Remember: We Are Discussing Real People – Not Academic Concepts PART ONE

My last appointment as a Salvation Army Officer, was in the Rehabilitation Command – working with addicts of all description.  One of the common phrases that was used constantly in that environment was ‘the addicts definition of insanity – repeating the same behaviours and actions over and over again, expecting a different result’. 

Often there are times when I think people exhibit that same definition of insanity in their discussions.  The LGBT issue being one of them.  We talk around and around and around on the same arguments, slowly chipping away at each other.   

Occasionally someone is persuaded by one argument or another, and is encouraged to look at the topic from a different perspective.  However, one of the main factors causing people to change their views is when they are forced to look at the subject beyond the academic, theoretical, and Theological perspective.  This often happens when either they themselves are forced to confront their own sexuality, or a close family member comes out.  In such situations, they cannot keep an arms distance and stay theoretical.  Let me give an example from a different field – parenting.

I look at my own family – I am the eldest of four children.  I notice a great difference between the way I was raised and the way my youngest sibling was raised.  I notice the same differences in other families.  I notice that people with no children often seem to have all the answers about how to raise children, and are often highly critical of parents.  I notice that when people are expecting their first child, they read all the books about child rearing they can, and think they are now experts, and know what to expect.  I then notice that when their first child does come, they throw most of those books out the window.  Being confronted with the reality is very different to discussing it theoretically and in rehearsed scenarios.

The same can be said of any situation in life.  Academic study simply gives us tools by which we can engage the reality – if appropriate.  Our academic understanding needs to be moulded by reality.  We cannot change the reality of life, but we can change the experience of life by adapting our understanding to the reality of life.

For something like child rearing, this is a no brainer.  The consequences are obvious and immediate.  However, with situations like the LGBT issue, the consequences are often argued to be far more ethereal and eternal.  It is a debate that strikes at the very heart of who we are as an individual.  And here we begin to see the complexity of the debate.  The complexity of the LGBT debate is not about how to interpret scripture, or what is sin.  The complexity lies in the fact that the debate strikes at the very core of who we understand ourselves to be.

Our world is full of situations where we are forced to be flexible.  We constantly change our perspective and understanding on a myriad of issues and practices and beliefs.  If something isn’t working at work, we change it.  If a practice doesn’t work at home, we change it.  As we grow, our tastes change, so we change our diet, we change our environment, we make concessions for our partners/ spouses/ family/ friends etc etc etc.  

Our world is full of constant change.  Even our personalities constantly change.  Psychology has all but given up the study of personality, realising that there is no stable, unchanging aspect of who we are that moulds us.  The problem is, as humans, we like – and need – something that doesn’t change.  We need stability.  For many of us, that comes in the form of our beliefs.  When we are asked to consider change in our beliefs, then that last bastion of stability, of stable ground, is ripped from under us.  We can’t cope.

As a result, we cling to what we know.  We fight with all our might to hold firm to that stable ground.  But when we are forced to confront it – such as when we or a loved one grapple with it – we realise that what we thought was stable ground is not stable, and never was.  We need to find a new source of stability.  We need to find a new way of incorporating our life experiences with our knowledge.  Sometimes that means discarding some of what we thought we knew and replacing it with something that fits with reality – like when a parent discards what they thought they knew about child rearing and replaces it with something that works in their situation, or when a doctor replaces what they thought they knew about medicine with some new practice that starts to bring about healing.

End Part One

Graeme Randall
Former officer Australia
Living in London