The struggle to be

RADIO JAMAICA News, in a coverage titled ‘Major fallout in Methodist Church over homosexuality’ on May 4, 2024, states, “The Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas (MCCA), which includes Jamaica, has restated its stance against accepting homosexuals in its ranks.”

No Caribbean church ever wants to be met with the question of acceptance regarding homosexuality. Not because they do not know better! Not because any church is exempt from having all sexualities in their life, worship, and fellowship. Instead, it is because it is politically unsafe to engage in such a conversation when an even broader conversation around the reality of human sexuality is lacking.

Many Caribbean folk who have migrated to the United States of America, Canada, and the United Kingdom continue to enjoy fellowship with their Methodist brethren and those in other denominations too, in contexts where there are members among leadership and the wider congregation who are openly affirmed as fellow human beings with their LGBT identity. Many have also discovered that people do love and experience attraction as part of their sacred human reality.

UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH

To face an uncomfortable truth, it is a shame that any statement would abhor ‘homosexuals’, since to be homosexual cannot be a sin. To believe that homosexual sexual activity is a sin, is another matter. However, it cannot be that just to exist, the individual is anathema. Such views are harmful to the safety and dignity of fellow human beings.

Thankfully, some have also realised that in the same way homosexuality is not natural for some people, the corollary is also true. Heterosexuality is not natural for some people.

Churches can help their members by demystifying such terms as ‘sexual orientation’, ‘homosexuality’, ‘heterosexuality’, and ‘gender’ with its interesting manifestations in the research and conversations across the human sexuality landscape. Sexual orientation is not a ;bad term’. There is nothing sinful about it. It is not about a particular group of people. It applies to everyone!

Sexual orientation is simply about whom one may be attracted to. Men and women who are exclusively attracted to the opposite gender understand themselves to be straight, or heterosexual. Men and women with same-gender attraction understand themselves to be gay, or homosexual, with women preferring to be described as lesbian. Those with both attractions are bisexual.

Many Christians may not actually believe this song which they do sing in church – God made you, special. And this is so true. God made you special with your sexual orientation and gender identity, too.

AN OPEN SECRET

Anyway, back to this church talk about not having homosexuals within their ranks. The fact is that homosexuals have always been in the ranks of the Church and across religions. Oops! Maybe I should not have said this, but this is an open secret. Oh no, why am I saying these things?

I would like to see more passion in protecting and saving children from predators, whether those violators are homosexual or heterosexual. Imagine a world in which people were free to love and live out their sexuality, in so far as they are not exploiting another being.

It is indeed sad that one month before Pride Celebrations, many in the Church will find their painful experiences of hurt and rejection in religious spaces brought back to the fore.

Watchfire Films has produced a movie, Seventh-Gay Adventists, which acknowledges that “tens of thousands” of Seventh-day Adventists are gay. This is not a truth that many in the Caribbean are even familiar with. The movie, produced and directed by Daneen Akers and Stephen Eyer, observes: “Faith, identity, and sexuality collide in this raw and moving documentary about the challenges and spiritual journeys of three Seventh-day Adventists who love God and their church and are also gay.”

Dr William Johnson, retired editor of the Adventist Review, observes, “The movie, which simply tells stories rather than taking an advocacy stance, is powerful. It can, I believe, do much to make Adventists more compassionate...”

Sharon Groves of their religion and faith programme, Human Rights Campaign, speaks for many in her noting that it is “A beautiful and compelling film ... . Anyone who has felt their faith and sexuality are in conflict will instantly get this film.”

No religion can claim to have only a binary reality when it comes to the lived reality of its members with regard to human sexuality. However, an outdated colonial legacy and misguided approaches to scripture have made a more progressive approach difficult. The truth is that human sexuality conversation is not going away. It is coming to a church near you. Just look at how churches are now facing their seemingly forgotten historical connections with racism, the transatlantic slave trade, child sex abuse, misogyny, homophobia, and pulpit bullying. For too long, churches have been complicit in various injustices. The time of reckoning is here. On which side of history will you stand?

This week we close with words from the hymn God of Freedom, God of Justice, by Shirley Erena Murray:

“ Make in us a captive conscience

Quick to hear, to act, to plead;

Make us truly sisters, brothers

Of whatever race or creed —

Teach us to be fully human,

Open to each other’s need.”

Fr Sean Major-Campbell is an Anglican priest and advocate for human dignity and human rights. Send feedback to seanmajorcampbell@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.