Basic Christian dogma often encourages followers to see things in black and white – “God is good. Sin is bad,” “Out of darkness and into light,” “We once were lost, but now we are found.” In its simplest form, this theology works – God is good, and sin is bad – but once we move past the simple, we begin to see that black and white no longer suffice as the easy answer. When it comes to doctrinal answers like predestination, homosexuality, women in the church and other complex issues, our theology becomes so much more intricate.
Being at the Sundance Film Festival has given me a new lens, one that sees deeper into the gray of Christian doctrine. Though this can be a complicated frontier to explore, it is a lens that also reveals to me that the God I serve is complex – that my human brain is not big enough to grasp the perfect answer to so many doctrinal questions. Films like Love Free or Die, The Surrogate, and Middle of Nowhere, have challenged me to see beyond my black and white theology and glimpse into the gray.
For years, Christians have set forth a clear list of rules, some stated lucidly in the Bible – do not murder, do not lie, respect your parents. Others are rooted more in tradition and are less obvious – do not have sex before marriage, no not drink underage, attend church every Sunday, give 10 percent of your income. When the church reaches a theological stance on one of the more traditional, less obvious questions, it often reacts in a black and white way in conversations about these issues. Calling these black and white statements “truth” has become characteristic of Christians.
But practical theology opens up a new way to look at these black and white statements, it opens up the gray. As Craig Detweiler said in his book, Into the Dark, “Practical theology [is] where we reconcile what we’ve read or heard with what we’ve witnessed. Real wisdom acknowledges the sovereignty of God, leaving ample room to be surprised or corrected, for ‘many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails’ (Proverbs 19:21).” For me, the films I experienced at Sundance were the tool that opened my eyes to see the impact story can have on the concrete ideas Christians have been taught. Film has the capacity to show us truths that we cannot read or hear; it is a vessel that brings us to that place where God can “surprise and correct” us.
One film that did this for me was Love Free or Die, a documentary about the first openly gay Episcopalian priest, Gene Robinson. For years the church has set the precedent that marriage is defined as between a man and a woman, but new theology is being developed on the contrary. This film explores what happens when theology is challenged by humanness. In the story of Gene Robinson, a face is applied to the “issue,” and it becomes impossible not to think about the doctrine that had no face before. The film calls into question the ethic of what the church has always believed.
As I watched this film, I began to wonder about my beliefs on the issue of gay ordination. Decisions that had rarely been challenged before were confronted by film and story. Gene Robinson is a regular guy who loves Jesus desperately and seeks Christ’s will for his life. Having met Gene, I saw the sincerity in him that tells me he has sought God in the midst of his orientation and come to conclude that he is living in God’s plan for him. Who am I to say that he isn’t? The scriptures are interpreted one way by the conservative Christian right and on the liberal front those same scriptures are interpreted much differently.
For years, I was taught that being gay is a sin, and a bad sin at that (though I never understood the Bible to say there is a hierarchy). Growing up I did not challenge the doctrines I had been taught. As I became more learned in my faith, questions and conflicts began to arise in this and similar issues. The black and white “homosexuality is sin” may not be so black and white. Merely, looking at the scripture and reading theologians’ writing, I could easily be convinced of my childhood’s simple answer, “gay is sin.”
But then I met Jed. Jed is a gay Christian, who like so many has struggled with his sexuality in an institution (the church) that says he must conform to its heterosexual DNA or give up all dreams of love and intimacy. Jed is also one of the most loving, friendly, Christ-like men I have met. Upon meeting me, he picked me up and swung me around in a circle on an L.A. street as if we had been friends for life. Jed welcomed me into the gray of the gay-Christian conversation. When I met him, he had decided to remain chaste, but in time, he has reconciled his sexuality and now dreams of a monogamous, gay relationship. Like Gene Robinson, Jed sought God and heard God’s voice telling him something new. Though exactly what that new looks like is still uncertain, he (and we) must move forward in our convictions, gray and unsure.
It is easy to see the world in black and white, when one is tucked neatly into their comfort zone. It is easy to simplify grandiose theology when one makes those decisions in a vacuum of books and friends that already agree. But then a story enters the picture. Once a human being with a real life story comes into the conversation, black and white gets muddled. For me, what was once a decision between “Is being gay a sin?” collides with decisions about compassion, inclusion, Jesus’ obvious attention toward the downtrodden, and love. As Stephen Charles Mott says in his essay on ethics, “In light of such instructions, a Christian ethic, and with it a Christian basis for social action, obviously must be established in love.” God is love.
Film can remind us of the so easy to forget gray, because films are the ultimate vessel for story. Watching a film enables us to know someone inside and out. God can speak through movies, “the same God who spoke through dreams and visions in the Bible is still communicating through our celluloid dreams – the movies,” as Detweiler states. In films we are allowed to not only know a character’s external story, but also his or her thoughts and motives.
In Love Free or Die, we are brought into the story of a man who believes that being gay is not a sin. We see his motives are pure and his thoughts are good. In the film, we also see that his opposition – who also claim to be Christians – are filled with hatred and fear. The contrast is striking, but the conclusion the movie makes is that Gene represents the kindness, compassion and good intentions that we read about in the Bible and the opposition do not. True, this is a biased conclusion, but regardless of where one stands in this conversation, hearing the story of a humble man like Gene will at least assist you to peer into the gray, into the complexity of gay theology.
Andrew Marin also experiences the gray of the gay conversation and tells about it through his book, Love Is an Orientation. In the book, Marin emphasizes how conversations and interactions with GLBT people can open your eyes to their story and help bring you into the gray. Marin writes, “Christians should not be answering these questions for [GLBT people], but living life with those who have them.” Marin tells his own story of going from someone who was a homophobic to a Christians living in the GLBT community in order to learn the stories of the people in the community and engage in conversation. Marin says, “We have been too wrapped up in planning the communication of our truth by cooking up contingency plans for potential rebuttals that we have forgotten to think relationally.” In the same way Love Free or Die tells to story of a gay man and gives the viewer new thoughts to process, Love is an Orientation tells the story of the GLBT community allowing readers to “think relationally”.
Thinking relationally, as Marin puts it, helps define the gray. The gray is the opposite of having the answer. The gray teaches us that issues are more complex than we want them to be. It shows that in Christianity there are some discussions the Bible leaves open to interpretation. If we try and interpret things only considering the far end of the spectrum of that decision, we do personal story a huge disservice. Hard facts can lead us to one conclusion, but relational connection can pull us away from the polarized ends of certain issues and give us insight into the middle.