The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of “adjustment” or “mental cruelty.” It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the Kingdom of God.
—Alexander Schmemann
We live in a world, in fact, in which respect and support for eros has acquired the hallmarks of a cult.
—Andrew Sullivan
You shall have no other gods before me.
—Deuteronomy 5:7
Since coming out at fourteen, I had searched for meaning and transcendence in romance. Now that I’d arrived in the Christian world, I was beginning to find that meaning in a deeper relationship—with God. And yet something just didn’t add up.
I saw many of my Christian peers spend more of their time pondering who their future spouse might be than pursuing God. A kind of matrimonial madness seemed to have descended upon everyone—like that scene from Disney’s Bambi, in which the animals flounced around the springtime meadow, surrounded by pastel flower petals, utterly “twitterpated.” It got ludicrous at times. Many of our pastors would occasionally tell single members of the church to stand up, look at each other, and find their future marriage partner. Sure, we all laughed. But still—what?
This puzzled and disturbed me. I mean, I had read up on my Christian history. Until the Reformation, most of the superstars of Christianity were single. Why had so many of our forerunners in the early church been celibate, if marriage was the golden ideal of Christian life? The way people talked, marriage was almost as big a deal as getting saved in the first place.
Reminders of it were everywhere—in the programs, in our church planting teams sent out for ministry, in the assumptions that people glibly preached and prayed. I suspect pretty much anyone single in the church today can relate. I felt discouraged.
It was as if the message to Christian singles was, “If you just get married, have kids, and buy a property, you’ll be truly happy.” I mean, it made sense; no one wants to pay their mortgage alone or come home with the flu to an empty apartment. But it began to ring hollow. It also felt familiar.
Both in the gay community and in the church, what seemed to matter most to people was fulfillment in a partner. Singleness was second-class. The sense of displacement I had felt at the Mardi Gras after-party wasn’t that different from what I felt on Sunday. Both situations seemed idolatrous.
Shouldn’t only God occupy our sense of purpose? Was our goal really to produce happy, debt-free, middle-class families? I mean, that’s great, don’t get me wrong. But is that it? Then why was Jesus a man of sorrows with no place to lay his head, and single throughout his ministry?
Jesus was an unmarried, childless man in a Jewish society of family values, and a celibate in a Roman society of sexual liberation that mocked singleness. In a world of two-sided sexual obsession, Jesus invited others into pure intimacy, modeled loving friendship, and lived in life-giving singleness.
I never once heard a sermon about the friendship or singleness of Jesus Christ. Why? I wondered if we were missing the point. Jesus called us to value him above everything else, including our sexual desires and our marriage relationships. Yes, marriage was God-ordained, and God had said it was not good for man to be alone. But God, not marriage, was to be our ultimate desire. Period.
This overemphasis on marriage made it terribly difficult, as a gay man wrestling with my sexuality, to flourish in the young adult community at my church. When the focus was on God’s kingdom, I could belong, but as soon as romantic relationships were the focus, I felt alienated. I often wanted to run out of meetings in tears.
My frustration culminated at a men’s conference. We were encouraged to invite friends, and I brought two gay friends from university. Both of them sat with me, their disgust apparent at this “heteronormative” nightmare they’d been sucked into. It was incredible they had even agreed to come. But I hoped that, like me, they’d discover in the messages the grace of Jesus Christ.
As I sat worshiping Jesus, I thought about how same-sex attractions are not some horrible curse but an invitation to live a radical life that brought about a far deeper faith than many aspired to live. As in the vision of the forest I had to cut through, I had to trust that God would show me the way through my struggle. He would show me what it looks like to follow Christ in my situation. As my mother had told me when I confessed I’d become a Christian, God really was the God of the impossible. Did I truly believe it?
I felt God speaking in my heart and was deeply encouraged. I did believe it. I did.
The good feeling didn’t last long, though. My heart dropped as the pastor transitioned out of worship and made a passing joke related to homosexuality. One strike was all my friends could take. They signaled that they were leaving, and, ashamed and upset, I followed them out. As we made our way to the car, the Lord whispered to me, David, I’m sorry. Remember how much grace I’ve had for you. Please have grace for the church, my broken bride.
The drive home was silent, awkward. I was embarrassed and angry with my church. How could people who claimed to know Christ be so insensitive and miss the entire goal of the Christian life, which is to be like Jesus? Instead of offering grace and showing people like me and my friends a vision for what it means to follow Jesus, a bunch of Christians had gathered to make jokes at the expense of people like us?
I wondered how many of the men in that room struggled with their sexual orientation. I wondered how many of them had family members, close friends, neighbors, or coworkers who were somehow barred from the heteronormative dream that church often elevated. It seemed so disconnected, so uncaring.
But my own idol was about to be tested in no uncertain terms.
Because of my relationship with Thomas, I became increasingly passionate about finding biblical support for same-sex marriage. Ironically, just like the people I was so harshly critiquing, I was idolizing marriage. I wanted to marry someone like Thomas so I could have a holy and sexually pure relationship like my straight married peers. I wanted to belong.
Thomas had dark hair and green eyes. Our political views were worlds apart, but we could tease each other about controversial topics. The two of us drove around Sydney, enjoying the beaches and cafés. I often fell asleep in his arms as we sat in his car late into the evening. Thomas even came to my church a few times, though he preferred his Catholicism.
Our relationship grew. But I didn’t understand why every time I was close to him, the Holy Spirit felt distant. I could just tell that something was off.
Finally, I made a commitment more than once of the kind that tend to be dangerous; God just might ask you to follow through on it. “God, please show me directly what you want for my life. I don’t want to be influenced by church, by politics, or by anyone else’s opinion. Whatever you show me, I’ll obey it.”
He did answer directly, but not through a vision or revelation. My relationship with Thomas continued to gnaw at me. A deeper voice told me that my sexual desires, no matter how sincere I was in my affection for another man, would never be the best for me.
It hurt so much. But gradually I realized that I needed to love Thomas the way Jesus loved him. And in order to love him like Jesus did, I had to leave my relationship with him. What I wanted with Thomas could never be God’s will for us.
I didn’t want to face the reality that marriage might never be mine. It was so incredibly hard. But to follow Jesus, I had to let this dream die.
I remembered Jesus’ words in Matthew 19:29: “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” I clung to the promise that he offered me life, not just brokenness and heartache. When I came to this realization and was ready to own it, I went to see Thomas. But I struggled to do what I knew was right.
We sat and talked. Sensing that I was dancing around an issue, he turned to me, serious. “David, what attracted me to you in the first place was your faith. You have a passion for God. It anchors you in a way I’ve never seen. I struggle to believe like you.”
“Thank you, Tom,” I said. “But I still think gay marriage is probably fine with God! It has to be!” Even I could hear the doubt in my voice, and I knew that I had just broached the concern at the center of all this.
He shook his head. “I’m getting in the way of your faith, David. I don’t want to do that.”
“No, Thomas. I love you,” I said, holding back tears. This was too much. It just was. I couldn’t follow through with the breakup.
In the following days, he picked me up and we drove back to his apartment to cheer me up and eat my favourite sushi. After the meal, we sat on the couch. I lay with my head on his chest, looking up at his stubble, and traced the shape of his chin with my finger. I lifted my head to kiss him.
“No, David. Stop.” He pulled back.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
He pushed me gently off his chest. “You’re a Christian. I won’t let you betray who you are. If I let you do this, you’ll be devastated.”
He was right. By staying with him, I was betraying my own conscience.
As I sat up and looked at Thomas that last time, I realized that in the very place I shouldn’t have been searching for intimacy, I had found Jesus’ love. Thomas put me and my identity as a Christian above his own desires. It was as if the Lord himself were gazing back at me through his eyes. I found the fulfillment of my desire for intimacy in its very denial.
That act of love from Thomas was a glimpse of the greater love I was searching for and would really satisfy me all along.
A year later the lesson of romantic idolatry I’d learned through my relationship with Thomas came back to me as my friend Tristan prepared for his wedding. We both ran a discipleship group and had seen the Lord do miraculous things, with many young men becoming Christians that year. We’d become close friends.
One night we realized together that it was Jesus who needed to be our first love, no matter what commitments or relationships might come our way, including Tristan’s marriage. It was one of my first experiences of the incredible power of friendship to shape one’s life and affections.
Finally, the couple’s big day came. I sat in a pew and watched Tristan’s bride, Renée, enter the chapel and walk down the aisle. She reached her bridegroom, and her father blessed them as they joined hands. When Tristan and Renée exchanged vows and kissed, tears filled my eyes. I knew in this moment that marriage was something innate to God’s own image and his intention for our humanity. He had made them male and female to reflect his glory. It was beautiful.
For the first time, I didn’t feel the jealousy and loneliness I sometimes felt at weddings or when I was with my married friends. Instead I was filled with incredible joy that I could witness the love of Jesus Christ pictured in the bridegroom and his bride. The minister read from Song of Songs:
Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
—Song of Songs 8:6–7
As I listened to these words, I realized that being gay did not exclude me from this kind of intense, faithful love. Like Tristan and Renée, I was part of the marriage between Jesus and his bride, the church, regardless of my sexual orientation. Marriage was that unique union in which, as Martin Luther said, “a man and wife united in the estate of matrimony are two in one flesh as God and man are united in the one person, Christ.”15 We weren’t just celebrating their individual marriage; we were anticipating the future heavenly marriage of God and his people.
It was a fitting celebration for my new season ahead. Though I was sad to leave my church and friends like Tristan and Renée, I was excited to study abroad for a year. My dream had always been to return to France. It was my teenage romantic ideal, where I had wanted to walk in the footsteps of my intellectual heroes. I still hadn’t forgotten my longtime dream of that handsome husband and our dreamy apartment in Paris.
Before I flew out, I poured my heart out to God. I sensed him saying, David, I do not want to erase your dreams or delete your desires. I made you; I know you better than you know yourself. I know the ways you are broken, and I know the ways you will flourish. I gave you the desire to go back to France, and I am going to reinvent the dream that came from that desire all those years ago. Trust me, my son.
There were lessons ahead to be learned, new dreams God wanted to give me. Was I ready to receive them?