Theology in the Raw - 780: Born Again This Way: Rachel Gilson

Episode Date: February 24, 2020

Rachel has a fascinating story and a witty pen. She's the director of theological development for the northeast for CRU and is the author of the forthcoming book "Born Again This Way." She's attracted to women, married to a man, and a loves studying and writing about Jesus, the Bible, and Christianity. We talked a lot about her interesting journey to faith and how she's wrestled with her faith and her sexuality. Rachel Gilson serves on the national theological team for Cru. She regularly speaks to churches and students nationally and internationally, especially on the topic of biblical sexuality. Her writing has appeared in places such as Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, and Desiring God, and her first book, Born Again This Way (The Good Book Company) will be out March 1. Rachel holds a Master of Divinity and lives in Boston with her husband and daughter. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I am very excited about today's show. I'll talk about my guest in just a second, but first want to let you know that this is a listener-supported podcast. If you have been blessed or confronted or have benefited from this podcast in any way and would love to contribute to the ongoing work of Theology in the Raw, you can go to patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw. That's patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw and become part of the

240-ish Patreon supporters who are part of the Theology in the Raw community. And you can support the show for as little as five bucks a month and get access to lots of different kinds of premium content, like once a month blogs that I write for my Patreon supporters, once a month podcasts that I record for my Patreon supporters. So again, if you would like to support the show, it's patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. If you want to come to one or some or all of the speaking events that I'm going to be engaging in over the next several weeks. I will be in Nashville, Tennessee, March 10th and March 11th. I'll be in Seattle, Washington, March 15th, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 30th and May 1st and Phoenix, Arizona, May 6th and May 7th and a few other gigs in the fall,

but that's so far away. Let's not even worry about that. If you want to look at my schedule, it's on centerforfaith.com. You can go to the events page and look and see how and where, or where I'm speaking and how you can register for those events. That's centerforfaith.com and go to the events link. I have a friend on the podcast today named Rachel Gilson. And Rachel is one of a kind. She's so, she's a fun hang. We've only had a few face-to-face hangouts. And Rachel is just one of those people that you just want to keep hanging out with.

She's so enjoyable. She's incredibly hilarious, has that kind of dry, super witty, somewhat edgy sense of humor. Rachel lives in the Boston area. She works for CREW, formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ. She is the director of theological development for the Northeast. She's pursuing a master of divinity at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. She loves Greek, Hebrew theology, literature, and the transforming work of the spirit in her messy life. She has a great blog called Born Again This Way. And she has a book that just came out or is coming out March 1st.

It releases called Born Again This Way, coming out, coming to faith and what comes next. Rachel is a same sex attracted Christian married to a dude. She was raised in a very non-Christian secular environment, has an amazing story, lots to say. Please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Rachel Gilson. Okay, I'm here with my friend Rachel Gilson. Rachel, thanks so much for being a first-time guest on Theology in the Raw. That's right. I'm excited. Thanks for having me. I am too. We've only hung out twice, three times maybe? Yeah, two times, but they were two great times. They were great times. And I just so enjoyed hanging out with you. You're kind of a hard person to pin down. I mean, not actually physically.

I'm pretty weak. You could pin me to the ground pretty easily. See, this is what I'm talking about. Okay. So, I mean, how would you describe yourself theologically? Let's just start there. Oh, theologically. Well, I am a Southern Baptist who's always been a Christian in New England. Okay. So that has been part of my theological heritage, like sort of conservative, but also

liberal. Okay. Unpack that. Cause that's, that's, that's what I'm talking about right there. Yeah. So I absolutely believe in the authority and inerrancy of God's word. And I'm a complimentarian even. Really? Wow. But at the same time. Even, I love that little word. Yeah. I'm also fairly progressive when it comes to some types of social things. So it can be a funny mix. Or you don't want to just preach the choir, reinforce one's tribal identity or tribal beliefs. You seem to enjoy writing and speaking in a way that's going to disrupt in a healthy way various people wherever they're at. Like you're not really into like just reinforcing one's preconceived beliefs. That's my perspective. Is that something you enjoy or am I misreading your situation? I guess I never think actively about the idea of disruption, but I've always been really interested in the idea of what's actually true, what's actually helpful, what's

actually beautiful. And so I'm a Protestant. I go back to the text. And so I suppose if I find things in the text that are disruptive, I don't mind pulling them out. And you are a later convert, right? Tell us your story a little bit. Let's go back to your teenage. Who is Rachel as a, why don't we just start as a 13-year-old Rachel Gilson and go from there? 13-year-old. Okay, yeah. 13-year-old Rachel Gilson lived in Solvang, California, which is a very conservative little town in a somewhat liberal state. And I wasn't a churchgoer at all. Like we were not Christmas or Easter people. My mom had been sort of raised Catholic and ditched it for cigarettes and boys. My dad had been raised nothing. So you know, by the time they were raising their family,

we were we were nothing. But there were a lot of people around me who were churchgoers. So I kind of had cultural Christianity around me. Okay. the world and started asking some of my peers who identified as Christians to kind of talk with me about their worldview. I realized that the Christian teens around me didn't have very impressive answers. So I kind of started to develop an idea that maybe Christians were people who didn't know how to think for themselves. It's probably not fair to base that on the answers of teenagers. I've since learned that Christianity is actually one of the most robust intellectual traditions in the world. But I didn't have access to that at the time. And you were naturally very academically wired or intellectually wired.

Oh, totally. Literally the only things I'm good at are reading and writing. I've had to bear that burden my whole life. So, I've had to bear that burden my whole life. The other thing that was true about me in high school was that that's when I discovered that really my romantic and sexual desires were much more at home with other young women and not young men. I've always enjoyed the company of men, like the company of guys. And so I thought that meant that I liked them. But as I had, you know, high school dating relationships with guys, I was like, that's a little, it's kind of a little awkward. And you could be thinking, well,

it's because you were hooking up with teenage boys, which isn't wrong, you know, but actually upon having my first girlfriend and then, and then also experimenting with some other young women in my environment, I realized, no, this is definitely where I'm at home. And, you know, this was 2001, 2002. This was back when Will and Grace was still edgy, not nostalgic, you know. So it was a little bit of, oh, is this allowed? Can I do this? But I didn't have anything in my worldview that told me I couldn't just seemed, I don't know, like loving anybody else. So it must be all right. So I, I, I know a lot of people who grew up in

the church when they kind of realized they're attracted to the same sex. You grew up in a very secular environment, or at least your home environment. Was it, as you listen to other people's stories, you grew up in the church with this experience, is your experience, where do your experiences kind of overlap and where do they diverge? Did you feel like shamed and ostracized or whatever? No, no, this is, I think, so when Andrew Marin put out that study that was talking about, what was it, 83% of LGBT people who grew up in a Christian church. I was like, oh my goodness, I really am in the minority. Um, I remember considering, oh, I've got to tell my mom about

my girlfriend. And it felt a little strange, mostly just cause I didn't like sharing things with my mom. I knew she would be more upset if I brought home someone who was Mexican American as opposed to bringing home a girl. Wow. Okay. You know, and, and it didn't, it didn't faze her at all. She, she ran away from home in her early twenties and moved to San Francisco in the early 1980s and lived with a couple of gay guys and she was, she was down. So I think one of the biggest differences, I don't know how to put this in a way that isn't harsh, but because I didn't grow up in the church, because I didn't grow up in a conservative environment, I didn't really have a lot of baggage when I was processing my sexual attractions. I think it's actually helped me

come to a place where I can synthesize what the gospel says and what my attractional patterns are without having to dig through these like deep layers of internalized homophobia or having heard for years that you choose to be gay because you hate God. Like the layers of that are so difficult to unpack. I honestly think in some ways I have an easier time having not grown up in the church. And isn't that sad? Like, shouldn't it be actually better for our youth to grow up in the church? Yeah, that's, I mean, yeah, I don't know if I, I don't even know how to respond to what you said,

because I might need to let it kind of soak in. But, but yes, it is unfortunate, as that is, I can, it doesn't, it's not shocking, honestly, with your, your trajectory. So, so, so you're coming out to your parents, was that a frightening experience? I mean, I know for Christians, it's like years of agony and fear and, and then they come out and sometimes it even goes okay. And it's still so much anxiety. Oftentimes it doesn't go okay. Like what was your built, your leading up to and coming out? Was it just kind of like a huge deal or was it just Tuesday? You know? Yeah, it was not a huge deal. I mean, I remember my mom was dropping me off at the airport because I was going to fly from Santa Barbara's airport

to New York to see my girlfriend at the time. And my mom basically asked, is she your girlfriend? And I was like, yeah. And then we just kept eating dinner. You know, it really wasn't, it really wasn't a thing. My dad, my parents had been divorced, so I didn't live with my dad at the time. And he and I have always been super friendly, but we just didn't really talk about my romantic life. And then I went to college and became a Christian and then eventually married a man. And so I never actually got around to talking to my dad about it until my Christianity Today article came out and he read it and he was like, oh, I didn't know all that. And I had sort of forgotten he didn't know. So that was a little awkward.

Was he like a little bum that you didn't share with him earlier or was he upset that you used to be your own defensive detective person? Yeah, I think he was just surprised that I hadn't told him. I think he was also just proud of me. My dad is like the most supportive non-believer you could ever meet in your life. He thinks my faith is great, even though he doesn't believe it. So I think just publishing, he was like, oh, look at my daughter. She's doing so well. So, so, uh, when did you come to know Jesus and what did that look like? I mean, um, coming from a very secular background in a same sex relationship. Yeah. So, well, I, um, I was accepted into Yale college, which I agreed to go to because I didn't understand what winter was. college, which I agreed to go to because I didn't understand what winter was.

And so I thought, you know, this was going to be my dream location, like the starting patch of my life, because I could finally explore big ideas, not being stuck in a cow town, like solving. And I thought, you know, I'll finally be able to explore my sexuality instead of convincing all these straight girls to sleep with me, because that's exhausting. explore my sexuality instead of convincing all these straight girls to sleep with me because that's exhausting. So I was really, I was looking forward to the future. But two, two big things happened. So one, I found out that if you go to a crappy public high school in California, you will not be the best prepared student at Yale University. So this high esteem I had in my own intellectual awesomeness just sort of crumbled. And then the other thing that happened to me was my girlfriend broke up with me in this dramatic fashion, because you know, teenagers, you can only break up in

dramatic fashion, really. And she left me for this guy that lived in a van and hadn't graduated high school. And I thought, seriously, that's who you're leaving me for? It was just very, you know, it's a real gut punch to the identity. So, you know, at the start of the spring semester, I had spent my Christmas break with her too, because I'd been kicked out of my house, which is a different long story. And they don't let you stay at school because they clean it or whatever. So I've just been stuck with her, but not with her anymore. And it was all just, I wasn't feeling great. But it wasn't like, oh, I'm going to turn to Jesus, you know, because I didn't believe in Jesus. So early in the spring semester, when I'd gotten back to Yale,

I was taking this philosophy class that went through, you know, the Western canon or whatever. And so one of our first lectures back, we were talking about Rene Descartes, the, I think therefore I am guy. So the lecturer was talking all about how Descartes built a whole proof for the existence of God off of that phrase. I remember sitting in the audience thinking that is a really stupid proof for the existence of God, which I still think. I do too.

I don't get it. It's not persuasive. Yeah. But I was sitting there and I was wondering, well, what if there's like a better proof for the existence of God out there? But sort of quickly in my mind, I was like, no, that's for stupid bigots. We don't think about God. And then I was also like, wow, but if I'm a committed atheist, you know,

I probably should know what the best arguments are. That way I can, I can think about them. Like I was so, even jokingly with my high school English teacher, I would write Satan on top of my papers instead of my name and pass them in just because I was, I was sort of aggressively not Christian. So I was kind of embarrassed by my interest. So I did what every millennial does, right? I went to my room and opened up my laptop and asked Google all my questions.

So I was just firing in religious search terms. And when someone like my roommate would come in behind me, I would slam my Dell shut like a kid caught looking at porn on the family computer and just be like, Oh, yeah, no, I'm doing French homework, which I was definitely never doing. And so I kept reading about like lots of different religious and spiritual type things, but I kept coming back to reading about Jesus. And in my mind, so this was 2004. In my mind, Jesus was sort of this caricature, like an ancient George W. Bush wrapped in a toga or something, like not very appealing, kind of a doofus or whatever.

But the Jesus I was reading about was actually really sharp. My favorite stories were when his opponents would come and ask him these questions to try to trick him and he would just shut them down. I loved that. Actually, I still sort of love it. But there was also a tenderness to Jesus that was kind of mystifying to me maybe. But really, I just sort of felt almost icky being interested in Jesus. I was like, I want to marry a woman. Like, my sexuality does not fit being interested in this character. But I kind of couldn't shake it either. So the only two people I knew at Yale who identified as Christians were these two girls who were dating each other. And one of them was training to be a Lutheran minister. So I thought, clearly they know what's going on. You know, they've got the

answer for it. So I went to them and they were like, oh yeah, it's all been a big misunderstanding. The Bible totally supports monogamous same-sex relationships. And I was like, really excited by that idea. It's not like I was even saying I wanted to be a Christian, but the thought that maybe there was an opening in the Bible for this was intriguing to me, kind of exciting. And they gave me this packet of information that I took back to my dorm room to, you know, devour. And I remember reading it and thinking, gosh, this makes a lot of sense. Like it had an internal consistency that was really appealing. But I also thought, well, maybe I should read some of the Bible verses it's claiming to interpret. So I remember Googling them. I didn't have a Bible, you know, so I was pulling them up on my screen. And as I

looked at my screen, looked at the packet back and forth, I was like, uh-oh, I don't think these do a very good job with the source material. And it's not like I was a Bible scholar. I just, I was just a reader. So you were a non-Christian looking at Christian affirming arguments and the Bible. Yes. With obviously no internal motivation to not see it their way, but just from a very, I know we're not supposed to say this, but from an objective standpoint, just not being convinced that this is the best reading of that text over there that they're trying to interpret. I mean, I'm not even sure if it was objective. I really wanted to believe the affirming arguments. Frankly, that idea was exciting to me,

but I just couldn't make it square do you remember anything specific like like an example I remember I kind of wish I still had that packet I totally threw it away I I remember a long description about David and Jonathan and I was reading through it and it seemed really compelling and then when I went to read about David myself, I was like, Oh, I kind of see what they're saying about this Jonathan thing. But it really feels like David has more of a woman problem than a man problem. I just, I mean, it's hard to put yourself back in this 16 years ago, you know, but I just remember thinking, I don't know, I, I think we might be reading too much into that. And I remember that kind of going through, I think we might be reading too much into that. And I remember kind of going through, I think the other thing that really stood out to me

was their interactions with Romans 1. That was my first time ever reading that text. And I honed in on it too, because that's the place where female sexuality is mentioned specifically. And spending some time there and just reading the context of Romans one around it and feeling like, I don't think that that's what this ancient dead guy is saying.

Interesting. Like what do I know about Paul? So, okay. So now you're, at least Christianity is viewed as not necessarily anti-intellectual, bigoted, whatever. You've encountered some affirming Christians. So what's the next step in your journey? Yeah, and I felt a little duped after reading the article. I was like, well, that's stupid.

Of course, this religion doesn't actually have space for, you know, gay and lesbian people. But I happened to be in the room of an acquaintance sometime after that. So she was a non-practicing Catholic. I remember standing in her doorway and she was getting something out of her room. And next to her doorway, there was this bookshelf. And one of my favorite hobbies is to look at people's bookshelves and judge them. I was looking through a bookshelf and she had a copy of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Now, I didn't know anything about what that book was or its reputation. Just the title of it made me want to read it, but I was also too embarrassed to ask her for it. So while she was turned the other way, not looking,

I decided to just steal it, you know, because it's not that big, it fits into a bag pretty easily. So it was actually while I was reading Mere Christianity, I don't know, sometime after that, that I was in the library between classes, and I was sitting there happily reading, finding it interesting. And just suddenly, I was overwhelmed with this realization that not only was there a God in some sort of generic sense, but I realized that there was a God who made me and who was very holy. Now, it's not like I had that vocabulary word, you know, but that idea of transcendence, of perfection, the fact that I was going to owe him an account. And I was really afraid actually, because I was a liar. I cheated on stuff. I was mean to people. I was sexually immoral. I was reading a stolen book.

It's sort of like all of the chips were just shoved into the guilty category, you know? So I sat there and I was like, Oh, this is very bad for me. Like this is bad news. But then really quickly with that, I guess, I think it was the Holy Spirit. I'm not sure I got this on my own, you know. It also became clear to me that part of the reason Jesus had come was to place himself as a barrier between God's wrath and me. And that the only way to be safe was to run towards him, not away from him. And so I remember sitting there thinking, well, like so much of my life would have to change if I became a Christian. Like a lot of things, not least of which is that

I want to marry a woman. You know, it was 2004. was like massachusetts either just legalized same-sex marriage or it was about to like i could tell the future was with me it felt like a bad time to make this decision but at the same time i was also like i can't pretend that the gospel isn't true just because it's inconvenient for my life like that's pretty stupid that's i gotta take this deal, you know, like, I'm not going to get a better deal than this. So I just sort of closed my eyes and said, okay, fine. Then I went to class. And then what? Welcome to the next video. Yeah. So yeah. The end. The end for the next 16 years. I'm talking to Rachel, uh, agnostic or Gilson.

Yeah. Yeah. So I, um, that same day I saw a little advertisement for a group, a student group called Yale students for Christ. It was going to be having a Valentine's party in a couple of days. So I decided to crash that party. And after meeting those kids like I just followed them around like a baby quail like they were who I watched to figure out how to be a Christian they were like do you want to come to church I said yes they're like do you want to come to bible study I said yes can you give me a bible study like can you give me a bible like you want to come to prayer I'll come to prayer I learned that we don't tell dirty jokes to make friends.

I learned when we hug, I learned that the music is really bad. Like everything you need to know to be an evangelical I picked up from these kids. And it was a huge blessing to me. And I think particularly to come to faith at a place like Yale, it's not like I was surrounded by perfect people, but I was surrounded by Christians who were really committed to ideas, to truth. My first, my first womb of faith in a way was, was a place that took the intellectual aspects of Christianity really seriously. And I think that was helpful for me.

intellectual aspects of Christianity really seriously. And I think that was helpful for me. And in a sense, you almost, I mean, being so intellectually wired, obviously these Christians on campus going to Yale aren't stupid, right? So they probably blew apart some of the stereotypes of being. Oh, definitely. Especially like my campus ministers, even my, the pastors I was interacting with were just so thoughtful, so studious, and not just in like a point Dexter kind of sense, but their characters were so deep and well-formed too. It was like I could feel their intellectual life, but I could also feel their virtuous life. And the combination of those things was really attractive. So going back through now, how did you process as you became a Christian, your sexuality? Like what did that processing

journey look like? Yeah. So it became clear to me, you know, the first couple months I'm learning tons about how to be a Christian, but I was like, you know, my attraction to women isn't going anywhere. And it's been 16 years since I prayed to receive Christ in Campus Crusade language, right? And my attraction to women hasn't gone anywhere. So the biggest, the biggest question of my first couple years of walking with the Lord was, what in the world am I going to do about that? Because I felt pretty secure that the Bible said no to same-sex feel confident in it. You know, it was like, okay, so there's not, I've never felt shaky on that point, but the real thing that I, that I wanted to bargain with God a lot in my first couple of years of walking with him was why, why do you say this?

It doesn't make sense to me. It's not intuitive to me at all. In fact, it's counterintuitive, like quite specifically. And I feel like one of the things that was so important for me was the Lord kind of pressing back on me and suggesting, what if the most important question isn't why I'm asking something? What if the more important question is can you trust me and that was really important for me to have to process it I ended up thinking a lot about the garden at that time you know because there's sort of this interesting situation whether you take Adam and Eve to be literal or

metaphorical it's an interesting situation to put two people in this very good place, and you're going to give them one prohibition. And that prohibition wasn't something that was actually intuitive. It could make sense to say, okay, Adam and Eve, here you are, here's your one rule. Don't murder each other. Right? Because murder feels like we get it in our gut that murder is wrong. It's messy be destroying an image bearer. Like we could really, it'd be easy to make a case, right? If someone doesn't know that murder is intuitively wrong,

like they should talk to somebody about that. It's a greed. Yeah. There's clear natural law principles. Yeah. Padding out. Exactly. But one of the interesting things about the prohibition he did give them was don't eat this fruit that's connected to being wise because you'll die.

Yeah. Even vegans eat fruit. You know what I mean? Like there's... What's going on here? You're not even killing a plant. It's just, it's just the thing that should be eaten. And, you know, I think it was interesting for me to reflect on the fact that even before sin entered the world, we're supposed to relate to God by,

by faith and not by sight. Like it's actually about him. Right. Because in order to obey that rule, you have to trust him. And that's where the serpent plays Eve, you know, and then she piles up all this data. Like she sees that it's attractive, that it would be good to eat, that his desires to make her wise. So on the one hand she has a load of her own data saying eating the fruit would be good. And the only thing she has on load of her own data saying eating the fruit would be good. And the only thing she has on the other side is God's word.

And I felt like that really did sum up how I was feeling about sexuality. All the data I was piling up, like, intuitively told me I should pursue what I desired. But on the other hand, I had God's word. And so it was the same question to me, like, has he proven himself trustworthy? Is this where you go when, I'm sure you have to field this question a lot, I know I do, the why question. I get this, you know, quite a bit. It's probably top five questions. It's like, the why question. I get this, you know, quite a bit. It's probably top five questions. It's like, okay, I see how you're interpreting the Bible. It makes sense. But why, why would God do this? Is this where you go to respond to that question? You go back to the garden or? Well, it depends on who's asking, obviously, as I'm sure it does for you. It was important for me as the first step. Now, subsequently, I feel like I have some more data around why.

I think I can see that God has a design for marriage and sexuality that cause his no's to not be arbitrary or cruel, but to actually make sense. to actually make sense. And so I think that that answer to why is really appropriate, like walking through and demonstrating that God is doing something through our bodies and through our desires. But the first answer to why that I needed was his character. I'm not sure that that's the first why that everybody would need. But for me, it was really important to go back to his goodness, that if I tried to take him out of the conversation, it was really important to go back to his goodness, that if I tried to take him out of the conversation, it wasn't going to make sense anymore. Right. No, that's good. I mean, the why questions are really, it's a great question. And I like to wrestle with it. I very much

appreciate and in some ways sympathize with people that are really hung up on that, you know? Um, but I would say, you know, God sometimes reveals to us the why and sometimes doesn't. And sometimes he doesn't. Whether something is true and good and beautiful, um, doesn't hinge on whether God has explained to us the why. And to me that, and I don't, you know, people, what, just God said so?

Is that it? Like, well, yeah, maybe. I mean, I think that's part of it. But the thing is, God said so is absolutely rooted in who he is. It's not like he just arbitrarily says stuff to trip us up. Right. His words come out of his character. Sometimes, and sometimes he, like exactly what you said,

sometimes he invites us to trust him. And rather than explaining all the details, if he explained all the details underlying every moral do and don't or whatever, like he could do that, but he clearly doesn't. He totally could. And I mean, the book of Job, I know it's kind of cliche, but I mean, the book of Job is huge in this. The whole problem of suffering and the goodness of God and God's response.

He doesn't actually unveil all the ins and outs and intricacies of that question, but says, who are you to question? It's a little more hardcore than some of the things I'm even comfortable with. Like, who are you to question, you know, what I've done in your life? I'm God, you're not. And I just think, and I don't always want to, like you said, people are coming from different perspectives, even with that question. But I think it is part of a basic step toward a genuine relationship with God to affirm and celebrate the fact that God is God, you are not, and he doesn't owe you an explanation for everything. If it's one of those like, oh, I could never believe in a God, then the Christian God might not be for you.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think it was just important for me to go through that developmentally because not having come from a Christian household at all, like I was steeped in, I own me, and no one else is going to take care of me, but me. And so to have to transition to actually Jesus owns me and he can do a better job of taking care of me than me was really important for me. I wonder if that,

going back to your original point of like, it's almost, it makes more sense coming from a very secular background, Christianity, because it's, the differences are very clear because to your point about you owning you, well, that's pretty pervasive in the church, which makes it confusing when within that context, we're called to not, to let God, you know, to understand that God owns you. And I don't know, it's a little more blurry. And I do think that some of the, some of the difficulty that people in the church can have with the sacrifices that same-sex attracted believers have to make is because they haven't had to make any sacrifices to follow Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. If it

hasn't cost you anything, it feels really embarrassing to ask someone else to pay a lot. you anything, it feels really embarrassing to ask someone else to pay a lot. Yeah, absolutely. So now you're married to a dude. I am. With a beard and everything. With a beard and a flannel and an axe. He wears flannel all the time. Dude grew up in the woods of New Hampshire. Like he is that man. He is. Wow. All right, cool. So you come, something I wanted to ask you about your story, if you don't mind me asking. Did you have, before you started to really embrace your same-sex sexuality as a teenager, did you have like bad experiences with men? Were men kind of threatening or disgusting? Did they represent patriarchy or whatever?

I mean, was it just a natural? I really, I've always liked men. And my relationship with my dad was really safe and wholesome. I had male teachers who I really liked. So I didn't have bad experiences with grown up men. I just think women are really pretty. So would you say that's a silly way to put it, but like, I do too. So in my anecdotal experience, most same sex attracted slash lesbian women that I meet, they, they, they wouldn't be able to say that they have had bad. And I'm not saying that's why they're same sex attracted. I'm just saying, but there's a host of women who have

had some bad experiences. Yeah. I mean, certainly not all, but yeah, there's a, there's a cluster for sure. I think it's higher. It seems again, I don't have a data on this or data. Is it data or data? You're the English. I say both Augustine, Augustine. I don't know. We just, you just roll with it. So I don't have any data on it, but it, it seems that with, with same-sex attracted women, there's typically more of a negative view of, of men or bad experience with men or a boyfriend or a father or something. Then with same-sex attracted men, with men, it seems to be, with men or a boyfriend or a father or something, then with same-sex attracted men.

With men, it seems to be, it's just that biologically rooted drive seems to be maybe stronger, whereas with women, it seems to be a little more complex. Again, I'm just going on anecdotal kind of story. Yeah, well, and I'm sure you've read Lisa Diamond's work. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right?

And so it does seem female sexuality is different than male sexuality in a lot of different ways. And I think that's important. It was really actually affirming for me to read her work when she talks about how men who experience same-sex attraction tend to know so much earlier in their life, whereas women actually know later. And I think that was something I had to process as a 15-year-old being like, well, if this is true, why didn't I know when I was like seven or something? But it turns out that's actually somewhat typical for women. It really, you know, two years ago when I read it, I sort of breathed a sigh of relief. Interesting.

Like, oh, I'm not that strange. Her work sent me on a whole long journey on, yeah, in the complex differences between male and female sexuality. You know, she presented a paper, it's never, I don't think it's ever been published, several years later, titled, I Was Wrong, Men Are Pretty Damn Sexually Fluid As Well. Really? I didn't see that. I've just seen the title. I've seen people reference, but it's not, it's a, it's a paper she presented at a conference. I think I want to say, let's see, that book was 2009, I believe. So I think the conference was 2014. Um, Oh, I would be really interested in that. And there's actually a whole underground, I think I can mention the name at

least there's an underground, but it's, it's, it's a non-public community of specialists in the field of sexual orientation called the Puzzle of Sexual Orientation. And they love to explore the complexity of male and female sexuality. I've written a few blogs a while back on, you know, what do we actually know about sexual orientation? And it's a lot messier than we than we think. Um, so you're married to a dude. And you know, and honestly, that's also why even when, before I was a Christian, when I was exclusively having sexual and romantic relationships with women, I never called myself a lesbian. Really? Why? The word seemed to pack all these things into my experience that didn't belong there. I associated it with being really political about your sexuality, which I didn't feel. I associated it with hating men, which I didn't feel. I associated it with this idea. And some of this is to be really masculine. The other was feminine. And I've always been tomboyish, but not. Yeah.

Butch by any sense. And so it just seems to be talking about this whole thing that had nothing to do with the fact that I just really wanted to marry a woman someday. How did you identify as queer or nothing or. Oh, not well. So that was part of the, because I became a Christian so early in my time at Yale, I never really got to explore that. So in high school, I was the only person I knew who would claim same sex attraction. OK. There was one girl, a Presbyterian's daughter, who eventually transitioned to being a man.

daughter who eventually transitioned to being a man, but that happened later. And so there wasn't really a community of LGBT people around me to help me think through labeling stuff. And then I went to Yale and so quickly became a Christian that I was really invested in that part of my identity. And so people would ask me questions like, oh, are you still gay? And I'm like, well, that's weird. Like, why would I call myself gay now? But it also doesn't feel right to call myself straight because I'm not attracted to men. So I kind of didn't know what to call myself. Actually, into my marriage, I sort of settled into the idea that maybe the word married was best. You know, sort of like, well, this is how I'm, this is how I'm shepherding my sexual desire. It's towards this spouse that God has given me.

And if he got hit by a bus and keeled over, then I would be single. And that might be the best word. The problem of course is in the midst of the church needing to have a conversation around sexuality, even if the word married felt the most comfortable and accurate for me to wear, it also obscures as much as it reveals. Like, I think it's useful for me to identify as someone who experiences same-sex attraction. So it's been complicated. so it's been complicated. And I know that same sex attraction as a label has a checkered history because of reparative therapy too.

But I learned that after I started using it for myself. So it's been kind of complicated. Yeah. So you, you and our mutual friend, Greg Coles, did a back and forth really helpful. I've sent this to so many people and they've really enjoyed it. There's dialogue about whether a Christian who holds to a traditional sexual ethic should identify as gay or simply maybe describe themselves as you do as same-sex attracted. You both hold different views on that. You know, Greg is very happy saying he's gay. You don't like that label. And yet you very

much respect each other as friends, yada, yada, yada. What are some maybe elevator pitch points of why you, and I'll just, let's just focus on you rather than making maybe a broad brush and maybe we can expand it out if we want, but why don't you think the term gay is helpful for you? So I think my number one reason is just it's ambiguity. Okay. So if I walk into a room, let's say, uh, I've spent a lot of time in campus ministry. If I walk into Boston university common room, a bunch of 18 to 22 year old, mostly non-Christians and say, Hey, I'm a gay Christian. What they're going to think I mean is that I'm attracted to women, to women, and I'm

married to a woman or want to marry a woman. And that I think that that is totally okay with the Christian faith. Because on the ground, gay doesn't just mean who you're attracted to. It means a whole lot of things. And one of them is what you're actually going to pursue. That's how it's used. No. So that's contested, right? Cause I've heard. It's totally contested. So I'm just going anecdotally for me. But I know if I, if I walk up to my neighbor and say, I'm a gay Christian, they're going to think I'm Matthew Bynes instead of, instead of me. If they're aware of the affirming, non-affirming kind of camp.

Even if they're not, I think, cause like, so I live next door to a guy named Billy Graham, who's not a believer, which I love. Are you serious? Oh yeah. It's, I mean, he's given names William Graham, but he goes by Billy Graham. He's a, he's a local high school PE teacher. I like, if I, if I rang Billy's doorbell and told him I'm a gay Christian, he would be confused cause I'm married to a man,

but he'd be confused because he'd think, doesn't that mean you're a Christian who can marry a woman? Like I would bet a hundred bucks. That's the direction he would go. Now. I'm not even sure. I think Greg and others would say, well, that's why the term can be helpful is because it, well, what'd they say? I don't know. Let me just say one might respond, uh, that this is exactly why gay should be used because, um, it, uh, kind of challenges and confronts and gives opportunity to discuss these kinds of assumptions about this box called

gay and this box called Christian and what these have to mean? Yeah, and maybe it can. One of my main roles in my life is to be a missionary. And I feel like clarity with language is part of the missionary task. So again, I actually don't think I'm not going to call anyone a heretic or I'm not going to say anyone's in sin because they choose to call themselves a gay Christian. I just, I think the ambiguity isn't worth it. And I think it's also not worth it in the church. You know, there are a lot of faithful brothers and sisters in Christ who are more conservative, who are older, who are still, we want to help them get to a place where they don't just agree with God's doctrine, but where they're able to respond compassionately to people. And I find that when

I'm speaking to that group, if I were to use gay or queer language, it's just going to throw dust in the air. It's going to create more barrier, I think, to the conversation as opposed to more understanding. And so whether I'm outward facing or inward facing, I find that gay Christian can be a little less helpful. And also, frankly, too, and this is entirely anecdotally, I found that more, it just seems to be more of us who actually came out of same-sex relationships are a little more wary about the gay Christian label. There is something about it that feels like, hey, that's the life I left. Whereas it seems like developmentally, if you had to spend years fighting internalized homophobia and shame, or if you had to spend years deathly afraid that the word gay would ever get

attached to you in a Christian context, because it could destroy everything, you know, then I think there could be a case that in the process of discipleship it actually creates some freedom and some safety to just be able to use the word about yourself and you don't mean you're going to be seeking disobedience you're just trying to be able to say hey this is true about me and it's important that it's true about me and I'm not going to be able to actually live a thriving life in Christ if I can't even acknowledge that. Yeah, that's good. That's, I mean, my, my biggest, cause I understand the

concerns of both sides. Like when I'm reading your and Greg's blogs, I'm like, you know, I'll read yours and I'm like, yes, this makes sense. I'm on. Okay. I'm in. And I'll read Greg's and I'm like, oh no. You know? And like, but I just think what you said at the beginning that we should be able to come to the table and converse about these things and challenge, like genuinely challenge one another in thinking and yet not call each other's, you know, call each other heretics or say you're in sin. Not that any Christian would ever, ever do that in this. No, no, no. That's not a type of behavior that we see all the time on the internet. The fact that we actually in 2020, the year 2020, the fact that we hold to a sexual ethic that defines marriage as a

relationship, relationship between a man and a woman that all sexual relationships outside that bond or sin, that's pretty extreme. Like, I mean, really, it doesn't really get more stricter divisions within that. Like, I know. And it's important. I think the conversations, so that's one big rock, right? What you just said is one big rock.

But the conversations that flow out of that, that need to flow out of that, we haven't been able to have out because it's been hard for people to even say that they experience same-sex attraction. experience same-sex attraction. So I'm, even though there is some fighting, even though there's some division, I'm really excited for what the Lord is going to do in terms of creating opportunity for us to talk through the things we need to be able to talk through so that we can thrive in Christ. Yeah. I just realized right now that in a half hour, I'm having a podcast with Wesley Hill, who's on the other side of this. Oh, that's great. That's a nice lineup. I don't know if they'll be released back to back, but, uh, you know, just all morning, I'm talking to some interesting people. So, um, so mixed orientation marriages. Now, even that language might be a little loaded, you know, orientation, whatever, but you're, you're married

to a guy, you're still attracted to women, not men. And yet you're, um, do you, do you, um, if I can ask, do you have attractions to your husband or is it different? How would you describe that? Sometimes I like to refer to my marriage as a same orientation marriage because we're both attracted to women. Um, which has got to be interesting when you're at the beach and you both are like, you know, we sort of, you know, yeah, we're sort of, we used to joke early on in our dating. We realized we're actually, we're sort of attracted to similar types of women. So that was kind of amusing. Um, I did have to wrestle with when, when Andrew and I started dating there, there was

a little bit of a crisis for me because I had experienced a couple relationships with women that really felt like the stuff you hear about in songs and movies you know explosive and dynamic and excited butterflies and the whole thing combustive you know and as I was getting to know Andrew I mean if you ever meet Andrew Gilson he's just like the nicest human being that's ever been in existence. He's warm and friendly and godly. So it's easy to feel affectionate towards Andrew, just in general. And so as we started dating, I realized that I maybe did seem to have an amount of an attraction to him, but it almost felt like a tiny little flame that you kind of have to shield from the wind with your hands, like compared to these combustive things.

You know, I'm looking down at this little flame thinking, I think this is real, but oh my God, is this enough to build a marriage on? And that really forced me back to the text to ask some questions like, well, what is marriage supposed to be? Is romance strong romance? Is that required? Is like a combustible level of sexual desire a deal breaker? And I think as I went back to the text, what I encountered was romance can be a part of marriage but but actually that what Christ is doing through marriage is maybe deeper and wider is actually more full than the the type of shallowness that pure sexual sexual lust can. So I actually felt like maybe I got to enter into marriage in a more sober place

than if I'd just been head over heels, you know, and dived right in. I got to actually consider, hey, is this someone that I can partner in the gospel with long term? And I don't think that people should get married if there's no sexual attraction, because sex is an important part of marriage and i don't think it would be fair when paul's discussing not depriving our spouse if i were to get married to him be like well you feel like my brother yeah you know i don't i don't think that's fair to him and that's part of the difficulty, of course, is that some of the way the church has dealt with same-sex attraction is this, a lot of unbiblical and unhelpful promises, you know, if you enter into an opposite-sex marriage, it will make you straight.

Right. Or if you enter into an opposite-sex marriage, that's sort of the proof that you believe in God's sexual ethic. And that's not the way marriage is supposed to work. That's not what it's for. So I don't ever want people to feel pressured as if marriage is the thing that they need, that marriage is going to fix them. I don't want them to feel like marriage is, marriage isn't varsity. You know what I mean?

It's like when you read the New Testament, marriage is JV. It's still good and it's still glorious, but singleness gets this whole vibrant glory of its own in the new covenant. I think some of our, we've just got a dysfunctional relationship with marriage that I think I was actually able to kind of stare in the face because of my same-sex attraction and consider more soberly and then joyfully enter into it with a little more of my eyes open. Now, I'm still only 22, so how open can your eyes be? But, you know. Not 22 now. No, no. I'm 34 now. Actually, today, of all things, this is strange. Today, I've been married for 150 months. You keep talking months. It's something my husband does. So like on the 18th of every month, he'll just quickly add up the months. And he's like, oh, today's 150. And I was like, that's fun.

Wow. I'm coming up on 19 years in May. I don't even know how many months that is. That's a lot of months, I think. That's a lot of months. How do you, I don't know, I really want to linger on this same orientation marriage thing. No, because I think, like, obvious, I'm going to say obviously, for our listeners that don't know, let me just say, obviously, these kinds of marriages have been very much abused, destructive, and dangled as a carrot in front of gay people to say, if you just get married, if you just watch straight porn enough, you know, you'll, like, it's just been done, or at least talked about in a very unhelpful way. Now, it seems like the pendulum that I see in some circles that swings the opposite direction to say, no, if you're gay or same sex attracted marriage to the opposite sex is off the tape. It's not even,

it's, you know, people, some quarters where it can be talked about as if it's like, would always be a terrible idea. Well, like people associate the traditional view of marriage that we both hold as like,

Oh, so you're mandating celibacy for, for gay people. I'm like, I don't, it's just a weird word mandate. Like, but no, like I, it's the same standard for every human. Fidelity and singleness and sexual faithfulness in marriage, you know? Yeah. I think it, to me, when you look at the scriptures and you say, hey, God's got two options. You can be faithfully single or faithfully married. Well, suddenly that creates so much less distress over my attractions because whether I'm attracted to men or women or both or neither or potted plants, it doesn't matter who I'm attracted to. I have the same Holy Spirit who's going to empower me to obey whatever life station I happen to find myself in. I think that creates so much freedom.

I don't have to be attracted to every man in order for God to equip me to be married to the one man he's called me to. In fact, sometimes it's helpful to not be. Yeah. Yeah, I know you guys. I think I have a boring normal marriage you know frankly and like you yeah um i i just and going back to our previous you know discussion where we toyed on you know the sexual the the complexity of sexual orientation even the this this is a maybe not the best word to use given it's, you know,

polysemy, polysemy? Fluidity. Yeah, how do you say that? Fluidity. The fluidity of sexual attraction. Yeah. Not orientation change. This is where I know Lisa Diamond's work

has been misconstrued saying, see, you can become straight if you're gay or whatever. And that's not at all what she's arguing for. What she is saying is within a general pattern of orientation, there is fluidity and flexibility. And it just seems that for most humans, this is going to be controversial, but it's the all general, so whatever. I think most humans are capable of a spectrum of sexual desires, given the right circumstances, the right mindset, the right relationship, the this, that, the maybe mental roadblocks.

I mean, sexuality is so complex and is much more flexible than people make it out to be. And this is where, again, I almost hesitate saying that because it sounds like I'm, oh, if you just get married to opposite sex, you'll be fine. No, if you go in not being honest with yourself, your spouse, if it's not a mature person, if you're, you know, no, it's going to be, it's probably going to be a disaster. Yeah. And you can break a lot of things along the way. Yeah. And I, but I've talked to most people in a healthy mixed orientation. I would say all, personally, that I've talked to, where it's an honest, vibrant, they've got a biblical view of marriage. They love their spouse as a human being. The sexual or any romantic and even sexual attractions are sometimes, no, are always, in my experience, cultivated to a lesser degree.

It's different on and on and on. It's not the combustion, you know, as if that's even a healthy foundation for marriage anyway. Right. But our human sexuality is more flexible than people often assume. Have I said anything totally wrong or should I delete that last two minutes? wrong or should i delete that last two minutes my anecdotal experience the research that i've read people i've talked to seems to reflect the same and i just want us to be i want us to have an open hand towards the lord you know i do feel it seems likely that most disciples who experience same-sex attraction who identify as gay will be single.

That seems true, most. But it also is clear that he calls some of us into marriage. And maybe even more controversially, some people he really does change their attractions. Which I don't even know what to do with that. But what can you do? I met this woman. Actually, I wrote about, I interviewed her for my book. She, like me, did not grow up in the church. She realized in her teen years that she wanted to identify, not just wanted to identify as a lesbian,

but rather that she was attracted to women and so identified as a lesbian and was happy there. You know you know had girlfriends went off to university british woman so that's how she says it came to know christ through a friend through an alpha course you know she would tell me the story about how she was crying on a street corner about how she realized she's probably gonna spend her whole life single but that jesus was worth it a couple years into her faith never prayed for it never asked for it. Her attractions just changed. She put it, she's like, now I'm, I'm basically a hundred percent attracted to blokes. And I'm like, I don't use that word, but you know, what are you going to do? It's her. And she's still single. It's been

like 10 years. So she's also sort of like, well, what was the point of that yeah why did you change my attractions and i'm still not married to anybody so i think that the things that god does in our life yeah they're a little messier than than we make them out to be so it doesn't mean anything because i i've got those stories too um i would say 90 of the stories are by women in my experience. Yeah, and it does. Yeah, for sure. Going back to, again, female sexuality is way more flexible, fluid. Right. Is that why? I mean, is that the answer? Did I just say the answer?

Why are they mostly women? Because female sexuality is different? Yeah, I have no idea. I mean, even the people, you know, people who write in this space, you think about Laurie Krieg, or someone totally different, like Rosaria Butterfield, or Jackie Hill Perry, married women. Yeah, you think about a lot of the men who write in this space, other than Nate Collins. Yeah, mostly not. I mean, it's just sort of funny how it pans out. You know, I don't, I really don't know. Yeah. So again, your book, uh, I just, your title is so good. Um, born again this way. Um, it releases on March 1st, which maybe this podcast

is being listened to after March 1st. I'm not sure when it's going to be released. So March 1st, your book comes out born again this way. Would you say most of the stuff we've talked about is in the book and people were like, man, I would love to get Rachel's thoughts further on this or that. Um, yeah, totally. So I wrote it to be a practical theology, you know, to help same-sex attractive believers think through things like the fact that many of our desires, um, won't change to think through questions like, well, how should I engage in same-sex friendships how should i think about singleness how should i think about marriage um yeah so because we've got a nice little body of literature that kind of covers memoir space you know like oh i grew up in the church i felt this way i need to reconcile them and we've got some good literature that covers god's sexual ethic just from like a

more straightforward theological view. Usually written by straight people. Yeah. You can say it, I get it. No, it's totally fine. Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, Sam Albury wrote one, you know. But we don't have a lot of practical theology yet.

You know, there's a difference between a book on what is prayer biblically and like Tim Keller's book on prayer. And I feel like what we need is we need same-sex attracted Christians. We need disciples who identify as gay and are following the traditional biblical sexual ethic to start writing some practical theology to help each other figure out how we're, how we're supposed to do this together. And I do feel like it's much better that you're writing a book like this than someone like me, like I, there will always be that just that slight gap, sometimes not so slight, in me kind of saying here's how to steward your same sex sexuality, versus somebody who's, you know, walking the walk and talking the talk. So although you know, what's interesting about the inverse of that is a lot of my early

readers have been straight people. And I've had so many of them say to me, man, I've never felt same sex attraction in my life. But this was so helpful in me thinking about my own desires. The best, I've learned more about marriage from my same sex attracted friends in a same orientation marriage than all of my stress. Isn't that funny? No, really. And I've more, I've learned more about same sex, non-erotic,

healthy male intimacy from my single gay Christian friends. Um, so yeah, I think there's a, there's an angle on friendship that's going on because we have to think about friendship more deeply and more carefully. Yeah, totally. Well, Rachel, it's so good having you on the show. I highly encourage my listeners to go check out your book, Born Again This Way. Something that hasn't really come up is that, I mean, Rachel, you got a great story, amazing love for the Lord. You're, you know, you work for a campus ministry, but you also are a really good writer.

Oh, thanks. Yeah. So you're kind of like my friend, Greg Coles. Greg Coles wrote a book and, you know, single gay Christian. He is a great writer. And it's a really helpful book. It's thoughtful, but it's just a beautifully written book. And yours, I haven't read it yet, but I've read your stuff on, you know,

blogs and stuff, and you're just a really good writer. So if you appreciate good writing, I would encourage you to check out the book. So, um, thanks so much for being on the show, Rachel. Awesome. Thanks. Thank you.