Happy Ending
I am a retired clergyman about to take up housekeeping with another retired clergyman!! We're moving from Ohio to the St. Petersburg, Florida area.
We were both married and had families. When we move in together, I will have been divorced over 10 years (my ex is now deceased); my partner will have just been divorced. Family acceptance of our gayness has been mixed, but we expect time to heal and understanding to grow.
My partner and I expect to be active in a local church in Florida -- as are other gay friends. We met through Lutherans Concerned, a ministry to gays and lesbians (actually GLBT) in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Its most recent national assembly was in Columbus, OH and was most affirming and inspirational!
"The Lord is my shepherd, and he knows I'm gay" -- the title of a book by MCC's
founder, Troy Perry, has always stayed with me. Regardless of "how we got this way," I'm confident that God loves me. There are no words of condemnation of
homosexuals from Jesus' lips in the Bible. I prefer to take to heart his "new commandment" -- love one another as I have loved you.
If this story gives credence to the fact that GLBT persons can be spiritual and still find happiness in a church home, that is my intent. Find a "Reconciling in Christ" parish/congregation in your community. There you will be welcomed as a brother or sister in Christ.
John
A Theology of Love
"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God and everyone that loves is one with God and knows God. One who does not know love does not know God for God is Love." - 1 John 4: 7-8
I never had a problem reconciling my Christianity when I came out. Between the ages of 10 and 13, my parents sent me for one week each summer to a Lutheran Camp in Colorado called, ironically, Rainbow Trail. Out of that experience, I learned the bible verse 1 John 4:
7-8 (see above), because it was one of the camp songs we sang. Over time, I have come to
incorporate that verse into my everyday life to understand the Christian nature possible in all relationships. It is the verse I come back to time and time again when threatened by anti-homosexual messages from Christians who have not been given the opportunity to grow up in the nurturing, non-threatening spirituality that I have. I have come to understand the personalizing importance in the phrase "God is Love". To me it means that I have to do something to see God -- I have to create love to make God present in my life. Create my own miracles, if you will.
I believe in a God of active relationships -- relationships with lovers, and friends, and strangers, and clients, and students, and that homeless guy you pass every day, and Ellen (O.K. you're probably not going to have that relationship), and that woman in your cubicle who you hate, and your grocer, and your family, and your partner's family, and your veterinarian -- everyone. God exists in the care we take of each other and the good we do for each other. When you volunteer your time, that's God. When you care for a sick friend, that's God. Any time you create care in serving or helping someone else, that's God. And when you make love to your partner, that's God, too. It's about celebration of life and love. I
believe that God celebrates my love for my girlfriend because it is in that love that God truly exists.
To be sure, I know that there are anti-homosexual messages in the Bible. Then again, I can't think of a philosophy that is not flawed in some way. I can, however, contextualize the anti-homosexual messages found in the Bible by understanding the society from which they came. If you consider that many moral codes in the Bible came from historical crises, strict prohibitions are much easier to understand. Some came from the need to propagate a population after years of depletion due to warfare. Some came from concern over use of resources during periods of hunger. And on and on based upon the circumstances particular to the historical period referenced at the time (the Bible contains thousands of years of history). As any other set of laws, these rules are the understanding of a group of people as to the way the society should work during that period of time. I think that those laws are the word of God for that time.
And, unlike many conservative Christians who believe that the Bible is the immutable word of God, I can see the mythos in it (come on, the world was not invented in 7 days) and the errors. I believe the Bible to be the word of God, but not the only word. I also understand the music of Mozart to be the word of God and the paintings of Remediaz Varo and the dancing of Martha Graham, and the Tao Te Ching and all kinds of other glorious creations. All of these contain the messages we need every day to understand ourselves and other people better.
Please understand, this is not typical Christian teaching. Currently, I attend St. Francis Lutheran Church in San Francisco, a congregation that was kicked out of the largest, most liberal branch of the Lutheran Church for calling a couple of lesbians to be pastors. It's
not even necessarily the thinking of that radical congregation. It's what I understand about the theology, after a lifetime of experience. Really, Christianity, like any other theology, gets a bad rap because of the actions of some of it's followers. We're not all like that. Christianity is really about love and social justice. As a Christian lesbian I ask you to remember that, because the Christians you are mad at probably don't.
Kirsten Boyd,
San Francisco
Do Something
About five months ago, during a conversation with a friend, I started describing my apathy and disgust with organized religion. "Why on earth," Jennifer scolded me, "would someone who has their life so together, someone who was so in love with going to church as a child, someone who was so spiritual before he 'came out', someone who has such great Christian friends -- why on earth would you not be more involved in leading change within the church? Why don't you get off your butt and do something?". Her scolding did reverberate: why was I sitting out the most important issue of my life (my spirituality) with my arms folded on the sidelines, complaining about everything?
Of course I had my reasons. When I came out about three years ago, I was shocked to find that the same church that welcomed me as a straight-acting white male suddenly wanted to turn me into a third-class citizen. I was mortified to sit in church and hear sermons about Jesus' teachings on unconditional love and at the same time watch news reports on TV and in gay publications about angry protesters telling me that God was sending me to hell for being gay. I mean, even if it wasn't true, how could any Christian stand by and let others broadcast such a message to the public about what Christianity really was? And I learned more -- for example, why would I have to give up a committed sexual relationship to become a pastor just because I was gay? Why wouldn't the Lutheran church bless my partnership when they would a heterosexual relationship? I decided that if being a Christian meant telling others that they were going to hell, I wanted nothing to do with Christianity: I told my friends I was no longer a Christian, that I would never call myself a Christian again, and started sleeping in on Sundays.
But with Jennifer's words echoing through my mind, I found myself gently investigating churches in my neighborhood (Lakeview in Chicago). I suppose I started by walking into the pool up to my waist (versus my usual habit of jumping in the deep end): I frequented the outwardly friendly Methodist church in our neighborhood and learned that I was still loved by God even if I was gay... and eventually found my way back to a "welcoming" Lutheran church just a few blocks from my house. I was very surprised to find that there were a few others like myself: people who were fighting for change in the church, people who weren't satisfied that the church was perfect now, but recognized that the church is a human
organization and has changed continually over the centuries.
Now, I am probably more shocked by the famine of young gay men in any of the churches in my neighborhood. As our pastor pointed out last week, never has our neighborhood been so densely populated, yet services are only sparsely attended. What happened to all the gay boys and girls from the Midwest farms, cities and suburbs who were raised in Lutheran churches and then moved to the gay mecca of Lakeview? Did they change their spirituality when they changed area codes?
If I can make one plea, it would be to DO SOMETHING. It doesn't matter your religion, your beliefs or your past: get involved. Find out what the issues are, learn about your choices, and please do not be turned off if your local church is not the embodiment of heavenly tranquility. In fact, if you take time to listen, you might be surprised to learn that there are very advanced conversations in every major Christian religion in America concerning gay rights and ministry. As gay men and women, we live in one of the most exciting times in history -- the advent of social acceptance of our lifestyles. Let's capitalize on that excitement and lead productive change in our local churches and synagogues.
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