Let me catch you up. . .
Jennifer Knapp, a singer/songwriter on a Christian label pumps out three albums. Some songs are refreshingly aggressive (to 17-year-old ears that had eschewed all secular music, anyway), and they curiously do not address romantic love. At Rebecca St. James' concerts, the audience would always hear a speech about saving yourself for marriage or becoming recycled virgins. Nothing of the sort was mentioned at Jennifer Knapp's shows.
She drops out of the CCM scene after touring for her third album. Rumours fly. She's pregnant. She's a lesbian. She's not a Christian anymore. She's fed up with the Christian music business.
Seven years later, she returns. It turns out none of those reasons are why she left. Oh, but yeah, she does have a girlfriend.
(Read the Christianity Today interview here. Scan the comments while you're at it.)
Anticlimactic, no?
I am thinking about feeling disappointed in Jennifer Knapp, and here's why: in the interview, she said she and her partner live together. I make the assumption that "living together" = "sexually active" (not that "living apart" = "inactive"), and I think that gay Christians are called to "sexual purity" just like straight ones. Being gay does not give you license here.
EDIT: I should point out though that there stands the possibility that since Knapp and her partner can't legally get married yet, perhaps they have made a commensurate commitment in another setting, just without a marriage license.
Did you read the comments though? In my last entry, I said that homosexuality is treated as worse sin, and I think some of the comments illustrated that nicely (meanly?).
"I am amazed at how many people are ignorant of the Word of God. It's clear, God's Word says, that people who engage in certain sins 'will not see the Kingdom of Heaven' and homosexuality is one of them."
"Christianity Today - A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction? I hardly think so! This article/interview with the now coming out Jennifer Knapp belongs in Rolling Stone where other Worldly, openly Gay people in the World can talk about their openly Gay stance, venting their issues with the Church, Christianity, the Bible, God & Jesus! It's obvious that Jennifer Knapp is NOT a believer and she as much as admits it when she talks about the clobber verses she doesn't like."
(Many commenters were able to remain hinged.)
I'm impressed that CT published the interview. I'm sure the reaction from their more conservative readership is not surprising them. Maybe there is even an office poll going. . . the one who most closely guesses the number of subscriptions dropped because of the interview gets a pizza.
OK, so how exactly are Jennifer and her girlfriend supposed to get married in Australia if they wanted to go for your vague idea of "sexual purity"? Last I checked, it was strictly for hetero couples Down Under.
ReplyDeleteSkylark
I like your post, lots. Anonymous above makes a good point, though. How do the legal boundaries to marriage factor into gay and lesbian relationships and THEIR calling to stay sexually pure until marriage? It seems as though many gay couples opt for a ceremony or show of commitment to their family and friends, and maybe this is their "marriage" for now, because it has to be. I wonder if Jennifer did something of the like.
ReplyDeleteSkylark, you are totally right. I'm sorry I forgot to add that. I will edit...
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this Margaret. The question of what it means to be sexually pure when society excludes you from the institution of marriage is a significant one, which we have talked about before. I do think ceremonies of commitment are a good thing. Actually, to be more specific, I am thankful for those OandA churches who welcome queer people into the sacrament of marriage even if they are excluded from the legal contract. But I am still left with questions about the ethical bounds of sexual activity, and wondering, in all honesty, if the bounded-set approach is still helpful here.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, I think the comments point out another assumption that is rampant among the hetero majority- which is the presumption to owenership of the church. The (presumably straight) commenters take for granted that it is their prerogative to pronounce anathema on Knapp or on the queer community at large. Even among OandA folks I often hear statements like "we welcome them into our church..." Queer folks don't want to be welcomed into straight peoples' church. We want a place of dignity and a voice in our church.
This is Skylark again.
ReplyDeleteI'm not ENTIRELY sure all of what Tucker said, but I'm pretty sure I agree with him. And I just figured out that "OandA" means "open and affirming" or something like that. I'm privileged to be part of an OandA church. Since I've been going there for three months and most of the rest of the congregation has been going there longer, it'd be silly for me to say "I welcome queer people into my church." If we're going by seniority, it's more their church than mine. I think we'd all agree it's all of our church. And if I meet a woman someday who sweeps me off my feet, I'm already in the right church.
What I understand Tucker's "bounded set" statement to mean is it may not be the most sensible to restrict sexual activity to marriage/marriage-type relationships. And on that I agree as well. I haven't sorted out all my thoughts on that matter, but I'm pretty sure that A. An enduring commitment (whether intended to last lifelong or not) to the well-being of one's partner is more important than whether a public ceremony has taken place, and B. Yes, it's still false that what feels good is good... or at least it's still false that what feels good may not have undesirable consequences.
Oh, and the third thing I know is that it really sucks to live in fear of who may find out that you're living with your intended. If/when I am in another serious relationship that includes a joining of living spaces, I'm not going to take the double-life route.
Hey Skylark. Sorry- I could have been more clear in my post. Yes, OandA was shorthand for open and affirming. I attend/serve at an open and affirming congregation as well, and I was speaking out of my experience of some tensions there. In the history of this particular congregation, quite a few queer people have joined the church after being expelled from their previous congregations. Meanwhile, the church itself (like any church I suppose) has a base of lifelong members whose families have been in the church for generations. This base is very invested in denominational identity (mainline protestant) while the more recent queer members mostly come from an evangelical background. Meanwhile some of the longtime members accepted the decision to become OandA only begrudgingly. They are uncomfortable and even indignant if queer issues become too public, as when someone mentions being gay or trans in a sermon or prayer request. These tensions add up to a general attitude on the part of the longtime members that the church is really "theirs" more than it is the more recent queer members’, and they are somehow doing us a favor by tolerating our presence in their church, for which we ought to show our gratitude by not wearing it on our sleeves.
ReplyDeleteI have seen the same attitude among other churches who have asked the question about how to respond to queer issues and people. The "blue menno" group on facebook, which was founded to work against the “pink mennos”- a group working for glbt inclusion, said that “we are happy to welcome gays into our churches as long as they are willing to resist sinful impulses and lead a biblical life of celibacy”. In both cases, I was trying to make the point that the straight majority assumed that the church, both the particular congregation and the more abstract Church, was “theirs” and that they had the prerogative to include or not to include queer people, or to impose conditions on that inclusion. As if queer people were an external entity to “the church” rather than equal members of the body which makes up the church, and needed their permission to be at church, or even to exist. So even if this majority deigns to exercise their prerogative to include queer people, there is still a feeling of patronage that compromises the dignity of queer people. So as I said, I don’t want to feel that I am allowed to be at someone else’s church on the condition of their benevolence. I want to feel that I have a church which is as much mine as anyone’s, and in which we are all present equally dependent on Christ’s grace.
ReplyDeleteAs for the bounded set stuff, I am just wondering more and more about what our fundamental posture toward the question of sexual ethics should be. And this isn’t something where I have firm conclusions, mostly questions at this point. I have assumed for most of my life that there is a knowable set of basic rules which compromise the boundaries of sexual ethics. If you do x, you are in bounds, but if you go further and do y you are out of bounds. I assumed that sex outside of marriage was out of bounds. And since queer people can’t get married in the “normal” way, I assumed that the closest approximation of marriage (a public ceremony of commitment) was the bound for us. But the more I live into my identity as a queer man, the more I think, “Isn’t that bounded set approach the same basic posture that leads most people to condemn and exclude me in the first place?” And by the same token, doesn’t being queer, by definition, mean being out of bounds? And including queer people mean dismissing the bounds?
So I wonder what a more “centered-set” approach to sexual ethics would mean. Wherein we agree upon a basic moral and spiritual center and acknowledge that people will approach that center differently. What if, instead, we make the center of our sexual ethic an agreed upon set of virtues like mutuality, respect, fidelity, commitment, responsibility, humility, etc.? Wouldn’t we necessarily recognize that the living out of that center will look different for different people, especially as we intertwine the complex and varied realities of queer issues? If this is to be our approach, we can’t assume it is as simple as “y and z sexual acts are off limits until marriage or the closest approximation thereof”. But as I say, all of this is thoughts that I am having and questions I am asking, not necessarily positions I am prepared to go to bat for. But I will leave off with this question- where does the actually Bible say clearly and authoritatively that one must be married before having intercourse?
*second paragraph of last post should read "...comprise the boundaries of sexual ethics"
ReplyDeleteBut I will leave off with this question- where does the actually Bible say clearly and authoritatively that one must be married before having intercourse?
ReplyDeleteThis is something I've recently began wondering myself! I don't know how I feel about that commonly held "Christian" belief anymore...
I liked Rob Bell's Sex God...it kind of sounded pro-marriage before sex, but didn't define it as a rule. One big point I got from it is that if you have sex before marriage, in God's eyes, it's like you have already married that person. It's the idea that sex is a holy thing and should not be treated lightly.
I know that at the very least! But I haven't a clue what it means in terms of setting boundaries... Sometimes I feel like those boundaries are made of razor wire and I get caught up in them... Maybe they should be more like fence posts that mark a line, but not so rigid I can never move past it. On the other hand...it seems like the boundary keeps shifting for me...is there going to be a point where I've just gone too far?
I like Tucker's idea of finding the "center"...we focus so much on the boundary we forget the reason behind having that boundary in the first place.
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ReplyDeletethanks margaret, for starting this conversation. and to those who have added their voices, thanks. you've given me points to ponder.
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