00:00:16.120 - 00:00:32.580

I'm excited to welcome today, Doctor Cody Sanders. Doctor Sanders is an ordained Baptist minister in the alliance of Baptist and American Baptist churches, USA. And currently he is teaching at Luther Seminary after serving at

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the old Cambridge Baptist Church in Cambridge Massachusetts, where he was also the chaplain to Harvard University, an advisor for LGBT Q Affairs in at M I T . Um His current research interests uh have to do

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with building ministerial and congregational capacity to lead in cultivating caring communities amid climate collapse, political turmoil, technological acceleration and the uncertainty of complex near future scenarios for our life and world. It's just so exciting to

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have Doctor Sanders with us. I've um known Cody for several years and I find uh he has a kind and wise spirit along with a courageous ability to speak the truth in ways that lead to wisdom.

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So um I'm just overjoyed that you're here with us and that you're willing to talk to us about uh LGBT Q I A belonging in our communities. Thank you, Cody. Uh Thanks so much. It's

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so good to be with you and I was grateful for this invitation. One of my favorite things is joining with clergy and laity who are really interested in learning about cultivating belonging and well being and justice for

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LGBT Q I A people. And I'm very appreciative for your work, Phil and for Austin Presbyterian Seminary and the commitment that you have to resourcing people for this work. Uh And I appreciate being a part

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of it. I'm gonna talk a little bit about how I approach this and give you some uh various areas that you might be interested in exploring in your own work. Uh of LGBT Q I A inclusivity

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, belonging justice. I often like to start talks like this with a story and it's a story that wherever I tell it, almost no one knows, including when I tell the story in the midst of

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LGBT Q I A people and ministers. It's a story that has almost been lost to us uh which in some ways is a form of uh a, a form of epistemological violence in the way that our

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stories as LGBT people have been taken from us because they're not passed down to us. So I want to pass down this story of some of my uh queer and trans ancestors who are some of the reasons

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that I am here where I am today teaching at Luther Seminary, an ordained Baptist minister, small group of lesbian and gay members of uh a Catholic parish uh had confessed their same sex relationships to their priest

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. Uh they had done this in a way. However, not because they thought it was uh morally wrong for them to be in same sex sexual relationships . But because they wanted their priest to know this

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important thing about their lives. The priest's pastoral response to this, um this part of, of his congregants lives was that when the people who had shared their same sex sexuality with the priest approached the altar

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rail every week for communion. When the priest got to that person, he would pass them over. And this happened again and again. And it was upsetting to the gay lesbian members of this parish.

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It was upsetting to a lot of the straight members of this parish who caught on to what was going on and every week they would come and they would stand at the altar and the priest would pass them

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over. So after a while, this group of gay and lesbian parishioners along with some of their uh straight siblings went down the road and rented space in a hotel lounge and uh began what was called the

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Eucharistic Catholic church named for the very element of their faith tradition that had been denied them because of their sexuality and they practiced their faith together in this hotel lounge, founding this new expression of church, which

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became the very first church ever started by gay and lesbian people. And I often uh like to ask people when they thought this happened and where they think this might have happened. And typically the responses are

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something like, you know, the 19, late 19 sixties and someplace like New York or San Francisco or maybe the eighties uh in, in L A or someplace like that, the Eucharistic Catholic church began

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in 1946 in Atlanta, Georgia, the heart of the American South. And what's even more remarkable is that this church was started with people who came from the Catholic tradition as well as many protestant traditions and

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people who had no Christian tradition but wanted a place to belong. And in 1946 Atlanta, Georgia, the Eucharistic Catholic church was a racially integrated congregation in Jim in Jim Crow South. Uh It was led

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by a pastor named George Hyde who had been born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, grew up as a Southern Baptist minister before he uh moved to uh or Southern Baptist church before he moved to the Catholic faith.

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Uh I think this story in particular is one of resilience in the face of uh spiritual forms of violence . It's a story that is a source of courage for LGBT Q people throughout the ages who have stood

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up to the authorities in their religious traditions, in their uh social settings uh in the legal um sphere and have demanded a place at the table, a place of belonging, a place of inclusivity, a

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place of justice. And this uh group of LGBT Q and straight members of this Catholic Parish exhibit this deep courage that grew out of their sense of faithfulness . I mean, I think that's an important thing

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for us to note about the story. They did not leave their Christian tradition. They left the church that said that they could not belong and they founded a new expression uh of following in the ways of

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Jesus. And it's a story of great beauty and joy. People who came together to practice their faith , uh to share community with one another, to form what literally would become in many instances, life

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saving expressions of community uh at the margins of their ecclesial and communal and familial status quo. I start this uh webinar with that story because many of our stories about what it means to be affirming of LGBT

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Q I A people are um come out of a place of, of struggle and pain, uh stories of uh rejection, stories of violence, stories of the churches needing to be attentive to the needs of

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LGBT Q people. And all of those things are really helpful and legitimate and true. As a professor of Pastoral care, I teach a lot about those concerns but our lives are not totalize by these stories

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of problems that we faced. Our queer and trans lives are also full of stories of joy and resilience and courage and faithfulness and love. And these stories need to be told. I can't, I don't

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have a real way of gauging this in this uh setting. But I would imagine that out of the , you know, almost 40 or so of you here that not more than one or two of you

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have ever heard that story before. Uh That would be typical of the, of the uh of the audiences that I have for talks like this. Uh Most of the time nobody has, but I'm giving

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you the benefit of the doubt. A couple of you may have may have heard that story before. But there is a problem in the fact that we haven't heard this story. Uh a story of a

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gay and lesbian congregation starting before the gay and lesbian rights movements. Organizations like the Matin Society were ever even founded. Matin Society was founded in Los Angeles in 1950. Uh The first expression of organizing around

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LGBT Q inclusivity and justice was the Eucharistic Catholic church . And then many years later, the largest grassroots organization of LGBT Q people in the world was the MC C church, the metropolitan community church. Uh

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The, the first building ever owned by LGBT Q I A organizers was not a political organizing space or a community center. It was a church, the MC C church. So whatever church you're in whatever

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tradition you come from, uh whatever perspective you currently hold on LGBT Q inclusivity and justice in your theological tradition. There are queer and trans people in your church, in your denomination, in this larger movement

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. Uh caught up in the ways of Jesus and we are intentionally and critically and with great joy, practicing our faith. Uh Even if you haven't noticed it. But one thing that you could do as

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ministers, people who are charged with caring for the stories of the tradition of your church that would increase the sense of belonging for LGBT Q people. Even if you're already affirming, one thing you can do

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is include stories like this in stories of radical faithfulness . When you tell stories of faithfulness from the pulpit , queer and trans people should be showing up in those stories because there are queer and trans people in

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your congregation who when they hear those stories suddenly see themselves belonging to the tradition for the first time, even if they belong to your church, they may not have a way of imagining the ways that they

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have belonged to the tradition that you belong to prior to showing up at your church. And this story is just one uh among many stories of queer and trans faithfulness. Uh And in fact, I will

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um I'll put a link that you can uh go to to find that story in uh the chat. I first heard the story from a queer religious historian Heather Rachel White who has a great uh academic article

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about this that I'm also glad to get to you . Um If you, if you'd like later, I don't have a link to that one though but one of the ways that this story points us in

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a new direction when we think about uh queer and trans uh inclusivity, justice and belonging is a needed shift from postures of hospitality to postures of belonging. Another way to think about that is a shift from

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what we have done for a long time, figuring out how to be welcoming and affirming of LGBT Q people in our churches and then shifting the energy of that welcome and affirmation into something that looks more like

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celebrating LGBT Q I A lives. So first, along that trajectory of moving from hospitality to belonging, welcoming and affirming to celebrating is really doing a good job at critically assessing whether we are actually doing hospitality

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. Well, the first part of that trajectory, what are the outward signs of your affirming commitments to LGBT Q people in your community? Some of the things that I just want to name as being important

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for you to think about is the way we language that commitment. A lot of churches do a lot of really hard work to figure out how to be affirming uh as a church to LGBT Q people.

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Sometimes you lose folks along the way. Many times you gain folks along the way. Sometimes there's pain and struggle toward that affirmation. But the saddest thing that I see in that work is that when churches

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have done this long deliberative, prayerful, faithful work to become affirming of LGBT Q people, then they don't tell anybody about it or they tell people about it in ways that nobody can recognize some examples.

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Baptists and uh uh use the term welcoming and affirming uh Presbyterians more light uh Methodists, Lutherans, reconciling uh U C C open and affirming. And I'm gonna tell you something. That is true right now

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that I need you to hear. Nobody outside of your tradition knows what any of those things mean. My partner and I, who my partner left the Catholic church when he was a teenager and has never

00:13:24.640 - 00:13:33.920

really been a part of a church since he and I were driving around in Maine one day and saw a church that said open and affirming on the side there, no pride flags, nothing like that.

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Just the words open and affirming. And I asked if he knew what that mean. And he said he assumed it meant the church thought of itself as a very welcoming place. And I said, well

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, would you uh would you imagine that it had anything to do with LGBT Q? Welcome? And he said, no, why would I ever think that? So you may think that when you have

00:13:50.350 - 00:14:01.350

done this work and put the words welcoming, affirming or more light or reconciling on your sign that you are signaling to your community that, that LGBT Q people can find a place of belonging here, but

00:14:01.360 - 00:14:16.850

you have not done that work adequately because people don't know what those words mean, find ways of expressing LGBT Q affirmation on your side with visible signals like pride and trans flags and things like that. But

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I can tell you from my experience in the parish that when my congregation in Cambridge started putting signs of not only of our LGBT Q affirmation, but of many other uh forms of uh justice that we were

00:14:28.400 - 00:14:43.570

committed to. People started coming to the church because they saw those outward signs of what this congregation stood for. What kind of community we were building and very interestingly gay and lesbian people certainly showed up.

00:14:43.580 - 00:14:56.970

But I think the majority of people who showed up because they saw a rainbow flag or the LGBT Q affirmation, uh sig signals outside were straight and cisgender people because they said I can't go to a church

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where my brother, my cousin, my friend, my classmate can't belong. So when I saw the rainbow flag, I knew that I needed to come to this church. So please be diligent in the

00:15:09.430 - 00:15:24.070

very simple acts of hospitality of inviting people in to see what's going on in your congregation. Uh The next thing I wanted to uh to highlight though is this movement that very few churches ever take from questions

00:15:24.080 - 00:15:37.730

of um of, of belongingness, like uh who can belong in our structures of community, who can be baptized, who can be married here, who can be ordained. A lot of our congregations and

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denominations have I undertaken that kind of work? And for that work, we ask questions of suspicious scrutiny who can belong. And many and many congregations have followed those questions to places of greater affirmation, greater

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belonging. And that's a really good thing. But at the end of that, once you decide we're an affirming congregation, a lot of churches think that that's the end, that that's the work that they

00:16:03.330 - 00:16:17.420

have done and they are finished with it now. But there's a next step to that, that is the most life giving step on the trajectory of moving from hospitality to belonging. And that is shifting our

00:16:17.430 - 00:16:33.410

questions toward questions of compassionate curiosity. Those questions don't ask who can belong in our structures of membership and baptism and uh ordination and all that kind of stuff and passionate curiosity asks, what can we learn from

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the lives and experiences of LGBT Q I A people that would benefit the entire church? What can we learn about love and relationship from LGBT Q people who have been practicing committed relationships at the margins of their

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churches, at the margins of their family, at the margins of the legal structures for generations. What can we learn about practices of community building from queer and trans people who have had to create the communities

00:17:02.320 - 00:17:17.830

that they needed in order to simply survive some of the worst times in our history of LGBT Q violence of the A I Ds crisis when the government wanted queer people, dead communities formed to keep people alive

00:17:18.530 - 00:17:34.180

. What can we learn about practices of faithfulness when the numbers of congregation uh congregational membership is in decline and LGBT Q people have been diligently working since 1946 and beyond to belong to churches. Uh What can

00:17:34.190 - 00:17:56.020

we learn about practices of forgiveness from LGBT Q I A Christians who know the harm that has been perpetrated and yet are still willing, interested, even eager to belong to our faith traditions and our congregations.

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Once you start asking those questions, what you're asking is how LGBT Q I A lives is are going to enrich the entirety of the congregation. Not just can an LGBT Q I A person be comfortable sitting

00:18:07.780 - 00:18:19.670

beside you in the pew or preach from the pulpit ? But how are our, is our collective life going to change? Because these queer and trans siblings are now fully a part of our collective journey.

00:18:21.370 - 00:18:33.070

Those are some really exciting questions that then get you into um some, some creative uh expressions of resilience and courage and faithfulness and beauty and joy that queer and trans people have known for a long time.

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But the rest of you haven't seen because you, you haven't asked the questions of compassionate curiosity about our lives and experiences. The next thing I just want to highlight uh is asking in your congregation and the

00:18:48.170 - 00:19:02.680

communities that you serve, what is unique about your community that would help you live out your welcoming commitments in a tangible way. I often consult with churches that have been welcoming and affirming for a really long

00:19:02.690 - 00:19:14.200

time. But they're asking 1020 even 30 years in to that commitment. What does that mean for us anymore? We have lots of LGBT Q people here . We've been a place of belonging for a really

00:19:14.210 - 00:19:26.280

long time, but we know that we're not done with this journey. Uh There's certainly always things to learn about LGBT Q I A lives and expressions and you can tell that there's something to learn when you

00:19:26.290 - 00:19:38.240

hear the acronym LGBT Q I A two S plus , et cetera, et cetera growing and growing. Because more and more of us are being able to name our experiences of gender and sexuality on our own

00:19:38.250 - 00:19:52.400

terms in ways that are true to our own embodied experience for the first time rather than to have those named for us. And I know that that growing acronym and glossary of terms is really confusing and really

00:19:52.410 - 00:20:06.150

hard to hold in your head. And that's OK . It can be confusing and frustrating as long as you are gracious enough to recognize that it's a sign of liberation that people are being able to name their

00:20:06.160 - 00:20:19.320

experiences for themselves. So there are things that our churches need to continue learning about trans and gender queer people about asexuality about gender fluidity, all sorts of things that many churches that became welcoming, affirming 15

00:20:19.330 - 00:20:33.670

years ago, never thought about because no one was talking about them in ways that those churches overheard. But beyond that, some of the most interesting expressions of uh new commitments of affirmation have come when I

00:20:33.680 - 00:20:49.490

talk to churches that start to tie their historic narratives of commitments to, for example, economic justice to the prevalence of LGBT Q youth homelessness in their cities . About 28% of LGBT Q youth experience homelessness or

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some sort of precarity in their living situation at some point. So it's a major issue especially in big cities. And when churches start to realize that they have a lot of skill and facility and a history

00:21:02.490 - 00:21:15.890

with economic justice issues and homelessness. And they have a commitment to LGBT Q inclusivity and justice. They can put those things together and figure out how to intervene in contexts of LGBT youth youth homelessness in their

00:21:15.900 - 00:21:30.270

cities in, in cities where that doesn't yet exist . Now, in some cities, you'll find that there are already uh shelters and things of this nature that have a particular emphasis on LGBT Q inclusivity and

00:21:30.530 - 00:21:42.620

uh and justice and in those situations, you can partner with those um those organizations. But in many cities, churches that I've spoken to, they do that investigation and they find that there's nothing in their

00:21:42.630 - 00:21:53.450

city and that church starts to think about the other four or five churches in town that are big kind of resourceful churches that all know how to do really creative things. But they've never thought to put these

00:21:53.460 - 00:22:08.700

commitments of economic justice and LGBT Q justice together before and then you get really exciting things that grow out of it. But I know Baptist churches in the South that are hosting LGBT Q youth support groups that

00:22:08.710 - 00:22:22.380

are led by Straight me straight ministers at their congregation and LGBT Q people are coming because it's the only way that they can find that kind of supportive community in their, in their town or city. And

00:22:22.390 - 00:22:34.080

it's at their local affirming Baptist church, another really great Baptist church that I'm uh I've been uh uh following for a while that has uh you know, space that they're not using in their church that they

00:22:34.090 - 00:22:49.510

have given to the local LGBT Q youth service organization in their city. Um Churches that are beginning um services of trans days of remembrance or pride celebrations and things like that, that are ways to invite people

00:22:49.520 - 00:23:06.800

together for public expressions of solidarity and justice. I'll tell you one experience um of my congregation um in Cambridge for many, you know, my congregation has been affirming for about 40 years. Um And we

00:23:06.810 - 00:23:14.060

had been a part of the pride parade for a really long time and the pride parade is fun. You march with a bunch of people down the street and people are celebrating and they get to see a

00:23:14.070 - 00:23:26.260

Baptist church and they're amazed that there's a Baptist congregation that's affirming. But for a couple of years, the Pride Organization in Boston fell apart and they weren't having pride. So we connected with a group called

00:23:26.270 - 00:23:37.340

Youth Pride that did a Pride Festival on the Rose Kennedy Greenway where, uh, I don't know, 100 organizations or so would come and set up booths and tables and tents, uh, that had everything

00:23:37.350 - 00:23:47.660

from, you know, like health related services to , um, uh, you know, local organizations that, that did various things with LGBT Q people . We were that year about two years ago,

00:23:47.670 - 00:23:56.930

the only church that I saw there because most churches in our area did the regular pride and not the youth pride. But we had signed up that year . We went, we set up our tent,

00:23:56.940 - 00:24:07.120

we gave away tote bags for people to carry around all the swag that they picked up from the, the booths and things and candy and whatnot. And we talked to people when they would come to the

00:24:07.130 - 00:24:27.420

table on two different occasions. That day, a mother approached the table in tears and said that she did not know until she saw our table that there were churches that she and her family could belong to

00:24:27.510 - 00:24:44.280

where their child would not be exposed to what I would call spiritual violence. And this is in Boston folks. Um a place where there are tons of LGBT Q affirming churches that maybe just aren't doing a

00:24:44.290 - 00:24:56.850

very good job at signaling the fact that they're affirming . And for these two mothers who approached our table , both of them told stories of leaving their church when their child came out as queer or trans because

00:24:56.860 - 00:25:10.600

they knew that their church would not be a place that their child will be treated well. And neither of them knew that there was a place that they could go and belong as a family to a community

00:25:10.610 - 00:25:22.920

that would affirm their child's gender or sexuality. And countless youth throughout the day would stop and be kind of stunned in front of our booth and say, wow, I can't believe there's a Baptist church here

00:25:22.930 - 00:25:32.000

or actually, they just said that can't believe there's a church here because they had not seen that at youth pride before. And even though they weren't folks who, you know, uh were necessarily gonna come

00:25:32.010 - 00:25:47.480

to our church, many of them lived in other parts of Massachusetts. Countless youth said, thank you for being here. It means so much to see a church expressing uh solidarity and uh and belonging for

00:25:47.490 - 00:25:59.790

LGBT Q people. It was a really incredibly moving experience for the folks who worked the booth that day . And one that completely surprised me, uh because it was such a uh an intimate connection that we

00:25:59.800 - 00:26:10.950

could make with that booth, unlike, you know , marching through the crowded streets in a pride parade , find opportunities like that, don't push yourselves on . People don't be desperate for people to come to

00:26:10.960 - 00:26:30.310

your church, just put yourself in places where LGBT Q people are living their lives, celebrating their loves and their embodiments and message your own commitments to loving and coming alongside them and movements of justice. We're

00:26:30.320 - 00:26:38.750

getting to the end of the time that I want to be monologuing because I want to involve uh some of you in conversation. But a couple of things that I just want to note here, uh as

00:26:38.760 - 00:26:52.870

we move forward, there are many ways of attending to the wombs spiritual and otherwise that LGBT Q youth uh in particular face, I'm gonna put some links in the chat for ways that you can find out

00:26:52.880 - 00:27:07.210

more about what some of these are. Um For example, I mentioned LGBT Youth youth homelessness, which is about 28% of LGBT Q youth who experience some form of that adverse school experience is interpersonal violence uh

00:27:07.230 - 00:27:19.480

suicide, which is about four times more likely for LGBT Q youth than um than it is for straightness is gender youth. So here are a lot of links for you to learn more about those things.

00:27:19.490 - 00:27:33.710

You can copy this and then um and keep those . There's also two books at the end. One by Brooke Peterson is a terrific book on the ways LGBT Q people have experienced trauma in their churches and

00:27:33.040 - 00:27:45.820

then have returned to those not the same churches, but have returned to churches and, and the ways churches can form uh caring ministry around those traumas and harms and then a book that I wrote on suicide

00:27:45.830 - 00:28:03.110

as well. Um The other thing I wanna mention before we move into questions is for you to be really attentive to the fact that LGBT Q people who show up in your churches are not synonymous with the

00:28:03.120 - 00:28:18.910

wounds that they have experienced. Uh We are not our wounds though we have often experienced wounds within Christian uh communities. So be attentive to the propensity for Christian communities to have wounded LGBT Q people in the

00:28:18.920 - 00:28:30.550

, in the past. But also be really curious about the expressions of faith that LGBT Q people are living out. I'll tell one last story of a man I interviewed for my book on suicide who had

00:28:30.560 - 00:28:45.300

had a suicide attempt in his twenties, survived left the church. And then, um I interviewed him when he was about 50. So we've been out of the church for about 30 years. The reason

00:28:45.310 - 00:28:56.780

he had been out of the church for 30 years is because that entire time he did not know there were any churches he could belong to and he was in a pretty major city. Uh We, for

00:28:56.790 - 00:29:07.520

our interview, we were sitting within a couple of miles of probably half a dozen affirming churches and he had passed by them so many times that he had never seen anything on those churches signs that indicated that

00:29:07.530 - 00:29:22.700

he could belong there at the end of our interview , he had such beautiful, sophisticated, complex ways of describing his faith. But I said, Thomas , uh it sounds like you've read a lot of

00:29:22.710 - 00:29:38.770

queer theology. And Thomas said, what is queer theology, all of the work that he had done ? All of the beauty and complexity and, and uh intricacy of his faith expression had happened in solitude

00:29:38.780 - 00:29:52.980

because he did not know that there were communities that he could come alongside and grow in those uh faith expressions. And he had done incredibly creative and beautiful work at the margins of Christian traditions um that churches

00:29:52.990 - 00:30:08.930

should be attending to because they're examples of faithfulness. Uh So I want just to encourage you uh to look uh at LGBT Q lives, not just as lives that have been lived in, you know,

00:30:10.450 - 00:30:22.970

in o oftentimes at the uh you know, pain and violence that churches have inflicted on us, but also lives that have been lived in faithfulness and joy and beauty and to lean into the possibilities of celebrating

00:30:23.070 - 00:30:38.580

queer and trans lives, not just affirming them. Why don't we move into some questions? Well, I'll just say this, I've noticed a tendency in your work to kind of foreground LGBT Q folks as

00:30:38.590 - 00:30:55.590

leaders and theologians, like your youth ministry book, really like um talks about like putting LGBT Q teens in leadership positions and then in your book on suicide , you really listen to stories and put like and

00:30:55.600 - 00:31:10.610

hear those stories as theological, I was wondering in what ways does it transform communities to have LGBT Q lives and stories be leaders and the centers of theological reflection sources of theological reflection? I think I might

00:31:10.620 - 00:31:21.930

just start with that question. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, in, in any community where there are certain embodiments of human difference, whether those be racial or gender or sexual

00:31:21.940 - 00:31:37.590

or uh national or otherwise, um being able to attend really carefully and with and with compassion and curiosity to the voices of people with different embodiments. From the dominant norm of that congregation allows the congregation to

00:31:37.600 - 00:31:49.690

listen to conversations that they would not otherwise have heard conversations about, you know, what it means to live a life within the realm of God as, as Jesus would have, would have put it.

00:31:49.950 - 00:32:08.840

Um And in those marginal spaces, even though the margins have been created out of structures of injustice and exclusion, and there's no uh there's no sense in um valor marginalization, but in those marginal spaces that

00:32:08.850 - 00:32:23.590

we found ourselves in over the course of time because of our race or gender or sexuality or class or nationality or whatever the imagination, the theological imagination can flourish in ways outside the dictates of the status quo

00:32:23.600 - 00:32:36.610

that often restrict our vision to one particular way of thinking about our bodies or our relationships to God. Um So, you know, you, you find this when you read queer theology, uh uh,

00:32:36.620 - 00:32:49.670

and you'll find this, when you read Black Liberation Theology and womanist theology, you'll find yourself caught up in imagination that you didn't know was possible because you had never been invited to ask those kinds of questions

00:32:49.680 - 00:33:02.190

due to your, you know, your dominant position , racially or gender or sexually or otherwise. Um , so I think that the fullness of our lives lived within the realm of God, uh, cannot

00:33:02.200 - 00:33:17.610

really be reached or expressed without attending to voices that we would not otherwise be attending to if we weren't really careful to access uh this creativity that exists at the outside, the restricting dictates of the status quo

00:33:17.810 - 00:33:39.710

. Um And it does change us. It, it enriches our lives, it helps us to live into our relationships with the divine more fully. Um And it's, it's beautiful. I think that's both

00:33:39.720 - 00:33:57.250

very difficult and really incredible because there are very few places in our increasingly polarized society where people across many different types of diversity, especially theological ideological diversity gather together anymore to do community with one another. And

00:33:57.260 - 00:34:12.020

so you are the curator of one of those expressions of community in a cultural and social and political context that desperately needs that kind of community. I think a couple of things uh come to mind is helpful

00:34:12.030 - 00:34:21.530

and generally, and I'd be glad to um to connect later to see if, if I could be helpful more specifically in your context. But the two things that come to mind in hearing your, your

00:34:21.540 - 00:34:39.290

story. Uh One is to, to mind the um the narrative resources of your community to do the really careful work of figuring out how your community became so diverse, became such a place where people across

00:34:39.300 - 00:34:52.600

many different embodiments of human difference to show up when it doesn't sound like that this community made any pronounced profession that they were going to be, you know , an LGBT Q affirming congregation or, or whatever

00:34:52.610 - 00:35:05.840

other things that are showing up like that in your community. So I think doing that narrative work to ask, you know, what, what were the uh if you think about your church's story as composed

00:35:05.850 - 00:35:22.150

like a book, what are some of the titles of the chapters in your church's narrative that make the current expression of that congregation's life, make sense as the narrative has unfolded. Uh What particular stands did

00:35:22.160 - 00:35:31.990

the church take uh to make it a place where LGBT Q people could belong even if it wasn't the stance of becoming affirming, which it sounds like it wasn't, you know, it hasn't officially made that

00:35:32.000 - 00:35:45.790

pronouncement, but LGBT Q people are becoming uh members there, belonging there, finding it a place of acceptance and belonging and grace. I would be really curious just to um to look at the church's narrative

00:35:45.800 - 00:36:01.680

to figure out what, what unique things happen to make it such a place. And then if you're gonna start talking about those commitments and more um uh uh kind of open forum type ways. I think

00:36:01.690 - 00:36:16.550

it would be really helpful for you to have a conversation prior to that, probably a multiple series of conversations prior to that about your community's commitments related to how you treat one another and how you uh how

00:36:16.560 - 00:36:32.380

you form community together. What are the absolute um uh sort of principles that you will not let go of when you engage one another in conversation, maybe it's, you know, things like we, we

00:36:32.390 - 00:36:46.020

, we don't attack people and we, you know , we, we, we use names and uh expressions and pronouns of people as they desire them to be used. We tell one another when something has

00:36:46.030 - 00:36:59.680

hurt us uh in a way that then we can have corrected in conversation rather than just sort of distancing ourselves from, from others. You know, a lot of the kinds of norms that probably already exist

00:36:59.690 - 00:37:14.870

in your community, but maybe need to be lifted up before you engage in some really hard conversations uh that clarify your commitments around some of these issues. Uh So knowing your story and the historical narrative that

00:37:14.880 - 00:37:31.900

has brought you to this place and knowing what commitments that you are um making to one another as members of this community would be two things that I think could be helpful there. Yeah, uh where you

00:37:31.910 - 00:37:45.640

are in this uh in this journey. Um So I think if you're at the uh point of asking questions about like what the Bible says about X Y and Z uh things. Some really helpful books in

00:37:45.650 - 00:37:58.820

that genre are um Matthew Vine's book, God and the Gay Christian, very biblically rooted, very accessible , very easy to read. He based a lot of his research on a book by a scholar named

00:37:58.830 - 00:38:10.710

um Browning called Gender Sexuality and Theology. I believe it's a thicker book, a little more academic. Both of those are really good on the gay and lesbian kind of uh pieces. A terrific book on

00:38:10.720 - 00:38:27.350

trans biblical thought and theology is Austin Hartke, uh who wrote a book called Transforming. Uh Austin Harkey is also a graduate of Luther Seminary. Uh Transforming is a beautiful book. And if your church hasn't

00:38:27.360 - 00:38:43.420

delved into issues of like how you live out your affirmation for trans people, that's a great place to start. And another really helpful place to go is Justin Sabia Tennis's book, transgender. Um And I

00:38:43.430 - 00:38:55.570

think the title subtitles like Theology Ministry and something else . Uh both of those really practical, very useful books for congregations. But then if you're looking at more uh like, how do we live beyond the

00:38:55.580 - 00:39:13.190

affirmation into learning from LGBT Q I A lives doing our theology from LGBT Q I A perspectives and embodiments . I think one set of books that's really accessible for churches and beautifully written are Patrick Chang's series of

00:39:13.200 - 00:39:24.060

books. There are three of them. Um One of them called Rainbow Theology. One of them is called, um, oh man, I can't remember the other titles. Now, there's a, a

00:39:24.070 - 00:39:35.800

series of three books, Patrick Chang. And if you look up Rainbow Theology, uh you'll see the others that he wrote before though. I think Rainbow Theology was the third one and Rainbow Theology engages the

00:39:35.810 - 00:39:49.270

intersection of sexual embodiments and racial embodiments. So I really highly recommend that one in particular, lots of other recommendations that I have that I'm glad for you to email me. You can find my email on

00:39:49.280 - 00:40:04.170

the Luther site or I'll put it in the chat . Um Oh, another before I forget though, um Pamela Light's book called Our Lives Matter, Our Lives Matter by Pamela Light. It's a very,

00:40:04.180 - 00:40:21.570

very short book, very readable. And again, it's doing queer Theology from a womanist perspective and it's very accessible for churches. You could do a reading group on that and it's a beautiful book. Yeah

00:40:21.580 - 00:40:32.350

, that's a great question. I uh I'll name a couple of things that come to mind that are related to your question and try to get into some helpful uh stuff. There one is that I think

00:40:32.360 - 00:40:44.380

we need to be attentive to the fact that there are a lot of LGBT Q people who are coming to your church or parts of your denomination and they don't want to be in the middle of LGBT Q

00:40:44.390 - 00:40:55.590

I A discussions and deliberations. They want a church to belong to uh they don't want their lives to be in the spotlight. And that is totally understandable . Not every LGBT Q people ha uh person has

00:40:55.600 - 00:41:13.040

the sense of call to be uh you know, on uh display to their congregations. So it can be really helpful in those situations that allies are taking uh the initiative to have conversations and not relying on

00:41:13.050 - 00:41:24.700

their always being an LGBT Q person to uh to prompt it especially. But I think the careful work that has to be done is to figure out who , even if they're not in your congregation, who

00:41:24.710 - 00:41:38.500

among LGBT Q I A religious leaders in your denomination , in your city and your region do experience that call. Uh It's what Peggy Campolo used to call uh your, your uh God duty, your gay

00:41:38.510 - 00:41:49.000

on display duty. And that's the kind of thing I do with churches a lot, you know, churches that need a LGBT Q I A person to come and talk about some of these issues with them

00:41:50.030 - 00:42:00.110

. Um And I'm perfectly happy to do that because I find a lot of meaning and pleasure and joy in doing it. I feel it's a sense of my call to help churches do this work as an

00:42:00.120 - 00:42:14.900

openly queer person, but not every queer person does . So doing the uh work to figure out who in your communities wants to be involved in that conversation and being sure that they're there at those tables when

00:42:14.910 - 00:42:23.830

those conversations are, are, are done even if you have to invite them and bring them in from outside because they are people, you know, and they will are willing to do it. And if

00:42:23.840 - 00:42:37.120

they're coming in from outside your community, I also say, be uh really intentional about how you compensate them for the emotional labor, not just the intellectual labor, but the emotional labor of being on display

00:42:37.130 - 00:42:51.150

and, and having a lot of questions that are probably not always very comfortable, asked about them and about their lives. Um But there are a lot of people for whom that is a really pronounced sense

00:42:51.160 - 00:43:02.530

of call and they might be in your congregation. Um But if they're not, there are some around you. I know um I think the other piece of this is attending to how we ask questions about

00:43:02.540 - 00:43:16.390

LGBT Q I A lives and this goes back to the distinction between suspicious scrutiny. Should LGBT Q I A people be married? Can or LGBTI A Q people be ordained? What does the Bible say about

00:43:16.400 - 00:43:35.130

X Y and Z suspicious scrutiny versus compassionate curiosity? What is it like for LGBT Q people in our faith community when they discover that they can't be married in this church? Um What is it that LGBT

00:43:35.140 - 00:43:51.950

Q people have learned about relationships that would actually inform our church's perspective about marriage and covenanted relationship. You see the difference between those questions and the energy that those questions direct toward LGBT Q I A lives.

00:43:51.960 - 00:44:01.860

One is about figuring out the answers about how, how we have lived and, and should we belong , et cetera. The other is about inviting our wisdom into the room and into the church into the

00:44:01.870 - 00:44:17.500

denomination and seeing our lives as a sacred source of wisdom because we too have had relationships with the divine that have taught us and shaped us and formed us in ways that could benefit everyone. Uh Should you

00:44:17.510 - 00:44:30.310

be compassionate and curious enough to, to lean in a little closer and ask those questions. The book that I wrote called Queer Lessons for Churches on the straight and narrow is all about making that shift in

00:44:30.320 - 00:44:50.280

congregational life. Um I hope those are some helpful responses to that, to that question. Um And I appreciate you asking. It's a really important one . Yeah, that's a really great question. Well

00:44:50.290 - 00:45:01.440

, I'll tell you, you know, I grew up Southern Baptist. I uh in college started to realize I need to figure out new places to belong because that wasn't gonna be where uh I was gonna

00:45:01.450 - 00:45:14.600

be able to find a, a denominational home forever . Um I moved into the co-operative Baptist Fellowship which had a little bit more of a moderate stance, which is a really uncomfortable place to be because then

00:45:14.610 - 00:45:24.860

there's just no, there's no clarity on whether you can belong there or not. And then I discovered the alliance of Baptists. And I went to my first alliance uh meeting when I was in seminary and

00:45:24.870 - 00:45:36.690

I saw a room full of people that included uh LGBT Q people, men and women. Uh you know, mo most of the people at this meeting , ministers in their congregations. And it was just

00:45:36.700 - 00:45:51.980

a liberated space where I could breathe easily for the first time in my denominational explorations. Uh a place where I no longer had to question whether or not I could belong here. Uh And, and certainly

00:45:51.990 - 00:46:04.140

didn't have to question whether with the gifts that I brought would be embraced or not. I think finding ways to cultivate that kind of community in your area , especially if you are in an area where there

00:46:04.150 - 00:46:16.140

just aren't a lot of opportunities like that. Um uh And where there aren't a lot of spaces for LGBT Q A clergy together forming communities uh in, in your local area, I think is a really

00:46:16.150 - 00:46:36.520

helpful one. And as straight or Cisgender uh allies in this work, being sure that when you show up at denominational meetings and LGBT Q I A issues are discussed that you as a straight or cisgender ally

00:46:36.640 - 00:46:50.690

are right there in that conversation, advocating for inclusivity and justice and belonging and not leaving it up to the LGBT Q I A people to have to come to their own denominational gathering and advocate for their embrace

00:46:50.700 - 00:47:06.290

among their own people. You know, uh I think it, it's always been a really um incredibly heartening experience for me to see straight and cisgender people um opening spaces of belonging and inclusivity and, and

00:47:06.300 - 00:47:19.720

working for justice because they get it and they know it's important and they know it's a part of our sense of living into an identity that's shaped by, by the gospel. Um I hope that's helpful.

00:47:19.910 - 00:47:32.880

Yes, Doctor Sanders. That is really wonderful. Um I uh I've been tasked with the really difficult job of closing this conversation up. I would say , um just because of the richness of what you

00:47:32.890 - 00:47:47.310

brought to us today, Doctor Sanders, I just really appreciate it. Um I have a feeling from our conversation, both of kind of a sense of uh like the hopefulness of a future where that really

00:47:47.320 - 00:48:02.900

like belonging in a religious sense is life or death , right? It's very, very important for people to find a spiritual home and to find a place where they, they feel welcome and they're like they're

00:48:02.910 - 00:48:16.840

represented and their perspectives are included. And I just uh I also appreciate how you've opened directions and your work does this for me so much open new directions of things that I need to learn more about.

00:48:17.200 - 00:48:34.200

And I think uh one of the things that your work gives us too is uh like a pastoral wisdom for conversations about LGBT Q identity are coming into your ministry already and they're already there. And what,

00:48:34.210 - 00:48:43.430

what can you do to kind of be prepared ahead of time. And a lot of your books point to this, like, you know, how can you re, how could you be resourced before having

00:48:43.440 - 00:48:54.320

a conversation with, with a young person in your community or something like that? Um Where you're gonna be helping them think about the ethical uh communities that they're coming out to as you know, you have

00:48:54.330 - 00:49:12.790

a critique of the word coming out as well that I really like to uh Doctor Sanders. But with you, I'm kind of picturing a community that is uh alive with the gospel and is celebratory, not

00:49:12.800 - 00:49:25.080

simply like scrutinizing to see like who's gonna be inside and outside and really a community that is listening to the witness of the spirit that helps us to hear one another even when we seem to be speaking different

00:49:25.090 - 00:49:37.940

languages. Um And that I think is uh I think you've given us so many gifts today and so many directions forward. I'm really looking forward to digging into some of the resource that resources that you've provided

00:49:38.050 - 00:49:51.930

to us. And we're gonna make this video that you've done uh available to people who registered and then the, also the resources that you've recommended will make available as well on the website. Thank you.

00:49:51.940 - 00:50:00.390

It's just been wonderful to see you today. Good to see you too. I really appreciate the space and for all of you who have shown up here , I mean, it's a, it's a really

00:50:00.400 - 00:50:14.560

hardening thing for me to see clergy and laity coming to a webinar to figure out how to, how to be better. Um at LGBT Q I A belonging and, and celebrating our lives and our congregations

00:50:14.570 - 00:50:24.800

. And I think you're right. It is a life saving expression of our faith tradition. I know many stories where the church, you know, contrary to all the stories that we normally hear the church

00:50:24.810 - 00:50:40.200

has been the place that has sustained LGBT Q people in their ability to live uh in some really precarious circumstances in their cities and towns. So this is important work and thank you for all being on this

00:50:40.210 - 00:50:52.140

journey together. Well, thank you for your openness and generosity with us in so many ways. You've just been a wonderful uh leader and presenter and uh really generous with your resources and time. So thank

00:50:52.150 - 00:50:55.360

you. Thank you. It's a pleasure. Good