Deny Yourself or Deny Your Self?
What is really at stake when Christians ask LGBT people to deny themselves and remain single?
“Yes, forgoing this relationship will be hard, but the Christian walk is hard, and as Christians, we are called to deny ourselves.”
Sound familiar? Often, when Christians call LGBT people to celibacy, they appeal to Christ’s call to deny oneself found in Matthew 16:24–26, Mark 8:34, and several other places in the gospels. Surely, as Christians we must take self-denial very seriously, probably more seriously than any of us actually do. We must, as we say in Christian-speak, count the cost of following Jesus, be willing to die to self, and take up our crosses to follow Jesus. I wholeheartedly agree that this is absolutely true and that obedience to Christ is hard. It’s really hard. And it asks us to do a lot of things we don’t want to do, and to kill parts of our hearts that are sinful. However, I find the prevalent use self-denial as a case against same-sex relationships to be odd.
First, being in a relationship with a girl did not require or result in me chucking out self-denial. In fact, this relationship provides ample opportunities for me to deny myself. Admittedly, I could do better to rise to Christ’s call to lay down my desires for hers, but this relationship is not one of pure indulgence, as so many seem to imply. It is not one in which I’ve been able to throw off the constraints of self-sacrifice in order to have all my desires granted. Most of the time, it is the exact opposite, as many relationships are. Rather than only think about myself, I have another person’s needs to not just consider, but to put first. The fact that I am with someone of the same-sex does not void the challenge to put someone else before myself. Self-denial is just as necessary, beautiful, and difficult in a homosexual relationship as it is in a heterosexual one.
The fact that I am with someone of the same-sex does not void the challenge to put someone else before myself. Self-denial is just as necessary, beautiful, and difficult in a homosexual relationship as it is in a heterosexual one.
I’ve also found it interesting that many of the people telling me to break up with my girlfriend and deny myself are themselves married. Yes, they are married to someone of the opposite sex, but they have chosen to accept one of God’s good gifts. They have chosen to not deny themselves marriage and sex in favor of singleness, even though, if we follow their logic that greater self-denial leads to greater harmony with God, doing so could have allowed them to grow closer to God and allow them more time and resources to serve and glorify the Lord. Instead of following a martyr’s path and rejecting the opportunity of love in the name of self-denial, they embraced the gift of marriage and the unique opportunities for self-denial that open up within marriage. And well they should have! This is a good thing! Being a Christian does not require us to say no to every wonderful thing in life — we are not all ascetics — but for some reason, when it comes to gay Christians, this simple fact is forgotten. LGBT people must automatically say no to marriage in order to follow Christ’s call but heterosexual people can say yes to it without any hesitation, despite what Paul says: “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am.” These married Christians have found the practice of self-denial within marriage, not by forsaking it. Why can’t the same be true for gay couples? Why, when it comes to gay couples, a blanket rejection of romantic love is the only form self-denial can take? Many gay Christians who are married to each other are in fact denying themselves, they are just doing so in the context of marriage.
Let’s judge the goodness of a marriage not by the orientation of the people committing themselves to each other, but by the fruit that their commitment bears.
Wait, wait, wait, these conservative Christians would say. The reason we are calling LGBT people to deny themselves the gifts of sex and marriage is because sex and marriage are only good gifts within the context of a heterosexual marriage. If they occur within a same-sex marriage, they are sins, and as such, must be rejected in favor of celibacy (or in rare instances mixed-orientation marriages). But are they sins? For the granular Biblical argument saying they are not, I would defer for the sake of being concise, to Matthew Vines, Gareth Moore, James Brownson, or Justin Lee. But for now, I think it helps to think about what makes something good. Why would something be good in one type of marriage but be a sin in another type? The Bible actually offers a very simple litmus test for distinguishing between good and bad. Here is what Matthew Vines writes:
Marriages, of any orientation, are not automatically good and can frequently bear bad fruit: selfishness, misery, resentment, indulgence, etc. But, marriages of any orientation can also bear good fruit: love, intimacy, commitment, etc. But such good fruit is only born out of a marriage in which self-sacrifice is a daily reality. So, based on Jesus’ test for what is good and what is bad, as well as a deeper understanding of what the Bible really does say about homosexuality (which I and many others believe to not be a sin), let’s judge the goodness of a marriage not by the orientation of the people committing themselves to each other, but by the fruit that their commitment bears.
Furthermore, to say to a gay Christian, “You will need to live a celibate life, and I know that will be hard, but that is what it means to take up your cross and follow Christ,” is presuming that you know what cross every gay person should bear. However, no one would presume to know what cross every straight person is called to bear. “But wait, I do know!” someone might say. “The cross we are all called to bear is to say no to sin, and homosexuality is a sin, which is why all gay Christians need to say no to homosexuality and yes to celibacy.”
As a response to this, let’s consider what self-denial really is. To do so, let’s borrow a very clear, simple, accurate definition from an opponent of same-sex marriage: John Piper. Quoting Luke 14:33, Piper says: “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” Then he writes, “This command is to renounce. In fact, if you want to be a disciple of Jesus you must renounce all that you have. This is good old-fashioned self-denial — the stopping, quitting, halting of anything and everything that might impede our fellowship with God.”
Okay, awesome! But how do we know if something is impeding our fellowship with God? Well, unless we are discussing the Ten Commandments or the Greatest Commandments to love God and your neighbor, which are explicit, we know either by searching our own hearts or, if we risk presumption in order to edify another, by asking that person directly. Same-sex relationships do not break either of the explicit commandments, so to see if self-denial is at play in a gay couple’s relationship, we would have to ask them if their relationship has impeded their fellowship with God. Some might admit it does impede it, just as some straight people might answer say so a swell. But there are others, like myself, who are in same-sex relationships, who would say that their relationship hasn’t impeded their fellowship with God, and in fact, it has enriched it. If a same-sex relationship has not impeded one’s relationship with God, why should one renounce it? Such renunciation would not be self-denial, but an uncalled-for denial of self. Instead of being told to deny ourselves we are being told to deny our Selves. This is a huge difference! Telling such Christians to deny their core selves could actually impede their fellowship with God. How many gay Christians, when trying to shut down their desires or imagine a life without romantic love, have been debilitated by depression, stopped attending church, or even abandoned their faith? These are not the results of true, God-honoring self-denial.
Such renunciation would not be self-denial, but an uncalled-for denial of self.
Thus, to put a sweeping command on all LGBT Christians to deny themselves the blessings of marriage is not asking them to deny themselves, but to deny their selfhood. These Christians are asking LGBT people to reject a crucial part of who they are, and forsake something that they might actually feel God is calling them to. All too frequently, the fruit of this misunderstanding of self-denial is depression, shame, suicide, and other terrible fruits. When Christ calls us to self-denial, it is indeed difficult, but it always is a path to flourishing and intimacy with God. Too often, calling LGBT to celibacy is a path to self-rejection, languishing, and loss of faith precisely because it is not what God wants from them.
Homosexual relationships and self-denial are not mutually exclusive. Surely, some gay Christians might pursue relationships for all the wrong reasons. But I think more often than not, if a Christian comes out as gay and decides to marry someone of the same sex, that entire process and relationship will be a path that requires great self-denial, true Christ-like self-denial, both within the relationship, and outside of it as they will likely face rejection from loved ones and be thrust onto a very difficult path, as I was when I first came out.
When Christians of any orientation come out in favor of same-sex marriage, the cost is very high. Pastors lose their jobs. Kids get kicked out of their religious homes. Businesses are boycotted. Many of these people choose the harder path and risk rejection in order to stand up for what they believe is God’s truth. They are shunned for offering love instead of discrimination. They counted the cost, they knew it would be high, and still they followed where God led. Perhaps it’s not these Christians that need to be reminded of self-denial, for many are already practicing it in urgent, prevalent ways. Consider what Matthew Vines wrote: “Millennials are leaving the church. Critically, they aren’t leaving because the cost of discipleship is too high, but because the number of leaders willing to suffer that loss is too few.”
Many of these people choose the harder path and risk rejection in order to stand up for what they believe is God’s truth.
So yes, we should all count the cost and take up our crosses on the path to obedience. But we should not ask anyone to deny their selfhood and embark on a path of self-destruction and shame. Many LGBT people understand deeply the cost of discipleship, for they have taken a very hard path and faced rejection for diverging from what their family or church tradition has taught them. And those who are in same-sex relationships have ample opportunities to practice selflessness within them. This is not say that LGBT people are in any way better at living sacrificially than straight people, but simply that they have equal opportunities, if not more, to embrace the cross of self-sacrifice.
So yes, we can all challenge and encourage LGBT people to take self-denial more seriously, just as we can with our straight friends. But this does not mean telling them they are not allowed to marry. It means telling them that whatever relational situation they are in — single, dating, married — self-denial needs to be a very real part of their daily lives. The Christian walk is hard for everyone, so let’s encourage each other to be faithful and thrive by denying ourselves while embracing our unique selves, and bearing our own individual crosses on the path to greater love and flourishing.
Originally published at lovehermeneutic.tumblr.com.
