Posts Tagged ‘Faith and Identity’
One Church, Two Synodal Gatherings
As this blog goes to press, in two cities more than 5,000 miles from each other, flights will be landing, hotels will be checked into, local hosts will undergo a final flurry of preparations as Church leaders gather to pray, deliberate, and work for the future of our Church. In Rome, Italy, this gathering will…
Read More”Bisexual Privilege?” No—Just the Opposite!
As we celebrated and acknowledged Bisexuality Visibility Day this week, I was struck by how much the conversation around bisexuality has changed. There is more and more happening, from postings (mine included) on #WhatBiLooksLike for Huffington Post, to dialogue on posts here at Believe Out Loud dealing with Bi issues. All this fuels a growing…
Read More5 Messages Of Hope For Bisexual Christians
When I first came out as bisexual, I had no idea how to be both bisexual and Christian at the same time. I didn’t even know that bisexual Christians existed. I had a vague notion of how some lesbian and gay Christians had reconciled their sexuality and their faith, but their stories never completely spoke…
Read MoreGay Christian Mingle: A Story Of LGBT Second Adolescence
When I was in 10th grade my friends started having sex. Of course, several had already done so and some until this day have not, but in 10th grade people began to talk openly about their experiences, or at least their thoughts about their future experiences. Contrary to what one might think, the Evangelical communities…
Read MoreSilencing The Metronome: Living My Truth As A Trans Woman
The first words I spoke in the documentary I am making were that I always felt like I was different. In retrospect, those were the wrong words to say. What I should have said was, “Since I was little, I always knew I was a girl who was presenting as a boy.” We never expect…
Read MoreI Was Kicked Out Of My Church For Being Gay—And God Still Loves Me
I was baptized a few weeks before my 19th birthday because of the Book of Romans and its assurance that once you come to Christ, your mind is renewed and you are set free from the bondage of sin. After my baptism, I walked around with my Bible. I told my whole family and strangers…
Read MoreGod Is Gender Non-Conforming
I grew up learning about a God who was a “He.” Sporting a white beard and positively owning that throne in the sky, this was a God who threw lightning bolts when you strayed from the path of righteousness. When I got to college, I took a necessary break from believing in God. Even before…
Read MoreMaking The Invisible Visible In Faith Communities: A Valuable Resource For Us All
Imagine a congregant who is commited to a straight, traditional marriage, coming to you, the pastor, distressed by finding homoerotic websites on a spouse’s computer. Or what would you think, or do, if a teenager in the youth group where you are an advisor, comes out, one evening, as bisexual? The new study guide, “Bisexuality:…
Read MoreMillennials, The Church, And Global LGBT Social Consciousness
Last spring, I wrote about a young woman named Dannika Nash who quoted the Macklemore song “Same Love” in some frank advice to the institutional church on behalf of millennials. She warned that if the church forced her generation to choose between it and their support of LGBT rights, it was going to be disappointed in the outcome. Her message…
Read MoreThe Golden Rule
The Golden Rule: a law that teaches when one is harmed we’re all harmed; when one is helped, we’re all healed. It is the base for several religions with versions of it existing in several sacred texts (see below). Recently, I have reflected on how the Golden Rule can help unite us, despite having differences.…
Read More