Are you a woman who is new to dating women or are you a queer woman who is re entering the world of dating after a long hiatus? Join Lavender dating on a two day online workshop January 25 and February 1, 1 to 2:30pm Central Time on Zoom, where you'll become better prepared to jump into the dating scene. Learn how to navigate dating apps. Get clarity on your values, wants and needs in relationship. Learn how to start and end connections and much, much more. Don't put yourself out there unprepared. Tickets are available on Eventbrite or at lavenderdating.com that's www.lavenderdating.com. hey, queer friends and allies. Welcome to season six of Coming out and Beyond. LG PQIA +STORIES. Here's your host, Ann Marie Zanzal.

Hi, this is Anne-Marie Zanzal here and welcome back to another episode of Coming out and Beyond. So I've been telling you guys that I'm going to start diving more into the spiritual side of life. And so I am very happy to welcome Pastor Greg Bullard here from Nashville to be on my show today to tell a little bit about his coming out story and the work of his church here in Nashville. So let me tell you about Greg, sir. Greg is the longest serving, affirming pastor in Tennessee, serving since 1995 over 30 years in three churches, Safe harbor in Memphis, MCC Nashville, and Covenant of the Cross. He lives in a farm where he focuses on growing food for those who struggle with hunger and sustainability, as well as teaching gardening and how to preserve what is grown. What he does on the farm is reflected in his public ministry by focusing on health, housing and hunger, especially for marginalized LGBTQIA plus communities. Greg, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. I hope you're having a great day.

I am having a great day and I want to thank Greg. He's been very patient with me. We were supposed to record yesterday, but we had a couple kerfuffles. So now we're doing it today in.

The fullness of time, as it says.

True. So, Greg, how I always start this show is tell me your story. So tell me your queer story.

Okay. So I don't know that I would have a coming out story per se because I recognized myself when I was younger.

Mm.

So I recognized who I was. And so I remember being told that I would not be allowed to be ordained in the denomination. What, you grew up in Holiness tradition of the United Methodist Church.

So that's. Is that more Pentecostal?

It leans toward the Pentecostal, but it is the ones where they really take the vows you're supposed to take seriously. Like, you don't smoke, you don't drink, you don't gamble, you don't. Holiness in the. Because we, we think of holiness as, you know, the big beehive hairdos and all of that stuff. But a lot of times it was about personal behavior. And, and of course, most of them had certain ideas of what about what their personal behavior should be. So, like, we had a preacher one time that preached it was a sin to play rook because you were gambling. I don't know if anybody listening to this knows.

Oh, my wife is a rook champion. So. And, and, and she's from east Tennessee. And so.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's explain really quick. Rook is a game that was developed by people that were taught that they could not play cards. So they developed. Right. Am I right? So they developed a game that is basically cards. But it's not cards. They're not the, the four suits and everything like that.

Yes. And in it you bid. So there's 180 points. There may be more, but I think it's 180. And you would bid how many points you think you can get. And so the number one, the highest card is called the rook card, and it's basically a picture of a crow. And so you would, you would bid. And if you got the rook, you were sitting high and pretty. Right. So, but that, that preacher preached that it was a sin to play rook because bidding on something was gambling.

But you were next Sunday.

He only had three people at church because everybody was playing rook the night before. And then he got. Everybody came back because they were like, oh, the bishop will send somebody else later. It'll be okay.

So you grew up in a. Where your faith tradition was ruled by rules about what you could and couldn't do as a human. Like, you can't dance, you can't play cards.

I would say that that was what was taught from the pulpit and was probably lived by many. My father did not attend church. My mother had come from a church of Christ and started going to this little church. They were very much about holy living. At least on Sunday morning, bootlegger was down the street.

Where'd you grow up? Where was this little church?

Grew up in Hartsville, Alabama. Okay. And. And so every time there was a wet, dry referendum, suddenly church would be packed. There would be people shouting hallelujah and amen and the, and the bootlegger would be tithing on all the illicit liquor profits. He'd Made and all of that stuff. And then as soon as the wet trial referendum failed, he didn't come to church anymore. So, and. And it made all the guys, all the men, the grown men who had been visiting him a little bit more comfortable to come to church.

So you knew from a long time, you know, when you were young, a lot of. A lot of men talk about that, about knowing from a really long, you know, when they're really young, that they're not interested in girls, they're interested in boys. Yeah. And so what did you do with that information?

I just sort of lived it. I mean, because my father wasn't deeply religious. In fact, I would tell you my father was much more of a Matthew 25 Christian, which means for people who don't understand, for those people who do not understand it. In Christian theology, many of us grew up with the idea that you have an altar call and you come down to the altar and you caterwaul. And by the way, caterwauling means you cry and carry on.

We're going to have to translate all your Southerners, Greg, Some of them I'm not even getting.

So caterwauling means you're highly emotional, not making any sense, and I'm just a horrible sinner and all of that stuff. And just because you had an emotional reaction does not mean that you are actually saved. Whereas most people would say, have you accepted Jesus into your heart and have you accepted him as your personal Lord and Savior? I'm talking about the theology act, right? And Matthew 25 teaches, if you're looking at it from that perspective, Matthew 25 teaches that Jesus at the end of time, will separate humanity into sheep and goats. In both camps, by the way, are surprised that they're a sheep or that they're a goat. Neither one of them know they're going to be at which one. And you are determined if you're a sheep or a goat in that passage based off of how you cared for the poor, how you cared for the person who was hungry, how you cared for the person who was naked, if you visited people who were sick, and if you showed up at prison. And it really is Jesus saying how you care for the vulnerable and least powerful in your society determines if you are really my follower or not. Not what you say.

It sounds like you inherited your dad's beliefs.

I would say that the church I grew up in with really believed that too, because they all. So it was a farming community. Nobody had really a lot of money, so they all shared farm equipment because nobody could buy all of it themselves. So one person would have. Or at least they couldn't when they started. Right. So one person had. They all had a tractor, but one person had a hay baler and one had a rake, and one had. And so they just helped each other. And it really was about the community. The other piece that is different in my theology. Okay, so I'm going to say it this way. Most people take the Bible spiritually. I take the Bible seriously. And by that I mean salvation is not individualistic. When you look in the Scriptures and how I view it, and that's how we view it here at Covenant, is that salvation is a communal effort and that we are all. And when Jesus says he will be in us, he's actually. That's a plural you he uses, not an individual you. And so we really talk about community and how it builds. And a lot of that theology did come from how I grew up, Father, and from the people around me, because even though they were holiness, there was this streak. There was this streak of him responsible for my brother, and that was unique to the uprising I came from. My mother talked still about how the church down the street, which remained in the United Methodist Church and hers left, which is the one I grew up in. She talks about how that church down the street is weird. Well, that it's. The church down the street's not weird. It's how it was when we were growing up, and it's how Oak Ridge was when we were growing up now, because Oak Ridge changed because a new pastor came in, because, regretfully, the leadership does send a person in a specific direction. And so now that they withdrew and they're like, everything's individualistic. I mean, because honestly, her pastor's really a Baptist masquerading as a Methodist. And so. So he. So now I am carrying that torch that I was taught, because my pastor, Brother Gilliam, when I was growing up, he was 75 when he came to the church. And in the holiness tradition, seeing the spirit of God on a person trumps everything else. Okay, just to be clear, but how.

Okay, but how do you. How do you determine that and determine.

That based off of the fruit?

Yeah. And when that's the fruit of the spirit, those people who aren't. Okay, so not everybody that looks listens to this is biblically literate. So when you say the fruit, you're saying the fruit of the spirits, the.

Fruit of the spirit and the fruit of the hands. If they do not match, they are not true. So in other words, you can't have the fruit of the spirit of peace if you are not living in peace with the people around you. You cannot have the spirit of love. The fruit of the spirit of love if you are not loving the people around you.

Mm.

You. You can't have. So it is. To say it another way, interestingly, this is what I'm preaching on on Sunday. In the Gospel, Jesus says, it is not what proceedeth into a person's mouth that defiles, but what comes from a person's mouth. And what comes from our mouth is what is in the core, he says, for it is from what the heart has. But when he says heart there, he's not talking about this thing that's beaten right here. He's not talking about your emotions. He's talking about the core, the heartwood, of who you are. And if the core of who you are is rotten, your mouth will be rotten. And if the core of who you are is good, your mouth will be good and your hands will be good and all of that. And that doesn't mean they're perfect, doesn't mean that there's not brokenness. It does mean, however, that there is goodness there. And so Brother Gilliam, he came when he's 75, and I think I had just turned 17. I'd been running my family farm for about three years at that point. And he said, God has called you, but the bishop will not ordain you. And the bishop is wrong.

Well, for a little gay boy in the church at 17, that must have been so affirming for you.

Yeah, I mean, the church was affirming of who I was. They didn't understand it. They didn't say.

So did you get the.

You know, there was never a sermon on, it's a sin to be gay. There was never a sermon on. This person is less than there is. There was never a sermon. I think there was one time with a younger pastor that was sent. And. And I recall because there was a pastor who was only there for a month. And I think that the charge conference called the bishop and said, either he goes, or you can close us, or something like that. Like that. They were like, we're not tolerating this. This is not who we are.

So you are. So, you know, that's amazing, because in our generation, to have somebody to who. To. As a gay boy in the south, in Alabama, to have such acceptance must have made your journey with faith so much more easier than someone who was told that they were not, you know, they didn't get the Support you did.

I think that is. I do believe that is true, but it also goes to the family structure I grew up in. I'm the oldest of four boys. My parents did not let me have spend the night boys, and they didn't let my brothers have spend the night girls. They did not define that for me when they started that rule.

Mm.

They just. It just was like, Greg, that's like.

I mean, you know, like, your parents were pretty accepting.

And I'll tell you, my mother is. Bernie Sanders would be conservative anyway.

Do you and your mom ever get into, like, little arguments around theology and stuff like that?

No, because. Well, okay, so their church, after Mike came and, you know, the United Methodist Church had their big deal about homosexuality and all of that.

Okay. For those who don't know the U. The UMC United Methodist Church has gone through a transition that lasted for several years in which they were arguing about whether to ordain people that were gay as ministers. Half the church decided that they were going to do that, and half the church decided that they were not. And so what?

Actually, a third of the church. They weren't.

Excuse me. So thank you for the right number. So a third. And so that third is splitting off from the United Methodist Church. And I. Where are they going? They're going with.

Well, they're going to different places, like the Independent Methodist Church and the Global Methodist.

Yeah, a lot of. And a lot of the third was not from the United States, but from other areas of the world, especially Africa.

But if you look at the large churches that left, they actually held a Baptist Buddhist theology rather than a Methodist. They wanted to be congregational, which is not what Methodists do. They're connectional.

Yes, that's true.

They wanted independent.

We have to do. Okay, so congregational means that. Yeah, you're led by the congregation. And what was the other one? What was Methodist?

Methodist connectional.

Which is their pastors get appointed.

Their pastors get appointed. But it also means you are a member of the larger body.

Yes. Right.

You are not just a member of the local body.

Is it Episcopalian in the sense?

No, it is not. It does have bishops, but it is not Episcopal. It is not hierarchical.

Yeah. And when I say Episcopalian, I'm meaning E with a small e and not capital E, which is the church.

Correct. Episcopal, Pagan, even in the small E is really where it is a hierarchical structure.

Absolutely.

Like, this is not cap. This is a. Your local church makes the decisions. As long as it's inside the local church, it's. It's all of that stuff you are empowered to do the ministry you're called to there. And so, so I lived in that structure and so I.

Did you ever think of like I need to move out of the South, I can go?

No, actually, well, I did for a little bit. But let me get you to you how I got into ordinary ordained ministry. So finishing my story out. So I, I went to college. I got a degree in computer science with a specialty in systems design and engineering and I got a degree in mathematical sciences with a focus and specialty in chaos theory and fractal geometry and chaos theory. So I came, I came to ordination and all of that from a very logical step by step process, right? And so I started that process, ended out getting. I taught for a little bit, but then I ended up getting a job with NASA in Huntsville and I had to move and so I had to resigned myself because of course the bishop in the United Methodist Church gets to decide if you get ordained or not. So I had resigned myself to that. But. But then I moved and I could not find a United Methodist church that fit my culture and fit who I was and, and that I felt connected to God and the community. I will be very clear. I do not believe you can feel connected to God completely individually. You have to have that connection with other people because again, Jesus says he will be present in the gathered community, not just in an individual. And so that theology was very important to me. So I'd done a lot of that pre work before and I ended up in a little bitty church and I was the first person they had seen that pulled up straight at the front door without circling and trying to hide and all of that stuff. It was an MCC church, Metropolitan Community Church.

Did you know that was a gay church?

I. I knew that it was affirming and I was like every Methodist church I'd gone to just didn't feel right. It just either it was too large or it was so focused on certain issues. I was like, y'all are sounding more like Baptist than you are Methodists and I can't handle that. So. And so I ended up at MCC Nashville because I ran into somebody MCC Huntsville because I ran into somebody who attended. And they were like, have you thought about trying? And I was like, well, no, I've always done the Methodist thing. You know, the only two Baptist churches I'd ever attended before I walked out midway through the sermons because, well, I'm just can't sit for heresy. But anyway, and so I ended up. And so they were surprised that I just pulled up at the front door and they were like, this is unusual. Who are you? You know, because a lot ashamed. Not. And I wasn't coming ashamed.

Well, a lot of queer people are really, those who grow up in churches that are abusive to who they are as human beings often really like they. And. But they still want to be a part of a church community. Right. And they want to have that experience. Like going to a church is terrifying because you do not know if your humanity is going to be diminished. So that's why a lot of times people been around the church or they go in and sit in the back and I get.

I understand that. But at that time, this was 1991.

Yeah.

And people were afraid to be seen.

Right, right, right.

So at that point, most affirming churches were tucked away in hidden areas.

Right. And for those of us who did not come of age in the 80s and 90s, especially in the South, I'd be it anyway. Especially in the south, it was very much. The queer community was very much on the down low. My wife came out in 84 down here. So I'm like, I know that what she's talked about and stuff like that, like you just were not out, like. So, for example, she would say, you would see, you know, you'd go out, you would. You and your girlfriend would see another couple, but you didn't ask each other if they were gay or not. And then she talks about going to dinner one time with this other couple, and they spent the whole time at dinner. And then finally at the end of the dinner, one of the women said, are you guys a gay? Are you guys lesbian? And that's when they both realized, you know, they. They all suspected it, but nobody would say it because of the shame people felt and also because they didn't. They weren't safe.

They weren't safe. Absolutely. They weren't safe. And so, so I. I went in and it was a night where the pastor was out because I. I had to go see my mama that morning. And then I went in and basically people were hanging from the chandeliers. For those of you who do not grow up in it, that's called Pentecostalism. Yeah, so.

And so I'm so sorry because Greg and I speak the same language about this, but we do have to explain. So if you're not somebody who goes to a Christian church or, excuse me, a Pentecostal church. A Pentecostal church is basically very expressive, very emotive, speaking in tongues, feigning, doing all kinds of Stuff.

So.

So Greg, who is this Methodist boy, walks into a mcc, which is a metropolitan community church, which is a community. It's a denomination here in the United States, which is exclusively lgbtqia, mainly in big cities. Okay, so you.

And. And it is not predominantly Pentecostal.

Right.

Expression comes out occasionally because it is. It is the one church where they mixed. You'll see people who grew up Pentecostal walking down and genuflecting at the altar. You'll see people do. So they've. They've become this ecumenical space.

Yeah. When the one I went to was very evangelical, and that was in Connecticut. It's hard to find evangelicalism in Connecticut, but it was.

And so it was filling that need that they couldn't find anywhere else. And so in Huntsville, Alabama, they didn't have a Pentecostal service every Sunday, but that just happened to be what I was walking into. And it was a healing service. And I was like, okay, this feels good. This is normal, you know. And so I got involved, got in student clergy there, got in. At that point, we were protesting against Cracker Barrel and all of that stuff. And so I was involved in all of that. And one of the pastors came and said, there's a calling on you. I said, yeah, but my. My bishop. I knew my bishop wouldn't. And they said, you're not in that church anymore.

Right. Well, Lord.

So. So I ended out starting student clergy process and coming on staff at that church. I did. Did a small group in another town in Decatur, which is roughly 45 minutes from Huntsville. And basically it turned into a small church of about 30 people on a Wednesday night and doing other stuff. And then when the pastor. We built a building at that point. And then when the pastor left, I filled the pulpit for a few months until they could get an interim in and a final permanent pastor in. Then I went to Birmingham, and from there I was assigned and finished my student clergy process and I left and went to Memphis to pastor Safe Harbor Church.

Is that an MCC too?

It was an mcc.

Okay.

And they have since merged with the UCC over there. So they. I went and pastored that church. It had like four or five people. When I got there, they were all white gay men. And I pastored for three years. When I left, it was at. We'd really embraced who Memphis was. And so I. For those of you who do not under. Who do not know this, in mcc, you are required to use gender inclusive language. And by that I do not mean you use she for God sometimes. And he for God sometimes, I mean, you have to be gender neutral there. Gender neutrality in that. God basically is. Thanks, Listen. And I, I, I get where they were coming from.

Okay, well, I'm gonna, I, like, I.

Yeah, but let me finish, let me finish. But I noticed that the people, because there was already an affirming church there that was LGBTQIA + LED, and I didn't know that when I was going. And I noticed that the people who were coming, that it was taking too much to teach them the language to get them the healing that they needed, and that the liturgy that MCC required was too much they couldn't handle. I mean, they, they felt horrible to take communion every Sunday because they didn't grow up in that tradition. Right. So I decided I did not ask permission. Well, I did of God, but I didn't. Of the district coordinator. And I said, I, I talked to the church and I said, I need to know it's this comfortable language for you. And they were like, no. So I was like, okay, so what is comfortable? So I let them lead that. And we went back to more traditional language around the imagery of God, with me still weaving in other imagery of God, like El Shaddai, the big breasted one, and all of that stuff. And then we also, while we were required to have communion, it did not have to be during worship. So we moved communion into a chat, into a room behind the chapel we were meeting in so that those who needed communion could receive it, but that those who it became an impediment for it didn't impede them.

Okay, so I'm going to ask you a question.

Okay.

Should faith be comfortable? Because I believe that I don't use gender. I mean, I call Jesus he because he's a proven he, but I don't use gender. I use gender neutral terms because when we gender God, we inherently limit God. So I use, I use gender neutral terms for God and the Holy Spirit. I call Jesus a he. It's really important to me, especially as a woman, to have my, to see myself within the divine. And when it's exclusively used as he, then I'm not seeing myself. And also challenging you. Should faith be comfortable?

Like, okay, so here, here's okay. I think that it's not faith if all we're talking about is semantics.

That's true.

And what I'm telling you is I could not challenge them in some fundamental bedrock aspects of who they were in God's presence if I had to first get them to understand the language. And they weren't Going to understand the language until the bedrock issue under that was dealt with.

What was the bedrock issue?

The bedrock issue is almost always that they are fundamentally unclean in their personhood.

So shame, which is shame is. Shame is there is something wrong with me, while guilt is I've done something wrong.

Correct, Correct. I would agree with that statement. But. But we also need to remember there's a shame that leads to life and a shame that leads to death. And a shame that leads to life is I'm ashamed that I was. I ran around on my wife for 15 years and then. And she died of cancer, and I didn't make that right. A shame that leads to death is I should be ashamed that I'm a white person or I'm a man or I'm a woman, or I am 5 foot 2, or I am 6 foot 10, or I. Something you can't change. Right.

Well, and queerness, you can't change.

I agree with that statement. But I also think if I'm not willing to meet them.

Agree with you. So we talked a little bit, because what I.

What I would say is start where people are. Okay, so in other. In other settings, we would call this code switching. Right? So when you. If you didn't want.

It's not code switching. Because if it was code switching. Code switching is to keep yourself safe.

Well, but I would tell you that in some ways it is still that. Because, like, if you are. If you're. If you're out somewhere, you know, like people growing up in the south, you know, and people would say, oh, Bullard, how's your girlfriend? I would say, knowing who I was with and what I was doing, I said, oh, doing great. I'd never corrected them. Why? Because pronouns don't matter. Pronouns are not me, I am Greg. I am not he, I am not him, I am Greg. And so. So I can ignore a lot of that, but I have also processed that through a different system. And that process came through my two degrees that I mentioned earlier, the computer science and mathematical sciences. And so then I was able to say, okay, how do I first reach them where they're at? And how do I begin to shift their perception? How do I begin to. They're far. Right. Wait, wait.

Well, but.

All right, so how do I get them to.

Because. Because the requirement. Because you have to get. And so what I'm here. Okay, so let me. Let me hear. Tell you what I'm hearing.

Okay.

Is that. So I get what you're saying, because I have been at a church similar to that where there's a. It was a gay church with a lot of male language. And I understand that when you're worried about semantics, about. It just is too much for people. And I get that. I really get that. In order for them to. I lost my train of thought. So for order. Order for them to move, you are meeting them where they are because eventually you want to get them to a place where they accept who they are.

As human beings and they accept other people. So. So here, where I would. What I would say is I meet them where they're at, but then I start adding additional language. Instead of inclusive language becoming gender neutral, it becomes, I've got a straight married couple and, oh, I've got a lesbian couple. And then I got. And so I add layer, because God is diversity in many ways. So I add layers, but I start where they're at and then I start adding those layers so that they can see differently instead of just. I think where I'm coming from is that the way that MCC approached it at the time, it was a hammer when they needed a cuddle.

I can. I can understand that. I have been in queer spaces where there is a militancy around how you should be. And so I get that.

And now how I've. How I mitigated that. So I met them with their language. But I also. Because in the churches I served, and in this one as well, most of the leadership has been female or racial minorities or something like that. Because I understand imagery. And so imagery isn't just about God. It is also. And especially if you believe that Jesus is in the body, only in the gathered community. So how you lift those individuals up, how you lift. So, like we have. We just added our first Caucasian elder in five years.

Well, I think it's really important as a white male who's had experience, only white male experiences, to have other voices around you that have.

And I don't trust white men most of the time.

No, I struggle to too, honey.

I don't trust myself sometimes.

So. But I think it's really important, like as. As a white pastor, if you are leading a church that is very diverse, that you have diverse voices.

Yeah. And that's. That's how I approached it. I was like, I can choose. The battle for language was a harder battle than lifting people up into leadership. And lifting people up into leadership addressed the language issue long term. And I think what we do is we pick the wrong battle rather than the correct.

When you say we, are you talking about the church? Are you talking about the queer community or both?

I think it's both and I think it's each individual. I think most of the time we come into a place and we think we want something to happen and we don't think about, you know, we're going to have a class here starting on January 30th for people how, how to interact with politicians and the larger community. And we have, you know, you have trigger words, right? I have trigger words. You know, call one of my kids, because I've got, I've got three kids tenure, a 13 year old, a 10 year old and a 31 year old that are. The 31 year old is the last one to be adopted. He thinks of himself as the oldest. And I'm like, you're the youngest. And, and, but my, my, the, my two younger kids in chronological age are biracial. Say something about their race and see what I'm going to do. That's a trigger word for me. And it's a trigger word for them. Right? Say something to my kids about my sexuality. That's a trigger word for them. Okay, well, I hate to say this, but the speaker of the House of the state of Tennessee has triggered words. For those of you who do not know, he has trigger words too. The minute you say my truth, he will immediately turn you off because that's a trigger word. And so you have to know the language that the person uses, not the language you wish you could use. Because what's the greater good? The language? Or is it to get them to change? And so I believed, and I still believe that you meet people in their language. And I can change my language, by the way. I, I, I, I, I do, I do. I did interfaith work. I was one of the interfaith coordinators for MCC in the southeastern United States. And I led the Nashville Pride spirituality celebration, which is Wiccans and radical fairies and Christians and Jews and Buddhists.

Yeah, I've been to that service. It's a nice.

And so I don't know if you were had been to it when I still led it or not, but last.

Time I went was like six years ago.

So for 17 years I led that and we intentionally made it about you just come and give something positive about your personal faith community. And we intentionally said you had to be part of a faith community that met because you couldn't come as a sole practitioner.

Because, because community is very important to you.

Community is important. And if you're presenting because a lot of people who came to that event came. So that they could find a place that spoke to who they were. And so we told people, you speak your language, but it has to be positive language. It can't be. It cannot be negative about anybody else or any of that stuff and let them find the goodness in you rather than agree with you in the negative of what you think about somebody else. And so the language really, really matters, but it is not the leading indicator for me. I meet people where their language is. And so if we have two people who are getting baptized this Sunday who come from a Wiccan tradition, I use very different language with them, but I know where they're coming from. And there are people who attend this church who are atheists. And so I'm like, yes, I understand, I'm using faith language for everybody else. But from a rational viewpoint, this still makes sense.

Well, from a rational viewpoint, as a mathematician, I can understand that. Yeah.

And when I sit down and make.

That argument, I have, I have an aside for you. Yes, have. When I went to seminary, I went to Yale. I was 42. I met so many men that were engineer and scientists. And I was really surprised, I was really surprised by that because I think of engineers and scientists as more analytical than spiritual. And I'm like, why, why, why were so many dudes going? I mean, because the, a lot of them like at, at Yale, like, especially the old, the older ones were like, you know, they were retired. They were doing this because it was something they always wanted to do. They were in their face. Some people were doing a mid career shift. So like, why? I'm just curious about that. That just sort of blew my mind that so many people that I would think that would be more hesitant about faith that were on the, you know, the real mathematical, analytical, engineering, all that were.

So what I would tell you is I think we understand systems better than most people.

Okay, say more about that.

I think that, you know, you took a systematic theology class when you were in seminary and my church would not know that I'm teaching them a systematic theology of how to live their life. Because I don't call it that, I just call it hairs.

Unless you're in a really, really like, well, okay church.

I had a, I had a student clergy one time. They started using sanctification and all of these big words. And I was like, son, don't nobody give a. About none of that.

No, they don't, they don't care.

Just tell them how to live a better life. That's what they want you to do. And I said, and it's not that they are. They not want you to spoon feed them. They want you to inspire them to aspire to be better people. I said, and that isn't going to happen on a Sunday morning from 11 to 12. That's going to happen over coffee the next day. It's going to happen when you have small groups. You have to have communal moments. Right. So I think we understand systems better. Not in the sense that I'm like, I would not say I'm a great administrator. I would say that I am at best, okay, maybe not even okay. What I will tell you is that I am very, very good at loving people. And I think that is a systematic process. I think we think of love and community as things that just happen.

No, they don't. He was the head of a lot of communities.

No, no, they happen because somebody had the forethought to create a system where you sat down across the table from each other and broke bread. By the way, that means that you ate a meal.

Yes.

And you, and you, you told jokes and you talked about hardships and you talked about joys and you talked about. And you found a way to create some kind of community. And community is really a deeper form of friendship. And what we're missing there is a deep lack of, or let me put it this way, there is an epidemic of loneliness right now. And I would tell you that what I found is that most people want community, but they're afraid to go to the one place where it's actually going to be no matter what.

Yes.

And I would tell you, most people say I have church trauma. I'm going to ask you to rephrase that. Those of you who are listening today, you don't have church trauma. You have trauma from a person that you thought you could trust who attended church with you. They are not the church.

Well, I agree with that. But there are some denominations that do traumatize queer folks.

Yeah. But now that that's still individuals and that's not God.

I, I get what you're saying. It's not God. It's individuals that hurt people.

And usually what I found. So, like, we've had several people come here recently that said, I thought that crosspoint was affirming. I'm like, here, let me knock on your head a minute.

Well, because you're not using inclusive language, right?

No, no, they, no, they say Covenant of the Cross is affirming. They're talking about crosspoint, the big Baptist church downtown.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they were like, they were Like, I'm. I thought they were affirming, but they won't let me serve on stage and they won't do this. I said no. They've never said they were affirming.

They were for a little point.

No, they weren't.

Oh, they tried to be and then.

They said they were accepting.

Yeah. Well, yes. And so for the uninitiated. Affirming. It's open and affirming. Some churches can really claim the open tile title. But are they affirming, which means can you serve on community committees?

Me, on the platform?

Yeah. Can you be a pastor in training? Can you. You know, that is affirming. Can you go to the church and you hold your husband or wife's hand during the service?

Marry you?

Will they marry you? Those are. That's what an affirming church is. Yeah.

Correct.

And so I have some questions to ask you. So. And we're.

I'm sorry, we've taken a long time. I know.

But it's okay. And what we'll do is we'll going to make this two episodes.

Let's cuss. Ju. Just cut the cuss words out.

Yeah. No, but I want to ask you a couple other things just because I find it intriguing and I think it'll be helpful for people who are listening. You said you meet people where they are so they can love themselves and love other people. So are you talking about queer people that struggle to love other people? Queer folks? Or is it more of queer people who have to learn because we have to learn to love ourselves before we can love others. Right. And so are we talking more about loving others in general?

Okay, so I think it's a both and answer. It's not an either or. I think that you cannot really love yourself until you know how to love another person. And by loving another person. I am not talking about. I want to get a little bit closer for this so they can see my eyes. I am not talking about how you feel. I'm not talking about.

You're talking about agape love.

You're talking about spiritual. Okay, so again, I'm a preacher, so we're going to go preacher ish. In the gospel, Jesus says that we are to love our enemies. Well, that means you have to have somebody who wants to hurt you to be able to obey that commandment. And that means you have to love them. Now, that does not mean you have to tolerate their abuse. It does not mean that you have to tolerate them stealing from you or taking advantage of you. It doesn't mean Any of that stuff. But what it does mean is, again, I got to go back in the Old Testament, Israel's been carted off and they've been in exile for a number of years, and they are complaining to God that they're not home. And God responds through the prophet, Seek the welfare of the town you're in, for in its prosperity you will find your prosperity. And what I, how I define love is I want that person who wronged me to be prosperous, happy, healthy and holy. And holy, by the way, doesn't mean you're sinless. It doesn't mean that you're perfect. It means that you're focused on becoming better. I seek their betterment. And I'm going to share two stories real quick about that. The first one was a person that when I was at MCC Nashville, we were having an. McC was going through the same thing that the United Methodist Church went through, but over different issues. And I had a person who said hateful, mean, horrible things about me, talked about me in the community and all of that stuff. And it's not like people ain't going to talk to me because everybody knows me. I had a newspaper article every week, and so I would get a phone call telling me that, well, he lost his housing. And it was after my first husband died, who would have been of the opinion that if we saw him run over in the road, we would back up and make sure he was dead because he had been so mean, you know. In fact, he was one of the reasons I had to leave MCC Nashville because my health had deteriorated so much. It was right after I started dating Brian and I was like, I can't let him be on the street no matter what. And he said horrible things about me when he lived in my house. But I sat there and let him live in my house. I made sure he had food to eat. I did what I had to do to help him find housing that he could afford in rental, rent, income, stabilized housing. And he stayed with me for several months until I could move him into a one bedroom, flat level apartment and get him to a place where he was sustainable. And then the other example was when we were on the hill and we had 120 people a Sunday coming to church. And we were very loud, we were almost hanging from the chandeliers. Uh, and so we, we were up there and we were doing something. And my minister of music at the time, it was, it was time for Lent. Lent was coming up. And since we didn't follow the lectionary per se, I Said, me and the elders said, it's time for us to go through something called solemn assembly, which is sort of the Pentecostal evangelical version of Lent, okay, Where you confess specific sins every Sunday. And he said, this is not what God wants. So he started a Bible study secretly off to the side, and ended out forming a church under our nose on Thursday nights. And then came in a Sunday morning, and five minutes before worship, said, this is my last Sunday, and most of the people in the choir is leaving. You're just not doing what God wants you to do, and all of that stuff. And he sent people four Sundays in the row in a row to tell me right before worship that they were leaving. And that was a huge betrayal to me. I mean, I understood what the other person was doing. I knew what they were doing before they did it. This was a complete surprise to me because I had found the minister of music. He had been arrested in the park for having sex in the park. I'd been very graceful. And so he did it. The fourth Sunday that somebody came. I got up in the pulpit and said, if any of you are leaving to go, get up and leave now. Do not come to me before worship. We will not tolerate this behavior anymore if you can't. And in then, two weeks later, I called that individual, and I said, I want to have dinner with you. And so I went and I had dinner with him, and I said, I feel very wronged, but you made a choice, and these people need a shepherd. Now. Your genesis is going to be the end of you as well. However, if you're going to lead them, this is what you need to do. I will give you the resources you need to make sure that y'all can succeed, because they do not deserve to be abandoned by somebody who doesn't know what they're doing. I want you to succeed. You should have done it a different way, but I want you to succeed.

Did he succeed?

He failed in three months. And most of them ended out coming back. Some of them did not want to come back, and some that came back wanted to immediately be back on the platform. And. And I come from a tradition that if you've had a very public sin against the gathered body, not against a person, but against.

But is it a sin to. Okay, first of all, if you're doing.

Something to harm when you're doing it.

Okay, so find sin.

To sin just means missing the mark, technically, but in this case, it was somebody actually doing something to harm another person.

Well, my definition of sin is. Which is basically that that separates us from God.

Yeah. And I would argue that separating you, if Jesus is in the gathered body, separating people from gathered body is separating them from God. Right. But they came back and they immediately wanted to be on the platform and I couldn't do that. Yeah, I said, you have to sit for six months to prove that you're not going to do this again. I'm sorry, what?

Just give us some time to heal as a community. Because people don't. I don't think a lot of times people don't understand the pain it causes a community when a bunch of people go and leave, you know?

Well, and they also don't understand that. See, they didn't personally attack me. They attacked an associate pastor over some light fixtures. And I was like, we're done. Yeah, I'm just done.

Well, that's called boundaries.

Boundaries. They had those boundaries beforehand, but they just believed they were right. And.

Well, I also. There's some things I really would have liked to have talked about, but we really have run out of time. It's under. It's over an hour and I'm going to cut you in half.

Anyway, we can talk again later.

We can talk again later because I want to talk about sin, but I also would love for you to share a little bit about yourself. So you didn't have a coming out song?

I didn't have a coming out song.

Because there's one that comes on that sort of just makes your heart dance a little bit.

So, you know, the interesting thing is my kids get up and I've got gospel music playing. And one of my songs that I keep leaning on is Dottie Rambo's One More River. And it's I've got one more river to cross, One more valley to one more river to cross One more mountain to climb One more valley that I gotta go through Leaving my troubles behind. One more battle with the devil, Then I know he'll understand. It's what that concept is. It's what Dottie's really thinking, talking about.

So a book other than the Bible, I don't think.

Let's not think about a book. Let's think about a movie.

Okay.

Romero, about Archbishop Romero out of. Of El Salvador, really impacted. And I've read some of his writings since then, some of his homilies and some of his sermons. I. That idea that you aren't dark, you have agency. Because when the, when the movie starts, he is stuck as part of the upper middle class and elite of El Salvador and he ends out getting assassinated because he identifies with the poor and the oppressed and the people being put down. And so that. And I identify with that because that seems. Don't care about social position. I really don't.

You know, his liberation theology, which, interestingly.

Enough, most people think liberation theology equals liberal theology. It does not.

Yeah. It's about liberating the poor.

Correct.

Okay. How do you describe your life today? You've been through a lot. You've been up and down, being living in the church world like you have. I'm like, God bless you. How would you describe your life today?

I forget what I put in the little form, but how I would describe my life is. It has filled with meaning. Um, I really cannot understand a life where I'm not living for other people. Um, I think that in a world that is hurting not so much because people have wounded us, but because we feel like we have no meaning, we forget that meaning can be as simple as building a community of people who are there in the thick and thin way. It can be as simple as showing up and building a food box for one family that's hungry. It can be a lot. In his book on tyranny, Snyder talks about. In one of his videos, on his book on tyranny, he talks about the world that we're creating. And he talks about this image of you. You're walking down the street and you see this swastika painted on the wall. And he argues fundamentally that you have two choices. You can look at it and move on. You didn't paint it originally. You can look at it and move on, or you can cover it up. So really, three options. You can cover it up, you can just whitewash it, or you can paint a beautiful mural over it. And he says if you just walk by it and you do nothing, you are part of the creation of it. You are a creator of the hate.

By walking by the problem. Right?

You are the problem. You are the problem. Not somebody else. You are the problem. Just like the. You know, anyway, I won't get back into the Bible. And then if you just cover it over, you're ignoring the problem. Whereas if you take and make a beautiful mural out of it and you turn that swastika into a painting, abstract painting. Well. Well, I mean, because if you. If it's a true swastika, you can actually paint it as a picture frame and have flowers coming out of it and doing all of that stuff. And his argument is, the first one is absolutely negative by just being apathetic. The second one is not positive. It is somewhat negative because you're just trying to ignore it. You're not dealing with it. And the third one is saying, I'm going to take this hateful stuff and turn it into something good. And so my life, I do not see life in liberal versus conservative, at least in church. I see it as orthodox or unorthodox. And orthodoxy has a huge range in it. Right? And unorthodoxy has a huge range. For those of you who do not know what that means, one means that orthodoxy is the way that you are supposed to think, according to God. But orthodoxy means nothing if you do not have orthopraxy, which is correct practice. How do I love my neighbor? How do I care for people? And my hope is that everything I do, whether it's this class we start this week on the 30th, or the financial fitness class or the gardening class or the whatever, so that people know that they have some agency in their own life to create a beautiful world. Even in the midst of people painting all the hate. People have options. They've got to go choose those options instead of staying home and keeping their windows shut.

So what I'm hearing you saying is that you choose the option to paint the flowers.

I paint.

You paint. Well, Greg, thank you so much for being on the show today. This was a great discussion. We didn't get to everything that I wanted to, but do we want to do it again? Maybe. We will see what happens.

You've been listening to Coming out and LGBTQIA stories with Ann Marie Zanza. New episodes of the Coming out and beyond podcast drop every other Friday. You can tune in at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts and@annmariezandel.com be sure to hit subscribe when tuning in so you never miss an episode. And for more resources, articles, videos and a free downloadable guide for coming out later in Life, visit nmariezanzel.com.