Gay Christian canaries in the Coal Mine

I went on the Sola-darity Podcast with Bridget Gee to talk about vocational singleness and LGBT+ topics.

Canaries were low-tech carbon monoxide monitors. Coal miners took caged canaries into the mines. If miners accidentally released poisonous gases, the canary would die from the colorless, odorless gas, warning the miners to get out.

Dead canaries are the first signs of a bigger problem.

In the same way, the challenges gay Christians face stewarding their sexualities according to a traditional sexual ethic are the symptoms of a larger problem:

Our churches are selling the idol of romance as the solution to everyone's loneliness, and it's not working for anyone.

Clearly it's not working for gay people. Celibates and those in mixed-orientation marriages suffer from lingering wounds of the closet, a poisonous double standard, and a lack of permanent family in churches.

But the idol of romance isn't working for straight Christians either, as the divorce rate clearly demonstrates.

Instead, churches need to help every Christian enjoy human intimacy in the context of lifelong, lived-in family. And these churches need to help Christians thrive in either vocational singleness or Christian marriage for the sake of the kingdom.

Listen to the podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/soladarity-the-singleness-podcast/id1326408149?mt=2