I had some memories come up about the pastor of my “home” church the other day. I didn’t grow up under this pastor; he was hired after “my pastor” retired when I was in college. I did get to know him through the visits I would make home in the summer and the month or two I lived at home before I moved across the country. I watched his kids a good bit those few months, spent time with his wife, and enjoyed discussing spiritual topics with both he and his wife. This week I was reminded of a sermon I heard him preach a few years ago and the message I sent him after I listened. <br /><br />The thing is, I’m gay and I just really, fully came out to myself at the beginning of this year. I am only a few months into my journey of accepting and enjoying this part of myself after keeping it well under lock and key for 15 years (which had a severe impact on my mental health). But just the other day I went back and listened to that sermon from 2019, and the second part he preached just a few weeks later. You’ve probably guessed by now what these messages were about. The opening passage that was read was from Genesis 19: Sodom and Gomorrah. I am not sure what compelled me to revisit these sermons but as I watched and listened, there were a lot of feelings coming up. Hearing him vacillate between calling people “heretics” for believing differently and just denying the existence of…well…people like me hit in a totally different way than when I first heard it in 2019. <br /><br />You see, in 2019 I essentially believed the same way he does. That having “same-sex attraction” is not a sin, just a temptation to sin. Like any temptation, it must be resisted and kept in check so that it does not lead to sinful sexual behaviors. This is commonly called “side B” to differentiate it from an affirming position, or “side A.” I had realized 15 years ago in Bible college that I was attracted to women in a rather traumatic way. After that experience, I was extremely vigilant about my feelings and shut down anything that might border on sexual attraction to other women. I was convinced that it was not God’s will for me to act on any sexual feelings I had for another woman. I worked hard to be as straight as I could muster (I was kind of a failure at that) and still desired a relationship but began to lose hope that I would ever have someone to love. Nothing was working. <br /><br />However, by 2019 I was deep into a deconstruction journey in my faith and simultaneously coming to a more compassionate approach to myself and (other) gay people. My message to him after I first heard his sermon contained a suggestion for a few “good” books (that are side B at best), a brief praise for his approach, and a gentle push for more compassion and openness towards gay people. I was realizing the extent to which they (couldn’t really fathom myself as “one of them” yet) had been harmed in the church and I wanted to be as much of a voice on their behalf as I could without being too suspect about my own orientation or “sin struggle” as I would have framed it then. I can only try to be compassionate to my former self for where I was at the time, but I do cringe at my measured response and my obvious fear of outing myself. <br /><br />Because y’all, it was kind of awful. I won’t go into all the details of his straw-manning of affirming arguments, the straight-up (pun sort-of intended) ignoring of significant passages to make his point, the intellectual dishonesty and thought-stopping cliches (“we all know…”) that he littered through both sermons. I expected those things, although they were far worse than I remembered, but it wasn’t just the content that was striking me in a hurtful way. It was the context and setting. I know this man and his family. I know the platform carpet he is standing on. I literally helped build that building. I remember making cuts for the framing, painting walls (including an adorable Noah’s ark mural for the nursery) and nailing baseboards. I cleaned that church so many times, sang in that choir loft that he was standing in front of, often joining to sing with them on Sunday mornings when I was home from college, welcomed without even having been a part of their practice. I sang specials with my family and played trumpet for offertories. <br /><br />Here he is, standing on that rug on the platform, behind that pulpit I have sung and testified behind many times, speaking to people I have known my whole life. Like this. About me. Without even knowing he is speaking about me. He was also careful to ignore my existence as a queer Christian. He had no real answer or room for that segment of the population. His sermon was framed as a culture war issue with all of society’s problems coming from the (presumably straight) Christians who are being too permissive of the cultural narrative and the unbelievers who are turning “God’s created order upside down.” There was no serious dealing with the fact that sincere and faithful Christians could be living a gay lifestyle and not be facing “the recompense of their reward.” He wouldn’t know what to do with that. He wouldn’t know what to do with me. Except to just assume I have been led astray into “leftist ideology” and drawn away by my “own lusts and enticed.” <br /><br />My current relationship with the Bible is complicated, but more liberated. I came to a sense of peace and acceptance of my gayness back in January so quickly and in more of a “spiritual revelation” kind of way than being intellectually convinced by biblical arguments. What do I do with all these feelings? I don’t feel “qualified” to have these discussions on a cerebral level and don’t want to, frankly. My experience has been just that: an experience. One that I can’t fully explain or duplicate for others. I know my God is at peace with me and loves me and I am more at peace with him than I have been in years. I still have some relationship hangups with him and am trying to work through feelings of hurt and abandonment, but I have never lost faith that he is there. Now I feel so completely at ease with myself and with my place in this world, in a way I never have. I can’t explain that to a pastor like this, though, in any way that he will accept. He needs chapter and verse, logical steps for how I got here, to this affirming position. When all I really have is, “when I admitted to myself I did nothing wrong for having feelings for her, I knew I was ok” and that kind of explanation doesn’t fly with an independent fundamental Baptist. Not even close. <br /><br />But it’s more than enough for me. I know how vastly my mental health has improved since that moment, after struggling with chronic depression for around eight years. I know how much freedom and lightness I feel that I have never had before. I know how at rest I feel and confident in who I am in the world and see how that has improved relationships and my work as a therapist. I know how I much more relaxed I feel in my platonic friendships with women because I’m not constantly subconsciously hypervigilant about every move I make around them. I am able to be more open and genuine when I’m not thinking “don’t look too long, don’t touch too much, don’t get too close.” Everything is objectively better, even while certain relationships got harder. What I know more than anything else is that I wouldn’t go back to that girl sitting in that church, taking all those messages I was unwittingly ingesting about myself. I can’t go back. This path brings me life. Last I heard, that was still one of the ways Christ is defined: “life” (John 14:6), so I think I will stay on this path. My coming out didn’t require a convincing argument from the biblical evidence for an affirming position, but was my experience of admitting reality to myself and God about me, and knowing God’s love and closeness in a more substantial way than I had in years. That is enough for me.
💕 They love it! 💕
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