Baptist News Global: Matthew Vines sets off a debate over what it means to be ‘queer’

One of the leading apologists for gay Christians has created a firestorm of controversy among Christians in the LGBTQ community with a column published in The New York Times June 30.

Matthew Vines is the author of the op-ed headlined, “I’m Gay, Not Queer. It Matters.” He rose to national attention a decade ago with publication of his bestselling book, God and the Gay Christian. From there, he launched The Reformation Project, which provides resources for Christians who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender and their family members.

God and the Gay Christian has become a go-to book recommendation for anyone seeking serious biblical scholarship on the so-called “clobber passages” from the Bible most often used to condemn homosexuality.

The number of books that have been this influential in the field of Christian acceptance and inclusion is small. And that’s what makes Vines’ New York Times column so controversial. Anybody who has studied these issues knows his name.

Caveat: I consider Matthew a friend, and I have spoken at his conferences before and introduced him at another conference. I also consider many of those publicly taking exception with him as my friends. That’s why the divide I’ll explain here matters so much. These are all good and sincere Christians who sincerely disagree on a matter of language and identity.

This week’s public disagreements pull back the curtain on profound differences in the LGBTQ community about what it means to be gay, how gay Christians should behave sexually and how language should be used.

For the sake of making it easier on the reader, I’m going to use the term “gay” moving forward to mean gay, lesbian and bisexual — the most common three identities in the LGBTQ acronym. Transgender identity is about gender much more than sexuality, so that group deserves separate consideration.