GLOATING IN THEIR SUFFERING

I watched with deep, gut-wrenching sadness, the life stealing decision made by the representatives to the 2019 General Conference of the United Methodist Church. My heart is hurting, not for myself, but for so many of my LGBTQ+ siblings and friends who are now caught up in the all too familiar, churchy net of hatred, bigotry, marginalization and exclusion.

My former religious tribe, the Church of the Nazarene, has always been in this place of exclusion, hatred bigotry and marginalization of LGBTQ+ people. But the UMC had billed itself as a safe place for these precious people. The church’s own tag line was (and technically still is until they can change the logo on the website) “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors”. Well, that slogan obviously isn’t true any longer, at least not from a denominational standpoint. Thankfully there are many individual local congregations that are pushing back against the denomination. We don’t know how that will ultimately turn out, but I’m thankful for these expressions of Christ’s love in the midst of the hate. That being said, there is nothing safe or open about a denomination that intentionally excludes LGBTQ+ Christians from vital and full participation in the life of the church of Jesus Christ.

The language which the UMC has re-intensified in their “book of discipline” actually refers to the “lifestyle” of LGBTQ+ congregants and ministers as being incompatible with Christian teaching. So not only are LGBTQ+ persons officially re-excluded and re-ostracized, but there is now even a renewed emphasis on not allowing UMC clergy to officiate the wedding of LGBTQ+ persons. This religious debacle truly breaks my heart as I think of how completely devastating it must be for an LGBTQ+ person to finally have connected with a faith community that seemingly had accepted them as they were, but now to find that they do not. This decision by the UMC General Conference is of course terrible, disgusting and absolutely the opposite of who Christ dramatically showed us His church is supposed to be.

As word of the #UMCGC2019 decision quickly flashed across the globe, a disturbing thing immediately began to rear its ugly head. There was a gleeful and ecstatic gloating in the face of the newly enhanced suffering of those LGBTQ+ people who had just been kicked to the curb right outside the UMC. My social media news feeds quickly began to fill with all kinds of exuberant statements by religious leaders from all sorts of religious tribes including, to my great sadness, from my former Nazarene tribe. They came from leaders who saw this as an opportunity to somehow confirm their own exclusionary positions against LGBTQ+ people. This gloating was couched in a myriad of pious religious clichés and sadly, praising God for the “victory”.

It was and is sickening. Granted, most of these religious leaders were only thinking that God’s Word and God’s Kingdom had been defended, as if God is somehow so impotent that God needs some human religious body to defend anything. These leaders never thought about the people this decision would be hurting, because most of them don’t actually know any of “those” people. Oh, they may know that someone who goes to their favorite coffee shop is gay. They may have even been so bold as to actually speak to them while waiting on their latte. But they certainly can’t have anyone close to them who is gay, and they definitely couldn’t have anyone openly gay and participating in their religious community. If they did have anyone in their life who was queer that they truly cared for, they couldn’t make statements like these and still have that person close to them.

One particular religious authority figure who is in the position of being a leader of leaders in the Church of the Nazarene I have observed as being particularly toxic in his social media rhetoric. (I’ll call him LOL - “Leader of Leaders” - yes, LOL is purposeful.) Following the #UMCGC2019 decision, LOL made a particularly celebratory post on social media. His comments when called out for celebrating, were rife with ill-informed and hateful rhetoric against LGBTQ+ people and opposed the church fully loving, embracing and accepting LGBTQ+ Christian people as they are.

He pushed further, by writing a blog post warning that Nazarenes ought not to go down the same path as the Methodists. His feeling is that the UMC should never have been in this situation in the first place. He said that it became an issue because the ordination process in the UMC isn’t hard enough or thorough enough. The UMC leadership has let the enemy into the camp.

While I am no longer a pastor in the Nazarene church, I do still care deeply about my former tribe. A leader of leaders ought to be more careful in throwing around phrases like “clearly the Bible says”, because subjects like full LGBTQ+ inclusion are not “clearly” understood by the vast majority of theologians, even theologians in his own tradition as well as in the broader Christian church. The only people who use phrases like “clearly the Bible says“ are people who are unwilling to even listen to anyone else’s thoughtful perspective on scripture, unless it lines up with their own limited and narrow fundamentalist perspective.

In one exchange with someone just a few days ago, LOL wrote these disturbing words, “I understand that you believe one can be in a monogamous same-sex relationship and be ok with God. Thus, you use the word ‘inclusive’ different than most on this thread. As respectfully and as plainly as I can say, scripture clearly teaches throughout that anyone ‘practicing’ homosexual intercourse cannot be in a right relationship with God. That doesn’t mean the church should not love them as they love anyone else who is choosing to reject God’s invitation to new life in Christ.”

Wow, that’s incredibly biblically arrogant. Alright LOL, the bible, the whole of scripture has absolutely nothing at all to say about what we speak of in our post-modern 21st century world view when we speak about someone having an orientation toward same-gender intimate relationships. The concept of a DNA level sexual orientation would most certainly be a completely foreign idea to any of the biblical writers, Old or New Testament.

There are only 6 passages throughout all of scripture that even remotely speak to same-gender sexual relations. In all 6 of the relevant passages, the only concept that any of the biblical writers would have had was one where one person is dominating a submissive, humiliating a defeated foe, or satisfying an excessive lustful sexual drive or passion by using/abusing a same gender person (typically a young boy) for self gratification, usually in a pagan temple setting. The other relevant concept that the biblical writers would have also had was that each person being admonished to not engage in these kinds of practices, would have been seen as a person who was fully capable of doing these acts to a same gender person and then going home to their traditional opposite sex spouse/partner.

So, LOL, I submit to you that, no, scripture does not “clearly” teach what you espouse at all. I also submit to you that there are no ancient writings, secular or sacred, from the time of the biblical writers that speak to sexual orientation at all. So to say that a loving, monogamous, covenantal, same-gender relationship was being spoken against throughout the whole of scripture is presumptuous at best and more likely a fundamentalist cult-like manipulation of scripture.

I recently messaged you in a thread on social media about your feelings toward other highly respected denominations such as the Anglican Church of Canada, Episcopal Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian Church USA, Friends General Conference, Mennonite Church USA, Moravian Church etc., all of which hold a very different view on this subject from that of the Nazarene church. I asked your thoughts about a church or church leader who holds the theological position that someone can be a true Christ following “Christian" and be in a committed, loving, monogamous, covenantal, same gender relationship and also be able to marry within the authority of the church. Your response was quite telling. You wrote back “Murphy, I would go so far as to say any denomination or person that interprets scriptural teachings on marriage as anything other than ‘one man, and one woman’ are teaching heresy.” This is one of the more awful things you’ve said. You are saying that in your opinion, other churches, denominations or church leaders, who your denomination would say are part of the body of Christ, are teaching heresy. So in your opinion, a church, a denomination or a church leader who teach this different interpretation of scripture would, by definition not be part of the body of Christ, but rather they are working as an enemy of the body of Christ.

Seriously, one man and one woman? There are more than 40 different important Old Testament biblical figures who the whole of scripture hold up as examples to us, who all had more than one wife. These passages, which you state are just as important as the New Testament passages and may be even more important than the actual words and example of Jesus himself, indicate that polygamy was not only ok, it was expected. The wisest man in all of history, Solomon, had over 500 wives. The practice of polygamy became less common in New Testament times, but even then the passages that speak of church leaders being “the husband of one wife” are almost exclusively focused on the concept of church leaders avoiding the bad example of marital unfaithfulness. The emphasis in those New Testament passages really is on the idea of setting a good example, for those under your care, of being faithful to your spouse rather than on the concept of the one man / one woman idea at all.

Another disappointing fundamentalist statement you made in your blog post is that anyone going through the process toward ordination who says something like “I’m still working through this issue …” is “using subtle deceit in the credentialing process”. How truly horrible and arrogant! I absolutely believe that there should always be issues that we as Christ followers are wrestling with and working through. Any leader who makes a statement like yours is so stubbornly and arrogantly sure of his/her own interpretation of scripture that even Jesus himself couldn’t convince you differently. You actually address this point in another place in your post when you say “Proof of the Enemy’s strategy is that it’s becoming more common for those who have adopted a same-sex view of marriage to also claim to be “red-letter” Christians. As if Jesus’ words are all that matter, never mind the fact that Jesus taught the authority of all Scripture.” My goodness. Did your fingers burn as you typed that? Really? Seriously? Jesus certainly did teach the worth and importance of the Old Testament, and He said himself that He fulfilled all of the message of the Old Testament scripture, but He prefaced His word of teaching many of the concepts from the Old Testament by saying things like “you have heard it said that ____, but I say to you that ____ “. I’m pretty sure that the Jesus we read about in the gospels would never be on board with the kind of narrow, exclusionary, twisted version of His words and of His Kingdom that you’re trying to sell.

I want to apologize to my precious LGBTQ+ siblings and to all the allies/accomplices for whom the words, actions and final conclusion of the #UMCGC2019 have been so hurtful. I also want to apologize for the words of so many leaders in other churches who are taking the opportunity to gloat in your suffering. They haven't once thought of you or how their words are so wounding.

Please don’t give up on God. God is actually for you! Sadly, in many cases, the church and its leaders and representatives aren’t for you. This moment of their gloating in the face your suffering clearly illustrates this truth, but please remember that God is actually always for you, and so am I.

I want to conclude this post with the lyrics to one of my very favorite songs written by some friends of mine whose band name is “The Outer Banks”. The song is called “God Is”. On Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/track/6mnQJ06HY7iVSBiK88dcQk Its message is incredibly timely and important right now.

“God is”

by Matt Hodges & Wendy Child (The Outer Banks)

“God was never angry. God was not against me. God was never far away. God’s not disappointed. God’s not keeping score and God’s not judging my mistakes. God is light. God is love. Do not fear for God’s with us. God is good. God is grace. God will never hide Her face. God is!

I see so clearly now, God is in the mystery, God is always with me. I was lost, now I’m found, Everything I once thought, Blinded by the love that God is … God is … God is

God was never angry, God was not against me, God was never far away.

LGBTQ+ friends, I’m here for you! If you would like to connect with me directly to confidentially talk, cry, vent, scream, rant or whatever, you can do so in several different ways. You can connect with me through the contact tab of this blog site or connect with me by email at: Murphy@MurphyGill.com message me through Facebook at: www.facebook.com/murphy.gill I’m also on Twitter ( @Nvstalot ) and Instagram.

Peace,

Murphy