True Inclusion: Creating Communities of Radical Embrace

Contents

Praise for True Inclusion

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1: Explaining Exclusion

2: Missing the Mark

3: The Inclusion Imperative

4: The Importance of Inclusion

5: The Problem of Patriarchy

6: The Ingredients of Inclusion

7: Inclusion in Context

Conclusion

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

About the Author

Praise for True Inclusion

I so desire to belong to a beloved community where I and all are welcome, and we are called to fully explore our pathways to spiritual health, healing, and wholeness. True Inclusion provides us all with resources necessary to build such a community. This book will be a vital tool for those who feel called to recreate the Body of Christ in the image and likeness of a God who, as Peter preached in Acts 10, shows no partiality. —John C. Dorhauer, General Minister and President, The United Church of Christ

More and more congregations across the country are fully welcoming LGBTQ+ people into their communities as leaders, pastors, and members. It’s high time. But creating a culture of genuine inclusion takes skill and intentionality. Brandon knows this firsthand as a young gay man raised in an evangelical tradition. In True Inclusion, Brandon shares his story and in doing so gives congregations a roadmap for talking about our hopes and fears, our theological questions, and our lived experiences as we wrestle with widening the welcome of the Body of Christ. If your church is committed to a wide welcome and radical inclusion of all of God’s children, this is a great resource for you. —Cameron Trimble, CEO, Center for Progressive Renewal and Convergence Network

In True Inclusion, Brandan Robertson presses us to move beyond the performative—to truly follow a Christ who gave up godly power in order to stand in solidarity with the oppressed. Brandan lays out clearly why the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people is imperative for the church today, and offers real-world examples and suggestions for every Christian community. I’ll be recommending this book to pastors who want to avoid allyship pitfalls, and to any Christian who pursues justice and equality for people of all genders and sexual orientations. —Austen Hartke, author of Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians

"Brandan has done such a fantastic job helping us to think better about taking off the blinders that we use to exclude people who aren’t like us, and to look deeper into understanding those whose experience we may not fully understand. In his new book True Inclusion he challenges us to better understand the privileges we so often can take for granted, and to step outside of our comfort zones to not only embrace the ones on the margins but to live out there." —Trey Pearson, singer, songwriter

Brandan is a crucial and courageous theologian working at the intersection between faith and LGBTQ equality. In True Inclusion he delivers a strong, but much needed, challenge to all churches. He asks pastors and congregations to reassess how welcoming they truly are to LGBTQ people and other diverse demographics. Brandan calls out lukewarm attempts and fearful silence, asking instead for bold commitment. True Inclusion is an excellent handbook to help churches on their journey toward mirroring God’s radically inclusive love.

—Vicky Beeching, speaker, LGBTQ equality campaigner, and author of Undivided: Coming Out, Becoming Whole and Living Free From Shame

"Don’t read this book unless you want to be challenged: challenged to love, love yourself, God, and neighbor; challenged to include, to truly include; challenged to love as Christ loves us; challenged to walk the gospel road of inclusion. True Inclusion is written with a style and a viewpoint that is grounded in evangelical Christianity yet will challenge us all to continue our journey, working to build the Kingdom of God ‘where there is unity in the midst of great diversity, where we are not forced to abandon the multiplicity of identities that make us unique, but where the gifts that those identities produce are embraced and celebrated.’" —Mark Johnston, executive director, The Disciples LGBTQ Alliance

Despite greater conversations and movement toward equality in the church, we still have an incredible amount of work before us to create communities that truly embody full inclusion for all. Brandan Robertson’s prophetic and wise voice is a much-needed gift to the Body of Christ during these changing times! He anchors us in a deep Jesus-centered theology and challenges us to courageous leadership and practice that will transform not only our own lives and churches but also the wider world. True Inclusion stirs, challenges, and inspires.

—Kathy Escobar, copastor of The Refuge and author of Faith Shift: Finding Your Way Forward When Everything You Believe is Coming Apart

Copyright

Copyright ©2018 by Brandan Robertson

All rights reserved. For permission to reuse content, please contact Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, www.copyright.com.

All scripture quotes, unless otherwise indicated, are the author’s paraphrase.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (CEV) are taken from the Contemporary English Version. Copyright © 1991, 1992, 1995 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

Scripture taken from The Voice™. Copyright © 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked NASB is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977. Used by permission.

Cover design: Vicky Vaughn Shea of Ponderosa Pine Design. Copyright ©2018. All rights reserved.

Cover art: ©iStockphoto

ChalicePress.com

Print: 9780827237186

EPUB: 9780827237193

EPDF: 9780827237209

Dedication

To LaSalle Street Church in Chicago,

for being the first community to embody true inclusion for me,

when I wasn’t yet able to include myself

Acknowledgments

This book was one that both flowed seamlessly and was incredibly challenging to write. The concepts of intersectional inclusivity have been embedded in my understanding of the Christian faith for as long as I can remember. Nonetheless, some of the insights and ideas that I share in this book have challenged me and shaken up my faith in crucial ways. I hope that they do the same for you.

Also, as any author will tell you, a book is never the product of a single person, but a single person channeling the ideas, love, and support of a multitude. Because of this, there are always many people to thank when a book is birthed into the world.

First, I want to thank Deborah Arca for sitting down with me on that sunny afternoon at Union Station in Denver and pitching the idea for this book. I didn’t know how much I needed to write this book then, and I have greatly appreciated your encouragement and insight throughout this process.

To the entire team at Chalice Press: thank you for helping me to create this book and for believing in its message. I am deeply grateful.

To the church I have the honor of pastoring, Missiongathering Christian Church in San Diego: thank you for helping me to think through the concepts in this book and experiment with them on you (even when you didn’t know you were being experimented on!). The Spirit of inclusion is at your heart, and I am so honored to be able to step into the work that God has already begun in your midst and continue to journey forward with you all.

To my friends, teachers, and mentors who have shaped and challenged my idea of what it means to be truly inclusive: Dr. Floyd Thompkins, Dr. David Anderson, Dr. Sharon Groves, Fr. Richard Rohr, Rob Bell, Dr. Miguel De La Torre, Dr. Jennifer Leath, Dr. J.R. Daniel Kirk, Dr. Brian McLaren, Dr. Diana Butler Bass, Teresa Pasquale, Bishop Paul Colton, Bishop Gene Robinson, Bishop Karen Oliveto, Bishop Joseph Tolton, Matthew Vines, Vicky Beeching, Jayne Ozanne, and many more. Your collective wisdom and insight has shaped and molded me in too many ways to recount. Thank you for your work and witness.

To my friends, for putting up with my endless ramblings about this book as I wrote it and for supporting me in this season of my own journey: Isaac, Andy, Jacob, Quinton, Rich, Lee, Rebekah, Cameron, Troy, Jeremiah, and Michael.

And to you, the reader: thank you for picking up this book and exploring the concepts and practices of inclusion. I believe that places like this are starting points, and I hope and pray you continue to lean into this radically subversive gospel of inclusion, and that your life and world are transformed by it.

Introduction

It’s just our hope that you don’t leave here and start waving rainbow flags.

The dean of students at my Bible college spoke these words to me at the beginning of my senior year. I had been called into a meeting with the dean and my choir director on the first day of classes after another professor had circulated among the entire faculty photos of me with some well-known LGBT+ clergy at a festival that summer. There was concern, they said, about the company I was keeping and whether it reflected my personal theology.

You see, for a majority of Christians around the world, to be inclusive and embracing of LGBT+ people is to abandon true Christianity. This is certainly still the case in the conservative evangelical movement of which my Bible college was a part, churning out thousands of students every year to lead the Church in the fight against the culture, which is growing more and more accepting of the unacceptable—namely, the lives and relationships of sexual and gender minorities.

Beyond the exclusively evangelical and fundamentalist denominational spheres, there are many more denominations that have chosen to call themselves welcoming to LGBT+ people, but that still retain a homophobic undercurrent that prevents LGBT+ individuals from becoming truly embraced for the fullness of our gifts and perspectives. And, of course, there are also those denominations that have been in the vanguard of the fight for full inclusion of sexual and gender minorities, led by brave saints like my friend Bishop Gene Robinson, who fully welcome and celebrate LGBT+ people at every level of church leadership. These denominations march in their local pride parades, proudly hang rainbow flags in front of their churches, and use gender inclusive language in all of their hymns and scripture readings. They’re truly and deeply inclusive.

But is all of that really enough?

• • •

This book is an accessible guide for individuals and faith communities who desire to embrace what I call true inclusion. True inclusion calls us beyond mere welcome, beyond outward signs of celebration, and even beyond the LGBT+ conversation itself and to a completely new paradigm for how we live our faith in the confines of our sanctuary and in the public square. What I propose in these pages is nothing short of a fundamental shift in posture and practice that calls communities to mirror the very posture of Jesus Christ, of whom it is written that he, being God in his nature, did not consider his equality with God something to be exploited, so he humbled himself, taking on the form of a servant… Therefore, God exalted him (Phil. 2:5-8).¹

As those who claim to follow in the rhythms of Jesus, we must to learn to do exactly what Christ did himself. This begins by recognizing who we are; identifying our privilege; and willingly giving up our positions of privilege for the good of the silenced, marginalized, and oppressed—and, in so doing, maximize the light and power of the Divine in and through us and our communities.

As soon as we begin this journey of self-humbling, every part of our own identity, worldview, and life becomes vulnerable to reformation. The way we believe, the way we practice, the way we worship—everything changes. True inclusion, which I believe is the very heartbeat of the Scriptures and central message of the gospel, will cause us to break down every boundary that we think is essential and throw us out into the choppy waters of real life, where nothing is simple, nothing is easy, but everything is beautiful.

This is a book for people and communities at every stage of the journey. No matter whether you’re a conservative community that is just beginning to have conversations about the issue of LGBT+ inclusion, or you’re a church that is fully affirming of LGBT+ people but desires to go deeper than affirmation to full embrace, each section is intended to challenge you.

The lessons, stories, and wisdom contained in these pages come from the work that I have been privileged to do since 2013, work that has permitted me to travel across North America and Europe to meet some of the most remarkable LGBT+ leaders, theologians, activists, and other individuals. They have opened their hearts and shared