Gentle warning for Exvangelicals: this blog dives into my headspace when I was ministry-minded. It may bring up uncomfortable memories and thoughts we wish we could forget that we had. Read at your own risk.
I googled the definition of “bigot” to be sure. Unfortunately, this post’s title is accurate.
I’m somewhere in between religious and not. I don’t believe everything is a coincidence. I think love is more important than everything else, and it connects humans. I believe science points to beautiful concepts and facts of life, and it shouldn’t be feared. I know that I was religious - excited to tell people about my peace, about my God, about how their life could be better with my Jesus. And I know I got it wrong. You can read this blog if you want to know more about that.
This in-between stage helps me to feel alone when I sit and think about it. But it also helps me to have friends of depth in both camps. Religious activists, ministers, and casual families occupy one camp. Human rights activists, ministers, and casual families occupy the other. The variety of experience allows me to understand both perspectives, perhaps a little more than is normal. Perhaps more than I want. Either way, I think it’s a valuable viewpoint to communicate.
An overcompensation that I have discovered within myself is that I tend to directly associate religion, namely Christianity, with bigotry and hate. Their shunning of people is the number one reason that I don’t want to identify as religious. I am incredibly thankful, though, to know people that directly challenge that prejudice with their actions. One friend is a salaried minister who views inclusion like she views breathing. When I brought her to a service at my old church on one of her rare Sundays off, she didn’t offer criticism. There was not, however, an expressed desire to return. The more conversations I had with her about our different experiences of faith, the more I realized that we had different definitions of love. Where I had seen someone lost, she sees them as someone that needed a place to belong. Where I saw someone with destructive behaviors that was in need of a savior, she sees someone that needed support and resources. Where I saw an unborn child, she sees a mother. I wish that would have been the Christianity that molded me.
Many other friends directly involved in conservative organizations (similar to the ones I left) agree with me about social issues like inclusion, women in leadership roles, and LGBTQ+ affirmation. This gives me hope that change in those places is possible. The people to change them are there. But they have families to support. Rent to pay. And the church is all they’ve ever known. The fear of publicly backing their beliefs causing excommunication, loss of relationships, or general uncomfortability is too great. It makes me wonder what it would require for them to take action. What would it take for them to propose a stance that publicly renounces discrimination? If their church’s policy suddenly changed and the leaders announced full inclusion and LGBTQ affirmation would they back said policy and fight for it, or would they do what they’re doing now, just going with the flow and being publicly silent on controversy? I do not know. I know that this was the easiest thing for me to do. Fighting individual battles wherein we condemn the actions of certain people is more gratifying than fighting the system that gave birth to, coddled, and raised those people.
The Preacher’s gay daughter I met in my second year of college is truly the person to whom I owe the first major domino in my deconstruction. I, a ministry student whose minimum standard for a friend was that their love for Jesus had to be significant, struck up a conversation with her in an on-campus coffee shop. She was well-known, kind, and I knew she was loved by many of the people I loved. One topic led to another and I eventually asked, “where do you see yourself in 10 years from now? What’s your life look like if everything goes well?” She didn’t hesitate. “I think my life would look how I want it to if in 10 years I have a house where I can live with my future wife, whoever that may be, and maybe adopt some kids.” She then discussed the difficult home life presented by being gay in a religious leader’s household.
I thought I was being a big person by reacting patiently. Inside I was panicking. Wondering if she was lost beyond recovery. I had known she was gay, but (as much as this pains me to say, looking back on it) the fact that she wasn’t willing to “work on it” or “be ashamed about it” blew me away. The more I have thought about this conversation the more I realize that she was the one being patient with me, and the more ashamed I feel. How could I be so offended by a human that just wants to be happy and live a normal life? When it doesn’t concern me? The justification I felt thinking I knew best about someone else’s decisions is a bigoted and inappropriate feeling that I hope never crosses my mind again. It’s not like she would have been directly persecuted, but there was some level of risk talking openly about being gay at such a small, conservative university.
I’m not sure if I was tactful at all when continuing the conversation. Her eyes told me she knew I was struggling to understand, but her outward patience persisted. I wish I could say that I immediately understood all there is to understand about the fact that a child of an non-affirming pastor would not choose the path of most resistance when finding who to love. But that’s how it works to unbuild what’s been built for you. This conversation was step one. I can’t believe I went so long thinking that sexuality is a choice, but with a healthy amount of shame I will admit that I thought that was the case. Many still share that idea. This conversation is the one that caused me to question whether or not I was actually loving a person by telling them they were going to hell if they didn’t agree with me. Fast-forward to now, and I’m thankful to say that I don’t think hell exists. So I suppose that fixes that.
I realize the amount of privilege that I have for being able to take my opinion on other people’s sexuality and relationships at my own pace. These are lives that we’re talking about, after all. People who didn’t get time to process before they were kicked out of their homes, discriminated against, not allowed to legally marry, or were otherwise shunned. The best time to do the bare minimum and affirm all sexualities was a long, long time ago. The second best time is now, and every day.
As for my former motivations in believing anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, I simply believed it to be true and the right thing to do. I feel misled by former leaders, but I can absolutely say that taking accountability for my own actions is important. At all points of learning we all have access to Google. I could have looked up statistics, listened to stories more closely, and looked up correct translations of the Bible. With the information that I now have started paying attention to, I am surprised by the blind confidence it takes for a leader to say “this is what the Bible says,” when it…doesn’t say that. I’m disappointed in myself for my own ignorant contributions. I’m also disappointed by a large number of leaders that just didn’t care enough to double check their work before communicating it to teens with developing brains. Guiding children is one of the most important jobs on earth, and leading them to a path that can spiral so easily into hate disguised as love is something that can be difficult to forgive.
As mentioned in a previous blog from years ago, silence has a sound. The ax forgets but the tree remembers.
In my experience working with teens, I remember the heartbreak of a safe space facade. Around 90% of LGBTQ+ teens report being harassed in school in most states. Imagine going to the one place you’re told “all are welcome” as an escape from a barrage of harassment every day just to be told that there is, indeed, something fundamentally wrong with you. I can’t even begin to communicate the number of teens that asked me if they were actually going to hell because they were attracted to the same sex. I don’t know if they believed me when I said “no.” Again, I was fighting the individual battles over the systemic ones. It’s my sincere hope that something has changed about the church since then. I hope that work has been done to remove the question of an individual’s worthiness of love.
I don’t know if this post really has a point other than to call on my friends to remove the question marks and the terms and conditions to God’s love, or even just a human’s love. I hope changes have been made since I’ve left. It’s impossible to know right now, though. We’ll know if it’s changed by the reaction of grown up youth group kids, and probably no sooner. Processing a childhood isn’t something that someone who’s still a child can do.
A common phrase used in justifying conversion therapy and “praying the gay away” is that “God loves you too much to leave you how he found you.” While it’s almost impossible to see the desired perceived intention behind this statement, this is thinly veiled manipulation. It suggests that you don’t know yourself like your religious leaders do. It tells kids and vulnerable adults that a gift that God gave them is something that’s not theirs to have. It says, “you are incomplete.”
The God I knew loved people where they were with no other context needed.