The Courage Campaign is now attempting to draw Rick Warren into a debate over marriage rights and there on their site is a way to post comments to him directly (presuming he actually reads them). Follow this link and post to him as I just did this evening:
Here is the text of what I sent to him verbatim, (though I have embellished it with some pictures from recent marriage Rights and Civil-rights rallies - and the one to the right is from
Riverside CA's Pride Festival in Sept '08 and the last one is one I took today in Church):
Riverside CA's Pride Festival in Sept '08 and the last one is one I took today in Church): Dear Pastor Rick,
I am born again and have been since May 4th 1980. I really wish you would come to an understanding of God that is bigger than the standard evangelical dogma about gender and one's personal gender orientation. I am transgender - I was born with outer male attributes but inner, female, "hard-wiring” that did not match the outer form from birth and so I see things through a different set of filters than you and most people do. God did this intentionally when I was fearfully and wonderfully made in the womb – I certainly don’t recall ever having a choice in the matter. Any choice I have in this as an adult is to either accept it and find a way to cope with it, or to deny it and throw it back in God’s face just as I tried to do for many painful years. Now I choose to repent and accept myself as created.
I am born again and have been since May 4th 1980. I really wish you would come to an understanding of God that is bigger than the standard evangelical dogma about gender and one's personal gender orientation. I am transgender - I was born with outer male attributes but inner, female, "hard-wiring” that did not match the outer form from birth and so I see things through a different set of filters than you and most people do. God did this intentionally when I was fearfully and wonderfully made in the womb – I certainly don’t recall ever having a choice in the matter. Any choice I have in this as an adult is to either accept it and find a way to cope with it, or to deny it and throw it back in God’s face just as I tried to do for many painful years. Now I choose to repent and accept myself as created.
It turns out that being transgender is a wonderful gift from God because through this God-given necessity to cope with the way He made me, I have discovered His love and closeness in orders of magnitude more than when I tried and tried for those first 23 of the 28 years I have known Him, to conform to the tradition and dogma you staunchly represent. I also now can actually love my neighbors because I am no longer bound up in self-loathing.Keeping this part of myself hidden and denied was the worst and most damaging thing I could have done to myself. I am still healing from the worst of that damage now that I have accepted myself as created. That self-denial was the worst form of religious self-abuse imaginable! My gender and presentation of it is not a choice for me any more than you being who you are a choice! It was not a mistake by God or by myself or by a
nyone in my family line – it was not sin (and I am not abusing this gift of God in sinful ways either, but use it to win people to the Lord by living for Him in and through it). It is not a curse and it has not made me apostate or evil or reprobate, but rather it makes me so close to, and joyful in the Lord that I would gladly rejoice as heartily and openly as King David did as he danced with reckless abandon before the Arc of the Covenant. I can now, as a woman of God worship Him in Spirit and in Truth! Exactly what He seeks, Right? If the Bible is true it is!This transition of mine - to pursue it openly before God and man – is, for me, the way I tell the world about His abounding love. Because of this I can say boldly, "look at what the Lord can do for those that love Him and trust Him fully - He gives to the broken and abused and downtrodden deep-seated joy, hope and life abundant in spite of antiquated traditions” – in other words He gives me the desires of my heart just as He promised! I am a Miracle of God, but yet to follow what you represent would deny God and His wondrous and mysterious ways.
I am not saying you are bad or even denying what you stand for at the core because I believe The Gospel of Je
sus Christ too. But we diverge at the point of gender issues. Most of what you and your great Church do is wonderful!! But I ask you to please realize – even though it may be uncomfortable – that I am your sister in Christ. Even if you don’t want this part of the family over to your house for supper (and that is your choice alone to make), please allow us to be family through the Blood of Christ, just as you and many in your esteemed congregation are.Even though you believe you have the best intentions of God for mankind at heart, do you not understand that to myself and to most of the GLBTQ community what you represent on these issues translates into intentional pain and hurt, and it fosters a lot of violence towards us? This is how we perceive your stand on marriage rights. Please don’t deny us the same rights and privileges under the laws of this great Nation as you and the majority of people enjoy. To continue doing so undermines the good of all people and weakens the foundations of The USA even farther at a time when we all need to join together to rebuild this Nation and save her from the present crises.
What I ask you to do here is to open-mindedly and prayerfully open a dialogue with us – those that like me that are somehow different than the norm – and begin to understand that we are just another part of God's mysterious ways in the scheme of his creation We are just the same as every other unique person on the face of the earth – and like everyone else we did not have the opportunity to choose how God created us who we are and our gender and internal preferences is no different than if I have hazel eyes and you perhaps blue. It is just that you do not know us and have been driving us away from, instead of closer to the Lord because of things we do not have any control over. 
As the Gentiles were to the Jews in the early days of the Church, perhaps we of the GLBTQ… crowd are to you – the old-school evangelicals at least as it regards gender related issues – here to, by discomfort, jealousy or even by shock value, get you to open your eyes to the all-inclusiveness of God through Christ that you have not understood before. Can’t you at least be open minded enough in the Lord to look beyond the traditional limits and see what He is telling you? There sure is a lot of true Christian spirituality and love and compassion out here in our midst that can't be explained any other way.Thank you sir, for taking the time to read this and to consider what I have said.
Regards in the Lord, and please have a Merry Christmas.
Eva-Genevieve! Scarborough
EvaGenevieve@yahoo.com
Human
Christian
Transgendered
Advocate for civil-rights and Faith without Prejudice
On Camera Host/Moderator/Coordinator - Living Transgender in American Society Today, 2008
I certainly hope he hears this inspiring message from someone who proves that God still speaks and moves...outside the little boxes the "church" has created. Keep it up Eva!
ReplyDeleteThanks Lori!
ReplyDeleteI think this is why I am here, still alive (miraculously) and boldly so in 2008. I just hope some good comes of it - some days I wonder and other days I have to keep from letting it go to my head
Hugs,
Eva!
Eva, how beautiful. I don't know if it will touch Pastor Warren, but it certainly touches me. Of course I know how lovely and loving you are.
ReplyDelete