“The great trouble in human life is that looking and eating are two different operations. Only beyond the sky in the country inhabited by God, are they one and the same operation. Children feel this trouble already when they look at a cake for a long time almost regretting that it should have to be eaten and yet are unable to help eating it. It may be that vice, depravity, and crime are nearly always, or perhaps always, in their essence, attempts to eat beauty, to eat what we should only look at. Eve began it. If she caused humanity to be lost by eating the fruit, the opposite attitude, looking at the fruit without eating it, should be what is required to save it.”
- Simone Weil, Waiting for God
Late last week, I returned to a community that for many years meant so much to me. A community that provided me encouragement, advice, and a modicum of applause because I – like them – had embraced a costly commitment to a sexually ascetic vision. Together, we’d announced our resounding “no” to romance, and our collective “yes” to chastity. Arm in arm, we denied our longings and co-authored new desires.
Friendship, authenticity, service, sacrifice. These were praiseworthy.
Romance, intimacy, sex, exclusivity. These were pathways to apostasy.
I revisited a community that taught me to be careful what I wish for, because I just might find it, like it, and consequently receive in my body the punishment for those wrongs.
Though a few close friends assumed my return would be distressing, I have to admit: It wasn’t a painful reunion at all. To the contrary, it was quite lovely to walk the halls at Revoice. To find familiar faces, and meet new friends. To feel that familiar fellowships with saints who have undeniably authenticated their faith with corresponding deeds. To eat, drink, and laugh with those whose journeys in discipleship have in so many ways looked so much like mine. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a bit out of place. Like a boyfriend of only two weeks who nevertheless finds himself seated in the front row at a funeral.
Though I recognized the people and the arguments, I no longer shared the conference’s core conviction. I’d changed. They had too, of course, which is only to be expected after three years of life apart have had their impact on us both.
The most striking difference – I’ve come to see – is my newfound appreciation of desire.
More specifically, I’ve come to be convinced it’s not always the satisfaction of our appetites that lead to our spiritual demise. Sometimes, it’s the persistent ache of our hunger.
In other words, I’ve allowed myself to acknowledge that there are plenty of people who die of starvation.
***
In August 1943, the French philosopher Simone Weil experienced a life-ending cardiac arrest. She was 34. Her heart stopped because of her hunger – or more precisely, because of her resistance to it. Indeed, the coroner’s report concluded her refusal to eat after a bout of tuberculous ultimately caused her heart to fail.
Her fast was fueled by good intention.
Her biographers insist her hunger strike was an act of embodied solidarity with the millions of German families who found themselves languishing under Nazi rule. In his 1966 biography entitled Simone Weil: A Sketch for a Portrait, Richard Rees comments on the circumstances surrounding Weil’s death, insisting, “whatever explanation one may give of it will amount in the end to saying that she died of love.”
***
I imagine many Christians throughout the centuries have died of love.
In this way, they radically resemble their Savior, who laid down His life for His enemies so as to make them His friends. To say His example is worthy of imitation is an understatement. It is, in fact, the central invitation He extends to His followers.
And yet, not every imitation of this pattern – I’d argue – is true discipleship.
The 5th century stylites retreated to their pillars, leading lives set apart from their neighbors. They lived atop poles, requiring regular support from their devoted disciples. Their lofty lives ironically limited their individual ability to love and serve others. They placed themselves in a physical position that quite literally forced others to look up at them, even though such a situation inherently and unavoidably obscured the image of the One who chose a lowly position because He did not consider equality with God something to be used for His own advantage. This isn’t to say that these monastics entirely missed the mark, or that their devotion to Christ was insincere. In fact, at a time when the institutional church underwent rapid secularization after finding a champion in Emperor Constantine, they bore witness the beauty of simplicity, the centrality of prayer, and the importance of self-denial.
Still, their imitation ultimately became a caricature.
Their witness proved lopsided – or, shall we say, top-heavy.
And in the same way that I both admire and pity St. Daniel the Stylite, I found myself simultaneously celebrating and lamenting the commitments and ambitions expressed by those gathered at Revoice.
While Revoice certainly offers a taste of rich Christ-centered community, bestows honor upon those who have prejudicially cast aside, and rightly insists that marriage need not be seen as an essential element of human existence, it falls prey to the trap that enticed earlier ascetics by devaluing desire, by leaning too deeply into Bible-based visions of human existence that even the Bible insists will only be fully and finally realized in the age to come.
The great failure of Revoice, in my view, isn’t what they insist people ought to live for – indeed, friendship is life-giving, and Christ-centered community should include all people - it’s what they insist people can live without.
Like the Stylites, who pretended not to need food or water – even as they found themselves dependent on small boys who would ascend their pillars to deliver sustenance and remove their waste – Revoice calls gay Christians to subordinate quite normal and licit human desires so they might serve as witnesses of faithfulness to an increasingly wealthy, nationalistic, and fame-obsessed church.
Like the Desert Fathers before them, they invite spiritually sensitive people to embrace soul-crushing practices.
Of course, Revoice would insist that the desires they invite individuals to ignore are not licit. Their interpretations of the relevant biblical texts, as well as the interpretations of those who disagree, have been documented at length elsewhere. And while my views have regarding those texts have also shifted, I don’t see that change as my most substantive disagreement with the Revoice movement.
Rather, it’s my understanding that humans are, well, human.
That none of us are as self-sufficient as we think we are.
That we’re all dependent on the regular and consistent support of at least one other person.
That we have needs – sexual and otherwise – that may not ever be fully and finally satisfied, yet still warrant our attention.
That we yearn for the intimacy of someone who will bear intimate witness to our existence through the decades.
And that these appetites will find ways to be satisfied, regardless of our resistance to them.
Revoice insists that the desire for sexual connection with a person of the same-sex in the context of marriage points to a deeper longing for spiritual connection with Christ, and insists that the former desire can be sated by fulfilling the latter. This contention certainly sounds spiritual. But in the whispered confessions and journaled anxieties of those who attend the conference, the limits of spiritual solutions to embodied realities become undeniably clear.
Simply put, human needs in this world are not necessarily nullified by efforts to express and embody the glory we’ll experience in the next.
Am I accusing Revoice of inviting its participants to embrace an over-inaugurated eschatology? Certainly not. Just as that I would never claim the movement preaches an overly-exaggerated commitment to biblical teaching. Their insistence that lustless, love-filled interactions between friends and strangers of the same-sex ought to characterize God’s people lines up with my reading of Scripture.
The problem isn’t the beautiful vision of church life they present. It’s the appetites they ignore – their refusal to admit that today’s human needs require licit pathways for expression and fulfillment.
In the end, it’s Revoice’s inability to acknowledge same-sex marriage as a human good that healthily satisfies deep longings that makes me feel out of place among their faithful. It’s their self-selected blindness to the stability that same-sex marriage provides and the self-sacrifice it requires that leads me to conclude this community won’t be my source of encouragement or guidance as I move forward in my journey with Jesus.
As they gloss over the real-world good of marriage, they mimic those who misread Paul’s letter to Ephesians. They point to marriage’s rich spiritual metaphors while overlooking its human benefits. They insist upon living out yet-to-be-consummated spiritual realities before their time. They diminish the body and its longings. They feast on a vision of the world to come, while starving themselves today.
The problem is: malnourishment isn’t sustainable. It leads to exhaustion, extends the time it takes for wounds to heal, and reduces the mind’s ability to think clearly. And, in some sad cases, it serves as a fatal and final limitation to a saint’s ability to fully and faithfully imitate Christ.
***
To be sure, I witnessed plenty of life during my time at Revoice. I saw people laughing, singing, hugging, eating, praying, planning, listening and learning. I heard stories of new jobs, fresh starts, and bright hopes. I looked into eyes that smiled back with warmth and kindness. I received encouragement from cups that were overflowing. In other words, I experienced Christ.
But I also encountered more than a few walking dead – hungry people who spoke of crumbling home situations, looked lifeless due to recently prescribed medications, expressed doubts about the future, and limped warily through the lobby, seemingly searching for a stray crumb of courage to empower their devotion for another 12 months. Notably, these participants tended to possess longer histories and less hair than their hope-fueled counterparts. Their commitments weren’t new. That ink had long dried. Their faith had been time-tested. In their company too, I experienced Christ. I noticed Him in the faithfulness of these saints who had no doubt shared in His sufferings, while seeming not to have yet experienced the power of His resurrection. They’d limped by faith – and will most certainly receive the blessing of those who have not seen and yet believe.
In 2020, I emceed Revoice’s virtual conference, and was invited to deliver a keynote talk on the topic of discipleship. In that address, I insisted listeners would never regret any decision they’d make to become more like Christ. I stand by that claim. Though now, I wonder if there are any pathways we might embrace that Christ might regret – yokes we might pick up that He’d rather we put down.
I don’t mean to suggest that Christ wishes for His followers to avoid hardship. I just want to remind us that it’s only logical that the Creator of life desires that His creation experience it. The call to follow Christ is certainly costly. But, as any luxury store owner will tell you, just as there are those who seek to benefit from any discount that’s offered, there are also always others who are willing to spend more than the sticker lists – who find pleasure not in nabbing the best deal, but in paying the highest price.
As conference attendees sang “let it be costly,” and spoke again and again of the uniquely difficult burdens they’ve shouldered, I couldn’t help but imagine Jesus saying:
“Come to me, all you who have been accused and suspected, kicked out and kept quiet. And I will give you rest. Learn from me – not from your denomination – but from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. You’ve given it your all. You’ve gone above and beyond, but there is nothing to prove. I don’t need to be impressed. Just come, and find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Comments