Kimberly Knight
For as long as I’ve been tending the weedy garden of this blog I have been asked by theological horticulturalists, from hobbyist to professional, “why you gotta be so mean?”
Ok, maybe not exactly like that but I definitely hear regular challenges to my voice, from both sides of the aisle, that read a little something like “why can’t we Christians all just get along, you know, because Jesus??”
So I thought it might be a good idea to create this little posty-wosty that I can refer to every time I get this increasingly ridiculous question.
Whether it is the privileged naiveté of “we will just have to agree to disagree” or the sweet, idealistic “let’s set aside our differences and get to work to heal this beautiful but broken world” … uhhhhmmm – no.
Why? Because Jesus.
See, in order for me to “be in community with fundamentalists” I have to consent to “agree to disagree” about my very humanity and sacred worth. This means I have to sidle up next to someone – work, eat, pray and worship along side people who are actively praying for me to reject the gift of love that God has given me. In order to “just get along” I must consent to living duplicitously so others feel comfortable or worse yet, live a lie devoid of a love that makes me whole.
If someone truly believes I have no access to heaven, or that my beloved and children are not fully worthy of the sacraments of the church (or they believe the sacraments are going to magically “cure” us) that is not the place or people for me and mine. I would would rather die than subject myself and my family to that level of degradation.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
Furthermore (oooo, she’s getting real tall now), challenging a person’s theological framework is not being mean, judgmental or choosing to disconnect them from community. It is me, a queer woman, taking a deep breath, standing up with an unyielding spine to speak up for myself and my LGBT sisters and brothers without fear and without apology. Sorry, not sorry.
A heterosexual person of any religious persuasion who boils their neighbor’s humanity down to how they get their orgasm on yet dares to claim that their own sexuality is not a core aspect of their humanity is sitting in a place of privilege and judgement and is alienating themselves from their neighbor and thus the body of Christ.
Wanna accuse me of pride? Ok cool, guilty as charged. I am proud of who God created me to be. Proud to be a woman with the courage to turn and face God, to turn and THANK God with my whole self.
Does that sound off-putting?
Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.
I know, deep in my weary bones – through faithful reading of scripture, deep study of tradition, long-time-coming reliance on reason and my own, winding lived experience that the Incarnation has liberated us from the death-grip of legalistic religiosity and that nothing, nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. To reject that mind-bending grace and allow myself to be objectified by the fear and loathing of others is tantamount to rejecting my Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.
So, as heartbreaking as this may be for some of my more tender sisters and brothers, I claim something in no uncertain terms. I am done building bridges with the clumpy, thatched bricks of hope and love while fundamentalist are piling cracked brick upon cracked brick of ignorance, fear and loathing.
Other people may be looking to build bridges but I’m just flat done with that work if the bridge is a just shelter for trolls and all that’s waiting for me on the other side is the deadly lie that I am an abomination. That’s not me being a bridge builder. That my friends, is me conceding to be a doormat and guess what?
I am not called to be anyone’s f’n rainbow doormat.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In