Fraudulent Christians

Today's post comes after reading a sermon of the same title.  I have recently been looking at sermons online through one specific church within my community. This one comes from 2006.  I clicked on it because of the title.  I often feel like a fraudulent Christian (not that I label myself a Christian very often). Or like I am living two different lives. (Maybe because I am) One where I am confident in my beliefs and the other where I constantly question and doubt everything.  But I firmly believe that one could not exist without the other and for this I am thankful as it is the doubt and outright disagreement of certain things that makes me pursue and seek it more to find the real truth behind all the differences and interpretations.

The scripture for the sermon is John 15:1-8 and Acts 8:26-40.

It is the words of John that are particularly interesting here. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."

Abiding. That is an interesting thought. I feel that the pastor of this sermon said it best. "To be authentically Christian means simply taking Christianity as our spiritual home and taking our fellow Christians as our family."  It doesn't say that we must believe certain things or follow some sort of rules or laws. To be Christian means to participate in that relationship where it is okay to question and doubt just like you may not always love(or like) your family and you may have disputes within your home so do Christians with their faith.  But as long as you "make your home in God" and live in your faith then you will produce fruit.

Being a Christian is not about checking off items on a to-do list or adhering to a specific belief; it is a relationship where you can grow in your faith and help others to grow in theirs.

A while ago I read a book by Donald Miller called "Searching for God Knows What."  It was within that book that I saw the same principles of John 15:1-8. I feel that the whole point of the book was to make you see how important your own personal relationship is within Christianity and that it is not just some set of rules. I read the book in a 24 hour period.  I loved the idea of a relationship instead of some list of beliefs because faith is so much more than a list, although lists can be helpful. Sometimes I think many people try to find their faith from other sources or from something outside themselves but really your faith has to come from within.  What is the cornerstone of your faith? Is it the size of a mustard seed?

Toy Story 3

Recently, I watched the new Toy Story 3 movie. It was really fun and entertaining. But I wasn't expecting to fall in love with Barbie all over again. Barbie and Ken were new characters in this film and I would argue have some of the best moments in the entire film.

When I was a young girl, I owned a lot of Barbie products. I had an entire corner of my room dedicated to my barbie stuff. Friends have told me how they loved to come play at my house because I had so many cool things. Somehow I don't really remember this. I think those memories have been shadowed by life's other events.

Regardless, I remember playing and having fun with all the pink products. One of my favorite memories, I couldn't have been more than four years old, was playing with my grandma. We tried to change barbie's outfit and upon having difficulties fasening Barbie's pants my grandma said, "She ate to much turkey and now they won't fit." We laughed and laughed over that and it became a joke within the family for awhile. That poor plastic turkey.

I created my own Barbie house out of the three shelves in my room and would endlessly reposition everything until it was just right, for that moment. I had a car and a horse stable and so much more. I'm guessing I even played teacher with all my Barbies especially after they introduced Stacy and the little toddler girl whose name escapes me, Kelly?

Anyway, Barbie in Toy Story 3 was amazing. At first you think she is a sappy girl crying as she is donated to Sunnyside, the day care center, but as the movie continues you find out just how badass and educated she really is. Go see Toy Story to see what I mean!

NYC PRIDE - 40 Years

Three years ago, I was in New York City and had the opportunity to watch the Pride Parade.  It was fabulous, funny at times, and too much "visual" at others (put on some more clothes people).  We got all sorts of free stuff on the side lines of the parade: papers, lotion, shirts, condoms, stickers.  I felt quite ignorant of LGBT history.  At the time, I did not know about the Stonewall Riots of 1969.  And I certainly did not know that the NYC Pride Parade is the oldest parade starting in 1970 after the Stonewall events the year before. It is the longest parade I have ever seen, a never ending rainbow of people and places that are supportive of the LGBTQ Community. We were there for at least 5 hours and left with it still going.  When I told someone that I had been to the Pride Parade they asked, "How was that?" like it was some kind of weird thing and they seemed surprised that I enjoyed the experience and that it would be one of the last things they would ever do. 

Throughout my life, I have known people who identify with one or more of the letters of LGBTQQIA.  In high school, the clique I was part of included those who identified with the LGBTQ community.  I remember one girl having difficulties taking her girlfriend to the high school dances, not to the degree of Constance McMillen but still the administration seemed to have problems with it.  It was easy for me to have my boyfriend of the time attend dances with me even after he graduated from high school. This is probably the first time I became aware of heterosexual privilege.

But I was not aware of my own homophobia until my first and second year of college when a close friend came out.  It was not that she identified as bisexual or lesbian that bothered me, it was a long time coming, but how everything suddenly seemed to be LGBTQ related or had to be LGBTQ related.  I respectful call it her "rainbow phase" and am thankful it only lasted a year or so.  I selfishly wanted my friend back.  I could not relate to her sudden enthusiasm for all things rainbow.  I now wish I had been able to understand that it was her excitement for finally being confident enough to be her true self in front of others or her friends at least. I hope that I did not act too homophobic at the time. Seeing as we are still friends I'm guessing I acted fine about it. I guess I felt like she was flaunting it or something. But really I'm sure I flaunted my assumed heterosexuality (during high school) much more but because it is so normalized within society we don't see it as flaunting. 

Since that time, I have became immersed in the feminist community through women studies classes and groups.  Being a part of this community, it is second nature to refer to your partner and leave out pronouns in order to be an Ally to the LGBT community and remove that heterosexism and heteronormativity, to actively go against the "norm."  

It has been somewhat shocking to be removed from that protective bubble of women studies. For the first time in years, I heard someone say "that's gay" when what they meant was "that's stupid"  or some other word. I haven't heard that since high school and even then some teachers were making an effort to stop people from saying it. 

I have also recently experienced women calling men gay for displaying "feminine" characteristics or knowing "feminine" things.  Which if you think about it is women being homophobic and mostly sexist toward themselves.  If you are female and you make fun of a male for displaying "feminine" characteristics then really you are just making fun of yourself or your stereotypical gender role and being homophobic in the process. This goes back to the basics of sexism.  What is the worst thing you can call a woman? Bitch, slut, whore, etc. What is the worst thing you can call a man? Fag, girl, bitch, pussy, sissy etc. "Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult" (Valenti). I would hope that women would refuse to participate in this kind of sexism that is ultimately really detrimental to themselves but alas they still do it. Also, it is really terrible how masculinity is enforced through homophobia.  But that could be a whole other post.

Another instance of homophobia I recently experienced was while watching some wedding show like "Say yes to the dress."  I was somewhat watching it while writing, within a group of women, at our weekly dinner.  There was a lesbian couple on the show and the show told the viewers their story of who proposed and such. I was actually happy about the fact that the show included them to begin with that it was annoying when the other women had to assign gender roles to the lesbian women, calling one the man-lesbian (who proposed) and the other the woman-lesbian. They felt the need to make sense of the relationship in heteronormative ways because both of the women were shopping for dresses and therefore were outside of the gender norm for a heterosexual relationship. And both were feminine lesbians (gasp!) which went against their ideas of lesbians being only masculine or butch. Or at least having one lesbian fit that masculine role within the relationship.  I immediately spoke up to ask them what they were doing and why they were doing it. "Why are you trying to fit this couple into stereotypical gender roles they clearly do not wish to belong to?" Really!? (Update: I knew when I asked them that it could have just as easily been me and my future partner on that show. Not that I was out to this group of women at this time.)

The point of this post is to make you think about your own homophobia and heteronormativity.  Really think about why you may want to say "that's gay" or why you tease men about being gay because of their display of femininity.  What are the real intentions behind your actions? Do you really want to perpetuate that kind of sexism and homophobia? What are you really afraid of? 

It is not June without a little PRIDE

"I was the first First Lady to march in a Pride parade, and it was so much fun. "

"But think about what’s happening to people as we speak today. Men and women are harassed, beaten, subjected to sexual violence, even killed, because of who they are and whom they love. Some are driven from their homes or countries, and many who become refugees confront new threats in their countries of asylum. In some places, violence against the LGBT community is permitted by law and inflamed by public calls to violence; in others, it persists insidiously behind closed doors."

"These dangers are not “gay” issues. This is a human rights issue.  Just as I was very proud to say the obvious more than 15 years ago in Beijing that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, well, let me say today that human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights, once and for all. "

"The struggle for equality is never, ever finished. And it is rarely easy, despite how self-evident it should be. But the hardest-fought battles often have the biggest impact. So I hope that each and every one of us will recommit ourselves to building a future in which every person – every, single person can live in dignity, free from violence, free to be themselves, free to live up to their God-given potential wherever they live and whoever they are."

Meryl Streep at Barnard College 2010

If you have the time you should really listen to the whole thing. She has some excellent gender discussion.  It gets especially good about 20 minutes in ... ENJOY!

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,


And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.


I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

-Emily Dickinson