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Writer's pictureAndrew Comiskey

No ‘Mixed’ Marriages

‘Mixed’ marriages connote a hint of racism—historically a union of different ethnicities, non-Anglos casting a shadow over the ‘white’ stuff. Good riddance to questionable language. 


The same applies to how progressive evangelicals describe persons who marry in light of a history of same-sex attraction. ‘Mixed-orientation marriage’ is the new realism, the way forward for ‘Side B’ folk (Revoice founder and leader Nate Collins identifies as ‘gay,’ a status unchanged by his marriage to Sarah) who insist on biblical marriage and in the same breath refuse to lay down ‘gay’ selves. I disagree with this terminology for a few reasons.    

 

There is no such thing as a ‘gay-oriented’ person, only persons trying to sort out a blend of desires and self-perceptions. The cultural embrace of a ‘gay self’ has opened Pandora’s box, e.g. many opting for a ‘queer’ identity or ‘questioning’ his or her biological sex entirely, thus stalling at ‘them’ or ‘they.’ Whew. Given the trend toward ‘fluidity’, I recommend that we Christians assert our inheritance as persons deeply loved by God who whether we like it or not are either male or female, sons or daughters, at varying stages of ‘becoming’ mature men and women.

 

Our bodies may well challenge our feelings. But they tell us the truth: we are designed for ‘the other’ and can integrate that truth, both in self-acceptance and growing openness to the opposite sex.

 

We can hope that any person sorting out same-sex attraction who marries deeply loves a person of the opposite sex. If that is true, then he or she needs to be loving enough to cast off old ‘LGBTQ+’ identifications. Why? He or she has chosen to wholly identify with another, body, soul, and spirit. The two are now one.

 

Love compels us to shed unnecessary plastic jargon. How many marriages socially identify as ‘mixed’ due to past porn or adultery? None. If a person can’t do without rainbow labels, he or she is not ready to marry. Saying ‘I do’ to another means declaring ‘I don’t’ identify with a lesser self that frustrates my self-giving.

 

One may say: “I ‘gay’ identify as to be real, to tell myself the truth of my SSA; I don’t want to fall into unreality.” “OK, be real,” I advise. “Admit your struggle. But don’t define yourself as ‘gay.’ That empowers SSA.” When one makes adjectival stuff a noun, he or she makes an unnecessary social pronouncement that emboldens the old self and its desires.

 

On the other hand, the self united with Christ possesses authority to stand on solid truth: ‘I am man, I am woman. I can speak honestly and helpfully about residual struggle. I work out my salvation in fear and trembling because I am united with another in holy love. Jesus empowers my pledge and my defining reality, relationally speaking.’

 

To identify as ‘mixed’ is an insult to one’s family. Annette chose not a ‘gay’ man but a pretty good guy who loved her undividedly. She respects who I am and the decisions I made to forego ‘gay’ identifications of various kinds: in sexual practice, in public identification, in questionable same-sex friendships. Further, my children respect the man who sired them as a Christian and whose integrity hinges on identifying solely as husband and father. It would cast shame on them for ‘Dad’ to declare himself ‘gay. They would face the fallout in peer relationships, not me. Same with our parents. Annette’s folks knew of my background as did mine and encouraged us based on my living clean (and honest in weakness), free from ‘gay’ identification.

 

Language matters. And marriage is hard. Why make it harder on all concerned by employing plastic constructs (‘gay’, ‘mixed-orientation marriage’) that misconstrue one’s holy intention to stay true––body, soul, and spirit––to the love of one’s life?

 

We have a responsibility for Christians-to-come. We help them by insisting on definitions that line up with Jesus’ design and redemption. The language of Revoice and “Side B” confuses and disempowers. ‘Mixed marriage’? Good riddance to bad words.


Join Andrew on Desert Streaming each week as he dives deeper into his blog. Watch here or listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  

11 comentários


Convidado:
31 de out.

Totally with you that labels are problematic.. but to say there's no such thing as 'gay-oriented' is just plain false. That's a scientific and psychological fact: some people are more attracted to people of the same sex than others, often times almost exclusively. Even if you are trying to argue that it is only temporary, it is still true for the time period that the person is experiencing it that they are oriented towards attraction to the same-sex. No, it is not a defining characteristic of a person and shouldn't be an identity trait, agreed there. Unfortunately everyone continues to perpetuate it as so and there appears no way out. If there's no gay people, there's no straight people either.

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stevegoble
10 de jul.

Andrew, thank you for shedding light on the deception and danger of Revoice/Side B Gay Christianity. From personal experience, I’ve learned that embracing a “sexual orientation” paradigm and “celibate gay Christian” identity is unhelpful and limiting, like being encased in concrete with no ability to grow, and like trying to mix oil and water (the “gay” aspect surpassing allegiance to Jesus). I Had to learn to put off the gay aspect, as the Bible says in Eph. 4:22-24, to “put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in…

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Todd Ringness
Todd Ringness
10 de jul.

I praise the Lord for your steadfast faithfulness to His calling and proclaiming the truth of the Bible, dear brother! May God continue to richly bless you and bestow even more wisdom and clarity in the Name of Jesus! ❤️✝️

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Convidado:
09 de jul.

“”But you must never eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because when you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

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Convidado:
08 de jul.

It behooves each one to choose a good identity.

But to get that word "good" wrong is the same error the rich young ruler made calling Jesus "good teacher". That word is not relative and not to be used carelessly!.

Not for Jesus. "Only God is good." Jesus corrects him.

Hence, the good identity is the one God has chosen for each of us. But it is not gay, lesbian, trans, etc.

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