Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

by Rachel Held Evans

  In addition to her work at Thistle Farms, Becca advocates for creative and effusive use of healing oils in churches—not as a panacea or magic charm, but as a gift, an outward sign of inward grace. Why settle for just a drop of oil for chrism, she argues, when you can fill an entire sanctuary with sweet aroma and engage all the senses in worship? At her own church, a table set with a variety of essential oils—lavender, cinnamon leaf, lemongrass, jasmine, geranium, balsam, myrrh—invites parishioners to make their own blends for anointing the hands and feet of the people they love and serve. Becca concocts special blends for expectant mothers, couples in premarital counseling, those who are sick, those embarking on exciting new journeys, and those traveling difficult roads of healing. The scent, combined with a prayer and gentle touch, can have a powerful healing effect on a person, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. And the time and intention it takes to create a custom scent signals a commitment to stick around for the long haul.

  Ultimately, an anointing is an acknowledgment. It’s a way to speak to someone who is suffering, and without words or platitudes or empty solutions, say, this is a big deal, this matters, I’m here. In a world of cure-alls and quick fixes, true healing may be one of the most powerful and countercultural gifts the church has to offer the world, if only we surrender our impulse to cure, if only we let love do its slow, meandering work.

  Seven years after the “Vote Yes On One” campaign sent me fleeing from the church, I discovered church again in an unlikely place: the Gay Christian Network’s annual “Live It Out” conference in Chicago.

  Founded by Justin Lee, a young gay man who grew up Southern Baptist and survived the destructive effects of “ex-gay ministries” to eventually accept and embrace his sexuality, the Gay Christian Network offers community and support to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Christians, along with their friends, family, and allies. The group is ecumenical, but attracts a lot of evangelicals, many of whom have been marginalized or kicked out of the churches in which they grew up. Some of the more than seven hundred attendees believed Scripture compelled them to commit their lives to celibacy while others believed Scripture granted them the freedom to pursue same-sex relationships and marriage. There was room at the table for all.

  I spoke at the conference as an ally, but within hours of arriving at the Westin on the Chicago River, it became clear I had little to teach these brothers and sisters in Christ and everything to learn from them. I speak at dozens of Christian conferences in a given year, but I’ve never participated in one so energized by the Spirit, so devoid of empty showmanship, so grounded in love and abounding in grace. As one attendee put it, “this is an unapologetically Christian conference.”

  Indeed it was. There was communion, confession, worship, and fellowship. There was deep concern for honoring Scripture and loving as Christ would love, even through differences and pain. There was lots of hugging and crying and praying . . . and argyle.

  But what startled me the most was the degree to which so many attendees had suffered, sometimes brutally, at the hands of Christians trying to “cure” them of their sexual orientation. One young woman described undergoing an exorcism ceremony designed to cast the demon of lesbianism from her body. Another went to counseling where her Christian therapist insisted she must have been molested or mistreated by her parents when she hadn’t. One man followed the advice of his pastor and married a woman, hoping heterosexual sex would make him straight, a decision that led to heartbreaking consequences. Many at the conference had gone through evangelical ex-gay ministries, the largest of which had recently shut its doors when its president admitted that reparative therapy to change sexual orientation is rarely, if ever, effective. Person after person told stories about getting kicked out of their church or their family upon coming out. (Of the estimated 1.6 million homeless American youth, between 20 and 40 percent identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.) Far too many described contemplating suicide as teenagers after begging God to “fix” them to no avail.

  And yet here they were, when they had every right in the world to run as far away from the church as their legs would carry them, worshipping together, praying together, healing together. Here they were, being the church that had rejected them. I felt simultaneously furious at Christianity’s enormous capacity to wound and awed by its miraculous capacity to heal.

  The final night of the conference was set aside for an open mic, in which participants were invited to share their stories in front of the whole group in the main ballroom. One by one, hundreds of brave men and women approached the microphone, took a deep breath, and told the truth.

  “I’m Mary and I’m Jacob’s mom,” said a short woman with a midwestern accent who wore jeans, a white T-shirt and, like several of the parents at the conference, a giant button pin that announced “FREE MOM HUGS” in tall red letters.77

  “Tonight I want to ask Jacob’s forgiveness, and your forgiveness too, because . . .” Her voice began to tremble. “Because until this weekend I was ashamed of my son.”

  She stifled a sob with her hands while we waited in a thick silence.

  “I didn’t want the people at my church to know he was gay because I was afraid of what they would think, what they might say,” she finally said. “But not anymore. I’m so proud of my beautiful son, and of all of you. I’m so proud that I’m going to shout it from the rooftops!”

  A gentle laugh rippled through the room.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mary said, first looking to her son on the front row and then to the rest of the audience. “I’m so very sorry. Please forgive me.”

  “We forgive you!” shouted a woman behind me.

  Jacob ran to front of the room and embraced his mom. They held each other for a few minutes before the next person approached the mic.

  “I remember the first time I was called a . . . homophobic word,” said a young woman, no more than twenty, who wore a flower in her hair and kept her eyes on her shoes. It took her a few moments to form the next words.

  “It was at church.”

  Around the room, people hummed in sad ascent.

  “This is the first time in a long time I’ve been able to be around Christians without totally freaking out,” she said, without ever looking up. “So thanks for that.”

  “From the time I was a teenager, I’ve started every day the exact same way,” said a handsome man who wore a fedora and spoke with confidence.

  “First, I look in the mirror and ask myself, ‘Does this outfit look too gay?’ ”

  The crowd chuckled.

  “After I’ve changed,” he said with a wry laugh, “I go back to the mirror and say to myself, ‘Mike, watch your hands. Mike, be careful with your voice. Mike, don’t laugh too loud. Mike, don’t walk that way. Mike, whatever you do, don’t act so gay.’ ”

  His voice suddenly cracked.

  “I didn’t want to lose my job in ministry,” he said, after collecting himself. “But I’m so tired of that routine. After twenty years, I can’t keep doing that. I’m done. I’m done pretending. I’m done faking it. It’s time to tell the truth: I’m a Christian and I’m gay.”

  The crowd applauded.

  An African American man in a wheelchair followed and brought the house down when he approached the mic, waited a moment, and declared, “I’m black. I’m disabled. I’m gay. And I live in Mississippi. What was God thinking?”

  He was followed by a college student who said he finally worked up the courage to come out to his parents.

  “It didn’t go as well as I’d hoped,” he said. And in the painful silence that followed far too many understood.

  And then there was the young man who had attended the year before in the midst of a deep depression, but who had returned this year with a new church, a healthier family dynamic, and a boyfriend. “It gets better,” he said.

  Near the end of the session, a slight, middle-aged man in a dress shirt approached the microphone.

  “I’m here to ask you
r forgiveness,” he said quietly.

  “I’ve been a pastor with a conservative denomination for more than thirty years, and I used to be an antigay apologist. I knew every argument, every Bible verse, every angle, and every position. I could win a debate with just about anyone, and I confess I yelled down more than a few ‘heretics’ in my time. I was absolutely certain that what I was saying was true and I assumed I’d defend that truth to death. But then I met a young lesbian woman who, over a period of many years, slowly changed my mind. She is a person of great faith and grace, and her life was her greatest apologetic.”

  The man began to sob into his hands.

  “I’m so sorry for what I did to you,” he finally continued. “I might not have hurt any of you directly, but I know my misguided apologetics, and then my silent complicity, probably did more damage than I can ever know. I am truly sorry and I humbly repent of my actions. Please forgive me.”

  “We forgive you!” someone shouted from up front.

  But the pastor held up his hand and then continued to speak.

  “And if things couldn’t get any weirder,” he said with a nervous laugh, “I was dropping my son off at school the other day—he’s a senior in high school—and we started talking about this very issue. When I told him that I’d recently changed my mind about homosexuality, he got really quiet for a minute and then he said, ‘Dad, I’m gay.’ ”

  Nearly everyone in the room gasped.

  “Sometimes I wonder if these last few years of studying, praying, and rethinking things were all to prepare me for that very moment,” the pastor said, his voice quivering. “It was one of the most important moments of my life. I’m so glad I was ready. I’m so glad I was ready to love my son for who he is.”

  By the end of the open mic session, I understood exactly why they say not to bother with mascara at this thing. It was two of the most healing, powerful, grace-drenched hours of my life. It was, at last, church.

  I had a conversation with someone the other day who said he wondered if perhaps LGBT Christians had a special role to play in teaching the church how to more thoughtfully engage issues surrounding gender and sexuality. I told him I didn’t think that went far enough, that ever since the Gay Christian Network conference, I’ve been convinced that LGBT Christians have a special role to play in teaching the church how to be Christian.

  Christians who tell each other the truth.

  Christians who confess our sins and forgive our enemies.

  Christians who embrace our neighbors.

  Christians who sit together in our pain, and in our healing, and wait for resurrection.

  Sometimes people ask me if I believe in faith healings.

  What I think they’re asking is if I believe a pastor can lay hands on a man and cure him of alcoholism, or if a religious shrine possesses the power to coax the paralyzed out of their wheelchairs, or if rallying around a little girl with twenty-four hours of prayer can reverse the progression of her cancer.

  I don’t know. I’ve watched too many people of strong faith succumb to illness and tragedy to believe God shows any sort of favoritism in these matters. (And yet, inexplicably, I always pray.)

  So when I’m asked about faith healings, I tell people about Thistle Farms. I tell them about the Gay Christian Network. I tell them about the widows I met in India who haven’t been cured of their HIV but who are healing from their poverty and hopelessness by loving one another well. I tell them about the Epic Fail Pastors Conference, and the abuse survivors I’ve met through the blog. I tell them about my own journey away from and back to church. Then I shrug my shoulders and say, “I suppose anything’s possible.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Evangelical Acedia

  And I know all the steps up to your door. But I don’t wanna go there anymore.

  —Taylor Swift

  “SEEMS TO ME THAT FOR YOU, EVANGELICALISM IS LIKE the boyfriend you broke up with two years ago but whose Facebook page you still check compulsively.”

  Well, that was it in a nutshell, wasn’t it? And coming from a Baptist preacher of all people.

  He’d arrived at the hotel in his giant SUV a good fifteen minutes earlier to pick me up for a speaking gig at Wingate University near Charlotte, but I’d made him wait so I could calm down, wash my face with cold water, and put on some makeup. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried so hard.

  It all started when World Vision, a humanitarian organization I had long supported and even traveled with, announced a change to its hiring policy allowing people in same-sex marriages to work in its US offices. In response, conservative evangelicals rallied in protest, and within seventy-two hours, more than ten thousand children had lost their financial support from cancelled World Vision sponsorships.

  Ten thousand children.

  To try and stem some of the bleeding, I joined with several other World Vision bloggers to encourage my readers to sponsor children or make one-time donations to the organization, which was reeling as church after church called to cut off funding. We had raised several thousand dollars and multiple sponsorships when the CEO of World Vision announced the charity would reverse its decision and return to its old policy against gay and lesbian employees.

  It had worked. Using needy kids as bargaining chips in the culture war had actually worked.

  According to the CEO, within hours of the change, phone calls flooded the offices with people asking, “Can I have my child back?”78

  News of the reversal reached me by social media minutes before I was to be picked up to speak at Wingate. I suppose you could call it a punch to the gut, but the breathlessness with which the incident left me is more akin to chronic pain than a single injury from which one can fully heal. It still hurts.

  The Baptist preacher was mad about it, too, and in his North Carolina drawl ranted all the way from the hotel to campus, which made me feel better. But having been raised in the more progressive stream of the Baptist tradition, he viewed the situation as something of an outsider, an observer of the infighting rather than a participant in it. He could safely roll his eyes and sigh, as one might while watching political pundits shout at each other on TV, without feeling a deep sense of personal investment or loss. I envied him for it.

  Then he asked me why, despite attending an Episcopal church and holding more progressive views, I still engaged in the evangelical conversation, online and in my books. And for about the hundredth in my life, I blustered and fulminated and declared with impassioned, self-important resolve that this was the final straw and I was finished with evangelicalism once and for all. “That’s it!” I said. “I’m done!” I cried, before picking up my phone to tweet all about it.

  That’s when the Baptist pastor said the thing about Facebook.

  The last time I’d been this angry at evangelicalism was a few years before, when Dan and I were invited into the home of some local churchgoers for what they deemed “a conversation about your faith experience,” but which turned out to be a classic evangelical intervention. We squirmed uncomfortably on the couch, a plate of fresh chocolate chip cookies on the cushion between us, as four people we barely knew—an older couple that was friends of my family and a younger couple we’d never met until that night—expressed deep concern for our spiritual health given our acceptance of evolution and women’s ordination. When the conversation turned to same-sex marriage, the older man’s face gnarled and reddened, and Dan and I made an excuse to leave early. The minute we shut the doors of the Acclaim I vowed never to entangle myself with “those evangelicals” again. “That’s it!” I said. “I’m done!”

  Every time this happens, the big breakup is followed by a month or two of complete religious lassitude, in which I grow indifferent to prayer, indifferent to Scripture, indifferent to the very sort of theological discourse that used to invigorate and challenge me. Some evangelical pastor somewhere writes an article about how yoga pants incite the incontrollable lusts of men, and I can’t generate the energy to debate Matthe
w 5:29 with him even though there are a dozen e-mails in my in-box asking me to respond. “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” I say.

  People invite us out, but I stay in. Sunday morning rolls around and I pull the covers over my head. I sink into a mild depression, a religious acedia, and I give my cynicism free reign. When a reporter working on a story about Christian feminism asks, “Would you like us to identify you as an evangelical?” I blow a bunch of air through my nose and say, “Hell if I know.”

  All I want is to be rid of this investment, this notion that I’ve got some sort of stake in the future of American evangelicalism when it’s clear American evangelicalism doesn’t want me anymore. If I can just stop caring, I imagine, the disappointment won’t hurt as much. If I just give up, I will finally be free.

  And then I get a letter in the mailbox from a sixty-year-old woman who has decided to pursue her lifelong dream of ordination thanks to a conversation she found on the blog. And then our evangelical neighbors invite Dan over for dinner while I’m out of town. And then I have a great conversation with my parents about the Gay Christian Network. And then the latest Scot McKnight book arrives on the doorstep. And then I take communion.

  And suddenly I’m caring again. I’m invested again. I realize I can no more break up with my religious heritage than I can with my parents. I may not worship in an evangelical church anymore or even embrace evangelical theology, but as long as I have an investment in the church universal, I have an investment in the community that first introduced me to Jesus. Like it or not, I’ve got skin in the game.

  And then they make an American Heritage Bible and we’re back to breaking up again. So basically my relationship with evangelicalism is like a Taylor Swift song set to repeat.