Category Archives: Celibacy

When Celibacy Fails

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Since the first week we began sharing our story as a celibate couple, numerous readers have extended us the privilege of listening to their own stories. We’ve heard from celibate and non-celibate LGBTs as well as straight people. Folks questioning their sexual orientations and gender identities have also written to us. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists have dropped us a line to express interest in the specific way we address LGBT Christian topics. One common topic request we’ve received from at least someone in each of these groups has been: how would you suggest that Christian traditions respond to LGBT people who have given their all to celibacy only to see it fail them?

This is one of the most challenging questions facing churches today as they grapple with how to welcome LGBT members as full participants in the Body of Christ while also remaining faithful to the Christian tradition. Before going any farther in this post, we’ll confess to you that we do not know the best and fullest answer to this question. Perhaps no Christian does. Perhaps only God does. We struggle with this issue, and we consider that a good thing. And we will go so far as to suggest that if you’re a Christian and aren’t finding this question difficult, you should be.

To explore this issue more deeply, it would be beneficial for Christians and Christian traditions as a whole to consider first another question: are we imposing sexual abstinence as an unfunded mandate with dire consequences for LGBT people who do not succeed? Especially as more people are coming to awareness of their sexual orientations and gender identities at younger ages, it is irresponsible and cruel for churches to repeat, “You can’t have sex!” and refuse to offer any additional support. In Matthew 23:4, Jesus admonishes his disciples and the multitude not to do as the scribes and Pharisees: “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear,and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.” This is exactly what many of today’s priests and pastors are doing: they attempt to force celibacy on the fifteen-year-old boy who has just realized that he might be gay, telling him that failing to be celibate will make him unwelcome at services and offering no counsel besides, “Choose to develop heterosexual desires. Don’t have close relationships with other boys. Until you’re starting to think about marriage, don’t have close relationships with girls either.”

In the eyes of many young people, the only two options in this situation are 1) force yourself to be sexually abstinent with no sense of future vocation or present support, or 2) don’t force yourself into a permanent state of abstinence, but simultaneously risk being excommunicated, barred from entering the church building, and/or kicked out of your parents’ house. It shouldn’t be surprising that with no other alternatives, numerous young LGBT Christians find themselves crushed by the pressure from priests, pastors, parents, and faith communities. Collectively, we’ve heard this type of story from hundreds of people, including friends we’ve known since long before our blogging adventure began. It’s not rare, and all Christian traditions imposing unfunded celibacy mandates should be shamed by its prevalence.

If you’re reading this as a straight Christian, think about your own experience of beginning to realize your sexuality at 13, 15, 18…whenever that was for you. How has your experience of your sexuality developed over time? How have you grown in your understanding of sexuality? How would you have felt if at that age, the only guidance the leader of your faith community had for you was, “You’re going to be celibate for life. You have to be. That’s what the Bible says. End of discussion”? We’re not anticipating that every straight person would have the same responses to these questions. Likewise, no two LGBT people have the exact same responses to discussions of sexuality and celibacy.

It is not fair to assume that all LGBT Christians who are genuinely committed to Christ and the Church will respond positively to the demands of a celibate vocation. A reality that many Christians have trouble reconciling is that not all LGBT celibates experience this way of life as emotionally and physically bearable, let alone joyous. However, there are people who remain just as dedicated to living celibacy no matter what pain it brings. When we share our perception of the celibate life as a blessing and a gift, that is our story—not a normative expectation that can be applied to all LGBT celibates. The not-having-sex part of a celibate vocation is more challenging for some than it is for others, and no, we don’t have a catchall answer as to why that is. For the purposes of this post, that question might not even be relevant. Nonetheless, we know that for some of our friends who have chosen to pursue celibacy, remaining sexually abstinent is an enormous burden. At times, it becomes impossible to bear.

Just as we’ve heard stories of folks who have known and delighted in the realization that God has been calling them to celibacy since age 7, we’ve also listened to painful cries of, “I’ve failed again, and I don’t know how I’m going to get through the rest of this day.” We’ve also experienced our own failures at living fully into celibate vocations. In the recent past, we discussed the fragility of vocation—that all vocations are challenging and must be nurtured in order to succeed. An experience of failure does not mean that one has completely failed at a celibate vocation. Churches that expect celibacy of their LGBT members would do well to recognize that, and to acknowledge the variety of ways celibates experience celibacy—even if it means discovering that straight Christians don’t fully understand what they’re asking of their LGBT brothers and sisters.

There are experiences of celibacy that it seems few people in conservative churches are willing to consider without immediately trying to diagnose. These stories lie at the heart of our question for today: what about people who have made every possible effort to live celibacy and have become emotionally, spiritually, even physically unable to continue? Straight Christians (and even some celibate LGBT Christians) can be quick to assume that something must be wrong with a person who has lived this experience. People begin to make guesses about what went awry: did she lose her faith? Was she slacking in her prayer and fasting disciplines? Did she let herself become envious of other people in sexually active relationships? She couldn’t have been living celibacy correctly if this happened. These speculations show a lack of empathy and a general lack of Christian charity. When a person becomes unable to continue in celibacy during a certain season of life, that doesn’t mean the vocation of celibacy has failed the person, but also doesn’t necessarily mean the person “did celibacy wrong.” One could make a comparison here with situations in which marriages fall apart. Divorce is never an ideal outcome of the vocation of marriage, but because we live in a fallen world it is sometimes necessary. Still, that doesn’t mean the person whose marriage failed because of his wife’s infidelity and inability to acknowledge her own sin “did marriage wrong.”

Until churches begin to acknowledge that the issue of celibacy is not as simple as “Don’t have sex, or else…” LGBT Christians will continue to suffer needlessly, and as a result the entire Body of Christ will suffer. As a Church, we need to be more open to holding these difficult conversations and stop passing down unfunded mandates with potential consequences that leave honest, humble, faithful (though often scrupulous) people terrified to darken the doorways on Sunday morning. Would it be at all possible for conservative churches to make some accommodation for people who, after hundreds of attempts, have been unable to live celibate vocations? Would it serve the state of a person’s soul to be in one committed, sexually active relationship for a lifetime if the only realistic alternative would be falling to the temptation of a hookup once a month while earnestly trying to live celibacy? Does a traditional sexual ethic leave any space for the possibility that not everyone pursuing celibacy feels called to it, or that sometimes vocations fail even when people do everything possible to nurture them? We don’t pretend to know the answers to these questions. But back to the more general query at the beginning of this post: how would we suggest that Christian traditions respond to LGBT people who have given their all to celibacy only to see it fail them? The only answer we know to give is: respond with a heart full of compassion.

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.

4 Reasons We Abstain from the “Is Gay Sex a Sin?” Debate

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Within the few days before officially launching A Queer Calling in January 2014, we had many impassioned conversations about our vision for this writing project. We started writing in the first place because after we led a workshop titled “Celibacy Involves Family” at the annual Gay Christian Network Conference, several attendees approached us to inquire more about celibacy, celibate partnership, and ways we see ourselves growing in love for Christ through the joys and challenges of doing life together. These folks, some who have known and supported us for years and others who quickly became new friends, were the inspiration for our blog. Our initial concept, which we have generally maintained, was to post regular reflections on topics relevant to celibates, people interested in celibacy, and the more general conversation about Christianity and the LGBT community. We both have strong personalities and enjoy vigorous discussion, so we haven’t always agreed on how to approach certain topics. But one area where the two of us have always agreed heartily is our commitment to abstain from what many know as the Side A vs. Side B debate. If you don’t know what those terms mean, read this before continuing with our post for today.

As a result of our decision not to participate in discussions of, “Is same-sex sexual activity sinful?” and “Does God bless sexually active same-sex relationships?” we’ve been met with cynicism from people across the moral spectrum on these issues. On a typical day of blogging, we hear from “Side A” folks concerned that we’re trying to lure sexually active LGBT people into celibacy through false pretenses and from “Side B” folks ready to tell us that our contribution to this discussion means nothing unless we decide to start making pronouncements about the sinfulness of gay sex. Those remarks notwithstanding, we remain committed as ever to the original purpose of A Queer Calling, and we sense now more strongly than ever before the need for a space to discuss LGBT celibacy outside the Side A vs. Side B dichotomy.

As we’ve written in other posts such as this one, this one, and this one, both of us came to celibacy because we felt the Holy Spirit pulling us toward celibate vocations. Before meeting each other, we explored monastic life and we both felt deeply convicted that God was calling us to live our vocations within the secular world. Though we belong to a Christian tradition that teaches a conservative sexual ethic and do our best to allow ourselves to be formed in the wisdom of the Church, neither of us decided to pursue celibacy because of a desire to avoid sin. More often than not, telling people this leaves them scratching their heads. We get follow-up questions like, “Does that mean you don’t think same-sex sexual activity is a sin? Isn’t that against the teachings of your church? Why in the world did you choose celibacy if that choice wasn’t motivated by fear of falling into sin?” We’ve also been told by straight Christians within our own faith tradition and other members of the celibate LGBT community that we would find more support for our relationship and our writing project if we would simply make a habit of affirming the rightness of a traditional sexual ethic (and consequently, the wrongness of a progressive sexual ethic). Some have been especially forceful in advising us to point each piece of writing we do back to the central theme of “gay sex is a sin, and celibacy is better,” pointing out that otherwise, conservative Christians might not listen to us as all. They’re probably right about these things. It’s likely we would find more of an audience if we started writing apologetics for our tradition’s teachings instead of reflections on our personal experiences of celibacy and being LGBT in the Church. So why don’t we do that? There are many reasons, but today we’ll open discussion on these four:

1. Christian traditions with teachings on sexual morality generally make those teachings clear. Additionally, other LGBT celibates have already written apologetics for their traditions’ teachings on sexual morality. There’s no gaping hole to be filled here. It’s no secret what conservative denominations teach about gay sex. One need only perform a Google search for “Christianity and LGBT people” to see this. We’ve yet to come across a person who is truly confused about what a given Christian tradition teaches on sexual morality, unless the tradition in question is experiencing a theological change in its previous position. We believe that continually reiterating what our own Christian tradition teaches on these matters (especially because we have chosen not to reveal what our tradition is) would add nothing new or edifying to the discussion of LGBT Christians and our inclusion within the Church. Even before we both converted to our current Christian tradition, we were well aware of its teachings on human sexuality. No one had to tell us. Yet to this day, we experience reminders being shoved down our throats at every turn. We find this not only unhelpful, but also presumptive and alienating. On our blog, we want to foster an atmosphere of radical hospitality. If we feel muzzled and condescended to when other people continuously remind us of their Christian traditions’ already obvious teachings on human sexuality, we have no excuse for doing the same thing to our readers.

2. Limiting discussions of LGBT celibacy to “gay sex is a sin” misses an opportunity for perfect love to cast out fear. When a person focuses solely on avoiding sin, it seems natural that he or she would experience significant worry and fear. A person who focuses on sin as the primary reason for pursuing celibacy might become so terrified of the possibility of committing sin that he or she ceases to delight in many of life’s experiences—every moment of connection with another person is seen as a liability because within in moments it could turn into an occasion of sin. He or she might also begin to focus on people-pleasing: what others perceive as scandalous can reach paramount importance within the person’s life, even if those “scandalous” things are truly innocent and there’s no clear reason why others should point fingers. None of this is purely hypothetical. What we’ve just described has happened to other LGBT people we’ve known, and is very common for some LGBT celibates. Avoidance of sin is an important part of the Christian life, and we would never deny that. We’re not saying that discussions of sin are bad. But when an extreme focus on sin prevents a person from being able to recognize God’s love and exist in healthy relationships with other human beings, it’s a serious problem. A commitment to celibacy does not have to be fear-based, and we believe it’s most sustainable when not rooted in fear. 1 John 4:18 tells us, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.” Here at A Queer Calling, we desire to create space for discussing how celibacy as a vocation can be an expression of love for God and openness to experiencing God’s love.

3. By focusing on the practical rather than apologetics and doctrines, we can meet people where they are and have conversations about real life. We can also learn from others as they meet us where we are. The way sexuality is often discussed in conservative churches has left innumerable LGBT Christians feeling as though they have no choice but to remain silent or leave the Church altogether. It’s not simply that “people don’t like to hear the truth about how sinful they are,” as has been suggested to us many times. In our experience, conservative churches in general do not make any attempt to meet LGBT parishioners where we’re at in life and provide spiritual direction from there. The sum total of guidance offered by these churches is usually, “If you’re gay, you can’t have sex. It’s a sin. Our denomination can never support same-sex sexual activity.” Some denominations still promote ex-gay ideologies. When an LGBT person chooses to remain in such a Christian tradition and pursue celibacy, he or she will likely experience social and spiritual consequences upon falling short of sexual abstinence. LGBT Christians already face far too many expectations of perfection with minimal room for forgiveness. We believe it would benefit both the LGBT community and the Church as a whole if straight Christians would make a better effort to meet LGBT people where we are and learn about the ways we experience life. This isn’t the same as saying, “We have no doctrine and anything you want to do is okay.” Rather than providing doctrinal reminders ad nauseum, we think a more helpful approach is to ask questions to understand people’s individual needs, challenges, fears, strengths, etc. Therefore, on our blog we also want to meet people where they are, and we hope our readers can do the same for us.

4. Shifting the conversation from “sin” to “vocation” creates space for discussing all vocations. We believe that every person has the capacity to love and glorify God through his or her vocation. We also believe that all of us fall short in our chosen vocations. There is much to be gained from engaging in broader conversation about this issue rather than limiting discussions of LGBT celibacy to, “Gay sex is a sin.” Both marriage and celibate vocations are ultimately about manifesting the kingdom of God. With that in common, all Christians can learn from each other’s successes and failures because we all have the same primary calling: to show others the good news of Christ. If we were to focus the conversation entirely on what is or is not sinful behavior for LGBT people, we would be promoting naval-gazing in the extreme. We would be placing a stumbling block for people who are trying to develop a sustainable manner of celibate living. On our blog, we have chosen to discuss celibacy as a vocation because we see it as intricately connected to other Christian vocations in God’s plan of salvation for humanity. It is our intent and purpose to make room for all interested folks to share/inquire openly about celibacy’s joys, sorrows, blessings, and challenges. We do not see how our entering the “Is gay sex a sin?’ debate would contribute anything to that goal.

Having said all this, we would like to close today’s post by clarifying that we do see the Side A and Side B discussion as important. In the past, the two of us benefited from engaging with arguments on both sides. We do not want to suggest that other LGBT celibates who write about sexual sin would be better served by avoiding this topic altogether. But as for our own writing project, we believe that God has called us to hold a different kind of conversation. The Internet (and the Church) has plenty of room for both.

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.

Stumbling towards Celibacy

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A reflection by Lindsey

We’ve been talking a good bit here about how celibacy is a mature adult vocation. One needs to enter into celibacy rather than waiting for it to appear like magic. I’d go so far as to say that it helps when there’s a decided choice — a distinct, discrete moment of decision — to become a celibate. However, this past weekend I realized that particular frame is a bit too easy. It’s too neat, it’s too packaged, and it’s honestly a bit sterile. I’ve found my own celibate vocation by stumbling in the darkness, taking on a metric ton of risks along the way, and hoping that someday soon the broader Christian church would wise up in how it supports lay people discern celibate ways of life.

My journey towards celibacy is strange. I began it in the context of a romantic relationship. Neither one of us had a strong framework for what it meant to be celibate. We spent our time trying to draw good boundaries that were simultaneously appropriate for a dating relationship and effective at helping us avoid encountering undue sexual temptation. As I have reflected upon elsewhere, the practice of drawing boundaries to separate “right” from “wrong” wound up pulling the two of us apart. After that particular relationship ended, I started being more intentional about exploring a celibate vocation.

I’ve always had a bit of monastic envy. I remember being a little kid vaguely enthralled by the nuns who worked at the local Catholic school. Who were these teachers? And how did they managed to be so noticed in the community that people from other schools knew their names? Why did they seem so exotic? After my relationship had ended, I remember feeling the whole gamut of emotions as my spiritual directors encouraged me to start visiting monasteries. Every interaction I’ve had with monastics since has been truly inspiring. There’s something about the simple “monk food” that provides sustenance in a monastery that transcends the basic nutritional offerings of the plate. However, no matter how many communities I visited, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t likely to spend my life living in a monastery.

At one point approximately four years ago, I found myself thinking about vocation alone in my apartment. I was absolutely confident that I wanted to live a celibate way of life, equally convinced that I had no clue what exactly living a celibate life entailed, and reasonably sure my local church family wasn’t going to be a good place to help me learn about growing into a celibate vocation. I did the only thing I knew: I told God about my intentions and sought help from the Holy Spirit.

I received some helpful counsel from one abbess when I inquired about exploring a celibate vocation. She told me something to the effect of, “Whatever you see the nuns doing, do your best to live it out in your immediate context. Put into practice whatever bits of the monastic life as you can.” (I promise, she was much more eloquent than I’m remembering.) I did my best to adopt a pattern of prayer while also trying to connect meaningfully to the people around me. Getting to know monastics showed me that we’re not supposed to live our lives completely detached from other people.

In my stumbling towards celibacy, I refused to prohibit myself from exploring the full array of human relationships. I consider it slightly odd that I’ve been in more romantic/dating relationships after I had told God I wanted help in finding a celibate vocation. Sometimes I think I turned over some strange possibilities. I can think of at least two relationships where I knew that if they went anywhere, then those relationships would be very much directed towards marriage. On one hand, I trusted God to show me whether a marriage relationship would be aligned with my personal vocational pathway. On the other hand, I hoped that God would guide and direct me out of certain relationships I wasn’t supposed to be in at all. I definitely learned a lot about myself, grace, vocation, and other people because I allowed myself to be open to being wrong about my own vocational pathway.

Yet I find myself absolutely grateful I stumbled along towards celibacy. I rejoice that God impressed the need to share life with other people as this need compelled me to consider how I could be in meaningful relationships. I had opportunities to practice (again and again) how a celibate vocation might look and feel if it was not defined legalistically. And, I still find myself hoping and praying that in sharing my story, the Church might see a greater need to help lay celibates find their 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.

Queering Celibacy amid Fixation on Sex

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We live in a time and place when people are more comfortable with talking about sex than perhaps ever before. As for our own experiences in talking about sex, we’ve realized that we come from very different backgrounds. Lindsey grew up in a home that fully acknowledged and embraced sex as a gloriously fun activity shared by two adults who loved each other. Sarah could always approach Sarah’s parents for information about sex, but Sarah understood that information would be conveyed more along the lines of biological processes. It was clear that Sarah’s parents viewed sex outside a husband/wife relationship as inappropriate. The cultures around us also gave us messages about how to approach conversations about sex. For Lindsey, that message was, “Ask your parents.” For Sarah, it was, “Polite people don’t talk about sex with anyone other than perhaps their spouses in private, and maybe not even then.” However, with all this talk about sex, both of us have rarely encountered anyone saying anything positive about celibacy apart from some isolated conversations about religious life.

Blogging about our lives together as a celibate couple is interesting. We’ve met several people who wish we would simply disappear from the blogosphere, another group that seems oddly enthralled by our way of life despite themselves, and still another group of people who have appreciated being challenged to question their assumptions about companionship, sexuality, and faith. In the first group, it seems that a number of these individuals feel threatened by the fact that we live celibate lives as LGBT Christians. We want to spend some time in this post unpacking some of the dominant cultural assumptions that can leave people feeling confused, perplexed, or even appalled that another person, particularly an LGBT person, might openly discuss his or her celibacy. We’ve previously discussed some of these misconceptions in our 7 Misconceptions about Celibacy post, but we wanted to spend some time talking about how these they can be problematic when trying to help guide people towards their vocations.

It’s inappropriate to talk about celibacy because it is unnatural or abnormal. Many people who are appalled by our choice to live celibate lives want to know if we think that sex is a natural part of human experience. The reasoning goes something like this: if sex is a natural part of human experience and it feels good, then who in their right mind would pass up an opportunity to enjoy this activity? Whether a person is sexually active also plays a role in how others view him or her socially. People frequently use sexual innuendo to cast judgment on another’s personality: He’s so uptight. He really needs to get laid; or Gosh, she’s just a killjoy. When did she become such a prude? Clearly, she’s not getting any. If you are a reader who has been reading the comments on our blog regularly, then you might have also noticed trends where some commenters try to diagnose why we’re celibate. In the comparatively brief life of this blog so far, we’ve had people suggest the following mechanisms: we’re oppressed by religion, we’ve had bad sexual experiences in the past, we have had no sexual experience so we have no idea what we’re missing, we haven’t yet come to accept our sexual orientations, we are impressively asexual, and many more.

When the “unnatural or abnormal” assumption comes into play when seeking spiritual direction, a person trying to discern whether God might be calling him or her towards celibacy is having to sort through the questions, “Am I freak? Am I only exploring celibacy because I don’t have an appreciable sex drive? Would it make more sense to do the ‘normal’ thing of finding a spouse to whom I’m sexually drawn? How do I know if I’m one of the very few people who actually has the spiritual gift of celibacy?” Equally, this assumption can cause people to limit their discernment to the vocation of marriage. If marriage is the only natural vocation and celibacy is only for the abnormal, then how can a person be afforded any space to discern differently? Who wants to be known by his or her family, friends, and acquaintances as ridiculously stunted and out of touch with natural bodily functions?

Openly discussing celibacy is undesirable because marriage and sex are rites of passage. We’ve encountered people who have suggested that we just haven’t grown up, that we’re late bloomers, or that we haven’t explored our sexual potential. These people allege that in choosing celibacy, we are avoiding growing up and are dangerous because we encourage people to shake off adult forms of responsibility. We do acknowledge that sex has plays a role in many different cultural rites of passages, especially as it relates to various marriage customs around the world. However, we note that scholars and journalists who write on American culture frequently lament the lack of coming-of-age rituals for adults, especially as more and more college graduates find themselves struggling to find work and move back in with their parents. Amid this economic uncertainty, one might argue that marriage, and its requisite parts of entering into a consensual sexual relationship and founding an independent family life, seems to be the last stable form of marking the transition from child to adult.

For people discerning celibacy, especially outside of religious life, the emphasis on sex and marriage as essential rites of passage deprives them of the opportunity to explore celibacy as a meaningful way of life. Celibacy is often seen as a default option for the young, the weird, or the otherwise undesirable. According to most people we know, the only folks above a certain age who aren’t having sex are those who lack the coordination and the resources to ask for sex. When communicating with discerners of celibate vocations, family and friends can start to turn up the pressure with questions like: “Don’t you want to have a family? Aren’t you going to settle down? When are you going to start acting like an adult? Why hasn’t your wanderlust begun to quiet down so you can live a normal life?” And when having a family and children is a part of being a “normal” adult, celibate people can encounter an additional barrage of shaming: “You don’t know what it’s like to be stressed out. You’ve never had to deal with the stress of tending to a sick child before a major deadline at work or having your in-laws in town to critique your housekeeping (feel free to insert family stressors of your choosing).” The assertions assume that since a person has chosen a celibate way of life, that person has gotten off easy in life, and is perhaps lazy with no sense of difficulty in living out a mature adult vocation.

As a result of the “marriage and sex as rites of passage” assumption, many people chose to limit their vocational discernment to marriage alone. If marriage alone can be an identifiable ritual where a person creates a family with a sexual partner of his or her choosing, then why would a person consider forgoing this opportunity in exchange for accusations that he or she has never grown up and is irresponsible?

It’s not okay for an LGBT person to talk about celibacy because mandated celibacy has been and is still used to harm LGBT people. To be honest, we prefer dialoguing with people holding the first two assumptions because we think they might be interested in hearing more about our story if we can get past their initial perception that celibacy is just weird. This last assumption is particularly hurtful because we hear people telling us that we should just shut up about our story altogether. Sometimes people, most  often Christians holding a progressive sexual ethic, assume that because we’re celibate, we have no idea how different Christian attitudes about celibacy have hurt the LGBT community. Quite honestly, we started this blog from a deep and abiding awareness that few Christian churches (much less full on Christian traditions) care to consider how to point all people towards vocations in healthy ways. We are profoundly aware of the harms produced when a church wags a finger and tells an LGBT person “You have to be celibate and there’s nothing else to say about it,” even in instances when that LGBT person has already decided to pursue a celibate vocation. Collectively, the two of us have over a decade of experience walking alongside a plethora of LGBT people trying to find their way through a confusing, shifting landscape of sexuality, gender, and faith. Without LGBT voices talking about celibacy, it is impossible for straight, cisgender voices to capture the full diversity of celibate vocations and of LGBT people.

The “it’s wrong to talk about celibacy because it has been used to hurt others” assumption effectively shoves socks into our mouths. It silences and limits the theological exploration we have done to sort through the noise we have encountered living life were rubber meets the road. We have already eaten enough shoes, so please cut us a break when we share our stories. We are talking about LGBT experiences of celibacy because these experiences are our lived experiences.

This assumption also limits vocational pathways available to LGBT people, viewing celibates as victims of fundamentalist religion who have missed the memo that the “gift” of celibacy should not be celebrated, but kept shut away within one’s private life. Ultimately, it creates a lack of safety for LGBT folks who are interested in exploring celibacy. In our experience, those who hold this assumption have strong initial reactions upon meeting celibate LGBT Christians. The vast majority of time we try to interact with folks of this mindset who are involved in the LGBT Christian discussion, we are met with suspicion and hostility because it is assumed that we have some covert agenda in talking openly about our celibacy. From what we have experienced, it does not matter how or why we came to the decision to pursue this vocation: in the eyes of many, the only possible reasons an LGBT person might speak openly of celibacy are self-loathing and the desire to proselytize for internalized homophobia. Knowing that at least some people are likely to react to discussions of LGBT celibacy in this way, we ask, why would any LGBT person who thinks he or she might have the gift of celibacy want to explore it further?

In order to create spaces that affirm diverse vocational pathways for Christians, people from many Christian traditions would do well to reflect on the unwitting assumption that every Christian is called to marriage. We believe that the Church can do better in affording people called to celibacy an opportunity to commit to a celibate way of life and explore possibilities for such outside of monastic vocations. We also hope that discussing celibacy as a queer calling encourages more thoughtfulness of how to affirm celibate vocations in diverse Christian traditions. It’s important for LGBT people to be able to share their stories of life at the front lines. There are LGBT people who have done impressive theological work to reclaim celibacy as a vocation, even if some began these theoretical explorations by realizing that they didn’t see their vocational desires manifest in how their Christian traditions define marriage.

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.

Moving Beyond the Celibacy Mandate

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Time and time again, we’ve described both marriage and celibacy as mature vocations entered into by adults. We started this blog discussing why celibacy needed to be defined by its positive attributes rather than by an absence of sexual relations. Later we asked many married people to tell us how they define marriage. We’ve encouraged the practice of letting celibate people define celibacy and married people define marriage. But, the challenge is that the Church needs a way to speak to all vocations so that individual Christians can discern their paths illumined by the light of Christ. We want to spend some time in this post discussing how churches can discuss vocations in a way where God, through the Holy Spirit, can draw people towards the fullness of life in Christ.

As a first key observation, both marriage and celibacy communicate the same central truth: the nature of the kingdom of God—it is in our midst and we are active participants. When churches help young people focus their sights on the kingdom of God, churches can help everyone discern his or her vocation. Every Christian shares the same starting line on the way to finding his or her vocation: seeking first the kingdom of God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his disciples, “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given unto you as well.” Keeping the kingdom of God at the center sets our eyes towards the time where all things are reconciled towards God and challenges each and every one of us to do our part in manifesting God’s kingdom through our lives.

What’s unfortunate is that when it comes to LGBT issues, many Christian traditions teaching a more conservative sexual ethic have seemingly lost the mystery of the kingdom of God, focusing instead on a legalistic, “always do this, but don’t ever do that,” form of sexual morality as a way to strive for righteousness. The emphasis on sexual morality can manifest as the straightforward yet often unhelpful, “Don’t have sex outside of a heterosexual marriage” where this moral prescription represents the sum total of vocational guidance given to young Christians in these traditions. In such an environment, many LGBT people can feel ostracized by a seeming mandate to avoid sexual intimacy lest they lose any hope of inheriting the kingdom of God. Newsflash: by virtue of our baptism, all Christians have a solid inheritance. This does not mean that receiving the sacrament of baptism means a person will, for all of his or her life thereafter, be “good to go.” Rather, the point is our baptism invites us to participate in the kingdom of God. Our churches would do well to affirm (and reaffirm and reaffirm again) the power of the baptismal mystery as a way to unite ourselves fully to Christ, so that all Christians can set themselves to the work of showing the kingdom of God to the world.

In many ways, encouraging young people to pursue the kingdom of God is harder than exhorting young people to save sex for marriage. When young people listen for God’s direction, the Holy Spirit might lead them towards vocations where, gasp, they do not enter into marriages. It’s a lot easier for churches to put teenagers on an assembly line where all go through an identical set of rites of passage that culminate in a big wedding than it is for churches to trust that the Holy Spirit’s voice can still be heard above the clamor of raging hormones. In the midst of all the noise associated with becoming an adult in our society, churches should encourage teenagers to orient their ears to the still small voice where God can begin to show every person his or her unique call to manifest the kingdom.

Churches would do well to showcase regularly a belief that all vocations are needed and important. If a congregation thinks about every eighteen-year-old kid it has sent out into the world, then that congregation will realize all of these kids have individual stories. There will be people from that congregation that have done awesome things to serve the kingdom of God who have never married. Part of the allure of the celibate vocation is that there is an unlimited number of potential life stories that align with celibacy. Faithful Christians who never marry are not freaks; they are people who are able to love and serve the world differently than married people. The stories of celibate people should not be relegated to designated times of Celibate Appreciation (i.e. an annual Vocations Week). And it’s okay to let a congregation know if a really cool and inspiring person in your Christian tradition lived a celibate way of life. Catholic and Orthodox Christians have a calendar chockfull of celibate saints, and you still see people marrying regularly in those traditions.

A huge part of discerning one’s vocation is learning how to look honestly at yourself. Discerning vocation requires investigating your authentic desires and noting where they might be different from those of other people you know. As LGBT Christians ourselves, we regard realizing our statuses as LGBT people as a key part of coming to see who we are as individuals. However, in far too many churches, this uniqueness of person is met with a directive about the uniqueness of vocation. We know countless LGBT people who, in the instant they first disclosed their sexual orientations or gender identities, were told immediately, “You have to be celibate.” or “You cannot have sex.” Spiritual advice for LGBT people tends to come in the form of either you have to or you cannot.

What if all priests, pastors, and ministers started approaching situations that involve discussion of sexuality differently? What if spiritual directors left off the specific directives in favor of viewing LGBT Christians as people trying to discern where God is calling them? When spiritual directors start handing down restrictive directives, these spiritual directors are communicating that either they do not trust God to guide an LGBT person or they do not trust the person to listen to God. As we have said many times, LGBT people are people first and foremost. What would happen if spiritual directors started trusting LGBT people as much as they trust straight, cisgender people?

When a person does decide to start exploring a celibate vocation, we want to see congregations willing to support that individual. A vocation is not a cross to bear. A vocation is a pathway to an abundant life. When a person is sharing, “I don’t know if I can continue or even begin in a celibate vocation,” it’s good to come alongside him or her and say, “I know the issue of vocation can be really tough sometimes. I’m here for you. I’m praying for you. How can I help you see more of the kingdom of God in your circumstances right now?” Seeking God’s kingdom unites all Christians regardless of their vocations and enables us to support one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. By encouraging all people to seek first the kingdom, churches do not need to prescribe celibacy mandates. As Christians look for the kingdom of God, the Holy Spirit will guide and direct those called to celibacy to a number of diverse ways of living celibate vocations.

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