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Just As I Am: A Practical Guide to Being Out, Proud, and Christian
A gay Episcopalian priest discusses what it means to be a Christian homosexual, biblical teachings that offer support, the joys of lesbian and gay Christianity, and how to reclaim one's faith after rejection by a religious community. Reprint.
336 pages, Paperback
First published June 2, 1992
About the author
Robert Williams
4 booksLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Robert Williams who died December 24, 1992 in Boston, Massachusetts from AIDS was an openly gay male priest.
Robert Williams who died December 24, 1992 in Boston, Massachusetts from AIDS was an openly gay male priest.
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September 22, 2012
I began to read this book once in my 20s, when I was still stuck in a cult-like evangelical church, and did not get very far--but left marginalia revealing how tormented my soul was then. Now this book is life-affirming and faith-affirming. The footnotes are a fantastic resource for finding books on queer theology. I will probably return to this book now and then, just to get a refresher of Williams's sassy strength and outspoken style. He made me laugh and underline a lot and occasionally shout Hallelujah. God bless him.
May 17, 2024
THE CONTROVERSIAL GAY PRIEST SPEAKS VERY FRANKLY ON MANY ISSUES
Robert Williams (1955-1992) was the first openly gay male priest whose ordination in the Episcopal Church (by John Shelby Spong) was acknowledged beforehand by the ordaining diocese; he founded a branch of Integrity USA (a gay and lesbian Episcopalian organization), and was founding head of The Oasis, an outreach for LGBT persons at All Saints Church in Hoboken, New Jersey. After making controversial comments in 1990, he was forced to resign from the ministry. (He died of AIDS.)
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1992 book, “My religion has taken on many forms, but the goal of seeking and serving Christ has never changed. By the time I was in high school… I felt God was calling me to ‘full-time Christian service.’ I attended a Southern Baptist college and intended to enroll in a Southern Baptist seminary. But… I began to feel that my religion and my intellectual development were on a collision course, that I was being forced to choose between them… I got up the courage to visit an Episcopal church… I had an overwhelming feeling that I had come home. I thought to myself, ‘This is where I belong. This is where I was born to be… [when] I was twenty-three years old… I visited my first gay bar, [and] I felt exactly the same as when I had visited the Episcopal church… I knew, ‘This is where I belong.’” (Pg. xii-xiii) He adds, “My passion for handsome and intelligent men runs a close second to my passion for Christ…” (Pg. xiv)
He recounts, “Bishop Spong, I decided, was my chance to be ordained… I became his golden boy protégé, making appearances at his side at various diocesan functions… After two years… I was finally ordained, fulfilling my fifteen-year-old vocation. Bishop Spong decided, with my full permission, that my ordination should be… a very public event, a sort of gauntlet thrown down in the growing debate about sexuality within the church… Bishop Spong had urged me to personalize the ordination liturgy, and I took full advantage of that permission… In [a] way, Bishop Spong regretted telling me to make the ceremony my own. He and the Diocese of Newark… are on the more protestant end of the Episcopal liturgical scale, while I am an enthusiastic liturgy queen.” (Pg. xvi-xvii)
He continues, “Six weeks after my ordination, I was invited to make a presentation on the theology of same-sex marriage at a symposium sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese … A priest who was in the audience directed several hostile questions to me… Finally he demanded, ‘Do you really think Mother Teresa’s life would be significantly enhanced…’ Exasperated, I cut him off. ‘If she got laid? Yes! I am saying that everyone’s life is significantly enhanced by sexual activity… The next day, I found on my answering machine a diatribe from [Bishop Spong], his voice trembling with rage… he told me I should apologize to the Roman Catholic Church. I countered that asking a self-affirming gay man to ‘apologize’ to the Roman Catholic Church is like asking a Jew to ‘apologize’ to the Nazis. I have never seen or talked to Bishop Spong since. He told the board of directors of The Oasis that he demanded my resignation, and they agreed with him. Never in my life had I experienced such a feeling of betrayal. Bishop Spong, my trusted mentor… seemed, for a few months, to be on a personal vendetta to discredit and destroy me.” (Pg. xviii-xix)
He goes on, “On Halloween 1990… I was… diagnosed with AIDS and pneumocystis … I was diagnosed with Kaposi’s sarcoma. I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably be dead within a couple of years… The lesson I learned … was that I was a fool for believing that there was any parish in the Episcopal Church (or for that matter, any hierarchically structured church) where I could exercise my vocation as a queer priest… Two MCC [Metropolitan Community Church] ministers even took it upon themselves to actively recruit me for their church… my most serious reservation about the MCC was that its roots were largely evangelical and Pentecostal… at the General Conference … of 1991… Troy Perry, founder of the church … launched into a diatribe against the dangers of ‘goddess worship.’ I knew then I would be no happier in the MCC than I had been in the Episcopal Church… I still perform priestly duties, especially same-sex weddings, and I remain firm in my conviction that Christ is healing AIDS now… Today, I understand that my primary vocation is to help recover the ancient office of … the gay priest/shaman/healer. I like to think of myself as a priest of the Queer Catholic Church.” (Pg. xxii-xxiii)
He explains, “My own insight about the relationship between Jesus and ‘the beloved disciple’ came about… [When] One day I was praying alone in a church… I was using a liturgy for the Rosary that gives short biblical references… The biblical account was of the crucifixion, with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and ‘the disciple Jesus loved’ standing at the foot of the cross… it struck me. Standing at the foot of the cross were Jesus’ mother and his lover! It was one of the most profound religious experiences of my life. I took my new understanding to the library, where I was able to find all sorts of data to support what I already ‘knew’ through the Spirit.” (Pg. 29-30) Later, he says plainly, “I believe that Jesus was gay… I truly believe this with all my heart.” (Pg. 116)
Of Paul’s comments on Romans 1:26-27, he states, “it seems to me most honest to say, yes, perhaps Paul is condemning homosexuality in this passage, or at least labelling it as ‘unnatural’ (which is not EXACTLY the same thing as calling it sinful). But the bottom line for you is: So what? Paul was wrong about a number of other things too. Why should you take him any more seriously than you take Jerry Falwell or Anita Bryant or Cardinal O’Connor?” (Pg. 53)
Of the story of the centurion’s request to Jesus [Lk 7, Mt 8], he suggests, “you can’t help but be struck by the uniqueness of intimacy of the relationship. Luke says the young man was ‘very dear to him.’ When we read this passage through queer-colored glasses… it becomes obvious: this [servant] was the centurion’s LOVER. This is a story about an intergenerational gay couple.” (Pg. 61)
He asserts, “given the fact that I believe Jesus himself was AT THE VERY LEAST nonjudgmental about homosexuality, Paul, who never met Jesus, would surely have heard this from eyewitnesses to Jesus’ teachings, and he could then have rejected the Jewish distaste for homosexuality just as he rejected later other, much more fundamental, Jewish ideas. The fact that the roots of Christian homophobia and heterosexism are in Paul’s writings also makes the idea that he was queer seem less likely. Of course, we’ve all known closet cases who were publicly homophobic… If Paul, after preaching that ‘men who lie with other men’ will not enter the kingdom of heaven, was then found to be ‘lying with other men’ himself, I would hope the Galatian Christians would have thrown him out on his ear.” (Pg. 65)
He suggests, “There is no Christian church for women, or for queers---if by ‘church’ you mean an existing denominational structure. The best option might be to form your own worship community. Band together with a group of like-minded queer Christians and begin celebrating Mass on Sunday in your living room… Maybe you can’t pull off a solemn High Mass in a city apartment, but your church could grow large enough to at least rent a building.” (Pg 77)
He states, “The only answer to the question of why God doesn’t wipe out AIDS is that God just doesn’t work in that way. The solution is to affirm that God is NOT in fact omnipotent---at least, not in the way the word is usually meant. God so values the free will of the universe that she refuses to force or coerce any or her creatures into any choice. This… extends to the molecular level and certainly to the level of viruses. A virus, too, has the freedom to choose---and HIV is choosing to assert itself and live, at the expense of the human hosts. You can affirm that God is DISAPPOINTED and HURT by the current animosity between HIV and the human race… But it is not the nature of God to ‘wipe out’ a virus or a human tyrant or a natural process.” (Pg. 98-99)
He comments on the Eucharist: “what a mind-boggling sort of intercourse is implied here! Jesus the Christ, whom we affirm to be the Incarnation of God, allows you the most awesome intimacy: to take his body into your body. To further strengthen the sexual metaphor, you would do well to remember that Jesus said these words and performed this ritual while young man, known as ‘the disciple Jesus loved.’ Snuggled against his chest.” (Pg. 135)
He says, “If I had a chance to have a dinner party for the Jesus whose passionate follower I am today… I’d stock up on lots of beer or cheap champagne… And I’d not make plans to have to be anywhere the next morning---because I’d fully intend to tie one on with Jesus. Sound shocking? While he was on earth, Jesus’ critics called him ‘a glutton and drunkard.’ … Actually, partying is great theology for Christian. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says to his followers, ‘I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” (Pg. 142-143)
He contends, “It is our responsibility to articulate our own ethical systems for our community. No one else is qualified to do so. Since there are no OPENLY queer bishops, there is not a … church leader … who has the right… to speak about queer ethics. It is enormously inappropriate for any straight man… to presume to talk about morality to the queer community as it is for a man… to presume to make pronouncements about the morality of abortion.” (Pg. 153)
He explains, “I don’t necessarily think that those who are HIV-positive … have a strong moral imperative to ‘warn’ their potential sexual partners… Safe sex is just as safe with a person with AIDS as it is with a person who is HIV-negative. For the person who’s positive… the most loving course of action, is to take precautions to make sure you don’t do anything that might transmit the virus, not necessarily to tell your partner your status… About the issue of AIDS ‘confidentiality’ in general: As a person who has AIDS, I am, frankly, tired of it. It’s just as important for me to be out of the AIDS closet as it is to be out of the queer closet…” (Pg. 158-159) Later, he adds, “There is no causal connection between number of sexual partners and getting AIDS. None.” (Pg. 193)
He advises, “I hope you don’t believe sex can only be healthy and ‘good’ within a committed, monogamous relationship…sex can be healthy, good, and even holy with a stranger whose name you don’t know and whom you will never see again. Sex… can be engaged in just because it’s fun.” (Pg. 253)
He states, “God doesn’t speak to me in complete sentences, but from time to time---very rarely---I have had an experience that I knew was God communicating with me. I can’t describe it very well: It is a strong feeling of conviction, deep down inside myself, an idea that so reverberates in my heart and soul that I simply KNOW it is true.” (Pg. 270)
Even some members of the LGBT community will reject Williams’ ‘advice’ on AIDS; and others will be unconvinced by his biblical and other interpretations. But for those wanting information about this controversial and polarizing figure, the book will be welcome.
Robert Williams (1955-1992) was the first openly gay male priest whose ordination in the Episcopal Church (by John Shelby Spong) was acknowledged beforehand by the ordaining diocese; he founded a branch of Integrity USA (a gay and lesbian Episcopalian organization), and was founding head of The Oasis, an outreach for LGBT persons at All Saints Church in Hoboken, New Jersey. After making controversial comments in 1990, he was forced to resign from the ministry. (He died of AIDS.)
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1992 book, “My religion has taken on many forms, but the goal of seeking and serving Christ has never changed. By the time I was in high school… I felt God was calling me to ‘full-time Christian service.’ I attended a Southern Baptist college and intended to enroll in a Southern Baptist seminary. But… I began to feel that my religion and my intellectual development were on a collision course, that I was being forced to choose between them… I got up the courage to visit an Episcopal church… I had an overwhelming feeling that I had come home. I thought to myself, ‘This is where I belong. This is where I was born to be… [when] I was twenty-three years old… I visited my first gay bar, [and] I felt exactly the same as when I had visited the Episcopal church… I knew, ‘This is where I belong.’” (Pg. xii-xiii) He adds, “My passion for handsome and intelligent men runs a close second to my passion for Christ…” (Pg. xiv)
He recounts, “Bishop Spong, I decided, was my chance to be ordained… I became his golden boy protégé, making appearances at his side at various diocesan functions… After two years… I was finally ordained, fulfilling my fifteen-year-old vocation. Bishop Spong decided, with my full permission, that my ordination should be… a very public event, a sort of gauntlet thrown down in the growing debate about sexuality within the church… Bishop Spong had urged me to personalize the ordination liturgy, and I took full advantage of that permission… In [a] way, Bishop Spong regretted telling me to make the ceremony my own. He and the Diocese of Newark… are on the more protestant end of the Episcopal liturgical scale, while I am an enthusiastic liturgy queen.” (Pg. xvi-xvii)
He continues, “Six weeks after my ordination, I was invited to make a presentation on the theology of same-sex marriage at a symposium sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese … A priest who was in the audience directed several hostile questions to me… Finally he demanded, ‘Do you really think Mother Teresa’s life would be significantly enhanced…’ Exasperated, I cut him off. ‘If she got laid? Yes! I am saying that everyone’s life is significantly enhanced by sexual activity… The next day, I found on my answering machine a diatribe from [Bishop Spong], his voice trembling with rage… he told me I should apologize to the Roman Catholic Church. I countered that asking a self-affirming gay man to ‘apologize’ to the Roman Catholic Church is like asking a Jew to ‘apologize’ to the Nazis. I have never seen or talked to Bishop Spong since. He told the board of directors of The Oasis that he demanded my resignation, and they agreed with him. Never in my life had I experienced such a feeling of betrayal. Bishop Spong, my trusted mentor… seemed, for a few months, to be on a personal vendetta to discredit and destroy me.” (Pg. xviii-xix)
He goes on, “On Halloween 1990… I was… diagnosed with AIDS and pneumocystis … I was diagnosed with Kaposi’s sarcoma. I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably be dead within a couple of years… The lesson I learned … was that I was a fool for believing that there was any parish in the Episcopal Church (or for that matter, any hierarchically structured church) where I could exercise my vocation as a queer priest… Two MCC [Metropolitan Community Church] ministers even took it upon themselves to actively recruit me for their church… my most serious reservation about the MCC was that its roots were largely evangelical and Pentecostal… at the General Conference … of 1991… Troy Perry, founder of the church … launched into a diatribe against the dangers of ‘goddess worship.’ I knew then I would be no happier in the MCC than I had been in the Episcopal Church… I still perform priestly duties, especially same-sex weddings, and I remain firm in my conviction that Christ is healing AIDS now… Today, I understand that my primary vocation is to help recover the ancient office of … the gay priest/shaman/healer. I like to think of myself as a priest of the Queer Catholic Church.” (Pg. xxii-xxiii)
He explains, “My own insight about the relationship between Jesus and ‘the beloved disciple’ came about… [When] One day I was praying alone in a church… I was using a liturgy for the Rosary that gives short biblical references… The biblical account was of the crucifixion, with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and ‘the disciple Jesus loved’ standing at the foot of the cross… it struck me. Standing at the foot of the cross were Jesus’ mother and his lover! It was one of the most profound religious experiences of my life. I took my new understanding to the library, where I was able to find all sorts of data to support what I already ‘knew’ through the Spirit.” (Pg. 29-30) Later, he says plainly, “I believe that Jesus was gay… I truly believe this with all my heart.” (Pg. 116)
Of Paul’s comments on Romans 1:26-27, he states, “it seems to me most honest to say, yes, perhaps Paul is condemning homosexuality in this passage, or at least labelling it as ‘unnatural’ (which is not EXACTLY the same thing as calling it sinful). But the bottom line for you is: So what? Paul was wrong about a number of other things too. Why should you take him any more seriously than you take Jerry Falwell or Anita Bryant or Cardinal O’Connor?” (Pg. 53)
Of the story of the centurion’s request to Jesus [Lk 7, Mt 8], he suggests, “you can’t help but be struck by the uniqueness of intimacy of the relationship. Luke says the young man was ‘very dear to him.’ When we read this passage through queer-colored glasses… it becomes obvious: this [servant] was the centurion’s LOVER. This is a story about an intergenerational gay couple.” (Pg. 61)
He asserts, “given the fact that I believe Jesus himself was AT THE VERY LEAST nonjudgmental about homosexuality, Paul, who never met Jesus, would surely have heard this from eyewitnesses to Jesus’ teachings, and he could then have rejected the Jewish distaste for homosexuality just as he rejected later other, much more fundamental, Jewish ideas. The fact that the roots of Christian homophobia and heterosexism are in Paul’s writings also makes the idea that he was queer seem less likely. Of course, we’ve all known closet cases who were publicly homophobic… If Paul, after preaching that ‘men who lie with other men’ will not enter the kingdom of heaven, was then found to be ‘lying with other men’ himself, I would hope the Galatian Christians would have thrown him out on his ear.” (Pg. 65)
He suggests, “There is no Christian church for women, or for queers---if by ‘church’ you mean an existing denominational structure. The best option might be to form your own worship community. Band together with a group of like-minded queer Christians and begin celebrating Mass on Sunday in your living room… Maybe you can’t pull off a solemn High Mass in a city apartment, but your church could grow large enough to at least rent a building.” (Pg 77)
He states, “The only answer to the question of why God doesn’t wipe out AIDS is that God just doesn’t work in that way. The solution is to affirm that God is NOT in fact omnipotent---at least, not in the way the word is usually meant. God so values the free will of the universe that she refuses to force or coerce any or her creatures into any choice. This… extends to the molecular level and certainly to the level of viruses. A virus, too, has the freedom to choose---and HIV is choosing to assert itself and live, at the expense of the human hosts. You can affirm that God is DISAPPOINTED and HURT by the current animosity between HIV and the human race… But it is not the nature of God to ‘wipe out’ a virus or a human tyrant or a natural process.” (Pg. 98-99)
He comments on the Eucharist: “what a mind-boggling sort of intercourse is implied here! Jesus the Christ, whom we affirm to be the Incarnation of God, allows you the most awesome intimacy: to take his body into your body. To further strengthen the sexual metaphor, you would do well to remember that Jesus said these words and performed this ritual while young man, known as ‘the disciple Jesus loved.’ Snuggled against his chest.” (Pg. 135)
He says, “If I had a chance to have a dinner party for the Jesus whose passionate follower I am today… I’d stock up on lots of beer or cheap champagne… And I’d not make plans to have to be anywhere the next morning---because I’d fully intend to tie one on with Jesus. Sound shocking? While he was on earth, Jesus’ critics called him ‘a glutton and drunkard.’ … Actually, partying is great theology for Christian. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says to his followers, ‘I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.” (Pg. 142-143)
He contends, “It is our responsibility to articulate our own ethical systems for our community. No one else is qualified to do so. Since there are no OPENLY queer bishops, there is not a … church leader … who has the right… to speak about queer ethics. It is enormously inappropriate for any straight man… to presume to talk about morality to the queer community as it is for a man… to presume to make pronouncements about the morality of abortion.” (Pg. 153)
He explains, “I don’t necessarily think that those who are HIV-positive … have a strong moral imperative to ‘warn’ their potential sexual partners… Safe sex is just as safe with a person with AIDS as it is with a person who is HIV-negative. For the person who’s positive… the most loving course of action, is to take precautions to make sure you don’t do anything that might transmit the virus, not necessarily to tell your partner your status… About the issue of AIDS ‘confidentiality’ in general: As a person who has AIDS, I am, frankly, tired of it. It’s just as important for me to be out of the AIDS closet as it is to be out of the queer closet…” (Pg. 158-159) Later, he adds, “There is no causal connection between number of sexual partners and getting AIDS. None.” (Pg. 193)
He advises, “I hope you don’t believe sex can only be healthy and ‘good’ within a committed, monogamous relationship…sex can be healthy, good, and even holy with a stranger whose name you don’t know and whom you will never see again. Sex… can be engaged in just because it’s fun.” (Pg. 253)
He states, “God doesn’t speak to me in complete sentences, but from time to time---very rarely---I have had an experience that I knew was God communicating with me. I can’t describe it very well: It is a strong feeling of conviction, deep down inside myself, an idea that so reverberates in my heart and soul that I simply KNOW it is true.” (Pg. 270)
Even some members of the LGBT community will reject Williams’ ‘advice’ on AIDS; and others will be unconvinced by his biblical and other interpretations. But for those wanting information about this controversial and polarizing figure, the book will be welcome.
December 27, 2021
Pride, Jesus' favorite virtue. And one has to be out to support the 80% minority of christians against that ghastly 20% majority of all others.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews