Coming Out
My life was in an upheaval. In all honesty, it seems that happens more often than I wish it to. I had just come out as bisexual and with all the consequences that entailed: I lost my job, my house, transportation, pension, insurance, etc. I went through in actuality a quite amicable divorce, but it was still the worst thing I had ever gone through in my entire life.
I had never been in a same-sex relationship before. After waiting about a year after my divorce, I thought that maybe I could try it. My first ever approach at even talking to someone turned disastrous. There was a parlance that I was unfamiliar with, even as it was titillating. My being in the closet for such a long time meant that I was just as foreign to the LGBT world as I was to the straight world.
It felt very much like the time I moved back from Germany to the United States. The reverse culture shock was worse that moving overseas. When I speak German, I have a very slight American accent. It is faint enough that most Germans are surprised when they find out I am American. Often I was confused for being Dutch or Danish. When I came back to the United States, I had a slight German accent when speaking English. What was worse is that I would forget common English words and would get stuck on the German word, or the German word made much more sense than the English phrase.
I felt just the same in the LGBT community.
A well-meaning pastor, who is also gay, told me about this dating app, called Grindr. Let's just say that was like being thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool after only having one swimming lesson. For those of you unfamiliar with the app, comedian Andi Osho describes it perfectly:
My "hunting" expedition turned out to be farcical and was probably closer to a comedic tragedy, where I was the fool.
Twitterverse
Enter being on Twitter. I am on Twitter occasionally. I don't have that much of a following. That's ok with me. In fact, I currently am following more people than those who follow me. That's probably kept me sane.
Oftentimes someone will follow me on Twitter to get me to follow them back. They often have a blog or a podcast that interests me. When I do follow them back, many times they promptly unfollow me. It's a tactic for a content creator to get more people to follow them.
So one person started following me who had a blog, called "Sacred Tension." I quickly perused it and like what I read. At the time the author, Stephen Long, was a progressive Christian, who was also gay. He had also been a witness and a victim of a mass shooting at a YWAM campus in Colorado. I followed him back. I read some of his pieces and one of them struck out at me. He had written a piece on whether or not YWAM is a religious cult. Reading this piece was fascinating. It started me on my own journey to see whether or not my former denomination, The Salvation Army, was also a cult.
So I reached out to him by Twitter and talked to him about my own experiences deconstructing my faith and whether or not my old denomination was a cult. (I came to the conclusion that it is not a cult, but does have tendencies to become one.)
We had a great conversation and got to know each other. Then I told him about my disastrous exploits dating. We exchanged phone numbers and had a great conversation. It was so nice to finally talk to someone who had been through something similar. Stephen was in a stable relationship and it was great to hear how he somehow made it safely through his own deconstruction.
The Podcast
A couple of years later Stephen started a podcast. To get his feet wet, he actually interviewed me. I was so happy to do so. It was a bit rough in cut and there are still 8 minutes of silence at the end, but I was very happy with how in turned out.
He started a Patreon account, which I happily support to this day. He would often have patron-only podcasts, too, which were often unedited and definitely unscripted. Sometimes I was on these podcasts and then eventually joined him full time as a podcaster, but only on his Patreon page, which is behind a pay wall. Sometimes Stephen will release one of these for the general public to listen to. I was slightly mortified when one of these was entitled, "Cat Ejaculation."
Becoming a Satanist
I started noticing a slight change in my conversations with Stephen. He started talking a lot about Satanism. I knew from my time as a pastor that most Satanists don't actually worship Satan. They aren't making child sacrifices. I had the view that it was a protest religion, protesting Christianity (for the most part) and the evils that Christianity has imposed on our society. What evils? Freedom of Religion is enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, but is often not upheld or is flaunted (such as putting "In God We Trust" on US currency to erecting statues of the 10 Commandments on public property).
However, to say that Satanism is a protest religion would not be entirely accurate. They certainly protest, but that is not the extent of who they are. Many people think they just troll Christianity. That is also not entirely accurate. There are Satanists who definitely troll, just as many Christians troll, but that doesn't define who they are.
Privately to his close friends and me, Stephen told me that he was going to become a Satanist. What won him over were the Seven Tenets of The Satanic Temple. (See the link for a better description.)
Stephen no longer felt home in Christianity. He is gay. That excluded him from most congregations. He is in a committed relationship with another man. That excludes him from even more. He was constantly being attacked for those beliefs. Is it any wonder that he fled Christianity?
At first I was bemused. Then a bit bewildered. It wasn't an overnight thing for me to fully comprehend and understand the change that Stephen was going through. However, he did find comfort in Satanism. He found people who accepted him and loved him for who he was. He became one of their most ardent supporters. He is now an ordained Minister of Satan.
Love and acceptance does that to you. When I am loved and accepted, there isn't anything I wouldn't do for that other person.
A Better Person
What I have noticed about my friend is that he has become an even better person than many other Christians I personally know. Stephen has never condemned me for my beliefs, or lack thereof. He has listened to me when I was going through heartbreak. When I was going through a particularly low moment, I am convinced he probably saved my life, just by being there for me and listening to me cry my eyes out.
At the same time, I am not trying to proselytize him nor he me. He is happy and content with Satanism. It has made him a better person. Why in the world would I want to disturb that?
As much as I value right thinking (orthodoxy), I value right actions more so (orthopraxy). It is not so much what we think, but what we do with our beliefs that matters perhaps more so in the scheme of things. Even the writer of James would agree with this statement (See James 1:22).
When I was down, Stephen was there for me. He listened to me. He supported me. When I was in need, Stephen helped me out in more ways than one. He doesn't condemn me. He loves me as a brother.
My friend, Stephen, the Satanist, is perhaps one of the best Christians I know.
Does that sound shocking? Perhaps. I would even think that Stephen would disagree with me about my conclusion. However, I truly believe it is not our correct thinking that defines who we are, but how we act. How we treat each other. How we love each other.
In devoting himself to the Seven Tenets of the Satanic Temple, my friend has become one of the best Christians I know and I will always be grateful to him for that.
