Not an identity [a guest column for Cornerstone University]

by Laurie Krieg

This article was published in my alma mater's newspaper this week. It was helpful for me to write. I hope it's helpful to read. 
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Matt and I spoke in chapel this last week about who we are: He struggles with pornography, but he is not a pornographer. I struggle with same-sex attraction, but I am not gay.

Our identity is not in our struggles.

I see this, Matt sees this, but as we share our message to more and more people, we also see a double standard within the capital “C” Church universal. 

My homosexual lusts are seen as identity that must die, and Matt’s heterosexual lusts as an acceptable lifelong struggle. 

Why?

Perhaps some of this is because pornography issues have been prevalent in the church for some time now. The truly helpful teachings of XXX Church, Every Man’s Battle, and the plain fact that 64 percent of all Christian men and 15 percent of Christian women watch pornography once per month, offers the ability for mostly male clergy to say, “Oh yes, come forward with your struggles. You are accepted. You can struggle with that forever and still be an elder/leader/pastor.” (See covenanteyes.com for more pornography statistics.)

But me? 

I’m not sure people know what to do with me yet. According to the world and more and more Christians each day, my struggle indicates personhood—an identity. So, I am either gay not as a Christian, a gay Christian, or I am a Christian who should probably not struggle with same-sex attractions any more. 

Why? Why do same-sex attractions automatically funnel me into a category of personhood—both inside and outside the church? 

Why can’t I just be a person, a Christ-follower, someone who struggles with things, but is also someone on the sometimes-stumbling journey of wholeness toward Christlikeness?

I believe the answer is fear. We are afraid that if we say we accept same-sex attraction as a struggle, we also accept homosexual people and affirm their sin as wonderful.  Some people quickly point to the “clobber passages” in Leviticus, Romans, and 1 Corinthians, saying the Bible is “very clear that this is a bad, bad sin, and we can’t have that in the church. If we do, we are in trouble.”

However, when we see homosexuality as an all-or-nothing issue, we are inadvertently agreeing with the world: you are this or you aren’t. You are one of us or not. In the church or not. You cannot be both a Christ-follower and a struggler—with homosexual desires.

The Church does not hold me to the same standards as they hold Matt and his struggle with heterosexual lust. Or my friend’s struggle with fear. Or a church member’s weakness toward gossip. They don’t have to stop wrestling with these things (or even falling) before they are allowed membership or permission to serve. These other imperfect Christians are not met with a scowl or judgment as they learn how to die to self, take up their cross, and follow Jesus (see Matthew 16:23). 

This perspective must end. If we want a voice in the future of this world we need to take away our double standard of you are this or you are not this, and give same-sex attracted men and women the opportunity to learn Christ’s love through this weakness, too.

Grace is what you want with your struggle, it’s what I want with mine, and it’s what Jesus offers to us all.