Thinking about what @Ruth says about church leadership reminded me of an ongoing dilemma in some of our lives.
If I move to a new Catholic parish, there may not be much choice about where to go because in country areas you'll find one Catholic church in the largest town and that is it. Many parish priests will be responsible for a number of far-flung parishes and spend their Sundays travelling back and forth to say Mass, over-worked and too rushed for much pastoral interaction. Sometimes though, the priest will be accepting or even welcoming of queer people and those active in the parish follow that lead to create a safe-enough place for those like me who don't really want to lurk in a closet.
The problem is that every few years the parish priests get reassigned and moved about like chess pieces. Not all of them, but transfers are common for a number of reasons. The changes can be positive and keep things fresh, or too many changes can mean no follow-through on long-term projects and sudden arbitrary reversals in approach and priorities.
For queer parishioners, a change of church leadership in more hierarchical churches means having to test the waters again, decide on whether or not to come out to the new priest, finding out how conservative or homophobic, transphobic, sexist etc the new incumbent might be. There might be tacit and stable support from other parishioners but the tone is often set by the church leadership. Those who feel unwelcome have to adapt or leave and for those of us who choose not to leave, it means keeping a low profile while hoping for better luck with the next incoming priest.
Yes very much the same story in the Antipodes as far as I ( straight cisgender married multiparous postmenopausal bad Catholic) can see.
Here in this scattered sunburnt land, pick your neighbourhood with caution given the empty centre and the increasing conservatism the further you get from the SE coast.
From your posts I’d guess you tend to wear trousers or shorts, you don’t wear makeup and you probably don’t wear ear rings.
All of this is correct. I'm terribly boring, and don't have a great deal of interest in my appearance. It's also true of most of the gay men I know - as it happens, all of the men I know who wear ear rings are married to women.
For myself, as a single, childless woman, I look at how the groups are organized. If they are all organized around age, gender, and position in family life - young marrieds, moms with kids, etc - no way. And if they call their big events things like "church family picnic," also no way.
Interesting comment about "family picnic" - I've always read that as "this is a kid-friendly event, rather than an event for adults only", so it's interesting to hear that that turns you off. What words would you use to describe an event that was intended for the whole church community rather than just the adult part of it?
Interesting comment about "family picnic" - I've always read that as "this is a kid-friendly event, rather than an event for adults only", so it's interesting to hear that that turns you off. What words would you use to describe an event that was intended for the whole church community rather than just the adult part of it?
I hear/read “family picnic” as suggesting that it’s just for or mainly for families—adults with children—and therefore not for single people or couples without children. At the least, it suggests that adults without children might be the odd folk out, and that single adults would be very much the odd folk out.
As for what it could be called, “all-church picnic” or simply “church picnic” is common in my experience. Either would be understood as meaning “for everybody.”
Exactly. "Church picnic" means everyone. "Church family picnic" means families with minor children. Same with "family service" or "family anything else."
In the US, "family" = kids. You can't buy beer in the family section at a baseball park, and it's expected that you'll watch your language. In colloquial speech, I don't have "a family of my own" because I don't have children. Churches aren't different from the rest of society in this regard.
The phrase "church family" has me running for the hills, vomiting to right and left as I go. It is utter bullshit. It is heteronormativity in action, because it fails completely to imagine life in any terms other than heterosexual parents with 2.4 children, or at least that is what it communicates to me.
The phrase "church family" has me running for the hills, vomiting to right and left as I go. It is utter bullshit. It is heteronormativity in action, because it fails completely to imagine life in any terms other than heterosexual parents with 2.4 children, or at least that is what it communicates to me.
Heh! I thought about that; it’s a commonly-heard phrase in the American South, usually in the form “my church family.” (Or maybe “our.”) It’s not a phrase I use.
It's also becoming popular here, and requires an immediate, universal "cease and desist" order, pending the spikiest spike and firiest flame of hell. I have thus spoken and decreed, and thus shall it be.
It is not a phrase I have often heard here,apart from in evangelical church circles.
But haven't we all,whether we have children of our own or not,whether we have a partner of opposite or same sex or not,or even if we live on our own, originally come from some sort of family ? don't most of us still have relatives whom we count as part of our family ?
Are not most of us who claim to be Christians,part of a community,to which we can legitimately give the name of 'family' ?
I think a lot of phrases that are used to exclude could, in theory, be reasonably used otherwise. However, if we are hearing that it is used to exclude, I'm going to believe those who are experiencing that.
A friend of mine who has been a widow for several years has two grown up children on the other side of the world. She is deeply involved with a local evangelical church which she counts as her ' church family' and this is the only time I have heard this phrase used locally.
As far as I can see she is in no way excluded from that'family.
The phrase "church family" has me running for the hills, vomiting to right and left as I go. It is utter bullshit. It is heteronormativity in action, because it fails completely to imagine life in any terms other than heterosexual parents with 2.4 children, or at least that is what it communicates to me.
That's what it used to say to me. Now I work for a church where 40% of the members are gay. They dumped the heteronormativity ages ago; families can have one or two parents, or even three, because they're okay with polyamory, but they still have to have at least one kid. As the office person, I edit almost everything - weekly 8- to 10-page newsletter, Sunday bulletin with announcements, website, flyers, brochures - and every time we get a new minister, I check with them about wording on a bunch of different things, and 4 in a row have thrown up in their mouths a little bit when I told them what members turn in to the office and then given me a directive to edit out "family" wherever appropriate.
It appears to me that words are used and understood in different ways by different people and that many of us go around decoding the meaning of words used by others. I think that it is our job to try and seek a common understanding
.
We also carry meanings and hurts and impressions inside us, and no-one has the right to tell us what they mean or how to express them. They really do mean whatever I say they do, and I expect that to be respected. If that is sufficiently individual, I will be in a minority of one, because I can't demand that anyone else shares that meaning. You have the right to tell me what you mean by a word, but that will always be met with the meaning I carry around with me, and logically the latter will mostly take priority in terms of my interpretation and action.
Of course the meaning you see in something will have priority for you,but as a tolerant person you will accept that other people have an equal right to put forward their interpretation of the meaning of any word AND that their interpretation is worthy of equal respect,even if you do not personally agree with it.
No Forthview, privileged people don't have an 'equal right' to respect for their interpretations when they are speaking to groups who have suffered centuries of discrimination from churches. It's speaking from a position of power and acceptance to people in more marginalised positions where they have to watch out carefully for abuse and for clues that abuse may be forthcoming.
And bringing in 'tolerance' to make for a false equality between the interpretations of people who can usually be easily accepted in churches and people who have to watch out is a misuse of the word. In the case of people who don't occupy the position of LGBT+ people in the church it's talking 'tolerance' from a very unequal position where historic intolerance means cis straight people still hold most of the cards.
Of course the meaning you see in something will have priority for you,but as a tolerant person you will accept that other people have an equal right to put forward their interpretation of the meaning of any word AND that their interpretation is worthy of equal respect,even if you do not personally agree with it.
I don’t think it’s really a matter of “agree,” and I fear that it misses the point to frame what’s been brought up regarding “church family” in terms of a “right to put forward one’s interpretation.”
What @ThunderBunk and others are putting forward is how they have personally experienced the term being used, and the effects that experience has had on them. They have experienced “church family” being used in a way that excludes them—perhaps in the particularly insidious way in which the words do not explicitly exclude, but they nevertheless make clear by how they are used that “people like us” are welcome and “people not like us” are not.
I’m sure that those who have experienced “church family” in this way are quite capable of understanding that not everyone who uses the phrase uses in the subtly exclusionary way that too many others have used it. But I also imagine that even when they know that nothing hurtful or exclusionary is meant, the words themselves still act as a reminder of all the times the words have been used to exclude then. The words themselves at the least bring up long-standing feelings of exclusion, intended or not.
From my perspective as one who has not been so excluded but who wants to welcome as Christ welcomed, the proper response is not “let me make you understand what I meant and didn’t mean, and let me assure you I didn’t mean to exclude.” For me, the proper response is “I’m glad to know how you hear these words, and I’ll do my best to avoid using the words that have been used to exclude you in the past.”
If rights are involved at all, it’s the right of those who have too often been excluded to be treated with dignity, not any right of mine to put forward my interpretation.
ETA: Cross-posted with @Louise, but what she said, probably more succinctly and directly than I did.
'If rights are involved at all,it's the right of those who have too often been excluded to be treated with dignity,not any right of mine to put forward my interpretation
I agree with much of what you say @Nick Tamen but as we know any virtue carried to excess can become a vice.
Who is the person or persons who decides in general who the 'privileged' are and who the 'oppressed' are.
Surely it is not what we say but how we say it which carries forward a meaning.
Is the word 'family' in general to be avoided because some adults are not married and don't have personally 2.2 children ? Don't we all belong to some 'family' ? Weren't we all at some point 'children' ?
For Christians,as indeed for others in some sort of community,be it religious or even a Society of rail enthusiasts, are we not all members of that community or family which helps us grow together and that is a positive ?
Who is to judge with justice and fairness that the way in which I have heard of 'church family' is exclusionary ?
(My only hearing of this phrase was by a woman who was grateful to her'church family' for helping her over the difficulties of the time of widowhood and the fact that her children were on the other side of the world)
If we are obliged to accept only the understanding of one section of the human family as to the meaning of a word ,then surely it is that section which is the privileged one.
On a very personal level I would not use the term 'church family' and I would most certainly not use the term with someone who had told me that they did not like it.
Would it be fair to say that it is incumbent upon those who use such terms to have care for those who may feel excluded by their use?
I do feel something would be lost from doing away with the description of the church as a family entirely. I think it serves to remind us that we are bound to our brothers and sisters in Christ by more than shared interests or friendship, that we do not choose our fellow followers any more than we choose parents or siblings. It should also remind us that Jesus was himself part of a blended, borderline scandalous family, and our faith teaches that many different relationships are blessed by God.
tl;dr: maybe there is space to reclaim "family" from the 1950s throwbacks.
The problem is that those of us who have been marginalised by the church, and there are a lot of us, have a lot of baggage attached to the way that word family is often used. And like those who have abusive fathers and find the imagery of God the father an issue, those of us from dysfunctional families - and there are a lot of us too, some of us fit both boxes - may not find family summons up the happy warm feelings those from secure family backgrounds envisage.
My experience of this local church, is that as a single woman with child in my 30s, I was regarded with deep suspicion by most of my peer group of married couples and those a bit older, as someone who was aiming to steal one of their husbands, so not to be welcomed into the church family. And when my daughter stopped coming I was then only seen as a predatory woman. What was wanted was family units to fit the image of a family church, or children. Gay couples were tolerated. Anyone not fitting that description was not welcome.
I am probably old enough now to not be seen as so predatory, but too bad, too late. I've given up.
That's awful, and I'm sorry you had to go through it. I don't know whether it's my privilege (cis-white-het-male-married-take-your-pick) or simply that all the churches I've been in are too old and too small to have these sorts of dynamics.
I suspect, @Forthview, that there is some difference between ‘church family’ (adj. noun) and ‘church family’ (adjectival phrase).
So, for the most part, talking about the church family, or the family of the church is mostly OK, although for people who have suffered very dysfunctional families it may still set their teeth on edge.
On the other hand, church family worship, church family picnic etc. are ambiguous, and for all that they may be inclusively meant are actually exclusive. Does family mean ‘mum, dad and kid(s)’. Does it specifically mean an occasion aimed at adults with children. If I live alone, or my children have grown up and flown the nest goes it include me? If I am a child whose patents drop me off at church for Sunday school, does it include me if I know they won’t come? If I really want this to be a whole-church occasion to which all feel invited, young and old, irrespective of marital or parental status then it behaves me to use language which isn’t ambiguous or liable to be perceived as excluding some.
It is "what we say and how we say it. So repeatedly suggesting that those hurt by a term should not be hurt can silence who are speaking their experience. Avoid that.
Bro James -that is why I don't particularly like the idea of 'family service' or even the Anglican 'all age service' but they should be seen as an opportunity to present something in the service for both adults and children.
At least in my understanding of the word 'Church ' it is not simply a group of individuals but a whole community melded by Christ into one family.
Of course that is just my understanding of the word 'Church' and I accept that others may have different ideas and the right to express them,but I claim also the right at least to tell
you what my understanding of the word is
As a Catholic I am more than aware of the human imperfections of those who claim to be members of the Church and I feel sorry for any who feel that they have been excluded in some way from Christ's love within the Church community.
Thanks Forthview. I think heteronormative and parental assumption can be very hard to see from the other side.
For example, until equal marriage became legal in the U.K. basically anyone wearing a wedding ring was signalling their straightness (or passing straight if bi) without giving it a second thought, whilst many of us would think carefully about disclosing a non-traditional sexual orientation. But all the people wearing wedding rings were largely unaware of all the messages they transmitted by doing so. I think the use of family to mean “hetero” and/or “with kids” in the adjectival sense Brojames mentions is largely an enactment of unconscious bias. Re the point of the thread, I’d be inclined to judge whether I felt included in part by how an attempt to raise the issue was recieved.
The phrase "church family" has me running for the hills, vomiting to right and left as I go. It is utter bullshit.
Are my brothers and sisters in Christ not my family?
Most of my family family are on another continent. The only family that my wife, kids, and I have within about 2000 miles are my church family. So they're the people we lean on when we need to lean on someone. And both my church family and my family family contain gay people, and single people. That doesn't make them less family than the straight marrieds with kids.
Re the use of "family" to mean "all ages", my experience of people around here who say "all welcome" is that they're surprised when you want to turn up with small children, and even more surprised if you turn up with children and don't want to shove them in a corner with a video whilst all the people (by which they mean adult people) talk.
I want to tell the single people that they are welcomed and valued members of our community. I want to tell the parents that their kids are welcomed and valued members of our community. But to me, "family" has never meant hetero parents plus 2.4 kids - it has always meant "extended family" full of people in all their messy variety. I appreciate that the word doesn't carry the same resonance for everyone - and also that not everyone has positive associations with their personal families.
So what words do actually unambiguously carry the signal that each and every human is welcomed?
I'm a recent convert to the idea that it should be discussed at church. But my church has started opening up the conversation, and you can feel the LGBTQ+ people in the congregation and the wider community relaxing when we realize we're being acknowledged and loved. It's pretty powerful.
That sounds like a good result. Can you say more about what "opening up the conversation" means for your church in practice?
They literally started doing community conversations with people in the community from different marginalized groups. It started out talking to people who were muslim, latinex, Black, and LGBTQ. It included the wider community and church members. I learned so much from all the presenters; from a Christian perspective I really loved the opportunity to show love to my siblings. The church also shows up - joyfully! - at community events, including the local LGBTQ+ festival, right next to the gender-inclusive restrooms
The same leaders who started this have also created classes to talk about race - outdoors - in light of the George Floyd murder and subsequent protests. It's part of a greater shift to include more of God's children.
Our church has some gay couples. They are valued brothers and sisters in Christ, some of them have served in various leadership capacities. As far as I can tell, they're about as likely to offer each other small signs of affection at church as similar straight couples. As a church, we don't talk about sexual orientation, or sexuality, much. Possibly that's a reflection of the typical age of our members: we've mostly got families with kids, and we've got older folks. We're not the kind of suburb that younger singles and couples choose to live in. Our church had a big bust-up about gay rights and equal marriage about 15 years ago, and the outspoken anti-gay members left. I don't know if we have any parishioners who remain opposed to marriage equality, or to LGBT priests, but if we do, they keep quiet about it.
Based on your experiences, what would you think we should do?
Actually, I have a different question. You said that your bi-ness was a core part of how you interact with other people. That's something I have difficulty understanding, and maybe that's at the core of Gwai and I seemingly talking past each other.
I'm straight. My straightness is a core part of how I interact with my wife. I think it has almost no bearing on the way I interact with my friends, or with people at church, or work colleagues. Sure - I might mention my wife or kids in conversation, which is something that a person in a same-sex marriage might feel at risk doing if they didn't know the company they were in, but I don't think those casual mentions of a spouse are the "core part of interactions" that you're talking about. If I'm talking to someone about my work, or my hobbies, or whatever else I talk about, I don't think my sexual orientation has any effect on it - and I don't think this is just a "straight default" thing.
A friend from church has just had a hip replaced. When I saw her at the weekend, we had quite a long conversation about how her recovery was going, how she was feeling, and some details about her operation. I can't think of any way that that conversation would have been different had I not been straight, and I think that's typical of the conversations I have.
Let's put this back on you. You don't see your straightness because you're enmeshed in a straight culture. Imagine you were the only straight person in a group of LGBTQ people. This takes some imagination- but people will be making casual references to partners that are different than yours. Let's even pretend they're making causally disparaging jokes or references to straight people (you may not do that, but it's there in "straight" groups). They stand in different ways and touch each other in ways that don't feel intuitive to you- two men may stand closer than you're used to, or put their hands on each other shoulders. You many not even notice the exact things, but you will notice it's different. You'll start checking your movements and phrases. You're not sure what will be accepted so you get a little pit in your stomach. You start thinking about how you're different and even questioning your validity to be there. You got the message early on that they're not ok with your difference, so you try to hide it. You start hiding it from yourself. You're tired and sick a lot.... Whoops, that was me!
I can only speak to being bi, but that is my experience. And THAT is why I'm getting vocal here- I'm fine. The LGBTQ+ kids in your church are not. Until you start talking about it and making space for them, they're not going to be ok. They won't ask you- you have to do that for them. This isn't about sex or talking about who I'm fucking. It's about making space for a core part of a person's identity.
amybo are you telling us that LGBTQ+ people are just as ,unintentionally cruel,to those who are not LGBTQ ? If that is the case, then we all,not only the cisgendered heteronormative white privileged,but all of us including Black,White,Brown,Conservative,Liberal,Latinex,English speakers of various nationalities ,Muslims,Christians,Buddhists, Hindus,straight and gay must make a better effort to understand one another
@Forthview The sarcasm is not helping us have a serious conversation here. (Unless you actually thought all LGBTQ people were sinless?) We understand that you disagree, and that's valid. But please acknowledge people's lived experience--in this case amybo's--seriously.
I assure you that it was not at all meant to be sarcasm. I don't think that all LGBTQ+ people are sinless just as I don't believe that all who are not LGBTQ+ are sinless.
I think that we can all say things which we are not aware that they hurt others.
I know,and don't just think,that it is those who are the recipients of what they see as unkind comments or attitudes are the ones who suffer more
And I repeat that it is incumbent on us all to try our best to understand people who have different views and outlooks from our own.
Host post:
Forthview you have been a shipmate for a long time. You well and truly know better that to argue with a post that is signed with host tags. Drop it or take it up in the appropriate place. Period.
I often worry about recommending Christian-flavoured religious organisations which I'm part of to LGBT+ friends. I know that as a woman I come across jaw-dropping sexism that I wouldn't encounter in secular contexts (where it's usually more subtle) and that's the price I pay for being involved in things I'm enthusiastic about but I also know I can 'pass' temporarily as a much more conservative Christian than I am when I need to (eg. because family have taken me along to a church I would never go to of my own volition)
However I worry about encouraging younger LGBT+ friends to get involved in the organisations I'm in because I don't know at all how safe it would be for them and sadly I feel their approach of not getting involved in Christian-flavoured religious organisations might be healthier. Maybe it's not healthy on my part that I'm willing to put up with a measure of sexist obliviousness for my spiritual interests, and my younger LGBT pals who have too much self-respect to get involved with these organisations (where they might come across heaven knows what prejudice) are right and I should leave them alone and not encourage them to get involved.
In the end it (whisper it) comes down to patriarchy and privilege and how much churches recognise that and are willing to address it. But it's easier for a straight white middle-class cis woman to decide she can stomach the odd bit of foulness in the honey...
Yeah, I'd like to feel confident in saying to anyone that the church is a safe place, somewhere you can always seek help. I just... can't. Because there's too many caveats and metaphorical land mines. That makes me sad, because the church should be that, and often isn't far from it, but far enough that I can't encourage LGBT friends to seek it out.
It is not a phrase I have often heard here,apart from in evangelical church circles.
I think the problem comes from the emphasis of many evangelical churches where 'growth' is often seen through the prism of making lots of families, so anyone who doesn't fit narrowly into the pattern of a 'healthy'* nuclear family doesn't really fit the church.
I'm not a Catholic, but I think that partially goes back to how much of the background we don't see. I know that when I think of inviting other people to an event, I often imagine how they would see it and find concerns I would not have otherwise had.
Let's put this back on you. You don't see your straightness because you're enmeshed in a straight culture. Imagine you were the only straight person in a group of LGBTQ people. This takes some imagination- but people will be making casual references to partners that are different than yours. Let's even pretend they're making causally disparaging jokes or references to straight people (you may not do that, but it's there in "straight" groups). They stand in different ways and touch each other in ways that don't feel intuitive to you- two men may stand closer than you're used to, or put their hands on each other shoulders. You many not even notice the exact things, but you will notice it's different. You'll start checking your movements and phrases. You're not sure what will be accepted so you get a little pit in your stomach.
This is amazingly well-articulated. I think I have shared this on the boards before, but when I was twelve or thirteen, my mother requested from the [NZ] Dept of Education a copy of their proposed updated sex education curriculum for teens, which was titled 'Affirming Diversity' (so that she could object to it). She had the materials all laid out around her on the table while she was writing her submission and called my attention to a section she found particularly egregious. It was a thought experiment very like the one you have detailed above. I made a non-committal noise and drifted quietly out of the room a changed person for the realisation that the default life does not feel the same for everyone.
For example, until equal marriage became legal in the U.K. basically anyone wearing a wedding ring was signalling their straightness (or passing straight if bi) without giving it a second thought, whilst many of us would think carefully about disclosing a non-traditional sexual orientation. But all the people wearing wedding rings were largely unaware of all the messages they transmitted by doing so.
I stopped wearing my wedding ring (having been married in an Anglican church) at some point several years ago, because I was so unhappy about their exclusion of LGBTQ+ from that institution, and now I usually refer to my husband as my partner. I won't be going back, even if things change, because I'm too fucking fat to get my rings on anymore...
Thinking about what @amybo said, one project that helped end the invisibility of queer people in local churches was the alternative queer Christmas lunches we organised before the pandemic.
Christmas is often the hardest time of the year for queer/LGBTQ+ people because they are unable to take partners home to conservative families or are not welcome themselves. In the Cape at the time of the AIDs pandemic in the 1980s, before retro-viral drugs became available, we held alternative Christmas picnics for those living with Aids who had been abandoned by families, called Widows & Orphans lunches. The same concept was taken up later within mainstream churches and the lunches were well-attended. Many single women and single mothers from churches began attending as well as abused women from shelters who felt safe from predatory hetero partners. Because we didn't serve alcohol, those in recovery groups came along as well, as did churchgoers who were recently divorced.
What struck many of us was that for the first time, those heterosexual church members attending got to know LGBTQ+ members as more than "the nice bachelor who sings in the choir" or "that woman who sits all by herself at the back" and could see queer people interacting together in an affirming queer space. That barrier of invisibility was torn down.
This is amazingly well-articulated. I think I have shared this on the boards before, but when I was twelve or thirteen, my mother requested from the [NZ] Dept of Education a copy of their proposed updated sex education curriculum for teens, which was titled 'Affirming Diversity' (so that she could object to it). She had the materials all laid out around her on the table while she was writing her submission and called my attention to a section she found particularly egregious. It was a thought experiment very like the one you have detailed above. I made a non-committal noise and drifted quietly out of the room a changed person for the realisation that the default life does not feel the same for everyone.
I would also like to say that particularly from a trans perspective in the UK, along with @MaryLouise 's point about the risk of coming out to new clergy in more hierarchical churches, being part of An Issue being discussed in wider society (and mostly by people who have little knowledge or expertise in the area) means that trying a new church also comes with the risk of not knowing if you or people like you are going to be the issue of the week. It is so exhausting and dehumanising to be treated as an issue rather than a person, yet it's trans people who are criticised for being unfair for not trusting churches to not be transphobic. In my experience of the (mainstream) RCC in the UK at least, the fact that most Catholics break fairly substantial rules on a regular basis creates at least a feeling of some equity - it's a lot more difficult for cishet people to take the moral high ground when they're pretty much all using contraception for example. I'm aware that the situation with contraception as an example is more fraught in SA though.
I tried a church near me tonight that I had tried a couple of years ago when they were in interregnum (my local area doesn't have many churches that have evening services, and my depression is worse in the morning). It had trans people attending, the curate was friendly, and there was a general feeling of being focused on local service and outreach rather than sexuality and gender. The service tonight turned out to be about gender identity as part of a series on hot topic issues (which doesn't seem very Advent-y but ok), which by the way was not advertised in the church diary - having to be suddenly exposed to being the topic of discussion is a common experience of marginalised people in churches, and it is so draining and exhausting that we just give up trying. It's like constantly having to watch out for jump scares in a film rather than just being able to get into the story. Anyway the really disturbing part was that the sermon was basically responding to how the church would respond to a young person questioning their gender (trans adults were never mentioned at all which felt quite odd), and the response was....entirely secular transphobia. There was a reading from Colossians as part of the service, but there were literally no arguments from Scripture but just talking about how they would dissuade trans young people from seeking treatment, to an extent that definitely crossed into effectively giving medical advice - and incorrect medical advice that contradicts the advice given by the NHS, the GMC, and the WHO. It used TERF arguments wholesale which felt very disingenuous given the evangelical setting. It very much suggested that they would encourage 'counselling' that really would be conversion 'therapy'. It ended with the white cishet male vicar using Rachel Dolezal as a 'gotcha' for those who would disagree with his position, which frankly turned my stomach - white people don't get to use issues affecting Black women as a weapon against their opponents. The thing is, I was the Nice Trans Person who gave this church a chance because my previous experience was pretty good - and then this happens, and I just have to start again and trust another church, when I can't even rely on churches to try and justify their transphobia with the Bible rather than tabloid headlines. I really need cis people to understand the extent to which churches can drop this kind of thing on us out of nowhere.
I will be contacting people I know who work for the diocese for advice re making a complaint (because churches dispensing medical advice is a massive safeguarding issue full stop, even if the advice was correct), but for now I'm just so angry and so tired. I want to pursue a vocation within the Church but I can't even find a church to attend safely.
I remember attending a baptism for my sister’s godchild - the daughter of her best friend. For some reason the clergyman randomly decided to use 1 Timothy 4 to preach on how homosexuality was basically a perversion (in not quite those words). I would have just got up and walked out had I not been there for for a one off family event. I just remember feeling so angry, but thinking - I can’t ruin this for them by making a scene.
I discussed it afterwards with someone else close to them, and I believe later on they chose to find another church.
What @Pomona describes is what I think of as linked to performative tokenism. The presence of one or perhaps two trans people or queer visitors in church is often the cue for The Issue to be discussed with plenty of pats on the back. How far we have come as a church! We can say we are committed to moving forward and welcoming more people like you! Let's talk about what the presence of X and Y tells us about The Issue we never mention. I'm not sure whether it is worse to be the topic of the month or to then have your queerness ignored or overlooked as the church reverts back to its familiar hetero norms. There is one workshop held on Queer Theology and nothing else. One sermon on accepting aliens in the household of God and then nothing more. (Right now we have the token annual 16 Days of Protest Against Gender-based Violence in South Africa. We don't need 16 days, we need 365 days of protest and substantive change.) For queer people to feel part of a church, there needs to be ongoing education and inclusion.
To be placed in this token position is extremely difficult for those of us wanting to be able to participate in an outwardly accepting or welcoming faith community. Two lesbian women who joined a more liberal and supposedly progressive church as a couple felt they were doing well enough until their relationship hit a rough patch and they decided to separate. The consensus among the congregation was that "These things never work out" and their relationship was pathologised as deviant or unhealthy despite the number of separated or divorced cishet congregants in the same church. If token participants do not perform optimally, the older prejudices and stereotypes resurface.
The problem of misrecogition has been mentioned in this thread: those who have been active in the church for many years as heterosexual and who come out as bisexual or non-binary are often regarded as having 'deceived' the congregation or being somehow labile and undecided about their sexual identity, leaving those who thought they had known them unsettled and uncertain about a fluid identity that seems far more threatening than someone who has always been gay or lesbian.
In the same way, when adolescent members of the faith community come out as trans, congregants refuse to let go of their memories of that little girl or boy they thought they knew in Sunday School or at First Communion and they feel betrayed and unwilling to support the trans teen and their family. This all relates to the pervasive ignorance and trans phobia that goes unchallenged for 90% of the time. To be well-meaning isn't enough.
I also wanted to touch on the subject of contraception because that has been a test case for exposing hypocrisy in the church in South Africa, especially the Roman Catholic Church. For some years in the 1990s the government was in a state of denial about the reality of AIDS and so retro-viral medications were not allowed into the country. The hierarchy of the RCC continued to maintain that contraception was not sanctioned by the church. As the AIDS pandemic affected more and more of the heterosexual community, the church was forced to reconsider the issue of transmission of the virus through unprotected sex and to quietly begin advocating the use of safe-sex condoms. What prompted this shift though and forced the hierarchy to face the reality of stigma and pandemic was that supposedly celibate clergy began dying of AIDS, a tragedy and open scandal that could not be ignored or hushed up. The hierarchy belatedly began to speak out against the denialism of the State and to acknowledge the need for safe sex practices inside and outside of marriage.
Most churches and Christian organisations prioritise ecclesial self-protection over and above any other considerations involving risk or transformation. What queer people encounter is an attitude that offers the appearance of welcoming change while secretly resisting any deep-seated shift of policy or power. Resistance often takes the form of denying access to funding, ministry, decision-making bodies or public representation to token minorities. Those women or Black people or queer members given a platform or allowed to enter ministry are those who are initially viewed as diplomatic, conformist and unlikely to rock the boat. Nothing new: those within the church promoted to become bishops or hold senior positions in ministry or administration are often those who also make the stability and reputation of the church their priority. Secular or lay authorities and the media are often seen as public enemies of the church and there is a deep fear of incurring public scandal, exposés or law suits leading to possible bankruptcy etc that lies behind the refusal of church leaders to go public or break with old habits of secrecy and inaction. What happens in church stays in church. If queer or outspoken activists within the church seem to be wild cards who might bring the church into disrepute, they are excluded from any meaningful consultation or ministry, their views and position denigrated as unhelpful, unChristian, anarchic or not middle-of-the-road-enough or likely to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Prophets who aren't welcome even if they stand within a supposedly honoured tradition of calling the faithful back to justice or a bigger vision. This is the church's loss and for those feminist, queer or trans activists entering the church it represents a future of being silenced, denigrated or excluded if they push for substantive reform rather than shutting up and settling down as exploited self-sacrificing workhorses.
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If I move to a new Catholic parish, there may not be much choice about where to go because in country areas you'll find one Catholic church in the largest town and that is it. Many parish priests will be responsible for a number of far-flung parishes and spend their Sundays travelling back and forth to say Mass, over-worked and too rushed for much pastoral interaction. Sometimes though, the priest will be accepting or even welcoming of queer people and those active in the parish follow that lead to create a safe-enough place for those like me who don't really want to lurk in a closet.
The problem is that every few years the parish priests get reassigned and moved about like chess pieces. Not all of them, but transfers are common for a number of reasons. The changes can be positive and keep things fresh, or too many changes can mean no follow-through on long-term projects and sudden arbitrary reversals in approach and priorities.
For queer parishioners, a change of church leadership in more hierarchical churches means having to test the waters again, decide on whether or not to come out to the new priest, finding out how conservative or homophobic, transphobic, sexist etc the new incumbent might be. There might be tacit and stable support from other parishioners but the tone is often set by the church leadership. Those who feel unwelcome have to adapt or leave and for those of us who choose not to leave, it means keeping a low profile while hoping for better luck with the next incoming priest.
Here in this scattered sunburnt land, pick your neighbourhood with caution given the empty centre and the increasing conservatism the further you get from the SE coast.
All of this is correct. I'm terribly boring, and don't have a great deal of interest in my appearance. It's also true of most of the gay men I know - as it happens, all of the men I know who wear ear rings are married to women.
Interesting comment about "family picnic" - I've always read that as "this is a kid-friendly event, rather than an event for adults only", so it's interesting to hear that that turns you off. What words would you use to describe an event that was intended for the whole church community rather than just the adult part of it?
As for what it could be called, “all-church picnic” or simply “church picnic” is common in my experience. Either would be understood as meaning “for everybody.”
In the US, "family" = kids. You can't buy beer in the family section at a baseball park, and it's expected that you'll watch your language. In colloquial speech, I don't have "a family of my own" because I don't have children. Churches aren't different from the rest of society in this regard.
Or something, but please, thus shall it be.
But haven't we all,whether we have children of our own or not,whether we have a partner of opposite or same sex or not,or even if we live on our own, originally come from some sort of family ? don't most of us still have relatives whom we count as part of our family ?
Are not most of us who claim to be Christians,part of a community,to which we can legitimately give the name of 'family' ?
As far as I can see she is in no way excluded from that'family.
That's what it used to say to me. Now I work for a church where 40% of the members are gay. They dumped the heteronormativity ages ago; families can have one or two parents, or even three, because they're okay with polyamory, but they still have to have at least one kid. As the office person, I edit almost everything - weekly 8- to 10-page newsletter, Sunday bulletin with announcements, website, flyers, brochures - and every time we get a new minister, I check with them about wording on a bunch of different things, and 4 in a row have thrown up in their mouths a little bit when I told them what members turn in to the office and then given me a directive to edit out "family" wherever appropriate.
.
And bringing in 'tolerance' to make for a false equality between the interpretations of people who can usually be easily accepted in churches and people who have to watch out is a misuse of the word. In the case of people who don't occupy the position of LGBT+ people in the church it's talking 'tolerance' from a very unequal position where historic intolerance means cis straight people still hold most of the cards.
What @ThunderBunk and others are putting forward is how they have personally experienced the term being used, and the effects that experience has had on them. They have experienced “church family” being used in a way that excludes them—perhaps in the particularly insidious way in which the words do not explicitly exclude, but they nevertheless make clear by how they are used that “people like us” are welcome and “people not like us” are not.
I’m sure that those who have experienced “church family” in this way are quite capable of understanding that not everyone who uses the phrase uses in the subtly exclusionary way that too many others have used it. But I also imagine that even when they know that nothing hurtful or exclusionary is meant, the words themselves still act as a reminder of all the times the words have been used to exclude then. The words themselves at the least bring up long-standing feelings of exclusion, intended or not.
From my perspective as one who has not been so excluded but who wants to welcome as Christ welcomed, the proper response is not “let me make you understand what I meant and didn’t mean, and let me assure you I didn’t mean to exclude.” For me, the proper response is “I’m glad to know how you hear these words, and I’ll do my best to avoid using the words that have been used to exclude you in the past.”
If rights are involved at all, it’s the right of those who have too often been excluded to be treated with dignity, not any right of mine to put forward my interpretation.
ETA: Cross-posted with @Louise, but what she said, probably more succinctly and directly than I did.
I agree with much of what you say @Nick Tamen but as we know any virtue carried to excess can become a vice.
Who is the person or persons who decides in general who the 'privileged' are and who the 'oppressed' are.
Surely it is not what we say but how we say it which carries forward a meaning.
Is the word 'family' in general to be avoided because some adults are not married and don't have personally 2.2 children ? Don't we all belong to some 'family' ? Weren't we all at some point 'children' ?
For Christians,as indeed for others in some sort of community,be it religious or even a Society of rail enthusiasts, are we not all members of that community or family which helps us grow together and that is a positive ?
Who is to judge with justice and fairness that the way in which I have heard of 'church family' is exclusionary ?
(My only hearing of this phrase was by a woman who was grateful to her'church family' for helping her over the difficulties of the time of widowhood and the fact that her children were on the other side of the world)
If we are obliged to accept only the understanding of one section of the human family as to the meaning of a word ,then surely it is that section which is the privileged one.
On a very personal level I would not use the term 'church family' and I would most certainly not use the term with someone who had told me that they did not like it.
I do feel something would be lost from doing away with the description of the church as a family entirely. I think it serves to remind us that we are bound to our brothers and sisters in Christ by more than shared interests or friendship, that we do not choose our fellow followers any more than we choose parents or siblings. It should also remind us that Jesus was himself part of a blended, borderline scandalous family, and our faith teaches that many different relationships are blessed by God.
tl;dr: maybe there is space to reclaim "family" from the 1950s throwbacks.
My experience of this local church, is that as a single woman with child in my 30s, I was regarded with deep suspicion by most of my peer group of married couples and those a bit older, as someone who was aiming to steal one of their husbands, so not to be welcomed into the church family. And when my daughter stopped coming I was then only seen as a predatory woman. What was wanted was family units to fit the image of a family church, or children. Gay couples were tolerated. Anyone not fitting that description was not welcome.
I am probably old enough now to not be seen as so predatory, but too bad, too late. I've given up.
So, for the most part, talking about the church family, or the family of the church is mostly OK, although for people who have suffered very dysfunctional families it may still set their teeth on edge.
On the other hand, church family worship, church family picnic etc. are ambiguous, and for all that they may be inclusively meant are actually exclusive. Does family mean ‘mum, dad and kid(s)’. Does it specifically mean an occasion aimed at adults with children. If I live alone, or my children have grown up and flown the nest goes it include me? If I am a child whose patents drop me off at church for Sunday school, does it include me if I know they won’t come? If I really want this to be a whole-church occasion to which all feel invited, young and old, irrespective of marital or parental status then it behaves me to use language which isn’t ambiguous or liable to be perceived as excluding some.
Gwai
Epiphanies Host
At least in my understanding of the word 'Church ' it is not simply a group of individuals but a whole community melded by Christ into one family.
Of course that is just my understanding of the word 'Church' and I accept that others may have different ideas and the right to express them,but I claim also the right at least to tell
you what my understanding of the word is
As a Catholic I am more than aware of the human imperfections of those who claim to be members of the Church and I feel sorry for any who feel that they have been excluded in some way from Christ's love within the Church community.
For example, until equal marriage became legal in the U.K. basically anyone wearing a wedding ring was signalling their straightness (or passing straight if bi) without giving it a second thought, whilst many of us would think carefully about disclosing a non-traditional sexual orientation. But all the people wearing wedding rings were largely unaware of all the messages they transmitted by doing so. I think the use of family to mean “hetero” and/or “with kids” in the adjectival sense Brojames mentions is largely an enactment of unconscious bias. Re the point of the thread, I’d be inclined to judge whether I felt included in part by how an attempt to raise the issue was recieved.
Are my brothers and sisters in Christ not my family?
Most of my family family are on another continent. The only family that my wife, kids, and I have within about 2000 miles are my church family. So they're the people we lean on when we need to lean on someone. And both my church family and my family family contain gay people, and single people. That doesn't make them less family than the straight marrieds with kids.
Re the use of "family" to mean "all ages", my experience of people around here who say "all welcome" is that they're surprised when you want to turn up with small children, and even more surprised if you turn up with children and don't want to shove them in a corner with a video whilst all the people (by which they mean adult people) talk.
I want to tell the single people that they are welcomed and valued members of our community. I want to tell the parents that their kids are welcomed and valued members of our community. But to me, "family" has never meant hetero parents plus 2.4 kids - it has always meant "extended family" full of people in all their messy variety. I appreciate that the word doesn't carry the same resonance for everyone - and also that not everyone has positive associations with their personal families.
So what words do actually unambiguously carry the signal that each and every human is welcomed?
They literally started doing community conversations with people in the community from different marginalized groups. It started out talking to people who were muslim, latinex, Black, and LGBTQ. It included the wider community and church members. I learned so much from all the presenters; from a Christian perspective I really loved the opportunity to show love to my siblings. The church also shows up - joyfully! - at community events, including the local LGBTQ+ festival, right next to the gender-inclusive restrooms
The same leaders who started this have also created classes to talk about race - outdoors - in light of the George Floyd murder and subsequent protests. It's part of a greater shift to include more of God's children.
see above & below...
Let's put this back on you. You don't see your straightness because you're enmeshed in a straight culture. Imagine you were the only straight person in a group of LGBTQ people. This takes some imagination- but people will be making casual references to partners that are different than yours. Let's even pretend they're making causally disparaging jokes or references to straight people (you may not do that, but it's there in "straight" groups). They stand in different ways and touch each other in ways that don't feel intuitive to you- two men may stand closer than you're used to, or put their hands on each other shoulders. You many not even notice the exact things, but you will notice it's different. You'll start checking your movements and phrases. You're not sure what will be accepted so you get a little pit in your stomach. You start thinking about how you're different and even questioning your validity to be there. You got the message early on that they're not ok with your difference, so you try to hide it. You start hiding it from yourself. You're tired and sick a lot.... Whoops, that was me!
I can only speak to being bi, but that is my experience. And THAT is why I'm getting vocal here- I'm fine. The LGBTQ+ kids in your church are not. Until you start talking about it and making space for them, they're not going to be ok. They won't ask you- you have to do that for them. This isn't about sex or talking about who I'm fucking. It's about making space for a core part of a person's identity.
Gwai
Epiphanies Host
I think that we can all say things which we are not aware that they hurt others.
I know,and don't just think,that it is those who are the recipients of what they see as unkind comments or attitudes are the ones who suffer more
And I repeat that it is incumbent on us all to try our best to understand people who have different views and outlooks from our own.
Forthview you have been a shipmate for a long time. You well and truly know better that to argue with a post that is signed with host tags. Drop it or take it up in the appropriate place. Period.
Gwai
Epiphanies Host
However I worry about encouraging younger LGBT+ friends to get involved in the organisations I'm in because I don't know at all how safe it would be for them and sadly I feel their approach of not getting involved in Christian-flavoured religious organisations might be healthier. Maybe it's not healthy on my part that I'm willing to put up with a measure of sexist obliviousness for my spiritual interests, and my younger LGBT pals who have too much self-respect to get involved with these organisations (where they might come across heaven knows what prejudice) are right and I should leave them alone and not encourage them to get involved.
In the end it (whisper it) comes down to patriarchy and privilege and how much churches recognise that and are willing to address it. But it's easier for a straight white middle-class cis woman to decide she can stomach the odd bit of foulness in the honey...
I think the problem comes from the emphasis of many evangelical churches where 'growth' is often seen through the prism of making lots of families, so anyone who doesn't fit narrowly into the pattern of a 'healthy'* nuclear family doesn't really fit the church.
* Defined rather narrowly.
Women of all sorts stomach what I consider a highly unacceptable level of "foulness" in the Catholic Church, though.
This is amazingly well-articulated. I think I have shared this on the boards before, but when I was twelve or thirteen, my mother requested from the [NZ] Dept of Education a copy of their proposed updated sex education curriculum for teens, which was titled 'Affirming Diversity' (so that she could object to it). She had the materials all laid out around her on the table while she was writing her submission and called my attention to a section she found particularly egregious. It was a thought experiment very like the one you have detailed above. I made a non-committal noise and drifted quietly out of the room a changed person for the realisation that the default life does not feel the same for everyone.
I stopped wearing my wedding ring (having been married in an Anglican church) at some point several years ago, because I was so unhappy about their exclusion of LGBTQ+ from that institution, and now I usually refer to my husband as my partner. I won't be going back, even if things change, because I'm too fucking fat to get my rings on anymore...
Christmas is often the hardest time of the year for queer/LGBTQ+ people because they are unable to take partners home to conservative families or are not welcome themselves. In the Cape at the time of the AIDs pandemic in the 1980s, before retro-viral drugs became available, we held alternative Christmas picnics for those living with Aids who had been abandoned by families, called Widows & Orphans lunches. The same concept was taken up later within mainstream churches and the lunches were well-attended. Many single women and single mothers from churches began attending as well as abused women from shelters who felt safe from predatory hetero partners. Because we didn't serve alcohol, those in recovery groups came along as well, as did churchgoers who were recently divorced.
What struck many of us was that for the first time, those heterosexual church members attending got to know LGBTQ+ members as more than "the nice bachelor who sings in the choir" or "that woman who sits all by herself at the back" and could see queer people interacting together in an affirming queer space. That barrier of invisibility was torn down.
I tried a church near me tonight that I had tried a couple of years ago when they were in interregnum (my local area doesn't have many churches that have evening services, and my depression is worse in the morning). It had trans people attending, the curate was friendly, and there was a general feeling of being focused on local service and outreach rather than sexuality and gender. The service tonight turned out to be about gender identity as part of a series on hot topic issues (which doesn't seem very Advent-y but ok), which by the way was not advertised in the church diary - having to be suddenly exposed to being the topic of discussion is a common experience of marginalised people in churches, and it is so draining and exhausting that we just give up trying. It's like constantly having to watch out for jump scares in a film rather than just being able to get into the story. Anyway the really disturbing part was that the sermon was basically responding to how the church would respond to a young person questioning their gender (trans adults were never mentioned at all which felt quite odd), and the response was....entirely secular transphobia. There was a reading from Colossians as part of the service, but there were literally no arguments from Scripture but just talking about how they would dissuade trans young people from seeking treatment, to an extent that definitely crossed into effectively giving medical advice - and incorrect medical advice that contradicts the advice given by the NHS, the GMC, and the WHO. It used TERF arguments wholesale which felt very disingenuous given the evangelical setting. It very much suggested that they would encourage 'counselling' that really would be conversion 'therapy'. It ended with the white cishet male vicar using Rachel Dolezal as a 'gotcha' for those who would disagree with his position, which frankly turned my stomach - white people don't get to use issues affecting Black women as a weapon against their opponents. The thing is, I was the Nice Trans Person who gave this church a chance because my previous experience was pretty good - and then this happens, and I just have to start again and trust another church, when I can't even rely on churches to try and justify their transphobia with the Bible rather than tabloid headlines. I really need cis people to understand the extent to which churches can drop this kind of thing on us out of nowhere.
I will be contacting people I know who work for the diocese for advice re making a complaint (because churches dispensing medical advice is a massive safeguarding issue full stop, even if the advice was correct), but for now I'm just so angry and so tired. I want to pursue a vocation within the Church but I can't even find a church to attend safely.
I discussed it afterwards with someone else close to them, and I believe later on they chose to find another church.
To be placed in this token position is extremely difficult for those of us wanting to be able to participate in an outwardly accepting or welcoming faith community. Two lesbian women who joined a more liberal and supposedly progressive church as a couple felt they were doing well enough until their relationship hit a rough patch and they decided to separate. The consensus among the congregation was that "These things never work out" and their relationship was pathologised as deviant or unhealthy despite the number of separated or divorced cishet congregants in the same church. If token participants do not perform optimally, the older prejudices and stereotypes resurface.
The problem of misrecogition has been mentioned in this thread: those who have been active in the church for many years as heterosexual and who come out as bisexual or non-binary are often regarded as having 'deceived' the congregation or being somehow labile and undecided about their sexual identity, leaving those who thought they had known them unsettled and uncertain about a fluid identity that seems far more threatening than someone who has always been gay or lesbian.
In the same way, when adolescent members of the faith community come out as trans, congregants refuse to let go of their memories of that little girl or boy they thought they knew in Sunday School or at First Communion and they feel betrayed and unwilling to support the trans teen and their family. This all relates to the pervasive ignorance and trans phobia that goes unchallenged for 90% of the time. To be well-meaning isn't enough.
Most churches and Christian organisations prioritise ecclesial self-protection over and above any other considerations involving risk or transformation. What queer people encounter is an attitude that offers the appearance of welcoming change while secretly resisting any deep-seated shift of policy or power. Resistance often takes the form of denying access to funding, ministry, decision-making bodies or public representation to token minorities. Those women or Black people or queer members given a platform or allowed to enter ministry are those who are initially viewed as diplomatic, conformist and unlikely to rock the boat. Nothing new: those within the church promoted to become bishops or hold senior positions in ministry or administration are often those who also make the stability and reputation of the church their priority. Secular or lay authorities and the media are often seen as public enemies of the church and there is a deep fear of incurring public scandal, exposés or law suits leading to possible bankruptcy etc that lies behind the refusal of church leaders to go public or break with old habits of secrecy and inaction. What happens in church stays in church. If queer or outspoken activists within the church seem to be wild cards who might bring the church into disrepute, they are excluded from any meaningful consultation or ministry, their views and position denigrated as unhelpful, unChristian, anarchic or not middle-of-the-road-enough or likely to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Prophets who aren't welcome even if they stand within a supposedly honoured tradition of calling the faithful back to justice or a bigger vision. This is the church's loss and for those feminist, queer or trans activists entering the church it represents a future of being silenced, denigrated or excluded if they push for substantive reform rather than shutting up and settling down as exploited self-sacrificing workhorses.