Trinity Sunday

Photo by Magda Ehlers

The Liturgical Year

After Pentecost comes this wonderful and complicated holiday:  Trinity Sunday, which is this Sunday (4 June 2023). The reading from the lectionary this year is from one of my absolute favorite Scripture passages in all of the Bible:  Isaiah 6 (CEB):

In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, the edges of his robe filling the temple. Winged creatures were stationed around him. Each had six wings:  with two they veiled their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew about.

They shouted to each other, saying:  "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heavenly forces! All the earth is filled with God's glory!"

The doorframe shook at the sound of their shouting and the house was filled with smoke.

I said, "Mourn me; I'm ruined! I'm a man with unclean lips and I live among people with unclean lips. Yet I've seen the king, the Lord of heavenly forces!

Then one of the winged creatures flew to me, holding a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt has departed and your sin is removed."

Then I heard the Lord's voice saying, "Whom shall I send and who will go for us?"

I said, "I'm here; send me."

God said, "Go and say to this people:  Listen intently, but don't understand; look carefully, but don't comprehend. Make the minds of this people dull. Make their ears deaf and their eyes blind, so they can't see with their eyes or hear with their ears, or understand with their minds, and turn, and be healed."

I said, "How long, Lord?" And God said, "Until cities lie ruined with no one living in them, until there are house without people and the land is left devastated."

The Language of the Angels

When learning Hebrew in college, I was told by my professor, Dr. Owen Dickens, that the Hebrew language was sometimes called "the language of the angels." When studying this passage in Hebrew, it was so majestic. It rolled off my tongue like poetry. I loved reciting it out loud. There are certain things that one misses when reading it in English.

First of all:  God is vast. God is described as so large. There are strange creatures flying around God. In fact, the word often used in English to call these creatures is the same word in Hebrew:  Seraphim. This is the only location in the Bible we have mention of these creatures. The root consonants in Hebrew are the same words they use for both fire and venomous snakes. So some people have speculated that they are winged snakes, but this is probably unlikely.

More than likely in Isaiah's mind they were fiery creatures with six wings. Two wings were used to cover their faces. There is this prevailing thought among ancient Hebrews that to view the face of God, one would die. (Think of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.) The other 2 wings were used to cover their feet. Feet were often a euphemism for genitals in Hebrew. (Remember the story of Ruth and Boaz?) The final two wings were to fly around the throne.

These creatures were flying around, stating that all of the Earth was filled with the glory of God. In Hebrew, "glory" was something palpable, something to be felt and experienced.

Shame

The first thing Isaiah felt was shame. He was ashamed of being in the presence of God and living with people he was also ashamed to be around. One of these creatures came and touched Isaiah's lips with a hot coal. I always laugh at this verse when the creature said, "See, this coal has touched your lips." Ouch! That must hurt.

How often have I felt shame? Shame at who I am, the failures I experienced in my life?

I felt shame at being told that being queer is a sin. I felt shame when I was told by a superior that I am a heretic. I felt shame when my supervisor told me I should have known I would get kicked out of The Salvation Army when I came out as bisexual. I felt shame and disgust when my old church rejected me.

However, just like Isaiah, God reminded me that my sins are forgiven. Who I am is not wrong and even though I live among people who wish me harm, that doesn't change who I am.

Not Understanding

This Trinity Sunday, I always have a difficult time trying to describe the mystery of the Trinity. Perhaps mysteries are best left like that. The idea that God is three persons in one is a mystery that Christians have been blessed with.

God gave Isaiah an impossible task:  to be a prophet to a people who wouldn't listen to him.

Sometimes I feel the same way. I can go around, saying that being queer is not a sin and that God loves me as queer, but so many people refuse to believe me.

They refuse to believe me and call me a heretic. They refuse to believe me and say I'm going to Hell. They refuse to believe me and kick me out of their church.

Then there are those who do understand:  Finding a church that does accept me, finding love with a man who reminds me that I am loved as I am. Realizing my children don't care that I am bisexual.

I once got the sweetest text from my oldest son, who said (speaking about my boyfriend and me), "The important thing is that you both love each other and that's all that matters. It doesn't matter about if they're a guy or a girl, etc. But the important thing is that you love each other and communicate well."

He understands.

Here is praying that all of us will eventually understand.

Driving to Heaven

Ascension Day

Today is Ascension Day. In German it was called "Christi Himmelfahrt," which roughly translates as "Christ's Ascension," but could literally be understood as "Christ's Drive to Heaven." In Germany, besides being an official religious holiday and state holiday (no separation of Church and State in Germany), it was an unofficial "Father's Day" for German fathers. Many religious people resented their holy day being mixed with a secular holiday since it was often seen that fathers simply used this day to relax and drink beer.

The religious import was somewhat lost.

When I was a pastor, I would often follow the German lectionary, which is somewhat different than the Revised Common Lectionary. Where as the Revised Common Lectionary uses a 3-year rotation, the German one uses a 6-year rotation. The passage chosen today is from Luke 24:50-53 (CEB):

He led them out as far as Bethany, where he lifted his hands and blessed them. As he blessed them, he left them and was taken up to heaven. They worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem overwhelmed with joy. And they were continuously in the temple praising God.

Modern Interpretations

I wish I knew where this picture came from. I would love to give it appropriate credit.

Being a modern person requires often leaps of faith to try to interpret Scripture. Did Jesus literally rise up into the air? I don't know. I wasn't there. I suspect that the people there were just using the language they had to interpret what was going on.

It's like the term, "sunrise." The Sun doesn't actually rise in the sky. The Earth orbits around the Sun and makes it appear as if it rises. We still call it a "sunrise" and the effect is still the same.

The leader of this movement had been killed. His followers claimed he was alive, but now in Heaven.

What happens now?

Perhaps that was the greatest question.

Following Jesus

Following Jesus requires a lot of faith for me, especially now. Being someone who is
openly a part of the LGBTQ+ Community, I get many questions from both sides. Someone recently told me in a Facebook message to drop dead when I said in a public group that I am bisexual and a Christian. Another person told me that I can't be bisexual and a Christian at the same time. Most Christians would deny that I am a Christian at all because of my sexuality.

Many of my friends in the LGBTQ+ Community wonder why I even bother trying to be a Christian. They have been so ostracized by other Christians. American missionaries have even gone to other countries, most notably Uganda, to have their governments enact the death penalty for known people in the LGBTQ+ Community. 

Why would I want to be a Christian right now when Jesus' followers don't even believe I am a Christian?

And this is the question. Isn't it? I'll admit that this is the toughest question to answer. If it were not for my own church, which accepts me for who I am, I would not be a Christian right now at all.

The old song, "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love," seems to be false.

I guess it's up to me. My biggest challenge is to love, especially to those who tell me to drop dead.

Am I a Christian?

This is a question that has been plaguing me for awhile.

Do I consider myself to still be a Christian? If you will: explore this question with me.

By whose definition?

This is the first question that arises for me. Who defines me as a Christian?

Not too long ago, I received an unsolicited message from someone who felt the need to interject their opinion into whether or not I am a Christian. I had publicly posted on social media that I was in a relationship with my boyfriend. This person sent me the following message (I have cropped it to not publicly identify them):

With extremely bad grammar they stated: "You are blasphemy the Holy Spirit yiu (sic) are gay and there is no such thing as gay CHRISTAIN (sic) you calling heresy looks at you hypocrite."

They promptly blocked me and it was several weeks before I even had seen the message.

I had two reactions. First, I laughed at it. Secondly, I was very sad about the message. I laughed because someone felt the need to search me out, send me a message, and then block me. Secondly, I was sad because someone felt the need to search me out, send me a message, and then block me.

Yes, I realized I repeated myself. I felt both of the things simultaneously.

It begs the question, though: who defines what a Christian is?

Doctrine is problematic.

In my old denomination, The Salvation Army, they based their beliefs on Scripture. In their first doctrine, they state emphatically:

We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were given by inspiration of God and that they only constitute the divine rule of Christian faith and practice.

I had to memorize that. I had to recite that. In order to belong to them, I had to swear that I believed that.

Doctrine is so very contentious. I take issues with the very first doctrine. Who decided what is Scripture? The Protestant Bible looks different from the Catholic or Orthodox Bibles. Scripture wasn't even compiled until the Third Century. Even then, they weren't unified in their beliefs. When Martin Luther in the 16th Century stated that certain books in the Bible were not scripture, Catholics contradicted him and said that they were indeed part of the Bible in the Council of Trent.

Martin Luther hated the books of Hebrews, James, and Jude. He shoved them to back up the Bible, right before Revelation. In many German Bibles, they still reflect this, with these books making up the last 4 books of the Bible, unlike the rest of Protestant Bibles.

Wars have been fought over this. People have been executed for stating they were on one particular side of an issue.

I love the Bible. I love it in all of its complexity, errancy, and fallibility. However, the Bible does not state that I am a Christian. The Bible does not speak. It is silent.

Before the Bible, there were creeds.

Even before the Bible was finally compiled, one defined if they followed Christ by their Creed. The original creed was most likely the Nicene Creed. A simple Internet search will give you the text to this very beautiful creed.

These words were compiled to formulate what those who are Christians believe in. The creeds tried to describe the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and what our relationship with God is.

I have severe doubts about the Virgin Birth. I probably couldn't recite any of the creeds with confidence. Interestingly enough, I never grew up having to learn the creeds. In The Salvation Army, they were not required to learn, except as "bonus points" if one wanted to be an "Honor Junior Soldier" or a corps cadet. (Yes, these are actual terms of junior members of their denomination.)

We have no creed, but Christ.

A couple of years ago, I was having coffee with a friend who belonged to the United Methodist Church. Having common ground with him as a former Salvationist, we talked about our beliefs. (The Methodists and The Salvation Army both have their roots in John Wesley, who was the progenitor of the Methodist Movement.) I told him how I had left The Salvation Army and now belong to the Disciples of Christ.

"Oh, you're in the Church that has no dogma! You don't believe in anything!"

I wrinkled my brow at that.

However, a grand matriarch at our church said it perhaps more eloquently:  "We have no creed, but Christ."

The Church I belong to affirms that they follow Jesus. What that looks like for each individual is very different.

But am I a Christian?

Again, by whose definition? I deny the inerrancy of the Bible. That rules out most fundamentalists that I am a Christian. I deny the Virgin Birth. That rules out both Catholic and Orthodox Christians and many Protestants, too. I am in a same-sex relationship. That rules out all conservative Christian denominations.

For my church, I would say they would say this is not an issue. As my pastor told me:  "You belong to us and we accompany on your faith journey, no matter what that looks like."

And for me? Do I think I am a Christian?

I know many people who have struggled with this. They abandon the concept of being a Christian because of the negative baggage it holds. They don't want to be associated with the Fundamental Evangelical Christians, who fly Confederate Flags, prefer gun rights over the lives of their children, and worship the American Nation as God's Promised Land.

I guess my answer is for myself alone. Yes, I know people might view this as a cop-out. Just as my faith evolves, so my identity evolves, too. I remember that Jesus wasn't a Christian. He was Jewish. John Wesley wasn't a Methodist. He was a priest in the Church of England.

More importantly, though:  Who do you say I am?

Grief

In 2015 I was assaulted. I discussed it in a previous blog post. My assailant wanted to "beat the homosexuality" out of me.  About 4 months ago I started to go through EMDR therapy because I am going through PTSD from the assault.

EMDR therapy is surprising and jarring at the same time. The science behind it is still ongoing, but I have been forced to confront issues that I had never thought I would need to confront. One issue that has been apparent is that I am still grieving. It's not just the assault that happened. It's everything that followed. I went through a divorce. I lost my ordination as a Salvation Army officer.

When I tried to be a lay member at my local Salvation Army congregation, I was thwarted by my divisional commander (like a bishop), with support from the local officers (pastors).

Since then, it has been a mixture of nostalgia, grief, and outright terror for what I experienced from The Salvation Army.

Nostalgia

The nostalgia comes from mostly the good things I experienced while in The Salvation Army. I enjoyed the overseas ministry I had:  from serving in refugee camps in Albania and Kosova to running congregations in Germany. I was profoundly blessed and forever changed by my time there. I consider, however, that being over there changed me more than any tangible good I could do there.

I have nostalgia for the music, too. We had some wonderful brass bands, which is a very British institution. This is why I always played a cornet and never a trumpet. I also tended to eschew anything woodwind.

I also have wonderful friends who, to this day, have been my friends and allies, supporting me even financially when things have been really bad for me.

Grief

Then there is the obvious grief. I mourn what might have been. I see fellow friends who are still officers in The Salvation Army, in positions I thought I might have liked to have had, doing ministry I had wanted to do, knowing that this is forever taken away from me. This is always accompanied with resentment and bitterness, both of which I do not like, but which I constantly struggle with now.

I mourn what could have been, what should have been, and what will never be.

At the same time, I realize just how toxic of an environment that was for me. I am now grateful to be out of The Salvation Army.

Condemnation

I have family members and friends who regularly condemn me for talking bad about my experiences in The Salvation Army. They accuse (maybe rightly?) that I do not represent The Salvation Army in the right light. For instance:  I often neglect to say that in the debacle of not being accepted as a soldier in the local Salvation Army corps (congregation), that I was eventually accepted as a soldier (lay member).

This is true. I had to have a face to face meeting with the divisional commander (like a bishop). He told me he didn't want Branson to become a controversy for same-sex marriage because of a blog post I had written. (Originally he had said because he didn't believe I was true to my covenant as a member of The Salvation Army.) By that time I had been regularly attending my new church in Springfield. I had refused to attend the Salvation Army church in Branson while my membership was in question.

So I tried going back to The Salvation Army. I felt extremely uncomfortable there. Several of the members of that church had already unfriended me or blocked me on social media, including the pastors. There was no attempt on healing or restoration. I will admit that the pastors eventually unblocked me on social media. I was grateful for that.

However, the damage had been done.

Neither here nor there . . .

So here I am, grieving.

Grief is hard and painful. It is also a part of being human.

What is hard about it for me?

Every time I drive by a Salvation Army thrift store and see that blazing Red Shield, I inwardly cringe. When friends and co-workers tell me that they are going to support The Salvation Army this Christmas, I die a little inside. I avoid eye contact with that smiling bellringer in front of grocery stores and I definitely refuse to donate to them.

During the Holiday Season of 2022, I received a letter from The Salvation

Army, asking for donations from me to support their work. Since I know how this mail appeal works, I realize that this was done by a third party, hired by The Salvation Army, to solicit donations from people all over the United States. The local officers (pastors) of The Salvation Army (probably?) had no idea that this was sent to me.

At the same time, I felt they were saying:  "Hey, we kicked you out and ruined your life. Could you give us some money?" Nothing like rubbing salt into an already fecund wound.

People will say to me:  "Don't you want to help other people? The Salvation Army does good work!"

Yes, they do. Absolutely they do. I have been a part of it. I have been there when we fed refugees who had just fled a war zone in Kosova. I have been there, providing meals to the residents of Meißen, Germany, when their town was flooded out. I was there, giving meals to law enforcement officers as they searched for the body of a baby girl, who had most likely been killed by her father.

Those were good things. They really were.

At the same time, because of my sexuality, I was told I could never serve in ministry again in The Salvation Army. I was called a heretic for saying the Bible is rarely clear about anything, let alone sexuality. I lost my home, my pension, and my livelihood because of who I am.

The Salvation Army is not all bad, but The Salvation Army is toxic for me.

Unavoidable

I cannot escape being around The Salvation Army either. Many of my friends are still members of The Salvation Army AND are progressive in their theology. They hope for a better future for The Salvation Army. I do, too, but it will not include me in that future.

I am currently in a wonderful relationship with another man. Because of this, I cannot be a member of The Salvation Army, even if I wanted to. If we were to get married, it could not be done in a Salvation Army facility. When I had been married previously, my father (who is a retired Salvation Army officer) officiated the ceremony. He would not be allowed to officiate again if it were my boyfriend and I getting married.

The Salvation Army is a homophobic institution, despite their protests to the contrary.

As much as I would like to, I cannot escape The Salvation Army without doing something extremely radical.

I will never shop in a Salvation Army thrift store again. I will never put money in the kettles during Christmas. I certainly won't ever donate to them again. They have hurt me so much.

So if I wince when we talk and you say you just got this great outfit from a Salvation Army thrift store, that's why. If you ask for donations for The Salvation Army instead of giving you a present on your birthday, I will ignore it.

Allow me to grieve. My grieving is on my timeline. To ask me to get over it negates the trauma that I went through.

The Asbury Revival

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How it Began . . .

I was in Hughes Auditorium, the sanctuary of Asbury College (now University), where we were required to attend. Attendance counters were located in the balcony, making certain we were in our assigned seats, marking off 1/3 of an attendance point if we were doing homework or, worse still, falling asleep. The very uncomfortable wooden seats helped ensure that we would not nod off, but occasionally you would see a classmate do the ubiquitous "chapel nod," where one almost dozed off, but then suddenly woke up, appearing to nod in agreement at what the speaker was saying.

We were told of Revival Meetings, planned for the next 5 evenings. For this we were not required to attend, but we were definitely encouraged to attend. This was in 1991.

So, I went to one. I went to all of them. Each night there was an "altar call," an invitation to go forward to a wooden rail to kneel and pray. Sometimes people would pray with you. Sometimes not. I was searching for meaning and fulfillment in my life, so I went forward to pray. In all honesty, I was expecting something of a miracle to happen. I wanted to hear an actual voice from Heaven and God telling me what to do. Instead, a woman approached me. To this day I don't know her name. I actually think she might have been the wife of one of the professors. She asked if she could pray with me. I consented and waited for her to begin.

And that's when I became extremely uncomfortable. She started to speak in tongues. As far as I knew, it was not any known language. I grew up in a Christian tradition that did not speak in tongues. We were taught about them, but never ever encouraged to use them.

"The Lord is telling me that you have the gift of tongues," she said.

. . . I was silent. I didn't know what to say. God never told me that.

"Have you ever prayed in tongues?"

"No . . . "

"Well, you should just let it out, just let it come naturally."

There was nothing natural about that to me. I was an introverted, closeted bisexual young college boy, who still didn't know what he was doing. I began asking God what I should do. This woman became very insistent with me, almost badgering me to pray in tongues.

Perhaps God did give me a solution and a way out. I wanted her to stop pestering me and it seemed that the only way for her to stop was if I began to pray in tongues.

So I prayed in tongues.

Well, one tongue:  German. I prayed in German.

That was perhaps like throwing gasoline on a flame. She became very ecstatic about this. I wasn't fluent in German yet and praying in German was not something I was taught in high school. I began to run out of things to say and I was "rescued" by a seminary professor, Dr. Stephen Seamands, who was the preacher for that evening. He calmly led her aside and told her that perhaps she should leave me alone.

I then had a wonderful prayer time with this man. He believed I had the gift of prophecy. Whether or not this or is true, I don't know.

Jumpstart

And so it happened. Every year in the Autumn Asbury would host a series of Revival Meetings, which tried to jumpstart the Revival of 1970. Many books and articles have already been written about this Revival, which happened before my birth, but whose aftereffects lasted a long time. Young people left the campus in 1970 and spread the news of what happened and what they experienced.

These scheduled Fall Revival meetings seemed to want to coerce something to happen. Of course, that could totally be my own impression.

My impression, then, was that people remembered the Revival of 1970. They loved it. They loved the feeling of what happened to them during that time. They wanted it to come back again. 

And, just like a drug addict looking for that initial high, they tried to recreate the circumstances of that first Revival, hoping to get the spiritual high they so desperately thought they needed.

Cynic

I feel very much like a cynic right now. It's not a good feeling, I'll admit to that. I have become disillusioned by much of what Evangelical Christianity has had to offer. 

Even during my time at Asbury, they also had another Revival, this time in 1994. I was a student then. What started out as a chapel meeting didn't stop. One of the professors took over and led a prayer meeting that refused to quit. People came to pray for several days. It wasn't as big as the one in 1970. According to people who had been to the one in 1970, it seemed to be quieter. I, myself, went to several of the prayer times. I gave testimony (which means I spoke about what God was doing in my life). Looking back at it, I'm actually quite ashamed at what I said. It held little spiritual import.

The next year, 1995, saw the Toronto Blessing come to Wilmore United Methodist Church. Wilmore is where Asbury University and Asbury Seminary are located.

That was just plain weird.

The Toronto Blessing was a charismatic "revival," which was epitomized by intense laughter. I attended one of their meetings. It was like hearing everyone laugh at a joke I didn't get. I even heard people howling like wolves and barking like dogs. I didn't get it. I didn't laugh. In the crowd, also not laughing, was the seminary professor who had prayed with me earlier in 1991, who had "rescued" me from the woman who wanted me to pray in tongues. I asked him what he thought about it. He said, quite logically, that we are not surprised when people cry when they pray. Why should we be surprised when they laugh? At the same time he told me that we would know if this is from God when people stopped focusing on the gifts and focused on the Giver.

What he said seemed like very sound advice and I have used it to judge if something is of God or not.

2023

Revival has come to Asbury University . . . again. Friends of mine on social media began to share that another chapel meeting did not stop and people were still there, praying. Most friends of mine who went to Asbury were ecstatic. A few have expressed skepticism.

I don't know what to think of it. After the "Revival" in the 90's, I still had to be in the closet. My counselor at the college thought I was a sex addict for being attracted to both men and women. (I never had had sex before then, either.) Asbury has increased its restrictions on the LGBTQ+ community and its demographics still tend to be overwhelmingly white (81%, with only 55 black students out of a population of 1400).

So what do I expect out of a revival? In historical contexts, a revival brought people back to God and spread God's love, no matter who they were.

I am skeptical because of what has happened to me in the past. I was rejected, ostracized, and kicked out of the Evangelical Community. Asbury is part of that community. And, like someone who has gone through domestic battery, I am very cautious to see that this abusive partner has really changed.

If Revival actually happens here, great. I will rejoice for them and be among those who are glad that they have renewed their relationship with God.

Otherwise, this is just one really long chapel meeting.