Tag Archives: sexual ethics

The High Cost of the Conventional Sexual Ethic

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A reflection by Lindsey

I’ll admit it; I’m a child of the 80s. Courtesy of Nancy Reagan, I learned how to “Just say ‘No.'” The slogan taught me that any number of choices I could make as a teenager where peer pressure might be an issue. Drugs? Just say no. Alcohol? Just say no. Sex? Just say no…

Somehow, some way, “Just say ‘No'” snuck into how Christians have taught their kids about sexual ethics. This now-conventional sexual ethic asserts that sex belongs exclusively in a marriage. If a person is tempted to have sex in any other kind of situation, he or she should just say no.

Before I go further, I’d like to point out that I’ve intentionally used the word conventional to describe this kind of sexual ethic. I chose the word conventional because I think that both traditional and progressive sexual ethics can, and should, have much more substance. Christians across the theological spectrum consistently extol the virtues of saving sex until marriage. We know strong advocates for same-sex marriage who also deliver consistent messages about the importance of saving sex for marriage.

I’ve noticed that many adults will default towards presenting the conventional sexual ethic when talking to teenagers. I get that it’s all too easy to portray teenagers as hormonally-driven maniacs, but truth be told, teenagers are human. Everyone has their war stories about surviving puberty. The “crazy teenager” trope goes a long way in helping people make sense of a few very confusing years in life. However, reducing sexual ethics to a tweet rarely does anyone any favors. Teenagers can handle complexity. Just as teenagers are growing physically, they are also developing their abilities for ethical reasoning. When we fall back on the conventional sexual ethic, we’re unintentionally communicating that white-knuckled abstinence suffices as responsible use of one’s sexuality.

The conventional sexual ethic posits that all questions of sexual morality boil down to obedience. Even as I think about the Scriptures used to justify the conventional sexual ethic, I can’t help but hear the guilt and the shame associated when the only Scripture cited is:

“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard well-meaning married people telling unmarried people something to the effect of, “Seriously, Christ bought your body through his death on the cross. Surely, you can wait until you’re married before you have sex.” For such people, sexuality morality is nothing more than checking the boxes that you’ve lived your life rightly and noted your various indiscretions. This line of thought makes it incredibly difficult for people who have followed the rules as they’ve entered into their marriages. The conventional sexual ethic zooms in on how unmarried people should conduct themselves rather than helping married people understand various mutual sacrifices that should define marriage.

The conventional sexual ethic can create an environment where legalism prevails. If you’re a Christian teenager growing up in a community that emphasizes the conventional sexual ethic, being a good Christian can be measured by two things: 1) having a daily quiet time to connect with God, and 2) saving sex until marriage. Everyone understands why praying every day can be hard, but very few people have space to talk about why it might be difficult for some to just say no to sex. These churches assume that everyone is getting married. If you mix the conventional sexual ethic with a view that marriage is necessarily between a man and a woman, you are likely to default to a simplistic variant of mandated celibacy for LGBT people.

When I think about how Christians might want to talk about sexual morality, I keep going back to the idea that all people are created in the image of God. It’s hard to see the image of God in every person you meet. I’m consistently jarred by the fact that God has made every person in God’s image. It’s a message that sticks with me, especially when I reflect on my reactions to this particular advert dedicated to the theme:

It’s so easy for churches that teach a conventional sexual ethic to call attention to how various people of every stripe have simply made “bad choices.” Sometimes I wonder if we frame everything in terms of individual choice because we’re not quite willing to look into the mirror to see where we personally fall short. A conventional sexual ethic can go a long way in helping people feel like they are “good” Christians who are doing all of the “right” things.

Seeing everyone as being created in the image of God should have considerable effects of how we decide to treat people we meet. We can reflect on how Christ’s love was so expansive that it included people on the margins of society. In the Kingdom of God, we find space not only for people who love and serve the world through their Christ-centered marriage but also for celibate people who love and serve the world differently.

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

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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.

A Review of A Letter to My Congregation by Ken Wilson

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For our resource review this month, we’ve decided to read A Letter to My Congregation: An Evangelical Pastor’s Path to Embracing People who are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender into the Company of Jesus by Ken Wilson. This book has generated much discussion as it outlines a “Third Way” for Evangelical Christians to respond to the controversies about sexual orientation. (We have also reviewed The Third Way film associated with the Roman Catholic Church.)

As usual, we will keep most of our thoughts related to our two focus questions for every review we write: What does this book have to say to LGBT Christians who are living celibacy or exploring the possibility of celibate vocations? How does this book contribute to conversation about celibacy as a way of life that LGBT Christians might choose?

Throughout the book, Wilson thoughtfully details his position as a pastor of an Evangelical congregation. He serves as the founding pastor of the Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor in Michigan. In his pastoral role, Wilson constantly provides guidance and care when people come to him asking tough questions. He wrote his letter to explain how he has adopted a different approach to counseling LGBT church members.

Wilson makes a powerful argument for using discernment when providing pastoral care to LGBT congregants. One reason why the “gay controversy” is so controversial is that so many Christians have already decided on their response to LGBT people and believe there is no need for further discussion. Expounding upon the role of discernment, Wilson states, “discernment of God’s will is reserved for choosing between two or more possible goods. When faced with a choice between a good and an evil option, no discernment is necessary. Choose the good and shun the evil” (pg. 26). The existing dominant argument within many Evangelical traditions is that it is not necessary to enter into discernment with an LGBT person because same-sex sexual activity is plainly evil. Importantly for LGBT Christians who live or want to explore celibacy, Wilson frames his experience with the dominant argument as follows:

As I first encountered the question of homosexuality, I saw it as a simple matter of choosing faithfulness to God over unfaithfulness to God. …. I assumed (of course) that all homosexual acts and relationships were outside of the bounds of morally acceptable behavior. For me, this was a received tradition. It came with a set of exclusionary practices, but I didn’t examine the practices carefully for two reasons: 1) at first, I wasn’t personally in charge of excluding anyone, and 2) when I was, exclusion per se didn’t need to be exercised because gay people who wanted to remain gay stayed away.

I should emphasize: everyone I respected held this view; no one I respected questioned it. I had other pressing pastoral concerns. It didn’t occur to me to explore the matter further. (pgs. 26-27)

Wilson’s letter may connect with celibate LGBT Christians who perceive that their churches respond to their questions with pat, superficial answers. In problematizing the received argument, Wilson offers space for Christians to use LGBT language and to explore questions about sexuality and gender identity more deeply.

In the quote above and throughout the book, Wilson constantly references exclusion. The question of exclusion undergirds a considerable portion of his argument. We get a sense of what he means by “exclusion” when he says:

Pastors must learn to say no. If someone wants to distribute literature at election time to tell us who God would have us vote for, I’m the one who tells them no. And then listens as they tell me what a weak-kneed leader I am for not standing up for truth. I’ve refused to perform weddings if I didn’t think the marriage had a chance. That conversation hardly ever goes well. I’ve told a member or two of our prayer ministry team that they cannot pray for people in ways that I deem harmful. I’ve called the police to forcibly remove a disruptive person, called protective services to investigate possible child abuse. I’ve asked a lady who brought her tambourine to church and played it with no particular connection to what the worship team was doing to please stop, as it had become a distraction. (pg. 12)

We’ve read much of what has been said about Wilson’s “Third Way” around the blogosphere, so we think it’s crucial to be explicit about how A Letter to My Congregation presents its specific Third Way approach. Wilson argues that the standard responses to LGBT Christians exclude people from the church. When a congregation has already decided that the questions around homosexuality are a simple matter of choosing faithfulness to God over unfaithfulness to God, two extremes surface. Evangelical churches have typically pronounced that gay sex is universally sinful to the point where some churches have actively excluded LGBT people from membership. Congregations with a modern, liberal sexual ethic sometimes exclude anyone who is not fully onboard with various justice initiatives undertaken by the church community. As a pastor, Wilson has had to make calls that have excluded people. Pastors make countless decisions when determining where the boundaries are in their communities. Wilson’s own litany of exclusion highlights areas big and small in which a pastor has to decide where the buck stops.

Ultimately, Wilson’s Third Way seems positioned to avoid exclusion on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity alone. Pastors using Wilson’s approach would still need to draw lines somewhere, but these pastors can discern the boundaries in different ways. Sometimes, the boundary will be clear cut, while at other times, the pastor may make determinations on a case-by-case basis. LGBT Christians exploring celibacy may find that this approach encourages pastors to offer better spiritual direction, gives grace should an individual struggle to maintain his or her celibacy, and removes stigmas associated with being a gender and sexual minority in the church.

However, celibate LGBT Christians will find little by way of practical advice in living their vocations. Wilson spends a considerable amount of space arguing about why certain Scriptural passages need not be read as an outright condemnation of same-sex sexual activity. Unfortunately, his engagement with other passages about marriage lacks the same depth that he displays when talking about re-interpreting the clobber passages. In making a case as to why it’s acceptable for a pastor to lean towards supporting gay marriage, Wilson repeats many arguments about how unrealistic it is to expect LGBT people to remain celibate. The central question he asks regarding gay marriage is, given the broader witness of cisgender heterosexual Christians who are widowed or divorced and remarried, why couldn’t accommodations be made for the marriages of same-sex partners? He writes:

Some people can bear celibacy graciously. But others cannot. For them, the now traditional teaching that the biblical view of marriage–one man, one woman, for life–is descriptive but not prescriptive in the case of remarriage, is absolutely prescriptive in the case of gender. This means that it can only ever be for a man and a woman. Can we understand how that might constitute an unbearable burden? (pg. 154)

Wilson’s analysis of how and why pastors accommodate divorce and remarriage is thoughtfully developed. However, we find ourselves wishing that he had included at least some examples of welcoming celibate LGBT Christians into his congregation and attending to their pastoral needs. It seems to us that like some other “Third Way” approaches, this book implies an assumption that non-celibate LGBT Christians need more support, love, and acceptance than their celibate brothers and sisters.

We hope celibate LGBT Christians will be encouraged by Wilson’s intense commitment to discernment throughout the entire book. Wilson delivers a passionate case for why pastors must be willing to journey alongside their LGBT congregants and welcome them into full participation within the congregation. He shares his own heart for spiritual direction when he writes, “I am willing to be led by the fire of divine love” (pg. 176). We hope that Wilson’s journey connects him with celibate LGBT Christians if for no other reason than to catch a glimpse into the unique features and textures of their celibate vocations.

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.

In Defense of Moms Like Mine

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A reflection by Sarah

Today, I’m writing something that I never thought I would write. It’s a defense of my mom and all Christian parents like her. I’ll admit upfront that this is a difficult post for me because my mom and I don’t have a very close relationship. We’re as different as daylight and dark and have always struggled to understand each other. Rarely do we find ourselves being of one mind on any serious issue. Yet for reasons mysterious, far beyond our comprehension, God saw fit to put us into relationship as mother and daughter. And perhaps this is why I would fight to the death to protect her from being maligned.

Two weeks ago, we published a post on the need for better conversations about issues of LGBT suicide and parental acceptance. In response to our claim that conservative Christian parents approach their relationships with LGBTQ children (minor and adult) in a variety of ways, more than one reader suggested that these parents are always caught in a choice between loving God and loving their children. A few readers found our confidence that it would be possible for parents with a traditional sexual ethic to maintain authentic relationships with their LGBTQ children overly optimistic and a bit foolhardy. Some offered that for many LGBTQ people, even being around a parent with a traditional sexual ethic is inescapably destructive and dangerous. I can’t speak to the life circumstances of another person and do not wish to invalidate the stories of others. Nonetheless, as I was interacting with our readers on this topic I couldn’t help but think of my relationship with my mom because, although we have remarkably different views on sexuality and scripture, I cannot imagine her ever treating me as a lesser human being because of my sexual orientation.

My mom is a longtime attendee of services in a conservative Christian denomination that many would consider fundamentalist. If not a total biblical literalist, she’s remarkably close (except at times when my dad teases her about male headship — she’s not too fond of Ephesians 5 and 1 Timothy 2 when interpreted literally). For my mom, questions about the morality of homosexuality usually come down to a simple quoting of “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is abomination” (Leviticus 18:22). Make your best emphatic statement of “Abomination!” with an Eastern Kentucky accent, and you’ve pretty much summed up my mom’s views on non-heterosexual orientations. Occasionally in the past, my mom has cited 1 Corinthians 6 to hint that I could magically become straight, but it’s always been in the general sense of “Well, Sarah Ann, God can change our hearts if we let him.” My mom has always believed that being gay is a choice, and she holds that belief alongside others that make sense within a biblical literalist framework. For example, my mom would argue that the world was created in six actual days, the Old Testament is a literal record of historical events, and the discussion of every moral question should begin with, “Well, you know, what the Bible says…”

However, I have no doubt that my mom loves Jesus and has always desired that I encounter Christ personally. She’s shared with me that before I was born and she was unsure of her ability to bear children, she prayed — as Hannah did before the birth of Samuel — that if God would give her a child, she would do everything possible to dedicate that child to God’s work. My earliest memories of faith formation involve reading children’s Bible stories with my mom, and my mom reading to my sister and me from her own Bible. Sometimes, she would even plan sick day Sunday school lessons for me at home when I had a cold that was just pesky enough to keep me from attending any church service. My mom is a faith first sort of person if ever there was one. I can’t imagine she’s ever made a decision that wasn’t informed by her relationship with Christ.

When I first came out to my mom, like most conservative parents she didn’t take it well. The news caught her off-guard and rendered her speechless. She had no idea what to say or do. She was a good Christian mom and had done her best to raise me as a person of faith. My mom began zooming in on various theories as to why I “thought” I was a lesbian. Some theories focused on my history of sexual abuse. Others involved speculation that my emotionally difficult breakup with my high school boyfriend might have turned me gay. Occasionally, my mom pulled in even stranger theories such as the idea that seeing two  possibly-lesbian women refereeing my elementary school basketball games made the “gay lifestyle” appealing to me. My mom has spent years adjusting to the reality that I’m not going to become straight, my sexual orientation is not a phase, and I’m never going to bring home a prospective son-in-law for parental inspection. However, in the midst of all of this, she has always made clear that she loves me. She has constantly stressed that I am welcome in her household, and from the beginning has promised that she will never, ever reject me. We’ve certainly had our disagreements over the years since I came out. Some have led to weeks, even months of communication breaks. But I’ve never feared being cast aside from my family. If my mom’s love can survive my coming home with a tattoo within a month after starting college, there is absolutely no doubt that it will survive anything else that she considers a transgression.

At this point you might be saying, “Hey, that doesn’t count. You’re celibate. It would be different if you and Lindsey were sexually active.” Not all of my past relationships have been celibate. One of my previous non-celibate relationships was with a women who was emotionally abusive, manipulative, and selfish. If my parents had wanted to reject this partner on the grounds that she treated me terribly, they would have had good cause to do so. Nonetheless, when I introduced her to my parents, my mom did everything she could think to do in order to make her feel welcome. After that relationship ended, my mom said, “You know, Sarah, I’m glad you’re not with that woman anymore.” I became tense and expected to hear a mini-sermon about the evils of homosexuality, but my mom surprised me by instead citing instances when this past partner had mistreated me. My mom highlighted her observation that this person made many and frequent unreasonable requests of me and became angry when I did not meet expectations: regularly, she would demand that I alter my own daily schedule to run litanies of errands, none of which I ever seemed to perform well enough. My mom reminded me of a time when this partner had chosen a restaurant to take all of us for dinner: she hadn’t considered that this establishment wouldn’t have any food that met my dietary needs, and then became angry with me for ordering an off-the-menu cheese sandwich because I couldn’t eat anything else. My mom played back her memory reel of all the times my partner had made fun of me for being too nerdy, not thin enough, and too religious. At no point did my mom mention anything about “homosexuality.” Instead, shared that she had spent hours praying for me that I would not be stuck in an abusive relationship for the rest of my life.

When my mom met Lindsey, I had to do a double-take that I was actually watching her in action. Every bit of Southern hospitality was on display, and anyone present would have thought that Lindsey had been part of the family for decades. Granted, my mom still makes a point to tell me that she thinks homosexuality is wrong, but she shares this view with me personally and privately — never in front of Lindsey. In the next breath, she’ll ask me a litany of questions to learn about Lindsey’s favorite foods so that they can be on the menu when we visit. I’ve never seen my mom go to such lengths to apologize for her preparation of green beans than when she couldn’t find the freshest bunch to serve to Lindsey. Thanks to my mom (and also my pistol-packing grandmother), Lindsey was included immediately in the Christmas gift circle, on the birthday card list, and on the list of questions for the family to ask before the end of a call every time they phone me. Lindsey and I had been together as a couple for over a year before I shared with my mom that we are committed to living celibacy together. I didn’t think telling her that we were celibate would matter much because my mom tends to view homosexuality as a choice, full stop. Discussing celibacy with my mom has not changed how she interacts with Lindsey and me, and my decision to become celibate has had no effect on my mom’s theological position on homosexuality. Despite this (and maybe even despite herself), my mom really does appreciate and respect Lindsey because she likes seeing how well Lindsey treats me and how much I’ve grown spiritually since the beginning of our relationship.

When I reflect on how my mom has treated me over the years, I cannot help but become enraged when people suggest that because of her extremely conservative sexual ethic, she is exactly the same as parents who have thrown their kids out on the street, demanded that they participate in ex-gay ministries, or forced them into fear-based celibacy or heterosexual marriages. I’ll be frank: my mom would much rather I had the capacity to enter a heterosexual marriage. If my mom had her way, I’d be married to a man with a great job while living no more than a twenty-minute drive from her and my dad. By the time she was the age I am now, she had been married to my dad for 8 years and already had two children. In my mom’s dream world, I’d probably be raising children of my own by this point. To say that my relationship with my mom hasn’t been the best is a significant understatement. My close friends can attest to how conflicts about things other than sexual orientation have had nearly enough power to end my relationship with my mom. Nonetheless, I find it imperative to give credit where credit is due.

When it comes to my sexual orientation, my mom has never once indicated in any way that her love for me is conditional upon my “becoming straight” or choosing celibacy. Instead, she has managed to affirm my full humanity and treat me as a person of equal worth (even though we’re still working on, “Please, treat me like a grown woman.”). My mom has done nothing to make me feel like less of a person because I’m a lesbian. She has taught me so much about affirming the dignity of other people because she always goes the extra mile to do so in her own life. In a rural county that’s nearly 99% white and probably more than 99% fundamentalist Christian, my mom has always been the first person to defend members of religious minorities when the town gossips start clucking about what a pity it is that the few nice Hindu and Muslim families in the area “aren’t saved.” She’s constantly responding to those remarks with, “I believe Christ is the only way, but there are things about how He works that we don’t understand.” As I think about how my mom has approached all of her doubts and wrestling with the questions that emerged after I told her I was a lesbian, I am confident that she has spilled out all of her anguish at the foot of the cross so that she can continue to love me — and every LGBTQ person she has ever met — with no strings attached.

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.

Shifting the Conversation Is Not Silence: A Response to Maria McDowell

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One of the first things we did before launching A Queer Calling was create a joint email account. Both of us take great joy in engaging in conversation about celibacy and related issues, so when the new mail alert dings we race one another to read what has arrived. We are grateful for all of our readers and commenters because everyone brings his or her unique voice to the dialogue. In the seven months we’ve been blogging, we’ve been impressed by the level of respectful conversation we’ve seen in the comment box.

Last week, we received an email notification that Maria McDowell had responded to “Our Celibate Gay Agenda” in a post at the Women in Theology blog. We appreciate Maria’s generosity in her analysis of our post and our blog in general, and we hope to offer just as thoughtful a response to her as she as given us.

Maria differs from many bloggers in that she sees how celibate vocations can be life-giving for LGBTQ Christians who choose them. She also agrees with our point that in general, modern society erroneously views celibacy as a strange and harmful self-denial. We were especially glad to see this coming from an LGBTQ Christian who asserts that she does not feel called to celibacy. Maria’s discussion about examples of people living celibate vocations immediately caused us to think back to a post Sarah wrote months ago that included brief profiles of three very different female celibates. We hope to provide our readers with more examples of real people and their celibate vocations. We live at a time when more and more Christians are living as celibates in the world because not everyone feels a call to marriage or monasticism. Perhaps there is something more we can do to help foster greater acceptance and appreciation for celibate vocations in general and not just within the LGBTQ context.

Maria also references her own experience of knowing celibate couples who have been ostracized within their faith communities after someone “outed” them and no one knew they were celibate. It’s entirely true that this happens, and probably with great regularity because, as Maria says, “Such things are not publicized, and often not talked about even among the LGBTQ community for fear of ridicule. Most humans, straight or otherwise, can’t imagine why one would choose to live with someone AND be celibate, oh, the horror!” We know firsthand how real those sentiments are among church folk and within the LGBTQ community, and we’re also aware of how often coupled celibates are expected, or even directly instructed, to keep quiet.

Many LGBTQ people have told us that we should be quiet because sharing about our celibacy could be dangerous and set back decades of work for LGBTQ acceptance. We’ve lost track of the number of times church folk have told us that we should be quiet about our celibacy because, if we’re truly being obedient to our Christian tradition, why should discussing our celibacy matter? When celibate, LGBTQ people are instructed to remain silent about their celibacy, their sexual orientations, and their gender identities, the real experiences remain hidden. This prevents other Christians from acknowledging that, yes, there are celibate LGBTQ members of their churches. We know for a fact that we’re not the only celibate couple within our Christian tradition. We have many conversations where people thank us for being willing to open up about our experiences, challenge them to raise awkward questions, and deal with any negativity that may come our way as a result. We were glad to see Maria’s acknowledgement that celibate LGBTQ Christians are not automatically protected from judgment and discrimination.

While we are grateful that Maria trusts our agenda without qualification and does not believe, as some do, that everyone has an agenda that can be categorized into one of two polar extremes, we have to disagree with her assertion that stories are never just stories. People tell stories for all kinds of different reasons that are agenda-driven, but this isn’t always the case. The two of us frequently play random games of “Tell me a story.” Typically, Lindsey will interrupt something else that’s going on just to hear a story. Sarah may share a fun memory from childhood that just happens to come to mind, a completely fictional story, or a story about the adventures of a hamster. We tell stories to each other like we want to tell stories to children. Not every story needs to be a morality play. Humans often tell stories to have fun and to get to know one another in different, deeper, and more intimate ways. It’s true that most often, there is some specific reason for the stories we tell on the blog, but usually the point we are trying to make by telling a story is obvious. And we’ve never told a story intended to convince anyone that our lives are more moral than another person’s.

We also disagree with Maria’s assessment that we are silent on issues explicitly relevant to non-celibate members of the LGBTQ community. If we read her correctly, she seems to believe that when LGBTQ celibates share our stories, we ought to indicate to the hearers where we stand on the question, “Is same-sex sexual activity sinful?” and celibates who don’t are failing to show support for non-celibate LGBTQ people. As we read the second half of Maria’s blog post, we thought of several instances where we’ve discussed our relationships with non-celibate friends. We’ve written posts about lessons we’ve learned from our friends in non-celibate relationships and ways that our non-celibate LGBTQ friends have been supportive of us during difficult seasons of life. We’ve also discussed a variety of issues that affect both celibate and non-celibate LGBTQ people such as workplace discrimination, legal protections to ensure that couples can meet healthcare and other needs, language policing, and the use of false information to “prove” that LGBTQ people are ill or have chosen their orientations. Given these, we wonder how a non-celibate LGBTQ person could possibly read our blog regularly and come to the conclusion that we only offer significant support for other celibates.

We also wonder why many involved in this discussion tend to reduce the idea of “support” to making the statement, “I don’t think it’s a sin if you have sex.” Neither one of us could ever imagine telling any person — gay, straight, or otherwise — “I affirm you and your sex life.” The thought of doing so strikes us as absurd, condescending, and presumptuous. As we once expounded upon at length in a comment, we believe that it’s far better to be good to people and to build close relationships with them when possible than to make direct judgments about the specifics of their intimate lives. The latter would require having detailed knowledge of their intimate lives, which are none of our business. We are curious: in what other areas of life would one suggest that showing support for a person requires an overt assertion of agreement with his or her beliefs and decisions? Take, for example, how we as cat owners interact with other cat owners. Regardless of what we believe about the morality of declawing cats, being there for someone who is raising a newly declawed kitten does not require us to state publicly that declawing isn’t sinful. And we’re pretty sure that our refraining from such a statement wouldn’t lead our feline-loving friends to think we would only visit if we’re allowed to inspect kitty paws before dinner. Some might argue that this example is trivial, but we would hypothesize that most people have meaningful relationships with others where no one is expected to proclaim boldly an opinion on the morality of everything. We don’t see why questions about someone’s level of sexual activity should be a special exception where everyone must state a judgment to the world.

Maria is not the first person to suggest that our abstention from discussing this issue indirectly validates the position opposite hers. We wonder whether she would still say, “The very polarization which A Queer Calling decries is embedded in the silence that they keep,” if she knew that very conservative people often assume that our “silence” somehow affirms gay sexual activity. Not long ago, we received a remarkably similar (although private) response from a priest who was convinced that we must be “flaming liberals” because we don’t say otherwise. To one reader, our story “looks an awful lot like an agreement that gay sexual activity, even within the bounds of marriage, remains ethically unacceptable for Christians.” To another, it appears to be just another cog in the “gay agenda.” Everyone interprets stories with their own experiences and biases in mind. Naturally, different hearers will extrapolate different meanings from any story. Sometimes, only the teller knows the full context of a story’s meaning.

It troubles us to think that the current conversation about LGBTQ people and the Church has become singularly focused on publicly affirming or condemning someone’s private behavior. We would estimate that about 40% of the email correspondence we receive comes from people — both conservatives and liberals — who insist that we are not participating properly in this conversation because we have chosen to frame our discussions of difficult issues differently than “gay sex is a sin” or “gay sex is not a sin.” Should you be interested in more information about to why we frame our contribution to the conversation differently, consider reading this post. Every time we get an email saying that we’re approaching this discussion in the wrong way, we suspect we’ve said something that might be making a person uncomfortable because we’ve forced him or her think about a new set of questions.

Experimenting with shifting the conversation is not the same as silence. We believe the time has come to expand dialogue beyond the question, “Is gay sex a sin?” The two of us collectively have spent several years engaging in both real life and internet discussions about how acceptable or unacceptable same-sex sexual activity is for Christians. To be sure, there are advantages associated with talking about the issues in these terms. But it limits the conversation to one question — a question that is often answered with a simple “Yes” or “No” by people who already have set convictions. We find ourselves bemused when some authors who call for more nuance in dialogue about sexuality, gender identity, relationships, and Christian discipleship include an obligatory statement — in every post they write — of, “Gay sexual activity can never be affirmed,” or “We must always affirm people’s personal choices to enter sexual relationships.” We imagine this is an attempt to signal, “Hey, it’s okay to read my stuff because I’m on your side in this debate.” If other writers see it as necessary to assert these beliefs frequently, they are free to do so. But that doesn’t obligate us to do the same. Last time we checked, no one individual owns this conversation. The issue of whether same-sex sexual activity is sinful or not matters. It’s extremely important. However, we think that there are other important questions to discuss when talking about LGBTQ people and the Church, and we see it as unreasonable for some bloggers to insist that every other blogger must offer a public affirmation or condemnation of gay sex.

When we began A Queer Calling, the two of us were of one mind about attempting to initiate a different kind of conversation here than what we have seen and continue to see in other places. As LGBTQ Christians, our struggles to find love within the Church, the challenges we face in the world, and the joys we experience are far more complex than what we choose to do (or not) in our private lives. We do not believe for an instant that our approach here is some superior, enlightened pathway between harmful extremes, but we do find it odd that so many people seem to be waiting around for us to start arguing for one side or the other. If that’s you, we inform you without regret that you’re in for a very long wait. Maria is absolutely right to assert that what one says publicly has consequences, and sometimes the cost is high. This isn’t just for people who make public statements about gay sexual activity. The road we’ve chosen also comes at a great cost. Because of our difference in approach, there are some celibate and non-celibate LGBTQ and ally voices who would probably never consider agreeing with us publicly on anything. But we believe strongly in the purpose we’ve made clear from our very first day of blogging, and we’re willing to accept that reality and continue interacting with everyone who is interested in talking with us.

We’ve found that by focusing our writings in direction that most people are not accustomed to seeing on LGBTQ Christian blogs, we can extend hospitality and a place for conversation to folks who would otherwise be without a space they see as safe for their participation. We feel honored each time someone contacts us to say that he or she was completely exasperated by the current conversation until finding our blog. Because we believe that hospitality is a central component of our celibate vocation, we strive to be as welcoming as possible to everyone who comes our way. If Maria were to visit our city, we would, without qualification, invite her to stay in our home as a guest and participate — as much as she felt inclined — in every aspect of our daily prayer life and other activities. We would sit around our dining room table with her and enjoy shared meals and stories. We would also invite her to attend church with us on Sunday. The extent to which she would be permitted to participate in the service would be between her and our priest, as is true for all visitors we and other parishioners bring. We would treat Maria exactly as we treat all who enter our doorway regardless of their celibacy or non-celibacy, and we fail to understand why someone would perceive us as keeping him or her from a table at which we are welcome.

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