A journal ies fromm cto IC SO unity ce SECOND QUARTER 1982 sicad nein born in our heats to teach | Sobre the heavens and exalt the earth taf eete a new world without masters | sl es, rulers and subjects; no, not feenzen a frst and women Kept behind ta mek srlity. This Is what Jesus fpaatnken he faght us to pray for Gofskingdom to come, for God's will tobetone on earth, a5 itis in heaven; to |faieach ote and not to be Sed nto tempat, but delivered from evil The Lasks GOD IS CALLING THE sos iy ah Aas he Si ee tay tai | Jews and conquer the gentiles, lording it METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CHURCHES ‘TORERFORM An ddtress to the 10th International General Conference of the Universal Ghunkes, Meeting in Houston. 1COXE TO YOU today from the midst tte, Since organizing the Pentecostal ‘eaten for Human Rights last year, T uvebecome the subject of mumerous ids Some, who T thought were es’, have deserted and gone. One tip of our church has called my name pbily ina sermon before a jurisdictional onérence; and another has written & wogert article against my position in far denominational periodical, , The Pentostl chaplain at Howard University fins nmoved me from my position as indy advisor to the Pentecostal Student Felli after having served in this apaity for morethan seven years. And fie krading interdenominational Tentcostal/Charismatic magazine in the nati, in its lastassue, called for my Jexommunication from the church. ‘Bot these examples are not something letsty new. All my life as a Christian T laneinovn suffering. I was taught to enpmy most inkezent self, flagaelate my pia for my socalled “cernal lusts,” fentatly grovel in the floor every time T [noght about sex, and spend sleepless sighs in fear that Tight die and goto elllefore having another night's chance i» ove that I could go to sleep with now ascetic fantasies and dreams have also been rejected by my wife, shotore my two daughters from my rest and left me without warning to |noethe future alone - despite the fact att had begged her to stay, had asked lier let me live with them, and had mt 6 assured her that my sexuality was not the sum total of relationships (whether Inusbanding or parenting). Thave been told by a trusted friend that homosexuality is most rampant famong persons who are either extremely Tight or extremely dark in complexion, as if both light-skin and gayness were twin symptoms of some physical plague or innate deficiency. ‘Thave also suffered from the pains of having a former pastor accuse me of desecrating the house of God by using @ church phone to-talk to a male friond~ 3 ‘pastor who threatened to eall the police End have me arrested in his own office, and who advised my wife (in my presen: that she should leave me since J was unfit to rear our children, end who forced me to sgn a letter of confession and resignation from the ministry under the Iie that God would never use me to speak God's name in public again, Thave endured endless prophecies in church - prophecies of God's hatred, ry forthcoming poverty, and of having crossed the line” which marked the point of impossible return to grace. Even worse, Ihave been told (and convinced, Bt one point) that my love for men twas the result of hordes of live, Overpowering demons, straight from hell, ‘vithin my bosom, Who can even imagine the total anomie, despair and sel-hatred that were thus heaped upon me, causing me to publicly undergo 2 ritual of exorcism aimed at ridding my body of jover them as the Romans now lor8 over Ge Mary shuddered, Is there any way to tend this fabric, to let the light of this bother world shine through? Perhaps SGmething of this other vision wil stil get tough the distortion. Other people, cron women like myself, will glimpse Something of the real vision, and they will | ecognize re as thet sister. JAMES S. TINNEY Fellowship of Metropolitan Communi this socalled Satanic possession, T know what it is to live, simost daily, under the catcalls of “punk,” “faggot,” sissy””- all announced before friends and enemies, males and females, sinners and saints, at every conceivable ocation: at church, the grocery, the comer store, school, on public transit, Gnd more. Only these who endure such flagrant violence to the human spisit now the fear, the fatigue, and the temporary emotional and mental Gisorientation that occur under such circumstances, causing a person to become afraid to smile, to say Nello, oF ‘even ask a harmless question of direction, test it be misinterpreted as a solicitation ‘and provoke a volley of verbel abuse, Nor ‘has it all been verbal. Many times Thave been robbed, attacked, kicked, and besten - once in broad daylight on @ crowded downtown street ~ for no ott season than that I was who } am, Thave had my humanity reviled, my spisituality condemned, my academic yesearch questioned, my speeches {nterrupted, my job threatened, my own family taken from me, and my own body hhurt and abused. And for what reason? ‘Simply because I am who Tam - 2 lonely soul erying out in the midst of inhumane world for the freedom to love. vAsk me not if my suffering causes ™ to long for some other orientation, som different direction of affection - a if I would become heterosexual if I could. My answer is this: Never would I choos:to be other than Tam. If I were to exchange who Iam and what I am for some other, it would be no longer I who lived, but them. My being is God's gift of creation; to deny myself would be to deny God's own self, . ‘Therefore, let the world pity me not for my past misfortunes, as if having been told the story of lifelong oppression they now “understand” why I em a homosexual - making vietimization the cause of my identity rather than the It of, Aslong as I can remember, 1 | have loved men as the most natural thing Tan do, Iwas yearning for men at the age of four, and possitly earlier, That desire that sense of longing- has guided every decision I have ever made, every conflict Ihave ever resolved, every hope I have ever dreamed, every experience of | mind and body and spirit T have undergone, and every lesson T have learned. . Tell me no mote that I deserve the pains of hel, the fears of conscience, and eternal suffering, There isnot the slightest j doubt in my mind that I have suffered enough already to atone for every sin I have ever done, if suffering were sufficient to erase them. And J have suffered ‘meritoriously. 1am no martyr. But I tell you that all the martyrs that have ever lived have died no more senseless death "than that which is done to my spirit and ry integrity every day : But I have come to the point where 1 rofuse to let fear control my life any longer. [choose the option of confronting both fear and those who make me fearful. ‘And I refuse to give fear more respect than the respect T give my own nature and my enabling God. ‘Am I saddened because of the injustices thatthe family, the church, the school, the government, this society, have heaped upon me? Never. Tam not sad; T am angry. And when I realize that my own injustice is but @ minute part of the injustice that is multiplied in the lives (of millions of others like me, my anger is compounded, Ilive every moment in the realization that angor can be a channel of [redemption insofar as 1 understand it, accept it, and utilize it to struggle against oppression. It isnot my anger, it is their anger that cannot be understood and rust not be accepted. My anger, your anger, our anger, are gifts of God? and our willingness to act upon itis the only hope we have fora better world, Unfortunately, much of our suffering 8 lesbians and gays comes from the ‘church itself, From the earliest beginnings of time, there were men trom the same rooted tree from which Judaism and Chaistianity later blossomed, who decided in themselves that they would preserve for themselves the fruits of everybody's |tabor, They woud decide who would get | what, Of course, this hierarchical distribution displaced certain persons | from power, and often from sharing the surpluses. Of course, children were put out, women were put out, lesbians and gays were put out, people of other faiths were put out, and people of other nationalities were put out - in order to preserve the successes and royalties for a select number of white, heterosexual ‘This practice was carried over -in the name of God and Christianity - until eventually the patriarchal nuclear faruily ‘was viewed as the only pattern of God for the ages. The plan, of course, was for the ‘man the father - to be the head of that family. The man was to control the ‘wealth, And the man would decide which of the children would inherit the wealth ‘upon reaching adulthood, In order to legitimize that rule, # change was also made in the arrangement of families into a nation-state. The nation-state became viewed as God's own lect nation, to the exclusion of all others, The idea of an authoritarian and very narrowly defined family was transfered to the state. All femily men then saw themselves as the progenitors of the state and as its protectors and its enactors, ‘These same patterns eventually were also carried over into the synagogue and the church, So that white straight men also inherited the rule of the spiritual “family of God” even as they had made themselves the rulers of society as a whole. Religion, in the process, became twisted and warped. It became desecrated in the name of God until, in many ways, it no longer served the functions God intended it to serve, To legitimize the social system of oppression, people were taught that God was only a father, but not a mother. They were taught that God sent Jesus Christ into the world to establish @ hierarchical kingdom, rather than a community of equal persons. They ‘were taught that Jesus? supreme title was lord, rather than savior, comforter, or Iberator. They were taught that women ‘were less than men - because God was male, and because only men could rightfully assume the prerogatives of God. The oppression of lesbians and gays ‘was also legitimized by the teaching that God was “straight,” forbidding {homosexual men to inherit the fruits | And they were taught, that since God hes only one favorite nation - or, at most, |two nations: Anglo-Saxons replacing the | sacl of older times- whatever was done in the name of Judaism or Christianity or | America was okay. They taught that, not Jonly wes God a “straight” man, but he | also had blue eyes and white skin, Such a portrayal of cours, leptimized oppression of peoples of color in the name of religion. So that Asian children, and [Black chiléren, and Hispanic children, ould kneel down before paintings of & white Jesus with blonde hai. Yet inthis construction, the church fis betrayed its own sel. The social institution known as the church has lft tscaling and forsakenits Godby creating and perpetuating thes myths of sex and tender and race. It teaches middle class cial values relative to sex and property, contends that only men heterosexual rmen-azefit to teach and to preach and to mile the house of God. It says that “women should keep silence in the churches," and thatthe church i the bride of Christ,” and that every soul should be subject and obedient to a male higher power. Iesays that white represents |p00d, and black represents evi; and that, the purpose of salvation is to “wash sme whiter than snow,” so that we can become “children of light” rather than darkness, and can be clothed in "white robes of righteousness” = ‘To seinfore such mythology, all our children in evangelical churches’ are own the so-called “Wordless Book.” One page is held up- a beck page - and the child is asked, “What is this? Its my heart before Jesus comes into my life.” Then s 10a page fs held up. “And what i thie Ie isthe blood of Jesus that was shed for my sing” And then a white page held up and the child i told, “This is ‘what your dsty black heart will lok like ater Tesus washes you whiter than snow.” As # reat, from our earliest years, all of ws Black end white ~ are ocinlized into accepting a system of religion that oppresses al of us. What is wore, we don't even relize it T'oeliove in savstion, but there are many ways to describe sslation other than “washing whiter than snow.” Thave | been redeemed, Ihave been liberated. 1 have been sot fee. My sins are forgiven | My name is written in heaven, Why do 1 [have to be “washed whiter than snow?" | 'o say, however, that religion has | heen twisted and changed from what it Tee: 7