Revisiting 1st Century Solutions & Celibate Partnerships
Back in early 2023, I wrote an article for Equip calling celibate partnerships (committed non-sexual, sometimes-romantic companionship between two Christians) unnecessarily risky.
My biggest piece of evidence was the success of the Nashville Family of Brothers.
We’d been steadily growing both in numbers and depth of relationship for five years. Seven of us were living in a home together, a majority of us under 3+ year commitments, and I was mere months away from making lifetime commitments to the Nashville Family of Brothers.
I pointed to our community as proof that “anyone can build it” and that the modern relational climate in the American Church was much more similar to the 4th century than the 1st century.
That’s relevant because celibate partnerships are most similar to the spiritual betrothals (non-sexual couplings between two Christians of the opposite sex committed to celibacy) of the early Church which Paul cautiously permitted in 1 Cor 7. But those were forbidden by the 4th century when monastic communities were readily available for celibate people.
If our current context is most similar to the 4th century, then the prohibition against spiritual betrothals (and celibate partnerships) would stand.
Then in 2025, the Nashville Family of Brothers discerned a pivot toward a different kind of community. I won’t narrate the whole story here, but our public hope was mixed with private sadness that a prolonged period of community challenges had fatally wounded our brotherhood.
Moreover, as we reached out to peer communities that had attempted similar depth and length of commitment, we discovered that many of them had already collapsed or significantly changed form.
I’m not claiming intentional Christian community is impossible. But I no longer believe it is accessible enough to serve as the default answer for most gay celibate Christians right now.
Instead, our current relational climate is closer to the 1st century and Paul’s allowance for paired companionship, before better solutions existed. What does that mean for celibate partnerships?
They’re still risky. But for some gay celibate Christians, a celibate partnership may be the most viable form of companionship available.
Our churches should get busy building better alternatives. And in the meantime, we should be careful not to condemn every imperfect attempt at companionship made by people trying to remain faithful.
To be clear, nothing has changed about my convictions on sexual ethics. And I continue to live in intentional Christian community with other celibates and hope that’s where I find family long-term.
All that’s changed is my naiveté about the feasibility of 4th century intentional christian community in 21st century America and my openness to the possibility of celibate partnerships for gay celibate Christians.
I unpack all of this more fully in my updated Equip Insights article, including whether romance/dating are theologically connected to Christian marriage (and the implications of that).
Checkout https://equipyourcommunity.org/celibate-partnerships/ for more on celibate partnerships, dating/romance, and solutions to celibate loneliness.
