christian

Gays Will Save the Church: my story in Queer Story Archives

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As a science fiction/fantasy writer, I just want to remind folks that we aren’t all alike, and we don’t live in just one bubble. My blog has always been about the experience of being a science fiction/fantasy writer and not just reflecting the genre/writing parts—but about my whole experience of being a Yukoner, of having a faith, of being gay–AND being a science fiction/fantasy writer. So this is part of it.

The Queer Story Archives came up to Whitehorse–Lulu from OnMyPlanet.ca–in July 2013, recording stories of Yukon Queers, and we recorded this right before I was to leave for Dayton, Ohio. I think it’s turning into a positive story so I’m sharing it. Ultimately I’m suggesting that including gay people can save a rapidly diminishing Church population. To do that, I tell my story. Some of you have heard it–either through the Yukon News, or through DNTO. Both sources were good but heavily edited. This is me telling it in less than ten minutes. It feels better in my own words, complete.

We grow from hard times in our lives and this was a good growth for me. Eventually, I’ve come to retain and re-establish many friendships from the first church. I hope my story still helps others. I’m placing this over on Talking Dog too.

CBC’s DNTO to air my story on Coming Out to My Church for “Lost Causes”

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Definitely Not the Opera, (DNTO) a CBC Radio One program devoted to the art of storytelling in Canada, asked me to tell my story of coming out to my church for their Nov 3 show “Lost Causes”.

I had pitched the idea to them last year for a different show called “Making Enemies” but withdrew the pitch because a) I don’t think I meant to make enemies, nor do I think I have made enemies; and 2) because I didn’t want to restir a pot that has finally calmed down.

But they remembered my pitch.  And they sought me out.  Which is humbling, and cool.  We recorded on Friday morning and they are editing my lengthy story to 3-4 minutes.  I appreciate Andrew Friesen’s belief that my story was important and needed to be told.  I feel like the story is more appropriate under “Lost Causes” because trying to reason with people who don’t want to listen to you, or discuss with you–and believing that you alone have to spark change–well, it can feel like a “Lost Cause”.  But in the end–and the end hasn’t come yet–who knows if the cause is lost?  I think every person who says the church must look at the evidence, must consider the Christian testimonies of LGBT folks in the discussion, is a step towards change.  We need more people who realize how many people have fallen away from the faith, have decided against Christ, have been repelled from the church, and who, sometimes when there is no hope left, taken their own lives, all because the Church has historically refused to consider the scriptures in an accepting light–and this causes their members to refuse to accept their children in an accepting light.  This splits familes.  My God and my Christ are not what I encounter when I come into a Baptist Church anymore.  I daresay they wouldn’t recognize it.  Churches are not all one defined Mass though–as many churches are beginning to change their minds about LGBT people.  Episcopals, Lutherans, Presbyterians, United Church of Canada–all have begun seeing that this is just the next issue the church has to rethink.  As it did slavery, race, and its treatment of Women.  And divorce.  Change comes when people inside churches decide they can’t hold false doctrine anymore.  Christianity and Faith are not the problem.  Interpretation is.

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Writing Faith Workshop begins, Feb 10, 5-8pm, Whitehorse United Church

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  How do you write about your “faith”?  How do you describe the indescribable, the ineffable, the otherworldly? the grief or joy or miracle or peace or disappointment that you have because of your faith?  Everyone can argue about the value or lack of value in “religion”–and it’s an easy connect-the-dots to create your own pictures of what organized religion has done in the world.  It’s harder to write about personal faith or your personal interactions with religion–what keeps you going, what happened to you that you know no one would believe, about the anguish of trying to live in a real, faulty, fragile world, when others ask you to strive for peace, patience, happiness, even joy.

This writing workshop will explore how people write about these very personal experiences, or their thoughts about faith and religion and its very real presence in their lives, or the lives of those around them.  We’ve had students write about their relationships with their parents, their children, their grandchildren, experiences in nature, in confronting others who aren’t on the same page.  We have had students who are believers, non-believers, unsure, people of various faiths.  All faiths are welcome–come with what’s important to you, open to what is important to others. This isn’t a dogma class.  It’s not a class to teach you from the top down.  It’s for you to teach us from the ground up through your experiences, your writing.

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Talking Dog gives Gay Christian Resources: my other project

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via Flickr and the Creative Commons licenseTalking Dog is one of my other blogs, hopefully a good resource for gay Christians.  There are a lot of good gay christian websites out there, and so I decided merely to become a portal so that you could find resources.  Mostly I wanted to provide all the information that anyone might need to investigate the whole issue for themselves.  Debates swirl about and people need to know the truth.  It was websites like the one I created that helped me when I needed information.  I needed resources.  I couldn’t ask anyone out loud about them, and I didn’t know a gay Christian.

Many of you might recognize the Talking Dog in my title–it comes from “Believing in the Dog” which was the short story that I entered into PSAC’s Anti-Homophobia Week’s contest over two years ago.  In the story, I had a man go out into the woods in January at night to kill himself–just sit out under a tree and freeze.  There was a talking dog in there–and as the author, I knew I couldn’t save the man’s life without making the black lab into a talking dog.  That I had to bend reality into fantasy to save the character.  I had wished that there were more talking dogs in the world–or that we would become the talking dogs in someone’s life.  The story won the contest, and Darrell Hookey, always encouraging me forward, helped me (i.e. pulled me off the floor crying) when it came time to print my name beside it in What’s Up Yukon.

It’s my way of giving back to the community what it gave me.  Maybe there’s someone else out there who’s questioning their faith and their sexuality.  Who knows?   They might just need a Talking Dog.

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For more on the blog, I have this page.

The Bishop’s Wife and the Inclusive God

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One of my three favorite Christmas Movies and the last one I’ll blog about this season (I did the other two–It’s A Wonderful Life and The Snowman last year) is The Bishop’s Wife.  Don’t mistake this for the inferior remake entitled The Deacon’s Wife with Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston.  Nope, ask for the original with Cary Grant, David Niven, and Loretta Young.

Grant plays an angel named Dudley who has come down to help out David Niven, the Bishop of the title.  The Bishop is seeking funding for a great cathedral he is building for God.  He’s run into a bit of a roadblock in the name of Mrs. Hamilton, a rich woman who won’t pony up her million unless her late husband is prominent in all the plans–making this more of a memorial than a cathedral.

What I like about this film–even though it is obvious that this film came after It’s a Wonderful Life and borrows a few tricks (and actors) from it–is that Cary Grant plays the angel as a very inclusive, open minded angel.  In fact, he seems to want to show us a God that is less condemning and more loving.

Dudley becomes good friends with an atheist professor–who finally, yes, does darken the church door, but it’s not because Dudley has prompted him.  In fact, Dudley seems to have fun turning the professor’s sherry into an endless bottle of sherry (recalling Christ’s miracle of the water into wine….”and good sherry at that!”).  Dudley also sees a palm reader, and instead of condemning her, he tries a little palm reading on the Bishop’s Wife.  Dudley knows Santa Claus and tells people.  In fact, Dudley seems to embrace all people where they are in belief, without sacrificing his angelic qualities.  And he’s not embarrassed by them.  He certainly doesn’t shun them.

Dudley even plays a bit devilish with the Bishop, by purposely dating the Bishop’s Wife to anger the Bishop into realizing what he’s got.  He basically gives the Bishop a choice–he can either represent the Bishop in these “important” funding meetings, or represent him with his wife.  Since the Bishop refuses to let the angel represent him at the meetings, naturally Dudley takes up with Loretta Young.  And they go out to the restaurants, and skate on the pond, and shop together…and the Bishop’s Wife loves it.  She blossoms.  She does not fall in love with Dudley.  In fact, Dudley almost plays the gay best friend here—almost a non-sexual male counterpart, who is nonetheless, doing all the romantic things that the Bishop should be doing, but isn’t.  The Bishop doesn’t see him as a threat, at first.  Until Dudley makes a pass….

Some great lines:  “No one expects him to be normal!  He’s a bishop,” says the maid.

“The only people who grow old are the ones who were old to begin with,” Dudley to the Bishop’s Wife.

And Dudley’s quote about mankind is really interesting and makes my point about his inclusiveness:  “We all come from our own little planets.  We’re all different.  That’s what makes life interesting.”  He loves the atheist professor, Santa, the palmist, the Bishop, the maid, everyone he meets–equally.  He thinks no more highly of the Bishop for being a bishop than he does the professor or the maid.  He has no judgment, no arrogance, no religiosity.  He is an angel outside of our religion.  And that may speak to a host of borders, boundaries, and restrictions that we put on our version of God.  And yet, Dudley’s fully believable as an angel of the God I know of.

It’s just unusual to see on screen–a lovable Christian man without all the harumph, all the damnation, all the trying-to-be-good.  He just is.  And that’s a bigger point than what David Niven learns.

If you get a chance, rent and watch The Bishop’s Wife.  It’s an under-appreciated Christmas Classic.

The Resonance of Flashforward for People of Faith

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graph on the sidewalkThe ABC series, Flashforward, arguably one of the best written series in a long time, and the best using a science fiction concept, wrestles with a very old idea:  what if you knew the future?  The show expands it to ask: what if everyone knew the future? And by Episode 3:  What if everyone THOUGHT they knew the future?  This is not a new concept when you are dealing with people of faith.  Christians, specifically, have a vision of the future they hold on to.  Actually, they have two.

The first one is a concept of Heaven/Hell–that after they die, they will forever be installed in one of two polar extremes: a place of happiness vs. a place of sorrow–both eternal (also known as With God and Without God).  After that moment, there will only be a seamless future–one that never changes.  

This vision of the future does guide their/our actions to certain degree.  Some believe, still, that you have to hedge your bets.  Do a lot of good things to move your path towards Heaven, or ask forgiveness–quickly–and move yourself away from Hell.  This can also guide people’s actions towards you as they try to drag you to one path or the other–most often to Heaven by use of guilt, judgment or restriction.  Ah well, the path to Heaven, I guess is paved with good intentions too.

But really it’s the other vision of the future that is more worrisome for people of faith.  

Revelation was a book written based on John’s Flashforward.  In that vision he saw lots of stuff–lots of destruction, lots of wrath…it gets ugly.  And believers think they may have an escape route–the Rapture.  That miraculously they get to escape the major drama of the Earth’s end because they believed.  This is not unsubstantiated by the Bible, but it is questionable when it will happen. Trust me, I don’t want to argue pre-post-or mid-millenial tribulation/rapture.  And please–don’t discuss it in the comments!  

What I’d rather discuss is the idea that Christians may be creating the Tribulation themselves–or creating parts of it.

In Flashforward we are slowly beginning to believe that the main character, Agent Benford, is actually creating the bulletin-board he saw in his vision not because it has answers but because it was there.  In some ways, he may be creating his future, not actually solving the mystery of why everyone blacked out for two minutes.  We’ve already seen, in Episode 3, a man get hired to the position of airport security, not based on good qualifications, but because he saw himself in that future, and so did someone else.   

Many times I’ve watched Christians start to cringe if current events start to resemble events predicted in the Bible: the Anti-christ being a big icon to watch out for, as well as the Mark of the Beast, etc.  Credit cards, health cards, any kind of number that identifies you will no doubt bring a lot of fear–and have that implanted in a chip inside your hand or your forehead, and Christians will freak out.  (Hopefully lawmakers would NEVER pass an idea like that unless they want great opposition from Christians).  

I’ve lived through three people who were thought to be the Anti-Christ:  Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II and now, Barack Obama, for various reasons.  Often each one of them had a mystical kabbalistic criteria (their names added up to three sixes as Reagan’s does, or Obama’s “name” was spoken about in the Bible as paired with Lucifer–a complete stretch of the imagination) and a few of them have been “assassinated” and come back to life (Reagan and the Pope).  Each time I hear that someone new is the anti-christ, I cringe, thinking that people are gonna start believing all us Christians are loony.  And some of them, those that seem to be magnets for the news, deserve that label, not the airtime.

But then I wonder how often I too look at events with Revelation in the back of my mind.  At what point will events start coinciding so well that there’s a tipping point in even the most casual reader of the Bible–where people start to say–Hey, I’ve seen that before?  How often do we reject good things based on a false premise that THIS moment is part of Revelation, when obviously time just keeps rolling on?  

 

In Christian circles, we often thank God we don’t know the future–because if we did, it might take away from “who holds the future” and make it Fate, not choice.  But maybe that fits more squarely in Christian mythos–that our fates, our destinies, are already written.  I don’t think so, myself.  Everyone has choices.  But if you see a glimpse of your future, you won’t know if it is meant to be, or if you are being given a warning. We ask all the time for God to guide our lives, for us to make good choices, but we fear getting on the road to the wrong destiny.  As if the roads are already there and once on them, we’ll go 90 miles an hour.  

From Cassandra’s ignored warnings to Oedipus fighting against his fate to modern day futurists who tell us what will happen based on world economic events…one of our eyes is always on the future.  But will we let our concepts of the future influence today’s actions?  Will we allow small evidence to convince us that we are living in  “the end times” and then make irrational decisions?  Or will we make good decisions based on evidence in front of us and walk knowingly into the future, brave, but watchful, not reacting to everyone who says—the anti-christ is here, the anti-christ is there, etc.

What’s probably most disturbing is the Christian concept that they will be persecuted in the End Times.  And certainly every time someone critiques a Christian we hear echoes of this “end times” fear resurface.  That the critique means that the critic must be an enemy, and that Christians are being targeted.  This most resembles “making the future happen.”  By letting ourselves be irrational, afraid of debate, sensitive to criticism, and dogmatically judgmental–I think we will create the discrimination and persecution that will probably come.  But it happens because we’re being a$holes.  I mean, spread negativity long enough, represent bigotry, discrimination and narrow-mindedness long enough and folks will be distrustful.  Eventually, yes, being a Christian will be bad publicity.  But NOT because the enemy is bad, but because Christians are unloving, paranoid judges.  We will create the future we don’t want to happen.  Just like Benford is creating in Flashforward.  

Flashforward is a great show, allowing us to be thankful we DON’T know the future.  What a burden.  Hopefully it will teach us to treasure the moments we have, without being afraid of what’s coming–and make us watch out not to create the fates we want to avoid.  Let’s be good to each other out there.  We’re in this world together.