“I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster,” Ethan (not his real name) uttered with a sly smirk. He was a 6 feet-tall lanky Jewish boy with a know-it-all swag that I mostly found exciting — on that day though, he was irritating. Ethan’s dangerously deep blue eyes twinkled with mischief as the muted moonlight languidly highlighted his soft brunette hair. A dense mat of coarse black hair demarcated an odd circumference from his collarbone, down a few inches from his navel and was blocked in by both alert nipples. And, eyebrows — the boy had such beautifully lush eyebrows that, I’d spend many moments staring at them with envy. You couldn’t tell me anything about this man — I still don’t know which I found more attractive — his Joseph-Gordon-Levitt-like boy next door looks or his Joseph-Gordon-Levitt-like intelligence. One thing was certain — I had fallen hard for this man.
On one hand, he had enough hubris to fill the statue of liberty from top to bottom; and on the other, he seemed to really enjoy volunteering as an EMT. Here was a guy, I thought, who had a very kind heart — ignoring almost all the other red flags. I was 23, having just graduated from university and swimming in the beautifully uncertain affair that was New York City. Somehow, Ethan offered what would become for me a real test in self-worth and faith. (What is Zusong talking about, you might ask?) Well, at that age, I was still struggling with the idea of the Christian God I was raised to believe. You know, white Jesus, angry and jealous male God who had set up unfair obstacles for humans to brave — knowing most will fail. (But, doesn’t this idea of traditional Christianity go against homosexuality, you ask? Well, Ethan agreed with you.)
The best part of sinning together (And oh did I enjoy sinning over and over again ;)) with Ethan was that we spent hours debating philosophy. On that moonlit night, I opened up my heart to him and explained how I still believed there was a God who had brought so many great things into my life. I said:
“I did not come from a wealthy family in Ghana, nor was I the smartest, but somehow, I got a full scholarship to an American University. Since then, so many incredible things and people have enriched my life. The only way, I can explain my luck is that there had to be a God.” The basis for my religion was that humans were born with no value to God — we were worthless at the core. Only a belief in God/Jesus and His Grace made you worthy, and even that did not guarantee success in this life or the next.
That was when Ethan scoffed and told me he believed in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I was confused. Was this another American term I had never heard of before?
“You believe in what?” I asked.
“I said, silly, since you believe in some unproven God who seems to suppress people, while turning a blind eye to suffering, I too believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.” I frowned. No matter how attracted I was to Ethan, this was blasphemy. I had been raised to never question the traditional image of God — blind faith was the name of the game, and if you asked too many “whys” you risked His wrath. We were lying nose-to-nose, I could feel his warm breath on my upper lip as his right arm enclosed the back of my neck. He began to playfully trace his left index finger along the circumference of my face before landing on my lips. Outraged, I untangled myself from his arms and sat up straight on the way too small twin bed. We heard some exasperated woman on the streets screaming after who I imagined was her boyfriend:
“Jason! Wait up!”
“Yeah, Jason, wait up!” Ethan teased. I wasn’t amused.
“Are you saying you do not believe in God? Surely, you must believe in something?” I couldn’t imagine anyone living a meaningful life without the guidance of a deity. Furthermore, I didn’t appreciate him making fun of my God. By making up a fake deity, the flying spaghetti monster, he was presuming that my God was also fake. How rude!
“Are you serious? You believe in a God that represses women, people of color and gay people?” He arched those brows incredulously, emphasizing the “gay” part. Ethan, I learned, was born into a Hasidic Jewish community where he felt oppressed as a bisexual man. It seems like he and I (minus the Jewish, White, American, Bisexual parts) had similar childhoods of conservative religious upbringing. But while I grew to allow some compromise with Christianity, Ethan (and it seems, his siblings too) completely abandoned not just Judaism but all religion. In its place, he had cultivated a deep disdain for religiosity and the religious. As an atheist, he believed that I was gullible — holding on to an archaic invention used by the powerful to conquer the masses and keep them oppressed. Even though It wasn’t clear to me then, my frustration for meaning and belonging masked itself as anger towards Ethan. How deep was my faith if Ethan could shake it into doubt by mocking me? At that time, I had only been in America for a little over four years. The original roots of my earlier religious indoctrination as I was growing up in Ghana still formed the foundation of my consciousness. Though my idea of God filled me with self-loathing for being gay, I was not ready to renounce Him.
As I grew to be more open-minded, It seemed myopic to believe that only Jesus saved, while there were billions of people around the world who also believed their way was true. I was only Christian because I was born in a Christian household. In Ghana, famously, Muslims, Christians and those with Traditional African beliefs have lived peacefully side by side — Christians and Muslims intermarry often and most religious holidays of all three are national holidays. Ghana is one of the only countries that has a Christian president and Muslim vice president. I knew that many wars around the world had been fought in the name of religion and this blue marble of ours had been constantly soaked with scarlet-red blood over whose God was mightier. I began to see that in a way, Ethan was right — European invasion and looting of Africa was expedited by missionaries converting the locals to Christianity. Jomo Kenyatta, former president of Kenya once said, “When the Missionaries arrived, the Africans had the land and the Missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible.” I was beginning, as a Christian, to ask “dangerous” questions like, “Why are most of the saints white?” and “Why was it important for God to be a ‘he?’”
After Ethan and I parted ways romantically, (You don’t even know the drama!) his bold questioning of my lazy beliefs stayed with me — all around me, I saw people who labeled themselves as Christians start senseless wars, throw out their gay children, pay good money to fly to Uganda to convince zealots to pass legislation to murder gay people. (Side note, while I point fingers at the white American evangelists who stoked the prejudice of their African counterparts, I find the eagerness of these counterparts even more heinous. How many more Africans need to die to placate the White man’s idea of God?) Over time, I felt embarrassed to call myself a Christian. Why I thought, should I link myself with religious elitism?
A few years ago, I boarded a flight from New York to South Africa. Though it was to be a 15-hour flight in cattle-class (envying everybody in Business and First Class,) at the end of the journey was the wedding of my friend Richard and his soon-to-be husband, Roland. I secured myself a window seat in the emergency aisle for more legroom to ease the long journey. I was planning to ask for a glass of red wine at take off before I took one of what I hoped would be many naps. That was when my seat buddy showed up — a 6’2 tall slender white man in his sixties. He wore a pale yellow polo shirt and acid washed bootcut jeans. If I wasn’t sure he was American, his white socks cemented the fact before I even heard his accent.
“Oh hello, there Sir! I am your seat buddy.” He was chipper. I smiled and said hi. He placed a few dogeared books on his seat while he stuffed a duffle bag in the overhead compartment. Glancing over, I noticed the books bore religious titles like (and I am paraphrasing) “Jesus Saves!” and “Christlike today?” (Honestly, I don’t remember exact titles — I do remember that they told me that his conservative views elected a certain US president who shall not be named. I was not going to engage.)
“Oh, God,” I whispered under my breath.
“What’s that?” He said as he sat down.
“Uhmm. Nothing” I responded. Making a mental note to flag down the flight attendant sooner for my drink. I pressed the button. She arrived, only to inform me that they could only begin serving wine when we were airbound. I knew she meant that they could only begin serving cattle-class wine when airbound. Sigh.
“Hi! My name is David!” He said after the flight attendant left.
“How do you do? I am Zusong.” After a few tries, he got it close enough. He asked me what I did for work and I told him.
“What about you?” I asked
“I am a head pastor at (don’t remember) in Iowa” As David put it, he had given his life to Christ by the time he was 17 and went off to Bible training college where they taught him about “true Christianity, not like those Catholics and others who have perverted the gospel.” (Of all the people to share a seat with me, I got this guy! If he didn’t seem to get along with other Christian denominations, I felt sick thinking about his views on other religions.) I nodded wearily. (I wasn’t in the mood for arguments — the election had worn me out leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.)
“And what are you going to do in South Africa?” I asked, trying to divert the conversation.
“Oh, this is my first time leaving America! I am transiting through South Africa. I am going to Moz…Myz.” He struggled.
“Mozambique?” I offered.
“Ahh yes! You know I am still getting used to the pronunciations. Yes, I am transferring in South Africa to Mozambique.”
“For?”
“Isn’t it obvious? To spread the Gospel of Christ! People have perverted our world so much that God has distanced himself from earth. In the past, God’s presence could be felt among people but they started renouncing him — This is why things are getting worse now. We need to ensure people understand the true way of Christ. (Oh God…don’t…) You now have people fornicating, doing drugs, women forgetting that they are blessed to be mothers, and even more bizarrely, gay people (Please don’t Obroni, at least wait until I’ve had my wine!) are shoving their lifestyles down everyone’s throats. We are heading for a fiery end if we continue.” (Why me?!)
“I see..” I responded, sharpening my claws
“So, are you married?” He asked (My in.)
“Oh..” I sat up straight in my chair, beamed my pearly 32s, and fixed my eyes on his.
“I am a proud gay black man.” His mouth dropped and his face reddened. He turned away and fidgeted with his books. I did not look away. After what seemed like a long pause, he whispered under his breath:
“This is going to be a loooong flight!”
I laughed out loud. In fact, the rest of the trip wasn’t that long. It ended up being one of the most cordial and interesting conversations I had had. It turned out that this was the very first time David had met a gay, black, Ghanaian man. I must have been a lot for him just as he was a lot for me. David was afraid of his God; his God didn’t love unconditionally; in fact, being a decent human being wasn’t enough — you had to ensure that others believed just like you did (using force if necessary! Sigh.) This was a God who was leaning heavily toward heteronormativity. This was the God I was taught to believe as a child, the God who was to be feared and loved because he held the prospect of everlasting torture as a threat. The God who Ethan accused bore too many human judgments — a convenient but dangerous proxy for the powerful. David’s God no longer resonated with me — I had outgrown that image.
The next day, however, I saw a very different image of God — one that filled me with such abundant wonder that I felt my heart would burst with joy. At Richard and Roland’s wedding, the memo went out that all the guests were to wear their traditional attires. People from all over the world, speaking different languages attended. The grooms, globalists that they were, believed in and appreciated equality and wanted their wedding to reflect the vibrancy of their beliefs. I showed up donned in my very best kente cloth with matching traditional leather sandals. The verdant lush grounds of the Golden Gate Highlands National Park with its majestic Brandwag Buttress in the distance provided an Eden-like utopia for the beautiful guests who were various shades, genders, religions, age groups, and sexualities. My ears sang with the gleeful chirps of Brown and White children playing and dancing together gleefully on the perfectly manicured lawns, as their proud parents gyrated in vibrant multi-colored wax prints to gurgling African drums leading up to the exchange of vows. It was the most diverse and inclusive environment that I had ever had the pleasure of being a part of and I loved it!
“What is this magical place?!” I whispered to myself. I was holding back tears, but ultimately failed when the officiant, a black female pastor, also wearing an ebullient kaba and slit led us to sing the gospel hymn:
“Let there be love shared among us
Let there be love in our eyes
May now Your love sweep this nation.
Cause us oh Lord to arise
Give us a fresh understanding
Of brotherly love that is real,
Let there be love shared among us,
Let there be love
Let there be hope shared among us
Let there be hope in our eyes
May now Your hope sweep this nation.
Cause us oh Lord to arise
Give us a fresh understanding
Of brotherly love that is real,
Let there be hope shared among us,
Let there be hope.
Let there be joy shared among us
Let there be joy in our eyes
May now Your joy sweep this nation.
Cause us oh Lord to arise
Give us a fresh understanding
Of sisterly love that is real,
Let there be joy shared among us,
Let there be joy.”
My heart overflowed. Richard and Roland’s God had space for all that I was and didn’t ascribe to pervasive inequalities and prejudices. God didn’t care whether you were black, white, woman, man, LGBT+, straight, religious, or non-religious it didn’t matter — you deserved to be happy just the way you were. I found that many religious people around the world had similar ideas of a loving God. Anglican Archbishop, and anti-apartheid hero, Desmond Tutu said, “I can’t for the life of me imagine that God would say, ‘I will punish you because you are black; you should have been white. I will punish you because you are a woman; you should have been a man. I punish you because you are homosexual; you ought to have been heterosexual. I can’t, I can’t for the life of me believe that that is how God sees things.”
In one trip I had been presented with two different views of God — one was restrictive (like the God of my childhood), while the other loved and accepted everyone unconditionally and also discouraged self-loathing. It occurred to me that perhaps the (likely straight and white) men who selected transcripts and translated them into what we now called the Bible at The Council of Nicaea projected their values on to what would become the current conservative ideas of God. I don’t think there is anything wrong with projecting personal attributes to a deity — this helps the projector relate to what would have otherwise been too nebulous to comprehend. However, if the Crusades, Middle Ages, Colonialism, Genocide of Native Americans, The Stolen Generations, The World Wars (or European Wars — but I am getting ahead of myself) and suppressive religious states, just to mention a few, have taught us anything, it is that there ought to be a separation of church and state to prevent the powerful from persecuting anyone who did not ascribe to their ideas of God. This is why I still believe that religion; or lack thereof remain personal.
As I grew to love and understand myself more, God shed previously ascribed gender and racial identities. I now use the pronouns “They”, “Her”, “Ze” or “Him” interchangeably when I refer to God. I began to ascribe an out-of-this-word-gold-standard of acceptance and unconditional love to The Divine. My new image of God had space for the beautiful diversity of human existence. For me, God will continue to grow — this newer and bigger incarnation of The Divine doesn’t need me to defend them. She only requires I realize Ze lives deep in my heart, in every kind deed I do, warm words I exchange and love I feel. That works for me, for now.
