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.

The Marin Foundation

So, you may notice a group of links over on the side of the blog, which will take you to some of my favorite websites relating to sexuality and Christianity. Over the next couple weeks I'm planning on doing a post relating to each of those sites. Today I'm going to be talking about the Marin Foundation and the book that was written by Andrew Marin called "Love is an Orientation".

I first heard about the Marin Foundation from a fellow student who mentioned it off hand in an email saying how cool the work they do is. I didn't think much more of it until much later when I heard someone talking about the book "Love is an Orientation", and how good it was. Intrigued, I got the book on my Kindle, and read it covertly over thanksgiving break at my aunt's house, and let me tell you, it was a life changer.

Andrew Marin is straight, and I am ashamed to say that when I found that out I wasn't sure I would be able to get much out of his book. I mean, how is a straight guy going to relate to me... he better not try to preach to me about what I feel. I couldn't be more wrong though. In college, Marin three friends come out to him as being either gay or lesbian, and it rocked his world. Since then he has moved to Boystown in Chicago, which is the gay neighborhood, and he has started a ministry for reaching out to the gay community.

In his book, Marin focuses on "building bridges" between Christianity and the gay community. These two have long been at odds, and more of the blame seems to lie with Christians, as Christians seem to be the ones who push away. Christians justify this by saying the being gay is a sin, but other sinners are accepted into the church every day. Whether being gay is or is not a sin, which is not a justification for how the church has treated gays. Building bridges is the idea that Christians need to work to get gays into the church. It’s like there is a massive divide between Christians and gays, and Christians are asking anyone who is gay to jump across. Rather, Christians need to work on building a bridge to help gay people over.

It is also a nice benefit that Marin does not take a position on if he is gay-affirming or believes that gay people should be celibate. This means the book is easily accessible for people who hold to either view. Overall, this book is a must read for people who are straight or gay.

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.