Someone posted on my FB wall this week, “If God is fair, He will show up someday as a Gay Black Woman.” I’ve been thinking all week about what this man meant by such a provocative statement, and I’ve come to terms with the powerful message behind his words.
The more I learn, the more I realize that many, many things are not what I once thought—they present as opposites, sort of like two sides to a coin. The two sides seem in opposition, yet that is merely an illusion. Both represent one coin.
Take the notion of God being represented by a Gay Black Woman… It is certainly the total opposite of what most God-fearing people would ever think could happen, if they were being transparent. Since the Middle Ages, gays, Blacks, and women have all been objects of unspeakable oppression and exploitation under the auspices of Christianity.
For example, the Civil War was primarily a fight over the supremacy of the White Church in society as “God’s chosen” and whether it was biblical or not to own slaves. From an article in the New York Times, “The South, The War, and ‘Christian Slavery’”:
[The Confederates] were, Southerners believed, a people chosen by God to manifest His will on earth. …The Confederacy must “exhibit to the world that supremest effort of humanity” in creating and defending a society built upon obedience to biblical prescriptions regarding slavery, a society “sanctified by the divine spirit of Christianity.” …This “Gospel civilization,” many believed, didn’t just permit slavery — it required it. Christians across the Confederacy were convinced that they were called not only to perpetuate slavery but also to “perfect” it. …Above all, as Southerners never tired of pointing out to their abolitionist foes, the Gospels fail to record any condemnation of the practice by Jesus Christ.
Ironically, the White Christian Confederates were fighting for “Constitutional Liberty.”
A walk through history will reveal that Blacks have been thee most mistreated and devalued group on the planet. This might go back to some BS (that’s, bullshit) about Blacks being cursed with the “mark of Cain” back in Genesis (which could easily be a Dark Ages, post-Jesus legend). For one example, I never knew much about the African slave trade until recently. It was started primarily by White Christian colonialists in the 1600s (through early 1900s), who treated the slaves worse than animals enroute to the New World, and then sent Christian missionaries to convert them. In some cases, they were coerced to become Christians or face persecution and/or death. In spite of the denial of lots of well-meaning yet uninformed folks, Blacks are still highly suppressed and oppressed in our society today in a myriad of ways.
Interestingly, the recent genome map has revealed that Africans/Blacks are the only skin-color classification to encompass the entire genetic diversity of all peoples on earth and that all “races” (race has been proven to be a myth, by the way) or rather, skin colors and peoples on the earth originated in Africa. In other words, if anything, Blacks are actually superior to Whites, and therefore, if God had a skin color, it would most likely be Black, not White. But please don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating the superiority of anyone over anyone, but merely pointing out our blindness and ignorance in such matters.
Youtube: “Africans are more genetically diverse than the inhabitants of the rest of the world combined, according to a study published in the journal Science Express.”
Women: Under the patriarchal system developed as a result of “biblical teachings,” men are superior to women and must be obeyed, submitted to, and regarded as the dominant sex. This theology has bred incredible oppression of women for centuries at the hands of abusive, manipulative, power-hungry church leaders and husbands! I have personally come to believe (based on evidence) that some of the NT (contradictory) verses against women were later inserted by men, but regardless of the usual theological arguments…this perspective came to mind. In His divine sense of humor, God arranged two interesting dynamics that, to me, completely obliterate men’s superiority over women. First of all, who gives life to men? Who brings them into the world (or not)? That would be, women.
Women have two X chromosomes. Men have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome. Perhaps that suggests at a very simple level that men, in all reality, are (only) half woman! The primary factor determining sex differences in utero is testosterone…that is what develops the sexual organs as male and female, and scientists now say that it is the lack of (or too much) testosterone in utero that brings about confused sexual identity and hermaphroditic tendencies in newborns—a link that reveals differences in the hypothalamus of the brain.
My opinion? Women, the ones who give life and proliferate offspring, have been patterned after God in a unique, powerful, and mysterious way. Therefore, it seems plausible that God just might appear as a Woman.
Gays. I have always wondered how evangelical, Christian men—some of the most homophobic individuals on the planet—reconcile within themselves to having an “intimate love-relationship” with a man, Jesus Christ. Seriously. It’s easy for a woman to imagine a love relationship with Jesus, but what of these men who speak of deep desire for and intimate relationship with Jesus?
Add to that…when Jesus spoke of “knowing” his followers—male and female—the word he used (Greek: εγνων) was the “Jewish idiom for sexual intercourse between a man and a woman.” Not only that, he likened the next phase of his Kingdom to that of a Bridegroom taking His bride—male and female—into the honeymoon chamber. Yes, it’s rich, Jewish symbolism, but the implications are there of marital-like intimacy.
Knowing how much gays have been unjustly oppressed by Christians, wouldn’t it be kind of God-like if He arranged His plan in such a way that all these people who stood in such hateful opposition toward gays were actually practicing homosexuals themselves, all of their Christian lives?
I have come a long way in understanding that the Bible is nearly silent on the modern definition of homosexuality (contrary to the distortions and slants of translators) and it’s really difficult for me to imagine people being punished by God for doing what He told them to do—to love and respect each other.
Once again, things are not as they seem. For those who haven’t assigned equal status and human value to Gays, Blacks, and Women (even if they would never admit it out loud), I think God has allowed them to fall prey to their own bigotry, blindness, and hypocrisy. When we have mistreated Blacks, Gays, and Women, we have really mistreated ourselves.
“…and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26).
At the heart of it all, we are all one. And, I think there is going to be a lot of surprises in store for oppressive, marginalizing Christians who were supposed to focus on bringing the Kingdom to earth by imitating the Love of their…well, Gay Black Mother.