@theideacamp sexual orientation week wrap-up [#ICSEX]

Why did this week’s blogging series have to be one of the most awkward that I’ve ever been a part of?

Seriously… I was blown away by how much people opened up during weeks like PORN WEEK and ABUSE WEEK. But now it seems that we’re talking about homosexuality, I know that even the strongest participants in this project mentioned to me that it was a very tough one to write about. That tells me that this is probably one of the more important issues we need to be discussing in the church.

This week was ORIENTATION WEEK, the fourth of the six-week series of discussions on various sex-related topics.

While many people found it difficult at times to discuss this topic, there is one trend that I’ve noticed throughout most of the posts. And it’s a trend that I saw heterosexuals, homosexuals, and ‘recovering’ homosexuals all saying…

The best way to approach the discussion is with unconditional love. We must realize that Jesus died on the cross for ALL of us… even the people who live with same-sex attractions. We can never forget this point when approaching the discussion of homosexuality in the church.

Here’s a quick recap of the posts that we saw come in this week:

• The Pickled yet Fathomable Truth of Orientation
  Evelyn Fazzio Chaisson talks from several different perspectives about the sin-nature of homosexuality and what real freedom looks like.
• Why I Support Same Sex Marriage
  Jonathan Blundell deals with the issue of gay marriage and why he supports it. His perspective touches on legislating morality and how we can engage in this conversation.
• how to cure homosexuality? [#ICSEX]
  Dan King (that’s me!) challenges Christians to rethink how we ‘deal with’ homosexuality in the church by being agents of God’s love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
• Who Do You Love?
  David Goodwin opens up about his life-long same-sex struggles and how the church can be a part of the healing process for others like him.
• Orientation Week – A Question of Identity
  Seiji Yamashita attempts to reconcile the problem with sexual sin and how the church should approach the issue. How can the church accept someone with sin in their life? Hmmm…
• Sexual Orientation & the Church (An Interview with Andrew Marin)
  Charles Lee Skype-interviews Andrew Marin (author of Love is an Orientation and founder of The Marin Foundation) about how his views have changed and the research that he’s doing these days. Oh, and Andrew is one of our Camp Guides for the Vegas event!
• Gay Christian?
  Jesse Giglio talks openly with a friend who is a Christian AND is openly gay. The discussion reveals some interesting insight into how to approach the conversation.

Other posts this week not focusing on orientation:

• Let’s Talk About Sex: A Ready Heart, A Ready Body
  Amber Haines talks about brokenness and being spiritually and emotionally strong during intimate times. This is a very insightful post for anyone struggling with intimacy… definitely a must read!

Let’s keep this conversation going… Which of these posts impacted you the most? Why? What other perspectives on gender do you think are important to share/consider?

Coming up next: Slavery – Week beginning Sunday, September 5th
This is the ‘social justice’ side of the sex discussion. Many are sold into sex slavery every day all around the world. But what can/should the church be doing about it? Do we have a responsibility to protect those who are affected by this? This conversation will focus on building awareness for this tragic issue, but also further practical solutions that people can take to bring an end to it. If you’re interested in participating in this conversation, then let us know in the comments or contact @bibledudeon Twitter.

Are you enjoying this conversation? Then consider coming to !C//SEX Las Vegas on 9.27.10. Register now! And if you comment on this post, then I’ll send you a special 10% discount registration code!

how to cure homosexuality? [#ICSEX]

What I’m about to share is something that turns my stomach. I’m not writing today to debate what’s right or wrong about homosexuality. There are theologians who are way smarter than me that do a good enough job with keeping that discussion going.

I don’t want to talk about whether or not someone is ‘born that way’. There have been lots of studies that try to prove and disprove that point.

Right or wrong, avoidable or not, I want to talk about how the church addresses the issue of homosexuality.

I’ve recently read an article in a magazine that I usually don’t read. I got a subscription to Details by flippantly picking several magazines while spending some expiring airline miles. I decided that it wasn’t a magazine that I was very interested in after glancing at my first issue, so they normally find their way into the trash can directly from the mailbox.

But the June 2010 issue caught my eye with these words on the cover… Inside the World of Gay Exorcism. Inside, I found a disturbing article about how some churches deal with (what they consider to be) the root problem of homosexuality… demonic possession.

Is demonic possession the cause of homosexuality? I definitely believe that it’s possible, but not always the case. The New Testament also talks a great deal about our own ‘lustful desires’. I’ve known men before that I’ve felt could have some strong spiritual influence influencing their behavior, but I also know many that behave certain ways due to natural desires of the flesh.

And I don’t believe that you can exorcise natural, fleshly desires.

What bothers me most about the approach that many churches take towards this issue is that it brings on so much shame and condemnation. Often people are publicly shamed, judged, and made to feel like less of a person because they struggle with desires that make them different than most others.

How does that accomplish the mission of the church?

Aren’t we supposed to be messengers of God’s Grace? His Love? Forgiveness?

One thing that struck me as I read this article about ‘gay exorcism’ speaks to how those who struggle with these urges feel about how the church handles homosexuality…

I ask Kevin if he is now 100 percent sure that being gay is not a sin.

“Not 100 percent,” he says. “It’ll always be in the back of my mind. I guess it’s the way I was raised. You don’t know how many times I heard preached that homosexuality is a sin—you’re going to burn in hell for it. It’s funny how nobody at church wanted to sit down and explain why this was happening. They just want to get rid of it, basically.”

I wonder if nobody wanted to sit down and explain it because they simply never took the time to try to understand it. Many Christians may think that it’s easier to pray it away than it is to relate to someone and talk about their life and what drives them.

I don’t pretend to understand what same-sex attraction is like, or what someone who lives with it must deal with knowing that they live with something that could alienate them from so many people.

But I do know that as Christians we are called to love… not judge. Does living in homosexuality mean that God loves that individual any less? No, and neither should we.

I’m thankful that God loved me even when I didn’t deserve it. And I’ve got to believe that He loves everyone the same way.

I also know that gay and lesbian adults more actively seek out community than most straight people. That would indicate that there’s a strong desire to connect with (and likely be accepted by) people. Isn’t that what churches are for? Then why do we insist on pushing away the very people that need us the most?

As I write this, I almost want to apologize to gay and lesbian people everywhere on behalf of the church.

If you are gay/lesbian, I’m sorry if we’ve ever put any shame on you. That’s not God’s heart. You have immeasurable value to Him. You are the apple of His eye. God loves you, and so do I.

And c’mon church… how can we become the instruments of God’s Love that we’ve been called to be in this area?

This post is for The Idea Camp blogging series during #ICSEX Orientation Week.

@theideacamp gender week wrap-up [#ICSEX]

I’d first like to start with an apology. My mission trip to Haiti impaired my ability to keep up with certain aspects of this project more that I anticipated.

Nonetheless, there were some incredible posts that came in!

This week was GENDER WEEK, the third of the six-week series of discussions on various sex-related topics.

As you look through each of the posts in this series, I hope that you see a bit of a trend emerging. At first glance it would seem that the posts are overly skewed towards the discussion of female gender roles and issues. However, I definitely learned a great deal about what it means to be a man… and yes, even (umm.. especially) while reading the posts about women.

Here’s a quick recap of the posts that we saw come in this week:

• On Being a Woman
  Suzie Lind kicks us off a little early by asking her readers, “What do you think it means to be a woman?”
• Oh, Eve
  Suzie Lind continues her discussion with a focus on women walking in redemption rather than walking in the fall.
• women Asian American Christian ministry leaders
  DJ Chuang discuses the impact that women (particularly Asian American women) have in the church today. While this post wasn’t tagged as being a part of this project, it is very relevant to the discussion.
• Men become better men in the company of Good Men
  Dan Rodriguez briefly discuses details of his workshop for #ICSEX in Las Vegas! It sounds like it’ll be a very interesting discussion!
• Fearfully & Wonderfully Made
  Suzie Lind continues her series by talking about how God used women throughout the Bible as instruments of redemption.
• Raising Women
  Sarah Markley talks about being a woman who is raising girls. She struggles with the question about how to teach them something that she’s still learning herself.
• Mad Men
  Suzie Lind shared this link to a post by a co-worker that seemed relevant to our #ICSEX Gender Week discussion. While this is not officially tagged as being a part of this blogging series, it provides an interesting perspective on gender roles in ministry.
• #ICSEX – What is a Man?
  Seiji Yamashita discusses his personal struggles in doing what society would say it takes to become a man, and in the processes begins to answer the questions about what it really means to be one.
• a hermeneutic on gender and ministry [#ICSEX]
  Dan King (me) looks to exegetical study of the scripture to help us understand controversial issues like, ‘women don’t talk in church’.
• Gender Preference, Exclusion, or Oppression?
  Charles Lee (our fearless @theideacamp leader) talks about being intentional about diversity, especially as it relates to including women in our work/ministry.

Let’s keep this conversation going… Which of these posts impacted you the most? Why? What other perspectives on gender do you think are important to share/consider?

Coming up next: Orientation – Week beginning Sunday, August 22nd
Same-sex attraction is likely one of the most controversial issues that the church deals with today. Is it okay to be gay/lesbian and be a Christian? More importantly how should the church respond to people who live with same-sex attraction? This discussion will focus on reconciliation… with the Word AND with people. This is a good opportunity to build a bridge to those who have been alienated by the church for a very long time. If you’re interested in participating in this conversation, then let us know in the comments or contact @bibledude on Twitter.

Are you enjoying this conversation? Then consider coming to !C//SEX Las Vegas on 9.27.10. Register now! And if you comment on this post, then I’ll send you a special 10% discount registration code!

a hermeneutic on gender and ministry [#ICSEX]

Few things bother me as much as misinterpreted and misapplied scripture. And (I believe) one of the worst examples of this is around the issue of women’s role in ministry in the church.

There are many that disagree with women being active in ministry, and others that would go so far as to say that they should be silent participants in church. Not only do I feel that this is based on a misinterpretation of the intent of the Scriptures, but it also creates a situation that forces society to question the validity and relevance of the Word in our world today.

First let’s look at the passages used to support this idea:

The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church.

– 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

– 1 Timothy 2:11-12

Seems pretty clear, right? I mean, Paul doesn’t even stutter when he lays outs this direction.

But responsible Bible interpretation isn’t as easy as just looking at these passages at face value and saying that God is trying to tell us that women should never talk in church. After all, when Paul wrote this he was writing specifically to a first century audience dealing with very specific first century issues.

This means that there are cultural and sociological differences that we need to consider for us to fully understand what’s happening here. We must also take these passages in their literary context by understanding how they fit into the entire writings to which they belong. So here are a couple of questions that we need to consider before we can apply these ideas to the church today.

Who is Paul writing to and about?

The simple answer is that he’s giving instruction to a first century church and church leader. Because these passages are about women, we should understand what first century women were like. More often than not, women in the first century would have been very uneducated. They may be very skilled in the ways of keeping the home and raising the children, but most would not have been very educated at all, but especially in the Scriptures. Many may not even know how to read, but due to the lack of availability of literature they probably wouldn’t have needed to read in the first place.

Therefore, it would have been very common for women to have questions when listening to a great intellectual like Paul. It would have been the modern equivalent of a fifth-grader trying to listen to an Albert Einstein lecture. So they would have had questions about what Paul was teaching… LOTS of questions. And who would they turn to? The passage in 1 Corinthians answers that one pretty clearly.

Why would Paul be addressing this issue?

Considering that these curious women would’ve had lots of questions, and would’ve been asking things like, “Hey honey, what does he mean by we are ‘saved by grace’?” The women’s inability to understand complex intellectual and religious concepts would’ve created quite a disturbing chatter for someone who was trying to teach (probably in pretty tight quarters). These uneducated women were interfering with Paul’s teaching! I can imagine Paul thinking, “How rude! I wish these women would just be quite for a minute! They can ask their husbands what I meant later!” Oh… he did say that…

So what’s Paul’s intent?

Especially considering the surrounding text for the passage in 1 Corinthians, I believe that Paul is trying to talk about respecting the service than he is trying to prove male dominance in the church. Even the passage in 1 Timothy can be interpreted as being more about order, structure, and respect, than it is about keeping women quiet.

How does this translate for today?

Well, first of all, women are much more educated today than they were back then. And this level of knowledge/wisdom means that chattering, confused women are not interrupting the church services today like they would have back then. And if we look closely at Paul’s intent and the state of the church today, then Paul’s word might actually apply to many men as well.

And with other writings (like the Book of Acts) clearly pointing out that women often had a prominent role in ministry, it makes it hard for me to believe that Paul (and God) intended for women in today’s church to remain silent and miss out opportunities to minister to others.

What factors do you consider?

What else do you consider when interpreting passages like these? How do you reconcile these passages with others that clearly show women as active parts of ministry? What role do you feel women play (or don’t play) in church today? Why?

This post is for The Idea Camp blogging series during #ICSEX Gender Week.

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