{"id":39355,"date":"2025-04-29T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=39355"},"modified":"2025-05-01T06:18:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T06:18:12","slug":"the-sacramental-shame-many-lgbtq-conservative-christians-wrestle-with-and-how-they-find-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/the-sacramental-shame-many-lgbtq-conservative-christians-wrestle-with-and-how-they-find-healing\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018sacramental shame\u2019 many LGBTQ+ conservative Christians wrestle with \u2013 and how they find healing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dawne Moon<\/a>, Marquette University<\/a><\/em> and Theresa Tobin<\/a>, Marquette University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kai found Jesus as a teenager. A person of white and Hawaiian descent, Kai now goes by gender-neutral pronouns and identifies as \u201cm\u0101h\u016b,\u201d the traditional Hawaiian term for someone in-between masculine and feminine<\/a>. But when they first became Christian, the high-schooler identified as gay \u2013 and was committed to celibacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kai \u2013 a pseudonym to protect their privacy \u2013 embraced their church\u2019s \u201cwelcoming but not affirming\u201d teachings about LGBTQ+ people, agreeing that same-sex intimacy was incompatible with being Christian. It felt good to be sacrificing for the Lord, Kai recalls. But they eventually realized they were harming themself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI found myself unconsciously shutting down connection,\u201d Kai told us. \u201cInside, I was crumbling in every moment because I was so fervently policing myself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kai believed \u2013 and their church taught \u2013 that God\u2019s own love is a gift, freely given<\/a>. Nevertheless, they still felt that to be worthy of that love, Kai had to \u201csurrender\u201d their orientation and need for emotional connection, even with friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt took me a long time to be able to look back on that and say, \u2018Those were days when I hated myself,\u2019\u201d Kai said. \u201cI hated myself for the sake of demonstrating how much I loved God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kai began to reflect on what it meant to be Christian and concluded that Jesus didn\u2019t have a problem with same-sex marriage, or gender beyond clear ideas of \u201cmale\u201d and \u201cfemale.\u201d Christian \u201cfriends\u201d quietly cut Kai out of their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a sociologist<\/a> and a philosopher<\/a>, we\u2019ve worked together to understand the experiences of LGBTQ+ conservative Christians. Kai\u2019s story illustrates a dynamic that in our 2025 book, \u201cChoosing Love<\/a>,\u201d we call \u201csacramental shame.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Christianity, the word \u201csacrament\u201d often refers to a particular rite, like baptism, that provides a tangible sign of God\u2019s presence. Many of the LGBTQ+ Christians we spoke with felt that conservative congregations expected them to demonstrate shame for their identity to prove they hadn\u2019t turned their backs on God \u2013 that God was still present in their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weight of shame<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Some Protestant denominations fully affirm<\/a> LGBTQ+ identities, same-sex marriage and gender transition, and other churches are split.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Two
Two women at a church in Suffolk, England, on Dec. 17, 2023, after blessings for same-sex couples were approved for Church of England services. Joe Giddens\/PA Images via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But when we learned that LGBTQ+ people and their allies were advocating for change in conservative churches, we wanted to hear their stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In interviews and fieldwork, LGBTQ+ evangelicals told us that their churches often treated being cisgender and straight as though it were more important than the Ten Commandments. In some congregations, being LGBTQ+ is treated as an especially grave sin. But since people can\u2019t change their sexual orientation or gender identity at will, treating these things as sins creates an experience of endless shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the \u201csacramental shame\u201d dynamic, churches require LGBTQ+ people to feel and display shame as the sign that they have not rejected God. Their churches, families and friends more or less require them to act as though their very capacity to love others, and to recognize the truth about themselves, is a danger to the people they love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one person recalled, \u201cthere were a lot of [friends] that I cut off. And I thought I was endangering them. I thought that I was going to poison them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feeling unworthy of the love of God and other people can make people feel like their lives are not worth living. We heard about countless struggles with addiction, depression and suicide attempts \u2013 and sometimes even physical symptoms, like unexplained asthma attacks or autoimmune disorders that developed as LGBTQ+ people wrestled with the stress of trying fervently to be worthy of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Queer Christians of color<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sacramental shame isn\u2019t easy for anyone, but often it can be more complicated for Black<\/a> or Indigenous Christians and other Christians of color<\/a>. In part, that\u2019s because centuries-old racist tropes often depict minority groups in a sexualized way, as \u201cpromiscuous\u201d or \u201cexotic.\u201d Not wanting to affirm those stereotypes can make it harder for LGBTQ+ Christians of color to navigate life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kai, like many Christians, was drawn to the faith\u2019s message of love and justice for the oppressed. Religion can offer support and strength for dealing with the realities of racism<\/a>. But that can sometimes turn into a pressure to disprove racism by behaving as \u201crespectably\u201d as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
LGBTQ+ Christians who are people of color sometimes feel added pressure. bojanstory\/E+ via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Black, bisexual pastor we\u2019ll call Imani grew up in a church that quietly supported LGBTG+ people, but she never knew it. As a young person, Imani worried that her own sexuality might cause trouble for her mother, who had already been through a lot:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was scared of embarrassing my mother. \u2026 All I could think about was the swirling doom that would be, if people found out. \u2026 I never even thought for a second that it was an option.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Some white respondents, too, feared that coming out would embarrass their parents. But for Imani, silence about her sexuality seemed necessary to protect the Black community\u2019s respectability, as well as her family\u2019s belonging in the church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also met Darren Calhoun: a Black, gay man who was urged to try to fight being gay<\/a>. His pastor\u2019s ideas about how to \u201cfix\u201d Darren involved having him live in an out-of-state church building for four years, sleeping on the altar and fasting two days a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It ended when Darren heard Christ telling him to stop hiding from life. So he went home, and his pastor told the church not to talk to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shifting views<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Some conservative Christians, including allies who aren\u2019t LGBTQ+, are starting to change the conversation \u2013 and their own views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, New Testament scholar Richard Hays<\/a> and his son Christopher Hays<\/a> drew ire<\/a> from some fellow evangelicals<\/a> by publishing a book<\/a> arguing that God\u2019s mercy creates room in the church for LGBTQ+ people. Before them, evangelical leaders such as Tony Campolo<\/a>, David Gushee<\/a> and James Brownson<\/a> had also changed their minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaders or laypeople who have rethought the issue often pointed out to us that Jesus said all of the Ten Commandments come down to loving God and your neighbor<\/a>. Some said their views began to shift when they remembered to exercise humility, realizing that they might not know everything about gender, sexuality and God\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
In interviews, many Christians talked about the power of humility. Joe Giddens\/PA Images via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For example, the Book of Genesis says that God created male and female<\/a>; it also says God created day and night, and sea and dry land. But as transgender Bible scholar Austen Hartke<\/a> writes in his 2018 book \u201cTransforming<\/a>,\u201d recognizing night and day doesn\u2019t preclude sunsets. The fact that there are seas and dry land doesn\u2019t mean marshes are abominable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Kai tried to share God\u2019s love with other LGBTQ+ people, Kai came to realize that their church\u2019s expectation for all LGBTQ+ people to be celibate \u201cwasn\u2019t just hurting me; it was hurting other people.\u201d Kai decided that \u201cAs holy as this feels, it\u2019s not the spirit of the Jesus I fell in love with when I became a Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humility is not the opposite of pride; it is a realistic awareness of your gifts and your limitations. When LGBTQ+ people celebrate pride, they are celebrating the often hard-won knowledge that they are human beings, worthy of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dawne Moon<\/a>, Professor of Social and Cultural Sciences, Marquette University<\/a><\/em> and Theresa Tobin<\/a>, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Marquette University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dawne Moon, Marquette University and Theresa Tobin, Marquette University Kai found Jesus as a teenager. A person of white and Hawaiian descent, Kai now goes by gender-neutral pronouns and identifies as \u201cm\u0101h\u016b,\u201d the traditional Hawaiian term for someone in-between masculine and feminine. But when they first became Christian, the high-schooler identified as gay \u2013 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":39356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,826,8025,7,10,2450,15533],"tags":[1829,5200,2103,5639,365,13396,13076,885,891,886,860,6610,16312],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39357,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39355\/revisions\/39357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}