Welcome to the Speak Life Podcast. My name is Glenn Scrivener. So glad you joined us for today's show. We've got a doozy for you. We've got Rachel Gilson, author of the new book, Born Again This Way. In this episode, she's gonna talk to us about her story. Going to Yale University to study history, identifying at the time as gay, identifying at the time as an atheist. And then, through a stolen book, she encounters Christ and everything is turned on its head. We talk about her fascinating story and we talk about marriage and sex and the gospel and evangelism and church life and many, many other things besides. I loved my chat with her. I hope you love it too. Also, on this show, you're going to learn about our new Christmas outreach. And you're thinking to yourself, Christmas? It doesn't feel like Christmas yet. Well, I mean, do you know what day of the week it is? Um, are you watching more TV than usual? Are the kids underfoot? Then it feels like Christmas, doesn't it? And uh, Speak Life uh has always wanted to reach out to many, many people at Christmas time, especially with our Christmas videos. And we have a tremendous Christmas video for you. More details later on in the show. Right now we've got my interview with Rachel Gilson. My name is Glenn Scrivener from Speak Life, and it is my great pleasure to have Rachel Gilson beaming in all the way from Massachusetts in the United States. Hello, Rachel. Hello, Glenn. Yeah, we were meant to be in Cambridge right now doing a little outreach for St. Andrews the Great Church. And uh you were going to be coming over to Cambridge. Would that have been your first time in the UK where you've been many times?
SPEAKER_03No, I actually took a trip in 2004 right after I became a Christian, like less than a month.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And what did you do in 2004?
SPEAKER_03Well, it was my spring break, and I had a friend who was an English citizen. He lived in London, and so he was like, come home with me. So I did a bunch of touristy stuff, hung out at pubs with him. It was really nice.
SPEAKER_00A very Christian spring break. You didn't go to Florida and kind of yeah. You came on a cultural visitation. I did, yeah. But it would have been your first time in Cambridge, is that right?
SPEAKER_03I didn't actually go to Cambridge, just London and Stonehenge kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00Okay. We we've got to make this work. We've got we've got to make this mission to Cambridge work. Uh but That's pretty heartbroken. I know. I know. And we we were you were gonna do the trip with Rebecca McLachlan.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. We were gonna be loopy and jet lagged together. It was gonna be great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for yeah, for you two, it'd be great. I I would then be tasked with the job of trying to, you know, make it a lot of it. Like sorting it out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, that's true. You probably dodged a bullet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but um, but I see that Rebecca even did uh an online thing with the Cambridge Intercollegiate Christian Union.
SPEAKER_03Did you help with that as well? No, no, I was just homeschooling.
SPEAKER_00Okay, very good. So tell tell us about life. Tell us about life right now. You are under a COVID-19 kind of lockdown. What does life look like for the Gilson family?
SPEAKER_03Well, I do a lot of homeschooling of my six-year-old daughter. So she's in kindergarten right now, so that's meant a lot of hooked-on phonics and kindergarten math, which I feel pretty proud of myself, but I still know kindergarten math. So that's been nice.
SPEAKER_00And then when she gets to seven, you might kind of top it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm I think I'll get left behind pretty quickly. Then in the margins, I'm reading and writing and actually just kind of enjoying the season a little bit. Easy for me to say because no one in my family is ill.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And um, I still have my job, but there's actually been a lot of sweetness to it.
SPEAKER_00Do you homeschool apart from the lockdown, or is this a new thing?
SPEAKER_03No, this has been a brand new thing. So normally she goes to the public school down the road.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And your work is what do you what do you do for a job?
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. So I work for Crew, which is formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ, which is actually called Agape in Europe. Uh and so I serve on the national leadership team for theological development and crew. I specifically give leadership to LGBT engagement. So I do a lot of research, writing, training, that kind of thing. So all of our all of Crew's summer trips got planned or got canceled this year, which is kind of crazy for us because we're a missions organization. But one of the silver linings is I'm actually going to get to run like an LGBT ministry equipping track for the staff who kind of have nothing else to do. So I'm hopeful that it'll be a place, you know, where we can learn together how to be compassionate towards people and faithful to scripture as we navigate these questions.
SPEAKER_00So you have this role because I I guess it's it's such a hot topic when it comes to engaging students these days. You could be talking about any subject in the world, but quite often the conversation gets turned around to matters of sexuality. Is that your experience?
SPEAKER_03Oh, absolutely. And I think just in general, uh, we're not a ministry about sexual wholeness, we're a ministry about the Great Commission. But, you know, whenever you're working with 18 to 22-year-olds, sexuality and romance and relationships, that kind of stuff is going to come up. And so it makes sense that also same-sex attraction is going to come up, especially as culture has become more free in discussing it. Well, now there's disciples who instead of feeling like, oh gosh, I have to hide this from everyone, we're actually creating opportunities where people are able to express what they need in terms of thriving in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00So why is this a a good role for you? Tell us something about your history and the way that kind of God has used you and fitted you for this particular role.
SPEAKER_03I have really liked the role. Whether I'm fitted for it, maybe someone else can judge. But yeah, I came to Christ during my freshman year at Yale from a background of atheism and same-sex relationships. So I would not have been able to predict at all that this would be my job someday. But I do think my background at Yale was really helpful because my very first exposure to Christianity was in a thinking realm. All of my first brothers and sisters in Christ on the ground were people who also really cared about big ideas. And so it helped me break the stereotype I'd had in my mind that Christians were people who didn't know how to think for themselves or didn't want to think for themselves. So I think that's been helpful in just shaping and framing my own theological instincts and mind. But then I also think having had the experience of really meaningful uh relation romantic relationships with other women gives me some important background into this conversation. The difficulty, of course, is that my story is just my story. You know, you can't laminate my experience onto any other disciple, which sometimes we want to do. Um so even though I have experience with same-sex relationships, I actually don't have a lot of experiences that several people who experience same-sex attraction who identify as LGBT do have. Like I never had to be closeted, for example. So that's something I've had to learn about from a distance as opposed to bringing from my own experience.
SPEAKER_00So was there a time when you came out as as gay, even to yourself or to family members?
SPEAKER_03I think that's a good question. I realized that I experienced same-sex attraction when I was about 15, really through this one girl. And then as I processed it, I remember there's like a about one week period where I thought, well, I think I like like her. And I thought, well, that can't be right. I've never felt this way before. Well, and am I am I allowed to feel that way? Like I don't know. I kind of get a sense that maybe it's wrong, but I can't actually find a logical reason that it's wrong. So at the end of the week, I thought, well, it's not wrong, I'll just pursue it. And there wasn't there was a little bit of time where I thought, why did I discover that so late, as it were? But there's actually been some really good research done. I was first exposed to this through Lisa Diamond, but um, that actually men who experience same-sex attraction tend to know that about themselves much earlier in life. Like they'll often know as early as like six or seven that something's a little bit different. Whereas women often don't discover until later about my age, or sometimes even a little bit later, sometimes not even until their 30s, do they kind of have this type of awakening? And so that helps me feel more normal.
SPEAKER_00What do you think about our modern taxonomies of sexuality, sort of divvying things up as regards, okay, men who like women and women who like women and men who like men? It it from from my from my reading of things, which I I'm sure is a lot more shallow than than yours, that seems to be a relatively novel way of dividing up humans and and their proclivities.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, we needed some language at first to talk about what was going on, you know, which is why we have the word homosexual start showing up in the 19th century. The Germans gave it to us, you know, as they give us so many good things. So homosexual and heterosexual, but it sounds kind of clinical, right? Like it sounds sort of like, you know, medical.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it and it still does often, yeah, reinforce it's like, well, the people who experience this uh only experience this. And, you know, there are plenty of people who experience same-sex attraction, you might even identify as homosexual, that's an older word at this point, identify as gay, who really only have those attractions. But actually, most people who experience some level of same-sex attraction don't experience it exclusively or to the point that they'd want to identify by it. And even as you look at the patterns of thought and language among Gen Z, at least here in America, I think they're kind of breaking away from just this dualism between gay and straight. So a little more, it's like another fruit of expressive individualism, right? It's like I just love who I love. And they might not be a gender at all. Like these sort of, which I actually think shows again the durability of the Bible, because the Bible holds forth, and God is very clever, right? His word says, hey, there are two equal ways to faithfully wear your sexuality in the world. You can be faithfully single or you can be faithfully married under my definition of marriage. And like to live in either of those, you could be attracted to men or women or both or neither, or potted plants. Like it doesn't, you know, your attractional patterns don't hold you back from having access to God's spirit in order to live faithfully. And I find that incredibly freeing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I mean, if if I'm asked on a form, what is your sexuality? Um, I I I honestly don't know how to answer that question. Because I mean, if I'm if I'm asked to name a top 10 of attractive Hollywood stars, then there might be five men in that list, right? You know, and and so when I'm asked, you know, what is your sexuality, I if the box is large enough, I I try to say, um happily married to a woman. Thanks for asking.
unknownYou know?
SPEAKER_03Well, that no, I've actually had a similar experience. It's um so before I became a Christian, I didn't like using the word lesbian because it kind of seemed to constrict me. I was like, well, I want to marry a woman, I'm attracted to women, but like I don't hate men, I don't feel political about my sexuality. I mean, I was a teenager, so I was thinking in shallow ways about this word, but I didn't like the word. Well, then I became a Christian and I noticed, well, I'm still attracted to women. And so, you know, my Christian friends would ask me, like, well, are you straight now? And I'm like, well, that no, certainly not. And they're like, Well, so are you gay? And I'm like, Why don't I feel strange to use that word now? I wasn't using when I was actually in relationships with other women. So I kind of felt unmoored for a bit. And then when I got when I got married to Andrew, there was a season where I was like, you know what? The best word for my sexuality for me right now is married.
SPEAKER_00Right. Right.
SPEAKER_03And if Andrew got hit by a bus and I became single, then the word might be single. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Right. I I I think that's very, very healthy. And I think the you know, I'm I'm often saying that, you know, J Jesus does not call the world to heterosexuality. If you can imagine Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount saying, let your sexual desire be unto the multitude of women and not unto the multitude of men.
SPEAKER_03We've noticed recently that straightness doesn't automatically produce holiness.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yes. There's been a study done. I think it's called me too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think it's called just pay attention.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, exactly. That is not the goal. And so in in Christ, I am beloved, in creation, I'm male, in covenant, I'm married. What what of my sexual desires, they they can fluctuate. And um to pin yourself down and and to pin that as the number one uh identifier of of a human person is so diminishing.
SPEAKER_03Well, especially when there's kind of a a groundswell saying the only way you can be your authentic self or the only way you can have real and vibrant life is you have to obey your desires. Like look deep within yourself, whatever you find there, that is your guiding light. And I you know, I think, oh my goodness, do I belong to my desires or do I belong to Jesus? Like my desires didn't die for me. My desires don't care to wipe away my tears. My desires don't care if I'm happy. Jesus is the one who gave his life for me, who came for me at all. He is much more trustworthy as a compass than my own heart. I mean, I've been lied to so many times by my desires. No, I don't think it's I mean, God himself is a desirer. I mean, the fact that we have desires is a reflection of that. I just was born into a fallen world. Like I need his help to retrain my desires to judge them, not to just accept them blindly.
SPEAKER_00Right. And it and it's far more constraining to put um sexual expression at the top of the list of identifiers for a human person, especially because um, depending on the survey, but but at least as many people would identify as asexual as homosexual or bisexual.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00And so it's very constraining to tell them, unless you're expressing your sexuality, you're a subhuman.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So as you come up to Yale, you you studied history, is that right? Yeah. Yeah. And you would identify as what, agnostic atheists?
SPEAKER_03Oh no, I was an atheist, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_03I was pretty squarely convinced that the only thing existed was the things that we could see.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Okay. And if you ever got into faith conversations, uh, did the issue of sexuality was that was that coloring your view of Christianity at that time, do you think?
SPEAKER_03Uh it'd be pretty generous to say I ever got into faith conversations. At the end of high school, I would sometimes openly mock Christians. I remember making one girl cry. Um, but I wasn't really running around having conversations about faith. That was a topic that I thought was for idiots.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So something changed. What what what is it that changed to make you the Christian you are today?
SPEAKER_03So when I when I went off to college, I really had built my identity on these two pillars. One was my perceived intellectual awesomeness. Uh, and the other pillar was this particular romantic relationship that I had with a girl at the time. And my freshman year, God just took both of those pillars and ripped them right out from underneath me. So I went to a pretty unimpressive uh public high school in California. I guess public's different in America than it is in Britain, right? It's just like your common like school, right? Yep. So I thought, oh, I'm so impressive, but then I went to Yale and I'm like, oh goodness, I am like distinctly not impressive. And then the very ocean.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And then the girl that I was dating at the time left me, you know, in this very dramatic fashion, and you're teenagers, so breakups are even more uh searing. And I was kind of just left in a rubble of identity questioning, like I didn't know who I was, and it wasn't like I was sitting in the bottom of this pile thinking, oh, I need to turn to Jesus because I didn't believe in Jesus, but I was certainly um hurting. So I happened to be in this uh course you go through like the Western canon. And so in my philosophy section, we had a lecture one day early in the spring semester. I mean, it's like winter the whole time, so I don't know what they call it that, but early in the spring semester, and we were talking about Rene Descartes, his whole I think, therefore I am, and how he builds a whole proof for the existence of the world and God and all these things. I remember sitting in the lecture thinking, that's a really stupid proof for the existence of God, which I still think.
SPEAKER_00Really? The on the ontological argument has not grown on you? No. No.
SPEAKER_03No, okay. So but I was sitting there thinking, but what if there's like a better proof for the existence of God? And kind of quickly I was like, well, that's not, you know, that's for stupid bigots, that's not what we think about. But I was like, well, I don't know, like I haven't thought about it in a while. So I'm a I'm a card-carrying millennial. I just decided to go back to my room and Google it, you know. So I would pop open my computer, fire religious search terms into the machine. And I remember being nervous about it too. Like if my roommates would come in, I would slam the computer shut, you know, like a kid caught looking at porn on the family computer or something, you know, just like, oh no, I was doing my French homework.
SPEAKER_00Delete the history. Delete the history.
SPEAKER_03If I like I knew how to do that, I definitely don't. To me, computers are all magic. Um somehow I kept reading about I I really wish I actually did have the history. I'm so curious about where I was going, but I kept reading about the person of Jesus, and this was 2004, and I kind of had a caricature in my mind of Jesus as like an ancient George W. Bush wrapped in a toga or something, you know, kind of dopey and whatever. But the Jesus I was reading about was actually incredibly intelligent and also very tender, and I was kind of drawn in, and I thought, no, I can't be like interested in the character of Jesus, like that doesn't fit at all. But I was getting more interested, and the only two Christians or people who identified as Christians I knew at Yale were these two girls who were dating each other, and one of them was training to be a Lutheran minister, so I thought, well, maybe they know something I don't, because I definitely had the perception that my sexuality was a barrier, even though I'd never been mistreated by a Christian or by the church for dating women. So I went to them and I was like, hey, how do y'all reconcile this? It doesn't even make much sense to me. And they were like, Yeah, it's all been a big misunderstanding that the Bible actually supports monogamous same-sex relationships. I remember thinking, well, that's kind of an interesting idea. So they gave me um a packet of information explaining how that was so, and I love packets. So I took it back to my room and you know, I was ripping through it, reading it, and it really did make a lot of logical sense to me. I remember it had a really nice internal harmony. I was like, oh, I could see how this really works. But I also thought, I'm not a Bible scholar, maybe I should like read some of the text that it's talking about. So I didn't have a Bible, so I pulled off my computer, kind of compare what I found to the packet. I was like, uh-oh. Suddenly these interpretations don't look so obvious anymore. Not like I'd had a ton of Bible exposure, but I'm just reading and writing is one of my things. And I was like, I don't think that that's what these things mean. I mean, these girls are sweet and lovable, but I just I don't think there's room here. So I remember kind of feeling like I was, you know, kind of stupid for having hoped in something. So sometime after that, I happened to be in the room of a friend of mine who was a non-practicing Catholic. She was getting something out of her room, like putting something in her bag or something. And I was standing in her doorway and she had a bookshelf next to her doorway. And one of my favorite hobbies is to look at people's bookshelves and judge them. I'm a little disappointed that your wall is so white.
SPEAKER_00I know Zoom's great for that now, though, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Yes, I know it's true. There's a whole New York Times article this morning like looking at celebrities' books. I was like, don't waste time on that. But so I was looking at her shelf, and Yaley's shelves are pretty good. And I noticed she had a volume called Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Now I hadn't been raised on Narnia, so I wasn't like fully aware of the significance of that book, but the title made me want to read it. But I was also too embarrassed to ask. I'm sure she would have lent it to me, but I was just too embarrassed by my interest. So I just stole the book from her.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_03It's like really not that big, you know, fits right into your guide. When you have no moral compass, things just go.
SPEAKER_00Isn't the Bible the most stolen book in the world? Isn't it?
SPEAKER_03Is it? I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I mean, people don't want to come out as you know, Christian.
SPEAKER_03That's probably what the whole like uh impetus behind the Gideon ministry, right? Like, don't steal it, just get it in your hotel room.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, totally, totally. There's shame. There's shame attached.
SPEAKER_03That's right. So I, you know, I was reading this book between classes one day because it was easier than my homework. And it wasn't like there was a particular sentence or paragraph or something, but while I was reading it that day, I was suddenly overwhelmed, like, oh my goodness, not only does a God exist, like some sort of store brand generic God, but the God exists. I could sense in a in a way, even though I didn't have the Vocabulary word holy, it was like I could feel holiness in the sense of perfection and transcendence that I was going to owe him an account, and I was deeply afraid. I was mean, I was arrogant, I was sexually immoral, I was a liar, I was a cheater, I was reading a stolen book. There's just not a lot left in the innocent category for me to cling to. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00What was communicating the holiness of God?
SPEAKER_03You know, honestly, I don't remember the specifics. I don't even remember what chapter I was in. So it'd be hard for me to pin down. I'm not a charismatic. I kind of wish I was. Sometimes it seems like they have a really fun expression of faith. I think it was just during that reading, the Holy Spirit just came in and revealed it to me. Because I don't, how could I have had all that understanding by myself? I don't, I think the spirit just moved through an old dead Englishman.
SPEAKER_00An old dead Englishman is showing you not just that a generic God exists, but the God. But the God exists. And that you do not measure up. Um how do you know what to do? By a lot. So how do you know what to do next?
SPEAKER_03Well, that that's just part of it. I think this is again why it must have been the Holy Spirit, because I suddenly understood that part of the reason Jesus had come was to place himself as a barrier between God's wrath and me. And that the only way to be safe was to run towards him, not away from him.
SPEAKER_00So I st I sat there and Christianity is is very light on the atonement. In fact, yeah, but somehow the the spirit This is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_03I think it's also probably why I don't remember where I was, because mere Christianity isn't actually the important part.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_03You know?
SPEAKER_00Ha. Very interesting. So you you yeah, you somehow knew through the spirit the the need for atonement, Christ has made it for you.
SPEAKER_03And so I remember sitting there thinking, well, I don't want to become a Christian. That sounds lame. Those people are lame. And I want to marry a woman someday, and there's kind of all these things, but I also thought, I can't pretend that this isn't true just because it's inconvenient for my life. Like, that's stupid. I was like, I gotta, I mean, I'm never gonna get a better deal than this, right? I've got to take this deal. So I didn't have a nice minister sitting with me or whatever, but I I knew I needed to pray, so I kind of closed my eyes and was like, fine. And then I went to class, you know, I didn't really know what to know what else to do with myself.
SPEAKER_00That's a very C. S. Lewis uh conversion.
SPEAKER_03I've heard sense, yeah. I didn't realize at the time.
SPEAKER_00I love that story of Rachel's conversion. Very C. S. Lewis-like. Remember how he said uh he was the most reluctant convert in Christendom? Well, having read C.S. Lewis, Rachel Wilson says, fine. Well, uh, return to that story in just a second, but I just wanted to get you excited about Christmas. I know you think it's too early, but it's not too early if you are planning a CGI 3D animation. Uh, we need to get cracking on this right now because we need to build this story frame by frame. We've got a Christmas video up our sleeves that is going to knock your socks off. Is that the phrase knock your socks, blow your socks off? Well, one of those things. It's going to absolutely wow you. Uh let me give you a little taster of the Christmas video. Imagine the scene a father and son walk through a Dickensian London and they go into a curiosity shop and there's all sorts of snow globes, but one in particular captures the imagination of the young boy. He looks closely at it and hang on, is that is that me in the snow globe? The boy himself seems to be in the snow globe, standing beside a bell null tree. What is that all about? His father does not seem to be surprised. His father bits look closer. And we do look closer. And we will tell a story that is uh very Christmassy, a very Eastery. Uh, a story that encompasses Christ and his mission to Earth. We think you're going to love it. And if you want to help us make this video, we'd love you to go to speaklife.org.uk slash Christmas. And you can chip in to help us make this video, which we pray will reach millions this Christmas. Is that something that you could do? Go to speaklife.org.uk slash Christmas and start getting excited. Well, we're halfway through Rachel's story and uh she's just told us about her conversion. There she is, saying fine to Jesus. What's the next step?
SPEAKER_03So it was like later that day I saw a little advertisement for Yale Students for Christ, which was Yale's crew group, uh was gonna have a Valentine's party in a couple days. And so I showed up at that part party pretending I was there by accident, and I just followed those kids around like a baby quail for the next several months. Like that's how I learned to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And instantly, I guess, I guess because uh you'd spoken to that couple who were uh affirming of homosexuality, you checked it with the Bible. I guess you knew at that stage, as you were coming to Christ, you were you were saying no to getting married to a woman.
SPEAKER_03Yes. I felt convinced at that point that the Bible said no to same-sex activity, lust, relationships. And I've since learned Greek and Hebrew, and it turns out still says no. So, you know, like the fact that it says no has never been uh troublesome for me. Or it's never been unclear. It's certainly at moments been troublesome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you saw the magnitude of Christ and you thought he's worth it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, and especially first, it was like, well, I I have to be safe, right? Visions of understanding of his love for me, uh, his trustworthiness, his own beauty, that those were things I came into during my Christian walk. They certainly weren't my reason to step through the doorway. But God's very creative. He gets He gets us through the doorway however however he can. And then we He grows us into the other things.
SPEAKER_00So what would you say to people who are investigating faith for themselves at the moment, and perhaps they're same-sex attracted, or they're not same-sex attracted, but it's a very um it's a very um dear subject to their hearts, and um gay rights is is you know important to them. Um how how would you have a conversation with them if if they're presenting that as a barrier to faith?
SPEAKER_03I know, and it's so I'm so context-specific that I want to ask immediately like, well, who is this person? Do they have a church background? What have they read? Who are their friends? Like, who, like, because we're also particular, so many of us have a deep concern about this topic, and rightly so. You know, there are gonna be some who have barriers because they were mistreated by the church, or because someone they love was mistreated by the church. In that case, I think it's really important to listen well to the story, to apologize where appropriate, and honestly, to only turn to the biblical arguments when that person is ready. And then we the character of Christ, he is so gentle and kind and patient. I hope that we as his body can be like that in the world. There is absolutely time for theology and for Bible, but for a lot of people in this conversation, we need to be able to demonstrate compassion first. I I think we we see that even when Jesus is with the woman at the well or he's with the woman caught in adultery. I mean, there's so often he's extremely approachable first. He doesn't hide the truth. You know, it's not like when he says to the woman at the well, and the man you're with now is not your husband. He's not like, Congratulations, you've broken out of the trap of uh marriage, you know, which is such an imprisonment for women. He's not congratulating her, right? Yeah, exactly. He's he is confronting her, but she still leaves deeply seen and encouraged.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And he leads with, here, have my living waters.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and he leads with the access to himself.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I want Christianity, it's not mainly a bunch of propositions that we sign on. It's not like Apple terms and services where you just scroll and click accept, right? Like it's about a person who loves us. And I think that's one of the most important aspects to get across when we're having any type of spiritual conversation. It's like there's there's someone who made you and knows you and loves you. Like his face towards you in Christ is deep affection. It's not disappointment, it's not eye rolling, it's uh it's not anger. Because of what Jesus did, yeah, his face is love.
SPEAKER_00So how do you how do you get that balance right? Because I'm totally with you that you know the the center of the Christian faith is not propositions, it's a person, it's Christ Himself, and you know, and ethics isn't even central to the gospel, let alone sexual ethics. So there's a massive part of me that just says, Oh, just talk about Jesus, just talk about Jesus. But then there's another part of me that says, Ah, yeah, but I'm talking about Jesus into a context where the issue of sex is just everywhere. Yeah. So how do you how do you keep Jesus front and center? And do you address this issue? Obviously, you do, you've written this book.
SPEAKER_03I I quite specifically address this issue all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, and I think that there are actually multiple valid ways to go about this. So I'll share my preference, but honestly, some people do it differently, and I think that that's good. When I'm talking to someone who does not have a relationship with Jesus, I prefer to just keep talking about the gospel and who he is until they bring up the sexuality conversation. Not because I don't think it's important, I actually think it's like extremely important, but I don't think we can well understand what he says about our bodies if we don't trust who he is. Now, I I know people actually take like a slightly different path, and I and I think that actually can work well, but for me, I I want to leave that ball in their court. Probably even especially because so much of my public ministry is around sexuality. I don't I don't want to be known for banging the drum of sexuality. I want to bang the drum of Jesus is worth it, Jesus is beautiful. Um and when and when they do bring up the talk topic of sexuality, you know, they're grown-ups. Well, I suppose I could be talking to children, but I'm trying to say, like, hey, I think your question is deeply important, and I think it flows best out of who Jesus is. Can I explain to you how it flows out of this character? Like, I want to keep it actually very connected to who he is as well, which is part of why I don't love focusing on the passages that say no, although they do say no and they're clear, and that's part of what I try to do in my book. I also try to frame it in in terms of, well, God has actually said yes to a lot. Because sometimes what God has said no to in sexuality can feel really arbitrary or even cruel, but God's character isn't arbitrary or cruel. So some things, the words that flow out of him aren't gonna not represent who he is. He's perfectly consistent. So part of my own journey was trying to figure out what the gap was there. And I've I've realized, well, design, right? Like it's not arbitrary or cruel that my Honda Odyssey can't run on orange juice or maple syrup. It's designed to run on gasoline. Now, someday I might have a car that's designed to run on the sun, I don't know. But right now, I have to put gas in the tank. That's how it works. The yes constrains the no's. Like it. And so it turns out God has said yes to a lot of things that I do think help us understand why he says no to others.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I often give the analogy of Buddhism. I mean, 80% of Buddhist schools are vegetarian. Um, but to imagine that you're anywhere near the center of Buddhist philosophy um by saying, Oh gosh, I have to give up beef then.
SPEAKER_01Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, there's a there's a grand scheme about life, and there's another there's a there's a grander understanding about the the meaning of life that has certain entitlements, and there's a there's a no down the track. But there's a and you would understand that when it comes to Buddhism. Can we say the the same thing about Christianity? Um and you do a great job of that in your book. What is the great yes that Jesus is pronouncing? Can you can you just give us a summary of you know what is what is the yes? What is Jesus saying yes to in creation?
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna give a smaller answer than that because he says yes to so much in creation, but I think what we're trying to answer with sexuality in the scripture, wherever we see sexuality happening in a way that's positive or good, it's it's tied exactly tight with marriage. So we can't understand sexuality if we don't understand marriages.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. That's a phrase that refers to both. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And so I I think it's pretty clear Genesis to Revelation, God designed marriage to do one job. Marriage is to be a picture of the gospel in the world. It's one of his favorite metaphors for his relationship with his people. He he goes to it again and again and again. So everything that he says should be true about marriage all serves that one purpose of displaying his relationship with his people. And think about how beautiful that is. I mean, most people in the history of the world have not been literate, haven't even had access to the scriptures, and yet every culture has had marriages, right? These little living, breathing pictures broken, but echoing what it what it should be. And so marriage is supposed to be faithful forever because God's relationship with his people is faithful forever. Marriage is supposed to be the beginning of a new household through both procreation and adoption because God's relationship with his people builds a new household. It's fruitful. Marriage is supposed to be the place of sexual pleasure because God's relationship with his people is deeply pleasurable and intimate. It's not like he looked down and said, Oh no, what are they doing with their bodies? I need to legislate that. Like he invented our bodies. The reason that sexual expression can feel so good is because our relationship with God, the experience of it, actually should be so good. And I think this is even where there can be hope to understand our sexuality even if we're unmarried. Whether we were married and then become widowed or, you know, I mean, like when we feel sexual desire, it doesn't have to be this thing we're ashamed of. It it actually can be a type of homing beacon that reminds us of how much God loves us and longs to be united with us, and how much we should long for Him. So it's it's not actually a broken thing, it's just not a thing that's going to be fully consummated until the new heavens and the new earth. Even for the married couple, what they get to participate in is beautiful and good, but it's just a little sign to the very big thing, which I think is why singleness can be so glorious in a culture that worships sex and romance, right? Um salvation by romance is what we're sold. And so for the single person, no matter their attractional patterns, to say, um, I believe actually I will participate in the big wedding. So I am able to beat my body and make it my own. I'm able to submit to the hard discipline here of saying yes to Jesus and no to my sexual desires because I believe in the resurrection. Like I'm staking my whole life on it. But some of the difficulty, of course, is that we've only defined marriage as like faithfulness, procreation, sexual pleasure, and maybe sometimes not even procreation. People just get dogs and dress them in sweaters or whatever.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_03But the reality is in the Bible, sex difference is also fundamental to marriage. You can't avoid it. Um the husband represents God, the wife represents the church. People take that to mean different things, but in the metaphor over and over, and that's what we get. Two actors non-interchangeable who are united across difference.
SPEAKER_00And so that that's why a redefinition of marriage is not an expansion of marriage.
SPEAKER_03No, it's a it just like so we all know marriages that check off the box of male and female, but are disastrous when it comes to the other goods.
SPEAKER_01Right.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_03That doesn't make that a biblical marriage either. In fact, we need to check all of the boxes in order for us to be living into marriage the way God designed it. And all of us need the grace and forgiveness of Jesus in that. We all fall short.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I mean you you point to something very important about the sexuality that we all have. We're all sexual beings, whether married or single.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00What does that look like for the single woman in my church?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, and I and I think we should also caveat, too, there are a lot of people who are now describing their experience as asexual. So, like, I'm not actually running around with all these sexual feelings, and sometimes they can feel less than. So we're all sexual in the sense that um, you know, we we have the capacity for sexual expression, though some of us actually don't desire it. But sorry, what was your actual question?
SPEAKER_00And so that therefore, is is there a way for singles um to in in some way be in touch with and redirect and bring into um their relationship with Christ their sexuality? Yeah, even though it's not something that they will act on in the flesh because they're single.
SPEAKER_03Right. And I know, and and I have a chapter on singleness in my book where I actually um had a great interview with Ed Shaw. And it was the chapter I was most nervous to write because I got married when I was 22. So functionally, what do I know about the lived experience of singleness? Right. So I I always go into this part of the conversation with some trepidation and really wanting to hear from my brothers and sisters who are single and have and have lived into it. But I've heard from them and I see in scripture, I mean, Jesus was the most fulfilled person who ever lived, and he was unmarried. And so I do think there are some there are some things we can understand if we're in a place where we can't fulfill our sexual expression, whether we're single because we've never married or because we're no longer married or whatever. Part of that is we shouldn't repress sexual desire in the sense that like just pretend it's not there or try to white knuckle it away. I don't think we gain anything by that. I do think we need healthy places, safe places to use an overused phrase, of brothers and sisters who really know us, where we can talk honestly about the different ways we're tempted or the different patterns we notice in our desires, so that we can get help in both thanking God that those desires are a picture of something beautiful, and also seeking the strength of the spirit to say um to say yes to him and no to temptation, right? So sometimes this looks like very practical, nitty-gritty stuff, like I need help when I'm in a pandemic and I'm isolated all the time and I have full access to the internet. Maybe some of the distractions I previously had aren't helping me avoid the temptation of internet pornography, right? So I need to have a space where I'm able to be open and honest and get some accountability. Like theology is not very useful if you can't bring it right down to the ground and talk strategy for faithfulness with brothers and sisters in a place where you're gonna get both the grace and truth of Jesus. Like honestly, my first couple years of following Christ were like an open dumpster fire in terms of obedience. Like, I just there was a time where I was playing on my evening service worship band and also had a sexual relationship with this senior girl, like stuff that was just not healthy or good. And my brothers and sisters were so helpful for me because they extended me forgiveness, but they also agreed with God. You know, if they hadn't extended me forgiveness, if they just shamed me, I probably would have left. But if also right at the moment where I needed to be sure what God was saying, if they'd introduced, well, did God really say, I think it would have kicked my knees out from underneath me. So when we're when we're fighting for sexual purity, it's a group activity. It's never just alone. Like we need, um, we need each other. Like I I think all of us need God's spirit and God's word and God's people. And if we lose any of the three, we get off track pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So catch us up with the story because okay, you had identified as atheist and now you're identifying as Christian. Um Evangelical, no less. Evangelical. What's what's harder to come out as? Gay or evangelical?
SPEAKER_03Like I'm never quite. I mean, I'm a Southern Baptist in New England, right? I mean, that's not Wow, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's what can be done. You're just contrarian, that's all you are. That's right. So there you are. And you had identified as gay or same sex attracted, and now there's there's a guy called Andrew, and he is a good friend, and he's quite persistent. Um how d how on earth does a girl like yourself end up getting married to a guy like that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, he is a great guy. He's like the platonic ideal of a husband. So I I think I did really well.
SPEAKER_00I thought that was Jesus, but never mind.
SPEAKER_03Andrew just really reflects Jesus well in this case. I mean, I even joked with him when I met him as a 19-year-old. You could tell he like wasn't quite ripe. I'm like, you're gonna be a perfect middle-aged man. You make a terrible teenager, but like this.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03Some some people are like that. He's yeah the opposite of the people who picked up.
SPEAKER_00Whereas I'm just an old saggy teenager.
SPEAKER_03That's just you put that in your Twitter box.
SPEAKER_00Tired, saggy teenager, that's me.
SPEAKER_03So I um, yeah, when Andrew started pursuing me, we knew each other. He knew my whole history, so it's not like he was walking into anything blind. And and I really did like him. I had affection for him, but you know, there was this period, and I and I said yes, I started dating him. That's a different long story I won't go into now. But it had, you know, a couple significant relationships with women that uh kind of carried all the homlocks we've been taught to look for from songs and movies, right? Like romantic, butterflies, fireworks, like all this stuff. And what was growing with Andrew, it did feel real. Like I could tell there was some, there was some sexual attraction. I don't think we should enter into marriage if there's none. But it also felt like a tiny little frame, you know, that you had to kind of cup with your hand so the wind wouldn't blow it out. I'm like, can you build a marriage on that and not, isn't this what you need, this other thing? And so I think what was really good with my friends, it forced me back to the scriptures to kind of feel like, what is marriage for? Is romance the only like acceptable engine? And I actually think when we look at marriage, like the the job that it does, the kind of covenant that it is, it actually does pretty well when it's not only fueled by infatuation. There's a way of clarity of saying, okay, do I do I think I have between between the two of us, do we love Christ the same? We're moving in the same direction, do are we compatible, these types of things? Um one of my friends jokingly, she was like, it's almost like God put you in an arranged marriage, because I really felt like the Lord was leading me to marriage. And it's it's just been a continual blessing for me. So I do think romance can be a part of marriage, certainly. Like it can be, but I don't actually think it has to be. And I think being able to, with a sober-mindedly, to be able to enter into marriage with the love and affection level that I had, and I've only seen the Lord grow it.
SPEAKER_00Now, what you're so what you're not saying is um come to Christ and have your sexual orientation changed to the pure and righteous one uh with the stamp of approval called heterosexuality. Right.
SPEAKER_03And don't uh enter into a marriage with an opposite sex person and hope that that will change your sexuality. Right. Because that has been promised to people in the past and it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. Okay. Okay. And that has done damage to people.
SPEAKER_03That has done major damage to both spouses and marriages in that situation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Although I should be very clear, God does sometimes change people's attractional patterns.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_03I have a story of someone like this in the last chapter of my book. What's really interesting, of course, is her experience was that um she's only attracted to women. A few years into discipleship, God changed her pattern so that she's almost entirely attracted to men. She's in she's in her 30s and she's still single, so she's sort of like, what was the point of changing my attractions if I'm still single? Like, you know, very interesting. So we don't um we can't put God in the box. He does, he does what he does, and it's like sometimes he heals people from cancer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But not always.
SPEAKER_00But it shows how we can fetishize that romantic side of things, and we can fetishize sexuality, both outside the church and inside the church. Obviously, outside the church we've spoken about, but inside the church, again, we can speak as though the point is to change someone's orientation.
SPEAKER_03And there's a you know, I've talked to a lot of my friends who grew up in the church, who grew up in the throes of purity culture. I'm really glad I missed that in the States. But there really was this kind of sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit thing going on in youth groups where you were told, hey, if you're a good little boy or girl, God will reward you with a spouse who you will have great sex with forever. It's like you're making some other miserable sinner the reward. Well, and then and then if you're completely faithful and you end up single, well, is God a liar? Or does he not care about you or something wrong with you? We get into big trouble when we make promises that God doesn't make.
SPEAKER_02Right, right.
SPEAKER_03There is absolutely blessedness that's tied to obedience. But we need to be careful that the blessedness we speak of um doesn't add to what God has talked about or change. I'm not sure that it adds to say, here's your reward, a husband.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Even though a husband can be a great thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. We've had um a couple of great questions on Twitter when I put out that I'm gonna be interviewing Rachel Gilson Twitter questions. Uh Grant Hartley has asked. Oh yeah! Oh He's my buddy. Hello, Grant. Hello, Grant. Um He asks, Do you find that there are aspects of your relationality oriented towards women that are gifts, not burdens? And he follows up by saying, Are there ways that sexual minorities might be especially gifted in ways their sexual majority brothers and sisters may not be?
SPEAKER_03Oh, interesting. I think those are two separate questions, really. So I have heard some of my friends who are following Jesus and experience same-sex attraction talk about how they feel like um because obviously sexuality isn't just a desire for sex. It has, you know, when we think about romantic relationships, there's lots more to it than just sex. And so I've heard, especially some of my brothers, like um, I think Wes Hill talks about this, right? He feels like there's a part of him that because he's same-sex attracted, is sort of drawn relationally to men in ways that I don't want to put words in his mouth, but in ways that him to him that seem significant to his sexuality and certainly don't seem to be disobedient to Christ. I've read about those different experiences and I've thought about myself. I actually don't know that my experience is such that like I am differently relationally drawn to women than I seem to experience from other women who are sexually attracted to men. I think I do, I do, I'm an introvert. So that means and I have lower capacity than some other people. But I love the company of women, and it seems to me in similar ways that other women love the company of women, I just also have the capacity in certain female relationships to move into a place of romantic and sexual attraction that goes beyond friendship. Sort of a long convoluted answer. I'm not sure it adds much to my female, like there's much of a gift there, but I have sometimes wondered, it's just a wonder, I've also always loved the company of men and really enjoyed friendships with males. And sometimes in ways that I've wondered, I don't know if that's related to my sexuality at all. Like there's there's sometimes like very male spaces where I just feel it comfortable. I don't even notice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Almost that I'm not like one of the guys. So maybe that's a game. But I just could be supposing, like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00It might be, yeah. It might it might feel less pressured in that environment that you're not on the market in that sense and can't.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, or like that I'm just not interested in them that way, I think allows me to be interested in them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Very liberating.
SPEAKER_03The other way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Unless, of course, it's a bunch of men who aren't very interesting, in which case, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, we've got um I've got a question from Esther Simpson. We'll we'll um draw draw stumps after this. That's a cricket analogy, and when you come to the UK, I'll teach you all about that beautiful game. But perfect. Um, Esther Simpson says, as a straight widowed woman, I'd love to know how best to talk about those things that we may wish were otherwise. Um you can categorize them as thorns or burdens, but that uh already labels them negatively. Um, how do we talk about this truthfully and in love and do that in ways which bring community, understanding, and wholeness?
SPEAKER_03That's a really great question. And I do think there's sort of a funny monolithic way that singleness can be thought of. Like singleness is just this time before you're married. Like widows is a whole really important biblical category, and let's be honest, most husbands die before most wives. It's not it's not like most people are experiencing dying at the same time holding hands in bed.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Right. So actually, there's most of us will enter into singleness again. And I I don't think we've taken this question seriously enough. I've heard stories about widowers and widows who suddenly feel entirely cut off from the social life of the church because their spouse isn't there anymore. Like, how devastating is that. I would actually love to see more literature by people who are walking faithfully in Christ and have had that experience of being widowed, um widowered. Is that the verb for that? So I do think we need to uh be able to talk frankly about what we miss, right? Because to go from having a companion sexual expression, yes, but even just a life companion to be able to have a body of brothers and sisters who can walk in that pain and loss. Sometimes we're not very good at grief, right? We want to we're gonna pat you on the back and have it be over, but it really takes a lot of time to process that kind of loss. I've watched my my grandfather died in 2017. I watched my grandma, they had such a good marriage, sort of watch her try to figure out what does it mean to honor his memory, but to learn how to live without him when they were together for so long. Uh as a 34-year-old, I'm not there are aspects of this question that I feel timid answering, other than I think we need to be able to invite people to share, not just wait for them to speak up, like create places where we can talk about what we're grieving, uh, talk honestly about what does it mean for single people and married people to be family to each other in the church. Awkward right now because of pandemic, right? So we're not relating in all the same ways, but singles should be initiating with married, married should be initiating with singles and not just young singles, but like we should be thinking oh, this is a family, not just a friend unit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03So if the people I'm close to only look like me, probably something's amiss. We need to be able to be family to each other. But I think it's a good call for the church to actually ask widows and widowers, can you share with us what you would need? What would be helpful to you? Not for not us to not just assume that. I think we're gonna miss things, or do that awkward thing where we assume we know what they want, and they're like, that's not it at all, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and part of your answer is is getting back to this decentralizing the romantic bond, which out in the world leads to um various you know movements in the sexual revolution, but also within the church it leads to the nuclear family being the family, whereas what you're saying is the church is the family in in which husbands and wives kind of figure it out and singles trying to figure it out, and widows and widowers try to figure it out. Um, but Jesus is central, but uh not our romantic relationships. Um Rachel, thank you so much um for your time with us. Um if you had if you had one hope for uh your book, Born Again This Way, what would it be?
SPEAKER_03My hope is that my book would help uh everyone who reads it. I I would hope that they would walk away more deeply rooted in the fact that Jesus is for them and worthy of anything that they could offer to him.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful, wonderful. Well, your conversation with me has really blessed me, and I'm sure it'll bless uh many other people. People can pick up uh Rachel's book uh if you go to thegoodbook.com in the States or thegoodbook.co.uk uh here in the UK. But Rachel Gilson, thank you so much for joining us.
SPEAKER_03Thanks for having me, Glenn.
SPEAKER_00What a story from Rachel. You're gonna want to get her book Born Again This Way. Go to thegoodbook.co.uk or thegoodbook.com and find out details of how you can get that book. Uh please do like, share, and subscribe to our podcasts, to our YouTube channel, to Facebook, to Twitter. Uh, we are Speak Life UK. Almost everywhere on uh YouTube, we are Speak Life Media. If you find us, uh, do give us a share around the place. This is how we get seen by more and more people. And if you want to chip into that Christmas crowdfunder, go to speaklife.org.uk slash Christmas. Thanks so much for joining us, and we'll see you again next time. God bless