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I learned today that Peter Gomes has passed on. Gomes was the minister at the Memorial Church at Harvard. He was a African-American Republican, and, in 1991, he came out of the closet as a homosexual. I have read that he chose celibacy, but he still disagreed with the idea that homosexuality was a sin.
I went to Harvard Divinity School for my M.Div., but I never met him, though I knew a few people who had, and I got to learn about some of his insights, life-experiences, and advice from them. I enjoyed listening to him speak. He had an ironic yet soothing style of speaking. I went to his church for two or three weeks, but then I stopped going because (at the time) I felt that I shouldn't attend a church that was pastored by a homosexual. But I still listened to him on the radio, at times. I have wanted to read some of his books, but I have not gotten to them yet.
If I hadn't left Memorial Church, I probably wouldn't have searched for what became my church home: an independent Seventh-Day Adventist church, which had a lot of people from Latin America and the Caribbean. They were loving and hospitable, and their food was fantastic! I shared Thanksgivings with them. I helped them at their annual banquets. It was certainly my home away from home.
But, looking back, I wish that I could have attended the independent Seventh-Day Adventist church, while also going to the Memorial Church. But perhaps I would have felt uncomfortable at Memorial Church at the time: I would have wanted to be inspired by the liturgy and the sermon, but I'd feel that the whole service was a sham, since the pastor sanctioned a way of life that God called an "abomination." I really wanted to experience God at the time, and, in the process, I tended to divide the world into "good guys" and "bad guys." By the end of my years at Harvard, I felt empty and distant from God. I guess that my right-wing religious dogmatism didn't get me what I wanted! But, then again, neither did my religious liberalism when I was at DePauw University. I could swing from left to right, and yet never feel like God was real to me.
In New York City, I searched for churches, and I ended up at a liberal Seventh-Day Adventist church, which had practicing homosexuals who were in prominent positions. I felt guilty about going there, like I did about going to the Memorial Church. But it was a good community. And I appreciated that it allowed people to ask questions and to be on their own spiritual journey. It had an openness that helped me when I was beginning to feel alienated by organized religion. I wasn't as anti-evangelical then as I am now, but I was moving in that direction, and I appreciated having an accepting community. I had to make a choice between being in a community that I valued and that valued me, and finding a more conservative group where I wouldn't feel comfortable socially, and yet I could pat myself on the back for being in a church that upheld "God's" stance on homosexuality.
Nowadays, I think that pro-gay interpretations of Scripture are a stretch, but I notice that even conservative Christians don't obey all of the Bible. Moreover, nowadays, I don't assume that God can't be in the lives of homosexuals, for I hear testimonies from them about what they believe is God's activity in their lives. Why should I consider their testimony to be less valid than that of evangelical Christians? Doesn't God love everyone? Do I feel God nowadays? Not really. I don't have that gush of inspiration that I always craved. But I'm honest with God about where I am, and I try to believe that God loves me, not the artificial "good Christian" me that I wanted to be, but could never attain.
At Harvard, when I initially went to the Memorial Church, I figured that I was just listening to an inspirational message, so there was no harm in my going. But a conservative friend of mine told me that I shouldn't go because God's church is sacred, and I should not honor a place where a homosexual is a pastor, for that disrespects God's church. Nowadays, I'll listen to inspirational messages, wherever they're from! And, as for those who want to tell me what to do, I suggest that they mind their own business!
