Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
—Psalm 63:3
You are what you worship. And you worship what you love.
—James K. A. Smith
The Sunday afternoon rain ran down the windowpane to the sill. My phone vibrated.
A text—from a French number.
Hey, David, it’s Jerome!
Long time no see! I’m in Oxford.
Can I see you?
My heart skipped a beat. I wondered whether it was wise to text back. The last time I’d seen Jerome was two years ago when I’d broken things off in Strasbourg.
I set out for my friend’s room down the hallway and asked her what she thought. I found her sketching a new painting. “Yeah—probably not wise,” she said, after I filled her in on the situation.
I left my friend to her art and went back to my room to pray. Strangely, I felt that I should respond, even though I was nervous about what it would bring up in me. Go, David. You’re ready for this, I felt God whisper to me. I will be with you.
Much had changed in two years. I loved my life, this new way of living in Jesus Christ. My existence was far richer than I’d expected. I decided I could meet Jerome without compromising my faith. I just needed to be careful. I remembered those eyes. Really careful. I texted him back, friendly but very careful to avoid any hint of flirtation (harder than it sounds when composing a text message). We picked a nearby café to meet.
When the time approached, I pushed open my building’s heavy oak door and said a short prayer. “Thank you, Lord. Help me show Jerome who you are.”
A spring storm had just passed. The fresh air whirled around me as I walked the streets. I was nervous but excited. I still had profound affections for Jerome and was struggling to push those aside. More than anything, I wanted this man to know Jesus Christ.
When I entered the coffee shop, the French band Air was playing over the speakers. Nostalgia hit me like the smell of a Strasbourg bakery. Jerome was in the corner. His face, with its wide cheekbones, dark ruddy stubble, and wide-framed glasses, hadn’t changed a bit. We sat over hot drinks.
Time flew by. There was a lot to catch up on. As we chatted in French, he told me about his time studying political science in Canada. I asked if I could show him around Oxford, and he readily agreed. We walked out into the lovely afternoon.
As we passed the blooming flowers of the university parks, I decided to take him to one of my new favorite spots, Keble College Chapel. We entered the brick building and paused by William Holman Hunt’s famous painting The Light of the World, which hangs in a side crypt of the old chapel. The painting is an image of Jesus—his eyes enigmatic, distant almost—holding a lantern in a twilight garden, standing by a door with no handle. It is lush, cryptic, beautiful.
“The door has no handle because Hunt was making a point about how we need to make a decision about who Jesus is,” I told Jerome. “He’s always waiting on the other side of the door to welcome us into the new creation he started through the cross and in his resurrection. We all have the choice of whether we’ll let Jesus come in and eat with us or not. Jesus never forces us to open our hearts. We have to let him in.”
He nodded silently and looked around in awe. “I didn’t know faith like this existed,” he said.
As we wound our way back through the center of Oxford, I had one last stop in mind—Christ Church. I flashed my student card to see if the librarian would also allow us into the college’s library. Usually only members of the college were permitted inside, but it was one of my absolute favorite libraries in Oxford. The exterior was bordered with thick Roman columns. The inside was white, with quintessentially Georgian features. Spiral staircases wound up to neat collections of books, split into sections. I took Jerome up one of the staircases to a ledge by the philosophy and theology collection. It was out of view, a place I often frequented.
Jerome looked up at the ceilings and open windows and took in the golden letters of the dusty book titles. “This is beautiful.” Then my heart quickened, feeling that familiar energy of mutual attraction. Jerome leaned in slowly for a kiss.
I pulled back, though everything in me screamed not to. “David, are you sure you don’t want this?” he said, taking my hand.
The thought of a life together passed through my mind, and my affections were stirred. I shook my head and gently let go of his hand. “No. I’m sure. I’m in love with Jesus Christ. My life is his and not my own,” I said quietly.
He didn’t try to argue but seemed resigned. “David, ever since I met you, you were different,” he whispered in French. “I can’t explain what it is about you. You’re unique. You’re not like the other guys I’ve met. But I don’t understand why you keep denying yourself a relationship.”
I shook my head again. “I feel deeply for you, Jerome. But I have to choose Jesus.” I smiled at him. “I’ve given myself to God. All of me. Jesus has made a whole new world, and I’m beginning to be part of it. He’s going to recreate everything, our bodies included. All of this”—I paused to look around me—“will be transformed. I want you to be part of that world, so we can enjoy God and each other forever. So no, I’m really not interested. But . . .” I smiled wryly. “I did want to ask you if you’d like to attend church with me tonight.”
Jerome nodded. “I know there’s something real behind your choice,” he said. There was both disappointment and respect in his voice. “Of anyone I’ve met, you stand out. Your life says that Jesus is real and that he has a love that’s—how do I say it—higher. So yes. I will come.”
As we walked into my church, Jerome stopped and stared. The whole room reverberated with the sound of diverse Oxford City people singing praise to God at the top of their voices. The sound poured out into the streets. Hundreds of students packed the seats. “If church was like this in France, I’d be there every Sunday!” Jerome whispered to me.
All my friends welcomed Jerome. A few people were perhaps wondering what I was doing with an attractive Frenchman, but I knew God was behind this meeting.
As we made our way to the bus stop to say goodbye, I could see that Jerome was visibly moved. “David, you’re set apart [consacré] for God, aren’t you?” he said in French. Consecrated! That was it. Exactly.
I was in awe that God was giving me this opportunity to share with Jerome. “Yes, that’s right! Every Christian is supposed to be set apart for God. We’re called to a higher love. The Bible calls it our first love. I’ve experienced that love from Jesus, and it’s turned my life upside down.”
His face lit up with both wonder and bewilderment. “You mean, you’re never going to have a gay partner or sex? You’d give that up for God?”
I nodded. “Yes. God’s worth that sacrifice any day.”
I paused and looked intently at Jerome. “Would you think about following Jesus too? I would give anything to have you in eternity with me! We can share the love of Jesus now and for eternity. I love who you are as a person, Jerome. I wouldn’t want a tiny lifetime of sexuality to get in the way of an eternity of friendship.”
Jerome’s bus pulled up. Our time was coming to a close. He hugged me. We both had tears in our eyes.
“David, if there’s anyone I’ve ever met in my life who has made me seriously think about Christianity, it’s you. When we were together in Strasbourg—that time in bed when you were touched by God—I’ve never been able to shake it. The love of God you have is special. It’s worth protecting. I respect you for that. I want you to know that I don’t see you as some repressed or self-hating celibate, like some people might say.”
“Thank you, Jerome,” I told him. “You can have the same love. Open up and you’ll find Jesus there. He’s knocking! Please don’t worry about the sexuality thing. That will work itself out. Just let him in.”
We hugged one last time. His face was full of joy as he gave me two final bisous on the cheek. Turning to climb the bus stairs, he said, “Thank you, David.”
As the bus pulled away, I realized that Jerome had seen Jesus in me. I did not need to hide myself away from the world or complex situations. Rather I could face them with the help and power of Christ.
I believe that God graciously used holiness as the window through which Jerome could see the reality of a greater intimacy. Without holiness, none of us can see God or his love. There is a horizon so much wider than most of us have ever dreamed. Perhaps only a glimpse of that horizon can help people like Jerome understand that in their search for intimacy, what they really have been looking for is Jesus.
They have been knocking on the other side of the door depicted in William Holman Hunt’s painting. At the same time, they have been unwilling to open it to Jesus. And the handle is on their side. He will not force himself on anyone.
When we come to Christ, the crucial question is what to do with our identity. The things that make up our identity are fundamental to our nature. They are what we’re known for and validated for.
Atheist David Foster Wallace once said, “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships.”36
Whatever we worship shapes our identity. It could be sexuality, vocation, family, or gender. Whatever it might be, we were made to cleave to God for identity and meaning.
Oliver O’Donovan, former Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford University, states, “If Christianity has a saving message to speak to human beings, it must surely be, ‘You may be free from the constraints of your identities.’ ”37
When Jesus Christ is relegated to a hobby for middle-class families and not allowed to be the Lord of our entire lives, we are bound to destroy the witness of his gospel. What the Western church needs is a new identity that recognizes that Jesus isn’t just a peripheral interest. He’s the center of everything.
It should come as a great relief that we no longer have to be our own gods or be slaves to our old identities, including homosexuality. Compared with eternity, homosexuality is a momentary desire. It will soon pass away with God’s new creation in Jesus Christ. The same goes with all other broken desires. The overriding reality is God’s kingdom and our new identity in him.
The biblical story of Ruth, more than anything, has taught me this truth. Ruth was a Moabite woman, excluded from the covenant promises of Israel, but incredibly, she became part of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
After the death of her husband, Ruth chose to remain faithful to her Israelite mother-in-law, Naomi, who was grieving the death of her husband and her sons. Together they journeyed back to Israel, where Ruth threw herself on the faithfulness of God and made him the center of her life. Then Boaz, a kinsmen-redeemer from Naomi’s extended family, rescued Ruth from the poverty of being a widow, and Naomi from her childlessness. He covered Ruth with the hem of his garment, as a sign of betrothal.
Boaz is an image of Jesus, who redeems us from our old identities with his covenant love. On the cross, he covered us with the hem of his garment. This beautiful truth is reiterated in Ezekiel 16:8, which uses the same phrase from the book of Ruth: “I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.”
This covering, or overshadowing, is a theme seen throughout Scripture. When Mary is told she will conceive a child, she is overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. On the Mount of Transfiguration, the Holy Spirit overshadows Jesus like a cloud, and God declares that Jesus is his beloved Son. At Pentecost, the church was born, empowered, and baptized with the Spirit. God poured out his covenant love on a great diversity of his children. From this point until today, those outside of Israel are being adopted into the family of God.
I came to see that God had covered me with the hem of his garment and pledged his covenant love to me as part of his bride, the church. He said to me, David, you are not ultimately celibate, gay, or any of these titles or labels. While they are part of your reality now, the ultimate reality is that you are betrothed to me. My love is your true identity.
While I still use the words gay and celibate to describe myself, what ultimately defines me is God’s overshadowing covenant love. And he invites all people, including those like me, into this same holy, covering relationship.
I am often asked by Christians, “What can we do to better love our LGBTQI neighbors?” While there are many issues that need serious attention, most of them stem from a Christian failure to really listen and love. Instead of creating a safe place for people like LGBTQI Christians to share, we tend to react from fear, not from the security of the gospel.
God wants all people everywhere to turn from their ways in order to know him. He wants us all to adopt an entirely different view of meaning, transcendence, and worship. Can you imagine how healing it would be for the church to acknowledge that it is just as broken and sinful as the gay community? Can you imagine the power in store if Christians were to humbly repent of hypocrisy before expecting others to repent?
When the church does not demonstrate radical discipleship that is willing and able to meet people where they are, it holds us all back. We become afraid to face head-on the questions that need to be answered if the church is to flourish and mature. Capitulating to secular culture’s view of sexuality makes it hard for people like me to accept Jesus’ claim on our lives.
A weak culture of friendship and fellowship excludes LGBTQI people and forces them to look for intimacy in the wrong places. We need a community life like the one modeled in Acts, in which believers lived as a new family in the light of Jesus’ life and mission to the nations.
We must all humbly name that kind of life as what we want and be willing to pay the price for it to be a reality. We must all call for deeper restoration and renewal of the church. The question of sexuality must always be related to actual people, people who matter to the heart of Christ and the kingdom of God. When we can move beyond seeing homosexuality and same-sex desire as part of a culture war we must (or can) win, we may finally see the people behind the smokescreen of identity politics, truly loving them with the kind of love God has shown us.
What will this look like in action? It means we Christians must open up our private family lives and welcome others into the kind of spiritual families and intimate communities we see demonstrated in the book of Acts and the early church. It means that we must act like what we say we are: a new humanity in Jesus.
There are no easy solutions for LGBTQI people, and instead of acting like there are, we must help them carry their burdens, just as we would embrace or help any brother or sister. The church must be able to admit its weaknesses and moral failures, or else those who are gay, are celibate, have gender dysphoria, or identify as trans will simply not be able to belong. Any pride that shelters homophobia or infers heterosexual superiority is a sinful deterrent to LGBTQI people and has hindered the witness of the church. We need honesty, bravery, and openness to find the way of Jesus through this.
I often hear gay or progressive activists say that celibate gay Christians are the new ex-gay, referring to the harrowing history of conversion therapy. Or these activists call those who support us repressive. I need to name that for what it is: discrimination, and it is as deeply hurtful as any homophobia I experienced as a sexually active gay man.
Being gay is not about having gay sex. That is a moral choice separate from gay identity. Of all communities in the world, gay communities are well poised to accept and understand that distinction. I pray that they will.
In saving us, God does not erase us or our history. Rather, as our identities are brought under Christ’s lordship, he makes us into who we were meant to be. When we cling to fallen desires more than to God, we miss out on the greater identity God has for us as his children. God’s first commandment is to have no other gods before him, and this includes the false worship of our identities. If our love for God is real, every one of us must be willing to give up anything in response to his love so it can be transformed, including our sexuality. Without knowing the love of God, none of us can free ourselves from the identities that cruelly deprive us of true freedom.
In Genesis, we read the story of Abraham and Lot, two men to whom God revealed himself. The Scriptures declare that they were both righteous in God’s sight. However, Abraham feared and obeyed God; Lot did not. These two men’s lives were marked by different decisions in response to God’s grace, love, and faithfulness.
When God called Abraham to leave a secure metropolis for a herding life in the wilderness, I am sure God’s command seemed unwise and nonsensical. Likewise, to many, my choice to be celibate as a gay man looks strange and even offensive, as it would have looked to me before I met Christ. Others see it as a harmful form of self-denial.
To our natural minds, God’s calling to obedience and holiness often appears foolish. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” (1:25) and that “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong” (v. 27). The very cross of Jesus, as Paul states, is foolishness to the wise. We who carry it will be seen as foolish, but we have found the wisdom of true worship. We have found the way of God’s love.
Like Lot, who chose to dwell in a pagan place at great cost, some trust the voice of today’s human wisdom. “Sex is intimacy,” that voice says. “You can’t live without it. Live out your sexual desires the way you like. This is how God made you, and it’s who you are!”
However, like Abraham, a small and brave group of people choose to listen to God’s voice and follow it where it takes them. God freely offers the gift of salvation, but it’s our choice whether to lay down our sexuality or any other hindrance, pick up our cross, and follow Jesus Christ. True faith is revealed in obedience and good works. We turn from sinfully worshiping our own attempts at working things out instead of loving God.
The question of whether a gay or same-sex-attracted person can be saved reflects a complete misunderstanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course they can be saved! The real question is, will gay or same-sex-attracted believers live the way the world encourages them to? Or will they give up their plans and desires to follow Jesus in celibacy or another arrangement he provides, even under the ridicule of friends, family, or some members of the church?
Those who choose Abraham’s path of faith will be called great in the kingdom of heaven and inherit God’s promises, but right now they tread a path of cultural, sexual, and social poverty. Knowing God in Jesus Christ and following him will cost us everything. Yet it is Jesus who leads us, and he promises us relational riches in the kingdom of heaven, both now and in the future. He will give us back infinitely more, today and in the age to come. I have found this to be true. The joy I have now far exceeds anything I knew in my past life.
Those who, like Lot, choose to live their own way face both an uncertain fate and dangerous consequences. The choice is ours. Will we receive this free gift of salvation but insist on controlling our own lives? Or will we follow Jesus wherever he takes us and allow him to define our choices? This is the ultimate war of loves. It is a war for our trust and for our worship.
Our entry into the kingdom of heaven is through faith. But faith without works is dead. One day, God’s judgment of each of us will reveal whether our faith was genuine. God calls us to demonstrate our faith now, through his enabling power, by changing our minds, turning from our own way, and giving up everything to follow him.
God promises those who become sexually poor for the sake of his kingdom that, like the eunuchs in Isaiah 56, their name will be an eternal one, which is even better than having sons and daughters. This promise is especially precious for LGBTQI people. Our descendants will be as many as the stars. We will not be a dried-up old tree. We can be like the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, who, according to church tradition, became the spiritual father of the whole continent of Africa. God promises the same glorious progeny in our obedience and in our trust in him. As Christ says in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Whatever we give up we receive back in a far greater form.
By faith, Abraham trusted that God’s reward was more vast than the star-filled sky above him. Abraham was even willing to offer up the future represented by his promised only son, when God told him to take Isaac up to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him, to test that he did not wrongly worship the gift above the giver. But instead, God the Father really did give up his Son for us! We are called, in response, to give up those things most precious to us, including our romantic lives and sexuality.
The love of God is fierce and says, “I will not leave you as orphans” (John 14:18). But it also says, “Pick up your cross and follow me!” (see Matt. 16:24). It’s not a cheap love; it is a holy love that changes lives. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”38
If our lives are not shaped by true grace, we will end up like Lot—broken, shamed, wasted. Every work done or choice made not in faith will be burnt up in God’s purifying judgment and cannot be taken with us into eternal life. For the true follower of Jesus, it’s never an option to live like Lot. The person transformed by God’s grace wants to be and is an Abraham.
God’s love, demonstrated on the cross two millennia ago, is not a license to live our own way. Jesus Christ bids us come and die and be resurrected. Whatever our sexual orientation, we all must die to our desires so we may be brought into the new life of God’s kingdom. But we cannot do this until we know God’s love. As in a human relationship of fidelity and faithfulness, we must lay down anything that gets in the way of our relationship with God. If we turn to him, he promises to make something beautiful from our brokenness.
Jesus said, “Whoever lives by believing in me will never die” (John 11:26). He offers this gift of eternal life to every person, even to an atheistic young activist in a pub in the gay quarter of Sydney. That is my story. I could die to my identity and my desires only when I knew God had given everything for me to know him.
Each of us is given a choice: will we escape our self-imposed death sentence by repenting and believing the incredibly good news that God loves us? Jesus Christ put an end to this war of loves between our idols and the true and living God. He stands ready to welcome us into his embrace, if we are willing to lay down our right to define ourselves.
The love of God is where each of us can find freedom from the prison of our own identity. This is what I have experienced. If my story has any message, it is that the love of God can reach any of us, wherever we are. That includes you. The question I was asked on the night I discovered Jesus is the same one I now pose to you: have you experienced the love of God?
The angry activist that I was, with my bitterness, desire for vengeance, and attempt to force the church to adopt my self-made ethic, was really trying to assert myself as lord over the church. In the same way, the real issue at the heart of our culture war is idolatry. It is a war of worship. Until people bow the knee and confess Jesus Christ as Lord, the culture war cycle will continue. But there is much the church can do to aid in God’s work. The gospel of Jesus Christ must become our center. We need a clear position that does not instill shame but offers God’s loving grace and revealed will, not just for our sexuality but for our whole lives.
Jesus bought my body on the cross, and my body is not mine to do with it what I will. My ethical stance on gay sex doesn’t define me, nor does it disqualify me from being part of the gay or Christian community. Even if you disagree with my conclusions—what I sincerely hold out as hard fought truth to you—the fact remains that God loves you and desires relationship with you. It’s only in this love that we know who we are, and have true moral knowledge.
I was simply someone who encountered the love of God in Jesus Christ and had my life turned upside down. I am no longer my own. My identity as a gay man is a temporary reality that will soon be transformed. It could never be greater than Jesus’ claim on my life.
Are we willing to give up our identities, and the power associated with them, for the sake of knowing Christ? Are we willing to admit our errors? Are we willing to step, like Jesus, across cultural lines and offer his grace and forgiveness? Are we willing to love and listen to our enemies? I long to see the day we are.
Will you join me? I invite you to come into the Father’s loving arms, where our most desperate battles are won and where you, through following Christ, will become forever the person you were created to be.
This is the battle of a lifetime. This is the longing we were made for: always satisfied, never satiated. This is the Christian way—utterly human yet full of God’s Spirit.
This is the war of loves.
And day by day, tear by tear, heart by heart, it is being won.