In 2015 I started writing about my journey with same sex attraction and same sex lust. I was trying to inform Christians about this topic in Orange County CA, since that is where I live. I’ve met and heard stories by so many christians in my local area who suffered at the hands of local church leaders who really don’t know how to PRACTICALLY meet the needs of christian men and women who deal with same sex lust. My experience was quite unique since I had many good straight guy friends who loved me and met the deep needs I have as a christian who deals with this. So I thought I would start sharing my experiences with straight Christians in order to help them meet the needs of christians like me going through this redemptive process.
So I offered the idea of what I call, The 4T’S and The Church. Touch, Time, Transparency, and Teamwork. 4 ways males who are attracted to the same sex can experience intimacy with their male brothers within the church.
Since writing and creating podcasts with my straight friends, I’ve been introduced to so many more christians who deal with same sex lust and same sex attaction in person and online.
Matt Moore being one of them.
I relate more with Matt Moore vs some of the other online writers about this topic so I follow him, read, and listen to a lot of what he says. His words matter to me. I believe his work is extremely valuable.
But he has done something that most evangelical church leaders do that I still don’t quite understand.
For the last 30 years or so, humans who deal with same sex attaction, same sex lust, take on a gay idenitity, enter into gay relationships, use whatever langauge they use to describe their journey with this, these particular humans have always been shamed, rejected, ignored, looked on with disgust, by the church because of their non-choice of being attracted to the same sex.
None of us chose these “unnatural abomination” same sex lust desires, and yes we do chose to have sex with the same sex if we do that.
A couple of years ago as I was having more hope the evangelical church was getting closer to pastorally caring for those that deal with this, the Nashville Statement dropped.
I hated it. Until this day I wish it didn’t exist.
Although I agree with majority of the truth they wrote,
It was the biggest missed opportunity for these influential pastors and church leaders to finally, FINALLY, come together and talk about how to pastorally care for and PRACTICALLY meet the needs of christians that deal with this, instead, they wrote another truth statement.
Another Truth Statement
Another Truth Statement
Another Truth Statement.
And
Another Truth Statement.
Why is it that the only thing the Church can produce for or about a christian like me are statements of truths?
But the more I see Christians like me stand up and say “Hey Bride of Christ, I belong to you, as much as you wish you can get rid of me, I belong in the Bride of Christ.”
In response, the Church creates studies about us, compares our sin to straight people's sin, and pushes us towards marriage because they don’t know how to deal with the deep same sex intimacy needs we have towards the Church.
At the end of the day, the local evangelical church community still doesn't know what to do with us.
And when some influential leaders like Matt Moore talk or write something as this,
“Is same-sex sin worse than other sexual sins? Well, that depends on what you mean by worse.”
I mean, what's the point of this?
To keep the church in an everlasting state of dialogues about Christians like me?
To keep Christians not knowing how to practically live day to day with Christians like me?
To keep Christians thinking about my sin being worse than their own sins?
I mean, I wonder if Screwtape is at work here,
My Dear Wormwood,
Keep Christians in thought and theological arguments instead of pastoral care. Then, christians who deal with same sex lust will leave the church and join our ranks of rebellion against the Creator. Keep pastoral care away from Christians that deal with same sex attraction and lust and keep repetitive theological arguments and statements of truth the focus of the Christian practice of meeting the needs of those in need.” Screwtape
To Matt,
I simply don’t care for the topic of my same sex lust being worse than my straight friends’ sin.
Come on Matt, this is really not needed.
You bring up homosexaulity being a worse sin because it straight up goes against God’s design for human sexuality. Exchanging the truth of God for a lie. Homosexual sin opposes both natural design and the image of God.
Should this apply to contraceptives? Should we study evangelical sexuality and its shallow acceptance of birth control? I mean, imagine that? We question the sexuality of straight evangelicals who use birth control. We would be devastating their sexual life.
I’m writing this Matt because I know you are connected to many influential Christian evangelical writers, thinkers, influencers, and have a following. Now, maybe I’m missing the mark and I have no clue why you wrote this. Maybe those are conversations that keep coming up in your circles of Christian family, but overall, I would highly encourage you to understand these type of social media conversations are only going to make straight christians more self righteous in their local churches and see Christians like me as less or even not valuable enough to change the local church culture of being in a church together and including me in their lives because I disrupt their nuclear family.
Matt, we still have the idol of marriage and family in the Church and it’s still being nicely glorified right now.
Self pity is not my path I want to take. I care for truth and I want truth to transform to something helpful and practical. As a fellow battler, if same-sex lust is worse in some ways than hetersosexual sin, you writing this will make my desires of same sex lust hard to be understood by other christians, especially by straight christians.
The Christian church should have a better practical idea of what it means for someone like me to go through grace that regenerates, preserves, and ultimately saves someone like me just like it will save a compulsive liar or a prideful pastor or someone who worships the idol of marriage.
As Jesus and the Apostles taught, the God who loves me and has adopted me as his child will use the church to remind me of who I am in Christ and how I am not in my fleshly desires. If I am in Christ, I am not the sins that I sometimes do, but if the church just focuses on random thoughts and statements of truth, I will never experience the adoption of the Father, the sacrifice of the King, and the redemptive sanctification of the Spirit. I would just experience more shame and rejection like so many gay men and women have experienced which is why they left the church with their middle fingers pointed at us and God.
As I right this, I realize this is not just towards Matt, this is to every church leader who needs to realize we need to go from theological statements to pastoral care now. There have been statements about the sin of someone like me coming out for years,
Can you start making some pastoral statements on how to PRACTICALLY care for me and other christians like me?
If you don’t know where to start,
start with the 4T’S and the Church.
We all need Touch, Time, Transparency, and Teamwork.
Arn’t we all tired of the fluffy random theological talks now about homosexuality? Isn’t it boring? Let’s start meeting the needs for those that deal with this now, that is where the fun is.