Love God with All Your Mind
These last couple of weeks, we have been exploring the world and experiences of the LGBTQ+ community. We have been specifically trying to wrap our minds around the language of gender and sexuality, along with understanding the landscape of side A, B, and X. A posture of humility also includes a posture of listening and understanding.
This conversation affects the lives of real people. This is not just an issue. We are talking about real people with real experiences. The church has not responded to the LGBTQ+ community in the best way. We have honestly hurt real people by greatly ignoring the conversation altogether.
From 1960 to 2000, the Church has seen the LGBTQ+ community as perverts and criminals. In the 1990s, the LGBTQ+ community were seen as hapless victims who were in need of healing. This is the time where the Ex-Gay Movement started to take prominence. This shifted the church’s stance toward healing more than toward criminalizing.
In the 2000s, Gay people were seen as saints called to celibate life. Writings of Wesley Hill, and other “side B” voices rise and speak into the fragmentation of ex-gay elevating singleness, community, spiritual friendship, and holiness. This becomes an era where empathy increases.
Presently, there are three different sides with the Christian arena. Side B, Side A, and Side X. Side B is represents Celibate Gay Christians or Mixed Orientation Marriages. Side A represents same-sex monogamous partnerships that can be blessed by God. Side X represents those categorized as ex-gays or those whose orientation can be changed.
The word “reconcile” means to restore to friendship or harmony as in “reconciled the factions” or to settle or resolve something such as ‘to reconcile differences.’ This spectrum of beliefs in the Christian arena involves this reconciliation. The question here is how to reconcile one’s orientation and sexual practice with one’s faith. As you see, people come to different conclusions based on how they have wrestled with things theologically.
Side B believes in the traditional sexual ethic. Heterosexual marriage is seen as a creation ordinance and therefore not culturally relative. The Bible is a story about marriage between man and woman in the garden. In this view, marriage images God’s trinitarian nature. A man and woman in marriage image God’s Trinitarian nature in a way a man and a man cannot. Diversity and unity reflect the equal in essence yet different in person and function of the Godhead. Marriage is ordered toward procreation, but procreation is not required to validate a marriage. Marriage also pictures Christ’s relationship with the Church. The man represents Christ and the woman represents the church.
Side A attests to covenant fidelity, not sexual differentiation is the foundation for biblical marriage. In this way, marriage is founded on commonality not differentiation. This includes companionship, mutual support of a strong ally, commonality and similarity, human spouse, faithfulness, and a pair. One argument for this side is that procreation is minimized in the New Testament. Jesus ushers in eternal salvation and thus it minimizes physical procreation thus removing the need for anatomical complementarity.
Reflection:
How do you feel about both sides?
What’s your actual experience with both sides?
