Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (14 page)
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Authors: Wesley Hill
Many times in my experience with homosexuality I have wished my life was different, that I had some other burden to bear—anything but this one. But I have also felt that if Someone is watching—taking note; caring about each footfall, each bend in the trail; marking my progress—then the burden may be bearable.
When the road is long and the loneliness and sheer longing threaten to extinguish hope, it helps to remember that, like Frodo and Sam, I, too, am in a grand tale, with an all-seeing, all-caring Reader or Listener who also happens to be in some mysterious way
the Author. Sam of The Lord of the Rings trilogy believed there would be listeners and readers who would want to know the story of this struggle. I believe that in my case, too, there is Someone who cares about my story. Unlike Sam and Frodo’s, my story and the depths of my struggle may never be observed or known by any human watcher. But I can still endure—I can keep on fighting to live faithfully as a believer bearing my broken sexuality—so long as I have the assurance that my life matters to God, that, wonder of all wonders, my faith pleases him, that somehow it makes him smile.
Martin Hallett is a celibate homosexual Christian who grasped many of the insights I have been writing about in this chapter long before I did. He is farther down the road than I am, and I look to him as a scout who has run ahead and reported back to those of us who are tempted to lag behind.
Martin holds to the traditional Christian teaching about homosexual activity. Like me and many other gay believers, he is convinced that God’s will for him is to abstain from homoerotic behavior. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, Martin speaks of his homosexual orientation as a “gift.” So many people, he says, can only see their experiences of homosexuality “as problems to be ‘defeated,’ and ‘handicaps’ to be ‘healed.’”
16
But for Martin, his homosexuality is a “positive thing”—not so much because it is good in and of itself but rather because, under God’s sovereignty, it can lead to blessings. “Scripture continually shows us that even bad things can have value,” Martin says frequently.
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Early on in his life as a Christian living in England, Martin found that his homosexuality gave him a ministry in the church. Under the guidance of a wise vicar, Canon Roy Barker, Martin shared his
story through an organized event for anyone in the church interested in the topic of homosexuality. “[Canon Barker] saw a lot of potential in me,” Martin would later write, “—not despite my homosexuality, but because of it.”
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Martin says that, though he couldn’t see it at the time, these early ministry experiences caused him to see his homosexual orientation as valuable, as positive, as something that could be used to help others in the body of Christ.
“My life story…, ‘written’ by God, who is sovereign, include [s] my sexuality, which is a gift to the church,” writes Martin. “I am very grateful that I see this experienced nearly every day of my life. I am able to see my struggles and failures, as well as my victories, as being of value to others.”
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Our sexuality “can be a gift to others,” he continues. “We may use it to encourage someone else. We may use it simply to love and trust another person with a sexual confession.”
Martin compares this process of entrusting another person with the story of our homosexuality to “unwrapping a gift.” “The gift is one of self-disclosure. You are trusting the other with personal information that can often cost a lot, but it is a wonderful act of love.”
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I think of my own experiences of opening up the narrative of my journey as a homosexual Christian with friends at my church in Minneapolis. Invariably (though I didn’t believe them at the time) they told me it felt like love; my trusting them enough to share my story was an honor, they said, a sacred trust. “We need to recognize the ministry that we and others have, not despite our unique stories and situation, but because of them,” says Martin.
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Not only does our homosexuality give us a unique ministry within the church; it provides us with a greater sense of our woundedness and therefore of our dependence on God. It forces
us, day by day, to rely not so much on total moral transformation now but rather on our forgiveness, the erasure of our guilt through Christ’s death on the cross. Our homosexuality, says Martin, “draws us closer to God.”
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Near the beginning of his Christian life, Martin went through a time of freedom from oppressive sexual temptation. He happily served in his large evangelical church and was blessed with a thriving ministry to many different people. Later, though, temptation returned. Martin had been involved in same-sex partnerships before he came to Christ, and now the old desires and struggles were reemerging. But it was too late to go back. Martin knew he had come too far to return. “I wanted to go on with Christ,” he says, “and I began to see even my struggles as positive. Through them, my sexuality was telling me more about myself, and ultimately more about God’s love and forgiveness.”
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For Martin, homosexuality “speaks” of brokenness, of past hurts and wounds.
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It calls us to consider our own lives and to trust in the mystery of God’s providence and his gift of redemption through Christ. With patience and openness to the good that may come even from evil, we can learn to “hear” the voice of our sexuality, to listen to its call. We can learn to “appreciate the value of our story and the stories of others, because God is the ‘potter’ or ‘storyteller’.”
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Slowly, ever so slowly, I am learning to do this. I am learning that my struggle to live faithfully before God in Christ with my homosexual orientation is pleasing to him. And I am waiting for the day when I will receive the divine accolade, when my labor of trust and hope and self-denial will be crowned with his praise. “Well done, good and faithful servant,” the Lord Christ will say. “Enter into the joy of your master.”
BY KATHRYN GREENE-MCCREIGHT
If one member suffers, all suffer together…
1 Corinthians 12:26
I
N
1 C
ORINTHIANS
12,
THE APOSTLE
P
AUL
speaks about the unity of the body of Christ. He notes that each part of the body has a unique role and function. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.…’” (1 Corinthians 12:21). All who claim Christ as risen Lord are members of his body and are individually members of it.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Western world witnessed the development of various movements of liberation, among them gay liberation. Since that time, we have seen the increasing cultural acceptance of gay and lesbian people on their own terms. This movement has made inroads, not only into Western society, but also into Christian churches of every denomination and communion, particularly in the United States.
Wesley Hill does not locate himself within the gay liberation movement as it has gained power within Christian churches. He displays for the reader his own life as a homosexual, with his desires and passions toward his own sex. This he shares with those in the gay liberation movement. But Wesley disagrees in
his response to his passions. Since his highest love is the triune God, he understands his unique vocation (as a gay Christian) to be celibate.
In keeping with the apostolic teaching and tradition, Wesley Hill accepts that homosexual sex is not part of God’s original creative intention for humanity. Rather, it is a tragic sign of human sin, which issues in fractured relationships. His thesis will no doubt be unpopular on both the left and the right of this polarized debate. Even so, he can say: “To renounce homosexual behavior is to say yes to full, rich, abundant life” (see page 79). Jesus’ promise is true for the homosexual as well: “I have come that they may life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
Wesley Hill’s experience poses a crucial question to Christian churches on both the left and right of the debate over homosexual sex. As a gay man, he is more than willing to sacrifice a life of partnership with another gay man because of his lived-out obedience to the triune God. However, loneliness remains a fact of his life. This is a reality faced not only by those who choose a celibate gay life but by any unmarried Christian.
How can this stark loneliness exist in the life of a member of the body of Christ?
If one member suffers, all suffer together.
For the heterosexual Christian, the loneliness of one can possibly become the companionship of two, but for the gay/lesbian celibate Christian, the loneliness they face is potentially unremitting. The reality of loneliness and isolation of the celibate gay/lesbian Christian needs to be held close in thought and prayer.
In light of all this, how should we respond? Do we (heterosexual Christians) simply cast our glances aside from our brothers and sisters who struggle with homosexual desires? Can we
continue to ignore the isolation these brothers and sisters experience within the body of Christ? Are we afraid to hear about the same-sex desire of brothers or sisters for whom Jesus Christ died, even when they choose the narrow path of celibacy, despite the attendant trials of loneliness and solitude. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’…If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:21, 26-27).
We who are the body of Christ must show the love, joy, hope, and fellowship of the gospel to all who are part of the body. This is especially true in this day and age with regard to those who, for the sake of the narrow gate of the gospel, find their vocation in celibacy—even when it may include personal pain and isolation.
Introduction
1.
Philip Yancey,
Soul Survivor
(New York: Doubleday, 2001), 269—70.
2.
See, for just a few examples among many recent articles and books, Stephen E. Fowl,
Engaging Scripture: A Model for Theological Interpretation
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1998); Jeffrey Heskins,
Face to Face: Gay and Lesbian Clergy on Holiness and Life Together
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006); Sylvia C. Keesmaat, “Welcoming in the Gentiles: A Biblical Model for Decision Making,” in
Living Together in the Church: Including Our Differences,
ed. Greig Dunn and Chris Ambidge (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 2004), 30-49.
3.
Chad W. Thompson,
Loving Homosexuals as Jesus Would: A Fresh Christian Approach
(Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2004).
4.
J. I. Packer, “Why I Walked,”
Christianity Today 47
(January 21, 2003): 46.
5.
Martin Hallett, “Homosexuality: Handicap and Gift,” in
Holiness and Sexuality: Homosexuality in a Biblical Context,
ed. David Peterson (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 2004), 121.
6.
Ibid., 130-31, 145.
7.
C. S. Lewis,
The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses
(1949; repr., New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 39.
1.
Barbara Brown Taylor,
When God Is Silent
(Cambridge, Mass.: Cowley, 1998), 110.
2.
Gordon Hugenberger, “Questions and Answers on Issues Related to Homosexuality and Same-Sex Marriage,” June 15, 2004,
http://www.parkstreet.org/ qa_homosexuality.
3.
Richard Bewes, “The New Hampshire Decision: Statement from All Souls Church, Langham Place, London Wi, November 2003.”
4.
Henri J. M. Nouwen,
The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming
(New York: Doubleday, 1992), 14.
5.
Rainer Maria Rilke,
Letters to a Young Poet
(New York: Norton, 1954), 34.
1.
See especially Richard B. Hays,
The Moral Vision of the New Testament
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), chapter 16, “Homosexuality.” The
church’s traditional teaching on homosexuality is being challenged today by churches and individual Christians (for a carefully reasoned, elegant example of such a challenge, see Eugene Rogers,
Sexuality and the Christian Body: Their Way into the Triune God
[Oxford: Blackwell, 1999]), but Hays’s chapter still represents the widespread consensus of the majority of churches because it takes seriously the plain sense of Scripture.
2.
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons
(October 1986), paragraph 7,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaithfdocuments/ rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html.
3.
John Piper, “Beliefs about Homosexual Behavior and Ministering to Homosexual Persons: Resolution Passed by the Baptist General Conference in Annual Meeting, Estes Park, Colorado” (June 27, 1992),
http://www.desiringgod.org/ ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/ 1992/1499_Beliefs_about_Homosexual_Behavior_and_Ministering_to_Homosexual_Persons/.
4.
George A. Lindbeck,
The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 34.
5.
Ibid., 35.
6.
Scott Bader-Saye, “Living the Gospels: Morality and Politics,” in
The Cambridge Companion to the Gospels,
ed. Stephen C. Barton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 282 n. 14.
7.
Hays,
Moral Vision of the New Testament,
393.
8.
Robert Jenson, “Dr. Jenson on what makes for a good bishop” (a letter written to the Right Reverend Stephen Bouman),
http://www.freerepublic.com/ focus/f-religion/1857394/posts.