Reddit reviews Sex and the Church: Gender, Homosexuality, and the Transformation of Christian Ethics

Being in the queer community, these are exactly the types of ethical questions we must grapple with — and the answers from heterosexual theology aren’t really helpful — so, yes, this is the perfect place to ask.

Personally, these types of questions have been sorta driving my spiritual — and intellectual — journey over the past couple years. My husband and I met on OkCupid, but we’ve both been on Grindr on and off throughout our relationship. I don’t think I’ve shared this here before, but to be transparent, we’ve had a third guy come over before. (And I can talk about reasons for that if you’re curious.) Honestly, that’s where we’ve met a lot of our good friends, and it’s how we’ve connected to many folks in the community, especially given how it’s replacing the bar scene to an extent.

The best way I’ve come to process this is through Kathy Rudy’s argument in Sex and the Church. I posted an excerpt here wherein she quotes Robert Shore-Goss’ Queering Christ. Rudy sees that the failure of conservative “family values” morality is that it is insularly focused on the nuclear family. Jesus spoke pretty dismissively about his own family and others holding tightly to biological kinship relations. His main focus was on the wider community. Your relationships should be outwardly focused and for the benefit of the community. As Shore-Goss describes above, that’s what he and his husband were able to accomplish in their relationship. Rudy says — and this should carry some very important caveats and exceptions! — that the gay community’s approach to sex and sexuality is a helpful alternative model.

So I’d also say that it depends. Is there something life-giving and community-strengthening coming out of these experiences or out of the apps?