This is a question we’re often posed at our Living Out Days with the expectation that it will potentially stump us with its rarity and pastoral complexity. I nearly always start my answer by wanting to rephrase the question slightly: ‘When gay, married couples, with children, become Christians what should happen?’
Because we should be expecting gay, married couples, with children, to become Christians. This sort of question shouldn’t just be a theoretical pastoral nightmare scenario at a training day, but a real-life situation in our church family soon, because our church is just the sort of place where everyone can meet Jesus and have their lives turned upside down by him. We should be praying that this will happen as soon as possible, not praying the day away.
We should be expecting gay, married couples, with children, to become Christians.
‘But it won’t happen!’ might be your instinctive reply. ‘Why would anyone in a gay marriage become a Christian at our church, and, as a result of our commitment to traditional, biblical teaching, be willing to end their quasi-marital, sexual relationship?’ Well, if you really can’t conceive of the possibility of anyone being able to give up something that big for Jesus, have a quick reread of Hebrews 11 and remind yourself that faith in God’s plans and purposes has always made this sort of self-sacrifice both possible and completely rational. It has happened in the past, it will happen again in the future, and here’s hoping that it’s happening in some area of your life too!
Perhaps a real-life example will help convince you? Early on in Living Out’s history a lesbian, married couple, with a child, got in touch with us having recently become Christians, wanting our advice on what they should do now. As we rejoiced in their new-found belief in the good news of Jesus, we found ourselves thinking carefully about what repentance of their wrong, quasi-marital, sexual relationship would look like, as well as wanting to work out what could be affirmed as good in their deep friendship and commitment to bringing up a child together.
We wanted to be careful to give a high expectation of their life together changing as a result of them now being part of the Kingdom of God, whilst recognising that not everything about their previous life was totally wrong. We especially wanted to be mindful of the needs of their precious child. Most of all, we wanted to be like Jesus in both being compassionate to sexual sinners and calling out sexual sin (John 8:3-11).
Their story (if I’ve remembered it correctly, and without providing too many details to protect their privacy) went something like this: their teenage son had, much to their horror, started going along to an evangelical church youth group. Then, much to their horror, he’d become a Christian and wanted to be baptised. Wanting to support him in his life choices they had, with great trepidation, gone to his baptism service. At his church, much to their surprise, they’d been warmly welcomed as his parents, and they loved what they saw of the community he was now part of. They kept going back, and much to their surprise, both put their faith in Jesus at roughly the same time.
We wanted to be like Jesus in both being compassionate to sexual sinners and calling out sexual sin.
As they worked out what it meant to live with Jesus as Lord of every area of their lives, the status of their quasi-marital relationship was increasingly a concern. It didn’t sound as if the pressure to clarify things was coming from their church, but from them: they were the ones to get in contact with us asking what they should do about their relationship, and in particular, their shared commitment to parent their child together. What did we say in reply? Something like this:
We pointed out that the problematic part of their relationship, from a Christian point of view, was the quasi-marital, sexual and exclusive nature of it. If they could end that, and continue to live together as friends, this would seem to be the best option – especially as it would avoid breaking up their family home. If there needed to be some sort of decisive break to help this happen (one of them moving out for a while) could their local church family help with some temporary accommodation nearby? With so much good in their friendship, and their co-parenting together, what could be done to preserve all of that, whilst ending the sexual side to it? They would need to take their time to do this well, and receive plenty of grace and accountability from others, but we felt that it was possible for two people to stay living together and bring up a child, without having sex (not least because of the number of heterosexual couples that manage to!).
To some this will all sound a bit messy – surely a clean break was what was needed, one of them should have moved out permanently, a divorce should have been applied for immediately! Repentance, you might think, in these sorts of circumstances needs to be public and unambiguous.
I’m not so sure. Finding a more low-key and compassionate way of ending their wrong quasi-marital, sexual relationship, whilst continuing the other good parts of their relationship, seemed like the best way forward for both them and their child (whose well-being was a massive consideration in our response). Every pastoral situation like this will have different people in different circumstances and we advised according to the information we were given at the time. Our advice might have been different were there no child, or if a couple were really struggling to end their sexual relationship, but they seemed beautifully willing to give that up for Jesus. I wish I could tell you what happened next, but they kept their response to our advice private.
My guess is that they are not the only gay, married couple, with children, who have become Christians, and it’s my belief that there will be many more in the years to come. Our response to this one couple might meet with your approval, or horror, but whatever your view, you and your church do need to be thinking through your own grace and truth filled answer to the question: ‘When gay, married couples, with children, become Christians what should happen?’ Because, hopefully, that will happen in your church family sometime soon.
