Let me be straight with you: I am not straight

...love and sex and faith and fear
And all the things that keep us here
In the mysterious distance..
-the irish prophets



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Though I am sure some Pharisee types have wondered about my:

• friendship with a Hollywood actor with AIDS,
• my infamous past,
• a certain board I serve on
• or all I am about to say....

I have not had homosexual temptations..
(My temptations lie elsewhere: eh, Rev. Clancey? Read my racy testmonies entitled "From Butts to Bibles..That's Elevation!" and "God, beach and breasts")


..though, obviously, Jesus did while on earth.

(if that caused you to stumble, play my podcast on "Jesus, A Tempted Apostle" here, and

stumble more).

Gee, I am not as much like Jesus as I thought I was!(:

Why are evangelicals so obsexxed with sexuality; and homosexuality, in particular?
I have asked that elsewhere( "Hebrew and Celts Help Our Sexy and Violent Prayers " and

"I stole your sheep", for starters..

My friend St. Derek...hear his wonderful sermon/testimony by clicking his name under "posts" in this cute li'l podcast box
...was brave enough to think aloud online about:

Jason & deMarco: Two Christian men, gay partners, who love each other and love God...and they are Christian singers. They also released an independent film recently. Here is the trailer clip...

The topic of homosexuality isn't going away. It is here with us for at least the next decade so what is the church to do about it? Kids are feeling unaccepted and unloved by the church. More and more we are going to lose them because we are going to treat them like they are not human and all in the name of Jesus. I am starting to question, where is the grace? Where in the bible does it say that homosexuality is the worst sin imaginable, aren't all sins equal? I have a hard time standing against people like Jason and deMarco who are trying to spread God's love to a group of people in our society that is usually beaten up by the church. link

Richard Mouw, no stranger to controversy ("A Modest Defense of Polygamy"...don't judge it by the title, read it here), writes:

We fallen creatures do not like to admit our awareness of our abnormality, so we invent vocabularies to disguise it. Take our labeling system for designating sexual orientations: some people are "gay," we say, and others are "straight." Each of these labels is deceptive. The word gay gives the impression that practicing homosexuals are enjoying a happy, carefree way of life. But that is hardly the way it is in a time {book written in 1992} when the AIDs crisis
has brought fear and pain and grief into the lives of so many homosexual persons.

Nor is straight a very helpful term. I am not a homosexual--but neither do I feel very 'straight' as a human being. I am a fallen creature--bent, broken, crooked. This bentness affects all my life, including my sexuality.

Homosexuals are not necessarily gay. And the rest of us are not necessarily staright. We are all broken and crooked people. Christians should not be embarrased to admt this. Most of us have not yet been transformed into fully 'normal' people, but we are on our way to normalcy...In the meantime, we know what to do with our sexual brokenness. We go to the cross and plead for mercy and healing. This experience gives us the message that we can present to other sexual sinners: join us at the cross!
(Richard Mouw, "Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncihttp://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/tallskinnykiwi/images/center-set.jpgvil World," p. 84)

"Centered set" theory has been hugely helpful for many as we ponder and process the "unbounded" and unstraight nature of categories.




rigorous wrestling with the articles here)
And a more inclusive semantic domain for "sexuality: will help as well. Consider Rob Bell's sweeping (and spot-on) definition in "Sex God":

"Our sexuality is all the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other, and with God." (42)

Having heard that, dovetail it with this:


"Sex is never an emergency." ( sage advice from a Jewish doctor (Jerome Levin, p. 164)

I am broken.

If you are not, I pray you pick up the courage in my friend Russell Willingham's line: you need "the courage to be broken," ( p.120 of the best book on sexual addiction that Fran Rollins has not read yet: "Breaking

Free")

"We must grasp our fundamental brokenness," Russell recommends (p. 123), "and stop pretending we are anything else."

I strive to reconnect.
I am not gay, but I am not
s
t
r
a
i
g
h

t.

Are you?


"There's more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much a spiritual mystery as a physical fact. As written in Scripture, 'The two become one.' Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever - the kind of sex that can never 'become one.' ....In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for 'becoming one' with another." (1 Cor 6, The Message Bible)