One of the leading apologists for gay Christians has created a firestorm of controversy among Christians in the LGBTQ community with a column published in The New York Times June 30.
Matthew Vines is the author of the op-ed headlined, “I’m Gay, Not Queer. It Matters.” He rose to national attention a decade ago with publication of his bestselling book, God and the Gay Christian. From there, he launched The Reformation Project, which provides resources for Christians who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender and their family members.
God and the Gay Christian has become a go-to book recommendation for anyone seeking serious biblical scholarship on the so-called “clobber passages” from the Bible most often used to condemn homosexuality.
The number of books that have been this influential in the field of Christian acceptance and inclusion is small. And that’s what makes Vines’ New York Times column so controversial. Anybody who has studied these issues knows his name.
Caveat: I consider Matthew a friend, and I have spoken at his conferences before and introduced him at another conference. I also consider many of those publicly taking exception with him as my friends. That’s why the divide I’ll explain here matters so much. These are all good and sincere Christians who sincerely disagree on a matter of language and identity.
This week’s public disagreements pull back the curtain back on profound differences in the LGBTQ community about what it means to be gay, how gay Christians should behave sexually and how language should be used.
For the sake of making it easier on the reader, I’m going to use the term “gay” moving forward to mean gay, lesbian and bisexual — the most common three identities in the LGBTQ acronym. Transgender identity is about gender much more than sexuality, so that group deserves separate consideration.
What he said
What Vines wrote about is the Q in the acronym, which stands for queer. (Yes, some people add other letters to this alphabet soup to be more specific, but we follow Associated Press style, which uses only the five letters. The word “queer” has gone through its own evolution over the past 30 years and often is used as a broad label today.
Vines notes the word “is often used interchangeably with ‘gay’ these days.” But, he charges, “The two words don’t mean the same thing. And in that difference lies a danger for our hard-fought equality.”
A key message of his book and life’s work — that being gay is not a choice — “is being undermined by those who argue that same-sex orientation is better thought of as a part of a wider rebellion against social norms.” And that rebellion is embodied in the word “queer,” he says.
Vines, who comes from a Presbyterian background, seeks to keep everything done “decently and in order.” I once introduced him at a conference as being more orthodox than the Orthodox. In his writing and speaking, he seeks to make a case for equivalency — that being in a faithful, monogamous same-sex relationship is equal to being in a faithful, monogamous heterosexual relationship.
While there is a wide range of sexual ethics among gay Christians, Vines follows the more conservative path that shuns promiscuity and “hookup” culture and promotes lifelong monogamous relationships. The Reformation Project also makes space for what are called “Side B” gay Christians — meaning those who identify as gay but choose not to engage in sexual relations at all.
“Against all this, consider the evolution of the word ‘queer.'”
Against all this, consider the evolution of the word “queer”: Vines writes that “progressive activists, organizations and major media outlets now routinely use ‘queer people’ as an umbrella label for everyone who isn’t heterosexual.”
The word “queer,” he continues, “carries an adversarial charge that ‘gay’ does not, and that charge has a specific intellectual lineage.” The word also can mean “anti-normative,” he says.
Matthew Vines
He quotes David Halperin: “Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant.” Then he adds, “By that standard, same-sex relationships could be queer, but so could open marriages, prostitution and public sex, even when heterosexual.”
These days, Vines says, the word “queer” has become “a kind of radical chic identity label” and “an open door through which almost anyone can walk.”
If you understand Vines’ desire for adopting an orthodox Christian identity as a gay man, you’ll easily see his problem with the word “queer.” He explains: “The broader trend of casting the queer net ever wider has muddled a once-clear public message about who gay people are. Being gay begins to look less like an inborn trait and more like a chosen ideology or aesthetic.”
And, “in a time of backlash, this is not a confusion that gay people can afford, especially those of us who live in red states and religious communities,” he declares.
Vines ends his column with these words: “The gay rights movement changed the world — and changed my life — by showing that being gay is not a rebellion against ordinary life. It is simply one way of living it, every bit as dignified and human as being straight. As support for gay rights begins to wane, we urgently need to regain the clarity of that simple, transformational message.”
The response
The world of well-known gay Christian authors, apologists and speakers remains relatively small. BNG has featured many of those voices in our columns and news stories. A quick survey of social media reveals some of those other well-known figures disagree strongly with what Matthew Vines wrote.
Christian singer/songwriter Flamy Grant took to Facebook with a sharp retort, spoken, not sung: “I’m from the South, so all I can say is: Bless his little homo heart. There is no such thing as a normal gay person, Matthew. Our subversion of social norms is our power, friends. We exist in God’s creation specifically to be a thorn in the side of those who demand conformity.”
Grant accuses Vines of bowing to church culture. “We’re not playing respectability politics, and we’re sure as hell not leaving any of our rainbow fam behind to score a few points with the bigots in power. As a queer AF queen who lives (and tours) in both red states and religious communities, I denounce Vines’ short-sighted op-ed with my whole Styrofoam chest.”
Gay Christian author Brandan Robertson (also a BNG columnist) wrote an entire Substack post in response to Vines titled “Queer Isn’t the Threat. Respectability Politics Is.”
Brandan Robertson
“What Vines is really defending, then, is not truth but a useful simplification, and he’s asking everyone whose experience doesn’t fit neatly into it to wait quietly at the margins until straight America is ready for the rest of the story,” Robertson says. “It is, conveniently, a sacrifice he is not the one being asked to make.”
He continues: “The fundamental problem with this critique is that it amounts to a defense of the privilege of a portion of the LGBTQ community at the expense of the rest. It relies on outdated ways of understanding sexuality and gender, and it clings to a utopian vision in which gays and lesbians can be accepted in society and in religion so long as they conform to every other ‘norm’ required of them, ignoring the millions of transgender, nonbinary, asexual, bisexual and queer people who exist in every corner of this country.”
And his main point is this: “Those who adopt the label of ‘queer’ do so because they understand that their own identities are more complex than the simple binaries that those like Vines are trying to force them into.”
Here are some other responses in brief form:
Avery Belyeu: “I rarely — if ever — believe in invoking shame, because, while a powerful emotion, I don’t think it usually moves someone to adopt a different posture or opinion, nor is it particularly kind. However, in the more conservative Christian tradition(s) to which Vines belongs, it has sometimes been a tool to name a sin and demand repentance. So I hope that context provides flavor to the gravity of my words when I say: Shame on you, Matthew Vines.”
Jeffrey Hoffman: “I’m sorry to see Matthew Vines, whom I love, heeding the zeitgeist of the Trump age instead of Jesus, drawing his circles of exclusion instead of inclusion, and playing the same old fundamentalist political game he fought so hard to undo for so long.”
Amber Wylde: “For as much education as he has under his belt, this is utter nonsense. It’s a privileged, limiting, superficial, desperate attempt at protecting one identity by limiting the identity of others. So let me make one thing very clear: BEING QUEER IS A GIFT, my dear friends. AND IT MATTERS. In all its arrays of beautiful barrier-breaking diversity, it is the biggest gift to the world and the deepest reflection of the divine.
What’s going on here?
Vines has surfaced an important conversation for the church to have but one the church most likely isn’t ready to have. Too many congregations are stuck at the beginning point of debating whether gay people can be Christians at all. That’s the awful condition of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Even among “moderate” or progressive churches, inclusion means a variety of different things. And more than a few pastors in these non-fundamentalist churches want to rely on the equivalency narrative Vines promotes. They are nowhere near ready to talk about “queer” church members.
Gay Christians and their allies fall along a spectrum of belief and understanding of sexuality and faith and culture. More than anything, it is important to listen and learn, to engage the conversation by seeking to understand.
This is a work in progress.
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global.