The One Who Went From Conservative To Contemplative

00:18 - Sam (Host)

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today. I recognise the deep connection that First Nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was, and always will be, aboriginal land.

00:58

Hey there and welcome to Beyond the Surface, the podcast where we explore the stories of people who have survived religious trauma, left high control or cult communities and are deconstructing their faith. I'm your host, sam, and each week I'll talk with individuals who have taken the brave step to start shifting their beliefs that might have once controlled and defined their lives. Join us as we dig into their experiences, the challenges they've faced and the insights they've gained. Whether you're on a similar journey or you're just curious about these powerful stories, you're in the right place. This is Beyond the Surface. Welcome, joel. Thanks for joining me.

01:42 - Joel (Guest)

It's wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.

01:45 - Sam (Host)

I feel like this episode has been a little bit of a long time coming, so I appreciate you jumping on. You are a very, very busy human, so I appreciate you taking the time.

01:54 - Joel (Guest)

Isn't that sad that busyness is. You know, gets in the way of the good stuff. So I'm glad I can be here.

02:00 - Sam (Host)

I know busyness always gets in the way of the good stuff. I feel like I like to start these episodes with a bit of context for listeners. People will recognise the similar accent. Where in the world are you at the moment?

02:15 - Joel (Guest)

Australia. Yay, I am coming in from Sydney. We are on the land of the Wongal people here. That's our uh indigenous, our first nations people group here of the Eora nation amazing.

02:33 - Sam (Host)

Um, okay, I love to start these episodes with a vague, super vague question. I've been told it's super vague. It's vague for a reason I like to allow people to start where they feel like they would like to. Um, so where does your story start?

02:51 - Joel (Guest)

Oh, that is a really vague question, isn't it? You're a counsellor, um, where does my story start? Um, it's so funny, I think, as a queer person. It's so funny, I think, as a queer person, my, my instant reaction is my coming out story Like that is that's where I felt like my life began again, and really began in earnest in some ways and that's where I, you know, I I used to wow, this is getting deep really quickly.

03:22

I used to not want to live for a long time. That like I wanted to not live too long, but then, once I came out and got a partner, suddenly I had a moment where I realized my life was going too quickly and that was such a turning point for me to say, wow, I feel like my life has just begun, and that was in my, my late, late twenties, um.

03:44

but I also know that that's not where my story truly began, because I have two incredible parents who raised me beautifully and instilled in me a deep love of, uh, of the world, of, of life, and also of myself, um, which I cannot discount. I'm so grateful for them yeah so yeah, I guess there's. There's two starting points that we might flesh out in our conversation, but it's real for a and I think maybe the queer folk listening might be able to resonate with that yeah, absolutely.

04:18 - Sam (Host)

I also feel as soon as you said that it starts with you coming out. I was like spoilers, joel, spoilers. Oh sorry.

04:26 - Joel (Guest)

No, it's fine.

04:27 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, Um, I feel like if I was listening to what you just said, my first question would probably be why was your coming out in your late twenties?

04:39 - Joel (Guest)

Yeah, yeah I'm. I'm sometimes pinching myself that I came out at all because I was raised in very conservative evangelicalism and knew from a young age that I wanted to go into ministry, that I wanted to be part of the clergy and pastor, and so that's what I did. I am very thankful that someone fairly early on said Joel, before you become a pastor, go out and get some life experience and a degree that is not in theology. So I hadn't got a social work degree.

05:08 - Sam (Host)

That's pretty rare advice in that sector.

05:11 - Joel (Guest)

I know you're right, You're right. But I got a. I got a social work degree and then I went and studied theology and, you know, lived out my life's dream. I became a pastor, was thriving, loved it, and then realized that it was not tenable to keep going as I was the things I was teaching. I saw the incredible harm in others and myself and had to come out as gay and it was like you know, pulling the pin of a grenade on your own life in a lot of ways, yeah.

05:41 - Sam (Host)

Now from memory and and I might have this wrong yeah, now from memory, and I might have this wrong, but were you raised in like with Sydney Anglicanism?

05:50 - Joel (Guest)

Oh, good question. I wasn't actually in a Sydney Anglican church, but I ended up pastoring in a Sydney Anglican church.

05:55 - Sam (Host)

I was like I feel like there is a link there in my head. There is a very strong link.

06:00 - Joel (Guest)

Yes, I called Sydney Anglicanism home for a long time and, for those listening, sydney Anglicanism prides itself on being the bastion of conservatism. It really pours a lot of its energy into ensuring that women have no place in the leadership of the church and ensuring that queers are not part of the the church leadership, not just in sydney. It prides itself on, uh, leading the world on that. So yeah, that was my bread and butter yes, listeners will not be surprised.

06:34 - Sam (Host)

I talk a little bit about the sydney anglicans and I've had other guests who have been in that demographic. Um, because I also did, uh, year 13 with Youth Works. Did you yeah, so I know a little bit about just how grossly fundamental they are In terms of the flavour of Christianity that you were raised with what did that look like?

06:59 - Joel (Guest)

Yeah, we were a Baptist church in the Blue Mountains, which is just west of Sydney.

07:04

A beautiful community and for all intents and purposes it was a beautiful upbringing. In that church I had wonderful people who I loved dearly and who loved me dearly, loved me well and holy, and you know, there are some streams of Christianity that teach you how vile you are and how hated by God you are. There was some of that, but the overriding message that I got was that God loves me. Like that was just the starting point, I guess. So I was really grateful for that, until I hit my teenage years and discovered that I didn't fit in. And then I had to wrestle with the fact that that church loved me as long as I hit a part of me, and that was that. That was a balancing act that I had to choose, and at this point you often see, I guess, a bit of a trend amongst young queer folk. They either leave the church and disappear and don't want anything to do with it, or they throw themselves in fully.

08:12 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

08:13 - Joel (Guest)

Which sounds like you and me my friend, yeah.

08:15 - Sam (Host)

I was like I'm in the second camp.

08:18 - Joel (Guest)

Yeah yeah, they overcompensate. So I was the real overcompensator and gave it absolutely everything and I don't want to paint it as torturous years, although there was a lot of depression, a lot of anxiety, a lot of like. But it was a payoff, it was a strategy. I want to honor, you know, 17 year old me, who was very strategic about how do I get the most?

08:43

out of this situation. Yeah Well, these people give me love. They are my support network, they are my, you know, they're the ones I lean on, and so you know we had to make that decision and we were good at it.

08:55 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, absolutely. I think also, looking back and looking at it with the nuance that we didn't necessarily have when we were a teenager allows us to see that nothing is ever all good or all bad, and looking at it with the nuance that we didn't necessarily have when we were a teenager allows us to see that nothing is ever all good or all bad. And whilst I you know, yeah, there were probably decisions that I would not make present day anymore, but there's a lot of decisions that you know, I often talk quite openly about the fact that, like becoming a Christian was something that literally saved my life, would I take any of that away? No, of course not. But often we have to embrace the nuance that with the good comes the bad. Sometimes Nothing very rarely falls into one camp. Yes, yeah, yeah.

09:40 - Joel (Guest)

And I think it's the, it's the um, cumulative effect of that badness that really got to me in the end. It was the damage that I saw that in the teachings that I was teaching Like I was in the pulpit, I was well known as somebody who was uh, we would use we would have used the word same sex attracted, wouldn't have been gay, was same-sex attracted, and I was celibate and I believed in a conservative definition of marriage. And the people that I spoke to lapped that up because here I was ostensibly in their camp but also able to speak the language of people who were, in quotation marks, wrestling with same-sex attraction.

10:25

Uh, it felt like they kind of struck gold with me and poster boy, I became the poster boy yeah yes, and it just speaks to how dire that situation is that a 25 year old is put on a pedestal before I had reached some of my most formative years or my grounding concepts of who I am. It's a really dire situation for them not going to lie.

10:53 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I mean. The irony is is that a lot of particularly conservative Christian spaces or religious spaces in general do platform younger people before they necessarily have the ability or the developmental stage to be able to really comprehend what they're choosing and what they're doing?

11:11 - Joel (Guest)

yes, yep and and critically engage with it. And you know, again I lapped it up like I, I enjoyed the attention, I enjoyed the fact that I had, uh, people listening to, and again that just speaks to unhealthy that whole ecosystem is, and also how immature and unwise I was at that point in my development. I was not ready. Yeah.

11:39

What was the moment like for you or the period of time, because nothing is very rarely a moment but what was the period of time like for you when you did realize that you were gay as a teen I was reading a book by somebody called philip yancey who is and was a well-known uh yeah theologian pastoral worker in the states, and he wrote a book called what's so amazing about grace, and in that many of us have read it, um, and in that book he speaks about a friend of his who he met, who told him that he was same sex attracted. And in this conversation this friend says I make I might always be this way. And I remember reading that as a 13, 14 year old kid and just feeling the blood drain out of my face. I shut the book. I was about halfway through it, shut the book. I remember throwing the book to the other side of the room, pulling the blankets over my head and just bursting into tears realizing that I wasn't Philip Yancey in this story. I was Philip Yancey's friend.

12:45

I wasn't the church leader who people wanted to be around. I was the ostracized outcast who other people were showing grace to. And I thought, even if everybody shows me grace and allows me into their life, at the end of the day, that is all I will be. I will be a sight of grace. That is, you will. You will step down to my level if you are kind enough. And that was what I realized my position in my whole world would be. I was a, you know, I was a Christian school, I was surrounded by Christian folk, my whole family, my extended family, church. That that was my world. So, yeah, that that was such a dawning realization that I was not who I wanted to be and I never could be. Uh, and so the next years were pocketed with the, the, the idea that I would probably be going to hell. That was, you know, a default position for me, and so just, I needed to hide it until that moment, so at least my family wouldn't be brought to shame.

13:59

And that is such a common story that that hiding that, that we see um and I in all of that. I don't know why I wanted to become a pastor like I don't know why. I wanted to keep following this, this book. Like I could have become a lawyer, I could have become a teacher, I could have done anything. But I was like no, I'm gonna really, yeah, really overcompensate in every way imaginable so yeah, I, I think it's.

14:32

It's such a complicated unraveling that has to happen for queer folk who grow up and I'm using queer as a big umbrella term here as a as a queer folk who grow up in conservative religions because, on the one hand, it is such a beautiful space to be, it's so life-giving and there's so much energy and it's fun, and but on the other hand, it's the space that is killing you. Yeah, and I've spoken to people who you know friends, family member have said you need to get out of there and they just get really pissed off with their friends and family members for saying that because it's like cutting them off at the life source. It's so complex, hey.

15:11 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, absolutely yeah. What impact did that suppression because that's what it is, that suppression of your identity what impact did that have on your sense of self, your mental health, your relationships? Impact did that have on your sense of self, your mental health, your relationships all?

15:26 - Joel (Guest)

of that. Yeah, I was very lonely throughout all that time.

15:31

Um, I I am I'm a thriving extrovert and I really enjoy crowds and lots of people, so I had lots of friends, uh, and you know lots of people in my life, but no one who I could let in fully. And I think that's a really interesting space to be for a lot of people, because it's that barrier that never fully comes down. And then when I started pulling those barriers down, I realized I could never have those barriers fully down with one single person. I had to choose because, you know, if I was feeling sad on a Tuesday night, I would call one friend. If I was feeling sad on a Wednesday night, I couldn't call that same friend back, so I would have to call somebody else.

16:19 - Sam (Host)

You have to schedule who you can call and be strategic about it.

16:22 - Joel (Guest)

Yeah, yeah, so you dilute your pain and divvy it up amongst your friends, which is not sustainable, but it's a strategy I think that a lot of us had to use For my own sense of self. There was crippling self-doubt throughout all that time and I went through waves of depression and anxiety, never diagnosed, but I recognize in hindsight that that was there. Certainly suicidal ideation was present through all of that, um, on and off, but but for me internally, um, yeah, I think I think the biggest thing that I keep reflecting on is how disintegrated I was, where I could not allow myself to admit to myself who I was for a long time or what I was, and then, once I started admitting that to other people, it felt like such a crime. Hmm, fast forward to now, where, you know, I work at a university. I've been pastoring in a church for the past five years.

17:31

Everywhere I go, everyone knows that I am Christian and draw a lot of energy from that. And really, you know that's a space that I love and gay, yeah, it like. Everyone knows that and there is zero hiding that fact, those two facts, and it just feels so freeing to the point where, um, you know, I I'm, I'm very conscious that for a lot of people, church and Christianity and religion is not a space that they want to talk about or, you know, engage in, and so I will never bring it up, other than you know, when people ask me what brings me to life, I'll say it. But then there are people at my workplace, which is the University of Sydney. It has nothing to do with the church, it's very secular.

18:22

People there long to hear me speak about my experiences in church, both the positive and the negative, and it's just so refreshing for me to be in this space where I think I was in the church for so many years and it wanted nothing to do with my queerness, and now I'm in a church and a workplace where my queerness and my Christianity is celebrated. Yeah Gosh, it feels good, absolutely, it's just, it just feels wonderful. Yeah, as I'm sure you've experienced, when you can integrate parts of who you are, it's like, oh, I can breathe. This is what it means to flourish.

19:05 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, the word exhale, exhale. When you said breathe, I was like the word exhale comes to mind. Into what, in terms of what that is like? I think for so long that suppression is just like a chronic holding your breath, like, just like never knowing when you are allowed to breathe or not. Yes, um, I and I, um. I love that you are dropping so many spoilers um, but the.

19:30

I mean, the funny thing is is that when I first started this podcast and I was looking for I, you know, like I've said many times, that I wanted this show to be incredibly diverse in terms of, you know, people of faith to, you know, hardcore atheists and everything in between, there was a resounding you've got to get Joel. You've got to get Joel on this podcast Because, you know, even when I was studying, there was always this I mean, you did write a, a you did write a book as well on it and you were pastoring an affirming church.

20:09

So I feel like that's why Joel and queer and Christian sort of uh, you know interconnected yeah, that is a reason um but I am curious during those teenage years, whilst you are almost like wrestling with your sexuality and in your early twenties, how did how you felt about yourself and your sexuality change the way that you related to God?

20:37 - Joel (Guest)

Yeah, really good question it. I, I've reflected on this a lot and I do find it hard to answer because I don't have any other experience, I've only got mine. So I guess I have to compare it with my friends' experiences. On one hand, on the one hand, I got very angry with God. I remember, you know, walking home from church just telling God to fuck off. I wanted nothing to do with you, god.

21:00

I was so angry and none of my other friends seem to be angry at God Like that just wasn't in their vocabulary, and I would turn to somewhere like the Psalms, where there is a lot of anger and a lot of rage and a lot of F you gods, um, in in their own language.

21:17

I, um. And so I like I had this disconnect between my experiences and then my friends who, uh, you know, at youth group or church or you know my, my youth group leaders, they'd be raising their hands in worship and they would lose themselves in this. So so I think there was um, a sense of disconnect with with that, in that I um, yeah, I, I had this negative association with God that no one else seemed to have in my circles. But then, at the same time, I think I craved the goodness of God. I craved the healing of God in ways that other people didn't and I, because I thought of myself as so bad. When I thought of the fact that God could love me, I was like, wow, that's a really good God, which is a terrible way to land that good.

22:17

God scenario.

22:19 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

22:20 - Joel (Guest)

But that made me really grateful.

22:21 - Sam (Host)

It worked.

22:22 - Joel (Guest)

Yeah, that's it. We compartmentalize, we do everything that we possibly can in order to, you know, let our cognitive dissonance fly. So I landed at times on this real, you know, almost addiction to the picture of a good God. And there was a song that I really vividly recall, which will probably give, you know, two thirds of your listeners, trauma, but the words were along the lines of every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise Yep, when the darkness closes in Lord. Still, I will say blessed be the name of the Lord. And I resonated with that so much because I was like, you know, wow, I'm going to bless. And for me, in my little journey, that made me feel really good because I was able to say life is tough, but I am still holding on.

23:19

And that was a badge of honor in our community. Um, and I, uh, for me that spoke to my character. That spoke to my, you know, my, my desire to do good in the world. That made me feel, while ever I felt like, you know, a wretch. Elsewhere, that little part made me feel good and so I did it. Well, again, terribly unhealthy way to relate to God, not advocating for it at all, but just looking back at my story I'm like, oh, that's why I did these things, in order to pursue the. What made me feel. Whatever holy, sacred, sanctified, like it made me feel like an okay person. Yeah, so I wouldn't say my picture of God was healthy.

24:08 - Sam (Host)

I mean. The reason I asked the question is because typically later in the episode, once we get closer to where you are now, I like to mirror that difference because usually even the people that I talk to who are people of faith or who still identify as a Christian, that image of who God is and how they relate to them typically shifts and changes and it can be so helpful for people to hear the transition or the changes that have been made into something that feels more life-giving and affirming in terms of their spirituality.

24:41

So yeah um, yeah, I mean, I think most of us didn't necessarily. Even people who don't identify as a person of faith now still probably wouldn't describe their relationship with God at the time as super duper, healthy or anything like that.

24:58

So I think we can probably all relate, but in terms of cause, you said that you did a social work degree before you did your theological degree, but I also imagine that before going into that you were in what most of us were, which was this little Christian bubble of people like church school friends. So what was it like to diversify that going into uni? Cause I imagine you would have met a whole bunch of new people and possibly queer people.

25:30 - Joel (Guest)

I know, I know.

25:31 - Sam (Host)

Look.

25:31 - Joel (Guest)

I? I remember going into my first day of uni thinking this is wonderful, I'm going to spread my wings. I threw caution to the wind and thought you know if, if I do come out as gay in this space, let's let's see what happens. I was going to the university of new south wales I was still living in the blue mountains, but that's a good kind of hour and a half two hour transport gap between those two things. I was like these two worlds will never collide. Anyway.

26:01

Got into my first class, sat down in my first tutorial, turned to the first person that I met and I asked them what they did on the weekend. They said they went to church. I said which church turns out? I had so many friends at their church and we had all these friends in common and I think We'd even met at a party in the past before. I was like, well, there goes that idea, yeah, yeah.

26:21

So I didn't spread my wings, I didn't soar as a blossoming queer kid at university. Unfortunately, I joined the Christian group, which was even more conservative than the church that I went to. Yeah, and I sought to save my fellow social work peers. I, yeah, I cringe at who I was during those years, which is, yeah so, so disappointing that that was my, my MO, that like that was what I'd been taught to do, because at the same time, I was receiving this brilliant education in how society works and how systems function and how trauma can be embodied, embedded in the body, and like I was learning all this stuff that I had just lived out, but I wasn't able to put two and two together. That that was.

27:15 - Sam (Host)

You know, the level of critical engagement was still years down the track yeah and you know that that's indoctrination for you yeah, and it's the irony of that indoctrination versus what you are living in that moment, because it should be that space of of conversation and curiosity and diversity and expansion. But because of this it makes it so ironic in the sense of what you were learning versus what you were living at that time yes, yeah, yeah, so were you already pastoring when you came out? Yes, oh, yeah, right, okay, that makes this part of the story so much more interesting, joel, Okay, so what?

28:10 - Joel (Guest)

firstly, what was your experience like as a pastor before you came out? Yeah, yep, I loved pastoring and I love so. There are some things that I love about it. I love that it gives me an opportunity just to sit with people in really, you know, you experience a similar thing in your, your, your world sit with people in real crisis times. Um, and I think the, the, the rhythms that I drew from my spirituality of, you know, prayer lament, sitting with people. I think they were they. They complimented my social work toolkit quite nicely.

28:49 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

28:50 - Joel (Guest)

And being able to be with people for whom that was important for them and do it at those real crunch time moments. You know people who have it at those real crunch time moments. You know people who have, uh, sitting with a young woman whose dad has just died in a freak accident and says, Joel, can you pray with me? Like very few people get the honor to do that, to go into a hospital and invited into a hospital by the family in the last moments of someone's life. Like that, very, very few people, unless you're in social work or counseling, get the chance to do that. And so I got to do that, you know, all the time, and I loved it, and realizing simultaneously that part of me doing this meant that I had to tow the party line and retain this conservative theology, and not just retain it for myself. I also had to teach it and enforce it in other people's lives yeah you know that that dawning realization uh

29:49

it was cognitive dissonance writ large. I had, in the course of my master's thesis, written a piece from a really conservative perspective about same-sex attraction, and I wrote it from a perspective of grief and loss. And as I was writing it, I remember opening up the we'd call it the affirming position, the theological position that says it's okay to be gay. And as I read that affirming position, I discovered that they were using the exact same theological method that I was being taught in my conservative theology course, but they were coming to a different conclusion and that was so destabilizing for me. I remember shutting the books and leaving that.

30:37

Actually, I stole one I think it might be on my bookshelf thinking, thinking I must never allow anyone to read this like it is, like this is too dangerous, um, and so I, I shut that, those books and I ignored it entirely and I didn't write any of that into my thesis. Uh, so I knew that I had ignored this whole body of scholarship that was out there. And then I got my mark back and I had done extraordinarily well. And I remember looking at my mark, thinking I've just done very well in what is, you know, an institution that prides itself on its scholarly rigor, and I've done well by ignoring a huge amount of scholarly discussion. There's something amiss here, but I put that to the side In hindsight. The cracks had well and truly formed by that stage. I was able to convince myself that pastoring was still a good thing, though, because while everything was no longer black and white, it was shades of gray, but definitely dark gray.

31:49 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

31:51 - Joel (Guest)

I love that. And over time that dark gray just got lighter and lighter and lighter.

31:57

And there's a point on that. You know what is it? The saturation continuum where you realize, ah, like the, what I'm putting in it's not only harming myself, it's harming the people around me. It's no longer black and white, this is all hues of gray and it's just not worth it. So, yeah, I would love to say that pastoring through that time was miserable, but it wasn't like I. I had so many wonderful things that I got to enjoy, but it became more and more miserable for me.

32:26 - Sam (Host)

Um, yeah, I mean, I I am assuming also, this question is kind of centered around what you were just talking about, which was being at theological college, which I'm going to assume was probably like, um, the conservative theological college it was.

32:45 - Joel (Guest)

It was one of the two. I know I wasn't in it. I wasn't.

32:48 - Sam (Host)

It wasn't the anglican one right okay, yeah oh, um, I've had a few people from there, and I obviously know a few. I know quite a few people who I did u13 with, who went there afterwards, which is why, um, but even so, um, most, um, most theological colleges are not typically affirming and are not holding affirming perspectives on sexuality and gender, and so was that the only um? Were they the only cracks that were starting to form, or were there other cracks in terms of faith as well, or was that the main space.

33:28 - Joel (Guest)

Yeah, yeah, look, certainly I think the, the, the boxes that I was taught to think about God in, they never felt watertight. Yeah, okay, even as I was learning them, and I remember sitting and listening to what was very certain theology being taught and thinking that just doesn't feel like a viable candidate for the mystery of the divine, like that just feels like something's missing in your theology there and I could never put my finger on it. And so I. Yeah, there is great comfort in certainty, there is clarity in boxes. So already I think there were question marks, but again, you have to quash them. If you're going to be a pastor in that industry, you need to know your theological dogma and you need to toe the line. That. That was just what I did, and you know, if you do it enough, you can convince yourself. So that's what I attempted to do, but certainly I think coming out then gave me freedom to ask some of those bigger questions as well, which may be where we're headed.

34:41 - Sam (Host)

Yes, it is Good foreshadowing. So, in terms of your coming out, because I think a lot of people, particularly a lot of straight people, think that coming out is this big, beautiful coming out is this big, beautiful, liberating event? And sometimes it is. But from my experience, people who are coming out and potentially coming out what we would consider later as in, not as a teen out of a conservative space, it doesn't always look like that. It can be deeply painful and involve a lot of grief and a lot of loss. Still a lot of expansiveness and liberation, but it's not. It's not all of that, um. And so I'm gonna throw a double-barreled question at you in terms of what was the decision making point in terms of, okay, I'm going to come out. What was the decision making point in terms of, okay, I'm going to come out? What was that decision like? And then, what was your coming out actually like?

35:46 - Joel (Guest)

Yes, that that narrative around the big beautiful coming out. It is so modern and it is so media driven.

35:54

I know one or two people who have felt, you know, waves of joy when they've come out, and it is so.

36:02

It is so unbelievably rare, um, that almost everyone I know who has come out has lost at least a, a couple of friends, most particularly if they're in the church.

36:15

Have, you know, just written off the majority of their friends, family members as well? So, yeah, I think it's so important to keep ourselves grounded because there is that liberation, there is that expansiveness, but that comes a long way down the track and I think I don't want to no, I know, I don't want to set people up for this expectation that it's going to be a smooth path, um, and I also look at you know a number of friends who are still very much in the closet, um, and they may never come out, and I want to honor their position, um, to say I hope and I pray that you can experience liberation and expansiveness within the world that you have, because you are playing chess here with the system and you have to work out how to survive for yourself. That you, you have to protect your own king here, yeah, and you're using all the tools at your disposal and maybe not coming out is your best life and I have to work with you in those constraints.

37:26

Um and so I want to honor that journey, um yeah, but but also say it's so much better if, if you can um like, if, if society allows you to Like, if society allows you to, and thankfully I am in a you know a subsystem where, where I can, most countries around the world it is very hard to find that subsystem in most, most, yeah, most places in our world at the moment don't have that luxury, which is a tragedy, and so we have to keep fighting for it, and indeed, in some of those places we see those rights being stepped backwards in conservative resurgence or conservative backsliding. So it's a fight to keep pushing towards that. For me, the decision to come out, to come out, it had a couple of steps. I had already come out, as I think I mentioned, as a celibate and same sex attracted, and I was in that category for a few years, which I think was really helpful, Like a transition. It was a transition, yeah, that's it. It gave people time to adjust, generous of you.

38:42

Yeah, wasn't intentional, but I look back and I'm like oh, I'm really glad that I did that, because my parents throughout those couple of years really wrestled. My mom in particular was bracing herself with a lot of grief for never having grandchildren that was one thing that she wrestled with, um and then also of knowing that her son might never have a partner. That grieved her a lot and so she became really angry with God in that process, um, in a really beautiful motherly way. Uh, fast forward to when I say I'm now at a position where I think I would like to have a partner one day. Both my parents responded with okay, we're not really sure, but we really want to learn about what your journey has been.

39:30

We love that response, I know I was like, ah, and they had been on this journey and there is something to be said for, um, you know, time for family and friends to just go on that journey. Yeah, from that I started writing, you know, a series of essays for my parents to read.

39:52

Um, and three quarters of the way through that process, my both my parents just flipped and totally changed their mind and became the most fierce allies you can imagine oh, we love that even more I know it's so great and my dad was like, joe, you need to publish this stuff, and so that that was what became the book, um, and that that process of you know, it was really helpful for me as somebody who wants to critically analyze things, to sit down and be like you know, can I back up my shit? Can I say I have, with integrity, gone on this journey theologically, um, I knew internally that I had, but I wanted to be able to say, yeah, this is, this is the path I've taken.

40:36 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, and I think I.

40:37 - Joel (Guest)

I look at so many of my friends who haven't grown up in the Christian world or in religious spaces and they're coming out. It's certainly not easy often, but it just has one less step that they have to do. It's one less theological hurdle. And that I use that word, the theological hurdle, because we're not talking here about sociology, we're not talking about psychology, we're not talking about biology, we're talking about theology. And theology, historically, is the queen of sciences. It is, you know. It's where the buck stops.

41:14

And if you've been raised with that mindset, it is so hard to restructure your theological foundation. And that takes community, it takes energy, it takes, you know, time and effort, and most of the people don't have time, effort, community to do that. And so you know when they pull the pin in their grenade. And so you know, when they pull the pin in their grenade, not only does their community implode, their faith implodes and they lose something that could have potentially, in the long run, been a source of coping and strength and that you know I want to call that for what it is.

42:06 - Sam (Host)

It's a bit of a tragedy. It's not the end of the world, but it is deeply sad that that is something that people feel like they have to give up if they want to keep journeying. With that. Yeah, what? In terms of the coming out and saying I want to potentially have a partner, I don't see this as something that would be harmful or an issue or becoming affirming what did that cost you? Because typically, I mean, I'm imagining like you're a pastor, I'm imagining that's going to cost you something. But even people who were not pastoring a church, that comes at a price usually yes, yeah, yeah.

42:37 - Joel (Guest)

Look, I handed in my resignation because I knew I'd be fired anyway. So that happened. Uh, my, my, you know my housing was tied up with that. So, yeah, lost, lost my house. I was homeless for a little while there. Um, yeah, I remember a friend yelling at me in a pub um, so hurt that I would make this decision. Um, I had so many conversations over years of people who felt like I had betrayed them, I had let them down.

43:12

Um and um, yeah, I, I sat this is a couple of years down the track that that whole grace mentality. I realized that the people who were hanging on, they were the ones who were sucking it up for the sake of the gospel and they were biting their teeth and they were loving me through thick and thin just by, you know, just for me being there. And I had one conversation with a friend who I'd been at Bible college seminary with and she said Joel, I want you to know if ever this is. After explaining how sinful she thought it was, she said if ever you do get married, I still want to be at your wedding because I'm your friend. To which I responded you're not invited to my wedding, like, if the reason that you're going to come to my wedding is so that you can keep praying against my marriage like that, that does not a friend make, um, and I have not spoken to that person since then.

44:07 - Sam (Host)

Like, there there is just, and so it's almost like the audacity that she is, like gifting you her presents at your wedding.

44:16 - Joel (Guest)

Yes, exactly that. It was such a. I will you know, I will take up my cross and be there for you, joel, and I. No, no, no, this is the. This is the most beautiful thing in my life like. And so there's this weird thing where I'm like I pity how small your world is yeah, I wish we could be friends.

44:36

Um and I don't know if, at this point, I'm cutting you off or if you were cutting me off, but either way, like something's got to give here and we cannot keep calling ourselves friend in any functional term of the word. So I lost so many people like that they just disappeared entirely. I then also had a number of people, pastors included, approach me and tell me that they were really supportive of me, but they could not let anyone know yeah, I was waiting for the caveat.

45:10

I was like they were quiet supporters yeah to which you know I I let a number of them know that was you that was as useless to me. Um, I was like, thanks, um, thanks, but no thanks. But also, yeah, like, um, if you're not willing to, you know it's the old. If you're not willing to stand close enough to me to get hit by the rocks, um, you know, step aside, let someone else in. Like I, just, I can't afford to have friends who will be ashamed of me at the moment it becomes public that they are affirming so anyway.

45:43

And then a bunch of people came out of the woodwork, of people who I, you know, people who I had no idea would be supportive, but they ended up being the most wonderful allies. Um, you know people who are to this day hugely in our camp cheering for us, which is delightful, um, so that it opened up a whole community and world that I didn't know exist, and it's this growing community. It's a thriving community. Very hurt, but, um, more and more people, I think, are realizing ah, this is there's something in this, uh, and I remember a lot of conversations throughout that period where I would just say to someone like I can understand the concept of sin, like I understand in in that that you know, every instance of sin in the bible is when somebody is hurting themselves or hurting others and or, you know, hurting their relationship with god, like you know, hurting their relationship with God, like you know. It's a destructive force in the world and I want to name that and say you know, I hate sin.

46:49

I just can't see how this is damaging I just cannot see where this is harmful, and there is no other instance of sinfulness in the Bible where there is, you know, there's no victim at all. There is just beauty and goodness and flourishing. And I think, as people have, I think there's a lot of people who are catching hold of that and being like, ah, you know, at the very least it's not as bad as we've made it out to be. That's step one. And then, oh, yeah, no, maybe god actually celebrates queer love. Or, yeah, being able to identify in the gender that you so, you know, firmly know that you are like that. That is a wonderful thing. Um, so I think I've, yeah, I've lost a lot of people. Yeah, I, yeah, I feel sad that their world is so small and I grieve that. You know, in the lead up to our wedding, I was so scared that we wouldn't be able to fill a room. Yeah, but you know, we did and it was wonderful and our world is so full of friends now.

48:00 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I don't need the straights, they're far less fun anyway. Yeah, I say that, and my best friend is as straight as they come, but that's okay. She would be fine with me saying that.

48:24 - Joel (Guest)

I'm curious what it was like for you to create the church space that you didn't have for other people.

48:29 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yep, it was a rocky wild ride.

48:31 - Joel (Guest)

Yeah, I bet, yeah, yes, so context I've been pastoring this church for five years now, the church that, um, my husband and I and some friends started and, as of a little while ago, a month or so, I'm no longer the pastor there.

48:44

And as of last night we have commissioned our new pastor, so I have handed the baton over. Truly, yeah, it was very similar to the whole journey. There are so many moments of wonder and awe and beauty and goodness, and then there's moments of like damn, why is everyone in this space so screwed up Like this? I know why. Um, there was just a lot of that, that tension, uh, always with the goal to just keep working towards healing. I often said to people if, if, um, if you have your Christian lens on and you come into this space, then I'm a pastor. But otherwise most people will look at it and see I'm just doing like grouped group CBT, with a bit of a spiritual veneer, like there's a lot of social work happening and.

49:36

I'm very thankful for that training and that that worked. So, yeah, it was pulling from every tool in my toolkit to try and create this safer space that people could come into and experience that exhale that you were saying, um, you know not not feel like they had to subscribe to X, y, z, dogma, um, but also could have enough structure where they knew where the community generally stood and that they could find themselves in that and, you know, find joy as much as one can. So, yeah, it's been wonderful but hard.

50:16 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I love asking this question to people who I have on the podcast who are still people of faith, particularly those who are queer people of faith, because not because I personally need to know the answer, but I know that there are potentially people listening who are curious, particularly younger people who are wrestling with their queerness and their spirituality or their sense of faith, which is, uh, considering the harm, considering the atrocities that are done in the world based in religion and in Christianity, specifically because that's the world we're talking about, why hold on? Why why maintain a sense of of faith?

51:01 - Joel (Guest)

Mm? That is something I ask myself regularly. Why maintain a sense of faith? That is something I ask myself regularly. Yeah, I'm going to hospital. Pass this one to Rachel Held Evans.

51:12 - Sam (Host)

Oh yeah.

51:13 - Joel (Guest)

Okay, Wonderful author. She passed away a couple of years ago, but she was just a great thinker. She was asked this question and her answer was Jesus is still the story that I'm willing to risk being wrong about.

51:26 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

51:27 - Joel (Guest)

And I think the narratives that we have in our world today can be full of life, but they are so often degrading.

51:36 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

51:39 - Joel (Guest)

The messages that we have around what it means to be a flourishing human. I think there's so much beauty in them. But there is also something to be said for finding yourself in a bigger narrative, a narrative that transcends the here and now, that transcends temporal space, that is bigger than my story, that keeps going after I'm dead, that has started years ago. I think there's something wonderful about that and finding myself in that story is so exciting, like it's just, it's nice to be a part of it. I often think I could be a good monk. I could be a good monk Just contemplating that space, and the reason I am drawn to that is because that contemplative way of doing Christianity is so different to the rigid, maybe evangelical word we could use that word the rigid, dogmatic way of doing it.

52:37

Because the whole process of contemplative christianity and contemplative faith is asking questions and thinking bigger and diving deeper and leaning into the mystical, which I I adore. I would be very disappointed if we found out that we lived in a world without magic, and I like the idea that our world is just a little bit more magical than I know yet.

53:18 - Sam (Host)

And so I'm just going to keep doing it. So in that, I mean, I would certainly not consider myself a person of faith, but I am someone who would consider themselves spiritual and I think that for a lot of people they sit in that in-between phase of those two things. But in terms of who God or who the divine is to you, in comparison to who they were, way back. Yes, Yep. Who are they to you now?

53:47 - Joel (Guest)

Yeah, yep, look, god is certainly less knowable. I think there was there was this understanding throughout my theology that I would yeah, I would nail God down into a set of belief structures that has just gone so far out the window. That's not to say I can't know anything about God. They're two very different things. I, like I am very confident that the God that I choose to follow is on the side of the oppressed. So that is something that I know about God in my own journey. Having said that, the extent to which God is so present with the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, I will never be able to comprehend that. That is just so unfathomable to me. In the same way that I know that God is generative and creative, in the same way that I know that God is generative and creative. But the extent of God's creativity, god like I, will never be able to comprehend that. Rewind 10 years ago, I would have been like, yeah, I could answer that, yeah, yeah.

54:53 - Sam (Host)

Because this is an answer for everything. Remember.

54:56 - Joel (Guest)

Yeah, exactly Exactly Like I got those guys. So I think that, exactly Exactly Like I got those guys. Um, so I think the yeah, uh, I also find I'm much more comfortable with questions, much more comfortable with doubt, in a way that I think you know that I, I think the Bible is. The Bible I was taught was just as uh, you know, if read right it was full of answers, but if read through you know the Jewish practice of midrash, like of questioning and conversation, I think the Bible is supposed to be a book that sparks conversation and sparks debate and dialogue to work out, you know, what does this divine being look like and do and taste like and feel in our world. So I think, yeah, that's probably a bit of a roundabout answer to the question, but it's just much bigger.

55:45 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah, I think, um, time and again, when I ask people that question, um, typically three words come up in terms of how they now relate to either religion, faith, god, anything in that spectrum um is curiosity, mystery and wonder, and and that, yes, I think, is very descriptive also of what you're talking about in that contemplative stance as well. Yeah, um, your episode, which I forgot to mention to you before I hit record, um, your episode is coming out in Pride Month, which is next month, as we're recording.

56:25 - Joel (Guest)

Yeah.

56:26 - Sam (Host)

And so I've been asking everybody who is being released that month. What queer joy for present day. Joel looks like.

56:36 - Joel (Guest)

I should mention I'm married.

56:37 - Sam (Host)

Yes.

56:39 - Joel (Guest)

I have a wonderful husband. So, yeah, let's start with that. Yeah, I think there's a part of me where I, you know, it's so normal for me these days. Sometimes I would just be doing everyday life and you know, hanging out with my husband, and then something will kind of take me out of the moment. I'll be like, oh yeah, that's a gay thing to do. Oh yeah, okay, that's like that is me being gay.

57:07

Um that is not the normal, to the point where I went to a wedding a little while back and then saw the bride and I was like what is she doing here? That's a man at the other end of the oh yeah, that's right, the heterosexuals get married still Like that is something that they invented. I love that there is something just so normal about it. And so that is my queer joy.

57:29 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

57:30 - Joel (Guest)

It's not. You know, I love the rainbows, I love the queerness. But, at the end of the day, I just love how normal I can be, and that is not a heteronormative normal, that is just a a I love the person who I'm with normal um, and I celebrate that. I don't have to hide that, it can just be part of my everyday rhythm yeah, I mean I love that because it's like within the world your world is.

57:58 - Sam (Host)

Is this safe, beautiful, affirming space where you and your husband, being gay, is just like a nonchalant, non-event kind of thing which I think we all would love to? Have yes, and I think that the more normal queerness becomes, I think that's the epitome of queer joy, because that means that we are wholly loved and accepted for who we are. We can just live authentically.

58:28

I don't think there's anything more joyous than living authentically that might not be glitter or rainbows, but living authentically is, is the exhale and the breathing and the being able to just move about life in a way that feels good and safe for you.

58:46 - Joel (Guest)

Yep, authentic and mundane. That's what I aim for, yeah.

58:51 - Sam (Host)

I love that Mundane is so good. It's such an adult thing to love the mundane.

58:58 - Joel (Guest)

But look, we're adults here.

59:00 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

59:00 - Joel (Guest)

So let's just embrace it.

59:02 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, if you're in your early 20s listening to this, one day you will love the Monday.

59:06 - Joel (Guest)

You'll crave it.

59:08 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, absolutely. I love finishing these episodes with some encouragement for people, which is around what you would say to someone who is fresh in their deconstruction. But I'm going to put a slight twist on it in terms of, particularly somebody who might hold a ministry position, who is listening to this or who sees their life trajectory in terms of pastoring. What would you say to that person who is questioning everything?

59:43 - Joel (Guest)

Yes, yeah, yeah. It's so scary, it is so destabilizing to be in that position, and I don't envy it at all. I was in that for years. So, uh, sucks to be you, um, like that.

59:55

Yeah, better you than me, that's my first reaction, but I think also, I had a. You know, I had a period where I was not in ministry and I wasn't pastoring, and I grieved that, and I know that a lot of people who you know, if they were to come out as affirming they, would lose their jobs, they would lose their ministry, and there was a lot tied up in that, and there is a lot tied up in that. Um, I would not rule out, though, the idea that you could never be a pastor again, like there are churches now that would crave you. I have literally been looking for the past couple of months for somebody to fill my church. Um, there are churches that are like yep, you are the one we want.

:: 00:35

Yeah, um, there's work out there to be done. Don't think that you know, just because you are outside of the theological mold of your tradition, that there is no longer good christian. If that's your tradition, work to be done, um, you know that it's, it's there. So I think you've got a long journey ahead of you, my friends. Um, yeah, but don't don't believe the lie that this is it. Uh, there is so much more. Um, and if worse comes to worse, just start one yourself like that's, do it. It's so worth it um I.

:: 01:13

I have resources for you, yeah yeah, and because I I can't, I'm going to add one more person that I want you to speak to, which is ex poster boy for same sex celibacy. Right, yes, so like what would you say to somebody who thinks that their only option right now is to be celibate?

:: 01:35

Yeah, yeah, I I know that when I was in that position, I what I needed to wrestle with was theology. Like that's what I needed to wrestle with, and I was too, too. I was too scared to read the theology and do it justice.

:: 01:54

I don't want to project that onto the, those people and say, you know, you're too scared, you coward, like, cause I don't think that is it's people and say you know you're too scared, you coward uh, like, because I don't think that is it's. That's way too simple. But I, like, I want to honor that complexity but also, um, yeah, honor the fact that on the other side of that poster boy ship there is more that is far more liberating. Um, and the.

:: 02:17

I am a firm believer that celibacy can be a beautiful thing and celibacy can be a gift. And, you know, there there are those who just thrive in that, and I don't want to diss it at all, but if that's not, you call it what it is. You know, open yourself up to possibilities and do that wrestling, because the last thing you want to do is, you know, jump into a relationship where you don't feel like you can have integrity. Um, so, find someone who you can wrestle with. Uh, reach out, find community online, go to an affirming space. Um, yeah, do that good wrestling, and I hope you can find some joy in that as well. I remember I would read, you know, portions of books and just be like, wow, this is the possibilities of my future. As scary as that was, there's some goodness in that.

:: 03:08

Yeah, I don't know if that answers the question?

:: 03:10

Yeah, absolutely, and I'm glad you mentioned that. You know I asked that question not to demonize celibacy in any way, which is why I worded it as, like people who think that it's the only option, right, and and I think you know, the biggest thing is that we want to promote agency and autonomy and choice and informed choices and all of that sort of thing, um, but I think, um, it is far more meaningful to ask that question of somebody who has been in that space, because there is that perception or that vision of you are sitting here, married, not celibate, and so there is the potential for life on the other side if you don't want that as your option. So I love that. That's beautiful.

:: 04:03

Thank you for joining me yeah, thank you for having me I um everybody who has said get Joel on the podcast, here we go, done, done tick that off. Thank you for waiting um, but um, I will link um the book that we've mentioned, um of yours. It's um a place at the table, is that right?

:: 04:28

yeah, I'm asking.

:: 04:29

I was like um, I will link that um and all of the ways that people can connect with you, particularly if they are, after that, many resources that can support them along the way.

:: 04:43

I have another book that is like it's an academic book, but if there's anyone listening, who, that's their vibe? It's called Religious Trauma Queer Identities which might speak to people, but I have one other one that I quickly want to plug.

:: 04:57

Yeah, please do.

:: 04:59

This is, we're launching it Um yeah this is a compendium of authors who have put together thoughts around the idea of spirituality and social work. So, the helping professions, and you know it's everything from what can, uh, jewish rituals teach us about grieving through to how does African spirituality sit with child protection, and so that there's a lot of interesting thoughts in there that I had a joy, joyous time co-editing, so, um, hopefully that's another resource that people could draw on absolutely.

:: 05:34

Um. I will link all of those um and people can get in touch with you if they've got questions around it. But yeah, thank you for joining me. I appreciate your voice in this space. People would probably already also if they follow the collective. Joel is on our advisory committee, so we love his voice in this space. So I'm appreciative of the amount of research and work you put into this space and this work and um, particularly research that I don't want to do because I'm not a research person, so I'm grateful for people who love to take some nerd.

:: 06:09

Yeah, just go knee deep into into the the nitty-gritty of it, um, so appreciate that, um and appreciate your time and your vulnerability and openness and sharing your story.

:: 06:26

Thanks, Sam. It's always a joy to talk. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Beyond the Surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you. Remember, no matter where you are in your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.