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This week on State Of Grace, our host, Grace Baldridge, explores where faith and gender intersect. She uncovers how these identities can conflict and coincide. Watch this episode of State Of Grace to better understand faith in relation to gender.
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00:00The most vitriol we receive is in the name of Jesus.
00:03They wish us bodily harm in the name of Jesus.
00:07Obviously, that's not Christian.
00:08That's not in alignment with anything we know.
00:10I can't even compute what you just, in the name of Jesus.
00:13As the good Lord said, go to hell.
00:16Close your eyes and imagine God.
00:18What does God look like, if anything, to you?
00:21Is it an old man sitting on a cloud?
00:23A woman in a rocking chair?
00:25A very wise owl?
00:27What gender do you assign to God?
00:30And why?
00:30Like many other faith traditions, Christianity has drawn definitive lines on the basis of gender.
00:36The gender identity of a Christian can impact how and where they are allowed to worship,
00:41and often, the types of leadership roles they are allowed to hold.
00:44Historically, straight white men are the most frequently championed for leadership positions in the church.
00:49Many denominations, like the Roman Catholic Church, don't allow women to lead or be ordained.
00:54And certainly, if you don't identify neatly within a gender binary, things get even trickier.
00:59Remember this?
01:01From funerals to pride parades, these street preachers condemn entire communities.
01:06Yeah.
01:07It should come as no shock that some of the most exclusionary and harmful messages about queer and trans children
01:13of God are being taught from the pulpit.
01:16Where to begin?
01:17Let's go straight to the source material.
01:19It is estimated that there are around 450 English translations of the Bible, which was originally written in Hebrew.
01:26And none, and this is true, were transcribed by God or Jesus.
01:30So which one is correct?
01:31And what might have been lost or altered in translation?
01:34I'm visiting the office of Dr. Lizzie Byrne de Geer, a Catholic feminist and Hebrew Bible scholar, to learn more
01:40about what's really in this sacred text.
01:42You can actually look at these texts that we all have, and you can find really powerful experience of divine
01:51feminine, of women with power, of spirituality that calls us all well beyond sexism and well beyond misogyny.
01:59And we just have to be honest about the fact that, like, using the pronoun he for God is a
02:06habit, but it has no theological justification.
02:10The word Elohim in Hebrew is actually a plural word, Elohim, that once monotheism started to become entrenched, they grammatically
02:21made it masculine singular.
02:23But Elohim is plural, and it comes from the fact that we understand the divine in many ways.
02:29It's becoming clear to me that much of what we've been taught about biblically-based gender roles has been shaped
02:35by social context, and the very human people doing the translating.
02:39The first African American, the first person of color, the first woman in the collegiate church history to become a
02:47collegiate senior minister, moi, 15 years ago.
02:50This is my predecessor, Gordon, who was committed to hiring a woman to replace him, and so that was a
02:56pretty prophetic thing for a man to do.
02:58He wasn't going to hire any men.
02:59It looks to me like progress.
03:03On these walls are all the collegiate ministers that have served this church, and one of them was a slaveholder.
03:09Look how far we've come.
03:11I visited Middle Collegiate Church, the oldest continuous Protestant church in the United States, led by senior minister, Reverend Jackie
03:19Lewis, who made history as the first woman and person of color to hold her position.
03:24Did you always want to be in a leadership position?
03:27I always wanted to be a pastor since I was almost nine.
03:32I didn't see women preachers, but I had the best female Sunday school teachers, and I think they saw my
03:39calling, and they really affirmed it.
03:42Mrs. Dixon was my Sunday school teacher from the time I was in second grade till high school.
03:47Her steadfastness, her leadership, I was clear that she was a minister, even though she wasn't a minister.
03:51I think a lot of times we hear about, you know, women not serving in leadership positions, but yet I'm
03:56hearing about your Sunday school teachers.
03:57It doesn't really matter to me if they were pastors.
04:00If they were ordained, no, they were pastoring me.
04:01Right.
04:02Throughout time, people have interpreted scripture in ways to codify, solidify their own presumptions, biases, prejudices.
04:10Every human being is creating what they think God is like all the time, what their image of God is,
04:17and the relationship they have with God.
04:19It is an ongoing process.
04:20You can see in our stained glass windows that we've picked, there's women.
04:24There's Jesus talking to Mary Magdalene when he is resurrected.
04:28There is Jesus over here having a conversation with Mary and Martha.
04:32That's breaking boundaries.
04:34Does this make sense, that God wouldn't appreciate LGBTQIA people if we're also saying God created us all in love?
04:41It's a struggle sometimes when people are throwing verses at you and people you care about and communities you care
04:46about.
04:46But then you can argue on interpretation and translations.
04:49When I imagine a trans child coming to understand, I think I might be a girl in this boy body,
04:58I'm like, thank you God that the child is becoming aware of who they really are.
05:05And our job as a culture, as a society, as a church, is to make safe spaces for people to
05:10be.
05:10In my own personal journey, when I was presenting as like real female, I was the furthest from God because
05:17I was the most concerned with what the world thought of me.
05:21I wanted to know that when I walked into every room, that I didn't make people uncomfortable because I was
05:25so uncomfortable with who I was.
05:27As soon as I was able to really have this moment of like, I want to cut my hair, I've
05:31wanted to do it for so long.
05:33I'm like, you know, and as soon as I was able to do that and like when I felt safe
05:36and I felt comfortable and I felt loved, only then was I able to have any type of a personal
05:41relationship with God.
05:42God creates out of love.
05:44God creates love out of love.
05:46We who are in the image of God are all awesome.
05:48So when I'm talking to you, I'm learning a little bit more about God because you're in God's image.
05:53And when you're talking to me, the same is true.
05:57We only know God because we know each other.
06:01I'm about to get that tattooed on my body.
06:02Let's do it.
06:03Well, let's do it together.
06:05Jackie made me think about how becoming the most authentic version of yourself, regardless of gender, can bring you closer
06:11to God.
06:12But is it possible to do that within traditional doctrinal parameters?
06:17Well, it is a beautiful fall day in New Jersey.
06:20So we here at State of Grace thought that it would be the perfect time to talk about gender.
06:25The leaves are changing and so are our perceptions of gender, okay?
06:29We're going to a convent and we're going to speak with a nun who has a pretty different interpretation and
06:37understanding of her gender as it relates to her faith.
06:41Pro tip from nuns.
06:43This is the best way to warm your hands this winter.
06:47All the coolest nuns are doing it.
06:49I started out as a little kid in the early 70s.
06:54And reruns were The Flying Nun.
06:57I was actually going to ask you about The Flying Nun.
07:00And I watched The Nun's Story.
07:02And I remember thinking when I was like seven or eight years old, that's me.
07:06I think all our life when you're trying to find your authentic self, you see it somewhere.
07:12And you go, I could fit in with those weirdos because I'm the same kind of weirdo.
07:16And people thought that I was crazy.
07:18I was told by my family and by my friends, by the entire culture, that women were supposed to get
07:25married and have children.
07:26That never felt right to me.
07:28I didn't feel called to marriage.
07:29I didn't feel called to children.
07:31I felt called to God.
07:33Sister Monica spent 14 years paying off her financial debt in order to become a nun, since you have to
07:40be debt-free to enter the sisterhood.
07:41You're here six times a day?
07:43Yeah, six times a day, coming here and praying.
07:46I left the Southern Baptist faith when I was in my mid-teens because I had so many gay friends.
07:52I went to the Roman Catholic Church, and I thought, can I belong to a denomination where women cannot be
07:58priests and where there isn't inclusion?
08:01Sister Monica's commitment to inclusion led her to the Episcopal Order.
08:05Do you feel empowered as a nun?
08:08I do.
08:09In my secular life, I was very shy, very low self-esteem.
08:13I didn't look people in the eye.
08:15I looked at the floor.
08:16At the first big gathering we had here when I was a novice, I remember going around and talking to
08:22people and shaking hands and being really excited and really happy.
08:25And I thought, I'm not shy anymore, because this is my tribe.
08:32It felt like I had been in exile all my life, and I had finally been allowed to come home.
08:37How do you feel like being a nun is countercultural?
08:40I think because I've rejected our culture's mandate for happiness.
08:47I've rejected romantic relationships.
08:50I've rejected having children.
08:52I'm rejecting this model of happiness and saying there's another way to be happy.
08:58But what happens when your gender is deemed invalid by church teachings?
09:03Listen, I know this is a video on the internet about gender, so I anticipate some spicy responses.
09:08Just to get ahead of a few things.
09:10Gender and sexuality are entirely different.
09:13Gender is who you are.
09:14Sexuality is who you like.
09:15And being transgender is not a mental disorder.
09:17So let's not look stupid in the comments section and say that.
09:20Google is free.
09:21Now back to our feature presentation.
09:23This is Dr. Paula Stone-Williams.
09:25She is a pastor, speaker, and gender equality advocate.
09:29Before coming out as trans in 2012, she was a prominent evangelical pastor and CEO.
09:34Her son Jonathan followed in the family business and is also a pastor at Forefront Church here in Brooklyn.
09:39We started with an organization that was fairly conservative.
09:42I wasn't ready to put the label progressive on myself.
09:45It was made clear to you that there were certain boundaries you couldn't cross in order to maintain sort of
09:51the status of your community, your faith community?
09:54It was very implicit.
09:55As soon as you do that, you're going to lose money and you're going to lose people and your church
10:00might not ever get off the ground.
10:01And then my dad decides she's going to transition to the female gender, which will do a lot to a
10:08person.
10:09Yeah.
10:09I had a lot of power and a lot of influence, and so I was pretty convinced that from my
10:14rather lofty perch of power and influence that I could bring about change from within.
10:19And it might take, oh, I don't know, a few thousand years.
10:21But, you know, I thought once I came out, they can either think, oh, my God, we were wrong about
10:26Paul's character.
10:26We thought he was a person of character and he's not.
10:28Or they could think, oh, wow, we really must be wrong about our view of gender dysphoria and what it
10:34means to be transgender because we know the character of this person.
10:37And so we need to re-examine the issue.
10:39You know, didn't exactly expect them to choose the former.
10:42I lost all of my jobs within seven days.
10:44In 21 states, you cannot be fired for being transgender, but in all 50, you can be fired if you're
10:48trans and you work for a religious corporation.
10:51I saw that there was a crisis of life for her.
10:53I saw that she was depressed.
10:55And to me, that was heartbreaking.
10:57And so I said, you know, if my dad's going through this, there's got to be thousands of other people
11:01going through this similar disowning, for lack of a better term, from their faith or from their families or from
11:06their friends.
11:07And so as a church, we publicly said we are going to affirm the LGBTQIA community.
11:13We don't have to be uniform in that belief right away.
11:15We can question it.
11:16We can disagree.
11:17But this is the stance our church is going to take from here on out.
11:20During my message, while I was preaching, I watched, you know, five or six people get up and leave.
11:23Oh, for real?
11:24Yeah, yeah.
11:25I would say people gave it a month, two months.
11:28And when they were like, oh, he's really doing this.
11:30He's really going to be an ally for the LGBT community.
11:34This church isn't for us any longer.
11:36We lost lots of people, lost thousands of dollars.
11:38And it was such a good move.
11:40We could sit here and be comfortable and say, okay, well, the money's still rolling in and there's a lot
11:44of people coming through my doors and we could feel good about that.
11:46But when there's literally people out there who are told that they're not loved
11:48and people whose families are disowning them for this, we need to step up and become safe spaces.
11:53If there was anything Jesus did, it was hold space for the people in the margins.
11:57I mean, when he's dealing with Mary and Martha, they're confronting him.
12:01They are women of wealth.
12:03They're pretty much in charge of their brother.
12:05They're everything we think women in Bible times were not.
12:09The way that the patriarchy, really from the time of Augustine on, has twisted the story is in a direction
12:17that does not fit with the historical Jesus.
12:33This is Jamie Brisehoff and her daughter, Rebecca.
12:36When Rebecca came out to her family as trans, the Brisehoffs rallied to not only support their daughter, but spread
12:42awareness about LGBTQ plus issues.
12:45Furthermore, Rebecca's dad is a pastor.
12:47So much of the Brisehoffs' activism is especially focused on engaging with faith communities.
12:51Oh yeah, there's a sign.
12:53The original.
12:54The sign that started it all.
12:57Wow.
12:58People of faith are doing the loudest and most significant damage to the trans and non-binary and LGBTQ communities,
13:05both personally and politically.
13:07We really feel that the only way we can combat that negativity is with people of faith standing up and
13:14saying,
13:14no, this is actually not in alignment with how we understand our faith.
13:19That you can be Christian and trans and you can be Christian and gay and that they're not mutually exclusive.
13:25You guys have chosen to be quite visible.
13:27Yeah.
13:27And I wonder why.
13:29Sure.
13:30I mean, we follow your lead, largely.
13:32Um, well, because I think it's really important for kids like me to have the support and knowledge that there's
13:41someone else fighting for them.
13:42It's a lot scarier for kids that don't have supportive parents, that don't have good policies in place in their
13:48schools,
13:48that don't have everything she's had that has made her successful.
13:52And so we really felt like it was our opportunity to use that privilege to make the world a safer
13:58place for those kids.
13:59I get told it's child abuse on a daily basis by like strangers on the internet or that we're forcing
14:04this on her at some point.
14:06Like, I couldn't force her to eat a vegetable that she didn't like if I tried.
14:10I can't imagine that I could force her to be someone who she isn't.
14:14Whoa.
14:14Watch out.
14:15I've been on one of them once and I wiped out.
14:18This is the LGBT agenda they warned you about.
14:21We always said colors are for everyone.
14:23Clothes are for everyone.
14:24Be any kind of boy you want to be.
14:26She just wasn't a boy.
14:28And so now we know she's a girl and we say be any kind of girl you want to be.
14:31Because like it's not about just switching boxes.
14:34It's about breaking down those boxes and just showing up fully as ourselves and saying that like society doesn't get
14:40to determine what that means.
14:42What about like some church communities that would be like okay well that's not important for us.
14:46I think they're like well we don't want to make church about you know LGBTQ identities.
14:51Like that's like we're church like we're Christians as our identity here kind of thing.
14:56What they don't understand is that by not creating that space by not being loudly boldly and joyfully welcoming you
15:03are excluding people.
15:05We get hate mail.
15:07We get death threats.
15:08That we're all going to hell.
15:09That she's going to hell.
15:10That she's like the devil incarnate.
15:12She gets kind of excited about that one.
15:14Do I look like the devil incarnate?
15:17No.
15:17If they're not in my lives in my community then why should I care?
15:25She has been so well loved and supported that because of that she could respond in love even to the
15:33most hate.
15:35Today we're having a workshop at church that's about creating safer and more welcoming communities for LGBTQ people.
15:41We have to do the work to prepare.
15:43Like you can't say all are welcome and not change anything about your community.
15:50I am going to review some of like the 101 stuff so we're all on the same page and then
15:54we'll talk about tangible ways we can make our spaces and our communities more welcoming to all people.
16:00Most importantly we respect self-identification.
16:03So we can listen to the words that people use to describe themselves and mirror that language back to them
16:10even if we don't know all of the terminology.
16:12I believe God loves us all so by attending here I'm learning some tools that I need to make an
16:20easy little difference.
16:22Absolutely.
16:22And attending more pride events like you said will give me more information or more education.
16:26I think that's what we all need to do.
16:28Go ahead.
16:29I just wanted to say it's really incredibly moving to be here with this community and to see so many
16:34people that are like really fired up to support us because we really need y'all.
16:39Like and we can't do this on our own.
16:40This is the sort of Christ-like love that I want to feel and I want people to know and
16:46understand from the Christian community.
16:48How much red is gender for you?
16:51And because of Jamie is why I came back to this church.
16:54I left the Catholic Church, I didn't feel like we belong especially with the rhetoric coming out.
16:59Yeah.
17:00I saw everything that Jamie's done, done for her daughter.
17:03And this is why I came back to this church.
17:06You all being here matters a lot, like more than I can say.
17:16My time in New York and New Jersey left me reflecting on the mind of God, the impossibly mysterious and
17:23creative mind of God.
17:25When we stand before our Creator, what criteria will be used to judge our character?
17:30Everything I've experienced tells me that gender or gender presentation is no indication into the condition of a person's soul.
17:36I've met people who have expanded and challenged the way I think about gender, especially as it relates to Christian
17:42teachings.
17:43Why is the Bible still a reference point to justify harm against some of the least among us?
17:48Biblical context is so important and ignorance is frankly inexcusable when the stakes are so high.
17:54When we discover our authentic selves, and celebrate and support others for doing the same,
17:59we get just the tiniest glimpse into the infinite and divine.
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