THE HUMILITY THAT CAN COME THROUGH BEING GAY

'For many high achieving, self-controlled, virtuous and dutiful homosexuals, the gay thing is the first thing that made them admit that they couldn't order their lives through willpower alone.'

Eve Tushnet, Tenderness, p.113.

THE RIGHT LONGINGS BEHIND OUR WRONG DESIRES

'What is bent when I experience that internal pull to homoeroticism? Well, actually, quite a lot about me is bent. My sexuality may be the least of my issues. But when considering homoerotic temptation, what else is going on? Certainly, this is not less than the temptation of indwelling sin; it is more than that. That's always how sin works.

What good thing has been bent? What is going on?

For one thing, we're dealing with a legitimate God-given human human longing for community. Yes, this longing has become sexualized in ways that distort God's creational design. But it is a legitimate longing nonetheless. It might be a longing for healthy intimacy - to know and be known. It might be a longing for acceptance, a need to feel wanted. Our longings for intimacy, community, and friendship, our longings to be loved and accepted, our recognition of human beauty - these are not evils. The longing for nurture, inclusion, and affirmation are not evils. The longing to matter to someone, to be unique and special to them, the longing for family - don't you dare call these sin. They are core human needs we all share as image bearers of God. We all long to be delighted in. We all long for companionship. We all long to be seen inside and out. These longings are good longings placed there by God.

God does not call us to put these to death,. These are not sin. They are part of how he created us as human beings designed for relationship. These are good longings that inborn sin bends in spiritually unhealthy directions. Sin over desires the good, to our own damage. That's how sin works - by blending the good. That's true for all of us.'

Greg Johnson, Still Time to Care: What we can learn from the church's failed attempt to cure homosexuality, p.137.

HOW GENDER EFFECTS SAME-SEX SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS

'Men and women tend to conduct their relationships differently and exhibit different preferences in their relationships. When the partnership diverges from sexual complementarity - that is, a man and a woman in relationship - decidedly sex-typed preferences are consolidated, not moderated. It means that same-sex couple are ironically more subject to deep-rooted gendered patterns and habits, their stated egalitarian attitudes aside. There is nothing political about this; it is just the empirical reality, one that sexual economics make ready sense of. If the sexes were a simple social construction, utterly malleable, we should see very little distinction in how men and women pursue relationships, how they act within them, how they act apart from them, what they prioritize about them and how they conclude them. But we see all of that.'

Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex, p.158. 

A FACT OF GAY LIFE?

'...all of the successful, happy gay couples I know, the ones who show an enviable depth of emotional commitment have one thing in common, and that is that they look for, and find, sex outside their loving relationship. This is a fact of gay life. I do not think that this vitiates the quality of their commitment in any way whatsoever. It merely suggests what is obvious about gay men - and therefore, of men in general, since gay culture is nothing if not a laboratory in which to see what masculinity does without the restraints imposed by women: that sex for men is, finally, separable from affect.'  

Daniel Mendelsohn, The Elusive Embrace, p.82. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF SEXUAL DIFFERENCE?

'What is it like when two men have sex? In a way, it is like the experience of Tiresias; this is the real reason why gay men are uncanny, why the idea of gay men is disruptive and uncomfortable. All straight man who have engaged in the physical act of love know what it is like to penetrate a partner during intercourse, to be inside the other, all women who have had intercourse know what it is like to be penetrated, to have the other inside oneself. But the gay man, in the very moment that he is either penetrating his partner or being penetrated by him, know exactly what his partner is feeling and experiencing even as he himself has his own experience of exactly the opposite, the complementary act. Sex between men dissolves otherness into sameness, men into de, in a perfect suspension: there is nothing the partner doesn't know about the other. If the emotional aim of intercourse is a total knowing of the other, gay sex may be, in its way, perfect, because in it a total knowledge of the other's experience is, finally, possible. But since the object of that knowledge is already wholly know to each of the parties, the act is also, in a way, redundant. Perhaps it is for this reason that so many of us keep seeking repetition, as if depth were impossible.' 

Daniel Mendelsohn, The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity, p.73. 

BORN THAT WAY

'The single factor that has most clearly helped to change public opinion about homosexuality in the West has been the decision that homosexuality is in fact a 'hardware' rather than a 'software' issue.'

Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds, p.30. 

SEXUAL DOUBLE STANDARDS

'In society as large, when people come put as gay they are celebrated for having arrived at their natural end-point. For most people this is a decent recognition by society that there is no problem with them being who they are: they have arrived at a place that is natural and right for them. But one oddity of this position is that anybody who is gay and then subsequently decides they are straight will be the subject not just of a degree of ostracism and suspicion, but widespread doubt that they are are being honest about their true selves. A straight who becomes gay has settled. A gay who has become straight has rendered himself an object of permanent suspicion. From being strongly inclined towards straight the culture has settled with a mild inclination towards gay.'

Douglas Murray, The Madness of Crowds, p.22. 

WELL-MEANING BUT UNHELPFUL ENCOURAGEMENT

'Imagine if were heading for a quiet walk in the forest and someone came up to you. 

"Where are you going?" she asks.

"I'm going to the forest," you tell her.

"Wow," she gasps, stepping back. 

"Wow what?"

And then a tear forms in her eye. She places a hand on your shoulder. "You're so brave."

"Am I?"

"So incredibly brave. An inspiration, in fact."

And you would gulp, and go pale, and be permanently put off going into the forest.'

Matt Haig, Notes on a Nervous Planet, p.207.

WORRYING TOO MUCH ABOUT SEXUAL PURITY?

'The distrust that evangelical culture expresses toward deep friendship with those to whom we might experience attraction is a sign that it tends to regard sexual purity as the summum honum, or the highest good. This "purity culture" operates at a perpetual DEFCON 1 level, and regards any potential threats to sexual purity as existential danger. It exacerbates the problem of the sexualization of personhood by reducing the relational value of others to the extent that they might be a potential threat to sexual purity. The other side of the coin is also true; purity culture diminishes human personhood to the extent that it conditions people to view themselves as intrinsically sexual beings who are always on the verge of impurity.' 

Nate Collins, All But Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender & Sexuality, p.152.

HOW DEATH TRANSFORMS LIFE

'Life without death, death apprehended and death experienced as the pressing boundary of our subjective beings, then, is, is inhuman and leads to inhumanity. The judgement may sound like a paradox, but, in this case, it is not. The inhumanity of deathless humanity is the simple working out, in culture and psychology and finally in politics of a profound distortion. The great challenge and scandal of contemporary Western culture grows out of such a distortion. Euthanasia and embraced sterility (in, e.g., same-sex partnerships), for instance, are today lifted up as "humane" developments in our societies, as opposed, say, to the normal cultural disintegration of war. Yet all three phenomena are actually death-embracing in parallel ways.' 

Ephraim Radner, A Time to Keep: Theology, Mortality, and the Shape of Human Life, p.42. 

ALL OUR DESIRES REALISED IN HIM

'Thank you so much for the expression of your desire and hope.

You know already that the young, attractive, affectionate, caring, intelligent, spiritual and socially conscious gay man has only one name: God!'

Henri JM Nouwen, Love, Henri, p.343.

UNITING CONSERVATIVES & LIBERALS AROUND GOD'S ORDER OF THINGS

'At present "conservative" Christians are often vociferous on issues like abortion and homosexuality while embodying a Western consumer lifestyle and laughing off global warming. Liberal Christians tend to take environmental issues more seriously but are more cautious on "sin" and tend to be pro-choice and in favor of blessing same-sex unions. A recovery of the biblical notion of creation order and its allied motif of the antithesis that runs through the whole of creation would go a long way toward challenging this polarity. God's order applies as much to marriage and sexuality as it does to how we care for the earth. So, just as it is important that Christians hold onto God's order for marriage and sexuality and thus refuse to affirms same-sex relationships as normative, and just as they uphold the sanctity of human life and refuse to condone most practice of abortion, so too Christians must be clear that environmental destruction and Western-style consumerism is downright sin.' 

Craig G Bartholomew, Where Mortals Dwell, p.312. 

THE DAMAGE CAUSED BY HOMOPHOBIA

'Homophobia ruins the lives of gay people. It's often deadly, in fact, motivating both murder and suicide. I'm making a note of this now in the hope that what I say next doesn't come off as trivialising the LGBT victims of homophobia. or suggesting we should make this issue all about straight people. But homophobia is one of the earliest forces that conditions, and very often damages straight people too, particularly males. Boys, especially when they're in peer-driven environments like schools, fear others will think they're gay. They're taught to push out any remotely "effeminate" mannerisms or activities, to conceal their emotions, and ditch anything, or anyone, that may raise questions about their sexuality. They learn to treat women as mere objects that exist for their own pleasure, and are discouraged from forming platonic bonds with them (after all, the by whose friends are predominantly girls cannot be straight), and by doing so at such a crucial age, they fail to grasp the appropriate way to treat women and shut themselves off from the only people left in this environment who are likely to give a damn about their emotional problems and help them talk things through. They're forced to sacrifice hobbies they're genuinely interested in, choose subjects at school that aren't seen as girly - hell, pursue careers they don't really like because of a system that makes us decide the path our futures take before we're even old enough to drink. All to not look gay.' 

Jack Urwin, Man Up: Surviving Modern Masculinity, p.168. 

PATIENTLY LOSING AN ARGUMENT YOU CARE ABOUT

'It was not an argument about the right and wrong of farming. It was an argument about the way things were going to be in the foreseeable future. And he was losing that argument. He was now on the side that was losing it, and he was furious. He felt his anger singling him out. And he was exultant. He stood to discover that he was shaking.

For the foreseeable future, then, no argument would be effective against the blocks of economic power. Farmers were going to fail, taking the advice of Netherbough and his kind. And Netherbough and his kind were going to thrive, giving bad advice. And that was merely what was going to happen until the logical consequence of that course of success become intolerable. And then something else would happen. And who knew what? 

But that an argument was losing did not mean that it should not be made. It had already be made and it would be made again, not because he would make it, but because it always existed, it always had, and he belonged to it. He would stand up on it here, in Tommy Netherbough's office, in Tommy Netherbough's face. That it was losing did not mean it was beaten.' 

Wendell Berry, Remembering, p.71. 

GAY MARRIAGE

'Sadly, some influential voices within the modern church have been tempted to define Christian "love" as neutral soil into which we can plant whatever we choose. Giving his support to same-sex marriage, for instance, former pastor Rob Bell draws on Genesis 2 to explain that we need more love, more monogamy, more fidelity, and so on. When asked if he is "for same-sex marriage," he replied, "I am for marriage." Yet Genesis 2 is a strange text to use for such an assertion, forming as it does the cornerstone of Christian sexual anthropology. It shows that intimacy within heterosexual marriage is purposeful or teleological (it can bear new life), normative (it expresses God's intended design for sexual relationships), and comprehensive (the complementary natures and bodies of men and women in marriage are a reflection of God.). 

Bell's theological innovation replants Eden with a new moral ecology. Yet Christian love, as brought to life in scripture, is a flourishing garden with defined walls and keen discernment regarding what we cultivate and which fruit we taste. Even more so, following our retreat from Eden, there is a presumption that what we should cultivate is not what naturally grows within us. Indeed, our deepest desires are likely to lead us astray, and it took nothing less that God-in-the-flesh to reverse that destructive dynamic. It is strange, then, that parts of the church have been so eager in recent years to bless almost any form of sexual expression provided it is given and received with genuine feeling and continuity. This development is a reflection of the modern authentic self rather than the genuine Christian self. It demonstrates why Christian desire must be trained within the boundaries of Christian truth.'

Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex, p.177. 

THE PLAUSIBILITY PROBLEM

'If prohibitions against same-sex relationships on the basis of biblical injunctions are to be sustained as part of Christian discipleship and are not to be viewed warily as the inscrutable commands of a distant deity, some effort has to be made to show what human good they serve. Why is this the way of love? What glimpses of human fulfillment does it point to? If perhaps it is for some wider good of society for which I as an individual may have to sacrifice myself, what is that wider good, and why does it demand this sacrifice? If it is for my good, what good might that be, or is it simply the satisfaction of knowing that I have lives in accordance with God's standards? And what purposes of the God of love might be behind God's standards? Even if it is dangerous to use the love command to short-circuit the detailed task of moral discernment, love is the sum of the law, and it does lay on us that constraint to begin to indicate what kind of human good is waited on by prohibiting same-sex relationships.' 

Robert Song, Covenant and Calling, p.78. 

HOMOSEXUALITY

'...to caress that body which is of one's own sex is to caress one's self, and thus is not an escape of the self but an imprisonment within it.' 

John Williams, Augustus, p. 304. 

ROMANS 1 & HOMOSEXUAL PRACTICE

'...there is a relation between idolatry and homosexual practice which is much more clearly at work in this particular argument. The key correspondence lies in the fact that both involve turning away from the "other" to the "same". Although the nature (understood as that which is determined by God) argument is certainly valid, it does not explain as much, perhaps, as the in se model. The greater scope of this latter model is apparent from the fact that Paul uses it in connection with both the meta-sin of idolatry (worshipping "creation, rather than the creator") and in the particular instantation of homosexual practice... In 1.25, creation worships creation, rather than creator, that is to say, it turns away from God, and worships itself. This leads, correspondingly, to a similar structure of sexual relationships: men give up sexual activity with women for passion "for each other" (1.27). To put it another way:

Humanity should be orientated toward God but turns in on itself (Rom. 1.25).

Woman should be oriented toward man, but turns in on itself (Rom. 1.26).

Man should be oriented toward woman, but turns in on itself (Rom. 1.27). 

The meta-sin of creation turning in on itself toward self-worship, then, leads to sexual relationships which mirror this same turn in se.' 

Simon J Gathercole, 'Sin in God's Economy: Agencies in Romans 1 and 7' in Divine and Human Agency in Paul and his Cultural Environment (Edited by John MG Barclay & Simon J Gathercole), p. 164. 

SAME-SEX ATTRACTION

'Descriptive terms, such as "same-sex attracted" and "homoerotic," name particular aspects of sexuality. They encourage discussion of a spectrum of sexualities rather than specific sexual categories. I also prefer them because of their neutrality and serviceability, their simplicity and naivete. An individual can be homoerotic in some sexual domains and not in others. Similarly, one can be little or greatly same-sex attracted, in varying degrees and in varying ways. Using descriptive terms for the behavior includes gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people as well as those who refuse or resist labels for sexual identity. It also includes a person's having one or many same-sex encounters. So, too, virgins who would like to be sexual and /or romantic relationship with others can be included. A teen with same-sex attractions can feel separate from straight and gay adult-centered worlds or feel part of them. Describing same-sex behavior, feelings, and attitudes carries neither positive nor negative qualities, although some teenagers would disagree with this assertion, given the negative views of homosexuality in their own world.' 

Ritch C Savin-Williams, The New Gay Teenager, p.8. 

THE CHURCH & HOMOSEXUALITY

‘...this, in summary, is my charge against the Anglican modernists. Can they point to biblical authority for what, on any estimate, amounts to a disturbing challenge to the values assumed in both Testaments? No. Can they point to any divinely inspired religious leader since to whom has been revealed God’s benevolent intentions towards homosexuals? I know of no such saint or holy man. Most have taught the opposite. 

Can they honestly say that they would have drawn from Christ’s teaching the same lessons of sexual tolerance in 1000, or 1590, or indeed 1950? Surely not, for almost no such voices were heard then. 

In which case, to what does this “reform” amount? Like changes to Church teaching on divorce or Sunday observance, the new tolerance gains its force within the Anglican Communion from a fear of becoming isolated from changing public morals. Is that a reason for a Christian to modify his own morality? I cannot recall that Moses took this view of golden calf worship. Whispering beneath the modernisers’ soft aspirational language of love and tolerance, I hear an insistent “when in Rome, we must do as the Romans do. Times have changed.” Gays in particular should be very wary of that message; some of us remember when it was used against us, and such a time may come again.

A religion needs a compass. Logic alone does not point the way and religion adds to the general stick of human reasonableness a new directional needle – if it adds anything at all. I cannot read the Gospels in any way other than as declaring that this was revealed to man by God through Jesus. Revelation, therefore, not logic, must lie at the core of the Church message. You cannot pick and choose from revealed truth.’

Matthew Parris, ‘No God would not have approved of Gay Bishops’ in The Times, 9th August 2003.