Don't Cap Chastity

‘Chastity is a promise of immortality’ (CCC #2347).

I love chastity! Pursuing this most personal of virtues unites us with one another. I can’t integrate alone! To grow in chaste friendship with either sex, I need my brothers. I don’t need ‘special’ connection with a bunch of guys with same-sex issues. I just need guys seeking to become more chaste: the more diverse, the greater the growth in integration. To divide up based on pet problems undermines the integrating power of the Cross.

Last night all of the LW guys did Cross time as the women interceded for us. I love them all: a cool Gideon’s army united in repenting of various lusts and raw from owning frustration over failed gift-giving. We surrendered all categorical thinking, plastic labels that can empower disordered tendencies by making them identities (addict, victim, queer, etc.). We imparted strength to each other and wept a little. Then we shouted out the facet of chastity we most wanted to attain; we committed again to dignify others more decisively and consistently. Women confessed in tears their resistance towards us. We wept more. Then all the women came up and gave each man a personalized blessing.

It was heaven, a promise of immortality. When I got home that night, Annette shared with me the poignant case of Pastor Sam Allberry whose thoughtful work on same-sex sexuality and community I know a bit. He represents persons who accept their same-sex desires as a condition, a fixed orientation. Though insisting on a biblical sexual ethic (no sex please; we’re unmarried), these ministers and organizations (Living Out, Eden Invitation, Revoice, Allberry, David Bennett, Wesley Hill, Preston Sprinkle’s materials) encourage others to integrate ‘gay’ celibate selves. They may also tend to form unusual same sex ‘friendships’ that may not violate the letter of the law but may well compromise its integrity.

Allberry apparently fell into one such friendship and crossed some lines (whether of heart or body) with a male friend. We as Christ’s Body need to advocate for his restoration and pray for a merciful and just outcome of his discipline (he’s stepped down from ministry). Allberry is a humble man, surrounded by a solid community; I pray good comes from these humbling events. We throw stones to our own peril. I pray that we would allow his suffering to expose what we may well conceal.

There’s also more to learn from the error that may have contributed to his failure. Sam and friends would be well-served by casting off worldly labels and low ceilings and get on with the business of becoming chaste. My advice: get off the ex-gay or ever-gay or special-gay plateau and join Christ’s members in becoming a more whole gift. Embrace the gift and goal of chastity and stop mucking around with self-defeating constructs. It’s confusing.

Aspiring to chastity unites us with all baptized Christians (#2338). We need not spend days licking wounds with people inclined to our own disorder. Chastity calls us into the adventure of a lifetime with brothers and sisters very different from us whose encouragement provokes our dormant gift.

Let go of ‘celibacy’ as a lifetime call. Jesus calls only a few to give up partnership with the opposite sex for the Kingdom. Why then do same-sex strugglers like Allberry and friends assume they are celibate? It caps the goal of chastity, which assumes a personal reckoning with complementarity between men and women (#2337). We cannot give up what we do not realize.

Granted, not everyone marries. But strugglers need to aspire, not to cap off the dynamic power of their own gift as male or female. Not only does premature celibacy slap the face of eligible members of the opposite sex, but it also limits our Creator and Redeemer who may well invite us to be fruitful and multiply. The best husbands and fathers I know are men from previously ‘gay’ backgrounds.

The adventure awaits us all. His deep calls to ours. I urge all persons who struggle with lust of any kind (we are all a bit disordered) to not settle but to aspire to chastity. It governs holy friendship with both sexes. Chastity is the promise of both fruitfulness and immortality. We cap it to our own detriment.