EPISODE SUMMARY:
Mike Maeshiro (@mikemaeshiro) is Gay, Christian, and a Pastor. He hosts online communities for 2SLGBTQIA+ people looking for spiritual communities, and offers coaching to post-evangelical Christians in a journey of theological deconstruction.
If you’re curious about the ways that evangelical conservative Christianity have systematically shaped the experiences of queer people weaponizing theology, or if you’ve endured this yourself and are looking for support and understanding, this is the episode for you.
In this show, we hear about conservative Christian theology like “hate the sin love the sinner”, internalized homophobia, Mike’s own experience of encountering God and experiencing an embodied peace, church leaders’ “discrete censorship” of questioning theological teachings, and ways that Christian theology can be healthily deconstructed to embrace one’s queer identity.
A gentle reminder for whoever may need it: if content about theology being weaponized against queer people is likely to be triggering for you, take a moment to reflect if now is a good day/time for you to dive into something like this.
SHOW NOTES:
If you want to flip through the podcast, here’s some “chapters” to help you out!
5minutes: Mike breaks down some typical conservative evangelical Christian concepts and vocabulary such as “being saved” and how some of these theological concepts affects queer mentalities
12minutes: Mike invites us to think about the difference between "Internalized homophobia" vs. "internalized heterosexism”, and highlights how this distinction is a big part of the healing journey for many post-evangelicals.
18 minutes - Mike shares about his own radical experience encountering God in a church service, where God communicated to Mike that they [God] explicitly wanted Mike to be gay.
31 minutes - We discuss the discrete censorship and stigmatization that happens around critical thinking and asking questions to deconstruct potentially harmful theologies that we are taught
37 mins - Mike shares options for virtual communities which support queer people who are recovering from Evangelicalism. The Rainbow Room (Mike hosts this online community.) In Nashville, Mike is the Sr. Director of the Online Campus — see www.GracePoint.Net
43 mins - We point out that “biblical marriage”, that is, the way that marriage occurs in the Old Testament, has all sorts of models that are far outside of White Evangelical Christianity….so why do certain evangelical Christians continue to attack gay marriage, claiming that they are upholding “biblical marriage”
Permissions:
The instrumental of the song “Bones” by OKNaledi is used with permission. Check out the full version here.
Spiritual Community for Queer Christians? | Mike Maeshiro