Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep921: Conversion Therapy to Sex Work to Affirming to Side-B Christianity: Josh Proctor

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Strap on your seatbelts, folks. We’re going for a wild ride through Josh Proctor’s beautifully complex and honest journey. He’s been through more ex-gay therapy sessionss than anyone I’ve ever met. He then fell into sex work. He then fell into Jesus’ arms and maintained an affirming theology. And then he changed this theological view to one that holds to a traditional sexual ethic. Josh is a beautiful human being with a fascinating story!  Josh serves as Director of Social Media & Spanish Translation at Posture Shift. Josh is also a Certified Posture Shift Instructor in Latin America. Josh works with the La Alianza (The Christian & Missionary Alliance of Colombia) in International Relations and equipping its campuses to reach LGBT+ people. Josh also hosts a popular podcast called “Life on Side B” with several other awesome people. Josh holds an M.A. in Biblical Literature, and his greatest passion is help people grow in their relationship with Jesus. https://www.postureshift.com/about/team/ Interested in designing the conference T-shirt for the Theology in the Raw “Exiles in Babylon Conference?” Submit your design to [e-mail] The top 3 designs will get free access to the conference (in person or virtual) and the #1 selected design will get free access to the conference and the afterparty and dinner at my house.  Designs must be submitted to Chris by November 26th. Feel free to use various slogans like “Exiles in Babylon,” “Exiled,” “Theology in the Raw,” “Raw Theology,” or other one-liners like “Allegiance to a kingdom not a political party,” “Jesus is political not partisan” or whatever. Or use no wording at all. Theology in the Raw Conference - Exiles in Babylon At the Theology in the Raw conference, we will be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will be challenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. 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 Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm here with my friend Josh Proctor. Josh serves as Director of Social Media in Spanish Translation at Posture Shift. Posture Shift is a ministry similar to the Center for Face, Sexuality, and Gender that helps foster LGBTQ inclusion in the church under the rubric of a traditional sexual ethic. Josh holds an MA in biblical literature. His greatest passion is to help people grow in a relationship with Jesus. He also hosts a really killer podcast called Life on Side B. And Josh just has a fascinating story.

He's a wonderful human being. I could have talked to him for hours, and I learned a ton, and you are going to learn a ton as well. So please welcome to the show, for the first time, the one and only Josh Brodkowski. Hey Josh, how are you, man? Good. How are you? We've seen each other never until the last month and then like twice in the last month. So I feel like I kind of know you now. Can I call you my friend?

Absolutely. All right. I know. It's been funny. I feel like for so long we've been in similar circles and around each other but now i have gotten to see each other in person so yeah yeah your name i mean we talked to the phone i think once or twice um but i've known of you for a long time and like people are always shocked like you never actually hung out with josh proctor so here we are hanging out for a third time. Exactly. Yes. And it's good.

I'm excited to be here. Well, so I have no agenda, really. I just, I've heard your story secondhand. And then again, from you firsthand, it just, every time I hear it, I've just, it's, it's pretty, pretty incredible. So why don't you enlighten our audience? Tell us who you are and the journey you've been on, man. I feel like you've lived like four lives already. Would love to dive into who Josh Proctor is. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I normally joke with people that when you talk about like the four sides that we always talk

about, like side A, side B, side Y, side X, all this stuff. Like I've been on all of them. I've been everywhere. I've journeyed a lot. And I'm the youngest of five. I'm a Florida native. Grew up in South Florida and currently live in West Palm in South Florida. Grew up in a Southern Baptist family. Kind of just one of those families that was in church all the time. None of my family, none of my, neither of my parents were in ministry, but definitely devout Christians.

And I always knew I was attracted to men. Always like, like before puberty or? Okay. Yeah. Like I was talking to someone about this earlier, like even before puberty? Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah. Like, I was talking to someone about this earlier. Like, even before puberty, I just remember being fascinated by men. Just men fascinated me. And I came from a situation very, I feel like, uniquely. Because I always hear about people who grew up in the church where they, from a very early on, they just heard really bad messages about like gay people. My church just never talked about it. So I got to the point where I thought it was normal.

I just was like, I remember telling my cousin when I saw like Justin Timberlake or something come on the TV and I was like, I want to marry him. And my cousin was like, that's not normal. And I was like, what? What are you talking about? And, um, so yeah, I grew up just kind of with this idea that I liked men and then, um, but didn't really talk about it with my, um, anyone beyond my one cousin who I'd brought it up with and then alerted me that like, right. Um, and so then, um, I was bullied a lot in elementary school. I ended up switching schools twice in grade school because of bullying. But during my first school experience,

I was called gay one day and I didn't know what that term. And so I was like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go like, well, we didn didn't have Google but I'm gonna go look it up on the internet and um I found porn and I was like oh this is me that that this is me and um my parents found it the same day oh wow and uh didn't say anything um my family is very anti- anti conflict. Like we do, we don't deal with conflict. Um, and so I knew they had seen it. They didn't say anything. And then a year later, uh, they came to me and told me, uh, we saw like what you had been looking at. We're going to take you to a therapist. Um, so I was in fourth grade at this point. Um, and so I went to my first conversion therapist as in fourth grade, um, went for multiple months. I asked my parents for a long time,

um, like for us to stop going. Finally they did. I think it was like a point where I like, it was all I put on my Christmas list. I was just like, I just want to stop going to therapy. And we did. And we didn't talk about it for multiple years. Real quick, Josh, can you explain like, why was it? Was it oppressive? Or was it just you just didn't like or what didn't you like about it? I mean, that's the early age to process. Yeah, I think for me, from what I'm like, from my experience with with a therapist, he continually kept going over what a man is what is the man's role in marriage and all of these different kinds of things and i was like

i don't even understand me i don't understand what i'm feeling i don't get any of this i don't need to be told what my role is when i don't understand myself um And so it just felt like a lot. And it just brought on a lot of shame. It brought on a lot of all of these things. And not that the person was necessarily mean to me, like he seemed like a decent man, but it was, it just really did not help in any way. And I could even see that from that age. But through school, I ended up going through conversion therapy, reparative therapy, ex-gay ministries, all of that, just all different types. I went through it eight different times throughout grade school years, all the way into early college. Some of those were,

um, voluntary. Okay. Some of them were by, um, by suggestion, like I would come to a pastor and share about being attracted to men. And then they would send me to a conference or to a counselor or to, um, a ministry. ministry. And then obviously the one time with my parents earlier on in fourth grade when I was forced to. But I mean, I think for a lot of, I describe a lot of my grade school years as kind of this pendulum swing where, you know, you're told, especially going through ex-gay ministries and reparative therapy as a kid, you're given this message, you can't be gay and Christian. And gay is defined as this gay lifestyle of sex and drugs and all of these things. And so you try to be straight because this is what you've been told that you're supposed to do. And then you don't feel it working. And I always say like one of the biggest issues with a lot of like reparative therapy and ex-gay ministries is that there's never a moment where someone says, oh, this might just not work for you. ever says maybe this is our fault it's always you need to push farther you're not working hard

enough you need to keep going um the name and story of him having to baptize himself seven times is a lot of times used of like oh what if you're just on your sixth time oh wow it's always put on the client that like you just need to do more and what does that mean to do like what do they tell you you're supposed to do more of like pray more or just it's it depends like that's the hard part with reparative therapy it's a or like we normally i think nowadays in culture we're using conversion therapy yeah term it's a wide range of like minist and organizations. There's not one type. You have reparative therapy, which was like therapists who are working. And normally for them, it was you need to dive deeper into your childhood trauma. You need to dive deeper into your

relationship with your father or the relationship with the same sex. Because if you do that, that will heal your relationship, your sexual desire for the same sex. In more charismatic ministry circles, it might be you need to pray more, you need to do more deliverance, you need to do these kind of things. So it depended on it, or even just you need to be more willing, you need to be more open to the Spirit, these kind of things. And I'm not getting on charismatic circles. I am charismatic. So just putting that out there for anyone listening. And yeah, so there's just this thing of like, you're continually trying, you're continually pushing forward, pushing farther. I felt it was never going anywhere. And so you go, well,

I'm not really good at this Christian straight thing, but I've been given two options. You can be Christian or you can be gay. Well, I'll go live the gay lifestyle. And what I was told was the gay lifestyle was sex and drugs and all of these things. So even in high school would start getting involved in very destructive life experiences and stuff and think that this was the gay lifestyle and be like, well, the ex-gay people are right. This isn't like healthy and this isn't productive. I guess they were right. I'm going to go back. So then I would go back to conversion therapy. I would go back to these things.

And so it created this pendulum swing between these two extremes and kind of led me to a place of going, you know what? I'm really just tired of God. I'm just tired of it all, really. I got to a place in high school and early college where I was really just fed up with faith. I had been kicked out of churches multiple times at that point. I had had not great experiences with family on faith and a lot of these things and came to a critical moment where I was in, um, just very separate and, um, separated from faith altogether. I ended up, um, being, um, I ended up in sex work for a while and that was a time where I, thankfully, was spared a lot of experiences that a lot of my friends went through with sex work.

But for me, it ended up being something where I saw what my friends were going through who were in sex work as well and being like, I don't want my life to be that. Um, so, um, I ended up getting help from, um, um, someone to kind of work through a lot of that. And then, and ended up, that was really the critical moment for me of coming to Christ was realizing I needed Christ in order to, um, get out of sex work and just kind of work on a lot of areas of my life and work on trauma, trauma from ex-gay stuff, all this kind of thing. And really got to a place of just going, God, I need you to love me for me. Like, I don't want to deal with this gay stuff right now, like what I believe or anything on there. I just need to be loved for me. right now, like what I believe or anything on there. I just, I just need to be loved for me. Um, so I found, um, and so I, I, I was affirming, I, I didn't really go to affirming churches, but, um, held to affirming theology. Um, during this time, you came back to, you were like a,

by that time committed Christian, or at least like, I want to follow God, but your theology was still for me. Yes. I was in Bible school at this point. Oh, wow. Yeah, I was getting my bachelor's in biblical studies. And I told you, it just goes all over the place. I do have another. Can I go back just really quickly? Go ahead. I do have another – I want to – can I go back just really quickly? I just – I'm a curious person and I hope it's okay for me to – I just – how do you – you said you got into sex work or fell into – can you – as much as you're wanting to, like how does somebody fall into that? Like is that – like I think we see it on the other side like somebody is in sex work and then we look at their past and they

were you know raised normal person wherever they but like what happened like how does somebody fall into something like that yeah i mean i think that again sex work is another thing that we talk about as one thing a monolith thing but it's really not monolith people like it looks very different in different scenarios in different situations we normally think of people standing on the street, which that can be for some people. Um, and for a lot of sex work is just done via internet. Um, for me, it came out to in high school and college. Um, I, uh, was very open sexually, um, and ended up connecting with a guy I was going to sleep with. And then he offered money. And he was like, how much do I owe you?

And I was like, oh, well, I'm just going to sleep with him anyway. So sure. Like, let's do it. And then he had a friend. And then they had a friend. And then they had a friend. let's do it. And then he had a friend and then they had a friend and then they had a friend. And, um, normally the, where like sex work turns to slavery for me is that, um, clients will end up wanting to become pimps. They'll want to control the money. They'll want to get a, uh,

portion of the money for the people that they refer. Okay. And that was where I drew the line continually. I was like, nope, no, if you refer someone, you're just referring them. You don't get a portion or you don't get any of this. Because that's ultimately where many times a client or a boyfriend or like someone will then try and become um the pimp of sex workers which so you really did fall i mean that's the right word if you fell into it like it wasn't like it wasn't intentional i mean it was intentional but it wasn't i seeking out there are people that

like go and no i'm gonna go into sex work because of a variety of reasons that they go into it. But for me, it was a very much a falling into it. And I don't I don't try to be a spokesman on what sex work is or how to care for sex workers, because I really my experience was my experience and did it for about like a year or two. And honestly, it was a process to get out of that whole thing because I think also for me, sex work gave me kind of a sense of authority over my own body and authority over sex, this area that I felt like between ex-gay ministry and faith and all of these things and how culture was dealing with LGBT issues, you know, in the 90s and the 2000s, I felt like

sex work gave me a sense of ownership over my body and over sex that I didn't feel I got in other places of life. And so that was a lot that I had to work through with in therapy and a lot of these things afterwards and not in conversion therapy or anything, but through with in kind of rehab more settings. But yeah, after that, I ended up coming to Christ. That's where I normally kind of count my coming to Christ moment was after that. And just knowing that I needed Jesus to really get my life back together where I wanted to be. Ended up in Bible school. And after that, found a man that I fell in love with. We started a relationship. And we're talking about what that could look like long term.

And during that time – This is a theologically conservative Bible school? Like is a lot of this kind of behind – like this is all kind of secret in a sense or – Yeah, I was going to Palm Beach Atlantic University down here in South Florida. Oh, yeah. down here in South Florida. And I mean, I didn't hide my relationship, but it was not very well known because of just the school and what the situation was. But I do have to say I was always in a very loving context in the university. I did not have a bad experience myself there. But yeah, after that, I had a moment where I wanted to visit a friend, um, who, uh, up in Orlando, um, who was a man of faith and prayer.

We didn't agree on queer issues or anything, but, um, we were friends. Like he, he definitely fell more into the ex gay sphere of things. Um, and my boyfriend at the time, who was not a Christian, um, uh, was not a fan of me going. Uh, and we talked about it a lot. And then we got to the point where he was like, well, you're not going. And I was like, oh, well now I am because you just tried to tell me no. Um, so I ended up going to my friend's house. And when I just walked in the door, I had an experience that I've never,

never really had before in my life. Haven't really had since where I just felt like the presence of God coming like in a way I hadn't. And it had nothing to do with LGBT issues. It had nothing to do with any of that, but I just felt this presence of God over me, showing me what God wanted to do with me and like just kind of ways that God wanted to work in my life and being like, look, this is, and God kind of saying, I can't, I'm not going to promise you a family, not going to promise you marriage, not going to promise you any of this. But I will promise you that if you give over this relationship, if you give all of this over for me, I will use you.

And this wasn't audible or anything, but it was just an intense experience that I just felt. Didn't share with anyone because I was like, everyone's going to think I'm insane. And just processed it for a good long time. And like, and what am I willing to do on this? Like, what am I, what do I do? And I still remember one day, it was, we were, my boyfriend and I were going to a Valentine's Day get together. And on our way back home from there, I just asked him to pull over and I just shared about it. And I was like, I know that you don't understand this because like there's so many barriers that like I'm Christian, you're not. And then like all of these things. But I really think I need to do this.

And he's such a loving man, still care for him so much. And he was like, if you have to do it, then you have to do it. Like he was very caring in that way. I left him after that, had one of the worst years of my life of just angry at God that he would take away the relationship that I had, feeling God had destroyed my life. God and I went through some very, very dark, hard conversations the year after I left that. And I didn't really know where to go. So I went through my last spout of ex-gay ministry. I went to a live-in program because I didn't know where to go. And my experience had happened in the house of a person who identified as ex-gay. And so I was like, maybe that's where I'm supposed to be. And I got kicked out of that house, that live-in program. And for a few years after that, I just

said, you know what, forget this. I'm not going to deal with this issue. I'm just not going to have sex, going to love Jesus, do ministry, and that's it. And so people knew about my story. People knew that I was attracted to men, but I didn't talk about it. If you were affirming ex-gay anywhere, I cut you out of my life. I was like, I'm done. I just don't want to deal with it. And that was most of my, that was my life for multiple years until then the Pulse nightclub shooting happened. And obviously I had gone to Pulse, like being in Florida. I knew people who were there. I knew someone who had died, like all of this kind of stuff.

And it was very real for me. It took me multiple years to even just go visit the site. And I just felt God saying, like, your family needs you. And I'm like, what am I going to do? I was living in Columbia, South America at the time, like doing ministry. I don't know what to do. And so then after that, I was doing my master's in Old Testament and Hebrew at Nyack College in New York online. But I went to New York for an intensive and grew up going to New York a lot. So normally when I go to New York now, I just end up sitting and people watching a lot because New Yorkers fascinate me as well. And so I was in Hell's Kitchen, like, just watching people and noticed, man, I've been all over the city and I've seen churches, but I haven't seen any in, Hell's Kitchen, which is a predominantly queer gay area of Manhattan. And so I took this to my class and my, when I'm,

and had just someone say, well, you know, gay people don't want the gospel. And I was like, so you don't go? Like, this makes no sense. Like, even first of all, there's so many things wrong with that statement, even if it was true. Like, let's just say that even if it was true, then literally most missions we shouldn't be doing. Because no one knows truly what they need in these ways. And so that lit a fire in me of going, you know what, I need to sit down and really understand my theology around this. And I need to be doing something because people are dying and people don't care. just trying to finally put my degrees to use in biblical studies and, um, understanding it and just getting to know queer Christians of all sides and, and developing more of it and getting involved in ministry. And then slowly came to a side B position, which is where I would say I strongly sit now. So real quick, so when you had that almost through an encounter with God,

but not through like a theological wrestling, it was really just God, again, speaking or impressing upon you that you need to leave your boyfriend, right? So it was first kind of more of a spiritual experience and then later was a theological journey? Yeah, absolutely. Like it was more first, I had this experience with God. I didn't have a theology. I would never have argued with someone at that time about what theology was supposed to be. It was just like, I am not supposed to have sex. Like, this is what I'm supposed to do. And then later on, after my experience in New York and my experience at Pulse, I started a theological journey of really trying to understand. Okay.

And I even, I sat down with my family at that time and I was like, listen, I might go back affirming. I might go here. I might go there. I don't know where I'm going to end up. And I'm not saying any of these are not possibilities. And so really just try to go. It's a very genuine journey. Like, because in most cases, not in every case, but people are like, well, I'm going to study the theology.

But deep down, they kind of have a position they either want to land at or need to land at for job security, the church they're working at, whatever. For you, I mean, there is no blank slate. We all have biases on some level, but for you, it really was an open-handed, like, I'm totally fine going wherever the text leads, I mean, to use the cliche. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's kind of like, obviously, yeah, I think one of the things all of us who get into biblical studies, we know you, you approach the text and you try to become aware of your biases. You try to become aware of where you know, the text is leading and, um, and all of these. And so, yeah, I, I, and I tried to, I understood I had a bias of like a childhood of going through ex-gay ministry and had previously

been affirming and so like there were multiple things that were pulling me in multiple ways um but tried to also be honest with my boss at the time and just be honest with everything and just being like listen this is where I'm at and this is where I'm figuring out and I don't know where I'm gonna go and um and and doing that And I tried not to give myself, I feel like sometimes we can put a requirement of when we need to have a final answer. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how long it'll take me. It could take me 20 years. Like it could take me a year. It could take me two months. But yeah, I mean, that's, I feel like it took a while, but even that is just a short version of kind of just where I went and kind of how I've come

to a place. And I always say, I'm still growing and I'm still learning, even theologically. I would say the fundamental questions on it have become really solidified in my life, at least. But always looking to grow and learn. And part of that has been that theological journey. Part of that has been learning what is my relationship like to the church now, relationship to this? What is my relationship to the queer community now in relationship to this? And so, whereas before, during those few years, like when I was like, I'm not talking to anyone, I'm not dealing with this. There was a part of me that had to open myself back up to the queer community, getting involved in the community again, becoming friends again with people, again, of all sides of like affirming people, site B people, wherever. And yeah,

just like trying to grow in many of these ways. Yeah. I do. I'm curious, just theologically, can we, I would love to unpack that just a little bit. Like what were some of the, I guess, theological arguments, whatever you're wrestling with, what were you reading? Can you, I would just love to get a little more insight on what your theological journey looked like. And even now, like what are, you know, maybe strongest arguments for each side, you know? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

That's a really good question because I mean, I feel like there's been just so much of, oh, I read this and then I read this and then I read this. I still remember reading your book and I was like going like that was I at that point I didn't even know the names of the sides like I was still very much like oh like I I remember I picked up your book I picked up Justin Lee's book I picked up Washington Waiting I picked up Matthew Vine's book um I even picked up like Robert Gagnon's book like all of these different kinds of books like about just and very slowly yeah um and like not even all at once like this is oh this this year this this year this this year and um and reading bits and reading all of this stuff um and i i definitely became aware that no side was going to be, like, chosen without questions that weren't completely, like, fulfilled. That no matter where I landed, there were going to be areas where I was

going to be like, I don't have a perfect answer to this. But, like, this is what I think is the strongest answer in some of, like, in some specific aspects. But I think for me, what truly began to form as I solidified my like theology around it was rather than having a theology of marriage, having a theology of community and sexuality, I would say probably one of the books that was most impactful for me was Redeeming Sex by Deborah Hirsch. Oh, yeah. I really loved her book. And just in the sense of that holistic view of sex and sexuality, that this is not even just about sex. She compartmentalizes sexuality into three parts, gender sexuality, social sexuality, and genital sexuality. And that really was impactful for me to think about this idea that sex is just one part of sexuality. It's not the encompassing

aspect of sexuality, and that there are so many other aspects. And so I think for me, that really began to form really more a theology of community that de-centers sex and marriage from the aspects of sexuality as one part of it, but not the whole. Because really, I think as we look in Scripture, we see this move, especially in Jesus, that sex and marriage are not the center point of importance for the family of God. Ultimately, family is no longer being defined biologically, as we see in Matthew, Jesus saying, whoever does the will of the Father is my brother and my mother. We see the whole thing of like, in the kingdom, we will be like the angels. Like,

there's this whole idea that, and then we even see in, I feel like in Ephesians, this thing of like, barriers are being brought down, we are all all brought together. There's this idea that ultimately in the kingdom, we will all share relationship unilaterally together as one family. None like will be more, like we will all be joined in this way that we can barely even understand now. And so I really just found this lifting up of chosen family, this lifting up of the family of God as chosen family in this radical like way that just I still am trying to comprehend. And so for me, I think that was really one of the biggest things that led me to my position. Obviously, there was like thinking on verses and about marriage and all this. I'm also a big John Salehammer fan, big on design pattern stuff and looked a lot on like what is the relationship between men and women and eunuchs and all of these things throughout the Bible. So that was a big thing for me.

But I really think it all came back to this idea of looking at what life and community is going to be like in the kingdom. And I just saw marriage wipe away, like, and just fade away. saw marriage wipe away like and just fade away and um was like why am i spending so much time thinking about marriage when there's this grander intentional community that is so much more like that is so important for god and and i think that got me so involved in intentional community in like these ideas of like wanting to find a church where I wasn't just seeing them on Sundays. Like we were in each other's lives. Um, have you experienced that Josh? Cause I, I, I mean, everything you're saying is like, I want to wholeheartedly sign off on theologically and biblically. Like it's, to me, it's just so

indisputable and, and how our culture, both our secular culture to some extent with Disney or Disney culture and, and, and the church to an even greater extent, this, this idolatry of marriage and just, it's just in the air, right?

Of Christianity, Western Christianity that, well, not just Western, but that marriage is kind of a massive goal in life. And if it doesn't happen, something went wrong. And all that, like on paper, biblically, it seems so clear to me. But then I look and it's like, but the practical piece is that Mark 10, Matthew 19, like if

you give up your family and follow me, you will get brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and fields. But it's like, okay, but is that happening? That's the biggest thing. It's like, I hope so. In my journey, I haven't experienced that always or I would say typically in the church. And I look at my own life and I'm part of the problem. I fall into the same kind of patterns that typical Christians do of probably working too much and overemphasizing biological family and all this stuff. Have you experienced it? Have you tasted the kind

of community that you envision the New Testament is kind of prescribing for us? the New Testament is kind of prescribing for us? I do believe I have, but not to the fullest that I think it's meant to be. I definitely have had people that I thought would be that deep community for me that I thought would be there for life. And through relational situations, it just didn't work out. It's been hard. And there's been times where I've wondered, is this possible? Like, I don't know. I definitely have been encouraged by looking at Paul's letters and seeing how many Paul's letters, the reason he's writing is because people aren't getting along. And he's like, here's my theological explanation for why you all need to get along. for why you all need to get along. But I have, I have like, even the church that I'm a part of now, I took a lot of when I moved. So I,

I've moved back in the past year from Columbia, South America to the States, back to Florida. And spent a lot of time told myself, I was like, I'm not going to pick a church immediately. I want to, when I decide to be part of a church, I want it to be like, unless the church becomes heretical or like, I'm moving, this is my home. And so I spent like, it was actually been a recent decision that I called the pastor and I was like, no, I want to become a member of the church. It's been almost since February, a long journey of visiting churches and getting to know this church. And this is a church,

it's smaller, but it's been a church that most of the pastors have counseling degrees over theology degrees. And so, it's a very relational, like, we're going to try and understand how we can have just radical relationships across divisions and push people towards listening. Um, and it has been an amazing situation for me to be able to be with, even in this very intentional situation where we're getting together outside of Sundays and trying and building community and a place where, um, I can be in deep relationship with pastors and, um, and trying to grow in that way of going, even there's people here that I normally would not connect with. Just normally I would not connect with, but we're learning how to listen to each other and grow together and grow in the word in these ways. And, like there's also been that way of one of my desires has been to, is to develop an intentional community, um, and being in the middle of that, um, and, and trying to grow that has not always been easy, but I believe that there's been tastes of it that I've been able to experience with the community that I have been able to,

of it that I've been able to experience with the community that I have been able to, and to develop. I do think that there are ways that we can see it. I do think it's hard because we live in a culture that that is not how we think. That is not the way we, that we operate. We emphasize our biological family and these things over like our spiritual family in importance. And sometimes I get that's needed. Um, but sometimes it's hard because our mentality is not that. Um, and I, I do think that there are ways that people find, um, community in the midst of knowing, like, it's kind of like the, uh, now, but yet situation of, like, I've talked with multiple Side B people of, like, this is one of the reasons for celibate partnerships even of that. Like, we want to build a grand intentional community, but sometimes we have to find community in pairs, even as we're building that broader community kind of thing. Of, like, how do we find community in the midst of changing it yeah kind of thing um so it's been

hard yeah i don't want to just give a and just be like yep and then it happened and then we are all happily ever after um it's been hard there's been situations where chosen family hasn't worked out as i thought it would um there's been situations where uh it hasn't worked but then there's also been really great glimpses I've been able to find to see that it's worth pursuing and pushing forward in but it has taken radical introspection of my own life of seeing how I interact with people I would say more than I ever thought it would of looking at how I interact with people and trying to grow in my listening, in my selflessness, in generosity, in humility, in these kind of ways that like has really been a dying to self than I ever thought. No, that's good.

I like that a not yet component. I think that's helpful because you could get really discouraged, right? If you have a really high, I mean, a high expectation, I just mean like a biblical expectation. And then you're constantly not experiencing that. You can get really discouraged. I also – there's just things in our Western – again, not just Western but modern culture that it just – have you read the book Bowling Alone? It's old now. It's like 20 years old.

Sociologist Robert Putnam. Fascinating how even things like the invention of the car, which led to suburban culture and commuterism. And, you know, back in the day, as in like before, you know, 100 years ago, you shopped in the same area. You walked. You were civically involved because that was just in your face and your neighbors were the people that ran the baker and butcher shop or whatever. And you get glimpses of this in Europe and I don't know if Colombia would be similar. In South America, that was my life. I didn't have a car. I walked everywhere.

You got to know your people. I got to know the man that I passed every morning at 9 a.m. And we were like, hi, once again. But those structures don't – especially if i've been to florida and it's like nobody while you drive up you know across the street to go to starbucks you know and it is too hot so i you know when i lived in scotland um it was much more everything is much more condensed and you did what it's just a walking culture everything is much more condensed. And it's just a walking culture. Everything is very tight and compact. And even churches where...

I mean, even there, it was a much more parish model to where if you're part of the Church of Scotland, you don't choose your church. You just go to the church that's part of your parish. And that kind of culture, it does definitely make it a lot easier to have this kind of messy but authentic church community whereas now it's like it's it's there's several factors that just make it extremely hard and i

don't know what to do with that i mean part of me you know wants to go all francis chan and say let's just dismantle the whole system then and rebuild it i don't know about the energy for that anymore, but you know, um, yeah, I don't know. I do think that that's true. Like, and I think that there are ways that I experienced community in Columbia that I think are similar and then different as well. Like for instance, I, I even think within the family structure in countries like Columbia, it's not odd for children to live with their parents, like into late adulthood. Like for families to live together, invite other people together. My chosen family in Colombia was a family that just let me stay with them. And it was three grown children in their 30s and their parents and me.

And we all just shared life. And even there were other family members that didn't live and me and we all just shared life and even there were other family members that didn't live with us but they we just shared life yeah and um there's this kind of radical understanding of that that if people do that that i think is normally i i think our culture is even worse on it than others um there are ways that I think that it's just a human experience in some ways that we separate. But then I think that there are some ways that, especially American culture, we do it even more. So yeah, and it's hard. I think that I've talked with multiple Side B people who like, that's one of the things I've always loved about Side B movement, like Side B Christians, because I feel like this has always been one of the emphasis of us is like, that's one of the things I've always loved about Side B movement, like Side B Christians,

because I feel like this has always been one of the emphasis of us is like, just really heightening community outside of marriage. And like, obviously still seeing that marriage is great and marriage is good. And even intentional community, you have married couples, like in my church, like there's most people are married. Like, you have this, and that's great. But then looking at how to build community beyond that, because ultimately even married people need community beyond marriage, beyond one other person. Um, and like, there's even been conversations I've had with type B people going, we, even as we change this, we have to understand it's probably not going to happen in our lifetime. Even as we try and bring inclusion for LGBT people, we have to understand it's probably not going to happen in our lifetime even as we try and bring inclusion for lgbt people we have to understand it's probably not going to happen in our lifetime

so we have to learn how to live in that now not yet yeah in many ways um that um and part of that it's not going to happen till the kingdom but we we still are working towards that because ultimately there's even things that we want to be able to bring um and i think that's been something that just celibacy has taught me that I really think has been good because I can't rely on that biological family like others can in many ways. No, that's something I've learned over the years and only more recently kind of reflected on that, how much I've learned about biblical community by hanging out with LGBT people. about biblical community by hanging out with LGBT people. Because for me, it's like, I have to remind myself, oh yeah, I have to keep, I need outside community,

I need friends and all this stuff. For many of my at least celibate gay and lesbian friends, it's like, this isn't just an add-on. This is how I flourish. If I don't have this, then I'm not going to flourish. So it's just teaching me the necessity of it. How can – I would love for you to speak into just churches. How can churches, maybe leadership, whatever, church structures, how can churches be a place of flourishing for LGBT people who are trying to follow the historic sexual ethic

or even exploring that? Maybe they're not quite there, but what are some blind spots that churches have that make it really hard for LGBT people to flourish in their churches? I mean, I guess we're kind of talking about it a little bit, but real concrete, like real concrete things that maybe churches do that make it difficult for LGBT people. And it's things they could do maybe better or things maybe they are doing that you've experienced like, hey, this church was doing this and this was super helpful for my gay and lesbian friends. Yeah, I think that kind of on this whole realm of singleness and marriage i i think one thing that um churches can many times do is just look introspectively

on that because regardless of where an lgbt person is on their beliefs on theology um like lgbt culture understands chosen family and the need for it, because even if they have a partner, many of us don't have relationship with our, like, you know, uh, family of origin. And so we don't have really family even in that sense. And so being able to create spaces where it's not just centered on marriage, like I've always said, rather than having a marriage conference, why don't you have like a relationship conflict conference because we all have relationships to grow in like we all have important people in our lives it could be a best friend it can be a partner it can be marriage it can be in all these things talking about conflict resolution talking about like

many times i've gone to marriage conferences as a, as a celibate person and been like, I relate to all of this, like all of it. Like maybe not the sex part, but the rest of it, I really like very much connect to. So I've always said like, it's not necessarily don't talk about like marriage, but talk about relationships because we all can deal with that. We all can like relate to it because we all have important people in our lives that we're trying to do life with in that way. And so recentering that I think is a major, major point. I've always said like, be able to allow people to come with questions, be able to allow people to come raw as they are, because even if

a person is committed to the traditional sexual ethic, they're probably have things that they process with, you know, that they're processing, they're trying to learn about and grow in. And I think that like, that is an absolute major thing. I also think that, um, another big thing is, um, have your leadership reflect the people that you want to, um, reach and you want to care for. Um, so even if it's not someone on your, on your staff, that's LGBT, like have people that are not married and are not like having a requirement that someday they get married, you you know like this kind of going back to the theology thing if you want to also talk about like one of the reasons why i i landed on side b over like side a or more conservative theology it's always been i felt like the others always felt fell into this same mindset of sex and marriage being the

ultimate fulfillment of how we get community. Because I found most people, even on side A, falling into that same thing. Well, I want people to thrive. And I'm like, well, you don't need sex to do that. But I think we can't have people going like, oh, they can't serve as a single pastor. We need to be able to have our staff reflect the people that we want to reach in that way. And I think, obviously, I think creating avenues for people to have listening. Like, one of the things I love that my church does that has been really amazing.

As I said, all of the pastors are, most pastors have counseling degrees. as I said, all of the pastors are, most pastors have counseling degrees. So our life groups are what we call story groups, where they're much like processing groups, where every week someone brings a story that they're processing related to faith, related to something. And no one can say, like, oh, that's wrong. Like, you need to like not do that. But it's more of connecting with where the person is at, like connecting with where they're at in their story, and you need to like not do that. But it's more of connecting with where the person is at, like connecting with where they're at in their story, and being able to like just help them process like whatever they're processing, like, and it's all confidential in many of these ways. And so being able to allow avenues where people listen, and can just come raw in these things.

I think like there's so many other things I could say, but like, I think that these are just quick stuff. I'm curious if you're, do you like identify as gay or same sex attracted? Does it matter? Do you prefer one term or the other? And my,

my, my main question is how are you received at your church? Like, is it an issue? I hate to even word it this way, but as you know, this is, are you an issue at your church? Are people like, I'm not sure about this guy or you shouldn't use the term gay or or is it not an issue yeah no i i prefer i normally prefer the term queer because

i believe that there's like there's just parts of myself that don't really fit into the term gay but i also will automatically like um um like i'll use whatever term ultimately is needed to communicate to a person. Like, if I think queer is just going to be way too much for a person, I'll just be like, yeah, I'm gay. Or I'll say I'm same-sex attracted if I feel like using LGBT terminology is going to be a hindrance. Yeah, and I mean, it's kind of hard. Like obviously I work with posture shift, so I'm working with conservative pastors all the time. So I'm always being attentive to that. But majority of my local community is actually non-Christian queer people, like, like people who don't even believe Jesus or God exist. like people who don't even believe Jesus or God exist.

And so I kind of sit in two very extreme situations where I'm not just like the only side B person, I'm the only Christian. And then on top of that, then working with a lot of conservative pastors. So I'll normally just identify as needed in these ways. And with my church and my local community, it's been super like I that was one of my biggest things was I don't want to have a church where I need to like put on a show or hide something about me. Like I want to be able to be in a church where I can identify as gay, not be an issue. I can identify celibate and not be that not be an issue. I can identify celibate and not be that, not be an issue. And also not

have a problem that most of my friends are very, very strongly LGBT. I am around like in the gayborhood of South Florida a lot. Like this is not an issue for people. Um, like that I go in these spaces. I don't want to have to hide from my pastor that I was just down in Wilton Manors the night before. Um, and so thankfully that's been a really great avenue, like place where that's not been an issue. What, what are you, what church is your church a denominational church or? Uh, yes, it's part of ECObyterian oh okay uh it's called yeah called providencia ecl evangelical eco eco it's evangelical gosh i think it's like evangelicals have an order of presbyterians or something i i do not know where is it theologically in relation

to like pca pc usa is it like in between or more PCA? I don't – like so this is where I'm learning a little bit because – so I'm – my church home has really for a long time been the Christian Missionary Alliance, which is a much more like – much different than this. And even that's where I'm ordained and everything there. Like my plan had been to join a CMA church, but there aren't many in my area. And the CMA is normally much more, does mostly like, not mostly. In my area, it's mostly immigrant churches. So we, most of our churches in our area are Haitian churches and I don't speak Creole. So I can't really go.

in our area are Haitian churches and I don't speak Creole so I can't really get it out um but um so it's very odd for me to be in a Presbyterian situation yeah but from what I understand of ECO um it is um obviously still holds to a traditional view on sexuality but it does ordain women so um uh yeah so i don't really know a lot beyond that right because i've just been encompassed in my like local church but i also like i i um the cma in columbia where i um really got involved in the cma has been ordaining women since like the 70s and so that was always like a really big thing for me was to be a place where like there would be female pastors. And so that was another thing that came up in that way. The CMA does not ordain women here in the States,

but in Columbia it does. Oh, really? The CMA doesn't here in the States? I didn't know that. Okay. No, so the CMA is very different in that every country can kind of make some of its own, like operate how it wants to. And so the CMA in Colombia, not to get off into another tangent, but like this is actually a fascinating story. The CMA of Colombia started ordaining women in the 70s because during the conflict with the rebels in Columbia, since the CMA sided with the government over the rebels, they killed a lot of the pastors of the Colombian CMA.

And so they didn't have men to lead the churches. So they let their wives. Their wives started leading the churches. And so they just started ordaining their wives. And then we got to a place where it was like 30% of all of the pastors were women. And so we're like, okay, I guess we're like, this is a thing now. So, um, so a lot of my theological journey has been in the CMA of Columbia, um, and where I was trained and brought up. So yeah. So did you go Spanish before going to Columbia oria or did you just become you learned it there

i learned it there i did not know uh anything like my dad still holds this again well not holds this against me in high school when you had to pick a language I was like I'm gonna do sign language and he was like you live in Florida South Florida you need to learn Spanish and I was like when am I ever gonna learn Spanish like when do I need it when will I ever need Spanish and so when I moved to Colombia I didn't speak any Spanish and I would call my parents and just be like crying I was like I'm never gonna learn this'm going to be like, if you had learned it in school, you wouldn't be in this situation. And I was like, I hate you so much. Because you're like fluent fluent, right? I mean, you're.

Yeah. Not just get by. I teach in Spanish. For posture shift, I teach. I've taught posture shift intensives in Spanish. Definitely, I could have room to grow because most of mine has been just like off the street. I took a few classes, but I learned off the street. So if I talk long enough, native speakers will be like, oh, yeah, you're not native.

But if I like in general language, even down here in South Florida, like this has been like a common thing, especially after coming back and stuff. Like a lot of people will end up thinking I'm Latino. Um, and then I have to remind them, no, I'm not. I'm just basic white that speaks Spanish. That's it. Hey, before I let you go, Josh, um, tell us about your podcast life on Side B, I've listened to a few episodes and it's always super thoughtful and engaging. I like that you have a diverse array of guests you have on. But yeah, tell us about Life on Side B.

Absolutely. It's grown into something I didn't really think it ever would. into something I didn't really think it ever would. So life on Side B started as part of, towards the end of that whole theological journey I was telling you about, when I had solidified what I believed, then the next question came up, how am I going to live because of this? And so I wanted to hear from Side B people about what they how they lived like mixed orientation marriage celibate partnerships intentional community like all of these different kinds of things so I started asking people for conversations and other people who heard me asking about it they were like oh I would love to hear that and I was like well I'll record it

and put it out there so everyone can hear it um And so season one started on with the theme of community and belonging. And again, really just from a more personal thing of I need to figure out who's going to be in my life till I'm 80 years old. So let me ask everyone else what they're doing. And yeah, it took off and then got some suggestions about like, you should bring on a co-host team and brought on. We're now a group of six, which is so interesting. Having a six person. Who else? I think I know all the co-hosts.

Who else? Or I don't think all of them are necessarily out. Right. Or. No, not. We have one that's not not completely out. But we have Becca Mason from Revoice. We have Henry Abudo, Elizabeth Black from Kaleidoscope, Grant Hartley from his very famous Twitter, and Ashley as well, who is not out. But the one thing I really tried to do with our co-host team was pick a team that was diverse on all the perspectives within Side B as much as possible. Difference of living situation, married people, single people.

Okay. Like different culturally and all of this. So it's very funny because we all are really great friends. We all at times have very different views we all come from different stuff and want to just side life on side b to be a place where all the aspects and conversations that are happening inside b like just let's have a family sit down and we're like anyone's welcome to listen but we're just having it like in-house in a sense of like we're not

doing the explaining work from the front end we're just kind of right doing it that's good um so yeah every every season we have a theme and so we've done community and belonging thriving instead of surviving identity inclusion and now we're going to get into resilience like how do you do this long term like what do you need to live this out long term um and it's been a super major growing thing for me especially being able to now with the co-host team like just allow everyone else to like take it on may take more of a producer role i still like am heard on it sometimes but um it's it's been growing it's been a growing process just to really learn how do we include everyone and how do we have everyone's voices heard. And we have people that are for or against many things in our community and how do they relate to people of other sides.

And so it's become a lot more than anything I ever thought it would. So it's become a lot more than anything I ever thought it would. And many times the questions that we put are like questions that I'm asking or questions our co-hosts are asking. We really try to put it from a place of like we're not experts. We're asking questions and we're actually asking from our own lives. And if anyone wants to listen as we figure it out, we're here and we're doing it. Because I just, I don't want anyone to ever think that any of us are these perfect people that have figured out our lives. Like we are all a bunch of messes. All of us are hot messes in how we live this out and trying to figure it out.

And the whole community is a hot mess at times. And I love them. And I think that's grace and that's faith and that's what the New Testament is. So it's been a fun journey and we're still on it. It sounds very similar to the vibe. I wouldn't say I like really pre-planned. It's just kind of what happened. Like I just wanted to have interesting conversations

with a diverse group of people and hit record. I would say in the last year or so, yeah, I think it's challenging for some people. I still do the same thing. But if somebody hears me, quote unquote, platforming a viewpoint they don't like or they think is dangerous or whatever, then they're like, they'll have a different viewpoint on the same topic, whatever. And yeah, so I think most people, I think, kind of get the genre of podcast or at least style. It sounds like both of us kind of have. But for some people, it's not. If you're public with your conversations, you need to be elevating truth and not error or whatever, whatever that, of course, everybody has their own version of what that looks like. But I don't know. I feel like we're just as a

society, we're trying to figure out, we're at the beginning stages of what podcasting is compared to books and film and other, you know, because yes, some, some podcasts are very much like a book, like you're promoting a certain viewpoint all the time. And that's fine, I guess. It's not the style I'm going for. Yeah, I know. I totally agree. It's always been like a thing that we've been trying to figure out how to balance is like, you know, a big thing in the Side B conversation been even like, some people see mixed orientation marriages as very ex-gay, you know, like a shadow of ex-gay because that's like ex-gay, like promoted so much. And some people don't see celibate partnerships

as anything viable. And so like, this is just one example. We've been, we've, we've had to like, kind of figure out as many, as many as guests will come on kind of situation of like, well, how do we platform this? Because this is how people are living. It's how people are living. But then this is also how people are living. And how do we do it in a way that's honoring that it's not giving a bias? It's not doing anything. And just trying to be like, allow this to be a listening time.

And in that way that is honoring to the community and we've even found ways that we've had to grow like i remember after season two people were like everyone you're having on is like american and so season three we were like okay let's have more international guests on let's see what this looks like outside of the states so and then now we're looking to look more at like asexual experiences and demisexual experiences which is something we really haven't covered so it's definitely um yeah it's definitely a growing process and just seeing how do you how do you have these raw conversations but many times people are listening to them looking for the polish situation and and, and, um, I,

I think that's even been something I've struggled with in my own life. Cause I feel like many times when you talk about faith and LGBT issues, people only want to listen to you if you're, if your life is like the model of something. And I'm like, yo, my life is not the model of my life. It's far from being a model of anything. Um, and so there's this kind of thing of like sometimes you feel like you have to be perfect in order to speak or have it perfectly in order to speak and it's like it's not this is what life and faith looks like yeah totally no yeah that's good that's good yeah the whole i'm still trying to wrestle with the

platforming thing because i do understand that there could be a certain area where you where you are publicizing a certain viewpoint that could be dangerous or bad or whatever at the same time i don't know like for me it's just this person exists their beliefs exist wrestle with it listen to it disagree with it find out you know like it just because you acknowledge the existence of this person in the viewpoint like what's the opposite like pretending like it doesn't exist or like well no just don't listen well no you have to like you have to wrestle with people listen to people people, and engage people. And even if they're 90% off, like, all right, let me know why. Do you know why? Yeah, I don't know.

No, absolutely. That totally makes sense. I think one of the things I've been trying to – because I've wrestled with that same thing, like how do you do this and how you have these conversations and trying to see like how do i have conversations where i'm showing listen these are how people are living but also recognizing that some of the ways that people live they're not common like they're not real like they're not yeah wide out there like for instance celibate partnerships we love to talk about celibate partnerships there's not many like they're really not that common can you i mean you've mentioned can you explain what that is for people that are like i'm not sure i even know what that means

oh yeah good point um again from my podcast i'm used to not explaining terms i think most people get it but yeah yeah so celibate partnerships are um two celibate people um that come together to um in a committed relationship um normally they categorize them within friendship a committed friendship sort of thing and um then um and and live life together in a way of supporting each other's celibacy um but in a sense it's creating a chosen family between two celibate people um in order like answering that question who's going to do life with me when i'm 80 years old right well here it is as i think and so it's been one of those ways that i've seen um side v people kind of find that community in a culture that does things through pairing. Um, like even as we try to change that part of

culture of what it looks like. Okay. And it's celibate because of, for theological reasons, obviously. Um, yes, absolutely. And, and it's hard cause it's like people, um, can get very confused by that of what does that mean to like be in a committed relationship when you're celibate um but it's been amazing to learn over i i spent a lot of time just finding everyone i could that was in celibate relationships was like tell me about your relationship because i'm very interested yeah and it's been interesting to learn about people's lives yeah and how they and how they live it's kind of like a heterosexual married couple after 50. I mean, in some ways.

Yeah. But I love how one person that we had on Life Unsafe, he put it, said it's almost like a monastery of two. In many ways, you're building this monastery kind of thing and you're you're doing it in in a way and um and as two gay people like learning what that looks like and i don't think it necessarily has to be two gay people i know there's been people that have talked about what would this look like normally the the celibate partnerships we see are two queer people of the same sex. Um, but categorically would not even have to be that. Um, and so, yeah, I think that there's just not been a lot done on it and

there definitely needs to be because there is a growing, it is a growing number of people, um, that are pursuing these relationships and it's been very beautiful to watch i'm going to ask the question that every straight christian is thinking like gosh this isn't just like playing with fire or whatever i mean what about all the temptation and are you just coming way too close and it's just going to end up in a sexual relationship. Like, is that, I guess, here, let me formulate my question. In your experience of getting to know celibate partners and exploring, have you seen that be an issue that they all end up just becoming an affirming same-sex relationship? Or is it not quite that way? No, it's actually not. It's been, most people that are in celibate

partnerships I know are very quiet. And it's sad because there have been a few that have become very public and then went affirming. And so normally when I have heard people say, oh, well, the couple I know went affirming, I'm like, is it the same couple I'm thinking of? And they're like, yes, it is. And they're like, yes, it is. So I do think that ultimately, if someone thinks that they're in a relationship that's not helping their celibacy and hindering it, then yeah, that needs to be a question that needs to be addressed. But I together and build each other up and look at how can I support you? Because ultimately, I don't even think celibacy was meant to be done alone. Right. Totally. It was meant to be done in community. That's why we see monasteries in the history of celibacy in many of these ways.

And so I don't think that that is necessarily a playing with fire. I also think that many of us who are celibate are used to interacting with people that we're sexually attracted to. It's kind of intrinsic in the situation. It's kind of like the question of, well, how do you as a gay person deal with the locker room? Well, we've been dealing with locker rooms since childhood. So we've gotten good at this. And so I think that normally, especially queer people, are very used to being in situations like that. And so I don't think I normally tell, like, I've talked to people that – and I think this has been like some really good advice that's come up. Like I don't think celibate partnerships are something to come into if a person thinks, well, I need a celibate partnership or else my views might change. Well, then you need to work on your views before you think about being in a relationship.

So I don't think it's going to save you from that. I don't think someone should get into a celibate partnership because they want marriage and this is the closest they can get. No, that's not what this is meant to be. It's not meant to be a pseudo marriage. It is a relationship in and of itself. And it's meant to be in something I want someone to do life with in order to build me up in my celibacy. I can't do this on my own. Let's look at how we can do this together and build a chosen family in that way and build a community in that way. And so I think it is hard because as I said, since there's not many resources in there, people are trying to figure it out as they can.

And that doesn't always look polished and beautiful. And so I think that there's grace in there of people trying to honorably figure it out. Whereas with marriage, people can find people who have been doing it for 50 years, 60 years, 70 years that are open. And there's conferences, there's books, there's all this different stuff. Celibate people don't have that. Not even really for intentional communities in general, but then even partnerships specifically. general, but then even partnerships specifically. So I think that there is grace, there needs to be grace in that understanding that people are doing something that they don't have much support on. Even just getting a pastor who doesn't know anything about partnerships, but is willing to walk with people in partnership, I think is very rare. So there needs to be grace in that,

but I don't think that that is intrinsic in it. But yes, if a person finds themselves in a situation where they're like, I'm going about it for the wrong reason, or I'm in a situation that's not supporting my celibacy, then yeah, that would be a reason to be thinking through why are you doing this and is this best. That's super helpful that really is helpful actually uh greg coles and i've been talking a lot about this i mean i've been thinking through it over the last several years people ask me the question quite quite often and um yeah so i'm still learning and you know the sexual temptation piece i i get i get the

question i think it's a legitimate question but i'm like let's be honest gay straight bi-sex whatever your orientation is if you want to have sex you're gonna have like people have been you know it's like yeah i understand certain situations more tempting than others but it's like loads of straight christians aren't living with the people they're maybe attracted to and they're still figuring out a way to have sex outside of marriage so i don't know like i i i get it but it's kind of like let's make sure that question is viewed in a broader perspective but and this is where i normally just encourage people i'm like take a posture of listening if you meet someone who is in a partnership take that posture of

listening and trying not to come in with assumptions. Ask them about it. Ask them what it's like for them. Ask them how they see it. They're hard to find and they're even harder to, like, I think it's important to ask honoring questions because there are some questions that people just don't want to answer. I think that the more we can create that posture of listening, I think the more we'll be able to create a space where people that are in partnerships will be more apt to be open and be able going back even to your question about how can churches make space for celibate people, I think that we need to start answering the question not just about theology, but about how this can be lived out viably long-term. Because if we can't give people avenues to live this out viably long-term,

then how can we expect them to do it? And most celibate people are having to do it on their own. They're not doing it with the support of their church. They're not doing it with the support of their family. They're not doing it with that. They're doing it on their own. And then the crazy part is when they figure out the viable way to do it long-term, we go, well, we don't agree with that because we don't agree with partnerships, and we don't agree with this. And then they're like, well, what do you want from me? Like, I'm doing this and I'm doing that. So I think it's really important for us to do that. And I would say the other thing is, is like this celibacy needs to not just be a conversation

about LGBT people. It needs to be a conversation about straight people. Because if we're not calling people straight people to celibacy, then we're doing a disservice to them and LGBT people. But ultimately, yeah, we need to think about viable ways for people to live out celibacy long term. And I think that partnerships is a way that people have found it and that ultimately we can't discredit that before seeing why is it that people are choosing this. There's one more. I didn't expect to go here, but I've taken you over an hour. But I would love to quantify. I don't even know if this is possible, but I would want to know how many celibate partnerships have maybe fallen into a sexual relationship versus how many celibate partnerships have actually prevented somebody from falling into a sexual relationship apart from the celibate partnership. What I'm getting at is, you know, oftentimes a sexual relationship is a way to fill the, like, you have needs for intimacy.

Sex is one form of intimacy. But when non-sexual intimate relationships are lacking, oftentimes that can feed into a desire to have a sexual relationship. So it's like how many people – let me formulate this. How many people – and again, I think it's probably impossible to figure out until, but how many people, you know, if they didn't have a celibate partnership relationship, would they have ended up having a sexual relationship because they didn't have the non-sexual intimacy kind of cup being filled? You know, you know what I mean? Like I, so I don't know. Absolutely.

I'd be curious even just not on a data point, but like get a few dozen couples in a room or whatever and just have that conversation. Because that – like you said, I mean the traditional sexual ethic, it has to not just be true. I think that's – I mean from my vantage point, I know people get upset when I say this. It seems pretty easy to see in scripture, but it's like is it livable like that you know we can't yeah we can't um give the impression that you can't really survive until you fall in love with the person of your dreams and have a romantic sexual relationship and then tell gay people oh yeah but you can't fall in love with it you know like we can't do yeah then you can't yeah this is a double standard right putting on people right in many ways and second. I have to plug my computer in because I realized it's not plugged in.

Yeah, you can do it, but I'm going to let you go anyway because I have another need to get to – Oh, you have another thing. Yeah. Then you'll just have to plug it out. Well, Josh, yeah, thank you so much for the conversation. I could talk to you for hours, bro. Life on Side B, that's the name of the podcast. Enc could talk to you for hours, bro. Life on Side B,

that's the name of the podcast. Encourage people to go there. Anything else you want to point people to or promote? You mentioned Posture Shift. A lot of people listening might know what that is, but where can they find that?

Yeah, go to postureshift.com. It's a ministry. We're a missiological ministry that trains churches on how to love LGBT people in the church. You can go to postureshift.com, guidingfamilies.com there. Yeah, and Life on Side B, we have a website, lifeonsideb.com.

Thank you, Preston. I have enjoyed listening to your podcast as well. It's super honored to be on here and look forward to deepening our friendship in the future as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Have a good day, man. You too. in the future as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

All right. Have a good day, man. You too. Hey friends, if you've been blessed, challenged, encouraged, or angered by this podcast,

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