A little while back, I told our Editor-in-chief that I'd like to write a column at some point about being a queer Christian. She was enthusiastic, so I started writing. Problem is, I have a lot to say, and I'm not sure how to concisely fit in all the queer issues, all the stuff about acceptance, the basic truth lines about how Christianity is based on accepting the outcasts of society, and not take up three damn pages of the newspaper.
She had what seems like a terrifying solution to that: make it a weekly column! I think I'm going to be a waffly coward and run it by our priest for advice before I actually commit. But I'm seriously considering it.
I can't think of a decent title, but I guess Coming Out Christian is almost alliterative and on-topic enough to work.
So the good news is, if I make this a weekly column, I'll be able to talk about a lot of stuff that I've been thinking about pretty often and hard lately. This is, I apologize, going to be a terribly disorganized blog entry (blame the format: I'm writing it up in Notepad, rather than transcribing a handwritten piece.)
The first thing, of course, is the obvious doctrinal stuff: No, Jesus of Nazareth never had a blessed thing to say about homosexuality (or bisexuality), though if I'm not much mistaken he does acknowledge intersex people being born at some point. (Doesn't he? "Some men are born eunuchs," in answer to one of the tricky questions he's asked by the Pharisees or the Sadducees or somebody in the crowds affiliated with his enemies.) The only people who condemn homosexuality are the authors of Leviticus, who famously also condemn shellfish, mixing fabrics, pork and bacon, cheeseburgers, touching women who are on their periods, drinking mixed wine, crossbreeding animals... the list goes on, and on, and on. You get the picture. And then there's Paul, who... well. Oh, Paul. I have a lot to say about Paul. Most of it isn't stuff I could fit in this column; I feel about him like I feel about C.S. Lewis. Initially, hero-worship, followed by a period of intense pain and loss when I realized how he would've reacted to me, followed by, far later, empathy and great pain for the pain he suffered from his own mind and self-loathing.
I've been there. I don't know if Paul was the first gay Christian. But I am convinced that he was gay (or at least bi, but I lean towards gay, reading him), that he hated himself for it, that he suffered for his lust and his self-loathing and depression. (Bishop John Shelby Spong's book pointed this out to me, and once seen, it cannot be unseen. I recognize in Paul's writings the pain and self-hatred that I have struggled with my whole life, and that's why his work is, at least for me, both so very uncomfortable to read, and sometimes so transcendent. To be reminded, anew, that God still loves us, that we cannot be separated from his Love, is such an immense relief it almost hurts. ANYWAY.) Point is, Paul is a complicated source. Women should not be subservient to their husbands, and should be allowed to speak in church; anyway, Paul contradicts himself a couple times. More on that later.
Then you get into the more metaphorical stuff, out of the realm of literalism. Because, let's face it, if you're not going to step away from the literalism perspective after reading that list, we're never going to see eye to eye anyway, which won't matter much because in order to avoid all those things you are probably going to need to go live on a commune (remember, also in the Bible is the immense importance of kindness to foreigners and strangers!). So we come to the crux, the fact that according to Christ, all the Law and all the prophets hung on two laws, and two laws alone: Love the Lord thy God (with all thy heart, mind, and strength); love thy neighbor as thyself. All the Law. All the prophets. Which means that if a law seems to contradict that, it is wrong. God is Love. I've been through this; we've all been through this. I had a lengthy blog entry years ago dedicated like three pages to this concept alone; books could be filled. The point is, if you look at the meaning of what Jesus Christ of Nazareth was actually saying, it seems to come down to something simple: sin is what you do to other people.
That's about it on the theology, except for the vision of Peter which reminded him that Gentiles were people too, and hey if uncircumcised barbarians could be loved by God, maybe so could lesbians. Who knows.
So then you come to the other part of it, the part where the rap breaks down, everything's tense no one makes a sound, uh. Well, see, I'm androgynous on the outside because I am genderqueer on the inside. I never did get around to figuring out whether I was "really" male or female; when I learned in school that sometimes fetuses start to develop male, and if something goes wrong, they revert to female, I immediately thought, "Oh, so that's what happened to me!" That impression has never left me. And then there's the whole "attracted to a smattering of individuals across all genders," which is even more damning, and the fact that I can't change that. I can't 'fix' it. I tried. It's not going away. And I flat-out refuse to "try" to present myself as something other than what I am. So I am, most likely, going to be making small children and elderly ladies double-take in bathrooms for the rest of my life; I can hope, selfishly, that that's the worst that happens to me and I never get my nose broken by some very angry husband/boyfriend/father. I have the privilege of being mostly-harmless-looking, short and white and nerdy, which means odds are good for me. I know that. I still get scared sometimes. I'm never afraid to walk town at night, nor to duck through alleys on my way home, nor to cut through unlit parks. I am afraid of guys with Confederate flag shirts when I'm coming out of a restaurant or bar bathroom. I am afraid, in a little pit inside of my soul, of how people - especially the more conservative members of my home church - are going to react to this column.
And that, I think, is why I need to write it.
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