Theology in the Raw - Sexual Orientation, Revoice, and Evangelical Approaches to the LGBTQ Conversation: Dr. Nate Collins

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Dr. Nate Collins has a Ph.D. in New Testament from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of All But Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Sexuality (Zondervan, 2017), as well as a forthcoming volume about sexuality in the Biblical Theology for Life series from Zondervan Academic. And in 2018, Nate founded the ministry of Revoice and serves as its current President. Join the Theology in the Raw community to listen to my "extra innings" conversation with Nate about his journey as a gay man in evangelicalism, including his 14 years at Southern Seminary.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Rah. My guest today is my good friend, Dr. Nate Collins, who has a Ph.D. in New Testament from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He's the author of All But Invisible, exploring identity questions at the intersection of faith, gender, and sexuality, as well as a forthcoming volume about sexuality in the biblical theology for Life series from Zondervan Academic. In 2018, Nate founded the ministry called Revoice. And he currently serves as its as its, president. And that's what we talk about in this episode. We talk all about revoice, sexual orientation, and the blessings and trials that have come with operating as an evangelical leader in the gender and sexuality space. So please welcome back to the show, the one only, Dr. Nate Collins. Nate Collins, welcome back to Theology and Arras. Why don't we start by you sharing your heart for why you started Revoice?

And maybe for those who don't know what Revoices, you know, include in that story, what what is Revoice and what led you to want to start this ministry? Oh, wow. Well, thanks for the invitation to be here. It's good to be back again. Wow, where to start. The ministry of Revoice, you know, Revoiced is our mission statement. We exist to support and encourage sexual minority Christians who hold to a traditional sexual ethic

and all those who love them so that the whole church might flourish. And basically, I just realized that there was a need for a space for those of us who are gay and Christian and adhere to a traditional sexual ethic to gather and just be together, be together in a place where we could feel that we belonged, where we could worship together, we could be taught, and we could do it and sort of not have to explain ourselves or not have to explain various aspects of our experience, but just so that no, people would know that people would, you know, understand, we'd be known. And so, yeah, we started about seven years ago.

We had our first conference in 2018, and it really was just that experience of feeling like you belonged that was what was so beautiful about it and really has been ever since. It's just a beautiful, beautiful time. About how many people come to the conferences? I've been at three, I think, and the first one. I think it was about 500, I want to say. It was bigger than I was expecting. Well, it was just over 400.

We had space limitations in that first church. And then, you know, COVID hit. So that was an issue. But, you know, we actually just had our first, our record attendance this past year. We had 650 people in Seattle this summer. So it was quite a bit larger. And so it's for same, yeah, like you said, same-sex attracted, gay, trans, Christians who hold traditional ethic. Or at least that's the, well, let me, let me.

let me be maybe have you draw it out that that's the position of revoice holding to a traditional sexual ethic but anybody can come right so tell me about what kinds of people come sure pretty diverse audience it seems we do we i would say about 75% of folks who come are some form of LGBT person majority are sexual minorities who are you know identify as gay or bisexual lesbian um we do have uh quite a bit of a number of allies that come you know so a lot of of them are parents of gay kids, whether their kids are there or not. Sometimes parents, you know, they hear about re-voice and they, maybe their children are walking with the Lord or they're, for whatever reason, not interested in attending. But the parents feel

alone in their home churches and that no one understands their experience, but they hear about revoiced. So they'll come to the conference. A lot of pastors, we have a lot of pastors that hear about our conference. And we really are, we want to be welcoming. We don't say you have to believe the same things we do or agree with us. about everything, but we really want people to be able to see what it's like when gay Christians get together and just know that they belong already. So it's a wide variety of people, gender minorities as well, civil trans folks. So it's just been really a journey to see what it's like to all gather together and figure

this out. You have a very clear and thorough statement on sexual ethics and marriage. and it's very clear, very robust, very traditional. And yet, would it be right to say you guys get accused sometimes by critics of being slippery slope to being affirming or being liberal or like, do you get those criticisms a lot? And what are the things they can't look at your sexuality statement and have a problem with that, I don't think. Sure, no. Or are they just not reading it or what's, or what concerns are often brought up? well i yeah i don't know if i read it or not i certainly haven't really heard much

interaction with it um you know early on when we first started there was a lot of vocal um pushback uh you know controversy for whatever reason people getting hung hung up on terminology or thinking that you know we maybe affirm that you know that there's absolutely nothing sinful at all about experiencing same-sex attraction and i you know there's you have to really nuance on some of these things because orientation is a really complex category. It's not a category that is directly found in scripture. And so we have to do a little creative theologizing when we think about, you know, orient desire and anthropology and things like that.

So, you know, we did get, you know, quite a bit of pushback early on. And, you know, it's still there. You know, we've done, I think, a really good job of listening to a lot of it and trying to figure out, Is there something, you know, a kernel of truth to any concerns? And we do feel like we've, you know, taking those things into account. But also, there's just so much beauty that's been birthed out of this. So much incredible community, so much, again, sense of belonging. Also that we can be faithful to what we believe scripture teaches.

And that's that marriage between a man and a woman and any sexual expression outside of that is against God's will. And so, you know, that's a big no, as Eve TouchNet likes to say, but what's, you know, where's the yes? And that's what we've really just felt really empowered and called to explore ourselves in our community is what is the yes that God has for us as sexual minority Christians who experience these desires for close intimacy and also wrestle up from time to time with the temptations that come along with that. I mean, because the language piece has become such a front and center part of evangelical debates around the topic, really in the last just two to four years, maybe. I'm still, I'm still, I guess, shocked. I was trying to the timeline, I guess. It seems like they've always been in some way, maybe even periphery to people's. Well, I've talked to our mutual friend.

Well, you know, I'm not going to mention them, but I'm sure it'd be fine. It's not like any private thing or whatever, but, you know, it's another organization that has always taken the view on pronouns, for instance, that we will use people's pronouns. If somebody in an organization doesn't feel comfortable with that, I think they're okay with that, but they're like, we're comfortable using pronouns. And they've been around for a long time, and they said nobody ever really got pushed back until more recently. They're like, hey, you guys are using people's pronouns.

What's up with that? It's like, we always have. We've been around for like 15 years, but it's only now that Christian. Christians, probably due to a few voices, influential voices, maybe stirring things up. Sure. But, you know, or even I think of like Greg, our mutual friend, Greg Coles, titled his first book, Single Gay Christian. And it's endorsed by D.A. Carson, the Fowling of the Gospel Coalition.

That's right. That's back in like 2017 when you wrote this. So, and now I wonder, I don't think he would endorse it. Now, I don't think he's, I mean, Greg has, you know, changed, whatever. But, like, I think some people who are more conservative, on the more conservative side, have more recently seen this, partly by being influenced by the voices. I think seeing the language piece as being not just peripheral or secondary or a gray area, but more of a litmus test of whether somebody is truly orthodox.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I can see how the language thing is, might be sort of a cyclical concern that people have where, for whatever reason, and various cultural things that are happening in society. They bring the language back in ways that it had been in the past and maybe stopped being, but now it is again. And it's,

again, it's, for us, we are just using language to describe our current reality. And so for those of us that revoice who experience exclusive same-sex attraction or almost entirely same-sex attraction, that is just another word for being gay. Or for having a gay

orientation or for identifying as, gay or for identifying as a gay man. Like, there's all kinds of different ways that the language works. In general, though, gay just means same-sex attracted. And so that's what we, we don't, we actually don't have a position on. If you read that Christian ethics and sexual ethics and Christian obedience statement on our website, we don't make a big deal about language. And we just say, you know, we should be language agnostic.

Okay. And so. Have you considered, you know, how do you respond to some of the concerns? I think are just very unthoughtful. I appreciate the concern and I want to think through it, but the reasoning is just like, oh, geez, I don't think you understand the conversation at all. And, you know, there are some concerns around like that language isn't neutral.

It can reinforce an unhelpful, like ontology of the human self. It can reinforce a certain aspect. of yourself that i don't know i'm trying to get inside of the argument and i'm like you know what that there's actually some interesting theological concerns here some of the concerns i probably even resonate with i just don't think the language is doing as much as they might make it out to me but it's caused me to go back and think okay well i i want to i want to receive good sound solid push back and and refine how i'm thinking through things are there as you've wrestled with concerns over language, you know, using the term gay or gay Christian, pronoun use, you know, or even like

use the term, you know, sexual and gender minority. And I've, some people don't like that, that those, those phrases, you know, because it almost tries to correlate sexual orientation with race is one of the concerns I've heard. Are there some of the, have you rethought the language kind of debate in light of some of the criticisms you've gotten? I wouldn't say I've rethought it. I've always tried to think through primarily, you know, through a doctrinal lens in terms of theological anthropology, who does God create us to be? And so for me, as a gay man, God created me to, well, created me with sexuality that was intended to function a particular way. And so when I think of what it looks like to have a non-straight orientation or a gay

orientation that immediately throws a wrench into how sexuality is intended to happen. And so when I think about implications of using a word like gay, I'm thinking about, well, what's that say about, does that say anything about my identity as a man that I would not want it to say? And I don't think it does. If all I mean by gay is that I experience a predominantly same-sex orientation, that's not saying anything about. what I think about that. It's just saying that I do. That's my reality.

And so I'm just speaking to something that it's already true. I'm not speaking it even more into existence. Yeah, it's not that I'm saying that by saying it over and over and over, can I make it more real. It's always real. It's always there. Calling yourself gay doesn't make you, it doesn't make you more gay than you are. No.

You know, and what I have heard, and this might speak to your concern, what I have heard is that by calling yourself gay, your, you're, you know, you know, what I have heard is that by calling yourself gay, you're foreclosing any potential for, you know, change to take place and be less gay. And that's really just the ex-gay narrative sort of popping up all over again because, you know, there's no expectation that we're given in scripture that a particular pattern of temptation will leave and not characterize our struggle before heaven. And so, in general, I don't see the type of temptation changing. I see maybe the degree of temptation lessening with sanctification and things like that.

But the type of temptation, I don't really see any promise that God will change the type of temptation that we'll have or that he'll remove it. So that for me, to say I'm a gay man, does not mean that I'm giving up any kind of hope that God could make that a different struggle for me. do think that I can say I'm gay and continue to hope that God will make it less of a struggle for me. But I don't think he promises that the types of our temptations will change as a result of God's, the spirit's work in our hearts. That's good. That's really good. Your first book, All But Invisible, which was outstanding, by the way, but highly recommend it. It's very theologically sophisticated in how you think through theological anthropology. I need to go back and read it when it first came out. It's one of those things. I mean, I was like a

a while ago now. Was it 2017, I think? Or 18? 2017, yeah. If I remember correctly, you, you read same-sex attraction kind of through the lens of almost like disability. Did you use that language? Or how can you? Unpack that for us because I thought that was very, very helpful. Yeah, that wasn't my primary goal in that part. I did at some point talk about different approaches to disability and theology. But the primary, point of, at least that part of the book, was to think through creatively and constructively, what, if I re-centered orientation around some other aspect of human experience, then sexuality, what would that look like? Maybe some aspect of human experience. It was more central to who God

created us to be as human beings. And I thought of the, the, the, I proposed the idea of beauty. So being oriented to a particular beauty was a more closely aligned with how God created us to function as human beings. We were not deep down at the root, you know, sexual beings. Yes, we are beings that characterize by sexuality, but I think even farther deep down, we are human beings because we are oriented to beauty, the beauty of God's image. So that was what I was doing with that. But then, you know, at some point, well, what do you do with those experiences of sexuality that don't promote flourishing? And what would that look like? And so a theology of disability is something that I thought was in some ways helpful in the sense that if God

created our sexuality to function in a particular way and then there was some experience or some phenomenon that characterized some people's experience of their sexuality that inhibited that, then that's in some sense of just a disability of sorts. And so if a gay man, for example, God created a gay man to be able to experience his sexuality in some ways in relation to another woman in the context of marriage. But if there's a gay orientation in that person's life, then that inhibits, in some sense, that from taking place. And so there's a disability of sorts.

Would you say, yeah, they said now that you, yeah, with the beauty piece, because you've gotten critiqued on that as well, I've seen at least on some social media, whatever. Yeah, there's, yeah. Some people have been like, oh, I mean, you can just stare at somebody and like, you know, in some sense, over them and be like, oh, I'm just appreciating their beauty. And that's obviously a really bad faith reading of what I'm meaning.

I encourage that person actually go back and interact with what I've actually written. And I don't want to, we don't need to focus too on criticism and all that stuff. It's just that what comes your way often comes my way as well. Sure. And probably vice versa. So, yeah, for clarity. So would you say that there are aspects of a same-sex? orientation that are that that um still reclaim that aspect of beauty i'm not wording that right but

you know what i'm yeah i know i i think what you're what i'm trying to point out is that there are aspects of our experience that that are redeemable that when god comes in and changes your life and the spirit begins to change your heart so that you have a different attitude towards your desires that you're experiencing, that those desires, when they get reoriented towards a different aim, that of worshiping God, then there's an aspect of which you experience that desire in the context of a renewed heart, a renewed mind, where the spirit's alive and at work. And rather than those experiencing those desires as a temptation to lust, you know, same Greek word, we know that, but to desire, to over-desire, you know, there's an inclination to thank

God for the personhood of the person you're noticing, for example, to acknowledge that this is a beautiful human being that God created in his image that is your sibling in the faith and whose holiness is so, so important to you. That's a different kind of an experience of an orientation than just sort of the caricature of, well, I'm, you know, admiring the beauty of this, but really, I'm secretly lusting. That's, that's a different. different reality, a different response to the spirit's work of conviction, I think. Do you, you mentioned the passing that like, say, our modern category of orientation does not map, does not map directly upon scriptural categories? The one that some people try to map it

on is the one you mentioned, epithemia, desire. An epithemia can in some context be translated even as lest. And it's usually, not always, but usually describing a negative desire. Sure. Do you not see that category of sexual desire framed negatively in scripture as a one-to-one correlation with modern sexual orientation? And if not, why not? Well, I definitely think it obviously informs the way we think of orientation or should inform the way we think of orientation. But I think what we have in scripture is a particular way of thinking about desire that the spirit is using to teach us in terms of like, you know, the power.

Their desires are really powerful. And so given combination of desire with the flesh, that's a really powerful combination. And so I think it's important to see that there are really serious things that scripture tells us about desires and that should give us caution in the terms of, you know, how we relate to our desires, what we think about them, how we steward them. But I think the New Testament also gives us reason to have hope about the spirit's work in our heart, to bring conviction where conviction needs to happen. But also, you know, in our community, there's just a lot of shame. There's a lot of shame that has been heaped onto gay Christians because of the orientation from straight Christians who are really just, and I don't use the word homophobic lightly, but really have really negative attitudes towards gay people.

And so that's our tradition that many of us grew up in. And so there's a narrative of shame that we currently, in our cultural context today, have to work against. And we have to work really hard against that. So I want to hold that intention with the biblical reality that, yes, these desires are very powerful. And often they are very negative. They're co-opted by sin, the flesh. But both are true. Yes, be wary and suspicious of sinful desires.

And also don't believe the burden, the belief, the lie of. shame that says that those desires make you a uniquely depraved individual. So, and that seems to be the cultural exegesis going on here. That cultural situation of shame, that seems to be like addressing and reversing that is probably more crucial to the work you're doing. I mean, would you say 90 plus percent of the people come in with deep shame, direct? directly from the evangelical church they grew up in? Yeah, I don't know what the numbers are, but it is so common.

And that's honestly one of the most beautiful aspects of coming to a revoiced conference. As you walk in the door, and, I mean, one of the first things you'll notice is just the joy in the room. And that's unexpected for some people, but, I mean, here you have a bunch of gay Christians who have been, you know, their history, their associations with going to church are, let me go and be in this corner over here where I can, sort of quietly exist and hope no one notices. So, you know, imagine comparing that to, you know, going to a church to a revoiced conference and you're like, oh, I, there's other people here just like me. In fact, most people here are just like me. I don't have to explain why I'm here. I can just enjoy it and experience the presence of God, experience communion with other Christians. So yeah, it's a, it's a, it's that narrative, that that combating shame that makes

that experience of the conference so powerful. I talked about this last time I think we had a conversation on the podcast, but that was probably a couple years ago. But man, that first re-voice conference, everybody talks about that, that worship set. And you can just, you can, like, it's so hard to describe. If you're charismatic, it's easy. You just, the spirit was working. Sure, sure. I would agree with that. You're like, it just, there was something that was so thick in the air of the celebration of Jesus. And the person, you know, Like you said, you can bring your whole being to worship Jesus without fear, without the shame. And it just, as a straight person, being in that room, like, I'm like, oh, my word, there is something here that's just, it's, I've never experienced before.

It was so powerful. Yeah, it's, I mean, in some sense, it's a miracle, just like the presence of God is a miracle. Anytime it shows up, it's, and it's like that every year. This past year, again, it was just incredibly beautiful. I mean, we had, I think one of the things that made it even more beautiful this year was, you know, we had an international presence on our stage. We had a speaker from Kenya. Steve Mwenda is the only.

I'm going to have him on my podcast in a couple of weeks. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, he's just a beautiful soul. I've got to spend so much time with him. But just to be able to see the movement of the spirit. and other countries around the world to bring sexual minorities, not just to bring them to himself, but to elevate them as models for living because of their costly obedience. It's just our costly obedience is just a beautiful thing to behold.

And so it was just a joy to fly Steve over and have him be part of our community, have our community be blessed by him and his teaching. And it was just, yeah, amazing. I can't wait to talk to him about what it's like being gay and Christian in Kenya. I've been to Kenya a couple of times. And that's not widely accepted. We had some really sobering conversations about that. And he and other faithful gay Christians over there are navigating a different path in some ways, many ways.

Yeah. Wow. Do you ever get going back to Revoiced, do you get criticism or maybe not, maybe I don't know to narrow it just to criticism, but what's the response from progressive or affirming Christians that are either, they either attend or sort of in the orbit of re-voice? Like, do you get criticism from that side as well? Or? We don't, at least from more affirming sexual minority folks. We haven't really gotten much criticism from affirming folks in general, for whatever reason. I don't know why. I suspect, you know, affirming sexual minority folks are really just cautious about

criticizing gay people, period. Oh, yeah. You know, there's this awareness that, you know, yeah, we have this common experience of being on the other end of rejection, judgment, stereotyping, things like that. So I think, you know, for whatever reason, I think that they've, yeah, so for example, But we were in Seattle, which is typically not a traditional space. But we didn't have any. We didn't have any protesting. We had some folks in our team who were connected with folks in the area, did some really valuable relational work beforehand to communicate with folks.

Say, hey, we're not here to proselytize from the affirming queer community. we are here to gather together and we happen to be in Seattle this year and there was a lot of goodwill in terms of just being open about that and not being seen as coming in covertly and trying to stir up trouble or anything. Yeah, you're really open and clear

with where you guys are out on things and where you're not undecided or where something we have affirming people come to the conference. I mean, it's not we're not telling people hey, we don't want you here all we're saying is hey this is what we're about and if you're interested in that and you want to meet people like that or if that's you yourself then you're you know then then come you know we're

very welcoming space in that sense have you ever had like an issue with like people on the more far right showing up not in good faith and wanting to just report on I don't know like find something to like tweet about or is that not been an issue I happened the very first conference back in St. Louis. Yeah, that was an interesting story. It wasn't me, I promise. It wasn't me. Well, yeah, you were, yeah. It didn't end well for the person who did do it. And that's a different story. But yeah, no, we haven't really had any skeptics in that sense. I have known about them afterwards, but I haven't met them and didn't really know about them while they were there. Yeah, okay. How about what's been the greatest joy highlight?

the thing that you just wake up celebrating from your ministry at Revoice over the years. And then I'm going to ask the flip side, what's been maybe the biggest challenge? I would say hands down, seeing people who felt so downtrodden in their faith. And we're talking people who didn't feel like God could love them, didn't feel like they deserved to be a child of God. And there's a sense in which none of us deserves grace. and yet all of us are created image bearers whom God loves. But seeing people who had just really struggled and really could not believe that, but seeing them come to the conference or come to a local chapter and realize,

oh, God does love me. God is delighted in me. God has made me his shining treasure. just seeing people really catch that glimpse for the first time really for many of them and come away with a faith that feels not just something that they can make an excuse for but something that they actually believe deep down in their heart that is just seeing that happen over and over and over I mean in some senses it's a tragedy how often it happens it means there's that many people out there who have believed

believed the lie that they learned from cultural Christianity that gay people are a special kind of sinner and that that makes them beyond the reach or God must have to love them extra hard. Anyway, that is seeing people come to the conference and realize that that is not true. And the fact that the reverse is true, the God, the lights in them is just so amazing. How about the challenge? Actually, before you answer that, like hands down. that's been what keeps me going in my ministry.

You know, there's just, you know, people say, man, how do you deal with all the criticism? This is, because some people, when they look at our ministry, all they see is the criticism or they hear it in their churches or, you know, my name is not, you know, is kind of dragged to the mud in some circles. And people are like, how do you do it? I'm like, all that criticism and stuff, first of all, it's just, just fringe noise from people don't know you know, you know.

Sure, sure. social media account that I know if it's a real person and who knows what, you know, maybe they're in a terrible marriage or they're no friends, you know, maybe they're dealing with depression. I don't know what they've gone through, you know, so I, but it's like that criticism is so snuffed out by the overwhelming stories like the ones you're hearing, you know, and more recently, like, beautiful stories of parents with LGBT kids being reconciled after years of just relational tension. And it could be something so simple

as like a parent after 20 years maybe grabbing their kid and say, I'm sorry for the things I said or something really simple. I don't want to say it undoes 20 years of relational chasm, you know? But man, I've seen a little bit of grace go a long way and doing an amazing work, you know. All right, so what about, yeah,

what are the things that you wish you had not had to experience over the years? Oh, I mean, I think one of the hardest things is loss. What do you mean? So lost in the sense of relationships you had or that I've had in the past that didn't really survive this journey of starting this ministry, of beginning this movement of sorts. and so there's there's aspects of of that that have been really hard to just to sit with it it's not something I experience a lot anymore but that does come up from time to time I would say it's difficult

it's difficult to lead such a diverse group of people you know revoice we have a very particular understanding of what flourishing looks like and we're trying to figure out you know sometimes what that looks like for you know it's people who are old to traditional sexual ethic in general. But there's a direction we're going. We're trying to see where God is at work. And it can be difficult sometimes to think through what that looks like for all the folks who are gay and also traditionalist. But, you know, it's good to see God put people and put leaders in our paths who are following God and are living that faithful obedience.

And so in some ways, it's really exciting to see, even as there's uncertainty, see where God's leading and see concrete paths forward for that. So kind of a vaguer answer. I think the hardest thing would be just the experience of loss along the way, though. Yeah, that's, I mean, any ministry, I feel like especially church planning. And I don't know, a single church planner that hasn't had serious relational, unforeseen kind of relational losses. and those are those are tough um do you do you have any for lack of better terms like ex gay type speakers or stories of people that have experienced orientation change um is that something that uh you would not really want to platform or you just maybe don't know anybody where

there's been lasting you know i'm asking really personally because i get i get i get critiqued on that Yeah. By, you know, I share, you know, when we do conferences and stuff, I'll often have people share their stories. It's always somebody within a traditional sexual ethic. My kind of parameters are, you know, I want somebody who believes in a traditional sexual ethic. And on the other side, I wouldn't, I don't know, and I've wrestled with this, but I haven't had somebody really aggressively promote a kind of ex-gay. I used to be gay. no, I'm not narrative.

And I've gotten critique for that. And I have to ask myself, well, why? Why wouldn't I? Real quick, because I want to hear your thoughts on it. For me, it's, well, two things. One, that narrative has historically done, in my opinion, has done more harm than good. And number two, it's more out of theological concerns because the types of people that share of those stories typically aren't like, in my experience, aren't like, hey, this is, you know,

this is my experience. I know it's really unique. It's not everybody's experience. It's not most of people's experience. You don't need this experience to be faithful. Like, I would be totally fun with that, but usually it's kind of framed in a way of this is my experience. And whether it's said that in so many words, it's kind of implied that, and if this isn't your experience, you're actually not being a fully faithful Christian. I was like, I've got, the same theological concerns over that that Paul had with the Galatians, you know, like add into the gospel or make, you know, and I'm like, ooh, that's, to me, is a really dangerous theology.

If it's promoted as a, the straight camp. Yeah. So, I don't know. I just, that's where I've been thinking through, you know. Yeah. What's been your experience at that side of the conversation? Yeah. So I had pretty limited exposure to the ex-gay world.

For whatever reason, I just didn't interface with it that much early on. I did get connected with Exodus International towards the end before it shut down. And I never really encountered anybody, ironically, at Exodus, who said that they had actually changed. Even in my last- Isn't that what Exodus is? Well, it was early on. I mean, we're talking in 2013, 2012, 2013. That's right when it closed. Right when it shut down.

And so at that point, I don't know if there was anybody who was saying, now, again, they had been. They had a whole organizational history of a motto, change as possible, things like that. All that being said, what I'm trying to say is I've not actually met someone who says that they've fully changed in the sense that they were gay and now they were fully straight. Like they were exclusively attracted to the same sex. they are really attracted to the opposite sex. Exactly. No more same sex attract. Yeah.

And I'm not saying that doesn't happen. God can do anything. And I think you would agree. But the issue is that I haven't really seen that kind of a, again, recently in the last 10, 15 years. I just don't know anybody. So, you know, you ask, would you platform somebody who is like that? I guess. But again, it would have to be, like you said, with the caveat that.

this is something that God did in my life. He might not do it in your life. And at that point, I'm just like, well, what's, why would we platform something like that? There's a lot of people who have been made to feel ashamed by their, whatever Christian upbringing they were in or their church. Again, it's a shame for their orientation. I don't see the pastoral purpose of platforming that kind of a story, unless it's just in the context of, you know, highlighting the power of God to be able to change in general. But again, there's just, it doesn't seem like there's much wisdom in doing that in that kind of a context. I'm not trying to say that God can, like, I'm not trying to limit God or limit someone's

story or the impact of their story. It seems like even if it was presented in a really gracious, thoughtful way, I still feel like that would be really triggering to a lot of people in your. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Not triggering in a, oh, they're being too sensitive. But I think it would undo a lot of the healthy work that's maybe God's been doing in their

hearts. Yeah, and again, our people are coming because they have, they feel drawn to the presence of God that we feel like is in our spaces. And when I think of people who maybe, like I had, I do have people who reach out and they basically say, well, you don't believe that God can change people. And that's not what we're saying. We're just not saying that biblical change looks like orientation change. I am hoping that people struggle less with sexual sin, for example. I'm hoping that they find freedom from addictions that they might have. I'm hoping that they can stop compulsively hooking up. That's all biblical change that I pray that people who are struggling with those things experience after coming to revoice and getting connected with community and finding support,

dealing with shame. But what I'm not expecting people to come to revoiced for is to hear stories about how someone used to be gay and now they're not and so you can help that too. That's not realistic. That's not helpful. That's not pastoral. Yeah. No, that's good.

That's good. That's good. I love that. Have you seen people, I guess, change in the other direction theologically in terms of, you know, they came out as gay and then they're on fire for the Lord. Like, I'm living for celibacy, you know. And I mean, I'm committed to celibacy.

Sure. You know, they're in their young 20s, but then down the road, whether it's too suffocating in the evangelical church or maybe the lure of just a romantic relationship is just too strong. Maybe it's a raw, just theological change. You know, they've re-studied the issue and landed on the other side. Would you say that's a decent percentage of people or is it hard to measure? well yeah i mean i think it's it's definitely there um lots of anecdotes here and there i've got anecdotes i just don't know if this is you probably have a bigger sample size than i do i just don't know if it's yeah i don't i don't see a strong trend okay i guess yeah i see a lot of like for us you know revoiced we are our our our goal is to showcase the beauty of god's plan for people to flourish and so you know people come to revoiced and they see all these different ways to live out of faith and obedient life that are not just

sort of pining away in self-pity, but are actually filled with joy and belonging and purpose. So that's, again, that's when people come to re-voice, they realize, oh, God does love me. God does delight in me as his child. And, oh, this is not a second best life that God has for me. This is a life that is full of joy, full of belonging, full of connection. And some of that is, you have to fight hard for it, but it's not that you don't deserve it. You know you deserve it, and so you fight for it because you know it's possible and know it's that it's real. And so, again, this is, I see people coming to revoice and discerning the opposite from what you described earlier, discerning that, oh, that that idol of romance that I grew up believing because of the culture, the secular culture, the Christian culture, all of it is really empty.

And really, you know, not filled with promise. And yet I do see promise, on the other hand, on belonging to Christ, belonging to his church, belonging to siblings in the faith, belonging to spiritual shepherds, things like that. And seeing that and thinking, wow, that is so beautiful. I didn't realize that was for me or that could be for me. And so I see a growing sense of just, yeah, just belonging in that sense. it takes i mean belonging is a two-way street or multi-way street um and for so long it seemed like there's there were fewer few churches where somebody can be gay hold to a traditional sexual ethic and be and feel like oh man i've got rich intimacy and community you know it seemed

like those churches where that was possible were really slim in number have you have you seen that number increase uh over your eight years of ministry yeah We still have a long way to go, but I've absolutely seen so much reason to hope that there are churches out there. I mean, the pastors come to the conference. They come every year because they know that what we are doing is really what church should be like. And, you know, Revoice is not the church. We're not trying to substitute to be a substitute for the church. But at the same time, it is a community.

And there is a sense of belonging that people have because of the presence of God's spirit. And so we have pastors who come to the conference every year because they, They want to take that back to their churches so that their churches can be more of that, that safe space where gay people can actually walk in and feel like they belong. All of them belong. So I know you recently did this pre-conference with people in mixed orientation marriages. Yeah. A person's same-sex attracted. One or both.

Yeah, yeah. And that went really, you said that was really great, right? It was amazing. We had, so Stephen and Laura Limpus. Stephen is our director of community engagement. He and Laura co-led with Mark Yarrhouse, a pre-conference. We called it a mini retreat. It ended up not being a retreat at all in the sense that there's a lot of just heavy things to work through.

But it was really, really powerful to see, I think, 40 people, at least 20 couples were there. So around 40, 45 people. And it's just, it is a growing need for so many years. marriage was sort of the default route for any Christian to pursue gay or straight. And so that was something that some folks ended up discerning was what God wanted for them. And for a variety of reasons, sometimes it hasn't worked out. It's been really difficult. There's a lot of history there in terms of Exodus.

So, yeah, but it was a really amazing couple days. People got to the conference a day early, had about 24 hours. of really deep diving into some of those experiences. It was really powerful. The reason why I asked that is you, as a ministry has grown, you're kind of doing more targeted things like that. Do you have or are you exploring something for pastors where they can do more than just come to the conference,

which obviously has been super helpful, but something where they can be on a specific track? Absolutely. So we've had what we've called a ministry cohort training where we work with a group of pastors over a course of about a year. And we recently revamped that. And it's going to be relaunching in about a month. It's going to be a pilot.

So we're relaunching it with specific groups of churches. But yeah, that's absolutely something where, you know, what we think of in terms of what Revoice offers that really not many organizations really offer is sexual minority-centered ministry. You know, we as a ministry are predominantly sexual minorities. And so here we are as sexual minorities building community for ourselves, but also realizing that God has called us and equipped us to go and disciple pastors to help them know how to recreate community like that for themselves in their churches. And so we have a curriculum that we've recorded and we work with pastors in a basically a relational model of meeting once a month, every twice a month, that kind of thing. And the goal really is to disciple pastors. You know, we, discipleship is one of our core values.

And so we realize that, oh, this is not just for us. This is something that God is entrusted and gifted us towards to go and invest in pastors as well. What are some of the key ingredients for pastors listening that say, man, I would love to create a place where people aren't just hiding out in the corners because they're wrestling with sexuality? Like what are some big picture key things a pastor needs to do to change that environment? So the first thing a pastor needs to do, one of the things is realize that there are, there are insecurities and blind spots in their own experience that you can just learn about and you can learn about from other sexual minorities. But then once you realize you have them, then you need to realize, oh, I have to teach these to my congregation. I have to help my congregation. Because what happens is that a lot of times pastors and pastoral leaders and ministry leaders will realize,

ways of relating to gay people or ways of understanding what orientation means that are not helpful. But then that doesn't automatically make their church a safe space for LGBT people. They've got just the average person in the pew. And again, these are well-meaning people who are just trying to be faithful Christians. So it's a big project in terms of disciplining the American church to be more loving towards gay people. But yeah, helping pass. catch a vision for what it looks like to help move their congregation along to just understand the basic humanity of gay people. What else?

I mean, one of the things we talk about, you know, a lot of pastors were like, we want to go evangelize the LGBT community, you know, and we feel like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. First of all, do you realize that they're not just outside your church? Are you discipling the LGBT community within your church? Do you even know who they are? So before you go out there and try and reach the gay community for Christ, what are you doing to reach the gay teenager that's sitting in your pews and feeling like he doesn't belong? Yeah, it sounds counterintuitive, but I think discipleship in your congregation needs to happen first before evangelism. Oh, for sure.

Because what about this? What if you go evangelize the LGBT community outside your church? And what if it works? and now you've got a lesbian couple showing up here at church. How are they going to be received when a drag queen person, you know, shows up and like, I'm here. I want to learn about Jesus. Are they going to be welcomed as an image bearer of God, you know?

So, yeah, I almost say the exact same thing. Word for word, which you said, like before you rush to the non-Christian LGBT, like, what are you doing with the people in your church? Because they are people are there who are LGBT. They probably won't be out, maybe a lot of them. But here's the urgency. Like, there is a very real sense in which the gay community does need to hear the good news. But they need to hear it from Christians who know that they're not better than them or know that they haven't figured everything out.

And so in that sense, the urgency of helping your church, there really is a sense of urgency in helping your church be a space where the gay teen doesn't feel like God hates them. It's because the church needs to be a place where the gay community doesn't feel like God hates them. them. And who's going to tell them that, if not a, a Christian who brings a compelling presentation of the gospel and emphasis on that word compelling. Right, right, right. Yeah. I also tell pastors, you know, it does take, I mean, sounds almost dehumanizing to say it, but it takes a bit of courage to push into this conversation. Absolutely. You know, because I mean, if you, you need to start first of all, I'd say start talking with your leaders behind closed doors.

Where is everybody? Yeah. What are the questions they have? Read some books together. Like there has to be kind of on a leadership level. And then you have to move into disciple and a congregation. And they're like, but if I did that, there's going to be backlash. I'm going to get emails.

People are going to leave. I'm like, yes, yes. 100% that will happen. Do you believe it's important enough to, you know, to do in spite of the emails you're going again, in spite of the misunderstanding, in spite of, you know, people leaving that are... If I could tell you the number of pastors I hear who come to our conference and then tell us afterwards, I have tried to not address this because I just felt it would blow things up. And now I realize I absolutely have to, and now I know how.

Because I have to be a faithful shepherd in our current culture today. and because this is not just some esoteric topic that people in my congregation aren't dealing with. Every single person in your congregation is dealing with it in some way, whether their own personal experience, a family member, a coworker, a loved one, and to the extent that pastors are not helping disciple their churches into how to be the kind of Christian that can be a loving witness to Christ, it's absolutely, so again, they come to the revoiced conference, or they visit a local chapter, and they feel emboldened, to think, what can I do? And you mentioned courage.

You know, it's really easy. And this is something that I've had to correct myself. And it's really easy to, you know, paint pastors, you know, as the bad guys because of all the really awful things that people have experienced through the years at churches. And that stuff's real. It's actually happened. But the number of pastors who just want to see people follow Jesus is just staggering. And so, again, definitely want to highlight the courage.

it takes to step out and say, yeah, there's something I don't understand that I want to do better. That's a very courageous thing to do. There's so many amazing pastors out there. I mean, maybe it's amazing in the sense of engaging this issue well. You know, and I know maybe a lot of churches still aren't there yet. Maybe there's still a lot of pastors that are not handled the conversation well. But I just, yeah, like you, I want to give a shout out to, I mean, I've been in, like you, churches all across different denominations, sizes, mega churches, small churches, and there's a bit of confirmation bias, right? Because if they invite me to come in and speak, means they're already wanting to push in.

So, I mean, I get that I'm in spaces like that, but I'm just so encouraged by the courage of many, many, many pastors who are handling this well, or at least trying to dive in and do it well and yeah yeah well hey i have a couple questions i want to ask you but i call it uh extra innings where i it's released it's released it's released just to my theologian community so much smaller group um i want to hear about your journey your journey in evangelicalism you know you grew up in a conservative background you went to a southern baptist seminary um and you're still very evangelical although that has not been if you would like to listen to our extra innings conversation and then head over to patreon.com forward slash theology in Iraq to become a member of the

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