Author Archives: Sarah and Lindsey

Erotic Eucharist: Nurturing Deep Attraction Between Friends

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Today’s post is a guest reflection by Dan Brennan, author of Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions: Engaging the Mystery of Friendship Between Men and Women. We believe it is just as important to give voice to heterosexual experiences of deep, meaningful, relationships outside of marriage as it is to create space for the stories of non-marriage relationships among celibate LGBT Christians. Dan, who has been married to his wife Sheila for several years, has also grown spiritually from a close relationship with his friend Jennifer. We are fascinated by Dan’s work in the area of sacred friendships and are honored to share a sample of his writing with you today. As always when reading guest posts, please keep in mind that everyone’s story is different, and the experiences, perspectives, thoughts, and theological ideas presented by the author will not necessarily match completely with ours. If you are a celibate LGBT Christian or ally, or if you have a story to share that is related to the themes we discuss at A Queer Calling, feel free to Contact Us.

A reflection by Dan Brennan

She sat to my left. Sheila, my beautiful wife, sat to my right. We were about ready to celebrate the Eucharist which we did weekly in our Anglican church. My attraction toward my female friend who regularly sat next to my left was deepening. Before I had any theories about “erotic” Eucharist, before I knew any language to describe “erotic” Eucharist, I was thoroughly processing my attraction.

Looking back on this season in my life nine years later, I can definitely rejoice in the spiritual eros I experienced in participating in the Eucharist at the time. Ever since I became an Anglican several years earlier, I longed to meet Christ every week in the Eucharist. Liturgy was no-run-of-the-mill religious ritual where I went through the motions. The Eucharist was where I celebrated the Feast. Each week I lifted my heart before the Lord’s presence. Christ was my sweet desire in Eucharistic intimacy. The real presence of Christ was my sweet delight. Each Sunday, I yearned for the deep beauty, goodness, and delight of Christ’s presence in drinking “the cup of salvation” and eating “the bread of life.”

So perhaps in hindsight, it was no coincidence I became open to explore the connection between the divine eros in the Eucharist and my deepening attraction toward my female friend.

Before I proceed, I’m honored that Lindsey and Sarah have invited me to write a post on their blog. Ever since I came across their blog a couple of months ago I’ve admired their particular calling and how are they are engaging subjects like chastity, sexuality, friendship, and the LGBT community. I’m writing from a straight white male perspective aware of my privilege. My journey has led me to a deep curiosity of how sexuality and friendship can flourish in close friendships and community. I admire Lindsey and Sarah’s call to celibacy.

Taste and See that the Lord is Good

Opening my desires, my attraction, my longings, and my anxieties while I ate the bread, drank the wine, and fed on Christ’s love and presence was a powerful discipline for me during this season. I had intuitive trust in seeking Christ through Eucharistic intimacy. I had come to know Christ, I had come to receive Christ, and I had come to trust Christ through this intimate connection. Opening my attraction for my female friend to Christ was a natural thing for me to do.

Each week I surrendered my friendship, my attraction, my desire for deeper connection before the Lord as I drank the cup of salvation and ate the bread. Wisdom is better than jewels and all that I desired could not compare with my knowing the sweet and sheer delight of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist (Proverbs 8:10-12; 30).

What is deep attraction? I desired ongoing intimacy with my friend at multiple levels: spiritual, emotional, physical, and intellectual. Did I have a sexual attraction for her? Or was it a nonsexual longing to deeply connect with her that included physical affection? It’s hard to sort that out when you are opening yourself up to deep attraction. I was not physically attracted to her when we first met. But as our friendship grew she became deeply beautiful in my eyes. But I was fiercely committed to my wife and I was also committed to seeing my friend as more than an object to be pursued for sexual gratification. So what I mean by deep attraction is the desire to connect with the whole person in friendship with passionate commitment to not make a move toward sex.

I was seeking the delight and presence of Christ in the Eucharist among other things. Years later, I would read something Amy Frykhom suggested: “True, deep, real pleasure is an avenue to the Holy” (See Me Naked). That was my intuitive posture as I sought Christ in the weekly Eucharist. I was not seeking self-indulgence. I was seeking the beauty of the Christ I knew in the Eucharist.

My attraction to my friend was utterly paradigm-shifting for me and opened up a whole new world as I sought to bring the wholeness of who she was before Christ in weekly Eucharist. It was conventional wisdom for evangelical men to run away from any kind of deep attraction toward women in which both parties had no romantic potential. I was seeking Christ as my wisdom as I explored this deep attraction; not a conservative list of dos and don’ts.

Too Good To Be True

Nine years later I can say I’m so grateful for the Eucharist and the gift of deep attraction. I have no regrets about continuing to talk about delight, pleasure, and mutual cherishing with a trajectory toward deep attraction in friendship. One of my differences with Christians who are my critics is right here: they think I am promoting something too good to be true for our present culture and world. Some think I’m a “daredevil.” Some think I’m suggesting a practice akin to “emotional dating.”

For many years, my conservative evangelical sexuality prohibited me from experiencing “too good to be true” moments outside of my marriage. In the past 10 years I have intentionally chosen to be open to attraction in friendships—including deep attraction with my other sex friends—with the Eucharist at the heart of integrating my sexuality and my friendships.

As Christians living in a post-Freudian culture, we are going to have to address the question: are we are going to view the Eucharist through a cultural Freudianism or are we going to view the cultural Freudianism through the Eucharist? Viewed through popular Freudianism, sex in a materialistic world is the ultimate, too good to be true story. Viewed through the Eucharist, the ultimate too good to be true story is union/intimacy with God and with one another.

At the center of the Christian faith is the Eucharist which invites us all—straight, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender, queer—to this “too good to be true” intimacy where we eat and drink and take in Christ, we digest his body. Eucharistic intimacy summons us to the life and love of Christ, of shared intimacy in the present world but also into a future world. In the midst of chaos and dysfunction, it is hard to believe—‘too good to be true”— deep attraction toward healing, human flourishing, shalom, and deep delight. The Eucharist offers us a narrative where friends know the powerful delight of Christ’s love in this world.

I’ve now lost track of the many “too good to be true” moments in my various female friendships and in my marriage. What a deep joy to experience too good to be true moments with Sheila as a result of/in the midst of our other friendships. If we have good marriages, families, friendships, we all experience moments of that kind. But I am deliberately including those moments birthed of deep pleasure and love which involved my other sex friendships.

I have no doubt, that Sarah and Lindsey have experienced some of those “too good to be true” moments in their own friendship. The cultural Freudian narrative would believe Sarah and Lindsey could not experience such depth in their relationship sans sex. However, if you view their friendship through the lens of an Eucharistic intimacy, there is no ceiling on spiritual beauty in their relationship.

I continue to nurture a deep attraction toward my wife and to this day, I find her more beautiful than ever. I also continue to nurture a deep attraction toward my female friend. We have been close friends for twelve years. I had made several decisions back while I was “staying with” my attraction in a contemplative posture in my practice of the Eucharist. I took responsibility for my own actions and refused to ever act on any sexual feelings or any erotic energy I was experiencing in my friendship. I refused to fantasize. I also stayed clear of any pornographic material. I continued to nurture my attraction and love toward Sheila.

It just so happened somewhere about nine years ago that as I was experiencing the sweet and delightful love of Christ in the Eucharist and my growing delight and attraction toward my female friend, I encountered the gift of sexuality and friendship. Instead of running away from it, ignoring it, or seeking sex, I chose to nurture something deeper: a social desire for an alternative intimacy in friendship which did not neuter my sexuality. This didn’t happen overnight. But I continued to seek Christ, engage in conversation with trusted others, and eagerly search for wisdom on a wide range of issues pertaining to sexuality and friendship.

I now have a wide range of friendships. I view nurturing a deep attraction with my other sex friends as an intentional practice for being authentic in my sexuality and being authentic as a trusted and safe friend. “True desire,” writes Philip Sheldrake in his rich book, Befriending Our Desires, “is non-possessive. It is an openness to the future, to possibility, to ‘the other’ whether human other or God.” Nurturing a deep attraction is to choose the path of Eucharistic intimacy: to learn to receive, to learn to be open, to learn attentiveness to real presence, to forgive and seek forgiveness, to let go, and to attend to delight and beauty in our deepest relationships. It is too good to be true. But this is the trajectory of the Christian faith. To find the greatest treasure in the world—Christ in our relationships.

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.

Speaking of Sexual Trauma

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A reflection by Sarah

It’s never easy to talk about sexual trauma. No matter how often a related story appears within national, international, and local media, no matter what we’ve learned from child protection trainings, no matter how regularly we’re exposed to it in a culture saturated with sexually-charged messages, this is a topic that makes almost everyone uncomfortable. And that’s because most people haven’t the foggiest clue how to talk about it. I’ve been broaching the subject for years within my own circle of friends, slowly challenging my comfort zone, including more people in the discussion, and I still don’t know the best way to talk about it…especially within the context of LGBT issues.

Where I grew up in Eastern Kentucky, people didn’t talk about sex. It wasn’t considered appropriate for polite conversation. I came into puberty knowing virtually nothing about sexuality, and most of my peers weren’t much better off. And I’d venture a guess that almost no one–not even our parents–had any idea how to recognize the signs of sexual abuse. I was taught that sex offenders are suspicious, shadowy figures who lie in wait for children who wander away from their parents, that “good” people–especially those who are active in the local community and church–can never be predators, and that old men can’t be held accountable for sexual touching because they might be senile so their actions don’t count as abuse. My parents brought me up to believe that once I entered puberty, it was my responsibility to watch out for men who weren’t able to keep their hands to themselves. I simply had to understand that most of these men weren’t raised properly and might not be able to handle seeing a pretty girl who was beginning to develop at a younger age than average. If a man was a close friend of my parents, he certainly didn’t fall into this group. Any suggestion that such a person might be unsafe was categorically unbelievable. And most of all, if anything ever happened to me, I was never to tell a soul other than my parents–who would be the sole determiners of whether I was telling the truth–for fear of making waves in the community and gaining a reputation as a loose young woman. I was 23 years old and nearly overcome by PTSD before learning that everything I thought I knew about sexual abuse was a falsehood.

Central Appalachia is not the only area where such things happen, and I am not the only woman who has had such an experience. More to the point of today’s post, I’m not the only lesbian or the only member of the LGBT community who has survived sexual trauma. Yet we can’t seem to talk about it. It’s uncomfortable. It doesn’t sound nice. It could be used to discredit LGBT people. The discussion could be used to discredit liberals, or conservatives, or feminists, or anti-feminists, or affirmers, or non-affirmers. So on rare occasions when we do discuss LGBT survivors of sexual trauma, we’re good at building agenda-driven walls around the ways people are permitted to share their stories.

Yesterday morning, I was rereading our review of The Third Way. Specifically, I was reflecting on the story of sexual abuse shared by Julie, one of the documentary’s interviewees. Julie claims that her lesbian sexual orientation is linked to the fact that she endured sexual trauma as a young girl. She makes clear that after being abused, she began to view men as perpetrators and wanted nothing more to do with them. In our review, Lindsey and I discussed Julie’s story as one example of the film’s ex-gay undertones, and we stand by our criticism that overall, The Third Way privileges an ex-gay narrative while ignoring the diversity of celibate LGBT experiences. But regardless of the documentary’s shortcomings in piecing together a more comprehensive metanarrative, as an individual, Julie has a right tell to her own story as she understands it. She has lived it, and it would be absolutely unjust for me to say that I know it better than she does. It would also be unjust for another person to force me, or any other survivor, into Julie’s framework for understanding possible intersections of sexual orientation and trauma.

Speaking of sexual trauma as an LGBT person requires walking on eggshells. Our stories have political capital, whether we want them to or not. In my experience, the broader LGBT community expects survivors to defend the idea that sexual abuse rarely, if ever, is a determining factor in one’s sexual orientation. On the other extreme, most of the conservative Christian community is convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that if an LGBT person was sexually abused at some point in life, surely that must be the cause of his or her sexual orientation.

A survivor with a story like Julie’s will inevitably face the criticism, “Your story is harmful to all other survivors in the LGBT community! Studies show that there are just as many straight women as lesbians who have histories of sexual trauma.” A survivor who is confident that his/her sexual trauma was not a causal factor for sexual orientation will face the opposite criticism: “You’re in denial. Prove that the abuse is unrelated to your orientation. Until there’s proof that sexual trauma never impacts sexual orientation, your story isn’t worth discussing.” Those of us who have chosen celibacy are accustomed to getting blasted equally from both sides, with conservative friends arguing that the trauma caused our gayness and liberal friends assuming that the trauma is our reason for being celibate. Not to mention that on top of these stigmas, we face all the same stereotypes and judgments (i.e. attention-seeking, it didn’t really happen if the perpetrator didn’t go to jail, we’re at fault) as do straight survivors.

Speaking of sexual trauma should not have to be re-traumatizing. Nor should it have to be like a multiple choice exam where you get 100% for bubbling in all the correct answers. I have no interest in being someone’s political pawn, whether inside or outside the Church. But I’m very interested in beginning a conversation about sexual trauma that invites all LGBT survivors to full participation. If you believe your sexual trauma is totally unrelated to your sexual orientation, if you see those two life experiences as completely intertwined, if you think the two might be related but you aren’t sure how and would like to explore further, or if you’ve never even considered the question before, we’d be honored if you felt safe to share more of your story with us.

It’s time for others to stop using narratives of sexual trauma in an effort to discredit LGBT survivors; it’s time for others to start listening to survivors telling their own stories. The last thing an LGBT survivor needs is to walk on more eggshells. The constant politicization of narratives regarding sexual abuse means that any LGBT survivor who opens up at all about his or her own story faces a loaded cannon of criticism. This post is our initial attempt at saying we’d like to change the tenor of the conversation. We’d like to foster a hospitable place here at A Queer Calling where survivors can know that all stories will be heard.

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.

Saturday Symposium: What is Persecution, Anyway?

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Hello, Readers. Happy Saturday! It seems that summer has definitely arrived. We’re grateful to everyone who has contacted us. We are going to be spending some time today trying to catch up on email since we have received a lot of email that requires us to author our responses while sitting in the same room.

Now it’s time for today’s Saturday Symposium question:

How this works: It’s very simple. We ask a multi-part question related to a topic we’ve blogged about during the past week or are considering blogging about in the near future, and you, our readers, share your responses in the comments section. Feel free to be open, reflective, and vulnerable…and to challenge us. But as always, be mindful of the comment policy that ends each of our posts. Usually, we respond fairly quickly to each comment, but in order to give you time to think, come back, add more later if you want, and discuss with other readers, we will wait until after Monday to respond to comments on Saturday Symposium questions.

This week’s Saturday Symposium question: This week’s question is an invitation for you all to get involved with our What Persecution Is series that we’re authoring with Jake Dockter. As Jake explained in his initial post, the series has been motivated by public figures who claim to have been persecuted for their Christian beliefs. In our first post of the series, we explored how silencing could be regarded as the beginning of persecution. Today, we’d love to hear your thoughts: What is persecution anyway? What are important topics to raise when we’re talking about persecution? Do you know of stories of persecution that are getting overlooked by other outlets? Are you interested in contributing anything to the series?

We look forward to reading your responses. If you’re concerned about having your comment publicly associated with your name, please consider using the Contact Us page to submit your comment. We can post it under a pseudonym (i.e. John says, “your comment”) or summarize your comment in our own words (i.e. One person observed…). Participating in this kind of public dialogue can be risky, and we want to do what we can to protect you even if that means we preserve your anonymity. Have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings,

Sarah and Lindsey

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.

Silencing: The Beginning of Persecution

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This post is our first 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.

In the initial post of this series, Jake asks the following questions:

“Compared to the discrimination that our LGBTQ family has felt over generations, being denied rights, being denied love, being denied salvation, being denied access to God or the body of Christ, and worst of all being denied their own identity… does having a real estate reality show cancelled really add up to discrimination?  Is being asked to not pray [meaning, lead prayer at a banquet sponsored by the President] symmetrical to the death threats, hate crimes, actual murders, denials, and mockings that gay and transgender and questioning people experience every day?”

Reading Jake’s list of the ways LGBTQ people have been discriminated against might be jarring for some. Many a good Christian will say, “But I’ve never thought about killing an LGBTQ person. I would never kill or physically harm an LGBTQ person. I’m not persecuting them at all.” However, we believe the beginnings of persecution are much more subtle than wishing active harm on another human. We’ve observed that LGBTQ people who want to share their stories frequently get met with shouting, finger-pointing, name calling, and Bible thumping. For example, once when Sarah was talking with a friend, Sarah’s friend shared about how her priest gave a homily about treating LGBT people with respect and dignity. Almost immediately after describing the homily, she launched into a rant about how that message was uncalled for and the priest was a flaming liberal. When Sarah tried to suggest that the priest’s homily sounded like a nice reminder of the importance of treating every person like a human being, Sarah’s friend cut Sarah off mid-sentence. She expressed unwillingness to listen because from her vantage point, if Sarah thought it was possible to be a lesbian and a Christian, Sarah was not worth listening to and was certainly a heretic.

Silencing. “I’m right, and you’re wrong.” Stiffening necks. Pursed lips. “I have God on my side, so I don’t have to give you the time of day.” Flashes of anger in the eyes. Hands curling into fists, even if involuntarily. Immediate shifts in posture.

We’ve seen these all before. The patterns repeat themselves the instant we mention that we are LGBT. Conversation takes on the character of defensive combat. Topics discussed not even five minutes before are forgotten as adrenaline floods the body and emotion overtakes reason and civility. The more we try to explain ourselves, the more likely we are to hear “Shut. Up. I’m not interested in hearing your story,” with a sneer that indicates our perspective is little more than a fairy tale, or “You have nothing to contribute to this conversation. You’re just deceived and trying to deceive others.”

We are bemused by many stories where Christians in America claim they have been persecuted for their religious beliefs. Often, someone has rescinded an invitation to speak in a teaching capacity where a person has the potential for reaching a large audience. In crying persecution, this person is effectively saying, “Everyone should listen to me.” But while advocating for his or her own desire to be heard, that person seems to have little to no appreciation that every day, he or she is silencing others. When a person claiming to follow Christ presents “biblical” teaching by comparing LGBT people to those who engage in bestiality, it’s almost instinctive for LGBT audience members to try and curl up in a ball, take up as little space as possible, and remove themselves from the situation as discreetly and expediently as they can. This kind of comparison when used by Christian “teachers” dehumanizes, vilifies, and demonizes LBGT people. Furthermore, it obfuscates any true Christian teaching by packaging orthodoxy with hatred.

There is a marked difference between being silenced and losing an opportunity to speak your views to a national audience. Freedom of speech in America means that you will not lose your liberty over something you say. It does not mean that you are entitled to escape the social consequences of what you’ve said. Children who brag the playground that they can throw the football the farthest should not be surprised when their classmates take them up on the challenge. Articulating one’s view about contentious social topics like LGBT issues and having those views challenged by others who disagree does not amount to persecution.

It’s telling that consistently and repeatedly, we get the message from others that we have no business telling our story. On our blog, we’ve processed negative messages from people telling us to shut up by stressing it’s not easy to tell a story, asking whose story counts, wondering why people act as the language police to force us to use particular scripts, musing on whether the church extends conditional welcome, and sharing about how we sometimes feel betrayed. We’ve discussed that when people say things like, “Our kids should not encounter a gay couple on the television in our living room,” we feel less than welcome to visit their houses. At least seven of our 128 posts on this blog to date deal with our responses when others tell us that we shouldn’t be speaking at all. That’s 5.5% and is an exceptionally conservative estimate.

Now please understand, we are not trying to say that we are experiencing persecution on a personal level or are being treated worse than other folks who are also engaged in this discussion. We are experiencing attempts at silencing. But we wonder, what tactics of silencing must one employ before he or she crosses the boundary into persecution of the other?

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.

Fostering Civil Conversations about LGBT People and the Church

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We are grateful to our collaborators for this post: David Romano, Erik, Bill, Alison, and one other friend who wishes to remain anonymous.

Here at A Queer Calling, we work very hard to foster civil conversation about LGBT Christians. One of the first things we did when we started our blog was to author our comment policy. We know that comment boxes on the internet can make people seriously question the future of humanity, especially when contentious topics are being discussed. Since we value vulnerability and hospitality, we wanted a comment policy that helps people get over their understandable fear of the combox.

We recently tweeted:

It is completely, absolutely, totally, and entirely true that we welcome all people to leave us comments. We have especially enjoyed thoughtful challenge from people who disagree with us, even going so far to say that respectful disagreement is one of the ways we feel affirmed. However, we’ve noticed some differences in how various ideological camps have decided to engage with us as bloggers. We wonder who is on the other side of the search engine when we see that people have found is with search terms like: “Are Sarah and Lindsey of A Queer Calling really celibate?” “A Queer Calling are they really gay or straight people trying to fool Side A people,” “Are Lindsey and Sarah of A Queer Calling really orthodox?” “A Queer Calling self hating gays,” and “Lindsey and Sarah gay does their priest know.” What strikes us about these questions is that they are clearly asking something about the two of us but the searcher seemingly values asking the hive mind of an internet search engine more than contacting us directly.

We’ve received some correspondence from more conservative readers that indicates fear of getting shouted down by more liberal readers for whom the ship on LGBT Christian issues has already sailed full-steam ahead to complete affirmation of same-sex marriage. We wonder if people feel more comfortable having these discussions when everyone present basically agrees theologically and politically. If everyone gathered has come to modern liberal conclusions about sexual ethics, then it’s easier to decry those who hold traditional conservative conclusions as “out of touch” (if you’re among a reasonably polite group) or heartless hypocrites with no awareness of how the LGBT community suffers from soul-crushing oppression. We’ve noticed a breakdown of civility on both sides when people assume at the outset of the conversation that anyone who disagrees with them is ignorant or malicious.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a chance to see what happens when people move a conversation that started somewhere else into purposes that suit the sensibilities of their own camps. We had published a post where we discussed the question, “How would you suggest that Christian traditions respond to LGBT people who have given their all to celibacy only to see it fail them?” Another blogger, Daniel Mattson, quoted from our post and added significant spin that misrepresented the intention of our original post entirely. Another writer, Austin Ruse of Crisis Magazine, picked up on that blogger’s themes. Some other celibate, LGBT, Christians who are our friends recognized the quote as being from our blog, which is how we found out that we had been misrepresented. When we found these articles, we published our initial response. We and our friends were amazed at how quickly the conversation our post had tried to start became less than civil. We all noticed how both writers seemed to be making demands that celibate, LGBT, Christians should “stop whining” and “man up.” The more we’ve thought about this incident, we have realized that it’s not an isolated event. The blogosphere is extremely contentious when it comes to LGBT people and the Church, where similar patterns continue to repeat themselves. Several of our friends wanted to provide their own responses to those who feel qualified to give such orders to others just outside of their ideological camp. Therefore, we decided to give some space here at A Queer Calling in an attempt to add more voices to the conversation about how to foster civil discourse about LGBT people and the Church.

On the internet, it is really easy to bully. The internet affords bullies a range of tools. A person can successfully move a conversation into his or her own ideological camp and attempt to isolate it by not providing a link to the original source. It becomes easy for readers to take authors out of context when this happens. In thinking about one of the aforementioned articles, Erik reflects: “I might address the academic failures of the article – Ruse doesn’t properly cite the quotes he uses, thus denying his reader to explore the original context of the quote in full & demonstrating poor editorial practice.”

Additionally, an author can package condescending messages in a multitude of forms. Bill comments, “Instead, in pundit like tones, they have introduced a new unhelpful conversation, with new loaded terminology like ‘new homophiles’ — a quick and easy way to lump, categorize, and demonize without encountering anyone in the spirit of truth.”

One celibate, LGBT Christian we talked with who wishes to remain anonymous shared:

“I felt my nerves get on edge a bit and my heart crumbles when I read statements made by Mattson and Ruse that lacked empathy; I felt shame after seeing the Han Solo eye roll photo insert and the crying baby. Why did it affect me that way? I am not the person whom it is directed at but I can relate. I felt bad for those it was aimed at. Writing like that instills condescension towards ‘the other.’  How can it not be meant to injure? Although the written word is only ink on paper it can be a wielded sword in the blogosphere world.  And it reminds me of bullies on the playground.”

When people are bullied, they often have to convince themselves that they have a story worth sharing. Alison asks, “My question for Mattson is: Are you saying that I should stop opening up to other Christians about my struggles? Are you saying they should stop opening up to me? We should just assume that others have a greater cross without talking with each other about those crosses?”

Many people can exaggerate and misrepresent what a particular Christian tradition teaches about LGBT people. It is no secret that many Christians traditions have confusing and possibly less than charitable teachings about LGBT people. There are many official documents from several traditions that people can quote in order to shout down the voices of LGBT people and their allies. However, it is also possible to go beyond the meaning a particular teaching. David Romano, a Roman Catholic, highlights the way that authors can contort the official teachings of his Christian tradition in order to weaponize them:

“I accept that homosexuality is ‘disordered,’ meaning outside of God’s natural law, and that I am to remain single and chaste. I have no objections to these positions at all. What I object to, however, is a blogger or writer who refers to me as ‘evil,’ The Catholic Church does not believe I am evil; the Catholic Church specifically states in the Catechism that those with same-sex attractions are to be treated with dignity and respect. Referring to my orientation as ‘evil’ and suggesting that “manning up” means sitting in a corner and not discussing my personal struggles is hardly respectful.”

Entrenched ideological divides can make it difficult, even impossible, for people to share legitimate concerns about the status quo. When it comes to questions about LGBT people and the Church, we are often talking about the status of things in the present moment. Many times, people sharing about how they have been hurt by the church find unexpected points of connection with others, with concerns both near and far to LGBT Christians.

Like other members of the Church, many celibate, LGBT Christians want to be there when people are experiencing pain. Alison notes:

“When I have said ‘I felt like there was no place for me in the Church,’ the response has often been, ‘Me too!’ from every orientation. The response has been an embrace of one another. Mattson is correct in saying ‘Who HASN’T felt lost in the Church at some point in their lives?’ What I don’t understand is why he thinks we (all the Christians who talk about these struggles, not just gays) are ‘whining’ when we mention this incredibly formative, incredibly common experience. Does Mattson think gay Christians are the only ones talking about this experience? I recently heard nearly those exact same words from the mother of a child with a sensory disorder. The child has a hard time with the Divine Liturgy, and she felt like there was no place in the Church for her family. She felt like others were judging her for leaving early with her son or not attending at all, like she’d be given an attendance mandate, and no support in fulfilling it. If anyone called that conversation ‘whining’ or told her that she should just assume that everyone has a greater cross to bear, I’d be livid with that person. She was sharing a piece of her heart with me. If she hadn’t told me how the church could be more supportive of disabled children and their parents, how would I know what she would find encouraging and supportive?”

Bill reflects, “It is unfortunate that people such as Mr. Ruse or Mr. Mattson end up distorting and reducing to stock characters the very people who would likely agree with them the most if they were just comparing doctrinal and moral notes apart from spin.”

Our respondent who wishes to remain anonymous noted, “Unfortunately fighting will continue to be a problem as long as there are bullies and audiences.”

Lack of civil conversation with one another implies we can forget that the Church is, by nature, a communal organism. Erik states:

“There is a deeper problem in Mr. Ruse’s entire line of thinking that I feel compelled to address: his understanding of the nature of the Church community. It concerns me, deeply, and for matters entirely unrelated to the particular topic of homosexuality, that Mr. Ruse seems to argue that folks ought not discuss or share the nature of the cross they carry. It is unclear whether he thinks only Gay Catholics should, or everyone with a cross should – he cites the example of an unmarried woman in his parish who doesn’t complain about her singleness, so it may be that Mr. Ruse would simply prefer if everyone stopped complaining.”

As the Body of Christ, we are called to be mindful of everyone in our midst. After all, we are to mourn with those who mourn. Paul exhorts us to not be proud, but to be willing to associate ourselves with people in low positions. Part of finding ourselves in Christ is uniting our sufferings to His and to one another. Alison shares:

“My vlog has attracted several porn addicted straight men contacting me for support in facing their struggles. They contact me privately and ask me to pray for them. I go a few steps further, and connect them with resources for porn addiction and communities which focus on supporting those with this specific struggle. I can’t imagine their struggle, I’m glad they have a community to share their struggle with. I’m glad that they share their struggle with me, and I feel honored to pray for them. When they talk about how I can be more supportive of them in their struggle against sin, I listen.”

Erik reminds us:

“Community falls apart as people become more apathetic and disinterested in fixing parish churches. They do not participate in community functions, they do not send their children to religious education programs, and they do not know the people they’re sitting next to in the Church…. But if you value the community of the Church, if you care about our unity in Christ, if you care that Christ shared in your sins so that you may be free of them, then perhaps you might consider letting Gay Catholics have their seat at the table, and listening to their sufferings. I’d be willing to bet they want to listen to your sufferings, as well, and maybe, just maybe, lift you up in prayer. Maybe, when all is said and done, Gay Catholics just want the Church to be a real community.”

We’ve noticed that the internet can be a powerful tool for building community, even in areas filled with the most tension, but only when discourse remains civil. Civil conversation remains courteous while simultaneously allowing space for everyone and their concerns. In the Church, it’s important that we have space to listen to people who are in pain and are hurting. In so doing, we can help bear one another’s burdens while continuing our collective journey towards Christ.

We would like to close today’s post by reiterating Alison’s questions: “Why should we stop sharing each other’s burdens? Why should we stopping encouraging one-another? Why should we stop being a part of each other’s lives? Did I miss something?”

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