Natalie Weiss

As previously published October 6, 2020 on LAUNCH without fear.

Religion is kind of a weird thing. Apparently there are over 4000 religions in the world. I imagine that probably includes that one rando though that thinks he’s god and has like two people that believe him.

But it’s still weird to think that there are so many different beliefs and stories, and yet when you believe in the doctrine of one of these religions, you are essentially saying, “I’m right, and those 4000+ other faiths are wrong.” That’s pretty confident.

I think doubt is a good thing. I think that it’s good to question what you believe in and why you believe it.

If I wasn’t gay, I don’t know if I ever would have questioned my faith. I’m not sure I would have had a real reason too.

Ok, I take that back. There are many reasons to question Christianity. I’m talking more about the doctrine that the majority of the faith adheres too than those big questions (i.e. suffering and illness and all the things we wonder why a good god would allow to happen).

Aside from being gay, I think the thing that would’ve prompted my questioning would’ve been feminism. I deeply wanted to be a youth pastor. In Christian-speak, I felt called. But there’s this thing in Christianity about women teachers and leaders. 1 Timothy states it as this: “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet” (2:11-12 NIV). I’m going to be honest with you – even just reading that verse right now makes my skin crawl. It is so misogynistic. It is a verse that has been used to mistreat women for centuries. 

In the past week or two, I’ve realized that I have come to a kind of crossroads with my faith again. There was a series of events that brought this to my attention.

First, I started writing this essay. The last time I pulled this up to work on it, I had typed up about an additional 200 words or so. And I was talking about how I still believed in God. I still believed in Jesus. The words were flowing, and I was excited about the direction the essay was taking.

And then my computer crashed. And nothing was saved.

I’m definitely not blaming a faith crisis on a failure of technology, but I just couldn’t find the words again once my computer rebooted.

I’ve still been looking for those words.

Then, I was the Maid of Honor at my sister’s wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, an incredibly fun reception, and, honestly, one of the best nights of my life. But weddings inevitably bring up religion, and I had a number of conversations – or at least eavesdropped on them – about things that just shook up all of these questions again. And I wondered if, one day, at my wedding, God – this God that I was raised to believe in – could be present there.

I think the thing is this: I’ve been exposed to vast extremes of what it means to be Christian. I was an extreme version of a Christian. And I don’t think I could ever believe in a religion that is exclusive, that dismisses so many cultures and peoples. I can’t walk into a church filled with people who look like me, who grew up in similar situations to me, who talk like me, and genuinely want that to be the right answer. I can’t.

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In 2006, though, I didn’t know these things. I knew that I had found a group of friends that I loved. I had found a place that I belonged. And I had found a sense of purpose for my life.

When I stepped into the living room, ready to tell my parents that I was gay, I was defending all of that.

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I am twelve or thirteen years old, for Pete’s sake. My mom looks alarmed. She has no idea what I am about to say. I imagine a number of things run through her head, all equally absurd. Maybe I’m pregnant. Maybe I’m in a cult. Maybe I want to kill myself. Maybe I’m gay.

Dad has always been a man of few words. Nearly unreadable. I can’t read him now.

I take a seat on the couch. My parents are on either side of me. I think.

I read them Ecclesiastes 5. I have this Bible that I think is just really freaking cool. It has a hard cover, some sort of metal, and there’s an image that looks like the top of a pop can. It says “Thirsty?” underneath the image. (The description on christianbook.com literally says, “This Bible has the hippest exterior ever!”)

My parents must be confused, wondering why the heck I am reading them a verse that they’ve probably never heard before about promises and vows.

I tell them what I told the woman – about how I made a promise to God, a kind of bargain. And I get myself crying again. And my heart is racing, and it is truly terrifying.

“I think I, like, I like girls. Like the way that I should like boys.”

That’s what I say. Something like that.

Mom starts crying. She is distraught. I think she tells me that I can’t. And I tell her I know. That’s why I talked to God. That’s why I talked to them. Mom is mad too that I told that woman at the youth conference first.

There is one thing that I desperately want my parents to do. In the vision in my mind that I had of this moment, my parents would tell me that it is going to be ok, that God is amazing and that He will heal me. And then they would pray for me, with me.

My family has never been the kind to pray together, outside of a standard short prayer my dad would say over our dinner. Come Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen.

I had no reason to believe that this moment would change that. Except faith that God would stir their hearts to do that with me.  

They don’t.

The moment ends, and I did what I came here to do. It is finished.

But there is something about that experience that shakes me. I can’t put a finger on it, exactly. I wanted them to pray with me. I feel alone in my faith. My family must not share the same conviction that I do in the power of prayer. I thought maybe they’d lay their hands on me and ask in the name of Jesus Christ that the demon of homosexuality leave me, and it would. I was twelve or thirteen, and that is how I thought. That is what I believed.

Days pass, and other things happen. Mom goes through my room. She finds some of my journals. I do not have diaries filled with puberty-induced wonderings about sex and boys. I do not have writings about girls that I think I like. I do not have anything except for my letters to Jesus and my Believe notes. Maybe that is when Mom finds out that I told that woman at the conference. All I remember is that she was mad, and she questioned me about youth group. Maybe she thought I was being abused. That somehow, someone had done something to me that had caused me to like girls.

I feel attacked. I feel like I did what I was supposed to do, what was required of me as a good Christian, a girl who wanted to give everything to Jesus, and I am paying some unnecessary price for it. My faith is still strong, but this is the first time that I feel like something might be off. I am doing everything right. Everything.

And I’m still being questioned.

I am still other.

I am still gay.