Category: Sexuality

See You at Revoice!

July 25, 2018

The Revoice Conference is a conference for LGBT+ Christians who adhere to the traditional sexual ethic of Scripture

 

The Revoice Conference in St. Louis starts tomorrow, and I’m so excited to see what’s in store! If you haven’t heard about it yet or don’t know much about it, Revoice is a conference for LGBT+ people who adhere to the traditional sexual ethic of Scripture. The goal is to create a place for sexual and gender minorities to find encouragement as they follow the historic Biblical teaching on sexual ethics — encouragement that countless churches sorely lack.

The conference has generated a tremendous amount of reactionary backlash from conservatives, resulting in countless misrepresentations and falsehoods. I’ve generally refrained from making any commentary on all of it because numerous people, far more eloquent than myself, have done a heroic job at responding to the criticisms with grace and truth. If you’d like to learn more about Revoice, I’d highly recommend reading any of these articles defending and expounding upon the conference:

Plenty more has been written in defense of Revoice, so if you exhaust these links, then please reach out and I’ll send you more! Otherwise, let’s all be praying for the conference this week that God would move in extraordinary ways. And if you plan to be there, I can’t wait to meet! See you at Revoice!

LGBT+ Christians: When Unlikely People Are God’s Champions

June 29, 2018

This is the final post in a month-long series on “celibate gay pride,” exploring the glory of God as revealed in the lives of celibate gay Christians. If you’d like to read the full series, check out the links below!

Also, I’m specifically talking about and for celibate gay Christians in this series. To be clear: this is not an argument for why gay Christians ought to be celibate. I want to clarify this at the outset, because I often receive various criticisms from non-celibate gay people who tell me that my arguments aren’t convincing. But there’s a reason for that. I’m not trying to make arguments for or against any particular sexual ethic in my blog. This blog is simply for LGBT+ Christians who believe in the traditional sexual ethic. It’s not a blog for convincing LGBT+ Christians to accept a sexual ethic they don’t believe in, and I do not believe that all LGBT+ Christians must accept this ethic. However, many LGBT+ Christians nevertheless do live by the traditional sexual ethic. So if you’re interested in learning about celibate gay believers (and/or the larger LGBT+ community that believes in the traditional sexual ethic), then by all means read on. 

For more posts in this series:

  1. Are Celibate Gay Christians Allowed to Have Pride?
  2. Take It From an Expert: Same-Sex Attraction Is More Than Just Sexual
  3. Gay Attractions Create the Context for More Than Just Sin
  4. Gay People Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
  5. Same-Sex Love is Good and Beautiful
  6. God’s Unique Blessings in the LGBT+ Experience of Christians
  7. LGBT+ Christians: When Unlikely People Are God’s Greatest Champions

God is glorified in the lives of gays, lesbians, SSA, and other LGBT+ people

One of the most beautiful things about the Christian faith is that God uses the most unlikely people to champion his cause. Consider Rahab. A woman forever known in the annals of church history as “Rahab the Harlot.” A woman whose inclusion in the Hebrews “Hall of Faith” would be significantly less powerful if she had not been a prostitute. Or how about “Zacchaeus the Tax Collector”? A man whose story of radical generosity would mean very little apart from the well-established greed of ancient tax collectors.

Consider “Naaman the Leper,” the “Samaritan Woman,” “Doubting Thomas,” “Ruth the Moabite,” the “Prodigal Son,” the “Woman Caught in Adultery,” or the “Thief on the Cross,” among a great many people in Scripture named by their sin, imperfections, and shortcomings. The story of David and Goliath may be the most famous among them. God’s champion against a ten-foot giant was a young shepherd boy with no training, no experience, and no weapons for battle! But that’s what God does. He uses the lowly and despised of this world to shame the strong and the mighty. What made these people “weak” in Scripture made them perfect conduits for a grand display of the power of God. more “LGBT+ Christians: When Unlikely People Are God’s Champions” …

God’s Unique Blessings in the LGBT+ Experience of Christians

June 25, 2018

This is the sixth post in a month-long series on “celibate gay pride,” exploring the glory of God as revealed in the lives of celibate gay Christians. I’d like to publish about 1-2 posts every week over the month of June. But I need your help! The more feedback I get, the more I can make things relevant. As the series progresses, please comment below or share your thoughts via private message. Any interaction will be a HUGE help as I tailor the content. Suggestions and requests are 100 percent welcome!

Also, I’m specifically talking about and for celibate gay Christians in this series. To be clear: this is not an argument for why gay Christians ought to be celibate. I want to clarify this at the outset, because I often receive various criticisms from non-celibate gay people who tell me that my arguments aren’t convincing. But there’s a reason for that. I’m not trying to make arguments for or against any particular sexual ethic in my blog. This blog is simply for LGBT+ Christians who believe in the traditional sexual ethic. It’s not a blog for convincing LGBT+ Christians to accept a sexual ethic they don’t believe in, and I do not believe that all LGBT+ Christians must accept this ethic. However, many LGBT+ Christians nevertheless do live by the traditional sexual ethic. So if you’re interested in learning about celibate gay believers (and/or the larger LGBT+ community that believes in the traditional sexual ethic), then by all means read on. 

For more posts in this series:

  1. Are Celibate Gay Christians Allowed to Have Pride?
  2. Take It From an Expert: Same-Sex Attraction Is More Than Just Sexual
  3. Gay Attractions Create the Context for More Than Just Sin
  4. Gay People Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
  5. Same-Sex Love is Good and Beautiful
  6. God’s Unique Blessings in the LGBT+ Experience of Christians
  7. LGBT+ Christians: When Unlikely People Are God’s Greatest Champions

The LGBT+ experience has been a unique source of blessing to Christians who are sexual minorities and/or gender minorities.

Far too often within conservative Christianity, the dominant narrative about LGBT+ people centers upon sin and shame. For many of us in the church, it can feel suffocating. As though the only way we can talk about our sexuality and orientation is in the context of repentance and anguish over being “broken.” As though queerness can only be understood through the lens of suffering.

But there is far more to the LGBT+ experience of Christians than struggle. Sure we struggle. All people struggle. But all people experience joy and happiness too. I affirm the historic understanding of Biblical sexuality, and I affirm that sinful desire tempts us to forsake God’s created design for humanity. But I also affirm that LGBT+ people are not defined by sinful desire, and I affirm that God works through the LGBT+ experience for his glory and for the good of his church. For me, as a celibate lesbian, my sexuality and orientation has brought about so many tremendous blessings (to me as well as to others) that I wouldn’t trade being gay for the world.

So with this in mind, I reached out to some fellow LGBT+ Christians to get their perspective. My main question was pretty simple: “How has your experience as an LGBT+ person been a unique source of blessing in your life?”

The responses were pretty incredible. All of these people affirm the Bible’s historic teaching on gender and sexuality. Some use their names; some remain anonymous. And all describe specific ways in which their non-straight and/or non-cisgender experience brought about profound blessing to their existence.

If you’re a sexual and/or gender minority who affirms the Bible’s historic teachings, I hope that you will find their perspective as encouraging as I did. And if you have stories of blessing yourself, please share in the comments or send me a message! I would love to hear your story! On the flipside, if you’re a straight Christian struggling to understand the LGBT+ experience, I pray that you would find the following perspectives eye-opening. And ultimately, I hope that you can see LGBT+ people as a source of blessing to you and to the church as a whole. more “God’s Unique Blessings in the LGBT+ Experience of Christians” …

Same-Sex Love is Good and Beautiful

June 22, 2018

This is the fifth post in a month-long series on “celibate gay pride,” exploring the glory of God as revealed in the lives of celibate gay Christians. I’d like to publish about 1-2 posts every week over the month of June. But I need your help! The more feedback I get, the more I can make things relevant. As the series progresses, please comment below or share your thoughts via private message. Any interaction will be a HUGE help as I tailor the content. Suggestions and requests are 100 percent welcome!

Also, I’m specifically talking about and for celibate gay Christians in this series. To be clear: this is not an argument for why gay Christians ought to be celibate. I want to clarify this at the outset, because I often receive various criticisms from non-celibate gay people who tell me that my arguments aren’t convincing. But there’s a reason for that. I’m not trying to make arguments for or against any particular sexual ethic in my blog. This blog is simply for LGBT+ Christians who believe in the traditional sexual ethic. It’s not a blog for convincing LGBT+ Christians to accept a sexual ethic they don’t believe in, and I do not believe that all LGBT+ Christians must accept this ethic. However, many LGBT+ Christians nevertheless do live by the traditional sexual ethic. So if you’re interested in learning about celibate gay believers (and/or the larger LGBT+ community that believes in the traditional sexual ethic), then by all means read on. 

For more posts in this series:

  1. Are Celibate Gay Christians Allowed to Have Pride?
  2. Take It From an Expert: Same-Sex Attraction Is More Than Just Sexual
  3. Gay Attractions Create the Context for More Than Just Sin
  4. Gay People Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
  5. Same-Sex Love is Good and Beautiful
  6. God’s Unique Blessings in the LGBT+ Experience of Christians
  7. LGBT+ Christians: When Unlikely People Are God’s Greatest Champions

Same-sex love is a good thing, and celibate gay Christians can pursue it

Unfortunately, far too many gay and lesbian Christians hear from the church that same-sex attractions have no purpose in the Christian life. Denial is their only end. But such thinking obscures the reality that gay, lesbian, and bisexual Christians actually desire a good worth pursuing. If you accept the historic understanding of Biblical sexuality, then same-sex love is not sexual. Even more, same-sex love is good.

Sadly, too many Christians accept the Freudian conflation of love and sex. The idea of men loving men and women loving women so offends the sexualized ears of many believers that merely suggesting such a thing could be good creates outrage. But as Wesley Hill observed in a recent blog post, “It’s not a sin for men to love men, or women to love women. On the contrary.”

On the contrary indeed. God commands it: “[F]or he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen… whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21). God brings people into relationship for the purpose of loving each other, and gay people are included in that purpose. more “Same-Sex Love is Good and Beautiful” …

Gay People Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

June 16, 2018

This is the fourth post in a month-long series on “celibate gay pride,” exploring the glory of God as revealed in the lives of celibate gay Christians. I’d like to publish about 1-2 posts every week over the month of June. But I need your help! The more feedback I get, the more I can make things relevant. As the series progresses, please comment below or share your thoughts via private message. Any interaction will be a HUGE help as I tailor the content. Suggestions and requests are 100 percent welcome!

Also, I’m specifically talking about and for celibate gay Christians in this series. To be clear: this is not an argument for why gay Christians ought to be celibate. I want to clarify this at the outset, because I often receive various criticisms from non-celibate gay people who tell me that my arguments aren’t convincing. But there’s a reason for that. I’m not trying to make arguments for or against any particular sexual ethic in my blog. This blog is simply for LGBT+ Christians who believe in the traditional sexual ethic. It’s not a blog for convincing LGBT+ Christians to accept a sexual ethic they don’t believe in, and I do not believe that all LGBT+ Christians must accept this ethic. However, many LGBT+ Christians nevertheless do live by the traditional sexual ethic. So if you’re interested in learning about celibate gay believers (and/or the larger LGBT+ community that believes in the traditional sexual ethic), then by all means read on. 

For more posts in this series:

  1. Are Celibate Gay Christians Allowed to Have Pride?
  2. Take It From an Expert: Same-Sex Attraction Is More Than Just Sexual
  3. Gay Attractions Create the Context for More Than Just Sin
  4. Gay People Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
  5. Same-Sex Love is Good and Beautiful
  6. God’s Unique Blessings in the LGBT+ Experience of Christians
  7. LGBT+ Christians: When Unlikely People Are God’s Greatest Champions

Gay people are fearfully and wonderfully made

Some important notes: I say this in the body of my post, but I want to say it here too. When I say that “nothing about me is a mistake,” I’m not referring to sin. Sin has nothing to do with the way God made me. So in discussing my queerness as a gift, I’m not talking about sin as a gift. I’m not even talking about temptation as a gift. One of the major themes of this series has been that “gay” and “sin” and “temptation” are not the same thing. All things can be distorted and become excuses for sin. But I am not talking about the distortion of my queerness. My experience of being gay has been primarily a vehicle of grace and goodness in my life, not sin and not even temptation. And so it’s within that context that I speak. 

Also, I intentionally limited my observations in this post to my story and only my story. Gay people are as varied and diverse in their experiences as straight people, and I don’t want anyone to think that I’m making generalizations about the “gay experience” with this post. My experience has been just that, my experience. But in sharing my thoughts and reflections, I know that many gay people will at the very least see overlap in their stories and mine. I hope that in sharing the ways that knowing God as maker has transformed my thinking, it will encourage other LGBT+ individuals to see themselves as created and, therefore, beautiful.

God as Maker Transformed My Relationship to Myself

As a girl of mixed racial, ethnic, and cultural heritage, I found a special sort of solace growing up in the knowledge that God made me. Every last inch of me. Down to the things that I disliked and the things that were mocked. My skin tone that never felt tan enough nor white enough. My Indian eyes that earned me the nickname “China girl” and “chinky” on more than one occasion.

Learning to see God as my maker changed my relationship to myself because it changed my relationship to God. I began to take pride in my differences. Not out of an imagined sense of self-worth, but out of an actual sense that God was a master craftsman. That God made every part of me, including those parts that were “different.”

“I praise you,” the Psalmist declares, “for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well” (Ps. 139:14). In a world of conformity, where being “different” often feels like being “wrong,” the words of the Bible offer hope to every misfit and outcast in the world. more “Gay People Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made” …

Gay Attractions Create the Context for More Than Just Sin

June 9, 2018

This is the third post in a month-long series on “celibate gay pride,” exploring the glory of God as revealed in the lives of celibate gay Christians. I’d like to publish about 1-2 posts every week over the month of June. But I need your help! The more feedback I get, the more I can make things relevant. As the series progresses, please comment below or share your thoughts via private message. Any interaction will be a HUGE help as I tailor the content. Suggestions and requests are 100 percent welcome!

Also, I’m specifically talking about and for celibate gay Christians in this series. To be clear: this is not an argument for why gay Christians ought to be celibate. I want to clarify this at the outset, because I often receive various criticisms from non-celibate gay people who tell me that my arguments aren’t convincing. But there’s a reason for that. I’m not trying to make arguments for or against any particular sexual ethic in my blog. This blog is simply for LGBT+ Christians who believe in the traditional sexual ethic. It’s not a blog for convincing LGBT+ Christians to accept a sexual ethic they don’t believe in, and I do not believe that all LGBT+ Christians must accept this ethic. However, many LGBT+ Christians nevertheless do live by the traditional sexual ethic. So if you’re interested in learning about celibate gay believers (and/or the larger LGBT+ community that believes in the traditional sexual ethic), then by all means read on. 

For more posts in this series:

  1. Are Celibate Gay Christians Allowed to Have Pride?
  2. Take It From an Expert: Same-Sex Attraction Is More Than Just Sexual
  3. Gay Attractions Create the Context for More Than Just Sin
  4. Gay People Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
  5. Same-Sex Love is Good and Beautiful
  6. God’s Unique Blessings in the LGBT+ Experience of Christians
  7. LGBT+ Christians: When Unlikely People Are God’s Greatest Champions

Sin, Sex, and Shame Don't Define a Gay Person's Attractions or Same-Sex Attraction in General

Quick disclaimer: This post is a direct follow-up to my interview with Lauren Melissa on Tuesday and contains my thoughts and reflections from the conversation. If you haven’t listened to the interview (or read the transcript), then I highly recommend that you do so! It may be difficult to understand where I’m coming from otherwise. 

Gay Attractions Create the Context for More Than Just Sin

Freudian psychology would reduce human attraction to the outworking of sexual desire, and the church has allowed such thinking to flourish, whether we realize it or not. Human beings are more than sex, and our desires are more than sexual. But far too many Christians buy into a narrative that defines gay people exclusively by our potential for sexual activity (code: potential for sin). By doing so, they rob us of our humanity.

Same-sex attraction has thus become something for which LGB Christians must constantly apologize, even if those attractions have nothing to do with sex. Even if those attractions might create the context for godly living.

In response, my interview with Lauren Melissa last Tuesday gives a sharp rebuttal to sex-oriented thinking. Asexual people are walking, living proof that the vast majority of human attractions can and do exist apart from sexual desire. And this means something profound for gay, lesbian, and bisexual Christians who believe in the traditional sexual ethic.

It means we don’t need to apologize for everything we feel. more “Gay Attractions Create the Context for More Than Just Sin” …

Take It From an Expert: Same-Sex-Attraction Is More Than Just Sexual

June 5, 2018

This is the second post in a month-long series on “celibate gay pride,” exploring the glory of God as revealed in the lives of celibate gay Christians. I’d like to publish about 1-2 posts every week over the month of June. But I need your help! The more feedback I get, the more I can make things relevant. As the series progresses, please comment below or share your thoughts via private message. Any interaction will be a HUGE help as I tailor the content. Suggestions and requests are 100 percent welcome!

Also, I’m specifically talking about and for celibate gay Christians in this series. To be clear: this is not an argument for why gay Christians ought to be celibate. I want to clarify this at the outset, because I often receive various criticisms from non-celibate gay people who tell me that my arguments aren’t convincing. But there’s a reason for that. I’m not trying to make arguments for or against any particular sexual ethic in my blog. This blog is simply for LGBT+ Christians who believe in the traditional sexual ethic. It’s not a blog for convincing LGBT+ Christians to accept a sexual ethic they don’t believe in, and I do not believe that all LGBT+ Christians must accept this ethic. However, many LGBT+ Christians nevertheless do live by the traditional sexual ethic. So if you’re interested in learning about celibate gay believers (and/or the larger LGBT+ community that believes in the traditional sexual ethic), then by all means read on. 

For more posts in this series:

  1. Are Celibate Gay Christians Allowed to Have Pride?
  2. Take It From an Expert: Same-Sex Attraction Is More Than Just Sexual
  3. Gay Attractions Create the Context for More Than Just Sin
  4. Gay People Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
  5. Same-Sex Love is Good and Beautiful
  6. God’s Unique Blessings in the LGBT+ Experience of Christians
  7. LGBT+ Christians: When Unlikely People Are God’s Greatest Champions

Attraction is not reducible to sexual desire

Today, I’m doing something a little bit out of the ordinary for my blog. I invited guest-contributor Lauren Melissa to do an interview discussing the various forms of attraction, and I’m excited to share it with readers! As an asexual person, Lauren has thought about attraction on a much deeper level than most. In a world where people equate attraction with sexual desire, she’s had no choice! Her life and knowledge shed light upon the various forms of attraction that all people experience and which exist apart from sex. In fact, my conversations with her over the years have played an instrumental role in helping me understand that human attraction is not primarily about sex.

This conversation is particularly important for celibate gay Christians because mainstream Christianity often reduces gay desire to simply the desire for sex, thereby reducing gay desire to simply the desire for sin (amongst Christians who believe a traditional sexual ethic). But attraction is far more nuanced than sexual desire alone. more “Take It From an Expert: Same-Sex-Attraction Is More Than Just Sexual” …

Are Celibate Gay Christians Allowed to Have Pride?

May 30, 2018

This is the first post in a month-long series on “celibate gay pride,” exploring the glory of God as revealed in the lives of celibate gay Christians. I’d like to publish about 1-2 posts every week over the month of June. But I need your help! The more feedback I get, the more I can make things relevant. As the series progresses, please comment below or share your thoughts via private message. Any interaction will be a HUGE help as I tailor the content. Suggestions and requests are 100 percent welcome.

Also, I’m specifically talking about and for celibate gay Christians in this series. To be clear: this is not an argument for why gay Christians ought to be celibate. I want to clarify this at the outset, because I often receive various criticisms from non-celibate gay people who tell me that my arguments aren’t convincing. But there’s a reason for that. I’m not trying to make arguments for or against any particular sexual ethic in my blog. This blog is simply for LGBT+ Christians who believe in the traditional sexual ethic. It’s not a blog for convincing LGBT+ Christians to accept a sexual ethic they don’t believe in, and I do not believe that all LGBT+ Christians must accept this ethic. However, many LGBT+ Christians nevertheless do live by the traditional sexual ethic. So if you’re interested in learning about celibate gay believers (and/or the larger LGBT+ community that believes in the traditional sexual ethic), then by all means read on. 

For more posts in this series:

  1. Are Celibate Gay Christians Allowed to Have Pride?
  2. Take It From an Expert: Same-Sex Attraction Is More Than Just Sexual
  3. Gay Attractions Create the Context for More Than Just Sin
  4. Gay People Are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
  5. Same-Sex Love is Good and Beautiful
  6. God’s Unique Blessings in the LGBT+ Experience of Christians
  7. LGBT+ Christians: When Unlikely People Are God’s Greatest Champions

 

Celibate Gay Christian Pride

Are Celibate Gay Christians Allowed to Have Pride?

June is gay pride month, a time for celebrating LGBT+ people as full human beings. But for a time of year that supposedly celebrates our humanity, it often feels like celibate gay Christians need to duck down, stay quiet, and avoid attention.

Quite frankly, it’s for good reason. Christians on the right often react with such offense at our existence that even suggesting we could possibly be Christian too is “heretical.” One writer called the upcoming Revoice Conference an “acquiescence to the homosexual agenda” and said that gay Christians like me should be “thrown out to Satan.” Others have compared us to pedophiles, porn addicts, and rapists.

In such a hostile environment, you might think that gay people like myself could run for safety to our local LGBT Center. But Christians on the left often respond with just as much vitriol. One person reacted to celibate gay Christian David Bennett’s interview with Preston Sprinkle by calling him “a self-hating gay man” who makes “other gay people self-hating.” Others deny our personhood by claiming that we are nothing more than a brainwashed bludgeon of the Christian right.

Granted, not everyone is like this. And I remain tremendously grateful for the people I know who support God’s calling in my life. However, it can sometimes feel like these people are few and far between. More often than not, no matter where we turn, Christians like me face open hostility.

So when a month like June rolls around, it can be hard to know where to fit. On the one side, we’re shamed for being gay. On the other side, we’re shamed for abstaining from sex. It can sometimes feel like we’re nothing but a disgrace to our communities.

But the Bible says differently. more “Are Celibate Gay Christians Allowed to Have Pride?” …

Taking the Family of God Seriously

April 23, 2018

The following article was originally published over at Equip Your Community. Equip is a Christian non-profit which seeks to help church leaders better serve those who are sexual minorities. If you’d like to learn more about Equip, check out their website and subscribe to their newsletter!

Guest post at Equip exploring the meaning of spiritual family and it's impact on celibate gay Christians.

Taking the Family of God Seriously

Celibate gay Christians are frustrated. And not for the reasons you might expect.

Consider how the average congregation revolves around marriage and family. Husband, wife, children — they all sit together as a “family unit.” Couples cluster up two-by-two. If a guy and a girl sit beside each other, it’s because they’re an “item.” Church leaders frequently teach that marriage is the most important earthly relationship, and people commonly say that after your relationship with God, spouse and family should always come first.

But in a world where marriage and family monopolize our love, Christians have little to offer people whose lives don’t fit the “marriage and family” model. When Christians invite believers — gay or straight — into a context where the most normative form of love happens to be the nuclear family, they reinforce the message that celibate people, and in particular gay celibate people, don’t deserve to have love. You might as well invite a child into an ice cream parlor but give him a bottle of water. No kid would be happy with that arrangement.

But that’s the arrangement that so many celibate gay Christians must navigate. And while a great number of straight Christians struggle with the challenges of long-term singleness, most of the straight Christians I know assume they will get married and aren’t interested in settling down into singleness or investing in that possibility.

As much as Christians love to celebrate it, the nuclear family should not be the only expression of love in the church. Nor should it be the most meaningful. Biblical community suffers when Christians prioritize the nuclear family above the people of God.

In fact, healthy Christian community calls believers out of their families and into a new one. A spiritual family whose love for each other surpasses the love between spouses, parents, children, and siblings. Continue Reading…

 

 

Longing & Loss | Reflections from Call Me By Your Name

April 10, 2018

I’m excited to share these reflections from guest writer Pieter Valk on the popular movie Call Me By Your Name. Please feel free to comment and share your thoughts below, keeping in mind that reactions to this film vary across the spectrum, and that’s okay. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

 

Pieter Valk reflects on his experience watching Call Me By Your Name as a celibate gay Christian seeking meaningful relationships.

 

Pieter Valk is the director of EQUIP, a Nashville-based team of missionary consultants who partners with churches to become places where LGBT+ people can belong and thrive according to an orthodox Christian sexual ethic. He is also a clinical mental health counselor that serves LGBT+ college students. Learn more at EQUIPyourcommunity.org.

Call Me By Your Name is a very broken story. At some level, it is just a story of a hormone-filled adolescent boy exploring his sexuality and seeking pleasure wherever he can get it. He finds love that, while honest and physically intimate, can only be as mature as a 17-year-old kid can muster; the other half of the pair is a mid-20s man who resists the relationship but ultimately relents for a fun, temporary adventure that is incompatible with the practicalities of adulthood. More often than not, the love is a self-serving use of another’s body for personal pleasure. And yes, there were moments that felt increasingly pornographic when I had to look away—I am glad I saw the movie with a trusted safe friend to process with afterward. Both constructive and nonconstructive emotions have lingered, and I am still ambivalent about whether it was good for me to have seen the movie or whether I would recommend someone else see the movie.

Nevertheless, it is powerful for me to see people like me portrayed as normal people in mainstream movies. more “Longing & Loss | Reflections from Call Me By Your Name” …