#welcome to the continuation of Carter's Ongoing Religious Crisis On Main

[trans-mando]

-Faith/personal religion is morally neutral. Having faith does not make a good deed better, nor does it make a bad deed less so.

-Christian religious institutions strongly tend to be shitty in one way or another. Mine is not an exception. In this post I will be focusing on the ways it is shitty that specifically affect me, because otherwise it would be a mile and a half long.

-I am trans. If I want to be religious, I deserve a religion that supports that. Not supporting trans individuals is bad, and the reason being “but the Book of Discipline that was written in seventeen eighty-whatever and can only be amended by a ridiculously long process involving a global delegate vote says” does not change that.

-The greater institution that is inextricably part of my religion is transphobic and homophobic on main. Select parts of the institution are fighting the transphobia. Those parts do not have any great power and have not created change. More parts are fighting the homophobia and may have the potential power to create change, but have not yet managed it despite great efforts.

-We voted on the homophobia. Some of the votes were extremely close. One relevant vote was a 400-something to 400-something tie. We found out a handful of hours later, still during that conference, that multiple votes were fraudulent. Nothing was done about this.

-Even if my religion changes now, it cannot change the past. My pastors have not been transphobic, but their congregants have been, and bishops-etc must act transphobically as an institutional requirement, even if they themselves are not transphobic.

-I know people who are putting everything on the line for change. I know more people with institutional power who are ignoring them at best.

-The two most prominent nonbinary pastors I know of, who were put on literal trial for being gay married to each other a few years back (and misgendered the entire time), have since walked away from the church.

-My youth group leader, a lesbian and possibly the most faithful person I know, has been in seminary school for several years now and is considering giving up on this church.

-I was elected as a diversity token - look! we’re so progressive, we voted a trans college freshman as the Very Last Backup for our delegation! - and I damn well knew it at the time. I thought that I could accomplish something. I still have absolutely no ability to do that.

-One of my fellow delegation members was promptly blackmailed by their pastor into resigning because they’re polyamorous and have two partners.

-Every delegation meeting I go to prioritizes finances and political bullshit over trying to create lasting change. We rarely discuss potential bills to sponsor, only theoretical funding problems and Fun Team-Building Exercises.

-My religion does missionary work and proselytizing. We are extremely capable of just building houses and schools for people without making them learn english to sing bible songs, but we do not do that. I think that is a very fucked up thing to do.

-I have more feelings about tiny bugs and old rocks than I ever did about the bible.