“Can Christians Be Gay?” by Bill Shepson, Charisma & Christian Life, July 2001.
by Dr. Ralph Blair
The title of this cover story reminds me of a distinction that elementary school teachers used to try to instill in a kid who’d ask: “Can I go to the bathroom?” The desperate illiterate would be told: “You can but you may not.” Desperate contemporary Christians who wrestle with issues of faith and their same-gender attractions deserve better than the response the magazine gives. Indeed, the magazine’s answer is every bit as callous as what the kid got. The kid’s need was real but the teacher in authority focused on what was beside the point. Certainly Christians can be gay! Many are! But they’re told by their preachers that they may not be gay.
This is a popular charismatic and Pentecostal periodical. The issue’s cover depicts a young man holding his head in both hands, a moving illustration of what is felt by many gay Christians. The author, an associate editor, talked with me but did not use any of the interview for lack of “space,” even though he said our conversation “really helped add to [his] understanding of the overall issues involved and provided [him] with invaluable insight.” Alas, plenty of space was found for the typical antigay line.
To his credit, Shepson begins with a description of an openly gay congregation’s worship service. He describes it as a “blend of liturgical form and evangelical tradition with charismatic overtones [and a message] similar to those heard in thousands of churches across the country every Sunday morning.” He mentions the gay charismatic churches of the National Gay Pentecostal Alliance, “gay pastors with roots” in the Assemblies of God and United Pentecostal Church, and the [officially unrecognized] gay alumni group of Oral Roberts University.
Shepson illustrates what gay Christians are up against in typical Pentecostal churches when he quotes an Assemblies of God minister whose 40-year-old son is a pastor of a gay church: “It’s eternal destiny that I’m concerned about. The Word is plain: When you engage in this type of immorality … you are headed toward an eternity without God.”
When it comes to the possibility of sexual orientation change, Shepson is quite careless. It seems not to matter much that Mel White tells him he spent 35 years in “unsuccessful attempts [to change] which included electroshock therapy and seeking healing at a Kathryn Kuhlman crusade.” Shepson reports that the formerly-Exodus affiliated Courage group in Britain is now abandoning the “ex-gay” claims. And he quotes the group’s founder, Jeremy Marks, as saying that, from its beginnings in 1988, none of those who went through the group became heterosexual in orientation. But Shepson minimizes the inconvenient evidence. He pays little attention to the fact that, as he quotes Marks: the “ex-gay” movement “can actually make things worse” by leaving homosexuals unchanged and disillusioned with false promises.
Trying to offset Marks testimony, Shepson cites other “ex-gay” leaders. But they all fall short of what they seem to be promising – cryptically dubbed by Shepson as “find[ing] freedom from homosexuality” or “com[ing] out of homosexuality.” Noting that John Paulk, manager of Focus on the Family’s “ex-gay” office and “poster boy” of the national “ex-gay” movement, was caught last year drinking and socializing inside a Washington DC gay bar, Shepson quotes Paulk’s rationalization: “My curiosity got the best of me.” On such continuing homosexual attraction, Bob Davies, director of Exodus North America, is quoted explaining: “We don’t claim we’re perfect here. The past is always going to be in the background.” Trouble is, it’s so often in the foreground. Says Grahame Hazell, another Exodus leader: “Will it always be a struggle? Usually, yes. We will always be drawn to our roots and will never be perfect this side of the cross [?] [but] we will make [undefined] progress.” Marks’ honesty and the slippery statements of the continuing “ex-gay” leaders prove one thing: the sexual orientation of “ex-gays” remains homosexual.
Shepson concludes that the way the church could better handle homosexuality lies in its being a safer place for homosexuals. He mentions what he calls “two former lesbians” who have found [undefined] “freedom” in an Assembly of God church that allows them to “feel safe to open up when they are struggling.”
Three short articles accompany the cover story. “How the Gay Church Misinterprets the Scriptures” is by Shepson. He attacks the “unorthodox conclusions [of] gay churches.” For example, he says Genesis 1 and 2 is “God’s model for human sexuality.” But evangelical scholar Geoffrey Bromily said: “Look: In the world of the fall, some part of life, if not all, must be lived temporarily or permanently outside the regular patterns of God’s created order.” And evangelical scholar F. F. Bruce argued that Paul’s revising (Galatians 3:28) the theological significance of “male and female” interprets the older text for Christians. Shepson handles the other “clobbered” verses with similar inadequacy.
In “How Should We Respond?,” ex-gay leader Joe Dallas warns against clichés such as “gay lifestyle,” saying “There is no such thing.” Yet the third article, by a “former homosexual,” calls for “forsak[ing] the lifestyle.” He calls this being “delivered.” Dallas grants that homosexual feelings are not “a choice” and that the goal is not to act on the homosexual desires.
Finally, it’s not a matter of can or may, but must. And churches say: you must not!