One of the most powerful parts of America’s democracy is freedom of religion. My appreciation for it, empowers me to be bold about my Christian faith, but it also inspires me to respect those who believe differently than me. One reason America was created was to give religious freedom. The 1st amendment was inspired by the Pilgrims desire to worship as they chose. The Pilgrims escaped to the New World to find a refuge from an oppressive society that only wanted them to worship in one way. When the Founders wrote the Constitution, they remembered the trials of the Pilgrims and created the 1st Amendment that not only says we can worship as we choose, but that the country cannot mandate the ways that people worship (or don’t worship).

This freedom benefits me as a woman from a very orthodox faith to be able to live out my rituals and liturgical practice without discrimination or fear of persecution and it should also provide the same opportunity to anyone else. The 1st Amendment has our free will in mind and free will was given to us by God. He did not create us to be robots, but we think and feel independently. America’s whole design is to protect our freedom to exercise our free will. People who are exercising that free will in how they worship should not be offensive to others. How I worship, if it is not bothering, oppressing or discriminating against others, should not be offensive to others. It should also cause us to see people as human beings who choose different paths of faith and religion (or no religion at all) based on very real human experiences and emotions. We somehow diminish a person’s feelings if they don’t line up with our faith.

When I think of Jesus and how he related to people, he never defined people by the ways they didn’t follow his commands. When the Pharisees brought the adulterous woman to Jesus to be stoned, he refused to join them in casting a stone. Instead he asked if any of them were perfect. When they realized that they were not perfect, they walked away. After they walked away, Jesus spoke to her, without condemnation. He told her what she should do (“Go and sin no more.”) but he did not micromanage that. Jesus didn’t follow her around to make sure she did. Jesus didn’t stand in the square (or Twitter) and talk about how awful she is. Jesus never hurled insults (or demeaning posts) at people who didn’t follow him and neither should we.

This is not judgement day. This is not Heaven. When I was young, my mom taught me about The Time Period of Grace. This is the time where in love we should share our faith with the world and with grace accept people whether they follow our faith path or not. The judgement is God’s responsibility (and I have a feeling that we will all be surprised about who is in Heaven, because I KNOW I’m a hot mess!). Jesus is the perfect example. I don’t even look at the Apostles as perfect examples, because the Bible reveals they were flawed! Peter had to be shown a vision to share the gospel with Cornelius. Even after this vision, he continued to discriminate against Gentiles, until Paul confronted him! There is a possibility that Paul misjudged John Mark and when Barnabas stood up for John Mark it caused a permanent break in he and Paul’s relationship. Later on Paul invites John Mark to minister with him, now saying he is “useful in my ministry.” But JESUS was perfect in how he related to all of humanity, no matter how flawed they were and the only ones he became angry with were the Pharisees. He was angry, because of how unkind they were to those who didn’t seem good enough. Their condescending attitudes ostracized most people from coming to him. He sat with these people. He ate with these people. He spent time loving on these people. This is actually one of the reasons why he was killed…because he ate with tax collectors and sinners. In fact, many of his disciples were definitely “not good enough.” Mary had demons. Matthew was a tax collector. Simon (not Peter) was a zealot. He even let Judas be his disciple KNOWING he would betray him!

Why was Jesus so chill when it came to sin (sin is just a Latin word that means “to miss the mark”)? Because as the Son of God, he knew that he was in the time period of Grace, that time of century after century where humanity can live out their free will, trying to find their way to God. If we spend so much time telling people over and over again, why they’re not good enough, we are losing time to tell them why the God of the universe loves us WHILE we are in sin. We are miscommunicating that people have to be perfect first before being accepted. Jesus called Matthew WHILE he was tax collecting. He calls us WHILE we are not good enough. Then as the disciples began to follow Christ and be in relationship with him, slowly, through a process, an evolution happens. But it is not up to us to tell them how that process should happen. The Spirit of God does the work. Our job is to tell the gospel message and then to disciple those who choose to follow the same faith path.

I want to share a little about my faith and even as I prepare to, I am fearful that someone will read this and discriminate against me, but I want you to know me. I only desire authentic relationship and that means friendships should allow for people to have differing beliefs without fear of rejection. I pray I will be given the same grace and respect that I extend to others. I seek this grace because even as I share how I try to live out my faith, I am aware that I do not perfectly follow the laws of God. It’s impossible for any of us to. I am human and like everyone else, I am trying to navigate this world the best way that I can.

I come from a very strict Christian denomination. It affects how I eat, what music I listen to, what I watch on my phone or TV, clothes I wear, who I could marry, how I wake up and how I lay down. It is a fully consecrated and strict path. I do not feel that it is right for this way of living to be mandated for all people. There is no way a person could live this way, except for a deep love for the faith. Outside of that passion for it, the person would feel oppressed. Even my wedding ceremony was a faith ritual (whew it was such a long wedding), revealing that symbolism between my husband not touching me until our wedding night as it is connected to the high priest going into the holy of holies of the Temple. We both made decisions as teenagers to not have sex until our wedding night. This was not done out of fear but out of both of us as teens deciding that this was the path we chose. We both have friends that did not make this choice and they are still our closest friends. When we are all together, we don’t see them as different or less than us. We see them as human beings. On our wedding night, when he came into me, my “priest” was welcomed into me as the priest entered the holy of holies. Just as in scripture, only certain people could enter the very center of the Tabernacle, the Holy of Holies. In the same way, only one man could come to me. My relationship to my husband is a symbol of that. When my hymen broke, we are reminded of when Jesus tore the veil of the Temple so that we know we are welcomed in. Our wedding, our marriage is a ritual of our faith, which is why we are restricted to marrying someone who understands this ritual and why this specific faith requires a man and a woman to be married in order to have that moment of oneness and to fulfill that symbolism. My faith does not allow us to just marry for love (my husband and I both ended relationships even though there was love, but there was not a partner to live out this faith with). We marry for love AND to have that love symbolize our relationship to Jesus Christ in every way. Our faith gives a limited choice to either remain celibate or to marry as a way to symbolize Christ coming into us. His Word says that Christian marriages are a symbol of God’s relationship to the church. Yet, this practice…this ritual should not be required for everyone, because everyone may not see it this way or believe in it, and that is their choice. It should be a choice. I feel this way, because I believe with all my heart that all types of people fall in love.

Through high school students I have worked with, through friends from grad school and friends in academia, I realize that the love I have found with my husband in my faith is not the only valid form of love. To say this, does not negate how much I value and believe that I have found the truth. It is ok to believe in something. We all believe in….something…with all of our hearts! Yet, I know that love looks different for all types of people, whether I understand it or not. I have met people who have different faiths and they fall in love. I have met a young woman fall in love with an older man and the other way around. I have met a woman who fell in love with a man paralyzed from the chest down. I have met Black people fall in love White people. I have met women who fell in love with women and men who fell in love with men. The latter has been painful to watch, because it is heartbreaking for me to watch the person go through rejection and despair as they come to terms with very real feelings.

I tried to explain this to my children. I told them that if someone told me that I was not allowed to be married to or to love their father, I would be devastated. I then explained that there are people who really fall in love with the same sex and in many Christian denominations that love is not permitted. That means a person would have to sacrifice ever knowing partnership, love and relationship to follow this path. That is something that a person should not be forced to do, but it should be a decision they make from a choice in their hearts. They should not be rejected, mistreated, “punished” because they choose not to. It is a huge sacrifice, especially when a person feels LOVE for someone.

And this is where America comes in. It is where we all have a right to pursue life, liberty and happiness. Sometimes Christians act like some people can’t have this. They can’t have the job they want, go to the school they want, serve on the board they want, have the love that they want, have any opportunity that is free to anyone in this democracy! But this is wrong, because America is not a church! Sometimes it feels like America, especially Christians in America, have become the very thing the Pilgrims were trying to escape! When we treat any citizen like this, we are acting the same way that England acted as the Pilgrims fled! America was created to be different from that! It gives the freedom for churches to exist and to practice their faith, but it also gives the same freedom for any person to believe as they want to without discrimination, because America is not a church! It is not confined to my strict faith or anyone else’s. It is ALSO the country where I can go to my church, live out all of the tenets of my faith and I should not be mistreated. Every faith path has some sort of restrictions or protocols to follow, every single one and America has made space where we can practice whatever we believe, freely. The first amendment says, “Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. It protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” To legislate love is unconstitutional. To look at human beings only through the lens of how they don’t live as your faith commands, is also a form of discrimination, the same kind of discrimination the Pilgrims were running away from, because you are unable to see the beauty of their humanity. You see them as less than a human being and therefore you may unconsciouly feel that they cannot enjoy the same rights as you do.

We live in a country, where I am free to live out my faith, to teach it to my children and to abstain from anything that is outside of the teachings of my faith. But I also live in a country where someone else can choose to believe as they choose and to allow that belief to govern how they live.

When I get to heaven, God is not going to reward me for how mean I was to those who lived outside of my faith. He is going to judge me based on how I loved unconditionally as Jesus loved everyone. How do I know this? Because that is exactly what Jesus did to the Pharisees. He judged them harshly for how they mistreated and tried to “punish” those who did not follow the law. Matthew 7:1-3 says, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” When I meet him, God is going to ask what I did to show the world His love, because showing them his judgement and wrath is not what he said at the Great Commission. He told me to tell them about Him and to make disciples out of those who have freely chosen to follow him. So my focus in this life, until I get to heaven is to share the gospel; disciple those who want it; love unconditionally; see all people as equally human, deserving of every happiness America can provide and to find peace in this world that is full of so many different, people, faiths, beliefs, and cultures that may not align with mine, and that is ok.

I will end with this video of a pastor and his wife trying to relate to their now transgender daughter from a place of love and still holding to what their faith teaches. When she talked about being suicidal, the dad simply said, “That’s a non-negotiable. I will not lose my child over this.” The parents have chosen to simply love. The trans daughter has chosen to also love her parents, even though they struggle to accept that their son has now become a trans woman. I pray the words I have shared and this story, will minister to someone.

CNN sits down with preacher’s family working to accept their trans daughter | Watch (msn.com)