Posts by Believe Out Loud
Why These South Dakota Pastors Are Standing Up For Trans Students
Help us TELL GOVERNOR DAUGAARD: Christians Stand With Trans Students On behalf of a carload of clergy, representing four different Christian traditions, who left Sioux Falls at 3:00am to testify against H.B. 1008 last week, and on behalf of about a dozen clergy colleagues who couldn’t make the trip, I am asking Governor Daugaard to…
Read MoreI Am #FaithfullyLGBT
I am a gay christian. There are times that I say or write those words and pause. I look at them and reflect on the journey that they represent. The years of hiding, the years of shame, the years of struggle. These days, I say them with a nonchalant air. Yet, there was a time…
Read MoreCelebrating All Kinds of Love This Valentine’s Day
After last June’s historic Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, “the love that dare not speak its name,” which publicly outed Oscar Wilde at his “gross indecency” trial in 1895, is finally and forever out of the closet. We were told by religious conservatives if the U.S. legalized such an ungodly act as same-sex…
Read MoreIt’s Ash Wednesday: Time to Indulge!
Today’s Ash Wednesday. Wait! What? Already? I still have to put some boxes of Christmas decorations back in the attic. Lent begins early this year—probably about the earliest that it can be. But, truth be told, Lent always kind of creeps up on me. I never seem ready to begin 40 days of fasting, prayer,…
Read MoreAn Open Letter To Gay Catholic Priests From A Gay Catholic Priest
Dear Gay Catholic Priests, I know you’re busy, so I will try to make this brief. Many of you have been following the story in the news about a gay catholic priest from Chicago who recently came out. I know you’ve been following his story because I’ve been following his story. And, I know that the thought…
Read MoreWhen Religion Puts Our Lives In Peril
Within my Christian upbringing, I attempt at being a spiritual person. I believe that our spirituality and faith is a source of strength and hope. Unfortunately, I have seen religion too oftentimes be a firmly held set of rituals beholden to a literal and legalistic interpretation. Historically and currently, religion is a source of spiritual…
Read MoreWhy I Can’t Forget My Blackness
The discomfort of being THE black guy in the room is something that I have to negotiate over and over again. Often/especially in progressive and/or queer political spaces, I am one of very few people of color—it seems that there are places where the demographic “count” to cover all bases means that there’s one of…
Read MoreHow LGBTQ-Affirming Christians Can Help Conservatives Walk On The Water
The dust is settling from the cultural upheaval of the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision that established marriage equality across the United States and, in my Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the almost simultaneous adoption of a description of marriage as “between two people,” which permits pastors to preside at the weddings of two people…
Read MoreThe Four Words This Kentucky Pastor Didn’t Expect To Hear
I wasn’t going to call him back. I got the message off our church’s answering machine: “I want to ask you some questions,” the caller said, and he left his name and number. But I wasn’t going to call him back. Frankly, I was afraid. I was afraid the caller would be belligerent, combative, wanting…
Read MoreWhen Expanding Our Table Isn’t Enough
As people who believe that Christianity has room for the LGBTQ community, we can be zealous about our efforts to win people to our side. We want people to understand that God truly does love everyone, that the Bible isn’t just a queer bashing book, and that people don’t have to throw away their faith…
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