By Gregory Coles. Greg holds a PhD from Penn State, is a Senior Research Fellow at The Center, and is the author of Single, Gay, Christian, No Longer Strangers, and The Limits of My World.
I recently ran into an old friend who might hate my guts.
I say “ran into,” but the truth is, we didn’t get within five feet of each other. I was writing at a coffee shop (as I frequently am these days) when I heard his voice in the distance. I looked up, saw him, and looked back down. If he saw me, he didn’t feel the need to strike up a conversation. I doubt either of us would have known what to say.
As to the potential guts-hating, it’s complicated. Suffice it to say, the last crossing of our paths left us both grieved and hurting in the end—him most of all. We’ve tried to apologize, as far as our consciences will allow us, and tried to extend corresponding forgiveness. Still, I’m pretty sure that when I appear in the unabridged edition of his life story, I won’t come out looking like a hero.
I’m not accustomed to being seen as villainous. It’s certainly not a role I savor. My default predisposition is toward peacemaking (or, in its more carnal manifestation, peacekeeping). I want everyone in the world to get along with everyone else—especially with me. The thought of being a villain in someone else’s story makes me taste acid in the back of my throat, like I’m about to throw up.
I felt that same acidic, nauseating sensation of villainy a few days ago, as I stumbled across yet another article criticizing celibate gay Christians. The author of the article mentioned me by name (congratulations to me!) and wrote that I am “destroying the peace and purity of the church and disfiguring the gospel.”[1] In the story this author tells, I’m the worst kind of villain.
My goal in this blog post is not to argue whether “Greg-Coles-as-villain” is an accurate or biblically faithful assessment.[2] My goal is, instead, to reflect on how much it matters if some Christians think of me as a villain.
Indulge me in a brief thought experiment: Imagine that, a hundred years from now, someone stumbles across my name in an article like the one I mentioned above. They read about a Greg who “denies the gospel requirement of repentance” and “calls the church to leave men and women enslaved to sin.”[3] They think to themselves, Gosh, this Greg fellow sounds awful! I don’t want to be anything like him!
Imagine with me that this person goes on to live a rich, full life with Jesus. They seek (however imperfectly) to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love their neighbors as themselves. They pursue repentance and freedom from sin. Along the way, an image of me floats in their mind like a cautionary tale, a shining exemplar of What Not To Do.
If this person’s story has Jesus at the center of it, why should it matter that I’m cast in the role of a villain?
In one sense, these debates about faithful stewardship of sexual attraction as followers of Jesus matter immensely. Our Christian theologies inform the pastoral wisdom (or pastoral foolishness) we bring as we interact with LGBTQ/SSA people and their loved ones. I hold the convictions I do—and I write and speak in defense of those convictions—because I believe it’s the best way to help as many human beings as possible encounter the radical love of a Jesus who calls us all into radical discipleship.
But what if someone is drawn into love and discipleship by hearing a different voice—a voice that regards me as an antagonist? Can I cheer on that story as well? (What reason would I have, apart from my own pride, to object to it?)
The apostle Paul, outspoken in his advocacy for gentile Christians who didn’t fit the religious mold of the day, was no stranger to people hating his guts. I’m fascinated and challenged by the ways Paul responded to the people who opposed him. In Philippians 1:15-18, Paul writes this about people whose gospel proclamation doubles as an attack on Paul himself:
It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry…. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.
And in Romans 15:1-3, writing about disputes in religious practice between people whose consciences differ, he offers this reflection:
We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”
In both these passages, I’m drawn by Paul’s shocking indifference to his own vindication. As long as the gospel is preached, he’s not concerned about the motives of his ill-wishers. As long as his neighbors are built up, it doesn’t matter whose insults fall on him.
To be clear, neither of these passages correlates perfectly with today’s disputes about sexual identity. I’m certainly not asserting that I am “strong” and my critics “weak,” or that those who oppose me are motivated by “envy,” “rivalry,” or “selfish ambition.”
All I’m saying is that I want to be as disinterested as Paul seems to be in the politics of reputation, the politics of heroism and villainy. I want to be, like Paul, so deeply compelled by the beauty of the gospel that I celebrate whenever and however people enter into that grand Kingdom story. I want to be so convinced of the all-consuming heroism of Jesus that it doesn’t much matter who gets cast as the villain.
My prayer for you, whoever you are, is that you’ll live out a beautiful story with Jesus. For now, if you want me to be, I suppose I can be your villain. I trust Jesus to sort it all out in the end. And I trust him to make even that sorting-out into something breathtakingly beautiful.
[1] In the interest of not adding fodder to the destruction of the church’s peace, I won’t name the author or link to the article in question. Those of you who desire this information for research purposes can undoubtedly find it with a bit of deft Googling. I should also mention that I was named between Preston Sprinkle and Andy Stanley, two men for whom I have tremendous respect; it’s hard to object to appearing in such auspicious company. (I do find it funny that I’m the only one in this list of three who is actually gay.)
[2] I do, unsurprisingly, have an opinion on that topic. But since I’ve already weighed in on it rather extensively—for instance, in this essay for the Evangelical Review of Theology, this dialogue on terminology with Rachel Gilson, and this three-hour debate with James White—I won’t attempt to reinvent the wheel here.
[3] These quotes are taken from the article described above.