(REVIEW) It all started with a lunch conversation — a break from a meeting of The Reformation Project, a Christian group that promotes LGBTQ+ inclusion.
Dawne Moon, professor in Social and Cultural Sciences and Director of Gender and Sexualities Studies at Marquette University, was talking with Margo, a supportive straight/cisgender mom of a conservative Christian gay man.
Moon mentioned she had left the church in the 1980s, right after she came out as queer. Margo instantly replied, “I need you to give Jesus another chance. I am certain that he and God care about you and love you, your partner, and your child.”
Moon wrote while Margo’s intentions were loving in that she was convinced God loved Dawne’s little queer family just as they were, “I felt like an it,” referring to Jewish philosopher Martin Buber’s framework in I and Thou describing two kinds of interactions: I-you intimate relationships and I-it objectifying experiences.
Moon said listening to others and hearing the wisdom that comes from their perspective helps us learn about their world, even if we don’t agree with them. This became the basis for her book, “Choosing Love: What LGBTQ+ Christians Can Teach Us All About Relationships, Inclusion, & Justice (Oxford University Press, $29.99), co-authored with Theresa W. Tobin, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University.
Based on more than 100 interviews with LGBTQ+ Christians, former Christians and allies, the book advances the idea that, rather than just being a problem to be solved, LGBTQ Christians have something to teach us about Christian faith, and they, in turn, might learn something from conservative Christians.
The authors focused primarily on evangelical Christians, whom they see as being on the frontlines of the culture war. Since evangelicals center on saving souls from eternal damnation, it implies that God’s love is conditional. They see LGBTQ+ people as having a ‘disordered’ capacity in terms of their sexual or romantic love, which can result in shame for them.
Moon also observed that almost everyone they interviewed had transformational experiences where they started questioning what their churches had taught them about gender and sexuality, as well as questioning the ideas that either God hated them or they were unlovable by God.
One of the research subjects said, “It’s been really important for me to sort of separate Jesus from the Christians who hurt me.”
For those LGBTQ Christians who opt to remain in a conservative evangelical church, many challenges remain, according to Moon.
“For some, there are challenges of compartmentalization — feeling like they are never able to bring the fullness of who they are forward,” she said.
Moon notes that for others, they are constantly reminded they’re not quite good enough to fit in.
“Maybe they are allowed to show up, but not to be official members,” she said. “Or maybe they can be members but not serve in ministry. Or maybe they can serve, but only if they’re celibate, and under constant scrutiny to make sure they stay celibate in a way no putatively straight person would be scrutinized.”
Moon went on to explain that some churches welcome queer people, but with the hope or expectation that their sexual orientation or gender identity will change at some point.
The authors also distinguish between conservative Christians who center on textual interpretations of the Bible and others, who focus more on their direct conversations with God or how the Holy Spirit is moving in their lives.
“We heard from several people who came to peace with their sexual orientation and/or gender identity when they humbly submitted to the voice of God telling them — sometimes repeatedly — that the reason God wasn’t ‘fixing’ them was that they weren’t broken, that God made them just as they are,” Moon said.
As the authors emphasize throughout their book, love is crucial, not just in the sense of being told one is loved, but rather in being treated as if one matters, simply by virtue of who one is.
“It can be loving to hold people accountable to do better, be better, but the toxic consequences of shaming people for being LGBTQ+ show us being LGBTQ+ is not sinful,” Moon said. “No one thrives when being LGBTQ+ is treated as a failure to love God and neighbor. The fruits of that teaching are the opposite of thriving.”
The authors note that within conservative churches, there’s not as much mobilization to change LGBTQ policies as there’s been in mainline Protestant denominations, but conservative churches that choose to engage in those conversations do it in diverse ways.
Some ministries focus on “applying a consistent hermeneutic to understanding scripture,” while others focus on sharing personal stories with loved ones. Some host Bible studies or book clubs to create a healthy space for discussion.
“They tend to work in conservative ways that make sense in their communities,” Moon said.
Some conservative religious traditions and spaces are not automatically condemning of LGBTQ+ people and their relationships. When asked what accounts for those differences, Moon said that it has to do with relationships. In some cases, churchgoers were friends or relatives of an LGBTQ+ person before they came out, and have an openness to new information and want to protect loving relationships.
The repercussions can be huge when pastors change their minds about church policies or teachings, often on deep reflection after a congregant comes out to them.
“They often risk everything — their livelihoods, their ministries, their affiliation with their denomination — but we’ve seen again and again that they do it because they come to the conviction that that is what Jesus would do, acting out of love, and that is more important than whatever they stand to lose,” Moon said. “Some pastors really aren’t at a point where they can risk everything; they may quietly change their minds, but still need to feed their kids, for instance. But when they change their minds, it’s often because of what they have learned from someone they love — a family member, a church member — who can show them that a lot of the negative messages they have learned are based in misinformation or inconsistent interpretations of scripture. They prayerfully come to hear God’s voice in the affirming camp.”
Moon and Tobin noticed that in the last few years, while many LGBTQ people of faith left their churches, others not only remained but claimed ownership of their religious traditions, invoking their own teachings and practices to argue for acceptance or to promote change, especially rituals to make them more inclusive, even pluralistic.
“We witnessed LGBTQ+ people continue to actively claim and celebrate their Christian faith despite being told by their churches and families that that was impossible,” Moon said. “There is great diversity in how LGBTQ+ Christians express their religious and spiritual agency. Some continued to show up in non-affirming spaces and painstakingly try to help their communities be more loving and accepting of LGBTQ+ people by modeling the love they believe Jesus models in the Gospels. Some sought new affirming faith communities…Still others created new faith communities.”
One of the major areas where LGBTQ Christians can teach others in their church is reinterpreting pride from its traditional place in our spirituality, according to Moon.
She acknowledged that in many Christian traditions, pride “is often treated as one of the deadly sins.” However, the authors propose a version of healthy pride where LGBTQ people recognize themselves as human beings, worthy of love.
“This is something cisgender heterosexuals can often take for granted, because no one ever treats them otherwise!” Moon said. “They don’t have to even notice that kind of pride, because they just know it. But because LGBTQ+ people are often treated otherwise, it is more visible to them just what a gift it is to be a human being who is worthy of love, and what a gift it is to realize it. That is the pride we’re talking about, the pride that fosters relationships rather than trampling on them the way arrogance does.”
Moon and Tobin see humility and healthy pride as working in tandem with each other, allowing LGBTQ+ Christians to balance listening to and learning from other Christians with “relational pride” that protects LGBTQ+ Christians from internalizing others’ “dehumanizing narratives”.
Even when queer people encounter some opposition, they also have allies who support them. What makes a successful ally?
Moon said, “Without humility, you can’t be an ally. You have to be open to learning to see the world from the perspective of those you wish to ally with, and to amplify their voices instead of inserting your own. Humility doesn’t mean not thinking too much of yourself; it means realizing you don’t know everything there is to know. It also takes love. Love involves being open to learning, growing, and changing by virtue of your connection with another; you can’t do that without humility. The person who goes around proclaiming, ‘This is what that other group thinks, wants, and needs!’ is not being an ally; they’re not amplifying their voices, they’re broadcasting their own. Humility keeps us tethered to our ongoing need to keep learning and growing.”
Moon also suggested allies can do work that the oppressed either cannot or are too afraid to execute because of possible danger.
“They can have the conversations with those who are doing the damage, trying to understand the fears that lead to continued oppression of LGBTQ+ people,” she said. “Allies can be accomplices in doing the work to listen and try to understand what leads those who perpetrate harm to do so, in order to help foster transformation of individuals and the structures and ideologies that enable and sustain oppression.”
The authors’ main theme throughout their book is how much we can learn from people who are different from us. But for them, there’s no justice without love or love without justice.
“For conservative Christians, the idea of love without having to think about ‘liberal’-seeming concerns about social justice can be very comforting,” Moon said. “But if you’re okay with someone suffering from systemic oppression, you’re not really loving them.”
Some LGBTQ interviewees found that their own experiences of being treated unfairly in the church and society at large have made them more compassionate toward other marginalized groups and willing to become allies in their push for justice.
“For instance, [when] white LGBTQ+ people heard from people of color that systemic racism is a real thing, they started to listen and learn, rather than saying the kinds of things white people tend to say, like ‘I don’t see color’,” Moon said. “They learned about their own privilege and complicity, and the legal and policy issues that reproduce racism, as opposed to only focusing on individual hearts.”
Ultimately, the authors propose a revised, even countercultural way of relating to one another despite our differing views on controversial issues.
“What would the world be like if we could listen to each other with humility, hear, and then truly begin to understand how we have harmed them, or how our own good fortune has come at their expense, to own up to it, apologize, and pay back what we owe?” Moon asked. “And what if we found ways to practice that love not just on a personal level, but as we set up systems for distributing resources? If we love other people, we will listen to them and we will fight for them.”
Brian Bromberger is a freelance writer/journalist who works as a staff reporter and arts critic for The Bay Area Reporter weekly newspaper in San Francisco.
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