Source is KERA.com
Neighborhood resident Mark Wingfield, a pastor at Wilshire Baptist Church—whose other pastor George Mason writes a monthly column for the Lake Highlands Advocate—a couple weeks ago was making news for a blog post he wrote about transgender people; now he’s really gone viral and has become an unintended, unlikely national voice for transgendered people and their families.
“As a result of that post being read by more than 1 million people either online or in print, I have heard the personal stories of people from all over the country. In two weeks’ time, I have exchanged personal correspondence with more than 400 people,” Wingfield says in a new post.
He says most of those correspondences have been positive, which is encouraging in a time of intolerance and disconnectedness related to transgender people, often in the name of religion.
“Most transgender persons are not against God; many just fear that God is against them,” writes the pastor who says he has heard from transgender persons, from the parents and friends of transgender persons, from clergy, doctors, teachers, counselors and lots of average people.
“Or, more specifically, they believe the church is against them. Many of them — a vast number in fact — have grown up in the church and are people of deep faith. But they are people who have been asked not to come back, have been removed from membership, have been shunned.”
Most of those with whom he has communicated express shock, he says, that they are corresponding with and feeling supported and loved by a “Baptist pastor from the most Bible-thumping part of the country,” because, he believes, “the church of Jesus Christ is most known today for what we’re against rather than who God is for.”
Wingfield says notes from struggling LGBT people and their families have broken his heart. One family was evicted from their church — the mother accused by its pastor of child abuse —because she allowed her biological son to dress as a girl. The stories upon stories of rejection were shattering, Wingfield says.
He finds it especially depressing that Christian church often seems an environment in which people lie about who they are in order to belong.
“Most of us only feel like we can talk about the happy stuff, the easy, fluffy stuff, when we come to church.”
It’s not just about gender or sexual issues, he notes, but we cannot talk about all those things we need church/God/spirituality for. From troubles with our children or spouses to addictions or financial woes — we are fearful of talking about the hard stuff, the parts of ourselves we most need to talk about, he says. “… few among us probably feel free to bring our whole selves to church.”
“In all these conversations of the past two weeks, I have found myself weeping and shaken. I have learned more than I ever imagined — not only about the details of transgender life but also about what it means to be human. As my commentary went viral, I discovered that the transgender community was immediately kinder to me than the church has been to them.”
In the initial column, Wingfield wrote that he didn’t know any transgender persons, to which, “immediately upon publication, I began hearing from folks who said ‘I will be your transgender friend.’ Tears came to my own eyes as I read these lines over and again and realized that I was hearing from strangers who were willing to open their lives to me in much greater proportion than they feared the church would be willing to open itself to them.”
He heard some positive, uplifting stories about Texas churches, too, Wingfield notes.
“One of my new transgender friends told me about attending a church in a very conservative Texas college town and hearing for the first time that God loves him specifically. In this church, the pastor made a point to say not just that God loves everyone but that God loves you, whether you’re young or old, male or female, gay or straight, Republican or Democrat, Aggie or Longhorn. And to my new friend, sitting on the back pew of that church, these words sparked a journey back to the faith that had been recently lost.”
Wingfield thinks Jesus wants churchgoers to bring their whole selves to the service. He says that while he has this platform, this spotlight, while he is experiencing his 15 minutes of fame, he wants to spread this message:
“God loves you, whoever you are, wherever you are. Whether you’re a conservative or a liberal, a traditionalist or a progressive, a Protestant or a Catholic, a male or a female, gay, straight, trans, whatever. God loves you.”
