lesbianchristian

[lesbianchristian]

Why do you believe in god/ christianity?

I'm gonna level with you, it's midnight, so I make no promises on how articulate I can be. The last two paragraphs are really the answers to your question, but I feel this needed some explanation since I haven't made much effort trying to explain what's been going on the past six years.

I've gone through a lot of changes since starting this blog. When I started I was a very devout Christian that was very steadfast in her beliefs who was very sure she was a lesbian. I made this blog to cope with being a queer Christian with a very traditional Christian upbringing. I believed in most of the traditional doctrine: no sex before marriage, hell was real, the Bible is true.

Then I went through a lot of shit. Dropping out of grad school, burnout, health crises, deaths in the family. All of this happened in about the span of two years, where my life burned to the ground. I then spent the next four years rebuilding. I still deal with some sort of health thing every year.

I also started getting exposed to deconstruction and learning a lot more about the history of Christianity, like how we got from 1st century CE to now, universalist theory (is there a hell), that sort of thing.

Some people might say this strengthened their faith. I'm sure my sister would have. But in all of it, I felt very ignored by god. I stopped attending church. I became very angry at god. I never stopped believing that there was a god, but I would describe it to friends as god and I aren't on speaking terms at the moment.

One might say that not attending church and having that sort of relationship with god would probably get your christian membership revoked, but A. I was very private dealing with it and B. after 24 years it's very hard to extricate my existence from Christianity. My entire family is Christian (yes, everyone). I spent literal years of my life (once you count all the hours) spent in church. I am a tangled ball of yarn and

It's a very long story (four years worth), but to make it short I now attend church specifically for the community (I deal with a lot of social anxiety and self isolation, to the point that my atheist friend thinks it's a good idea for me to go). You can do good in a church if their goals align with yours and I go to a liberal one that believes in social justice and caring for the community. In regards to belief, a lot of it I haven't parsed yet and don't know if I will. I don't believe in hell anymore and am basically a universalist Christian. I think there are tenets that are worth following: act justly, love mercy, walk humbly. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome strangers. Love your neighbor. So I call myself a Christian. Partially to avoid making waves in my family (it's complicated, I love them but I also like avoiding making time around them more stressful than it has to be), partially because I don't know if I'll ever be able to see myself as not a Christian. It's like a birthmark.

This may or may not have answered your question about the Christianity bit, though maybe less so on the God part. As for that, I'm sure in many ways it's influenced by the fact that I grew up believing in a god. I'm rational, I can concede that. And I could talk about the years I spent studying chemistry and biology and how it's hard to imagine that everything that exists as we now know it didn't have some sort of cosmic hand to guide things into place. But really, if you held a gun to my head and asked me to really search deep into why I believe in god, it would be because trying to conceptualize that there is no god is like peering off the edge of the Grand Canyon and trying to walk off the ledge. It leaves me untethered, falling. I can't imagine a world in my head where god does not exist for me. But that's for me. Other people can't conceptualize a world where god exists and that's for them. Perhaps some might look down on my reason as not a very good reason and perhaps it's not. But it is why, even through all my anger and screaming, I have never been able to stop believing that there is a god who hears it. Whether he's doing anything about it is another discussion entirely.

#oh also I am no longer a lesbian #I'm just queer #some may ask why no name change then and that's because I've been on hiatus figuring out my religion #if someone wants the blog name feel free to message me #or if anyone has a name suggestion i'm all ears #also this entire thing feels like hurling a block of sodium into water and now I'm waiting for impact

[lesbianchristian]

[lesbianchristian]

[lesbianchristian]

Saw this on r/LGBT and figured my aspec followers would enjoy.

[lesbianchristian]

Apparently the press learned nothing from the AIDS crisis.

[lesbianchristian]

Please Share. LGBTQ Teen Jewish resources save lives. You never know if one of your Facebook friends could use this important information.

[lesbianchristian]

I asked a bunch of people what LGBTQ+ stands for

But none of them gave me a straight answer.

[lesbianchristian]

[lesbianchristian]

Today, July 19 2022, intersex genital mutilation is banned in Greece!! This is the fifth country in the world to ban intersex surgery at birth, and is a huge win for intersex people in Greece. So much appreciation and admiration to the activists from Intersex Greece who worked to pass this bill. The fight is not over, but this is an amazing step towards protecting intersex people.

Check out this article for more info!!

[lesbianchristian]

When our synagogue heard about the horrific tragedy that took place at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, it was at the same time that we were celebrating our festival of Shavuot, which celebrates God’s giving of the Torah.

As Orthodox Jews, we don’t travel or use the Internet on the Sabbath or on holidays, such as Shavuot. But on Sunday night, as we heard the news, I announced from the pulpit that as soon as the holiday ended at 9:17 p.m. Monday, we would travel from our synagogue in Northwest Washington to a gay bar as an act of solidarity.

We just wanted to share the message that we were all in tremendous pain and that our lives were not going on as normal. Even though the holiday is a joyous occasion, I felt tears in my eyes as I recited our sacred prayers.

I had not been to a bar in more than 20 years. And I had never been to a gay bar. Someone in the congregation told me about a bar called the Fireplace, so I announced that as our destination. Afterward, I found out it was predominantly frequented by gay African Americans.

Approximately a dozen of us, wearing our kippot, or yarmulkes, went down as soon as the holiday ended. Some of the members of our group are gay, but most are not. We did not know what to expect. As we gathered outside, we saw one large, drunk man talking loudly and wildly. I wondered whether we were in the right place. Then my mother, who was with me, went up to a man who was standing on the side of the building. She told him why we were there. He broke down in tears and told us his cousin was killed at Pulse. He embraced us and invited us into the Fireplace.

We didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out that we had so much in common. We met everyone in the bar. One of the patrons told me that his stepchildren were actually bar-mitzvahed in our congregation. Another one asked for my card so that his church could come and visit. The bartender shut off all of the music in the room, and the crowd became silent as we offered words of prayer and healing. My co-clergy Maharat Ruth Friedman shared a blessing related to the holiday of Shavuot, and she lit memorial candles on the bar ledge. Then everyone in the bar put their hands around each other’s shoulders, and we sang soulful tunes. After that, one of our congregants bought a round of beer for the whole bar.

Everyone in the bar embraced each other. It was powerful and moving and real and raw.

After that we moved to the outdoor makeshift memorial service at Dupont Circle. There, too, we did not know what to expect. But as we gathered around the circle, people kept coming up to us and embracing us. One man we met there told us that his daughter sometimes prays with us. Others were visiting from Los Angeles but joined in full voice, clearly knowing the Hebrew words to the song we were singing.

As we were singing, I looked over at some gay members of our congregation and saw tears flowing down their faces. I felt the reality that we are living in a time of enormous pain. But I also felt that the night was a tremendous learning experience for me. I learned that when a rabbi and members of an Orthodox synagogue walk into a gay African American bar, it is not the opening line of a joke but an opportunity to connect; it is an opportunity to break down barriers and come together as one; it is an opportunity to learn that if we are going to survive, we all need each other.

I don’t think this article got very much traction last year, but I wanted to share it again.

[lesbianchristian]

How does one go about meeting people? Like in the friendship way.

#im trying the crochet club at the library to try #but other suggestions would help! #i have a lot of trauma involving even friendship so im taking baby steps

[lesbianchristian]

“In the 70s it was black and minority ethnic people, in the 80s it was gay people, trans people are just the latest to get it in the neck from comedians who can’t be bothered to try at their jobs anymore. I cannot stand there and watch another dogshit comedian go: ‘Ooohh if a woman can identify as a man, maybe I’ll identify as a chair!’ Why don’t you identify as good comedians, you hack motherfuckers?!”

- Nish Kumar: “It’s In Your Nature To Destroy Yourselves pt.2”

[lesbianchristian]

CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ABOUT BISEXUALITY

that purple in the middle is not the right saturation, it doesn't fit with the other two colors and it drives me crazy.

[lesbianchristian]

The vicious cycle

Me: I want more than one friend. I should try to find some activities to meet people.

Covid: oh look it's getting real bad in your area again

Trauma: but what if you meet someone else who's abusive

Me: maybe later...

#and then once i feel better BAM covid again and i get scared #i need to be able to be spontaneous otherwise ill overthink it and panic #the worst part about having been abused by a friend is that it has tainted every relationship or potential one #i dont have a spine because im so scared of potential blowout #and its hard to talk about it because so many people don't view friendships as having the capacity to be abusive

[lesbianchristian]

reblog if you think it's okay for lesbians to climb a wall like a lizard

[lesbianchristian]

I don’t want to ‘piss off a terf’, I want to make sure other trans people in my life are safe

[lesbianchristian]

So I was just, I ironically, told 'a protestant never changes it's spots' when I talked about how I had seen equal amounts of Catholics and protestants basically saying the other isn't Christian or in essence they're not the same religion and how I have personal experience of this and like... Do they realize they're just confirming my original point?

#cause people usually say its protestants saying Catholics arent christian #but in my experience both sides do the damn thing #im not trying to deny anti catholic bias exists #but i also get annoyed that catholics won't recognize their own biases #into the controversial zone dededede