You’ve changed my life.
Dearly Beloved,
How, you ask, can I call you “friend” if I don’t know you? Because I do know you. Well, at least I know people who may be a little like you. They have changed my life. And because of this, I know that you are changing the lives of those around you!
You are so loved. You are so important.
My life has been profoundly changed and blessed because my friendships with people who are queer. I'd like to share a part of my story, my story of being blessed, a story of how God has used these friendships to change my worldview. I used to shift my gaze away from people who identify as LGBTQIA+. Now I seek to see you and learn from you and to enjoy your friendship and gifts.
I feel so fortunate to have had world-class educations at Bethel and Princeton seminaries. They helped me to confirm what my friendships with queer family and friends had begun to teach me as I got older – that we are *all* beautifully created in God’s image. I’m almost 50 now. I grew up having confused and distorted views of people who were queer (based on playground slurs and old media stereotypes rather than real relationships). As I became a teenager and began to grow my circle of friends, my cultural entrapment began to shake loose, my prejudices about people who are queer grew softer and melted away, replaced by joyful acceptance of their gifts and encouraged by their love for Christ. But how could I square my clear experience gained through so many friendships with the “clear” view of Scripture? First, the loveliness of my queer friends and family gave me the desire to look at Scripture anew? Could it be different that what I thought? My seminary training helped me work out a new way of understanding how to read the Bible. In the same way that the beginning chapters of Genesis were not intended to scientifically describe the creation of the universe, so the authors of Genesis did not intend it to be a taxonomy of gender identities and sexual orientations. Whew. I'm so glad! What if the Bible was the end of the story about medicine, astronomy, engineering, anthropology, etc?! The Bible is key to helping us understand God and who we are and how we relate to God. And its high view of humanity (we are created in God’s image!) means that I can embrace what doctors and social and physical scientists can teach us about their areas of expertise. What a happy arrangement! God gives us the Bible as a foundational way of understanding matters of faith. And God gives us the gifts of our minds to study God's creation so that we can marvel at and learn about God’s creation, about psychology, entomology, computer science and anatomy, for example.
Beloved youth. You are loved. So deeply loved. May your faith and life bring you joy as you embrace the ways in which God is teaching and leading you. And may you be greatly encouraged as you consider the ways that God is working through you to teach and encourage others like me! When you encounter people stuck in their views of you or the Bible, take comfort in knowing that God will win people to God-self through you, will help re-frame their worldviews, their theology and their understanding of you. I know this is true. Because it happened to me.
From,
Justin Sundberg
