All But Invisible

Reviews

As a minister, my chief responsibility is to preach the entire Word of God. Sometimes this puts me in the awkward, insecure position of declaring truths that cost me very little personally but that have deep, life-altering implications for others. When this is the case, it helps immensely to be able to point people to other voices for whom the subject matter is not merely academic but part of their lived-out, cruciform faithfulness. One such voice is Nate Collins. In All But Invisible, Nate provides thorough research, thoughtful counsel, personal transparency, and robust biblical support for staying true to the church's historic teaching about same-sex relationships. He does so not merely as a theorist but as a faithful practitioner of the truths which he espouses, and this makes all the difference. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Nate Collins has been researching and thinking through LGBTQ related questions for many years, and his new book, All But Invisible, represents the fruit of his journey. In it, Collins asks new questions and develops fresh categories regarding orientation and identity, and he does so in a thorough yet accessible way. This truly is a valuable contribution to the discussion and not just yet another book to be thrown on the pile of LGBTQ books. There are few people on the planet that I resonate with more than Nate Collins on this topic.

Nate Collins' All But Invisible is a significant contribution to the ongoing discussion about Christianity, gender, and sexuality. Collins holds a traditional Christian sexual ethic but argues that many conservative Christians are, unfortunately, unaware of ways that cultural Christianity in North America can make it difficult for gay people to live out the traditional sexual ethic. For the sake of our Christian witness, it is critical that we identify these roadblocks to faithfulness and remove them. All But Invisible is not the first word or the last word, but it is an important word. Even if you are not persuaded on every point--as I am not--you will be grateful you read the book.

This book will provoke both conservative and progressive readers. Thoroughly researched and charitably written, Collins asks Christians to maintain biblical authority even as they dismantle churchly structures that reduce gay people to invisibility. His is an important new voice calling for no less than a reconceptualization of Christian community.

This is an important and necessary book. Nate Collins invites us to consider the world from his perspective: a gay Christian committed to traditional morality. He is hardly the only such person, of course, but as his title indicates, people like him have been rendered 'all but invisible' in noisy debates in church and culture. He rereads Scripture and culture, exploring the nature of desire and of identity along the way, and presents a compelling and attractive case for looking at the world and the church, and the place of lesbian and gay people in both, in a new way. All of us who presume to talk about sexuality or to seek to love our gay and lesbian friends should stop and listen.