The Church Must Celebrate LGBTQ+ Persons as LGBTQ+

[The Great Open Dance]

Bad churches are inauthentic; good churches are authentic. The persons of the Trinity live in interpersonal freedom, never hiding any part of themselves. We are made in the image of the Trinity, for such honesty. Therefore, in faithful community we can express our deepest self authentically. If a church demands that we hide our self to be accepted, if a church creates an artificial standard and demands that we conform to it, then that church has stifled the image of God within us.

Because God is authentic community, and authenticity demands freedom, authentic churches are low social control groups. They don’t demand that you subordinate your self to an ideal. Instead, they nurture your ideal self, helping you bring it to full expression.

A low social control church respects members’ uniqueness, trusting that cohesion will emerge from diversity, as it does within God. Some churches deny the possibility of unity-in-diversity and become high social control groups, subjecting members to shame, shunning, denial of sacraments, and threats of damnation if they fail to be who the church wants them to be.
These churches demand that members subordinate their God-given uniqueness to a church-generated stereotype, hiding their authentic self within a conformist shell.

In high control churches, where members are opaque to one another, secrets are kept. But, as it is said, where there are secrets, there is shame.

Authentic churches celebrate their LGBTQ+ members. In God-centered community, we must trust one another’s self-revelation. We must practice interpersonal honesty or, in philosophical language, intersubjectivity. For decades, most churches have denied the self-revelation of their gay and lesbian members. These members are telling their churches that they can find emotional intimacy only with members of the same sex, they are telling their churches that this disposition cannot be changed, and they are telling their churches that this disposition does not need to be changed, that they feel blessed in the loving relationships they are in.

At the same time, most churches are denying the self-revelation of their trans and nonbinary members, who are telling them that they do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth, that their interior experience is of the opposite gender, or both genders, or no gender, and that they need to live out that identity to live fully.

For decades, most churches have told these parishioners that their inner life is unnatural, or unbiblical, or diseased, or in need of repair. Most churches have told these members to conform their inner self to their outer appearance. In so doing, these churches refuse to see transgendered and nonbinary persons as God sees them: “God does not see as mortals see; mortals see outward appearances but God sees into the heart” (1 Samuel 16 b).

The church’s rejection of their authentic selves causes horrific harm to trans and nonbinary persons. Nevertheless, they persist. They are risking themselves in repeated acts of vulnerability and self-disclosure, like unto God. They are coming out and suffering rejection, yet they continue to reveal themselves until the world sees them the way God sees them. The perseverance of these saints is changing minds, which is changing souls, creating a more grace-filled world.

Transparency transforms and transfigures. Just as the disciples were allowed to see Jesus transfigured (Mark 9:2–8), LGBTQ+ self-revelation allows the world to see itself transfigured, liberated from fear and invited into celebration. This transfiguration is not an act of inclusion on the part of the excluders, with the excluded passively waiting at the gate. No, it is an ongoing act of conversion by the excluded, of the excluders, for the excluders, who continue to suffer behind walls of ignorance. This conversion is for all. Like God, it is for us; hence, for all of us.

For the trans community, external transition to their neurological birth gender is often accompanied by persecution—expulsion from home, loss of job, physical attacks, and worse. Despite this persecution, most record greater life satisfaction after choosing to express their internal gender identity.

To mark their transition, most trans persons change their name. Likewise, the Bible frequently renames persons when they undergo a profound change: Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah (Genesis 17), Jacob becomes Israel (Genesis 32), Simon becomes Peter (Matthew 16), and Saul becomes Paul (Acts 13). Associates who reject the transitions of transgendered persons will sometimes express this rejection by “deadnaming” them—calling them by the name given at birth rather than their chosen name. Would these rejectionists also deadname Paul as Saul? Sarah as Sarai?

The Bible is about transformation: our potential for it, our call to it, and our invitation to celebrate it. Today we can fulfill that call by supporting LGBTQ+ rights and LGBTQ+ identity, until everyone can say, with Alice Walker, “I am an expression of the divine, just like a peach is, just like a fish is. I have a right to be this way.” (adapted from Jon Paul Sydnor, The Great Open Dance: A Progressive Christian Theology, page 219-221)

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For further reading, please see:

Oord, Thomas Jay. The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015.

Walker, Alice. The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker. New York: New Press, 2010.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. While I don't think Pope Leo will ever condone abortion, I'm hopeful he'll

welcome LGBTQ into/back into The Church, albeit with some conditions.