Eve Tushnet
Really important stuff imo. I infest the comments:
As you can probably imagine, many people ask us for advice about celibate relationships, how realistic that concept is, and how to make such a relationship work. Several people can be frustrated by our typical reply: we don’t think we’re very good at giving advice. However when enough people ask us the same question, we think we ought to address it to the best of our ability. We know a fair number of people who are living in celibate partnerships, have moved from celibate relationships to non-celibate relationships, or have experienced failed celibate relationships. Newcomers to our blog often ask us if we think celibate partnerships could be a viable vocational option for LGBT Christians more broadly. In responding to that question, we have to keep in mind that we’ve seen so many people hurt within celibate partnerships. That this happens (and probably quite often) doesn’t surprise us. There’s no real guidance from any Christian tradition on what this way of life might mean or look like.
In our own lives, we’ve learned that reflecting on celibacy periodically helps us discern what God would have us do together. We wanted to share some of the questions we encourage others to consider when thinking about celibate partnership as a way of living out a vocation to celibacy. Since we do not consider ourselves capable of making judgments as to whether another person should enter a celibate partnership, we hope the questions that follow might support people discerning whether entering a celibate partnership is a good decision.
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