I’ve joined an online group book study focused on Greg Coles’ work entitled Single, Gay, Christian. Many times Greg shared stories and emotions I could easily identify with, having experienced quite a few of the same things myself. Unfortunately these sentences were often juxtaposed with others containing alarmingly bad ideas. This book is a textbook example of attempting to shoehorn and crowbar a faulty socially constructed framework of sexual orientation ideology onto Scripture…and the bad conclusions that often come with it.

In the prelude, Coles, who is a talented writer, shares heartfelt promises to tell the reader his full story, including “…how I lay on my bed in the middle of the night and whispered to myself the words I’ve whispered a thousand times since: ‘I’m gay.’” He writes about this again in the first chapter.

Meditating on the phrase, “I’m gay” – repeating it to yourself – is not a healthy exercise.

The quote from Calvin Miller’s The Singer Trilogy comes to mind, which I’m sure has been mentioned before in R4R: “…no man can burn a label into flesh and make it stay when heaven disagrees.”^[1]

Also in his first chapter, Coles reflects on having “…a remarkably untroubled childhood. I couldn’t read into my past some trauma that hadn’t happened.” However, he was raised in Indonesia, in a predominant Muslim country in a time of civil unrest. (Some of which he and his brother witnessed.) Later in the book he described how out-of-place he felt as a white boy in this environment, contrasting it with how he blended in more easily in the states:

…I was a privileged minority, richer and better educated than all my neighbors, envied by them. But no matter how privileged, the minority is still a lonely place to be.

College was the first place I discovered the magic of fitting in. No one called me “albino” in the streets or gaped at me as I walked by. But even in my biological homeland, surrounded by sweet anonymity, I knew I didn’t quite belong. People would find out where I had grown up, or catch me speaking a hybrid US/Canadian/Australian/British English, or realize my ineptitude with American popular culture, and my cover would be blown. I would be unceremoniously thrust back behind the bars of the orangutan cage, an object of wonder and curiosity and amazement to be intensely scrutinized.^[2]

I’m not sure if it is fair to compare people’s natural curiosity about being raised in a different country to being thrown into a sideshow cage. This feeling of not fitting in, and of idealizing others whom he wished he could be like, are recurring waves on the shore of his life in this book. The sensation of distinction from one’s peers is a common root issue in the lives of many who go on to experience same sex attractions, and I wonder if Coles has ever considered exploring this further. (Perhaps he has at some point – I didn’t see a mention of it in SGC.)

In his second chapter, Coles writes about dating women in college while not being honest about experiencing attractions for men. I cringed as I could guess how frustrating and confusing that would turn out to be, thankful that I didn’t try the same experiment. But he was in a Christian college, trying to figure things out on his own, and doing the best he could with that. The saddest part was how he interpreted Jesus saying “no” to pursing marriage with his last girlfriend as a long-term answer:

“You don’t understand,” I begged him. “This is my chance. There’s no woman I could possibly want to marry more than her. If you don’t say yes now, you probably never will, and I’ll be gay and alone for the rest of my life.”

“I know,” he said, and there were tears on his cheeks to match the tears on mine.^[3]

… “After that final no, as I laid my dreams of marriage and family to rest, perhaps forever, I was the angriest I’d ever been with God. No less in love. No less willing to follow. But furious and desperate and confused.”^[4]

I’m not convinced that putting these assumptions on the shoulders of our Lord are all that wise. “You don’t understand,” doesn’t quite fit our omniscient Savior. How does he know what the Lord will do? This leads us into the most confusing part of the book, where in chapter 3 he writes:

“For too long, the message I heard and believed about homosexuality in the Bible was simply this: ‘Paul says practicing homosexuals won’t inherit the kingdom of God. So gay sex is a sin. End of story.’

…If that had been the whole story, I could have accepted it and moved on. But as I learned once I started to read, it wasn’t the whole story. The case against homosexual behavior wasn’t as clear-cut as I’d been trained to believe.”^[5]

After reviewing the relevant passages he continues: The Bible’s treatment of homosexuality was complicated, yes. More complicated than the well-meaning conservative preachers and ex-gay ministers were ready to admit. But the fact that is was complicated didn’t make every interpretation equally valid. There was still a best way of reading the text, still a truth that deserved to be pursued.

And when I pursued it, I got the answer I feared, not the answer I wanted. More and more, I found myself believing that the Bible’s call to me was a call to self-denial through celibacy.^[6]

This doesn’t make sense. The case against homosexual behavior is consistent throughout Scripture, it isn’t complicated. I’ve no idea what Coles means when he tries to distinguish “well-meaning conservative preachers and ex-gay ministers” from vast majority of Christian belief for the past 2,000 years. (We’ll return to this in Part II of this series.)

The call is for all who follow Christ to deny themselves – yet Coles tries to make a case for this being harder for those who experience same-sex temptations:

…certainly some straight Christians who desire marriage may yet find themselves called to celibacy. Regardless of orientation, regardless of marital status, Christ’s invitation to the cross remains no less true, no less necessary.

But the road to celibacy for the gay Christian remains a distinctly complex calling. To not only resist sexual urges but to try to banish the thought of ever fulfilling them. To have no daydreams of a future romance, to wistful marriage plans. To feel like the very core of your sexual desire and the faith you hold most dear are at odds with each other. There are sufferings far worse than that, but there is none quite the same.^[7]

In reading this, two things come to mind. First, I have long wrestled with letting go of daydreams of a future romance with a woman. (It was helpful not to have the legal option of “gay marriage” available as I was growing up.) But many years ago I realized that the core of my being and whatever sexual temptations or desires I experience are different things. The way Coles pits faith against the “core of your sexual desire” here is not lining things up on a level playing field. It’s been mentioned before in R4R, the core of who we are is the part of us that chooses more than the part of us that merely experiences a feeling. If you keep repeating to yourself “I’m gay,” it’s easy to mix up feelings and the core of who we are.

I’m reminded of the Mirror of Erised in the Harry Potter series – a brilliant invention from the creative mind of J.K. Rowling. “Erised” is “desire” spelled backwards, and the mirror is inscribed with the prhase: “Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi” - “I show you not your face but your heart's desire.” When Harry Potter looks into it, he sees his parents smiling and standing behind them. He lost them when he was just a baby, and wants nothing more than to be with them again. Night after night he returns just to see their image, until one night when Professor Dumbledore arrives to share the news that the mirror will be moved to another part of the castle.

Harry is shocked and upset, until the professor explains, "Men have wasted away before it, not knowing if what they have seen is real, or even possible.” He then tells Harry, “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."^[8]

And that brings us to the second point, I never tried “…to banish the thought of ever fulfilling” these desires. That seems like an exercise in frustration. Instead, I learned to honestly and openly bring these sinful desires to Jesus and ask for His help. He has always provided it. Sometimes I would have to come to Him again and again as my mind would wander back. Other times the Holy Spirit blessed me with discernment to see what triggered or set me off in this direction. (Learning those triggers was like revealing the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz…such an empowering experience.) Always there was the opportunity to learn to trust Him, to spend time with Him, and build a relationship of holy dependency, much like Jeff Simunds described in last week’s edition of R4R.

There are many desires which will necessarily go unfulfilled – the desire to be with someone who is already married, for example. This particular temptation is not that singular. It is good to know that we are not alone in saying no to sin and yes to Jesus.

[1] The Singer Trilogy, by Calvin Miller, pg 148
[2] Single, Gay, Christian, pg 25, Kindle edition
[3] Ibid., pg 31
[4] Ibid. pg 32
[5] Ibid. pg 35
[6] Ibid. pg 36
[7] Ibid. pg 39
[8] Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling