insideMAN

What did the gay Christian man say to the straight Christian man?

by 8 Comments

The Church of England has embarked on a two-year conversation about sexuality with a particular focus on christian attitudes towards homosexuality. Glen Poole of insideMAN attended one of the discussions at his local church to hear the debate.

I am fortunate enough to live close enough to a modern church that reaches out to its irreligious neighbours like me in extraordinary ways. Earlier this month I spent a couple of hours there listening to a debate about homosexuality and the church featuring the Reverend Steve Chalke of Oasis Trust and Sean Doherty of Living Out.

The event was inspired by the Church of England’s Pilling Report on sexuality which recognised that there are a range of views about this issue in the church and proposed a two year period of facilitated conversations—and this was one such conversation.

Chalke is an irrepressible genius of a man with big enough ideas to fill a week-long conference and still only scratch the surface. He has an uncanny ability to never respond to a straight question with a straight answer and yet still leave you knowing more than you would have learnt if he’d simply responded to the question he was asked.

His backing of same-sex marriages in 2012 sent shockwaves through the evangelical church community and led to the Evangelical Alliance removing Oasis Trust from its membership. So it was surprising just how little he talked about homosexuality in two hour discussion about that very topic.

Raise your hands if you’ve got a healthy attitude towards sex

For Chalke, this issue isn’t sex, it’s the bible, but for some reason people like talking about sex more than they like talking about the bible! Chalke sought to remedy this by speaking mostly about the bible and left me with a better understanding of the the “good book” and the different ways that Christians continue to struggle with their response to homosexuality in the process.

Doherty is a very different character, a jolly, ginger-bearded man who is happy talking about sex. He asked the audience to raise their hands if they were brought up in a Christian family with a healthy attitude  towards sex—most of us looked at the floor awkwardly and sat on our hands.

As a gay man living in a straight marriage, Doherty says that 99% of our sexual desires shouldn’t be acted upon and it just so happens that the thoughts that he doesn’t act upon are his sexual thoughts about other men. As a teenager, he noticed that as his mates started to get interested in sex, he was getting interested in his mates. His answer, as a Christian, was to choose a life of celibacy and the support he received from his Christian friends in an evangelical church was overwhelmingly positive.

According to Doherty, he received more negative comments from outside of the Church for being celibate, than he ever received in the church for being gay.

How Christians have persecuted gays

Chalke had very different tales to tell about the experience of gay men in the Church. He spoke of a friend who told his vicar that he was gay when he was 13 and spent the next 5 years at church being exorcised as the Minister attempted to turn the demons out of him. He told stories of Christian men who were banned from taking communion or working with children when they came out (because being gay, in the eyes of some Christians, is synonymous with being a paedophile).

There are, says Chalke, three distinct ways that religious communities respond to homosexuality. There are those who literally demonise gay people and try to chase those demons out of them. There are those who think this is cruel, but will pray for gay people to be healed. Then there are those who don’t think that gay people should be exorcised or healed, but should have the iron will to resist their ungodly urges, either through celibacy or surrendering to a straight marriage.

Who should gay Christians marry, men or women?

And this is where Chalke, with his support for gay marriage, and Doherty, the gay man who married a woman, part company.

According to Chalke, the biggest mistake we make in our reading of the bible is to believe that the bible means ‘book’, when it in fact means ‘library’. To Chalke, the bible isn’t single book presenting the truth but a series of books seeking the truth. We can, he says, trace a line of spiritual development from the pre-biblical Code of Hammurabi, to Moses in the Old Testament, to Jesus in the New Testament, that highlight the evolving nature of human morality as we search for spiritual truth.

For Chalke, the way that many Christians have treated gay people has been deeply unchristian and it’s time to for the Church to evolve its thinking, not in line with what Jesus said about homosexuality (because the bible does not record this) but in line with what Jesus had to say about unconditional love and acceptance.

As Christians, both Chalke and Doherty, have similar beliefs about sex. They view sex as a gift from God best enjoyed within the context of a long-term, committed, monogamous relationship. For Doherty, one possible route to this is for gay people to embrace heterosexual relationships, for Chalke the preferred path is gay marriage.

Why should straight non-Christians be interested?

As a straight, non-Christian man, I find myself drawn to this particular debate for two key reasons. Firstly it raises an important question of free speech. I don’t believe in unbridled free speech. I think it’s essential for a civil society to police the most hateful and dangerous forms of speech, for example, holding to account people who incite others to kill.

I am also deeply wary of people who cite “hate speech” or sexism, racism, homophobia etc as a way of censoring opinions they don’t like. Looking from the outside I have seen bigotry and hatred on both sides of the gay marriage debate, from traditional Christians and progressive liberals alike.

I don’t agree with Chalke and Doherty, but bigoted, hate-filled polemicists on both sides of the debate could learn a lot from them in terms of how to present your beliefs in a loving, accepting and non-judgmental way. They reminded me of an American evangelist who was asked if homosexuals went to hell and his response went something like this: “being homosexual won’t get you into heaven, but neither will being heterosexual”.

The second  reason I am drawn to this debate is that it is ultimately about gender. Straight men are impacted by a society’s attitude towards gay men because it’s not just about what type of sexuality is socially acceptable, but what type of masculinity we allow men to express. When a society, through its laws and institutions, says being gay is less acceptable than being straight, that society places all men in straightjacket.

For me, equal rights for gay people overlap with equal rights for men, as those rights are ultimately about men having a right to express our masculinity (and our humanity) in whatever way we choose—gay, straight, atheist or religious.

If you want to listen to the discussion between Chalke and Doherty you can find it on the St Lukes Church website.

—Picture Credit: Flickr/joseanavas

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

Also on insideMAN:

 

  • Nigel

    Really interesting piece and debate. What particularly interests me is that this debate, reflecting the wider debate, is focussed on males. It reflects the historical fact that societies’ have generally put far more effort into controlling and managing males sexual expression and relationships. Religious and secular laws have rarely much to say about female sexuality( though more about relationships ) . One of the most frequent comments I hear about gay men, from women, is “what a waste” . I believe this simple phrase un picked would tell us a lot about women’s expectations of both gay and straight men, and a lot about the female role in maintaining social roles. After all the churches are de facto organised by men for women ( as shown in the votes of laity in the C of E.)

  • http://JohnAllman.UK John Allman

    If the premise is accepted that the cause of homosexual behaviour is the newly-invented biological attribute of “sexual orientation”, which is tacitly assumed to be innate, immutable and irresistible, one has already rubbished almost everything that the writers of the bible had to say about the causes and (arguable) the rights or wrongs of homosexual behaviour.

    Conceding the very existence of sexual orientation before any dialogue (a concession implicit in the very title of this blog piece), is akin to not noticing that the stage magician removed, by slight of hand, and absent any drama, the very object he is later tells his audience that he proposes to make vanish ever-so dramatically, by doing some sort of “magic”. Just as the object was removed before even starting the “trick”, even whilst still explaining casually what the trick is going to be when it starts, so the outcome of the dialogue was determined when it was framed in the first place upon the unbiblical assumption that such a thing as “sexual orientation” even exists.

    • Inside MAN

      Hi John

      The question of “where does homosexuality come from” was asked of the speakers an their full answers can be heard here:

      http://www.stlukesonline.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/An-Inclusive-Conversation-2.mov

      In summary, Sean Doherty said something like this….nobody knows for sure, there is no scientific consensus about it, what is very sure is it is not something that is chose, gay people don’t wake up and say morning “I think I’d like to be gay”

      Steve Chalke said he agreed and added something like this….I do practical theology, I’m not a geneticist or a psycologist, so I don’t know whether it’s nature or nurture, but some evangelical preachers give the impression they do know, because they stand up and pronounce things…….but they don’t know.

      Best Wishes

      Glen
      insideMAN

      • http://JohnAllman.UK John Allman

        @ Inside Man

        You reiterating my own points for me! The following people

        1. You
        2. Those who asked “Where does homosexuality come from?” (referring to so-called “sexual orientation”)
        3. Steve Chalke, when he said, “I’m not a geneticist or a psychologist … so I don’t know whether it’s nature or nurture” (referring to so-called “sexual orientation”)
        4. Sean Docherty, when he said, “what is very sure is it is not something chosen, gay people don’t wake up and say one morning ‘I think I’d like to be gay’” (again, referring to so-called “sexual orientation”)

        are all *assuming* the very belief systems that I am saying should NOT be assumed.

        You assume the existence of so-called “sexual orientation”. Plus, now that you’ve accelerated us to this point, you are also assuming causality a,k,a, determinism, as opposed to free will – human behaviours being caused rather than chosen.

        Murderers don’t become murderers because they wake up one morning and say, “I think I’d like to murder somebody.”

        Nothing “causes” homosexual behaviour. Least of all INDIRECTLY, by merely causing a homosexual so-called “sexual orientation”, which then becomes the DIRECT cause of all homosexual behaviour. If you construct, by choice of language, a model of how homosexual behaviour is caused, that is calculated to exonerate homosexual behaviour, and others adopt that model uncritically almost universally, then *of course* before long, homosexual behaviour will be almost universally condoned, and seldom condemned, and before long, those who still condemn homosexual behaviour will find themselves on the receiving end of fierce persecution.

        Rewind, rethink, start again.

  • Nigel

    From a historical perspective it is fairly clear that men and women have had sex with the same sex for at least the historical period. However the social constructions around have been very varied. As have , and are, the social constructions around sex between the sexes. All in all it would appear there is nothing so elaborate as “sexual orientation” so much as a general impulse to have sex to reproduce ( and it is surprising to us now but the biology of this has been poorly understood throughout history particularly it seems prior to domestication of animals!) And an impulse to have sex because it felt good.
    The bible generally assumes men carry “seeds” and is oblivious to females eggs. Places great responsibility for men to plant their seed wisely to grow the tribe. And consequently has injunctions against wasting this seed and evading the duty to reproduce to grow the tribe.  As a consequence it also has nothing to say about female same sex sex , presumably so long as this didn’t get in the way of the duty to reproduce. 
    A survey of the history does indeed show the variety and “sexual orientation” romantic love and a lifestyle based on who one may have sex with are all quite recent innovations in human rationalisation of their sexual activities . I suspect the factors are , sheer numbers of people means there is little premium on reproduction( and anyway it can be managed through contraception) , consequently there is very much less emphasis on a duty to perform a specific reproductive roles, consequently such roles become less prominent and others can be developed , sex shorn of its reproductive potential becomes just a physical behaviour leaving a lot of time and space for notions of romance , love, lifestyle and an encompassing “orientation”.  So the lesson of history suggests our sexual mores are based on a whole lot more than just who one may “fancy” . The debate represents the very real challenge presented by a time where unprecedented material well-being means there are few constraints imposed . So actually there are the possibilities for all sorts of behaviour with potentially little obvious reason to stop any of them. And there’s the rub. Because how then do we judge ? What age is it to start? What behaviours are too far? Hence the invention of “nature” as a moral force.  

    • http://JohnAllman.UK John Allman

      @ Nigel

      I think yours was an interesting contribution to the general question that everybody faces, and which the Christian church is (to use a favourite word of Steve Chalke’s) “grappling” with.

      “evading the duty to reproduce to grow the tribe … possibilities for all sorts of behaviour with potentially little obvious reason to stop any of them. … Because how then do we judge?”

      A Utilitarian, modern society that does not describe itself as a “tribe”, or appeal to older faith- or scripture-based notions of right and wrong, still has a strong humanitarian interest in tipping the playing field to give traditional marriage (enduring, opposite-sex monogamy), otherwise known as “patriarchy”, a special pace of honour, making it a more likely lifestyle choice amongst those who do what they are *told* to do.

      This really isn’t about regulating the enjoyment of recreational sexual activity, if it ever has been. It is about maximising the proportion of children who are raised by their two natural parents, natrually one of each gender. That is said to be the children’s right “where possible”, in the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child. We have no sooner agreed to give children their rights, than we have practically bull-dozed them.

      It is perverse that within a few years of achieving a apex of international consensus behind this child-friendly UN declaration, many of our political leaders have sold out to those discontented elements (feminists, gay rights activists and the like) whose goal is to “smash the family”. Our leaders have allowed such elements to advance far in engineering a hegemony of themselves. They have been using their power and privilege to move towards maximising the prevalence of the manifold abnormal, non-nuclear family situations in which children find themselves today, in which adults think they can decide for them that it isn’t going to be “possible” for them to enjoy what it took until only recently for the world to admit that every child deserves – the best, a mum and a dad who loved each other.

  • Nigel

    Taking a historical view a significant part of the efforts to “de-construct” common , and certainly religious, definitions of “family” come from a strand of Marxism developed to deal with the absence of proletarian revolution ( as opposed to conquest ) . This stand identified the family as the bulwark of capitalist society and consequently the focus for action. From Kibbutz to sexual liberation a la Germaine Greer the collapse of the family was to usher in the classless society. Of course this conveniently plays into a feeling of hedonistic freedom as “family” usually implies responsibilities and intergenerational and interpersonal relationships. For the “me generation” one can see the attraction of the freedom part of this agenda. As you say this coincides with the development of ideas of children’s rights. With some really paradoxical positions in attempting to “liberate” particularly female adults from limits to “choice” and familial responsibilities while addressing children’s rights to have their needs met. Thus at the same time as evidence for what children need mounts up and up the ability for our society to actually deliver decreases! Working in Social Services time after time Social Services Depts. are put into special measures, lambasted and vilified, there is no doubt bad practice, but the fact is there is an exponential growth in child protection work as institutions “grapple” with an absence of family to meet needs. Of course this truth doesn’t get much beyond professional reports because the inconvenient truth is to reverse this trend requires curtailing “liberation” and supporting responsibility in adults. And this irresponsibility has underpinnings in heresies of Marxism such as much of pop feminism. A very good point indeed to focus on the consensus on the rights of children as it holds a mirror up to our society . Interestingly developments such as gender equality traing for boys and the narrative that abused girls and boys in Rotherham chose behaviours are examples of a tendency to make children responsible for themselves absolving adults from responsibility to guide or intervene. Strikes me the moral compass is all over the shop.

  • Pingback: An Open Conversation about Sexuality – 19th September 2014 | St Luke’s Prestonville()