James (not his real name) knew he was gay as a teenager. He was a church kid who loved hearing about Jesus. James was a member of St John’s as a child, but as a teenager felt he no longer belonged, and felt unable to bring up his desires. They felt like a scary distancing issue, and he has not since belonged to a church. I suspect there have been many James’ in our history, and I know there have been a couple.
Kate and Deb (not their real names) got together after Kate’s divorce and were parenting Kate’s two kids and wished them to experience a Sunday School upbringing. They were sympathetic to Christianity, but not Christian themselves. They were very happy to belong to a church while the kids listened in, and enjoyed our church community until the kids said they no longer wished to come. In the meantime, they did Christianity Explored and made a few friends. There have not been so many Kate and Debs. Though they were not believing members of Christ’s church, they were members of our community for a time.
Carlos (not his real name) knew he was gay as a teenager. He was a church kid, who loved church, because he loved the Jesus who loves the church. Carlos was a member of St John’s for many years, before moving out of the area and finding another fantastic church to belong to. There have been many Carlos’ at St John’s over the last 30 years.
Care of James
Churches like ours have not always done a great job at caring for James. At the very worst (though not to my knowledge ever at St John’s) churches have promoted practices aimed at ‘converting’ homosexual desire to heterosexual desire. ‘Aversion therapy’ or Electro-Convulsive Treatments were examples of this. They genuinely did wreak terrible harm in many peoples’ lives. As a result of these historic practices, Alex Greenwich aims to promote legislation such as exists in Victoria to ban ‘conversion therapy’ practices. Or as they call it in Victoria, in a far-reaching and aggressive bill - ‘Change and Suppression’ practices.
For the record, the Synod (parliament) of our Anglican Diocese declared in 2018 “the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Sydney does not practise, recommend or endorse ‘gay conversion therapy’”. Living Faith, an Anglican ministry to LGBTQA Christians, states on its website, “Our goal is not heterosexuality, but rather, being transformed by God into the image of Christ.”
For this reason, I have always been entirely supportive of bans on so-called ‘therapies’ involving physical or emotional abuse which seek to force a change of sexual orientation in a person.
I wish James had had a youth group and church where he was able to express his felt desires to someone, wonder about what that means, hear what Jesus’ church teaches from the scriptures, and feel safe slowly exploring his options over time without any fear of rejection. This is, I believe, more happily the case now in our youth ministry. All our teenagers need to understand and experience our church as a family of believers who follow the scriptures, and also a place of gospel hospitality, welcoming many who are not sure what the scriptures say yet, or don’t follow them but still like being among us. May this safety only grow - and may this article help this grow.
Care of Kate and Deb
Care of Kate and Deb is easy. We welcome anyone to join our community. Anyone. We know that our community (which is formed by all peoples’ choice to come along) is always larger than Jesus’ church (which he forms by conviction of his Spirit). Our church community is made of believers and non-believers, whereas Jesus’ church is made of believers. So we expect, and are non-anxious about the presence of many people in our community who do not agree with everything we think about the scriptures as a church.
So Kate and Deb and their kids got to be a wonderful picture of tolerant friendship - a gay couple in a church that believes that Jesus’ teaching preserves sexual intimacy for heterosexual marriage.
When their child wanted to finish at Sunday School, they asked their mums, ‘why do you come here if the church doesn’t agree with your relationship?’ Their answer? ‘This is our church community. We belong here.’ And as wonderful members of our community, they did for a good long time. This was to our mutual benefit, if not final agreement.
Care of Carlos
Carlos’s story is less common, but not uncommon. It’s less common to find people who love Jesus and desire to follow him even more than they wish to follow their desires for sexual intimacy.
But it is not uncommon. In fact, very many of our churches have people in this position that few in our society understand. Once, I was fortunate to be in a bible study (not at our church) with 12 blokes who desired exactly this. These brothers were great examples to me of trusting Jesus at cost. Though I was a straight guy among a large group of gay guys (some of them would say ‘same-sex-attracted’), they greatly helped me to follow Jesus when it cost me too.
Care for Carlos, as for many of you, often involved me stopping to pray for him. Having a cuppa, or pausing after church, or getting together 1-1. I would often pray, as Carlos asked, that he would not give in to the desires he felt, and his desire to follow Jesus would remain stronger than any of his other desires. This is just basic pastoral ministry, don’t you think?
Care and Politics
Sadly, Alex Greenwich’s proposed legislation does not just ban aversion therapy and ECT for the supposed re-ordering of desires, but includes various kinds and patterns of prayer. The Victorian model is the likely guide for this. It allows ‘prayers for inner peace and guidance’. It allows ‘general teaching on statements of faith’. But it explicitly rules out prayers of the kind I have prayed above with Carlos, and many others. You should judge for yourself whether this helps people like me and you lead Christians like Carlos.
I fear such a bill would discourage Carlos from asking me to pray with him. I have never and would never pray for anyone that homosexual desire would become heterosexual desire. I have enough problem with heterosexual desire myself, so I’m not sure what great a gain that would be! I pray for Christ-likeness in both our desires. I have prayed other detailed things as requested by Carlos and others. This is the utterly lost story in what I see as the often helpful advance of LGBTQA rights.
It is possible that Carlos will look back at some point and say he appreciated the support of many Christians who affirmed his choices and prayed for him, despite great social pressure to do otherwise.
Of course, it is also possible that Carlos will look back at some point and say he feels harmed by me not actively affirming all his desires, even though at the time he did not affirm them himself. If that is the case, then people like me (and perhaps you) risk possible legal sanction.
The Labor government promises a more reasonable approach in NSW. But to date, their discussion paper (not publicly available) suggests a very Victorian approach.
Carlos and Jim: A Complex Matter in a Condemning Culture
To some degree it is OK if the decades-old sense of condemnation many gay people felt is now felt by some Christians. It was wrong for them to feel condemned, and it will be wrong for us to feel condemned too. But if I am condemned, I can at least rejoice that others are now liberated from their social condemnation! When I remember the aggressive and often violent hatred of the 1980’s and even 1990’s I genuinely rejoice.
I firmly believe that those seeking to stop ‘conversion practices’ are seeking to end real and actual harms. I am convinced of their intent in this, though have great reservations about their larger agenda to define humanity by its’ desires. I don’t wish to be defined by my desires, and am not sure it is caring for others to suggest so for them either. That the proponents of this upcoming bill don’t understand or accept the story of Carlos and Jim is no surprise to me. It is a less common, but not uncommon story. I am hoping they will listen well to it.
To this end, I’ll be aiming to visit Michael Daley soon for a chat with a few other ministers. Do pray for me to be clear. Do read the Victorian outcome yourself and see if you think that is a good outcome for people like you, Carlos and me.