#queerly christian asks

[uwmadarchives]

How far we've come!

by Chloe Foor, Student Historian 2022/2023

As the semester has wound to a close, I find myself reflecting on just how much I’ve done since starting as a Student Historian in Residence back in July. I have had the opportunity to research the history of the LGBTQ+ community in Madison, dive through the archives, discovering the exact moment where queer UW students announced that they would not be invisible any more, and have had the opportunity to interview three prominent activists in the city’s history, and all of whom used their spirituality to empower themselves.

The first person I interviewed was the wonderful Becca Bedell, a recent graduate of UW’s MFA in poetry program. They worked with PresHouse, the Presbyterian ministry on campus, to preach queer theology, as well as found the group Queerly Beloved, a place where students can find support related to their spirituality, sexuality, gender, or even simply find a friend. It was wonderful to talk with Becca, and I am so excited to be able to publish my interview with them so that you can hear all of their incredible insights on faith, gender, sexuality, and life in general.

The next person I interviewed was Ken Scott, a UW graduate and  a member of Integrity/Dignity, a group for queer Christians. This interview was the only one that I have conducted in person so far, the others were done using a program called TheirStory, which is similar to Zoom but is made specifically for oral histories. I had two oral history sessions with Ken (he had a lot of incredible stories and we wanted to make sure that we got all of them down). The first session was in a conference room in St. Francis House, an Episcopal church on University Avenue. St. Francis House has a lot of historic value for the LGBTQ+ community in Madison, as it is where the Madison Alliance for Homosexual Equality first met, as well as a place where Integrity/Dignity met a lot. It was amazing to be in a place with such history, and Ken loved the homecoming. Huge thank you to Mother B. at St. Francis House for letting us use your space!

View an image of Ken Scott (left) and his partner Brian Bigler (right) during their Holy Union Ceremony in 1995 from the Wisconsin Historical Society.

The most recent interview I conducted was with Rich Fluechtling, an incredibly influential person in the United Church of Christ’s acceptance of gay people, and a participant in some of the earliest activism in Madison, such as the MAGIC picnic in Brittingham Park. Though he now lives in California, he spent 51 years of his life in Madison, most of it associated with First Congregational, the UCC church closest to campus. Through his work, it became the 76th UCC church to be called “Open and Affirming,” the designation used to signify its openness towards the LGBTQ+ community.

Fluechtling is pictured on the website as a member of the Board of Directors & Leaders of the UCC Southern California Nevada Conference.

After these three oral histories, I started looking for more people to conduct interviews with, as I want as many as possible so as to give a variety of perspectives on how UW students have navigated spirituality and queerness. I was having trouble finding people to interview, but then I thought of reaching out to the GSCC to see if any current students might be interested in telling their story. I posted on the “Spiritual Queers” Discord channel, and a few people have already reached out to me that they might be interested in helping! I am also planning on emailing various clubs and organizations to ask if I might be able to talk about the project during a meeting! That being said, if anyone reading this thinks that they might like to do an oral history and are queer, have been impacted by religion in some way, and are affiliated with UW, please shoot me an email at cfoor@wisc.edu!

In the meantime, I have spent some time in the archives, going through Daily Cardinal articles from the early 1970s, when the LGBTQ+ community really first started making themselves known on campus. Whenever I find something interesting, I scan it. My eventual hope is that I can publish these on a website as a sort of collection of early queer history at UW!

Speaking of the website, I have recently been given access to the Wordpress account of the archives website! I am looking forward to creating a platform to share my project, and have it be more accessible to people, maybe even people outside of UW! I also hope to create a page where every future Student Historian will be able to publish their own research!

I am very excited to see what the new year brings for this project! Thank you for following me on my journey :)

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hi! I've recently come out to my christian family (nonbinary bisexual) and am looking for recommended reading. I want to guide my family towards acceptance, and repair my own faith in God, and it is a bit difficult finding the first few books to bridge that gap. Ive already recommended "Refocusing My Family" but my mother was concerned about the lack of resolution. She's given me "Messy Grace," which from reviews falls into "hate the sin love the sinner." Do you have any recommendations for us?

Hey there! I’m sorry I’m so late in sharing this so I’m not sure if it will still be helpful, but here are some good basics that are written in easy-to-understand language and aren’t super long:

God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines does a pretty easy-to-understand rundown of the “clobber claims,” the passages in the Bible often used against gay people. It’s gay specific unfortunately, but is still helpful with bisexuality.

For the nonbinary part, I highly recommend Austen Hartke’s book Transforming. He is binary trans, but interviews some nonbinary trans folks in the book. He does a beautiful job of explaining God’s love and purpose for trans people, binary and nonbinary alike.

Coming Out as Sacrament is an older but lovely little book.

I’ve not read it myself, but I’ve heard good things about Queer Virtue: What LGBTQ People Know about Life and Love and How it Can Revitalize Christianity by Rev. Elizabeth M. Edman 

If you are Catholic, a great one for Catholics is Fr. James Martin’s Building a Bridge

And then some resources that aren’t books, but rather articles / videos etc.

Austen Hartke also has a youtube channel called Transgender and Christian with short vids that cover different aspects of being, well, trans and Christian. They’re so good

Believe Out Loud has some great articles on being bisexual and Christian. For instance, I love their article on bisexuality as a spiritual calling. 

I haven’t read any of these myself, but Believe Out Loud also has lots of articles by nonbinary Christians, you might find some good ones there!

Finally, check out my resources page for more book recs on various topics and my FAQ not for books but for short posts on various topics. And you may find some other good stuff wandering through my books tag.

I hope you are doing all right!

Does anyone else have book recs for this person?

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

heya!!!! was having a discussion today and a friend told me that to use the bible to defend lgbt+ people was to water it down, and they more or less said that because of it God isn't very loving. i am a firm believer and I know that God has loved me into being, and it is only by that love and that grace that I've gotten anywhere - especially through rejection because of my identity - but it hurt me. do you have any advice?

Hey there. I understand how your friend has come to see God as not very loving, when so many Christians are not very loving and interpret the Bible in hateful and harmful ways. But I wholeheartedly agree with you – that God loved you into being and continues to love you with every breath. I’ve got a couple posts that might help you out:

Here’s a post replying to the comment that when we are just “justifying our sin” and “reading what we want into the Bible” when we find affirmation in the Bible. 

Here’s a post on living in that hard middle ground of being both Christian and LGBT, two communities that are so often pitted against each other

And a post on conversing with LGBT folks who are critical of us being Christian

For more on reading the Bible attentively and finding a God of love within it without “watering it down,” you might enjoy Rachel Held Evans’ book Inspired Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. One quote from it is here, in which she talks about how when we read the enormous conglomeration of ancient texts that we call the Bible, it’s not a matter of “whether to pick and choose, but how to pick and choose.” 

After checking out the above links (and perhaps scrolling through my FAQ page), let me know if you have more questions.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Urgent: I am a Catholic Lesbian. I've read every argument I could find both for and against gay marraige and reached out to queer & Christian blogs. I am terrified of hell, but the thought of being celibate as Catholicism demands is making me miserable. I am so so scared. I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I'm losing my faith, which never really brought me any happiness, but I don't want to lose it & I don't know how to shake the fear that if I ever have sex I'll go to hell.

Hi there, dear. My heart really hurts for you. It’s so terrifying and exhausting and distressing and painful to be in the space you’re currently in. I’ll be praying for you -- that you can find some comfort and rest; that you can rediscover God as someone who loves you and will keep you safe, not throw you into hell. 

Too many people have been the victims of fear-mongering, of human beings deciding what actions or thoughts get you flung into hell for eternity. That kind of ideology hammers into your psyche, and it’s so hard to free yourself of that fear. It might take you a long, long time to become free of the fear that if you ever have sex you’ll go to hell. I wish there was a quick solution to fix the problem for you, but chances are, this is going to be a long and often difficult journey for you.

The good news is, you don’t have to be on this journey alone. Thank you for reaching out to me and other queer & Christian blogs, for instance! I hope you’ll be able to keep reaching out to people, and gather a support group around you -- of friends you trust, folks online, an affirming therapist (and if this is something that obsesses you and severely disrupts your life, I do recommend finding a therapist or other professional help), writers of books and articles that help you...whomever and whatever you can gather to you. And most of all, I pray that God will make Her presence felt to you -- a loving, tender, patient presence, not a fearful and judgmental one. 

_______

Okay, all that said, now I’m gonna go through several of the things you mention one at a time: 

“I am terrified of hell” 

I’m not sure if doing more research into hell will be helpful to you or not. If you think re-visioning what hell is could be helpful to you, I’ve got a #hell tag where I and other writers discuss hell -- is it even real? who goes there? 

I was raised Catholic and have studied Catholic views of hell, and one thing that I remember learning is that hell is not a place of punishment where God throws people for doing bad things. Rather, only those who refuse to accept God’s forgiveness -- a gift offered to everyone, regardless of how severe or many their sins are -- go there. If you say “yes” to God’s grace, you will not go to hell; God will have mercy on you. 

You might appreciate this quote by a Protestant named Shirley Guthrie on how “heaven is for sinners and hell is for ‘good’ people.” 

I will affirm over and over that being LGBTQA+ is not a sin but part of God’s diversity, that having sex with someone of the same gender is not a sin -- but, even if it were a sin, that doesn’t mean that having gay sex sends you straight to hell. We all sin in various ways, and rely on God’s mercy to save us from hell. If you’re still struggling to believe that being gay and having sex is not sinful, that’s okay; for now, know that even if it were a sin, God still loves you and forgives you. If you do have sex with a woman one day and then decide it was wrong for you after all, you can ask for God’s forgiveness; you won’t be sentenced straight to hell for it.

“the thought of being celibate as Catholicism demands is making me miserable.”

the Catholic Catechism does indeed instruct that gay persons remain celibate. But I am not the only Catholic to strongly disagree with this instruction. Celibacy is a good and holy thing -- when one is called by God to it, when one chooses it for themself, not when it is forced upon a person. I talk about that in my celibacy tag. 

For you, I highly recommend a book by Margaret Farley, a Catholic nun (still in good standing! the Catholic Church actually approved her writing this book) called Just Love. In it, Farley discusses what makes a sexual relationship/activity just, i.e., ethical and good in the eyes of God. She comes up with 7 points a relationship that involves sex should fulfill -- I share the list and explain it a bit in this post. 

Based off her points, I think Farley would agree that for you celibacy would probably not bear good fruit. If the idea of celibacy makes you miserable, it’s probably not your vocation. 

“I feel like I'm losing my faith, which never really brought me any happiness, but I don't want to lose it...” 

It sounds like a big part of your journey is going to be deciding whether the Catholic faith is right for you or not. Right now, you say, it does not bring you happiness -- instead, it seems to be bringing you no shortage of misery and fear. 

Jesus came that we all might “have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10) -- not in some future heaven, but right here and now! If your faith is not bringing you abundant life, it’s time to explore other options. 

I’m not saying that’s an easy thing to do; it’s not. What you end up doing is up to you. Here is a post where I respond to a person saying that being queer and Catholic feels unbearable, where I offer various options for what they might do. 

Does anyone have more words of comfort or advice for anon?

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Someone told my friend, who has Crohn's disease, that sick and disabled people were "not made in the image of God" and "not fully human". He believed that disabled people should be exiled from their communities and left to die. Other Christians told her that she should pray to get better, or that her sickness was God's will. As an atheist, I believe that disabled people should get the evidence-based treatment and accomodations they need, and that they shouldn't be stigmatized. Thoughts?

cw ableism, violent ableism

I am outraged to hear what people have been telling your friend. My stomach is roiling just thinking about it. I’m so glad she’s got a friend like you to tell her otherwise. 

Sick and disabled people are made in God’s image; we are fully human; we are a vital and worthy part of our communities. 

All human beings deserve to exist and to have access to abundant life – it doesn’t matter whether we fit into what society considers “productive,” it doesn’t matter what support we need. 

I don’t know if this is annoying to share or if could be helpful for your friend, but when I was a chaplain this past fall i would do “rounds” in the hospital, basically just dropping in on as many patients as i could. one patient i stopped by to see turned out to be a guy with Crohn’s disease. 

he was super friendly, and he joked a lot. He called me “reverend,” which made me laugh – even after I told him I wasn’t ordained yet, he told me that if i one day would be, than he could call me reverend now! 

he said he didn’t understand why God would make him sick, and we delved into that a little bit. my job as a chaplain isn’t to feed patients my answers to their questions, but to help them discover what they believe. as we talked, what he came up with is that God could use his illness to show everyone that the ones we call “weak” have plenty to give the world. 

he proceeded to pull out his laptop and show me songs he’d composed in garage band. he’s published them and even does tours! but i can’t remember his name, so i’ve never been able to find his work again. it honestly wasn’t my cup of tea anyway, but i remember him telling me the album he was working on now would be called “God is a She.” (or something like that, i can’t remember exactly!) and would be about women who have inspired him throughout his life. i thought that was super cool and evidence of some deep theological wisdom in this man. 

so if your friend needs examples of people of faith who have Crohn’s disease, people who have Crohn’s and are living creative, happy lives – here’s one example of such a person. 

I’ve got some resources that you or your friend might find useful:

The first is non-religious-specific – a post about how we don’t need to be “useful” or “productive” to be beloved and important members of society; it’s got links to lots of articles about prehistoric people with disabilities!

I’ve written a paper that sums up the ideas of various disability theologians about how disabled people are a vital part of the Body of Christ and how it is urgent that we work to include them more fully in our churches 

For the people who tell her to pray for a cure!! I offer this quote!! 

For the statement that her illness is “God’s will,” I recommend my sermon on John 9, when Jesus’s disciples asked him “who sinned” for a man to be born blind. We find that disabilities and illnesses are not punishments; disabled people are not “lessons,” not objects for other people’s inspiration porn. These things just happen, and while it’s 100% valid for disabled persons to seek out and find meaning or value in their disability if they want, none are obligated to do so. God can work with anything that happens, good or bad, but that doesn’t mean God wills the messier or harder parts of disability (things like chronic pain and ableism). 

I’ve also preached on how Jesus rose from the dead with disabling wounds – that the Body of Christ is disabled. 

Here’s a story of a disabled woman who recognized that God had a special calling for her not in spite of but in many ways because of her disability. 

Finally, I actually just created a google doc for resources on disability for Christians!! Scroll to the last two pages for Christian-specific resources, including the books on disability that I used for the paper I linked earlier. 

You might also find useful stuff in my #disability theology tag. 

The God whom we encounter in the Bible – both the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the Greek (New Testament) – is a God of the oppressed. A God who gives special love and attention to the people whom our societies shun to the margins. A God who promises to lift up the lowly and bring us all into abundant life. 

God is always, always at the margins. Disabled persons have been shoved to the margins in our communities – and therefore, God is with disabled persons. If we were to exile disabled persons from our communities, we would be exiling God. God would go with them. 

Sorry this got long, but I have a lot of feelings on this topic. I will close with this passage from 1 Corinthians 12:

“There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and diversities of vocations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of workings, but the same God is working all in all. …For just as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also Christ. …And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. …And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if a member is given honor, all the members rejoice together.”

The human race is one body, a body that needs each and every member. We are all interdependent, and that is a beautiful thing. 

I hope this helps, anon. Your friend has the right to love and accommodations, not hate and exclusion. And she is deeply loved by God. 

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

So in several places it is talked about how in Romans Paul is condemning the exchange of natural relationships for unnatural ones and how it could very likely mean abandoning ones spouse in favor of someone of the same gender when you are not gay as going against your heterosexuality would be the unnatural thing. My question is what about bi people then? Are they saying it would be wrong to be in a same sex relationship with someone because you could be in a opposite sex relationship instead 1/2

2/2 or do you think that is just internalized biphobia at work? Ps. Thanks for the resources and stuff. It has helped a lot.

______

Hey there! Great question. For a TL;DR, i’m going to sum this post up by saying that according to that interpretation of Romans, a bisexual person is acting within their personal nature in a relationship with someone of their own gender or with someone of another gender. Thus it is not wrong to choose to be with someone of the same gender! Either is fine :)

Okay, now for my long-winded reply. 

____________

The argument about “nature”

For anyone reading this post who is unsure what @crazynerdandproud is referencing, unless i’m mistaken they are talking about people like Matthew Vines in God and the Gay Christian and the creators of hoperemainsonline who respond to Christians who claim that Romans 1:26-27 condemns same-sex activity by arguing that no, Paul is not claiming that such sexual activity is unnatural for everyone. Before explaining that a little further, here’s Romans 1:26-27 – 

“For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the males, leaving the natural use of the female, burned in their lust for one another, males with males committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.” 

In a lecture he gave on “The Bible and Homosexuality,” Matthew Vines uses the viewpoint mentioned in this ask to explain his interpretation of what’s going on with this term “natural”: 

‘The women, [Paul] says, “exchanged” natural relations for unnatural ones. And the men “abandoned” relations with women and committed shameful acts with other men. Both the men and the women started with heterosexuality—they were naturally disposed to it just as they were naturally disposed to the knowledge of God—but they rejected their original, natural inclinations for those that were unnatural: for them, same-sex behavior. Paul’s argument about idolatry requires that there be an exchange; the reason, he says, that the idolaters are at fault is because they first knew God but then turned away from him, exchanged Him for idols. Paul’s reference to same-sex behavior is intended to illustrate this larger sin of idolatry. But in order for this analogy to have any force, in order for it to make sense within this argument, the people he is describing must naturally begin with heterosexual relations and then abandon them. But that is not what we are talking about. Gay people have a natural, permanent orientation toward those of the same sex; it’s not something that they choose, and it’s not something that they can change. They aren’t abandoning or rejecting heterosexuality—that’s never an option for them to begin with. And if applied to gay people, Paul’s argument here should actually work in the other direction: If the point of this passage is to rebuke those who have spurned their true nature, be it religious when it comes to idolatry or sexual, then just as those who are naturally heterosexual should not be with those of the same sex, so, too, those who have a natural orientation toward the same sex should not be with those of the opposite sex. For them, that would be exchanging “the natural for the unnatural” in just the same way. We have different natures when it comes to sexual orientation.’

Vines goes on to discuss how our modern concepts of sexual orientation did not exist in Paul’s day and what that means for his argument, which i appreciate. You can everything he says about Romans 1:26-27 and its context in the link i made above the excerpt. 

_____________

Bi people’s nature

So yeah to sum that up, for people who agree with Vines’ argument around Romans 1:26-27, a straight person abandoning their inherent orientation for a person of the same gender goes against their nature, and it follows that a gay person abandoning their inherent orientation for a person of the “opposite” assigned binary gender goes against their nature. 

Vines does not take the time to keep going through all the various sexualities humans can have (as far as i know; perhaps he does somewhere that i’ve not seen), and i really wish he did. Because i agree with you, @crazynerdandproud – without it being explicitly stated, it might be difficult to extrapolate what someone like Vines thinks about a bisexual person’s nature – or an asexual person’s, or a person with any of the other numerous sexualities beyond homosexual and heterosexual. 

But based on what he does say, i’m pretty sure that scholars who argue that Romans 1:26-27 can be interpreted as a condemnation not of all same-sex activity but of any individual going against their personal nature would say that bi people can be with someone of the same gender or another gender and still be acting within their own nature. 

For a bi person, any option would be “the natural thing” – you can be with a man or a woman or nonbinary person and still be acting according to your own nature.  

________

A same-sex relationship is just as good and holy as any other relationship

Here’s the final thing i wanna say at last!

In asking this question, i feel like you might still be struggling to unlearn an insidious message that society feeds all of us: that same-sex/LGBT/queer relationships are less valid, less legitimate, and otherwise inferior to cishet relationships / a relationship with one cis man and one cis woman. (Or you may have found a resource that implies this and don’t believe it yourself.) 

i have heard people express support of gay people being in a same-sex relationship because “they don’t have any other options” / “they don’t have a choice”; while withholding support of bi people who are in a same-sex relationship because “they could choose to be in a straight relationship.” Pardon my french, but that’s total bullshit.

Just because a bi person “can” end up with someone of the opposite binary sex does not mean that they have to. Any relationship founded on mutuality and love can be affirmed by God and used to bear good fruit. Same-sex relationships aren’t “okay” just because the people in them “can’t help it” – they are good and holy because they cultivate love and respect and mutual support and growth!

i hope this helps! Let me know if i totally misinterpreted your question or forgot to answer part of it. 

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

As a follow-up to the “what’s the point” question: you recently posted about it being antisemitic to “save” a Jewish person or convert them to Christianity. If you say that being a Christian is about living a full life with all God intended, aren’t you doing a disservice by saying it’s wrong to share that with people of other religions? Obv. aggressively pressuring anyone to change their beliefs is wrong but to imply that any attempt at it is antisemitic/islamophobic/etc seems... backwards

Hi there! I’m going to answer this way more simplistically than the topic deserves; I invite Jewish persons or people of any non-Christian faith, or atheists, to offer more comment if they desire. 

To begin with, my post on why I am a Christian was purposefully worded to describe why I, personally, am a Christian – I believe many other Christians likely can relate to what I wrote, but I have no desire to impose my feelings around the matter on others of any faith. I believe that other faiths offer other persons and groups access to a full, abundant life and to the Divine – I do not personally hold that Christianity is the “Only Way,” even while I admit that my personal suppositions regarding divinity as well as life after death are through a Christian lens. 

It is a complicated balancing act to hold one’s own natural beliefs that their faith hold something special or unique (that’s why we choose the faith we do, whatever that is!) while respecting other faiths, particularly when we find ourselves a part of a culture’s privileged religion – as Christianity is in my country. I talk about that balancing act a little bit in my Youtube video with Leah. 

So I personally do not advocate for trying to “convert” persons of just about any faith to Christianity, unless the person approaches me first (i.e., they seem interested, they have questions they’d like me to answer, they’d like my advice and support, etc.). The attempted conversion of Jewish persons in particular is highly problematic in the worst way. 

For starters, Jewish persons already have a faith that offers them a beautiful relationship with God, with humanity, and with all Creation. It is a great disrespect to their faith to try to “save” them and “bring them to God” when they already have God. I am not going to try to force them into my faith when Christians doing that to Jewish persons has caused horrific harm and attempted genocide over the past two millennia. 

It is antisemitic to try to convert Jewish people to Christianity because two thousand years of attempts have born terrible fruit. For a small example: as a hospital chaplain last fall I was taught to approach Jewish patients with the ultimate sensitivity due to the fact that many of them are extremely wary of Christian chaplains because we used to try to baptize them sneakily, without their consent!!! while they were in the hospital, a very vulnerable place!!!! not too many decades back!!! For a larger example: in many cultures across Christian history, Jewish persons were forced to choose between conversion and either execution or expulsion. I commend to you this wikipedia article and the links therein for more on that history. 

I take my cue regarding this topic from Christian denominations as varied as PC(USA) and the Methodist Church and the Roman Catholic Church. These denominations have all “entered into dialog with American Jews, while discontinuing any efforts to convert them. They have gone beyond rejecting anti-semitism, and beyond simple tolerance. They now value Judaism as a “sister” religion with whom they have much in common, and from which they have much to learn. The dialog is conducted between the two religions as equals in a spirit of honest seeking” (source).

The Catholic Church also issued a document several years back called “The Gifts and Calling of God are Irrevocable” solidifying the post-Vatican II decision that "the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews” (source). 

I wrote a post on more of my thoughts around evangelism a couple years ago. 

I also appreciate this article on Christian privilege that states that one can follow Jesus’ Great Commission without trying to assimilate the whole world to Christianity:

Not only do we as Christians benefit from Christian privilege, we’re actually proud of it. We tout it as a victory. The more that culture becomes “Christianized” the more we’ve accomplished our mission.

What’s stunning is that this is the furthest thing from what Jesus taught, hoped for, or embodied.

Jesus never called for his disciples to Christianize culture. To make every aspect of culture about Christianity, and to marginalize and minimize those who were not Christian.

He didn’t even call us to convert everyone to a new religion called Christianity - that’s not what the Great Commission is all about.

No, Jesus called us to go into the world and proclaim good news - news of liberating love for everyone - and to make disciples, or in other words, invite people to follow in the example of Jesus. To emulate the life Jesus lived and work to create the world he dreamed of.

And did you know that you can do that without ever making someone a Christian? In fact, did you realize that when Jesus told his disciples to go into the world and preach the gospel, there was no such thing as Christianity - it didn’t exist. He wasn’t telling them to make people Christian.

…He wasn’t asking them to ask anyone to convert from their religion, or their culture, or their social setting. Rather, he invited everyone in every culture and context to embrace a path of self-sacrificial love for the good of their friends, neighbors and enemies.

People of all faiths, as well as atheists and agnostics and “the nones,” can and do live into this Good News we are called to share, regardless of where they see it as coming from. Liberation and love, justice and peace, are for everyone, not only those who identify as Christian. 

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Cishet Christians be like @David and Jonathan: 2 guys chillin in your Sunday school stories but 5 feet apart bc they're not gay

gklads;gjkl;sajgdlksa anon!

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

What is it about queer/LGBT+ Christians that makes love Judas so much? Or is it just me? Because sometimes I just feel this absolute overwhelming love and compassion for Judas. I don’t know if it’s bad but it’s sure there.

ahahaha anon this is a Mood

when i was a repressed little queer in high school i wrote several poems about judas and how unfair it seemed to me that he was punished for something that had to happen; and a poem where he shows remorse and Jesus forgives him. 

i got a calendar from my church one year that for one of the months had this image of Judas crying on the ground and a shimmering form of Jesus (idk if it’s meant to be his ghost or his resurrected body) standing behind him, looking like he’s about to reach out and comfort Judas -- i promptly tore that page out of the calendar and hung it on my bulletin board and it’s still there to this day.

i imagine that the vilifying of Judas is just. relatable to LGBT+ Christians, who feel like we don’t get the chance to share our side of the story when people paint us as sinful and lost. 

anyway yeah, what other LGBT+/queer Christians are out there feeling love for Judas in this chilis tonight

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

When I was 14 I told my parents I was trans. They put me in Christian therapy that... wasn't the "conversion therapy" of horror stories but was supposed to use prayer and faith to "manage" dysphoria or same-sex attraction. I just shut down. Either my parents thought it worked or saw it hadn't, because after a handful of months they stopped making me go. I feel guilty because I know I didn't even try, I was too scared. How am I welcome in the Kingdom if I can't die to myself?

Oh my dear anon, I am so, so sorry that you were put through that. Conversion therapy is abuse – it tries to twist you into something that you are not so that you’ll fit the molds that society wants you to fit, rather than being the way God made you to be. Moreover, studies show that conversion therapy does not work, and that being “ex-gay” / “ex-trans” etc. just isn’t a thing. 

There’s a comic by David Hayward, aka @nakedpastor, that really moves me:

[image description: a comic by naked pastor that is titled “sheep conversion therapy.” a sheep with white wool on the left is holding a wool shearer and facing another sheep with dismay; that sheep is surrounded by newly shorn wool that is rainbow-colored, and the naked skin now revealed is also rainbow-colored. 

Hayward’s explanation of this comic goes thus: “This white sheep thought he was being helpful. He thought the LGBTQ sheep was just LGBTQ on the surface and it could be easily removed. To his dismay, he realizes it’s much deeper than he thought.” end image description /]

God does not mean for you to “manage” or repress or eradicate yourself. You think that not trying to go along with conversion therapy was cowardly, but it’s the most courageous thing in the world! Human beings told you that the way you are is broken and wrong and tried to change you, but you would not be “conformed to the world” (Romans 12:2). That’s beautiful, and I see God at work in your story.

In the Creation story of Genesis 1, we find that God delights in diversity, not conformity: God created a whole variety of ways for things to exist, a whole rainbow of life – and God looked upon it all and pronounced it good – “very good” (1:31). This God of diversity does not mean for all of us to be exactly the same. The Body of Christ is “one body with many parts” (1 Cor 12) – if we were all one body part, it wouldn’t be much of a body! if we all had the same exact traits and gifts and callings, it wouldn’t be much of a body. 

The way you have been taught “self denial” is not the way that Jesus means it when he says in the Gospels to “deny yourselves, take up your cross and follow me.” I recommend looking at this post for information on what Jesus is actually saying with that passage – essentially, denying the self is not about denying the way God made us; it’s about denying the way that the world defines us in favor of defining ourselves in relationship to God. 

I’ve preached a brief sermon on the concept of self denial and bearing crosses, which you can watch or read here. 

I’ve also preached a brief sermon on the concept of conforming to the world versus being transformed, which you can read as a transcript here.

You might also have heard the Bible quote “he must increase, I must decrease” as meaning that we have to completely disappear – that our selfhood sort of melts into God and goes away. But I believe that such a concept goes completely against the way God created us as individuals, with unique personalities and gifts. 

Yes, the Western world is much too individualistic, and we need to learn what it means to be one member of a community; and Christians need to learn how to make God the center of all we are and do – but that does not mean that God intends for us to lose our entire selfhood. I’ve got a #individuality tag with posts in it that explore this topic. One of those posts includes this:

In some ways we do “decrease” when we follow Jesus, and the way that we follow Jesus involves letting go of what we think are parts of ourselves – but in actuality it is the parts of us that were not ever really “us” at all that fall away. In seeking to lose ourselves in Jesus, Jesus liberates us from our fears and selfishness and sins we can’t seem to escape on our own, so that our true selves stand free of all of those things we thought were us – so that we can, at last, live a full and abundant life, finding that we have not lost our individual selves at all but saved them (Matthew 16:25). 

Finally, my #self denial tag has even more posts on this idea. And for more on how LGBTA+ folks are beloved by God, you might be interested in the “but what does the bible say?” section of my resources page, the section on God on my FAQ page, and my #affirmation tag. 

When you have been told that you are not good, that God wants you to change when really it’s human beings who want you to change, it takes so much courage and strength to unlearn those lies and learn God’s truth for you. It’s not an easy road, but you can get there, anon. There is healing to be found, there is joy to be had, there are whole communities of people out there just waiting to love and celebrate you as you are! In the meantime, God is with you every step of your journey, longing to guide you into a fruitful and abundant life. 

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

do you know of a phone app that has prayers on it? that’s incredibly vague, but i’ve been looking for something without a paid subscription that just has a collection i could look through, maybe with a bunch of situations?

Yes!! Our Bible App is sooooo good, it’s chock full of LGBTQ+ inclusive devotionals and prayers. It’s also staunchly anti-racist and lifts up the voices of people of color, of disabled people, of LGBTQ people, and of other marginalized groups. 

Various people contribute to it from various points of views, so it’s got lots of different categories of prayers you can look through. 

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

I cited Queerly Christian and TransChristianity in one of my final seminary papers and my professor was massively impressed with the work you do here and plans to direct her students to your resources in the future. Thank you for being a light and doing God's work in this space.

Ahhhh my goodness this is such a big compliment to me, thank you so much for telling me!! Sounds like a cool paper, and a cool professor :)

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hey, so, I've often found in reading the Old Testament that God is sooo affirming of women and that really encourages me. Atm I've been reading the minor prophets and I've noticed language that really troubles me. Like how whenever describing Babylon, Assyria and Israel's sin the text always seems to change to feminine language - how do I reconcile the fact that i know God values women with the prophets specifically using metaphors that rely on the knowledge that girl = bad to emphasise sin :/

(anyone interested in these women whom the question asker is talking about can see this post and this post)

Hey there! I feel this. I am reading through Jeremiah right now and he! will not stop!! going on about what a [gendered slur] Israel/Jerusalem is, how they’re adulteresses against God, and I’m just like, jeeze, we get it Jeremiah, please stop using the word wh*res you’re like 12 years old

It’s painful to read scripture and find a lot of language we would consider problematic in many ways – it’s in the Bible, so does that means God’s cool with it? If a prophet claims God said it, did God really say it? Is God a misogynist? If not, why did God allow the human writers to put such language into scripture? 

(I’m going to note here right at the start that the “OT God” is the same as the “NT God” and that believing otherwise puts one at risk of anti-semitism, as shown in Marcionism. I’ll also note that the Greek Bible / New Testament is just as guilty of sexism as the Hebrew Bible /Old Testament – not that you, question asker, were implying that, but just so anyone who reads this answer recognizes that! All the cultures depicted in the Bible are patriarchal and have sexism embedded in them, just like so many of our cultures today. Here’s one post where I talk about sexism in some of Paul’s letters, for instance.)

As I note in that above linked post about Paul, this conversation always has to start with the question of how one views/interprets the Bible: 

is it the “literal” Word of God, with every opinion given in it being “God’s” opinion or will? 

If you do read the Bible this way, if you believe that God agrees with every notion put forth in our canon of scripture, you must conclude either that 1) God is sexist, or 2) these words are not sexist. 

And that is, to say the least, problematic – the first conclusion forces one to worship a God who upholds binaries / hierarchies that pit some humans over others, something that the overall biblical themes seem to reject; while the second conclusion compels one to go through some major mental gymnastics trying to show how “actually, it only looks sexist to us but if you study it really hard the text is actually really progressive!” 

So the other option is not to interpret the Bible as the “literal” Word of God. You and I are on the same page, question asker – it sounds like you read the Bible as written by normal, flawed human beings, with all their biases bleeding into the text. 

Even if it’s inspired by God, God did not feed exact language into the brains of the writers; it’s filtered through human prejudices and hopes and fears. 

That can be really frustrating for us as we try to figure out what we’re meant to “take” from the Bible, how we are meant to read it and live it out in our own lives – but it can also be sort of liberating. It means that we can challenge what the Bible claims even while taking it seriously. 

This quote describes the diversity and “polyvalence” (“many voices”) of the biblical texts and explains how God trusts us to approach them with a discerning heart.  

I also love this quote from Gary David Comstock on taking the Bible not as a parental authority but as a friend we can argue with and cooperate with. 

So, yeah, there is sexism in the Bible – how do we deal with it? My main answer is here in this post I wrote on sexism in the Bible.

(You might also like this post.)

I recommend finding some women interpreters of the Bible! Journey with them and see how they grapple with the sexism and raise up voices of biblical women that are often silenced! You don’t have to be alone on this journey, and you also don’t have to rely on what men say the Bible or God says about women. 

Two such women authors I recommend are 

Rachel Held Evans, particularly her latest book Inspired (I’ve posted a lot of quotes from that book on this blog) 

Wilda C. Gafney and her book Womanist Midrash – here’s a tweet thread from her and an uploaded file with the introduction to her book as well as the chapter on Exodus. Just so you can have a little sample of it to see if you want to buy it! I can’t recommend this text enough for a new look at lots of women of the Hebrew Bible. 

To close: 

For me, the fact that these women and their influential relationships with God and their communities have survived the centuries of editing that the biblical texts have gone through before coming together in any sort of canon is evidence of God’s inspiration, God’s love and respect for these women. These male editors could not bury the truth – it’s there in scripture for those who are willing to do a little digging, like Gafney in her book mentioned above.  

Anyone else have thoughts on reconciling God’s love and respect for women with misogynistic language in many parts of the Bible? 

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

People say God doesn't make mistakes, so why does being AFAB feel like one? I want to believe that there's a reason, but I'm so miserable in my body.

Oh my dear anon, I really feel you. Dysphoria sucks, and I’ve definitely had days where I’ve been where you are. 

First off, it’s 100% okay to question. It’s okay to wonder if a mistake was made. God can take all our questions, all our messy emotions. So please feel free to take your questions straight to God, asking Them what the heck is going on! 

Also, whenever I hear a phrase like “people say ______” I always throw back the question: which people? who says that, and where did they get that belief? I personally think God doesn’t make mistakes, but there are other faithful believers who think God might very well make mistakes -- I invite you to ponder where you stand in that matter.

If you are interested in hearing the viewpoints of other trans folks who decided that it’s true, God does not make mistakes, and us being trans and being born with the bodies we have was not a mistake, I’ve got a whole tag for that! It is my #God doesn’t make mistakes tag. Go through those posts and see what you think. 

If you have more questions after reading through that tag, please feel free to reach out again! And if it takes you time to come to a place where you’re at peace with how you are, that’s okay. You’ve got time, friend. Hang in there <3

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hey, so I personally don't see anything wrong with being lgbt+. It most certainly shouldn't be a sin. But everyone in my life is always telling me that it is. That the bible is God's word and that it says (and here they use the clobber verses) that the bible says that it so wrong. But the thing is, it isn't. It isn't wrong. But according to pretty much everyone in my life, God views it as a sin. I just....I need to know if that's true. If so, God is not as loving as the bible says. 1/2

3/3 I know being Lgbt+ is not a sin. It isnt wrong. But according to practically everyone in my life, God views it as a sin. That doesnt line up with what I understand about God. But at this point, a part of me is afraid that maybe they could be right. But then if so, God would not be who I understand him to be. I don’t know what to do at this point. Sorry for sending these long asks. Feel free to ignore them. Sorry.

_________

Hi there! So sorry for the long delay. Also, if there was a second part to your ask, tumblr must have eaten it. But i think i get the gist of what you are asking anyhow!

i really feel you when it comes to finding it hard not to listen to the many, many voices around that insist that God is against LGBTQA+ people existing as we are. As a marginalized and oppressed group, we are told that we are abnormal, a deviation from what is natural, and if “unnatural” then “against God.” 

But we are not called to conform to what our societies assume – but rather, to challenge the world’s norms. Jesus spent his whole life questioning the things his society took for granted: the status of women and strict gender roles dividing women and men; the degradation of those who did not fit into the male-female binary, eunuchs; the hatred between Samaritans and his own Jewish community; Roman imperialism; and more. We are called to do likewise.

So listen to what you hear people say – and then do your own research. Talk to God about it. Wrestle with God. Read about it. Write about it. Look to see what fruit is borne when LGBTQA+ people are able to exist freely versus when we are forced to live lies. Keep on imagining bigger and vaster and brighter, because the God who created so much diversity is Themself infinite. 

I have some sources that might help you on this search:

First off, check out my resources page and my FAQ for so many posts and links! 

If you like books, two good easy reads are God and the Gay Christian by Matthew Vines (for the LGB) and Transforming by Austen Hartke (for the T).

If you like videos, see Austen Harke’s Transgender and Christian YouTube channel.

If you like podcasts, check out Queerology, Queer Theology, Blessed Are the Binary Breakers, or Lord Have Mercy.

“Our Bible App” is a great app full of LGBTQA-friendly devotionals

“How do you deal with the Bible passages that “condemn” being gay? / If God is okay with LGBT people why does the Bible speak against it?” Answer

“How do we take context into account when reading the Bible without using it to justify what we already think?” Answer 

I once wrote a sermon on the idea that when we give in to the idea that being LGBT is a sin, that’s “conforming to the world,” while embracing LGBT people as they are is living into God’s Kin(g)dom.

“How do you know God is okay with LGBT+ people?” Answer 

Everything I thought I knew about God has changed now that I have accepted God affirms LGBT people – what do I do? / I don’t know the Bible or God like I thought I did – what do I do? Answer

I hope this helps you as you go on this journey!

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

I'm looking for some advice. I'm a trans man, and I was baptized when I was 10 years before I transitioned. Is there any protocol as to what that means for baptism, if I need to redo it, etc? Baptism is an important part of my faith for me and I feel very detached from my first baptism bc of gender dysphoria and just a general disconnect from myself pre-transition

Hey there! You do not have to redo your baptism just because you’ve now transitioned. That baptism still “holds” or “counts”! Even if you hadn’t transitioned yet, even if you had no clue at that time that you were trans, the soul that was baptized then is the same soul you are now. You might like to think about it in this way: when you were baptized, God was blessing and welcoming you, the true you that you didn’t even know you were yet! That baptism was for the self you would become as you transitioned, the seed you blossomed into. God knew and loved who you would become, then and always. 

Moreover, most (but not all!) denominations consider baptism to be a one-time thing. I recommend investigating the meaning and purpose of baptism for your specific tradition, because different groups have different ideas about what baptism “does.”

All that being said, if you feel detached from your first baptism because you feel disconnected from your pre-transition self, I support your search for a new baptism 100%. If you have a specific denomination, you could look into whether they ever allow more than one baptism. 

some denominations won’t allow a second official baptism, but do offer something that reminds me of the idea of “renewing” wedding vows. you could look into the idea of remembering baptism, reaffirming baptism, and recommitting to baptism, and see if any of those things are possible in your denomination and if they would be something you’d like.

another option you might pursue is getting your faith community -- if you have one and if they are supportive of you as a trans person -- to hold a ceremony officially recognizing your new name/identity. You can find examples of such ceremonies at this webpage!

your story reminds me a little of my friend Derek’s story -- he is also interested in getting re-baptized under his new name, as a trans man. you can hear his feelings on that in his interview with me on my podcast Blessed are the Binary Breakers. You can find his episode on Youtube (where the captions are manually entered so they’re good if you have trouble hearing podcasts), on iTunes, on spotify, on google play, and more.

anyone else have thoughts on baptism?

best of luck to you, anon!