Costly Obedience

Pastor’s Bookshelf - Welcome to my bookshelf! Each month I will discuss a recent book that I’ve finished. *disclaimer; I don’t always have time to sit and read physical books, but I do quite a bit of my reading through audiobooks these days.*

This month I’d like to talk about Costly Obedience

(What We Can Learn From the Celibate Gay Christian Community)

Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets

In our continued desire to better understand the many facets of the LGBTQ conversation – I read this book a while back to fill in some of the stories I had never heard. In the UMC I have heard many anti-LGBTQ things, and I have heard many PRO-LGBTQ things. This book presented me with a position I did not know existed for a long time. There are many people who feel same sex attraction, who continue to live with a biblical sexual ethic. This book asks the question, “what can the church do for LGBTQ people to help them in their flourishing, without throwing away the bible’s teachings on sexual ethics?” From the Amazon description:

Through the stories and struggles of gay Christians who are reorienting their lives around the costly obedience required to follow Christ, Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets call the church to reorient as well, leaving behind the casual morality that is widespread today to pursue the path of radical discipleship. Unlike any other book on homosexuality and the church, this is a call to examine your life and consider what God is asking you to lay down to take up your cross and follow him.

I’ll admit, some parts of the book are a bit dry – it can read like a statistician’s report in places. However, regardless of your location on the theological spectrum on the issue of LGBTQ sexual ethics – this book is guaranteed to expand your horizons and better help you reach out to LGBTQ individuals and their allys with the love of Jesus Christ.