Soulforce

Sabotage Christian Supremacy

Guest Blogs

by

The Influences

There was a vote on traditional marriage in the NJ legislature when I was around 11 years old. It is now almost twenty years later, and I am only beginning to comprehend the lasting impacts. 

We were a church-going family living in suburban white America, with my father (the cop) and his brother (the pastor) in the patriarchal leadership positions. This indoctrination into white Christian Supremacist culture as a young girl was absorbed into my spirit and the misguided teachings still weigh on me today. Before I understood and could articulate my authentic truth, I saw myself, and other LGBTQ+ peoples, as sick and in need of healing/saving. 

At the time, in 2012, I had no idea that the yard sign my father placed in front of our family home would be imprinted on my memory. It was a simple sign, with a simple equation that my young mind believed that I understood: “Marriage = One man + One woman”. Looking back, I now know that I did not have a true understanding of the social and political implications within the statement my father was making. What I did immediately interpret was that any love or connection shared between people of the same sex was unacceptable in his, or God’s, household. 

During those influential younger years, I was told time and time again that God knew me and had my life’s journey planned from the very beginning. Before I began to question some of these early teachings, this belief provided me with a form of confidence and clarity regarding my everyday choices. In later years, this popular belief led to moments/days/years of extreme dissonance and distrust of myself as I attempted to balance God’s (heteronormative) plan with my true feelings and emotions towards others.

The Impacts

I am not going to tell you that my family’s harmful rejection of the LGBTQ+ community is the direct cause for my ongoing mental health struggles and my challenges with substance misuse. There are many things still unknown by the scientific community regarding the origins of mental health symptoms and conditions. I am a person that recognizes the influences of genetics, family dynamic, individual experiences, and society all as playing a part in the makeup of an individual’s mental health wellness.

What I will say is that the influences of my family–their promotion of homophobic and transphobic views–are highly correlated with my personal internal struggles. This strict adherence to conservative religious teachings that call for the exclusion of LGBTQ+ peoples continue to challenge my individual relationships with family members as I have grown more outspoken and willing to show up in family spaces as my full, authentic self. Furthermore, this exclusion from the church has led me on a difficult path as I continue to seek the Divine in myself and the world around me.

Unfortunately, these types of harmful experiences are not unique to my story nor family. The reach of white Christian Supremacy, their promotion of heteronormativity, and their rejection of science and societal evolution is vast. For anyone not personally affected, the following statistics can help to depict how deep and far the effects of living in cultures that reject queer love extend:

  • Lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals are twice as likely to experience a mental health challenge, when compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Transgender and/or non-binary individuals are nearly 4 times more likely to experience mental health challenges when compared to their cisgender counterparts (National Alliance for Mental Illness- NAMI).
  • Substances are generally used by people for two main reasons: to increase joy or to decrease pain. In comparison to the heterosexual population, which experiences a 9% rate, the LGBTQ+ community experiences an estimated 20-30% rate of substance abuse and/or misuse (Addiction Center). 
  • LGBTQ+ youth are frequently kicked out of their family homes when they reveal their authentic selves. Overall, members of the queer community have a 120% higher risk of experiencing homelessness at some point in their lives (National Alliance for Mental Illness- NAMI).

The Resilience

The day I came home to see that yard sign was the day that my inner self built barricades around the parts of me that were outside of the white, heteronormative, status quo. Those barricades protected me while I lived in the home of my parents. Then, in my early 20s, I started the tough work of unlearning and dismantling the borders I had built around my inner self in order to reconcile my experiences and to search for my own truths.

The unlearning and relearning process is an ongoing one. It is not an easy journey, but it is one that I am grateful to have walked, and continue to walk. If I had never broken down those barricades of self defense, I may not have made it to my 30th birthday. There is a term in mental health recovery spaces: Firewalkers. To be a firewalker is akin to having the strength of steel: You can be tossed into the fire, survive, and come out stronger and changed for the better. 

For any fellow Firewalkers, queers, weirdos, outcasts, and misfits that may resonate with my story, I want to share some of the core elements of my wellness/recovery plan, in hopes that you may one day be inspired to seek recovery and healing for yourself.

  • “The opposite of addiction is connection.” Johann Hari, 2015 TedTalk. Find your coven! Find people who share similar experiences with yours. Through shared experiences, the burden of needing to explain the situation is reduced and/or eliminated–while still being fully seen! I have found my people in mental health recovery spaces, within the Soulforce family, and in the forests.
  • Question everything! Seek information and guidance regarding the historical and cultural context of the beliefs/expectations placed on you. One of the core offerings of Soulforce are our political and theological resources, all of which help individuals to recognize the strategies used by the Religious Right to perpetuate the exclusion of LGBTQ+ people. Through the broadening of my perspective and understanding, I now recognize that the problems lie with the institutions and systems of power that refuse to acknowledge the worthiness of queer people.
  • Seek professional support in ways that feel good to you. Talk therapy can offer the participant a space to come to where they are fully accepted and can unload some of the weight of life’s burdens and stressors. With that said, finding a therapist that feels good and affirming may take a few trials and errors. PsychologyToday.com is the tool I used to help find my current therapist, who I have been working with for 6 years.
  • There are no wrong or right ways to heal! Every person is unique and every recovery journey will look different. Abstinence from substances can be the best choice for some individuals. For other individuals, various methods of harm reduction are the best choice. Just like I am sharing my story and perspective with you today, I imagine that there have been some aspects that resonate with you and others that have not. The complexities and nuances of life are what fuel innovation and reimagining–don’t be afraid to acknowledge them.

My Survival

I am a transgender, non-binary, person that battles chronic symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. I am privileged to be alive and writing this blog post at the age of 30. I am someone who beat the odds and who stubbornly refuses to be silenced by those who believe that they hold power over me. I find comfort and power in the knowledge that I am always everything that I am meant to be, that I am ever evolving and changing, and that my Divine values the authenticity that I have worked to unwrap. I am fueled by the hope and knowledge that I am evidence to younger queers that they too can survive.

This is the image I actually hope to leave you with: Myself and my beautiful, loving, incredible wife on our wedding day jubilantly exiting our ceremony site. Her, dressed as the queen she is, and me feeling fresh AF in my first fade. One of the best moments of my life and favorite walks! 

It may have taken me nearly 20 years to overcome the image of that old yard sign, but I am damn grateful to have walked the path I have. This person, the one who has struggled, is who my wife fell in love with. This is the person my future children will know. This person is resilient enough to survive the seemingly impossible to build anew.
My unending gratitude is to all the advocates, social justice warriors, and countless consumer-survivors who have come before me. Specifically, I lift up my grandmothers who were both survivors of the US mental health institution, whose blood flows through me, and whose spirits call out for me to continue my own survival. (Learn more about the history of the Consumer/Survivor/Ex-Patient Movement here or here).

by

On May 1st, millions of workers will celebrate International Workers Day, also known as May Day. May Day is a time of celebration, it’s a day when we reflect on the arduous struggle of countless labor rights activists who paved the way for the eight hour work day, paid sick leave, vacation time and other employment benefits once denied to workers internationally. Though the labor movement has secured many important victories since its inception in 1886, there still exist many systemic injustices that plague workers around the world. For this May Day, it’s important that we take into consideration the ways in which white Christian Supremacy has sought to destroy the labor rights movement.

So what is the exact relationship between white Christian Supremacy and labor? white Christian Supremacy is the structure through which oppression is moralized through the distortion of theological doctrines. When we look at the way this plays out today, it’s clear to see that conservative evangelicals utilize Biblical literalism to sow seeds of division amongst workers.

Biblical literalists tend to have a disdain for worldly struggle, especially the struggles of oppressed communities that seek to fight for liberation. Hypocrisy is at the core of white Christian Supremacy and the utilization of Biblical literalism for the benefit of capitalism. This hypocrisy is best demonstrated when we recognize that subscribers to this worldview are very selective about the parts of the Bible they take literally. 

The labor movement is only effective insofar as the workers of that movement are unified. In order to curtail this unity, white Christian Supremacy uses scripture such as 2 Corinthians 6:14 — “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” — to discourage the collaboration of believers and non believers within labor movements.

It’s through this white Christian supremacist narrative that we workers are led to believe that we must submit to servitude, as we are all serfs and servants to God. We are called to find holiness and piety through suffering righteously to our economic conditions referenced in scriptures like these:

Ephesians 6:5-8:  “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh.”

Colossians 3:22-25:  “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh.”

It’s in bearing the suffering of economic injustice that oppressed workers are told they’re able to share in the bearing of the cross of Christ. This sort of scriptural manipulation is the foundation of white Christian Supremacy’s role in maintaining capitalism’s influence over the world. What’s interesting about this narrative is that it purposefully disregards scripture that speaks out against oppression, the scriptural call for justice, and the safeguarding of human dignity! 

What should be abundantly apparent at this point is that theology isn’t politically or economically neutral. It’s no coincidence that theologies that demand worker submission and obedience to oppressive economic systems are mainly pervasive within countries that benefit from those types of economic injustices. How is it that Biblical literalists don’t take scripture literally that condemns oppression? How does the Biblical literalist respond to Psalm 72:4 which reads “defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor!” or Jeremiah 22:13 that reads “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages”?

After all, within Christianity there exist various political and economic theologies that determine the nature of a social group’s worldview. One need only look to the liberation theologies of Latin America and other countries ravaged by the extractive economics of the West to see that theology is often determined by the material social and economic pressures that exist within those societies. 

Though it should be understood that certain passages within scripture have specific contexts for which they were written, this does not change the fact that scripture does not speak or act of its own accord. When it comes to the material conditions of society, the economic realities that we’re all subjected to, and the continued oppression of workers worldwide, the narrative that oppression is scripturally justified must be deconstructed. On this May Day we reflect on the continued violence committed against oppressed workers across the world. It’s in recognition of this suffering that we both celebrate our victories and prepare for the many struggles to come. Despite the divisiveness sowed by white Christian Supremacy, we continue to foster a radical spirit of solidarity and continually renew our commitment to the liberation of the oppressed and the advancement of organized labor.

by

Soulforcers, we are a people who commit to growing spirits unyielding to domination of any kind. And one of the things Christian Supremacy does most successfully is plant the seeds of fear, shame, and self-policing deep in our hearts.

Christian Supremacy makes it morally justifiable that Black communities are subjected to a constant fear of death and violence. While this fear has helped Black people to survive and protect our communities, it can also make us hide ourselves, live as an apology, or feel endlessly in grief’s waiting room because of the threat that lies just around the corner.

This kind of fear kills. It corrodes our spirits. It shrinks us into the smallest version of ourselves. It separates us from one another as human beings.

Christian Supremacy pretends that it is conceivable, justifiable, even absolvable for individuals, communities, and whole nations to do violence unto anyone deemed “Other” — Black people, Queer people, Trans people, Women, Indigenous people, people deemed “foreign,” and so many others subjected to this ideological violence.

We see this dynamic play out in everyday acts of white supremacy and anti-blackness. Christian Supremacy assigns goodness and holiness to whiteness; it categorizes Blackness, and anything else in its proximity, as inferior and deserving of domination.

It makes people feel morally okay about responding with fear to anything which doesn’t fit their definition of “goodness”. It tells us to fear “chaos”, which is the opposite of order, lawfulness, and righteousness. It tells us that Black communities and bodies need to be controlled. It aligns whiteness with the norm, the orderly, the lawful. We’re taught that people of color need to be controlled to enact order, which is ultimately the will of God. And that white people have been ordained by God to enforce that order in order to alleviate their own fear.

All the while, our experiences tell us that perpetual fear is its own kind of death because it keeps us from living our most full and abundant lives. It denies the possibility of the fullness of our authentic selves and our sacred worth and that of those around us. Putting someone in perpetual fear of their life is spiritual terrorism, and it is evil.

In this way, global anti-blackness, which aims to control Black people and denies our people’s sacred worth, is spiritual terrorism.

As Soulforcers, we are people who commit ourselves to ending spiritual violence. In a world dominated by systems that use fear to control bodies and spirits, we must deny fear its power over our souls.

Because if we stay in that fear without interrogating it, we unknowingly submit to the role that white supremacy and Christian Supremacy have created for us. We lose control over our lives and work toward appeasing white versions of holiness and order. Maybe worse: we believe that staying small out of fear for our lives is the only moral and good way to navigate the world, and we police others for not acting fearfully too.

The truth is that while the fear may keep us safe, it isn’t our only option and it doesn’t make us more worthy of our lives being protected and cherished. We believe there are ways, both big and small, that we can cast off that fear which would control us and reclaim the ways in which Black people are representations of the Divine.

Regardless of how big or small you feel that your reclamation is, it is enough. Maybe no one except you ever sees how you reclaim your own spiritual power. Maybe you offer your strategies for combating fear and shame to the next generation, even though you don’t feel ready to take it for yourself. Maybe you only practice fearlessness with other Black people. That is enough.

We believe that this work — all of us, one-by-one, casting off the fear that separates us from our greatest dignity and worth — is what will make us collectively powerful and resolute enough to end the systems of oppression that dominate us.

You can take a moment, or many moments, and remember and reclaim the ways in which you are a reflection of the image of the Divine. Share with us or the people in your community what that looks like for you. 

It may help to reflect on these questions:  

  • What am I doing to respond to the fear that has indoctrinated me to be small?  
  • How can I honor the fear that has protected me in my life?  
  • What kind of fear do I choose to let go of today, so that I may live into my most abundant self?  
  • How can I act in a way that encourages others to engage their own sacred worth and the divinity of those around them? 

—

Yaz Mendez Nuñez serves as Soulforce’s Co-Executive Director. CasSandra Calin serves on Soulforce’s Board of Directors. Learn more about them on our Team pages.

by

Until about ten years ago, I perpetuated hate–specifically especially homophobia and transphobia–in the name of what I understood to be compassion. I used to espouse a version of love that could  “love the sinner, not the sin”- I understood queerness and transness not as identities but as addictions to be overcome. I used to believe that who we are in our genders and orientations could not possibly be a source of pride, let alone a source of joy + love + fulfillment, and the latter collection of things is what I deeply wanted/want for everyone in the world!

There was a very real transformation that happened within myself, one that was the fruit of a very real compassion in me that I believe exists in others, too. That compassion and welcoming were always there, it was just that I once had a more limited understanding of how to channel them and a much much much more limited understanding of how aspects of my faith were tied to ideologies and structures that perpetuate systemic oppression.

A few years ago, after I came out to someone from my family of origin who loves me a lot, she said, “You know, I just really hoped that things would be… simpler for you. There’s a certain way that God wants family and gender to work that really works for me and makes a lot of people I know very happy, and because I love you so much, I want that for you more than anything.” The message that has been echoed to me a lot is: any version of romantic/sexual love that goes beyond one cis man and one cis woman for life, any identity that veers from expected gender norms or family shapes, any of this doesn’t make someone unwelcome at church or unworthy of God’s love, but it does mean they are “well… … …just not God’s ideal”.

I heard her telling me her truth from her experience, and I also appreciate that she was open to hearing me when I said that her version of “simple” simply wasn’t simple or obvious for so many, including me. I shared that for myself, for many many folks I know personally, and for many many many folks beyond that, her version of a God-ordained “ideal” that was “simpler” perpetuates an ingrained sense of fundamental unworthiness and missing the mark. It perpetuates a deep fear, hatred, and erasure of LGBTQI folks. I expressed that to her that she may not mean badly by holding those beliefs, but that those beliefs are tied to the condoning and perpetuation of very real violence.

It’s no secret that in the States, over a quarter of trans kids attempt suicide, more than 40% of homeless teens are LGBTQ (all of these statistics are far far heavier for folks who are not White), violence against trans women (especially transwomen of color) is through the roof, and you all know the dire statistics around so-called conversion therapy and so on and so on and heartbreakingly so on.

Which brings me to:

The National Religious Broadcasters Network the loudest mouthpiece globally for the U.S. Christian Right Wing’s anti-LGBTQI, anti-Muslim, and anti-Woman rhetoric. Their shows are broadcast to over 25 million homes per day.

This 73-year-old organization released an updated statement of faith last year, the majority of which is dedicated to their positions on mandating the “simpler” versions of what they believe is capital-“R”-Right about our bodies and our love and our desire.

Furthermore, they state that the Board of Directors of the NRB are the capital-“A”-Authority in terms of interpretation around those things.

These beliefs and statements are NOT harmless. Believing that core aspects of someone’s identity are “just not God’s ideal” opens the door wide to looking the other way when kids bully other kids for not fitting into that “simpler” frame, and to actively fighting (or just as bad, trying to be “neutral” on this violent moving train) against rights/protections around basic human needs like housing and healthcare, etc, etc, etc. The violence goes far beyond queer and trans folks too!!! To quote Soulforce: “[The NRB] spreads pervasive messaging which denies the humanity and divinity of our queer, trans, intersex, immigrant, Muslim, Black, and otherwise marginalized families.”

I’m focusing on queer and trans folks here because that is the arena in which I, personally, have done the biggest 180. And since I underwent such a big shift, I have to believe that, within and/or outside of any faith tradition, that kind of expansion is possible for others, too. I was liberated by this, and now I am continually gradually liberated by the ways society is opening to be able to hold more of me and more of us.

Something I dig about Jesus, in my own understanding of him, is that if he existed, he embodied radical compassion and “radical wonder and radical welcoming” (which is a phrase by badass trans thought leader Kate Bornstein).

Looking at the world right now, I am aware of how very far there is to go in terms of compassion and wonder and welcoming. I am often terrified and overwhelmed. I don’t have many answers or the right ways to say things, and I have so very much growing and learning to do, in all the ways.

But I am committed. I am committed to the work of transformation and radical compassion, wonder, and welcome.

Queer and trans kids, queer and trans adults, queer and trans elders, I see you, I love you, I will relentlessly keep on fighting for your rights and for a culture that radically welcomes all of who you are, and I will proclaim your humanity and divinity and worthiness and gorgeousness – during our time in Orlando, with Soulforce and beyond.

If you want, you can read more about the defiantly prayerful vigil we have held for all 86 hours of the National Religious Broadcasters conference in Orlando – around a Living Altar of Resistance that remembers our dead and fights like hell for the living – for all who are targeted by Christian Right communications. And for those who do not already know about the great work Soulforce is doing in general, check us out and sign up for the mailing list!

#KeepPulseAlive #Soulforce #StopKillingUs

—

ORION JOHNSTONE ​is a queer, non-binary, human/composer/organizer with a ferocious commitment to our collective liberation.  Learn more at www.orionjohnstone.com.