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THE RAINBOW AND THE SPIRIT
Spiritual experiences of some same-sex oriented Christians
By Carlos C. Roberts
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 Carlos C. Roberts
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-6962-6
Chapter One
Introduction
The purpose of this study was to get an understanding of how members of the homosexual community (defined as lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirited or transgendered [LGBT] persons) including those in committed adult same sex unions, experience God as present to them and working in their lives together as couples or as individuals. Specifically, I wanted to discover the spiritual and any other religious experiences of homosexuals within the Christian churches. I think this kind of research can be helpful to all members of the Christian community, homosexual and heterosexual alike. My research thesis was that salvation or holiness and homosexuality are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
I did the research by examining some critical high points ('mountain top' transfiguration or spiritually transforming experiences), or low points ('valley of darkness' or 'dark nights of the soul', spiritually depressing, negative experiences); or routine spiritual experiences, of a selected number of members of the homosexual community. I wanted to probe to whatever extent participants in my research would be willing to share any relevant, helpful, indicative and appropriate aspect(s) of their spiritual lives, their spiritual journeys, spiritual biographies or autobiographies.
Four gay persons participated in the study. They were one male same-sex couple, one bisexual male and one lesbian. The research was implemented in one city on the Canadian prairies. The practical primary research was conducted over the period of one year. However, I began doing the theoretical research i.e. the review of the literature, five years ago in 2007, periodically going back to new literature as leads emerged from the literature itself and from professional colleagues who read and critiqued the research design and made suggestions. I used the narrative method of inquiry, integrated with some conceptual tools that queer theory provides, within the framework of a qualitative research approach.
My aim was not to try to explain why those experiences happened or were happening but simply to listen, describe, understand and interpret what the individuals or couples perceived was happening, and how those experiences affected their spiritual lives and daily living as Christians; what the individual experienced spiritually; how s/he felt about it; how it affected or impacted his/her/their spiritual self-image, their self-understanding as individuals created by God, shaped by God's hands, in God's hands and formed in the image and likeness of God; and what they did with those experiences.
I also wanted to investigate in what ways the experiences the participants in the study described were critical for the person(s), couple or group; how were they catalytic events that affected the individual's, couple's or couples' approach to religion, faith, worship and/or relationships within the Christian community; what spiritual strategies the person(s) employed to overcome or transcend the constraints that the low-point spiritual experiences created, or to maximize the personal spiritual benefits s/he derived from those highpoint spiritual experiences his/her/their stories described; how the person moved from "I feel God does not love me and will punish me because I am homosexual, lesbian or transgendered"; "I am cursed or damned"; "I will go to hell"; to "I feel blessed"; "I am a child of God"; "I am created in the image and likeness of God"; "God loves me"; "God shares his Holy Spirit or the gifts of his Holy Spirit with me"; "I am experiencing the presence of God in my life"; or "I am experiencing, or God is producing in me, some of the fruits of the Holy Spirit"; and how the person(s) made sense of those experiences. I wanted to discover the outputs and outcomes of any kind that indicate the impact and reach of those spiritual experiences that my research participants shared; to whom, or what, how and/ or where did these impacts happen; and what the person(s) made of it/them; what spiritual or non-spiritual benefits they believed they derived from those spiritual or nonspiritual experiences.
Chapter Two
The Question
My research question arose from a book of theological reflections I wrote in October 2005, titled, Blessing Same-Sex unions – Theological Reflections. In that book, I used Acts 15:1-32 specifically, as a prototype and model or conceptual framework for understanding the current theological crisis of blessing same sex unions in the Christian churches. In Acts 15 the author narrates a very important and significant synodal or conciliar procedure and process. It is the biblical account of the Council of Jerusalem (A.D. 49-50 circa). Based on my previous and preliminary findings, I consider this very significant indeed. In that 2005 work I contended that this particular bible story (Acts 15: 1-32) provides us with three very crucial instruments, analytical or conceptual tools.
First, this specific text in Acts provides us with a biblical indicator of a possible paradigm shift within the bible itself, from religious-cultural exclusion to religious-cultural inclusion. Second, it provides a key model and prototype for distilling an appropriate Christian synodal process for dialogue, consensus and doctrinal-theological analysis and decision-making on faith and doctrine matters today. Third, it provides some key discernment questions that the early church's Jerusalem Council raised implicitly about salvation and circumcision (which was a religious-cultural practice) and, by implication, discernment questions that we need to ask in the present era about salvation and sexuality, specifically homosexuality (or other samesex relationships) and experiences of God that we may call 'religious experiences' or 'spiritual experiences'.
I used that bible story and the book of Acts as a whole, together with some other selected biblical texts, as my controlling image(s), interpretive lenses or guiding texts (Johnston, 2004); or instrumental values (Charles, 2004), for interpreting the whole bible (Roberts, 2005). The term 'controlling image' is defined as a lens or frame through which one looks at and interprets the world around us, and/or the whole Christian bible or religious outlook on life (Johnston, 2004). In this study, I am using the terms: 'controlling image', 'interpretive lenses', 'guiding texts' and 'instrumental values', as synonymous terms that have the same meaning and are therefore interchangeable. Based on the above-mentioned biblical model or prototype and assuming that the terms listed above are synonymous in meaning, I argued as follows.
In seeking to resolve the theological question of whether circumcision was necessary for salvation, or whether salvation was possible without circumcision, the Council of Jerusalem, under the leadership of James the Just (the Bishop of Jerusalem at that time), the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem mother-church, together with Peter, Paul, Barnabas, Silas and others from the Antioch-based Christian (Diaspora) churches, followed a prayerful and mutually respectful process and procedure. That process led to a decision in favor of inclusion. It was the most important theological-doctrinal decision that determined the future membership composition of the early church. It should be noted here that Walter Brueggemann, one of today's foremost biblical (Old Testament) scholars, has argued that when all is said and done the overall thrust of the bible is towards inclusion. Brueggermann therefore speaks of the general inclusivity of the bible. It is interesting to note too, that at the time of the Council of Jerusalem, the Jesus Movement or Brotherhood of the Way in Antioch, i.e. the early church in Antioch, constituted a 'senior' church alongside the Jerusalem church. It was also the place where the followers of the Jesus Movement were first called "Christians" (Acts 11:26; and Middleton & Walsh, 1995). The process and procedure to which I refer is outlined in Acts 15. I discuss it in some detail in Chapter 6, pages 96-106 of my 2005 work cited above. Through that process, the early Christian church asked the following key discernment questions. First, how is God working among the uncircumcised non-Jews or Gentiles and how are those uncircumcised non-Jews or Gentiles experiencing God's presence? Second, how or in what ways are those uncircumcised non-Jews or Gentiles receiving and demonstrating the gifts (inputs) and the fruits (outputs) of the Holy Spirit in ways that are similar to what the Jewish-Christians are experiencing? (Roberts, 2005: 96-116).
Our current faith and doctrine crisis regarding the matter of blessing or not blessing same-sex unions or same-sex marriage is very similar in theological-cultural-doctrinal nature to the faith and doctrine crisis which confronted the early church regarding circumcision. They are similar in the following ways:
• As circumcision was a salvation issue, so too the current crisis of blessing same sex unions is a theological matter that pertains to the Christian doctrine of salvation, and the Christian sexual ethics and pastoral implications that derive from that doctrine.
• As circumcision was a cultural issue, so too the same sex blessing issue is cultural in nature since it pertains to human social behavior in the context of sexual practices which have varied from one to another culture, context, historical period and civilization.
• As circumcision was a doctrinal issue, so too the question of blessing same-sex unions is a matter that raises questions about doctrine and faith, whether core or peripheral (adiaphoral) doctrine; essential or non-essential doctrine.
On this basis, therefore, I argued in my 2005 work, that regarding same-sex unions, we need to ask a set of discernment questions similar to what the Jerusalem Council asked in dealing with the circumcision issue in relation to the doctrine of salvation.
§ How is God working among members of the homosexual (gay, lesbian, bisexual, two spirited, transsexual, trans-gendered or transvestite) community today?
§ What specific evidence is there that same-sex couples and/or individual homosexuals (gay, lesbian, bisexual, two-spirited, transsexual, trans-gendered or transvestite) are receiving and demonstrating the gifts (inputs) and fruits (outputs) of the Holy Spirit?
§ Where and how is this happening? (Roberts, 2005: 88; 94-95).
In order to gather information or evidence in response to these three key discernment questions, this research was necessary. The question that gradually emerged was: "How have you experienced the presence of God in your life (lives) as an individual gay, lesbian, bisexual, two-spirited, transsexual, trans-gendered or transvestite Christian and/ or as a Christian partner, spouse or couple in a same-sex union or same-sex marriage?"
Luke Timothy Johnson (2007) suggests that our challenge is to figure out a helpful sexual ethics, regarding what constitutes positive and negative sexual behaviors in the present era. He recommends adapting Galatians 3:28 "In Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither male nor female ..." to include "In Christ there is neither gay nor straight ..." (p.1). On that basis we should ask serious questions about the holiness of the church, applying the same criteria on both sides (gay and straight). "If holiness among heterosexuals includes fidelity, chastity, modesty and fruitfulness", he asserts, "we can ask whether and how the same elements are present in same-sex love" (p.1). He notes that such discernment is necessary today. "The New Testament compositions owe their existence to the struggle to resolve the cognitive dissonance between a set of sacred texts that appeared to exclude a crucified messiah as God's chosen one ('cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree' [Deuteronomy 21:23]) and the powerful experience of Jesus' new and exalted life as Lord through the Holy Spirit – an experience that empowered the first believers" (Blanchard, 2012 p.1 aguyinthpew.blogspot.ca/2007/06/luke-timothy-johnson-on-homosexuality.html).
Chapter Three
Review of the Literature
Queer Theory
Queer Theory is a term that was created by Teresa Lauretis in 1990 to describe and delineate an emerging theoretical model or analytical framework, which developed out of lesbian and gay studies and feminist theory in the 1990s (Jagose, 1996, p.76). Queer theory is a very specific subset of gay and lesbian studies. It is based on the idea that sexual identities are not fixed and do not determine who we are. The very term 'queer' is less an identity and more a critique of identity (Jagose, 1996, Internet Article, lib. latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-Dec-1996/jagose.html (Australian Humanities Review, 1996).
Queer theory is also sometimes used as a generic term to denote a "coalition of culturally marginal sexual self-identifications" (Jagose, 1996). This recently constructed, relatively new analytical framework consists of a set of conceptual tools for analyzing human sexuality and gender concepts. It provides a set of conceptual tools that show and clarify inconsistencies or incoherencies in so-called stable relations between chromosomal sex, gender and sexual desire (Jagose, 1996). It includes gay and lesbian, as well as cross-dressing, hermaphroditism, gender ambiguity and gender corrective surgery issues.
Queer theory challenges normative structures and discourses regarding gender, sexuality and identity. At the core of queer theory is the question, 'What really is sexual identity?" Normative discourses use identity classifications in binary relationships (male-female, man-woman, homosexual-heterosexual etc) in ways that make people assume, believe and think that those labels signify the inherent, innate or natural attributes, dispositions and conditions or states of human beings. People then assume that those categories denote and delineate self-evident realities.
Queer theory debunks these identity classifications. It argues that 'natural' identities are fictitious and are constantly in flux, evolving and emerging. They are not predetermined and fixed once and for all times. Instead, human beings produce or construct their identities in relation to others, within the passage of time, history and socio-cultural contexts. Identities are therefore arbitrary, contingent and ideologically motivated, as well as socio-culturally shaped, influenced or produced (Jagose, 1996, pp. 78-79).
Queer theory is therefore anti-essentialist. It does not accept the view that human sexuality and gender relations are stable, fixed, clearly determined and unalterable. It argues and shows that it is impossible for a 'natural' sexuality to exist, since there is no essentially or exclusively male or female identity, sexuality or gender. It rejects the binary male-female, hetero-homosexual model, the long prevailing norm of heterosexual behavior and the dominant discourse on sexuality. Regarding sexual identity, its main premise is that sexual identities are not fixed and do not determine who we are. For queer theory, therefore, a natural and clearly defined sexuality is both inconceivable and impossible (Jagose, 1996).
As an analytical framework, the objective of queer theory is to unearth and expose the inconsistencies in the terms 'sex', 'gender' and 'desire'. It aims to challenge normative structures and discourses i.e. the conventional or traditional epistemologies that underlie the prevailing knowledge regarding gender, human sexuality and sexual identity. It therefore attempts to uncover, expose and challenge the assumptions and inconsistencies in the terms 'sex', 'gender' and 'desire' which justify, stabilize and legitimize heterosexuality (Jagose, 1996).
The dominant discourse views gender as "a system of signs or signifiers assigned to sexually dimorphic bodies which served to differentiate the social roles and meanings those bodies could have" (Butler, 1990, pp. 17, 25, 33). Drawing from feminist theory, queer theory debunks that position and argues instead that gender is socially constructed, since social organizations and social structures design or construct what we know as, or call, gender. The concept of gender, it contends, has been designed, justified, prolonged, supported, and sustained by those social organizations and social structures. Foucault (1986) argues that this is all about power. He asserts that subjects that appear to be natural are in fact generated from, and are dependent upon, social and historical development of power and control; from the dominant systems and epistemologies (Foucault, 1986).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from THE RAINBOW AND THE SPIRIT by Carlos C. Roberts Copyright © 2012 by Carlos C. Roberts. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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