Jennifer Knapp on Larry King Live
Jennifer Knapp comes out on Larry King Live
Christian Music Meets Its Gay Stars
Arthur Montana, Tonex, Jennifer Knapp Church’s Secret Out!!!
Come Out From Among Them: Christian Music Meets Its Gay Stars…?
What’s this? Gay people in church music? When did this happen? Who let this happen?
Okay, I can’t keep this up any longer. I am not poking fun at Religion Dispatches. In fact I appreciate their work immensely and hope you all take a moment to read this article. What I find ironic is this ongoing hypocrisy of the church to embrace Gospel Music, Christian Music, Southern Gospel music as long as its artists’ wrists are only limp while playing the piano. I grew up Baptist and worship now in the Presbyterian Church. I say that to explain that I have lived with this issue of gay musicians in the church all of my life. As a singer, and a church singer as that from the age of five, the church automatically assumed that I was gay. I remember being pulled into a pastor’s office after service at eight years old and being told, “Derrick, we’ve been talking and have decided that you need to play a sport. We at the church think that with your love of singing, you being smart, and stuff like that, that you are turning into a f****t. So why don’t you figure out what sport you can play.” I was dumbfounded, the arts and my education were the only thing a skinny, bespectacled and lonely kid held onto for joy. Well, I was horrible at basketball and couldn’t do baseball because the games were Sunday morning!!!
It was and is still common in many African American churches throughout the country that many organists, piano players, choir directors and other musicians are gay. I will not back down from that statement because it is not a generalization. The thing about it is that it usually is not a secret. See, it’s okay to be gay as long as you are quiet about it in church. It’s not quite the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of the military because outside of church most of the community knows who you are seeing, when you are seeing them, and how long you’ve been seeing them. A church is very much like a small town in that aspect, everybody knows your business when it comes to sex. We gay church musicians have also sat through sermon after sermon, testimony after testimony, prayer after prayer that bashes gays from the pulpit and the pews. But it is our love of God and how the Spirit works in us through music that keeps us in church.
People often wonder why do I go through my life out. I’m not partnered, I could pass and be that old “confirmed bachelor”, just let people guess what I do behind closed doors and talk behind my back. But you see, I grew up like that as a child and teenager and don’t want to do it anymore.
I am glad that folks are coming out as full humans in their Christianity and love of serving God through their gifts. Jesus said the rocks would cry out if his disciples were silenced. But I am sure the praises from lips of those who sing his power from the rooftops is just a bit more pleasing.
Tonex, the African American Gospel singer came out a while back. Jennifer Knapp has come out as well. The article in the Religion Dispatch speaks to that much better than I can. But Arthur Montana…who is that? Well, in 1979 James Baldwin’s novel Just Above My Head was published. It is the story of a gay gospel singer turned soul singer. It is one of the thickest novels that Baldwin ever published. But the life of Arthur Montana, as he travels the southern gospel music circuit is the story of the folks upon whose back I stand. His life story as created by Baldwin, tells my story, Tonex’s story, Jennifer Knapp’s story. I won’t give away the ending but let it suffice to say Arthur Montana would want us to find ourselves and our joy and yes, even our Jesus here and now. Baldwin writes so that those of us who share the same story of his characters, don’t have to live through their pain. Arthur Montana, as written by Baldwin, would be setting up a European tour with Tonex, Jennifer Knapp, me and others who know that Jesus saves us not from our queerness but into a fullness of being because despite what anyone thinks and despite what anyone says–what he did, he did for me too.
**Check out the tone of the interviews for both Jennifer Knapp and Tonex. Larry King promises ‘fireworks’, Tonex’ interview’s warning sounds like you are about to watch extreme violence. I’m just sayin…..
Thanks Preston, for sharing this article.
Derrick, I love this post. My experience of church choirs, church theater groups, heck, even Catholic seminary, is one of people knowing, sensing, understanding that there was a large percentage of gay members, and yet not talking about it, and definitely not liking it. And I really appreciate hearing more and more people talk!
But, at the moment, I’m still reeling at what your church people said to you as an eight year old: “We at the church think that with your love of singing, you being smart, and stuff like that, that you are turning into a f****t.”
I’m flabbergasted. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.
Somebody left their “WWJD?” bookmark in their other bible that day.
All the things you are that are so good–love of singing, intelligent and being gay–got bundled up for a little eight year old into one big problem needing a sports cure. I see you dodging basketballs, wondering how much you would have to endure before you would be healed or balanced or whatever it was supposed to give you.
What I hope most happens in this new world where gay people speak up and straight people admit that they know and love, is that somebody grown up–a parent, a pastor, a teacher, a choir director–will step in when little eight year olds are being fed such hateful lies, and speak the loving truth to them.
from Toneisha Taylor–
I just read your post! Amazing! What a wonderful idea to see this sort of dialogue and critical response. It is true the queer musicians are the norm in the black church yet oddly outed as not a part of the body of Christ. It is a schizophrenic discourse that I have listen to with amazement my whole life. I would look at friends growing up and think – what is it like for her or him to sit here and listen to this? You have answered that question. For those that are able to see Christ without the distraction of humanity it is possible to have a sane spiritual life.
Enjoy the Bounty!
Toniesha
I believe that part of our inheritance in Christ is freedom (“sin shall not be your master, for you are not under law, but under grace”), so I would never allow a brother or sister struggling with homosexuality to settle for defeat. I’m thinking about it in the context of alcoholism, for example. “Can someone be an alcoholic and be a Christian?” I think the obvious answer is yes. They may be struggling with addiction and longing for freedom, but God doesn’t kick them out of the kingdom temporarily until they find total victory over it. 2 Cor. 5:21 teaches us that His imputed righteousness covers us (ALL of us) while the weaknesses of our sin nature are being exposed and defeated. None of us can claim to have the absence of sin. So how do we harmonize the presence of sin with the promise of salvation when we know that “the wages of sin is death”? We trust in the cross and that grace redeems us from the curse WHILE we are being sanctified.
To those who can’t seem to rid themselves of homosexual desires, I would remind all of us that God, in His wisdom, sometimes allows “a thorn in the flesh” to teach us His sufficient grace. In the same way that someone who struggles with rage should not give in to the impulse to kill, the one struggling with homosexuality shouldn’t feel permission to practice a gay lifestyle simply because the presence of desire remains. It needs to be seen as a tool to drive us toward trusting God and learning the great lesson of “abiding” (John 15): obeying in the absence of feelings. That one should practice abstinence, let some brothers/sisters know about the struggle, remember that there is no condemnation in Christ, and cease to make their struggle the center of their lives.
Thank you for the understanding and the invitation to abstinence. Your grasp of affirmation of what some deem a lifestyle is admirable. I choose rather to build a personal relationship with Christ as revealed to me in the Gospels and to the grace that is witnessed therefore rather than cling so mightily to the words of a man working to understand how to build a community standard in a time so distant from ours.
God bless and if you are called to practice abstinence, be blessed in your journey. I just do not believe that is God’s call for my life.
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