I first read Matthew Vines' God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case for Same-Sex Relationships soon after it was published in 2015. I was excited to read it, in light of the 2012 video that had made its rounds on social media from the author on some of the same themes.
Like I said, I was excited to read the book. I had huge hopes that he would do for a new generation what Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? had done in 1977 -- offer a clear evangelical voice to the discussion about the nature of human relationships from an evangelical perspective.
In the end, however, I was let down. I had hoped that Vines would give us a far more compelling theological foundation. He didn't. Instead, he absolutized his experience as the theological argument in support of "same-sex relationships".
In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have been too surprised of the let-down. I've come to realize that so long as Christians have a sexual ethic that merely adopts and adapts the cultural language about sex and gender, we're not going to have a more constructive discussion. Because if you take the emotional-expressive approach of so much of the culture, you can't help but end up with an emotional-expressive conclusion.
Regular readers here will know that I take a very liberal view of gay marriage and gay relationships. I really don't see the biblical warrant against the exclusiveness that some others find in the text. But I do so precisely because I define "male" and "female" in terms of baptism, because I define "relationships" in terms of baptism and eucharist, because I think Christian marriage takes its warrant from baptism and not from the "orders of creation" that Protestants have tended to base marriage on (and even less so on the natural law argument that plagues so much of the Roman Catholic tradition). I think baptism is the defining moment of Christian faith, not birth and certainly not sexual relationships.
What I long for -- what I had hoped Vines would do -- is a theological account of relationships based on baptism, not on sexuality.
That said, I think Vines' book is still an important read -- even if just for the first few chapters. Chapter 1 in particular. I am, as someone who has been bullied, sympathetic to what he is saying here, but (again) I think he is guilty of absolutizing his own experience. The question of the fruit of a theology -- in this case the so-called traditional view on sexuality -- is a vital one, but it's one that we have to be very careful about. I recently had a conversation with a charismatic friend and observed that "miracles like speaking in tongues don't prove anything theologically". I think a similar point can be made here -- fruit is not the only defining way of judging a theological approach. I would point to Sam Allberry, Wesley Hill, Sean Doherty, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield and the Living Out team as examples of stories that don't fit Vines' argument at all.
Yes, Christians have changed our mind (that's Vine's point in chapter 2), but I think Vines is guilty of stacking the deck in terms of how he sets up whether or not the Church should change its mind on gay marriage. As I've said before, the Church isn't clear because the Spirit hasn't finished speaking clearly enough to the Church about these matters. Vines wants us to believe the Spirit has finished, has been clear -- and so many of my sisters and brothers haven't been listening. I'm not so sure.
Vines, it seems to me, has (as I've already indicated) bought into what the culture says about human sexuality and uses that as a theological warrant to change the Church's mind. It's a classic mistake, and one that Christians have been prone to make. But it's a mistake that, if you take texts like Hauerwas & Willimon's Resident Aliens seriously, readers are justified in rejecting.
I fail to see how God and the Gay Christian can move beyond sexuality to develop a "biblical case" for much of anything, precisely to the extent that he's only concerned with the experience of sexuality. Yes, non-affirming Christians have to point to the six (or so) texts in the Bible that seem to reject homosexuality. Yes, non-affirming Christians have to be limited and limiting in terms of how they understand homosexuality in the ancient world. But that should hardly be grounds to try to look to the biblical text from the perspective of other sexual perspective from the ancient world. There are lots of texts from the ancient world that say lots of things -- just read the work by Davidson, Loader, Dover, Brooten, et al -- about sexuality, but that's hardly grounds on which to construct a Christian approach.
Chapter 3 ("The Gift of Celibacy") was the most frustrating chapter of the whole book. In one fell swoop he mischaracterizes how Christians have understood celibacy by absolutizing sexual relationships as the only expression of human intimacy. Try telling that to a celibate Roman Catholic priest. Or to celibate nuns and monks of lots of Christian denominations. Vine's argument is weak here, and sadly he uses it to make the rest of the argument of God and the Gay Christian.
Chapters 4-7 recover ground that I've dealt with in a variety of other places, so I'll just make a few bullet points here.
Chapter 10 is wrongfully titled. Vines isn't calling for a "reformation"; he's calling for a revolution. I still personally find Ken Wilson's Letter to My Congregation more compelling, in that Wilson is humble enough to admit that the tide of evangelical scholarship is against him. Again, Christians have never been clear about these issues. And may never be. But it's up to the Spirit to teach us, not up to one man to start this revolution.
In the end, Vines simply steamrolls over issues in his argument and tries to make readers believe "gay relationships" (in the way our culture defines those relationships) have much more grounding in the faith than I think is possible. Yes, I think there's a way to make this argument, but Vines never does that. And, in the end, that's why I have trouble recommending this book. Sure, it's an important voice -- especially chapter 1! So listen, but listen to what the Spirit is saying through this book. I think that voice is not as clear as Vines think it is.
Like I said, I was excited to read the book. I had huge hopes that he would do for a new generation what Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? had done in 1977 -- offer a clear evangelical voice to the discussion about the nature of human relationships from an evangelical perspective.
In the end, however, I was let down. I had hoped that Vines would give us a far more compelling theological foundation. He didn't. Instead, he absolutized his experience as the theological argument in support of "same-sex relationships".
In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have been too surprised of the let-down. I've come to realize that so long as Christians have a sexual ethic that merely adopts and adapts the cultural language about sex and gender, we're not going to have a more constructive discussion. Because if you take the emotional-expressive approach of so much of the culture, you can't help but end up with an emotional-expressive conclusion.
Regular readers here will know that I take a very liberal view of gay marriage and gay relationships. I really don't see the biblical warrant against the exclusiveness that some others find in the text. But I do so precisely because I define "male" and "female" in terms of baptism, because I define "relationships" in terms of baptism and eucharist, because I think Christian marriage takes its warrant from baptism and not from the "orders of creation" that Protestants have tended to base marriage on (and even less so on the natural law argument that plagues so much of the Roman Catholic tradition). I think baptism is the defining moment of Christian faith, not birth and certainly not sexual relationships.
What I long for -- what I had hoped Vines would do -- is a theological account of relationships based on baptism, not on sexuality.
That said, I think Vines' book is still an important read -- even if just for the first few chapters. Chapter 1 in particular. I am, as someone who has been bullied, sympathetic to what he is saying here, but (again) I think he is guilty of absolutizing his own experience. The question of the fruit of a theology -- in this case the so-called traditional view on sexuality -- is a vital one, but it's one that we have to be very careful about. I recently had a conversation with a charismatic friend and observed that "miracles like speaking in tongues don't prove anything theologically". I think a similar point can be made here -- fruit is not the only defining way of judging a theological approach. I would point to Sam Allberry, Wesley Hill, Sean Doherty, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield and the Living Out team as examples of stories that don't fit Vines' argument at all.
Yes, Christians have changed our mind (that's Vine's point in chapter 2), but I think Vines is guilty of stacking the deck in terms of how he sets up whether or not the Church should change its mind on gay marriage. As I've said before, the Church isn't clear because the Spirit hasn't finished speaking clearly enough to the Church about these matters. Vines wants us to believe the Spirit has finished, has been clear -- and so many of my sisters and brothers haven't been listening. I'm not so sure.
Vines, it seems to me, has (as I've already indicated) bought into what the culture says about human sexuality and uses that as a theological warrant to change the Church's mind. It's a classic mistake, and one that Christians have been prone to make. But it's a mistake that, if you take texts like Hauerwas & Willimon's Resident Aliens seriously, readers are justified in rejecting.
I fail to see how God and the Gay Christian can move beyond sexuality to develop a "biblical case" for much of anything, precisely to the extent that he's only concerned with the experience of sexuality. Yes, non-affirming Christians have to point to the six (or so) texts in the Bible that seem to reject homosexuality. Yes, non-affirming Christians have to be limited and limiting in terms of how they understand homosexuality in the ancient world. But that should hardly be grounds to try to look to the biblical text from the perspective of other sexual perspective from the ancient world. There are lots of texts from the ancient world that say lots of things -- just read the work by Davidson, Loader, Dover, Brooten, et al -- about sexuality, but that's hardly grounds on which to construct a Christian approach.
Chapter 3 ("The Gift of Celibacy") was the most frustrating chapter of the whole book. In one fell swoop he mischaracterizes how Christians have understood celibacy by absolutizing sexual relationships as the only expression of human intimacy. Try telling that to a celibate Roman Catholic priest. Or to celibate nuns and monks of lots of Christian denominations. Vine's argument is weak here, and sadly he uses it to make the rest of the argument of God and the Gay Christian.
Chapters 4-7 recover ground that I've dealt with in a variety of other places, so I'll just make a few bullet points here.
- "Sodom" is hardly the case of homosexuality and rape that Vine wants it to be. Yes, Christians have so misunderstood what's happening in that pericope. But the sin of Sodom was inhospitality with rape. The text is about so much more than one thing -- witness the way Ezekiel retells the story.
- The levitical laws are not the slam-dunk argument that Vine wants them to be. Unless he's also willing to say that the revisionism of his reading also rejects the levitical code against bestiality or incest. Let me be clear here: I think Leviticus is a hard sell for Christians to make a full case against same-sex relationships, but I think the case is complex, and requires that Christians have a Christocentric interpretive move -- one that I don't think Vines has.
- And Romans 1: Well, NT Wright and Richard Hays have some fairly convincing ways of reading that text that would challenge Vines -- and Vines simply ignores them.
Chapter 10 is wrongfully titled. Vines isn't calling for a "reformation"; he's calling for a revolution. I still personally find Ken Wilson's Letter to My Congregation more compelling, in that Wilson is humble enough to admit that the tide of evangelical scholarship is against him. Again, Christians have never been clear about these issues. And may never be. But it's up to the Spirit to teach us, not up to one man to start this revolution.
In the end, Vines simply steamrolls over issues in his argument and tries to make readers believe "gay relationships" (in the way our culture defines those relationships) have much more grounding in the faith than I think is possible. Yes, I think there's a way to make this argument, but Vines never does that. And, in the end, that's why I have trouble recommending this book. Sure, it's an important voice -- especially chapter 1! So listen, but listen to what the Spirit is saying through this book. I think that voice is not as clear as Vines think it is.