Eric Thomas oral history, 2019.

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    Hi, my name's Sonia Prescott and I'm
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    here with Elizabeth Wittrig and we are interviewing Eric Thomas on
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    November 11 for our oral history.
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    So we'll start off with the first question.
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    I noticed that you graduated from ITC, Interdenominational Theological Center.
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    I'll just mention as an aside, I also went to the ITC.
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    Went to Spelman.
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    Oh that's wonderful.
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    I was going to ask you, you graduated from ITC
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    in 2013.
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    And my first official question,
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    is how working with people from different denominations shaped your perspective on the
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    movement for LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the PC(USA)?
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    I would say in general it's been very
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    positive.
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    I think from the outside other
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    denominations, think of the PC(USA) as being very progressive in
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    terms of the movement for LGBTQIA inclusion.
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    We were certainly very present
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    in news and media when our Book of Order changed
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    to allow openly gay and lesbian teaching
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    elders to be ordained.
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    And also again, when our Book of Order was changed
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    so that
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    marriage is between two people as opposed to a man and a woman.
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    And so from the outside, it seemed as if
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    the PC(USA) was kind of a leader in that charge.
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    From the inside, you know, I
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    think that we still have some way, some ways to go.
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    I think that, generally speaking, our
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    vocabulary is expanding to be more inclusive.
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    We're using terminology like Latinx, which also is
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    signaling that there is more than the gender binary.
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    I know that there are conversations
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    about, formulating a task force, LGBTQIA
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    concerns kind of task force, and
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    those conversations have actually been happening.
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    But to go back to your ecumenical kind of question, I think that it's been really
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    it's been good. You know, mostly positive.
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    I've experienced as you're asking about the ITC
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    when we speak about the movement for LGBTQIA
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    inclusion as it has to do with race and ethnicity though
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    it seems as if the
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    Presbyterian Church is somehow disqualified from
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    the conversation about the traditional array of Black
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    church denominations which are thought of to be Baptist,
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    Christian, Methodist, Episcopal
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    and the
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    Church of God in Christ and other non-denominational out
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    shoots of traditional Black denominations.
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    And so that can sometimes be interesting depending on who is
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    speaking about what.
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    Could you also speak a little bit about your path to ordination or what that experience
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    was like?
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    I always had a feeling that
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    I would be doing some sort of work with the church.
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    I grew up in a Baptist church in
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    the Bronx, New York, and a pretty
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    working middle class kind
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    of Baptist church that was like,
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    I don't want to call it a lightning rod, but it attracted a lot of people who lived
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    in that community. It was pastored by
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    how do we call him, like the charismatic leader, the charismatic
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    leader who excites people in worship.
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    Also has a social justice kind of leaning.
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    His name was Nathaniel Tyler Lloyd.
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    This was Trinity Baptist Church in the northwest section
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    of the Bronx.
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    And my family was a family that was very active
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    in the music ministry. So my grandparents sang in the senior choir
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    and my aunt sang in the gospel choir.
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    My father plays the flute.
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    I grew up with piano lessons and singing and so forth.
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    And as I, you know, got my
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    my spiritual formation in the church, my
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    music took me to the High School of Music and Art.
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    And so
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    graduating as a tenor who sight reads, the world
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    becomes a very welcoming kind of place.
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    And so some of my ecumenical experiences,
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    you know, began even there in going from high school and to college,
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    being able to go to Methodist churches and the Episcopal churches, the kinds of
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    churches that hired musicians to do things like the
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    Messiah or the Dubois, Seven Last Words of Christ or the Christmas
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    Cantatas or things like that.
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    So I was able to have a varying array of experiences
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    and, you know, kind of reflect
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    back on my understanding of my relationship
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    to God. My status of salvation as a
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    Black gay man in these different
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    worshiping communities.
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    And so life took me to
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    Atlanta, Georgia.
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    And I was working with the National Black
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    Arts Festival as their director of marketing.
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    And that is where I encountered Rock Spring Presbyterian
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    Church, which was a predominantly white church actually
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    in midtown Atlanta.
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    And they I sang with them as their tenor soloist
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    for a few years.
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    And in the midst of that period, this was around 2006, 2007
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    or so
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    I was asked, you know, what did I think about going to seminary?
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    Like, I always had this understanding that I would be singing or participating
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    in the worship of the church, but I never saw myself on the other side
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    of the sanctuary.
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    So in other words, I you know, from childhood into
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    my 30s, my geographical location in the sanctuary was where
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    the choir was, where the musicians were.
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    And so even as a seminarian, it was a strange
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    thing to be on the other side where they were at the pulpit where the preaching
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    happens.
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    And so that was an interesting kind of
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    growth spurt, if you will.
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    In many ways, and I grew into this
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    articulation of call to be
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    a minister of word and sacrament, to be a teaching elder, that
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    there were there was lived experience that
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    I had to offer as well as the academic
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    experience that I got from the ITC,
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    specifically Johnson C. Smith which was the
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    Presbyterian Seminary in the complex that is the ITC,
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    to say something
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    to the world about an LGBT Christian
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    experience.
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    So another question I had was how have you formed spiritual communities outside of the
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    Presbyterian Church?
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    Oh, I mean, the interesting thing about
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    being an Inquirer and a candidate in Atlanta
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    is that Rock Spring was physically located,
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    three traffic lights away from Division Church of
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    Atlanta, which was, I would say like
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    a Church of God in Christ, underpinned, affirming
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    kind of church. So these were lesbian, gay, bisexual
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    and trans ministers who were
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    growing this congregation, like literally
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    down the block from Rock Spring.
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    And so I was able to have
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    a very how shall we call
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    it, a very cerebral kind of experience from
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    like eleven o'clock to twelve and get in the car and
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    be at the affirming church with the tambourines
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    and the hand clapping and the drums and so forth bny twelve thirty.
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    And so I was able to have both sides of that experience.
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    It was also a great opportunity
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    to be able to synthesize the two experiences together
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    in some cases.
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    I recognized someone's
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    grandmother's COGIC church in gay face.
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    What I mean is that the only thing that really changed
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    is the outward expression of sexual identity.
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    But a lot of the covering of one's head and the lap cloths,
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    a lot of the gendered kinds of things that you see in some more
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    kind of like strict holiness kinds of traditions were still at work there.
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    Some of the gendered things in terms of lots of men
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    in leadership, lots of kind of like pushing to the side
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    of trans women, femme men
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    and masculine identifying lesbians.
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    So you saw a lot of the same kinds of things that we wrestle
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    with in quote unquote normative spaces happening in these gay spaces.
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    And so that was interesting.
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    That was interesting to me. It makes things like our Transgender
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    Day of Remembrance that much more important to me.
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    Now, even
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    in this season, 2019 as World AIDS Day
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    and the first Sunday of Advent happens on December 1st I'm
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    creating at my church in Brooklyn testimonies
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    of grace.
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    And so it will be like a praise and worship
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    and testimony kind of service
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    set up for those who are living with
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    HIV and AIDS in whatever way or shape that
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    they identify as.
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    So it could be family members.
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    It could be friends. It could be the sort of support system.
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    So, I mean, I think that we're all in one way or another living with HIV and AIDS.
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    But this becomes a way in, quote unquote, normative space
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    to make normal.
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    The fact that people have been surviving and thriving
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    in spite of a lot of homophobia
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    and transphobia and biphobia and kind of the
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    spiritual silencing
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    and erasing of the effects
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    of the epidemic.
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    And I'm using Revelation Chapter 12,
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    verses 10 and 11 that says
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    they conquered by the blood of the lamb
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    and the word of their testimonies.
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    Right. So this idea of advent, what is coming
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    right becomes this ability to conquer and survive
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    and thrive because of this connection
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    or connection to the salvational nature of the coming
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    Christ.
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    And by being able to speak out of
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    silence or out of shame or out of betrayals
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    or out of the other kinds of stumbling blocks
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    that well-meaning Christian people put in front of
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    our gay and lesbian trans folks
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    who are living with HIV and AIDS.
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    I'm actually going off on that question.
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    I was thinking how supportive had you found the community within
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    your church in Brooklyn have you found them to be to kind
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    of new initiatives or new directions?
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    I know it's a historic congregation and sometimes that can help or hinder you know when you
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    want to take a more progressive lean. So how has that been?
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    I have to say, I have been extremely blessed by
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    the members of Siloam Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn.
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    They called and ordain me as their interim
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    pastor as an openly gay, married
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    teaching elder.
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    So, I mean, from the first day that we walked through the door,
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    like even in the when I was meeting with what
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    what we call our pastor nominating committee of the church, I was very
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    open with them because I have the kind of life experience
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    of people having to hide who they are or
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    hope that they don't get caught up or something like that.
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    Right. There is a whole kind of culture that
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    is perhaps the culture of the generation before mine where you
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    just didn't say, you know, this is my roommate or this is my lifelong
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    friend, but one didn't announce themselves as a lesbian
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    or as a gay man or as and certainly not in a relationship.
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    Right.
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    But the the blessing of all of that
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    is that just as I am, without one plea,
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    the church called me to be their pastor.
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    And I as
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    this was my first call, I was trying to do
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    everything that I could do kind of by the book, like,
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    you know, running a session meeting in decency and order and having the
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    sermon title to the secretary on the Tuesday before, doing
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    all those things that you think that a pastor is supposed to do.
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    And in the doing of that, I think that a trust developed
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    so that I was not trying to change who they were and they weren't trying
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    to change who I am. And so we got to be who we be,
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    as it were, in the midst of all of that.
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    So you are currently working or you've
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    completed your PhD?
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    I'm finishing my PhD at Drew University in New
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    Testament and Early Christianity.
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    Could you talk a little bit about your research focus and how this
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    impacts your ministry?
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    Yes, my research focus is on a
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    queer of color biblical criticism.
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    And queer of color critique comes
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    from a moment in time in about the
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    early 2000s. It's a response by theorists
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    to the fact that in racial ethnic communities the
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    queer or the LGBT tends to be erased.
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    So, for example, you could say the Black church or
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    the African-American community with an assumption that everybody
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    in the Black church and everybody in the in the African-American community is straight.
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    On the one hand, and on the other hand, it
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    raises the
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    participation of racial ethnic people in LGBTQ spaces.
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    So when you say the gay liberation movement, when you say the
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    gay community, when you say that LGBTQ history project, one
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    could assume that you're talking about white people.So
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    this queer of color kind of movement speaks
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    to racial, ethnic, queer people in both racial, ethnic and LGBT
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    spaces.
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    So an example of that might be that we
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    cannot talk about the history of Stonewall without talking about Sylvia Rivera, without
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    talking about Marsha P. Johnson, because we could talk
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    about this history in this kind of way that a
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    bunch of people who looked like the village, the YMCA village people decided that
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    they were going to fight back. And here's the Stonewall rebellion.
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    Right. But it's really people of color.
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    It's really kind of like the marginalized folks who were
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    hanging out at the Stonewall Inn, along with the with the white gay and lesbian folks
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    who are also activists at the time.
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    But this is this
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    is an interruption of multiplicity.
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    It's an interruption of multiplicity.
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    Another example of that is that when we talk about the African American church or
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    the Civil Rights Movement, we will hear all about Martin Luther King and we won't hear
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    that Bayard Rustin helped to organize the
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    march on Washington in 1963. We think about gospel
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    music and we don't see if
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    we don't know how to look at the number of gay
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    men, lesbian women who make up these choirs, who make up
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    the composers of the music, who in
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    many ways, when you look at queer performances, help
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    to shape the static of
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    what the choir director does or what the soloist does and
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    things like that, those things get erased. Right.
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    And so the
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    question is, how do we bring those things to bear? And when we talk about a
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    contextualized biblical interpretation so we say contextualized
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    biblical interpretation, an example of that might be feminist hermeneutics
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    in biblical interpretation.
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    So, for example, a feminist, her hermeneutic looks at
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    the presence or the absence of women in the text.
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    What are they doing? What do they want? How are they participating in the story?
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    Right. And so a queer of color hermeneutic
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    of biblical interpretation looks at that overlap
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    that intersection between queerness and racial ethnic identity.
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    So, for example, the man who had the
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    legions in Mark 5.
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    So we see this this this man who has the
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    metaphor is as many demons as there are soldiers
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    in the Roman army and Jesus casts out these demons and
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    the man we know the man because he cuts himself with stones
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    and they try to change him, but he breaks his chains.
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    And when Jesus comes and intervenes on his behalf, when
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    he is clothed and in his right mind, that's when the people are afraid.
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    That's when the people are afraid and they want Jesus and the man to go,
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    right. And when we think about
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    the numbers of homeless youth who have been shut
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    away from their communities, right.
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    To be living people in dead spaces
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    like the dead space that we find the man in Mark 5, we can see
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    how that happens to a lot of a lot
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    of Black and Latinx folks.
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    And so those demons are demons of shame and demons of homophobia and demons
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    of respectability politics and demons of all of those things that
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    separate us from community, that separate us from hospitality,
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    that separate us from safety, that separate us from love of community.
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    And there's some way that the society
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    is normativised devised by that person's dysfunction.
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    Everything is fine. The pigs are fine.
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    The people are fine. The tombs are fine.
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    Everything is fine as long as this person is cutting themselves with stones.
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    And how do we see that manifest in some of our, like, everyday
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    kinds of experiences? And how does race and ethnicity factor
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    into that? But then when the man with
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    the legion is released from the demons
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    clothed and in their right mind, the man
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    asks to go with Jesus, and Jesus says, nope, you go into
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    the capital as you go into the cities.
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    And so I what I get from that is that there are
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    ministries that those we think of as marginalized
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    have. To put it another way, people who have been
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    in the rough places and spaces are more likely
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    to be able to make a difference in those places
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    than any of the three of us who have never been in those places.
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    So we all have a call.
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    We all have a ministry.
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    But we can look at the story of Mark 5, the 1 through 20
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    as a way that
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    many folks in the LGBTQ community find
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    themselves in.
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    So that's an example.
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    Next, I just wanted to
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    ask when did you become involved in the movement for LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the
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    Presbyterian Church? Was there a particular moment or catalyst that brought you into this movement?
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    I am trying to remember if
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    it was the General Assembly in
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    Minneapolis. I'm sorry. I like I can, I can I can kind of go
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    back into the database and actually tell you what's for real, but I
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    was a theological student advisory delegate for
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    the General Assembly that was in Minneapolis.
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    You can find out what year that was.
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    That was when Landon Whitsitt became the vice moderator with which Bruce Reyes-Chow.
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    Was
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    that like a 2011? 2010?
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    Somewhere around there? It was Minneapolis.
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    I was a TSAD but I was also at that
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    time a part of at the
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    time it was called Presbyterian Welcome,
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    which was led by the wonderful Mieke Vandersall who
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    organized these retreats for inquirers
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    and candidates who were gay and lesbian bisexual.
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    I don't remember any of us who were trans at
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    the time, but very.
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    But there are I mean, Presbyterian Welcome would be the
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    gamut of the gendered and sexual identities.
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    So I
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    was already kind of plugged into like the secret society, if you will, of kind of this
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    protected class of inquires and candidates and
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    my
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    proximity to the assembly because I was a TSAD
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    plus my affinity with the
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    Presbyterian Welcome group allowed me to meet some
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    of the leaders of the movement at the time.
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    I'm thinking about me Lisa Larges, I'm
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    thinking about Ray Bagnuolo, I'm thinking about Michael Adee of More
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    Light Presbyterian.
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    I kind of found a home with
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    More Light Presbyterians and I think it started
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    as early as that General Assembly.
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    And since then, I've become a board member.
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    I've served and rolled off of the board of More Light and
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    have been active ever since.
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    And could you speak a little more about your experience with More Light and
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    what that experience has been like?
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    The More Light experience is an amazing experience.
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    These are
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    passionate, knowledgeable
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    individuals who organize
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    congregations throughout the country into
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    this
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    of the abundance of God, that God's abundance
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    holds all of our identities.
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    Right. That the social hierarchy
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    that says normal equals white male,
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    middle class, able bodied,
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    employed, born in the United States
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    kind of thing, is not the only is not
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    the only state of being for us.
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    It includes the leadership and the wisdom of women.
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    It includes the leadership and wisdom of femmes.
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    It includes the leadership and wisdom of indigenous people and trans
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    people and racial ethnic people who are all
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    insistent on
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    being and living as members of the body
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    of Christ.
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    And I'm thinking about that, that I Corinthians 12 Body of Christ,
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    where the hand does not say to the foot, I don't have use for you
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    because you're not acting like a hand, but that the body of
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    Christ needs hands and feet and head and heart
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    in order to function in wholeness.
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    And even as I say that, I'm I'm reminding myself about our
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    people who are differently abled.
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    Right. But I talk about the body of Christ in terms
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    of this idea that the different parts
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    of us are what unites us.
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    Right. It's not to say it's not to prescribe
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    this kind of able bodiedness of the body of Christ.
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    As a matter of fact the
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    ways in which the body of Christ is not able bodied
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    actually means that the parts have to work harder
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    to function together in a certain kind of way.
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    Also related to More Light, how was
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    More Light's mission changed since the passing of Amendment 10-A and 14-F?
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    Well, I think that beats being
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    there in the midst of all of that I think that all
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    of the LGBTQIA affirming organizations
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    like More Light, like Covenant Network, like That All May Freely Serve, I'm not
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    sure if I'm leaving any of the other ones out.
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    When the Book
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    of Order changed everyone
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    had to reassess. So now who are we?
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    So now what does that mean? I suggested at
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    the time this kind of queer of color understanding
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    that even as the PC(USA)
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    was starting to talk about immigration issues, as
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    we're talking about racism as America's
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    original sin, as we're talking about the new Jim Crow and
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    mass incarceration, all of those big issues have
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    implications for LGBT folks of color.
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    Right.
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    All of those issues have class implications for
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    LGBTQIA people of all races, right?
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    That even some of the things in gay
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    liberation politics that we celebrate, like marriage
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    equality, like the ability to serve in the military, like
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    the
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    changes that are happening in some places around accessibility to bathrooms.
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    Right.
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    In many cases, don't
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    even touch the lives of poor, homeless, unemployed
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    people without ID
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    card LGBTQ people.
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    Right. And so there is there is a gap there.
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    On the one hand, in the
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    scholarship, we call it homonormativity that
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    there is this way that the politics of again, this
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    white male, able bodied, middle class gay
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    subject becomes like the overarching norm for
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    the entire spectrum of LGBTQ.
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    But when you read in a lot of the
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    the trans and transgender studies materials,
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    things like the ability to get an I.D.
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    card in the identity of one's
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    heart is a difficult, debilitating, homeless creating
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    circumstance.
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    Right. And so I
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    think that those are the frontiers that
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    we can move into and toward. Certainly the
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    horror of the stories that come from our borders with Mexico, the
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    children in cages. The mother is separated from
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    children. The trans people and the gender nonconforming people
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    who are sent back are probably
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    being sent back to their deaths. They are sent back to bodily
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    violence and loss of life.
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    And that becomes an LGBTQ issue.
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    Yeah, I mean, I just have you on to talk a little bit more
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    about the retreats that you went on with Presbyterian Welcome.
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    The retreats
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    for many of us, if not most of us, were
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    life saving, life
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    affirming experiences.
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    They enabled us to understand
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    that we were not alone.
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    They enabled us to understand that we
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    serve a God and follow a savior
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    who loves and affirms who we are, that
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    we love a church that is sometimes
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    unloving toward us, and that in
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    our particular experience is
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    to gain the strength and the stamina and
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    the imagination to love them anyway.
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    Right. And all of that happened
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    as we are reflecting upon well, what is this call?
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    What does this mean? How does my organizing
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    experience manifest in
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    these challenges? How does my love of preaching manifest
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    in these challenges? How does my
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    excitement for working with children and young people
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    manifest against amid these challenges?
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    Because we are I mean, as followers of
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    the living Christ, we have
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    to be the light that shines in the darkness that the darkness cannot overcome.
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    Even when the darkness looks like our churches, even when the darkness
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    looks like our polity or our rules of discipline.
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    I have a dear colleague who is
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    abundantly blessed with all kinds of gifts
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    for ministry who is being taken up on charges and called
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    incompatible with the teachings of Christ and Hope.
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    And you have to almost laugh at
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    the people who would use like the systems of discipline,
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    the systems of poverty, the ability to bring charges
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    and spend those hundreds and thousands of dollars
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    to prove a case which could be
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    purchasing food, which could be purchasing, establishing
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    shelter and things of that nature.
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    And so the retreats have allowed
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    us to to
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    encourage each other.
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    The retreats have allowed us to love upon and laugh
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    with each other.
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    The retreats have enabled us to even at a time
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    where we're not meeting physically to have electronic means
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    with which to reach one another.
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    It has been an amazing and amazing blessing
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    to all of us. I am so sure that I speak for many when
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    I say that.

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