Category Archives: LGBT Christian

“You have my prayers and support…unless you’re a sinner.”

Posted on by

A reflection by Lindsey

We have received some difficult news about how quickly Sarah’s Meniere’s disease is progressing. In the last 48 hours, both of us have had to deal with countless insensitive remarks that leave us feeling drained, isolated, and alone. I’m fluctuating between emotions of being absolutely irate, feeling overwhelmed, and sad. I find the Psalms of lament ringing deeply true, especially if I stop after the Psalmist has laid out the case for why life presently sucks. It’s hard to push forward to the end of the Psalm where we get the goods of being able to trust in God’s awesome majesty.

In seasons like this one, I find myself listening to a lot of Christian radio. It may be simply that I’m in my car a fair bit, driving from Point A to Point B. But when life is hard, I can’t help but notice the lyrics and periodically hear what the DJs have to say. I hear the announcements of “We’d love to pray for you; just drop us a line!” and “We know that prayer works. Don’t hesitate to give us a call,” and I can’t help but feel sad. I’m sad because I wish I could call up the station and say something to the effect of,

Hey, I’m so glad that you are praying for people. Right now, I am feeling like I’ve been hit by a ton of bricks. My partner Sarah has a condition called Meniere’s disease that’s progressing rapidly. We just found out that Sarah has lost all hearing in the right ear. Over the next several weeks, the doctor is going to start a series of injections to try to stop the vertigo attacks but the injections are risky. We’re trying to hope for the best, but I can’t help but be afraid that Sarah might lose more hearing in the left ear before Christmas. We’re trying to be proactive by learning ASL. Sarah has friends who know more ASL than I do, and it helps that Sarah has a knack for languages. I wish I could do better so I could be able to sign for Sarah during periods of significant hearing loss, especially when we’re at church together. This burden is hard to carry because there are so many unknowns, and I’d feel better if people were praying for Sarah, for the medical team, and for us as a family as we navigate through this together.

And truth be told, I can’t ever see myself sharing this prayer request with the radio station or my church’s congregational listserv. There’s something very wrong with the universe where I feel safer putting this prayer request on the blog before I’ve even shared it with the entirety of my Facebook friends list. I’ve thought about this prayer request for days. Every time it crosses my mind, the same question pops up: “Is there any way to make this request without using the word partner?” I find myself paralyzed because the answer to this question is empathically “No.” My emotional and spiritual realities right now are what they are because I am Sarah’s partner. I am going to be here through thick and thin. I am going to figure out how to drop everything to be by Sarah’s side if and when I am needed. I am going to do my very best to learn ASL because I am sure as hell not going to lose my ability to communicate with Sarah. I do not care if other people think I am making mountains out of molehills. At the end of the day, I’m the only person who can look myself in the mirror to answer if I’m living a life of integrity. And with that conviction, you can bet the farm that I am going to call Sarah my partner because I know Sarah would choose the exact same word if our positions were switched.

The instant I choose to call Sarah my partner, I see a tremendous amount of ugliness in the Body of Christ. I can’t bring myself to call the Christian radio station because I’m scared of hearing, “There’s no way we can pray for you and your partner. If you really cared for each other, you wouldn’t be living together.” Putting the word partner out there on a congregational listserv means that even the people most marginally attached to my Sunday morning community may, and likely will feel compelled to speak judgment into my life. People who come most Sundays know that Sarah and I are partners even if we choose not to use that word at church, and even if they choose not to think about it more often than once a week. There are members of our community who would be willing to pray for me or Sarah during individual difficult circumstances, but seem afraid to pray for both of us together lest it appear that they are condoning sin.

So many Christian communities are carefully balanced apple carts where using a word like partner in a prayer request can ignite years of debate. On the blog, I feel safer because there are 193 other posts to reflect on our experiences as a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple. If someone decides to be a jerk in the comments, we can choose to moderate the comment or to answer his or her comment in part by highlighting other posts we’ve written. I like feeling the security of having a reasonably civil venue where I have some control over how the discussion unfolds. It bothers me that I have been in Christian environments for over 15 years where I know that my fears of judgment, gossip chains, and rumor mills are entirely well-founded.

And when I think about how every other LGBT Christian I know can relate to my fears on one level or another, I get irate. How have we gotten to a point where two syllables in a prayer request have the potential to split congregations? How do we claim to be a “loving community” when we deny principal caregivers space to share their burdens with others? How do we even begin to communicate to others that we would much rather find ourselves closer to the heart of the Body of Christ?

I don’t have good answers to those questions. I’m stuck trying to figure out how to find my strength in Christ even when I feel explicitly rejected and judged by those who make following Him their public priority. Right now, I find myself relying on selective hearing, a driving bass line, and a pretty solid drum beat.

I’m in a war, every minute. I know for sure I’ll never win it. I am David up against Goliath… You. Are. Bigger than every battle I’m facing… All by myself, I fall to pieces, but You are strong when I am weakest…You. Are. Bigger than every battle I’m facing…

And there’s a distinct part of me that prays fervently that as I find some places where I can be transparent about what I’m going through, life might be just a little bit better for the next LGBT caregiver to request prayers for his or her partner.

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.

When Churches Talk from Both Sides of Their Mouths

Posted on by

In the past week, friends have shared with us two news stories where gay men active in church communities have been effectively forced out of their churches after they entered into same-sex marriages. The first story we saw concerned a Montana gay couple who have been a relationship for 30 years before marrying in Seattle in 2013. The couple was asked to secure a civil divorce, cease living together, and write a statement affirming marriage as being between one man and one woman. The second story we saw involved a Minnesota church music director being asked to resign after marrying his long-term partner. In today’s post, we wanted to focus on one aspect of these developing stories. If you click the above link about the gay couple in Montana, you can read:

Huff and Wojtowick both said they never intended to force the issue of same-sex marriage, or to provoke a conflict with the Catholic Church. If fact, neither man is entirely comfortable in describing their relationship as a marriage, preferring instead to refer to it as a civil union or a domestic partnership.

“Neither one of us believes the term should have been marriage,” Huff said. “We understand that marriage is a union between heterosexual couples.”

Instead, Huff and Wojtowick said they sought a legal union to safeguard their joint financial interests heading toward the later years of their lives.

“We’re getting old,” Huff said. “There is no other avenue for us in the Catholic Church to protect ourselves financially — our Social Security benefits or our home, which is in both our names. If something happened to one of us, we need some protection.”

Let’s begin by clearing the air about our intentions in writing this post. We are not making an argument in favor of same-sex marriage. We are also not arguing that any Christian tradition should change its understanding about the nature of marriage. We are calling out the hypocrisy that results when churches say they want to protect LGBT people from unjust discrimination while also actively campaigning against every form of legal arrangement that would allow couples to commit to caring for one another until the end of their earthly lives.

First, we wonder if some of these churches are at all willing hear why LGBT people want legal recognition in the first place. The gay couple in Montana had been living together for 30 years before seeking legal recognition for their relationship. According to every news source we’ve read, they travelled quietly to Seattle in search of a legally-binding civil acknowledgment. Now 66 and 73, these two men decided it would be a good idea to start arranging for retirement benefits, joint assets, and end-of-life care. We wouldn’t be surprised if when the younger partner hit 65, both men realized, “Wow, we’re getting pretty old,” then began exploring their options for fear of being disenfranchised in the event of one partner’s illness or death. As we’ve read the articles, we’ve found ourselves scratching our heads and wondering, “Is the pastor of this church even listening to the couple’s concerns about retirement and end-of-life issues?” Accessing various forms of legal protection requires that people have legally recognized relationships. When churches resist every possible legal arrangement that confers rights to LGBT couples, those churches effectively communicate that they don’t care about hospital visitation, health care proxies, inequities in employment and housing, financial stability, and end-of-life care. Some people might say, “The church is just protecting marriage.” While one could make that argument, it’s also true that many churches have fought hard to prevent civil unions, domestic partnerships, and other legal options for LGBT couples. Marriage is but one form of legal acknowledgment, and over the past three decades, conservative churches have resisted all forms of legal recognition.

Second, we wonder if conservative churches realize how the “choices” they offer LGBT people are formulated in terms of all-or-nothing. Again, the Montana couple had lived together for 30 years while attending their church on a weekly basis. Everyone knew that the two men were a couple. They’re from a small town. Yet, the pastor asked the couple to divorce civilly and to stop living together even though their living arrangement did not result from their getting a civil marriage. For all we know, this couple might be a celibate pair like us. It’s possible. We’ve known other celibate pairs who have sought civil marriages because after researching legal options, they felt they had no other choice for meeting their legal needs. Our own experiences have shown us that conservative churches are rarely interested in listening to the problems their LGBT members are facing because it’s easier to parrot, “Just don’t have sex. Don’t have close relationships with people of the same sex, or of the opposite sex. Spend the rest of your life making sure that no one thinks you’re sinning sexually.” Lindsey remembers seeking spiritual direction where all of the pastoral advice centered upon avoiding any appearance of evil lest there be scandal. One person when so far as to recommend that Lindsey live on the outskirts of a monastic community. When churches insist that all LGBT members live single and celibate lives that could never possibly be construed as experiencing emotional or spiritual intimacy with others, churches effectively send a message that it’s far preferable for LGBT people to come home to an empty house every night to fight intense battles with loneliness and isolation than to grow from rich human connection. Along with this comes the message that the way a legal arrangement “appears” to others is more important than preventing injustice against LGBT people.

Third, we wonder if churches can see the ways they often force LGBT people to endure public humiliation. Several of our LGBT Christian friends have raised questions about whether other congregants would be asked to write a formal statement affirming a particular set of theological ideas. Should an engaged straight couple have to write a formal statement affirming their belief in teachings on premarital sex? Looking at the local news coverage, we think it’s clear that the two men would be much more comfortable with language like civil union or domestic partnership to describe their relationship because of how they understand the word marriage. The first news story we saw focused on 300 congregants preparing to meet with the bishop to discuss the situation. It seems these two men never imagined that 300 people would even become aware of their civil marriage in the first place. Again, the couple sought to establish a civil arrangement quietly out of state. It doesn’t seem like they wanted to be the center of attention. When churches actively resist every form of legal arrangement that permits LGBT people to care for one another, churches actually create situations that shine a spotlight on LGBT people even when no attention is being sought.

Fourth, we wonder if churches realize how harmful it is to emphasize swift discipline over spiritual direction in an ongoing relationship with the pastor. A little-known detail of the Montana story is that the pastor had only been with the congregation for four days. We don’t know how the pastor even became aware of the couple’s out-of-state arrangement. The couple went to Seattle over a year ago for the purpose of becoming legally recognized, and according to their own statements, they weren’t interested in proclaiming this to the world. Not knowing the full details of the events in Montana, we are left to question whether a person who thought the couple may have made legal arrangements combed public records to prove the couple had indeed married. Yes, this actually happens in churches, and it’s a lot more common than some people might think. Sarah remembers a time at one of Sarah’s former churches when a heterosexual couple contracted their marriage civilly before meeting with their pastor to discuss having their marriage blessed by the church. The couple intended on abstaining from communion until they could have a meeting with the pastor. Before the couple could schedule a meeting, a congregant had searched the public record and had alerted the pastor that the couple had married. The pastor’s immediate response was to deny the couple communion in a public manner before ever discussing the matter with them (despite the fact that they were not seeking to commune at that time). The couple was a bit confused as to how the pastor knew before they had told him what happened, and that the situation played out as it did because another parishioner had searched the public record. While we do not know exactly what happened in Montana, we think this is an important issue to raise more generally because we’ve seen a pattern of people using public records to out others in pastorally difficult circumstances. In situations like the one Sarah witnessed, claiming that the actions of the couple caused scandal seems disingenuous when the matter would not have become public at all if it hadn’t been for the actions of another parishioner. It seems to us that the record-comber is largely responsible for the ensuing public scandal. When churches demand that everyone in the congregation actively resists the evils of same-sex marriage at all costs, including opposing any legal options that could possibly lead to the legalizing of same-sex marriage in the future, churches can inadvertently turn their congregations into guard dogs with a penchant for gossip.

We’ve written a couple of times before about our own legal difficulties, and our frustration with the phasing out of civil unions. Though we intend to follow our own priest’s counsel about working out legal protections for our relationship and we have no interest in getting a civil marriage, the Montana story, the stories of LGBT firings from parishes and religious schools, and other stories like these worry us greatly. Sometimes we find ourselves so worn from the way these issues are discussed in conservative churches that even going to church feels like a chore. If a member of our parish were to ask us what advice we would offer conservative churches for how they discuss LGBT legal issues, our first response would be, “Stop talking out of both sides of your mouth, and acknowledge that issues like healthcare, end of life care, and retirement benefits are not just red herrings in the gay marriage debate.” Conservative churches that are serious about preventing injustice against LGBT people need to, as Lindsey often says, make friends with the question mark. Learn about the real legal problems we face, and the experiences of our daily lives. Consider that supporting a person in solving legal difficulties is not the same approving of same-sex marriage. Ask us what we see as injustices. A church that is truly behaving in a Christian manner cannot speak out against LGBT discrimination while intentionally drowning out the legal concerns of its own LGBT members.

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.

Overcoming “Oppression” and the Challenge of Being Yourself

Posted on by

Many resources designed to help people who are questioning their sexual orientations and gender identities can be strikingly simplistic. These resources suggest a particular set of normative actions to take if you think you might be LGBT. Gay men and lesbians are encouraged to tell their friends and family about their sexual orientations when ready, and eventually dating people of the same sex. Transgender people are encouraged to have conversations with professionals about beginning hormone replacement therapies, having surgeries, and navigating various legal webs to change their gender identity markers on official documents. In some ways, such resources present the coming out process as the first step in a natural set of life cycle rituals that unfold reasonably uniformly for all LGBT people. Ultimately, these resources articulate an LGB life where everyone feels free to enter into sexually active same-sex relationships, or a T life where almost everyone eventually chooses to transition medically and correct gender on legal documents. Failure to accept these particular narratives can lead to assertions that an LGBT person simply has not yet “accepted” himself or herself. If one claims to have a happy life outside of these norms, one might find oneself accused of caving to fundamentally oppressive social systems.

As we see it, many “coming out” resources attempt to replace a restrictive conservative message with an equally restrictive progressive message. Typical conservative messages are laced with religious overtones to induce fear and suggest that feeling any resonance with LGBT experience is fundamentally suspect and likely immoral. However, we’ve noticed that many progressive messages are full of troubling undertones that the fullness of an LGBT person’s life can be objectively observed by an outsider. Progressive messages act as a gatekeeper of LGBT identities. We’ve encountered countless people who ask themselves, “Can I be LGBT if I have absolutely no desire to attend Gay Pride events?” Yet, many progressive narratives view attending one’s first Gay Pride event as a rite of passage associated with the coming out progress. Both conservative and progressive messages can be used to manipulate LGBT people into conformity to the expectations of others. People questioning their sexual orientations and gender identities can find themselves torn between these two narratives even if neither fits their experiences.

We have to wonder if’s better to encourage LGBT people to be their true selves on their own terms, recognizing that everyone is constantly deepening his or her self-understanding. As members of gender and sexual minorities, it’s only natural to seek someone to validate our experiences. After all, feeling different from everyone else often plays into a person’s initial questioning of his or her sexual orientation and gender identity. It’s fantastically freeing when you can find someone who says, “Wow, what you’re saying really resonates with me.” It’s also wonderfully refreshing when you can find someone who says, “Your experience sounds different from mine, but I’m interested in hearing more of your story and walking with you as you find your way.”

Sometimes, LGBT people can need concrete affirmation that it is okay to understand sexual orientations and gender identities differently. A 2013 survey of transgender people revealed that 23% of respondents identify as gay, 25% identify as bisexual, 23% identify as straight, 4% identify as asexual, 2% identify as other, and 23% identify as queer. While some LGB people feel a strong resonance with the word “queer,” the vast majority of LGB prefer LGB terms because they identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. A transgender person who is negotiating the complexities of his or her own sex and gender and the sexes and genders of people he or she is attracted to might find terms like “gay” and “straight” incredibly limiting.

It’s good to listen to what people have to say about themselves. We have friends on the transgender spectrum who say, “I have a body. I am male. Therefore, I have a male body,” well before ever even thinking about pursuing medically-facilitated transition. This line of thought can be incredibly empowering to another transgender person because it permits a person to affirm his body as male immediately after becoming aware of his male identity. These thoughts grate against many dominant conservative and progressive messages about sexual orientation and gender: conservative messages usually assert that since one’s body has identifiably female parts, then one has a female body, and some progressive messages assert that the next rational step is to consult a doctor, effectively prescribing medical treatment. Transgender people who would rather not pursue medical interventions should not need to worry about losing the claim on their gender identities.

To offer another example, we also know know gay, lesbian, and bisexual people interested in entering monastic life. Many conservative voices argue that LGB people are unsuited to monastic life because they are likely to corrupt the monastery with sexual immorality. However, many progressive voices actively discourage LGB people from pursuing any kind of celibate lifestyle lest they fail to become fully actualized people in the context of sexually active relationships. In rare instances when progressive messages affirm that an LGB person should be able to choose celibacy, the statement almost always followed up with, “…but only if your reason for being celibate has nothing to do with your sexual orientation.” This leaves no room for the possibility that one can fully embrace his or her sexual orientation while still understanding it as a factor in discerning vocation. It also doesn’t make sense if one applies the same standard to expectations for how straight people discern vocation. We’ve never met anyone, conservative or progressive, who would advise a straight person considering celibacy to follow this pathway only if the decision is completely unrelated to sexual orientation.

In our own experiences and those shared with us by friends and readers, we’ve seen that people on both ends of the ideological spectrum can have impossible expectations for LGBT people without even realizing it. If you believe the only way for an LGBT person to follow Christ is to “become straight” and enter a heterosexual marriage, you’re probably not inclined to listen to the stories of people who have been harmed by these standards. Today, more people are challenging this narrative, and we’re glad for that. But few are quick to challenge the opposite set of expectations — the one that excludes LGBT people who don’t fit the mold assumed in progressive literature about the coming out process. The one that insists a person is caving to bad theology and toxic religious norms if he or she is not open to the idea of marriage or has no intention of taking up membership at a queer church. The one that inadvertently (sometimes even directly) forces some to the margins of an already marginalized group. We hope that as LGBT people continue to become more visible, there will be more questioning of what constitutes oppression and who gets to determine the meaning of “be yourself.”

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.

The Meaning of “Support”: A Second Response to Maria McDowell

Posted on by

Most of the conversations we engage in involve people who see the world differently than we do in one way or another. Occasionally, the direction conversation takes clues us into the possibility that we and the other party are likely talking past each other; by all appearances we are using the same words in different ways. As we read Maria McDowell’s second response to us, we perceived that Maria might conceive of the term support differently than we do. Therefore, we thought it would be helpful to clarify what we are requesting when we ask for support from others. For those who have not been following along thus far, our post discussing our celibate gay agenda kicked off this discussion. In that post, we stated:

“We fear the possibility that a time may be approaching when celibate LGBT Christians have only two options: 1) attend a church with a liberal sexual ethic where, in many cases, celibacy is frowned upon or misunderstood and celibates are not supported adequately; or, 2) attend a church with a conservative sexual ethic where celibates are expected to deny their sexual orientations or leave.”

We understand why people might be confused by what we mean when we say that celibates need to be supported by their faith communities, and more specifically when we discuss our own struggle to find that for ourselves. We can understand why one might become angry if that person perceived us as asking for support while at the same time withholding the same from him or her.

When a person asks us for our support regarding any life circumstance, we like to take some time to talk with him or her to understand the request. The word “support” can be interpreted in a variety of ways. If a random person holding a clipboard approaches us on the street asking for support, he or she most likely wants us to part with some money or to sign a petition. If a friend calls us at 3 AM crying, he or she asks for our support implicitly by hoping we’ll pick up the phone, listen, and maybe provide some pithy words of wisdom. If a person on Facebook is posting constantly about support for a particular cause, chances are pretty excellent that he or she hopes we’ll take some action to advance that cause. If one of our friends is dealing with major stress amid a seemingly hopeless situation, he or she likely covets our prayers that God would somehow intervene. We all have our own natural filters for determining what a person intends when asking for support. Oftentimes, we hear a person’s request and align our response with the kind of support we could see ourselves desiring in the same situation. All of us who strive to show empathy and compassion can struggle with how to offer the “right” kind of support, especially as we frequently project our own meanings onto the original request.

It’s really hard for non-celibate people to have any idea of how to support an individual trying to live celibacy, especially a non-traditional sort of celibate vocation. We get that. We’ve done our best to be explicit about what kinds of support we find helpful while writing for many different audiences. We have discussed how people with more traditional sexual ethics could support celibate LGBT Christians, both as a category and within the context of our own church family. Our experience has shown us that these people can find  our use of LGBT language to describe ourselves perplexing. We have also discussed how people with modern, liberal sexual ethics could be more supportive of celibates, and challenged our readers to think a bit more carefully about what it means to affirm a person before claiming the label “Affirming.” For the sake of being absolutely clear: when we ask for support as celibate LGBT Christians, we are asking simply to be treated as human beings who are part of a community of believers. We are not asking for pity. We are not asking folks to speak out if we do not receive communion in a particular church for whatever reason. We are not asking people to endorse our way of life explicitly. And we are certainly not asking people to dote on us because of all the ways they imagine our celibate vocations must induce pain and suffering.

As we see it, every person needs support to live a Christian life. The two of us are not special or unique among people. While we feel somewhat flattered when people see us as an authority on celibate partnerships, we constantly stress that we are not experts, and frequently we haven’t the foggiest idea of what God would have us do next. We feel like we are building the plane while flying it, and we do not have all of the answers. We find it surprising that all of a sudden, a handful of readers regard us as authoritative experts who are somehow responsible for everyone else who is discussing (or has discussed in the past) related topics in a similar way as we are. This leaves little room for us to be regular humans trying our best to discern an unusual vocation. It seems that Maria is holding us at least partly responsible for how any person within our Christian tradition has ever responded to LGBT people. Additionally, it seems as though she sees a connection between us and authors calling for shifts in pastoral practice towards a more inclusive “third way” or with a bit more “generous spaciousness.” Perhaps we have read Maria incorrectly on this, and we’re sure she will correct us if we did. Regardless, we do not think it’s reasonable or fair to hold someone who is trying a different approach responsible the shortcomings of anyone else who also happens to be seeking space for a less polarized conversation.

One of the claims we were truly surprised to see from Maria is:

“Sarah and Lindsey have made their personal decision public. It is the public declaration of a private practice that makes their blog such an important contribution, in large part because it transgresses the very neat lines we hope to draw around biological sex, sexual activity, and affinity for the other.”

A Queer Calling is openly accessible to the public, yes. We agree with Maria that one of the contributions we are able to make is challenging various categorical boxes. We also agree that our decision to pursue celibacy does not exist in a vacuum: personal decisions of this nature do have an effect on other people. But at the same time, our pursuit of celibacy is not nearly as public as some might think. That we blog about our experience as a celibate LGBT Christian couple does not automatically mean we make a point to discuss either our celibacy or LGBT status within our local parish. Outside the blog, conversations with friends, and confession/spiritual direction, we do not discuss these matters in other areas of our lives. Defining celibacy as vulnerability, radical hospitality, a shared spiritual life, and commitment makes our celibacy visible as a way of life. Yet, even members of our own families were not aware of our celibacy until we began blogging because we never had a significant reason to bring it up. We don’t walk around with the word “celibate” tattooed to our foreheads. Truth be told, before launching A Queer Calling, the only people in our lives who had any idea about our practice of celibacy were our spiritual fathers and close friends.

We’ve saved what we understand as Maria’s core objection for last. Maria writes:

I am also aware and deeply appreciative of Sarah and Lindsey’s hospitality through our personal communications, and am glad that A Queer Calling does all it can to be hospitable in an inhospitable environment. I am 100% sure I would be welcome at their table with them, in their home. I would be delighted to swap stories and enter with them into their daily prayer life. Until that prayer life broadened to include their parish. At that point, the hospitality of their home broadens to include the hospitality of their larger household, their ekklesia. Whether we like it or not, their priest may be required by the rule of his church to include or exclude me based on whether or not I am sexually active. Since I do not know their church or their priest, the invitation to pray with them corporately will inevitable be fraught with anxiety and grief: will I or will I not be allowed to eat with my friends at their ecclesial table?

Maria rightly highlights the existence of church communities that actively exclude LGBT people — both non-celibate and celibate — from partaking of the Eucharist. Lindsey still has poignant memories of the first time Sarah discussed our relationship with the priest at our current parish. The outcome of that conversation was positive, but the experience of it was terrifying. We’ve both had dreadful experiences when seeking pastoral care in the distant and not-so-distant past. At one point, Lindsey was nearly asked to leave a Christian tradition entirely because word got around that Lindsey was planning a spiritual retreat for LGBT Christians. In Sarah’s previous Christian tradition, Sarah was once denied absolution during the sacrament of confession — not because of a sin, but because Sarah had used the word “lesbian.” In many Christian traditions, it’s all too easy for clergy members to become obsessed with homosexuality, ignoring everything else about a person’s lived experience. We are willing to say that if the only kind of a person a priest would exclude from the Eucharistic table is a sexually active LGBT Christian, then that priest has seriously misunderstood the praxis of excommunication. Priests and pastors can act in haste when talking with an LGBT Christian, so we understand why Maria would perhaps be nervous and anxious about having a conversation with our priest.

At the same time, we’re puzzled: how is it our fault or the fault of any member of our parish if our priest were to decide not to commune Maria? That’s completely, 100% out of our control. Deciding who is or is not permitted to commune is not our place as lay people. And quite frankly, we’re glad because that’s not a responsibility we would want to have. We don’t envy the job of our priests in this regard. Every Sunday, our church is full of both communicants and non-communicants. People abstain from communion all of the time for a multiplicity of reasons. We try to do our best to ensure that we are growing towards Christlikeness, and have no interest in ascertaining the exact reasoning of every non-communicant. The question of whether to receive communion or to abstain should invite sobering consideration where, periodically, most everyone will abstain from receiving.

We do understand the pain of not being able to receive communion during a Eucharistic service. We exclude ourselves from Eucharistic tables with some regularity. Our celibacy does not ensure that we are welcome at every Eucharistic table. We are members of a closed communion tradition, and we have chosen to follow our tradition’s wisdom on discerning when and where to receive communion. When we visit churches outside of our tradition, we don’t commune. And we greatly appreciate being offered space to choose not to receive.

Throughout all of these points, a central aspect we noticed as we read Maria’s latest response was her framing the discussion in terms of solidarity. Solidarity is not a word that we invoke much in these conversations because for many people it brings up associations with politically-charged activism, which is not at all how we conceive of our needs for support within a faith community. We’d be interested in hearing Maria’s take on what she means when she discusses solidarity and support. What we mean when we say “support” is being surrounded by other Christians who treat us like people. We want to join our humanity with the humanity of everyone else seeking Christ. All Christians need encouragement to grow towards Christ, and part of existing within an ekklesia necessarily is supporting others in their journeys to unity with God.

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.

When Marriage Becomes the Default Vocation

Posted on by

One benefit of cultivating a celibate vocation is that we get to know other people who live celibacy. It can be reasonably challenging to find celibates until one figures out where to look for them. Unfortunately, it’s rare to see celibacy discussed much, if at all, in the majority of Christian traditions outside the question of whether LGBT people should be celibate. Some argue that LGBT people do not have any opportunity to discern their vocations because so many Christian traditions seem to present celibacy as the default option. We’ve seen these types of conversations ourselves, so we have no doubts that some churches give LGBT people unfunded mandates to be celibate without providing any practical support. Additionally, we believe that many who criticize “celibacy as a default” overlook how conversations about sexual ethics in some traditions emphasize marriage as the default vocation for all people.

Consider the ways Christians are taught about sexual ethics. Many denominations exhort people to “save sex until marriage” and believe that “true love waits.” We know several LGBT Christians with relatively progressive sexual ethics in terms of same-sex marriage who are completely committed to waiting until they are married to have sex. Justin Lee, the executive director of the Gay Christian Network, articulates his convictions that sex should be reserved for marriage. Matthew Vines, author of God and the Gay Christian, has defended his commitment to stay abstinent until his wedding day. So many people define a Christian sexual ethic as not having sex outside of the marriage covenant. But by presenting sexual ethics solely in this manner, many traditions unwittingly overlook how Christians cultivate chastity by learning to steward their bodies responsibly.

We have engaged in conversations where people argue that sexual ethics should focus primarily on the choices humans make about when and with whom to have sex. We agree resolutely that the choice to have sex is deeply personal. Whether any other person on the planet is having sex is none of our business. However, emphasizing the permissibility of sex as the primary issue makes an assumption that every person is looking for an opportunity to have sex.

Celibacy is not a new idea within Christianity. Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, and some other Christian traditions have well developed views on the marital vocation, celibate vocations, and the discernment process. The two of us have had different levels of experience with a range of other Christian traditions and have discovered that celibacy is rarely discussed, except in the context of spiritual gifts. Lindsey has seen spiritual gift inventories that ask people questions about their levels of sexual desire in an effort to discern the gift of celibacy. Often, these inventories posit that only asexual people or those with very low sex drives have been gifted with celibacy. We’re left asking, “What happens when any person who does not fit this description wants to explore the possibilities of celibacy?”

Experience has shown us that many Christians tend to diminish the presence people exploring celibacy. If someone visits a new congregation alone, greeters will ask the visitor if he or she is married and has children. Newly engaged friends can tell all their single friends not to worry because, “Eventually, your day will come.” Singles ministries provide people with ample time to mix and mingle. Conversations at church frequently check in on how someone’s children are doing. When you comment that you’re not married, some people go so far as to shoot you a pitiful glance before quickly exiting the conversation. In Lindsey’s former Christian tradition, Lindsey frequently heard other people laughing and ridiculing the idea that anyone would have the “gift of celibacy.” They would ask jokingly, “How is it even possible that a person has such a low level of sexual desire?” and imply that Paul must have been crazy if he suggested not wanting sex was a spiritual gift.

Within some Christian traditions, an LGBT person who indicates that he or she might be considering celibacy frequently receives a hostile reception. Celibacy is treated as a code word for internalized homophobia, self-hatred, self-loathing, religious oppression, patriarchy, absurd self-denial, or sexual deviancy. In the last two weeks alone on the internet, we’ve seen significant evidence of this hostility. One author suggested that people pursuing celibacy “will almost always end up having sex on the DL anyway, and that leads to higher rates of HIV transmission” and lead lives that are analogous to cutting fruits and vegetables out of their diets. Another author said that encouraging celibacy is linked to any number of negative health outcomes including “depression, anxiety, self-destructive behavior, sexual dysfunction, avoidance of intimacy, loss of faith and spirituality, and the reinforcement of internalized homophobia and self-hatred, to name a few.” A recent internet meme portrays a celibate person as experiencing intense desires for sex only to say, “No! I mustn’t!” Another recent article runs through a list of passages, which we’ve termed the other clobber passages, to make an argument that celibacy is rare, difficult, and a “nearly impossible vocation.” These assertions, while disappointing, are far from surprising as we’ve encountered similar sentiments when we’ve visited Open and Affirming congregations.

The net consequence of these discussions is that it’s incredibly easy for people to get the message that marriage is the default vocation for all. Marriage becomes a rite of passage to adulthood, and being unmarried is a stigma in some faith communities. When people within a Christian tradition argue that the celibate vocation is incredibly rare, they are making an argument that essentially says, “99.99% of people marry. There might be a very small number of people gifted with celibacy, but the chances that you might be one of this minority are slim. So there’s no real reason to consider the possibility.” We believe that the Church as a whole is impoverished when Christians never anticipate meeting a person with a celibate vocation.

We understand why people want to affirm that some are gifted with celibacy and emphasize that this gift may be rare. Paul clearly references the gift of celibacy in the Scriptures. But of equal importance is that people have diverse reasons for entering celibate vocations. These reasons include, but are not limited to, having a passion to love and serve the world differently than a married person, developing an affinity for a particular monastic community, not perceiving a call towards parenthood, deciding one’s spirituality is more focused on God when one is not pursuing a marriage relationship, enjoying one’s life as it is without marital obligations, or sensing that one has the gift of celibacy. It’s also not terribly uncommon for people to embrace the celibate vocation out of obedience: they sense that God is asking them to commit to celibacy for reasons they do not understand, they respect their Christian tradition’s teachings on marriage and realize that they are not keen on embracing a marital vocation, or they want to remain faithful to their sexual ethics despite an extended season of involuntary celibacy. The exact reasons why people have embraced celibacy are between them and their spiritual advisors unless they choose to share with others.

When people acknowledge and affirm a broader set of reasons to embrace celibate vocations, it becomes more obvious that God is not asking every person to enter a martial relationship. Vocational discernment becomes prayerfully seeking answers to the questions, “God, what would You have me do as I seek to love You more? Who have You created to me to be? How can I more fully image Christ’s likeness to everyone I meet?”

Christians need to stop mocking the gift of celibacy by suggesting that living the celibate vocation requires superhuman strength and a nearly complete absence of sexual desire. When celibacy is presented in this way, it becomes an inhuman way of life to the point of being seen as inhumane. However, celibacy is an entirely human vocation. Real men and women have borne witness to the kingdom of God for centuries through myriad celibate vocations. Christians would benefit from getting to know real people who live celibacy — some of whom might be in their midst without their awareness. Why did they embrace celibacy? How did celibacy provide a way for them to learn to love themselves, their neighbors, and God? What gifts did they share with the world as they embraced their vocations fully?

(Stay tuned for more profiles of real celibates!)

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.