Why this Christian-in-Progress Supports Gay Marriage

Photo by Jonny Eberle.

Arnold: "I don't know what to say to you. I really don't. I'm not trying to throw it in your face but it is what I am and it's not just a matter of who I sleep with. Ma, try to imagine the world the other way around. Imagine that every movie, book, magazine, T.V. show, newspaper, commercial, billboard told you that you should be homosexual. But you know you're not and you know that for you this is right..."


Ma: "Arnold, stop already. You're talking crazy."


Arnold: "You want to know what's crazy? That after all these years, I'm still sitting here justifying my life. That's what's crazy."


Ma: " You call this a life? This is a sickness! But this is what you've chosen for yourself."


Arnold: "Ma, look: I'm gay. I don't know why. I don't think anyone does. But that's what I am. For as far back as I can remember. Back before I knew it was different or wrong..."

- Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierstein

Last month, the New York State Legislature passed the Marriage Equality Act, making New York the largest state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage. When I heard the news, I remember feeling pride — pride in the fact that we were finally taking steps toward a more loving and accepting future.

Some people are surprised to hear that I support gay marriage and go to church. Personally, I don't see why the two have to be mutually exclusive. The God I believe in is a loving God, who loves everyone, not just straight people. The God I believe in makes no exceptions and any interpretation that casts him as a father who doesn't love all of his children and would condemn some of them because of how he created them just feels wrong.

In 1st Corinthians 13:13, Paul writes to the church in Corinth, "And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."In the gospels, Jesus says the same thing, telling an expert in the law, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Matthew 22:37-39).

Love your neighbor as yourself. That's what it all comes down to. Loving our neighbors — all of our neighbors — and God makes no distinction between people like us and people who are different. In his day, Jesus was criticized because he associated with the unclean members of Jewish society. He ate with tax collectors and went around healing lepers.

I am convinced that if Jesus was here today, you would not find him in the pews of our churches. You would find him among the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer community. Why? Because Jesus does not side with public opinion or authority. He sides with the people society and the church condemn. Not to convert them. Not to "save" them, because there is nothing wrong with them. He goes there to show them that God loves them unconditionally, just as they are. If we want to call ourselves Christians — followers of Jesus Christ — we would do well to follow his example.

Yet, people still hate. Christians in particular often denounce homosexuality as a sin. When I hear this hateful rhetoric, I am ashamed to be connected to an organization that can be so blinded by dogma that it forgets its founding ideals. If we took a step back and saw the hurt anti-gay sentiment has on real people, we would be disgusted by ourselves.

Arnold: "Listen, Ma, you had it easy. You have thirty-five years to remember, I have five. You had your children and friends to comfort you, I had me! My friends didn't want to hear about it. They said, 'What're you gripin' about? At least you had a lover.' 'Cause everybody knows that queers don't love. How dare I? You had it easy, Ma. You lost your husband in a nice clean hospital, I lost mine out there. They killed him there on the street. Twenty-three years old laying dead on the street. Killed by a bunch of kids with baseball bats. Children. Children taught by people like you. 'Cause everybody knows that queers don't matter! Queers don't love! And those that do deserve what they get!"

I hope that one day, this won't even be an issue. I pray that my children will ask me about the gay marriage battle and ask, "Dad, what was that all about?" because they won't understand what the big deal was. Someone has to take a stand. As Christians-in-progress, I think we're called to stand with those who are told that everything they are is wrong and that they need to be "cured."

Jesus loved everyone. Why can't we?

The Power of Simple Things

There is beauty in simplicity. There is a poetry in small things; in the complimentary relationship between light and shadow, word and image, form and function.

I remember leaving a 3-D movie showing recently with my head pounding and my senses overwhelmed. I drove home, got to the front door and turned to look up at the sky, where I could clearly see the Milky Way snaking across the a black velvet sky. Unlike Harry Potter, it was not a manufactured effect costing millions of dollars, but the simple (yet powerful) fusion of hydrogen atoms, the simplest and most common element in the universe. Still, it captivated me with its singular normalcy.

I am currently part of a planning committee for a huge Lutheran student gathering in New Orleans. An unfathomable 36,000 high schoolers are coming. It is expected that they will leave with a sense of awe after participating. Headline artists will be contracted, a huge stage will be constructed, complete with a towering, 100-foot cross adorned with lights. This is big.

I'm sure I would faint if I knew the exact figure that's being dropped on this 5-day event.  It's probably better for me not to know. However, I can't help but wonder if we're missing something — a larger truth. It is hard for me to reconcile the poverty and devastation of New Orleans as a backdrop for a spiritual extravaganza where no expense will be spared. How do we justify that kind of extravagance when people just outside the Super Dome are going hungry. Is that an authentic experience?

Perhaps I'm being a buzz-kill. The organizers want students to get excited about their faith. They want them to be fired up and moved by the Spirit. I want that, too. In a church that has drifted away from the youth and into retirement communities, we need to hang on to these guys or there won't even be a church in 30 years. But, I have to ask, do we really need to fly the bishop in on a wire to do it? Do we need slick graphics? Do we need to be put up in hotels with attached water parks? Is that all that we are? Is that all that we stand for?

I want people to have fun. I want people to feel like they are a part of something big and to talk about it years after with fondness and wonder, but I don't want to manufacture awe with pyrotechnics and laser shows. My faith is about so much more than that.

My Teacher walked everywhere. He slept outside on the ground and ate with lepers and tax collectors, of all people. My Teacher lived a simple life. So, why do we feel the need to dress him up, shower him, shave him, gel his hair back and teach him a dance routine? All I need to feel fulfilled is the Word and the Meal.

I often don't know why I'm here and I feel stupid suggesting that maybe the stage should be bare, with just a small, wooden cross (or maybe just the shadow of a cross) instead of a production worthy of the Super Bowl Halftime Show or the Academy Awards. In the end, it won't matter how tall the flames were or if you could feel the bass in the back seats. In the end, there is a message that challenges us to go out and live as Christ lived and died.

Maybe we need to reassess why we're doing this. Maybe we need to take a few steps back and ask if the fireworks and choreography are all absolutely necessary to the impact of this gathering. I'm not qualified to answer that and I am open to the idea that I could be completely wrong about all of this, but the idea of simplicity and the power of a moment of silence is something I cannot shake.

All I can do is put it in God's hands and trust that he knows where he wants us to go. The rest is faith — simple as that.

Defining a New Christianity

Tonight, I went dancing with a few friends at a local bar. While the jazz band was taking a break, we sat at our table and sipped water. One of my friends, an atheist, asked me what I was doing this weekend, to which I replied that I was going to Wisconsin. I didn't immediately say why, so she probed. Finally, I admitted quietly that I was going to help plan a youth gathering. I said it quickly, almost under my breath. I wasn't ashamed of my involvement...or was I?

When you ask me what I am, I will often reply that I'm a writer or a filmmaker or a student or Albino Black Irish. I make it a point not to introduce myself as a Christian, though. In fact, most of my friends go years before they find out I go to church. But why all the subterfuge?

The moniker "Christian" once meant rebel. It identified you as a a committed follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Today, "Christian" means collaborator, bigot, or ignorant. So, what changed? Did Jesus' message change? Or did we change?

The church is broken. Centuries of brutality and bureaucracy has transformed a few pockets of zealous free-thinkers into a monstrous organization that, in many ways, ignores its founding principles. The public by and large sees Christians as backward, intolerant hypocrites and the reputation is well-earned. When I tell someone I am a Christian, I risk losing my credibility and their respect. That is a tragedy.

Today, there is no blood, but people in pews have fallen into a safe routine where they are called upon to do nothing more than sit, stand, sing, and put money in the offering plate. There has got to be more to it than that.

I shouldn't have to be ashamed because I believe. I dream of a new Christianity that gets back to the root of what it all means. Loving our neighbor (all of our neighbors). Caring for the sick and the needy.

There are needy people among us. Not just on the streets, but in the sanctuaries. There are people in need of a new, more spiritually-fulfilling Christianity — a Christianity that is not afraid to get its hands dirty to do what is right; a Christianity that doesn't fear questions or dissenting viewpoints. The church of the future should show the world that it practices what it preaches.

I am not a Christian. I am a Christian-in-progress — a flawed human being who wants to follow Jesus' example, who wants to be a good man, but struggles to get there. The church, while broken in many ways, is also a work-in-progress, but there is hope. We may have strayed, but our shepherd will guide us to greener pastures. We are saved by grace, even from ourselves.