edited to add this post.

prayers. love. solidarity.

Are you coming to the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference? If so, plan to get there on Wednesday afternoon for some really exciting networking.

On Wednesday starting at 2pm we’ll be having a special caucusing session. In addition to being able to network with people from your denomination later in the afternoon, we’re also going to be having some other special caucusing opportunities.

In an effort to build community and to create lasting support networks for folks around the country we’ll be caucusing around shared interests. Some of the ideas for caucuses proposed so far are: Folks in rural ministry, people who are “stealth”, Folks who are interested in doing media advocacy, and more. The hope is that these caucuses will be the first step in starting small groups of folks who will provide support and resources to one another year round.

If you have a group you would like to be in, or a topic for a group that you would like to suggest, please contact Shannon Kearns at anarchistreverend@gmail.com.

There will also be a caucus for trans* identified folks in seminary or other spiritual formation courses.

Please pass this email around to your various email lists and invite folks you know who might be interested.

Thank you and looking forward to seeing you in Philly!

Shannon Kearns

When I first left the church I grew up in, a fundamentalist evangelical church, one of the first doctrines I rejected was the idea that God demanded that Jesus be crucified for my sins. I couldn’t (and still can’t) get behind the idea of worshipping a God that demands a blood sacrifice to be appeased. And in throwing out that doctrine for a while I also threw out the idea of resurrection. Easter became an uncomfortable holiday. Something I wasn’t quite sure how to observe. I didn’t know how to make it meaning without buying into a theology that I find incredibly psychologically and spiritually damaging. But this is the high holy day of Christendom. If I don’t believe this, then can I call myself a Christian?

I wrestled with this for a really long time. As I repackaged and reconfigured my faith this was the doctrine I couldn’t figure out how to reclaim.

And then I went through my transition. And suddenly I had a framework to understand crucifixion and resurrection. A life dying so that a new life could be born. The death wasn’t demanded, but inevitable. When one lives into their truth often death occurs. When one speaks truth to power often death occurs. When we live with integrity in communities that don’t want us to tell our truth often death occurs. When you stand up to the Empire, when you claim that another world is possible, when you live into the truth of that possible world the powers have no choice but to try and stop you no matter what, even if that means killing you. Crucifixion isn’t demanded, it’s inevitable. But that isn’t the final word.

For me, whether Jesus was actually resurrected or not doesn’t really matter. What matters is the idea of resurrection. What gives me hope is that there is truth in this story. It might not be literal truth, but it is the deepest truth I know. And it is the truth I cling to: That there is something more powerful than fear. There is something more powerful than death.

The idea of resurrection isn’t that everything miraculously gets better. It isn’t that we have something to look forward to after we die. It means that here and now we get to live without fear. We get to know that there is something stronger than death. We get to know that there is power in the truth. That you can’t stop the revolution. You can stare down fear and death and you can live again. You can withstand the death of relationships, the loss of communities, the loss of beliefs and doctrines that once held great meaning.

And yet we are left changed and with scars. When Jesus was resurrected (so the story goes) and he met Mary in the garden she didn’t recognize him. When he sees the disciples in the upper room he shows them his scars. He is living again, but he is fundamentally changed. When we undergo resurrection we are changed. People and communities might no longer recognize us. We might carry scars that remind us of who we used to be and what we’ve had to come through to get to where we are. Jesus wasn’t resurrected into a perfect, shiny, holy body. He carried his scars. Just like I carry the physical scars of my transition and the emotional scars of leaving my home church and community, of rethinking my faith.

I believe in the crucifixion and resurrection not as salvific in and of themselves, but as they point to the larger wonder of what it means to be fully alive. To stand up to the Empire. To confront injustice both in the world and in ourselves. To know that we can face down whatever comes and know that we can live again. That we are stronger than we know. That we can carry scars and still be whole. That is resurrection.

I’ve been feeling sad a lot lately and frustrated with the church (universal) and the ways in which I feel as if I am spitting into the wind when I try to speak truth to power. I am tired of being dismissed by folks, tired of the refusal of people to see their own privilege, and tired of getting smacked down when I call out that privilege.

Basically I’m just tired. I’m sure I’ll bounce back, but for now I need to do some self care and figure out what I want/need to say next.

Most of the time I try to stay really positive about my queerness and being trans*. I am thankful for my experiences. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I wasn’t queer and trans*. But there are other days where grief washes over me. It’s not something I often talk about because when one talks about stuff like this it gets twisted. So let me be clear up front: I am thankful for my queerness. I do not regret transitioning.

But there is still grief. The reality is that when I came out and when I transitioned I lost a lot of people and things that I love. When I came out I lost most of my friends. Some outright said they could no longer talk to me or be in my life. Others were more subtle; they stopped calling or returning emails and the silence did the rest. I had to walk away from a church and a job that I loved. My relationship with my family was changed forever (and some of my extended family no longer speaks to me). That’s a lot of loss.

I miss having a connection to the past. I can’t go back to the church I grew up in; the church where I first felt a call to ministry, where my leadership gifts were nurtured and challenged, where I was baptized. I can’t go back to the church where I first served as a pastor. I can’t go back to my college. And sometimes that really sucks.

I hate that all of the photos of me with my sister as a baby are hard for me to look at because they were from before I transitioned. I hate that I don’t have any photos of me with my grandparents as my true self. (And I hate that they didn’t get to see the person I am now.)

For me coming out as queer was easier than coming out as trans*; I felt like I was able to retain more contact with the past. But when I came out as trans* so many ties got cut. And people don’t really get it unless they’ve been there. Coming out as trans* isn’t the same experience as coming out as a LGB person. When you come out as LGB you still look the same as you did before. Your childhood photos don’t out you (well, at least not in the same way). I’m not a person who destroyed all of my old photos, but I also feel weird about displaying them. There’s a tension there. Probably the hardest part is wanting there to be photos of me with the people I love, but realizing that some of those people died before I was wholly myself so there will be no photos.

Some days I feel the grief of not knowing how to move through the world; of still learning what it means for me to be in this body. I am still shaking off the shame and discomfort of my old body and learning to lean into this newly resurrected one. I don’t know how to be a brother to my siblings (especially when they still see me as their sister). I don’t know how to be a son or a friend. Some of the things I used to do in a female body now get me pegged as sexist (like holding doors, defending people, etc.).

There is grief and loss that can’t be easily explained and never goes away entirely. And often when it’s brought up it gets dismissed. Today I am grieving. I am feeling the losses in my heart and it feels like there in a weight on my chest.

Maybe it’s appropriate that I would feel this grief on Ash Wednesday. The day when we remember our mortality. But on the other hand I have internalized feeling like dust for a long time. So maybe instead I should remember that I am made of the same stuff as the stars.

Cole is an advocate of what he calls “organic church”. It’s along the same lines as house churches, or cell churches. The idea is a network of smaller groups that reproduce quickly. I was hopeful that his ideas might be more applicable to what we’re doing with House of the Transfiguration than books that are about launching large and growing fast. I really appreciated his thoughts about the failings of the institution of the church especially as they relate to leadership. He has harsh words for hierarchy and the ways that institutions work to keep the status quo. He says,

“We need to stop reinforcing the hierarchical structure in the church and start reinforcing Christ’s headship. We need to empower every person in the body to do God’s work, not just the leaders. If leaders simply ignored their positions and titles and functioned out of the authority Christ gives to all of us, we would not only still be leaders, we’d be better ones. I believe that if we began to do this, we would not need to dismantle the old structure immediately but would, instead, transform the true church from a relational point of view. We will simply infuse the body with the life of Christy, and the old structure will not be as relevant or as important as it once was.” (page 94-95)

I also think the following is a powerful message; here he’s speaking about other agencies who are taking on the work of the church: “The essence of the church is lost when she farms out her responsibilities to other organizations. The world today looks at the church wondering what relevance she has. The only use they see for the church is performing the sacerdotal duties of preaching, marrying, burying, baptizing, and passing around wafers and grape juice. How sad! The church was once a catalyst for artistic expression, social change, and the founding of hospitals, schools, and missionary enterprise, but today she has settled for providing a one-hour-a-week worship concert, an offering plate, and a sermon.” (page 116)

I appreciate that Cole generally uses inclusive language when talking about leaders; he refers to women in leadership, which is not something a lot of evangelical books do. I do think he talks too much about Satan (I’ve written before about why I think Satan is too easy) and of course only uses masculine language for God.

My overall problem with this book is the lack of practical examples of what organic leadership should look like. There’s lot of Biblical references and some stories, but not a lot of nitty gritty here’s how this works. And maybe that’s because there isn’t a set formula, but for those of us who agree with Cole’s diagnosis we’re still left without much of a sense of the cure.

It’s written as a lament. A story of the United States gone wrong. But I also read this as a tale of the church gone wrong. Toward the end of the song he sings:

Where the eyes, the eyes with the will to see
Where the hearts, that run over with mercy
Where’s the love that has not forsaken me
Where’s the work that set my hands, my soul free
Where’s the spirit that’ll reign, reign over me
Where’s the promise, from sea to shining sea
Where’s the promise, from sea to shining sea

Isn’t that the church’s job? Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be about? Where are our hearts running over with mercy? Where is our message of the love that won’t ever forsake? Why aren’t we giving people work that will set their hands and their souls free? This is what it’s supposed to be about.

This is the kind of community I want to be a part of. This is what I want to be creating in my own life and in the lives of others. But I want it to be even bigger than the song: Not just taking care of our own, but taking care of everyone.

But I guess in some ways that is the call of the Gospel, realizing that everyone is our own.

There is a lot that I really liked about this book. It’s an interesting concept (I love these human guinea pig books) and she does a lot of really powerful things. I got a lot of ideas to try in my own life and with the youth I work with. She provides some great information about how excess consumption affects the larger world and hits hard on the mandate that Christians have to do something about all of this.

There were so many moments where I was thinking, “Yes. Finally someone is speaking truth to power in the Evangelical church” (This book is decidedly written for an evangelical audience). I am happy that she called out consumerism, the shallowness of a lot of churches, the way churches spend money, and more. I loved her thoughts on churches stepping up and adopting kids, giving away half of all the money they bring in, serving their community and more.

Hatmaker is writing from a privileged life. She is definitely upper middle class and assumes her readers are as well (or at least solidly middle class). And that I think that’s what made this book really uncomfortable to read. There wasn’t any class critique but there were a lot of mentions of “the poor” and “the homeless”. While she talks about serving and giving things away there wasn’t a call to change the system that keeps people poor.

There were some weird racial things in the book as well (although these were more understated). Throughout she talks about her families plan to adopt two children from Ethiopia and seems to be fixated on the fact that they will be brown skinned with different textured hair (and while it’s important to know how to care for your childrens’ hair the emphasis on it made me uncomfortable). And in one instance, when someone critiques her for wanting to adopt she seems unable to understand his critique. She says he is drunk and it’s only because he’s drunk that he’s saying such things. However in her recounting of his dialogue she reveals the man is Puerto Rican and says that he is telling her that it would be like her family adopting him, which she thinks is completely strange. To me his argument makes sense and is one every white family thinking about adopting a child of another racial background needs to really wrestle with and think about.

In another part of the book she talks about the refugee community and makes sure that the reader knows that they are kept in poverty not because they aren’t hardworking but because there is a language barrier or they lack practical skills (with the unspoken assumption that it’s not like those OTHER homeless people. The ones living under the bridge.). Again, weird class stuff.

And of course there is the dig at a transgender person as she says they had to explain to their kids why there was a “man in a dress” when they went to feed the homeless. Instead why don’t we talk about the fact that extremely high portions of unhoused people (especially youth) are queer. And they lack housing because their religious families kicked them out. Why don’t we have a conversation about how transgender women of color are the most at risk for poverty and violence? I guess that doesn’t fit into an evangelical book.

She embarks on these experiments but then is able to immediately pick her life back up after they are over. Which, on the one hand, I get. How many of us are really willing to completely overhaul our lives? How many of us are willing to sell all we have and give to the poor? But there is a constant push pull in the book: Here is what God demands of us, but I’m not going to do that. And I guess I would be more okay with it if she would just state that up front. I am not going to sell all that I have.

I think what made me most uncomfortable was how insidious the lack of class critique can be. In this world the white, privileged folks get to give away lots of stuff and feel good about it, they get to adopt children from Ethiopia, they get to feed the homeless in the park, give up their shoes, and then go out and buy a new pair of shoes. And not work to overthrow the unjust system that is keeping people without housing and health care.

What I worry this book will do is have a bunch of other people doing experiments to make themselves feel better without actually changing the system. And maybe I am being too harsh. Maybe if lots and lots of people would do these experiments we WOULD change the system. But there still needs to be a sustained understanding of class critique. We need to root out our internalized classism and racism. I think once again of the quote by Paulo Freire on charity: “In order to have the continued opportunity to express their ‘generosity,’ the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this ‘generosity,’ which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty…True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity.” And in this book there is a lot of, “Oh, look how much we’ve given away to those people who really need it.”

I am glad she is raising these questions. I was challenged while reading this book to think about my own excess. But I am still uncomfortable with the outcome of the book. I am uncomfortable with the individualism of the American church. She states in her conclusion that she doesn’t want to guilt anyone and doesn’t want to prescribe a way forward. But honestly, don’t we need to start making some bold and prophetic statements? As Stephen Colbert said, “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.” But taking it even further if we really care about the fact that people are kept in poverty than we need to stop thinking of them as “the poor” and instead actually be neighbors with them. She talks about her church going out to serve food to the homeless but doesn’t talk about whether or not they would be welcome on a Sunday morning. Or what barriers there might be to unhoused folks making it to a service.

I a lot of ways I am very thankful for this book. I am thankful someone is taking on this consumer culture from within the evangelical tradition. I know it takes a lot of courage for an author to put herself and her family out there like this: To reveal their own finances, how and where they spend money, their own excess and I applaud that honesty. But I am afraid that the things left unsaid will allow a culture to continue that keeps people in poverty because we don’t understand systemic oppression. I am afraid that a book like this allows people to get off the hook because there aren’t any prescriptions for what we should do next. I am afraid that this book doesn’t challenge a white evangelical subculture to really examine privilege and racism. This conversation can’t stop here. And the traditional individualism of the evangelical church hasn’t equipped churches to really talk about what it means to live in community or to be community. That’s something we’ve got to start talking about if the systems of the world are going to change.