Come to the Water

Metropolitan Community Churches, and other queer-affirming congregations, are communities of faith for a population that is at once privileged and oppressed: privileged, because those who self-identify as queer are often from the middle and professional classes, and oppressed because of the social and religious anti-queer stigma that is still a very large part of the dominant culture. Because of this oppression, it is predictable that congregants will, to some extent, experience feelings of grief, shame and anger: grief because of the loss of relationships, privilege, and social standing that frequently accompany coming out, grief over losses due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, anger as a result of rejection, and shame as an unconscious response to the anti-queer stigma that surrounds us still. In some cases, it is fair to describe the coming-out process as traumatic. This presents a critical pastoral%2