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by Atticus Shires Making a conservative, evangelical, Christian college become my home has been quite the ride. I have had to live, li...
Showing posts with label Shea Davis. Show all posts
When I Came to Biola
I just want to say that I did not sign up for this. I’ve
been among the Church my entire life, but my biblical knowledge had only been
stretched as far as: “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…” So
when I came to Biola, I had no intention of finding the most controversial
topic on campus, grabbing it by the horns and dealing with it head on. The last
thing I wanted was to be at a school that has a tendency towards homophobia, to
have one of my best friends at Biola identifying as bisexual, and realize that
God was calling me to stop hiding behind the scenes and start speaking up for
people who have been thrown in a closet and told they can’t come out until they
change.
Before I really had a notion of what God was calling me to
do, He broke me. I felt like I was going insane. I was crying around three or four
times a day, I was constantly pissed at people, and I had no idea what to do
about it. After some time I found out there was someone on campus that could be
a great help to some of the crazy ideas I had floating around in my head. I had
lunch with Atticus, and even though he was still mostly closeted at that time,
and I happened to be a naïve, straight, baby Christian, we decided it was time
to do something on Biola’s campus.
On that day when Atticus and I decided to start this
ministry, we embarked. We began a
journey that we only had a vision for; we had no experience or true
understanding of what we were attempting to undertake. We were both scared. To
begin something so controversial—and for me, having such a young walk with the
Lord—I felt like there was no way I could do this. And really, I’m straight. How does this even impact me?
So I would try to walk away from it, and through many strange circumstances I
was shown that I really had no choice. My brothers and sisters were hurting; I
had to be someone who was willing to try, even if I didn’t have all the
answers.
As we planned this semester, I am overwhelmed by how God has
prepared me to be a leader in this ministry. Sure, He still hasn’t given me all
the answers, not even close. I have spent many a night rattling my brain and trying to answer the toughest questions out
there. But I find no rest there. I do, however, find rest in a community where
we work together to be the body of Christ. But this takes each person resisting
the temptation of letting fear grab hold of them, and instead, willing themselves
to embark with the rest of us. It takes courage to be a part of and commit to a
community of sinners. You have to be humble and be willing to look at your own
sin in the face. But you also get the opportunity to find the kind of
acceptance we all desire, just for being a human made in God’s image. So I am
asking you, whoever you are, to step out in faith and know that we are a
community that seeks Truth in love.
Embark
with us.
photo credit: Emily Weisbrot, OhYouDog Photography
Tag :
Shea Davis
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“Teaching” Healthy Sexuality: The Church's Harmful Narratives
by Shea Davis
It is extremely hard not to generalize the past of the
Christian Church and its approach of teaching sexuality. Unfortunately, there
tends to be only one message the Church seems to make very clear in regards to
sexuality: You must wait until marriage to have sex. There are no ifs ands
or buts. And unfortunately this leads to feelings of being lesser or out of God's love for those of us who
have fallen short.
 |
| In other words, "If you didn't wait, you didn't love." photo credit: juicyecumenism.com |
Some of us have been blessed to hear or experience a more
positive narrative of the blessing that sexuality is. However, some of us have been told that sexuality is something to squelch
instead of foster. We have been told that it is not something beautiful,
and, if not experienced in the confines of marriage, will lead to shame and
guilt.
And don’t get me wrong; I am not saying that some of the
things the Church teaches are incorrect. I fully believe that sex should only
be experienced in marriage. The problem isn’t with the Truth of God’s Holy Word
and what it commands of Christians; it’s the way the Church then takes the Word
and applies it.
The Church has hit the Abstinence message home. I am pretty
certain that most young Christians in the Church have an idea that “sex before
marriage is wrong.” But do they know why
sex within marriage is so good? Why sex before marriage falls so short of
the kind of intimacy and fulfillment sex within marriage can provide? Do we
hear how stewarding our sexuality (not killing it) makes us more human and more
connected to God and others? No. And
why is this? Because the only people who speak on sexuality are either
lecturing us or telling us this deep testimony where they climbed out of the
dark hole of sexual sin and through the blood of Jesus Christ they have been
purified once again. And the church can then grab them by the hand is say, “To
everyone out there, this is an example of why we don’t have sex before marriage.”
Don’t get me wrong, those testimonies are inspiring, and relatable to so many
of us, but there has got to be another message. There has got to be something to look forward to.
We need to create a community where married people and singles can come together and speak truth, encourage, love, and support one another. We
need to be raising and building up sexually healthy Christians — Christians who
aren’t afraid to speak of S-E-X; Christians who know the consequences of sin,
but also know the blessing of living the life they were designed for.
For those of us who have been hurt by the Church or fellow
Christians, we need healing. Some of us have to change the way we look at
ourselves. We are no longer the people we were before Christ entered into our
lives. We became a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are forgiven
(Ephesians 1:7). We have every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). This list
goes on and on. And though many of us hurt, we no longer need to be bound by
our past, because through Jesus we have freedom.
Tag :
Shea Davis
,
From Impurity to Practicality
by Shea Davis
So far I
have done a decent job using my sexuality to harm relationships. I have
separated myself from God because I felt guilty (and many other reasons). I
have hurt my relationship with others because I have objectified them or they
have objectified me. I have also broken the relationship to trust myself
because I went against what I knew was right in order to please others and
satisfy my desires. As I turn away from a lifestyle of sexual impurity, I am
now looking for some type of guidance that allows me to love my entire self, and not feel like a second class Christian for not
figuring that out until now.
“The way we treat our sexuality makes a statement of its own.”
Unfortunately,
I can’t remember the name of the brilliant person who shared this with me;
nevertheless, it has made a huge impact on the way I think about sexuality —
specifically how to be a sexual being within the confines of Christianity. I
found his statement to be so thought provoking because my sexuality (and the
way I choose to live it out) is always an interesting topic with my friends at
home. Sometimes it seems to make them almost uncomfortable that I chose to go
from being in a sexually intimate relationship to living a celibate life unless
I get married one day. The idea of me abstaining from sex seems to be a
completely foreign, ridiculous concept. As Christians, we have something that
can clearly make us different or “set apart” — and not in the way we have been
set apart before, by making sexuality a shameful part of our lives.
We have an opportunity to show
the blessings in sexuality. We have something to celebrate; God has given us a beautiful gift
that helps us relate to Him, others and ourselves.
Thus, I
want to change the word I was using to describe my current standing: as
sexuality in the confines of Christianity. By knowing the truth about the purpose of our sexuality and living it out we know we will experience freedom instead of confinement, because the truth will set us free (John 8:31-32). We do have a couple options, of course. We are able to view and use our sexuality either in
ways that honor our relationships or in ways that destroy them.
So far I
have done a decent job using my sexuality to harm relationships. I have
separated myself from God because I felt guilty (and many other reasons). I
have hurt my relationship with others because I have objectified them or they
have objectified me. I have also broken the relationship to trust myself
because I went against what I knew was right in order to please others and
satisfy my desires. As I turn away from a lifestyle of sexual impurity, I am
now looking for some type of guidance that allows me to love my entire self, and not feel like a second class Christian for not
figuring that out until now.
The
Church needs a fresh perspective. It starts with having decent communication
within the Church and then Christians deciding to walk away from the
double-lives we live. It’s hard though; we live in an ultra-sexualized society.
Why not take what I want? Well, I have seen the brokenness that comes from sex
outside marriage, I have felt the condemnation from other Christians, I have
heard the whispers of what she or he did last night, and I have seen the double
standards that all cultures set.
Most
importantly, God clearly calls us to lives of sexual holiness. But as
Christians, as well as being humans, we
have to make that practical. We can’t just look at our brother and sister
and condemn them for their failings or tell them to go pray about it. We need
to walk with one another; we need to be people who accept the brokenness of one
another, who push one another closer to Jesus and other people who are working
towards fulfillment in their sexuality. Sexuality has been a very uncomfortable
topic in the Church, but it isn’t something we can avoid any longer.
So I ask
you: What are practical steps to helping the Church preach a message of sexual holiness
but also of sexuality as a blessing?
Tag :
Shea Davis
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