My
mother had joined the Nation of Islam in the early 70s while attending Stanford
University. Judging from how quickly she abandoned her head wraps to raise yours
truly, I’ve always assumed she was more interested in the academic pursuit of Elijah
Muhammad’s Black Nationalism than the Islamic religion. Even so, I grew up very
familiar with phrases like, “Al hum du’ Allah” and “Asalaam Alaikum” and I never
saw a piece of pork up close until I was away at college. Eating that slice of
pepperoni pizza felt like more of a transgression than knocking back my first Zima
(the even cheesier predecessor to Mike’s Hard Lemonade), which happened at the
same party. I guess even without the fear of God’s wrath, I used to be sort of
a goodie two-shoes.
In
elementary school, I remember a group of my friends talking one Monday morning
about going to church and how much fun they’d all had at Sunday school together.
I’d obviously heard of church, but at
that point, it was like rugby or long line fishing; an activity I didn’t
understand and had no interest in learning about. However, the fact that I was
missing out on socializing was not cool.
I was a chatty child and prided myself on being in on all the jokes and up to
date on all the shenanigans. So that night, I asked my mother if I could go to
church with my friends the following Sunday. Incredulous, she scoffed, “You
clearly don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.” But I pleaded my case
and told her it was important to me to see firsthand what it was all about. She
eventually shrugged and said, “Fine. Knock yourself out.”
I can still remember the smell of that ecru glossy painted Sunday school room; it was tangy and stale and somehow homey all at once. I sat in class with two of my buddies (I think the other two couldn’t make it that week) and within minutes, was bored out of my mind. As the polite, gap-toothed, Jheri-curled lady sat under florescent lights reading bible stories in what sounded like cartoon slow motion, I looked around to see if anyone else was having as much trouble picking up what she was putting down. Every single set of eyes was glazed over. The lesson played like a bizarre form of child torture. The language was not the least bit engaging and the stories didn’t make any sense.
I can still remember the smell of that ecru glossy painted Sunday school room; it was tangy and stale and somehow homey all at once. I sat in class with two of my buddies (I think the other two couldn’t make it that week) and within minutes, was bored out of my mind. As the polite, gap-toothed, Jheri-curled lady sat under florescent lights reading bible stories in what sounded like cartoon slow motion, I looked around to see if anyone else was having as much trouble picking up what she was putting down. Every single set of eyes was glazed over. The lesson played like a bizarre form of child torture. The language was not the least bit engaging and the stories didn’t make any sense.
I
knew right away that Sunday school was not for me. I actually felt tricked,
bamboozled by my friends into sacrificing my Sunday morning for this hogwash. To
add insult to injury, after class, we had to sit through a sermon in the actual
chapel with the adults. My eyes and ears were bleeding with boredom. By the
time I got back home, my mother’s “told ya so” smirk was all I needed to
confirm that my spiritual journey, whatever it was to be, would not involve
sitting in a room with a bunch of overdressed, shiny folks, having someone talk
at me in old English. That church shit was for the birds.
A few months later, some Jehovah’s Witnesses talked my mother into purchasing a
“Children’s Book of Bible Stories.” I had just started getting into Edith
Hamilton’s book on Greek mythology and I was far more intrigued by superhuman
Zeus turning into a swan to seduce a woman than some dude named Abraham setting
a bush on fire, but I read both books. It’s all mythology, right? Fables and
morality plays… Fiction.
Cut
to eight or nine years later. I’d had my official introduction to Zima and with
it, a handful of clumsy encounters with guys in college. I knew I was gay
before I went away to Berkeley and in truth, sought out the campus’ proximity
to San Francisco on purpose. Every day
of that first year, I chipped away at the terror of admitting to myself that I
would ultimately have to share this secret with everyone in my life. I had no
real concept of sin because I already knew that particular book of mythology
didn’t apply to my life. As long as I didn’t buy into it, I could not be
beholden to its laws and punishments. I wasn’t worried for one second about
burning in Hell for being attracted to men. No, I was scared to death that my
mother and my brother wouldn’t love me anymore and that I would have to create an
entirely new life without them. I was petrified at the prospect of losing my
family and friends over something I could not control and did not choose. I
knew gay was considered bad by most
people, but as far as I could ascertain, God and spirituality had nothing to do
with it. Even then, I knew ignorance and shortsightedness were to blame for the
unfortunate station of homosexuals in our society. To add to that stress, HIV
and AIDS were still widely considered a warranted death sentence for men who
dared to have (unsafe) sex with other men. The early 90s was a harrowing time to
be coming into your sexuality.
By
my second year of college, I came out to my mother, who was surprised but
ultimately supportive, and to my younger brother, who insisted he always knew (recalling
the elaborate Janet Jackson dance routines I’d perform in our room) and then
everything else just sort of fell into place. Extended family eventually caught
wind. Most of my close friends had received the news even before my mother, and
with the exception of maybe one or two, no one batted an eye. (My stepfather
was fortunately already out of the picture. I’m not sure if I’d have come out
at nineteen if he was still in the house.) I had built up this very elaborate,
but in retrospect half-assed lie to hide my shocking secret, and when the shit
hit the fan, most people were really not shocked at all. I mean, I had been in
the show choir and dance production classes in my high school. Who was I
kidding? My whole life had been a performance.
Cut
to about ten years later. I had graduated from the campus stage to star in a
cable television series. Considered revolutionary for its depiction of black
gay men, Noah’s Arc was cherished by
many queer folks of color and, quite unexpectedly, resonated with straight
black women as well. By that time, I was very aware of the church’s stand on
homosexuality. Over the years, I had even been convinced that the black church
was particularly unaccepting and backwards on gay issues, but again, none of
that had anything to do with my life… until
it did.
I
started getting messages from a number of Noah fans from all over the country
and eventually the world who had found strength and solace in the images of
friendship, love and self-respect our little soapy sitcom promoted. I heard from
elderly black men who were thrilled to
finally see images in the media that reflected their relationships and
experiences, as well as teenagers who found the show to be an escape from their
stifling home lives and a hopeful glimpse of what the future could bring. I could
never have anticipated the emotional impact the show would have on viewers… or
the emotional impact their response would have on me.
I
would regularly find myself at my computer with tears streaming down my face,
stunned by the stories of people I’d never met, overwhelmed by how many struggled
with simply being gay. And for a number of them, it wasn’t introspective,
unwarranted paranoia, as it had largely been with me. Some of these people had
been kicked out their parents’ homes and already lived on the streets. Some had
been emotionally and physically abused repeatedly. Some had been bullied so
brutally they’d considered taking their own lives. Nowadays, we hear about gay
teen suicide all the time, but when Noah’s
Arc was airing in 2005 and 2006, it was still shocking to consider that it
could ever get that bad. (Even I had been picked on for being ‘too soft’ in
high school, but it never affected me enough that I would have considered
suicide a viable option.) The most horrifying aspect of most of these stories
was that the violence and humiliation these people were suffering had been
justified by and was rooted primarily in Christianity. Like slavery and
xenophobia and misogyny and every societal ill you can name, some bible verse
had been twisted to serve as the excuse to rob another human being of happiness,
self-respect and love. It made me sick. It made me angry. It made me view religion as the enemy of love.
As
the show’s popularity continued to rise, I began hearing from straight
folks—mostly women, many of whom were struggling to reconcile their
relationship with a gay child or family member. They shared their experience of
toiling over how to go about loving this gay person when the bible clearly
states that yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. These people were legitimately torn between
their instinct to love, to be supportive, and an obligation to adhere to scripture
they had been taught in church. I was shocked at how many people were wrestling
with this, and shocked that they felt I was the person to whom they should
reach out.
While
the series was airing, I was far less of an activist. The cast wasn’t even
officially allowed to discuss our sexuality in the press. I guess people
reached out to me (and other cast members, as I understand) because I was
someone with whom they could speak openly without worrying about it getting
back to the people in their lives. Honestly, the deluge of messages from people
either struggling with being gay or trying to fix a gay person is what
eventually lead me to publicly come out as a gay man. There were too many
people starving for affirmation, with nowhere else to turn. I had to share my
own story to provide an alternative to the all-too-prevalent black queer narrative
of suffering and ostracism. Not all of us were sinners born into so-called
Christian, hate-mongering churches of rejection and repentance. Some of us were
just living our lives.
As
soon as I started talking about my experience publicly, I had to learn to bite
my tongue. It quickly dawned on me that my ‘demographic’ was by-and-large,
church-going black folks. Some of them were straight black women. Others were
queer folks who had somehow managed to clear the many hurdles toward
self-acceptance placed before them (shaped suspiciously like church pews) and were
able to love, live, and worship their God in peace. But many were same gender-loving
men and women still at odds with their human urges and their pastor’s dogma.
Self-loathing is rampant in gay communities and especially, it seemed to me, in
the churchy ones.
My
eyes would roll all the way around the back of my head every time a queer black
person would quote a bible verse or thank Jesus for their ‘blessings.’ Some
variation on, “That book is not serving you, honey. Pick another,” was always
cued and ready to go… but I wouldn’t say a word. Of course, it would have been foolish
to think someone would choose my idea of free-thinking over their God. I am
just another man, raised under different circumstances with different ideas
about where we all go at The End. I may not have been speaking my mind, but I
certainly had my opinions about people whose views were dictated by what they’d
managed to pick up from the pulpit.
Every
time someone responded to a discussion topic with a bible quote or mentioned
wanting to shut down a Planned Parenthood or praying the gay away or loving
the sinner, not the sin, I would just see brainwashed sheep… inane,
illogical, obstinate sheep. If your God told you that you had the power to make
decisions for someone else’s life, what’s to stop me from making up my own god
to grant me the power to tell you to fuck off? I’ll write a book of fables too,
if that’s all it takes.
I’ve
never called myself an atheist. My issues are with the church and oppressive
interpretations of the bible, not with anyone claiming a higher power. I’m personally
more comfortable with the term agnostic, because although I don’t believe in
any ‘man upstairs,’ I’ve always considered my belief system, my code of ethics
to be grounded in spirituality and love. I believe what most call God is simply
our universal instinct to love and be empathetic. But the Holy Bible? The Virgin
Mary? Leviticus? Child, please.
I
knew too much. I was too smart. One couldn’t possibly understand the historical
context of African slaves being “given Christianity” in exchange for their
freedom, in exchange for their very lives, and actually believe they—WE hadn’t been hoodwinked.
Karl
Marx said, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a
heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the
people.”
In
other words, they told you that you were born LESS THAN, degraded you, demoralized
you, dehumanized you, and then they gave
you Jesus and a book of rules to keep you in line, to keep you from uprising
and taking back your dignity and your humanity… and you bought that shit? They
didn’t even bother championing a character that at the very least LOOKED LIKE
YOU to feed you the lies. In every painting and stained glass window, Jesus is
depicted with long, flowing, flaxen hair and pale skin, despite textual
references to him having “hair like lamb’s wool” and skin of “bronze.” Most
black girls in pop music today are breaking their backs to look more like that
version of Jesus than anybody born to African ancestors… but I digress. This
isn’t about Beyonce or Nicki Minaj. This is about my mounting list of
grievances with religion and my constant struggle to keep my mouth shut so as
not to piss anybody off. Yes, I know… too late. (I bet most of you are more
pissed that I called out 'Beysus' and her blond hair extensions.)
A
few months ago, the topic of the black church came up with my good friend
LaDasha. I can’t be sure, but I was probably expressing outrage over the photos
of that black congregation holding up bags of Chick-Fil-A in solidarity with
the anti-gay-funding fried chicken chain. That photo was wrong on so many
levels, my head is still spinning. Anyway, LaDasha explained that she grew up
in her grandmother’s black church and that their congregation would never have
pulled a stunt like that. They were too busy feeding and clothing the homeless,
shuttling kids and elderly members to places they needed to be, and going about
the business of being what I had heard described as ‘good Christians.’ She
explained to me that her grandmother’s tiny church never turned a profit like
the mega-churches you see headed by the likes of closet-case and alleged sex-offender
Bishop Eddie Long. Their church was in place to help and serve the community in
the name of The Lord. She wasn’t defensive or boastful when she explained it,
either. It was just what they did. I was shocked. I had never heard of such a
church. But why would I have? It’s not like I was out looking to find one.
The
conversation stumped me. For years, I had been seething with all these ideas
about how useless and archaic and backwards the church was, and then
someone very close to me—someone who is not
bible-thumping at all—explained that she
was raised in a church that did nothing but help people in need. Isn’t that
what church is supposed to be about? I know my enlightened, evolved, Easter
Sunday Mass-skipping family wasn’t driving people around and spending their
weekends feeding the needy. Had I been a little too hasty in my condemnation of
Christianity? Were there actually people taking all the supposed teachings of
Jesus Christ and applying them to something beyond judging and condemning
others? Was there ultimately some useful information to be gleaned from that
ancient book of mythology?
Well…
a few weeks ago I came across another book.
Chris
Stedman’s autobiographical “Faitheist” tells the story of a gay adolescent searching
for acceptance, longing to belong, who winds up finding his first real
community in church. He spent most of his teenage years turning his bible-induced
shame inward, hiding from his truth while attempting to live up to the image of
a true Christian. As he continued to come to grips with his sexuality, he
studied theology in college and eventually came to understand, with a great
deal of soul searching, that God did not exist. Like me, however, he had some
difficultly fully embracing the atheist identity.
But his reticence wasn’t based in fear of alienating a black fan base. Chris
came to find many atheists just as judgmental and short-sighted—if not more so—as
their right-wing conservative Christian counterparts. If I had publicly
declared myself an atheist, come out
about my anti-church stance, I might have been grouped in with those same
elitist ‘intellectuals’… and I would have deserved it.
There
is a humility and generosity to Chris’ approach to this discussion that I have
yet to master. He struggled with claiming his place at times, but eventually
found purpose in acting as a bridge between people of all walks of faith,
including atheists and agnostics. His story has inspired me to be less
judgmental of people of faith, of church-goers, God-fearers, and of anyone
particularly attached to any book of mythology. Not all Christians are praying
to keep me and my boyfriend from getting married or looking to bomb Planned
Parenthoods to keep my cousins from getting affordable health care. There are
whack jobs in all walks of life. Some of them are Christian, some of them are
Muslim, and some are Wiccan or Buddhist or atheist or agnostic and so on. What we
believe should not determine who we are and what we represent to the world
around us. The kindness one exhibits, the empathy one feels, the integrity with
which one lives their life… these are the qualities that we should be concerned
about, not where he or she spends their Sunday mornings.
So
I’m still working on this. I’m a grown ass man and while I do find myself more
set in my ways these days, I think it’s important to continue bettering myself
when I can. I still catch myself squirming when I read an article about a
Catholic pro-life football player turning down an invitation to the White House
because President Obama supports a woman’s right to choose. I still find it
hard not to blame the church when I hear about a mother losing her son to drugs
because she encouraged him to pray his gay away rather than just loving him
unconditionally. We all have a lot to learn, but the only way to learn is to be
open to communication. NO ONE HAS ALL THE ANSWERS. And just because we’re
reading different books doesn’t mean our stories won’t overlap at times and
that we can’t find strength and solace in our similarities.
You can learn more about Chris Stedman's book at faitheistbook.com
