0:00 e [Music] it is a tremendous Delight to be able to interview today Dr Wesley Hill Dr Hill is the assistant professor of biblical
0:46 studies at the Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge Pennsylvania he's also the author of a tremendous book entitled washed and waiting Reflections on Christian faithfulness and homosexuality he is himself uh self-described as a gay or homosexual Christian a man of uh deep resolve in his Christian faith Dr Hill Wesley may I call you Wesley please do what a joy to have you thank you for accepting this invitation well it's it's really my honor and joy to be with you tonight so thank you very much for the invitation your book tremendously blessed me I profited tremendously from it I felt as I was reading it that I was
1:32 being um confronted with brutal honesty I felt that you described the essence of an interior struggle uh that you describe as common to those persons who love God and are of the Christian faith and yet find themselves with strong um homoerotic attraction same-sex attraction in your introduction you say that by the time that you started High School you had discerned two things first that you were a resolved Christian wanting to learn to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and second that you were gay and that you had in your words a steady strong unremitting exclusive sexual attraction to persons of the same sex
2:18 these are your words from that period of self-discovery you describe a life of serious struggle uh which included a quest for uh dramatic healing reversal of your homosexual desire which unlike for some others did not come um and as a result you have forged for yourself and expressed so beautifully uh in your book a path not of living as a practicing homosexual person nor of living as a fully healed or a former homosexual person but rather of living a life of what you call costly Obedience of faithfulness to our Savior while struggling against your own deepest sexual ual desires tell us about that struggle yeah
3:05 well well thank you um um you know I was raised in an in an Evangelical Christian family and and whenever I tell my story of faith in Christ I will often describe my earliest childhood memories are of hearing my parents read me stories from scripture so a kind of deep immersion in in in the Christian faith and from a from a from the time before I can remember you know I I wanted to know and love the Lord Jesus um so that was that was my early nurture that was my early formation and um when I got to puberty I realized that as my as my guy friends were beginning to talk about their attractions to girls uh I was having none of those experiences and I was finding that my attractions were for my friends and I was very confused
3:50 by that I didn't know how to process that I didn't know what to make of that and I decided uh that the best way to deal with it was to keep it a secret there was a lot of Shame associ with it and uh that went on for a few years until I went away to college and I really began to feel that if I wanted to grow in Christ if I wanted to deepen my faith in Christ ignoring this part of my life was not the way to go forward in my faith um trying to Simply cope with this by suppressing it or or ignoring it or turning away from it was not the way to find healing and Grace in my life and I I remember a fellow student said to me about her own struggle with depression that she had realized ignoring is not the path to redeeming and that it seemed as though God was speaking to me through
4:35 her words there and and it it was it was really out of that conversation that I began to um I first talked to a professor at at my Christian college and went on to talk to pastors and spiritual guides and and began to open this part of my story to to the light of the Gospel that must have taken tremendous courage what where did you find the courage to do that brother well um I I I I think realized that it would actually take more courage to try to keep living a life of of secrecy and and and keep trying to police my my actions and words to try to stay hidden and I I just I really became convinced that if I wanted to grow as a human being as a Christian as a believer that I was going to have to bring this to the light bring this bring this uh to to uh the Council of
5:22 friends and pastors and and I was going to have to begin to learn to struggle in community rather than simply with my own thoughts I was taken in your text in your description of your own life in your book um by a quote that that you presented from another devoted Christian who was of also of homosexual disposition who said that it was his belief that there were just as many um Christian persons of homosexual disposition struggling against it believing in fact what the church has always taught about it as there are others who were uh rejecting the traditional Christian teaching and do you believe that's true I I was very struck by that quote as well which is why I chose to include it in the book
6:09 The the the author of that quote is a guy named Martin howlet um um in the in the United Kingdom um it's been my experience that a lot of people in the church who are struggling with their own same-sex attractions and are and are wanting to bring this to to Christ for for discipleship to Christ um are not always comfortable talking about that in the church um those those who are comfortable talking about it are often those who've who've made some kind of peace with it and who' have come to an affirming theology that would say that God blesses same-sex marriage but there are many of us who haven't gotten there we we're not convinced of that from scripture and and I think many many in that in that boat wonder you know is it appropriate to talk about this and and so I meet many people who are kind of they in the church with us day after day
6:56 uh but who are not comfortable speaking openly about this so I I actually think howed is probably right about that there are many many people U who are comfortable describing themselves as gay or homosexual or with samesex attraction who really are wanting to abide by the traditional Christian teaching on this and be faithful to what the church has always understood scripture to be teaching hence your book right it was particularly if I'm correct in thinking this it's particularly to this population that you wrote that's right that's right yeah and in fact I I I mean part of what I want to encourage people is is is to begin to to share those stories share those stories of faithfulness um there's a theologian Sarah kley who has said that we need sexual Saints today we we need exemplars of what faithfulness looks like in
7:42 wrestling with being celibate and gay and Christian I mean we we need to see uh what what might a life of faithfulness in that in that situation look like and so I I wrote the book to encourage those who are in that boat to think about you know sharing their stories with the body of Christ you know one of the reason reasons uh Wesley Dr Hill that I I was so taken by your text which I I think we'll talk about in a few minutes is your Embrace of the concept of struggle especially as it surrounds celibacy because this is really uh something that the church does have a lot of experience with that's right there's there are lots and lots of saints who have struggled with uh sexual problems and sexual orientation and lust in general I think of that beautiful
8:27 story in the life of St Benedict I've I've used it to to comfort and to encourage uh many of my own parishioners who have strugg are struggling particularly with sexual issues where he was so overcome so attacked by the demon of fornication and lust and we're not told in his life exactly what that was uh and exactly how but uh you know as Fallen persons we can guess and he finally just feeling like he had absolutely no outlet for that uh you know famously threw off his clothing and jumped into a rose bush he took such an aggressive approach to fighting it that the Lord saw his good intent and rewarded him with Having a Grace of protection he said uh that from that moment he was never assaulted by lust
9:13 again for the rest of his life I'm sure that there's that's just one example of many in the lives of the church that would be particularly relevant to strugglers in the 21st century right right could we talk for a moment about the the interior struggle the life of struggle and exactly what that means your text was so compelling because you were brutally honest about all fronts you were honest about your own orientation and the discomfort that it has brought you especially as you've evaluated kind of what the potentialities of your own life are as a Christian right uh and at the same time you are honest about the call of the Lord to a life of Holiness and sexual Purity and you weren't trying to make the tradition of the church and the
9:59 scriptures of the church fit what you wanted uh which was a very commendable approach for the Christian person with strong homoerotic desire this presents tremendous challenge for cross bearing for self-denial and for an authentic discipleship um many persons in fact have given themselves to an unhindered expression of their sexual desire they feel like it's too great a challenge um to be able to do that how is this spiritual struggle successfully done how is the victory accomplished how does get worked out yeah um I I think I think one of the reasons I mean I said earlier I was raised in in Evangelical Christianity uh I was I was confirmed in the Church of
10:46 England when I was in graduate school but but of course much of my uh life is still lived you know in the mainstream of Evangelical Christianity in in in in the US and I think one of the things that evangelicals have have invested so much over the last few decades is focusing on marriage and the nuclear family and and in many ways rightly so I mean let the marriage bed be held in honor you know the scripture tells us so so this is an honorable thing but I think we have not attended very closely to celibacy as something equally honorable a vocation that is is given equal honor in scripture or indeed in some ways greater honor right 1 Corinthians 7 that is what the Orthodox believe is that's right um and and um you know I I I think that's actually hurt us for thinking about the aesthetic
11:32 struggle of celibacy in the Christian Life we've we've we've we've developed you know some rich uh teaching and support for marriages for we've developed a lot of Rich um teaching for parenting yes and and strengthening families in those regards we have not developed that kind of Theology of celibacy I mean your your Orthodox tradition has it and I I am hoping and praying that evangelicals will discover that and and live into that but I I think for me that the question has has become you know if I am called to this celibate life what kind of support do I need in that uh it is an aesthetic struggle as you say and that's not something the Christian tradition has ever said that someone should attempt alone uh sort of by their own willpower pulling themselves up by their own moral bootstraps you know this is something that really the community has to help
12:19 make possible um and and so for me this this has really led to a kind of interest in in pursuing what what do the Christian tradition say about Community what does it say about Brotherhood about friendship because I recognize in my own struggle the only way I'm going to be uh successful in in in following Christ in this in this area of my life or Faithful is probably a better word than successful the only way I'm going to be faithful is if my community supports me in this just as we recognize with marriage when two people are making lifelong vows to one another they need the the witnessing Community there to support them in this if this is going to be possible and likewise the celibate person needs Community we need friendship we need that that intimate
13:05 support if we're going to live out this vocation of of fidelity to Christ how how does that work out in your context uh in in in our Orthodox life we we we know of the monasteries our monasteries are so Central to our our life I recently heard a beautiful statistic it was about the number of monasteries in the country of Romania the country of Romania is about about the geographic size of the state of Pennsylvania and there are 500 monasteries at least that the last counting that that that kind of grouping that uh Community formation for people who are living the celibate life has seemed very traditional throughout the Christian history um in America we're really short on monasteries yes
13:50 and community in general we're living in an age of radical individualism yes so how can that actually yes if someone's watching our interview now and they they feel this tremendous struggle how do you nurse a community life like that yeah well we were we were chatting a bit before we started the formal interview about some mutual friends in Santa Barbara I was I was there a couple of years ago visiting these friends and and I had a a dinner with um a couple of Orthodox priests and uh one of them gave me a phrase that that has stayed with me and he said really uh Wes what what your asking for in the church is is not monastic celibacy you're asking for Parish celibacy and that that phrase really stood out to me that that you know I I don't think every celibate gay Christian is automatically
14:36 called to the monastic life um but I do think we need some kind of communal support and so maybe what we need to be exploring is this notion that in our parishes there may be overlooked ways of supporting the vocation of celibacy um sort of outside I think you're right to point to the monastic context as as you know an honorable tradition of the church but might there be other ways in the parish that we could support the celibate vocation and and you know this has actually led me to um to really research and and ReDiscover uh the tradition of Christian friendship spiritual friendship you know Al of Revo is a 12th century uh monk in the in the north of England and he writes this treat called ons spiritual friendship and of course he's writing in a monastic context but i' I found a lot of his insights are I
15:22 think transferable to the parish can you share those well what is spiritual friendship what are you talking about well he he defines it as you know it's it's a it's agreement in all things you know spiritual and and and Earthly it's this it's this Mutual reciprocal Bond of faith in Christ that that allows two people to unburden their secrets to one another that's how he defines it and he says very interestingly that a a true spiritual friend would be willing to go all the way to the cross for the other friend beautiful and that stood out to me when I first encountered it because growing up as an Evangelical I mostly heard that kind of language used to refer to marriage your spouse is the person you would go all the way to the cross for rarely was that kind of language used to Friendship but there it was in a r and he's quoting Jesus he's
16:08 quoting John chapter 15 greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life not for his spouse but for his friend that's what Jesus says and and so here's this here's this tradition that alred is is giving us that I think is is we can ReDiscover this in the parish today not just in the monastery but in the parish and um you know I'm heartened by I I have friends who are exploring new ways of of trying to live together in an intentional community in church um they're trying to resist this kind of individualistic American culture that says privacy is the highest value yes they're trying to resist this constant Mobility that we've bought into in our culture where you know as soon as the better job comes along you're you're willing to say goodbye to your community and take that sure a tree often uprooted
16:55 does not grow Deep Roots that's that's beautiful exactly fathers exactly yeah um so so you know I'm I'm heartened by these things and I actually think we can reappropriate some of this wisdom actually in our parishes can I ask you on the same subject what about the role of the spiritual disciplines what about the role of fasting for instance you know in our tradition in the Orthodox tradition The Taming of of bodily desires especially so important you know when you're young when you're you know under 40 or so really is connected to the stomach you know the the church others point out that even anatomically the place of the genitalia and the stomach are so close St John of the ladder the great author of the ladder of divine asent in his 30 chapters on the development of the spiritual life he he puts a chapter in
17:42 the middle of the book on lust and exactly right next to it he puts a chapter on gluttony and their place there you know for an important reason uh do you see an important role for fasting in the ability to accomplish being uh a level of self-denial that most people who are married certainly couldn't imagine do you see that as essential do you think that it's essential that's that's very interesting I mean I I I do I'm in hesitant to answer strongly just because I feel in many ways I want to grow into a deeper practice of the disciplines myself um um I I think I think when you look at the Christian tradition you're absolutely right that that Chastity is seen as one discipline among many others and these
18:28 are these are you know a kind of multi strand chord sure you know and and if you try to practice one of the strands without the others you know you you lose the coherence of the practice um I mean I have a I have a Roman Catholic friend who talks about um whenever he tries to encourage me and in my form of Chastity he mentions his own marital Chastity and he says you know one of the things I want to encourage you an West is is we need solidarity among the different types of Chastity so he needs to recognizing his marital um aesthetic struggle to to submit his sexual desires to the discipline of marriage that puts him in solidarity with me and I think we could say maybe something similar about the other disciplines that there's solidarity among the different disciplines of the Christian life so the
19:15 discipline of of of stability the discipline of prayerfulness the discipline of solitude all these are are bound up with the discipline of Chastity and and and mutually reinforcing so so I I really them let nurse them all and them up to a high level of concern be maybe God help us I'm wondering in in as we as we go to the last portion of this interview if you would be willing to talk about kind of the the churches and Christian Believers perspectives on what we're talking about right now I've been amazed really since the the rise the the cultural rise of the of the gay Lobby which I really think has been about a decade in really showing its face it's
20:00 been as soon as uh that Lobby discerned that pursuing the legalization of marriage could be a good political tool for the legitimization of the lifestyle in general I mean before that most of the literature um most gay literature did not think very highly and write very highly about marriage marriage was kind of criticized as a religious or patriarchal imposition uh a denial of a free expression of sexuality but all of a sudden there there became this great interest uh in in the legalization of same-sex marriage that's cough this this massive uh stir as I think Believers Christian Believers but even other traditional religious Believers like Orthodox Jews
20:45 and traditional Muslims uh Mormons uh they've they've all kind of thought wow one of the things we assumed was a Bedrock Assumption of our culture is no longer a Bedrock assumption and we've we've all kind of in our expression of reacting to this have kind of touched each other and found each other in very unique ways I know that's certainly been my experience in My Little Life all of a sudden I'm I'm I'm interacting with Catholic priests and Mormon leaders and Evangelical leaders and frankly it's been beautiful it's been very very beautiful and we're trying to both articulate what we share in common by way of moral convictions but also and this is where they want to where I want to talk about what should be our disposition attitude towards um what I
21:31 view as both parts of America's gay community so on the one hand we have a very aggressive Lobby uh that is committed to politics and that has thrown U what shall I say tolerance to the wind um that demonizes traditional Christian teaching as bigotry and uh gross Prejudice and is asking contemporary man and and Americans and specifically in our country to believe that their faith and in fact all classical religions um that somehow we have to believe that our faith is deficient in this area that we have not been thinking right about fundamental morals with regards to sexuality um it it seems to me that that that Lobby is really iconoclastic really
22:19 aggressive I remember in my city um back when uh our state supreme court legalized or or struck down Mar marriage our definition statutory definition of marriages between a man and a woman um we immediately were were were told that this is um this is bigotry uh to to hold that opinion and I wrote a letter to the newspaper simply saying that this this I didn't view it and I still don't view this as a uniquely Christian issue but that this is a religious issue and it's a cultural issue and that to be asked without really much examination to overthrow what has been maintained by all civilizations that that leave literature that have had a strong
23:04 imprint on the world a and all religions to overthrow that so quickly without much thinking about it is really a an extreme request so we have that that kind of pressure and aggressive secularism being led at least in one portion of its agenda by the gay lobby at the other hand we all have we all have a knowledge of our own mess we're all full of mess we know that and we have friends and family members neighbors fellow parishioners who are struggling um with their own same sexist Direction yeah and we have this kind of conflict inside of us because on the one hand um it's especially if you're a clergyman if you're a Christian leader that's been tasked with kind of uh being the moral guardians of your people and
23:50 of society you feel like it's time to get a steel backbone it's time to you know make your forehead adamant because we need to stand strong and be prophetic and help people know the truth and at the same time we have this great sense of wanting to reach out and needing to be deeply compassionate all of a sudden it's come to our knowledge that uh our brothers yeah our our brothers and sisters our parishioners are struggling with something and be able to be able to keep both of those at the same time in the human heart being bold at one hand and deeply compassion on the other honestly your book tremendously helped me to get into the shoes of fellow Christians who are struggling with this and I I asked myself in reading your book I thought you know I've been married for more than 25 years I have a lot of kids um what if Jesus
24:39 appeared to me and said father Josiah from this day on you cannot express your sexual desire you cannot live it out you know being my age I could live with that I think with God's help but 20 years ago that that might have killed me that might have killed me and I thought to myself you know to be in that situation I I know I look at that at the young people especially the young women in our communities who haven't been able to marry yet and a lot of men are waiting to get married and aren't feeling courageous to do that but the also those who have who who are gay this has got to be a tremendously intimidating thought how do we keep both of these senses boldness and compassion together you know i' I found myself
25:26 thinking with with regard to a question question like this about the way that the pro-life movement has has um journeyed for the past several years and I think we've seen I mean correct me if I'm wrong on this but I think we've seen a kind of maturation of the movement in the sense not that it's leaving behind you know political marches and and the kind of the kind of arguments in the Public Square for for for life but we've seen a recognition that you know when when we're asking mothers who are who are facing real challenges in their pregnancies to carry those babies to term and and and choose life that part of the responsibility for that lies on us to to provide the kind of support structures to provide the community that they need in order to make that hard
26:12 choice and I I really feel that you know we're beginning to see in many of our churches a similar recognition with regard to the whole swirling political debate around gay marriage in our country and and we're beginning to recognize if we are going to call gay people to a life of asceticism to a life of celibacy uh in in in in Fidelity to Christ that we need to become the kind of communities that will make a choice like that possible we need to we need to practice a kind of radical Hospitality it doesn't come naturally to many of us in the west right now it does not come naturally in in in the in the mobile individualistic society that we live in so I've begun to think you know this this work that I'm doing trying to trying to uh rehabilitate or or
26:59 ReDiscover certain ancient Notions of friendship and spiritual friendship and and Community this is my contribution to the political debate this is my way of saying um if I'm going to have a Winsome word to speak in the Public Square that sounds persuasive to Modern people for whom Christian categories don't come naturally if I'm going to be heard I I need to be able to invite them into a community and say this is what it would look like to be celibate this is what it would look like to embrace the call of Christ and this is what flourishing might look like if you were to embrace this this hard choice I I think that's really where I see my battle lying at any at any rate in this in this whole area doct you I can't imagine anyone having a greater more natural entree
27:46 into discussion with uh gay persons who are not Christians than a person like yourself at the same time I can imagine that you are uh could be perceived by a portion of that Community as the absolutely worst thing in the world forgive me I love you I love you but um how are you doing there do you feel is that perception accurate um and and how are you doing with that well thanks yeah it's it's interesting I I I actually don't have as many conversations as I would like with with gay people who are not Christians I have I have um a fair number of con conversations with um you know gay people who would who would profess faith in Christ who would see things very differently than I would see them um but but what I found is that because because I do talk about my
28:32 Christian convictions in the context of my story there is a respect that I receive and and likewise I mean when I when I'm talking with a gay person for wh with whom I disagree there there's also a respect on my part for them in in the sense that it's just hard to be dealing with this in our culture I mean even if you're not a Christian much of our society I mean there is a there is a sense in which the media is on your side but but it's still very hard you still face potential ostracism from your family from your co-workers from your neighbors so so I think I think that kind of recognition that we're we're all walking a road that is not exactly easy in spite of what the media often portrays um that leads to a certain amount of Goodwill and a certain amount of space for for conversation that's been my
29:18 experience I am so proud of you really I'm very proud of you and I wish you God's strength in your ministry and in your your academic life and may the Lord protect you and take you to do really great things of great encouragement uh for Christian Believers in our country thank you so much for entertaining this interview and for being a willing to cut out time from your schedule your speaking schedule here on the West Coast and I'd like to especially encourage those who are watching this interview to order Dr Wesley Hill's book washed and waiting washed and waiting he took that title can you tell us in closing how you got that title where does it come from it's from it's from two portions of St Paul's Epistles and the first one is from 1
30:05 Corinthians where Paul says um he he describes a list of vices that the Corinthians had been practicing and he says such were some of you but you've been washed you've been Sanctified you've been justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God so it's an image of baptism beautiful when when we're baptized we are washed clean of our old identities our old our old life of Vice is is washed away so that's where the washed comes from the other image Paul says as we yearn for the new creation the bodily Resurrection uh that we're all going to experience as Believers in Christ we find ourselves groaning we find ourselves yearning for that Paul says if if we if we saw everything that's been promised to us there'd be no more need for Hope but because we don't see it we have to hope for it and so we're waiting
30:52 he says we're awaiting the Redemption of our bodies and that's what I find as I as I as I wrestle with my own sexuality which I believe is my share in the fallenness of the world I find myself waiting for the Redemption of my body uh the the resurrection of the body that I will I will share as the as the the Greater Harvest Christ is the first fruits and there's a Greater Harvest to come may it come may we be ready and may the kingdom come thank you amen thank you so much [Music] a [Music]
