pathways

Oxford Diocese has launched a new diocesan magazine, Pathways, and asked me to contribute a 500-word piece for it on being gay and evangelical. My piece is paired with another by a chap who takes a more conservative view on life. At his age so did I... more conservative than him, I expect. Anyway - click here to read both on the diocesan website - or simply read on for mine...

I can remember exactly where I was the day I realised I needed a new theology. 

A friend in Memphis does work in civil rights theology. He teaches me that when you are an oppressed minority and become aware of it, Jesus is dynamite. Every word Jesus speaks is explosive because it’s about you. It doesn’t matter if it’s about lepers or tax collectors or Canaanite women - it’s about you. You hear a Gospel of life and hope and freedom, and it is God’s promise for you. 

This became real for me on a miserable Tuesday afternoon one February in my early 40s. I suddenly understood I had spent 30 years accepting that as a gay man I was in fact a broken straight man. Every traditionalist word spoken from every pew and every pulpit in every evangelical church I’d ever belonged to had sunk deep into my soul. They had convinced me that being gay meant I was in fact a second class human being. This is a terrible lie. It’s shocking theology. It’s appalling Bible. It was cold outside, but that day the truth was already starting to set me free. As the song says, I’m only human: but guess what? God doesn’t create rejects. 

I’m going to repeat myself.

God doesn’t create rejects. Seconds. Spoiled copies. Sure, we all have treasure in jars of clay, but no one who calls Jesus ‘Lord’ sits in the cheap seats in the Kingdom of God.

And I knew I had work to do, because in my head was a whole Bible shouting at me about how much God loves every single person. I had believed pharisees who use the Scripture to tie up the broken hearted, when instead I needed to hear the Saviour who proclaims release for the captive. Every time in the Bible when Jesus encounters some poor soul, ground into the dirt by another ‘kind’ religious person, that poor soul is raised up on high.

And Jesus does it for us, too. When I thought I was a broken straight person, life could be unbearable and heavy and would break me further. There are still travails and burdens - but now I know that I too am fearfully and wonderfully made, called by name, loved. Gay people do not need to pretend to be straight/appear to be straight/not seem to be gay in order to fit into God’s kingdom order. Just because the foot isn’t a hand don’t mean it doesn’t belong to the body - that’s ridiculous!

We are all gloriously equal in Jesus’ family. 

Here’s the lesson from civil rights theology: Why are the texts everyone else takes for granted not about us too? Why is this freedom and life and Good News not for us? Why do these stories only give full hope to other people? 

Because if I too am only human, then Jesus died for me. And that is more than enough. No-one should call unclean what God has called ‘beloved’.