Special Episode: “Doubt Can Be the Thing That Pulls You Closer to Home” with R. Eric Thomas
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Host
Sarah Bessey
Find Sarah online: @SarahBessey on Instagram or Sarah Bessey on Facebook. You can also subscribe to Sarah’s newsletter, Field Notes on Substack. Explore Sarah’s recent books on her website.
Featured guest
R. Eric Thomas
R. Eric Thomas is everywhere. From pop culture insights and political humor to storytelling with The Moth and dispensing advice in Slate’s Dear Prudence column, his work spans genres and internet subcultures. He is a national best-selling author and an award-winning playwright and screenwriter (Apple TV+’s Dickinson, FX’s Better Things). His books include Here for It, or How to Save Your Soul in America, Reclaiming Her Time: The Power of Maxine Waters, co-authored with Helena Andrews-Dyer, and the YA novel Kings of B’more. Off the page, Eric is also the long-running host of The Moth StorySlams in Philadelphia and has been heard on Jen Hatmaker’s For the Love, Pop Culture Happy Hour, The Moth Radio Hour, NPR's All Things Considered, and It's Been A Minute with Sam Sanders. He lives in Philadelphia with his husband, the Rev. David Norse Thomas.
“I want to live in a space of freedom and discovery, and yes, doubt. I want to live at the intersection of my faith and my queerness and my Blackness. I want to live in the generative energy of community, community-making, because community doesn’t just happen—it takes effort, it takes time, it takes intention, it takes vulnerability, and it takes love.”
Thanks to our producer, SueAnn Shiah, who also provided the music for this episode, you can listen to her album A Liturgy for the Perseverance of the Saints on Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, or Bandcamp and find her at @sueannshiah on Instagram and @sueannshiah on Twitter.
Transcript
Part 1: Introduction
SARAH: We are all looking for belonging. Some of you are listening to this podcast because you've deconstructed your beliefs, maybe you've endured some pain and trauma, stood bewildered before a community that once felt so much like family. Perhaps what you used to call home isn't really home anymore for one big reason or a thousand reasons. Maybe you've landed somewhere completely different. Maybe like most of us, you're still landing. Many of us have found our way here to Evolving Faith because we are looking for healing spaces. We are longing for fellow sojourners and needing room to exhale all of our questions and doubts. We yearn to be more connected and less alone, and we're reaching out for others who feel the same, to know that it's not just us out here. To know that it's possible to resurrect and reimagine, even maybe rebuild. So, this is why we exist, to cultivate hope and love in that wilderness.
We know we're not alone and neither are you, and we are so ready to welcome you to our little outpost, so that you can rest, laugh, grieve, create, hope, and know that you are loved, through and through. You are invited to join us, a bunch of folks from all over the world, who are making our own beautiful, diverse, and messy table in the wilderness. Tickets are now on sale for Evolving Faith 2023. We're gathering both online and in person this year, on October 14 and 15 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We're so excited to welcome all of you and speakers such as Krista Tippett, Danté Stewart, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Dr. Wil Gafney, Barbara Brown Taylor, and so, so many more. I would absolutely love to see you in Minneapolis or online for that sacred weekend, and I hope that you will find belonging in this little motley crew too. Bring a friend or 10. You can come by yourself. You'll probably make a new friend there. You're not just welcome; you're wanted. So, head over to EvolvingFaith.com for more information and to register today.
SARAH: Welcome back to The Evolving Faith Podcast. I'm Sarah Bessey and I am so glad to be here with you today. If you are looking for a respite in the wilderness of deconstruction and faith shift, well, you have definitely come to the right place. You just can pull up a quilt to our little campfire here. We're going to spend some time together. We're over on Twitter and Instagram as @EvolvFaith and on Facebook as Evolving Faith, and of course, we are also a thriving online community at Community.EvolvingFaith.com, where thousands of your fellow wanderers are currently journeying together, and I hope you can come and join us, if you aren't already hanging out over there.
Today, we are going to be hearing from R. Eric Thomas on the podcast. Eric spoke at the 2022 Evolving Faith gathering, and I know many of you know and love his work already, but just in case I'll do the official bio. R. Eric Thomas is a national bestselling author, playwright, and screenwriter. His books include Here For It or How to Save Your Soul in America, which was featured as a Read with Jenna pick on NBC's Today. Also, Reclaiming Her Time, the Power of Maxine Waters co-authored with Helena Andrews Dyer and the YA novels Kings of B'More. Eric is the winner of the 2016 Barrymore Award for Best New Play, the 2018 Dramatist Guild Lanford Wilson Award, and was the finalist for the Steinberg ATCA New Play Award and three Lambda Literary Awards. But he can write. He has written on the Peabody award-winning series, Dickinson on Apple TV+ and Better Things on FX.
Off the page, Eric is also a long-running host of the Moth Story Slams in Philadelphia and has been heard multiple times on the Moth Radio Hour, NPR's All Things Considered, and It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders. I first came across his smart and hilarious writing over at Elle.com. Years ago, he was galloping through everything from pop culture stuff like The Crown to the USA State of the Union speech, and just trademark wit, and when he released his book, Here For It, I couldn't read it fast enough. I requested it right away at the library. I think I was the first person to get it, but the entire thing is brilliant.
But, I was really struck by how he writes about faith: his own, his husband's, his experiences with church, coming out, where he's finding grace right now. He said himself in the talk, you'll hear this in just a couple minutes, that he's a big old church queen and I just love it so much. So, I couldn't believe our luck when he agreed to join us at Evolving Faith last year. These are some of the conversations that I just love that we're able to curate and host, because it is just a joy to bring his incredible talk to you now. The title of this episode is lifted right from his words, that doubt can be the thing that pulls you closer to home, and what an exhale for us. So, it was tender, beautiful, moving, strong, and it is just such a joy to be able to bring it to you all now.
Before we jump into that though, it is time to get your own ticket for this year's Evolving Faith conference. The magic continues. This year, we're meeting on October 13 and 14, that's 2023 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This is the first time we're gathering in person since 2019, so I'm really excited about it, but we have also got the full conference available online. So, if that's your preferred option for any reason, please know that it is going to be an incredible experience online. We have learned so much, over the last few years, about how to make it as communal and accessible and real of an experience as possible there.
This year we're going to be joined by Nadia Bolz-Weber, Barbara Brown Taylor, Brandi Miller of Reclaiming My Theology, Randy Woodley, Krista Tippett, Danté Stewart, Dr. Wil Gafney, Amy Kenny. I could keep going, it's just... We're absolutely spoiled with riches, in terms of the folks that we'll be hearing from. It can feel a little bit like drinking from a firehouse sometimes, but maybe in a good way. You can find all that info, including tickets over at EvolvingFaith.com, and I would absolutely love to see you there. And so, now, let's hear from R. Eric Thomas from our 2022 gathering, and I will meet you back here at the conclusion of his talk to say a quick goodbye.
Part 2: Eric’s Talk
R. ERIC THOMAS: Today is my sixth wedding anniversary. I'm not physically with my husband right now, but that's okay because I read that the customary present for your sixth anniversary is a conference registration. I'm in a mixed marriage. I have TSA PreCheck and he does not. Also, I'm Black and he is White, and I grew up evangelical, Baptist, and he grew up Presbyterian. We both, in our separate lives, loved church, but only he went on to become a pastor, which is what he does now. I don't go to church much anymore, but I always tell people that I'm going to get to heaven on my husband's insurance, like dental and vision. The PC (USA) has a very good plan. I'll pay a copay, it's fine, but then I'm going right to my mansion made of gold.
On the night we met, David, my husband, had been on a panel on LGBTQ people of faith, alongside representatives from other branches of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam. I'd been asked to moderate for reasons that are still mysterious to me. In any case, David delighted me so thoroughly that midway through the panel, I stopped talking to the other panelists and just peppered David with personal questions. I will disrupt any event for rom-com reasons.
Afterward, I wondered something which just would be problematic in other spaces but was fine here. I wondered, "What's a good way to flirt with the pastor?" And, my brain answered, "Well, tell him how Christian you are," which is I guess very, sort of? I don't know. I say that I walked up to him and I said, "Say buddy, what a friend we have in Jesus. Am I right?" I was trying to bond with this dude over the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I was determined to highlight our mutual interest in the niche subject of Protestantism.
At that point, I'd been living in Philadelphia for about a decade and I'd spent much of it searching for a church home, with varying levels of commitment. Many times that meant just putting a note on my calendar that said, "Go to church, you idiot," and then going to brunch instead. I knew that spirituality was something that I wanted in my life, but as I came more into myself as a gay person, I became resolute in my desire to never sit in a pew again and be told that I was going to hell. I found myself visiting a number of open and affirming congregations, but most of the ones that I found were largely White and their style of worship was so dramatically different from what I grew up with. Some of these people, I walked in and they were wearing shorts in church. I was like, "Jesus didn't die on the cross for you to be exposing your knees like it's casual Friday."
I was kidding, but I wasn't really kidding.
I'm just a big old church queen. I love church; I love theater. It's high camp. It's cabaret. What's not to love? You get to dress up at church like you're going to the Grammys. Literally, every word that everyone says in church is a very compelling story that frequently involves both scandal and magic. There is so much gossip. It's pay what you wish, wonderful. There's a choir and musical numbers and choreography, and when things really get going, people yell and shout and jump up and down and stop the show. RuPaul's Drag Race. Honey, church is very gay. Honestly, I see very little difference between church and a Beyonce concert. Maybe that's the core of my theology. If it makes you feel something ineffable, if it's bigger than you and yet deeply personal, if it sometimes involves a fog machine, it's church.
Jesus is in there somewhere, swaying to the music, saving you a dance, like a friend. I wanted that. I wanted a friend. I wanted community. I wanted an experience where people were shouting, but not shouting at me, and on that panel where I first met my husband, I told him plainly that I couldn't find it and I didn't know what I was doing wrong. There was one church in Philly that always came up when I Googled “affirming church with gospel, prayer hands emoji.” It was a Presbyterian-affiliated faith community that sang hymns and also Prince songs. The congregation was diverse across all manner of demographics.
During the week, the space was used to serve daily gourmet meals to people experiencing housing insecurity and food insecurity. A theater company that produced forgotten works took up residence in the Sunday school room. In short, it was a little bit like heaven, and so it should come as no surprise that the business card that David handed me after the spirituality panel bore the same name of the church from my Google searches, a church called Broadstreet Ministry. In my opinion, there was one church I could go to in Philly to fulfill my spiritual needs, but if I went to the church, I couldn't date the surprisingly appealing pastor. It was a real catch 3:16. I'm really proud of that one. Anyway, the point is I did nothing. I didn't go. I think I'd make a terrible disciple.
Speaking of disciples, I need to get something off my chest with you all here. When I was in kindergarten, I went to a Baptist elementary school, where we memorized Bible verses alongside of vocabulary words and we had chapel every day. I loved it. My teacher, noting my last name, Thomas, gave me the nickname Doubting Thomas. I'd raise my hand and she'd be like, "Yes, Doubting Thomas?" I understood the biblical reference. Of course, I knew about the Apostle Thomas who refused to believe in the resurrection, until he inspected Jesus' wounds for himself. I got the humor of it, hilarious, but I was anything but doubting. I believed so hard. I said to my teacher, I said, "Mrs. Harold, with all due respect, I'm suing you for libel and for breaking my faithful little heart."
I grew up going to a conservative Black Baptist church, where all I wanted was to believe enough to belong. I was good in all the ways that you can be good. I crave the external validation of being seen as holy, righteous, headed to heaven on my own insurance plan. I loved that church, the Blackness, the community, the high drag of it all. I remember so clearly, when it all ended for me. It was the mid-’90s and it seemed like we were always being held after church for a congregational meeting with some topic of grave importance. Usually, the meeting involved one of the teen girls in the church standing in front of the congregation and confessing a pregnancy. I found that odd. I didn't quite know why we had to be involved as a community like this. Why this was being treated with tough love instead of soft love, and why the specter of shame hung over the whole thing.
And then one meeting, there was no pregnant girl. Only the leadership looking ashen, telling the church that we had to vote on the serious matter of excommunicating the music minister. Perhaps you already know this tune, but it was my first time hearing it. He was a man struggling to come to terms with his sexuality. He confessed this much to the pastor, and took a vote in the congregation, and we never saw him again. I had questions about this, and the questions that that meeting brought up led to more questions. Women never gave sermons, for instance. I found that odd too. Women weren't allowed in leadership at all, for the most part. In the services, I began to notice that we seem to always be talking about suffering, the suffering of our forebears, the suffering of the saints in the Bible, our own suffering.
It seemed sometimes like the message was that we deserved it, that we were bad and that that was the point of life. Our church congregation was completely Black, and while I couldn't prove it, I began to suspect that this country's embedded practices of White supremacy also informed our experience of faith and religion, and what we believed was possible for life, what was sin, and how much suffering we should endure. I couldn't believe that this was all that there was. I'd spent years trying to be good in all the ways that you can be good. Trying to belong, believing so hard, but now, as the oracle leading my kindergarten class had foretold, I had doubts.
I stopped going to that church when I went to college, and I think what I miss the most is the community. I grieved a connection not only to faith, but to the Blackness that I found there and didn't feel had a corollary elsewhere in the world. I've only gone back once, in the years since. It was four years ago for the homegoing service of a dear friend of our family. I hadn't set foot in that church in over 20 years at that point, but I loved the woman who had passed and I loved her family. Her daughter was the first person who introduced me to Prince, and although I am certain that the church leadership didn't approve of Prince's music, that contraband information changed my life. This family changed my life, and so I went and I stood in the aisle before service, next to my parents and one of my younger brothers.
As people arrived and milled about and greeted each other, and I was totally disoriented, the church looks exactly the same, down to the homemade banners that hung behind the altars. The faces that I was seeing looked almost the same, except in some cases, a little bit of gray hair or a hint of wrinkle. I remembered most of these people as the 30- and 40-year-old friends of my parents, and yet here I was, 37 myself. I didn't believe what I was seeing was real.
As if that wasn't strange enough, these saints looking now like they'd stepped out of the hair and makeup trailer for a flash forward on This Is Us, they would come over, greet my parents warmly, say hello to my younger brother, and then extend their hand to me and welcome me to the church, like it was my first time. Honestly, they were like, "Hello, sir, so glad you could join us today. Do you have a church home? Are you saved?" It wasn't everyone, but enough people approached me like a total stranger that I was like, "Is this shade?" But, to be frank, I would've respected that if it was, but no, they really didn't know who I was. I said, "Now who's the doubter? Maybe you'll know me if you inspect the wounds." I didn't really say that. I wanted to. I should have. It would've been high drama. It would've been camp. It would've been church.
One time, my beloved husband preached a whole sermon about my biblical nemesis, Doubting Thomas. Can you believe this betrayal? It was early in the pandemic, during the first year, I think when his church home had become our home home, and we were broadcasting service from a second bedroom in our house. When his church pivoted to Zoom, I became tech support and we sat side-by-side, me just outside the frame as he read and filmed his sermon on his laptop, and I squeezed into the corner of the office, ran the Zoom and posted the words to the hymns and broadcast music from the videos. I couldn't have been closer to it, but I still felt at such a distance from church.
David's sermon that day was about the apostle's reaction to Christ's resurrection and how it was the women who were entrusted with the message. He said that he'd always interpreted Doubting Thomas, Thomas, as someone experiencing PTSD. Thomas had been through something catastrophic and disorienting and terrifying and heartbreaking—they all had—and for Thomas, the doubt was a lifeline. Of course he had doubts, and he communicated what he needed to assuage those doubts, what he needed to believe, yes, but moreso, what he needed to feel welcome and safe and home. I've thought about this ever since. Of course he had doubts, but his doubts, his trauma, his baggage, his needs didn't preclude him from being a part of the community. Doubt can be the thing that pulls you closer to home, not farther away. I don't go to church, but every once in a while the pastor I live with, he really gets to preaching.
As we designed our wedding six years ago, David and I talked about radical welcome, something that he was learning and instituting at a church where he was intern pastor, and something that I was trying to put into my work, which at the time, was directing programs at an LGBTQ community center. We talked about how explicit invitations have to be, how the physical space, the access points, the exits, the table, the color of the door, everything can communicate welcome or can communicate that someone doesn't belong and hasn't been thought of. We talked about how important it is to listen and act when someone tells you how you can better welcome them into a space. We talked in that hopeful, loose, daring way of a couple about to make promises about the unknown, of what a home dedicated to radical welcome might feel like.
We shared a vision of a house with an open door and a big table, full of stories and food and music and people. We're still building it. It's been harder than we thought it was going to be. We've had our doubts, but I think that's always the case with welcome. But, some Friday nights in our new house, I'll set out a charcuterie board on our medium table and tell our friends, "Come, eat, and David will put on Prince's Purple Rain on the record player” because we love it, and we found that it's one of those perfect albums that makes people feel good, makes them want to stay longer, makes them take off their shoes.
I wonder if you've heard this story about Prince. It's true. Prince came to the London premiere of the movie The Bourne Ultimatum and then invited the cast of the film to see him perform and hang with him after the show, which is like being given a ticket to the bottle service section of heaven. And so, Matt Damon, who was the star of The Bourne Ultimatum, he's making small talk with Prince afterwards, which is a hilarious conversational choice. But, also one I can't really mock because what do you say when you are in the bottle service section of heaven?
So, Matt Damon says to Prince, "So, you live in Minnesota? I hear you live in Minnesota," and Prince replies, "I live inside my own heart, Matt Damon." Every time we turn on the record player and throw open the door to our house, I think about that reply. For years I've struggled with the feeling that I was at a distance from church, the community, the Spirit-filling, the ritual, the drag of it all, but I've come to believe that there's a difference between the questions “Do you have a church home?” and “Where do you live?”
I want to live in a space of freedom and discovery, and yes, doubt. I want to live at the intersection of my faith and my queerness and my Blackness. I want to live in the generative energy of community, community-making, because community doesn't just happen—it takes effort, it takes time, it takes intention, it takes vulnerability, and it takes love. I don't know what the future holds for me, in terms of buildings, churches, faith. I can't change what happened, but I know that I am in the future, and I know that the future welcomes us radically. In that future, I want to belong in the world. I want to speak and act with care. I want to embrace the safety and freedom of love. I want to recognize myself, even if no one else sees me. I want to hope, and most of all, I am going to live inside my own heart. Thank you.
Part 3: Wrap-Up
SARAH: There are a dozen things that Eric said in his talk that have stayed with me. I'm still an analog person, and so of course they're all written down in a little journal. There's one thing that people give you a lot when you're a writer: it's journals. I always have an entire shelf of blank journals, and you know what? To be honest with you, I'm not mad about it and they get used. But, I was flipping back through my notes and there were a few of his statements that really continued to sing for me, even a year later. I was particularly moved by his statement that “I want to live at the intersection of my faith and my queerness and my Blackness,” because it connected so beautifully with that other thought of, “I want to belong in the world.”
When he said, “I want to speak and act with care. I want to embrace the freedom of love, and most of all, I want to live inside my own heart,” and that those two ideas together, the idea of being able to be fully ourselves, to bring the fullness of our identity to our lived lives, to live with that kind of freedom inside our own hearts and to move through the world, I think it brings not only beauty and strength, but also healing. Not only to ourselves, but to the people around us, right? It's like giving other people a permission slip, to also live within a faith that has room for all of our intersections, everything that makes us uniquely ourselves. It's such good work. It's hard work, but it's good work. At the same time, it can be lonely.
And so, I think that's part of why I'm hopeful that you'll have a chance to connect with us for the conferences here. Because you'll find some fellow misfits and some good conversations there. A sense of belonging, hopefully, or maybe just a reminder that you're not as alone, as sometimes it can feel when you are in the midst of trying to live this out. It's maybe like one of those little pots that Eric talked about. Maybe it's a good spot for a transplant for a while, where you can grow and heal and be nourished. That's a hope anyway, and I hope you can join us. So, head over to EvolvingFaith.com to get started there, and while you're there, you can find more info about Eric and his work in the world, as well as links to his website, his books, all that kind of fun stuff, as well as a transcript of this episode, that's all in the show notes, and that's at EvolvingFaith.com/podcast.
You can always find me, mostly over at my newsletter, Field Notes, these days, which you can find at SarahBessey.com, but I still show up on social media now and then, as @SarahBessey on Instagram, Facebook, and now even Threads. Heaven help us all, I'm getting too old for this. The Evolving Faith Podcast is produced by myself, our director, Ashleigh Nelson, and of course SueAnn Shiah, who also wrote and recorded our music. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Evolving Faith Podcast, and until next time, whenever that may be, remember still and always, that you are loved.
