It was off to one of my favorite events of the year in Los Angeles: The LA Times Festival of Books. My first conversation was called "Inner Self: Faith & Gay Identity." The below biographies are stolen from the LA Times Festival guide:
Jeff Chu: Chu grew up in Berkeley and Miami. He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, earned a master's degree from the London School of Economics and has received French-American Foundation and Harvard Divinity School fellowships. He has written and edited for Time, Conde Nast Portfolio and Fast Company
Aaron Hartzler: Hartzler is a writer and actor who grew up in Kansas City. He currently splits hit time between Los Angeles and Palm Springs, where he lives with his boyfriend, Nate, and their two dogs, Charlie and Brah. His memoir, "Rapture Practice," was published earlier this month.
Chris Stedman: Stedman is the assistant humanist chaplain at Harvard University, emeritus managing director of state of formation at the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue and author of "Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious." He is the founder of the first blog dedicated to exploring atheist-interfaith engagement, NonProphet Status, and writes fro CNN, MSNBC, the Rumpus and the Advocate, among others.
The below are my notes -- flawed as they might be:
Aaron Hartzler: [His book is for a young adult audience.] Why target young adult audience? Tried to focus his memoir. He had so much material from his teen years. He hopes to turn teenagers onto memoirs. He tried to write from a 16-year old perspective.
What do we mean by believer? He wasn't kicked out of the church. He came up to brick wall of his sexuality. Do we believe the Bible is the word of God? Do you believe the Bible is inspired by God? If people don't believe, why go to church? Liberal Christians seem to shoehorn gays through the Bible.
Does Jesus love you? Do you love yourself? You need to know you're okay. That is where it needs to start.
Liberal denominations can be an exit out of Christianity.
Thinks coming out now is easier than in 1993. Ellen wasn't on TV yet. No one was talking about it on the news.
Marriage always had a religious aspect, but should be open to everyone.
Chris Stedman: Faitheist is a subset of atheists who are over-accommodating of people of faith. Derogatory term. Live in a world along side each other.
Converted to fundamentalist Christianity and joined a youth group. The group was very against homosexuality, but he was realizing his attraction to men. Mom took him to a more progressive church. Didn't feel he could have to terms if his mom didn't do this.
Follows Gay/Christian issues but doesn't have a dog in the fight as he is an atheist, but did find church more open then at high school. A problem with the LGBT community is that it isn't able to talk about religion.
When exchange stories, you build relationships. When in the closet, there are no stories shared. Marriage is only religious sacrament with a legal counterpart.
Jeff Chu: When he came out, he craved people's stories. There were two suggestions given to him when he came out. The conservative side said to be obedient to God. The other side said he should leave Christianity, because Christians hate gays. He went to Westboro to interview them for his book. He found out that they were actually nice. Self aware. Sense of humor. Their argument for their hateful comments: what kind of neighbor would I be if we didn't shock you out of your sin.
Uses believer loosely. Christians do not all serve the same "Jesus."
Acceptance of the LGBT community since his youth has gotten better outside of the church versus inside teh church. He doesn't think the books the three authors wrote would have been published 20 years ago, but the world still needs more conversations.
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