Gay Christians Affirm Their Sexual Orientation, But Commit to Celibacy

Wesley Hill is convinced that taking a road less traveled doesn’t have to be a lonely journey.

Mr. Hill, a professor at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, and a small corps of other writers around the country have churned out a small library of books and blog posts, united in a single premise.

They believe gay Christians can and should affirm their sexual orientation — but should also commit to celibacy.

The stance runs counter to the growing American majority that supports legalized same-sex marriage among Americans, including religious progressives, as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a landmark case on whether to legalize it nationwide.

But it also challenges many of his fellow Christian conservatives who still oppose any affirmation of being gay, even in celibacy.

“I sometimes joke that my life would be easier if I were a more straightforwardly ex-gay approach or a more straightforwardly same-sex marriage approach,” said Mr. Hill.

Mr. Hill, an associate professor of biblical studies, remains convinced of the traditional Christian interpretation of Scripture that limits valid sexual expression to marriage between a man and a woman. He said he’s known from his early teens, when he recognized an innate attraction to other men, that such a marriage was never going to be for him.

He said Christians — not just gay celibates, but everyone from isolated young mothers to mobile professionals in strange new cities — would do well to recover their own forgotten religion’s traditions of deep, committed friendships from centuries past.

“I want celibacy to be something that can be joyful for me and for others,” he said. “I don’t want it to be a sentence of loneliness.”

Mr. Hill is a neatly dressed 33-year-old with a smile as wide as his scholarly glasses, but his expression turns serious when he talks about the struggles involved.

“Another part of me wants to be brutally honest about all the challenges that come about and really face those and be willing to ask the hard questions,” he said.

In his writings — including his new book, “Spiritual Friendship,” and his earlier “Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality” — he details the loneliness and tears that have accompanied his journey. He’s seen close friendships fade when one or the other moves away, and he’s found that even platonic friendships can be occasions for misunderstanding and heartbreak.

Works by Mr. Hill and others in the gay-and-celibate movement are beginning to get notice. Christianity Today, the flagship journal of American evangelicalism, named him last year as one of “33 under 33” — young leaders shaping the future of evangelicalism.

The gay-and-celibate model is getting a hearing even as some prominent opponents of homosexuality are increasingly abandoning another approach — the “ex-gay” movement, based on the idea that gays could become straight through some combination of counseling and spiritual discipline. The American Psychiatric Association and some former proponents have repudiated the approach.

Mr. Hill said he never underwent such a process and that it’s resulted in suffering for many. “The Christian tradition as we read it has never promised that kind of categorical change,” he said.

But the gay-celibacy approach also has critics. UCN