The 'sacramental shame' many LGBTQ+ conservative Christians wrestle with ' and how they find healing
Kai found Jesus as a teenager. A person of white and Hawaiian descent, Kai now goes by gender-neutral pronouns and identifies as 'mahu,' the traditional Hawaiian term for someone in-between masculine and feminine. But when they first became Christian, the high-schooler identified as gay ' and was committed to celibacy. Kai ' a pseudonym to protect their privacy ' embraced their church's 'welcoming but not affirming' teachings about LGBTQ+ people, agreeing that same-sex intimacy was incompatible with being Christian. It felt good to be sacrificing for the Lord, Kai recalls. But they eventually realized they were harming themself. Kai believed ' and their church taught ' that God's own love is a gift, freely given. Nevertheless, they still felt that to be worthy of that love, Kai had to 'surrender' their orientation and need for emotional connection, even with friends. Kai began to reflect on what it meant to be Christian and concluded that Jesus didn't have a problem with same-sex...
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