The Gay Christian Network

In the great debate occurring in the church right now, there are three common Christian stances on the GLBT issue. The first stance is that a loving monogamous homosexual relationship is moral and acceptable under the Bible. The second is that homosexuals are called to celibacy, and the third is that homosexuals should go through “reparative therapy”. Wouldn’t it be amazing if there were a place where all three of these views could gather, love each other, and acknowledge that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ? Well, there is. It is called the Gay Christian Network (GCN), and it is an amazing place. I only discovered it a little over a month ago, and it has already influenced my life in a significant way.

According to their website, “The Gay Christian Network (GCN) is a nonprofit ministry supporting Christians worldwide who happen to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). Our mission, "sharing Christ's light and love for all," is carried out in 5 primary directions, to impact individuals, families, communities, churches, and the world.”

GCN has been, for me, a support system. It’s a way to realize you are not alone and that other gay Christians are out there, even if you don’t meet them in person. I have posted in threads over there ranging from topics such as “I feel gay when…” to “I feel straight when…” to “Metaphorical Internet Pillow”, and no matter the seriousness of my post, the very fact that I am interacting with people who can understand me in a way that most people cannot is reassuring. Now, if you read my post entitled “Loneliness” it may sound as though GCN solved all of that. It hasn’t, but it is an amazing start. If you are a gay (or straight ally) Christian, I really want to encourage you to head over to GCN and sign up.

GCN has a general discussion place where everyone can post, but it also has forums that people sign up for that caters to the specific needs or beliefs of its members. GCN has also created terminology to refer to the different views on the LGBT debate, which are Side A, Side B and Side X. Side A is gay affirming, Side B believes in celibacy and Side X promotes “reparative therapy”. Side A and B are both well represented on the site, but Side X doesn’t seem to want to love anybody that doesn’t agree with them, so they tend to stay clear (it also seems to be 99% straight people, maybe us gay people know something they don’t)*. Regardless of your view on the issue, you will be loved there and you will be accepted there. In short, GCN is, in my opinion, one of the closest things to Christ’s love I have ever seen.

*If you are side X and are loving and accepting, I am sorry for that sentence. I just have never met one yet.

Lonliness

Everyone feels alone sometimes (is that a line from a cheesy love song?). At some point in their life, everyone will feel as though they have been abandoned, betrayed, or like they have no friends. I've felt these things many times.

Just a year ago, I was severely depressed because I felt alone (for more, see my article "Gay at Wheaton"). I thought that God had abandoned, I thought that my friends and family would abandon me if they knew I was gay, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to be around me anymore either. What was, and continues to be, the source of my lonliness, was that I'm a gay Christian. "Why is that?" you may ask, and just a few weeks ago, I would have replied "I have no idea." Originally my lonliness came from a fear of telling people who I really am, as well as a sense of abandonment from God. But once I had dealt with those, I thought that everything would magically become better, and it did for a time. I experienced an emotional high of relief that people knew that I am gay, and that there were some people that I could be myself around. But soon the familiar feeling that I was alone began to creep back in. After some thinking, I realized why:

1. On some level, I cannot identify with straight guys. Sexual idenity affects our everyday interactions more than we give it credit for, and there is an inherant disconnect between me, a gay man, and my friends, straight men. Because of this, I often times do not feel connected to my straight friends.

2. I also cannot identify with my female friends. This one is more obvious: even though we're both attracted to men, we're still different genders. My female friends cannot identify with the problems I have as a man.

So this all leaves me with male friends who cannot identify with my sexuality and female friends who cannot identify with my gender. All in all, this makes my list of friends who can identify with me frighteningly small.
I think this means that the gay Christian feels isolated and alone. But there is hope. I recently read Andrew Marin's book, "Love is an Orientation", and it was a life changer. I won't go into too much detail now, as thats for a later post, but all I can say is that when he describes a group of gay Christians all worshiping together, I began to cry. Imagine: An entire church full of people who knew what I was going through and who could identify with my problems in a real way.

People need to be connected, they need to be able to identify with other, real, human beings who can understand what they are going through, and as human beings if we don't get this connection, we feel iolated and alone. Everyone will experience this at some point of their life, but I think it is especially poignant for gay Chritians. Being gay, we are limited with who can identify with us, and being Christians, we are told by our churches that we should not associate with those people who can identify with us (according to the church, where two or more gay men gather, sex will happen), but I think that those connections are important for our mental and spiritual health, and the few that I have had were like breaths of fresh air. Where do we find those? I'm not sure where to find the relationships we need, but I'm searching. If you find some, help out a fellow brother in Christ find his way.

Two Pet Peeves

Many Christians have reprogrammed anti-gay responses to bring out when a discussion on sexuality arises. When I first heard them I was taken in by them and believed them, but once I started considering them, I realized that the two main ones that are used are actually pretty flawed.

The first response is that people who are gay can build a complete sexual identity without acting on their sexual desires. This argument often goes like this: "What gay people don't realize is that there is a whole part of their sexual identity that does not focus on their desires. They can build a whole sexual identity around that instead." This argument seems slightly crazy to me. Let me see if I understand this. If I ignore the largest part of my sexual identity, I can form a whole sexual identity? Something seems off here. Should I also ignore flour when I bake something and just focus really hard on the other ingredients? Or maybe I should try to get a car to work without an engine by having all the other parts be really high quality. People who use this argument are actually saying "I don't like the center of your sexual identity, so how about you ignore it."

The second common response is that gay Christians need to stop identifying themselves as "gay" and start to identify themselves as Christian. I am actually extremely insulted when I hear someone use this argument. They are assuming that I'm not identifying myself as a Christian, but I don't remember not having Christ be the center of my identity. Everyone has multiple things that shape their life and their identity. These may be our jobs, school, hobbies, relationships, friends or any variety of things. What we must do is order the importance of these things correctly. My Christian faith is the center of my life and my identity, and to think that it is not simply because I am gay is rather presumptuous. My sexual identity as a gay man is a large force that shapes my life, bit it is by no means a larger influence on my identity than my Christian faith.

Let me end this post with a final comment: God is the cornerstone of my life and my sexuality is not, but both inform my life in a very significant way.