Mike Goeke doesn’t like the phrase “gay Christian.” In an op-ed piece over at the Baptist Press, Goeke, an associate pastor who leads an “ex-gay ministry” at Stonegate Fellowship Church in Midland, Texas, starts his story like plenty of other gay or lesbian coming out stories I have ever heard.
As a young boy, I thought more about how different and isolated I felt from the other boys. As I grew older and my feelings of being different became sexual, I thought more about how lonely and how dirty I felt—wondering if I was abominable to God. I worried about my feelings but I never claimed any specific sexual orientation and I ran from any identity based on my gay feelings. But, admittedly, my feelings grew and grew, and the more I read and observed, the more I craved an “identity” that would validate and support my feelings. Eventually I took the step of saying “I am gay” and I began to live a life centered on my sexual and romantic feelings for other men.
That all changed for Goeke, however, and now he has decided that none of the usual labels fit. He writes: “I am not a gay Christian, a straight Christian or a fundamentalist Christian or a liberal Christian. I am a Christ follower.”
You see, Goeke thinks it’s wrong to put anything in front of “Christian,” especially “gay”—comparing it to other wrong combinations like “gossiping Christian” or “envious Christian”—because after all, those other two “sins” can be analogous to “gay.”
Actually, I agree with Goeke. I don’t think there should be any qualifiers before the word “Christian”—especially “gay.” I am not a “gay Christian.” I have never claimed that title for myself. Instead, that is a title that has been thrust upon me by those who wish to define me out of the realm of God. If they can define me as a “gay Christian” then they can pronounce me an oxymoron and dispense with me altogether.
Goeke doesn’t seem to understand that “gay Christian” has never been a label gay and lesbian Christ followers have taken on for themselves. Ask any gay and lesbian who believes in Christ and they’ll tell you flat out, “I’m a Christian,” no qualifier needed. That’s why it is so offensive for people like Goeke to complain about the “gay Christian” label—because what they really want to obliterate is the “gay.”
How we WERE oriented no longer matters. As Christ followers we are to be oriented towards one thing only—Christ Himself. Putting aside all that we were oriented towards, and claiming nothing but an orientation towards Christ, will free you. And it will change your life.
Which, to gay and lesbian ears, sounds like, “If you’re claiming to be oriented only to Christ and you’re still gay, then you’re not truly oriented to Christ.” And this is where Goeke becomes the “judgmental Christian,” by continuing this to blow the “ex-gay” dog whistle with passages like this: “Scripturally, to say we follow Christ is to say that we are willing to leave all that we cling to.”
Whenever religious conservatives start to talk about giving up what we “cling to,” nine times out of ten they are talking about homosexuality—as if those who remain gay or lesbian after encountering Christ are just as pitiful as those hoarders on TV who can’t let go of one piece of trash without having a psychologist on standby to talk them down.
Again, though, even amidst the subtle rhetoric, I find myself agreeing with Goeke. Christ does call us away from “clinging” to things of this world. Sexual orientation, however, is not something I “cling” to—it is simply a part of me, like my hand, my hazel eyes or my brown hair. Those who “cling” to something are those walking in this world trying to be something they are not. “Clinging” would be like writing with your non-dominant hand because the church and society only approves writing with one particular hand. “Clinging” is like putting in colored contact lenses because the church and society only approves of one eye color, or coloring your hair because the church and society only approves of one hair color.
“Clinging” is when you’re so afraid to live into the reality of how God has created you that you insist on putting on the mannerism of whatever way of living the church says is acceptable. So, you can “cling” to your religiously prescribed identity, but in reality you’re still a right-handed, hazel-eyed, brown-haired person. Living into who, and what, you truly are is not clinging—it is becoming whole. But, anti-gay Christians have no interest in their LGBT brothers and sisters living into their wholeness because it contradicts their belief about how other people should live their lives.
Goeke doesn’t like the phrase “gay Christian” because, frankly, it hits too close to home. Goeke is a gay man who has chosen to live as he believes the church has called him to live. That’s okay. I really do understand. Because living into the identity that God gave him would cost him his job, his marriage and his status in the straight Christian world—and that’s something he’s committed to clinging to.
