A Time of Healing

By Doreen Mannion

Doreen lives in the Washington DC area and first ran into Brian McLaren when he appeared on the Larry King Show last year. She made her way to his church and found an accepting and loving community of people. She graciously agreed to be one of our panelists on the Gay Forum at the Generous Orthodoxy Conference last October. Doreen wrote a paper about her experience for a seminary assignment. Here are some of her reflections from that paper.

Perception is Reality
“McLaren related a market study of 16 to 29 year olds where Christianity was surveyed much like a brand (i.e., how do you feel about Crest toothpaste). Of the top 12 impressions, 9 were negative, 2 were neutral, and 1 was positive. The number one negative impression, held by 91 percent of those surveyed, was that Christians are anti-homosexual. As McLaren stated, regardless of what you believe about homosexual behavior, “if the number one message of Jesus Christ were to be presented, that’s probably not it. So, when you communicate that as your message, I am sure that is not generous.”

The second highest held impression was that Christians are judgmental. “So,” said McLaren, “a religion who follows the guy who says ‘thou shall not judge’ is known as the organization that judges, or maybe ‘thou shall not judge me but I shall judge thee’.” The third highest held impression was that Christians are hypocritical. The only positive impression was that Christians are friendlier than other types of believers.

The scary part, and the part that kept me away from Christianity so long, is that “for every Christian in the United States today, when you say the word Jesus, people don’t hear Jesus, they hear these other attitudes.” What’s the solution? How do we reclaim a generous orthodoxy?

You Say You’re Not A Christian
“You say you’re not a Christian but you talk like a Christian and you act like a Christian and you treat others the way Christians should.” I explained that through getting clean and sober through Alcoholics Anonymous in 1988, I had developed an understanding, acceptance, and feeling of a higher power. Further, through a series of otherwise unexplainable events, I came to understand, accept, and feel a Holy Spirit. But, I explained, I just could not feel Jesus. I understood the concept historically and Biblically, but could neither feel Him nor force myself to feel Him, no matter how hard I tried.

I cannot explain what happened next except to say that I fell on my knees and sobbed uncontrollably as my CD group “prayed me to Jesus.”

I likened it to what like Symeon wrote in The Discourses 1:

“I was so greatly moved to tears and loving desire for God that I would be unable to describe in words the joy and delight I then felt. I fell prostrate on the ground, and at once I saw. . . . a great light was . . . . shining on me and seized hold of my whole mind and soul, so that I was struck with amazement at the unexpected marvel and I was, as it were, in ecstasy.
“There was poured into my soul in unutterable fashion a great spiritual joy and perception and a sweetness surpassing every taste of visible objects, together with a freedom and forgetfulness of all thoughts pertaining to this life.”

This is the context for my attendance at the Generous Orthodoxy Conference.

A Quick Prayer and Off We Go
After arriving at the conference, I met Jim Henderson from Off The Map. He collected the other panelists and off we went to a quiet room to talk about the dialogue. Jim said he and Brian were talking about asking the audience to come up after the dialogue and perhaps apologize to us if they felt so moved. Jim wanted to make sure we were all comfortable with this. I felt a little bit weird about it, but offered up a quick prayer and decided whether it turned out to be a positive or negative experience for me, it would definitely be a new experience.

The sanctuary was packed for the dialog. Jim introduced the session by playing Ray Charles’ “God Bless America” and basically asking everyone to pledge to be on their best behavior. He asked the audience to welcome the panelists, and off we went to sit on the stools on stage.

As it happened, I was closest to Brian. To my immediate left was a lesbian Episcopalian priest, then a gay teacher, then a straight Baptist elder who had befriended a gay college student and had an important story to share about that experience.

The Rules of Engagement
Brian reminded everyone to just listen and realize no one was going to change his or her mind on the subject based on this panel. “Let’s just assume if people are wrong, you’re probably not going to fix them tonight.” He asked us all to take about 5 minutes or so and introduce ourselves. I was stressed in the days leading up to the conference, wondering what to say about myself and what to expect from this experience. I’ve learned how to speak in front of groups professionally, but am really an introvert. By the time the panel started, I was no longer stressed. I realized God put me where I was that night. When I looked out into the full pews and realized these were people who were there because they wanted to be. These were people who wanted to hear my story. These were people who had accepted Jim and Brian’s challenge to “just listen.”

Of course God was with me, so my story just flowed. I told of how I used to sing “Jesus loves me” with my mother when I was little, then did not sing it again for another 40 years. I listened with great interest to the other panelists, and then Brian asked a series of questions such as, “How do you feel when Christians tell you they hate the sin, not the sinner.” (My response, “I don’t think Christians should hate.”) The audience asked very thoughtful questions.

My Time of Healing
Then Brian invited the audience to come up to the platform to meet us and to perhaps apologize if they felt so moved. I could not believe almost everyone there came up to talk. Many people apologized for the way “the church” or other Christians had treated me or made me feel. It was, outside of my experience in April, the most powerful event I’ve ever been part of. I felt so healed, so loved, finally part of the Christian family and community.

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