Fruits of the Spirit

"I imagine a future in the church when the call to chastity would no longer sound like a dreary sentence to lifelong loneliness for a gay Christian like me. I imagine Christian communities in which friendships are celebrated and honored—where it’s normal for families to live near or with single people; where it’s expected that celibate gay people would form significant attachments to other single people, families, and pastors; where it’s standard practice for friends to spend holidays together or share vacations; where it’s not out of the ordinary for friends to consider staying put, resisting the allure of constant mobility, for the sake of their friendships. I imagine a church where genuine love isn’t located exclusively or even primarily in marriage, but where marriage and friendship and other bonds of affection are all seen as different forms of the same love we all are called to pursue.

By shifting our practice of friendship to a more committed, honored form of love, we can witness—above all—to a kingdom in which the ties between spiritual siblings are the strongest ties of all. Marriage, Jesus tells us, will be entirely transformed in the future, barely recognizable to those who know it in its present form (Matt. 22:30). Bonds of biology, likewise, are relativized in Jesus’ world (Mark 3:31–35). But the loves that unite Christians to each other across marital, racial, and familial lines are loves that will last. More than that, they are loves that witness that Christ’s love is available to all. Not everyone can be a parent or a spouse, but anyone and everyone can be a friend."

— Why Can’t Men Be Friends? | Wesley Hill

(via More than 95 Theses)

I appreciate that this article is primarily arguing for the need to call for stronger bonds of friendship within churches.  To re-establish a norm whereby men can be close emotionally, without fears of gay panic on their own part or being seen as potentially gay by outside parties.  For one thing, I think it would, in the end, go a great distance to getting evangelicals to understand that gay relationships relationships can be as meaningful as their own.  Once you've admitted that men can be close, even devoted to each other emotionally, and not necessarily sexual you can maybe start to see how some men, who aren't sexually attracted to women but to men, would choose to express that devotion and emotional attachment physically.  In other words, it would only do wonders for straight men to remove the specter of terrifying gayness, the expectation or fear that men who are emotionally close must inevitably fornicate. And maybe, just hopefully, humanize gay men in the process.

Having said that, I lament the frame of "the call to chastity" for gay people who want to remain church members in good standing.  I'm not going to say that the author of the article, a church-loving gay man, doesn't feel a call to chastity.  I am however going to push back on the notion that straight patriarchs like to propagate: that God is calling all gay men to chastity.  I refuse the many subtle and not-so-subtle hints that the bible is "pretty clear" on two gay men who love each other getting married because it is not.  I push back on the notion that discomfort with homosexuality comes directly from the bible and not from culture warriors who have been pushing a culture war against homosexuality for the last 50 years.

I want to remind gay people and the church members who can't abide gay people that the fruits of the spirit are "love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" and suggest that if you can't exercise any of these traits in relation to your gay brothers and sisters that maybe your attitudes toward them don't stem from the bible or biblical principles at all.  I want to suggest that the self-control indicated here is not the self-control you think everyone else should be having in how they show loving affection towards each other but the self-control you should have in learning to treat people with kindness and respect, even if their differences make you personally uncomfortable.

I want to remind the biblical enthusiast that there are exactly 3 verses dealing with homosexual sex, none dealing with committed homosexual lovers, and an avalanche of texts exhorting people to practice love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  And that maybe if not fellowshipping with gay people because of 3 verses conflicts with countless others asking that you take them in and feed them and love them and fellowship with them that maybe you have misunderstood what God is asking you to do.

I'd like to suggest there is a difference between worshipping a God embodied by love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control and worshipping a document with more specific rules written for other times and places.  I would gently suggest it is vital the modern Christian decide whether they worship the letter of the law as they think they read it or the spirit of the law behind it.  I would further suggest that when the letter of the law conflicts with the spirit of the law, the spirit should win or you really just worship the book.  To belabor the point, if the letter of the law brings you to act without love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control then the letter of the law as written or interpreted or implemented is a product of man's culture, not God's love.

I've never seen my mother, a good christian woman, happier than when she realized she didn't have to create an artificial distance between herself and gay people, and therefore her son.  That maybe God was not calling the church to drive some sinners from the church but not others with the "good" sins.  That maybe her natural christian instinct to practice  love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control was not limited by whether the person she was dealing with was gay or not.

I'd like to suggest that what God has called people to is strictly up to the person called, and is not something someone outside that person's mind is going to be qualified to comment on.  I'd like to suggest that the church has a surprising lack of training on distinguishing the difference between being moved by the Holy Spirit and being moved by one's own cultural biases.  And that this particular lack of training is their biggest stumbling block in showing the fruits of the spirit to the secular world.

I'd like to suggest that the culture war against gay people and against gay marriage has far more to do with the cultural biases of some believers and the cultural biases of pop culture warriors than it does with God's love.  And I say that because the culture war against gay people has does not yield the fruits of the spirit and it does not lead church members to act with love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control towards gay citizens.

I would suggest is is strange when Christians cry persecution and foul play when it is suggested that they could practice love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in regards to gay marriage.  I would suggest that it is passing strange when Christians insist that marriage, which they believe can bring a couple closer to God and yield the fruits of the spirit in their lives, would then task themselves with making sure homosexuals are deprived the opportunity to know God in this way.

I would suggest that when gay Christians report no feelings of judgement or conflict with God's law when they are physically and emotionally intimate with their partners, when they believe that relationship has helped bring them love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, that maybe it's not the holy spirit that moves christians to disfellowship them.

I would suggest that if non-celibate gay christians are integrated into church congregations, and what they bring is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, then they are, and may God forgive me for this pun, fruits of the spirit.

I would suggest that while teaching men to form intimate but chaste emotional bonds again is great, it does not necessarily follow that this is the only path God has provided for gay men, any more it is the only path for companionship God has provided for straight men.   I suggest that there is a lot of room in love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control for devoted homosexuals to share a kiss and hold hands in order to show their affection for one another, and that chastity is not the consolation prize God gives gay people for creating them different.  Where is the love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control in demanding chastity in other consenting, devoted adults, but reserving the option of enthusiastic not-chastity for your own relationships?

Reasonable people can disagree. But as far as I'm concerned, no "fruits" allowed in your congregation? No fruits of the spirit then either.