When director Sharon Lewis would meet queer Christians, she would ask, “How do you do it?” Church was an important part of her community growing up in a Caribbean family, but that changed when she came out in her 20s.
“I still enjoy the community of church, I still enjoy the essential principles of Christianity, but I personally did not find a way to integrate that into my life and be queer at the same time,” she said over the phone from New York, where she had just directed a scene with Mary J. Blige and Method Man for the crime drama “Power.”
That question, “Can you be Christian and queer?” propelled her to make the 2021 documentary “With Wonder.” She has just released two shorts on YouTube, “With Wonder: Untold Stories,” each profiling a Christian who struggled to reconcile their faith with their sexual identity.
One doc focuses on Justin Lee, who talks about his experience as a gay man in the Southern Baptist church, including attending a secret group called Homosexuals Anonymous that was filled with “the saddest middle-aged men.” The other follows Alex Barter, who left their church after being coerced into conversion therapy.
Lewis will join Lee, “With Wonder” producer Byron Wong and activist reverend Cheri DiNovo on Tuesday for a virtual panel about the short films.
Lewis had originally interviewed Lee and Barter for “With Wonder,” but as that project came together she tightened her focus to the experience of people of colour in the church, who might lean more heavily on their religious communities if they’re marginalized in other areas of their lives. But after it was released, she found the biggest critics of the film were white gay men.
“They said, ‘The church is homophobic. Why would you ever want to be a Christian?’” she said. “But there’s a huge community of white gay men who want to be Christian. I really wanted to expand the message of this film to say that it’s not just people of colour who struggle with this.”
Like many of the subjects featured in the original “With Wonder,” Lee and Barter ultimately left their church communities, with Lee continuing to practise with an LGBTQ-affirming denomination. It’s something that DiNovo often sees as minister at Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church in Toronto. “With the queer Christians I know, almost all of them have joined inclusive denominations,” she said.
Though many Christian churches denounce queer sexuality and gender expression, DiNovo doesn’t believe that view is supported by the scriptures. “The Bible is a really queer read,” she said.
She quotes Matthew 19:12. “Jesus, 2000 years before Lady Gaga, talks about eunuchs and says some are born that way,” she said. “That’s right out of Jesus’s mouth.”
When asked what she would suggest to queer Christians who feel unsupported by their congregations, her answer was simple. “Walk across the street into another church! Find a church that affirms you. Look for the Pride flags. There’s lots of us!”
But Carl O’Byrne and David Pereyra have a different perspective. As co-ordinators of the Roman Catholic LGBTQ community group All Inclusive Ministries in Toronto, they believe in creating their own space of belonging within the church despite the institution’s teachings.
“I’m not leaving,” O’Byrne said. “Perhaps it would be easier to go to (the Metropolitan Community Church) or other churches where it would be easier to fit in. And I just figured, hell no. I’m part of this community.”
Their parish, Our Lady of Lourdes, has hosted an LGBTQ-affirming mass for 40 years, now attracting an average of 50 to 60 worshippers on the fourth Saturday of every month. They also run a book club, host movie nights and plan group outings, such as art gallery tours.
“The Catholic Church doesn’t belong to the priest or the parish,” Pereyra said. “I am the Catholic Church. I know what is right and what is wrong, and what is true and what is not.”
DiNovo recognized that quiet steadfastness in a recently deceased friend, a nun who was married to her wife for 37 years. “Even the Catholic Church is shifting like most institutions shift,” she said. “Not from the top down, but from the bottom up.”
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