Ep. 18 The Wilderness, Spiritual Gifts, and Gender-Expansive Christians (E)

Written By Sarah Bessey

Hosted by Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu

Featuring Austen Hartke, Michiko Bown-Kai, and Rev. Dr. Christina Beardsley

In this life-giving episode we are thrilled to welcome Austen Hartke, Michiko Bown-Kai, and Rev. Dr. Christina Beardsley as they each present a talk about evolving faith through the lens of their trans and/or non-binary identities. Then our guests join Sarah and Jeff in a wise and beautiful conversation on wilderness, hope, paradox, and how the fullness of identity can be a form of resistance and prophetic witness. (This episode runs a bit longer than usual because it is a full Evolving Faith conference session.)

NOTE: This episode has an Explicit rating for profanity. Proceed accordingly.

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Show Notes

Austen Hartke

Michiko Bown-Kai

Rev. Dr. Christina (Tina) Beardsley

  • On Twitter

  • Tina co-edited the books, “Transfaith: A Transgender Pastoral Resource,” “This Is My Body: Hearing the Theology of Transgender Christians.” She also wrote “Unutterable Love: The Passionate Life and Preaching of F.W. Robertson” and, most recently “Trans Affirming Churches: How to Celebrate Gender-Variant People and Their Loved Ones.”

Other mentions in the show

Special thanks to Audrey Assad and Wes Willison for the music on this episode. And thanks as always to our producer, Lucy Huang.

“I pray that each of us may have a life filled with transitions this simple and this revolutionary.”
— Austen Hartke
 

[IMAGE CONTENTS: First: White square with a green flourish, at the top is the Evolving Faith logo. Photographs of Austen Hartke, Michiko Bown-Kai, and Rev. Dr. Christina Beardsley are in the center. Text reads: The Wilderness, Spiritual Gifts, and Gender-Expansive Christians. The Evolving Faith Podcast Ep. 18 featuring Austen Hartke, Michiko Bown-Kai, and Rev. Dr. Christina Beardsley. Now Streaming. Remaining images are the same: white squares with a line drawing of an open book that has a tree growing out of the pages. Floating bubbles of green, maroon, and brown surround the bottom third. Text is as follows: 2. “You need that time in the wilderness to shed the old skin and let God make you brave enough to face yourself and to face others.” - Austen Hartke. 3. “I pray that each of us may have a life filled with transitions, this simple and this revolutionary.” - Austen Hartke. 4. “Coming out was the perfect spiritual gift for me at the time, because the trans community told me, you don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to figure it out. Just show up now, who you are, and trust that things can unfold in time.” - Michiko Bown-Kai. 5. “God's grace unfolds in our lives, in our willingness to be humble and vulnerable. And the Spirit moves us to be prophetic and countercultural and revolutionary.” - Michiko Bown-Kai. 6. “The wilderness is calling you to resist by living your most beautiful life.” - Michiko Bown-Kai. 7. “ Living with paradox should be no surprise. Jesus’s teaching is often paradoxical. The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. Be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves. One gains one's life by losing it.” - Christina Beardsley. 8. “One would hope that all religious communities are engaged in hospitality of the heart, hospitality for the human spirit. But sadly, as many of you know, the opposite can be true.” - Christina Beardsley. ]

 

Transcript

SARAH: Hi, friends, I’m Sarah Bessey. 

JEFF: And I’m Jeff Chu. Welcome back to the Evolving Faith Podcast.

SARAH: This is a podcast for the wanderers, the misfits, and the spiritual refugees, to let you know you are not alone in the wilderness. We are all about hope, and we're here to point each other to God. No matter where you are on your journey, no matter what your story is, you are welcome. We're listening—to God, to one another, and to the world.

JEFF: The story of God is bigger, wider, more inclusive and welcoming, filled with more love, than we could ever imagine. There's room here for everyone.

SARAH: There is room here for you.

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SARAH: Welcome back to the Evolving Faith Podcast! This is episode 18, the second part of a two-part special addition to our season. If you have listened to the podcast before, you know that we have been featuring talks from our 2018 gathering which was a remarkable and beautiful, messy and imperfect experience.

However, in two important ways we failed to live up to our values, especially our value of belonging. Two particular identities were underrepresented or entirely missing from our main stage: disabled people and trans/non-binary people. This was wrong on our part. Even though we can’t go back in time to change what happened in 2018, we simply could not share this season of the podcast without starting to make this right. So last week’s episode featured three disabled speakers, and today, we’ll hear from and then be in conversation with three people who identify as trans and/or non-binary. 

JEFF: To reiterate what we said last week: These leaders are not here to offer us absolution. Austen Hartke was with us to teach a breakout session at Evolving Faith 2019, for which he rightly received rave reviews. But we haven’t had other trans and non-binary speakers at Evolving Faith. We are sorry for that. But we invited these leaders to this episode not for forgiveness, but because they have tremendous wisdom to share with us. As we said last week, typical podcast practice is not to pay guests. This felt wrong to us. So we are paying each of today’s guests, as we did last week’s, what they would have been paid had they delivered the same talk on the Evolving Faith conference stage. So we will hear their talks one after another, and then we’ll gather together around a virtual table to talk afterwards.

SARAH: Exactly, this episode is actually more like the actual Evolving Faith experience so it may run a bit longer because in each session we hear from three incredible leaders and then have a round table conversation together. You are going to love this time together.

First, we’ll be hearing from Austen Hartke. Austen’s breakout session from 2019 was hands-down, my husband’s favourite, he still has the pictures on his phone that he slyly took of Austen’s slides. Austen is the author of Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians. He is also the founder and director of Transmission Ministry Collective, which is an online community dedicated to the spiritual care, faith formation, and leadership potential of transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, and gender-expansive Christians. As a transgender person of faith, Austen's greatest passion is helping other trans and gender-expansive people see themselves in scripture.

Then we’ll be hearing from Michiko Bown-Kai. Michiko Bown-Kai is an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada who is passionate about social justice and creative expression. Over the past decade they have engaged in ministry in many forms: as a Sunday School coordinator, program coordination at The United Church’s General Council Office, a youth group leading, and most recently as an intern minister at East End United Regional Ministry. They currently live in Toronto (in Dish with One Spoon Treaty) and also work as a program assistant with an organization close to my own heart, Generous Space which is here in Canada and which works to dismantle religious-based harm, pursue intersectional justice, and celebrate LGBTQ2+ lives in both the church and in our world.

JEFF: Finally, we’ll hear from Christina Beardsley, a Church of England priest and retired hospital chaplain. Tina co-edited the books “Transfaith: A Transgender Pastoral Resource,” “This Is My Body: Hearing the Theology of Transgender Christians,” and, most recently, “Trans Affirming Churches: How to Celebrate Gender-Variant People and Their Loved Ones,” which was published this past spring. Tina first heard her call to ministry as a child and was ordained to the ministry in 1978, when all priests in the Church of England were still male. She is the author of “Unutterable Love,” an exploration of the life and work of the Victorian Romantic preacher Frederick William Robertson.

SARAH: Now before we begin, a fair word of warning that this episode includes profanity and we have well-earned our explicit rating. Proceed accordingly. Now friends, join us as we listen to Austen, Michiko, and then Christina. After that, we’ll be back with them for a Q&A roundtable discussion. We will catch you on the other side.

AUSTEN: I grew up evangelical, till I was about 10, 12 or so. And in churches that were not LGBT affirming, which did not sit right with me even at a young age. And then I ended up in the ELCA Lutheran tradition as a teenager, partly because it was the first church that I went to that, that was even vaguely accepting of LGBT people, which was mind blowing for for a little evangelical kid me. So the Lutherans got stuck with me.

The other part that's sort of relevant to these stories is that I'm a transgender person, I'm also a bisexual guy. I came out as bisexual when I was about 16. And I came out as transgender when I was about 24. So my experiences of understanding my identities, and my name, and who I am, and who I am in community, those things all changed throughout my teenage years and my young adulthood. And it got me when I, when Jeff and Sarah asked me to talk a little bit about faith and identity and scripture, and trans identity. Specifically, it got me thinking about these moments of transition these moments of finding identity and finding your name and finding your place. Because we all have times in our lives when our identities change. When we go from, you know, being a partner to being a parent, or going from being a single person to being a parent, when we go from being a partner, person to a single person, those are sort of obvious transitions, right and life that many of us go through. But there are also lots of other ways that we transition identities and that we might not think of all the time, change identities can be difficult for us to accept, we can know something about ourselves and not want that thing to be true, it can take us a while to become okay with the things that we know about ourselves and the changes that we go through. They can also be hard for other people to accept. And one of the ways that we understand ourselves is through language and through naming. And one of the ways that we build community and that we make sense of ourselves in community is by sharing those names. And by using that language to explain our identities, who we are, what we do.

 

So when we look at scripture, I suppose this is the other thing I should have warned you up front. I'm also kind of a Bible nerd. And I have a degree in biblical studies, specifically in Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. So all of my favorite stories pretty much are Old Testament stories.

 

And when I look through Scripture, and I look at all the people in the Bible, who go through these sort of changes of identity, there are quite a few who also have alongside their change of identity have a change of name. So usually, people will get a new name or a new recognition of a name, if they're taking on a new calling, right. So for instance, we think of Simon becoming Peter, right. So there's a new testament story for the New Testament fans in the room. When Simon becomes Peter, he gets a new identity, he becomes the rock that the church will be built on, right? There are other stories where somebody gets a new name, recognizing something that they've already been. So for instance, in that same story, where we have Simon becoming Peter, that's actually the same part of the gospel where Jesus asks Simon Peter, who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter says, You're the Messiah. And in that moment, Jesus is granted a new name or a new title, which is Messiah, right? And Jesus has always been the Messiah. It's just that Peter is only now figuring that out. Right? So that's a case of somebody getting a new name for something that they've always been. 

 

So when we think about people with new names and identities, one of the first people of course in Scripture that gets a new name and a recognition or a new identity is Abraham or Abraham. So we read about God's call to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. Genesis 12 says, The Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So in that moment in Genesis, chapter 12, that's not actually when Abraham gets his new name, not when Abraham becomes Abraham. But it is the moment when Abraham must start wrestling with this new identity when God shows up and says, here's what's going to happen. And Abraham has to deal with that. Because the reality is that God isn't just asking Abraham to get up and go from your country. Because the whole all of who Abraham is, at this point, is wrapped around his familial identity. It wrapped around the main label of who Abraham is, as a person, as an individual and in his community. He is the oldest son, he is the son who is supposed to inherit, he is the next in line for leadership in his family. So Joy Ladin is a Jewish transgender scholar and poet. And she does a great job of describing the way that familial roles were even more important than gender roles in the ancient word, ancient world of the Hebrews. So Joy Jadin in her book, The Soul of the Stranger says, God's first words to Abraham command him to turn his back on his firstborn role in return for divine blessing. According to the Torah, before God speaks to him. Abraham has fully fulfilled his firstborn role by following his father Terah, from their native city, Ur of the Chaldeans to the city of Huron. But when God calls him to go forth from the elderly terrace house, Abraham does not hesitate to betray his father, and violate the gender role he was born into Abraham's trans experience, the experience of rejecting his assigned gender role is presented by the Torah as both fulfillment of God's will and as required in order to receive God's blessing. So here we have Abraham, right. He has this role. He's the firstborn son, he's supposed to carry on the family's name, traditions, wealth, he was supposed to care for his father until he died. He was supposed to be the power, the pillar of power and stability for his family. But instead of holding on to that assigned gender role that he was given a room here's this word from God, and abdicates his position and leaves. So in English, when we read this story of Abraham in Genesis 12, we often read it as God's saying, Go or get up and go from your country in your Kindred.

 

But in Hebrew, the command is a little bit more confusing. This command from God is more than just go or get up and go. The Hebrew words for what God says to Abraham are Lekh Lekha, which means go to or for yourself. So when God first calls Abraham, God doesn't say that this is a religious quest, or some kind of test of faith. If God had wanted to say, go for me, God would have said, go for me. But instead, God says, Lekh Lekha, go for yourself, go to yourself, go to be yourself. This kind of calling is something that I think a lot of transgender people recognize. It sounds It's strange, because it sounds selfish, especially in a Christian tradition that often teaches us that we are supposed to be selfless. And there's so much sort of suffering and self flagellation that happens within Christianity. So this can sound selfish. But what Abraham is doing here is following God's call to be something different. And that's something different is not going to please everybody.

My experience as a trans person wasn't actually that different from Abrams, I too felt called to throw off the weight of other people's perceptions of me, in order to go to myself, I felt called into a journey. I didn't know if I was ready for I faced anger and hurt from family members who felt betrayed that I couldn't just play my assigned role as a niece or a daughter. But just because God tells you to Lekh Lekha just because you feel these threads of love and being and life and health tugging at you moving you in a direction. That doesn't mean that you're quite ready to accept that it's happening yet. It took me about five years to get from the moment that I realized that I definitely was trans to the moment that I started asking people to call me by My name Austen. It takes Abraham five chapters and many more years to go from the man who takes this first step out of the life that had been planned for him to become the man who receives the name, father of nations. But all of that time is sacred. The moment when you find the right word, or see that sign or hear that call, that moment of a truth revealed, is sacred. And the moment when you finally feel ready to make that truth known to others as sacred, the moment when you share your name, and the new identity that you have that is sacred to, but perhaps the most sacred of all, are all the steps in between those two points.

Whether you're leaving the theology you grew up with that nearly killed you, or the family that doesn't know how to love you, or the wealth and power that has kept you caged, that time in the wilderness is necessary. We know that here at Evolving Faith, we talk about wilderness journeys all the time. You need that time in the wilderness to shed the old skin and let God make you brave enough to face yourself and to face others. One of the strange things about coming out of that wilderness is that you'll feel both entirely new and entirely the same. When you do share yourself with others, some people will say you've changed so much, I don't even know you anymore. I definitely have a couple of people in my life that said that. But others will say you know, you look different, but you are still the same person I've loved.

 

And both things are true. When Abraham gets his new name, after he's accepted it after he's taken up his call, he still makes the exact same mistakes the old Abraham made. And yet he's also new. He's guided now, by a different relationship with himself and with God, that leads to a blessing that eventually covers all of humanity. So as somebody who is familiar with transitions as somebody who knows the the heart of them and the health and the growth that comes through them, I pray that each of us may have a life filled with transitions, this simple and this revolutionary. Thank you.

  

SARAH: Hi friends, quick pop in here to remind you that if you attended Evolving Faith 2020 or even if you missed Evolving Faith 2020, the goodness isn’t over. You have access to the recording of the conference right up until April 1, 2021. You can watch it on your own time and at your own pace. Listen to incredible speakers like Audrey or our own dear Jeff along with me, Jen Hatmaker, Chanequa Walker Barnes, Kate Bowler, Padraig O Tuama, Neichelle Guidry, Barbara Brown Taylor, Monica Coleman, Nadia Bolz Weber, and so many others. Go to evolvingfaith.com - the table in the wilderness is there for you still. Okay, back to the podcast.

MICHIKO: Let me start by sharing a bit about myself so you could understand what wilderness has looked like to me. My name is Michiko. I'm a mixed race Canadian who grew up in the suburbs of Ottawa, and Toronto. And just recently, I was ordained as a minister in the United Church of Canada. I'm someone who grew up being a misfit, never feeling like I belonged anywhere. But defiantly convinced that loneliness was better than faking it. 

It wasn't until I was in my first year of seminary that I would get a bit more language to help explain a part of this feeling of otherness, which helped me come out as non binary. being trans can be exhausting and challenging. But coming out was also the perfect spiritual gift for me at the time, because the trans communities and relationships that I had told me, you don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to figure it out. Just show up now, who you are, and trust that things can unfold in time, which was something that I also needed to learn as part of my faith journey.

I offer this exploration into the metaphor of wilderness by first acknowledging the land on which I'm recording this, the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, Huron Wyandot peoples, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the New Credit. I'm also recognizing that treaties and covenants made by settlers have not been honored and that colonization is an active ongoing process. I'm committing a portion of the funds received for this work to the Toronto Urban Native Ministry. 

As a further piece of accountability, I also want to name that the concept of wilderness is one rooted in colonialism. One that understands the relationship between land and people as one where the land is either unknown and dangerous, or known only through conquest and exploitation. This idea of wilderness often erases the ways in which indigenous people stewarded the land prior to colonization, and still do, and also perpetuates the idea that land that has not been colonized is simply empty wild land for the taking, rather than a place of history, relationship, and belonging for indigenous peoples. I appreciate the words of Dina Gilio-Whitaker who makes it clear that as a settler, my ability to access these spaces, is possible only through genocide, including the forced displacement of indigenous nations. And I hope that you will keep this in mind and continue learning from indigenous voices as this community continues to engage in the metaphor of wilderness that has brought so much meaning to many of us.

When I reflect on my experience of times in my life when I was without home, without a script, without security that things were going to turn out okay or turn out at all, I came to understand this place as being one that held a tension between grief and precarity, and joy in groundedness. In one sense, we come to know the wilderness through rejection. It is a place we end up because we are being punished or abandoned. But also the wilderness is a place where I am no longer forced to bear false witness to myself is beyond oppressive expectations.

My prayer for all of us is that we remember the ways in which the wilderness may be unknown, but still can offer refuge as a place untouched by Dominator culture. When we let go of a colonial cultural understanding of wilderness, we realize that it is not something to be feared because we don't know what it is exactly. But in fact, it is safer because it is not being open pit mined by colonialism and infected with the pesticides of patriarchy, or ravaged by the clear cutting of capitalism. When it comes to my queerness, I recognize that the wilderness is where I have been exiled. I have been gendered by the patriarchy. I have been racialized by white supremacy. But it's also where I choose to be, and where I am called to be as an act of solidarity, where I am intentional in situating myself because I'm unwilling to compromise the divine spark within me, and that this is how I answer the Spirit’s call. 

I think about Jesus whose ministry began with a spirit chasing him into the wilderness. And then who would also continue his ministry by seeking wild places, the edges of society in which he would choose to do his ministry.

Here's the messy truth that I want to share with you: people bring their shit with them into the wilderness. This idea that we can move ourselves away from all oppression, especially the internalized stuff can prevent us from doing some really necessary heart work. So I know I spoke earlier of wilderness as a place beyond what bell hooks calls Dominator culture. But I want to be clear that I speak of the wilderness in the same way that I speak of the kingdom of God. It's an almost, but not yet something we glimpse at through moments in a space that is impossible to gentrify. So I want to be clear that for me, the wilderness is not your mountain climbing expedition to Mount Everest, it's not about you and all the money you have to access spaces, where the people who actually know the land aren't recognized for their wisdom and skills. So I want to just gently put it out there that if you're experiencing the wilderness for the photo op, or because it will make a great icebreaker later, then I'm not impressed.

Another tough truth, we may understand the wilderness as a place of belonging or spiritual grounding. And yet, none of us can truly fully escape the realities and demands of living in this world. So I just want to share with all of you one example of trying to figure out what it means to stay wild.

This one time when I was in seminary, I was invited to be part of this queering religion panel. And I'm there, I think, in some ways, as the token youthful queer. What I brought to the table that day was a reflection on the spirituality of the phrase, Queer As In Fuck You, which is a wisdom that the queer community had gifted me with, and I think deserves to be honored. So I want you to picture me in this academic setting, saying, Yes, I am queer as in fuck you. Queer as in I am set apart from this world to resist Empire, queer as in fuck you, fuck capitalism, fuck white supremacy. And I knew that this wasn't playing by the rules of academia. But I felt like it was my way of saying, did you want to make space for queerness here or not? On one hand, I can get away with this because I have light skin. I'm articulate. Maybe my bad haircut and punk clothing are more entertaining than offensive.

But also, I don't really know who understood me when I shared what I said that day. No one really engaged with me afterwards. And I definitely wasn't invited to speak again. I really lament the ways that my experience of ministry has been that people want queerness until it gets ugly and demands accountability. And I mean, ugly as a revolutionary affirmation. Why are queer and trans folks great for panel discussions, but not full time jobs and leadership positions? I want to know, do you really want to put the work into learning and understanding the experiences of trans folks? Are Two Spirit LGBTQ+ people only welcome as long as they are aspiring for a white picket fence and 2.4 children? Does your theology make space for sex workers? Are you worried about queer and trans youth having housing or just how many queer people will come to your church and give money? And I think what I really wonder is why cling to the comfortable space of wondering if you have included those who are othered by your power and privilege when you can live into the promise of liberation?

My story is just one small example. But I think it points to the question. We are all living to some degree, which is, do I just Shrek it up and go live in my swamp? Or how do I navigate the world with all its varying degrees of wilderness and manicured green lawns and all the stuff in between? Because I am not interested in being anyone's bonsai tree.

Because God's grace unfolds in our lives in our willingness to be humble and vulnerable. And the Spirit moves us to be prophetic and countercultural and revolutionary. This world needs people willing to journey into the wilderness because we desperately need something more than the death-dealing empire and all the ways that organizes our everyday lives and our imaginations. This world needs flowers blooming in unexpected places. Mushrooms growing after forest fires, weeds in sidewalk cracks. It is calling you to resist by living your most beautiful life.

May God bless you, protect you and sustain you on the journey ahead. Amen.

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JEFF: Hi friends, we’d like to invite you to sign up for the Evolving Faith newsletter. Every month, we send out an exclusive essay, news, book recommendations, and other good info. So go to evolvingfaith.com and sign up there. Plus this way you’ll be the first to know about any announcements for future events. or even a second season of The Evolving Faith Podcast. And now let’s go back to the show and hear from the Rev. Dr. Christina Beardsley.

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CHRISTINA: “A paradox, A most ingenious paradox! We've quips and quibbles heard in flocks, But none to beat this paradox!”

Fans of Gilbert and Sullivan will recognize these lyrics from the comic opera, The Pirates of Penzance. There, the paradox concerns the birthday of Frederick, the opera’s hero, alive for 21 years, he was born not only in a leap year, but on February 29. And since that only occurs every four years, from another perspective, he is - as he ruefully admits - a little boy of five. 

Recently, I found myself living increasingly with paradox. A friend put it succinctly: the activity and territories you inhabit at the moment are complex. I need to explain. In the UK at the end of 2019, there was a general election, I canvassed for my party, delivering leaflets, knocking on doors, and strongly believe in the values that party stands for. But it was rejected by the majority of the electorate. There were multiple reasons for this defeat, the main one being the divisions within the country over what was then, prior to the appearance of COVID-19, the main issue of the day, Britain's relationship with the European Union. When that had been put to a referendum, four years ago, in 2016, the British people voted to leave the European Union by 52% to 48%. The margin of difference, a mere 4%, highlighted how divided Britain had become over that issue at any rate. Here too, it seems I was on the wrong side of history. I love my country, it's my home. And yet, I don't feel I fully belong here anymore.

A retired priest, I help out at my local church preaching, celebrating the Mass, leading a weekly Bible study group. But being retired, I can no longer participate in Synod elections, and influence wider church policy. I'm a member of the church council, but co-opted rather than by office. I'm involved in what's going on, but slightly apart from it. And that's usual when one's retired. As a friend of mine notes, retirement is one of the most difficult life transitions because of the bereavements involved, and it can take years to emerge from it. 

Another current paradox is the polarization concerning transgender people. And I'm transgender. Overnight, it seems, certainly in the UK, trans people have become the focus of an intense debate about gender, linked to concerns about women's safety, and single sex spaces. The old trope that trans women somehow trespass or invade the territory of other women has returned with a vengeance, which seems odd. Even trans women who've been on the receiving end of masculine socialization will have experienced it very differently from someone who's cisgender. And many trans women are fervent feminists, pre as well as post transition.

Pre transition. I was a member of priest for the ordination of women in the Church of England, and gave practical support by training women colleagues, who were among the first to be ordained.

Happily, the church where I help out changed its mind about women priests 20 years ago, and is both Anglo Catholic and affirming of women and LGBTI+ people in ministry. The community of priests, I joined at the start of 2019. The Sodality of Mary, Mother of Priests is also Anglo Catholic and affirming. To some that seems a paradox, but to us, it just makes sense, and provides me with a prayerful structure and accountability. 

I suppose living with paradox should be no surprise. Jesus’s teaching is often paradoxical. The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. Be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves. One gains one's life by losing it. Good scribes should draw on both the Old and the New. I guess we have to learn to enjoy the ride. But it's become distinctly bumpy. Just recently, after a couple of decades, in which trans people had become less stigmatized, and began to enjoy legal recognition, we're now living through a backlash in which people's views of trans people, for or against, have become a litmus test of political and religious orthodoxy. Left or Right. It's a paradoxical place to find oneself in. 

I've been keen to educate others about being transgender and Christian, co authoring three books about trans people and the church. But now, many trans people, including me, don't want to participate in debates about our lives, as if who we are is somehow questionable. That's quite a tension, both wanting to communicate, while at the same time stepping back from it. Mind you, you’d think I’d be used to this kind of thing, having transitioned 20 years ago, as a priest working as a healthcare chaplain. Theological writing about trans people often describes us as occupying liminal space. And that was my experience. I was considered so controversial by my bishops, that for the first four years after my transition, my ministry was confined to the hospital. I minded that and I didn't mind it. 

Another paradox: The healthcare setting turned out to be a hospitable place, as the word hospital implies, compared to the church authorities at that time. Hospitals are themselves profoundly liminal spaces, where people navigate the margins of sickness and health, isolation and community, life and death. In a liminal place myself at the time, due to my transition, working in hospital suited me very well. And I hope that, being on the edge myself, increased my empathy for people who might be suffering physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. In health care, I also encountered a phenomenon that was less obvious when I worked as a parish priest - the societal shift away from organized or institutional religion, towards a person-centered spirituality. Some patients, relatives, and staff had specific religious needs which we sought to meet as chaplains, but many more expressed spiritual needs around loss, hope and healing, for example, without seeking to express them in traditional religious patterns.

That's one of the lovely paradoxes of being a healthcare chaplain. You may have been formed in a particular religion or belief, but you'll be caring for people from a wide range of spiritual backgrounds. As a free spirit myself, I find it vital to be grounded in a specific religious tradition, even though it's created difficulties for me. In chaplaincy, I met others who have been wounded by their religious communities, some of whom were looking for alternative ways in which to articulate and express deep matters of the spirit and the heart. Eventually, Heart emerged as the word that our whole chaplaincy team could coalesce around, whatever our faith or belief and we were a multi-faith team, with a humanist colleague. What we sought to offer was hospitality of the heart, hospitality for the human spirit. That was the strapline, we came up with. And one would hope that all religious communities are engaged in hospitality of the heart, hospitality for the human spirit. But sadly, as many of you know, the opposite can be true.

--

SARAH: All right, here we go. Well, thank you all so much for being here with us. We are so, so glad to welcome you to the podcast.

AUSTEN: Hi, everyone.

TINA: Yeah. Great to be here.

MICHIKO: Thanks so much for having me.

SARAH: Well, I wanted to start off with a question actually, for all of you. And it is because I heard a few things in each of your talks that really connected with me. Michiko, you talked about your experience of coming out as a perfect spiritual gift to you at that time, because the trans community and relationships told you that you didn't have to have all the answers that you could show up now as who you are and trust that things would unfold in time, which obviously connects very strongly with so many of us. And Tina, you spoke about the gift of paradox and Austen, in so many ways. I'd love to hear more from each of you about the other gifts that you've experienced within the fullness of your identity? And not only your trans or non binary identity, but all the intersections of identity that form you? What are some of the spiritual gifts that you have found here? I'll start off with you, Tina.

TINA: Okay. Well, I think knowing myself to be loved by God, as a heart knowledge has been a wonderful gift. And in fact, I could only really, I think, come out initially about sexuality because of that experience. It was extraordinary, like a dying and rising experience. I mean, I knew in my head, of course, I knew that, that God loved me. But to have that as a as a heart knowledge - and there was some pain attached to that - is something that gave me great courage. I could talk more about that. But I think there was a pastoral situation with a family with two teenage girls with congenital condition. And I found it really distressing to be there when we were ministering to them. But after I'd gone through that experience, and felt really touched by God's love, I was able to go into that situation without difficulty. I think in some ways, it prepared me for what was coming years later, as a as a healthcare chaplain. That's the big one. I could talk about other things, but maybe I've said enough.

SARAH: Well, thank you for sharing that. How about you, Austen?

AUSTEN: I think for me, I'm reminded of something Virginia Ramey Mollenkott said, she's a trans scholar. And she once said that trans folks, gender expansive, folks “provide an antidote to the addiction of dualistic certainty.”

And that's something that I think has definitely been true in my experience, not just through my gender, not just through the sense of realizing like, oh, okay, everybody is certain about my gender. And I've been told that I'm certain about my gender, and then it turns out that certainty was not necessarily there.

So not only in that, but also in being somebody who has an anxiety disorder, I think there's this one, you have anxiety or deal with anxiety, there is a pull towards certainty, as a means of like getting rid of the stress, like you just want things to be certain and stable. So that you don't have to be stressed out or anxious, right? and realizing that you can be in places of discomfort, without it killing you. That's something that I'm still trying to learn but moments of discomfort are not going to kill me, that I don't have to have that certainty. I don't have to stick with that sort of addiction to certainty and that addiction to things are either good or bad, black or white, you know? that there's so much that lives in the middle. And that's a lesson that I think I keep learning throughout my life. But it's definitely a gift that's helped me see things in the middle. When people have said, well, it's either one thing or the other.

SARAH: Oh my gosh, that'll preach. That'll preach. Thank you for that. How about you, Michiko?

MICHIKO: I'm noticing how there's this theme of like, you know, we're talking about blessings and gifts and how it may be in the moment when we experience these things they really don't feel like blessings or gifts. I'm thinking about, I guess the gift of have pastoral sensitivity to shame and trauma and how they might show up. I think this having been in a lot of spaces where people don't really want to talk about what makes them uncomfortable. I really appreciate it now being in ministry and being able to just lean into, you know, I'm gonna say the things that nobody wants to say because they're uncomfortable and hope that that provides a sense that people aren't alone in their experiences.

SARAH: That is a really good.

JEFF: That's beautiful. It occurs to me that amidst the complexity and the anxiety and pastoral situations, it is the love that has to hold us right? It is the love that has to ground ground us and provide us the foundation or the source of courage.

Tina, in your talk, you say something that resonates with me in my own particular identities, you say, “many trans people, including me don't want to participate in debates about our lives, as if who we are is somehow questionable.” And whether implicitly or explicitly though, all three of you did seem to position yourselves in your talks in kind of an educational or explanatory mode. And I'm wondering about the pressure that each of you might feel to explain yourself. Or center the cis experience and perspective on a podcast like this that is not primarily, or even, or exclusively for trans folks or non binary folks. So I'm wondering whether you all feel any kind of tension there? And if so, what do you do with that? How do you navigate that? Austen, could we start with you?

AUSTEN: Mm hmm. I mean, I definitely also resonated with, with what, with what Christina said about the sense of like, I no longer want to argue about my ability to be here. That's definitely something that rang true for me, I think the tension for me that I sit in is because of where I have intentionally positioned myself. In these conversations, I've recognized that I have the ability to be sort of a one on one guy. There are so many folks that are better than I am at doing sort of the next steps of things. And so I've kind of said, you know, what, as somebody who looks like - I mean, I have a partner who is a female, and like, I look like a straight white guy to people that don't know that I'm trans. And so therefore, I have decided, like, well, I'm gonna put myself in a position where I can do some one on one work so that other people, you know, don't have to do that. Because people based on the way that I look, the way that I move through the world, people afford me certain privileges. And so I'm going to try to use that to do the one on one stuff. So other people don't have to, I think, the tension there between not wanting to be in that position all the time, and recognizing that that's your calling, like, that's just the way calling work sometimes is that you end up being Moses being like, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this. And God being like, Well, here's the gifts I gave you. So go for it.

JEFF: Right? Absolutely. Well, Tina, let me turn to you next, because just by virtue of the way your story unfolded, when it unfolded, you found yourself in a position of being something of a trans pioneer in the Church of England, and in the broader church, you found yourself in the 101 position, whether you chose that or not, I suppose. How do you feel about that? And how have you navigated that?

TINA: Yes, I started out by responding to a Church of England document, 2003, it was written, I think. And I responded with an article to that, because the document, which was a chapter about trans people supposedly had nothing of our experience, nothing about our carers, there was so much that needed to be there that, that wasn't there. I guess I've come to the conclusion that we've spent a lot of time really responding to other people's agendas. Certainly the first book I co-edited. “This is my Body: Hearing the Theology of Transgender Christians,” that that was responding to both the Church of England statement and and the Evangelical Alliance one. And the book I did with Chris Dowd, Transfaith that was starting with trans people's spirituality with with their agenda. So that was good. But we still felt within the book that we needed to have glossary, that we need to have a discussion of what churches are saying, and we've gone on to do a third book, which is gentler in a way, it is about what churches can do to be affirming.

But in some ways, we feel we're sort of written out on this. And also, it might be nice to write about something else. I saw a post by Maggi Dawn the other day, and she was saying, This is quite tricky for women scholars, the invitation to write What's it Like to be a Woman Scholar and so on. And actually, you spent so much time dealing with that, that you may get behind as a scholar. I mean, this doesn't affect me. I'm not a professional academic, but I can see that could be a real tension for people.

I mean, I just, I was part of the recent project, the Church of England's projects about to report on human identity sexuality, and, and marriage and I left it after 18 months because of the power imbalance. I just felt I'm being consulted, but I don't have any real impact on this project. Yeah, that was uncomfortable having to leave but I leave but I think maybe it will give me a freedom to be able to speak about the outcome, which I wouldn't have had. I think there's something here about safety as well for people.

You know, I was invited to do a radio discussion. And I turned that down, and so many trans people did, because, again, it's that objectifying and we would have gone in as to give our evidence, and then it would have been discussed in our absence, we wouldn't have been part of the talk there. I think looking after oneself is really important. At the moment, particularly.

JEFF: Yeah, it's being invited to sit at the table, and then you realize the chairs aren't all equal, right?

TINA: That's correct. Michiko, how about for you? Not to single you out. But you're the youngest of our three guests today. And you're coming up in ministry, in a time and in circumstances that are very different from when Tina first became a priest. Do you feel that tension between needing to explain your identities and just being a minister of the word?

MICHIKO: Jeff, I feel so called out by your question. (laughter) I was looking back like oh, my God, I just slipped right into that, like, automatically. And I didn't think. And so yeah, this is an interesting question. And I have to say, like, I came out as non binary in seminary, and I, you know, while I was studying helped my profs learn about how to do pronoun checks and sharing and how to be more trans inclusive in like, how they ran their classrooms, you know, so I definitely feel like even though things have changed, and I, you know, benefit so much from all that's happened ahead of me, there's just so much in my own personal life that is involved a lot of educating for myself.

I think, for me, at first, I felt this pressure to always explain everything to everyone. And nowadays, I'm much more intentional about when I take on the educational role. And it really depends on the community that I'm sharing with. And I figured out ways to download responsibility to others to do the learning.

So like, for example, in my email signature, I include my pronouns, and then there's a link that says, If you want to learn more, click here. And then people can click on it and read more about it. So I let people choose to take that on, rather than always feeling like it's my responsibility to be introducing it. And it just comes from like a peace of mind that I know who I am. It's actually other people who are confused or ignorant. So that's on them. So then, yeah, so when people show me they are invested in me, then it's a sign I can invest in them. And I found that that's been a really helpful way to navigate the tension.

JEFF: To have that mutuality, that mutual respect.

MICHIKO: Mm hmm.

SARAH: Well, I don't think that we've ever, any of us, managed to get through an episode of evolving faith, feeling personally attacked by Jeff's questions. So welcome to the family.

Austen, I wanted to ask you, specifically something that you shared, that really resonated with me, and it was particularly what you had to say about the translation for Abram going as “to go to or for yourself,” you're just my most favorite Bible nerd. And you named that this was counter intuitive for so many of us, because we are almost never told that in most of our spiritual or religious traditions. And so it feels jarring because we've been taught implicitly or explicitly, maybe that that is not enough of a reason to go, that we are not enough, that going to or for yourself, just feels like a permission slip. And so I wanted to ask you to speak to the people who are listening who have perhaps never heard that and share a bit about your experiences of finding and receiving the invitation to go to or for yourself into the wilderness.

AUSTEN: Hmm. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's tricky, because, I mean, kind of going back to that, breaking dualisms or binaries. I think it's so easy for us to think of everything in terms of is this selfish? Or is this self less, right? Like it's one or the other? And of course, we know that, like, when it comes to altruism, like so much of it is not 100% for other people, even when we think it is. So there's a there's a middle space for that selfish / selfless binary. But I think the thing that has helped me especially and as I think about like, Abraham story specifically, is that sometimes things that look selfish in isolation look healthy in community. That for instance, you know, when when Abraham is told by God, like go to or for yourself, Lekh Lekha, like, go do this thing. It can look super selfish to everybody around Abraham, right that I'm sure Abrams father was not super psyched about this plan. But that the end of what God says to Abraham, it makes clear that this is a larger situation, that at the end of it, God says in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed, right? though the point is that this is healthy for everyone, even if in isolation, it looks selfish.

So there's a breaking of a binary there. And that has been something that has been kind of helpful for me and thinking about this that like, for instance, you know, if I say no to, you know, working on a community project, so that I can take a weekend to rest, that looks selfish, because I'm saying no to this thing that would help the community. But in reality, that means that I'll be rested so that the next week, I can continue to do more work, right? So like in community, it really is something that's more healthy. So I mean, it's a tricky thing to balance because, like, you can very easily delude yourself that this is for the good of everybody. So it's a it's a tricky thing.

But I think when we think about this idea of like, go to or for yourself that that you can be enough, I think it really comes back to having to break down the sort of white Protestant idea that suffering for suffering’s sake is wholly suffering in itself makes you better. And so it's really easy for Christians to to feel like, well, I can't do things for myself. I'm not, I'm not if it's just for me, it's not good enough. Because we think like, well, if it's not for everybody else, then I'm just gonna sit and suffer. And that makes me a martyr. And that makes me better than everyone else. Like that's, that's so sort of intrinsically part of white Protestant Christianity, and maybe not just Protestant, but, but I think that's something that we have to think about breaking down.

I think in terms of like the day to day encouragement about whether or not we have any doubt whether we're worthy enough, I think we can look at the fact that, like, think of all of the people that God uses throughout Scripture, Abraham included, we're in good company with a bunch of bozos sometimes. (laughter)

SARAH: That is strangely comforting.

JEFF: Yeah. The Bible is a book of bozos, thanks so much. We're always just a little bit heretical on this podcast. Obviously, we have now fully established that Austen is a big Bible nerd. Tina, you touched briefly on a couple of things that Jesus said and did. But I'd be curious to hear more from both you and Michiko about scripture because so much of the evolving faith community is and has been wrestling with the place of scripture in our lives. For many of us, that place has changed over time, how we read scripture and understand it and revere it has changed. I'm curious, how has your engagement with Scripture changed over time? And is there a particular book or a passage that has been a touchstone for you that you've returned to again and again, whether for strength or inspiration or comfort? Tina, can we go to you first on that one?

TINA: Because I didn't know whether I was being called out for not using the Bible enough. I thought, hang on a minute. I read passages of Scripture a day long prayer in the mass, I lead Bible study and preach read regularly. So why am I not using the Bible? Here? In the podcast? Yeah, I think my journey has been from youthful literalism and identity, making me aware of the clobber texts and then introduced a biblical criticism at university that helped. And I did my doctoral research on this romantic Victorian preacher, Robertson of Brighton who started as an evangelical, and he said this, it became liberal abroad. “My own experience was after bitter wretchedness, to feel that the Bible was not my oracle, to give it up almost wrongfully, and to seek God alone within me, instead of outside.” You can imagine after that he went on to become what was described as a psychological preacher, in terms of how he handled biblical characters, among them, Jacob, and his most famous sermon is Jacob Wrestling. So I thought this connected nicely with the idea of people evolving faith, wrestling with God, who is God, not just in the pages of a book, but within, within oneself.

And at seminary, I remember in particular in the Biblical Studies Paper a question about the use and abuse of the Bible. And that's something I feel very strongly about, that the Bible is so often misused. And that may be why. And after being a healthcare chaplain as well, where we are very much focused on spirituality, maybe why.

The passages for me, I talked about that experience that I had death resurrection, Psalm 34, “I sought the Lord called on me, God delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to God are radiant with joy. Their faces shall never be ashamed.” This is powerful. For me, this sense of being loved as I am, every aspect of me is something I go back to. And John's Gospel, I go back to a great deal, because of the those conversations, it’s all about dialogue, it seems to me, John, I just love those conversations Jesus has. Well, I could go on, but I'll leave it there.

JEFF: Psalm 34 is one of my favorites. It's just that that reminder that our radiance does come from God that our, our faces shine in God's presence, that has been a constant encouragement to me. How about for you Michiko? Are there sections of Scripture that have been especially meaningful to you? And has your engagement with Scripture evolved over time?

MICHIKO: Yes, it Well, yeah. Evolved over time for sure. So like, I guess another aspect that I should add into the conversation here is that I'm actually like a preacher's kid. Both my parents are ministers. And so I grew up going to church and being well versed in learning all the stories that you learn in Sunday school, but then as a teenager, being you know, quite angsty, and questioning my gender and sexuality, you know, refused to go to church and was quite angry at God at this time. And so I actually missed out on sort of this portion of faith formation that I think maybe perhaps a lot of listeners of the podcast, you know, that would have been a time where they would have doing intense Bible study.

So for me, I really feel like I got to know scripture, especially as an adult while I was coming out. And because of that, I think that I really lament the fact that I had to study the Bible as this form of self defense, or like a need to sort of survive or hold my own in these, you know, certain more homophobic situations. You know, like, I had to know the clobber verses because they were being weaponized against me. It's just a really horrible way to develop a relationship with something as holy as scripture.

And so like, now, I just, I have very little interest in the apologetics, in doing that work. Because if, if people think that I don't belong to the church, then they've already overlooked this bigger picture of God's grace and radical hospitality. And I just have this feeling like, you know, I'm not sitting outside your church door anymore, you know, anxiously combing through the Bible trying to justify my self worth, you know, like, the Spirit led me far away from that a long time ago.

For me, the text that I think is really like an anchor to me would be the end of Romans 8, that sense that nothing can separate us from the love of God. And in general, I think I just really love the voice of the prophets throughout the Torah, that makes it really clear that God's priority is justice and liberation.

JEFF: Hmm. Amen to all that.

SARAH: Yeah. Listen, I'm just having church over here. This was so, so good to hear I. That's one of your favorites, isn't it too Jeff, that end of Romans eight?

JEFF: People give all such a hard time and I recently was part of the preaching team that preached through Romans at my church here in Michigan. And I got to kick off this series. And I said to folks, I feel like Romans has been misrepresented because the whole thing is a love letter. The whole thing is a reminder to the church of God's enduring love. And so Michiko I'm so glad you brought up Romans 8, because I really do think it crystallizes so much of what is life giving, especially in Paul.

SARAH: Mm hmm. That's a whole other podcast episode. We're gonna have to do another time. I feel like we could talk all morning long. But I did want to ask all three of you before we really begin to wrap up: at the conference this year, a thread that emerged in so many of us and a thread that has emerged in this entire season of the podcast is talking a lot about cultivating and naming our hopes. And not in some sort of attempt at, you know, finding that silver lining or, you know, naive optimism, but because we want to contend for hope, that it's worth fighting for, and, and cultivating in our lives. And so I would love to hear from each of you how you are contending for hope in our world right now. And even where you're finding it, it can be something that is, you know, big and complex or something very small and ordinary sometimes those are often the most helpful things when we go you know, not wide but deep. But Michiko why don't we start with you? Why don't you talk a little bit about how you're contending for hope right now and where you're finding it.

MICHIKO: Sure thing, and I think maybe this is a strange answer. In some ways, I consider myself like very much like a Good Friday type minister, I'm very much like to be in the thick of a mess. And I feel sort of comfortable there. But I think for me, understanding that God as a spiral, and using that imagery is what gives me a lot of hope. Because I see within this, this idea that you know, as things in the world continue to sort of like change and intensify and seem to get worse, in this sort of opposites spiraling motion is the endless possibilities to be creative. And I just think about how, like, death and like definitely, like empires, so like, focused and narrow. But that, you know, there are a million ways to always be creative and show up.

And so when I sort of see the state of the world and how horrible it is, I'm just like, great, like, hopefully people will then just realize that whatever gifts that they have, it will show up in some way to counteract what they're seeing in the world. And so I find a lot of hope. Yeah, just in that creation is endless possibility.

SARAH: That is so beautiful. Thank you for that. How about you, Tina? Are you finding hope right now? And how are you contending for it?

TINA: I thought my days as an activist for LGBT inclusion in the church were over, because I'm an elder now. (laughter) But one of the other elders rang me today about a bit of campaign. So maybe that's not over, somebody has to do these things in order to achieve the vision that we want to see of full inclusion. I find hope in the joyful resilience of my friends in the Reformed Catholic Church, in Poland. They've had a hard time there with the government there recently, but they continue just doing what we do as Christians - praying, caring, loving, and that's something that I try to do in my own church setting. And I do get a great deal of support and hope from being part of the Sodality of Mary, Mother of Priests, this network that I mentioned in the, in the podcast, which in lockdown has become International Anglican. So now including priests from Canada, from the USA, from South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and which is much less, you know, not white British anymore. It's definitely been. And that's been very hopeful.

I mean, I also just find it helpful reading posts on Facebook from from younger clergy and ordinands and seeing the quality of the people coming through to serve and minister that makes me you know, as an old person and retired priest, really, really hopeful,

SARAH: That is lovely. How about you, Austen?

AUSTEN: I think when I was thinking about this question, I was reminded of a quote from Pirkei Avot, which is The Wisdom of the Fathers. It's a Jewish collection of wisdom. And there's a sentence from that collection that has gotten a little bit more, it's become a little bit more well known recently, which I think is great. The quote is, “you are not obliged to complete the task, but neither are you free to desist from it.” And I love that that is that kind of encapsulates, I think, for me the hope and the struggle.

We did a Bible study at Transmission Ministry Collective last week about the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt and how they take Joseph's bones with them, because Joseph says do not bury me in Egypt, take me with you when you leave and the idea of carrying the work of those that came before us and then realizing that at some point, though, like we, the work is not ours to complete, like at some point, somebody’s going to be carrying our bones. That to me, gives me a lot of hope. Because as somebody who wants to, like had somebody who is kind of is a perfectionist and wants to complete things and like feels a lot of stress to do things right and to get things done, knowing that it is not my job to finish the work is really a source of hope for me that I don't have to carry all of that by myself.

I think one of the places that I'm seeing that lately that's been so fulfilling and joyful is we recently started a support group for trans pastors and seminarians. And being able to talk with those seminarians, seeing similar groups happening. There's a seminary and a trans seminary and cohort at Pacific School of Religion, these groups of trans seminarians and trans pastors that are coming up like Christina said, you know, like coming up and seeing the way that they're interacting with Scripture and with the church, you know, Michiko being one of those folks, that's, that's coming up in the church like, seeing the way that things are changing already, because of them and, and seeing the way that they will change. That's a big source of hope for me.

SARAH: Thank you for that. All three of you. Thank you for being here with us.

JEFF: We are nothing on this podcast if not sickeningly earnest, our regular listeners know that that is our brand. So I'm just gonna say that the wisdom that you all have shared gives me hope, and I am so grateful for your presence with us.

AUSTEN: Thanks so much.

MICHIKO: Thank you.

TINA: Thank you. It's been lovely to be with you.

JEFF: You can find all of the links mentioned on today's show, including information about Austen, Michiko, and Christina as well as a full transcript in our show notes at evolvingfaith.com/podcast. You can sign up for my newsletter at Jeffchu.substack.com and follow me on Instagram at @byjeffchu. The Evolving Faith Podcast is produced by us Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu, along with Lucy Huang. Thanks to Audrey Assad and Wes Willison for our music.

SARAH: You can find me at SarahBessey.com for all my social media links, my newsletter, and of course my books. And join us next week for the final episode of this season as we wrap up with a special benediction for all of us. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Evolving Faith Podcast friends, and until next time, remember you are loved. 

Sarah Bessey
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