Posts by Believe Out Loud
Disciples Of Christ Resolve To Welcome All In General Assembly
After the 2013 Disciples of Christ General Assembly, the church has released a resolution stating that the church is committed to welcoming all to their congregations. Titled “Becoming a People of Grace and Welcome to All,” resolution GA-1327 states that Disciples of Christ, “a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world,” has been called to…
Read MoreSpeaking Up For LGBT Catholics At World Youth Day
Six pilgrims will bring challenging message to global gathering in Brazil WASHINGTON, D. C., JULY 18, 2013– Six young Roman Catholics are on their way to the church’s World Youth Day in Rio de Janiero, bringing a message that the church must treat lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people with respect and advocate for their…
Read MoreHope Church Makes Room For All
Reverend Gordon Wiersma has been a pastor at Hope Church, a Reformed Church in America (RCA) congregation in Holland, MI, since 1999. Earlier this year, Hope Church made the decision to become a Room For All Church. Room For All is a non-profit organization advocating for the full participation of LGBT persons in the life…
Read MoreAlways The Stranger: Being Out And Bi
I’ve been out as bisexual to myself and my world for about fifteen years, acknowledging that I am able to love both men and women. One of the things I have learned through these years is that being out as bi tends to make me a stranger across the spectrum of sexual orientation. I become…
Read MoreEncountering Psychosis: Mental Health, Religiosity & Queer Identity
Trigger Warning: Depictions of violence and self-harm In April 2012, while working as a Chaplain Resident at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, GA, I was startled by the information presented at the interdisciplinary team meeting on my surgery unit. It was reported by the social worker that Joseph Christian (name changed due to matters of…
Read MoreStriving For Perfection
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) Easy for Jesus to say! But as a fundamentalist Christian kid, I believed this was my goal. It made perfect sense to me. Except there was one area of my life in which I would never be “perfect”: I had these feelings for other…
Read MoreDevotion Through Dysphoria
Back in the middle school years, I used to worry that I didn’t look or act like everyone else. I spent a ton of time in front of the mirror trying to learn to change my face with makeup, and even though my personality didn’t suit it, I spent lots of my parent’s money on…
Read MoreMy God Is Not A Bully
The project began in 2011 at a meeting in Tucson, where the national Coordinating Team of the Church Within A Church Movement (CWACM) brainstormed for ways to share the message that God is Love, not hate. After launching at the Church Within A Church Movement’s 10th anniversary celebration, the video legacy project became a reality during Pride…
Read MoreSupporting ENDA: Because The Bible Tells Me So
The Bible is clear about God’s insistence on compassion and justice, so it makes sense that Bible-believing people of faith would support measures—like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)—that seek to end injustice in the workplace. In fact, the Bible has a great deal to say about economic justice and includes almost nothing about sexuality and gender…
Read MoreUncovering Pride: Exposing The Shadow Of My Shame
By the time I was 10 years old, I knew there was something wrong with me. I had no idea what it was exactly, but it was there. Perhaps because I felt defective, I had a strong inclination to hide, cover up, and use deliberate caution in any situation. Even though I liked to be…
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