As I’ve mentioned before, since I grew up in the evangelical church, attended Wheaton College, and because I feel comfortable in evangelical environments, I have lots of friends that still don’t accept homosexuality as a normal, natural, God-given form of sexuality. If you aren’t aware, the evangelical church has VERY conservative views on sexuality, gender, and feminism. So as I’ve shared my own story of coming out, my relationship, and Miracle Sunday, I’ve had friends that simply didn’t agree that I had heard from God. This recommendation comes from one of those friends, someone who has been loving, kind, and gracious to me, but someone who certainly doesn’t understand my sexuality.

Recommendation #5 from Becky Parlow

Is God anti-gay? And other questions about homosexuality, the Bible and same-sex attraction by Sam Allberry

I too experience same-sex attraction. I always have, I always will. But I don’t believe that I therefore have to remain celibate for the rest of my life. My sexuality is not aberrant, sinful, wrong, or broken. I desire attachment, closeness, and relationship with another person, the same as most other people. The only difference is that I want to experience that with a person of the same sex, rather than the opposite sex.

Sam makes some very controversial, but ultimately misguided, claims. “Marriage would not exist without the sexual differences between men and women.” “Two men or two women cannot become one flesh. They cannot become one in the way that God is one and in the way that a man and a woman are one. They can have a union of sorts, but it is not the kind that is uniquely possible with a heterosexual marriage.”

Really? In many countries around the world, marriage can and does exist between individuals of the same sex. And I would argue that gay relationships are also unique and that it is not possible for a heterosexual relationship to have the same type of union.

Sam says Jesus gives only two options to people – marriage or singleness. Since he takes the stance that gays shouldn’t get married (or that their marriages aren’t blessed by God), the only way forward for gays is to remain single. Here’s where that will lead. If the church continues to maintain this stance, the only thing that it will accomplish is to further drive away LGBT individuals from faith and spirituality. Because while marriage doesn’t complete a person, it can be a healthy, formative, life-changing relationship that encourages further spiritual growth and development. And it’s damaging to say that two gay people can’t have a thriving, healthy, spiritual, AND sexual relationship with one another.

Sam also uses language to imply that same-sex attraction can and does change. He mentions “many men and women” whose “desires eventually reverted to opposite-sex attraction”. Or that “God can change our sexual desires, and there are numerous accounts of when he has done just that”. “There are Christians who have prayed fervently for change and experienced it; there are others who have prayed equally fervently and have not.”

In my experience (and I have encountered LOTS of gays and lesbians), I have MANY more cases of people who have prayed for change and have not experienced it. In fact, I have never actually met someone personally who claims their sexuality has changed. Notice that he used words like “many” and “numerous” when talking about changed individuals that he didn’t use about people who experience no change. His use of language in the book is deceptive.

He ends the book by saying that he has struggled with “emotional over-dependency” and with certain friends a “profound need to be around them, to know their approval and affection…It’s what the Bible calls idolatry, and it is unbearable”. But isn’t that what occurs in most marriages? You form a dependency upon another person, and you create a life together, because you are the same unit, the same flesh. It’s not idolatrous to desire closeness, attachment, and a suitable companion. It’s a need in all of us that God recognized in the beginning.

I fully agree that ultimately God is the prize, the only truly satisfying thing in this universe, the meaning of life. Relationships can be distracting, and are certainly hard work. I just wish Sam (and the rest of the Christian church) could realize the damage they are doing by holding so tight to their concept of creation, sex, and marriage. After all, it’s not good for ANYONE to be alone, not for heterosexuals (men AND women) AND certainly not for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or intersex persons.

Thanks for reading this extended review. It’s another recommendation that I can’t recommend to you, but I am glad I read it, because it shows me that there is still a lot of work to be done: a lot of people to talk to and be in relationship with before things can change in the Christian church.

Whew! This was a long review. Thanks for reading. The song for this post is from January 14th (the day in the United States when I wrote this post) on my Dependence playlist. It’s called Lonely. Because if the church continues to enforce mandatory celibacy on all LGBT individuals, it will just keep creating lonely, unfilled, sexually repressed people. And that’s not what God wants. God desires to be there, standing by us as he breaks down the walls of intolerance and judgement in our lives.

Whoever said it was easy, they never know what we do
Oh, when these walls fall down, I'll stand by you
What you believe in, I'll give it to you
'Cause when these walls fall down, I'll stand by you

Are you lonely? Are you lonely? Are you lonely?
I'll stand by you, I'll stand by you