I don’t want to hear a single “egalitarian” who does not affirm LGBT+ people attempt to speak against the #SocialJusticeStatement.
Don’t pretend to be indignant when you are still complicit in the systems that made this possible. Save it.
Say you affirm PoC all you want.
Say you affirm women all you want.
But what about trans women theologians?
Married gay Hispanic men?
Black lesbian partnered clergy?
Nonbinary bisexual people in seminary?
If your feminism isn’t intersectional, it is folly. Even more: It’s actively oppressive.
Cry persecution all you want; this isn’t “gatekeeping” or “bullying.” Your beliefs cause domino effects that eventually lead to discrimination, violence, genocide, & suicide of Queer people.
Queer people are not “opinions” or “ideas.” We are not nebulous, abstract concepts whose existence & loves & callings you can “disagree” with.
And if you believe so — discredit the racism & sexism in that “statement” all you want! — you’re no different than John MacArthur.
If your theology dictates our gender & sexual identities are products of a “fallen world,” that the only way for lesbians/gays to live within “God’s design” is celibacy, that we cannot assume church leadership positions:
You are killing us.
Yes, *including* QPOC & queer women.
(You know, the same PoC and women you pretend to champion, yet you slice their gender and sexual identities out of the picture so their existence becomes more palatable to you.)
Because I’m nice, I’ll end this with visuals to assist you in learning how intersectionality works:
Christianese loves to dress up oppression, abuse, and human exploitation with fancy spiritual catchphrases and theological labels — so let me offer some more realistic terms and definitions to help y’all deconstruct the bullshit.
A THREAD
“Purity culture” is rape culture
“Complementarianism” is sexism
“Male headship” is patriarchy
“Modesty” is thinly veiled misogyny
“All Lives Matter” is racism
“Colorblind” Christian subculture is white supremacy
“Missions trips” are imperialist colonization
“Prosperity gospel” is classism
“God helps those who help themselves” is boot-strap capitalism
“<Insert people or group> is/are going to hell” is abuse
“Only <certain people group> can be leaders” is paternalism
“Your heart is deceitful/untrustworthy” is spiritual gaslighting
Leaving pentecostal spaces due to their laundry list of fundamentalist flaws, yet still remaining a Christian, is a big fucking heartbreak in its own unique way. I’ve heard other charismatic progressives (queer people especially) voice this sentiment as well.
I’m going to be real: I miss the (not-theologically-shitty) contemporary Christian worship music. I miss it being normal to worship however the fuck you want — whether it’s laying on the floor, sitting, standing, dancing, raising hands. Quiet or loud.
I miss people laying hands on me to pray (solicited) when I was sick or going through something. I miss the open discussion of the gifts. I miss swapping supernatural stories with others — hearing people’s powerful dreams & visions & miraculous experiences that defy explanation.
I find it hilariously ironic that C.S. Lewis is lauded by evangelicals as a bastion of spiritual knowledge & wit – a most revered Christian thinker – yet if he was alive today, the same folks who worship his innovative writings would viciously brand him a heretic & false teacher.
There’d be smarmy thinkpieces churned out like butter slandering his name. Prominent evangelical leaders would take up pitchforks and rally their troops, unanimously denouncing his beliefs.
They’d label his works a virulent threat to the Gospel, an evil catalyst that’ll send you backsliding on the slippery slope into apostasy. He’d be relegated to Sunday sermon fodder that’d fuel their raging persecution complex.
It’s ironic to me how evangelicals romanticize 1 Corinthians 13, yet do not take it seriously — I’d argue esp the line about love not “insisting on its own way.” The entire superstructure is predicated upon control of individual people’s theological, social, & political beliefs.
It insists you believe in penal substitutionary atonement. It insists you hold certain specific eschatological views. It insists you believe in a literal Dante’s inferno type hell. It insists you hold to gender roles and cisheteronormativity.
It insists you hold certain beliefs about who church leadership should be and how it should function and what power they should have. It insists you should mindlessly abide by certain church policies even if they are unbiblical or inhumane or illogical.
It’s so strange, because in some ways, I feel like my life is picking up where it left off back in middle school. Those years were the years where it was most prominently drilled into my head that I either choose “this specific version of God they tell me about” or “myself.”
Those were the years I first developed feelings for girls, realized I loved wearing nerdy t-shirts & the color black, poured my soul into videogames & Internet forums & writing. Those were also the years my life was youth group & obsessing over scripture & the Holy Spirit.
And man. It was a hot mess. I’ll never forget how tragically conflicted I became. It felt like the deepest parts of who I was seemingly contradicted layers upon layers of the belief system (and therefore the God) that I held dearest to my zealous, blissfully naïve heart.
The most interesting part of analyzing scripture through a lens that isn’t rooted in evangelical literalism, is realizing how much of it you actually NEVER READ LITERALLY BEFORE. And if you did... you would’ve been branded a heretic much sooner.
They love their awfully translated passages about Gehenna (“hell”). But what do they do with “As in Adam all died, so in Christ all are made alive” and “all people will see God’s salvation?” How come we never read those literally? ...Eh?
They relish their faultily translated passages, stripped of all cultural context, about sexual immorality — but how come there’s never been a sermon on “Truly I tell you, the prostitutes and tax collectors will enter the Kingdom of God ahead of you?”