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Faith, the Bible, and My Journey Towards full LGBTQ+ Affirmation
By the time we planted our church, Little Flowers Community, in 2009, the shift in my thinking around sexuality had already begun to get more pronounced. While I still generally held to the “traditional view” when pressed about it, I avoided that specific question a great deal. In truth, with planting a new church, my energy and focus were largely directed elsewhere.
In fact, even our church did not directly address the topic, with members who held “traditional views”, others holding an affirming view, and many not sure where they stood. Given that we had a few queer members in that season, we decided that we wouldn’t take any official stance as a church, allowing people to decide privately for themselves. All we required was for everyone to make space for difference and show love and respect for one another.
Interestingly, in the process of planting the church, I found myself deeply engaging in study of Scripture and how it should be read (hermeneutics), largely from Anabaptist and neo-Anabaptist perspectives. To be clear, I am not suggesting there is a monolithic “Anabaptist Hermeneutic” or that many in that tradition would agree with my views. However, the transformation in how I began to understand Scripture was significant, liberated from the shallow literalism of my youth to a reading far more faithful…