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When Celibacy Fails

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every “Scandal” Has Its Story

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As a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple, frequently we receive caution that we should avoid inciting scandal. People have all sorts of advice: we should not refer to ourselves as a couple and instead choose the more neutral language of friend or roommate, we should avoid describing ourselves as LGBT, we should constantly stress our commitment to celibacy, etc. We take significant time to reflect on how we’re being received by other people even as we simply try to live our lives. We do not pretend for an instant that we’re above having our way of life challenged, but we often wonder if, in a number of situations, people allege scandal rather than inviting conversations about how we’ve offended their sensibilities.

Let us be perfectly clear about something from the outset: we tend to be incredibly discreet. There are certain environments where we’d never introduce ourselves as a couple. We’re not people who have LGBT pride symbols plastered all over our cars or our clothing. We like having low profiles. Even on this blog, we do take some steps to protect our comparative anonymity by not disclosing our last names, specific Christian tradition, parish, priest, location, employers, and other highly identifiable information. We don’t mind being discreet because we see this as an essential part of being safe in a world that can be all too hostile to LGBT people.

However, at the same time, we find ourselves ready to spit nails when people constantly exhort us to be even more discreet in an effort to avoid scandal. We’d like to spend some time reflecting on what people mean when they tell us we should avoid scandalizing others. We know that our presence in many church communities is challenging, and some might say that it borders on scandal. Yet, we have to wonder about the degree to which we are actually stepping near scandal’s boundary. Because of the different ways we’ve been accused, we wonder if people are quick to cry “Scandal!” every time they see something that offends their personal sensibilities or varies from how they would attempt to navigate sensitive intersections of doctrine, morality, and shifting social norms.

One basic assumption many people make is that no one knows we are LGBT unless we tell them. Unfortunately, this assumption is completely false. We’ve talked a bit about this assumption when we asked if we are protected by celibacy. For example, people nearly always assume that Lindsey is a member of the LGBT community because of Lindsey’s physical appearance. It doesn’t matter that Lindsey has perfected different versions of pronoun games, is comfortable avoiding discussing anything related to LGBT concerns in church settings, and works extremely hard to focus on growing spiritually. Lindsey knows that cultivating close friendships with people in a local church can lead to accusations of sexual misconduct, even if all Lindsey has done is talk excitedly with a fellow parishioner in a private conversation observed from a distance by other parishioners. Lindsey has gotten so accustomed to protecting information about LGBT status that we haven’t even disclosed on this blog how Lindsey prefers to identify — a trend that will be continuing for the foreseeable future.

Often, we wonder what people are thinking when they tell us that we have a propensity toward scandal. Are they really concerned that seeing a couple like us will lead others into sin? Are they worried for their own souls, the souls of other parishioners, and the souls of people who see us each day? Are they concerned that we’re a kind of “sleeper cell” that is waiting until the time is right to advocate for radical shifts in how our Christian tradition understands marriage, sexuality, gender, and other human relationships? Do they think we’ll lead other people to confusion about what our Christian tradition teaches relative to marriage and sexuality? If so, wouldn’t they have an obligation to raise these concerns with us directly or with our priest?

We can, and do, appreciate that these concerns have some merit when considered exclusively against the backdrop of a Church besieged by the culture wars. Unfortunately, the emphasis many churches place on the current political and social climate frames the conversation in terms of LGBT issues rather than LGBT people. Focusing on the culture wars places all the responsibility on LGBT people to address the fears of cisgender, heterosexual people. When a person perceives himself or herself on the “right” side, that individual can fall into a pattern of avoiding questions about his or her own discomfort. It seems to us that many cisgender, heterosexual Christians think they deserve a free pass on these questions because they aren’t actively doing anything that violates their sense of orthodoxy.

Many Christian traditions have written or unwritten sets of “standard minimum expectations” for people who are members of those specific traditions. In our own lives, we’ve found it all too easy to be judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to people who seemingly disregard these expectations. To illustrate how we’ve had to navigate our own senses of being scandalized by others, we’re going to highlight two examples. The first will likely resonate with our readers from a more generally evangelical background, and the second will likely resonate with our readers from liturgical backgrounds.

We’ve both belonged to local churches where it was the norm, presented almost as a requirement, that all members of the community participate in some midweek ministries. These midweek ministries might be anything from Bible studies to service ministries to prayer groups. Once after Lindsey had joined a community that required all members to attend a weekly small group, Lindsey learned that an administrator paid by the church who had been a long-standing member had never been involved in a small group. This person had been around the church for years and surely knew better. Lindsey was completely shocked and appalled that the church would knowingly employ such a person who made it crystal clear that one could regard small groups as optional. Other people Lindsey approached were equally flabbergasted by the situation. Later, Lindsey learned that there was much more to the story: this person was busily attending to parents who were battling some very serious illnesses. To say Lindsey was crestfallen upon realizing how quickly Lindsey had rushed to judgement is an understatement. One never knows when there’s more than meets the eye.

Switching gears to discuss an example that might be reasonably common in liturgical traditions, in Catholic and Orthodox churches a person might encounter a situation like this one that Sarah remembers: At one of Sarah’s past parishes, a family that regularly attended consisted of a single mother and her three small children. The family would leave immediately after service every Sunday so the mother could get to work. One day, a friend of Sarah’s invited this family to stay after the service to enjoy lunch. The mother declined the invitation, commenting, “Thank you, but I have to get to work. I had enough to eat at breakfast.” In liturgical traditions where there is some type of fasting requirement before receiving the Eucharist, this sort of comment might seem curious, especially if the person making the comment had communed earlier that morning. Sarah’s friend who had invited the mother to lunch wondered aloud, “Didn’t she receive the Eucharist the morning? Doesn’t she keep the fast at all?” After getting to know this mother better, Sarah and Sarah’s friend found out that on Sundays the mother had to work two shifts at two separate jobs. Sunday breakfast was the only time she had to eat a decent meal all day, which was necessary because both jobs required her to be on her feet for hours at a time. Once again, one never knows when there’s more than meets the eye.

When we consider the question of scandal in these contexts, it seems natural to reflect also on the question of gossip. Is the person caring for elderly parents obligated to disclose the gory details of her struggle to ensure her parents had what they needed? Is the person preparing to work two 8-hour shifts required to explain to everyone why she needs to eat breakfast and forgo the Eucharistic fast? To be sure, it seems reasonable that a person might discuss with a pastor or priest how he or she believes it is best to navigate these difficult situations. However, is it really up to members of the congregation to assume that they know exactly what’s happening? There are instances in which allegations of scandal are misplaced, sometimes even leading the accuser unwittingly toward gossip and other forms of uncharitable speech and action.

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.

All Are Welcome! (Some Conditions May Apply)

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A reflection by Sarah

It’s not really a secret that many LGBT people struggle to feel welcome at church. However, as I think on my own experiences, I can’t help but conclude that we often misdiagnose exactly what makes people feel unwelcome in faith communities. When trying to find a community where I can come fully alive in Christ as an LGBT person with somewhat traditionalist sensibilities regarding theology and liturgical life, I’ve frequently felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. As I’ve gotten to know other people walking in similar spaces, I’ve noted that it is rare for a person to be free to discuss openly his or her sexual orientation or gender identity, preference for historic patterns of worship, and appreciation for traditional theology all within the same faith community. Thus, folks at this particular intersection can find themselves fitting in nowhere.

To help readers grasp what life in the midst of this tension feels like, I want to share my experience of searching for a church home once after I had moved to a new city. I encountered two parishes full of people who were passionately committed to Christ. The one I’ll refer to as “St. Andrew’s” had a visible desire to engage in social justice work, and parishioners were entirely committed to living life at the front lines of loving their neighbors as themselves. The one I’ll call “St. John’s” valued forming people of all ages in the faith, providing ample opportunities for parishioners to tap into traditional prayers and spiritual practices. However, as a person attracted to life at both parishes, I soon realized that parishioners saw these two communities as being a bit at the extremes. The communities were so distinct from one another that most people I got to know at one couldn’t see how a person might find value in the activities and pursuits of the other. My own sense of self – a lesbian seeking deep spiritual formation within traditional Christianity – prevented people at both parishes from recognizing me as “one of them” no matter how much I participated in parish life.

When I first moved to the city, I was in a spiritual and emotional space that left me with an acute need for love and acceptance. Because of this, I searched out parishes known for welcoming absolutely everyone. My search brought me very conveniently to St. Andrew’s, a parish less than two blocks away from my apartment. From the moment I set foot in a Sunday service, it was clear that St. Andrew’s welcomed every kind of human diversity present under the sun. As soon as people found out I was new, they peppered me with helpful tips for adapting to life in my new city. Immediately, I had recommendations for local grocery stores, fun free things to do, parish ministries in which I could become involved, and the best place to go for frozen custard. Over time, I realized that St. Andrew’s folks would do just about anything to love their neighbors. Parishioners visited families living in poverty to discern their needs, held regular fundraising events to help people rebuild homes and meet basic needs after disaster struck, delivered first-aid kits to homes that would otherwise lack band-aids and antiseptics, and constantly referred people to social services organizations if and when the parish wasn’t able to help more directly. St. Andrew’s proclaimed a loving acceptance for all people because, according to its members, St. Andrews “welcomed everyone, no matter what.” All signs pointed to a thriving parish.

I was quick to get involved even though I had concerns about how St. Andrew’s seemingly failed to promote the observance of disciplines I found essential to my spiritual growth and wellbeing. I thought that surely as I shared my life within the parish, I’d find at least some people who would resonate with how I valued traditional devotions and approaches to liturgical worship. Within the first month, I was able to disclose a good deal about my own life. The congregation accepted me completely as a lesbian, and I found many people willing to discuss certain practical theological topics with me. However, after I had been at the parish for about six months, I realized that the only theological topics people were very interested in talking about centered on social justice and concerns that there needed to be “updates” to teachings on women’s ordination and gay marriage. Mentioning that I was considering a non-monastic celibate vocation resulted in questions such as, “Don’t you accept yourself as you are?” and, “Why are you letting the Church get to you so much?” Though I found myself irked by these queries, especially because this Christian tradition recognizes celibacy as a vocational option, I could handle them. I had much more difficulty when I began to see that that every conversation I attempted to start about the Church fathers, liturgy, official Church documents, or traditional spiritual practices would fall on deaf ears. One person even went so far as to tell me, “God hears what you have to say from your heart so you don’t need any scripted prayer.” I found it exceptionally odd that a person within a liturgical Christian tradition would have such a disparaging attitude regarding the prayers that have shaped this tradition.

It didn’t help that I had these conversations when I felt like I was floundering spiritually. I had an incredibly full schedule, and I found it difficult in that season of life to connect with the still, small voice of God. St. Andrew’s seemingly expected people to connect with God through serving the poor. Yet, even though I was actively conducting home visits and sorting baby clothes for new mothers living in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, I perceived a real need for more contemplative spirituality. As I sought counsel from my priest, he told me that I just needed to get more involved in the parish’s ministries than I was already. I thought his prescription failed to address my main concerns. Not seeing any alternatives within the St. Andrew’s community, I began to look elsewhere in an effort to meet my spiritual needs.

I had heard about another parish, St. John’s, and decided to investigate further. I chose to try this parish for a number of reasons: it was geographically close to my apartment, I’d heard it had a beautiful liturgy that was much more traditional than contemporary, and I’d determined after a bit of research that it had several parish ministries aimed at fostering spiritual growth. As I met with the priest, he seemed excited to welcome me as a prospective parishioner. He showed me different events on the church calendar where people would gather to pray traditional prayers and support each other in a shared prayer life. When I mentioned the interest I’d expressed previously in starting a discussion group at St. Andrew’s on a Church document, he met me with enthusiasm and indicated that many people at St. John’s might also be interested. After that meeting, I rejoiced because I thought I had finally found a place where I could grow spiritually. When I went to Sunday liturgy, I felt a profound sense of connection to God and to my Christian tradition. This parish saw that adults were continuously learning about their faith; members of the parish placed a high value on scripture, tradition, and Church history. But because St. John’s had relatively few opportunities to do social justice ministry, I continued to volunteer with people from St. Andrew’s.

I experienced excellent formation in my time at St. John’s, but still did not gain a sense of feeling completely at home. Almost immediately, I caught on to the fact that St. John’s was not a safe place to be LGBT, as demonstrated through a number of clues. One Sunday in a homily, the priest emphasized how homosexuals would not inherit the kingdom of God. As I listened to him preach, I realized that I had not mentioned to him that I was a lesbian during our initial meeting. Another hint was that one long-time member of the parish was easier to identify by appearance as being a member of the LGBT community, and the lack of acceptance for this man was abundantly clear. Many parishioners talked about him behind his back, saying things like: I don’t know why Tom comes to church every Sunday if he’s not going to try to be normal, and Tom’s been here for years, but I would never let him around my children. The things those people do are abominable. I tried my best to foster conversations about any number of non-sexuality-related topics with other parishioners, and I perceived the people at St. John’s to be genuine folks who were doing their best to serve God. Though I discussed many diverse topics and built relationships with them, it seemed that no amount of relationship building could influence their perceptions of LGBT people. The moment that I took the plunge and revealed to one trusted person in that parish that I was a lesbian, I realized the gravity of my mistake. She responded immediately with, “Are you trying to get yourself healed so you can marry a man some day?” When I said, “No…” she cut me off before I could even mention my exploration of celibacy and asked, “Well then, why are you here? Why don’t you go to a denomination that’s more liberal and accepts people like you?”

I felt caught in an inescapable tension between these two parishes, electing to try and attend both for the next year and a half. I had never ended my involvement in the social justice ministries at St. Andrew’s. Most Sundays, I elected to go to St. John’s for worship and simply not stay to socialize with anyone afterward. Occasionally, I’d continue to pop in at different traditional prayer and study groups. Independent of my best efforts to do church with both communities, I realized I was constantly being forced to choose between being known and being loved. To be loved at St. Andrew’s, I couldn’t be known as a liturgical and theological traditionalist. To be loved at St. John’s, I couldn’t be known as a member of the LGBT community. As a result, neither parish afforded me a place to be me.

Summoning every bit of internal strength possible and giving one’s all to being church with others has an added level of challenge when you’re LGBT. I’d go so far as to say that sometimes, this feels impossible if you’re LGBT and at least somewhat of a traditionalist. Throughout my twenties, I continually experienced the St. Andrew’s and St. John’s scenarios playing out in my life every time I moved to a new place. They played out with greatest reliability when I was a part of my former Christian tradition. In my current Christian tradition, parishes are generally small, separated by long geographic distances, or both. Everyone who is a part of this tradition in a certain area organically ends up in the same church community, and that reality creates its own set of unique challenges. For my part as an LGBT person with traditionalist sensibilities, I experience a double-silencing. I feel as though I’m constantly being told to seek a church where “my kind of people” go. Depending on the context, “my kind of people” can have a host of different meanings. Generally, I don’t have trouble figuring out the implications of that phrase within a specific church community. Yet each time the issue arises, I find myself wondering: who are “my kind of people”? Folks within the LGBT community, or Christians with traditionalist sensibilities? I’m tired of being informed that my people fit neatly within any category narrower than “the Body of Christ.”

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Queering Celibacy amid Fixation on Sex

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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