Welcome, thanks for having me. This term, I believe, is about answering some questions from a question box from last term. Now, the problem with this format is that sometimes questions written down, and by extension the answers for them, might miss some nuance, and the underlying issue might not be addressed. Questions asked could come from an intellectual, curious position, or they could come from a real personal struggle, and sometimes that can be unclear.
So to help me stay on track, I will open this talk to questions, if you are brave enough to ask. But also know that I will be around afterwards and even next week, if you want to grab me for a less public question.
To help answer the questions, I want to talk about
- The cultural moment that we are in, and
- Same sex-attraction and the Bible
This cultural moment
Now I’m old. When I was in high school, there was this band called the Insane Clown Posse. Their hardcore fans would dress up as clowns and call themselves “Jugglos”. It was like a subculture thing. Sort of rebelling against the norms while also finding your own people. So at school, if there was a mufty day, you might get one or two Jugglos to come out of the woodwork, with their clothes and makeup. (But to be honest, it was more of an American thing.)But forming subgroups for musical artists isn’t just a thing for Jugglos. Lady Gaga has her Little Monsters, Justin Bieber’s fans are called Beliebers, and Taylor Swift fans are called Swifties, and they all sort of gather together and dress in the same style as they enjoy the same music.
Friendships are built around this.
C. S. Lewis said that "Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: 'What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .'"
This is how subgroups are also formed.
Do you know about furries? They are people who dress up as furry animals. They get together and have conventions. There are also bronies. They are like the Star Wars nerds but for My Little Pony. Now, in all of this, are these subgroups wrong? Can you hang out with someone who wants to dress up as a clown, or dress up as an animal or, if they are a boy, to wear women’s clothes?
In one sense, it can seem a little strange to want to look like a clown, or expressing yourself as an animal might seem a bit offbeat, but can you be friends with people in these groups? Sure you might. But you might also not want to be. You might not want to hang out with the pot smokers at school. You could have a friend who does smoke, but you don't smoke because you think it is wrong.
Friendships are built around this.
C. S. Lewis said that "Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: 'What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .'"
This is how subgroups are also formed.
Do you know about furries? They are people who dress up as furry animals. They get together and have conventions. There are also bronies. They are like the Star Wars nerds but for My Little Pony. Now, in all of this, are these subgroups wrong? Can you hang out with someone who wants to dress up as a clown, or dress up as an animal or, if they are a boy, to wear women’s clothes?
In one sense, it can seem a little strange to want to look like a clown, or expressing yourself as an animal might seem a bit offbeat, but can you be friends with people in these groups? Sure you might. But you might also not want to be. You might not want to hang out with the pot smokers at school. You could have a friend who does smoke, but you don't smoke because you think it is wrong.
When it comes to LGBTQI+ stuff, know that this subculture group hasn’t always been a thing. It wasn’t when I was in high school. But today it can be seen as a little punk or maybe emo. Their existence and prominence now might have more to do with our cultural ideas and beliefs. Things like this didn’t happen in the 6th century in China. Or in the 12th century in Scandinavia. Or the 18th century in South Africa. This movement has to do with the sexualisation of almost everything. And for whatever reason, our culture today says your identity is interrelated with your sex.
Today, you can shoot up a flare and say I am here, and find your people and express who you are, even if you like My Little Pony, even if you like sex away from the norm.
So can you be friends with people in different subgroups? Sure. What if they have some sort of sexual connotation to them? Well, like with any friendship, you should be careful with who is influencing you. As C.S. Lewis said, “It [friendship] makes good men better and bad men worse.”
Paul, writing to the messed-up church in Corinth, tells them:
Today, you can shoot up a flare and say I am here, and find your people and express who you are, even if you like My Little Pony, even if you like sex away from the norm.
So can you be friends with people in different subgroups? Sure. What if they have some sort of sexual connotation to them? Well, like with any friendship, you should be careful with who is influencing you. As C.S. Lewis said, “It [friendship] makes good men better and bad men worse.”
Paul, writing to the messed-up church in Corinth, tells them:
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.” (1 Corinthians 5:9–13 NIV)
You see what Paul is saying here? When it comes to the church, if someone identifies as a Christian, then the church has a right to deal with them as a Christian. The church is pretty clear on its sexual ethic, hetero or homo. So if someone is a Christian, we have certain standards that we live by.
But if someone isn’t a Christian, if they identify as something else, then as a Christian you don’t have to retreat away from them. If that were the case, the church would have to cut itself off from most of the world, and that is not what we do.
Christians need to be in the world but not swallow all of what the world says about identity and who they are. We also need to remember that we are our own subculture. We have our own identity, so we don’t conform to the world.
Our fundamental identity isn’t based on our music tastes, or sexual preferences, or even our gender; so as we associate with people who are different, or interact with books and movies with a different worldview, we need to make sure we don’t co-opt their standards.
All subcultures are fighting for your identity. And we find ourselves today with a culture that says “love is God”. That who you love is who you are. That your identity is based on who you are attracted to. But the world has it completely backwards. The Bible says, “God is love”. It is the other way round. And your identity is based on who loves you, not who you love. John the Apostle, his favirouite title for himself is “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. John based his identity on who loved him. And when it comes to God, that is a much more stable thing to build your identity on than who you are attracted to. God is eternal and never changes, whereas I know my ideas and feelings change all the time.
So if you find yourself with peers who have this LGBTQI identity thing, that is ok, but you need to be confident where your identity is based. If you are a Christian, your identity is in God, who loves you, and it is not fundamentally in your gender or who you love.
I could go on, but I’ll take one or two questions here
Our fundamental identity isn’t based on our music tastes, or sexual preferences, or even our gender; so as we associate with people who are different, or interact with books and movies with a different worldview, we need to make sure we don’t co-opt their standards.
All subcultures are fighting for your identity. And we find ourselves today with a culture that says “love is God”. That who you love is who you are. That your identity is based on who you are attracted to. But the world has it completely backwards. The Bible says, “God is love”. It is the other way round. And your identity is based on who loves you, not who you love. John the Apostle, his favirouite title for himself is “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. John based his identity on who loved him. And when it comes to God, that is a much more stable thing to build your identity on than who you are attracted to. God is eternal and never changes, whereas I know my ideas and feelings change all the time.
So if you find yourself with peers who have this LGBTQI identity thing, that is ok, but you need to be confident where your identity is based. If you are a Christian, your identity is in God, who loves you, and it is not fundamentally in your gender or who you love.
I could go on, but I’ll take one or two questions here
Questions
When talking about same-sex attraction, I by no means want to give the impression that if you are attracted to those of the opposite sex, you are somehow better or off the hook in some way. The Bible has more things to say about sexual immorality than it does specifically on homosexuality. Any sex outside of marriage is fornication, and a sin. Sex with someone of the same gender is homosexuality, and a sin.
Just because you are straight doesn’t mean you are going to heaven. Just because you are same-sex attracted doesn’t mean you are going to hell. Your sexual attraction is not the grid we work in when it comes to salvation. Jesus is the key to salvation, not which gender you are attracted to. But Christians do listen to the Bible in how we are to live out our attractions, once they are ordered under Jesus.
In the Bible, sex is an act, not an identity or an orientation. Sex is something you do, but is not the essence of who you are. Yes, you do have a sexuality, but you also have reason, creativity, gifts, abilities, interests and hobbies in a range of things. You are more complex than just your gender or who you want to have sex with. This is why having Christ as your identity is better, but that was the last point.
It is possible that you might have Christian friends who say they are attracted to those of the same gender. Since sex is an act and not an orientation or identity, if they don’t have sex with those of the same gender, they are not sinning. However, they might want to visit certain websites, or lust after certain things in this area, and that would be sinning, in the same way it would be for someone straight who does the same thing.
Same Sex Attraction and the Bible
So in the last section I wanted to put the LGBTIQ community into a subculture, an alternate community, one that is based on identity, which the church is also. In this section I want to talk about same-sex attraction and what the Bible says about homosexuality.When talking about same-sex attraction, I by no means want to give the impression that if you are attracted to those of the opposite sex, you are somehow better or off the hook in some way. The Bible has more things to say about sexual immorality than it does specifically on homosexuality. Any sex outside of marriage is fornication, and a sin. Sex with someone of the same gender is homosexuality, and a sin.
Just because you are straight doesn’t mean you are going to heaven. Just because you are same-sex attracted doesn’t mean you are going to hell. Your sexual attraction is not the grid we work in when it comes to salvation. Jesus is the key to salvation, not which gender you are attracted to. But Christians do listen to the Bible in how we are to live out our attractions, once they are ordered under Jesus.
In the Bible, sex is an act, not an identity or an orientation. Sex is something you do, but is not the essence of who you are. Yes, you do have a sexuality, but you also have reason, creativity, gifts, abilities, interests and hobbies in a range of things. You are more complex than just your gender or who you want to have sex with. This is why having Christ as your identity is better, but that was the last point.
It is possible that you might have Christian friends who say they are attracted to those of the same gender. Since sex is an act and not an orientation or identity, if they don’t have sex with those of the same gender, they are not sinning. However, they might want to visit certain websites, or lust after certain things in this area, and that would be sinning, in the same way it would be for someone straight who does the same thing.
I want to show you another verse from that messed up church in Corinth.
Paul writes:
But Paul also gives the good news. He says, “some of you were this”. They were all on the side that wouldn’t make it to the new kingdom, but now they are cleansed and made right in Jesus by the Spirit.
There were people in this church who were once sexually immoral, or homosexual, or who used to steal. But they are worshipping together as cleansed and redeemed people through Jesus.
They may still have struggled with their old ways. We all do. Recently, a host of Christian authors who are same-sex attracted have written books in this space. Jackie Hill Perry (Gay Girl, Good God), Rosaria Butterfield (The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert), Rebecca Mclaughlin (10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask book), Vaughan Roberts (True Friendship, Transgender, The Porn Problem), Sam Allberry (Who Does God Care Who I Sleep With, Is God Anti-Gay, & Myths About Singleness).
Paul writes:
Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–11 NIV)Both the sexual and immoral and the homosexual, and the thieves and the greedy and the drunkards and slanderers, will not inherit the kingdom of God. Note there are a bunch of things, not just homosexuality, that are sin. They are contrary to how God wants people to live.
But Paul also gives the good news. He says, “some of you were this”. They were all on the side that wouldn’t make it to the new kingdom, but now they are cleansed and made right in Jesus by the Spirit.
There were people in this church who were once sexually immoral, or homosexual, or who used to steal. But they are worshipping together as cleansed and redeemed people through Jesus.
They may still have struggled with their old ways. We all do. Recently, a host of Christian authors who are same-sex attracted have written books in this space. Jackie Hill Perry (Gay Girl, Good God), Rosaria Butterfield (The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert), Rebecca Mclaughlin (10 Questions Every Teen Should Ask book), Vaughan Roberts (True Friendship, Transgender, The Porn Problem), Sam Allberry (Who Does God Care Who I Sleep With, Is God Anti-Gay, & Myths About Singleness).
All these authors have written about their own struggles, and they are all Christians and worth reading. But they all see Jesus as more important than their sexual attractions. They have ordered their loves under God.
So as Christians, we are to see our identity in Jesus, not in anything else. And that can be hard. It can be a sacrifice. We might get cool-shamed for what we think, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, it is possible to live this way. The bible sees sex as an action and not an identity or a subgroup. We aren’t to cut ourselves off from the world, but we are also not to be co-opted by this world's thinking. And I know, when it comes to sex, we will be in conflict with the majority of the world, because Christianity really is the OG punk minority group.
Take some more questions?
Questions for discussion:
How do you navigate the tension between being in the world and not of it when it comes to LGBTIQ issues? eg, How do you respond to wear it purple days, or when you are sympathetic to loving the minority and not hating them, or when your school book talks about this?
How might an identity not based on who you are, or how you feel, but on something external to you be comforting?
How might defining sex as an act (something you do), and not as an identity or orientation, help in your thinking about what the Bible says about same-sex attraction, homosexuality and sexual immorality?
So as Christians, we are to see our identity in Jesus, not in anything else. And that can be hard. It can be a sacrifice. We might get cool-shamed for what we think, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, it is possible to live this way. The bible sees sex as an action and not an identity or a subgroup. We aren’t to cut ourselves off from the world, but we are also not to be co-opted by this world's thinking. And I know, when it comes to sex, we will be in conflict with the majority of the world, because Christianity really is the OG punk minority group.
Take some more questions?
Questions for discussion:
How do you navigate the tension between being in the world and not of it when it comes to LGBTIQ issues? eg, How do you respond to wear it purple days, or when you are sympathetic to loving the minority and not hating them, or when your school book talks about this?
How might an identity not based on who you are, or how you feel, but on something external to you be comforting?
How might defining sex as an act (something you do), and not as an identity or orientation, help in your thinking about what the Bible says about same-sex attraction, homosexuality and sexual immorality?
0 comments:
Post a Comment