Category Archives: Hospitality

“I love you, but…” doesn’t cut it

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Discussing our celibacy publicly has its advantages and its disadvantages. We love any chance to talk about what celibacy in our context as a celibate partnership. However, we’re disheartened when our discussions of celibacy get overshadowed by people demanding that we state whether we think certain sexual acts can be permitted in Christian traditions. As we see it, many churches have obsessed over sexual morality to the point where church is the last place people feel as though they will be loved if something goes wrong in their sex lives.

Let’s be honest: communicating love through sexual expression is challenging for most sexually active people at one time or another (or maybe all the time) for different reasons. If you’re a sexually active person who believes that continuous consent is important, it’s natural to wonder whether your sexual partner has been able to communicate consent throughout the entire experience. If a married couple is having more sex than usual in a deliberate effort to conceive a baby, they might be concerned that “baby-making” is more important than communicating love. If you’ve been a victim of sexual violence, experiencing sex as a communication of love might be difficult. There’s an endless stream of scenarios that complicate decisions regarding sexual expression. It’s unfortunate that so few people feel like they can discuss their ethical dilemmas related to sexual morality for fear that Christians will be quick to condemn.

Today we write with a simple intention: we want you to know that we will love you no matter what ethical dilemmas you face regarding your sex life. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing all of the “right” things. We’re all too aware of efforts to dress up sexual legalism in the guise of “Christian” consensus. We don’t devote any time to wondering if any of our friends are doing the “wrong” things, sexually or otherwise. We think oftentimes, “It’s complicated” can be the most accurate Facebook relationship status. We consider it a distinct honor and privilege when friends decide they trust us enough to share something with us about how they understand sex.

We often hear criticisms that celibate LGBT Christians are judgmental not only of non-celibate LGBT people but also of anyone who engages in behaviors outside of a traditional sexual ethic. It’s probably true that celibate LGBT Christians could do a lot more to express unconditional love. Unfortunately, the loudest voices calling for traditional Christian sexual ethics attempt to discourage celibate LGBT Christians from saying anything remotely positive about non-celibate LGBT people. Some voices exalt celibate LGBT Christians as the examples to follow and speak in strong opposition to the idea that non-celibates have anything valuable to say. This approach prioritizes demanding celibacy over showing love. At times, we wonder whether certain participants in this conversation care more about preventing gay sex than preaching the Gospel in the first place.

So here’s where we cut to the chase: our love for you is not dependent on what you do (or don’t do) with your genitals. It’s also not dependent on what kinds of relationships you engage in or with whom.

To us, this seems like basic Christian hospitality. We wonder why this is so hard for so many people. Why is it that Christians are so afraid to show love without including an obligatory morality lesson? Why is there such fear that showing love signals approval for something one considers morally objectionable? Why is it that saying “I love you no matter what” can get a person branded a moral relativist? In our opinion, I love you should never be followed by but… Christ’s love does not come with conditions. Christ’s love is absolutely unconditional. He loves the wicked as much as he loves the righteous. It’s not our place to start imposing qualifications on Christ’s unconditional love. We’re tired of being pulled into conversations where we’re asked to justify our treatment of non-celibate LGBT Christians because, “It can’t possibly be the same as how you treat other celibates.” We simply do not and will not ever consider whether a person is sexually active before welcoming him or her as our friend. We’re committed to loving people with no strings attached, and that means no strings. Whether you’re L, G, B, T, Q, straight, or otherwise, we want you to know that when you visit our home, we’re not going to interrogate you about what you do or don’t do with your genitals. We won’t waste a single moment even wondering about it. Those questions truly are none of our business. They are between you, God, and your spiritual director. If you’re a Christian, we trust that the Holy Spirit is at work in your life and is encouraging you to continue moving towards Jesus.

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.

Musings on the Meaning of Celibacy

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Almost exactly four months ago, we published this post on questions to ask oneself if considering the possibility of entering a celibate partnership. Commenters on that post challenged us to think more deeply about our own questions, particularly #4: “Do I have an idea of what celibacy might mean for me?” We think this is one of the most important items on our list, and we hope that we’ll always be asking ourselves this question as we continue living our celibate vocations together. If you’ve been with us since the beginning of our blog 10 months ago, you’ve likely read our “Why celibacy?” and “Defining celibacy” posts. Newer readers may have seen our post from two months ago where we revisited these. If you’ve perused the “Celibacy and Vocation” section of our index page, you can probably tell that our understandings of celibacy and vocation are constantly evolving. When we launched A Queer Calling on January 16, 2014, our concept of celibate vocation lived in partnership was very basic. One of our original hopes for AQC was that God would use our blog to help us mature in our vocations. Ten months in, we’re already seeing that the question “What does celibacy mean for us?” doesn’t have a simple, consistent answer. As we look through old posts and comment responses, we notice that over time there have been shifts — mostly subtle, a few more dramatic — in how we discuss the same topics we began broaching in January.

We think the best example of this is how we conceive of the four core values of celibacy that we laid out during week 1: hospitality, vulnerability, commitment, and shared spiritual life. One of the criticisms we’ve received over and over again is that our definition of celibacy says nothing about sexual abstinence. That was intentional because at the time we began blogging, we took sexual abstinence as a given when discussing celibate vocations. It’s obvious that part of a celibate vocation is not having sex, so our questions ten months ago focused on, “But what else? Christian vocations aren’t reducible to ‘having sex,’ or ‘not having sex.’ Vocations are more than that. Where is the more in celibacy?” Spending almost a year pondering the four values intensely has brought us a lovely surprise: at this point, hospitality, vulnerability, commitment, and shared spiritual life are becoming as much a given for us as sexual abstinence was in the beginning. We find that we no longer need to set aside specific, intentional times to think and pray about these issues. This focus is happening automatically, every day, and is often woven seamlessly into other aspects of our lives. It’s present even during seasons when we’re blogging more about LGBT issues than celibacy.

Last night over dinner, we were talking about how our approach to hospitality has changed since we first began our life together. While we’ve always wanted to be available for friends and acquaintances who need us, we used to be a bit more selective about how we would offer hospitality. Our primary questions for extending hospitality were once, “Is meeting x need something we can do without much trouble? How will extending hospitality in this way force us to make adjustments to our everyday lives?” As we enjoyed our salads and sandwiches, we reflected on the fact that neither of those questions enters our minds much anymore. Instead, we’re thinking, “How can we be most welcoming to this person? What are the needs, and how can we help?” We’re observing more unity of mind in our relationship as we discern how to best use what we have to welcome other people. If someone we know needs a place to stay short-term or long-term, we don’t even have to discuss pros and cons: without saying anything, we are already in agreement that this person can live in our guest room and dine at our table for as long as he or she needs. If a friend living several hours away is in trouble and has no one local to reach out to, we’re on the road as soon as work is over that day: Lindsey is packing bags and Sarah is planning logistics, and neither of us has ever questioned whether we would go. “Hows” instead of “whethers” have come to dominate our discussions of hospitality.

We’ve noticed that as we’ve spent more time thinking (and blogging) about celibacy, vulnerability as become less painful and more freeing for both of us. Our conversations at home, with celibate and non-celibate friends, at church, and in our professional lives have deepened beyond imagination. Both of us have already shared far more vulnerably at AQC than we ever thought possible. When we began this blog, Sarah had absolutely no intention of writing anything too specific about Sarah’s history of sexual trauma, eating disorders, and addiction. Lindsey had never dreamed of being able to share anything about celibacy or LGBT issues with people from our own Christian tradition. Our attempt to live the value of vulnerability has opened dozens of doors for conversation. We’ve been contacted by family members who had no idea what we’ve experienced while coming into our own as gay adults in the Christian faith, former classmates who wanted to apologize for haranguing us in middle school and high school, people we met in graduate school who never quite new how to engage thoughtfully with LGBT Christians, and folks from across the globe who are trying their best to discern what non-monastic celibacy looks like. In contacting us, they have gifted us with their vulnerability. At this point in our lives, we see vulnerability becoming so much more natural in our relationship with each other, our friends, and even people we don’t know that well. We’re learning that living into the value of vulnerability allows us to give of ourselves more freely.

Also, our commitments to each other, our Christian tradition, our faith community, our family of choice, and other people in general have grown in complexity and breadth since January. At the beginning, we really didn’t know what we were doing. We had been a couple for a little over a year, we had discerned vocations to celibacy lived in the world, and sensed that God was calling us into celibacy in partnership together. We were unsure of how this would manifest. How would we honor the commitment we have to one another, and what would be the best terminology for describing that? Would the people who had been telling us that we’re nothing more than “marriage without the sex” turn out to be right? As our relationship developed, would it come to look more like marriage, monasticism, or neither? The uncertainty hung over our heads like heavy rainclouds even though we had spent years independently pondering celibacy, marriage, and vocation. It has become clear to us over the past few months that we don’t need the perfect label to describe our mutual commitment or the commitments we have to God and others. For some things, there are no words — only wonder and mystery. We’ve learned that word choice isn’t what solidifies our willingness to be there for each other through thick and thin for the rest of our lives. We’ve also learned that as other people interact with our community of two in whatever ways they will, we don’t necessarily require language to describe our commitments to them either. A friend moves into our guest room for an indefinite period of time: does that make him a “member” of our community? Is he now part of our family? Another friend lives several hours away but is as emotionally and spiritually close to us as a brother: who is he to us, and how does that fit in with our vocation? We don’t worry about these things anymore. They’re distractions. Living celibacy is teaching us what it means to have faith that God — not humanity — is who truly makes vocations and relationships what they are.

The spiritual life we share began as a shared prayer rule. At the beginning of our relationship, we made a commitment to say Matins and Compline together every day, even if that meant one of us was reading while the other was driving to work. We experienced difficulty in honoring and appreciating the two very different spiritualities we bring into our current shared Christian tradition. Sarah’s inner Catholic and Lindsey’s inner evangelical had more than a few clashes at the beginning. As we’ve grown in our vocation, we’ve seen that a shared spiritual life involves significantly more than a daily prayer rule and debates over which variety of Christian music should blast from the car radio. Over time, we’ve experienced greater ease in discussing spiritual matters. We never hesitate to share openly about our personal spiritual lives with one another. Talking about our different experiences of sin and the graces of confession no longer has to be a theological debate and in hypothetical terms. These days in our home, “I’ve been struggling with x lately,” is met more often with, “I know and I’ve been waiting for you to talk with me about that,” than, “Really? What’s going on?” We’ve come to greater unity of mind when it comes to dealing with problems at church as well. We used to spend significantly more time thinking through dozens of possible approaches to troubled relationships with other parishioners and even more for broaching complicated issues with our priest. As it is now, we come to a sense of oneness very quickly most of the time when such issues arise. And if we’re in the midst of a difficult conversation with someone at church, we don’t have to wait for privacy to ask each other how to do better next time. We’re becoming a proficient team when it comes to managing the toughest parts of interaction with other humans.

When we started writing this post, we didn’t realize it would get lengthy this quickly! But we also wanted to touch upon a couple of other issues. This morning before publishing the post, we asked each other, “What do you think God is using our shared celibate vocation to teach you right now?” Lindsey’s answer focused on caregiving — that acts of providing and caring intimately for another person are not and should not be confined to marriage. We can both see how living celibacy is teaching us about the larger need for Christians (especially in the West) to rethink the artificial boundaries our societies have created around acts of care. Sarah’s response focused on the countercultural nature of celibacy — that an abundant Christian life in the world does not require marrying and having children, and that often, marriage has a way of locking people into certain cultural expectations. Celibacy poses challenges to the expectations our societies have for “responsible” adults, and it puts Christian traditions face to face with the idol we’ve made of marriage. We would like to delve more deeply into both these topics in later posts.

We’re grateful for all the lessons God has been teaching us as we strive to live our celibate vocations, and we’re awaiting eagerly what is to come. Circling back to the question at the beginning of the post: each day we see increasing evidence that, “Do I have an idea of what celibacy might mean for me?” is not truly a “yes or no” question. It’s a question that requires continuous and thorough self-examination in order to respond honestly. And our answer has become more organic and dynamic than either of us ever could have dreamed.

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.

On Trojan Horses, Real and Imagined

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Discussions about LGBT people in Christianity are shifting rapidly. We’ve been pleasantly surprised by different approaches to open the conversation more generously such that it includes people with seemingly disparate approaches to the questions. At other times, we shake our heads in disbelief that a potentially valuable conversation gets shut down before it has even started.

Several days ago, we caught wind of a potentially interesting conversation when Sarah found an article written by Fr. Johannes Jacobse entitled, “Fr. Robert Arida: Why Don’t You Become Episcopalian?” Intrigued, Sarah clicked the link to find a critique of an essay authored by Fr. Robert Arida that was posted on the Orthodox Church of America’s Wonder blog. In his critique, Fr. Jacobse contrasted Orthodox culture with Episcopalian culture, concluding that Fr. Arida’s approach aligns so closely with Episcopalian culture that he should leave the Orthodox Church an become Episcopalian. Fr. Jacobse organized his critique around this claim:

Not long ago the Episcopalian Church faced the dilemma that Arida wants to introduce into the Orthodox Church: Should moral legitimacy be granted to homosexual pairings that was previously reserved only for heterosexual, monogamous marriage?

Since we found Fr. Jacobse’s critique first, we assumed that Fr. Arida must have written another article about homosexuality on par with his well-known and controversial 2011 essay. Our suspicions only increased after we came across Rod Dreher’s article at The American Conservative that refers to Fr. Arida’s most recent essay as an Orthodox Trojan horse. As a celibate LGBT Christian couple, we cannot help but feel trepidation when these issues are discussed so forcefully in any Christian tradition, so we braced ourselves for reading Fr. Arida’s original essay (eventually removed from Wonder blog, but now found here) and the original comments on the article (which have also been removed by Wonder blog editors). Sarah read the article aloud as Lindsey drove us home from work the day it was published. As the article drew to a close, both of us were baffled. We wondered, “That’s it? Where’s the controversy?” Reviewing the critiques further, we noticed that those reacting with greatest hostility to Fr. Arida’s essay zoomed in on the penultimate paragraph (our emphasis added):

If the never changing Gospel who is Jesus Christ is to have a credible presence and role in our culture then the Church can no longer ignore or condemn questions and issues that are presumed to contradict or challenge its living Tradition. Among the most controversial of these issues are those related to human sexuality, the configuration of the family, the beginning and ending of human life, the economy and the care and utilization of the environment including the care, dignity and quality of all human life. If the unchanging Gospel is to be offered to the culture then the Church, in and through the Holy Spirit will have to expand the understanding of itself and the world it is called to save. That there are Orthodox Christians who misuse the never changing Christ to promote a particular political agenda and ideology or as license to verbally and physically assault those they perceive as immoral along with those who would question the status quo of the Church impose on the Church a “new and alien spirit.”

Upon realizing that this paragraph was the source of controversy, we couldn’t help but speculate that many readers focused their critiques on the author and his past theological work rather than the content of the article. When issues such as human sexuality are broached within churches, most people (at least in our experience) generally assume that the ensuing discussion will fit snuggly within that particular Christian tradition’s theology. But in this case, the commenters seemed to assume that Fr. Arida’s essay was nothing more than a deliberate backdoor attempt to argue for change in the Orthodox Church’s teachings on marriage. At this point we want to make clear that our post today is not a defense of Fr. Arida, his recent essay, or his past work. We did not agree with everything in the essay posted to Wonder blog. Nonetheless, we were disheartened to see that this entire situation, which could have sparked an interesting and edifying discussion, became a missed opportunity. We were especially sad that many of the most unkind, uncharitable, and vitriolic comments left on the original article were from those charged with providing pastoral care to the faithful.

Fr. Arida, his personal opinions, and his level of theological orthodoxy are not the topic of our post today. This controversy from last week is but one example of how any conversation about LGBT Christian issues can quickly become a battle where all civility disappears. When we try to discuss why we find these conversations difficult, people in our Christian tradition are quick to encourage us to empathize with other members who see themselves as “refugees” from Christian traditions that have become more progressive over time. However, we notice that the same people are not nearly as quick to challenge those who assert that it’s impossible for LGBT people to be faithful Christians. We can appreciate that some folks had not always been so hostile to LGBT Christians and had perhaps made honest attempts at compassion in the past. We are willing to listen when they tell us that they had felt duped after being told, “No one is trying to force this denomination to change its teachings” and later finding out that this was not the case. Regardless of one’s theological views on same sex marriage, it seems understandable to us that a person would find it distressing to be told “x isn’t happening” and learn years later that x was indeed happening all along. For the record, neither of us has ever belonged to a denomination where this has occurred. We have no personal experience of this nature and don’t feel qualified to make judgments about what did or didn’t happen in Christian traditions other than our own. We try to be compassionate to everyone, even if that person’s past experience has introduced considerable paranoia every time someone in the Church raises topics of sexuality, marriage, and family.

When people have their ears perked for any and all code words that might be used to legitimize closed-door lobbying, they see a Trojan horse on every corner. But the problem is that while some Trojan horses are real, others are imagined. They are conjured up in the minds of people who are terrified that discussing LGBT issues in the Church will lead to a meltdown of all morality, initiating an unstoppable tailspin into relativism and heresy. No doubt, some people reading this post will consider our blog a Trojan horse. While that saddens us, it doesn’t surprise us. We’ve heard it all already. We’ve been contacted by people who are certain that we are lying in wait to slip gay marriage in through the backdoor of our Christian tradition. We’ve been told by people within our tradition that there is no way we could possibly be faithful Christians…and that if we were, we would shut up, keep our sexual orientations on the down-low, and play the “don’t ask, don’t tell” game to appease the neuroses of every tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist who thinks gay people are out to overtake the world. We’ve been accused of flirting and lying about our celibacy because caregiving is an important part of our relationship and sometimes it’s necessary for us to communicate in sign language on Sarah’s low hearing days.

We offer these examples not to play the victim card, but to bear witness to a very real problem that occurs when every discussion of LGBT issues is dismissed as a Trojan horse: Christian charity gets lost in a sea of “Safeguard the tradition!” demands. Words like “welcoming,” “pastoral,” and “merciful” are seen as code for “hidden agenda.” In working so diligently to protect the historic faith, both clergy and laity can lose sight of the real people who are caught in the crossfire and wounded by arrows from both sides. Pastoral care for faithful LGBT Christians risks being reduced to, “Don’t identify as gay, and don’t have gay sex. You’re welcome here, but only because everyone is a sinner.” Requests for listening and dialogue are often met with, “There’s no need. Struggle along with the rest of us to live according to God’s expectations. We treat all people the same.” While we genuinely wish that this were true, it isn’t. As long as every LGBT person in the Church is viewed as a symbol of the “gay agenda,” it will never be true that all who seek Christ are treated the same.

If the Church is going to minister effectively to people who do not fit into the heterosexual, cisgender majority, conversations about how to accomplish that need to take place. No amount of hierarchical statements reiterating existing teaching will be sufficient to fill the gaps in pastoral care that currently exist. There is a desperate need for practical guidance on what it means to love, support, and welcome LGBT Christians, and that guidance cannot end with pat answers. No doubt, the conversations that are necessary for accomplishing this will be difficult, emotional, and painful for all involved. But they are indeed necessary and will never happen if every attempt at discussing sexual orientation is written off as the scheme of a heretic who ought to leave the Church. Even conversations initiated by heretics have the potential to result in edification. An excellent historic example of this is the Church’s conversations with iconoclasts. Discussion of what constitutes a sacred image and why these are important to the Christian faith led to detailed explanations of Christ’s incarnation and instruction as to how we should commemorate people who have imaged Christ to us.

As LGBT Christians, we don’t think we’re proposing a new teaching when we say that we are created in the image and likeness of God. After all, every person is…and doesn’t the Church strive to assist everyone as he or she shows Christ to the world? We long to see the image of God in everyone, but that’s very difficult when people look at us and see nothing but a Trojan horse.

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.

Comfort, Conversation, and Creating Change (or, Why You Should Apply for the Next Oriented to Love Dialogue)

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A reflection by Sarah

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, NRSV)

This passage of scripture appeared in my mind as I was packing my bag for a weekend trip last Thursday. The reason was not apparent, and when it began to play on repeat for an hour as I finished my travel preparations I became slightly annoyed. At one point I stopped in frustration to ask God directly, “Why aren’t you letting me put this out of my thoughts today? You know how exhausted I am these days. With work, research, constant doctors appointments, tension at church, and now a weekend out of town, I can’t see myself getting any meaningful rest anytime soon, physically or spiritually.”

Fast forward two days, and I’m standing over my bed at a retreat center near Philadelphia, repacking my bag and wondering how the weekend could have come to a close so quickly. I’m feeling hopeful, grateful, and rested.

Months ago, I applied to participate in an Oriented to Love dialogue. Oriented to Love, sponsored by Evangelicals for Social Action, is an opportunity for 12 people from vastly different backgrounds to come together for conversation about faith and sexual orientation in Christianity. The goal is to share stories and listen to others’ stories in order to build empathy. This was not a space for theological debate and attempts at changing the opinions of others. I’ll admit that when I first applied, pride was one of my motivators. Because the call for applicants emphasized seeking participants with diverse experiences, I thought, “As one half of a celibate LGBT couple, I can contribute a perspective that probably no other applicant can. I doubt any other celibate couples will be applying.” After having participated in the dialogue, I’m a bit ashamed to own up to that. Every person I met this weekend had something unique to contribute, and I encountered some perspectives that I didn’t even know existed.

Construction paper, torn and folded to represent where each of us was emotionally, spiritually, or otherwise at the beginning of the dialogue. Mine is the stringy green one to the far left.

Construction paper, torn and folded to represent where each of us was emotionally, spiritually, or otherwise at the beginning of the dialogue. Mine is the stringy green one at the far left.

Amongst the 12 of us who were chosen for the dialogue, multiple Christian traditions were represented. Our group consisted of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant participants who are gay, straight, and questioning. I met parents of gay adult children, people in mixed orientation marriages who are committed to being faithful to their spouses, straight allies, and straight people who might not necessarily identify with the term “ally” but are nonetheless committed to making their churches safe spaces for LGBT members. I met people who use LGBT language and others who describe their journeys using the term “same-sex attraction (SSA).” I also met people who disagree vehemently with each other on gay marriage, same-sex sexual activity, and same-sex relationships. I wasn’t surprised to meet a couple of folks (one more liberal and one more conservative) who admitted to seeing celibate partnership as a bizarre concept. Yet my experience of the dialogue was marked by peace and comfort rather than anxiety over the possibility of being misunderstood, and within less than an hour of being in the same room with the 11 other participants I sensed a natural bond amongst us all.

This table was present in the dialogue room all weekend, and was always adorned with colorful cups, fruit, and table linens. I had to take a picture because my first thought upon seeing it was, "This is what hospitality looks like."

This table was present in the dialogue room all weekend, and was always adorned with colorful cups, fruit, and table linens. I had to take a picture because my first thought upon seeing it was, “This is what hospitality looks like.”

Because of my hope that after seeing this some of our readers will consider applying for the next dialogue, I’ll try not to give away too many of the details. Mostly, I want to tell you what I learned from the dialogue and what the experience was like for me personally. I came into the weekend anticipating that I would have trouble relating to other dialoguers. This is partly because I have never been evangelical, and thus had no idea what to expect from an event run by an evangelical organization. But during the actual experience, I was amazed not only at the ease of communication but also at the level of mutual respect we participants showed for one another. Some of my best one-on-one conversations were with people whose viewpoints on many theological and moral matters are worlds apart from mine.

A window in the retreat center's lovely chapel

A window in the retreat center’s lovely chapel

The dialogue weekend helped me to do what Lindsey and I often wish that others would do: appreciate people as people rather than seeing them first as symbols of ideologies. As a celibate gay person who has experienced significant pain from being caught in the middle of the culture wars, I found it humbling to share insightful dinner table conversation with people who fit within broader categories that have contributed to my feeling unwelcome in the Church.

It also reminded me that my conclusions are not the only possible conclusions for a rational person to reach. Being in an environment devoid of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy was a precious opportunity. Many of the dialoguers on all sides even expressed frustration at conversations in their own churches that devolve into, “A true Christian could never possibly believe x, y, or z.” Being able to share in that common frustration side by side with people who believe very different things than I do was healing.

Last weekend, I learned that there are many sincere people at various points on the ideological spectrum who want to walk with me and encourage me in my journey toward Christ. There are liberal, conservative, moderate, LGBT, and straight/cisgender people in all Christian traditions who will readily acknowledge all the ways their Christian traditions have failed in ministering to sexual and gender minorities. And even more inspiring: they are committed to changing this and fighting for those whom their churches have marginalized.

I saw evidence of how the affirming vs. non-affirming dichotomy heightens tension and silences Christians who would otherwise be interested in supporting their LGBT bothers and sisters. I had the opportunity to listen as straight Christians holding a traditional sexual ethic listed all the ways they are ready to affirm LGBT people. There was affirmation of the importance of meaningful human relationships, the toxicity of viewing LGBT celibacy as nothing more than “God says no,” and the shameful treatment that straight Christians have doled out to LGBT Christians under the guise of “love.” I wept with my straight, conservative brothers and sisters as they shared their sadness at being depicted as heartless homophobes.

I connected with my own areas of vulnerability, came to see how our struggles connect us as humans, and allowed the other 11 dialoguers to bear my burdens with me. I was surprised at how freely I was able to share my exhaustion, anger, and sorrow from managing chronic health conditions, and also my fear of falling back into addictions as a way of coping with the unmanageableness of it all. I met others in the pain they brought into the weekend too, and now that I’m back home I will continue to remember each of them in my daily prayers. In so many ways, the dialogue has ignited my prayer life.

The bricks and stones around the table represent the greatest emotional and spiritual weights each of us brought into the dialogue.

The bricks and stones around the table represent the greatest emotional and spiritual weights each of us brought into the dialogue.

I felt an inexplicable sense of synergy during the dialogue. Most of the time I’m skeptical of the idea that individuals can make a meaningful difference toward ending a longstanding injustice. One of the thoughts I had upon entering the dialogue room was, “If everyone here is at least moderate enough to be willing to talk with others who are different from them, are we really going to accomplish anything? These people are probably already working toward making their churches safer for LGBT members.” But I was reminded that we all have blind spots, and some of those showed themselves over the weekend. It’s possible to be working toward creating safety and welcome, but to be doing it in ways that one doesn’t even realize are counterproductive and hurtful. We talked about those things, and I experienced some realizations about ways I need to change my behavior toward others. There was a great deal of creativity and challenge in those discussions, and I left with a sense that our little group can and will make a difference as we re-enter the world post-dialogue.

We finger painted! Here's my creation.

We finger painted! Here’s my creation. It’s also a teaser: I enjoy painting and drawing, and in a couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing a sampling of my art here on the blog.

My most significant takeaway from the dialogue was hope that things will not always be so painful because slowly but surely, people are changing. Christians want to be loving, but sometimes we don’t know how to live up to the two great commandments. Sometimes, we hurt people when we honestly don’t intend to do so. We think our words and actions are loving, and often we can’t see how others are receiving our words and actions. Now, more people are beginning to take this seriously and reevaluate their approaches to marginalized members of their faith communities. It’s challenging to wait around for Christians to begin acting like Christians, but God showed me during the dialogue that that statement includes me as well as the most hostile person at my parish.

We selected images that resonated with us at the end of the dialogue. These chairs reminded me of coffee hour at our parish, the struggles we face there, and the hope we have that these troubles within our Christian tradition will not be permanent.

We selected images that resonated with us at the end of the dialogue. These chairs reminded me of coffee hour at Lindsey’s and my parish, the struggles we face there, and the hope we have that these troubles within our Christian tradition will not be permanent.

To my great surprise, I was not yet ready to take a break from dialoguing after returning home. Lindsey and I spent hours that evening debriefing and processing my experience. We asked ourselves some of the same questions I had discussed with the other dialoguers and continue to consider prayerfully how we can use what I learned to strengthen our vocation and the work that we do on a daily basis in blogging. We’ve been thinking about what it actually means for a person to be “oriented to love,” and we pray that God grants us greater insight into this as we move forward in our ministry together.

I would give the Oriented to Love dialogue my highest possible recommendation to anyone interested in issues of Christian faith and sexuality. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I’ll admit that I consider it a singularly life-changing experience. But seriously, you need to apply. If you care about the Church and how her members respond to each other when it comes to tough issues, you will benefit from this dialogue. So go ahead and bookmark the call for applicants page. The next dialogue will probably be in a few months.

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.

Welcoming Gays: A Response to Fr. Dwight Longenecker

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Yesterday, Fr. Dwight Longenecker published a post called “Welcoming Gays: How Do I Do That?” We appreciate how he used a question mark in his title, and we hope he won’t mind us giving some honest feedback about welcoming LGBT people in Christian communities. Our goal in writing this post is to make some concrete suggestions about things pastors can actually do. Yesterday’s post had a reasonable litany of things best avoided.

When we welcome people, we usually want to know their names. We want to know them personally. It’s hard to feel welcome when people aren’t willing to come up to you, shake your hand, tell you their names, and ask you yours. On a similar note, welcoming a group of people means respecting how they see themselves as a group. We’ve known many a confirmation class from the United Methodist Church that has visited parishes within our Christian tradition as a part of their faith formation. We are always incredibly excited and supportive when our clergy decide to host a forum for these visitors after services to help them make sense of what they’ve seen in the Liturgy. In doing this, we’re treating them as candidates for confirmation in the United Methodist Church. There would be some differences in the ways our parishes would welcome an inquirer who is considering converting, a parishioner’s parents who are visiting from out of town, or visitors who are part of our tradition but come from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

If you want to welcome gays, it’s important to know and respect what the word gay means within the LGBT community. Specifically, the word gay is “a word describing a man or a woman who is emotionally, romantically, sexually and relationally attracted to members of the same sex.” We deliberately took this definition from the Human Rights Campaign’s Glossary of Terms because we wanted to use a definition from clearly within the LGBT community. If we look at the American Psychological Association’s website, we’d see sexual orientation defined as, “an often enduring pattern of emotional, romantic and/or sexual attractions of men to women or women to men (heterosexual), of women to women or men to men (homosexual), or by men or women to both sexes (bisexual).” It’s important to note that within the LGBT community, LGBT modifies people and homosexual modifies sexual orientation. Swapping the modifiers to get homosexual person is indicative that the person doing the labeling is using a clinical definition of homosexuality.

Fr. Longenecker, people who are gay cannot be described accurately as: “those who are sexually active and committed not only to sexual relations with a person of the same sex, but also to what might be called ‘gay activism’. In other words, their ‘gayness’  is more than sexual activity. It also involves political activism and an ideological stance.” Equating being gay with engaging in specific forms of political activism makes it easy for conservative Christians to assume that every LGBT person is a menace to congregations and must be opposed at all costs. When parishes perceive LGBT people as a carriers of a social plague, they’re just as likely to welcome an LGBT person at church as they are to let an Ebola patient hang out with them at home. And we know that Catholics are taking in the families of Ebola patients: Catholics help people because Catholics are Catholic, not because these families are necessarily Catholic.

If you want to welcome gays, it’s best to use language that is not deliberately inflammatory. Talk to LGBT people about the Gospel; about Christ; about His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Talk to us about love and sacrifice, grace and truth, mercy and justice. Teach us how to pray, to fast, to feast, to serve, to worship. Guide us as we seek to follow Christ and to grow in our understanding of him. Hear our confessions. Sin is not a dirty word, but please do not assume that you know our sins before we tell you. Resist the urge to say, “The gay lifestyle is repugnant to any right thinking Catholic. The gay ideology is anti-Catholic and the gay manifesto is manifestly un Christian.” As LGBT people, we’re really confused about what you mean by “the gay ideology” and “the gay manifesto.” And honestly, publicly describing the lifestyle of any and all gay people as repugnant isn’t exactly going to offer us any assurance that we will be greeted with a handshake if we have the guts to walk through the door of your parish. Please know that we’re not crying “Persecution!” We’re concerned that people in your parish will take it upon themselves to speculate and query about how we’re abominations before God.

If you want to welcome gays, affirm where you see goodness within us. So many LGBT people have been called “repugnant” by Christians that it can be hard for us to see ourselves as “first and foremost brothers and sisters, fellow human beings created in the image of God and therefore good and precious eternal souls.” Many Christians treat us like we’re part of “certain pressure groups” out to get the Church to “change her basic stance on homosexuality.” We’d love the opportunity to be people who are assumed to enter the door in good faith. It’s really fantastic when pastors take time to say something positive they see in our spiritual lives.

If you want to welcome gays, be willing to listen to our stories of how we have been hurt by pastors and other Christians. We honestly wish it were true that in most churches “the homosexual person is welcomed without prejudice if he or she truly wants to be part of the family of faith.” Surveys indicate that while over 70 percent of gay adults identify some connection to Christianity, 42 percent don’t attend church. We find this incredibly sad. Many LGBT people have grown up hearing that it’s impossible to be a gay Christian. Lindsey was 29 years old before a pastor had ever said to Lindsey, “You are welcome in this parish.” It remains a singular experience but Lindsey makes a habit of replaying that memory when feeling discouraged. It’s important for priests to know how to respond if one of their brother priests denies a celibate gay person absolution because of the gay person’s sexual orientation. Yes, this does happen even if it’s not supposed to happen. Too often, straight Christians behave like ostriches when LGBT people tell stories about experiencing discrimination in church. One can dismiss these stories easily by saying, “Well, that priest was wrong to deny you communion if you weren’t sinning. That’s not what the Church teaches. Surely the priest had other reasons to deny you communion.” This kind of response accuses LGBT Christians of lying and gives straight Christians an excuse to keep their heads in the sand.

To answer your question, Fr. Longenecker, “Do [gay people] want to be assured that simply because they experience same sex attraction they will not be vilified, ostracized and excluded?” The answer is Yes. We would also like it if straight Christians could stop ignoring how LGBT Christians have been mistreated by clergy and laity alike. It would be awesome if an LGBT person could tell a story of hurt and be greeted with empathy, reassurance, and perhaps an apology if one is warranted. Speaking for ourselves as a celibate LGBT couple, we’d love it if clergy in our Christian tradition could help us sort legal matters to ensure that we’re able to care for one another. There’s been a lot of ink spilled over the question of gay marriage where many Christian traditions have concluded that it’s inappropriate for a couple like us to enact a civil marriage. However, we’re still wondering about how best to sort issues of health care, financial interdependence, and other practical matters. Not always, but often in the past when we’ve raised these issues with priests and others we trust at church, we’ve been accused of being over-dramatic and looking for an excuse to call our relationship a “marriage.” We’re grateful to have a priest now who sees us as people rather than as problems. Nonetheless, it would be nice to have some assurance that we would be treated as people if we went to a different parish within our Christian tradition. It would also be fantastic if we had a sense that our fellow parishioners felt like they could give us an authentic welcome.

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.