A Way That With Tears Has Been Watered
The Life And Death And Life of Benjamin L. Reynolds
by Benjamin L. Reynolds
I am delighted and informed after reading the 2006 Body of
Christ article referencing my departure from the city of
Colorado Springs. This was my first time reading the piece, and
it provided me a moment of pause and reflection, to which most
of what will follow in this document is my thoughtful
considerations about life after Colorado Springs, the Black
church regarding sexuality, and hopes for our collective future
as Black Americans.
As I reflect on my time in Colorado Springs, the privilege:
burden and blessing of being, as Jesus, a prophet without honor
in his hometown, my thoughts are imbued with many memories fond.
Some are those memories that cause me to laugh. Sometimes, out
loud! Others are memories that are not so fond, and have caused
tears, but have been instructive in creating the space for me to
take wings and fly to a place where I could find and own my
voice.
The journey to this place, however, to use the words of James
Baldwin, “…The anguish that filled me cannot be described. It
moved in me like one of those floods that devastate counties,
tearing everything down, tearing children from their parents and
lovers from each other, and making everything an unrecognizable
waste. All I really remember is the pain, the unspeakable pain…”
Occasionally, someone will inquire, “If you had the chance to go
back, would you?” The answer to that is not only no, but hell
no! I’ll be damn if I would ever go back to living any part of
my life in a closet. Closets are for clothes and storage; and
not for people. Besides, life is never meant to be lived
backwards. All of our hopes and dreams are ahead of us. I am,
indeed, grateful for the journey.
Of
course, my point of entry to this age-old argument is quite
different than it was in 2006. As a PhD candidate in the area of
Theology, Ethics and Human Science, with a primary academic
interest at the intersection of masculinity, sexuality,
spirituality and how these three areas are affected and effected
by class; as well as my current position with the Chicago
Theological Seminary as Director of the LGBTQ Religious Studies
Center, I begin this conversation with an assumption that
same-sex eroticism, homosexuality, transgenderism and so forth
are not sinful or disordered. I am well aware of the position of
some Black churches on this issue, but much of my work and
research is within the above parameters.
When subjects are controversial, and laden with immense personal
pain as this subject can be, productive conversations and
community dialogue can be hijacked by devoting the discussion to
the sinfulness or moral rectitude of non-heterosexual sex. What
I recognize is that there are a number of persons who are Black,
as well as Black churches across this country who share this
same sentiment. In other words, the Black church or community is
not monolithic on this issue.
While I am currently not serving in or attending a predominantly
Black church; and basically have a love/hate relationship with
the Black church as we have come to know it as an institution, I
still hold the right and privilege to be critical of the Black
church, because history cannot erase my past roles and
significant contributions, nationally, but specifically in the
Colorado Springs context, with “how to do church” and how church
can influence our contemporary society. With that said, in a
meeting earlier this week, I realized that there is a great deal
about the Black church, with all of its faults, that I
appreciate and I miss having this church as a part of my life. I
do believe, however, that the Black church must stop allowing
herself to be schizophrenic about sexuality. Whether one is
same-sex or heterosexual is really a moot issue; the real issue
is justice and respect for all of humanity—doing what is right.
I’m remembering when I was first called to the Spring’s church
as Senior Pastor; women in that congregation could not wear
pants in the building—at all! That was in 1992. If a
female—woman or a girl—wore pants to work or school on any given
day, and had plans on coming to church for an evening meeting,
rehearsal, prayer, or service of worship, she had to go into a
downstairs restroom (there were no restrooms other than the one
in my office, as I recall, on the main level at the time) and
change from her pants into a skirt or dress before entering the
sanctuary. She was looked down for daunting the look of a
male/man.
Additionally, in 1992, there were no female ministers, and women
were not even allowed on the pulpit and not behind the sacred
desk. I saw all of this as an injustice toward women, and
humanity because it herald the men as patriarchal, when everyone
knows that the Black church, and I would go as far as to say,
the sharing of the gospel itself would not even exist if it were
not for the contribution of the women. This makes the church
phallocentric. In other words, we as a church are not
necessarily worshiping God in Jesus Christ, but the male phallis.
I conclude that a woman can preach, and women can be called to
the role of a pastor within the church—period. In fact, I have
been enriched from deep relationships with female ministers and
pastors that have helped to stretch my theology. I also note
that female enrollment in seminary is at its highest. This helps
us to speculate about the direction that the church is moving.
Black females are a major part of this data.
As a human rights issue and as a justice issue, the Holy Spirit
led me to launch the campaign for women in ministry, probably
around 1994-5. We began with a Bible Study, and a sermon series
entitle, “The Reverend Sister,” which was designed to go for
6-weeks, with 6-sermon installments. By the time we had
completed 3 of the 6 sermons, the congregation was ready to move
in a positive direction on the issue of women in ministry. At
that time, to conclude the matter, I invited The Rev. Dr. Lisa Tait, then from Atlanta, who came and co-facilitated the women
in a weekend retreat, and preached to the congregation during
the Sunday worship. Today there are women in that pulpit!
Having said all of that, within the context of Black preaching,
it is imperative for us to begin to examine and expose the
impact of phallocentric concepts that are present within our
sacred rhetoric. It makes a world of difference when we hear
sermons that are plagued with linguistic sexism, in which images
of and references to women are seldom positive. When we have a
failed sense of women it adds to the complexity of
deconstructing the sexual politics of the Black church, and
further complicates our understanding in the importance of the
inclusion of our LGBT brothers and sisters.
Most recently when Bishop Eddie Long makes his first appearance
after the scandal broke last year, just like the politicians who
have been involved in sex scandals did, he drags his wife, the
woman, and uses her as a prop (she had nothing to say, and
apparently nothing to feel by her expression-or lack of
expression) to bring credibility to his statement. Women are
used, oftentimes, in Black churches to keep the men vested in
their patriarchal power. (I was so counting on the Black church
to use the Long scandal as a way to talk openly and honestly
about sexuality without bringing the "sin" language into the
conversation.)
In this essay series' introduction the LGBT community is
described as as having
“an agenda to strip the church of its moral authority, purpose
and effectiveness... [Editor's note: actually we said, "There
does exist...
within the diversity of the LGBT community, an agenda...] There is indeed, an agenda within the gay
community that is virulently anti-Christian and anti-church.”
Because I am a part of an LGBT movement as it relates to the
universal church and my own concern with the Black church
specifically, I would describe this as more of a movement that
brings the church of Jesus Christ to a sense of accountability
with regard to its original calling to be Christ-like: agents of
transformation, portals of grace, love, compassion, and mercy.
It’s sad to say, but I am almost afraid to tell anyone that I am
either minister or Christian, because it seems to place me in
such a limited, conservative, un-Christ-like, inhospitable,
unwelcoming box. That is what my coming out in 2006 was really
about. I needed to be free to fly not only in terms of my sexual
orientation; but my theology, my spirituality, and my practices
of God in Christ Jesus. I seek to be the face of Christ in the
[real] world, and not limited to the social construct called the
Black church.
Additionally, the movement as it relates to the Black church is
deeply concerned about the exclusion of its own LGBT who helped
build this institution. Lest we forget, much of our Gospel
music, which is the soul of the Black church, was created by the
very gifted ones the Black church seeks to alienate and exile
from the ranks.
By way of explanation, some have suggested that as a people we
are “erotic-phobic;” fearful of eros with its sensual and sexual
aspects. The Black community, regardless of our religious
commitments, has prided itself on its acquaintance with the
Bible. This Bible contains a book named Song of Songs/Solomon
that is visually vivid in its descriptions of the human form and
how spiritually sensual acknowledgement of the body can be. We
are people who sing, “We have come over a way that with tears
has been watered. We have come treading the paths through the
blood of the slaughtered.” How does our Black community, then,
explain pretentions of an inauthentic sexual prudery when we
know the history of the sexual mis-use during slavery of our
fore mothers and sisters, and I believe our fore fathers and
brothers, by slave masters?
History informs us that not only were Black men lynched from
trees, as sang by Billie Holliday in “Strange Fruit,” but their
genitals were often cut off depicting that peculiar
juxtaposition of race and sex. Unless we can have healthy and
productive discussions within our context, the Long and other
sex scandals will continue to cut off the genitals of our
African American same-sex brothers, which is exactly what has
happened to the young four brothers in Atlanta. Sexuality is a
gift from God, and our challenge is embedded in our ability to
hope in and imagine responsible sexuality and sexual activity,
regardless of the way it is expressed.
Benjamin L. Reynolds, MDiv
24 July 2011
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