Category Archives: Social Issues

On Tokenism

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A reflection by Lindsey

I’ve been meaning to write this reflection for months. The idea came into my head when Jake Dockter started tweeting various Christian conferences about the diversity of their speaking lineups. Jake’s questions focused on why so many conferences tend to headline older white fathers. If memory serves me correctly, one particular conference he pointed out had over 30 speakers where only 4 were women and not a single speaker was clearly non-white. Then a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post discussing why it matters when white people don’t have black friends. I figured now is a good time to write down some thoughts on tokenism.

If you’ve ever been the minority in any context, chances are reasonably good that you been tokenized in one way or another. As one-half of a celibate LGBT Christian couple, I often feel like I’m a minority within a minority within a minority. I wonder why people value diversity, especially when it seems that “being diverse” seems more about filling a dance card with people who are different from one another than it is about being inclusive.

I think we hadn’t been blogging for more than a month before we received our first inquiry about whether we would consider a speaking engagement. We were thrilled at the possibility of speaking because that particular organization has a reputation of hosting a wide array of LGBT Christian speakers. We could appreciate how our being a celibate couple would offer a different perspective than other speakers who were invited. However, we’d hesitate before accepting an invitation to speak at an event for any organization wanted to promote our way of life as the “answer” for LGBT Christians. The first approach is about being inclusive while the second approach strikes me as checking the “diversity” box.

I don’t want to be anyone’s “LGBT Christian friend.” I can always tell when I’m in that role because I shift into having to educate other people more often than usual. It’s exhausting. I can respect the fact that because I’ve done a lot of thinking and writing about what celibate living might look like for a lay person, many people are interested in hearing my thoughts on celibacy. Yet I cringe every time I hear someone say, “This is my friend Lindsey, an LGBT person living celibacy.” Even other celibate LGBT people can weaponize Sarah’s and my stories to say that anyone is capable of living a celibate vocation.

I hope that more people can begin to see tokenism for what it is. Tokenism happens when we are interested in checking off a box. Once someone has a gay friend (or a black friend or a hispanic friend), then he/she can stop making efforts. I’d contend that being inclusive is remaining open to letting one’s friend circle grow and stretch through conscientious engagement with the world.

I don’t mind being someone’s first LGBT friend. I consider myself to be a worthwhile person to know, and if my new friend hangs out with me for any length of time, then he or she will likely realize I have other awesome friends. I didn’t consider any black people among my circle of real friends until I lived with my black roommate during my sophomore year of college. Chris and I had a habit of going out for chai tea and playing cribbage whenever we were stressed about anything, but getting to know Chris as my friend helped me respond better when other black students I knew tried to increase my awareness of social injustices facing black Americans. As Chris and I sipped chai tea, we had a natural place to share our lives, to ask questions, to listen to each other, and to grow as human beings. Getting to know each other helped me do the hard work of reflecting on my experience of whiteness and made it easier for me to build friendships with people that have very different experiences with regard to race and ethnicity. My friendship with Chris and working through my own experience of race and ethnicity helped me be more inclusive because I could see some social structures a bit more clearly. One reason why I feel so adamant that people not represent Sarah’s and my stories as absolutely representative of all LGBT people is I know for a fact that our stories are different from those of most other LGBT people.

Our friendships with people different from us cause us to think more deeply about our own experiences, enabling us to empathize with each other. When we learn this empathy, we can move beyond tokenism and into a more naturally inclusive way of living.

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.

Why It Matters When White People Don’t Have Black Friends

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A reflection by Lindsey

Over the past few weeks I’ve seen my Facebook feed full of reports about happenings in Ferguson, Missouri and other instances of aggressive policing and racial profiling. Even though I have limited time available to read many of the stories, I can’t help but see some of the comments. The lack of empathy I see has startled me. But when I stumbled across findings from the Public Religion Research Institute that reported three quarters of whites don’t have any non-white friends, the tenor of the conversation began to make more sense to me.

People are funny when it comes to how they respond to those who are different from them. I say “funny” because it’s a curious phenomenon. In many ways, we seem to be frozen into egocentric ways of relating to people. As an engineer, I am often amused by the joke, “The world does revolve around me! I choose the coordinate system!” However, I think the joke has more than a grain of truth when we consider our social spheres of interaction and influence. We often choose our friends from people who are most like us. We build our circles of friends from people near us who have things in common with us. The fact that so many white people are able to create such homogenous circles of friends should show us that we’ve somehow managed to create social structures where white people can avoid meaningful and equitable interactions with people of color.

I care about this stuff. I really do. When I was in college, I read Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America. This book stuck with me like oatmeal can stick to your ribs. I still have vivid memories of how, statistically speaking, white people have a much larger monetary asset base than black people. I think I remember that part so well because I was a college student at the time I read the book, and I was just starting to become independent of my parents financially. It’s a bit sobering to look at more recent statistics. Few things get under my skin like inequality does. While I’m certainly no expert on social justice, I do try to be exceptionally mindful of my expectations and assumptions about people having access to resources.

To be honest, I was surprised when I first saw the headline. I went to college in a university that draws an incredibly diverse population. I haven’t done any kind of formal analysis of my Facebook friends list, so I wouldn’t say that I have an especially diverse friends base. I do try to do my best to shut up and listen when a person who has a different life experience than mine wants to share some of his or her story with me. Some things I’ve learned, time and time again from virtually all my friends, are that context matters, stereotypes hide any number of important observations, and it’s not that hard to look at how society has structures that perpetuate inequalities. [Nicked and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is another book that really drove home the latter point.]

When I think about the importance of knowing someone, I consider the stories told around increasing acceptance of LGBT people. Many straight people have had to stop and reflect on their views surrounding LGBT issues after finding out that a co-worker, friend, or child has come out as LGBT. It’s a lot harder to think without empathy about LGBT related topics when you start associating them with real people that you actually know.

Let me be extremely clear: I do not believe that we should equate the experiences of LGBT people with the experiences of people of color. Looking at the headline that 75% of white Americans do not have any non-white friends, I wondered about the effects of social organization. It’s a lot easier to make claims that like, “Racial profiling is simply police doing their job,” if you’ve never gone out shopping with a black friend. It’s a lot easier to doubt that virtually every black household briefs its children about what they need to do if they are stopped by the police if you’ve never sat around the dinner table with a black family. It’s a lot easier to suggest that jobs go to the highest qualified person if you’ve never known a person who has “white-washed” his or her resume. I decided to talk about the LGBT community because I know many white people who have discovered that they actually have a good number of LGBT friends unknowingly. When people have LGBT friends, they tend to reconsider their views about social problems affecting the LGBT population. However, I’m afraid that it’s much easier for those who are straight to find themselves in friendship with those who are LGBT than it is for white people to find themselves in friendship with people of color. Part of the reason why I think white people have comparatively homogenous circles of friends is that we tend to socialize in already segregated environments. Churches are often the worst place to try to diversify one’s friends base; Divided by Faith is so named because 11:00 AM on Sunday morning is often the most segregated hour of the week.

Relationships matter. Our relationships with one another make us human. When we have relationships with people who are different from us, we learn to see our commonalities as people as well as our salient differences that set us apart as individuals. We develop empathy skills that allow us to hear stories that challenge us to see the many faces of oppressive social structures. We tune our abilities to say, “That’s not fair!” and work for positive changes.

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.

What’s in a Name? LGBT, SSA, and Alphabet Soup

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Sharing one’s story as a celibate LGBT or same-sex attracted Christian, single or coupled, rarely comes without controversy. Many people experience a good deal of cognitive dissonance when they first meet folks like us, often navigating some degree of paradox. How can a person be both LGBT and celibate? Why is it so important to talk about issues of sexuality in the first place? Why might a same-sex couple regard celibacy as an important aspect of their partnership? As we’ve been blogging, we have seen several different attempts to reconcile our own story, and the language we use to tell it, with a range of preconceived notions about sexual orientation, gender identity, spirituality, and theology.

Celibate people navigating questions of sexual orientation and gender identity frequently choose between two sets of descriptors. Increasingly, people have shown willingness to use one or more LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) terms to describe their experiences. However, many others prefer to describe themselves as SSA (same-sex attracted) or struggling with SSA. Because the two of us prefer LGBT language and do not view our sexualities as struggles, people ask us a barrage of questions: “What do you think about people who advocate for gay marriage? If you’re celibate, shouldn’t you shun all language associated with the LGBT community, including partnership? Why don’t you spend more time describing your struggles against homosexual sins? Shouldn’t you describe yourselves as people who experience same-sex attraction instead of LGBT?” At the same time, we’ve noticed that people who have stories markedly different from ours also get bombarded with questions: “If you’re a guy who’s sexually attracted to guys, what’s the big deal with saying that you’re gay? Wouldn’t it be better for you to get a boyfriend and settle down? Are you simply using the language your church wants you to use in a desperate attempt to please people?”

Questions are not bad things. But at times, those who pose questions do so in attempt to convince the recipient to change his or her mind. Every leading question hides myriad assumptions about what is best while also asserting, whether implicitly or explicitly, that the questioner already has the answers. We’ve noted that this conversation trend seems especially pronounced when people discuss what labels best describe a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity, or inquire as to whether any label should be used at all. Even among celibate LGBT/SSA people, there can be considerable controversy regarding labels. Some people feel very strongly about always using particular monikers, while other people see the language they choose as a question of “What fits best, so I can communicate with my current audience?”

LGBT/SSA Christians navigate their personal questions of coming out very differently. Within some conservative Christian traditions, there are concerns that using LGBT language could lead a person could adopt an ungodly identity. People on both sides of the linguistic divide can appoint themselves representatives of the language police. Overlapping concerns of sexual orientation and gender identity can lead to questions about how gender is used in the world practically. Voices from all corners can forget that particular terminology arose in response to specific cultural controversies. Equally, people have navigated questions about what terms mean in diverse contexts. For example, the word “gay” is likely to have a different meaning for a person who used to frequent gay bars in order to find nightly hookups than it has for a person whose introduction to LGBT people happened at an inclusive church.

Because non-celibate people do not always understand why celibate LGBT/SSA people choose the language we use to describe ourselves, we thought sharing a bit about our own processes might be helpful. From our perspective, it is important that all people have language they can use to their describe their own experiences as they understand them. We respect that every person has unique considerations when determining what language he or she is going to use. We believe that fostering civil conversation about LGBT/SSA people and the Church requires telling stories with integrity. We would never deny an individual the opportunity to tell his or her personal story, and we resist weaponizing narratives from a certain subset of the population to enforce a single linguistic code as uniformly acceptable.

Growing up, Lindsey did not have much exposure to the LGBT community. Once Lindsey started exploring sexuality-related questions in high school, Lindsey resisted counsel from secular gay organizations that seemed to advocate for sexually active relationships as a necessary means of self-acceptance. An introvert, Lindsey has never had any particular interest in going to gay bars or attending any event where the only commonality between people is sexual orientation. Lindsey has typically gravitated much more towards opportunities for Christian fellowship, but in college found resistance within a number of ministries aimed at young people. Many of these ministry organizations considered any LGBT affiliation a cause for scandal but tried to help people conform themselves to cisgender, heterosexual norms. These groups taught that a subset of cisgender, heterosexual people occasionally “struggled with same-gender attractions” but that Christ could empower everyone to live a holy life. Lindsey grew increasingly disillusioned about how these groups treated Scripture, failed to establish any sense of positive community, and constantly assumed everyone was seconds away from acting out sexually. Eventually, Lindsey connected with the Gay Christian Network and appreciated how this organization encouraged LGBT people to focus on Christ’s light and love as empowering holy living. Lindsey has always had a slightly complicated relationship with various letters of the alphabet soup, but appreciates the umbrella nature of LGBT to capture the nuances of Lindsey’s experience, however imperfectly.

Sarah had no exposure to the broader LGBT community until college. During Sarah’s formative years, Sarah heard significant vitriol from family members and occasionally from folks at church anytime the word “gay” arose in conversation. Within religious contexts sexuality was never discussed, so it took Sarah several years to make the connection that the word “gay” had anything to do with sexuality. As Sarah began to ponder questions of sexual orientation and seek spiritual counsel, Sarah’s spiritual directors dismissed these questions. Immediately, some asserted that defining oneself as gay or lesbian would be the same as defining oneself as a murderer or a rapist, so it was best for Sarah to say “I struggle with same-sex attraction.” However, Sarah knew people who were openly LGBT, both celibate and non-celibate, who were not promiscuous or living the stereotypical “gay lifestyle,” and this was confusing. For Sarah, over time the term SSA began to seem like a tool used to oppress and clobber people because Sarah’s spiritual directors aggressively forced the language. Sarah understood sexuality as being a broader construct than simply one’s sex drive or the kinds of sexual encounters one would like to have. For Sarah, sexuality was about a pattern of relating to the world. From Sarah’s vantage point, the term SSA was much more focused than LGBT language on sex and sexual acts, so using the language of SSA would actually go against the spirit of the spiritual director’s counsel. Eventually, Sarah met a priest who could understand that Sarah’s experience of sexuality is about far more than questions of desire. Sarah uses the word “lesbian” because Sarah does not see sexual orientation as being principally about wanting to leap into bed with a person of a particular sex. In Sarah’s view, sexual orientation involves perception of beauty, human connectedness, and comfort in one’s own skin.

Having said all of this about our own experiences, we also understand why some people feel more comfortable using the language of SSA. Some folks experience extreme distress when they realize their sexual attractions are oriented towards members of the same sex. When these people go through puberty, they might ask themselves, “Why do I like people of the same sex instead of the opposite sex like all of my friends?” Describing oneself as same-sex attracted, for some, can be an effort to assert a reasonably high degree of sameness with other people, i.e. “I have the same moral values you do, but I’m attracted to people of my same sex.” We understand that people can experience sexuality in very different ways. There are people who see sexual desire as the defining attribute of sexuality. When trying to live chastely, it’s not uncommon for some to experience intrusive sexual impulses they want to resist. If these impulses are constantly directed towards members of the same sex, then a person might say that he or she “struggles with same-sex attraction” and wants to make moral choices that align with a celibate way of life. The widespread availability of pornography can also impact a person’s sexual development by providing a particular lens of what it means to be gay or lesbian. Rejecting the label of “gay” might be an effort to distance oneself from gay pornography or other highly sexualized parts of the gay community.

We’ve only scratched the surface as to why people might prefer using LGBT, SSA, or other monikers to describe their sexual orientations and gender identities. Nothing in our reflection should be read as a comprehensive explanation or applicable to all people who use a particular term. We’d love to hear from our readers about why you use the language you do to describe your own sexual orientations and gender identities. Additionally, we’re curious about how you decide what language best describes a friend’s sexual orientation and gender identity. We look forward to some excellent discussion in the comment box.

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.

Every “Scandal” Has Its Story

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As a celibate, LGBT, Christian couple, frequently we receive caution that we should avoid inciting scandal. People have all sorts of advice: we should not refer to ourselves as a couple and instead choose the more neutral language of friend or roommate, we should avoid describing ourselves as LGBT, we should constantly stress our commitment to celibacy, etc. We take significant time to reflect on how we’re being received by other people even as we simply try to live our lives. We do not pretend for an instant that we’re above having our way of life challenged, but we often wonder if, in a number of situations, people allege scandal rather than inviting conversations about how we’ve offended their sensibilities.

Let us be perfectly clear about something from the outset: we tend to be incredibly discreet. There are certain environments where we’d never introduce ourselves as a couple. We’re not people who have LGBT pride symbols plastered all over our cars or our clothing. We like having low profiles. Even on this blog, we do take some steps to protect our comparative anonymity by not disclosing our last names, specific Christian tradition, parish, priest, location, employers, and other highly identifiable information. We don’t mind being discreet because we see this as an essential part of being safe in a world that can be all too hostile to LGBT people.

However, at the same time, we find ourselves ready to spit nails when people constantly exhort us to be even more discreet in an effort to avoid scandal. We’d like to spend some time reflecting on what people mean when they tell us we should avoid scandalizing others. We know that our presence in many church communities is challenging, and some might say that it borders on scandal. Yet, we have to wonder about the degree to which we are actually stepping near scandal’s boundary. Because of the different ways we’ve been accused, we wonder if people are quick to cry “Scandal!” every time they see something that offends their personal sensibilities or varies from how they would attempt to navigate sensitive intersections of doctrine, morality, and shifting social norms.

One basic assumption many people make is that no one knows we are LGBT unless we tell them. Unfortunately, this assumption is completely false. We’ve talked a bit about this assumption when we asked if we are protected by celibacy. For example, people nearly always assume that Lindsey is a member of the LGBT community because of Lindsey’s physical appearance. It doesn’t matter that Lindsey has perfected different versions of pronoun games, is comfortable avoiding discussing anything related to LGBT concerns in church settings, and works extremely hard to focus on growing spiritually. Lindsey knows that cultivating close friendships with people in a local church can lead to accusations of sexual misconduct, even if all Lindsey has done is talk excitedly with a fellow parishioner in a private conversation observed from a distance by other parishioners. Lindsey has gotten so accustomed to protecting information about LGBT status that we haven’t even disclosed on this blog how Lindsey prefers to identify — a trend that will be continuing for the foreseeable future.

Often, we wonder what people are thinking when they tell us that we have a propensity toward scandal. Are they really concerned that seeing a couple like us will lead others into sin? Are they worried for their own souls, the souls of other parishioners, and the souls of people who see us each day? Are they concerned that we’re a kind of “sleeper cell” that is waiting until the time is right to advocate for radical shifts in how our Christian tradition understands marriage, sexuality, gender, and other human relationships? Do they think we’ll lead other people to confusion about what our Christian tradition teaches relative to marriage and sexuality? If so, wouldn’t they have an obligation to raise these concerns with us directly or with our priest?

We can, and do, appreciate that these concerns have some merit when considered exclusively against the backdrop of a Church besieged by the culture wars. Unfortunately, the emphasis many churches place on the current political and social climate frames the conversation in terms of LGBT issues rather than LGBT people. Focusing on the culture wars places all the responsibility on LGBT people to address the fears of cisgender, heterosexual people. When a person perceives himself or herself on the “right” side, that individual can fall into a pattern of avoiding questions about his or her own discomfort. It seems to us that many cisgender, heterosexual Christians think they deserve a free pass on these questions because they aren’t actively doing anything that violates their sense of orthodoxy.

Many Christian traditions have written or unwritten sets of “standard minimum expectations” for people who are members of those specific traditions. In our own lives, we’ve found it all too easy to be judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to people who seemingly disregard these expectations. To illustrate how we’ve had to navigate our own senses of being scandalized by others, we’re going to highlight two examples. The first will likely resonate with our readers from a more generally evangelical background, and the second will likely resonate with our readers from liturgical backgrounds.

We’ve both belonged to local churches where it was the norm, presented almost as a requirement, that all members of the community participate in some midweek ministries. These midweek ministries might be anything from Bible studies to service ministries to prayer groups. Once after Lindsey had joined a community that required all members to attend a weekly small group, Lindsey learned that an administrator paid by the church who had been a long-standing member had never been involved in a small group. This person had been around the church for years and surely knew better. Lindsey was completely shocked and appalled that the church would knowingly employ such a person who made it crystal clear that one could regard small groups as optional. Other people Lindsey approached were equally flabbergasted by the situation. Later, Lindsey learned that there was much more to the story: this person was busily attending to parents who were battling some very serious illnesses. To say Lindsey was crestfallen upon realizing how quickly Lindsey had rushed to judgement is an understatement. One never knows when there’s more than meets the eye.

Switching gears to discuss an example that might be reasonably common in liturgical traditions, in Catholic and Orthodox churches a person might encounter a situation like this one that Sarah remembers: At one of Sarah’s past parishes, a family that regularly attended consisted of a single mother and her three small children. The family would leave immediately after service every Sunday so the mother could get to work. One day, a friend of Sarah’s invited this family to stay after the service to enjoy lunch. The mother declined the invitation, commenting, “Thank you, but I have to get to work. I had enough to eat at breakfast.” In liturgical traditions where there is some type of fasting requirement before receiving the Eucharist, this sort of comment might seem curious, especially if the person making the comment had communed earlier that morning. Sarah’s friend who had invited the mother to lunch wondered aloud, “Didn’t she receive the Eucharist the morning? Doesn’t she keep the fast at all?” After getting to know this mother better, Sarah and Sarah’s friend found out that on Sundays the mother had to work two shifts at two separate jobs. Sunday breakfast was the only time she had to eat a decent meal all day, which was necessary because both jobs required her to be on her feet for hours at a time. Once again, one never knows when there’s more than meets the eye.

When we consider the question of scandal in these contexts, it seems natural to reflect also on the question of gossip. Is the person caring for elderly parents obligated to disclose the gory details of her struggle to ensure her parents had what they needed? Is the person preparing to work two 8-hour shifts required to explain to everyone why she needs to eat breakfast and forgo the Eucharistic fast? To be sure, it seems reasonable that a person might discuss with a pastor or priest how he or she believes it is best to navigate these difficult situations. However, is it really up to members of the congregation to assume that they know exactly what’s happening? There are instances in which allegations of scandal are misplaced, sometimes even leading the accuser unwittingly toward gossip and other forms of uncharitable speech and action.

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.