Zac
My name is Zac. I remember it so clearly that it’s almost as if I could time travel back to that morning.
I was freshly out of college, and that Sunday I was back at the church I grew up in. During the sermon, the pastor affirmed his conservative position on marriage.
Pronouns: he/him
Photo of Zac
Of course I was aware of my home church’s theological commitments, and I was not surprised to hear him outline them. As he shared his conviction for “one man, one woman” marriage, the entire congregation rose to their feet in applause. I was heartbroken. It felt as if I could no longer call this place my spiritual home.
That moment drove me to a further wondering: if God had set up a life for me that had no hope for the human connection and intimacy that I desperately desired, and instead mandated a life of perpetual sadness and isolation, was that a God I wanted to know? I walked out that morning both sad and resolute, because I knew deep within myself that I did not want a relationship with that kind of God. As it turned out, I needed to explore not only what I believed about who I was and who I was not, but also who God was and was not. Along the way, it occurred to me that those things were, and are, much more connected than I ever realized.
I tell that story not because it is the setup for my theological, biblical or historical apologetic for why churches or Christian organizations should become more inclusive, though I do believe that project is of the utmost importance. The linchpin for me was not going through the small number of biblical passages on same-sex sex and taking them apart, even though that was a significant part of my own path to self acceptance. It was not my ability to debate the finer points of biblical interpretation with people that did not share my perspective, though that pursuit had its own merits.
These things, as important as they were, did not teach me how to love the parts of me that I was convinced were unlovable and irretrievable. I began to see that when I didn’t love myself, it was easy to imagine that God didn’t love me. When I believed that God didn’t cherish my sexuality and my desires, it made it that much harder for me to cherish my own sexuality and embrace my own desires. The turning point was when I started to believe that God celebrated all of me regardless of how many unread books on sexuality lay stacked on my bedside table. It was when I realized that I was worthy of dignity regardless of what trendy pastor or wealthy white suburban church did or did not affirm about me. God did not need a reason to love me because I was lovely enough. What changed my life was trusting that I was lovable exactly as I was, and because of who I was.
So, to my queer siblings and queer youth, those of you who have the weight of the world on your shoulders, those of you who are beginning to recognize that there is something deep inside you that does not need to change, those of you who are wondering if the “orthodox” Christian messages you have been fed your whole life may not be orthodox, those of you living in communities and attending churches that refuse to cherish your whole person, for those of you facing a mountainous journey of books and lectures and articles and sermons to diagnose the never-ending pit in your stomach, for those of you who want to leave your church, your town, your faith, and for those of you who wonder if anyone would even notice if you were gone: there are people who love you, who are fighting for you, and who believe that you have something to contribute to this world.
My hope is that you will know, above all the theological grandstanding and biblical interpreting, that your identity is worth protecting, knowing, and loving precisely because it is.
Photo of Zac
