We are Servants

On my other blog, I recently celebrated the International Day Against Homophobia, describing one of the presentations that I attended at Queen’s Park in Toronto. The event was great, and one of my friends presented her experience, so it was well rounded and encouraging. That evening, I went to an event at The 519, a local LGBTQ Community Centre.  It was a reception for Public Servants: people who work at a variety of levels of the government, and who have worked in some way to increase acceptance of diversity, gender expression and generally the LGBTQ community overall.

There were several speakers: the last was Becky McFarlane, one of the Directors at The 519. She has worked in the past helping to develop opportunities for individuals with mental health and addictions, which was right in line with the theme of the Day this year. Becky spoke from her own experience as a queer person, and was able to connect with the audience very deeply.

I remember specifically one of her points, and why The 519 choose to honour those in government on that day. “People choose public service because they want to help people.” That single statement stuck with me. Not just because it was a bit of a generalization: I know many in the government whose motivation was joining the public service was far from simply helping others. But it should be: the term “public servant” should be more than just rhetoric. Thus it is only natural for us (or at least most of us) to thus work toward equality. So in spite of our reticence for risk, we have created such mechanisms as the Pride Network and the Speakers’ Bureau, to increase communication and decrease fear. This is exactly what servants of all kinds should be doing.

In the back of my mind, I could not help but hear the echoes of a song from Larry Norman now 40 years old: a song called “I am a Servant“. It deeply influenced me when I first started attending church all those years ago, and is a recurring theme in the Bible: that those who follow God should be servants of others, putting themselves second with respect to others’ needs. Yet that is not heard very much in contemporary Christianity. I think it is very sad and very telling that these days, being a servant is one of the last thing that people would associate with the church.

Sermons- April 10- Resurrection

I usually reflect after church services, and I’d like to include some of my thoughts on this blog. This week was no exception. It was notable initially because Tim (our assistant curate) spoke and he started with a bit of his testimony: and mentioned being conscious of a certain degree of privilege that he experienced in his youth, being born when he was: as a white, male, heterosexual and cisgender person. That word (cisgender) was said completely in passing, and I’m not sure that all the parishioners caught what it meant. But it is nice to hear such recognition occasionally from the pulpit.

Tim then moved forward to describe something of his experience of the resurrection. I’ve mentioned such in a previous post from my perspective (March 19. 2016): and I believe that Tim would agree with most of my points. Though those did not seem foremost in his thoughts during the sermon. This week he was less concerned with proving the historicity of the resurrection than with its implications. Assuming that the resurrection is true, what are the implications? Why did Paul say in 1 Cor 15:14, “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain”?.

For Tim, these seemed to revolve around peace and possibility. Once he recognized that that resurrection was true and he was reconciled with God, there was a change in his perspective, his narrative. No longer did things have to be proved and explained, but suddenly he was aware that all that was possible. I think this can be different for all of us; I know that my change in awareness was similar, but particularly profound for me. I became aware of the power of God, in the world and in my life. To me, the God who would invest the power and the effort in the resurrection was also willing to invest in me. My experience might not be the equivalent of being bodily raised from the dead, but in His way God has changed me almost as much by removing my focus on myself and moving it to others.

Go do it

I’ve told this story a couple of times in recent months: I wanted to relate it here to see how others remember it. It was while I was at Moody (MBI): I think it was Missions Conference one of the yeas I was there, but I don’t remember the context. In my mind it happened in Torrey-Grey Auditiorium; my impression was that it was in one of the last chapels of the week for the event. We had all been attending the various sessions and being taught by some of the best missions minded theologians at the time. We were, in fact, full to bursting with newfound knowledge. And at this last chapel the speaker got up: as students we were all tired and looking forward to the weekend. The speaker got up, made a small preamble referring to the information we had been receiving over the previous week: and then drew a simple conclusion. “Go do it.” And he was done. It was shortest chapel of my days.

Nowadays this doesn’t sound that remarkable, at least in one respect. We’ve lived with the Nike branded, “Just do it” for decades now. But it’s perhaps a little more surprising when you remember that the Nike campaign was launched in 1988: the year I was married to Kim, a year after I graduated from MBI. So this happened well before the campaign started, perhaps even before it was conceived.

I truly believe that we as members of the church are called to to bring God’s news to the world: and to do so in ways that are relevant, appealing, diverse, sensitive and culturally entwined. Times like this, I think we reflected deeper into where the world was going, without even recognizing it ourselves, but managed to strike a chord in our humanity. We need to work with our culture, rather than being molded by it.

Animal Reunions

Last night we watched Nature, and it was a program about Animal Reunions (PBS, 2016), broadcast for the first time (Broadway World, 2016). It was quite beautiful, and described the bond formed between humans and animals in several situations, whereby effort results in a lasting connection that can be rekindled after months or years of being out in the wild. Jane Goodall was an important guest on the program, and recounted much of what she has learned over 50 years of working with chimps in this regard. But a plethora of animals were described: gorillas and chimps, certainly, but also cheetahs and elephants. As Ms. Goodall describes, what was once a source of scorn in the scientific community, that animals might have emotions and form lasting bonds, is now accepted and explored.

The Christian community is just as slow at learning from such observations. But one thing that struck me several times during the program: the importance of trust and love forged between the animal and the human person. These are the same words that are so often repeated in the Bible as being the foundation of our relationship with God. For hundreds of years now, theologians have argued about what it means to love God, or to have “saving faith”. But perhaps it’s as easy as something that even the animals do, if only we look for it. Ironic that we would argue about such a subject, and the answer was right before us in the last place we would look. All we had to do was to go back to having the perspective we had in a garden.

Camp Ten Oaks

I was reviewing a document at work when I discovered reference to Camp Ten Oaks: a one-week event during the summer that specifically reaches out to LGBTQ youth. (The image at right was part of the document: click for a larger version.) It struck an odd chord in me: on the one had I love to camp and feel at home in nature. Even at 50+, Tim and I go camping every year as often as we can. But I also remember the organized camp experiences of my youth as barely less than traumatic. I was not a typical boy in many respects, and the camp activities that were emphasized in the 70s were all about simulating conformity and rewarding qualities that were most extroverted. I knew I was gay from a young age: I just didn’t want to admit it. It is good to see that there are programs in place to encourage young people to discover who they are andto be themselves.

Yet it seems that the church is behind in this regard. We like our stereotypes in the church, and we like things to work as they always have. With a 2000+ year history this is understandable, but it is hardly excusable. This is one of the reasons that the church is losing relevance among the youth of today: we have not kept up with rapidly changing social patterns. We ignored the rising LGBTQ+ identifying community for a long time, because they were small and we didn’t see how they fit with our “traditional” interpretation of the rules. That was to our detriment. Now even among non-queer communities, that discrimination rings out. The situation can still be salvaged, but we must recognize our weaknesses and out mistakes.

There are a thousand ways to reach out to communities that we have damaged. We just have to do it.

Good Friday

As I start to post about issues that bridge the queer and the Christian worlds, defining what I mean by “Qristian”, the first of the religious holidays that we run into is Good Friday… a queer name if ever I heard one: according to the definition that I have adopted (March 7, 2016). What is it about the day of Jesus’ death that is good, so much so that we know this day by that name? There is nothing “good” about death, particularly the kind of death that Jesus suffered. There is nothing “good” about any of the theology that leads up to this day. It only becomes “good” when we see it in hindsight, with the understanding of tradition, and in conjunction with the following Sunday. It only becomes “good” when we see it holistically: which we as Westerners are particularly bad at. Yet we’ve known “Good Friday” for centuries, and it is part of our background. So I challenge my readers to think about Good Friday and why it bears that name… and what they would have called it if they had lived hundreds of years ago and had the opportunity to name it.

Ravi of RZIM

I’ve been asked a number of times lately why I disagree with Ravi Zacharias and why I bristle at the thought of his ministry. I’ve been familiar with Ravi for many years, since my days assisting with the pastorate of an on-campus Christian and Missionary Alliance church at Penn State, the denomination in which Ravi is ordained. He is an apologist who speaks for the Christian faith: but who specifically regards queer people as unworthy of a calling within the church. I originally wrote something on the topic several years ago (Bowles, 2012): not even addressing my difficulty directly, but instead arguing that since “nothing in unclean” (Romans 14:14) in the world of faith, homosexuality should not, of itself, be seen as wrong. It turns out that the youtube video I quoted in that piece has been taken down, due to “copyright violations” of RZIM, but I’m looking for a replacement.

However, the video that I referenced was a bit dated and people can change. At least they can change their outward rhetoric (which is what Ravi does quite well) or they can change their inward opinion. Ravi speaks a lot these days about loving homosexuals and yet “affirming the belief that marriage should remain between one man and one woman” (Gospel Herald Society, 2015). So he wants to love homosexuals… as long as we aren’t being a pain. As long as we are not intruding where we’re not wanted. As long as we keep to our own side of the dividing line in church. That might be the kind of love that Ravi can offer, but it does not sound like what Jesus commanded two thousand years ago.

In the above article, Ravi refers to same-sex marriage as follows:

Sexual intimacy outside of outside of [sic] a monogamous, heterosexual marriage, leads to the “emptying of essential purpose and meaning [which]…leads to the loss of essential purpose in life itself,” Zacharias warns. “This is why it is vacuous to say that if two people love each other they may express it in any way they choose,” he continues. “Love is not defined in a way that is self-referencing. It ultimately hangs on the peg of God’s love and how He defines love.”

That’s my marriage he’s speaking of.

I’ve been married twice in my life: once to my ex-wife, and once to my current husband. I just passed our ninth anniversary in my relationship with the latter. The idea that just because he’s my husband our marriage has to be “vacuous”, “empty”, “self-referencing” and without purpose is monumentally insulting. My first marriage was to a wonderful woman I met at Moody Bible Institute; we had counselling and teaching (I’ve even taught some of those) and we understood the Biblical perspective of what God had given us to express our affection for each other. Yet it didn’t work. Years later I left the States so that I could get married to my husband (my “self-referencing” marriage) and have our relationship recognized. There was no “same-sex” premarital counselling, but we did our best. In this sense I have a fairly unique sense of the how straight and gay marriages are different. And if you are going to refer to “empty” or “vacuous” marriages, I can think of a lot more that are straight than that are gay. Because it matters a lot less how you define marriage (and let’s face, such “definitions” are really just guesses) than on what you bring into it. I believe that my current marriage is at least as valid as my first: and, importantly, I have been blessed and grown and learned from my husband as much as I did from my wife.

The Resurrection

I recently wrote a post on “Hermeneutics”, in which I started exploring some of the implications to our interpretation of the Bible and how a seemingly academic exercise can be profoundly practical. One example is the Resurrection of Christ, a particularly appropriate topic as we approach Easter. Although I’ve hardly done an exhaustive study, most of the queer theologians I’ve read have based their theology on liberation theology and related approaches, incorporating aspects of feminism and other theologies of oppression. Although such explorations are quite fascinating and illustrate how themes as captivity, slavery, renewed freedom and rebirth continue to be relevant and applicable to modern societies, I don’t feel that they go far enough. They have reduced Jesus resurrection (if not his death, life and birth) to a parable, entirely a symbolic and allegorical action. Consider the following, taken from “Christianity is a queer thing”, an article by Elizabeth Stuart:

“[Robert] Goss grounds his Christology in the praxis rather than the nature of Jesus. He follows liberation theologians in presenting Jesus as standing in the name of God in solidarity with those oppressed and marginalized by the religious and social institutions of his day. The resurrection he interprets as God ‘coming out’ on the side of Jesus, raising him to the status of Christ: a universal parable of God. In all times and all places Christ stands in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed. In a homophobic and heterosexist world Christ demands that his Church follow him in aligning himself with the queer cause and detecting his presence in that community.”

This is one of the ways that I see (and maintain) that the Bible must be taken literally. Jesus died and rose on the third day: that means something. It’s more than a story that provides connection between the oppressed of the past and the oppressed of the present. It reflects a spiritual reality: that God cares enormously about us (queer and non-queer), so much so that He has provided a method to know Him. God has come into our world, into our lives, and has overcome violence and hatred and denial. This is not a reality to abandon simply because we’re now modern and civilized and Western. It happened, whether or not it defies our sensibilities. Paul recognized exactly this when he wrote to the church at Corinth: and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain… if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins… If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all [people] most to be pitied. (1 Cor 15:14-19)

The Prodigal Son

Last Sunday at church we looked at Luke 15:11-31, the parable of the Prodigal Son. It was a good presentation and discussion: and much though I’ve heard many sermons on this subject and have studied it myself, I was struck differently this time by a combination of the elements. In particular, while working with my current project of figuring out what it means to be a Qristian, I was surprised how queer this story was. And is.

My pastor went through a fair number of examples of how queer the story was. He didn’t use that word, perhaps, but that’s how I interpreted what he was saying. We’re just so used to hearing the story that we don’t realize how much it challenged the status quo of the time, and how it continues to challenge what we think we know about it and our preconceptions. In the story, the son asked the father for his inheritance before the father died: a shifting of rules, a change of expectations that is far from conventional. So in the very beginning, the story is queer. And the father agrees: something else virtually unheard of! So the son gets his money and goes out, and blows his inheritance on “excitement, adventure and really wild things”: he ends up being so destitute that could only find a job feeding pigs… which, for a Jew as that time, was anathema. It was perhaps akin to a conservative American Christian making a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage. Eventually the son realized he had made a mistake… a messy, unthinking, irresponsible mistake… and he decided to return to home and gravel to his parents.

So he did. And the father’s response was… bizarre. He did not respond as many of us might: with criticism or judgement or self-righteousness. Instead there was joy, celebration, excitement. The father was not angry… justifiably so, even… that his son had wasted his inheritance, but joyful at his return. So unconventional was his response that the older son rebuked the father, wondering why his father had never rewarded his faithfulness with anything like this. And the father responded that he was just glad his son has returned.

Now this is a parable: a simple story intended to teach something. I don’t think that God wants us to treat our children this way. But we are supposed to understand that this is what God can be like. It’d very queer-ness envelopes that which we are not and emphasizes that which God is. And because it is different and unconventional, it encourages us to think “outside the box” and to ask questions about who God is and how this relates to us.

One point that was made in our discussion after the sermon: that at least the son had somewhere or someone to return home to. Many of us, in particularly young gay people, don’t have that. Entirely too many of us have been disowned by our families because of who we are. They know that they have nowhere to return. So as church-members and congregants, even if we have no children of our own, we can be the father for people who need it. It may not be a direct application of the parable, but it is something that we can practically express in light of what we read.

Hermeneutics

Part of what it is to be queer is to question assumptions that have created a “status quo” in a particular discipline. In its most classic sense, queer theory does this with respect to feminism, gender stereotypes and gay/lesbian ideas. It challenges the foundation of much of Western development, historical and modern, because these are rooted in perspectives that are masculine, engendered and heterosexual. Many aspects of our culture (if not all) can be productively filtered through a queer reference precisely because queer voices have been silenced for so long. That does not mean that queer theory is always correct in its reformulation of cultural norms, but it is always good to consider criticism.

Christian theology and practice is one aspect of our culture that has not only been molded by the dominant aspects of our society, but remains so even after the need for change is recognized. Many denominations still have only male priests and pastors; many teach that women are to be subject to [their] own husbands [Eph 5:22]. Many teach that challenging gender norms is wrong, and that homosexuality is a sin. Almost all of this is based on narrow interpretations of the Bible. This in turn is founded in hermeneutics: the study of interpretation, particularly of Biblical literature. Much though the adherents to such doctrines might believe that they are following God’s will and his Word, it is evident from the pain that these interpretations inflict on whole communities of people, as well as the damage being inflicted on the gospel itself, that something is wrong.

I was recently at a meeting in Toronto with regard to the Anglican Communion, a denomination that springs from the Church of England and touches dozens of countries, on every continent. We are considering changing the marriage canon to allow same-sex marriage in the church: much though such marriages are legal in many countries (including Canada), they cannot be blessed by the church. As I sat through this meeting with the Primate of Canada, two things were evident to me: and both of them are a direct outcome of a historical stand on hermeneutics.

One of my observations was that the decision to bless same-sex marriages is by no means a “done deal”. Although it will probably happen eventually, with the way that such decisions are made in the church, it could take many years. This is partially due to the leadership’s understanding of hermeneutics: and partially due to their lack of connection to the affected communities. That was my other observation: just how many people are deeply hurt by this non-decision. I was humbled by some of the individuals who were there that night: who had invested their lives in their denomination, and who were feeling abandoned and discarded by their faith. These were perfectly loyal, diligent and active parishioners, as much as any straight person: yet they cannot receive from the church what they need because they’ve been interpreted to be irrelevant.

I spoke to the son of a friend recently about this issue. He was visiting the church: but he said he could never attend regularly until he knew that the church was willing to marry his friends who were gay. He knew my history and asked me how I could be a part of a church that wouldn’t recognize my marriage. I told him that from my perspective and my understanding of the Bible, no church is perfect. Every church I’ve ever attended has it’s good points and bad. But the bad ones will never change unless people are willing to stay and to work at changing them from the inside.

That, for me, is an important aspect of hermeneutics. Not just what is said in the Bible, but where and why and the overall purpose. Much though “proof texting” is common in the Church community, there is no part of the Bible that is independent of other parts, and they all hang together. Jesus said in John 13:35, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Yet this is not what we see. When matters of hermeneutics become mismatched they result in conflict, and pain: as we can see all around us.