What I love about Wesley is his ruthless honesty. He essentially spends all of chapter 5 making sure the reader understands he is not presenting a quick fix to the emotional ache that gay / SSA people feel. He wants to make sure gay / SSA Christians, as well as pastors looking for the magic bullet solution to all of this, understand that there is no magic bullet. He wants to make sure people understand if they walk down the path of kinship / covenantal friendship, they will meet pain and disappointment. This is not a good sales pitch! But it is real and it is honest. Us pastors hate this. We want a systematic theology that fixes everything. We want the right answer that grounds us in Scripture and that gives everyone warm fuzzies.
Another Path for Gay Christians: Friendship as a Lost Vow
Wesley Hill is a gay, celibate Christian. While I can’t speak for all people in all places, his 2010 book Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality was groundbreaking in my corner of biblically conservative evangelicalism. In a topic that had become bifurcated into only two camps, Wesley presented a third camp: Christians […]
Join the Flip Side Book Club: Spiritual Friendship by Wesley Hill, as we discuss gay celibate friendships
Please leave a comment in the blog comment section below if you want to join the Spiritual Friendship by Wesley Hill book club. You are welcome to comment anonymously.
Gay, Lesbian & Transgender Folks Should Not Get the Trademark on Sexual Disorientation Labels by the Church
There is a trend in our culture where if you are attracted to the same sex, attracted to both sexes, or identify as a different gender than your birth gender, the cultural tide tells you to go with how you feel, be yourself, and live into these feelings and attractions. It can feel like there […]
Grace Filled Sexuality
What comes to mind when you hear the phrase grace filled sexuality? I know I have Jesus’s grace, so if I live sexually in a way that is different than God’s design/commands, I’m okay and I’ll be forgiven. The Christian whose sexual desires differ from God’s design for sex often find themselves in quite a […]
How Evangelical Christians Should Respond to the Orlando Nightclub Massacre
49 people were gunned down and killed in an Orlando gay bar early Sunday morning, with another 53 wounded. You can read more about the gut-wrenching story here (CNN). The Orlando Sentinel is compiling a page where you can read a short tribute about each of the victims. There are lots of heavy elements to […]