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Eric Thomas oral history, 2019.
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- speakerHi, my name's Sonia Prescott and I'm
- speakerhere with Elizabeth Wittrig and we are interviewing Eric Thomas on
- speakerNovember 11 for our oral history.
- speakerSo we'll start off with the first question.
- speakerI noticed that you graduated from ITC, Interdenominational Theological Center.
- speakerI'll just mention as an aside, I also went to the ITC.
- speakerWent to Spelman.
- speakerOh that's wonderful.
- speakerI was going to ask you, you graduated from ITC
- speakerin 2013.
- speakerAnd my first official question,
- speakeris how working with people from different denominations shaped your perspective on the
- speakermovement for LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the PC(USA)?
- speakerI would say in general it's been very
- speakerpositive.
- speakerI think from the outside other
- speakerdenominations, think of the PC(USA) as being very progressive in
- speakerterms of the movement for LGBTQIA inclusion.
- speakerWe were certainly very present
- speakerin news and media when our Book of Order changed
- speakerto allow openly gay and lesbian teaching
- speakerelders to be ordained.
- speakerAnd also again, when our Book of Order was changed
- speakerso that
- speakermarriage is between two people as opposed to a man and a woman.
- speakerAnd so from the outside, it seemed as if
- speakerthe PC(USA) was kind of a leader in that charge.
- speakerFrom the inside, you know, I
- speakerthink that we still have some way, some ways to go.
- speakerI think that, generally speaking, our
- speakervocabulary is expanding to be more inclusive.
- speakerWe're using terminology like Latinx, which also is
- speakersignaling that there is more than the gender binary.
- speakerI know that there are conversations
- speakerabout, formulating a task force, LGBTQIA
- speakerconcerns kind of task force, and
- speakerthose conversations have actually been happening.
- speakerBut to go back to your ecumenical kind of question, I think that it's been really
- speakerit's been good. You know, mostly positive.
- speakerI've experienced as you're asking about the ITC
- speakerwhen we speak about the movement for LGBTQIA
- speakerinclusion as it has to do with race and ethnicity though
- speakerit seems as if the
- speakerPresbyterian Church is somehow disqualified from
- speakerthe conversation about the traditional array of Black
- speakerchurch denominations which are thought of to be Baptist,
- speakerChristian, Methodist, Episcopal
- speakerand the
- speakerChurch of God in Christ and other non-denominational out
- speakershoots of traditional Black denominations.
- speakerAnd so that can sometimes be interesting depending on who is
- speakerspeaking about what.
- speakerCould you also speak a little bit about your path to ordination or what that experience
- speakerwas like?
- speakerI always had a feeling that
- speakerI would be doing some sort of work with the church.
- speakerI grew up in a Baptist church in
- speakerthe Bronx, New York, and a pretty
- speakerworking middle class kind
- speakerof Baptist church that was like,
- speakerI don't want to call it a lightning rod, but it attracted a lot of people who lived
- speakerin that community. It was pastored by
- speakerhow do we call him, like the charismatic leader, the charismatic
- speakerleader who excites people in worship.
- speakerAlso has a social justice kind of leaning.
- speakerHis name was Nathaniel Tyler Lloyd.
- speakerThis was Trinity Baptist Church in the northwest section
- speakerof the Bronx.
- speakerAnd my family was a family that was very active
- speakerin the music ministry. So my grandparents sang in the senior choir
- speakerand my aunt sang in the gospel choir.
- speakerMy father plays the flute.
- speakerI grew up with piano lessons and singing and so forth.
- speakerAnd as I, you know, got my
- speakermy spiritual formation in the church, my
- speakermusic took me to the High School of Music and Art.
- speakerAnd so
- speakergraduating as a tenor who sight reads, the world
- speakerbecomes a very welcoming kind of place.
- speakerAnd so some of my ecumenical experiences,
- speakeryou know, began even there in going from high school and to college,
- speakerbeing able to go to Methodist churches and the Episcopal churches, the kinds of
- speakerchurches that hired musicians to do things like the
- speakerMessiah or the Dubois, Seven Last Words of Christ or the Christmas
- speakerCantatas or things like that.
- speakerSo I was able to have a varying array of experiences
- speakerand, you know, kind of reflect
- speakerback on my understanding of my relationship
- speakerto God. My status of salvation as a
- speakerBlack gay man in these different
- speakerworshiping communities.
- speakerAnd so life took me to
- speakerAtlanta, Georgia.
- speakerAnd I was working with the National Black
- speakerArts Festival as their director of marketing.
- speakerAnd that is where I encountered Rock Spring Presbyterian
- speakerChurch, which was a predominantly white church actually
- speakerin midtown Atlanta.
- speakerAnd they I sang with them as their tenor soloist
- speakerfor a few years.
- speakerAnd in the midst of that period, this was around 2006, 2007
- speakeror so
- speakerI was asked, you know, what did I think about going to seminary?
- speakerLike, I always had this understanding that I would be singing or participating
- speakerin the worship of the church, but I never saw myself on the other side
- speakerof the sanctuary.
- speakerSo in other words, I you know, from childhood into
- speakermy 30s, my geographical location in the sanctuary was where
- speakerthe choir was, where the musicians were.
- speakerAnd so even as a seminarian, it was a strange
- speakerthing to be on the other side where they were at the pulpit where the preaching
- speakerhappens.
- speakerAnd so that was an interesting kind of
- speakergrowth spurt, if you will.
- speakerIn many ways, and I grew into this
- speakerarticulation of call to be
- speakera minister of word and sacrament, to be a teaching elder, that
- speakerthere were there was lived experience that
- speakerI had to offer as well as the academic
- speakerexperience that I got from the ITC,
- speakerspecifically Johnson C. Smith which was the
- speakerPresbyterian Seminary in the complex that is the ITC,
- speakerto say something
- speakerto the world about an LGBT Christian
- speakerexperience.
- speakerSo another question I had was how have you formed spiritual communities outside of the
- speakerPresbyterian Church?
- speakerOh, I mean, the interesting thing about
- speakerbeing an Inquirer and a candidate in Atlanta
- speakeris that Rock Spring was physically located,
- speakerthree traffic lights away from Division Church of
- speakerAtlanta, which was, I would say like
- speakera Church of God in Christ, underpinned, affirming
- speakerkind of church. So these were lesbian, gay, bisexual
- speakerand trans ministers who were
- speakergrowing this congregation, like literally
- speakerdown the block from Rock Spring.
- speakerAnd so I was able to have
- speakera very how shall we call
- speakerit, a very cerebral kind of experience from
- speakerlike eleven o'clock to twelve and get in the car and
- speakerbe at the affirming church with the tambourines
- speakerand the hand clapping and the drums and so forth bny twelve thirty.
- speakerAnd so I was able to have both sides of that experience.
- speakerIt was also a great opportunity
- speakerto be able to synthesize the two experiences together
- speakerin some cases.
- speakerI recognized someone's
- speakergrandmother's COGIC church in gay face.
- speakerWhat I mean is that the only thing that really changed
- speakeris the outward expression of sexual identity.
- speakerBut a lot of the covering of one's head and the lap cloths,
- speakera lot of the gendered kinds of things that you see in some more
- speakerkind of like strict holiness kinds of traditions were still at work there.
- speakerSome of the gendered things in terms of lots of men
- speakerin leadership, lots of kind of like pushing to the side
- speakerof trans women, femme men
- speakerand masculine identifying lesbians.
- speakerSo you saw a lot of the same kinds of things that we wrestle
- speakerwith in quote unquote normative spaces happening in these gay spaces.
- speakerAnd so that was interesting.
- speakerThat was interesting to me. It makes things like our Transgender
- speakerDay of Remembrance that much more important to me.
- speakerNow, even
- speakerin this season, 2019 as World AIDS Day
- speakerand the first Sunday of Advent happens on December 1st I'm
- speakercreating at my church in Brooklyn testimonies
- speakerof grace.
- speakerAnd so it will be like a praise and worship
- speakerand testimony kind of service
- speakerset up for those who are living with
- speakerHIV and AIDS in whatever way or shape that
- speakerthey identify as.
- speakerSo it could be family members.
- speakerIt could be friends. It could be the sort of support system.
- speakerSo, I mean, I think that we're all in one way or another living with HIV and AIDS.
- speakerBut this becomes a way in, quote unquote, normative space
- speakerto make normal.
- speakerThe fact that people have been surviving and thriving
- speakerin spite of a lot of homophobia
- speakerand transphobia and biphobia and kind of the
- speakerspiritual silencing
- speakerand erasing of the effects
- speakerof the epidemic.
- speakerAnd I'm using Revelation Chapter 12,
- speakerverses 10 and 11 that says
- speakerthey conquered by the blood of the lamb
- speakerand the word of their testimonies.
- speakerRight. So this idea of advent, what is coming
- speakerright becomes this ability to conquer and survive
- speakerand thrive because of this connection
- speakeror connection to the salvational nature of the coming
- speakerChrist.
- speakerAnd by being able to speak out of
- speakersilence or out of shame or out of betrayals
- speakeror out of the other kinds of stumbling blocks
- speakerthat well-meaning Christian people put in front of
- speakerour gay and lesbian trans folks
- speakerwho are living with HIV and AIDS.
- speakerI'm actually going off on that question.
- speakerI was thinking how supportive had you found the community within
- speakeryour church in Brooklyn have you found them to be to kind
- speakerof new initiatives or new directions?
- speakerI know it's a historic congregation and sometimes that can help or hinder you know when you
- speakerwant to take a more progressive lean. So how has that been?
- speakerI have to say, I have been extremely blessed by
- speakerthe members of Siloam Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn.
- speakerThey called and ordain me as their interim
- speakerpastor as an openly gay, married
- speakerteaching elder.
- speakerSo, I mean, from the first day that we walked through the door,
- speakerlike even in the when I was meeting with what
- speakerwhat we call our pastor nominating committee of the church, I was very
- speakeropen with them because I have the kind of life experience
- speakerof people having to hide who they are or
- speakerhope that they don't get caught up or something like that.
- speakerRight. There is a whole kind of culture that
- speakeris perhaps the culture of the generation before mine where you
- speakerjust didn't say, you know, this is my roommate or this is my lifelong
- speakerfriend, but one didn't announce themselves as a lesbian
- speakeror as a gay man or as and certainly not in a relationship.
- speakerRight.
- speakerBut the the blessing of all of that
- speakeris that just as I am, without one plea,
- speakerthe church called me to be their pastor.
- speakerAnd I as
- speakerthis was my first call, I was trying to do
- speakereverything that I could do kind of by the book, like,
- speakeryou know, running a session meeting in decency and order and having the
- speakersermon title to the secretary on the Tuesday before, doing
- speakerall those things that you think that a pastor is supposed to do.
- speakerAnd in the doing of that, I think that a trust developed
- speakerso that I was not trying to change who they were and they weren't trying
- speakerto change who I am. And so we got to be who we be,
- speakeras it were, in the midst of all of that.
- speakerSo you are currently working or you've
- speakercompleted your PhD?
- speakerI'm finishing my PhD at Drew University in New
- speakerTestament and Early Christianity.
- speakerCould you talk a little bit about your research focus and how this
- speakerimpacts your ministry?
- speakerYes, my research focus is on a
- speakerqueer of color biblical criticism.
- speakerAnd queer of color critique comes
- speakerfrom a moment in time in about the
- speakerearly 2000s. It's a response by theorists
- speakerto the fact that in racial ethnic communities the
- speakerqueer or the LGBT tends to be erased.
- speakerSo, for example, you could say the Black church or
- speakerthe African-American community with an assumption that everybody
- speakerin the Black church and everybody in the in the African-American community is straight.
- speakerOn the one hand, and on the other hand, it
- speakerraises the
- speakerparticipation of racial ethnic people in LGBTQ spaces.
- speakerSo when you say the gay liberation movement, when you say the
- speakergay community, when you say that LGBTQ history project, one
- speakercould assume that you're talking about white people.So
- speakerthis queer of color kind of movement speaks
- speakerto racial, ethnic, queer people in both racial, ethnic and LGBT
- speakerspaces.
- speakerSo an example of that might be that we
- speakercannot talk about the history of Stonewall without talking about Sylvia Rivera, without
- speakertalking about Marsha P. Johnson, because we could talk
- speakerabout this history in this kind of way that a
- speakerbunch of people who looked like the village, the YMCA village people decided that
- speakerthey were going to fight back. And here's the Stonewall rebellion.
- speakerRight. But it's really people of color.
- speakerIt's really kind of like the marginalized folks who were
- speakerhanging out at the Stonewall Inn, along with the with the white gay and lesbian folks
- speakerwho are also activists at the time.
- speakerBut this is this
- speakeris an interruption of multiplicity.
- speakerIt's an interruption of multiplicity.
- speakerAnother example of that is that when we talk about the African American church or
- speakerthe Civil Rights Movement, we will hear all about Martin Luther King and we won't hear
- speakerthat Bayard Rustin helped to organize the
- speakermarch on Washington in 1963. We think about gospel
- speakermusic and we don't see if
- speakerwe don't know how to look at the number of gay
- speakermen, lesbian women who make up these choirs, who make up
- speakerthe composers of the music, who in
- speakermany ways, when you look at queer performances, help
- speakerto shape the static of
- speakerwhat the choir director does or what the soloist does and
- speakerthings like that, those things get erased. Right.
- speakerAnd so the
- speakerquestion is, how do we bring those things to bear? And when we talk about a
- speakercontextualized biblical interpretation so we say contextualized
- speakerbiblical interpretation, an example of that might be feminist hermeneutics
- speakerin biblical interpretation.
- speakerSo, for example, a feminist, her hermeneutic looks at
- speakerthe presence or the absence of women in the text.
- speakerWhat are they doing? What do they want? How are they participating in the story?
- speakerRight. And so a queer of color hermeneutic
- speakerof biblical interpretation looks at that overlap
- speakerthat intersection between queerness and racial ethnic identity.
- speakerSo, for example, the man who had the
- speakerlegions in Mark 5.
- speakerSo we see this this this man who has the
- speakermetaphor is as many demons as there are soldiers
- speakerin the Roman army and Jesus casts out these demons and
- speakerthe man we know the man because he cuts himself with stones
- speakerand they try to change him, but he breaks his chains.
- speakerAnd when Jesus comes and intervenes on his behalf, when
- speakerhe is clothed and in his right mind, that's when the people are afraid.
- speakerThat's when the people are afraid and they want Jesus and the man to go,
- speakerright. And when we think about
- speakerthe numbers of homeless youth who have been shut
- speakeraway from their communities, right.
- speakerTo be living people in dead spaces
- speakerlike the dead space that we find the man in Mark 5, we can see
- speakerhow that happens to a lot of a lot
- speakerof Black and Latinx folks.
- speakerAnd so those demons are demons of shame and demons of homophobia and demons
- speakerof respectability politics and demons of all of those things that
- speakerseparate us from community, that separate us from hospitality,
- speakerthat separate us from safety, that separate us from love of community.
- speakerAnd there's some way that the society
- speakeris normativised devised by that person's dysfunction.
- speakerEverything is fine. The pigs are fine.
- speakerThe people are fine. The tombs are fine.
- speakerEverything is fine as long as this person is cutting themselves with stones.
- speakerAnd how do we see that manifest in some of our, like, everyday
- speakerkinds of experiences? And how does race and ethnicity factor
- speakerinto that? But then when the man with
- speakerthe legion is released from the demons
- speakerclothed and in their right mind, the man
- speakerasks to go with Jesus, and Jesus says, nope, you go into
- speakerthe capital as you go into the cities.
- speakerAnd so I what I get from that is that there are
- speakerministries that those we think of as marginalized
- speakerhave. To put it another way, people who have been
- speakerin the rough places and spaces are more likely
- speakerto be able to make a difference in those places
- speakerthan any of the three of us who have never been in those places.
- speakerSo we all have a call.
- speakerWe all have a ministry.
- speakerBut we can look at the story of Mark 5, the 1 through 20
- speakeras a way that
- speakermany folks in the LGBTQ community find
- speakerthemselves in.
- speakerSo that's an example.
- speakerNext, I just wanted to
- speakerask when did you become involved in the movement for LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the
- speakerPresbyterian Church? Was there a particular moment or catalyst that brought you into this movement?
- speakerI am trying to remember if
- speakerit was the General Assembly in
- speakerMinneapolis. I'm sorry. I like I can, I can I can kind of go
- speakerback into the database and actually tell you what's for real, but I
- speakerwas a theological student advisory delegate for
- speakerthe General Assembly that was in Minneapolis.
- speakerYou can find out what year that was.
- speakerThat was when Landon Whitsitt became the vice moderator with which Bruce Reyes-Chow.
- speakerWas
- speakerthat like a 2011? 2010?
- speakerSomewhere around there? It was Minneapolis.
- speakerI was a TSAD but I was also at that
- speakertime a part of at the
- speakertime it was called Presbyterian Welcome,
- speakerwhich was led by the wonderful Mieke Vandersall who
- speakerorganized these retreats for inquirers
- speakerand candidates who were gay and lesbian bisexual.
- speakerI don't remember any of us who were trans at
- speakerthe time, but very.
- speakerBut there are I mean, Presbyterian Welcome would be the
- speakergamut of the gendered and sexual identities.
- speakerSo I
- speakerwas already kind of plugged into like the secret society, if you will, of kind of this
- speakerprotected class of inquires and candidates and
- speakermy
- speakerproximity to the assembly because I was a TSAD
- speakerplus my affinity with the
- speakerPresbyterian Welcome group allowed me to meet some
- speakerof the leaders of the movement at the time.
- speakerI'm thinking about me Lisa Larges, I'm
- speakerthinking about Ray Bagnuolo, I'm thinking about Michael Adee of More
- speakerLight Presbyterian.
- speakerI kind of found a home with
- speakerMore Light Presbyterians and I think it started
- speakeras early as that General Assembly.
- speakerAnd since then, I've become a board member.
- speakerI've served and rolled off of the board of More Light and
- speakerhave been active ever since.
- speakerAnd could you speak a little more about your experience with More Light and
- speakerwhat that experience has been like?
- speakerThe More Light experience is an amazing experience.
- speakerThese are
- speakerpassionate, knowledgeable
- speakerindividuals who organize
- speakercongregations throughout the country into
- speakerthis
- speakerof the abundance of God, that God's abundance
- speakerholds all of our identities.
- speakerRight. That the social hierarchy
- speakerthat says normal equals white male,
- speakermiddle class, able bodied,
- speakeremployed, born in the United States
- speakerkind of thing, is not the only is not
- speakerthe only state of being for us.
- speakerIt includes the leadership and the wisdom of women.
- speakerIt includes the leadership and wisdom of femmes.
- speakerIt includes the leadership and wisdom of indigenous people and trans
- speakerpeople and racial ethnic people who are all
- speakerinsistent on
- speakerbeing and living as members of the body
- speakerof Christ.
- speakerAnd I'm thinking about that, that I Corinthians 12 Body of Christ,
- speakerwhere the hand does not say to the foot, I don't have use for you
- speakerbecause you're not acting like a hand, but that the body of
- speakerChrist needs hands and feet and head and heart
- speakerin order to function in wholeness.
- speakerAnd even as I say that, I'm I'm reminding myself about our
- speakerpeople who are differently abled.
- speakerRight. But I talk about the body of Christ in terms
- speakerof this idea that the different parts
- speakerof us are what unites us.
- speakerRight. It's not to say it's not to prescribe
- speakerthis kind of able bodiedness of the body of Christ.
- speakerAs a matter of fact the
- speakerways in which the body of Christ is not able bodied
- speakeractually means that the parts have to work harder
- speakerto function together in a certain kind of way.
- speakerAlso related to More Light, how was
- speakerMore Light's mission changed since the passing of Amendment 10-A and 14-F?
- speakerWell, I think that beats being
- speakerthere in the midst of all of that I think that all
- speakerof the LGBTQIA affirming organizations
- speakerlike More Light, like Covenant Network, like That All May Freely Serve, I'm not
- speakersure if I'm leaving any of the other ones out.
- speakerWhen the Book
- speakerof Order changed everyone
- speakerhad to reassess. So now who are we?
- speakerSo now what does that mean? I suggested at
- speakerthe time this kind of queer of color understanding
- speakerthat even as the PC(USA)
- speakerwas starting to talk about immigration issues, as
- speakerwe're talking about racism as America's
- speakeroriginal sin, as we're talking about the new Jim Crow and
- speakermass incarceration, all of those big issues have
- speakerimplications for LGBT folks of color.
- speakerRight.
- speakerAll of those issues have class implications for
- speakerLGBTQIA people of all races, right?
- speakerThat even some of the things in gay
- speakerliberation politics that we celebrate, like marriage
- speakerequality, like the ability to serve in the military, like
- speakerthe
- speakerchanges that are happening in some places around accessibility to bathrooms.
- speakerRight.
- speakerIn many cases, don't
- speakereven touch the lives of poor, homeless, unemployed
- speakerpeople without ID
- speakercard LGBTQ people.
- speakerRight. And so there is there is a gap there.
- speakerOn the one hand, in the
- speakerscholarship, we call it homonormativity that
- speakerthere is this way that the politics of again, this
- speakerwhite male, able bodied, middle class gay
- speakersubject becomes like the overarching norm for
- speakerthe entire spectrum of LGBTQ.
- speakerBut when you read in a lot of the
- speakerthe trans and transgender studies materials,
- speakerthings like the ability to get an I.D.
- speakercard in the identity of one's
- speakerheart is a difficult, debilitating, homeless creating
- speakercircumstance.
- speakerRight. And so I
- speakerthink that those are the frontiers that
- speakerwe can move into and toward. Certainly the
- speakerhorror of the stories that come from our borders with Mexico, the
- speakerchildren in cages. The mother is separated from
- speakerchildren. The trans people and the gender nonconforming people
- speakerwho are sent back are probably
- speakerbeing sent back to their deaths. They are sent back to bodily
- speakerviolence and loss of life.
- speakerAnd that becomes an LGBTQ issue.
- speaker
- speakerYeah, I mean, I just have you on to talk a little bit more
- speakerabout the retreats that you went on with Presbyterian Welcome.
- speakerThe retreats
- speakerfor many of us, if not most of us, were
- speakerlife saving, life
- speakeraffirming experiences.
- speakerThey enabled us to understand
- speakerthat we were not alone.
- speakerThey enabled us to understand that we
- speakerserve a God and follow a savior
- speakerwho loves and affirms who we are, that
- speakerwe love a church that is sometimes
- speakerunloving toward us, and that in
- speakerour particular experience is
- speakerto gain the strength and the stamina and
- speakerthe imagination to love them anyway.
- speakerRight. And all of that happened
- speakeras we are reflecting upon well, what is this call?
- speakerWhat does this mean? How does my organizing
- speakerexperience manifest in
- speakerthese challenges? How does my love of preaching manifest
- speakerin these challenges? How does my
- speakerexcitement for working with children and young people
- speakermanifest against amid these challenges?
- speakerBecause we are I mean, as followers of
- speakerthe living Christ, we have
- speakerto be the light that shines in the darkness that the darkness cannot overcome.
- speakerEven when the darkness looks like our churches, even when the darkness
- speakerlooks like our polity or our rules of discipline.
- speakerI have a dear colleague who is
- speakerabundantly blessed with all kinds of gifts
- speakerfor ministry who is being taken up on charges and called
- speakerincompatible with the teachings of Christ and Hope.
- speakerAnd you have to almost laugh at
- speakerthe people who would use like the systems of discipline,
- speakerthe systems of poverty, the ability to bring charges
- speakerand spend those hundreds and thousands of dollars
- speakerto prove a case which could be
- speakerpurchasing food, which could be purchasing, establishing
- speakershelter and things of that nature.
- speakerAnd so the retreats have allowed
- speakerus to to
- speakerencourage each other.
- speakerThe retreats have allowed us to love upon and laugh
- speakerwith each other.
- speakerThe retreats have enabled us to even at a time
- speakerwhere we're not meeting physically to have electronic means
- speakerwith which to reach one another.
- speakerIt has been an amazing and amazing blessing
- speakerto all of us. I am so sure that I speak for many when
- speakerI say that.