Introduction to Wesley Hill’s “Washed and Waiting”

As we continue our yearlong series on Sexuality and The
Church, we will be working our way through Wesley Hill’s short book, Washed and
Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality, beginning
today. 

Wesley’s book is meant to both
complement and contrast Justin Lee’s book, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel From the
Gays-vs-Christians Debate, which served as a starting point for our discussion.
Both Justin and Wesley are gay,
but whereas Justin concluded that a relationship with another man could be
blessed by God, Wesley has chosen celibacy. I picked these two books
because I think Justin and Wesley represent the very best in civil, gracious,
and loving disagreement on this issue…which for them is not a mere issue, but a
deeply personal journey with deeply personal implications.

Today
we will discuss the introduction and prologue to Washed and Waiting, which introduces
us to Wesley and his story.

Introduction

Wesley
begins his story like this:

“By
the time I started high school, two things had become clear to me. One was that
I was a Christian. My parents had raised me to be a believer in Jesus, and as I
moved toward independence from my family, I knew that I wanted to remain
one—that I wanted to trust, love, and obey Christ, who had been crucified and
raised from the dead ‘for us and for our salvation,’ as the creed puts it. The
second thing was that I was gay. For as long as I could remember, I had been
drawn, even as a child, to other males in some vaguely confusing way, and after
puberty, I had come to realize that I had a steady, strong, unremitting,
exclusive sexual attraction to persons of the same sex.” (p. 13)

“Since
that time of self-discovery,” he says, “I have struggled week in and week out
to know how to live faithfully as a Christian who experiences same-sex
attraction.”

In
this sense, Wesley’s story is very much like Justin’s. Both grew up in
Christian homes. Both are committed followers of Jesus. Both are gay.  But whereas Justin was eventually able to
reconcile his sexuality with his faith and with Scripture in such a way that
has left open the possibility for a relationship with a man in his future,
Wesley says that “my own story, by contrast, is a story of feeling spiritually
hindered rather than helped by my homosexuality. Another way to say it would be
to observe that my story testifies to the truth of the position the Christian
church has held with almost total unanimity throughout the centuries—namely,
that homosexuality was not God’s original creative intention for humanity, that
it is, on the contrary, a tragic sign of human nature and relationships being
fractured by sin, and therefore that homosexual practice goes against God’s
express will for all human beings, especially those who trust in Christ.” (p.
15)

Still,
in spite of his conviction that homosexual practice is against God’s will,
Wesley says he has not been able to change his orientation.

“Like Paul,” he
says, “I have prayed fervently, desperately, tearfully on multiple occasions
for God to take away this ‘thorn in my flesh,” but a change in orientation,
Wesley says, has not been a part of his experience “nor has it been the
experience of many gay and lesbian Christians who are silently struggling to remain
faithful as they worship and serve with us, day after day, in the fellowship of
the church.” (p. 15)

And
so his book is intended primarily for Christians who are “already convinced
that their discipleship to Jesus necessarily commits them to the demanding,
costly obedience of choosing not to nurture their homosexual desires,” but also
to the Church at large as it seeks to make a place for those Christians.

In the
introduction, Wesley acknowledges that, as a young adult (in his late twenties
upon the publication of his book), he is still growing in his understanding of
Christian discipleship and human sexuality and says, “there are still avenues
of possible healing that I want to explore,” that he is very much “in process”
when it comes to the journey of understanding how his faith and sexuality
relate to one another. “It is my prayer that God may use the reflections in
this book to help others live faithfully before him until the time when he
makes all things new,” he writes. “Until then we wait in hope (Romans 8:25),
washed clean by his Son and Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:11).

Prologue

The
prologue invites us further into Wesley’s personal story. As with Torn, this
portion of the book is especially important to read because it challenges a lot
of assumptions Christians have about homosexuality---that it always involves a
deliberate “choice,” that it cannot manifest itself in Christian homes and
communities, that it is the result of sexual abuse or bad parenting, etc.

Like
Justin, Wesley was a highly invested in his faith, even at an early age. In
high school he was reading C.S. Lewis, Frederick Buechner, J.I. Packer, Henri
Nouwen, and John Piper.

“Birdlike,
I was testing my wings, coming of age. But at the same time that I was learning
to engage with God as a hungry , growing young Christian, the realization
dawned on me like a dead weight sinking in my stomach that no amount of
spiritual growth seemed to have any effect on my sexual preference…There was
nothing, it felt, chosen or intentional about my being gay. It seemed more like
noticing the blueness of my eyes than deciding I would take up skiing. There
was never an option –‘Do you want to be gay?’ ‘Yes, I do, please.’ It was a
gradual coming to terms, not a conscious resolution.” (p. 29)

Wesley
kept his same-sex attraction a secret—from his parents, from his friends, from
his pastors. He says his ears would perk up when he heard James Dobson talking
about homosexuality on the radio, but the only response from famous Christian leaders
centered around reparative therapy, which required “correcting” mistakes made
by bad parenting or from sexual abuse in the past. But, like Justin, Wesley had
a good relationship with his parents and did not have a history with abuse.

When
Wesley went to Wheaton College, his horizons expanded and he grew even more
interested in nurturing his faith and practicing spiritual disciplines. During
this time, Wesley realized that simply ignoring his sexual orientation would
not lead to redemption, so he worked up the courage to talk with a Wheaton
professor about his same-sex attraction.

One
thing I found really encouraging about Wesley’s story is that most of the
pastors and professors in his life appear to have responded to his coming out
with grace and kindness rather than condemnation. Each encouraged him to pursue
some kind of “healing”—the wisdom of which can be debated—but they did so
without legalism, fear, or anger, and with what appears to be genuine love for
Wesley. I’m hoping this indicates that strides have been made within the
Christian community regarding how to respond when a friend or loved one comes
out.  (Wesley does not write about coming
out to his parents, so I’m not sure how that conversation went.)

Wesley
also opened up to a pastor who Wesley says “spent many hours trying to convince
me that…my homosexual temptations weren’t any more (or less) tragic than
temptations to greed, pride, or anger that Christians face on a daily basis.”
(p. 44) The pastor pointed Wesley to a statement from All Souls Church in London,
which reads:

We
also wish warmly to affirm those sisters and brothers, already in membership
with orthodox churches, who—while experiencing same-sex desires and
feelings—nevertheless battle with the rest of us, in repentance and faith, for
a lifestyle that affirms marriage [between a man and woman] and celibacy as the
two given norms for sexual expression. There is room for every kind of
background and past sinful experience among members of Christ’s flock as we
learn the way of repentance and renewed lives, for Such were some of you. But
you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:11). This is
true inclusivity.”

The
pastor encouraged Justin to be a part of a community like that, where “it’s
about the church being the church, as we all struggle toward wholeness.”

Wesley’s
pastor also encouraged him not to avoid building friendships out of fear of
being attracted to his male friends. This proved to be important, life-giving
advice, as Wesley began growing in his friendships, even sharing his
secret…which was becoming less of a secret…with some of his closest friends.

Again,
the response Wesley received was warm and caring—which I realize is not the
case for every LGBT Christian who shares their story with their church. But
because of this, Wesley strongly encourages other gay Christians to be honest
about their experience and to find older, wiser Christians who can mentor them
as they work through questions related to their sexuality.

“I
began to learn to wrestle with homosexuality in community,” he writes, “over
many late-night cups of coffee and tear-soaked, face-on-the-floor times of
prayer with members of my church.” (p. 48).

I am
so glad that Wesley found the Church to be a safe place to do this.

Wesley
concludes his introduction with this: “When God acts climactically to reclaim
the world and raise our dead bodies from the grave, there will be no more
homosexuality. But until then, we hope for what we do not see. Washed and
waiting. That is my life—my identity as one who is forgiven and spiritually
cleansed and my struggle as one who perseveres with a frustrating thorn in the
flesh, looking forward to what God has promised to do.” (p. 50)

Reflections

Reading
Wesley’s story, I am both grateful by his honesty and impressed by his strong
commitment to his faith. You can tell that this a guy who thinks deeply about
what it means to be a Christian and cares profoundly about living a life that
glorifies God. I mean, who reads Frederick Buechner in ninth grade?!

As I
mentioned before, I am also struck by the loving responses of Wesley’s pastors and
mentors. That speaks well of their character, well even of the Wheaton
community, and well of some of the progress that’s being made within the
evangelical church. (I’d be interested to hear from other LGBT folks who may
have had similar…or perhaps radically different…experiences at Wheaton.)

But
finally, I confess I felt a little sad reading about Wesley’s deep desire for
“healing.” That sort of language conveys the idea that there is something
broken about him, something wrong, something to be fixed. And I guess I’m not
sure that I see homosexuality that way anymore. I was a little surprised, in
fact, by how often I winced at that sort of language. I can’t imagine what it
would be like to believe that something like my sexual orientation - something so intrinsic, so central to my being - was somehow corrupted and yet utterly beyond my ability to change.

Next week, we will examine Part 1 of Washed and Waiting, in which Wesley explains why his convictions related to Scripture and the example of Christ have led him to pursue celibacy within the Christian community. ​

Questions
for Discussion

What
struck you about Wesley’s story? What did you find encouraging or discouraging?

Does
your faith community have a similar statement regarding sexuality as All Souls
Church? What do you think about that position?

Do
you react to language about brokenness and healing in the context of homosexuality
positively or negatively, and why do you think that is?

As
always, please keep the conversation civil. I’ll delete comments that turn to
personal attacks. Thanks for your input!

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