confessingqueer

"confession" (thoughts from #c21)

so i thought i'd put up here some of the main thoughts that i talked about at Christianity 21 since some folks have been asking for the transcript (which i don't have) and since the thoughts from that talk inspired the title of this blog. 

first, i'd like to say that my talk at #c21 was the reflection of a 9 month process for myself on the topic of Confession...it began when i asked myself in thinking about the conference what the greatest value of the church to me in the 21st century would be.  Generally, i'm a person with a lot of privilege and have most of my needs met - as well as having a lot of my 21st century, post-modern wants met (books, masturbatory intellectual debate space with friends, cultural validation for doing things like biking everywhere and drinking fair-trade coffee, infinite venues to feel self-righteous for working for justice in the world, etc).  So what does the church bring to me?  what space could the church offer that i don't get anywhere else in the world?  the answer to that for me was a place for confession.

Two images of confession: kneeling & standing (this imagery was a gift to me from my friend malcolm)

Kneeling: a place to be wrong, to be uncertain, to not have everything figured out, to query, to play and experiment, to be forgiven.  And how can the church be that space for me?  Only by being a space where i know i am loved before i know that i have to be right.  Everywhere else in the world, there is so much pressure to be right and to have things figured out (and i would argue also most places in the church) because the consequences of not being right are ostracization, shame, guilt, risk of losing friends & community, ridicule, and confusion.  In a space where i am loved first and unconditionally, i am free to be wrong.  and it is a relief.  I said in my talk, "i need to know that because my relationship with g-d is non-negotiable, my relationship with the church is non-negotiable, and can't be taken away because of something i don't have figured out."

from my notes:

      you see, I walk through the world constantly defending or proclaiming: I defend my right to be in the world & in the church at all because of my marginalized identities; and I proclaim and struggle for justice daily in my life: justice around race, justice around oppression, justice around glbtq rights, labor justice – and the relief for me when I walk into House every Sunday at 5pm is that I get to be wrong – that I get to not have all the answers – that I get to talk about how I am complicit in those injustices hourly – that I get to be called to a different standard: one that is not about how right or just I can be, but one that is about how much I am loved

Standing: a place where i can confess my faith - which means that i have to be able to show up with all of my identities.  i need a place to de-compartmentalize.

from my notes:

·        I also walk through the world as a compartmentalized person: I am queer, I am gender-queer, I am a community organizer, I am a partner, I am a friend, I am white, I am middle-class, I am able-bodied, I am a Christian – I have a thousand identities and as a person in the 21^st century am skilled in accessing and repressing those identities as I need to in order to be safe and to be loved and to get what I need.  The other aspect of confession – the aspect of being able to confess my faith and confess myself as a whole person is vital to me in participating in the church…that when I walk into the church my theology has everything to do with me and all of my identities have everything to do with my faith – that there is no shame to be carried in with certain parts of myself…that my whole self can be confessed.  That my faith and theology can be about my body and my gender and my relationships and all of the parts of myself that I am sent consistent messages should be things that I keep in compartments

The implications of what type of work the church needs to do to become a place where this dual approach to confession can happen are vast:

- it means the church (we) have to be a place where someone is held tightly enough that it is safe to be wrong...that relationship with the other is non-negotiable

- it means we have to be less concerned with being right, and more concerned with being grace-full

- it means we (the church) have to be humble enough to allow ourselves to be shaped and formed by each other

- it means the church as a body needs to learn how to confess to our wider community and world

What would the church in the 21st century look like, if it had a spirit of confession?

relationship with the church (part 1 of 156,879)

i was speaking at Edina Lutheran Community Church on Sunday as part of the #c21 conference weekend and we were talking about the relationship of more traditional, denominational congregations to congregations on the more emergent end of the spectrum.  I started talking about how i could not stop thinking the night before (as i lay in my hotel bed totally exhausted and totally unable to make my brain stop) about how i have all these issues with the church as an institution, but the thing is that the church is a body too.  That reality makes my usual clear-headed power analysis, cut-like-a-knife insight into systems effect on individuals messy.  very very messy. 

i've been on a month-long trip around the US for my paid work holding conversations with folks in communities about how to start thinking about social justice and their role in change in this society.  one big point that comes up in every place is how to hold a tension between naming & imagining...between resisting and creating.  i think this has something to do with this mess i'm in with the church.

The Institution - naming & resisting: *the church has harmed me and many that i love - like real harm that effects mental health, inspires suicide, and destroys relationships *the church has been complicit with power - with the state, with oppressive ideology such as racism, classism, homophobia, and xenophobia *the church continues to primarily view its role in the world as being right and announcing morality *the church continues to perceive itself as persecuted, while holding enormous privilege in US culture

The Body - imagining & creating: *the church is james dobson and nadia bolz-weber and sara rosenau and lloyd gestoso and brian donovan many many other people who are broken and wounded and beautiful and loved *the church is a venue for god's word to me - flesh and blood - the body *the church i need - to be called out on my shit, to learn what it means to be loved and held, to confess, to be affirmed, to be served bread & wine, to eat with, to make art with, to practice anything that has more to do with anything besides myself *the church, because it is a body of people, is going to feel just as complicated as any other human relationship in my life - turns out that's how i end up being transformed - when i have to rub up against other people and they rub up against me all uncomfortably and rudely like in an overpacked elevator

"The church is a whore, and she is my mother" ~Augustine

"Love in reality is a harsh and difficult thing...it's complicated to be in relationship with flesh" ~Debbie Blue #c21

starting from a new place

I've held a blog account for over 6 months and haven't blogged once.  not sure what i was waiting for, but have always had a hard time writing consistently in any sort of journal/daily writing way.  i think my perspective changed over last weekend though in ways that i'm not sure i can even articulate.

I attended and spoke at the Christianity21 conference - my heart and mind was shaped - here is an attempt to list things about that conference that were transformative to me:

* the process leading up to the conference was one of six months of me holding and meditating on the topic of "confession: a relief from righteousness"...enough said about that.

* i've been in a pretty reactionary place with "the church" and church communities for the last 10 years or so of my life...being invited to participate in this event shifted that - i no longer had the luxury or role of reacting, but was asked instead to create.

* i encountered incredibly kind people

* folks showed up to the conference to participate - not to be entertained, or directed, or to have information dumped into them - but to participate.  with each other, with ideas, with food, with art, with themselves.  i can't imagine what the church would look like if we all started showing up more like this.  i can't imagine what the church would look like if we were more intentional about building our spaces to invite that.

* i watched two straight, white, men spend (and disrupt) their privilege.  they had access to venues, connections to people, support from sponsors, budgets to watch, and reputations to maintain, and they organized an event that supported the leadership and voices of folks who have been asked to take the backseat in the church.  and asked other folks who have similar privilege to show up for it.  and we were transformed.  and that laid a foundation of courage for each of us to turn to the people in our midst who we take for granted are in the backseat of the church and start figuring out how we disrupt our own privilege in order to bring more voices into informing the church in its process.  it turns out, we can only be transformed by inviting more participation.

* i got some glimpses of what it means for us to confess our selves and our faith to each other

* i was reminded, once again, why christianity is not a faith that can be practiced in isolation