Ministering to People Wrestling with Sexual Identity

This might be a difficult question, but it just comes up, so I figure I have got to ask it, and that is with the fact that our culture has shifted on this question, and there’s no doubt that there’s been move in terms of the acceptability of same-sex experience in our culture, does that impact the three tiers? In other words, are people, as they respond to questions, more open about saying where they are on those three tiers? Or is there an influence as it opens up that those numbers are going to change versus what they have been?

Or have there been studies that are looking at that? The reason I’m asking you this is that with the permission and the space sometimes there comes a more openness. And so the numbers have tended to be relatively speaking fairly low in terms of the answer to these questions. But should we anticipate that perhaps those numbers are going to inflate a little bit because there’s not the stigma that there was?

But the numbers are remarkably, you know, kind of where I would expect them to be and pretty low, you know, two to four percent maybe around orientation. You might have higher percentages with attraction, and I think with younger people where their sexuality is a little more fluid, little less stable, adolescents and so on, I think you’re going to have some higher percentages there. But when you think of where do they fall 10 years out, where does it kind of stabilize, it still seems to be in that percentage.

I mean, yeah, I mean you could see it go higher, but I’m not sitting around expecting it to go dramatically higher. You know, I haven’t seen that yet.

I mean, so I think there’s a lot there we just don’t know about the development of sexual orientation. But when you survey adults looking back on their lives, they’ll tell you, “Here were critical milestone events in the formation of my identity.” So obviously the first of those is the emergence of same-sex attractions, which is typically at puberty. So this is, you know, 11, 12 years old, 13, you find yourself with these attractions.

Now, they might describe even earlier that they felt different from their peers for what are called gender-related reasons. So their peers were interested in certain things, boys, and this boy felt different from his peers because of those interests. He didn’t have those same interests. So you do see that as a pretty common part of childhood. But I don’t want parents and pastors to overreact to that, to have very rigid gender norms that a boy or girl has to fall into or everyone’s panicking. I just think that’s a mistake.

There’s great latitude in what that experience is like as a child. I mean, I’ve had parents come to me and say, “Is it okay that my son is interested in art,” or I mean, and I – of course it’s – I mean, I was an art major. I – not to – my experiences matters in that discussion, but I think it’s just that kind of overreaction actually does capture that feeling like the church is so fearful of this that we can’t raise our children and see the range of what people – you know, that kind of thing. So anyway, milestone event would be this first experiences of attraction.

Next, you typically have same-sex behavior of some kind. And then you attribute that to something. Is that because I’m gay? I may be gay. Is it something else? Is it the Fall? Is it – what is this? So they go on this kind of what I call an attributional search, a sense of, “What do I attribute this to? How do I make meaning out of this?” Then they might have disclosure experiences, maybe an ongoing same-sex relationship.

And eventually, they adopt a gay identity label as this label for themselves. But what’s been interesting in studying Christians at Christian colleges and universities is that most of them don’t do the milestone events that most gay people say are so critical in the formation of their gay identity. I mean, most Christians we’ve surveyed don’t engage in same-sex behavior. Most don’t label themselves as gay. Many may attribute it to a possible being gay, but others attribute it to the Fall, to a thorn in their flesh, to some other sense of their experience.

Most don’t have ongoing same-sex relationships. And so it’s almost like there’s this group of Christians who are carving out this other trajectory, this other way of living their life, with same-sex sexuality, but they’re not doing the hallmark milestone events that everybody else does who does form a gay identity. Now, I think the church would do well to recognize that. These are young people in our churches navigating this terrain with very little support from the very community that says that they love them, like the body of Christ.

And the support that they will get will be from the gay community that says, “You’re like us. You’re one of us. We can help you make sense of this experience. Here’s the answer to your identity.” Because the gay community offers them a sense of identity and a sense of community. Those are two things that the local church often fails to offer.

Gary Barnes: Or if they’re – if the young person in the church is hearing acceptance based on not having same-sex attraction, then what do you do with that, see.

If we’re going to engage and engage in a healthy way, what does this look like? So let me paint a scenario for you and just have you walk us through it. We’ve talked about kids in our churches who have same-sex attractions and who have decided, “I’m still in here. I’m in the church. That’s part of what I’m doing. But I have this other thing that’s going on, and man, I feel conflicted.”

So how does the church minister the person in that place?

But they feel ill-equipped to deal with this issue, and they just don’t know what to say. They don’t know how to teach around sexuality, yet our surveys say that young people want to talk about sexuality in church. They don’t know what to say about this topic, homosexuality, gay and lesbian issues, yet young people who deal with this issue would like to be able to talk about it in their church community. When they do talk about it, it can fall back into that us versus them because we’re still in this culture war.

So one thing I do is I when I train youth pastors, there are these critical folks who are close to the people we’re talking about in this nuanced vision. I also want to urge the church as much as possible to rise above the culture war whenever possible. Now, sometimes, the culture war comes right to your doorstep and you have to respond to it. But in most cases, we also contribute to that culture war. And pastoral care is lost when young people see us battling the culture war, and we don’t even realize that there are genuine casualties in our church community.

These are young people trying to navigate this terrain.

I mean, no person’s going to come up, and I’ve had plenty of youth pastors say – I’m sorry – young people tell me that they told their youth pastor or they told someone in the church, and that person said, “Don’t tell anybody.”

So this trying on different sense of identity is a normal developmental process. But it’s complicated by this issue. So have greater compassion for a young person who’s trying to figure this out in your youth group. Everybody’s trying to figure out identity. But if you deal with same-sex attractions, you are having that much more of a complicated way of navigating this. So at least understand and have greater compassion and empathy for someone in your youth group

Now, talk about sexuality. I think it’s fine to be talking about sexuality. They want to. But when you talk about this issue, you don’t want to only talk about homosexuality. It should really rarely be just the topic in a church. You should be talking about sexuality quite broadly, a very positive view of sexuality, where does this fall in those discussions, how do we have compassion. Assume that there’s people within your church community who are navigating these issues.

I mean, it’s been really helpful for me to know people who are gay or lesbian, to invite them into those discussions, to let their voices be heard too. Here’s a gay person who’s faithful and living obediently before God, and I’d like for people to understand what their life is like, like have that. See, too many times, our church testimonies are people who say, “I used to be gay and now I’m straight. Here’s my spouse. Here’s my children.”

Okay, I’m not detracting from that testimony. But that’s not a likely outcome for most people.

I’m hearing lots of different adjustments, if I can use that word, in terms of how we respond and behave, all of which have less to do with the person I’m interacting with and have everything to do with how I’m interacting with the topic. Is that – I mean, it’s almost like – it’s like plate tectonics. We’re rearranging the deck here.

Now, although Mark’s widely published academically, there’s also some really useful tools for the church.

So I mean, our culture changing so dramatically. But in models like that, you really focus on someone feeling like they belong in your community first. And then they – a person comes to know and trust in a loving Savior and a Father who loves them and has a plan that’s better for their life. And then you get to the discussion of kind of how someone becomes more Christ-like. But the church usually functions in just the opposite. We want people to become and behave certain ways, and then you’re welcome to be in.

And that’s really I think our churches are going to be just dramatically challenged as our culture changes for how we think about being engaged in this culture. So I’m excited to see what that future’s going to look like. I hope that these resources will be part of that discussion, helpful to local pastors and to families. But it’s going to be an interesting challenge in the years ahead.

And that’s on average typically how disclosure takes place. Now, if it’s happening differently in the home of someone listening to this, then that’s – certainly that can be different. But – so what I often talk to parents is your young person has been dealing with this for quite a while. Your response to them can bring you in as a resource, or it can cut you off as a resource at this moment. You can do things that keep them at arms’ length, or you can – what are disarming things that open up a discussion? Tell me more. Help me understand. I’d like to listen.

But many parents are dealing with so much emotion at that point, and usually it’s positive and negative. “I love my son or my daughter, and this is either confusing to me or it’s making me angry or feeling ashamed.” There’s a lot of evangelical subculture shame around this issue, so. And part of it is one of the common pet theories within Christian circles about the causation is that the parents are causing a child’s homosexuality.

So I don’t agree with that position, but if parents feel like that’s what they’re been told –

Gary Barnes: That’s with their support system they’re supporting them with.

You need to be on the trail with them, and you need to find other people who can be on the trail with them. Now, those people have to – you have to be careful with that. Is that going to be people on the trail who say, “You can become straight and marry if you just do these things or if you just resolve this issue.” I think we have to be careful with that ‘cause then it says the message, we love you if you’re straight. We love you if you work hard enough, if you have enough faith, if you pray hard enough.

Well, my experience even working with older teens is that most of them have prayed that God would take this away, that they’d be in a different place. And it hasn’t happened. So let’s be careful what kind of – that advice almost helps us manage our anxiety in the church.

And so very, very important place to be.

That’s a really important support to offer to the parent and to hopefully have the church be supporting the parent likewise in that same effort.

And that’s actually harder. That’s harder work than simply saying, “Okay, here’s the box of where we need to get to. Let’s check the box and make sure that we’ve checked the boxes, and if you’re doing that, then we can engage, and if not, then I’m going to leave you to yourself.” It is a very different kind of way of thinking about it. And I hope that part of what has been communicated here is there isn’t a – this doesn’t represent a backing off of commitments as to what we think God is asking of people.

It’s actually an engagement with where people are as those commitments live themselves out in the life. It’s not artificial. It’s real. And this nuancing that we’re talking about is an attempt to engage in a real authentic kind of way with sensitivity to where the person that you’re interacting with is as well as the certainties about where you are and being honest about that in the midst of all this. It’s an uncomfortable and awkward place on the one hand, and yet the most assuring thing is that in the midst of it, God, I deeply believe God honors genuine love, that genuine love is something that God supports.

And sometimes genuine love is hard. I mean, no one loved better and experienced love in a harder way that Jesus.

I mean, that’s – it’s – the answer to this is not just helping those people out there –

And the interesting thing is, is that actually the model that’s being talked about doesn’t just touch this area. It’s actually the core model for how to do community in any area.

If you’re interested in the podcast, The Table Podcast, you can find us at www.dts.edu/thetable and you can get a look at all the topics that we cover here on the podcast. Thank you for being with us today.