Queer Religious Leadership - By Jakob Hero

Jakob Hero is a seminary student at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. He is seeking ordination as a minister in the Metropolitan Community Church. Jakob is a female-to-male transsexual who is committed to Christian ministry that helps heal some of the pain caused by conservative religious viewpoints and society's rigid gender expectations.

Queer Religious Leadership and the Ex-Gay Movement:

Developing an Ethic of Compassion, Grace, and Love

By Jakob Hero

Illustration by Brett Garrett
 

After I finished my lecture Professor Jürgen Moltmann stood up and asked one of his typical questions, both concrete and penetrating: “But can you embrace a četnik?” It was the winter of 1993. For months now the notorious Serbian fighters called “četnik” had been sowing desolation in my native country, herding people into concentration camps, raping women, burning down churches, and destroying cities. I had just argued that we ought to embrace our enemies as God has embraced us in Christ. Can I embrace a četnik— the ultimate other, so to speak, the evil other? What would justify the embrace? Where would I draw the strength for it? What would it do to my identity as a human being and as a Croat? It took me a while to answer, though I immediately knew what I wanted to say. “No I cannot—but as a follower of Christ I think I should be able to.”¹

 I open this paper with the above quote by theologian Miroslav Volf to illustrate that we all face struggles with our own četniks. One need not have a brush with a Serbian war criminal to understand the pain and suffering human beings are capable of inflicting on one another. War is not always defined by bombs and landmines. Often it is more subtly executed, and yet that does not make it any less damaging to the human spirit.

Homosexuality is one of the most divisive issues Christianity faces today. It feels as though there is a war raging in our churches, and many Christians believe that the only solution is to reject homosexuals altogether. Others argue that it is necessary to “love the sinner but hate the sin.” These Christians suggest that the best way to deal with homosexuality is to seek a spiritually based or psychiatric treatment for “same- sex attraction.”² As a queer person and a religious leader seeking ordination in the gay and lesbian-affirming Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), my own battle often seems to be against those who wish to eradicate people like me from the body of Christ. Like Volf, in the face of tyranny and oppression, I struggle with the Christian call to not simply tolerate, but to embrace, those whose aim is the systematic eradication of my people. The ex-gay Christian movement aims to do just that, to convince people that unrepentant or sexually active gays and lesbians are unwelcome in the church. According to this mindset, the only way for a person with homosexual inclinations to experience God’s love is to go through a reparative therapeutic process and to be made straight, or at least no longer gay. Only then can a “former homosexual” or “ex-gay” participate in Christian community. The above quote by Volf powerfully illustrates the difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible, Christian call for the response of grace, compassion, and forgiveness. As I strive to follow Christ in my life, I find that the hardest precept is to embrace those who hate me, those who tell me that God does not love me the way that I am, and who inflict judgment and pain on other queer people.

It is my belief that only through formulating a loving and informed response to ex-gay ministries can queer religious leaders offer caring and ample support to those whose suffering and fear lead them into the hands of ex-gays. Simply debating and criticizing the ex-gay leaders is not an adequate response. We need a more substantial answer, one that is rooted in compassion and grace. Those of us who have been told that Christ cannot love us are the ones who must exemplify his teachings even more than our detractors.

At the heart of this analysis is the belief that sexuality is a gift from God and that sexual diversity is part of God’s divine plan for humanity. In developing an ethical reaction to the current religiously based attacks against homosexuality, it is not my intention to debate the validity of homosexuality itself. I am more interested in formulating a compassionate response to the underlying cause of sexual shame in Christian religious contexts. I believe the genesis of this shame is fear. It is through addressing fear, rather than debates about sexual morality, that queer religious leaders can formulate an adequate alternative to ex-gay ministries.

Rather than launch a counter-attack against those who wish to eradicate lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, I plan to explore the ideology behind ex-gay ministries and reparative therapies in an attempt to understand the fear-based rhetoric that fuels them. I will then present the challenges that queer religious leaders face in regard to these ministries. With this in mind, I would like to propose an ethical response for queer religious leaders. For this I will draw on the writings and teachings of religious leaders and theologians outside of the LGBT and ex-gay circles, such as Miroslav Volf, Jay Bakker, and the World Council of Churches.³

Before I embark on this journey, I feel it is important to explain two things. The first is my choice of the word “queer” as opposed to “gay” or “lesbian,” and the second is my own motivation for doing this work. The term queer is a re-appropriation of a word that is often used against LGBT people. Although the term is still controversial among some LGBT people, within academia it has taken on a new meaning and is no longer just synonymous with LGBT. As David Halperin explained in The Journal of Homosexuality, the term “queer theory” was first used by Teresa de Lauretis at an academic conference held at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1990.⁴ Since then it has been adopted by the fields of gender studies, women’s studies, and LGBT studies. Many activists and academics are currently choosing to identify themselves as queer instead of LGBT because queer has a more inclusive context. This means that gay rights can no longer be tied to social constructionist or essentialist debates about the origins of homosexuality and gender variance. As Rev. Mona West, an MCC pastor, explains:

We have reclaimed ‘Queer’ as an active word, a questioning word, a creative word and a challenging word. When we ‘Queer’ disciplines such as history, literature or religion we are actively looking for queer people who have been hidden or lost by those disciplines. To Queer these disciplines is also to challenge their homophobic biases. Queer is also an indeterminate or generative word, pointing to the ways all identities are fluid and changing.⁵

Within the context of queer theory, the fluidity in the concept of the word queer means that regardless of how or why someone identifies as queer, their motivations need not be justified in order for their lives and experiences as queer people to be seen as authentic or valuable. A person can be queer regardless of whether or not he or she is sexually involved with someone who shares his or her gender identity. What this means for this study, and for me personally, is that the debate about the validity of same-sex attraction has little bearing on whether or not I feel a person can have a personal relationship with God and with a Christian community. As a post-transition transsexual man, I was raised as a girl, identified as a lesbian throughout high school and much of college, transitioned to male, and soon after came out as a gay man. I have now been living a man for a number of years and find that this complicated journey is easily summed up by saying that I am queer. In fact, to take it a step further, I believe that God called me to be queer. I see the evolution of my sexual orientation throughout my life as evidence, not of my own depravity as some might argue, but of God’s intention for me to be a person who is oriented toward same-sex attraction.

The term queer, as a noun or verb, celebrates the belief that not everything in life can be easily defined. To queer a text, a discussion, or a belief is to call into question all that was previously taken for granted. This paper is a call to queer the response that LGBT religious leaders have to ex-gay ministry. The fact that I am arguing for an ethical response to those who hate and mistreat LGBT Christians is in itself a queer response. I am well aware that this is not the typical way to deal with one’s enemies. But as a queer person who has dealt with a lot of change and discomfort in my life, I feel I am equipped to face such a complicated challenge. As a queer person, it is my hope that in redefining so many boundaries and elements of how one functions in the world, I can embrace the basic tenets of my faith as a Christian. In my view, the way that Jesus functioned in his world was also quite queer. I am approaching ex-gay ministries with regard to Jesus’ queer example of loving those who persecute you and praying for those who wish to do you harm (seen, for example in Matthew 5:44.)

I must admit that a desire to queer religious dialogue is not my full motivation in calling for such a compassionate response to the ex-gay movement. Perhaps the single most impactful and formative moment of my life occurred when I was a teenager and a close friend shot herself after struggling for years, and failing to reconcile her lesbianism with the anti-gay teachings of her conservative Christian church. This friend also happened to have been the person who had convinced me of the existence of a loving and compassionate God, after I had been outed and subsequently ostracized in high school. She is responsible for me being a Christian today. What I learned in the years immediately prior to her death was that the voices that caused her to question the very nature of her deepest desires could not easily be debated or rationally dismissed. The loving and compassionate God she so joyfully spoke of always seemed in odd contrast to the God who was ashamed of her for being unable to stop loving and desiring women.

God, she would tell me, longed for my faith and devotion, loved me unconditionally, but also wanted me to be straight. The religious leaders in her life only complicated the situation. Their response was rarely compassionate or inclusive. After her death I was left with many unanswered questions, and from this confusion a sincere hatred for conservative Christians grew. Still, all these years later, I feel unable to forgive those whose fear tactics convinced my friend that blowing her brains out was an acceptable answer to her sexual “deviance.” But, like Volf, as a Christian I believe that I should forgive and even embrace them. I also truly believe that my beloved friend, who embodied Christ’s love for me, would urge me not to hate them, but to follow Jesus and love them.

Many progressive and liberal Christians, both gay and straight, look at conservative Christian groups and demonize them or dismiss them as simply being mistaken about their most deeply held scriptural beliefs. There is a common rhetoric among progressive Christians that says, “It is okay to condemn those people because they are wrong.” Of course, all one has to do is redefine the word “they” to mean homosexuals, and it becomes clear that this reductionist thinking does not sound all that different than the rhetoric it aims to denounce. While it is certainly part of human nature to justify the demonization of “the other,” this is clearly against the mandates of Jesus in the Gospels. In fact, the more despicable we may feel our adversaries are, the more we are called, as Christians, to embrace them even if we do not agree with them.

But what does it mean to truly embrace our enemies? How can we open our arms to those who have harmed us without inviting them to bring more chaos, pain, and destruction into our lives? When looking at the agony that ex-gay ministries have caused in queer communities, it is easy to question why one would feel compelled to seek reconciliation and not retribution.

The concept of reconciliation in the Christian context is not a recent revelation. For help exploring this topic I refer to the booklet put out by the World Council of Churches (WCC) entitled, Participating in God’s Mission of Reconciliation: A Resource Guide for Churches in Situations of Conflict. This manual was intended for use by congregations struggling with issues of national, ethnic, and racial differences as well as issues that arise in the process of inter-faith dialogue with leaders of other religions, but I find that the theme of reconciliation is helpful in dealing with homosexuality as well.

“Where there is tension and conflict [Christian] churches are called to be bearers of Christ’s presence, to be agents of reconciliation and justice… When divisions among the churches reflect and reinforce divisions in society the results are often destructive, even deadly.”⁶ This is one reason why reconciliation is necessary in the face of discord. Another reason is more personal. Individuals caught up on both sides of this messy debate are suffering. There is so much fear, anger, and confusion in churches surrounding whom one can love, and how one can act upon attraction, that love and desire seem to be destroying lives. But, as I previously stated, it is not love or desire but fear that is the culprit.

I noticed my own fear of being associated with “the other” as I checked my box in the student mailroom at my ultra-liberal Protestant seminary recently. I was surprised, even slightly embarrassed, that the information I had requested arrived in a thick envelope with a return address that revealed who the sender was. I hoped no one in the mailroom noticed. Among the contents was a ten-page pamphlet. Bursting forth from each page were the smiles of beautiful people. Some were pictured alone, others were surrounded by family members, all were glowing and seemed proud of how far they had come. They were beaming and they wanted everyone to know: You can be this happy too, you can be normal. The overarching message in each individual story in the pamphlet was that each author was suffering, they were ostracized, they were scared, and then Jesus brought them back to sanity. Jesus, with the help of a concerned group of Christians known as Exodus International, pointed them to the path of righteousness and led them away from the sin that was defiling their bodies, corrupting their relationships, and forcing them to turn away from God.

It sounds so easy. If not for a lifetime of personal experience that tells me otherwise, I might believe them. This pamphlet seems to offer the antithesis of fear and suffering. From the looks of it, being an “ex-gay” means living a happy, healthy life. It appears to hold the secret to mending the pain and suffering you have caused, not only in your own life, but also in the lives of everyone who cares about you. And the solution is so simple: just stop being gay. Of course this solution is not so easy. And for those gay men and lesbians who set about this task and fail, the results can be truly devastating.

While not the only organization offering a way out of homosexuality, Exodus International is certainly the largest. The rhetoric it uses can be found in most conservative Christian responses to homosexuality. According to the Exodus International website:

Exodus is a nonprofit, interdenominational Christian organization promoting the message of Freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ. Since 1976, Exodus has grown to include over 120 local ministries in the USA and Canada. We are also linked with other Exodus world regions outside of North America, totaling over 150 ministries in 17 countries. Within both the Christian and secular communities, Exodus has challenged those who respond to homosexuals with ignorance and fear, and those who uphold homosexuality as a valid orientation. These extremes fail to convey the fullness of redemption found in Jesus Christ, a gift which is available to all who commit their life and their sexuality to Him.⁷

While this mission statement speaks of compassion in dealing with homosexuals, I feel that it does not fully explain why a gay-identified person would seek out Exodus and choose to try to have their homosexuality “cured.” While Exodus claims to challenge those who respond to homosexuals with fear, it uses fear tactics to drive LGBT people to their website, conferences, and affiliated counseling centers and churches. Behind the smiling faces and stories of joyfully reunited families is a clear and pervasive message that relies on the ever-present threat of spending eternity in hell. Exodus argues that homosexual desire is against God’s will and that Jesus offers an alternative to the tyranny of same-sex attraction.⁸

While they do not bluntly state join us or burn in hell, their salvation-based rhetoric clearly makes this threat known. Despite the fact that according to all canonical accounts of Jesus’ teachings, Jesus was totally silent on the topic of homosexuality, Exodus uses Jesus to explain how and why a person with same-sex attraction should seek out their services. This website is incredibly convincing. In looking at it I found it necessary to remind myself that scriptural references to homosexuality are in fact anachronistic and that the idea of homosexuality, as it is conceived today, did not exist in antiquity. Jesus was silent on the topic of homosexuality for the same reason that he was silent on the topic of motorcycles—he could not comment on something that did not exist in his cultural context.

Of course, the use of scare tactics in threatening those with same-sex attractions is not new. I believe it largely stems from the fact that the people who are making these threats are themselves scared of what will happen in society and in churches if homosexuality is no longer viewed with abhorrence. In his book, A Strong Delusion, Joe Dallas, a self-proclaimed ex-gay and a former minister in the Metropolitan Community Church, argues that there are “five general, drastic consequences we will face if we fail to confront the gay Christian movement…” These are: “1.) A denigration of the authority of the Bible. 2.) The fruit of misrepresentation and disobedience. 3.) The sexual exploitation of children. 4.) Increased sexual confusion among the young. 5.) A further, but significant, loss of family definition.”⁹

These fears are appalling to me. I cannot imagine that anything I do in my life could result in any of the above consequences. I find it heartbreaking that someone might think that just by loving someone of the same gender that anyone could denigrate the bible, corrupt children, and destroy the family. However, while conservative Christians proclaim these as the dangers of accepting LGBT people in society, this viewpoint does not take into consideration the full complexity of the ideology of ministries that aim to put an end to homosexuality.

In her book, Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversion in the Ex-Gay Movement, Tanya Erzen tells the story of her eighteen-month participant observation in New Hope ministries, an ex-gay Christian community in San Rafael, California. New Hope is a residential community of people who have taken time away from their lives (usually about one year) to devote themselves to full-time recovery from homosexuality. This program is not unlike many other recovery programs for disorders such as alcoholism, anorexia, or drug addiction. In a supportive communal environment, people live together at New Hope and attempt to overcome same-sex attraction. Like other programs of recovery New Hope has a strong emphasis on the importance of telling and retelling one’s own story. In this program, as a means of healing, it is very important to focus on how much pain an individual has faced, presumably because of his or her sexuality.¹⁰

The use of repetitive traumatic narratives about one’s past also stirs us the fear that is necessary to keep organizations such as this one running. Through hearing others’ stories and re-living their own grief and rejection, participants are constantly encouraged to equate same-sex attraction with pain and suffering. In order for ex-gay ministries to function, it is imperative that participants take the blame for any mistreatment they have endured due to other people’s ignorance and fear. They examine their pasts and seek out the most traumatic and heartbreaking times in their lives and then place the blame not just on themselves but specifically on the same-sex attractions they have experienced.¹¹

Contrary to common assumption, ex-gay ministries do not simply offer heterosexual alternatives to those who have lived homosexual lives. In fact, what one finds in ex-gay ministries is often a more fluid understanding of sexuality that defines sexual development as a process and not simply a re-orientation to one out of only two choices.

These stories of trauma and healing are central to the culture of therapy that predominates at New Hope and other ex-gay ministries. Testifying as therapy keeps the focus on the individual’s experience of pain and trauma but permits each person to relive it within the safety net of a wider religious narrative and community… Through subsequent retellings, the trauma lessens and the person heals. The object of testifying is forgiveness and redemption from other Christians and from God, and the personal relationship a person has with Jesus is an extension of this focus on healing the self.¹²

Erzen explains that the journey out of same-sex attraction through ministries such as New Hope is, in and of itself, queer. She calls the process that people go through at New Hope, which includes religious and sexual conversion, sexual falls, and public redemption through testimony “queer conversion.”¹³ She explains, “Although the political goals of the ex-gay movement and queer activists are radically distinct, by accepting that a person’s behavior and desire will not necessarily correspond with their new ex-gay identity or religious identity, ex-gay men and women enact a queer concept of sexuality when they undergo queer conversions.”¹⁴

An interesting aspect of the ex-gay rhetoric is that in some ways it actually compliments some of the underlying beliefs of queer theory and queer religious movements. Gay and lesbian activists in organizations such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Human Rights Campaign “are invested in the idea that sexuality is fixed, unchangeable, and possibly even biological.”¹⁵ Queer theorists are often “wary of the strategy of predicating civil rights on anatomy or genetics because of the history of eugenics, the pseudoscience of improving the human race by selective breeding.” ¹⁶ Erzen goes on to explain, “The well-documented history of medical interventions imposed on lesbians and gay men also makes them cautious of theories of the gay gene. The ex-gay movement shares the queer mistrust of biological explanations for a different reason: the immutability of sexuality would signify that conversion is irrelevant or impossible.¹⁷

One important difference between queer theorists and ex-gays is that the queer movement’s emphasis on fluidity extends into areas of gender identity and expression, in which people who experience discomfort with society’s expectations of binary gender norms are encouraged to express their variant genders. The ex-gay movement, on the other hand, operates under the assumption that part of God’s plan for healing from same-sex attraction is to accept the appropriate gender roles for the sex in which a person was born. According to Erzen, while remaining consistent in its assertion that homosexuality is not an inborn trait, the ex-gay movement “conceives homosexuality in multiple ways: as religious sin, sexual addiction, gender deficit, and psychological disorder.”¹⁸ Erzen goes on to describe the tools of re-enculturation of gender norms, which are an important part of ex-gay therapy, such as lessons in makeup application for women and instruction on how to play sports for men^.19 This points to a basic belief that masculinity and femininity are socially constructed ideals that can be learned and are not inherently inborn traits. While this may be a helpful understanding in the reparative therapy approach to same-sex attraction, it is totally discounted when conservative Christians need to use the ex-gay movement to oppress LGBT people. This is important to keep in mind as we examine the impact of ex-gay ministries. This impact is more pervasive than many people realize, and it affects more than just those LGBT Christians who seek a way out of same-sex attraction.

Organizations of the Christian Right exploit the example of ex-gay conversion to counter legislative proposals that would grant workplace protection, partner benefits, adoption rights, and health care to gays and lesbians. Rather than explicit anti-gay rhetoric, groups like Focus on the Family and the American Family Association frame the debate over change in terms of ‘hope for healing,’ despite that fact that ex-gays’ testimonies and queer conversions often contradict these politic^s.20

Now that we have a solid foundation and an understanding of the nature and impact of ex-gay ministries, it is important to consider how this applies to queer religious leadership in the post-apologetic context. Returning to the World Council of Churches, it may be helpful to explore the WCC’s ideas for fostering dialogue between conflicting communities:

How does our baptismal unity in Christ relate to the present divisions among the churches? How does our common belonging to Christ relate to the links, for good or ill, between churches and particular human communities and institutions? How can churches in situations of tension or conflict work together to promote reconciliation, justice and healing? These questions go to the heart of our faith, and our understanding of the nature of the church.²¹

In formulating a response to ex-gay ministries it is absolutely vital that queer religious leaders not fall into the trap of demonizing those who attack us. Doing so does not help either party. Instead, it lowers us to the level of those who do us harm, and it counters any attempts we make towards healing.

In concrete human situations, it is sometimes difficult to determine who is the victim and who is the offender… there are occasions when the offenders portray themselves as victims; and there are victims who suddenly turn, becoming offenders whilst maintaining the role of victim.²²

With this in mind, it is also vital to not simply accept the teachings of ex-gay ministries as a different but equally valid expression of the teachings of Christ. It is okay to critique their shoddy research, picket their conferences, and do outreach to their victims. I have had the opportunity to stand in unity with my fellow seminarians, both queer and straight, and protest one such conference, and it was just the first of many for me, of that I am sure. I plan to keep speaking out against these ministries for the rest of my life. In order to foster healing we must name the atrocities of those who have hurt us. According to the WCC, “The constitutive elements in the process of reconciliation should be: confession and truth-telling, a request for forgiveness, and the requirements of justice. These need not occur in any set order; in some cases, for example, forgiveness comes before confession.”²³ In fact, confession often never comes at all, but this should not detract from the call to forgive those who have injured us.

I find Volf’s model of forgiveness particularly helpful in this context. In this model, the victimizer does not have to ask for forgiveness or admit any wrongdoing in order for forgiveness to occur. However, the victim does have to name the offense. Forgiving, according to Volf, is not synonymous with forgetting. “[W]e forgive when someone has wronged us. And when we do, we do two main things: We claim that the offender has offended us, and we don’t count the offense against the offender. Both are essential. Drop not counting the offense against the offender, and all you are left with is accusation. Drop the claim that an offense was committed, and all you have is disregard of the offense, not its forgiveness.”²⁴

Calling for forgiveness of those who have hurt the LGBT community and who still aim to eradicate us from Christianity may sound ludicrous. In light of the fact that homophobic conservative Christians drove someone I love to take her own life, the idea of forgiving someone who admits to no wrongdoing is an intense spiritual challenge. But, like Volf, I recognize that forgiveness is a means of healing. But more than that, the Christian call for forgiveness is about embodying God’s love on earth. We forgive others because God forgives us.²⁵

But forgiveness is difficult, even painful, and sometimes it feels utterly impossible. Why should we give the gift of forgiveness when every atom of our wounded bodies screams for justice or even revenge? What would it mean for us to forgive and forgive wisely? And maybe above all, how do we muster enough strength to overcome resistance to forgiving?²⁶

In a sermon entitled “Forgiven” Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Fay Bakker and founder of Revolution Church, addressed some of the more difficult elements of embracing those who have done harm. Bakker’s theology is one that is based on openness and inclusivity. His ministry is focused on accepting people into the body of Christ who have been rejected or made to feel like outsiders from mainstream and conservative Christian communities. Having been born into the famous evangelical Bakker family, and then coming of age during the scandal that caused the fall of the Bakker clan, Jay Bakker has a unique perspective on what it means to be a Christian and a real understanding of the experience of being rejected as the evil “other.” In his forgiveness sermon, Bakker contemplates his initial reaction to the news of the Ted Haggard scandal. He questions why his first response was to take joy in the notoriously homophobic Haggard being outed as someone who solicited a male prostitute and bought drugs. Bakker explains that rejoicing in the fall of Haggard was not congruent with the teachings of Christ. He adds, about people like Haggard, “It is hard for me not to see them as enemies. It is hard for me not to be happy when people like that fall.”²⁷

What I really appreciated about Bakker’s sermon was that it did not take the same position of the WCC. The reconciliation resources from the WCC seem to operate on the assumption that both parties come to the conversation acknowledging that a wrong has occurred, and in that acknowledgement seek out forgiveness. I believe that in this way the WCC falls short of Jesus’ call to forgive our enemies. Bakker’s life experience helps him understand that call. He struggles to forgive those who said that his father was “a cancer on the body of Christ.”²⁸ Bakker has sought to forgive those who hurt his family in the absence of the admission of any wrongdoing on their part. When Bakker speaks of Haggard, or any other conservative Christian who falls from grace, he calls for compassion for them. When he does this he acknowledges that these same Christians might continue to persecute others, but that does not mean we should not love them.

As a queer religious leader it is helpful for me to pay attention to Bakker’s words: “The Bible is very clear that as believers, God’s called us to love those who aren’t always lovable. God’s called us to love those who persecute us and hurt us.”²⁹ Bakker acknowledges that Haggard has really hurt the gay community, and it makes him sad to see people suffer because of the type of rhetoric espoused by people like Haggard. But what Bakker clearly does not say is that we should forgive Haggard because Haggard has asked to be forgiven. This is a divine mandate. “So even if you do consider someone like Ted Haggard your enemy, God says you’ve got to love him, Jesus says love him.”³⁰

Bakker reminds us that Jesus did not call us to take the easy path. Loving your enemies is important even though it is truly difficult. “…I think what really the struggle is—and really picking up your cross daily and sacrificing your life is—loving your enemies, it is loving all people… I think what [Jesus] was talking about was loving our enemies, loving those who hurt us, loving people around us period.”³¹ Bakker knows that this is not an easy task. Loving those who want to do us harm is challenging partly just because “it doesn’t seem to make sense. It doesn’t make human sense, but God’s love makes that kind of sense. That’s the love of God, it’s irrational.”³²

In his own ministry Bakker has really faced the consequences of living in his convictions. Despite the fact that he is heterosexual, his support of the gay community has upset many people and proven costly. “I’ve lost a lot of support because of my beliefs and my support of the gay community, and it hasn’t been easy. But on the other hand I also want to be able to show compassion for those [who]… are religious and judgmental and when they fall I would really like to help them get back on their feet.”³³ I think that it is also important to note that when people in the ex-gay movement fall from grace this almost always means that they have given in to their same-sex attractions. If an ex-gay “falls,” as it were, our compassionate response to him or her could potentially mean the difference between choosing to live as an ex-ex-gay, or choosing to take his or her own life. Selective compassion is not helpful when you consider that those who seek out the ex-gay movement do, in fact, need our loving support.

Grace is not just for us open-minded Christians or progressive thinkers. It is also for the close-minded…and the judgmental. It’s hard for us sometimes to open the door to the exclusionists because you can’t really be double-minded. But I think at a point like this, with someone who is down on their luck, it is important to say ‘we include you and we love you.’ And I think that when they are on the top and they are still being judgmental it is our job to pray for those folks. And pray that God changes their heart.³⁴

Above all else, in light of the ex-gay movement, I believe that it is time for queer religious leaders to address the pain afflicted on our community by the ex-gay movement with compassion. I propose that we reach out to those who fear us and who aim to do us harm by embodying Christ’s love and compassion. Instead of engaging in a messy war with fundamentalist Christians, we must foster healing from a place of love and compassion, and in doing so follow the advice of Jay Bakker:

We need to be the one that says we aren’t going to judge you anymore, we’re not going to persecute you anymore, that’s not what we are here to do. We’re here to restore and show hope and love and grace and compassion… Let’s be restorers. Let’s be people who love each other and not people who tear one another down. Because we could be in danger of destroying people’s lives, and to me that wasn’t why Christ came. He came to rebuild, and give hope and encouragement.³⁵

Behind every painful ex-gay narrative is a human being who suffers. The impact of loving kindness in the face of fear and hatred cannot be underestimated. If we allow God’s grace to move through us I believe we can save lives and repair some of the damage that has been done in God’s name.