A review by glendonrfrank
Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church by Bridget Eileen Rivera

4.0

In this book, Bridget Eileen Rivera hits on a theme I've been tracking more and more over the past few years, which is the church's hypocrisy in regards to its LGBTQ+ members. Many a time I have heard Christians insist that you "can't set your personal/sexual identity above your identity in Christ!!" when A) no other LGBTQ+ Christians are claiming to do that, and B) it is actually the mainline majority who is so obsessed with sexual identity to the point where anything that doesn't align with strictly heteronormative values is read as heresy. Heteronormative marriage has become the idol of the church, and Rivera breaks down a lot of the ways that the church's vision of marriage has changed over the years, and how modern Christians are willing to forgo any number of commands in order to preserve their vision of normativity yet refuse to give that same grace to anyone even considering LGBTQ+ rights. Divorce and contraceptives have just as much "Biblical precedent" for their exclusion in the church, and there are more theologically-important topics like the Eucharist or Baptism that we are comfortable agreeing to disagree on, so why have we refused to create space for the possibility of LGBTQ+ inclusion? Rivera reveals that the barriers to entry for LGBTQ+ Christians are less about "Biblical consistency" so much as they are about maintaining the status quo. But if our status quo means the harm and, often, death of those around us, then we need to wake up and take action.