Constructing a Celibate Gay Christian Spirituality (Pt. 3)
Seven Theses on Celibacy
Celibacy includes a diverse array of experiences, and is not exactly the same thing as singleness. I will not be able to give an in-depth defense of celibate partnerships here, but I will say this: non-marital, covenantal relationships between members of the same sex and gender have an established precedent in the Christian tradition, they can enable some people to pursue lives of chastity better than singleness can, and I personally know many for whom such a partnership has been an immense encouragement and support, a genuine gift from God. There is also a case to be made that those in intentional communities are not exactly single, either—they have many relationships that serve as lifelong support, which makes their experience different than some singles. But honestly, I am convinced “singleness” is an unhelpful way to think about not having a partner anyway. No one is actually singular, after all! While celibacy can certainly take the form of going without a partner or intentional community, I tend to think of celibacy as intentional sexual abstinence—which can sometimes include a partner or family. All this to say: diverse experiences of celibacy (“singleness,” celibate partnership, intentional community) are on a spectrum of relational commitment.
The insights generated by a life of celibacy benefit all people. Disability activism is frequently understood by non-disabled people as advocacy for the interests of a particular marginalized minority group.1 Of course, it is certainly advocacy for minority rights! But disability activists are quick to point out that most people will be disabled at some point in their lives. The idea that disability is a minority experience is a comforting illusion that prevents non-disabled people from facing the possibility of their own disability. This means non-disabled people who do not work to build a world in which disabled people can thrive end up hurting themselves as well as others. Similarly, a life of celibacy generates insights that are helpful for all people to consider, because most people will go without sexual activity for a significant length of time at some point in their lives. Most people need to learn how to manage their unruly sexual desires, how to build intimate friendships and supportive communities. Those who do not work to build a world in which celibate people can thrive end up hurting themselves. Celibacy is not merely a minority experience!
Celibacy can allow for a more undivided heart and mind when it comes to pursuing God. The apostle Paul expresses this perspective in his first letter to the Corinthians when he addresses widows and unmarried folks: “I want you to be free from anxieties” (1 Corinthians 7:32 NRSVUE). He then sets up a contrast between married folks and unmarried folks: the former are “anxious about the affairs of the world,” while the latter are free to be “anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord…so that they may be holy in body and spirit.” (v. 32-34). Celibacy can, in some ways, make “unhindered devotion” (v. 35) more possible than marriage can—but again, it is not quite this simple in the real world, and the caveats mentioned above (on “singleness,” celibate partnerships, intentional communities, and a spectrum of relational commitment) still apply. But this passages forces us to really consider the vocation to which we feel called by God—and to engage in prayerful discernment.
Celibacy can actually represent an opportunity for relationships, not just a limit on a certain kind of relationship. The difference between marriage and celibacy is often framed as the difference between relationship and isolation; according to this way of thinking, marriage offers a person a relationship with a spouse and children (and sex!) while celibacy (lived as singleness) is about being alone. This, you might have noticed, is an exaggeration or distortion of the previous thesis about having an undivided heart and mind. But of course, marriage and children set limits on relationships as well! Ask any married people in your life (especially those with children) about their experience of community, and you will almost certainly be told that the time it takes to keep their house and family in order prevents them from spending as much time with their friends as they would like. Ask any friend of a person who has gotten married about the way their friendship has had to change, and you will hear something similar. Of course, for those in celibate partnerships, unmarried folks who adopt, and those in intentional communities, there is also a limitation with which to reckon. But all this is to say: celibacy is not a relational death sentence. Every vocation is both limiting and freeing in different ways; discerning your vocation should involve figuring out the particular limits that can make you the most free to choose the good.
Celibacy can be “queer.” Every society offers its members a script for the ways of living it considers to be normal or respectable, an expectation for how responsible members of society are supposed to act. Oftentimes (at least in the modern West), this script has tended to prioritize a sexual relationship and the nuclear family (marriage and children). Celibacy fails to measure up to this standard of normalcy and respectability, and stands as a challenge to the hegemony of that script. Celibacy can reveal that script to us, can force us to see how contingent it is, and can allow us to think outside of it, imagining new possibilities for living. In that sense, celibacy can be queer—it can challenge a prevailing societal norm.
Celibacy can be “gay.”2 A key characteristic of same-sex love is its seeming lack of biological purpose; procreation is impossible. Same-sex love does not produce biological descendants. I once saw a photo of a picket sign held up at a Pride celebration with a scrawled message that cheekily made this very point: “the family tree ends with me!” But this lack of biological purpose does not have to be a bad thing! Same-sex love—like all non-procreative love—can reveal the sheer gratuitousness of love. Caring for, and being cared for by, another person is the whole point. Similarly, celibacy has no biological purpose.3 In fact, it appears to be truly anti-biological (the family tree ends with me!). Celibacy can be framed as “staring into the abyss,” confronting the end of a genetic line—but it can also reveal the sheer gratuitousness of life, that it is grace-filled. In this way, being gay and living a life of celibacy are profoundly consonant.
Celibacy elicits a trust in the reality of the resurrection. Before widespread belief in an afterlife, lifelong celibacy was often understood by biblical authors as a kind of curse—no descendants, and therefore no legacy. For instance, when God commands Jeremiah to remain without a wife and children, it is in order to represent the destruction of Israel (Jeremiah 16). But this understanding of celibacy shifts over the course of the biblical narrative, and there are inklings of a positive estimation of it even in the Hebrew Bible. In a passage from Isaiah, God assures “eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant” that they will be given “a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off” (Isaiah 56:4-5 NRSVUE). By the New Testament, when belief in the resurrection is more common, celibacy comes to be understood as an anticipation of the resurrection, as even a way of living the resurrected life here and now. Jesus encourages his disciples to consider becoming “a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:12 NRSVUE), and the apostle Paul admits to the Corinthians that “I wish that all were as I myself am,” that is unmarried, “the appointed time has grown short” and the end is near (7:8, 29 NRSVUE). Going without marriage and sexual activity—and so without descendants—elicits a trust in God: that death is not the end, but there is life beyond it; that the sacrifice of celibacy will be worth it; that our deepest longings will ultimately be satisfied in God.
I have often been struck by the parallels between disabled experience and LGBTQ+ experience, but not in the way some might think. I wrote about various models of disability and their parallels with models of LGBTQ+ experience, drawing Amanda Leduc’s phenomenal Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space (a truly paradigm-shifting book!) over at A Side B Collective.
A caveat: while I think “being gay” is a wide enough category to include those who are drawn to the same gender rather than biological sex, in this point I use it to refer primarily to those who are drawn primarily toward the same sex and gender.
Perhaps another way to say this is that celibacy (and maybe being gay?) has more of a social, rather than biological, purpose. We might, for instance, consider how celibate folks and gay folks can play important roles improving group cohesion in a family or community, and enriching society through their contributions!