Queer and Christian campaign wins $100,000

Stephen Spence
The Uniter (University of Winnipeg)
October 5, 2006

“Queer and Christian Without Contradiction” received a grant for $100,000 (to be distributed over the next four years) from a U.S.-based organization known as Liberty Hill. This is the first time this award has been given to a Canadian or a Christian group.

The Student Christian Movement started in 1921 as a national organization of students and youth from different churches who were opposed, in principle, to various forms of oppression — racism, sexism, classism — arguing that they are all interdependent. Their calling is to the margins of society, to people who have been outcast. For example, SCM supported worker’s movements and unions in the early twentieth century and protested the internment of Japanese civilians during WWII.

Positing that faith and identity (including orientation) should not preclude one another, the campaign believes that queer and Christian do no contradict, since the essential message of Jesus concerns love, says David Ball, a local coordinator of SCM. The use of Scripture by the Christian right — considered solely as a political and not as an ecclesiastical entity — is regarded as a blasphemous means of promoting policies and justifying a position of privileged power since it exploits the faith of individuals by means of fear, contradicting what is regarded as the prophetic teachings of Jesus by setting itself up in self-idolatry. A pamphlet, “Stop Homophobia in the Churches,” offers its own non-definitive interpretations of Scriptural passages that have been used to condemn homosexuality. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah concerns a crime of inhospitality and rape, while passages from Leviticus (18:22 & 20:13), many of which were put aside by the early Christian Church, concern ritual uncleanliness rather than any specific act.

The campaign intends to use the funds it has received in order to help meet the needs of LGBTQ and progressive Christians by providing education, community, and scriptural materials in order to bring them into the mainstream so that they can confront their own as well as other forms of oppression. Positive responses to the award include celebration on various queer websites (ekklesia, pinknews). According to Ball, the award gives the group a sense of validation and acknowledgement that they have something to offer queer youth and that they are ‘walking the walk’ when it comes to LGBTQ issues, which are considered equivalent to issues of injustice and human rights. Negative responses to this same award have included the addition of the SCM to lists of abominations — a term generally used against homosexuals, pedophiles and others who have been condemned as sexual miscreants — on more conservative websites. Pilgrim’s Covenant Church, located in Monroe, Wisconsin, uses the term “New Sodom” to describe Canada and other areas that promote acceptance of the life-choices of LGBTQ individuals.