AVB recently tweeted re a blog site which has a letter from a straight pastor who has changed her traditional attitude to homosexuality, but is “trapped” in a fundalmentalist church and can’t yet ‘come out’ as gay-affirming.
The letter and the comments are helpful to gay-affirming church leaders and those questioning traditional understandings. It is also helpful for gay people of faith (no matter where on the ‘coming out’ journey) to help us understand the dilemma such church leaders find themselves in and the pressures they face.
Text is a bit long, so I have dropped bits. The link is at the bottom.
___________________________________________________________________
Dear John
Hi. My name is [deleted]. I am nearly 48-years-old, and am married with two grown children. I am also a Methodist minister in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I have come to believe that I live in a black hole which is unknown to other Christians.
Just recently a young woman who was just a teenager at my last church, and who liked to hang around with me, has come out as being gay and is in a relationship with another woman. Her mother (a Christian) has thrown her out and has nothing to do with her, and the church just doesn’t want to know her. Yet all she has done is love another human being.
I have tried reaching out through the Internet to Christians who think and feel as I do. You have no idea how many emails I have sent to people online who offered me a different Christianity to the hate-filled Christianity I have grown up with. But none of them has ever answered me back. Not one.
I read your blog, and it reminds me of the Jesus I fell in love with. But here I am—a woman who agrees with everything you say, and loves the Jesus that you talk about. But I know that if I was to stand up on Sunday morning, and say what I truly believe, there is not one single congregation in the whole of Ireland who would accept what I say.
What do I do, John? I have two daughters at university. I have so many debts because of years of being paid such meager wages. How cowardly am I in comparison to the early martyrs and even you? I despair of myself. I truly despise everything my church wants me to love.
I’m sending this with zero expectations of a reply. I’m just so tired of pretending. And what you say is so true. I feel so alone. That’s how I feel.
Taken from: http://johnshore.com/2011/09/05/all-aboard/comment-page-2/#comment-89555
|
