I think I inadvertantly Outed a volunteer I work with last week. She was asking why things seem a little ahem awkward between myself and a certain member of the management. I was telling her that we had exchanged ahem words about me having a Fiance who is Unsaved and Divorced. Before she had a chance to even consider offering any further ahem words, I added, jovially, "well at least he's a he. If we were talking even about a saved un-divorced woman I were in love with, we'd both be crucified in boiling oil".
It was only after she'd left the room in tears that I realised what I'd done.
She's a wonderful woman, so positive, so creative and God loves her so much. The only question I want to ask her is how, how do you cope with living and working and being in a situation in which you have to hide who you are?
I don't think that there is any non gay-specific (ie Metroplitan Community Church etc) area of Christianity in which being openly gay (or bi, lesbian, transgender etc) is an easy thing. But the most conservative, evanglical, traditional, male-dominated (well, that'd be them all) dare-I-say-fundamentalist churches are definately the least tolerant, caring or thoughtful. The Church of England's current tearing of itself apart over questions of sexuality are a mere microcosm of the wider Church. And the way in which the Church is currently responding to questions of sexuality is exactly the same way in which it was responding to gender issues a generation ago, and to considering questions of ethnicity a while before that.
So whereas, of course, I'm in an immesurably easier position than the colleague I accidentally de-closeted, I still believe that their opposition to our marriage remains not an issue of faith or theology but of diversity, different-ness, other-ness. The more our detractors tell me "now it's not because he's [ethnic and religious background of Fiance] it's because he's Unsaved and Divorced" the more I feel they keep saying that only to persuade themselves. And that all raises, I think, massive questions about the nature of faith affiliation, selfhood, identity and what it measn essentially to be human in relation to God.
"Give it another two hundred years" Fiance says, "and then they'll stop hassling and accept that we love one another."
And what, then, in the meantime? Does one run from any church that seeks to reject the most fundemental parts of one's being? Or does one stay and hope that, through one's persistence, that two hundred years might become only one hundred and fifty?
It was only after she'd left the room in tears that I realised what I'd done.
She's a wonderful woman, so positive, so creative and God loves her so much. The only question I want to ask her is how, how do you cope with living and working and being in a situation in which you have to hide who you are?
I don't think that there is any non gay-specific (ie Metroplitan Community Church etc) area of Christianity in which being openly gay (or bi, lesbian, transgender etc) is an easy thing. But the most conservative, evanglical, traditional, male-dominated (well, that'd be them all) dare-I-say-fundamentalist churches are definately the least tolerant, caring or thoughtful. The Church of England's current tearing of itself apart over questions of sexuality are a mere microcosm of the wider Church. And the way in which the Church is currently responding to questions of sexuality is exactly the same way in which it was responding to gender issues a generation ago, and to considering questions of ethnicity a while before that.
So whereas, of course, I'm in an immesurably easier position than the colleague I accidentally de-closeted, I still believe that their opposition to our marriage remains not an issue of faith or theology but of diversity, different-ness, other-ness. The more our detractors tell me "now it's not because he's [ethnic and religious background of Fiance] it's because he's Unsaved and Divorced" the more I feel they keep saying that only to persuade themselves. And that all raises, I think, massive questions about the nature of faith affiliation, selfhood, identity and what it measn essentially to be human in relation to God.
"Give it another two hundred years" Fiance says, "and then they'll stop hassling and accept that we love one another."
And what, then, in the meantime? Does one run from any church that seeks to reject the most fundemental parts of one's being? Or does one stay and hope that, through one's persistence, that two hundred years might become only one hundred and fifty?
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And what, then, in the meantime? Does one run from any church that seeks to reject the most fundemental parts of one's being? Or does one stay and hope that, through one's persistence, that two hundred years might become only one hundred and fifty?
I'm working on this question right now. To me, it feels like it encompasses the whole Church, not just a church, small c. The question, to my mind, is whether someone can stay in a *religion* that does this...
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