Transformative Power and Public Drunkenness

I see first hand the results of the 12-Step ministry every time I meet someone in recovery from alcohol or drug addiction. As you probably know, Alcoholics Anonymous has been called the most important spiritual movement of the 20^th century. There is enormous transformative power in faith and solidarity to overcome addictions and its derivatives of loneliness, depression and powerlessness.

At the same time, I see first hand the power of addiction to keep addicts in its thrall. We have a man who has been visiting our church for months, who is semi-homeless and alcoholic. He admits he never met a beer he didn’t like, and he has been asking for money from members, and even taking coins out of our fountain, to save up for a quart. One Sunday afternoon he sat on the front porch directly in front of the church doors and got totally wasted.

I am still trying to reflect on the spiritual pain I feel after the passage of Proposition 8 in California, and make sense of why some people remain so rejecting, punitive and hateful toward gay and lesbian people. That’s when this analogy came to me.

Over the years, and especially in these most recent 5 months, I have seen first-hand the transformative power of honesty and love in and with the LGBT community. It begins with Step One: Coming Out to Self and Others. Sometimes, people who come out are summarily rejected, but as the years have gone by, more often I hear the stories of those whose lives took a decided turn for the better, with their families, friends, neighbors and even employers.

Two weeks ago I officiated for a wedding in which one of the grooms had come through a difficult period with his family after coming out. His aging parents at first rejected and disowned him. He is in recovery, by the way, and met his life partner—now husband—at an A.A. meeting.

It took time, but his entire family has come around. The accept him, and his loving relationship with his partner. And they all came from near and far to participate in their wedding ceremony, with his sisters and parents joyfully taking part in the final blessings.

People make enormous spiritual progress through honesty and love. It changes lives. This entire family, now united by marriage, has recaptured love and made enormous strides in spread understanding, goodwill and tolerance because of one son’s integrity and honesty. That is spiritual transformation.

Now we come to the political reality of LGBT people in a society which is wrenching back and forth between rights and no rights. The conservatives hotly and loudly call it a culture war. But I now see it from the positive side — the transformative power to change lives through love, honesty, integrity, patience and reconciliation. Some people — millions of them — “get it.” They have embraced the individuals they know among family, friends, neighbors or co-workers, they have ascended the learning curve about human sexuality, psychology, and civil rights, they have wrestled through the issues that made them uncomfortable, and they have grown spiritually.

But there are millions of others, led by religious power blocks, who think they are fighting a war. What they are fighting is their own addiction to hatred, to power and money, and to control. They are drunk on their own illusions of politics, race, money, marriage, and God. They would rather destroy relationships through estrangement and disowning those who are close them (every family in America is not that far away from someone who is lesbian or gay), than to grow spiritually through listening, patience, understanding, empathy, and love.

It is ironic that those on the reactionary side of things call this a culture war, when it is obviously a spiritual struggle they do not wish to face. I am betting my life on the ultimate triumph of love and reconciliation. And I apply my faith to this struggle, remembering the words of Jesus when people of power and bigotry crucified him: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

But in the meantime we have to continue to struggle for rights and for understanding with those who as yet have no interest in the spiritual transformation that could be theirs. Drunk with homophobia, they will not even take the first steps to understand. It is sad when they bring their drunkenness right to the front doors of the church.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

This entry was posted on November 7, 2008 at 07:39 and is filed under Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Homophobia, LGBT Christian, LGBT Rights, Recovery, Spirituality, Coming Out. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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