reflections: a voice from a jail cell and homosexuality

i am ashamed that i have gone through 26 years of life without having read Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." it is both amusing and bemusing that the issue that has brought me to its 10 printed pages today is homosexuality. at first, i was searching through its lines for a quote that i heard in a short speech by Andrew Marin on his blog http://www.loveisanorientation.com. it was a quote about healthy tension that caught my attention and, i confess, i wanted to nab this nugget to put in my facebook status. i thank God that i had the time and interest to read it in its entirety: i can already feel the surface emotions of a deeper impact with layers that i think, i hope, i am just beginning to peel back.

as i thumb through this letter, peppered by steadily-highlighted passages that spoke more loudly to me than others, i don't know where to begin this reflection.

in my life, homosexuality has been a distant issue on which i have developed vague beliefs, the foundation of which can be traced back to my spiritual and familial upbringing and the cultural "waters" i've done most of my "swimming" in. but this space between me and homosexuality has been impossible to maintain as i encounter gay men and women and, more personally, have dear friends who are coming out. it is no longer possible for me to remain impersonal, untouched by the issue, for what i have not sought out has seemed to seek me out instead. i am finding myself, unable to maintain apathy and distance, unsure how to proceed. i have been to a conference; i have heard speakers and read articles and excerpts from books and had conversations with gay and straight people alike but i think nothing has struck me so near to the core as King Jr.'s letter from a dingy prison cell.

here is a man pouring his passionate heart into a letter to his critics. it is a letter full of robust compassion and thunderous conviction. i am touched by the disappointment and hurt he expresses so honestly: rather than a clenched fist, it is an open palm. at that time, this country was torn: a face with two sides, unable to agree on a single expression. each side was equal in passionate certainty of their own belief. But there was a "right" and a "wrong." in the end, right prevailed. as an outside critic who is nearly 50 years into the future on the other side of a conflict that the majority can now agree on, i cannot help but feel a connection between the issue of segregation as King expresses it and our current struggle over homosexuality. i assure you, i am not trying to take away the significance or individuality of each issue in their own right, but similarities present themselves to me that help me as i think through certain questions that sit before me, unmoving. i dont want to talk about politics, though. i dont want to talk about laws and rights and governmental decisions. i do want to talk about how sometimes, we humans can be so certain of our "rightness" on an issue that we are unable to analyze our own motives or see the other side of the conflict. i feel strongly that this is often rooted in fear and self-worth.

i have shied away from tension. i have been uncomfortable talking through issues that seem to have no right or wrong answer, in which both sides have pieces of truth that are hard to contend with. remember that quote i mentioned earlier? "...I must confess that I am not afraid of the word 'tension.' I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth." i don't want to be afraid of tension, either. i don't want to be afraid to objectively evaluate my beliefs, nor do i want to be afraid of having faith--a universal thing no person can say they dont hold that contains, in its very nature, an element of blindness. i feel the tension between my Christianity and homosexuality and i have felt anger towards it, and fear, and sadness. those feelings have in no way dissipated as new emotions have recently been added to the mix: curiosity, and determination to figure out a "better way" of addressing something that, well, something that God has seen fit to use to GROW this plant of me.

i feel like the "privileged" one. as Andrew Marin of the Marin Foundation would say, i have never been labeled as "deviant to mainline Christianity" so i will never understand what it feels like to wear that Scarlet Letter. King says "Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily." i have grasped the Gift of Grace, worn it like a badge well-earned and from my golden throne, i have spent much of my life judging those who will never earn the same "right"--the "right" to have their thirst quenched by the same bottomless well; all the while, i have claimed to follow the One who offered this water to an utter outcast (*see John 4). i am a part of a culture that treats homosexuals like modern-day lepers, but seems to see that our predecessors who cast out lepers were wrong.

i am a "white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: 'i agree with you in the goal you seek, but i cannot agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom." i am a daughter of the church that "commit[s] themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular." i claim, ashamedly, that i have "blemished and scarred that body [of Christ] through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists" (King Jr.). with deep conviction, i believe that the footsteps of Christ can be seen in apologetic "protests" and "confession booths" at Pride events (see http://www.timschraeder.com/2010/06/30/a-different-kind-of-demonstration-at-gay-pride/ and http://www.pluggedin.com/videos/2010/q2/lordsaveusfromyourfollowers.aspx). i believe Christ stands with members of my church family who step out to say "I'm so sorry for what the church has done to you." it has taken me a long time to take even this tiny step in my perspective on homosexuality and while i am still struggling with the issue's inherent mysteries, i feel excited and energized by this growing movement of apology and love as a step forward, a step into Christ's embracing arms extended towards adulteresses, thieves, lepers and so many other individuals whose lives were full of sins that the Bible identifies as such.

King Jr. cited a time when "the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society." he feared that "If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century." i am a willing participant in this very deterioration that is occurring in the twenty-first century, all for the sake of my own reputation and gain. i dearly love a church that has become more about being right than becoming a home for the abandoned. i have great difficulty associating with the low, and especially with seeing myself as a sinner. the Brennan Manning quote that i have made into a personal slogan "we are beggars showing other beggars where to get the bread" has not penetrated my life in a meaningful way but been used to add layers to my self-righteousness so that i am able to feel superior not only to non-believers, but to other Christians as well.

i am on my own journey of redemption, one that i only glimpse in those precious moments when i am dismounted from my self-righteousness by a harsh truth about myself or some other such thing. despite a seeming hopelessness in the church and its place in the world and culture i live in, i do have a lingering hope. after reading King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," i am reminded that he was writing about his convictions on a controversial issue that had some resolution. every generation has what C.S. Lewis might call a kind of "intellectual superiority" in which we believe we have reached the "final answer" on things, only to be proven wrong when we return to the Earth and are replaced by our children and grandchildren. perhaps these questions on homosexuality will experience a kind of resolution in the future, hopefully an advancement that won't leave Christians behind and one that will be aided by our lives, not in spite of them.

these reflections are dedicated to my dear, brave friends who are faced with these questions in a personal way that i will never experience (just as i can never truly appreciate the African-American's struggle for civil rights), and who have gently and graciously allowed me into their lives despite my ignorance and insensitivity as i grapple with questions about faith and sexuality. i love you; forgive my unloving-ness.