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Pride Week Talk

By James Pilkington

It's great to have the opportunity to talk to you guys today. So just before I start, let me just tell you a little bit about me . I go to the local Uniting Church , and I work as a mission worker in the Chaplaincy here at UNSW. I work closely with the student group Christian Students Uniting. I'm also a gay man and a Christian. I'm gonna share with you a bit of theology, a few stories, my own and others, and a bit of what I have learned on my faith journey.

In the debate that seems so important in the church today, you often hear people say ‘the bible says this, or the bible says that'. People line up some verses and use them to back up their own point of view. Now there's one verse in the bible that says it is wrong to lie with a man as with a woman. Right across the page is the bit where it says that you must show any mildew you find to your priest. Pete back there is the Uniting Church chaplain on campus. Now he's a great guy, but I don't know how he would feel if I showed him the mould broccoli sitting at the back of my fridge. Apart from that verse, there is another passage which, if you read more than a single sentence, clearly refers to pagan fertility cults where people had mass orgys. Anyways, the point is that we can get bogged down in the meaning of a single sentence and miss the whole point of the story – the grand themes , the great statements. We can miss the forest for the trees. We're not going to argue verses here, but instead we are going to look at the whole point of it all, of everything. Today, I hope to show you how the radical, liberating message that Jesus brings us and his revolutionary understanding of God all point towards the full inclusion and acceptance of gay people in the church. I hope to show you that if we just try and engage with the message of Jesus we find that all, all of his life, his actions and his words point to the affirmation of homosexuals in who they are and in their loving partnerships.

In Australia today, it seems that the only time we hear about the bible is when it is used to justify Conservative values . Somehow the bible is used to support the message that stresses working hard and making money, being law-abiding, having a family and kids, not drinking and so on. We have this image of the bible being this conservative book, used to justify the lifestyles and values of the white male middle class. The bible become a tool of control , a tool of conformity, a tool in the hands of those in power to maintain their power. To define God to suit their own interests.

It's so ironic then that, at its heart, through the story and person of Jesus , what Christianity revolves around, is so radical. Jesus ties together all the threads that are the voices from the margins, calling the powerful to account, calling people to turn back to God. Jesus was man from Nazareth - Bogan central, hanging out with those excluded and marginalised, who dared to take on those in power and challenge them over both the nature of God and how society should be. He had this incredible vision of a place where the poor are provided for, the hungry are fed and the marginalised are included. And he as a consequence of his vision and his challenging those in power, was killed as a political rebel.

We find out that contrary to Conservatives, Jesus didn't work hard, instead he left his job, and called others to leave theirs, or at least stop aspects of their job that were exploiting others. Jesus didn't marry or have kids and he repeatedly ignored his own parents. Jesus drank alcohol. He broke the law, repeatedly, and was finally killed for it. Jesus didn't conform. His life and teachings are the exact opposite of what so many Christians tell us ‘the Bible says'. People say they follow Jesus but so often they seem to live the opposite to how he lived and say things that are opposite to what he said. A lot of Christians never really engage with the Jesus story, never really look to it for guidance for their own lives.

The problem is that the Jesus story has been deprived of so much meaning . Today we seem to value statements over narratives. Society today is in many ways very different to back then, and unless we understand what it was like back then and what was going on, we can miss so much of the meaning of what Jesus said and did. So let me talk a little bit about what it was like back then. Let us put the meaning back into the gospel story.

Jewish people lived in several countries, all occupied by the Empire of Rome . Rome controlled the army and had some control over the government. However, in the main, all of Jewish society centred round the great Temple in Jerusalem . God was thought to live inside this Temple . The temple was the religious, political and economic heart of the region. There was no separation of church and state. The people in charge of the Temple - the priests, the scribes and the Pharisees - were the judges, the politicians, the businessmen, the bureaucrats and the religious leaders of today all rolled into one. They used the ‘law' to run the Temple and society for their own interests.

When you read the word ‘law' in the bible, it isn't just some kind of religious guidance but actually defined what was illegal and legal at the time. The law was something written down by Moses who hears it from God near the start of the bible. It's pretty long. The Ten Commandments are part of it, but it has economic laws, rules on farming, rules on what you can wear, what to do if you find mildew and so on. It also has laws about personal and sexual conduct. At the time, those in power used the law to exclude people seen as unholy and unclean both from entering the Temple to worship God, but also to actually exclude them from society. People with leprosy, people who were blind, people who bled, people who were tax collectors, people who were foreign. They were not, could not, be part of God's people, according to either the law or the customs of the people or both. These unclean people were forced to live on the margins of society. In the bible they are always outside the towns or outside the Temple simply because they weren't allowed to enter them. Who they were made them, supposedly, unacceptable to God.

But these are the people that Jesus hangs out with . He ate with them, and in doing so made himself unclean in the eyes of those running the Temple . After eating with, and touching these people (which he seems to do a lot) he would have been unable to enter the temple himself. It's a powerful symbol. More than that just spend time with them, he says that it is precisely these people that are God's people – not the ones in power. Not the big guys in the temple who think they are so holy. It is those excluded and marginalised from both society and religion that actually understand what Jesus is on about. They are God's people, they are the ones that God favours and blesses. They are the ones that Jesus cares about.

He challenges who God's people are. He turns the conventional view at the time of God's people and his Kingdom totally upside down , explaining it is the exact opposite of what those in power say. But he also challenges their understanding of who God is. God is not a tool for those in power to maintain their power. God does not live in one room and no-one can control who can approach him. He is not in the temple, but lives in our hearts. He is not just a God of the Israelites but also God of everyone. He is not a God that you can use to justify your violence, but is a God of love. A God of peace. Anyone who seeks him will not be turned away. All are invited to participate in Jesus vision – a vision of people reconciled with God and with each other; the vision of a world that is just and inclusive and loving and sharing. A world without marginalised people, a world without oppression or hunger or exclusion.

This is where gay people fit in . The revelation that Jesus brings us is that we all have the right to be God's people. God calls all of us. God loves all of us. Gay people today are seen as unholy, unclean, just like, say lepers or foreigners in Jesus time. When Jesus breaks down the barriers, everyone, including gay and lesbian people, are invited to participate. There's this beautiful prophecy in the Old Testament that goes, “I will say to those who are called ‘not my people', ‘you are my people' and they will say ‘you are our God' . All of us, including gay people are invited to join God's banquet. None of us can be turned away.

Some people seem to think that well, okay, he doesn't mention Gay people , but he does mention people who aren't Jewish or blind people. So let's include blind people and people who aren't Jewish in the church, but let's exclude Gay and Lesbian people. But God's vision is for all time, for all people. Jesus may not have talked about freeing slaves, and the bible in certain parts supports slavery. But we can be damn sure that God is not pro-slavery. When we accept the implications of Jesus' message, we cannot exclude gay and lesbian people from being a part of God's people. We simply can't.

What's interesting is the parallels between those in charge back then and those in positions of authority in the church and elsewhere today. Today many of our religious and political leaders want to put God in a box. They use their religion to gain power and money and fame rather than caring about what Jesus cared about. They control access to God, thinking they can say who is and who isn't part of God's people. They tell us that ‘God hates fags' or that homosexuality is a special kind of sin and that homosexuals won't go to heaven. They preach of the evils of gay people and think that no gay person can ever hear God.

Some of our religious leaders today set themselves up in the same position as the people in charge or influential in the Temple in Jesus day and in doing so, they subject themselves to the same criticisms as those that Jesus levelled at their biblical counterparts. For example, Jesus criticises the people in charge for worrying about trifles – in one case, giving a tenth of your herbs , but neglecting what the law was all about – which Jesus states is ‘justice and mercy and faith'. When people today start using the word of God to exclude and marginalise a section of society, they are just as morally bankrupt as the people who killed Jesus. He was killed precisely because he threatened the claims of those in power to have a monopoly on truth; their claims to stand between man and God.

What for me is even more indicative of how un-Jesus-like condemning homosexuals is the consequences of this stand the church has taken. The result as we have seen sham marriages that later break down as people get tired of lying and denying their need to love and be loved. The result is so much depression and heartache and guilt and self-hated, and often, worst off all, suicide. Christ is supposed to bring liberation, freedom and hope. A condemning stance offers none of this. Can we really say that Jesus' message is one that drives people to suicide . People put Jesus' name to things he would never do. Telling gay people that they are going to hell brings fear, guilt, shame and wrecked lives. I know of so many families wrecked and reduced to broken, bitter fragments because of some church's negative stance on the issue. Parents who can't even talk to their children. People torn with the guilt inside at coming out to their partners, having to chose between hurting the ones they care for and love and experiencing true love for themselves.

If someone has the courage to admit they are ‘struggling with homosexuality' they get sent to ‘straight camps' or go for ‘struggle therapy' . There they are told that they are gay because they are not manly enough. They have to learn to be manly by doing manly activities like sport. Never mind that I know professional and ex-professional sportsmen personally that are gay! I know gay army officers, P.E. teachers, farmers, stockmen. Anyways. In straight camp they are told they need to be more manly, that they way they are now is unacceptable to God. But we know that God accepts us unconditionally, that we are all created in the image of God. In straight camp gay people are told they need to find their ‘root' – in essence, who made them gay. Part of their so-called therapy is to find someone to blame for who they are. Jesus never talked about blaming others for being unacceptable to society. It's so contrary to all of the Christian message. These poor people even have aversion therapy where they learn, sometimes by experiencing physical pain, to try and suppress their desire for men. I know a lot of people that have been really screwed up by this terrible process. And none of this process is Christian, nothing in this speaks of God . Only of self-hatred, fear, and blame. It does not liberate people, but instead binds people in chains.

The main organisation that did this in the UK was one called Courage . In fact, I believe they were the largest organisation of their kind in Europe . They were and are headed by a bloke called Jeremy Marks . He was dealing with the issue himself. After twenty years of trying to make people – including himself - straight, after praying earnestly for healing, he realised that no-one had ever gotten ‘better'. No-one ever got healed. Some people got married but no-one ever stopped being gay. He believed in a God of mercy, he believed in a God who healed . As do I. Maybe, he decided, God was happy with them just the way they were. Maybe it was okay to be gay. And it wasn't just him that came to this conclusion. He turned the whole organisation around . From gay-hating to gay-affirming. Everyone in it, just about. It's amazing. It's that moment, that turning point, when you understand more of what God is. More of what his vision for us is.

That turning point is that powerful moment when the grace of God challenges our own assumptions of who he is and what being a Christian is. When your prejudices and preconceptions are broken down and heaven shines through. For those of us gay and lesbian people who have grown up in a Christian environment which is anti-gay, that turning point is usually an incredible moment. I've had several, and I want to tell you a bit about them. Those steps towards reconciling God and being gay .

I grew up in a fairly conservative church , and I'd always believed that being gay is wrong. My parents hated gay people with a passion, and used to write regularly to their local MP to tell him to make homosexual sex illegal. My mum even used to do ‘straight' counselling for the church, before she gave up through lack of success. As a teenager, realising that I liked guys not girls, it was hard. I used to pray to God, begging him, to make me straight. I hated life and hated myself for who I was. I stopped going to church for a long time because I just couldn't deal with it. I couldn't reconcile who I was with what I believed about homosexuality. I couldn't reconcile the God of love and acceptance that Jesus talked about with the God they preached in church.

After not going to church for several years, I came to terms with being gay . While I was living at university I found a nice guy called Derek. I experienced what it was like to be close with someone you care about. I found out it didn't feel wrong, it felt like the most right thing in the world . But I couldn't reconcile the two halves of me. They didn't seem to fit together. I cam across an article on the internet one day talking about how the bible wasn't actually anti-gay. I remember crying. It was this liberating feeling and I was reminded of Jesus' promise to us – you will know the truth and the truth will set you free .

I decided I had had enough of lying to my closest friends, my Christian ones from my hometown. I brought Derek back one Sunday to meet those friends and my sister. Incredibly, they were all cool with it. No-one had a bad word to say, even though I think that maybe some of them still thought it was wrong. I've been very lucky, I've never lost a friend over being gay. My parents, though, were a different story. They thought I was acting strangely, and they asked my sister what was up. She told them everything. By that time, I had gone back down to uni. My parents drove down to my university to confront me. They were hysterical, I've never seen anything like it. My mum was crying and screaming as though in a fit, beating her fists against the table and herself. They told me I had been brainwashed by gay propaganda, that I wasn't really Gay. They told me I had ruined their lives, that everyone at their church would find out. That they could never smile again because of what I had done. That they would have to leave, that their lives were over. They told me I couldn't come home and that they didn't want to speak to me again.

I was tried to be calm, rational and understanding whilst they were here. I didn't say a bad word to them. But after they had left, I started absolutely bawling . It was the most heart-breaking, hurtful experience I had ever been through, and I couldn't stop crying. I called my friends from back home that I had told earlier that day. They drove down to London , even though it's a long way and they came rushing in to where I lived to comfort me. In a way, yeah it was the worst day of my life. In a way though, it was the best, knowing I had friends like these. I loved them so much for it. For me they were showing God's love, they were the ones offering hope and comfort and in doing that, they were walking in the footsteps of Jesus. Eventually, my parents starting talking to me again. We still talk regularly, though I must admit, living the other side of the world makes our relationship a lot easier!

That website really turned me around because I had always thought that all Christians thought that being gay was wrong. It came as a shock to me that lots didn't . I got in touch with a group when I was back in London , a Young Gay and Lesbian Christian group. It's a national group with members from all over the UK, but when I went along to a social event in London, by amazing coincidence (or maybe it was God?) the first people I met were a young lesbian couple, Rachel and Sarah , that were just about to move into a house about 10 minutes walk from my parents'. These guys are now married and last time we talked they were very happy. I thank God for putting them in my life as they have been a huge blessing for me and very important for me in reconciling my faith and my sexuality. As part of the group, I went along to a worship service as well. Worshipping with 30 or so other gay or lesbian Christians was so liberating for me, I really felt God in that place, in that community of people where I belonged. Both parts of me belonged. Finally those two pieces of my life that never seemed to fit together, started fitting .

As gay people, we know what it's like to be excluded. We understand that we live in a society in which people aren't reconciled to each other, a society in which we don't fit the mould of the ideal man or woman. What's more, Jesus vision of a society in which everyone has a place is a vision I know many gay people also really believe in and have a passion for. As gay people, we've often been through a lot, rejection, depression, or self-hatred. We may know what it's like to be so lonely. That's why Christianity is, I believe, particularly for gay people . Jesus tells us he hasn't come to the rich, the successful, the centre. He has come to the edges. He has come for people like us, people like gay people. I've met so many gay people with a deep spiritual yearning and I really hope that we can respond to God's call. To share his vision of being acceptable just the way we are. To know that we are truly loved. To build a better world.

I know a number of gay Christians who don't go to church, who have given up on church . They feel they have been rejected by church and so they rejected it in return. Well, if there are people reading this that feel this way, I want to urge you don't give up . If you don't believe in hierarchy, Jesus didn't believe in hierarchy either. But he did believe in community. Because we fundamentally express our faith in the way we relate to each other, I don't think it's really possible to be a Christian alone. Yeah, we may need to go through that time apart from the Christian community, but at some point we have to come out of the wilderness. We need to share together, comfort each other, help each other. As Christians, following Jesus isn't about what we can get, it's about what we have to give. Just like he did, we are called to give everything for each other. I think churches need to be challenged, straight Christians need to have gay friends. It's a lot harder to hate gay people when you have gay friends. We need to be there, doing our best to live out God's dream. We need to be a witness in the church to Jesus' inclusive vision. Because I think that the only way people's attitudes are going to change is when the other – gay people – becomes one of them. One of us. So don't give up on church, don't give up on God. Because he hasn't given up on you. Don't let Jesus vision wither away before the forces conservatism. Don't let people use the bible as a tool of control. Be there to remind people it is a book of empowerment. A thing of hope, a thing of love, a thing of reconciliation.

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