Change or Be Celibate!

August 5, 2008

Does God require life-long celibacy of all those with same-sex attractions?

No.

Should I say more? Okay. I will. Much more.

You hear it all the time, from self-named ex-gay ministries, from conservative Christian circles, from family and friends;  gays and lesbians committed to the Christian life are to refrain from all sexual activity. Be gay but just don’t behave gay. Life-long celibacy is presented to us as a required sacrifice; we’re to give up the present reality or future possibility of a sexually intimate relationship with another human being in order to pursue a righteous and holy love with God. Apparently, this is another unique difference between being straight and being queer; straight Christians can manage to have both while we need to choose between one or the other.

But where does this idea that God demands life-long celibacy of gays and lesbians comes from? Not the Bible that’s for sure. There’s not a single line of the Mosaic law that requires celibacy of a particular category of people. Jesus never insisted that anyone be celibate. Though Paul was single and thought it would be best if everyone was like him, even he never presented celibacy as an ultimatum to salvation or righteousness. So how have certain Christians come up the life-long celibacy clause for queer Christians anyway? It seems there are a few contributing factors.

• They believe homosexuality is sin.
• They believe premarital sex is sin.
• They recognize that same-sex attractions continue to exist even for those gays and lesbians who are committed to leaving the gay lifestyle. Their words, not mine.

When considering all these, many Christians arrive at lifelong celibacy as the only option that will allow for gays and lesbians to even have a chance at attaining and then maintaining moral Christian lives. But let’s just be clear, the Bible has nothing to do with presenting celibacy as the cure or condition all for queers.  Here’s what the Bible does say about celibacy.

Matthew 19:1-12

Despite how opponents to same-sex marriage have misused this passage in their “marriage is one man and one woman” arsenal, this encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees centers on the law around divorce. The Pharisees ask Jesus if it’s ever lawful for a man to divorce his wife. Jesus answers no and goes on to explain that when they married they became one and therefore it wasn’t the place of man to separate what God had joined. Here’s one of my infamous a-sides that I include just because I find such details fascinating. A man and woman became one specifically in the act of sexual intercourse, and so it was understood that a man would become one with any and all woman he had sex with, not only his wife. With this in mind 1 Corinthians 6:16 states that a man who has had sex with a prostitute makes her one with him. While this has nothing to do with the topic of celibacy I think it gives a valuable insight into the over-emphasis that’s being loaded onto “and the two shall become one” as the exclusive potential of a husband and wife. We now return to our regularly scheduled blog post.

The Pharisees went on to counter Jesus’ response by reminding him that Moses allowed for a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away, to which Jesus explained that Moses allowed divorce because people had drifted from God’s original intention. While recognizing the reality that marriages would fail, Jesus attempts to firm up the boundaries by instructing them that only infidelity on the part of the wife was reason for divorce and if a man divorced for any other reason and married another woman, he was committing (practicing) adultery.

The disciples overheard the conversation and said, “Man, those conditions are harsh! If that’s the deal with marriage then it sounds better not to get married at all.” Jesus acknowledges that what they said was true but goes on to stipulate that only those not given to marrying can receive such a thing and then he refers specifically to eunuchs as an example.

“For there are those eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.” Matthew 19:12

Okay, this is another a-side but it seems important enough to give a mention. The dictionary definition of a eunuch is a man who has had his testicles removed; a castrated male. Do a search of “eunuch, homosexual” and you’ll discover there’s a wide range of views as to whether homosexual males would have fallen under the category of eunuch in first-century Palestine due to the absence of sexual desire for women in either case. If comparisons are to be made I’d propose a more viable argument could be made for the term eunuch expanding to include M2F transfolk than to gay males since castration would certainly fall under the category of genital modification. Oh, and while we’re on the topic of eunuchs, jump over to Acts 8:26-40 for the account of the Ethiopian Eunuch’s conversion. I really like the story but again, that’s another a-side which I’ll try to refrain from doing so liberally in the future.

All I want to point out here is that both marriage and celibacy (being a eunuch equated with sexual abstinence) are shown in Matthew 19 as options for humanity. In the passage Jesus seems to be emphasizing singleness as a special vocation and notes examples of those who are able to accept the single life. What Jesus does not do is insist that anyone choose celibacy if it hasn’t been given to them to live, or indulge me in paraphrasing, “if you can receive this teaching then receive it and be single. If you can’t receive it then go ahead and marry.”

I Corinthians 7:1-9

If Paul had his way everyone would be single. He recommends the single life to everyone; to men, to women, to the widow, but he commands it of no one. In verse 7, Paul says that celibacy is a gift that’s not given to all people, and then he goes on to say that if the temptation for sex is too great for someone then that’s a reasonably clear indication they don’t have the gift of celibacy and that person should marry.

Paul’s teaching goes directly against that of those who currently require celibacy of gays and lesbians. Many gay and lesbian Christians, believing it the right thing to do, have attempted to adopt a commitment to living a celibate life but all the while they ache for an intimate relationship with another human being of the same gender. They want to express their sexuality and their love in physical ways. They long to kiss, to hold, to kadoodle. When they share this tension between their commitment to celibacy and their desire for intimacy and are honest about the pain and discontentment of living their lives in this way, they’re reminded that following Christ isn’t always easy, that sacrifice is devotion and suffering is holy. They are admonished to sacrifice physical intimacy with another person for spiritual union with God. Celibacy is your cross my dear sexually-confused friend. Pick it up and follow Christ.

And yet, in Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 7 he emphasizes that celibacy is a unique calling, and as with all callings, it comes as a gift from God, rather than a requirement of any man. Paul also goes on to say that if you find yourself desiring physical intimacy with another human being, if you long for physical expression of your sexuality, then it’s all to apparent you aren’t gifted with or called to the celibate life.

And here’s another thing, she said with arms akimbo, it really chips my paint when there’s an implied message that being sexually active or partnered as a gay or lesbian person is taking the easy way. I’ll tell you what the easy way would be for most queer Christians. The easy way would be nodding our heads and acquiescing to the imposed celibacy mandate from segments of Christianity because I dare say it’s far easier to live without sex than to live with the continual disapproval, scorn, and ridicule of religious institutions and the ever-present suffocatingly repressive inequality in society. It takes tremendous faith and trust in God to live as queer believers when the fullest expression of our lives is rejected by certain ones among God’s people. As is always the case, following Christ’s call comes at a price, but the price is always outweighed by the rewards doled out by God’s generous hands.

God calls some queer and some straight folks to lives of life-long celibacy, and those who God calls will find their greatest fulfillment and satisfaction in that life. They’ll be happy and at peace in that state. They won’t be constantly warring within themselves against sexual desires and desperate longings for intimacy. Celibacy is a gift of God and a gift is a good thing; it’s never intended to be a burden around someone’s neck or a means to control someone’s genuine desires. If you’re queer and you desire a sexually intimate relationship then according to brother Paul, the calling of celibacy hasn’t been given to you. Sorry. It might be your temporary condition; it might even be your situation indefinitely but if you continue to want for something else, to be with someone else, don’t assume you’ve been called to life-long celibacy by default. Chances are the state of being single for you is more a matter of finding the right person at the right time than a divine appointment.

Did you ever hear someone say inside the walls of the church, “Don’t tell God you don’t want to go to India to serve Him that will guarantee it will be just the place God will send you.” For some of us, we actually believed that’s how God did things. God would make you do the very thing you didn’t want to do just to see if you really loved him. God told Abraham to sacrifice the son he loved and now God’s telling people to go where they don’t want to go and do what they don’t want to do just to see if they’ll obey. Oh sure, we turn it into a joke by turning our eyes upward, clasping our hands together in prayer and pleading “Please God, of any place in the world, please oh please don’t send me to the coast of France. I will follow you anywhere but there” but deep inside some of us, there’s still the fear that this is how God is. The last thing some of us want is to be called to celibacy and because it’s the last thing we want we fear it might be what God will require of us. If that’s even a fuzzy thought in the back of your head, would you let it go? Please. Give God more credit than that.

If you don’t desire to live into the calling of celibacy then your calling isn’t to life-long celibacy. But for now, in this state of singleness choose to be content where you find yourself. This is where I insert Philippians 4:11-13 and encourage you to apply it in this context. I also want to encourage you to use this time as a party of one to savor not only the rich extravagance of solitude but to take advantage of the opportunity to direct your energy toward forming other significant relationships where you can express love and affection through acts of service; make connections with an elderly couple in your neighborhood, a family in your congregation, a young person at the local GLBTQ community center. I love being married but when I was single, I loved that too.  Just take today for what it is and what it holds.

I Timothy 4:1

And just when you thought it couldn’t get more interesting, we come to this passage where those who demanded that other people not marry were to be regarded as quote - hypocritical liars - unquote, and their teaching on compulsory celibacy was deemed heresy.

Hmm. . .that’s all I’m saying about that because if I say much more I might need to repent for words better left unsaid.

In conclusion of this long and garbled post let me just sum up what I’ve said, what I think I said, or what I intended but didn’t get around to saying.

1. There’s no Scriptural basis for requiring that gays and lesbians devote themselves to celibacy.
2. Jesus said that the state of singleness was given to some and not to others, and that if it was given them they would be able to receive it.
3. Paul spoke of celibacy as a unique calling but only for those who were content in that state.
4. Scripture suggests that imposing a requirement of celibacy on any one is contrary to God’s will.
5. Choosing to be sexually abstinent whether for a season or indefinitely isn’t the same thing as choosing a life of voluntary celibacy.
6. The state of singleness and the state of marriage are of equal value and worth in the human experience and before God.
7. Live with integrity, allowing your understanding of God and your relationship with the Holy to guide you in determining the course of your life in all things.

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Posted in Sexual Ethics