Everyone’s Spiritual Journey

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

As we draw to the end of Pride Month 2023, I think back to a perspective-changing conversation I once had with a gay member who was joining our United Methodist Church.

He and his husband were coming to the UMC after spending some years at a very prominent church that was majority LGBTQ. But before that —during his childhood and adolescence— this man had been part of a very conservative Evangelical Church.

Our conversation drifted into the theology of both these churches and he saliently described for me why *neither* no longer spoke to where he was on his spiritual journey.

The Evangelical church had been harmful and wrong-headed for reasons I probably don’t have to go into here. They’d openly spoken out against being queer, used the Bible as a weapon, and preached a theology from the pulpit that made it clear to him he was not welcome and that they believed the way God made him was somehow “wrong.”

He and his husband had moved from there to a predominantly-LGBTQ church, where the message of queer acceptance was woven in to literally everything the church ever did. And, he said, at a certain point in his journey, that had been incredibly helpful to him. Hearing the message of the unconditional acceptance of God…hearing it boldly and unequivocally…hearing that the “clobber passages” from the Bible don’t really say what Evangelicals tell us they say…

This was all incredibly helpful to him at a certain point at his journey. But he was now in middle age and he and his husband had internalized the messages into their life and family. And he’d come to a place where he no longer wanted to be “talked ABOUT” as an issue. He just wanted to come to church.

The way he expressed it to me was in a single, life-changing theological statement:

“I’m not bad because I’m gay…but I’m not good because I’m gay either…I’m just gay.”

Now, it’s possible —especially during “Pride Month”— to read this sentence as dismissive of healthy queer self-acceptance. But I understood this man to be speaking in a far more profound way.

We are all perfectly made in God’s image…that is true. And lifting up the marginalized voices of queer folks, POC, Women, Immigrants, Religious Minorities…that is important and on-going work. That is, as I understand it, the entire reason for Pride Month, or Black History Month, or any other celebration of marginalized humans…to lift these groups up and acknowledge the fact that elevating their voices heals both them, and helps transform all of the rest of us too.

But in the end, nobody is either “bad” or “good” because they’re gay.

As the great queer theologian St. Lady of Gaga preaches, people are just “born this way.”

It’s not good OR bad.
It just IS.

And therefore queer folks are on this same journey of spiritual journeying that the rest of us are also on too. John Wesley called it “moving on toward perfection.” The spiritual journey is not one destination where we then falsely claim to have “arrived.” It is instead a sojourn that we take together.

The United Methodist Church has been on a long and painful journey toward the full acceptance of the LGBTQ community. There is much pain, suffering, and heartbreak that has happened along the way. There is much harm that must still be named fully. And we are not yet there.

Aspirationally, the North Texas Conference has overwhelmingly said it intends to move to the full inclusion many of us have worked for during the past several decades.

Specifically, we voted almost unanimously to urge General Conference to remove the restrictive language. We also voted by a similarly high margin to support a resolution put forward by our Queer delegates themselves. That resolution said the North Texas Conference:

“Aspires to become a United Methodist Church in which LGBTQIA+ people will be protected, affirmed, and empowered throughout our life, mission, and ministry together.”

There are lies being told about these kinds of votes by those leaving for the Global Methodist Church. They will tell you that the UMC is about to become “super liberal.” They will tell you that small towns are about to be flooded with scores of gay and lesbian preachers who will try to “convert” children to the “gay lifestyle” (whatever that is…).

These are bald-face lies and outright fear mongering. That’s no more going to happen now than “traditional marriage” ceased to exist after same sex marriage was approved.

Increasingly we UMC pastors are likely to hear from folks who will say what that man said to me years ago:

“I’m not bad because I’m gay…but I’m not good because I’m gay either…I’m just gay.”

Please know that we welcome all members of our beautiful queer family of God at Kessler Park UMC, and if you are looking for a spiritual home for the next part of your journey, you are welcome here.