Sarah tells us, "a little bit about herself." From growing up in Colorado, to moving to Hawaii overnight at age 16. Finding Jesus at age 17 and becoming a pastor with a global denomination by 26. She then shares how she lost her ordination and deconstructed her faith just days before meeting Chandra.
If you are curious as to the song referred to in Sarah's salvation story:
Papa Roach, Last Resort (explicit version).
This is an excellent article if you are new to Theology about sexual/gender identity and orientation.
This is the most precise and condensed article about the translations of the word Homosexual we have found brought to you by the United Methodist Church. This article explains translation as well as traditional understanding when interpreting the scriptures regarding homosexuality.
If you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Church Clarity is a resource to help find an affirming church if you so desire. If you are attending an affirming church and want to share info about your church, you can also do that on their website.
What we mean by "affirming." A short testimony by another queer Christian.
We are a "Side A" Christian Podcast. This article discusses Side A and Side B Christian views.
List of affirming denominations and contact information.
Here is another article dealing with Biblical translation.
Music by Scott Holmes. used with permission under CC.
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S: Hi, and Welcome to Queer chats about Jesus.
C: A podcast about reclaiming faith, God, and sexuality within queer relationships.
S: I'm Sarah.
C: I'm Chandra.
S: Let's chat about Jesus.
C: Whew, so it's our first Podcast.
S: It is, and I am so excited. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. This has been a bit of a journey, and we are so stoked you are with us.
C: It really has been a bit of a journey… yeah, all sorts of technical issues. It is a lot harder to start a podcast than I thought about and having come from video, film, and TV. I was like, oh, this will be a piece of cake. It is not a piece of cake.
S: It is not a piece of cake, and every tutorial on YouTube is like "its easy its one, two, three clicks."
So I don't know if I do not understand them correctly or if they are showing after four years of editing experience, it's three clicks for them, and they are not including all the difficulties I am having on the other side.
I don't know to be honest, but it's brutal.
C: Anyway, not the topic of our Podcast.
S: Not the topic of our Podcast, just a little inside information.
So we have been preparing for this Podcast for several months. We feel like this is the next step in what God is calling us to do.
We have been praying since we got together, and like really asking God, what do you have in store for us? I use to be a pastor.
C: Yeah, so why don't we start with a little about our backgrounds. Sarah, tell us a little about yourself.
S: Well, I am thirty-eight years old. I enjoy long walks on the beach and candlelight dinners. Just kidding… well, I do enjoy both of those things.
I'm thirty-eight years old. I have been living in Washington for eight years. I moved to Washington...
C: Wait, we aren't thirty-eight yet. We are thirty-seven.
S: No, we're not.
C: Yeah, we are only thirty-seven.
S: Oh. So apparently, we are only thirty-seven, which actually makes me feel a little better I was like man, I am getting close to forty.
C: So, Sarah, why don't you tell us a little about yourself.
S: So, I have been living in Washington for eight years. I moved here after I had my ordination removed because I was a homosexual. That is not the excuse the denomination gave me even though that is the reason.
It is one of those things like you know when you know, right? Like they can say all they want that it was like a different reason, but you know. The excuses they used had been going on for a while; that's why I was like. 'Hmmm ya, you're firing me because I am gay.'
I got into a relationship with a… with actually my youth worker. She was a couple years younger than me, but we really had a…a instant connection and attraction. I was like 'oh crap' because she came to the island I was living on, and I was like 'you're trouble' because I was trying to be straight. I wasn't trying to be straight. I knew that I was gay. I was trying to be celibate.
I was trying to be a celibate gay because I did believe at that time that homosexuality was a sin and that I was just destined to be single for my entire life.
So anyway, I got removed from… um, I got my ordination taken away, and I moved to where my family was living. Really because I had nothing when I joined the denomination that I joined, you give everything away. They provide your housing and your car and everything.
So literally I had no credit, I had no assets, I had no money, and I was really like destitute at that point. I think when I moved here, I had like forty dollars in my pocket, and luckily they did pay for my plane ticket here. But um ya, I stepped off the plane with like forty bucks.
Mom picked me up on the way to her apartment. We stopped at Safeway. I asked if they were hiring; they said yes, that night I applied for the job, I got the phone call the next morning to come in for an interview, and I had the job the next day. Which was thank you, Jesus, for that.
C: Ya, ok, so where were you living when you were a pastor with that denomination?
S: I was living on the westside of Kauai. In a little town called Hanapepe.
C: And just in case everyone doesn't know where Kauai is, it's in Hawaii?
S: It's one of the Islands on the Hawaiian chain.
C: Right, and you actually lived in Hawaii for ten years up to that point... er, I guess it was eight years, huh?
S: Yes, I went to seminary in California for two years. The denomination I was with assigned you to your church and so I was assigned to Kauai. Which is not the island I was from. So I moved there after I was ordained.
C: Right, but you're not Hawaiian, right, your not from Hawaii?
S: No, I am not Hawaiian.
C: So, where are you from? Where did you grow up?
S: I grew up in Colorado, outside of Denver and my family actually helped establish the town we were from, and they actually moved there in covered wagons.
C: What was your experience with church growing up? What was your experience with God as a child?
S: So, my family was like Christian. I will say ish, they might be offended by that, but they were Christianish. We prayed at Thanksgiving. If we were scared at night, we would pray. Like if we felt creeped out, we would pray against it in Jesus' name and went to Southern Baptist camp every summer.
So like I said, my family is like the old generation from Colorado, and they were basically super-wealthy. So they believed that they could basically buy their salvation by donating large amounts of money to the Baptist church.
So as part of that, they sent me and all of my nine cousins to summer camp, and it was a Baptist summer camp. At the end of every single camp, the end of every single Summer camp was like, "Do you want to burn in hell for all eternity?" I was like "no!" because you're like eight years old.
They are like "if you don't want to burn in the eternal flame. Like, come forward and accept Jesus." It was like, 'uh ya, ok,' cuz I was like... who is going to be like..."yes! I want to burn in the eternal flame!" As like a child, you know, you don't know. So it was like this constant re-getting saved.
C: Every summer at the end of summer camp?
S: Ya, and then the rest of the year, it was like oh, you are creeped out, pray to Jesus. Oh, you know something is going bad, pray to Jesus. But it wasn't like a relationship with him. It was just like, you are the person I like… he was the person I went to when I was afraid or scared or didn't know what was going on.
But I didn't know about a relationship with him, like not just praying in bad times, but like praying in good times, knowing he had like a hand in my life, knowing that he was good and he was love. So that was kind of like not really understood at least by me at that time.
C: Right, and how did your sexuality fit into that? How old were you when you realized that you were attracted to girls, and how did that influence how you viewed God?
S: So my family, I would like to say, is pretty open about sexuality like they are ok with heterosexuality, let's say that.
Like I remember, my brother being encouraged to have sex. I remember my cousins being encouraged to have sex. I remember my grandmother giving my brother advice on which condoms to buy and stuff, so like sex was ok in my family except for being gay.
Being gay was not ok; it was not accepted. I actually lived with my grandma, and I was kind of like a caretaker to her. Every like so often, I never dressed girly that was never my thing, so every once in a while, I would come home, and she'd be like, "are you a lesbian? You look like a fucking lesbian." And I did not even really know what a lesbian was, to be honest. She was like, "you better not watch that fucking Ellen." And I was like, "I don't know what you're talking about."
So it was just like from the very beginning you don't want to be a lesbian. And I didn't really know what it was really, but when I was sixteen, I realized I was attracted to women, and you can totally look back, and like queers you know what I am talking about you can look back and see like 'oh, I had a crush on this girl I thought was just my friend.' 'Oh, I was attracted to this girl.I just thought I was close to.' Like, you can look back and see those moments when your like 'I was sooooooo gay.'
I didn't really realize I was gay until I was sixteen, and at that time, I was not a Christian. I was into like new age, like Wicca, I was learning from my grandmother's sister actually how to read tarot cards and how to do palm reading and all kinds of that type of thing.
When I realized I was gay, it wasn't like a big deal for my spirituality at that time. At that time, it was like, 'oh, I am gay. Girls are really cute.' Like I like them.
So for me, it wasn't a big deal, but I knew I couldn't tell my family because my family was very anti-homosexual.
C: Gotcha, and so when did that change? What's your salvation story?
S: Ok, so my family moved to Hawaii overnight, when I was seventeen, twenty-four hours, "everybody grab a bag." And we're out of here.
Um, we felt like we were in a very dangerous situation, which I don't really feel like at this time, like, I really don't want to talk about it at this moment. I will probably go into that at some point in time.
But anyway, it was a really dangerous situation. We moved in twenty-four hours. We each got a bag. Like it was me, my brother, my two cousins, and my mom. And like we left everything, we left our cars, we left our house, we left everything. We moved to Hawaii, and I wasn't really close to my family because I did have to keep the secret that I was gay.
Like all my friends at school knew I was gay. They were all super supportive. They were all awesome, but then I moved to Hawaii, and I didn't have that support system. I only had my family, which I knew was not ok with the gay thing.
So I just basically went back in the closet, and then the only friend I had in high school was this girl I met on the bus. She had just moved there actually from the other side of the island because we were on the big island at this time. We were in Kona; she had moved from Hilo, and so she was brand new. She reached out to me and was like, hey, you want to be friends? Because we are all brand new here, lets band together, so me and my cousin were like yes!
So we started hanging out with her, but we were like bad influences because me and my cousin we drank and we partied. You know the rebellious teenage thing, and she was actually the pastor's daughter.
C: laughs.
S: So she was not allowed to hang out with us very much. It was like very limited, but it was like you can come to youth group, or you know it was very like evangelistic. Like her parents, not her, she was down to hang out.
C: right, right, right.
S: But um like her parents were like...
Together: Ummmm No.
S: Ya under very reserved circumstances. Which I totally, looking back on it, I am like yeah, that wasn't a bad call.
C: Yeah, we were bad influences; we had some stuff going on.
S: We had some stuff we were working through; let's say that. I don't think we were bad, but we…we…were working through som…I have kind of a…guys. Let me be honest. I have kind of a weird background story. But I can't talk about it all at once, or we would be here for hours and ain't nobody got time for that.
Um, we did have some stuff going on. I think they picked up on that. They were like, "you can come to youth group, or you can go to camp."
So they had this teenage camp that I got invited to, and at this time, I was like seventeen and a half, and I was still in high school, and they were like come to this camp.
I was like, 'cool; I'll come to this camp like I'll get to hang out on the beach like hang out with my one and only friend. Maybe meet some new people,' I don't know. So I went, and I was listening to one of the speakers talk about how this generation was lost, and he was playing this song that I really enjoyed, I really liked, I really related to, but it was a song about suicide, and I don't remember what it is now.
But he was talking about how sad that song was, that was people's outlook on life, that they had no hope, they had no future, they had no vision. And I was sitting there like 'well, who does?' like ya, I totally relate to this song. I totally know what you're talking about. I had no hope; I had no vision; I had no future; I had no plans.
And you know he was just like, "God can change this, God can bring you hope, he can bring you purpose." and I was like 'yes.' It was kind of like that Southern Baptist training of like "repent, turn your life over to God" kicked in and I was like 'I know what to do.' I know now what they were talking about.
So I was like...I remember looking up, and I can still picture the rafters, I can still picture what the room looked like, and I just remember saying 'God, I give you my life.' And I remember hearing his voice for the first time. I knew it was God, and he said, "Get ready because I am going to do a quick work in you."
C: Geez.
S: And the next day, it was like the colors were brighter. Like I felt hope for the first time, I think in my life and everything changed. You know where it talks in the Bible about being a new creation like I understand being a new creation because the person that went to that island, to that camp, was not the same person that came back. So that's my salvation story.
C: So how long was it after you became saved at that camp before you started to realize that God might not be cool with the sexuality thing?
Like how did you rectify your sexuality with your beliefs?
Because you have told me before that while you were a pastor with that denomination, you did not believe that was ordained by God. You had made a commitment to be celibate for your life, so what was that process for you, and what made you change your mind about that?
S: So when I got saved, I literally was like 'this is what I was made for.' I was made to serve God. I did not care about anything else. There was actually one thing that me and God got into a little debate about.
Because I definitely believed in evolution, and I still do believe in evolution. I was reading Genesis, and I was like, what the heck is this? Like this doesn't make any sense like evolution is like a proven fact basically, I know they still call it a theory, but to me, it was like this is true evolution is true, and so I was reading Genesis, and I was like 'God I can't, I can't comprehend this. I can't understand what you are talking about here.' and this is like the beginning when I was very, very first saved. I remember I opened up my Bible to read, and Genesis literally fell out.
C: The entire book and just that book?
S: The entire book of Genesis, like Exodus, was still there. So the book of Genesis fell out, and I heard God speak again, and he said, "We have other things to worry about don't worry about that."
And so that kind of sums up how my beginning faith was. I was plowing forward. I was just reading the Bible; I was just going to church. I think I was going to three different churches or four different churches. I was going to church as much as I could. I was still going to school. I had my part-time job, but if I wasn't in school or at my part-time job, I was finding a church with a service or a prayer meeting or a Bible study.
I was going, and I was just like gobbling this up because I am like if the Holy Spirit is present, I am down I don't care what denomination I don't care. Like I didn't 't care about rules, I didn't care about the dogma; I just wanted to be in the presence of God. I just wanted to be around people that believed in God. So everything got pushed to the side, including my sexuality because, to me, at that point in time, it was not important. Nothing was important, but God. And it wasn't until way later that the reality that I'm still gay caught up.
C: Gotcha.
S: And I'm talking about way later, like a couple of years later. Where I was like, 'oh, I am still attracted to women. Hmm.'
C: What does this mean for my faith?
S: Ya, what does this mean for my faith? And to me, it was like I had already heard, so many things like… how it was explained to me is that gay people were like addicts so like an alcoholic or like a drug addict and you just had to overcome it, you had to pray through it, you had to fast. And you have to understand I was like super zealous I went to twenty-four-hour prayer meetings all the time like we sought after God.
Like I fasted, I prayed for hours for days on end, and that was one of the things I was struggling with; I kept praying for those thirteen years. 'God set me free, God set me free,' and there was one point in time where I did feel like he did set me free, but now looking back on it, I just realized I just wasn't around a woman I was attracted to.
C: Gotcha, so he set you free by taking any woman you were attracted to out of the equation, until a time where you were ready to deal with that again.
S: Yeah, you could say it like that, but I just was not attracted to any women around me at that time. Like I had woman friends and stuff, but I wasn't like… the big myth about gay women is that we are attracted to all women. That is not true. I can think a woman is pretty. I can like her personality without being attracted to her; there is another aspect to it, just like for straight people. So I just wasn't attracted to any women around me, so I thought I was like 'oh this is done,' cool.
So I felt God calling me to seminary, and like, kind of started deconstructing my faith. We had a really good theology teacher that really challenged our beliefs, really challenged how we think, and that kind of got me started down the road of deconstruction.
But then, honestly, I was a 26-year-old pastor. I was only on that island before for one week on like a summer mission trip. I had no friends, no family, no one around me. I was running a church, all the youth programs, a thrift store, a soup kitchen, the women's ministry, which was pretty substantial. And…I had a lot going on as a 26-year-old single woman just out doing my thing. So all of that got pushed aside and then enters my…I will call her my ex.
C: Ya, I think she qualifies.
S: Ya, I think she qualifies too, and I remember this very clearly. I was like rearranging furniture, and I am like 'Lord, please don't make her pretty. Please don't make her attractive,' and she walks in, and my brain all it says is 'oh shit.'
C: laughs
S: And so what ended up happening, she actually thought she was straight before she moved in with me, and I had called around about her and stuff before she became the youth worker. And I had made sure "Ok, is this chick on the level?" and everyone is like, "yeah, she is great; she's wonderful."
She became attracted to me, and she pursued me, and I didn't know she was pursuing me, cuz I never had a girl pursue me like that. I have had girls definitely hit on me and stuff, but I have never had like a girl full on try to pursue me, so we became really close, and she was very encouraging in my spiritual journey.
So we would like, pray together all the time; she would be like, "let me do the paperwork for…" I had to do paperwork all the time to keep track of all the accounting and stuff. She was like, "let me do some of that for you because you're a pastor and you should be praying, and you should be reading the Bible because that's your number one job I can do the paperwork. You go read your Bible," and I was like, "ok!"
She was just very, very encouraging spiritually; she was like, "we should be praying more we should be worshipping more." She kind of like taught me how to play the guitar a little bit. We would like worship together at night because she also lived with me in the house that was for the pastor. So we would worship every night together, and I felt God was really doing something pretty awesome.
There is a huge problem with drugs in Hawaii. Addiction is pretty much a major issue in the islands and especially where I was living. Oppression and drug use go hand in hand lets just put it that way, and a lot of the kids in my youth group, every single kid was basically exposed to this drug problem, and it was breaking my heart, and I was part of a ministers association, and we'd get together once a month we'd swap pulpits, and we had this really actually great relationship with all the churches.
We were talking about something, and it was just like, it wasn't not important, but it was like one of those side issues you know what I mean, and I'm like "people are dying of drug use like kids are getting beat like they're…like some of them can't eat like…."
C: "What are we doing about this issue?"
S: Ya, "what are we doing about this issue?" And I was saying to them, "Goliath is standing on the hill, and he is mocking us, and we are the children of Isreal, and we are our tents, and we are hiding."
And I was like, "we can't let this stand. We have to start praying against the drug use on this island. We have to start praying against it. We can no longer just sit back and let drugs steal our kid's future. We are called, and we believe in the authority of Jesus Christ, and we are not doing anything about the actual issues on this island; this is not ok for us to be doing. We are the heads of all the churches on our side of the island, and we are sitting idly by while the enemy steals from our children."
I remember one of the pastors saying, "if you go after the drug problem on this island, you will be destroyed." Like you will be…you will no longer be here. You will no longer be ministering here. And I was like, "ok, I am willing to make that sacrifice. I am willing to take that chance, but I will not standby, and I will not let drugs continually steal from our kids."
I was driving home, and I felt God say to me, "if you are going to call out the sins on these islands, I am going to call out the sins in your heart." And that same week or within days of that me and my ex expressed our attraction physically.
C: But let's just be clear you guys didn't actually hook up. You had said earlier you had hooked up. But we've talked about it before, and that's not hooking up.
S: Ok, so it was like a heavy makeout session maybe then. Whatever you want to call it. The line was crossed for me. To me, I knew I was gay. I was trying to be celibate, that was across. I don't care if its actual sex or not.
I am not Bill Clinton; I am not trying to get into the definitions. But the fact of the matter for me I crossed the line, and so everything fell apart. She left immediately after we hooked up. I think she maybe stayed around like a week or something. She moved in with a parishioner and out of the house, and we were trying to see if we could work together, but the attraction was too strong. There was no way we were not going to hook up again, basically, so she left, and she went back to the mainland where she was from.
God just called me on the carpet, but it wasn't about being gay. It was about pride; it was about the fact that I had let my denomination tell me who I was instead of letting God tell me who I was. I had let my denomination and the fact that I was a 26-year-old pastor get to my head, and I was proud, and I was cocky, and I was no longer seeking Him like I should have been.
God called me out for not following Him. For letting someone else a denomination take His place in how to act in how to behave in what I was supposed to be doing, and I spent like I don't know a week just lying on the floor crying.
Like I took a vacation, I asked one of my solid parishioners to preach for me because I did not feel like I could preach at that time. I just took a week to repent for... I did repent for me and her hooking up because I felt like I had chosen her over my calling, I felt like I had chosen her over my congregation, and that I felt like I needed to repent for, and I think that was legit.
But I spent a week just crying because she was gone too and she was my first true love. You know, and it broke my heart. God was also calling me to the carpet for some of the things I had done and like…not things I had done, the attitudes I had, and it was just a really really really just a heartbreaking moment.
Like it was really a tough time, and in that time, the denomination I was with had one of their therapists call me and basically asked me a bunch of questions, and I didn't know… I thought he was calling me because I was having a hard time because I told them I was having a really tough time.
I had been having a hard time the entire time I was there. Because I was by myself doing all this stuff and it was really really overwhelming, so I thought he was calling to like check up on me, but I did not find out until the end of the conversation that he was actually calling so he could make a report. See, I don't know what to call them….Like governing counsel?
C: Body?
S: Ya, like the governing body, that basically decides who gets to be a pastor and who can't. Like who gets kicked out and who gets to stay.
C: Which is so shitty and shady.
S: Oh, ya, it was totally brutal. I didn't know that was why he was calling. That was the problem. If he had told me that in the beginning, it would not have been a problem the fact that he told me at the end, it was like 'oh, you just broke the law,' but I was like 'whatever.'
Because at this time, I felt like I had sinned, I felt like I had failed. So I did not defend myself at all because I had failed. I was like, "I need to step out," and I was like, "I am going to go and live with my mom."
I felt like God told me that I was supposed to move here in May. To Washington in May, and my like leadership guy, I am trying not to use the words that we use so that you won't know what denomination it is because I don't want to just throw them under the bus because they do, do some good stuff it's just that they are not affirming.
So I am trying really hard not to use the words. So I don't know the other words to use, but anyways he was like…he was in charge of all of the pastors of Hawaii for this denomination.
C: So he was like a director-level position in the organization?
S: Yes, if there was anything happening in Hawaii, he was the go-to guy, he was the top. So anyway, he was like, "no, no, you are ordained by God," like you're called, he really affirmed my calling to serve God, and I think honestly, he was not ok with what happened.
I don't think he was ever ok with them kicking me out, but he was like, "don't leave, we have…God's called you, God has ordained you, you are really talented." He was like, "I was going to bring you to the divisional level to help with youth programs. I really believe in your calling." And I was like, "ok, that's fine, but I am really struggling, and I need help."
So I would get visited by other women pastors from our denomination every week, and I thought again it was for my pastoral needs, and I am pretty sure like I don't know for a fact, but I am pretty sure they were looking for reasons to remove me from my ordination.
C: So they wouldn't have to deal with the publicity of letting you go because you had made out with this woman.
S: Ya.
C: Because that is not a good look no matter what denomination it is.
S: Ya.
C: Especially one that is known for the types of services they are known for.
S: Right
C: Ya
S: Because the thing is they are not super honest about it, they are very much like "we are ok with homosexuality." But they are only talking about in service. Like they will serve a homosexual, they will never turn away a homosexual, but you can not be in any sort of leadership in the church aspect of it and be gay, just you can't. You can be celibate gay, but you can't be real gay. I don't know how to say it.
C: Affirming, gay...
S: (sarcastic voice) In the lifestyle of homosexuality.
C: In a relationship, gay...
S: Ya.
C: Practicing gay...
S: Ya.
C: What to be married gay…Want to have a family gay.
S: Yes. So I got kicked out. I said, "ok; you are flying me to Washington because I have given everything up for you, and you're kicking me out. So that's what's up." They were like, "that's fine."
C: And lets actually dive into this because we've talked about this several times, but you had literally given up everything in your life. You had given up everything prior to entering into this denomination. You gave up your car, every single asset, like literally everything.
S: Literally started over from scratch… So they actually made me leave my church that I was the head pastor of in like two weeks. Then I had to go to Oahu for a month while they debated if they were gonna let me stay as a pastor.
Which again, I didn't know. There was no communication. They were just like, "you have to leave" "you have a week or two" I can't remember. It was a week or two; I was like, "ok, what about my dogs?" They were like, "You're gonna have to get rid of them." I was like, "oh, oh, oh, ok…"
So, tell all my kids, my youth program, my church, like the friends that I had made and like pack up all my stuff, and that's it. So, it was a very, very brutal experience.
Then I was sitting in Oahu for a month without any communication, and I was getting really frustrated. I was getting frustrated that they weren't talking to me. They weren't telling me anything that was going on. And I was just there, and I couldn't preach, and I couldn't teach. Like all I was doing, I was helping out at another church.
But I couldn't do anything besides carrying heavy stuff. Ya know? Which was fine cuz they did a lot of outreaches, and kids programs, and stuff, which I helped set-up and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah like cook and crap.
C: And what's your relationship with God at this point in time?
S: I don't know. It was just a really confusing time. So, I honestly don't know what my relationship with God was like at that moment, but I was definitely struggling with stuff. I was picking apart stuff. So I think my intense deconstruction started there. Where I was like, this doesn't seem right to me anymore.
C: What didn't seem, right?
S: It's like that power dynamic, right? I wasn't in charge at that moment in time, like I was literally just sitting around waiting for someone, in another state, on the mainland to decide my fate. Some mysterious council that I didn't even know who was in it, that was reviewing my case, and they gave me like 24 hours, I think, when they were supposed to meet.
And they were like, "oh if you want to send a rebuttal or a defense of yourself, you have to submit it by tomorrow morning by like 6 AM. And I was like "Cool." So I spent all night doing that, and I didn't really rebut anything. I was like, "I did this. I'm sorry. Like, I don't really know what else you want me to say."
Then I didn't hear anything back for like several weeks, and at one point in time, one of their counselors called me, who was actually a friend, who I thought was a friend. And she's like "how are you doing?" and I'm like "I'm really fucking mad, I'm frustrated because they are not telling me anything, and I don't know what's going on, and I'm really upset."
And I remember her saying, "well, they have other things going on. Like, you're not the only thing going on in this territory." And I was like "cool, like…."
C: Way to once again prove you don't have my back when I've had yours for what like, the last eight years?
S: Well, I was serving way longer than that. 11? 12? I dunno. So yeah, she was just like, "Yeah, they have like other things that are important. You're not the only thing that's important, so you need to just be patient."
Sarah starts to tear up.
And I just remember feeling like so alone, because it felt like no one cared that like literally my whole world was falling apart. And I honestly didn't know who to trust. The thing with me is that I wasn't offended that they were kicking me out for being gay. I was offended that they just wouldn't be honest.
Like, to me, Jesus say's "walk in the light because I am the light." And to me, it's like, if you're gonna kick me out for being gay, let's just be real about it. Like, just let me go. Like, why are we playing these games, as if you're like gonna let me stay because they were, they were basically like trying to prevent me from suing them.
C: Right.
S: Which I'm like, I've been in this organization now for 12... 12, or 13 something years. Like, they should've known my character better than that.
C: But I think it was also more than that. I think they were trying to because, again, they are a global denomination. A global organization that isn't just a church, they were trying to protect themselves from bad PR when people find out they actually aren't any kind of affirming of LGBT people, that wouldn't affect their church side of it, but it would affect their organization side of things.
And I mean we'll get into my story more later, but churches are a lot more affected and influenced by those kinds of things then they wanna let on, and it's all about power, and spin, and controlling the narrative, and so that's what they were doing, they were essentially interrogating you for those months to try and figure out a way they could cover their own ass if it was leaked to the press.
Like, I truly believe that's what they were doing.
S: That's true, but to me, it was like you are not who I thought you were.
C: Right.
S: Like, I thought that your message of holiness and righteousness, and being right with God, and walking in the light, all this stuff. I thought you meant it, but you don't. Because you're afraid, you're afraid of making yourselves look bad. Like who cares? If you are doing what God has said to do if you are kicking me out because you truly believe that is a sin, and that as a pastor I cannot be engaged in sin, which,
Sarah laughs
All y'all sin. But anyway, but, I know there is this idea that homosexuality is a 'lifestyle,' so it's a different type of sin then when I'm judging my congregation behind their backs everyday, cuz yeah they do that shit.
Let me tell you, I have seen behind the curtain, and pastors are not all great, wonderful, holy, Godly people. I have seen pastors, heterosexual pastors yell at each other all week, cursing, swearing, and like crazy stuff. And then on Sunday, get up and preach the word of God.
But anyway, even if they are standing on a principle of God, they believe homosexuality is a sin, they believe that you cannot engage in sin and be a pastor, fine. Just say it.
C: Yeah, own that shit.
S: I'm fine with it because I knew joining them that, that was the deal.
C: Yep.
S: So I was fine with it, you don't understand like I have been in with you people for 13 years. I have heard you talk about homosexuality. I have heard you openly talk about the fact that if "you want to go to an anti-gay rally, you can, but do not represent our denomination when you go. You can go as an individual but do not represent the organization while you are there."
Cuz he goes, "God doesn't hate.." and he uses the F word for men, which I'm not even gonna say because I hate that word so much like I would rather say the other F word to be honest with you than that one. But, the three-letter starting with an F, referring to gay men.
I mean, he's doing this to the entire college like auditorium saying that "God doesn't hate," I will put in a different word, But "God doesn't hate gay people and don't represent the denomination if you're going to be going to these rallies." Not just "don't go to these rally's, they're not acceptable," like "it's not acceptable to side with people like that, it's not acceptable to be on that side of belief because 'God is love, and we love all people'" you know what I mean?
C: Right.
S: Just "don't represent us if you go."
C: Right, cuz it was all about a PR issue, which again goes back to the service organization part of their, their ministry is that they take money as a non-profit to do global work that is not supposed to have anything to do with the church side of it and that would be a PR nightmare if it got out that they were firing pastors because they were making out with other consenting adults because nobody outside of evangelical Christianity cares about that.
S: Um, enthusiastically consenting. Let's just put that k?
C: And to this day doesn't deny that.
S: She didn't deny it, and she didn't say I coerced her or anything like that. She said, "I tried to seduce her, and we hooked up." Like, thank you for being honest, at least. I can say about my ex, she dipped out and let the shit hit the fan, but she never threw me under the bus.
C: So they kick you out for smoking.
S: That was the official line; they asked for my ordination back.
C: Which is also interesting, considering they said you could reapply if you stopped smoking.
S: Ok, so they told me I could work for them if I quit smoking and was assessed by the same therapist that called me.
C: Who was breaking the law because they didn't disclose that they were illegally disclosing that information.
S: Yep.
C: That's a whole different thing.
S: That's a whole different ballgame, but the fact of the matter is I had to go through him.
C: So…
S: So, anyways.
C: So you move back to Washington.
S: So now I'm in Washington. I've been kicked out officially. Rock bottom for me; when I first got here, I would pray every day that God would make me like a man. Like that, I would wake up and that I'd like, have a peen, and I could go get married to my ex.
And that's what I started my prayers with, and I was still going to this denomination, but here. And they had asked me to preach a couple of times to fill in for them for vacation and stuff like that. They got it approved and all this crap, and the last time I was preaching, I did not feel the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
And I remember, like when I first started becoming a pastor, I was like 'God, this is the deal, I will preach, but I have to feel your Holy Spirit. If I don't feel your Holy Spirit, I'm not gonna preach. Because I don't feel like people need to just hear my opinion on the Bible like I'm not some scholar, so if you're not there. If you're not anointing my words, I'm not gonna preach.' I remember the last time I was preaching; there was no Holy Spirit. And I wrapped it up, and I sat down, and that's the last time I preached.
Sitting there in this church, I'm like, 'why am I here?' Like 'why I am setting myself up to be kicked out again? That doesn't make any sense.' And that was the last time I went to that church, to that denomination, and I won't go back, and I have no intention of going back until they become affirming, which I hope they do cuz they're actually like I really loved a lot of the stuff they did there but I can't, I can't stomach it anymore.
I met another lesbian Christian who had been trying to be ex-gay. We had both been trying to be ex-gay, we had both been "ok, we'll just get cured of homosexuality." "Ok, we can't get cured of homosexuality." "Ok, we'll be celibate from homosexuality."
C: But she had actually gone to churches that had ex-gay group therapies, right?
S: She had, but she had just met the woman who would become her wife. And she was like, "dude; I can't stop, like, I can't stop being with her." And I'm like; I was like, "Yeah, I don't know."
So, we'd get into these conversations, and we'd be praying together. We really hadn't started reading the Bible together yet. We were praying together; we'd go on these road trips, we'd be talking this out, talking out, like, the things we believed God was calling us to do, like, talking out all this stuff.
And one night, I'm like, "dude, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta bite the bullet." I was like, "we gotta bite the bullet, and let's look at the scripture."
Cuz, you know when you're a gay Christian, you kind of like avoid those scriptures because you already know that you're a dirty, dirty, sinner. Like, you don't need to read it, you know what I mean?
C: Unless you're a masochist like me and you realize you're attracted to women, you headfirst straight into them to see what's there.
S: We're at her house one night. And I'm like, "we can't avoid this anymore. Go grab a bible; let's do this." She goes and grabs a bible; she goes, "this bible is really sentimental to me; it's a bible I've had since I was a kid." I'm like, "cool dude. I don't care what Bible it is." Bust out the Bible, it was the King James.
I looked up on my phone, like, where the scriptures are that are anti-gay cuz I don't have them memorized. And I'm like, "Leviticus, skip!" Ain't no one follow Levitical law k? Except for maybe some Orthodox Jews who try really, really hard. But nobody else, no Christian.
Don't quote to me Leviticus because no one follows Levitical law. Seventh-Day Adventists come close; they do some of the stuff, nobody follows Levitical law. So, so don't even bring that to me cuz I am not interested. That is some bullshit. So, I skip that.
I go to Romans, I'm reading Romans, and now I've gone to seminary. And now I understand that there are tenses, and there's historical context, and there's this, and there's that. I'm reading Romans, and I realize that when he's going off about the homosexuals, he's talking in the past tense.
And all of a sudden, I'm like woah, Paul is talking about something that already happened. Why the heck are people using this scripture against us? He's using an example; Paul doesn't accidentally start using past tense. It wasn't an accident like "ohhhh oh my gosh, I didn't realize I wrote this whole passage in the present tense and then all of a sudden I hit this passage, and it's talking in the past tense.
So I'm like this is obviously something that has already happened. Considering he say's "they have already experienced within themselves the consequences of their sin." So I'm like, 'why are people even applying this to me?' I wasn't whoever he was talking about; I haven't forsaken God and started worshipping idols. I haven't done all these things, like why are people applying this to me?
Then I keep reading, cuz ya know, context, and Romans 2 is like "Therefore…" and every time I've gone to church and there was like this pastor who was like "anytime you get a, therefore..."
C: You have to ask, what's the "therefore" there for?
S: And you get to Romans 2, and it's like, "Therefore do not judge." And I'm like 'Mic drop.' Like, this is a scripture that has been used against mah people? For decades? And it literally is, like, Romans 2 is like, "Therefore do not judge." I'm like, 'excuse me?' Like you are literally using this scripture to do what it tells you not to do? And then you're telling me that *I* don't respect the Bible.
C: Riiiiiiiiight?
S: Anyway, moving on. So Romans 1 to me is like wrapped in a nice little bow, and I haven't done all of the historical research. I haven't done all this stuff, but I do know there are books out there that do get into all of that, and we will put that resource on our website. So anywho, so then we get to like Galatians, is it Galatians?
C: I don't remember, I don't have them all memorized.
S: Me neither, but anyway I'm like reading through, and it's like that list of, like, if you do this, if you do this, if you do this, if you do this, and I'm like 'where's the gay?'
C: Cuz it's not in the King James.
S: They don't translate it.
C: Cuz, men in the U.S., added homosexuality to it in the 1940s.
S: It's not in there, it's put in as "effeminate" because Paul made up this word to describe whatever he was describing, and, like, literally no one knows to this day what the heck he was describing because it's been used for heterosexual sex. For gay sex, a lot of people think it was pedophilia, which, if that's it, I'm on board because I'm all about consenting adults.
Whatever that word was, no one literally knows.
C: Yeah, and let's put a finer point on that. To this day, scholars who study Greek, and Latin, and all of those original languages used in the Bible, still do not have a consensus about what Paul meant with this word. They think he is the one who created it.
So there will never be any way to know with 100% certainty what his actual intent with that word was.
S: Quoted by another apostle named John or whatever. So that word is, like, literally, no one knows what it is.
So I could be just like, "Oh, I'm translating this into Greek, I don't like this type of person I'm gonna pop that sucker in." Ya know what I mean? Like, it, it works for everybody.
So yeah, then, then, in, in the King James, not the New King James, in the King James, it is translated into "effeminate." Which a lot of scholars believe is referring to when young boys would be kept like feminine and used for like sexual pleasure for men.
C: For powerful men, who were enslaving these boys for their own sexual pleasure and as a specific way to dominate them and show them their power as officials. Which even today, we would all still agree is not right.
S: It is not right.
We like systemically move through these, and I just fell like 'ok, like, like, this is legit.' I still have not heard from God, though. And, and I'm, like, my, my mind is opening to the possibility that homosexuality is actually, is actually not a sin. We pray more.
A week before, I meet Chandra. I worked in a bakery. I was panning up chocolate chip cookies, and I'm putting them into the oven. You have to understand you're walking into the oven with these, like, giant racks. So I'm like walking into the oven.
C: It's like a stand-up room that looks like a walk-in closet type thing.
S: Yeah, it's huge, and you have to be careful because the whole thing is 400 degrees.
C: Right.
S: So it's hot. So I'm like being careful, I'm doing my thing. And I just hear God clear as a bell, "It's ok to be Gay and a Christian." And I am not kidding; I felt this weight fall off me. I felt this weight just totally just, whooooo. I just felt instantly like 'Thank You, Jesus,' and I remember I told my friend who I was working with, I was like "you know it's ok to be like a Gay Christian."
Cuz ya know she like knew I was gay and knew I was Christian, and she knew I was kind of struggling with this. And, I'm not talking about a Lesbian, I'm talking about a straight woman, with a kid ya know, and husband.
I just went up to her, and I'm like, "it's ok to be a gay Christian!" She's like, "uhhh yeah." And I'm like, "no, no, no, it's like revolutionary, do you not understand this?" and she was like, "I've been telling you that." And I'm like, "yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's like truuuuue, though." She's like, "I know."
A week later, my gay Christian friend invites me to a bible study. And I'm like, "Oh, hell no. God just told me it's ok to be a gay Christian; you think I'm gonna go to some anti-gay, like, group to tell me how bad of a person I am, so I have to put this burden back on."
I'm like, "Nuh, nuh, nuh, no. I'm not going with you to no crazy-ass ex-gay group." It's like "we have nailed this, it's in the coffin, you're married to a woman, we're not going back." She's like, "it's a pro-gay bible study. It's for gay people who want to be gay people." And I'm like, "I don't believe you, you're trying to trick me."
Sarah laughs.
"You are trying to trick me! You are trying to trick me, and I will not be deceived!" and she was like, "no, no, no, like it's legit like it's good." And I was like, "I don't believe you. But I will go with you, and I will support you, and if it is shitty, I'm driving, and I will leave your ass there. I'm gone." She's like, "ok, that's fine." So we took my car.
C: laughs.
S: So it was at a park that was like this kick-off party for this gay bible study. So I get to this bible study, and I'm like trying to steel myself like "If they try to convert you, to being anti-gay. You leave!" You know, and I'm like trying to steel myself, and all of a sudden, this woman, as a Gazelle upon a hill comes up to me and is like. "Hi, I'm Chandra." And I was like, "Hi, I'm Sarah."
C: And we're gonna leave it at that. And we will continue that story in another episode. Wow, so "tell us a little bit about yourself, and an hour later, I think we all know more than any of us bargained for going into that conversation.
S: You're welcome.
C: laughs. But yeah, we intended to get through a little more in this episode. So next week, I will share a little bit about myself. Thank You for joining us today. We've had a lot of fun; we've finally recorded our first episode on the fourth try.
S&C Together: YAAAAAAAAY!
C: And tune in next week for my story. I'm Chandra.
S: I'm Sarah.
C: And until next week.
S: Keep chatting about Jesus.