years to make the connection that the word “gay” had anything to do with sexuality. As Sarah began to ponder questions of sexual orientation and seek spiritual counsel, Sarah’s spiritual directors dismissed these questions. Immediately, some asserted that defining oneself as gay or lesbian would be the same as defining oneself as a murderer or a rapist, so it was best for Sarah to say “I struggle with same-sex attraction.” However, Sarah knew people who were openly LGBT, both celibate and non-celibate, who were not promiscuous or living the stereotypical “gay lifestyle,” and this was confusing. For Sarah, over time the term SSA began to seem like a tool used to oppress and clobber people because Sarah’s spiritual directors aggressively forced the language. Sarah understood sexuality as being a broader construct than simply one’s sex drive or the kinds of sexual encounters one would like to have. For Sarah, sexuality was about a pattern of relating to the world. From Sarah’s vantage point, the term SSA was much more focused than LGBT language on sex and sexual acts, so using the language of SSA would actually go against the spirit of the spiritual director’s counsel. Eventually, Sarah met a priest who could understand that Sarah’s experience of sexuality is about far more than questions of desire. Sarah uses the word “lesbian” because Sarah does not see sexual orientation as being principally about wanting to leap into bed with a person of a particular sex. In Sarah’s view, sexual orientation involves perception of beauty, human connectedness, and comfort in one’s own skin.

Having said all of this about our own experiences, we also understand why some people feel more comfortable using the language of SSA. Some folks experience extreme distress when they realize their sexual attractions are oriented towards members of the same sex. When these people go through puberty, they might ask themselves, “Why do I like people of the same sex instead of the opposite sex like all of my friends?” Describing oneself as same-sex attracted, for some, can be an effort to assert a reasonably high degree of sameness with other people, i.e. “I have the same moral values you do, but I’m attracted to people of my same sex.” We understand that people can experience sexuality in very different ways. There are people who see sexual desire as the defining attribute of sexuality. When trying to live chastely, it’s not uncommon for some to experience intrusive sexual impulses they want to resist. If these impulses are constantly directed towards members of the same sex, then a person might say that he or she “struggles with same-sex attraction” and wants to make moral choices that align with a celibate way of life. The widespread availability of pornography can also impact a person’s sexual development by providing a particular lens of what it means to be gay or lesbian. Rejecting the label of “gay” might be an effort to distance oneself from gay pornography or other highly sexualized parts of the gay community.

We’ve only scratched the surface as to why people might prefer using LGBT, SSA, or other monikers to describe their sexual orientations and gender identities. Nothing in our reflection should be read as a comprehensive explanation or applicable to all people who use a particular term. We’d love to hear from our readers about why you use the language you do to describe your own sexual orientations and gender identities. Additionally, we’re curious about how you decide what language best describes a friend’s sexual orientation and gender identity. We look forward to some excellent discussion in the comment box.

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.

 

Saturday Symposium: On Eros and Agape

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Hello everyone! It’s hard to believe that it’s already Saturday. Lindsey was traveling last week, which has slowed down our email responses a bit. Thanks for your patience while we get back to you!

Now it’s time for today’s 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: This week’s question comes to us from a conversation between two readers. Our friend Dan wrote a fantastic guest post called Erotic Eucharist: Nurturing Deep Attraction Between Friends. We want to invite you to participate in a conversation between Dan and Evan discussing the following questions: What is the role of eros in friendships? How do we experience embodied intimacy within friendship? Is it beneficial to distinguish between eros and agape? What distinguishes eros from agape? Is philia distinct from eros? Is it important to draw clear lines to divide philia, eros, and agape?

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.

Perspectives, Persecution, and #TakeDownThatPost

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This post is our second contribution to the What Persecution Is series that we are exploring with Jake Dockter at The Great White Whale. This series explores faith, gender, sexuality, race, culture, and identity. We’ll be posting one post a week for this series over the next several weeks. We’d love for you to join the conversation. Please let us know if you’re posting any related content on your own blog, so we can talk with you. You can read Jake’s most recent contributions to the series here and here.

In last week’s post, we opened our discussion about persecution by exploring the role of silencing. It was an odd juxtaposition of themes because the night before our post on silencing went live, we had tweeted the following:

Some context: several of our friends on Twitter were using the hashtag #TakeDownThatPost to raise awareness about an ill-conceived reflection from a youth-pastor-turned-sex-offender. Leadership Journal had given the anonymous convicted sex offender a platform to describe a sexual relationship between a youth pastor and a student in his youth group as a mutual, extramarital affair. We agreed that especially because of this publication’s intended audience (people in pastoral leadership roles), the editors of Leadership Journal needed to take a critical look at this article, and we posted our tweet.

By the time we checked Twitter the morning our blog post released, we had received some messages suggesting that we were hypocrites because we had shared extended thoughts about how silencing can be the beginning of persecution while seemingly arguing for some degree of internet censorship regarding a difficult conversation topic in the church. People wanted to know, were we engaging in a sort of doublespeak, claiming that we should be able to share our story about life together while actively trying to block a repentant sex offender from sharing his story? Some of our readers asked if we were aware of the various obstacles that make it difficult for convicted sex offenders to reintegrate into society.

Truth be told, we each have different reasons for discerning carefully questions of how society should approach reintegration of convicted sex offenders. Lindsey has personally been considering many facets of this issue after learning in 2012 that some churches have been offering or at least considering adults-only services so that registered sex offenders can attend without violating their parole. Lindsey has been surprised at how aspects of sex offender registries can create challenging legal issues, such as the social stigmatization and penalizing of juvenile offenders years after they have reached adulthood and the difficulties that legally of-age high school students can face when dating someone barely underage. Sarah is a survivor of sexual abuse, and much like the young girl described in the article in question, Sarah was a middle school student when the abuse began, and the abuser was in a position of leadership in a church. Sarah has encountered many incredibly judgmental reactions when people have learned that Sarah has forgiven the perpetrator and would be interested in understanding more deeply why he did what he did. Many of these people have reactions rooted in a belief that only survivors’ stories should be told because any story from the perspective of an abuser would invalidate a survivor’s story.

We have two entirely different sets of experience that we bring to discussing this issue, but neither of us would argue for silencing repentant sex offenders. We find it exceptionally important to navigate the tension between arguing against silencing and simultaneously advocating that the church change the tenor of particular conversations. While asserting that all people the space to share their stories, there’s good reason for us to be concerned that certain approaches to difficult topics can result in stories being used as weapons.

Persecution can occur when certain stories become weaponized. This is just as relevant to stories about LGBT issues as it is to stories about sexual violence. We can appreciate the authenticity of stories like that of Rosaria Butterfield–a heterosexually married Christian woman who previously identified as a lesbian–while simultaneously affirming that the way Wheaton College handled student concerns about her speaking engagement has made LGBTQ students perceive that the campus has no place for their stories. Many LGBTQ Christians have had to fight for the right to share their stories amidst dominant cultural narratives that suggest being gay is a choice and it’s possible for gay people to become straight. As a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple, we’d be deluding ourselves if we failed to acknowledge that some cisgender, heterosexual Christians see our way of life as some sort “ideal” for LGBT Christians. We try to do whatever we can to prevent people from weaponizing our story, but we know that we cannot control how people pitch us and our story to their friends. There’s nothing we can do to prevent others from pointing at the gay couple next door and saying, “Why can’t you be in a celibate partnership like Lindsey and Sarah?” But seriously, we do not recommend celibate partnership as a way of life for all LGBT Christians. If you have used our story as a weapon against your LGBT friends, can you a) stop it, b) apologize for the way your actions have brought harm, and c) practice showing love in the midst of difference?

We decided to participate in #TakeDownThatPost because we thought the article in question was full of linguistic weapons with potential to re-traumatize survivors. The original version portrayed a sexual relationship between a youth pastor and a likely middle school-aged student as a) an extramarital affair, b) a mutual relationship, c) an innocent friendship that went too far, and d) a shared experience of sin and temptation. It is absolutely wrong-headed, misguided, and soul-crushing to suggest that middle-school aged students knowingly and willfully “seduce” their pastors, teachers, or coaches. Even aside from Sarah’s story, we know far too many survivors of sexual violence who have suffered under the pervasive societal assumption that they were somehow “asking for it” to happen to them. The anonymous author showed no concern for how his actions impacted the young girl, the church, and the broader community. Despite naming “selfishness” as the main sin that spiraled out of control, his discussion about the impacts of sexual sin was remarkably self-centered and zoomed in on everything the author himself lost as a result of his actions.

When a story has become weaponized, people must step forward in order to prevent further harm. There were a number of courageous people sharing their stories across the internet in an effort to educate Leadership Journal as to why the originally published piece was so problematic. Tamara Rice wrote up a detailed review of what happened when she suggested that #TakeDownThatPost might be a way to amplify survivors’ concerns. Mary DeMuth penned an excellent open letter to the anonymous writer to explain why he needed to grieve how his actions affected other people and to provide some insights regarding what repentance looks like. As we followed developments on our Twitter feed and read pieces from various authors, we noted many thought-provoking conversation starters about how survivors and their stories could inform responses from Christian leaders. The vast majority of tweets we saw that were tagged with #TakeDownThatPost argued for meaningful, authentic, and solution-focused dialogue.

Advocating for safe spaces for all people is the antithesis of persecuting others. As we think about civil conversations on important issues in the Church, we keep asking the question, “How do we create safe spaces for everyone to share ideas freely?” The anonymous man writing from jail may be of the opinion that he had an entirely mutual relationship with the young girl in his youth group. He is free to write that down in the journal he may keep under his pillow, in letters to his close friends, on his personal blog, or in other venues available to him. It is probably good for him to get his thoughts on paper, so he can reflect more deeply on how his actions were sinful. However, we do not believe it is appropriate for a top-tier magazine targeting Christian leaders to publish a six page sermon describing a sexual relationship between a youth pastor and a child as a mere extramarital affair rather than sexual abuse. Leadership Journal and similar publications have an obligation to Christian leaders to raise thoughtful discussion about preventing sexual abuse, modes of restorative justice, and helping survivors heal from trauma. As we followed #TakeDownThatPost on Twitter, we perceived that its advocates were attempting to educate others on holding constructive conversations about sexual abuse while putting safeguards in place for survivors to participate without shame.

Consumers of a publication, a television show, or any other form of media have the freedom to critique its content. Suggesting that #TakeDownThatPost was an instance of persecution aimed at sex offenders is similarly ludicrous as the suggestion that, for example, A&E was persecuting Phil Robertson (and Christianity) by suspending him from Duck Dynasty. Consumers of A&E who objected to Robertson’s interview were not saying, “We think Phil Robertson and all conservative Christians should be silenced.” Instead, the main message we heard throughout that whole fiasco was, “A&E should not offer a platform to a person who conveys harmful stereotypes about gay people, comparing them to humans who have sex with animals.” As we said in our first post of this series, freedom of speech in America does not mean that you are entitled to escape the social consequences of what you’ve said. And when powerful outlets like Leadership Journal respond to previously silenced people amplifying their voices with direct calls to action like #TakeDownThatPost, we all benefit from the deeper dialogue.

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