United Methodist Church (UMC) Rev. John Makokha of Kenya has worked tirelessly to bring “education and understanding” of homosexuality to a country where gays and lesbians face church-sanctioned discrimination and physical persecution. This brave straight ally and his wife Anne have suffered financial hardship and ostracism for their open and affirming stance, and now it appears that church leaders are conspiring to force him out of the ministry.

Makokha is the Kenya coordinator for Other Sheep, an international ministry that supports gay Christians in East Africa and beyond. Below are some excerpts from Other Sheep co-founder Steve Parelli’s interview with Makokha in their latest e-newsletter. Behind the Mask, cited below, is an African webzine that promotes GLBT rights. 

Steve Parelli (Other Sheep) asks: John, according to the January 29, 2009, article by Behind The Mask, “you may face an axe from the United Methodist Church” at the next annual conference this April (2009) because of your “positive stance on homosexuality.” How likely is this, and do you think it could take place this April?

Rev. John Makokha replies: Well, it is anticipated that the next East Africa Annual Conference may be held during this time. The Bishop has the prerogative of making any appointments but with recommendations from each member country leadership. Looking at the way UMC leaders in Kenya have been strategizing and scheming against me, there is a strong concerted spirit of isolating and discriminating against me further during this session due to my positive stance on homosexuality. This session is likely to give homophobic and homohatred leaders an opportunity to shoot.

Steve Parelli (Other Sheep) asks: So, you could “get axed” by your denomination. Does that mean you’ll be defrocked? Do you have any recourse? What will this mean to you financially? What will happen to the church you are now pastoring?

Rev. John Makokha replies: You can call it defrocking, or anything, but this is only a human decision. I will only be worried if I loose Christ. They are not the ones who called me in this ministry. They will not shut my mouth. I will raise a red flag using the social principles on affirmation of LGBTI persons in our UMC churches and the Great Commission. We talk of open hearts, open minds and open doors in the UMC. We need to be welcoming congregations, not unwelcoming. Discrimination is sin. I have affirmed my belief in an inclusive church, that is, a church that welcomes all of God’s children, that is free from any discrimination, including that based on sexual orientation or gender identity. If I am stopped, this church will dearly miss an affirming spiritual leader but the mission field is wide. The workers are few but the harvest is plenty. I will also miss my all- inclusive sheep that I have trained and preached to so far. Financially, it will not change my position since I have not been on any salary from the UMC. God has been providing for us in His own ways, through the gifts of his people. I am sure He will continue providing for my family through caring people who will choose to support us financially. God has been faithful and keeper of His promise.

Steve Parelli (Other Sheep) asks: You’ve been involved with Other Sheep, an ecumenical Christian pro-LGBT international organization, since December of 2007. Is that when you first became pro-LGBT, or was it before then? Briefly, what is your history in speaking up on behalf of LGBT people of faith?

Rev. John Makokha replies: Thank you for that good question. Before joining Other Sheep, I had been actively involved in the LGBTI ministry for more than 5 years. I have conducted capacity building seminars ecumenically for ministers and laity on mission/evangelism work and human sexuality as a component in Eastern Africa region. I have counseled pastors, youth and married persons on sexual orientation. I have taught in Bible study sessions and preached sermons for inclusion and affirmation of LGBTI persons.

Steve Parelli (Other Sheep) asks: Some Kenyan Methodist ministers, according to the article by Behind The Mask, have accused you of “promoting” homosexuality in the church? Of course, no one can “promote” a sexual orientation. A person either does or does not have same-sex attraction. What you are doing is “promoting” education on the topic of homosexuality for the sake of learning and understanding because the gay Christian community — a marginalized people — is being spiritually abused by the church by its outright complete social rejection of LGBT people. Would you agree that you are “promoting” education and not homosexuality?

Rev. John Makokha replies: Oh! My God, no one can promote homosexuality. Sexual orientation, according to scientific research, has shown that it is innate and cannot be changed. You only promote what is outside. You cannot promote what is inside. What is happening, so far, is ignorance on matters of human sexuality that has caused a lot of suffering to LGBTI. This has perpetuated both physical and spiritual violence in Africa. I have been promoting education (awareness) and not promoting homosexuality the way it has been alleged; through capacity building programs such as seminars and distribution of materials. I have also been carrying out counseling of LGBTI and PFLAG. We have been requesting dialogue and praying for tolerance and not intolerance. Inclusion and not exclusion.

Steve Parelli (Other Sheep) asks: So, what are you doing to bring “education and understanding” about issues relating to homosexuality to the United Methodist Churches in Kenya? How are you accomplishing this?

Rev. John Makokha replies: I am not only reaching out to United Methodist Churches, but working ecumenically. So far, almost all United Methodist Church leaders have received handouts and books on the Bible and homosexuality. I am passionately involved in organizing interdenominational seminars and workshops for clergy and laity. I have also been initiating dialogue with them. Counseling clergy and laity who are LGBTI. I have distributed resource materials to seminary and university students and professors. Lastly, I have been involved on KISS 100 radio and a TV talk show on the topic of homosexuality and social and religious justice.

This will create safer spiritual communities for LGBTS persons, their families, and their friends. I am confident that Jesus will break down all dividing walls of hostility and discrimination.

We are telling the church leadership that diverse understandings of Biblical texts is not disbelief.
…

Rev. Makokha has been ministering without a salary for the past two years because of his pro-gay stance. His wife was also fired from her job as a part-time lecturer at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology, from which they both graduated. Makokha says, “Our children were told not to mix with others because they would ‘recruit’ them into LGBTI ministry. We were also advised to seek alternative housing elsewhere because of the nature of our ministry. We prayed, God opened a window and we moved out. But we still love our school.”

He adds that it is difficult to start a dialogue about sexuality within the church, as many people fear reprisals for speaking out. “We organized a seminar for the clergy in Nairobi but ministers feared to attend. It is a pity that even some resource materials donated to some evangelical colleges have sometimes been returned to us due to disapproval on the basis of phobia and lack of academic freedom.”

If you would like to ask the UMC leadership in Kenya to show grace to Rev. Makokha’s ministry and consent to an open dialogue about sexuality and spirituality, please email

wi*************@ya***.com











“>Mrs. Winnie Adhiambo, the lay leader of Riruta United Methodist Church. To help support the Makokha family, click here for the Other Sheep donation page.

The debate over scriptural views of homosexuality makes many people afraid that they will have to choose between their faith and their relationships. Conservative friends have told me that I am cutting myself off from the orthodox Christian community by attending an inclusive church. Meanwhile, some in that church are skittish about its historic doctrines, afraid that tradition cannot be disentangled from a legacy of institutional oppression.

Fortunately, I’m not the only one who hasn’t given up hopes of an inclusive orthodoxy. Newsweek ran a brave and controversial cover story last week: Our Mutual Joy: The Religious Case for Gay Marriage, by Lisa Miller. Highlights:

In the Old Testament, the concept of family is fundamental, but examples of what social conservatives would call “the traditional family” are scarcely to be found. Marriage was critical to the passing along of tradition and history, as well as to maintaining the Jews’ precious and fragile monotheism. But as the Barnard University Bible scholar Alan Segal puts it, the arrangement was between “one man and as many women as he could pay for.” Social conservatives point to Adam and Eve as evidence for their one man, one woman argument—in particular, this verse from Genesis: “Therefore shall a man leave his mother and father, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” But as Segal says, if you believe that the Bible was written by men and not handed down in its leather bindings by God, then that verse was written by people for whom polygamy was the way of the world. (The fact that homosexual couples cannot procreate has also been raised as a biblical objection, for didn’t God say, “Be fruitful and multiply”? But the Bible authors could never have imagined the brave new world of international adoption and assisted reproductive technology—and besides, heterosexuals who are infertile or past the age of reproducing get married all the time.)

Ozzie and Harriet are nowhere in the New Testament either. The biblical Jesus was—in spite of recent efforts of novelists to paint him otherwise—emphatically unmarried. He preached a radical kind of family, a caring community of believers, whose bond in God superseded all blood ties. Leave your families and follow me, Jesus says in the gospels. There will be no marriage in heaven, he says in Matthew. Jesus never mentions homosexuality, but he roundly condemns divorce (leaving a loophole in some cases for the husbands of unfaithful women).

The apostle Paul echoed the Christian Lord’s lack of interest in matters of the flesh. For him, celibacy was the Christian ideal, but family stability was the best alternative. Marry if you must, he told his audiences, but do not get divorced. “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): a wife must not separate from her husband.” It probably goes without saying that the phrase “gay marriage” does not appear in the Bible at all.

If the bible doesn’t give abundant examples of traditional marriage, then what are the gay-marriage opponents really exercised about? Well, homosexuality, of course—specifically sex between men. Sex between women has never, even in biblical times, raised as much ire. In its entry on “Homosexual Practices,” the Anchor Bible Dictionary notes that nowhere in the Bible do its authors refer to sex between women, “possibly because it did not result in true physical ‘union’ (by male entry).” The Bible does condemn gay male sex in a handful of passages. Twice Leviticus refers to sex between men as “an abomination” (King James version), but these are throwaway lines in a peculiar text given over to codes for living in the ancient Jewish world, a text that devotes verse after verse to treatments for leprosy, cleanliness rituals for menstruating women and the correct way to sacrifice a goat—or a lamb or a turtle dove. Most of us no longer heed Leviticus on haircuts or blood sacrifices; our modern understanding of the world has surpassed its prescriptions. Why would we regard its condemnation of homosexuality with more seriousness than we regard its advice, which is far lengthier, on the best price to pay for a slave?

Paul was tough on homosexuality, though recently progressive scholars have argued that his condemnation of men who “were inflamed with lust for one another” (which he calls “a perversion”) is really a critique of the worst kind of wickedness: self-delusion, violence, promiscuity and debauchery. In his book “The Arrogance of Nations,” the scholar Neil Elliott argues that Paul is referring in this famous passage to the depravity of the Roman emperors, the craven habits of Nero and Caligula, a reference his audience would have grasped instantly. “Paul is not talking about what we call homosexuality at all,” Elliott says. “He’s talking about a certain group of people who have done everything in this list. We’re not dealing with anything like gay love or gay marriage. We’re talking about really, really violent people who meet their end and are judged by God.” In any case, one might add, Paul argued more strenuously against divorce—and at least half of the Christians in America disregard that teaching.

Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition (and, to talk turkey for a minute, a personal discomfort with gay sex that transcends theological argument). Common prayers and rituals reflect our common practice: the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer describes the participants in a marriage as “the man and the woman.” But common practice changes—and for the better, as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” The Bible endorses slavery, a practice that Americans now universally consider shameful and barbaric. It recommends the death penalty for adulterers (and in Leviticus, for men who have sex with men, for that matter). It provides conceptual shelter for anti-Semites. A mature view of scriptural authority requires us, as we have in the past, to move beyond literalism. The Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it’s impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours.

Marriage, specifically, has evolved so as to be unrecognizable to the wives of Abraham and Jacob. Monogamy became the norm in the Christian world in the sixth century; husbands’ frequent enjoyment of mistresses and prostitutes became taboo by the beginning of the 20th. (In the NEWSWEEK POLL, 55 percent of respondents said that married heterosexuals who have sex with someone other than their spouses are more morally objectionable than a gay couple in a committed sexual relationship.) By the mid-19th century, U.S. courts were siding with wives who were the victims of domestic violence, and by the 1970s most states had gotten rid of their “head and master” laws, which gave husbands the right to decide where a family would live and whether a wife would be able to take a job. Today’s vision of marriage as a union of equal partners, joined in a relationship both romantic and pragmatic, is, by very recent standards, radical, says Stephanie Coontz, author of “Marriage, a History.”…

…We cannot look to the Bible as a marriage manual, but we can read it for universal truths as we struggle toward a more just future. The Bible offers inspiration and warning on the subjects of love, marriage, family and community. It speaks eloquently of the crucial role of families in a fair society and the risks we incur to ourselves and our children should we cease trying to bind ourselves together in loving pairs. Gay men like to point to the story of passionate King David and his friend Jonathan, with whom he was “one spirit” and whom he “loved as he loved himself.” Conservatives say this is a story about a platonic friendship, but it is also a story about two men who stand up for each other in turbulent times, through violent war and the disapproval of a powerful parent…

…In addition to its praise of friendship and its condemnation of divorce, the Bible gives many examples of marriages that defy convention yet benefit the greater community. The Torah discouraged the ancient Hebrews from marrying outside the tribe, yet Moses himself is married to a foreigner, Zipporah. Queen Esther is married to a non-Jew and, according to legend, saves the Jewish people. Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia, believes that Judaism thrives through diversity and inclusion. “I don’t think Judaism should or ought to want to leave any portion of the human population outside the religious process,” he says. “We should not want to leave [homosexuals] outside the sacred tent.” The marriage of Joseph and Mary is also unorthodox (to say the least), a case of an unconventional a
rrangement accepted by society for the common good. The boy needed two human parents, after all.

In the Christian story, the message of acceptance for all is codified. Jesus reaches out to everyone, especially those on the margins, and brings the whole Christian community into his embrace. The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author, cites the story of Jesus revealing himself to the woman at the well— no matter that she had five former husbands and a current boyfriend—as evidence of Christ’s all-encompassing love. The great Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann, emeritus professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, quotes the apostle Paul when he looks for biblical support of gay marriage: “There is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ.” The religious argument for gay marriage, he adds, “is not generally made with reference to particular texts, but with the general conviction that the Bible is bent toward inclusiveness.”

The practice of inclusion, even in defiance of social convention, the reaching out to outcasts, the emphasis on togetherness and community over and against chaos, depravity, indifference—all these biblical values argue for gay marriage. If one is for racial equality and the common nature of humanity, then the values of stability, monogamy and family necessarily follow. Terry Davis is the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Hartford, Conn., and has been presiding over “holy unions” since 1992. “I’m against promiscuity—love ought to be expressed in committed relationships, not through casual sex, and I think the church should recognize the validity of committed same-sex relationships,” he says.

Still, very few Jewish or Christian denominations do officially endorse gay marriage, even in the states where it is legal. The practice varies by region, by church or synagogue, even by cleric. More progressive denominations—the United Church of Christ, for example—have agreed to support gay marriage. Other denominations and dioceses will do “holy union” or “blessing” ceremonies, but shy away from the word “marriage” because it is politically explosive. So the frustrating, semantic question remains: should gay people be married in the same, sacramental sense that straight people are? I would argue that they should. If we are all God’s children, made in his likeness and image, then to deny access to any sacrament based on sexuality is exactly the same thing as denying it based on skin color—and no serious (or even semiserious) person would argue that. People get married “for their mutual joy,” explains the Rev. Chloe Breyer, executive director of the Interfaith Center in New York, quoting the Episcopal marriage ceremony. That’s what religious people do: care for each other in spite of difficulty, she adds. In marriage, couples grow closer to God: “Being with one another in community is how you love God. That’s what marriage is about.”

Newsweek has been bombarded with mass emails from conservative churches who were outraged by this article. To send your message of support, see this page on the Human Rights Campaign website.

I commend Newsweek for their courage and thoroughness in giving a voice to inclusive interpretations of scripture. But frankly, I’m getting fed up with trying to prove that “hey, we’re Christians too!” The Biblical analysis above won’t convince everyone that this is the only legitimate way to read the verses referring to same-sex intercourse–because it isn’t. It is, however, a legitimate reading. Can we all just move on now?

Most Bible passages admit of several interpretations if they are talking about anything remotely interesting. Christians can spin out book-length arguments for and against infant baptism; the Eucharist as Real Presence or symbol; six-day Creation; the timing of the apocalypse; free will versus predestination; pacifism versus just-war theory; whether Jesus was a communist; and on and on.

These are important issues, affecting many more people than the 10% of the population who are homosexual. We may not be able to gather all views under a single denominational umbrella. Yet somehow Arminians manage to recognize that Calvinists are still Christians. Baptists acknowledge Catholics’ sincere discipleship, even if they don’t take communion together. 

But dare to suggest that there’s more than one way to read a half-dozen little verses about same-sex intimacy, and your obedience to God and Scripture is immediately called into question. You’re not just wrong, you’re disobedient. You don’t belong to the body of Christ. There can’t be any evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life.

I’d like to know why the burden of proof is on us to show that these verses should be narrowly construed, rather than on anti-gay Christians to justify their preference for laying the heaviest possible burden on an outcast minority. Why does it seem like they’re actively looking for arguments to maintain the status quo? Shouldn’t our choice of hermeneutic be driven by love and charity?

For all my fellow queer families out there: We can’t wait around for permission to believe that God’s grace belongs to us equally. We have to claim it for ourselves, within ourselves. Yes, “be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is in you.” But remember that we’re the body of Christ now, and no one can take that away from us.

In 16 years of voting, I’ve never been so happy to draw that little line on the ballot as when I connected the arrow yesterday for Obama-Biden. Whatever the outcome would be, I felt an unprecedented hope for our country, merely because of the chance to vote for a candidate I believed in. Obama’s acceptance speech epitomized the qualities I admire about him: idealism and passion for justice, tempered by an intelligent and realistic assessment of how complex our problems are. Whatever stresses and slanders are thrown at him, he seems to meet them with uncanny equanimity. That quality, perhaps more than any other, has lately strengthened me by example.

I call this election bittersweet because voters in California narrowly passed Proposition 8, which would amend the state constitution to take away same-sex marriage rights. Florida passed a similar measure, while Arkansas voted to ban adoptions by gay couples.

Imagine waking up this morning and learning that the people of your state had voted to break up your family. Without ever meeting you, they’d taken it upon themselves to decide that your love wasn’t real love, and your children didn’t belong to you. Church leaders had persuaded your neighbors and your family that God abhorred your intimate relationships–maybe even sowed a terrible doubt in your mind. This breaks my heart most of all. Worldly governments only have lordship over our bodies, but you’re better off killing a man than coming between him and his God.

Before the Civil War, African-American families were torn apart by white slave-owners who believed their marriages weren’t real. No more than a generation or two ago, our courts and legislatures were still debating whether race should remain a barrier to employment, education, housing, and the right to marry the man or woman of one’s choice. Now we have an African-American president. While racism still afflicts us, think how the terms of the debate have already shifted, beyond the imaginings of people who grew up in the civil rights era. Social change does happen, though it feels painfully slow to those whose basic rights are still in jeopardy. Take a deep breath, look back at history, look forward in faith.

Saturday, Oct. 11, is National Coming Out Day. Whatever your sexual orientation, take a moment to think about how you could “come out” against injustice this week.

I’m inspired by the example of Fr. Geoff Farrow, a Catholic priest in Fresno, CA, who recently put his career and personal safety at risk by speaking out against Proposition 8, the ballot question that would take away same-sex marriage rights in California. The Catholic Church and other conservative religious groups have been lobbying in favor of the measure. Farrow also personally came out as a gay man. MadPriest has a link to the ABC News video here.

An excerpt from Fr. Geoff’s Oct. 4 sermon, reprinted on his new blog:

…By asking all of the pastors of the Diocese of Fresno to promote Catholics to vote “Yes” on Proposition 8, the bishop has placed me in a moral predicament.

In his “Pastoral,” the bishop states: “Marriage is much more than simply two persons loving each other. Marriage is naturally, socially, and biologically, directed to bringing forth life.”

Actually, there are TWO ends to marriage: 1) Unitive and 2) Procreative. The unitive end of marriage is simply a union of love and life. The Procreative end is, of course, to create new life. It is important to understand that the unitive end of marriage is sufficient for a valid marriage. The Church sanctions, and considers a sacrament, the marriage of elderly heterosexual couples who are biologically incapable of reproduction. So, if two people of different genders who are incapable of reproduction can enter into a valid marriage, then why is that two people of the same gender, who are incapable of reproduction, cannot enter into a valid marriage.

The objections which are raised at this point are taken from Sacred Scripture. Scripture scholars reveal the problematic nature of attempting to use passages from the Hebrew Scriptures as an argument against same gender relationships. Essentially, these scriptures are addressing the cultic practices in which sex with temple prostitutes was part of an act of worshiping Pagan gods. With regard to the Pauline epistles, John J. McNeill, in his book: “The Church and the Homosexual,” makes the following point: “The persons referred to in Romans 1:26 are probably not homosexuals that is, those who are psychologically inclined toward their own sex—since they are portrayed as ‘abandoning their natural customs.’” The Pauline epistles do not explicitly treat the question of homosexual activity between two persons who share a homosexual orientation, and as such cannot be read as explicitly condemning such behavior. Therefore, same gender sex by two individuals with same sex orientation is not “abandoning their natural custom.”

In 1973, as a result of a greater understanding of human psychology, the American Psychological Association declassified homosexuality as a mental illness. In 1975, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the Church’s watchdog for orthodoxy) produced a document entitled: “Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics.” In this document, they made the most remarkable statement. They stated that there are “homosexuals who are such because of some kind of innate instinct.” While these statements are hardly glowing affirmations of gay and lesbian persons, they represent a watershed in human perception and understanding of gay and lesbian people.

These new insights have occurred as a result of the birth and development of the science of psychology and understanding of brain development in the 19th and 20th centuries. The California Supreme Court cited and quoted an amicus brief filed by the APA in the Court’s opinion issued on May 15, 2008 that struck down California’s ban on same sex marriage. Specifically, the court relied on the APA’s brief in concluding that the very nature of sexual orientation is related to the gender of partners to whom one is attracted, so that prohibiting same sex marriage discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, rather than just imposing disparate burdens on gay people.

In directing the faithful to vote “Yes” on Proposition 8, the California Bishops are not merely entering the political arena, they are ignoring the advances and insights of neurology, psychology and the very statements made by the Church itself that homosexuality is innate (i.e. orientation). In doing this, they are making a statement which has a direct, and damaging, effect on some of the people who may be sitting in the pews next to you today. The statement made by the bishop reaffirms the feelings of exclusion and alienation that are suffered by individuals and their loved ones who have left the Church over this very issue. Imagine what hearing such damaging words at Mass does to an adolescent who has just discovered that he/she is gay/lesbian? What is the hierarchy saying to him/her? What are they demanding from that individual? What would it have meant to you personally to hear from the pulpit at church that you could never date? Never fall in love, never kiss or hold hands with another person? Never be able to marry? How would you view yourself? How would others hearing those same words be directed to view you? How would you view your life and your future? How would you feel when you saw a car with a “Yes on 8” bumper sticker? When you overheard someone in a public place use the word “faggot?”

…In effect, the bishops are asking gay and lesbian people to live their lives alone. Why? Who does this benefit? How exactly is society helped by singling out a minority and excluding them from the union of love and life, which is marriage? How is marriage protected by intimidating gay and lesbian people into loveless and lonely lives? What is accomplished by this? Worse still, is to intimidate a gay or lesbian person into a heterosexual marriage, which is doomed from its inception, and makes two victims instead of one by this hurtful “theology.”

The Human Rights Campaign website offers more resources and ideas for National Coming Out Day, including how to come out as a straight supporter.

This October, interfaith GLBT activist group Soulforce will launch its third annual Equality Ride, sending 18 young adults to tour universities in the southern U.S. with a message of inclusion and critical awareness of how our religious ideologies can perpetuate oppression. From the Equality Ride website:

Every day, thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people suffer harassment, violence, and blatant discrimination at the hands of those who do not understand them. This oppression usually hides in plain sight, masquerading as rigid doctrine or timeless tradition. Consequently, it often goes unchallenged and unchanged. Guided by principles of nonviolence, we at Soulforce Q approach controversial issues with a readiness to meet people where they are. It is our belief that open and honest discussion begets understanding and healing, and that philosophy is at the heart of our work.

The Equality Ride is a traveling forum that gives young adults the chance to deconstruct injustice and the rhetoric that sustains it. The idea is this. We get on a bus and journey to various institutions of higher learning. Through informal conversation and educational programming we explore concepts of diversity, weighing the effects of both inclusive and exclusive ideologies. More practically, we share and gain insights about how our beliefs influence policy and culture, thereby impacting society. Our goal is to carefully and collectively examine the intersection wherein faith meets gender and human sexuality. Such discourse plays an essential role in creating a safe learning and living environment for everyone.

Soulforce pays up front for the Equality Riders’ training, transportation, food, lodging, and educational materials. Supporters’ donations are always needed to cover these expenses. Visit this page to read personal testimonies by the 2008 Riders who are seeking sponsors. Some examples:

Danielle Cooper, age 18, writes:

While attending Howard University, the Harvard of historically black colleges and universities, I grew unhappy with the campus and the way I was being taught. Originally, I had fallen in love with the rich history of the school and the countless people of color who walked the campus unafraid of being different, people who graduated and went on to make history. But, I eventually left the university after only spending one semester there. The euphoric feeling of being a part of something great disappeared as I began to better understand the social rules that guided the campus.

It was extremely difficult to be on a campus where some facets of diversity were considered wrong, a campus where many people believed heterosexuality was an affirmation of blackness. Although there are no discriminatory policies, it was commonly understood that LGBTQ people could be treated differently, looked over and forced into rigid stereotypes. What hurt most was the general willingness to speak about influential black figures like Alain Locke, Langston Hughes, Bayard Ruston, and Angela Davis without acknowledging their queer identities.

My experiences at Howard taught me how important conversations were to education and growth. For some people on that campus, I was the first openly gay person they had ever met. And through our friendship, they were able to see me as a person, not an abstract idea. So, after I heard about the Equality Ride, I jumped at the chance of a nationwide dialogue about religion, gender, sexuality, and race. The Equality Ride is an invaluable opportunity to learn and teach from experience, both of which are needed so that we can move towards understanding and equality for all people.

And Caitlin MacIntyre, age 19, writes:

For as long as I can remember, I’ve sat in church pews every Sunday, singing hymns and listening to the word of God. My father played the church organ and my mom taught Vacation Bible School. We were the perfect Christian family. That is until my father came out of the closet. After many painful denunciations of my father from the pulpit, I began to turn away from the faith I loved. That is until I met Pastor Mike. He led me back to Christ and showed me the part of Christianity that we all too often forget: love your neighbor as yourself. Because of his guidance and love I am proud to be a Jesus follower, with a renewed sense of faith and passion. Pastor Mike is also a gay man.

The church has beaten and bruised him but he continues to walk in faith. He has spoken up with great personal cost and I cannot be silent. I want to ride for him. I want to ride for my father who played the organ in church since I was a little girl, but has been rejected by the church for finding authenticity and love with a wonderful man. I am riding for all of those people who have had church doors slammed in their faces because of whom they love or who they are. My gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender brothers and sisters have endured suffering and rejection at the hands of the church, and I feel honored to sacrifice my own time and comfort if it changes even one heart or comforts one battered soul. I hope one day we can all love (or at least try to love) as Jesus did.

This year’s group of riders includes several straight allies, such as Abigail Reikow, age 23, who observes that because of her activist work, “I have even begun to conceptualize my own sexuality and gender identity in new ways. I now understand that much like the LGBTQ community, my freedom to express either is policed by a society that continuously places my body in a box.”

Abigail’s statement underscores that the struggle for an open and affirming theology is not merely a “gay issue”. It’s about resisting the temptation to pride ourselves on worldly privileges, such as being straight in a heteronormative society, when we should find our righteousness in Christ alone. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, a number of progressive Biblical scholars have made the case that the anti-sodomy passages in the Old Testament refer to pagan temple prostitution. How ironic that our contemporary Christian witness may be compromised by idolatrous worship of heterosexual sex. Soulforce hopes to reverse that trend. Give generously, folks.