My hands and Gods hands are tied in commenting on an article where the founding presuppositions are rooted in a act that Moses and the apostle Paul said were outlawed, both new and old testament. Bridget Eileen February 2, Reply. I have been married twice, divorced twice, and share your frustration about the way even in the church we are suspicious of friendship between the sexes. My second wife could not comprehend that I could be just good friends with another woman I knew through a prayer group and the workplace.
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I would rather have friendship than all the baggage associated with marriage in our culture. Bridget Eileen February 3, Reply. Many blessings as you continue your journey! Courtney February 5, Reply. Bridget Eileen February 6, Reply. I definitely agree with you that marriage ought to be held in high esteem. As wonderful as marriage is, we have to be careful not to prioritize it to such an extent that it becomes an idol. I heard Ephesians 5 plenty growing up in evangelicalism, but rarely did I ever hear 1 Corinthians 7. My hope is to rectify this imbalance. Hope that makes sense!
Hunter Rasmussen February 6, Reply. I am really grateful for this post. I strongly recommend…anyone read his book. I actually am familiar with that book! Thank you so much for writing this. I agree with every point. So much so that when I planted a church, we made friendship one of our core principles. I would like to ask you this question because I agree with you.
Please do not take it anything more than the desire for an honest conversation. If erotic love is the basest level of love, then is the lack of erotic love reason enough to eschew marriage? I ask because I regularly meet with and occasionally counsel gay men who are striving to be celibate.
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In almost every case I come away thinking, these guys would make great husbands, and I know several women who would love to be married to someone like this. When I bring the issue up, they never consider it for long. It seems that the idol of romance has become so dominant, that no one is willing to even consider a marriage without it.
Other cultures and generations have had marriages flourish without sex. And I am by no means discounting anything you have written. But I want more for my SSA friends than bowling leagues and community groups. Bridget Eileen February 10, Reply. For most of human history, this was not the case. Marriages have often been arranged with very little consideration for erotic love at all.
But then…marriages were also often arranged with very little consideration for love period! I do agree with you, though, that there is a multitude of other forms of love that, being present, could just as easily create a healthy marriage. There are certainly many gay Christians who live in mixed-orientation-marriages with straight spouses or bisexual spouses, and if that is something that is life-giving for them, it is definitely worth celebrating!
The inherent definition of marriage requires sexual intercourse.
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While some gay Christians find they are able to live in a mixed orientation marriage and actually enjoy that marriage, I find that I am not one of them, and most gay Christians would probably say the same. In fact, pushing this as a preferable course of action for gay Christians could actually cause irreparable damage. Plenty of gay Christians, under the pressure of wanting to conform and be accepted, have entered mixed-orientation-marriages only to discover that it was unbearable for them.
The result is often messy divorces and broken homes.
But placing it front and center as the preferable option for them is not something I would do. Most gay Christians who believe in a traditional sexual ethic are simply needing a viable, life-giving path forward that is just as celebrated and meaningful as marriage while not being marriage itself. While marriage is certainly honored in the Bible, it is hardly seen as the ideal life that we make it to be today. Why say this for your SSA friends but not the inverse for your married friends? Should you not also want more for your married friends than just a wife and kids?
What we need is Biblical community, which lived out according to Scripture, is so much more than bowling leagues, community groups, and marriage altogether.
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Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. I do agree with what you initially said about other forms of love being able to form the basis of a healthy marriage.
I think our society could benefit a great deal from this understanding! Too often when erotic love fades, couples think this means their marriage is doomed. Never mind the myriad other ways they might be connected to each other! Erotic love is too fickle of a love to make a realistic foundation for marriage.
Brittany April 7, Reply. Thank you so much for addressing all this! Bridget Eileen April 7, Reply. Sean Timothy Maguire May 4, Reply. I think it is very closely connected to Biblical community. Bridget Eileen May 5, Reply. Tammy June 12, Reply. It is nice to read something that resonates both intellectually and spiritually.
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Sometimes one stops feeling even human at the core of need and desire. I also realized that spiritually we would never connect. I need Christ in my life and I made a choice.
I would love to hang out with people who understood it at the depth of its reality over the noise but there are far and few that wants to deal with it authentically. Sure, everyone has an opinion, a conviction, a stance — but so do people who suffer through these everyday struggles. What would millions have done without AA? And that is not even in the spectrum of human sexuality!
Why do so many fear these bonds even when grace is at the center of it? It isolates, marginalizes and hurts the potential healing that can take place amongst us. Bridget Eileen June 12, Reply. Thank you so much for sharing these thoughts. I pray that you can find depth of relationship and emotional connection with a person in a way that also coincides with your faith and allows you to connect spiritually.