I went to a friend’s church this morning, and then afterwards with a few folks to a GLBT film. There were four of us who went – two Bers and two Aers, which was interesting – and I won’t say which movie it was but it concerned a relatively (in)famous gay couple in some circles. And it was awful.

Anyone who was non-affirming and ignorant of homosexuality would have left with their stereotypes completely confirmed. With one possible exception (who did not get much camera time) every ‘gay Christian’ was anything but Christian: no mention of Jesus, only vague spirituality and an assertion that ‘God made me this way’. (On a side note, when I am feeling just as upset as I am now but have more time, I will have to go over all the awful arguments, both A and B, which make me want to disengage myself from the entire conversation.) But their mouths and their lives did not reflect anything of the savior of Christianity – that is, Christ Jesus

I also have been a few times to a gay organization on campus (again, at the request of a friend), and it was equally demoralizing. Are they even quasi-professional students? The second time I went there was a conversation going on that was so inappropriate I was ashamed to even mention it to my friend, who didn’t show that day. All I have seen or heard there is shallowness and campery, and a level of unbecoming behavior which was revolting to me.

The film I saw today was introduced before its screening by a gentleman from Soulforce, and Mel White made an appearance early in the film (with an utterly inappropriate and noxious remark). Truthfully it makes me sick to my stomach to think that anyone might possibly consider me remotely connected with an organization like Soulforce. Ultimately I have found that that label ‘gay’ carries a deserved level of abhorrence from those with some level of morality. I neither consider myself a kin of those who generally wear that label, and nor do I want to be considered as such.

Do not think that the church at large escapes this drive for disassociation. And unlike gay people, who simply exist, along with a great many other people, I have a special love for the church. I cannot explain why I have any love for her – God knows I have plenty of reasons not to – and the only reason I can think of is that to love Jesus is to love his bride. They are not separate – and God has brought them together, at immeasurable cost to himself.

Yet I cannot begin to express my frustration at the lack of Gospel presented in the church. Often there is less than the Gospel – a declawed Jesus who loses his status as the Lion, or a graceless Jesus who loses his status as the Lamb. But equally often there is more than the Gospel – that somehow something supersedes the ministry of Jesus and the redemptive plan, or that the Gospel is insufficient for life. This commonly takes the form of legalism, but it has many manifestations. It may be the Gospel And Our Creation Account; or it may be the Gospel And My Social Justice Plan; or the Gospel And Anything Else. It is not that the Gospel does not flow directly over into our understanding of and interaction with Creation, or social justice, or anything else, but that these are elevated to the level of Gospel, and Jesus becomes our passenger, or almost worse, our copilot. He becomes means to an end.

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away all the problems in your family! Or answers all your questions! Or keeps you in the comfort you were raised in! Or gives you what you’ve always wanted!

This has weighed very heavily on me, and made me weep – if not outwardly, then certainly inwardly. Why is Christ’s betrothed not talking about him? Why is he not always on our lips and in our lives? Why is it that so much of the church does not care that he isn’t on our lips and in our lives? I don’t mean a commercial invasion of Jesus bracelets – I mean a portrayal of the Gospel as handed down by the apostles, a bringing down of the heavenly order of saintly communion worked out within the community of the church, I mean a life that is the outward expression of the inward anticipation of the consummation of the promises of God in the person of Jesus. I say this not because I am the perfect example by any stretch – but because these things are my desires. It is easier by far for me to find honesty and fellowship with those outside the church than with those inside it. And these have not heard the Gospel from the church, if they have heard it at all. My savior’s bride is not wearing a white wedding dress: she has soiled herself, and to her shame in front of everyone. Why should I want people to know that I’m ‘Christian’?

What I’m saying is that I have become, in my heart, a church leaver. It is not that I do not want to stay and be a part of Christ’s betrothed, and perhaps bring about with those inside who also are disturbed by her actions a change and a direction which more clearly represents our savior. But I feel helpless. I know that first of all I am utterly unqualified to, and I also do not know where it is that I could do this. I do know that the ministry I was involved with on campus would not allow me into a leadership position at this point, and though I tried previously to get together with small groups of people, the desire and the heart was not there, and to get anything going even with explicit leadership approval is hard, and without it virtually impossible. I cannot see any way around the reality that any congregation in which I might desire to help inculcate an orthodox Gospel-centered community I would invariably need to be closeted to. This is difficult for me, because I do not know that I can be different before Jesus’ church than I am before Jesus himself. It is not that everyone has to know, but that the notion of willingly withholding information for some goal or other is to me completely antithetical to the Gospel. Again, there is no longer this clear distinction between ‘God on the one hand’ and ‘God’s people on the other hand’. Perhaps I am too prideful and need to simply accept a more peripheral role residing mostly in the pews. It is after all nothing but grace that saves me. But why should my heart break over the church if I am not to do something with regard to it? I want to shed the term ‘gay’ for its connotations, and I certainly want to shed the word ‘Christian’ for its connotations, but the former describes accurately the state in which I physically find myself (and quite neutrally so), and the latter describes accurately the beliefs to which I hold and the one on whom I trust. But how I wish I could drop the ideas and communities concerning both!

Then again, it may be that I am simply too cynical a person, and need to repent. This much is probably true.

2 Corinthians has been a wonderful book to be going through the past week or so, and I wonder that I’ve never taken much note of it before. But here is Paul, speaking about what he considers his letters to be:

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

That is my desire for the church: to fill up what is lacking in the ministry of Christ by displaying his very character in the living epistle that is our lives.

I have been somewhat busy lately and haven’t much gotten around to blogging or for that matter doing much besides catching up with schoolwork. This weekend, as has been the trend for the past month or so, has been shot as far as being useful. This particular one has been due to a sinus infection, what feels like a rather sorry welcoming party from my college town. But it’s interesting how having physical comforts removed so quickly disassembles those mental barriers I have built up around Topics Not To Be Discussed.

And my Topic Majeur Not To Be Discussed is, and has been for the past several years, church, and the community of believers. More worried than I am of being single, more worried than I am of losing a family of blood and genes, more than anything else I am worried of being without a body of Christians.

Some have accurately judged that ‘church’ is not a building but a way of life. What concerns me about this is that, while true, many who I’ve seen take this path abandon the local congregation altogether and define church as any ol’ hang-out. And while the church is not an edifice, not a political machine, and not a repository of doctrine, it is more than the self-same ‘fellowship’ of those in the world with similar interests. And the church is more than social justice, though the gospel encompasses social justice.

Mostly I am concerned that honesty about who I am will bring me a second-class citizenship. (In some cases, it already has.) This is precisely why in the past I have not found my closest friends inside my local church. And in those bodies where I can be honest without such repercussions, I’m afraid I will not find Jesus in their midst: only a handful of empty platitudes and social networks. I crave an orthodox group of believers (that is, holding with tenacity to the fundamentals of the faith, such as the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds). Yet even that – just orthodoxy – is a difficult thing to find, where it is not chipped away nor added to. And an orthodox congregation is almost – but not quite – a craving for which I would lay down my self, my beliefs, and my convictions. But I can’t be before men other than what I am before God, and I can’t stand before God without my fellow men and women who stand also before him.

Perhaps I have been spoiled by the church I went to over the summer. It was a church that going into I could actually say for the first time, with a deep sigh of contentment, ‘This is what a church ought to be.’ And no, I wasn’t out to them, and yes, most of them would probably fall on the -X or -B side of the spectrum. And I didn’t care. There was more Christlike love flowing out of them than I could ever know what to do with. Each time I was with them felt like a breath of fresh air. I could literally give away all of my possessions to the poor with these kind of people around me, and it was a tantalizing idea (and still is). I had never experienced anything remotely like it before, from growing up in a Christian household until now.

I’m skipping church this evening. Don’t freak – it has everything to do with still being weak and recovering from my illness, and believe me when I say it frustrates me a great deal. But I realize that while I know what I want (need) in a church, I have not the faintest clue where to find it. I don’t know how to go about searching for it. I don’t know if I’ve found it, or close enough of an approximation, in the church I’ve been attending these past several weeks and just before the summer break. And the thought that I will not find what I am looking for unsettles me. I don’t want to be a church leaver, and I don’t want to be a permanent church shopper. There is no perfect church – and I know that I am myself no small part of the problem. Yet if I have no Christ-centeredness and no community in a Christian congregation, that congregation is dead to me. When then do I stay and when do I go? And where is it that I will go?