tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20183875237799144742024-03-12T23:38:07.335-05:00Young Stranger...meet the young stranger, take him by the hand, so that he may feel he is not a stranger, but that noble and Christian spirits care for his soul...John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.comBlogger649125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-75650209385821063142021-04-11T13:32:00.000-05:002021-04-11T13:32:01.748-05:00On the Christianity of White People<p>It’s fashionable nowadays — at least in some circles in the media and social media — to talk about America’s “racial reckoning,” triggered by the death in police custody of George Floyd. Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t a “racial reckoning” happening in America. I know a lot of black people are saying this “feels” different. Most white people don’t really even understand what that means. This feels “different” than what?</p><p>In my history classes, I taught my students that America has actually had at least three prior “racial reckonings.” It’s happened before. And before, it’s never ended up really fixing the fundamental problem of American racism. The three prior “racial reckonings” were: 1) the American Revolution, 2) the Civil War and Reconstruction period, and 3) the Civil Rights Movement. These were all moments in history when significant numbers of white people “woke up” to the significance of racism: not just what it meant for black people, but what it meant for our democracy and what it meant for our basic humanity as a people. Significant numbers of us, if not all of us, recognized the stakes. But in every prior moment of “racial reckoning,” we white folks failed to act in such a way as to bring about a permanent reversal of racist injustice and inequality. The history of America is largely a history of white people periodically waking up to racism, only to fall asleep again a few years later. Maybe we will make good this time. Anyone really calculating the odds with a knowledge of our history wouldn’t bet on it. But, the remarkable thing about human history is it all boils down to agency. We can choose to make good on the promise of America if we decide to get serious about it.</p><p>When I taught American history, it was from the perspective of American religious experience. And as a student of American history I can say that before racism was a political or social crisis in America, it was a profoundly spiritual crisis. That is so because European Americans by their own admission knew that slavery was contrary to their Christianity, and in order to make room for slavery, they had to apostatize. That’s a fancy word that means they had to abandon their faith. Out of that abandonment of our faith, “whiteness” was born, and “racism” became the way of preserving and defending whiteness.</p><p>There are many examples we can draw on from American history to show that European American Christians apostatized by choosing slavery and racism over basic tenets of the Gospel. One of the earliest examples came from early in the history of American slavery, in the form of a debate over whether African slaves could or should be baptized. Early American Christians believed that their faith made it unlawful for a Christian to hold another Christian in bondage. In other words, baptizing the slaves would make them unfit for slavery. On the one hand, the Gospel taught Christians to “make disciples of all nations,” to “preach the gospel and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” In other words, our faith demanded that the slaves be baptized. On the other hand, there was the economic loss of giving up slaves once they converted. In the face of this moral dilemma, slave owners refused to allow their slaves to hear the Gospel preached, and they refused to let them be baptized. Some Christian preachers, thinking there was some inherent benefit in baptismal water that somehow justified the demerit and dehumanization of slavery proposed a compromise: pass a law that prohibits a person from being emancipated just by virtue of being a Christian. Virginia was the first British American colony to pass such a law in 1667, and these laws quickly spread to other states throughout the American South. Thus began the first in a long series of compromises with their faith that white Christians made in order to rationalize their inhumanity. “Compromise” is a nice euphemism for “apostasy.”</p><p>My own people, the Latter-day Saints, have a history of such compromises as well. Most early Latter-day Saints hated slavery and saw it as fundamentally incompatible with the Gospel. Joseph Smith bucked contemporary trends that tended to force African Americans into separate, segregated Christian communities, by ordaining black men like Elijah Abel and Walker Lewis to the priesthood, and by integrating African Saints into the Church along with everyone else. When the Saints began to settle in Missouri, a strongly pro-slavery state, their abolitionist views got them in trouble with the local populace. It was one of the primary reasons Missourians began to fear the growth of the “Mormon” population in the state, and one reason why Latter-day Saints were persecuted and lynched and ultimately driven out of the state under threat of an extermination order in 1839. But after the prophet Joseph Smith was himself lynched at the hands of an angry mob in 1843, the leadership of the Church passed to Brigham Young. Brother Brigham was less comfortable with a racially integrated Church. In 1849, then President Young banned individuals of African descent from holding the priesthood or receiving temple endowments or sealings. He flirted with the idea of joining the Confederacy during the Civil War. Latter-day Saints began to preach against the evils of miscegenation. Utah began to practice both legal and extra-legal forms of segregation. And Latter-day Saints began to promulgate theologies that justified unequal treatment, such as the notorious teaching that the spirits of unfaithful children of God were sent to be born into families with African ancestry. This was a theology that Pres. Dallin H. Oaks officially declared to be false (i.e., apostate) in this talk at the 40th anniversary celebration of the 1978 revelation ending exclusion of individuals of African descent from the priesthood and temple.</p><p>All of us hold beliefs that are contrary to the Gospel. It’s part of the human condition, I think, to live only partly in the light. It is the nature of the Restoration of the Gospel to, line upon line, precept upon precept, dispel the darkness and to walk more and more in the light. The process of freeing ourselves from falsehood and living in harmony with the truth is by its very nature an arduous process filled with missteps. Sometimes rationalization of sin wins out over recognition of the truth and repentance. God still loves us. The gospel teaches that God loved us while we were yet sinners. But it doesn’t change the fact of our being sinners. It doesn’t negate the necessity of making inconvenient choices as part of the process of redeeming ourselves.</p><p>But there is another basic Gospel principle that I have learned myself the hard way. It is that sinning against the light plunges us into darkness much more quickly and more dangerously than sinning in ignorance. When we engage in a process of preferring our rationalizations to the light, we soon become incapable of hearing the Spirit. We can only fail a test so many times before our spiritual bondage becomes irreversible. The cries of our African-American brothers and sisters are ascending to the throne of God. The blood of the martyrs is crying up to God as well. If we want to be aligned with God, we need to hear those cries too. We need to act. We need to bring about real change. Our salvation literally hangs in the balance, not just spiritual salvation but physical and political and social salvation too. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, our democracy can’t survive if we let racism thrive.</p><p>There are at least three prior moments in our history as a nation when this test was placed before us in a way that we saw it and understood it clearly. And we collectively failed the test at least three times. One of the lies that has time and time again perpetuated apostasy in relation to this issue has been that a one-time fix would somehow be good enough. From the vantage point of his second inaugural address, Lincoln saw clearly that God‘s judgment had been upon us. Lincoln believed that God might, by the sword, extract of white Americans every drop of blood drawn from their slaves with the slave master’s lash. Americans acted by enacting the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution of the United States, formally ending slavery, giving black Americans the right to vote, and denying states the ability to abrogate those rights. But once that had been done, white Americans satisfied ourselves that our work was done, and we allowed states to pass “Jim Crow” laws stopped black Americans from voting, even as they still had the formal right. We allowed economic inequality to lapse into slavery without formality, but in substance. We largely acquiesced in the lie that simply declaring the slaves free was enough even if they didn’t have an economic foundation for real freedom. We engineered a society where white folks mostly don’t have to interact with black folks if we don’t want to, though few black folks have the same privilege. That social separation, that social distancing, has made and continues to make it easier for us to blind ourselves to the very real human misery that continues to exist under racist social norms and structures, the unexorcized ghosts of American slavery.</p><p>One aspect of apostasy is eyes that are unable to see, ears that are unable to hear, hearts that are hardened and impenetrable. When we are starting to feel defensive, starting to feel attacked In these kinds of conversations, it’s a sign of hardened hearts. There’s freedom for us in letting go of our defensiveness and listening and letting what we hear sink in. There is hope in opening our eyes and seeing, the way we saw when that terrifying video of George Floyd’s murder was posted all over the Internet.</p><p>God is merciful. He’s giving us as a nation a fourth moment. He’s giving us a choice again. We need to ask ourselves a very serious question. And the question is, “what do we need to do differently this time to make sure that reform doesn’t turn into backsliding? What are the specific covenants we must make to ensure that as a nation we cease to be black and white, bond and free, male and female, in which we can become of one heart and one mind and dwell together in righteousness?” As in every similar juncture in our history there are critical choices before us related to practical issues such as: How do we ensure that our justice system is just for everyone? How do we ensure access of all to our political process? How do we ensure that economic inequality doesn’t undermine social and political equality? How do we deal with organized terror perpetrated by white supremacist organizations and philosophies? These questions have been with us for over 200 years and they will continue to be with us until we get them right.</p><p>I don’t know if we will get them right but what I do know is that it is within our power. Our agency, God‘s greatest gift to us, is all that we need to fix this, just as it is all that we need to fix anything in our lives. We exercise agency. God bestows grace. God’s grace opens greater possibilities for agency. We use greater agency for right and God bestows grace upon grace. That possibility fills me with hope.</p><p>I pray for that light filled, hope filled future, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.</p><p>And then we get up off our knees and work for God‘s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.</p>John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-46226556872809131952019-07-15T11:23:00.002-05:002019-07-15T11:23:29.909-05:00Heat Resistant Love NeededI have a confession to make.<br />
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I am not angry at the Church.<br />
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I know that makes me a bad or brainwashed queer in the minds of many. Over the years I’ve had to become accustomed to being dismissed as a toady or as a Stockholm Syndrome victim.<br />
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I understand the anger, much, much better than most people seem to think. My self-awareness and coming out process started in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I arrived at BYU only a couple of years after electroshock aversion therapies stopped on campus. I remember walking past a building on campus that my friend Roger Leishman pointed to and said, “That’s where it happened.”<br />
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I knew a guy who voluntarily strapped electrodes onto his body over 40 times, and who had burn scars on his arms from trying to stop being gay. I had a friend who made repeated suicide attempts after his conversion therapy failed. I never went through that, but in 1986 I survived a summer where the only reason I’m still here is because the opportunity to carry out my plan never presented itself. It was only lack of opportunity that saved me.<br />
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After I survived, I crashed and burned out of BYU, and tried quitting the Church (and was excommunicated instead). And as I started to figure out how and why the things in my life happened the way they happened, I became angry. Very, very angry.<br />
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Other things made me angry too in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I watched good friends die of AIDS and saw friends totally abandoned by their families and treated like garbage. A friend nursed his partner through a painful death of complications caused by AIDS, and then was kicked out of their apartment by his partner’s family and banished from the funeral. Good Christian folks. His story wasn’t uncommon. Back in those days, you just assumed that if you were queer, you were on your own to create a chosen family, because your biological family wouldn’t have your back.<br />
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I understand anger. It’s been a travel companion of mine for many years. Until it wasn’t any more. Until I took a fork in the road that anger couldn’t follow any more.<br />
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One of the things I gradually realized is that every single one of the beliefs at the root of rejecting behaviors “out there” that hurt me so bad were beliefs that I had once fervently held. In my senior health class I defended gay bashing on the grounds that it “might help them to change.” It took many years of searching and personal growth for those scales to fall from my eyes (and from my heart). And I’m gay!<br />
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It took time for *me* to have compassion on the fourteen-year-old me who read The Miracle of Forgiveness and who was scared to death that he might be forever lost to the power of Satan and that it was *all his fault.* If I could forgive myself for taking eleven long years to learn to love and accept that fourteen-year-old self enough to come out of the closet and start telling his (and my) story, I could also find it in my heart to forgive the parents and teachers and bishops who fiercely loved me (and him), but just didn’t understand any better than I had understood myself back then. I forgave them because I knew that they knew not what they did, and I knew first-hand the complexities of doing one’s due diligence to figure this stuff out.<br />
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Anger was a natural reaction, no different really from cursing the skies when I accidentally miss the nail and bang my thumb with a hammer. (I did that a few times as a teenager doing summer work to earn money for my mission.) But anger didn’t ultimately serve that fourteen-year-old me, and it didn’t ultimately serve the people who mattered most in my life.<br />
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Forgiveness did serve, both me and others. Forgiveness unlocked the floodgates of healing tears, of self-acceptance and other-acceptance, of love and hope and faith.<br />
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I say this knowing very well that forgiveness can’t be forced. It can’t be demanded. And anger tends to have to run its course. As I said, we tend to walk with anger, until we don’t any more. Until the fork in the road that anger can’t follow looks brighter and better to us.<br />
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So I plead with my fellow Latter-day Saints, have patience with our white-hot anger. One of the best ways for it to run its course is for it to be heard out. Your love for us has to be heat resistant if you want to walk with us. If you want to minister, if you want to help, you need to hear us and walk with us even in our anger.<br />
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The fork in the road for me was the recognition of how fully and truly and deeply God knew me and how much he loved me. God had spoken to me numerous times over the years, but it took me a while — several years — to actually hear what God was saying to me and to fully believe it.<br />
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God told me that he knew me “from my inmost being,” the part of me that was eternal, and he told me it was in that part of me that I was gay. And he told me that he loved me exactly the way I was with a depth and a passion that I could barely understand. The only way I could even begin to apprehend the depth of that love for me is the realization that God was willing to suffer in the garden, to be taken and flogged and spit upon, to bleed at every pore and to be nailed to a cross for me. To experience the full agony of a violent physical death, for me. I know now that the atonement only scratched the surface of his love for me.<br />
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His suffering and death, and his rising resplendent from the tomb, and his revelation of himself, his beauty, his light, and his healing, to me personally, to us, to the church today and in every age, are reason enough to me to forgive and to hope. And to let go of every last ounce of anger.<br />
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When we are rejected by others, the reason it hurts us so bad is because that rejection adds fuel to the flames of our own shame and self-rejection.<br />
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Once we fully accept and love ourselves, once we see ourselves as the beings of light and love that we are, which is exactly how God sees us, there is no arrow or dagger or stone flung at us that can hit us. We’ll be like Samuel up on the walls of Zarahemla.<br />
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I have been hurt by some of you. By some of us. I’ve been knocked upside the head by some of the angry bricks you’ve flung. It hurt partly because I took for granted your love and acceptance and understanding, and was shocked by your display of the lack of it. It also hurt because my only desire ever has been to heal and to help, and people were telling me that *who and what I am* was harming people. It caused me to doubt. It hurt.<br />
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I’ve watched us doing this not just to me but to many others on both sides of the no-man’s land between so many members of the church and so many members of the LGBTQ community. The collateral damage, the “friendly fire” needs to stop. It won’t help us “win.”<br />
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It’s taken me a bit of adjustment, of prayer and fasting and searching, to forgive that too.<br />
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I recognize that like the pain I experienced years ago as a young teacher, priest and elder that almost caused me to end my life, the in-fighting in the LGBTQ Mormon community is a reflection of the larger brokenness. It’s part of the bigger problem that we all need to stay focused on healing, and that will take time and patience and inter-connection with each other in order to heal.<br />
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I believe in that work of healing and am more committed to it than ever.<br />
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In Jesus’ name, Amen.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-77979903055988370592018-10-23T14:33:00.000-05:002018-10-23T14:33:02.406-05:00With a Sincere Heart, with Real IntentIn the early 1990s I was involved in an increasingly heated discussion within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America about homosexuality. I participated in a couple of dialog events where information and perspectives on homosexuality were presented that were participated in by liberals and conservatives -- across the theological spectrum within Lutheranism.<br />
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At one point I remember having a conversation with a conservative evangelical Lutheran pastor. What he told me, I felt, was very revealing. He believed that the "biblical" position on homosexuality was that it was a sin. If that position were shown to be wrong, then he would lose faith in his ability to get any truth from the Bible. He said, "If we can't count on the Bible, what do we have left?"<br />
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My gut reaction came from the spiritual wellsprings of my upbringing as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I said to him, "We have God, of course!" I thought, "Where do you think the Bible came from?"<br />
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Thanks to my Mormonism, my faith as a Christian didn't depend on a view of scripture as 100% inerrant. I believed in a God who could reveal (and had revealed) himself to me personally, and who could give (and had given) me direct answers to the most perplexing questions in my life, even (or especially) when the words in a book didn't seem to do that very well. As Joseph Smith put it, "for the teachers of religion... understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible."<br />
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Of course I've run into the same problem among Mormons. A lot of Mormons want to do the same thing for "living prophets" that a lot of Protestants have done for the Bible. "Living prophets" are not "inerrant" for the same reasons that the Bible is not inerrant. This gets us to the root or the heart of the problem -- whether you are a Mormon or a conservative Evangelical.<br />
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If what you want is some "never wrong" external source of authority, you will be disappointed (traumatically disappointed even!) time and time and time again. The search for Truth with a capital T requires more personal engagement than just believing that some interpretation of scripture or some doctrinal pronouncement is infallible. It requires us to engage in a personal quest that requires risk.<br />
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"What if I'm wrong?" is one of the most painful questions to emerge from this messy human experience we are all having. And lots of us try to avoid that question by believing (wishing?) that some external authority can take away from us all risk of being wrong. If THEY'RE right 100% of the time, then I can always be right by just following them 100%.<br />
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I actually have become profoundly convinced that that's not God's plan for us (another insight that comes from deep within the spiritual wellsprings of my faith as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). I absolutely believe that God intended for this experience to be challenging and messy and to demand of us the utmost personal risk in learning how to become like Him.<br />
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In other words, there's no way for us to avoid being wrong once in a while.<br />
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*****<br />
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From this I also learned something important about the painful conflicts many of us are experiencing around LGBTQ experience and the church.<br />
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It was painful for me to feel that my experience as a gay man was invalidated or not believed by other Christians. But when I had this conversation with this conservative evangelical pastor, I realized that for him this was not about me personally at all. It wasn't about LGBTQ people in general at all. It was about him trying to hold on to a particular type of moral and spiritual compass. It was about this big question of how do we know truth and how do we make our way through the world.<br />
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In other words, it was not that he was a bad person. Quite the opposite. He was a very, very good, admirable person, wrestling with big questions about truth and how to find it and how to live by it. And for that, I was able to forgive him for not "getting" it, for not seeing things exactly the way I see them, as I hope others will forgive me for not seeing things their way, and even for being wrong on important matters that affect them.<br />
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What I believe is that we all have a better chance of getting to that place of perfection and truth we're all striving for if we have patience, if we go about it with a lot of love and forgiveness, and if we seek truth "having faith" that we can find it, "with a sincere heart, with real intent," and with more humility than we've had in the past.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-43588045677826093662018-03-06T09:58:00.001-06:002018-03-06T09:58:33.884-06:001 Corinthians on Sex and Marriage1 Corinthians 6 contains one of the texts typically used by Evangelical Christians (and some Mormons) to condemn homosexuality.<br />
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A lot of energy in the debates over this scripture focuses on the proper translation of a couple of terms in verse 9 that have been translated in the King James Version as "effeminate" and "abusers of themselves with mankind." A footnote in the LDS edition claim that the word translated as "effeminate" here means "catamite" in the original Greek. (I don't think that's true... I think the Greek word here is "malakoi," which means "soft". Who knows whether Paul was referring to "catamites" or "boy escorts" that were common in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds.) Another footnote links "abusers of themselves with mankind" with "homosexuality." In some versions, this gets translated as "homosexuality," in others not.<br />
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But, read in context here, I think the translation really doesn't matter. How we render some of those terms into English is moot, since Paul follows this list of sins with this declaration: "All things are lawful unto me."<br />
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What does this mean? It means that the Gospel of Jesus Christ does not consist of a list of do's and don't's.<br />
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Look at the context of what Paul says here, from verse 9 through the end of the chapter in verse 20. He's talking about "fornication," about "harlots." He's talking about a way of life in which we allow ourselves to be governed by worldly appetites rather than by the Spirit. If Paul is talking about homosexual behavior here, it's clearly homosexual behavior that's out of control, that involves prostitutes or random hook-ups, where sex is being pursued for sex's sake. He's not talking about relationships of commitment and love and trust. Assuming that to be the case would be the same as assuming that a condemnation of harlots is the same as a condemnation of sex between heterosexual married individuals.<br />
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Paul says, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I WILL NOT BE BROUGHT UNDER THE POWER OF ANY." In other words, the question here is: Are we ruled by our lusts, or are we ruled by the Spirit?<br />
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Gay and lesbian folks historically have been so shamed and beaten down and have so much had inculcated in us that any feeling of attraction toward a member of the same sex is "grievous sin" that we often find it difficult to distinguish between "bridled" sexuality that is an expression of love and out-of-control lust. But that distinction exists for us just the same as it does for all of our Heavenly Parents' hetero children.<br />
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Paul here is saying "All is lawful"; it just needs to be governed by love and by the Spirit.<br /><br />
The context of the entire chapter here is the condemnation of legalism! This discussion is occasioned because the Saints in Corinth are actually taking each other to civil court and suing each other! And Paul insists that the Saints should be governed by the Spirit, and a people governed by the Spirit should not need to solve their problems in this kind of legalistic manner.<br />
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So ironic that a letter condemning legalism should be twisted into a set of rules that members of the church have used to condemn homosexuals.<br />
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*****<br /><br />1 Corinthians 7 gets real about sex and marriage. And all of it is very relevant to LGBT believers. Read the chapter carefully for yourselves and tell me what you think. But here's what it looks like to me:<br />
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In the eyes of God, whether we are married or unmarried doesn't matter. It's up to us to decide what works best for us. (As Paul stressed in chapter 6, "All is lawful.")<br />
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If we have the gift of celibacy (like Paul did), that's great! It means we are free to focus all of our energy on service to God and to others!<br />
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If we don't have the gift of celibacy, we shouldn't try to force ourselves to be celibate. If our libido is too strong, we won't be able to resist the temptation of falling into "fornication," which will cause us to lose the Spirit. If we have a strong libido, we need to constructively channel it within marriage.<br />
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Marriage is a good thing. It can give us an opportunity to give ourselves completely to another human being. Once we make that commitment, we belong to our spouse! That requires a certain discipline! We have a mutual obligation to provide each other with the physical solace of sex. If we don't meet our spouse's sexual needs, we run the risk of libido driving our spouse to fornication. It's OK to go without sex in marriage for a time, especially for purposes of prayer and fasting, but it needs to be by mutual consent! One spouse can't just arbitrarily decide to stop having sex... That's unfair to the other spouse.<br />
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(Men's obligation to women here, by the way, is identical to women's obligation to men!)<br />
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Whatever state we are in when God calls us, it's all good! If we're married, it's good to stay married. Don't leave a spouse for the sake of the Church! (I found it very interesting what Paul says about believing spouses married to unbelieving spouses...) If we're single, it's good to stay single. But, that doesn't mean single people can't get married. They can! It's all good! It's up to us to discern what works best for us when it comes to these things. Paul is not trying to tell anybody they must do this or they must do that... He's offering advice. What matters is keeping the Spirit and channeling our sexuality in constructive ways.<br />
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We're all different! Some of us have different gifts than others. It's all for the good!<br />
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*****<br />
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Paul is adamant that celibacy should NOT be forced on people. To do so endangers their spiritual well being! It's best to find the right balance. Some of us don't really need sex. If so, that's great! If we do need sex, channeling our sexuality within a relationship will teach us mutual love and surrender.<br />
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I'm not sure these principles apply any differently to gay people than they do to straight people. I've seen the harm that comes from forcing people to be celibate. I've seen the harm that comes from pushing gay people into marriages with straight spouses, where the gay spouse simply can't reciprocate in the way that married partners are supposed to reciprocate. I've seen the good that comes from gay individuals constructively channeling their sexuality into loving, committed, same-sex relationships.<br />
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Is there a better argument than Paul's here for why Christians should accept and celebrate same-sex marriage?<br />
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Thoughts?John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-3265944752484659092018-02-27T23:11:00.000-06:002018-02-27T23:11:51.306-06:00Sex and MarriageA friend of mine sent me a blog post that has been making the rounds on Facebook recently (5K shares and growing) that claims to be an “invincible” argument against same-sex marriage.<br />
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The basic argument is that “romance” is a modern invention, ergo, relationships based on sexual attraction are also a “modern invention.” Modern marriage has been perverted by the introduction of “romance” into something that’s all about couple love and that forgets all about children and that starts basing relationships on the whims of fluctuating personal attraction, spawning a host of social evils such as divorce and (gasp) same-sex marriage. This has become a popular argument among lots of conservative opponents of same-sex marriage. (The writer of the particular blog I’ve read seems pretty pleased with himself for somehow having discovered this “invincible” argument against same-sex marriage, but the argument itself is old and was discovered some time after the “Western culture has always opposed same-sex marriage” argument ran out of steam.) In Mormon circles, to this argument gets added the smarty pants addendum to the effect that all this proves the words of modern day prophets, so just listen to what they tell you without thinking about it too much because they are always right.<br />
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My first bit of advice to folks, coming from someone who has a testimony of modern day prophets, is to please not hitch the wagons of our faith to flawed arguments about sex and marriage. I have a lot more respect for someone who can just say they accept the current doctrines of the Church on this matter. I had a conversation earlier today with someone I very much respect and love who said as much to me. This individual also, for what it’s worth, is eager to listen to and understand the experience of LGBT people. In other words, they don’t use their doctrinal commitments to close off communication or to stop trying to understand better, and I have even more respect for that.<br />
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It is true that modern-day notions of romance are, well, modern. Romance is hardly a modern invention, though. There have been a variety of cultural celebrations of the beauty of sexual love between two people: in medieval Europe, ancient Greece, Rome and China, and even ancient Palestine. Think Sir Galahad, Tristan and Isolde, and the Song of Solomon.<br />
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Whatever arguments you want to make, however, about the relationship between romance and marriage, all this talk about the evils of romance sort of elide the fact that when discussing the fate of gay people in society, we’re actually concerned not about romance and marriage but about sex and marriage. For obvious reasons, nobody would buy an argument that sex has nothing to do with marriage; nor that the pleasures of sex play an important role as the glue that helps keep a married couple together. Of course sexual passion has ups and downs in any relationship that lasts long enough. And, yes, people addicted to sexual passion who don’t have sufficient commitment to the idea of family, will find the temptation to infidelity difficult to resist. That is likely to be true whether you are gay or straight. Infidelity, by the way, was not invented by the modern age either. But sex — properly bridled — abides as an important factor in family cohesion, and has done so as long as families in all their forms have existed.<br />
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So let’s talk about marriage, because a major function of marriage has always been about the proper bridling of sexual passion, about taming it for the useful purposes of homemaking and family cohesion. Sex without marriage (of the non homo variety) would produce babies aplenty. We don’t need marriage to make babies. The sex drive (with or without “romance”) would ensure that happens. What marriage does is it produces homes for babies to be raised in. And that, by the way, is true whether or not the parents are gay or straight. Gay families have been carefully studied and it turns out they provide excellent homes for babies to be raised in. Obviously, avoiding the problem of children born out of wedlock is not a concern when we’re talking about sex of the homo variety. But unbridled, untamed sex and sexual actors can pose a threat to societal peace and family cohesion. As can forcing gay people into heterosexual marriages.<br />
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Gay “open marriages” (there are straight open marriages too, and a fair number of “mixed orientation marriages” that survive by way of open marriages) are not an argument against same sex marriage. Monogamy can only commend itself to gay couples under circumstances that are conducive to it — namely, by incorporating us into the fabric of the family and civil society, and by engaging us in the same set of moral rights and responsibilities we engage everyone else in. Fully integrating us into the spiritual fabric of society — the Church — would be important for the same reason. I can testify to the value added to my 25+ years marriage to my husband that comes from seeing him as my one and only. I can testify to the profound moral and spiritual significance to us of being able to be married. Please find ways to encourage and support that! Don’t punish the gays for supposedly being promiscuous, and then deny us access to the primary vehicle our society has historically used to encourage monogamy and commitment.<br />
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The need for societal peace and family cohesion and stability is one of the major reasons why society, families and individuals benefit from same-sex marriage. A lovely family portrait in my parents’ living room tells the story. My husband Göran and I, smiles betraying deep happiness, pose in a group photo with siblings and their spouses, and a gaggle of nephews and nieces who adore their gay uncles. Similar portraits adorn the family homes of countless gay couples across America. Gay families happily integrated into THE family, integrated into the social norms that create a context for happiness, stability and family unity will strengthen families and it will reduce suicide risk.<br />
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Marriage has taught me a plethora lessons about sacrifice, service and commitment, beneficial not just to us, but to those who love us, and to those our lives have touched. My enduring commitment to my husband has invited (and helped me keep) the Spirit in my life. I personally know hundreds of gay families who can testify to God’s blessings on them and on their relationships. This is not about “romance.” It’s about love and family.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-15778838800661880232018-02-13T12:39:00.000-06:002018-02-13T12:40:07.617-06:00I Am Not Your TriggerI feel the need to call attention to a pattern of destructive behavior that I feel needs to stop immediately. Like all destructive behavior, the only people we ultimately hurt with it is our ourselves. The one I want to talk about is labeling other individuals and their life paths as “triggering.”<br />
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Before I can fully address that, I feel I need to discuss a different but related damaging pattern in the church, that I think is at the root of this other problem. I call this pattern of behavior FUBAR, because it is a messing up of the Gospel in a way that makes the Gospel virtually impossible to recognize. Effed up beyond all recognition. And that pattern is when we tell people that there are a bunch of rules that they need to follow, and if they don’t, they are damned. Then we hold up as examples people that we think are following the rules the way we think they need to be followed. And we shame people for not living up to that standard. That is not the Gospel. That is a perversion of the Gospel. That is a distortion of the Gospel that makes it virtually impossible to recognize the Gospel for what it is. The Gospel is, in case we need to name what it actually is, an invitation into a relationship with God, where the only rule is to love him, love others, and love ourselves.<br />
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When we start to preach the FUBAR gospel, it creates hierarchies. It inculcates feelings of deep, fatal unworthiness. That’s actually what the gospel is supposed to free us from. But that’s what the FUBAR gospel does. It traumatizes us, and it makes us vulnerable. The FUBAR gospel enlists our own hearts and our own minds against us, making us our own worst haters and critics. This is not the Gospel. Most of the trauma (the the triggers related to that trauma) I’ve observed in the LGBT Mormon community are a result of this very anti-Gospel, antithetical-to-the-Gospel type of behavior that masquerades as the Gospel. Anybody calling themselves a disciple of Christ ought to be on the watch for this and name it and exorcize it the moment we see it.<br />
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OK, so let’s talk about triggers. I have triggers. I’m pretty sure everybody has triggers. The important thing about triggers is owning them. My triggers are inside of me. They belong to me. I might be triggered by something that somebody else says or does, or even by some aspect or characteristic of somebody else. (The color of their hair? The timber of their voice? I was once told by somebody that I triggered him because I looked like his ex-boyfriend. OK.) I might be triggered by these things, but these things are not my trigger. My trigger is inside me. It is my own. And I do not ultimately help myself by externalizing it, by making my stuff somebody else’s, by blaming somebody else for the fact that I am triggered. And if something that you say or do or are causes me to be triggered, it’s not up to you to be less of who you are. It’s up to me to do the soul work to figure out what is bothering me and why.<br />
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I would never deliberately try to trigger somebody else. That’s just mean. That’s bully behavior. And we certainly see a lot of that. Especially on the Internet. But I want to say that situations that trigger me are actually some of the most important learning situations in my life. They become learning situations when I do the soul work that the triggering prompts me to do.<br />
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Soul work is just that. It is work. Work is hard. And sometimes we’re tired. We are too tired to do the work. That is OK. If we’re being triggered by a particular situation or person, it’s OK to pull back a little bit. There’s no shame in it. But be aware that if you are feeling triggered by a person, just because of who they are, or how they are, that is not their fault. It’s OK to call somebody on bullying behavior. That’s one thing. But but it’s not OK to label another person triggering.<br />
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OK, so back to our individual paths in life. One of the things that I love about being a Latter-day Saint is that I chose to be one. I am excommunicated, so I don’t get any brownie points for studying the scriptures, praying, for living the Word of Wisdom, for going to church on Sunday. I do all those things not so I can keep a temple recommend, not so I can please my husband or our son (who I think would find it an enormous relief if I would just let go of this Mormonism thing). I do these things for the connection I feel with God and with the Spirit as I do them. I embrace Mormonism because the doctrine and the teaching help me to understand my world a lot better. They help me to put the adversity I experience, including the adversity of homophobia, in perspective. Mormonism teaches me that I am made of the same stuff as God, and that there is a glorious future awaiting me, and all that is made possible by the struggles and the challenges and even the suffering that I experience in this life. My religion makes me happy. It makes me whole. And it roots me in a community! A community which is blessedly imperfect! A community that occasionally wounds me, and even triggers me! A community that allows me ample opportunities to do the soul work that allows my God potential to shine through.<br />
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There’s nothing about my path as a gay Mormon that I feel ashamed of, or that I see any reason to hide under a bushel. And if I am not going to be in the closet about being a gay man and loving another amazing, beautiful man who has been my life partner through the twenty-five best years of my life, I sure as HELL am not going to go into the closet about being a Mormon. I sure as hell am not going into the closet about claiming any aspect of my faith as part of me and as part of my journey.<br />
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I am not your trigger, and I am not your role model either. Don’t take my path as a sign that anything you are doing is inadequate or wrong. That's the FUBAR gospel. Just because I go to church doesn’t mean you should be going to church. The only "should" in your life is what you are doing right now, which for the majority who are reading this who are LGBT, is probably not going to church. Unless you decide differently! And that’s the whole point. It needs to come from within you, whatever you do. If there’s any aspect of me that you want to take as a role model, Let it be that. Not that I’m going to church! But that I’ve come to where I am today, to a place of profound peace and happiness, because I listened to my heart. Because I did what I knew I needed to do. I left the church for 19 years, and I did that because that was what was in my heart to do. And when I came back, it wasn’t because I had some nagging sense that I’d been neglecting some duty for 19 years. It’s because I knew that that was the right thing for me to do here and now.<br />
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In terms of our relationship with the church, in terms of our decisions about whether or how to be related to a significant other, you and I might be completely opposite of each other. But we could both equally be role models in our authenticity. Parenthetically, that’s what I think is admirable, or praiseworthy, about Josh Weed. Not that he was in a mixed orientation marriage. Not that he’s now chosen to end his marriage. Neither of those things did I ever see as praiseworthy in and of themselves. But that he listens carefully to his heart, and he’s willing to change course when that’s where his heart leads, in that way, I want to be just like Josh when I grow up.<br />
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Speaking of Josh, I keep hearing people say things like, “I don’t care what decisions he makes for his personal life, but he should just shut up about it. He shouldn’t put himself out there as a role model.” I’ve heard the same thing said about Tom Christofferson, or Ty Mansfield, by folks who’ve left the church, and I’ve heard it <i>ad nauseum</i> on the church side about folks who have left the church. “They leave the church, but they can’t leave it alone! And if they want to leave the church, why don’t they just leave and keep it to themselves?” That’s bullying behavior. On both sides, that’s bullying and that’s shaming. That’s telling people that they need to go into the closet about some aspect of themselves. They can’t share their path or their journey with us.<br />
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Well, I reject that. I’m here to say that they can and should. I want to hear their stories, even (maybe especially) the ones that trigger me. Our stories are sacred! Our stories are our holy text, they are our scripture! There’s no reason why we should be ashamed of our stories, and there’s no reason why we should have to hide them under a bushel. There’s no reason why we should protect others from our lives, from who we are. Let’s protect that which is sacred within us! Let’s protect and hold sacred our journey, and protect and hold sacred our triggers as well! That’s part of the path! Let’s do the soul work that we need to do when we are able, and rest when we need to.<br />
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And if we can find it in our hearts to do this, to be authentic, to be fully who we are, without holding any of it back, and embrace others and support others in doing the same, no matter how different their individual choices and lives may look from ours, we will find the deepest and best possible kind of holy unity, happiness and peace it is possible to find.<br />
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And at some point, we'll stop being triggered... We'll just be whole and happy and well learned in the divine intricacies of this sacred journey of life.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-41330984160924026222018-01-23T08:55:00.000-06:002018-01-23T08:55:34.319-06:00The Way of PeaceI love the Book of Acts.<br />
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A major theme of its opening chapters is the conversion of the former enemies of the Saints to "the Way." (The term "Christianity" didn't come along until quite a bit later!) Acts is a story of hatred and fear overcome not through war but by the power of the Spirit. <br />
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It starts in chapter two when Peter confronts some of those responsible for the murder of his Lord. They are "pricked in their hearts" and ask, "What shall we do?" Peter invites them to be baptized and to join him and the other Saints. And then he welcomes them into the church. <br />
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Everyone knows the story of Saul of Tarsus, who consented to the murder of Stephen and who hunted down the Saints in Jerusalem and Damascus, "breathing out destruction" against them. When I arrive in the eternal realm, I want to look up Barnabus and have a chat with him. The Saints were scared to death of that man Saul. None of them wanted anything to do with him, and with reason. The scriptures say, "But Barnabus took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way." That took guts!<br />
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When peace comes to us in our day -- wherever we lack peace and yearn for it -- it will come about not through victory in war, but through conversion, through reconciliation, through the vanquishing not of enemies but of enmity itself. That is "the Way" that Christ taught.<br />
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That requires true faith. You have to believe in and love yourself before you can hope that others will believe in and love you. You have to believe in the possibility of peace. You might have to walk in the line of fire, in the No Man's Land between warring sides, like Barnabus did.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-14406688830710505602017-12-24T19:34:00.000-06:002017-12-24T19:34:35.283-06:00Repentance / ForgivenessA key moment in my spiritual journey came during a sacrament meeting talk in my ward given by a visiting high councilman. It was probably the second or third Sunday attending my LDS ward after about 19 years away from the Church. I had returned in response to a prompting from the Spirit, but I was still feeling very conflicted about my relationship with the Church.<br />
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The high councilman gave a talk on forgiveness, and by the end of the talk, tears were streaming down my face. The Spirit had not only testified of the truthfulness of what he was saying, but had also told me the specifics of how I needed to apply the principles of his talk in my life. I needed to forgive the Church.
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In the years leading up to my near suicide in 1986 I was harmed by teachings about homosexuality that have since been recognized as wrong and have been disavowed by Church leaders. I was harmed by Church leaders who had counseled me and and disciplined me without knowledge. I was harmed by family and friends who didn't stand by me, some who had turned against me, when they should have listened to me and tried to understand. As a result of the harm I experienced, but for the grace of God, I might not have survived to tell this story. Many haven't survived the harm. And no one in a position of authority in the Church has ever formally acknowledged the harm, much less apologized for it.
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The idea that I could forgive the Church was revolutionary for me. Part of the revelation was my realization that forgiveness was much more about the one doing the forgiving than it was about the one being forgiven. Forgiving would allow me to become whole. It allowed me to let go of a burden of anger I had bowed under for far too long. It also opened up possibilities of receiving and being transformed by forgiveness for the wrongs I had committed in my life. (Forgiveness is a two-way street: Until I could forgive, it would be impossible for me to truly believe there were situations where I might need to be forgiven or that forgiveness of my sins might be possible.) I didn't need to wait for a formal apology to benefit from the gift of forgiveness. The tears flowing down my face in that Sacrament meeting were tears of relief and joy. I let that burden go. I left it at the Savior's feet and I have never looked back.
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What I also realized in that moment, thanks to the teaching power of the Holy Spirit, is that forgiveness is an ever-flowing fountain. I realized that I could forgive not only past transgressions, but all future ones as well. I could choose never to take offense at wrong, but instead to focus on creating a zone of understanding and connection. I trusted that future knowledge would create future repentance and repentance could heal every harm, past, present and future. That realization has transformed my whole life.
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Some Church members reading this might be offended at the notion that the Church is something that could ever need forgiveness from anyone. I guess there are different ways of defining "the Church." If we look at the Church as the teaching and practice of the pure and unsoiled Gospel of Jesus Christ, then of course the Church could never be "forgiven." The pure Gospel is itself a call to repentance (and forgiveness). But if the Church is also its mortal, imperfect members and leaders feeling their way forward the best they can, then forgiveness will of necessity be part of the path of becoming a Zion people.
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In this Christmas season I ask forgiveness of some of my fellow LGBT Mormons and ex-Mormons. Many have felt invalidated by me. I don't always talk about every aspect of my spiritual journey, including the part of my spiritual journey that included a recognition of wrongs committed in the name of Christ and under the authority of the priesthood that might require a process of repentance and forgiveness. Your anger is not only understandable, but maybe even righteous. The harm and your need for healing deserve recognition.
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Never let any aspect of my story be used to make you feel like you are the ones somehow in the wrong. In the matter of the ways in which a combination of bad science and bad doctrine have led to misunderstanding and mistreatment, sometimes by those who were most under an obligation to try to listen and understand, there's no excuse.
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And you are entitled to forgive when you are ready, when your path of healing from the trauma you have experienced allows it. You are not wrong and I somehow right in this matter. Our paths are individual and unique and equally God-led toward ends that God only knows.
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I am grateful for my many, many friends in the Church who have experienced a bright light coming on in the darkness around LGBT issues, shining understanding on sins of commission and sins of omission. Many of you have conscientiously began to work, in both open as well as quiet, behind-the-scenes ways to right wrongs and heal hurts. Please keep up the good work.
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In this season when so many hearts in the world pray for peace, I add my prayers to theirs, and I pray for the gift of forgiveness that makes peace possible.
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In Jesus' holy name, Amen.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-22217402096936881752017-11-26T10:26:00.000-06:002017-11-26T10:36:38.352-06:00No Need of RepentanceThere's a turn of phrase that Jesus uses in the Gospels that fascinates me. On numerous occasions, Jesus refers to "persons which need no repentance" (for instance, Luke 15:7). Whenever Jesus is quoted as saying this -- and he does in numerous contexts throughout the Gospels -- it is always to contrast such people with repentant sinners. It took a while for this to sink in, but I've gradually realized that Jesus is teaching through irony whenever he uses this phrase. Of course there is <i>no such thing</i> as a person who has "no need of repentance." Of course plenty of people both then and now <i>think</i> they have no need of repentance. And until we get that we do, the whole import of these teachings will be lost on us.<br />
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Consider, for instance, a reading of the parable of the prodigal son that has become popular in Mormon circles. I can't help but think that many Mormons, when they read this parable, just can't help but identify with the Elder Brother. They think of themselves as the righteous faithful who have labored in the heat of the day and <i>deserve</i> all that the Father hath because they've <i>earned</i> it. And so they've read this parable in a way that actually completely undermines it by suggesting that of course the Father was happy to see his wayward son return, and so threw a nice party for him, but the prodigal son <i>still</i> has no inheritance any more. Nope, he spent it on prostitutes and wild living. It's gone now, and the Elder Brother is the real winner in this story and still gets "all that the father hath."<br />
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The whole thrust of Jesus' teaching was to push us to see the ways in which we are ALL the prodigal son. The account of this parable in Luke is set in a context of Jesus condemning pride and self-righteousness, all of which are the primary obstacle preventing us from seeing our need to repent. In the story of the prodigal son (we'll call him P.S. for short), P.S. acquires two qualities that Jesus presents as essential for salvation: humility ("I am no more worthy") and a desire to serve ("make me as one of thy hired servants"). The Elder Brother (or E.B. for short) has the latter quality of a desire to serve, but is utterly lacking in the former quality of humility. He is judgmental and has no compassion for his little brother. E.B.'s lack of humility actually reveals the one quality he does have as self-serving. And that grasping and lack of humility <i>block him from entering into the Kingdom</i>! In many of Jesus' parables, the coming Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a great feast. And Jesus says of E.B.: "He was angry and would NOT GO IN." The Father has to plead with him to enter, to remind him of the qualities that would allow him too to be saved: compassion, forgiveness and humility.<br />
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Many of us live in a religious culture marked by privilege. In that cultural context we prefer to think of ourselves as always good, always righteous. But I am convinced that failure is essential to growth. Did P.S. screw up? Heck yeah. But lessons learned the hard way are usually the most indelible ones. And what P.S. became as a result of those hard lessons is what we all need to become, regardless of the specifics of the path by which we become, namely, humble, compassionate, and forgiving. Those are the qualities that will unlock the Kingdom to us.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-55145080793064473042017-11-16T10:17:00.001-06:002017-11-16T11:18:13.782-06:00The Fruit of the GardenWith a certain amount of regularity, when folks learn that Goran and I have been together for 25+ years now, we get asked, "How do you do it?" I think I had a dream last night that is an answer to that question.<br />
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It was a very long dream full of rich symbolism that took me about an hour and a half to write down from beginning to end, but the Cliff's notes version goes like this:<br />
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<i>I was paying a visit to a woman most of us in the LGBT Mormon community know, someone regarded as a kind of Elder Stateswoman and Matriarch of the Mormon gays (I don't need to say her name, you all know who I'm talking about) at Oxford University (arguably the world's oldest and most eminent place of learning). After giving me a very strange and delicious fruit to eat (kind of like an apple, but it had a thick, brown husk that I needed to break and tear off first), we conversed as she took me on a walk with a spectacular view of a well-tended Garden. She eventually took her leave of me as she had womanly business to attend to (she met up with some other woman of similar age and rank, and they went off to a gathering of other women). I ended up in the kitchen of a young, married heterosexual couple with young children. Very cool, millennial types who didn't mind hanging out with the gays. While I was there, I noticed some itchy scratchy bumps on my left ring finger (wedding finger). These bumps began to slough off and started hatching into really hideous, nasty, noxious arthropods of varying shapes and sizes and colors, all poisonous and mean. I had a major battle with these evil critters in the kitchen of my friends, but eventually managed to stomp, smash and kill every last one of them. When I looked at my left ring finger again, it was clean and healthy and infection free.</i><br />
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One of the things I've gradually learned about marriage over the years is that in order to be successful in it, you have to do battle with all that is worst in yourself. For gay and lesbian couples, that includes the vicious critter known as <i>internalized homophobia</i>. But there are a whole host of other demons we have to wrestle with that are not unique to us, and that every sensible, solid virtue we ever learned about in Sunday School or Priesthood or Relief Society such as self-mastery, fidelity, and sacrifice stand us in good stead to wrestle. There were some bad, shame-inducing messages in Sunday School too that I have had to unlearn. Please forget everything you ever learned involving metaphors of used chewing gum, ink stains or nails in boards. I might add, however, that in my own personal journey (can't, of course, speak for others), one of the least helpful (most damaging?) messages "out there" in the world was the message that all of "those values" that we learned at church are bourgeois, heterosexual values that don't really apply to us. It takes a while to sort out the good stuff from the dreck. But for the most part, my Mormon upbringing has stood me in good stead to find a kind of happiness that is beyond words to describe.<br />
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I want to say that that Elder Stateswoman Matriarch in my dream actually stood for none other than Mother Eve, who gave me a certain fruit to eat, knowing that I needed the knowledge of Good and Evil that would come from it, so I could successfully learn the lessons I had come here to learn. The well tended gardens of Oxford University were symbolic of our post-Garden-of-Eden cultivation and mastery of the lone and dreary world. The specific site of learning for me was a kitchen associated with marriage (the kitchen of a married couple, kitchens being in many ways the heart of married life). My commitment to my husband (symbolized by my wedding finger) engaged me in a battle with "my own demons" that was quite scary at moments but ultimately ended in success, health and happiness.<br />
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At least, that's what I think that dream meant.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-5403305660988742612017-11-10T08:45:00.000-06:002017-11-10T08:49:38.475-06:00Take Up Your CrossSo I think a fundamental truth in the Gospel is that if we want to follow God, there are things we need to give up.<br />
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I was reading in the Gospel according to Matthew the other day, and I was struck by these words of Jesus to the apostles: "Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat." (Matthew 10:9-10) It seems to me there is a "travel light" ethic in the Gospel. The more we get weighed down by the things of this world, the harder it is to be responsive to the Spirit. Many of the sayings of Jesus express the principle of these two verses, which basically says, "Don't concern yourself with <i>stuff</i>. God will provide for you and that is <i>enough</i>."<br />
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I have a working thesis about gay celibacy. Liberals and conservatives both have things wrong and both have things right on this issue. What conservatives have right is they understand this principle of sacrifice that is in the warp and woof of God's way. They insist that God can and does ask hard things of us; sometimes extremely hard things. I think what liberals have gotten wrong is that they have run away from this principle. They often want to deny that God asks anything of us that isn't easy, fun and natural to give.<br />
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I think what conservatives have gotten wrong is that they often confuse societal prejudices or tradition with the divine order. So if blacks suffer because of systematic racism, or women suffer because of patriarchy or gays suffer because of homophobia, that's just the divine order of things. You just need to accept your cross and grin and bear it. They'll say to the oppressed other, "Well, that's what God is asking of <i>you</i>." And liberals have been right to critique that, to point out that society is wont to build and worship idols, and that the burdens that blacks or women or gays are forced to bear are the legacy of idolatry and of the kind of pride that the entire Book of Mormon is an indictment of.<br />
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Of course there are folks who identify as conservative who get that; just as there are folks who identify as liberal who understand that there are things we have to give up in order for there to be real justice and love. But I'd say there are liberal and conservative tendencies that end up distorting the true principles on either side of our political or theological divides. Conservatives really get the "serve the Lord with all thy might" (D&C 4:2) principle, while liberals really get the "thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:2) principle. If you can just put those two things together, what you really have is the first two Great Commandments ("thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind [and] thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Matthew 22:37-39), which transcends politics and theology, doesn't it?<br />
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So this still naturally begs the question, What does God ask us to give up? What do we need to sacrifice in order to build the Kingdom?<br />
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And I think finding the answer to this is at the heart of Christian discipleship. It's at the core of the individual encounter with God, which is at the core of everything else in spirituality and religion. It is in that encounter where we experience a call to service that can take us to very strange and interesting places indeed.<br />
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Once we recognize this, we come to terms with the fact that there will be a point in our relationship with Spirit (or with "the Spirit") when the rubber meets the road, and we just have to accept something difficult. That might be the moment when a soldier discovers that she really might die for her country. Or it might be the moment when a young man discovers the commitment of fatherhood. Or it might be when a public servant is willing to sacrifice an election for doing what is right. But when or what that moment is for each of us is something only we can recognize.<br />
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The daily path, I think, demands that we listen, that we open ourselves to that every time we get on our knees. "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross <i>daily</i>." (Luke 9:23) Then be prepared.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-29940118728968711842017-10-04T12:40:00.001-05:002017-10-04T12:47:31.641-05:00The Greatest ApostleIn the last day or so I’ve had a number of conversations with different people about the significance of Elder Dallin Oaks’ condemnation of same sex relationships during his talk at the Saturday morning session of General Conference.<br />
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By way of full disclosure, my husband and I this last August celebrated our 25th anniversary as a couple (and the beginning of our tenth year as a legally married couple!), and Dallin Oaks’ talk did not upset me in the least. I knew going into conference that the church has not changed its position on this issue, and I don’t expect its position to change without a lot of prayer and fasting. And the choices that I’ve made in my life I have made carefully and prayerfully, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I have tried and tested those choices over the course of many years, and they have born much good fruit. I trust that with time, the truth will out. And I know where I stand with God, and where I stand is a good place, and so I have much patience for the working out of these issues within my beloved Latter-day Saint community. And working out they are. There are ample signs of that.<br />
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Even though I did not feel personally wounded by Oaks' talk, I fully expected that many would be. And I mourn with the many for whom this talk adds a fresh wound to so many other wounds that remain unhealed. I remember what it was like when I was just coming out, just trying to figure these things out, filled with doubt, trying to chip away at the years of internalized shame that remained encrusted on my soul. I listened to my heart, and trusted that coming out was the right thing to do, and eventually discerned that my relationship with my husband was the right thing for my life. As I entered into that path, I was in a sense taking my very first wobbly steps as an adult, taking responsibility for my own discernment process and my own choices. And it’s hard, when you are just learning to walk on your own, and there are people on the sidelines telling you that you’re wrong, that you can’t possibly know the things that you know, that you are a sinner. It’s easy to get thrown off balance. And my only advice in that situation is if your heart is telling you something is right, the only correct course of action is for you to follow it, so keep your gaze up, stand up straight, keep walking, and don’t let the bastards grind you down.<br />
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Now my response to conference overall was that there were many good, uplifting, Christ-centered, grace-centered gospel messages in conference. I felt the spirit teach me through them. And some people have gotten mad at me, and said, "Those talks don’t matter. Those general authorities weren’t as important as the one who condemned us." And my response to that is that something is only ever as important as we make it. Why should we invest more importance in a message that comes from a high-ranking apostle than in a message that comes from an emeritus 70? That’s not the Gospel. Christ didn’t say, "This high-ranking person is more important than this other person who has no rank." In fact he said the opposite. He said things like, "If you want to be the greatest, you need to be a servant, not a ruler," and "The last will be first and the first will be last," and "Be like a child." Stuff like that.<br />
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If the retired 70's message is grounded in a firm understanding of the Gospel, and if it is delivered in a spirit of Christ-like grace, and that is the talk that most deeply penetrates my soul, in my mind that makes it <i>the most important message in conference</i>. The most important proclamations in any conference are not proclamations on the family or statements of policy, they are the declarations of Christ’s love and the call for each of us to align ourselves with it. I heard that call loud and clear at conference, both over the pulpit and in the quiet whisperings of the Spirit in my heart, and that’s what I’m trying to do.<br />
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I expected hurt and anger about Oaks' statement. I confess I was a little bit taken aback by the depth of the fury at his perceived "doubling down." And my only response to that is that righteous indignation is particularly ineffective as a solvent. It does not soften. In fact, it has the opposite effect. It hardens, it entrenches. Love, connection, and listening, on the other hand, are excellent solvents. They are, in fact, the only solvents that enable us to penetrate hardened shells and gain access to the heart. If you want to make lasting change in the world, be soft. Look patiently for openings, for fertile earth, and then plant seeds. Love.<br />
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<i>That</i> is the Gospel.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-64189546936154262752017-08-07T08:36:00.001-05:002017-08-07T12:09:19.987-05:00Our Non-Genetic HeritageI spent most of Sunday working on Goran's and my family trees. One thing that struck me is how incredibly important a role foster parents have played in both our families. There are numerous foster parents in both our family trees, but two salient examples illustrate.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7s6qOQxFMV0/WYhsQ1kYLLI/AAAAAAAAB1c/jSeXBi_MMl4YCW4b1Dh83CpkVL1HwOVPQCLcBGAs/s1600/31_07_2009_00_14_07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="628" height="244" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7s6qOQxFMV0/WYhsQ1kYLLI/AAAAAAAAB1c/jSeXBi_MMl4YCW4b1Dh83CpkVL1HwOVPQCLcBGAs/s320/31_07_2009_00_14_07.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">During the Spanish influenza epidemic, first my great grandmother and her baby boy passed away, then my great grandfather towards the tail end of the epidemic.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SRIvHydJo48/WYid2cceb4I/AAAAAAAAB1w/-yE2ZbeB57YYIpSjoJpky_Dc1vgo09vwQCLcBGAs/s1600/uncle_henry.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="373" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SRIvHydJo48/WYid2cceb4I/AAAAAAAAB1w/-yE2ZbeB57YYIpSjoJpky_Dc1vgo09vwQCLcBGAs/s320/uncle_henry.jpeg" width="286" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Uncle Henry" as a young man</td></tr>
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During the Great Spanish Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919 (considered the most devastating epidemic in recorded history: 30-40 million people died), my grandmother lost both her parents and her baby brother Howard. The oldest of her seven surviving siblings were still in their teens and the youngest was 5 years old. The children were all taken in and raised by their life-long bachelor uncle Henry. I have always been in awe of the sacrifice of this man who went from single bachelor farmer to parent of seven over night.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dYRsUqdIfkw/WYhsViclaqI/AAAAAAAAB1g/8VpmrMP1ns0Qt16jF9eYBSM5j7WyGDLQACLcBGAs/s1600/i-am-a-man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="608" height="182" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dYRsUqdIfkw/WYhsViclaqI/AAAAAAAAB1g/8VpmrMP1ns0Qt16jF9eYBSM5j7WyGDLQACLcBGAs/s320/i-am-a-man.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An iconic photo from the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike. Martin Luther King, Jr. traveled to Memphis to support the sanitation workers, and it was there he was assassinated.</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-15BqCx0CtvY/WYieDc-8XZI/AAAAAAAAB10/OjI0-JgXU0UaBq3Fw8JL_7e_fnYMjDzsgCLcBGAs/s1600/otis2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="487" height="229" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-15BqCx0CtvY/WYieDc-8XZI/AAAAAAAAB10/OjI0-JgXU0UaBq3Fw8JL_7e_fnYMjDzsgCLcBGAs/s320/otis2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Otis Elliott and Göran's grandma Eloise</td></tr>
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On Goran's side, his father and father's sister Dorothy were raised by Otis Elliott. Aunt Dottie described Otis as a kind and good father who raised them as his own kids, and provided a stable, loving influence in their lives. Like my grandma's uncle Henry, Otis was a humble, hard working man. Otis was a sanitation worker in Memphis, Tennessee during the sanitation workers strike of 1968, a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement. He was always (justifiably) proud of his role in that historic movement for equality and justice that has shaped all of our worlds.<br />
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Certainly our genetic heritage is a huge part of making us who we are. But family is much more than just genes ("genealogy"). Individually and as families, we are who we are as well because of the things we inherited spiritually and emotionally and socially from foster parents, mentors or teachers. <br />
<br />John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-58730897179748613832017-07-29T10:14:00.000-05:002017-07-30T02:35:01.237-05:00Why I Stay<i>This is the text of the talk I gave at the 2017 Sunstone Symposium session "Why We Stay" at the Ray A. Olpin Student Center, at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, </i><i>on Friday, July 28, 2017. Other presenters were Robin Linkhart, Maxine Hanks, and Nathan McCluskey.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I was excommunicated from the Church in 1986. I am a gay man in a 25-year-long relationship with my husband Göran Gustav-Wrathall. We were legally married in July 2008. Over the years people have asked me how it is that I could consider myself Mormon if I'm not a member of the Church. What covenants are there for me to renew on Sunday morning, sitting in the pews, as I pass, without partaking, the sacrament tray to the person sitting next to me? To the extent that there is a relationship between me and God that has the Church as a context, real as it is to me, it is invisible to outside observers. That’s OK. I stay because I cannot deny what I know.<br />
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God is real. Christ is real. The Spirit is real. When the Spirit is present, I know it is present. When it is gone, I feel its absence. When I obey its promptings, I have it with me. And when I disobey, I lose it. I can and do lose it on occasion. And with the Spirit, my life is infinitely fuller and richer and more peaceful and meaningful, than without it, so I obey, to the best of my ability. And when I lose it, I do whatever I need to do to get it back again. And one of those things is to stay active in my ward and to keep the discipline of the Church and the Gospel in my life.<br />
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I stay because God has told me that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is his church and it's where he wants me. It’s where, time and time again, as recently as the last time I attended my south Minneapolis ward two weeks ago, the Spirit meets me and teaches me. My heart is softened, the Lord shows me my weaknesses and works with me and draws me to him. At times I have been reassured. At times I have been corrected. I find myself renewed as I meditate on the Sacrament prayer, as I make those promises in my heart, and ask for the Lord’s help to keep those promises. I have had sacred experiences with my priesthood leaders, including through blessings they have given me, that convinced me of the reality of priesthood power. I have witnessed and been the beneficiary of the miraculous healing power of the priesthood. I revere the priesthood as I revere God. I have been blessed to have my fellow Saints claim me as one of their own, and care for me, and encourage me. They accept me and my husband with love and without judgment, and they trust me to find my way forward through faith and hope and love the same way as everybody else.<br />
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Are there complications and contradictions? The main one is that I feel prompted to stay true and committed to my husband. We experience all the challenges of any couple, as I've observed both among those who've managed to make their marriages work as well as those who haven't. My marriage to Göran is a school in which I learn patience and sacrifice and empathy. I learn what it is to be one with another human being. My relationship with Göran does not cause me to lose the Spirit. To the contrary I've experienced a richness of the Spirit as I've honored my commitments to him.<br />
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What does this mean? I trust that the seeming contradictions between my experience with my husband versus church teaching and policy will all work out. It will work out for me personally as long as I keep that Spirit guide in my life. In my last meeting with my stake president, he simply counseled patience. “What is time unto the Lord?” he said. I am learning patience above all. Time and life experience will grind away everything ephemeral and show what is eternal and what is not.<br />
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The older and more experienced I become, the more I am aware of my weaknesses and failings and my need for grace. I have learned how utterly dependent my happiness is on the first principles of the Gospel, faith and repentance. Faith is not merely belief, it is allowing oneself to trust divine providence, even when one cannot see the ends toward which that providence guides us. Repentance is not merely an act, it is a posture, a way of life, an openness to learn and grow and become. When we fall, it is a willingness to pick ourselves up and start over. I am grateful for the grace God has shown me time and time again, often when I knew myself unworthy of it. This is a journey that must be renewed daily. It does not matter how far I've travelled in my journey up to this point. I will never reach my destination if I ever stop walking.<br />
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Sometimes I can barely believe I've been on this path for 12 years already. There have been a couple of moments in my journey with the Church when I have wondered how I would continue on with it. Not necessarily doubted that I would continue, but wondered as in having a sense of amazement. One of them was in the immediate aftermath of the November 2015 LDS policy on gay families.<br />
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On the afternoon of November 5, 2015 I was chatting on Facebook with other leaders of Affirmation when news of the policy began to break in social media. It wasn't until I saw copies of authenticated text from the new handbook that it really began to sink in. My initial personal reaction was not positive. I think among the first words out of my mouth were, “That's barbaric.” It seemed vindictive to me. In that moment, it looked to me like revenge for the Church’s stunning defeat in the Supreme Court, in Obergefell v. Hodges. And to me it was barbaric to use children to strike at the parents. I knew, and still know the personal situations of enough LGBT Mormons in same-sex relationships raising children in the Church to immediately grasp what impact this would have on them, not to mention the larger impact that this could have on LDS attitudes toward the LGBT community.<br />
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As I continued to reflect, there were two dominant thoughts in my mind. The first was that any hope of broadening connections between the larger LGBT community and the Church had been dashed. During my time of service as senior vice president and as a member of the board of Affirmation I and other leaders in the organization had been working hard to broaden those contacts. We had opened up a dialogue with church leaders at all levels, and had been meeting with LDS Church public affairs since December 2012. We were striving to make room for LGBT Mormons to claim their faith as Latter-day Saints, as I have since my profound conversion experience in September 2005.<br />
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In September and October 2016, Affirmation conducted a survey of its membership worldwide. Based on the survey data, which looked representative of the Affirmation community that we served, over half of Affirmation members reported being active in the Church prior to the policy. After the policy that percentage dropped to somewhere between 20% and 25%. In a January 2016 leadership gathering in Los Angeles, Affirmation leaders expressed anger, a sense of betrayal, and even guilt for having encouraged LGBT Mormons to engage with the Church. We had observed widespread trauma among LGBT Mormons and their families.<br />
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My other dominant thought was less a coherent thought and more a sense of gnawing hurt, sadness and doubt. If I had to put words to it I would say I was wrestling with my sense of my own place in all of this. Hadn't the Lord told me to come back to the Church? Hadn't the Lord reassured me that my relationship with my husband was blessed by him, that I should honor it and safeguard it as one of my greatest personal treasures? I was running for president of Affirmation, and had made the decision to run based on personal prayer and fasting and a clear sense that this was also something the Lord wanted me to do. How was I supposed to do this now? I remember the morning of November 6, I got up out of bed, went downstairs to kneel in our living room and pray before beginning my daily scripture study. I remember feeling heartsick, wishing that what had happened the previous afternoon had been just a bad dream.<br />
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But then I began to pray. I began to pour my heart out to the Lord, saying simply, please help me to understand. Please help me to know what to do. And it was like a light went on. Peace flooded through me. My mind was filled with light and reassurance. And the Lord in essence said to me don't worry about this. I've got this one. And you and your husband are still OK.<br />
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It was hard for me to articulate what this personal revelation meant, because my sense of things was so counterintuitive. Most members of the LGBT Mormon community saw the policy as a giant step backwards, as a triumph of bigotry. I saw it now as a step forward. A step through. We had to go through this to get to the other side. And the other side would be very, very good.<br />
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What had we lost? We had lost some illusions about a liberal progressive evolution of church policy on this issue. I was always skeptical of that kind of a scenario. I always suspected that this issue could only be tackled head-on, in the form of listening deeply to the real stories of LGBT Mormons, followed by doctrinal searching and prayer for new revelation.<br />
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What we hadn't lost was ourselves, our stories, in their depth and totality. The Church might not understand us, but God does. God sees us. God saw me and said I was OK and that I need not worry and that he had this one.<br />
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In the weeks after, I saw signs that ordinary, mainstream, believing heterosexual Mormons were really struggling with this. My Bishop called me to see if I was OK. We met and talked. He told me that by his estimate at least 60% of the members of our ward were struggling with this. The Sunday after the policy a stranger came up to me in church and asked if I was John Gustav-Wrathall. When I told him I was, he told me that he was investigating the Church. He said to me, “I just wanted you to know that I'm with you on this one.” Other members of my ward came up to me and hugged me and promised me that I was not alone.<br />
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At the end of November my mother passed away, and I spoke at her funeral. I told the story of her own personal revelation telling her that her gay son was OK, and prompting her to accept my husband as her own son. After the funeral, it seemed like there were a procession of members of my dad's ultra conservative Springville, Utah ward coming to me and wanting to talk about the policy, many of them with tears in their eyes.<br />
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In early December, I asked for and was quickly granted a series of meetings with church representatives and leaders in Salt Lake. I met with an apostle, and, after telling some stories of the trauma that I had observed among ordinary LGBT Mormons, I said, “On the drive up here, I was discussing the policy with my father. My father was very troubled by the term apostate. I am now defined as apostate under this policy. I told my father that I did not believe it was the Church’s intention to stigmatize me or others in my situation. The concept of apostasy is simply used to draw a line between what the Church currently understands as doctrine and what it does not. Was I correct in what I told my father?” The apostle’s response was that what I had told my father was exactly right. It was clear to me that in his willingness to meet with me there was a desire to engage, to draw in and include despite very difficult doctrinal understandings. After writing about this meeting in <a href="http://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php/2015/12/guest-post-all-flesh/" target="_blank">a blog post in <i>Times & Seasons</i></a>, I was accused by some of lying about having met with church leaders. The disbelief was proof of what I already knew about the situation, namely that it is more complex, and our leaders recognize it as more complex, than labels like “apostate” are widely understood to imply.<br />
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Yes, there has been defensiveness. There has been retrenchment and doubling down and an intensification of anti-LGBT attitudes in some quarters of the Church. But there has been an opening up as well, an opening up and a deepening of dialogue. For good or for ill this is an issue that the Church can only move through, not back or away from.<br />
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The policy did create genuine trauma for LGBT Mormons. And it has been a duty of mine as president of Affirmation to make space for people to distance themselves from the Church. But I believe that some of us are called to stay, and the Lord has a very important role for us as part of his plan to move us not away from or around but through.<br />
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My testimony has never required members of my ward to “be nice” to me. Nor has it required that the Church treat me as equal. It has nothing to do with the membership of the Church somehow collectively holding correct beliefs about everything. It doesn't piss me off when somebody says something stupid in Sunday school or priesthood meeting. My testimony doesn't require an aesthetically pleasing account of church history. As an historian, I like my history messy, by the way. I like it human and real. The hand of God is more recognizable in that kind of story. I don't know what to make of the Book of Mormon, other than to say that it is the most spiritually powerful and transformative text I've ever encountered. For me, the jury is out as far as Book of Mormon historicity goes. I haven't been satisfied by the critics that it's a fraud, but there are certainly aspects of the text that are puzzling if we want to try to take it literally (which the text itself somewhat demands of us). I suppose that's fundamentally no different from any foundational scriptural text that exists anywhere. But I certainly know that the Book of Mormon is true in the way that is most meaningful to me, which is in the reading and the application of it.<br />
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For me the Church is not true “in spite of” the flaws of its members, “in spite of” our individual and collective missteps. It is true in them. It is true in our bearing with one another through them. The scriptures are more or less an archive of human error and divine correction. The trueness of the Church is in having an authentic relationship with a living God who is drawing us into a more god-like life. That’s what priesthood, at its core, is about. That kind of relationship, which demands the discipline of priesthood, necessarily involves us making both individual and collective mistakes, and requiring correction. I’m not sure God’s plan works any other way.<br />
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So I’m here, I’m queer, I’m Mormon. Get used to it.<br />
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In the name of Jesus Christ.<br />
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Amen.<i> </i>John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-3542390972707246822017-04-24T22:06:00.001-05:002017-04-24T22:06:04.974-05:00The Gift of Faith<p style="word-wrap: break-word; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i>Delivered at The Hearth Fireside Series on February 26, 2017, Atherton, CA</i></span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></p><blockquote style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 20px; font-style: italic; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); word-wrap: break-word;"><em style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Matthew 15 </em></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 20px; font-style: italic; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); word-wrap: break-word;"><em style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">21 ¶Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.</em></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 20px; font-style: italic; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); word-wrap: break-word;"><em style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.</em></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 20px; font-style: italic; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); word-wrap: break-word;"><em style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> 23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.</em></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 20px; font-style: italic; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); word-wrap: break-word;"><em style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> 24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.</em></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 20px; font-style: italic; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); word-wrap: break-word;"><em style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> 25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.</em></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 20px; font-style: italic; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); word-wrap: break-word;"><em style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> 26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.</em></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 20px; font-style: italic; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><em style="word-wrap: break-word;"> 27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ </em><em style="word-wrap: break-word;">table.</em></span></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0px; padding: 0.5em 20px; font-style: italic; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); word-wrap: break-word;"><em style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.</em></blockquote><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The story of the Syrophoenician or “Canaanite” woman (told in Mark chapter 7 and re-told in Matthew chapter 15) is unique in the Gospels, in that it is only story where Jesus refuses to bless someone. At least initially.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It’s easy to focus on the end of the story, in which Jesus miraculously heals the woman’s daughter long-distance. We’re inclined to interpret his initial refusal to bless as a test of the woman’s faith.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Except that Jesus’ refusal is coupled with what, on the face of it, looks like blatant racial or ethnic discrimination and insults.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“It is not meet,” says Jesus, in response to the woman’s pleas for a blessing, “to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to the dogs.” I’ve seen some exegetes try to soften the blow of the insult of comparing this woman to a dog by suggesting that the original Greek in the text was diminutive, that it didn’t have the same harsh connotations that referring to someone as a dog in Middle Eastern culture typically has. Maybe. Consider it through the eyes of the Canaanite woman. Her daughter was suffering, and she was being refused in language that literally dehumanized both her and her daughter.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the Matthew version of the story, she followed them, crying after them from a distance, and Jesus refused to answer her. When the disciples begged Jesus to relent, just to make her stop, he replied tersely, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That phrase (not present in the Mark version of the story) was the key to James E. Talmage’s interpretation of the story. Jesus was not called by the Father to minister to the Gentiles. The keys to that work were not to be delegated until after Christ’s ascension.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The story might credibly have ended with that rejection. Most women in her shoes might give up and leave after being insulted. This would not, however, have been much of a story if it had ended there. It occurs to me that in the course of his ministry, Jesus might have said no to Gentiles seeking blessings many times, so often that it wouldn’t have seemed worth mentioning. This story might only have been told because of its exceptional quality; because it was the case of a Gentile who refused to take “no” for an answer, and whose faith was such that the blessing ultimately could not be withheld.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It is reminiscent of another story (recounted in Luke chapter 7) in which a Roman centurion beseeched the Jewish elders to intercede for him on behalf of a dying servant. Perhaps the centurion knew that Jesus was “not sent but unto… the house of Israel,” which would explain why he never appeared in person to Christ, and why he sent Jewish messengers to convey the message: “I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof… neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed” (vs. 6-7). Jesus marveled at the man’s faith, and proclaimed: “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel” (v. 9). The Luke account does not specify whether the servant was of the house of Israel or not, but it does state that like the daughter of the Canaanite woman, the servant was healed thanks to the exceptional faith of a Gentile.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">To return to the story of the Canaanite woman, her faith was such that she did not allow herself to be put off, neither by the insistent rejections, nor by the dehumanizing language. “Yes, Lord,” was her response to the ‘dogs’ comment, “yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.” It was when she said that, that Christ knew there was no blessing he could withhold from her. “O woman,” replied Jesus, “great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt” (Matthew 15: 28).</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As a gay man who am excommunicated, and who am unable to be reinstated into membership in the Church because of my 25-years relationship with my husband, and who have a testimony of the Gospel, and who am active in my LDS ward, I have occasionally been accused of accepting crumbs. I’ve been told that a self-respecting person does not do that. A self-respecting person demands a full place at the table and accepts nothing less.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I don’t believe for a single moment that that Canaanite woman believed either she or her daughter were of less value in the eyes of God than any child of the house of Israel. The proof of that was in her unwillingness to relinquish a blessing she knew her daughter needed; her perseverance until she had secured that blessing; her willingness to humble herself before God in order to claim that blessing. In a sense, by turning Christ’s refusal away with the words, “Yes, Lord, yet the dogs eat the crumbs,” she affirmed her infinite worth in terms that Christ could not deny. “Great is thy faith,” he said of her. Or “I have not found so great faith in Israel,” as he said of the Roman centurion.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">To my way of thinking, it would have been her turning away, her giving up, that might have devalued her. To turn away might have been an admission that she or her daughter were less worthy of the blessing than anybody else Christ might have healed more readily. I am of infinite worth, and so is my husband, and so I show up at Church and I live the Gospel as fully as I am permitted within the current confines. My presence at church is simultaneously two things: a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel, and a testimony of my infinite worth.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This still begs the question: Why does the Church treat people in a discriminatory manner? Or, to put it in slightly harder terms, How could a church that discriminates against people, that is seemingly a respecter of persons, be true? As I was writing this talk, I was exchanging messages with a faithful lesbian mom who has been distraught because her daughter just turned eight years old, and will not be able to be baptized as her older siblings were. We can take the experience of LGBT people today, and put it in the context of long millennia of discrimination of some sort in the Church, for race, or gender, or ability.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">God is no respecter of persons. If the story of the Canaanite woman is an illustration of anything, it is of this fundamental truth. But apparently God’s church is a respecter of persons. The story of the Canaanite woman is also an illustration of that reality.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Even Christ himself seemed somewhat bound or limited by that reality. The gospels' and the Book of Mormon's witness of Christ almost always shows Christ standing with the disadvantaged. It shows us that when society and/or the Church marginalize people, God stands with the marginalized. That is the normal ethic that God demands of us. But if we believe — and I believe it — that Christ was God incarnate, then the incarnate aspect of his being placed him in a temporal, worldly context and in the framework of all the limitations that came with that context. He could transcend it at times, but he couldn’t just dispense with it. And if Christ could not, then I’m not sure how I would expect his apostles to, especially when the scriptures are replete with examples of Christ’s apostles’ limitations. It doesn’t make the Gospel or even the Church less true.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We can theorize or speculate about why the limitations exist. Perhaps it is God accommodating human weakness. Perhaps when human beings learn to stop putting artificial limitations on someone because of their race or their gender or their sexuality or their gender identity or their ability, then God eagerly takes us to the next step of evolution as a human family. There is a fundamental Gospel principle that we are able to see God only to the extent that we become like him. The becoming like him part is a real challenge.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Perhaps God has some master scheme in mind that requires steps. Perhaps God could, for instance, only have overcome the innate human tendency toward idolatry by creating a “chosen people,” a necessarily limiting or discriminatory act. There’s scriptural support for the notion thatGod used the Law to discipline his chosen peoples because of our innate tendency toward selfishness and egotism, though the arc of the history of God’s engagement with humanity shows him weaning us toward a higher law of selflessness and compassion, free of the legalism and the harsh discipline of the past.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Nothing about the existence of these limitations or of the trauma they create for so many convinces me that God is absent or nonexistent. Amidst the pain, God is at work. I have had too many experiences that are unexplainable to me in any other way than that his hand has been in my life and that the restored priesthood is real, to not believe that God lives and that he is guiding the Church.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I am also convinced that God takes the principle of agency very seriously. It is the foundational principle of creation, and equal parts of human misery and transcendent joy in this life are the product of it.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">All that having been said, whatever the reasons for legalism and discrimination in our institutional religious framework, it doesn’t change the fact that to be gay, lesbian, bi or transgender in this world today demands an extraordinary kind of faith. And that is why I want to directly and personally address the last half of my remarks to my fellow lesbian, gay, bi and transgender siblings here in the audience today.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There is a significant difference between us and the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15. The Canaanite woman had her daughter, and her daughter had her. They had the love of family; that is what drove this woman to demand a blessing from Jesus in spite of the rejection: her family. And many of us have lost our families. LGBT people are sometimes blessed to have our families come on this journey with us, but we’ve never been able to take it for granted. And in my time as a leader in Affirmation I have seen the absolute devastation and trauma of this total rejection so many of us experience from our families and from our church.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But here’s what I can say about the rejection we’ve experienced. Every significant thing I was told in the Church about what it would mean to be gay has turned out to be completely false.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I was told that gay people were incapable of real love, that we were incapable of forming lasting commitments. This year my husband and I are celebrating our 25th anniversary, and one thing I can say about the love between us is that it has never been deeper, or stronger, or more nourishing than it is now. That love has steadily grown, day by day, month by month, year by year, through trials and challenges and heartache and through mistakes and failings and forgiveness and through the raising and care of foster children. And if our love is not real, then I can’t imagine what real love is, because what we have surpasses my ability to express, in its power to heal and teach and inspire, and in its infinite potential.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I was told that if I entered into a same-sex relationship of any sort, that I would lose the Spirit of God. But I have the Spirit in my life, and so does my husband. How do you know when the Spirit is in someone’s life? When you see the fruit of the Spirit: love, hope, patience, faith, kindness, forgiveness, perseverance… Do I know gay people in same-sex relationships who manifest the fruit of the Spirit and who have gifts of the Spirit? I do in abundance. No matter our sexual orientation or gender identity, no matter our status in the Church or our life circumstances, if we seek God in patience and humility, he pours his Spirit out on us.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I have one thing to say about the Church’s current policy relating to gay people. If these things that I had been told were true — if real commitment and love were impossible in a same-sex relationship, and if a same-sex relationship denied us the possibility of having the Spirit in our lives or a relationship with God — then the policy would be wise and kind, evidently designed to prevent us from harming ourselves, to protect us from falling into lonely lives devoid of spirituality or meaning. I think our leaders believe they are protecting us.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I am the president of Affirmation, so I feel like I would be remiss in my duty tonight if I did not leave you with some affirmations.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">First: We are greater than the rejection.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When people are unkind to us, when they reject us, there is a fundamental spiritual principle that we all need to be aware of. What you do to others, you only do to yourself. We are all interconnected. And we are all connected to God. That is why Christ said, “If you do it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25: 40)</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When people reject us, we might think it is some kind of reflection on our worth. But it is not. A person who rejects you may be revealing something unfortunate and unpleasant about themselves, but in their rejection there is not the least of an iota of reflection on who you are or what you are worth.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We are greater than the rejection.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Second: God does not reject us.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Read the founding scripture of Mormonism: “If ANY of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to ALL LIBERALLY and UPBRAIDETH NOT.” (James 1:5) It says “if ANY of you lack wisdom.” That means the only prerequisite is that we lack wisdom, which most all of us do. Or I can speak for myself and say I do. It says, God “giveth to ALL.” There are no disclaimers here, no exceptions, no requirement that you be straight or righteous or anything at all. It says ALL. It says “and UPBRAIDETH NOT,” which means that God does not scold us or punish us for asking him the “wrong” question. That’s not how God operates. He doesn’t care what question you have to ask. He doesn’t “upbraid” you for that. He cares only that you ask him, that you turn to him. And it says “LIBERALLY,” which means, when we ask God for something good, he is not stingy. God does not hold back. He pours out blessings on us.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">How do I know this scripture is true? Because I have tested it, and I have found it truer than I ever had been able to imagine.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">God does not reject us.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Third: LGBT people are in a better position to understand the Gospel than many of our straight brothers and sisters.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Why? Because we have to work and struggle and fight for every ounce of understanding about ourselves. Because we are not permitted to take anything for granted. Because we have to build a relationship with God that is refined through trial and error. Because we learn the heart of the Gospel by forgiving. And right now we have plenty of opportunities to forgive.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Forgiving does not diminish us. Forgiveness is one of the greatest, most humanizing gifts of the Atonement. It is the most powerful way we can realize for ourselves that first affirmation I shared with you, that we are greater than the rejection. It enables us to access the forgiveness we need for our mistakes and shortcomings. It unlocks the power of love and redemption.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The gospel applies to us every bit as much as it applies to every other child of God on the planet. But when we are marginal, when we have experienced rejection and loneliness, when we have had to sit in the dark without human friends or guides, then we are in a position to acquire deep understanding.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We LGBT Mormons are in a better position to understand the Gospel in all its depth and power than we think.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We have gifts to offer the Church, without which the Church cannot prosper.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I have a vision of Mount Zion, of the Lord’s Holy Temple, where we will all some day gather, gay, lesbian, straight, bi, transgender, non-binary, people of every race and tribe and background, women and men. I had a dream once, that we were all together in the temple, dancing, like the Saints who danced in the Nauvoo Temple before they were driven out. In this vision of Mount Zion, there will be no poor among us, no marginal people, no people on the edges. I will see you there, with my husband, and with our foster sons, with my parents and siblings and nephews and nieces, and uncles and aunts and cousins and ancestors and descendants. And the Spirit will be poured out on all of us with a richness and a power that none of us imagined possible; with a richness and power that our straight brothers and sisters had never realized was possible because until that moment, we LGBT folks had been missing from the equation.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I have a friend here in Oakland, Judy Finch. Judy has been one of the most constant supports to me through one of the most challenging times of my life. One of the things that Judy keeps reminding me is that the most important thing I can do for anybody else is to take care of myself, to do whatever I need to do to be healthy and happy and whole. I can’t help anybody else if I don’t do that.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And so in closing I want to pass Judy’s reminder on to all of you. I love you deeply. Every morning I wake up to thoughts of you. I pray and I work throughout the day, thinking what can I do that will bring hope and encouragement to my siblings who are lesbian and bi and transgender and gay. And I have seen the trauma so many of us have experienced and I have felt the pain of it and I have been amazed by your capacity to transcend it.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But I say: Take care of yourselves. Do whatever you need to do to be happy and healthy and whole. You don’t need to go anyplace where you are not affirmed in the fullness and integrity of who you are, all of you, every molecule of you.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And if you have begun to catch a vision of yourselves as whole and good and complete and as a divine child of God, if you have found that healing ground and that spiritual center, there is work for you to do. There is much healing needed in the world. And I invite you to join in that work.</span></p><p style="word-wrap: break-word; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the name of Jesus Chist, our Teacher, our Savior and our Redeemer. Amen.</span></p>John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-21987591779112727812016-10-26T15:38:00.003-05:002016-10-26T15:46:26.679-05:00Mormon and GayI've been reading people's responses to the new "Mormon and Gay" website produced by the LDS Church. There's a way in which I haven't really had the luxury of thinking about the new web site in terms of my own personal feelings about it. In my role as president of Affirmation, my first reaction to the web site was all about the impact I thought the web site would have on the community I am trying to serve (we're still dealing with a lot of trauma from the events of the past year), and whether or not the web site could advance a profitable dialog between LGBT people and straight/cis- people in the LDS Church (I think it can, though that dialog will still require a lot of work on the part of everybody, and a lot of the LGBT folks are really tired and hurting).<br />
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It just so happened that the web site came out in the midst of a very tender moment in my life, the day after my husband went through an intense day of surgery to receive a kidney transplant. Through that whole process I was very aware of his (of our) mortality, and just how extremely fragile life is and how infinitely precious Goran is to me, and the way in which over the course of nearly 25 years of life together I don't even really know any more how to separate "me" from him, from us. One of the most sacred moments in my life has now become the moment he finally started to come out of the anesthesia to a state of full consciousness.<br />
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I had been there by his side for several hours holding his hand, and even though he couldn't open his eyes, when he first realized it was me there, he started to sob. He just sobbed! And then hours later when he could finally speak, he pulled me up close to him, and he whispered, "You've always been here for me!" I replied, "Yes. I love you." Suddenly he began sobbing again. He told me he didn't feel worthy of my love. I replied that I didn't feel worthy either. We both forgave each other and then wept together, enveloped by the most incredible warmth and peace, absolutely nothing hidden or held back, absolutely nothing to come between us, and I felt like I had never experienced a more pure emotion than the total, unconditional love we expressed for one another in that moment. And I realized that love is so powerful precisely because of how it forgives, and how it teaches us our worthiness. And I felt God present there, smiling, saying: "See! You've finally understood what it is to be one with somebody!" It was this incredible, sacred moment.<br />
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The Church is where I learned the Gospel. And the Gospel taught me about grace, it taught me about repentance, it taught me about love, personified in Christ. But I didn't really fully understand these things until I had Goran as my teacher. And I couldn't be in this path or have Goran as my travel companion if it hadn't been for God, lighting the way, teaching me, protecting me, prompting me, comforting me. And then teaching, protecting, prompting and comforting us. Blessing us.<br />
<br />
So I don't know what to make of certain teachings that are presented as absolute and unchangeable by Church leaders right now. It seems to me that there is a larger truth (of which the Church's doctrine on marriage is a subset) that encompasses not just my personal experience but the experience of countless other LGBT folks and the love that we might be privileged to share with a significant other, whether that other is of the same or a different sex. And I hope and pray that the Church's truth will some day be large enough to encompass that whole truth.<br />
<br />
For me, that's not different than any other aspect of the Gospel as we currently have it, which, if I understand the project of the Restoration writ large, is a project of enabling us to progressively encompass ever and ever larger truths, until we're capable of comprehending everything God comprehends. We're not there yet. So I'm willing to walk with the Church for as far as it will let me, and hope we can all get there together. I'm still very imperfect, and I need the Church to continue to help me in the process of perfecting myself.<br />
<br />
I think the new web site is trying to expand the boundaries of what people are willing to encounter and think about, and so I enthusiastically support it and embrace it. I won't condemn it for its shortcomings. I love the movement in the web site which is for the most part in the direction of listening. I hope we'll all find the grace both to tell our truths and to listen, and if the web site helps us do that then it's served its purpose.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-51104115902013615282016-09-28T08:07:00.000-05:002016-09-28T09:01:39.935-05:00Rude AwakeningsI've been reading <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Eternal-Polygamy-Haunting-Hearts/dp/0997458208" target="_blank">Carol Lynn Pearson's The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy</a>. Required reading for Mormons, in my humble opinion. I am not finished with it yet, but it is a rich and thought-provoking book and I feel impelled to share some thoughts in response to what I've read so far.<br />
<br />
My understanding of the sealing ordinance has always been conditioned by the principles taught in Doctrine & Covenants, section 121. That section says that a man who abuses his priesthood has no priesthood. Amen to it.<br />
<br />
So I have always understood that a man who abuses his wife in any way, whether it be verbal, emotional, or physical; whether it be through infidelity or neglect; has automatically annulled his sealing to that woman. The notion that a man who would do such things could be sealed to his wife in any way in the next life, just because of an ordinance, is a vile doctrine, a doctrine of devils.<br />
<br />
If I got that from anybody, it was from my dad. My mother passed away last November. My dad loved my mother with great faithfulness and tenderness. My dad knows that death is not the end, and that he can be reunited with the great love of his life once he too crosses over the veil. His only fear since her death has been that he might in any way be unable to be reunited with her because he was unworthy of her.<br />
<br />
My dad taught me to see a temple sealing like any other covenant. It is only in force as long as we keep up our end of it. And to be honest I cannot find anything in scripture to contradict that idea. There is much in scripture to contradict the contrary notion, that a sealing could be in force in the next life regardless of the choices we make in this life.
<br />
<br />
I have always known that it was very difficult to get a sealing annulled. I always believed this to be a reflection of Jesus' teaching about divorce, namely that what God has united man cannot put asunder. The way I worked this out in my mind was that any couple that becomes sealed is essentially committing before God and for eternity to make this particular relationship work. It's one reason that I, as I came to a self-understanding of myself as gay, came to recognize that this was not for me with a woman.<br />
<br />
What I find appalling is the notion that a man could divorce his wife for any reason, including in situations where he had been abusive or unfaithful, and then be sealed to another woman, and believe that he will own both in the next life. Regardless of what the church practices or preaches in this regard, I believe that a man who believes such a thing is in for a rude awakening on That Great Morn.<br />
<br />
And as far as I am concerned, any woman who is treated in such a manner has been released from her vows to that man, and is free to find someone worthy of her and, if she so desires, should be able to be sealed to that someone worthy. How could anything else comport with the justice and the goodness of God?John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-79630684816746197212016-06-14T20:07:00.000-05:002016-06-15T04:42:41.766-05:00Thoughts About OrlandoIt's been a long time since I've posted here, partly because I've been so busy in my current role as president of Affirmation, and also partly because all of my writing energy has been going into <a href="http://affirmation.org/">Affirmation.org</a> and other venues. This recent assault, however, has raised some issues that I need to process a bit, and this seems the best place to do it.<br />
<br />
So, first of all, how do we process the fact that the person who carried out this crime was a Muslim?<br />
<br />
A Wikipedia article on "LGBT in Islam" (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_in_Islam">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_in_Islam</a>) says that: "The traditional schools of Islamic law based on Quranic verses and hadithat consider homosexual acts a punishable crime and a sin," and that "in Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen, homosexual activity carries the death penalty."<br />
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A right wing group called "The United West" released this video of a Muslim cleric in Orlando justifying the death penalty for homosexuals:<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBlwxqqAprQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBlwxqqAprQ</a><br />
<br />
The story was also covered on ABC:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-14/cleric-set-to-leave-australia-after-anti-gay-comment-controversy/7509358">http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-14/cleric-set-to-leave-australia-after-anti-gay-comment-controversy/7509358</a><br />
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To say this is deeply upsetting to me is the understatement of the year. Though I don't know how to contextualize Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar. Is he condemned as an extremist by the majority of Muslims? (He seems to see himself as mainstream.)<br />
<br />
Pink News offered a ray of hope in this report that a prominent Saudi Muslim cleric is making the case that the death penalty should not be applied to homosexuals:<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_849587073"><br /></a>
<a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/05/03/top-saudi-cleric-homosexuals-should-not-be-punished/">http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/05/03/top-saudi-cleric-homosexuals-should-not-be-punished/</a><br />
<br />
Neither Dr. Al-Ouda's reasoning (homosexuals are sinners and will be condemned by Allah in the next life) nor the context (which very much suggests that this cleric is the exception that proves the rule) are super reassuring. Though I've gotten used to living with people who think I'm going to hell. I can live with them so long as they're not eager to subject me to the death penalty.<br />
<br />
Right-wing denunciations of "Muslim violence" don't reassure me either. They don't make me feel safe. For one thing, I've seen in social media a number of belligerent assertions that the fact that Omar Mateen attacked an LGBT bar was <i>irrelevant</i>. The only thing that is important to know about this attack, they assert, is that he was an I.S. supporter attacking <i>Americans</i>.<br />
<br />
Do you understand, I want to ask these folks, that one reason I.S. hates you so much is because <i>you tolerate us</i>. Do you not get that you cannot disentangle virulent homophobia from these folks' anti-American motives? Or is it that you're not inclined to look at their homophobia because you're so compromised by it yourselves that you're not, after all, really committed to an America that is safe for LGBT folks in any event? Right now I'm more nervous about you guys than I am about them, because you have far more power to hurt me.<br />
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Some reports describe the perpetrator, Omar Mateen, as mentally or emotionally unstable:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/13/orlando-shooter-omar-mateen-was-mentally-unstable-wife-beating-h/">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/13/orlando-shooter-omar-mateen-was-mentally-unstable-wife-beating-h/</a><br />
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Now, recent reports suggest that he was actually gay and internally conflicted about being gay:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/14/orlando-shooter-omar-mateen-was-a-regular-at-nightclub">http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/14/orlando-shooter-omar-mateen-was-a-regular-at-nightclub</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/06/14/gunman-in-pulse-orlando-mass-shooting-visited-club-a-dozen-times-say-regulars/">http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/06/14/gunman-in-pulse-orlando-mass-shooting-visited-club-a-dozen-times-say-regulars/</a><br />
<br />
And there, I think, is the rub.<br />
<br />
This is the reason why Muslim homophobia -- why, in fact, <i>any</i> homophobia, be it Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu or Mormon -- is deeply disturbing. It is not necessarily that it will inspire adherents of a particular religion to murder LGBT people. (Though, apparently, it can do that.) It is that it so profoundly distorts our view of ourselves as LGBT people to the point of this kind of insanity.<br />
<br />
I knew something was wrong the first time I read Mateen's father's report that his son had seen two men kiss in public before the shooting and that it made him "very angry." I knew that that kind of anger, the kind that would inspire him to go on this kind of a murderous rampage, comes from somewhere far deeper and more terrifying than run of the mill hatred.<br />
<br />
Mateen's motive, I realized, was not to kill gays, but to kill the gay within himself. Mateen pulled the trigger, again and again and again. But it was a homophobic culture (that included cultural elements from his father's Afghani Muslim culture) that aimed the gun.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-6747483359447988132015-12-29T08:42:00.000-06:002015-12-29T10:37:01.406-06:00Well Wishes for the New YearIn the last week I've been called delusional, a liar, manipulative, a giver of false hope, someone akin to Jewish Nazi collaborators, and a victim of Stockholm syndrome. I am maligned by faithful, orthodox Mormons and defenders of the LGBT community alike.<br />
<br />
The one thing all my detractors have in common is that they think they know everything there is to know about Mormonism and being gay. Fortunately I don't know anything about either of those things. All I know -- and these things I know with unshakeable certainty -- is that I <i>am</i> gay, that the Church <i>is</i> true, that my marriage to my husband is a blessing from God, that God loves me fiercely and is the vital presence in my life, and that <i>all will be well</i>: for me, for my husband, for our families, and for the Church. All will be well (even when things don't go well) in this life and in the next, if we have a mustard seed worth of faith, hope and Christian mercy for each other. These things God has assured me, and I am determined to prove them, not through skillful argument but through a simple life. Whether it is proven in my lifetime or not I trust God in any event.<br />
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I wish well to all, including all of you who have said some very uncharitable things about me. I wish for you only what I wish for myself, namely, peace and love in this world and in eternity.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-60751477973957625882015-11-15T14:23:00.002-06:002015-11-15T18:53:37.878-06:00Truth, Lord, Yet the Dogs Eat of the Crumbs...My initial reaction to the new LDS Church Handbook of Instructions' directives regarding the children of gay couples was something akin to horror. Excommunicating individuals in same-sex marriages was one thing, but why exclude the kids? Wasn't that directly contradictory to the Savior's own teaching regarding children, that his disciples should suffer them to come unto him?<br />
<br />
But as I began to reflect more deeply on precisely what the Church is doing through this policy clarification, it dawned on me that this situation is far more complex than it appears either to conservatives or liberals in Mormondom. The piece of this policy which is new -- the policy excluding children of same-sex couples from membership in the Church -- is the piece that both conservatives and liberals have had the most difficulty understanding. Many conservatives have leapt to the defense of the policy by suggesting it is about protecting children from confusing contradictions, or because the children of gay couples are analogous to the children of polygamists. But as I will explain briefly in a bit, neither of those explanations really hold up to scrutiny. Liberals, on the other hand, have viewed that part of the policy as a desperate attempt on the part of Church leaders to insulate the Church from pro-gay thinking, though, as I will also explain, that also doesn't really hold up either.<br />
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There are scriptural texts that read on this policy, and they are neither Matthew 19:13-14 ("the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, suffer little children...") nor Declaration No. 1. They are Mark 7:25-30 / Matthew 15:22 -28. These are texts which I think neither conservatives nor liberals will be inclined to read on the new policy on children, even though it seems to me the text most analogous to this situation.<br />
<br />
Matthew and Mark both offer an account of a Gentile woman who comes to Jesus seeking a blessing for her daughter, and being rebuffed and refused by Jesus, who explains to her that "it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs" (Mark 7:27). Here's the full version of the story as recounted in Matthew:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. <i>But he answered her not a word.</i> And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, <i>I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.</i> Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, <i>great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt</i>. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. (emphasis is mine)</blockquote>
This perplexing story doesn't fit the nice, liberal paradigm of a fuzzy, warm Jesus who blesses everybody regardless of race or sexual orientation. In fact, it's hard not to read this text without cringing at Jesus' seeming insult to the woman based on her nationality. But neither does it fit the conservative paradigm of Jesus loving everybody while drawing a hard line against sin. Here, sin has nothing to do with Jesus' act of exclusion. And Jesus, in the end blesses the child <i>because of the woman's persistent and humble faith</i> (though he might not have blessed, if the woman had not persevered). Liberals will fret about this text, because to them it looks like Jesus is unnecessarily toying with or testing someone rather than immediately giving her what she needs for the well-being of her child. Conservatives will reject the application of this text to the new policy on the kids of gay couples because the scope of the Church's work was eventually broadened to encompass Gentiles, something they refuse to consider as possible in relation to gays. But I say, what if what is going on here in terms of the new policy is more complex (and wonderful) than what either liberals or conservatives are willing to countenance at the moment?<br />
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Something dawned on me one morning as I reflected on the question: "But... <i>Why the children?</i>" The argument about protecting the children from contradictory and confusing messages makes no sense. There is not a single child in the world who is not already bombarded by a host of messages that contradict what they learn in the home. America has always been roiled in controversy about what kids are taught in schools. Kids learn stuff on the playground, on TV and on the Internet that horrify most parents, gay and straight. LDS parents, of all parents, should know that you simply can't protect kids against contradictory messages. It makes even less sense given that LDS leaders have said children of gay couples are certainly welcome to attend church; just not be members of it. How will that not send a confusing or contradictory message to these kids?<br />
<br />
Nor does the argument about kids of gay couples being analogous to kids of polygamous couples make much sense. The reason for that earlier prohibition was rooted in the Church's complicated history with polygamy, a practice based on a doctrine which the Church has never formally disavowed. Kids of gay couples are not going to grow up and enter same-sex marriages (unless they are gay). There's no need for them to "disavow" the practice in order guarantee that they won't enter into it themselves.<br />
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Liberals have been arguing that since neither of those rationales for the policy make sense, the only reasonable remaining explanation is the LDS Church hierarchy's animus against gay people, and its desire to keep pro-gay sentiment out of the Church. Exclude the kids and you will not only drive the parents away, but also prevent members of the Church from seeing that not only are gay couples normal, but their kids are just as well adjusted and happy as everyone else's.<br />
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I do not find that liberal argument compelling first because of personal experience with the Church's hierarchy that persuades me they in fact hold no animus against gay people: quite the contrary. But also, because I know that growing numbers of Church members already view their gay family members and neighbors in very positive terms, and I do not believe that Church leaders are naive enough to think it will be possible (or even necessarily desirable) to prevent pro-gay attitudes from spreading in the Church.<br />
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Defining same-sex marriage as apostasy has also upset liberal Mormons and the LGBT community. The upset is understandable, given the extremely pejorative connotations of the word "apostate" in Mormon circles. But in the strictest sense, the term apostasy is used by the LDS Church simply to differentiate between what is doctrine and what is not. Its purpose is to uphold the teaching authority of the Church, not to classify people in negative terms. And what this policy clarification does is simply to affirm what Church leaders have repeatedly stated in every major recent pronouncement on this subject: that same-sex marriage stands outside the official doctrine of the church. No one should be surprised by this. This is not news.<br />
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But in the flurry of arguments about whether the policy relating to the children of gay couples is discriminatory or not and whether it was motivated by animus, people have failed to recognize that <i>the new policy, by addressing the status of children, seems to be the church's first ever recognition that gay couples and their children constitute a family unit</i>. It is albeit a family unit that stands outside the doctrine of the Church. But this recognition, to me, is the only thing that makes sense of the policy as it relates to children.<br />
<br />
This simultaneous strengthening of the doctrinal position and the recognition of a kind of integrity of gay families is particularly poignant, given the LDS Church view of salvation as something that happens in and through families. Does this point to a gap between the doctrine as it is currently articulated, and the fullness of human experience, as manifested in gay families?<br />
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If it does, this is where Biblical texts related to the New Testament "grafting in" of the Gentiles (such as the story of the "woman of Canaan") become interesting. Mormon liberals frequently compare today's LGBT concerns to the LDS Church's problem of blacks and the priesthood. But in terms of the theological challenge, the relationship of LGBT people to the Church looks much more like the relationship between Gentiles and the Church in ancient times. Unlike the exclusion of blacks from Priesthood ordination in modern times, Gentiles were not excluded in the ancient Church on the basis of race or lineage. Gentiles <i>could</i> join the Church, but in order to do so, they had to submit to the Mosaic law and be circumcised, among other things. What was momentous about the revelation Peter received in Acts 10, and the subsequent baptism of the Gentile Cornelius and his entire household (everyone who claimed his home as their primary residence?), was that it set aside the law that the Church abided at that time. (The Lord to Peter: "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.") The subsequent confusion caused by Peter's precipitous baptism of Cornelius was later clarified at the Council of Jerusalem (described in Acts 15). It was no longer necessary for Gentiles (or anyone) to submit to the Mosaic law in order to be a member of the Church.<br />
<br />
Like pre-Jerusalem-Council Gentiles, modern gays <i>can</i> be members of the Church, but in order to do so they must submit to ecclesiastical law that forbids them from having intimate relationships or legal same-sex marriage. The only scriptural law currently prohibiting homosexual behavior is found in the Book of Leviticus, part of the very law that the Council of Jerusalem set aside.<br />
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I don't think Christ in the Mark 7 / Matthew 15 texts was <i>merely</i> testing the faith of the woman of Canaan. He was making a clear cut statement about the scope of his ministry, in much the same way, I think, that the LDS Church's current handbook policy regarding gay families does. The exchange between Jesus and the woman about bread, children, crumbs and dogs revealed that saving faith was not confined to the children of Israel; and it was at the point where the nature of this particular woman's faith revealed itself that Christ literally could no longer withhold the blessing from her. "Her daughter was made whole from that very hour."<br />
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Another core principle of the Gospel that applies in this situation has to do with the Lord's declaration that he is "no respecter of persons." Regardless of our status in or out of the Church, we are all equal in the sight of God. The happenstances of race or lineage or economic station or gender or sexual orientation or whatever other incidentals that make differences between us in this world are all part of the "person," the outward aspect, that God does not look upon. "For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). In D&C section 1, the Lord says "I am no respecter of persons," but he contrasts that declaration with a world order in which "the devil shall have power over his own dominion," before the Lord "shall reign [in the midst of the Saints], and shall come down in judgment upon Idumea, or the world" (vs. 35-36). Does the Lord remind us that he is no respecter of persons here to emphasize that one of the primary sins of the world upon which he shall come down in judgment is its elevation of the outward over the inward, of the superficial over the substantial, of the "person" over the eternal? Perhaps a necessary precursor to the Lord's coming down will be to eliminate those worldly distinctions from our midst, a work still in progress.<br />
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The LDS Church hierarchy has named members of the LGBT community "apostates," something on a par with Jesus referring to Gentiles as "dogs." There may still be, even in the wake of this policy clarification which has cut so many so deeply, LGBT Mormons in same-sex relationships who are willing to persevere in faith within the LDS community. My sense is that if we do, there will be blessings Christ cannot possibly withhold from us or, for that matter, our children.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-73067674318410655742015-11-11T08:40:00.000-06:002015-11-11T14:34:47.943-06:00Prayer of a Gay Mormon Son, Brother, and DadDear Father in Heaven:<br />
<br />
I thank you that I always have recourse to you, that in time of pain and trouble I can turn to you and you are always there for me, a never-ending source of light and love in my life. There are times when I know that I could not go on if it were not for you, and this is one of them.<br />
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I thank you that you have filled my home with light and peace in this difficult time. At a moment when I might have felt abandoned, I have felt your resplendent presence here in our home, guarding and protecting me and my husband and anyone who comes through our doors in peace, to remind me that it is you who decides who belongs to you. Thank you for making our home your temple.<br />
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I thank you that in this moment of uncertainty, people of faith and love of every race, creed and walk of life, humble and kind and wise people, have reached out to me and my husband and our family in love and concern. I thank you that I am surrounded by friends. Please make me a better friend to those who need one.<br />
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Thank you for your Spirit, which has given me words of comfort and kindness to speak to those who are mourning right now, and which has lifted me up and given strength to my limbs so that I might reach out, lift up, embrace and love. Thank you for your light unfailing that shines brighter when we share it.<br />
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Please bless our son. He has been a light to us, and we are so grateful that he has grown up to be strong, wise, and compassionate. We are so proud that he knows who he is, and is not afraid. We are so proud that he has chosen a profession of service to others, and that his greatest desire is to protect the weak and the voiceless. We are so grateful that he has found someone to love him and be his companion through life, who cares for him and strengthens him. We are thankful for our son-in-law, who is gentle and kind and joyful, and who brings joy to everyone whose life is touched by his. Please bless them both, protect them against life's dangers and challenges. Show them the way of life.<br />
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Please comfort our straight parents and siblings, all our family and friends who are afraid and confused and in mourning right now. Please reassure them so that they will know we are OK. We have been trying to reassure them, but they are still grieving. So please reassure them, because if it comes from you, I know they will finally be comforted. Let them not lose faith in you, or in your capacity to take sorrow and turn it to joy, to take pain and turn it to strength, to take misunderstanding and turn it to light, to gather in all the scattered and claim them as your own, to overcome hate through your love.<br />
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Please forgive those who, at this time, feel the need to heap judgment and condemnation on others. Please forgive those who think you are defended by their words of condemnation, as if you need to be defended. Please forgive those parents who are cutting off their own flesh and blood. Please forgive the ex-spouses who are now trying to tear custody of children away from their gay ex-spouses as a result of this. They know not what they do.<br />
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Please pour out your Spirit on all your gay, lesbian, bi and transgender sons and daughters. Light the path ahead of us so that we can see, even when the world is dark.<br />
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Please help us know how to comfort, strengthen and protect those of our children who are now filled with confusion and doubt as they are being told by pastors of your church that they no longer belong to your kingdom. May our constant love steady them and reassure them. May our faith and hope comfort them. Please fill them with light and make them know that you will never forsake them.<br />
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You have responded to this situation with a surfeit of love and light so that I might know that this is not about me. It is about teaching us to love each other better. Thank you.<br />
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Please teach us to love, even as your Son loved us.<br />
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In his name, Jesus Christ.<br />
<br />
Amen.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-57257218738993921142015-11-06T08:35:00.000-06:002015-11-06T08:38:44.285-06:00Children ThinkWhen I was eleven years old, my dad was a stake missionary, and he would take me with him on his assignments. It was happy times for me. I loved being a missionary with my dad.<br />
<br />
We visited a family, a single mom and her kids. Her name was Sister Martinez. She was black. She had a son named David, who was eleven years old, like I was. David was kind of shy, but I immediately liked him and wanted to be his friend.<br />
<br />
I was eleven years old, so I was getting ready for priesthood ordination, and the first thing I thought of in relation to David was how important it was for him to get ready to be ordained too. And when I brought that up with my dad, that was when he had to explain to me: David will not get ready to be ordained. He can't be ordained. Because he's black.<br />
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There's no reasonable way a father can explain to his son why something like that is the way it is. I was eleven years old, and somehow I still hadn't learned to dislike someone or think they were less than me because their skin was a different color.<br />
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Dad couldn't explain it, and he didn't really even try. I was left to try to figure this one out for myself. A tall order for an eleven-year-old, even one getting ready to be ordained a deacon.<br />
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That one took me a few years, and a lot more maturity.<br />
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So...<br />
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Mormon parents now get to explain to their children:<br />
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Why that little baby can't be blessed.<br />
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Why that eight-year-old child can't be baptized. (Doesn't matter how much she loves the Gospel.)<br />
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Why that eleven-year-old boy can't be ordained.<br />
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Why that nineteen-year-old young woman can't go on a mission.<br />
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I'm sure a lot of people are thinking they won't have to deal with this, because those children aren't going to be seen around church any more. But that's not the way the human heart works. By the logic of 1974 Mormonism, 11-year-old John never should have looked into the beautiful face of 11-year-old David, and wonder why the one should be ordained a deacon and the other not.<br />
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We are all interconnected, and the edicts of Handbooks don't change that.<br />
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And children do think about these things.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-59297697300838535472015-11-05T20:33:00.001-06:002015-11-05T20:33:24.166-06:00The New HandbookI would not have been surprised by a change in the LDS Church's General Handbook of Instructions that required Church discipline for individuals in same-sex marriages. Many of us have actually been waiting for that shoe to drop.<br />
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I guess I was a bit surprised to see being in a same-sex marriage labeled as apostasy.<br />
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What really made my heart sink was to learn that the child of a gay couple cannot receive a name and a blessing in the Church. A child of a gay couple cannot be baptized or confirmed, ordained, or recommended for missionary service unless they are of legal age and do not live with their parents, and unless, in an interview with a Church leader they disavow the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage.<br />
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It is almost as if same-sex marriage has now been officially labeled an infection that must be cut from the body at all costs. If the children can't be separated from the infected tissue, then they are cut off too.<br />
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*****<br />
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A dear friend of mine messaged me minutes after the news hit the queer Mormon social media. "Talk me down," she pleaded, "Lots of angry tears right now."<br />
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For the first time, it was hard to see even a glimmer of a silver lining anywhere.<br />
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What really upset me was the children.<br />
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Surely the Church would never prioritize boundary maintenance over ministry to children.<br />
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I hear Jesus upbraiding his apostles, "Forbid them not to come unto me."<br />
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That to me was the sign that there must be something wrong with this. This can't be the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a culture of fear. It is cultural war.<br />
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*****<br />
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Shock and the hurt... I was on the phone with my husband. Verbally, he shrugged his shoulders. What should I expect? I ache right now at the thought of a husband and a son permanently alienated from the Church that I love. I am shocked that because of our love, they might be forbidden to come unto Christ.<br />
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And yet, I can't feel hopeless or despondent about this. A lot of people I know were hoping to see the Church's stance on homosexuality change gradually toward greater openness, with a first step being bishops simply welcoming same-sex couples to worship without excommunicating them. I have always known, deep down inside, that progress would not occur in this way.<br />
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There has been deep and dramatic change in the LDS Church in relation to this issue: not in terms of policy or doctrine, but in terms of attitudes. Mormons have crossed a threshold that is making it increasingly impossible for them to think of their gay family members, neighbors and friends as "other," as "apostate." A critical mass of Mormons know first hand that our love doesn't look that much different from theirs, that our families are as much a shelter from the storm for us as theirs are for them. They've seen our hopes and dreams, and our faith, our love for Jesus Christ intertwined with our love for our families. They've only just started to come to grips with the cognitive dissonance that realization is creating.<br />
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The cognitive dissonance just got a lot worse.John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-22899469010154114002015-11-01T13:13:00.000-06:002015-11-01T13:52:08.905-06:00Hobbit LoveOne of Göran's and my more memorable activities was reading <i>The Hobbit</i> and <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> together, from cover to cover. The reading was usually before bed time. I would read dramatically out loud, while Göran would snuggle up against me or rest his head on my shoulder or chest. He loved my impression of the ent Treebeard. (Ents were a magical race of giant tree-like beings that cared for the forests, and that spoke very slowly. Göran thought my version of Treebeard was better than the movies). He was also impressed by my fluent reading of Elvish text, which he attributed to the fact that I grew up speaking Finnish, the idiom that provided the template for the imaginary language that Tolkien created for his books. But what delighted us most was the hobbits.<br />
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For us there was never any question that the relationship at the center of the epic -- the relationship between Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee -- was <i>really</i> a gay relationship. The mutual devotion and sacrificial love of Frodo and Sam became a role model for us, an example of the kind of love we felt for each other. We knew that if one of us were ever called to go to the ends of the earth on some great adventure, it would not be possible without the other by our side, and that neither of us would hesitate to give our life for the other.<br />
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One of the really emotional moments in Peter Jackson's film adaptation of the epic for me was the scene where Frodo, wanting to spare Sam the danger of the journey into Mordor, attempts to strike out on his own by stealing a boat and paddling out across the great Anduin River. Sam finds Frodo and heads out to catch up with him, but can't swim. As it seems Sam is about to drown, Frodo reaches down and heaves Sam up into the boat where they collapse into a tearful, loving embrace, while Sam swears undying devotion to Frodo. Where you go, I will go, Sam says. From the moment I first saw that scene, it electrified me. It reduces me to a lake of tears every time I see it. That is what <i>our</i> love is like, I thought. Frodo and Sam was Göran and I.<br />
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I remember subsequently having a friendly argument with Sam Welter, a close friend of the family, specifically about that scene, and about hobbit love in general. Sam didn't think there was a gay subtext in <i>Lord of the Rings</i>. He insisted I was reading too much into Tolkien's story. (Tolkien was, after all, a devout Catholic, and married with children!) We ended by agreeing to disagree, though Sam acknowledged that he could see how gay men might <i>read those themes into the story</i>.<br />
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But now, a recent review by English Literature Professor David LaFontaine in <i>The Gay and Lesbian Review</i>, makes the case in very persuasive terms that, not only was there a gay subtext in the Lord of the rings, but that J.R.R. Tolkien himself may have experienced same sex attraction and likely felt a bond with his friend C.S. Lewis that had homoerotic elements. Those of you who are interested in reading the details of his argument should buy the November – December 2015 issue of <i>The Gay and Lesbian Review</i>. I'm happy to lend my copy to anyone who's interested in reading it! I won't recapitulate the specifics of his arguments here, but he points out that not only does the text have clear homoerotic themes, critics of the day ridiculed Tolkien's work precisely because of this, and Peter Jackson's film adaptation deliberately muted these elements in the text.<br />
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I remember watching the film <i>The Fellowship of the Ring</i> with Göran and being disappointed (though not surprised) that Jackson elided the hobbit bathing scene (which was a part of the book Göran and I very much enjoyed). But, in <i>The Return of the King</i>, when Sam finds Frodo with pants on in Cirith Ungol, instead of completely naked as he was in the book, Göran and I were taken aback. Why did Jackson make that directorial decision, when he could easily have found a tasteful way to portray the story as it was written? The film version makes us forget that in the book before Sam does anything else, he lovingly cradles his naked Frodo in his arms.<br />
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But what really takes the cake is the scene outside of Mount Doom, famous among gay fans of Tolkien as a portrayal of same-sex love and devotion. Again, Frodo is being tenderly cradled in the arms of Sam, as they prepare to die, and all of a sudden, Sam is going on about "Rosie Cotton dancing." What the heck....??? <i>There's no Rosie Cotton dialog in the book.</i> Jackson almost certainly added it to disperse the undeniable homoerotic element in the pinnacle expression of same-sex love in the three films. (Well, that and Boromir's death scene.)<br />
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If the movie, in other words, had portrayed in a more straightforward manner what was told in the books, the film almost certainly would have aroused the same homophobic wrath that Tolkien's books apparently unleashed when they first came out in the 1950s. Jackson, wanting to avoid that, tweaked the film version enough to allow plausible deniability of homo love in the films, while leaving enough in to keep gay fans of the film (like me and Göran) coming back again and again.<br />
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Last June, when Göran and I were in Oxford, England, we made a point of visiting the Eagle and Child pub, where Tolkien and Lewis met to discuss their writing projects. Little did I know that we were visiting a place that maybe ought to be listed in the gay tour books!</div>
John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2018387523779914474.post-10948900259186320702015-10-29T17:22:00.002-05:002015-10-30T09:11:25.068-05:00Of Mormons and Bridges and the World Congress of FamiliesIn June 2012, a group of about 350 Mormons astonished the world by marching in the Salt Lake City LGBT Pride parade under the banner "Mormons Building Bridges." The sum total of their message was "We are Mormon and we love you unconditionally." It was not the most radical of messages, though to those of us in Mormon circles accustomed to a rhetoric about LGBT Pride that made it something akin to the Devil's Christmas, the gesture was revolutionary. It signaled something brand new in the relationship between the Mormon and gay communities.<br />
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2012 was a pivotal and contentious year in LGBT politics. Three states were facing ballot initiatives that would have banned same-sex marriage. Previous to that year, no such measure had ever failed. To many in the LGBT community, Mormons Building Bridges was taking the easy road by refusing to comment on or take a stand on <i>the</i> issue of the day: marriage. Some accused MBB of being a propaganda tool of the LDS Church, and of trying to co-opt the gay rights movement. Taking fire from both sides, it took courage for MBB to stand up.<br />
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This past week, Mormons Building Bridges did something equally momentous. With the arrival in Salt Lake of the World Congress of Families, notorious for the extreme anti-gay rhetoric of some of its leaders and for its support of extreme anti-gay legislation in Russia and Nigeria (HRC and the Southern Poverty Law Center have labeled WCF a hate group), MBB decided to organize groups of individuals who could attend and be a presence at the conference. Their core message was that the Gospel of Jesus Christ inspired them to stand up for inclusion of LGBT people in our families and in society. They went with the stated intention of engaging in dialog -- both listening for greater understanding, but also sharing their unique perspective on LGBT issues.<br />
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Of concern to many was the high profile way in which the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would be participating in the conference. Elder M. Russell Ballard was a featured speaker at the opening plenary, and the Tabernacle Choir was going to perform at the conference. Of course the presence of the conference in Salt Lake meant that large numbers of Latter-day Saints were going to attend and participate.<br />
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In the week before the conference, Erika Munson, a member of the MBB community, published an editorial in the <i>Salt Lake Tribune</i> criticizing the "natural family" rhetoric of WCF. MBB members attending WCF wanted to engage in dialog about the ways that "natural family" rhetoric could harm and exclude LGBT people. Showing up at the conference identified by yellow MBB stickers, they wanted to be a visible presence in support of LGBT inclusion.<br />
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I was able to be a part of this amazing, tiny band of souls, and what I witnessed was truly amazing. I was one of several LGBT participants in MBB's contingent, including Kendall Wilcox, Berta Marquez, and Samy Galvez. There were not huge numbers of us, but MBB's presence had an impact far out of proportion with our small numbers.<br />
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My impression of the conference was that it consisted of a very large number of people with concerns that had nothing at all to do with same-sex marriage or LGBT rights. Many -- perhaps most -- of the conference participants were concerned primarily about things like children growing up in poverty and in single parent homes, divorce (and it's disproportionately negative impact on women), and social ills like drug-abuse and homelessness that are the consequence of failed homes and parental neglect. They were concerned, in other words, about many of the things that I and other members of MBB are concerned about.<br />
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The Mormon participation in WCF actually seemed to be a kind of moderate leaven in the mix. The most virulent and hateful anti-gay rhetoric at WCF was coming from non-Mormons like <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/home/3112120-155/gay-marriage-could-destroy-america-ted" target="_blank">Raphael Cruz (the father of the presidential candidate)</a> and Brian S. Brown, President of the National Organization for Marriage. Elder M. Russell Ballard's opening plenary talk emphasized the importance of compromise (much in the vein of Elder Dallin H. Oaks' address exactly one week previous), diversity and fairness for all, and acknowledged the LDS Church's support for legal protections for LGBT people (he used the term "LGBT"). Notably, Elder Ballard avoided the use of the loaded phrase "natural family." Mormon speaker Wendy Ulrich was applauded by MBB participants for her gender inclusive language. She as well as Linda and Richard Eyring, other LDS speakers at the conference, were appreciated for staying away from same-sex marriage, and focusing on the principles that make for any successful marriage -- principles that all applied as well to same-sex couples as to opposite-sex couples.<br />
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MBB members were listening to talks to get a sense of what people's primary concerns were, and were striking up conversations with conference participants that remained friendly and open, even as the conversations occasionally broached areas of disagreement. During the question and answer session of one of the panels, Berta Marquez introduced herself as an LGBT attendee, and invited individuals to come speak to her in person afterwards if they wanted firsthand experience with an actual LGBT person, rather than third party information. Eleven conference participants took her up on her offer. Six exchanged contact information with her, and three set up lunch dates.<br />
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MBB members actively participated in the question and answer sessions at panels, especially where an anti-gay message was being promoted. There was at least one instance of an MBB member being subjected to hostile and intimidating behavior by other conference participants. During a question and answer session at a panel, she asked "What advice would you give to parents if their child tells them he's gay?" She was shouted down by some attendees and then after the session was surrounded by people taking photos of her credentials and her MBB sticker. A woman who identified herself as a member of the organizing committee of the WCF asked this MBB member why she was being disruptive, and then began denigrating Mormons Building Bridges. Though the MBB participant tried to leave the conversation politely, this woman continued to harangue her for about half an hour. After this she and a number of other MBB participants were being followed by security who backed off when the MBB women spoke with them, and they realized that they were not being disruptive nor a threat.<br />
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Fortunately, there were other WCF participants who came to this MBB participant and apologized for what they perceived as horrendous behavior by the people who had harassed her. Despite this awful incident, it seemed that there were more instances of individuals having positive conversations and making positive connections, including with individuals and groups who expressed a desire to stay in touch and learn more about MBB.<br />
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I left WCF with a handful of literature that was passed out to conference participants, which included some fairly innocuous looking material about parenting and principles of a happy marriage, some libertarian political tracts, a copy of the Proclamation on the Family, a magazine with an article critical of Pope Francis for giving "confusing signs" about LGBT issues, and then a couple of really awful homophobic tracts. One was an advertisement for a book that shouted, "GOODBYE Marriage. GOODBYE Mothers & Fathers. GOODBYE Male & Female. In a World gone MAD, Children are in DANGER." Another described ways to identify victims of "the Sexual Revolution," which included "refugees" from "the gay lifestyle." This mix of handouts was pretty exemplary of what I and others witnessed at WCF.<br />
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My sense was that there were a lot of people at WCF with whom I and other LGBT rights supporters could dialog. There were many people whose genuine concern was the welfare of children and the promotion of marital stability and happiness, who didn't have a particularly anti-gay ax to grind. To the extent that they were worried about same-sex marriage, it seemed to me that it was because they had a lack of information or because they had only been exposed to lurid rhetoric about the gay lifestyle or fear-mongering about "religious freedom." In light of the language of compromise in Elder Ballard's keynote, it seemed to me that many of those folks might be moved once they realized that promoting stable, loving relationships of same-sex couples was actually part of the solution to the challenges facing families in the 21st century.<br />
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My sense was also that there are some hard-core anti-gay activists at WCF who do have an ax to grind, and who have made gay people the scapegoat for everything they think is wrong about the world. NOM President Brian S. Brown and Raphael Cruz were the standard bearers there for that hard-line position. The Mormon Church -- as conservative as it is on this issue -- is clearly not in the same camp with these folks. And I can't help but think that the anti-gay extremists will leave Salt Lake feeling frustrated by the lack of help coming to them from Mormon quarters. I believe that MBB had more in common with all the other Mormons at the conference than any Mormon had with many Fundamentalist Christians there.<br />
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MBB made an impression, for good or for ill. We were sought out by media, which gave us a platform to express concerns about "natural family" rhetoric, and to communicate a desire for families, churches and societies fully inclusive of LGBT individuals. We used social media to get our message out to WCF participants (using WCF hashtags as well as our own #StrengthenAllFamilies hashtag). We had powerful one-on-one conversations with like-minded as well as with other-minded. We participated in question and answer sessions to raise concerns whenever an extreme anti-gay agenda was promoted.<br />
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It was one thing for Mormons Building Bridges to march in Pride. That took courage, and it certainly was momentous. It was another thing entirely, and took a completely different kind of courage, to go somewhere members felt much less safe, in defense of their gay, lesbian, bi and transgender family and friends. Slow but steady, Mormons Building Bridges will help us win this race.<br />
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<br />John Gustav-Wrathallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03557940681381951271noreply@blogger.com4