Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality

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.

Wesley Hill (PhD, Durham University, UK) is assistant professor of biblical studies at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (Zondervan, 2010), Paul and the Trinity?: Persons, Relations, and the Pauline Letters? (Eerdmans, 2015), and Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian (Brazos, 2015). He is on the editorial board for Christianity Today and writes regularly for that magazine as well as for Books & Culture, First Things, and other publications.