Guitar and keyboard accompanied a drum beat, forming a fluent melody which reechoed around this small space. There were a few people on the stage leading almost one hundred members to sing with song after song. It seemed that their out-of-tune and disordered tempo didn’t affect their enthusiastic emotion. Many people were singing with their eyes closed. Some of them even raised their hands up to the ceiling, yelling “thank the Lord!” eagerly.

As a Christian, I couldn’t be more familiar with this scene. This was exactly a Sunday service should be, I thought it to myself. However, it seemed to me that there was still something different inside. Most attendants were men. Thus, compared to low-pitched and thick voices like a huge engine operating around me, my tune was higher. It made me feel uneasy because I didn’t want my high voice to make people notice me, a new comer to the church. I sang along in a lower voice absent-mindedly while some distinct sounds which differed from any other instruments I could recognize flowing into my ears. It was unlike the used melodies gently led by the guitar. My sight moved around to search for the unique tune. Finally, I found out that it was caused by a traditional Chinese instrument, the erhu fiddle. It surprised me that such a high-pitched Chinese instrument could comprise a special harmony with guitars and the keyboards, the western instruments.

This was the Sunday service held in Tong-Kwang, a homosexual church, and also my first time being there. It is not a church like other churches you can see on the streets- churches which have an obvious sign such as a cross or a huge board with “God so loved the world” on it. Tong-Kwang is in a low-profile position. You cannot enter their place anytime when you want to worship God on Sunday morning. To join their Sunday service, you need to email them first and I did it twice but I didn’t get any response. I finally contacted them through a gay Christian friend of mine. Because they wanted to keep their location secrete, we need to appoint a place to wait for church members to lead us to the church. Owing to the rejection I once faced, I took this opportunity so seriously that I arrived at the MRT station where we had appointed 15 minutes earlier than the scheduled time.

Tong-Kwang is on the third floor of an old building, which is located near the traditional morning market in Taipei. Following the church members to cross the oldish area while heard vendors talking loudly with customers, I could barely notice the small and narrow building, which covered by ceramic tiles with purple deep red color, not to mention the church itself. It was almost invisible in this traditional surrounding. When we stepped into the building, the first floor of the building was small enough to fit only an elevator. There were about 5 people crowded in the tiny elevator to waiting the elevator for taking us to the third floor, where the church is located. Before entering the church, I expected to see a white, large hall with a huge cross hanging on the white wall. Many long, wooden benches were arranged in rows with proper order. Surprisingly, Tong-Kwang had nothing in common with churches I had attended before. The first thing I saw was a traditional Chinese wooden screen, blocking most things inside. The space of the church itself was a reconstruction of a long and narrow apartment. The living room was now serving for the meeting house, piling several rows of folding chair under the stage. There were about 10 church members inside. Everyone was preparing for the service later on. The church band was practicing songs, which we were going to sing in the service, on the stage of the meeting house. At the same time, the flavorful smell of meat and the tomato sauce flowed into my nose, told me that others were preparing lunch for after the service in the kitchen. It gave me a feeling like I was going to visit someone’s apartment for lunch instead of Sunday service. When we passed screen, a man came to us and led us to a small reception room. He gave us a form to fill out and asked for our identification. After filling out all the forms, we were led to the meeting house to wait for the service to start. During the waiting time there were more and more people coming in and rows of chairs increased from three rows to about twelve rows. There were about seventy people near the time the service began.

Tong-Kwang Light House Presbyterian Church was established by a female priest, Yang Ya-Huei in 1995. After graduating from Tainan Theological College & Seminary, Yang Ya-Huei went to United States to study Theology at the Chicago Theological Seminary. After coming into contact with homosexual Christians in Chicago, she found out that churches in Taiwan still held severe misunderstandings towards homosexual groups. She came back to Taiwan and formed a fellowship called Jonathan Fellowship with a group of gay Christians in 1994 to help homosexual Christians. In the following year, she formed the first homosexual church, Tong –Kwang.

Although Tong-Kwang church has existed in Taiwan for ten years, most churches are still against homosexuality. Once a priest in my church mentioned homosexuality in his Sunday service. He indicated that homosexuality was the main reason to cause some diseases such as AlDS. He said that homosexuality is a sinful thing and that homosexuals totally violate the Bible. What we need do is to change their orientation from homosexuality into heterosexuality. “They are on the wrong side of the path toward God. We need to pray to God to help them to change, to prevent them from committing more sins,” the priest said.

Moreover, Bruce, a college student from Tong-Kwang church told me that there was an Anti-homosexual parade held by Christian groups in Taichung a week before the Taiwan Pride Parade last year. “Taiwan has been damaged by gay parade for seven years and we don’t want to see Taipei become a city with more and more gays,“ the organizer of this parade, priest Chen said that, “We accept them as Christians doesn’t mean that we allow them to commit same sex crimes continuously.” The anti-homosexual groups claimed that gay Christians are criminals like murderers or rapists who commit guilty sins. They can be forgiven by the merciful God and accepted by churches only when they give up their sexual orientation and return to heterosexuality.

Several weeks later after the Sunday service, I went to Tong-kwang church for their Bible study youth fellowship on Saturday night. I was also confused about how gay Christians explain those contradictory verses in Bible so I asked church members this question. The leader of the youth fellowship, Ben was a tall, strong piano teacher who was near thirty said that, “There are many people who had the same doubts as you.”Ben said that to me while giving me a handout with detailed information on how to explain contradictions between homosexuality and Christianity. He smiled and said that there was a book written by the church founder, priest Yang, with more specific explanations on this issue. “If you have more problems, you can check the book or ask me,” he said while showing me the room with plenty of books. Unlike my church, which only have religious books in the church. This tiny room included various kinds of books, ranging from religious and homosexual books to the lastest graphic comic books. It was like a small library.

According to the handout, there was no clear distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality during the time the Bible was written. Furthermore, in a research paper, ” Homosexuality and the Bible,” written by Rev. Clay Witt, he mentions that the term “homosexuals” in English Bible did not appeared until 1946. He also illustrates that the same-sex activities which mentioned in Bible didn’t mean to condemn the homosexuality. For example, there were two verses written by Paul in New Testament “For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.” In this case, the original language Paul used was Greek. However, in Hellenistic language, Witt mentions that what Paul condemned was not homosexuality. Instead, he attacked especially on the heterosexuals who gave up their original sexual preferences to the opposite, homosexual, for example, and commit some lusty thing. In other words, Paul was criticizing heterosexual people who commit the same sex act not for their sexual orientation but just for fun. Witt argued that what the Bible really against is the indulgent lust, not the homosexuality. “The words “exchanged” and “gave up” imply a conscious decision which Paul associates with insatiable lust.”

There were couple minutes before the bible study begin so I asked Ben about his opinion toward “anti-homosexual” churches. It surprised me that he just gave me a very short answer.” It’s nothing actually. It’s because they do not understand us.” It was almost the same answer with another church member in youth fellowship, Bruce, a senior student in college who had a little stammer when he talks. He is not a talkative person like Ben or other members. While everybody was expressing their own opinion about the topic of bible study that day, he just sat next to me, the outsider of this church, and explained names or incidents which I wasn’t familiar with to me in his gentle voice. However, when I asked him the anti-homosexual question, his attitude became a little tougher. He said that it is inevitable for people nowadays to have this misunderstanding because it was the way they had been taught. He didn’t blame them but he wished this society could be more open-minded and accept other different identities. “Most of people put too much focus on some specific points such as homosexuality is a sinful thing according to the Bible. But the truth is, everyone on the earth is a sinner so basically we stand in the same group. They claim that homosexuals are sinners but are they not sinners?” He still answered with his gentle voice but a firm facial expression on his face.

On the other hand, Ben took my question further. “It is hard to change their stereotypes about us; meanwhile, what we need to do is question ourselves. How much can we release our kindness to those anti-homosexual groups? ” Ben turned his attitude serious. He thinks the key point of the problem is that the homosexual groups build a wall against heterosexuals. “I don’t like some homosexual activities such as gay parade in Taiwan. They are too centralizing.” He thought that such a gay parade was like drawing a circle, distinguishing “you” and “me.”

In the Bible study time, I found that their sexual identities make them view Christianity from different and more open perspectives. We read some verses in the fifth book of Matthew. It mentioned that “Christians cannot have sex before marriage.” Thus, Ben asked the group their opinions about sexuality. “Okay, I don’t want to go into some deep, serious discussion now. I only want to ask two yes or no questions. You guys just raise your hands and answer them. ” The first question was “Do you consider that sex is a sin?” No one raised their hands in this question. The second one was that,”Do you find that sex is a nature physiological thing like eating or sleeping?” Half of the members raised their hands. “I definitely consider sex as a natural thing. Our bodies are the gift given from our beloved God and so is this ability. In these verses, it doesn’t mean that we should forbid the sex thing; the real issue here is that God wants us to cherish our bodies and ability, use them carefully. ” Ben closed bible study with this brief conclusion.

During the break time of bible study, I asked my friend, a gay Christian who accompanied me for the entire Tong-kwang trip, whether he like this church or not. He gave me a big and satisfied smile as an answer. I knew him for about two years but I never saw him with such a content expression like that. He is very active both in school activities and the clubs. We had been in the same group for volunteering to teach elementary students for nearly half of a year. I remembered my first impression to him was a charming humorous guy but with a little sissy. He was also very popular both in the group of the volunteering camp, also among school classmates. Nonetheless, after he shared his struggle with me, I found out that he was suffering the confusion in managing these two identities at the same time. He had come out to his parents who accept his orientation peacefully. However, he still felt confused when he heard his parents praying about his sexual orientation to God, which made him feel that his sexual preference was wrong. He started to hide his homosexual identity not only in his church, but in his daily life.

Nonetheless, it was surprised that Ben didn’t have many difficulties in managing these two contradictory identities. “I’ve balance these two identities well,” he answered without any hesitation. It seemed to see that he saw the confused expression on my face so he mentioned that he had consulted many church members who have this confusion and he always told them that the fundamental idea for him is pondering the relationship between self and God. “My belief is very simple. I only focus on the relationship between God and me. Thus, I know what I want and what I am going to do.” He gave me an example of worshiping ancestors with incense. He said that he is still doing that at home because he doesn’t want to be a freak. However, this is totally forbidden by Christianity so I asked him how he could do this without any confusion. He then explained, “Worshiping ancestors with incense is just a ritual. In my heart I know that I am not worshiping other idols or gods. ” This was the most non-Christian way I had ever heard in my Christian life. However, most of the time in Tong-Kwang gave me not many obvious senses that I am in the Christian group.

I remembered clearly that after my first Sunday service in Tong-Kwang, church members invited me to their church love feast. During the tasteful lunch, I saw people hug and talk with each other with warmness and tenderness. When I enjoyed watching their energetic and happy facial expressions, a member greeted me with a surprising question, “Are you gay or straight?” At that moment I didn’t know how to react and I thought I had been intruded by a sharply knife. It gave me a feeling that if I wasn’t gay I couldn’t join them. Suddenly I had a feeling that I was like I was an outsider. I was not sure whether the question or the answer made me feel excluded. However, it reminded me of a conversation I had with Ben about the real reason why people go to Tong-Kwang. He mentioned that there are inevitably some people come to church not for the pursuit of God, but for seeking for love relationships. He said that the biggest problem of Tong-Kwang nowadays is that they cannot keep some members, who just search for partners, staying steady at the church. He answered me with a sad smile on his face.

After lunch, my friend and I follow a church member to leave the church. When we went down stairs to the first floor, I saw about 3 to 4 guys stand in front of the porch chatting and smoking. It seemed that they were just standing outside to smoke. The church member waved to them and they waved back too. They were apparently members of Tong-Kwang church. Somehow, I noticed the defense in their eyes when they saw my friend and me. They were like a huge wall against others, against me, a new visitor of the church. Suddenly, I was not sure the words, “come again,” the church members said to me when I left was truly meant it. However, I knew it was because of their contradictory identities cause them such a strong protection against others.

Sitting in the train back to Chungli, I kept wondering what the major dissimilarity between homosexual Christians and heterosexual Christians. The most obvious difference, of course, is their opposite sexual preferences. However, after the question I had been asked from the member, I found out that perhaps the most distinguishing difference is that, in the general church, you can easily hide the privacy of sexual orientation under the cover of “Christian” because no one will focus on the sexual issues for everyone is considered as heterosexuals. Nonetheless, in Tong-kwang, you need to define which categories of sexual preferences you belong to at first when filling out the form. There are categories like homosexuals, heterosexuals and bisexuals on the form. Every time I go to Tong-Kwang, I feel that I am exposed to the extremely sharp sunlight. The sexual preferences suddenly become the biggest issue among the church. I have to tell which categories I belong to at first then I can join. When the train stopped at Chungli, I still didn’t quite understand the meaning and purpose of categorizing people into different groups. However, although I don’t like the way of categorizing, I am still in the one category called Christian which may also excluded other non-Christian people outside of my world.

Reference:

“Homosexuality and the Bible”  Rev. Clay Witt

(http://www.hrmcc.org/Resources/StudyDocuments/bibleand.htm)