Something We Need to Talk About

In the tradition of Waleed Aly from The Project, there’s  Something We Need to Talk About.

At the launch of my novel Amazing Grace, I decided to give a speech, an editorial if you will, about faith and sexuality. The link to the live recording is here, but some of you have asked to read the transcript so you can think about it a bit more. 

So, here it is! Let me know what you think and if you have anything you’d like to talk about. 

When faith and sexuality are spoken about in the same sentence many people are on opposite ends of a spectrum. I don’t mean the sexuality spectrum, I mean the opinions, beliefs and values spectrum.

It’s a hard topic to discuss with people from opposite ends of the spectrum in the same room. There’s for and against, right and wrong and seemingly not a lot of civil discussion in the middle.

I’m scared because of the controversy I know this book will arouse. It’s important to me that we have a civil and honest and real and compassionate conversation about people.

Each extreme of the opinion spectrum have passionate and valid arguments about ‘the issue’, but in the meantime, people are suffering. And from my faith perspective I’m asking, ‘Is any of this bringing people closer to God?’

A friend told me that when he confessed to his friends that he was gay in his late teens they prayed for him. They tried to help him to pray away the gay, but it just didn’t happen.

He lost friends, felt alone and became isolated from people, but also God.

This sensitive young man tried to commit suicide and the guilt and shame he felt further alienated him from God and others.

He was sent to China to work as a resident doctor and while there met a mutual friend of mine. He attended a Christian meeting with her. The leader asked them to lie on the floor in silence and to seek God’s presence. He did so and an amazing sense of peace and comfort washed over him.

He said:

I felt God say to me, ‘I love you. Now. Just as you are. You are my child.’

I have never felt such love, forgiveness and peace in my life. I know God loves me for sure.

After that, he went back home and told his parents he was gay. He wasn’t sure how they would receive the news. It was illegal in his country and his parents are Christians.

He said: My parents told me they loved me. I’m still their son and nothing has changed. We went for family counselling so that we could discuss any issues. It was the best thing we could have done.

My family have accepted me. God has accepted me. I have accepted myself.

I just have to work out what to do with my desires now. Do I look for a partner? Do I stay celibate? I don’t know, but I do know God loves me.

As society changes and a person’s sexuality choice is accepted more openly, as we face the possibility of the Marriage Act being changed, as we face the fact that there are many people we know—in our families, in our churches—who feel ostracized, ignored or just feel the silence from people around them, how are we going to respond?

It’s time we talk about sexuality and faith in a new way.

If we say we love people just as they are, it means confronting some very big issues, but people aren’t issues. People are people and we need to have conversations that matter around this issue, without condemnation, without judgement. We need to help people find real answers to the very real questions they have about faith and sexuality.

In Amazing Grace, Grace and her mum have one of those conversations:

Do you believe people can be gay, love God, and live according to God’s principles? Have a good life?’ She may as well ask the questions that had been plaguing her. She had nothing to lose now she was being taken to be cured by the gay-turned-straight doctor. If Mum was going to push her to go to counselling, then Grace would push the limits with her.

Mum turned to her and dropped the cross necklace. Her eyes widened like when Grace’s brothers jumped out and scared her.

‘I don’t know. To be honest, that sort of freaks me out.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s changing the fabric of our whole society. If we let people do whatever they want, there are no clear guidelines about right and wrong. What do we have then? There’s so much divorce, fractured families, brokenness and strife in the world already. If we let our standards down where we will be?’ The pitch of her voice rose.

If Grace didn’t know better, she’d think Mum was getting hysterical. But Mum didn’t get hysterical. Did she?

‘Haven’t you always taught me to love my neighbour? To respect others? I don’t know how you can judge so harshly if you believe this stuff. You can’t pick and choose.’

‘I don’t see it as picking or choosing. I can hate the sin, but love the person.’ Her hand went back to the cross. If she pulled on it any harder, it would snap.

The word ‘hate’ stabbed Grace in the heart. She could understand hating sin when it came to child abusers and murderers, but was being a lesbian or gay a sin? Weren’t straight people sinning if they had sex in ways that were outside God’s law?

‘What if the sin you hate is part of who I am? Will you always hate my sexuality if I’m a lesbian?’ Her heart thumped.

‘I don’t know.’

If homosexuality is an argument, then I would argue for love and understanding about the difficulty of working out this stuff called life and faith.

If it was a vote, I’d vote for inclusion and love for all.

If it was my son or my daughter I’d say, ‘God loves you and I love you and that’s the way it should be.’

Does that mean I sit at the far left of the opinion spectrum or the far right?

No, it means that I want the opinion spectrum to not be a horizontal line, but a circle with God in the middle. I want us to listen to people’s stories and understand and have compassion no matter which ‘position’ we may take.

Because if it’s one person who’s standing in front of you, if it’s one person’s story you’re hearing, if it’s one person’s heart that is struggling, then it’s easier to have empathy. It’s easier to have a hug instead of hate.

And that’s something we need to talk about.

When you don’t talk, there’s a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Catherine Gilbert Murdock