Is There Such a Thing as a “Gay Christian”?
I recently got into a discussion with someone on Twitter over a comment he made. He stated: “Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a gay Christian.” This was part of a series of tweets expressing views designed to be provocative.
I wanted to respond to this one because I have heard this statement before. Can someone be a gay Christian?
I suppose a good place to start is to define “gay.” According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary: “of, relating to, or characterized by sexual or romantic attraction to people of one’s same sex.” This suggests that being gay, is about having same-sex attraction, usually in reference to men.
While there are certain very conservative Christians who would disagree, most even within evangelicalism agree that experiencing same-sex attraction is not a sin.
We do not know why some people are attracted to the same gender. It does not seem to be a personal choice and therefore not something they can be condemned for.
One might then counter and say, even if being gay is not a sin, one still should not use it as an identifier. Perhaps. There are those who believed that no adjective should be added to a Christian identification. That is a discussion for another time.
There are those who identify as gay, and who may choose to live a celibate life, but who still see their experience of same-sex attraction to be a significant part of their identity. Therefore, they will self-describe as a “gay Christian” since they are both gay and a Christian.
You can have the personal conviction that they should not do so, but that does not change the reality that there are gay Christians.
But what about those who are Christian and who do not see same-sex relationships as sinful? There is a significant group of people who identify #faithfullylgbt.
In order to prove to me that one could not be a gay Christian, the person who did the original tweet quoted 1 Corinthians 6:9.
Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men…
I am not going to go into what the Greek word that Paul uses here means and how that fits with modern same-sex relationships. For our purposes, let’s assume that the NIV translates it correctly here.
What the person who quoted this neglected to do was to finish Paul’s quotation into the next verse.
…nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:10)
Those who believe it is a clear cut case that gay people cannot be Christians would never deny that greedy people are bound for hell. In fact, evangelicalism as wedded itself so closely to capitalism that greed is really seen as more of a virtue than a vice. Be as greedy as you want as long as you don’t break laws and you tithe on your riches.
And don’t get me started on slander. There is a very vocal “Christian” presence on social media (especially Twitter) that loves to slander fellow believers that they disagree with. These slanderers are often praised for being effective culture warriors.
Can one be a gay Christian? Ultimately it comes down to what we mean by a Christian. The Bible indicates that a Christian is a follower of Jesus, one who trusts in Christ’s sacrifice and who seeks to follow him. If a person is a Jesus follower, then they are a Christian.
You may disagree with this. If so, I would suggest that go carefully through the various sin lists found in the New Testament. You might find that part of who you are is found in there as well. You can start your search here.
the question if there are gay chrsitians is moot since there is no such thing as a “Christian” as a definable entity. You all come up with different claims on who are the “real Christians”, and not one of you can do what your bible promised.
Steve. I think you are delineating between attraction and acting upon the same, correct? At that point has the person that experienced same sex attraction then gone into sin by acting upon it? Can people then maintain the argument that a monogamous same sex relationship is on equal footing as a monogamous heterosexual relationship? Thx
I am saying two things. One is that one cane be a gay Christian by being a Christian who identifies as gay, defined as someone with same-sex attraction, even if they are not in a sexual relationship. The second is that if we say that one cannot be in a same-sex relationship and be a Christian because of certain lists in Paul’s letters, then we should be prepared to make the same argument for the other common behaviour found in the same lists, which we do not. You ask: “Can people then maintain the argument that a monogamous same sex relationship is on equal footing as a monogamous heterosexual relationship?” People can, since people do make that argument. One of the challenges is that I don’t think that the Bible speaks to monogamous same-sex relationships, as much of the same-sex behaviour would have been by men married to women who also enjoyed this type of extra-marital activity.
Trans Woman here (who is also not a Christian, but I try to be on good terms with Christians):
I respect a lot about this post and the video you linked. Firstly, I like a lot of how you have gone about framing this. Discussing dysphoria and specifically that since you do not experience it, you do not want to tell people how to go about handling it. That is immensely refreshing. Unfortunately, most Christians I know just either deny that it exists, or have decided they can tell me how to handle it (i.e., if I just pray enough it will magically go away, as if God is a wish fulfilling fairy).
I also really appreciated a lot of other things here. Such as the inherent hypocrisy of using these statements of Paul against gay people, while simultaneously indulging the capitalist landscape, which is about as anti-biblical as it can get. And even when it comes to biblical issues, the Bible does not hardline (A) define gender, (B) does not portray gender roles at all the way any Christians live them anyways, and (C) says nothing about being transgender or the realities of that.
I think this is also where I have hangups with a lot of Christianity. It seems like the Christian deity is unable to escape the confines of the Bible. In a way, I find that Christians worship the Bible more than they do their own God, which says a lot. They define their God and his attributes by the way they read an English translation of the Bible, and at least the sola scriptura crowds have become so deadset that it is almost as though their God can go no further, be no bigger, and no greater than the confines of words on a page. And I find this both insulting to God himself, and also to his followers. It firstly says that their God is so powerless as to be unable to escape the confines of his followers’ stringent viewpoints on a 2000 year old book, and secondly says that his followers are too infantile to perhaps grow beyond the confines of that book, so that everyone (God and all) must exist in a stagnate and neverchanging environment. It is like a theological wasteland in a way, and I have found these hardline stringencies about LGBTQ+ people to reflect this.
It is part of why I no longer attend church or anything. I’d probably still go to church (something I was heavily involved in) if it were not for this. It makes it unsafe to exist in those spaces, both as a trans person and as someone who actually contemplates their theological stances. I personally think of God as an open, powerful, and unconfined being, and limiting him and his love only to what the Bible says more about how small Christians believe their God, than it does about anyone outside the faith.
Just my two cents.
I really appreciate your comments here. You have some valid concerns which I share. I’m thankful that you shared your experience.