Quick, important update: starting in the near future, I will be writing about more explicitly Christian topics in addition to mathematical things. None of the math content will be stopping anytime soon, but the number of non-math things will be increasing. In particular, I will be writing about my thoughts on sexuality, marriage, gender, singleness, and things of this nature, and processing how they interact with theology.
I'm sure many of you are wondering why I am beginning this. Well, to put it bluntly, partially it's because I am myself gay;1 these questions have a direct impact on my life. As part of the process of figuring that out, I realized how incredibly impoverished Christian thought and discourse is on the collection of questions I was asking myself. It took me a shockingly long time to discover what a semi-passable model for existence as a Christian without getting married and having kids2 looks like within the context of today's church. So, while I write in part because this affects me, I am also doing this because I can see first-hand how poorly the church has done on this issue, and I think this must be rectified. As a part of the body of Christ, the failures of the church are not something I can just shove blame off onto "other people": we are all one body, however poorly we perform this in practice. It is my responsibility to heal these wounds, as best I can.
Now, the logistics and particulars. First, if you come from a more conservative, Christian background, I offer a gentle notice that these articles will be talking about sex, genitalia, etc., as they become relevant to the topics at hand. So, just something to be aware of. You also may not want to receive these sorts of emails. Good news! I am putting everything of this nature in a separate section of my newsletter, which you can unsubscribe from if you so choose. (By default, if you subscribe to me, you will receive all the emails I send out.) Unsubscribing from that section of the newsletter will not impinge my mathematical musings from reaching your inbox.
My hope for this project is that it will foster genuine, honest discussion and dialogue between Christians and non-Christians alike who care about building a better society for those on the fringes. I will get into my specific views as they become relevant;3 what is important for me is that the discussions that these articles foster is done with good faith. These are hard, difficult topics that affect the lives of millions of people every day. Whatever your views are, I ask that you remain respectful when engaging with others, even if you disagree with them. These issues are far too important to engage in petty name-calling over. Which is to say; I don't want you, dear reader, to just read my thoughts, but to form your own, to ask questions, to push the dialogue forward a little bit closer to something that is more like Christ, the Good, or whatever particular ideal it is that you uphold as important.
Now that all of that is out of the way: a large component of this project will consist of me reading books of various kinds and writing up my thoughts. The first two books I am reading are Megan DeFranza's Sex Difference in Christian Theology, and Jennifer Cox's Intersex in Christ. I decided to start here because, while gender and intersex questions are not at the forefront of my focus, they are an important, adjacent line of thought to enter. I must also admit total ignorance, before reading these books, on intersex conditions. I am not necessarily endorsing these books, as will be the case with any book I have not yet read. Intersex conditions are talked about, somehow even less than gay marriage used to be discussed, in the church today. Be on the lookout for my reviews of those in the near future, and if you want to follow along and read one or both of them, I would love to hear your thoughts! After those two, I will likely swing my attention towards books more directly involved in the gay marriage "debate";4 perhaps James Brownson's Bible, Gender, Sexuality, although again, no firm decision has been made.
I will not be engaging in debate about “labels” at this time. At some point, I may sit down and write up my thoughts, but honestly, I might never do so. I find the Christian infighting over whether one may call himself “gay” or herself a “lesbian” to be one of the most odious and disappointing facets of this “debate” – I fear I would only contribute to the idiocy by entering the fray.
Famously, Jesus was married and had many children. Oh wait, no, sorry, he didn’t have those things. Not that you’d know it from the way the church often preaches.
If you want an overview of my views, I suppose “Side B” would roughly give you a sense of my thought. Emphasis on roughly. These are not particularly well-defined terms.
I’m sure when we all think of debate, what we have in mind is people, supposedly adults, not just yelling about whether the sentence “I am a lesbian” has the same semantic content as “I am exclusively attracted to women, as a woman”, but claiming that people are heretics if they disagree with one’s own view. There are surely no examples of people like this in the Bible that Jesus had harsh words for. None whatsoever.
Looking forward to this!
Very excited to accompany you on this journey--in whatever small ways I can