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Pearl steps over to me, putting her hand on my shoulder, and I shut my eyes for a second, sending up a prayer of my own.
Let them be gentle with him.
Then Luke's voice is everywhere, booming through every speaker. He says, "Hi there everybody" in that rich, full, upbeat-sounding baritone of his—the timbre somehow just a little boyish, charming, always sounding like he's smiling, like he likes you. Like the talk is just between the two of you.
"How's it going?" he says. There's a brief pause, and a small screen in the corner of the backstage shows him pacing, the way he always does. His head is down. He lifts it. "I'll just tell you now...this one feels a little awkward. I'm pretty good at this. I don't get rattled, really. But this time's a little different, yeah?"
I can't help smiling when he says that—“yeah?”; it's something I say a lot.
"We're here to talk about the Lord, but I'm taking more questions this time. I know for some of you, you're also here to talk about me. To ask me questions about something that's, for too long, been seen as off-limits and taboo—and not in the cool or edgy way. Taboo in the solemn way. Taboo in the way sometimes it feels like only we Christians can take something off the table and just call it ‘done’. Homosexual is almost a bad word in the church, right?"
My heart flips as I hear a murmur—both through the sound system and, as a smaller whisper, through my own ears.
"Homosexual...that brings to mind that old-school fire and brimstone stuff. When I was a kid—" There's a brief pause—so brief that I bet almost no one notices; just me and Pearl, who squeezes my shoulder again. "When I was a kid and you heard 'homosexual'…it was a word that was synonymous with condemnation. You didn't even have to say more than that. If you were a Christian, you knew homosexuality was wrong. It was a sin, right? Because that's what the Bible said."
There's another murmur—and it makes me cold to think that someone in the audience just whispered, "Yes," and meant it.
But Luke's voice keeps steady.
"And you know...here's the way that organizations work. Including 'the church.' People look to leadership for answers, because most of you don't have time or energy to go all through the Bible analyzing every verse yourself and reading history of the original text and things like that. Those things aren't your job, and while some people do it—some of us really like those deep dives—many others don't. So, leadership. ‘What does the pastor say? What does the priest say? What does the pope say? What does the rabbi or the imam say?’
“And here's the thing: Some of us...we're doing a lot of thinking. We're reading everything for ourselves and deciding what we think. But even in church leadership positions, everybody's not the same. Kind of like doctors. You've got the ones who are all nerdy—ones like me—who are reading journals and papers and research on a Saturday afternoon because they love it. That’s a hobby for them.
"And then you've got the ones who just don't really like to do those sorts of things. They finished medical school, they might do their required continuing education, but they're not about reading every study, every paper, every little shred of something that comes up on a given topic. Unless they're a specialist. But that's not the point. The point is...sometimes even we don't know. Like let's say you're in forestry, in management. There's going to be some magazines that talk about your industry. And if you're not a researcher, you probably take your cues about your field—the field of forestry—from research publications. Which is okay. Nothing wrong with that.
"The point I'm making—and I'm rambling a little here—but it's that there's not really many people in any industry who are doing most of the thinking on their own, most of the leg work that promotes decision-making on their own. And then among the ones who are, what they come out and say is going to end up censored. Not by anything nefarious, but just more by what's kosher for the day. Let's just say that I thought some passages in the Bible indicated aliens were going to arrive to mark the End Times. Let me be clear: I do not think that." He gives a soft chuckle. "But if I did, do you think I would feel okay to stroll out onto the stage here and say that? No. I wouldn't. Now, in sixteen years after we see some extraterrestrial life or something like that, maybe I'm feeling more safe to share that thought out loud.
"But people, even leaders, edit their statements and public commentary based on what they think is okay. Nobody wants to be that person other people think is ‘way out there’ and unrelatable. Even as a little kid…you see a three-year-old, and if their mom or dad or teacher isn't understanding what they're trying to say, that kid will cry and experience disappointment and some upset. We adults are not that different. Everybody longs to be understood. So, we censor ourselves. Self-censorship, to be sure what we do say resonates with others.
