Sarah and Chandra answer listener questions about their stories, with some spiritual tangents thrown in because hey, that's what they do! ;)
Music by Scott Holmes. used with permission under CC.
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S: Hi, I'm Sarah.
C: And I'm Chandra.
S: And this is Queer chats about Jesus,
C: A podcast about reclaiming faith, sexuality, and Jesus within queer relationships.
S: Well, 2021 has turned out to be a quite a doozy.
C: Yeah. I hate to say that I was right, but I was kind of right,
S: You were kind of right. I was trying to be optimistic, like, let's look on the bright side, but, yep, you called that one.
C: Yeah. Unfortunately, I think we've got a few more years of awful ahead before we actually come on the other side of things, but we'll just keep having hope where there is hope and praying where we need to change.
S: Yeah. You know what it is, too is I kind of think that the fact that it isn't an instant change is actually good because, uh, the problems that have been exposed hopefully won't just get swept back under the rug.
C: Yeah. It's very interesting because you and I have been learning more about PTSD and complex PTSD over the last couple of months as ways to heal some of our own paths. And I am realizing just how much of our country suffers from those two things. And I really feel like it would be beneficial if a lot of people understood the depths of PTSD and how it affects your body and the way that we keep trauma inside until we fully heal it.
Um, unfortunately, I think that the people who need that the most are so locked into their own pride and their own self-sufficiency that it's going to be a long road to get people to lay down those things so that they can get the help that they need so that we can actually heal.
S: Yeah, for sure. I mean, I, I kind of understand that too, cause I was kind of raised in a family that didn't really believe that therapy was necessary, that you just pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, and you did what you needed to do.
C: Yeah.
S: But, it really came to a breaking point when I could no longer handle any more stress without basically an emotional breakdown.
C: Right.
S: And that finally got me back into therapy because I had -- had therapy before, but the therapists were not equipped to deal with the things that I needed to deal with, and so I kind of was hesitant to go back to therapy, but once I did, it was like, okay, this is where I need to be.
And I think it's really important to find a therapist, not only that you jive with, that you click with, but also someone that has the experience and the knowledge of what you specifically need to deal with.
C: Yup.
S: So I think it was good too, we did our own like bit of research to see like, okay, what really kind of fits for what we're going through and then find someone that can specifically deal with that are specifically trained in that.
C: Yep. And I'm still looking for a therapist for that very reason. Um, because there are not a lot of people who specialize in the type of therapist that I'm looking for, but, um, yeah, it's just very interesting to me.
It was interesting that I started that journey of looking for a new therapist, right as everything went down, and of course, we're kind of like talking around it, but what we're specifically referring to is the siege at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
Cause we're recording this podcast the weekend after those events, and we don't yet know how those things are going to play out. And by the time this podcast gets released, we will have a new president; they fear a lot more violence. So this could be a little bit more relevant or a little less relevant depending on what happens.
But it's just interesting to me, scrolling through Instagram or reading the stories and like looking at the faces of those people. Like you can just see the pain in their faces. I have struggled to have compassion for people that have those views, to be completely honest, because I was raised in that same environment. I was raised to believe those things, and yet it never took for me.
So it's very hard for me to have compassion because I do have a very defined sense of right and wrong. And to me, it's just obvious that behaving in that manner for selfish purposes, and they are selfish purposes. Let's, let's be very clear about that. Like it doesn't matter what they're saying when they're engaging in those kinds of activities, it is only for their benefit, and they are not thinking about anybody else but themselves or their own families. And that is not Jesus that is not Christianity.
And a lot of those things get wrapped up into the same thing of this mindset of people thinking that they can dictate what other people should believe and what they should do. Meanwhile, acting in extremely selfish ways.
And I have a really hard time having grace for that, but doing all this research about PTSD and seeing how it's played out in my life. I also have compassion for the pain that they're in and also an immense sense of frustration because it's like, how do you help those people see that not everything that they're saying is wrong, but the way that they're going about it is 100% wrong and that they are not living up to the standards that they themselves profess.
S: Yeah. And it's not; we're not talking about the fact that they're racist. We're actually talking about the fact that they have points and that our government is corrupt, and our government doesn't look out for the best interests of the people. And there is a lot of issues going on with our government and has been for several, several generations. So the one thing I can say is that I am glad that it wasn't just like, "Oh, we have a new president, and everything's going to be jolly, and everything's going to be fine." Like, because these systemic racism and the systemic like homophobia and transphobia and
C: And fascism.
S: Yeah. The fascism.
C: Its fascism and imperialism and colonization.
S: Yeah. It runs deep in our country. And in order to really purge ourselves of that, I think there's going to have to be a little bit more fire. I mean, we kind of talk about that in Christianity of like the sense of like purging and in order to purge, you have to be put under extreme heat. And, it is time for America to purge fascism from its DNA. I mean, I hope that's what comes with it.
C: Yeah. There was a queer Instagram account that was posting this past week that was saying, "you know, the queer community stays away from using this word to talk about anything regarding Christianity because it's used against us so much, but it's time to just say it. The conservative church needs to repent," and I a hundred percent agree with that.
Like it is time for repentance, and we aren't actually going to move forward. And we aren't going to see the kingdom of God in this country. And we aren't going to see healing until people who are fascists and racists are willing to see those things for what they are and are willing to repent and confess those sins and receive the healing of forgiveness.
Then do the hard work of changing their belief systems. And that's not an easy thing to do, especially when you've been led to believe that those beliefs are ordained by God and actually come from your understanding of who Jesus Christ is.
S: Yup. But I mean, people talk so much about like "The Bible says, the Bible says this, and I believe it." No, you don't, because it's not in there. Number one.
And we're going to talk a lot about that in our next coming episodes about the Bible and really what's in there and what is not.
There's so many people out there that say, "I believe it because the Bible says so." But then not actually knowing what the Bible actually says and what the Bible means. And so we're going to talk a lot about that and a lot about translations and a lot about understanding what the Bible actually says in regards to homosexuality specifically. Cause that's what our podcast is geared to, but we're going to touch on a bunch of stuff.
C: And specifically how systems of imperialism and colonialism and patriarchy have influenced what is actually in the current Bible and how that has influenced what we believe about the Bible, regardless of whether or not that that was ever God's intent for the Bible as it is today.
S: Right. But this week, today's episode is going to focus on a Q and A. So we asked our listeners for questions that they would like more clarity on of our stories, specifically my story, specifically Chandra's story, and our story together. So, we're going to go through the questions that we've received from our listeners.
C: Yep. And we're going to start with questions about your story.
S: Yes.
C: Okay. So the first question that we received is how long were you a pastor? Sarah?
S: So I was a pastor for three years. So after I was ordained, I was sent to the Island of Kauai by my denomination. And I was there for three years, and it was the most fantastic job I've ever had in my entire life. I loved it so much. I loved being a pastor. I loved doing youth work. I loved doing administration, and it was very difficult, but it was also seriously the probably top three years of my life. I wouldn't say best three years of my life. Cause definitely living with my wife and being married is the best. But.
C: Awww, thank you.
S: Well, if I could have been married to you and been doing that, that would have been like the cherry on top of the awesome sundae that was being a pastor. I did love it so much. I loved my youth group. I loved my kids. I loved my congregation. It was really just fantastic three years.
C: Yeah. And how long were you doing ministry prior to that? That's my question. That is a follow-up to that, but you were a pastor officially for three years, and you spent two years in seminary. But prior to that, you had actually been doing other ministry with this organization, right?
S: Yeah. So I had actually been doing ministry with a couple different organizations, not just my denomination. I did some short-term missionary work around the Polynesian islands to Fiji, Tahiti, and, um, different Hawaiian islands.
So I was part of my denomination. So three years as a pastor, two years seminary, the year before I went to seminary, my denomination sent me to another Island to work for a year to see more of the administration and how that ran because I never worked for my denomination. I had only volunteered.
So they sent me to another Island. So I could work there, see how the admin worked and see different programs because my denomination, they, they send you wherever they want to send you. So the programs look vastly different from one church to another. And so I went to Maui for a year.
Before that, I was a volunteer, and I was in charge of all the afterschool programs. I did that for, I think, six years, I was in charge of youth ministry for my church. I did all of the youth programs. Picked them up, cooked them lunch, cooked them dinner, took them home, like did all of it, but I was a volunteer, and I was still working full time.
C: Oh, wow. I didn't realize you were involved in youth ministry that long before seminary.
S: Yeah, I started when I was 18.
C: Wow.
S: Yeah.
C: Huh. Learning something new about you more every day.
S: Well, I got saved at 17, and I started volunteering at 18 doing youth program.
C: Nice.
S: Yeah.
C: Okay. So the next question, why don't we name the denominations and the specific churches in our stories?
S: Well, one of the reasons that we don't name the denomination, especially the one that I refer to over and over again, that I was a pastor with number one, we don't want to be sued.
C: Yeah. Liability. That's that's a primary concern.
S: Yeah. Defamation. We do not have the money to be sued by a large organization.
C: Right. And for me, the bigger, the more pressing issue is that I actually have called out churches, and I've gone public with part of my story. We didn't talk about this as part of our story or my story because it's in the past, but I have done that before. And the problem with doing that is, on one hand, I understand you want to call out those people who have hurt you, who have done wrong, and that's very valid depending on the circumstance. But what I discovered in doing that was people were more likely to dismiss it because they got focused on the fact that I was specifically naming the people and the churches involved, and the broader point that we're trying to make in sharing our stories is that these are not unique to these specific churches or these specific denominations.
What we are calling out are systemic problems. And we are one part of those problems on a global level, but it's too easy to dismiss it outright. If you are naming specific people, naming specific instances, and naming specific churches, whereas by removing ourselves from those specific churches and denominations, I think it's a lot more palatable. And I know it is for me as well to hear that and make connections of like, "Oh, this happens everywhere."
S: Yeah. The other thing is that it is our story in that we are talking a bit about our trauma. We are talking a bit about our experiences and what we've gone through and stuff. It's our story.
It's not really for like, let's point out this specific denomination, this specific church, like let's hate on them. It's not about that. It's about what we've experienced, how that has changed our view of God, the Bible scripture, living a Christian life, the teachings of Jesus, like all of these experiences, are important because they have fundamentally created our belief system.
Sometimes you learn by seeing what's good. And sometimes you learn by seeing what's not good. And like Chandra was saying, this is like a problem within the Christian American church. It's not this specific denomination that's the problem. It's the system of how the church is run and how the church has been used to control people through shame, guilt, and condemnation.
C: Right. And then, more practically, where we've come to in the last couple of years is realizing that we don't believe in that system at all anymore. So naming specific churches or denominations that are still a part of that system are not helpful for us because the broader topic of our podcast is actually moving away from systemic churches, moving away from evangelicalism, moving away from denominations, and really trying to find that narrow road that Jesus calls us to. So we don't need to give attention to those churches or those denominations because we don't believe in those churches and denominations anymore.
S: No,
C: We've left that system, and pointing to it or calling out those specific things, just draws attention to that. And that's not the point. The point is Jesus. The point is finding the narrow road. The point is loving the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself.
And there's plenty of people, especially right now, who are calling out those specific people, those specific systems, those specific churches, and that's their work to do. That's not the work that we've been called to do.
S: Right.
C: Okay. So to follow that question up, why was the church on Kauai hesitant to tackle the drug problem on the islands? Was there mafia intimidation, or is the church protected by the mafia?
S: So that's an interesting question. And the thing about Hawaii is not, to my knowledge, is there like a mafia system; there definitely is drug dealers and stuff like that. I don't think, I mean, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it just doesn't work the same way that it does in the mainland.
There's not gangs that are selling drugs; it's individuals, and there's networks for sure. I don't actually know why they were so hesitant. All they said was, "if you do this, you will be destroyed." Like "you will no longer be here." So I can only read between the lines, and there was a hint of physical danger of being targeted by drug dealers and the networks that sells drugs. And there was also a spiritual element to it of like the principalities of darkness in regards to drug use will come after you as well.
So it was kind of like a twofold thing where I think it was a spiritual warning and a physical warning where basically saying, "no," like "you're going to get a target on your back. That's why we don't touch the drug issue in Hawaii." Which makes sense, especially as a white person and stuff like that, to then be a very public out there like "we're against this thing."
Because the drug problem is, so no one likes to talk about it, and everyone likes to keep it underground because it's bad for tourism. It's bad for the reputation of Hawaii. It's kind of like that everyone knows secret, but no one talks about like in your family or like everyone knows this, but we're not allowed to talk about it.
C: Right.
S: I don't know for sure exactly what all was going to kind of come to light if I had had the chance to really take that on head-on, but I really didn't because I was removed pretty quickly after that.
C: Yeah. Which is kind of confirmation of at least that spiritual aspect. Right. You definitely stirred something up that came against you after you called that out.
S: Yeah. And I know that some of the churches after that had done like more prayer walks and some stuff like that, it was a little bit more low key than my thought process is like, "let's get together, let's band together and let's start talking about this, let's start praying about this." There was another pastor who actually joined me cause I invited all the pastors to come specifically to pray against the drug use. So there was only one pastor that showed up, and she actually was removed shortly after me. So there was definitely something to that.
C: Yeah. Interesting.
So the next thing isn't really a question. It was a conversation that we had with one of my friends after your story came out, and she was a little bit put off by the perception that I minimized part of your story. I made a clarifying statement, and I said, "but just to be clear, what you did, wasn't sin..."
S: Wasn't sex,
C: Wasn't sex. Yeah.
S: And I made my Bill Clinton joke.
C: Yeah. Right. And my friend thought that I was minimizing how you perceived your experience with your ex. So we just wanted to clarify that because you and I have a shorthand, and we've talked about these things many times, you understood what I was saying with that comment.
And what I was pointing out is that was considered sin, and that was considered wrong because it was with a woman and it was a same-sex encounter. Not because it was two single consenting adults because when men who are single in situations like that engage in what's called quote unquote inappropriate conduct with a single woman, they're not fired, they're removed from ministry or maybe put in a different place. They separate the two people, but they don't fire that person for that.
Now, I mean, to clarify, some churches will actually do that depending on how conservative they are, but...
S: Well, not really. Because if I was a dude and we had crossed that line, and we had done a heavy make-out session or whatever you want to call it because she was consenting cause she was an adult because I was an adult. Most likely, they would have just pressured us to get married.
C: Well, not even that, in that situation, most men would not even disclose it to their denomination, even if pressed, and they certainly would not consider it inappropriate. They would not have confessed the way that you felt like you had to confess; they would not have felt shame over it.
Most men, I mean, again, there's exceptions to that rule, and there are some churches that are still so conservative that they would absolutely remove a pastor for that. But that denomination is more middle of the road, if not liberal when it comes to social justice issues. And so there's no way that they would have removed a man doing what you did. And that was my point.
S: Yeah. Well, there's no way they would have removed any heterosexual from doing what I did because I definitely know of even women pastors who made out with guys or perhaps slept with them, definitely crossing those what I would consider lines of purity if you will, and they were not fired.
C: Right.
S: So...
C: And that's the point, that's the point. Is like people's...
S: The double standard.
C: Right. It's a double standard. And they even knew it was a double standard, right? Because that's not why they officially removed you from ministry. So they even knew even though you did admit to it and for you at that point in time, that was crossing a line, and that was sin for you. It was not a fireable offense.
S: No.
C: That was my point with that.
S: Yeah.
C: So...
S: She wasn't minimizing my experience. She was trying to draw a comparison with how other people have been treated in the exact same situation. But as long as it's hetero, it's totally fine.
C: Right. But the second it becomes same-sex contact. All of it is sin.
S: Yeah.
C: Okay. So this is the last question we had about your story. The fact that God decided to tell you such an important revelation about your sexuality and your faith seems to be very random. Why did God choose that time as you were walking into the oven to tell you that same-sex relationships were okay?
S: Okay. So for a recap, because it's been a while since we released my story, God told me it was okay to be a homosexual when I was at work, panning up cookies and putting them into a walk-in oven.
And I talked about that in my story and the reason I talked about that and the reason I believe that God spoke to me at that moment in time. I had been praying about God, making me straight asking for him to change my orientation or even change my; I mean, I honestly prayed before that he would just make me a dude, and then it would be fine.
So I prayed all these prayers over and over again. And as God was trying to expose the fact that this was a false narrative that the church has been perpetuating since 1946. It's easy to get your mind kind of a muddle where you're hearing from God, but you also have your own thoughts, and you also have your training, which tells you that a homosexuality is a sin. It's very easy to get that all very, very confused.
And I think the reason that he waited until I was walking into the oven, when you're walking into an oven, literally, you're focused on the task. So I think that he told me that in that moment because it was very clear. It wasn't my own thoughts, or I could be like, "oh, I've just justified my sinful life myself," because, of course, I wanted homosexuality to be fine with Christianity, right?
So God told me in that moment because I wasn't thinking about it because it was God speaking to me. It was God breaking through kind of the static of me trying to figure it out. And the Holy Spirit speaking and the enemy speaking and training speaking, and all of these different voices that we all have in our heads. It was very clear, and it was very resounding, and it was that quiet; still, voice of God saying, "I love you. I see you. I made you this way. It's good." You know?
C: Yeah.
S: So that's why I think he talked to me while I was walking into the oven.
C: And also you were going to meet me a week later.
S: Yeah.
C: Well, I mean, truthfully though, because of what had happened with my ex, I wasn't sure if I would ever end up in a same-sex relationship again, to be honest, by the time that we met, because of what had happened with my ex and some other experiences that I had out in the lesbian community, I really wasn't sure that I would ever date a woman, but I knew that I wanted to be an active part of the LGBT community. So regardless, that was still going to be a part of my life.
The one thing that I was determined is that I was not going to date another woman who was not out and had not rectified that for herself. So truthfully, if we had met and that hadn't happened, that would have been a stopper for us having a relationship.
S: Right.
C: So...
S: Yeah,
C: I think it's both and...
S: Both and for sure, most definitely.
C: That's all the questions I have for you.
S: MMkay. Well, then I will ask the questions that I have for you. So question for Chandra, what is the biggest obstacle for the church to become affirming?
C: Oh man, this could honestly be a podcast in and of itself...
S: Oh, it probably will be.
C: It probably will be.
S: Yeah.
C: So, to sum it up in one word, which is not going to encapsulate nearly the depth that this topic deserves money.
I have seen so many churches where the staffs of those churches are way more progressive than the people who attend those churches. And they want to, this isn't just referring to homosexuality, but this is a big one. And this is one that churches are struggling with. Now. They want to move forward. They want to be more progressive. They know that Jesus has called them to be more progressive to do more, and yet what keeps them from standing in that truth and pursuing it is that they are afraid that people are going to leave the church and take their money with them. And that's how they make their livelihoods.
One of the ways that the church has become corrupt is actually by turning ministry into careers. So you've got a lot of people who are, for lack of a better word, stuck where they're at because ministry is how they make their living.
And when you have to choose between following God and making your living, I mean, that's a very hard choice to make, right? It is very hard to look your wife and your kids in the face and be like, "sorry, we got to move or sorry, we got to give up our house or our livelihood because Jesus told me to allow homosexuals into our church and our congregation isn't ready for that. So that $2 million a year budget that we have is going to go out the window and get cut in half." We saw this happen locally.
The year that we got married, there was a church that came out and became fully affirming. That one, I will name East Lake community Church became 100% fully affirming. And literally, overnight, they lost two-thirds of their congregation. They went from a church that had 13 campuses all over the Eastside in Seattle, in Washington, to one campus they had to slash their staff, I think like 90, 95%. And they've struggled financially ever since. Well, they've struggled compared to where they were. If you were to talk to them, they would be happy with where they're at because they feel like they are doing what they're supposed to do. And we fully support that.
But in a nutshell, that's why churches don't do what God has called them to do. There's a lot of pastors who are deliberately shutting off the Holy Spirit who are not listening to the Holy Spirit because to listen to the Holy Spirit would mean the loss of their jobs, the loss of their livelihood. And for a lot of them, they don't have other marketable skills. So they would go from living a middle-class life to working minimum wage jobs in a warehouse at Amazon. And who wants to do that? Like who wants to start over like that? It sucks.
S: It does from experience. It does suck because I was not a professional Christian for that long, but all of the skills and all the experience that I had of running a pretty good size organization do not transfer to the real world. No one cares If you managed budgets and you did accounting, and you did this, and you did that because I don't have a four-year degree.
None of my experience matters at all. So I have been working physically demanding jobs since I got kicked out. I have not been able to find anything that would be comparable because, without the education, people do not respect the experience and the work that I am capable of because I don't have a degree to back it up. So it is very true.
C: And they don't trust that it's real experience. Right? If you're in the business world, there's a very linear ladder that you go up, and we're still trying to break free as a society from that ladder. But it's, you get an education, you get an entry-level job. Then you become a manager, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, and in non-profit work. You skip a lot of those steps.
S: You do all the things all the time.
C: You do all the things all the time. Your education doesn't matter. Your ability to get things done is what matters. And from my experience, working in non-profits and looking at the way that businesses run, people who come from non-profits are way more efficient. They're way more organized. They're way more people-friendly. They're better leaders, but they usually don't have the education to back that up. And so that experience just gets wiped away.
You submit a resume to a company, and they don't trust that you have all those skills because you didn't focus on one set of skills for four years. You, you focused on 25 different skills for four years, and they just don't understand that in the non-profit world, you get it done. You find a way you make it work, and you get it done.
S: Beg, borrow and steal, but you get it done.
C: Yep. Yeah.
S: Okay. So next question for you is, why did you serve in a church if you actually weren't saved?
C: Um, well, I didn't think of it that way. You know what I mean? I was raised to serve. So for me, service was salvation. I didn't really have time to question those things until I got older, and because I was always on the outside because I was always pushing up against the norm. I kind of figured at some point in time, like either I would be revealed to be right or they would be revealed to be right. And eventually, somehow, I would fit in. So I just kind of thought that I would get to a point I would get to an age where I would stop quote, unquote rebelling, because that's what I was told is that I was rebellious and had a rebellious spirit.
And so it's interesting because in a lot of ways, I did listen to the Holy Spirit, and I did have the Holy Spirit, but I just didn't think of that as salvation. And when I finally started listening to myself and stopped listening to everyone else for a while, that's when I figured out the voice of the Holy Spirit and when he was actually talking to me.
S: So we had a listener ask us a few questions that are very deep, and we will try our best to address them well. But they are, they are a little bit complicated. So even though these conversations could be an entire new podcast, we're going to try to like sum it up. And so the first question is, how do we know that God is real?
C: Well, for me, quite frankly, I don't for a hundred percent certainty. I think that certainty is one of those things that, as humans, we really love and we really want. But when it comes to faith, things, and spiritual things, if you're trying to logic your way into it, you're never going to find a satisfying answer. I think that this is actually one of the pitfalls of evangelicalism is that its tried to promote the idea that you can be certain that God exists and you can be certain about faith things. I mean, you look at books like the case for Jesus, the case for Christ. And those are great books. I love those books, but they only work on a certain level, and you can't logic your way into Jesus.
So I don't know for a hundred percent certainty. What I do know is that there is something that guides this world that is beyond logic. That is beyond reason that lives in the deep feeling, knowing place that all of us have within us. And that goes by a lot of different words, but I call it intuition, and beyond intuition, there's an even deeper intuition that I know as the Holy Spirit and God. But that's not something that you can show somebody.
S: Yeah. And I agree. I mean, there is an aspect of, is God really real? Which is terrifying for me personally, cuz I've spent most of my life trying to serve God. And there are days where I'm like, is God even real? That does happen.
But I think for me, one of the biggest things that reassures my heart that God is real is creation. Looking at mountains, the sunset, the sunrise. To me, I'm like, how can this exist without a creator? The other thing for me is science proves to me that God exists. Which I know a lot of Christians are like opposed to science. But I'm like if you look in an atom and you see, there's like things within an atom, which is what we assumed was the smallest thing ever.
All of creation is so complex, the way that the earth is set is perfect. As scientists are looking out into the universe, it just keeps expanding and, they've not find the end of the universe. Like there is just all of these things that in my mind, actually more reinstate that there is a God, because there's order, like, for me, it's like thinking of like the big bang, where it's this idea of this like cosmic sneeze, that to me doesn't make sense because everything is so precise. Everything is held and balanced on such a precise way. That to me that reinstates the fact that I do believe there is a God that created all things. I do believe that God created things through evolution, through a process of evolution. I just think that the world is set so precisely it's like a master clock.
So that's kind of how I see the proof that God exists, which is kind of contrary to a lot of other Christians. But I believe that God exists because science is so precise.
C: Yep. It's a good question. But it's tough one to answer because one of the most magnificent things about God, in my opinion, is that he doesn't speak to all of us in one way. And so even thinking back to my answer earlier of saying you can't logic your way into God, well, for some people, that is how they get to God. But logic and reason doesn't resonate with me. And that's probably because I was beat over the head with it as a kid of like, "this is how you have faith." And there's so many things in this world that can't be explained. And to me, that's where the beauty and the mystery of God lives the most.
And yeah, it's a really tough question. To the listener who specifically asked these questions, what I want to say to you is that you're on the right track by asking these questions. And to me, that's one of the ways that I know that God exists is that people continue to ask the hard questions about God and about how we know and about certainty. When you're asking those questions, it's an indication to me that you actually do have the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit is, knocking on your heart. Because the people who don't care about the answers to these questions are usually the ones who end up in church, just mindlessly, going to church week after week, and don't know why they're doing it. And they're doing all the right things, and they're tithing, and they have lots of friends, and they're maybe even serving, but at the end of the day, they're the ones that Jesus are talking about when he says that he will say "away from me, I never knew you." And they'll say, "but we did all these things in your name," and he'll say, "yeah, but you never actually had a relationship with me." We get to that relationship by asking questions. And by wondering, that wonder is part of it. And so you're on the right track and keep asking the really tough questions and keep trusting that you will know when the answer is right for you.
S: Yeah. I agree with Chandra it's when we start asking these questions, I feel like if we genuinely ask them with a heart that is open, I believe that God does reveal themselves to us. I believe that God reveals God to us when we really want to know if God is real.
C: So the second question that they asked is if God is real, why do bad things happen? This is a question that I have struggled with my entire faith journey. And the trite answers that I received of "everything happens for a reason" and "God allows bad things to happen for His own glory and for His own good. And if it still feels bad, then you just haven't gotten the answer yet." Like everything in this world can eventually come back to some godly, Holy explanation that dismisses everything horrible about our world. And that's simply not true.
I was talking to an acquaintance about five years ago about this, and I was expressing my anger over that answer. And she recommended a book to me and for the love of God. I wish I had written down the book name and the author because she let me just borrow her copy. It was life-changing in my view of this specific part of faith.
And basically, the entire premise and thesis of the book was that God loves us so much that he allows free will. Because he allows us free, will he has surrendered his power over the earth for the time being, and in doing so, bad things happen because he refuses to step in because he values our free will over dominating us and forcing us to do his will all the time. And that means that not only do bad things happen in this world, but God grieves those things and mourns those things along with us. God doesn't get his way all the time. And for me, that is the only answer that has ever made sense. And that's still a hard answer to swallow at times because you look at the deep, deep, deep injustices of our world. And that answer isn't satisfying either. But I do feel like that's the right answer.
S: Yeah. I agree with Chandra. I think that if you are a compassionate, empathetic person, you have to ask this question. This question has to be asked by anyone of faith that believes that there is a God. I don't see how you can live in this world and not ask this question, especially with the injustices that we've seen, exposed more or however you want to put it in the last four years.
Me and God had it out about this question as well. And I kept asking him, like, "why did these bad things happen?" Like, "what's up? You have the power to fix them." And the illustration that God gave me was He said, "if I built you a house and it was everything that you've ever wanted, and it had a pool, and it had a great grounds. It had all of these things because I love you. And I created this house for you. But I told you, you can never leave. Is that really love?" And I was like, "no, that's not. That's creepy." And God said, "love has to have choice. Without choice, there is no love." And God is love.
So if we didn't have a choice to do whatever we want, then God would not love us. I mean, the most frightening thing I think in humanity is someone taking away our freedom. Is someone forcing their will upon us. I love Chandra more than anything else in the world. That's why I married her. But if I made her love me, then I wouldn't be loving her at all. Right? God is all-powerful, and he could come in, and he could dominate the earth. And he could say, "okay, these things are not going to happen anymore. Justice will happen. I will force my hand." But the problem with that is, is that love? At that point in time, it's not love no matter if the outcome is good or not; the ends don't ever justify the means. Even though the ends would be great, justice would be served. But the means of that would be God forcing his creation to be dominated. And that is not love.
C: Yeah.
S: So the third question is, how do we know that God is directing us in our relationship? It kind of goes to the first question, which is we don't. I mean, we do because we believe in God; we believe in faith. We believe that the Holy Spirit, and like Chandra said, the Holy Spirit to us also feels a lot like intuition. The Holy Spirit's voice gets stronger as we are obedient to what the Holy Spirit says.
So for people who maybe don't believe in the Holy Spirit, the best I can describe it is if you're going to go out and for whatever reason, you're like, "oh, I should take an umbrella with me." And you're like, "Oh no, that's silly. It's supposed to be a sunny day. I don't ever take an umbrella with me. That's just a weird thing." And then you go out, and you get dumped on. And you're like, "I wish I had an umbrella. I wish I had listened to that voice." And it doesn't have to be an umbrella. It can be a lot of things.
For me, when I was 15, my intuition and I didn't know God at the time. And I didn't know what the Holy Spirit speaking to me felt like, but I was gonna go to my friend's house, and I had a really bad feeling about it that I shouldn't go. I really wanted to go because my friend had another friend over who I had like a slight crush on. So I was like, "I'm going." Anyways, so I did not listen to that voice. I was not obedient to that voice. And on my way to my friend's house, I was riding my bicycle in the bike lane, and a woman hit me with her car. I fractured my hip. I busted up my face. It was a bad accident. I had to be hauled away in an ambulance and months and months of recovery. It was just really bad. I don't believe that God sent the car because I wasn't obedient. I believe that was going to happen, and God was trying to protect me.
C: Right.
S: And that's how I see it. I think when people say, "well, God's will is done." No, it's not because that would make God evil.
C: Right.
S: You know, God does not call us to put other races into slavery. God does not call us to annihilate the native Americans. This was not God's calling. That was people's choice and used God as justification. And that to me is, is a wrong thing
C: Yeah. For me, too, it goes back to that deeper level of intuition. So for me, base layer of intuition is understanding what my will is and being okay, sometimes prioritizing that, right? And this is a deeper conversation, but basically, if you're a healthy person who has healthy boundaries with other people, you know, what you like and what you need to be happy, healthy, and you know how to treat other people. And to me, a lot of that involves intuition.
The deeper level of intuition that comes with knowing Jesus is that sometimes God will ask us to do things that don't feel wrong to us but are not necessarily our preferences or our specific likes or our specific tastes.
However, what I have found in my life is that when it's God's intuition, even if I am being asked to do something that I otherwise would not want to do, I have peace about it. And when I listen to that, and I do that, again not violating boundaries, but I'm doing something for someone else or doing something that God's asked me to do that isn't a hundred percent in my will. It always works out for good.
And that showed up specifically in our relationship and something we were talking about earlier in this episode. Where you were talking about how God told you a week before you ended up coming to that Bible study that it was okay to be gay and Christian. And I was telling you that that partially was God because if we had met that night and you hadn't been comfortable with that, that would have been a non-starter for me in pursuing anything with you because I was only going to date out women who were LGBTQ. And the timing of that was God because you didn't choose that date to have this realization at work. It just hit you at work.
S: If I hadn't had the realization about being a gay Christian, I would have never gone to a gay Christian Bible study. Cuz I would have assumed those people were being led astray.
C: Right.
S: So I would have never been there.
C: Right. So that's one very clear example. Another example is that you were actually in a phase of your life where you kind of wanted to date around, and you weren't ready to settle down when we met, but you've said before that, when you met me, you knew that I was something special and you knew that you would potentially mess it up if you had started dating around. That again is God, because you were right. And having that sense and having that feeling is, again, something else that would have been a stopper for me because I didn't want to date a player. So if I'd seen that type of behavior, even if that had only been, you know, six months to a year for you out of your entire life, for me, at that point in time, that would have been a non-starter for, for being in a relationship.
And there's several other situations like that. I mean, we almost broke up right after we got together because of a misunderstanding, like the way that worked out was completely because of God. Again it just goes back to that intuition thing, though, of like, if in any of those situations, either one of us have been operating a hundred percent out of our own will, our own desires, our own boundaries, our own egos, every single one of those situations would have gone very differently, but it was God giving us that deeper sense of "don't say that yet. Don't do that yet. Just see what happens, have a different conversation. Don't get angry about that approach it this way." And all of that worked out.
S: Yeah, exactly. Like Chandra was saying, I did want to date around because I had never been allowed to really date. So I did want to like, see what was out there and see what I liked, what I didn't like. And I met her, and I was kind of bummed because I'm like, 'Oh crap, well, she's worth keeping, she's worth pursuing. She's worth waiting for.' But it wasn't really what I wanted. So there is a sense of that, where it was like there's things in our relationship that neither of us really wanted, but it was what was right. And we did listen to the Holy Spirit to put each other first.
C: I mean, that happened for both of us. And just to clarify, when you say right, we knew it was right for our relationship, but for what God was telling us to do. It wasn't right based on the Bible or some arbitrary Christian rule. And that goes back to that deeper layer of intuition, of knowing that that was right for us. And that that's what God was calling for us. But we understand that God calls different people to do different things.
S: Absolutely. We are not of the idea that because this is how we did it. This is how we dated. This is how we got together. This is how our relationship looks that anyone else should do that because the fact of the matter is the good thing about God. The awesome thing about God is every single person he created as an individual. Every single person is unique. Every single person is specific. And part of how we know that God exists and God works is that he speaks to people individually. On their terms to their hearts. There is no right way to be a Christian. There is no right way to be a queer Christian.
C: Right.
S: Just because our relationship looks a certain way and we do things a certain way. We would never presume that that is the way there is no the way, except for Jesus. And Jesus works on an individual level. He never healed anyone the exact same way. He never spoke to anyone the exact same way. Even when there was different blind people, he didn't do the same thing for each blind person. You know, God and Jesus specifically minister to each person as an individual. There is no right way to follow God.
C: Amen. Sister, preach it.
S: I just did. I feel like you weren't like listening to what I was saying. I was like what I was doing was totally preaching.
C: You're actually correct. I was trying to wake up the dog, so she didn't start snoring again. Cuz for our listeners, our dog has been laying on the couch, and she snores like a human. So we've had to stop recording a few times because she started snoring, and you could hear it.
S: Yeah. Today's been a rough day trying to record because our refrigerator was running, and we've started recording in our living room, and it ran for like 20 minutes, and then the ice maker was like, I'm gonna run. So then that started making this weird noise, and then our dog was like smacking her lips and snoring. So it has been a brutal time.
C: And she's really quite adorable when we're not trying to record a podcast.
S: Yeah. She is very adorable. Normally she's like all up in our business, and like, moving around and doing all this stuff. But today, she's like, "I'm going to be totally calm and snore and smack my lips."
C: Yep.
S: Right next to you.
So anyways, that's it for this episode, our next episode, we'll be diving into the Bible.
C: Yup. Deconstructing and reconstructing the Bible based on what Jesus says and not all the other bullshit that comes along with it. Yes. We're very excited and very terrified for this. Cause we've kind of been more free-flowing and winging it with these last few episodes, and now we actually have to...
S: Like have facts and stuff.
C: Yup. Yup. So it's going to be good. I'm excited for this.
S: So until next time, you can find us at www.queerchatsaboutjesus.com.
C: Or you can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/queerchatsaboutjesus.
S: Or you can find us at Instagram at slash queer chats about Jesus.
C: On our website, you can find all back episodes. You can sign up for our newsletter, which I send out weekly-ish. I've kind of dropped the ball on the newsletter the past couple of weeks.
Anyway. It's mostly coming out every week, and I keep you guys up to date about where we're at with the podcast and some various thoughts about each month's episode. You can also find show notes and any links to any supplemental material for any of our back episodes on our website.
S: Yeah. So that's it for us today. And in the meantime, keep chatting about Jesus.
C: Bye!
S: Byeeeeee