A Queer Pilgrim

A parachurch organization is a Christian-based group that works outside and across all denominations to engage in a special focus. Some focus on high school evangelism (Young Life and Youth for Christ). Some focus on college age evangelism (InterVarsity, Navigators, and Campus Crusade). And some focus on sports, like Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA). These organizations like to work alongside churches, and focus on specializing on a certain group, like FCA, which works primarily with high school and college/university athletes.  The one thing these groups I mentioned above also tend to recruit leaders who are middle-class, able-bodied, men, white, and heterosexual. In other words, they tend to not be necessarily hospitable to women; Black, indigenous, or people of color; and LGBTQIA2S+ people. I speak of this from personal experience. Along with my Presbyterian youth group, I was part of Young Life at Beaverton High School, and tried being part of InterVarsity and Campus Crusades

  I have had fun catching up on the story line in the PBS Masterpiece series, "Grantchester," which follows the adventures and lives of a British Detective Inspector, Geordie, and his friend, an Anglican vicar, currently William Davenport (early, it was Sidney Chambers) in the town of Grantchester, located outside of Cambridge in the late 1950s. Week after week, these two solve a murder case every episode. But the one person who's storyline has been fascinating to watching is the young curate, Leonard, aka Lenny, Finch. Leonard starts off the series as a very uptight, frenetic, legalistic,  young man, who has a secret: he is gay. He has no other close relationship with anyone, and is quite a loner. He is forever worried that his being gay may become public, and frightened of the stigma of being gay he spends an enormous amount of time and energy in keeping everything attention away from himself so no one would find out he is gay. In today's world, there are still LGBT

This title and article by Donald Padgett on advocate.com (Aug. 15, 2022), stood out to me as I was surfing the website: "Texas Residents Protest Church That Calls for Executing LGBTQ+ People." I can understand shunning us or excommunicating us, as do other evangelical non-denominational churches. But killing us? Executing us? Lining us up in a row and shooting a bullet into our heads because we are part of the LGBTQIA2S+ community? Which Gospel does Jesus advocate such violence as killing people? Or Paul? Turning the other cheek if in a struggle, yes. Giving a person not only your shirt but coat if they are in need, yes. Loving one's neighbor and even our enemies, yes. There are all core Gospel practices.  But shooting LGBTQIA2S+ people for simply being who we are, as God's good creation? Really? The Stedfast Baptist Church in Wautaga, TX, has a history of threatening LGBTQIA2S+ people. That's why the church members have been evicted from other cities in TX. And c

I have what is commonly referred to as the Broadway gay gene, and I love on and off-Broadway musicals and plays. I enjoyed performing in many theater productions when I was in elementary school, junior high, high school, and college, along with some time spent in community theater.  And I like the Broadway musical "Hamilton" a lot.  I've seen it once in person, as well as the Disney+ version, and look forward to seeing it again, live, in the years to come. Apparently, the people at The Door Church, a non-denominational evangelical church in McAllen, TX, also liked it. They liked it so much that they not only performed some of the songs (the show is currently not licensed for community theaters or high schools to use the material) and followed much of the plot of the musical, except with a twist: Alexander Hamilton becomes a convert to Christianity and is "born again." That wasn't in the original production, but it was in the production in McAllen, TX. In The

The idea of "religious freedom" has become a well-known phrase, and way of framing a new method of discriminating against LGBTQIA2S+ people. People in public offices--elected or appointed--serving people in the role of clerks as well as other administrative roles, can say that they do not want to help out or assist LGBTQIA2S+ people in their civil role like providing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, because one's "religion," does not condone same-sex couples getting married. "It's in the Bible," is their excuse or rationale, and their authority, even though it is a literal and not historical, let alone intellectual, way of understanding the Bible. Most likely, a pastor or religious leader told them how to think about such matters, even though Jesus never talked about so-called "homosexuality," let along LGBTQIA2S+ people. The latest use of the phrase, "religious freedom," has come up in a legal case brought against Seattle