Saturday Q&A with Rosaria Butterfield

I have run head-on into this issue in my life yeah and it's not a personal it has to do with the family member yeah and I've really struggled with it because I don't feel like I want to judge I don't feel like I want to tell them they're wrong right I just want to love them and I want to love them well I don't want to get it wrong and I'm looking for just hid bits of guidance ideas things I can really sink my teeth into to love this individual and this individual's friends well I have a lot of gay friends and I have gay family members extended family members and I love them all this one is particularly close to me though it's one of my children yeah and she's remarkable beautiful right and I don't want to change her I just wanna love her struggle with whether or not I am even in the right place in my heart am I really a real Christian if that's how I feel you know I'm just looking for some thoughts along those lines yeah you know I think that so many of us are struggling with that question in part because for you know for a season and I'm not quite sure how long's I haven't been in the Christian community for you know decades and decades but what for a season it seemed that saying thus saith the Lord solve the problem and and I would say falsely Christian organizations thought that making sneaky little raids into like gay pride marches and things with you know with placards of a Bible verse well you know the Word of God will not return void let's put this one on a you know and and so and I think for many of us though we were for many people who have been raised under that spectrum it's a scary question so let me just offer some of what I think are biblical principles and and like so many things in life you will prayerfully consider where you are in life you will consult your pastor and elders and you will make the best decision and then maybe next week you'll make a different decision because it's not all very clear is it one thing though is that is clear to me in friendships people always match the intensity of their love in their relationship with the intensity of their words and so maybe one thing to think about is is the balance right I think that sometimes it struck me as odd in the Christian community coming from the gay community to the Christian community that Christians are are very bold about other people's sin and sometimes the intensity of their words do not match the intensity of their love for the person they're talking about or even their relationship to that person so one thing to think about is the balance question another thing to think about is the the moral framework that God gives us for sin God calls it deceptive and that people who are living in sin are deceived well one of the things that is so sad about having a family member who is deceived by sin is you feel like you've lost that person as an interpretive partner as someone you can gather with to make meaning of your world that is sad grieve that loss now that doesn't mean you can't make meaning of anything there are many things that you can partner with with people who are who are deceived by a sin and function but the big issues in life no you can't and you know that is where the loneliness of the Christian life really comes forward and you know one thing that I have wondered is I talked to parents and friends who are grieving they're gay and lesbian friends and daughters you know we have we have parallel pain because you want to know the biggest fear of somebody who is gay or lesbian it's the biggest fear growing old alone being lonely being alone and having people treat you like you're dangerous and you know the biggest fear that I hear of caregivers of people who are gay and lesbian growing old without that person being alone being misunderstood now isn't that interesting that God has given us a parallel insight now the question is how to make that parallel perpendicular right how to kind of cross paths but you know better than anybody how to pray for people who are trapped in the sin of homosexuality because you're experiencing the same pain it's called being alone you know and that should make us also think about if our church communities are really places where people can be family with us or if we have fallen under you know what what what I think and I you know I want to be careful I don't want to offend but I think that we have raised the level of the covenant of Christian marriage higher than everything and I think it has just created a very bounded culture in our in our world you know so I'm uncomfortable with the way that you know so so often I hear Christians talk about Sunday being family day you know actually it's the Lord's Day that's actually a violation of a pretty important commandment it sounds really good though so you know there are ways to even now breakdown walls that create isolation and lonliness you know right now I mean tomorrow you could do this tomorrow in your church culture you could have a different ethos but you are in pain for the same reason and and you know Jesus is a friend of sufferers and Jesus is a man of sorrows and so I think it would be good to ditch some of the unhelpful and unbiblical narratives that we know are in our churches and we don't mean to do it we don't mean to do it but you know even our joy in Christ is a bloody joy it's a different kind of joy and seasons like this our seasons of grief and God honors that and that is redemptive don't try to fix that we're to walk through the valley of the shadow of death and you know I'm a psalm singer and so I for me singing the Psalms is a is a personally strengthening means of grace but you know singing through those psalms of a sense during pilgrimages of loneliness and danger a powerful thing because those are God's words spoken to you and it's a powerful thing to know that someone fully understands your suffering and even anticipates it so two takeaways make your words match the intensity of your love in your relationships and know that that parallel difference needs to become a perpendicular shared sameness but that when people are in the deceptiveness of sin they cannot be interpretive partners with you in the deepest things and that is a terrible loss you know my stepfather who is the smartest man in the world developed Alzheimer's and and then he just wasn't there anymore right and so for a season when you are have friends loved ones who are in a season of a covering of sin it is a deceptive moment and you don't have that person there and the way you wanted does that help okay good question here thank you for sharing your transparency how did you meet your husband and how long have you been married we were married in 2001 Kent and I got married at the same church that he graduated from seminary from the night before so we were able to rearrange the flowers we had a 200 dollars no seriously well I met Kent a couple of ways the the way that I remember meeting Kent it's probably the only way I would ever meet a husband it was Friday night at a research library and if any of you have ever like if you hung out in research libraries you know that especially on the weekends that the tables are you know that's like an empire you know and if somebody is at your table that is eight that's almost a warfare transgression you know so he was sitting at my table go figure so but but truly I had met him and I had known him before and he said we have known it was a mutual knowledge of each other because I am part of a very small and loving denomination and so when Kenan Floy were a bridge to their family and then their church it was not an act of eruption or departure or oh no what do I do now that I need to find a church now that I'm moving because our denomination shares values and regular principle of worship which no sounds very rural bounded but what it shares a means of approaching a holy God and we're small enough that we pray for each other and we know each other and so although it was not easy and at first it was actually more than not easy at first it was something I was really offended by you know ken had lots of people praying for me and you know how those prayer chains go right so so in some ways I was known already to Ken's so those prayer chains go another funny way to when I was in in the Moms Club in Virginia and you know had the book hadn't come out so I was still very much you know just kind of doing my thing though the husband across the street came over and said I have to ask this are you the Rosaria who was the lesbian professor at Syracuse I get up and I'm in my apron I've got the kid I had because you were on a prayer chain I was a graduate student we got it love the prayer chain that I love the prayer chain but I don't always love the prayer chain especially when I'm the object I mean I need the prayer but I don't need the you know spotlight so Thank You dr. Butterfield oh thank you one can you hear me I can hear you okay um I would I have a question I teach college students and also have a very large group of college students in our church mm-hmm that's great and for their age group this is a extremely passionate issue mm-hmm I would say that the activism on the campuses has done its job oh yes absolutely and afford them because the length the civil rights language that's been appropriated they very much feel that this is a human rights issue so when I speak with them even to make those distinctions feels like hate to them even to make any distinctions about sexuality mm-hmm but I remember you saying several times that we don't we don't use the we use God's vocabulary so in talking to that generation who is used to Foucault and Freud and identities and things like that right how much do you think for that specific audience do we appropriate the language that they have been hearing on campuses right right right you know campuses are very complex places and and I feel a special burden because of course I helped create the world that you know that you live in right now so I you know the blood is on my hands and I recognize that and often when I speak on college campuses and a shorter version of the talk I gave today I've given it secular college campuses and you can imagine how just reading Romans one in an auditorium at a secular college campus with the protesters you know it is a tense powerful thing you know and I've come to learn that the gospel travels on conflict you know in the same way that we were at war with our Savior before he commandeered right our hearts having paid the price for our sin so - we will be in conflict and so the question is what do I do with this conflict and what I have been blessed to be able to do so far and each time this has happened for me as I've been able to sit down with my protesters and some really amazing things happen when you sit down with people one of the things that can happen so you can listen that's often I will just start out and I will say you've heard me now you tell me what's on your mind because a sign is not enough and I often learn a lot another thing that happens though is part of the maybe it's an aesthetic maybe it's a way of doing things as a Christian you know aesthetics is the is the bittersweet beauty in something and so I think of evangelism as a sort of bittersweet Beauty and one of the things that happens also is you realize that to share the gospel with with meaning you have to be close enough to people to get hurt you don't get to have a little bubble around you signing a ballot doesn't cut it and then the third part of this aesthetic that I've learned is that you cannot take the hand of the deceived and put it in the hand of the Savior without touching people so you know those are just three things that I have noticed now you know I'm I'm a pretty edgy person you know and by that you know I'm trained in systematic philosophy I you know when people talk to me even when you when I'm in a QA you know I've only been asked three questions in my whole life of this ministry and I mean they're different questions but they fall into three categories and so often I'm up here a triage nurse thinking okay you know where do I route that you know because that's how I think and so I you know for me it's very comfortable it I have a certain comfort level in stopping people and saying you know what you can't give a good answer to a bad question and you know as a college student you know that because you've been complaining all afternoon about the bad questions and your philosophy exam and you couldn't get and so and here we are you can't answer this question because it's the wrong question so do you want to hear a different question you know and then I think you are at the well I think you are sitting at the well when Jesus says so the man who's been sitting there for all those years you know do you want to be made well well in the biblical narrative it seems the answer was yes okay but what if the answer was no you know what should you do with that person now you've just met at the well well you should sit down with that person and ask some good questions but at you know and on other Christian speakers have talked to me about this too the the question of should I answer the question or should I accept the terms and you know maybe I'm just an old you know I am sort of an old Marxist at heart I just won't I we have to not start there because if we start there we will not end up where God wants us you know this is a big question this is not a little question this is a big question God before the foundations of the world set up a set apart of people for himself that is an enormous amount of of loving womb time okay that is an enormous commitment and so we can't cheapen this by asking the wrong questions and you know God's people are everywhere and sometimes you also just have to be to receive and respect some of the questions that you get now I've had someone say to me in a public forum you know this is ridiculous are you telling me this is a college student at a secular campus are you telling me that the question I should be asking myself right now is Who I am before a holy God and not who I'm having sex with tonight now we should not be squeamish about that you know what that was the best question I've heard all day because it was a real question and it gets you into that paradigm so rather than trying to fix people or wish they weren't the way they are or wish that the start where they are and reformulate some of those questions so you know one of the things that that Ken said to me early on and that I use all the time now he said well you know it seems like we just we have really competing worldviews you know that you know I start with the idea that what is true determines what is valuable and ethical and what is true is the Bible and you start with the idea that what is valuable and ethical will determine what's true we're at different you know maybe we should examine this and I you know brilliant that was a very helpful you know hands-on way of articulating the problem so before you can I never compete with what how people feel well I accept how you feel of course how could I not but the question is do your feelings mean that God is blessing you you know that's a different conversation so I would take as much time as it takes to not accept terms that are bereft but to recreate better ones and you can only do that in the intimacy of real relationships with people because deeply held beliefs are tied to deeply cherished questions and people don't give those up easily because they're important the question is all right I had this conversion in a very public way at Syracuse and I was right in the middle of a you know a gay and lesbian community and I was tight and everybody saw the change and what happens you know what what happened to those people and a lot of things happen to a lot of people differently so I'm just going to say first of all just it the general principle is to think about when one person comes to faith in a community that is committed to faithlessness it is a bloodbath I had students crying in my office it is actually harmful to people if I was directing your dissertation and queer theory guess what you've just lost a dissertation director right that is serious that makes you mad and rightfully so so there was a lot of hand-wringing and crying and a sense of betrayal i betrayed everybody think about that mice your secrets are no longer safe with me I might as well have put it on a t-shirt so that's what happened first and that is not a small thing that is not a small thing and then a couple of things happen next my friend Jay came to church with me yes you say oh that's nice Jay is six - in drag beautiful bass voice in an acapella song sing in church awkward to say it awkward yeah one of the students that was an international student I didn't realize that but when you're the faculty adviser to international students you're sort of in loco parentis she had tried to commit suicide and I got the phone call and I I needed to be there and it became you know my support people at this point where my Christian community but she needed our lesbian community and so for three weeks in the hospital we had both we had my church and we had the lesbian community in the hospital sharing with each other may I get you some coffee whose on now and then when she needed to be released she went to Kenan Floyd's house because that was the safest house and everybody knew it so many things happened I wasn't there for terribly long the Lord moved me you know and it was very important that he did he moved me out of Syracuse I did not lose my job but I had a research leave and I went to Geneva College and so I wasn't there and that was good because I needed some time away to just think and this is before you know you know iPhones and things so I could think you know I wasn't constantly being jogged by something so that was good but for the the six months that I was there it was new it was mercy ministry that the Christian community was engaging in as a community did we see conversions no I didn't did we serve God yes we did but it's hard to be trust the person who betrays you so in some ways it might seem on the surface like I would be a great witness but in reality I was terrible witness that answer your question you shared you have a normal childhood right family and right I was just kind of curious did you ever experience did you ever feel experienced any sexual abuse or physical abuse or emotional neglect from your family that may have may be cultivated or that's a question I I know where you're going with that that's a question that often people ask does homosexuality result from a kind of brokenness within the family or a transgression you know a kind of boundary transgression and you know as a as a mother to foster children you know I am amazed at how even young children are sexual targets I am just and you know you you are amazed by a to how easily pornography slips into the world of a nine-year-old even a nine-year-old whose parents have covenant eyes you know on the main computer it is it is just startling how how our brokenness you know we think we can protect our children and we can't in you know there and there and there of course are a number of organizations that will tell you that homosexuality is caused by you know sexual abuse or a bad relationship with one parent or the other or emotional neglect and but the problem with those theories is that what do you do with the predominant amount of survivors from dysfunctional homes who are not homosexual what what you know so it doesn't quite you know I think that along the course of anyone's journey you can look back and say I see how this informed that I see how this informed that but it is not causal and and most of those organizations that claim that it is are often using therapy a kind of psychotherapy in place of biblical disciple so you know I I think I've shared my journey as transparently as I can you know somebody once asked me to being in an all-girl Catholic schooled well I don't know that's the school I wanted to know I don't think that there was any thing that happened that made me a lesbian I think what happened is that the particular thumbprint of original sin for me made pride flourish and in combination to that you know perhaps the fact that I was rate you know you maybe you want to go there and say well you know you said yesterday that you were raised in a secular feminist household okay I was but again that doesn't you know that doesn't make necessarily make people gay but certainly it was my pride that fueled my desire to be sexually autonomous and if if anything I think in my past that might have been a cause of you know a causal or an informing effect maybe it was the lack of really hearing the gospel I don't know I don't know but here's what I know sin lurks in all of us original sin lurks in all of us and it has it has its own shape and its own size and its own moment and that's a scary thing but that's why we want to make sure that we truly are in the means of grace for ourselves and others because truly it is really not another person sin I mean those are terrible things and as a mother of foster children you know I it's a grievous thing when parents or caregivers violate their their responsibility but truly in life it is your sin that would be your self your undoing in terms of saving faith other people's sin can be very painful but it is truly your sin my sin that is the one that is the killer other questions you have the question okay you for being here right here okay thank you I'm I'm interested in your journey from because you've talked a lot about that it was pride for you from that to the way you described your marriage last night is complementarian just being such a strong and independent woman going into like what was that transformation what was that journey and do you still I mean I can guess the answer to do you still struggle yeah of course you know as a pastor's wife who does a good bit of counseling with her husband I'd say most women struggle with submission I have yet to meet anyone who it is just like oh this is so great um you know so um I talked about that in the book so it's kind of a long story but yes I would say for me giving up my feminist worldview is much harder it was much harder much more difficult and you know dear friends along the course of this journey though have said you know Rosario it's amazing how much you haven't changed you know it's always important I think when you're walking the Christian life if God calls you to marriage marry the right man but you know as I said yesterday Kent and I are very good friends and in part because he is a pastor and we're home a lot together we have been able to grow together in ways that I think it would have been really hard to do if we got married and then he went to work for 14 hours and you know I kind of saw him you know a few hours a day or something so we've been able to grow together because the gospel has been central to our lives and because you know we just we aren't we aren't too sentimental about our sin I don't know what else to say it it we're neither one of us feels any sense mentality about our sin also Kent and I are the only believers in our extended families and so our our marriage and our lives have always been you know evangelistic our families think we have three heads and we're crazy you know and tell us that you know loudly at Thanksgiving along with the church family you know so it's just it's it's how it is you know it's how it is but I would say this that I believe that God's design for marriage is absolutely true see for me when I struggle with the pride of wanting to compete with my husband for headship I realize that I'm struggling with my sin and I'm struggling with my faithlessness because if I believed that God was true I wouldn't struggle quite this much so I struggle with faithlessness I still struggle with faithlessness and I think we all do in some of those you know you know having said that you know obviously I'm here you know I'm here and Ken's home and yesterday I was here and Kent was teaching a math lesson so you know having talked about headship part of headship is also sacrificing for your wife to go and do things like this and so it's a you know headship I have learned both through the Bible and also through my marriage is a sacrificial responsibility I try not to make Kent make too many sacrifices but but yeah that's hard that's hard and I write about it and it's still hard because I'm a sinner um my question has to do with boundaries and family and so you're a homeschool mom and a wife and incredibly hospitable and then you have a book and you're speaking about your life heyyou right um balance being present with your children and your husband and and then also being Rosaria who has this amazing story yeah and you know that part I'm not letting it encroach and your present life and then being really respectful of who you are as a mom and being present with your children and like how do you practice I do it badly and you can pray for me on this front because it's a pretty much every week I'm just ready to pull the plug on this ministry and say I cannot do it it is way too much I mean it's emotionally too much right you know it's not like I'm up here talking about how to knit socks which I could do I love to knit socks in fact I I have I have this great desire to write my next book on knitting socks you know and just realizing that I you know it would be so much easier so it I do it badly and I you know definitely covet your prayers for balance you know it helps that Kent is somebody who is very I mean I think you know Kent is just really solid he's really steady Eddie and so that helps a lot and then it also helps you know I've shared before I'm a reformed Presbyterian and we believe in the record of principle of worship and one of those aspects is that keeping the Lord's Day holy is extremely important so even though I am apparently on a speaking circuit somebody said that to me and I said what are you talking about I looked at my calendar I thought ah how did that happen um yeah I'm always home on the Lord's Day I the Lord's Day is for worship as a family and so for me that day is is is it's a calibrating day it's also a foot on the floor day because you know I'm a part of a small conservative church and there are people who have no idea what I'm doing I see see you all faith you know there's people have no idea oh you read book you know I mean you know maybe they know that but you know it just it's we're not we're not tracking together so so the Lord's Day is very calibrating because I you know it sets the pace you know for the rest of the week but but it is hard and I mostly feel like pulling the plug on it because on this ministry because you know as your children get older and your homeschooling them as you know there's more to do you know there is just more to do so if you will pray for me I have you know boundaries are not are not great I need help okay we've got time for one more question and you know what this woman since you did already ask a question there's someone right here thank you for having acknowledged that so right was that mic on could you hear the question okay the the question was how do you balance ministering to folks in the LGBT community and protecting your children and and some of those boundary issues and it was longer and more articulate but this is what you get is that okay is that okay this is this is sort of that this is kind of the bare bones of it um first of all I don't think of myself with someone who ministers to the LGBT community any more than I think of myself as somebody who administer to people in the drug community or the homeless community I'm ministering to people and I don't you know back to the you have to ask the right questions I put zero credence in those identity labels that you seem to love so very much you know I'll respect you and I'll try not to be too snarky about it but you know you are an image-bearer of a holy God and that's how I'm going to look at you and and we're going to work from there so I don't think of my I don't have a ministry to gay and lesbian people I just don't I have friends and of course because we read through the Bible as part of our family devotions you know my children have always known that I was a lesbian and that I was an atheist and so and when DOMA when DOMA came out you know they they understood some of the issues and who in our neighborhood is you know what that meant and and we talked about it talked about in terms of affinity not sexuality for the little ones the older ones you know it's just full you know it's full out we just talked about it now you know we are also a family who has been licensed foster parents for ten years and when you're a licensed foster parent I want you to know you bring in more issues in your house than you ever do if you are a Christian family being hospitable to the lesbian the middle class lesbians across the street so you are bringing in real scary stuff and and you know children don't come individually they come with the people that betrayed them and so in some ways I would say we have just cut our teeth on that you know and yet we all see that as our shared context because all of our children came through that so you know we we don't have we're just not very sentimental you know about about some of those things now boundaries come down to this I took baptismal vows for my children I did not take baptismal vows for my neighbors and so for me the Covenant of baptism is a very helpful way of thinking about my boundaries with people so there are seasons when we have had to not do much hospitality because we've had some real pressing issues at home and that's fine yeah that's fine does that answer your question you

Channel: Grace Presbyterian Church (Nashville)

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Length: 41min 2sec (2462 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 23 2014