The Mama Bears Have a Story to Tell: Look Out Church, If You’re Mean to Their Kids!

Ken Wilson
Aug 31, 2018 · 4 min read

Between 2013 and 2014 a few of us pastors made a break for it — full inclusion for LGBTQ+ in our evangelical-connected churches — but the Gatekeepers of Evangelicalism were more than up to the task, and shut us down. The prospect of “evangelical pastor-led change from within” plummeted. Licking our wounds, we went out into the wilderness to set up our LGBTQ+ inclusive churches, far enough from the eye or the reach of the Evangelical Elders to be any threat.

What we didn’t account for is the Mama Bears — the mothers of LGBTQ+ kids ensconced in great-if-you’re-straight evangelical churches. Moms who realized “This church puts my gay child at risk — and the problem is the church, not my kid.” Of course, the mothers of LGBTQ+ kids have been in Evangelical churches for ages. But most kids came out to them much later, after moving away from home, if at all. And everyone kept quiet about the whole thing. It still works that way in many places (and needs to for safety’s sake) but increasingly, it doesn’t work that way at all. There’s so much more open disclosure, so much more shouting from the rooftops (or talking openly in the dining room) what had only been whispered in secret not too long ago.

Plus, hello! many of the Mama Bears came from evangelical churches that are really good at encouraging people: DO NOT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOUR STORY! TELL IT!

So yes, these moms often leave their beloved church home for the sake of solidarity with their LGBTQ+ children. But they don’t leave as quietly as they used to. They leave, telling their story. And after they leave, they keep telling their story to anyone with ears to hear. They find each other (sister Mama Bears and other sympathetic moms) on social media, at Starbucks, in neighborhood Bible Studies, and on the sidelines of the never-ending soccer matches. Where they tell their stories — and find out who their real friends are. Whether you’ve heard their names or not — Liz Dyer, Sarah Cunningham, Abby De Fiesta Cortez, and Kathy Baldock are some that come instantly to mind — doesn’t really matter. Their numbers are growing and it’s not about their names so much as their message.

They are not ashamed of their kids and they are not ashamed of the gospel that embraces their kids.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel” is a phrase from Paul’s letter to the Romans, the notorious first chapter, used by preachers and theologians to stigmatize LGBTQ+ people (and those who stand by them). In this chapter, Paul is in diatribe mode — a common rhetorical device of his time (and ours). He’s inveighing against gross pagan idolatry and the sexual practices associated with it — which are legion. These include pederasty (men of privilege, exchanging it with pre-adolescent boys for sexual services), the ubiquitous sexual abuse of slaves, and orgiastic sex, shaped by the Greco-Roman glorification of the phallus. Paul’s language in no way describes the kids of the Mama Bears. His diatribe is against sexual violence and not against the virtually unrecognized phenomenon of “homosexuality” (a word not even coined until many centuries later). The Mama Bears know it better than the preachers and the theologians do; these men (almost all are men) understand that standing with LGBTQ+ people against the Guardians of Orthodoxy comes with a heavy cost. Most demure.

The Mama Bears, increasingly, do not demure. Who ever heard of a Mama Bear standing between her child and a hostile world, demurring?

No, increasingly, they are finding their voice. The stories they tell are love stories — their love for their children and their love for God and their efforts to reconcile the two, when so-called “wisdom” like “love the sinner, hate the sin” fails the scratch-and-sniff test.

The letter to the Romans, read well, is a love story too. It’s the love story of a man not ashamed of the goodness of the good news. Why use that phrase, “not ashamed,” unless he were constantly being shamed by others for his gospel? In fact he was — shamed by Gentiles for his insistent Jewishness and shamed by his Jewish colleagues for his message of full-on Gentile inclusion. It’s clear from his letter that he was often criticized by his co-religionists as libertine, shamed for his gospel of sloppy grace that let too many people in.

Isn’t that what all our gospel fights are over? Who gets in? Can women lead? Are slaves our brothers and sisters, so we cannot own them anymore? Must we stop bludgeoning our own children with texts that cannot apply to them because they in no way describe them? Yes. Yes. Yes. The gospel is never worse than we think, always better. The best possible news.

I went to the second-ever Pride event at a smaller town in my home state, Michigan. It wasn’t like the Pride events in my more liberal home town, Ann Arbor. There was a heavier police presence. The organizers last year had their house torched the week of the first-ever Pride event. The celebration was more cautious than outlandish.

But there they were in the parade, the Mama Bears, with a banner much like the one in the lead photo for this post (thanks Sarah Cunningham). I’m guessing it was the first Pride parade for these moms, but it won’t be the last.

And I’m telling you: the Mama Bears are a force to contend with. Keep out of their way.

Solus Jesus

Solus Jesus: A Theology of Resistance, is the place to explore a new approach to Christianity. Emily Swan & Ken Wilson are co-pastors of Blue Ocean Faith, Ann Arbor (a2blue.org).

Ken Wilson

Written by

Co-Author with Emily Swan of Solus Jesus: A Theology of Resistance, and co-pastor of Blue Ocean Faith, Ann Arbor, a progressive, inclusive church (a2blue.org).

Solus Jesus

Solus Jesus: A Theology of Resistance, is the place to explore a new approach to Christianity. Emily Swan & Ken Wilson are co-pastors of Blue Ocean Faith, Ann Arbor (a2blue.org).

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