6. Homosexuality, Singleness, and Celibacy
The topic of a Christian understanding of homosexuality and a Christian and pastoral response to homosexuality is related in some ways to a Christian view of singleness. There is a need particularly among Protestant Christians to revisit our view of singleness and how we communicate what it is we value in the local church. If most of our programming is geared toward marriages and families in ways that communicate a devaluing of the single state, we will (perhaps unintentionally) convey to the person who contends with same-sex attractions that they must attain heterosexuality in order to find a spiritual home in the Body of Christ.
Recent scholarship on a Christian understanding of singleness suggests that marriage alone cannot convey all that there is to know and experience of God’s nature. Lisa McMinn illustrates this well:
The fullness of God’s nature cannot be captured in one human who bears God’s image, or in marriage as a model of God’s love for the Church, or in one of Christianity’s traditional emphases on evangelism or holiness or contemplation. God’s nature is most fully represented in the diversity of community—male, females, married, single, Protestant, Catholic, young, old Asian, African. We are incapable as individuals of carrying or experiencing the fullness of God.77
What is gained in singleness that is accessible to the Christian who experiences same-sex attractions? One experience that is gained, according to Colón and Field, is to come to a deeper understanding of celibacy as a spiritual discipline “in which we train our minds and bodies by placing them in subjection to God’s commands.”78 Such an understanding has historical roots and essentially reflects the significance of being intentional about the spiritual benefits gained in practicing celibacy. If spiritual disciplines are intentional acts or experiences that are intended to draw us closer to God or to cultivate certain Christian character traits over time, then celibacy might be viewed as such and then transform some of the stigma currently associated with it.
Colón and Field go on to share the unique Christian considerations on sex and relationships that is found in the decision to frame celibacy as spiritual discipline:
Thinking of celibacy as a spiritual discipline helps us to understand the value of controlling sexual desires in the midst of a world in which this practice seems at best ridiculous and at worst dangerous. We are not giving up sex because we think it is evil or because we wish to punish ourselves or because we desire to prove that we are more holy than our sexually active brothers and sisters. We refrain from sexual activity because it helps us to place God, sex, and Christian community in the right perspective. Celibacy is a way of enacting through our bodies our belief that God, not us, is in control. It reminds us that he desires us as Christians to build relationships with others that are not based solely on sexual attraction nor on biological connections but rather on our communion with him and our concern for our neighbors.79
This idea of acknowledging God as in control or in charge or sovereign has been seen among Christian who dis-identify with a gay identity. In our research comparing experiences of Christians who experience same-sex attraction and who identify as gay and those who do not identify as gay, we reported that some of those who did not identify as gay felt that identifying as gay and worshipping God out of that gay identity was not being authentic to what God intended for them in terms of a more central identity in Christ. Similarly, some participants shared how they felt God did not intend for them to have a gay identity but to trust God as sovereign over their same-sex sexuality.80
A second and somewhat related consideration gained in singleness is that “Christian singles often must deal with the issue of Christian vocation in a much more direct way as well.”81 According to the authors, if the primary vocation of married Christians is to raise the next generation within the Body of Christ, the Christian single explores vocation differently, with prayerful consideration for “the unique plan that God has for us in the development of his church and the spreading of his gospel beyond the walls of the local church congregation.”82 It is not so much that single Christians do not participate in important ways in bringing the next generation of Christian along, but they do so in a different way, and these differences are sometimes unique and varied and should be valued in the life of the local church and framed as vocation.
Some Christians who experience same-sex attraction but do not form an identity around their same-sex sexuality see their experience as unique and an opportunity to truly minister to others out of the insights they have gained. This does not have to be high-profile or even specific to same-sex sexuality, but it may be that out of this unique experience a ministry is formed based on care, empathy, and deep Christian maturity.
Another relevant reflection brings the Christian back to community, specifically the church. When Christians discuss love and intimacy with one another, there is a sense in which we say that genital sexual acts are not the most important expression of love, which has implications for singles, whether they experience same-sex attraction or not. Even when genital acts are experienced in the context of heterosexual marriage, they are still not the most important expression of love. Rather, the most important expression of love and intimacy in the life of the Christian is meant to be experienced in Christian community, in the church. Wesley Hill similarly concludes, “One of the most surprising discovering I made . . . is that the New Testament views the church—rather than marriage—as the primary place where human love is best expressed and experienced.”83 Unfortunately, we know that the church often comes up short on being a community that reflects genuine love and in which followers of Christ can experience true intimacy. But this is our charge, and the church’s success in reflecting love and intimacy may make the difference in how people respond to the idea of walking out a life trajectory of faithfulness to God in sexuality and sexual expression.
7. Conclusion
By closing this paper on a discussion of singleness, I do not want to suggest that Christians who experience same-sex attraction cannot experience some reduction in it over time, as that has been reported by some who have had that as their goal. Some find that they are able to marry heterosexually.84 However, the church would do well to expand the vision of the Christian who is navigating sexual identity issues beyond the expectation of complete heterosexuality or the expectation of heterosexual marriage, even if a modest number of believers do experience a more significant shift. Many others will not experience the same degree of shift, and a Christian’s measure of spiritual depth and maturity does not hinge on the eradication of same-sex attraction or an increase in attraction to the opposite sex. If a believer does not experience heterosexuality or a significant reduction in homosexual attractions, he or she has much to experience in the life of the church and in a personal walk with God. For all believers, single and married, heterosexual and homosexual, there is a more fundamental consideration: that we live our lives faithfully before God, committing ourselves to him, and growing through the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, to greater Christ-likeness. We do this in the context of our daily struggles, becoming better stewards of our sexuality, trusting God and growing in faith, recognizing that we can see our lives in the context of God’s sovereign and redemptive plan.