Wednesday, November 10, 2004

I'm buzzin', buddy!

We had the BEST small group today!! I invited a friend who is an Episcopal priest, from a Roman Catholic background, who happens also to be gay. He shared his incredible story of faith with our little group. Everyone loved him. At the end, one of the members even said that he could no longer believe the same things he believed before about gay people. He said now he would have to rethink his stance on things. WOW!!

This is exactly why I want to make my documentary about gay Christians. When you meet a person of faith who is homosexual, you can no longer lump him/her into some group opposed to yourself. She becomes a person to you. He becomes a child of God.

I'm totally having a God buzz.

(thanks to my friend Jess for that little phrase)

5 comments:

Josh said...

Hey Feminarian,

I just had a little question: how can someone claim to be "theologically conservative" and "inclusive, tolerant" all at the same time? Aren't those two statements diametrically opposed to one another? Just wondering. Take care and God bless.

New Life said...

Love your blog. One of best friends is a gay priest. When my wife met him she said he was the most "Christ-like" person she'd ever met. Gosh, you mean gay people love Jesus too? LOL! Good for you!!!

Peace,
Rick

Stasi said...

Hey Josh,

Hmmm...I would venture a guess to say that Jesus was conservative theologically, wouldn't you?

Yet wouldn't you also agree he was inclusive and tolerant (at least of the kind of people who were rejected by the religious establishment)?

That's where I get the idea. I'm just wanting to be Christlike.

New Life said...

an extra .02 on the post...

Jesus was a Jew. Religion, politics, economy were are interelated to his ethnos. Jewish people do not separate religion from who they are. Funny, that Jewish folks believed Jesus was very radical AND he continued to break the law (which for Jews law and covenant were inseparable). I like how he redefined the law, particualry to those who we exclusive.

Love your blog!
Rick

Martin Kelley said...

Hi Feminarian: I'd happy to label myself a "socially liberal theologically conservative inclusive tolerant feminist" too and I know quite a few who would feel quite at home with this description. On my blog I call myself a "Post-Liberal Christian, a Hicksite Conservative Friend, and an Emergent-Church curious Gen-Xer"; take away the Quaker lingo it's much the same idea. My wife fits the description too: she left Quakerism after ten years to return to Catholicism and now belongs to a theologically conservative parish and loves it despite the conservative politics. We often ask why everyone assumes this combination is somehow contradictory.

I've been trying to map out what a Conservative Liberal Quaker would look like and have met lots of others striving to do the same. But here's an interesting thing: maybe half of these fellow travelers--people firmly in the liberal tradition reclaiming traditional Quakerism--are gay and lesbian Friends. This is far from a scientific sampling but it's almost a cliche. Frankly, if it weren't for LGBT Friends, my branch of liberal Quakers would now be bounding completely off into flaky New Ageism. This community is our ballast, no doubt about it.

I wonder if you're seeing the same thing in Episcopalism? Liberal Quakerism attract a lot of refugee LGBT Christians who have left or kicked out of other denominations but I think there's something even