Conversation With Thomas Waters

Thomas Waters is a long time friend, an artist and an activist for LGBT rights. He blogs at thomascwaters.com, and has a podcast called A Queer Look at the Bible.

How has your personal journey to this moment strengthened or challenged your faith?

My journey has held both because what has challenged me has strengthened me. We experience crises in faith often because we are not taught that faith is hard. That the church has not been welcoming to me has forced me to reach a clarity about my faith, which is a good thing.

I feel sad that many people who leave the church in anger miss the value of facing up to the challenge to faith presented by the church. I respect their decisions, recognizing that every path we take has pros and cons.

Is there a prayer or meditation that helps you make it through trying times?

Yes, there are two. First the Serenity Prayer is a large part of my everyday.

Second, in the Buddhist tradition there are the Four Noble Truths. They offer me a powerful perspective:

1. Life is suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. There is a path to that cessation of suffering.

What is one of the defining moments in your life as a Christian?

Two come to mind. A big one was when I was about 19 or 20 years old. I was on my own for the first time. There were a lot of fundamentalist Christians in my work place. One asked me to her church and I went with her for a while until I realized this church found dancing to be a sin. I was a dancer and dance gave me such great joy. I could not understand—it seemed ludicrous to me—to read the Bible in a legalistic way that would frown upon such joy.

The other time was when I was on the staff of the First Methodist Church as a lay preacher. I went to another local Methodist Church to preach and lead worship on Sunday. I was shocked by the Sunday School teacher before the service who taught such strict adherence to Old Testament law. I did preach and I was well received by the congregation. As I left the church, I was very aware that they would never accept me if they knew I was driving home to my boyfriend. I knew it just would not work for me in the church unless I could be totally out of the closet. and the Methodist denomination doesn’t allow that.

Do you have a story of a person who embodies Christ’s teachings?

My Great Aunt Miriam was married to Uncle Fred who was a very active alcoholic and died when I was pretty young. Aunt Miriam was a Lutheran and she took me to church several times. Later in life she was devoted to a small Baptist congregation. Her faith was very vital to her.

We never talked about my sexuality. I didn’t know how she would respond. I did not hide my life from her, though. Over the years, I brought boyfriends to holidays at her house, for example.

When she gave me a book by Malcolm Boyd, I didn’t read it because I feared it would be one of those that tells us to repent of our ways (I found out later this was not the case). And she gave me a King James Version Bible with lots of evangelical commentary in it (I still preach from this Bible).

When she died, everyone was surprised that she left all she had to her church or to me. This caused a rift in the family, and I was as shocked as anyone else. The story of exactly why she left me with an inheritance came out when I was talking with her lawyer. It seems that about two years before, when I had been in the hospital with pneumonia for about two weeks, my aunt thought I was suffering from AIDS. She thought this because the TV evangelists she watched had told her that all gay men have AIDS and pneumonia is the first symptom.

They were all wrong, I just had pneumonia. And even though that kind of inaccurate and harmful stereotyping from the church was part of my aunt’s awareness, she never stopped acting toward me from a place of unconditional love.

In your mind, what are the Biblical foundations for LGBT inclusion in the church?

There are several creation stories in Scripture and the first one, in Genesis 1:31, reports, “God saw everything that he had made, and, indeed, it was very good.” God looks at all and calls it all good. This reminds me of Matthew Fox’s idea of original blessing upon us all.

The other story is in the New Testament. Peter, who climbs up on his roof to pray while dinner is being prepared, falls asleep. While asleep he dreams that he sees all these unclean animals coming down from heaven on a large sheet. He is told by a voice to eat of them, even though that is against the rules Peter has always followed. When Peter voices this concern, the voice responds: “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” Even when we are told directly, like this, to let go of dogma, it is very difficult to do.

What would you say to those Christians who have a different view on inclusion?

My response now is to remind us that the Bible was used in the past to say that the sun moves around the earth. As we discovered through our study of astronomy, this wasn’t true.

We are right now, infants in our understanding of genetics and human development. We are still far from the moment when we will look back and say, “Duh, we were all wrong.” However, we have had that moment before in other realms and I know we will have it at some point with regard to human sexuality.

It will be another moment when we realize that creation is bigger than we think it is.

What can we do to foster dialogue and build bridges with people with different views on inclusion?

We can be willing to have a conversation that is respectful of one another.

Have you seen the movie, “Out in the Silence”? I count Joe, the filmmaker, as a friend. He grew up in Oil City and when he married in Washington, D.C., he placed a wedding announcement in the Oil City newspaper. The paper printed some pretty strong letters condemning his marriage. At the same time, he received a letter from a mother with a gay son. This prompted him to return home and make this movie.

Over the period of a year, conversations with people, including a local pastor and his wife, lead to greater respect all around. Both Joe and the people he talks with change.

I have such deep respect for Joe’s willingness to be in open dialogue.