It occurred to me this morning that the main gate at Pridefest is an excellent metaphor for the gates of heaven. The gospels contain several stories of Jesus addressing those who were absolutely certain they were going to heaven and others were not. In each of those stories, the righteous rule followers who judged others were told that Jesus would deny that he ever knew them. When I was younger, I thought that Jesus was telling them he would lie about meeting them in the past. As I have grown and had more life experience, I have learned that there is a lot more to knowing someone that just meeting them and being able to recognize them on the street. After all, I have read many biographies of many people and if those people were to walk past my house I would certainly recognize them. I know a lot about them, but I can't say that I know them - mostly because I haven't ever met them.
Each year at every Pridefest there are Christian impostors standing outside the main gates. They carry signs that say the most awful things, they are filled with rage and hate and express that rage and hate through the things they write on their signs and scream at people attempting to enter the grounds. Their primary reason for being at Pridefest is that Western Christianity in its fundamentalist forms created the notion of a culture war many years ago. The fact that there is no biblical evidence for a culture war doesn't stop culture war true believers from distorting scripture and then claiming it supports their poor behavior. For example, the verse "be in the world but not of the world" is hardly justification for hate, anger, or rage. It doesn't say "be obnoxious and inappropriate in the world, and do as much harm to others as possible."
Let me be clear, everyone is free to believe whatever they like. I have no issue with that whatsoever. If you want to believe that seven or eight biblical verses about Temple purity codes and Cultic prostitution (not sexual orientation, as the impostors claim) mean that homosexuality is a sin, then I will gladly allow you to celebrate your misinterpretation of the scripture. I hope, however, that you aren't running around in blended fabrics or grilling ribs on the BBQ this Summer for if you do you shall surely be subject to the same judgment you imagine the Temple prostitutes were subject to. God forbid you eat a shrimp cocktail!
The thing I will no longer permit to happen without challenge is for those who worship hate, range, anger, and ego to continue to purport to speak for God or Christianity. Those who claim to worship the Prince of Peace simply cannot be following his example by screaming, raging, or attempting to diminish others. What these people are is Fundamentalist Extremists, a name that require no denominational qualifier because Fundamentalist Extremism in all its forms exhibits the same behaviors and attitudes - attitudes that are inherently life denying and narcissistic, which seek to eliminate everyone and anyone who is not just like them. If they can't scream or cajole you into compliance, the next option is to kill you by blowing up your clinic or house of worship, shooting you in your house of worship, or crucifying you on a fence. Fundamentalist Extremism is motivated by two things: Fear and Hatred.
The Pearly Gates of Pridefest are a foretast of the gates of heaven. As Jesus said, many will come to me and say, Lord, Lord, and I will tell them I do not know you. Those who are intellectually and emotionally honest and mature enough to evaluate the scripture without the censorship of their own Fundamentalist Extremism will have no problem identifying those who know Jesus. Ultimately, it is a choice between those choosing to celebrate love and those celebrating hatred. There is more, however.
We can choose to look at heaven as a life-after-death dwelling place. That has been the traditional view - but it is not consistent with Jesus' oft repeated assertion that the kingdom of heaven is a here and now phenomenon. He always spoke of the kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God (interchangeable terms) in the present tense. I believe that hell is an earthly phenomenon, too, only rather than believing that God sends us to hell I believe we create our own hell and inhabit it completely voluntarily. Our classic images of hell come from Dante, not from the Bible, but I have to ask: Who looks more like the classic images of hell than the angry, screaming, contorted facial expressions of protesters outside of Pridefest? Who resembles most the image of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth? The truth is that Fundamentalist Extremists in all their forms have already chosen hell and moved into the neighborhood! Honestly, their situation is tragic and would be sad if it weren't that they are so hate filled.
The Christian Scripture is clear that perfect love drives out fear. The fear that I see outside the Pearly Gates of Pridefest are not the people going into the Pridefest grounds, but rather those screaming vitriol at those going in. In fact, fear rules the day for those protesters. If they really wanted to change hearts and minds, if they really wanted to do any sort of viable ministry, they would buy tickets and go inside to learn more and enter into relationship with the people inside the festival. Of course, they don't go inside and I suspect there are three reasons that they don't. The first is that they have some fear that they might become enlightened and in doing so lose all of their friends - and Fundamentalist Extremism encourages its adherents to only socialize within their own organization. The second is that they loathe their own sexual identity, whether that identity is a heterosexual or a repressed LGBT identity. Fundamentalism has never had a healthy sexual ethic even for heterosexual people, and its not lost on many that the most strident voices against the LGBT community often have a "fall from grace" when they are outed as gay themselves. As evidence I offer Ted Haggard and Bishop Eddie Long, two notable recent examples but far from the only examples of self loathing hate preachers. Finally, they don't go inside because it's much easier to be angry than to love. Love implies sharing of myself, love takes work and commitment, love requires open hearts. Rage requires little, and the adrenaline rush makes rage addicts feel good. It doesn't matter to the rage addict that their rage is life denying because they can't see beyond their own fear and anger.
This year was my sixth or seventh year at Pridefest, and the third year that we have had a booth in the Health and Wellness area. Every year I learn how to love over and over again. Each year I hear some tragic stories of the damage that Fundamentalist Extremism has done to countless people, how many of those people who have discovered their own sexuality and now struggle to step out from under the poison of years of brain washing in Fundamentalist churches. Each year I meet new people who transform my life by their presence in my life. And, each year I am saddened that people feel they have to thank me for being there. I am saddened, because in truth there is no other place for me to be - and not because I am gay (I'm not), but because I have experienced exclusion and oppression myself and been loved through that experience by my LGBT friends. To be honest, I can't imagine anyone who screams hatred at another person ever being capable of loving anyone through anything.
The scene outside any Pridefest gate is a foretaste of heaven, perhaps most especially in that those who are most certain they are going to be accepted by God being most astonished by who is beloved of God. They may well be even more surprised to hear Jesus say, "I never knew you" to them
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