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In high school, I was recognizing that my romantic and sexual home was with other women, not with men. So even though I had never been mistreated by a Christian, it's not like someone held up a picket sign in my face or anything like this, I still knew enough from the cultures that Christians were not okay with my sexuality.
That's Rachel Gilson, reflecting on what it was like to be young, a lesbian, and growing up, not in a Christian home, but in Christian America. Her perspective is one that many gay, lesbian, and bisexual people will identify with. The feeling that Christianity has declared war on their sexuality. I saw it enough in the world broadly to understand that
Christians were not very smart people, and they were also quite bigoted people. So I mean, who wants to hang out with stupid bigots? You know what I mean? Like, that's not my idea of a good hobby, Sunday mornings with the dumb club. Smart, sophisticated, with a love for big ideas, not small minds.
Rachel sounds like she could be the poster girl for that common critique of Christianity, that it's unhelpful and unhealthy for those with lesbian, gay or bisexual orientations. Except that's not the story she tells. Rachel reckons that same-sex attraction and a relationship with God are not incompatible. In fact, there have been times when it's actually been an advantage. I'm John Dixon, and this is Undeceptions.
Undeceptions is brought to you by Zondervan Academic and their new three-volume publication, Collected Essays of N.T. Wright.
Every week we'll be exploring some aspect of life, faith, history, culture or ethics that's either much misunderstood or mostly forgotten. With the help of people who know what they're talking about, we'll be trying to undeceive ourselves and let the truth out. Rachel Gilson is a Christian who is sexually attracted to other women. And that gives you all the hints you need to know that this is a complex story.
Now, the extremes on either side of the LGBTI debate tend to offer simpler narratives. Some traditionalists may want to hear how Rachel's been healed from this besetting sin and that her outlook is now strictly heterosexual. Supporters of same-sex relationships, on the other hand, might want to typecast her as a self-loathing lesbian who hasn't yet found her true freedom.
And there are probably some who wish she was a champion of gay and lesbian sexual love and love of God. But again, this isn't Rachel's story. Rachel still has all the attractions of a lesbian. She says it's part of who she is. And she also has all the commitment of a Bible-believing born-again Christian. She says that's what she's been called to. Rachel doesn't fit the mould, either mould,
But it's not because she grew up owing some cultural loyalty to the Christian faith. Rachel was born into a white picket fence, church on the corner kind of Christian America, but she never bought into that culture.
My perception was that Christians were people who didn't want to think about answers for the big questions of life for themselves. They just wanted to receive something simple, something saccharine, and then just move on with their lives. I have always been interested in big ideas. It's just part of my makeup. And
As a kid, you know, 13, 14, I thought maybe some people around me know. I kind of grew up in an area where there were a lot of people who went to church. So I started talking to my peers about what they thought and I would just get these blank stares or stammering answers and I thought, "Uh-oh, this doesn't seem to be preparing my fellow classmates very well." And I went to a couple youth groups, kind of trying to hear from maybe older people about what Christianity was and it all just seemed sort of silly.
not really relevant to the questions I wanted to know. Rachel's sexuality was one big question. The existence of God was another. And they both followed her into college, one of the best in America. Let's take a little side turn. At Yale University, you started to think of God. You met two girls who gave you some literature that said the Bible's fine with same-sex sexual intimacy. Yeah.
and you wanted to read that, you wanted to think that, but you weren't so convinced. Tell me about that. Yeah, and I really wanted to be, which was interesting. So yeah, my interest in proofs for the existence of God had gotten sparked listening to a lecture on René Descartes, because his "I think therefore I am" proof I think is actually pretty dumb. And so I thought, well, maybe there's something better.
But I knew, even as I was kind of exploring the theological angle intellectually, just as a curious, I wanted to be a well-informed atheist, at the same time, I felt like my sexuality still is a barrier as I approach theological things. Like, religious people don't like who I want to connect with romantically. But the fact that the only two people I knew at Yale who identified Christians were these women who were dating each other, and who seemed like quite pleasant people,
I thought, well, maybe they have access to something I don't know. And they gave me this packet of information explaining how the Bible actually affirms same-sex relationships. And I'm not even saying I was an objective reader. Like, I really wanted to believe in the information they were giving me. Not even because at that point I was saying I wanted to become a Christian, but I just thought, well, that would be so freeing, maybe. The idea that this ancient thing
and this powerful thing could have space for someone like me, it seemed really attractive. And so I remember ripping through that packet, and it had a great sense of internal consistency. Like, it made sense as I was reading it, and that felt very comforting. But then I thought, "Well, okay, well, I should probably actually read the Bible verses that it's claiming to interpret." I didn't have a Bible, so I had to pull them up on my ancient Dell laptop, you know? This is back when you had to open it with two hands. It was so heavy, right?
And as I was pulling up the Bible verses on the computer and the things around it, you know, it's context, and then what this packet was saying, it was like I couldn't find the actual connection. My heart just sort of sank. I kind of felt duped, you know what I mean? Like I had been swindled a little bit. And I was, yeah, I was sort of angry at myself for thinking that there was a loophole.
Rachel's quest to understand God and his opinion of her same-sex attraction is the subject of her lovely new book, Born Again This Way, Coming Out, Coming to Faith and What Comes Next.
We'll put a link for you in the show notes. It's a fascinating story of a young, smart woman who has too much integrity to just believe what she wants to believe. I couldn't put this book down. I kept on thinking, but what about? But what about? And I'm so glad I got to put all my questions to her. You're right.
On February 12, 2004, I was about midway through reading C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. Suddenly, I was arrested by the reality that there really was a God. Okay, how on earth did that happen? So it's interesting. I really wish I knew like what page I was on in Mere Christianity. Like I wish I knew what paragraph it was. Honestly, I was just sitting leafing through it because it was more interesting than the homework I should have been doing. But I was sitting there in the chair and
And I was just overwhelmed. It's hard to explain if you've never had an experience like it, but there was like a pause, like a check in my heart. And how do I even describe this? Like, it was almost like, it's not like I saw it physically with a vision, but it was like mentally, it was clear as day to me that not only did God exist, like a God, some sort of generic store brand God,
but that the God who existed was transcendent, was perfect, was everywhere, and had made me, and therefore I was going to owe him an account. So, I mean, really what I was perceiving was the fact that God is holy, but I didn't know that vocabulary word.
It was the feeling of those attributes of his and my natural relationship to him that just suddenly bore down on me. So would you describe this as emotional, spiritual encounter or was it intellectual as well or none of that? My intellect was certainly involved. I was understanding the concepts but the thing that landed on me with the most force was an emotional and a spiritual sense which
I mean, I've always been sort of naturally superstitious. Er, sorry, that's actually literally the wrong word. I have always naturally been anti-supernatural.
I was a materialist. I thought everything that we see is everything there is. So it's not like I was a person who was into new age type stuff or who was particularly interested in, I don't know, astro-- astrology, right? The thing where you read the signs. Like I just-- I thought that was all hocus pocus. So to have an experience that really was both intellectual but highly spiritual, like I was out of my element immediately. And I was also feeling a lot of fear.
Intellectually honest to the core, Rachel knew that her realization about God probably required more than acknowledgement. It might require change. In that moment where I felt fear, I also recognized fear.
I think through the work of the Holy Spirit, that part of the reason Jesus had come was to place himself as a barrier between God's wrath and me. And the only way to be safe was to run towards him, not away from him. So I automatically in my relationship to this holy God, he was providing me a way out. So I was like, okay, so I need to, I need to accept this. I can't just pretend it's not true because it's inconvenient for my life.
But where that left me, I got involved in Yale's Christian Fellowship, having a great time, but immediately I had on the one hand a knowledge that God's Word said no to same-sex lust and sexual relationships. Like, that was just clear to me. And I've since learned Greek and Hebrew, and it's still clear to me in the text. But on the other hand,
my attractions to women weren't going anywhere, and it's been 16 years, and my attractions to women haven't gone anywhere, so I really was sitting in the puddle of, "Why do you say that, God?" Like, what-- if you could just tell me why, then I would obey with perfect joy and obedience, which is ridiculous, of course, but sometimes arguing with God is a little bit ridiculous. And one of the things that God really pressed me on at that time was
What if the most important question isn't "Why am I saying this? Why am I asking this of you?" Not that that isn't important, but what if the more important question is "Can you trust the one who's asking it?" Because when it comes down to huge risk that we don't understand, it has to be made in the context of trust. If a stranger comes up to me and asks me to do something ridiculous, I'm gonna be "Yeah, okay, blow him off, right?"
But if one of my best friends in the world comes up to me and says, hey, I can't explain this right now, but I need you to do X, Y, Z, and X, Y, Z looks terrifying. But if I really trust her, I'm much more likely to say, okay, but I know you, you wouldn't ask this of me unless it was important, unless it was meaningful. And God was saying, hey, what if you're making this too much about the rules disconnected from me? Like you're sitting above them like the judge. How does that not make you God? What if...
In case this is all sounding too easy for Rachel, it wasn't.
She's jumped into a Herculean battle between competing viewpoints and between her own head and heart. And her conclusion isn't the most popular in this blip of our 21st century context. Our identity, she insists, isn't the sum of our desires. I think all of us have to deal with what does it mean that we are embodied desirers? It's a different concept.
religions throughout the world have to answer this question. Different worldviews have to deal with the question of how do we cope with desire? And some worldviews say, kill it, kill desire, that's freedom. And so that was basically, as a new Christian, I still had to deal with all of these desires that welled up within me powerfully, that welled up within me naturally. It's not like I needed to stoke them. They came ready, spring-loaded.
And so it was a journey for me. You know, there was this tension where I would say, well, I know what I'm supposed to do. And I also know what I want to do. And they don't always line up. And so this press, I would sort of white knuckle it for a while. Just say, okay, well, just obey, obey, obey, obey, obey on my own strength. But then when the object of desire was so powerful, I mean, it's not like talking about, oh, I just want a bunch of cookies. It was particularly with this...
This girl who I had a relationship with briefly in college, she was a beautiful human being. And not just beautiful physically, but the way that we connected was so powerful. It felt like, how could I possibly say no to this? How do I possibly have the strength to say no to this? And I think part of what God led me through was, actually, you don't have the strength to say no to this. I need to give you the strength. And it wasn't about...
I think sometimes the church can talk as if the things that entice us aren't actually that great. And sometimes that's true. Some of the things that we desire aren't actually as good for us as we think they're going to be. But I think there was something helpful in my first years of trying to navigate this open dumpster fire I was creating of my discipleship, which was saying that the things that I was desiring in this relationship, intimacy, connection,
that kind of relational thing, that depth of relationship that I'm actually built for is happening in this space, but it cannot on its own fill what God is meant to fill. So that I'm just, the reason why this other relationship feels so powerful is that it is partially meeting needs that I was created to receive. So not trying to like
say, "Well, this is all bad." There's actually pieces of it that do reflect something that I'm made for. I'm made for that type of intimacy. But God's saying in His Word, "If you try to do this outside of Me, because you're an image-bearer, you can do it somewhat convincingly for a while, like I've given you the types of skills to MacGyver your way into something that looks similar.
But because of your sin, because of even just your finiteness, you're not going to be able to create for yourself the home in relationship that I am and that my church is. Because I think some level, when we want to connect to another human being, like,
In that depth, we're looking for home. We're looking for family. And we can feel the edges of it in good relationships. You almost made me cry in the first few pages of your book as you talked about the little treasure box that you had that you would rifle through with tokens, you said, letters and so on, from your first romantic relationship with another girl.
Do you mind telling me about that feeling with that treasure box? Yeah, it was, it's funny, you know, sometimes you read when Jesus talks about putting your hand to the plow and not looking back. He kind of gives that image of when you're going through the Christian life, you go for it, don't look back. But I spent a lot of my first years of discipleship sort of looking backwards. So there was...
I knew that part of Christ's claim on me was that I needed to change certain things about my life, but I still held on to these little treasures. So I had a box full of letters. Letters are kind of romantic in a capital R sense anyway. They're better than emails. These physical things, you can see the handwriting, you can still smell what was going on with it.
I had kept a lot of these letters and photos and little artifacts from my first serious girlfriend. Even now I'm sort of like, how exactly should I justify that? Because it never led me to a good place necessarily going back to it. I would kind of get wistful nostalgic for this life that I had left, this life that maybe theoretically I could have jumped back into.
it was like a little almost like a little animal i would stroke sort of like oh calm it down you eventually decided to throw these tokens away yeah i had a i had a friend so as we were getting to know each other more closely i was telling her about my past and i also mentioned you know about this little treasure box i had that i would sometimes go to and i remember this look of concern crossing her face and thinking
"Uh oh, what does she think of this?" She just very gently suggested to me that maybe that wasn't healthy for my heart. Maybe that I was still clinging to something that instead of offering me a pipeline to freedom, was actually still keeping me enslaved. At first I felt extremely defensive, you know, there's this sort of like "don't touch." But then that sense of, in my own heart, "Ooh, perhaps she's right."
perhaps there's something here that is enslaving. So I sat with the box. I mean, so many times I'd sat with this box and opened it up kind of ready to feed the nostalgia, kind of ready to go into that. I'm kind of a melancholy person, so I like that mood. Instead, I remember sitting with it and thinking, could I really trash this whole thing? It was a kind of break with my old life that I'd said I'd made, but there's something more real about
the actual artifacts going into the garbage can are really recycling most of it was recyclable
I had never heard of Rachel before learning about this book she was writing. Actually, it was Rebecca McLaughlin, our guest in episode 18, that put me onto her. In setting up the interview with Rebecca, she said, "Oh, I've got this great friend here in Boston. She's got a new book about to be released. She's amazing." So I reached out to Rachel. She sent me the manuscript of her book and I prepped for the interview. I was utterly captivated by the book.
But as I read it, I kept on thinking that some people might see her as repressing her true self. In fact, I admit, I wondered the same. She writes so movingly and openly about her desires.
that I wondered if she was secretly tortured inside, crushing her true self as an individual for the sake of some external truth. Now, of course, intellectually, truth is like gravity. It's just there. In some ways, it doesn't matter how you feel about it. If the Bible is true, it's true. Get over it. But you know, the pastor in me half worried that Rachel was like a tightly wound spring or something.
from the book she didn't sound like it but i wondered and so i'm glad i picked up the courage to put my fears directly to her some listeners will just say you're trying to deny your true self your true identity what might you say to help them see it from your perspective i just wonder where it is we get the idea that our authentic self
is every single desire that we have. It seems sort of given in the culture that I'm in here in Boston, culture that is sort of all over the Western world, that your true self is you dig deep, deep, deep to find it. And whatever you desire at the bottom, that's you.
But I think all of us have the experience of knowing that there are certain desires we have that if we fulfilled them would destroy us or wouldn't make us happy. Is that my actual self? Do I get to make me? I don't feel very convinced by that. There was plenty of time before I came to Christ where my natural response was just to give in to every desire that I had.
just to feed it. I thought that's the answer of desire. Don't pretend I don't have it. Constantly feed it. And sometimes it brought me joy. Just as often, it brought me misery. And it brought me pain. And I think one of the most beautiful things that I've discovered in Christianity is God saying to me, "You are owned by me." Now, in any other context, to be owned by another person is terrifying.
But because God's character is good, he's saying, hey, your desires don't own you. I own you. Your desires aren't going to take care of you. Your desires don't care at all what happens to you. But I care what happens to you. I care to the point of shedding my blood of what happens to you. It's very real, I think, this sense that I had before I came to Christ that no one in the world was going to take care of me except me.
But it turns out I wasn't actually very good at taking care of myself. Instead, I encountered a God who says, no, not only do I desire to take care of you, but I am able to take care of you much better than you can. And it's not by following whatever whim pops up. Or frankly, let's not even dismiss them as whims. It's not even by following some of the deepest things that are in you, because those can be deceptive.
When Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," all three of those elements are deeply important. He is both the truth and life. Sometimes I think we have this image of a God who just wants to shut us in a box so that we don't get hurt and we sort of wither and die. Instead, God has called me into a place where I've actually found myself and where I've actually found purpose and adventure.
way bigger than I thought I was going to find just because I got into a fancy school. But what happens to this call, to this intellectual understanding, when the proverbial rubber hits the road? If the value God places on Rachel surpasses the value she placed on her desires, what would that mean in practice for her? Rachel begins one of the chapters of a book like this, and I'll never forget reading it for the first time.
In 2007, I married a man, but it wasn't because I had fallen in love. No doubt you're thinking exactly what I was thinking when I read the line. I had to ask her, what on earth? That's after the break.
This episode of Undeceptions is brought to you by Zondervan Academics' new book, ready for it? Mere Christian Hermeneutics, Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically, by the brilliant Kevin Van Hooser. I'll admit that's a really deep-sounding title, but don't let that put you off. Kevin is one of the most respected theological thinkers in the world today. He's a
And he explores why we consider the Bible the word of God, but also how you make sense of it from start to finish. Hermeneutics is just the fancy word for how you interpret something. So if you want to dip your toe into the world of theology, how we know God, what we can know about God, then this book is a great starting point. Looking at how the church has made sense of the Bible through history, but also how you today can make sense of it.
Mere Christian Hermeneutics also offers insights that are valuable to anyone who's interested in literature, philosophy, or history. Kevin doesn't just write about faith. He's also there to hone your interpretative skills. And if you're eager to engage with the Bible, whether as a believer or as a doubter, this might be essential reading.
You can pre-order your copy of Mere Christian Hermeneutics now at Amazon, or you can head to zondervanacademic.com forward slash undeceptions to find out more. Don't forget, zondervanacademic.com forward slash undeceptions.
68-year-old Tirat was working as a farmer near his small village on the Punjab-Sindh border in Pakistan when his vision began to fail. Cataracts were causing debilitating pain and his vision impairment meant he couldn't sow crops.
It pushed his family into financial crisis. But thanks to support from Anglican Aid, Tirat was seen by an eye care team sent to his village by the Victoria Memorial Medical Centre. He was referred for crucial surgery. With his vision successfully restored, Tirat is able to work again and provide for his family.
There are dozens of success stories like Tarat's emerging from the outskirts of Pakistan, but Anglican Aid needs your help for this work to continue. Please head to anglicanaid.org.au forward slash Tarat.
Undeceptions and make a tax-deductible donation to help this wonderful organisation give people like Turat a second chance. That's anglicanaid.org.au forward slash Undeceptions. You start one of your chapters. In 2007, I married a man. But it wasn't because I had fallen in love. That idea might surprise you. It surprised me too. Well, indeed, when I read that line, I was
What? So come on, tell us about that. Because I can think a lot of listeners are going, oh, that's highly suspicious. She's obviously just buried herself in the opposite of herself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And so people will say, oh, so you married a man, so you never were really attracted to women anyway. I'm still experienced attraction to women. So whatever that's worth or, oh, you married a man. So you're just trying to make yourself straight or something. And I'm like, marriage isn't about that at all.
But yeah, how in the world did I end up married to a man? And I, you know, I laugh and I joke with my husband. It's like even to call him a man, you know, we met when we were 19. We were like babies, really. So, you know, when he and I first met, we were on this little Christian mission together. Yeah, kind of thing. And we both had a crush on the same girl, you know, so not exactly a typical start to your relationship.
to your love story, as it were. But he's a great guy. I mean, I wasn't interested in him romantically, but he's a wonderful, he's a wonderful guy. Kind, affectionate, tender, full of integrity, like the kind of guy who makes friends really easily. So sometime later, after we'd met, I had kind of fallen in, as you alluded to, I talk about this in my book, I'd fallen back into an incident with my first girlfriend, which had kind of ripped me apart. And
Andrew, who I eventually married, kind of came back into my life right at that point just to check in on me. And so we reignited our friendship in a place where I was just really tender and needed the encouragement of a Christian brother. But then I started noticing quickly, "Uh-oh, I think he might like me." You know, in that very childish like-like kind of way. And I was like, "Oh gosh, oh gosh, I don't... I mean, that's not how I feel about him."
even though he's great, I don't know. It was very confusing. In that time, I was also really having to process a major sin that I had committed and receiving forgiveness from Christ. And so I was really in a constant dialogue with the Lord. And I felt this sense, Andrew asked me out, and I was like, you know, it's not like I'm saying I'm going to marry the guy. I really think maybe I should give him a chance. It terrified me.
But there also really was a sense where I thought, well, maybe I should just go for this. I remember being in my best friend's bed. We were like cuddling because it was cold. We like had our sheets pulled up to our face and I was like, I don't want to date Andrew Gilson. And she just started laughing at me because we were like processing, what even is this, you know? Yeah, what indeed? It's certainly not the love story of popular culture. Can you move at all? No.
You're alive. If you want, I can fly. I told you I would always come for you. Why didn't you wait for me? Well, you were dead. Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while. I will never doubt again. There will never be a need.
Now, if your stomach is about to turn with all that schmaltz, then you're in good company. That's the big moment in A Princess Bride, which my family loves. It's where Princess Buttercup finally gets to kiss her farm boy, Wesley. And then the young actor, Fred Savage, is about to throw up.
But the whole thing is meant to be sickeningly sweet. This is one of the most celebrated romantic moments Hollywood has ever produced because it's sort of deliberately poking fun at our Western Hollywood obsession with romance in relationships.
Rachel doesn't poke fun at romance, but she does raise an important question about it. Is romance essential for a lifelong loving commitment? And so as we started dating, I realized that my affection for Andrew was growing. I mean, his love for the Lord, his decency as a human being. I was like, gosh, he really is wonderful. And so the brother affection was really strong.
At the same time I was like, oh and I also think there is some level of romantic and sexual attraction here. But one of the biggest difficulties was, you know, in the major relationships I'd had with women, the romantic and sexual piece was like a conflagration. You know what I mean? It was just sort of like fireworks and butterflies and all the big things you read about in songs that you can't miss it. It's like a giant bonfire from miles away. And when I considered
the romantic and sexual element that was beginning to grow in my dating relationship with Andrew, if it was a fire at all, it was like a tiny little flame. And so I was like, oh goodness. So it's not that it's not there, but it's not the same as this other thing I've experienced before and that I know I can experience. I sort of look from one to the other and think, could you possibly build a future
this little thing. And so it what it did was it drove me back to the scriptures as a committed Christian. I'm like, well, does God require romantic passion to be a part of marriage? And that's what drove me into the Bible to recognize that you absolutely can have romance in marriage. It can be an element of
But that marriage is about so much more than that. It's meant to actually share the gospel, to be a picture of God's relationship with his people. It's about a love that's committed for the distance, which I got married at 22. What 22-year-olds possibly know about that in practice? But I could see in scripture that it was not a fickle thing. It
It was a thing that ran deep. It was a covenant. It was a promise to care for each other, to stand by each other, to pursue household together, to pursue gospel ministry together. And that, yeah, sex was a part of it, but just a part of it.
And as I considered who Andrew and I were together, okay, so I could just look at the one little image, the tiny flame that was maybe the romantic and explicitly sexual piece. But when I looked at the whole picture of our relationship, I was seeing something that looked really fruitful. Like, this maybe is actually the type of partnership that God calls marriage to be. And what was really strange is when I looked at Andrew, I was like, I think I love him, but maybe I'm not in love with him.
Is that even allowed? Is that like a category I'm allowed to traffic in? But the gospel gave me freedom. And so I think I was able actually because of my same-sex attraction to enter into marriage more soberly than some people who just kind of fall into it because they're so in love, you know, and then wake up in two years and like, uh-oh, was this actually the life partner who was best for me to connect with?
But let's be honest, I'm sure there are some listeners who have spent their whole lives attracted to people of the same sex. And this isn't necessarily the sort of connection they've imagined. Is sexual desire something we can turn on and off or redirect to the person of our choosing? How can Rachel, a woman consistently attracted to women, have sex with a man? Well, and so I think what's helpful to remember is that
For God to call me into one marriage, he doesn't need to make me attracted to all men. I just need to be attracted to the one man he's called me to. And actually, in some circumstances, it's quite nice to not be attracted to all the other men. I think everybody has this experience. Even people who identify as straight know that they're not attracted to all people of the other gender. They're attracted usually to a certain subset.
So I think what I noticed in dating that allowed me to enter into marriage was I do have a level of sexual attraction here. It's maybe small, but I can build into it.
And so honestly, I just tried to sow into that, to cultivate that. Say like, this is real and it's here, so I'm going to cultivate to it. I'm going to... what do you... it's like practicing medicine, you know, sort of thing, and we could practice sex. But there was joy in figuring each other out. And honestly,
As I've talked to my other friends who don't experience same-sex attraction but have entered into marriage, I think everybody has to figure out what sex is going to look like in their marriage. It's not like straight people immediately enter into marriage and are having perfect sex forever. There are a lot of couples that are figuring out one person in the couple has more desire than the other, or sex can be painful, or, you know, there's actually all kinds of issues that can happen in the sexual relationship in marriage.
So as I've been able to talk to people in my broader community, I've recognized, you know, honestly, the ways that I've built into my sex life with my husband are pretty normal. You know, there's... there doesn't seem to be actually that different. And
sex has become even more enjoyable as we've gotten better at it over the course of, you know, we've been married 12 years. So I think that's been really meaningful for me. So would Rachel say that hetero marriage has solved her problem? Well, actually, she'd say that asking the question that way points to an even bigger problem with our understanding of God's ideas of intimacy, even same-sex intimacy.
There's healing to be had, for sure, but not the sort we imagine. And there's also ways to, in some elements of church culture, there can be this unhelpful thought that God's not pleased with you unless you're straight, which is unbiblical and deeply unhelpful.
God doesn't... God cares about what we do with our desires and our bodies. So, no matter... I can be attracted to men or women or both, neither. Really, if I'm called to marriage, what I call to is sexual expression with this one man. So I was freed from having to, you know, worry about the fact that I'm passing attraction to other women. And I say, "Okay, that's fine, but I'm not going to sow to that. I'm going to sow to this man that God's given me."
And in that, God has actually brought me a lot of healing in bad attitudes I had towards sexuality. So have I experienced "healing" in my same-sex attraction? No. I'm still... My husband and I will joke that, you know, if anyone ever was going to ruin our marriage, you know, it's going to be another woman between either of us. But I had all kinds of broken attitudes towards sexuality. I definitely considered it a power play.
I definitely related to sexuality in a way that the higher number of partners I had or the higher quality of partners I had said something about me as a person, like it kind of validated me. I was absolutely more attracted to transgressive sex. Okay, so there is the least possible transgressive sex is married heterosexual sex.
So I was entering into a context where I'm like, not only am I not going to be adding more trophies to my list, but the sex I have with my husband is utterly permissioned. And so I had to sit back and say, there's part of those facts that I don't like either of those. Ooh, maybe my sexuality is dysfunctional in ways I hadn't even fully recognized.
and to see that actually in the commitment to one person who loves me deeply, and into the regularity of like, you could say, I mean sometimes people play on this in like sitcoms, like "Oh, you again," but instead like a joyful like, "Oh, you again." That knowledge and that safety has actually created joy and life. Let's press pause. I've got a five-minute Jesus for you.
The starting point for the Bible's teaching about sexual intimacy isn't this or that particular command. It's the Bible's vision of what the good is for sex. So Genesis 1 emphasizes procreation, be fruitful, increase in number, and all that.
You turn over the page, Genesis 2 emphasizes the union of the complements of male and female in the context of their bond of pleasure. So it says, "The man said, 'This is now bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman.' That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh." Now whether or not we agree with this,
The Bible's positive vision for sex is that it's for this threefold unity, pleasure, bonding, and procreation. And that's why it only allows sex in the context of male-female marriage.
It's the only kind of human bond, obviously, that is oriented toward all three in a seamless unity. And it's out of this particular vision of what sex is for that you get the biblical criticisms of other kinds of sexual activity that are outside that particular view of what sex is for. The biblical commands aren't there as a kind of prudish opposition to sex,
They're about protecting a particular view of the meaning of sex. And so you get those Old Testament passages that critique same-sex activity right alongside texts that are criticizing other variations from that ideal. So Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20.
And you get the same thing in the New Testament, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 6. But again, it's not emphasizing same-sex relationships. It's talking about a whole range of things that depart from the biblical ideal. The thing is, Jesus himself reiterated the positive vision for sex found in Genesis. So in Matthew 19, Jesus actually said at the beginning,
the Creator made them male and female and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Jesus is confirming the starting point for thinking about all sexual intimacy, the union of the two complements of the human race, the male and the female. And it's from this starting point
that Jesus criticizes all departures from this vision of the good for sex. And the word for these departures in the Gospels is porneia. That's the Greek term from which, of course, we get pornography and so on. So you've got in Matthew 5, 32, Mark 7, 21, and other places.
It's well known that porneia is a generalizing catch-all term for every deviation from the sexual ethics of the Old Testament. I'm not just making this up. One of the great New Testament scholars in the world today is Ulrich Lutz, who's no evangelical, but he writes, quote, "'Porneia is a general word for every kind of sexual intercourse. If a particular kind of unchastity is meant, that is always made clear by the context.'"
By definition, porneia in the Gospels on Jesus' lips refers to adultery, premarital sex, same-sex intimacy, and all the other things the Old Testament lists as departures from the good. The common claim that Jesus never criticized same-sex activity just doesn't seem quite right.
And the rest of the New Testament just follows Jesus in reaffirming this vision of the good and criticizing everything that departs from that vision. The rest of the New Testament also follows Jesus in emphasizing that God's love is for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or sexual activity.
You may know that the Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who had sinned sexually and asked him what should be done with her. Should she be condemned? And he famously replied that the one without sin cast the first stone. But then in the story, you can read it for yourself in John 8, he turns to the woman and says two things. I don't condemn you. Don't go on sinning.
It's not moral conviction without love and mercy. It's not love and mercy without moral conviction. It's love and mercy together with a strong vision of the moral good for sex. You can press play now. What can you say to my listener who is not a Christian, is same-sex attracted, knows it through and through,
and is listening to this and thinking, "No way, I just couldn't do it. This would be the end of me." I mean, honestly, I would resonate with that because we can both feel it internally, "No way, this would be the end of me." And we also get all this messaging from the world that the way to be yourself
is to full bore live into your sexual desires. So we've got this multi-directional thing telling us, "This is your life." And honestly, if God isn't real, what else do you have? But the thing is, I think the Lord is real. I think He has revealed Himself in the scriptures to be beautiful and worthy of our love, even worthy to the point of death.
there are some things it feels like to say no to them would be death. And if we were saying no to them and just walking into drudgery, yeah, that's death. But I think instead what's happening is I'm only able to say no to these things which on their own do look deeply attractive and have even provided me some source of comfort
when what I'm turning to instead is a bigger yes. That the life I find in Jesus Christ, in His Word, in His Spirit, in His Church, in the promises I've been given, in the love that I've received, is worth saying no to everything else. And it's been worth it. That does not mean it's been easy. There have been times where I have been confused, where I've made mistakes,
But the thing that brought me back again and again was the goodness of Jesus Christ. There were times where I could have left the faith. Who would have even cared? I could have gone back into my old life with a wonderful woman, built a life there, and I just, having tasted what life with Christ was like, I couldn't pull the trigger. It wasn't worth it without Him. So I would say to that listener,
If you haven't encountered Jesus for who he is, not some caricature, because there are caricature Jesuses everywhere, but if you haven't encountered who he is, he is worth everything. There's that, he tells a parable, you know, of a person who finds a treasure hidden in a field and in his joy,
Not out of obligation, not out of fear. In his joy, he sells everything so he can buy that field. I'm thinking back to what we were originally talking about, you know, I had this little treasure box from my old life. But the thing is, the gospel is the treasure worth selling everything for in your joy. There's no way to do it. You cannot do this life on the fumes of someone else's conviction. You cannot do this life because someone else believes Jesus is good.
He has to be good to you. But if you let him, he will be, is the thing. Rachel, thank you so much.
Got questions about this or other episodes? I'd love to hear them and we'll answer them in our future season. You can tweet us at Undeceptions or you can send us a regular old email, questions at Undeceptions.com or just go to the website itself, Undeceptions.com and record your questions so we can hear your lovely voice. While you're there, check out everything related to the episode as well as plenty more bonus material.
Well, that's the final episode of Undeceptions Season 2. And I want to thank you for just giving me the privilege to share all these stories with you. We love doing it. I even occasionally like having Mark Hadley direct the whole thing.
And we're really looking forward to having another crack at it in season three. We're already working on some amazing interviews and episodes. And keep an eye out for what we call singles, just little mini episodes between our seasons. And we might give you a sneak peek at some of the full episodes. See ya. See ya.
Undeceptions is hosted by me, John Dixon. It's directed and produced by Mark Hadley, whom I love, respect, admire, am fascinated by, want to grow up and be like. Grow up! And also some help from Kaylee Payne. You're older!
Our theme song is by Bach, arranged by me and played by the fabulous Undeceptions band. Head to undeceptions.com. You'll find show notes and lots of other stuff related to our episodes. And over the coming weeks, we're transforming the undeceptions.com website into an entire library of audio, video, and printable stuff from lots of different communicators designed to undeceive and let the truth out.