#127: What gay Christians experience in church (with Bridget Eileen Rivera)

Bridget Eileen Rivera comes to The Puddcast this month to share what it’s like for LGBTQ Christians in the church today. Her book, Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church, is a compassionate, heartbreaking exposé on the theological and sociological structures that block queer Christians from pursuing Christ together. Bridget shared her journey of growing up believing she was an object of wrath, before diving into Scripture to find the truth of her belovedness. We explore some of the different ways queer Christians live out their faithfulness and the importance of allowing everyone the dignity to follow the Holy Spirit. I commend this discussion to you as strongly as I can.

Order Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church by Bridget Eileen Rivera
Learn more about Bridget at meditationsofatravelingnun.com
Follow Bridget on Twitter and Instagram.

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Check out the B-Side!

Once you’ve listened to this, make sure to check out the raw and uncut B-Side interview where my friends and I unpack the conversation in even more detail. Available exclusively on Patreon.

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Transcription

Bridget Eileen Rivera  00:00

I don't know a single Gay Christian who has not spent years searching through God's word to understand what it has to say for how they should live their life and how they should live out their sexuality. And I contrast that with most straight Christians that I know, the vast majority that I know just kind of take for granted what they grew up learning. I honestly don't know any straight Christians that spent years trying to figure out whether or not they should get married to their spouse, honestly, like maybe maybe the world would be better if people did.

Jonathan Puddle  00:37

Hey, friends, welcome back to The Puddcast with me, Jonathan puddle. This is episode 127. My guest today is Bridget Eileen Rivera. And we are talking all about the burdens that LGBTQ Christians have to face in trying to engage with church life, the particular kind of suffering that queer believers endure. Bridgette is the author of a book called Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church. And to be completely honest with you guys, I have not been more impacted by a book in a little while. I know that you might think that's true for me all the time because I say things like that. I'm always honest, I'm always honest, when I say that, but there are degrees of impact, you know what I'm saying? And this book has left me crying with grief, shaking with rage, and more than anything asking the Holy Spirit, what do I do with this information? And so I wholeheartedly commend this discussion to you, Bridget's work to you, and this book, Heavy Burdens to you. We're gonna dive right into conversation and then I will talk briefly again at the end about where to learn more. All right, Bridget Eileen Rivera, right here on The Puddcast.  Bridget, I'm so excited to welcome you to The Puddcast. I have been following you for a couple of years. I've been chewing through this book, Heavy Burdens, and I have I have been so so impacted. So it's an honor to get to share some time with you here today. Thank you.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  02:22

Well, thank you so much for inviting me to have this conversation. I'm just yeah, I'm really excited to get to talk with you about the book and just about LGBTQ issues in general.

Jonathan Puddle  02:32

Yeah, yeah. So I, I My father is a gay Christian, in a committed relationship with another gay Christian. My I, I'm I have, we have a lot of gay friends in our life—believing and otherwise. We have gay friends that are celibate. We have gay friends that are in heterosexual relationships. I've got one great friend who lived as a practicing gay men for a number of years, felt it wasn't actually life giving for him, met a single woman that he was attracted to the only woman he's ever been drawn to, that married her. So I have I have a lot of friends all across kind of that spectrum. And then we have friends and family. Yeah, with, with trans journeys and friends with intersex difficulties, as well as folks that have no grid for the conversation, and can have only ever been offered a Bible that seems to them clearly condemning of something that society is now promoting, and Disney and their evil Gay Agenda, and so on and so forth.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  03:52

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  03:53

So, so my wife and I occupy this kind of middle ground, trying to lovingly serve everybody. And...

Bridget Eileen Rivera  04:00

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  04:01

And in your writing, both on your your blog and your Twitter, and in this book, I've just found such a come more than anything a compassionate voice, someone who deeply cares about what this rhetoric and what these words and what these policies and rules and laws actually mean to human beings. And, and in a way that has affected me quite profoundly. And so I would love if you would walk us through if you're comfortable some of your own story. And then I'd love to get into some of this book with you.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  04:39

Yeah, so I grew up in conservative evangelical Christianity. I was part of the homeschool evangelical movement. Very involved in that community, to the point that I even went to college at Patrick Henry College, which for those that are familiar with it, it's the first, and I think still the only college in the country that was founded specifically for homeschool students, homeschool Christian students. And so that was the college that I went to. So just very conservative Christian environment. And so, you know, I guess you can imagine what the teaching was on LGBTQ issues. And the teaching, you know, I can't necessarily say we ever, like discussed it head on. Like there were there was never, you know, you know, a specific sermon that was about LGBTQ issues, it was one of those things where it was referenced, kind of in passing, as you know, an example of something sinful, or just a reference to the demise of our culture, and how society is, you know, falling to the enemy, things like that. And always in the context of sin, always in the context of God's wrath and judgments, our country, falling apart and needing to be saved. And because I grew up in a Reformed Church, it was taught that God gave LGBTQ people gave them over to their desires, and particularly talking about gay people, that gave them over to homosexual desires as a punishment for their rebellion against Him. And so homosexuality itself was a form of God's judgment against you, if you "got the gay," then it's because you had already previously rebelled against God in some kind of terrible way. And this was kind of like a mark of God's judgment. And we would be then vessels of wrath, prepared by God for distraction in reference to the verse that where Paul speaks to that. So that was kind of the teaching that I grew up with, I never really thought about it a ton. Because it was always a background thing. And, and I never really thought that it was possible that I could be gay—again, because I was a faithful Christian, I loved Jesus. And I'd never, you know, everybody has sin in their life. I've never done anything, like awful. I certainly wasn't rebelling against God. And so when I slowly put the pieces together and realized, oh, shoot, I am gay, I'm attracted to women, it was unbelievably shocking. The like, it was like my entire world just fell apart and crumbled to pieces around me and everything that I thought I had understood about everything, just all of a sudden, was gone. Every everything that I thought I knew about myself that I thought about, I knew about my relationship with God, and about my future. It just all was just thrown into chaos. And, and that it was at that point that a lot of the teaching that I had received over the years now, came front and center. And you know, I remembered the sermons were the pastor referred to gay people as vessels of wrath I, I remembered every last reference to sin and the demise of our culture in reference to gay people. And it particularly, you know, haunted me, this idea that because I was gay, I had been marked as someone that was displeasing to God, and was destined for destruction. As a result of that. And in Reformed theology, it's believed that you can't lose your salvation. So instead, when someone walks away from the faith, it's, it's believed that they were never saved to begin with. And so I was like, Oh my gosh, like, I am, like, I'm gay. This means that there is something thing in my life that like God has judged as wanting. And even though I don't see it now, at some point, I am just going to discover that I was never really saved to begin with. And you know, the verses where Jesus said, you know, "Many will say to me on the last day, Lord, Lord, did I not do all of these things in her name, and I will turn to them and say, Depart from me, for I never knew you," I was like, Oh my gosh, like, that's that maybe that's me? This whole time, I thought I was following Jesus. But like, maybe I'm one of those people, where I'm going to get to the end of my life. And I'm going to like, say, Lord, Lord, and Jesus is going to reject me. And so like those fears, just really, really impacted me in a very psychologically tormenting way.

Jonathan Puddle  11:00

Absolutely!

Bridget Eileen Rivera  11:00

Um, and it really, it took me a really long time to, I guess, recover spiritually from that. And, you know, on top of that, you know, wrestling spiritually, with those things, going through other, you know, relational difficulties with my church, where I never actually came out to anyone, and that people started figuring it out. And I think, you know, it was just a result of, for whatever reason, people could just tell, you know, sometimes you can just tell when someone's queer, and I guess, for whatever reason, I had just reached a point in my life, where people could just tell that I was gay, without me doing anything. And so rumors started to spread, people started talking behind my back. And there was one time a couple saw me briefly hold the hand of another girl, and they reported me to the pastor, and I got, like, pulled into the office, and it was this whole big to do. And it was just a very difficult time, just dealing with all of that, and all of the meetings and all of the interventions that were going on, and, you know, there's this understanding of like, accountability, quote, unquote, that I think can be very harmful, where, you know, tactics of control are masked as holding you accountable. And, you know, that's, that's kind of, you know, a lot of what you know, took place in my life at the time, I was given a long list of things that I could not do in my life, including things like walking into the my roommate's bedroom, drinking alcohol with my roommate, things like that, they were freaked out that I had a roommate at all. So I was, you know, that all was going on kind of at the same time as I was having this spiritual crisis. And it just, it took a really long time for me to, I guess, get past that. And I found that the the big thing for me, was getting back to God's Word and the truth of what I knew to be true from Scripture, and really returning to that, and studying what God has said in Scripture, and coming to realize that what I had been taught was a lie. And in that respect, I'm actually very grateful for how I was raised because it was my Reformed Church that really grounded me in theology and solid doctrine, and understanding hermeneutics and how to properly interpret Scripture. Which is always so ironic to me, because they also are the ones that had such simplistic interpretations of passages supposedly related to homosexuality. And yet at the same time, for everything else in the Bible, there was this very developed method of understanding Scripture and taking it seriously. And so because I had that foundation, I was able to, you know, go to Scripture and be like, No, this these are the truths of God's Word. And these principles that I've learned for understanding God's word, I need to be willing to apply those principles equally to these passages that supposedly tell me that I'm condemned. And that process really helped me to slowly walk out of that place and get to a better spiritual footing, where I started realizing that my relationship with God was not something that could be put in jeopardy just because I was gay.

Jonathan Puddle  15:15

Wow. Thank you. That is, that's powerful. And I can only I mean, and heartbreaking. The trauma in that. Fascinating that what you described there about how essentially your theological and scholastic rigor propelled you to... see, because even when you say things like "the truth of God's Word," I can hear one voice in my head that's like, yeah, the truth of God's word that the gays are all going to..., you know. But then there's this, there's this increasingly dominant voice in my head, gently dominant, that says, yes, the truth of God's word, like, all created in my image are my children. And...

Bridget Eileen Rivera  16:05

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  16:05

I love you. And it is it is the grace of God, the kindness that leads people not condemnation, all these things that I know as what you're actually referring to. So you walk us through in the in the book, you walk the reader through some of the history around those verses. And what I thought was so fascinating is that you're not making a particular argument against or for any particular interpretation, really, you're just saying, let's be rigorous. Actually, the other thing too, that boggled my mind early on, I think it's even the first chapter is the the origins of the sex/pleasure, kind of connection. Because in my... the tradition that I came from, was very much like the the, "the progressive agenda," and wagging their finger at Hollywood, and these others, and the dirty dirty feminists who ruined everything. And, and you, you took us back to Luther and Calvin, and I wonder if you could just walk through a little bit of some of that history as well as the the language of, of homosexuality, because that was very fascinating to me.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  17:16

Yeah. So probably the first thing that I address and you're right, right off the bat in Chapter One is the idea that the sexual revolution spelled the doom of our society. And I walk readers through the fact that the, the mindsets of the sexual revolution actually aren't anything new. And in fact, you can trace those very mindsets, all the way back to the Protestant reformers, the founding fathers of Protestantism. And you can really understand the Protestant Reformation, as a Protestant sexual revolution. It was the first sexual revolution that gifted the Western world with the vast majority of sexual mindsets that we now take for granted. Things like God gave us sex, for pleasure, for enjoyment, things like the person that you marry, you want to be romantically attracted to. Things like sure having sex, the you know, a nice byproduct of that is that we get to have children—but it's not a necessary byproduct. All of these assumptions that we have about sex today are just, you know, concepts that would have been completely foreign to the vast majority of Christians in the western world 500 years ago. And then boom, the Protestant Reformation happened. And, you know, most people know that Luther is the one who tore down the mandate for priests to be celibate. Um, and that's general knowledge. What most people don't know is how Luther tore down that mandate. And in order to tear down the mandate that priests be celibate, he had to go he had to attack directly, the ways of thinking about sex that were prevalent at the time. And one of the things that was prevalent at the time was that sex was something that was inherently evil, and was necessary only for procreation. You know, the only reason you should have sex is to make babies otherwise, it is inherently sinful. In fact, having sex is the way that that original sin passes from you to your child. And so that was the belief at the time. And that belief has tons and tons of problems with it. And yes, I am, I am glad that Luther tore down those mindsets. But in in its place, Luther argued that sexuality is an inherent part of human nature, that having sex itself is not just a nice thing that you get to do—it's a necessary thing. And I walked through the book, direct quotes from Luther, where he compares having sex to being a man, or being a woman. To needing to eat because you're hungry, to needing, needing to drink water, he compares sex to all of these things. And he says, sex is a necessary part of human nature. That was radical. And that was the radical thinking that tore down the mandate of celibacy. Because if you require someone to be celibate, you're requiring them to deny their very human nature that God created within them. So you can't like to require celibacy is to reject God's created order. And so, this, this was the rationale that propelled the thinking of the Protestant Reformation. And it was the first time... this was the beginning of thinking about sexuality, as as an identity, as part of human identity. Previously, sex was, you know, considered something that you do. Now sex is what you are, it's part of who we are as human beings. And sex had never been thought of that ever before. And a lot of people consider things like sexual identity, sexual orientation as these assaults upon you know, God's Word and Christian thinking, but people don't realize is this idea of sexuality as integral to human identity, is has been fundamentally embedded in Protestant thinking, since the very beginning and has been essential to the rationales given for a lot of things. So from, from there, from, you know, tearing down the requirement for priests to be celibate it was not a large leap to tear down the requirement for people that are divorced to be celibate. And so, you know, previously, if you divorce your husband or your wife, then that was it. You had one shot at a successful marriage. It didn't work out? Now you're stuck being celibate for the rest of your life. And Luther was like, how does that makes sense? That makes no sense at all. Um, and so there we see the introduction of remarriage. From there, it was not a huge leap to justify divorce in a variety of circumstances. And the rationale was, well, if you're not attracted to your husband, or your wife, and it's not working out for a variety of reasons, often sexual sin, then it makes perfect sense to divorce them and find someone else that can that can be a better partner for you. And then from there, it was not a huge leap. And so all of this thinking it was just step by step, and this idea that sex is necessary. And from there, it was not a huge leap to start justifying birth control and contraception. And previously, contraception was considered equivalent to murder. In fact, contraception was the most common form of sodomy that that was understood prior to the Reformation. Most people think of sodomy as homosexuality, in fact, the most common form of sodomy was non-procreative sex. Um, and so was not a huge leap to say, You know what, like, it's a huge burden on a couple to have to be celibate, unless they're ready to have children. That's just like, not fair to them. And so, you know, birth control makes perfect sense. So previously, that would have been considered murder. Now it's okay. And then from there was not a huge leap to be like, You know what? Abortion is kind of necessary. And when you look back into the 70s, the Southern Baptist Church, actually was totally okay with abortion, and actually supported it. And only only switched its thinking, with the beginning of the culture wars...

Jonathan Puddle  25:51

That's right.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  25:51

... at the end of end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s. So like, that's the whole trajectory here. And I like walk through it in more detail in the book. But when you understand that trajectory, it's just like, wow, it's mind blowing. You know, we have this conception of the sexual revolution, being this like secular, anti Christian thing. In fact, the mindsets beneath it are very much the same mindsets that have always been present. All along to begin with. Yeah,

Jonathan Puddle  26:27

That's just it's just so fascinating. My mind goes in so many different directions with that, right. Like, I think in this in this current time, when we are trying to parse out the toxic aspects of purity culture that we grew up with, we're looking at leaders who, who we thought we trusted turning out to have been closet abusers for years. You know, it paints a picture of a really sex obsessed evangelicalism.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  27:05

Mhmmm.

Jonathan Puddle  27:06

And I remember, I remember thinking, this, let me finish this sentence listeners before you prejudge what I'm about to say. I remember thinking as as I got, as I got more closely, friends built, built meaningful relationships with more gay couples. I remember thinking I you know, I was told that gay people were like these, they're constantly having like wild sex orgies, like they were just like, they were given over to this thing. And then I and then I, what I learned was I'm actually a lot of my friends who are gay, have real difficulties in their sexual identity and in their in even in their sexual relationship with their partner whom they love.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  27:53

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  27:53

And then I began to realize, so does every single heterosexual couple I know.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  27:59

Yeah. Yeah!

Jonathan Puddle  28:01

Human beings are struggling with sex.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  28:05

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  28:05

It's like everywhere and nowhere. And it is difficult and confusing and painful for seemingly anyone who's willing to admit it.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  28:17

Yeah, yeah. 100% I think that's one of the things that is interesting is that, you know, a lot of the things that are true about the gay community or that people perceive about the gay community, if people were only willing to turn that, that like critical gaze back upon themselves, they'd realize it was true about them as well, or true about their own community as well. And that's one of the things that the gay rights movement was really about was this recognition that gay people are people. Gay people are humans too. Normal people, just like anyone else with the same desires, the same, you know, goals and why the same hopes and dreams, all of those things, and being gay does not somehow make us this different breed of human. The things that are common to human nature are common to gay people as well. And and vice versa.

Jonathan Puddle  29:32

Yeah, it seems like every six months, I'm just bumping into yet another wall that I was taught existed that doesn't actually exist. In every different sphere, right? Sexuality, race, all these different sin topics that, you know, even my therapist was like, you know, you know, as an Evangelical, that you are that you have, you've been raised to be very sin focused. And that's not a great way to that's not a great way to live righteously, right, I'm like, Ah, Okay. So okay, so throughout Heavy Burdens, you walk us through these seven ways—of which you say there's could be many, countless more—but that seven that you particularly tease out, specific ways that LGBTQ folks experience harm, real pain and devastation to be Christian and be in the church.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  30:25

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  30:26

I think I didn't have quite a grid for this until about a year, a year and a half ago. I was sitting with my father's partner. We were living visiting them, and it was sitting on the beach with him. And he said to me, Jonathan, because because he knows I'm a pastor, and we have a lot of theological conversations, they love Jesus, and they've struggled to find a church. And he said, Jonathan, all the churches that that welcome us have pretty weak theology. And it's really hard to find a church that loves Jesus, is really faithful, theologically and doctrinally and also will make room for gay people.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  31:12

Yeah, yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  31:13

And, and that, and I was grieved to hear that. I think it was the first time I'd heard someone simply spell out. "I want to go and love Jesus. And I'm being blocked from doing so."

Bridget Eileen Rivera  31:25

Yeah. Yeah, it's a very common problem that gay Christians face all the time. And I would say that most of my friends who are Christian and gay experience that issue, where there's just very few churches that they can go to where they're not only accepted, but and feel welcome, but also feel like they are going to be served on a theological level on just like the truths of, of the gospel level. And I, and I live in New York City, and when I was searching for a church here, and I do have a church that I love now, but it was hard. And you think New York City is this, like, you know, liberal haven and you know, how could it be hard to find a church that accepts accepts you in New York City? And it was incredibly, incredibly difficult. And where I live in the Bronx, we identified two churches that were explicitly accepting of gay people. Two churches and the entirety of the borough of the Bronx. And the first one we went to was a church that was, I don't know, it felt like it was in decline. And the second one that we went to, turned out to be a multi-faith church that did not necessarily affirm some of the most basic doctrines of the Christian faith. We asked the pastor of the church, whether or not she believed that Jesus was God. And she was like that, I'm still thinking about that. You know, whether she believed in the resurrection, I still, I'm still trying to figure out what I believe about that. And I don't preach the resurrection, because I think it can be offensive. And so we were like, shoot, what on earth? And it was just extremely, extremely difficult. And so we did eventually find a church here in the city, but it took a very long time. And for those that are not in a major city, where there aren't a lot of options, it legitimately can be impossible. I don't want to say it's not impossible. I don't know. I hesitate to say most of the time, but most people, most of the people that I know, have extreme extreme difficulty finding a church to belong to. So it can get kind of deflating after a while and you just kind of get discouraged and you know, want to give up after after a while of just experiencing this.

Jonathan Puddle  34:36

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.  We'll take a quick pause to talk about supporting the show and thank my patrons. If you're really enjoying this, would you please consider becoming a supporter of the show? You can chip in via Patreon. You can find me at patreon.com/jonathanpuddle. You can support the show for as little as $3 a month or $30 a year and I would really really appreciate it. Big thanks to Boris, who is my latest patron, really appreciate you coming on. Friends, your support means a lot to me, thank you to everybody who gives, whether they've given a little or a lot, whether they've stayed on for long or just for short while. I'm thankful in any situation. Much love. Let's get back to the show.  So I'm thinking through, I don't know, if you get... I haven't quite finished I'm where am I? I'm like, I'm chapter 12. So I'm like more than halfway. And I'm hopefully gonna read the rest this afternoon because I'm just I'm honestly getting so much out of this. Thoughts about ways that churches could move forward, because I know that some I've got, again, as I kind of said earlier, in the people that I'm in relationship with, there's probably three, and the Posterous, specifically, the pastors and the ministries that I'm involved in, there's probably three major categories of people. And so I imagine this is somewhat indicative of my broader audience as well. There's going to be some people who are listening and saying, Yep, the way we solve this problem is complete inclusion and celebration. There's absolutely nothing wrong with homosexuality, there's nothing wrong with homosexual union. All of the above, that's the way that we address this injustice. Some people are going to be the opposite end of the spectrum and say, Okay, this is it's bad, what people have experienced, I'm heartbroken to hear that people have experienced these things in the church, that's wrong. However, the solution is not, you know, let's not throw the baby out. They're gonna they're gonna say those kinds of things. And then in the middle, I know even right now, in my own city, talking with a few different pastors who are saying, we want to create the safest place possible. We are not convinced in the righteousness of gay marriage, for example, however, we are committed to the way of love and so we are open to doing to doing marriages, if it means people can feel loved and safe enough to remain within our community so that they can follow the Holy Spirit. I mean, obviously, you don't have to be in a church to follow the Holy Spirit. But but so that they can be discipled. And we can build real community. And so there's sort of like, these are the groups that I'm thinking through. Do you feel like there's some low hanging fruit that pastors, eldership boards, people can be like, "Okay, well, right off the bat, can we do X, Y and Z to start fostering safety trust relationship"? Because obviously, as yourself as a testament to there's a broad spectrum of gay people and what they believe themselves and what the Holy Spirit has led them to. Is there some low hanging fruit practically for how we could start mending this thing?

Bridget Eileen Rivera  37:57

Yeah, there definitely is. And I do explore this more in the final part of my book, The final section. But one of the big things that I really want to see churches do is to respect LGBTQ people's theological journey in discerning what God's Word says about human sexuality. And one of the things that I try to show in my book is how serious gay Christians—LGBTQ Christians all—take God's Word and how seriously they desire to conform to God's will. I don't know a single Gay Christian who has not spent years searching through God's Word to understand what it has to say for how they should live their life and how they should live out their sexuality. And I contrast that with most straight Christians that I know, the vast majority that I know just kind of take for granted what they grew up learning. I honestly don't know any straight Christians that spent time, that spent years trying to figure out whether or not they should get married to their spouse. And honestly, like, maybe maybe the world would be better if people did.

Jonathan Puddle  39:30

That's amazing. That is such that is such a friggin good point.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  39:34

Yeah, so yeah, you know, it's funny when you think about it, just the comparison and yet people will point to gay Christians who get married and say they're the ones who are just following their desires and don't want to take God's Word seriously. When they have the equivalent of, of a seminary degree in this topic at this point. And so one of the things that I really want to see churches do is to just step back from needing to have, you know, this set in stone declaration of "this is what the church has to say about human sexuality." And this is how we are going to disciple you. And this is how we're going to hold you accountable. And yes, to a certain extent you do, you know, want to disciple people and, and hold them accountable. But I really want to see churches respect LGBTQ people as being able to discern for themselves, and interpret God's Word for themselves with the help of the Holy Spirit. And you know, people hear that, and, you know, they think, Oh, my gosh, you know, how can I ever do that? You know, we're supposed to hold people accountable for their sin. And so, you know, one of the things that I point out in my book is that we do this all the time with plenty of other questions. And I point out that John Piper, for example, believes that getting remarried is sinful. He's one of the few leading evangelicals that believes that. And, you know, he, he believes that to get remarried, after you get divorced, is to live in adultery.

Jonathan Puddle  41:37

Right.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  41:37

And yet, he recommends that ministry leaders should give grace for those who differ in that perspective, and allow others to interpret God's Word differently than he does, and come to different conclusions. And so, you know, John Piper, one of the most conservative evangelicals that I know, is willing to give grace to people that he believes are living in adultery, and he's willing to respect them, and respect them as intelligent people that are able to understand God's word for themselves, and be okay with that.

Jonathan Puddle  42:27

Right, wow.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  42:28

So, so, you know, I don't think it's that, you know, revolutionary of a thing, to give that same kind of respect to LGBTQ people. And afford them at the same amount of space to work through their theology that we give to Christians for a variety of other questions. And, you know, divorce and remarriage are, you know, some of the most obvious examples. There's, you know, contraception, whether or not that's biblical. And then there's other ones that are like, you know, major foundational doctrines like baptism, and what you believe about that? Which, you know, has been...

Jonathan Puddle  43:15

...murdering each other.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  43:17

That was my, that was my dog.

Jonathan Puddle  43:20

That's alright. I'm a dog person. We got it. We got grace for dogs.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  43:24

Yeah. Okay, good. So, so yeah, that's one of the things that I want to see churches do is to just give that space, and give that respect to queer people.

Jonathan Puddle  43:36

So good. Something, something that also that I, that I'd love to hear your thoughts on. I don't have a direct question so again, I'll have to phrase it in a in a scenario. So this this friend that I mentioned earlier, who, who, who was only attracted to this one woman and married her, and is that in as is otherwise gay, he uses the language of same sex attraction.  Because that's the culture that he's within. You know, he said, to me, one of the biggest problems that he'd experienced was, especially in our movement, which is very healing focused was was giving gay people the expectation that God will change them. And that was, you know, again, the generation that my father grew up in, went through all the Exodus stuff and all the gay camps and all the conversion therapies. So anyway, he said, You know, one of the things we've done wrong in the church was giving people this expectation: God is going to change your sexuality. So he's been very vocal on that's not a thing. So let's stop telling people that it is a thing. With the talk about with your your work on here on sex and kind of this obsession with sex, the church's obsession with sex. It's got me thinking about the other stories that we tell. Like that you're going to have a fulfilling sex life, that is a default expectation that we communicate as a church. When I was like in youth group it was that like, "Dudes be be good for God, don't have sex before married and God will give you a sexy righteous fox!"

Bridget Eileen Rivera  44:04

Mhmm. Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  45:21

And, and it made perfect sense to me at the time. And it was it was absolutely like, yes, absolutely. That is what I'm aiming for. And, and, you know, now I look at that with like horror and disgust. So you have felt that the Spirit has led you to a, A.) celebration of your orientation and who you're attracted to; and celibacy. And I know that you also talk and write about relationship and friendship. And I'm wondering, like, have we even just sold people a pack of lies about what it even means to have friendships and sexual relationship, friendship, marriage... That's why I don't have a clear question. But

Bridget Eileen Rivera  46:13

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  46:14

I know, you you said, you know, we are finding a church, we finally found a church. How has this journey changed your understanding of friendship and of the richness outside, possibly outside of, of sex itself, not sexuality, but of sex?

Bridget Eileen Rivera  46:34

Yeah, I think you make an excellent point about us, potentially, missing the mark, in our culture today. Just when it comes to what it means to live living a fulfilling life, I think there's just this assumption that in order to live a fulfilling life, you have to have a sexual and romantic partner. And if you don't have that, you're doomed to loneliness. And it's, that's just not true. That is just I think one of the biggest lies that we have told ourselves in our culture today, and you find it just all over the church in the messaging that is given to young people. And you alluded to that with some of the messaging in purity culture, which you know, basically amounts to, "Be sexually pure, and save yourself till marriage, so that you have a wonderful marriage, and God blesses you with a fantastic sex life." And it's like, you know, there's more to life than those things. And you don't necessarily need those things even to be happy. And to be clear, I and I think I'm very clear in my book, I don't believe that celibacy should ever be forced on someone, I really think that a queer person, you know, ought to be able to make that choice for themselves. Whether or not it's something that they understand from God's Word that God is calling them to. However, at the same time, I don't buy into this idea that you have to be sexually active in order to be happy. And I think this, you know, runs into our relationships in a number of ways. I think. I think what has happened in our culture is just this sexualization of relationships, because I think we have this idea that human beings are sexual, to our very core, and I don't know about others. But you know, I don't want to speak to other people's experience. But, you know, I know for myself, I was taught that men are just sexually voracious.

Jonathan Puddle  49:19

Right. Uncontrollable sex monsters.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  49:21

Like Yeah, sex monsters, and just can't help themselves when a woman walks into a room and is dressed in a tempting way, like they just can't help but fall into sin and lust.

Jonathan Puddle  49:35

So obviously, it's her fault if she knew that I was such an uncontrollable sex monster...

Bridget Eileen Rivera  49:40

Yes, yes. Therefore, and therefore, you know, the women are responsible for protecting them from falling into sin. And you know, there that just speaks to how sexualized our relationships are with each other. And you know, the Bible says that Um, men should treat their sisters in Christ like sisters. And, you know,

Jonathan Puddle  50:08

Who don't have sex with!

Bridget Eileen Rivera  50:10

Yes. And it's like, okay, in generally speaking, most people that I talk to, if I were to suggest to them that their sister is like, or their brother is, like, you know, sexually hot, you know, most people would be like, huh, really? Ugh. You know? Like, that's how people react to that. And, and so, you know, not all relationships have to be defined by this, like sexual attraction thing. And you can have intimacy with someone, without having sexuality get in the way of it. You know, and I think, you know, in family relationships, we see this, you know, between Father, father and daughter, mother and son, you know, brothers and sisters and various siblings, and, you know, we know that you can have close intimate relationships without sex getting in the way. Um, and, but more and more, what we're seeing is, we're losing an understanding that that can extend beyond family, beyond the biological family, to the point where, like, I know a lot of men, if they have a really close, intimate relationship with another man, they feel this, like, need to, like, establish "No homo."

Jonathan Puddle  51:41

Right. #nohomo

Bridget Eileen Rivera  51:43

Yeah, and automatically, just their closeness makes casts this suspicion of, like, homosexuality upon them. And it's, like, you know, is that really what we want to be the defining thing in relationships, is sexuality? And no matter what we do, sexuality is always going to be the, you know, the thing that that steers this? And, you know, I just think that's a really unhealthy way of thinking about relationships. And so for me, I really live into building community, close and intimate relationships with people outside the bounds of sexuality. And so I am celibate, and I am committed to living celibacy out, but that doesn't mean that I'm committed to being alone. And to being just like this, this hermit on an island by myself, because God didn't make human beings to be alone. And so I, you know, live out my calling in life with another person. And we consider each other to be partners. And that has been an incredible source of support in my life, of meaning and relationship in my life. And has strengthened my relationship with God in many ways. Because it's very hard, you know, the Bible says, as iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. It's very hard when you live, without close relationships, to grow in your walk with God. And the reality is that close relationships are hard to make nowadays, even within the church, you go to potlucks and small groups, and like your relationship is limited to those things. And it's like, where's the meaning here? Where is the closeness? Um, and so I live into, you know, meaningful relationships with other people. And, you know, a lot of people look at my partnership that I have, and they're like, oh, my gosh, you live with another woman. And like, you consider each other partners, like, and, but then you claim to be celibate.  We don't believe it!  Who do you think you're kidding? And it's like, what on earth? Like, why? Why is it that because, because two people live together, that like, automatically they have to be sexually active, like, common, how unhealthy of an assumption is that? That's so weird, comeon. Like does anybody hear themselves in what they're saying? And so I really think that that mindset just needs to be challenged and and dialed back. Because it's it's just not the case. And I think it's indicative again of our just like sex obsessed culture just wanting to make everything about sex.

Jonathan Puddle  55:10

Yeah. Yeah. If you want to point to a problem in the culture, ladies and gentlemen, how about we point to that, and especially if you travel the world, you'll notice it right? Like, my wife and I lived in, in Northern Europe, in Finland for six years. And it was coming back to Canada was jarring every time because even even within another Western nation, their... the way that they treated the body, the way that they engaged with sexuality, and all of that was different. And...

Bridget Eileen Rivera  55:39

Yeah,

Jonathan Puddle  55:39

And yeah, when you live here it here in North America, it's easy to just assume that this is the way humans are, but it isn't.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  55:44

Yeah, yeah, it's so true. And I actually I, on my blog, I wrote a short article kind of detailing about some of this. But I lived in East Asia for a year. And one of the things that struck me again, was just how physically intimate people were. And there was no, there was nothing sexual about it. It was just physical intimacy and love being expressed. That was completely nonsexual, um, I would see people holding hands, I would see people lounging on each other in ways that we would only expect, like a husband and wife to be doing. There was there was one time, I got off a train. And there were two businessmen in suits that were walking in front of me, and they were going off to work I can only assume. And so or like, you know, a work lunch or something. And they grabbed each other's hands and held hands as they were walking down the street, these two very masculine businessmen. And that is something you would never see anymore in the US. And to me, that's a huge loss.

Jonathan Puddle  57:07

Yeah, I'm so with you. Bridget I think we could do this all day. But I know we're up against the clock here. I'm so thankful for you for your work for the way that you've... just for the costly choices that you've made in obedience to the Lord, that we get to benefit from. So I'm, I'm blessed, I'm thankful, I wonder if you would pray for us in whatever part of the journey our listeners are in. And then if there's anything else that you wanted to have a chance to say.

Bridget Eileen Rivera  57:43

Okay. Dear God, we just lift up all of the listeners to you now. And I just pray for those listening that this conversation could have been something that was beneficial that there would be parts of it that can do some good in the lives of those who are listening. I pray that you would cause to stand out what needs to stand out in each individual person, and I pray for each person listening, that you would show them how to truly love the queer people in their life. Because I know that there are queer person and that there are queer people in every person's life. And so I pray that you would show them who those people are, and that you would give them wisdom in relating to them and showing them your love. And I just, I just pray for just that your church would just grow in this area. And I pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

Jonathan Puddle  58:58

Amen. Honestly, you guys need to get this book Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church. It is heartbreaking, informative, helpful, and compassionate. I believe it will be very, very useful if you at all care about the church, about the witness of Jesus Christ today, about pastoral ministry, any any of that stuff if you care for other human beings and their lived experience, I recommend this book to you. You will find it linked in the show notes. You'll find that in your podcast app or at JonathanPuddle.com. You'll find all the details for this episode as well as the text transcription. So you can share this with all your friends, whether they are hearing or not hearing. Guys if you'd like to learn more about Bridgette as well, you can go and find her blog at meditationsofatravelingnun.com I don't believe Bridget is actually a nun, I forgot to ask her. But that is the space that she lives in. She dedicated her life to following the Lord and to celebacy. So she is a brilliant voice. She's got a lot of different things to say on various various subjects. So go check her out at meditationsofstravelingnun.com on social media @travelingnun. Alright friends, thank you so much for listening. Thanks for being here. Thanks for sharing this with your friends. Drop me a line let me know how you're doing. I'm available on the socials and by email even Jonathan@JonathanPuddle.com. Let me know how this lands with you. Let me know what thoughts it stirs in your heart and how it might impact your community. All right, grace and peace to you. Thanks for being here. Much love. And we will see you in a few weeks.