I have been a troll for 7 years now. Not the famed
internet troll who baits people into arguments, though I have also been guilty
of that from time to time. No, I mean the kind of troll who lurks under
bridges, watching the river flow in endless variation. Trolls are liminal
creatures, after all, neither of one shore nor the other, but dwellers of the
in-between space, like the bridge itself. And liminality is my purview.
Recently I have been contemplating the concept of ideological
bridge building, the goal of the group Mormons Building Bridges. They seek to
connect the LGBT community and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
to show that at least some saints love and support queer people regardless of
what rhetoric may come from Salt Lake City.
I applaud the work they do. However, I cannot help but
notice that their Facebook group has become engulfed in the culture war between
religion and queerness, just like everywhere else. Many advocate for the Church
to allow same-sex marriage, even in temple sealings, and see any compromise as
dehumanizing. While the majority in the group holds this sentiment, there are
some who consistently hold the opposite view, that the Church can never change
its policies because they are from an immutable God, and that the Church is
already showing love towards LGBT people because as God’s church, it must
always be doing the best.
Honestly neither of these viewpoints has anything to do
with bridge building. The queer supporters
are on one side of a great chasm,
the doctrine supporters on the other. Neither one is trying to cross over to
the other side (the telos of a
bridge) but rather to hurl insults at each other (usually to the tune of bigot,
unfeeling, abomination, etc.). They both want converts, not compromise. Or
better still, for the other side to sink into the earth, forcing all their
rivals to come to their side or perish. It is the other side which must cross the bridge, not our side.
As someone who sits under that bridge and hears the conversations
of people who do cross, I can tell you that no one is convinced by logical
arguments, insults, shame, or cultural pressures. Everyone who crosses does so
out of love. Love for their children, love for a spouse, love for their God. No
one bothers with a bridge until there is someone on the other side whom they
want to be with. And crossing is never easy; it is terrifying. The ground under
your feet is solid, dependable, familiar. But the bridge is suspended over
rushing water, deadly, implacable, hungry. Ideologies are places of comforting certainty
and answers, but bridges are places of questions and doubts. The toll for
crossing is to lose the beliefs you hold dear.
So if you’re brave enough, come sit on the bridge with
me.
The defenders of doctrine will hear the whispering doubts
the moment they set foot on the bridge. What if queer people are in pain? What
if my church is causing it? What if our doctrine
is causing it? Maybe our prophets are wrong. But if they are wrong, how can
they be prophets? What if they’re a sham? What if God is a sham? What is left in a world without God? What kind of
monster have I been, tormenting queer people for so long, even the ones closest
to me? How many of their deaths have I caused?
From the other side, the queer advocates will have
similar thoughts. What if God does care
about someone’s sex life? What if happiness in the eternities really is
dependent on a man-woman relationship? What if all the hurt and pain of queer
people is because they are not obeying God’s commandments? Have I been an
advocate for sin? Have I disparaged God’s holy prophets only to condemn my
brothers and sisters to hell along with my traitorous self?
Push through the doubt. Meet each other half way at the
center of the bridge. See your uncertainty and pain and fear mirrored in the
eyes of another. Find solace in shared discomfort.
Because at the center of the bridge is void energy. There
is no right or wrong, no gospel or identity. All ideologies break down, the
walls that protect and confine us dissolve, and the limitless possibilities of
creation unfold before us. We are nowhere, between worlds, and for once we can
communicate heart to heart without a need to convince or prove or win. The
zero-sum game is over because there is nothing left to gain. Conversely, there
is endless potential for new horizons. And the only certain thing in the
swirling nothingness is the other human being standing right in front of you.
If you want to survive, if you want to resist the pull of madness that demands
you jump into the river below, you must embrace this other person, with all
their flaws and biases and hatred and love them.
That’s when we can begin to forge new ideologies that
include both worlds. We mingle the embers of understanding, the refined truths
that survived the crossing of the bridge, and craft a place that thrives in
unity. A place where our children can grow up in love and safety until they too
are called to cross the bridge and renew the world again.
This is the power of bridge building. Take it from an
experienced troll.
