Schadenfreude, but with a little hope

Jermaine Jakes, shown below, is the son of Dallas evangelist T.D. Jakes, shown above. Jakes Pere has long been an opponent of equal civil and human rights for GLBT people. He has said that he would never employ an openly gay person. He has publicly and actively opposed any and all attempts to provide equal protection under the law for GLBT people, and has referred to homosexuality in general as a form of "brokenness". Jakes Fils, by contrast, was recently arrested in a public park sex sting, as described below by the Dallas Morning News:

"Jermaine Donnell Jakes, 29, faces a charge of indecent exposure after allegedly exposing himself in front of two undercover vice detectives shortly after 10 p.m. on Jan. 3. Senior Cpl. Janice Crowther, a DPD spokeswoman, confirmed Thursday, Feb. 12 that the detectives were both male. According to an arrest affidavit, the detectives were conducting an investigation into citizen complaints of sexual activity when they observed Jakes and several other unknown males park their vehicles in the lot east of the park at 2106 W. Kiest Blvd. The detectives followed Jakes into a wooded area, where he approached them with his penis exposed through his unzipped pants, the affidavit states. Jakes masturbated for several seconds while making eye contact with one of the detectives. Jakes made no attempt to conceal his penis despite people walking and jogging on a trail nearby, the affidavit states. According to court records, Jermaine Jakes listed his place of employment as T.D. Jakes Ministries."

I'm not a big fan of sex stings. I think that as long as the only people involved or affected are consenting adults, and as long as no tangible damage results from such activities, people should be able to have sex wherever they want. I also think that bathhouses and sex clubs provide a needed service in that they are some of the best ways for guys who prefer recreational/casual sex to get off without fear of arrest or bashing (or worse). But I can't say I didn't initially snicker when I heard about the fact that this notoriously homophobic snake oil salesman has a son with a little sugar in his tank. One of my favorite things is a little Schadenfreude associated with people who hate me. In the past few years as the Potemkin village of baby-boomer Christo-fascism has started to wither in the United States, I've had many opportunities to enjoy watching these homophobes choke on their own well-publicized hypocrisy.

But then I stopped for a second to consider the position in which Jakes Fils finds himself today. I've known lots of gay preacher's kids, and to a man they have all been damaged as a result of their upbringing. All of them have demonstrated a thoroughly fucked-up sense of self-agency and sexual self-worth, and all of them have vascillated between periods of time characterized by a highly toxic fundamentalism and short bursts of often self-destructive compensatory behaviors. It's as though they had never known love that was not heavily laden with judgement and tethered to the earth by disappointment, desperation, and fear. The only way I got through my own adolescence was the knowledge that my family and friends loved me no matter what. Bishop Jakes' son, on the other hand, knew full well that no matter how virtuously he lived his life, his father (if he knew the truth) would always view him as "broken". That kind of bone-crushing loneliness is hard to comprehend, but it's something that Jakes Fils lived with every day.

It makes me wonder what his response was to his arrest... could he, deep down, have been rejoicing that his secret was finally out in the open? Could he possibly feel a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, his life could have turned toward the sun as a result of this single, unexpected incident? After living for 29 years thinking that his life's story had already been written for him by a man whose career was based on the subjugation and dehumanization of gay people, could he be trembling with the scary but exciting prospect of actually living as an honest, open, and respectable gay man?

I hope this is true. I hope that this guy is able to use this incident to facilitate a new path. There's light at the end of that tunnel, and it's not a train.

Ingredients for a new Christian church

Farmboyz / Perge Modo: Ingredients for a new Christian church



The always eloquent and insightful Father Tony of the Farmboyz blog (see link above) suggests a new paradigm for the Christian faith. In summary, his suggestions are as follows:

1. How you share your penis or vagina with consenting adults is your own business.

2. Let there be freedom to subscribe to the particulars of God as you see them.

3. Let there be abundant forgiveness.

4. Let us be skilled in the pursuit of happiness and peace, eschewing cynicism and mean-spirited behavior.

5. Let our church own absolutely nothing.

6. Let us not care whether our church has five members or five million members. Jesus is not Mary Kay.

7. Let the leaders of our church announce themselves; real church leaders are easily discernible by the flock.

Choosing a religion is much like choosing the scaffolding upon which one builds one's life. I think it takes a great deal of introspective ability and a deeply objective knowledge of self to be able to identify the characteristics of a successful new religious paradigm.

Most Americans choose their religious affiliation based on convenience or inertia. The man she loves is Jewish, therefore she converts to Judaism. My parents were Methodist, therefore I will be Methodist. A man who is Lutheran can't find a church he likes after moving to a new town, so he joins a Presbyterian church instead. Americans are a practical people who, though certainly able, would prefer to avoid the fracas of introspective self-evaluation if at all possible. We're too busy managing the minutiae of our lives, and besides... Antiques Roadshow is on at 7.

Occasionally, though, we find ourselves with an inexplicable lull in our daily schedule. If we're not careful, we might find ourselves questioning the allegiances through which we define ourselves. From this questioning comes a nagging suspicion that we might very well be better off (on a number of levels) if we simply break away from the flock and forge our own path. This could mean a simple switch from the Baptist church on Main Street to the Baptist church west of town. More interestingly, though, it could mean a fundamental reorganization of our conceptual framework regarding religion, spirit, and belief.

Belief is a difficult word. When we believe in something, we often cease to question it, and we are therefore no longer open to the tentative consideration that what we believe may not, in fact, be true. We cling to beliefs despite overwhelming piles of evidence to the contrary. We fight with each other in an effort to show that our beliefs are superior to others'.

Taking a cue from Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs, wouldn't it be interesting to create a new religious paradigm that centered on thinking rather than believing? Action rather than worship? Example rather than ridicule? To that end, I offer a few additions to the good Father Tony's formidable list:

1. Let our church embrace education in all its many forms. Let us be active and involved in ensuring that all our citizens, whether or not they join our church, are provided with a comprehensive education based on the best available evidence.

2. Let our church respect the rights of others to wear whatever religious affiliation they choose, even if that affiliation feels more like a straitjacket to us. "Live and let live" is not just a colloquial saying, but is also a volitional action.

3. Let our church view its tenets not as amorphous beliefs, but as a "to-do" list.

All that said, Father Tony's commenters are right... this all sounds a lot like the Unitarians. Are we really in need of a new paradigm, or is there already an extant option just waiting for us to be open-minded enough to recognize it? There goes that pesky introspection again.