July 1, 2025 • 49 mins
What happens when a seminary-educated lesbian pastor encounters the Holy Spirit in an unexpected way? Elizabeth Woning never planned to question her gay identity or theology. As a gay-affirming Presbyterian minister, she believed the church needed to change, not her sexuality.
Then came the moment that shattered everything. During an awkward visit to a Pentecostal youth service, a teenage boy approached her with a prophetic word that answered a private prayer she'd never shared. "Does God know me specifically?" she wondered. "And if He does, I have no idea who He is."
This realization launched Elizabeth on a years-long journey of reexamining Scripture without her postmodern filters. What she discovered challenged everything she believed about identity, sexuality, and the human body. As co-founder of The Change Movement, she now offers a provocative perspective on why labels like "gay Christian" might actually limit our human experience and separate us from the full work of redemption God wants to do.
Elizabeth's story raises several questions: Can same-sex attraction be viewed more like depression - something experienced but not identity-defining? How does Christ's incarnation speak to the unity of body and spirit in ways our culture misses? What happens when we stop letting our desires define us and instead allow God's love to become our primary identity?
Episode resources:
Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole
👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Should Christians adopt a gay Christian identity
label?
Can our sexual desires reallychange?
How does the Holy Spirit usescripture to reintegrate our
sense of self and our sense ofour body?
Friends, welcome to theBecoming Whole podcast.
I'm James Craig, director ofProjects and a spiritual coach
(00:22):
here at Regen, and today I'm sohonored to be with Elizabeth
Wanning, who is the co-founderand co-executive director of the
Change Movement.
Elizabeth, thanks so much forbeing with us today.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
My pleasure.
I'm excited about ourconversation.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah.
So we're kind of continuingthis theme, sort of a series
throughout the month of Junearound stories of navigating
same-sex attraction in thechurch and what does it mean?
To see transformation, or isthere transformation?
Is there healing?
So I just want to start outthis episode with the somewhat
(01:00):
brief version of hearingElizabeth's story.
I'm sure she's shared the40-minute hour version before.
I'm sure she's shared the40-minute hour version before.
I'm sure she's done thetwo-minute.
But, elizabeth, would you sharewith us I don't know the
five-minute-ish or more versionof your journey around same-sex
attraction and what brings youto this place you are in today,
seven years into the changemovement leadership change
(01:29):
movement leadership.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Wow, thank you.
Well, it can be a long story,so I'll try to try to keep it
narrow, but just to give it alittle, give everyone a little
context for my angle and whereI'm coming from.
I came out as a lesbian in myearly 20s after questioning my
sexuality for several years.
But I grew up in the church.
(01:51):
I grew up as part of thePresbyterian church and became
part of the gay affirming churchmovement.
I ended up going to seminary.
I went to seminary openly gayand was one of probably, I think
(02:14):
, fewer than 10, definitelyfewer than a dozen in my
seminary who were open.
So this was way back in 2000.
So it wasn't a normal thing, itwasn't super typical.
I think it's much more commontoday.
And I and my peers, we felt thecall to ministry and we found
(02:42):
ourselves kind of blocked fromour calling.
So you know, I don't know ifyou can imagine, but imagine
being or feeling called toministry by the Lord and then
not having avenues to do that.
And so imagine, you know thegravity of that is.
You know, I feel that serviceto the Lord is a major part of
(03:07):
why he designed me, and so thento find myself in the
predicament of having no placethat would accept me in ministry
and all of us believed that wehad been born gay and that we
couldn't change that.
We couldn't change anythingabout our sexual orientation and
(03:28):
therefore what we could changeis the church.
And so we set ourselves to kindof engaging the church and
trying to open doors forLGBT-identifying people,
identifying people, to enter in.
And I try to reinforce that.
We weren't antagonists.
We didn't consider ourselvesactivists per se.
(03:52):
We weren't trying to harm thechurch in any way.
From our own life experienceswe just felt like the Lord
wanted to meet the LGBTpopulation and we didn't have
any other vision than that.
The church had to change.
(04:12):
And so I finished my master'sdegree in theology and graduated
and then began parish ministry.
And as I was first beginningparish ministry, I was trying to
get to know kind of otherchurch leaders.
I was in a small rural area andas I was trying to get to know
(04:34):
other church leaders, I foundanother youth pastor.
So I was starting in youthministry.
I found another youth pastorwho loved to hike and so I asked
for some guidance on goodtrails and we struck up a
relationship and beganconnecting and he ended up
(04:55):
inviting me to his church and hewas a Pentecostal pastor.
Pastor and I had no experiencewith the Pentecostal movement
and, as you know, my backgroundwas highly academic, very
(05:16):
intellectual.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
A little Presbyterian here, so I get you and mostly
we had made fun of Pentecostals.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I would say in my academic circles, but I was very
curious because he had a largeand successful outreach to teens
in this area, where I was, andso he invited me one evening to
their service, and in the midstof that service then the Holy
(05:45):
Spirit showed up very powerfully.
And so then suddenly I wasfaced with kids laying on the
ground and some of them weeping,some of them laughing, some of
them speaking in their prayerlanguage, others running around,
and it was when I share, I liketo say it was a Presbyterian's
(06:07):
worst nightmare.
It was.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I was going to say it sounds like a trauma for a
Presbyterian.
It was.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
It was super expressive and of course it was
contemporary music.
And here I was.
It dignified him singingPresbyterian and and so it was.
It was way, way out of the boxfor me.
But a 17-year-old boyapproached me and he said to me
I believe I have a word from theLord for you, and I had never
(06:35):
heard of anything like that, andI have to admit I didn't
believe God worked like that.
I didn't believe people couldindividually access the Lord and
get downloads for people and beable to release something super
personal or private.
But he proceeded to tell meabout something.
It came to me as a directanswer to something I had been
(06:58):
praying about for years,something no one else could have
known, and I found myselfthinking.
I remember thinking does Godknow me specifically?
And if he does, I have no ideawho he is.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
And this is a seminary trained youth pastor.
It's profound.
This is right, you know, I hadnever honest question.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
No experiential knowledge of the presence of God
and how to interpret what I wasexperiencing.
And so I mean, in that moment,I wasn't convicted of of sin
relating to homosexuality, I wasconvicted of unbelief, wow, and
(07:47):
which, in my opinion, maybe isthe graver sin, particularly as
a seminary grad entering intoparish ministry.
And so I did what I only neededto do, which was to begin
rereading the Bible and, over acouple of years, reread the
whole thing in the context, nowthat I found myself exposed to
(08:09):
the charismatic, the pentecostaland charismatic movement.
They're slightly different and,and um, still in the reformed
movement.
So I've got john calvin andluther here on one ear and then
I've got Azusa Street coming outthe other, and I isolated
(08:30):
myself from everything I knewand sat with the Bible and
re-evaluated what I knew basedon what I was now experiencing,
what I knew based on what I wasnow experiencing.
And so I was faced with now apopulation of people that I was
getting to know who claimed tohear from God.
(08:52):
They claimed to have intimateconnection with God, like a
daily conversation that wasinteractive.
They claimed to experience thelove of God and their lives were
beautiful, and I was provoked.
I was provoked, and so I beganrereading scripture to discover
(09:14):
their God.
Not that I believe in adifferent God, but it was so
different than anything I'd everseen.
And in the midst of thatjourney then re-evaluated the
biblical anthropology and Iunderstand.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
That's a big word.
What does anthropology mean?
Some of our listeners probablyhave heard us say it too, but it
might be a good place to defineit.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
The way men and women are created and how they live
together and, ultimately, theirdesign and um.
I started looking at womanhoodin scripture and I mean, I
remember among the first thingsthat I began questioning was
(10:01):
queer theology, because I didn'tsee male and female as
interchangeable.
The longer I spent in scriptureand then less and less saw
lesbianism represented inscripture, and so I began
questioning how gay theology asopposed to lesbian theology, how
(10:22):
gay theology had influenced myfeminist beliefs.
And so, okay, I went down thatbig rabbit hole and we don't
have to go there.
But the outcome was.
The outcome was I beganquestioning why I rejected
biblical femininity and biblicalwomanhood, which I did, and
(10:43):
began questioning whether God'sstructure for male and female
together, whether I could acceptthat.
So here I was, longing toexperience the love of Jesus
that I was being exposed to,seeing that my lifestyle, my
(11:04):
theology, my queer theology andthe life that I was living, my
routine that's what I mean bylifestyle didn't correlate with
those beliefs, and I began towonder how they limited me from
experiencing the love of God.
And I remember thinking, youknow if I so?
(11:24):
Meanwhile I had picked up a newBible and I began highlighting
every passage in the Bible whereGod describes himself.
So this wasn't a journey on amI sinning or how do I get over
unbelief.
It was literally who is God,who is this God?
(11:46):
And I began highlighting everypassage where God described
himself and I began realizingthis incredible, this beautiful
picture of relationship andlonging and faithfulness and
mercy and generosity andcomplexity and beauty that I
wanted.
I wanted to be connected to,and I realized that it was the
(12:11):
ultimate.
It was the ultimate good, itwas the ultimate love, it was
the ultimate of experience, andI thought I need that If I could
have communion with God.
I need that If I could havecommunion with God, then I could
have purpose, my life couldhave meaning, but especially, my
(12:33):
life would have value.
And because I began to see howvaluable he was and that became
the hinge pin for me on what Iwas going to do next regarding
lesbianism and LGBT identity andhow I regarded that community,
because I recognized thatlesbianism, I had sought to use
that to give my life meaning, togive my life purpose, my life
(12:58):
value, and none of those thingshad given me the Lord, as I was
now seeing him.
And so that was the pinnacle ofwhere my house of cards began
falling apart.
So then the subsequent yearswere rebuilding theology and
(13:19):
rebuilding a sense of why had Irejected womanhood, what was
behind that, building a sense ofwhy had I rejected womanhood,
what was behind that?
What kind of?
Why did I feel so insecure inmy body?
Why did I feel so insecureamong normal women?
What was my breakdownrelationally with men?
So I had a lot of abuse in mypast, lot of abuse in my past,
(13:50):
and all of that came to thesurface as I was re-evaluating
my faith.
So ultimately, I resigned fromministry and left the
Presbyterian Church and did adeep dive into an entirely new
expression of faith and anentirely new sense of purpose
and identity.
It wasn't like I had an instanttransformation.
(14:13):
It was a years-long process,but I wouldn't trade that
process for the world because inthe whole journey it was a
discovery of God and his beauty,as well as a discovery of me
and my own beauty and who hecreated me to be and what could
(14:37):
be the highest expression of mypersonhood personhood.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Man, I'm noticing, like what you just highlighted,
this wasn't a confrontation thatyou had of someone saying, hey,
your theology is wrong, youknow you need to repent, but it
was this really powerful likepersonal journey of repentance
with the Lord.
And actually, if you've beenlistening along for the
listeners two weeks ago Kyle'sstory who aired kind of a
similar thing of like falling inlove with the Lord, recognizing
(15:11):
a different type of communityNot, yeah, not starting with the
kind of confrontational thing,but like who are you really God
and who am I really?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
And that's a little of you know.
You and I were talking aboutPresbyterianism.
I mean, that's John Calvin.
When you see the Lord truly ashe is, then you suddenly realize
who you are and you get a verysobering view, typically, of
yourself.
The greater your understandingof who God is understanding of
(15:48):
who God is.
But I think the identity journeyrequires that vision of God,
that connection of anunderstanding of God, because
that's what makes it all, itmakes it worth it.
(16:15):
I think the discovery journeyand the healing journey becomes
very valuable when the goal isknowledge of and intimacy with
God.
When the goal is I'm going tofix myself for the sake of my
parents, or I'm going to fixmyself for the sake of the
church or so that I can belong,or because I think that's what I
should do, then it becomes avery confusing journey.
But when the bullseye is, wow,I could become everything the
(16:35):
Lord has desired for me, thenthat becomes much more
worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
I could become the true human.
I can kind of live into thefact that Jesus was the new Adam
.
Like I get this, this new senseof purpose, and I noticed that
that word purpose kind of cameout in one of the many probably
factors that we could spendundoubtedly hours unpacking.
That contributed to yourjourney with same-sex attraction
(17:04):
.
Like purpose, sounded like that.
That kept kind of coming up foryou.
And interestingly too, oneother thing I'd love to hear
your thoughts on that.
But you even had a call toministry before you knew God in
this way.
What do you make of that Likewhat?
And because you're in ministrytoday in a certain type of way
you're not a pastor right now oranything but like what'd you
(17:26):
make of the fact that he stillused that call to ministry even
way back in your 20s?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's very telling.
Honestly, I think I had thisdeep longing for something that
I couldn't fully understand andcouldn't fully articulate, and
so I was trying, I was trying tofollow that inner compass and
(17:54):
then suddenly got a majorredirect and I mean this would
be a larger, deeper conversationon kind of, how do we even
follow the Lord, how do we evenfind the lord, how can we trust
that he's guiding our lives?
And what does that look like?
And you know, um, I the thelonger I'm on this journey, the
(18:20):
more humbled I am by the senseof groping in the dark in a bit
and and trusting, trusting thelord, trusting the lord to the
philippians, promise to tocomplete my journey to make sure
that I arrive at the end.
(18:44):
But because I kind of started onone, on one tangent and then
flipped to another, I have avery, very cautious view about
doctrine.
Deeper faith, deeper certaintyin my faith.
Because of that, because it forme it's quite frightening to
(19:19):
believe that I was on atrajectory I believed before God
and in fact I wasn't.
And and I don't want to claim,you know, to claim all of my
peers were in the same boat asme.
I can't claim that.
I can't claim thatLGBT-identifying Christians were
(19:40):
my ministry journey and I wasvery short-sighted and very
misdirected in the way I waspursuing it.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I started my recovery around age 21, maybe into 22,
23.
And I can relate to that ideathat and I wonder if our
listeners can too that at theage of 20, I really did think I
knew everything there was toknow about God and people.
And as I've gotten older it'slike I realized how little I
know.
And it's like that idea of ifyou believe you're wise, you're
(20:23):
actually a fool, but if yourecognize you're a fool, you
might have some wisdom, you know, something like that.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Right, I mean yeah.
Let me just close with this,which is, you know, I couldn't
claim before, but I claim now,that my journey towards the Lord
is an effort to honor andglorify God.
Glorify God and the choicesI've made, the choice to repent
(20:56):
and desist from lesbian identity, and the choices I've made to
better understand the formativefactors, the developmental
factors involved with mysexuality and then adopting that
identity.
That journey that I've been on,I have gone on it because I
believe that that is the bestway for me to glorify the Lord.
And you know, I stay thatcourse because I want to, I want
(21:18):
to be someone, I want to givethe Lord a gift, the gift of my
life, um, out of a posture ofwhat I believe is obedience, Um,
but I I'm hesitant to um to saythat, absolutely, I've walked
the way that everyone elseshould.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
There's kind of an open-handedness about some of
the mysterious ways God works.
One of those ways that you didhighlight was you really got
into scripture ways God works.
One of those ways that you didhighlight was you really got
into scripture Like there wassomething new, even though you
had studied the Bible inseminary, like the Holy Spirit
was doing something, not onlythrough the witness of these
Pentecostal friends in your town, but he was using scripture to
(22:07):
transform some stuff.
And I know that we're recordingthis the week after the Sills
Conference, where we got to meetlast year and got to see each
other this year, and part ofyour breakout talk kind of
raised the question, or you kindof raised the idea that God can
use the Holy Spirit, can usehis word, to bring a deeper
integration, bring a deeper kindof and we talk about a lot
(22:31):
sexual integrity.
Is this integration of theperson that God wants to do,
this restoring of the soul,bringing it back together?
How have you found that in yourwalk, this idea that scripture
can be a big part of thisjourney?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, well, the breakout session that I led last
week, I focused on secularhumanism and the role that
post-modern philosophy playswithin it, and and so, as a, as
an intro to that um, what yourto your question, I think I need
(23:08):
to say that so my, mytransition from, maybe, queer
theology into evangelical um, oreven, yeah, I would say,
evangelical theology, um, wasreleasing myself from
post-modern, a post approach toscripture, and so a postmodern
(23:31):
approach to scripture looks atpersonal experience, locates
truth in my interpretation andhow I am affected.
So a postmodern reading ofscripture would say okay, the
Bible says this how does thatmake me feel?
Or how does my life experience,how can I use my life
experience to understand whatthis passage is saying right now
(23:55):
?
So it locates truth in me bythis experience that I had in
this charismatic setting.
Now, suddenly I couldn't trustmy truth to know the truth, and
(24:18):
so then I turned to scriptureand I had to say, well, maybe
scripture is the truth orscripture has something to tell
me about what I just experienced.
So the Lord kind of flipped onend this postmodernist approach
that I had taken to scripture.
It fell apart because Icouldn't use my own life
experience to understand whatnow is happening of my journey
(24:46):
of rereading scripture wasoffloading a lot of this
postmodern, this postmodernhermeneutic, and relocating God
in scripture and saying God isgoing to speak to me now through
scripture and I'm going to sayit is the source of truth, not
(25:06):
my life circumstances and not mypersonal opinion.
And when I did, then it forcedme to reckon with the body in a
different way.
First, you know what does itmean to be a woman in the
context of scripture, and youknow my reevaluation of the
(25:29):
patriarchy and the oppressionthat I had understood through
feminist theology and scripture.
I had to strip that away nowbecause I was experiencing the
love of the Lord, even throughthese stories that might have
been misleading for me.
And so as I began evaluating orgrappling with Jesus, then I
(25:55):
had to understand that hisincarnation was speaks to the
human condition, and so ourpostmodern world separates our
psyche from our bodies andlocates truth and the ultimate
of our personality in ourintellect or in our reason.
(26:18):
You know this ethereal aspectof human identity and kind of
discards the body, like my body,becomes less relevant.
The most extreme example is thetransgender identity.
Right now I'm gonna.
I feel one way inside.
So I'm just going to change mybody to reflect that.
(26:39):
But the incarnation sayssomething different.
The incarnation and thenjesus's crucifixion and
resurrection point to theredemption of our whole selves.
And so if Christ, if my moralpurview was the most important
part of my life and personality,then Jesus wouldn't have had to
(27:01):
be incarnated and he wouldn'thave had to have been crucified
and his physical resurrectionwouldn't have mattered.
But in fact the Lord is sayingno, you are your whole body and
your whole body is implicated insin.
Sin and not just your actions,like not just I had sex, but the
(27:31):
impulse to have sex and thethoughts and emotions I have
around it.
All of that is one big hole,right, we can't separate them.
In fact, you know the truth is,our emotions and our thoughts
are the product of our body.
We can't, we don't have thoseseparate from our body.
And so you can't know me.
(27:53):
Apart from my body and all ofmy sexual desire, even my
attraction, all of that is aproduct of my physical body.
And even, believe it or not,even the reason and intellect
(28:13):
that I shape around that is aproduct of my body.
It all comes in my brain andthrough my body.
And so our postmodern worldviewdoesn't know that.
But the scripture says somethingcompletely different.
Your whole body matters.
Like Paul says, your body is atemple of the Holy Spirit.
(28:33):
Well, we're not just althoughhe uses this language of you're
a clay pot in some places.
But in reality we're not just aclay pot.
We're an incredibly complex, uh, intersection or interface
between the spirit realm and thephysical realm.
The human body is miraculousbecause of that, like and and
(28:58):
just realizing wow, there arenot other creations that are
interfacing with God, like ahuman interfaces with God,
walking and talking and seeingand hearing, and then also
feeling love, expressing love,praying privately but then
(29:19):
praying aloud like the voice.
All of it, the whole human self, is what God redeemed through
Jesus's life, death andresurrection.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
You're speaking our language, because we are deeply
steeped in what has been knownas theology of the body.
Is that, like so much of oureducation as Christians is like
is what's the easiest word touse?
I'm trying to think they're allkind of big philosophies, you
know, platonic or Cartesian orGnostic, but we fall in.
(29:56):
A lot of us as Christians fallinto this trap of spiritual
realm, including, like the mindand like our thoughts, is good
and above and our physical realmlike like the mind and like our
thoughts, is good and above andour physical realm, like our
bodies, is bad.
And what's wild to me, elizabeth, is somehow I mean that
might've been, just be in thewater of our Christian worldview
Sometimes seminary might'veencouraged that but something
(30:18):
about encountering the love ofGod and reading his word in a
fresh way.
You actually started to seethrough some of that.
I'm just kind of blown away bythat.
Like you're getting your ownlike theology of the body
journey through scripture I mean, it's all in scripture, so it's
not that surprising in thatregard.
But like you were unlearningsome of this disconnect that you
(30:39):
had initially had.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I mean it's interesting.
So Romans 12 says be renewed inthe spirit of your mind.
But then another place is, paulspeaks about sin being in the
flesh right, and so we start tothink that our bodies are really
bad and so only our mind can berenewed.
But the resurrection speakssomething completely different.
(31:04):
So the resurrection points tothe complete renewal of our
bodies, and all anyone who'sministered to or done research
on porn addiction knows thatactually that addiction and the
process of kind of restoringyour mind involves restoring
(31:25):
your brain, the neuroplasticityof the brain, and so you know,
we think a thought, it affectsour body, our bodies affect our
thoughts.
That whole cycle is one bigreality.
And so I mean the ultimateJesus came healing physical
(31:47):
bodies and declaring thegoodness of the Lord towards our
physical wholeness and ourphysical well-being, not just
coming to talk about how to haverelational wholeness, to talk
about how to have relationalwholeness and so realizing the
whole Christ event.
It's the whole package of beingrenewed to.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
I mean we were talking about the early church
being renewed to the reality ofthe Garden of Eden.
It's no coincidence that,whether it was before Christ,
with Plato, whether it wasaround the time of the
scriptures being canonized withthe Gnostics, or whether it was,
you know, a thousand years,1500 years later, with Descartes
(32:32):
, like the enemy seems so hellbent, if I can use that term, on
this idea of like, thismisunderstanding of body and
spirit, this misunderstanding ofthe unique place we have as
humans, as angel moles, as Ijokingly say I think I got that
from Christopher West Like we'vegot this spirit, we are
spiritual and physical and we'reunique in all creation in that
(32:54):
way, and that is good.
That is by design.
Idea of identity Elizabeth, oneof the questions that we
sometimes wrestle with at Regenis or those you know who come
might be wrestling with thisidea of like.
Okay, I might agree with you all, with having, you know,
orthodox theology, that you knowI shouldn't act on same-sex
(33:22):
behaviors or I shouldn't havesex outside of marriage or
whatever, whatever it may, pornis bad, whatever it is.
But I want to bring up thisconcept of a label like gay
Christian, this idea of deeplyidentifying, to the point of it
being kind of a core label, youknow with with that term, like
gay Christian, lesbian Christianor whatever, or whatever it
would be.
In particular, at Sills lastyear in one of your talks you
(33:46):
kind of got at that a little bitthat there might be an issue
with trying to uphold thatorthodoxy while still putting
your subjective desires almoston par with that.
Like not just I'm a Christianbut I'm a gay Christian.
Not just I'm a Christian, butI'm a gay Christian kind of puts
(34:12):
those on some sort of I don'tknow level of them being part of
the same kind of identitypackage.
And so how do you think aboutthis concept of labels or
identifying as a gay Christianor things like that?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah well, I've grappled with that a lot.
Yeah well, I've grappled withthat a lot.
And I believe that it reallyredirects your sense of okay,
(34:45):
god can't or won't touch mysexual identity or my sexual
experience, and so I'm going toisolate that from the Lord and
somehow it gives me.
Once again, going back to whatI was saying, lesbianism gave me
a sense of value, me a sense ofvalue, and so, whether it was
(35:10):
I'm communicating to someoneabout my deepest self or whether
it was my own self-perceptionof value, adding lesbian or gay
to my sense of Christian faithsomehow gave me a different
sense of identity than without.
Like it.
It was at first very challengingto just be a woman, and and
(35:33):
when I, when I thought aboutthat and and reasoned through
that, I I found that veryproblematic.
Like so I, I realized thatlesbian kind of separated me
from other women, and so I the.
The longing that I was, that Ihad to belong, um, and be a
woman, couldn't be fulfilled aslong as I considered myself a
(35:58):
different kind of womanpermanently um and there are a
lot of.
There's a lot that I could saythere.
But in for the matter of time,um, lgbt identities force a
person to stay in that silo forlife, so permanently outside the
human experience of every otherman and woman, so that somehow
(36:21):
I have a unique life experience.
Well, I, I do have a sliver ofa different life experience, but
so long as I elevate thatsliver, then the whole rest of
my life experience getsre-evaluated.
I don't get to just be a womanamong women or you, a man among
men.
I still have this extra caveat,and so I see it as self-limiting
(36:45):
, because it just neverself-limiting, and even to a
degree dehumanizing, because itallows people to objectify me or
pigeonhole me into a certainpersona and not see my whole
self, whole self.
(37:08):
But then I add to that thebelief that God must not have,
he must not be able to redeem mysexuality or somehow as part of
my salvation and the trajectoryof my salvation.
It won't be redeemed in thislife, only in the next.
And so I have have.
I don't have to look at itclosely, I don't have to
scrutinize it, I don't have todeeply understand why it's there
(37:29):
and understand the formative ordevelopmental factors that
could be involved with it, andso, then, that means that there
could be elements to myunderstanding of being a lesbian
or being gay that impact myability to be whole in other
places, and that can beproblematic too.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I love that word self-limiting when I think about
my own journey with unwantedpornography struggles like I
wanted it and I didn't want it.
You know it was like thisinternal back and forth.
It's really really hard work.
I mean, recovery from anyhabitual struggle is hard work.
There's reasons we're going tothese coping mechanisms.
(38:09):
There's reasons we're going tothis release of chemicals in our
bodies or, or you know if it'sdrugs or alcohol, external
chemicals.
So there's actually like you'recalling us to this harder path.
Perhaps we can think of it asthe journey, you know, carrying
our cross, like we've all beenthrough stuff throughout our
lives and not everyone who hassame-sex struggles has abuse in
(38:32):
their background, but we've all.
We all have so many formativethings that impact what you
might call our arousal cocktailor our our, our mixture of
desires, and one of the thingsthat I've noticed in my own life
is that God's in the businessof making us to use another
classical philosophy idea makingus virtuous, like actually, I
(38:55):
think a lot of Christians,elizabeth, struggle or settle
for okay, god wants me to do theright thing, but I'm never
going to want to do the rightthing.
But I think one of my favoritethinkers, dallas Willard, along
with going all the way back toAristotle, and you see this
throughout church history, theconcept of virtue is actually
wanting to do what God wants youto do, like I want to do this,
(39:16):
I enjoy this, my desire is forthis.
Dallas Willard would say itwould have been hard and he's
kind of using that tongue incheek but it would have been
hard for Jesus to sin becausehis desires were so perfectly
aligned with virtue, with hisfather's desires.
Right, this is my biggesttakeaway from everything you've
(39:41):
shared is like the love of Godcomes in and transforms us in
places perhaps that are evenunexpected, including at the
deep levels of our desires.
And I think what you'rehighlighting postmodern, the air
we breathe in this culture, inthis world, is that our desires
define us, our feelings defineus, and you're saying actually
(40:06):
the love of God began to defineme and that made all the
difference.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah, I mean it, definitely.
It is still the sustainingfactor.
You know, if I I wish that wecould reclassify same-sex sexual
(40:28):
feelings, because that hasbecome so politicized, like
lgbtq has become so politicizedand culturally defined, if we
could redefine same-sexsexuality or same-sex sexual
desires, um, I would want torelegate it into a category like
depression.
Now, um, someone will freak outthat I'm putting it in a
(40:49):
category of psychology, but bearwith me for a minute.
I'm not saying specificallythat homosexuality is a mental
illness, but what I am trying todo is give you a different
illustration, and so many of uswho have experienced clinical
depression have gone to greatlengths to understand what it is
(41:13):
and how it affects us and howwe overcome it.
And for many of us, there is atemperament factor, there could
be a genetic factor, therecertainly is an environmental
factor, all of those thingstogether, and so, because of
that, that makes it very similarto same-sex sexuality.
(41:34):
It could be genetic.
It's not fully genetic, butthere are elements of it that
could be.
There are elements of it thatare involved with your
temperament and your personality.
There are elements involved ofit, that have to do with the
environment that you were raisedin, et cetera.
Okay, so that's how theycorrelate.
So a person who experiencesdepression, we don't put them in
(41:59):
a silo and say, oh, you're adepressed person and so the
trajectory of your life is thisdepression and you should expect
to struggle with it your wholelife.
Now, many of us who experiencedepression might think, well,
this could be, today I don'tfeel depressed, but tomorrow I
(42:19):
might.
But that doesn't redefine mysense of wellbeing or who I am
or the trajectory of my life, orat least it shouldn't.
When it does, then wecategorize that as a mental
illness, right.
When it becomes solife-dominating and so
controlling, then we put it inthat category and we seek help
for it.
But otherwise it's in and outof our lives.
(42:42):
Wouldn't it be nice if same-sexsexual feelings were in that
same category?
And for most people it is.
It's not.
The majority of those whoidentify as LGBT did not have
exclusive same-sex sexualfeelings.
In fact, population-wide themajority are bisexual, and women
(43:03):
in particular experience quitea lot of sexual fluidity.
Even so, you know, the populardiscussion around homosexuality
is that, let's say, today Idon't feel compelled by those
feelings, but someday in thefuture I might.
The same as with depression.
Does that mean then, I'mforever a lesbian or forever gay
(43:29):
because of that?
I don't think so, and so,ideally, we would be able to
categorize same-sex sexuality assomething that isn't
life-dominating, or somethingthat doesn't separate us from
the rest of humanity.
It doesn't characterize me as adifferent kind of woman.
It characterizes me as someonewho has this experience, but
(43:52):
that it doesn't have to be thedefining element of my life.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
And instead the defining element that you've
described, that Kyle's described, is the love of God, like
regardless of our past sin, ourdesires, that are all over the
place.
Man, I hate that we have toclose out this conversation.
I'm tempted just to keepstringing you along and make you
(44:20):
late for your next appointmentor whatever, but we do have to
close out, friends.
I'm going to give Elizabeth thelast word in just a moment, but
I just want to highlight thegreat work that she's doing over
at the Change Movement.
There's kind of this equippingside of their ministry and
there's also a culturalengagement side and one of the
pieces of equipping forindividuals and for churches is
(44:41):
this tool that they have.
We'll have it in the show notescalled Navigating LGBTQ.
It'll be on their website,it'll be in our show notes.
But this gives testimonies,doctrinal insights, discipleship
approaches, slash guidelines tothose who are trying to bring
that care to those struggling,trying to bring the love of the
Lord to those who are struggling.
(45:02):
So I want to encourage you guysto check that out and check out
just the incredible workthey're doing.
I'm super grateful, as aCalifornia resident, that
Elizabeth here, uh, fighting forthe good of you know, families
and future generations to beable to be less, maybe
pigeonholed in this, in this way, and to be more I don't know
(45:23):
have more opportunity for truthand the love of the Lord to come
, come into their lives.
So, elizabeth, is there anylast thing you'd like to share
or pray over us?
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Yeah, I would.
You know, recently I had a timewith the Lord where I felt his
love in a fresh way than I hadever felt.
And you know, as I've beenreflecting on it over the last
couple of weeks, it didn't haveto do with what I was
accomplishing, it didn't have todo with the kind of person that
(45:57):
I am or my character.
I didn't have the sense thathis beautiful presence and love
and affection for me in thatmoment had to do with me at
changed or me doing anything atall.
I couldn't even put.
I couldn't put my finger on why.
I would even say it was love.
Honestly, as I was thinkingabout it, it wasn't like
(46:18):
affirmation of something, it wasjust the deepest sense of being
known and valued and cherishedthat I have ever had in my life
and it it way beyond.
Like all the everything thatwe've been talking about feels
superficial in comparison.
And you know, at the cross Godreconciled himself.
(46:42):
In Colossians, paul says Godwas reconciling himself to
humanity, and a lot of the timeswe evangelize and we say be
reconciled to God, but at thecross God was reconciling
himself to us and so he's doneall of the work needed for us to
be able to access him if we'lljust turn our hearts to him.
(47:03):
And so I just want to pray thatthe Lord would meet all of us
and no matter.
Maybe you've listened to thisand this is the most offensive
interview you've ever heard.
Or you've listened to this andyou feel hopeful.
I hope it's the latter, but,irregardless, I want you to know
that the Lord loves, loves youdeeply, he knows who you are, he
(47:27):
knows you personally and hecherishes you.
And it's not about any of theseother things, it's about his
desire to know you and for youto know him.
So let me pray, lord, I justthank you that you love us and
that your love is so defining,and in fact, I think we love
(47:47):
because you love, like maybethat's the most important part
of the Imago Dei, that we love.
And so, father, in this seasonand through this month, lord,
this confusing month, I just askthat you would meet everybody
in your love, so that all ourhearts would turn to you and we
would be able to faithfully andbeautifully glorify you.
(48:08):
Jesus, thank you for yoursacrifice, but thank you for
your commitment and faithfulnessto us.
Amen.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Amen.
Thank you, Elizabeth.
Should Christians adopt a gay Christian identity
label?
Can our sexual desires reallychange?
How does the Holy Spirit usescripture to reintegrate our
sense of self and our sense ofour body?
Friends, welcome to theBecoming Whole podcast.
I'm James Craig, director ofProjects and a spiritual coach
(00:22):
here at Regen, and today I'm sohonored to be with Elizabeth
Wanning, who is the co-founderand co-executive director of the
Change Movement.
Elizabeth, thanks so much forbeing with us today.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
My pleasure.
I'm excited about ourconversation.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah.
So we're kind of continuingthis theme, sort of a series
throughout the month of Junearound stories of navigating
same-sex attraction in thechurch and what does it mean?
To see transformation, or isthere transformation?
Is there healing?
So I just want to start outthis episode with the somewhat
(01:00):
brief version of hearingElizabeth's story.
I'm sure she's shared the40-minute hour version before.
I'm sure she's shared the40-minute hour version before.
I'm sure she's done thetwo-minute.
But, elizabeth, would you sharewith us I don't know the
five-minute-ish or more versionof your journey around same-sex
attraction and what brings youto this place you are in today,
seven years into the changemovement leadership change
(01:29):
movement leadership.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Wow, thank you.
Well, it can be a long story,so I'll try to try to keep it
narrow, but just to give it alittle, give everyone a little
context for my angle and whereI'm coming from.
I came out as a lesbian in myearly 20s after questioning my
sexuality for several years.
But I grew up in the church.
(01:51):
I grew up as part of thePresbyterian church and became
part of the gay affirming churchmovement.
I ended up going to seminary.
I went to seminary openly gayand was one of probably, I think
(02:14):
, fewer than 10, definitelyfewer than a dozen in my
seminary who were open.
So this was way back in 2000.
So it wasn't a normal thing, itwasn't super typical.
I think it's much more commontoday.
And I and my peers, we felt thecall to ministry and we found
(02:42):
ourselves kind of blocked fromour calling.
So you know, I don't know ifyou can imagine, but imagine
being or feeling called toministry by the Lord and then
not having avenues to do that.
And so imagine, you know thegravity of that is.
You know, I feel that serviceto the Lord is a major part of
(03:07):
why he designed me, and so thento find myself in the
predicament of having no placethat would accept me in ministry
and all of us believed that wehad been born gay and that we
couldn't change that.
We couldn't change anythingabout our sexual orientation and
(03:28):
therefore what we could changeis the church.
And so we set ourselves to kindof engaging the church and
trying to open doors forLGBT-identifying people,
identifying people, to enter in.
And I try to reinforce that.
We weren't antagonists.
We didn't consider ourselvesactivists per se.
(03:52):
We weren't trying to harm thechurch in any way.
From our own life experienceswe just felt like the Lord
wanted to meet the LGBTpopulation and we didn't have
any other vision than that.
The church had to change.
(04:12):
And so I finished my master'sdegree in theology and graduated
and then began parish ministry.
And as I was first beginningparish ministry, I was trying to
get to know kind of otherchurch leaders.
I was in a small rural area andas I was trying to get to know
(04:34):
other church leaders, I foundanother youth pastor.
So I was starting in youthministry.
I found another youth pastorwho loved to hike and so I asked
for some guidance on goodtrails and we struck up a
relationship and beganconnecting and he ended up
(04:55):
inviting me to his church and hewas a Pentecostal pastor.
Pastor and I had no experiencewith the Pentecostal movement
and, as you know, my backgroundwas highly academic, very
(05:16):
intellectual.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
A little Presbyterian here, so I get you and mostly
we had made fun of Pentecostals.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I would say in my academic circles, but I was very
curious because he had a largeand successful outreach to teens
in this area, where I was, andso he invited me one evening to
their service, and in the midstof that service then the Holy
(05:45):
Spirit showed up very powerfully.
And so then suddenly I wasfaced with kids laying on the
ground and some of them weeping,some of them laughing, some of
them speaking in their prayerlanguage, others running around,
and it was when I share, I liketo say it was a Presbyterian's
(06:07):
worst nightmare.
It was.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I was going to say it sounds like a trauma for a
Presbyterian.
It was.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
It was super expressive and of course it was
contemporary music.
And here I was.
It dignified him singingPresbyterian and and so it was.
It was way, way out of the boxfor me.
But a 17-year-old boyapproached me and he said to me
I believe I have a word from theLord for you, and I had never
(06:35):
heard of anything like that, andI have to admit I didn't
believe God worked like that.
I didn't believe people couldindividually access the Lord and
get downloads for people and beable to release something super
personal or private.
But he proceeded to tell meabout something.
It came to me as a directanswer to something I had been
(06:58):
praying about for years,something no one else could have
known, and I found myselfthinking.
I remember thinking does Godknow me specifically?
And if he does, I have no ideawho he is.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
And this is a seminary trained youth pastor.
It's profound.
This is right, you know, I hadnever honest question.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
No experiential knowledge of the presence of God
and how to interpret what I wasexperiencing.
And so I mean, in that moment,I wasn't convicted of of sin
relating to homosexuality, I wasconvicted of unbelief, wow, and
(07:47):
which, in my opinion, maybe isthe graver sin, particularly as
a seminary grad entering intoparish ministry.
And so I did what I only neededto do, which was to begin
rereading the Bible and, over acouple of years, reread the
whole thing in the context, nowthat I found myself exposed to
(08:09):
the charismatic, the pentecostaland charismatic movement.
They're slightly different and,and um, still in the reformed
movement.
So I've got john calvin andluther here on one ear and then
I've got Azusa Street coming outthe other, and I isolated
(08:30):
myself from everything I knewand sat with the Bible and
re-evaluated what I knew basedon what I was now experiencing,
what I knew based on what I wasnow experiencing.
And so I was faced with now apopulation of people that I was
getting to know who claimed tohear from God.
(08:52):
They claimed to have intimateconnection with God, like a
daily conversation that wasinteractive.
They claimed to experience thelove of God and their lives were
beautiful, and I was provoked.
I was provoked, and so I beganrereading scripture to discover
(09:14):
their God.
Not that I believe in adifferent God, but it was so
different than anything I'd everseen.
And in the midst of thatjourney then re-evaluated the
biblical anthropology and Iunderstand.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
That's a big word.
What does anthropology mean?
Some of our listeners probablyhave heard us say it too, but it
might be a good place to defineit.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
The way men and women are created and how they live
together and, ultimately, theirdesign and um.
I started looking at womanhoodin scripture and I mean, I
remember among the first thingsthat I began questioning was
(10:01):
queer theology, because I didn'tsee male and female as
interchangeable.
The longer I spent in scriptureand then less and less saw
lesbianism represented inscripture, and so I began
questioning how gay theology asopposed to lesbian theology, how
(10:22):
gay theology had influenced myfeminist beliefs.
And so, okay, I went down thatbig rabbit hole and we don't
have to go there.
But the outcome was.
The outcome was I beganquestioning why I rejected
biblical femininity and biblicalwomanhood, which I did, and
(10:43):
began questioning whether God'sstructure for male and female
together, whether I could acceptthat.
So here I was, longing toexperience the love of Jesus
that I was being exposed to,seeing that my lifestyle, my
(11:04):
theology, my queer theology andthe life that I was living, my
routine that's what I mean bylifestyle didn't correlate with
those beliefs, and I began towonder how they limited me from
experiencing the love of God.
And I remember thinking, youknow if I so?
(11:24):
Meanwhile I had picked up a newBible and I began highlighting
every passage in the Bible whereGod describes himself.
So this wasn't a journey on amI sinning or how do I get over
unbelief.
It was literally who is God,who is this God?
(11:46):
And I began highlighting everypassage where God described
himself and I began realizingthis incredible, this beautiful
picture of relationship andlonging and faithfulness and
mercy and generosity andcomplexity and beauty that I
wanted.
I wanted to be connected to,and I realized that it was the
(12:11):
ultimate.
It was the ultimate good, itwas the ultimate love, it was
the ultimate of experience, andI thought I need that If I could
have communion with God.
I need that If I could havecommunion with God, then I could
have purpose, my life couldhave meaning, but especially, my
(12:33):
life would have value.
And because I began to see howvaluable he was and that became
the hinge pin for me on what Iwas going to do next regarding
lesbianism and LGBT identity andhow I regarded that community,
because I recognized thatlesbianism, I had sought to use
that to give my life meaning, togive my life purpose, my life
(12:58):
value, and none of those thingshad given me the Lord, as I was
now seeing him.
And so that was the pinnacle ofwhere my house of cards began
falling apart.
So then the subsequent yearswere rebuilding theology and
(13:19):
rebuilding a sense of why had Irejected womanhood, what was
behind that, building a sense ofwhy had I rejected womanhood,
what was behind that?
What kind of?
Why did I feel so insecure inmy body?
Why did I feel so insecureamong normal women?
What was my breakdownrelationally with men?
So I had a lot of abuse in mypast, lot of abuse in my past,
(13:50):
and all of that came to thesurface as I was re-evaluating
my faith.
So ultimately, I resigned fromministry and left the
Presbyterian Church and did adeep dive into an entirely new
expression of faith and anentirely new sense of purpose
and identity.
It wasn't like I had an instanttransformation.
(14:13):
It was a years-long process,but I wouldn't trade that
process for the world because inthe whole journey it was a
discovery of God and his beauty,as well as a discovery of me
and my own beauty and who hecreated me to be and what could
(14:37):
be the highest expression of mypersonhood personhood.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Man, I'm noticing, like what you just highlighted,
this wasn't a confrontation thatyou had of someone saying, hey,
your theology is wrong, youknow you need to repent, but it
was this really powerful likepersonal journey of repentance
with the Lord.
And actually, if you've beenlistening along for the
listeners two weeks ago Kyle'sstory who aired kind of a
similar thing of like falling inlove with the Lord, recognizing
(15:11):
a different type of communityNot, yeah, not starting with the
kind of confrontational thing,but like who are you really God
and who am I really?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
And that's a little of you know.
You and I were talking aboutPresbyterianism.
I mean, that's John Calvin.
When you see the Lord truly ashe is, then you suddenly realize
who you are and you get a verysobering view, typically, of
yourself.
The greater your understandingof who God is understanding of
(15:48):
who God is.
But I think the identity journeyrequires that vision of God,
that connection of anunderstanding of God, because
that's what makes it all, itmakes it worth it.
(16:15):
I think the discovery journeyand the healing journey becomes
very valuable when the goal isknowledge of and intimacy with
God.
When the goal is I'm going tofix myself for the sake of my
parents, or I'm going to fixmyself for the sake of the
church or so that I can belong,or because I think that's what I
should do, then it becomes avery confusing journey.
But when the bullseye is, wow,I could become everything the
(16:35):
Lord has desired for me, thenthat becomes much more
worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
I could become the true human.
I can kind of live into thefact that Jesus was the new Adam
.
Like I get this, this new senseof purpose, and I noticed that
that word purpose kind of cameout in one of the many probably
factors that we could spendundoubtedly hours unpacking.
That contributed to yourjourney with same-sex attraction
(17:04):
.
Like purpose, sounded like that.
That kept kind of coming up foryou.
And interestingly too, oneother thing I'd love to hear
your thoughts on that.
But you even had a call toministry before you knew God in
this way.
What do you make of that Likewhat?
And because you're in ministrytoday in a certain type of way
you're not a pastor right now oranything but like what'd you
(17:26):
make of the fact that he stillused that call to ministry even
way back in your 20s?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's very telling.
Honestly, I think I had thisdeep longing for something that
I couldn't fully understand andcouldn't fully articulate, and
so I was trying, I was trying tofollow that inner compass and
(17:54):
then suddenly got a majorredirect and I mean this would
be a larger, deeper conversationon kind of, how do we even
follow the Lord, how do we evenfind the lord, how can we trust
that he's guiding our lives?
And what does that look like?
And you know, um, I the thelonger I'm on this journey, the
(18:20):
more humbled I am by the senseof groping in the dark in a bit
and and trusting, trusting thelord, trusting the lord to the
philippians, promise to tocomplete my journey to make sure
that I arrive at the end.
(18:44):
But because I kind of started onone, on one tangent and then
flipped to another, I have avery, very cautious view about
doctrine.
Deeper faith, deeper certaintyin my faith.
Because of that, because it forme it's quite frightening to
(19:19):
believe that I was on atrajectory I believed before God
and in fact I wasn't.
And and I don't want to claim,you know, to claim all of my
peers were in the same boat asme.
I can't claim that.
I can't claim thatLGBT-identifying Christians were
(19:40):
my ministry journey and I wasvery short-sighted and very
misdirected in the way I waspursuing it.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
I started my recovery around age 21, maybe into 22,
23.
And I can relate to that ideathat and I wonder if our
listeners can too that at theage of 20, I really did think I
knew everything there was toknow about God and people.
And as I've gotten older it'slike I realized how little I
know.
And it's like that idea of ifyou believe you're wise, you're
(20:23):
actually a fool, but if yourecognize you're a fool, you
might have some wisdom, you know, something like that.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Right, I mean yeah.
Let me just close with this,which is, you know, I couldn't
claim before, but I claim now,that my journey towards the Lord
is an effort to honor andglorify God.
Glorify God and the choicesI've made, the choice to repent
(20:56):
and desist from lesbian identity, and the choices I've made to
better understand the formativefactors, the developmental
factors involved with mysexuality and then adopting that
identity.
That journey that I've been on,I have gone on it because I
believe that that is the bestway for me to glorify the Lord.
And you know, I stay thatcourse because I want to, I want
(21:18):
to be someone, I want to givethe Lord a gift, the gift of my
life, um, out of a posture ofwhat I believe is obedience, Um,
but I I'm hesitant to um to saythat, absolutely, I've walked
the way that everyone elseshould.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
There's kind of an open-handedness about some of
the mysterious ways God works.
One of those ways that you didhighlight was you really got
into scripture ways God works.
One of those ways that you didhighlight was you really got
into scripture Like there wassomething new, even though you
had studied the Bible inseminary, like the Holy Spirit
was doing something, not onlythrough the witness of these
Pentecostal friends in your town, but he was using scripture to
(22:07):
transform some stuff.
And I know that we're recordingthis the week after the Sills
Conference, where we got to meetlast year and got to see each
other this year, and part ofyour breakout talk kind of
raised the question, or you kindof raised the idea that God can
use the Holy Spirit, can usehis word, to bring a deeper
integration, bring a deeper kindof and we talk about a lot
(22:31):
sexual integrity.
Is this integration of theperson that God wants to do,
this restoring of the soul,bringing it back together?
How have you found that in yourwalk, this idea that scripture
can be a big part of thisjourney?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, well, the breakout session that I led last
week, I focused on secularhumanism and the role that
post-modern philosophy playswithin it, and and so, as a, as
an intro to that um, what yourto your question, I think I need
(23:08):
to say that so my, mytransition from, maybe, queer
theology into evangelical um, oreven, yeah, I would say,
evangelical theology, um, wasreleasing myself from
post-modern, a post approach toscripture, and so a postmodern
(23:31):
approach to scripture looks atpersonal experience, locates
truth in my interpretation andhow I am affected.
So a postmodern reading ofscripture would say okay, the
Bible says this how does thatmake me feel?
Or how does my life experience,how can I use my life
experience to understand whatthis passage is saying right now
(23:55):
?
So it locates truth in me bythis experience that I had in
this charismatic setting.
Now, suddenly I couldn't trustmy truth to know the truth, and
(24:18):
so then I turned to scriptureand I had to say, well, maybe
scripture is the truth orscripture has something to tell
me about what I just experienced.
So the Lord kind of flipped onend this postmodernist approach
that I had taken to scripture.
It fell apart because Icouldn't use my own life
experience to understand whatnow is happening of my journey
(24:46):
of rereading scripture wasoffloading a lot of this
postmodern, this postmodernhermeneutic, and relocating God
in scripture and saying God isgoing to speak to me now through
scripture and I'm going to sayit is the source of truth, not
(25:06):
my life circumstances and not mypersonal opinion.
And when I did, then it forcedme to reckon with the body in a
different way.
First, you know what does itmean to be a woman in the
context of scripture, and youknow my reevaluation of the
(25:29):
patriarchy and the oppressionthat I had understood through
feminist theology and scripture.
I had to strip that away nowbecause I was experiencing the
love of the Lord, even throughthese stories that might have
been misleading for me.
And so as I began evaluating orgrappling with Jesus, then I
(25:55):
had to understand that hisincarnation was speaks to the
human condition, and so ourpostmodern world separates our
psyche from our bodies andlocates truth and the ultimate
of our personality in ourintellect or in our reason.
(26:18):
You know this ethereal aspectof human identity and kind of
discards the body, like my body,becomes less relevant.
The most extreme example is thetransgender identity.
Right now I'm gonna.
I feel one way inside.
So I'm just going to change mybody to reflect that.
(26:39):
But the incarnation sayssomething different.
The incarnation and thenjesus's crucifixion and
resurrection point to theredemption of our whole selves.
And so if Christ, if my moralpurview was the most important
part of my life and personality,then Jesus wouldn't have had to
(27:01):
be incarnated and he wouldn'thave had to have been crucified
and his physical resurrectionwouldn't have mattered.
But in fact the Lord is sayingno, you are your whole body and
your whole body is implicated insin.
Sin and not just your actions,like not just I had sex, but the
(27:31):
impulse to have sex and thethoughts and emotions I have
around it.
All of that is one big hole,right, we can't separate them.
In fact, you know the truth is,our emotions and our thoughts
are the product of our body.
We can't, we don't have thoseseparate from our body.
And so you can't know me.
(27:53):
Apart from my body and all ofmy sexual desire, even my
attraction, all of that is aproduct of my physical body.
And even, believe it or not,even the reason and intellect
(28:13):
that I shape around that is aproduct of my body.
It all comes in my brain andthrough my body.
And so our postmodern worldviewdoesn't know that.
But the scripture says somethingcompletely different.
Your whole body matters.
Like Paul says, your body is atemple of the Holy Spirit.
(28:33):
Well, we're not just althoughhe uses this language of you're
a clay pot in some places.
But in reality we're not just aclay pot.
We're an incredibly complex, uh, intersection or interface
between the spirit realm and thephysical realm.
The human body is miraculousbecause of that, like and and
(28:58):
just realizing wow, there arenot other creations that are
interfacing with God, like ahuman interfaces with God,
walking and talking and seeingand hearing, and then also
feeling love, expressing love,praying privately but then
(29:19):
praying aloud like the voice.
All of it, the whole human self, is what God redeemed through
Jesus's life, death andresurrection.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
You're speaking our language, because we are deeply
steeped in what has been knownas theology of the body.
Is that, like so much of oureducation as Christians is like
is what's the easiest word touse?
I'm trying to think they're allkind of big philosophies, you
know, platonic or Cartesian orGnostic, but we fall in.
(29:56):
A lot of us as Christians fallinto this trap of spiritual
realm, including, like the mindand like our thoughts, is good
and above and our physical realmlike like the mind and like our
thoughts, is good and above andour physical realm, like our
bodies, is bad.
And what's wild to me, elizabeth, is somehow I mean that
might've been, just be in thewater of our Christian worldview
Sometimes seminary might'veencouraged that but something
(30:18):
about encountering the love ofGod and reading his word in a
fresh way.
You actually started to seethrough some of that.
I'm just kind of blown away bythat.
Like you're getting your ownlike theology of the body
journey through scripture I mean, it's all in scripture, so it's
not that surprising in thatregard.
But like you were unlearningsome of this disconnect that you
(30:39):
had initially had.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I mean it's interesting.
So Romans 12 says be renewed inthe spirit of your mind.
But then another place is, paulspeaks about sin being in the
flesh right, and so we start tothink that our bodies are really
bad and so only our mind can berenewed.
But the resurrection speakssomething completely different.
(31:04):
So the resurrection points tothe complete renewal of our
bodies, and all anyone who'sministered to or done research
on porn addiction knows thatactually that addiction and the
process of kind of restoringyour mind involves restoring
(31:25):
your brain, the neuroplasticityof the brain, and so you know,
we think a thought, it affectsour body, our bodies affect our
thoughts.
That whole cycle is one bigreality.
And so I mean the ultimateJesus came healing physical
(31:47):
bodies and declaring thegoodness of the Lord towards our
physical wholeness and ourphysical well-being, not just
coming to talk about how to haverelational wholeness, to talk
about how to have relationalwholeness and so realizing the
whole Christ event.
It's the whole package of beingrenewed to.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
I mean we were talking about the early church
being renewed to the reality ofthe Garden of Eden.
It's no coincidence that,whether it was before Christ,
with Plato, whether it wasaround the time of the
scriptures being canonized withthe Gnostics, or whether it was,
you know, a thousand years,1500 years later, with Descartes
(32:32):
, like the enemy seems so hellbent, if I can use that term, on
this idea of like, thismisunderstanding of body and
spirit, this misunderstanding ofthe unique place we have as
humans, as angel moles, as Ijokingly say I think I got that
from Christopher West Like we'vegot this spirit, we are
spiritual and physical and we'reunique in all creation in that
(32:54):
way, and that is good.
That is by design.
Idea of identity Elizabeth, oneof the questions that we
sometimes wrestle with at Regenis or those you know who come
might be wrestling with thisidea of like.
Okay, I might agree with you all, with having, you know,
orthodox theology, that you knowI shouldn't act on same-sex
(33:22):
behaviors or I shouldn't havesex outside of marriage or
whatever, whatever it may, pornis bad, whatever it is.
But I want to bring up thisconcept of a label like gay
Christian, this idea of deeplyidentifying, to the point of it
being kind of a core label, youknow with with that term, like
gay Christian, lesbian Christianor whatever, or whatever it
would be.
In particular, at Sills lastyear in one of your talks you
(33:46):
kind of got at that a little bitthat there might be an issue
with trying to uphold thatorthodoxy while still putting
your subjective desires almoston par with that.
Like not just I'm a Christianbut I'm a gay Christian.
Not just I'm a Christian, butI'm a gay Christian kind of puts
(34:12):
those on some sort of I don'tknow level of them being part of
the same kind of identitypackage.
And so how do you think aboutthis concept of labels or
identifying as a gay Christianor things like that?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah well, I've grappled with that a lot.
Yeah well, I've grappled withthat a lot.
And I believe that it reallyredirects your sense of okay,
(34:45):
god can't or won't touch mysexual identity or my sexual
experience, and so I'm going toisolate that from the Lord and
somehow it gives me.
Once again, going back to whatI was saying, lesbianism gave me
a sense of value, me a sense ofvalue, and so, whether it was
(35:10):
I'm communicating to someoneabout my deepest self or whether
it was my own self-perceptionof value, adding lesbian or gay
to my sense of Christian faithsomehow gave me a different
sense of identity than without.
Like it.
It was at first very challengingto just be a woman, and and
(35:33):
when I, when I thought aboutthat and and reasoned through
that, I I found that veryproblematic.
Like so I, I realized thatlesbian kind of separated me
from other women, and so I the.
The longing that I was, that Ihad to belong, um, and be a
woman, couldn't be fulfilled aslong as I considered myself a
(35:58):
different kind of womanpermanently um and there are a
lot of.
There's a lot that I could saythere.
But in for the matter of time,um, lgbt identities force a
person to stay in that silo forlife, so permanently outside the
human experience of every otherman and woman, so that somehow
(36:21):
I have a unique life experience.
Well, I, I do have a sliver ofa different life experience, but
so long as I elevate thatsliver, then the whole rest of
my life experience getsre-evaluated.
I don't get to just be a womanamong women or you, a man among
men.
I still have this extra caveat,and so I see it as self-limiting
(36:45):
, because it just neverself-limiting, and even to a
degree dehumanizing, because itallows people to objectify me or
pigeonhole me into a certainpersona and not see my whole
self, whole self.
(37:08):
But then I add to that thebelief that God must not have,
he must not be able to redeem mysexuality or somehow as part of
my salvation and the trajectoryof my salvation.
It won't be redeemed in thislife, only in the next.
And so I have have.
I don't have to look at itclosely, I don't have to
scrutinize it, I don't have todeeply understand why it's there
(37:29):
and understand the formative ordevelopmental factors that
could be involved with it, andso, then, that means that there
could be elements to myunderstanding of being a lesbian
or being gay that impact myability to be whole in other
places, and that can beproblematic too.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
I love that word self-limiting when I think about
my own journey with unwantedpornography struggles like I
wanted it and I didn't want it.
You know it was like thisinternal back and forth.
It's really really hard work.
I mean, recovery from anyhabitual struggle is hard work.
There's reasons we're going tothese coping mechanisms.
(38:09):
There's reasons we're going tothis release of chemicals in our
bodies or, or you know if it'sdrugs or alcohol, external
chemicals.
So there's actually like you'recalling us to this harder path.
Perhaps we can think of it asthe journey, you know, carrying
our cross, like we've all beenthrough stuff throughout our
lives and not everyone who hassame-sex struggles has abuse in
(38:32):
their background, but we've all.
We all have so many formativethings that impact what you
might call our arousal cocktailor our our, our mixture of
desires, and one of the thingsthat I've noticed in my own life
is that God's in the businessof making us to use another
classical philosophy idea makingus virtuous, like actually, I
(38:55):
think a lot of Christians,elizabeth, struggle or settle
for okay, god wants me to do theright thing, but I'm never
going to want to do the rightthing.
But I think one of my favoritethinkers, dallas Willard, along
with going all the way back toAristotle, and you see this
throughout church history, theconcept of virtue is actually
wanting to do what God wants youto do, like I want to do this,
(39:16):
I enjoy this, my desire is forthis.
Dallas Willard would say itwould have been hard and he's
kind of using that tongue incheek but it would have been
hard for Jesus to sin becausehis desires were so perfectly
aligned with virtue, with hisfather's desires.
Right, this is my biggesttakeaway from everything you've
(39:41):
shared is like the love of Godcomes in and transforms us in
places perhaps that are evenunexpected, including at the
deep levels of our desires.
And I think what you'rehighlighting postmodern, the air
we breathe in this culture, inthis world, is that our desires
define us, our feelings defineus, and you're saying actually
(40:06):
the love of God began to defineme and that made all the
difference.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Yeah, I mean it, definitely.
It is still the sustainingfactor.
You know, if I I wish that wecould reclassify same-sex sexual
(40:28):
feelings, because that hasbecome so politicized, like
lgbtq has become so politicizedand culturally defined, if we
could redefine same-sexsexuality or same-sex sexual
desires, um, I would want torelegate it into a category like
depression.
Now, um, someone will freak outthat I'm putting it in a
(40:49):
category of psychology, but bearwith me for a minute.
I'm not saying specificallythat homosexuality is a mental
illness, but what I am trying todo is give you a different
illustration, and so many of uswho have experienced clinical
depression have gone to greatlengths to understand what it is
(41:13):
and how it affects us and howwe overcome it.
And for many of us, there is atemperament factor, there could
be a genetic factor, therecertainly is an environmental
factor, all of those thingstogether, and so, because of
that, that makes it very similarto same-sex sexuality.
(41:34):
It could be genetic.
It's not fully genetic, butthere are elements of it that
could be.
There are elements of it thatare involved with your
temperament and your personality.
There are elements involved ofit, that have to do with the
environment that you were raisedin, et cetera.
Okay, so that's how theycorrelate.
So a person who experiencesdepression, we don't put them in
(41:59):
a silo and say, oh, you're adepressed person and so the
trajectory of your life is thisdepression and you should expect
to struggle with it your wholelife.
Now, many of us who experiencedepression might think, well,
this could be, today I don'tfeel depressed, but tomorrow I
(42:19):
might.
But that doesn't redefine mysense of wellbeing or who I am
or the trajectory of my life, orat least it shouldn't.
When it does, then wecategorize that as a mental
illness, right.
When it becomes solife-dominating and so
controlling, then we put it inthat category and we seek help
for it.
But otherwise it's in and outof our lives.
(42:42):
Wouldn't it be nice if same-sexsexual feelings were in that
same category?
And for most people it is.
It's not.
The majority of those whoidentify as LGBT did not have
exclusive same-sex sexualfeelings.
In fact, population-wide themajority are bisexual, and women
(43:03):
in particular experience quitea lot of sexual fluidity.
Even so, you know, the populardiscussion around homosexuality
is that, let's say, today Idon't feel compelled by those
feelings, but someday in thefuture I might.
The same as with depression.
Does that mean then, I'mforever a lesbian or forever gay
(43:29):
because of that?
I don't think so, and so,ideally, we would be able to
categorize same-sex sexuality assomething that isn't
life-dominating, or somethingthat doesn't separate us from
the rest of humanity.
It doesn't characterize me as adifferent kind of woman.
It characterizes me as someonewho has this experience, but
(43:52):
that it doesn't have to be thedefining element of my life.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
And instead the defining element that you've
described, that Kyle's described, is the love of God, like
regardless of our past sin, ourdesires, that are all over the
place.
Man, I hate that we have toclose out this conversation.
I'm tempted just to keepstringing you along and make you
(44:20):
late for your next appointmentor whatever, but we do have to
close out, friends.
I'm going to give Elizabeth thelast word in just a moment, but
I just want to highlight thegreat work that she's doing over
at the Change Movement.
There's kind of this equippingside of their ministry and
there's also a culturalengagement side and one of the
pieces of equipping forindividuals and for churches is
(44:41):
this tool that they have.
We'll have it in the show notescalled Navigating LGBTQ.
It'll be on their website,it'll be in our show notes.
But this gives testimonies,doctrinal insights, discipleship
approaches, slash guidelines tothose who are trying to bring
that care to those struggling,trying to bring the love of the
Lord to those who are struggling.
(45:02):
So I want to encourage you guysto check that out and check out
just the incredible workthey're doing.
I'm super grateful, as aCalifornia resident, that
Elizabeth here, uh, fighting forthe good of you know, families
and future generations to beable to be less, maybe
pigeonholed in this, in this way, and to be more I don't know
(45:23):
have more opportunity for truthand the love of the Lord to come
, come into their lives.
So, elizabeth, is there anylast thing you'd like to share
or pray over us?
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Yeah, I would.
You know, recently I had a timewith the Lord where I felt his
love in a fresh way than I hadever felt.
And you know, as I've beenreflecting on it over the last
couple of weeks, it didn't haveto do with what I was
accomplishing, it didn't have todo with the kind of person that
(45:57):
I am or my character.
I didn't have the sense thathis beautiful presence and love
and affection for me in thatmoment had to do with me at
changed or me doing anything atall.
I couldn't even put.
I couldn't put my finger on why.
I would even say it was love.
Honestly, as I was thinkingabout it, it wasn't like
(46:18):
affirmation of something, it wasjust the deepest sense of being
known and valued and cherishedthat I have ever had in my life
and it it way beyond.
Like all the everything thatwe've been talking about feels
superficial in comparison.
And you know, at the cross Godreconciled himself.
(46:42):
In Colossians, paul says Godwas reconciling himself to
humanity, and a lot of the timeswe evangelize and we say be
reconciled to God, but at thecross God was reconciling
himself to us and so he's doneall of the work needed for us to
be able to access him if we'lljust turn our hearts to him.
(47:03):
And so I just want to pray thatthe Lord would meet all of us
and no matter.
Maybe you've listened to thisand this is the most offensive
interview you've ever heard.
Or you've listened to this andyou feel hopeful.
I hope it's the latter, but,irregardless, I want you to know
that the Lord loves, loves youdeeply, he knows who you are, he
(47:27):
knows you personally and hecherishes you.
And it's not about any of theseother things, it's about his
desire to know you and for youto know him.
So let me pray, lord, I justthank you that you love us and
that your love is so defining,and in fact, I think we love
(47:47):
because you love, like maybethat's the most important part
of the Imago Dei, that we love.
And so, father, in this seasonand through this month, lord,
this confusing month, I just askthat you would meet everybody
in your love, so that all ourhearts would turn to you and we
would be able to faithfully andbeautifully glorify you.
(48:08):
Jesus, thank you for yoursacrifice, but thank you for
your commitment and faithfulnessto us.
Amen.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Amen.
Thank you, Elizabeth.
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