A Love Song for the Church, Pas de Deux

"Parting is such sweet sorrow" by violscraper licensed under CC BY/ Cropped from original, filter applied

We stood in the Light

Since the day of my birth

And we danced

Through Sunday School years

And youth group parties

Through sunrise services

Easter pageants

Christmas chorales

Harvest blessings.

You held me,

spun me dizzy at times.

Our steps and lifts were beauty;

We circled round

And back again

Together,

Apart,

I always knew that you were there.

But now our rhythms have diverged

And I want to let you go.

I want to dance a wilder dance

And damn the careful choreography.

But still I circle back

Because I believe

Crazily, implausibly,

That we can be beautiful

Together.

Several years ago I wrote a love song for the church. I didn't know then that the church still had more ways to break my heart. I didn't know then that there would be more days I wanted to let go of her, to spin away out of reach, to dance my own dance and damn the choreography. I want to love the church, I really do, but some days it seems like such a mess. I can’t begin to count the times this summer when I’ve thought I could just happily walk away forever. Done. Finished. I’ll be out here on the margins, looking for the other misfits.

It’s a struggle sometimes to remember that we were never promised a perfect Church. From the very beginning there have been disagreements, points of theology debated, lines drawn, lines erased. We have disagreed about so many things. Inclusion of non-Jews, eating meat offered to idols, earrings, long hair on men, long hair on women, musical instruments in the church, appropriate facial hair, slavery, and the list goes on. Still, the Church has persisted, existed.

This week a number of prominent Christian leaders released the ‘Nashville Statement.’ Hurricane Harvey pounds the Gulf Coast with disaster on an unfathomable scale, racial tensions flare, White Nationalists and Supremacists feel emboldened in their views, there are refugee crises and escalating tensions around the globe. Still, the foremost thing on the minds of these leaders was the importance of being clear about their views on LGBTQ people.

We are not stupid. There was very little doubt about what any of these people think about LGBTQ inclusion in the church. It has been harped on for decades. So why, in the midst of all that is going on in the world, is this the most pressing issue that leaders feel they must turn their attention upon? We get it, you don’t like LGBTQ individuals, you wish they would just disappear or magically become straight. You are tired of those of us who are allies defending them, and so you have decided in your infinite wisdom to tell us that we are not Christians, either. (That’s not even the half of it. You also decided to tell us once again that women are ‘separate but equal.’ No, really. God loves us as long as we acknowledge that our place is in the home and not in the pulpit, not in the workforce, not in all the varied roles that men can take on. You also, once again, told men that the Man Card is a real thing and if they don’t tally up the right points they are doing it wrong.)

Do you want to know something, leaders? I have sat here for the past year and a half or so and watched you decide that greed wasn’t so bad, maybe. I have sat here and watched you decide that mocking the disabled was not so bad, really. I have sat here and watched you defend affairs, and divorce, and lying. I have watched you continue to broaden the scope of things you will tolerate to include ‘locker room talk’ that demeans women. You seem willing to excuse an awful lot, church leaders. You expect us to believe that ‘both sides are equally wrong’ when it comes to Black Lives Matter and White Supremacy. You want nuance there, but nuance in the debate on LGBTQ issues? Impossible. Heretical. You’ve decided which things are okay to agree to disagree on and which things are matters of salvation. That’s not your call. It’s not your call any more than it is my call to say that the preacher of a prosperity Gospel can’t be a Christian. I may despise their teaching, but I have no idea how far the saving grace of Christ extends.

So here we are. I know that you won’t change your minds on this, and I also know that I won’t abandon a community that is crying out to just be seen as human, to have their existence acknowledged. There are so many LGBTQ Christians who just want to serve God with all of the gifts they have been given. They are preachers, they are musicians, they are poets, they are helpers, they are givers, they love God.

What am I supposed to do, Church? We’ve been beautiful together. We’ve fed the hungry together, we’ve built houses together, we’ve provided livelihoods for the under-resourced in other countries. We’ve dug wells and helped those fleeing war. It has been good. And yes, we have worshiped together and studied together, cried together and laughed together. We’ve washed feet and broken bread. It’s been a beautiful dance.

I guess what I’m asking is this, Church. Can we see our way to let more people in on the dance? Can we broaden who gets to take the floor with us? Can you imagine a world in which that might be beautiful? Because I’ll be honest, if you can’t, I’m ready to leave the stage. I’m ready to grab the misfit and the outcast, to serve them and to serve with them. I’m ready to learn new steps and dance to different songs. God is moving, Church. He/She/They, the inexplicable Trinity as One, is creating something new and yet as old as the winds that moved over an ancient earth. The steps are shifting. You can join us, or you can stand on the sidelines mocking the dance.