“Why are you still involved in the church?” I hear this question frequently. Often it comes from my queer friends who see organized religion as inherently problematic or harmful. I’ve decided now is the time to answer it publicly.
I stay in the church because the church is my family. You love me, and I love you. I mean that — but there are some things I need to tell you. Things that can no longer be ignored.
As I encounter more and more Presbyterians who claim they don’t want to hear about politics at church, it becomes harder for me to stay. Rather than seeing a community bound by the Holy Spirit to love one another and the world, I see people who shroud themselves in comfort and avoid Jesus’s call to stand with the marginalized. I see beloved members of my family choosing not to love me.
I stay in the church because the church is my family. You love me, and I love you.
I could explain all how Scripture is inherently political, how Jesus was political, how you can’t preach an unpolitical gospel when our gospel tells us to care for the lost and the least and protect the vulnerable and abhor greed. I could talk about how we can’t untangle our religion from politics unless we toss the Bible aside, but I don’t claim to be a theologian or a preacher.
I am, however, a lifelong Presbyterian, raised in and by the church. I am a child of the church, and as a queer, non-binary person, I am someone with every reason to turn my back on the church. But I haven’t left because I love you — even when it feels like the love isn’t reciprocated. I love you because we’ve been in covenant together since I was an infant. I love you because we are family.
Removing politics from church would mean removing my existence from church.
As your sibling, I beg you to hear me when I say that removing politics from church would mean removing my existence from church. My very identity has been made political, my personhood a political talking point. You protected me and cared for me when I was helpless, and now, I need you to do it again.
I’m writing this because I love you, and I need you to listen to me.
I’m not giving up on the church, not yet, because I entered a covenant with you beginning with my baptism and affirmed it in my confirmation. I did so knowing that we are flawed. We hurt one another, but we keep trying because we are bound in God’s love. I am tired and I am hurt, but I’m not ready to give up on my family just yet, even if it would be the easier thing to do.
Yet, I am scared. I feel alone, abandoned by the church. As someone whose personhood has been unwillingly politicized, this uproar around keeping politics out of the pulpit has made me question if I have a place at my church. It feels like the people who vowed to love me have abandoned their baptismal vows for the sake of their own comfort and privilege. They are not willing to speak out against the recent barrage of anti-trans legislation and rhetoric. Nor are they willing to listen to their pastors preach on such topics. After years of attending, volunteering and working in the Presbyterian church, I am not so sure that I am welcome here anymore — or maybe I never was.
It feels like the people who vowed to love me have abandoned their baptismal vows for the sake of their own comfort and privilege.
I know it is scary to sacrifice your comfort to stand up for someone else. I know we hate rocking the boat or causing conflict amongst our members, but now is not a time to simply look past our differences. While you sit comfortably in your boats, I, like so many others, am drowning in the water. Will you rock your boat to pull me in with you? I am telling you there is something you can do. You have resources to help the many vulnerable people who are being hurt by Trump’s administration.
I believe in what our church claims to profess. Yet I am affronted and hurt by the fact that you aren’t standing by your promise to care for me. I know that many of you do justice and love kindness, but not all of you walk with me, with those in already marginalized and vulnerable communities facing further threats from the executive orders.
In your avoidance of discomfort and conflict, you have put the most vulnerable members of your congregation in a place where we must set aside our comfort or even elements of our identities to avoid division.
I have set aside my comfort for you for years. I’ve bitten my tongue and contorted myself. Now it’s your turn. If you love me like you promised you would when I was baptized, then I need you to be okay with being uncomfortable. I need you to be ready for your pulpits to be political, to do what’s right even when it is hard or divisive or unpopular.
I didn’t ask to be political.
Because I didn’t ask to be political. I didn’t ask to be forced to live my life in opposition. But I am not going to deny the person I am, the person God made me. I need you, who promised to love me fully, to stand with me in opposition to the hate and the vitriol and the terror being inflicted on so many people in and outside our congregations.
Ultimately, I will love you. I don’t care about your politics or who you voted for. I don’t care if you understand my identity. I will love you even if you can’t bring yourself to do what is right. I will love you because that was the promise I made to you, but I pray that in times like these, when it really matters, you will keep your promise to love me.
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