By Maki Ashe Van Steenwyk

I don’t think it is accurate to call myself a Christian at this point.

My operative theology and spirituality hasn’t changed suddenly or anything.

My relationship with Jesus is fundamentally unchanged.

But several things have made it clear that my relationship with Christianity has changed in such a way that I cannot see myself “in” it. Both in an abstract “universal church” level as well as in particular expressions and institutions that consider themselves Christian.

1) Such a vast majority of Christian communities excludes me at a core level. There isn’t a single denomination that has a thorough and unreserved inclusion of trans women in a consistent way. And though I can name specific congregations, organizations, and particular folks who embrace Christianity and celebrate my transness, I would have no problem being fully embraced in any of those communities as a non-Christian.

2) Th big kicker for me was when a queer colleague told me, decades after walking away from Christianity, that I’ve caused them to reconsider. My initial and immediate reaction was “oh no…I don’t want that.” As I continue to meet more and more queer folks for spiritual direction and other things, the more clear it is that my vocation has zero to do with helping them stay connected to church or Christianity.

3) When I was 19, I had a mystical experience of Jesus where it became clear to me that nothing I could do would separate me from his presence. I don’t need to sign up for Team Jesus to be in a rich relatiojnship with him. At the same time, Jesus is kinda spiritually polyamorous and seems utterly unperturbed about me connecting with other movements, spiritualities, and ancestors.

4) I firmly believe the Spirit’s movements/activities are unnrelated to the existance of churches. Like, a group of leftist atheists can discern what is life giving, what is death dealing, and what the “universe” is saying, etc and the Spirit is more likely to move there than in a church whose entire rationale for existance is to receive the gifts of the Spirit to continue Jesus’ work.

5) It is shockingly rare to find churches or orgs that aren’t haunted by authoritarian conceptions of God. That our primary responsibility to God is worship and our primary responsibility to Jesus or the Bible or whatever is obedience. If you walk into the most progressive or radical churches and use the word “God” or “Jesus” you will find that most of the folks there intuitively related to them from a posture of submission, even if their theology has shifted intellectually.

But for me, there is absolutely nothing authoritarian about Spirit. And in a world scarred and shaped by centuries of Christian Supremacism (and it’s nefarious offspring) I don’t think it is wise to put most of my energy challenging Christians to make good on their best impulses and commitments. Because the rot of authoritarianism isn’t some universal tendency that shows up in Churches by virtue of it being the nature of any organized community. No: authoritarianism is baked into the logic, language, and practices of every Christian tradition at some level.

6) I have so many friends who aren’t Christian that I see eye-to-eye with on so much that constitutes my spirituality. My partner is an atheist and though there are some philosophical issues around ontology and whatnot, we are pretty much on the same page with almost everything spiritually meaningful to me. In a way that shows just how divergent I am from most Christians rather than revealing that she is somehow so close to Christian thinking.

Somedays I don’t believe in “God” at all. My understanding of what folks call “God” or “Spirit” of “the Divine,” etc is more resonant with the nontheistic strands of Buddhism, Taoism, various univeralistic approaches to “paganism” etc. It just so happens that I’m really into Jesus as a living ancestor and teacher and, at the same time, happen to be a scholar of Christianity, particularly the way power is understood within Christianity.

7) I’m still into things like prayer and worship, but I understand these things differently than most. Yes, I’m in awe of Jesus. And as much as the word “worship” can be used to describe my posture towards anything, it applies to Jesus. But not exclusively. I understand him to be a hugely central spiritual ancestor. He has influenced me more than any other person. But his whole thing was to tell his followers that they aren’t servants; they’re friends. That if they need commands, they should focus on loving each other. That they shouldn’t lord over each other. That they will do greater things. Jesus wants me as a peer and I see him increasingly as a peer.

At the same time, when I am in mediation or prayer, I’m mindful of the interconnectedness of things. I don’t need to center those experiences on Jesus. In fact, insofar as the word “worship” can be used in relationship to Jesus, I would also use that to describe my relationship with my partner. I’m in awe of her, she shapes my experience of the world, and she teaches me a lot as an active presence in my life. It is also true that I worship the North Shore of Lake Superior.

More and more, my understanding is that it is better to be informed by Jesus, other ancestors, my chosen family and friends, and my relationship with the more-than-human world than it is to “center my life around Jesus” in a Christo-centric way. Said differently, the Church isn’t the “container” for my vocation and Christ isn’t the goal of my vocation. It could be said that Jesus is the origin of my vocation. The “container” for my vocation is a overlapping set of relationships and communities that aren’t unified by a common relationship to Jesus. And the “goal” of my vocation is to discern the flow of Spirit and labor for collective liberation. Jesus has lots to say about this, but he isn’t the only one.

9) I believe the world would be better without the Church or Christianity. It didn’t have to be this way, but it ended up this way. And as long as I remain “Christian” folks are going to be prone to see my as ultimately more loyal to the Church or the Bible or Jesus or Christianity than I am to the struggle for liberation. Once Jesus/Church/Bible/Christianity/Etc become an obstacle to solidarity it raises some important questions.

For a long time, I’ve labored to show folks that I’m an unconventional Christian. And that Jesus doesn’t need them to be Christians. And that more often than not, I’m more adversarial to Christianity than most atheists I know.

But if that is all true, then why would I persist to anchor myself within Christianity?

11) The ways I’ve answered that last question have shifted over time. I used to tell folks I had three major reasons for being a Christian: 1) Because I had significant mystical experiences with Jesus. 2) Because I needed to own my Christian privilege in a way approximate to owning whiteness. 3) Because fuck shitty Christians, they don’t get to tell me what Christianity is; I’m going to tell THEM.

I’ve already addressed #1. Intensity of connection with Jesus doesn’t require adherence to a Creed, membership within the Church, or even exclusivity with Jesus as “Lord.”

And #2 was, for me, too self-abnegating and lost it’s oompf after I came out and experienced condemnation and rejection from long-term Christian friends and colleagues. That said, I am certainly responsible to utilize my Christian “privelege” to work torwards Justice. But I don’t need to do that as part of an overarching project to rehabilitate Christianity. It just means that I should take seriously addressing the harm done by Christian Supremacy. And in that sense, I’m probably owning my privilege more now than I did at the peak of my penitential white minister “dude” phase.

Finally, why would it be worth my energy to try to challenge Christian leaders to be more faithful to Jesus from the posture of me calling myself a Christian? Instead, I can just try to confront oppression when I’m aware of it, encourage liberatory praxis whenever I encounter it, and support life-giving community wherever I find it. None of these things require claiming Christianity for myself. Any hope I find within Christianity I can also find outside of it. And sometimes more abundantly.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading my long post. I’m happy to engage comments or questions, but I’ll be slow about it; I’m still on the mend from my latest gender-affirming surgery.

Maki Ashe Van Steenwyk (she/they) is the co-founder of the Center for Prophetic Imagination. She is a writer, teacher, organizer, and spiritual director. Ashe is the author of That Holy Anarchist, unKingdom, and A Wolf at the Gate. She is currently completing a doctoral dissertation on socio-spiritual discernment.