Posts by pwsbuilder
An Opportunity For Self-Care
Several years ago, I was pastor of a welcoming and affirming church. As a queer clergywoman, one would think that such a place would be the perfect place to flourish and thrive as a pastor. And yet, because of heterosexist and sexist microaggressions, I found myself anxious, depressed, and in need of physical, emotional, psychological,…
Read MoreAffirming LGBTQ People In The Black Church
Much of the pain and suffering LGBTQ African Americans experience in theologically conservative churches happens in silence and secret. Some LGBTQ congregants do not even recognize the source of their pain, because sexuality, let alone non-heterosexuality, is not discussed or taught in many African American churches. Black LGBTQ people are often unaware that some of…
Read MoreBuilding a Racially Responsible LGBTQIA Christian Movement
Last week Wade Davis offered this invitation to white Americans in response to what happened in Charlottesville: This grand display of domestic terrorism offers America yet another opportunity to confront white supremacy, not just white supremacists. And only self-identified white liberals and progressives are the individuals who should answer the call. Confronting or condemning white…
Read MoreWe Need More Than Outrage
This week has been a challenge. Whenever violence erupts and floods our streets, floods our airwaves, I know I may have to get creative about ways to meet my basic needs and function well enough to hold onto some kind of security in my life. It’s exponentially more complicated because I already occupy tenuous, vulnerable…
Read MoreCharlottesville Organizers Ask You To Take These 8 Actions
Charlottesville is mobilizing to fight fascism and resist white supremacy. Local groups including anarchist people of color, Black Lives Matter, and Showing up for Racial Justice have been on the streets of Charlottesville since the Nazis showed up for their first torch rally months ago, and before then, too. We need you to work with…
Read MoreA Message To My White Friends
Over the past several days, I’ve watched a lot of things happen in our country. An unannounced march in the night with Hitler shirts and tiki torches. A white supremacist rally ending in violence, injury, and death. The president going in front of cameras and defending the white supremacists. It has been infuriating, frightening, sickening,…
Read MoreSexual Wholeness As Justice Work
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8 Pursuing sexual wholeness is a radical act of justice. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the church has…
Read MoreI Choose You, Part I
I woke up that day certain I was wrong about the date. Could it be? How was it here already? It was still early, long before sunrise, and everyone else was fast asleep. I crept out to my living room to see my best friends sleeping soundly in various configurations, long legs draped over blankets…
Read MoreTrans Still Speaking in the United Church of Christ
“…for not with you alone am I making this covenant, but both with those who stand here with us today, before our God, and with those who are not here with us today.” Deuteronomy 29:14-15 The sages say that God gave Torah to the people in the wilderness because, without the teaching, the world is a…
Read MoreThe Role of Churches in Ending Anti-Sodomy Laws
We once again celebrated Pride month and many LGBTQI people and their allies in the global north revelled in the hard-won advances for the recognition of human rights for our communities. But 73 countries across the world still criminalize private same-gender intimacy between consenting adults, with 11 imposing the death penalty. These so-called anti-sodomy laws…
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