by Naomi Nixon, CEO of Student Christian Movement
There aren’t a lot of blogs written by progressive Christians about matters affecting LGBTQ+ people which can open by declaring that their basic premise isn’t very controversial. But I really believe that honesty is something we can all agree on. Honesty, for most if not all Christians, is not a very controversial subject.
On a deep theological level we know ourselves to be freed by truth (John 8:32); it is one of the ways we understand our very salvation. Knowing that we are loved by the one who created us liberates us. There is nothing truer for us than the gospel.
Added to this is the imperative to share our truth: faith is not a private thing, it is outward. However, it manifests itself in each of our traditions. None of us want to hide our faith, instead we are compelled to show it and to share it.
In the practice of discipleship, we sit with each other, or just with our Bibles, and wrestle with difficult questions, because we are seeking God’s truth for us. Likewise, the reverse is true. It’s a widespread Christian understanding that hiding things is wrong: look at what the New Testament tells us about hiding a light under bushel (Matt 5:15), or at the problem of cloaking and dissembling described in the Book of Common Prayer.
Arching across all of this is the shared understanding that honesty is a virtue, a moral good. ‘Be honest’ is the positive contrast of the Old Testament’s repeated prohibition of lying. And here we get into where it can be tempting to split the difference: not to lie, but not to be fully honest either.
Not all honesty is comfortable. If a church doesn’t affirm LGBTQ+ people, that is hard for a queer person to hear, but they’d rather know before they join. Finding out later can be devastating. In this case, even if it isn’t nice, we need to know.
The Student Christian Movement’s Honest Church campaign is not everything we’d want to say about LGBTQ+ people’s welcome in church. In truth, we wish all churches were affirming and celebrating of queer people. But that’s not where we are, and we have to be honest about that. There are a lot of reasons why honesty in this area matters. But at its heart we grieve for every person who drifts away from church and sometimes from God because they didn’t find a congregation that communicated the boundless love of God in a way that met their heart and soul. At SCM we hear stories all the time of how this happens, and we don’t want to be the last refuge of rejected young people (though we’ll do that if it’s needed). We want to be empowering student and graduate Christians who are a full part of local churches, receiving and contributing as they worship God in community.
But here’s what happens all too often. An 18-year-old arrives at university, waved off by their church back home. They go along to freshers events including church pizza nights. People are fun and kind and there are other students, so they start going along on Sundays. A couple of months in they are feeling uneasy that cis/heteronormativity is everywhere, and they stop mentioning anything about their queer identity; they make themselves less fully themselves so as not to stand out. There is a call for people to volunteer for the worship group. Our student used to do that from time to time back home, so they volunteer. Someone takes them aside and says it’s not appropriate for someone with their ‘lifestyle’ to have a leadership role because it goes against the teaching of the church.
If we took this story as a case study, conservatives and progressives and everyone in between could argue back and forth about what happened and where right and wrong lie. But to the student it isn’t a case study, it is their church rejecting them. They had no way to know that the church which initially welcomed them would do that. They expected church to be a place of safety, and now they are hearing that they are unacceptable. Many LGBTQ+ people choose to worship in churches like the one above, and no one should tell them they can’t, but it is important to know what you are getting into. Stories like this happen in real life constantly. I wish those churches accepted people like this student, but at the bare minimum I want them to avoid hurting the student by making them think they belonged and then withdrawing their acceptance. We want to ask these churches to be honest: to use clear language about what they mean when they say ‘everyone is welcome’.
Let’s imagine that our young Christian here is bruised but not broken, so they pick themselves up and go looking for a church where the same thing won’t happen. There’s one next to where they work and another that they pass on their way to the bus. Their websites say nothing about inclusion, and they are nervous to try again. Inside those church buildings are worshippers who have gay children. In one place there’s a trans woman who was just quietly welcomed and no one makes a fuss. At another there’s a chap who frowns if the rather woke churchwarden mentions equal marriage. As it happens our student comes from a church just like these, and would have felt at home. But if you have already been hurt it is really hard to take a risk. We want to ask these kind of churches to be honest too. You don’t need to be the church in town that has a stall at Pride, just let people know something about where you honestly are in terms of LGBTQ+ welcome.
We agree about honesty, so why can’t church be honest?
Find out more about Honest Church here or follow the hashtag #HonestChurch on twitter
Any thoughts?