122. Integrity

I want to write a post but I really don’t feel like bothering to write it well or attempt to make it interesting at all. And seeing as how this is my blog, I think I’ll do just that.

Tonight I went to a Eucharist for gay Christians in Ottawa held by an organization called Integrity. It was held in a small Anglican church on a street I didn’t know existed until today. It was nice, very liturgical. The gospel reading was the same one we did at my church this morning, which I thought was funny, although that could be simply due to the liturgical calendar. There were about 25 people there, and I was by far the youngest person in the room. There was one woman who I originally thought might be a few years older than me, but when we spoke afterwards she made reference to her two children who are in their twenties so… not so much. I think I’ll go again, though, at least once, maybe in the fall, after the traditional cottage season is over… just to try and meet as many of the members as possible.

So, yeah… it was nice, but… well, there doesn’t appear to be a community of gay Christians in this city who are of a more evangelical bend. It’s not that I have a problem with Anglican churches, or people of a not-so-evangelical tradition, but to be honest, they have a sort of a problem with me. Or with my beliefs I guess. It’s understandable, I suppose, I mean, this was a group of older gay people who had likely heard all the messages and been really hurt by evangelical churches. But their bias was undeniable. When the woman who I had thought was close to my age mentioned that she was from an evangelical church, the expression on the faces of the women she was speaking to was very clear. One of the ladies there also spoke of one of her aunts who was “God forgive her, a born again Christian”… a sentiment I’m used to hearing from non-Christians, but not from Christians. (I’ve a whole separate rant on the term ‘born again’ and what it has come to mean to the world at large that I won’t get into here). Oh, and when that same woman (from the evangelical church) made an offhand suggestion that perhaps we could get groups from other churches, not just Anglicans, together, it was met with a sort of confused silence that I admit I didn’t really understand. Someone turned to me and asked me what I thought, and I said quite effusively that I thought it was a wonderful idea, if in fact we could find groups from other denominations that were open to gay Christians that would be fantastic, and I mentioned GCN as an example of a group of believers from different denominational backgrounds who are able to worship together, but well, the subject was rather quickly changed.

Now, I seem to be highlighting the negatives, and I don’t mean to do that. The service was nice, the music was absolutely beautiful and taking communion amidst a group where I felt fully accepted felt wonderful. Oh, and one of the ladies there made a phenomenal pumpkin bread… so that was a bonus! So yeah, I’ll likely go again, although I don’t exactly feel up to marching with them in the pride parade (something that was discussed tonight). And that’s not so much about my not wanting to march and be public as it is about my not being sure about belonging to this group – and, if I’m perfectly honest, a lot of that is the age thing. I know that’s superficial, but well… that’s the honest truth.

Skipping back a bit, I thought I’d give a brief description of the affirming church I went to a few Sundays back, the one with evangelical in the name. It was also very liturgical… more liturgical than any service I think I’ve ever been to, honestly. Half of the prayers were sung! (That was kind of cool, actually.) It was nice as well, if a little… fluffy. I know that sounds really weird, but the sermon was basically “Jesus is nice”. And while I totally agree; that’s just kind of… fluffy. There was nothing particularly ‘gay’ about the service, most of the people there appeared to be straight to me. The only thing I noticed was a poster in the lobby advertising a conference where Kelly Fryer was speaking (she’s a lesbian Lutheran minister who spoke at the GCN conference I went to), but that was about it. Again, I think I’ll probably visit one more time at least. The only problem is that it is a fairly small church, so my presence was very obvious, which makes me kind of nervous. But I’ll just deal with that, I guess.

So yeah, that’s the end of my very functional, but not so interesting or well written post. Sorry.