What Conservative LGBTQ+ Christians Can Teach Us About Love

Episode Transcript
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Randy (00:06):
I'm Randy, the pastor half of the podcast, and my
friend Kyle's a philosopher.
This podcast hostsconversations at the
intersection of philosophy,theology, and spirituality.

Kyle (00:15):
We also invite experts to join us, making public a space
that we've often enjoyedoff-air, around the proverbial
table with a good drink in theback corner of a dark pub.

Randy (00:24):
Thanks for joining us, and welcome to a pastor and a
philosopher walking to a bar.

Kyle (00:38):
So today on the show we have a couple returning guests.
We haven't talked to them forthree years.
I think it was season one,maybe season two, I don't
remember.
Three years ago, we had DawnMoon and Teresa Tobin on.
Dawn is a sociologist andTeresa is a philosopher, both at
Marquette University.
So I know Teresa, she was oneof my professors.
And we had talked to thempreviously when our we did our

(01:01):
first series on anything relatedto LGBTQ, anything.
And we had kind of waited for awhile for reasons having to do
with your church to explain inthat uh series, and then we had
a s I think it was four episodesin a row just about that, and
we capped it off, I'm prettysure, with with this one.
I think so.
Um interviewing them about someoriginal research that I found

(01:21):
very uh conceptually compellingat the time, and it also had an
interesting empirical basisbecause Dawn is a sociologist,
and so they she has beenstudying um conservative LGBTQ
Christians for a long time.
Um and they were in the midstof trying to work out the ideas
that eventually made their wayinto this book that we're gonna
talk about in this interview.
And so reading this is kind oflike a culmination of uh things

(01:44):
I've been hearing Teresa talkabout for a very long time, plus
that conversation.
And so I kind of had highexpectations going into it
because I know how thoughtfulthey both are and how careful
they've studied this.
Um and I want to say admitthem.
Um the the first chunk of thebook is all the stuff we talked
about in our first episode, justmore fleshed out.
Um and then the the end is somereally interesting stuff that

(02:06):
we get into in this conversationabout um conservatism, about
justice, about love, abouthumility.
Um it goes in some reallyinteresting places and some hard
places, some places that arecomplex and there aren't clear
answers, and some of that comesout in this conversation as
well.
So I was super glad to havethem back.
I loved the conversation and Ihope to talk to them again.

Randy (02:28):
Yeah, yeah, it's a great book.
Uh by the way, it's calledChoosing Love.
What LGBTQ plus Christians canteach us all about
relationships, inclusion, andjustice, and I loved it.
Um the first half in particularis quite human, and there's
lots of stories, and it's justemotional.
I found myself heartbroken at anumber of points in the book,

(02:51):
and I found myself completelyhope-filled at other points in
the book.
Um, and when I would tellpeople, they would ask, What are
you, you know, what are youreading for the podcast?
Or what what what book is that?
I'll say it's a book aboutqueer Christians experiencing in
conservative spaces,conservative Christian spaces,
gay Christians who are alsoconservative Christians.
And the answer I'll get a lotof times when I tell people that

(03:12):
is holy cow, I didn't know theyexisted.

Kyle (03:14):
Yeah, I didn't know that was a thing.

Randy (03:16):
But the reality though is like if you go to a church,
like a conservative Christianchurch, there's there's gay
Christians worshiping in andaround you all the time.
You probably if you don't knowany, that's because of what's
going on at your church and thethe messages that are happening.
But gay Christians areeverywhere in conservative

(03:38):
Christian spaces, and they'retrying to be erased in some of
these Christian conservativespaces.
And in some of these Christianconservative spaces, they just
don't know what to do with thethe queer Christians that are
that are part of their churches,that are want to serve, and
want to be loved, and want to bein a relationship, and want to
get plugged in, want to getconnected to the life of Christ.
And this book is about theirexperience and how maybe we can

(04:01):
do better in the Christianchurch.

Kyle (04:03):
Yeah.
And if you care what DavidGushy had to say about this
book, who was uh previousmultiple-time guest on our show,
uh, he says this book offers athick description based on
participant observation of theinner worlds of LGBTQ plus
Christians from conservativebackgrounds.
It probes the psychologicalspiritual dynamics that are
created at this so often sopainful intersection.
It describes individuals andorganizations working to bring

(04:25):
constructive change, and in theend it modestly but clearly
charts key hallmarks of aconstructive path forward.
I think he's right.
It does exactly all of thosethings, and it's uh people that
I know and care deeply about, sothat makes it all that much
better.
Well, Teresa Tobin and DonMoon, welcome back to the Pastor

(04:59):
and Plause for Walking to aBar.

Theresa (05:01):
Thank you.
Thanks so much for having us.

Kyle (05:03):
So we said uh three years ago, I think, that when you
wrote this book, we're gonnahave you back on to talk about
it.
And here it is.
Here we are.
So uh the book is calledChoosing Love What LGBTQ plus
Christians Can Teach Us AllAbout Relationships, Inclusion,
and Justice.
Just finished it, it's a doozyin a very good way.
Um I loved it.
Yep.

(05:23):
It's pithy and it's moving andit's approachable.
And um, I think you nailed whatyou were trying to do.
Yep.
Based on our previousconversation.
So can you for listeners whohaven't heard that first
conversation, first of all,guys, go listen to it.
It's in the show notes.
How did this book come about,just really quickly?

Dawne (05:42):
Um sure, yeah.
Well, so I I had studied um I'dstudied uh church debates about
homosexuality in the 90s.
I um then went on to a timestudying um Jewish-Palestinian
dialogue, among other things.
And then in the early 2010s, afamily member came out as gay

(06:04):
and he was evangelical, camefrom an evangelical family.
And um, because of that, Ilearned that this whole movement
was happening, and it reallyseemed like like everything I'd
been doing in my life had wasleading to this moment.
And um and I was like, okay, Ijust have to, I what is going
on?
And um his his brother-in-law,another cousin, um, sent was

(06:29):
sending me like things that hewas reading, blogs, articles,
um, as he was trying to sort outhow he should respond.
And um, some of them werecoming from the Marin Foundation
in Chicago, two miles from myhouse.
And I was like, I gotta meetthese people, what's happening?
And so um, so the projectbegan.
Um, and then um an opportunitycame up to apply for a grant

(06:54):
where I needed to work withsomeone in the humanities, and I
remembered having met Teresalike some years prior and not
spoken to her since, and askedif she um would want to join me
because of what she had beenworking on.
It seemed like it would be agood fit.
So I don't know if she needs tobe.

Theresa (07:12):
So, what I had been working on was um I was really
struck by this concept ofspiritual violence that
survivors of clergy's sexualabuse had named as a distinct
harm that they had experiencedin addition to sexual,
emotional, and physical harm.
Um, but the spiritual harm ofbeing um violated by people who
were religious authorities insacred spaces using sacred, you

(07:33):
know, objects and texts, and howthat impacted their capacity
for relationship with God, howit harmed them and their
capacity for faith, and thatthat was felt as a distinct
loss.
And then in talking with Donand realizing that that concept
was much broader than just thoseexperiences that LGBTQ
Christians, women, a lot ofpeople had had experiences of

(07:56):
spiritual violation based ontheir the way they had been kind
of spiritually formed in umChristian communities in
particular.
I was looking at Catholiccommunities.
Um, that's my background.
So the spiritual violence thatLGBTQ plus conservative
Christians were enduring, it wasa sort of natural fit for Don
and I to start working together.

Randy (08:17):
This book is there's there's so many personal stories
in it.
Do you know how many people youtalk to about in the course of
researching this?

Dawne (08:26):
Um yeah, we we interviewed 64 people.
We um, I mean, and it'ssit-down formal interviews, um,
some of them multiple times.
Um we also, because we're bothwhite, we um hired a research
assistant, Alicia Crosby Mack,who is African American, um, who
was also a founder of one ofthe organizations that we were

(08:49):
looking at.
Um, and so we were able to umpay her to interview 40 more um
LGBTQ Christians of color inparticular.
Um, so that brought the totalup to um 104 interviews or 104
people, uh 117 interviews.

Randy (09:10):
So the stories, especially in the first half of
the book, I would say, I mean,really, those stories kind of
echo all the way through.
Um but they're arresting andthey kind of lay the foundation
for for for why you're writingthe book and in what you're
writing about.
Can you share with ourlisteners just a couple of those
stories in particular?
The first one I'm thinking ofis the first story you read.

(09:31):
The first thing you read inchapter one is Darren's story,
um, which is a crazy story.
Can one of you just bring ourlisteners into Darren's world a
little bit and why why youfeatured him in the book?

Dawne (09:44):
Sure, yeah, I'll I'll do that.
Um so Darren is anAfrican-American gay man.
Um he um he he asked us to usehis real name.
It's Darren Calhoun, that's whohe is.
You can find him on Instagram.
Um and he um he was raised inwhat he called a not too churchy

(10:06):
Catholic family.
And then when he went tocollege, he was saved um in a
Pentecostal church and wasbecoming a minister in that
church, and um he had alreadybeen out as gay, and that was
like, you know, no drama aroundthat.
Um, but then as he was um as hewas saved, he you know, was

(10:29):
talking about his testimony.
He didn't really feel like likeyou know, doing gay things
anymore, you know, he wastalking about that, testifying,
and his pastor took him asideand said, you know, you can
never talk about that.
No one will ever be able toreceive you if you talk about
that.
And that introduced this, youknow, this uh experience of
shame for the first time.

(10:50):
And um eventually his pastorhad him to like his pastor kind
of invented his own kind ofreparative therapy.
He had him living in a church,the church um was in Chicago,
but owned another building inIndiana, another church, and he
was living away from everybodythat he knew in Indiana, in the
church, sleeping on the altar,fasting two days a week, and

(11:13):
just like praying fordeliverance.
He had to ask for permission.
He's told his story.
You can find he's he tells iton his podcast um Second Sunday.
He told it in um either Time orPeople magazine several years
ago.
Um, but he um he was he had toask his pastor for permission to

(11:33):
go grocery shopping, you know,anything like that.
Um at times he was likecleaning the church, you know,
for $50 a week or whatever.
And um after four years ofisolation, he just, you know,
he'd been praying, he'd beenreading self-help books, he'd
been like learning that likemaybe he had some real human

(11:54):
need for connection, that thatwasn't a shameful thing.
Um, and eventually he heardJesus saying, like, why are you
hiding from life?
That's not what I want fromyou.
And when he told his pastorthat, um, the pastor was like,
Oh, I could keep you locked inmy basement if you want to come
back to Chicago.
And he's like, No, I'm hearingyou say that, but that's not

(12:14):
what I'm hearing Jesus say.
I don't think I need yourbasement.
Thank you very much.
And so he just moved back.
And the pastor told everyone inthe church, just leave him be.
Like, don't, don't talk to him.
He's got to work his stuff out.
Don't, you know, like wouldn'tlet like he'd been a worship
leader, he wasn't allowed topick up a microphone, and he
just was basically ghosted byeveryone around him.

(12:36):
They wouldn't talk to him, andso he left that church, went to
um a uh predominantly white,affirming, but um no, welcoming
but not affirming mega church,um, where he was allowed to say
he was gay, he was allowed to,but he had to be celibate.
Um, he was allowed to serve thechurch, he was allowed to, you

(12:57):
know, lead ministry, leadworship.
And um, but every time, youknow, like things would have he
kept getting like called in, hewas under constant surveillance,
right?
And so he would um, you know,like one day he was like, you
know, his pastor called, youknow, you've got to come in and
meet the pastor, right?
And he's like, Okay, what'sgoing on?

(13:18):
And the pastor's like, youknow, we need to, you know, we
need to have a conversationbecause someone saw you on a
date.
And he was like, What are youtalking about?
And he basically he'd beenspotted by a fellow church
member eating at a restaurantwith someone who's a man.
And he was like, So what doesthat mean to be on a date?
Like, am I not allowed to leavemy house and have a nice time

(13:41):
with other people?
Uh, does it have to be in agroup?
And do straight people in thechurch, if they're not married,
they're not supposed to behaving sex, are they allowed to
have dinner together and have anice time?
Like, and you know, and thepastor to his credit was like,
you know, you're right, we havesome things to think about here,
but it was just this constant,you know, having to, you know,

(14:04):
to answer for himself, having,you know, being under constant
scrutiny and constantly feelinglike he was in trouble and at
risk of losing his ministry atany time.
Um, and uh he was there for along time during the course of
our research, um, and eventuallygot a position as a worship
leader in an affirming churchand was just like, wait, when my

(14:26):
pastor calls, I feel panic.
You know, like, and then youknow, it turns out the pastor's
just like, you want to get lunchtomorrow?
Like it's nothing.
Like they're not, you know,like he's not in trouble, he's
not busted.
Um, and you know, so it wasjust this like this experience,
it was, you know, of like we'retrauma after trauma after trauma
imposed by churches, by peoplewho loved him and claimed to

(14:49):
love him and claim to want whatwas best for him, and just
realizing that, you know, that,you know, I mean, one thing that
he'd said, you know, at thepredominantly white church, he
also had to deal with the theracism, right?
And like the, you know, likethat he didn't he had to like
kind of tone down his way ofworshiping.
He had to explain himself if hewanted to leave them singing

(15:11):
songs that were, you know, fromthe African-American tradition
or from a different traditionthat than you know the
traditions that people have beenaccustomed to.
And you know, he's done lots ofactivist work in all kinds of
of of uh realms.
And um, you know, and he theway he put it one time was like,
I don't know, I'm justprogrammed to deal with people's
stupid questions.

(15:31):
Like I just I just have a Ihave a heart for that.
I can do it.
Um uh the last time I talked tohim, it seems like maybe that
was getting to be a little, alittle tiresome.
Um yeah, that's Darren.
He he is and he, I mean, thisis someone who just exudes love.
Is so, I mean, the story thatthe book opens with is a story

(15:54):
of him just, you know, likereally showing me for the first
time in my life, having grown upgoing to church, having a
mother who was a pastor, like hewas the one who like helped me
understand what Christian lovecould be that wasn't just a sort
of like, I love you but hateeverything about you, you know,
kind of um sort of give with onehand and take away with the

(16:17):
other kind of love.

Randy (16:18):
Yeah, because that's the kind of Christian love you'd
experience you've experienced isI love you but hate everything
about you.
Is that why you say that, Don?

Dawne (16:27):
Yeah, yeah.

Randy (16:27):
Yep.
All right, thank you.
And then Kai's story.
Um let me just read the thequote from Kai that you have in
the beginning of chapter two,because I think it's a it's a
confrontational idea for thoseof us who have been raised in
the church, those of us who havebeen kind of just told this is
the way the world is, um, thathomosexuality homosexuality is

(16:50):
bad, and kind of embracing thatidea and um leaning into it is
actually love, right?
Um here's a story of what thatdoes to a person.
This is a person named Kai.
They said, I found myselfunconsciously shutting down
connection.
And that was something that Ithink a lot of my friends had a
hard time understanding becauseI'm an introvert.
I do love people, and I canlisten to stories and laugh and

(17:12):
have a good time, and so it wasbizarre to them that inside I
was crumbling in every momentbecause I was so fervently
policing myself and making surethat I did not let myself go too
far emotionally with someone,lest I start to have this idea
that I would want to share alife with them and experience
intimacy at any level with them.
And I think that's where theshame piece really began to come
become clear to me.

(17:33):
I was exp experiencingChristian life in a very
different way than all of myother friends were, and it took
me a long time to be able tolook back on that and say, those
were days when I hated myself,and I hated myself for the sake
of demonstrating how much Iloved God.
Now that last sentence there,and you go into it more in the
in the chapter, but can you gointo that that idea of the

(17:56):
sacrament of shame that you talkabout in that chapter, based
on, you know, in many ways whatKai Kai shared there, that I
hated myself in order to haveGod love me more.
Um that's a kind of nasty wayof thinking about humanity,
about yourself, about God.
Um can you talk about shame andwhat you mean by a sacrament of

(18:21):
shame and go into that livedexperience of these folks that
you guys have talked to?

Theresa (18:26):
Yeah, thank you for highlighting um Kai's experience
because I think it's it's umit's illustrative of many
experiences, but it'sparticularly pointed.
And I think what we observedover and over again was that um
conservative Christian churcheswere requiring their LGBTQ

(18:48):
members, churches and theirfamilies were requiring their
LGBTQ members to uh uhdemonstrate and perform and feel
shame about their gender andsexuality as the condition for
acceptance and some semblance ofacceptance in God's community
of supposedly universal andunconditional love.

(19:09):
And so you know, a lot of a lotof Christians define a
sacrament as a sign of God'spresence, a tangible sign of
God's presence in a person'slife.
And so what we were observingwas that for LGBTQ plus
Christians, um a kind ofconstant awareness and perform

(19:29):
awareness of their unworthinessfor relationship, right, was the
and performance of shame, thefear that they were unworthy of
relationship, like that constantperformance of that and and
feeling of that, was thecondition for being um allowed
to be in God's community oflove.
And so, and fame, it was, youknow, fame is a is an emotion,

(19:52):
um, it's a fear of beingunworthy of relationship.
And so it wasn't like just youknow, it's it's thinking that
like I'm bad, not just that Idid something bad, but that I'm
bad, that connection with mewill harm you, will will just
paint you, will um make make youworse, and you shouldn't be in
relationship with me.
And so it wasn't just likehaving a kind of intellectual

(20:14):
thought like I'm a bad person,but as you can see in Kai's
story, like this innerinternalized sense of sort of
constantly surveilling andpolicing their own emotional
connection with friendships,with their parents, with any
kind of relationship at all,because anytime they might feel
anything towards someone, uh,friendship, compassion, right,

(20:34):
wanting to serve people, feelinglike, oh, I gotta cut that off.
I can't be in relationshipbecause I'm I'm not worthy of
relationship.
And that's the only way I canbe in a community of God's
allegedly universal andunconditional love.
But that's contradiction andit's unlivable.
And so for Kai, Kai reallyleaned into that.
And you can read the rest ofthe chapter, the next few

(20:55):
quotes.
Kai spent years praying, like,God, I'm I'm willing to take on
this sacrifice because I loveyou so much and I want to be
loved by you so much, and I'mwilling to take this on to
suffer this.
If this is my cross, I'll bearit.
And then a couple thingshappened.
Um, first of all, Kai actuallyexperienced not only sort of
mental health consequences, youmight imagine, but physical

(21:17):
consequences.
So Kai started having, Kai hada heart rate of 19 and was in
the hospital, and people weretrying to figure out what was
wrong with Kai.
And nothing was wrong with Kai,and the only thing they could
trace it back to was the stressof having to try and navigate
that constant inner policing andsurveillance of like, I'm not
worthy of relationship, I can'tbe in relationship, I can't get
too close to people.
Um, so that was one thing thatstarted happening.

(21:39):
But um, but then Kai also beganto, out of their own humility
and love for other LGBTQ people,look at how the church's
teachings were harming them andhave this moment of like, okay,
here's this teaching I've beenbelieving in and leaning into
and upholding, and I see thatit's how badly it's harming this

(22:01):
person that I love.
And then nobody deserves to betreated that way, and that
opened them up, their humilityto say, I'm gonna pay attention
to that person's experience andallow it to open me up to say,
well, maybe maybe I'm wrongabout what God thinks of them
and of me, and maybe I'm wrongabout what the church has always
taught me.
So it kind of opened up andcreated a wedge for them to

(22:22):
begin that journey of sort ofasking those questions.

Randy (22:26):
Um so yeah, thank you.
The this dynamic in thatchapter that you highlighted and
what you're speaking to,Teresa, um, is so familiar to
me.
Um because I mean, I processwith people regularly who are,
you know, and by people I meanI'm a pastor.
So people in my congregation orpeople who are, you know, know

(22:46):
of me as a pastor, might not bein my church, but because I'm
affirming or I've I've changedmy mind about uh human sexuality
as a pastor, people trust me inother churches, even so I'll
talk to them.
And what I hear over and overagain in these conversations,
where a person who'snon-affirming is like it feels
like they're trying to get to anaffirming place.
But we, and I'll say we becausethis was me up until five years

(23:10):
ago, right?
Um, we don't really understandthe weight of what we're asking
our LGBTQIA siblings to do andto embody and to be when we say
just just be celibate, just cutoff that sexuality part of
yourself, just cut it off.
Just just let it go dormant,just just don't pay attention to
it.
It's just one thing that God'sasking of you, no big deal.

(23:32):
And it's it doesn't seem soweighty and so heavy to us who
are straight and cisgendered andyou know have no problem
expressing ourselves in thatway.
Can you speak to that dynamicof what that might do to a human
who's being asked to cut offand turn off a part, an inherent
part of themselves, and howdehumanizing that might be?

Dawne (23:53):
Yeah, I mean, it's asking them not just to like don't eat
meat or something, you know,just like forsake this one
thing, this one person like howmany of them would even do that,
but right, right, right.
Um, it's it's asking people tocut or telling people they have
to cut off their capacity forlove, their capacity for

(24:16):
connection with other people,and that their capacity to love,
that their capacity to connectwith other people is damaged and
dangerous.
And so it's cutting them offfrom all relationships, right?
I mean, we've talked we'veheard from people who, I mean,
and not just in interviews, butalso just you know, going to

(24:37):
conferences and hearing people'stestimonies, um, you know,
people who, you know, we're notallowed to teach Sunday school,
we're not allowed to um to servepeople the way that Christians
are told they're supposed toserve people, right?
They're cut off from all ofthese things, and then, you
know, and then treated as if,you know, any um struggle with

(25:01):
that is just proof at how likesex-crazed gay people are,
right?
When it's like, you know, inchurches where you know people
who aren't married by the timethey're 25 are looked at as
like, uh oh, we gotta set youup.
We gotta, you know, we havesingles ministries so that
singles can meet each other.
We have classes on how to likecommunicate better in your

(25:23):
marriage, like the entire churchis built around marriage.
Celibacy is mistrusted, right?
Except gay people should dothat, right?
If they're allowed to even saythey're gay in the first place.
And, you know, like, you know,I I heard from people who are
like, my church would never hirea single man who in his 30s,
right?
Like, how could you trust him?

(25:44):
There's something wrong withhim, and yet, right, like I'm
gonna say gay people, um, I'myou know, there's different, you
know, overlapping dynamics withbisexuals and trans people, um,
but you know, are are told,like, well, you you should be
celibate.

(26:04):
That's okay for you.
And, you know, meanwhile, youknow, like one person who had
been celibate for for a longtime had had said, you know, I
mean, if this church wants me tobe celibate, they've got to
give me some kind of futurebesides dying alone and being
eaten by my cats.
And they're not giving that.

(26:24):
They don't care enough toprovide me with any kind of
future or any kind of connectionwith other people.
It's just like, you know, besure you're celibate, or we're
gonna bring you in on charges orwhatever, you know.
Um, and so it's really it'sit's denying this basic reality
that human beings needrelationships with other people,

(26:45):
that we're created forconnection with other people.
And to say, like, well, exceptyou, not you, because obviously
you can't do that because you'reso broken.
Um, it's it's really toxic andharmful.
And the that dynamic ofsacramental shame, like you have
to prove you're you know you'reunworthy of relationship just
to let us, you know, just for usto let you like breathe our
air, right?

(27:06):
Like has so many contradictionsin it that it just there's not
really a way to make it makesense for a long time for a lot
of people.
And so, you know, you you wesaw all of these um these harms
that people came to um as aresult of that.
I don't I don't know if thatwould convince anybody, but it's

(27:26):
it's just it's really it'sdenying people their humanity.

Theresa (27:32):
Yes, yeah, their personhood.
I mean, to the extent thatpeople they're they they come to
a place of like what they feelis that oh, it's their very
existence that's the problem,right?
It's not a misuse of theircapacity for relationship, but
the very capacity itself is aproblem.
And if that's central to whatit means to be a person created
in God's image and God's God'sdesire is for relationship, and

(27:54):
that's the capacity in me that'sunjust totally broken, damaged,
and dangerous, then itchallenges my very personhood
and coming and people sayingyou're monstrous, you're an
abomination, right?
So the idea of your veryexistence is a problem, is where
it leads.

Kyle (28:09):
Yeah, that's so.

Dawne (28:10):
And just can I just add one thing?
So a lot of times people prayedand prayed and prayed to God to
please make them worthy, pleasetake this away.
They didn't want it, right?
And God didn't take it away,right?
So then they felt like, youknow, the more they prayed, the
more they felt like God wasignoring them and making them
remain unworthy of love.

Kyle (28:32):
Yeah.
And this is what I love aboutyour take is you drill right
down to the core of what thislogical entailment of this
position really is, because it'sreally easy for a conservative
Christian to hear it and think,it's just sex.
We're talking about sex, right?
But it's more than that.
Uh it's it's your capacity tolove and be in relationship with
other human beings andtherefore to be a flourishing
human being because that's whatwe are.

(28:52):
That's right.
But even if it fucking was justsex, like like what a glaring
double stand.
Like we have it's like we'veforgotten when evangelicals
decided they were sex positive.
We forgot that when it when itcame to LGBTQ people, right?
Because I would never do that,but I'm gonna hold it out for
you as a real thing, and alsothose people over there who
think it's a vocation, right?

(29:13):
Uh, and somebody on our sidecan do it, so I guess you can do
it too.
Uh, forgetting that if you wereI would receive that as
nonsense if you were to tell methat I could set aside my my my
attraction to women and and mydesire to be in a sexual
relationship.
It would just be incoherent.
There was a there was a quotein here, I don't know who it's
from, because you didn't namethe person, but a participant at

(29:35):
one of your conferences said,I'm not any one part of who I am
first.
Yes.
I'm black, I'm multiracial, I'ma husband, a parent, a pastor,
a Christian, I'm all of thosethings at once all the time.
I'm not sure what beingChristian even means to them if
they can separate that fromeverything else they are.
You never heard it put sosuccinctly.

Randy (29:52):
Yes.
Yes.
Which is in response to thisChristian movement that says,
I'm Christian first andeverything else second, third,
fourth, whatever.

Kyle (30:00):
Which is what you have to do to carve off the sexual
nature, so so simply, right?
You have to say, Oh, there's afundamental aspect of it.

Randy (30:07):
Well, and it's kind of a response, an angry response to I
what they would call identitypolitics, I would say.
It's kind of this likeanti-woke kind of slogan that we
get to toss out there, and ifyou disagree with it, you're you
love Jesus less because that'snot your first print primary
identity, you know?
Right.
All of its nonsense.
Because, like this gentlemansaid, all of who I am is all of

(30:28):
who I am.
How do I separate that out andparse that out?
I can't do it.

Kyle (30:31):
Which gets us to this um intersectionality idea, and I
think you were gonna asksomething about that, so now
would probably be a good time toinsert that because that's a
significant theme of your book.
Um, I don't know what you weregonna ask, but if you want to
just explain that idea and itsorigin and the role it plays
quickly, that would be good.

Dawne (30:48):
Okay, yeah, so um the term, the term itself, the
five-syllable word or whatever,um, comes from um legal scholar
Kimberly Crenshaw, um, whocoined the term in the late 80s,
um, because of her legalscholarship to talk about ways
that the law could fail blackwomen by insisting that they

(31:09):
could only bring court, youknow, bring suits to court on
the basis of sex discriminationor on the basis of racial
discrimination, but not both atthe same time, because that
would be double-dipping, right?
Um even though, you know, thethe plaintiffs were people who
were fired because they wereblack women, right?
Um, but she's talking about aterm that, you know, a concept

(31:33):
that, you know, um black andother feminists of color have
been talking about probablyforever, which is that um, you
know, a lot of times we think ofracism and sexism and then, you
know, all of these other formsof oppression as sort of like
separate, separate variables orseparate vectors.
And um, you know, we can justwe're just gonna deal with this

(31:54):
one now.
Um, and what happens inactivism when people do that is
that you know, you end up withum, you know, white women
running feminism and claimingthat like whatever benefits
white women will trickle down towomen of color and trans women
and women with disabilities,poor women, um, and um, you

(32:16):
know, uh, you know, um civilrights activists often you know
seeing the civil rights of menas like what they're they're
fighting for, and seeing women'sconcerns as taking away from
that within their owncommunities.
And so as scholars, the theconcept invites us to think

(32:37):
about how these systems ofoppression work together and
can't really be separated, um,and invites us to, you know,
rather than like, you know, kindof, you know, people use the
language of marginalization,meaning like pushing, you know,
certain aspects off to the sideand saying, like, here's the
real story.
The real story is white men'sstory.

(32:58):
Um, but what happens if you youknow bring the people in from
the side and make them thecenter of the story?
How does that make the storyitself look different?
Um, and so that's what we'rewe're trying to do here.

Randy (33:11):
Thank you.
I'm a little bummed that youbrought intersectionality this
early because I have lots of 14other nicer questions.
We can backtrack.
We don't have to go on a littlebit.
It's okay.
Here we are.
Um so, all that said, I I fullybelieve um in the concept of
intersectionality.
I think it's something that weneed to pay attention to and

(33:31):
something that we need to takereally, really seriously, and
has is just a legitimate realthing, right?
And I say that only because Iknow people who think it's not a
real thing and who are, youknow, kind of shit on the the
idea, and I I just don't agree.
However, in in chapter six inparticular, one of the things

(33:52):
you go into in fairly decentdetail is this thing that
happened with Matthew Vines inthe Reformation Project.
Now we chatted with Matthew acouple months ago, it was a
great conversation, and we loveMatthew, but also don't agree
with Matthew on everything.
Um can you tell our listeners,I don't want to sum it up, you
know, in my crude way, can youtell our listeners about like

(34:15):
what's the intersectionality inthe Reformation Project and kind
of how things got really kindof rough for a while for for
Matthew and the ReformationProject around this idea of
intersectionality?
Can you can you just detailthat story for our listeners a
little bit?

Dawne (34:29):
Um, you know, so when Matt, I mean, and we love
Matthew too.
Like, I mean, I just, you know,I have a very warm, soft space
in my heart for him and um andwhat he's trying to do.
So when he started theReformation Project, he you
know, he had this plan, right?
He he had done his podcast withthat laid out this, you know,

(34:50):
where he like sorted through allthe affirming theology, sifted
out the stuff that what thatdidn't like hold muster with his
like you know, evangelicalhermeneutic, and um and uh you
know, made a YouTube video, itwent viral, he turned that into
his book, and um and he wantedto create a movement to empower

(35:14):
people all over the country toum work within their churches
for reform, right?
To like work within theirchurches to teach people of this
affirming way of understandingscripture.
And um he hired a bunch ofsocial justice organizers to
help with that.
And you know, social justiceorganizers see racism as a

(35:36):
problem 100% of the time, right?
Like it's always a problem.
And so they brought to the taskthe and and members of the
board as well, you know, likebrought to the task, like, you
know, we can't really talk abouthomophobia without also talking
about racism and other kinds ofoppression as well, because you

(35:57):
know, something like you know,30 something percent of LGBTQ
people are also people of color.
The um the the history ofhomophobia is intimately
connected to the history ofracism, right?
Both of them are about usingsexuality as the basis to say

(36:18):
these people are closer toanimals and less human than uh
than than than us, right?
Than the insiders, than the umthe people with power.
And um and it started seemingto some people like like the
Reformation Project was moving,was kind of getting off track,

(36:41):
right?
And it's like, you know, howcan we like you know, we're just
we're trying to like get ourchurches to like do this heavy
lifting of like changing theirwhat they see as their
traditional understanding of theBible and marriage and gender
and Adam and Eve and like youknow, everything that they they

(37:01):
think that um that God holdsdear.
And to then also be likecalling them racist at the same
time is a distraction.
It's putting people off, it'smaking people not want to uh you
know, to listen to us.
We don't seem conservativeanymore if we're gonna be like
both, you know, talking abouthomophobia and racism.
Like what how are we evenconservative anymore?

(37:24):
And um, and so you know,eventually he put out a
statement saying, you know,we're gonna get back to our,
we're gonna stay in our lane,you know, we're gonna go to back
to our founding values.
We love God, we love the Bible,we love the church, like that's
what we're about.
The other stuff, it's not thatit's not important, it's just
not for us to do.

(37:45):
We need to work on this.
Um, and you know, I think somepeople were like, Great, that's
that's what I thought you weredoing all along.
And other people felt reallyabandoned by that and were just
like, wait, what?
Like, what have I been doinghere?
Um and you know, and the peoplewho I spoke to after that um
that came out were prettygracious about it, you know,

(38:08):
like that you know, it wasn'tthat people were like coming
after him with with torches andpitchforks or anything, it was
just like they felt betrayed,they felt unseen, I think, um,
and just felt like, oh, okay, Ithought I was contributing to a
movement that cared about me andpeople I love, and that's not

(38:31):
the priority, and so uh so herewe are.
Um, so yeah, I I mean I I Ithat's my understanding.
Maybe you have a differentunderstanding.

Randy (38:41):
No, yeah, no, I think that's that's what I read in the
chapter, and I mean, yes.
So again, while I affirm thisidea of intersectionality and
see it as a really importantthing for us to to grapple with,
my issue with that chapter, andthat part of that chapter, is
the thinking that somehow seemsto be the case that um perhaps

(39:04):
it could this be liberal?
Now this is I'm gonna make somany people mad and maybe maybe
you two, I don't know.
But I'm a liberal.
We read your quote.

Theresa (39:12):
We read your outline.

Randy (39:14):
I'm a progressive, but I'm kind of a b a bad
progressive, right?
So could this be liberalsshooting themselves in the foot
a little bit because they aren'twilling to work with people as
they are?
In other words, what if it'simpossible to get through to
conservative Christians aboutloving and affirming LGBTQIA
people if we feel the need toinclude addressing the white
supremacy in the sameconversation?
Could that make one impossible?

(39:36):
Could it be that focusing ontheir fear and hatred of LGBTQIA
people could be an eventualbridge to seeing the way that
they have that same fear andhatred of people of color, but
you have to maybe you have totake one before the other in
order to not have them shutdown?
Or could it be that this ideaof intersectionality is true,
but it might not, it mightactually be counterproductive to

(39:58):
getting some people to actuallychange their minds about one
thing, and then maybe we canaddress the other.
Those are were my thoughts as Iread that chapter, and I'd love
to hear your thoughts.

Dawne (40:07):
Yeah, I think all of that could be true.

Theresa (40:10):
All of it's true.
It's all true of what weobserved, truly.
I mean, I think, and I thinkgoing back and looking at that
chapter, I think it's evenimplied in Matthew's original
statement.
If you read between the lines,and I also think what that
chapter is trying to do is talkabout tension and talk about how

(40:31):
different people in differentspaces in this movement are
trying to navigate thosetensions to do work on multiple
fronts.
I mean, Darren Calhoun, I thinkhe's an A star of this whole
thing.
And when you get to the partwhere he's talking about that
experience, he's like, look, Irecognize the value in what
Matthew's trying to do, and Irecognize I'll benefit

(40:51):
indirectly from it.
Right.
It's just not a place for meanymore.
And I've devoted a lot of mytime and energy here, and I need
to be doing other work, right?
So when we when we looked atthe at the you know, the Marin
Foundation that then became CFI,and then the Reformation
Project and the evolution ofthat, and then GCN that then
evolves into QCF, you can seethese evolutions on these fronts
where different groups ofpeople are holding those

(41:13):
tensions and trying to makechoices about how to navigate
them and do the work that needsto be done in multiple spaces.
And, you know, there's placesin that chapter where we we
remember at CFI talking aboutwhen that evolution happened,
like some people, some whiteconservative Christians felt
like maybe that wasn't the placethey could go anymore because

(41:35):
it had abandoned the sort ofneutrality position.
But then we wonder, like, okay,then where are the who are
those people calling whenthey're wondering if they should
throw their kids out on thestreet, right?
So I mean, there's lots of workto be done on lots of fronts.
Um, I think part of what wewere also observing in what we
learned a lot about was likeMartin Luther King's notion of

(41:57):
really holding tensioncreatively and not letting, you
know, which means I think partlybeing open to continuing to
evolve, take in new information,be open to the criticisms that
are gonna come.
It's gonna be impure, it'sgonna be imperfect, right?
And being open to beingflexible and adaptable to the

(42:20):
evolution of those spaces andthe work that can be done there.
So that's kind of one of mytakeaways from that.
But I don't think we're indisagreement with what you're
saying or based on what weobserved.

Randy (42:31):
Okay.

Dawne (42:33):
Can I just add, like, there's um there's not one
thing, one strategy that's gonnalike, you know, if if only
everyone just was like me, theneverything would be great,
right?
Like, there's not one strategythat's gonna like create the
better world that we want tolive in, right?
It's gonna take all thestrategies and it takes people

(42:54):
doing what they do best, whatmakes sense to them in the place
where they are with the peoplethat they're talking to, right?
But if you're an LGBTQ personof color, it doesn't make sense
a lot of the time to bracketracism while you're talking to a
room full of white people,right?
Like that, like I mean, somepeople do it, like some people,

(43:15):
I mean that takes some work,right?
And like some people might feellike that's what they're cut
out for, but for a lot ofpeople, that's not feasible,
right?
It's just not and and then andthen the question is like, do
the people that I've beenworking with see me?
Like, do I actually belonghere?
Like, you know, like thosekinds of things.

Randy (43:36):
Yep, and that's completely fair.
Yeah, thank you.

Kyle (43:38):
Yeah, I appreciate your uh openness and graciousness about
that very honest question,which I also had a version of.
Um, I try to be a littlesofter, but I had a version of
the same question.

Randy (43:49):
Like sorry for being a dick sometimes.

Kyle (43:51):
Well, I think what's behind a lot of this is what it
means to be a conservative, andthat's uh a significant focus of
that chapter, which I think ischapter six.
And it's it's hit it's hit uson this podcast.
I don't want to like pretendthat we've like, you know,
agonizingly dealt with it oranything like that.
It's not been supersignificant, but it's something
we've had to think about as wehave conversations about this
issue in particular, knowingthat a lot of our listeners are

(44:13):
conservative.
What is our goal with thoseconversations?
And I'm very liberal, andRandy's getting more liberal by
the day.
The more time he spends withme, the more liberal I am.
Infectious.
Yeah, it kind of is.
But like at the end of the day,I I think most definitions of
conservatism, even thecharitable ones, ultimately to,
in my view, an untenableposition that doesn't accord

(44:35):
with the predominance of theevidence about most things.
Um that puts me in a particularkind of category.
So when you guys are talkingabout, let's dig into this
conservative view and see if youtry to take this neutral
position so that you can havethose conversations with those
people.
Are you putting yourself in aweird position where you're
actually upholding somethingthey're gonna have to unearth
and excavate anyway later?
Um so I totally 100% am onboard with that.

(44:56):
On the other hand, we kind ofdecided on the podcast that we
want to pitch our conversationsabout this, at least some of
them in particular that aregeared in this way, to an
audience that we think will makethe most difference
pragmatically.
Like, where can we actuallyhave an impact in the world?
It's probably not in the queercommunity, it's probably in the

(45:16):
community of folks like Randyfive years ago, who are pastors
secretly listening to our show,who want to think about this,
but have presuppositions thatthey're just not able to
question.
And willing or able, I think,like psychologically able.
Um because it's hard to see theconnection.
I remember last time when youguys were on, we talked about
the connection that was obviousto you at the time between um

(45:38):
gender egalitarianism and uh akind of um LGBTQ affirmation.
That is not obvious toevangelicals at all.
Um, the idea that they need tothink more deeply about what
gender complementarity actuallyimplies.

Randy (45:52):
Well, I think they're scared that it is, actually.
Like I think many evangelicalsactually don't want to affirm
women in ministry and leadershipand equality and
egalitarianism, all that,because they kind of feel like
there's more under that rock.
If I lift that up, I'm gonnahave to answer other questions.
I think that's real.
Yeah, it could be that kind ofbut I think by and large, you're

(46:15):
right.

Kyle (46:15):
Yeah, and so like you know, we kind of decided, you
know, if if we're gonna make anydifference at all for the queer
people in conservativechurches, it's gonna be by
talking to the people who holdthe power in those churches in a
way that they can sit through aconversation, you know.
Um and that's that's weird, andI can't imagine it being at the
level of what Matthew's dealingwith, right?

(46:36):
Um, so I appreciate that yourecognize the complexity of that
and don't think like there areclearly obvious answers um to
that.
Um so let's, if you can, diginto a little bit your
understanding ofconservativeness and how that
plays into this whole thing.

Dawne (46:53):
I mean, I think it means a lot of things to a lot of
different people, right?
We're talking uh, you know,about a huge, like, you know,
just even being religiouslyconservative.
You've got the people who arevery rationalist and like
concerned about like the thewhat what exactly did this word
mean in ancient Greek and whatdid it mean in this other book,
right?
You've got you've got the veryrationalist and you've got the

(47:14):
very charismatic, and you've gotum all these, you've got
denominations and you've gotnon-denominations, and you've
got you know, all of thesedifferent experiences, and
you've got this evangelicalculture, right?
The sort of um the culture ofbooks and media and all of this
stuff that kind of goes aroundthat, that's not necessarily

(47:36):
church, but that's part of beingpart of this culture.
And you know, we're talkingabout people who come from, you
know, some of them wereMethodist, right?
Some of them were um, you know,or Presbyterian, like they or
you know, all of thedenominations, right?
Um, you know, we've and we andwe talk to people from you know
independent megachurches, and wetalk to people, you know, from

(47:59):
all that whole gamut.
Um, and so what it means tothem to be recognizably
conservative is is different fora lot of people, right?
For some people, it's how youwhat what happens when you go to
church, right?
That like, you know, for peoplefrom a more like charismatic or

(48:20):
a more um sort of uh you knowrock and roll kind of church,
you know, where you've got theband and the drums and the
guitars and the big screens, youknow, sitting in like some, you
know, uncomfortable woodenpew-filled hundred-year-old
building, listening to thecollected works of Charles

(48:43):
Wesley on the organ is notbringing them closer to God,
right?
Like that is not, that's notit, right?
Um so they're conservativebecause they're that's that's
what their churches are, right?
Like those are the that's whatit means for them.
And so just like going to theaffirming, you know, PCUSA

(49:03):
church down the street is not,is not, doesn't do it, right?
Um for some people it's aboutthe the way they treat
scripture, right?
When I studied um a liberalchurch in the 90s that was like
working toward becoming umofficially affirming, you know,
there were people who were like,you know, there it was a it was

(49:25):
a mixed church, it was a verylarge, mixed congregation, and
they were having the debatesright there.
And, you know, the people whothought homosexuality was sinful
would be like, well, what do wedo with Romans 1 26?
Like, you know, what do we dowith this?
And people would be like, oh,so I suppose you support slavery
too.
Paul supported slavery, youknow, like they just didn't have
an answer to the question.

(49:46):
They would just deflect, or youknow, or just be like, you
know, the Bible's just an oldbook of stories, or you know,
and that, you know, like, youknow, for someone who cares a
lot about what the Bible says,to say, like, well, you don't
have to worry about that part,obviously, does not hold water,
even though like they might notworry too much about like

(50:07):
whether you can eat cork andshellfish or whether you can
part your beard one way or theother or whatever, you know,
like, but you know, they don'twant to, you know, just feel
like their approach to scriptureis like just throw out the
parts you don't like.
Um, you know, for some peopleit's you know the the techniques
of communing with the HolySpirit, right, that you don't

(50:28):
find in a liberal church, right?
And so, and for some peopleit's about being part of a
conservative community, it'sabout um, you know, wanting to
be wanting to hear the fire inbrimstone, wanting to, you know,
have to like think about theways that they have failed and
can do better, wanting, youknow, like wanting to hear a
little of that, you know, uhhellfire kind of stuff, you

(50:50):
know, sometimes.
You know, it means just lots ofdifferent things.

Randy (50:53):
Yeah.
And can I refresh my memory?
I I think you might have saidthis at the beginning of the
conversation, but when did youstart the research for this
book?

Dawne (51:02):
Um, 2013.

Randy (51:04):
Okay.
So in your book, I can feel Ican feel this reality, and in my
lived experience in the churchand in the world in America, I
can really feel this reality.
But did things shift in 2016?
Um, and by that I mean it feltto me like there was an openness
in this conversation aboutwhether you can be a traditional

(51:28):
orthodox conservative Christianand be affirming of
homosexuality, like like we talkin the church, you know?
And then all of a sudden 2016happened and it felt like bam,
the door got like just abruptlyout of nowhere shut on that.
And whether it's race orsexuality or a number of other
these other things, all of asudden it felt like we got

(51:50):
thrown back 30 years all of asudden.
Did you have that sameexperience in your conversations
and your research?

Theresa (51:55):
We did, and I think we saw it, we we were observing how
it's playing out in theseorganizations we were following
and in the movement.
Um, and we talk about that alittle bit where, you know,
there were had been thisemphasis on kind of, you know,
Justin Lee had talked aboutsocial justice and the and the
Good Samaritan parable and howthat had helped him see
connections between forms ofoppression he had experienced,

(52:16):
um, you know, but uh otherpeople that he hadn't really
considered.
Um and a big shift between whatwas happening kind of at that
conference and then the nexttime we went, um, there was a
sort of radical shift torefocusing on the individual, on
stories, on interpersonalrelationships, on changing
hearts and minds again.

(52:37):
So I think we did see um seethat happen in the evolution of
the movement, and then the waydifferent parts of the movement
responded to that.
Um and what we which we werejust talking about and talking
about in chapter six.

Kyle (52:51):
Yeah.
A lot of what you focus on inchapter six is the kind of um
reaction you might get from aliberal like myself who hears
the phrase conservativeChristian LGBTQ person and
thinks it's a contradiction.
Um and I want to say thatcontradiction has only tightened
since what Randy's talkingabout because now and I'm not

(53:13):
the only one saying this,political theorists are saying
this, sociologists I think havebeen saying this, you can
correct me on that, but like theOverton window has shifted, so
to speak, and like what it meansto be a a conservative, much
less a Republican, but aconservative politically in the
United States is quite differentthan it was uh twenty years ago
or even ten years ago.
It's not about economicsanymore.
Nobody nobody is arguing aboutyou know trickle down, nobody

(53:37):
cares, right?
Um it's about mostly two thingsgender, including the LGBTQ
stuff.
Used to be about abortion, butit's not so much that anymore.
Uh I think the trans thing hashas replaced that.
Um it's social stuff, right?
What we would call socialstuff, right?
The the softer stuff aboutpersonal identity.
Um with that new reality ofwhat it means to be

(54:00):
conservative, at leastpolitically, do you see the kind
of position of the peopleyou're describing who want to
hold on to a conservativeidentity but also are affirming
of LGBTQ plus people?
Do you see that as a kind of astable um position space?
Or do you see that giving wayeventually?

Dawne (54:19):
You know, I feel like the there's just been such the
ground has shifted so much inthe last eight months.
Um, and you know, we were donewriting the book uh eight months
ago, you know, so we haven't umwe haven't seen how people are
navigating this world now thatwe're in so much.

(54:41):
Um but yeah, I mean I think Imean and I would I would I would
add that you know immigrationseems like it's also kind of up
there with um beating on smalltrans children.
Um I don't know, I mean itseems like just you know,
listening to your interview withMatthew, actually, um from

(55:03):
whenever that a couple monthsago, um, you know, like it seems
like he might be a case ofthat's sort of like circling the
wagons, right?
And like, you know, I reallyneed to like get into this space
and I need them to accept me.
And all of these other peoplethat they associate me with, all

(55:24):
of these queers who are sayingall these objectionable things
that have nothing to do withevangelicalism or the church or
Christians or anything, are areholding me back.
Um, you know, and so there isthat kind of like, I think
there's a fear happening.
Um, and you know, at the sametime, I think that there's um,

(55:44):
you know, there are a lot ofpeople who are disgusted with
what's going on and terrified.
And so, you know, I just haveto hang on to hope for that.
Um, but I don't we haven'tlooked at it systematically.

Randy (55:58):
Yeah.

Theresa (55:58):
No, and I'll just add one thing that I think what what
we were trying to also centerwere how people understood
themselves, right?
So that not so much our take onwhether the positions that they
held for themselves were gonnabe stable or or not, but but for
people that live at that placeof contradiction that you know,

(56:20):
you and I I formerly might havesaid, like that, how can that
be?
And and trying to make sense ofthat, they live there and that
is who they understandthemselves to be.
And so really trying to centerlike, what is it, why is that
important to them?
And how are they not wanting toresolve that in a neat way that
that makes it stable again,right?

(56:41):
But to say, like, no, this iswho I am, because this community
in certain whatever it is, Imean, Don highlighted the
differences in the way peopleunderstood that, but that was
important to them because theirreligious faith and community,
however, they understood that inconservative lens was important
to them, important piece of whothey were and are, and their
love of God and Jesus.
And so I think that was what wewere in this case really trying

(57:02):
to center.

Randy (57:03):
Yep.
Yeah, and I think I thinkthere's a lot of people who want
to keep their theirconservative credentials, right?
Who have kind of seen thelight, I would say, about human
sexuality, and that, you know,this is something that you can
be fully Christian and followJesus and uh affirm all the
stuff of the faith, and you canlove queer people and you can

(57:26):
embrace them and affirm them andyou know, all of that.
But I think there's this fearof like, if I compromise on my
theory of the atonement, or if Icompromise on the way I see the
cross, or if I compromise onwomen in leadership, or if I
compromise on the way I see theBible, that means that I'm gonna
be just giving them more fuelfor the fire to say you're

(57:46):
nothing but a liberal whack joband I can write you off with
everybody else.
I understand it because I dothink that that's just the way
people in the church operate,which is just like you're
getting less and lesstrustworthy the more you talk
about, you know, all theseliberal things.
And so there's a fear of that.
I just it's why I said I'm abad liberal, right?
Like I'm I'm a liberal, but Ithink liberals can be stupid at

(58:07):
about a lot of things and andhurt themselves in in their
cause for the sake of beingreally idealistic, right?
That's just one example.
The more boxes and the morecommitted we are to putting
ourselves in these boxes andstaying in these boxes and in
the fear of like maybedisagreeing with my tribe, which
is kind of you know just theopposite of fundamentalism.

(58:28):
I think there's just this thingthat says, in order for me to
be taken seriously by this groupof people, I have to affirm all
these other things as well.
That becomes a problem anduntenable.
And at the same time, I see thepracticality and the pragmatism
of it.
Do you know what I mean?

Dawne (58:42):
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.
Yeah, that's the the thetension that that we're talking
about, right?
Like, you know, once, you know,like Teresa was saying, like,
once the, you know, so the MarinFoundation took this
intentional new intentionalneutrality position.
Yes, it was not a gayorganization, it was a Christian
organization, and so peoplecould call them and say, My

(59:03):
pastor says I should put my14-year-old out on the street.
Do you think I should do that?
And they could hear someone inthe other end of the phone
saying, like, no, I think Jesusloves your kid and Jesus wants
you to love your kid.
And then the people workingthere like took that line, they
they played it out, but it justwas becoming more and more

(59:26):
unlivable to say, like, how canI say I'm neutral on like
whether these people I loveshould be allowed to marry each
other or you know, whether transpeople exist.
I can't just be neutral onthat.
And because of that, right,they ended up losing this church

(59:48):
space that they had, you know,that had been donated to them or
that they paid low rent orwhatever, right?
And the the the the bi weeklymeetup stopped happening, and
uh, you know, like One of the,you know, previous directors and
someone who had just been hiredas an intern started the Center
for Inclusivity that was likeexplicitly affirming from the

(01:00:09):
get-go.
Like those people who werewondering whether to put their
kids out on the street, we'renot gonna call that organization
at any time.
And I I don't know who theycalled.
I don't know if there's anothergroup that has stepped in to
take those calls.
There probably is.
We, you know, it didn't end upin our uh, you know, research,
but that doesn't mean any, youknow, it's like not like we did

(01:00:29):
a whole census or anything.
And that that's the tension.

Randy (01:00:34):
Yes.

Dawne (01:00:34):
And it's a really important tension.
And it's like, you know, it'sit's difficult to say, you know,
you just gotta live with thetension, right?
But like the Marin Foundation'sbi-weekly meetup groups were
literally called the living inthe tension gatherings.
And they like read from MartinLuther King's letter from a

(01:00:55):
Birmingham City jail everysingle time they met because
that's what they were trying todo, right?
Like that is the importantthing to do, and that's what has
to happen to like make amovement, you know, to allow it
to thrive and keep going, isthat it has to be uh, you know,
con const constantly aware ofyou know, like different ways

(01:01:17):
that that that could work,different things that could
work.

Randy (01:01:21):
Yeah.
So much there.
We've been talking about thatfor a long time.

Kyle (01:01:25):
Yeah, really good.
Yep.
Um can I get you to comment onthe constructed nature of
Christian ideals, particularlyconservative Christian ideals of
sex and gender?
So here's a quote from yourbook.
This is on page 53.
You say the conservativechurch's intense antipathy
towards LGBTQ people distortslove, making it seem incapable

(01:01:47):
of transcending socialconstructions of gender and
sexuality.
And in context, I think whatyou're referring to as social
constructions, there iscomplementarity.
So the conservative socialconstruction of gender and
sexuality.
That struck me because allthose people would hear that as
like, what?
I don't have a socialconstruction.
That's not what gender is,right?

(01:02:08):
It's God ordained, it's nature,it's uh the objective fact of
the world.
So as someone as myself whobelieves that those things in
fact are social constructions,that's something I disagree with
Matthew about.
We talked a little bit about inthat interview.
Um how do you what do you whatdo you mean by love's ability to
transcend the construct ofgender and sexuality?

Theresa (01:02:32):
Well, we were talking a little bit about this, about
this earlier.
And, you know, I think first ofall, if it wasn't a construct,
it wouldn't seem like therewould need to be so much work to
keep it going.
You know, it it so much um, youknow, manuals and reminders and
you know, policing andsurveilling, and and and you

(01:02:53):
know, here's here's what yougotta do.
I mean, it it there's a lot ofwork.

Randy (01:02:58):
It's like its own religion.

Theresa (01:03:00):
Yeah.
Well, I mean, we think what wesay in chapter two is that we we
kind of came to that conclusionthat like complementarian view
was the greater than the TenCommandments.
It seems to be the seed crystalaround which um the entire
understanding of God's plan forthe universe is organized, so

(01:03:21):
much so that like people werekind of getting the message that
like murder could be forgiven,but being gay couldn't.
I mean, right?
Like that there was somethingabout this that was so central.
And so when that takes over andis the sort of lens through
which you see everything andbecome so ingrained that it
distorts your capacity to lovepeople.

(01:03:44):
So people that you do love andthat you want to love who
suddenly appear in your life oryour world as the departure from
that or a threat to that, oryou know, things start to spiral
and those people becomeproblems because you fear,
right?
Because of the fear of needingto maintain the construct over

(01:04:07):
the openness and vulnerabilityto the discomfort and the fear
of like, oh my gosh, ah, whatdoes this mean?
This is really uncomfortable,and I don't know what to do with
this, but I love you and umhelp me understand, right?
And kind of maintaining thatrelationship rather than
maintaining allegiance to thethis ideal, which ultimately

(01:04:30):
becomes kind of an idol, right?
I mean, it it it so that's Ithink part of what we were
getting at, and that we saw overand over and over happen, but
we also saw people, you know,who came to understand what they
had been, like the Robertsonstory, um, I think is a good
story of people who started outwith that sort of way that their

(01:04:52):
fear around just realattachment and allegiance to
this view of gender andsexuality, they thought they
were loving their son Ryan,right?
But everything that they weredoing was suddenly treating Ryan
as a problem to fix rather thanthe son that they had always
known and trusted and weretrying to be in relationship
with.
But they had a long journeythat they also speak very
publicly about of coming torealize that um uh and then

(01:05:14):
really coming to make that alife's mission to really share
their story openly and publiclyto help other people see that.
But that's the kind of thing Ithink we're talking about in in
that part of the book.
Feel free to add, Dawn.

Dawne (01:05:26):
Uh yeah, I don't know.
I mean, do you want it, do youwant it, do you want Teresa or
me to tell you the Robertsonstory?

Kyle (01:05:33):
No, we we did that in the first episode.

Theresa (01:05:35):
So if if listeners aren't familiar with that, see
how get people to listen to yourfirst episode.

Kyle (01:05:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And thank you, by the way, forlistening to our podcast.

Randy (01:05:45):
That's awesome, Don.
Um, I didn't want to end thisconversation without talking
about humility.
And, you know, especially inthe first half of the book,
there's a there's a greatemphasis on humility.
Humility, particularlyepistemic humility, is something
that we talk about on thispodcast a lot and value highly.
And Christians seem and soundlike they value we value

(01:06:05):
humility greatly, you know.
It's all over our sacred text.
Um, however, we certainly, ifyou look at the way we act
rather than what we say, which Ithink is much more important,
we certainly value certainty wayover humility.
And certainty is just aprideful way of living, right?
So in in I would say religiouspeople are just really good at
being certain and thinking, I'vegot all the answers.

(01:06:28):
Not gonna change my mind,because why would I?
This is the way God thinks.
Um Don, I'm particularlyinterested in your perspective
because you've you you spoke todozens and dozens of Christians
for this project.
You've spoken to much more thanthat throughout your research
and life.
Um and there's this this beautyabout humility to say that

(01:06:49):
says, I'm I I I I might be wrongabout about this real big
thing, about something that'sreally important to a lot of
people and really important tome.
This is what I believe rightnow, but I could be wrong about
it.
Or when we sh were shown newinformation, are we willing to
flex on that, and on what ourunderstanding was and actually
just be willing to change, behumble enough to change our

(01:07:10):
minds?
Christians are not good atthat.
I mean, I just full stop.
We're we're just not good atthat.
I'm wondering, Don, now this isjust like a curiosity for me
how has that colored and shapedthe way you see Christianity in
general, um, with thisstubbornness to the way
Christians think and whatthey're convinced they know

(01:07:31):
about a lot of things, and inparticular what we're talking
about here about humansexuality.
I mean because it's frustratingas shit to me.
Let me just say that.

Dawne (01:07:44):
Uh you know, I mean, I just I feel like I need to start
by saying um you don't have tobe Christian to be arrogant,
right?
There are lots of arrogantnon-Christians.
And, you know, part of what,you know, the note that we end
on is like the arrogance thatlike secular progressives can
have.
And um, you know, that like weactually all need humility.

(01:08:07):
We actually all need to likework, you know, against the
tendency to dehumanize thepeople that we see as other.
Um and um that that's that'sthe way forward.
Um, you know, just you know,just personally, I mean, there
there are times when I, youknow, when I've heard someone

(01:08:33):
make some, I mean, it might be apronouncement, or it might be
uh like I'm just askingquestions here, like a kind of
fake humility, like maybe Goddoes think that women are like
closer to animals than men.
Maybe God does think blackpeople are closer to animals
than white people, like or youknow, whatever, like one of
these, like, you know, sort oflike just asking questions kind

(01:08:54):
of things that I just it's so umlike how are you not
embarrassed at how pompousyou're being, you know?
Like, how do you not see what abuffoon you are, you know?
And I I I have, I mean, and Isay that, you know, having you

(01:09:19):
know, at times been veryarrogant, you know, having been
very sure of myself, having beenvery sure that those clowns are
all wrong, you know, and um,you know, I mean somebody can
say something really annoying,but also be a sweet and kind

(01:09:43):
person, you know, and um I thinkwhen people like turn their uh
you know their arrogantassumption into like a political
program, you know, like when uhyou know Antonin Scalia said
that like you know, um, youknow, sodomy should be illegal

(01:10:04):
because it's objectivelydisgusting, right?
It's like what are you doing?
You know what?
Actually, Anton and Scalia, uhthinking of you having sex is
also disgusting, right?
Like, why do you think anybodyis like delighted by that
thought?
And yet, you know, this issomehow the basis for the
Supreme Court's decision to likeallow sodomy laws to persist

(01:10:27):
until 2003.
Like, you know, I mean it'sit's really it's astounding
sometimes, and it's certainlylike I mean, like I was saying
before, kind of hinting at likemy like I grew up going to
church, my experience of churchwas that it just made no sense,
right?
The things that people weresaying um were did not were not

(01:10:51):
reflected in how they acted.
You know, people were makingthese arbitrary claims, you
know, including like my dad, youknow, would be like you need to
obey me because the Bible saysso, you know, or whatever.
When it was like, well, if youweren't talking such bullshit,
maybe I would, you know.
And um, you know, all of itreally made Christianity
implausible to me.
That is why I'm not Christian,right?

(01:11:13):
It was the implausible thingsthat people asserted with this
arrogance, like, you know, andsometimes it was like you must
blah blah blah.
And you know, and sometimes itwas this like, we love
everybody, you know, in thislike complete bullshit way.
Um, that just, you know, anddoing this research actually,
you know, it was there was adifferent person who one time

(01:11:35):
was like a former pastor, waslike went off on a rant, you
know, that was kind of ahellfire and brimstone sort of
rant, but it was um supportiveof LGBT people, you know, it's
like this is what the but whatit says in the book of Matthew,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,you know, and and I was like,
when you talk about Jesus, hesounds like a good guy.

(01:11:56):
And that was actually news tome.
It was actually the good news,right?
Jesus was a good guy.
And it was like, I was like 45years old at the point when I
like got that idea.
I had never in my life, growingup Christian, ever gotten the
inkling of why people were sointo Jesus.

(01:12:17):
Like he didn't ever seem like agood guy.
He seemed like the guy peopleuse to justify whatever bullshit
they wanted to say.
So I don't, I guess that's justme personally.
It's not my research.
But yeah.

Randy (01:12:29):
Thank you.
Thank you for for being honestthere.
And what does it mean, Don?
Uh, it says in the back of thebook, you you call yourself a
disappointed humanist.
What does that mean?

Dawne (01:12:40):
It comes from a joke that George Carlin made.
He said, um, uncover, you know,scratch uh uh any cynic and
you'll find a disappointedhumanist.
And I'm not a cynic.
I, you know, without hope, wehave nothing.
I have hope.
I have hope.
Um, but you know, I I'm ahumanist, I'm a secular

(01:13:01):
humanist.
I think all of this was createdby humans, and um and uh, you
know, we're awful disappointing.

Randy (01:13:11):
Got it.
Thank you.
That's good.

Kyle (01:13:13):
Yeah, it's a last question for me um for both of you.
You talk a lot about theconnection between love and
justice.
We haven't even talked thatmuch about love, and that makes
me very sad because it'sliterally the title of the damn
book.

Randy (01:13:25):
Yeah, yeah.
Um I mean, I think we haveindirectly, but whatever.

Kyle (01:13:28):
Yeah, but like I want you to define it, and I want to go
into all these things, so we'llhave to maybe have a separate
conversation.
But um you talk a lot about theconnection between justice and
love towards the end, and youquote a lot of very famous uh
social justice activists, andyou make a compelling and to me
a little bit surprising case forthe place of love and justice
and the sort of theinterrelationship between them.
At one point you say, this ison page 168, love repeatedly

(01:13:52):
falls out of the equation aspeople strive for justice.
Can you explain that and whatyou think that that tight
connection really is?

Theresa (01:14:01):
Don, I know you're gonna say you've been talking
too much, but this is your yousay it so well.
I think we need to say this.
No, I mean, I could say it, butshe please.
Well, I mean, I'll forget someof the parts, but you know,
justice is justice fights andmovements are often fueled by
anger, perhaps righteous anger.
It doesn't have to be out ofcontrol rage, but righteous

(01:14:22):
anger, which itself is on someconstructions, and I think what
Don and I would agree is isrooted in love.
You care about and love peoplewho you see are being mistreated
or not getting their due.
And so you're fueled, right, bya kind of love to fight for
people's rights and to fight forpeople's place and their

(01:14:43):
ability to be affirmed in theirhumanity.
Um, but if that if the fightfor justice becomes, it loses,
right, that that anchor and thatorigin in love and becomes all
fight, right?
And and you forget to be inrelationship with the people
you're fighting with and for, tokeep listening, to keep open,

(01:15:06):
to keep humble to the ways inwhich you know their voices are
being amplified.
It's not just your agenda, butwhose agenda is, it's our
agenda, right?
How how are we in relationshipand loving one another in
community in this fight forjustice?
But also um how are we treatingand thinking about and relating
to people who may uphold thestructures that we're opposing?

(01:15:27):
And if we begin to um fail inlove or forget love, or it
becomes increasingly, you know,not part of the equation
anymore, then we can end upreproducing the very dynamics
that we're trying to umdismantle.
And so for us, I think there'sa lot of complicated ways in
which love connects withjustice, but those are those are

(01:15:48):
some of them that it's reallyessential ultimately, and it's
really the root of um and theanchor of of justice.
But conversely, I mean, uh lovewithout justice isn't really
love.

Randy (01:16:01):
Right.

Theresa (01:16:02):
So they're we think they have a kind of mutually
important relationship.

Randy (01:16:07):
Yeah.
Yeah, I loved in that chapterthe emphasis that you put on
basically in this in thismovement, in having a movement
fueled by love, which is so sucha beautiful thought.
Um, it's so easy to turn ourthe hatred that that you get,
that we get, um, into rireciprocating with hate.

(01:16:29):
But you you have a number ofquotes in here, but the one I
love the most that struck me wasby Valerie Carr.
Is that how you say your lastname?

Theresa (01:16:36):
Cower, I think.
I think it's cower.

Randy (01:16:38):
Thank you.
Valerie Valerie Cower, a Sikhthinker and writer, brilliant,
beautiful writer.
And she said this, and I wouldjust love to hear your take on
this as we end our time.
She said, The more I listen,the less I hate.
The less I hate, the more I amfree to choose actions that are
controlled not by animosity, butby wisdom.
Laboring to love my opponentsis how I love myself.

(01:17:02):
This is not the stuff ofsaintliness.
This is our birthright.

Theresa (01:17:08):
Yeah, I highly recommend uh her book, um, See
No Stranger, is where that comesfrom.
And she's she's talking aboutum, you know, confronting people
who have physically harmed her,you know, spewed all kinds of
slurs toward her, and reallytrying to think hard about what

(01:17:31):
does it mean not to be.
I mean, I know one of you wrotelike not to be, not to
internalize hate and let it eatme alive, because then I'm no
longer um the agent of what I'mwhat I'm doing.
And it's not driven by wisdom,it's driven by and fueled by
animosity and this other power,right?
But the idea of like lovingpeople and the labor of love to

(01:17:53):
both um try to be curious aboutand understand how in the world
someone could come to a positionof such hatred toward me,
right?
And and that's not the placefor everybody.
I mean, you you don't, ifsomebody's actively harming you,
she's not saying that's whatyou should be doing.
But what she's saying is, youknow, those are that's where
allies come in.
They can be accomplices inlistening.
That's what she calls them.

(01:18:13):
Accomplices in listening.
It's an important role forallies.
But the idea of really tryingto understand how in the world
another human being could cometo this place of hatred and
treating people this way, andthen try to um make choices then
about how to engage andinteract with them in a way that
is rooted ultimately in hopethat they can be better and that

(01:18:34):
they can do better, um, thatdoesn't return the
dehumanization withdehumanization, but also doesn't
internalize it and accept it.
And so I think we were reallymoved and taken by her analysis.
And thinkers have been sayingsome version of this for a long
time, but she she capsuleencapsulated it well.
Yeah.

Dawne (01:18:51):
And our the people that we we listened to, saw, you
know, spoke with model that youknow, like there's that's what
we learned from them, right?
Is that they're actually livingout this wisdom that civil
rights organizers have beentalking about forever, right?
That like you they they theyunderstand where these people

(01:19:18):
who are harming them are comingfrom.
They know they don't, you know,they understand their humanity.
They, you know, at one point Iwas like, it seems like you
know, you're kind of we're justworshiping different gods.
And you know, people were like,I would never say that because
they say I'm not worshiping God.
And to have somebody say thatto me is so harmful, I would
never say that about them.

(01:19:39):
And you know, just the just thelove and the hope that they
had, right?
You know, we we tell the storyin the book, you know, this this
young man who was talking withthese, you know, he was gay,
this um couple, you know, thatyou know, his parents kind of
generation that he had grown upwithin the church.
He had a lot in common with theguy who was like a second dad

(01:20:01):
to him, you know.
And they were like, weunderstand all of these
arguments about the Bible andeverything.
We just can't get there withyou, you know, we just can't go
say it's saying it's okay to youfor you to like marry a man.
And he was like, you know,that's devastating, it was
devastating, right?
Like he, you know, was sobbingon the side of the road for half
an hour.
Like he he really like it wasdevastating.

(01:20:24):
But he the way he also saw itwas it was hopeful because it
was just a failure of Christianlove, and they could learn to do
better because that's what theywere trying to do as Christians
anyway, and like he they theycould that that's what the hope
is for everybody is that we canall be better at loving, and so
to have that hope rooted in theunderstanding that human beings

(01:20:48):
are made to love each other, tosee each other's humanity, and
that it actually takes work toto dehumanize somebody, it
actually creates apsychological, like jarring
feeling to like be dehumanizingsomebody, like that gives people
hope, and that hope is in theirability to love.

Randy (01:21:09):
Yes, the book is Choosing Love, what LGBTQ plus
Christians can teach us allabout relationships, inclusion,
and justice.
And I want to say if you arelistening and you're a
Christian, you're a Jesusfollower who's just felt for a
long time like I want to beaffirming, but I there's just a
few things holding me back.
This book is for you.
Uh go find this book onwherever you find books, it's

(01:21:32):
everywhere.
Uh, Dawn Moon, Teresa Tobin,thank you so much for joining us
again, and thank you for thisbook.
It's a gift.

Dawne (01:21:38):
Thank you for having us.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for having us, andthanks for for for liking our
book.

Theresa (01:21:45):
Yeah.

Kyle (01:21:45):
Does this represent a terminus in your professional
collaboration or is there moreto come?

Theresa (01:21:51):
I hope there's more to come.
We started working on there'smore to come version of another
arm of stuff this summer.

Randy (01:21:59):
I'm assuming terminus is a really professoral way of
saying we're not gonna worktogether anymore.

Kyle (01:22:04):
It's the apex, it's not supposed to be uh derogatory,
it's just where you stop.

Theresa (01:22:09):
And I think like we're both interested in love and
justice and that relationship,exploring that more.

Kyle (01:22:14):
And yeah, please do.

Dawne (01:22:15):
I don't want to do um work without Teresa.

Randy (01:22:20):
Love it.
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