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AND GRACE WILL LEAD ME HOME
Dr. Mark AchtemeierAddress delivered to theCovenant Network of PresbyteriansNovember 5, 2009“The Church We Can See from Here”—that’s what we are supposed to betalking about here. I have every confidence in the ability of my colleagues toaddress this discussion with genuine wisdom and deep insight. For myself I confessthe topic makes me nervous. The reason is this: if you had told me just eight ornine years ago that on this date I would be standing before this group, speakingout in favor of marriage and ordination for lesbian and gay Christians, I would havedeclared you out of your mind.But here I am, and here you are. And all I can say is that because of thisexperience I have learned never to make confident predictions about any situationin which God is involved.God has indeed led me, “through many dangers, toils and snares,” to adifferent, and I think far more coherent, understanding of the Bible’s message forlesbian and gay believers. I want to offer some testimony today about how thathappened.If there is one thing I want to emphasize above all else in this testimony, it isthat this journey has not involved any kind of retreat or qualification of my strongcommitment to the authority of Scripture, the Lordship of Christ, and the belief that God calls people to lives of personal holiness. I come to you today as an out,self-affirming, practicing conservative evangelical. There is a destructive myth circulating in both the right and left wings of thechurch, which says that if you’re really serious about biblical authority you will of course embrace a traditionalist point of view in this issue, whereas a moreprogressive stance requires you to hold onto the scriptures more loosely. Well Idon’t believe it, and neither should you! It is time to put these misleadingstereotypes to rest.So how did this journey come about?
Grace in the Wilderness
I started out very sure and very settled and very content with seeing exclusionas God’s will for the church. Like many, I had succumbed to the temptations of anecclesiastical tunnel-vision: I read authors I agreed with. I talked with people Iagreed with. I hung out with people I agreed with. I was exceedingly comfortable
 
2holding the position I did, I was supported in it, I was popular. And I had absolutelyno reason to question any of it.But God had other plans. Out of the blue, opportunity opened up for seriousconversation and friendship with some quite remarkable gay Christians. This wasnew for me. When you are a firebrand exclusivist, hurling thunderbolts andbelching fire against the opposition, gay people with any sense tend to avoid yourcompany, or at least they avoid telling you they are gay. As a result, what I knewabout LGBT people was pretty much defined by the authors I agreed with, andflamboyant stereotypes presented in the media.But suddenly here I was confronted with these new friends who were eager totalk about the faith, and almost miraculously willing to hang in there with me inconversations about the church’s teaching-- this despite the fact that a lot of whatthey heard coming from me was unwittingly insulting or offensive. Theirwillingness to engage in frank conversation was a remarkable gift of grace, and theexperience proved powerfully unsettling for two reasons. First, I started to realizethe extent to which the church’s traditional teaching functioned like a sign over thedoor saying to gay people, “There is nothing here for people like you.” This wasdisturbing for a good evangelical like me who fervently believes that Jesus reachesout to everyone.Even more unsettling was the fact that I wasn’t finding at all what I expected tofind in these people. Let me talk about those expectations a bit, because this iswhere my comfortably settled convictions really started to crack.
What is Homosexual Orientation?
Like so many traditionalists, I was accustomed to thinking of homosexuality asa kind of destructive addiction, a disordered inclination toward damagingbehaviors that was comparable in some respects to alcoholism. I found support formy belief that it was harmful in statistics recording elevated levels of depressionand suicide among gay people. (I of course never considered that this might bedue to pervasive expressions of hostility toward LGBT persons which permeate oursociety). And having never questioned my selective and somewhat superficialinterpretations of the Bible’s teaching on the subject, I also assumed that a gaylifestyle must certainly involve a fairly casual attitude toward scriptural authorityand an inclination toward personal self-indulgence. The consequences of viewing homosexuality in this way are pervasive and far-reaching. For me and many others, it led to a clear and straightforward set of pastoral prescriptions. As with anyone who struggles against a destructiveaddiction, the first and most important message to them is that they need to stopacting on their compulsions. Yes, the way may be difficult and fraught with setbacks—anyone familiar withthe work of the twelve-step programs knows this to be the case. But withpersistence, spiritual guidance, and the loving support of a community of care,recovery is a possibility. Believing as I did that homosexuality was a destructive
 
3compulsion comparable to alcoholism, it was perfectly clear to me that this had tobe the church’s message to gay and lesbian Christians.Viewing homosexuality in this way also meant that for me, like so manytraditionalists, calls for justice and equal rights made no sense whatever. Suchappeals have obviously been a mainstay of progressive rhetoric for years, but theyhave absolutely no traction among traditionalists. The reason is that no one in theirright mind would argue that the cause of justice and equality was served byaffirming the right of addicts to pursue self-destructive behaviors. Human beingsdo not possess a God-given right to harm themselves!Appeals to compassion also make no sense if one assumes that homosexualityis a harmful compulsion. Consider again the case of persons struggling with alcoholabuse. It is completely inconceivable that the church, in the name of a superficialcompassion, would affirm their self-destructive behavior, assure them it is whothey are, or celebrate their compulsion as God’s good gift. I trust you can see whythose who view the issue through the lens of the alcoholism analogy find theprogressive agenda so deeply disturbing.So here I was operating from this understanding that a gay lifestyle was theproduct of giving in to a sinful, self-indulgent, destructive compulsion, and mywhole view of what the church’s stance should be was shaped by that assumption. Yet what I actually encountered in conversation with these gay Christian friendswas radically different from what my assumptions led me to expect.
Encounters with Gay and Lesbian Believers
I was expecting to find self-indulgent individuals, who were inclined to elevatetheir own personal gratification above any serious wrestling with Christiandiscipleship. My prejudices could not have been more mistaken. What I foundinstead were devoted Christian believers, filled with grace and a loving concern forthe downtrodden that frequently put me to shame. I was surprised to discover thatthey were deeply engaged in spiritual disciplines, acutely aware of their own sinsand failings, and eager to bring their faults to God for healing. These were devout,spiritually self-aware people who were not the least bit hesitant to confess theirfailings to God.What absolutely did not compute for them, though, was trying to view theirlifelong commitment to a partner under the category of sins and failings. “I justcan’t make sense of it,” one friend said to me. “My relationship with my partner isthe part of my life that demands the greatest sacrifices and stretches me the mostin my ability to love. I think it is very important to confess my sins, and I do itregularly. But far from feeling sinful, this feels like the one area of my life thatbrings out the very best in me.” I remember feeling a bit shaken as it struck methat this was exactly the way I would describe my own marriage. This is not to saythat all gay people are saints any more than all straight people are, but the kind of people God led me into fellowship with bore absolutely no resemblance to what Iexpected to find on the basis of my view that homosexuality was a spirituallydestructive compulsion. Could it be, I wondered, that I was mistaken?
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