Jesus is the answer for the world today
Above him there’s no other, Jesus is the way…If you have some questions in the corners of your mind
And traces of discouragement and peace you can not find
Reflection of the old past, They seem to face you every day
There’s one thing I know for sure that Jesus is the way
These are some of the lyrics to a song other youth in my church and I sang back in the 70’s. My smart aleck brother Mark* asked a question regarding the lyrics, saying “So what’s the question?”
Perhaps we can say, much like St. Augustine, that “intelligence is the gift of God.” Many of us doubt what we are told to believe in blind faith, and want to know why or how each grain of information we are fed is either truth or untruth. Mark was asking serious questions, masked as jokes — What is the question Jesus is the answer to? Is there more than one question that Jesus is the answer to? The word “the” — why did any question need to be phrased not to receive “a” correct answer, but needed to be phrased to get “the” correct answer?
I’d internalized the doubt my sibling Mark expressed, and I kept asking the questions internally long after Mark stopped being the smart aleck that jokingly vocalized his doubt.
Mike Ensley now turns that “Jesus is the answer” question completely around in his Exodus Youth article How Can Homosexuality Not Be The Answer? The piece is subtitled Homosexuality Isn’t The Answer.
“The answer” again.
The bulk of Ensley’s article is an essay on why homosexuality and homosexual relationships aren’t the spiritual answer to the meaning of life. A key line in his piece states:
Many researchers have studied how gay-identified people live. The research has convinced me that embracing homosexuality is not the satisfying dream-come-true that society makes it out to be, even for those who are exclusively attracted to the same sex.
The. Could the problem with the answer to Ensley’s question that he was looking for gay relationships to be the answer to his spiritual hollowness? If Ensley had somewhat separated his sexual needs from spiritual needs into related entities instead of the same entity, or completely entwined entities, would there need to be a “the answer” to the question regarding the spiritual void in his soul?
I don’t know.
Where Ensley sees his own homosexuality as the non-answer to his spiritual question, I see my transsexuality within a framework of being a gender-identity / natal sex mismatch, and not being a completely spiritual issue. Where Ensley was looking for solutions to all his life’s problems in relationships with other men, transitioning for me was never “the answer” to all of my life’s problems; transitioning was the solution to one of my life’s problems.
Outside of the hard sciences, there are rarely black-and-white answers to complex sets of problems — and living life definitely isn’t a hard science. Life isn’t a single, simple math problem that has but one correct answer. Trying to boil life down to “the answer” seems an attempt to apply a too simplistic model to those who experience God’s gift of intelligence.
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*Paraphrasing a Dragnet tag line, “Mark’s name was changed to protect the innocent.”
That is one thing that really irks me. The RR (political ex-gay component) constantly conflates non-essentials as being all about religion. Seriously, they think that being transgendered is not a medical condition, but an act of rebellion against a god-given gender. That or Isis worship or other such nonsense.
I am sensitive to the Christian concept of the transcendence and omnipresence of God, but the RR takes this frequently to the point of “ad absurdum” and beyond.
Mr Ensley is quoted as saying “embracing homosexuality is not the satisfying dream-come-true that society makes it out to be, even for those who are exclusively attracted to the same sex.”
I don’t know what society Mr Ensley lives in, but it couldn’t be modern America (or America since its inception). If society honestly believed that homosexuality was a “dream-come-true,” we wouldn’t have to be fighting for basic rights.
Falsely trying to portray a minority of less than 10% of the population as having the upper hand is just another way to try and foster hate and resentment against that minority group.
embracing homosexuality is not the satisfying dream-come-true that society makes it out to be, even for those who are exclusively attracted to the same sex
Is Mike saying that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence? Interesting.
“Life isn’t a single, simple math problem that has but one correct answer.”
But there are so many people that wish it were, who live in the delusion that it is, and anything (such as homosexuality) that comes along and presents even a wrinkle in their simple calculation will always be wrong.
John and gordo,
I think what Ensley is trying to say (poorly) is that when you are same sex attracted, part of you dreams about finding the man of your dreams. And other than conservative evangelicals or bigots, popular culture does pretty much encourage you to do so.
Just as movies show “happily ever after” for straight couples, they also generally show the same for those gay people they include. Ensley is saying, “No! It isn’t happily ever after”. And he’s right.
Of course, the foolish thing he’s done is convince himself that a hetersexual mating would be happily ever after. Which also isn’t true.
What the real non-hollywood story ending is work, effort, compromise, biting your tongue, putting someone else first, and happily sometimes in the middle of ever after – but worth it. But Ensley only sees the negative gay examples and the positive straight ones. That sort of selective vision is guaranteed to result in heartbreak.
As one who loved math with all it’s exact answers, and hated english class because of it’s lack, thereof, I can understand this need of the religious to define right and wrong, without exceptions. It’s too bad that they fail to realize that life rarely comes without exceptions.
My oppinion of Mr Ensley, from the little I’ve read above, is that he’s totally missed the point about spirituality, love and relationships, where they intersect and where they diverge.
Our lifes are way too complex and intertwined with others, our responsibilities, and God, to be boiled down to a set of exact answers with perfect outcomes. And no “one” thing in our lives will ever bring true fulfillment. I pity anyone who tries, for they will rarely find true happiness. Perhaps THAT was Mr Ensley’s problem.
What the real non-hollywood story ending is work, effort, compromise, biting your tongue, putting someone else first, and happily sometimes in the middle of ever after – but worth it.
Very true Timothy. Relationships are a lot of work. It does take compromise if you love somebody enough to want to spend the rest of your life with them. I do not personally believe in Mr. Right. There will be things that you find in a person that makes you cringe but you learn to rise above those idiosyncrasies because there are other things that you find the most wonderful about them.
I dated a man that was HIV+. First thing he told me was that he and I could never have any sexual contact. He simply cared enough for me he didn’t want to infect me. I agreed. I still loved him enough that not having sex ever was completely fine with me. I was willing to help him in any way I could to make him more comfortable. Kissing, hugging, and cuddling was not out of the question. That was enough for me.
Tim,
I guess I speak a different language than Mr Ensley. When I think of “embracing my homosexuality,” I don’t think of that as acting sexually with another man. I view it as accepting myself for who I am. It is essentially what I had to honestly do prior to coming out to family and friends. I experienced a tremendous weight being lifted off my shoulders.
It was also a prerequisite for having a real relationship. How can you date a guy in any seriuos way, if you have to worry about dodging family and friends everywhere you turn? It might work far from home, but if you live within a couple of miles of the house you grew up in, you don’t have that luxury.
So I view leaving the closet as “embracing my sexuality,” and that comes with risks and consequence. Those risks are less today, and less in the SF Bay Area than some other parts of the country. It also comes with benefits in terms of self esteem, freedom and being able to look yourself in the mirror knowing you were being honest in all the major areas of your life.
As for the “happily every after with the man of my dreams,” I always viewed that quest as completely separate. Seven plus years into my relationship, we’re still working on what Doris Day could knock out in less than 2 hours. 🙂
What I always wonder is how much the RR creates the situation it finds so horrible? If there were better role-modles, would there be better couples? And how many “deep strong” teenage relationships do you see? To say that a young relationship can be compared to a mature relationship is a bit apples and oranges.
Speaking of Hollywood and portrayals of gay intra-relationships: Did anyone catch the Cold Case episode (CBS) with its interpretation and variation on a Brokeback Mountain theme. I only have seen the snippets somewhere but they’re gut wrenching and, frankly, I am a bit surprised at what Hollywood is producing today with televising gay-romance pathos at prime-time. This is good. Now there is a bounty of material for screenwriters to write about …but with a gay angle.
Yeah, Ken R, there are some people who can transcend the shallow qualities some think all gay relationships are based.
Or do some people think I must trade in my GMC for a BWM if I have any hope to have a lasting relationship?
Cowboy, To have a real relationship, one needs a Uhaul, a large dog, and at least one Subaru in the driveway. 😉
Any relationship is complex, hetero or gay. I always thought our minds work similarly to multiplication in matrix math. Even three-dimensional chess would not adequately explain the complexities. I’m not a chess whiz but some play this game of life quite well…including using the castling move with the King and the Rook (if you know what I mean?). You can invent your own moves with the other pieces: Queens and Bishops and Mate in two… Perhaps, gay relationships require a fourth-dimensional board to adequately describe relationships.
Mr. Ensley must not have met too many gays who have had a real relationship. He might have had a bad gay relationship. Maybe it was a really traumatic experience for him. In any case, something has jaundiced Mr. Ensley’s ability to comprehend there are just as substantial-, as caring-, as loving- relationships in the gay world as there are in the hetero-world.
I once bought into the hype and propaganda Mr. Ensley promulgates but eventually with the luck of finding and associating with the right set of friends I became enlightened.
Ms. Sandeen:
Would a Heinz-57-variety mutt, a horse-trailer and a dented & dinged GMC result in any kind of a relationship?