Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God’s Grand Story — Christopher Yuan
A fantastic study on how to positively shape sexuality around the gospel, not personal identity or cultural forces
This is the second in a pair of book reviews this week about same-sex attraction and the gospel of Jesus. For a review of Jackie Hill-Perry’s Gay Girl, Good God, click here.
Sometimes, the American church focuses too much on what not to do and does not replace the “thou shalt nots” with something positive to pursue in its place. I have believed that for a while, and I feel that Christopher Yuan would agree. In his forthcoming book, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel (releases November 20), he says as much. He might even take it a step further. He would say that before we can ever hope to stop chasing a sin, any sin, we must begin chasing something else. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the heart is the same way. Yuan says this himself in the first chapter:
A robust theology cannot be built on what we’re not allowed to do, for the Christian life is much more than the avoidance of sinful behavior. If scriptural prohibitions are the only lens through which we see things, then we may well miss the gospel.
This focus on God’s story rather than simply the right and wrong actions associated with sexuality is what makes Holy Sexuality and the Gospel so refreshing and uplifting. Growing up in Southern evangelical Christianity but without ever struggling with same-sex attraction (two facts I am extremely grateful for by the way), I have almost exclusively heard the prohibitions. Usually they are couched in a closing “but sex within marriage is a wonderful thing”, but I have never seen the depth of positive theological study with which Yuan engages. For a taste of the power of this book, you should watch the book trailer and the high-quality blurb-age that accompanies it.
With this paradigm shift of focusing on the power of the gospel to shape our lives rather than a list of prohibitions, Yuan sets up the rest of the book. Of particular importance is his argument that we absolutely cannot expect practicing homosexuals to change their lives without first giving them the gospel. What reason would someone have to turn away from their attractions if God has not yet changed that individual from the inside with the good news of Jesus? And how will they hear the good news if all we tell them is bad news?
Yuan says it this way:
I didn’t leave pursuing a same-sex relationship because my parents convinced me it was sinful. I didn’t leave it because they convinced me it was unhealthy. I left it because I was shown something better — and his name is Jesus.
Literally the first time I ever shared the gospel with a group of people, I used a “bad news/good news” framework. “I have bad news … you aren’t perfect, and that separates you from God for eternity. But I have good news … Jesus came to take away that divide so you can have eternal life with Him forever.” That was the gist of it. As a high school student that basically knew nothing, I thought it was a clever device that I made up and didn’t realize that it is a very common approach to sharing the gospel. But my point is, what if I had stopped with the bad news? Would anyone be persuaded by that? I could almost guarantee you not, because I am no Jonathan Edwards and I’m not even sure how he made that stuff work.
So why do we think that approaching unbelievers with same-sex attraction with verses from Leviticus will do us any good? Even if they were to turn from their homosexual lifestyle and become heterosexual, they would still be sinners and unbelievers! As those whose eyes have not been opened to the gospel, they don’t yet have the capacity to not sin. Here’s how Yuan says it at one point:
To use Augustine’s Latin phrases, Adam and Eve were both “able not to sin” (posse non peccare) and “able to sin” (posse peccare). Ever since the Fall — because of the pervasive pollution of sin — unregenerate men and women are “unable not to sin” (non posse non peccare).
But an essential aspect of God’s grand story is redemption, and as such, born-again believers are now “able not to sin” (posse non peccare). Unfortunately, sin persists even in the believer and won’t be completely eradicated until the culmination of redemptive history, when God’s faithful elect reach glorification on the last day of consummation and are perfectly “unable to sin” (non posse peccare).
Wow.
That changed everything for me. And that line of thinking pervades the entire book, including in the later portions when Yuan gives highly practical steps for reaching out and witnessing to our gay neighbors, friends, and loved ones. His tone of empathy and honesty is contagious, and I hope many who read this book will catch it. Yuan also sets aside chapters that provide a biblical view of both marriage and singleness which I hope contributes to a more healthy view of the family in churches throughout North America. (For a more book-length treatment of marriage, family, and finding its God-designed place in our Christian lives, I also recommend Russell Moore’s new book The Storm-Tossed Family.)
The only small issue I had with anything Yuan posited in this book is in the chapter about discipleship. He says, in the shortest passage ever, “Discipleship is with someone in a position of authority, like a mentor or teacher.” He expounds a little to say that Paul gives direction for older men to teach younger men and older women to teach younger women. While I agree that this is helpful, I don’t believe this is the only way to do discipleship. I have been part of a discipleship group based on Greg Ogden’s “triad” framework, where no one is in authority but instead we teach each other and hold each other accountable to Scripture. The Bible is our authority. Yes, it is within the context of the local church, which provides some level of authority, and whoever initiates the group has at least some implicit authority, but I don’t believe discipleship has to be a one-on-one, teacher-student relationship. I actually think it is better sometimes if it isn’t. That said, I am willing to defer to someone with a lot more theological education than myself. We probably agree more closely than I think, considering the comparative insignificance of that statement within the scope of the entirety of the book.
I could go on about Holy Sexuality and the Gospel for much longer, but I will leave you with the following: This book, should it get the recognition it deserves, will be the go-to resource for Christians everywhere who are either struggling with same-sex attraction or have a loved one that they want to love better through his or her same-sex attraction. It is truly a shift in perspective that many in the American church need.
Holy Sexuality and the Gospel is available for pre-order now and is available everywhere on November 20th.
I received this book as an advance review copy courtesy of Waterbrook & Multnomah, but my opinions are my own.
