Looks back up to meet their gays

How Should Christians Respond to Gay Friends or Family Members?

Caleb Kaltenbach (M.A. ’07) is an alumnus of Biola’s Talbot School of Theology, lead pastor of a large church in Simi Valley, Calif., and a married father of two. He’s also an emerging voice in the discussion of how Christians should engage the LGBT community. That’s because Kaltenbach has an insider perspective, having been raised by a dad and mom who divorced and independently came out of the closet as a lgbtq+ man and a woman loving woman. Raised in the midst of LGBT parties and pride parades, Kaltenbach became a Christian and a pastor as a fresh adult. Today, he manages the tension of holding to the traditional biblical teaching on sexuality while loving his gay parents.

Kaltenbach’s unique story is detailed in his new manual Messy Grace: How a Pastor with Gay Parents Learned to Love Others Without Sacrificing Conviction and landed him on the front page of the New York Times in June. Biola Magazine reached out to him to talk about his guide and his perspective on how Christians can beat navigate the complexities of this

Hi. I&#;m the Respond Wall. In the material world, I&#;m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O&#;Neill Library at Boston College. In the online earth, I live in this blog.  You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren&#;t into deities of knowledge, appreciate a ghost in the machine.

I own some human assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O&#;Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to explore tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you&#;d like a quicker answer to your question and don&#;t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just appreciate me, The Retort Wall.



by Fred Penzel, PhD

This article was initially published in the Winter edition of the OCD Newsletter. 

OCD, as we know, is largely about experiencing severe and unrelenting doubt. It can cause you to doubt even the most basic things about yourself – even your sexual orientation. A study published in the Journal of Sex Research found that among a group of college students, 84% reported the occurrence of sexual intrusive thoughts (Byers, et al. ). In organize to have doubts about one’s sexual identity, a sufferer require not ever have had a homo- or heterosexual experience, or any type of sexual life at all. I have observed this symptom in young children, adolescents, and adults as well. Interestingly Swedo, et al., , initiate that approximately 4% of children with OCD experience obsessions concerned with forbidden aggressive or perverse sexual thoughts.

Although doubts about one’s own sexual identity might come across pretty straightforward as a symptom, there are actually a number of variations. The most apparent form is where a sufferer experiences the thought that they mig

Adult LGBT Population in the United States

This report provides estimates of the number and percent of the U.S. adult population that identifies as LGBT, overall, as well as by age. Estimates of LGBT adults at the national, state, and regional levels are included. We rely on BRFSS data for these estimates. Pooling multiple years of data provides more stable estimates—particularly at the state level.

Combining BRFSS data, we estimate that % of U.S. adults identify as LGBT. Further, we estimate that there are almost million (13,,) LGBT adults in the U.S.

Regions and States

LGBT people reside in all regions of the U.S. (Table 2 and Figure 2). Consistent with the overall population in the Together States,more LGBT adults exist in the South than in any other region. More than half (%) of LGBT people in the U.S. live in the Midwest (%) and South (%), including million in the Midwest and million in the South. About one-quarter (%) of LGBT adults reside in the West, approximately million people. Less than one in five (%) LGBT adults live in the Northeast ( million).

The perce