“Test everything; hold fast what is good.”
– 1 Thessalonians 5:21

When I first started to realize that I was attracted to guys, a tiny crack appeared in my faith: how could a loving God knit me together in my mother’s womb then give me these desires for love, intimacy, and family with no righteous outlet to express them?

I’d been told that “homosexuality” was sinful, but I was never quite sure why. I needed to be sure, so I turned to the Bible. That was terrifying. Who was I to question what my church leaders acted like was common knowledge? And then I stumbled upon 1 Thessalonians 5:21 and I realized that questioning my beliefs wasn’t heresy, it was Biblical!

It took me YEARS to sort out that being LGBTQ was not only “ok” but an important part of the diversity of God’s creation. (If you want a peek at what I learned during the process, check this out)

Now that I know it’s ok to be queer — despite what some religious leaders say — I asked myself: what else were they wrong about?

Figuring out I was queer was an invitation to question my faith and to take a fresh look at “what the Bible” says about so many things.

Thank God I’m queer, because I have discovered in the Bible — and the community, experience, expertise, and traditions of Christians across millennia — a faith that is liberating and life-giving… and so much more alive than the evangelical faith of my childhood.

Conservatives talk a lot about being “Bible-believing” or having a “Bible-based” faith.

Too often that’s code for “My interpretation of Christianity is right and everyone who doesn’t measure up is sinful and going to hell.”

While I think it’s entirely possible to be an upstanding, moral person without ever turning to the Bible (or even believing in God!), I’m not ready to let go of this sacred text.

When I look at the Bible, here’s what I see.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me.
He has sent me to preach good news to the poor,
to proclaim release to the prisoners
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to liberate the oppressed,
and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
– Luke 4:18-19

Jesus begins his public ministry by quoting from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 61:1-2, to be specific).

In doing so, he roots his ministry in his Jewish faith and, more specifically, in the Hebrew prophets.

If you’ve asked “What did Jesus come to do?” or “Why did God send Jesus?” … well Jesus answers that question himself in Luke:

• to bring good news to poor people
• to set prisoners free
• to give sight to the blind
• to liberate the oppressed
•  and to usher in God’s abundance

But Jesus doesn’t want to go at it alone. He begins calling disciples to join him in his ministry. Jesus isn’t looking for converts, though.

“Come, follow me,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to fish for people.” (Matthew 4:19)

He’s looking for doers to join him in the work of his ministry. And what is that ministry?

Throughout the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, we get a look at God’s priorities. When I look at the ministry of Jesus, I don’t see a departure from the Hebrew scriptures, I see a continuation of them.

In the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, there are 2,350 verses about money, 300 about social justice and the poor, and even 24 about immigration.

But it’s not really about plucking verses out of context or tallying up the number of verses about this subject vs that subject. To take the Bible seriously and faithfully, you need to know what to do with it. What are the central themes and what are the exceptions? What are commandments and what might be examples of humans messing up, despite their best intentions? What taps into the divine and what is just a reflection of a time-bound, cultural norm?

In Deuteronomy,

I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now choose life.

In Amos,

I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

In Luke, when asked what one must do to gain eternal life, Jesus shared a story that ended with the Samaritan taking care of the injured man and paying for his healthcare … “Go and do likewise” was Jesus’s answer.

In John,

I came so that they could have life—indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest.

In Acts,

All the believers were united and shared everything. …There were no needy persons among them

There’s a whole lot in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures: letters, commandments, poems, stories, parables, and even some visions.

What are we to make of all of these?

Genesis 1 ends with, “God saw everything he had made: it was supremely good” and Revelation ends with “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.” When you look at Scripture — from Genesis to Revelation — what you see is that God calls us to be faithful by loving ourselves and taking care of each other.

Jesus seems to agree. In Matthew 22, he says,

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.

If you aren’t drawing yourself and others closer to God, if you aren’t filled with love for God, for yourself, and for others, you’re not following Jesus’s commands.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 7 that “by their fruits you will recognize” whether a religious teaching is true or not.

The fruits of anti-LGBTQ theology reveal its falseness: depression, despair, suicide, fractured families, loss of faith, bullying, harassment. The fruits of affirming theology testify to its rightness: a return to faith, a healing of relationships, and a vibrance and resurgence in church life.

But it’s not just about being “LGBTQ affirming” or not.

Does your theology put you at odds with your mind, soul, heart, or body? Does your theology sow division in your family, community, nation, or world? Does your theology excuse or encourage violence? Does your theology exacerbate your mental health problems?

Or does it lead you to life and joy? Does it comfort you? Does it give you hope? Does it lead you to treat others well?

Judge your theology by its fruits.

How to figure out an integrated, Bible-based faith that is life-giving

It took me studying religion in college, being trained by religious and civil rights leaders, engaging in full-time activism across the country for months, reading and studying countless books by pastors, scholars, theologians, and activists; and studying under mentors. It took Fr. Shay going to seminary, continuing his education for a decade, working in churches for equally long, and pursuing independent study.

But it shouldn’t require that much of an investment just to read the Bible well and put it into practice. That’s why we are distilling all of our expertise and experience down into self-study course on how to read the Bible: Journey into the Bible. You can learn more and register here.

Photo by tarnpulli

Growing up, being a Christian was simple.

You believed…

• that you were a sinner,
• that because of your sin you were separated from God,
• but that God sent Jesus to die on the cross for your sins.

So if you believed that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and you prayed a prayer accepting his death for your sins, then you were saved and would go to Heaven when you died.

That was it. Being a Christian was simple. Kind of.

Because while, yes, if you prayed the prayer you were granted entrance into Heaven, it was also kind of assumed that you would also do a bunch of stuff. Not that you had to to become a Christian but that if you truly were a Christian you just would. Stuff like reading the Bible every day and going to church and telling other people about Jesus.

But there was other stuff, too.

You wouldn’t smoke or drink or do drugs. You would be respectful and kind and obey your parents and your pastor. You wouldn’t use the Lord’s name in vain or swear. You wouldn’t have sex outside of heterosexual monogamous marriage. You definitely wouldn’t be queer. Or transgender.

And if you got really into it there was even more stuff.

You would live up to the gender roles based on the sex you were assigned at birth. You would believe the right things in the right way without straying. You would attend the right kind of church. You would find the right kind of heterosexual partner. You would have children.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t so simple.

At least not in the tradition that I grew up in. But my guess is that every tradition had its own set of rules about what it meant to be a Christian. Some of those rules were spelled out and others you were just supposed to kind of know (like the dress code on Sunday mornings).

As I left that world behind I was overwhelmed at first.

How could I figure out “The Truth” if what I had been taught was incorrect? Did it mean that nothing was true? Or was I in rebellion and ignoring the truth? What if I was wrong? Would I stop being a Christian? Would I go to Hell? I went round and round and round. There was panic and anxiety. I was afraid. I felt sick.

For a while I believed that I had to be exactly the same evangelical Christian that I always was… just gay. I would keep all of my theology exactly the same. I would still follow all of the right rules. I would stay pure until marriage. I would still do all of the same things and nothing would have to change except my belief that God loved me in spite of the fact that I was gay.

But that didn’t really sit well with me. It felt kind of hollow. It felt like I was making God out to be kind of small. And honestly, a bit of a bully, ready to strike me dead if I so much as stepped a toe out of line. So I was back to the fear. The sickness.

But then I realized something: this time of growth, uncertainty and even fear was a gift.

It was a gift to be able to go back to the basics of my faith and figure out what I really believed. It was a gift to be able to ask myself what my experience of God was; who had God shown Godself to be in my life? In the world? What could I see as the narrative arc of Scripture? What were the themes in Scripture that were repeated over and over and over again from Genesis to Revelation? How did other scholars understand the Bible? Jesus? Salvation? The work of God in the world?

Turns out, there are a lot of ways to be a Christian.

There are a lot of ways to understand Scripture.

There are a lot of ways to do church.

There are a lot of ways to be faithful.

The joy of being queer and/or trans is that nothing is handed to us. [TWEET IT!]

None of the “rules” that guide the world are a given for us. Instead we need to search and explore. We need to find our own language to describe our lives and our loves. We need to create structures that allow us to breathe easily. We need to envision new ways of being family. Actually, we don’t need to, we get to. This is our privilege. This is our gift. And it’s a gift that, when we share it, broadens the views and life experiences of the rest of the world.

And it is our gift when it comes to faith, too. We don’t have to take anything for granted. We don’t have to simply toe the line, recite the creeds, sign on the dotted line. Instead we get to create and ask and explore.

We get to ask the tough questions:

• What does the death of Jesus really mean?
• What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?
• What are the most important things the Bible is trying to teach us?
• Where do we find and see the heart of God?
• What does God want the world to look like and how can we be a part of that mission?

We get to leave behind simple prayers and to-do lists that show we can measure up and instead rest in the love of a God who is wildly creative and has created us wildly diverse.

We get to ask big questions and not be satisfied with easy answers. We get to wrestle and fight and rest and trust. We get to tear it all down and build something new in its place. We get to be involved in the continual work of growing and evolving and deepening our faith.

Which is sometimes harder because there aren’t always easy answers like prayer this prayer and go to Heaven to forever. There is no “fire insurance” here. Just a daily walking and stumbling path toward God.

But on the other hand, sometimes we can hold on to simple answers: God is love, God loves us, God wants us to love others.

Maybe it is simple after all.

We’re having a webinar to dive even deeper into the fundamentals of Christianity — and the fundamentals of being an LGBTQ Christian. Join us Thursday September 21 at 8pm eastern. Click here to register for free.

Photo by Thomas Hawk