My Pastor Gazed At Me And Said, "Wow! You Were REALLY Fucked Up!"

To begin, a photograph.  I've taken this from a Messianic Christian page about faith in God.   The page argues, through links to many articles, that atheists should become Christians because that would be the sensible thing to do given the "evidence."  On the right of the screen there's an offer for a free book.

It's called, "I Have A Friend Who's Jewish ... Have You?"  Sounds riveting.

Today I've been sorting some files on my laptop.  It shouldn't have taken long but I got quite distracted by my past.  In the process of sorting I've found myself looking at Christian books and documents I saved. I've been looking at some of my own writing too which covers much of my Christian life. I still have the text of sermons preached in the year 2000, all kinds of documents from when I was an enthusiastic Catholic, and some really strong Protestant conservatism I briefly clung to after leaving the Catholic church and wondering how I could survive without it.

I found a document containing my prayer diary through a week almost exactly ten years ago. During that period I was undertaking the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola in daily life, with one to one spiritual guidance from a woman who was part of the outreach team of Saint Beuno's Jesuit retreat centre in North Wales.

That particular week included this exciting day trip in London: It took in 3 churches, 2 cathedrals, a church centre, 2 Catholic bookshops and 2 masses.

In the same document I wrote about other days in this two week period in May 2007.

These days could and would include more hours spent kneeling in front of the "blessed sacrament", daily mantra and meditation prayers, praying the Office, rosaries, chaplets – including that of Divine Mercy, the triple colloquy, litanies, the Ignatian spiritual exercises, consideration of the "Mysteries", biblical meditations, Bible verses turned into daily prayers.

These were all happening on the same day.

You read that correctly. On. The. Same. Day. In my most ardent periods I could pray for six hours a day.

And what comments did I give? Many. They include these:

I wanted to enter more into the pain of Jesus. (Because some saints or spiritual writers recommend it.)

I asked of myself, "Could I be Judas?"

I said, "Not much progress in prayer."

I said, "Much need for change and for grace."

And the classic, "Not enough praying in the house."

Honestly. I wrote that. You read that correctly too.

I didn't believe I was praying as much as I should. I certainly didn't believe I was praying as well as I should. After all, hadn't I consecrated my entire life to Jesus? Hadn't I also made an act of total consecration to Jesus through Mary, in the manner of Saint Louis Marie de Montfort? Shouldn't I be praying more? Studying more?

That's what I thought anyway. Because I was utterly lost. Trapped. Despairing. Still self-hating. And when you self-hate it's hard to love others. Not truly and deeply.

As I've looked through some of the books as I've been clearing them out I find similar words from "heroes of faith" canonised by Rome. These men and women were also giving everything they possibly could for their God. And they still beat themselves up for it - mostly emotionally and mentally but sometimes physically too.

I was utterly screwed up. My ex-pastor from MCC used the phrase “fucked up.” But I was being reinforced in being screwed up and fucked up by the books I read, the spiritual writers, the saints.

Was there any hope for someone so screwed up when he was told that the grace to ask for that week included, “Shame and deep grief because the Lord is suffering for me.” And “Faced with the suffering of the Passion, I may have to pray even for the gift of letting myself want to experience it with Christ.”

I arrived screwed up. I left screwed up.

There were happy events.  There were some smiles.  But underneath it all I was screwed up.  Constantly.

I am immensely glad to become free of all that horror.

I am also glad that on my way out of the faith I discovered some Christian spiritual writers who didn't beat themselves up and who had a Jesus who could and would smile. Some people even have a Jesus I like. I recommend someone like Jim Palmer – a Jesus follower but pretty much an atheist. Or the writings of someone like Gretta Vosper – a Jesus follower but an atheist. There are even some theist Jesus followers I can cope with and dip into.

I'm glad they've found a faith around Jesus that's full of good things. No original sin. No exclusivity. No false gods. A view of the Bible that doesn't try to justify it having plenty of horrific things in both Testaments but just says, “The writers tried but got it wrong.”   I even know very happy Christians.  And I know Christians whose love and service to others is a big example to me.  I am glad they have found inspiration for that in the versions of the Jesus story people once wrote.

As for me, the pain is too deep, too long-lasting. It's hard to find any comfort at all in the Galilean preacher and peasant who was elevated to the sky by his followers with the accretion of pagan myths and superstition, a man whose very words were mostly put into his mouth by his followers and whose miracles were inventions. Yes inventions. Arising from the way religion was done then and often is now. In the quest for the historical Jesus, which some say is doomed from the outset, the New Testament narratives are in many places worse than useless no matter how many fine words they contain.

As for me, my question is what inspiration there is to be found in what is true and in the wonder of being - and the wonders of this cosmos, this earth, and humanity - without appealing to a very faulty ancient book that tells of a man who we can't know much, if anything, about.  As such I plan, after six months of putting it off, to attend a humanist meeting tomorrow night.  I want to see what answers they give.  I want to see too whether they offer new ways of questioning.  I'm looking forward to it and the talks at the meetings always sound fascinating.

It's pointed out to me that Jesus said (or is alleged to have said) some very good things. I can only agree with that. But I don't see that as any reason whatsoever to follow him or call him Lord.  He said (or is alleged to have said) some rather more problematic things too.  In addition, lots of people have said very good things. I've met some of them. I don't call them Lord either and some of them aren't holding onto and speaking with an ancient world view and in words arising from primitive superstitions and ancient pagan blood sacrifice cults.

Why would I want to be a Jesus follower – whether a red-letter Christian or an atheist without a sky god – over and above any other guide and inspiration? Why? I don't see a reason. I certainly don't see any unique claim of salvation power being valid. And I don't see the Jesus way as superior to all other ways although I recognise the inspiration and excitement many people find in him. I am told Jesus is about growing into freedom. I see that some people manage that. I missed the boat on that one!

For me, I need – at least for the present – to keep any version of Jesus at arm's length.  Any version. Even the Jim Palmer inner anarchist version. I was hurt in the churches, hurt by the Saints, hurt by Scripture.  Hurt in self hatred and there being enough in that faith to justify my self hatred even while talking of a God of love.  The second biggest selling Christian work in history is The Imitation of Christ.  In it we learn the call to despise ourselves.

I couldn't see it then. I couldn't see how damaged I was by my faith because my faith was the reason I clung to for continuing to exist and my hope that there was a better future if I would only persevere in faith until the end.  I believed in mercy.  And I was thankful because I believed that without the blood sacrifice of Jesus that mercy wouldn't be given to me who, like everyone else, deserved hell - either in fire or separation eternally from God.

I couldn't see how my faith strengthened my despair for this life.

I see it now.

I see it increasingly clearly the more I explore outside of my old faith.

At this time I am grieving for all the lost years.

But I am rejoicing for my future, wherever that may take me.

Outside of the certainty and shame of my Christian faith it may take me anywhere.

And by his lack of stripes I find I am being healed. (Isaiah 53)

If you pray I would ask you not to pray that I return to Christianity. I would ask that you not hope I return to the flock.

I would ask, if you pray, to pray that I may find the way that is right for me, the way that leads me into the fullest life I can live. If there eventually turns out to be some Jesus in that then so be it. If not, that's great. And I would ask that your hope is that I will be free to be myself, to grow in myself, and to rejoice in living and learning to love in ways that were impossible when I was trapped in religion.

At this point I am an atheist. I have no sky god to pray to.  That picture again.

But the statement “I am an atheist” tells you as little about me as it would tell you if I said “I believe in God.”

I apologise for this: I'm not going to expand on the statement any further today.

How Solfeggio Frequencies Are Leading Me Into The Deepest Of Rabbit Holes

Thoughts about a rabbit hole I've found myself exploring:

Friends of mine are very into solfeggio frequencies / Fibonacci frequencies. You know, the kind of thing that says 528Hz sorts your heart and heals your DNA. Sounds far-fetched, yes?  But they're my friends and I love them.  They say the frequencies add something good to their lives.  I'm happy for them.  What harm can it possibly do to them, to me, or to anyone else?

 

639Hz - It'll Sort Any Relationship Problems You May Have

I was very involved with new age people and learned a lot in courses 30 years ago (before rejecting it all for fundamentalist Christianity for too many years!) but nobody ever mentioned such frequencies. Not even the sound and colour healing practitioners I knew. Somehow in the intervening years they've become very popular. And I have to admit that some (some) of the music I've heard based on it is quite relaxing and good to fall asleep to.  I wanted to know why the idea was so prominent and how this development had occurred.

So I thought, "Why don't I look into this. See if there's ANY evidence outside of New Age sources and sites like Natural News. Some actual science. And find out the history of the idea. Let's not reject the whole thing out of hand but apply some very basic critical thinking to the theories and history."

That seemed a sensible thought.

And that's when an idea that sounds far-fetched became more crazy. And then I fell down a rabbit hole and crazy became bad-shit crazy. It just gets more and more bonkers.

I've learned interesting things about the history of musical notation and the reasons why the frequency of that A is mostly set at 440Hz. That's really very fascinating.

But my wandering in the rabbit hole has gone through selling snake oil remedies (to heal cancer and undo vaccine damage), vaccines causing autism, the US government inventing AIDS, Nazi conspiracies to move music frequencies and so muck us all up psychologically, the Illuminati, Tesla, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, mad codes derived from the Bible, symatics, Kenneth Copeland (honestly!), young earth creationism, secret laser guns and so many other things related by the guy who promoted the theory of the frequencies. His name is Leonard Horowitz. Research him at your own risk!  His official biography page claims he's a Levitical priest and co-creator of "The World's Most Powerful CD."

On a hunch I googled "Leonard Horowitz Andrew Wakefield."  Wakefield is the disgraced doctor behind the totally debunked study that claimed to have found a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.  There's no link.  And Wakefield wasn't just wrong.  He was fraudulent too.  People believed him thought and the take-up for the MMR vaccine fell with the unfortunate result that we've seen an increase in measles outbreaks leading to deaths and life-long health consequences for children in Europe and the USA.  I place at least part of the blame for that directly on the shoulders of Wakefield.

I wasn't surprised by the results of my google search.  Horowitz and Wakefield are pals.  Look up the ConspiraSea Cruise if you dare.  It's a whole deeper level of rabbit hole than the one I've been exploring.  Enjoy yourself there.  Here's one person's experience of the 2016 cruise.  Here's another person, relating their experiences of the 2015 cruise.  Both pages are very entertaining - at least for someone with my special interests.  Horowitz's relationship with Wakefield's Vaxxed movie is also of interest.

 

One of his books. I want a copy.

I'm very happy in my rabbit hole. It's a wonderful surprise. The only sadness is that I haven't found any aliens in the hole. Yet.  They might be coming.  Horowitz's four hour talk is on YouTube posted by UFO TV: The Disclosure Network.  So there may yet be aliens.  If you're as obsessive as I am about crazy spiritual things, mainstream and fringe, take a look at his talk.  Or as much of it as you can bear.  I'm only 70 minutes into the talk and have taken long breaks from it.

 

Horowitz is currently discussing how the frequencies were discovered encoded into the book of Numbers in the Old Testament - because offerings were made by representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel on twelve successive days and each day's offering is described in much the same way in six verses.  (In a verse structure that didn't exist until thousands of years later but Horowitz doesn't seem worried about that).  The conclusions raised by this six verse interval are far further than far fetched.  My own conclusions when I used to read through the Bible regularly and got to that chapter were that I was quite bored with it and that I looked forward to getting ahead a few chapters to Balaam and his talking ass.

I just wish my friends weren't into any aspect of this total junk, some of which isn't just daft it's dangerous. I wish there was something I could say that would convince them it was junk. Because all those friends are very lovely people. And some of this is very dangerous and damaging.

 

That's all I wish.  People can believe whatever helps them.  As long as they don't look down on those who disagree or claim that their belief is an essential for some kind of salvation.  But when that belief becomes dangerous and when it arises from and is connected when the kinds of things solfeggio frequency theories are linked to then that becomes a matter of great concern.

Believe a wafer is the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus.  Fine.  I believed that.
Believe your gurus inhabit a particular place in a temple because a book is there.  Fine.

Be helped by making an offering to Krishna, ancestors, God, guru, Buddha, or whoever else.  Fine.

But when belief becomes a danger I will be worried for you and equally worried for anyone you may influence through your dangerous beliefs.

If it wasn't for the dangers I'd say to my friends to believe whatever they wanted about the power inherent in these frequencies (which are only 440Hz or 528Hz or some other number of Hertz because we relate them to an arbitrary time period that in English is called a second.  639Hz in the picture at the top wouldn't be 639Hz if Hertz wasn't based on that particular time period so making anything about it being multiples of three - as Horowitz does - is without common sense.)

But with the dangers?  I'd love them to stop.  I'd love them to walk away from such nonsense.

You may say I'm over-thinking all this - rather than my friends under-thinking it.  You may be right of course.  Just in case, I'd better close by watching this video and listening to the sounds through my headphones.  That'll solve my problem.  One of the comments tells me to heal the world by listening to this while holding my crystals.  Yeah, that might work.  It's quite relaxing.  I admitted that right at the start.  I still freely admit it.

On An Encounter With Fundamentalism. And On The Wonders Of The Human Race.

I chatted with some preachers in Sunderland yesterday.  I wasn't meaning to.  I was just wanting to finish my ice cream in peace.  Damn you preachers, you thwarted my quiet ice cream enjoyment.

But once they began talking at me, and because I am still utterly obsessed about God things and think about them a heck of a lot, and because I wasn't at that point falling to pieces mentally, I talked back.  It's still a novelty to me to be so far on this side of the dogmatic fence.

We talked about a lot of things.  All of them may bore you.  Some of them you may find strange.  Some of them will make you wonder why Christians sometimes don't even love each other let alone non-believers.

I am no longer a Christian.  I'm not.  But I am still fascinated by it all.  It's a special interest.

So as someone with a deep fascination, I've done the talking.  So you don't have to!  There.  Aren't you pleased?  You will know, when you encounter such people, the kinds of things you are happy to be missing by not having a conversation with them.

I have to give this disclaimer:  Not all Christians are like the ones I chatted with.  Quite a lot are very different indeed.  My plans for the day had fallen apart due to my own absent-mindedness, confusion and panic.  But those plans had been to meet with, sit with and relate with a group of Christians.  To talk, share and learn about theology with them.  I'd been looking forward to it too and am sad to have missed out on the experience.  I believe it would have been great.  And I believe that the Christians I didn't manage to meet with would have had nearly as many disagreements with the fundamentalists as I did.

If you did choose to engage a fundamentalist of this variety, a strange choice, what might you talk about?

Image from https://lotharlorraine.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/is-fundamentalism-destroying-christianity/

I'll start with the more boring bits (history and doctrine) and will end with the most interesting bits (humans and my thoughts about the people I met).  Skip through to the end.  Most of this is not exciting stuff for most people, only strange obsessives like me.  Seriously.  This is long.  And it doesn't even cover the full encounter.  Skip through to the part about people.  Because that's the important thing.

We talked a little of church history.

They said there was a church existing sometimes in secret and sometimes in persecuted groups from the time of Constantine until the Protestant Reformation began.  Theodore Beza, the successor of Calvin, wrote about this history.  That's not an uncommon claim among Protestant fundamentalists but it's a laughable one.  Plus Beza, a man who wrote in defense of burning heretics alive, didn't have the information available to write a reliable church history - which might be why he didn't write one!



They gave some examples of the secret church that upheld the "one true faith."

The Cathars

I was informed that this group were Christians with a beautiful Christian faith, part of the true church. They were persecuted because they held the way of salvation hated by Rome.  This is something I find very funny.  Because the Cathars were dualists - they believed in two Gods.  And they believed in reincarnation.  The Cathars were also gnostics and believed in the ultimate salvation of all people.

In all honesty I don't think the Cathar faith was quite the same as that of these preachers!  I tried to tell them that - because I looked into the Cathars years ago when, as a Catholic, I had the same claims thrown at me.  But no.  Everything I had read and learned was a lie.  Propaganda.  Invented by the Catholic Church.

The Albigensians

I was told that this group were also just like beautiful Protestants.  Bearers of the one true faith.  In fact they were a Cathar sect.  Where most Cathars were pretty ascetic, the Albigensians were more extreme than most.  They also believed that Jesus was just human, not God.  For these people to be held up as models of the true Protestant gospel - the proper Jesus - is crazy.

The Waldensians

This is the funniest of all.  I'll say why a little later.

We talked of other historical documents from the early church.  Reputable ones.  The ones for which we know who wrote them.  And when.  Such as the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch to seven churches, written on his journey to Rome where he was martyred in about AD107.  Such as the two Apologia of Justin Martyr, written to the Roman Emperor around AD150 in the hopes of stopping a persecution.  Those documents contain much that wouldn't fit into the Beza history or the preachers' ideas of the early church.  I know.  I read them a lot before becoming a Catholic for a while.  But no.  All of those documents were fabrications, forgeries from much later, many centuries later, written to prop up a false church.  All such documents that the preachers disagreed with were deemed to be completely non-existent or fake.  I urged them to read these early church documents.  See what was believed by these men of faith and see, especially in Justin, how the early church functioned and how the mid-2nd century Christians worshiped.  I didn't say to follow the way of Justin - just to see for themselves that such a way had been followed by early Christians.

The preacher kept on talking about what Beza is meant to have said and how we have to believe Beza and how all the other things were just false and shouldn't be touched at all.  I could see that historically, there wasn't really any wiggle room for a rational conversation.

We talked a little of doctrine.

The Catholics invented Transubstantiation in AD999.  And believes we're saved by works.  And rejects the Bible.  And has a false Jesus.  And a false priesthood.  And Constantine invented it.  And so on and so on.  These preachers don't like Catholics!

I found it strange.  Two days previously I had laid into some of the teachings of the Catholic Church - with full acceptance that I was giving one side of the teaching far over and above the other.  Now I found myself defending Catholicism.  Of course I'm not Catholic now.  But the accusations fundy Protestants throw at Catholics are ludicrous and hateful.

On a personal note, I am condemned for my Catholic ways and if I don't repent of them I will be judged and burn for eternity.  As a non-Catholic learning this came as something of a surprise.

The New Testament was in its final form by the end of the first century because the apostle John made it so.  Er, no.  Just no.

The gospel was preached across the world by the first generation of Christians - because the Bible says so.

This does not include Australia or the Americas because there wasn't anyone there to tell about Jesus then.  I was told that we know there can't have been people in Australia 2000 years ago because the apostolic church didn't go and preach to them.  Honest.  I was told that.

But the gospel was preached in the British Isles in the first century AD.  Oh yes, I was told that.  And I was told who by.  Apparently the Waldensians came here and told the natives about Jesus.  Oh yes, they did.  Now, unlike the Cathars, the Waldensians did have a faith similar to that seen in the ideas that can be seen in the Protestant Reformation.  Some of their ideas and major criticisms of the Western church of their day are not only valid, they are very praiseworthy.

But did the Waldensians bring the story of Jesus to our shores in the first century?  Well, no.  It would have been difficult for them to do so.  Peter Waldo didn't start that movement until the late twelfth century.  It's an interesting story.  But his followers were not time travelers.

On a personal note, I am the antichrist and an abomination.  That didn't come as a surprise to me.  Old news.

We talked a little about ethics and morality.

I was asked if lying is wrong.  I agree, it usually is.  But to me it wasn't a yes/no question.  I posited an extreme situation.  Sometimes extreme cases disprove a rule.  I was in Germany in 1943 harboring a family of Jews under my floorboards.  The Gestapo paid me a visit and asked whether I was harboring any Jews.  I said I would lie.  He said he wouldn't lie and that God would judge me for my sin in lying.  I tried to explain situational ethics 101.  For the preacher the way of righteousness would have been to give those Jews up to the Gestapo - and myself too, I suppose, for protecting them.

We talked about the verses in the Old Testament in which God commands genocide.  He said that he didn't believe God would command his people to commit genocide now because God does things differently now Jesus has risen.  He said that God is holy and commanding genocide was holy.  He said that if God did command genocide now he would take part in it and kill people because it was better to obey God.  I pointed out a group of children who were passing at that moment and asked, "Would you kill those children?"  He replied that he would, if God told him to.

We talked of the times when it's written that God hardened pharaoh's heart after some of the plagues - and so pharaoh didn't let the Israelites like he had planned.  That's in the story.  But that means that the killing of all the first born children of Egypt wasn't necessary.  Which kinda means all that horror is God's fault.  It's there in the text.  If you, like the preacher, want to believe the text.  The preacher didn't like that.  He couldn't accept it was there because it didn't fit into his dogma. Others say God did it so his power could be seen.  Which rather makes God out to be an egotistical monster.

Yes.  The preacher would slaughter the children of Sunderland under some circumstances.  

Holy crap!

We talked of science.

The preachers believe that the universe is 6000 years old.  I asked about the light coming from a supernova 50,000 light years away.  I was being kind to the man giving this number because it's hardly any distance at all in terms of the universe.  Of all the galaxies in this astonishing universe, less than 100 of them are closer than ten-million light years and we have detected supernovae in galaxies far further away than that.   Wouldn't we thus be seeing the light from a star exploding thousands of years before they would say the universe began?  I got the reply that I didn't know what I was talking about because (a) the universe is expanding so the star would have been much closer 6000 years ago, (b) the speed of light is very different in space to what it is here, and (c) there is no time once you leave planet Earth.  Time doesn't exist anywhere else.  I was told that's what science says.

Evolution is of course a lie.  Anything a scientist says that doesn't fit in with the preachers' brand of dogma is a lie given by Satan.

We talked about other Christians.

Because there are Christians I love who have a faith that's attractive.  They said that these people aren't Christians at all and certainly haven't got the right Jesus.  They said that these other Christians need to repent or burn.

The Protestant Church was going well because it had the Authorised Bible.  But then people started making non-authorised translations from the wrong Greek and Hebrew manuscripts.  And then the Protestant Church went wrong.  Any church using the false Bibles hasn't got Jesus.  Any Christian with a false Bible probably isn't a Christian at all and if they are they desparately need to repent and find the true Jesus in the King James Bible.

On a personal level, I am a fool.

We talked of judgement - and inevitably talked of sexuality.

Please note that I didn't bring this up.  They did.

God has judged and condemned nations in the past.  And he's going to judge this one and condemn it if it doesn't repent, especially from the sin of homosexuality.

On a personal level, I am condemned for my sexuality.

And we talked about other human beings.

They told me this of the human race:  All people, from birth, deserve to burn painfully in Hell for all eternity.  All people are at root evil because of sin.  There is no light in them.  Nothing of God.  Nothing of hope.  Unless they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (and exactly the right version).

I have a confession to make.  I used to believe that kind of thing.  I thought the Bible said so.  And I wanted to believe the Bible.  I wasn't as extreme as the preachers I met yesterday.  But I believed quite a lot of things that I now find either embarrassing, shockingly reprehensible, or both.  I don't blame myself.  I know the reasons why I came to believe as I did.  But I regret many things.  I accepted Christ in a fucked up state.  And in many ways was fucked up further by my Christianity.

As I talked with those preachers I felt myself more filled with light than I possibly ever have been before.  I did.  And why?  Because when I looked at all the people around me, ordinary people from Sunderland, I saw light.  I saw beauty.  I saw magnificence.  If God is light then I saw God shining from each and every person on that shopping street and saw it as plainly as I could see their physical forms.  It was an amazing experience to have that clarity.

Now, I believe that humans are basically good.  No matter what they do, what they've suffered, what they've been taught to repress or embrace.  No matter what they're going through.  They're basically good.  All humans.  Every single one.

We all make mistakes.  We're all imperfect - or perfectly imperfect.  And sometimes we muck up bigtime or embrace views and beliefs that we later may look back on with a sense of regret or shame.  We all hurt other people sometimes.  We let each other down sometimes.  And all of us may become people who say or do horrible things.

All of that is admitted.  We screw up!  We hurt.  We may be in need of healing.  We may be hungry.  We may be scared.  We may be lonely.  We may act badly out of insecurity.  We may get raised in an environment in which we are taught racism or homophobia or some other prejudice.

But.  We are all basically good.  I believe that.  I know I can be rubbish at social skills at times.  I know I can fail to act in love and light - out of laziness or out of my own woundedness or out of lack of resources.  But I do believe all human beings are wonderful.  Yes, even the suicide bomber.  Even the preacher!

I looked yesterday at the people of Sunderland and I saw shining lights.  And it was wonderful.

And I was being told that all those shining lights were evil.  Dead.  Deserving of eternal torment.

And that for me, beyond history and dogma and science and all the rest of it, is the saddest thing about those preachers.  The saddest by far.

As I think about those preachers I feel this:

Sadness for the years of my life in which I would have gone along with at least part of what they believe, including that view of a fundamentally evil human race in need of salvation from Hell.  Sadness for the relationships I missed out on because of my faith.  Sadness for the times I hurt people because of my faith.

Gladness that the rest of my life will not be spent following such a path.  Gladness for all the things that happened in the last five years - some of them very painful and difficult - which have brought me to this point in my life.  Gladness that I have been "set free from the law of sin and death" which I lived under as an evangelical Christian.

And as for those preachers, I pity them.  And I feel deep sorrow for people in their lives who become affected by the results of their dogma.  I won't be leading the preachers out of the darkness in which they now unwittingly stand.  I hope that they find their way, just as I have been learning to find mine.

My other sadness was that the woman I talked to - because she was answering back to a preacher and had really cool hair and seemed nice - didn't have time to come for a drink with me.  And she really didn't.  Lots of shopping to do before a six hour Megabus journey this morning.  She says if I see her again, to ask again.  I think it would have been quite fun to drink tea with this stranger whose life I completely butted into.  It wouldn't be the first time I've done something like that.

Anne Graham Lotz: Why Should She Be Tarred With the Epithet Lunatic Merely Because ...

Image from http://www.zenzoneforum.com/threads/27711-More-Crazy-Christians/page11

A couple of days ago I posted a link to this:

Anne Graham Lotz: 911 was warning from God about evolution church state separation

I could have posted the Telegraph article about it but didn't - and note that the biggest thing in the Telegraph's section on transgender issues is a photo of Caitlyn Jenner.  Because for much of the media the biggest transgender issue is Caitlyn Jenner.  Rather than the abuse and difficulties trans people face.  How many end up attempting suicide because it's so hard.  How in many nations we are illegal.  How we come in many varieties and are just normal people trying to get on with our lives and live in the truth of who we are.  No.  For the media, Caitlyn is often the big issue.  Grrr!  End rant.

 

Anyway, I wrote the following:

Today's lunatic Christian is Billy Graham's daughter. Someone very popular rather than a crazy pastor with a tiny church shouting loudly.

I thank God (metaphorically) that I am free of this dangerous nonsense - and grateful that most of my Christian friends are free of it too.

Someone asked me a fair question:  "Why is she a lunatic?"

I answer:

 

nne Graham Lotz: 9/11 Was Warning From God About Evolution, Church-State Separation - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/anne-graham-lotz-911-was-warning-god-about-evolution-church-state-separation#sthash.iqW5um4y.dp

A woman who says that God will change the climate (protect a whole nation from storms) if people repent. A woman who says God is judging a nation because people embrace evolution. A woman who says God allows awful things to happen just so people might turn to God. A woman who says that God abandons people for believing wrong.

It's all pretty crazy. And we need to move beyond this kind of thing. Because it's not just crazy, it's dangerous.

As for her, she calls it craziness and silliness that someone like me can use a women's toilet and that good people in the Justice Department stand against a law that would make it illegal. She says those good people are evidence that God has "backed away" from America. She says that believing in evolution is refusing to worship God - by worshiping four footed creatures.

What she says is crazy. It's dangerous. It's a God who is mean. It is a religion that would curtail freedom and human rights and persecute minorities whose very existence goes against a rigid, narrow dogma formed by mixing ancient stories with interpretations that often would have been totally alien to the people who told the stories. It's the religion of a God who will burn people for eternity unless they believe a story about a blood sacrifice.

And the sooner that kind of religion dies out the better. It deserves to die.

She has previously written that allowing LGB and T people to have rights is persecution of "God's people." She has compared standing up to those rights to Bonhoeffer standing up to Hitler. (In agreement with another person who wrote it.) Yep. Forcing a trans man - complete with beard and bulk - to use a women's loo is like standing up to Hitler. Anne Graham Lotz said so in 2014.

Yep. It's crazy. And she actually believes this stuff and thousands and thousands of other people believe it too. And because it's so culturally acceptable to believe these things, people don't see how crazy it actually is.

I am so glad that I have been getting free from it, much as that path to freedom is hard work.

________________________________

 

Right, time to get up.  I'm off to church later, for the first time in three months.  Meeting with good people who I respect and who have shown me love and support.  They are great.

 

Jesus is great too.  And the story is great.  But what has been added on to Jesus and the story is very often far from great.  Let the story live - as one story among many, one path.  Let Jesus be Jesus.  But let the religion that got bolted on so quickly die for the sake of us all.

Mainstream Conservative Christianity: It's Rejection of Transgender Reality

Disclaimer: I have lots of Christian friends and they're good people. Very few think along the lines that follow otherwise it would be hard to continue a meaningful friendship with them. I'll be at church tomorrow, for the first time in a while. A church filled with good people and with a pastor whose life and faith I deeply respect. Without the total support of that church, coming out as transgender and learning to be who I am would have been much harder. When I first walked into that church the pastor asked my name and at that point I didn't know what name I wanted to use. She just smiled and said “Here you can be any name you want to be” and I knew that I was in a safe place.

So this post and others like it should not be taken as a statement that Christians and Christianity are bad things. End disclaimer.

There are lots of fundamentalist Christian crackpots with tiny churches and they say plenty of extreme things that most of us are horrified by. People then post about it saying, "Look at the idiot Christians."

I'm not going to post anything about the fringe crackpots. Not when there are mainstream, popular Christian preachers and writers to post about. These are men and women with a big following. Lots of people listen to these people, nod in agreement or even admiration, and change their lives accordingly.

Here's one such preacher, Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He has a wider reach than that though and was part of the Vatican Synod on the Family last year. He's not a crazy, fringe weirdo. He represents the mainstream.

Yesterday he published an article.  The Real Meaning of Transgender Bathrooms.

He writes:

"If anyone had suggested in 2009 that the new president’s administration would seek to target children’s bathrooms for the sake of transgender ideology, the White house would have ridiculed it as a crazy conspiracy theory."

"Moreover, the move here toward severing self-identity from biological reality will hardly stop at “gender.” If anything, there’s much more of a case to be made that one can feel to be a different age than one’s doctor’s exam or birth certificate would show." (Yes, he really does write that.)

"We should recognize that unbiblical caricatures of masculinity and femininity were always harmful, but now are potentially deadly."

"God created us as human, and within humanity as male and female (Genesis 1:27). We are all sinners, so we chafe against having ourselves defined by a Creator, and not by ourselves or our ideologies. Our nakedness shames us, because our physical difference reminds us that we are not self-contained."

I am not shamed by my nakedness though I am told that I should be and I lived with shame for most of my life. It is sad that society still perpetuates that lie that human beings need to be shamed by their own wonderful bodies.

I need to write my own thoughts about Genesis 1:27 sometime. Moore, along with many other Christians, would say we need to believe the Bible so we need to believe this verse.  He turns the verse into a text about science rather than treating like it's treated in Jewish commentary - or wondering whether we really need to believe an ancient myth at all, let alone treat it as literal truth rather than a story that can teach us something.

Not only that,  Moore says we need to believe a particular interpretation of the verse that would logically imply that transgender people cannot possibly be transgender except in their own wrong belief. Needless to say, I disagree. I've had the verse quoted to me by Christians and they expect me to see the error of my ways and bow down to the view that I must be male because I was born with a penis.

Then such Christians pile on another verse, Deuteronomy 22:5 to show that I need to repent of my wickedness because by dressing the way I dress I am an abomination unto the Lord and that it's impossible to be any kind of Christian and be a “man in a dress.” Russell Moore doesn't quote the verse here, but an article last year published by the commission he headsdid quote it. And Moore wrote elsewhere that if a transgender person comes to Christ they should only be baptised in the gender that “matches” their birth genitals. Basically, if you are Christian, repent of being transgender and accept that you're living a lie and have been deceived. That's Moore's mainstream evangelical Christian view.

Russell Moore is pointed to as the voice of reason in conservative evangelicalism. Certainly he's a lot more reasonable than the fringe preachers shouting loudly from their pulpits. His reasoning and intelligence is sound. Unfortunately it is based on premises that are false (the premise that anything that contradicts a particular and literal interpretation of one part of an ancient creation myth must be a delusion and error) so his sound reasoning from them doesn't lead to truth.

These are premises that marginalise transgender people and which tell transgender people that there is no way they are who they are. These are the premises that say "God made us male and female" and so men must be cisgender men and women must be cisgender women and can be no other options that aren't a delusion of some kind.

Ultimately it is Moore's version of a "biblical" caricature that is potentially deadly - to transgender people who grow up in despair under teaching such as this.  If you pray, pray for transgender children growing up in the environment that teaching like Moore's creates.  Pray that they will not despair.  Pray that they will find freedom and self acceptance.  And pray for the parents of those children, who out of love but out of error seek for their children to be something other than what and who they are.  Pray that those parents will find the truth beyond the preaching and so be able to nurture and love their transgender children.

Life on Facebook: Biblical Hedgehogs, Transgender Toilets and Cosy Cafes

I am so far behind on blog posts.  So many days out with photos.  And a couple of weeks of nice things from the gratitude diary.  I will catch up.  I will catch up.  I will catch up.  Saying it over and over as a mantra doesn't make it true any more than ten thousand people quoting Andrew Wakefield makes it true that vaccines cause autism.

Part of the reason for the lack of posts is that I haven't had the spare spoons for writing posts.  I haven't been doing well and spoons have gone on survival and on improving mental health by going to pretty places, or to less pretty places and buying liquorice.

Part of the reason is I keep getting distracted by Facebook.  I know Facebook is meant to be about sharing pictures of kittens and talking about babies, drunken nights and food.  But I can't stick to those rules and thankfully quite a few of my friends there can't stick to them either and post all kinds of interesting things.

Sometimes I do post about food.  Sometimes I post daft things that my head hasn't been able to avoid thinking about and analysing.  Sometimes I post serious things that are dear to me.

For examples, this is what I've posted in the last thirty hours.  Four posts.  With explanatory notes to follow.  As if the posts weren't tortuous enough.

Having written all those notes I realise I am still just as behind with blog posts.  Never mind.

1.

Poll: 6-in-10 oppose bills like the North Carolina transgender bathroom law

Or to turn it around:

Nearly 4-in-10 Americans support laws to keep transgender people out of the restrooms that most closely correspond with their gender and a quarter of Americans strongly support such laws.

Even among American liberals, 1-in-5 say they support the laws.

I wonder what the statistics would be here.


2.

Feeling very sorry for hedgehogs in the New American Standard Bible and wondering what the translators have against them.

First God is having somewhere made into a swamp for them to live in. (Isaiah 14)

Then they're being made to live in a land where the ground is unquenchable burning pitch. (Isaiah 34)

And then it turns out that hedgehogs are having to roost at the top of columns, which does not seem to me to be a completely natural place for them to live. (Zephaniah 2)

This persecution of hedgehogs by God never came up in any sermon I preached, back when I preached sermons.

3.

Really very overloaded / overwhelmed in town. But I decided to stay out and try a cafe I haven't been in before.

It's nice but I would prefer it with no music playing. Glad to have headphones nowadays and to know it's okay.

4.

Meet The Doctor Social Conservatives Depend On To Justify Anti-Transgender Hate

Today is like most days. Because this guy's name has appeared on my facebook wall.

Yep, nearly every day I see his name. Probably every trans person I know has seen his name sometimes.

He is a Doctor. But he is one man. There aren't many like him, which is why he is quoted so often by so many people.

They say "trans people are female impersonators". They say "Surgery for trans people is a bad thing and must be because they stopped it at Johns Hopkins." They say "We shouldn't encourage trans people because then they'll be suicidal." They say that "transgenderism" is a myth, a pathogen that is destroying society. They say that transgender people really have autogynephilia - that is, we get so sexually aroused by our own genitals that we completely change our lives.

They say all kinds of things and time and time again it stems from this man or is backed up by something this man said.


Notes:

1.

I find it interesting to be part of a marginalised group - in fact part of several marginalised groups.  For most of my life I lived in such a way as to not be part of any of them.  Because I was straight, male, cisgender, neurotypical and followed the official religion of my country.  Well, that's the person I presented as anyway.  While out today I used the toilet in the cafe and of course used the women's loo.  The thought that one in five American liberals (and a higher proportion of every other group) would support a law to make it illegal for me to do that raises certain issues.

2.

Yes, I know that other translations don't say hedgehog.  Quite why the NASB translators chose hedgehog when the Hebrew word so obviously means something else is a bit of a mystery to me.

My hedgehog thoughts arose when a preacher I know in Blackpool (one of the good guys) posted his daily five facts and/or thoughts.  Today they included the word "wankers" which is a word many preachers wouldn't use.  Yesterday they informed us that the cat is the only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible.  I check facts if I can.  Sometimes I check unimportant ones.  And sure enough, the fact was wrong.  I used the Wikipedia list of domestic animals.  No, the Bible does not mention the zebu, water buffalo, llama, alpaca, yak, gayal or ferret.

I wasn't sure about hedgehog so I looked it up and found that while many translations don't mention hedgehogs, the NASB does.  The King James Bible has bitterns living in swamps, not hedgehogs.  It could also be an otter, a porcupine, or an owl.  Hedgehogs share that fire land with three other animals - all of them birds.  The first of these is mostly called a pelican.  But the Emphasized Bible calls it "the vomiting pelican" which is nice!

Christian fundamentalists often talk about the "plain, simple truth of Scripture."  You just tell it as it is and believe it, literally.  I think that, whether you broadly want to believe the Bible or not, that's a laughable and dangerous viewpoint.  If your Bibles can't even agree whether a word means hedgehog, owl, bittern or otter you have problems being able to read anything like the "plain, simple truth" from it.

Yes, my head often takes me further than it reasonable into looking at things.  And while I never preached about hedgehogs, I did once include a section about the occurrences of laurel trees in The Bible in a study I led at a Baptist Church.  Possibly the most over-detailed series of Bible studies ever led in Lancashire on the first half of the book of Zechariah.  I can now remember pretty much none of what I talked about so it was probably not particularly important.

3.

Yes, the cafe.  Place of my use of a toilet that a fifth of American liberals would want to make illegal.  Not my only women's toilet use this week.  And other such restrooms contained other women.  Guess what?  Nothing happened.  I honestly hope things are different in the UK and rather less people would support a change in the law here.  Probably things are different here.  I'm choosing to believe that.

Almost a food post.  But just a tasty smoothie and a comfy chair to sit in.  And photos that will end up in the gratitude diary probably and so reappear in another post here.

The cafe is Super Natural, Upper Princess Square, in Newcastle.  It seems pretty good and the salad bar is decent.  They're starting a second cafe with an expanded salad bar and with all the profits going to some charities.  It's likely I'll be trying it at some point and returning to the first cafe which would be a good place if meeting someone.  The cafe next to it, Painted Elephant is a vegan place and is meant to be great in terms of both friendliness and the quality of the food - though I confess I still miss the cafe that was there before it, The Laughing Cat, one of only two cafes that I've written an entire blog post about.


4.

The name of Paul McHugh has cropped up quite a bit recently.  More so with all this fuss about American toilets and cisgender heterosexuals saying they want to ban transgender people of any variety of sexuality from toilets because cisgender heterosexuals sometimes do despicable things.

But today I made a mistake.  I answered back to someone posting about him.  I don't usually do that.  But for some reason I was annoyed at a guy laughing out loud because he agreed with the claims that "transgendered" people are impersonators, counterfeits.  Annoyed because I know that I am me.  Simple.  Annoyed too because I fell into the trap of being annoyed by someone whose opinion on the matter should not matter in the slightest to me.

So yes, I argued.  With Mr. Colditz.  I'm sure he's a nice guy, just one who happens not to agree that I am me. (Is that part of the definition of nice? You tell me.)  In any case, like anyone else he's doing his best.  I didn't know until I first saw his name that people were called Colditz.  I am stopping arguing now and thus I find I have Escaped from Colditz.

Sorry.  Couldn't resist.

Renewing My Baptismal Vows - As Clare, With Brand New Faith

Something good happened at church last night.  Next Sunday I will officially become a member of Northern Lights Metropolitan Community Church.  Before doing that I felt it necessary to publicly renew my faith in some manner, a break with so much of the past and a cleansing - even if just symbolic - in readiness for the new and for whatever my future brings.

I discussed this with our pastor who suggested renewing my baptismal vows, and she designed a short liturgy for this.  There were the traditional vows you take at baptism, more vows relating to the faith and practice of the local church, and between the two a symbolic hand washing to wipe away the past in a sacramental fashion and through the prayer prayed as my hands were dried.

As part of this I was asked to write something brief about the reasons for the renewal.  I don't do brief!  An edited version was in the church newsletter and I read the full version at church last night.  What was read is roughly what follows - though just as when I used to preach I don't stick to the script no matter how hard I try!  I was very well behaved last night, so the changes were minor.

Mentally I've been having a rough time recently.  Some quite major struggles.  My wife says that whenever I'm doing good things I get clobbered.  And there have been so many things recently, so much of a move to becoming a better functioning human, in the places where I am meant to be.  Saturday night was the worst I've had in years - but it led into a Sunday that was excellent.  I realised yesterday morning that among other things I was grieving, mourning greatly - for my mother, for my father, and also for the years that I could not live as who I am.  All those mourning processes are needed but piling it all up together isn't easy.  On Sunday as I was on the way to another church in the morning I opened my Bible to the next chapter.  Happened to be Matthew 5, the start of the Sermon on the Mount.  So I read, "Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted."  And then the first song at that church had lines, also drawn from the Bible, about mourning being replaced by joy.  Sometimes God knows what God is doing!

Truly, this weekend contained very low points, mourning, sorrow.  And it contained high points of commitment, friendship, and joy.  Life can be so amazing in its variety.

 _________________

Last night, during the service at Northern Lights MCC I publicly renewed my baptismal vows. For me this is a needful step before formally becoming a member of the church. I know that's not the case for most people so wanted to publicly explain why I am renewing those vows.

Firstly it's because I was baptised under another name, another gender, and was a very different person then. I'd love to be re-baptised as Clare but of course that's not a theological option. Baptism is a one time event – and I've already gone through it three times as an adult. I cannot be baptised again but I need to publicly express that, as Clare, those vows I made as “him” still stand and that they stand more firmly than they ever did in the past.

That's the obvious reason: My present,living as the woman I am, is such a changed life from my past, forcing myself to live as the man I never was.

But there is a second reason. It's even more important to me than the first. Many people in the church will know some of my story of faith over the last eighteen months. As I sat at MCC my Christian faith died a slow death, a painful death. Every service was a kind of torture for me. And some in the church put up with my many words, my complaints, my deep pain through that process. I cannot thank the church enough for supporting me through the death of my faith and through everything I said, and felt, and did.

My faith deserved to die. It really did. Good riddance to it! Not because of any doctrines or dogmas that were or weren't attached to it. But because the root of my faith was self-hatred, self-denial, self-rejection – arising from a firm belief that I was no good. Much of that came from received beliefs about my gender and consequently my near-constant urges to self-destruct. My faith helped to destroy me, helped me to eradicate myself, for twenty-three years. It was immensely important to me but it crushed me.

Eventually I was able to leave that faith behind, and rest secure in a faith that excluded any personal God. The plan was to leave MCC and never look back. That was the only future I could see. But throughout the whole journey I still believed in MCC, her vision, her people, and the place of healing that the church is. And, solely because of certain of the people, I stayed.

Many of you will have noticed a not so subtle change in me since the start of October. At church one evening everything suddenly clicked. I could sing the songs, pray the prayers and knew it was OK to receive communion again for the first time in a long while. And I was extremely surprised that night to find myself on my knees, hands in the air, lost in worship and thankfulness to the God I didn't believe in. The “God of Surprises” entered again and renewed my world, my heart.

Faith returned. It's a new faith. Brand new. It's a far healthier faith, one that accepts the love of God, and one that can honestly say with the Psalmist;

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.

As I renew my baptismal vows it is my freedom to be Clare, to be authentic, that I celebrate. But more than that I celebrate my return to faith. A purer faith. A very different faith than that I had before. Based on self-love rather than self-condemnation, on authenticity rather than self-squashing, on freedom, on love, on grace, on hope, on acceptance, on inclusivity, on joy, on light and life and on so much more.

As I publicly vow myself to God and to the centrality of Jesus in my life, I do so based on the solid conviction that God is love, and his love is for me and for all of us. And I do so based on a response of love that seeks the beauty and life of Abba, Jesus, and Spirit.  At this point I do not know exactly what I believe down to the x, y and z of doctrine.  But I know in whom I have believed.  In God, who is my parent and source.  In Jesus, saviour, who is my example and who died.  In Christ who lives, and lives in me and in all of you.

Responding to "The Toll of Our Christian Theology on the LGBT Community"

Last night I found a link to a Christian blog post about the way LGBT people have suffered at the hands of Christians.  That's not news to me but the blog post touched me greatly.  I wept about it last night.  I wept about it again this morning.

http://johnpavlovitz.com/2014/10/07/distorted-love-the-toll-of-our-christian-theology-on-the-lgbt-community/

It's worth reading.  I urge you to read it. 

John Pavlovitz hadn't expected to write this post - it's a direct response to the hundreds of people who wrote to him following another post, hundreds of people each with direct experience of suffering at the hands of Christians for their sexuality.  If I'd written the original post I wouldn't have expected that outpouring either.  But sometimes these things just happen - such as with a post elsewhere on "Post Traumatic Church Disorder".

The biggest of my tears this morning were when I read again the sentence "It certainly doesn’t look like love to the sweet, 12-year old middle school girl in your church whose been repeatedly told she’s an abomination; that God already despises her."

Now I've been told by a church minister that I am an abomination.  But I was 42.  I was totally sure of myself as a transgender woman.  I was totally sure that being transgender was not any kind of a problem for God - whether a "God of the Bible" (I'd already gone through the "relevant" verses) or any other God.  But I thought of this girl.  She was 12 not 42.  She didn't have all the adult experience or two theology degrees and the ability to research more theology.  She didn't have the wonderful support of a church like Northern Lights MCC here in Newcastle.  So I thought of her and what this perfectly "Biblical" treatment would have done to her.  And I wept.  I wept over other stories too.  I am very close to tears again now.

John Pavlovitz's post from two weeks previously is also worth reading.  It's about what he would do if he found that his son or daughter was gay.  To sum that up in a few words: He would love them.  That's what caused the outpouring of response.  Just that.  That a father would love his child.

I posted a link to the blog on a friend's facebook status asking whether she had seen it.  Part of my response to a speech by a Catholic Archbishop who said that "Homosexual relationships are destroying our human identity."

The report about the speech was posted by a good woman.  A Catholic who posts things from either side of the moral arguments currently raging in the Catholic church and expects responses and discussion - from both sides.  And she's good enough to put up with a lot of non-Catholic words from me which to be honest is quite impressive at times as I'm not exactly toeing the party line!  She's doing her best in life and seeks to walk in love of people and in devotion to her God.

Someone responded as follows:  "Hang on a second, acting on being gay and physically attacking others, are both sins in Christian Theology. So because others sin by attacking, it must be the fault of the Theology? That reasoning is beyond moronic..."

You can always tell a loving, rational person by the way they descend to calling someone's intelligent writing "moronic" within three sentences!

I responded to that.  Because yes, I believe it is the fault of the Theology.  It's a theology I once promoted too - much to my shame.  One day I'll write about that.  A post along the lines of Mea Maxima Culpa!

__________________________________________

Sorry - this is long.  A length borne of passion.  A length borne of seeing people hurt, again, again, again by Christians and so-called Biblical views and of Christians turning away again and again and saying "It's not OUR fault, our ways wouldn't hurt anyone."  I am so utterly sick of seeing LGBT people destroyed and then being blamed for their own destruction by the Christians who killed their spirits.

Acting on being gay is NOT a sin in Christian theology.  It is a sin in SOME Christian theology.  Get that right.  "Christian theology" is not a blanket term.  It's certainly not a sin in my theology.  Nor in the theology of a local minister who leads Bible studies on the subject covering every possibly connected verse in great detail, solely relying on the works of highly respected scholars.  Nor in the theology of a great many Christians and a great many skilled theologians and Biblical scholars too.

When the theology is that a dignified human being, made in the image of God, beautifully and wonderfully made is also an abomination merely because of who God has made them to be, then yes the theology is at fault.  Or to be more exact, the people who have such a theology and refuse to look beyond the preconceptions of the centuries of homophobic abuse into a more enlightened age where human beings are accepted for being who they are.

I have so many friends who know what the effects of homophobic theology are.  It's not just a matter of people attacking them but also a matter of the beliefs guiding that action.

So many scholars now have accepted that the anti-homosexual clobber verses don't in reality have anything to do with Christian homosexuals.  More will follow.  And in the end the churches will accept that this is a normal, and completely healthy, part of the range that makes up human beings (and many other species too - if like the Archbishop we want to bring in what is "natural").  

That day cannot come too soon.

A day when I as a transsexual married lesbian will never risk encountering a church where I am rejected, told to repent of being who I am, told that it is impossible even to be Christian unless I at least want to repent, told I'm abomination, told that the God of mercy will make me burn in pain for eternity if I don't stop being who I am.  I will never again encounter a Church where my very existence is said to be anti-God (such as the Catholic Church and the certain articles written on major Catholic websites as a perfectly logical result of the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI)

Jesus accepts me.  He accepts LGBTQIA people.  He loves us as we are and has called us to be who we are.  He made us this way.  Yes, God created gay people to be gay people.  He created transsexuals to be transsexuals.

It's just a shame that Christians turned the love of God for gay people into a sham.  The love they show is not love.  No matter how many flowery words are used.  No matter how much Christians try to justify themselves.  It's not love.  It's closed-minded, bigoted, hatred justified by years of doing the same thing.

And yes, I am a Christian.  And I firmly believe God called me to live the life I lead - as a happily married transsexual lesbian.  My wife would agree with that.  And I know the hell it was to believe what other Christians taught - that all these things were evil, disordered, unnatural.  That I should be someone else - and indeed I tried to do it for decades.  Misery.  And to my shame I believed the lies that my gender and sexuality were disordered, evil.  And I believed the same thing about the gender and sexuality of others.

The theology needs changing.  Precisely because the theology leads to the attacks.  The theology directly leads to a hell on earth for innocent people.

The theology needs changing.  Precisely because the theology leads to thousands and thousands of wounded, crushed lives, and not uncommonly even to suicide.

The theology needs changing.  Precisely because the theology forces people to run from Jesus because the Jesus of the theology does welcome people with open arms.

The theology needs changing.  Precisely because the theology gives a church that is not a place of safety but instead a place of death for people against whom other people have a prejudice that has no basis whatsoever in reality.

I see the results of the theology.  Regularly.  It is heart breaking.  I am so thankful for a better theology.  One taught by some of the churches here.  And I am so thankful for the MCC congregation here and for the way crushed people are healed there and enabled to find peace and fall in love with Jesus again after the pain caused by well-meaning Christians.  So, so thankful for the light and love in that place.