Endurance is Our Freedom
A Pride Reflection Series for LGBT Christians and Allies
Karl Barth recalls the dark days of his theological soul as occurring in August of 1914. This was the month and year that the almost 100 Christian leaders published a piece that stated full support of the Church for the German War Machine. He went on to reflect that
“I suddenly realized that I could not any longer follow either their ethics and dogmatics or their understanding of the Bible and of history.”
For those of us in the LGBTQIA community we have had our own dark days. Those of us that have stayed in the faith can even attest the last two years have been some of the worst to watch what “Christian” leaders have done, and supported. We have seen things such as Trump elected President, with one of the most anti-LGBT politicians ever at his side, we have seen transgender students targeted, we have seen the publication to the Nashville Statement, and the MeToo movement rock the pews. The American church landscape is in total disarray. Yet many of us have stayed and tried to forge a new way forward. Like Karl Barth we are a small group that has declared we will not follow the ethics, dogmatics, theology or history of the current Evangelical movement.
But where do we go? What do we do to make our voice heard?
We endure. We always have. As Barth faced persecution for his face first in WWI, he was exiled by the Nazis, and German Christians just twenty years later. But still he wrote that our persecution and endurance make us free.
“We have lived through harder times, have endured worse things than they did, and we are thereby strangely enough, made more free.”
And that is the truth, if churches have washed their hands of us, we are free. We do not need to conform to a mistaken theology, or to a dangerous ethic. We have endured and in that we are made free. Much like Jesus we find ourselves on the outside and that is our place of power to make the change. Jesus reminds us in his central message it isn’t those cloistered behind the walls who will find peace, and hope, and love. Even his death and resurrection occurred outside of the city. All of Jesus’ most powerful works happened apart from the “established church.” As LGBT Christians are greater witness to the Church is how we live, and that is freeing. We are the one’s on the front line of living that radical inclusion of Jesus as the Church retreats.
Jesus message is promised to a prostitute, an adulterer caught in an act, the deformed, the eunuch, the non-Jew, the Roman and his gay lover, and a group of teenager. It was not promised to the whitewashed politicians, nor, the corrupt Temple leaders. And how much more poignant can that be? In an era where pastors make millions, and debate our civil right to marry, and buy a cake, have they not already cut themselves off? Therefore what we do and how we come together is the work of the Church, is the act of Jesus.
We are free. And in that freedom we can live out our love, and beauty as a sign of hope, and diversity. We can witness to the Church from outside the walls, and within the safe spaces of affirming, and reconciling ministries.
Endurance is our freedom, and it is our story. We have endured more than others thought we could. We have borne the looks, the defamation, the families that have said we are no longer welcome. But we are still standing, because we are free. And freedom is at the heart of the Gospel.
Jesus came to rid us of chains. And the chains that need to be destroyed are the ones that force us into closets and out of public spaces. Jesus gave us live abundant, and this month that is dedicated to PRIDE, live freely. Show the fruits of endurance. Show the marks of the stories you have lived. No more than ever we live these words from Philippians 1:20
“I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.”
We are loved, we are beautiful, we are free. We have sufficient courage. Now wave that flag high, love who you love, and be blessed!
