The Way, The Truth, and The Life—John 14:6

Once I understood that the feelings I was having probably meant that I was homosexual, I had to come to terms with that.  It was not easy.  I had never once in my life been told that it was okay to be gay.  One of the early books I read while trying to figure all of this out was one called Finding the Boyfriend Within: A Practical Guide for Tapping into Your Own Source of Love, Happiness, and Respect by Brad Gooch.  Who is the Boyfriend Within? Simply put, he embodies “qualities we find attractive in ourselves but often imagine others to possess more fully, as well as … dormant qualities we wish to nurture and grow.”  The main lesson I learned from this was the technique where you basically schedule a date with yourself.  You dress nicely, cook a wonderful meal, and have a romantic evening with just you.  At first, I thought this would be my answer.  I could love myself and be content with a celibate life.

That was not the answer.  I still wanted the love of another man, and I still do want to find that man.  I wanted to feel another man in my arms, to be held by another man, to kiss another man, to make love to another man, etc.  These were all things I longed for, and things I could not give myself.  However, the struggle that I ultimately faced was: What would my family say?  How would God judge me?  So I began to pray and mediate on the subject.  I did what research I could back then, though I am a much better researcher now (thank you, graduate school).  What I came to realize back then was that God will always love me and never forsake me.  Though I won’t claim that God spoke to me like a burning bush in the desert, I do believe that the Holy Spirit allowed my heart to understand.  My faith could/would/will remain strong and never waiver.  It never did and never has.  The question was whether or not I could act on my homosexuality.  And at certain points I have been very promiscuous, which I do not think God smiled upon, but he did forgive me, and that is the most important thing.  God forgives.  God loves. God will not forsake us.

I love what Justin O’Shea had to say in a recent post in his blog Justin Dunes:

Let me tell you, briefly, I hope, what is at the bottom or foundation of me.  I’ve worked on this and as we joke about here “I am a work of art in progress. . . .always becoming.  .”  I hold fast to this.  We are created in the image and likeness of God. Love does such things. . .Love engenders and creates love.  Being a gay man is part of God’s gift to me. . .how I live this out is my gift to God. . . .and to others.. . .because to be real  ‘religion is relationships – God… Justin . . .and everyone else.’
How I love is how I live and vice versa.  I believe too that God has given me all I need to become. . .grow into the man He created me to be.  All I have to do is use what I have been given. . .and. . .as I use and share this I receive more to keep on going. . 

One of the most important reasons that I was able to come to these same conclusions is through the loving relationships I had with my friends who welcomed my sexuality and never, not once, made me feel bad about it.  My family has been another struggle, one that I hope I will be able to resolve some day.  If you are struggling with sexuality and religion, then know that I am here to help.  I started these posts to reach out to other GLBT Christians and to GLBT members of the Churches of Christ.  I know there are other GLBT members of the Churches of Christ out there, and I do hope that they eventually come across these posts.  We need the strength that friends can supply, we need the strength that God can supply, and we need the strength that our GLBT community can supply.

Overcome Evil with Good (Romans 12:21)

What We Should Do As Gay Christians?


How do we move forward from here?  First of all, we must realize that not all heterosexual Christians hate us.  Yes, there are fundamentalists who will always hate us, and not much can be done to stop them.  Their answers are not for us. There is no need to pretend to ourselves and others to be straight.  There is no need to turn to celibacy, especially when we are in a committed relationship.

Dr. Randall Maddox, a professor at Pepperdine University, makes some great points about the Bible and homosexuality.  In an article in the Pepperdine student newspaper, Graphic, Maddox states:

As I understand it, the Bible says nothing about homosexuality as we use the term today.  It neither accepts nor rejects it, and, yes, I am very aware of the biblical passages that appear to address the issue.  To decide what we should do with it, I believe we must look to broader biblical principles that might seem unrelated on the surface. 
This should not be disconcerting, for we have already done this on a number of issues.  Slavery is an issue about which we have drawn conclusions that contradict the accepted practice of all societies in scripture and effectively dismiss some of God’s specific commands.  To condemn slavery requires that we call on scriptures that do not address it, and discount those that do address it by appealing to overriding biblical principles. 
There are many other such questions, past, present and future.  Interracial marriage, whether women must wear veils in church and whether they are allowed to speak, whether men may have long hair, divorce and remarriage, when life begins, genetic engineering and cloning, environmental issues, the pros and cons of a capitalistic economy, globalization, poverty, genocide, and how we should relate to extraterrestrial life if we ever encounter it — all these are examples of issues that are either not addressed in scripture, or are very muddy.  We would shudder if someone suggested we follow the clear scriptural teachings and examples on such things as women’s issues or genocide.  We must not approach any of them simplistically.

For a mathematics professor, he makes a lot of sense.  (Lame attempt at a joke; I never was great at math.) The truth is, our interpretations of the Bible have changed.  We just need to be logical and knowledgeable about the Bible.  If we are able to answer their rhetoric we can make convincing arguments.  Those who do not have faith will find it difficult to debate religion with authority because they do not hold the faith that we have. Even though many non-believers are very knowledgeable about religion, most religious people will not take credence to their words merely because they do not have faith.  Therefore, we have to speak the language of our persecutors and know how to refute them.

So I want to end this post with a few last thoughts from Professor Maddox in his response to another article by Pepperdine Accounting Professor Marilyn Misch, who had written an article stating that homosexuals should remain celibate. (The entire foundation of Dr Misch’s article lies in the following syllogism:  All sexual relations outside of marriage are sin.  Homosexual relations are (by definition) outside marriage.)  Here are Professor Maddox’s final remarks:

[First,] the reality of homosexuality is very difficult to sort out in the context of faith, even if one is forced to face it in a loved one, or in oneself.  Many faith traditions are addressing the question, are at different points on the journey, and are drawing different conclusions as they go.  I am not claiming here to present definitive answers to the biblical questions.  I am merely proposing that Dr. Misch did not present them either. 
Second, it is against my nature to write as I have written here, especially when I realize how incompletely I have addressed a complex issue.  The reason I must write is that I feel for the many readers of Dr. Misch’s article who are struggling with the reality of homosexuality in the context of faith, only to find their situation, indeed their entire selves, reduced by her article to a simplistic and faulty syllogism, implying that their entire sexual and romantic natures are nothing more than an inclination to sin.  Such undiscerning judgment has done much damage to struggling Christians.
This judgment has reduced many people to despair and led to their ultimate suicide.  And it was not because they lacked a support structure to resist temptation; it was because the romantic attraction and, yes, the love they felt for another was called sinful, and absurdly compared to such things as the addiction of alcoholism, the predatory abusiveness of pedophilia, or the birth of a retarded child.  In their hearts these struggling people wondered if their love was really like these tragedies. 
Furthermore, I know of many deeply religious people who threw away their faith, either because the dichotomy produced by simplistic exegesis was the source of irreconcilable internal contradiction, or because they tired of the naïve and undiscerning arguments presented by those who clearly could not understand their situation but claimed to represent God. 
Finally, I do not want us to be polarized by the issue of homosexuality.  Simplistic arguments in black and white can only polarize a community.  Life and faith are much more colorful and complex than Dr. Misch’s article suggests, and there will always be questions to which we do not have completely satisfying answers.  As a mathematician, I find such inconclusiveness disconcerting.  But I believe we must be willing to live with some inconclusiveness, even on matters as volatile as homosexuality, and even when it produces dissonance within our own hearts and disagreements between us. 
We all have much to learn, and much we have never experienced.  I accept that some questions do not have clear answers, and I have learned to live with the dissonance, not because I am content with it or because it allows me to live how I please, but because I am on a journey of faith.  God is leading me somewhere, and I am doing my best to follow.

The next post will be my final post in this series on Religion and Sexuality, and after that, we will return to our regularly scheduled program.

Three times in this section we find the expression “God gave them up (over)” (Romans 1:24,26,28). The point is clear: when people choose to reject God, or to recreate Him in their own image, God “gives them up” to “go their own way.” Unrestrained by God in any way, they gravitate into increasing levels of immorality! For some, it involves heterosexual immorality, such as pre-marital sex or adultery. But for others, it includes homosexuality and lesbianism.

I will never understand Copeland’s belief that God gives up on homosexuals.  Of all of the statements that I read in my research, this is THE most ludicrous. However, his statements only became worse:

And what is the consequence of such behavior? The apostle Paul referred to such people as: “…receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.” (Romans 1:27) An illusion to sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS? We cannot say for certain, but none can dispute that those who are willing to follow God’s Word as to sexual conduct have less to fear about STD’s than those who choose to disregard Him!

Matthew 5: 1-12, known as the Beatituteds is the best refutation of these statements by Copeland.  Read them and consider for yourself:

And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

These are not the words of Paul or one of the disciples, these are the words of Christ.  Few, if any, Christians would deny that these are the words of Christ.  The “Sermon on the Mount” as found in Matthew Chapters 5-7, are the cornerstones of the Christian faith.  In the “Sermon on the Mount” Jesus laid out for us the plan for salvation and eternal life.  It is our guidebook, and we should take it seriously.

Also, we can use the Epistles of Paul as our guide to the truth of God’s love.  In Ephesians 4:15, Paul says “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.”  We who profess to be Christians should remember the admonition of the apostle Paul when it comes to sharing God’s Word with those with whom we differ:

“And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” (2 Timothy 2:24-26)

There is no place for a self-righteous, arrogant attitude on the part of those who but for the grace of God would be just as guilty of sins as those we are trying to reach!

In June 2002, Dr. Larry Keene, a founder of the “Church of the Valley” in Van Nuys, California, presented a lecture, “How Our Church Dealt with Gay Christians” at Pepperdine University, a Church of Christ school, where about 300 people attended the Convocation that was sponsored by Amnesty International in cooperation with Pepperdine’s Gay-Lesbian-Straight Alliance (GLSA).  The Pepperdine student newspaper, Graphic, published several articles (letters to the editor) about this lecture.  In one of them, a student, Jared Stuart, wrote an article titled “Pro-Con: Does the Bible accept homosexuality?” In this article, Stuart states that

One young woman rose up with the Bible in her hand and began defending her theological position. It became apparent that the Bible was the theological source of authority for most in attendance. It became even more apparent that many in the audience viewed the Bible as a literal, evangelical and fundamental source of authority.
Their point of view disabled them from seeing a contrasting perspective. They were there to defend the truth. But does the truth really need defending? Does not the truth eventually stand the test of time, and will it not eventually become self-evident within human consciousness regardless of whatever authority stands against it?

Stuart continued by stating:

Throughout the Bible there are equal and opposite points of views for any one subject. This dual perspective allows us to grapple with the very nature of God, and thus respond like he would in our daily lives.
I do not think it was his intention for us to handle the modern issues we are facing by using canonized letters, written among sister churches 2000 years ago, as a source of legal code for today’s events.

It is for this exact reason, conversely, that we must not use time-encapsulated passages within the Bible to condemn the practice of homosexuality, an orientation which has existed within nature and society for as long as humans can remember.
Common sense leads a human being to the conclusion that monogamous homosexuality is just as moral as monogamous heterosexuality. Perhaps not as common, but certainly as moral.
When one ceases to view the Bible from a literal, evangelical and fundamental perspective, one does not cease to see Christ as his or her complete Lord and Savior. I would wager to say that one sees him as Savior even more. This is the church’s responsibility and duty — to convey to believers the noble right and awesome task to use the Scriptures wisely.

We may not be able to use the Bible as our final authority on sexual orientation. But as we search for the truth, we can and should use the Bible as our final authority on how we should treat one another along the way. A young Jewish scholar once asked Jesus:

Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22: 36-40)

We cannot let hate consume our faith.  Too often, ministers preach about what is wrong.  They should be teaching what is right.  As I have said before, one of the great things about my personal minister is that he preaches/teaches about how to be better humans and Christians, not the hellfire and damnation that too many ministers make the cornerstone of their sermons.  Remember, God is Love, Truth is Love, and as Christians, to love God is the greatest of commandments.

My next post will examine what we should do as Gay Christians.

The Truth Shall Set You Free—John 8:32

I have a friend from graduate school, who is Catholic, who always said that the only problem he had with homosexuality was that they could only have pre-marital sex. Since gay people could not be married, they could not have marital sex.  Now I do have to give a caveat here:  My friend is from San Francisco and is a married heterosexual, and he was just as much a promiscuous fornicator before his marriage as the rest of us, but because he is now married he believes that he can take the high road.  I’m not faulting him on this, just stating the facts.

Being a member of the Church of Christ, this is really a non-issue because marriage is not a religious sacrament within the church.  Marriages are recognized whether they are performed in the church by  a minister or by a secular authority.  The only true doctrinal differences my friend and I had was over the idea of a Pope and the Eucharist.  He firmly believed, as most Catholics do, that the Eucharist, or the Rite of Transubstantiation, the change, in the Eucharist, of the substance of wheat bread and grape wine into the substance of the Body and Blood (respectively) of Jesus, while all that is accessible to the senses remains as before.  The Church of Christ, as does many Protestant churches, believe that the Lord’s Supper is a merely symbolic act done in remembrance of what Christ has done for them on the cross.  Sorry for the Catholics out there (no offense is meant), but I have always seen the Eucharist/Communion as symbolic and really do not see the difference because Catholics will still say that all that is accessible to the senses remains the bread and wine as before. (A side note, our church does use grape juice instead of wine mainly because we have underage people who are members of the church.  In the past, the lady who always put together the communion would occasionally use her own home-made muscadine wine if she had not been to the store that week to get the grape juice. It was always quite fun to see the look on people’s faces when they realized this substitution.)

With this introduction aside, there is still much controversy going on as to whether homosexuality is genetic or environmental in origin. (If you have been reading these posts, then you know that I believe/know that homosexuality is genetic and natural.) Many theologians believe it should be easy to understand why, for if “God made them that way” then it is not their fault they are homosexual and it must not be a sin to act out their desires. I personally do not need any research that might suggest a genetic origin as a defense. Many Christians believe that it is either environmental or that there is a predominance to be homosexual and thus can be “resisted.”

The Components For Developing A Predisposition To Homosexuality



Tim LeHaye wrote a book called The Unhappy Gays: What Everyone Should Know About Homosexuality.  LeHaye believed that there were components that were the basis for developing a predisposition to homosexuality.  He stated that a person can (and many do) have all these components and still not be a homosexual. As listed and described by LaHaye, these components include:

• A Melancholy Temperament
• Inadequate Parental Relationships
• Permissive Childhood Training
• Insecurity About Sexual Identity
• Childhood Sexual Trauma
• Early Interest In Sex
• Youthful Masturbator And Sexual Fantasizer

• A Melancholy Temperament:  Yes, I and many others in the GLBT community do have a “melancholy temperament,” which I think of as the genetic tendency for depression. My mother suffers from depression and so do I.  However, Prozac is a wonder drug and has helped me combat this.  Did this have anything to do with my homosexuality? NO!
• Inadequate Parental Relationships:  I had wonderful relationships with my parents.  I may not have had the best relationship with my father, but what son doesn’t often disagree with their father?  Go back and read my Father’s Day post to see more of our relationship. Did this have anything to do with my homosexuality? NO!
• Permissive Childhood Training: My parents were quite strict with me growing up.  There was very little if anything that I was allowed to get away with.  My mother was a nurse and being the second child, my early childhood development went easily but was handled firmly by my parents.  I know that some people who were raised too strictly grew up to be quite wild.  Think of any preacher’s kids that you know.  I was not raised that strictly, but strict enough with a set of values that I still cherish.  Did this have anything to do with my homosexuality? NO!
• Insecurity About Sexual Identity:  I never thought I was a little girl.  I have an older sister, who was my main playmate growing up, but she was very much a tomboy and we explored the countryside around our house.  We climbed trees, played games, etc.  I did not play with dolls, nor did I play with toy trucks either.  I loved G.I. Joe.  How more American boy could you be?  I never dressed up like a girl or put on make-up.  I never did any of those things that are seen as insecurities about sexual identity.  I was a boy, and I loved the fact that I had a penis.  Did this have anything to do with my homosexuality? NO! Well, okay maybe the love of my penis, but that had nothing to do with sexual identity. It juts meant that I was proud to be a boy.
• Childhood Sexual Trauma: None whatsoever. There is nothing more to say about that.
• Early Interest In Sex: Not really.  I didn’t even understand about sex until I was a teenager, when my sister explained to me what it was.  I was fairly naïve and did not even really know what homosexuality was until I was in my teens and past puberty. I knew I had feelings for guys, but didn’t know what it meant.
• Youthful Masturbator And Sexual Fantasizer:  In this instance, does “youthful” mean pre-puberty or post-puberty.  If LeHaye is speaking of puberty onward, then we are all youthful masturbators and sexual fantasizers.  I have only ever known one guy who did not masturbate (but he did have a lot of sex).  He did not masturbate because his father was a Baptist minister, and he had been taught that masturbation was a sin.  Instead, he had lots of sex with different girls and did not consider a handjob as a form of masturbation.  I first masturbated around the age of 13 when puberty was in full swing. (It came as quite a surprise to me when semen [which I had no idea what it was] came out of my penis after my first attempt, but it was a lot of fun and like most young guys, it became a somewhat regular routine.)  Did this have anything to do with my homosexuality? NO!

The Bible is completely silent on the issue of homosexual orientation. And no wonder. Homosexual orientation wasn’t even known until the 19th century.

The discovery that some of us are created and/or shaped in our earliest infancy toward same-gender attraction was made in the last 150 years. Biblical authors knew nothing about sexual orientation. Old Testament authors and Paul assumed all people were created heterosexual, just as they believed the earth was flat, that there were heavens above and hell below, and that the sun moved up and down.

In 1864, almost 3,000 years after Moses and at least 18 centuries after the apostle Paul, the German social scientist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs was the first to declare that homosexuals were a distinct class of individuals. It was a big moment for all sexual minorities. It’s our Columbus discovering the New World. It’s our Madame Curie discovering radium used for Xrays. It’s our Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. It may seem like one small step for the rest of humanity, but it was a giant leap for us.

Ulrichs assured the world of what we who are homosexual already know in our hearts. We aren’t just heterosexuals choosing to perform same-sex behaviors. We are a whole class of people whose drive to same-sex intimacy is at the very core of our being from the very beginning of our lives.

Although the word homosexual was not used for the first time until later in the 19th century, Ulrichs recognized that homosexuals had been around from the beginning of recorded time, that we were “innately different from heterosexuals,” and that our desire for same-sex intimacy and affiliation is intrinsic, natural, inborn and/or shaped in earliest infancy. According to Dr. Ulrichs, what may have looked “unnatural” to Moses and Paul was in fact “natural” to homosexuals.  Therefore, if Paul did not have a concept of homosexuality, how could he have been denouncing it?  The answer is simple, he could not have been.

One of the arguments that Christians use to ignore or denounce homosexuality is that God has given up on us.  I will be discussing this in my next post.