Theology in the Raw - 838: From Gay Activist to Gay Evangelist: David Bennett

Episode Date: January 12, 2021

David Bennett is the real deal. As he details in his book A War of Loves, David used to be a gay activist and ardent opponent to Christianity. But then one day, God met him in a pub. And the rest is history. David is currently a Ph.D. student in theology at Oxford University and a dynamic speaker, theologian, and evangelist. In this episode, we talk about his story, celibacy, Jesus, same-sex sexuality, Jesus, the gospel, Jesus, sexual desire and its intrinsic relationship to communion with God, and Jesus.  Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have on the show today, my good friend, David Bennett, and he is the author of A War of Loves, The Unexpected Story of a Gay Activist Discovering Jesus. He has an amazing story. You're going to hear bits and pieces of that in this episode. He was on the podcast a couple of years ago, where he told a more lengthy version of his testimony in this podcast because he's already told a story before on the show and many times elsewhere. I told him to just give a shortened version of a story. But we got into all kinds of super interesting conversations surrounding sexuality and God

and the church and all that jazz. So please welcome back to the show, the one and all that jazz. So please welcome back to the show. The one and only David Bennett. David Bennett. So good to have you back on the show, man. It's great to be back, Preston. And you've been on the sabbatical, is that right? Yeah, technically it was called a study break

because I didn't have like a specific one project that's kind of working on. But man, yeah, just to get out of the... We were out of the country for a little bit we're out of the routine i didn't check social media for like two months that that alone or or the news i said you know what i know that like checking all these news apps every morning i wake up and next thing i know it's been like two hours and i've gone from article to article i'm getting pulled to the left i'm getting pulled to the right i'm like i know

they're trying to suck me in and get me angry so i click on more articles so their advertisements go like it's all a machine you know and i'm like to get away from that for two months was incredible honestly i i think like i'm doing my doctorate obviously here in oxford and that's one of the things i'm probably gonna have to do for about the next nine months yeah you know it just go completely offline because it just pulls you in at every angle you know and especially the conversations we've had like things have developed there's like just constantly new things happening and you just can't constantly you know you can't constantly take that in you have to also have your other life you know otherwise you know it becomes yeah go on yeah i i

so i think for some people going completely offline deleting accounts that's possible for others it's like well i can't go completely off what i ended up doing is just getting them off your phone and when i want to tweet something whatever i'll and but i've gotten so rigorous rigorous with my schedule that i'll say like okay 4 30 to 5 on wednesday afternoons i'm gonna go on i'm not gonna look at comments or anything i'm just gonna tweet a few things, post some things on Facebook because I, part of getting information out there and people hear about a blog or a podcast I've done through social media. So I kind of have to get it out there, but just to have that disciplined where I'm not,

where I'm in complete control of the app, whereas it's not in complete control of me, but I noticed when it's on my phone, it's, it me and i'm in i don't want to be controlled anymore you know um i think the other level of it is just when you're in covet 19 lockdown or like you know you're constrained and constricted like there's not many other ways of communicating with the world you know it's like you want you're tempted to be on there because you almost want a sense of community or a sense of connection with someone and then you see that the world is actually going through incredible suffering at the same time and like you know you only have so many human resources to minister to that and so yeah, it's something that I think

draws you back to Jesus because he dealt with these kinds of conditions in his ministry in terms of like him constantly being threatened or unable to give and he would go away with the father and then come back. So I think what you've done is really great

to take that time, you know, of just, and I think it's something I'm trying to learn too that I'm not very good at yeah no no as an extrovert i'm like let's go see the people you know i love the people and jesus is like you come away with me and i'm like yeah but you're not physically present you know and so it's always that you know collective charismatic worship has always been my strength but that's not available too and so uh it's just it's very hard for certain personality types i think as well who are more the extrovert who's going to go to the community meal or

whatever it is you know rather than spend time alone but almost i feel like we're being forced into a contemplative mode which in a way is really fantastic for our spirituality you know to actually contemplate um and i feel like you know as in the evangelical circles there is a bit of an addiction to cars like an over charismatic excess you know and i'm the first person to go as charismatic as you can um but like i think we need the contemplative and maybe that's part of the message of this moment in the kingdom of God is like go contemplative, you know, it really is this year is, it really is a turning point in many ways. And we're not even,

and I say that and I don't even know what we're turning towards or away from, but most people would recognize that there's shifts happening, maybe even permanent shifts happening in culture. I mean, kind of like a post-printing press kind of moment where it's like the world that existed after the printing press is not the same that existed before. Obviously, you have internet, social media, pandemic, bam, bam, bam. obviously you have internet, social media, pandemic, bam, bam, bam. And there's just, it's, it'll be interesting to see in 20, 30 years looking back and to see the, for good or for ill, you know, the kind of unforeseen changes that came about through this, this year.

We've got a lot to talk about David and we're limited on time. I want to talk about your book, War of Loves. But for those who don't know your story i mean a lot of what you are thinking through writing on speaking on your your it's connected it's rooted in your really interesting biography so why don't you give us a maybe a shortened version um of your story the only reason why i want to shorten versions because i had you on a couple years ago you gave the long version and i know you're so you're probably tired of telling your story but it's so powerful can you give us just a snapshot maybe of an extended snapshot of of how you came

to know the lord yeah well i always start with like i have a personal hashtag hashtag fabulous made glorious and i always share that because i think it makes every gay person or queer person in the room feel a little bit more um he's like a celibate guy gonna tell his testimony well i yeah like you know it's like it really is a story of being profoundly human and like focus like you know as a young person age 14 raised an agnostic atheist home but went to a christian evangelical school uh in sydney australia you know i went to a psychic once and you know i was an atheist at that point like i wasn't raised in a christian home and to me christianity was a kind of like richard dawkins dawkins-esque thing you know it was it was really like belief in the fairies in

the sky and i just rejected it because i came out as gay when i was 14 and the world this religion is like depriving me of my rights and so i will resist it and i even remember being in a park when i was uh you know about 15 and i was with a boyfriend at the time and he handed me the small amber cross he was with a boyfriend at the time, and he handed me this small amber cross. He was from an orthodox background, big O. And he kissed me because I was complaining that he gave me this orthodox cross as a gift. And I was ranting about Paul and him being anti-women, anti-gay, and how could you ever read the Bible? And like, you're supportive of this, and why would you give me a cross? Your dad's homophobic because of his religion and you know and he kissed me and then it was crazy

because when he was kissing me like a man pulled up on a motorbike and took a large stone from like the garden bed and proceeded to like throw that against my back so i just remember he smelling the smell of petrol and the sound of like the throttle of the of the the motorbike and just this rage filling me and thinking i have this cross in my hand that's been given to me by my boyfriend and that is the source of all of this homophobia this center when we're young 14 15 year old boys you know and just to see that horrific hatred and thinking this this comes from christianity so i need to like get rid of christianity i need to like resist it and i actually made almost like a an agreement with myself that i would fight

christianity in the public sphere so that gay you know lgbtqi people can have their rights and so i was very much stuck in that polarity of like i don't reject myself and therefore i must reject christians rather than there's a deeper way where i don't have i can reject self-rejection without rejecting everybody else you know but i was very much in that mentality of if i don't reject self-rejection then i'm rejected. So I must reject everyone that rejects me. And that kind of psychological space, which is just really not healthy for anyone.

And I think one that many gay people we find ourselves in or queer people find ourselves in is where it's like, do I have to hate everyone that disagrees with me or I'm not free? And that's a really horrible burden. I think I faced as a kind of young budding pretentious gay activist the age of from fine 15 to would you say all the way up to like would you say that's a common assumption i i must hate everybody who kind of rejects me or not even reject but isn't fully on board with my ideas my worldview my my life or whatever um

i think it's like more of a temptation because it's easier it's like i'm already exhausted by this existential problem of my sexuality and working it out and i just don't have time for that like i have to delete that okay uh but I think what I didn't realize is I was still driven by self-rejection. Really? And so it wasn't until like I was in a pub at the age of 19 and there was this girl there and she just was different. Like I can't describe. She didn't feel to me like a Christian actually or at least the Christians that I grew up with. And so when I found out that she was like she told me in the pub basically, she knew God and that she was a Christian, I was completely amazed, like, and it was interesting, him with all the French theory I'd learned in my degree,

like show him that there was no God and you couldn't communicate truth with language and there's no absolute truth. So it's just all baseless. And we should just stop with this belief in God stuff and Christianity. And so I kind of launched into this debate with him. And he said, well, the problem with that is that you said there's no absolute truth and that's an absolute truth. And you just communicated that with language to doubly contradict yourself. I stormed out fabulously, you know, and just was kind of like,

I don't care. You're all bigots. And I don't need to live in your horribly bigoted world. Goodbye. And then he got into the car with my aunt and they she'd been praying for me various times throughout my journey when i was like experimenting with wicca and like neo-pagan religion and i was a performed jew for a week i got into theosophy like i was very eclectic in my personal spirituality a certain point so she was often praying for me that i would have a revelation of jesus and for 11 years she prayed so they're in the car. And my uncle said, you know, when I was talking to David, I saw the Holy Spirit over him, and he's going to become a Christian in three months time. And so exactly three months after this, I was in the pub with this, this girl, this Christian girl is a filmmaker.

And her film was put in the O's of final, she got it as a finalist into the largest short film competition in the world. So I was amazed by her work. Anyway, as we were talking, I obviously was written on my face, this kind of disgust at her faith. And she said, well, what do you think about Jesus? And I said, well, clearly a wonderful man, but certainly not like God. I think this is human-invented religion. But if anyone's going to be God, I suppose it's Jesus, but I don't, I don't believe it. I'm gay. I've read

no one Corinthians six, nine Romans one, Leviticus 18. I'm fine. Thanks. Like that's, that's stopped the conversation there, you know, protecting myself against potential hurt or pain. And she just said to me, well, that must be really difficult. I don't, you know, I mean, I really feel for you in that. And I'm like totally there for you. And it was like such an amazing, compassion, love-filled response. It was, she wasn't thinking about herself or her reputation or like anything like that. A lot of Christians would think about or try to like make it an abstract issue. Like she needs to defend the Bible or whatever. She just like yeah wow that's and like then she said like have you but have you

experienced the love of god and this question just cut right through to the my center and um experience and charismatic experience of the Holy coming up on me, like oil being poured over my head. And I heard a voice speak to me. He said, do you want me three times? And it was like this really crazy, like someone knows exactly the depths of my inner being and soul, like exactly what I want. And, uh, yeah. So I, in that kind of exchange, saw like a veil over my heart and a pinprick of light go through the veil. And just this breath kind of entered me.

And I was, I didn't know the term for it at the time, but I was being born again. Basically, like internally awakened to God and like made sensitive to his reality and presence. And I think this is one of the crazy things about like, I've done work in apologetics and evangelism and things like that. And this is just something that happens. You can't make that happen. There's no argument that can get someone there. There's no like personal quality or charism. It's like, you're just a servant of that grace and you've just been given it. And when you've given it, you just want to give it to everyone else. And that's all you're trying to do is share that love because it is the answer. It really is. And it's, it's cliche to say, but knowing the true ontology of love is the human quest. I wasn't looking for God. I wasn't looking for anything like that. I was so angry with

Christianity. Like, you know, it would flood out of me the rage so like i understand that anyone listening to this like i understand that rage i have that rage still in many ways against christendom against like i feel it and i know but that love is greater and that reality of jesus is greater the fact, like it's almost like the resurrection touched me in that part and the love of God was just poured out on me and I had this tug of war over me and heard this voice say like,

will you accept my son Jesus as your Lord and Savior? And I said, yes. And then I went home, my mom was waiting up, I had a fight with her and I had to eat my words because I said, you need to choose between the delusion you've started believing in as a Christian and like your real son standing right in front of you and so I told

her that I'd become a Christian in the pub and I'd said yes to the question and she was just amazed and told me you know I knew that this was going to happen because your uncle received a word after you had that debate that three months time you would become a Christian. Exactly three months time since you had the debate with your uncle and the Christmas lunch table. And I was just amazed that my mother already knew that I was going to become a Christian. I was absolutely a divine conspiracy. And you can read about it in the book. It's I still am amazed by it every day. Like I think about it. And I'm like, wow, Lord, like what you did in my life.

I'm only really here because of that. I'm only really a Christian because of that. And that's what remains that love that he poured out in my life. And I have to shape myself around it I have to be faithful to it and even though I fail and I'm imperfect and I'm human like everyone else it's like there's this drive within me of desire of God that has just been awakened and I a burning fire I can't it's like the prophet Jeremiah says like I have a fire in my bones that I just can't contain. Like, I have to follow him. It's like, I'm one with him. Like, I can't deny him, you know? And so it's really weird because I've gone into this Christian world with all of its weird politics and its language. And it's hard because I'm just like, but I'm just a dude that excels in the love of God and I'm just trying to tell other people about it. And I'm trying to learn how to do that well

and take the time at university and write this thesis. And yeah, so that's my story. What's the most compelling about, I mean, there's several things that are compelling about your story. The one that always kind of hits me is that you were drawn into the kingdom through a very very charismatic for lack of better terms experience right but that was not god met you through an experience

that you profoundly rejected you were an academic you were an intellect you um if somebody else told you about that kind of conversion experience you would have you would have mocked them right like but it's it's beautifully ironic that god met you through the very means that you found so silly you know um yeah and and yeah like i think the ironic thing about being an in western post-secular intellect is that you realize you're kind of unable to do anything yourself. Like you're epistemically so limited that it's almost like you're prepared for grace. It's like, you know, it's like the Augustinian thing, like Pelagius, semi-Pelagius.

Like, you know, like it's something that's a gift and it can god continues to give it and i think that's the fascinating mystery that i'm still unwrapping um yeah i think sometimes we can be very pelagian about our minds and think i can work my way into a right belief right you know and a lot of my work is kind of as an intellect is obsessed with the fact that like actually christianity of its purest form in that way with augustine is very much like queer theory it's actually very overlapped yeah which in that you can't do anything like i can't construct construct myself. I can't make myself anything. Like I need this agent from outside of me to do it.

And I wonder if that's why God's just allowing kind of Western epistemology to just collapse a bit because he's wanting us to come back to that. Um, yeah. So then that took you, you ended up going to St. Andrews university in scotland doing a master's in theology and now you're in your phd program at oxford university no no shabby institutions um and in the midst of all that you wrote your book the war of loves the unexpected journey of a gay activist discovering jesus that is a provocative title. It came out two years ago.

Almost, yeah, just about just over two years ago. How's the reception been with your book, your story? I'm sure there's been loads of, I mean, you have so many great reviews. I'm just looking at the Amazon page now, and you got like really high, almost close to five stars across the board. That's pretty crazy. I'm sure you've had some critical feedback. How's the reception been and how have you handled that? You know, what's been really interesting is like, I mean,

there may be people who haven't articulated their dislike for the book or something. And there have been some people who really not enjoyed it. But I think the vast majority of feedback I've had has just been really positive. And no, one of the things I suppose that I was passionate about is like, I don't want to write a book that outlines a kind of systematic theology of how to deal with this. Like, I want to write a book that was just like, this is my story. Like, this actually happened to me. I want to write a book that was just like, this is my story. Like this actually happened to me.

What do you do in that instance? Like, here's what I've done. You know, I've made, I've come to these conclusions and for good reasons, hopefully people can see that. And to just like really help a Christian understand or a Christian of a more orthodox or, you know, I don't know the word anymore evangelical stripe i i don't i don't know um a traditional christian even evangelicals problematic they're all problematic yeah i don't some people believe in the gospel there you go there you go and like then we can argue what the gospel is but you know someone who just doesn't understand gay people

in a believing context right picking up the book and being like oh that's what they go through and that's real that's not just a report on the media that's like fabricated that's real and like wow what gay people go through is really hard and like what would i do in that context and start to actually understand the LGBTQI plus community and then on the other side to help like the person that I was basically before I met this grace this person Jesus in the pub filled with the Holy Spirit all of it like what how would I help that person understand what Christians really want or what they're really going for and that they're really not there just to like deprive them of rights or you know oppress them or something like that but there's this other

goal this other horizon that Christians have see um which you can experience and touch and like know in that sense of personal knowledge and I think that's what I'm trying to kind of get at within the book is get those two groups to understand each other and create a bridge where there can be peace and mutual understanding and not always the same conclusions. like the gay person that can go away saying, actually, I want to follow Jesus or, hey, I don't really agree with that. But I, I respect that that's where Christians want to go and I'm not going to persecute them for it and vice versa. You know, so this is the most simple way I can put it. But I mean, would you see yourself as kind of playing the role of helping LGBTQ community understand Christianity better? of helping LGBTQ community understand Christianity better? Like what is actual Christianity versus the kind of bigoted virgin they have all these kind of thoughts about? And then also to understand Christians,

kind of what gay people go through so that they can be less bigoted and maybe less nuanced in how they think through the gay community. Is that your job title? Whenever God does something in a person's life, it's not my job title. I mean, I don't know. I mean, yeah, I'm still unraveling the gift of why God did that. Yeah.

You know, and I'm still working out what that looks like. But for me, I definitely think we're given the ministry of reconciliation And I'm still working out what that looks like. But for me, I definitely think we're given the ministry of reconciliation as Christians. And Paul says that. And let me tell you, there's a massive lack of reconciliation right now in our culture. And whether I'm called to that my whole life, I don't know, but I definitely feel called to make a contribution or give my small investment into that to make it a better conversation between the church and LGBTQI plus people. starting to see some of the fruit of that i think we're seeing a side b or you know gay christians that have taken a more traditional stance on their personal sexuality like we're starting to see that become a major thing and like some people are starting to even understand it in the secular

world not many but like some people are like oh like if you're christian and gay there's not just gay marriage as the end point like oh there's this other end point you could take cool gay people actually have the right to make a decision where they want to go isn't that wonderful that we've got to a point where people have that choice now like and i think my my new the new voice that's coming out for me is i just want the right as a gay man to follow jesus How, like, however I feel, you know, ultimately I'm called to. And, and if that means like the side B traditional view, which I think it does, then I want the right to do that. And why should that be controversial? You know,

why should that not be allowed in gay circles? Why should that not be allowed in the church? Like why is there so little support in both worlds for that? And I think I'm starting to see that in both of those worlds, there is some support, but it's limited because of all the politics that has locked us up into an unhealthy polarization that is destroying our culture, destroying our lives, and destroying like, That is destroying our culture, destroying our lives and destroying like our spirituality too. And I think what is on offer in our culture, the desire culture we have is just so superficial. Like I have lost interest.

I don't really care about Instagram. Like I don't really want that life. I want the deep life. I want the rich life. You know, and Christianity is really about following something who, someone who knew how to live life abundantly, knew how to live right at the marrow of the bone, like who, who is our master in learning to live that life. And I think that's just my heart is I just want to run after that. And I don't want to have to

make excuses for that in culture. I want there to be a space open where people can do that, whatever it looks like, whether they're gay, Chinese, what they go through. I mean, it's crazy, the persecuted church, I'm passionate about that. And that not just being something that like conservatives own, or liberals own, but like, going deeper in a third way, that breaks all of that open and so like my thesis is called queering the queer because i want to queer what has become ideological like i feel like what being queer is is now like very not queer like today i was in the bookstore and there was like this book like queer heroes and it was like a whole bunch of people in popular culture like they're just not that queer i find in the history of the church

like a holy virgin that denied like the oppressive view of women in the roman culture and said no i'm not going to get married i'm not going to be your property i'm going to be jesus's property i find that queer like and that and that, that actually doesn't have to do with all of this conversation we've had about sexuality. And it doesn't have to do with gay marriage. And it doesn't have to do with like this Western commercialization of gay identity. Like it's better. It's like more exciting. I'm like finding these things in church tradition. I'm like, Whoa, these people like blew open these oppressive structures and uncovered faith and lived it and fought for it and like gave up their lives. And to me, that's the kind of queerness that I'm attracted to.

Like that strangeness of oddity of Jesus who lived this really weird upside down Messiah life. You know, he didn't he wasn't a Messiah you would expect. And it's that kind of like queerness that I identify with as a gay man that's following Jesus. And that's the kind of queerness that I'm trying to unleash in my doctorate on some level. When you say that's the title of your thesis, so in the UK, just for my audience, doctoral dissertations, as we call them in America, they call them like a thesis. doctoral dissertations as we call them in America as we they call them like a thesis um like in America I don't know if you know this in America if you say thesis it's simply master's level on down um but the doctoral dissertation it was so secondhand to me because when I did my just my thesis in in the UK but so you're saying your your doctoral thesis slash dissertation that's

that's the title of it queering the queer is that yeah queering the queer how does homosexual celibate eschesis renew and inform the role of desire in contemporary anglican theology oh my word i mean i don't know i don't know if that's gonna sell but that's that that is a profoundly provocative and interesting title so um and're under, oh, who's your advisor? It's not. So I'm doing the Christian ethics track. So there are various different people involved in that. But the head guy was Nigel Bigger.

Oh, right. Yeah. But he's not my supervisor. Okay. An Augustinian classicist is my supervisor so i'm very much looking at augustine and like the roman empire that's where i start and i'm looking at like holy virgins because there was this huge crisis over holy virgins and how they broke open the greater roman culture of the time with how women were treated. And I'm actually kind of saying gay celibates in a way are like these virgins, that there's this overlap.

And so I construct an analogy, historical analogy out of that, of saying gay celibates are kind of like these holy virgins, because they're refusing the various ethics that are on offer and saying, I want something else. And that's not accepted or understood across the board and therefore that's highly queer in what queer theory actually says queerness is a gay celibate is more queer yeah because they're not going for the created goods of marriage they're not like conforming to the norms of either the progressive or conservative side they're saying i want an ethic that runs deeper and problematizes the whole spectrum and that's exactly what queerness is supposed to do uh yeah so that that's

that's gonna be interesting and i'm you're running that through contemporary anglican theologians like oliver donovan sarah kirkley gra Ward, who have bits of that puzzle, you know. Oliver O'Donovan talks about the created order and living righteously according to the created order. And then I talk about how that's part of gay celibacy, but also not limited to that. It's also an erotic vocation. What do I mean by erotic? I don't mean sexual necessarily, what do i mean by erotic i don't mean sexual necessarily but about like the impulse to be one you know yeah um with god and putting that first above the created good in order to witness to the created good then my other chapters sarah coakley has written about new asceticism we need a renewed desire culture in the church i'm like yes and so i talk about that related to donovan and finally graham ward's work which is really excellent it's augustinian in in pedigree and it talks about kind

of the erotics of redemption like what will intimacy look like in heaven you know it's not bisexual but marriage points to it and he has a slightly different view of how maybe gay relationships could work in with that and i'm disagreeing but i'm kind of also agreeing that the vision he has at least of erotics in the redemptive sense is beautiful like reoriented desire and saying yeah i agree with him only i just think there's a created order aspect to how we test what is truly like a purified eros you know for how we live so that's a lot to say very quickly but that's i'm trying to kind of do run through that because i think the anglican tradition really does have with its connection to roman catholic

theology and protestant theology the resources to do this better there's there's just so much rich conversation to bounce off so that's why i chose anglican theology and i mean uh at least i mean you tell me but it seems like there's also a strand of contemporary anglicanism that is integrating modern charismatic expressions of the faith as well which that that seems to fit that that's like your perfect storm right there it seems like would that be accurate or is that not at all that's accurate yeah and i think sarah cochley and her systematic theology god sexuality himself talks about charismatic experience as like a vital part of knowing desire and re-adjudicating desire um and so yeah like i think what's really great is I see that charismatic

aspect of the Spirit's work in our asceticism, in leading us to a greater fullness. So there's a quote from, I just wanted to bring up, a discernment monk, Edmund Wallstein, and he says, but if erotic love in marriage is an image of the divine love then it might seem paradoxical that the monk or the gay celibate remains celibate would it not be better to live an erotic life to the full in order to fully signify transcendent love there is something to that idea which is developed by the Christian tradition in the theology of marriage as a sacrament, a holy sign. But the life of celibacy forgoes the sign

precisely in order to show that it is merely a sign. The intensity and immediacy of erotic passion for embodied creatures like ourselves is so great that there is a danger of staying with the sign And I just love this quote. I think it like sums up exactly what I'm trying to do as a gay celibate Christian, is I'm like, the sign is not the point. The sign is meant to point to something else. Marriage is something that's passing away, but this friendship, this spiritual friendship will remain forever. And so we've made marriage the ultimate, and that's the problem in our culture. We've made sex and, you know, a kind of like sexual eros the ultimate, which is not the schema in Christianity. Christianity

turns that on its head and says, actually, sexual eros in marriage is meant to serve this other reality that's beyond it that is so beautiful and so amazing. And why are we not focusing on that more? And I think the contribution of gay celibate Christians or side B Christians is to point more like um avidly towards what jesus is has brought in the kingdom and what is coming in the future and to start that party now like rather than you know just say it's all about the sign it's all about marriage and so that yeah That doesn't deny that marriage is good. It's a sign of that wonderful future. I would say it also in a roundabout way would give – and I got to be super careful here.

So let me give a test run of what I'm trying to say here and maybe I'll go back. of what I'm trying to say here, and maybe I'll go back. It would put mixed orientation marriages in a better place as well because no longer is somebody looking for some ultimate form of desire satisfaction and then be frustrated, well, it can't happen in an opposite-sex marriage because I'm not opposite-sex attracted. But if you put marriage in its proper place and put ultimate desire, ultimate, and I'll use your language erotic passion that goes beyond the tangible physical earthly or whatever um then that would open up

more more space for mixed orientation marriages and i'm always hesitant talking about this as you know as you are too like i don't want to say yeah therefore just go find it no no that that's exactly what i'm not saying i'm not even encouraging people i'm i'm telling all people gay straight bi queer whatever to put marriage in its proper place don't try to squeeze more desire satisfaction out of it than it's designed to give you i don't know you see i i think that kind of marriage is much more queer than the kind of marriage we've upheld in a conservative heterosexual marriage and then in like liberal gay marriage i don't find those visions queer right they're really not that queer like because

they don't destabilize the attachment to that sign as the ultimate end. Does that make sense? Absolutely. That's what queer theory says queerness does. I think it's actually just holiness. What queer theory is really looking for is holiness. And holiness does that. It doesn't let you worship the creation. It doesn't let you make it an end in and of itself.

And so I think that's the kind of crazy overlap i'm finding as i go really deep into queer theory and really deep into christian like tradition and theology it's like there's this weird overlap between queerness and holiness and what it does in delivering you know i think ultimately holiness is what queerness is seeking um and and that that's in mixed orientation marriage because you're not making the image the sign the ultimate in that you're saying there's something bigger than this that completes it you know so you're totally totally on it's very difficult to get the language to describe this reality and i think that's maybe why it hasn't been articulated on a popular level well. And so I think my challenge over the next five, ten years is how do I say this in a really clear and crystalline way so that everyone can grab hold of it.

Do you like the stuff by Christopher West? Do you like the stuff by Christopher West? I'm looking at my bookshelf for the book I'm thinking of. Not his Theology of the Body for Dummies or whatever, but he's got another one that talks about this idea of human desire being penultimate and divine desire being ultimate. It sounds very much like what you're saying, but I'm just trying to connect it to you. Are you saying anything different than what he's saying or not different i'm just taking it to a whole new level by adopting queer theory as kind of the scaffolding to show that the ultimate end of queer theory is missing the mark which is not something he does but um basically would you would you sign off on everything he says in that

book more or less or christopher christopher west yeah yeah i think obviously you're probably bringing up christopher west because roman catholic theology is highly augustinian yeah i'm personally still reformed so i might not make all the moves even with the idea of marriage being a sacrament like i think it probably is but what does that even mean as a protestant like as someone you know reformed like i think it is but how do i re-articulate that without all the baggage of marriage being a sacrament in a certain way and some of the ways that's been articulated in our popular culture which i feel you know what's all about procreation you know or you know well i feel like as a you know someone

who's more reformed i'm like procreation is like a contingent aspect of marriage. It's not like what makes marriage marriage necessarily like you have sterile couples, you have this whole reality. So the whole natural law argument for me that probably he's bringing up, I'm not as crash hot with. What I love is the kind of future eschatological, like Jesus reaching in, restoring created order, like elevating created order and then exceeding it into what's coming. So there's no denial that there's a created order, that male and female in marriage is part of that. But there's a recognition it's become fallen and we need it to be renewed. but there's a recognition it's become fallen and we need it to be renewed. And then there's celibacy, which comes alongside that process and says, yeah, the created order is the created order,

but there's something much greater than it, which is coming. So it makes the kingdom ultimate. And it stops pitting kingdom against creation, which is what's currently happening in the academic world is kingdom ethics are being pitted against creation ethics or natural law theory is being, you know, pitted against the apocalyptic aspect of the gospel. So like, I'm like, no, they're both debatable. Um, like, you know, what's coming doesn't destroy the created order. It embraces it, but takes it beyond. Yeah. Yeah.

And so it's Augustine for me who I'm really pointing to. I think I stay with him because there's resources in there philosophically and ethically that I think we desperately need right now. And I think Augustine is going to become a big figure in the next kind of 20 to 30 years. I mean, there's issues in his early theology of not understanding how pleasure can be a good thing. He sees that more as a threatening thing because it kind of epistemically takes you away from God. And he's kind of anxious about that. He wants God to be the sum and bonum like the ultimate good that we look at so yeah but later in his life he does say pleasure in marriage and sex is a good

thing so later in his writings so yeah that's why you've kind of had this prudishness in christianity that i don't agree with that people say comes from augustine but if you actually read the whole whole of augustine which i haven't done but i've read yeah the good stuff like i don't think i don't think that's what he's ultimately saying yeah um so i would christopher west yes but i think even more point back to the original in augustine the original genius okay yeah this is what what what what i find fascinating about you david and i'm going to speak now not as a friend but just as a somebody looking at you as a public figure, is that when I – because as a friend, I'm too biased. I'm like, I love everything you do and say, and I've got your back, and I just learned a lot from you.

Wish we could hang out more. Too bad we're divided by the Atlantic Ocean. Too bad we're divided by the Atlantic Ocean. But as I look at you try to do it just from a distance, I'm like, I don't know a single person in this kind of faith and sexuality conversation that is so interesting and unpredictable. And what I mean by that is not unpredictable, but you're able to – I mean you identify as gay. You talk about – you write a dissertation on as gay you talk about you're writing a dissertation on queer theory and talk about the positives of that i mean you um you very much understand um progressive christianity and some of the or just progressivism as a whole and understand some of their concerns around justice and and inclusion and yet you're very orthodox

in the sense that you not only can stomach the traditional view of sexuality, you actually go out and defend it and celebrate it and aren't afraid to do that publicly. I don't know if I know of a single person who has such heightened passions for kind of both sides of this, if that makes sense. How does that go for you? Does that work well well do you have a lot of friends or no friends i can imagine people wanting you to put at least i i can imagine people wanting to grab you and just kind of put you in a little more of a box like because you don't fit in a box and people are uncomfortable with that is that at all am i describing your life at all oh like 100 i suppose it's because i'm like a captive to jesus like i'm when i sell out to either side of that i feel like i'm losing him wow oh no no no no no like there's actually like this moment i have sometimes i'm tempted by the progressive thing and everyone around me is just like going for it and everyone like is realizing that sexuality isn't just about ethics it's about

suffering too and therefore like the only answer to suffering is just give you the give the person what they want now and then they'll feel better and it's like and they'll be better and they'll flourish and then you know whereas I know there's a deeper way but I like I feel that pain I feel that suffering that is in the progressive world and how they're trying to respond to it. And like my heart bleeds for them and with them, but my heart has been captured by Jesus. And so I know there's a created order. I know male and female matters. I know that he didn't deny that. I know that he spoke to Paul through the Holy Spirit and taught us through scripture and it's a trustworthy authority and that it has to be an authority for my life on some major level, or I'm not really living as a true Christian.

Like I know both things. And I, if I deny either one of them, I'm not being who I am in Christ. So like, it's almost like, I just, I can't, like, I just can't betray that. It would be like cheating on my spouse or, but it's just unfaithfulness to me. Um, and like, sure, I'm tempted towards that. And I have days where, you know, like anyone in a marriage has their bad days, you know, and where they're struggling or, you know, we have that as I'm married to Jesus. And, you know, a lot of the older source texts of Christian tradition talk about celibacy as a walk of being married to Jesus. And so I constantly come back to the question I suppose Preston of like, how is Jesus feeling about this rather than how am i feeling about it what is this giving the reward to the lamb

for the lamb's suffering that's my question that like holds me in that place um and yeah it's true i get rejected by both sides constantly and it's painful and i wonder gosh like my humanity struggles but i prefer that depth and richness and to pay the price for it to live a life where i'm betraying that i just couldn't you know and i think that's what's really interesting about a lot of progressive gay christians is in a way there's an element of them that's like that as well like they don't want to give up on fidelity and marriage and so they're fighting for gay marriage in the church like you know so i can kind of like i feel that i know but i'm like but jesus like not just that jesus first like what does he want? And how do I give that to him? How do I give him the reward for his suffering? Um, yeah, that's just the question that has been marked on me the last

year, um, in a world of suffering. Wow. David, uh, I've got to run. You're amazing. You're a beautiful human being and, uh, just, uh, yeah, I really wish we could hang out more, man. Likewise. Well, now you're back from your sabbatical. We can have a chat or something. Well, there's I've been talking to some people in the UK about possibly, you know, doing something in this conversation there. I mean, honestly, my audience, I think, knows this. I lived there for several years, have two kids born there. We love, love, love the UK. So I'm sure. And I know you come over here quite a bit, too.

So we'll have to make it happen very soon. Your book, again, is War of Loves, The Unexpected Story of a Gay Activist Discovering. Jesus would highly, highly, highly recommend it. It's endorsed by me and forwarded by NT, right? I just had to say those two back to back daryl box on mcdowell wesley hill all endorsed it um it's a it's just a fantastic it's a fantastic book it's so well written too which is what i love it's not just a good story it's not just filled with truth but it's written in a way that's just captivating. It's hard to read it without weeping, really. Out of tears of sadness and joy and all those emotions.

It's just a really, really good book. So, yeah. David, I got to run. Thank you, Preston. I really enjoyed this. I feel like we could do another, you know, easily another hour. And I want to hear more from you next time. Uh, yeah, but it's really good to see your face. You too. You too. All right. Stay warm. Bye.

Take care. Bye. Thank you.