Why I Will Not Rejoin the Evangelical Church Today

This is a guest post at a favorite blogger's site. Since early this year I've been religiously (ahem) following posts by blogger Esther Emery.  I stumbled across her writing when she was in a no-godtalk phase. She's since opted to go back to overt mention of Jesus; she self-identifies as an evangelical Christian and writes for an audience of her peers. Yet she also has much to say to me.
Side note; I sometimes wonder if she and gay standup comic/musician Kevin J. Thornton were twins separated at birth. Both write with verve and near-scandalous honesty/transparency. Both are voluble about their relationship with religion; both have gone off into the woods in search of a deeper experience of life (Kevin came back in short order; Esther and her husband built a yurt and stayed); both are creative and pursue life with passion; both have written books aimed at encouraging others to live their true selves. Both sense there is something more to life than meets the eye.

I often find myself reacting to Esther's posts—she stirs me up inside, makes me think and feel. I love this about her writing, I who spent much of my life wanting to be accepted, wanting to prove myself acceptable, feeling the need to cover up, cover over, say the right thing, offend no one, please everyone in reach. I couldn't let folks see who I really was on the inside—one, I didn't know myself, and two, I suspected if anyone ever did see the real me they'd send me to hell. (I was right about this. And got to taste it first-hand when I came out in mid-life. My gosh, the furor raised and fervor with which I was roundly condemned. If William Congreve is correct, and hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, then evangelical church surely places a close second.)

Esther's candor speaks to me. Too, her ready acceptance and advocacy for LGBTQ+ persons. When she asked me to compose a guest post for her blog, I was happy to do so. Happy and sad at the same time, because of the issues raised. She'd recently posted about her decision not to leave the evangelical church, even though she finds its actions incompatible with her own beliefs. I'm in a much different place, and for many reasons, not the least of which is the lasting harm done to LGBT+ people by the evangelical church, all in the name of Jesus.

The harm done LGBTQ+ persons in the name of evangelicalism is all too real, and lasting. In this guest post on Esther's blog, I offer a glimpse of the real-life consequences. I begin like this:

At his funeral one minister after another called him “the consummate Presbyterian.” I can believe it. He was fussily exacting in all he did, and he went at it with a will, impassioned, dedicated, committed. Consummate. He had been a leader in his church, at the local level and beyond.

At his funeral, one minister after another called him innovator, helper, instructor, teacher. He had made a difference locally and across the state because of his skill and efforts at networking, pooling resources, thinking creatively to serve more with less.

At his funeral he was described as a thinker, philosopher, colleague nearing retirement, mentor, exemplar and friend. His sense of humor was noted, as well as his encyclopaedic knowledge of classic American cinematography. 

But at his funeral no one described him as gay. No one described him as conflicted, soul-torn between who he felt himself to be on the inside and what his religious-based employer, his church family, his small-town evangelical Christian community told him about men who are attracted to other men.

Read the rest of it HERE.

photo credit: Jonathan Cohen at flickr.com

An Open Letter to My Friend on His Being Outed

Dear one,

I grew up on the farm and was this unschooled: I didn’t know a post-pubescent boy needed to bathe every day in order to be welcomed in polite society. You pulled me aside and had a talk with me about the matter. You were kind, nonjudgmental, and to the point. “We must accommodate to our surroundings,” you said, and excused me to go take a shower. My face burned as I left. 

Although you taught me, mentored me, worked with me over the next few years, we never spoke of this incident again. We discussed many other subjects. I’d ask a question; you’d pause and take a breath as if the matter required oxygenated thought. Then you’d twist your mouth a little to the side and deliver a considered, witty, impassioned response with the kind of nervous energy that characterized everything you did. You were an odd duck. Bold wardrobe choices, fussy personality, fluttery hand movements. Mannerisms today I’d describe as “queeny.” 

Thing is, I think we were more alike than either one of us wanted to know. I think we were both striving mightily to remain unaware of our sexual orientation. I moved away, eventually married. You sent a gift when my first child arrived. We stayed in touch, saw each other every once in a while. I found reasons to ask your help on various projects.

Once, after telling me a good friend of yours is gay, you made a statement that struck me as peculiar: “Of course, I’m always very careful whenever I’m around him and we’re alone.” I gave it little thought at the time. Now it seems telling.

When I came out as a gay man, I was kicked out of my church, marriage, job. No place for me in polite society. You and many other former friends were conspicuous by your absence.

I have my own theory about why you were silent. I’d love for you to correct me if I’m wrong. Here’s my take on it: like me, you grew up in a society and religious milieu that taught gay persons were criminal, depraved, sinful creatures who’d crawled out of some black lagoon. Like me, you repressed and suppressed same-sex attractions. Like me, you turned to church and religion as salve and salvation. Like me, you kept it all out of sight, out of mind until the day you couldn’t do it any more. Like me, you took tentative steps toward learning more, leaning further into territory you’d always considered forbidden. 

And then you were found out. 

Way I heard it, you left incriminating images open on your office computer. The cleaning crew spotted them, reported you. You’d long worked for a church-related organization, very religious, very conservative, very small town. 

“We don’t know what we’re going to do, but we’re going to do something,” your employer said. This on a Friday. You had the weekend to think about it. You knew well enough what would happen—you’d lose your job, marriage, church, friends, your standing in the community. 

You didn’t show up for work on Monday.

They tell me there is a moment of euphoria as a person drowns, when all is bliss and joy. I hope you found it. I hope you experienced relief and release. I hope you relaxed into one long moment when all was well, you were acceptable, had nothing to hide, no one to hide from, no one to harm you. 

From a pew at your funeral,  I listened as the preacher said, “We don’t know why he chose to take his own life.” 

I wanted to stand up and shout, “The hell we don’t!” But I kept mum. _We must accommodate to our surroundings._

I used to believe the coming out process, though painful, ultimately liberates. Your fate is not my idea of freedom, your baptism not my preferred mode of salvation.

This letter appeared in the May issue of The Community Letter

photo credit: Ephemeral Scraps at flickr.com

KNOT WHAT YOU BELIEVE

Had you even turned 20, Andrew, before you took to heart your church’s teachings on same-sex attraction? Before you took the rope in hand, snaked it up and over the beam, slipped the knotted noose around your neck? What could you know of death, of life? 

Researchers say that for many people, five minutes or less pass between their making the decision to end it all and making the attempt. Was yours a snap decision, made when you learned your mother had discovered your secret? Or had you been toying with the idea of suicide all along? I can imagine you worrying it like a loose tooth, pushing it back and forth in your mind as I did, weighing its merits as a way of reconciling your being gay with your strongly held religious beliefs.

Seductive, the idea that death would end the pain and torment, free you from never being good enough, from knowing that who you were at the very deepest level was flawed, dirty, sick, beyond redemption. Not that you didn’t try. Not that you didn’t pray. Not that you didn’t fast and flagellate yourself and exercise all you knew of faith. But God did not answer your prayers, relieve your suffering or take away your persistent attractions. And you got the message in countless ways from parents and peers, church and society, that same-sex desire is wrong, shameful, depraved. 

You learned to make the hangman’s noose in Royal Ambassadors, the Southern Baptist knock-off of the Boy Scouts. Did you approach knot-tying with the same fervor you brought to religion? Did you do it well enough that yours was a quick death? From what I read, it’s easy to bungle hanging oneself. The resultant death by strangulation can be excruciating. Three months ago in Oregon an openly gay 15-year-old who'd complained of being bullied hung himself on the school playground. He died two weeks later, after being taken off life support. I can’t imagine his parents’ pain. Nor his. Nor yours.

I remember mine. Morning of my 35th birthday I wrote a suicide note to my wife and young sons. I had a plan. Had tested it. Knew it would work. I’d had all I could take. Believed my death would be best for my wife and children. Soon as they left for town, I was going to take my leave, as well. Like you, I could in no way reconcile my religious beliefs with who I had discovered myself to be.

You directed your last prayer heavenward. “What did I do that was so wrong?” you cried in anguish, tears wetting your face. “Why can’t you love me?” Then you turned and took up the long white rope.

Although I didn't see you die, I did hear your mother's scream when she found your body. The entire theatre audience did. Many of us sat there in silence, stunned. Some of us wiped our eyes. We grieved your death—you who only ever lived in our imaginations. 

You’re a fictional character, Andrew. In a play. You die every time Dell Shore’s Southern Baptist Sissies is presented. Though you’re a work of fiction, you’re an all too real stand-in for LGBTQ youth across this country, across this world, who every day face disparaging messages from friends, family, religious systems and societal institutions.

Suicide isn’t the answer. Killing yourself resolves nothing. If it’s death we need, it’s the death of small thinking, entrenched prejudice, bigotry and hatred. And it’s happening all around us, due to quite natural causes. Even conservative pundit George Will sees it. “Quite literally, the opposition to gay marriage is dying,” he told ABC television’s “This Week.” “It’s old people.” 

Younger people support gay and lesbian equality in far greater numbers than do their elders. Change is coming, Andrew. A new wind is blowing. I wish you were here to experience it.


This essay appeared in the April issue of The Community Letter

MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH IN SOUTHERN BAPTIST SISSIES

MUNCIE, IN—Southern Baptist Sissies, written by Del Shores and directed by Robby Tompkins, continues its run at Muncie Civic Theatre’s studio space through March 2. The show left me winded. I’m trying to understand its impact on me by writing about it. Too, I grasp at some way to say thank you for the ways theater can illuminate, quicken and confound. I mean these words to convey some sense of my gratitude.

SPOILER ALERT: These ruminations assume you’ve seen the show, and make little effort to conceal plot denouement.




Matters of Life and Death in Southern Baptist Sissies

I've been there, been there in the church when the preacher stands over the closed coffin and says, "We ask ourselves the why question—"why?"—over and over again. His death leaves us with a great sadness and a great many questions. We don't know why he chose to take his own life."

In that moment I wanted to stand up and shout. "Like hell we don't! Some of us have a pretty damn good idea why.” But I kept my mouth shut. I am well-schooled in repression.

We had known each other a long time, the deceased and I. We were not confidantes; we shared more in common than we were willing to admit, even to ourselves. We used denial, repression and self-induced unawareness to shield ourselves from self-knowledge.

Some of his story I pieced together after the fact, some of this is conjecture. I can't know with certainty what was going on inside him. Yet I've lived enough of his story to make an educated guess. He grew up in a church, family and society that told him in a thousand ways, "A man shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination." In a small town where everyone knew everyone else's business, he hid as best he could. He prayed, believed, served church and community. Thought it would go away. Hoped it was a phase. Tried to accept it as his cross to bear, the dark angel he had to wrestle to win his way to heaven. Deep down he hated himself. Hated how and who and what he was. Hated the constant struggle. Lived in fear of anyone ever finding out. And then someone did. His secret uncovered. About to be made public. How could he go on? He knew what awaited. He'd seen it before, most recently, in my case: drummed out of town, marriage up in smoke, career terminated, kicked out of the church, left friendless and alone.

He must have panicked. It happened so suddenly, so irrevocably—the discovery, threatened exposure, fateful decision. Did he talk to anyone first? Wish he would have called me. Wish I’d have known to call him. I heard the report on the local news. His body had been found. Damn, damn, damn.

This is where you take me, David W., in your portrayal of the Preacher, presiding at the funeral of the beautiful boy with the deep soul. You look out over the congregation, your face troubled. How can your perplexity be genuine? Yet you almost convince me it is.

 “We ask ourselves the question ‘why?’ over and over again,” you say.

No closed coffin in front of the pulpit, just his framed photo in the center of a funereal wreath. And now what happens? Did you bump against it, knock your pulpit against the easel? For whatever reason, his picture falls face forward onto the floor. By your reaction I can tell this isn’t in the script. A moment’s hesitation and you go on with your sermonizing as if you haven’t witnessed his fall, as if nothing has gone awry. “A troubled young life is gone, and we ask ourselves why….”

Damn you, Preacher. Damn the unfeeling religious system you serve. Damn the ways you represent my own unseeing, unthinking, unfeeling responses to others. Another beautiful life ended, yet another deep soul sacrificed on the altar of power, tradition, institutionalized bigotry and willful ignorance. The accidental tumble his photo takes only echoes and underscores the insidious evil done daily in the name of fundamentalist religious belief. Another one bites the dust and so what. Who cares. Who even deigns notice.