RENEWING CHRISTIANITY
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| Q. Why did we choose as our first research and education project the subject of marriage equality? |
A. We chose gay marriage because it offers a unique constellation of issues that can be addressed at
the same time.
First, when we have a conversation about a biblical understanding of Christian marriage, we have to
consider how we relate to other people. What do we hold as central to a Christian practice of marriage?
We believe that viewing marriage through the lens of gay experience can illuminate an authentically
Christian practice of marriage in ways that the archetypal straight experience of marriage has not. In
other words, we feel that gay marriages can serve as effective models for demonstrating what an
authentic Christian practice of marriage looks like by the very fact that they are gay.
Second, because marriage typically involves and engages the body, a conversation about gay
marriage and its spirituality invites people into a conversation about the spiritual significance of the
body. This conversation delves into something very Christian: the meaning of the Incarnation; or the
meaning of God becoming a human being and honoring the body, its senses, and its potential for
intimacy. We believe that exploring the spirituality of the body in a marriage, from the perspective of a
gay marriage can allow us to re-engage all of our relationships with our bodies and their connection to
our spirituality.
Third, marriage in Christianity is one of the biblical metaphors for our relationship with God. In the
Hebrew Scriptures, God is the husband of Israel. In the Christian Scriptures, God, in Jesus, is the
bridegroom of the Church. Thus, by talking about marriage, we can also explore a rich metaphor about
our relationship with God. These two metaphors of marriage offer a vision of a relationship that is
between adults of equal status. This is in contrast to the two other most popular images of humanity’s
relationship with God: 1) the relationship between a parent and child, and (2) the relationship between a
master and a servant. We believe that exploring the metaphor of marriage as a relationship between
equals, through the lens of gay experience, will significantly expand and enhance our vision of what our
relationship with God can be.
Fourth, the rites of the church create a nexus of space, time, community and meaning into which the
Holy Spirit can pour life giving spiritual and metaphysical transformation. Marriage, in the Christian
Community, is celebrated by public liturgies that articulate the community’s understanding of the couple’
s relationship and communicate the community’s support of its perseverance. By engaging in a
conversation about gay marriage, we are explicitly entering into a dialogue about what the rituals of the
Church mean and what kind of nexus they invite people to enter spiritually and metaphysically. When
we explore the rite of marriage, we explore the power of liturgy in the particular context of our intimacy
and life partnership with another person. We believe that looking at the Church’s rites of marriage with
the fresh eyes of the gay experience can revitalize the nexus we present to the Holy Spirit when we offer
ourselves to God and each other in the liturgy of public marriage.
Fifth, the status of gay marriage and the gay experience in today’s Christian culture are in dynamic flux.
Yet because of the ways gay marriage is already revealing and unfolding more of our understanding of
God, we believe that the movement to fully recognize the spiritual value and gifts of gay people in the life
of the Christian Church is a movement of the Spirit; a movement on par with the movement to fully
recognize the spiritual gifts of women and racial minorities within the Christian community and within
society generally. This movement to fully recognize and celebrate the spiritual gifts of gay people should
also bring with it a revitalization, a calling back, of the Christian Church to one of its core missions:
creating a dynamic transformative community of love, organized around the teachings of Jesus, through
which people are able to experience God in a personal and intimate way and in doing so find our
authentic humanity and recognize it in others through our acts of love toward them. We are engaging
the question of how recognizing the gay experience and gay marriages as sacred actually is a
revitalization of the Church’s proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus.
The experience of the Christian community in recognizing women and racial minorities was an
understanding that our ability to unravel the mysteries of God was enhanced by having both the
perspectives of women and men at all levels of ministry; that our understanding was enhanced when we
had the perspectives of several ethnic and racial groups at all levels of ministry. We must know that
when we remove a perspective from the Christian conversation of who God is and who we are that we
are losing a voice of the Spirit. So what are we as the Christian Community gaining as we recognize the
spiritual gifts and presence of gay people already operating in our midst? What do we gain when we
recognize the gay life perspective in our conversation about who God is and who we are? We have to
answer these questions so that we can more fully appreciate the Spirit’s call back to the original
message of Jesus.
Sixth, although in the short term the cause of gay rights and assuring respect for gay people is in flux,
long term is it widely recognized even within conservative Christian circles that gay people and their
relationships will be fully recognized and celebrated in the fabric of society. As this social transition
occurs, those who continue to reject the positive value of gay people will themselves be seen in more
and more of a negative light. This shift has already occurred in places where gay people are highly
visible and appreciated: elite academic institutions, powerful social professions (medicine, law, social
service professions, media, etc), cultural creative professions (theatre, music, visual artists etc) and the
urban areas in which these types of people like to live, that is, the United States’ most important and
influential cities. This shift is already occurring among young people at a rapid pace. See Francisco
Vara-Orta, "Majority of freshmen view gay marriage as OK," Los Angeles Times, Jan. 19, 2007 (study
found that 61% of incoming freshmen last year agreed that same-sex couples should have the right to
marry, up 3.3 percentage points from 2005; study was based on a paper questionnaire given to 271,441
first-time, full-time college students at 393 schools nationwide in 2006) (emphasis added). As this trend
continues, Christians who have an interest in proclaiming Christianity will find their message falling on
the deaf ears of the ever increasing portion of the public which will reject their message because of their
association of Christianity with anti-gay beliefs. It is necessary for evangelical Christians to articulate a
theology that is positive and affirmative of gay people and their relationships in order prevent the
growing and significant negative association of Christianity with anti-gay activism.
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the same time.
First, when we have a conversation about a biblical understanding of Christian marriage, we have to
consider how we relate to other people. What do we hold as central to a Christian practice of marriage?
We believe that viewing marriage through the lens of gay experience can illuminate an authentically
Christian practice of marriage in ways that the archetypal straight experience of marriage has not. In
other words, we feel that gay marriages can serve as effective models for demonstrating what an
authentic Christian practice of marriage looks like by the very fact that they are gay.
Second, because marriage typically involves and engages the body, a conversation about gay
marriage and its spirituality invites people into a conversation about the spiritual significance of the
body. This conversation delves into something very Christian: the meaning of the Incarnation; or the
meaning of God becoming a human being and honoring the body, its senses, and its potential for
intimacy. We believe that exploring the spirituality of the body in a marriage, from the perspective of a
gay marriage can allow us to re-engage all of our relationships with our bodies and their connection to
our spirituality.
Third, marriage in Christianity is one of the biblical metaphors for our relationship with God. In the
Hebrew Scriptures, God is the husband of Israel. In the Christian Scriptures, God, in Jesus, is the
bridegroom of the Church. Thus, by talking about marriage, we can also explore a rich metaphor about
our relationship with God. These two metaphors of marriage offer a vision of a relationship that is
between adults of equal status. This is in contrast to the two other most popular images of humanity’s
relationship with God: 1) the relationship between a parent and child, and (2) the relationship between a
master and a servant. We believe that exploring the metaphor of marriage as a relationship between
equals, through the lens of gay experience, will significantly expand and enhance our vision of what our
relationship with God can be.
Fourth, the rites of the church create a nexus of space, time, community and meaning into which the
Holy Spirit can pour life giving spiritual and metaphysical transformation. Marriage, in the Christian
Community, is celebrated by public liturgies that articulate the community’s understanding of the couple’
s relationship and communicate the community’s support of its perseverance. By engaging in a
conversation about gay marriage, we are explicitly entering into a dialogue about what the rituals of the
Church mean and what kind of nexus they invite people to enter spiritually and metaphysically. When
we explore the rite of marriage, we explore the power of liturgy in the particular context of our intimacy
and life partnership with another person. We believe that looking at the Church’s rites of marriage with
the fresh eyes of the gay experience can revitalize the nexus we present to the Holy Spirit when we offer
ourselves to God and each other in the liturgy of public marriage.
Fifth, the status of gay marriage and the gay experience in today’s Christian culture are in dynamic flux.
Yet because of the ways gay marriage is already revealing and unfolding more of our understanding of
God, we believe that the movement to fully recognize the spiritual value and gifts of gay people in the life
of the Christian Church is a movement of the Spirit; a movement on par with the movement to fully
recognize the spiritual gifts of women and racial minorities within the Christian community and within
society generally. This movement to fully recognize and celebrate the spiritual gifts of gay people should
also bring with it a revitalization, a calling back, of the Christian Church to one of its core missions:
creating a dynamic transformative community of love, organized around the teachings of Jesus, through
which people are able to experience God in a personal and intimate way and in doing so find our
authentic humanity and recognize it in others through our acts of love toward them. We are engaging
the question of how recognizing the gay experience and gay marriages as sacred actually is a
revitalization of the Church’s proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus.
The experience of the Christian community in recognizing women and racial minorities was an
understanding that our ability to unravel the mysteries of God was enhanced by having both the
perspectives of women and men at all levels of ministry; that our understanding was enhanced when we
had the perspectives of several ethnic and racial groups at all levels of ministry. We must know that
when we remove a perspective from the Christian conversation of who God is and who we are that we
are losing a voice of the Spirit. So what are we as the Christian Community gaining as we recognize the
spiritual gifts and presence of gay people already operating in our midst? What do we gain when we
recognize the gay life perspective in our conversation about who God is and who we are? We have to
answer these questions so that we can more fully appreciate the Spirit’s call back to the original
message of Jesus.
Sixth, although in the short term the cause of gay rights and assuring respect for gay people is in flux,
long term is it widely recognized even within conservative Christian circles that gay people and their
relationships will be fully recognized and celebrated in the fabric of society. As this social transition
occurs, those who continue to reject the positive value of gay people will themselves be seen in more
and more of a negative light. This shift has already occurred in places where gay people are highly
visible and appreciated: elite academic institutions, powerful social professions (medicine, law, social
service professions, media, etc), cultural creative professions (theatre, music, visual artists etc) and the
urban areas in which these types of people like to live, that is, the United States’ most important and
influential cities. This shift is already occurring among young people at a rapid pace. See Francisco
Vara-Orta, "Majority of freshmen view gay marriage as OK," Los Angeles Times, Jan. 19, 2007 (study
found that 61% of incoming freshmen last year agreed that same-sex couples should have the right to
marry, up 3.3 percentage points from 2005; study was based on a paper questionnaire given to 271,441
first-time, full-time college students at 393 schools nationwide in 2006) (emphasis added). As this trend
continues, Christians who have an interest in proclaiming Christianity will find their message falling on
the deaf ears of the ever increasing portion of the public which will reject their message because of their
association of Christianity with anti-gay beliefs. It is necessary for evangelical Christians to articulate a
theology that is positive and affirmative of gay people and their relationships in order prevent the
growing and significant negative association of Christianity with anti-gay activism.
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