Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

In which I trace my evolving views on Gay Christians

By

lonnie_frisbee

Two years ago, I was in a small group at St. Aldate’s Church, Oxford, discussing Philip Yancey’s What’s so Amazing About Grace?

 Yancey wrote about his friend Mel White who was a Christian gay man, “Mel felt homosexual longings from adolescence, tried hard to repress those longings, and as an adult fervently sought “a cure.” He fasted, prayed, and was anointed with oil for healing. He went through exorcism rites read by Protestants and also by Catholics. He signed up for aversion therapy, which jolted his body with electricity every time he felt stimulated by photos of men. For a while, chemical treatments left him drugged and barely coherent. Above all, Mel wanted desperately not to be gay.”

Mel had suicide attempts, Yancey continues to write, and, like Lonnie Frisbee, “wild swings between promiscuity and fidelity. Sometimes he acted like a hormone-flooded teenager, and sometimes like a sage.”

Finally, “Mel concluded that his options narrowed down to two: insanity or wholeness. Attempts to repress homosexual desires, and live either in heterosexual marriage or in gay celibacy he believed would lead to certain insanity. (At that time, he was seeing a psychiatrist five days a week, at a hundred dollars a session.) Wholeness, he decided, meant finding a gay partner and embracing his homosexual identity.”

 Mel remained a Christian, and even sought ordination.

 * * *

 Such had been the evangelical ghetto in which I had lived for the last 20 years in both America and England, that when we split into micro-groups to discuss the passage, I naively asked Will Donaldson who was then Director of Christian Leadership at Wycliffe Hall, “Can one be a Christian and a practising homosexual?”

Will said, and I quote from memory, “Our children may ask us, ‘You knew the environment was being destroyed, and you did nothing? Wasn’t that sinful?’ And I am going to go home to my warm bed, and am going pass homeless people on the streets,” he continued.

I understood. People starve, while we eat out in restaurants, and go on holidays. None of us is without sin. We all make peace with our frailty and limitations. Why not extend the same grace to gay Christians?

 

2 Providential Circumstances—In which God decides to broaden my mind and experience

And then, I hire a wonderful cleaner, the only one we’ve managed to keep for more than two years who goes way beyond the call of duty, and puts everything back in the right place as well.

He’s wonderful, and yes, as my gaydar sharpens, I can tell he’s gay, and I can tell this identity is ontological, not a casual choice.

I write about this here and here. I meet more faithful gay Christians as a result of these blogs, and listen to their interpretations of the (in?)famous six or seven scripture verses against homosexuality.

God continues to move. We hire a young man to help us with our publishing company. He is gay, and a Christian. The French tutor who came to our house to tutor me and our girls is gay. My  friend, Lesley, recommends her therapist, an Anglican clergyman. His insights help us considerably, and he is gay, living with his civil partner.

Okay, then; Is God saying I need to think more—or what?

 

3 Lonnie Frisbee–the most influential gay Christian in the last century

And I think of Lonnie Frisbee, the most influential gay man in the twentieth century Christianity, a key person in the Jesus People or Jesus Freak movement, who unleashed a wave of the Holy Spirit which was instrumental in the founding, and phenomenal growth of  two major Christian denominations, the Calvary Chapel to which he attracted thousands to his Bible Study, and  the Vineyard, which was established after Lonnie Frisbee asked youth, 25 and under, to come forward, then prayed, “Come Holy Spirit.” And those so filled baptised others in hot tubs and swimming pools!!

Lonnie struggled against his homosexuality, to the point of getting married to a wife who left him after an affair with their pastor; was sad and guilty about his repeated homosexual flings; was rejected by both denominations he helped found and flourish when his homosexuality became obvious, and died broken hearted of AIDS, yet forgiving those whose careers and denominations he had established, but who ostracised him and almost wrote him out of their histories for a sin he could not shake.

And yet he  was responsible for thousands of people being converted and filled with the Holy Spirit,  and changed the direction of twentieth century Christianity through the millions influenced by the Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard Movement.

And a reader left this comment, “Perhaps the great turmoil men like Frisbee undergo is because they are convinced by the evangelical template/mindset that they need to deny their sexuality. Authentic Homosexuality is not a choice…to therefore deny it is to state that God made a mistake…or lots of mistakes.   Lonnie Frisbee birthed two movements….perhaps God was making a statement here?”

 I agree.

 

4 All over the world, the Spirit is moving. All over the world, the Spirit is speaking to the church on this issue.

Again and again, I see children of eminent evangelicals come out as gay. Is this coincidental, or is the Spirit speaking to the church?

Brian McLaren celebrates his son’s gay wedding in what he calls a possible “Farewell, Brian,” moment. His blog so brilliant I am going to quote at length.

He writes: My view on human sexuality has indeed changed over a period of thirty years, and actually, the views of most conservative Christians have also been changing over that period. It wasn’t too long ago that the only conservative position was, “It’s a choice and an abomination.” When that position became untenable due to increasing data, the conservative position evolved to “it’s a changeable disposition, and we know how to change it.” When fewer and fewer people who claimed to have been reoriented were able to sustain the reorientation, the position shifted to “it’s a hard-to-change disposition, but it can be done with great difficulty.” More recently, I hear conservatives say “the disposition may be unchangeable but the behaviour is a choice, so people may choose to live a celibate life or a heterosexual life, even against their orientation.” 

This issue is not going to go away. A significant percentage of people are gay – I would guess around 6%. This percentage seems to be a remarkably consistent feature of every human culture and population, every denomination, every religion, including those who deny it exists among them. If each gay person has two parents, the issue affects 18% of the population. If each gay person has one sibling and one friend, we’re up to 30% who are directly affected by the issue.

It’s much easier to hold the line on the conservative position when nearly all gay people around you are closeted and pretending to be other than they are. Eventually for some, the pain of pretending will become greater than the pain of going public. Whenever a new son or daughter comes out of the closet, their friends and family will face a tough choice: will they “break ranks” with their family member or friend, or will they stay loyal to their family member or friend – which will require them to have others break ranks with them?

In my case, I inherited a theology that told me exactly what you said: homosexuality is a sin, so although we should not condemn (i.e. stone them), we must tell people to “go and sin no more.” Believe me, for many years as a pastor I tried to faithfully uphold this position, and sadly, I now feel that I unintentionally damaged many people in doing so. Thankfully, I had a long succession of friends who were gay. And then I had a long succession of parishioners come out to me. 

Over time, I could not square their stories and experiences with the theology I had inherited. So I re-opened the issue, read a lot of books, re-studied the Scriptures, and eventually came to believe that just as the Western church had been wrong on slavery, wrong on colonialism, wrong on environmental plunder, wrong on subordinating women, wrong on segregation and apartheid (all of which it justified biblically) … we had been wrong on this issue. In this process, I did not reject the Bible. In fact, my love and reverence for the Bible increased when I became more aware of the hermeneutical assumptions on which many now-discredited traditional interpretations were based and defended. I was able to distinguish “what the Bible says” from “what this school of interpretation says the Bible says,” and that helped me in many ways.

Several prominent evangelicals have gay children or grandchildren. There’s the writer Barbara Johnson. I had a mentor from one of Virginia’s most prominent evangelical families. She, her husband and her brother had founded successful Churches, Christian schools, holiday camps, centres for learning disabilities, radio programmes, etc across Norfolk, Williamsburg, Hampton, Yorktown etc. Her granddaughter came out as gay, breaking a few familial hearts in the process.

Recently, I had tea with an American United Methodist Minister whose son is gay. His denomination does not permit same-sex marriage, and would suspend ministers who conducted them. So when a minister wanted to marry her female partner, eighty of them got together to marry them. Suspend 80 ministers all together? The denomination did not.

After writing my post, I was surprised to hear from other prominent evangelicals who had close family members who were gay, whose sexuality they did not publicly acknowledge. What pain for families!!

5 I am certain the Spirit is moving towards fuller inclusion.

The gay wars brings out the worst in everyone. Phariseeism and judgementalism and a self-righteousness which costs us nothing.  We heterosexuals, after all, are not being called to a lifetime of solitude and celibacy. (See some of the comments on my earlier post on this issue. ) An us-and-them attitude. A rigid acceptance of prejudice and a refusal to think, and nobly examine the Scriptures for ourselves.

If Jesus were here, we might not find him in judgemental, self-righteous, theologically conservative and correct bastions. He did not feel comfortable with the rigid, goody-goody people with impermeable theology, who stuck to the party line at all costs. The Scribes and Pharisees of his day.

He would be now, as he was in the flesh, with the down and out, with those we condemn and exclude, ministering to them, pushing for their full inclusion. He would not tell us of the Good Samaritan today, but the good Lonnie Frisbee, or the good William Stringfellow, perhaps.

Research suggests that 6-10% of the population are gay. If so, we are denying full participation in the Christian church to a sizeable proportion of the population. And that is wrong.

 

6) Why am I writing about a issue which does not affect me directly? I am paying it forward.

Because sometimes one needs to. Things would not change if we only lobbied for what would directly benefit us.

My father immigrated to England and lived here between 1944 and 1952 as a single man. He was a Chartered Accountant (FCA; Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, England and Wales, his impressive letterhead said).

But racism hampered his career. His boss, who was a fine man he said, told clients, “We have an Indian accountant. Do you mind?” Some did not; some did.

He did not progress in his career as fast as his English peers. He made less money. He left, disgusted, and returned to India, where he was Controller of Accounts for Tata Steel, and we had a fairly luxurious childhood.

When I first came to Oxford University, in 1984, reading English at Somerville College, I had some trepidation. Was afraid I would encounter racism.

But did not. And have not in the 10 years I lived here.

When I was a student, JACARI was big—the Joint Action Council Against Racial Intolerance. My housemates, Mark Wynn, and Catherine Dixon-Forner; my tutor Heather O’Donoghue and her husband the poet Bernard O’Donoghue went to the homes of newly arrived Bangladeshis, drank endless cups of sweet tea, and helped them feel included.

Now 28 years later, racial relations in Oxford are as sweet and pleasant as in any cosmopolitan city I have lived in, and I’ve lived in Manchester; Columbus, Ohio, Minneapolis, Palo Alto, CA and Ithaca, NY. I often wonder if we are reaping the fruits of JACARI.

If my friends and tutors had said, “We’re privileged whites; why bother about other people’s struggles?” things might not have changed. Sometimes, if injustice upsets you, it is right to speak out.

I sincerely believe that Christ came for all men and women, gay and straight. That it is not good for man to be alone, and that includes gay men and women. That homosexuality is not a choice, and so should not be a barrier to full inclusion in the Christian community, any more than skin colour is a choice or should be a barrier to inclusion.

More from my site

Comments

  1. Love the point about making peace with our frailty and limitations !!

  2. I struggle with the issue of homosexuality and Christianity. Struggle, because in my heart I do not believe being gay is wrong. As I have recently discovered, yet again all of my friends are gay or lesbian. Most people think I am, too. Yet, despite studying queer theology at university, my reading has been almost entirely rather conservative since (I like reading extremists, a habit I am trying to break) and it has influenced my thinking. Now I tend to look for proof-texts all the time, and it is a problem. It also gives me much angst about women’s place in the church and home, which again goes against my heart-belief that we are all equal.
    I am trying to move out of the rigid adherence to the Bible – or not to the bible but to certain texts, to certain ways of viewing it, which I feel are hampering my spiritual growth. I started out rather radical and seem to have become evangelical without noticing!
    I appreciated this post, and I like the story of the methodist ministers!

    • Hi Emma,

      I myself have moved beyond the letter of scripture to seeking the Spirit of Christ. I think the Gospels are the most revolutionary and mind-altering part of the Bible, and I like to interpret the Bible in the light of the Gospels, and in the light of Jesus. That way we can seek the big picture and Jesus rather than get tangled up in single sentences from Leviticus or Paul. Here’s a post on it http://anitamathias.com/blog/2012/10/18/beyond-the-letter-of-scripture-we-need-the-spirit-to-help-us-interpret-the-word-we-need-jesus/#comment-17347

      I think the more one studies the Gospels, the more one takes on the coloration of Jesus–who was surprising, flexible, and had little time for rigid adherence to the law, or prescriptive sentences of Scripture (as represented by the Pharisees and scribes) or rigid ways of seeing the world he created.

      • I once commented on a blog written by a seminarian that whenever Paul and the Gospels are in conflict, I always err on the side of the Gospels. Now, they’re not generally in conflict over facts, but they simply don’t always read the same. The seminarian told me that Paul is never in conflict with the Gospels, that Paul has a more complete understanding of the Kingdom than the Gospels portray. I asked bluntly if he felt that Paul’s writings trumped the Gospels and he said “Paul ‘completes’ what Jesus started in the Gospels”. I found that very interesting. In your evangelical circles, do you ever hear this assertion?

        For me, I agree wholeheartedly with you that we must read through the lens of Jesus’ commandment of love and it sharpens the focus on the rest of the Scriptures.

        • “Whenever Paul and the Gospels are in conflict, I always err on the side of the Gospels”

          Yes, I think the Gospels do trump the rest of Scripture. In fact, people often take other parts of Scripture to trump what Jesus says when it’s too challenging. For instance, I was was once teaching on the Rich Fool, and Jesus telling us it’s safe not to have storehouses or barns because our heavenly father will provide for us, and the consensus of the group was, “But Proverbs say its good to save.”

          My current Bible study group was looking at the clever things Jesus said after his parable of the dishonest steward, and they honestly said they didn’t believe Jesus when he said things like “Give and you shall receive.” (It only works in the West, they said.) I was so impressed with their honesty, though slightly taken aback that they didn’t believe Jesus.

          But I guess no one (including I myself) really believes him when he says, “Blessed are the poor,” or we would make sure we were poor!

          Ooh, wandering off-topic!!

  3. Hi Anita,
    Thank you! Your comments as well as responses are thoughtful, intelligent and kind. I appreciate your willingness to tackle this tough subject. I wrestle with this subject as God has put individuals with same sex attraction into our families path. Anne and I were given a great book by a Fuller Theological Seminary Student that they are using in one of their classes – Homesexuality and the Christian. by Mark A. Yarhouse, PsyD. It is a good read on this subject. Bottom line as you said earlier, Love God and Love Others … period.

    • Thanks much, David :-). As Brian McLaren says most of us will have to wrestle with this issue through the family and friends God brings into our lives.

  5. Anita – I could not help but notice that while your post was well written and touching, it did not mention or reference any of the many scripture verses on this topic. But isn’t scripture supposed to be a Christian’s guide and standard for faith and practice? I appreciate the love you have for others, but how is it loving to be accepting of activities that God clearly says are self destructive?

    • Ksm, God’s scriptures clearly state that women are to be treated subordinately, we are to keep slaves, grow beards, and ensure that we do not have clothing that mixes linen with wool. It also says it’s an abomination to be in the same house as a woman who is menstruating and that after a husband’s death, his widow must marry his brother. Most everyone in scriptures had more than one wife and St. Paul told us not to marry unless the celibacy was driving us absolutely crazy and for slaves and women to be submissive. We, as a faith already cherry pick the Scriptures for nuggets that we find are applicable. But Jesus himself gave us the key…the ultimate passage…on which hangs ALL the law and the prophets: to love one another. It is through this lens that we have grown to eliminate slavery, we have elevated women (or are on our way), and we have only one committed spouse instead of many. It is only through the lens of love that we have already eliminated much of the ancient laws and even the NT writings that are truly in conflict with the edict to love one another as God loves us.

      I find it interesting that people are using all the same arguments against homosexuality (because the Bible says so) as people in history used to keep women from voting, to preserve slavery as an institution and even today to keep women slaves under the men who “own” them. I encourage all Christians to put on the lens of God’s love and to truly look at these people whom God has made – see them hurting, abused and bullied by our fellow Christians. We straight Christians do not have to solve the question, nor do we need to stand in judgement…that’s God’s place…in order to love them, to honor their committed relationships and see them as Christ’s own children.

      • Thanks, LA. I was wondering what I was going to reply to Shae, but you have done it for me, and better than I would have put it. I think you are right!

        • Sorry to steal your thunder, Anita…just something I feel passionate about. I grow so weary of hearing the same tired passages trotted out every time we want to judge, to subordinate, to (yes, I will say it) hate our fellow humans. It wasn’t that long ago in America where Biblical passages were trotted out regularly to wholly justify the practice of slavery and to keep women from (gasp!) voting!

    • Hi Shae, Well, it’s a personal account, and so I did not need to quote the 6-7 Scripture verses on the subject. If we do need some, how about, “take the log out of our own eyes (on our own sins) then take the speck out of our brothers.” Or “Judge not, and we shall not be judged.”

      Or “it is not good for man to be alone.” Or “it is better to marry than burn.”
      Basically, the scripture verse business is for gay Christians to wrestle with. We straight folk need to practice love and grace, compassion and acceptance, and obsess over our own sins, not theirs.

    • Shae, that’s one of the reasons I recommended Rachel Held Evans’ interview with Justin Lee — many who argue for full inclusion of homosexuals do so in a way that disregards or dismisses Scripture altogether. But not all do so. Some read the very same Scriptures, thoroughly and faithfully, and come to different conclusions. It is possible to have a high view of Scripture and a different interpretation of the verses that English translations use the word “homosexual” for.

      http://rachelheldevans.com/ask-a-gay-christian-response

  6. Just catching up on this, and yes … it. is. so. hard. I have the same concerns that homosexuality in practice just doesn’t square with Scripture, and at the same time I know that I do and must love my friends of that persuasion. I feel compelled by Christ to wrestle through my longstanding beliefs and not limit my circle of friends to the heterosexual, yet my Christian friends would not often support me in this. They fear those who militantly want to redefine marriage—I cannot support such redefinition, either. But I would rather intelligently discuss that with my homosexual friends than form my opinions without knowing them and their hearts in the matter. I would rather be able to have coffee and disagree than separate myself and both of us become enemies. God is love, God, please love and live in me.

    Such a valuable discussion—thank you for opening it up, Anita.

  7. I was reading this morning in Mathew 22, the story of the Great Feast. Many are called, but few are chosen. Christian life is a tough one. Staying married can be hard at times. Sometimes, being single seems to be the answer. I really don’t think the Bible, which is God’s Word and Jesus is Logos, supports same sex relationships. Yet today, I met a woman, who years earlier I had prayed her through a very dark time, with demonic attacks, again. She looked great. She pulled me away from her mother, after thanking me for helping her through one of her darkest times, and confessed,”After 67 years, I think I’m in love. I’ve never been in love before.”
    Then she warned me what she would tell me next would wipe the smile off my face. The person of her love was not a man, and born again Christians are against that. I promised to pray for her. I know her mother truly wouldn’t understand these feelings. I’m not sure about all this. But I still love and care for her and will definitely pray for her.
    So Anita, I am praying about this whole idea, I can’t thoroughly support the gay agenda. But I’m also not sure where Christians who feel same sex attraction fit into the Kingdom. Do they have to be celibate? Many are called to that.
    I do think if people kept to the Genesis model for sex, we would have a lot less problems. I heard once that Hassidic women have less cervical cancer because they still follow all those Old Testament laws.
    I will continue to read all the Bible and pray and listen to God. As I know you are.

  8. Beautiful, thought-provoking article. Jesus said to “Love one another” and I hope that fellow Believers will do just that!

  9. I have to disagree. I have had neighbors and Co-workers that were gay. I live in a very tolerant and liberal area, and I have found homosexuals to be kind , thoughtful, hard working, and other excellent qualities. as much as I would like to say I think that the lifestyle is compatible with Christianity I just don’t see it in scriptureAsmuch as

  10. Anita,

    I’ve been on this same journey and had some of the same thoughts and ideas. It is interesting to hear your take on it all. I especially appreciated the quotation and link to the Brian McLaren piece.

    I would just ask that we give grace to those who still hold the conservative view. Some of them may well be unthinking, knee-jerk reactionary. There’s those on both sides of any issue. One of the things I loved about the interview at Rachel Held Evans’ blog was the assumption of intelligence, faithfulness, and positive intent on both sides — people can come to both sides of this issue thoughtfully, prayerfully, having done a ton of research, and desiring to truly love and serve others. Being on one side or the other does not automatically make someone unthinking or unloving.

    • Marcy, I would agree with you that both sides are trying to care and think their way through a challenging dilemma. And that’s exactly why this issue gets so complicated. Unfortunately, the conservative side actually hurts people, deeply wounds them to the core and causes suicides and emotional damage too profound to repair. So to the fact that conservatives are thinking and loving in their own way is true, but the consequences of their well-intended actions are extremely harmful to the very people they are proclaiming to help.

    • Thank you, Marcy. Yes, indeed, it is hard to give grace to people on the opposite side of the fence. That’s is partly why I realized that this issue has the potential to bring out the worst in many of us, me included. Lord, have mercy!