Conversations that Matter: Homosexuality & the Christian Faith

well good evening as you are making your way to a seat it's my pleasure to welcome you tonight to the latest installment of a series that we call conversations that matter my name's Steve Caselli I'm one of the ministers here at this church and we began this series because we believe that one of the unintended consequences of the proliferation of instant communication technology is the too often differences of opinion get reduced to sound bites sound bites which can easily be ridiculed and then safely ignored and we're trying to take one small step toward reintroducing conversation true give-and-take around topics that matter to most of us and it's our hope that in these conversation we can actually address issues where there's acknowledged differences of opinion and we can do so in a way that promotes understanding and shows respect toward those with whom we disagree and we unashamedly right upfront will say that we are presenting these issues from the perspective of a Christian worldview we believe that the Christian faith is true and that as such it provides comprehensive and coherent answers to the kinds of questions that matter to most of us and we're eager to interact in a respectful way with those who disagree we really want this to be a stimulus to conversation and so we expect that there will be questions questions offered here tonight as well as after our gathering in the future you should have received a little comment card when you walked in and on that card as dr. Butterfield speaks please jot down any questions that you would like to ask her at the of her talk there'll be a period of open question and answer at the microphones down front our topic tonight is homosexuality and the Christian faith why this topic at this time well you can't open a newspaper or hear a radio program or watch the news without hearing something about this issue whether it's the recent events surrounding the recent presidential inauguration the first president to mention gay rights in his inaugural address and simultaneously at the same time the uninvite ation of the pastor who made comments regarding gay marriage that were offensive and so he was asked not to give the benediction at that event or the recent vote even this week by the Boy Scouts regarding participation of gay men in their organization or our own Hillsborough City Council recently voted to reject a domestic partnership registry so you simply cannot avoid the reality of these issues that are before us as a nation but we also know that this is this is not simply an issue of public policy this is actually a very personal issue it has deeply personal dimensions for many of us and so we hope that we will be sensitive both to the public and to the personal dimensions of these matters we're very grateful to welcome tonight dr. Rosario Butterfield dr. Butterfield I was pleased to find out that today is a Buckeye she did her PhD at the Ohio State University she spent a good portion of her academic career teaching at Syracuse University in New York ten years in the English department teaching much in feminist studies she currently resides in Durham North Carolina with her husband and her children and dr. Butterfield was converted to faith in Jesus Christ about 10 years ago and since that time she has been working out the implications of that for her own life and for all of life including issues of human sexuality she has recently published a book that chronicles her journey titled the secret thoughts of an unlikely convert and that book would be on sale in the back of the room if you're interested afterwards before we welcome dr. Butterfield I would like to pray for our evening together we recognize that some of you may not even believe that there's a God to pray to and we understand that but as Christians we are operating from a Christian perspective and so we'd like to pray and ask God's blessing on our time so let me pray Lord the Scriptures tell us that in you we live and move and have our being the scriptures also tell us as creatures made in your image that all of us have fallen in sin against you and we are standing in equal need before you as human beings made in your image and broken by the fall we ask your blessing upon this time together tonight we come seeking truth and grace and we ask that you would give it we pray that you would give dr. Butterfield clarity in her speech and that you would give us ears to hear and then help us even in areas where there is deep disagreement that we might treat one another with respect as image bearers of the God who has made us and so we pray your blessing on our time now in Christ's name Amen well will you please give a warm welcome - dr. Rosario Butterfield thank you can you hear me am i okay great thank you so much I'm delighted to be here I had a normal childhood but whatever that means my parents raised me in the Catholic faith and I attended predominantly Catholic schools my liberal Catholic all-girl high school discipled me in the life skills that I use today I learned there to read deeply and well to diagram a sentence before I tried to interpret it and to look out for the unloved and draw him in I had by all outward appearances a heterosexual adolescence in college I met my first boyfriend it was a heady experience my heart and my body felt pitted in some majestic battle on the one hand I liked having a boyfriend having boyfriends kept nagging feelings at bay an undercurrent of longing undergirded my intense friendships with women and that commanded greater angst than any current boyfriend the repetitious sensibility rooted and grew I simply prefer the company of women enhanced by feminist philosophy my homo social preference morphed into homo erotic attraction I studied Freud I cheered that the DSM removed homosexuality from its list of disorders thus rendering homosexuality normal and with no prohibitions or constraints by the time I had graduated from the Ohio State University with my PhD I left the Buckeye State with the monogamous lesbian partner we moved to New York for me to begin a tenure-track position in the English department at Syracuse University my life as a lesbian just seemed normal I considered it an enlightened chosen path lesbianism felt like a cleaner and more moral choice always preferring symmetry I believed I had found my real self what happened to my Catholic training well I believe now that it was hogwash hocus pocus and hooey the name Jesus which had rolled off my tongue in a little girl's prayer then rolled off my back in college now made me recoil with pity and with anger as a professor of English and women's studies on the track to becoming a tenured radical I cared about morality justice and compassion fervent for the worldviews of Freud Hegel Marx and Darwin I strove to stand with the disempowered I valued morality and I probably could have stomach Jesus and his little band of warriors if it were not for how other cultural forces buttress the fierce triangle of God patriarchy and politics Pat Robertson's quip from the 1992 Republican National Convention pushed me over the edge he said feminism encourages women to leave their husbands kill their children practice witchcraft destroy capitalism and become lesbians my life at this time was happy meaningful and full I was not seeking the Lord My partner and I shared many vital interests AIDS activism children's health and literacy golden retriever rescue our Unitarian Church just to name a few and even if you believe the ghost stories about gay and lesbian folks promulgated by Robertson and his ilk it was hard to argue that my partner and I were anything but good citizens and caregivers the GLBTQ community values hospitality and applies it with skill sacrifice and integrity I honed the hospitality gifts that I used today as a pastor's wife in my queer community I began researching the religious right and their politics of hatred against people like me to do this I began reading the Bible while looking for some Bible scholar to help me wade through this complex book I took note that the Bible was an engaging literary display of every genre and trope and type it had edgy poetry deep and complex philosophy and compelling narrative stories it also embodied a worldview that I hated sin repentance Sodom and Gomorrha absurd at this time the Promise Keepers came to town and parked their circus at the University on my war against stupid I wrote an article published in the local newspaper it was 1997 the article generated many rejoinders so many that I kept a Xerox box on each side of my desk one for hate mail and one for fan mail one letter I received defied my filing system it was from the pastor of the Syracuse reformed Presbyterian Church it was a kind and inquiring letter it encouraged me to explore the kind of questions that I admire ken did not argue with my article rather he asked me to defend the presuppositions that undergirded it in his letter he described Jesus as someone who entered into history not someone who emerged from it I thought this was insane I was a historical materialist and I believed that people proceed from history and are shaped for good or for ill by the culture that molds them I didn't know how to respond to his letter so I threw it away and later that night fished it out of the department's recycling bin and put it back on my desk where it stared at me for a week confronting me with the worldview divided that demanded a response as a postmodern intellectual I operated from a historical materialist worldview but Christianity is a supernatural worldview Ken's letter punctuate punctured the integrity of my research project without him even knowing it if I was going to understand how this book the Bible got so many people off track and how this man Jesus persuaded so many people to follow him then I needed to understand Christianity as a supernatural idea at this point in my life the category of the supernatural was reserved for Stephen King novels with the letter a Stephen King was a big donor to our English department also so we all had to tuck in a Stephen King novel in a class it's kind of fun with the letter kin initiated two years of bringing the church to me a heathen oh I had seen my share of Bible verses and wacky interpretations on placards at gay pride marches that Christians who mocked me at gay pride day were happy that I and everyone I loved was going to hell was as clear as the sky is blue but Ken's letter did not mock it engaged so in his letter invited me to dinner at his house to discuss these matters more fully I accepted my motives at the time were clear surely this would be good for my research but something else happened Ken and his wife Floy and I became friends they entered my world they met my friends we did book exchanges we talked openly about sexuality and politics they did not act as if such conversations were polluting them they did not treat me like a blank slate when we ate together ken prayed in a way that I had never heard before his prayers were intimate vulnerable he repented of his sin in front of me he thanked God for all things Ken's God was holy and firm yet full of mercy kenan Floy omitted two important steps in the rule book of how christians should deal with a heathen like me they did not share the gospel with me at that first dinner and they did not invite me to church because of these omissions to the Christian rulebook I knew that when Ken extended his hand to me and friendship it was safe to close my hand in his I started meeting with Kenan Floyd regularly reading the bible and ernest with pen in hand a notebook and lap it was after all good for my research i read the way a glutton devours i read it many times that first year in multiple translations the text started to take on a life and a meaning that startled me some of my well-worn paradigms no longer stuck i had to at least ponder the hermeneutical claim that this book was different from all others because it was supposedly inspired by a holy God and inherently true and trustworthy this led me to go through the presuppositional truth claims just to check the math of the meaning here and the logic as I understood it goes like this claim number one if this was a book written by men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit then its admonitions about sin were not applied cultural phobia why because God's goodness unrestrained by time or history anticipates and guards against the ill treatment of people claim to if God is the creator of all things and if the Bible has his seal of truth and power then the Bible has the right to interrogate my life and my culture not the other way around even as a postmodern reader I understood the idea that authority can only depend on that which is higher than itself who is higher than God I wondered at a dinner gathering that my partner and I were hosting my transgendered friend Jay cornered me in the kitchen she put her large hand over mine and said Rosario this Bible reading is changing you I felt exposed I felt like I was going to throw up I collapsed in the chair and I exhaled but Jay what if it's true what if Jesus is a real and risen Lord what if we are all in trouble Jay exhale deeply and sat down in the chair across her me her eyes looked wise but her makeup made her look distorted to me for the first time Rosaria she said I was a Presbyterian minister for 15 years I prayed that God would heal me but he didn't if you want I'll pray for you the next day when I returned home from work I found two large milk crates spilling over with theological books Jay's books she was giving them to me in Calvin's institutes in the margins of the exposition of the book of Romans and Jays handwriting was a warning watch Romans 1 this is where I will fall Romans 1 21 to 26 suddenly looked like the table of contents of my life this is what it says for even though they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks but they became futile in their speculations and their heart was darkened professing to be wise they became fools and exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them for they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator and for this reason God gave them over to degrading passions for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is natural I took a good look at the verb clauses here did not honor God did not give thanks engaged in futile speculations became fools exchanged the incorruptible for the corruptible God then gives us over to our lusts when we look at the world through our lusts we dishonor our bodies and we worship the world this verse seemed to provide a haunting literary echo to Genesis 3 where Eve's desire to live independently of God's authority made perfect sense to me if I were Eve I would have done the same thing and at the same time Eve's seemingly innocent sin eating fruit after all served as the leverage for the whole world to come tumbling down fierce and fast bloody and brilliant the 2 vs. 1 in Genesis and 1 in Romans stood out as bookends of my life not just by life that's the rub Genesis 3 in Romans 1 stood out as the table of contents of what ails the world indeed Romans 1 does not end by highlighting homosexuality is the worst and most extreme example of the sin of failing to give God the glory for creating us here is where the passage finds its crescendo being filled with all unrighteousness wickedness greed Ede evil full of envy murder strife deceit malice they are gossips slanderers haters of god insolent arrogant boastful inventors of evil disobedient to parents without understanding untrustworthy unloving unmerciful and although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death they not only do the same but also give hearty approval to those who practice them homosexuality then is not the endpoint of the problem for God or for the world but it is presented here as one step in the journey homosexuality then seemed maybe consequential not causal perhaps homosexuality was not the root of all sin perhaps not even the root of all of my sin this stopped me in my tracks I tried to toss the Bible and its teachings in the trash I really tried but can't encouraged me to keep reading and to keep testing the waters after all it was just a book right what did I have to lose I kept reading it I kept devouring it and I kept trying to understand it and I kept catching my wings and its daily embrace I was fighting the idea that the Bible is inspired and inerrant that is that its meaning and purpose has a holy and supernatural Authority that has protected it over the years of its canonicity and that is it is the repository of truth how could a smart cookie like me believe things like this I didn't even believe in truth I was a postmodernist I believed in truth claims I believed that the reader constructed the text that a texts meaning found its power only in the readers interpretation of it without the reader a book is paper and glue I told my students over and over again how could this one book lay claim to a birthright and progeny so different from all the others don't get me wrong research is personal and agonizing I have sweated and cried over almost every word of most of my writing and I still do often writing literally makes me sick but that this book was supernatural was becoming more and more evident to me and my hermeneutical bag of tricks had no system of containment for it as I was reading and discussing these things with Ken he pointed out to me that Jesus is the Word made flesh and that knowing Jesus demands embracing Jesus of the Bible not Jesus of someone's imagination the whole Bible even the places that took my life captive after years of this something happened the Bible got to be bigger inside me than I it overflowed into my world and I fought against it with all my might and then one Saturday one Sunday morning two years after I first met Kenan Floyd and two years after I started reading the Bible for my research I rose from the bed of my lesbian lover and an hour later i sat in a pew at the syracuse reformed Presbyterian Church I don't say that to be lurid I say that to remind all of us that we have no idea the journey that people walk to get to church we have no idea conspicuous of my butch haircut and my jeans I reminded myself that I came there to meet God not to fit in ken was preaching through the Gospel of Matthew with its bewildering cast of characters and problems separated unto the gospel seeds choked by the world feeding thousands with some nameless kids bread and fish then Jesus is cutting question too impetuous Peter quote do you still lack understanding followed by Pastor Ken steel blue eyes and a long pause before he turned this question on us congregation did Christ ever say this to you he asked this startled me this this was my question this question was for me do I still lack understanding who is speaking here the man behind the pulpit or the god man but behind the foundation and the redemption of his people yes no what am I thinking the image that crashed like waves and a raging sea of me and everyone I loved suffering in hell just vomited into my consciousness and gripped me in its teeth not primarily because we were gay but because we were proud we were autonomous it was our hearts first our bodies next I got it I heard it finally and I fought with everything I had I did not want this I did not ask for this I counted the costs and I did not like the math this was my crucible and this is my crucible if the Bible is true then I was dead and if the Bible is false then I'm the biggest fool on earth but God's promises rolled in like another round of waves into my world and one Lord's Day ken was preaching on John 7:17 quote if anyone wills to do God's will he shall know concerning the doctrine unquote this first exposed the quicksand in which my feet were stuck I was a thinker people actually paid me to think to read books and to write about them I expected that in all areas of my life understanding came before obedience it's not the other way around I wanted God to show me on my terms why homosexuality was a sin I wanted to be the judge not the one being judged perhaps I thought like even the garden I wanted to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that I could become and replace God and I wondered hadn't I already tried to do this hadn't we all perhaps not here not perhaps in my life on earth but certainly an atom if my consciousness fell in Adam's sin as the Bible purports no wonder I couldn't think my way out of this quandary this wasn't a game of thinking and of matching of wits could my heart echo God's call for obedience could I will to do God's will just this once the stakes were so very high they they always are but the verse promised understanding after obedience and I wrestled with the question did I really want to understand homosexuality from God's point of view or did I just want to argue with him I prayed that night that God would give me the willingness to obey before I understood I prayed long into the unfolding day and when I looked in the mirror I looked the same but when I looked in the mirror of the Bible I wondered am I a lesbian or has this all been a case of mistaken identity if Jesus could split the world asunder divide the soul and the spirit judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart could he make my true identity prevail Who am I who will God have me to be I still felt like a lesbian in my body and in my heart that was I felt my quote-unquote real identity but what is my true identity the Bible makes clear that the real and the true have a troubled relationship at least on this side of eternity for many people in the Bible their true identity and calling comes only after a long struggle with God with Wilden with dreams and hopes and plans the Bible makes clear that my future and my calling always echo an attribute of God obedience constrains it always mirrors suffering as every selection implies a sacrifice who is this Jesus did I know him did I still lack understanding could I trust him and then one ordinary day I came to Jesus no altar calls in a reformed Presbyterian Church so no fanfare no manipulation we were singing from psalm 119 line 56 this has become mine because forever all thy precepts I preserve after I saying those words I stopped something shifted to weight bearing walls collapsed the first wall came crashing down because I had just sung condemnation unto myself this Bible was not mine I had scorned it I had cursed it I had despised it and I had been reading and rereading the book and the use of the helping verb here has and has become really troubled me two years of laborious reading embodies the helping verb has it showed process journey pilgrimage in danger but I was not quote-unquote in Christ and therefore could not possibly keep these precepts not in Word not in heart change not in deed and here was the shattering of the second wall I had read the Bible many times through if I finally could become honest with myself I would have to say that I saw for myself that it had a holy author I saw for myself that it was a canonized collection of 66 books with a unified biblical revelation I heard for myself that the words this has become mine came out of my mouth in congregational singing I was attesting to this one simple truth that the line of communication that God ordained for his people required this wrestling with Scripture and that I truly wanted to both hear God's voice breathed into my life and I wanted God to hear my pleas the fog burned away the whole Bible each jot and tiddle was my open highway to a holy God my hands let go of the wheel of self-invention I came to Jesus alone open-handed naked it was a crushing revelation it was Jesus I had been persecuting the whole time here was the other crushing revelation my conversion hurt many people I could write a whole book with the title quote what my obedience to God costs other people unquote I can do the body-count of those I loved who were pressed and mangled by the consequences of Christ's call on my life in this war of worldviews Canon Floy were there the church who had been praying for me for years was there Jesus triumphed and I was a broken mess I lost everything but the dog I speak today about matters that happened over a decade ago I'm now a wife and a mother but I don't necessarily believe that that is the punctuation mark of my personal journey and he I don't want to minimize it but I don't want to maximize it God separated me unto the gospel to reveal his son and me not to show what a delightful wife and mother I can be am I healed yes the gospel and the fellowship of godly women coached and nurtured my heart and my mind am I changed yes from the root and it was painful and it was powerful

Channel: Caleb Randall

Views: 37,316

Rating: 4.7014923 out of 5

Keywords: Randall Productions, Dr. Rosaria Butterfield, Homosexual, Christian Faith, Unlikely Convert, Tampa Church

Id: hkJZSeUGzWw

Length: 35min 38sec (2138 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 12 2013