I've been thinking about a couple of things...
1. Social Justice
2. Generous Spaciousness
A couple of weeks ago Mike Yankoski came and spoke and from what I can see the church I attend seems to be leading the way among church's in Vancouver when it comes to Social Justice and there is a welcoming poster to those from differing backgrounds like homosexuality but I find a response given with a truth being foundational. It's pretty hard to balance both grace and truth and that's one reason why I'm attending this church. When I first began attending this church I had a wide variety of reactions from other people I knew. Why would I transition from a Pentecostal church and then attend an Conservative Evangelical Church? The irony is, this Conservative Evangelical Church isn't you're average Conservative Evangelical Church and while the worship style isn't what I'm used to I can appreciate their worship style. I've made the choice to learn and grow this season of my life at a Conservative Evangelical Church. The first year of attending this church I asked the Lord constantly, "Why? Tell me why this church?" And others I knew from the church I had attended previously had asked me the same question. "Why that church?" I actually laugh at that question now because they're reaction almost conveyed a message as if to think I'm "back sliding" or something. On the contrary, I'm finding there to be a freedom to grow in the areas I have been wanting to grow in. That said, church in the suburbs are vastly different from city church's and so it took time for me to transition in more then one way.
My transition phases
1. I moved from suburbia into the big city
2. I transitioned from a small church to a big church
3. From Pentecostal to Conservative Evangelical church
Church in the suburbs tend to focus on different issues then city church's. Coming from a city that is titled the number one tourist attractions for gays and lesbians and being the most open and accepting city with the largest population of LGBTQ folks across Canada, church's in Vancouver are hard pressed to deal with an issue right on their door step whereas church's in the suburbs can usually pretend the "issue" has no relevance for them in their congregation. When I know how contrary that is. In the suburbs church's can focus less on the growing problem of homelessness and keep on believing it's a problem in the city. I know for a fact there are homeless people in the suburbs. Homelessness can also look quite different in the suburbs as well. In the big city one has to take initiative to be apart of a community and connect with folks whereas in a small town with a small community everyone tends to know everyone. Homelessness in the suburbs can often times be more like couch surfing. I should know, I spent a summer couch surfing not knowing where I'd sleep from one night to the next but I always found a temporary place to sleep. Sometimes it was at a friends or on a Reserve where I knew people, or sometimes the place I stayed at would be my aunts and uncles place, or cousins place. Either way, I had friends and family who gave me a place to stay, some for a week or two weeks, others for a few months. I looked relatively clean but survived off food I received from the food bank. I learned to budget my groceries for $50 dollars a month because what I received from Income Assistance was barely enough to cover rent let alone food and toiletries. So, to say the least, when it comes to Social Justice and Community I tend to see things from the perspective of those who are in need of resources. I had a very hard time finding affordable housing. Some of my roommates ended up being crack addicts and stealing my food. I even feared for my life living in that place. On another occasion I managed to get into low income housing but my neighbors were just as shady as my previous roommates. And then through a Christian friend I found a Christian Community House where to this day I still reside. The only thing is, it's become more of an International Community House where the landlords and myself are the only ones who are Christian but that's OK. My Christian friend who originally got me in had issues of her own which eventually led to our friendship ending and her finding a new place to live. She wasn't happy with the Community House from the beginning as she didn't understand that a Community House is not the same as simply renting space, so the boundaries are different. In a Community House there are rules and she wanted her own rules. As for myself I was grateful to finally have a landlord that wasn't among the "slumlords" crew that seem to be an ongoing issue in the greater Vancouver regional district. I was happy to live under these rules as it has given me an affordable place to live and chances are my roommates are not going to be drug users but I'll have somewhat stable roommates where locking my bedroom door at night is not necessary.
There usually tends to be more cash flow in larger church's which enables the church to be more active in areas that smaller church's tend to be restricted simply because the finances are not there. Apparently, during this financial crisis where most church's found members giving less at my church the opposite was true. People actually gave more in our financial crisis and placed our church in a position to not have to cut programs whereas many church's have had some big set backs due to lack of finances. That said, big city church's tend to have broader outreaches and activism. Whereas smaller church's tend to be more restrictive in their outreach and activism. It makes sense in a lot of ways. The larger number of people and the greater financial base that one church has the more they're capable of doing. And so, with that in mind, I appreciate the fact that this church values Social Justice and really support their community. In other words they use their resources and influence wisely and in God honoring ways.
Social Justice
I tend to have some issues with the Social Justice movement among some church's. It's not that I don't think they're work is good. It's the fact that there seems to be a missing link in some ways. For example, it's the whole saying, "it's better to teach a man how to fish then it is to give a man a fish" The question is, are we enabling people to remain in the cycle of poverty and addiction or are we actually doing something for another person that will eventually lead a person to be able to invest back into the community? Are we enabling a person to remain needy on a system that's currently being drained by people who are healthy enough find a job? And then of course the other questions that come to mind, what about those who will remain needy and dependent upon a system due to mental illnesses and disabilities? What have we done to prevent people from becoming dependent upon the system that's flawed anyways? What about folks who had a choice at one time in their life to say no to drugs but who are now dependent upon the system because of a mental illness that came as a direct result of their drug addiction? Where's the justice in that? How can we respond to people in such a way that extends grace and compassion and yet speaks enough truth that might actually prevent people's physical and mental health from deteriorating?
What if it's not about the apparent opposition from giving a man a fish to teaching a man how to fish?
What if the biblical response to true Social Justice is both? What if true Social Justice and biblical response is to teach a man how to fish while we give a man a fish?
I was really impressed with Mike Yankoski as he spoke because he acknowledged the fact that this is not exactly a light topic. There is so much to this that he certainly could not really speak adequately to in the time he had. In fact, he had to speed up is speech just to get in what it is that he wanted to say after his wife cut out 3 quarters of the original talk! He instead he gave enough for people to search it out more for themselves. I was impressed because of how he balanced out our relationship and responsibility to each other AND not excluding our relationship and responsibility to God. As he said, it's just as much vertical as it is horizontal. It is just as much about our relationship to God as it is with each other.
Love Assumes Justice is Present - Mike Yankoski
However, I wanted to flesh out something else he said as I think this could bring to the talk a greater context then what the speaker was able to. He said something that of course triggered some things I had been thinking about. He used the Nazi analogy. All too often people caught up in the Social Justice movement refer to people who work within the system to various degrees and compare them to "Nazi's" This is actually quite offensive. I wish he could have explained himself better but I get what he was trying to communicate. Love assumes Justice is present. A man giving a starving child bread is a compassionate loving thing to do but when the man is a Nazi soldier giving a starving Jewish boy bread in a concentration camp that's not truly love because there is no justice in this picture, the real root of the problem is not dealt with. The root of the problem was genocide and racism and one man's fight to rule over the world which thankfully never happened. On a side note, there are people who would much rather not only believe that the holocaust never happened but would much rather teach that part of history. It's a huge offense to ignore something like this and pretend that it never happened when in fact it did happen. To say the holocaust never happened to Jewish People is like saying that the Residential Schools were never apart of the history of the First Nations People. And from what I know, Hitler himself was influenced by how the First Nations People were treated. The only difference between First Nations People and Jewish People is the Jewish People had their number tatood to their body whereas First Nations People have their number on a card. The Jewish People face chemical warfare whereas First Nations People fought against Biological warfare. The Holocaust was a relatively short period of time in comparison to the First Nations People which can account for a far greater number of people who were victimized because they should happen to be of a different race or religion. I could speak more about the growing connection between the Jewish People and North American First Nations People as together they move forward towards healing and discovering commonality of culture and language. It's pretty interesting if you ask me but that will have to be for another blog post. Now back to the point, I think we really have to be careful with who we're labeling a "Nazi" and what would constitute as unjust and what would not. And here lies my issue with some Social Justice advocates.
Quite often with the work I'm currently apart of will at times have me placed in a position where I'm under scrutiny among the very people I'd much rather be partnering with and hoping to change this flawed system just as much as they are. On one hand I'm not in favor of a Socialistic Government. And I find that some people who are in the Social Justice movement fail to understand that what they're fighting for is actually for something that will eventually work against the very thing their advocating for. This is one reason why I gravitate towards the Conservative Party in Politics. I want to see a country that will uphold our constitutional rights and freedoms but sadly in Canada these rights and freedoms are slowly being taken away because of Human Rights being taken advantage of and trumping over our Constitutional rights and freedoms. The Human Rights tribunal should not be able to trump our constitutional rights and freedoms. That all being said, people in authority should not be able to over step their boundaries to exercise authority and power they don't have or to abuse the authority and power that they have. I have been in a position where I've been called "Nazi brown shirt" or a "Nazi" and people have distorted what it is that I do and seem to think I exercise power and authority that I don't actually have. The point that I'm trying to make is this, that our Police, our Politicians, our Security Officers etc are not all bad people and the system is not a bad system just a flawed system that really needs to be re-evaluated to see if we're being a hindrance to those in need or not. And those who are currently working within the system can be used by God to accomplish His will in our Nation today. I think of Esther and how she approached the King (Esther 4-7:10) and sought justice for her people. She risked her life but at the same time with respect to the King she used the favor she had with the King wisely to bring deliverance to her people. I wonder what Israel thought of her in her position as Queen? I wonder if they looked poorly at her because she had been in a different position then all the others? I wonder if they thought that she was an advocate for everything flawed within "the system" of that day? But when we take a closer look, it was her exact position that led Esther to save Israel from annihilation.
Generous Spaciousness
I've been thinking a lot about the idea of generous spaciousness especially within the context of faith and sexuality and also thinking about this in light of Social Justice. I was to say the least impressed with Mike Yankoski and how well he managed to bring a balance of biblical truth within the context of Social Justice. He did not exclude biblical truth, he only reminded people that we have a responsibility not just between us and God but to those who are vulnerable in society, in fact, what we do for the vulnerable is what we do to God. There were other things that led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as we see in Ezekiel 16:49-50. They were arrogant people who indulged without any concern for the poor and needy. Sexual sin was not the only thing stacked up against this people. We sometimes elevate homosexuality to the worst of all sins. Homosexual behavior, in my opinion is not any worse of sinful behavior then fornication and as much as the scriptures speak against homosexual behavior the scriptures speak against divorce and fornication. We exercise generous spaciousness and overlook two people living together but some of us reacting to the gay couple that walk through the front doors of the church. The straight people not having to live under the same scrutiny as somebody who might be involved in the homosexual lifestyle. In other words there can be a tendency for some church's to categorize sin and make homosexuality the most evil of all sins. I actually have a different perspective. I believe the scriptures tend to level sin at the cross of Jesus and categorize homosexuality among other sinful sexual behaviors like heterosexual sinful behavior. I was talking to a friend earlier today about this and one of the things I said is that I know from personal experience that people have written me off far too quickly and instead of coming along side me they distanced themselves from me and instead of welcoming me into fellowship they debated whether or not I was really a Christian. I really would like to see a day come where we're not debating on whether or not somebody is a Christian. I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bath water to say that somebody is not a Christian when in fact God could be working in their heart just as much as He is working in my heart.
A few things I've heard from various people ...
1. I'm the only one who has lived my life.
2. This is my experience and it might not be the experience of somebody else.
3. With grace being extended there needs to be a foundation of truth.
One of the things that had led to my issues with Social Justice is that I grew tired of helping people cope with their present reality and often questioned what's actually being done to bring about change in that persons life. What was I doing to help somebody get out of the cycle of addiction and poverty? Was what I was doing keeping somebody away from taking certain steps of responsibility? What about those truly in need? What am I doing that might prevent people from living on the streets or prevent people from ending up on the streets?
When I "came out" to my Youth Pastor and his wife their response wasn't what I thought it would be. For the years I've been privileged to be under their mentorship but I really couldn't receive what I could have because of the underlining thought that maybe they wouldn't love me as much as they say they do if they really knew me. If they really knew me would they love me the same? There were truths I learned from this couple, some of which I'm just now beginning to get. I've been a slow learner but nonetheless learning. In some ways I've been quick in other ways slow. When I came back to my faith in Christ at the age of 14 with the ex-gay movement in mind and desiring healing and change I fell in love with the scriptures. I became glued to the scriptures. And while others struggling with homosexuality found the scriptures condemning I quickly saw that the scriptures were filled with hope and that I wasn't condemned just because I struggled in this area. I found hope. I came to believe that healing and change could be possible. And so I began my faith journey yet again with the hope of finding healing. Although I came back with an unrealistic expectation wanting to be "straight" and became disappointed what that factor wasn't changing. But I kept pursuing my relationship with Jesus Christ and mentored by my Youth Pastor and his wife. I "came out" to them at the tale end of them mentoring me and I as I look back I wish I had the courage to talk to them about these things early on. However, what's done is done. That said, I still engaged. I asked questions and pursued understanding to know what God intended for my sexuality and to understand who God created me to be as a woman created in His Image. I prayed constantly, "Lord, show me who it is that you created me to be as a woman created in your Image?" Eventually I began to ask fairly advanced questions that the majority of those in my youth group were not asking. While the majority of my peers were still questioning who Jesus is I was convinced who Jesus is and now I wanted to walk in the fullness for which He created me for. So at the age of 16 I joined the college and career group's bible study. At the time we were going through The Navigators Program and it turned out to be a season I really grew in my faith and in part answer some of the questions I had been faced with regarding my identity and faith in Christ. As a result of this discipleship I grew to believe that my identity was not based upon my brokenness so I did not have to identify myself as a lesbian. My primary source of identification was in Christ and everything else was secondary. At the age of 14 I didn't know of ministries like Love Won Out and Exodus and so my views that were quickly forming hadn't been something I just heard but rather something I honestly felt led to believe based upon the scriptures I had been reading. It just so happens that along the way I stumbled upon the Oprah Winfrey Show when John and Anne Paulk were being interviewed. Seeing that interview only confirmed to me that perhaps the Lord is leading me out of homosexuality instead of embracing it and perhaps there really is healing and freedom that can be found in Christ from homosexuality. I didn't know what the direction I was taking would look like I just felt I was the only one since the Apostle Paul with this revelation and that God continues today to call people out of homosexuality and into discovering who God created us to be as His Image bearers. I felt I had been the only one, it was truly, in my mind revolutionary but little did I know that there were others who paved the way and at the age of 15 I found out that there were other people who had this sense deep within that there is more to be discovered.
19 years later I'm here writing this blog looking back at an incredible journey. This journey has not been 19 years of success but rather one that has looked more unstable, one filled with questions, failure, and continued struggle in areas I had hoped that long before now would have become history but still continues to be an ongoing temptation I must continue to submit to the Lord as I seek out to live the life I believe I'm called to live. My struggles do not control my life in ways it had in the past and they certainly do not define who it is that I am. At the same time my experience is just that, my experience. I sometimes wonder why I didn't join the ranks of the "ex-gay survivors" because I did go through a phase of being really disappointed when change didn't come in the time I was hoping it would but this continues to be something I still continue to submit to the Lord and continue to trust in him with His healing work in my life despite areas in my life including same sex attraction that's not completely eradicated from my life. I still struggle and I still have areas I'm vulnerable in. Instead I chose discipleship and walking out my faith despite my ongoing struggle with same sex attraction. I have experienced to some degree a shift in my orientation but not a complete eradication. My goal really isn't to become straight my goal is the pursuit of Christ and holiness in my life but I have experienced some change. I would strongly suggestion that some change is change nonetheless and really challenges my views in the area of what change really is possible. If some change has occurred then maybe there is a possibility to see change to a much larger degree then what I've experienced to date. I really don't want to limit the Lord and what He can do in and through me. I went from absolutely no attraction towards men to finding some attraction towards men while struggling with attraction towards women, the struggle and intensity of it has been more of an ebb and flow experience. What I've noticed is it really depends on where I'm at emotionally and where I'm placing my security and identity. And with my own personal testimony the question is, how do I practice this idea of generous spaciousness in light of my own personal testimony? I'm left with this one conclusion that my experience will not necessarily be the experience of others and just because somebody still identifies themselves as a gay Christian that doesn't necessarily mean that God isn't at work in them any less then He is at work in me. I don't believe for one moment that in all my days the Lord abandoned me. I sometimes sensed his presence more working security at a gay bar during fetish nights and lesbian nights then I did on Sunday mornings at church. Mind you, it's pretty hard to do church after working a fetish night. Thank God that my Christian friends didn't right me off during that time because their continued friendship eventually led me away from the gay community and once again to search out what God had called me out of and into.
What I have found is that we sometimes polarize views and responses that perhaps were meant to be in harmony with each other.
For instance, Grace and Truth, Love and Justice, Social Justice and Corporate Business, Human Rights and Constitutional Rights and Freedoms.
It is just as much about the vertical as it is about the horizontal.
When I "came out" to my Youth Pastor and his wife the came around me, the embraced me and then prayed for me. They understood that there were some things more caught then they are taught. We can argue till we're blue in the face our side and what we're convicted on but the Lord really needs to be the one to reveal these things. But because of the relationship built there grew this trust and respect. What developed this trust and respect is the fact that my Youth Pastor and his wife were people who lived by a standard. I had the privilege of seeing these people in their home while living under their roof. I came to see their flaws but I also came to see their strengths, their values, and their convictions. Who they were in the pulpit was exactly who they were. They didn't present some religious false self but understood human frailty, weakness, and vulnerability. They came around me, embraced me and said, "Sarah, we still love you?" They never backed down from speaking truth but they never condemned me either. When others were debating whether or not I was a Christian this couple stood by and advocated for me. Some time after my disclosure the Pastors wife led a study one night at church. She began to speak about the church God blesses. She pointed out that hidden sin can be a hindrance to the Lord being able to really bless the church and the people in the church. I can recall just sinking deeper and deeper into my chair with this shame and guilt coming over me. How can God bless me when I've spent a life time covering up my sin? And in front of everybody at church the Pastors wife looks at me and responds with compassion, "Sarah, I know you and I know what you are thinking, for there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ" With that she didn't excuse the behavior, she didn't say that homosexuality was a moral option that God could bless, but she pointed to my identity in Christ.
In a church that really didn't know how to response to or deal with homosexuality she affirmed my identity in Christ not my homosexuality. They created space for me at church that might not have been given apart from their leadership. They extended grace that was always firmly planted on the foundation of truth.
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