Three Poems

I recently began working on a series of autobigraphical, free-verse poems, dealing with my Reformed, or Calvinist, upbringing. My plan is to write one for each of the five points of the famous TULIP acrostic (which represents the distinctively Reformed doctrines of Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints; we won't stop to explore their meaning here, but this Wiki article gives a fairly good theological and historical summary), plus at least one introductory poem and at least one concluding poem. I don't have the whole thing mapped out, but I have the first three poems written, and I thought I'd share them here. I may still alter them further, I don't know.

It should be, but isn't, unnecessary to add that I'm writing about my personal experience of Reformed theology. I am not talking about anybody else in the world.

Trigger warning: spiritual and sexual abuse.

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The Garden

When I was a child I walked in the garden in the cool of the day.

The trees, gravid with fruit, hung branches low against the sky,

Offering, encouraging;

The flowers clustered close along the moss-soft paths,

Roses, lilies, clove blossoms, irises,

Nectar and incense over smooth stones.

There are footprints left on the path,

Mingled with strange, polished markings, curved or coiled,

And insubstantial or mutating shapes,

As if in imitation of those feet.

Keening, crying,

A cockerel calls the alarum.

Depraved

His feet among the tulips, his hands brush the roses and the lilies.

‘This is love,’ he says, laying his fingers on my throat,

Forcing me down to bow.

‘I know it hurts, I know it’s harsh,

I know it feels nothing like any loves you know,

But you have to trust me,’

As I writhe and gasp and my eyes blur:

‘This is what real love is.’

The thorns scrape on my skin

And I cannot feel my knees or my wrists.

‘This is love. Stop crying.’

Elect

I am fifteen and I know much of metaphysics.

I know the subtleties of Scripture, and there is nothing in Saint Paul

That for me is hard to be understood.

Hold a prism before the mystery’s light,

And I shall define the sevenfold color of being:

Sovereignty, holiness, truth, omniscience, justice, power, and mercy.

All things are in his will and are his will,

From the starlit glories of the galactic pillars,

To the dirty bathroom where someone tasted salt

On the head of a twenty-year-old cock.

It was not me

Because there is no me:

There is only the will of my God.

An Open Letter to Douglas Wilson

Professor Wilson,

Peace be with you in our Lord Jesus Christ.

I have little reason to think you’ll read this letter—that is the way of open letters published on blogs, and if you write in a chimney then I write in a flue—but I write nonetheless: partly in the hope that you may after all stumble upon it somehow, and partly to address sentiments you expressed, which have had a good many other advocates in Reformed circles. The inner politics of the Reformed are no longer of grave importance to me, since I left the PCA ten years ago to become a Roman Catholic; all the same, I retain an irrational fondness for the Presbyterian tradition: my mother is still PCA, and the Reformed were the first to teach me the love of God and reverence for sacred Scripture. Moreover, my topic is your remarks on the upcoming Revoice Conference, which is being hosted at a Reformed church, and that gathering has garnered criticism principally from Presbyterian sources (that I’m aware of).

Now then, to brass tacks. You invite the reader to read your collation of quotes from Eve Tushnet, Ron Belgau, Greg Coles, and Nate Collins, ‘and try to tell me there isn’t a whole world of compromise nestled in some of those words and phrases. If this isn’t the thin end of the wedge, then I’m a Hottentot.’ I feel obliged to inform you that you are, in hunc effectum, a Hottentot. We mean precisely what we say; that’s why we say it. If we wanted a church with more compromises, they can be got two a penny at CVS, so why would we waste our energy and time with all this? This, aside from the fact that assuming bad intent on the part of an opponent is an ad hominem, which, as I’m sure you know, thanks to your admirable championing of classical learning, is a fallacy—an assault on motive worthier of Ezekiel Bulver than of yourself. And all this is without touching on St Paul’s dictum that charity thinketh no evil and hopeth all things.

But linger with me, please, over one of the images you’ve chosen as an analogue for Revoice.

There is absolutely no way that this is the whole program. … To change the image, the PCA is pregnant with some bastard children, and is only three months along, barely starting to pooch out a bit, and is busy arguing that her confessional standards don’t say anything about pooching out a bit. So we’re all good.

Well, if the PCA, or any church, is pregnant with bastard children, am I to gather from your analogy that you believe they should be aborted? That, taking one of your key-words, is as obvious from your words as our mauvaise foi is from ours. As for that, it is your ill opinion of bastards rather than of Revoice that principally troubles me, insofar as neither hath this man sinned, that he was born blind. But I feel sure that is not quite what you meant. In any case, we can return to the topic at hand, which is this.

I claim the title of God’s bastard child. I am no heretic; a sinner, yes, but Catholic; and that divine Love which elected Rahab, Ruth, Tamar, and Bathsheba as his foremothers has embraced this bastard too. Or art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?

Nothus Dei Natus

Your accent on shame seems to me profoundly misguided. One thing that I absorbed during my time as a Reformed Christian was the utmost importance of letting the Scriptures speak, on the grounds that all human interpreters are fallible; and without prejudice to the Biblical passages you cite, I shall venture to point out that of those texts, only one addresses homosexuality per se, and it is (I dare to say) reasonably plain that it is a summary of the human condition apart from divine grace, since there were plenty of people in the ancient Mediterranean who didn’t exhibit the behaviors St Paul here condemns. Or, if we insist that the Apostle is making a categorical and logical statement here, rather than a homiletic and rhetorical one, are we not bound to assert that all people other than Christians are secretly homosexual? In any case, I should have thought that the doctrinal statement ‘homosexual intercourse is wrong’ was a more important area of agreement among Christians than the severity of the adjectives chosen to describe it.

I speak from experience when I say that shaming people—that is, scolding and humiliating them (or what else do you mean? by all means tell me)—is not a healthy or productive technique even when it is combined with others. I was raised in Reformed circles where the practice of shame and the doctrine of grace were both standard currency, and I hated and despised myself so much that I cut up my skin and considered suicide for years. That is what being shamed naturally does to a person.

Nor does your enthusiasm for it seem to me to reflect the actual practice of the Lord Jesus or his Apostles. A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench; He is meek and lowly in heart; the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and against such there is no law. Or, you might simply recall that the title 'Accuser' is not an epithet of our Lord.

You pass from here to complaints that, in your collection of quotes, no one is told ‘simply to repent, simply to stop being that way’. Well, given that Revoice is primarily about how believers gay or straight can support their LGBT brethren in Christ, we tend rather to take repentance of sin as a given. I would also add that a collation of quotes, however extensive, is not the same thing as reading our words in their full context: you might pick up a copy of Eve Tushnet’s Gay and Catholic, Melinda Selmys’ Sexual Authenticity, or Greg Coles’ Single, Gay, Christian (that is, in toto) for a more complete picture. As for the advice to ‘stop being that way,’ has that ever worked for you? Have you heeded the Bible’s constant warnings against slander and gossip in your decision to believe the worst about us? Or tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither your fathers nor ye were able to bear?

Moreover, do you mean ‘stop surrendering to gay lust,’ or ‘stop feeling gay attractions’? In your own book Fidelity, if I recall accurately, you point out quite correctly that some scrupulous men fear that they are guilty of lust merely because they notice that a woman is attractive. Surely that means that the simple experience of attraction is not in itself a sin—which would likewise mean that (as you also said in Fidelity) there is no obligation to be attracted to the opposite sex, and accordingly no imperative to stop feeling gay attractions, which as it happens we can’t do anyway?

Of course, if you mean ‘Stop surrendering to gay lust,’ then the command remains theologically sound if rather oddly worded. In that case, I would only present myself as a far more suitable target for censure than women like Eve Tushnet or men like Ron Belgau, who unlike me actually practice the chastity they profess. I cling to my orthodoxy not out of moral consistency, but because I have little else.

Passing to your patriarchal halakhah on communication and on the gentleman in the photo you selected, who is (as far as I can tell) being judged effeminate because he wears a suit, combs his hair, and jumps, I have this to say. You are of course perfectly correct that gestures, clothing, facial expressions, and mannerisms are elements of communication. However, they are also gestures, clothing, facial expressions, and mannerisms. (I would apologize for the implication that you do not understand the obvious, save that you show by your article that you don't mind stating that those who disagree with you, even on a point as trivial and changeful as proper dress, do not understand the obvious; and, as I’m sure you’ll agree, with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.) Persons sometimes adopt all these things not because they wish to convey a message, but because they happen to like them. The flaw in the shrewd cartoon you mention is that neither the mother nor the reader can say with justice that they know whether the extravagantly dressed person wants to be stared at, or merely has unusual tastes and is not afraid of being stared at. Given that fear of being stared at does not seem like a common motive among Reformed theologians, and was not a recognizably common trait among the Reformers, I would not have assumed you thought so highly of it.

That aside, given your confident condemnation of the picture, would you indulge us by stating what about it is effeminate? If this people who knoweth not the law are cursed, a patriarch, author, and professor should be ready to teach. And, more important (given the sole infallible authority you profess), on what Biblical texts you base this conviction? Not the conviction that effeminacy in men is wrong, you understand; but that the picture in question is effeminate. That it offends the Lord. For surely you would not issue moral censure based on your own likings or mislikings; and I certainly hope you have a better basis for your conviction than the ‘Obvious’ Fallacy.

I ask, because I am bold to consider myself traveled, having lived on three continents, spent time in nine countries, and visited twenty-five states (my attendance at Revoice will make twenty-six); and I can count on the fingers of no hands the number of people I’ve met who say or even think that that gentlemen is obviously effeminate, whether in gesture, clothing, facial expression, mannerism, or anything else. Since social conventions change over time and the culture of ancient Rome, Greece, Asia, and Palestine was radically different from our own, I trust you are not claiming that the social standards and conventional signals of the Idaho chimney represent God’s final say on matters of human, or even merely masculine, style. Regardless, since we’ve apparently gone full Footloose here, I’d remind you that He does not despise dancing in his heart.

I'd point out also that the archetypes of masculinity you cite with approval, ‘lumberjack’ and ‘long-haul trucker,’ are conspicuous by their absence when one peruses Scripture—even using the extended edition employed by Catholic and Orthodox Christians. Given the Reformed principles of Total Depravity and semper reformanda, I don’t think it’s presumptuous to advance, as a possibility at least, that your idea of masculinity is unduly influenced by your culture; or, in Scriptural terminology, by the World. And given that your mode of defending it is evidently to insult those who don’t see it the same way, calling them culturally illiterate or willfully stupid—rather than explain what precisely you are objecting to (is it the posture? the hairstyle? the colors? in all seriousness, what is it?) and why—I am the less convinced that your standard is a love that vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, is not easily provoked, and thinketh no evil.

All joking aside, Professor Wilson, please stop and take thought. If something other than stated fidelity to the teaching of Scripture and the constant tradition of the Church is to be required of us (a hedge around the law, as it were?) to be in your good books, say what and say why. I have no plans to bother about your good books myself, though as Edmund Pevensie said, ‘If there’s a wasp in the room I like to be able to see it.’ But there are fellow believers in your own tradition, striving after godliness on an often lonely and difficult path, who endure mockery and misunderstanding from Christians and non-Christians alike; have you considered the effect your words are likely to have on them? I tell you plainly that it is not one of joyful encouragement in virtue. I know that from my own scars. Have you really nothing better to do with your time than insult and shame fellow believers who have the temerity to profess orthodoxy, attempt chastity, and differ with you on points that are not mentioned in Scripture at all?

I hope that, in spite of my anger, I have maintained justice and charity in writing this; if I have sinned, I beg the Lord’s pardon and yours. May the grace of God, the love of Christ Jesus, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you and with all who read this.

Gabriel Blanchard, NDN

Ten Years in Rome

‘You know I’m not one for a life of mourning. I’ve always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can’t shut myself out from his mercy. That is what it would mean; starting a life with you, without him … the bad thing I was on the point of doing, that I’m not quite bad enough to do: to set up a rival good to God’s. … It may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, he won’t quite despair of me in the end.
‘Now we shall both be alone, and I shall have no way of making you understand.’
‘I don’t want to make it easier for you,’ I said; ‘I hope your heart may break; but I do understand.’ 

—Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited 

Trying to appreciate a thing is a good way to find that thing’s best qualities, and men are things, especially to a hustler. Many men are heroic in their refusal to be pathetic, and hustlers are sometimes the only people to get a glimpse of a man in his loneliness, or in the weakness of his desire. And it is sometimes only by seeing this contrast—of a man on his knees who is normally an image of strength—that we can perceive the heroic aspect. 

—Rick Whitaker, Assuming the Position

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Welp. As of March 23rd (by the civil calendar) or 31st (by the liturgical), I’ve now been a Catholic for ten years. Weird.

I feel like I should have some “What have we learned?” shit to offer; and, I guess, I sort of do. I’ve definitely learnt that Catholicism is much more human than Protestantism. The idealism of my Calvinist upbringing was a severe, bloodless thing, without the tenderness of flesh or the warmth of breath, unable really to imagine a Christian still entangled in disobedience. The bad Catholic, such a staple of life and art, was a hissing and a byword to my Protestant compatriots: proof that Catholicism didn’t “work.” It was not, as Catholics like the late Fr John Neuhaus would put it, evidence of the power of the Catholic Church to retain ‘the affectionate loyalty of the erring.’

I’m often eager to defend Protestantism to my fellow Catholics, and not only because my mother is a convinced Protestant—I have no higher an opinion of Catholic snobbery today than I did ten, or twenty, years ago. Yet I did after all leave Calvinism for Catholicism, and I think that, subconsciously, this was one of my reasons: I could be a bad Catholic and still be a Catholic. I couldn’t be a bad Protestant at all; that notion was excluded by the Protestants’ own definitions. For in most of the versions of Protestant theology I knew, obedience was the fruit of real faith—which meant in turn that a lack of obedience suggested a lack of faith. Addiction, weakness, and backsliding were understood, in an abstract way; but there were no Protestant versions of Francis Tarwater or Fantine or Sebastian Flyte. Little though I liked to admit it, Pharisaic idealist that I was, I could not breathe that air.

And, well, there’s little use denying it: I couldn’t be a good Protestant because I’m gay. Not that no gay people make good Protestants, but I sure couldn’t. I’m a fiercely sensual creature, with intense admiration of and limited capacity for asceticism. As a bad Catholic, I can manage.

Not that any of this was explicit in my mind when I converted. In my conscious mind, everything was about the intellectual dimension. The sole, simple question was whether (as far as I could discern) Catholicism was true; and the answer to that question was Yes. And although I understand myself now far better than I did then, I don’t regret my answer, nor think I arrived at it for inadequate reasons. If I did I’d probably leave the Church. But, as frail and foolish as I was even then, I believe that in becoming a Catholic, I struck rock. And my ten years on that rock, as difficult as they’ve often been, have only reïnforced that conviction.

It is, no doubt, ridiculous to imagine that I know What My Life Is About at the age of 30. One can hardly grasp the question’s meaning until one’s early teens; and then one is rather preöccupied with hormones and the merry hell they play with, just, everything, for the next ten years, so that one’s power of concentration is curtailed. But, if I have learned any of the things that my life is about, a recurring theme is that God loves mangled things.

That matters for me, because I’m a mangled thing. My earliest introductions to sexuality, and specifically to my sexuality, were internet porn and a series of encounters that have to be described with the word ‘statutory.’ And—partly because of that—at 30 years old, I’m still a scared, shy little boy in a lot of ways.

There are those who would object to me describing myself as mangled. I am more than my wounds, more than my sexuality, more than my history, whatever. To them I can only say that it’s no charity to try and take my wounds away from me. There’s a triumphalism and a weird shame about being sad that pervades American culture, including American Christianity, including American Catholicism. As though suffering and pain constituted some kind of moral failure. And yes, self-pity and wallowing are bad for you; so are repression and fake niceness. Telling a mangled person that their wounds aren’t real or aren’t important is demeaning, not encouraging. More deeply, the urgency with which some people object to this sort of language hints at something: a belief, perhaps unconscious, that really God doesn’t love mangled things, that he has the same shallow addiction to the obviously attractive that we do. That his love is as flawed and self-interested as ours.

And anyway, what does that sort of aversion to darkness have to do with the Scriptures—looking not only to Job’s protests or Jeremiah’s laments or Abraham’s horror of great darkness, not only to the Passion itself even, but to the attitude evinced by Christ and his Apostles after the Resurrection? Where are Jesus inviting Thomas to put his hand into the gash in his ribcage, or Paul’s glorying in weakness and knowing nothing but the Crucified? That gash was a different thing on Easter Sunday (and is now) than it had been on Good Friday, but it was still a gash. I don’t know what glory is going to look like, but the mess and the hurt are going to be in it, in a way that makes them beautiful.

Crown him the Lord of love!
Behold his hands and side,—
Rich wounds, yet visible above,
In beauty glorified:
No angel in the sky
Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye
At mysteries so bright!

I still don’t know where my life is going, toward a boyfriend or permanent singleness, and I no longer know how much that matters. But I’m a lot more okay with that than I used to be. Like I said, I’m a scared little boy; and even though I don’t exactly trust this purported Father that I’ve barely met, I’m not as set on running away and hiding as I used to be. I’m too shy to say much or ask for anything, but I can watch and listen a little. And that's something.

You must learn to bear for God’s sake the trial of being displeasing to yourself, said St Teresa. I used to hate that quote so, so much; but it’s become a favorite. We are far less patient than he is.

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An Analysis of the Nashville Statement

A Truth thats told with bad intent

Beats all the Lies you can invent

It is right it should be so

Man was made for Joy & Woe

And when this we rightly know

Thro the world we safely go

Joy & Woe are woven fine

A Clothing for the soul divine

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine

—William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

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The Nashville Statement on a Christian view of sexuality has provoked a lot of reaction, not only from those who think we should revise that view, but among traditionalists themselves. I don’t consider myself beholden to it—the assertions of a group of men who don’t even claim the authority that I believe the Catholic Church really possesses will, inevitably, be of only so much value to me. But it’s caused enough of a ruckus among my friends and allies that I want to go through it.

I agree with a good deal of it, and for this reason I won’t spend much time on my agreements, since it’d unreasonably inflate this post. My difficulties with it, while fewer, are serious, and they begin in the preamble, with this passage:

Many deny that God created human beings for his glory, and that his good purposes for us include our personal and physical design as male and female. It is common to think that human identity as male and female is not part of God’s beautiful plan, but is, rather, an expression of an individual’s autonomous preferences.

No Christian, I think, need cavil at the assertion that mankind generally and man and woman in particular are icons of God’s glory. However—this is where the connotations get ticklish—it doesn’t follow from this either that there are no grey areas between male and female, or that any felt uncertainty or ambiguity in one’s own gender identity is an attempt to substitute our preferences for God’s plan. A vocation to celibacy is not an assertion of personal autonomy against God’s design for sex; being nearsighted is not an assertion of personal autonomy against God’s design for eyes. The Nashville Statement appears to be saying that any experience of gender dysphoria is either willful rebellion, or a disposition to it—and I don’t believe that that’s borne out by Scripture or the tradition of Christendom.

The vexed term identity comes up here too, which is no surprise. Generally, when I hear LGBT people use it, it’s a shorthand for something like ‘part of my story as a person’; whereas when I hear Christians use it, it’s a shorthand for ‘intrinsic, ontological attribute.’ Either usage could be defended, but it’s worth noting that, to the extent that either group insists on reading its own habitual meaning into the texts of the other group, there’s going to be a lot of misunderstanding, hurt, and anger. (For what it’s worth, I prefer using identity in the ‘story’ sense, partly because it seems to be more common.)

Some of the same implicit problems emerge a little further on in the preamble:

Our true identity, as male and female persons, is given by God. It is not only foolish, but hopeless, to try to make ourselves what God did not create us to be.

I don’t know about hopeless; God didn’t create us to be sinners, but we’ve managed that with remarkable efficiency. And speaking of which—on what grounds do we know that sin, which (as I’m certain the framers of the Nashville Statement would agree) affects us so deeply, can’t introduce a real discord into the relations between body, brain, and soul? There’s some evidence that trans experience is correlated to differences in the brain structure of the trans person, which may suggest that assertions that their body doesn’t match their identity reflect the reality of gender vis-à-vis the brain. And whether it’s a result of the Fall or not, we do know that there are various degrees and kinds of what are called intersex conditions: there are people who exhibit secondary and even primary characteristics of both sexes, or who have the phenotype1 of one sex with the DNA and sex organs of the other.2 We need not pretend that hard cases do away with the existence of the basic pattern; but we cannot and must not pretend either that the hard cases do not matter or do not exist. It goes far beyond Scripture to do so, and it’s a gross disservice to those who do find themselves, through no choice of their own, in between the normal categories.

Moving on to the content, I more or less agree with Article I, though its omission of divorce from the denial is a little sketchy. Of course, the evangelical world is very much divided about what constitutes proper grounds for divorce—though, if as the Statement says, the marriage covenant represents Christ and the Church, then Charles Williams’ dictum springs to mind: Adultery is bad morals, but divorce is bad metaphysics. I would also point out the incredible deadness of conscience about divorce in Protestant circles (I’d say evangelical, but that would seem to unfairly exculpate mainline Protestants, who are if anything still more cavalier about the austere view of divorce presented in the Gospels); in the context of a prophetic rebuke to the surrounding culture, forwardness about one’s own sins—especially when they are so topical—is badly needed, both for the world and for the church.

With Article II, I have one important difference. The affirmation states that God requires ‘chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage.’ This, while true, is again misleading: God requires chastity of spouses toward one another as well, because chastity isn’t synonymous with abstinence from sex. It’s perfectly possible to be unchaste with one’s spouse, by engaging in sex that’s abusive, or objectifying, or closed to life, or merely excessive.3

Articles III and IV seem basically fine, but Article V gets difficult again. The text:

We affirm that the differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral to God’s design for self-conception as male or female.

We deny that physical anomalies or psychological conditions nullify the God-appointed link between biological sex and self-conception as male or female.

The problem being, Why?

I don’t think it’s reading things into the document to say that this affirmation and denial are ‘aimed at’ transgender folks. And I dare say most transgender Christians would agree—if they wouldn’t, I’m sure I’ll be corrected—that our bodies, in both genes and phenotype, are integral to God’s design, and that male and female sex are holy and precious images of the Lord. But if, as mentioned above in discussing the preamble, we know that genetics and phenotype can be out of alignment or ambiguous, then what can the denial here mean? and what place can intersex people occupy in churches that, apparently, deny their existence?4 Scripture says that God made man male and female, and (though Scripture does not say this in so many words) it’s reasonable to read it as seeing the two sexes as peculiar images of God’s character, which is why their differences are metaphysically real and spiritually valuable, rather than only socially constructed or irrelevant to an advanced age. But as St Paul says that neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, for as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman, but all things of God—is it really so inconceivable that certain people, not merely in their tastes but in the very structure of their bodies, are icons of the unity and interdependence of the sexes, rather than of their distinction and simplicity?

Article VI, which states that those born with a physical disorder of sex development are created in the image of God and have dignity and worth equal to all other image-bearers, is very right and proper in this context. I’m not sure that it’s adequately supported by or consistent with the other contents of the Nashville Statement; but, credit where credit is due. I certainly had an unusual upbringing, in (I’ve since come to suspect) an enclave of good sense and compassion within the evangelical world; but at any rate in my own experience, I’ve found the actual behavior of evangelicals to be worthy of better beliefs than they often hold.5

With Article VII I start having more explicit problems. The text:

We affirm that self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture.

We deny that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.

(Just like it says in the Bible: And Moses said unto the people, Also, ye shall not identify as homosexual or transgender, certes: Deuteronomy 22.31.) Now, I’m not certain what the framers of the Nashville Statement mean by self-conception. Like identity, it’s a word that could mean a bunch of different things. If all the framers meant is that sexuality and gender identity aren’t the sole or central aspects of who an LGBT person ontologically is, I could agree; but if, as I suspect, they’re saying that LGBT people shouldn’t consider their sexuality or their perceived6 gender a part of who they are in any sense, then I reject this entirely. I see no reason, Biblical or otherwise, to exclude our sexuality from our sense of who we are: it’s part of our story, and while we aren’t controlled by our stories, they are, well, the story of us. Insisting that being LGBT must be relegated to a footnote is (to me) neither intuitively obvious, nor justified by the pages of Scripture or the tradition of the Church. But even if we took an exclusively negative view of everything other than cisgender heterosexuality: Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then I am strong.

Articles VIII and IX seem again to be fine to me. Article X comes across as dangerously ambiguous, however.

We affirm that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.

We deny that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.

There are several ways this could be read, but I’m not much satisfied by any of the ones I’ve come up with. Does the phrase essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness mean those who disagree with the Nashville Statement aren’t even Christians? If so, I again totally reject this assertion. I am a Catholic, and my body of doctrine is considerably more demanding than the framers of this document would assent to; not only about sex, but about the Church, sacraments, and authority. Nevertheless I insist that they are Christians, my brethren through baptism. This isn’t because I consider the Real Presence in the Eucharist or the infallibility of the Holy See matters of indifference, but because I don’t consider Christian and wrong incompatible categories.7 But the beliefs about church authority held by the framers and signatories of the Statement, I gather, are mostly of a sola Scriptura nature—to use the convenient summary from the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England: Holy Scripture containenth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, or be thought requisite to salvation.8 The point here being, the Bible has very little to say about homosexuality (five verses)9 or transgenderism (zero verses), so where do you get off making this an indispensable condition of Christianity?

Articles XI, XII, and XIV, again, look fine on the surface of them. Article XIII gives me pause:

We affirm that the grace of God in Christ enables sinners to forsake transgender self-conceptions and by divine forbearance to accept the God-ordained link between one’s biological sex and one’s self-conception as male or female.

We deny that the grace of God in Christ sanctions self-conceptions that are at odds with God’s revealed will.

In itself, the denial is not so much a specific doctrinal stance, as a description of what the words God’s revealed will mean. But the affirmation is more problematic. Though I’ve left Calvinism far behind, one of Calvin’s sayings springs to my mind: Where God hath shut his holy mouth, we would be wise to close ours. And—I’m sorry—where has God said that gay or trans identities aren’t a thing? III Corinthians 8.5? IV Concordance 1.16?

I’m concerned about this partly for doctrinal reasons (it may be silly, but even as an ex-Protestant I want and expect more vigorously Scriptural confession from my former compatriots), and partly for personal ones. I’m not trans myself, though I experienced some gender dysphoria as a child; it went away, as dysphoria sometimes does; but for some people, it doesn’t go away, and Article XIII here is dangerously ambiguous about this. It could easily be read in the cruellest sense, that those who continue experiencing gender dysphoria are secretly resisting God’s grace—something I believe we have no right to say. Nor, given the total absence of trans issues from Scripture, is this directly justified by the Bible, and someone who seriously believes that only the Bible is infallible should limit and qualify their beliefs accordingly.

So all in all, I don’t find the Nashville Statement satisfying. And I find it especially lacking in its dealing with trans issues: I feel that it jumps to conclusions that aren’t justified by Scripture, and are inconsistent with what we know of trans identities through biology. One or two of my trans friends have pointed out that, coming so soon after Trump’s order banning trans individuals from the military, it’s also pretty tactlessly timed; and while that doesn’t affect its truth or falsity, it does matter, courtesy being the social form taken by charity. The fact that certain figures like Matt Walsh appear poised to encourage all the same mistakes about trans people that we are barely getting past with gay people is also discouraging.

To any LGBT people, especially trans or genderqueer people, who are reading this: I love you; more importantly, God loves you; and if shit goes pear-shaped for you in this country, I will do what I can to defend and help you. My house is a safe place for you.

To any signatories or sympathizers who are reading this, I hope you’ll reconsider, on Biblical grounds. I don’t think that the word of God really supports the cultural lines that are drawn in this statement, and I think it rushes to judgment on matters that the conscience of Christendom has not yet pronounced on—which, to me as a Catholic, is an important omission. And regardless, I hope and pray that you will take great care to live up to Article VI. I don’t know how much you know about trans people and their lives, but it’s Article VI, rather than any other point, that most people (Christian or not) like to ignore in the way they treat trans people.

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1Phenotype means the visible characteristics of something: e.g., identical twins have identical phenotypes, while fraternal twins will have some differences. Male and female phenotypes would include the literal shape of the genitals as well as of the breasts, the amount and location of body hair, tendencies toward musculature, and so forth.

2One of the better known examples of this is Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome or CAIS. Some people experience some degree of insensitivity to androgens, i.e. hormones like testosterone, which (among other things) prompt the development of male characteristics, like phenotype and brain structure, in fetuses with XY chromosomes. An XY fetus with CAIS will be genetically male and develop testes, but the male phenotype won’t develop, leading to an entirely female appearance; for many people with CAIS, the only symptom of abnormality is the absence of menstruation during or after puberty.

3Not that I think there’s some absolute amount of sex that is too much. But it would be perfectly possible for a married couple to have sex that in itself is mutually honoring and self-giving, but to be so preoccupied with it that it distracts them from other legitimate needs and duties.

4I give full weight to apparently here. Both from reading others’ work and from having my own read, I know that it’s very easy for a reader unfamiliar with the author’s mind to take something totally different and entirely unexpected from their words. But until and unless clarification is forthcoming, I take the Nashville Statement to mean what I’m addressing here.

5We were the sort of evangelicals who distinguishes ourselves with vigor, not to say contempt, from fundamentalists, if that gives you the idea.

6Provisionally ignoring whether this perception is ontologically right or not.

7Of course, I have a kind of advantage over the Nashville Statement authors, in that I have no problem believing that those who are objectively outside the pale of orthodoxy will go to heaven; Christ is the only Savior, but not everybody knows what’s happening when he saves them, as I would put it, and the advantage the Church visible has is one of knowing what’s going on. Hence I can comfortably place the pale of orthodoxy wherever Rome sees fit to put it, without needing to believe that the opponents I thus gain are necessarily hell-bound.

8I don’t believe this. But anybody who does had better make damn sure they don’t start requiring things that aren’t in Scripture from the faithful.

9The five verses in question (Leviticus 18.22 and 20.13, Romans 1.26-27, I Corinthians 6.9, I Timothy 1.10) address homosexual immorality—but of course it must be pointed out that Side A believers would argue that homosexual immorality is as wrong as heterosexual morality, but that marital relations between gay men or lesbian women aren’t immoral, and that these verses are accordingly irrelevant.