Videos!

I just added a side bar that has links to some of my favorite (relevant) videos on the internet. They're all related to Christianity and being gay, and they are all pretty amazing. It was a tough decision, but I didn't put any of my favorite but irrelevant videos up. But if you were wondering, Corey Gray, Sam Tsui and Tyler Ward are all cute and they can all sing well. What more could you want?

The "Broadway Singing 'It Gets Better'" one is just because I love music and I love "It gets better", so what better thing than to combine them! There wouldn't be enough space to put all of my favorite "It gets better" videos, but I'll probably add some of my favorite ones.

Want some inspiration as well as some perspective? The "Gay Rights Movement" video is a moving collection of clips that illuminates the gay rights movement.

What happens when you put a bunch of gay men together? A musical, obviously. It is kind of long, but worth every minute. The GCN Musical is funny as well as conveying the difficult pull between two poor choices that gay Christians experience, and the freeing choice that GCN represents.

Any other videos you think should be included? Just let me know through a comment.

Biblical Reflection (Psalm 119:176)

So, this blog isn't just about being gay, but also about being Christian. I'm going to start doing some posts that are just some reflections on some verses that have meant a lot to me throughout my life and my walk with God. The verse that this post will focus on is Psalm 119:176, which is by far the most important verse in my life.

"I have gone astray like a lost sheep;

seek your servant,

for I do not forget Your commandments"

Let’s face it; we're all pretty screwed up. We will all go astray, we will all fail and we will all continue to sin for as long as we are alive. That’s a pretty depressing outlook on life. But we have a promise, we have a hope: God will seek us out for as long as we remember him and his commands. This passage was written by King David, but I always read it in a slightly different way, as if God were saying it to me:

"You have gone astray like a lost sheep;

but I will seek out my servant,

for you have not forgotten me in your time of need"

Now that is a love that I cannot begin to understand. If it were me, I would have grown tired of seeking out servants who will never cease to go astray a long time ago. But God loves us so much, that He will always seek us out, as long as we remember Him. That is the kind of hope we can rest assured in, that will keep us going through the worst times of our lives.

"And now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." Jude 24

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.

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.

Christmas!

So, I've been studying for finals all week and haven't had much time to write, so here's a quick post.

I've always thought that one of the most attractive attributes a guy can have is the ability to sing. So, in the holiday spirit, I give you "Mistletoe", sung by Corey Gray, who is both insanely cute and can sing really well. Enjoy!

My next post will probably have to do with either the book "Love is an Orientation" or about loneliness.