In an excerpt
from her new book, Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual
Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians,
author Candace Chellew-Hodge incorporates the wisdom of
Xena: Warrior Princess to illustrate her
theories as to how gay and lesbian people of faith can
protect themselves from those who attack their
views.
The hate mail
began to arrive in my e-mail box soon after I founded the
first online magazine for gay and lesbian Christians, Whosoever.org, back in 1996. Those
writing the e-mails had one message in common: God condemns
homosexuals, and to be loved and accepted by God you
must repent of your "sin" of homosexuality. It's been
remarked that it's difficult to convey emotion in the
body of an e-mail (which is why we have a whole lexicon of
smileys and other emoticons), but the anger, hatred, and
outright vitriol of those who sent me the e-mail was
clear -- no emoticons were needed.
The deluge of
condemning mail put me in a quandary. I was certain, even
back then, that God loved me and accepted me as both a
lesbian and a Christian -- but I had no idea how to
defend my belief and no idea how to answer these
e-mails. All I could do at that time was to respond with my
own e-mails full of anger and defensiveness.
I decided that to
answer these questions, I had to go back to school --
seminary, to be exact. I entered the Candler School of
Theology at Emory University in Atlanta in 1998, ready
to learn how to fight those who would condemn me. In
the end, I realized that while those who may have
written hateful letters to me were spoiling for a fight, the
best response I could give them was what 1 Peter
3:15-16 calls a "gentle and reverent" response. That
verse counsels Christians to always be gentle and
reverent when defending the hope that is within them -- even
if the attack against them is anything but.
That realization
led me to put together a workshop called "Spiritual
Self-Defense for Gay and Lesbian Christians" that was well
received at many LGBT-focused conferences around the
country. My first book, Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual
Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians,
is the culmination of all those years of helping LGBT
people thrive spiritually even in the face of persecution
and condemnation by other Christians. It provides a
blueprint for anyone, gay or straight, who may find
themselves in a minority position where they feel
attacked or oppressed. I draw from many divergent sources,
from the Bible to Xena: Warrior Princess, to
equip LGBT Christians (as well as their allies) not
just to face attacks, but to turn those attacks into
opportunities for personal growth and dialogue with
those we may consider our "enemies."
Chapter 4: Wisdom Before Weapons
"It's wisdom before weapons, Gabrielle. The moment
you pick up a weapon, you become a target." --Xena, on
TV’s Xena: Warrior Princess, in the
episode "Dreamworker"
When I first
started receiving hate mail, it affected me physically. Who
were these people to tell me that God hated me and would
spit me out? Who were these people to judge my faith?
Who were these people who thought I’d never
heard of Leviticus or Romans or 1 Corinthians? Did they
believe I'd read their e-mail and think, "Wow, I must
have missed those passages. I'll take Whosoever down
immediately!" The arrogance and sheer insolence of
these people amazed me and put me into a tailspin.
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Excerpted from Bulletproof Faith by Candace
Chellew-Hodge. Copyright © 2008 by Candace
Chellew-Hodge. Reprinted with permission of the
publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.