A Letter to the Church from the Margins of Faith, Gender, & Sexuality

To all followers of Jesus,

Greetings from our small corner of the world. I am writing this letter with a degree of uncertainty and anxiety. Most attempts I have made around these topics in the past have not been well received, often met with excuses, hostility, and worst of all, indifference. So, for me, writing this is an act of belligerent hope. May it be received with open hearts and open minds.

One of the great risks of history is that we can look back on monumental turning points with a degree of clarity, as though such moments are unmistakable in their import. Yet all too often we fail to see when we are presently at just such moments. I believe that we are, as the Church, at such a historic moment right now, facing a crisis of faith much like the prophets and apostles before us.

I am speaking about the continued existence of the fear, ignorance, and hate that exists toward those whose sexuality and gender differ from the dominant expressions we assume to be “normal”. As a bisexual man, I am one of those people. Sadly, rather than engaging in the sacred task of confronting the injustice being done against these children of God, we are all too often complicit- either through active participation or passive apathy- compromising both the integrity of the…