So, I was talking with two out of the four other members of my CREDO small group today, and it dawned on me that a lot of the questions that my dear friend Cristopher was posing were the best sort of questions: loving, hard, no-nonsense and very, very real.  And when I asked him, “Cristopher, what are you thinking about all of this?” I knew what I was asking.  I was asking the man who does not like to be pigeon holed into boxes like ‘conservative christian’ or ‘liberal theologian’ but who can fly under just about anybody’s radar and bridge into everybody’s camp, I was asking him what he thought of the discussion that Jennifer had been so vocally supportive during our Skype conference call, and in which he had been largely (entirely?) silent.

The conversation… well, yes.  You’d want to know that, of course.  It’s the whole, ‘I’m a priest, and I write erotica,’ conversation, which was the first time they’d heard it.  Hilary hasn’t at all yet (poor Hilary – we’ll catch you up soon), and Greg’s already read some of the Magnum Opus that is The Day The Earth Stood Still, in which I, after the fashion of every fanfic writer in twidom, right the wrongs of Ms. Stephenie Meyer.  But anyway.  So, I suppose you could say that I came out to another group of clergy colleagues.  And you know, I’m a priest and I want to publish a whole host of things;  Theology, Liturgical Studies, Romance, Biographies, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Children’s books, and yes, Erotica.  But you know, it looks like the erotica is going to get published first.  Maybe.  Possibly.  Who knows, really, but it’s likely.  And then comes the question of integrity: do I use a pen name, or do I publish under my own name?  Do I tell the publishing house that I am, in fact, an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church, canonically resident in the Diocese of Western New York?  My integrity is really clear about what I need to do.  The only question is, am I couragous enough to do it?

And yes, all seven or eight thousand people who have read/are reading The Day The Earth Stood Still are all very aware that I’m a priest, and many of them have written to me and given me more feedback, better feedback, feedback that reflects a deep touch on their life, feedback that reflects a changing perspective on the world that I helped to shape… than I get on my sermons.  It’s clear to me that I already have touched way more lives in a positive manner through this one story than through five years of ordained ministry in the Diocese of Western New York.  And the people whose lives I’m touching?  I don’t have statistics, but I know from the little feedback I’ve gotten (perhaps 8k people have read the story, perhaps more, but on 35+ chapters I’ve only 3500 reviews, so that’s actually a rather small portion we’re dealing with… but I love it – make no mistake, I love it) …from the feedback I’ve gotten, I know that the lives I touch aren’t just people who go to church.  I get feedback from a lot of people who are totally unchurched, church alums, or who bear the scars of their touches with Christianity.  I get to deeply touch the lives of the very people that my church wants to evangelize, at least in theory and on paper.  If we (the Episcopal Church) really wanted to do it, one imagines we would be, all of us, en masse.  Since that isn’t happening en masse, I can only imagine that we’re lying to ourselves… but that is another blogpost for another day.

So, this is the first in my Theology of Erotica series.  Some of you may hear things you’ve heard before.  Really, I’m just trying to engage with these questions in a way that seems to have integrity for me, which also means doing it in the public/semi-public sphere of my blog where all y’all get to weigh in, give your opinion, and ask more questions if you feel so moved.   And today I will be discussing… “Why Erotica?” Continue reading →