One for the road...

Jesus - the stud of God...

The opening lines of the excellent film Crash are...

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

This feeling of disconnection is a sentiment that Rob Bell echos in his book, Sex God, about spirituality & sexuality. Sex can be a way of bumping into people, into being naked, connected, vulnerable with another human being for a few fleeting moments.

But for Rob this sense of connection is more than just a reason for sex it is his definition of sexuality itself, as he writes:

"For many, sexuality is simply what happens between two people involving physical pleasure.  But that's only a small percentage of what sexuality is.  Our sexuality is all of the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other and with God."

If we take this broader definition of sexuality than maybe we can see that in Jesus is someone who was far more sexual than we give him credit for (unless you're a fan of the Divinci code in which case Jesus was very sexual ;).

When it comes to sexuality and Jesus you will know doubt have your own view - my view for may years of Jesus was a very asexual figure.  A very nice man but not really a very sexual one.  In some ways my view of Jesus was a bit like a divine action man - someone like a GI Joe doll, all virile dynamic action on the outside but drop his trousers and its a plastic blank where any form of sexual identity should be.

One of the shocking thoughts from last year was to re-evaluate my view of this limited humanity of Jesus - the Jesus with no penis and no sexuality - celibate asexual Jesus.  But if Jesus is fully human and indeed shows us how we can become full human than that just can't be the case - Jesus must have had a fully human sexuality to match his fully human mind, soul and body (complete with working penis).

If I now throw Rob's definition of sexuality into the mix then Jesus becomes one of the most sexual people of all time - someone who through himself into the business of reconnection, who found that reconnection was worth both living and dying for.

For Jesus being about this work of the Father was better than sex, or food, or anything else - it gave him purpose, energy and passion.  Jesus reaching out to touch people, heal people, teach people - reconnecting people with themselves, each other & God.

Jesus, for me redefines, what it means to be a stud - to give life for others, to thers.  If Jesus was come as he said so we could have life to its full, that surely must include our sexuality as part of what he meant.

After all our sexuality is one of the things that makes us human, that makes us different from both the animals (urge/lust/casual sexuality) and the angels (spiritual, asexual)  - as Rob highlights in one of the chapters in his book and worth a post in its own right.

I find my sexuality challenged and inspired by this deeper version presented by Jesus.  It encourages honesty within me - to share who i am, to enjoy the way i have been made and reconnect my sexuality and spirituality in a way that i have never quite been able to reconcile before.

How does this view of Jesus as the expression of the fullness of human sexuality, the stud of God, impact you?

Porn again christian...

As someone who has been addicted to porn I was really glad to see that 7 October has been christened porn sunday (HT to Anne Jackson) - an opportunity for porn to be talked about it in church.

The dangers of a private faith...

When i grew up I never heard a lot of sermon's in church but never one that talked about sexuality - the christianity i experienced was a very private affair and therefore what people did outside of sunday staid mostly private unless it was a good thing in which case it was ok to go public with it. For a long time I never knew i could talk about being addicted to porn, i knew it was a bad thing, a shameful thing and therefore something that should be kept well out of sight least it blow my own good christian PR!

so good so bad...

On the flip side of course I never thought much about what a destructive thing porn is as well. I started off stealing porn mags from 7-11 as a curious teen with a friend, graduated through porn books at uni, explicit films on tele and finally the deluge of free porn on the net that i revelled in. It was easy for me to find this was just a way of coping with life, that looking didn't hurt anyone. Oh and btw everyone else is doing it too.

And of course like every other addictive thang in the word from worry to crack cocaine, porn is a way of coping with life, it can feel good, distracting, creating an unreality to escape into - feeding a whole host of issues in me: my own insecurity, intimacy craving, lust and a desire to feel normal about my own particular sexuality at the time [more about all that here].

But after a time the mind adjusts to the level of stimulation so i found myself on a downward spiral, needing more porn, spending more time looking at it, looking for more extreme porn which desenitised me still further and at the same time made me feel even more shame - thus fueling the next binge.

The long hard road of recovery

Coming out of being addicted to porn has been a long road and a very painful one. Realising how much hurt and trust that i have destroyed is not pleasant, having to face the shame and some of the inner issues that underlie it is not easy either. I still have flashbacks from time to time, images, words, thoughts that exert a real power over me even now - i have spent so much time in porn in the past that it formed me at a depth that I never realised.

What has helped me is learning to be honest - actually admitting my weaknesses and that i can't fight my addiction alone. I have needed prayer, accountability, help, support, encouragement, forgiveness from others and re-formation - the holy spirit reshaping my character and helping me in the ongoing healing of my own hurts and insecurities that were medicated by porn.

I don't want to write to say heh look at me, now I'm perfect - cos i know that i am not. Lust in me may have lost a lot of its external visual hold but it still seeks to find ways of getting me to co-operate with it - to take humanity from another person like some voyeuristic vampire to feed my own rather selfish feel good needs rather than to find ways to give humanity back. It is still far too easy for me to be complacent and to suddenly be prodded by the holy spirit that i am staring!

Hope for the hopeless: finding grace in weakness and courage in company...

However, i do want to write to give hope and understanding. Some of the great lies i've faced over has been the 'i'm crap/sinner so why not enjoy it?' that coupled with 'that's the way i am' and 'i'm a man i'm meant to look at porn so i can't help it.' Finding hope, love, and truth for each of those sentances has helped me realise that others have faced exactly the same and have been changed as well - hope is here, liberation is here, because the Father, Son and Spirit are here.

I look at how far God's grace has brought me in 17 yrs and how being honest with myself in admiting there I have a problem and people being honest with me to give me courage to face my addiction to porn has been life changing.

If you'd like to share your own stories of hope then I'd love to hear them. They don't have to be porn related, pick any of your addictions...

If you'd like to chat off line please feel free to email me or check out xxxchurch.com

Domination free communities: learning to live other centred shared lives?

The very nature of God is both communal and other centred - God is in eternal community of one nature/will in three persons.  They do not not try and hog the stage for themselves but instead turn the spotlight on each other.  There is no hierarchy, there is no ego, there is no fear, there is no dominance - there is mutual acceptance, delight, laughter, creativity as each one bows to the other and loves to see the other lifted up.

I am going to leave the last few posts with their theme of Walter Wink's dominance free order with a final reflection of how we as christian communities can live out something of our future and of our past - in asking you to imagine with me what it would be like to be communities where we could be open to each other, we could live in a way where it was other centred - not stuck on the huaraches and domination systems that we as humans have created out of fear, the need to control and to be controlled - but how we were created in the beginning - in the image of this tri-une fear free other focused God and how it will be at the end when we receive our fully restored humanity in bodily form back and liberated, dominion-free,  life back again.

I am not sure I can imagine this myself, or think that clearly - if this piece is on community and taking the example of sex and sexuality as to how we can live other centred lives - than i am going to need your help.  Otherwise it becomes either just my wishful thinking or a new system of dominance that is the 'right' way we all have to conform too.

We all have a sexual nature

In my last post on christian sexuality, Molls made some very thoughtful generously said comments which made me think about our sexuality and how as communities we express that amongst each other.  Whether it is heterosexuality or homosexuality and the variations of expressions of sex, emotion, thought, domination filled or free, part of broken humanity or not than i would say it feels like to us who are going through it that this is our nature - and whether that is genetic or not from my own experience of my sexuality i would say it becomes 'nature,' it takes on who we are/feel and therefore i think we as communities need to get beyond that point.

Another way of approaching this is for me to say ok this happens but is it ok, or is it the best?  And if we are saying there is something better which might involve say not practising my homosexuality by having sex how much are we prepared to be communities where:

a) we can all share our sexual issues in an accepting way knowing that we need each other and God to help; and

b) am i prepared to give up some/all of my rights/freedoms -to be other centred rather than self centred?

For example: Cherith Fee-Nordling has suggested that maybe if i am a single christian maybe what i have to do is to give up what it is that i am asking my gay friend to give up and not get married, or indeed have sex, bur instead dedicating our lives to support each other gay/straight to live this out together- nd with all else that it might also cost us in terms of career, where we live etc...

I think too often we heterosexual christians sound like:

a) we are better morally because of our sexual orientation; and

b) that because we're straight have a right to sex and you because you're gay don't have that right? [Is it just me or does the term 'straight' seem to apply a betterness to our morality just because we are attracted to the opposite sex to us?].

I look at my own life and ongoing sexuality confusion and think that i am at least if not more messed up, same as a large chunk of the world, and if the rest of that chunk isn't messed up about sex they are messed up about something else.

Jesus has a sexual nature

I also look at Jesus, as a man who has a fully human male has a penis which works and therefore how he must have chosen celibacy because he was other centred: he was obedient to the father and it wouldn't have been loving to drag a wife into what he had to do.   

The film, the 40 yr old virgin, captured something of how strange this is in our sex focused culture but it must have also been very strange in Jesus time too - with its Hebraic expectations of family - how Jesus must have faced questions about his choice of staying single, how he must have faced pressure to get married, and be misunderstood about why he wasn't - after all a wild prophet like John might be able to get away with it but the village carpenter what was his excuse?  Am I am sure it was not because there weren't women who Jesus was attracted too - but somehow when he saw them and felt his own humanity stir in that moment he gave them back their humanity and refused to treat them as sex objects but instead saw their beauty as part of the reflected glory of his Father as fellow image bearers of God.   Jesus must therefore understands the emotions and consequences of making choices about our sexual expression.

How Jesus must have faced choices all the time to give life/humanity back to people rather than treat them as sex objects/means of gratification and therefore has not only been to the no sex place but understands sexual feelings.  But also how he is for the other, how maybe gay or straight, male or female we need to learn to be affirming and appreciative of each other rather than so scared of not being able to keep it in our pants? 

Can we learn to be honest and open about our feelings?  Are we gonna live in an environment where we are scared about falling sexually that we can no longer relate to the opposite sex?  Or an environment where we can share and confess our sexual feelings and learn to give each other our humanity back - not flirt for affection or need sex to make us feel good about ourselves but live in communities where we feel good cos we are loved, where it is normal for us to appreciate each other and the image of God that we each reflect in personality and our bodies?

Can we walk this out as communities in the the light?

I mean writing all this sounds weird - it makes me feel way uncomfortable cos i have been taught that once married its all about building barricades, about being careful, about not mixing with the opposite sex - all my worries kick in and i go man is this not asking for trouble?

Maybe another way to think about it is trouble is already there?  Temptation is already there but cos we keep it hidden and in the dark it just goes on its merry way.  Maybe we need to bring it out into the light?  Maybe we need to to think about how as communities we need each other?  How married people aren't better or single people people aren't better but that we all need each other and can learn from each other and help each other to reflect God to each other and affirm and care for each other.

Jesus said it was for our love for each other not our fear people would know that God was real.  If we practise being for each other in the same way the trinity practise being for each other - where it becomes not about me and my rights but about mutually living for each other then maybe we'll have something that is not just an argument based on reason but a way of life that encompasses love and experiences the Spirit at work amongst us, shaping us more like that?

What do you think?

I think what I am asking is:

• how can we do this? 
• what would it look like to live other centre lives not just asking people to give something up but asking what can i give up to help them?
• would you change your views on homosexuality if it meant you being prepared to surrender your own sex life and live with them as a friend and companion who together shared a life of celibacy and its related struggles?
• do you feel weird about men and women as the joint image bearers of a communal other centred God finding ways to affirm and share each other and be for each other?
• what scares you?  excites you?
• do you think that if we do something we'll be at least starting to bring light and life and if we do nothing all the things we are afraid of will still continue to happen but they'll be some body else's problem?

The problem with changing sexual society mores...

HT: Asbo Jesus

Domination free sexuality: is Christian morality an iron chastity belt for repressing urges or a way of expressing the integrity of our relationship with God?

Have you ever wondered where we get our sexual ethics from - what is and is not healthy?  I'm sure a lot of people have and in the christian world there is always a tension running between what people think of as sexually permissible from the bible [2 people of the opposite sex in married union, lights on optional ;)] and what might currently be permissible in society [everything else you can imagine and a lot you can't - maybe ;)].  I use crude stereo types with a wink to highlight that a lot of our own sexual morality is our own judgement, or as a result of our history/culture/exposure/values/experiences etc which is where a lot of sexual tension/problems can arise when different value systems collide and what is disgusting to one person is a permissible pleasure to another.

Of course that is not to say that within christian world shaped as it is by the culture of the bible there is not a sexual ethic present - but then again within the text there is also that sexual ethics/world view of their time being reflected as well - so when are we today reflecting God's ideal and when are we just trying to apply ancient cultural practises/sexual world view into are time when the ancient may be no better or perhaps even worse from our own ethical standing.  What are we left with - that everything that happens between two consenting adults in private is ok?  That everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial?  Some return to OT law and Ancient Near East Hebraic practises?

Sexual mores not sexual commands:

Walter Wink highlights this discussion very well - looking at sexuality in the bible and highlights 14 cultural areas of Hebrew sexual practises in detail where we might differ culturally today.  In his conclusion on them he raises this dilemma of what is cultural based vs what is ethically based:

"....virtually all modern readers would agree with the Bible in rejecting: incest, rape, adultery, and intercourse with animals. But we disagree with the Bible on most other sexual mores. The Bible condemned the following behaviours which we generally allow: intercourse during menstruation, celibacy, exogamy (marriage with non-Jews), naming sexual organs, nudity (under certain conditions), masturbation (some Christians still condemn this), birth control (some Christians still forbid this).

And the Bible regarded semen and menstrual blood as unclean, which most of us do not. Likewise, the Bible permitted behaviours that we today condemn: prostitution, polygamy, levirate marriage, sex with slaves, concubinage, treatment of women as property, and very early marriage (for the girl, age 11-13).

And while the Old Testament accepted divorce, Jesus forbade it. In short, of the sexual mores mentioned here, we only agree with the Bible on four of them, and disagree with it on sixteen!

Surely no one today would recommend reviving the levirate marriage. So why do we appeal to proof texts in Scripture in the case of homosexuality alone, when we feel perfectly free to disagree with Scripture regarding most other sexual practises? Obviously many of our choices in these matters are arbitrary. Mormon polygamy was outlawed in this country [USA], despite the constitutional protection of freedom of religion, because it violated the sensibilities of the dominant Christian culture. Yet no explicit biblical prohibition against polygamy exists.

If we insist on placing ourselves under the old law, as Paul reminds us, we are obligated to keep every commandment of the law (Gal. 5:3). But if Christ is the end of the law (Rom. 10:4), if we have been discharged from the law to serve, not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit (Rom. 7:6), then all of these biblical sexual mores come under the authority of the Spirit. We cannot then take even what Paul himself says as a new Law. Christians reserve the right to pick and choose which sexual mores they will observe, though they seldom admit to doing just that. And this is as true of evangelicals and fundamentalists as it is of liberals and mainliners."

A free love ethic...

Once we begin untangling ourselves from a law based system of sexual dominated thought where we control what practise is or is not acceptable - what are left with.  Some people may suddenly love the freedom that comes with the liberation from sexual rule keeping, imposed sexual ideas, shame, guilt, fear etc that comes with them.  Other people may be panicking and seeing the thin end of the wedge for a panoply of perversions to break out into our culture - if christians aren't gonna be the chastity belt on society anymore who is?

Does focusing on a practise that we might see as a perversion really help - is it me trying to exercise control over you based on my understanding of "right" sexual mores, maybe using the divine to back me up?  Does it open me up to charges of hypocrisy [why highlight that aspect of OT sexual practise and not another?]?  Does it actually end up with me lessoning your humanity whilst trying to make mine look bigger?  Does it make me feel arrogant, prideful, self-righteous and at the same time you more ashamed, angry, afraid, agitated etc?

What if the ethic we need is not so much of "right" behaviour and managing that but an ethic of love that gives humanity and dignity back to people rather than seeks to oppress it or hide it?  What if the love ethic starts with me and my sexual weaknesses, hang ups, screw ups?  So when I see an attractive woman and my humanity kicks in, instead of taking her for a lust object in my mind, cheapening her humanity by making her an object of sexual gratification for me to consume,  i find ways to give her back her humanity?  Instead of exploiting, using or manipulating  people for my own sexual release i find ways to live in commitment, where i learn about giving rather than just taking.  As Walter goes on in his article to say:

"I agree that rules and norms are necessary; that is what sexual mores are. But rules and norms also tend to be impressed into the service of the Domination System, and to serve as a form of crowd control rather than to enhance the fullness of human potential. So we must critique the sexual mores of any given time and clime by the love ethic exemplified by Jesus. Defining such a love ethic is not complicated. It is non-exploitative (hence no sexual exploitation of children, no using of another to their loss), it does not dominate (hence no patriarchal treatment of women as chattel), it is responsible, mutual, caring, and loving. Augustine already dealt with this in his inspired phrase, "Love God, and do as you please."

Our moral task, then, is to apply Jesus' love ethic to whatever sexual mores are prevalent in a given culture. This doesn't mean everything goes. It means that everything is to be critiqued by Jesus' love commandment. We might address younger teens, not with laws and commandments whose violation is a sin, but rather with the sad experiences of so many of our own children who find too much early sexual intimacy overwhelming, and who react by voluntary celibacy and even the refusal to date. We can offer reasons, not empty and unenforceable orders. We can challenge both gays and straights to question their behaviours in the light of love and the requirements of fidelity, honesty, responsibility, and genuine concern for the best interests of the other and of society as a whole.

Christian morality, after all, is not a iron chastity belt for repressing urges, but a way of expressing the integrity of our relationship with God. It is the attempt to discover a manner of living that is consistent with who God created us to be. For those of same-sex orientation, as for heterosexuals, being moral means rejecting sexual mores that violate their own integrity and that of others, and attempting to discover what it would mean to live by the love ethic of Jesus."

What do you think?

I'd be interested to hear what you think/feel  wherever you are on the liberated/terrified scale.  Do you agree with Walter?  Is it about ethics rather than sexual mores? If so, how do you feel with Walter's proposition that the question is not:

• "What is permitted?" but rather "What does it mean to love my different practising sexual neighbour [whether that is homosexual or some other practise]?"
• "What constitutes a breach of divine law in the sexual realm?" and becomes instead "What constitutes integrity before the God revealed in the cosmic lover, Jesus Christ?"
• "What does Scripture command?" and becomes "What is the Word that the Spirit speaks to the churches now, in the light of Scripture, tradition, theology, and, yes, psychology, genetics, anthropology, and biology?

Thought free dominance: a video post exploring four reasons why I think christians want to have answers to the question of god, their faith, the bible and homosexuality

Following on from the trail blazing pioneer work of Joshua Case with video posts I have done one that follows that picks up the theme of my recent post about the kingdom of God being about a domination free order.  Here I explore four reasons in 5 mins why I think christians seem to be asking Qs about homosexuality...

I should have added a fifth which flows out of all of them which is maybe people saying ok, that doesn't seem to make sense to me, i want to have a view that is faithful to God but there are bits in all those 4 reasons where i feel a tension with that, is there a better answer or way [something i'd like to pick up as well over the next couple of days].

In the meantime, people i've come across recently asking great Qs and thinking awesome thoughts about christianity and homosexuality are:

• Katie;
• Ben;
• John;
• Carmen;
• Helen; and
• Rupert

So what do you think...

God's domination-free order - exploring our own ongoing liberation

"In his Beatitudes, in his extraordinary concern for the outcasts and the marginalised, in his wholly unconventional treatment of women, in his love of children, in his rejection of the belief that high ranking men are the favourites of God, in his subversive proclamation of a new order in which domination will give way to compassion and communion, Jesus brought to fruitition the prophetic longing for the 'kingdom of God' - an expression we might paraphrase as "God's domination-free order."

Whilst we might dream of a domination free order we seem to be living in a domination full world.  A world full of systems and structures, powers and people who oppress us, who push us down, who seek to control. 

Sometimes we are aware of these when our own space and self is under threat...

sometimes we're the pushers, when we want something, when it's our will/want that we are out to get or just someone to take the fall/blame  for us. 

Sometimes we are unaware,  just part of the system, to quote the definition of the Matrix, the system/culture is "the world pulled over [y]our eyes to blind us from the truth..." so for instance economic systems where what we consume comes at the expense of someone else's sufferings/exploitation [third world workers, the environment], or where it is the taken as the norm, like slavery 200 yrs ago, blacks not having less rights in the southern states of America.

"Some of them want to use you, some of them want to be used by you..."

So sang the Eurythmics and I am sure we all have our own experiences with living in/with domination. 

For me personally I grew up with one dominating parent and one passive one, that effected me in many ways not least in taking a decision not that i would not be passive.  To fight domination I refused to be dominated by anyone, ever! 

That decision was to impact me in many ways,  I could never lose an argument, which meant I never listened.  I was always right so I was never very teachable.  I also needed to be in control and there is nothing more likely to end up in abuse as a husband like me who took being obeyed very literally indeed and didn't bother too much about the servanthood of a sacrificing love that also goes along with that part of the bible.

It also impacted on my sexuality and the desire to dominate and be in control led me via the wonderful world of the net to discover BDSM and decide that a sexuality based on the giving of submission and the exercise of domination was how i was created to be.  I've talked about my experiences more here and here and how i came not only recognise not only that my desire to dominate was born out of my fears but also how God helped me changed and is helping me change so that my character has become more about giving and less about getting, more about me growing in self awareness and surrendering/giving up/laying down my rights - including my right to be right.

Dream with God and me of a domination free world

I want to do a couple of posts looking at the idea put forward by Walter Wink [who I quoted to begin with] of a domination free order - what would that look like, feel like - particularly with some of the issues that seem to be just the way things are as christians in the way that slavery was a couple of hundred yrs ago [and indeed this is still a live issue even today].  Before  I do, i'd like to hear your thoughts:

• what you feel when you read the quote and think of a domination free order being a way of expressing the kingdom of God?
• your own experiences of systems/structures/circumstances of domination whether conscious of them or not at the time?
• you own experiences of liberation/grace/freedom from these?
• your own thoughts as to where there are such domination systems today in our thought/world view/culture/experience
• anything else that you've thought/felt/inspired to share...

Restoring my humanity: personal experiences of Jesus as the way/truth/life...

Yesterday I reflected on some of my thinking why Jesus is the way not only for me to find God but also to become fully human.  Today I'd like to explore that by looking at some of my life and  how for me Jesus has helped me become not just more human but a better human in terms of my work, marriage, my sexuality etc...

My way or Jesus way?

The way of Jesus for instance was the way of self sacrifice and death, through torture.  Watch Mel Gibson’s The Passion and it all comes home in glory/gory filled technicolour.  To see someone die with such dignity and compassion in the face of such suffering and injustice is a calling to aspire high above my immediate life goals/desire for a way of gadgets, gizmos and carefully collected knowledge. 

It is a way that I have often wandered off as well.  The low point of this journey came just over 6 years ago. 

I had gone through a patch of being wildly successful at work, given increased responsibilities for key clients and a higher wage packet I plunged myself into work, dreaming of the day when I would become a partner in the firm of auditors for which I worked.  Long hours and such dreams of more success and money kept me feeling happy and content and my need for following the way of God faded.  I was doing this myself and reaping all the benefits of such.  Forget the wild ways, the hidden valley, the exposed windy hillside – I was down in big green lush fields where I would live my days in gratifying and enjoying the desires of my heart. 

Over night it all began to go sour. 

I got a new boss who didn’t like me.  I got dumped on with more and more responsibility; previously it had felt liberating, now I was hopelessly out of my depth and drowning.  My staff failed to get their work done.  My clients complained and circulated emails and memos out of context.  I was warned, failure would not be tolerated.  So I of course redoubled and trebled my efforts, worked longer hours, made bigger promises, tried to bluff that I was thriving under this pressure instead of being crushed.
For awhile it looked even sweeter.  Off my own back I organised a transfer to the Boston office subject to the approval of my bosses, I dreamed of new experiences and of course returning higher up the ladder and work seemed to be going good again. 

Then it all fell apart. 

Staff shortages had led to a poorer piece of work but the new boss wasn’t interested in excuses my manager and then my boss both phoned me up at a client to tear a strip off me.  After my manager’s call I was shaken, retreating to the toilet I started to cry, I had tried so hard and it was so unfair, pulling myself together I returned back to my desk to put a brave face on it.  I still had some dregs of self confidence left, I had demonstrated bounce back ability before, and I would do so again.  Then the phone rang again, it was the boss.  Nothing I could say could satisfy him, he had written me off, it was clear by his tone, his comments.  My thin wisp of self belief snapped along with something inside me, the stress, the pressure, the end of all my hopes, the dreams becoming a nightmare and I started sobbing into the phone.  All I kept saying between wracking sobs was “I tried, I tried so hard…”  The boss told me to call me back after I pulled myself together and hung up.  Leaving me to sob it out and to leave work that night a broken man.  No move to Boston, future in the firm, it was all clear to me that I would have to move on…

The way I had chosen had looked like leading to success but instead had shown me failure.  Humbly with no where else to turn or anything else to cling to I began to return to the way of God, haltingly, honestly, scared of rejection I began to read little snippets of the bible, to pray and to wonder what the future might now hold for me.  I didn’t feel at all comfortable out on the lonely path but at least I had something of a map and compass…

Looking back the humbling of me was also the making of me.  Going back was going forward.  I was vulnerable and in a place where God could find me, guide me, change me, take me on… And of course then there was truth…

Before my sense of pride, my goals, my ambitions, my fears and my insecurities had kept me blind from the truth of who I was, what I was like, why I was like it.  Now vulnerable I could begin to face some of the truth about my character, my nature but it would also take something more.  It would take someone modelling the power of honesty and in turn giving me the courage to be honest as well and it would take a dramatic intervention by God to show me the truth.

There's truth and then there is The Truth...

I have already blogged a little about my encounters with truth and deeper truth and the strugle to be honest about my sexuality here.

It was on a mission trip to Zambia when the radical encounter with truth which has lasted for the last 4.5 yrs began.  I think I had signed up for the trip in my heady days of success but by the time I departed I was wondering exactly what the point of me being there was... 

Love the sinner...love the sinner: sexuality, sin and christian leadership

I still am thinking about christianity and sexual ethics - but this strand of thought is how far we allow sexually sinful people into the church - how much do they have to believe before they can belong and more than that, what level of moral perfection is needed to be achieved before they can start to lead...

My musings are inspired this time:

first by Jamie Arpin-Ricci's powerfully honest and beautiful post about his own struggles with feeling attracted to people of the same sex, which if you haven't read it then please check it out Jamie's personal reflection here and his follow up here; and

second this really thought provoking post by Shannon on is black still black and white still white.  I have lots of thoughts on Shannon's post but i think to write them there would be churlish, i don't want to litter his blog with my half formed thinking - and when you're a guest it is not polite to leave wet towels all over the bathroom!  I understand where Shannon is  coming from, it is the script that i have spent most of my life reading off of but am now starting to wonder how much is just my evangelicalism speaking and how much of it really is Jesus...

The question is that classic one of whether to allow gay people to become leaders  - Shannon suggests the position that i am most familiar with of gays being able to come to church but not allowed to lead- just as say a church wouldn't allow  a [serial] adulterer to be a leader etc...

But i am left wondering at what level do we allow sinners into leadership - after all i am guessing that such restrictions on leadership are not placed on people who think lustful thoughts, who find it hard to forgive, who feel pride, gluttony, addictions to work etc etc?  We seem to send out the message that leaders should be morally pure, upstanding examples of the sinless Jesus...

Or maybe i've just the point somewhere along the line?

i'm presuming leadership is not someone walking through the door and being promoted to snr pastor on the spot - but one that has a whole lot of variable roles - and therefore if i am gay i can't lead in any of them, even though God might have given me the gift because being gay is a sin, but if i gossip then that's ok cos that's more acceptable - or is it?

If i was gay and came to such a church i think i'd hear that most loved refrain of heh we love you we just hate your sin - which to the speaker is mighty comforting to tick that loving box but to the listener it sounds like heh i'd like to love you but you're a sinner - we don't love your kind round here...

If i was gay and came to such a church i don't think i would tell anyone that i was, i'd say heh as soon as i do i won't get to use my leader gifts and they are as much a part of me as my sinful nature - but it that is gonna hold me back from serving God then why do i need to reveal that - or bisexual in the sad case of someone who did that and rose right to the top of his denominational tree before stumbling once too often...

In fact i am not sure me with all my struggles with my own sexuality would not have got far in such a church - which was why i never told anyone for yrs and struggled so much - and yes i was in leadership.  in fact when i started sharing my struggles i was asked to stay in leadership which surprised me but allowed me to model honesty, confession, grace and love and to see people come out a little from behind their own masks...

I know from my evangelical back ground that faith is a private matter and that the sins we get most het up about are those obvious private ones - and seemingly minority ones - like sexuality when it is revealed in public, not when it starts off with a lustful look...

I wonder though when we will also scrutinise our own institutions and ask ourselves how much our 'right' actions prolong and promote sin?  How do are black and white rules that ride coach and horses through grace?  Does the system we operate whilst looking righteous actually encourage sin?  Do we ask people to live to the laws that we say are important and define what they are and how they apply and therefore deny them the grace that they were promised when they decided to orientate their lives around Jesus in the first place?

I say we cos i think i am as much a part of the problem here as anyone else in the evangelical church - we do our pharisee bit in the most complimentary way, we are zealous for God, we are passionate about his word, we espouse high moral life and then maybe we wonder why our churches are such shiny happy places for shiny happy well scrubbed people who play the game, manage our sin and say thank goodness we have rules in the bible and we get to enforce them...

But our we missing out on something - if what we focus on determines what we miss then by focusing on sexuality we let a whole lot of other sins slip by... by focusing on law we let a whole lot of grace slip by...

I'm not saying that snr church leaders should not show maturity of character, a commitment to follow Christ etc but wouldn't it be great if we also had leaders who were able to grow by being honest, by confessing, by sharing their struggles and fears with the fear of being disbarred, banned, or sacked?  What would that do to us to learn about mercy and grace, to experience them and to have leaders who have grown up in their faith immersed in them? 

Maybe we need to check that script again and possibly start to think of getting a new one, as for me the same old lines just aren't working...

Love & truth - how can christians help/heal the sexually scarred/scared [and be helped/healed ourselves]?

Ken sent me these great thoughts below on my recent post on sexuality and christian ethics/belief/practice .  He has kindly given me permission to reproduce them here and We'd be interested in exploring the Qs Ken raises with you all on how we deal with sexual sin and engage with broken people in ways that are loving/tuthful...

Ken writes...

You [me] comment:
"So my question/challenge for us who claim to follow Christ is this - what if we grow in those greater areas of love, mercy, grace first and point to ourselves first as examples of brokenness,
selfishness, injustice, hate etc?:

So, I don't sense you saying that homosexuality it is NOT a sin, but rather how do we deal with this sin?  I grew up and heard a lot of intolerance and really even hate for these people. Though I sense no struggle in my heterosexual ID, I am, thanks to Christ, somewhat empathetic and do sense a great need to be love and truth to hurting people.

Tom (Hovestol) has commented that measured rates of homosexuality increase as prosparity increases... we could speculate all day about this. But, another speculation is, maybe a lot of forms of sin increase as prosparity increases??? So, how do we engage these or any other lost people...

In various formations of society, what 'provisions' do we make in government, etc. for various sin? Though I agree all 'sexual' have some issues and we are all in need of the cure, I must wonder, that yes in God's eyes, all sin is sin is sin, but we are called to be as wise as snakes and innocent as doves, how then do we handle a particular sin that the more accepted, the more it
hurts families, etc..?

Ok, so what do you think/have experienced/feel about these Qs?