Washed and Waiting
Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality
- Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
- Publisher: Zondervan Reflective (Zondervan)
- Published: 2016
FritzSearch.com earns a commission on purchases made through Bookshop.org links.
Publisher's Description
Wesley Hill's personal experiences and biblical reflections offer insight into how a nonpracticing gay Christian can "prove, live out, and celebrate" the grace of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. For many who are on this path, it's a lonely one. The reality of loneliness and isolation of the celibate homosexual Christian is something that Hill lives and takes seriously in his pursuit of the gospel-centered life. To those on a similar journey, it's often a life of uncertainties and questions. In Washed and Waiting, Hill explores the three main struggles that have been part of his daily effort to live faithfully: What exactly does the gospel demand of gay and lesbian Christians, and how can it enable them to fulfill its commands? How do Christians who experience homoerotic desires live with the loneliness such desires entail? Is there any relief for it? What comfort does the gospel offer? Can those of us who struggle with homosexuality please God and truly experience his pleasure in the midst of sexual brokenness? Interspersed throughout these main sections are character sketches and stories of people who have experienced this journey's trials and triumphs. Hill offers wise counsel that is biblically faithful, theologically serious, and oriented to the life and practice of the church. As a celibate gay Christian, he gives us a glimpse of what it looks like to wrestle firsthand with God's "No" to same-sex sexual intimacy and contemplate serious and difficult questions.
Endorsements (6)
“Wesley Hill’s work is a combination of profound personal honesty and deep pastoral reflection. His academically gifted mind applied to the careful exegesis of God’s Word has led him to countercultural yet biblical conclusions and applications. Wesley’s passion to glorify Jesus by living faithfully as a Christian man who happens to have a homosexual orientation is an inspiration to every struggling believer who wishes things were different than they are. His insights and biblical reflections will be a substantial help to many fellow agonizers as they live out their faith in a fallen world. This book can provide life-changing encouragement to any believer who yearns to be faithful to the God who has accomplished salvation—a salvation that is already but not yet. For we who are in Christ are all “washed and waiting.”
“Wesley Hill has written a courageous book. His story will resonate with the unique experience of other Christians with same-sex feelings they did not choose. But his theological perspective broadens his message to include all believers who are struggling to live faithfully in a broken world. This book will also challenge churches to be communities of costly love where men and women can be real with each other.”
“Washed and Waiting is vividly written and deeply reflective. It is also an enormously risky project in that it openly presents Wesley Hill’s struggles to come to terms with his sexuality and his hard-won decision to live a celibate life. Books on this subject may be intelligent or theologically responsible or honest, but I’ve never seen one that possessed all three virtues—until now. Any Christian who wants to grapple seriously, biblically, and charitably with human sexuality must read this book.”
“Like a well-crafted tapestry, Washed and Waiting skillfully weaves biblical commentary with personal reflection as it leads the reader inside a Christian life lived amidst the reality of homosexuality. Gently iconoclastic and courageously human in its authenticity and transparency, Wesley Hill instructs and humbles both head and heart as he unpacks the pain, confusion, deep sense of loss, and loneliness of the faithful Christian homosexual person’s walk. There is, however, no hand-wringing here. Few books have left me with as much hope as Washed and Waiting. THE LATE CHRISTOPHER W. MITCHELL, longtime director of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College This is an incredibly important book that moves beyond the usual faceless arguments and Christian rhetoric and instead is someone’s actual story—a story that tells of someone who has maintained the truths of Scripture and fleshes them out in real life. It is a raw, insightful, honest, beautiful, gut-wrenching, gripping story that I pray many people will read. I thank Wesley Hill for the courage to share this message in a culture that desperately needs to hear it.”
“Wesley Hill graciously offers himself in Washed and Waiting. He holds on to faith and hope while describing his own dark night of the soul as a gay man committed to the church’s long-standing position of abstinence outside of heterosexual marriage. Straight people gain an empathetic understanding of homosexuality, and gay and lesbian Christians committed to celibacy will find a companion who identifies with their pain and loneliness. We are all reminded of the challenges associated with our striving for intimacy, sexual purity, and wholeness. A worthy read.”
“How do the gospel, holiness, and indwelling sin play out in the life of a Christian struggling with same-sex attraction? And how do brothers and sisters in Christ show love to them? Wesley Hill offers wise counsel that is biblically faithful, theologically serious, and oriented to the life and practice of the church. He accomplishes a number of things in this small book: a capable defense of the Christian tradition’s prohibition of homosexual practice, an illuminating analysis of the isolating effects of struggle with this particular sin, a careful consideration of the present and future aspects of salvation, and a heartfelt call to fight for each other’s faith and repentance as a church body. This is now the book regarding a crucial theological issue of our time.”
See something wrong on this page? Report a problem