THE PLAUSIBILITY PROBLEM:
The Church and Same Sex Attraction
By Ed Shaw
IVP. 174 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 783 592 067
Ed Shaw has written an intimate, passionate plea to the church to wake up!
He is exercised by how it appears unaware of one of its key ethical challenges for 2015 – responding to homosexuality – and of how its own are losing the plot. The generation of those under 30 have quietly jettisoned an orthodox Christian sexual ethic on homosexuality (which Shaw himself holds and at a huge personal cost – he calls himself ‘same sex attracted’ (SSA)). Shaw calls for action now.
Church’s missteps
For Shaw, a key reason for this sorry state is because of the church’s earlier ‘missteps’ which have not been countered. These include such notions as people are born gay, men and woman are interchangeable and celibacy is bad. These missteps are now ubiquitous and operate as invisible new norms, even within the church. That those such as Shaw must be miserably single and psycho-sexually starved till death is now deemed to be beyond the pale.
Shaw explains why these missteps are false and what the accurate message ought to be. From there, he posits a better way forward, one which insists that the church start getting real and ‘do the stuff’. He deploys his own rich life experience to challenge the reader to see what it looks and feels like on a normal day. And in the process, he points to very practical ways that the church – you and I – can become ‘family’.
Shaw’s book is a timely and needed response, bridging worlds and sounding the alarm. It is understandable why there are pages of commendation from the Who’s Who of the UK Good and the Great of 2015 from both the Anglican and Free Church world.
Given its seminal role, then, some key issues remain pressing. I would hope that interacting with them would take us all forward. Here I concentrate upon two.
Counselling concerns
My first concern ties in with a larger apparent limitation in terms of issues of therapy, and indeed, what could be framed as the misstep ‘once gay always gay’, but one which did not show up in his listing.
‘Many same sex attracted children of evangelical parents have been signed up for repar-ative therapy or sent off on residential courses that will “heal” them’ (p. 97), according to Shaw. No doubt this has happened, but it is an unfair characterisation of most of those who seek to help those with unwanted SSA.
Moreover, coercion is the kiss of death in any kind of therapy – and at least we in the UK know it. Indeed, ex-gay leaders like Mike Davidson insist SSA is a symptom of deeper needs and wounds which have become sexualized. Shaw doesn’t deal with this, but it is an important matter against the present background pressure to ban therapy in this area as ‘unethical’. What about a Christian married man who struggles with unwanted SSA but loves his wife? The NHS would facilitate his becoming a wife to his wife – but not a better husband! Even the Association of Christian Counsellors is heading in that direction
As well, Shaw does not seem aware of how unplausible (and increasingly dangerous!) it is to take his views beyond the safety of home and church. How are Christian children in school and Christian professionals at work, marinated in all things LGBT and groomed to become LGBT ‘champions’, supposed to respond? His book concentrates upon the private and the church, and the worlds of adults in informal, non-professional life where there is a relatively level playing field. Even those writing rave reviews have some protection via their dog collars and religious credentials; what about everyone else? Most churches do not even know about – forget pray for or stand with – all the Christian victims of the PC agenda.
So, I loved the book and hope to see the conversation move into deeper, but also broader, realms. For more information, go to anglicanmainstream.org and type ‘plausibility problem’ into the search box.
