1990s.  A fourteen-year-old in your church, who is visibly trembling with nerves, tells you she is “pretty sure” she’s a lesbian.  She asks you to promise not to tell anyone, including her parents, believing she will lose her friends, family and church if she says anything.  A survey shows two-thirds of adults in your church think gay and lesbian people mainly need to be told to repent of their “lifestyle”, and a third of those also think they pose a danger to children.  On the other hand, a section of the youth group doesn’t see why “just being who you are” could be a problem.

1. What are the three most important things you say to her?
2. What do you suggest Kaitlyn should do, and how much agreement do you expect from the congregation and the leadership about your response?
3. What if she was “pretty sure” she was asexual or bisexual?  (That is, experiencing sexual and romantic attraction to neither men or women, or to both?)
4. Kaitlyn has read some books on celibacy.  She is not romantically or sexually attracted to men and thinks that it is probably the morally right option for her.  But giving up all hope of future love feels unbearable.  Should she be encouraged to, or what are her alternatives?
5. Your church has been publicly silent on same-sex issues, whether due to uncertainty, caution, or weariness.  Kaitlyn says she “felt invisible”.  She had assumed the worst about this, fearing rejection, and her anxiety built up over time because she couldn’t ever put ‘the issue’ aside like ‘normal people’ could.  What would you prefer she had experienced?

A few maths questions, if you have the time and aptitude: Suppose 1 in 65 people are same-sex oriented (i.e.  solely attracted to the opposite sex; see §7.c, Statistics).  Without pondering whether infants have sexual orientation, suppose that people who will become same-sex oriented are being born into all human populations at this same constant rate.

6. Based on this ratio (i.e. divide any population by 65), how many same-sex oriented people would there be in your a) nation, b) denomination, c) high school, d) church, or e) bible college year – at least, if these groups were representative of humanity in general? – as they should be.
7. If you’re any good at probability (this is harder), what are the odds of a same-sex oriented person in your immediate family, or extended family?
8. What factors might make the number of same-sex oriented people seem higher or lower than it really is in everyday life?

2020s.  The local university newspaper celebrates Pride Week this year by inviting one-page essays on the topic “Love is love.”  One respondent, Marty, whose article does not identify with any specific LGBT movement or identity, sums up his view of sex and sexuality as follows.

Sex is really nobody else’s business, so long as anyone involved is consenting.  We’ve gotten past old hang-ups and people can be happy now.  There are risks, but education and common sense lets us manage those well enough to enjoy the benefits.  Education is the key.  Even people wanting to commit to a single other person should experiment first and find out what they like.  You should love whoever you love and never let anybody look down on that.  Love is freedom, that’s what love is.

Marty advocates for sexual liberty in public policy and morality, as well as the desirability of casual, recreational, or otherwise uncommitted sex.  In contrast, another respondent, Cliff, who identifies as a gay man, offers a different understanding of the slogan:

I’ve been gay as long as I can remember having any sexual attraction at all.  I remember as a ten-year-old wanting someone to love for the rest of my life and realising that I was what people despised when they talked about the gays or the queers or their other words for us.  Love isn’t love, not yet.  But it can be and it should be.  I want equality and respect.  I want my orientation and love and marriage to be recognized and respected like any other.  I want for no other kid to have to grow up with self-doubt and self-loathing.  Love is normal, that’s what love is.

Sexual liberty can be seen as a solution to same-sex discrimination.  Many straight people will see it as an extension of their own freedom to engage in casual sex: “What interest does the government have in what happens in anybody’s bedroom?”  But Marty and Cliff’s views do not necessarily go together.  Cliff appeals to justice, love, and equality rather than liberty.

1. Is sexual liberty just an extension of social liberty?  Is casual sex a matter for public laws, established norms, cultural wisdom, rational debate, or private morals?  Should a society have sexual liberty in principle even if a majority was convinced of the need for marriages or at least committed relationships?
2. In their private morality, what percentage of your society would agree with both Marty and Cliff, that is, with both casual sex and same-sex marriage?  What percentage would agree with casual sex but not same-sex marriage?  Or with same-sex marriage, but not casual sex?  Or with neither of the two?
3. What in society has been improved by an ideal of sexual liberty that is conscientious and consensual?  What has been made worse?  How reliably are the good aspects of the ideal achieved in practice?
4. To what extent does Cliff’s position represent anyone you know?  Has the popular understanding of same-sex orientation changed how you think or speak about these issues?  How reliably is Cliff’s ideal achieved in practice?
5. Where would you place Cliff and Marty on a spectrum that runs from the “free love” ethic of the late-sixties sexual revolution to the contemporary (‘woke?’)  movements that focus on rights, justice, and well-being?  Do you have more common ground with Cliff or Marty?

1990s.  Mika is in her early 20s.  She realised that she was same-sex oriented twelve or thirteen years ago.  At one stage she dated a popular and attractive young man from her church for a few months, but recalls the constant feeling of nothing, and being distracted by personable young women while she was out with him.

1. To straight Christian readers.  Can you calculate how many times in your life you have been conscious of sexual or romantic attraction?  How many times per day?  How many days per year?  How many years?  How many names do you recall?  In addition to the hope of pleasure, what did the possibility of mutual love mean for you?  What did it promise for your future?  What would you have done, as an early teen, if you realised that these attractions were always to someone of the same sex?  How would people you knew then have reacted?  What would you have thought about yourself?

Mika has received conflicting messages about same-sex orientation from other Christians.  Some Christian authors, leaders, and friends say that it is just like any other kind of temptation; it’s a different form of the same ‘sexual brokenness’ that everybody experiences.  They say: “It’s not a sin to be tempted.”  Others, though, try to explain the biblical prohibitions by framing same-sex relations as a special kind of idolatry, corruption, or depravity – a kind of super-sin that exemplifies human fallenness, concupiscence, and rebellion against God.  To Mika that means there is something specially wrong with her, something more shameful than ordinary temptation, and not what everybody experiences.

2. What makes shame legitimate or illegitimate for a Christian?  Can a Christian accrue legitimate guilt or shame for anything other than their own personal choices?  For example, is a desire like paedophilia so extreme that it should result in shame, or is it ‘only temptation’ unless acted upon?
3. Christianity has usually devalued social shame, following Jesus’ example of accepting dishonour for the sake of others.  But how is the shame that Mika feels different from social shame?
4. Mika takes the biblical condemnations of such same-sex relations seriously, thinks they are categorical, and believes that the desires can never be good or normal.  Putting yourself in her shoes for a moment: What would someone of a contrary view need to prove to persuade her differently?  How would their argument change is that person was a fellow Christian or a person of no religious affiliation.
5. To those who say same-sex orientation is just normal temptation, is it reasonable to reply, “Don’t confuse your lust with my orientation”?

The term celibacy is often used with two different meanings.  To avoid any confusion, I’ll use different words for each of these: ‘chastity’ for saving sex for marriage, and ‘celibacy’ for committing not to marry.  Celibacy is alluded to as a gift in Christian scripture, meaning not everybody has an aptitude for it, or will be content with it.  Historically, the term ‘continence’ has been used for this capacity for contentment with celibacy, though more commonly has a different, medical meaning nowadays.

1990s.  A leader in your church is same-sex attracted.  He has been through many years of counselling, depression and loneliness, has persevered in ministry, at which he excels, and has remained celibate.  He initially believed that his desires might change over time.  However, he has experienced no change and sees no hope now of changing.  He deeply desires love, a life partner and a family, but is not sexually or romantically attracted to women.

1. What options does Nick have?  Are they the same options Kaitlyn has (see #1.a), even though she has not been through the same experience as him?  Is anything different if he is employed in ministry, or ordained to it, rather than a volunteer?
2. Someone in your church tells Nick that his situation is just like a straight Christian woman who can’t find someone suitable to marry, despite wanting to.  Are there ways in which their situations differ, though?
3. Would you recommend that he marries a woman in the church who adores him, accepts that he is gay, and thinks he would be a fantastic father, but to whom he believes he could only be a friend?
4. Nick is an unrealistically perfect person; he has never made a mistake or held a wrong opinion.  What faults, if he had them, would affect how you or others in your church thought about his situation?

1990s.  Ian, who attends your church, spent five years in another organisation’s ‘reparative therapy’ program which encouraged him to expect that his same-sex orientation could be changed.  He says, though, that nothing has changed for him, he has no expectation that it will, and he considers this experience to be typical among those involved.  Another man in your church, Kevin, went through the same program as Ian, but says his attraction to men has been “much reduced” as a result, and that he could marry and be happy.  He speaks to various groups on this subject and that everyone experiences “sexual brokenness” but “many do experience change.”

1. A group of people in your church point to Ian as a sign that orientation can’t really be changed, and that the expectation of change is cruel and wrong.  How do you reply?
2. A group of people in your church point to Kevin as a sign of “God’s faithfulness” and say that Ian has given up on his faith by accepting that he is same-sex oriented.  What do you say to this?
3. What are three possible explanations for the differences in their experience?
4. You bring representatives of both these groups together for dinner.  What subjects would you like to see discussed?
5. If you were same-sex oriented, and a pill came out that would make you heterosexual, would you see that as a good thing, and would you take it?  Why might you not?  Would you answer the same if you had lived at other times in history?

2020s.  Emma is same-sex oriented and does not expect to change.  She is committed to celibacy in the form promoted by the ‘spiritual friendship’ movement, which aims to build strong relationships that can compensate for the lost hope of sexual or romantic intimacy.

1. To straight Christian readers.  If you were unmarried, how big a sacrifice would it be for you to commit to not marrying for 5 years?  How does this differ from looking back at having been single for five years?
2. Spiritual friendship often looks to priestly or monastic figures in the tradition of Catholic celibacy who are known or strongly believed to have been same-sex oriented, like Aelred of Rievaulx, Cardinal John Henry Newman, and Henri Nouwen.  In what ways would priestly vows of celibacy be similar and different to the celibacy urged for same-sex oriented Evangelicals?

Evangelical writing on celibacy emphasises ways in which same-sex oriented Christians contribute to Christian life and community:

3. While being stewards of the world, Christians expect to be liberated from its death and decay in the resurrection, and for the world itself to be similarly transformed.  How might this hope be more important or pressing to a same-sex oriented Evangelical?
4. The virtue of singleness is sometimes offered as a corrective to the western church’s “idolisation of family,” by citing Jesus and Paul as examples, as well as their explicit teaching.  Would this suffice to make the church a better home to same-sex oriented Christians?
5. Celibate gay Christians are ignored in churches that want to ignore LGBT issues, and celebrated in those that want to say “See, there’s no problem.  It’s not too demanding to expect celibacy.”  This leaves them vulnerable to shifts in congregational, denominational, or culture-war politics.  Suppose you were a same-sex oriented Evangelical of this sort, considering ‘going public’.  What practical risks do you think you might face?
6. Some people can be strengthened greatly by enduring unusual hardship, while for others the same experience can cause them suffering, lasting harm, and disillusionment.  Does same-sex orientation seem to you to entail a more difficult life?  What support should same-sex oriented Evangelicals receive from their churches?
7. Celibate gay Evangelicals often feel deeply betrayed by churches who set aside the biblical condemnations of same-sex relations without a plausible biblical explanation of how that can be good in God’s sight or reconcilable with Christian scripture.  This book argues that same-sex marriage is a biblically and pragmatically superior response to same-sex orientation.  What would this book have to prove if it were not to constitute a similar betrayal?

2020s.  Erica is the principal of a Christian school at which Dianne has been a well-respected teacher and additionally a qualified chaplain for the past five years.  A parent of a student hears a rumour about a suspicious degree of affection between Dianne and her flatmate Nicole, who works for another Christian organisation.  They ask for this to be investigated, and it emerges that Dianne and Nicole married in secret two years ago.

1. Legally, can Erica suspend or fire Dianne, in your jurisdiction?  What if, instead of a church school, they worked for a para-church organisation or a non-church charity?
2. Is what happens next affected by whether Dianne and Nicole prefer to keep things secret?  Or if one of Dianne’s students – an online influencer – learns about this situation and widely publicises it?  Is anything here being done for the sake of appearances?

Before marrying, Dianne and Nicole had read widely on sexuality and theology and came to the following position:

• Christian scripture prohibits same-sex relations, including between women.
• Scripture doesn’t address same-sex orientation or same-sex marriage, and the arguments that work against same-sex relations in other contexts don’t seem to apply to it.
• Same-sex marriage is a more biblical response to same-sex orientation than mandatory lifelong celibacy or (in either of their cases) marrying a man.

There’s a lot more to it, but they are thoroughly convinced of this position, believe it to be consistently Christian, and can argue it in great detail.  They are critical of a range of more liberal ideas that Erica initially assumed that they believed.

3. Does religious freedom protect the school’s right to terminate Dianne’s employment?  Would it do so if staff had agreed to a general, historical statement of faith that did not mention sexuality?
4. Does Christian freedom of conscience protect Dianne’s religious employment on religious grounds?  Whether or not you agree with them, could Dianne and Nicole’s views be believed conscientiously by an Evangelical Christian?
5. For Evangelicals, is religious freedom a subcategory of freedom of conscience, or is it something else?

2020s.  Keith’s denomination has formed a committee to assess “legal threats to gospel ministry” arising from same-sex issues, recent same-sex marriage legislation, and prospective legislation banning conversion therapy.  As a pastor and a Christian ethicist at a denominational college, he is asked to participate.

1. What is your denomination’s historical view of the right relationship between church and government?  Where is the line where conscientious disobedience begins?  What can its aims be, and what forms can it take in your society?
2. Does your denomination see itself as supporting anti-discrimination laws in general?  And do they justify this in explicitly Christian terms?
3. How has the modern discovery of same-sex orientation changed the way your denomination speaks or thinks about same-sex issues?

Defining a few terms.  Discrimination can mean treating one person worse than another because of an innate quality.  It can be morally justified, but it must be possible to explain the reason for it. Vilification is slandering a person or a group of people on this basis. Harassment is making their life difficult through abuse, intimidation, humiliation, or similar activities. Implicit discrimination is using seemingly neutral criteria that nonetheless have the same effect of excluding a particular class of people.  Perhaps a policing job really does require 6-feet tall employees, and so, fewer women qualify.  But if women made equally good police all-round, then the height requirement would be called implicit discrimination.

4. Is same-sex orientation an innate quality for some people?  Could it be reasonably regarded in that way by society and for legal purposes?
5. If so, do Christians treat some people worse than other people on this basis, slander them, or make their life difficult?
6. If so, can we offer a sensible moral justification for doing so – and do this persuasively in public life?
7. If we did not offer a publicly compelling moral argument against same-sex marriages, but simply said that our religious understanding of marriage excludes same-sex couples, would that be implicit discrimination?
8. Can ‘religious freedom’ justify discrimination in the absence of a moral justification?  Must a religious position be conscientious?  Must a conscientious position be something with clear moral reasoning?  – Especially in the face of an accusation of discrimination?
9. Do we ever end up saying that God and scripture discriminate based on innate qualities?  If so, does that make our position better or worse?

1960s.  Through a technological mishap, our hero James is shunted backwards in time to the 1960s.  Luckily, he seems immune to temporal paradoxes or inadvertently changing the future!  These sci-fi plots always involve comic misunderstandings.  In his case he is always being mistaken for his grandfather Jacob.  James is an ‘out’ gay man of no particular Christian faith.  His grandfather is a Christian minister who thinks deeply about his faith, administers a charity in his spare time, and is outspoken on racial equality.

1. What differences will James have with his grandfather over same-sex issues, just by virtue of belonging to different generations?  Which of these differences would be considered matters of discrimination now but not then?  What changed?
2. A Latin proverb says “the times change, and we change with them.”  How does Christian faith innovate authentically in response to new questions, ideas, or discoveries?  Are there examples in your tradition of improvements, including improvements that were long resisted?  On the other hand, were there changes that made things worse?

James’s technical troubles continue.  Whenever he tries to return to the present, he only falls further backwards in time.  It may be that he ultimately dies of plague or is eaten by megafauna.  But in several different times and places he stays for a while, learns the language and tries to fit in.

1. What kinds of moral progress occur in Christian scripture between the early and late Old Testament, and between the Old Testament and the new?  What about between the New Testaments and today?  How do they fit into your understanding of Christian scripture?  Does it seem like understanding same-sex orientation might be a change of a similar kind, or does it seem fundamentally different?
2. Could James reliably explain same-sex orientation in the different time periods?  What might prevent understanding or acceptance?  Additionally, what factors might affect whether same-sex marriages were viable for ordinary people?
3. If you have the historical knowledge to say, how would you suggest that James should have lived in: i) 1850s London?  ii) 1600s Geneva?  iii) 1200s Rome?  iv) 700s Constantinople?  v) 60 CE, Greece?  vi) 1100 BCE, Israel?  vii) 3000 BCE, Egypt?  viii) 40,000 BCE, Australia?  ix) 200,000 BCE, Africa?  – Or feel free to add other times and places.

2020s.  Two young women in your local community are legally married, with two children from a previous relationship.  They are a lawyer and a journalist by profession.  They grew up in Christian families, have been thinking a lot about God lately, and have begun attending your church, with their kids, because a relative in your congregation told them they would be welcome.  “We’re a welcoming church,” he said.

1. What series of events would need to occur for Ming and Jen’s family to become members of your church?
2. Does your feeling or judgement change if they are a male couple, have no children, or have no Christian background?
3. Does your position involve something you see as a concession?  Does it create a kind of loophole in which a person just has to leave church, get married, and later return (or join another)?  If so, what would you say to Kaitlyn and Nick (§1.a, §2.a) about that?
4. At a Christmas party at Ming and Jen’s house, you are introduced to a group of their professional colleagues, mostly lawyers and journalists of no Christian background, who make several incorrect assumptions about your view of Christian scripture and LGBT issues.  What is your ‘elevator pitch’, in 30–60 seconds?

Within your church you find a range of responses to this situation.

5. A church board member, Barry, who describes his position as ‘traditional’ cites Matthew 18:15–19 and 1 Cor 5:1–13 as justification for excluding this couple from the church and Rev 2:20 for doing the same with any leader who disagrees.  Unless they “divorce” from their “marriage,” he says, making the scare quotes with his fingers.  What weight do you give to this opinion?
6. Others who describe themselves as equally ‘traditional’ say that Barry’s position would make it impossible for a gay couple to ever gradually come to about faith through your church, in the same way that a de facto straight couple could.  But that has to be possible, else there could be no sense whatsoever in which the church was genuinely ‘welcoming’ or had a gospel for all people.  What weight do you give to this opinion?
7. Others are worried about pastoral care for LGBT people in churches more generally.  They think of historical mistreatment in terms of Ezekiel’s address to the ‘bad shepherds’ of Israel: “You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured.  You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost.  You have ruled them harshly and brutally” (34:4).  They are concerned that past mistakes must never be repeated and that LGBT people deserve a public apology.  What weight do you give to this opinion?
8. Some parents say “life is messy” and the expectation that a family should break up is just plain horrifying, regardless of all other considerations.  This, they say, is like a church in a missionary context where polygamy was practised.  What weight do you give to this opinion?

1990s.  Jemima and Robert have been married for twelve years, have two school-aged children, and have been members of your church for five years.  A week after their tenth wedding anniversary, Robert told her his story: that he is same-sex oriented, but believed he could overcome this; he was part of a therapy group at his former church whose members testified to finding contentment in singleness or heterosexual marriage as ‘God’s plan’ for them.  They agree there has been no adultery, but that he found his same-sex attraction increasing rather than decreasing, experienced overwhelming loneliness, and worst of all, felt he had (by marrying her) betrayed the person who loved him the most.  Jemima felt this explained long-standing difficulties and distance in their marriage, for which she had blamed herself.  She felt angry at Robert for six months, but now just feels sad for them both.  Robert feels regret.  They expect to stay close friends, want to ensure nothing affects their children’s lives adversely, and plan to divorce.

1. Do you think that mixed-orientation marriages are – ?
   1. Non-existent; there is no such thing as ‘orientation’.
   2. Just normal heterosexual marriages, which are God’s will for everybody.
   3. The historical norm, and generally advisable, even if just making the best of a bad situation.
   4. Viable for some individual couples, and so, worth exploring.
   5. Always a terrible idea if you are same-sex oriented.
2. What are the respective benefits of separating or staying married in this situation?
3. Jemima and Robert feel their marriage was based on believing a lie, however well-intentioned.  Do they have Christian grounds for divorce, as you understand this?

2020s.  A couple in their late twenties ask to enrol in your church’s Preparing for Marriage course.  They have been members of the church for six months, are very much in love, and you see them both as genuine in their faith.  Taking a deep breath, Vicki tells you that she was “designated male at birth,” but never saw herself as male, nor was ever remotely comfortable with being male.  She has lived as a woman all her adult life, and no-one in your congregation, except Todd, has been aware of any difference.  One major reason she can ‘pass’ effectively as a woman is that she began hormone replacement therapy three years ago, affecting her skin tone, her voice, and other qualities.  She intends to have gender reassignment surgery in the United States in a few month’s time, then change her legal gender to female and marry Todd.

1. Is this a same-sex marriage?  What is similar and what is different?
2. Can they enrol in the course?  Would your feelings or judgements change if it were Todd who had transitioned, or if both had (in opposite directions)?  What if either person were intersex, that is, having been born with both male and female characteristics or having neither exclusively male nor female chromosomes?
3. You find yourself in a conversation where a casual remark about pronouns leads to an outburst about transgender people being “sexual predators.”  You think they would benefit from talking to an actual transgender person, but you know Vicki absolutely does not want to be ‘outed’ or to become a flashpoint for controversy.  What do you say to them?

2020s.  Paul is a pastor and author who follows and comments extensively on the discussion of same-sex issues within his denomination.  He defends “the historical consensus view” of the Christian tradition.  Elaine is a public advocate for “full inclusion”, and a frequent subject of Paul’s critiques.

1. Some things in antiquity were comparable to same-sex orientation and to committed same-sex relationships as we understand them today.  As a result, we should suppose that God and scripture already accounted for this.
2. Arguments for ‘inclusion’ have often pitted God’s love against his holiness, or some parts of scripture against others, in a way that gives up on a traditionally Christian or specifically Evangelical understanding of scripture.
3. The only possible path to “full inclusion” would be to show, contrary to appearances, that at least some same-sex unions are marriages in God’s sight, and thus morally good.  But such ‘revisionist’ arguments have had several decades now to convince conservative biblical scholars and must be judged to have failed.

1. Arguments for the ‘traditional’ position have often focused on same-sex ‘practices’ or ‘desires’, or on the other hand on heterosexual marriage, as a way of avoiding coming to terms with same-sex orientation and the challenges that follow from it.
2. Scripture’s opposition to any kind of mandatory celibacy means it did not address orientation and, in any case, would not have resolved it the way modern Evangelicals have.  Mandatory lifelong celibacy has never been biblical or orthodox, let alone for a random subset of the population.
3. It doesn’t really matter how long people have been interpreting scripture, if neither they nor it addressed same-sex orientation in the modern sense.  There is thus no biblical or traditional position on same-sex orientation.

2020s.  Robin is an inner-urban pastor in a large western city, working with a local university group and other local charities and organisations.  For two days per week she teaches at her Evangelical denomination’s college, where she is also completing a Doctorate in Theology.  In her family and in her social interactions, she knows a number of same-sex oriented people, both Christian and non-Christian.  She can’t reconcile the apparent conflict that she perceives between discrimination and Christian faithfulness.  But she believes that these cannot be things that conflict in God’s mind, even if she doesn’t know the answer.  She is sure that:

• She is unwilling to misrepresent or deny the lived experience of same-sex orientation, or to perform her ministry as if it did not exist or was not the experience of people she knows personally.  But equally –
• She is unwilling to deny a straightforward reading of the biblical condemnations of same-sex relations, or say that Christian celibacy, in Christian scripture, can ever be mandatory or lifelong, or suggest that marriages without a basis in romantic and sexual attraction can be a generally recommended solution.

Her denomination is thinking through these issues as well, which could go in two possible directions:

Timeline #1.  Robin’s denomination decides to affirm ‘same-sex partnerships’, and while Robin understands the pastoral and practical arguments, she is not persuaded that they have offered any plausible account of why God’s prohibitions of same-sex relations should be set aside, or why she should accept these unions as meaning anything to God.

1. What is your denomination’s view of freedom of conscience, or what constitutes a ‘disputable matter’ over which Christians may reasonably disagree?
2. Is this situation in any essential way different from that of a more ostensibly liberal denomination that chooses to affirm same sex marriages?  Must the idea of ‘partnerships’ involve the claim that God must see them as marriages?
3. Their argument, in essence, is that scripture’s deeper principles and bigger picture override its smaller features.  Thus God’s love and universality take precedence over its condemnations of specific behaviour, and appealing to specific texts against these trends is “the same mistake that Christians who supported slavery made”.  Do you agree?  Do you empathise?
4. Some prominent same-sex oriented Christians who are committed to celibacy describe this a ‘betrayal’.  Many ministers consider this to be sufficient reason to leave the denomination, or, rather, to regard the denominational leadership as having left the Christian faith.  Is this simply a matter of scriptural authority, in a denomination ostensibly committed to that aim?

Timeline #2.  Robin’s denomination alters its constitution and statement of beliefs to require an affirmation of ‘biblical marriage’ from ministers and candidates for ordination, which says it can only be between a man and a woman in God’s sight and that sexual intercourse outside of such marriage excludes a person from God’s kingdom.  The new constitution can be used to pre-emptively remove any ministers and churches who think things are more complex.  This also has the effect of suppressing questions and silencing opposing views by threatening the ministries and livelihoods of anyone who thinks existing answers and responses are inadequate.

1. The motion’s advocates say “this nonsense has gone on long enough.”  A sizeable minority of ministers see this as a political solution to a still-unresolved pastoral and missional problem.  Robin thinks the voting process was something of a scam: having one vote per church meant the motion was carried by a high number of small rural churches who had never had to address orientation in any personal way, and so, pastoral issues were sidelined.  Where do your sympathies lie?  Could another approach have alleviated such concerns?
2. The denomination principally argues that humanity was created male and female, and that this ‘natural order’ is what lies behind and justifies the biblical condemnations.  This, they say, is why the Bible is thoroughly heterosexual from start to end.  Therefore, the prohibitions are based on universal principles that can’t ever change.  What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of this kind of argument?
3. A significant number of family and friends of same-sex oriented Christians describe this as a ‘betrayal’ of long-suffering people, “throwing them under the bus” to make difficult problems go away.  Can a socially and theologically conservative denomination accommodate people who say the status quo is harmful in this way?

2020s.  Glenn is a public theologian who studies sexual ethics.  She spends a lot of time popularising Christian thinking by (she hopes) translating it into ordinary language without dumbing it down.  She notes a pervasive disconnect between Christian language and ideas about same-sex issues, and the ways that others think and speak about them.  She keeps thinking a ‘simple moral issue’ shouldn’t be this hard to talk about.  Glenn’s uncle Grover is a Presbyterian minister who well illustrates a range of these concerns.

1. Grover understands same-sex relations to be a matter of simple and obvious morals, which everybody knows, but about which many people are deluded or in denial (he cites Rom 1:32 on this point).  Glenn notes that very few of the public arguments offered against same-sex marriage claimed that it was a simple and obvious moral issue.  In her reading, the counter-arguments for same-sex marriage were the ones using direct moral arguments – from love, justice, and equality.  Why the disconnect?
2. Grover sometimes uses natural law arguments to say some moral knowledge is known to all people, and is perceived naturally by human beings in the order and purpose of the world around them.  He says that this allows common ground in politics and public life whether anyone is a Christian or not.  Glenn thinks the problem is precisely that this is not perceived by others, at least in regard to same-sex marriages.  Why the disconnect?
3. Grover speaks about “God’s original design for our sexuality” or “the overarching biblical narrative” as the framework in which the biblical prohibitions make sense.  His seems to be stepping carefully past the idea that God could have made anyone same-sex oriented or that it is a part of real human nature.  This sounds to Glenn like saying there was a point in the history of human life on earth where same-sex orientation did not exist.  Is that an essentially Christian claim?  Does it fit with early human origins, as generally understood in society?  Why the disconnect?

2020s.  Clive’s teenage son attempted suicide and turned away from faith after LGBT bullying in his Christian school, and how complaints about this were treated.  Clive has since read a lot of material that he said was helpful for understanding same-sex orientation, and for dealing with “bigotry”.  Clare is active in a local conservative parents’ group resisting what she calls “the march of radical liberal dogma into our children’s schools.”

1. Clive says “Nobody chooses to be gay!  Why can’t people even talk about this?  People quoted the death penalty in Leviticus at my son!”  He asks, with pain in his voice, “Why don’t churches protect and support our kids?”  Your reply?
2. Clare says “Those people don’t respect religious freedoms; they want to indoctrinate everyone!  They’re telling teenagers to experiment with their gender and sexuality!  They think everyone who disagrees with them is a homophobic bigot!”  She asks, with pain in her voice, “Why don’t churches protect and support our kids?”  Your reply?
3. You are asked to mediate a discussion in the home group they both attend.  Each thinks their position is self-evident to any decent human being, and has a long list of talking points, straight off the internet, that they constantly jump between.  Each believes that there are organised conspiracies against the truth of their position, and neither has the slightest patience with complexity or nuance.  It’s ‘bigotry’ and ‘homophobia’ versus ‘wokeness’ and ‘Marxism’.  How do you try and guide this discussion?  Where do you want to guide it to?
4. Clare calls Clive a ‘liberal’, meaning a hypocrite.  Clive calls Clare a bigot, also meaning a hypocrite.  What if they actually were, in either case?  How could you tell for sure?  How would it affect things?
5. Regardless of whether Clive or Clare are right or wrong, how could personality and temperament incline someone toward their respective attitudes?  What about a person’s views of culture, politics, authority, and order?  What about the media they follow, or the sense of mission they live by?

2020s.  Abby identifies as a queer Christian and sees ‘gender binaries’ and ‘heterosexism’ – “the privileging of cisgender heterosexual identity in society” – as the root cause of the harms suffered by LGBT+ people.  She attended a Christian liberal arts college where she studied music and theology, and is an organiser for progressive political causes.  Mike, who works as an engineer, has read widely in conservative and libertarian thought and the Catholic natural law tradition.  He moderates an online discussion group that includes some academics and published authors with similar views, and says he likes to “stir the pot”, though “in a respectful manner”.  Each are vocal outliers in your church, which they say they attend because “its heart is in the right place.”

1. Abby says church needs to be a ‘safe space’ for all people, that it can’t be a truly Christian church at all if it can’t meet that basic test.  “We can’t have LGBTs being constantly misrepresented, treated as a threat, and kept invisible and distant.”  Mike believes that the clash of ideas is what makes people and societies strong, and scoffs at ‘microaggressions’.  He thinks that ‘traditional views’ that ‘everyone historically believed’ should be protected as ‘free speech’ and ‘religious freedom,’ but are at risk of emotionally immature ‘cancellation’.  How would Abby and Mike find common ground?
2. Abby does not believe that human life has hard binary categories, whether in bodily sex, self-understood identity, psychological or social gender norms, or the way that identity and gender can be publicly expressed.  Mike acknowledges ‘rare cases’ like intersex, but believes that God’s design for humanity, and our evident nature and purpose and good, are unavoidably cisgender and heterosexual.  Are they each saying something the other is misunderstanding?
3. Abby thinks that the Bible’s ‘trend lines’ always run toward love, equality, and justice, and that “it’s harder to be wrong about God’s love than God’s justice.”  She thinks we should not ‘legislate morality’; law is just too blunt an instrument.  She wants the church to get a float in the local Mardi Gras “as an outreach to the community.”  Mike says, “the Bible is a heterosexual book” and that God’s ‘created pattern’ is foundational to all love, equality, and justice in the world.  He says that all law is unavoidably moral, it is just either good or bad at it, and there is no love or justice in abandoning people to evil and destructive choices.  How would you employ the categories of love, equality, and justice when discussing sexual ethics?
4. Some people in your church think we have too many other important priorities to bother with ‘fringe ideas’ more than occasionally, or except when briefly asking “How do we answer this?”  They ask “Aren’t we getting distracted from normal people and the gospel?  Doesn’t this just stir up controversy?”  Do you agree with them or with Abby and Mike about your church’s priorities?

1960s.  You know Ivan and Ricky from a charitable organisation on whose board you all serve; they live nearby and you often give each other lifts to meetings.

• Ivan  is a minister in a theologically liberal or progressive denomination.  He believes that Scripture simply doesn’t say much “that applies today” about human sexuality.  “Sex is a self-evident good, among others, in life, and to be enjoyed so long as people respect and care for each other.”  This applies equally well to sex between same-sex oriented people.
• Ricky  is a Christian minister in your own denomination, who comes from a conservative immigrant family and is closely involved with networks of churches in his homeland.  He is positively horrified to hear any Christian saying these things.

Both Ivan and Ricky hold views they see as self-evident common-sense in their own social and cultural situations, and think of as a point of common ground and cooperation between Christians and non-Christians.  Ivan thinks Ricky’s culture is in some ways “backward”, though he’d never say it so bluntly, and Ricky thinks Ivan’s culture is “decadent and corrupt”, which he says frequently and with great emphasis.

1. How does culture complicate this discussion?  Is it too pervasive to overcome, or too time-consuming?  Are they just too far apart?  What would provide common ground?

Ivan and Ricky use different sets of analogies when they talk about same-sex orientation.  Ivan says it’s like left-handedness, a human quality that was once misunderstood and unnecessarily worried about.  He thinks the biblical prohibitions are like its prohibitions of divorce, which was considered simple and categorical, but knowing divorced people and asking better questions about abuse or abandonment, led to realising that we were misreading those passages.  Ricky says that it’s like anorexia, in which a person misunderstands their own bodily experience in a self-destructive way, or paedophilia, a desire that is wrong however strongly it is felt or experienced.  Both think the other’s preferred analogies involve fundamental misunderstandings.

2. What analogies would you suggest instead?

2020s.  A young, unmarried same-sex couple have moved in next door.  You have been friendly and see them now and then.  While speaking one day, they are surprised to discover that you are a Christian and assume that you must be only pretending to be friendly.  They both grew up in church and both rejected it as judgemental, backward and, above all, homophobic.  Finn thinks churches are hypocritical and should be “more like Jesus” but they’re just not.  Noah takes a harder line and says that “bronze-age dirt-farming superstitions” have no place in a modern or moral society.

1. The young couple know a wide range of older gay people who endured significant loss, sometimes violence, and always the fear of violence, in persuading the public of civil rights that many churches now broadly acknowledge.  They ask whether churches owe all those people an apology?
2. When growing up, Finn perceived a double standard in which heterosexual sins were overlooked in churches.  He says his former church would happily marry a couple who were sleeping together before marriage, without requiring any evident public repentance, yet shame and expel a teen who merely understood themselves to be gay.  He asks: Isn’t that hypocrisy and discrimination?
3. Noah points to a news story about another nation’s death penalty for same-sex relations.  He asks if you agree with it, whether you think gay people existed throughout history, and whether the death penalty in Leviticus was any different to this?  Your immediate answer?

2020s.  Dean has been planting a church in a trendy inner-city suburb, which a number of LGBT people attend.  He came into ministry through social work rather than the more normal course of theological study, has a polarising manner, and has biblical-prophet-level convictions about God’s love and justice toward all people.  He is willing to speak and be quoted on matters others are more cautious and careful about, and is accepted as an ally by LGBT leaders in his local community.

1. Dean emphasises “standing with marginalised people.”  His critics say LGBT people aren’t marginalised anymore; rather, they have enormous cultural power.  Dean says, “In church they still are.”  Is marginality a useful category for these discussions?
2. Dean urges ‘listening’, ‘reflection’, ‘questioning’, ‘holding the tension’, and ‘not claiming to have all the answers’.  His critics say, “The Bible gives him answers, he just doesn’t like them!”  He says, “I think they only accept the questions that suit their answers.”  Does it seem like either are deflecting from uncomfortable problems?
3. Dean pictures church as a ‘centered set’ rather than a ‘bounded set’.  He imagines Christian community to be defined by “direction not location” – that is, by moving toward Jesus rather than by passing tests of belonging.  His critics say he is hedging and fudging on sin, repentance, and salvation.  Dean says people need to meet Jesus where and as they are.  Who is more gospel-focused?

2020s.  Jesse and Emily are missiologists with a background in cultural anthropology and Bible translation.  They have been pondering statistics that something like 1 in 65 people are same-sex oriented.  This means more than 100,000,000 people in the world today.  If this was its own nation it would be well inside the top ten percent by population.  At the same time, they have been considering statistics from some western societies that 85% of non-Christians under 40 view the church as homophobic – a larger number than those who think it is hypocritical, judgemental, or opposed to science or reason.  All these numbers, they think, are too high to ignore.

1. Their first concern is for same-sex oriented people in the majority world (the ‘developing’ or ‘third’ world).  They think that many leaders or churches would be likely, at first, to reject the concept of same-sex orientation as a kind of decadent western-church nonsense that has caused ridiculous problems they want nothing to do with.  Must those churches come to terms with orientation, and how can that happen?  What if they don’t?
2. Their second concern is for western youth in general.  Many suppose that Christians and churches hate their LGBT friends, or in any case cannot be practically distinguished from people who do and, so, are not meaningfully different to racists.  For them, the moral credibility of such Christians and churches is somewhere below zero.  What is needed to reverse this judgement?
3. Their third concern is for splits developing in Christian organisations.  They wonder if the same splits that have occurred in western churches will be progressively repeated in all other countries and cultures.  What could they do to try to prevent this in their own denomination and organisation?