The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
CNLP 057 – Aaron Harris: A Gay Man's Perspective on What He Wishes Was Different in the Church
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast, a podcast all about leadership, change, and personal growth. The goal? To help you lead like never before. In your church or in your business. And now your host, Carrie Newhoff. - Well, hey everybody, and welcome to episode 57 of the podcast. My name is Carrie Newhoff, and I hope this episode helps you lead like never before. I am super excited about today's guest. His name is Aaron Harris, and I'm gonna introduce you to him in a few minutes. And we're gonna talk about one of the most controversial subjects in the church today. And that is simply the whole issue of same sex relationship, same sex attraction. And Aaron's gonna tell his story of what it is like to grow up as a gay man in the church. This is the very first interview that has gone, I think about an hour and three quarters. Yeah, well you were pushing the two hour mark, so yeah, your phone is not inaccurate. But again, I'm just hoping this is a really powerful conversation that's gonna help people, while all leaders who maybe even have different views on the issues. So really glad you're tuning in. Before we go there, I just wanna say thank you so much. We are one week out from my book launch, my latest book called Lasting Impact, seven powerful conversations that will help your church grow. And you guys like completely blew me and the team away. Oh my goodness, all the pre-orders, all of the orders in the first week. Amazon kept emailing us on a regular basis going, we need another 500 bucks, we need another 1000 bucks. And man, you guys, wow, I just can't believe the response. I just wanted to say thank you so much. Thank you for your generosity, thank you for ordering the book. It is so encouraging already just a few days out from the launch of the book. As it gets into your hand or as you download the Kindle, so many of you are sending such positive feedback. Thank you so much. And to all of you who subscribed early and got the pre-order bonuses or the first week bonuses, it was fun to ship those out as well. So the pre-order bonuses should almost all be out and in your inbox. And I hope you're enjoying the free audio book and so on. And for those of you who ordered during launch week, which closed yesterday, the audio book, if you don't have it yet, will be on its way very, very soon and that was free. In the meantime, if you haven't picked up a copy of the book, we'd love for you to do that. You can get all the information at lastingimpactbook.com or you can go directly to Amazon. And hey, if you've read the book or you're reading it and you could leave a review on Amazon or on orange books or on iBooks, that would be incredible because it's available on all of those platforms. And again, you can get everything at lastingimpactbook.com. So you guys, you hear this all the time but you continue to just inspire me. So thank you so much for that. I really do hope that book helps you and your team navigate seven of the critical conversations that we need to have. And if you want more on that, you can go back and listen to episode 56. I basically gave away quite a few of the key ideas in last week's episode as Jeff Henderson interviewed me. And I was a fun conversation. So either way, I hope it really helps you and everything's at lastingimpactbook.com. Now onto today's interview with Aaron Harris. Aaron is a lawyer. He also is fantastic at interior design. You should see some of the work that he's done. It's incredible. And I just so appreciated Aaron's story. We got introduced as you'll hear by a mutual friend and he realized at a very, very young age that he was same sex attracted. And we just had a conversation about what it's like to grow up as a gay man in the church. And I think for a lot of us, this is the conversation we wanna have, but we don't know how to have it. And we're gonna have different views on this. But I really, really hope that this is gonna be a helpful interview. And I hope you listen through right through to the end. This is a long podcast. We are over an hour and three quarters on this one. But that's sort of on purpose. And the reason is often the debate is so controlled by invective and if you actually sit down with a person and have the conversation, I hope it's just gonna be helpful for you and your team. And maybe even help you understand the dialogue and certainly emotions that people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered feel as they try to figure out what it's like to have a relationship with Jesus and be part of a church that has largely rejected them over the years. The conversation on the whole issue of same-sex marriage, same-sex relationships in the church has unfortunately, in my view, been owned by people on the extremes of the issue. And you've seen that online, I'm sure on social media, I wrote a blog post a few months ago that response by Canadian church leader to US church leaders on same-sex marriage, it went crazy. There's I think 1.2 million views on that and the comments exploded. There are literally thousands of comments by hands down the most commented post I've ever written. And some of the comments were just so negative. It just broke my heart. And that made me want to have even more of an intelligent conversation around this issue. Because here's what I believe. I believe that 98% of you who are listening are rational, reasonable, loving people who maybe have different viewpoints on the issue of same-sex relationships, gay marriage and so on. And they may be a little bit different or a lot different, but you love Jesus and you want to find hope in this dialogue. And there's so much of that missing. That's why I'm so excited to have Aaron. And what we did is we had an almost two-hour conversation. And I hope what you're going to hear in the midst of that conversation is just two people. And I'm not even sure we agree 100% on the issue. Aaron and I just having a conversation in the same way that I think there are so many people who are gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered who would love just to have a conversation with other people about the issue. But because it's so polarized, because it's so divisive, that just makes it really, really hard. And if this podcast, if this episode in some way advances that, I will be so grateful. Like reasonable dialogue that honors Jesus in the church because authentic Christ followers have different opinions on this issue. And that's okay. We have different opinions on a lot of issues. But if we can sort of cut back through the hyperbole and through the invective and through the hate and just talk, I think the church will be built up. But more than that, I think more people will come to know Jesus. I think straight people will come to know Jesus, gay people will come to know Jesus. I think more people will come to know Jesus. And wouldn't that be amazing? So the goal in all of this and Aaron and I state that in the middle of the podcast is not to change your opinion, it's not to change your mind, it's, it's, and if you do change your mind as a result of this podcast, please, please, please dig deeper, pray. But just to set a tone for a complicated issue that people are probably gonna disagree on for a while, but somehow move the discussion, move the debate toward a more godly, loving, truthful, honest, and even rational conversation. I just, I just think that would be great for the church. So yeah, that's it. It's a very different kind of episode. I hope you feel like this dove into places that maybe the quick sound bites never do. And I don't know, Aaron, particularly well, we spent about an hour together before I recorded this podcast, a mutual friend to introduce to us. And then, and then obviously a couple hours having this conversation, but I just, I so appreciate his heart, I so appreciate his openness. And I so appreciate the fact that he has held on to Christ and held on to being part of a church, even when that church has so often rejected him, even though there have been leaders who have accepted him. So I hope this is gonna help you advance a dialogue in your own life, you know? You may have family members who are gay or lesbian or certainly people in your church and in your community that you might be trying to reach and you're wondering how do we even have a conversation about that? And well, if this helps in any such way, I'm so, so grateful. Again, all the links that Aaron and I talk about will be in the show notes. It's carrynewhough.com/episode57. And I just want you to know too, Aaron and I prayed together before we recorded this interview and I'm praying very, very much that it get heard in a way builds up the church and honors Jesus Christ who Aaron and I would agree is Lord. Just a scripture talks about. So here's my conversation with Aaron. Well, I'm really excited to have Aaron Harris on the podcast. Welcome, Aaron. - Thank you, it's good to be here. Aaron is an artist, creative by day and lawyer by training. You still practice law. I do not, I'm a lawyer as well by training. I don't know a whole lot of like artistic lawyers. That's cool. - There's a few of us out there, not many. - There's a few. Well, Aaron, I'm so glad you're here because there have been few issues that are dividing the church or the dialogue in the church as much today from the world that Christ loves as the whole conversation around the church and the LGBT community. And Aaron, this is, I'm so glad you're joining us 'cause this is more than an issue. I think sometimes as church leaders we go, oh, there's an issue we have to deal with, but this one's really, really personal. It's a very personal conversation for you as well. Tell us a little bit about your background and the whole question about sexuality in the church today. - Right. Well, just a disclaimer up front, is that a lot of what we'll talk about in this conversation will tie into my past, my family dynamic, the town and church I grew up in. So I would ask people not to make assumptions that because I may be focusing on certain negative aspects that I did not have a loving family or a people in the church that were loving toward me 'cause I absolutely did. But certain negative components of my experience are the part that sort of move the story forward. So I always like to tell people out of respect to my parents in particular. Like they are great, amazing, loving people. And they were doing the best they knew how to do based on the awareness they had at the time, which wasn't much because the church wasn't willing to talk about it. - Gotcha. - But generally I was raised in the church. My dad is a Southern Baptist pastor. He worked with the North American Mission Board with what it was now used to be called the Home Mission Board. He's now retired, but so I was raised and around the church my entire life from the day I was born and even when my mom's womb, I was born in the church every day. But unfortunately, I also was abused in the church sexually by a couple of different people throughout the span of my childhood. But so that obviously was a negative experience with the church that had a drastic impact on my experience and how I viewed the church and Christians in general and how safe they were. - And how old were you when the abuse occurred? - The first abuse when I was really small, so like two, three year old, I have very little memory of it, just sort of like a few like still images. And the rest of my memories from where the abuse really started, which was in middle school, into early high school, I like in that those memories are like videos. They're sound and sight, but the ones from those were little, it's just still images that shows that something was wrong, something was happening that wasn't healthy. I don't know the extent of it. And we talked about it in counseling and there's sort of a consensus that something inappropriate happened at the young age that might have even set me up to be more vulnerable to the abuse that were more complex and enduring, which started like probably sixth grade. So. - Oh my goodness. - Yeah, at the time, I wasn't always even really sure I was being abused, which is a common thing. You know how to wear of it. You think you're participating in something and that's why you hide it because you feel guilty. Like you somehow wanted it or desired it because there is this component of pleasure. - Right. - In physiology, you rub certain things together, there will be friction, there will be pleasure. And that's confusing for a child. And you know, there's a little bit of a hesitancy sometimes for people who are gay or deal with same sex attraction to talk about if they've had abuse in their life because the assumption is is therefore that's why you're the way you are. - In other words, well, now we know why this is the case. And so there's, you know, now we can fix you. - And I don't have a memory in my life where I wasn't, hadn't already experienced some form of abuse. So I don't have the luxury of knowing if I had same sex attraction prior to the abuse or not. - Yeah. - Some people do, some people remember being attracted to someone of the same sex prior to abuse ever happening. - Right. I mean, I'm sure many were never abused, right? They were just attracted tons of them were majority. - Right, never abused. But the same thing, a lot of straight people were abused that doesn't make them gay either, you know? - Right. Or straight. (laughing) - Or straight, you can't really make that correlation. But I understand the temptation to do so. So therefore there's grace in that when people sort of jump to that conclusion. And I've even jumped to that conclusion before and spent years in counseling trying to work through the abuse, hoping that we take away the same sex attraction. And it didn't, you know, there's been tons of healing there. It's not a sore spot in my story anymore, but... - So you were abused young in the church, born in the church. - Yeah, born in the church, abused young in the church. And I would say one of my first big steps meant to vulnerability, which was to go to my youth minister and to tell him what I had been doing. I didn't even realize I was confessing or talking about abuse happening. And he responded very well. And out of respect to him, like he's a great man. I have a relationship with him now. He was not the one who abused me. So I always want to make that clear because anyone who knows where I grew up would know who he is. And him or his wife are not the ones that abused me. It was someone else in the church. But we met with my parents and there were a lot of circumstances around it as there often is where there's situations or circumstances that would make it look like maybe the kids not telling the whole truth. And honestly, I told the whole truth at first and then I was afraid of getting in trouble. So I sort of shifted my story around and because based on the reactions of my parents and of my youth minister. So I can see now as an adult how it might have looked like my story would change, not everything lined up. Not all the other kids corroborated the situation and said it was true initially, eventually they did. And so I didn't really get a good response for one of my first big vulnerable moments. I was sent to counseling for a one hour session with the counselor and myself. And then directly after that an hour with the counselor and my dad and myself. And I was 15 years old at the time and that was the only counseling I received until I chose to get counseling for myself starting in my late 20s. - Right, how old are you now, Aaron? - I am about to be 37 this week, so. - Happy birthday. - Thank you. So from 15 until 30, my family and I never discussed the issue again. It just went silent and that felt like an abandonment. I now know because of conversation with my family some of the story behind why we didn't talk about it because clearly it was just uncomfortable for me and painful for me and I sort of just acted like it was okay because I just wanted to move past it and be over it. But in effect, I was sort of run out of the church. I was not welcomed there. I was not allowed to go to certain youth functions without having an adult because they were trying to figure out if we were being abused or if we were predators ourselves amongst each other because some stuff happened with the abuser, some stuff happened with us on our own. So I look back with grace on that whole scenario even though there's still a lot of pain attached to the church's response, but. - Wow, so you kind of, that was, wow. That's how some of your earliest church memories. - Yep. - And then the focus of what we're gonna talk about though is feeling the same sex. - Right. - Attraction that you started to feel at a very young age. When did you first notice that? Like pick up the story first there. - I would have first noticed it around the time that the abuse started in sixth grade. - Okay. - But prior to that, I noticed that I always sort of cared more what some of the guys in my class or some of my guy friends cared about me than the girls. And I noticed they would have more interest in girls than I did. I liked girls, I wanted to talk to them, but there seemed to be our dialogue with different and how we referenced girls. - Right. - My fantasy life is puberty kicked in. I don't have a memory of it ever including a girl and a fantasy life. I can't actually remember any scenario in my entire life where a woman has been a part of my sexual fantasies. And so that's telling, you know, that sort. - So from a very young age, you felt attracted to men. - Right. And I think that's what made me a little more vulnerable to the abuse because here was someone who was cool and interesting. We were also a male showing me attention and affection. And other guys my age, a part of the same group, we were forced to do stuff together that it was sort of bringing to fruition something that had already sort of been under the surface as far as that an attraction or desire goes. So I do believe that that made me more vulnerable to abuse as opposed to the abuse causing this. - Right. - I do think the abuse caused a shift in the nature in which my sexuality presented itself. And the severity or nature of my sexual struggles going forward like sexual addiction, that kind of stuff. But I don't think it caused the orientation of the attraction. - So you think your orientation from your earliest memories was toward men? - I do believe that as best as my human brain can comprehend that. And to tell you the truth, I really don't know. But that's my assumption based on my memories and counseling and reading and studying. - So how did that express itself as you, so picking up from after 15 when all of this came out that didn't change your orientation at all, how you've had a very interesting and complex relationship. I think in many ways an admirable relationship with the church over the rest of your life. So tell us about that because you're a Christian. - Right. - And you have been trying to engage in the church probably for most of your life since then, while most of your life, period. - Well, there was a season. So after everything came out, I sort of obviously had some issues with the church and bitterness, but basically I took my struggle underground. I took it beneath the surface and struggled privately without wanting anyone to know. - And so did people in the church know then that you were same sex attractor? Do they just knew about the activities at the time? - Well, certain people in the youth group, certain leaders were made aware of it. And unfortunately, some of them told their kids and sort of leaked out at school, but I was able to like, I was really well liked. I was a popular kid, so I was able to sort of navigate it and sort of get out ahead of it. And, but the sad thing is, is that my secular non-church friends were so welcoming and loving that I was absorbed right into that group because the church crowd and the Christians were not. And so unfortunately, I got into the party scene and drugs and alcohol and I had to look back and say, it's not because those friends were bad, because I had something bad in me that I didn't want to feel. So I was looking for anything to numb it. And, you know, I have certain friends from that season who were not my church friend, but who I do honestly think I wouldn't be alive today if they had not been looking out for me. - Isn't that interesting? So you gravitated toward acceptance. You didn't feel acceptance in the church. You felt more accepted by friends who were in the party scene than there you went. - Exactly. And I had grown up with these people too. - Right. - I just had always tended to stick with the church crowd and sort of stay amongst the good people as if we were-- - Because every class has that, right? You got the party ears, you got the church kids, you got the athletes, you got all of that. And the question, you know, a lot of people in their teen years live a double life, right? - Yeah. - Who I am on Sunday. - I just lived a very severe double life. There was a double, I quit going to church, but I didn't go unless I was forced to. And then that sort of continued through high school and then going to college, I'm on my own. And I didn't go to church. I sort of shied away from Christians. I didn't, sort of had a general mistrust, but I would try to like keep up the lingo and try to like stay kosher in every crowd, as best I could. And it was really a survival technique of like, I wanted community, I knew I needed it, but I didn't know what to do with it. And I was scared of it. Vernerability had always been faced with rejection and abandonment. - Right, because when you were vulnerable for the first time-- - Shut down, shut down, shut down. - Wow. - And it was a perceived abandonment out of defense of-- - Yeah, you'll hear my lawyer talk come out in a lot of this kind of a safe-- - This is perceived abandonment. - Well, because those words are important and they-- - There they are. - That's how you felt in the moment. And if you talked to other people involved, they would say, no, we didn't reject you at all. We were trying to accept you. There was just this divide. How was the relationship with your parents in that era when you were sort of away from the church and in that double lifestyle? Were you able to still talk to them or not really? - Yeah, I was a, I mean, yes, I still talk to them. I lived at home. I think I ran away once for a little bit to a friend's house and, but there was definite distance and coldness and animosity from me to them. I would say that I probably felt more of that toward my dad because he was more of the authoritative disciplinarian. My mom was more of the soft southern mom that kept food on your plate and made sure you had brownies all day, you know? But I felt distant from her too. I just sort of hid. I didn't talk about anything. I didn't talk about depression and suicidal thoughts. And I definitely wasn't telling them what substances I was shoving up my nose and ingesting. I was hiding. - You just said something really important. You started to feel depressed and you even had suicidal thoughts. This was during your late teen years, early 20s? - Absolutely, yes, it was suffocating basically the depression was. And I had suicidal thought, but I actually had attempts too, which looking back, I think there were more cries for help because normally if you want to succeed with suicide, you can. So I think that every time I was doing drugs, I was hoping I wouldn't wake up, but I was too scared to do something directly to do it. And there were instances where I would do something a little more risky or damaging to myself. And thankfully, I had friends that were always able to intercept and stop it. - And that was some of your friends who didn't go to church who were into the party scene who like had your back and made sure you didn't cross the line. - Right, I had one like ripped the bathroom door off 'cause he saw me go on there with a knife and he came in, I was carving my wrist. I just, in my drunken drug-induced duper, I picked basically the doll of sny from the drawer, not even realizing it. And so he stopped that. So I really see that God was in that entire journey with me protecting me from myself. - What was feeling that? Like thoughts of like shame, embarrassment. I mean, I'm not a counselor, but like what was in your mind at that time? - Extreme, extreme, paralyzing shame. 'Cause what I had been taught in church was that gay people did not inherit the kingdom of God. And there was no, if you're gay, there was no redemption for you. You were beyond repair, you were so broken, you're the worst of the worst. There's a reason why gay teens have the highest suicide rate. And it's often unfortunately because the church has told them they are not valuable and that they are unredeemable. So you tell a teenager that they're gonna believe you because you're an adult. And even just, it wasn't always direct phrases. It was the way they talked about gay people on TV or in the news or statements of when you would encounter other gay people, how they would respond to them. Or often there's another gay family member. And you hear how they talk about them when that family member is not around. And you're going, oh my God, it's the big, if they only knew. - Right. Yeah, I heard how you treated them. So this is clearly what you think of me. - Right. And as a teenager, you assume the worst and you magnify everything bigger and worse than it actually is. And you don't have the foresight to know that there is a season where you won't have to be dependent on your parent to provide. And you can sort of walk through this with God. And unfortunately, I was told that God did not want me. And that basically, I think put me down the path of going, well, if I'm not valuable, if I'm a shameful, dirty, broken thing, you end up living the truth of that. If that's what you believe is true, you live that way. So I lived as a person who was dirty and shameful. And I did dirty and shameful things because what else would I do if I wasn't? You know, you sort of set the course out for them. So I liken that to a lot of the gay community, we wanna blame them and judge them. But unfortunately, the church had to take responsibility. We set up that dynamic for a lot of people. And when I hear their stories, I'm going, oh, you just carried out what someone else told you was true. But if they would have told you the truth of how God views you, you might have made different decisions. Of course, people are still gonna make mistakes and do things that aren't honoring to God because we all do that. But the severity of it, you're like, where is this coming from? And it really was a message and planted in my head from a very young age. And there was an anger, there was a disgust spoken about gay people over any other group of people. - Yep. - And that's 100% true. - I remember hearing people say, oh, that's so disgusting. Why would they ever? I'm like, I don't know why ever. I didn't feel like I chose this. It's not like I felt like I'm gonna choose the thing that's so hard. I know there are levels of choice in all forms of sexuality. Even straight people choose like, okay, well, I have attraction to women, but which women will I be attracted to? Which women will I pursue? Which kind of sexual encounters will I choose to go after? So there is always a level of choice, but I don't think I had a choice in the attraction. That makes sense. So you sort of build stuck in this cat 22 of like, I didn't choose this, but you're telling me I chose it, so maybe I did choose it. So therefore I am this horrible person that would choose this horrible thing. - And I'll just remind listeners right now, and people who are listening, Aaron, what I said at the very beginning, before we started this, that, you know, our goal is not to have a long debate. Our goal is not even to change anybody's mind. The purpose is just to simply hear your story and I can imagine there's some listeners going, "Well, what do you mean you didn't choose this?" And you can already see the parts that have divided us. That's not actually the purpose of this podcast. I just think they're far, far, far too many people who have never actually sat down and just listened, and that's what we're doing today. So thank you for being so honest, and thank you for being so open. And my heart's already heavy, it just is, it just is. So shame and sadness, and that drove you into self-destructive behavior. - Right, wow. - It really did, but the blessing in it all is that through a lot of those experiences, God captured my heart. And there was a moment in college where I had, I just, it wasn't that I wanted to die, it just that I didn't want to keep living like I was anymore. So I didn't really think there was an option to live any different, because I didn't think a redemption was an option for me. And there was a certain night, I was in the process of overdosing. I didn't realize that at the time, initially, but when I finally realized something's wrong, my heart isn't working right. I can't breathe, my vision started going black, and I just remember calling out a guy going, "I don't, if you let me wake up from death, I'll tell my story to any person at any time, anywhere if you ask me to." - Wow. - I lost my last memory until hours upon hours upon hours of later waking up and a pool of my own bodily fluids and vomiting up blood that I didn't really want God to ask me to tear my story because I was still ashamed of it. And he gave me the time to get to a place where I was willing to trust him. He didn't wait 'til I was, it was comfortable to do so. It's always uncomfortable to share, but in that moment, I actually never touched another drug after that day. - Yeah. - I had met some awesome Christian guys and the dorms that when I first started college who were different, they were a different kind of Christian than what I'd ever encountered. They didn't make issue of what it seemed I was doing or they didn't even really talk about my sexuality, they didn't even really talk about seeing me come in to the dorms every night with no understanding of reality 'cause I was so high or drunk. They talked about this God who just loved and cared and wanted to walk through anything and everything with me no matter what. And that a God who had never left me and those voices, at the time, didn't get the result they wanted, but not far after that in that low moment, that's what I was hearing. Thank God I was hearing those voices instead of literally the thousands of other voices who had told me something very different. - Wow. - That I deserved death and that I was disgusting beyond a pair that somehow got allowed my brain to recall the voices that were true and spoke truth about his character and his grace and his love that I was able to. It was a hard journey to stay off drugs, but I will be in October of this year, I will be 17 years clean. - That's amazing. - Yeah, wow. - And, but if you would have looked at my life, even a year after that, I didn't look much better. I didn't act much better. - Yeah, it wasn't drugs but there was still the self harm went in other directions or it went out in other directions. - But I had the redemption process that started. I wasn't, and I actually became more sexual after that encounter 'cause I removed the drugs and sex creeped in as a new addiction before I knew it. And so that doesn't fit the paradigm that I have ever been told either that you become a Christian, you become less sinful. - Right. - And you get better and it wasn't the story for me. I seem to have gotten worse almost before I got better. - Isn't that interesting? - And I'm still not that good. I'm still here. I'm still selfish. I'm still prideful. I still have arrogance. I still have distrust of God and I still worry. There's all these things that still make me human and still in need of a savior, you know. - Why do you think you chose God? Because I mean, it's one thing when you kind of realize, oh my goodness, I could be dying right now. I'm gonna make a deal with God in this stupor. But then to wake up and now 17 years later, by all counts, you know, you're pursuing a relationship with Jesus Christ. Why have you decided to stay as best you can inside Christianity and live your life as a Christian rather than saying, that's it, I'm done with it. - You know, I think I realized I bought into this idea that I had to have him in order to have any hope of inheriting heaven or peace. And so my initial call on him was fire insurance for a laugh of a little word. - Sure, I may have started there too, by the way. - Right, but over time it became a love story. It became, he slowly asked me to trust him with little things and then he provided in a big way so that I was eventually willing to trust him with big things. And looking back, I don't know what called me to choose him other than somehow his voice and truth started to speak louder than the lies and other voices in the world. And I just started to see the benefit of, I mean, I guess it was selfish in some way. There was benefit to me in the process. I started to feel better about myself. I started to have more peace and more joy and it became something that didn't really feel like a choice anymore. It felt like just something that was natural. It was a, or why would I not trust him? Why would I not follow him? And that got messy as I got older and started to realize that, wait, this sexuality component is still here. And there's all this information I've been taught over the years that are somehow affecting it. So I literally spent all of my rest of college years and all of my 20s and like trying to become straight. - Wow, yeah, let's pick up that story. So you got more, you cried out to God, you turned your life over to Christ or perhaps rededicated your life to Christ because you grew up in a Christian home and had you made a commitment earlier to Jesus when you were a child? - I had, but I sort of referenced the one in college 'cause that's the one where my life changed. - That was your decision. - It was my decision, it wasn't my parents. It became my faith, it wasn't my parents' faith. - Gotcha. - But then your relationship with men actually became more active after you committed your life to Christ. - Right, not necessarily initially, but between mid-college until all through law school and into my 20s, I struggled with sexual addiction, which was a lot of anonymous encounters. I never had a boyfriend or dated, so to speak, but it was a lot of anonymous sexual encounters and pornography and those kinds of things that I had not been very sexual prior to that other than the people I was abused with. - Which probably comes as a surprise to people that it's like, well, you're gay, but you're not that active, which again, is a stereotype, right? - Right, yeah, and I mean, the stereotype, 'cause it is true of a lot of people in the gay community, but it's not true of all people in the gay community. - Sure. - And people who are gay who are also entering or starting or continuing their faith journey, their sexual lives tend to look a little different too than the community as a whole. Same thing with our straight Christians, like our straight Christians, their sexual lives should look very different than that of the world too. But we know there's certain people's don't and it's a struggle for them and a part of a process of continuing to grow and by God into those areas, so. - So through most of your 20s, let's talk about your 20s. - Yeah. - I actually was in sort of the ex-gay movement. I was part of a sport group and counseling. It was all about trying to not be gay, or at least to choose to be celibate or to enter a mixed orientation marriage. - Okay, what does that mean, mixed orientation marriage? - It would be a gay person, so me as a man who identifies the same sex attracted or gay to marry a straight woman and try to make that work. - Right, but you're being monogamous when in the context of that marriage marriage. - Monogamous within that, yep. So. - Gotcha. - I sort of, based on my age, was in a season of that ex-gay movement toward the end of the Exodus era that where they had started to say like, "Hey, we're not gonna be able to get rid of your attractions. "We just want to bring them under God "and submit them to God." So you're more likely to always have some level of attraction to the same sex. It might lessen, it might not. Everyone had different stories. So I didn't have the full blast of the earlier year where everyone's like, "No, you can get rid "of your same sex attractions completely." That sort of notion had seemed to pass on by the time I was entering that world. So I think that allowed me not to have some of the angst that a lot of older gay Christians might have that were in that first part of the era that basically shamed them for still having any level of attraction, even if they were able to stay settled a bit or marry someone of the opposite sex. - The fact that you're even leaning that way. - Leaning that way means, yeah, you're done. - And I actually was involved in Exodus and leadership with Exodus, with Allen Chambers and helped there. Actually, the night that Exodus international closed in a sense when Allen made the public announcement, I actually shared my testimony right before he came up on stage to announce that. So. - Yeah, and just for those, I mean, I have a vague memory of that, but just remind us how Exodus, how that night went. - So basically, there had been all kinds of pressure around Exodus and some of their past practices of repair of therapy and things that now people are saying are psychologically damaging to people. - Trying to get gays and lesbians to become straight. - To be straight, right. - So I know there are people that had negative experience with Exodus, I personally did not. It was a very loving environment because I was in an era where there was an admittance to the fact that attractions may always still remain even if you choose not to act on them. - Right on. - And so, but basically that pressure, there was a special that Overwinfrey and Lisa Ling were doing for a show called Our America, which was interviewing Allen and his wife and a couple others in a room full of people who had had very negative, very harmful experiences in the Exodus world. And that was gonna air the next night after the opening night of the Exodus conference. So it's sort of like, hey, we need to announce this before they do, but they wanted to sort of, but I think it had been, whether it's right or wrong, people have different opinions of whether Exodus should have closed, but it did. And a lot of the reasons that were expressed at the why it were, I thought had at least some level of merit that it wasn't like just totally crazy for Allen Chambers and their board to make that decision. - And then the announcement was what? What was Allen's opinion? - That Exodus would be closing its door 'cause it was meant to be a parachurch or organization. And to equip churches to love on and minister to gay people in their communities. However, what had happened over the years is churches out of fear or just flat out not wanting to, they were not picking up the mantle and doing that in their communities. If anyone had that issue, they would send them to Exodus. - Gotcha. - So, Exodus became sort of his own separate church. It was not churches weren't really doing the training or during the work themselves. They were just dependent on Exodus to do it. - Okay. - So, in a way, I think I'm not gonna speak directly for Allen, but in a way, it was like, "Hey, I'm gonna hand this back to you 'cause you should have been doing this yourself anyways." - No, that's helpful. - Yeah. - And so, you spent your 20s really trying to say, "Okay, I'm gonna be straight, I'm gonna be celibate." - Right. And I was in the sense that I didn't date, but I was not sexually pure during those times. I would fall off the horse every so often and have a random hookup or look at pornography. And I was in accountability on talking about this, but it wasn't 'til my later 20s that I got really honest with a lot of my straight Christian guy friend and say, "Hey, here's the whole background story." Just sort of fueling what you're hearing me say. Like, I told them about the abuse. I told them about the level in which I was struggling sexually. I would just tell them it was like pornography. I never would tell them I was meeting up with stranger and acting out sexually. And through that vulnerability, they respond with love. So it was one of the first instances where I express vulnerability and received Christ-like love back to where it actually caused me to want to grow and to want to get out of the negative, sinful expressions of my sexuality, which was, and I don't think anyone would argue that it's unhealthy to have anonymous sexual encounters. And that pornography is not very healthy. - But what you're saying is really significant because you're saying that actually the grace and acceptance you experienced, actually, if I'm hearing you right, lodged a desire to change inside you. - Right. And not necessarily to change my sexuality 'cause I don't know if that was possible or it doesn't change, but it was to change how I chose to express that in a way I chose to go, "I want to honor God with this." - Right. It drew you closer and it made you want to bring your life into what obedience was. And to a further, a deeper alignment with God. - Yeah, that's great. - And I started working with honest with my story with some of the church leaders at the church that I attend here in Atlanta and were they able to start sharing with some of the staff and some of the, during training with small group leaders around this topic and around the issue. And all still from the perspective is that the celibacy or mixed orientation marriage is the option for a gay Christian. And I truly believe that. I'm not even saying that I don't believe that now. I try to not express what my actual belief is now because unfortunately people are looking for a label and then they will discount the conversation or the questions. And I think no matter what I believe, these questions or this conversation still deserves and it deserves a place to be heard. And the questions, I think each person owes it to themselves to answer a lot of these questions, especially if they're leading a church. Okay, well, what do we do with this? And it's a polarized discussion inside the LGBT community and outside the LGBT community. So I can understand that coming out with a certain quote position can, yeah, it can land you labels and disqualification in many circles. Right, and you can be scandalous to both sides and just get off, which I'm not saying that truth isn't worth that. I'm just saying that in this particular conversation, it will often stop the conversation. And I think that our leaders need to be having these conversations and being forced to see both sides of it, to understand it, to hear the stories because this is more about a ministry conversation than it is a theology conversation. I agree, I think that's really important. Unfortunately, I'm seeing that churches and leaders are very rarely getting to the ministry side because they get stuck on the theology side. And I don't think God looks at that and goes, that's helpful. I think he's going, I want you to minister to these people but our theology, he's like, okay, well, what's not about theology, it's about ministry. Yes, theology informs our ministry. So I know there's a little bit of a circular argument here, but I think it's just good for the leader to step back and go, okay, what is really happening? What's really the conversation here? Like, what are really the questions? What are really the issues? What are really the relationships and the stories? And what does that look like for us at our city and our church and our congregation? I've heard someone who I'm going to assume as a mutual friend, Aaron, but I'm not going to name him or the organization because of the polarization around this debate, but I heard a friend basically say that the Pharisees put theology before ministry and Jesus put ministry before theology. And I think that's very, very true where, you know, if my theology forbids me from having a conversation with you, there's probably something wrong with my theology. But if you look at Jesus, you know, he hung out with some really interesting people and didn't start with their lifestyle. He started with grace, he started with relationship, he started with love, and in the process, often they would change radically from who they were when they met him. And he has a refining process on us in that kind of a relationship. So you were, you got involved with a church and it wasn't necessarily, and I don't know what you'd say in a firming church, it wasn't a church that said, oh no, you know what? There's absolutely no problem with same-sex lifestyles. So it was a church where maybe there was some theological tension or disagreement that with what many would consider to be, you know, an accepting, affirming, no questions asked approach on gay relationships. But you got involved there and then tell us more. - Yeah, I actually have always been a part of and continue to be a part of a church that is quote, unquote, not affirming. And some people don't know what that mean, the word affirming, I said, well, what am I affirming completely, but basically a church that is not in support of same-sex relationship, don't give them the same weight that they would heterosexual marriage, those kinds of things, and they are not supportive. They basically, there is not a position statement, but there is a underlying, go to theological, groundwork of that it's not a sin to have the attraction, but to act on it would be. So therefore, celibacy or mixed orientation marriage are the two options really. We will discuss that there is a third option of same-sex marriage, but not necessarily one that the church is support, but understands that some gay Christians find that to be an option. - So what would the third option be? - That a same-sex monogamous lifelong committed relationship. - Okay. - It's not necessarily one that's saying they're in theological and alignment with, but they're realizing that a lot of Christians who are gay do believe that's an option. So it's like, we have to at least discuss it if it's out there, you know? - Right. - And this is the area where like, I'm obviously not a theologian, but I've had a lot of experience around this. I've studied a lot. I'm thankfully able to be friends with a lot of the big minds around this in our society right now, and people who have written the books on different sides of it. So I have a unique perspective on it, and I feel that because I have worked in ministry in the sense of served in leadership and served in ministry roles, and seeing how the church has responded well, how the church has not responded so well, and church globally, not necessarily in my particular church, it's given me a unique perspective to at least ask questions of the general crowd, of like, hey, from, I'm sitting here, I'm seeing this, what do you see, or what do you say about this? And I always like to start the conversation with like, we often, so often as Christians, I see the people like, well, what do you think about a gay marriage? That's one of the first things they want to ask, or do you think it's a sin to be gay, or to act on it? And I'm like, I want to start with a question that Jesus asked us, which he said, who do you say that I am? I think that's the more important question to ask the person when we're entering this conversation. Who do you say Jesus is? - Right. - And so for me, I say Jesus is a third of the Trinity. He's one of the parts of the Trinity. He has holy God, but he's the son of God. He is the savior of mankind. He's a savior of me personally. He's a friend to me. He's like a father. He's like a brother. He is someone who I communicate with, not that throughout the day, not necessarily in my prayer closet, but like just, he does life with me. I feel like Jesus is someone who's interested in my life. He's interested in my choices. He's interested in my pain. He's interested in my career choices, my passions. And he's someone who died for me, and wants to express a unique reflection of his love and to this world through my obedience, through my availability, and ministry through my availability, through sharing love with other people that just begins to scratch the service of who I say Jesus is. And so I often say, let's just start a conversation there. When you're one as a leader or a pastor or individual when you start a conversation, start on with a question that more than likely might end up showing where you have a lot of things in common. - So start with common ground. Start with common ground on who Jesus is, and how Jesus has changed you. - And that's what we forget, and that is the bridge into all communities outside the church, right? - Right, and I know we're sort of jumping all over, but that's a good conversation. - Yeah, entering the conversation with anyone, but say you are gonna be meeting where they're speaking to someone who is gay or lesbian, bisexual, transgender, any of the quote unquote fringe areas of sexuality as a church looks at it, is to remember that they've had a lot of experiences with the church that are gonna cause them to be unguarded with you. And to start with something you have in common, we'll start to ease that a little bit and say, hey, we have something in common. If you do, you may not, you may be talking to someone who doesn't believe that Jesus is who you think he is, and that's okay, you might be the person that helps them grow to that, or you might plan to see that someone else harvests to get them to a point where they turn to Jesus in it. It's just to remember that there is a life here. There is a child of God who is sitting in the balance of either love or judgment. And which one are you gonna tip them toward? Love is what leads people to repentance. - It is. - God's kindness does, judgment, legalism, shame, is often something that calls someone to hide and run. So you as an individual, which way will you help tip that person? And look at the conversation that way. This is a conversation where I have a choice to push them toward Jesus or away from Jesus. And some of the trainings I've done, I often talk about like the three roles in the Trinity, and you might have heard this before, and it says, "Stop me," but that there is God the Father, there is a Holy Spirit, and there is Jesus Christ. So God the Father is the judge. He's the one who basically says, "Here are what my commandments are here, "what makes you perfect, "and here is what makes you not a sinner." You have the Holy Spirit who was sent here to convict us to try to bring us into alignment, to communicate and intercede number half into that. And we have Jesus, who is the one who loved us and died for us. And we're so often caught, we realize it's Christian, that we're called to be Christ-like, to be Christ to the world, and to, but I think we so often forget that we want to be, we end up trying out of, I think it's a weird sort of underhanded version of idolatry, is we try to go into the role of God and tell people why they're wrong and how they're wrong, that we want to live for every reason. And then other Christians, or you want to step into the role of the Holy Spirit, and try to convict a person and convince them why they should believe what they believe or do different or live different. But we weren't called to those two roles because God can handle those and Holy Spirit can handle that. We were called to be Jesus, to be a vessel of love to the world. So I often say, which step back and go, which role are you trying to be in in that place? And if you're trying to be in any one of the ones other than Jesus, and to be a voice of love or a presence of love, you need to repent of the idolatry of trying to be God-like or trying to be something other than what you were called to be. - I hadn't heard that before, that's helpful. - Yeah, and I don't know if that's 100% theologically correct, but that's sort of what has helped me in my journey of having these conversations to go, okay, what is my motivation here? What role am I in? - Drawing on our law background or mutual law background, I remember my first year criminal law course and being really tormented about this idea of like, representing somebody who may be guilty. And so I wouldn't talk to my first year criminal prof about it. And I said, you know, how I, 'cause I was a Christian, how can I represent a guy that, you know, I'm pretty sure did it and are not guilty, please? He said, well, first of all, if he confesses to you that he's guilty, you can't enter a non-guilty plea, period, end of sentence. And he said, secondly, if you suspect he's guilty, but he's got a day in court and you're not ethically breaching anything, you give him the best day in court possible because you've gotten your role mixed up. You thought you were the judge, you're actually his lawyer. It's the judge's job to figure that out. Never remembered that. Like, I'm actually not your judge. I'm not anybody's judge and that is God's role. And my role is to love you. My role is to encourage you. My role is to help you. And if the Holy Spirit uses me to help you see something that otherwise you might not have seen or help, you know, you through you, I see something that I haven't seen to God be the glory, but it's actually God who judges. Right. That was very helpful to me. Hey, just so we don't lose it. But you know, again, happy birthday, 37 later this week. Yeah. In your 30s, how has that changed? She spent your 20s trying to be, you know, in, you know, not acting on your orientation and, you know, celibate or at least steering toward a mixed orientation marriage. Right. What about your 30s? What's happened with that? Well, I know when we've talked before, I told you about this, but about four years ago, so it would have been like 32-ish. I prayed a prayer. I said, Lord, I want you to shatter any paradigm that I hold that does not line up with your truth. And that was, I didn't realize how scary that prayer was then. But the next four years, you sort of have done an upheaval of my life in the sense of challenging me on the areas where I had bought into a belief that wasn't necessarily full in alignment with scriptures, but it would be something I had been taught in church. Or, and I think we all have a lot of these things that we believe or stand by, but they're more like a rule that a church has come up with or a statement more than an actual scriptural principle. Now, a lot of them are scriptural principles that do line up. And I just started going through and studying, well, why do I believe this thing or this thing? And the reason that was is because I had been taught a lot of things about gay people by the church. I had been taught that you could not be actively gay and a Christian, and by act of the gay, I mean someone who thinks it's okay or actively pursuing relationship or sexual encounters and be Christian. I had been taught that you could not be choosing active sin and therefore a Christian, a Christian wouldn't do that. I had been taught that there was no way possible for something outside of the design of what God, or at least what the church has taught about the design for marriage, there was no way for any other relationship to honor God. So it was the only way to honor God in a marriage with between a man and a woman. I'm not saying I disagree with that now, but I started going, okay, why do I believe that? - Right. - Like, where in scripture does it say that? Why is that something that as a church, we have a foundational truth. Like, where does that come from? Where is it built on? I started just wanting to research it for myself. And what I realized is I had a wall of certainty around me that made me feel real safe because I felt in control because I knew, well, if you do A plus B, then God gives you C. And if this is true, then therefore this is true, which means if I do this, I get this, this work, there is a sense of safety. And I started to realize, I started being convicted. Really, I really feel like God was convicting me on whether I was actually worshipping him and following him or if I was worshipping and following my understanding of him because that was something I could control. And I started to realize that I had a lot of unChristlike perspectives toward other people that were less than loving, some of them were hateful, some of them were not seeking to understand some of these thoughts and beliefs were hurtful. And I was trying to figure out where are these coming from? And I realized I had a lot of those beliefs about myself. And I was going, why, where is this coming from? What is God trying to speak to me? And I am still not dating. I'm not in a relationship. I'm not, I don't have a boyfriend, any of that. I'm still pursuing purity and I'm not perfect by any means, obviously there's always temptation. But I am, I guess you could say I'm celibate right now in the sense of our pursuing relationship or any relationship. And what I started to see was in a lot of these conversations I was having with our gay attendees and our church and other gay people I was meeting. I was in a small group with a small group for gay men that our church had started and they were the straight leader leading it. And I was in that group and sort of watching these men and learning from them and I started to see these men, their treats, their trees were overflowing with fruit, good fruit. I started to see Jesus moving out. - He needed spiritually, yeah. Jesus was oozing out of them. There are so many things about their lives. I'm like, they are following Jesus. They are of a servant's heart. They're so loving. And I'm like, wow, like, but they're actively gay. Like they don't think it's wrong to be gay. So I don't know how this is possible. - So they're in relationships. They're active and yet they are showing the fruits of a life in Christ. - Some of them were in relationship. Like one in particular was not and wasn't pursuing a relationship at the time but did believe that it was okay to be gay, that it wasn't a sin to be gay and it wouldn't be a sin to be in a relationship with someone of the same sect and hoped that for himself at some point. And I sort of had an agenda. I would go to mills with these guys and I'd be like, okay, I was trying to figure out if they really did feel conviction, but they were hiding it or masking it so they could just still do what they wanted to do. And I wasn't finding that to be true. And not just these guys but lots of people I was meeting in the excess world and I had gone to some other like gay Christian network conference. I started meeting people and going like, okay, wait, like they don't seem to be feeling this conviction. They seem to be feeling a sense of peace on the side of the perspective that is different than what I was holding, I believe. And that sort of caused me to be like, okay, well, that doesn't really fit the paradigm. So what does that mean? Like, why are they able to see something different? Like, what do they believe? So I started reading more books and researching more going okay, well, what is the quote unquote pro-gay theology perspective? - Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit because again, the goal of this conversation is not to change people's minds. I don't think you can do that in an hour, but I think there is a lot of misinformation and obviously this is one opinion. So people will have different opinions. But if you could give just the thumbnail of like what some of those men were thinking is in, I believe the Bible, I believe that Jesus is Lord, I believe that Jesus is my Lord, but I believe I can pursue a same sex lifestyle relationship. What is the theology behind that? What's the theology behind celibacy and just walk through a couple of those arguments. And again, we're not gonna be able to do justice to them, but just the overview to help people who maybe are like, you know, I'm not sure where they would find that in scripture, see that. - Well, yeah, and first thing, there are some good books that a lot of your listeners may wanna read and we maybe can list those off in the show notes for sure. - And those will give you a more in depth sort of overview or even get into the details of some of the pro-gay theology versus the traditional theology around sexuality and marriage. So, and none of these statements I'm about to say are indicative necessarily of what I believe. I just think they're worth realizing and talking about and going, well, is there merit to that argument? - Sure. - And it sort of takes the black and white, sort of, I sort of look at it from a legal perspective and go, okay, they're presenting some evidence that may possibly present a reasonable doubt on whether one version of one interpretation of the scripture or another is 100% correct. - Fair enough. - There are the list of, there are six or seven verses in scripture we call the clobber verses in the sense of, that's how gay Christians and people in this community talk about them 'cause they have literally been you to literally clobber them upside down. - That's clobber a gaze of lesbians, yeah. - Side their head. And just to list those out quick, Genesis 127, the story of Sodom and Genesis 19, Leviticus 1822, Deuteronomy 23, 17, and 18. Romans 1 as a whole, but specifically verses 26 and 27. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 12, and then Timothy 1, 10. Timothy 1, 10 sort of ties in and across reference to 1 Corinthians 6, 9 and 12, but so go read those verses. A lot of people have never actually read those verses for themselves, I hadn't, and I deal with all these issues. I had just believed what someone else told me, they said, and what they meant. And I was like, okay, if I'm gonna choose to believe this, let me go research it. And I think God wants us to be wise and to seek wisdom on these topics and not just to assume that what some other human tells us is true is true. But to take spiritual leadership and guide it and then go for ourselves to the scriptures and read them and let the Holy Spirit communicate to us through our reading of the scriptures as well. So like a few of the pro-gay theology points that someone from a perspective who are either gonna say that it's not wrong to be gay or that it's okay to have same-sex relationship would be, like one in particular is that they would say that the word homosexual didn't even exist until the late 1800s. And its entry point in just scripture didn't happen until early to mid 1900s. So they're going, so okay, we can't just assume that what we understand the word homosexual to mean is what the biblical writer thought it to meant. Could they even have a word for it? - Okay, I wasn't aware of that. I wanna reach for my Greek Thesaurus, which is right over there, which I'm sure a lot of people will do. So is one of the terms, Porneia? - Porneia would be poor, but no, there's two words that are often used in this conversation or debate. It's Malakoi and then Arseno Kota Kota. I'm probably butchering though, 'cause I did not go to seminary, but I won the prize in Greek, but that was a long, long time ago. (laughing) So Malakoi, it's spelled M-A-L-A-K-O-I. Mal is usually bad. And then Arseno Kota is R-A-R-S-E-N-O-K-O-I-T-A-I. Malakoi means they think best way they can translate it. It means like boy prostitutes or boys that were held as sex slaves. And then Arseno Kota, they think is the word that Paul sort of coined and came up with, 'cause there is not really a use of it anywhere. That was referencing someone who uses the boy prostitutes or sex slaves. So it's the actual sex slave and then the offender who uses them. So it'd be a man who would go sleep with one of the sex slaves. - And sex slavery, same sex slavery, it was a huge issue in Greek culture. Greco-ruin culture. - Absolutely. - Yeah. - And it still is today. Unfortunately, sex slavery is still a huge issue. So a sort of overarching general theme, it's going, those two were described something very different than what we understand homosexuality to be today. In the sense of a gay Christian wanting to have a same sex, loving, monogamous relationship is very different than a man who is sexually abusing a boy. - Of the one who, yeah. - It's not interacting with him of their own accord. - Right. So that's the argument about some of those verses. And again, we cannot solve this. - Yeah, we're not solving it. And we're not even gonna talk about all the argument, but that would be sort of an overarching thing of, hey, what the biblical writers were referencing was very different than what we understand homosexuality to be today. So they're referencing two totally different things, which when you look at the evidence, you're like, okay, well, that's a good argument, whether it's a strong one for debate, you know? So they would say that those verses tend to be referencing an act that all of us would agree of dishonoring to God and to others, specifically minors. And God and Jesus, very specifically, were always protective of children. So of course, we would all agree those things are wrong and an abomination, some horrible thing. Another argument is the idea of abomination being more about ceremonial cleanliness than it being moral, which, so like, you look at the moral laws versus cleanliness laws in the Old Testament, and they would say that, so saying that where it says that a man who lives with another man as with a woman is about ceremonial cleanliness in the context of that culture. - Right, because, I mean, you couldn't even, yeah. I mean, there was a certain point at which, even if you were married couple, if you were to have the ceremonial clean, ceremonially clean, you couldn't have had sex, you had to wait for a purification, et cetera, et cetera. And if you weren't pure, you couldn't go to temple. - Right, if your wife was menstruating, that was considered unclean and about, you know, to have sex with her during her menstrual cycle would be considered a abomination. - Right, whatever would be allowed to go to temple and so on. So the argument would be that this would be similar to that. - Well, they would be arguing, so we don't think that our woman is an abomination because she has a menstrual cycle. - Right. - So they would be trying to connect and go to the cultural context of that group of people at that particular season of the world, is what it's referencing. Another one, so for instance, which I think we've talked about this before, is that on like, for instance, 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 12, this is one of those verses that had been spoken over me, I don't even know how many times that homosexual shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And I'd never gone and rarely read the verse for myself or if I had, I didn't remember. But when I went and read this in the last four years, I realized it's referencing a list of persons who are identified in a category that they will not inherit the kingdom of God. And on that list includes a term called wrongdoers. And when you start going down the list, you're like, "Wait a second." He's basically creating a list that proves that every single person is outside of the chance. And then he clearly says, "But, so were you such a thing, "but now you have been made known in Christ." - Theives, greedy people, cheaters in my gossips. - So I'm going, "Wait, I knew, "I grew up studying as church." I'm like, "Well, that means most of the people I knew "were in our abominations as well." 'Cause the gossips and church crowds is crazy. I mean, I'm being funny, but-- - Yeah, yeah, we were poking fun. But then it says, "But you were cleansed. "You were made holy. "You were made right with God by calling in the name "of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God." - Now it doesn't specifically say, "So did you use to do such things "and you no longer do them?" It says, "So your identity once was in that, "but now your identity's been made known in Jesus." So that was an interesting perspective. I was like, "Okay, well, that's a little different "than maybe what the verse has been used "when it was being taught to me." Now I'm not saying it doesn't say what it says. And I do believe it says exactly what it says. That's where faith comes in. We have to have faith that the translations as we're reading them have not been messed up or that God has informed the mind that have translated the scriptures from Greek to Hebrew, whatever, to English, that I think it does good to look back and go, "What is the root word?" Best of for these controversial issues. - And those translation issues would impact many passages, not just that passage. And then to flip it, maybe you weren't done. I don't want to cut you off, but to flip it, then is there a better version of the traditional argument rather than just clobbering people? - I think that you'd, I mean, I think one of the better arguments of the traditional side is like all the verses that speak in favor of marriage, versus the ones who speak against homosexuality and looking at the thrust of scripture about family units and companionship and intimacy, which is also an argument that pro-gay side would make is that same-sex, committed monogamous relationships that within the context of this overarching theme that God want people to live in community and together and to sacrifice for one another, to commit. You know, so sort of have to just step back and say, all right, there are obviously things we clearly disagree on, but is this, so if you're a traditional conservative person who's looking at a maybe gay person in your church who's saying, "Hey, I've read these scriptures different," our initial reaction, at least what I see from watching is the more conservative person going, "Well, they are just crazy. They're trying to throw out scriptures. They don't believe in an guarantee of scripture. They don't believe in the sanctity of marriage." And those are, seem like from my perspective, looking in and going, "Okay, how could that conversation go different?" For me, saying it's about sanctity of marriage and guarantee of scripture seem like trump cards that are shut a conversation down as opposed to question that might open up a conversation. So like for instance, the question would be like, "So help me understand how you read that scripture to be different. What research have you done? I wanna go read the book too and read it for myself and sort of just learn about the other perspective. First of all, you're gonna enter a relationship with that gay person who's gonna be like, "Wow, you actually care enough to take the time to discuss this with me and not summarily dismiss me." But I would look at it from a legal perspective and go, "Is this person making a crazy claim or is there enough evidence that their interpretation of the scripture isn't like totally off base? Is there any bit of evidence that would say that maybe they could have that reading and it not be completely out of line? Could that, you respond to that person different than you were the person who you're just like making or crazy off the wall statement? That makes sense at all? - It does, it makes a lot of sense. And I appreciate what you said too. And the one thing, the one little editorial comment I would add is, please, nobody change your position based on this 10 minute theological conversation that Aaron and I have had. Like don't run off and go, "Well, you know what? Now I know that that actually referred to boy prostitutes in Greek culture. So it doesn't apply to us. No, actually do the homework. Go buy a book, go study it, buy several books, go study it and we will link to them in the show notes. So please, please, please, don't like do pop theology where like, "Well, I heard this guy say once and so as a result, I've changed my whole view or well, this just proves that what I've always thought is right, actually do your homework and give it some thought and actually pray and maybe have a dialogue with somebody who disagrees with you." I think that could be really helpful. - And here, an additional note to that is, like for me in particular, I have not expressed if and how my viewers might have changed. What has changed that I'll freely say is I feel like my eyes are more open to the value that each individual has and the value of each person's redemptive story. To where I don't just, not that I don't, I am moving toward trying not to summarily dismiss someone because I disagree with them. I'm sort of realizing that I think it, I actually hope that we don't come to a consensus on the issue because I don't know if that's healthy. I think it's good to have debate. I think it's good to have different perspectives. I think that sharpens us all. I think that moves us all toward community if we were allowed to be a conversation versus an argument. And for like, for instance, like I have family members that believe differently than me and I have family members who I believe very different than them, I'm way more conservative than them. They get our friends or whatever way. But I love that I have sort of that myriad of opinions or beliefs because I think it forces us all to sort of go back to scripture and go back to God. I think what are you saying to me? What do you want to say through this verse? - Yeah, no, that's a really good point. And you can have an opinion, but I think it's really important. - In the end, it's just that. - And you need to have an informed opinion. And unfortunately, I think a lot of it doesn't. Some of the worst stuff that's ever happened on my blog personally is around the same sex attraction issue and same sex relationship issue. And I mean, people are crazy about it on all sides. The other thing is episode 49 of this podcast with Scott Saul's is all about how to have a respectful conversation, stopping the hate and how to disagree without being disagreeable. And we'll link to those in the show, that episode in the show notes as well, Aaron. So hey, listen, this has been a long and good conversation. I want to just ask a few more questions before we wrap up. And it's been super, super helpful. As you think about advising sort of a lot of church leaders listening, a lot of people who are maybe in a very polarized debate right now or discussion, some who have like just avoided the issue and we never talk about it. But if there were gonna be a few steps that a church leader could take to make this a healthier conversation, a more honest conversation, a more constructive conversation, where would you suggest that a church leader or member would start? - I think a good place to start, that would be a comfortable step for a lot of people is to choose to read a book about the opposing view that you currently hold. And to not be scared of information in that book that might say something counter to what you believe. Just out of a step to try to understand a different perspective. And I would also encourage you to pray that you have the wisdom to see the truth in the book and to also see through the things that aren't true. So that if there is a lie in that book that your heart and your mind is able to defend against that and you can just see the actual value of the book and not feel like you have to make a decision on this because you'll read things in there that'll sound very convincing on both sides of the argument. But don't look at the book as like, I'm going to change my perspective. I just want, I'm going to understand someone else's and to try to just see like, how do they get to that point? Why do they say that? - That's a good challenge. Hey, this has come up a few times. Maybe you and I can put a little short bibliography together on reliable books that are on opposite sides or different sides of the issue. - Yeah, absolutely. - So it sounds like you're a great list of, and I'm a big believer of you should read both sides. You should not pick one side. - Fair enough. - Because it's good to know like, what are you arguing against? - Right, and why do I believe what I believe? If you believe the opposing view, often you know, you ask people two lines of questionings and they collapse. It's just, well, that's what I've always believed. So leave me alone, right? - Yeah, the second challenge I would say is most people know a gay person, but I would say go try to love a gay person. And what I mean by that is get to truly know them and go into the relationship and check your motivation. And make your motivation as I want to understand them better and I want to show them love. Don't go there feeling like you have to tell them how they're wrong, how they should be right. All these things, could God in the Holy Spirit can handle that. He does not need you to convict them. He does not need you to judge them. He needs you to love them and say, and go there going, I am simply here. I'm trying to understand. I have questions. I want to know your story if it would be okay if we shared and talked. And I could freely ask questions about your experiences and how the church experience has been for you. I promise you, you will leave that situation changed, not necessarily from a theological perspective from a heart level to see a person who needs love, experience love and see that light come on in their life of wow, a person, a Christian is showing me Christ like love. Go figure to see that is such a blessing. And it will remind you that, wait a second, these are people, they're not issues. These are stories, these are individuals that will always help your ministry. It always will help your ministry to see people as a person with a story, with heartache, with pain. And as my pastor often talked about here, we have to realize so often at the church, we do not have a theology around unanswered prayers. So seek to find the unanswered prayers that person is experiencing. 'Cause I can tell you, I've yet to ever meet a gay person, Christian or non-Christian, that had not spent at least some significant amount of time in their story, begging and pleading, or at least hoping that they were not gay or bisexual or transgender. So I know for all the gay Christians I know, or gay people who at least used to identify as Christian, a big part of their childhoods and adolescents and even into college and even to adult years has been begging and pleading for God to change them, to bring them into alignment with whatever his ideal was supposed to be for them. I know my stories that I've spent my entire life and probably even still to this day still ask him to change it in the sense of like, change me more into who you want me to be. Now I just don't know if my sexuality will ever change. I know that he could change it, but for some reason over the last 26, 21 years, is that right, 15 plus? Yeah, so almost 22 years, he has not taken it away. He has changed it in the sense of the way in which I might as I represent themselves. Like I don't, I don't sexualize everybody anymore. Now I've met people that I'm like, wait, if it was possible to honor God in relationship, that's the kind of person I would want to be in relationship. You know what I make sense? Well, and again, you tell me what you think this is a reasonable position, but I don't think as a straight man myself, I don't think any of our orientations are perfect or without flaw. So I land on the, yeah, I'm a heterosexual guy, but my desires don't always perfectly run toward monogamy. And it's a discipline for me to stay married, to stay fate, not married, but to stay faithful in my marriage. And my attractions sometimes run as a guy outside of my marriage. And that's something I have to bring into obedience to Christ and within the faithfulness of the covenant of the relationship I have with my wife. And so I don't think you can sit here as a straight person and say, well, my desires are 100% in line with God's will. No, they're not, you're a sinner. And your mind goes into places where it ought not to go. And it's complex on the heterosexual side and it's definitely complex. I'm sure probably far more complex when you're sitting where you sit. Well, yeah, and I even say like when people reference, for instance, Romans 1, and reference to homosexuality, I'm going, go read that chapter again. It says a lot about heterosexuals and the dishonoring expression of heterosexuality. - Well, and read into Romans 2 because people stop. And I mean, if you actually read the first part of Romans 2, you shut up pretty quickly as a straight person. - I really do. - Well, you know, and the other thing, I think what we haven't talked about, which is one of the things that I think that I've seen is that there's a lot of hypocrisy in this conversation. And I have felt convicted in my own personal life to repent for it. I do believe that we as a church should be confessing before the Lord and repenting for our hypocrisy. And what I mean by that is a hierarchy of sin. We have labeled certain sin as worse than others. We allow certain things in the church that we don't allow another, even though they're of the same status in scriptures. So I think that when you're gonna go talk to a gay person, be able to defend why your church might allow divorce people to serve, but you won't allow a gay person to serve. And I'm not saying that I don't think divorce people should be able to serve, but like they're studying the scriptures around divorce and going, why are you not holding those up at the same level of importance? - There might be greater clarity or equal clarity, depending on your position on the whole issue of divorce than there is on gay relationships in scripture. - And we've taught before too, is that there's a lot of clarity in the New Testament about the role of women in the church, but most of our churches are not in line with what those scriptures say. - There's a lot of clarity around greed and gluttony and hypocrisy, and there's a lot of clarity around anger and malice and divisions and quarreling and faction, all these church sins that we just ignore while I get all upset about your sexuality. - Well, yeah, and those are all important, but there are a few scenarios where it's like, okay, well, why has the church shifted, or at least reinterpreted how they read particular scriptures on a particular subject? - That's true. - So the role of women in the church, like why has the church shifted on the greater availability of roles for women currently in the church than maybe what the New Testament says? We would look at cultural context, we would look at what were they really saying? What was the, you know, and that would be the argument that a pro-gay theology would be saying is, and hey, we're not saying throughout the scripture, throw them out, we're saying, reinterpret why it says it. Look at the cultural context, just like you did with the role of women, just like we've done with divorce, just like we've done with slavery, just like we've done with a lot of topics throughout the history of the church. We sort of get stuck in this idea that scripture, I do believe in the inheritance, you have scripture, I just don't necessarily believe in the inherency of human interpretation of it. I don't think every human interpretation is infallible. So therefore we have to sort of look beyond the human and say, okay, God, is there a new revelation you're wanting to make to us now that we are in a different age and a different period of time? That does not change the ultimate truth, it's not throwing out, I'll say this too, one of the big frustrations for me is when I, I also have a lot of conversation around this topic and I like to ask questions just to try to get the person to think of it, well, why do you believe that? Like, and so often people wanna say like, you're just throwing out the gospel. And that's a manipulative, abusive phrase, I think, because to say, I'm throwing out Jesus because I'm questioning a particular interpretation of a verse would say that all of us have done that. 'Cause we all look at scriptures and go, well, that doesn't really apply today, we can cut our hair or we can wear a blended fabric because-- - We don't have to go to temple. - Which we don't have to go to temple. - Okay, yeah, divorce is bad, but they can remarry because of these circumstances. Or, you know, technically they remarry in that scenario, it was adulterous, but it just seems unfair and we see God being honored in their relationship. We make these judgments all the time that sort of air in the face of what may seem to be very clear in scripture and asking ourselves why and why is it different for that topic? What are we scared of in the sense of, like I, in this topic of, I was actually overseas when gay marriage was legalized here in the United States and obviously I read your post about that too in a very interesting perspective. So I'm traveling throughout Europe and South Africa and everyone wanted to know what we thought about America legalizing gay marriage, particularly Christians that I was meeting with and at churches I was meeting with and I traveled. And I started to hear something a little different 'cause I'd been out of the American dialogue for a month, basically, in hearing. And I realized like there's just so much hatred on social media from both sides. - That's why I wrote what I wrote. I just couldn't stand it anymore. - But I'm like, I don't think Jesus is honored by this. And I started realizing there were the two trump cards that were being thrown out to try to shut the debate down, which was the sanctity of marriage and inerrancy of scripture. And I believe wholeheartedly in both of those, but I don't necessarily think this conversation is about those. Like if it was really, if we were really concerned about the sanctity of marriage, the church globally would be marching the streets against divorce. We would have programs that supported marriages, supported men and struggles with pornography or women too, we would be doing more of the church to support marriage. I'm not saying a lot of churches don't, but I'm going like, we all seem to be so upset about divorce, which would also be attacking the sanctity of marriage. We don't seem as upset of adultery. I mean, yes, we agree it's wrong, but you don't see people like throwing their arms up and despair and spitting across the aisle at someone else over that topic. And then the inerrancy of scripture is the same thing we just said of, well, we want to say these scriptures in an era, but we want to adjust the other ones or reinterpret the other ones over time. And the second thing I've sort of experienced too is in my conversation with these Christians and other parts of the world that are outside of this extremely capitalistic culture that we have in America. I realize that when they spoke about gay people or about gay marriage, the tone of the conversation was so drastically different than all the conversations I have here. And I was like, what is this? Like, what's different? And I just was praying about it and like, God, like, why are they able to sort of have this loving perspective? And like, I don't get it. Like, what's different? And I realized that we are a product of our culture. We're a product of who we hang around. We teach that all the time in our churches. But our culture is capitalistic. I'm afraid that on this issue in particular, but probably a lot of others, we've made our gospel capitalistic in the sense of you have to strive in order to thrive in our churches. And a gay person becoming a Christian without having to say they agree with us on certain things seems to fly in the face of a system we've bought into that we've invested in. It doesn't seem fair. They didn't have to strive to be better and do better in order to thrive as a Christian. Why did they get in and get the blessings of faith that I had to do all this work to try to be better? And I was like, wait, we're missing the point. That's why we need to repent. It's not about our work. It's not about us. It says 1 Corinthians says that without Jesus, we're all out of luck. Like none of us have hope without Jesus. Gay, straight, bisexual, and different Christian, non-Christian, we have no hope without Jesus. - It's true. - And I think for us to be in conflict with any of God's people means we're in conflict with God. So if we want to be unloving and un-Christlike and disrespectful toward women, Muslims, Democrats or Republicans, depending on what you are, straight people, gay people, like we are being disrespectful and unloving toward someone who God says he loves. So the question is, what does love require of me? So I think the two big questions in this whole debate to wrap up this whole thing is, who do you say I am at the question Jesus asks? Who do we say Jesus is? And the second one, what does love require of me? And if you ask those two questions and you don't experience some level of conviction about how you've been acting, I would say that you're probably not being honest. Because I think all of us will never live up to those two questions as well as we should. And as you've seen, the reason you wrote your post was I was embarrassed to see the vile and the poison that Christians that I have great respect for. We're spitting out on Facebook and I'm like, I just wanted to write to all the gay people I knew and go please know, this reflection you're seeing isn't necessarily truly reflective of God's love for you. 'Cause I do believe as humans we were here on this earth to reflect the glory of God to the world. And I think that inherently we're also built to interpret what we see coming from Christians as true of God. And that's why it's so important for us to take that job, that responsibility serious. Because if we show someone vile and judgment and hatred, they're gonna believe that's what God thinks of them. But if we show them grace and love, acceptance in the sense of you are welcome here, whether we agree or not, they're gonna believe that's what's true of God. So it's back to the question of, am I gonna tip them away or toward God and toward Jesus? And I think that's where we get lost in this. We wanted to bait the theology and make sure that we know we're right and they're wrong, that we missed the whole point. And the threat of telling them that they're throwing out the gospel, we've thrown out the gospel ourselves. And that is what, it literally grieves my heart. It's, that's how I know that I'm growing spirit. So there's things that are grieving my heart that I'm seeing, that I'm going, I think Jesus would be so upset overseeing his people acting this way. I think he would be so upset that any gay person ever thought that he hated them and that he didn't also die for them and that he didn't also want them to have peace and joy and to grow and to be challenged in all the ways he might grow them or challenge them. Sorry, I'll start preaching if you're not careful here. - No, this is the conversation we need to have here. - And the other perspective we've talked about too, I think in our last conversation, which was the idea of the same thing I just talked about catalistic culture. If you're in it, our church has become catalistic. In America, for instance, we are an extremely sexual culture. - Yes. - And unfortunately, I think that as a church, we're in it and a church have sort of absorbed it. We are more sexual than we've ever been. Like Christians are having more sex outside of the bounds of marriage than ever before. - Yep. - And we have over-sexualized so much and I think including the gospel and the redemptive process. - Well, and part of that goes to, you know, how much of your identity is rooted in your sexuality that you are straight or gay or lesbian? - Right. - Or transgendered. - Yes, I want to touch on that in a second, but the first that just finished another thought is that we have over-sexualized salvation in the sense of that if you become a Christian, the first thing God will fix is your sexual sin. But I, a lot of my friends are pastors and well-known pastors leading great big churches and I know from our personal time together and accountability, they still have sexual sin in their lives, but we don't question whether their redemptive cycle ever started. But if it's a homosexual sin so present, we question whether they ever enter the redemptive cycle, were they ever even really a Christian. And I have found that I don't think the redemptive cycle is going to happen the same way with every person. And I don't think we as humans get to set the order of it because that's God's job. It's not the role we were at called into. Now jumping back to identity because I think that's a big point that we had talked about prior to and even some of our notes is that is it wrong to identify as a gay person if you're a Christian? You'll hear that people say that your identity should be in Christ alone. However, so many Christians don't say that to each other when they hear someone identify on themselves as Georgia Bulldog or a Knicks fan or a father or an attorney or an accountant or a fisherman or a Democrat or a Republican or a libertarian. Like there's so many, I think it almost is in a front to God to say that we don't have all these other aspects that he's designed into us. The uniqueness of each person means there's aspects of my identity that are different than the next person. It's like I'm a creative, I'm artistic, I'm a talker, I'm a question-asker. Gay as part is on that list, but it's way down the list for me. So if someone asks me if I'm gay or same-sex attracted, I will answer yes to either one of those. It's really semantics. Same-sex attraction, same thing as gay. But it was just dangerous to say that you're gay. I'm like, well, when I'm saying I'm gay, what I'm saying is I'm acknowledging that there's something in me that fits within that definition. I can't deny that part of my attraction is towards someone of the same-sex. And therefore, technically, I'm in that definition. However, I don't wear the banner and introduce myself as, hello, I'm Aaron Harris, I gay man. But at the same time, I can't reject that it's part of me. And I think part of the piece that I feel about where I'm at right now isn't that I have peace about it being okay with being gay, 'cause that's not what it is. I think I have peace because the fact that I've chosen to no longer hate something that God has specifically used to draw me into deeper relationship with him. Like, my sexual struggles have been something that whether people like it or not, God has used it to draw me to him. He has convicted me through it. He had drawn me into deeper relationship because I've been forced to have vulnerability and support groups with a counselor. And then with my friends, he has drawn me into dependence on him because I realize that without Jesus, I make a mess of things. I have sex with strangers, I snort stuff up my nose, I eat way too much fried chicken, I gossip, I'm prideful, I'm materialistic without Jesus. With Jesus, those things have all drawn me to a realization that I need him. And so the piece I have is that this is something that God is using in my life. I'm not gonna say that he intended it in my life or designed it into my life, 'cause I don't have the mind of God to know whether he did that or not. If he made me this way or not, I think we're selling our shelves short, but I think God made me this way. No, I think God uses all things in our lives for his good and for, you know. - It's almost direct quote, isn't it? - From Brian Zate. - It really is. Aaron, man, this has been so helpful. And I really hope for listeners who maybe haven't had a conversation like this, this has been encouraging. Like, to me, I'm not gonna change the world overnight. But if this is just a small chip in a very big iceberg and a little bit of a thought, it's amazing. - Well, that was sort of my hope and went and had this conversation with you. Obviously was not to solve it. I don't think it's solvable because I don't think we have the mind of God in order to see the vastness of his truth. And I think scripture, the reflection of his truth in the sense of a glimpse we get of him, it doesn't fully encompass him because he cannot be described fully in words and he can't be fully described in a picture or an image. We're all just getting glimpses of him. And I wanted people to know that, hey, this conversation is more than what you might initially think it's about. Like, I don't think the conversation's really even about homosexuality. I think the conversation is really about who is Jesus and therefore what does that require of me? As a Christ follower, we don't want to talk about that side of the conversation because that requires personal challenge, personal growth, personal movement. It's easier to say they need to grow, they need to be challenged, they need to move. But if you look throughout scripture, Jesus always turned it back on the individual and said, well, what about you? What will you do? I require this of you. And to realize this whole debate, I think in a way as a form of idolatry to say, hey, we're right, they're not. We don't have to change. We're certain, we're secure, we're in control. And I think God and Jesus sort of speak against that if you look in scriptures of that sense of authority over knowledge that no other person could be different than what we say. And so I wanted, I just hope, and that's my goal. It's not to change people's opinion. It's for them to realize that, wait, there's more at stake than here than you might initially think. There's relational damage that can be done. There's a relational healing that can go happen. There is salvation on the line. Some people may or may not respond to Jesus based on their interaction with you. And you can win an argument or you can win a life. It's really that simple. It's which one I would rather disagree with someone on all kinds of issues, but come into agreement on who Jesus is with them and be able to walk them through that process of salvation and growing in their faith, whether we ever agree on everything else. - You can win an argument or you can win a life. That is so well said. And here's where I'd like to close this. I'd like to ask you two questions. - Okay. - One, just to refocus the issue, because I know what I love about this conversation is it's nuanced, it's moderate, but powerful. It's not just a soundbite that you can fling at somebody on a social media. - Right. - Status update, which is great. But so often we do that. So just help me understand. And you've shared an awful lot so far, but when you look back over here now, almost 37 years, what were some of the most hurtful or harmful things that happened to you in this journey? Just what were some moments that you're like, oh, and I know God uses it all. It's Romans eight, but just so that we can be self-reflective in the church and go, I should never do that. I would say some of the most hurtful things have been the use of people's words. I think God has a lot to say about how we use our tongues and the way we use our words. But just for example, I've had people say that or ask me if they think it's possible that my mother is afflicted with MS and a wheelchair because of my homosexuality. - Seriously. - I've had a pastor, a well-known leader, and I won't say who it was, but a friend of mine that said that he thinks it would be better if I committed suicide than to shift on this issue in any way. And I think he was shocked when he heard himself say it too. I don't think he realized he had that inside of him. And it hurt. I know I have to show him grace and love 'cause I want the same, but I just can't get my head around that God would rather someone be dead than be slightly off in what they believe or completely off in what they believe, longer they are willing to believe in him. And it's so those kinds of statements, these big sweeping statements of you could never inherit the kingdom of God. That is not in line with the gospel, which says, "For God, I came to die of all people "for whosoever, believe it." So it's to really realize, think before you speak, love before you think, and just pause. And it's okay just to listen instead of have to speak back. It's like you're not going against Christ but choosing just to listen to a person. You just listen. That is always an act of love that will honor Christ if you listen. Sometimes you may need to speak, you may need to question, but choosing to listen is not a wrong decision. So that was something the most painful. I'm assuming that that question probably gonna be what are some of the most helpful things. - That's exactly where I wanna finish because you are a person of hope. From what I know of you, Aaron, I'm a guy who has great hopes for the Church of Jesus Christ and for his message of redemption and love and salvation to the world. So I know there, obviously you're here because it wasn't all horrible. - Oh my God. - And there have been some great moments of grace. So in terms of two or three things that might stand out as like I am so thankful to God for this, what was that? - We could do four, five, 10, 20 podcasts on all the positive things that have happened and all the ways that God's people have been loving. They have been Christ-like. They have been graceful. They have been forgiving and accepting. And that may actually answer your question earlier of why did I choose God because God's people showed me that there really is no choice. Once you see the truth of who he is, like you can't help but respond in him. It was their kindness. I've had people in the depths of my grossest, dirtiest days just love on me and hug me. And I had friends that said, "I don't care where you've been, what time of night it is." You can come straight from, well, there's one situation I had basically just had sex with a stranger. I did not know their name. It was demeaning towards me. It sort of went in a way that I did not plan which is always how sin goes. And I left their feelings so low and so dirty and I went to this friend's house. And instead of them telling me all the ways I should have made better decisions. I should have known. If I went there, I should have called them first and confessed my desire to go before I went. They literally cried for me when I couldn't cry for myself. I couldn't even cry for myself. I didn't even think I deserved that. And they bawled on my behalf and just held me. And it was male on male affection in a healthy way without perversion that God used to literally amend a part of my heart. I didn't even know it was broken. And from that day forward, there's ability I'm able to cry. I had not been able to cry for years. There's a soft spot in my heart that came open in that moment that God healed. And the person never told me why I was wrong or why I'd done something to dishonor God. What they told me was why I was loved, who I was in God based on what scripture says and reminded me of that instead of the lie that Satan wanted to tell me. And those moments, the choice to love someone over to be right is always the right decision I believe to. 'Cause I think that's what Jesus did. Like he literally just chose to love them. But well, Jesus told the woman to go and send no more. Well, do we really think that he thought she wouldn't send no more? And do we really think she never sent again? I think that statement was more of him going, "Hey, just remember you need me." Without me, everything is sin. Without Jesus, everything we do is sinful 'cause we're dependent on ourselves instead of God. So when you think of sin in that context, we are all living an act of sin because we don't choose God in every single moment. And I think as another positive thing where the people around me that were willing to identify with me and say, "Hey, here's the way that I'm also not fully dependent on God in this season, but I'm still growing and I'm still in community. I'm still on my faith journey. So don't think because you had a misstep that all of it's gone. All of God's grace is gone because you made one mistake or you send yet again. Let's look at the stories in scripture where people send over and over and over and over. But God still used them. I mean, look at David, he was a man after God's own heart, but we clearly know his story was, David wouldn't be allowed to serve in our churches today based on our adult ministry covenants, you know? - You're right. - So, and that is encouraging. I love being in the community of bad sinners in the sense of not because I'm worse than anybody else, but because I get to experience a sheer utter dependence on God that I think a lot of people who don't think they're as sinful as others never get the ability to experience because they don't realize or won't accept that they need it just as bad at the person they think is worse than them. - It's the woman crying at Jesus' feet. - Right. - And the guy who doesn't think he needs it. Standing there with his arms crossed in Jesus saying, you know, those who send much love much. - Right. And I will say if you, to anybody listening, I don't know if we're allowed to bet 'cause I don't know what scripture says on that, I would feel safe in guaranteeing you that if you choose to enter into a healthy loving dialogue with someone in the LGBT community and you choose to go into it with the motivation of I'm going to choose to love instead of to convict or to judge that in a year from now, if you continue that relationship, actually if you continue that relationship for a month, you will come back in a month and say, I'm so glad I did that. I see a new reflection of who God is. I see a new reflection of how I need God and I see a new reflection of how God can meet anyone and anything at any time. And therefore your own faith will open up, not to mention that you get the blessing of see someone else's faith open up too. If you will just do that, I would, I don't have a million dollars to bet, but I would bet that I would say that I don't know who could come back from that if they truly did it and they truly chose to love instead of convict or judge, that they wouldn't come out of that situation or change for the better. - Well, you know what, Aaron, I can't thank you enough. I mean, this has been so helpful and this is the longest podcast I've ever done, but I wanted it to be a conversation, the kind of conversation that we would have if we were just hanging out for the day. And I think one of the things I love about it, Aaron, is just thank you for your honesty, your openness, your transparency. And I think there's challenge for all of us in it. I mean, if- - Me included. - I know, well, that's a thing. Like, if you're a conservative quote traditionalist on this issue, yeah, you're challenged, but also if you're a gay man, a lesbian woman, this is challenging, if you're bisexual, it's challenging. It's challenging to all of us, which I think means we must have been somewhere close to the gospel because that's what the gospel does. And Aaron, I just wanna thank you, you're a new friend, but you're opening my mind and opening my heart to healthy ways to have this dialogue and discussion. And I'm just so honored to have had you as a guest today on the podcast. I know people are gonna want more. How can they find you if they wanna find out more about you and your life online? Where can they find it? - Well, I have two websites which are being updated, so they're available sort of, but they can still reach me. One is AaronLeeHarris.com. That's A-A-R-O-N-L-E-E-H-A-R-I-S.com. And the other is AaronHarrisArt.com, or you can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all of that at AaronLeeHarris. - Okay. - Spilled out full, spelled out A-A-R-R-N-L-E. - We'll link to all that in the show. - That's cool. - Cool, and can I say one final thing? - You absolutely can. - I would just wanna remind everyone that I prayerfully considered every word I would say today and I prayed for God to speak through me, but I am a human, and I pray that you would not take any word of mind as ultimate truth, that you would take any word or question I ask and go back to the scriptures and back to God with those and anything that you've said to carry, that they've taken that back. And I realized like I am a human that does not have the mind of God, and I merely ask the question that I think would help us grow and move forward in the dialogue as opposed to stunting the dialogue. Please know that please go to God on this issue and please go to God on what you should do at the next right step. And if you're in relationships with a gay child, friend, son, brother, or in a gay relationship yourself or marriage, whatever, that you would just really invite God into it and take heed to the fact that he wants to be involved. And I hope my words can move you toward God, and if they haven't or if they don't, then I apologize and ask you forgiveness my motivation was to try to move you toward God with everything I'm saying here today. So thank you. If people have more questions, I'd always be willing to interact in some other way or again in the future. - I'm sure there'll be some comments too on this blog post. I will and my team will be monitoring them very, very carefully. I want the tone that I think you've so helpfully sat Aaron to be the tone of the discussion online as well. So just thank you so much. And it's been an honor or privilege to have you on the podcast. Thanks so much. You're welcome and thank you so much. Much love to you as well. - And likewise, much love to you. - All right. - Well, thank you so, so much for listening. And man, you can find all the links that Aaron and I talked about at kerrynewhough.com/episode57. And Aaron, just thank you so much. Thanks for being a voice of reason when there isn't a lot of reason around here and just for that heart that pursues Christ. I think it's amazing. Again, please don't use soundbites of this to change your opinion or blow up the debate. But if you want to leave a comment and be part of the conversation or maybe you have an honest question that you'd love to ask Aaron. Aaron and I are going to be in the comments today at kerrynewhough.com. And this week actually/episode57. So we'd love to talk to you. And I do really hope the goal of all of this, as we've said numerous times, is to make the conversation just better, better than it is and not just soundbites and accusations and hatred. And again, a couple of other episodes you may want to go back to episode 49 with Scott Saul's about how to disagree without being disagreeable. And then episode 33 with Caleb Colton back about growing up with gay parents. And he's somebody who holds to a traditional view of marriage and both of his parents have been in gay relationships and Caleb talks so honestly about it. And actually his book, Messy Grace is out this month. So you can go to messygrace.com as well. We'll link to that in the show notes. And man, this is a big discussion. And what's so awesome, I think, is that if we can make a little bit of progress and how we have the conversation, people will come to know Jesus, that's the hope. Thank you so much for being part of the dialogue this week. I so appreciate it. Hey, just a couple quick things before we go. Next week, I am gonna interview Beth Marshall all about how to scale pastoral care at your church. It's gonna be fascinating. She did it at New Spring Church for a long time. So that's with episode 58. If you subscribe, you get it for free in your inbox all the time. Also working on a new Ask Carry episode, we tried those last month. So if you've got a question, you can just go to my blog, carrynewhough.com and click got a question and leave me a voicemail. And I'll answer it with a new Ask Carry this month. And then thank you to everybody who made the book launch. So amazing. Thank you. You can get more information at lastingimpactbook.com or just go straight to Amazon and you can buy it on Kindle or paperback there. All designed to help your church have the conversations you need to move your mission forward. I will also be on the Orange Tour. So if you are in Indianapolis this week, drop by. I'll be there on Friday. And I'll also be in some other cities. You can go to orangetour.org. I would love to continue the dialogue face-to-face. Hey, in the meantime, thanks so much. We'll see you next week. And I hope this helped you lead like never before. You've been listening to the Carry New Hough Leadership Podcast. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change, and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) (gentle music)