Sunday, July 13, 2025
The Rev. Benjamin Perry (he/they)
Editorial Director, Garrett Seminary
Author, Cry, Baby: Why Our Tears Matter
Queer Christian
“If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.” (Luke 6:29)
There are days when I wake up and wonder why I still serve the church. I write these words after a graduate degree in theology, a decade of ministry, a lifetime of following Jesus. On the days I’m most fearful, I worry the reason is simply inertia; I have invested too much in Christianity to turn back now. Those days aside, however, I don’t think that’s the real answer. I suspect what truly draws me back has nothing to do with professional accolades or employment history. Rather, it is the still, small voice that whispers just as strongly to the person who sneaks in late to worship in the back pew as it does to those of us who stand in pulpits. It is that beckoning summons: “You are called to more than mere existence.”
There is power in ritual: In sanctuaries where centuries of hymns haunt in lingering echoes, in silence that can fill a room or community that can fill an aching heart, in
saying the prayers that blessed our ancestors’ lips, in eating the bread and wine that tether us not only to each other but to Jesus and every Christian in that eternal eucharistic moment—suspended outside time. When I left my full-time call as a pastor last December, I promised myself I would take a break from church—that I would learn different patterns for my Sunday morning. I made it a couple weeks before I wandered into my local parish, headed for that back row. God, it seems, will not relinquish their grip upon my heart, and so the question becomes: How can I love something that has hurt me?
I am not the only Queer Christian with a painfully ambivalent relationship to church. So many of us have been told—explicitly or implicitly—that we are not full parts of Christ’s body. Sometimes, it takes the form of someone telling you to repent for your “lifestyle,” as if who I am is something I could shed like a jacket. More often now, it’s the discomfort of nesting in places who proudly proclaim “All Are Welcome,” but resist changing communal practices to reflect those professed values.
Even all these years later, I still squirm in my pew and wonder: Is there room for all of me?
It's also why Jesus’ words in Luke always sit uneasy in my spirit. Too often, the admonition to turn the other cheek is offered as an admonition to endure abuse so we can maintain relationships. Surely, this is not what Jesus means. This proverb does not endorse passive acceptance of suffering. It is, instead, an invitation to transform relationship to eliminate violence through a countercultural understanding of what it means to resist harm.
Love is never silent. When Queer folks are harmed by churches, turning the other cheek cannot and must not look like ignoring the harm committed. Turning the other cheek is an active choice to highlight the underlying violence. It is however, a refusal to terminate the relationship when there is something worth saving. I stay in church because I know Jesus has set a place for me at his table. There are no words or action that can contradict this theological certainty. Particularly for places that have professed welcome for LGBTQIA+ people, I feel a profound responsibility to call congregations to live into those words. This is not easy work, regardless of whether one pursues it as a pastor or a parishioner. Conviction in our fundamental belovedness and belonging provides the necessary strength.
When Jesus counsels to “turn the other cheek,” it is grounded in unshakeable conviction that the first cheek should never have been struck. When he offers his shirt after someone has taken his coat, this courage is grounded in the belief that God will continue to provide what we need—even in a world that seems hell-bent on denying it from us. I am loved by the God who names and calls Queer people into the fullness of our being. I follow the God who has made a way in the wilderness for generations of Queer ancestors who came before me, who continues to anoint the blessed Queer young people who follow. Hear and know this: there is a place for you in God’s Kingdom, so there is a place for you in God’s church.
