When a journalist has a chance to interview a paragon of the Christian faith like Eugene Peterson, there's a lot of pressure to pick the perfect questions. I'd asked him about why he was leaving the public eye and if he was afraid of death. I'd asked him about Donald Trump and the state of American Christianity. But there was one more topic I wanted to cover: same-sex relationships and marriage.

It's one of the hottest topics in the church today, and given Peterson's vast influence among both pastors and laypeople, I knew his opinion would impact the conversation. Though he has had a long career, I couldn't find his position on the matter either online or in print. I did discover that "The Message," Peterson's popular paraphrase of the Bible, doesn't use the word "homosexual" and "homosexuality" in key texts. But this wasn't definitive proof of anything. After all, those words never appear in any English translation of the Bible until 1946.

RELATED: Notable Christians who’ve had a change of heart on LGBT issues

So here we discuss his views on this divisive topic. Peterson's answers are measured, but pointed and provocative.

RNS: You are Presbyterian, and your denomination has really been grappling with some of the hot button issues that we face as a culture. I think particularly of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Has your view on that changed over the years? What's your position on the morality of same-sex relationships?

EP: I haven't had a lot of experience with it. But I have been in churches when I was an associate pastor where there were several women who were lesbians. They didn't make a big deal about it. I'd go and visit them and it never came up for them. They just assumed that they were as Christian as everybody else in the church.

In my own congregation — when I left, we had about 500 people — I don't think we ever really made a big deal out of it. When I left, the minister of music left. She'd been there ever since I had been there. There we were, looking for a new minister of music. One of the young people that had grown up under my pastorship, he was a high school teacher and a musician. When he found out about the opening, he showed up in church one day and stood up and said, "I'd like to apply for the job of music director here, and I'm gay." We didn't have any gay people in the whole congregation. Well, some of them weren't openly gay. But I was so pleased with the congregation. Nobody made any questions about it. And he was a really good musician.

I wouldn't have said this 20 years ago, but now I know a lot of people who are gay and lesbian and they seem to have as good a spiritual life as I do. I think that kind of debate about lesbians and gays might be over. People who disapprove of it, they'll probably just go to another church. So we're in a transition and I think it's a transition for the best, for the good. I don't think it's something that you can parade, but it's not a right or wrong thing as far as I'm concerned.

RNS: A follow-up: If you were pastoring today and a gay couple in your church who were Christians of good faith asked you to perform their same-sex wedding ceremony, is that something you would do?

EP: Yes.

RNS: I'd like to ask you one last question. You're entering the final stage of your career, your ministry, and your life. One day, as with all of us, Eugene Peterson will not be someone who exists. He will be somebody who did exist once. When that moment comes, how do you hope people will remember Eugene Peterson?

EP: I don't know. I tell you, I'm still getting used to it all. I'm still getting used to being noticed. People write to me. They ask to come and overnight with us, with my wife and me. Boy, the stuff that comes in my mailbox is just enormous, so I do a lot of letter writing and telephoning. And I'm just amazed really.

I haven't been part of anything big. I've never been a big church preacher. I've never been on the radio or anything like that. I'm so pleased that people care about what I've done and support it because these are difficult times for the church. I'm quite aware of that. Anyway, I guess I'm just surprised that anyone would remember at all.

RNS: Thanks for your time. I know I speak for countless others when I say thanks for your courage, for your witness, and for your words all these years. You will be remembered, Eugene Peterson. For how could we forget?