Down the Slippery Slope I Go

I am a female planter and pastor that loves the gays. And here is how I got there.

The LGBTQ+ issue is often used against women in ministry as the greatest evil and worst case scenario we could ever experience in finally affirming our own calls.

“once you change your mind on gender roles, sexual ethic goes next”

“ya that church started ordaining women and then, what do you know, they started ordaining gay and trans people too.”

It is seen as impossible and highly unlikely that you can begin to tamper with female roles in the home and in the church without also beginning to tamper with the conservative sexual ethic. And tampering with the conservative sexual ethic, as those having spent anytime in that world will know, is the biggest no-no, the worst of the worst, the surest fire way to get a straight shot ticket to H-E-double hockey sticks.

So intense and forced are these warning cries that it has often felt required of me as a female minister to “prove” the validity of my position on women by remaining firm in my position against the LGBTQ+ community. To prove, for the sake of female ministers everywhere, you can question this without “sliding all the way down the slippery slope.”

And maybe you can. I know plenty of female ministers that remain un-affirming in their theology and practice. I don’t know how they did it, all that I know is that I couldn’t.

As it turns out, in my case, they were right. And as it turns out, I really don’t care.

Because I am done giving respect, validity, or the need for approval from people, communities, or theological camps that were perfectly content with my own suffering, suppression, and harm. In fact, if “sliding down the slippery slope” means ending up further from environments that desire to condemn faithful women and LGBTQ+ individuals before condemning Christian nationalism or a literal genocide— then honestly, good for me.

So here goes nothing, finally fully sending it down “the slippery slope.”

I am a female planter and pastor that loves the gays. And here is how I got there.

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He bought me a plant.

It was sitting on the table when I walked in my typical 3-5 minutes behind.

I rushed in and had little time to tend to my confusion at the beautifully potted greenery beside him because just as quickly as I noticed it, he sprang up in an outright glee, "Nicole!!! I'm so happy to see you!!"

He was the first man I would ever meet with one-on-one in an official pastoral context.

He was also the first member of the LGBTQ+ community that I would ever meet with one-on-one in a pastoral context.

And he bought me a plant.

He would go on to tell me all about it, how intentionally this plant was chosen for me, how easy it was to tend to and how excited he was to get to spend some more time with me.

He and his husband had just started attending our church and he and I clicked instantly.

We had had them over to our home for dinner once before and it was over that meal they shared with us their upbringing, their coming out, their finding each other, and their continued relationships with their conservative and southern families. Those details are forever theirs to share so I won't divulge much more here. But I will affirm what I think every single human being who has ever spent time genuinely loving and getting to know a member of the LGBTQ+ community would also affirm: it changes you. 

Their stories are sacred and to be trusted with even the smallest details of those journeys they have walked— the journey these two men at our kitchen table walked to find love in a committed, trusted, and long-term union— it was both an honor and a holy blessing. One I will never forget.

There we sat now, just me and him, at a cafe not far from where they and their daughter now live, and he continued to tell me more about their ongoing story.

As I sat there listening, I sat there a "pretty much affirming" woman. I had read the scholarship on the clobber passages, I had agreed to work at an affirming church, I was in the midst of my own re-reckoning with scripture after my own experience of being clobbered with a few hand picked passages for my entire adult life, so I was pretty much sold on the notion that, at the very least, there was enough room here to love and serve a community that, Lord knows, I had little to no familiarity with and to do so in a way that saw beyond their sexual orientation (because when is the last time I met with a heterosexual person and questioned them about their sexual activity within the first 45 minute coffee chat? Never. Cause that's freaking weird.)

And so there i sat with my new friend, excited to love him and see him as a whole human being, doing my job (and my only job) as a pastor: fighting to see the Holy Spirit at work in this person's life, ready to join, fight for, and celebrate that work as I walked alongside him in our shared pursuit of Jesus.

And that's when he said it.

The phrase that would solidify me as a very affirming woman who would seek to not only "be okay with" but "celebrate and honor" our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters.

"I'm really just trying to figure out how to love him like Jesus."

He wasn't talking about his husband, his boss, his co-worker, his long-time friend or brother.

He was talking about his father-in-law who had a hard time accepting his marriage and had a long history of hurtful moments toward him to show for it.

My friend sat before me and continued to labor on for several more minutes walking me through the complexity and difficulty of learning how to show and give Christ-likeness to this man who had never once done that for him.

And as he did so, this man began to look far more like Jesus to me than any other man I had sat across from in a ministerial setting up to that point. His desperate intention to be kind and generous while also standing up for himself and his family, it was a masculine love and care that Jesus would have been so deeply proud of. It was a love, I as a pastor, was obligated to celebrate and affirm.

And right in the split second before I opened my mouth to pour over him affirmation and encouragement and hope, a thought struck my heart that would, once again, shift my view on this issue forever:

"Former ministry environments would think the best thing to do in this moment is to instruct this man to get a divorce. What the actual $@&*!?"

I pushed that millisecond of a thought to the side and chose to press into love and the Spirit instead. I shared with my friend how unbelievably Christ-like his wrestling to love already was and how I couldn't imagine a more righteous or faithful response to hate. To un-christlikeness. I shared with him just how much he resembled Jesus to me in that moment. And in that moment I think something in both of us healed.

I am affirming.

Because there is more than enough scholarship to affirm that interpretation. Because this is nowhere near a primary Orthodox issue and I am allowed to change my mind. Because I love people more than I love my own theology. Because I love God more than I love other's opinions about my theology. Because my job as a pastor will never, ever, ever be to monitor or control other people's sexual practices. Because convicting people of sin is up to the Holy Spirit and I have yet to see her affirm these relationships as harmful toward creation or humanity (in fact, I have seen her affirm the opposite). Because I, as a female minister, know damn well we like to hide our sexism, our racism, and yes, our homophobia, behind scripture to call it holy.

But mostly because: I saw Jesus in my gay friend. And I have seen Jesus through his marriage.

And since the age of 19, I made a commitment to go where Jesus went, to walk like Jesus walked, to chase after Jesus with everything I had and to never again ignore His work in my life.

So, here I am-- full sending it down the "slippery slope." Because that's where I have found Jesus.

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I want to end this piece with a more personal and direct apology.

In my 9 years of working with and loving and serving youth in more conservative and non-affirming environments, I worked with and loved and served a great many who were knowingly and even unknowingly a part of the LGBTQ+ community. I am prouder than most of how I handled such relationships, even when holding to a conservative sexual ethic, however I still handled it with less than a full embracing and affirmation of who they were, of what they were struggling through, and how Jesus would have met and loved them in the midst of both.

I upheld harmful and dangerous beliefs, I was complicit and silent in the midst of communities and environments that thought less of them and treated them in-kind.

I don’t know that you all will ever come across these words or read them for yourself as you age and begin to formulate and find your own beliefs and have your own “a gay man buying me a plant and showing me Jesus in a cafe” moments. But as you do and if you do, please know:

I am so incredibly sorry. I was wrong. And so was and is any voice that continues to make you feel less than. You are seen and known exactly as you are by a divine and holy God. And oh how deeply that God adores you and desires you to take part in an abundant life, free from the shame others have forced you to carry. Who you are is a gift to this world, to the church, and to our knowing and understanding of God. Not in spite of who you are, but because of who you are. Let others see and know and love who you are, because we are all so much better for it.

- Nicole