I've been giving myself permission to do or not do things lately.
I know that sounds weird, but I grew up in a White Baptist church where there were a lot of rules, spoken or unspoken. They would say it's not legalism, but well, okay.
So my brain is conditioned to view everything in terms of respectability. And there have been a lot of choices that I've made for a long time that neither reflect morality nor do they align with my preferences.
One thing I noticed that I have kept doing is reading the arguments against same sex marriage, or against church acceptance of it. I've been hearing about this issue from a church perspective since roundabout 2004 (well, since before that, but that was the first time there was any nuance at all).
Recently, a ministry posted a link to a series of podcasts on
Twitter. My first reaction was that I should listen to the whole series,
withhold judgment, engage the ideas, etc. So I clicked.
Here is how the podcast was framed:
"In society
today, the orthodox Christian belief that the practice of homosexuality(1)
is a sin is out of step with the times. This tension(2) is unavoidable. In a moment where the cultural
consensus has completely flipped, many who hold to the historic belief
avoid the depth of this conversation at all costs. The risk(3) of saying
the wrong thing, offending a new friend, being extreme or worse
yet—unloving, quiets the dialogue. Yet privately, Christians are
desperate to address this important topic with love, clarity and
biblical conviction. Is there really a way forward that demonstrates
both truth and grace(4)?"
If
you really wanted to track through my tweets or do some googling, you
can figure out where this comes from, but I'm not linking you because
that's not the point.
As
a gay person who has been thinking about this for more than a decade,
here is what I notice that a lot of Christians who are relatively new to
an actual conversation on LGBT rights would miss:
1. It still uses the word homosexuality.
This
means it's likely to ignore transgender people altogether or lump them
in with gay people, and also that it clings to a general notion that
homosexuality is bad.
Yes, the connotation of homosexuality refers to
religious interpretations that skew negatively. Some style guides
already recommend using something else. It's a red flag for me to see
this word.
2. Tension.
Always
so much tension. People don't want to say conflict. They don't want to
admit that my marriage is an argument, that they don't like it, that
they think I'm a sinner. Often, they like me once they've met me, or
they think that Rebecca and I are a lovely couple. If there's tension
for you when this topic crosses your mind, what do you think it's like
for me in the pew every Sunday I see you? I'm so tired of the tension and of you phrasing it this way.
3. Risk
Look again. Who is framed as at-risk here? No, seriously, scroll back up and look.
It's
not the gay person coming out who may be refused communion, or denied a
marriage ceremony, or fired, or refused medical treatment, or evicted.
It's the straight person with Christian privilege. And the risk is one
of perception - people might not like this conservative Christian as
much.
4. Both truth and grace
You
know what this means? They're trying to look fair and balanced by
including truth and grace. Let me suggest that the truth here is still going to be
that homosexuality is unbiblical and unbecoming to a true Christian. The
grace part? They mean trying not to look homophobic when saying the
truth part, usually by adding that God will forgive gay people, or that
celibacy is an option, or that it's not a worse sin than any other sin,
or something that seems loving to someone who has never had someone say
something like this to their face.
I didn't listen to this podcast. I gave myself permission not to.
I'm giving myself permission to extricate myself from these situations. I often do try to engage. Really.
But
justifying my marriage, my existence, my identity, my theology at every
turn is exhausting. It detracts from actual worship. It brings up a lot
of pain from when discrimination against my family was even worse than
it still is now.
I can't tell you how often I hear straight, conservative people claim that I should listen to their point of view, because they're not homophobes and their perspective is compassionate and different. And then they tell me something I've already heard, a bunch of times, for the last six years at least.
But they hadn't heard it before. They didn't have to, because as someone with straight privilege and religious privilege, these issues affected them very little, they could ignore them. If they wanted, they could keep asserting simply that the Bible says homosexuality is a sin, without reading the verses, without looking at cultural context, without consideration of whom they hurt. Without considering how the closeted gay kid in youth group or the member of the congregation that never could pray away the gay was reacting (you think we didn't try this? We did. Trust me, that was the first thing we tried.). Because mostly, the issue/tension/truth/grace/risk didn't hurt the straight, conservative Christians. Because for them, mostly, it was a philosophical or rhetorical exercise to even engage with the issue.
And so now, they want my approval that they have considered the issue. In some cases, I am the only gay person they know, or maybe the only gay, out Christian they know. And because they have had the privilege of ignoring the issue and are now finally considering the nuance, they feel that I owe them my attention as a sounding board. For a while, I gave them my attention. I listened and read. I tried to see how this argument was different. I tried to explain things. I blogged. I posted specific blog entries. I re-posted specific blog entries. I wrote new blog entries.
If you've just decided to get up to speed on this, good. Better late than never. But you are late. There are a lot of resources out there. Most of your questions can be answered with a quick Google search. No one owes it to you to explain it, or to use their backstory to convince you. And if you still believe that LGBT people should be disadvantaged at your church, do not ask them to agree with you or to approve. Do not ask them to be kind and nod politely. You're entitled to your ignorance, to your opinion, to your theology.
But I have given myself permission not to engage it when doing so would hurt me.
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This picture has little to do with anything, but I like it, and I think I haven't posted it before. It's our first bites of cake as a married couple, at our first wedding - the religious one, when we still couldn't have a marriage license. |
*Yes, the title is clickbait. I'm sorry. Would you have read it if I said that I often skip reading or listening to homophobic theology but sometimes decide to engage?