The Rainbow and the Spirit: Spiritual Experiences of Some Same-Sex Oriented Christians

By Carlos C. Roberts

By providing both theoretical and practical primary research data, this book gives a spiritual and theological voice to the religious experiences of persons whom many Christians ostracize as persons outside of Gods blessings and salvation. This study provides that voice by listening respectfully to some LGBT Christians' stories of their spiritual experiences and allowing those narratives of their experiences of God in their lives to be heard, while letting them speak for themselves, alongside the theoretical-historical information. Through their experiences of God working in different ways in their lives, all four research participants were able to reconcile and integrate their faith with their sexual orientation, and to arrive at the point of believing that holiness or salvation and homosexuality are not mutually exclusive. This book treats the narratives of these same-sex oriented Christians as spiritually revelatory and thus a contemporary medium of God's revelation in our post-modern era. It can therefore help us all, homosexual and heterosexual Christians alike, including those who are struggling to reconcile their faith and their sexual orientation, to see that holiness or salvation and homosexuality are not necessarily mutually exclusive. This book is a sequel to my earlier book, Blessing Same-Sex Unions: Theological Reflections (2005).

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477269602

Carlos C. Roberts

About the author Carlos Roberts is an Anglican priest and a professional teacher. He is the editor of God’s Caribbean People – A Sourcebook of the liturgical year for religion teachers (1983) and author of Blessing Same-Sex Unions: Theological Reflections (2005) and Christian Education Teaching Methods – Teaching the faith to post-moderns (2009). He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan in Canada. with his wife Patricia their two (grown up) children who are both at university.

Book preview

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 What is the Question?

Chapter 3 What is the Literature Saying?

• Queer Theory

• Christian Sexual Ethics – Procreation or Power?

•A Post-Modernist Critique

Chapter 4 The Research Method

• The Research Activities

Chapter 5 Stories and Voices

Chapter 6 Interpreting the Stories

Chapter 7 Conclusion

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

References

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Dr. Judy White of the Department of Social Work of the University of Regina (Saskatoon Campus) and Rev. Fr. Martin Sirju (a priest-journalist from Trinidad & Tobago) for reading and critiquing the research design and making suggestions for further reading. Thanks to the four research participants for their willingness to share their stories as participants in the research. Without the help and inputs of all these friends and colleagues, this work would not have been possible. Special thanks to my wife Patricia and our children Carlene-Marie and Kyriel-Patrick, as well as our 2011-2012 host-son Ariel-Hector from Mexico who lived with us during that period, for their encouragement and support throughout the research and writing processes.

Chapter 1

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to get an understanding of how members of the homosexual community, 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. Homosexual is defined as lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirited or transgender [LGBT] persons. I wanted to discover the spiritual experiences of homosexuals within the Christian churches because 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 (defined as ‘mountain top’ or spiritually transforming experiences); or low points (defined as ‘valley of darkness’ or ‘dark nights of the soul’, spiritually depressing, negative experiences); or routine spiritual experiences, of some members of the homosexual community. I wanted to probe to whatever extent participants in my research would be willing to share any relevant and appropriate aspects of their spiritual lives, their spiritual journeys, spiritual biographies or autobiographies.

Four homosexuals 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, that is, 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 for further reading. I used the narrative method of inquiry, integrated with some conceptual tools that queer theory provides, within the framework of a qualitative research approach, which involves the researcher in gathering data by talking with a small number of people.

My aim was not to try to explain why those experiences happened; but, simply to listen, understand, describe 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 they felt about it; how it affected or impacted their spiritual self-image, their self-understanding as individuals created by God and formed in the image and likeness of God; and what they did with those experiences.

I wanted to investigate in what ways the experiences the research participants described were critical incidents for them. For example, how they were catalytic events that affected their approach to religion, faith, worship and relationships within the Christian community; what spiritual strategies they employed to overcome the constraints that the low-point spiritual experiences created; or, to maximize the spiritual benefits they derived from their high-point spiritual experiences; how the person moved from, I feel God does not love me and will punish me because I am homosexual, lesbian or transgender; 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 the gifts of his Holy Spirit with me; or I am experiencing the presence of God in my life; and how they 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 in their lives; what those individuals or couples made of them; and what spiritual benefits they believed they derived from those spiritual experiences.

Chapter 2

What is 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 same-sex 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 Old Testament scholars, argues that the overall thrust of the bible is towards inclusion. In his 2008 work, Library of Biblical Theology: Old Testament Theology—An Introduction, Brueggemann refers repeatedly to the inclusiveness of God and therefore of the bible. He notes that the future well being of other peoples is a concern of YHWH and references Isaiah 2:2-4; 19:24-25; Micah 4:1-4 and the narrative of Jonah (p.141). Brueggemann also points to multiple covenants (the Noachic covenant, the Abrahamaic covenant and the Mosaic or Sinai covenant) indicating that the Abrahamaic covenant specifically refers to Israel as a medium of blessings for all nations (p.144). He highlights YHWH (God) as the cosmic king-god who presided over not just Israel, but also over all nations (pp.245-261). Brueggemann therefore speaks of the general inclusivity of the bible as a whole (pp. 85, 137, 141-144, 167, 184, 200, 323-341).

It is also interesting to note too, that at the time of Council of Jerusalem, the Jesus Movement or Brotherhood of the Way in Antioch, that is, 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