Musings On The Road

I had a pretty awesome weekend. I got in my beat-up car and visited friends in Charlotte, Spruce Pine, and Asheville. I spent about 15 hours on the road in all, and I just felt so grown-up. I also visited some different people. I stayed with an ex-gay couple who works for Exodus in Charlotte, and I stayed with an actively gay Buddhist in Asheville. As a gay celibate Christian with liberal politics, I had major disagreements with both sets of people, and have had online arguments with all of them before. In person, though, they were all nice, sweet, engaging people. The disagreements still exist, but it was nice to stay the night with folks without arguing. We all have so much more in common than we have in disagreement.

Other than that, things are going well. I'm really excited about graduate school. The one I visited this weekend was awesome and everyone was so nice, and it's only my backup! I love how my backup is somewhere I would be 100% happy with.

On the spiritual side of things, my Bible study (great dudes) have been going through 1 John this semester. There's been a lot of conviction about being in the world but not of the world. For example, I was watching "Slumdog Millionaire" with friends the other day. It's a great movie, but at the end of it, even though it ended fairly happily, I couldn't feel too joyful. The characters were still all Muslim and Hindu. Even though they were happy, I just couldn't forget that their happiness was nothing without Christ. They would still be unsaved. I've been really convicted about this recently. Should I root for characters that I know aren't saved? I should be preoccupied with the salvation of others, and I need to more boldly proclaim the Gospel, because Hell is a reality. Eternal life and joy, far better than the joy of this Earth, is a reality. I want everyone I know and love on the joyful side of the divide, and even though I'm not going to start listening to all hymns and watching only Christian-themed television, my faith in Jesus needs to influence how I see art as well. I obviously should not use depictions of sin for my entertainment (which means I might have to let "Mad Men" go, since you can't watch that show without being forced to root for someone committing adultery). But even in other films or TV shows, if there are happy endings, but no one is saved, can they really be called happy?

As always, it's something to think about. This is what happens when you put me in a car for a few days with little else to do. :)

Two Things to Read About: One Bad, One Good

Hey guys! Well, this weekend I'm driving around the great state of North Carolina in my beat up Ford Tempo (which I just learned was on this blog's list of the worst cars ever, huzzah). I've been visiting friends, driving to places that I've never driven through before (the mountains are gorgeous!) and Monday I will be touring a potential graduate school (that's right! "Adventures of a Christian Grad Student" could be right around the corner!) While I'm hanging out with a bud near Asheville, I thought I'd blog a bit. Yes, I know my blogging recently has been more along the lines of finding cool articles to direct you towards, dear readers, than writing cool articles myself. I guess I'm just a Senior who's busy with two jobs and writing a Hemingway thesis. Sue me, okay?

Warren Throckmorton has written an excellent piece about some of the horrible things going on in Uganda right now. I know Exodus has said they weren't involved in the conference in Kampala that started this madness, but even so, they were involved enough that I think a statement about the violations of human rights that are going on would be appropriate. I know Exodus has made statements about violations of free speech in America and around the world (especially those that happen against conservatives or Christian). Making a similar statement about the violation of these same rights against gays seems necessary, to me. And we should pray that the government of Uganda begins recognizing what democracy and freedom really mean.

Also, Disputed Mutability is back, everyone! I missed the girl, but of course being a mother and wife is a pretty taxing job that does take some time away from writing massive, brilliant posts. And yet, here she has written one. It's a really great reflection about identity, labels. In short: they're confusing. But she does make a lot of good and balanced reflections about them, Exodus, and the ex-gay movement as a whole. The world needs more Christians like her.

Hope you guys are well. Read those posts and enjoy, and if you have any comments about either, leave them here. Take care!

Now Here's A Place to Start Talking...

Karen, once again, is asking the hard questions. The questions that probably every ex-gay ministry should ask at the outset (but so few do). I think my answers to this question are pretty well-known (check out my personal favorite post called "My Hope" for the answers), but if you're someone who struggles with SSA -- whether involved in Exodus or not -- it would be awesome if you could go over to Karen's blog and take a stab at the questions she's asking in "What If You Don't Change?"

Till then, cheers everyone. I'm extremely busy this week so I'll be moderating comments but I can't say that I'll be responding to everyone like I normally try to do.

Mixed-Orientation Marriages

The comment thread of the previous post turned into quite the discussion about mixed-orientation marriages. That wasn't really the topic of the post, so I'm going to use one of my comments in that threat to kick off a more well-rounded discussion about the subject. It's interesting, it's raw, and it's very personal, so I think we should all do our best to be sensitive about this issue. I know I'm a 21-year-old single guy who knows nothing about marriage -- mixed-orientation or not -- so everything I say can certainly be taken with that grain of salt.

For clarification, I'm going to say that "mixed-orientation marriage" refers to a marriage in which one spouse is heterosexual and the other spouse is not (and is gay or bisexual). Just because the non-heterosexual spouse doesn't refer to himself or herself as homosexual or bisexual doesn't mean that he or she isn't one. So even married Exodus people like Alan Chambers -- who still admit to having homosexual thoughts even though they've been "freed from homosexuality" -- are also included in this. Calling oneself "completely heterosexual" (which Chambers has done before) doesn't mean that one is, and saying that one is heterosexual and then admitting that one still likes men is just insulting to all intelligent people involved in the discussion. So mixed-orientation marriage it is!

I understand what the caution-givers in the comment thread were saying, although I am somewhat curious. How is a mixed-orientation marriage different from, say, a man whose wife undergoes physical changes (gains weight, loses figure through childbirth) and who loses attraction towards her? Certainly there are heterosexual marriages where sexual attraction decreases or almost stops completely, and yet due to the Christian faith they persevere.

I don't think the gay/SSA/put-your-term-of-choice-here people I know who are married are doing this to be "normal." Some of them are part of Exodus ministries so I do question their motivations (unfortunately). Others, however, have views about as anti-Exodus as I do. They hate seeing their marriages used as "signs of hope" by their churches and communities. They are very honest about the struggles, and many of them are just like what you said -- struggling with healthy heterosexual intimacy, and suppressing gay urges. I'm not saying it's not exhausting, but these are people who love their spouses and love the Lord and have to deal with some special challenges.

But doesn't every couple have to deal with special challenges? Whether it's illness or in-law drama or the loss of a child or inability to conceive or a child with disabilities or busy work schedules or decrease in sexual desire -- every couple has major things to deal with.

Although I don't see marriage as my own personal path, I don't have a problem with people with these orientations seeking it. So long as they are extremely honest with each other, and don't show their wedding rings as a sign of some kind of orientation change, and don't allow themselves to be shown as more holy or healthy or balanced than godly singles. I know around Exodus you won't find many (if any) couples like that. But that doesn't mean that there aren't some mixed-orientation marriages that do work, and we may caution folks about the difficulties that go along with such a path, but we don't have a right to tell them whether or not to seek it.

Goals

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:34, ESV)

I have always had difficulty with this verse. More specifically, I have had difficulty living out this verse in my own life. I am a natural worrier. I worry about the future all the time. I have very specific goals for my future, really. I want to go to graduate school. I want to teach high school for awhile. I want to be a published author, and earn enough money so that I can adopt a child on my own. I want to become a university professor later in life. I want to be an upstanding Christian who is content in his singleness and an encouragement to others who struggle with SSA.

I want to help make it so Christians don’t flinch when they hear the term “gay,” and maybe even help the language of those who struggle something a little clearer (I really see no reason why “gay” and “SSA” can’t be interchangeable, but some people will only use one or the other for reasons that simply don’t make sense to me). I want to help make it so ex-gay ministries refocus their goals on helping people live lives obedient to Christ and their values, instead of focusing on marriage or heterosexuality or “freedom from homosexuality” (I really, really hate that phrase, since it’s so misleading; I’ve never met an SSA man, even a very faithful and loving married one, who didn’t still have pronounced homosexual attractions, and I wish those guys would be as candid with their public testimonies as they are in private correspondence).

So I have a lot of goals. I have a laser focus and a very driven heart when it comes to reaching those goals, and I often act defensively when confronted with something that will threaten those goals (just ask anyone who has ever gotten into an argument about ex-gay terminology with me). For example, I have a very difficult time with Christians who refuse to even support basic civil unions for gay couples, because it’s usually these hard-line conservatives who don’t want to allow gays to adopt—not even single ones—and that threatens one of my most treasured goals. (On a mostly unrelated note, I also get annoyed at Christians who don’t support gay marriage but who say they’d support civil unions, but then don’t do anything to actively promote civil unions or things like hospital visitation rights; put up or shut up, people).

Are my goals necessarily God-ordained? Well, that depends. Certainly my goal to be a faithful and obedient single man is. After all, the only reason I don’t have a boyfriend right now—and hopefully will never stray and have one—is because of Him. I do think that many gay Christians can marry heterosexually, and I support them when they do if they have been honest and cautious about it. I don’t see that as my own particular calling, simply because I think I can do a lot more as a single man. I want to show Christians that a single gay guy can be obedient, loving, Biblically-sound, and have a heart that seeks Christ. I want to show that it’s possible.

But maybe the other goals are things God doesn’t have in store for me. I’m in the graduate school application process. I certainly have particular places in mind that I’d want to go (Baltimore, Colorado), but what if I only get accepted at a school in North Carolina, and have to stay here? Or what if my family hits financial ruin and instead of getting to focus on my writing I have to go live back home and take care of my mother and be a teacher in the same high school I graduated from? These things are certainly possible, but I think I’ve reached a point in my faith when I can say that, even if those kinds of things happened to me, I could still count my many blessings and praise God. My goals seem good and valuable and are precious to me right now, but if they turn out to not be His goals, well, he will show me. I just need to keep at them and stop worrying about them, I guess.