I Don't Always Want To

I don't always want to do the right thing and sometimes I don't follow through with doing the right thing. Sometimes I am lazy, sometimes I am selfish. Sometimes I just plain and simple don't feel like doing it.

Following Christ is sometimes in the category of stuff I don't feel like doing. It is hard to be the bigger person. It isn't fun to pray for your enemies. It takes time to worship. It takes effort and energy to love others as you love yourself.

Although, it isn't always something I want to do, it is always worth doing.

Can I Share Your Pew?

Growing up we went to the same church from the time I could remember clear through when I left for college. My dad grew up going there; my grandmother's grandmother gave the land for the church to be built on. You could say we were rooted there. As a kid you sat with your parent or grandparent (always in the same place), in Junior High you got to move to the front right pew and High School students got the front two pews on the left side.

PSA: Church does not have assigned seats.

Now when I walk into a church to visit, I feel very hesitant to sit down until its time for service to start. I don't want to take someone's pew. Isn't that such a weird thing to worry about? However, I have pastored churches that people have gotten upset about a visitor sitting in "their" spot.

As a gay Christian, coming into church with my wife and sometimes our brood of scruffy young men, knowing where to sit is even harder. I don't know if I am even welcome as a gay person let alone a gay person with a family. I often find myself asking "Can I share this pew?" or "Does someone usually sit here?"

I don't want to take your seat. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I don't want to take away the place you volunteer. I just want to sit down and worship God without the fear of rejection.

So, can I share your pew?

A Letter from a Gay Christian

This post was supposed to happen yesterday; sorry, I got a day off right out of the gate. But upon a more comprehensive look at my schedule, my weekly posts will be on Wednesdays.

An Open Letter from a Gay Christian:

I know Gay and Christian aren’t two monikers that usually go together. However, I assure you there are many of us that profess Christ as Savior and would still identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, pansexual or queer. There are many people of all denominations who strongly believe that people like me are bound for eternal damnation. I hope to convince them otherwise or at least put a shadow of doubt in their mind. Nonetheless, it is God alone who gets to decide about anyone in the end.

I live in a conservative Midwestern state. Being seminary educated, I believe that my theology is on solid rock. The treatment of non-heterosexual people in our country is an embarrassment. They are often treated like second class citizens being denied rights: marriage, jobs, and housing to name a few. People from the extremely conservative right have even made non-heterosexuals into deviant predators or perverts. Although, statistically most sexual predators are Caucasian, heterosexual, mid-thirties and male.

Many people who are against marriage equality quote Leviticus 20:13, “if a man lies with a man the way he lies with a woman, the punishment is to stone him.” I often wonder if people truly have read Leviticus because it has a lot more to say. We are not to eat pork (Lev. 11:7), no more bacon and eggs for everyone. Unfortunately, crab, shrimp, clams and oysters are out too (Lev. 11:12). Women who have just had a baby are not to be touched for sixty-six days (Lev. 12:1-5). If the same illness strikes your house twice, it shall be permanently unclean (Lev. 14:41-47); boy I hope my family doesn’t get the flu again! You can’t cut the hair on your temples (Lev. 19:27) and men are supposed to have beards. I hope you don’t have any tattoos because they are taboo, too (Lev. 19:28). The list could go on and on. It seems like we are picking and choosing which parts of scripture to follow.

There are of course New Testament arguments as well, so let’s look at them. First I would like to say that the word homosexual is not even found in scripture until the year 1946. Homosexual does not have a translation into Greek or Aramaic (the languages of the New Testament). The word that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians translates better as “those who abuse themselves.” In Romans 1 most people find their golden quiver against non-heterosexual lives. Paul was writing to the Romans and homosexual sex was a part of Pagan temple worship. It would seem unnatural for a Christian to worship in a Mosque or a Jewish person to pray in a cathedral. Paul would have thought any Pagan worship was unnatural for a people that had been converted to Christianity. There are less than ten verses that people can even use against homosexuality and nearly 600 uses of the word “love” in the Bible; perhaps Christians have lost the focus on what is actually important.

People who claim that homosexuality is unnatural have not seen the biological evidence that proves the contrary. Homosexuality can be found throughout the animal kingdom. How much more natural do you want. Anti-homosexual people have also claimed that we are not born this way. Well, I was indeed born this way. When someone asks me when I decided to be gay, I always ask, “When did you decide to be straight?” I tried for most of my life to be straight. I have dated the opposite sex, even had sex with the opposite sex. I have held to the cultural presupposition that gender is binary. Why would I intentionally choose a life that would make me a second class citizen? Why would give up the privileges I had as a “straight” person to live a harder life?

I hope this was thought provoking,
In the pew next to you 

A Return of Sorts

After nearly two and a half years of blogger silence, I am returning. I am returning for weekly posts. I am returning to interact with my faith in a way that I did not anticipate I ever would come back to. I am returning to be vulnerable about where I am at and who God is to me in the midst of everything. My opinions are just that, opinions. You may not agree with me and that is okay. I will not attack your character for having a differing opinion that I do and I would ask the same from you. 

What can you expect in the future from this blog? The simple answer is a woman's honest opinion of being a gay Christian in a world where those two words don't go together who still wants to love God and love others well. You will also get my feelings on the collapse of the United Methodist Church, my call to ministry, the love of my wife, my life as a social worker, and basically just my life as someone who wants desperately to follow the call of Christ and is trying to figure out what that means. 

Some upcoming post titles include: 

-An Open Letter from a Gay Christian 

-Can I Share Your Pew?

-Is It Time? 

-I Love My Life, But... 

I am aiming for weekly posts to begin on January 8, 2019 and will continue on Tuesdays for the foreseeable future. Thank you to those who followed me in the past and are coming back and thank you to new followers that want to see what this is all about.