I realize this post is technically 7 of 7 but I already had the 6 part series in my draft folder and making the required corrections would have meant revising the title and permalink on all the previous posts. I’m lazy. This is easier.

Before there was any talk about welcoming congregations, ordaining gays and lesbians, providing non-gender specific restrooms or affirming gay relationships there were GLBTQ folks taking up pew space. We aren’t the first queers in the church but we’re the first, due largely to the work of the less visible members of “the family” who came before us, to live our lives openly and without apology.

We bring the gift of presence and what we’re doing now is creating the history of GLBTQ Christians in the church. We’re engaging in really difficult conversations in the church to make the conversations a little easier for GLBTQ Christians who will come later. We’re coming out from behind the pulpit and coming out in the pew to smooth the road when others come out. We’re a presence in the church so the church can have the opportunity to put justice and mercy into practice. We’re a presence in the church so Christians in the future won’t be forced to choose whether to leave the church or deny their awakening sexual orientation. We’re a visible presence in the church for every queer youth and for every gay and lesbian who thinks a relationship with God is impossible or contradictory to the reality of their lives.

Our presence in the church today will be the bold and courageous history of GLBTQ Christians tomorrow. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving!

The denomination I spent the first 40 years of my life in was the Foursquare Church. It use to go by the name the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel but apparently they’re going more streamlined these days. That’s Foursquare as in Jesus Christ Savior, Healer, Baptizer, and Soon Coming King. Foursquare as in I was born Foursquare, raised Foursquare and when I die I’ll go to that Foursquare city in the sky. Foursquare forever, turn back never. Okay. I’ll spare you the rest though I have a million of them.

So here are the facts. I went to a Foursquare church. I spent my summer’s at Foursquare camp. I graduated from a Foursquare Bible college, and I was a licensed Foursquare minister who served a Foursquare congregation for nearly 15 years. My family was then as they are now members of that denomination and our family name is known by many within the denomination because of the faithfulness of my grandparents and parents. What all this means is that for the first half of my life I was a member of the Foursquare club. I was an insider; a member of the Foursquare family.

Some of you might have a story similar to mine and only need to replace Foursquare with Assemblies of God, Church of Christ, Calvary Chapel, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran or Nazarene to make it your own. You grew up in the church, went through its Sunday School program and was active in the youth group. You did the summer church camp thing and the week in Mexico to help build a church thing. You might have ministered in the church as a pastor or a member of the congregation; served on the church board, led the music during worship time, or set up the tables for the after-church potluck. You knew everyone in the church and they knew you. You were part of a church family and they were your friends. And then you came out and left the church because trying to stay would have been too painful for you and too unwelcomed by everyone else. You went from being an insider to an outsider, from included to excluded. We’ve made the dramatic and painful move from being located in the center of church life to a status living on the margin, and this is where the gift comes in.

We who were once in the church and have come out as GLBTQ share “the experience of being both insider and outsider, friend and stranger, member of the family and exile” (Marilyn Frye). What this means is that we’ve stood on both sides and so we bring insights to the church and a voice into the conversation that few others have to offer; but the most significant part of this whole thing is that when we speak we can do so with compassion and understanding. I’m going to say more about this if for no other reason than I always have more to say about….okay….about everything.

When I was an insider in the church, I said “Amen” when the church said “Amen.” I shared the same theological viewpoint and that included understanding homosexuality as sin. As sin I considered it destructive to the person who was caught in it and because I saw them as lost and hurting in their sin I felt only compassion and concern for them. My attitude and actions toward gay people was shaped out of the convictions of my faith as I had been taught and so on the few occasions when I talked with a gay person, my intention was never to reject or hurt them but to bring the truth to them in love. Really.

Today when I talk with Christians who oppose homosexuality I remember all that. I remember what I believed, why I believed it, and how genuine my compassion and true it was when I said, “I’m only telling you this in love.” Yes, there are some in the church who are harshly judgmental and mean-spirited; contemporary Pharisees who appear more motivated by being right than on extending love; Christian leaders and religious institutions that use the debate on homosexuality for their own agenda, for financial gain or to secure political/religious power. Having been insiders we who are Christian understand that these louder voices coming from the church, don’t represent everyone in the church. They don’t even represent all those who oppose homosexuality because they certainly didn’t speak for us when we were insiders. As former insiders know this but many GLBTQ people don’t anymore than many Christians don’t know the reality of queer lives

And this is the gift of standing where we now stand. To both the GLBTQ communities and to the church we can bring the insights and understanding we’ve had in belonging to both and when we participate in the conversation we can speak compassionately in both directions and just as importantly, compassionately listen. Our gift as GLBTQ Christians; as friends who are now strangers and exiles who were once family members is to build a bridge of understanding that will flow from the sanctuary of every church to the meeting room of every GLBTQ Community Center, and from the heart of every Christian to the heart of every queer and back again.

If this post has been of interest you might want to check out these two related earlier posts:
(Both examine the topic of insider/outsider in relation to conservative/liberal Christianity)

You Want Me to Love Them?

How Inclusive Are We?

I’m passionately crazy about the content of this post so be prepared for a full-fledged rant. Do not attempt to operate heavy equipment immediately after blog consumption.

I went to the local Christian Bookstore on Saturday to pick up a packet of Jesus stickers for Sunday’s children’s craft. I seldom go for any other reason than sticker purchases since I get a little crazy when I’m trapped in a small area surrounded by tins of Sacra-mints, racks of clothing with catching sayings like “In case of the rapture this teeshirt will be empty” and shop clerks who say “bless you” if you so much as glance in their direction. I clearly need to find an online resource for preschool Christian swag.

Anyway, while waiting for the “Christ for Life” tee-shirt clad youth behind the counter to ring up my all too Anglo-Saxon stack of Jesus stickers I went to the magazine rack and flipped through the current edition of Relevant Magazine, drawn over by the very hip cover art emblazoned with “Seven Burning Issues” across the glossy finish. Yes, homosexuality was one of the burning issues and if you’re interested, the article is available here in its entirety.

There’s nothing in the article particularly surprising though for the most part the contributors come from a more compassionate position than what’s normally found in Christian media and to that end I respected and appreciated what most of the contributors had to say although at first glance Cindy Jacobs read like she could have benefited considerably from a nap.

In the article Brian McLaren offers this:

…we can never forget that we’re dealing with more than a theory or issue: We’re dealing with people with breakable hearts—sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, and colleagues and pastors, too. According to my research—and my experience as a pastor confirms this—it appears that about 7 percent of the population are gay across cultures and denominations and generations. If that’s more or less true, when you add parents and siblings and friends of gay people, you’re very quickly up over 30 percent of the population who are affected directly and indirectly. So the gay person is my neighbor, whatever I think about homosexuality, and so are his or her parents and friends and siblings and children. And the person who sees all gayness as a sin is also my neighbor. In my view, to be a follower of Jesus means to live in that relational tension and not try to solve it by writing off some percentage of people as lepers or Samaritans or Pharisees or enemies.

Brian says it well and on this we agree; homosexuality is more than a hot topic, a burning issue, or a controversy, it’s people. It’s those of us who are gay and it’s our families and friends, so that when our sexual orientation is vilified as the great evil and when GLBTQ people are painted with broad brush strokes dipped in prejudice and ignorance it impacts not only us but the lives of our loved ones. And when the church rejects our relationship with God based solely on our sexual orientation we stand unshaken in Christ (howbeit a tad bit perturbed) but it causes needless pain and instills groundless fear into the lives of our families and friends. If the church wants to know what’s tearing apart our families, what’s causing father and mother to turn against son and daughter, it’s not homosexuality. It’s how the church in its obsession over homosexuality is widening the chasm between Christian families and their gay family members as it continues to rail against homosexuality from a closed impenetrable position while ignoring the very real lives and testimonies of GLBTQ people.

So Brian gets kudos from me for reminding Christians that any conversation on homosexuality affects far more people than they might ever imagine and to that end one of the gifts we bring to the church is in being the face of GLBTQ people in an attempt to remove the impersonal it of homosexuality from the conversation, but not only are we to be the face of homosexuality but we are to offer a particular face the church seldom sees or fails to recognize when it’s right before them. A story shared by Shane Claiborne in the same article highlights what I’m talking about:

If we don’t simply talk about the gay issue but we are living in relationship to people who are working out their sexuality and struggling with it, the question changes. I had all these ideas about homosexuality and civil union and gay when I was in high school, and then I met a kid who was attracted to other men and he told me that he felt God had made a mistake when He made him and that he wanted to kill himself. If that brother can’t find a home in the Church, then I wonder who have we become. So for me, that’s a starting point—we need to attract the people Jesus attracted, and Jesus attracted the broken, the confused, the hurting, the abused, the people who walked away angry at Jesus, the people Jesus called a brood of vipers, the people Jesus ticked off—they were the self-righteous, the arrogant, the pretentious, the teachers of the law. I’m OK with that.

I grew up in conservative Christianity. The church was the center of our family and social life. Church was our world and in that world there were no happy homosexuals. Homosexuals in theory were miserable people, struggling with their sexuality, overwhelmed in self-loathing, and separated from God. They were portrayed as angry and resentful, miserable and guilt-ridden. They abused alcohol and drugs and searched for love in empty relationships too numerous to count. Homosexuals were broken people; damaged goods. The few gay people that dared to show their cards in the church often like the gay man Shane encountered. They were broken, downhearted souls but not because they were gay but because they grew up consuming the same dire stereotypes of homosexuals that everyone was being fed so when they came to the realization of their own sexuality they knew no other option than to fulfill the role that had been handed them. These were the only gay people I knew, just in case anyone wonder whether I was lured into the life, tempted by the glamor.

The fact remains that the gay man, woman or youth who steps forward and exposes their inner turmoil to a conservative pastor or faith community will more often than that be compassionately embraced. These are the gay people the church loves; the ones the church thinks can be fixed through ex-gay ministries, prayers of deliverance and healing, or reparative therapy cloaked as Christian counseling. These hurting, wounded people are held up as the walking breathing manifestation of the churches tragic characterization of gay people and in some sick way their suffering and despair gratifies those who oppose homosexuality because they think their suffering makes them right. I’m not bitter that it’s this way but I am angry, and I believe it’s a righteous anger.

I need to be clear about something. I don’t question that there are well-meaning people in the church who reach out to those struggling with their sexuality and faith motived by nothing but genuine love and concern. They believe homosexuality is sin and they believe what they’ve been told about some one-size-fits-all homosexual lifestyle, and so they want to help. They have no other motive than this and while we stand on opposite ends of the question of homosexuality, I admire them for their willingness to get personally involved and doing what they truly believe God would have them to do. It’s not that slice of the church I’m thinking of when I write about those who use the suffering of a gay person to promote their agenda or reinforce their narrow viewpoint. Okay? Okay. With fingers poised over the keyboard, I continue on…

To the extent that a suffering, conflicted homosexual is the recipient of the churches compassion, a joyful GLBTQ Christian is the recipient of it’s ire. We simply cannot exist if the churches view of homosexuality is right. We must be miserable. We must be living in sin. We must be this and that and the other. And. We. Can. Not. Be. Christians.

Surprise!

Hi there Church! Despite everything that comes our way in this world, there are some of us out here living wonderful lives. We’re happy, fulfilled, and grateful. We help care for our aging parents. We’re there when our siblings need us.  We’re great parents to our kids. We aren’t alcoholic or drug addicts. We’re faithful to our spouses. And we love Jesus. We grew up singing the same hymns as you did, read the same Bible, prayed to the same God. Our faith language is spotted with words like salvation, redemption, reconciliation, justification, and grace as is yours. We go to church. We sing in the choir. We teach Sunday School. We serve on the church board. We stand next to you at the table and sometimes we’re even the ones who bake the bread. And as it is with you, our faith is everything to us and seeking God’s will determines everything in our day. Yes, we’re sinners saved by grace but homosexuality is not our sin; it’s only our sexual orientation

So this is it.

As GLBTQ people we’re the face and presence of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered, and queer so the church can be confronted with the flesh and blood component of an issue that’s been depersonalized for far too long. I’ve always been moved by homelessness as a theory but when I had the opportunity to work on the streets of San Francisco for three months with the homeless; listening to their stories, shaking their hands, seeing their tears and hearing their laughter; that changed everything for me. It took homelessness and poverty to an entirely new level and forever I will owe each man and woman I met a world of gratitude for opening my eyes and heart. They were a gift to my life, and this is the same gift we bring to the church. By personalizing homosexuality we give those in the church the opportunity to grow in their humanity and compassion.

But more than that, we’re the face of GLBTQ Christians to the church so that when they talk about homosexuality they know that they’re not talking about people out there beyond the doors of the church but they’re talking about people who love them and who they stand side by side with at the table of Christ. There are GLBTQ Christians who aren’t wrestling with their sexuality and faith. They aren’t in turmoil, wounded or broken. There are GLBTQ Christians who proclaim their faith boldly and live their lives in quiet assurance and peace. There are happy homosexuals. And when the church talks about homosexuality they’re talking about their brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the queer face we bring to them and it’s the face they need as desperately to see as we need to show it to them.

During worship last Sunday we sang a song in closing called “Open the Door.” The chorus are words with hand gestures familiar to anyone who grew up in Sunday School.

“Here is the church, here is the steeple,

Open the door and see all the people.

Everyone welcome, everyone equal

Open the door and see all the people.”

The verses that follow went on to describe all the people that fill the church.

“…We are the women and we are the men,

We are the stranger and we are the friend

We are the walking, we are the lame

We are the different and we are the same

We are the straight and we are the gay,

We are what we do, we are what we say,

We are the single, we are the wed

We are the hungry, we are the bread…”

When the song came to the phrase “we are the gay” the pastor nodded and offered a little silly salute in our direction and a few people in the church smiled in our direction. It was a lighthearted moment, both amusing and sweet. D and I have accepted we’re among the few token lesbian couples in the church though sometimes being a token anything gets a little wearisome. The responsibility of educating and informing others often falls on the token gay, African-American, single mother or physically challenged person in any group and always being the one called on to teach and being watched as a model of your people isn’t what you signed up for especially when you just want to live your life. But I choose to not look at it as being a token, even if it’s only a difference of semantics; rather I see it as a calling and a gift God has given us that we in turn give to the church. In doing so the sense of it being a burden is replaced with holding it as an opportunity to participate in bringing change within the walls of the church by participating in God’s work as God changes one heart at a time.

Oh. One more thing. When I told D what I was writing about today she reminded me of a wonderful line we heard in a documentary on queers in the church that went something like this… “Our best revenge for all that’s been done to gay and lesbians is to live our lives joyfully.”

Live joyfully today.

A human being comes into the world in wholeness with everything a human life can possibly contain all muddled together in one flesh-bound package, and then something happens. Society, religion, loving authority figures, not so loving authority figures and peers show up on the scene and a young life that had known nothing but to be just who she was, do what she felt and say what she thought is instructed, threatened and cajoled into being and doing and thinking something else. Yes, children need help learning how to keep from acting out on all their emotions but somewhere in the process what children seem to pick up is that it’s not just the acting out that’s wrong but the feelings that fueled them. “You shouldn’t be mad at her, she was only trying to help.” “Come on now, there’s nothing to be sad about.” “Stop crying. There’s no reason for that!”

As we get older the major influence in our life shifts from the context of home to school and right away we can see that anyone who’s too different, from how they speak to what they wear runs the risk of being ostracized and so we learn to adapt our interests, our likes and our dislikes, our dress and even our speech and mannerisms to fit in to the crowd. We want to belong even if it means occasionally putting aside who we really are and what we really want to be like everyone else.

Enter that brand of Christianity that’s held together in rules and lived out in churches where people are taught that their feelings and desires are to be denied as corrupt, too tainted by the flesh to be trusted. Language that’s familiar to many who’ve spent any time in such churches includes words like “putting down, denying, and submitting.” I don’t argue that all those have their place within the Christian life but not when those disciplines are being held over people to bring them into conformity with the churches ideology rather than encouraged to assist them in becoming more like Christ; not when those who are denying self are cutting of parts of who they really are and in the process losing their own soul.

Between the messages of childhood, the peer-influenced life of adolescence and the religion-based calls to deny self is it any wonder that people have lost touch with who they really are; not knowing what it is they really feel or what it is they even want at the core of their being? It shows up in so many ways. Not a day goes by that somewhere in this world a therapist is sitting down with a first-time client and after listening to the unfolding of a heart-wrenching story asks “And how did that make you feel?” only to receive a baffled “I don’t know” in reply. Recovery rooms are filled with people who muddied up their lives with too much alcohol or food or sex or material things in an attempt to numb real feelings they didn’t think they should have or to search for something they couldn’t find because they didn’t even know what it was they were looking for. Today someone will take their life because by force or default they’ve been living a life that was never theirs to begin with and they can’t bear the falsehood and emptiness another day longer. People are hurting everywhere, living fragmented lives, as they try to find the pieces that seem to be missing.

This was my own experience that I wrote about earlier in my coming-out story:

As the years passed, I found myself pastoring in full-time ministry in a position that provided me with incredible opportunities among people I deeply loved working along side. I was doing the very thing I had always wanted to do and I loved it. I had developed an amazing circle of friends, a wonderful family, and had a nice home. And yet, even though my life was good, there was something underneath that felt incomplete or missing from my life that I couldn’t name. I felt like there was something I didn’t know and if I were to know what it was then everything else would fall in place.

It was only when I came to acknowledge my sexual orientation that I felt fully complete because in accepting that I was gay I also came to accept a much bigger reality; that my existence as a sexual being wasn’t a product of the flesh but was a gift of a creative, life-giving God. How I use that gift determines whether it will be a bridge or a barrier in my spiritual journey but in and of itself my sexuality is good and embracing it made me whole. That’s the joy I felt the morning when I realized for the very first time in my life that I was a lesbian. It was the missing piece and at last I was whole. Irenaeus said “The glory of God is a human fully alive,” and I shout Amen! To live out the full expression of God in us is to live fully and freely alive.

To live out the fullest expression of God in us is that for which all people hunger. It’s the “hidden wholeness” that Parker Palmer says resides within all of us. As GLBTQ people who have embraced our wholeness, whether by accepting our most true sexual expression or our most true gender identity, we’ve embraced an aspect of our humanity that many in the church have spent a lifetime ignoring, denying or killing. For others in the church, the fragments missing might have nothing to do with their sexuality. It might be that somewhere along the way in their journey through childhood and into adulthood they wrapped a piece of themselves in rags of shame and hid it away, out of sight to themselves and out of sight to God. In our willingness to live whole lives before a holy God we call others out to bring those hidden parts of themselves out into the light of grace as we have already done and are continuing to do each day. Look at your life. Reflect on what it is you most desire and what it is your heart longs to do and know and say. Feel what you most truly feel. Say what you really mean. Be who you really are. Bring every part of who you are before God and out into the world. You can live in wholeness. You can be fully alive.

There’s nothing quite like it.

Whenever D and I go out we tend to be touching each other. It might be a hand on the back or an arm around the shoulder or simply holding hands while we wait in line at Starbucks or to receive communion at the table. We don’t do it for show. We do it because we love each other and having her hand in mine is the most natural place in all the world for it to be. Okay, and yes, there are times I’m so delighted to be the one she loves that I want other people to know I’m hers and she’s mine and so I take her hand to say “Look everyone, this beautiful woman loves me! Am I a lucky dog or what?!”

AS GLBTQ people there’s something about this simple human action that makes us unique. Imagine this. You’re sitting at Starbucks sipping your triple-shot-mocha-light-half decaf-latte topped with whipped cream and a squeeze of caramel, when you notice two couples standing in line, one gay, one straight, and each couple holding hands. Look around the room at the predominantly straight crowd of caffeine chugging Starbuckeroons and imagine how they’re observing the couples. There’s the sweet young couple; the blonde-haired girl with a backpack slung over her shoulder holding hands with a lanky boy dressed in jeans and a letterman’s jacket from the local high school. Behind them is the LESBIAN couple. Most observers won’t give a thought to the sexual orientation of the young couple. They’ll notice their appearance, how they stand, what they’re wearing, and how they’re interacting with each other; how he whispers in her ear and she responds with big surprised eyes and a giggle. The letterman’s jacket will make someone wonder what sport the boy is involved in and someone else will have a passing thought that kids today are going to grow up with some real back problems from carrying all those overloaded backpacks to school everyday. Everyone will have a different thought about that couple if they even notice them at all, but with few exceptions the thoughts of everyone in the house will be the same when it come to the second couple. LESBIANS. Whatever feelings come attached to that word, whether it’s anger, delight or nothing at all, the word will be there.

And this is what makes us unique. We’re identified by who we love and really, when you think about it, isn’t that an awesomely cool thing. We’re known by our love and as such we have the opportunity to model what it is to love even when that love comes at a cost. And it does, for some more so than for others.

• In Iran the cost is execution with the method of death being determined by the presiding judge. The method chosen for two teenage men boys who were known to be lovers among those in the underground gay community of Mashad, was hanging in the public square.
• In Afghanistan in 1998 the cost to three men accused of sodomy was to be buried alive under a pile of stones and then a wall was pushed on top of them by a tank. Their lives were to be spared if when the stones were removed 30 minutes later they were still alive.
• In Gambia the cost being threatened by President Jammeh on May 26, 2008, was that gays and lesbians would be beheaded for their crimes and he called on all gay people to leave the country within 24 hours.
• In Uganda the cost is seven years imprisonment.
• In Jamaica in 2005 it came at the cost of to Lenford Harvey, an AIDS activist, of being abducted and murdered by gunmen, in a country where the cost for two men engaged in sex is 10 years hard labor.
• The cost of being gay and loving someone of the same gender is a punishable crime in Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Libya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, and Mozambique with penalties ranging from monetary fines to years of imprisonment and time spent in labour camps. Loving comes at a price in Bangladesh, India, Lebanon, Malaysia, Burma, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Yemen with the cost ranging from minor fees to flogging to death. In Antigua the cost is 15 years imprisonment and in Barbados the maximum cost is life. Trinidad the cost is 25 years imprisonment, the Cook Islands 14, in New Guinea and the Solomon Islands 14, and in Guyana, its life. This is only a partial list of the places in the world where loving someone of the same gender remains a punishable crime.
• The cost to a lesbian couple in Medford, Oregon was death at the hands of an assailant who justified his action by charging them with living a sick lifestyle. Roxanne and Michelle been together for 12 years and served on the board of their church. In Wyoming the cost to Matthew Shepherd was being beaten and tied to a fence to spend the last hours of his life alone in the cold darkness. The cost of being identified by who they loved came at great cost to Charlie Howard, Paul Broussard, Pfc. Barry Winchell, Danny Overstreet, Fred Martinez, Sakia Gunn, Richie Phillips, Nireah Johnson and Brandie Coleman, Jason Cage, Michael Sandy, and Sean William Kennedy.

Several years ago I received an email from a young woman living in Pakistan. She wrote to tell me that she and a girlfriend had fallen in love and she feared that if her father learned of it he’d instruct her brothers to kill her to save the family honor following a cultural tradition known as Karo-Kari. One of the many times I’ve wept over email.

The cost you or I might pay for loving who we love may never exact the ultimate price, but there remains a cost for all GLBTQ people no matter where we live or how in or out of the closet we are. We all know the cost that’s come to us individually along the way, and while we work to change it, to advocate for full rights under the law and to silence the anti-gay rhetoric and attitudes that serve as fuel for those who perpetuate anti-gay violence and discrimination, we continue to love who we love without denial or shame. We love because the alternative is not to love and wouldn’t the price for that be even greater in the end?

And so as GLBTQ Christians our lives carry the message to the church that we’ll love who we love no matter what the cost. Mock us, exclude us, condemn us, but we’ll go right on loving who we love in wholeness and in joy. M.R. RIley says it better than me in Gifted by Otherness:

We are a people defined by our loves. It is a wholly Christian message: Love is always costly; love is worth the cost. We are living icons of love’s indestructibility, we who have loved despite two thousand years of suffering and terror. Nothing – not physical abuse or moral sanctions, not explusion from our families or even the threat of death – has kept us from loving. This, if anything, is an icon we all ened to contemplate from time to time, a living reminder that in the end, love can endure and outlast every other thing. (p. 153)

And for those of us who remain inside the church, we offer another glaring example of love because not only will we love our partners/spouses/lovers but by remaining inside the church we’re saying with our lives that “We are committed to loving you. We will stay here in relationship with you even when you don’t think we belong here because this is where we belong. Give up on us but we won’t give up on you.” I know more than a few GLBTQ Christians who’ve left the church because they couldn’t take it any longer and I understand, empathize, and support their decision. When a relationship, any relationship, turns abusive then leaving is sometimes the most right thing a person can do. But others of us remain, not because we’re more long-suffering and God knows, not because we’re more holy, but because staying in the church is something to which we feel called. Maybe not for forever, but at least for now, and so we stay and maybe in staying one heart will be changed by the demonstration of our love to one another and to our commitment to remain in relationship with the church. Or maybe they’ll think just we’re nuts. Who knows…maybe they aren’t so wrong.

Among all the things I don’t know, there’s one thing I do know: as GLBTQ Christians we’re not doing anything new here. Love that comes at a price is at the very heart of the Christian message and always has been. Jesus loved no matter what the cost. Jesus loved who others thought he shouldn’t love, and it was his unrelenting message that proclaimed God’s love took no notice of adherence to the law or sacrifice but was available to all for the sake of love and love alone that  Jesus was despised, rejected, and died.

They’ll know we’re GLBTQ by who we love and I hope all the more and in ways just as tangible that we’d also be known as Christians for the very same reason; because of the One we love who first loved us.

Children, you belong to God, and you have defeated these enemies. God’s Spirit is in you and is more powerful than the one that is in the world. These enemies belong to this world, and the world listens to them, because they speak its language. We belong to God, and everyone who knows God will listen to us. But the people who don’t know God won’t listen to us. That is how we can tell the Spirit that speaks the truth from the one that tells lies. My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God’s children, and we know him. God is love, and anyone who doesn’t love others has never known him. God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life. Real love isn’t our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven. Dear friends, since God loved us this much, we must love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is truly in our hearts. (I John 4:4-12)

Today, I encourage you to be known in all ways and by all people by your love; whoever you are, whoever you love. This is a gift you bring into the world and right through the doors of the church.

For more on anti-gay laws around the world

For more on the public hanging of the two Iranian men

For more on gay issues in Africa

For more on victims of anti-gay and transgender violence

and

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

When we were invisible in the church; leading the choir, teaching Sunday School, serving on committees and boards, preaching behind the pulpit, and all the while keeping part of ourselves hidden and our mouths quiet, the church was fine with us. The illusion that we were all on the same page and cut from the same mold made living together in community familiar and easy. Then we started standing up, claiming our wholeness and naming our love and the trouble started. Our very existence as GLBTQ believers in the Body of Christ brought conflict into churches and denominations. We stirred things up and life behind the doors of the church got complicated with tensions mounting and sides being chosen. And why are we making the church uncomfortable?

First, by virtue of being GLBTQ and Christian, our existence clashes with the idea that there’s as Christians we all think, act, live, and believe like each other. As GLBTQ people, no matter how normal or regular or average we think we are, to the church there’s nothing normal or regular or average about us, and yet there we are, stranding right next to them, feasting at the table, worshiping God, and hanging out in the church. Instead of continuing to function under the assumption that everyone in the church shared the same point of view, GLBTQ people have brought the reality to the forefront; that despite the best efforts to encourage and even require conformity among its members, the church has always been, and will continue to be a glorious mish-mosh of humanity; and the church has no right to turn away or reject who God has called.

The other reason we make the church uncomfortable can be summed up in one word, sex. That’s right. I said church and sex in the same breath and I’m still alive despite the crack of thunder heard in the distance.

I don’t know what your experience was but growing up in the church I somehow managed to get through my adolescence, teen years, young adulthood and beyond with barely a word about sex being mentioned within the walls of the church. The little that was said, spoken with no direct eye contact or time provided for Q and A at the end, came with a single message. “Wait! Wait until you’re married to have sex. If you have sex before you’re married it’s bad. If you have sex after you’re married it’s good. Now, bow your heads and join in a word of prayer.”

As a sexual minority we remind the church that all people are sexual beings and that for the church to address the whole person, they need to be talking about sexuality but like a nine year old girl who asks her unsuspecting father where babies come from, we make the church blush, sweat and squirm, and while they still aren’t talking honestly about their sexuality, at least we have them talking about ours. In fact, they’re downright obsessed with our sexual lives, or at least what they imagine our sex lives to be. Can you even imagine how exhausted we’d all be if we were really having as much sex as they seem to think we’re having? Oh. Did I just say that in my out loud voice? I bad.

The point is, making the church uncomfortable is a gift we bring and we stand in good company with others from Jesus to the Gentiles to the thousands who followed after across time and history. We’re not the first people to bring contention through the doors of the church but now is our time to stir up the waters so that the church might one day become the invisible church of God made visible in the world.

Scattered throughout Countryman and Ritley’s book they offer their thoughts on the gifts GLBTQ Christians bring to the church and I’m going to fill in their ideas with a few thoughts of my own. As I write I’m coming from a place of confidence but not arrogance, as if saying with nose pointed in the air, “We GLBTQ folks are quite special you know and the church is darn lucky to have us.” Even if I thought that was true I wouldn’t say it. I have manners. It’s true I believe as GLBTQ people we have the potential for bringing some really amazing gifts to the church but at the same time I fully acknowledge those gifts flow directly from God’s working within us. Because of God’s creative touch every living breathing soul has been gifted by God and the part we get to play is in being willing to live out of those gifts for the benefit of others and to the glory of God. It’s a collaborative effort and how awesome God invites us to be part of what God’s doing in the church and the world at large.

GLBTQ Christians Keep the Church Centered in the Gospel Message

In the parables Jesus told, in the dinner invitations he accepted, and in the people Jesus defended and those he blessed, the message of his life was clear; Jesus stood on the side of the beggar, the poor, the outcast, the slave, the oppressed, the marginalized, and the unclean. As God in flesh walking among us, Jesus was a constant reminder that God has always been and will always be on the side of the oppressed. Always. Without exception. The Scriptures, both the Hebrew and Christian testaments are laced with story upon story declaring this one constant in God’s commitment to humanity.

One of the most powerful examples is the brawl that took place between Jesus and the moneychangers in the courtyard of the temple. The moneychangers were selling the required sacrificial doves and pigeons at inflated prices that were completely out of reach to the poor, and because the poor couldn’t afford them, they were prohibited from gaining entrance into the House of the Lord. Jesus wasn’t raging against free commerce; he was raging against those who dared to put up an obstacle that barred anyone from entering into the presence of God.

As GLBTQ people we come to the table at Christ’s invitation. It isn’t up to anyone in the church to welcome us or invite us. There is a place already provided there for us in Christ’s name, and in memory of his life, death, and resurrection. We come because the Gospel message is clear; God’s love is for all and Christ’s welcome is extended without limit. So we come to the table and we eat of the bread and drink of the cup, and somewhere in the church we are seen at the table by someone who struggles to believe there’s a place for them there too. That they’re gay or straight isn’t what stands in their way. The obstacle is shame from the past or a sense of unworthiness in the present. They yearn to be fed at Christ’s table, to receive the bread and cup, and so we come to the table for ourselves and for them; to say to the one hesitates to approach the table, “Come and join us. You belong here.” The gift we bring each time we come to the table and stand among the people of God is in proclaiming with our very lives that God’s love and welcome is for all. Without exception.

In recent days I’ve posted a half dozen random entries on recognizing and confronting the old messages we’ve taken in over the years on being gay and Christian in the first part of a series on Gifted by Otherness. I’m going to be getting back into the series next week with a second half focusing on the gifts gays and lesbians bring to the church but this week I want to tackle the back-log of uncompleted posts I’ve been accumulating in my draft folder.

Though we’re going to be moving on to other conversations, I know there remain other messages we’ve yet to talk about; messages both common to all of us and others that are particular and personal to each of us; some buried so deep within us and carried for so long that they’ve become like white noise, unnoticed on the surface even while playing on a continual loop in the background of our thoughts and emotions. Sometimes we can’t even name the message or know exactly what it’s saying but whatever it is, it feels wearily familiar and the weight of it holds us back from living in the fullness of freedom given to us by Christ.

Whatever message plays the loudest for you, don’t ignore it. You can’t. Don’t pretend it doesn’t matter. It does. Don’t try to drowned it out by sticking your fingers in your ears and chanting “ican’thearyouican’thearyouican’thearyou,” because that curmudgeonly old message will just patiently hang around until you’re too worn out to shout it down.

Instead, when the questioning and doubts begin playing, listen to them. Hear what they’re really saying and then confront them with the truth. I’m talking literally here. Speak words out loud so that you can both hear and speak them that bear witness to the truth of who you are in Christ and the truth of who God is and of his unending and unfathomable love and grace. When you doubt in some things, give thanks for those things you know and do the most obvious thing that you already know to do. Pray. Ask that God’s wisdom and peace might replace your uncertain and troubled mind. When the Apostle Paul encouraged the believers in Philippi to stand firm in Christ, he admonished them in love saying,

Always be glad because of the Lord! I will say it again: Be glad. Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel. Philippians 4a; 6-7 The Contemporary English Bible

May we be led in all we think and feel by the peace of God.

One of the messages that comes at us in a dozen different ways is that God’s original intent was for all people to be heterosexual but somewhere along the way those of us who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual were broken or damaged. To these folks, there’s no such thing as a normal homosexual; only a malfunctioning heterosexual in need of God’s Fix-It Shop. There are those of us who at one time or another have bought into this message, investing massive amounts of energy trying to figure out what made us gay. We question our own life experiences and turn everything upside down and inside out to see if we can find the clues to why we like the girls rather the boys. The internal message is if something caused me to be gay then something can undo it and I can be fixed, cured, or changed and the church provides us with methods for treating our brokenness; Christian counseling, prayers of healing, and ex-gay ministries.

To those who see my sexual orientation as damaged goods, thank you for playing and be sure to collect your consolation prize at the door. That’s my short inside voice only answer because speaking only for a lesbian of one, I’m not a damaged anything. That’s not to say I haven’t had my issues since by virtue of being one human living among a world of humans I’ve had my fair share of being hurts and disappointments but I’ve done the therapy, let go of any of the past that needed to stay in the past, seen the underbelly of my psyche, and can say both gratefully and assuredly, I’m one emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically healthy individual today. Oh yes, and I’m gay. And my hair is blonde (more often than not), my eyes are blue, I’m nearsighted and right-handed. I’m not a defective straight person and in fact there is nothing straight about me; there’s no heterosexual blood flowing through this body. What I am is a perfectly normal gay person. What I’m saying, all that I’m saying, is that from a personal perspective my life doesn’t match the message. Neither does history support the notion that attraction for the opposite sex is the one and only natural and intended inclination for all humanity, and this, my friends where I gracefully position myself on top of my soapbox, waving farewell to those who have to walk their dog and change their laundry while I regurgitate some historical trivia that further messes with this message.

One of the big myths we confront in the area of human sexuality is the notion that heterosexuality is not only the norm, what is most common for sexual orientation, but normative, the standard of correctness for sexual orientation. Growing up surrounded by heterosexuals (those straight people are everywhere!), I’m more than willing to concede that heterosexuality is the predominant orientation but by no means is heterosexuality the exclusive sexual orientation of humanity or heterosexual relationships the ideal model upon which to judge all others.

I’ve already addressed little bits and pieces how human sexuality was understood in ancient Israel and first-century Palenstine under the category of Homosexuality and the Bible in the posts on Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1, and at Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy 1:9-10. Summarizing, in the ancient world a man who had sex with another man was the same man who went home to his wife and children. The lines between same-sex sexual activity and opposite-sex sexual activity were more than blurry, they overlapped one another. The understanding was that the person who engaged sexually with someone of the same-sex was thought to be someone who had been simply been unable to fully satisfy his sexual appetite with the opposite sex. He wasn’t driven by abnormal sexual passions for another man, but by abnormal sexual passions for more and more sex however he could get it. Understood this way, homo-eroticism was an extension of the norm but not oppositional to the norm. If this sounds confusing, it should because we’re conditioned by our world view and not by that of the ancient world which was literally, a whole other world and culture on to itself.

As separate entities the words homosexuality and heterosexuality and all those words mean to us today simply didn’t exist; not in antiquity, not in the Middle Ages, and not when buffalo roamed freely on the American continent. Leaping ahead centuries to 1901 there was no mention of either in the Oxford English Dictionary although in that same year in Dorland’s Medical Dictionary, heterosexuality is finally included, being defined as, and you’re going to love this, “Abnormal or perverted appetite toward the opposite sex.” I just had to empathize that in bold because it’s too precious to miss, but entertainment value aside this definition reflected accurately the societal view of the time that procreation was the primary imperative for sexual activity which meant that sexual attraction for someone of the opposite sex or sensual pleasure as a driving force for sexual intimacy was considered unnatural, aberrant, and a perversion. Does any of this sound familiar?

Homosexuality doesn’t appear until 1909 in Webster’s New International Dictionary. It was defined as a medical term meaning “morbid sexual passion for one of the same sex” and yet in that same year the term heterosexuality is absent. Not until 1923, fourteen years later, does heterosexuality find its way into Websters as “morbid sexual passion for one of the opposite sex.” As John Katz’s wrote in The Invention of Heterosexuality, “the advertising of a diseased homosexuality preceded the publicizing of a sick heterosexuality.” It wasn’t until 1934 in the Second Edition of Webster’s was heterosexuality lifted from an abnormal state to being viewed normative as “the manifestation of sexual passion for one of the opposite sex; normal sexuality,” while homosexuality in the same volume was defined as “eroticism for one of the same sex.” In regards to heterosexuality, no longer was procreation required as the motivating factor for opposite sex attraction, and now that it was coming to be established as the norm every variance from that norm was judged against it.

I find all that interesting but more than that, I find it serves as a strong witness to the fact that heterosexuality as an ideal model for sexual orientation and homosexuality as an aberrant from of sexual orientation is a relatively new concept. There’s nothing in human history that’s black and white about human sexuality or sexual orientation. That’s the point. Heterosexuality as sexual attraction for the opposite sex without procreation as the intended goal was once considered abhorrent. Now it’s not. Our understanding of human sexuality has changed and so when people hold up heterosexual relationships as a monolith to sexual orientation and intimate relationships, they’re not wielding a truth with the weight of history behind it. They’re holding up the dominant contemporary world view with all it’s prejudices and cultural acceptabilities.

Now wake up and go for a walk. I’m heading out for a four mile stroll myself.

Blog out!

In our families we hesitate in coming out to the people we love because we don’t want them to be upset. We worry about the burden it will be to them, the pain it will put them through, the conflicts it will create, and when we finally tell them we’re gay, we feel guilty at having been responsible in some way for their tears or anger; after all, if we’d never said anything, they would have been spared from it all. In our ongoing relationships with family and less than affirming Christian friends, we avoid revealing anything about our lives so as to not upset them further. While they talk easily about what’s going on in their lives, when it comes time for us to share what’s happening with us, we answer with a superficially-safe, “Oh not much, just more of the same-o same-o.”

We see what the issue of homosexuality is doing to the church. Christians on both sides are engaged in heated debates on the bible and homosexuality in their congregations, denominations, and right here on the internet. Mainstream denominations are threatening to splinter over the inclusion of GLBTQ people in the life and ministry of the church and the ordination of gays and lesbians. Straight pastors have been removed from their pastorates because they dared to preside at a gay wedding and other well-known personalities in the church world have been ostracized and ridiculed for voluntarily standing as GLBTQ allies and advocates in the church and society. As we celebrate those congregations that have declared themselves GLBTQ-welcoming and are grateful to our straight friends and allies who’ve paid a personal price, at the same time we carry a lingering sense of indebtedness to them and grief for all the fuss and bother our sexual orientation has brought to the church of Christ. We wonder whether we’re trying to push change too quickly and so we hesitate pursuing church leadership and avoid any physical contact with our partner within eye shot of the church building because it might be easier for everyone if we’re just a little less visible and vocal.

In these ways and others the message is reinforced that our sexual orientation is a major problem, responsible for division and tension in the church and stirring up pain and conflict in our families. We carry that voice inside ourselves and for some it becomes internalized and generalized to such an extent so that the problem is now no longer my sexual orientation but the problem is me. I’m a problem. I’m a problem to my family. I’m a problem to the church. I’m a problem to God. When we internalize the problem as ourselves then it’s understandable we find ourselves at times living as though we need to apologize for our very lives. “I’m here, I’m queer, I’m sorry.”

You are not a problem. That you are gay is not a problem. That you are gay does not even cause the problem. The problem does not belong to you. The problem is how others respond to us. The problem isn’t us but it belongs to those who respond to our full humanity as though it were a problem. No. That’s not even it. The real problem lies in all the erroneous teaching concerning the bible and homosexuality and the ignorant misinformation that’s been perpetuated about GLBTQ people over the decades. The problem resides in the church that already had a huge problem with the issue of sexuality long before we ever raised our gay voice. The problem lives outside us. The problem is not us. The problem is not you. I’m being repetitive here for a reason dear friend.

That the problem isn’t me or about me doesn’t mean I feel nothing in seeing the pain of those I love in my coming out to them, but rather than guilt or anger I feel compassion, recognizing that their pain comes from a lifetime of Christian teaching where exclusivity hides in the shadows of its doctrine and from those within Christianity who’ve used their public platform to promote fear and misinformation about gays and lesbians as a fund raising campaign and to seek conservative acclaim.

That the problem isn’t me or about me doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the price that’s been paid by straight allies and friends. I’m deeply grateful and moved by the sacrifices I know have been made by so many but I hold that with knowing what they’ve chosen to do has nothing to do with me. In Micah 6:8 we’re called to be a justice people and so each time someone stands up for GLBTQ people that’s not something they’re doing for the sake of you or I, but something they’re doing for the sake of the Gospel. Just as you and I, as GLBTQ people are equally called to advocate for justice, not only for ourselves but for any and all who are marginalized and oppressed.

When talking one day about Christian ethics, a man I greatly admire said that “Everything we say and do says exactly what it is we believe about God. We live our theology.” Those words changed how I approach life. It’s the touchstone I constantly return to through the day, at least those days when I’m being intentional in life rather than moving through in a fog and a flurry. “What am I saying about God in the action I’m about to take or in the words I’m about to speak? What do I believe about God by this thing I’m holding in my heart; by this thought that I’m giving my attention?”

In claiming the wholeness of our lives as GLBTQ people and in particular GLBTQ people of faith we have nothing to apologize for, but rather we are declaring the theology of our hearts; that God is a creative God, a God of surprises, a God of radically ridiculous and extravagant love, a God who on occasion just can’t resist doing the most unpredictable things while working through the most unexpected people. A God of love, grace, and compassion. A God of those who are gay and straight and bi and trans and anyone that falls anywhere in the wildly creative spectrum of humanity.

In Gifted by Otherness, M.R. Riley recalls of her own spiritual journey toward reconciliation,

I was not convinced that I either had a problem or was a problem. I saw clearly that others had a problem with me, but their view seemed merely quaint and ignorant. To judge by the richness of my spiritual life, God did not have a problem with me. I believed then and believe now that I was born gay by the grace of God, and that God found this good, as God found all creation good.

Okay, I’m going to say it one more time. The message telling you that you’re a problem or that your sexuality is causing a problem is wrong. Wrong, so wrong, absolutely wrong. You have nothing to apologize for as a gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans person of God but everything about grace and wholeness to declare to a world that could use a double dose of both. And then some.

Word out.