From Coffee to the Church (Date #2)

On Sunday we had our second “get to know each other” date.

We met at her church and the second we saw each other I heard a joyful, “HI ERIK!”

She wore a beautiful dress and the colors just so happen to match my pants and tie.

As I approached her my heart was pounding and in the back of my mind I said, “Wow….!”

I was excited to be there and to see her.

The primary purpose for this second date was for me to see what her church was like, meet her pastor and spend time doing what matters most together – worshipping God.

Although the church was very different than my usual more liturgical setting, I was not uncomfortable with it as I had spent 6 years in Calvary Chapel which was also very informal.

The people were all very nice and welcoming but I was the only guy wearing a suit and tie so I really stood out. Not even their pastors wear a tie.

Unfortunately her pastor was very busy and so we didn’t get much of a chance to talk but I had sent him an e-mail detailing my Christian background, theological education and current status in my church and pending ordination.

I also met two of her best friends who are like family to her who were visiting from out of town and are like grandparents to her children. After church we went to her house for lunch and I was getting the feeling that they were sort of checking me out, in a nice way.

After lunch we to my buddy Dave's house where we spent the late afternoon, had dinner and sang psalms and prayed just before I had to head back to the bay area.

It was a glorious day!

On my way back home I called my buddy Phil on the phone to give him an update as to how things went. He’s really happy for me and he and his new bride have been praying for me and they offered to “double date” if we wanted to.

I have to admit, I am really falling in love with her and I really want to get to know her two children better.

But I know my heart wants to move too fast, too soon and my mind wants to jump to the future and think about all the possibilities.

Valentine’s Day is this Sunday and I have a 3-day weekend.

I’ve got a lot of ideas of what I want to do, but I don’t want to be overly romantic at this point as we’re still in the “get to know each other” phase.

I also know I need to communicate more often during the week via phone and improve in my listening to her. It is easier for me to be a talker than a listener.

To be honest, I have felt very awkward so far not knowing exactly what to do or say. I’m trying to be manly, respectful, honoring, thoughtful but I am also very aware that men and women think very differently and respond differently.

I am more comfortable with and familiar with men (I had no sisters when I was growing up) which is undoubtedly part of my attractions towards men – they’re not alien.

While some guys with SSA are intimidated by other men (or boys) and consequently tend towards hanging out with women and thus tend to be attracted towards men as “other” I have been just the opposite. My attractions towards men have been to what is familiar and comfortable and yet also desiring to be affirmed by other men so that I am more “one of the guys.”

So, now that I am attracted and am falling in live with A woman (not all women in general) have my same sex attractions changed?

Hmmmm…. maybe, somewhat…. a little… they’re not as intense but my radar still notices guys quite frequently.

Did I think 2-3 years ago that I could genuinely fall in love with and be sexually attracted to a woman?

Nope, I didn’t have the faintest hope.

In fact, only a week ago I was on the phone voicing concerns (actually, to be honest I had FEARS and I was probably crying) that I would not be able to “perform” on my wedding night should the night ever come.

Do I think my SSA will ever go away entirely?

While it is possible I am being realistic about this. I suspect that it will always be there and I will always have an emotional need to have close bonds with other men.

Personal Update

Any Progress on My Book? - In my first year of beginning to deal with my SSA issues (about 3 years ago) I read about 70 books (pro and con, theological and "self help") in about 12 weeks. I read so much so fast that they now are just one big blur in my mind so I am now in the process of re-reading them and taking notes along the way in order to write my book. I did a lot of underlining and highlighting when I read them and I scribbled notes in the margins so now I am in the process of documenting all the arguments, collecting citations etc. There is a lot of overlap and repeat in the Gay Theology books so it can get boring to hear the same arguments over and over and over again but here and there I'll find a new twist that needs to be addressed.

I subscribe to the GCN podcast (Gay Christian Network) in order to keep my thumb on the pulse of what is going on out there and it is sad that these well meaning but misinformed people are having such an impact on the church and that there is no alternative on the same level. I hate to say this but the Exodus International stuff is such light weight. There really needs to be a more Biblical alternative that is both scholarly and pastoral both in book form as well as audio and video that is FREE to the listener. I only wish I had the freedom to spend more time on this. Right now my book is on hold because I am preparing for ordination exams in May as I am writing a (so far) 254 page paper answering my denomination's list of theological, church polity, church history and Biblical questions. But even once I am ordained I'll still have to work my secular job and on top of that handle a host of church duties. I don't anticipate getting back to writing until this summer.

On The Personal Side - I am really going through a tough time thinking about pursuing a relationship with a woman. I spend a lot of time sorting through my emotions, weighing all the pros and cons, fighting fears and wondering if I may be setting myself up for a fall and that I may be putting a woman into a relationship in which she will be burdened by my struggles and that she may be better off without me. I really don't want to hurt her for she has already been through so much with her previous husband who had abused her children.

But I am also tired of being alone and there is nothing that I want on earth more than having a family; a wife I can serve and children that I can disciple in the Lord. But in wanting a family so much I also wonder if I am being selfish by potentially putting a family into a situation in which they have to deal with someone like me. My mind has been going back and forth like this for two weeks on a gazillion issues and questions and needless to say I have had a tough time sleeping. I've talked to two of my elders about this and my buddy Dave and they have been a great help and source of encouragement. But they don't know what it is like to be me and the truth is I know more about all this sort of stuff than they do. But they pray with me, tell me that they love me and encourage me to be patient and just take this one step at a time.

I keep reminding myself, "Erik, this is a walk of faith. Just keep going, focus on what is immediately at hand, don't be anxious about tomorrow...."

God’s Game Plan?

I think what probably drives me nutz the most is when I am trying to figure our God’s game plan.

He’s in control, I’m not.

I’d really like to know how all this going to turn out, what steps I should take, which direction I should go NOW.

But when am I going to learn to just obey what He has told me to do in the Bible and trust Him with the outcome?

He didn’t give Israel a detailed step by step plan as to how He was going to get them from Egypt to the Promised Land. They just needed to see that He had already delivered them from bondage and His purpose wasn’t to lead them out to the desert to die.

I have been a single guy all my life and have lived alone and been independent for the past 20 years. So as much as I want a family I also don’t want to give up the familiar that for the most part what I have been comfortable with. It is like, I want more but I don’t want to give this up either. Sara Groves expresses it well in her song “Painting Pictures of Egypt” when she states:

“I don’t want to leave here
I don’t want to stay
It feels like pinching to me
Either way
And the places I long for the most
Are the places where I’ve been
They are calling out to me
Like a long lost friend.

It’s not about losing faith
It’s not about trust
Its’ all about comfortable
When you move so much
And the place I was wasn’t perfect
But I had found a place to live
And it wasn’t milk or honey
But then neither is this

I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
Leaving out what it lacks
And the future feels so hard
And I want to go back
But the places they used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I’ve learned
Those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned

The past is so tangible
I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy
To discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
I am caught between the Promise
And the things I know

If it comes to quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
And if it comes to quick
I may not recognize it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?”

So, for now my next step in this relationship is to have a “church date” this coming Sunday, have lunch with her pastor and then have dinner with her and the kids at my buddy Dave’s house.

I’m a little nervous about all this but excited too.

If it goes well then I’ll ask her to visit my church and if things are still going well and I’ll ask her to make the next stage in our relationship which will be to begin a courtship. At that time I’ll tell her about my SSA issues and that I’m writing a book etc.

Right now we are just “getting to know each other” and taking things slowly step by step. I’m getting a lot of wise counsel from my buddy Dave and from a couple of my elders as well.

Ted Slater also sent me two insightful pamphlets “My Fiance is Ex-Gay and We Are Ready for Marriage” by Anita Worthen & Bon Davies and “Successful Dating and Romance” by Bon Davies & Lori Rentzel. Most of their insights and advice I had already thought of but it was good to get some confirmation, it let me know that I’m going in the right direction.

Courting will mean that the direction of this relationship is towards marriage. If we were younger and she lived with her parents her father would have oversight to see that her best interests are kept in mind. Since we’re older the oversight will come from her pastor in place of a father. Normally courtships last no more than a year or so, depending on the circumstances. By then a couple should know one way or another if the relationship has a future.

Questions I Am Asking Myself

Why am I pursuing a relationship with this woman?

Is it to have a wife, kids and a family in order to “fit in” better in the church?

Is it so that I (as well as my closest friends who are all married now) will see me as more “normal” rather than as the odd ball 40+ guy?

Am I trying to prove something to myself and everyone around me?

Is it so that I won’t fear being alone in my old age?

Are you getting desperate because you think your chances of finding someone else are slim to none?

What about the responsibility of being a husband to provide and guide his family?

How are you going to do that given the fact that your current job is 2.5 hours away from where she hand her kids own a home?

You don’t think you’d make that sort of commute do you?

Do you expect her to sell her home (which she loves) in a down economy in order for her and her kids to move into your 2 bedroom condo?

How could you expect find a job and then to move in with her and her kids in her home given the fact that for a couple years you have been trying to find a job in that area in order to be closer to the church and that the area has a 12%+ unemployment rate?

And what about the ecclesiastical differences? You’re a staunch seminary-trained Presbyterian who is soon to be ordained whereas she is a vanilla baptistic American evangelical who also has a ministry in her church?

Of course we haven’t even mentioned your SSA issues!

How do you really expect to love your wife romantically?

Sure, you think she is objective attractive but are you REALLY drawn to her?

Then there is the whole wine thing. While it is a minor issue (one you say you are willing to give up), you’ve been a wine country traveler and writer-photographer who has had a passion for fine wine and food for over a decade and she is teetotaler with 15 years of total abstinence. How is THAT going to work out?

And what about your studies, writing and so forth? Do you think you’ll have time for work, family and theological pursuits?

And what about finding time to go to the gym?

Do you think you’re really compatible?

She is a country girl with horses; you’re a suburbanite who hates yard work.

Why am I asking myself all these questions?

Is it to come up with a justification for calling it off, to NOT to pursue a relationship with her?

Or is all this normal “cold feet” that many guys go through?

It’s Just a Cup of Coffee… for 2 HOURS!

Okay, just a quick follow up on the last post.

The coffee date went great. We chatted for two hours and could have gone on all night long but I was getting hungry and my buddy Dave was expecting me at his house.

We definitely “click” and get a long great, see a lot of things “eye to eye” and yes, I am attracted to her.

At the end of the date we both agreed that we would like to see each other again and get to know each other better and I said I want to get to know her kids. I am currently in the middle of a short teaching series at my church but afterwards I plan to visit her church and meet her pastor.

There are some challenges to overcome. I am very connected to and involved in my church and she is very connected to her church which is very different theologically.

In fact, she runs a ministry for women in her church and I am a candidate for ordination in my denomination. I’m currently in the process of answering (in writing) a zillion theological, Biblical and historical questions. Thankfully I have already studied all of the subjects addressed and I have already covered them at length either in a paper I have written over the years or in the 1000 page Systematic Theology I wrote last year. So to some extent it is just a matter of “cut and paste” from my previous works.

I’m not sure how far this will go. If nothing else I’m getting to know a sister in the Lord better and perhaps I can aid her efforts in the ministry.

Just pray for us.

It’s Just A Cup of Coffee

A while back at my buddy Dave’s house I met one of his neighbors, a single Christian woman and her two children. I have to admit when we met the thought went through my head, “Hmmm… she’s a possibility….” But I didn’t think anything more of it or seek to pursue a relationship with her.

Well, recently she asked Dave to talk to me to see if I would be interested in getting together for a cup of coffee to get to know one another.

So, not only was there some “spark” of interest on my part she has shown interest in me as well.

When Dave passed on the word from her I have to admit that a thousand fears and questions “what about….” began racing through my mind.

But Dave kept telling me, “Erik, you are thinking too far ahead, it’s just a cup of coffee… if it works out, it works out, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t… it is just a cup of coffee.”

There are peripheral theological differences (which for the average Christian might not be a big deal but for a Christian minister these things matter), geographical differences, there is a slight age difference in that she is now just beyond child-bearing years (and I would REALLY like to have children of my own) and so on and so forth.

But as I think about marriage Biblically I tell myself:

“Christian marriage is about mirroring the relationship between Christ and the church. So getting married is not about getting my needs and wants met but laying down my life for a woman the way that Christ did for the church. It is about sacrifice and seeking to meet her needs, to take the responsibility of being her covenantal head as husband and being a godly father to her children.”

If this is God’s will for my life then the “what about this, that and the other thing” will be worked out by the sovereign providential hand of God.

For now, I just have to not try to solve all the “what if’s” or “what about’s” and keep telling myself this first “date” is just a cup of coffee. I need to take each step in the relationship by faith and if it works out, it works out in God’s plan.

If it doesn’t then the Lord has other good plans in store for me and her.

But there are risks involved - of being disappointed, emotionally hurt and so forth but these come with the territory.

This is why faith is needed.

So, now I focus my attention on her as I pray for this Christian lady and her children, “Lord’s if not me, meet her needs and desire for a husband in another godly man.”

Taking the Gloves Off

One of the difficulties I have been having in writing my book is trying to be thorough and yet readable by the layperson. Most of the books that address Gay Theology arguments barely skim the surface of the issues at hand and yet a more technical book may be too cumbersome to the average Christian who is not disciplined to think deeply. But trying to be “all things to all men” has left me feeling like I am trying to enter a street fight while wearing boxing gloves. Consequently the “punch” of my arguments has been softened and my target audience seems to be constantly getting lost resulting in arguments that lack focus.

Sadly, the most “scholarly” book that is frequently touted as the champion of the Biblical view of the Bible’s teaching on the issue is Robert Gagnon’s The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. The truth is this book does as much damage to the Christian faith as it does defend the Scripture’s teaching on same sex acts. As much as I have appreciated and benefited from some of the historical and exegetical insights of Gagnon, he is far from being a conservative orthodox bible-believing scholar.

The reason why he can teach at a liberal institution such as Pittsburg Theological Seminary is that while he upholds and defends a Biblical view of human sexuality, he denies the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as he repeatedly asserts the documentary hypothesis for its authorship, also known as the JEPD theory (pg. 43), he denies the Pauline authorship of some of the New Testament epistles (pg. 303), and questions the reliability of some of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ teaching leaving them up to be merely “scribal insertions” or reflections of what He taught (pg. 214).

Lastly, Gagnon repeatedly cites extra-biblical sources for not merely supporting his thesis but he actually depends on them for interpreting the Word of God. Sadly this is a growing practice by many other otherwise conservative theologians and it is being taught is so-called “conservative” seminaries and publications such as the Westminster Theological Journal. Yet, this hermeneutical methodology essentially denies the sufficiency of Scripture and what is taught in the Westminster Confession when it states:

“The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture” (WCF chapter 1:9-10)

Lord willing I hope to provide a much more Biblical response to Gay Theology as a worldview, which Gagnon’s view of Scripture supports rather than refutes. But I have recently concluded that in order to do so I will need to “take the gloves off” and write an exhaustive work. Then after it has been published I can write a Reader’s Digest version. I have also decided to focus this first book on just the theological and exegetical issues and write a pastoral/counseling work later. Trying to cover both in one book tends to create a lack of focus.

So, now I feel a little freer to write in my usual style and not have to be concerned with trying to “dumb it down” for the average reader. Yet, I still hope the books’ impact will go beyond the ivory towers of theologians.