Starting from scratch

You’ll be relieved that this month there is no direct mention of the turbulent orange grifter!

In a blog towards the end of last year I wondered aloud whether to start a series dealing with the themes I first wrote about in the essay I began writing in 2015 (and messed about with till about 2020) about whether it were possible to be gay (specifically – because that was what exercised people), or LGBTQ+ (more generally), and yet still hold to a Christian faith to be accepted by God.  Although that answer might be blindingly obvious, much of the church was, and still is, very antagonistic towards the community, but at that time this was because my own faith was being challenged by several experiences, and I needed to work through them and measure them up against the plumbline of the Bible to ensure I wasn’t being swept along by emotion, and, as some would claim: “the spirit of the age”.  As I’ve mentioned previously, within a short time of starting to write what has become a bit of a cumbersome opus, I was excited to find that the Bible did not condemn the homosexual, but that there were verses in the text where the Bible affirms them and delivers deep promises to those who identify as Trans. Remember, that even though people we might now define as LGBTQ+ existed during that era, Jesus never commented on the subject.  If it had been something that affected salvation, he surely would have addressed it. If you want further evidence to ponder: The ministry of Jesus Christ consistently prioritized: i) those who were pushed to the margins; ii) those excluded by religious systems, and iii) those considered morally suspect. Jesus himself repeatedly: i) ate with social outcasts; ii) defended the condemned, and iii) criticized religious gatekeeping (those trying to control who can access God). So there’s nothing new under the sun.

What is my background and why did I change my mind?

So, what is my background and why did I change my mind, so I would write those previous lines?  I was born into a family of Christians in Croydon (South London) who would regard themselves as fairly ordinary in many ways.  (And no, contrary to those recent absurd AI fakes, there is no Aquarium, zoo or Water Park there, nor has there ever been one, though for a few years there was a Water Palace on the site of the old Croydon Airport.)  As a family we were taught to take the Bible at face value, but use a degree of common sense.  However, I found that it wasn’t always clear where the lines should get drawn, and this led to some problems at various times.  As I said, the family wasn’t that unusual but there were some exceptions.  One of these was that my father’s brother was a missionary working in Brazil.  He married a Brazilian and had 5 children.  We would only get to meet them for a few months every six years or so. 

Another exception was that my mother’s parents and sister were missionary’s working in Nigeria.  My grandparents had been pioneer missionaries going out in the 1920’s, with my grandfather largely designing, building and running a hospital.  He was a qualified engineer, doctor, surgeon and minister.  I would get to see them for an even shorter period, when they visited, so had no real relationship with them, even after they retired to Brighton.  We very much lived in different worlds.

I remember as I grew up, mum and dad would have Missionary magazines from the relevant missionary societies who were supporting the various family members, and us kids were useful to hand them out in church on Sundays.  This led to me/us regularly being asked by recipients of these magazines, where I would be a missionary when I grew up.  They thought they were being clever, or at least conversational with a little kid, but had no idea how much I hated that question, the expectations, and the inferred pressure it presented.

I was bullied in school.  I missed a lot of schooling at times as I had health problems that were life-affecting, and a couple of times, life threatening.  During my teenaged years, I was kind of saying to God, “don’t you dare ever call me to be a missionary, because I’m likely to say “no, not a chance!””.

Fortunately, I was never aware of God asking me to be an overseas missionary but instead got the impression it was fine for me to work for Him as a Lloyds underwriting clerk in South London.  A “missionary” of sorts, within my own workplace, though I would only ever talk about faith-stuff if someone specifically asked – I’d never initiate it.  You’ll have gathered I had a reasonably strong Christian faith, but I guess I would say now, that it was neatly packaged in a box.  Hence when life experiences challenged and damaged that faith, that box began to split, crumble and burst like a balloon.  However, I retained a small element of faith which then re-grew to fill another larger box, till that, in turn, was damaged and burst, so now I try not to limit my understanding of faith.

Whilst I was never an overseas missionary, I was active in the church, becoming someone who led church-run Bible Study groups in various homes in the Croydon area, and for a few years became a deacon in that local Baptist church.  I always felt that I wasn’t someone who was a dyed-in-the-wool “Baptist”, though my theology was largely sympathetic to the Baptist model, so I would probably describe myself as “baptistic”.   During my earlier years, I was given the impression that the church leadership were very proud of being Baptists, and that other denominations hadn’t quite got their theology right, which made me uncomfortable.

I stayed at the same Baptist church until around 2008, when I moved to Scotland with my wife.  I took some time finding another Baptist church that I liked, and then settled there, getting involved in starting home-based Bible-study groups, and once again later accepting the role of deacon.  After a while I became concerned with the direction of the church.  Firstly, although they had no building and rented premises, they wanted to future proof the church against ever having to conduct a “gay wedding”, by changing their constitution.  At this stage I had never seriously thought about what “being gay” was.  I wrongly assumed it was a lifestyle choice, even though someone close to me had “come out” as gay to me 30-years earlier, and had asked whether he could still be part of an active church life.  To my shame I had said “yes” – but providing he remained celibate.  When my understanding changed, I realised how wrong I had been and went back to apologise for my comments.  We are now very close.

 At that church meeting where the constitution was revised, I was left horrified by the tone, because four senior men in the church used derogatory language about the LGBTQ+ community, with each one seemingly trying to outdo the previous speaker by the invective they used.  I didn’t have the courage to vote against, because three of these men knew their Bibles very well, and I didn’t know what I now know. What now seems strange is that nobody else in that meeting shares my memories of what was said – and I spoke to several afterwards and over the intervening years.  I was very uneasy and resolved to read up all I could find, and see where it took me.  I downloaded loads of web pages, but never had the time to read them properly, and the long grass grew higher.

Then another situation occurred when a trans person wanted to join the church, by which time, I was a deacon.  In a Baptist Church, in common with many other free churches, you need to be a member, in order to vote on church issues.  I still hadn’t come to a theological view, though I had started to read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation in a structured way.  I felt that if Jesus accepted trans people, how could we not?  As John 3: 16 says: ^“ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  As I’ve repeatedly said, the key word is that unconditional, “whoever”.  No provisos, nor caveats.  We had no minister at the time, so as they were determined to have a unanimous recommendation to bring to the church, I could only stand my ground, until a new minister was appointed.  Almost all the other leaders were wanting to find verses in the Bible to prevent this trans person from becoming a member.  As a result, I had to really start some proper research: historic, sciencific and Biblical.  I read all the material I had already downloaded, along with books, podcasts, and everything I could find.  It was at this stage I started to write and coalesce my theology, in essay form.

Do I have any authority to be talking about how we should understand the Bible?

So, do I have any authority to be talking about how we should understand the Bible?  You can answer both ways: I have no academic credentials, so no, I have no authority.  However, I have been learning about and from the Bible since my earliest childhood, and still spend hours each week listening to, and talking about, theology.  I have also read through every verse in the Bible, at least once every year since 2013, so I would say I do have some authority as an enthusiastic amateur, especially as, in my experience, there are sadly very few Christians who have ever read every verse of the Bible, even one time, and that includes many ministers.

Why are a great many churches so antagonistic towards the LGBTQ+ community?

So, why do a great many churches appear so antagonistic towards the LGBTQ+ community?  I think back to my own experience, and, to some degree I believe that my background of being encouraged to view the Bible both literally, and infallible, was a key issue that we still confront in so many churches. I’m not downplaying the importance of the Bible, it is vital for learning about both God and the role of Jesus.

However, my problem at the time was that if we take the Bible, literally at face value, this group of people could only be gay (or whatever) because they had chosen to be.   I think this is a key aspect in most churches, because if God created people as gay, how could He then condemn their behaviour?   That’s a theological minefield because it views God as capricious.

I suspect that most Christians in most churches have never had the opportunity to really talk with someone who identifies differently.  They have been brought up with the idea that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, and because most Bibles use the word “homosexual” in any vice lists, it is something terrible that God condemns.  There are flaws to this thinking: just suppose that the person identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, or queer has the same choice about being gay (or whatever), as they do about the colour of their eyes.  That would mean that if God created, or allowed them to be born LGBTQ, he is either happy about that – since they are already created in His image, or that He made them that way simply to condemn them to the “fires of hell” with no chance of salvation. 

We know from the last 75 years (and more) that prayer and conversion therapy does not, and cannot, change a person’s orientation.  I’ll no doubt come back to that subject in a future blog, but tackled it in my blog of February 2024.  In that first sentence of that previous paragraph I said, “talk with”, deliberately, because so many Christians “talk at” the LGBTQ+ community.  What do we learn from Jesus?  He enjoyed the to and fro of a discussion (John 3: 1-21; John 4: 1-26; Mark 10: 17-22;  John 11: 1- 44, John 12:1-8; Luke 24: 13-35; John 20:24–29; John 21:15–19 – you don’t have to look at all those!), and He was never personally abusive.  He always spoke gently in his personal talks with people.  He was only ever forceful and angry when confronting dogmatic religious authorities who were using the law for their own ends.  He never showed real anger when talking to an individual person, and only ever showed tenderness.  Look for yourselves.

There is another flaw when looking at the word homosexual in the Bible.  When that word appears, we must ask: is Paul describing the same thing as what we understand today?  I believe some people are really comparing apples with pears.  When we come to it, I’ll be arguing that a better contemporary translation of the Greek in 1 Corinthians 6: 9-11 and 1 Timothy 1: 8-12, would be a “sex trafficker/abuser”,” rape”, a “pimp”.  Possibly, a violent sexual act.  The vice lists imply choice – you choose to act in a particular way. When Paul was writing, he probably had pederasty in mind, as the Greek seems to be referring to behaviour that was exploitative, abusive and coercive, all of which you can choose to stop doing, whereas you cannot turn away from being lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or queer, and we’ll explore this in the coming months. 

As I said in the essay, when I first “got to know and observe people in this community personally, it became quite clear that Moses and Paul could not possibly have been referring to them in their writings, and that God could not be condemning them for just simply being the people He had “called into being”, in the first place.  Hence, I/we must go back to Scripture and check the passages again, because if there is condemnation, [Moses and Paul] must be talking about something very different, otherwise our theological problems are huge.”

Definition of terms

I often use the term LGBTQ+ which most of you will be familiar with and is an acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Trans, Queer and … all the others I’m about to mention.  Frequently we use the acronym LGBT, but many folks also add ‘Q’ for ‘Queer’, and also ‘I’ for the intersexed, and much more rarely ‘TS’ or ‘2S’ for ‘Twin/Two Spirit’, so it is conceivable you may come across LGBTIQTS in certain resources.  I have also come across LGBTQQIAAP which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Allies and Pansexual; as well as LGBTQQIP2SAA: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Queer, Intersex, Pansexual, Two-Spirit (2S), Androgynous, and Asexual.  This is getting silly, but these alternatives are to intentionally include and raise awareness of these other communities.  Whilst I honour these other communities, the variants differ so much, and I wouldn’t want to include one group and fail to include another.  So, in all my blogs, I believe it to be far more helpful and respectful to simply use LGBTQ+.

But what do these names mean‽  (And yes, I always like an interrobang!)  Throughout the blogs I tend to use ‘homosexual’ only when I must, and when used, it covers both ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’.  Normally I will try to use the expression ‘gay and lesbian’, and then ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’, where the context dictates.  ‘Gay’ being a male who is attracted to other males, but not to females; and ‘lesbian’ being a female who is attracted to other females, but not to males.  However, “Gay” is often used broadly to describe anyone who is attracted to the same gender.  So, sometimes lesbians will say “I’m gay” or “I’m a gay woman” using it as a general umbrella term, so take care in your personal contacts!  Normally if you use the wrong term, but are clearly trying to be respectful, you will be given some leeway.  Anyway, I’m sure you can go with the spirit of the blogs. 

There are some other terms: Bisexual, queer and trans.  Bisexual can include attraction to men and women and may be described as an attraction to “My own gender and other genders.” However, it doesn’t require having “dated” people of multiple genders — orientation is about attraction, not experience and most bisexuals are monogamous.

Queer is a broad, flexible term used to describe sexual orientations and/or gender identities that are not exclusively heterosexual or not cisgender.  People choose queer if they don’t feel the traditional labels fit them or have a gender identity that isn’t strictly male or female.

Trans is a broad term (short for transgender) describing someone whose gender identity is different from the sex they were assigned at birth.  In simple terms:

• A person assigned female at birth who identifies as a man, may be a trans man. 
• A person assigned male at birth who identifies as a woman may be a trans woman.
• Some trans people identify outside the male/female binary (for example, as nonbinary).

There are some points to keep in mind: Being trans is about gender identity, not sexual orientation, so a trans person can be straight, gay, bisexual, queer, etc.  This can be very confusing to those being newly introduced to the LGBTQ+ community.  And finally, not all trans people pursue medical transition (like hormones or surgery).  Being trans doesn’t depend on medical steps. And it is this area that has been the source of so much contention in the last year or so, and I’ll get into this in more detail in the coming months

One final definition is, Two Spirit.  If there is any other definition you are curious about, you must ask Wikipedia or Chat GPT!   In the UK, Two Spirit doesn’t come up very much, and I’ve never personally come across someone identifying as such, but it’s more likely in Canada and the USA.  First of all, while we are doing definitions, the term “First Nation” peoples are normally used for those living in Canada and Australia, whereas in the US they would use the term “Indigenous” Americans.  I looked at Two Spirit peoples in my original essay, and usually this term is used by the original Canadian and US peoples, but there are also similarities with other cultures in south-east Asia, not influenced by Christianity.

A Two-Spirit person is someone from certain Canadian and US original cultures who has a gender identity and/or social role that doesn’t fit our Western ideas of “man” or “woman.”  Gender seems to be perceived as being far more fluid in these cultures than the binary view prevalent in parts of our Western society.  Another term that seems to be used by some people uncomfortable with Two Spirit, is Indigiqueer. 

In essence, since First Nation and Indigenous peoples developed independently of our western culture, these cultures had their own concepts and understandings of sexuality and gender, which pre-dated our own western culture and terms, and that is fascinating. In western thinking we would probably define them as having four genders, male, female, male/female and female/male.  However, this is probably simplistic as the table, a third of the way down on that Wikipedia page, implies.  The term “Two Spirit” is a recent name as it was adopted in 1990 at an Indigenous LGBTQ+ gathering in Winnipeg.  It is a term that is specifically Indigenous and is not a general synonym for “nonbinary” or “gay”, nor may it be culturally appropriated outside of the First Nation community, since it describes people who hold a unique gender or spiritual role in their culture.   For a deeper dive, start by checking the Wikipedia page and navigate to some of the resources they quote at the bottom.

How should I then respond to others who don’t take my path?

Not everyone will agree with me, as you quickly find, so how should I respond to those taking a different line to me?  In one sense this can be tricky.  In my essay, I quote this passage by C.S. Lewis who writes at the end of his Preface to “Mere Christianity”:

“When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall.  If they are wrong, they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them.  That is one of the rules common to the whole house”. [Mere Christianity, London: Collins, 1952.]

That should probably be the line we should take in every aspect of life.  The simplest solution in this area specifically is to respect the identity a person adheres to, since you don’t know enough, to say different.

Next time I’m planning to look at the character of God and how that should inform our understanding of God’s creation and the place gay Christians have in it.