This is a reader response to a conversation I started with about the recent vote by the United Methodists to allow LGBTQ+ members of their churches to become Elders and Pastors.
As was expected my friend posted a little sad, worried emoji and I responded.
And so, here is that article. It took a full two weeks to wrap my mind and words around and I hope that it stimulates conversation towards not regarding one another according to the flesh.
Enough with Not Enough
Why I Left Evangelical Sexual & Gender Ethics Behind
Ethics and Morality are the branches of philosophy that consider what is just and fair in a culture and are the world’s answer to the Tragedy of the Commons1. Where there is perceived lack, we build systems with rules to protect, legitimise and provide for our future—these are our culture’s traditions which we reinforce in our children to ensure the resource’s continuance. They are the things we go to war over and die violently to protect.
But no matter what way we think about ethics and morals, the core principle is that there is not enough to go around. Not enough food or water, not enough housing, not enough carers, not enough X, not enough Y, not enough Z. I think it’s time to say enough with not enough. You might think that’s a bit naïve. How can you say enough with not enough? Are you going to magically renew rapidly depleting resources or tell us that we aren’t a wasteful generation, or suggest some kind of *gasp and whisper* communism?
Our aversion to the topic is telling—the fact of the matter is that the world doesn’t have enough resources because people believe that we don’t and so we store up for ourselves in barns and caches and neglect those who really don’t have enough. I am speaking about physical resources here, but what happens when we get into the subjects of sexual and gender ethics? What don’t we have enough of in those cases? Femininity? Masculinity? Male Parts? Female Parts? Positions of power? Positions of servitude? These are all constructs of our moral imagination that come from long standing archetypes of what it means to be male and female, powerful and weak, rich and poor, righteous and unrighteous.
What do we do when the archetype of what we think it means to be a faithful believer looks like white modernity? What happens when the pastorate looks like a cis married man with nine kids and any other orientation in the flesh doesn’t look quite right? We don’t have to guess, we know what happens. Everyone else who tries to fill that position attempts to conform to the archetype and suffers eternal imposter syndrome by nature of their sex or gender’s nonconforming nature. If I’m honest, even cis men feel this way when we are young, unmarried or short about 7 kids of the 9 mark. It’s why evangelical Christians get married so young. It’s why we don’t wait to have kids. It’s why we go into exorbitant debt in order to receive the biblical education we should have received among the people of God in our context. We are aiming for the archetype—and because it’s not Jesus we exhaust ourselves in the flesh trying to attain it.
We have special names for our archetypes to make us feel better; baptisms of our moral and ethical imaginations—it’s an adjective really—Biblical. It means that no one can argue with it. We are people of the Book and if you argue with the Book you argue against God Himself. God gives us archetypes of what it means to be a man or a woman and that’s the end of it.2
But the thing about archetypes and narratives is that anything outside of them in their context is going to sound nuts. Jedi don’t appear in Star Trek and Sonic Screwdrivers are not found in Narnia. As epic as those crossovers would be, Christians generally look down on crossover archetypes and narratives upsetting Sunday service.
Good Christian women do not get up on Sunday to preach!
I can’t even look at a homosexual never mind stomach the idea of them as my Pastor—I’ll move churches.
Even though it is cannon that anyone can come to Christ and be renewed by the light of His love—there are some people we just don’t let be in charge—it’s not right. They can’t be a better Christian than I am, because I’m straight, white, and married with 9 kids. I am who Christ died for, if they are in at all it’s by the skin of their teeth.
But enough of that. This article is about why I left Evangelical sexual and gender ethics behind. If it’s not clear by now, it’s because I am convinced that gender and sexual ethics do not exist. We are not closer or farther away from God by virtue of anything according to the flesh—least of all our gender, sexual orientation, marital status or kid count. Christ destroys any notions of archetypes among the people of God who have received mercy. If anything He raises up prophets and judges to topple the false images we have raised up for ourselves. Stereotypes and Archetypes suffer the same setbacks in that neither are ultimately concerned with the truth but with glorifying or denigrating one another according to the flesh.
I am male and cis and married with two kids and hold a decent amount of Bible College in my back pocket. Why am I even writing about this? I am the perfect candidate to uphold the system that tells me that by birth right I am the Adonis of Christian Virtue. I will be the first to echo Paul and say that I count these things as nothing. They do not mean in any way that I am qualified to be your pastor. If I am qualified it is on the basis that anyone else in any other configuration of the flesh is qualified. I hope it can be said that I am mature in love, continually seeking God in the faith and firm in my hope of the gospel of Jesus. It should be said that I exhibit the fruit of the Spirit of God in my life and that I honour, respect and submit to my wife as she honours, respects and submits to me. But even these things are mere examples of what it looks like to be a mature married man in my mid-30s. What I am in the flesh is not an archetype of Christian leadership—only what I am in the Spirit which any other person could be. Representation in the flesh is important only in so much as we learn that the Spirit transcends our coarse, rude bodies to communicate His sweet, sophisticated and good natured love to everyone through everyone which means that anyone and everyone is called to follow Christ and those who follow well are due to be followed as they follow Christ.3
3 Suggested Applications
Examine yourself before God. What aspects of the flesh are you basing your identity in that God is calling you to count as nothing? Your sex, gender, education, country, political affiliation, religious affiliation—give everything over to God and ask to be reminded of who you are in Christ.
The nature of believing that our flesh must count for something is that we will naturally oppress others who do not conform to our specific orientation in the flesh. Ask God to reveal in your life where you have discounted someone else’s place among the people of God according to the flesh.
You may be doubting your place among the people of God based on your orientation in the flesh. You may be a woman calling others to follow you as you follow Jesus and feel like an imposter because you’re not a married man with 9 kids! Recognise that this is a cultural lie that we have believed and believe the truth that you are a priest of God by nature of belonging to Christ. Let the light of love shine through you to all people and have confidence in your calling by the Spirit of God.
The belief that unfettered access to a finite resource results in the ruining of the resource.
The keen student will observe the Natural Mindset here seeking above all to be factually correct as a means of achieving right motives and endgames. It should be remembered that service and love go hand in hand and cannot be separated.
Keep in mind where we are going. If you forget, here’s a reminder in Christ, Paul and Us Crucified
Thanks for this Daniel! I do see where we can look at the intertwining of sex and gender ethics up against the principle of morality.
Sexuality and gender are viewed as part of God's design for humanity which would mean that these aspects are not just social constructs but intrinsic parts of God's creation that reflect His purposes and order. So, I still hear your words playing to a public audience as at times we may try to evolve with society instead of staying true to the authority of the Bible.
You stated that “we are not closer or farther away from God by virtue of anything according to the flesh—least of all our gender, sexual orientation, marital status or kid count.” In Paul’s letter to Philippi, he was contending that we can’t count our finite human glory or understanding of life in the flesh as he once did as Saul.
My approach in seeking to better understand your new conclusion around these concepts begs me to question the larger issue of sin which is what we’re really glazing past.
So, to be forthcoming without any assumptions, Christians that choose to evolve with these beliefs can typically be narrowed down to a person’s individual struggle with this lifestyle vice (either public or private) and/or or they have close relationships with those within that community and have since evolved to be more inclusive.
I just wanted to share my thoughts since you asked dear friend and appreciate our continued faith dialogues.
Daniel, I appreciated this thought provoking article. I am grateful God transforms hearts and lives and starts where we encounter Him. We live in complex times. Have you read anything by Christopher Yuan? His testimony of coming to Christ is powerful. He wrote Out of a Far Country. His voice is a very meaningful one for this topic. He came to know Jesus through reading a Bible another inmate in prison had thrown in the garbage. God powerfully transformed him and his chaplain told him it was no problem to continue living the gay lifestyle. But he searched the Bible in his cell and said he didn’t see this in the Word. Ultimately he realized his identity was now found in Christ and God was calling him to what he called a “holy sexuality.” He teaches in seminaries and speaks often. God calls us from darkness to light. Your words remind me of this. Romans 8 is among my favorites.