Gay and Celibate

A Contradiction in Terms

You greatly delude yourself and err if you think that one thing is demanded from the layman and another from the monk; since the difference between them is in that whether one is married or not, while in everything else they have the same responsibilities … Because all must rise to the same height; and what has turned the world upside down is that we think only the monk must live rigorously, while the rest are allowed to live a life of indolence.¹

For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by people; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven.²

I was converted to faith in Christ, September 1988. At the time, I was Roman Catholic and thought of my conversion as being from lapsed to devout Roman Catholic. After my conversion, a dream I had as a child returned, the dream of becoming a Jesuit priest or a Benedictine monk. As is well known to Protestants, that sort of life (of which Presbyterians disapprove³) which Catholics refer to as "religious", requires, among other things, a vow of life-long celibacy. I took about eighteen months contemplating whether God might be calling me to the religious life. As it concerns sex, or the lack thereof, since that is what most people think of when they think of celibacy, there was no doubt in my mind that living without it would not be a problem. And rather than just let that stand there, a brief personal testimony: Within less than an hour of losing my virginity, the thought popped into my head: That would have been worth saving for marriage. It is for good reasons that friends have heard me say, whenever the opportunity presents itself, "Virginity is under-rated." One might think the realization would have induced me to chastity. One would be mistaken. My — despondent — attitude was, "What's done is done forever, and you can't unscramble eggs."

If celibacy were just a matter of not having sex, there was, and remains, no doubt in my mind of being able to live without it. In fact, I was to some extent eager for that life. All I saw behind me were twenty three years of the greatest waste of life there could ever be, a life filled with "doing the will of the Gentiles...[walking] in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and...[a] flood of dissipation" (1 Peter 4.3, 4). Plus, most of what I saw when I looked in the mirror was damaged goods. (Yes, ladies, men can feel that way, too.) An "opposite" sort of life was very attractive, indeed. And I would have been a better priest, or monk, than the little boy who dreamed of it: the thirteen year old boy dreamed of the prestige associated with the religious life. The twenty-three year old me, relatively fresh out of the army, had a much better idea of the sort of sacrificial life the religious are called to live.

But the vow of celibacy is not a vow not to have sex. One surrenders far more than sex. Consequently, if I were still Roman Catholic, living the religious life, and charged with helping oblates discern a vocation to the religious life, after cautioning them about the severities of that life, ⁴ I believe I would caution them about celibacy as follows:

The life you are contemplating is a difficult one. You will labor like a hired hand, subject to the orders of your abbot, at whose whim you will drop whatever you are doing to render immediate, unhesitating obedience. You will scrub toilets and floors like a janitor, serve tables like a waiter, wait on guests like a bellhop. Your hands will grow calluses and your eyes will burn from study. And you will have nothing of which you can say, "This is mine." There is very little about this life for your ego, and learning that may be the most painful lesson you ever receive. But, I warn you, that will be the easy part.

If there is anything within you that desires to hear the pitter-patter of little feet on a floor; if there is anything within you that desires to see a mucous smeared, glazed donut monster running towards you with out-stretched arms, screaming, "DADDY'S HOME!" at the end of the day; if there is anything in you that would love to sip "tea" with a little girl in a princess outfit, or to help her "accessorize" her dolls' clothes; if there is anything within you that desires to run alongside a child learning to ride a bike, or ride along with a teenager learning to drive; if there is anything in you that desires any of these things, and more — the religious life is not for you. We are not talking about giving up sex, because if you could have these things — that is, if you could make babies — simply by gazing into the eyes of the woman you love and you would still want them, then the religious life is not for you. And all those things are good things to want. There is no shame in wanting them. And there is no greater holiness in leaving them behind. But make no mistake those are the things you truly leave behind. So I say to you again: If there is anything within you that desires those good, beautiful, even holy, things, then the religious life is not for you. Go, embrace all of those things, and enjoy them fully, to the glory of God.

I know that is good counsel, because it is the counsel I received.

Note that I did not refer to the celibate life, but rather to the religious life. One is not called to celibacy; one is called to a life of which celibacy is a component, due to the harshness of the  lifestyle being adopted. Celibacy is, one might say, a practical matter. One can argue about whether celibacy is adopted because spouse and family impose too great a burden on the sort of service one wishes to offer the Lord Jesus Christ, or whether the sort of services one wishes to render imposes too great a burden upon spouses and children (see 1 Cor. 7.33). Regardless how that question is answered, celibacy is about surrendering the satisfaction of legitimate desires, for the sake of other pursuits; and because sex outside of the bonds of holy matrimony is not a legitimate desire, celibacy is not about giving up a sex life. Celibacy is about giving up the hope of the sort of love relationships that most humans yearn for, and that very few humans, tragically, ever experience, love relationships which are brought into existence through, and within the bounds of, holy matrimony. And it is these love relationships, not the sexual intercourse which creates them, that is surrendered in the embrace of the religious life. And this is why, in those Christian communions which provide for the "religious" life, that embrace is referred to as a vocation, a calling which requires divine aid, the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is a calling which entails, as the Lord put it, making oneself a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom (see Matthew 19.12) In other words, celibacy is not the call; celibacy is just a single component of living out the call. No one is called to celibacy.

I have found it necessary to point all this out, because in a recent interview, Greg Johnson had the gall to refer to chaste, Christian homosexuals as being called to celibacy. In that interview (17 June 2022), Travis Scott had asked Johnson:

You've been the PCA's lightning rod since early 2018. Did you expect that?

To which Johnson replied:

Not really. When we agreed to host Revoice18, I had no idea it would be controversial. A conference for gay people who have sacrificed everything the world values to follow Jesus? I thought, "What Christian could oppose that?" I guess I was naïve. I assumed everyone else would have wanted us to support such believers. I had moved on from my ex-gay days as had pretty much the entire ex-gay movement. I assumed people knew about the failure of sexual orientation change efforts and the subsequent need to build in systems to support those who might be called to celibacy.

Gay people, Johnson argues, have "sacrificed everything the world values to follow Jesus." Apparently, the world values sodomy — or, perhaps, by "everything", he means merely the satisfaction of any and all sexual urges. It doesn't matter, because either way it's a ridiculous claim: the world values all sorts of things that Christians sacrifice in order to follow Jesus. Only in the post-Christian, therapeutic-deistic west could a Christian think he has sacrificed everything to follow Jesus simply because he can't indulge his sexual proclivities. Only in the post-Christian, therapeutic-deistic west could a Christian think he is suffering for the gospel because his brethren won't play Freudian identity games with him. Only in the post-Christian, therapeutic-deistic west could a Christian believe that being afflicted with "unnatural affections" constitutes a divine call to celibacy. Only in the post-Christian, therapeutic-deistic west could a Christian believe think he's ill-treated if his brethren won't acknowledge the supererogatory act of a Christian doing his mere duty in warring against indwelling sin.

The image Greg Johnson appears interested in crafting, that of the gay Christian who has, by virtue of embracing a "call" to celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, seems intended to call to the mind the memory of the Christian warrior monks of the Crusades. It could almost do so, if one were to ignore details. One such detail is that those men truly did sacrifice all that the world values and not just sexual intercourse. Monasticism, the sort of celibate life formerly associated with surrendering all for Jesus, entails giving up the claim to possess the least thing, even power over one's very self, right down to a prohibition in some monastic orders to speak without first receiving permission from a superior. In some monastic orders, to enter the cloister is literally to leave the world: one never sees one's family again, not even to minister to ailing family or attend their funerals! Johnson would have us believe that, uniquely among (Protestant) Christians, the gay Christian is the one who, in this same spirit, has forsaken the world to follow Jesus. Like the monastic ideal, the gay Christian, on Johnson’s rendering, has sacrificed marriage and family for the sake of the gospel. The gay Christian is the new warrior monk, the secret hero of his own private, epic, war of liberation. He is Battosai: The Gay Katana. Far be it for we little people to oppose anyone who has embraced that holy vocation.

Evangelical silliness knows no bounds.

The fact is, unless, to his so-called celibacy, the gay Christian has added poverty and regular obedience then, apart from the gratification of his sexual urges, the gay Christian has sacrificed nothing that unmarried, "straight" Christians have not also sacrificed. Since his sexual urges admit of no legitimate expression in the first place, the gay Christian has sacrificed nothing at all in order to follow Jesus.  More importantly, given that this so-called sacrifice is just plain obedience to Biblical sexual norms, it is not a sacrifice — period. ⁵ Not gratifying his sexual urges is no more a sacrifice for a gay Christian than a kleptomaniac keeping his hands to himself. It may be difficult, but it is not a sacrifice.

I am probably doing a poor job of concealing my disgust with Johnson's talk of people who, by virtue of not being morally permitted to indulge their sexual proclivities, have thus been called to celibacy. The fact is, although I did not enter into the religious life, I did so only because as I examined myself, and "tried on" the religious life, I found that, although the religious life would otherwise have been possible for me, there was within me an undeniable desire to hear the pitter-patter of little feet and all that. In short, much as I wanted the religious life, I wanted the family life much more. Nothing about that decision, even after I left the Roman Catholic Church, had anything to do with the antipathy (which I do not share) toward monastic life which is supposedly obligatory for Presbyterians. ⁶ My disgust is due to the implication that the orientation of the gay Christian is his call to the celibate life, and that some special "systems of support" must be created to enable him to live this supererogatory life.⁷ The context makes this clear. Note again:

I assumed people knew about the failure of sexual orientation change efforts and the subsequent need to build in systems to support those who might be called to celibacy.

One would expect that last clause to read, "those who struggle with same-sex attraction," rather than "those who might be called to celibacy." If one wishes to speak of a "call" to celibacy, then the gay Christian has no more call to such a life than any other unmarried Christian. But most importantly, because celibacy is the foregoing of the satisfaction of legitimate desires (that is, for marriage and family) the concept of a celibate, gay Christian is a contradiction in terms; and Greg Johnson and his ilk need to stop talking as if there is something laudatory about gay Christians living a life of simple obedience to the commandments. This is an ill-disguised attempt to garner praise, or sympathy — or both.

Celibacy, understood as “making one’s self a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom,” may be praise-worthy.⁸ One does not have to lay aside the teaching of the Westminster Standards against "entangling vows of celibacy" in order to praise men and women who have foregone marriage and family in order to serve God more fully as monks, priests and nuns (or even Protestant missionaries). The west was evangelized by Benedictine monks who took the gospel where, let us be brutally honest, missionary families, especially during that age, should not have dared to go.

But the reason these men and women are praise-worthy is that they surrendered something to which they could legitimately have laid claim. They did not surrender something to which they had no claim. It is precisely that they could legitimately have married and raised children, and did not, for the sake of the Kingdom, that makes their "sacrifice" worthy of note. Men and women who refrain from sexual practices to which they have no legitimate claim (because they are sinful) are not practicing celibacy; they are simply not yielding to sexual temptation. That is a duty that we all have. It is not celibacy.

Gay Christians have not made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom. They are simply gay, afflicted with unnatural affections. Johnson’s maneuver is an attempt to cloak simple obedience with an aura of holiness by referring to their necessary chastity as a calling. And this aura makes the most outrageous claims of monastic holiness look like an excess of humility.

The hosts of Presbycast were kind enough to have me on to discuss the article. You can watch here, or simply listen here. Thank all 1400-plus of you for reading.

1. Pros piston patera (To the faithful father) 3, 14, PG47, 372- 74. (PG = Patrologia Graeca)

2. Matthew 19.12.

3. "[M]onastical vows of perpetual single life, professed poverty, and regular obedience, are so far  from being degrees of higher perfection, that they are superstitious and sinful snares, in which no Christian may entangle himself." Westminster Confession of Faith, 22.7. (Note: Regular obedience means obedience to a monastic rule, under the authority of a superior.)

4. Consider for a single example, chapter 33 of Benedict's Rule, on whether monks ought to have anything of their own: "This vice especially is to be cut out of the monastery by the roots. Let no one presume to give or receive anything without the Abbot’s leave, or to have anything as his own—anything whatever, whether book or tablets or pen or whatever it may be—since they are not permitted to have even their bodies or wills at their own disposal; but for all their necessities let them look to the Father of the monastery. And let it be unlawful to have anything which the Abbot has not given or allowed. Let all things be common to all, as it is written, and let no one say or assume that anything is his own. But if anyone is caught indulging in this most wicked vice, let him be admonished once and a second time. If he fails to amend, let him undergo punishment."

5. In this talk with Rod Dreher, Jordan Peterson (at about one hour in) asserts that  people who voluntarily submit to a burden bear it better than those upon whom the burden is imposed. One can speculate that one benefit of thinking of the gay Christian’s commitment to chastity as undertaken willingly and giving it the label celibacy, is that it might make the burden easier to bear. But that is not what Johnson is doing. What Johnson is doing is posturing.

6. As a matter of fact, as it concerned monastic vows, I was really only  bothered by the requirement that they be life-long, not because I think I would have found them burdensome, but for reasons which, to me better accounted for human nature. To me, a wiser course would be to make the vows only for a term of years, renewable at the expiration of the term. In the Army (at the time I served, anyway), one's initial enlistment commitment is for six years, at least three of which, at minimum, must be served on active duty, the remaining three being served in an inactive capacity. If one wished to continue serving, then one re-enlisted every three years. In the French Foreign Legion, an initial enlistment is for five years. After that initial five years, the legionnaire may return to civilian life, or re-enlist for successive terms varying from six months to five years. I thought this a much more realistic approach to matters, especially since many men join the Legion for the same reason many men join monasteries, meaning there is a fervor which may dissipate over time; and it is best for both parties (legion or monastery) to benefit from that fervor while it lasts, and then amicably part ways, if it comes to it.

7. I wish to make clear that this (that is, the implication that gay “celibacy” is supererogatory) is the object of my disgust. I am not disgusted by those who struggle with same sex attraction. Having my own, equally sinful struggles, I can empathize. My experience with my struggles leads me to believe that many of those who struggle with SSA live on the edge of despair. That is sad, but it is insufficient grounds for claiming a holy vocation, simply by obeying God.

8. I am not suggesting that it is praise-worthy, only granting the hypothesis arguendo. In its purest expression, monasticism is simply one calling among many and therefore no more praise-worthy than any other. I remind readers of the quotation above from John Chrysostom.