S3E05: 1 Samuel 18:1-4

Ellie Brigida: Welcome to Sweetbitter, where we explore the queer history of the Bible and Christianity. We're your hosts, Ellie Brigida...

Leesa Charlotte: ...and Leesa Charlotte.

EB: This episode, we're talking about personal stories of queer Christians who have reclaimed their faith.

LC: But before we get into that, let's bring in our resident Christian, Alyse Knorr. Welcome, Alyse.

Alyse Knorr: Hey, friends.

EB: Hi. Oh, I'm so excited about this episode.

AK: Me too.

LC: I want to hear – because I feel like, Alyse, I've heard a lot about your experience of like – but Ellie, I feel like we talked about your experience of religion. But I want to hear a little bit more about your story, if you don't mind, not to put you on the spot.

EB: No, it's a good question. I mean, I don't really know if I have reclaimed my faith, to be honest. So I don't know. I feel like in traditional Catholic fashion, I'm a Catholic out of guilt and obligation.

AK: So you're doing it exactly as you should be.

EB: Yeah, so I'm doing it just like a good Catholic would do. So, yeah, I don't know. I think, like in terms of reclaiming my faith, it's an interesting question for me, because I don't really feel like I've ever really gotten to that point where I've really actively reclaimed my faith.

LC: Maybe by the end of this season?

EB: Maybe this is it. This is my moment. Listeners, you're listening to it in real time. We'll see.

AK: I mean, it's an interesting point, because, you know, we obviously talked to a lot of religious people for this season, like a lot of religious leaders and practicing Christians, but they all have the same thing to say, which is that if reclaiming it isn't for you, then no pressure, no hard feelings. Like it might be the best thing to do to walk away or to reject it or to distance yourself, and that's totally cool.

EB: Well, I'm glad I'm cool.

AK: You're very cool.

LC: Shout out to a friend of the pod, Jacob, who definitely chose the walk away option. He'll probably join us for some Bible studies, which will add some interesting color to the conversation. He was going to be a priest and everything. Definitely not reclaiming his faith. So join us for our Bible study. He'll probably be at a few.

AK: We accept all different paths and experiences around religion. And, yeah, it's great. It's all great.

EB: Well, what do we have today for our verse?

AK: Well, today's verse is a really beautiful one. I think you're gonna like it a lot. It's from Samuel 1 18:1-4, and this is – basically it's called Jonathan's covenant with David. But you tell me what it sounds like to you. Here's the New Revised Standard Version translation: "When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father’s house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that he was wearing, and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt."

EB: Okay, so they're in love, is what you're saying?

AK: They got married. I mean –

EB: Yeah, they exchanged vows and then got naked.

AK: Yep, they exchanged clothes.

EB: That's the honeymoon, right there. That's exactly what it sounds like. So what are some other interpretations of this?

AK: Just that they were besties.

LC: Roommates, even.

EB: They loved each other so much that they pledged to each other. But like, do they have wives in the Bible stories at all or?

AK: Oh yeah, David is one of the biggest characters, right? Famous for many things, including taking down Goliath.

LC: Oh, it's the same David?

AK: Same David, King David.

LC: David of David and Goliath fame.

AK: Yes, also from the song "Hallelujah." "I saw her bathing on the roof." That's David's story too.

LC: That I saw "him" bathing on the roof? Is that what we're – was it really "her"? Or is this a gerund translation issue again?

AK: No, no. There's a separate story in the Bible where David is looking out his window and he sees this lady bathing on her roof, and he sends for her. And everybody's like, "Dude, she's married." So guess what David does? Sends her husband to the front line of battle so that he gets killed. Yeah, so not the best.

LC: Queer icon David? So is he some bisexual icon, bi-con? Bi-con David?

AK: I don't know if we want to – I mean, like he's a complicated dude, right?

LC: Do we want to claim him?

AK: He's written some really beautiful psalms. He's a king and, you know, an ancestor of Jesus that we're very excited about. But he also did some dick things. Complicated guy.

LC: Problematic fame.

AK: Yeah, he's the – and then Jonathan. So Jonathan was the son of Saul. You heard mention of Saul, and Saul is the king of Israel. And then –

LC: Wait, I'm super sorry. I don't mean to interrupt your flow, but I'm just, like, really stuck on this. You said he's a descendant of Jesus?

AK: No, no, an ancestor of Jesus. So Jesus is a descendant of David.

LC: Oh, because I was confused, because I was like, did Jesus fuck? Because, like, you know, the only time I've ever heard that speculated was in, you know, The Da Vinci Code.

AK: Jesus is descended from David.

LC: Okay, cool, from David. Okay, but he's a son of God?

AK: So David is just like a really important king. He also wrote the Psalms. But what's happening in this part of the story is that Saul is king of Israel, and David is the son of Jesse from Bethlehem, and so he's kind of like Jonathan's rival for the crown, and David eventually becomes king after Jonathan dies. So, like the covenant they form makes it so that after Jonathan dies, David takes over the line of Saul and becomes the king of Israel. Because they were married.

LC: But they were like, enemies to lovers?

AK: Maybe, like, I don't know if they were ever enemies, but like, yeah, definitely potential rivals to lovers.

EB: So basically, like, because they were married, his last will and testament gives everything to his lover, David.

AK: Yes.

EB: Has anyone been watching House of Dragon?

AK: No spoilers, though.

EB: Well, I'm just saying, I feel like it's just like when they betrothed, like, all the different houses to each other, right? Like, this is a marriage of royalty to royalty.

AK: For sure.

EB: To, like, make sure that the secession stays how it should.

AK: All kinds of interesting things happen in the David-Saul-Jonathan story, and it's just super, super complicated. But there's also a Jewish Mishnah, which is like a collection of Jewish oral traditions known as the Oral Torah. And it has another cool shout out to David and Jonathan that goes like this: "Whenever love depends on some selfish end, when the end passes away, the love passes away; but if it does not depend on some selfish end, it will never pass away. Which love depended on a selfish end? This was the love of Amnon and Tamar." It's a whole other story. And, "which did not depend on a selfish end? This was the love of David and Jonathan." So like they're kind of held up in many different traditions, many different religious traditions, as an example of beautiful, perfect, platonic love, whether it's homosocial or bromance or romance. But I think it sounds pretty sexy in the translation I just read you.

LC: You missed me and my air quotes. We're not a video medium.

EB: I love it.

LC: "Platonic" relationship.

AK: Oh, platonic meaning, like, ideal. So I'm using capital P "Platonic" as in, like, the ideal. Yeah, sorry.

EB: Romance, yeah. Quote, unquote "romance," yeah.

AK: If you're interested, there's all kinds of really gorgeous different tapestries and paintings from the medieval period that show them, like, embracing and making out. There's sculptures, right, of the two of them. Just like, yeah, start with Wikipedia, "David and Jonathan," and go from there. There's all kinds of really beautiful interpretations.

LC: Oh yeah, these look really gay.

AK: Yeah, they're a cool couple.

EB: So why did you choose this particular passage for this episode?

AK: Well, throughout this season, we're gonna be hearing a lot of different queer stories from the Bible and stories like these are the ones that, you know, queer Christians point to say, like, we're in this text, like we're literally in here. There's stories about our relationships. There's stories – in a few weeks, we'll listen to one about Naomi and Ruth, which is a lesbian relationship. So, yeah, it's like, once you start –

EB: They cleaved, right?

AK: Oh, the cleaving. Oh!

EB: I know about the cleaving.

AK: So, yeah. I mean, once you start reading the Bible, you're like, we're all over here. There's non-binary people in the Bible, there's trans people in the Bible. The Bible abounds with queer people, just as human diversity in all its times and moments in human history abounds with sexual and gender diversity.

EB: Love it! Oh, what a great way to start this episode. Thank you so much, Alyse.

AK: Yeah, of course.

EB: We will be back after a quick break.

LC: And we're back. As we said at the top of the episode, this episode we are discussing personal stories of queer Christians who have reclaimed their faith.

EB: I'm so excited, because all of our guests have incredible stories, but it was really actually pretty difficult to pick which clips to include.

LC: Many of our guests had stories about religious trauma and leaving the church, and we're going to get to this. But we also want to acknowledge that not everybody has this story. Some people have always found acceptance and solace in Christianity. So let's hear two of these stories now.

EB: We're going to start off today's episode with LGBT rights campaigner and media lecturer Ruby Almeida.

Ruby Almeida: So, I'm from India. My parents are from India as well. They've been Catholic, I think way back, probably from my father's side, from the time when Christ, you know, the apostles, came to India. But my mother's side, probably a little bit more recently, probably about 400 years ago. They were Naiks, which were Hindus. So they were – Lewis-Naik was her surname. So at some point they converted to Christianity. So, you know, born into the faith, lived it. And you know, in India, you live your faith. You don't talk about it, you do it, and you do it in the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the things you do, the way you celebrate life. It's very, very integral to everything about being a Christian, being a Catholic, and by the way, for all faith groups in India. It's very important, that celebration of who you are and what you are in all aspects of your life.

EB: Ruby's parents gave her room to explore her faith, and she grew up very close with them, and had their support when she came out. Luckily, she also had the support of her priest.

RA: I have to tell you a funny story. When I was several years into my relationship, things were going a little bit wrong. Things were up and down. There was a lot of angry words, frustration, and I went for confession, the sacrament of reconciliation. I went to my parish, the family parish. I knew the priest very well, and I was talking about how difficult things were, and it just wasn't like me to be frustrated or angry. And the priest said to me, "And so what does he have to say about it?" Meaning my partner, and I just looked with him, and I said, "Well, he is a she." And the priest said, "Well, that's fine, but that's not the issue here, is it? You know, it's about what you're going through." And I thought, oh, that's just amazing. What a lovely, perfect response, you know? And I'd come out to my priest, I'd come out to my church, and it wasn't an issue. I hadn't intended to. And so for me, there have always been those beautiful, beautiful moments, you know, of acceptance and love that I've always felt, you know? And so, yeah, I've never had a problem reconciling my faith and my sexuality. I think also, I can only speak for myself, because I know everybody's experiences are different. Some have been very traumatic and difficult and painful. Yet for me it has – and maybe I'm just cut from that cloth where I seek to find the positives and then work with that and dismiss the negatives. But I've always, you know, that's been the thing that's guided me always, you know, to not be dragged down by negativity. I mean, when I was young, I loved the Book of Job, the patience of Job. I loved it, you know, I kind of revisited a while ago, and I realized that, you know, my understanding of it, which is childlike, actually did mean a lot, because what it gave me was a sense of resolve, you know, perseverance, moving on no matter how bad things are, that, you know, God still loves me, you know. And that those judgments should not be about God, but about my fellow – my human beings, you know, about what they do to us, to the community, to the world. You know, God isn't doing that. We're doing it, so to try and, you know, tear away all the morass up there to get to the truth. So that was something that still stays with me as a powerful influence. But actually, in terms of the LGBT community, I love the story of the woman at the well, the Samaritan, you know, the fallen woman, the one who's the outcast, who, you know, in the hot, midday sun comes to the well to get water, because she can't be, you know, there early in the morning with the other women. And she has this conversation with Jesus. She doesn't know who he is, and he's talking about, you know, the living water. And she says, "Well, there's a deep well, how are you going to get the water?" She doesn't quite understand what he's talking about. But he has this conversation, and then her eyes are open, and she just suddenly realizes that, you know, she is someone special, that you know, there is this living water that's being given to her, that she can be part of mainstream society, even though she's been rejected, you know. And I think that's really beautiful. And I think certainly in terms of us as a community, knowing that God loves us, irrespective of what majority of some sections of your society may be saying, you know, and it's that thing you know, finding that path to what will give us happiness, rather than being influenced by all – the few, sometimes the many negative things that are thrown at us.

EB: I feel like I can really relate to Ruby on this, because for me as well, like I haven't had a lot of religious trauma directly from the Catholic Church. It's more like, I think we talked about this before. It's like, I know that the Catholic Church overarchingly is anti-LGBTQ, but like, no one ever told me in the church that I was bad, you know. So like, I understand that. I feel like I did not go to confession and tell a priest all about my queerness, but also, like, what a great coming out story. Like, well, you have never been to confession, right, Leesa, like, you wouldn't?

LC: No, I have not. I know about it from Fleabag. I don't think that's a really good representation. Okay, that's not true. I know confession through other mediums. I just wanted to bring up Fleabag, because I just got a really – I got a scene in my head right now. I think we all know what it is.

EB: Yeah, we all know it. I mean, confession is, like, such a media-focused part of Christianity, right? Like, I feel like just the act of confession is such, like perfect fodder for television. But, like, I think about it, like, we did confession since I was, like, in second grade, like, you do confession when you're –

LC: A kid?

EB: – literally a child, right? So I feel like that's where some of the Catholic guilt comes, right? And so you're like, you have to – there would be times when I'd be like, I just have to make something up. I'm like, "Yeah, I sort of, like, was mean to my sister the other day." And they're like, "Okay, great, go sit down and say some Hail Mary's and you're forgiven." You know, like –

LC: You just feel like you have to confess, even if you have nothing to confess?

EB: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would be like, you can't go to confession and be like, I didn't do anything bad.

LC: What if you didn't?

EB: I would, well, at least that's for me. Catholics in the audience, let me know what you've done. But I would always be like, alright, let me think of something. There has to be something bad I did this week. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that thing.

LC: It's so weird to me. I'm learning so much. I love this. Please send us – feel free to send us your confessions. Maybe we need to set up –

EB: A confessional! Oh my god.

LC: You know how you have the anonymous, like, ask me thing?

EB: Yeah, a little anonymous box. Yes, that's so sacrilegious, but –

LC: We will have to – I mean, no, like, I disagree.

EB: Anyone can, yeah, confess your sins to Sweetbitter and be absolved. No guilt here, no guilt at all here.

LC: Yeah, I think you should. And you know what, we won't judge you for being queer. Not at all. Okay, so speaking to these, you know, positive coming out stories, we also have the Reverend Deon Johnson, who is the 11th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri. He had a story of resilience and acceptance in his faith, thanks to his grandmother.

Reverend Deon Johnson: My journey of faith began in childhood. I'm one of those strange people that – I was a person of faith before I was even born, in some ways. Back in Barbados growing up – I'm from Barbados in the Caribbean originally, and in the Anglican Church of Barbados, there is this wonderful service called the churching of women, which sounds grandiose, but what it pretty much is, is anyone who is an expectant mom that's near childbirth goes to the church and there's a set of prayers and blessings for safe delivery, and so they bless the mom and the child. And so my mother was one of the people who went up for that blessing for the churching of women. So I was destined to be Episcopalian in the womb, so to speak. But what really formed my faith that I could claim as my own, I think, was hanging onto the skirt tails of my maternal grandmother. Her name was Constance, and her faith was shaped a lot by the hymns and music that she sang. And I channel a little bit of my Dr. Seuss because she sang when she was happy, she sang when she was sad, she sang when she was joyful and she sang when she was mad. So she had a way of distilling whatever was going on in her life at that time in song. There's no better teacher than listening to the poetry of faith as you grow up. And so I can sing so many of the traditional and non-traditional hymns because I heard them being sung, and I heard the theology, and I heard the emotion that goes along with that type of music. And so that has really shaped and steeped my faith growing up, and it continues to nourish my faith, even today. Most of what we hear and see – even though we are in a place that tells us that we are loved and beloved – most of the images and most of the things that we see are not necessarily positive. Christianity has a troubled history when it comes to welcoming LGBTQIA+ folks, and so there was an internal struggle for me around, well, here I am a person of faith that I've been told all of my life, that I'm a beloved child of God, and that God loves me, and yet hearing the messages of, well, you know, you're going to hell, you're an abomination, all that stuff from other voices. It caused a bit of internal struggle. It wasn't until I was about 14, when I had newly immigrated to the United States, that I began to even think about sexuality, and I didn't officially come out until I made it into college. And then, you know, beginning to live into what that all means slowly. I mean, I did come out to some of my friends in high school, like my senior year, but I didn't begin to kind of say, this is who I am, until I actually got to college. And by that time, you know, I've continued to be faithful, I continually went to church and did all that stuff. And it just reinforced to me, in the communities of faith that I happened to be worshiping, it just was reinforced to me that you are a beloved child of God. And I was fortunate enough to have a grandmother who, as I was growing up, said to me, you know, "You are a beloved child of God, and God don't make no junk." And so, I mean, even without her knowing sexuality or anything like that, she wanted me to make sure that I knew that all of me was loved by God, no matter what that was. And so that was the gift that she gave to me, I think, for my whole life.

EB: What a beautiful story. I will not cry, but I would start to cry because I also had a very – I love my grandmother so much, and she passed when I was young, but I understand that bond between a grandmother and the granddaughter or grandson, especially like in church. Like, yeah, I have a lot of memories of my grandmother in church. I feel like that's a very relatable image for me.

LC: Yeah, I used to go to church with my grandma as well, and my grandpa. And actually, I feel closer to my grandfather in the church strangely, whereas I don't think that he was maybe as religious as my grandma was, but we used to sing together in the church, so that was really nice. And I actually, the song that I used to sing with him, I sang with my sisters at his funeral. So very, very sweet hymn. It's "The Gift of Love," which I think we sang a couple weeks ago, or a couple episodes ago, but a different version, which is unfortunately not public domain. It has rights attached to it. It's not public domain, so we couldn't do that version, unfortunately.

EB: Yeah, I also sang at my grandmother's funeral. Well, I sang the entire service, but I sang "On Eagle's Wings." That's my favorite one. Do you know that one?

LC: No, I don't know that one.

EB: It's beautiful.

LC: I believe it. I sang Elvis at my grandma's funeral. I sang "Love Me Tender," which is very hard, because it was her song with my grandpa and he was in the front row, and his brain had sort of gone so he like, half remembered, so like, half the time he was, like, singing along, like, oh, I love this song. That's my granddaughter. I think he knew it was me. And then the other half he would be, like, sobbing. It was very, very difficult. But yeah, that was, like, the song that they used to dance to. So they sang that. That's the Church of Christ right there, you can just sing whatever the fuck you want in church. I think there was a "Wind Beneath My Wings," a daughter played it, or something, so very, very different from the Catholic experience. I sang at my stepmom's grandma's funeral. I sang "Amazing Grace" for her funeral.

EB: Yeah, I've sang at quite a few funerals. Yes, it's both beautiful and really difficult to do.

LC: I don't know if your parents do this. My parents will sometimes do the, which song is Leesa gonna sing at our funeral game? I'm like, really, really?

EB: Yeah, I don't think my mom is at that point of talking about her mortality, but, you know.

LC: Oh, yeah, my parents talk about it weirdly, a lot, and they're not that old, but they have, you know, they have brought it up. So we've had this beautiful story from Deon Johnson, but as we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, many queer folks are deeply hurt and traumatized by the church. So here are a few of those stories. We're first going to hear from Reverend Florentino Cordova, who is a United Church of Christ pastor who we've heard from in previous episodes.

Reverend Florentino Cordova: When we moved to Albuquerque, my sons – I was still singing in the Catholic choir. I was still going to worship mass, and the priest just started hounding the LGBT community out of nowhere. And so I asked him, you know, if I could sit and have a chat with him after mass. And so we did. We sat in the sanctuary, and I go, "Father, you're a hypocrite." And his eyes opened wide. He says, "How dare you call me that in the house of God?" And I go, "Well, how dare you attack a community that you don't even know, and yet you haven't said anything about the priests who have been accused of molesting children? You have been silent." I go, "That makes you a hypocrite." And I go, "You don't have to worry about me. I am stepping out of this church, and I'm never coming back." I was done with religion. I was done with the hypocrisy, and I never had planned on going back to any kind of worship, any kind of religious settings. I was just done.

EB: Reverend Tim Schaefer grew up in the United Methodist Church because his dad was a pastor. He was interested in a career in ministry from a young age because of his dad, but the United Methodist Church wasn't ordaining openly gay clergy until 2016. Here he is talking about his experience growing up in the church and then leaving the church.

Tim Schaefer: I didn't question my faith at that time. It was more that I questioned my own self, my own identity, my own sexuality. It wasn't until I had sort of come to terms with my sexuality by the end of high school that I started to question my faith. In fact, once I left for college, I didn't set foot in a church for about 10 years. Not only was that calling of becoming a pastor kind of pushed away, I just kind of left the church for a while because that was no longer a safe space for me. But it's also true that at that time, I wasn't aware that there were movements within several denominations, including in the United Methodist Church, that were affirming. I just wasn't aware of them, because I grew up in a smaller town that just, you know, in rural Pennsylvania, they just didn't have a presence there, right? None of the congregations there were open and affirming. And I think I became more aware of that when I got older, that was when I started to reenter and say, look, well, if I'm going to try church again, I need to find one of these affirming spaces, and that's what I eventually did. And the second part of that, what I said earlier is yes, the church was the source of my trauma, but then the church was also the source of my liberation, because through that, I kind of became more familiar with different interpretations of Scripture that were a lot more affirming than what I had heard when I was younger.

LC: 10 years, 10 years not stepping foot in a church. Ellie, there's still hope for you.

EB: Yeah, I have stepped into a church within the past 10 years.

LC: See, you're already ahead.

EB: Yes, I can reclaim it, however I want to do that. Yes.

LC: I mean, if you want to, there's no pressure here. Obviously, I'm not religious at all. I'm just, you know, just wanted to –

EB: But I mean, I do understand that, I know there's plenty of people who like even just walking into a church is very difficult for them, so completely understand that.

LC: On the other side, we also heard stories about people who, instead of rejecting their faith, rejected the queer parts of themselves to stay in their faith, which is very sad. So we're going to hear now from Reverend Altagracia Perez-Bullard, who is the Director of Context Ministry and Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria.

Reverend Altagracia Perez-Bullard: And I was very involved in the Baptist Church, Sunday school teacher, youth leader, all the things. And it was there that I received my call to ministry so – and again, because I was at a church that was American Baptist, but it was very charismatic, which doesn't really match. American Baptists are not, I mean, they're kind of the more liberal of the Baptist traditions. But in the Puerto Rican community in New York, it was pretty conservative, and my particular congregation got involved with a Pentecostal preacher, evangelist, I guess, he was preaching, rented a movie theater, like this was early on in those days, right? Eventually that became a real thing. But at the time it was like new, and he would have, you know, revivals kind of out of the theater. And so it was a very charismatic church. The leaders were involved in charismatic worship. And so there was speaking in tongues, laying on of hands, and all those kinds of things. And it's interesting, because it's an interesting time of convergence for me, because I think I became aware of my attraction to women around that time. There were a couple of us in our youth group, and so there were conversations about healing required for people with unnatural affections, kind of thing. I don't think that's the language they used. But we all knew what they were talking about. There was a lot of talk about how homosexuals were going to hell and I got into a fight with my youth group over that. Like I kept saying, you seem really happy about that. We should not be happy about that. If that's what's happening, we should feel really bad. And it was funny, because they saw in me before I recognized it myself, right. Apparently they got a sense that, like, oh, something must be up with her, way before I got the full understanding of what was going on with me. But it wasn't long before I had my first crush and my first broken heart because I couldn't go out with her because I was Christian, and we didn't do that like, that's literally what I said when she asked me out. And so it was very like, just a lot of oppression of that part of my identity, or the way that felt inside my body, because I do feel like it was like a shutdown of a whole part of me. And then we were all praying. We were doing these special prayer services, sunrise services, and I asked God what God would have me do? What was God's plan for my life? And I opened the Bible, and it opened to the call of Jeremiah, and then I knew that I was going to be – I mean, I don't know what I thought I was gonna be, because he's a prophet, but that I was going to, you know, be a preacher of God's word. And by then, I had preached my first sermon. And eventually, when I did go to seminary, I went to Union Theological Seminary in New York, I had no idea what I was walking into, from a very sheltered background religiously, barely took a religion class. Like I took a religion class like my second semester of my senior year, it was like, oh, like, I want to go to seminary, but I've never taken a religion class. Maybe I should do that. And it was funny, because, you know, as God would have it right, like, so the class was religion and social issues, and we tackled drug use, prostitution, homosexuality, and abortion. And the pastor had a joint affiliation between UCC and American Baptist, so he knew my home pastor, and I remember like, he was talking about homosexuality, and he said he didn't think that homosexuality was sin. And I literally was like, looking at – I remember this, it's like things that you remember so clearly. I was staring at the sky, like looking at the roof, like the ceiling, because I was expecting a lightning bolt to come through and just hit this man and knock him out. And nothing happened, and the other students didn't seem to blink too much. And it really was that sense that once I figured, for me, once I figured out that God did not consider this a sin, that this was a form of love that was fine and natural and healthy, then I didn't care about anybody else, which I – maybe I should have thought about it, because then I had to rethink about like, oh, okay, I can't stay in the church I'm in, because that's not what we preach. And I started visiting all these other churches, and my mom had a really hard time. My dad disowned me, it was like a lot of things, but I didn't really think about any of those consequences, because, in a simple way, I just really cared what God wanted for my life.

EB: I know I always find this so heartbreaking to see that people are repressing parts of themselves to fit themselves into this community that they've been a part of. And we hear that story very often. So we heard another story with similar themes of self-oppression from Reverend Jeanelle Ablola, a lead pastor at Pine United Methodist Church in San Francisco.

Reverend Jeanelle Ablola: Yeah, I was born and raised in the United Methodist Church by my parents, Filipino immigrant parents. They immigrated in the early 70s to the US from the Philippines. In the Philippines, my grandfather on my mom's side was also a Methodist pastor. One of her brothers ended up being a Methodist pastor. We have generations of Methodists on both sides of my family in the Philippines. It has influenced my family for that long. That was kind of a long journey of like just being forced to go to church every Sunday, 'til I was like 18. There was maybe one Sunday that I missed, and that was because it was my birthday and I had a fever. That was the only time I was able to miss church. So being immersed in that sort of made me question it a lot, and I didn't want to go, church was also a place where, I mean, at that time, was also a place where I was getting forced into boxes of gender, of gender expression and things like that. Church is very much a place where, if you're not wearing the right thing, whatever that means, you know, people are going to say something about it. I did a lot of questioning because of not being able to fit into certain things. And then had a couple of years where I actually went to the, I'll say, fundamentalist evangelical churches, and I did that for maybe a couple of years, and it actually helped me sort of get back in touch with the love of God, you know, because there's a lot of emotions in those types of gatherings, right? Lots of music and all of that kind of stuff. So one of my friends, my friend who actually invited me to go to those churches, came out to me. They had met someone who brought them closer to God is how they said it at the time. And they came out in a way where it aligned with our theological understanding at that time. They said that, you know, if angels have no gender in the biblical text – angels have no gender, their appearance is totally different. And if our bodies are secondary but our spirits are eternal, then should it matter what the gender is of somebody who brings you closer to God or helps you deepen your relationship to God? After that, they sent me – they were my next-door neighbor – they sent me home, and I had time to sort of like, sit with things. I like, looked through the Bible and marked all the parts that are used to, you know, that are used against LGBTQ people. And, you know, they gave me a phone call later, kind of asked me how I was sitting with everything. I brought out all of those passages, they had a conversation with me about them in regards to power dynamics, what gender and sexuality looked like at that time, versus how it looked at this time or at that time. And then they asked me what I thought about those things, and then I, verbally for the first time, came out to myself in that moment. It was a little scary, but it was also like, I couldn't deny it. I couldn't deny it any longer, and it made total sense to me, that interpretation, that theological interpretation made total sense to me, so I couldn't necessarily deny it at that time. I mean, yeah, I tried really hard to keep going to those churches, but even the next church service after that – not in the Methodist church but in the evangelical church that I went to – it was in San Diego, and it was Pride weekend in San Diego, and the pastor, the preacher, led us in a prayer, praying for folks to turn away – those who are celebrating this weekend, to turn away from that sin. And I just, I didn't like that. I looked over to my friend, and they were like, you know, we're just gonna have to deal with this. And I just, that kind of disappointed me. And then I tried to go one more time to a different one, and they – the name, Bishop Gene Robinson, you know, the first gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. His name came up, and the congregation booed. And so I kind of sat there with that, and I just couldn't do it anymore. So I got up and walked out and left the evangelical church.

LC: I do feel like, yes, this is something that happens, obviously, quite prevalently in religious organizations. But I feel like this idea of repressing part of yourself is kind of a universal experience that happens in lots of communities. Like, obviously, I'm recording this back in Australia right now. I just went back to Adelaide where I'm from, and, like, it's just, yeah, it's so incredible how different life is there, and how different I was there and moving to New York, I guess, is like, in part, me being able to be more fully myself. But I feel like I can sort of relate to this kind of idea of self-repression. I feel like we all do it to a degree. It's not just religious organizations or communities that encourage people to do this.

EB: Yeah, I mean, it's just like, I think that, like, push to assimilate, right? Of like, oh, I want to be a part of this community and there's certain standards that this community upholds. Therefore, I will do those standards, even though, like, maybe that's not really what I want. So, yes, I think, yes, it's highly relatable.

LC: I think about that a lot with people having children. Not to say that, you know, that's not a completely wonderful thing, but I think definitely I'm grateful I didn't fall pregnant younger, because I think I would have just assumed that's what I did and just gone with it. And I think a lot of people end up in this situation right, especially back in the day, where they're just like, oh, yeah, but that's what you do. You like, do this, and then you do this, and then you do that, and then they wake up and they're like, in their 50s or 60s, and they're like, oh, this maybe isn't what I wanted. This is maybe what I was told I wanted. So yeah, I feel like it's a general across the board sort of thing. Anyway, we digress.

EB: We digress. So yes, even though we have had all these stories where people have repressed themselves or experienced trauma within the church. we want to make a turning point here to talk more about how they ended up, at some point, making the decision to reclaim their faith for themselves and become faith leaders. So let's go back to Reverend Schaefer, who left the church for 10 years, and hear about how he recovered from his religious trauma, and eventually, with his dad, resisted the homophobic doctrine of their church.

TS: So one of the things that I recognize is many of us, myself included, have experienced religious trauma at the hands of our faith communities. And so one of the things I tell people is that the church, in particular, kind of big C Church, has been both the source of my trauma, but also the source of my liberation. And when I say that, what I mean is there is this distinction, I think, that not all Christians, not all Protestants, not all Baptists or United Methodists or whatever the case may be, interpret Scripture the same way or act in the same ways. And so while the scriptures can be used, often interpreted in a certain way to cause harm to the LGBTQ+ community, I do think that there are groups of folks who would interpret Scripture differently in this way, where the gospel is good news, where Jesus was always working at the margins to include people, to bring them in, to advocate for them, and frankly, gets into arguments quite often with the religious and political leaders of his time because he believes they are not treating these people the right way. And I think, you know, in this day and age, if Jesus were here now, I think he would do the same for the queer community, because I think the queer community is that outcast community. I think those religious leaders of his time could very well have been very much like the religious leaders of our time, who use scriptures to harm people, to push them out to the margins, and that was something that Jesus rejected and pushed back against, and I think he would, you know, in this day and age as well.

LC: Reverend Ablola had some really helpful thoughts on how you can go about reclaiming your faith, if that's something that any of our listeners are interested in, and what can help with that process.

RJA: Rereading, reinterpreting, reclaiming the text, continuing to engage with it. I think that a lot of folks will – once they make the decision to cut off from Christianity, it's over. But the thing is that I've experienced that I take those wounds with me, and unless I look at them, unless I sort of am able to wrestle with the text itself, then for me, it's been hard to get to a place of healing and a place of feeling grounded and not having to bring that with me everywhere I go. I thin for my practice as a Christian too, the songs, the poetry, the rituals are really important. Rituals have been key in my healing as an individual, and also just being with community, establishing a sense of community. You know, having shared rituals. I really like communion, it connects us beyond ourselves, right? Like people who have partaken in the meal of communion, we're connecting with those generations before who have done it, who are no longer with us. We're connecting with those who are taking the meal also in the same day at the same time. You know, it's just a way for us to sort of transcend ourselves and to really immerse ourselves with community. I think ultimately, remembering that nothing can separate us from God. I feel like nothing can separate us from God, is a good reminder, in the sense that maybe it helps alleviate any fears we may have about society or where society is headed. It may alleviate us from trying to control others, knowing that whether we're people who are in fear for the future, nothing will separate us from God, no matter what, you know, and then whether it's judgment upon other people, nothing can separate them from God either, right? If there are folks who don't believe that LGBTQ people are of God, I feel like that idea goes all ways, that there's nothing that can separate us from the divine. I would encourage folks to be courageous in our journeys of healing, to make decisions that will grow our hearts and help us be softer, to make choices that will help us to be powerful in our communities, not necessarily power over, but for us to have our collective power, you know. For some people, that might mean leaving church communities. That doesn't necessarily mean leaving behind the stories, leaving behind the histories of our spiritual ancestors. For some folks, it means staying, you know, staying in our church communities and wanting to help move our congregations forward. But either way, I think reminding us to be courageous, in the midst of all of it.

EB: Reverend Cordova talked about how liberating it felt for him to reclaim Christianity for himself. Here he is.

RFC: It was extremely liberating to find that the God who I worshiped growing up all my life was the same God who loved me, was the same God who made me in God's image. And not only did God make me in the divine image, but I was made in the holy image of God. So wherever I stand, and I tell my congregation this, I go, we are made in the divine holy image of God. That means wherever we stand is holy ground, so wherever I go is holy.

LC: We want to wrap up with some words from M Jade Kaiser, co-founder of Enfleshed, who had some wise words for us on how long it can take to let go of harmful, internalized beliefs from one's religion, but how this is possible.

M Jade Kaiser: Yeah, you know, it really, for me, boiled down to a sense of – I mean, it's so hard to access now, in some ways, because what I felt at the time was that there was a right way to be, and that right way is the way that God intends for us, and that God loves us and therefore wants us to live the right way, because that's what's best for us. It's really an unfortunate thing for a relationship in general, when we're moving from a place of believing we know what a right way is and somebody else doesn't, like that's already a little bit of an ethical problem in general, right? But that is what we were, what I was taught. That was how I understood the role God played was like teaching us to do the right thing and be the right way. Yeah, I really had a sense of this is really hard. I felt deep compassion. I felt sometimes like I even knew, like, what the problems might be behind the person that they would end up being this way, which just makes me hurt now to even have thought that way about anybody. I remember when I was in seminary, and it took me years of like, arguing, debating, reading, researching to finally, like, get right with queerness, right. But what finally tipped me over the edge, which felt so hard to do, because I was just so afraid of doing the quote, unquote "wrong thing" in terms of my faith, right. But what finally tips me over the edge was watching one of my closest friends come out and absolutely come alive, to see him start flourishing in such a way that was just so obvious and visible to me was finally the thing where I was like, actually, that's what I believe God wants for us, and that's what I have, in my head, been thinking I knew the best way to bring about. But there is, like, visual – I mean, talk about the fruit of the spirit, right? Like the fruit of the spirit is like – that's the fruit of the spirit, embodied. How can I testify against that? An old guy said something about the glory of God is humanity fully alive, right? Like, that's been something that's really circulated and stuck with people over the years. And, like, put that in a queer person's life and tell me what you see. You know, it's not the closet, it's not repression. It's affirmation and embrace.

LC: So this is really beautiful. I just think that, you know, being the resident, like, non-religious-growing-up person, I think that this is just generally great life advice in general, like, even if you don't believe in God, that self-acceptance. And one thing Alyse said, which I thought was really beautiful, is that if God as a word doesn't work for you, to use the word goodness instead, and that goodness, you know, is being fully yourself. And I really love that.

EB: I love it too, also, just like, when I think about a higher power, or like any sort of like universal being that I might think about, like, I always find, like, what M was saying, the glory of God is humanity fully alive. Like I feel like finding those moments where, like you see this pure goodness in another person, or like those moments of connection always make me feel like there has to be something more out there. Like this is like, we as a species are horrible sometimes, yes, but also are sometimes so like, caring and loving and beautiful, that, like, there has to be something that made us so kind. You know?

LC: Ellie, have you reclaimed your faith in this episode?

EB: This is it, guys, we did it! We did it. Amazing. But I am, I'm really – I just feel like a lot of people can relate to this, if you have heard this episode, and you relate to some of these stories, if you're at whatever point you are on your faith journey, if you never want to reclaim your faith, however it is, like all of that is perfectly beautiful and we're woven into this beautiful life that is humanity. Here's a taste of what's to come on Sweetbitter.

Reverend Nicole Garcia: So after I became a member at St. Paul Lutheran in downtown Denver, you know you're part of a congregation when you're asked to be on a committee. So I was asked to be on the "Reconciling in Christ" task force. Now the "Reconciling in Christ" was the Lutherans' concerned version of an open and welcoming program. I hope, through this podcast, that I will give someone some hope. Plant that seed. I will not give you faith. I will not give you the gift of grace. What I can do is plant that seed, and hopefully – no, I know the Holy Spirit will do the rest of the work and help that seed blossom and bloom in you, so that the faith that you once had in Christ, or that faith that you once had in Muhammad, or that faith you once had in Buddha will be revived and restored and revitalized, and you will have hope, hope that this world that is so, so enveloped in chaos, enveloped in hate, enveloped in the vision, can somehow find a way to heal.

LC: Thanks for listening to Sweetbitter. Our next episode will be released on the 15th of May – which is, by the way, the day after my birthday, in case you were wondering.

EB: So this is an important episode.

LC: It is.

EB: If you enjoyed the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review us. It’s a good birthday gift to Leesa, and it really helps, especially written reviews on Apple and Spotify.

LC: Like any church, we also have an offering plate. We can’t pass it down the pew, but you can give us your tithings on Patreon at patreon.com/sweetbitter.

EB: Sweetbitter is an independent production by me, Ellie Brigida, Alyse Knorr, and Leesa Charlotte. Our assistant producer is Thea Smith. Our audio engineers are Cora Cicala and Ana López Reyes. Our content producer is Lungowe Zeko, and our artwork is by Istela Illustrated.

LC: Thank you to our guests this week, including Ruby Almeida, Reverend Deon Johnson, Reverend Florentino Cordova, Reverend Tim Schaefer, Reverend Altagracia Perez-Bullard, Reverend Jeanelle Ablola, and Reverend M Jade Kaiser. You can read more about our guests and where to find them on our website, sweetbitterpodcast.com.

EB: Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Bluesky at @sweetbitterpod. Stay sweet!

LC: And bitter!