Free Will (Or Surviving and Thriving in the Middle of the Church's Twin Impulses To Integrate and Welcome While Shaming and Keeping Us Out)

EncyclopediaBritannica.com defines "free will" as the "power or capacity to choose among alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural, social, or divine restraints."

Our ability to practice free will as human beings came to mind as I realized, perhaps too late, that what I, as a gay man, and we, as an LGBTQIA+ community, and the Church (Universal) have been struggling with is the powerful twin impulses (gut) and intellectual rationale (theology) to either do one or the other: Either we include and integrate people who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community in our churches, or the Church excludes and keeps out LGBTQIA+, or change them.

I have faced this twin impulse in the Church since I realized that I am a gay man.

It recently came to be "fleshed out" in two articles or movements recorded in the media. On the one hand, Christian Century  had an article on Ross Murray, who is gay, is an ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) Deacon, who also works for GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) as the Director of Faith Initiatives news, and runs a yearly church camp for LGBTQIA+/queer young people, "The Naming Project." He recently also wrote a book for church-based youth groups and their leaders that want to be welcoming of LGBTQIA+ young people. Ross and "The Naming Project" were inspiration for Queer Camp: Young Adults that I led for the Western Jurisdiction of the UMC in 2019. Ross' story is inspiring and hopeful for not only the ELCA, but for the Church at large, and LGBTQIA+ at large. Here is a link to that article: https://www.christiancentury.org/article/interview/naming-project-christian-camp-celebrates-lgbtq-teens-they-are.

In the article, Ross says the following: "I'm a youth ministry person, so I'm big into identity development and vocation. We ask questions like, Who am I? Who did God make me to be? What did God call me to do in the world? Those questions are best handled during adolescence, when we are learning a lot more about who we are. Later in life we have to unlearn so much false information about ourselves. I would much rather people live healthy lives because they've integrated all that stuff early." 

Truth.

On the other hand, today, Aug. 3, 2021, is the "release" day for the documentary "Pray Away," which is showing on Netflix.This is the other impulse in the Church, which advocates for the exclusion and keeping out LGBTQIA+ from the body of Christ through conversion therapy and "praying away" the impulse to be part of the LGBTQIA+, covering it over with heterosexuality. This impulse is strong, still, and growing in some programmatic parts of the Church universal. It is, in my view, evil, because it denies a person from learning who they are, and what God made us to be and do as part of the LGBTQIA+ community in the Church. This movement is a condemnation that the image of God is in LGBTQIA+ and non-LGBTQIA+ people. Here's a link to the movie: https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370.

Since I realized I was gay in elementary school, and continued to grow in the angst of being gay in a largely anti-gay world in my teenage years, I've kept bumping into and being bumped and thrashed by these two opposing forces in the life of the Church. When I was working towards tenure at an institution of higher education and seminary and was outed, I knew I was applying for tenure where well-established professors were writing books and articles that were anti-LGBTQIA+. When I started work as an interim pastor as an out gay Presbyterian minister in Oregon, after a celebratory welcome, I opened the desk drawer in my new office and there was anti-LGBTQIA+ material from anti-LGBTQIA writer Beverly LeHay, and an old CD of Tony Campolo, who, once upon a time advocated against LGBTQIA+ people in the Church, only to change his message later in life, thanks, in large part, to his wife's influence.

Free will. Freedom of choice. This is what makes it possible for the Church to have these two conflicting messages and messengers reside with each other, simultaneously, especially when churches haven't come out strongly for one side or the other. This open war and constant struggle between these two impulses tires those of us who are LGBTQIA+ people of faith and our LGBTQIA+ allies. We are exhausted. 

And yet... and yet I, and many of my LGBTQIA+ siblings, still believe. Just shows there must be a "higher power" in the body of Christ that knows our name, cares for us, created us just as we are, and loves us still.




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