A War of Loves: The Unexpected Story of a Gay Activist Discovering Jesus

by David Bennett

his whole story is a wonderful encouragement: not that we ever supposed the gospel could no longer change lives, but that it’s always good to hear fresh stories, vividly told, of how that change can happen despite the most unpromising starts.

Even for those of us in the front lines need such reminders

This book is not essentially about being gay. It is about finding a greater identity in Jesus Christ and becoming a son of God. My ultimate identity is found in Jesus Christ, but the reality of my same-sex desires is an important part of that story. Amid all the confusion around issues of faith and sexuality, I feel much like C. S. Lewis in Shadowlands: “I have no answers anymore . . . only the life I have lived.”

Since science couldn’t tell me why I was gay, I decided to try religion—and didn’t make it far.

Eventually I accepted the view that the apostle Paul was obviously unaware of any faithful, monogamous relationships between two members of the same sex. I decided his writing was a cultural artifact that didn’t hold the authority orthodox Christians gave it.

I felt like Christians were explaining me away, not entering into my experience. That was bad enough, but their explanation wasn’t even any good! I found it frustratingly hypocritical that Christians, who worshiped a savior of transparency and truth, couldn’t deal with my being honest about my humanity. Their obvious prejudice toward gay people only pushed me farther away. I perceived that perhaps homosexuality unearthed deeper problems in the church, especially an obsession with sexual desire.

“Mum, before I go, I have to tell you something.” “What, darling?” she said, her tone changing to concern when she saw my pained expression. It had come to the moment, and it was too much. Why? I looked away. “I don’t think I can actually say it.” “Have you got someone pregnant?” I shook my head, fighting the urge to laugh. Would teenage fatherhood be preferable to this? “Are you gay?” she said as the summer humidity began to fog the windows. “Yes, Mum,” I said. Those two words felt impossibly heavy. She reached over, wrapped me in her arms, and wept. I’ll never forget the feeling of the leather seats, her wet tears on my clothing. And in that moment, I felt peace—real peace—for the first time in years, for the first time since I’d discovered I was gay. And I somehow knew that her tears weren’t about her at all; they were about me. She knew how much harder my life would be as a gay man. “I’m just sad that you’ll have to live with the difficulties so many gay people do,” my mother said. “But we love you no matter what, David. We are with you.”

This is an incredible story

University felt like safe territory as an open and out gay man. At this time, I began calling myself queer after studying queer theory, which at its heart was about representing the voices not heard in mainstream culture or on the margins.

Great definition

This was the tension I always felt when I was in settings like this. Was being gay just about having a sexual thrill or casual fling, or was there a deeper meaning? To me, being gay wasn’t just about sex; it was about a common experience within a community. And this party somehow felt disconnected and impersonal, without the personal acceptance that being gay meant to me. This didn’t feel like what I wanted.

Years later I came to understand that like many Christians, my aunt had used the wrong words to communicate both her stance and her concern for me. My

So often true

Anyone who disagreed with me or had a different vision of marriage was automatically a bigot. No qualification needed.

God waits to be wanted. —A. W. Tozer

I also felt uncomfortable with how this church understood the Bible. For them, it seemed useful only to justify their chosen social causes. Jesus was a political zealot, a radical figure who challenged the heresy of private, cheap-grace faith. The cross was a symbol of solidarity with the poor, suffering, and rejected minority groups. They laughed at the theology of the other church I attended. I hated that division and the critical spirit I saw toward members of Christ’s body. I didn’t see why they couldn’t hold on to the best parts of their theology while also, in humility, letting themselves be truly changed by God’s Word.

I sat with my Bible open and my coffee untouched. “I can’t believe a loving marriage between two members of the same sex is sinful. I’m happy to concede that sex before marriage is wrong, and that’s exactly why the church needs to have gay marriages,” I said to my aunt. “If I wanted to marry Thomas, where would I go? I’d have to leave this church where God meets me so profoundly.” I stared intently at her, waiting for a response. Helen met my gaze. “David,” she began slowly, “I agree with what Scripture says. I believe its intent is clear. But it’s easy for me. I’ve never struggled with same-sex attraction.” She paused to sip her coffee before continuing. “All of us have a cross to bear, an ultimate issue to wrestle over with God. This is something you’ll have to work out with him. That’s faith! You have the Holy Spirit, your teacher, living in you now. You need to seek his answer to your question. The voices of falsehood are loud—so loud. But God’s voice is a still whisper. You’ll have to learn to hear him. Remember, God will never contradict his Word. Never.” She locked eyes with me. “I’m sorry if we or this church have failed to love you. No one should bear their cross alone. We’re here for you. Whatever you come to believe about your sexuality, you are always welcome, and if you have a partner, you’re both welcome.” She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Yes, we have a policy that means our church will submit to what Scripture says about marriage. But, Davi...

Wow.

The kingdom of God, I realized, is for those who, like this woman, are poor in spirit. It is this very poverty that leads them to reach out for God, longing for him. In this place of trust, we are lifted up, made whole, and brought into the compassionate embrace of Jesus. Could my same-sex attraction be not simply a barrier but actually the means to seek greater grace and wholeness in him? Might it bring me close to him in ways that no other work or struggle could?

Unique Perspective

Throughout the lecture, our professor read from European philosophers who had come to the same conclusion Nietzsche had. “Michel Foucault argued that ‘the individual, with his identity and characteristics, is the product of a relation of power exercised over bodies, multiplicities, movements, desires, forces,’ ”10 he said, pausing to peer at us over his glasses. “Foucault and Lyotard show us that there is actually no such thing as a grand narrative that can claim to be absolute truth; rather we construct these narratives to control others. There is no such thing as ‘meaning’ without a power relationship involved.” I absorbed everything he said. While I was now a Christian, I saw that these thinkers weren’t denying the reality of God, just questioning our capacity to know him. They were being intellectually honest. Could I blame them for that? Without the Spirit of Jesus’ revelation and his work to communicate with us, God was dead to us. Sure, the skeptics ended up in a place few would wish to go. But they were following the truth as they saw it, more honestly than many of the Christians I’d met.

This feels accurate but it is still a generalization

Following Jesus must lead me to honesty, I thought, or it would not be following Jesus.

I like this a lot. Honesty caan be so hard to deal with but without it therr is hiddenn places for sin to harbour

Wait, I realized. My sexual orientation has nothing to do with my righteousness before God! I was accepted by him because of Jesus Christ, not because of my moral performance. I didn’t have to earn it. My chosen sexual behavior, just like for a heterosexual person, was a different story. But my orientation? It was not a barrier. It was just part of me.

Agree

The false gospel of striving fell like shackles, and I began to see the beauty of grace, and the real gospel of Jesus Christ.12 Again the truth hit me: My sexual orientation does not separate me from God! My sexual orientation had nothing at all to do with this free gift of grace that had been placed in my hands.

Historically, the church had more often than not dealt with moral issues like homosexuality by focusing on sin management rather than emphasizing Christ’s transforming grace through the Holy Spirit. This only confirmed what many in the LGBTQI community believed: that God wanted to enslave them in an oppressive obedience of hopelessness.

True

the practice of reparative therapy, for years recommended and used in the church. This outdated science saw homosexuality and same-sex desires as a pathological disease and viewed the production of heterosexual desires as the cure. Problematic on every level—theologically, psychologically, scientifically, clinically. After I met Christ, I resolved never to get involved with a reparative ministry. If the gospel really does transform us from the inside out, I reasoned, it needs no help from a man-made solution. God calls us to walk through our weaknesses in his power, not to try to change ourselves into something acceptable to him.

Why would someone give up their same-sex desires and their hope for romance, unless they’d found something higher? When Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:13 that the body is “for the Lord, and the Lord for the body,” was he not pointing to a desire even more fundamental than sex? Our deepest longing was to be spiritually intimate with God, to experience the belonging we were made for. Many people in the church, I realized, didn’t even have a real, practical category for this belief. At least, they didn’t act like they did.

God, how can you possibly allow me to go through something this hard? I thought. How can you expect me to never belong? To live without a companion, without a family? I had no doubt that I’d be a faithful husband, a caring dad. I could see myself growing old with the husband I’d never have, raising my kids to love Jesus. For the first time since I met Jesus in that pub years before, I doubted it—doubted it all.

This struggle issb all too real

If we come to Scripture with our minds made up, expecting to hear from it an echo of our own thoughts and never the thunderclap of God’s, then indeed he will not speak to us and we shall only be confirmed in our own prejudices. We must allow the Word of God to confront us, disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior. —John Stott

Shouldn’t only God occupy our sense of purpose? Was our goal really to produce happy, debt-free, middle-class families? I mean, that’s great, don’t get me wrong. But is that it? Then why was Jesus a man of sorrows with no place to lay his head, and single throughout his ministry?

Jesus was an unmarried, childless man in a Jewish society of family values, and a celibate in a Roman society of sexual liberation that mocked singleness. In a world of two-sided sexual obsession, Jesus invited others into pure intimacy, modeled loving friendship, and lived in life-giving singleness.

I never once heard a sermon about the friendship or singleness of Jesus Christ. Why? I wondered if we were missing the point. Jesus called us to value him above everything else, including our sexual desires and our marriage relationships. Yes, marriage was God-ordained, and God had said it was not good f...

the Lord whispered to me, David, I’m sorry. Remember how much grace I’ve had for you. Please have grace for the church, my broken bride.

Oh snap

We weren’t just celebrating their individual marriage; we were anticipating the future heavenly marriage of God and his people.

I say this only because I really do love you. I know what it will cost you. But our lives are not about sex. Our lives are about serving Jesus and his kingdom.”

Many Christians had encouraged me to use the term same-sex attracted to distance myself from the gay world, but somehow this just didn’t work when I spoke to people outside Christian circles. Others said, “Don’t call yourself gay! You’re making your sexuality your identity.” Such a statement, while seemingly caring, dismissed the nuanced reality of my story. There was something in our shared reality of living with these desires and bodily differences that contained a shared history, a common experience. This aspect didn’t have to conflict with my choice to follow Christ or what I chose to do with my homosexuality. While it risked confusing some Christians, no term was perfect and had limitations, but I knew God was calling me to be transparent about this part of my identity.

“you died on the cross for me. You gave me your body. How could I not give you my body in return? How could I hold back my sexuality, let alone my money, my plans, my affections, my whole self? Anything less wouldn’t be true worship.”

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. . . . Christian scholarship is the church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close.”

During my time as an activist, we frequently used the famous slogan “Love is love” while fighting the orthodox Christian definition of marriage. Love, as we defined it, was our highest ideal and our sacred entity. That, in our minds, settled the issue.

Let me be clear: this does not mean that we are all called to celibacy or that it makes one a super-Christian. That can turn to idolatry of lifestyle as much as marriage. But the core skills of celibacy—discipline, self-control, choosing a greater love at the sacrifice of a lesser—these are all key Christian skills pointing straight to the heart of Christ. No matter your calling, single or married, you must grow in them to grow in Jesus.

The great modern enemy of friendship has turned out to be love. By love, I don’t mean the principle of giving and mutual regard that lies at the heart of friendship [but] love in the banal, ubiquitous, compelling, and resilient modern meaning of love: the romantic love that obliterates all other goods, the love to which every life must apparently lead, the love that is consummated in sex and celebrated in every particle of our popular culture, the love that is institutionalized in marriage and instilled as a primary and ultimate good in every Western child. I mean eros, which is more than sex but is bound up with sex. I mean the longing for union with another being, the sense that such a union resolves the essential quandary of human existence, the belief that only such a union can abate the loneliness that seems to come with being human, and deter the march of time that threatens to trivialize our very existence.23

Hear me well: homosexuality is not an evangelistic issue. It is a discipleship issue. So we must approach it that way. But we also need to remember that without a knowledge of God’s grace, the gift of the Spirit, and an understanding of God’s satisfying love, discipleship kills rather than gives life, condemns rather than convicts. Celibacy is no different. Gay or same-sex-attracted celibacy must be a response to God’s love, not a legalistic bottling up of our human desires. It is about the redirected affections of a transformed heart.

Matthew Vines writes, “Christians throughout history have affirmed that lifelong celibacy is a spiritual gift and calling, not a path that should be forced upon someone.”24 I agree that we must be careful not to present celibacy as a moral code. But what many biblical revisionists overlook is that both celibacy and marriage are a calling to find our fulfillment in Christ. Celibacy is neither an easy gift nor a repressive burden. It is an opportunity—an opportunity, not that different from marriage, to trust in God’s capacity to provide for our need for intimacy. Forsaking all others .

Jesus Christ, who was himself single and childless. If Jesus was celibate and the ultimate example of human flourishing for all of us, gay or straight, then isn’t it clear that celibacy is not an inhumane sentence for gay people like me but actually a legitimate, and even honorable, choice?

All around the university, rainbow flags flapped in the wind. Their presence both troubled and pleased me—a reminder of still feeling in-between. Were they a sign of my liberty or of my oppression? I didn’t fit in the gay world anymore, and I didn’t fully fit in the Christian one either. I turned my eyes back to the mosaic of the Martyrs’ Cross on the asphalt. We will all die, I thought. But the question is, what we will die for? Like the martyrs who died on that ground, I had to be willing to give my whole life to following Christ, even if that meant living a deeply unpopular life and being mocked or disdained.

“What truly matters,” I said, after sharing my story of finding Jesus Christ, “is not our view as the church or as a society. What matters is what Jesus Christ is saying to us. The lie we’re telling ourselves is that compromising holiness will ensure church growth. That’s false. Embracing and raising up those who are sexually faithful and obedient, as witnesses to our culture, will attract the world. Without holiness, Jesus Christ can’t be seen in us by the world; and without love, the world will resist the truth of this holiness.”

What the desired outcome of any stance is a good question to ask. Hmmm

For those in gay relationships or marriages who bravely repent of sexual sin, the solution is anything but simple. It takes time, and many answers are going to be messy. Gay couples often have children and become a family unit. What is their call? Easy answers break down very quickly without the Spirit’s leading and discernment.

Yes exactly

Every Christian, gay or straight, must offer their body as a living sacrifice to God, like Jesus did on the cross. This is, as Paul says, our spiritual act of worship (Rom. 12:1). That means that for both a gay person and a heterosexual person, living in a sex-obsessed culture, the crucifixion of our old nature and the embrace of our new one is the highest act of worship. This is where in denying ourselves, we receive a new self from God.

This discussion of sexual ethics is one for inside the church, and I do not wish to extend it into the state or political arena. The church is called to live differently than the world. Its primary authority in all matters of faith, practice, and discipleship is Jesus Christ and the Scriptures that testify of him. Love and the purpose for our desires are defined by God, and no longer by us.

Activism has not helped, by hindering open discussion in both the church and society. This contributes to leaders who avoid making any comments, for fear of media abuse.

What does this debate look like, and what does each side’s view of human nature have to do with it? Progressives claim that Christians who reject same-sex marriage are denying the equality, human rights, and innate dignity of LGBTQI people. They assume our internal desires are right because they are innate to our nature. Many progressives, although not all, label churches that hold to a traditional view of marriage as non-affirming, instantly discouraging onlookers by using a negative term.27 Progressives adopt the claim of Western culture, which says, “Whatever I desire is what I ought to have.” But this view overlooks the fact that Jesus Christ alone can give meaning to our fallen nature and provide clarity for our desires. We see this with Paul, who in his writings defines marriage and sexual vocation through Christ.28 God is the one who shows us who we were created to be and who we are to become in him. Those with the traditional view, on the other hand, maintain that same-sex marriage and sex acts are not permissible. When charitably understood, the traditional or orthodox view has nothing to do with homophobia or denying the equality or rights of LGBTQI people; it is simply a different vision of human sexuality and its purpose in marriage. It comes from a richness of belief, not a poverty of perspective. It’s just not as simple as affirming or non-affirming.

I’m not a traitor to the gay community. I’m just a celibate gay Christian. Is there room for me? Is there a stripe on the flag with my color on it?

What would it mean for both sides to come to a deeper biblical understanding? For those on the traditional end, it might mean being willing to live and love radically for Jesus. This would mean giving up false and empty religion that resists the real Jesus Christ; it would also mean rejecting the idols of wealth and family, being willing to see and respond to the needs of others, and giving up convenience and comfort for the sake of following Jesus. For progressives, it could mean giving up the idols of sexual liberty, rejecting a victimhood or entitlement mentality, no longer shutting down those who disagree, and repenting of the pride that says, “I don’t need the living God; I’ll just appeal to my inner self.” Ultimately, both sides of this debate need to look to the resurrection, when one day there will be no same-sex or opposite-sex desire entirely analogous to what we now experience. In Matthew 22:29–30, Jesus said this to the Pharisees and Sadducees who asked him about divorce and marriage: “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” Like those he was speaking to, we are obsessed with marriage and romance. But these things are only a reflection of greater eternal realities! We are going to be transformed into so much more than sexual beings. Our very nature will be resurrected.

In the end, there will be no “right side” of this issue to be on. There will be only one side, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the incredibly rich and diverse people who fill it. It will be free from arguing, division, and the idolatry of self, and filled with resurrected people whose very natures are like Christ’s.

Amen

Your life and ministry are worthless without these kingdom friendships, I felt God whisper to me. I am not going to take away your desire for relationship with others.

From my studies, especially reading Washed and Waiting, it seemed that the Christian tradition had lost vision for this kind of relationship. We’d lost our categories for beloved communion outside of a sexual relationship. Was a love like the love David and Jonathan shared, a bond that was greater than romantic love, even possible? It seemed so removed from the broken masculinity I had seen.