Posted on 08/14/2019 10:05:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Being a celibate gay Christian means being an object of suspicion. The wider LGBTQ community sees you as shockingly conservative (“You think gay sex is wrong?”), while the wider evangelical community sees you as worryingly liberal (“You call yourself gay?”).
One day, someone will be expressing disgust toward your “fundamentalist” beliefs. On the next, someone else is targeting your “perverted” sexual orientation. Disparate groups see you as an existential threat, and their attacks can be fierce, as recent online responses to conferences like Revoice and ministries like Spiritual Friendship and Living Out would attest.
Researchers Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets step bravely (foolishly?) into this battleground with their comprehensive study of people like me: Costly Obedience: What We Can Learn from the Celibate Gay Christian Community. It’s an important book with an academic feel that grows more pastoral as you read on. Yarhouse has written multiple volumes on LGBTQ experience based on careful research from the Institute for the Study of Sexual Identity at Regent University in Virginia, where both of the authors teach. I wouldn’t agree with everything he’s ever written, but I thank God for the gracious tenor of his contributions.
This newest book is essentially a listening exercise, based on an in-depth survey of celibate gay Christians. You hear their stories of milestone events and experiences in church life and ministry—as well as research that maps their mental health outcomes and relational challenges.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
Genie’s out of the bottle as far as that’s concerned. Chipping away at age of consent laws will be on deck next because “love is love.”
We have a pastor that I suspect is attracted to the same sex. They are staunchly against the “gay pride” movement, and is a devout Christian.
Or faithful, if married.
Most of us will be tempted. Some will succumb to the temptation, some won’t. Those who remain strong deserve the respect.
The attraction is Satan’s seed. The practice is his bitter flower.
I haven’t read the book or article, but maybe gay Christians don’t identify themselves as gay, except as shorthand.
If one is truly tempted to such, and truly refrains for the sake of Jesus Christ, then I would accept that one as a fellow Christian.
However, I would not trust that person, say, to watch over young boys alone, anymore than I would trust a Christian kleptomaniac to watch over a retail store alone.
Either scenario, far from being respectful, would be providing gratuitous temptation to a brother.
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