Combat Queer Online

The Fundamentalist Ain't The Worst

Well Dear Reader, I've decided something: I actually prefer the chaplain in my unit, that venomous Evangelical, to the other sort of the chaplain I've seen, the weak willed and lukewarm, Spiritual Care Plan who recite nothings.  Sure, my chaplain may be a devil who hates people for their sexuality and gender, but at least he means it.  At least he isn't worshiping his job.

These other chaplains, they got nothing, nothing except devotion to the Army. 

Though they wear crosses on their uniforms, they make no effort to worship Christ or the God of Christ.  Instead, they worship of the god of the Army.  Now, before you go getting excited, I have to tell you this: the god of the Army is no where near as interesting as Ares, Mars, or Tyr.  Instead, this god is nothing but a cheap knock off of the blandest understanding of a monotheistic god. 

Apparently, the Army god asks nothing of us other than to buck up and follow our leaders.  The Army god has no wisdom and no love of justice.  It does not point to any kind of goodness and it doesn't tell you to act right.  It doesn't love, doesn't hate, doesn't enforce, doesn't subvert, doesn't sow, doesn't reap, don't nothing.  Nothing.  Not the vaguest hint of holiness or anything beyond the common, ugly, and small. It is an empty word, a place holder for the saddest indoctrination of the...and I can hardly write this without grimacing...the "Core Army Values."

The Core Army Values are, of course, Loyalty (only to the Army), Duty (to the Army), Respect (of the Army), Selfless Service (of the Army), Honor (obtained through serving the Army), Integrity (do I need to say it), and Personal Courage (you get the picture).

Basically, the ultimate virtue in the Army is doing what you're told.  Most Christian chaplains have had no problem completely shedding their loyalty to that homeless Jewish fellow who got crucified.  They've lost all feeling for that fellow who, after he fed five thousand, ran away when the people tried to make him king 'cause they just didn't get it.

The chaplains instead worship the Army.  They call it god and hope that their soldiers are too stupid to know the difference.  But friends, we are not.  We get what the deal is.

Two Roads Converge

Well Dear Reader, I remain quite busy.  I think you often, but have had deeply limited internet access as of late. That said, I will try to do better.

 

Apology aside, I'm currently reading "The Language Of God" by Francis Collins and it is absolutely wonderful.  Admittedly, I am pretty awful at science.  The worst grades I got in any courses in college with in biology and chemistry classes. All the memorization, the lab works, etc, there was nothing about those classes I was skilled in.  In fact, science nearly endangered my college enrollment before things got turned around.

 

Despite all of that, the implications of science are fascinating to me. That we poor humans can learn the truth about the workings of the universe, a truth that doesn't depend on a certain way of thinking, a certain set of ideas or ideals just amazes and delights me.

 

Collins is a person who finds the hope of God in the great complexity and reality science describes.  He shows a faith that is big and strong enough to survive contact with reality.  He's able to maintain a faith without denying the basic truths about the world we live in.

It's awesome.

I'm also reading a book, Luke Timothy Johnson's "Living Jesus," that, true to its title, discusses the reality of the living Jesus.  Not just the dude who lived 2,000 years ago, but the person who is alive today and still working in the world.  The book's point is that when Christians move from celebrating the Holy Mysteries of the Resurrection to treating these miracles as problems to be solved, we miss the point. Somehow I think the views of these two books work together.

 

Now hear me out.  I think that figuring out the mechanics of God's Magic is crap game that misses the point.  Christ's message is how to treat each other like human beings.  To read it looking for esoteric clues seems to me a rejection of His message.  It's saying to Christ, "What you were telling us, that whole 'do unto others' and 'don't judge,' and 'love each other,' that's not good enough. We need strange teachings to make us better than other people."

 

But I seem to be rambling.

 

More later.  Affectionately yours,

 

CombatQueer

Still Siblings

So Dear Reader, I have my first anti-queer commenter. I've been kind of surprised by the fact that it's taken me this long to pick up such a person. I've been publishing here for a little more than a year, and well, O thought it would happen sooner. Late last July I told a good friend of mine about the blog and her first question was about how many people I had flaming me.

But this fellow, he interests me. Of course, I don't know that it is a male commenter, and it might be a little sexist of me to assume that a somewhat mean spirited web-goon would be male, but hey, dude's acting as an avatar for the patriarchy, so I don't feel too bad about it. 

Anyway, this fellow goes by “In Christ.” For those of you outside of the Evangelical subsection of the world, “In Christ” is the Evangelical version of “sincerely” used to remind folks that no matter how much of an ass you've been, you were doing it for the cause of Jesus and the makes everything cool. It's  a useful thing. 

Here's a link to the page with IC's comments:

http://combatqueer.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/05/this-little-light-of-mine.html

IC's comments are a delightful mix of queer bashing, Left Behind quality pseudo-prophetic blurbs, and explanations of how, no matter what I or Chris might have to say about it, how I am not actually a Christian. 

What funny is that IC fixated not on one of my posts that was particularly unfriendly toward the idea of Christianity, but rather a post where I talk about my commitment to Christianity, about the important of queer folk understanding that they absolutely have a place within the One Holy Catholic And Apostolic Church, you know, the Universal Church. IC reached my blog by Googling the phrase, “Christians against queers.”

IC wanted to see some conflict, some fire and brimstone being tossed at disgusting aberrations like me. But Dear Reader, that's not how it works. That's not how Christ worked. He went after the weirdos, the folks you aren't supposed to love. He went after the tax collectors and the women society had decided were undesirables. Christ rocked out on avoiding the good folks and hanging out with the freaks like you and me. 

There's a reason that Christ doesn't spend all the gospels laying out semi-logical, pseudo-sciency arguments for creationism or arguing that homosexuality and transsexuality are dangers to the family. Christ isn't interested in that. Instead Christ wants us to treat each other radically well. He wants us to treat each other the way we would treat ourselves at the lowest point of our ugly selfishness. Christ wants us to act right not because there's this list of random actions that we get dinged for doing, no, Christ wants us to act right because, if you'll excuse my language, we're a bunch of assholes when we don't act right.  

Thing is, this whole “Queers V. Christians” thing is and always has been a fixed game. It isn't about this town being too small for the both of us. No, it always been about coming to the recognition of that fact that many Christians are queers and that many queers are Christians. There shouldn't be any tension. It's a non-issue that only exists because we poor humans get so caught up in chasing worldly power, in trying to figure out who we're better than, who we can push around, who's owes us a debt and who we need to bow down to.

Sorry folks, Christ broke all those chains on the cross. We're free men and women, free queers and straights, free trans and cis. The world doesn't want to recognize that we've been freed, wants to keep in those chains, but friends, the locks are gone and we can walk out of our cells whenever we feel like it. 

So IC, if you happen to be reading this, I want you to know that we're brother and sister in Christ. As He loves me, He loves you. I certainly don't have any claim on righteousness or goodness, but please know that we can carry the love of Christ a lot farther in the world is we carry it together than if we choose to spend all our time and energy squabling like kids in th backseat of a family car on a long summer road-trip.

Things That Make Me Want To Be An Atheist, Part 1

One of my unit's Chaplain's favorite stories involves one of three privates who were involved in a truck rollover earlier this spring. This private is a self proclaimed atheist. The way the chaplain likes to this story, and I have heard him tell it four or five times, and I spend very little time with the chaplain, well, Chaplain likes to say that he asked the private. “Well, were you praying to Jesus last night?”

Now, this private is a friend of mine. He tends to sort of keep to himself, but he's a hard worker and I like him a lot. I was sitting with him when the chaplain came in so, joy of joys, I managed to witness the Genesis of this little tale.

The chaplain did indeed ask the private that question. The private, the chaplain likes to say, admitted that he had prayed to Jesus and more or less admitted also that he lack of faith in any deity was basically a sham, that really and truly he believed in God, in Christ, and in the absolute truth of the Bible, in a specific and narrowly defined understanding of morality and all goodness.

The private, according to the chaplain, knew the truth, deeply believed the truth, but out of hard handedness and a whole set of character flaws actively rebelled against the capital T Truth.

That's the chaplain's story.

But I was there too, and here's what happened: The chaplain asked his question and the private didn't answer. He just laughed and wagged his finger. He wouldn't say either was. 

I the truth doesn't always make for the best story. 

Episcopalians Don't Count

http://www.justnews.com/news/19769148/detail.html

So apparently Episcopalians don't count. You see this Father Cutie, he left the Roman Catholic church because, shock of shocks, he found love and followed his heart.

But first, full discloser, I've never understood the celibate priest thing. I know I probably need to need more of the theology on the other side, but well, it just doesn't work for me. The Apostle Peter was married, the Apostle James was married, they were, at least according to the Church, two of the first big bishops, so why then shouldn't folks be free to follow their example?

But then again, I also can't understand the theology of any church that refuses women a shot at ordination, so maybe I'm just not good at churches when they ain't Episcopal.

But here's what bugs me about this article: It's set up as if it is describing some great tragedy, some great fall from grace. There's no hint of joy. For goodness sake, this fellow is marrying someone he loves and in the process of becoming a priest in one of the finest churches on Earth! What could be more wonderful! 

But no, no, the writer of the article feels the need to point out that "There is no word yet if Cutié and Canellis will have a religious ceremony." 

Yeah, because why would a priest have a church wedding? He doesn't have the nod of the Pope, and therefore he must have totally reject Christ and all goodness.

This Little Light of Mine

So, I was driving one of my captains around yesterday. This fellow is an alright guy, a pretty effective officer but, gods help him, he loves listening to Rush FatDrugAddict and regurgitating all the talking points. Yesterday, he went on a tare about the hate crimes bill that's slowly making its way through the legislature.

It was all the usual nonsense. The lies about how it will put ministers who preach against homosexuality in jail and will force churches of all denominations to hire gay priests and make day care centers hire perverted old gay men to watch defenseless children, etc.

He just went on and on and on about this bullshit.

The general thrust of the argument was that Obama's government will use the issue of fairness for Queers to try to wipe out Christianity in America.

“The nominal Christians will just fade away,” the Captain says, “but this is when the real Christians, the people with actual faith, will burn the brightest.”

You want to know the truly odd part? As I was sitting there beside him and listening to him rant about how American Christians...the most wealthy, most powerful, and most free religious group in the world...were in danger of persecution, I found myself agreeing with him.

Dear Reader, don't worry. I'm not pulling a Benedict Arther here. I'm not Hagarding out on this by denying the truth and heading back to the closet. No. What I mean is that now, in the time of struggle, we Christians have to stand up.

We need to stand up against the normalizing pressures of society. We can't be put in our place. We are weirdos, outsiders, and queers. That's what the Lord God has for us. We have to stand up against the slander, the hate, the...God help us...normality of the people who hate us. These people who would see us without rights, freedoms, or protections.

Christ was a freak like us. Christ lived outside of and against the social norms of his day. He became such a threat to those norms that the government nailed him to piece of wood. As queers, we too are outside that nice, pretty, and petty set of norms. We need to use this opportunity to be free of all the chains that Christ broke on the cross.

If we do it as queers and Christians then it becomes undeniable that something is happening. If the conflict is painted as “Christianity vs the Queers,” not only will we lose, Christianity itself will be deeply harmed. As I'm sure you know, Dear Reader, we're not going against Christ. How could we ever go against Christ except by buying into the bullshit of the world? By surrendering to capitalism, consumerism, selfishness, racism, imperialism?

No, we as Queers are not going against Christ. If we stand up for our rights as Christians, if we burn brightly in faith as well as in sexuality, then the world will see that this current fight isn't the Queers versus Christ. They will see that it is the weak against the strong, transformative love against gray conformity.

We need to take this time and burn bright. We can do it.

Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution

So, I've been reading Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution.  It's a really interesting book, one of the finest examples of Evangelical writing I've ever read.  Here's a guy who is definitely advocating a form of fundamentalism, but one why I'm not diametrically opposed to.

Claiborne is obsessed with the idea of radical love for all people, nonviolence, and fighting for justice for those in poverty.  Not so shockingly, that old book the Bible has an incredible amount of support for a faith like Claiborne's, you know, what with the thrust of the prophets and the Gospels being largely about the need for humanity to “walk humbly, love justice, and do mercy.”

He, like me, is a failed protestant in a lot of ways.  Reading his story about how he became disenchanted with the self-righteous, in-looking, materialist bullshit of American Christianity, well, it all rings true.  Far too often American Christianity is about becoming the greatest, the best, the strongest. American Christianity loves to jump in bed with the ideas and ideals of the Military-Industrial Complex.  American Christianity loves to worship our nation and the power of our nation as a god instead of that homeless rabbi, the one who got lynched for speaking the truth in love so much that it pissed the whole world off.

American Christianity's got some problems, and Claiborne sees those.  What I really like about this book, though, is that it isn't simple a critique of the problems.  Dude actually takes the time to suggest alternatives to the current system, alternatives based on the teachings of Christ and the prophets.

But now, before we go too crazy talking about how awesome this book is, I want to talk to you for a minute about the reasons that it really scares me.  Dear reader, I am afraid of Evangelicals.  There, I've said it.

Evangelicals, not all of them certainly, not Fred Clark, not Jim Wallis, not my dear friend who introduced me to this, but many, maybe most, legitimized the politics that lead to the deaths of a million innocent Iraqis.  Many Evangelicals work every to reinforce systems of oppression that lead to the rape of murder of folks like me.  Many Evangelicals spend their time trying to rebuild all those chains that Christ broke that day up on the cross.

They scare the shit out of me.

And I know, I know that it is probably a sin that I have not yet been able to forgive that body of American Evangelicals for what they've done, what they continue to do.  I know that in some ways I let them continue to do harm in the world, do harm to me by not find forgiveness for them.  But friends, I'm sorry.  The things I've seen, the ways in which I've seen people treated.  It has hurt me, it has hurt my family, it's hurt this world.

I want to find more love and forgiveness for them, but it's hard.  There are so many American Evangelicals who I do love, who fine and wonderful people.  They give me so much hope, but when I think about that wider group, all those folks who fought for Prop 8, who spread rumors about Obama being a Muslim, who put out letters accusing trans folks of wanting nothing more than to get into women's bathrooms for the purpose of rape, sometimes I don't know how I can love and forgive all of them, the idea of all of them.

I keep trying to love and forgive Evangelicals one at a time, but I don't know if that's enough.

So when I read a book like this, no matter how smart and cool it seems, I don't entirely trust it.  That's just the truth.  I keep looking for the razor blade in the apple.  I keep waiting for Claiborne to admit that despite his ideas about radical love, radical welcome, the God of losers (Man, I really like that term), I keep wait for him to say, “But you know what? Gays and queers? God still hates them.  I'm not talking about God being the Lord of those kind of losers.  I meant the other ones, the ones who are just too righteous for this terrible materialist, queer-infested planet.”

But now, Claiborne never comes out and attacks queers.  He attacks the rich, the powerful.  That's fine and good, and I'm down with that.  He had beautiful, wise things to say to about poverty, the ways in which society separates people so that systems of oppression can continue without burdening the consciences of the powerful.  His talk about the One Church, the Universal Church is moving and lovely.  I share many of the same dreams of over coming the silly, petty barriers that separate us.  He has many, many good ideas and ideals.

But, it scares me.  He mentions transsexuals once in this book.  He uses us as an extreme example of how everyone from transsexuals to SUV drivers are welcome in the body of Christ.  It's a positive welcome, but at the same time, I don't know how I feel about being used as an end marker for the bottom side of the scale of weird.

I don't know.  This book really is about the love God has for people on the bottom, and transsexuals tend to find our way there are some time or another.  Like I talked about in an earlier post, I know that being trans knocks me out of, or at least down in, the game of the world, the constant ratty mission to become the greatest or the best.  I think that that, for me at least, can be a blessing.  And I think that from what is written here, Claiborne might seem to go along with it, but...

Look, I just wish he had come out clearly and voiced his support for queers.  I know that this book was aimed at the Evangelical establishment, that the idea here was to offer all those bright beautiful young Evangelical kids a chance to follow God in ways that weren't just worshiping their own power or the power of their country, and I know that if this book took too much time to support queers those young Evangelicals would far, far too scared to read it, but...

Still, I wish Claiborne would say that he didn't hate me.  It's hard to listen to someone talk about the love of God, but know that no matter how fine their words about forgiveness and welcome are, that they might still be willing to turn on you.  I just wish he was clearer on that point.

Object of His Evangelism

Anyway, last night I had drove one of the other sergeants and these two privates out to dinner. The privates, one was 19 and the other 20, have had some trouble, so the idea was that their sergeant, who we'll call SGT Guthery, would show them some attention and that that might help. Well, we ended up going to a Chinese Buffet off post.

Now, out in the civilian world this sergeant is an evangelist, and has traveled all around the world under the guidance of his pastor. I know because he talks about his traveling and all the great ministry he's done pretty much constantly. He's good with languages and has picked a few up. When he meets someone who speaks a foreign language, he tends to try to address them in it no matter how hard that they try to talk to him in English.

At first I thought he did this to everybody he met who he took to be foreign, but it turns out he does it exclusively to women.

Well, back at the Chinese restaurant, SGT Guthery was working hard. He's not very good, it turns out, at identifying which country a specific Asian person in from, so he regularly addresses Philippine women in Thai, Japanese women in Vietnamese, and Laotian women in Korean. It's an amazingly awkward situation for the objects of his conversational skills.

But last night, the sergeant had some some luck with the waitress. He was hard core flirting with her. Not just the making a joke when she came to the table or winking when he left the tip, no, dude was over at the kitchen door leaned up over her as she put his hand on his elbow. They were talking, in English, loudly enough from me and the two privates to hear. There were definitely invitations to spend some more time together later.

Finally, Guthery puts his arm around her shoulder, leans in and quietly says, "Can I ask you something?"

I hear the two privates kind of take a startled breath. Both later told me that they had expected his next words to be some variation on "wanna go bang in the back?"

But no, sergeant bust out the "Do You Know Jesus As Your Personal Lord And Savior."

He seemed a little disappointed when she said she did.

But yeah, it was ridiculously creepy. The two privates were a little freaked. I've already had several folks who weren't even there come up and ask me about it.

My job's pretty awesome.

Blessing of Queer

So, here's something that I've been thinking about for a while. If it doesn't make sense, I apologize. While reading this, please keep in mind that thought I am now an Episcopalian, a member of the finest, most enlightened church on the face of the Earth, I was raised as a poor, doomed Southern Baptist, and to this day carry with me must of that denomination's teaching whether I want to or not. Much of his is probably mean and stupid, but here goes:

It is a great blessing being queer. It is wonderful to be the big O Other. Because I am queer, I feel that I am freed of the Righteousness Game.

You know that game. If you play by the rules, the rules of the world, you get to be a Good Person. If you're a white collared, happily married, finacially secure father of two who attends church regularly, you doing pretty well. You're a good citizen, a good consumer of the world's goods. But you got to keep it up, you've got to do the Right things, you've got to keep the tune, follow the styles, be a part of it.

By being queer, well, I've already lost the game. You can talk about “homo-normativity” or “trans-normativity” 'til you're blue in the face, but the fact is that in this day and age for most of the world, most of the population of America, it's still a socially negative thing to be queer. For most Americans, being queer is being gross, perverse, and dangerous.

Existing in that role while also chasing after that fellow Christ, well, it's amazing. All that business in the New Testament about the world hating you? About Christ being your only hope, your only refuge? Well, I get it.

And it isn't that I thik that being queer is wrong or evil or any of that bullshit.

It's just that nobody's perfect, and I get the blessing of knowing it.

But more than that, I find myself deeply thankful of being able to see the world, even if it is just through the tiniest crack in the wall, the briefest shimmer of light, I'm thankful that I get to see the world outside of the all the nonsense about needing to be manly, about needing to hurt others so that it will be somewhat more difficult for someone else to hurt me. It's good to know that there's a real world out there, one beyond the man-made bullshit built up around ideals of class and patriarcy.

So yeah, this isn't my best written thing, but it's true. I'm thankful for what freedom I have.

Pious Neglect

I'm getting pretty tired of piety. Far, far too often folks uses their damn beliefs and faith to shine up their very special own person while leaving the rest of the world to go to shit.

This morning for instance, well, it's a Sunday. The Chaplain, good Lutheran that he is, has gone off to church to shake hands with the big officers and the big officers' wives. The Chaplain's Assistant, God fearing Catholic, he rounded up a van and took seven or eight Papists over to early Mass. Niether one of them's back yet, and it's not clear whether or not either one of those Christ-carriers are coming back today.

So good for them, living their beliefs even under the stress and hussel and bussell of a military deployment. But oh wait, dear reader, dear friend, what's this? I've got several hundred other soldiers who would like to go to church, get some worship, all that fun stuff, but no arrangements have been made. No vans have been scheduled, no Chaplain's come down here with his ridiculous little communion kit, no fucking Moody Bible College educated E-3 is setting up his little Bible study. Oh no.

For the sake of their piety, the Chaplain and the Assistant are off ignoring the needs of the great mass of nobodies in this unit, all the lower enlisted kids whose dreams are rarely greater than the purchase of a new Xbox game or the consumption of a cheap beer. Now, these kids are not glamorous or beautiful, or always terribly interesting, I guess, to a great Chaplain out there chasing the big W Wisdom and doing the big W Work of God, but dear reader, these kids do their jobs. They take care of their responsibilities, even here on Sunday morning. The whole damnable unit rides on their job-doing backs, and how do they get repaid on a fine Sunday morning?

They get repaid with the Chaplain's pious evasion of his job. They repaid by being informed if not by word, at least by action, that no matter how hard they work, they are still not worthy of the attention of the Chaplain, that no matter how hard they work, the Chaplain's individual need to go to church somehow outweighs their collective never for contact with the divine.

And they remember.