“Everyone is welcome here.”
Having grown up in a Christian family and going to church most of my life, I have heard this more times than I can count. And whilst to most people this phrase would seem positive, for LGBTIQ+ people of faith these words can be extremely dangerous.
I attended a ‘welcoming’ church for a couple of years recently. I had spent nearly a decade outside of the church, having left it after spending several years . Having tried everything conceivable to change my innate orientation, including pseudo-therapies, spiritual ‘deliverance’ in the form of exorcisms and prayer ministries, I left the gay conversion movement in my 20s completely damaged and unable to cope with being anywhere near the Christian community.
Years later, I walked into a church out of curiosity one Sunday, hoping to perhaps rekindle something that I felt I had lost when I left the Church. Finding the people to be ‘welcoming’, I surprised myself by going back the next Sunday. Before I knew it, I had made friends and was investing in the relationships that I developed with other Christians. I was open about my sexuality, and whilst some didn’t think it was God’s intention for me to be gay, they insisted that I was ‘welcome’ and that the church didn’t have an ‘official position’ on homosexuality.
Chris Csabs will appear alongside other Christians in SBS's upcoming documentary series 'Christians Like Us'. Source: SBS
It was several months later that I became uneasy with my new church community. I had been attending regularly, and also attended Bible studies during the week sometimes. I thought that at some point I might like to join the worship team…after all, I had been a Christian singer during my ‘ex-gay’ years and had always missed singing at church. When I broached the subject, though, I was told that it would need to be ‘a discussion’ because of my sexuality.
I was open about my sexuality, and whilst some didn’t think it was God’s intention for me to be gay, they insisted that I was ‘welcome’ and that the church didn’t have an ‘official position’ on homosexuality.
During the marriage equality survey in 2017, that same church issued a statement to its members that essentially said that the church leadership ‘wholeheartedly endorse’ the definition of marriage as being ‘created by God as the foundation for a lifelong faithful union of a man and a woman.’ The church leadership believed that “…God’s heart concerning marriage and the place of sexual intimacy is sufficiently clear in both the teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul… We also note that across all of human history, heterosexual relationships have been the building block of every society.”
You can imagine how I felt. They tried to assure me that I was still a ‘valued part of the church family’. But I didn’t see it that way. I had felt I had just found out that the community that I had invested time and emotion into didn’t really see me as one of them. I had finally been let in on their ‘official stance’, and it couldn’t include me. I wasn’t part of the family.
The fact is that I am ‘welcome’ at most churches… to sit, to sing along, to pray, to have a cup of coffee afterwards. But because many welcoming churches are not affirming of my sexuality, they are actually not for me.
It is important to note that in many so-called ‘welcoming’ churches, . The teaching that being LGBTIQ+ is a form of ‘brokenness’ caused by any number of things ranging from past trauma to malevolent spirits is, in my experience, commonplace.
"They tried to assure me that I was still a ‘valued part of the church family’. But I didn’t see it that way." Source: SBS
As a little boy I heard this ideology regularly at church…not always from the pulpit. Often it was in adult conversations I overheard before or after a service. One such conversation that is burnt into my memory was between my dad and his friend, who told him the story of when he had ‘cast several demons of homosexuality’ out of a man that had walked in from the street. I was terrified.
By the age of 10, I believed the messaging about ‘homosexuals’…and I had worked out that it might actually apply to me.
I was ‘sick’.
I was ‘broken’.
I had a demon in me.
These are distressing beliefs to hold about yourself, particularly as a child. By the time I was 16 and ready to tell my pastor my shameful secret, I was already desperate to be ‘fixed’. The damage had been done and I had already been well prepped for ‘conversion therapy’.
‘Gay conversion’ ideology is rife in many ‘welcoming’ churches throughout Australia, and indeed the world. Churches who say they are ‘welcoming’ are not always safe for LGBTIQ+ people… and some can be downright dangerous.
Chris Csabs appears in the SBS program Christians Like Us, which airs over two nights at 8.35pm, Wednesday April 3 and 10 on SBS.
