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When Wesley Hill, the gay celibate Christian theologian, was in his university years, the first person he came out to was a high-ranking member of the Church.
That’s what he told us in Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Doncaster, during a seminar titled ‘The Bible and Same Sex Attraction’. It was one of three seminars on a speaking tour he’d been flown to Melbourne to give, by Ridley College in Parkville and St. Hilary’s in Kew.
Years after his coming-out, Hill believes, and publicly proselytises on, the idea that gay men should remain single, that they should abstain and forever await God’s judgment. That’s his shtick that gets Christians interested. That’s his gospel, and it’s the good word he came to Melbourne to preach.
I’d attended his seminar, as a writer, a tentative agnostic – and a promiscuous and outlandish homosexual. The last article I published was titled ‘I Went To A Naked Gay Bar’. I was not his target audience.
Spend any time flipping through the Bible, and you’ll see it has some pretty dodge ideas on human relationships – particularly involving marriage. It’s utterly rife with incest (Genesis 1:1-2:3, 2:4-2:25), the violation of virgins by their soon-to-be husbands (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), and with trophy wives stolen from murdered families (Judges 21:7-23). Hell, at one point it even permits a union between a man and a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:25).
Yet none get a bad rap quite like the homosexual. So sayeth Paul from the Bible, one of Jesus’ fabled disciples, who apparently knew same-sex relations as violent and exploitative. Sure, if that’s your kink.
Wesley Hill is not an aggressive or threatening figure. If I had to pick his Grindr tribe, it’d be a mix between ‘twink’ and ‘geek’. His pleasant tone and unimposing demeanour – an attitude common amongst members of church groups, one I’d experienced on my way in – takes you by surprise.
He stood spewing religious diatribe, and despite years of theological research, often contradicted himself – he says that Paul felt homosexuality was wrong due to his patriarchal cultural upbringing, so we should view his words as flawed – yet also ‘Paul’s word is Jesus’ word’? It’s the way he does it, though.
Knowing that Hill had been surrounded by strong religiosity from a young age, it’s no wonder he eventually embraced religion over his sexuality. That he chose the path of an evangelical leader, one who mystifies the masses with his acceptance of his identity – but sexual submission to the Lord on High.
It also makes him palatable to church audiences, who, though they claim to love their gay friends dearly, can’t vibe with what they do in the sack.
What struck me about the sold-out crowd of seminar attendees, were the sheer number of families and elderly present. Their faces were those I might have seen at shopping centres, or spotted having barbecues with their children at nearby parks. I grew up with these people. I might have gone to school with them.
I wondered what drew them to Hill’s ideas – until a young woman nearby opened her phone, and instead of Beyoncé plastered on the cover, there was an image of Jesus Christ. These were beaming suburban churchgoers, drawn to a narrative on a controversial topic that might support their beliefs.
Indeed, Hill’s words aren’t violent, nor does he stand spouting hateful invective. He’s quite pleasant to listen to – almost titillating, really. It’s the subtext that is insidious.
To be a homosexual, in Hill’s eyes, is to present with symptoms of something that is apparently true for all humans: we’re all sinners. We’re all ‘fallen’, and Jesus struck away our sins so that we could sin again, and again, and again, and repent those sins, soon as committing them.
He says that that everybody sins, that we are all equally sinful – yet to be a homosexual is to live in that sin. We fail to ‘live in difference’ – to engage in partnerships with the opposite sex. And yet, like we must apparently deny pleasure through celibacy, heterosexuals must deny indulgence through commitment and the oh-so-heterosexual institution of marriage, which somehow renders us equal.
Hill can’t outright state that homosexuals are destined for lifelong torment, in constant repentance of their infinite sin. That would be too heavy.
Until he utters the following phrase: “Where the sin comes in is how we act with our bodies, and how we think in our minds”.
And later, that churned my stomach: “The due penalty for same-sex coupling is its own punishment.”
It’s at this point that I realised there were same-sex attracted people in the audience. Without a doubt. Maybe they’d come with an almost mocking curiosity, as I had. Or maybe they’d approached out of fear, out of doubt, out of toxic self-hatred.
They’d just been told that their very thoughts of same-sex attraction need to be cleansed, and their every mental utterance is blasphemous to the great and vengeful God. Told their relationships must remain platonic – and that all of this is punishment for their very existence.
Hill beckoned churches to care for their homosexual brethren – but encouraged them to push their same-sex attracted peers towards ‘celibate friendships’, in an effort to turn their heads towards Christ.
When all was said and done, the seminar ended, all he had managed to do was turn my head to the back wall in discomfort and concern.
And, in a way, fear.
Fear that those seated around me shared in these beliefs. Fear that these ideas were being affirmed. Fear that my nature – as a gay man who has embraced his sexuality and all of the whims and pleasures of the world – stands in opposition to their faith.
A faith unrelenting, that is often violent, and often toxic to the fragile minds of gays nearby – hidden within that audience of Stepford-smiling churchgoers, who need comfort, community, validation and care. Not Hill’s idea of biblical salvation.
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