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Many Christian publishers don& #39;t have a great understanding of sexuality but do have a strong sense of Whose Voice Needs to Be Heard, so the same books with the same problems get published repeatedly. ~a thread~
Coming out in a more conservative Christian environment feels like inventing the wheel, especially when you are the only gay person you know. It& #39;s hard to get a sense of the conversations happening outside of your circle.
Taking a few years to piece things together, you become an expert on Christianity and sexuality within a fairly limited and highly curated scope. If you& #39;re like me, you blog through it and gain a following of other Christians.
If you get a big enough following, a Christian publisher might take notice and offer you a book contract to write your life story—your wrestling with sexuality and reconciliation with the church& #39;s teaching, for marriage or celibacy.
(I once met a young straight white pastor at the Calvin Festival for Faith and Writing who said he introduced himself to a friend of mine in order to boost his social media following so that he can get a book contract for a book on sexuality. It& #39;s not just gays!)
The Evangelical and Catholic publishing worlds still trend conservative, and Evangelicals especially BUY THE BOOKS WRITTEN FOR THEM, so the market for celibate perspectives is greater than the market for pro-gay marriage perspectives. Outside those two? Not much.
I& #39;m not against those stories being told. I *am* against the way the process turns the particular and limited knowledge that comes from the struggle to make peace with oneself as an lgbtq Christian into authority and a platform while enacting the agenda of the publisher.
I& #39;m against how it gives old debates and responses to them the appearance of something new. Not to say such texts have always been available and haven& #39;t been difficult to publish in the past, but they are now a fixture of popular Christian publishing.
I am against how these books become a template for other queer Christians, which is the goal: to produce certain kinds of good queer Christians by giving the closeted queer Christian who has so many questions a guidebook with The Answer, be it Side A or B.
I was handed one such book calling gays to celibacy as the Way Forward and imagining it as my own future while I read it gave me multiple panic attacks.
It& #39;s so powerful because the loneliness, pain, and desire to figure things out are the defining characteristics of realizing you& #39;re queer in a conservative Christian context. It feels like your salvation depends on getting it right. So the publishers are doing the Lord& #39;s work.
[Those who know me will know that my dad is a publisher, but he has largely avoided this sort of thing as far as I can tell, to his credit.]
The whole process forcloses upon other ways of inhabiting queerness and Christianity. There is JOY and FREEDOM to be found in liberation from that enormously predetermined two-sided struggle. There are more ends to loneliness and pain than the one already chosen for you.
We often come to love the struggles and pains that give our life meaning, but there are *other* struggles and pains to be had when you put aside the scripts you inherit. If that& #39;s where Jesus leads you, he will meet you there, too.
So, be not afraid. Sing a new song. And then, write about it. AMEN and amen. Go forth in peace. <3