When an opp corners you...

Dirty laundry, healthy debate, keeping it pushing

My grandma recently asked me, in a manner as unabashed in its intention as it's tone, “what’s your philosophy on Christianity?” It was one of those moments that was both unexpected and, all things considered, entirely predictable. It hit me like swallowing a cough drop, the initial shock of a threat but the slow realization of agency. This question comes almost a year after she personally responded to the essay I wrote spelling out the vast scope of my non-belief on this very platform. She replied with something to the effect of somber recognition, which was the last she’d addressed me on it directly. The feedback on that essay didn’t stop there. It proliferated into a hearty mouthful of stern phone calls from my parents, espousing the fragility of my ideological views at such a precarious time in adulthood and I have, ever since, been the recipient of a diverse array of pious warnings and faith-laden maxims, none of which I’d mind if not for their proselytizing ambitions, which have a veritably cornering effect.

Still from Bugonia

It’s hard not to acknowledge my grandma’s interrogative efforts as part of her evangelistic duties. She’s no casual woman of faith but a full-fledged co-pastor and founder of a decades old, well attended church, where I spent many hours of my childhood. Her questioning continued with “would you consider yourself a Christian?” My answer was one she likely recalled from my quasi-dissertation, No. I softened some of my words in that essay to things like non-religious and secular, but reality lies in a term as stern as atheist. My strongest creative, political and existential convictions envelop this egalitarian, humanist understanding of the world, unbound by religious doctrine and its wide-ranging social implications, good and deeply bad. It’s important to recognize both, and while my essay might have taken upon the thesis of the bad, there are many thoughtful advocates of the religious persuasion I find to be stalwart allies of unfettered compassion and social good, none of which shift my worldview.

In this position, I diverge from every single member of my family and I was well aware of the invisible contract this deviation would sign. An indefinite series of persuasions, lobbied by all members of kin, siblings excluded. But the pros of the contract far outweigh the cons. Lingering in the abyss of the unspoken has never been a strong suit, nor instinct, of mine. I’d rather sit in the fumes of my dirty laundry, letting it waft through all the spaces I inhabit, than sit silent, clean and principally unaccounted for. Since writing that piece I’ve not only enjoyed the bountiful catharsis that comes with self and value advocacy, but also a world opening itself up to me, a confidence in community, and the quiet reassurance of witnessing others you’ve long revered championing the same values, alongside the transformative effects of more and more principled work ringing out around the social landscape.

I’m not a stranger to contentions of identity. Since coming out I’ve traversed seemingly endless roads of misunderstanding, dismissal and distortion, the most vivid being the time I defended not shaving my legs… and not dissimilar to that, dressing according to my own personal style. As discomforting and cornering as situations like this are, they remind me of why the hell I keep it pushing. Why I want to make films that shape these discussions in a nuanced, radially inclusive, irreverent way. A conversation I had with some friends in the tech sphere fluttered me with the same sense of urgency, wherein they boldly rejected my every claim that the billionaire class is the fundamental obstacle to a functioning society, even after arriving at the classic contradictory sentiments such as advocating for rich people to become as rich as they want for “taking the risk,” while simultaneously reflecting on the ways that their parents were stifled economically as immigrants in this country. What was most stunning though was the nature of our discussion, ending with enmity set aside and congeniality preserved. I believe what made our “debate” a healthy one was the slant of curiosity underlying it. Sure our disagreements were, are, severe, but I didn’t approach them with the audacity of believing I could change their lens on a single thing, and they carried that same regard. What I find just as important to a healthy approach to debate is refusing to give credence to a debate status at all. A debate implies a winner and a loser. The form is completely siloed from the complex reality that people can, in fact, hold diverse opinions and still arrive at the same conclusion. Moral alignment is not a strictly logical framework. Emotion plays a crucial role.

There’s a spirit of radical optimism about Christians who constantly pitch themselves to atheists that I can’t help but marvel at. Frankly, I try to channel that same juice myself to “keep the faith” amidst the authoritarian consensus. My greatest wish is for every person, religious or not, to direct their beams of judgement toward systems of oppression and exploitation and their beams of acceptance toward the diverse humanity struggling within them.

In further spirit of Scribbled Loose, I want to recommend a book with the express mission of roaming the rich tapestry of America, religious communities included, and unraveling the many profound ideological divides and cultural legacies with a sharp, sensitive style of nonfiction storytelling.

I really enjoy Sullivan’s writing style. It’s irreverent, introspectively so, with an adventurers tilt that keeps on giving.

For more recs for Watchables, Readables, Listenables and MORE, visit the Great Creations Catalog.