johannachase

Dear Friends,

           I don’t really know you and you don’t really know me, but we know each other in a very special and real way.  I went to Azusa Pacific University from 2004 to 2008 and studied Biblical Studies and Art. I enrolled hoping to follow my dreams of being a professional musician and music minister.  Two years into APU I fell in love with a woman for the first time. I had known I was gay, but I had known in that way that you don’t completely know until it all clicks and you find yourself feeling feelings that you have heard other people talk about for years when they talk of their boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands and wives, but for me I knew it was going to be different. I had a notion of what that may look like, but it’s been a journey.  To put it more accurately, it has been my sacrament; being me.

            Due to the funding sources of APU and the market of families that it advertises and appeases through the channels of Christian outlets and circles and churches, I had to resign myself to being a mere civilian, not the Christian leader and community operator I was hoping to be.  When I was forced to come out to my parents before my senior year, they lightly threatened to pull me out of Azusa, but I told them I would find money on my own if they did so as I was enjoying my studies and wanted to be with my girlfriend.  When they continued to pay for my degree, the little kid part of me that was told, “I love you no matter what” or my dad’s special saying, “do you remember the last time I told you, ‘I love you’? Well, I love you”…that part of me began to trust those simple, yet profound notions and I thought that maybe they were extending a hope to understand me and love me as I am, but unfortunately, as the last ten years have proven, they were extending the rhetoric given to them by the same Christian publishing houses and the same harsh Christian realities they grew up in: “We love you, but we hate the sin”.  Separate.  Do not mingle, do not investigate and think critically with fact based information.  This rhetoric keeps them from being able to open their minds to new ideas and new experiences or to learn to love well while disagreeing.  And at first, I thought that maybe I could teach them and they would catch on, but now, at 33, there are still times where it is hard for me to think of anyone in my life who is more dismissive of my life, dismissive of my community and the people I love than those who may be considered family; people who used to look at me with eyes of trust and dignity. Some of my friend’s families have been able to disconnect from these institutions and rhetoric and look to their kids and trust them and learn to work out life together, but for me, it can still feel one sided with certain people, and unfortunately, I first learned that dynamic at APU; a one-sided conversation of the definition of sexuality and gender. However, this is not merely the perspective of APU, this is the perspective of a large part of America and the majority of Christians in the world.  And you need to know that, because it can be toxic for you and I, though it used to look like love.  AND despite this painful reality, there is hope, but it may not be found through the doors of an institution that requires million-dollar and larger evangelical funding sources.

            The Jesus I came to know during and after my experience at APU was a different Jesus.  After being prayed over, after those faith-filled eyes of trust turned into eyes that watched me with a new palpable layer of distrust and uncertainty, and after my family applauded churches who would not ordain LGBTQ individuals (though my former wish was to be one), I found a Jesus who did not require a church, a building, a parent, a professor or any other authoritarian figure.  This Jesus came to me in many unimaginably beautiful and diverse friends, young students, older friends, strangers I met on tour, atheists, addicts, drunks, books, families who welcome me into their homes and their children’s classrooms with joy and excitement.  And these forms of Jesus have given me a new life I could have never imagined.  They have given me authentic love, second chances, and most importantly these embodiments of Jesus have taught me how to look into the eyes of someone you do not understand and reach towards them with your heart and seek to show them love and service without trying to change them or passively receive their judgement to the point of self-harm.

           I was taught that throughout biblical tradition there is a tug of war going on between the “little tradition” and the “big tradition” and I have found that this phenomenon can be seen in most social forms; political bodies, education theory, federal policy, etc.  We will continue to see this happen.  No one wins this tug of war, but our arms become strong and our arguments bring us together or apart, building us up and tearing us down.  This may be the beginning for some of you - the beginning of realizing that your family might not belong with all of the parts of you, your church may not be where you will come to know expansive love and your sense of justice may have been one of privilege and colonialism.  As a white evangelical freshman at Azusa Pacific University, I had no idea my sense of justice was actually a misnamed version of luxury and privilege.  

             Friends, learn from your displacement.  Many people experience it and have experienced it for thousands of years. You are part of something much bigger than what may, right now, feel like rejection from a place of worship. This is the beginning of knowing what it is to love and be loved completely and authentically and to feel the weight and wisdom of being “othered”.  Take care of yourself.  Grieve. Find places that are safe for you to be you without question.  Do not look for love from people who have eyes filled with distrust and disdain.  There are many faith based communities that do not have dozens of billboards sprawled across Los Angeles in an effort to expand their empire of “God First”. And these communities will love you with eyes filled to the brim with faith and hope for you when you may be running out of it. I’m sorry it hurts now, but this is just the beginning of an unimaginable love and freedom.  Get free!

                       Sincerely,

                                   Johanna Chase

Azusa Pacific University Class of 2008

Biblical Studies and Art