I have just finished reading two books which coincidentally were published recently on a similar topic. Both books, Undivided and Just Love are by women who ‘came out’ as homosexuals in the setting of a strong personal evangelical belief. There are other strands which link the books. Both women were subjected to exorcism. Each of them is a highly educated articulate individual, educated at Oxford and Cambridge respectively. By the world’s standards they have enjoyed success and achieved a great deal within their professional lives. A further theme links these works written by Vicky Beeching and Jayne Ozanne. That is the importance and love of music. As testimonies of two Christian women passing through the trauma of coming out to acknowledge same sex attraction, they are powerful accounts of cultures and theologies clashing. Both were brought up as conservative Christians, Vicky a Pentecostal and Jayne an evangelical Anglican. No reader can finish these works without having their attitudes affected by listening to their stories. Church people, conservative and liberal alike will be helped to understand more deeply the issues that exist on both sides of a deep chasm of misunderstanding.
The freedom of this blog enables me not to attempt a formal review of these books. I have the option simply to comment on aspects of the women’s stories which strike me most forcibly. In each of the narratives the authors record how much personal suffering was involved in having feelings that they knew were unacceptable to family and church. Vicky eventually publicly acknowledged her homosexuality only in her late 30s. On the way her growing awareness of the nature of her feelings had resulted in depression, loneliness and suicidal episodes. Also, the stress of keeping her sexuality private caused a nervous breakdown and a serious psychosomatic illness. This put her out of circulation for over a year. At this point she was working among Christian congregations in the States as a successful singer/composer. Her contract with the publishing company that was her sponsor required her to uphold Christian standards and this of course precluded any hint of same-sex attraction. Scandal of any kind had to be avoided at all costs on the part of someone who publicly proclaimed her faith in the front of huge crowds. The strain of knowing that her true identity was other than that on public view eventually proved too much. Her public self-identification as gay that burst out was for her a crucial moment in the recovery of her mental and physical well-being.
Jayne’s story also narrates a coming out and this story includes its own periods of darkness, emptiness, loneliness and despair. Being a member of an institutional church, the Church of England, did allow Jayne the possibility of finding some sympathetic individuals to support her. Vicky, on the other hand, having been a life-long member of Pentecostal congregations had virtually no one to turn to when times were hard. Meanwhile Jayne was moving in the highest circles of church life, being a member of the Archbishops Council. This meant that she got to know all the leaders of the Church of England as well as all the prominent evangelical Anglicans. When she finally announced her gay identity, the response to her was typically one of silence. The ambiguity of such silence has troubled her as she did not know how to interpret it. Vicky on the other hand has met (and continues to meet) with raw vitriol and words of hatred.
When Vicky announced her homosexual identity to the world in a newspaper interview back in 2014, I wrote about it on this blog. I had never heard of Vicky until that point, but it was clear that this announcement was of some importance in the world of evangelical and independent churches. Vicky records in her book how almost immediately she was brought face-to-face in a Channel 4 television interview with the notorious Scott Lively, an American homophobic agitator. He had been responsible in part for the anti-homosexual legislation in Uganda. Lively had also written an outrageous book called The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi party. Channel 4 wanted to maximise two contrasting points of view. Lively trotted out the old assertions that the gay identity was a chosen path which could be overcome by prayer and the power of God. Same-sex relationships were like addiction to drink or drugs.
The correspondence and emails that Vicky received after her emergence as gay were of two kinds. The first group thanked her sincerely for enabling them as individuals to acknowledge their own sexual identity while remaining Christian as Vicky was doing. The second group had mined the Old Testament for passages which expressed the way God punished those who worshipped idols or chose a life of sin. Worse still were the conversations she had with Christian friends and former colleagues. Instead of the love, welcome and easy friendship she used to enjoy there was an element of distance and distrust. Religious bookstalls stopped stocking her products and tour promoters no longer invited her to take part in Christian festivals. The world she had occupied professionally and socially for 15 years shut her out and left her out in the cold.
We have discussed before on this blog the way that the gay issue has become such a defining issue among conservative evangelicals. Only in the past few days the GAFCON conference in Jerusalem has divided the Anglican church into those who do and those who do not accept the conservative understanding of gay marriage. Other issues like the ordination of women and the possibility of divorce (clearly forbidden by Jesus!) are fudged or left to one side. The conservative Christian world, (and we are not of course just talking about Anglicans) which sung Vicky’s music until her coming out, now forbid it as though they might be contaminated by singing it. The theological and practical implications of such a mind-set are boggling and too extensive to explore here.
Both Vicky and Jayne address in their writing the theological implications of same-sex attraction. Vicky with an Oxford degree in theology gives the reader a simple but helpful guide to all the relevant texts. She also expounds simply the exegesis that exists to show how many of the proof texts against same-sex attraction are at best ambiguous. From the nature of the ‘sin’ of the men of Sodom to the meaning of Paul’s strange word in the first chapter of Romans, the reader is introduced to the complexity of discovering the biblical message about sexuality. To be able to say, ‘the Bible clearly teaches’, is clearly impossible from both their testimonies. Far more clearly ‘unbiblical’ in nature are the words of hate and threats of violence that both women, particularly Vicky, have endured. In condemning Jane and Vicky, these opponents are functioning apparently without any reference to the Bible’s teaching about love. It is indeed hard to see how the Christian faith can ever be promoted by the encouragement of threats or sheer malign hatred. Such things continue to exist within the orbits of the Christian church. They are a stain on the integrity of the church’s reputation. Perhaps these books which both promote Christian love, albeit of an unconventional kind, will do more to get to the heart of the Christian proclamation which is offered to a sad and sometimes mixed-up world where hate and division are so commonly found.
http://survivingchurch.org/2014/08/19/the-vicky-beeching-affair/ for earlier comments about Vicky’s story.
Oh dear. I hesitate to enter this debate again by disagreeing with sexual activity between people of the same gender however I feel I must if for no other reason than to show that it is not the case that all who think this way must be nasty uncaring bigots who are full of hatred and lack of love.
I feel genuine pain, sadness and sorrow at what Jayne and Vicky have been through and indeed would want to ask who with a heart could feel otherwise?
As I said in an earlier quote however from the psychologist Paul Bloom, “empathy is a poor guide to moral judgement” and yet the main weapon deployed in the pro- acceptance lobby has been just that. It dates back to Kirk and Madsen’s book “After the Ball – how America will come to love the Gays”. They said that to desensitize people from disliking homosexual sex the first thing to do was to get minds away from the sex and to talk a lot about heart-breaking and heart-rending stories of gays being put upon, rejected, assaulted and treated in terrible ways. After that, because most people seek approval from their peers and wish to avoid being seen as bigoted or intolerant, a ‘jamming’ (their words) would occur in their minds. Whenever a typical thought about homosexual behaviour sprang to mind an opposite one would spring up seeking to make the person feel ashamed for having such thoughts akin to ‘those horrible gay bashers’. It was entirely a battlefield of social conditioning which they said could be made to work “without reference to facts, logic or proof” (italics mine)
Merely pointing all this out of course does not win an argument and possibly my own scientific background comes into play here but I do not like being encouraged to think or believe something on the basis of my emotions and feelings. They have their part and I hope I have shown that in my feelings of empathy and pain at what Jayne and Vicky along with other homosexual people have been through but there is a separate ground on which the rightness or propriety or appropriateness of sexual activity should be looked and saying that does not need to imply a careless, loveless attitude to suffering people.
Leslie, in terms of “sexual activity between people of the same gender”, who defines whether a person is male, female or intersex? Is there some omnipotent judge?
I understand that some people who are defined as female at birth are subsequently found to have XY chromosomes and that there are a whole range of conditions where defining someone’s sex is far from clear-cut. Look at the debate about female runners with naturally high testosterone levels, most famously Caster Semenya.
Who, therefore, is in a position to judge what “same sex” sexual activity is – let alone make any moral judgements about it?
(I don’t have much of a scientific background so can’t debate this issue much beyond this level!)
Hi JayKay8 Going into the intersex area is complex because intersex itself is. It is an abnormality of the body which those born intersex have issues to deal with that are personal and not easy to resolve. As Christian people what should be our response and attitude? I’m sure I can say to readers of this blog, without doubt, care, compassion, love and support.
But on the main issue and from the scientific point of view; sexual activity between male and female people fits the biological pattern and intention of sex, sexual activity between persons of the same sex doesn’t.
It is the debate that follows which is where all the action is, whether the two kinds of activity are equal or equivalent in some kind of way and then that leads into the theological and other realms.
I completely agree that care, compassion, love and support are the appropriate responses, but in terms of those born intersex having issues to deal with, aren’t so many of these issues related to the way they are treated by those in positions of power who define what is normal?
I don’t think we can just disregard people born with intersex traits and talk about the “main issue” being with people who are male or female.
I think there needs to be a revolution in the way we understand and conceptualise the sex characteristics which people have – and I think the first signs of it happening are currently being seen in athletics.
I haven’t read Vicky Beeching’s book. I have read Jayne Ozanne’s though. There are many facets to her story, but the one which is still uppermost in my mind some days after finishing the book is this: her complete conviction that her intrinsic self was loathsome to God. That led her to try, over and over again, to overcome her orientation. She had inner healing, demonic deliverance, intercessory prayer – and donated thousands of pounds to these ‘healers’. It was humiliating, and degrading – and it was all for nothing.
Although Jayne was deeply involved in church (and at a high level), she wasn’t aware that there are other ways of interpreting the scriptures. That only changed when she happened to sit next to a priest on a plane, and he told her of Michael Vasey’s book ‘Strangers and Friends’.
I draw 3 conclusions from this:
1) the very public debate around sexuality issues is a good thing if it draws people’s attention to the fact that ‘other interpretations are available’. Faithful Christians can disagree with each other on any number of issues, including this one.
2) it’s dangerous to claim that any one interpretation of scripture is the right and only one. This needs to be said repeatedly, and at the most senior level. Not doing so costs lives.
3) the Church needs to look again at what modes of healing and deliverance ministry it permits. It’s many years since the tragic case where a poor soul being ‘exorcised’ went home and committed murder. That led to a ruling that no unauthorised person must attempt exorcism. In charismatic/evangelical churches this rule is now honoured more in the breach than in the observance. We need to tighten up procedures, now very lax, and make it clear that for a practicing Christian to become ‘demonised’ is exceptionally rare. (Psychiatrist Scott Peck in his helpful book ‘People of the Lie’ concludes that for a person to be possessed is possible, but scarcely ever happens.) No ‘deliverance ministry’ should be attempted without the bishop’s permission and after taking psychiatric advice.
One of the various clergy I’ve had problems with went to see someone without clearing it with anyone. She then boldly announced there was nothing wrong and left! It got into the newspapers, but the authorities took no action. Another church, not CofE went to minister to this woman who thought she was possessed. Beats me how they get away with it.
Though I’m happy to debate it if need be, I prefer not to start with scripture, however I would just ask that the traditional understanding of scripture not be seen as necessarily the wrong one – a thing so often confidently pushed today.
I wonder if we realise the cross purposes that are taking place in this debate. Imagine someone who brings forth biological facts about the design of human bodies, what happens in sexual arousal and the nature and purpose of sex. He rests his case as unassailable, his listener must surely bow to his description. His listener however is ablaze with desire for people of the same sex. He/she may hear but they have a different fact going on in their lives. Two facts; what is to be done?
Both are looking at different categories of facts, the one objective and external, the other subjective and personal. If they are put against each other to battle on the same field it will be a failure because they aren’t on the same field. Both need to be respected and accepted as true in their own contexts, the task is how to relate them to one another. The pain of sexually hungering for someone of the same sex may be an aberration of what sex is for, but it can’t be ignored, nor modified into a description of just love between people. On the other hand, a person’s knowledge and understanding of the function of sex doesn’t negate the responsibility he or she has of dealing with a fellow human being out of love and compassion for one whose personal circumstance is one of pain.
Many who suffer that inner pain are trying to deal with it by treating it as a non-aberration and just as an equal and equivalent way of dealing with sex in their lives. It is Tweedledum to the Tweedle-dee of heterosexual sex. That is just not true. However the other side can’t shout ‘untrue’ without seeking to give thought, care and genuine support – not the kind of ‘support’ that some Churches seem to have given as the cases of Jayne and Vicky have highlighted. If there are to be good middle ways between the two different categories of facts then the arguing has to cease and the facts on both sides, the objective and the subjective, held in either hand, not confusing them and not denying them.
The ‘biological facts’ argument Is not in fact unassailable. There is some evidence that homosexual orientations may be biological, and of course we are learning more fall the time. Homosexual behaviour in animals also indicates that some natural function must be served.
I found this Scientific American helpful. It reviews the evidence up to time of publication, but takes a neutral stance. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/is-homosexuality-a-choice/
An interesting article Janet, thank you for it. The article is of course about that old chestnut “Is homosexuality a choice?” and I am neutral on that; in some it is, in others it isn’t, but my two sides were about how to get past that. “What is sex for?” needs to be answered at the start of the argument but it doesn’t have to be the end of it. Its answer needs to be accepted but not crush those whose sexual preference doesn’t fit with the answer.
My internet connection is iffy. Made a long reply that disappeared. So just to say, thanks for this debate. Some great points. But aren’t fun and intimacy also functions of sex in humans?
Hi English Athena – Not a function but a great byproduct!! A bit like eating, I enjoy food but know what its function is.
😀 Sure. But I was actually meaning both as God given! Genuinely.
Oh yes. I’m sure if there was no pleasure in sex there would be no human race. My point is that one is a function the other is an encouragement to that function. The great blend of chemicals that course through our bodies give pleasure, relaxation and a bonding effect (particularly oxytocin which is also found in breast milk). My gripe with LGBTetc is its separation of the chemical effect from its function in reproduction and family bonding.
Not all the things that God gives are necessarily used as divinely.
“intended” was meant to be the last word.
But the bonding effect is just as true in same sex relationships as it in other sex relationships. And even in heterosexual relationships, sex isn’t always for reproduction – otherwise people would only have sex if they wanted children, and were fertile.
Yes, the bonding effect of oxytocin (the cuddling hormone) will affect whoever engages in sex. The fact that homosexuals feel it’s effect is not proof if it’s appropriate same sex use or behaviour. (Oh dear – I don’t like to expand this – but it’s effect also kicks in after incest and paedophilia). I mentioned it’s presence in breast milk to show that it’s bonding function has a familial element to it.
On reproduction, of course sex is not practiced solely for that purpose and the bonding effect of parents long after fertility is a powerful reason for it to continue. Who was it who once said that a child’s greatest need was that it’s parents loved one another? I would have to agree with that.
The effect of oxytocin kicks in after incest and paedophilia? It may, just possibly, for the perpetrator, but not for the victim. It’s pain, fear and shame that kick in there.
Can you tell me in what way your line of reasoning is different from ‘Nature made hair grow on my face, so its intention and purpose is that I should be hairy, and I mustn’t shave or trim it’?
Giggle! The bearded lady! 😁
What I was suggesting was that the pleasurable effects in sex give inklings of familial bonding and not just (any) pair bonding. Love between father and mother and mother and baby. I wasn’t suggesting that the chemical effects validate other uses of sex indeed part of my argument is that they certainly don’t.
On the bearded lady one (thanks English Athena !) I could also add sweat as well as hair as they all come as part of our human bodies just like the hormones. We are given free will and are not slaves of our bodies, if we wish to grow our hair or cut it, sweat lick a pig or shower, we are free to do as we decide just as we have freedom over our hormones and are not necessarily bound by their affects. In many ways that comes alongside my argument that because my chemistry stimulates me one way does not mean I have to follow it.
I think this conversation has strayed from the points I found in the book. I was talking about the capacity of Christians to be cruel and vindictive. Further comments on these themes will be removed.
Been to church here on holiday. Met a retired priest who served where we live! She was bullied as a Reader, and tried and failed to set up a group for victims of bullying. We had several acquaintances in common! So that’s two more Dioceses to add to my tally of shame! She eventually took early retirement.
Surely we accept everyone with open arms and in love as a Christian. Non judgemental, and understanding that whatever sexual orientation we have, its not easy mixing, loving and praying within a community of brothers and sisters in Christ. All things through prayer and meditation….
Margaret – a quiet yes about your mention of love and welcome. Sexual orientation should not be judged, but there is wise discernment about sexual practice. And as for prayer and meditation, we should ever pray and listen to one another and meditate on what we learn. Amen to that.
As a PS – I do wish orientation and practice were clearly seen as separate. Orientation can be something that comes with us from birth (I say ‘can’ because I know some refute this) whilst practice is something we do with what we feel.
@leslie, I simply don’t understand what you’re trying to say. As a gay person I take exception to some of your remarks here, which really feel like a throwback to the Higton debate.
The conversation about sexuality in the church is primarily a theological one, which may be informed to a limited degree by scientific understanding, but that neither identifies nor exhausts the issues at stake. It cannot really begins from excluding consideration of Biblical narrative—and has to be mindful that opening scripture is the beginning of the conversation, not its end.
And theology has to be engaged more openly. Maggie Ross has written about the limitations imposed by the overly narrow thinking on offer, and gives us a helpful insight that might interest you:
‘If religion is to be viable, it must be able to relate to the creation as God made it and instead of how we might like it to be…Linear thinking makes us follow our noses along tightly logical lines, consuming or rejecting what immediately appears in front of us according to the limited criteria that it is in front of us, and that it makes us feel good or not. Linear theology leads us to such absurdities as so-called natural law that has nothing to do with the way God made the universe. This so-called natural law has, among other tragedies, led to the condemnation of a whole segment of the population. The homophobic seem unable to perceive that in addition to condemning people of same-sex orientation, they are also condemning God for making the world according to the divine wisdom instead of according to their pinched human prejudices.”
Hi Kieran, I have said that I am happy to look at scripture and theology but sometimes I find it isn’t always useful with any who don’t accept either, that being said however, I wouldn’t agree with Maggie Ross’s theological picture.
Before I say why I would want to tell her that being non-accepting of same gendered sexual practice does not mean that I must be condemning people. I don’t condemn people regardless of their ethnicity, colour, religion, gender, sexuality or anything else. If Jesus never condemned the woman caught in adultery then how could I, whether there or in anything else? I have the suspicion that people in the LGBT camp however do condemn me but I accept that and ought to watch that I don’t fire back similarly. On the subject of creation Christian theology has always stood by the view that we live in a fallen world at present not in the way that God intended so we cannot say of anything, ourselves included, “God made it this way”.
Stephen – apologies, I didn’t see your desire to curtail this. Happy to do so.
Who will cast the first stone? Freedom of choice in creation leads us into different ways of learning and progressing so that we can come closer to God. We can’t know all the intricacies that God allows and works through, all we can do is pray and seek his guidance through the spirit.
Having been a convinced card carrying evangelical from 1969 to somewhere around 1995, I am aware that issues around subjects like this are pointless and serve only to put people in opposing camps.
Personally I hold the “Gay Issue” in a tension that hurts me, (Can’t find another way of describing it)
However, one vital point that needs to be shouted from the hilltops is this:
For hundreds of years the Bible has been seen as the,’ Word of God,’
and it’s teaching on homosexuality as having the final word on the matter.
Can I ask then, in absolute sincerity, what kind of God it is that allows the masses to believe in ‘His Word’ for this vast distance of time, only to seemingly change His mind when academic enlightenment shines its light?
To me that is a cruel vindictive God, who is like a cat playing with a mouse?
What are the Christian Gay lobby and the conservatives’ really trying to get out of this?
One thing for sure is that while the power lobbies are taking aim at each other, the lonely old lady next door and down the street is not being visited or loved.
Anyone for Cricket?
Chris, I wouldn’t blame God for the way we have used Scripture. That’s our own responsibility. It’s the old question of free will. It’s a similar question to why God allowed slavery, or racial segregation, or women’s exclusion from ministry, or polygamy, or any number of other injustices. All of these have been ‘justified’ from the Bible. But people have also used the Bible to inspire them to self-sacrifice, campaigns for all these groups to be liberated, and to fight injustice of all kinds.
The choice and the responsibility are ours.
Thanks Janet,
Thank you for taking me seriously and listening to what I am saying and not, what I’m not saying. This is extremely important because we seem to be living in a vacuum where uninhibited honesty and informed language is forbidden?
I find the explanations regarding, ‘Fundamentalism’ by people like Professor Keith Ward, (and sometimes by Stephen) extremely vexing. I feel a great sense of betrayal because, to all intent and purpose they are saying, “That is what God said then, this is what He is saying now!” (Right over the heads of the people I was travelling with for all those years). The Schizophrenia I feel when trying to put this together no tongue can tell, I feel like I was given a life sentence and have been let out on parole on another planet!
In 1965 to 69 I was living, “All you need is Love” with a lot of generous all embracing wonderful people, that of course changed like a curtain being pulled and then opening on a alien stage set. I feel a great sense of dread and its like I want to give up and go back to that time, however that time is gone and I remain very bitter. Movements like the Christian Gay liberation do not have a clue about the personal Hell they are putting people like me and my fellow travellers through, as we try to grapple with this?
Like the Fundamentalists of old they are saying, “Take it or leave it!”
Two explanations remain I think one is to quote Donovan, “The book you are reading is one mans opinion of moonlight” (Referring to the Bible)
The other is to believe that Satan is bringing about the final great deception and apostasy spoken of by the prophets?
As I write this (Sunday) The Mad fellowship up the road is banging tambourines to hernia of the eardrum praise bands, and the Catholic mass is under way in almost silence. I think of former freedom”
“Though you might hear laughing, spinning, swinging madly across the sun
It’s not aimed at anyone
It’s just escaping on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facing”
Chris, it’s entirely possible that God would say something different now than he did one or two or four thousand years ago. Why not? As C. S. Lewis said, ‘How should the Infinite repeat himself?’
It’s also possible that we were wrong in how we understood God (or the Bible) in the past. Or, a better way of putting it, that our understanding is growing as time passes. From Genesis through to Revelation we see a long development in how God is understood and related to by his people. Jesus said the Holy Spirit would come and lead us into all truth; he also said there was more he wanted to teach his disciples but they weren’t ready for it. So although we learn from our traditions, we’re also free to develop as our understanding grows.
The Bible actually says very little about homosexuality, and Jesus said nothing about it at all. But he did reach out to all sorts of people the religious authorities of his day disapproved of, and if we follow him we’ll be doing that too.
Thank you Janet,
Prioritizing need is not something that we humans are good at. To me the Christian Gay rights issue is utterly confusing when set against the needs of my fellow travelers, who had their backs, pushed against the wall by selective use of scripture. If Stephen and Keith Ward are right in the way scripture should be handled, then thousands will remain in the wilderness, alone and confused.
Perhaps those who support the Christian gay issue would like to comment on that?
As you say, prioritising need is not something we are good at. Tragically, the Church’s teaching on homosexuality – and sometimes our silence – has led some people to depression, breakdown, and considering suicide. Some may even have taken their own lives because of it – certainly some have admitted considering it. In my book, that’s a need we cannot and should not ignore, and my honest belief is that God doesn’t want us to ignore it.
I may be misunderstanding you – am I right that you are pitting gay people’s need for justice and acceptance against the needs of those who have been damaged by fundamentalist teaching? Because I’d have some difficulty in doing what I believe to be wrong for one set of people, in order to do right by another. But I’m not sure that’s what you’re saying.
.
To be honest Janet, I just feel a great sense of utter hopelessness.
When you have been told what to think for as long as we were, logic is not always possible.To me (And Them) the very idea that some intelligent designer loves me is like saying, “The moons a ballon”
All I know is that the victims of the past ‘Revivals’ are mostly invisible to the organised church. I am so much on the outside that I meet myself coming back the other way.
I hope for peace.
Hi Chris. Each of us can only do a certain amount, and we have to prioritise. If we all look at things differently, we will all maybe choose different priorities and therefore cover a lot of ground between us. God however is not limited to a certain number of phone lines, and pours his love pressed down and running over equally to all of his children. That’s all Homo sapiens.
Chris, it’s understandable that you feel that way. I’ll pray that you can regain a sense of God’s love for you – and with it, peace.
Thank you E/A
I hope to experience that.
Thank you for your honesty Chris. I join with E/A and Janet in their prayers