Hello, and welcome to another Pivot Northwest Podcast. This is a question and answer portion of a three-part live podcast series on young adults, the church, and how the church intersects with the queer community. In February of 2020, Pivot Northwest facilitated a panel discussion with members of our community whose lives and work touched this intersection. This is not an authoritative discussion, but instead is meant to help people have better conversations on sensitive topics closely tied to identity and belonging.
We hope you are blessed by this conversation. We have a little bit of time left. I'm looking to our guests, and we've covered a lot of ground, but are there any questions you all want to ask the panel? Oh, we have a question.
Okay. When addressing these topics with conservatives, this is a text question. We did this to have them be anonymous. I'm often met with resistance and fear, most often tied to the fear of slippery slope.
Can you address this? Who can answer the slippery slope question? Or how can we approach this in a new way? What's a new mindset?
Because sometimes answering the question isn't really the answer. The answer is changing the conversation, right? So what advice do we have for this? I mean, I think it comes back to just what you were saying, like talking about why if we think God is powerful and good, do we have to be afraid of exploring what that looks like?
Like, I think God is so good, and God loves us so much. I think there's, I don't think we need to be afraid about a slippery slope. Sorry, my mind is going in all different places right now. I'm thinking, well, it's not a slippery slope, it's just a big field of play in all of us.
I don't know. That's a great picture. I need to maybe think of that. Maybe I can suggest something.
What is the slippery slope? What is the apex you're talking about? That's assumed in that question that you both have the same apex in mind. And I think about church history.
There were many apexes. You know, the slippery slope of Protestantism was, has now born Western Christianity in a lot of ways. I mean Catholicism is still with us, or Orthodox is still with us, but the two major schisms of the church. They were both seen as slippery slope issues, and yet we've redeemed both of those stories.
We live with our Orthodox brothers and sisters, and one of our Catholic sisters is here with us tonight. So that's really, how do you interrogate that though with love? Because I would love if we had a bumper sticker phrase, but that's my long more, I guess, seminary answer to that. You know, one of the things I think, I guess I have to give a little disclaimer, if a person is so conservative and you can just tell what's emanate from them is like attack mode, you know, then it may not even be worth having the conversation at all, but if you have a sense that it is a potential conversation that can be had, and you've had enough to eat and you've slept because you got to be in a place of patience, I think, then I know this is true for me.
Stay in a place of curiosity, like just asking lots of questions, you know. Tell me about why this is of interest to you. You know, what is it about other people's who they love and how that might be different than who you love that's of concern for you? Are you clear about who you love?
Is that clear for you? So if someone loves someone different, how is that hard for you? Tell me about what it's like for you when you've been in love. How have you been sure that you're in love?
And so why would that be hard if somebody else had that same experience and that had no impact on you? Have you known somebody who's core love experience was some blah, blah, blah, you know what I mean? So just staying in a place of true curiosity with them and just trying to enter into a real conversation with them around it, around real life on the ground, as long as you can, and then end it when you start to run out of patience. All right, if I was in the situation and I agree that sometimes someone is in a conversation just to win it and then you don't have to participate in that conversation, so if someone is using slippery slope as an excuse to just kind of beat you over the head, then don't participate.
Kind of like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, just let them cry out in a corner. But if someone came and said this to me, if someone told me, I want to accept you, I want to welcome you, but I'm afraid it's a slippery slope and they actually are afraid of a slippery slope. And what I tell them is, I'm afraid to make myself vulnerable to you as long as you see me as a slippery slope instead of as a vulnerable whole human person. Please come back to me and ask again when you're ready to talk to me as a human being.
And then let them marinate. Like don't follow it up right away, don't say you have to do this now. That can be a very difficult mental switch to switch from this text here, could be the Bible, it could be something that their church has written, could be their pastor's blog, could be some mom's blog somewhere and she's selling essential oils, I don't know. It could be hard to switch from this authority has written this and I'm afraid that if I stray from it that will mean other things to switching to actually engaging with a human being.
And I think I maybe need to believe that people can get there. And I think what's critical about what you're saying, it's making it real. It's staying with real people, real experiences is what I was trying to get to too. It's not going to the theoretical, it's not trying to go up here and argue if it's staying real, you talking about you.
What are the things I do and I think it annoys people because they almost never take me up on it as I say, let's go get a beverage or buy me a beverage and I'll tell you. Like someone asked me what my tattoo means, I'll be like, buy me a coffee or a drink and I'll tell you and they'll never take you up on it because they don't really want to know or they don't want to spend time with you. That's what's really happening. They want the short quick answer, they don't want the commitment.
And you're just like really clear right away, you don't really care about that. You're just anxious in this moment, you don't know what to say and so you're picking the thing. I feel like in some ways that's the thing that they know to talk about and it's avoiding something more real and more relationship building. Martine, can I ask you something?
Would you ever think to ask someone, you've already had communion with me, why can't you have another drink with me? Because that's what communion is. You're talking about the Eucharist. Yes.
Wait, do you Protestants do that? We do. Okay. It may not be mine.
Yeah, I mean, I think the other thing is that I'm looking for a space with no distractions. Like if we're going to talk about this, let's talk about this. And I feel like if I could say that about my tattoo, how much more important is it if you're going to ask me about my sexual orientation or gender identity? How much more, if you really want to know me, how much more are you going to commit?
That's our only question. So we've solved it now. We're actually getting close. Oh, yeah.
Would you care to say it over the mic? I could bring it to you. I wrote it down because I didn't want to miss say it. So many people, but particularly people of older generations, bemoan, the addiction to our technology, which is what it is, but there's many people, particularly young queer folks, who are finding online space and safety.
So I'm wondering how you can respond intergenerationally, perhaps, to the intersection between young people and technology and how we do that in our churches? I think we listen. I mean, really. Again, I don't want to be trite when I say that, but I think when we don't understand, it's because we haven't walked in those shoes.
So why are those spaces safe? Why are those spaces safe for people who are queer? It's like there's a reason why those entering those spaces might be safe through technology. And if somebody's not, am I misunderstanding your question?
So if somebody who's older isn't understanding it, it's because their life isn't asking them to enter that space through that door, right? It's like, I don't know, maybe this isn't a fair comparison, but I feel like somebody who is all of a sudden thrust at 50 or 60 into dating again, right? And now, you know, somebody says, you know, their younger person says, mom or dad, you should try online dating. I'll help you fill out a, you know, a poor profile, you know, I'll help you do it.
Now I've said they're doing it, right? Because they don't want to go out too much. Their little, their younger person is helping them figure out how to do it. They're being escorted into that space, right?
Now they know, they know about that world or whatever. I think you have to stop and listen. So when I listen to people be like, rah, rah, rah, rah, critical about technology, it's because their world is not in that world, and they just don't understand it. It's like the age old thing.
You don't get, I don't like your rock and roll. You know, you're not in that world, and so you're sitting outside of it, criticizing it rather than saying, well, tell me how it is that that's working, and what's the positive and the negative of it. A lot of times when you sit and you talk to somebody about, tell me the negative of technology, they'll very quickly tell you what is the downside of it too. You know, I'm not getting enough rest because I stay up way too late at night, Instagraming for an hour when I should be, you know, turning it off or what, you know what I'm saying?
So I just think it's about shutting your mouth and listening as opposed to, you know, just going off, and that's part of the problem. That's my thought. Are all safe spaces, healthy spaces, game as a really mischievous smile on our face? Sorry if that's a grenade we can't get into with it a little bit of time we have.
Yeah. I think about, and my own circular friends talk a lot about the difference between safe and brave space. As a woman of color, I've had experiences in certain settings where it doesn't feel safe to me, but to others it is. And as somebody who's part of the marginalized group is really hard for me to be able to voice that out so I would need white allies to speak on my behalf, even though they don't feel safe in doing so.
So that's when we would bring up the brave space, that if you don't feel safe in advocating for a member of the oppressed group, then, you know, what's the cost of that? And so I would highlight the difference between safe space and brave space. Mickey Scott Bay Jones wrote a poem about that for the church, about brave space. And if you all want to incorporate that into a liturgy, then you may do so.
Mickey Scott Bay Jones, Scott B-E-Y. I have an answer to the technology question. This might be something good to go over with an older person who doesn't really understand this technology and why it's so important to people in their 20s and 30s and so on. So back in the 50s and 60s, if you were gay or bisexual, you had very limited options to get to know other people, especially across the country.
People would drive hundreds of miles to go to their local, quote, quote, quote, quote. Mattishine Society or Daughters of Alitis Meeting. And if they wanted to get a copy of One Magazine or The Advocate or The Ladder Magazine or whatever other newsletters, firstly, you had to know someone who knew about it and could get you in touch. And if you were caught with a copy of that or if the police found your name and address on it, you would lose your job.
If you lived in public housing, you would lose where you lived. You were in school. You weren't in school anymore. Gradually, especially in the 70s, it began to get better, especially as we began to have more university groups and more newsletters, more magazines, and then things just kept going with more organizations and just more ways to get in touch with other people.
Now we have these in our pockets. We don't have to drive hundreds of miles anymore. We don't have to be afraid that the police will see our name on a certain publication. And I also think that podcasts would be a fantastic way.
I mean, I feel like I've been talking about podcasts for days now. But for queer Christian communities, specifically, podcasts are the way to keep in touch. If you're out in the middle of nowhere and you're queer and you're Christian and you don't know anyone else, podcasts are generally the way that you keep in touch with other people. And I think specifically, there's one podcast for your situation that would be perfect.
It's The Making Gay History Podcast. And chances are, if a younger person listens to it with an older person, the older person will know the cultural talking points that are talked about in that podcast. This is awesome because you're bringing back full circle this question of intergenerational relationships, what it means for 20-somethings to build their identity, their belonging, and their purpose, and how it's important to find spaces where they can do that with peers, but also spaces where they can be supported intergenerationally, and from my perspective, spaces where they can integrate their spirituality and their faith, specifically their Christian faith. But if they're Muslim, if they're Buddhist, whatever their family system or their origin or their heritage is, if they choose to bring that into their identity.
But let's give a round of applause to our panelists, panelists, a round of applause to our folks who are here, to our sound folks, to our hosts here at Questchurch. This was really beautiful. This was risky. Just going to say that.
We live in a great city to do this, but not a perfect city. And we live in a great time to do this, but not a perfect time. And so blessings on your wet, dark, commute home. So have a good evening.
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