Some language in a post on Ex-Gay Watch by Eugene Wagner really touched me and very much describes the evolution I had to made spiritually to arrive at a place of self-acceptance with my sexuality. I cannot express it any better, so here's a portion of his post:
If there’s one pivotal event that I hope I adequately account for in every retelling, it’s how I came to truly understand, for the first time, that God loves me exactly the way I am, and that I don’t have to change who or what I am to earn his acceptance.
It’s equally important to understand that God brought me to this point before I began questioning everything I’d been taught by the church about my “condition,” and not the other way around. I certainly didn’t interpret God’s unconditional acceptance as a license to do whatever my whims might happen to dictate, and I still don’t.
Words cannot fully convey just how revolutionary it was to come to the realization that not only did I not have to become somebody else in order to appease God, but he didn’t want me to be somebody else. Yet somebody else was precisely what I was trying to become through my efforts to “reclaim my natural heterosexuality.”
For better or for worse, whether because of genetics, hormones, psychological influences or some combination of the three, my homosexuality is a permanent, integral part of who I am, and God made it clear to me that he wasn’t interested in fundamentally altering the personality of somebody he had already fallen in love with, as even a partial shift in orientation would have entailed for me. Maybe it’s different for someone whose attractions were more fluid to begin with, but I wouldn’t know.
For the full post, see: http://www.exgaywatch.com/wp/2007/06/perfect-love/
3 comments:
this is awesome because it just sums up our whole being..we are who we are because he made us this way, and all the consoling, crap in the world will never change what we feel and who we are, this after years of conflict dealing with my faith i have finally accepted and now embrace who andwhat i am
I have felt for years that it is easier for the fundamentalists to need to "cure" homosexuality than it is to have to "cure" their own lack of concern for poverty, for hate, for social and justice issues ~ you know, those things that are taught in the Bible they love so much. What better way to be able to ignore their own disregard for those teachings than to point to others and "cure" them.
But then I grew up in Jerry Falwell's hometown so I am bit cynical and I admit it. ;)
While I'm delighted that one can work through to this resolution, I cannot help but ask:
(1) on what basis does "perfect love" know that God wants, thinks, etc. such that the Bible's claims are false and that "unconditional love" is sufficiently true to trump the "Word of God?" (BTW, the very notion of "unconditional love," while a dominant theological concept within Catholicism, is not even mentioned by most evangelicals, much less Calvinists, because the concept is not only extrabiblical, but contrary to the strict "conditions" set forth in Pauline theology).
(2) Integrating one's spirituality and sexuality, especially under the "cloud of evangelical and Catholic homoguilt," must be extraordinarily taxing, as the one cites Paul's indictments, the other appeals to "intrinsically disordered," for their mutual justifications. But it was "perfect love's" use of "appease God" that is most jarring. That concept is clearly more Jewish in orientation than Christian, but how does one "appease God" by "fracturing" oneself? As gay men, of one thing we are absolutely certain, we are attracted to other men in physical (and many other) ways. Along comes someone, something, some group that insists that our attraction, or our "acting on it," is "unapproved." Says who? Why? On what basis? Where's the proof?
I confess I must have had a much easier time, space, and place to ask these questions (I always ask too many questions, it's a character flaw), but surely we've all see bumper strips that read: Question Authority. One saw them in the Sixties, and still sees them. I'm not suggesting the religious efforts at repression and suppression are not all around us, but does anyone question their Authority?
In return, therefore, I have to turn the tables on us, too! I have to question "perfect love's" authority to assert that he knows God's love is unconditional, or that he knows God at all. On what basis does he make that claim? If we don't question his authority to make such claims, then we've really only broken one yoke and substituted another. If his authority to make that claim can be found, it would behoove us all to ask, Show us your evidence? On what basis do you make that claim?
N.B. This questioning of authorities, by the way, is not limited to religion, as it arose in a political response to the Vietnam War and the government's dissimulation of information to justify it. Questioning "authorities" is as broad as it is deep, and no one, nor no thing, should be exempt from such inquiries. So, do not misunderstand my objectives as targeted to one individual or group; it applies across the board.
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