By Benjamin Morse
A number of years ago as I finally settled into my seat after a missed flight, I was feeling smug from the discovery that I could remain unfazed by travel disruptions. It is a truth universally acknowledged that nothing triggers a refined gay more than airport queues and the blare of long-winded announcements at every gate. If I end up going to Hell, I have no doubt Satan will ridicule me with the following loop: “Your Record Locator is your reservation confirmation information number and may be used to retrieve or reference your reservation. Thank you.”
So imagine my serenity when the newly sober me realised he could tune it all out. He could not only accept that his fellow humans were just trying to get where they were going; he could embrace them, internally, as his siblings.
And then the woman next to me revealed herself to be an impatient passenger. Multiple tests of her tray table, endless inspections of the contents of her seat pocket, constant conspicuous surveys of the cabin and the tarmac. She could not sit still. She was also larger than her seat. What do we do, Benjamin, when a member of the public annoys us? We greet them.
“Are you going home or away?” I asked. Her Janet Jackson eyes lit up: “Home! This my first time flying.”
She had been in Miami to celebrate her fortieth birthday. She and her friends had made a road trip of it from, of all places, Akron, Ohio, the Mecca of Alcoholics Anonymous, where her father was a preacher. My mother had been an Episcopalian priest. The things you can have in common if you make an effort. Was she nervous?
Even when it comes to some of my closest friends, I can feel misunderstood. I therefore translate my encounter with my Maker into theoretical terms that are at best humble and at worst near denials of something that has saved me from death too many times to count. To which she replied: “You better preach!”
A little. But prayer and praise were her life, and after the week she’d just had she knew God would bring her back to her babies (a son and a daughter in their early teens). So we were onto God straight out of the gate. It was probably when I was telling her about the hurdles I had encountered promoting my children’s Bible that I confessed to being a shy Christian. Even when it comes to some of my closest friends, I can feel misunderstood. I therefore translate my encounter with my Maker into theoretical terms that are at best humble and at worst near denials of something that has saved me from death too many times to count. To which she replied: “You better preach!”
I file this encounter under God moments. The hubris of thinking I’d mastered spiritual self-regulation checked by the intrusive presence of my neighbor in 36B. The instant simpatico and launch into a topic that can turn strangers into fellows. The bounty that can come from being a little nice. Take nothing for granted.
How crude it would be to reduce our interaction to our points of intersectional disparity. What would such an emphasis make of her generous encouragement to be bold in my faith? We were, for the duration of the flight, friends. If part of me regrets not offering to formalize that through Facebook, it makes it more of a God moment to have kept it a memory in the heart and not profaned it by an online platform. More of a God moment too to recognize she has likely forgotten me. And yet our paths crossed, and she told me I better preach. Beautiful.
With the Progress flag now colonising liturgical vestments and altar cloths, I have come to question a certain contingent of liberal clergy more than I do the ones they demonize for defending traditional values. Jettisoning their commitment to theological rigour, those who reduce Scripture to crafty memes appear to have taken their cues from a secular priesthood.
Cut to the present and I am still not much of a preacher. I have however become more tolerant of those I used to judge, namely conservatives who proclaim for all to hear that Christ is their Saviour. With the Progress flag now colonising liturgical vestments and altar cloths, I have come to question a certain contingent of liberal clergy more than I do the ones they demonize for defending traditional values. Jettisoning their commitment to theological rigour, those who reduce Scripture to crafty memes appear to have taken their cues from a secular priesthood.
The reigning theorists pontificate ad nauseum but lack the imagination biblical language requires of us. They erect countless idols which they claim to dismantle but in practice bow down to. Consider queer’s fetishization of “normativities” or the critical-social-justice warrior’s devotional obsession with -isms and -phobias. They promote a pseudo-religion that leads to a dearth of love as well as perverted beliefs about the rights of children to realize their sexual and gender potential beyond the boundaries of their parents. “Trans kids” won’t be free until the archangel slays the Beast of “adultism”, or something.
For three hours on a flight from Miami, the woman next to me wasn’t “a black woman” and I wasn’t “a gay man”. We were neighbours, Christians of different denominations talking about God and sharing stories of family.
For three hours on a flight from Miami, the woman next to me wasn’t “a black woman” and I wasn’t “a gay man”. We were neighbours, Christians of different denominations talking about God and sharing stories of family. Had I been indoctrinated into the current zealotry, I might have apologized for my privilege or not felt safe in such close proximity to her heteronormativity—and where on earth, or in the friendly skies, would that have left us? Worlds apart.
Sadly, difference today is power. The identitarian insistence that every lesbian, gay or bisexual person in the West is “marginalized” leaves little room for Love Thy Neighbour. It also, once again perversely, throws us into an imaginary community alongside asexuals, with people who conflate stereotypes with biological sex, and with those who insist we affirm their self-declared transcendence of male and female. Claiming to be diverse, the alphabet cult demands strict adherence to their creeds. Conform to their faux nonconformity, or be damned.
So I guess I should finally preach: Beware the sophists. Don’t be dazzled by the verbal chicanery that attempts to seduce you away from the reality of your birth. God, evolution, however you want to conceive of it, doesn’t put people into the wrong bodies. (Neither can surgery or magic grant full salvation from the delusion of a divine mistake.) Remember you are free, so refuse to enslave your soul to politics. You shall not covet your neighbour’s anything, so no resentment either. Serve the Lord your God who identifies as “I Am” (YHWH) by celebrating the wonders of the creation—and by loving others as yourself.
Consider queer’s fetishization of “normativities” or the critical-social-justice warrior’s devotional obsession with -isms and -phobias. They promote a pseudo-religion that leads to a dearth of love as well as perverted beliefs about the rights of children to realize their sexual and gender potential beyond the boundaries of their parents.
That last part is a tall order in multiple respects. It means I must even love the worst possible militants for “queerness”, to know there is good in each of them too, though I don’t have to surrender truth to their will. Yet I can’t love like that unless I tend to the rather Californian business of loving myself first.
Loving others not merely as I would myself but as/because I am commanded to love myself. This tip I learned from Kierkegaard means no longer wishing I was a 6’3” Brazilian Adonis. As myself, not the ‘90s supermodel alternative that still lingers in my head, or the set of labels identity politics wants me to be, or the fantasy of being a discretely wealthy, universally respected writer that tempts me many a day.
As myself, the Benjamin who woke up this morning and instead of wallowing in the fact that he is £293 overdrawn decided to thank God for his life and all the people he has been blessed to know along the way. Benjamin who makes collages, helps his friend’s elderly parents move house, is currently reading Heinrich Heine, and was lucky enough to have a mother and father who took him to church.
Finding men delicious is also part of what makes me me. But it is a blessing, not an identity. I am grateful for rather than proud of it. Heeding Paul’s advice to the Thessalonians, I try my best to give thanks in all things. That includes every normie or oddball neighbour and every missed flight.
Read Benjamin’s first article for LGB Christians which includes his biography, Paradise Calling: Inclusive Church and the Masquerade of Good Intentions. His second piece is a conversation with Diarmaid McCulloch.
Listen to Benjamin speak about his journey from activism to Substack satirist in a full hour interview with Matt Osbourne of The Distance. It includes encounters with trans activists, jailtime with BLM chauvinists, and unfiltered thoughts about living openly as a gay Christian.