Links

In this month's edition (and I do seem to only be posting monthly so far this year), the theme is balance.

Maintaining balance and speaking in nuanced terms is a difficult thing to do in the highly polarized atmosphere that we currently find ourselves in.  Even at our best it can be challenging to avoid unconsciously slipping into a more adversarial tone.  At least, I've found that to be the case for myself, and I've seen it happen to others as well.

Link 1: Justin Lee is an individual who has a good track record of disagreeing graciously and maintaining a balanced perspective.  As such, it gives his words more weight when he writes an exhortation to conservative Christians like this one.  Only God knows how many will actually listen, but given Justin's reputation as a bridge builder he's in a better position than most to get through to those who genuinely do care.

Link 2: I also appreciate Rob Tisinai, who very ably tears apart anti-gay myths while still maintaining a nuanced perspective, as well as a strong respect for free speech and engaging with opposing viewpoints.

Link 3: Brian McLaren is another gracious voice who often takes a lot of heat for swimming against the tide of evangelical opinion.  In this piece he answers one of his critics.

Link 4: Being a fan of astronomy and science in general, I watched the premiere of the new Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson last weekend.  The first episode was a bit basic, but the show has potential as a teaching tool for young learners and for anyone else seeking to broaden their understanding of the universe we live in.

That said, the first episode also provided an example of how to fail at maintaining balance.  As Tobias Haller points out, Tyson's use of Giordano Bruno as an example of the dangers of placing dogma ahead of evidence was a bit misguided.  Bruno, as Tyson acknowledges, was not a scientist, and his belief that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe (while ultimately proven correct) was neither the product of scientific reasoning nor the primary reason he was executed for heresy.  And while the show half-heartedly acknowledged those facts, its emphasis on Bruno's martyrdom was nonetheless misleading.

Community

In all the busyness of the past month I've become somewhat neglectful where my blog is concerned. Part of that busyness came from attending the Gay Christian Network's annual conference in Denver two weeks ago. This was my sixth GCN conference, so it's an event that's become a significant part of my journey.

Back when I attended my first GCN conference in Orlando, I was still in the process of pulling away from the last ex-gay ministry I was a part of. I already knew a few GCNers from local gatherings and several trips I'd made the previous summer, and they were the first gay people I'd (knowingly) interacted with outside of ex-gay programs. That first conference (and the next) helped me quite a bit as I was learning how to be comfortable in my own skin, and introduced me to a lot of amazing people that, looking back, I couldn't imagine not being a part of my life.

Since then the conferences have, for me, centered around seeing those friends again and making new ones. Not that the programming isn't worthwhile (the conference has had some great speakers over the years, including Jay Bakker, Tony Campolo and Philip Yancey), but it's the relationships that keep me coming back.

Were I just now attending my first conference it's hard to say how the experience would be; 430 people are a lot more daunting to an introvert than 90. Even knowing as many GCNers as I do now, I can only spend so much time in that large a crowd without needing to retreat for a while. All the same, I wouldn't miss it for the world.

GCN certainly isn't for everyone - for many it's too conservative or too liberal, too supportive of either Side A or Side B, too religious or too inclusive. But regardless of where we best fit in, we all have one thing in common: a need for community.

A lot of people who have become disillusioned with the church have retained a belief in God while discarding all institutional forms of religion. I understand the sentiment and can't argue with the fact that the church tends to be a very dysfunctional place. But I don't see how one can hope to cultivate a truly healthy spiritual life without the assistance and encouragement of others who are headed in the same direction.

Hopefully the day will come when the church as a whole has grown to the point that havens like GCN are no longer needed. That day seems to be a long way off, but there are more encouraging signs of change every year. The Body of Christ needs all of its members - perhaps especially the more "unseemly" ones. And wholeness is a dream worth pursuing.

Reflections

I've been meaning to post some thoughts on the Gay Christian Network's 2011 conference, but in the midst of a hectic month I've hardly found any time to sit down and blog. So in the meantime, here are posts from three other people who attended...

Wendy Gritter (who I'm pleased to be able to consider a personal friend)
Kathy Baldock (who I'm glad is on our side - she's a force to be reckoned with)
Heidi Miller (who I didn't get to meet, unfortunately)

Links

1. Donald Miller offers up some interesting thoughts on morality and how we formulate it. Quote to ponder:

Many people are moral for religious reasons, stating their morality comes from the Bible or a sacred text (which, while these books can influence morality, are not written with the intention of defining a moral code. If they are, they are terribly written and the authors couldn’t land their point.)

While I would word that slightly differently, the point to take away is that when treated as a code of laws the Bible largely fails us; there are too many situations it doesn't adequately address, and too many of the situations it does cover don't directly apply to us today. As the story of God's past interactions with humanity, however, the Bible is a storehouse of wisdom that can shape our moral development as we get better acquainted with it.

2. Good interview with Justin Lee and Nate Krogh of the Gay Christian Network over at the Burnside Writers Collective.

3. Another anecdote illustrating the fact that Stage Three thinking is hardly limited to the religious right - or even to the religious realm.

4. Finally, in the "pot, meet kettle" category, Conservapedia sets out to rewrite the Bible in its own image.

Unity

I've been putting off organizing my thoughts on the GCN conference for a while now, but it's time to bite the bullet and get down to it. Part of what follows I already posted on GCN, but I wanted to expand a bit on some of the thoughts that I shared there.

I'll admit I came to the conference with relatively low expectations. I expected to have a good time (and I did), but spiritually I didn't expect to receive any great epiphanies. The daily grind has a way of numbing the soul, and it doesn't help that my job keeps me firmly ensconced in the evangelical subculture that I no longer identify with. I wasn't close to losing my faith in God, but I was cultivating a cynicism toward all things Christian that left my spiritual life somewhat lacking.

And there weren't any moments when the clouds parted, or anything like that. But there were some very powerful moments during worship, and there was no way to remain unmoved hearing story after story of all the ways God is at work in so many people's lives. I wish there was a way that more people could have heard the sharing time on Saturday night. God is active and moving at GCN in ways that can't possibly be explained away as the devil's trickery or some sort of "spiritual residue," as conservative theologians like to dismiss anything pertaining to gay Christians.

I see in GCN what the church could become. At this one small conference we had people representing an improbably wide array of denominations, ethnicities, ages, economic backgrounds and theological perspectives, all united around their faith in Jesus Christ. Not everyone who attended was gay, and not everyone who attended believes that same-sex relationships are blessed by God. But the community that was experienced there was so compelling that nobody left unchanged - even the hotel staff was drawn to what they saw during our stay, which (sadly) is far from a given where Christian conferences are concerned.

It may be the idealist within me speaking, but I believe that what is happening at GCN represents a possible future for the church as a whole. Such unity may seem impossible now short of one side eradicating the other, but if all things truly are possible with God, then perhaps one day we will learn how to regard those who disagree with us as brothers and sisters.

Away For a Bit

Tomorrow morning I'm off to DC for the 2008 GCN Conference. For those of you who will also be there, see you soon. For everyone else, here are some items of interest to peruse while the rest of us are away:

-Eric from Two World Collision elaborates on Side X, the term he coined to describe the ex-gay perspective, and the problems he sees with that viewpoint.

-A brief history lesson from Box Turtle Bulletin.

-A very cool board game that will be hitting the U.S. sometime this spring: Agricola.

Recommended

Some recent audio and video links of note:

1. A great interview with Chad Allen on GCN Radio, discussing his work on End of the Spear and the upcoming movie Save Me. God seems to be up to something big...

(to link directly to the audio program, click here.)

2. Peterson Toscano's appearance on Montel Williams. They didn't give him nearly enough time to share his story, but that seems to be fairly standard for these kinds of shows.

3. On a lighter note, George Takei offers the best response ever to NBA Star Tim Hardaway's homophobic rant.

4. And finally, on a completely unrelated note, a very cool advertisement that was reportedly produced without the use of computer graphics...

Renewal

You've been having trouble staying asleep
You've been waking up at 4:12
You roll the voices over in your head
Then you try to put them neatly on the shelf

You watch the sun rise
You saw the darkness had no choice before the dawn
With your own eyes
And then you broke out laughing from a yawn

You said, "I'm so sorry I've been so down.
I started doubting things could ever turn around.
And I began to believe that all we are is material.
It's nonsensical."

So you walk outside and everything's new
You're looking at the world with new eyes
As if you'd never seen a sky before that's blue
As if you've never seen the sky in your whole life

And then the phone rings
As it turns out you're already late
And now you're wondering
Was peace just a temporary state?

You're waiting tables and parking cars
You've been selling cell phones at the shopping mall
And you begin to believe that all you are is material
It's nonsensical

I'm so sorry I've been so down
I started doubting things could ever turn around
But I still can't believe that all we are
And that all of our dreams are nothing more than material
Souls aren't built of stone,
Sticks and bones

-Switchfoot, 4:12

Last weekend I attended the third annual GayChristian.net conference in Seattle. GCN (and the people I've met through it) has been one of my lifelines throughout the current leg of my journey, so I was very much looking forward to renewing old friendships and building new ones.

And the conference lived up to my expectations. I spent more time in meaningful face-to-face interaction with more people in four days than I normally do in a given month. At the same time, though, it was a bit overwhelming being around that many people, and by halfway through the second day I found that my 'batteries' were already depleted (yet one more disadvantage to being a strong introvert). As a result there were many people I never got around to meeting, as sticking largely to those I already knew became a matter of survival.

Setting aside the dilemma of being constantly exhausted yet wanting it to never end, the conference was exactly what I needed. Although my core faith in the God who has brought me through so many difficult times over the years has remained intact, I've become increasingly cynical about the people who call themselves his followers, and about the value in even bothering with playing church when those who seem to be genuinely striving to follow the example of Christ seem to be the exceptions that prove the rule.

Not that there were any 'parting of the clouds' moments, or that my skepticism was all washed away, but just spending time among so many genuine and, quite frankly, beautiful people (which is not a reference to physical appearance) was enough to restore just a little bit of feeling to parts of me that I'd nearly forgotten about.

From the numerous stories of God's work in other attendees' lives that demonstrated over and over again that 'gay Christian' is not an oxymoron, to the love and acceptance shown to those who feel like outcasts even among other outcasts, to the friendship and unity modeled continually by individuals who disagree on just about everything, to the heterosexual woman who, having recently heard about GCN, came to the conference at the last minute to show her support for those she believes the church has treated unjustly, I was drawn back to Sam Gamgee's conclusion in the movie version of The Two Towers:

That there is some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.

In the lower moments of my post-mountaintop funk, the entire experience has reminded me just what a lousy Christian I am even by my own standards, and caused me to question what business I think I have considering myself a member of this group, but ultimately I know that to listen to those old insecurities is to miss the point. It's not about me, and God can use even the least of us to accomplish amazing things.

That may be a lesson that much of the church has forgotten, but no matter how dark things seem there's always hope. The body of Christ has been amputating its less seemly members for so long that it's come to interpret the resulting pain and debilitation as validation of its exclusionary policies, but that can change. It must change. The church needs our gifts just as much as we need the church, and with God's help that day of reconciliation may yet come.

Awakening

I keep editing this and editing this, and I still haven't decided whether I'm going to actually post it (though I guess if you're reading this you can guess what I decided). This is far and away the most personal thing I've ever written for public consumption, and it's really kind of pathetic when you come right down to it. The single thing that stands out the most in my mind from the GCN conference wasn't terribly spiritual, or even directly tied to the conference.

During the conference people would quite frequently split off into groups to do various things. On this particular day (as on the other days, I suppose) I was at lunch with several other GCNers. Right at the end of the meal I started talking to this one really cute guy, when suddenly he paused, looked directly at me and said, "You have the most beautiful eyes."

Fortunately I was already sitting down. I've had women - some of them quite attractive - pay me compliments before, but while I appreciated the gesture there was never anything even close to the electrical surge that shot through me at that moment. I managed to blurt out a moderately stunned "thank you," but aside from that my deer-in-headlights reaction was the last impression I gave him as our respective groups parted ways.

I didn't run into him again until late that evening, which gave me plenty of time to convince myself that he was just making a casual observation (he is younger than me, so he can undoubtedly do a lot better) - not that that stopped me from spending the rest of the day slightly out of focus as everything from our first date to our house in the suburbs to our stint on the Amazing Race flashed repeatedly before my eyes.

Such a silly, fleeting thing - and yet in that moment I understood things that had never fully made sense to me before. I understood, to a degree I never had before, why my straight friends could act like such idiots around a pretty girl, and why they'd drop off the face of the earth once they'd found one who liked them back.

I understood what would cause a husband (or wife) to get insanely jealous when somebody else tried to hit on their spouse. And I understood how someone could fall into the trap of promiscuity in a desperate attempt to regain that incredible feeling. Not that I'd even try to equate what I experienced in that moment with love (I know there's a lot more to love than a moment's excitement), but it couldn't be reduced to lust, either.

It also occurred to me, after the conference, that if I can get that worked up over one little comment, how incredibly powerful must God's feelings for us be. Or at least that was my best effort to make something spiritually profound come out of all those hours of preoccupation.

And all of this came at a time when I was feeling kind of numb inside - not apathetic or depressed, really, but it had been a long time since I had felt anything very strongly. In an instant I was reminded that I am still fully human and in possession of emotions both irrational and powerful enough to sweep me away without warning. I still haven't decided how much I actually like that notion.

I told you it was pathetic. Here I am in my late 30s, experiencing something for the first time that most people experience as teenagers. And here I am, broadcasting that fact to the world where anyone can read it.

Anyone got a large rock? I may need something to crawl under if he ever reads this...

Freedom

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend GCN's annual conference in Orlando. It was a great opportunity to meet people from the discussion boards and build on several friendships I'd made over the past year. Although the clouds didn't part and no dove descended from heaven accompanied by a booming voice, the conference did seem to reinforce the direction that I've been moving in over the last year or so.

On Saturday evening as I was reflecting on the day's sessions and asking God what he wanted to teach me through all of it, this verse came to mind:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)

It's one of those verses that sounds great and that we sing songs about, but what does it really mean? I've heard more than one preacher proclaim that Paul is talking about our freedom to not sin. But I still sin all the time, and so does everyone else (whether or not they admit it). Ah, the preachers add, all you need to do to achieve the freedom that Christ gave us is observe these 631 rules that our denomination has determined encapsulate the relevant commands of the New Testament.

Wait a minute - more rules? That's not freedom, that's just the Law with a makeover and a new shade of lipstick. And the context of Galatians 5:1 makes it clear that it's the Law (by any other name) that Christ has freed us from.

Not that our freedom is a license to indulge in sin, but all the same we are no longer bound to worrying about how well we dot our i's and cross our t's. If we truly strive to love God, we can trust him to guide us as we seek to do what is pleasing to him.

As Augustine put it, "Love God and do as you please." Rather than worrying endlessly about whether Paul's passing references to certain exploitative forms of homosexual behavior should be expanded into a condemnation of all same-sex relationships, each person can be evaluated as an individual, based on the good or ill that flows out of their actions. As Jesus said, "by their fruit you will recognize them."

It's not as tidy as we might like (at least when it comes to keeping others in line), but then again, freedom never is.