An Open Letter To a Man Who Offered Me the "Good News"

I wonder if you remember me from that encounter in Pahoa, Hawaii. I was the queer one with hot pink hair, reveling in my beloved lover who has a similar haircut to mine. We parked outside of the coffee shop that we know houses your Evangelical church when we couldn’t find other parking for the Thai restaurant we were headed to, nearby. We knew we were guests in that lot, but there was plenty of space, so we didn’t anticipate ruffling any feathers.

You are someone I read as a man, as white, as near my age, with long blond hair and a beard. As we were walking away from the parking lot towards the restaurant, you ran after us holding two identical books while jovially shouting: Hey, are you guys interested in the New Testament?

I am not sure if you saw my whole body get tense or if you sensed my soul seize up. 

After a pause, I stammered sharply: No, we’re definitely not interested. Very very very very VERY. NOT. Interested.

You backed up: … okaaaay… 

I’m curious how many similar encounters you had that same day. I’m curious if you spoke differently to us because you read us (correctly) as Queer. I wonder if you have any idea how triggering this encounter was for me, or might be, in different ways, to others.

When we had passed that coffee shop earlier that week, I had sensed a certain kind of Evangelical vibe, so I went home and googled it and, sure enough, the influences listed for your church (Tim Keller, John Piper, etc) are public in decrying the full humanity of queer and trans people* and in championing only one specific (supposedly God-ordained) way that sex and family should be, even advising you should not get too close to anyone who believes that being queer might not be a sin**. These same pastors are some of the core thinkers who influence my family of origin, so I am deeply familiar with their vibe.

Fuck him, I explained/seethed to my beloved. Fuck him and fuck the New Testament and fuck the violence that Evangelical Christianity has done to queer and trans folks and fuck his obliviousness to how triggering that offering might be for us and fuck especially Evangelism that masks itself as kindness, like “we love you *despite* who you are”, and “come inside and feel welcome and warm and fuzzy so we can ‘love’ you into being straight and cis’”. Fuck how he’s going to go back in there where I know they are all going to pray for us, bowing their heads in performative humility, saying in all-too-familiar cadence: “Father God, I want to lift up those two “women.***” We don’t know the pain that sparked their prickly response, but we know that you know, and we know that their hearts are longing for you.” Fuck that. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I had to take a walk around the block to calm down and turn toward curiosity about my extremely triggered reaction and response.

I know you mean well, I know you meant well.

It is painful for me to see myself in you. 

I recognize your confidence, your warmth. I, too, have offered prayer and New Testaments to countless strangers, meaning well, on public transportation, at homeless shelters, on college campuses, on the sidewalk, before I awoke to myself and to the oppression that my worldview perpetuated. I remember feeling utterly certain about the compassion of the ways I was extending a hand, a bridge, to connection with Jesus. I believed that Jesus was the one and only way to access true joy, true fulfillment, true grace. I have been oblivious to the violence that connection with Jesus through a certain Evangelical lens has had on people like myself. The way that that so-called connection actually disconnects people from radical wonder and radical welcome of so many people of all genders and orientations.

If only I had known in the moment how to explain to you that, actually, I am very very very VERY interested in the New Testament, that I own several copies in different translations, that I have had much of it memorized since I was a teenager, that that book has shaped me more than any other book has, that I revere many of the words of Jesus within it (even if I definitely don’t believe that “no one comes to [God] except through [Jesus].****” I am very very very VERY interested in the ways this book has been used as a weapon to disconnect many folks of all orientations and genders from their bodies, from their connection to the earth. I am very very very VERY interested in the ways this book (or perhaps distortions of this book) has been used as a tool to disconnect myself and so many other people from connecting with other people in loveships and kinship networks and families that go beyond the dominant scripts of marriage. 

All of this was all the more painful because we were in Pahoa on the Big Island of Hawaii, where colonization is happening in real time. All of this was all the more painful to me because I see myself in you, and because by visiting there I, too, was inextricably a part of this real-time colonization.

I wonder to what extent you have already considered any or all of this, to what extent you are already familiar with my perspectives. I wonder about your own story, how close or far is it from the story I presume? 

I am humbled to notice that our brief encounter brought up So Much for me, pointing to just how much healing I still need to do, how much power I still give over to people and perspectives that I know are coming from a limited vantage point.

If we were ever to encounter each other again, I hope I would stay more connected to my own dignity and at the same time I hope I would stay more connected to your full humanity. I am learning, as I go, to stay grounded in all of that at once. I am learning, as I go, that true connection doesn’t necessarily mean an absence of tension*****.

I pray, for us both, may we be agents of healing in the world and not cause harm to others. May we continue to learn and grow and open to ever-deepening connection to ourselves, to the earth, and to other people in defiance of the systems of domination which would like to keep us severed. Breath by breath, may we know love, may we know wholeness, in the most authentic of senses. Amen.

With Love and With Grief,

Orion

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*“Christians cannot truly love those who identify as homosexuals without believing, and being honest with them, that such behavior is sin and will lead to destruction and eternal death.” More here: https://www.desiringgod.org/topics/homosexuality#redeemed-sinners-helping-redeemed-sinners

**“My Girlfriend Affirms Homosexual Love - Is This a Dealbreaker?” https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/my-girlfriend-affirms-homosexual-love-is-this-a-deal-breaker

***We are both non-binary transmasculine people, not women, but I presume he’d misgender us.

****John 14:6, NIV

*****“True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

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ORION S. JOHNSTONE (they/he) is a transgender faggot witch, a Queer-as-fuck/care-centered community minister, writer, theater director, composer, sex educator, muckraker and lover, living with chronic illness. First and foremost, they dance with the question: “who and how might we be together most bravely in light of our collective liberation?” www.orionjohnstone.com