Monthly Archives: July 2014

Cavemen, Contraception, and Christian Controversies

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A reflection by Sarah

Within the past week, I’ve been thinking a lot about how easy it can be to polarize discussions of controversial issues, particularly those that impact multiple groups of people with varied needs and interests. Conversations become more about adhering perfectly to religious or political dogma than learning from engagement with opposing viewpoints. When this happens, the level of verbal gymnastics a person has to perform in order to avoid being identified with the “wrong” side of a particular debate can get out of control very quickly. And if the controversy relates to your life in some direct, practical way, watch out. Unless your own perspective aligns completely with the party line at either extreme, there’s a fair chance your voice will get lost amongst those who are louder and more ideological.

When I was about thirteen, my already-unmanageable menstrual cycle became debilitating. Despite trying every supposed cure and method of symptom relief at my disposal, nothing helped the pain subside. Heat packs, herbs, over-the-counter medications, supplements, hot toddies: you name it, we did it. It’s possible that we could have done more if my family had been able to access more resources, but we had tried everything we could afford. I had reached a point where I was experiencing severe symptoms for half of every month and was unable to sustain a reasonable quality of life. I fainted at school, had persistent anemia, and was frequently doubled over with cramps. My deeply conservative mother (who had experienced more than her own share of reproductive health troubles) sympathized greatly with my pain and, after she had exhausted all of the alternative options, scheduled my first gynecology appointment. From the moment my mom first set up the appointment until the moment we entered the doctor’s office, she was concerned and warning me that the gynecologist might prescribe birth control pills. That’s exactly what happened. After the doctor had examined me and heard my symptom history, she reached immediately for her prescription pad to write a script for Ortho Tri-Cyclen.

My mother’s greatest worry was realized, and she made it clear to me on the drive home that we must never tell another person outside of the family that I was taking birth control pills. She stated that she didn’t think I was sexually promiscuous. However, she warned me that if anyone else found out, he or she would automatically assume that I was a whore. I had no doubt about my mom’s message: like it or not, I had to choose between being seen as a good Christian and being branded the loosest girl in the 8th grade. We couldn’t discuss birth control if there was the slightest possibility of anyone else hearing us. In my mother’s opinion, my voice was bold enough to be heard across a room even in my most hushed whispers. Her solution was to ask me to come up with a codeword for the pills. I wasn’t very fond of this idea, and though I couldn’t imagine any reason I would need to tell another person about the birth control pills, I felt a sense of shame unlike any emotion I’d ever experienced around receiving other prescriptions in the past. But I gave in and eventually suggested we could call my new medication “the caveman pill” (BC, of course. Yeah, I know…quite original). My little pink compact of caveman pills stayed in my top dresser drawer next to my hairbrush. Each morning, I would open my drawer, take the medication, and then put it out of my mind for the rest of the day. However, anytime I had friends over, my mother would panic about the compact in my dresser drawer. She would urge me to let her keep it until everyone left so that none of my friends would find out I was on the caveman pill. All this because morally upright people supposedly never talk about needing to take birth control because discussing the subject publicly brands one as promiscuous. Or at least that’s how things worked in Eastern Kentucky in the 1990s.

Few things set Facebook and Twitter alight with polarized commentary like contraception and homosexuality. The recent Supreme Court decision in favor of Hobby Lobby highlights how people can be deeply divided over intersections between public policy and religious belief. While reading initial reactions to the SCOTUS ruling, I experienced a vivid memory of how my mother responded to my need to take birth control pills. Those who share her perspective would say that “good, conservative Christians” know that you keep prescriptions for these medications discreet if you need them to treat a medical condition. Yet, as the recent Hobby Lobby case shows, both conservatives and liberals are more than willing to assert beliefs on contraception so long as the issue is framed in a polarized manner. At one extreme, there are people arguing that if one cares at all about women’s health, one should be absolutely appalled by the SCOTUS ruling. At the other, there are people claiming the decision as a victory for religious freedom in the United States and chiding feminists as overly entitled whiners. The space between the two extremes is a no man’s land as both sides continue to hurl slurs at one another: “No true respecter of women would ever approve of the Hobby Lobby decision. If you’re not appalled by the decision, then you’re a misogynist and a bigot.” Or, “If you’re not celebrating the decision as a major cultural win for conservatives, than you’re a progressive liberal out to destroy America. No true Christian should have any reservations about the ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby. If you empathize at all with the idea that free birth control might be a good thing, then you’re an enemy to life.” The polarization is deep, and there is virtually no room for moderate opinions. At least on the internet.

What’s especially interesting to me is that people on the left rightly consider it absurd when the religious right claims gay rights legislation is a slippery slope toward state-sanctioned human-animal marriages, yet they make almost the exact same assertion about the Hobby Lobby ruling: that the decision is a slippery slope towards a society where employers are free to engage in widespread religious discrimination of all kinds. And neither side seems to be aware of how its own rhetoric removes any possibility for meaningful dialogue. On the day of the Hobby Lobby decision, I was called idiotic for mentioning the importance of religious freedom in one conversation and a heretic for discussing why society might benefit from greater availability of contraception in another. It seems impossible to have an intelligent, nuanced conversation about any controversy within the current American political and religious climate.

Thus far, this post might not seem very relevant to the general purpose of our blog. However, as we’ve pointed out on other occasions, conversations about LGBT Christians are equally polarized. We mention frequently how the manner in which LGBT issues get discussed in Christian contexts leaves little space for moderates or those who care more about talking and listening than shouting. Lindsey and I regularly find ourselves pulled in all directions. Several of my more liberal Christian friends tell me I should just get over my internalized homophobia, dump the idea of a celibate vocation, and marry Lindsey even though that would involve defying the teachings of our Christian tradition. Some are quite blunt in telling us that we should leave our Christian tradition as it is not sufficiently welcoming to the LGBT community. Similarly, several of my more conservative Christian friends express their opinion that talking about “LGBT issues” (as opposed to “struggling with same-sex attraction”) places me outside the realm of orthodoxy, or at least precariously perched on the border gazing fondly toward “heresy.” Both camps are likely to proclaim, “Either you’re with us or you’re against us!” with one side saying, “You shouldn’t be talking about this at all,” and the other asserting, “You should be talking about this, but you need to have the conversation within progressive political parameters.” And no matter what we say, taking a more moderate approach leaves some people seeing us as wishy-washy and others claiming that we position ourselves on a moral high ground from which we silently judge one side, or perhaps both. In some ways, the linguistic mess that is the current dialogue on LGBT issues in the Church reminds me of the verbal gymnastics required for talking with my mom about the “caveman” pill: you can talk about these issues publicly if and only if you know the special code words that sound benign to everyone else around you.

The polarization of these conversations is extremely harmful. It’s harmful to tell a young girl who needs to take birth control pills that she must never talk about this medication to anyone lest she be perceived as a whore. It’s harmful to label everyone cheering the Hobby Lobby ruling as a bigot and misogynist. Similarly, it’s destructive to brand everyone who has a problem with the ruling as an enemy of the unborn and of and religious freedom. It’s damaging to say that the conversation about LGBT people in the Church only has two types of participants who are diametrically opposed on every issue. This is especially pronounced where one side insists that being LGBT is an illness of some kind that needs healing and the other argues that any person who does not fully affirm every aspect of an LGBT person’s life is an enemy. It’s a shame that people who do not identify as culture warriors for either side are dismissed from the discussion. When the poles are so present within every topic for debate, it’s hard to see any room for learning, growth, or the process of conversion.

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From Persecution to Conversation

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This post is our third contribution to the What Persecution Is series that we are exploring with Jake Dockter at The Great White Whale. This series explores faith, gender, sexuality, race, culture, and identity. We’ll be posting one post a week for this series over the next several weeks. We’d love for you to join the conversation. Please let us know if you’re posting any related content on your own blog, so we can talk with you.

Many conservative Christians perceive that traditional Christianity is under attack by the LGBT community. Society is rapidly changing. Technological advancements spark new moral and ethical quandaries. Religious demographics have also shifted considerably in the last twenty years, reflecting an increasingly pluralized environment. Traditionally believing Christians may fear being steamrolled in the name of progress without having a chance to integrate Christian beliefs fully into the decision-making process. They might experience different kinds of intolerance on an individual level as they discuss their Christian beliefs with others. It’s not terribly uncommon for Christians with traditional beliefs and practice to be dismissed as old-fashioned, out of touch, and even oppressive. Because so many other places in society have changed, some Christians in more conservative denominations see themselves as the last outpost in the culture war. Some employ metaphors suggesting churches moving away from hardline conservative stances have been invaded by various cultural cancers.

However, when people are constantly on the lookout for evidence that a cultural cancer has invaded their Christian tradition, anything can be perceived as a threat. As Sarah was recently told by a very conservative friend of a friend, “We have to kill the cancer before it kills us!” If a rainbow flag appears in the window of a nearby business, people at the church might talk about the neighborhood’s decline. If a pastor gives a homily on sexuality, many congregants perk their ears to notice the slightest deviation from acceptably conservative rhetoric. If an obviously identifiable LGBT person darkens the doorstep of the church building, people can focus an enormous amount of energy on ensuring that the “right” people continue to give the “right” answers. It does not take long before any LGBT person can feel as though he or she is seen as nothing more than a tumor to be excised.

In contexts where churches are on the lookout for invading cultural cancers, celibate, LGBT Christians can face a barrage of tests designed to prove that they are indeed the enemy of traditional Christianity. These tests run the gamut of continual questioning of what a celibate, LGBT Christian believes about marriage and sexuality, exhortations to live a life that is above reproach, expectations that the LGBT person achieves absolute perfection in the arena of sexual morality and all other areas of the Christian life, and demands that the celibate person say nothing positive of expanding legal protections for LGBT people or point out that non-celibate LGBT friends actually can and do have virtues. Some people will go so far as to suggest that an LGBT person should not even describe himself or herself as LGBT. After all, shouldn’t a celibate, LGBT Christian be aware of the pervasive cultural cancers? Isn’t it reasonable that such a person should expect to have to overcorrect to compensate for his/her sexual orientation in order to prove himself/herself nonthreatening? We’ve experienced many people who think that we somehow “owe it” to the Church to demonstrate in unreasonable ways that we’re faithful in our theology, that our way of life together is harmless, and that we have no intention of rocking the boat within the parish.

Many people demanding reassurance from celibate, LGBT Christians will reference their own spiritual journeys of feeling like refugees from their former Christian traditions that became more liberal over time. These people are quick to assert that they lost their church homes when their former denominations started having conversations about LGBT concerns. They can’t bear the thought of losing yet another congregation to the spreading perceived cultural cancers. However, these people do not realize that many celibate, LGBT Christians have also lost our spiritual homes and constantly fear losing any place in our congregations. Seemingly, these people refuse to see that one reason a celibate, LGBT Christian might be celibate is that he or she has an earnest desire to live into the fullness of a particular tradition’s teachings on sexuality. Moreover, conservative straight Christians frequently show unwillingness to have conversations with celibate, LGBT Christians to establish relationships on a more personal level. They seem to have zero appreciation for the reality that celibate, LGBT Christians constantly face being ostracized within every Christian tradition; safe places for LGBT celibates are few and far between, and that only becomes truer as more denominations transition toward liberal sexual ethics and denominations that do not change their sexual ethics show increasing fear of any LGBT presence.

We’re tired of conversations that constantly focus on how the gays persecute the Church and how the Church persecutes the gays. We, like many others we know and love, feel torn. We care enough about what our conservative friends have experienced to know that they honestly do feel persecuted by the LGBT community. We’re not interested in silencing their stories. As much as we have been hurt by cisgender, heterosexual Christians, it is challenging for us to admit that virtually everyone on both sides of this debate has experienced some form of persecution. Nonetheless, we need to begin talk about the ways Christians mistreat each other over these issues if we are to make any progress towards Christ together. We must remember that God invites all to draw near to him. If we cannot acknowledge authentically the wounds that have been inflicted upon both sides of this culture war, then we will not be able to see the Church as a hospital for all those who desire to see the Great Physician.

To open the discussion, we have some questions we’d like to ask conservative straight Christians. If you believe that the Church is Christ’s Church and the gates of hell shall not overcome it as the Scriptures tell us, then why are you so afraid that LGBT people are able to destroy the Church? Have you ever wondered what it means for you to have a sexual orientation and gender identity? Is your first instinct upon engaging in dialogue with an LGBT Christian to make assumptions about his or her sex life or to start preaching celibacy? If so, why? We look forward to reading your comments. LGBT readers, you can also feel free to fill the comment box with questions you have for conservative straight Christians.

Comment Policy: Please remember that we, and all others commenting on this blog, are people. Practice kindness. Practice generosity. Practice asking questions. Practice showing love. Practice being human. If your comment is rude, it will be deleted. If you are constantly negative, argumentative, or bullish, you will not be able to comment anymore. We are the sole moderators of the combox.