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ons and statements by conservative christians who used to be bridgers many pro gay people are no longer interested in bridging work and i don t blame them the inherent problem with trying to bridge over gay issues is that you re talking about our lives and more and more many of us are feeling like our lives are not up for debate the time for debate and dialogue about whether my life and my basic orientation is ok is over as mel white founder of soulforce wrote on his blog for me the debate is over the verdict is in homosexuality is not a sickness not a sin furthermore i have no interest in continuing that debate whether fundamentalist christians believe it or not i can say without fear or ambivalence i am gay i am proud and god loves me without reservation i m no longer willing to debate my friends on the religious right i ve sat through a thousand dialogues i ve stood in protest been arrested and thrown in jail i ve written i ve preached i ve been interviewed endlessly all hoping that one day fundamentalist christians would realize the tragic consequences of the untruth they proclaim now when someone interrupts a speech or sermon to ask me have you ever read leviticus 20 my answer is simple if abrupt friend you ve confused me with someone who cares what you think about leviticus 20 this brings me to my next thought in his speech in cairo talking about the u s and islam and moving forward with our relationship with muslim countries president obama said but i am convinced that in order to move forward we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors there must be a sustained effort to listen to each other to learn from each other to respect one another and to seek common ground as the holy koran tells us be conscious of god and speak always the truth maybe some of the problems that arise from bridging are that many times in order to bridge we don t speak all of our truth we re trying not to offend we re trying to withhold judgment and we re trying to make a lot of allowances for instance i feel like many christians make friends or sustain friendships with nonbelievers to win them to christ they often don t show their hand but keep it close to their vest not wanting to reveal what all is in their cards for the future of the relationship on the other hand maybe in order to keep bridging without offending the other person or driving them away we need to keep some of our true beliefs and intentions hidden i know about keeping things hidden because i was raised as a fundamentalist evangelical christian and i almost never made friends without first ascertaining if the other person were christian if they were great if not my goal was to win them to the lord by nearly whatever means possible it made me perhaps a wonderful friend on the outside because i was willing to do almost anything to spread the love of jesus but inside i was always somehow pathologizing everything they did and saw them as inherently lacking in something namely god and having needs that could only be fulfilled by jesus i saw everything in spiritual terms and would rejoice when i felt like they were having trials that were bringing them closer to god or if i felt like god was blessing them in some way to show his love and grace i would pray for my friends because they were incomplete without god because of this i don t honestly know how to bridge well with christians because i usually feel from them a certain sense of superiority whether intended or not if someone thinks they have the ticket to the only truth where does that leave me how can a christian just be a friend without an agenda when they have the great commission to fulfill how can they bridge when bridging might require leaving that commission to witness behind them for a bit once again more questions than answers but i m interested in others thoughts on this what do you think for my readers who are not christian how do you feel in your relationships with conservative evangelical christians what do you think can be done to bridge with them do you agree with things i ve said not for my christian readers what do you think how do you feel about bridging with those who don t share your faith do you think there is a middle ground somewhere or is that also untenable to you thank you in advance for your thoughts image november originally uploaded to flickr by downtownlynn posted by christine bakke at 4 54 pm 9 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest wednesday june 24 2009 bridging the gap my post today is part of a larger initiative of more than 50 bloggers all sharing their thoughts on how to bridge the gap between faith and sexuality you can check out the other links at btgproject blogspot com at one of my lowest points in life it was a straight christian who rescued me at another low point it was an agnostic gay friend at my highest point in life it was a gay christian who celebrated with me i have found absolute unconditional love with a non christian i have friends all across the spectrum gay christians and straight agnostics gay atheists and straight christians i m an ex ex ex christian that s just a non christian with a very sordid past i have been everything from a fundamentalist christian to an angry ex christian i have been an evangelical ex gay and an apathetic agnostic i ve been on all sides so in some ways it s ideal that i ve been asked to participate in this synchro blog o rama who better to talk about bridging the faith sexuality gap however i find myself at a loss for words not that that s anything new as readers of my blog will attest but i ll try bear with me as i share my somewhat scattered thoughts frankly sometimes i wonder if it is possible to bridge this gap i think for instance that many ex gay programs and ex gay therapists cause more harm than good many fundamentalist or conservative evangelical christians think that glbt folks are riding on a one way train to hell and feel compelled to stop and tell us about it how do we love while also holding these ideas that are most likely never going to change we both would claim love for others as our motivation is it ever possible to love without an agenda about two years ago i went to lunch with a friend who is on the staff of an ex gay ministry still smarting from a previous meeting with two major ex gay leaders who seemed to take almost a perverse pleasure in saying the most hurtful things including that they wanted to go back to a time when gay people felt ashamed to be gay i forgot about loving without an agenda i forgot about how much i love my friend and instead tried to show him where he was wrong i was hurt and i lashed out a bit i confronted him in love but i didn t radically love him i didn t find out where his heart was i wanted to change him and change his thinking out of love of course i loved but with an agenda is it possible in particular for conservative evangelical christians to love without an agenda i started thinking about all the various christians i ve known and i realized i only know a small handful of christians who seem to be able to just love with no preconceived notions of what will happen in return will they get saved will they change their beliefs about this or that will they start going to church again the very first time i ever met wendy gritter director of new direction in toronto and the author of the bridging the gap blog the organizer of this synchroblogging event it was at a gay christian event she was there to experience it for herself and see what it was all about i am sure that she witnessed what i did scores of people who were dedicated to christ but also happened to be gay it s an amazing experience to be among gay christians and odd too if you re a non christian like me but with a christian background it s like you ve walked into a conservative christian environment with folks having seriously deep bible discussions and others praying for everyone s needs including hotel staff in the prayer room the same sort of environment i ve been in time and time again with one exception it s not an anti gay crowd these are gay folks whom many incorrectly think are incapable of having a real and saving relationship with jesus christ but i digress i m there and i meet wendy i knew right away that wendy was different i could tell from the start that she came with what i call an open hand she was not there to talk but to listen it was my privilege to sit and talk with her and share my story and answer her questions since then we ve had some email communication but mostly we chat online i tell her about my girlfriend and i think i can almost see her smile through the computer at my happiness she inquires about my world and i ask about hers i genuinely want to know and i know that she really wants to know what is real for me not what i think she wants to hear but what is real so i tell her all the ups and downs but mostly it s ups so that s nice i enjoy seeing the journey she s been on even if i might not be on the same walk and i feel that in return she loves without an agenda my two nephews are 4 and 6 and when they do something to hurt each other my sister says go and make it right and they will go to the other and say i m sorry will you forgive me and rub the other boy s back if they can do something else to make it right she encourages that as well what can we do to make it right all the past pain and hurt and heartache around this issue what can we all do i don t know much about bridging the gap i suppose i probably know more about the gap itself than about how to bridge it but i think this is where it starts open hands open hearts and it s not just about the straight conservative christians loving without an agenda it s about the glbt community loving without an agenda too some would argue that it is not up to us to love it is up to the straight christians to make right what has been wrong for so long i would argue that instead of worrying over who broke something in the first place let s just all take some steps to make it right and start loving without an agenda posted by christine bakke at 3 03 am 27 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest saturday april 25 2009 rising up whole when i first started this blog three and a half years ago it was called rising up from the ashes at the time i still felt identified with the ashes all around me from my time in the ex gay movement as time went on i realized that i was healing and growing away from all that mess and i changed my blog title to rising up whole it was a big step for me to acknowledge that i was moving on with my life that i did not need to be stuck in the aftermath of an ex gay life as someone who believed the lie of the ex gay movement that said she was broken and needed to be healed the idea of being truly whole was a relatively new one for me while i talked a lot about wholeness while in my ex gay days i had no clue what that really meant at that time wholeness meant i wouldn t be gay wholeness meant i wasn t operating out of a place of broken sexuality ironically the longer i was ex gay and pursuing wholeness the more broken i felt as i went through the true healing process after leaving the ex gay life i had to unlearn all the teaching about brokenness and and relearn my own worth and beauty not just as a lesbian but all that being me entails now i feel i definitely operate out of a place of wholeness i know who i am and what i value i know that there s nothing in me that needs to be cured and in fact there s so much about me that deserves to be celebrated the words rising up whole have so much personal meaning for me that i even created a piece of art two years ago about how it wasn t me that was broken it was only that i d been looking at a broken mirror that had been held up for me fast forward to a few weeks ago someone called and asked when i d started rising up whole ministries huh it turns out that my anti gay mother has taken this name that means so much to me so much so that it s my skype im email and gcn handles and started a ministry of the same name and appointed herself as a counselor go ahead and take a few minutes to pick your jaw back up off the floor no this isn t a coincidence my mother reads this blog she knows how much this means to me it s taken me a few weeks to get over the shock of all this and sort out some of my feelings about it i don t know if it s an ex gay ministry or just a general counseling ministry my mom and dad aren t licensed counselors but they are licensed ministers through some organization that did not require traditional seminary or even a b a since my mom doesn t have one and my dad has a major in industrial arts and a minor in history this means they are able to put out a shingle and counsel others i suspect it has something to do with trying to turn something meant for evil into something meant for good in christian speak to me it s just the height of disrespect i will not change the name of this blog or anything else associated with that name it s my name that describes my journey and it will always have such meaning to me i am rising up once again posted by christine bakke at 12 49 pm 19 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest monday february 16 2009 dreams of a daughter it came to my attention the other day that my mom had a piece of writing published on the anti gay pfox website pfox parents and friends of ex gays just to be clear pfox may be the friend of some ex gays i know other ex gays who insist that the anti gay pfox does not speak for them but they are certainly no friend of glbt individuals anyway here s her article a mom speaks out while i don t want to play out family drama over blogs and public venues i feel i must make some response i ve made a few public posts statements about my parents although i usually refuse to answer questions about them from the media and i guess although it seems strange and awkward to read about oneself in a public space i don t have a problem with them speaking publicly about me to be fair my parents didn t have a choice in me going public with my story so they re well within their right to write about me my parents and i are estranged i can certainly appreciate that being gay and my lack of salvation who determines that anyway are important things to them but the truth is that we are estranged because of other equally important matters they know what these matters are and what they could do to improve the situation and i m not making that public they have thus far been unable or unwilling to do what needs to be done to restore any semblance of a relationship and these issues have nothing to do with me being gay clearly the fact that i m gay and unrepentantly so and no longer a christian is painful to my mom it is hard to see her obviously hurting i do love my parents a...