Leaving Sunday: Allowed to be Fully Human

I would be considered a terrible Christian by the religious right. I am pro choice because I don't believe abortion would end if it is outlawed and I want women to do what is best for their lives and their health. I don't believe that women should have to resort to butchering themselves to end unwanted pregnancies and I support planned parenthood with a monthly donation.

I believe in marriage equality and equal rights for gay and lesbian people. I strive to be empathetic and supportive of transgender people even though I don't understand a lot about it. I also don't believe Gays, lesbians, and transgender people are going to go to Hell. I've thoughts about it for years and I just don't believe it. A preacher can be dishonest, lie to naive church members, take their money, and be all right but because someone is born loving the same gender they're going to hell? I can't go along with it. There's much I don't understand and I don't proclaim to have the answers but I know that I just don't believe that gay people are evil.

In Leaving church Mrs Brown Taylor faces similar questions. Episcopalians had accepted gay people but some of her parishioners were slower to warm to the idea. They began to have long debates about theology. She says

My role and my soul were eating each other alive. I wanted out of the belief business and back into the beholding business. I wanted to recover the kind of faith that has nothing to do with being sure what I believe and everything to do with trusting God to catch me though I am not sure of anything (Leaving church)

I can relate. I'm in a season right now where I'm experiencing the divine provision of the Lord. Every time I don't think things are going to work out for me financially, at that moment the ram comes up the side of the mountain and I repeat one of the promised that God has given me on this journey

On the mountain of the Lord it shall be provided

The same thing happened to ms Taylor. As she was thinking about quitting her role as priest, out of the blue the president of a local college called her to ask if she would be interested in chairing the religion and philosophy department. When she told her assistant priest that she was considering leaving he reminded her that

Salvation is not something that happens only at the end of a person's life. Salvation happens every time someone with a key uses it to open a door he could lock instead. (leaving church)

Wow. Isn't that just the truth? I firmly believe that a big part of faith is believing that God will irrevocably close doors that shouldn't be opened and He will open doors that others said would be irrevocably closed

Fully human

Ms Taylor said that her central revelation of life is to serve God and last to be fully human. This is a profound statement and I thought about what that statement meant to me. I believe that my vocation and my entire life is a call to make an impact on the world. I believe that can only happen if I'm willing to be honest and share my experience honestly. To be fully human in my eyes is someone who's willing to admit doubt, failure, and that they don't have it all figured out. It's the person who's willing to experience life and not isolate themselves and shut themselves in a pretend world with others who think like them.  It's the experience of sharing community with people even if you believe differently from them.

As she leaves church and her ministry behind, Ms Taylor talks about becoming human again. She speaks of being able to enjoy other people without that wall of being the pastor

I was never a pastor but I've been in enough churches to know that many times the pastor loses his humanness.

People want something to worship and often for the hopeless and downtrodden God is not enough. They need a golden calf to worship. They need to worship something that they can see and if it's not the church then people begin to worship the pastor and his family (especially if he's charismatic or has a beautiful family)

I think that must be awful. It's no wonder pastors children are widely considered to be rebellious.  Maybe it isn't rebellion as much as it is about being human

A big part of church is keeping up appearances. We can let the mask down a little bit but it can't come all the way off because it makes church folks uncomfortable. I have to say that every single time I've left the institutional church I have felt more authentically human. 

I'm able To be who I am and I'm able to participate in the experience of being human with others who may believe differently from me. I don't feel the need to hold back or turn down my true and authentic self at all