HRC’s local Religion and Faith Subcommittee plans town hall meetingAre you — or have you been — a refugee from religion?
For understandable reasons, the refugees are everywhere in our GLBT community, people fleeing a religion that not only does not accept them unconditionally, but actually doesn’t make sense any more, and perhaps never did.
Some of us have been searching desperately our entire lives for God and for a religious or spiritual community that accepts us just as we are. Others want nothing to do with God or any religion.
A few seek and may find God in "welcoming" and "affirming" religious denominations, some through Eastern mysticism, metaphysics or Native American paths. Others remain adrift in the religion of their childhoods, not discouraged enough to leave, but not truly connected either.
Some have chosen to stay and become leaders in traditional churches. Many of these are the walking wounded, spiritually: the refugees from religion.
As a gay man growing up in a typical Protestant family, I spent years coming out to myself and others. I also spent years as a refugee, denouncing and rejecting a religion that seemed so hypocritical — teaching love, but depicting a temperamental, judgmental God who was just like many humans.
How could that be? My journey of spiritual rediscovery has helped me understand that I had too often surrendered my innate spiritual identity as a child of God to organized religion.
A particularly powerful experience for me was becoming aware that ultimately my anger, loneliness and feelings of rejection weren’t as much about the conservative hijacking of Christianity as my own unwillingness to spiritually come out to myself — to claim my innate spiritual power.
Just what does this "claiming spiritual power" mean? For me, the bottom line is to understand and accept that I am a loved and loving child of a loving God — always have been, always will be. It’s about always taking a personal stand, at times publicly, for love in the face of fear or hatred; forgiveness when harm has occurred.
And this includes all individuals and organizations without exception, including churches that continue to teach fear and exclusion. My stand must always basically be one of love and inclusivity.
"Who have I come here to be?" That’s a question that never fails to ground me in the moment, helping to open to an inner guidance that puts it all into perspective.
This question also is appropriate, I believe, for the many GLBT refugees from religion — those of us who have experienced pain, rejection and doubletalk from religious institutions.
There are many options for reconnecting with God as our GLBT community moves forward in these changing and, for me, exciting times.
Recognizing that established institutions like churches change very slowly and have rarely been leaders in the early stages of social injustice (think civil rights, women’s rights, GLBT rights), some may be guided to become leaders within their church or a welcoming/affirming church. Such commitment provides invaluable insight to the inevitable resistance to change.
Others may find a home in a new-thought, progressive spiritual community. Some may choose not to be an active part of a spiritual/religious community, but live their faith in their own way.
Wherever we may be, as we ask the question and open to the answer of "Who have I come here to be?" we’ll know that we can find spiritual power wherever we may be.
I believe untold numbers of GLBT folks have a vision of religious and spiritual denominations and churches that embrace them with acceptance and respect, a loving and inclusive interpretation of the Bible, belief in an unconditionally loving and therefore nonjudgmental God (or Higher Power), and a powerful fundamental belief that though not every person is religious, everyone is a spiritual being with God’s spark of divinity within them.
So the question to you: Who have you come here to be? The Religion and Faith Subcommittee of the Dallas Human Rights Campaign is excited about our May 7 town hall meeting which we hope will support you as you find your answer.
Please join us Thursday, May 7, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m, at the Resource Center of Dallas, 2701 Reagan St.. Four panelists will begin the conversation about GLBT people, congregations and their shared journeys toward inclusivity and acceptance.
The Rev. Steve Colladay is a member of the Dallas HRC Religion and Faith Subcommittee, and has been the minister at Unity Church of Christianity of Dallas, since 2005. The church is located at 3425 Greenville Ave., Dallas, and its Web site is www.dallasunity.org.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition May 1, 2009.
I plan to attend what sounds like an interesting discussion!
I had spent 14 years (from ages 21 to 35) working full-time in two Christian ministries, before I came out. From the time I was 15, I knew I wanted to serve God with my life… I also knew I was gay. The non-denominational church I grew up in thoroughly grounded me in my faith. But I also learned there, and especially at home, that being gay was a choice – and being gay AND Christian was not an option.
Not unlike many, I prayed for years and years that God would change my feelings. Though my feelings never changed, I was able to focus on my relationship with God and serving in ministry – until a tragedy struck my life in 2000 that shook me to the core of my faith. Within months I left full-time ministry for the corporate world, changed my group of friends, buried my faith and relationship with God in the closet (literally) – and I came out.
The Strip was my new best friend, along with some rather destructive drinking, for several months. A scary drive home on a Thanksgiving evening was a wake-up call for me. I knew it was God’s grace that got me there – and that made me mad! He was the last one I wanted help from at that point. But in my heart of hearts, my buried faith continued to tug at me.
To make a long story short (since this is supposed to be a comment :-)… For years I had viewed God (and myself) through everyone else’s filter. When I finally stripped all that away and began to look at myself and God through His Word, and the way Jesus interacted with “sinners”, I realized that God loved me as I was all along.
The tragic loss I had experienced in 2000, painful as it remains, put me on a path to discover not only “Who I have come here to be” but more importantly to me “Who God has come here to be.”
This is why the word “whosoever” is so precious to me in John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only son Jesus, that ‘whosoever’ believeth in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life.
There is no asterisk beside ‘whosoever’ to not any exclusions. It is God’s invitation, and He invited everyone.