Two days ago I posted an answer to someone’s question on homosexuality and the Orthodox Church. I posted only one reply out of several possibilities–from the Q&A section of the OCA website–and it raised a legitimate concern from a fellow Orthodox believer. Let me quote of what s/he says below:
I understand and adhere to the viewpoint of the “church” in regards to persons with same sex attraction. What I don’t understand is why it seems that for the most part a person with this passion who does adhere to the church’s teachings is left alone without any real support. There should be some kind of support system out there other than confession and your spiritual father. It makes one feel like they must go back into the closet and start smelling like mothballs again. You can’t really speak of it in the parish etc. How does the church expect gays and lesbians to live the life of chastity without any real help. This Don’t ask Don’t Tell approach really isn’t working. Every time there is a wedding or a baptism or anything family centered, its like another reminder that to follow Christ I have to give any hope of a family or any relationship for the rest of my life. I must struggle without anybody to talk with that understands what I am going through.
Let me reiterate that this is a person who clearly says that they “adhere” to Church teaching. S/he shares openly of their struggle. But, what most concerns them is that they feel unsupported in the local situation in which they find themselves. I think that there are two responses that I would like to give, one to the person, and one that would apply to any local parish. Let me make it clear that I do not intend to chastise anyone, but simply to give some helpful thoughts.
In a previous church at which I was an assistant, it was taught that we should all be careful of gossip. Gossip was defined as passing on any information to a person who was unable to do anything about the situation. Thus, to say to someone that brother so and so was an alcoholic and we should pray for him would be gossip, even if you were to say that you are only passing on this information in order to request prayer. Why is it gossip? Because most church members would neither have the calling nor the training nor the pastoral relationship necessary to deal with the supposedly alcoholic person. On top of that, passing on the information would tend to lower the reputation of the supposed alcoholic in the eyes of the one who was hearing about it for the first time. Thus the person giving the information would be considered both a gossip and a defamator.
But, is not prayer an area in which anyone can participate and is not intercession that to which we are called? Yes, but … The “but” is that in this case prayer is being misused as an excuse in order to pass on salacious gossip. In fact, other than the saying that “prayer changes things,” most people have no other input into someone’s life. And, if we learn nothing else from Orthodox litanies, we need to learn that God knows everyone’s names so that it is quite possible and proper for us to simply pray for those who are sick or in suffering without needing to know who they are and the details of their lives. When we raise up our concerted prayer, both in the Liturgies and at home, we can trust that God, the Theotokos, the saints, and the angels are aware of particular needs and that the Holy Spirit will honor our obedient faith and take our unknowing prayers to the throne of God in a way “to deep for words.”
By the same token, the pastoral staff would often encourage those having difficult problems to not share them in a shotgun fashion. One, when a person is in pain, one tends to want to unload. Unfortunately, they can also quite damage their reputation, and–sadly–there are those who will never let a person forget a mistake that they have shared. Two, even close friends and prayer group partners may feel at a complete loss as to what to say or advise and may end up either giving inappropriate advice or withdrawing a bit from the person sharing. Thus, we cautioned people to be reticent of sharing serious struggles outside of a limited circle of people. This was not out of a desire for secrecy or a desire for the parish to “look good,” but rather out of the considerations I named above. In passing, we also taught people that should they come across information about someone’s struggle that they not poke and pry or gossip about it, but rather to either pray in secret or to talk to the pastoral staff to make sure that the situation was in hand.
What I have said above is a far cry from “don’t ask don’t tell.” The great difference is that we ensured that the situations that came up had spiritual direction and input. “Don’t ask don’t tell” is a policy that tends to be equivalent to sticking one’s fingers in one’s ears and pretending a situation did not exist. We did not pretend situations did not exist. We recognized them and worked with the people involved with them. In the process, we guarded their souls and their reputations. We also stopped Satan from using the weapon of gossip to cause destructive rifts in the parish. This type of full-featured pastoral oversight keeps people from feeling alone and unsupported.
But note that I am saying that the local parish and pastoral staff do have the responsibility to ensure that the person who is struggling with whatever is causing them serious pain has the necessary support to ensure that they do not feel alone. The OCA has called churches to engage in that type of responsible partnership in the area of homosexuality as well. Tomorrow I will quote from one of the OCA statements and also Metropolitan Jonah.
===MORE TO COME===
Maybe I’m jumping the gun and should wait for your “more to come,” but what I find sad — if indeed it is the case — is that what is offered is merely “support so they don’t feel alone” and not hope for change. So many today seem to accept as fact that homosexuals are “born that way” and cannot change, when in fact, many have experienced freedom and healing in Christ. Sympathy and support alone would be a grave disservice to the one struggling with same-sex attraction, when grace is available through our Lord to eschew what He clearly considers not in the believer’s best interest and to receive the fullness of redeemed, holy life. If the believer you quoted simply wants someone to sympathize, understand their struggle, s/he is either deceived, believing change cannot happen, or wants to continue in the struggle. Sad in either case. I eagerly await your “more to come.”
Hi Father Ernesto, can someone explain to me why rebellion is not the Orthodox understanding of the fall-isn’t rebellion another name for disobedience and or sin-and if it is not disobedience, what is it? Thanks.
I asked Fr. Greg to comment on that in an answering note to him.
Suppose you had small children, and suppose you had told them not to do something without your permission, maybe that they were not to eat cookies unless you gave them the cookies. They were not to get into the cookie jar by themselves. Now, suppose that an older person, an adult or teenager, came into your house and convinced the children that, regardless of what you had said, it was okay for them to crawl up on the counter and get all the cookies they wanted.
Would these children be “in rebellion” against you?
St. Ireneus and the subsequent Orthodox fathers answer “no.” Augustine and those following him say that the answer is “yes”.
For Orthodoxy, human nature is subject to corruption and death because of the fall, but humanity in general cannot be said to be in rebellion against God because of that. Rebellion only becomes an issue when people willfully and with full knowledge of what they are doing reject restored communion with God by way of Christ and the Church, as empowered by the Holy Spirit
Suppose you had small children, and suppose you had told them not to do something without your permission, maybe that they were not to eat cookies unless you gave them the cookies. They were not to get into the cookie jar by themselves.
There is a Bill Cosby monologue on “Adam & Eve” that says exactly that: “You have just told a child to NOT do something. Then your attention is elsewhere. What is going to happen? The child IS going to get in trouble.”
Interesting — as soon as I read the quote from the fellow Orthodox believer questioning the lack of support, I immediately thought of alcoholism and that we don’t talk about so-and-so struggling with alcoholism. And, of course, a lot of other sinful inclinations could be cited that we just don’t make public.
But for some reason which I don’t understand, homosexuals seem to have a tendency to make their sexual inclination their personal identity even though (perhaps outside of AA) alcoholics don’t tend to make alcoholism their personal identity. In fact, of the myriad of various sinful inclinations with which we struggle, the overwhelming majority of us do not identify who we are with any of our sinful inclinations. I wonder what it would take for those struggling with homosexuality to not identify themselves as homosexuals?
I’ll take a crack at this.
Things are normal until puberty, at which point your day to day experiences start to go off track from heterosexuals. For instance, at age 12 or 13, you come to realize you are stuck locker rooming with dozens of very attractive people who incite lust in you. Except, no one else seems to realize this is a problem, because seemingly no one else is having this problem at all. To make it worse, it turns out you’re not allowed to tell people either! The theme recurs over and over again, culminating in watching happy couples get married, because it’s not a sin for them… just for you. You end up not properly integrated into the culture, othered in a hundred ways. That’s what ends up making it an identity, I think.
In a way, it is much like growing up disabled. Your experience diverges in a million ways so far from the norm that only another disabled person can identify with your day: the stares, the inappropriate praise from strangers, the inaccessibilities, the patronizing, etc. Not only do able bodied people not experience these things daily, they don’t even seem capable of noticing them happening around them.
The thing about being an other is that when you meet people like you, the feeling of being able to really connect, communicat, comiserate, etc is OVERWHELMING. For the first time in you life, even if you never wanted to be that group, you feel like you fit. And so you start absorb some of that as your culture norms, even if you hate being in a wheelchair or being gay/bi, or whatever it is.
Alchoholism just doesn’t come close. It isn’t usually part of your formative experience, not tossed at you and othering you day after day during your adolesence. It’s just not the same kind of thing.
I pray for any outcome of the will of God…I have prayed most of my life to be different. I would love to wake up and not be attracted to people of the same sex. I would love to get married, have a family etc. I still would like to have somebody to talk to that understands to be there as I do the will of God.
Father, you are right..maybe its better to not have gossip etc, I didn’t think of that and from the recent posts…maybe very good counsel. I have suffered this passion for as long as I can remember. I was always “different”. I just wish there was some kind of support network for people with same sex attraction that CHOOSE to adhere to church teachings and provide mutual support. Just somebody to talk to..a fellow traveler. I simply desire the will of God….if that is marriage or celibacy.
See tomorrow and the post by Salome Ellen.
Ernesto, you and your readers may be interested in this website, which is for a Roman Catholic organization encouraging those with homosexual inclinations to develop an interior life of chastity (to which all believers are called.) http://www.couragerc.net/
Also this one, which is an association of psychologists who (contrary to modern psychological practice) choose to help and treat persons with unwanted same-sex attractions. http://narth.com/.
Perhaps one of the problems is “homophobia” (horrible word, but still). What it means in the church is that heterosexual fornicators and adulterers feel superior to homosexual ones, or to people with homosexual inclinations who struggle against the temptation. Both experience temptation to lust; what differs is the object of the lust and the form that the temptation takes.
Now should heterosexual fornicators or adulterers, or even those who are tempted to commit those sins but have so far successfully resisted, have a support group to discuss this? Do we need a “Sexoholics Anonymous” group in every parish, perhaps with separate branches for homsexuals and heterosexuals? I suspect that such groups would become hotbeds of salacious gossip, and would actually increase temptation rather than diminishing it.
See Tokahfang’s reply above and my post for Thursday, 14 July. Though both sins are equivalent, the external circumstances are different. Thus, Father Deacon, you are correct to say that it is the object of the sin that is different. But, sadly, both adultery and serial polygamy (multiply divorced people) are more acceptable and so the person committing those sins does not feel the exclusion and isolation of the person who is struggling against a homosexual inclination.
Thank you Fathers for clarifying the difference between the East and West on the issue of fallen man. I had a catholic education and it is so easy to revert to “catholic guilt”. We did learn about St. Ireneus in the Saint Stephen’s course, and it is just a matter of reminding myself of the differences. Thank you.
Marriage is a sacrament. Holy Orders are a sacrament. If “Every time there is a wedding or a baptism or anything family centered, it’s like another reminder that to follow Christ I have to give [up] any hope of a family or any relationship for the rest of my life”, then does the same emotional response apply to Holy Orders? That is, there are innumerable impediments for a man’s ordination. In fact, most men in a parish will not meet the requirements for ordination, and they will tick the boxes for most of the impediments, as well. A penis is not the primary or sole requirement for ordination. Priestly impediments also include things that we are born with, not just sins we (or our spouse) may have committed. Being born with a handicap, a skin disease, without all our members, deformed genitalia, etc. However, every time I view an ordination, I do not “give up any hope” of serving God, worshiping, praying, even ministering to those in the parish in much the same way clergy does – except not with orarion, epimanikia, epitrachelion, phelonion, sakkos, omophorion or mitre. We are all called to and barred from certain Mysteries, from certain roles and responsibilities. We are all ‘other’ in many settings and in many groups. The feelings of excludedness are real, but they are part of the spiritual life for all Orthodox Christians – not just homosexuals. In fact, we all too easily forget we are excluded from real life, we are excluded from Paradise, as Adam was and as those before Pascha were in Sheol. We not only exclude ourselves, our sins have caused and do cause the exclusion of others – we are each, personally, responsible for all sin and have excluded ourselves. Our exclusion from certain Mysteries of the faith and from certain responsibilities in the Church are simply reminders of what we too often forget – we are sinners, we shouldn’t even be allowed in the church, much less into the nave or the altar, much less into the presence of God, much less to commune (without recognizing) of Christ’s Body and Blood, much less into Paradise.
Good points and well made. But, remember the point that Father Orthoduck made in another reply where he commented that serial polygamists (multiply divorced people) receive significantly more acceptance than they should. Theologically you are correct. But, relationally, the practical experience in many parishes is that people with certain sins are pointed out and shunned in a way that others with equally grave sins are not. It should not be this way, of course.
It is always helpful for all of us to remember what is theologically true. We need to be reminded of the reason why Saint Paul pointed out that we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling. But, let us remember that groups like Alcoholics Anonymous began precisely because there was no practical help to be found in many Christian groups. Those who are inappropriately singled out by many in the parishes may need specific attention by the pastoral staff in order to overcome the opprobrium of their brothers and sisters.
While it is true that culturally certain sins carry a greater charge and weight than others, I’m wondering if the understandable desire for “anybody to talk with that understands what I am going through” is necessary or advisable. Do we, in fact, seek out “co-strugglers” with a given passion when it comes to gossip, gluttony, drunkenness, hardheartedness, sloth, etc.? It’s perhaps helpful to know that others are struggling with the same passions as we are, but is it helpful to get such people together? Would that more likely lead to “partnered” gluttony, drunkenness, gossiping, laziness, etc.? Just as saying prayer rules specifically designed to counteract lust can in fact increase our lustful thoughts – since it becomes a sort of preoccupation – so, too, can a support group for a given sin increase that sin in a population prone to that passion.
We aren’t cured by focusing on our sinful proclivities, but by practicing their opposite virtues (and those closely related, e.g., food and lust are connected so fasting and chastity are related, pride lurks near every passion so humility can heal much) – and on God, His mother, the saints, the sacraments, and, most importantly, others.
By that argument, it is wrong for sinful monks to get together since they may begin to concentrate on sin rather than on their spiritual and physical disciplines. And, if we are honest, monks and nuns do spend a lot of time focusing on their sins, do they not? But, they focus on them in order to overcome them, which is precisely what happens in some of the helping groups.
The groups at their best function like monasteries at their best. Whether it is the group leader or the abbot/abbess a group can be a place of progress towards the Kingdom of God. The groups at their worst can be everything you said, just like one can pick up newspapers from Israel every Holy Week or major feast to read about which monks physically assaulted which other monks that year. That also happens on Mount Athos every so often.