“Gay” or “Straight”?

Where did these concepts come from? Why has the church accepted these definitions without a second thought?

 Christopher Yuan’s book Holy Sexuality and the Gospel blew my mind when I read it a year or two ago. Yuan did not grow up Christian, was kicked out of his Chinese-American home when he came out as gay, became a drug dealer, went to prison, (parents became believers), found a Bible in a trashcan, and started following Jesus. 

Here are some quotes from his book:

“Prior to the mid-1800s, sexuality was understood strictly as behavior, not identity. No word existed to describe an individual with same-sex attraction.” (p10)

Secular men in the psychology field (Westphal, Freud, Krafft-Ebing) made the concept of “orientation” more mainstream.

“Thus, heterosexual and homosexual became new, secular categories for personhood.” (p10)

“The strong influence of these philosophies and movements on Western culture produced to vacuum. In the absence of any objective foundation for true identity, experience essentially became God.” (p12)

“In the face of today’s widespread belief that experience supersedes essence, the correct way for Christians to comprehend identity — particularly as it relates to sexuality — it’s a better grasp who we are in light of God’s truth. True identity is not what I do (for example, I am a writer). Nor is it HOW I am (for example, I am happy). True identity is WHO I am. In other words, identity in Christ means union with Christ.” (p12)

“We cannot properly understand human sexuality unless we begin with theological anthropology… a true, faithful, and accurate anthropology begins with God.” (p12)

Christians need to be uprooted and up-righted in this conversation. If the roots of our beliefs about human sexuality have nothing to do with a good understanding of God’s definitions of humans and sexual behavior, but we’re borrowing from Freud, we need to take a step back and reevaluate our theology.

I don’t use the terms “gay” or “straight.” They’re not helpful or truthful forms of category as I have this conversation. I understand they’re helpful for some who want to use them, and I will say someone “identifies as” whatever they want. But you realize how many of it the popular arguments in this conversation fall by the wayside when you start playing by the Biblical definitions instead of the psychologists in the 1800s.