A Little Leaven: Confronting the Ideology of the Revoice Movement

Introduction: Should I Be Concerned

About the Revoice Movement?

The theological debate about homosexuality has changed. Many Christians are only just beginning to take notice. Some are uneasy with the shift but haven’t figured out exactly why. Some are rushing out to defend orthodox sexual ethics without a clear picture of what they are combating. Some are naively assuming everything that claims to be orthodox truly is. Some are very aware of what is happening and are happily embracing the shift. It is for all these reasons that I am writing this paper.

Mainline Protestant denominations began discussing homosexuality in earnest during the 1970s. This started with general statements from churches in support of gay rights, such as the United Church of Christ speaking against anti-sodomy laws and public employment policies that might exclude homosexuals. Other mainline churches offered statements that, according to one historian, largely condemned homosexual behaviors while supporting the civil rights of gay and lesbian people.[1] There were many orthodox believers who saw this as an erosion but even more who were ignorant of what was transpiring around them. Yet, there were some denominational leaders who wanted to see homosexuality more broadly affirmed by the church.

The debate around gay ordination emerged rather quickly, as the United Church of Christ became the first mainline church to ordain an openly gay man in 1972. The Episcopal Church and the United Presbyterian Church would each have gay ordination cases within their church courts by the late 1970s. Study committees would also be formed to look into the theological and social concerns surrounding homosexuality. Among both Presbyterians and Methodists, the language that emerged to describe candidates under examination for ordination was that of the self-avowed and practicing homosexual.

By self-avowed it was meant that a person considered himself to be born with an innate homosexual orientation and would therefore call himself a homosexual or gay. By practicing it was meant that a homosexual was living with a gay partner or otherwise actively living a homosexual lifestyle. The words typically appeared together but, by the use of self-avowed and practicing, there seemed to be an implied distinction between the words that caused much controversy. Some saw this to be an important distinction: that being gay was not inherently sinful, while engaging in homosexual practice was inherently sinful. Others saw this as a slippery slope that would, over time, lead to a weakening of the Christian teaching on sexuality and the qualifications for church ordination. Still others saw the whole attempt as purely discriminatory toward homosexuals and in need of full revision. These phrases of self-avowed and practicing are mostly dated now, but they express fault lines that still exist within the evangelical church today.

Many things have changed since the homosexual ordination debates of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Society’s overall acceptance of homosexuality has greatly increased. The legality of gay marriage has thrust new definitions of marriage and family on the church and society. The basic assumption in secular psychology and popular science is that homosexuality is a healthy and normal aspect of human sexuality. Likewise, many so-called evangelical churches have adjusted their doctrine in order to keep up with the times. Words such as affirming, inclusive, and welcoming have been loaded with certain moral obligations, while words like bigotry, hatred, homophobia, heterosexism, and heteronormativity carry a unique effectiveness to silence opposition. Not to mention, the untold damage done by the mass proliferation of hardcore internet pornography—making degrading images readily available to anyone with a smart phone or computer.

Within this milieu, several generations of young people have grown up. Impacted by the overall decadence and effeminacy of the present age, many have come to find certain unexpected sexual desires inside themselves. Despite this, some of these young people have also been unwilling to reject the orthodox teaching they have received on human sexuality. This means, at the very least, acknowledging homosexual behavior as sinful and male-female marriage as the only marital union ordained by God. When it comes to the topics of homosexual orientation and same-sex attraction (as distinguished from homosexual behavior), they say more nuance is required than Romans 1, Leviticus 18, and 1 Corinthians 6 can give us. This is where secular psychology, sociology, and personal experience can step in and fill in the blanks left by the Bible’s silence.

This view that the Bible is clear on homosexual behavior yet silent or ambivalent on homosexual orientation is what I am calling gay celibate theology. There are many other facets to the ideology that this paper will cover but the big idea is that homosexual orientation is seen as innate and immutable—thereby distinctly shaping an individual’s self-conception and personal identity. Despite claims to the contrary, this is in line with how gay Christians with gay-affirming Bible interpretations see themselves as well. The only difference here is whether it is proper for someone to act on those desires or not: gay-affirming Christians say yes while gay celibate Christians say no.

The reason I belabor these points is because it is important to realize the climate in which the gay celibate theology of the Revoice movement emerges. This isn’t exactly like the homosexuality debates of the past. Although there are certainly historical parallels to older theological battles, it will not do to simply assume that the arguments of Revoice are between progressives who reject the authority of Scripture and conservatives who hold to it. Indeed, both sides claim to hold to the same Scripture and they claim to do so for the same reasons—that the Bible is inerrant, authoritative, and wholly true. The commitment of either side to that claim can certainly be tested—and should be, using their own words matched against the Bible’s—and this is why Scripture will be appealed to quite frequently throughout this paper.

The Revoice movement represents a view of homosexuality that places itself somewhere in-between the revisionist inclusion of the affirming church and the staunch traditionalism of the conservative church. What stands in the middle—this Side B thinking (in contrast to the Side A thinking of the gay affirming church)—says that the evangelical church has mostly had the right doctrine but has gotten the application wrong. In fact, it has gotten things wrong for a long, long time. In fact, it’s only now that we might actually be able to have a clear witness on these issues. But, they say, within this middle road, faithfulness can be found if we allow them to lead the conversation and define the terms.

It should be clearly understood that gay celibate theology claims to embrace the historic Christian sexual ethic but also embraces the psychological concept of an innate and immutable homosexual orientation. This means that a person may see himself as inherently gay but he does not see his gayness as any great hinderance to his Christian faith—so long as he does not have homosexual intercourse or actively fantasize about such activity. Within gay celibate theology, homosexuals are seen as victims of the Fall—having been born with an unchanging condition that orients them toward a particular type of sin. But they are also seen as victims of conservative churches who have burdened them with the false hope of orientation change, where Christians have cruelly and wrongly insisted that the Holy Spirit’s work in sanctification should have some evidence in a person finding victory in his battle against unnatural desires.

This thinking has been variously labelled: Side B thinking, the Spiritual Friendship movement, gay celibate theology, or the Revoice movement. Each term is basically synonymous, yet each also imperfectly captures a different emphasis or historic moment of the stream of thinking. They each require a little context in order to appreciate why they have been variously used by people trying to understand or define the ideology.

The term Side B began as a label adopted by some gay Christians on the Gay Christian Network website in the early 2000s in conversations between Justin Lee (gay affirming author) and Ron Belgau (gay celibate Catholic). Side B Christians believe homosexual behavior to be sinful and that gay Christians should remain celibate because of the Bible’s teaching. Nevertheless, Side B Christians found abiding comradery with affirming gay Christians (or Side A) because of their shared experience as homosexuals, frequently recounting stories about being mistreated or misunderstood in conservative churches.

Both Side A and Side B shared a resistance to ex-gay ministry (such as Exodus International) and trauma counseling. They both tended to de-emphasize the potential causes of homosexuality, implicitly assuming some inherent cause, and quickly moving on to focus on how someone should live in light of the experience of same-sex attraction. They both emphasized that homosexual orientation could not change and that Christians needed to alter their culture war response to LGBT issues in society. With this also came an emphasis on LGBT visibility—insisting that having gay church leaders and out of the closet church members increased cultural credibility by making the church seem like a safe place to be a sexual minority.

Spiritual Friendship is the name of a blog begun by Ron Belgau and Wesley Hill in April 2012. The blog started as a place where the two gay celibate men could journal about what it means to be gay and Christian—with a particular emphasis on updating Aelred of Rievaulx’s 12th century monastic views on covenanted, same-sex friendship for the 21st century situation of Side B gay celibacy. Hill used the blog to flesh out some of his thinking for his book Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian (2015) while many other Side B Christians were invited to contribute to the blog. With the mix of thoughtful writers and a lively comments section, SpiritualFriendship.org became a compendium of the theology, philosophy, preoccupations, frustrations, observations, and personal stories of Side B gay Christians.

Gay celibate theology has been a general catch-all term for the thinking exemplified by the Side B or Spiritual Friendship movement. However, it can be a bit of a misnomer sometimes in that there are a number of Side B gay Christians within the movement who are not celibate but married to an opposite-sex spouse. These marriages have been termed mixed orientation marriages because one spouse identifies as gay while the other identifies as heterosexual.

The last term of note—and the one that I have chosen to use most frequently in this paper—is the Revoice movement. I have chosen this term because of the way Side B/Spiritual Friendship/gay celibate thinking became exemplified and mainstreamed in the Revoice organization and the annual conference that emerged under that banner. The first Revoice conference was organized in 2018 by Nate Collins and Stephen Moss in St. Louis, Missouri and has happened annually ever since.

Although the language of Side B is not used in Revoice’s official communication, the mission and thinking of the organization is an obvious continuation of the Side B movement which precedes it. Wesley Hill also sees this continuity in his Foreword to Mark Yarhouse & Olya Zaporozhets’ book, Costly Obedience: What We Can Learn from the Celibate Gay Christian Community (2019). In that way, I may sometimes refer to those who promote Side B views as Side B proponents—whether or not such a person self-identifies as gay or same-sex attracted. For example, Preston Sprinkle (president of the Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender), Scott Sauls (Presbyterian pastor), and Tish Harrison Warren (Anglican priest) would not call themselves same-sex attracted, yet they have committed themselves to being heavy promoters and defenders of the Revoice conference and many of the speakers associated with it. For that reason, I consider them to be Side B proponents and therefore part of the Revoice movement.

Revoice’s official mission statement says why it exists:

To support and encourage gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other same-sex attracted Christians—as well as those who love them—so that all in the Church might be empowered to live in gospel unity while observing the historic Christian doctrine of marriage and sexuality.[2]

As the mission indicates, this is not a movement of the affirming church. This is a movement that appeals to conservative evangelical doctrine—declaring a commitment to maintaining the historic Christian understanding of marriage and sexuality. It is important to note this distinction from the theologically liberal inclusivity movements such as More Light Presbyterians,[3] Reconciling Ministries Network,[4] or Room for All.[5] It is also to be distinguished from the affirming gay Christianity championed by Justin Lee, Matthew Vines, Kathy Baldock, and the Reformation Project.

Despite being different from the affirming church movement, the Revoice movement still departs from orthodox sexual ethics while claiming to uphold them. The shift is subtle, with seemingly small accommodations of gay orientation, gay identity, and gay desire that are justified as being honest or being missional. These shifts are no less dangerous, though they are often buried beneath delicately worded language. It is for this reason that controversy over Revoice and the questions it poses has been brewing within the larger conservative denominations, including the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), Church of the Nazarene, and Anglican Church of North America (ACNA)—not to mention hundreds of non-affiliated evangelical churches across the country.

In light of Revoice, practical discussions of same-sex attraction, gay identity, celibacy and singleness, friendship, using gay Christian terminology, and the presence of homophobia in the conservative church have become more