Since my last reflection I continue to receive feedback from—as far as I can tell—heterosexual, and primarily male, evangelical Christians. So, I’m providing a second and final response to my sermon from January 10, 2021. I have three kinds of people in mind as my intended audience for this reflection. First, I hope that this reflection rouses evangelicals—who find themselves questioning the goodness of their theology and systems—to demand change, today. Second, I hope that this reflection emboldens evolving pastors of conservative churches to courageously lead their communities to fully include women and LGBTQ people. Third, I hope that this reflection provides helpful language and reasoning for progressive Christians who find themselves in conversation with evangelicals who continue forward in exclusive ideologies.
“Give Them Time”
This was the exact heading of a section in my previous reflection, but it continues to come up and so I’d like to approach this mindset from another angle. Before doing so, I want to be very clear: The march toward equity, justice, and racial equality for people of color is in need of much progress. This movement must continue ever-onward. My forthcoming use of racial language about segregation, to try and emphasize the gravity of not allowing women and LGBTQ people to fully belong, is not meant to diminish or undermine the advancement of racial equality.
Having made that clear, if I had called out pastors or churches in Portland for advocating racial segregation in their doctrine or policies, I don’t think that many people, if any, would have written and asked me to give these pastors or churches more time for their theology to evolve. Let me explain. Had I called out churches and pastors for not allowing people of color to be members, or on staff, or on their elder teams, I believe—or at least hope—that those who wrote me saying, “Give them time” would have chosen to stand with me to say, “Enough,” and to continue saying “enough” until racial segregation in the name of God came to its necessary end. Unfortunately, misogyny and homophobia haven’t risen to the level of moral reprehensibility in the church that racial segregation has, and this makes me sad, and if I’m honest, mad.
The pastors, churches, and kind of Christianity that I referred to in my sermon continue to promote, very literally, gender and sexuality segregation. “Give them more time.” No. In Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech he called the patience that people are extending these leaders and churches, “the tranquilizer of gradualism.” And that is what this is. Straight men have the privilege of progressing as slowly as they want because they are able to lead and belong as they are. They suffer from a chronic lack of urgency. I am advocating for straight men to use their privilege, and women and LGBTQ people to continue raising their voices, until full inclusion is made manifest in evangelical doctrine and policies.
In a previous reflection I cited Gary Cutting, a philosopher at Notre Dame, who writes in an article titled, “How Religion Can Lead to Violence,” that violence in religion is often tempered by social mores. Using Western Christianity as a case study, he looks back and concludes that, overall, the church has been pulled forward by society’s sense of good. A couple examples that I provided to support Cutting’s point were racial equality and women’s rights. In general, the church lagged behind these good movements, until—due to society’s sense of human decency and justice—it could no longer do so. The irony that I point out in that reflection is that the church, in its earliest days, was on the forefront of shifting social mores to make room for those that society said could not belong. My sermon expressed similar sentiment. It was an invitation to return to the early Jesus movement in which the church is not begrudgingly pulled forward by society but, rather, is on the forefront of ever-expanding equality and inclusion.
If you’re now thinking, “If it wasn’t for what the Bible says, then I’d agree with you, but the Bible is clear.” Please understand that the way in which you’re reading the Bible is not ancient, historical, or theologically sensible. I wrote a reflection about this and I’d like to encourage you to read it. But for now, just for a moment, I want to ask that you set aside the misappropriation of a limited number of Bible verses about women and LGBTQ people to see a deeply good and loving follower of Jesus that you know, who is either female or queer. For a moment, see them in your mind’s eye. Really. Take a moment to pause and see them—their heart, their humor, their warmth, their wisdom. Now, ask yourself, “Would my church benefit from this person’s diversity, leadership, and presence?” I believe with my whole heart that the answer, deep in your soul, is “yes,” isn’t it?
With this in mind, imagine looking the person that you’re thinking about in the eye and telling them, “Because you are a woman, you cannot lead at the highest level of my church.” Or, “Because you’re married to somebody of the same sex, you cannot be on staff at my church.” If this makes you feel sad or sick or horrified, then you can no longer call churches “home” that adhere to gender and sexuality segregation in their doctrine and policies. Otherwise, you are participating in the tranquilizer of gradualism. Worse, you are tranquilizing the advancement of inclusion—gospel—in Jesus’ name.
“They are More Evolved Than you Realize”
I’m not sure if this statement is accurate or not. I’ve heard it a few times. But for the sake of this reflection, let’s say that some pastors at evangelical churches honestly think that women should lead at every level and that LGBTQ people can engage in same-sex relationships and lead at every level. However, despite their evolved convictions, let’s also say that these pastors are struggling to know how to communicate their convictions and to lead their communities through change. I appreciate that these pastors are evolving and progressing internally, but until they align the churches they lead with their actual convictions so that there is truly inclusion, their leadership is disintegrated, inauthentic, and it’s causing real harm.
Just prior to helping lead our church through broadening its marriage practice, someone suggested that I read Edwin H. Friedman’s prescient book, A Failure of Nerve. To this day I’m not sure that I could have withstood the pressure and continued forward without its wisdom. One section stands out to me as I write this reflection, especially as it applies to leaders who hold back their convictions as a means to express kindness to their church bodies. In Chapter Four, “Survival In A Hostile Environment: The Fallacy of Empathy,” Friedman writes:
[An] emotional barrier to reorienting leadership in our time [is] the focus on empathy rather than responsibility. The great myth here is that feeling deeply for others increases their ability to mature and survive; its corollary is that effort to understand another should take precedence over the endeavor to make one’s own self clear…. Once again, it is responsibility, not empathy, that is the crucial variable in this equation. Indeed, the focus on being empathetic toward others, rather than on being responsible for one’s own integrity, can actually lessen the odds for an organism’s survival by lowering the other’s pain thresholds, helping them to avoid challenge and compromising the mobilization of their “nerve.” And when it is the leader who has fallen into the empathy trap, sometimes it is not only the survival of the follower (patient, child, client, or institution) that is compromised and put at risk, but also the survival of the leader.
These words precisely explain my experience. For a few months I kept personal my evolving convictions, and it tore me up. I was growing and stretching, new horizons were birthing inside of me, the gospel’s goodness was becoming more pervasively good, but in the name of “empathy” for the church I led, I hid my burgeoning convictions. But as Friedman notes, this kind of empathy is a myth. It is a failure of nerve. Not only was I failing to be responsible for leading—which hindered our community’s growth—but my empathy put at risk my own survival as an integrated and honest person. And every minute of every day that I held back from truly leading, I was responsible for a community that told LGBTQ people that they couldn’t fully belong.
Leadership is not maintaining a community’s peace at the expense of putting asunder gender and sexuality segregation. That is fear. Christian leadership is speaking up, stepping out, and moving forward in directions that gesture more deeply toward the heart of the Divine as it’s revealed through the life of Jesus. Looking back at our church’s journey, my primary regret is that I wasn’t more bold, sooner.
If you’re leading a church and this reflection is moving something inside of you, will you listen to and follow your knowing? Will you put aside empathy to harness the responsibility to lead your community through necessary change so that women and LGBTQ people are no longer second-class citizens in the name of Jesus? Based on my experience, the path toward full inclusion is worth every heartache and sleepless night. And truly, the pain is near to nothing compared to that which women and LGBTQ people have suffered due to doctrine and policies that segregate based on their God-realized gender and sexuality.
“By Calling Out Churches and Pastors You Are Not Extending a Common Table”
At Pearl we say that we exist to express a sacred story and to extend a common table that animate life by love. About our common table—to put it simply—we say that every person and every part of every person belongs. In response to this, some wrote to me saying that by calling out pastors and churches that do not fully include women and LGBTQ people, I am not truly extending a common table.
About this comment, I want to be clear: That kind of thinking is misconstruing a common table. Foundational to a common table is that every person belongs. Yes, evangelicals belong at this table. However, most evangelicals won’t join this table because they believe the opposite—they believe that the table is only for some, and that every person outside their particular group does not actually and fully belong. The Divine invitation as it’s revealed by Jesus is to a table at which every person belongs. However, those who cannot accept this all-inclusive goodness self-select out and create pseudo-divine-tables at which women and LGBTQ cannot belong. My sermon was an invitation to God’s common table and away from closed tables.
In the fifteenth century, Russian artist Andrei Rublev created what is considered by some to be the most famous painting of the Trinity. It’s called “The Hospitality of Abraham,” better known today as, “The Trinity.” Take a look.
Let’s pause here for a moment.
Notice the humility of each person in the Trinity sitting at the table—heads bowed, hands gently resting.
Notice how each person in the Trinity appears to be condescending to the other—that is, each is yielding to the other. It’s as though they are equals, opening themselves toward the other in order to listen to and to learn from one another.
And notice how the painting puts this Triune God into a circle. Around and around they move in relational humility and condescension. But Rublev’s icon is even better than a table around which the godhead abides. About this table, art scholar Dr. Anita Strezova explains:
A dynamic pattern of rotational symmetry connects the three angels. Their round dance is charmingly depicted in Rublev’s icon where the dogma of perichoresis involves “making room,” at the centre of the Hospitality. The artist has created a space that enfolds, yet permits discernment. Hence, this icon makes a room for the observer, and offers hospitality to him as a fourth guest.
I’ll conclude by emphasizing Strezova’s last sentence, “Hence, this icon makes a room for the observer, and offers hospitality to him as a fourth guest.” As I understand it, this is the heart of the gospel—to hospitably make room for every person without limitation or qualification. You, whoever you are, belong at the Divine’s common table. This is good news. This is gospel. And this is the work of every church, church goer, and church leader, until every person fully belongs.