Christianity and LGBTQ: A Third Way

 

In the last several years I have seen many friends leave Christianity or deconstruct from their evangelical moorings. One of the biggest issues -- perhaps the biggest -- is the way LGBTQ+ issues are handled or portrayed by the Church, and I get it. 

I have written a good half-dozen blog articles on LGBTQ+ matters and my own wrestling between dogma and sensitivity. Yet, I recently listened to a podcast on Ancient Faith Radio -- the Eastern Orthodox Church's streaming radio service -- that made me think, again. Let me build up to this for a minute.

When I was an Evangelical, I was an associate pastor at a church in California where they did not hide their disdain for homosexuality and related dispositions. They always claimed the tired tagline to love the sinner but not the sin, yet their collective actions often betrayed their real feelings. I remember at one church leadership meeting we were planning a harvest festival/Halloween event and it was suggested that party supplies be purchased from a local party and novelty store. One of the church members immediately chimed in that we could not shop there because the store was owned by lesbians. I knew the owners and so far as I knew, they weren't lesbians or a couple, but I chose not to speak up. For one, I wasn't 100% sure about the store owners' sexuality , and second, I didn't want the confrontation. It was ultimately decided to buy materials elsewhere. I felt shame for not voicing up. Even if the two were lesbians, even lesbians gotta eat. In my opinion, we stole opportunity from the store owners: 1. opportunity to bolster the local economy, 2. opportunity to support two small business owners, and 3. opportunity to show Christ's love regardless of differences. I am still ashamed of this moment.

Now, I am no longer a Protestant Evangelical. I have since become an Eastern Orthodox Christian. I have become an outsider to Western Christianity. As an outsider, I have a new appreciation for the dynamics of LGBTQ+ issues in the Church. Looking at Protestantism, I see two streams. On one hand, there is the conservative position that views LGBTQ+ people as practitioners of a chosen behavior and a sinful one at that. It has become the pet sin, despite the love the sinner mantra. Then, on the other hand, there are progressive Christians who often validate LGBTQ+ people and to a large extent, behaviors are affirmed as natural or biological diversity and are praised as gifts of God. 

Despite these two streams, I have remained largely liminal. I want to affirm tradition, because it matters. I also want to be sensitive and compassionate. The tension has spurred my many writings and ponderings. Yet, I have come to learn from my Orthodox experience that searching for absolutes and concrete yays or nays is actually a matter of indifference to Orthodoxy. This doesn't mean that they lack a theological position, but rather that they don't seek to rationalize their position, either way. Orthodoxy doesn't even deny that there is a biological or nature-oriented aspect to LGBTQ+ dispositions. For the Orthodox, homosexuality and its companion bents are indeed natural things, but like all things good and upright (sexuality is), we must carry the burdens of imbalance and misapplication. For the Orthodox, sexuality has a proper outlet, but it isn't lorded over people in denial of real feelings, experiences, or even biology. Instead, it is a burden to be wrestled with as much as any other passion. 

So, on one hand, LGBTQ+ dispositions are seen through the conservative lens of heterosexuality and cis identity. It is viewed as outside of God's ordering. Sexuality is seen as being primarily reproductive, regardless of feelings or impulses. Yet, homosexuality is not made to be some big boogeyman. It's just another thing people deal with. There is a reality of loving the sinner, because we all are sinners. So, instead of marginalizing LGBTQ+ people, the Orthodox welcome them. They are welcomed not with some ulterier motive to convert the sinner as some missional or evangelical task. They are welcomed because they are created in God's image and struggle like all people. Struggle is an earmark of Orthodox theology. It is the striving for theosis or becoming like God through self-discipline  and continual repentance. It has little to do with rationalizing behaviors or dispositions. It's not about "us v. them," but about us all being "them" and becoming "us" through communion and joint-struggle and prayer. 

John Maddox from Ancient Faith Radio suggests that Orthodoxy is a third way (LINK). It is neither affirming or denying regarding LGBTQ+ from human reasoning, but is instead about growth and community first. Theirs is a position that will probably infuriate both alternatives. Yet, where Evangelicalism often says "come as you are," but secretly doesn't mean it, and where progressive Christianity says "come as you are," and does mean it without challenge; Orthodoxy says, "come as you are, stay as long as you want, and we will be here as you wrestle, without judgement, but we won't affirm your baggage either." The Church is a hospital, not a thesis statement. It doesn't care what you or I think, but does care for you and me nonetheless. For the Orthodox, judgement is reserved for introspection, not the marginalizing of others. This doesn't mean that all things are welcomed as innocuous in Church, but that all people are welcomed to come and deal and heal, without condemnation.

What's hard in accepting this third way is that some Orthodox communions, such as the Russian Orthodox Church, have conflated all LGBTQ+ people with pedophiles and have borrowed the Evangelical tendency to "other" these people, rather than walking beside them in love as they wrestle. This doesn't speak for Orthodoxy as a whole or historic Christianity. Generally speaking, Orthodoxy is and will always be about tempering passions, regardless of their origins, so that we all might arrive as self-controlled and holy.   

It's a tough issue and it's OK not to have all the answers. What's essential is love, grace, and community as we all wrestle with all our stuff. Blessings.