…and why I am OK with that!
I don’t know… Maybe if it was my first time at this rodeo, I could have mustered a little bit more of a fuck. But it’s not. And for as long as I have been in public and private ministry — going on forty-six years now, people have been asking why some ministers don’t like me.
The reasons were obvious early-on. Some ministers and religious types don’t like me because I am openly-Queer. That I am comfortable in my skin as a masculine-presenting person (who rejects the gender binary) who enjoys sex with other masculine-presenting persons (especially if they have penises… or at least one penis, to be clear) makes them uncomfortable. And that is not my problem. It’s theirs.
But as I grew-up and grew into my ministry, I continued in my study of theology, eschatology, cosmology, philosophy and anthropology, and I also began digging deeply into the histories the development of Judaic, Christian and Esoteric (metaphysical and magical) traditions, including their scriptures and important texts. And when I began teaching about these things, the number of ministers who don’t like me definitely saw a sharp increase.
And there were many reasons for this.
There were some who simply saw me as a threat to their popularity and positions. They were winging-it and had the gift of gab. People listened to them, even though they really knew that they didn’t have a clue what the fuck they were talking about. So they schemed behind my back, they plotted and manipulated. Nowhere was that more evident that in the religious order I co-founded and in the institutional churches in which we served.
Those people always felt like they had to be in competition with me and that was unfortunate, because I am non-competitive, so they would always feel like they lost, when they actually hadn’t. I was always willing to share what I learned, because I felt privileged to have learned it. And what value is there in having learned and mastered something, if we are not willing to share it as generously as it was shared with us? So I felt sorry for them. I often tried — over and over again — to let them know I was on their side. And I still am.
In the esoteric community, there were those whose income included workshops, book sales and online courses that were built around their understanding, and quite often, the distorted and inaccurate mythologies they were taught by some of the authors and teachers of the mid-20th century witchcraft and new age traditions that like to pretend they have roots in the ancient world, particularly in Northern Italy or Sicily.
When I bring the receipts and scholarship to prove that they are as mistaken as the more contemporary goth-girls who like to pretend they “codified” the “real” Italian magical traditions, both groups get their panties in a knot. But they don’t have the integrity or academic curiosity to invite me onto their podcasts to discuss it. And some have even tried to blacklist me from their publishers, from what I am told, which is hysterical, because I would have to respect their publishers to want to let them publish my work and that is not something that is going to happen. Ever.
And finally, there are those who imagine themselves to be “progressive” Christians. And these are my favourite group of ministers who don’t like me.
Progressive is the branding they adopt, but it’s certainly not what I see, when I look at them. Scholars like Alan Watts, John Shelby Spong, John Dominic Crossan and Elaine Pagels are progressive Christians. Marcus Borg, Brian McLaren and Elaine Padilla are progressive, inclusive and scholarly Christian thinkers. And most of those who dislike me have never read or studied their works.
In fact, I will state emphatically and clearly that I don’t consider most of those ministers who dislike me to be authentically or accurately “Christian” at all. Their is little evidence they follow the spirit of the teachings attributed to Rabbi Jesus (whether we imagine that he was an historic person or not). They are followers of Paul of Tarsus. The are worshippers of one of the most dangerous, poorly written, plagiarised codices ever compiled — the Christian Bible — which has been responsible for more violence in our world than any other text in history.
And that series of books not only contradicts itself and represents a backward, primitive mindset and worldview that has little relevance in the postmodern world, but it also has almost nothing to do with the recorded teachings of Rabbi Jesus — the Palestinian mystic and social justice teacher, said to have lived somewhere in the early first century of the Common Era.
From my perspective, it makes perfect sense that those ministers would not like me and perhaps even hate me. Because, you see, just as with the pop-culture esotericists, I bring the receipts that demonstrate how little they know about or live the teachings they claim to represent. And I expose their “progressiveness” as a grotesque misrepresentation.
They don’t want to deal with the possibility that the Council of Nicea rewrote many of the texts it included in the canonised version of their scriptures. Or that subsequent Councils continued to do so… and not to elucidate the meanings behind the primitive texts, but rather to intentionally obscure those mystical meanings.
They don’t want to consider that plagiarised stories, adopted from other older traditions could have been overlaid upon the teaching of Rabbi Jesus to suit the agenda of a Roman Emperor (and follower of Sol Invictus) to create a religion the State could oversee and control.
They cling to the ideas of hierarchy and dogma, because it brings them job security. They work tirelessly to build brick and mortar churches, because that too brings stability (even though every anthropological and sociological data point demonstrates that such primitive concepts as “church” are literally dying around the world and have lost relevance decades ago).
So they hate when I point out that Rabbi Jesus didn’t intend to build a church or religion. They get uncomfortable when I point to archeological and other scientific evidence that the “Great Sacrament” of the so-called “Last Supper” was a psychedelic sacrament, or that it’s highly unlikely, based on the scriptures Rome didn’t re-write, that there was ever such a thing as crucifixion, or that the early followers of Rabbi Jesus didn’t see him as having “died for our sins”. And of course, they cringe when I say that hell and the devil are creations of third and fourth century “Christian” (Roman) manipulation and fearmongering.
A Progressive Church is one that has no walls. A Progressive Church is one which is service-oriented and based on an equanimity that rejects power-structures and hierarchy. A Progressive Church embraces the same disdain for religious dogma and doctrine that Rabbi Jesus showed and which embraces the inward-turning search for understanding the Wisdom that has always been inside each of us, waiting to be revealed through personal gnosis.
Now don’t misunderstand me, the theatrics and performance art of traditional church liturgies can be beautiful, even centering. But if we embrace those, because they resonate with us, but refuse to allow newer expressions of liturgy, then we’re not progressive… we’re traditionalist. And we need to own it.
But you cannot create a welcoming and affirming place for people who have been denied their place at the table for centuries by pretending to be little versions of their oppressors. And that’s what happens when we try so desperately to mimic the Roman church… when we focus more on the rubrics and theatricality of a Mass than on the needs (the real needs) of the people gathered there.
So I am very, very comfortable with some traditionalists and Roman-Catholic wannabes disliking me. They have every reason to do so. The same goes for the neo-pagans who want to pretend their practices ever existed before the 1940s and 50s. The gnostics who pretend they have apostolic succession from someone who never had it himself. The OTO and other occultists who pretend there is an unbroken lineage to some other-dimensional beings.
They have their rights to believe such things. They have the right to follow talk-television witches of the 80s who were never anything more than theatricists (often with horrible make-up skills and costuming shtick). But our choices come with consequences. And one of those is that you’re bullshit will be called out by those who hold the receipts.
As for the haters? Gurl, I have more important things to do with the next chapter of my life. And no, I will not censor who I am. Sometimes I will be inappropriate on my socials. Yes, there are photos of my ass and dick online. I did porn for a number of years, unapologetically paying for my first two years of eight years of seminary formation. So if pictures of my unimpressive dick offend you, I hate to think how you’re going to melt-down when you see me getting railed in a sling!
No, I will not hide that I am polyamorous and not so sure that monogamy is always a healthy relationship ethic. Neither will I pretend not to be a socialist, so a pop-culture writer who doesn’t even know how to spell Elohim can be unoffended, because he doesn’t get it.
And when you’ve been around the sun more than sixty times; when the most important person in your life dies suddenly in your arms; when you’ve had more than one hundred men and women also die in your arms with AIDS and buried more friends than most people have ever had; you’ll likely understand why I simply have no fucks left to give.
