Embracing the Faith, Not the Institution: Being a Person of Faith and Part of the LGBTQIA2S+ Community

With the backdrop of the passage and signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, today's blog post has to do with faith. Faith and living in a faith community is part of marriage for some of us in the LGBTQIA2S+ community. For example, in my wedding with Christian, and subsequent marriage, faith is central to who and whose we are. We attend church worship services weekly because I'm a Presbyterian pastor working with two faith communities: Portsmouth Trinity Lutheran Church and Community of Pilgrims Presbyterian Fellowship.

But staying in the institutions which individual faith communities are part of has not been easy, especially when these institutions--like the Presbyterian Church USA and Evangelical Lutheran Church of America--were keeping us not only out of the ordained ministry and denying marriage, but also fostering conversion therapy and supporting ministries that hurt and denounced LGBTQIA2S+ people. 

As I tell people, while the institutional church attacked me, Brother Jesus, who I learned about and knew through my personal relationships with others in various faith communities, understood and loved me, just as I was and am. After all, I was created in the image of God. What isn't there to love and affirm?While I came to know, intellectually, the story of God in Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, the personal relationship with Brother Jesus grew out of 1-1 or small group relationship with others of the Christian faith. I am who I am, and am where I am, because of these relationships.

This is the tightrope walking part: I am faithful, and yet choose part of a religious institution that has not always been kind to me, like the Presbyterian Church USA. After all, we were only safely ordained in 2011, and our marriages a few years after that. Before 2011, we who sought leadership in the Church faced censure and excommunication and church trials by the dozen.

In the article, "Why I Stay" by Kathryn Post, published this week on the religionnews.com website, there are stories of others who are faithful and LGBTQIA2S+, even though the very institutions were are still part of were not always hospitable, but toxic. 

Post came to understand that our religious identities are non-negotiable as are our queer identities.

While some have left their faith communities of origin because of such toxicity, joining other communities of meaning/meaningful relationships, like a gay choir or yoga practice or dodge ball team, yet still others stay in the faith community, even if the doctrines are incompatible with who and whose we are, and we are barred from leadership because we are queer. Why? Some people believe that working within the institutions may make it possible for the institutions to "open up" and welcome and respect LGBTQIA@S+ people as people also created in the image of God. 

As Dr. Jodi O'Brien of Seattle University (Jesuit connected) learned in studying this phenomena, “They (LGBTQIA2S+ Christians) rewrote themselves in the script of Christianity,” said O’Brien. “Instead of being the sinners, or the cast off, they were the ones who most embodied the love of Christ.”

Another person put it more succinctly: we embrace our faith, but we don't embrace our religious institutions.

Post wrote this: "Not all people reconcile their faith and queerness. A 2013 study from Pew Research Center found that nearly half (48%) of LGBTQ people are not religiously affiliated — more than double the share among the general public (20%). A third of religious LGBTQ people reported a conflict between their sexual orientation or gender identity and their beliefs."

The article ended with this quote by Natalie Drew, a transgender woman in the Christian Reformed Church: “For LGBTQIA people out there, who are struggling right now, there are churches out there,” she told RNS. “You don’t have to give up your faith to be who you are.”

Here's a link to the article: https://religionnews.com/2022/12/06/why-i-stay-lgbtq-people-of-faith-in-non-affirming-contexts/

I close with a plug for Portsmouth Trinity Lutheran Church and Community of Pilgrims: we are open, affirming, reconciling congregations, pastor by one of three out gay and lesbian Presbyterian clergy in the state of Oregon. Join us on Christmas Eve at 5 pm at Portsmouth Trinity Lutheran Church. Email me for directions.

Blessings.

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