Dear church,

I’ve been inside your walls almost every Sunday since I was born. There have been Sundays that have been missed due to a vacation or family get-together. Before we had kids, we did a bit of traveling and didn’t always make it to church. And a recent summer, I took most of the summer off. But I’d say I’ve been to church around 95% of Sundays my entire life.

I have run children’s ministries; directed musical groups; sat on the leadership team; served as financial secretary and bookkeeper; led worship teams; performed in concerts; cleaned, organized, and painted; been faithful financially; and committed energy and time to the church and her people. 

I speak as a part of the church, not as an outsider. I speak as someone who has given much of my life not only to my faith, but to the body of believers who share that faith.

Your heart is in the right place. You have good intentions. You believe you are doing good in the world, and to be certain, there is much good done by people of faith.

But from my viewpoint, something is seriously wrong. When the people in the world look at us and see judgement and hatred; when we engage in name-calling and even abuse in the name of Jesus; and when people who are struggling and hurting wonder if the church is a safe place to share their stories, I’m pretty sure something is not as it should be.

As I ponder my children’s claimed gender identities; my relationship to them and their choices; and truth as it relates to this topic; I begin to scrutinize my foundations, faith and church. Dealing with whether one can indeed be born the wrong gender, or should identify as the opposite gender and adjust the physical to match the emotional, makes me wonder about my expectations for parenting. It makes me question if my picture of family and faith are grounded in something true beyond the culture of my faith community. I begin to question the entirety of the foundation upon which I’ve built my life and meaning. For me, nothing is too sacred to question. If what I believe is trustworthy and reliable, it will endure the questioning and stand firm. And if I find my beliefs to be flimsy and unsubstantiated, it would be better to unearth that now rather than to persist without questioning.

I feel like I’ve been taking apart my faith piece by piece and looking at each and every component to see if it is original and necessary. There has been much to let go. But there is still something there on which to hang my child-like beliefs. It is somewhat tenuous and blows a bit in the wind, but is reachable, plausible, and worthy of the search. An intangible concept, based on creation and the universe, in conjunction with goodness and grace, it is revealed through the accounts of the life of Jesus.

So, dear church, take down your doctrinal statements. I believe you should model your approach after Jesus. He told stories, asked questions, and acted. Jesus didn’t make doctrinal statements. Church should be a place of stories, a place of questions, and a place of action. When one walks in the door they should feel at home, but also challenged to grow.

If studying something patently unprovable makes you absolutely sure rather than making you humble, I think you’re doing it wrong. I believe God is real. I believe in Jesus as the incarnate son of God. I think there are reasons for believing so. But I can’t prove any of those things. They are unprovable. That is why we call it faith. The way I’ve been taught all my life is not that these are things we believe by faith. I’ve been taught that they are absolute and unquestionable truths, and that we must convince others to see them that way as well. This approach does not cause people to be humble. It causes them to be prideful, self-righteous, and entitled. My recent doubts have brought me more humility and compassion than my faith experience ever has.

I believe churches should be safety nets, not moral gatekeepers. Empower people to think. Provide them with good information. Give them ALL the information available. Let them make up their own minds. Above all: love them, help them, and be kind. Humbly acknowledge that you don’t have all the answers. Humbly share your own doubts, questions, and shortcomings.

As for gender, why don’t we stop making rules and taking stands? If gender is important, maybe the church should explore what it means to be a boy or girl. What are the inherent differences in being male or female? Certainly there are differences in physicality and biology. But what about hormonal differences? What about differences emotionally or intellectually? Are women from Venus and men from Mars? Or are these differences developed over time through culture? Which are important to perpetuate? Which are important to dismantle? The church should explore the issue and lead in discussion, providing perspective and possible approaches.

I believe the church should be a place of learning, acceptance, questioning, and of welcome. It should above all be a place of humility, not because we are worms and the scum of the earth since we are sinners, but because God is big and good, and he made us in such a way that we could not achieve goodness outside of relationship with him and with others. Humility acknowledges that God and the universe are beyond our ability to comprehend, and it recognizes that each person, including oneself, is equally valuable.