Bear Witness

“Open my mouth, and let me bear
gladly the warm truth ev’rywhere;
Open my heart, and let me prepare
love with Thy children thus to share.
Silently now I wait for Thee,
ready, my God, Thy will to see;
open my mouth, illumine me,
Spirit divine!”

— Clara Scott (1895)
“Open My Eyes that I May See”

What is it that we need to say today?

The loudest Christians, the ones interviewed, the ones that are commentators on roundtables and talk shows and discussions are conservative evangelicals. They are considered the “other side” of the argument when it comes to the value and worth of the lives of trans and queer people. I don’t like the premise. We should not be up for debate on whether we should have marriages, teach your kids, serve in the military, go to a public bathroom, or in some conversations, whether we deserve to live.

On the bright side, there are thousands of churches and many denominations of religion and faith that accept and affirm LGBTQ people as worthy of love and equal status and the right to choose their expression. I have been privileged to attend several churches like that in my life, but I know of many many more. The problem is that we just don’t hear those churches very often on the screens we are watching. Reverend Budde of the Episcopal Church made such a strong statement for the worth and care of every individual on the Inauguration of DT. She had a platform and she used it.

We don’t always get those platforms. Perhaps we are not naturally loud people. But we are going to have to speak up louder because a) people seem to think that Christianity and being LGBTQ are incompatible (they are not–and there are great books and websites which will explain the details to you if you are fuzzy on them or unsure), b) Queer people have been so hurt by evangelical churches that they can’t see the churches that will celebrate their true selves. There are whole denominations of Episcopalian Churches, Presbyterian Churches, United Church of Canada churches, United Methodist Churches, American Baptist Churches, just to name a few, that have fought for queer and trans inclusion so hard as to have endured a split in their denomination to do it.

I heard a sermon Sunday about one such divisive vote in the United Methodist Church.

A pastor who was there at the meeting, trembling as she held the cup of salvation in her hand for communion, told us this story. A ceremony, a rite, that symbolizes our togetherness and our unity, shaky and trembling in the face of dangerous division and anger from both sides. This pastor helped me understand a bit more about the empathy for the side we are not on–and why their anger is fear for a loss of what they know to be true, an erosion of tradition, and to them, a giving in to the “worldly sin” around them. They do not want to give ground. They are certain it will lead to loss. I hear that. But they are not counting the losses already stacked up— those who have been lost through v10lence already. We too are angry at the senseless division over the fate of, the happiness and security of, a small percentage of people that still matter. Why can’t people grow and learn?

We know statistically that people accept queer and trans people the more they encounter them, but we can’t bus these people everywhere to meet folks, so the rest of us will need to be speaking up at our workplaces, at our churches, at our dinners, and risking the angry confrontations, that could lead to loss of friends, reprimands or, in some cases where evangelical people are our bosses, the loss of jobs. These losses are not without recourse. We can sue, loudly, being illegally fired from workplaces.

Speaking up is not always anger–it can be joy and pride and loud acceptance. It can be shirts that you wear, memes that you post, stickers on your computer. But yes, people will react with fear and you need to be ready to talk to them about the dignity of the people you support and your own fear of their erasure, through law or through v10-lence, or through the slow hiding that people have done throughout time so they could survive.

Will those church denominations above call out other evangelical churches, loudly, so that queer and trans people know you are fighting FOR them, not just being a place of refuge? Is that asking too much? I feel we have to be louder and we have to take over the narrative that is full of l1es and false information. Ultimately it is religious fervor that is driving the anti-lgbtq legislation in the US. And that fervor is learned in churches. But we can also use churches to teach better doctrine and fuel our own pushback. Why not be loud and demand justice? We are far beyond the division of church and state— the state is the church now. The evangelical church is in power running the country.

What are we going to say about that?

How are we going to speak up against that?

How are we going to speak out for those who need to be protected from those who don’t understand the Truth of LGBTQ folks?

“Open my mouth and let me bear gladly the warm truth everywhere.”

“Open My Mouth and Let Me Bear,” Jerome Stueart (11 x 15) watercolor, mixed media on paper. Part of the Bears of the Baptist Hymnal series exploring my coming out in my church 16 years ago and the “bears” in the music that gave me strength. May you have strength today too. Prints available here.