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If you are new my blog or do not know me personally, you might not know a critical part of my own journey.  While in high school I came to the realization that much of my sexual attraction was for the same-sex.  Most of you will know that I am also happily married to a beautiful woman who I love with all my heart and who is the object of my desire- that is, I think my wife is the sexiest person on the planet.  With that being said, it might be easy for many people to assume that, through the intervention of God (through whatever means one imagine), I have been “healed”, “freed” and/or “changed” from my same-sex attraction.  This would be a false assumption.

In truth, my sexual orientation has not changed since high school.  If you noticed, I said that much of my attraction was for men, but not my only attraction.  I have always had a strong sexual attraction for both genders.  I think this is important to state for a couple of reasons.  First, my marriage is not a sham that I took on to convince myself or others that I was “normal”.  I did not choose my wife because I denied myself the option of men.  I choose my wife because I loved her and wanted to spend the rest of my life building a family together.

Second, from all my experience, relationships and years of research (from sources across the board), I firmly reject efforts made to “repair” or reverse someones sexual orientation.  This says nothing about what I believe about whether I am affirming of same-sex relationships or not, only that those efforts have been proven futile and damaging, and therefore want to be very clear that no such reparation occurred in my life.

Recently, a friend in very much the same situation as me wrote me an email and asked me a question I wasn’t prepared for.  He asked:

“Jamie, do you identify as gay?”

His question has stuck with me ever since, as the issue of terminology with respect to sexuality and specifically same-sex attraction is one which the Christian community is largely floundering over.  What does it really mean for a person to say, “I am gay”?  For many of my friends, this is an easy question to answer, but interestingly, despite how obvious the answer is to those friend, many of them come to a entirely different answer.  Let me explain.

For gay friends, both Christian and otherwise (and a few straight Christian friends), to be gay means to be attracted to the same-sex.

For most of my straight Christian friends, to be gay means to not only be attracted to the same-sex, but to affirm and participate in same-sex sexual relationships.

So which is it?  Recently, this topic came up on an intense (and somewhat controversial) panel discussion at the Gay Christian Network conference.  Justin Lee, executive director of GCN said (see full video here):

“In most of the world- certainly in most of America, and certainly for folk in my generation and younger- we’ve grown up in a world where ‘gay’ means one thing and that is ‘a person who is attracted to the same sex’.”

My friend Wendy Gritter, executive director of New Direction Ministries of Canada, was also on the panel and added:

“If indeed the term ‘gay’, in our broader culture, is received as descriptive and not an all-encompassing identity, by encouraging people to not describe themselves as gay, isn’t that inherently encouraging a lack of honesty and self-acceptance of the reality of same-sex attraction?”

These two comments reflect well the stance that most of my gay Christian friends hold, as well as some of straight Christian friends.  However, anyone who have grown up in the wider evangelical community in North America will realize that such positions run contrary to most of the understandings and assumptions with the church.  For example, another panelist, Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International (a ministry which describes itself as “the world’s largest ministry to individuals and families impacted by homosexuality”), recently wrote the following for Charisma magazine:

“Celibacy is the godly option for all single men and women. Yet today, while many Christians with same-sex attractions are choosing celibacy, they’re also opting to keep the gay identity/label. This falls short of God’s best because identity matters. How we view and refer to ourselves is very important.”

For Alan, as well as most Christians I’ve encountered in the wider church, it seems that to refer to oneself as gay is to accept it as an identity defining.  This position has fueled the assumption among many Christians that to identify oneself as gay was to affirm the orientation and therefore be willing to participate in the “gay lifestyle”.  They take exception to statements like the ones that Justin and Wendy made, claiming that the word does, in fact, mean what their understanding affirms.  However, dictionary definitions do little to help the discussion, with some leaning towards one side of this argument, some to the other, while still others that affirm both.

(As a brief, but critical aside, let me encourage those who are unaware that, for the most part, referring to a gay person as a “homosexual” is not generally appropriate.  The term has come to be a derogatory expression that all of my gay friends- and myself- strongly find offensive and ask that you refrain from using.)

While I strongly agree Justin and Wendy, both for the definition of gay, but also with their convictions about the need for the church to accept that definition, I would call for caution.  While challenging someone like Alan Chambers, whose role is to represent one of the worlds largest ministries to gay people, is a prophetic necessity, we must have much grace to other Christians who find themselves in often very hostile environments where such a change is concerned.  I am not saying we should soft-pedal on injustice out of self-protection- even writing this could threaten my own financial stability in ministry- but instead recognize that this issue is first pastoral, not simply ideological.  We may to navigate like people who are bilingual, slowly helping others understand the differences.

I would argue that the most widely accepted understanding of the word “gay” is someone attracted to the same-sex.  However, the fact is that millions of Christians utilize the word with their understanding in context often isolated from the wider context.  To see change in how Christians understand and use the term will take a long time- longer than is probably right or fair.  Further, there will be some circles in which the change will not happen at all.  For Christians and Christian communities that genuinely desire to missionally engage gay people outside of the church or with gay Christians (which there are many, many, many) or even with people in the wider post-Christendom culture, this is a change we must work at diligently.

Why?  Because, we are to follow Christ, who “did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself” (Phil. 2:6,7).  In other words, the onus of connecting meaningfully with people falls to the Christian.  We do not require people to adapt to us, to our language or our culture, in order to encounter Christ.  This is not license to be amoral, but rather a foundational missiological commitment that we affirm in almost every other expression of Christian mission.

Some may argue, like Alan Chambers that the “problem with being a gay Christian is that gay takes center stage. But God won’t share His throne with anyone or anything.” After all, some will say, I don’t identify as a ’straight Christian’.  yet these statements miss the fact that we live in a heteronormative culture, which means that we don’t have to say we are “straight Christians” because heterosexuality is by far the assumed reality of most people until they identify otherwise.

Therefore, when my gay friends refer to themselves as “gay Christians” they do not do so because their orientation is somehow more primary than their identity in Christ, but rather because it is all too often assumed that the words gay and Christian are irreconcilable.  It is a response to year beyond counting where gay people have had to live in fear and silence regarding their sexuality, even (and sometime especially) from the church.

So, what then do I say when someone asks me if I am gay?  My response has general been to explain that my sexual orientation is bisexual.  Does this mean I am not gay?  Not necessarily.  It depends on who is asking and what they mean by the word?  Am I happy with that ambiguity?  No, but it is my commitment to continue to have these kinds of conversations, the broaden peoples understanding so that the divergence between these two understandings becomes less and less.  It is not something I do because I owe it to my fellow gay Christians- though that is a motivation- but rather because faithfulness to Christ requires no less.

Let’s explore this with comments and questions.  However, any attacks or offensive posts will be deleted.  Thanks for keeping this a safe place.