What Kind of Theologian Am I?

Hello friends and other readers,

First of all, I’d like to say thank you to allow you who have taken the time to read and comment on this blog and who have cared enough to join me on this journey of my first year of seminary. I intend to keep writing in this blog as much as possible throughout my seminary experience, but this is my second to last day of classes for my first year so I’m in a reflective mood.

This year has been powerful, challenging, faith-breaking and faith-building. I’ve fallen in love with Theology, with ritual and the sacraments. I’ve recognized hard truths about the church, and dreamed new dreams of what it might become. I’ve grown more and more certain that I’m on the right path, and less and less certain of where it’s leading.

All of this said, some of you may know that lately I’ve been talking more and more about pursuing a PhD after seminary. This is a thought I had not really considered prior to coming here, but one that has been floating at the forefront of my mind for most of this past year. Several PhD’s I know have tried to deter me or warn me against it, and I’m trying to hold that respectfully and openly in tension with my desire to go ever deeper in my learning. I also do view a PhD and my call to ministry as mutually exclusive ideas. As I like to say, I’m not interested in Theology in abstraction from the life of the church or from life in general. I’m interested in the way it informs and is informed by the life of the individual, the church, and cultures/societies. I don’t know how it all connects – but I know that it does.

In any case, my current plan is to dedicate the non-Greek moments of my summer to further exploring my theological interests and honing in – as much as possible – on my specific primary interests. In order to do this, my goal is to figure out 2 or 3 (or 1 if I should be so lucky) key arenas of interest and to work with my theo. professors to develop a relevant reading list.

Now, if I could determine my primary theological interests on my own – I would already have done so and wouldn’t be writing this blog entry. But for whatever reason, I am finding it really difficult to figure this all out. This is where you come in.

If you have been reading my blog over the past year, then you have heard a fair amount of my waxing theological. Now I have a favor to ask: help me figure out where my passions lay. What stands out to you in my entries as my primary areas of interest (especially in regards to theology, but not exclusively). If you know something of theological areas, tell me what “areas” of the theological study these apparent interests fall under.

This is a process and, of course, ultimately it will be up to me to discern my path forward. But sometimes it helps to get some outside perspectives. Your perspective, if you choose to offer, will be deeply appreciated.

Thanks!

 

The Woman Who Looked Back

Yesterday, I helped lead a Feminist Voices chapel service – highlighting some of the figures in the Bible who were not given a voice of their own. 3 of us read scripture and read/performed monologues we wrote that offered the perspective of one who was silenced. My partners did Zelophehad’s daughters, and Jonathan (Saul’s son). I spoke for Lot’s Wife. It was a powerful worship experience to witness and participate in and the process of finding this woman’s voice was incredibly transformative and empowering.

When I was first asked to participate, I was sure I wanted to write about Jephthah’s daughter. Theologically, it was so interesting – the parallels and perpendiculars to the story of Abraham and Isaac which I wrote about last semester. I talked to my co-leaders and those who started the service last year all about my plan. Then I got home from our meeting, and I just knew that I needed to write about Lot’s wife. For whatever reason, she wouldn’t let me go, and eventually – this is what I came up with:

 

You call me Lot’s wife. But I was more than the woman of my husband. I was a daughter, a sister, a mother, and a friend. In the midst of chaos and the terrifying wrath of God, I could not be any less than all of these things, and so I became – to history – Lot’s wife… the woman who looked back. My name was Idit.

I was 14—old to be unmarried—when my father gave me to be the wife of Lot. When Lot came to my father, he barely paused to consider a bride price. I was not so sure.

Saying goodbye to my mother was almost more than I could bear, her fingers digging crescent-shaped gouges into the skin of my arms as she embraced me. But when it came time to part ways with my father, he almost smiled, and in his eyes for the first time in years, there was a flash of pride and approval washing over the bitterness I’d come to expect. And so I went, and became the wife of Lot, and I didn’t look back.

I had barely been married for any time at all when my husband came to me one night and told me that his uncle Abram was leaving Haran to travel to some new land and that Lot was going with him. My participation was assumed. I didn’t want to go, but Lot told me that God had promised good fortune for Abram’s family and that we might have part in that good fortune if only we went with him. I could hear the hope in his voice. It triggered a flutter of the possible in my womb. And so I went, as the dutiful wife of Lot, and I didn’t look back.

We settled in a famine-ravaged land called Canaan, but only briefly. We hardly had our tents pitched before Abram came to Lot with a new vision of finding freedom from famine in Egypt. By the time Abram told Lot he wanted to leave Egypt and go to the Negeb, I already had my sandals strapped on and my bags packed. I was dreading the journey, but Lot would follow Abram anywhere, and I was Lot’s wife so I went and I didn’t look back.

When we got to the Negeb, Abram finally offered my husband the same suggestion I had made before the journey to Egypt – that we split up and settle apart from one another. When Lot chose the plain of the Jordan and made plans to settle in a city there called Sodom, I secretly felt that returning to Canaan would have been the wiser choice. But my duty as Lot’s wife was to follow, and so I went and I didn’t look back.

We settled in Sodom and made a life for ourselves there. Our daughters grew and to my husband’s great disappointment, we had no other children. At first the other women in the city were distant with my daughters and me. They cast sideways glances and whispered amongst themselves. But I was determined to make a true home at last in that city, and eventually I won their friendship.

I became especially close to the woman whose family lived next to us. We would go together to the well to draw water and then wash our family’s clothes while laughing over stories. My daughters played with her eldest child, also a girl, while her two youngest—twin boys—giggled together and stayed near to us.

Years passed and we left all of our traveling behind us. And then, one night, my husband burst into our home with two strange looking people. I was puzzled and a little inconvenienced, but I was more than willing to welcome them and serve them in our home. However, after they had finished their meal – just as my daughters and I had settled down to eat for ourselves – a great crowd of city men appeared at our door.

They were angry, and though I wasn’t sure why – I knew that they wanted the strangers. I was wondering what terrible thing Lot had gotten us involved in when I heard him offer our two daughters to be taken by the men in the crowd instead. Before my mind had fully registered the implication of his words, my body had moved between my children and the men. I could feel my daughters trembling behind me, 12 and 11 years old. I looked towards my husband… I didn’t recognize him. Where was the doting father I had dutifully served as wife to all these years? The man who stood before me was neither husband nor father. He was simply a man among men, fulfilling some manly duty.

Thankfully, the men of the city had concern only for the strangers and refused my husband’s offer. Our guests told Lot that we must leave the city at once because God would destroy it and us with it if we did not leave right then. A strange bright light filled the room and the men of the crowd were blinded. Lot pushed us out the back door. I thought of the strangers’ words and wanted to warn my friends, but Lot grabbed my arm roughly and dragged me forward.

“Don’t look back.” he said. “Don’t look back or it’s your life.”

His words echoed through my head as we raced out of the city and into the wilderness. In my near hysteria, I almost laughed. Don’t look back OR it’s your life, he said – but not looking back WAS my life. I had followed my husband across the world and it had brought me here, to this horror that his so-called loving God had delivered onto our doorstep. From the distant screams and the acrid burning smell I could tell that in the city we called home, God was indeed enacting the destruction that had been promised.

Scenes from my life played in my head, but not my life as Lot’s wife. I saw my mother as we said goodbye, and my last view of Haran. I saw my daughters playing and laughing by the well near our home in Sodom, and then I saw my friend and her twin boys. The vision of their worthless suffering at the hands of God caused bile to rise in my throat. My husband urged me forward. And I didn’t hesitate to do my duty. Not as Lot’s wife, but as a daughter, sister, mother, and friend. I turned.

I hate that history has forgotten my name and the names of my children. I lament that I am viewed as Lot’s foolish and disobedient wife.

But I am proud to be remembered as the woman who looked back.

View From the Plateau

I’ve never been very at good sports. A relative lack of hand-eye coordination, over-competitiveness, and an aversion to physical exersion convinced me early on to set my sights on unwieldy dreams far from the realm of athletic prowess. Despite this, I somehow managed to take a turn at nearly every recreational sport as a child from tennis, to basketball, to one excruciating season of soccer. Other than a gift for tree-climbing and an inexplicable penchant for catching pop fly balls that went behind the plate – my experiences only confirmed my sense that I was not made for sports.

Then there was rock-climbing. After several incredible experiences rock-climbing at camps as a teen, I vowed to take as much advantage as I could of the 60ft climbing wall at the Rec Center at my university. In the process of fulfilling my vow, I fell in love with the sport (or whatever you want to call it) and discovered that I was actually pretty darn good. On the wall, my lack of coordination disappeared. My awkward gangliness suddenly became a gift as my height allowed me greater reach and my light weight made it easy to pull myself up without excessive exertion. There was a whole community of climbers at Georgia–many of us new to the sport–and we spent hours every day at the wall. The learning curve was incredible, and you could practically watch the muscles develop in your arms, legs, and core. The endorphins gave us all a permanent joviality, and we wore our numerous cuts, bruises, and gashes with pride. At parties, we climbers seemed always to gravitate towards one another and our palms would sweat with Pavlovian response as we descended into indecipherable talk of crimp, jugs, and dynos.

Within 5 or 6 months of beginning to climb, I found myself road-tripping across country with several climber friends to a climbing competition in Ohio. I was far from the best, but I managed to place 4th in a sizable class of beginner women. I felt ecstatic and fully realized in some new way. Climbing was the first physical activity I’d ever truly excelled at. Back then, I liked to compare setting and mastering a route to writing a poem – but it was a poetry that enveloped the whole of my being: mind, body, heart. I remember feeling sometimes that that life felt perfect. I remember being convinced that I would never grow tired of that feeling.

I probably wouldn’t have. But eventually, the feeling goes.

In climbing, we called it plateauing. After a long stretch of rapid skill development, you’d hit a patch where you couldn’t gain any more ground. For days, or weeks, or even months sometimes – you would never get any better. You could still send the routes you always had, but the ones you’d been working remained stubbornly unconquered. And because such things know nothing of kindness, your plateau rarely coincided with similar halts among your fellows. So while you were bursting blister after blister for merciless mediocrity, your friends excelled, and grew, and exceeded you. It was hard and painful – and I was never very good at accepting it. But it was also a part of climbing, and thinking back – I can’t help but wonder: if I could really have loved climbing the way I thought I did – without holding some love and respect for the plateau.

For most of this semester, I think I’ve sort of been stuck on a seminary plateau. Essentially, from the moment I finally decided to apply to seminary until a few months or so ago, this path has been like the first big downhill of a rollercoaster–like those first few months of climbing. When I first got the news that an unexpected scholarship made my desperate dream of attending APTS possible – I incredulously told a good friend, “I don’t get it. I’m not one of those people who things like this happen to.” And he said, “Well, you are now.” Since then, life has been like a whirlwind. Certainly it’s had its difficult moments, but it’s been filled with more affirmations of purpose and success than one could fairly hope for. I’ve worked hard, made good grades, I was elected to serve as a junior senator, I was nominated for a fellowship, and friends and professors confirmed my sense that this is the path I should be on.

This semester has been somewhat different. My classes have been more difficult and even my best efforts (which, admittedly, I don’t always make) can’t guarantee my ideal grades. I was rather coldly informed that I wasn’t rehired by a traveling job I enjoyed last summer and had been counting on, my rather far-fetched hopes of winning the fellowship that would giving me a starting point on my coffeehouse ministry were dashed when (after some miscommunication and a very stressful 5 days) I found out I wasn’t selected, I was the only incumbent to lose the senatorial election (again, albeit to 2 capable, committed and deserving classmates and friends), my roommate situation hasn’t worked out due largely to my oversight about my own need for space, and I’m looking at the possibility of losing on campus housing for next year. Add to that a few health troubles and some social drama here and there and it hasn’t exactly been my favorite 3 months of life ever.

In the wake of all of this “bad” news, it finally occurred to me that I had been stubbornly denying the reality of the dire employment situation in the PCUSA church and the particular elements that make my own job possibilities less than promising. I had been denying this reality in favor of the–if not optimistic then certainly arrogant–belief that I would simply be so good, so perfect, that people would be unable to say no. What this semester has made me realize is that I’m far from perfect, and holding myself to such an absurd standard will not only drive me crazy but it will also consistently distract me from what really matters and why I should actually be pursuing ministry. And it also won’t make the reality of a bad economic climate and a church in the midst of painful evolution disappear.

I say “bad” news rather than bad news for a reason. If I were only slightly less aware of my remarkably privileged status, I might allow myself to fall into a sense of victimization or persecution. But the thing is, I keep thinking about how much this is like plateauing back in my climbing days. And another thing that this semester has in common with those plateaus, is that nothing really “bad” has actually happened to me at all. I didn’t get any worse at climbing back then, I just didn’t make the progress i had hoped for or come to expect. This semester, nothing bad has happened to me at all – it’s just that a number of good things I had truly hoped for did not work out in my favor as I had (rather naively and selfishly) come to expect.

The thing is, life is mostly plateaus. Life is not all miraculous growth and affirmation and with any luck life is also not all misfortune and tragedy. The adventure of one’s life journey is not one constant victory of slaying the dragon or pulling the sword from the stone. Neither is it only that tragic moment of defeat that instills new resolution and greater clarity of purpose. Much of life (and I’m willing to bet, a HUGE part of ministry) is just the day to day living of it. We while away most of our lives in the wilderness of the ordinary.

A month or so ago, in my New Testament class, my professor was lecturing to us on the theme of Higher Righteousness in the Gospel of Matthew. The Higher Righteousness embodied by Jesus is meant to be a righteousness that transcends simply strict adherence to the law. I confess that I was far from rapt, having been stuck in a mood of frustration about Jesus’ presentation as inaccessibly perfect. But suddenly, my fierce, intellectual, no-nonsense professor began talking about Frodo Baggins from Lord of the Rings and HARRY POTTER as embodiments of this higher righteousness concept. Higher righteousness, she explained, asks more than simply a life lived within the orderly bounds of the Law. It asks, when life ventures beyond the bounds of order: will you stay to true to your purpose even in the midst of chaos?

I’ve been thinking about that lecture a lot recently. I’ve been thinking about Higher Righteousness because seminary kind of makes you do that and I’ve been thinking about Harry Potter because–let’s be honest–I pretty much always am.

[HP Book 7 spoilers below - if you don't know the end by now, read at your own risk!}

And several things occur to me. First, the moments when Harry faced true dire evil, were not the midst of chaos. These were the moments when everything was in perfect order. Evil was evil, and he was the good meant to destroy it. The path and purpose seem pretty simple there. I don't mean to diminish the value of courage in the face of evil. And in truth, I don't know quite how I would respond but, you know, I sort of thrive in crisis. I suppose a better example of Harry embodying Higher Righteousness (I believe this is the example my prof may have used) is when he faced the unknown of death. There at least, is the ultimate challenge to maintaining commitment to one's purpose. But then, I'm not facing death of any sort - so that too seems sort of irrelevant to me right now.

Even so, this question and its Harry Potter context have been running through my head like a ticker on the New York Stock Exchange lately. Will you stay true to your purpose, even in the midst of chaos?

And it occurs to me that the hardest part of that whole series for me to read - was the section in the last book when Harry and his comrades, Hermione and [sometimes] Ron, are traveling all over the wilderness of Britain, avoiding capture by the varied nefarious forces pursuing them while they wait for the clarity of a plan. In my opinion, this section of the book seems to drag on for page after page where nothing significant (bad or good) seems to happen other than the occasional fight amongst weary friends. On more than one occasion, I have had conversations with fellow Harry Potter fans in which we agreed that at least some of that part of the 7th book could have been removed to avoid tedium.

And yet – now – nothing in the whole series seems to hold a more relevant message for my life. Isn’t it odd, that in the middle of a lengthy 7 book epic battle between good and evil, Harry and his friends find themselves struggling through a sort of wilderness of the ordinary? Things good and bad have shaped them and propelled them onto their journey and now those things are left behind. Ahead, a foggy future with only the certainty of a life-making challenge awaits. I can’t help but wonder how difficult it might be, on those endlessly tedious days of living and waiting, to remember one’s purpose and stay true.

I don’t know what’s next. I still don’t know what ministry I’ll end up in or if full-time ministry work will be mere fantasy for the PCUSA by the time I graduate. I don’t know if I’ll have the intelligence, academic record, or clarity of focus for the PhD in Theology I’ve been talking so passionately about. I don’t know if the coffeehouse church will ever come to be, or if I’ll find a small-town church that wants such a liberal for a pastor. I don’t know any of it at all.

What I know is that tomorrow I have another day of classes and work and that on that day I’ll be just as called to live into God’s purpose for my life as I have ever been or ever will be. On that boring, plateau of a day, I will be asked to trust in God with nothing either good or bad to hold me to it.

I said last fall that I wanted, in my time at seminary, to find the trust that would turn my hope into faith. And I have felt – here and there – a real trust in God finally growing inside of me. Perhaps now–frustrated, tired, and humbled on this seminary plateau–is the time for me to give life to that new trust and let it light up my faith within me – so that I might see clearly my purpose and stay true to it in this wilderness of the ordinary.

8th Day

Here at last is the entry I’ve been meaning to write since the first week of January.

At my seminary, we have two long semesters–fall and spring–and in between we have an abbreviated semester called Jan-term during which you focus on one class intensively. While there are several classes taught on campus during that time, it is also a time for students to take travel seminars all over the world or classes at other sites. I chose to spend the first Jan-term of my seminary career at the national Presbyterian Church (USA) headquarters in Louisville, KY. Over the course of one very packed week, I was in conversation with a number of other seminarians from APTS and several other PCUSA seminaries, as well as with both current and former employees of the national office (including the current stated clerk) about what the future holds for the church. It was a powerful, enlightening, and often frustrating experience that made me more aware than ever of my love for the church and my desire to see it survive and thrive. It was also incredible to meet so many people involved in the upper level of our church government and to see what their thoughts are.

My focus group centered around polity and the new form of government recently approved and enacted in the PC(USA) and particularly what that form of government says about how we deal with conflict. It was really cool to see the statements and theology that undergird our national structure and how we’ve translated those things into specific structures and processes. It made me wonder how many Presbyterians have ever looked at our Book of Order or even know we have one, and what kind of difference it would or wouldn’t make if it was a larger part of the common conversation.

The other element we focused on was the evolving understanding of Christian and pastoral vocation. It was great to meet the people in the office of vocation, since it will be helpful to know them and the resources they offer a couple of years from now. I was also interested in one program they talked about–a pastoral residency program called For Such a Time as This. It pairs fresh seminary grads with very small rural congregations for a two year period. The goal is for the new pastor to gain valuable experience and for the congregation to gain the necessary leadership and hopefully new growth to help their struggling church. Even though the locales would hardly be my top choice to receive a call (the Dakotas, rural Mississippi, NC, or Kansas), I think it could be a really challenging and powerful opportunity. And one of my goals is to (if at all possible) graduate seminary with the ability to answer whatever call I feel led to, without too much concern for such things as finances and location. In any case, I’m going to keep this idea in my back pocket.

…………….

Although these topics were the focus of my week, they were not the part that spoke most to my heart or my passion. There was another part of my week that really set me on fire and which I’ve been thinking about ever since. One of the leaders of the General Assembly Mission Council of the PCUSA, Roger Dermody, spoke to us about an initiative they’re working on called “1,001 in 10.” The idea is to see the successful establishment of 1,001 new and/or alternative worshipping communities in the PCUSA over the next 10 years. He offered several examples including a coffeeshop ministry in GA called Bare Bulb Coffee (http://www.barebulbcoffee.org/) among others.

He mentioned the we operate under a kind of functional atheism wherein, though we proclaim belief in God, we plan our lives and the future of our church only according to what we can control and create – instead of leaving room for the work of the One who creates all things and makes all life new. We must have faith enough, he argued, to have God-sized visions for the future. We must plant seeds even where we least expect them to grow and see what the Spirit causes to grow.

Something deep within me stirred at his words. As a confessed control freak, I know exactly what he means by planning life without God in mind. And I also have the sense that fear and faithlessness have led us, as a body of believers, to stay where we are comfortable and hold tightly onto the Good News we have discovered, rather than venturing forth to offer it to the world. What makes this particularly dangerous, in my opinion, is that in today’s world it seems that plenty of sources are actively and vocally offering their own perspective on Christian truth that is far from being good news of any sort. I think we have a responsibility to serve, nurture, and being in community with all the people of the world our God created, and I believe we have a responsibility to our faith to speak the Truth we are lucky enough to know.

As I learned about the various unique ministries that have been developed to reach beyond traditional church borders, I couldn’t help but think that this was an area where my specific skills and passions might be of particularly good use. I have long been interested in those group or individuals who feel forgotten, abandoned, or abused by the church, and I have spent a lot of time wondering how the Church should and could be ministering and missioning to these groups. While I believe that it is sometimes easier for us to pretend that these groups don’t exist or want nothing to do with God, I believe that is often far from the case. I’m interested in being in Christian community with those who have been pushed to the margins, and not only offering God’s word to them, but also listening to what they have to share about how God has spoken to them. I believe we could learn some incredible things from God if we open our eyes to God’s presence beyond our steeples.

Several things have come out of this new though journey for me. First of all, I have decided to create an online network for communication between those who have developed or are interested in developing new, alternative worshipping communities in the PCUSA. Something as simple as a message board would allow us all to share stories, advice, victories, and challenges. The NAWC Network (New and Alternative Worshipping Communities), pronounced like “knock,” would be more a community of support than an organization in it’s own right, but would help facilitate and expand the conversation around this topic. I also like the thought of having Matthew 7:7 (Knock and the door shall be opened unto you, seek and ye shall find) as a guiding verse, with the understanding that it is not simply a reminder that God comes to those who knock, but also that as Christians we are called to knock on all the unopened doors of the world and seek those whom we are called to serve. My goal is to have a functional website up and running by the end of the summer – so if you have skills or connections to offer let me know!

The other thing is that I have been brainstorming the kind of alternative worshipping community that I would like to start. Although I believe that there are many different groups that the church is called to serve and those groups require different things, I am interested generally in the idea of going where community already exists (and where, therefore, the Spirit is already at work) and building a church there. Again, this looks different for different populations, but I think that in Austin there might be particular space for a coffeeshop ministry. For one thing, generally in America today and perhaps especially in this city, coffeeshops have become the place we go to meet and break bread together, to chat, debate, sympathize and challenge one another. It’s where we go to do work and where we go to escape from work. It is where we go to gather. In fact, it reminds me a lot of the meetinghouse structure of the earliest Christian churches.

It also helps that Austin has a city culture that naturally supports unique businesses and community structures and that to a certain extent various subgroups of the population often seem to be in geographic collision.

My idea is to create a coffeehouse that would operate most of the time like any other coffeehouse – providing gathering space, good coffee, teas, and perhaps pastries. However, this coffeehouse would also have time set aside throughout the week for structured gatherings for discussion, prayer, study, and worship for various demographics (a teen night perhaps, or after school study hour, and LGBT night, a time for those in recovery, a time for those living with disabilities etc.). There would also be a gathering time for the whole community, wherein the diversity of groups is embraced and celebrated, on Sunday afternoons. In other words, I’m not looking to create a church that happens to have coffee brewing (my church already does that actually), nor am I looking to start a business that simply brews in the name of Jesus. I am looking to start an alternative worship community built around where faith and modern community meet.

There are lots of questions around this, and lots of ideas to be explored–too many, really, to name and solve them all here. But I’ll mention a few.

First, it would, of course be not-for-profit. There is a challenge though, I think, to provide responsibly acquired products at a price that doesn’t alienate some of the people such a place is seeking to reach out to. It surprised me to hear this, but I have heard of several coffeehouse ministries that have found a lot of success with a donation based structure. What I’ve been told is that there are enough people willing and able to pay more than a normal price to allow for those without the means to pay.

I’m also interested in how to create a space where so many different types of people feel comfortable (or at least, comfortably uncomfortable) and welcome.

And I’ve wondered about how explicit to be about advertising the coffeehouse as a religious space.

And of course, because I want this to genuinely operate as a worshipping space, a church, I’ll need to figure out how church governing structures, memberships, sacraments, etc. fit into such a different kind of space.

All in all though, I’m very excited about the possibility and seeing what comes of it. It’s so awesome to be at time where ideas like this can be a part of the conversation about how the church should look.

Some other ideas I’ve had are:

* Let members of the community produce art and hang it on the walls–offering it for sale to help perpetuate the community space.

* Have a open mic kind of performance time set up where people can meet in fellowship and share their gifts.

* Have a quiet prayer room.

* Have a cooperative relationship with a coffee source either domestically or internationally. I’m not sure how all that would work – but there’s another coffee shop here in town who does something like that (Dominican Joe’s).

* Set up some way to meet the needs of those in and around the community (like any other good church).

The name I’ve been working on is 8th Day Coffee and Meetinghouse. We learned in class this semester that 8th Day is meant to suggest the 8th day of creation, in which God will make all things new and everyone will be joined in communion and will be named and claimed by God and one another. Broadening the boundaries of the church seems like a decent place to start.

So… I applied for a national ecumenical fellowship that would put me into conversation with many others who would help me refine and develop this interest, and would give me funds that would allow me to beginning working in some way towards this goal. It’s about a million-to-one odds against my getting it, and not getting it will hardly stop me from pursuing this interest – but it would be an incredible opportunity if it happened. Keep your fingers crossed for me and 8th Day!

Anyways this post is more than long enough – but as a post script I’m going to include a story from my past that served as the intro to my essay for this fellowship about why I am so interested and invested in ministering and listening to the forgotten. Here it is:

—————————————

When I was nineteen, I spent my summer volunteering for an environmental nonprofit organization called Alliance for International Reforestation (AIR) in Chimaltenengo, Guatemala. Every day, I traveled to villages across the southern region of Guatemala with Luis, who was my host and one of AIR’s employees. As Luis and the village leaders sat down to talk about the tree nurseries AIR had established there, I sat and observed the village life. It amazed me how connected the villagers seemed. Life was not an individual path, but a collective effort for survival and hope.

            One day, however, Luis and I found ourselves riding on our motorbike down a dusty, bumpy road beyond one of our villages. Hidden amongst the trees and bushes was a tiny shack made of rotting boards. Inside there was just enough room for a smoldering fire, a bed of straw, and a shrunken, ancient looking woman with the lines of age and hardship carved into her face like fissures in granite. Luis and I crammed into the small space and soon the woman began to talk. My Spanish was rudimentary at best, but the woman talked for what seemed like hours, and slowly I began to understand her story.

            The woman was the mother of another woman with whom we had been speaking in the village earlier that day. Though they lived less than a mile away from one another, the old woman told us her daughter had not been to see her in years. She told us that her life had been too long to be good, and her tears caught in her wrinkles as she spoke of sorrow after sorrow and of her great loneliness. At the end, she simply moaned the same words over and over again, and when I finally understood them, I felt an uncomfortable chill settle inside of me. She said, “It is better to die young than to live long enough to be forgotten.”

            Despite her belief, I have never forgotten this woman or her words, and they have imprinted themselves onto my understanding of faith and call.

Churching by Example: A Radical Inbreaking

Well, basically since my Jan-term class at the PC (USA) headquarters I’ve been wanting to write a blog about my new found passion for new and alternative ministry development. However, my second semester of seminary has been so insane that I haven’t even had a second to breathe or hardly theologize even – let alone update my blog. Now that it’s finally Spring Break and I have time to blog – I’m afraid that entry is going to have to wait just a little bit longer (fingers crossed I get it done this week!). The reason is that something happened at chapel last Tuesday that struck a deep deep chord in me – and I’ve needed to put it into words ever since. So here we are.

First of all, you should know that there is a professor at APTS who, I am pretty convinced, basically everyone is just a tiny bit in love with because he is that awesome. I am no exception. And he preached at last Tuesday’s chapel service. The sermon started off really well – beautifully written, poetic, and accessible. He spoke first about fruitfulness in the midst of barrenness provided by the grace of God. He spoke about the miracle of flowers blooming after heavy rains in the Texas desert region of Big Bend. And then he pointed out that the Bible doesn’t refer to one instance in which a barren woman prays for a child and doesn’t receive one. What, he asked, does this have to offer modern day women struggling with fertility issues?

His sermon moved onto the subject of unanswered prayers and the places of tragedy where we feel most alone. And he talked about how Christ’s death reveals to us that–even unto death–there is nowhere we can go, nothing we can experience where God is not with us. Even where we are most vulnerable. Even in the place of unanswered prayers. Even in our angriest, most painful doubt. He pointed out that surely all of us present knew the pain of prayers gone unanswered, and then he said that if fruitful prayer was the mark of good Faith, then he would have abandoned Christianity long ago–and he bet we would too.

He paused. Before my mind caught on, I felt a tenseness in my body and a catch in my throat that told me something was about to happen. He mentioned that he might skip the next part of his sermon, but finally he continued. He shared with us a story that was painfully current, relevant, and personal and he quickly became emotional. I felt a surge of emotions well up inside myself – and though I wasn’t looking around the room – I could sense that the rest of the people present were caught up in the moment as well.

At first, I felt supremely uncomfortable – like everyone in the room was caught in one of those naked dreams or something. All of us were utterly exposed in a painful (even ugly) moment. Because, as much as I tried to rationalize why I was sad and upset – the truth is that we were all caught up in the emotion of that moment because we all knew exactly what he was describing. We’d all felt that anger, frustration, doubt. Unanswered prayers.

In the midst of that uncomfortableness and emotion, it seemed to me that something bigger –radical–was taking place. My professor was preaching about how God is present with us even in our darkest, ugliest, most painful places–and suddenly, the church became a reflection of that truth. And isn’t that how it should be?

Shouldn’t church be the place we can go that will hold us in our pain, our ugliness, and our doubt? Shouldn’t church be the place that stands with us in the moments of unrelieved barrenness?

But how often is that the reality we encounter in the pews of our sanctuaries? In my experience… rarely. More often, church seems like the place where we put on a mask, shove our own darkness back in the closet to be the strong one for others, the place where we do our best to be the shining example of perfect, flawless faith. Utterly aware of our undeservingness and perfectly comfortable and satisfied with not really knowing God’s plan for us.

What happened in chapel on Tuesday was an incredible instance of radical inbreaking of the Holy Spirit. It was the church as the embodiment of God’s amazing love that embraces us in our utmost vulnerability and understands our ugliest pain. Tuesday the barriers between God and church, church and member, pastor and layperson fell away as a brilliant reminder of how Jesus destroys the barrier that sin erects between God and us. And it made me think that it’s time for the church to lead by example–even in the ways that scare us.

ps. Tattoo time is drawing nigh and I’ve been revising and fine-tuning my idea. I’ve nixed the combo of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew (Veritas, Agape, and Chai) in favor of 3 Greek words (written in Greek script): Aletheia (ἀλήθεια), Agape (ἀγάπη), and Pi’stis (Πίστις). Aletheia means truth in the context of “unclosedness” or full openness (ie. the vulnerability and authenticity it takes to fully love and have faith). Agape means love of the active, unconditional sort – to love the world the way we love family – the way God loves us. And Pi’stus means faith – as a hybrid noun and verb – a faith that compels one to responsive action. Also, this Celtic trinity symbol that represents: PERICHORESIS!!

Back of right shoulder – easily showable or hideable as the situation permits. We’ll see when I get certain.

I SWEAR I’LL TRY TO WRITE MY OTHER POST THIS WEEK!

Pig vs. Pork: A Lenten Contemplation

Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the 40 days of Lent. In Worship class we learned that our modern conception of Lent (at least in Western Christianity) got its start during the medieval period, when “super sinners” (so to speak) were anointed with ashes and cast out of the church for 40 days until Maundy Thursday, when they would be invited back. In the meantime they were to commit themselves to fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.

These days, the standard Lenten response is to give up something you love for the 40 days of Lent in order to remember Christ’s temptation in the wilderness and reflect on the nature of his sacrifice. Roman Catholics adhere more to the Lenten ritual traditions, but Christians of many other denominations take part in this “fasting” practice. In recent years, various folks have criticized the tradition of “giving something up” and have suggested as an alternative that Christians “take something on” – some kind of good habit or spiritual practice that ideally brings them closer to God. I have partaken in both activities during the Lenten seasons of my life, but I have tried to be particularly reflective about my practices this year. After all, being in seminary includes the taking on a lot of various spiritual practices automatically, and also leaves little time to engage in many of the vices that used to plague me (I’ve barely turned on my TV since starting school last fall – which should amaze those of you that knew me well prior to seminary).

Others have said it far better than I have (like this guy here: http://landonwhitsitt.com/2012/02/19/giving-up-chocolate-and-beer-for-lent-is-not-what-jesus-had-in-mind/) but I think this fad of giving up negative but addictive vices for Lent is a pretty severe twisting of the stated theology behind the practice. After all, if it’s such a negative vice – shouldn’t you give up anyway? And if it’s something you shouldn’t be doing in the first place, isn’t it sort of a bad idea to end your 40 day dry spell by gorging on that very vice? And how does any of that lead you to reflect on God or Christ? Taking on a spiritual practice, on the other hand, probably will help you focus more on your relationship with the Trinity – but is it symbolic of Christ’s temptation or sacrifice?

It seems to me that what is sacrificed during Lent should be something common enough and important enough to be difficult to do without – but also not inherently bad. And if you take on a practice of some kind, it would be nice if that practice tied in directly to Christ or the themes of Lent (this one I’m less gung-ho about, as I think any good practice is… well… a good practice). I also think that such activities provide a unique opportunity to remember that the world and existence are not all about you, and to re-envision your life in the context of God’s story with all of creation.

One idea I would like to try in a future year is to fast once or twice a week. Rather than simply fasting and letting that be the end of it, I think it would be cool to calculate the amount of money I’m not spending on food for those days (if you’ve ever seen my budget document, you know me to be capable of such a thing) and giving that saved money to some kind of hunger relief program. Meanwhile, use set aside reflective time to research and learn more about world hunger issues and the Church’s response.

This year, though, I’ve decided to give up meat. In my 40 days of vegetarianism, I intend to reflect on my relationship with the natural world as well as how I treat my God-given body and the things I put into it. I’m going to read “Eating Animals” along with (time-permitting) several other books on various philosophies regarding vegetarianism. I know some might think that meat is just another vice like alcohol or sweets… but I’m not there (at least not yet) Meat, as far as I’m concerned, is a basic staple of life that I enjoy and thus giving it up is an opportunity to fast with intention. But I also believe that one’s relationship to meat (like many things) can become problematic if it exists without consideration for all of the God-creation involved and a consciousness around why and how you are engaging with the world God made you a part of. Whether it is possible, in today’s world, to responsibly partake of meat in consideration of these things is something I’m hoping my Lenten reflections will help me determine.

In the meantime, I confess that I miss bacon.

If you’re wondering how any of this could possibly tie into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ – I admit that I got there only after some thought. But the reality is – as incredible of a gift as it is to say that Christ died for me, it is also a true responsibility to acknowledge that Christ died–not only for me–but for the *whole world*. If I’m going to reflect on the depth of Christ’s sacrifice, I believe that necessarily involves reflecting on how much worth I assign (in my thoughts, words, and actions) to the world that God deemed important enough to breathe into life, and Christ deemed important enough to die for. Animals may just be one part of it, but they’re a part worth considering. I’m interested to see where this process takes me.

As a final thought – do you know that the word for chicken in Spanish – “pollo” – refers only to chicken as meat? To refer to a living, breathing creature chicken, you say “gallina” (hen). In English, we say pork if it’s a pig slaughtered for consumption – but pig if it’s Babe. All I can say is – I think this division is worthy of reflection… and I think it speaks to our relationship with creation either way.

What It Means (The Rainbow Paper – pt. 4)

* Alright, here’s the last reposting – part 4 – from my original post “The Rainbow Paper” – if you want to read the whole thing follow the link on the sidebar to the original essay. Thanks for reading!

 

WHAT IT MEANS:

 

So what does this mean for us—today, in this moment and this world? Because it’s not enough to say what one believes or even why without also saying what we should all do about it.

I think we need to continue committing ourselves to living into Christ’s message for the world today. For those in relationships–same sex or otherwise–that means continuing to operate in covenant (not exclusively in formal structures, but also in the unwritten covenants that should govern all human relationship) and to mutually respect each others’ humanity. Those in relationships ought to set a strong example of what healthy, moral, and Christian relationships look like wherein both voices are heard, bodies honored, feelings and thoughts considered, and strengths and gifts utilized.

Those of us operating within the Church must reach out to those whom the Church has historically neglected and abandoned. This unfortunately includes many, many groups of people, and it absolutely includes the queer community. We must speak to them loud enough to be heard over the centuries of yelling, sneering judgments to the contrary and we must say, “Hear and believe. Though we abandoned you, God never has.” We must mission to these groups and create intentional, healing space for them. And we must be patient as we wait and hope that some will return. And if and when they do, we must be prepared to listen to what God has said to them.

Those in these margins who have felt abused, neglected, and abandoned have a job to do as well. They must have faith. They must remember that God is bigger than Church, more perfect, and endlessly loving. But they must remember too that Christ created the Church and dwells as much within it as outside of it. If they don’t believe that the Church is reflecting the love and truth of Christ then I implore them to join hands with us and help us to grow and change. It is a lot to ask, but Christ strengthens and so nothing is impossible.

And all of us must commit ourselves to seeking love, understanding, and reconciliation with each other and with God. But we must also understand that we need God for such things to be truly achieved. We must recognize that if we only have faith in the imperfect solutions we can create and control, then we have no faith at all. We must have faith in God, and God-sized visions for the Church and the world. We must understand that the reconciliation that Christ promises will never be achieved by temporary human alliances which hold two groups together while continuing to exclude others. And we must trust that if our work towards the Kingdom Come at times requires that we separate, that those separations are only temporary because we proclaim a God who will ultimately gather up all things in Christ.

And as for you and me… what do we do next? Today, right this minute and this week and this year? We must be in relationship–genuine Christian relationship not just with those who are easy to love and easy to agree with but also with those whom it would be so much easier to hate. We must seek to know and understand them. And we must also believe that it is possible for them to know and understand us. We must be in conversation. Genuine, honest conversation.

By this, I don’t mean keeping your more polarizing thoughts to yourself or attempting to enter into conversation about the issues that define you without a desire to convince the other person to change their mind. I mean, be utterly vulnerable. I mean, give honest and total voice to your convictions and why you hold them so that you can’t say, at the end, that they don’t really understand because they don’t know this thing you didn’t say. I mean, speak with an earnest and open desire to make the person you speak to understand and change. After all, if you didn’t truly want that, you wouldn’t be so compelled to speak. So be genuine and frank in your desire and be as convincing as you can. And then, when it’s their turn to speak—shut the hell up. Stop trying to mantle a counterargument. Stop criticizing their every word. When they speak, that is your open door to true understanding. Have the courage to know and be fully known, to love and be fully loved. This is what we’re here for.

So go. Find someone who feels the very opposite from you about this issue. If you don’t support queer ordination, I challenge you to not just speak to an advocate for it. Find a queer Christian and listen to their story even while you share yours. And vice versa. I dare you to have the courage and faith for honest conversation and genuine relationship.

We are not simply issues and conflicts and faceless groups with bullet pointed agendas arguing with one another. We are not the “them,” the “they,” the “those people.” We are all us. We are people with stories, feelings, and the handprint of God upon us. And we are called to be in community and conversation.

Peace be with you. Amen.

 

My Queer Theology (The Rainbow Paper pt. 3)

*Here’s part 3 of my original Rainbow Paper. I’m going to post part 4 immediately afterwards since my time got away from me this week. Feel free to ignore them if you’ve already read them, and look for a brand new entry from me in the very near future!

 

MY QUEER THEOLOGY:

 

Though Queer Theology is indeed its own legitimate discipline of study, the title of this section is simply in reference to my particular understanding of Christianity and how that leads me to a position which supports the full and equal participation of queer people in the church.

First of all, it deserves to be mentioned that the Church is no stranger to queerness. Queer means that which is strange or different by conventional standards… and that’s exactly what the church was when it first began. The people Jesus gathered around himself and preached to were those tossed aside and neglected by mainstream societies. The “queers” of their time. As the inheritors of that legacy, our place as Christians–whatever our beliefs–is not looking down from our ivory towers with fingers pointed towards those huddling in the margins of society. It’s standing with them in solidarity.

This means, for one thing, that that church has a place for the queer community even if you believe it is a sin.

EVEN IF YOU BELIEVE IT IS A SIN:

The Hierarchy of Sin: The stance against queerness seems to assume that sin occurs on a sort of hierarchy. As in–we’re all sinful, but some of us are more sinful than others. This is an understandable tendency—killing certainly seems worse than lying or cheating, but I don’t believe there’s a theological basis for it. We all sin and fall short of who God calls us to be, and we’re all equally undeserving of God’s grace. Stranger, perhaps, than our tendency to rank sins is that out of all the horrendous things in the world, homosexuality gets pinned as at least one of the worst. Really? And yet, it is one of the only things specifically prohibited by the former language regarding PCUSA ordination standards.

I find this more than a little bit off. I mean, is sexual activity the only sin worth explicit mention in our ordination parameters? What about axe murderers, the compulsively greedy, or the incurably obnoxious? (And by the way, I regret that comparing homosexuality against these negatives implies that it is also negative. I believe this is far from the truth myself, but seek to reach out to those who rest firmly in the camp of viewing homosexuality in such a way.) If we trust that our long standing system of individual and corporate discernment and the ordination process is enough to handle all other manner of sins, why not so-called “sins of sexuality?” And if we can’t fully trust the system we have in place, then why do continue to rely on it?

Maybe queerness gets set apart because it’s believed to be an unrepentant sin. But what about divorce? In the PCUSA, divorce doesn’t inhibit a person from being ordained and yet it is at least as decried in the Bible as homosexuality. Divorcees may regret that a divorce was necessary, but they don’t repent of the divorce itself. And yet we don’t believe this renders people incapable of being called to ministry. And what about road rage? Or the whole Santa Claus lie? And let’s not ignore the fact the an ever-increasing number of seminarians and pastors have likely engaged in premarital sex which is prohibited in the same ordination clause as homosexuality.

Pastors sin, just like the rest of humanity, and we accept this because we embrace a doctrine that acknowledges our universal and equally depraved state.

And look at our legacy of call. Over and over again we see evidence that God calls on those whom society has (for one reason or another) deemed “unfit.” God calls young shepherd boys, and stutterers, harlots and whores, tax collectors and crooked Pharisees, and even lowly carpenter’s sons from Nazareth. As far as I’m concerned, narrowing our vision of who God could possibly call does nothing more or less than impose limits on a God we proclaim to be limitless and create an idol of our assumed ideal of perfect humanity.

And by the way, whether you believe sexual orientation is a matter of pure choice, environmental influence, or biology the fact is that who we love is not the same as how we love. Whatever one’s sexual identity, they can exist in a mature, mutually respectful, moral relationship. It seems to me that when we try to determine who we want setting examples in our community, the how is a lot more important than the who.

WHY I DON’T EVEN REMOTELY BELIEVE IT IS A SIN:

If you take in the Gospel as a whole, and look as the sins focused on in the Bible, a trend begins to develop. Sins are those things which destroy relationships and separate us from God, ourselves, and each other. We proclaim a covenantal and relational God who calls us to be in covenant and relationship with one another. And so, it makes sense that many of the guidelines offered to us for Christian life are concerned with maintaining that covenant and respecting our covenants with one another whether they be business deals or marriage contracts. I don’t believe that loving same-sex relationships or inclusive perspectives on human sexuality are destructive in any way.

Jesus declared that he came to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it. This means that he serves as the example of the righteous life that the Law is meant to help us achieve. However, that doesn’t mean that we are called to be Jesus. We can’t all be men, or Middle-Eastern, or celibate. Christ is God incarnate in a particular person and context and that means that God claims each of us in our particular person and context. We were all created in the image of God and that means God’s image is bigger than all of us. It is also means that just as God is more than we can comprehend or imagine, so too does humanity have the capacity to be more than we can comprehend or imagine. We must be open to seeing God’s work beyond ourselves to fully encounter its magnificence. We aren’t required to understand, only to love.

I don’t believe love means unconditional acceptance and approval of every action and belief. But I do believe that God is love and that love in any form trumps hate. So I simply can’t understand why, in a world so filled with violence and hate, we are so concerned with criticizing and limiting the ways we can love. And if there comes a time when I stand before God and get held to account for the work of my life, I’d much rather be able to say “I fought hate” than “I fought to limit love.”

Of course, none of this changes the fact that the Bible, at points, does indeed seem to have something to say about homosexuality and that can’t be ignored. But it can be looked at in its specific context. This idea of contextual consideration isn’t new or radical. Many of the Confessions (official statements of belief) of the PCUSA declare the need to consider context and have an evolving understanding of scripture. The reality is, considering context doesn’t limit the influence of Scripture, it expands it. If Scripture can only ever mean one thing, then the inevitable and ceaseless progression of humanity means that we are doomed to move farther and farther away from its truth. But if its meaning moves with us, then we need never be farther from Christ than those first disciples were, breaking bread with him on the final night. We evolve, and because God meets us where we are, our relationship with God changes with us.

The reality is that 2000 years ago, the modern concept of queer relationships did not exist. And actually, neither did the modern concept of heterosexual extramarital relationship or even marriage itself. Marriage was largely a business transaction, and honoring the covenant of marriage meant honoring the terms of one’s contractual agreement to cohabitate and procreate together. There was no concept of long-term pre-marriage relationships as they exist today. Romantic love as the catalyst for relationship was essentially unheard of. And same sex relationships–at least those described by Paul and other Biblical writers–were primarily sex without covenant, sex without mutual respect for the wholeness of each other’s humanness. Jesus and his followers did not speak to the rightness or wrongness of committed, respectful same sex relationships or life partnerships because this was not a conceivable reality for the people to whom they were speaking.

In today’s world, we Christians believe that our intimate, romantic relationships both within marriage and without are governed by our Christian morality founded in Christ’s teachings because we know that Christ has promised to be with us always and holds a relevant message for our world, even though that world looks far different than the world of Jesus’ time. It has happened relatively naturally, this evolution and contextual application of Jesus’ message to our modern conception of heterosexual relationships. Is it not, then, equally reasonable to evolve and apply Jesus’ message to our modern conception of same sex relationships?

We’ve allowed our views to grow and change in other key areas. Centuries ago our Reformation forebears suggested that ministers need not be celibate. And decades ago our equal rights forebears suggested that God might indeed be working through women after all. We must allow the Word to be the Living Word that it is. We must allow it to be alive in us or else it will fade from us and our faith along with it.

Why It Matters (The Rainbow Paper – Pt. 2)

Reposts continue with the second section of my original Rainbow paper post. See previous post “Prologomena” for part 1.

 

WHY IT MATTERS:

There are several reasons why I believe that this issue  matters, some of which relate to its significance generally, and some relate to why it matters for me and my peers in our specific context at this specific moment. So… specifics first.

Last summer the PCUSA passed Amendment 10-A, which changed the language in our Book of Order around ordination standards. Previous language (from the 90s) required that people seeking to be ordained as ministers practice chastity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman. The new language, by contrast, gives greater latitude to the interpretation of Christian standards of pious life and ultimately allows the final determination of acceptability for ordination to rest in the hands of more localized governing bodies. This shift was only the most volatile and widely known part of a larger shift within the PCUSA governing structure towards looser national regulation and more localized control.

Before the amendment was officially passed, a group of PCUSA ministers organized themselves and wrote a letter and paper—“The White Paper”—objecting to this amendment (though not explicitly mentioned) and a number of other progressive moves within the church which they feel undermine the integrity of the Church and contradict its theological foundations.

Though the amendment has been passed the conversation is far from over and it is just as important as ever to stand firm in our convictions of the equality for all of God’s children and the place for queer leadership in the church.

I also believe this issue matters for the whole world because it is a human issue. As a friend pointed out to me recently, any conversation about the rights and recognition of a minority group is a question of exactly how human that group is in the eyes of the dominant majority. At first, her bold statement shocked and discomfited me. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized she was right. After all, the queer community has long been silenced in the church.

Recently, I attended a Jan-term class at the PCUSA national church headquarters in Louisville, KY. We spent the week meeting and talking with prominent national church leaders and they talked a great deal about 10-A, the Fellowship, and the resulting fallout. However, in all of their conversations I never once heard them speak about the thoughts, feelings, needs, actions, or responsibilities of Christian queers who were directly impacted by the change. The assumption seemed to be that queer Presbyterians either did not yet exist (having so recently been approved of) or simply did not yet have equivalently important feelings and needs.

You might be rolling your eyes right now and thinking of the queer couple who you saw walking down the street today blatantly holding hands for God and all of creation to see. Or you might be thinking of the insanely liberal, vocal queer activist in your class who is always asking “but what does this mean for gay people?” You might be inclined to say that you are not only aware of the existence of the queer community–they are actually rather loud and obnoxious. After all, they are always making an issue out of everything.

To this I say: consider the couple you saw walking down the street today holding hands. And then consider how many other couples–heterosexual couples–you’ve passed holding hands in the last 24 hours. You might not be able to think of any, but don’t let that convince you that they weren’t there. You simply didn’t notice them, you see. Or think of the girl in your class and her incessant questioning. Ask yourself if you know the answers to her questions. And then ask yourself if you know the answers to the same questions for heterosexual men and women. And, because you probably do know the latter–ask yourself why.

The reality is that we don’t notice the straight couples holding hands, and we don’t have to be told what this, that, and the other means for “straight people” because these things are woven seamlessly into the very fabric of our cultural reality. And the queer people who you encounter are not, in fact, usually making any kind of statement at all. The statement you’re hearing is coming from within your own mind which encounters queer people and measures them against your understanding of reality and says “something is not right, something is out of place, uncomfortable, wrong.” We have constructed a reality that holds no place for the existence of a queer person. We have denied the queer community presence and standard voice in the ongoing conversation of humanity. And so much as the queer community has been denied voice, queer people have been denied the means by which we–humans, that is–are able to express our emotions, reasoning, and self-awareness. Emotions, reasoning, and self-awareness: the very characteristics and capabilities that separate us from the rest of creation, the elements that define our humanity.

As Christians, we proclaim a God that created all of humanity in God’s own image. All of us equally loved, equally claimed, and equally called to participate in God’s creation. But the reality is, the world (and the Church along with it) has denied queer people full humanity–and I have the deepest conviction that the denial of the humanity of any one group makes us all a little less human.

This is why it matters.

Prologomena (The Rainbow Paper – pt. 1)

As promised – here is part one of my Rainbow Paper – posted separately for those folks who’s eyes glaze over at the sight of a 4000 word blog entry. There is nothing different here from my original post. Apologies to my subscribers for the redundancy, please feel free to ignore/delete any post new post notifications with “Rainbow Paper” in the title. I’ll post each section separately… one a day. If you want to read the whole thing at once, the original post still exists and can be access through my blog’s main page.

 

PROLOGOMENA:

As you probably gathered from the title, this entry is about my thoughts and beliefs about queer Christianity and the role of GLBTQ people in Church leadership. I’ve been invested in this issue and others like it since my first conversations about sexual identity with queer friends in 9^th grade and I have been writing this particular blog post in my head since last fall. So when I sat down to write it, it turned out to be 7000 words long. I knew this was far too long for anyone else to read and so I have condensed my thoughts as much as possible into this shorter (but still long) entry. I hope, whatever your thoughts on this issue, you’ll take the time to read it.

Some of you have probably heard me talk at length about this issue, while others have probably only guessed at my views. The reality is, I’ve been happy to explore the issue with those who I knew mostly agreed with me, but I have almost never definitively identified my views or the reasoning behind them in conversations with people who I was not certain agreed. I could say that my reason for this has been to keep the conversation open and avoid upsetting people unnecessarily, but the reality is that I have just been too afraid. I’ve been afraid of conflict and judgment, disappointing people I love, and revealing just how different are convictions are. As a result, I have held my tongue and been an advocate and activist only so far as it has been convenient, comfortable, and safe – and thus, never when it has really mattered. In my complacency, I have–in fact–allowed conflict, judgment, and disappointment to persist, if not in the world beyond me then certainly within myself.

But seminary has challenged me to be more courageous and more authentic, and to recognize when I must speak unapologetic truth. And so I find myself at last summoning the courage to say to the world: I am not the kind of Christian who believes homosexuality is wrong—I’m the kind who thinks that believing homosexuality is wrong… is wrong.

I believe that, even at the risk of conflict and frustration, it matters to declare this particular truth. It matters to talk about what we believe and why and not just the painful fallout if we ever hope for things to change. It’s not that I think my saying so or even saying why will make a significant change in the world. I just think it needs to be said over and over and over again until it is finally and fully heard. I don’t hope for my voice to stand out, I hope to join a chorus. And so I speak, and I hope that you will listen.

A couple of things to know before I go on:

• This post deals with queer Christianity as I have encountered it in the PCUSA church. I have little experience with other denominations and thus do not presume to speak from their perspective.
• I am using the word “queer” on purpose. It is the academically accepted term, it is being reclaimed by the queer community, and it is fully inclusive of all non-hetero-normative sexual understandings without requiring an alphabet soup.
• This post speaks about gay rights, gay marriage, queer ordination, and queer acceptance in the church community. I do not make a point of clarifying which issue I’m discussing because I think they’re all connected and equally important.
• I am a seminary student, but I am not writing as a scholar. Only as a Christian and also as someone with deep, tangible, and worldly concern for the truth of Christ and the way that truth is expressed and lived out. I won’t exegete scripture, or presume to have expertise I lack. I won’t even refer to some rather fascinating theories, discoveries, and other academia on this issue (2 Pauls?, history of Christian gay marriage?, unreliability of biblical translations?…). I will simply speak about the truth of Christ that I can testify to, from life and from the Bible – not individual, decontextualized verses, but an overarching and brightly painted view of who Christ is and how we are called to live in response to that reality.