005: Rev L | Talking Sex and Faith

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{Person speaking} 

Welcome to Sex Positive Families where parents, caring adults, and advocates come to grow and learn about sexual health in a supportive community. I’m your host, and the founder of SPF, Melissa Carnagey. Join me, and special guests, as we dive into the art of sex-positive parenting. Together, we will shake the shame and trash the taboos to strengthen sexual health talks with the children in our lives. Thank you so much for joining us! 

{Same person speaking} 

Hi families. So what comes to mind when you think of faith, religion, and sexuality? I’ve spoken to many adults on this SPF journey thus far who have shared about an upbringing with religious foundations and what I have found is that it often contributed to less open, less sex-positive environments. There seems to be a block on what is considered appropriate sexually within many faith-based communities. So I’m excited that on this episode we are deconstructing this just a bit with our guest Reverend Lacette Cross, affectionately known as Reverend L. She describes herself as a God-loving, justice worker who is a Black, bisexual woman and ordained Baptist minister. She believes in the power of intersectionality as it is the lens and grounding of her work around sexuality and faith. A self-identified womanist she has the deepest commitment to the liberation of all people. Her work in ministry and coaching creates space for conversation, learning and change around sexuality and spirituality, working with anyone who wrestles with how to connect sexual behavior and attitudes with their beliefs about God, self, others, and the Bible. This episode will make you think, so let’s wrestle with it, with Reverend L.

Melissa Carnagey: “We have with us today Reverend L. That’s Reverend Lacette Cross with Will You Be Whole. How are you?”

Reverend L: “I’m doing good. How are you?”

M.C: “I’m doing really well. I’m excited to dive in. We are going to be talking about the intersection of sexuality and faith. Which I know for the Sex Positive Families community, especially within the group that we have, this is a topic that comes up a lot. It seems to have some deep roots for a lot of people in terms of their upbringing and how they then shape their ideas about sexual health and perception of their sexuality. So I’m excited to dive in with you, but I’d love to start by having you share with us what your journey towards the work that you’re doing in faith and sexuality has been.”

R.L: “I love telling this story because it is always a reminder that we are the sum total of our experiences. And so I really started doing sexual health education in the Washington, DC area…oh my goodness, in the late 90s early 2000s. I was working as a volunteer doing teen pregnancy prevention. And then I was, I don’t know what the word is, I guess I was willing finally to surrender to what is traditionally or classically called in the Black church “tradition.” I answered the call on my life and said yes to God. And so I was always involved in youth ministry and doing all the work with young people. I was always a safe space for young people in the church to know that I was a caring adult that they could come to and talk. And so I worked with the community, coupled with the youth ministry work I was doing in the church. It just kind of amped up a little bit when I really realized and discerned that God had called me to preach to “the gospel ministry” as we would say in the Black church tradition. So I was licensed initially back in 2004 and then just kind of kept on living, figuring out what we all try to figure out in our life, right? Where are we going? What’s going on? And so what ended up happening for me was that in 2008 I just began to have a little bit more awareness around, you could call them feminist ideals, or just gender equality. Just about the ways of the church was not open about sexuality. And I had a personal experience that I was a youth minister at a fundamentalist literal church and I had… I don’t have any children by choice… so she was like a daughter to me, and she came out, right? And so it was one of the first what I like to call “crisis moments” where I realized what I had been taught and actually could say that I believed that folks who are LGBTQ+ were going to hell because I believed what the Bible said and what my pastor had taught me. And I had never been exposed or engaged in conversation with people who thought differently. But I knew at that moment that even though I did not biologically birth this individual, I knew that they were family. So I couldn’t send her to hell. He now lives as a trans-man, is happily married, has two kids, and is an amazing human being. So that was one of those… kind of blips in my journey, that helped me strongly realize the role of faith and the role of the church and religion in sexuality. So once I had that personal experience I continued my work- volunteer work and fortunately got connected to an organization in DC that was called “Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice” and I served as their sexuality educator for about 6 years. So it was a good combination of doing this work from a religious organization that was advancing the idea that there are people of faith out there who believe in reproductive rights, believe in medically accurate sex education to be both in schools and the church. We also did a teen pregnancy prevention program inside of a church, Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ in Washington D.C., so my journey of sex and faith kept evolving. I went to Seminary, and any paper I had to write in the Seminary was about sexuality. In almost any discussion, I brought that [sexuality] up. So my journey is kind of just built on personal experience, professional experience as a sexuality educator, and then the theological experience of actually going to Seminary and really digging deeper from a research perspective. So all of those have combined together to bring me to this point where I love what I do, and I love the ever-unfolding” conversation of sex and faith. 

M.C: “Wow, that is quite a journey with this, and to come to it at that crossroads that just touched you so personally…”

R.L: “Yes. It totally is a part of that sense of calling. That’s what I use, those are the words that I use, the language that I use for leading and this sense of ‘I believe that the Creator brought me into existence to do this work.’ The unique personality that I am, to be able to say, “let’s have this difficult conversation.” But also to be able to hold the space as necessary because I was that person that wrestled. I was that person that said ‘this is somebody that I love. I can’t send this individual to hell.’ Also, I had my personal come to Jesus moment, because I came into my woman-loving self at 30, and so today I identify as bisexual. I did not realize that until I was 30, and I fell in love with a woman and I like to say in my story that she loved me back to life after some significant challenges that I was having in a long term relationship I ended. And so now that also took me to a place of saying, “Wait a minute God, I think it was okay when it was outside of myself, this is my daughter, now son, this is somebody that I love, ok I can’t do that because it’s not right.” But then when it came to my salvation, my sense of can I do this, I was already a licensed minister. I was already preaching and doing youth ministry, and doing the things that young ministers are expected to do. And now here I was, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that this experience with this woman was divinely designed and perfect for what I needed in my life. And so I had my moment of “you know what, I need to step away from this church that I love, and people that I love and have shaped me.” But I knew that a literal fundamentalist perspective of the Bible and a patriarchal, conservative view of the church and gender roles, and that was not life-giving for me. And so I did my wilderness journey. I stepped away from the church and I was like, “I don’t know about this,” and tried to even say I’m not a minister anymore. I’m not doing this anymore. I believe in the power of the story, and I believe in the power of the community to allow us to heal, and we cannot heal if we do not talk. Fortunately, the Divine set it up in such a way that the church that I joined, Covenant, I met some amazing, same-gender-loving Black women, who loved God. They were unapologetic about their love for their partner. Others were raising families and I was just seeing models of lesbian couples, of gay couples, of two people just loving each other and loving God and serving at the church, and that was a radical shift for me. So I had to go through the emotions. I had to go through the grieving of letting go of what I once knew. And I now understand that, and I don’t think I understood it at the time, but I now understand it as that was just part of His call, the part of the increased sensitivities because of my lived experience and I now fully and wholly embrace this work as a call. As a womanist, which is akin to a Black feminist, that my lived experience is the lens through which I understand the need for this continued conversation, and the creation of safe space for us to become sex-positive people of faith, or sex-positive spiritual people, whatever that means for individuals.” 

M.C: “Wow! That is all I can say after that. Thank you for sharing this story with us. It is such a testament to what is possible when we come to those crossroads and we challenge and we open up. There can be a lot of folx that point back to scripture when they’re trying to understand, or the scripture has defined their understanding of sexuality. Where do you point to in terms of scripture when it comes to the intersections of sexuality and faith?”

R.L: “That is a great question. I want to, first of all, be honest and let folx know that it has taken me years. Back in October of 2017, I finally reckoned with my God and was like, “ok fine, the Bible ain’t going nowhere.” I’m very intellectual, my personality is very intellectual. But the one question is the question that you just posed, that God was like “you need to deal with this because the Bible is not going anywhere.” And so I can now say that I answer your question after my wrestle in being able to look within the Bible as number one: a sacred text, it is a sacred text. It’s not the only text that I consider to be sacred, even as a Christian, so let me put that out there. Psalm 139, “For you are fearfully and wonderfully made, that God knew you before the foundation of the world.” So I do have this belief from that scripture that God already knew who I was going to be, what I was going to look like, all of that wonderful stuff. Then my next section of scripture is Luke, chapter four. I believe in Jesus, and I believe in the radical liberator that Jesus was, and what his ministry was. And so the Lord has called me to release the captives, to set the oppressed free, to give sight to the blind. So He’s setting out His mantra for His ministry, and it is about liberation, and it is about getting rid of those things that keep us bound. So that means that God wants us to be free in who we are. The scripture that I’m currently meditating on and really believe is going to be integral as we understand how to become sex-positive Christians or be in the Sex Positive Family community is 1 Peter, chapter 4:7-11, it talks about radical hospitality, it talks about how you need to love deeply because love covers a multitude of sins. And once we get past some of the problematic languages around sin, which I acknowledge, the sentiment of being in community, meeting you Melissa and loving you deeply, and that love being the foundation of being able to understand and have radical acceptance of everything of who you are, the good, the bad, the indifferent. So those are my scriptures.” 

M.C: “Gotcha. Thank you. And just full disclosure, I do not practice religious faith, so this is so fascinating to me. I have intersected with a lot of folx who can seem to me, not being a person of faith with that depth of understanding, a lot less tolerant to difference in this way. And like I think you were suggesting labeling as sins, and like you said earlier, going to hell for these things that are about sex positivity and about sexuality and again about being free, and being wholly who you are. So what do you find in the work that you are doing, are some common root issues that exist behind the resistance of accepting sexuality within faith-based communities?”

R.L: “If I had to say the biggest one thing, it’s definitely the need to be black and white, the need to say, “the Bible says this, period.” I think the second thing is power and the way the power dynamic is played out through human relationships. And so who is the person that benefits from the religious idea that we should not have non-marital sex, or you can’t have sex outside of marriage? Who benefits from that? And most often, typically speaking, men are not the ones relationally, socially condemned for having sex outside of marriage, it is primarily the women. And then this idea of our bodies, that particularly women’s bodies, that it’s women’s responsibility to keep our bodies under wraps, to not show our curves, to not entice men, to not distract “the man of God”, and do that in a way that would then mean you’ve got to completely dim your light. If you are a female-bodied person, or if you are a woman-identified person. But who benefits from that? Who are the people, what is the structure, the system in power that benefits from that? And I think that those are the root lessons that I hear a lot. “The Bible is right, sex outside of marriage is wrong, you cannot question God or you cannot question the biblical text, and women, because “Eve sinned,” then women are the reason for everything not good in the world so we’ve got to cover ourselves up, we cannot be good in our bodies, that our bodies are bad, our pleasure is bad” and all of this stuff is somehow going to separate us from the love of God. And I think that those are recurring things that happen from the time someone is a child, whether an individual is in the church or is what I like to call church adjacent. You may not be in church but if you are in a family or a community of folx, particularly Black folx, particularly people of color that are around folks who are religious, you still get impacted or affected by the religious messages.”

M.C: “Yes, great point. They are very, very strong influences. This again impacts how our young people then are growing up, getting mixed messages about their sexuality, about sexual health, about sex-positivity, and it’s not serving us. It’s definitely not serving our communities of color in terms of high rates of STIs and HIV. There definitely needs to be a lot more folx doing what you’re doing, who are rooted in the faith community, to shift the conversation so that we can get some better, healthier outcomes.” 

R.L: “Yes, I agree.” 

M.C: “So what does it look like, in terms of your colleagues and other pastors or ministers or faith-based leaders? How do they receive the work that you’re doing? Have they been supportive?”

R.L: “You know, generally speaking, Melissa, they’ve been supportive. Across the board, everybody knows this is a conversation that the church has most often neglected, for a sundry of reasons. They respect me, even if they don’t always like me or like what I say. They respect the boldness behind it. I believe that people see the preparation. Not only do I have two theological degrees, extensive years of sexuality education experience, and I am consistent in my messaging and in the words that I’m saying. So people that know me, my pastoral friends, my minister friends, other faith-based leaders, they respect that and they see that in the work that I do. Because it is not as if I am somebody that just pops up now and then and I say this random thing and then I go back to doing something else. If you ever had the chance to talk to someone who went to seminary with me, they will tell you “this child has been talking about sex the same since we met her, and we are not surprised that this is where she is, and we respect her.” I have some colleagues that are a little bit more progressive than others, so they may ask me to come and speak or come and teach at their church, and then there are other colleagues who are very conservative, who will come to me in my messenger, who will email me and do it in the cloak of darkness. Which listen, as long as you’re getting the information, and as long as you are adequately compensating my knowledge reduction, we’re alright. Because at the end of the day my call is to be the voice crying out in the wilderness and that’s important to me. Where I don’t have to ever preach a revival or come to your church every Sunday or whatever. I just need to know that the information that I produce, the conversations that we have, the insight that you may see on social media, you are using that to further yourself, your family, and your congregation or the community that you belong to.” 

M.C: “Excellent. Well, let me ask you this, what are some first or key steps that someone can take when they’re looking to address conflicts that they are experiencing with faith and sexuality?”

R.L: “So I developed this method called wrap, W-R-A-P. W is wrestling, you have to identify that thing that you’re wrestling with. Is it the scripture? Is it the church? Is it that you feel bad you’re single and having sex and the church says you’re not supposed to? Why are you wrestling with this? What is your relationship with the Divine? Do you believe in Christianity? Whatever it may be, wrestle with the issue at hand. That is what wrestle means. R means that you reconcile. So here’s the thing about reconciling, to reconcile something, you must start with what you know then research and look for the stuff you don’t know. Then you bring them together and you reconcile, and from that reconciliation, that bringing together, as my grandma used to say, “Chew the meat, spit out the fat” type of thing. Then you come to the A which is accept. So there has to come to a point in our journey where you are just going to say listen, this is what I accept about my life today, about my sexuality today, about my body positivity today and I’m going to accept that for what it is regardless of what my mama told me, regardless of what the church is saying, this is what I know from what I’ve wrestled with, from what I’ve reconciled, this is what I accept. And once you’ve accepted, you put it into practice. So I like to use my personal life as an example. There was a time in my mid-30s, not too distant past, I engaged in casual sex. So that means as a person who was not married, I identified someone that I wanted to have sex with, I was not interested in being married nor was I interested in a long-term relationship, it was mutual, affirming, consensual conversation that was had between me and the individual. We talked about protection, we talked about health status, we talked about those things and then I engaged in that. Some people call it friends with benefits, whatever you want to call it, is what I had. And I did that because I wrestled with, I’ve got to figure out how I’m going to have sex and not always feel guilty. Then I had to reconcile, what do I really believe about casual sex? About me engaging in sex with someone else? What does that mean for me? And then I simply just accepted the fact that my relationship with God, which is for me foundational, is what’s primary, not what the church says about me, and then I practiced that. I’m protecting myself, protecting the individual that I’m having sex with who is my sexual partner at the moment and ensuring that we are enjoying pleasure with each other while also making sure that we are honoring and respecting and being consensual and all those things. And so that is a process, it is not a one-and-done, which is why people have a problem with the conversation of sex today, because people in the church want a one-and-done. “The Bible says this, it’s over, that’s it.”

M.C: “Like you said, that black and white nature.” 

R.L: “Exactly. And so when you live this thing out, sexuality and spirituality are the two major aspects of our humanity. And as long as we are continually living, we are going to change those aspects of who we are, are dynamic, they are not static. So the WRAP process is a continual one. I am 42, I haven’t had a casual sexual relationship in the past year because in my life right now I’ve made a choice, I don’t want to do that. That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to do it again, it just means that for the time being, that I did it, I went through that process. And I think it’s important to note that when I was doing it, not only was I accountable to myself and the person I was engaging in, but I also had a couple of girlfriends, good friends of mine, who I feel I could talk to, and if they saw me behaving in a way that was not my character they would be able to hold me accountable because one of the things about being sex-positive is that is not about being irresponsible. And being a sex-positive person means that you are aware of your feelings, you’re aware of what’s happening with your mental health, because I believe in Jesus and therapy, amen. It is about this continual sense of what’s going on with you, why did you do that, why did you eat that chicken, you’re not really hungry….”

M.C: (Laughs) “Just having that self-awareness.”

R.L: “It is about self-awareness. And it could also be because my undergrad is in social work, but this process has taught me that self-awareness is key. And I think that conservative people make the mistake in assuming that those of us who are sex-positive, whether an individual is a Christian or not, anyone who identifies as sex-positive is just out here willy-nilly, and that’s just not true.” 

M.C: “Absolutely, it’s not. Right.”

R.L: “I think it’s actually impossible to be sex-positive without having a deep sense of self-awareness and willingness to sit in the mystery and the beauty of this thing that we cannot control, our sexuality and our spirituality.”

M.C: “Nice, I love how you frame that. And I love that WRAP model. That perfectly offers a process for someone, and like you said it’s continuous, it’s not the one and done. And so I’m hearing from you that it’s possible to be a sex-positive Christian?” 

R.L: “Yes it is, yes it is. And I believe it’s possible to be a sex-positive person of faith because there are so many people that have been hurt by the church who may not even identify as a Christian again. Because that deep spirituality, which I define as connecting to that which is greater than yourself, that is within us as human beings, that you can be both of those things. And we can be both of those things which I think is such a powerful affirmation of acceptance.”

M.C: “Beautiful. Well if I ever find myself in church, I most certainly want to be at the church that you’re ministering at (Laughs). That sounds like my kind of church.”

R.L: (Laughs) “Honey, if you would have been in church with us yesterday you would have just had a good laugh. We had a good time yesterday, so amen.” (Laughs)

M.C: “So are you facilitating any small groups outside of a larger congregation? I can imagine that’s where a lot of really good, vulnerable, intimate work happens, is in those one-on-one or small-group spaces?”

R.L: “Right now I am doing some one-on-one coaching. I call it pastoral care because It is the work of holding space for people to make the connections that sometimes we don’t have the safety to make. When I first started Will You Be Whole, I held a monthly conversation circle. I haven’t found a way to restart that model up, but I have developed a curriculum for a healing storytelling circle for Black women and Black girls, and I am finding a way to implement that this spring. That is where a lot of the healing takes place, in intimate spaces where we can share safely with one another.”

M.C: “Beautiful. Well, we do need to wrap up. This has been amazing, and a lot of this has been through you sharing your testimony which just makes it so much sweeter and more authentic. And so I thank you so much for opening up in that way and sharing with us because I guarantee you that your story and experience is connecting with others who are in different phases along their journeys, so thank you so much for that. What projects do you have coming up? What is 2018 looking like so far for you?”

R.L: “Oh my goodness it feels really exciting. So one thing I am definitely continuing in 2018 is Wrestle with it Wednesdays which is on Wednesdays. This is a little bit of the CP Time in me, but Wednesdays around lunchtime (laughs). It’s during the lunchtime hour.”

M.C: (Laughs) “It’s a window.” 

R.L: “And so I do that on Facebook. My Facebook page is Will You Be Whole with Reverend L.” I am seriously taking this knowledge that I carry in my head and creating content and I am launching the WRAP model, and a workbook for that. A “Sex is Safe” journal with sexuality writing prompts, and looking to launch that also, both of those pieces in February for the three year anniversary of Will You Be Whole which is February 14th, 2018. So that’s what’s coming up, I’m excited.”

M.C: “And I think I heard that you are doing an event coming up here soon?”

R.L: “Yes, so for people who live in the D.C./Maryland/Virginia area, I am a board member for the Incarnation Institute for Sex and Faith, and so myself along with a trained Sexologist, Frenchie Davis, are doing what she calls a sexual theology happy hour and it’s titled Being a Slut is Not a Sin. It’s two parts, and it’s basically she and I filtering questions from the audience about topics related to what you and I talked about. And we use that title Being a Slut is Not a Sin to kind of poke the bear a little bit because people like talking about sex and the church and have lots of things to say from that perspective. So that is Wednesday, January 10th, doors open at 6 p.m. and it starts at 7 pm. Tickets are $12 and they can find that on my Facebook page which is Lacette Cross or Will You Be Whole with Reverend L, and the link to that is on there.”

M.C: “Excellent. So if folx miss that by any chance, you mentioned a part two. Is this a series that you all are looking to do again in the future?”

R.L: “Yes, so it is definitely going to be a series. I think when we finish it on Wednesday we’ll look at a date, probably March, when spring happens. And then the other thing that my faith community is doing, the church that I pastor, Restoration Fellowship, we are launching a sex and faith after dark conversation. So what does it mean to talk openly about sex, particularly sex and things related to sex in a conversation with our faith and so that’ll be launched in February, which will be exciting. So there’s definitely lots of exciting things coming down the pipe and continued partnerships and collaborations with amazing folx like yourself with Sex Positive Families and other sexual educators and other people doing this work.”

M.C: “Well I am so appreciative of your time, of your passion, of your commitment, of your vulnerability. Clearly it is serving you and allowing you to then be a vessel of service to others and it’s just beautiful. I learned a lot, we’ve connected for a little while here, fairly new in our connection. Just in this interview, I’ve learned so much that I feel even closer to you and your story, so I thank you so much. Is there anything else you want to share in terms of how folx can get connected with you. You said you have a website?”

R.L: “Yes, check out my website www.willyoubewhole.com that is where you can find out more information about me, Reverend L, and about the work that I do. You can invite me out to your girls’ night party or your church or to your faith community to talk about sex and faith, so that’s www.willyoubewhole.com.”

M.C: “Excellent. Thank you so much, Reverend L, for your time and your passion and I look forward to sharing this with our community.”

R.L: “Thank you so much for having me. It was a great conversation.” 

{ Person Speaking }

“If you like this episode of the podcast, please leave a review on iTunes or Google Play, so more people can find us. And you can always visit us at our website www.sexpositivefamilies.com. There you can shop sex positive swag in our online store, connect with us across our social media platforms and join our Facebook community and learn more about resources to help support sexual health in your family. Until next time I’m Melissa Carnagey, thank you for supporting content that strengthens sexual health talks in families.”

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