January 2018 Archives - Amber Cantorna

Hello Dear Friends! Greetings post GCN/QCF conference! For those of you who weren’t there, the Gay Christian Network (as of this last week) has officially been renamed Q Christian Fellowship and we just finished a fantastic weekend together in Denver, CO! Thank you to each one who joined us, who visited me at my exhibit booth, who came to my workshop with Susan Cottrell, and who stopped me in the hall to share your story with me. It was truly and honor to meet each of you and allow our life stories to intersect. A few things I want you all to know: If you came to my workshop on “Navigating Life and Relationships with Non-Affirming Parents”, thank you! I realize 60 minutes was not nearly enough to delve deeply into all the things on your hearts and I have already informed the powers that be that this workshop needs a 90 minute slot next year. There were so many questions that I know we didn’t get to and I want you to know that I value each of your journeys and hearts right where they are right now. If you are one of the many people who did not get your question answered at the breakout, don’t panic, because…. You can still have a voice! I am already working on some new resources around this topic of navigating your way out of the closet as a gay Christian, especially for those of us who come from conservative Christian backgrounds. […]

A Leap from Certainty to Faith

I grew up in a very certain world. My dad worked in a prominent position at Focus on the Family and my mom was both the homemaker and the primary home-school teacher to my brother and I. My dad was home by 5:15pm every night and my mom always had dinner on the table. My mornings started with family devotions over breakfast at 7am and ended with family dinners that often included Scripture memory. Church was on Sunday mornings and Awana’s on Wednesday night. I had the coveted Christian upbringing and the epitome of a “godly family.” Life was scheduled, predictable, and safe. But this certainty came with a pricetag. Our list of rules and regulations of how to live and love others caused us to not only exist within a very confined space but it also forced us to wear a façade. The tiniest bit of doubt or unbelief was seen as weakness. Although it wasn’t overtly stated, the underlying belief was that if you had enough faith and trusted God enough, you should have your shit together. But of course, no one really has all their shit together, so instead, we just pretended like we did. We hid the broken pieces of our lives behind a happy smile or a “I’m blessed” response when asked how we were doing. If people didn’t see our mess, then hypothetically, it didn’t exist. While causing us to hide our true selves, this also caused a level of judgment when it came […]

Purity Destroyed: A Guest Blog from Austin Pierce

This week, I’m featuring a guest blog by Austin Pierce. Austin is passionate about discovering what it means to bridge the gap between two seemingly opposing communities: being gay and being Christian. In this guest blog, Austin talks about sexual ethics and what he’s learned and come to value in regards to sexual purity. Give it a read… About five years ago, I was introduced to this term: “Purity Culture.” You may or may not have seen the phrase that describes a segment of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s characterized by the Christian church’s emphasis on sexual ethics and boundaries for marriage. Chances are, if you heard the term, it wasn’t in a positive context. For me, this idea of sexual purity seemed like a noble pursuit, but would later be recognized as a shame-based ideology that hindered many Christians as they got older. When I first heard the term, I didn’t feel like it had much bearing on me growing up. I had friends whose parents revered the Christian best-seller “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” a book-length manifesto about dating authored by a then 21-year-old virgin. Fortunately, my parents didn’t embrace the book and these circles of thought, so I felt unaffected by Purity Culture’s ideology. Or at least it seemed so. During my last two years of college, I had my own apartment. One day when I was leaving for class, I heard the loudest scream I’d ever heard. Panicked, I walked out onto my porch to see […]

Category: January 2018

Video Link, QCF, and New Resources on the Horizon!

A Leap from Certainty to Faith

Purity Destroyed: A Guest Blog from Austin Pierce