My name is Carol Shepherd. I am a Research Officer at the University of Winchester, UK. I am also a cisgendered 1 mother of three who self-identifies as Christian and bisexual.
Since the age of seven or eight, around the time I first started getting interested in popular music and television, I began to subconsciously note that I found both male and female identified people attractiveâsome more than others, as one might expect. Also around this time, possibly influenced by the Bible stories and parables recounted in assembly with enthusiasm by my primary school headmaster, I began to develop a spiritual awareness. I had a sense of a presence above me and around me, which I learnt to call God and Jesus respectively. I had been brought up in a non-church attending family and this burgeoning faith was discouraged in the home. Church was therefore not an option until I was old enough to make my own way to a large Pentecostal temple in the city where I lived. It was during these early explorations of church life that I learnt to keep quiet about my same-sex attractionsâthey were clearly not welcome in the House of God.
My struggle to reconcile my spirituality and sexuality saw me read every book available to me on the subject of âSpiritual Wholeness.â All the teaching I had received in the various conservative evangelical churches I had attended thus far had led me to believe that homosexual feelings to any degree were not of God and should be repented of. To act on these feelings was unambiguously sinful and one should turn away from this lifestyle, or face eternal damnation along with murderers, adulterers, slanderers and those who covet their neighbourâs ass.
Terrified of the fate that surely befell me, I presented myself for healing prayer and spoke to numerous pastors and youth leaders about the same-sex attracted side of me. I did not have the financial wherewithal to sign up for aversion therapy of any kind, so reading âChristianâ self-help books of this genre was a cheap alternative. The key works of âhomosexual healingâ in the late 80s/early 90s were Andrew Comiskey (2001), Briar Whitehead (2003), Leanne Payne (1995), and Mary Pytches (1991). The titles of these booksâfull of references to healing and brokennessâreflect the zeitgeist of that era, shaped by the fallout from Section 28, 2 the HIV/AIDS crisis and the ill-fated Lambeth Conference in 1988, which saw scuffles break out when Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma of Nigeria attempt to exorcise demons of homosexuality from the Reverend Richard Kirker, erstwhile President of the Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement. 3
On several occasions, members of âprayer ministry teamsâ at Christian conferences also laid hands on me to âhealâ me of my homosexuality, or attempted to exorcise the âdevil of homosexualityâ out of me, much like the character played by Charlotte Coleman in the BBC adaptation of Jeanette Wintersonâs Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. 4 This was all to no avail. I remained sexually and emotionally attracted to both men and womenâand spiritually drawn to Jesus Christ.
This was a psychosexual conundrum that was to define my life and continues to do so until this day. Like many other people I have met, I am emotionally and sexually drawn to both men and women. However, unlike most of these people, including the vast majority of academics at my own seat of learning, I am also fascinated by the historical and spiritual figure of Jesus Christ. I retain my faith in a loving creator God who sent his perfect Son to set us free; yet I need the love of the created and fallen to feel truly liberated.
Church dominated a quarter of a century of my life, until it became apparent that one could not live with any degree of authenticity between the binaries and find a place within the mainstream Christian faith community. Church made me profoundly depressed. There is no liturgical framework, no theology, no Christian ethic on how to live holistically as a bisexual or bi-intimate follower of Jesus Christ, whether sexually active or not. (For just some examples of works of gay theology/sexual ethics with little or no reference to bisexuality, see Barton, 2012; Boswell, 1980; Comstock, 1993; Farley, 2006; Helminiak, 1994; Rogers, 2009; Sharpe, 2011.) Meyerâs concept of Minority Stress Theory (Meyer, 2003) discusses the damaging effects of stigmatisation on sexual minorities. I would argue that such stress is amplified within church communities, where moral purity carries extra currency and the pressure to conform to heteronormative 5 monogamous relationships within marriage all the greater.
My aim in the research that formed the basis of this book was to find a Christian framework that potentially enabled bisexual people of faith specifically to live with honesty and integrity, either inside or outside of the Church. An ambitious goal, some would say; others might say foolhardy (e.g. Dallas, 2007; DeYoung, 2015; Gagnon, 2002). But that is the story and the motivation behind this project. Essentially, I am posing the question: is it possible to be bisexual and Christian and live holistically?
This is a book for academics interested in this complex intersectional identity, yet also a resource for pastors and educators. As such, some chapters will be of more interest to academics, and others of more interest to clergy and support workers. Broadly speaking, those chapters which report directly on interviews with participants are written in a more everyday style. Those interested solely in the immediate presenting issues brought to the table by bisexual Christians may wish to proceed immediately to Chapter 4, which focuses on arguably the most pressing issueâmental health. Those with a keen interest in churchmanship and pastoral provision may wish to start at Chapter 3.
Intersectional Identities: The Bisexual Christian Problematic
In his pioneering 1978 study of bisexuality, US sexologist Fritz Klein described bisexuals as âsociologically non-existent,â invisible in church, society and science (1978: 17). Nearly forty years later, it seems bisexuals are still invisible in the church and theological literature, at least in the UK, despite progress made elsewhere (e.g. Kolodny, 2000).
Whilst bisexuality has gradually acquired its place in the ever-diverse list of sexual minorities, assisted by the efforts of Klein, it remains the case that the B in LGBT is largely silent. Bisexuality remains for the most part unacknowledged, unexplored and misunderstood within faith circles. One of the most comprehensive recent accounts published about the lives of bisexual men, for example, does not look at how bisexuals operate within organised religions (I refer here to Anderson & McCormack, 2016). Bisexual people are rarely mentioned and precious little pastoral support, if any, is afforded them. Indeed, it seems that the majority of highly educated and (arguably) philanthropic clergy seem both unable and unwilling to get their heads around bisexuality. When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, speaks of the divisions in the Anglican Communion, these are over âhomosexualityâ and âsame sex marriageâ but no reference is made to bisexuality (e.g. press conference of 11 January 2016 prefacing the run up to the Primates Meeting at Canterbury 6 ). This cultural erasure adds to, and may arguably be at the root of, the anxiety and pain felt by many bisexual people of faith.
This silence is a damaging combination of many factors. The role of binary thought as the operating system of patriarchal hierarchies, both in society and within the realms of gender politics and religion, has had an enormous effect on the acknowledgement and visibility of bisexual people, as has the pathologisation of non-heteronormative orientations from the mid nineteenth century to relatively recent times (e.g. Comiskey, 2001; Freud, 1991; Payne, 1995; von Krafft-Ebing, 2013). Towards the latter part of the twentieth century, bisexuals were made scapegoats for the HIV/AIDS epidemic, whilst the current clamour for gay equality in all walks of life, including marriage, has further marginalized the specific issues associated with dual plus attracted individuals. The effects of such marginalization and ostracism can be seen in the lack of vigorous debate on life issues affecting bisexual people, beyond sexual health and titillating news magazine stories with titles such as âRise of the flexi-sexual femaleâ 7 and âSeventeen things you should know before dating a bisexual woman.â 8
This is worrying, when medical reports are increasingly reporting elevated levels of suicide among bisexual people. 9 A medical report in ...