Why Stay in Church? Three LGBTQ+ Christians Speak Up

American Christianity has never been a particularly welcoming place for LGBTQ+ people.

Recent data released by the Pew Research Center on Religion & Public Life indicates that only 36% of Evangelical Protestants believe that homosexuality should be accepted in society, against a 55% group that believes the contrary.

This isn’t a query regarding the appropriateness of certain sexual actions in isolated incidences. This is a referendum on the right of LGBTQ+ people to have an equal place in society.

The data shows that the majority of American Evangelicals don’t believe the existence of homosexuals should be accepted in larger society to begin with, nevermind in their religious communities. That’s pretty sobering.

If your eyes crust over with ocular laminate at the very mention of quantitative data, take a trip over to Twitter and type “gay Christian” into the search bar, or check out the responses to tweets by former touring Christian musician Vicky Beeching — writer of the once massive hits “The Wonder of the Cross” and “Undivided Heart”— and witness the homophobic abuse she gets by hundreds upon hundreds of self-identifying Evangelicals.

For many American Christians, the social constructs around sexuality and the expression thereof are inherently restrictive to begin with, nevermind for those outside of the straight-sexed and cisgendered norms. However, there are pockets of Christians who identify as members of the very faith-based fellowships that fervently disavow their right to exist equally in society.

There are many brave, committed Christians who are LGBTQ+.

I became consumed by the question of “why” — why not just practice your faith in an environment free of any potential condemnation of your personhood? Why remain associated with communities that practice inherently intolerant theologies? Why remain involved in this self-contained world of statistically predominant condemnation and condescension? I spoke to some people who wanted to share their stories with me in order to find out.

Daniel, 33, went to college and studied Ministry at Southeastern University, a conservative and anti-gay Evangelical institution linked to the Assemblies of God denomination. Daniel is a committed Christian, currently employed as a chaplain at a homeless shelter and resource center, working late shifts and over weekends in Atlanta, GA. In his own words, concerning his relationship mainline Christian groups that condescend his sexuality, “Just showing up to those places…I’m aware that my body is an affront to what many in those churches believe. I’m black and I’m gay…among other things.”

Rather than allow a common derision toward his personhood to define his perception of his God and faith, however, Daniel takes a different approach to his relationship with God entirely. For many like Daniel, who went on to seminary, or for those who have studied their so-called sacred texts through a more focused lens, there is much more to the Bible than is generally regurgitated in most churches that peddle bigoted ideas.

“I’m convinced that most people who believe that the Bible teaches against homosexuality as we understand it in modernity— as an identity — haven’t studied those texts in their social or historical contexts and are ignorant to that entire discipline. Sometimes that ignorance is by choice.”

Daniel’s view is not unique. Many less-traditional Christians take on a more contextually-minded — and some would say more nuanced — approach to scripture than many of the leaders, pastors, or Sunday School teachers that they grew up with. However, when speaking with Daniel, it became clear that the significance he finds in the church, his faith, his God, and his concepts of the divine occupy a space that lives somewhere beyond alternative theologies or a more involved dive into an ancient collection of texts.
“I look for open and affirming churches,” Daniel told me. “I think I’ve stayed (in Christian communities) because the Church — not the institution itself, but the people who follow the way of Jesus and justice — stayed with me. They’ve walked with me through some dark times. There are enough people like that, even in the non-affirming places, that still give me hope.”

Belonging, community, and a common struggle are what many of us claw in the dark looking for at the end of the day. This, or something close to it, and ultimately the pursuit thereof can drive us to the most unlikely or extreme places to find even just a semblance of comfort or belonging. Other pursuits to achieve that are less extreme than some. For many Atheists, that comfort might take the form of a group of humanists that enjoy the same philosophical writers meeting over coffee. For a Christian like Daniel, it can be found at church singing old songs about Jesus and the shared struggle of living, even if many sitting under the proverbial tent of his faith don’t want him there. Why should he let the naysayers get to define what is or isn’t Christ-like, particularly if some of them lack the same commitment to an involved relationship with studying the seminal texts?

For me, I attribute a softening in my initial perceptions toward secularists to being accepted into a group of them that shared bottomless tostada chips and drank strawberry lemonade every Friday night at the local Chilis in Manchester during my high school years. I felt welcomed by them long before I ever started challenging my previously ironclad theism, and that demystified and deconstructed some of the myths and slander about the so-called secular world that I’d had conditioned into my brain by my church upbringing. They were the same kind of people that my friends and family were, and we all just wanted to be liked and accepted.

We spend so much of our lives determined that our thoughts and intellectual grasps of abstract concepts determine how we feel or behave toward much of the world we see. The reality is that our experiences and the emotions we attach to them form a much more intimate and deterministic relationship to how we behave, how we perceive our world, and what or who we associate ourselves with.

Danyale is a 37 year old woman. She is also a fully-out lesbian, and describes her journey through hostile attitudes toward her sexuality in Christian communities as ultimately what led her to what she feels to be a closer relationship with Jesus Christ. I found this astounding — the opposite of what I thought to be a cause and effect reactions — so I asked her for more details as to what she meant.

“I started attending an Assemblies of God church in Lakeland, where I even went to deliverance classes and had ‘therapy’ with one of their ‘counselors’ there. This actually made me hungrier for the truth of what Jesus really said about homosexuals,” Danyale told me.

It was shocking to hear how a much-maligned and almost universally condemned form of so-called “gay conversion therapy” would leave someone in a state of anything other than complete and utter brokenness, carrying with them a laundry list of issues and deep emotional scarring that would require years and years of therapy just to come to terms with. However, Danyale not only survived the experience, but actually became emboldened by it.

“I was tired of just believing what was fed to me at church and I wanted to dig deeper and find out for myself what I was holding on to in my heart as a truth that wasn’t a whole truth,” Danyale told me.

The abuses of a homophobic church institution and culture actually seem to cultivate an itch and urge to go deeper into the depths of faith in hopes of unearthing something truer and more real into the experience. This awakened drive overshadowed and outweighed any thoughts of abandoning it for Danyale, and I wonder how many other LGBTQ+ Christians have become passionate about pursuing their God figures and reading their texts because of the ignorant teachings of homophobic pastors. To this day I am blown away by it.

“I felt that I was finally touching His (Jesus) heart and learning more about Him than ever before.”

This seems to be a central drive behind the religious experience for LGBTQ+ Christians — and perhaps for any person of an earnest and genuine faith regardless of their sex, gender, or orientations— who stay in communities of faith. They are not united by the songs they sing on Sunday, any systematic theologies, the personalities of one or a few leaders, or even by how much they might like the people they come to grow close to in the church.

They are united by sharing their lives, experiences, and hearts in community with one another in a way that cultivates a sense of mutual care. Yes, they work extremely hard to find truth and belonging in their religious texts as well, but it’s not about making the Bible work just for them; they seem to feel like they’re working for the Bible by interpreting it inclusively to make it work for everybody, because for them the truth of their religion lives and dies in community.

Ben is thirty-two years old. He is a seminary student and a worship leader at a United Methodist Church. He also happens to be transgender (FTM).

Of all the personal stories I’ve heard from LGBTQ+ Christians, Ben’s transitioning journey is amongst those that have made the greatest personal impact on me. You can read about it in the Huffington Post here.

Ben works for a non-profit organization full-time while balancing his part-time worship leader responsibilities at the church. He travels 38 miles to be part of his church community every week.

The church Ben and his wife attends is “reconciling”, which he told me is “Methodist code for ‘open and affirming’.” I asked him to expound further.

“Each time we gather, we begin with this welcome statement: Our Church is a Reconciling Congregation. We affirm the sacred worth of all people and strive to practice Christ’s example of unconditional love without exclusion. All are welcome to participate fully in the life and ministries of this congregation. Whatever your race, ethnicity, economic situation, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, background or belief, age or condition of ableness, whether single or partnered, you are God’s beloved and are welcome here.”

I have to admit that I found this welcome statement a bit long and over the top. I haven’t even included all of it, but just as I catch myself sighing in boredom at the pedantic and fastidious tedium inherent to the verbose, elongated manifesto, I feel a pang of guilt at my reflexive judgment.

Yes, I intentionally loaded my sentence with word salad to make my point clear.

As an atheist, I may not care about Christian acceptance or welcomes — in fact, my brand and appeal as a writer is rather built upon the deconstruction and rejection thereof — but for LGBTQ+ Christians who live their lives in perpetual awareness of challenges to even the legitimacy of their existences and personhood, there probably aren’t enough words in the dictionary that be sprawled out or strung together that would make them want to hear it any less. A longer welcome, I imagine, is probably like a comfier chair to sit in.

It’s not my chair. It’s theirs, so no one cares if I find the welcome cushion tedious.

“God calls us to acts of love, grace, and advocacy to promote healing and reconciliation,” Ben continued to quote the welcome message. “We are building a new city: a place without barriers, a sanctuary for all.”

The dependance of LGBTQ+ Christians on their communities to bring freshness to the religious traditions that some of them grew up in cannot be overstated, and the work of this church to provide a holistically affirming home for everyone is commendable on that level.
Ben told me that he was sought me out “intentionally and specifically” to lead worship at the church by the Senior Pastor, who was fully-aware of Ben’s transition. “I resisted at first…but eventually I found my voice again and started on an interim basis.”

For Ben, Danyale, and Daniel, the work of the church is inseparably linked to justice — something they are all passionate about — and it truly is compelling to witness a group of people who are emboldened by their religious communities instead of being torn down by them, even if their larger communities resent them for it.

Additionally, it’s fascinating to me that there are churches out there interested in going beyond basic self-help advice that anyone can find at any cheap, mainstream bookstore in America. One of my theories of religion has always been that people don’t go to religious services and gatherings because they want to learn something new; they come to hear someone else tell them what they think they believe already so that they can validate themselves in those beliefs. Many modern American Churches are fixated on coffee shops, sound systems, and photo ops on mission’s trips to Africa, where in which they build a church and go home with pictures and a sense of well-being as opposed to a period of substantial and actual, challenging work. If that’s not an apparatus to provide comfort around a presupposition they carry in with them, then I don’t know what is.

“I have found a church that is so committed to doing the work of justice that I can’t imagine ever leaving. Every night of the week our campus is full of community organizing groups who are working for justice in our community and beyond in every facet imaginable,” Ben continued. “My world is rapidly becoming full of people who have never known me as anyone but Ben, and that is probably the most significant healing balm I have found.”

I never understood why LGBTQ+ Christians would fight to reconcile their world. To me, it always seemed like it would be easier for them to just leave the institutions that reject them altogether. Now, though, maybe I understand a bit more than I did before.