On a spring night in 2017, Aaron Reindel sought solace in the image of Jesus washing the feet of his disciple Peter. Reindel was studying to become a minister at Dallas Theological Seminary, and he visited the weathered bronze cast statue in the school's front yard hundreds of times.
That night, Reindel sat in his usual spot on a bench next to the statue and wrote a prayer in the Notes app on his iPhone. “I know that you have cleansed me with your blood,” he wrote. “When you travel, you get dust, sweat, and blood on your feet, so wash your feet.”
Reindel talked to God a lot that semester. One of them was that he was gay. Worried about how to reconcile his faith with his sexuality, he often felt broken and not good enough to be of use to God. Despite his unfinished homework and the suspicious looks from campus police in the middle of the night, he returns to the statue again and again to remind himself that he is not alone. I did.
Now 31, Reindel has a husband who supports her dream of becoming a pastor in the United Methodist Church, which until recently did not allow homosexual pastors.
The long-standing ban was repealed by an overwhelming May 1 vote by delegates at the church's General Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. It comes in the wake of recent church schisms that resulted in a quarter leaving the church.
“It's really a weight lifted,” Reindel said after the vote. “I feel like I'm floating.”
'Surrender'
Being gay wasn't something people talked about in Newton, a small town in southeast Texas where Reindel lived as a teenager in the late 2000s and early 2010s. He knew only one person there who was openly gay. Reindel talked to God about his sexuality, Googled whether homosexuality was a sin, and came to believe that it was.
He was 14 years old when he first felt the call to ministry. He remembers thinking it was strange because he wasn't sure what he believed about the Bible and he didn't even consider being a gay pastor as an option. But he knew God would work things out.
Two years later, Reindel, still struggling with his faith and sexuality, attended a Baptist youth retreat. After the speaker shared his conversion experience, he encouraged children in the audience to come up on stage and give their lives to Jesus.
Reindel was sitting in his seat when he suddenly started crying. The word “surrender” kept looping in his head and he wrote it down on a piece of paper. He thought that the life of a Christian was not easy. But if he can surrender to God, it will be okay.
He then decided to live a life of celibacy, that is, as a celibate homosexual Christian.
He tried to live under that promise for as long as possible.
In college, his celibacy was held up as an example for other gay Christians. Several confidential people came to him, desperate for someone to listen and guide them.
Behind the scenes, Reindel was depressed and burnt out. “I looked like I was shattered and broken, and nothing would ever fix me,” he says. After his junior year in 2014, he took his year off from school to rebuild himself.
During that time, his mother died of a drug overdose after years of struggling with addiction. “It felt like I got kicked while I was down,” he says. The rest of his college career was a “dense fog of really, really complicated sadness.”
frogging molly
In 2018, during his third year at Dallas Theological Seminary, God led Reindel to a life-changing concert.
Reindel was offered free concert tickets for two consecutive days. First it was Bon Iver (who I turned down so I wouldn't have to “recover mentally”), then Celtic punk band Frogging Molly. He picked up the second ticket, feeling like God was trying to tell him something.
On the Southside Ballroom dance floor, Reindel spotted Fern Sosa staring at him. They soon lost sight of each other in the crowd, but both felt an immediate attraction.
Later that night, they ran into the line to order drinks. Eventually they kissed.
Reindel began to feel that others were watching them. He had never kissed anyone in public before and he knew he was breaking school rules. In a panic, he fled by ducking under a nearby railing.
Sosa tracked down Reindel at the venue later that night. Reindel gave him her phone number and they began texting him the next day. Soon, they dated.
“I felt joy again for the first time in a while,” Reindel said.
Shortly after meeting Sosa, Reindel decided to leave Dallas Seminary. “The most important thing in my life was my sin for them,” he says.
When asked to comment on the school's policy toward LGBTQ students, a representative from Dallas Theological Seminary issued a statement asking students to “resist the temptation of same-sex sexual attraction and abstain from all forms of homosexuality. “I referred to the policy regarding sexual orientation.” Sex A sexual act or act. ”
looking for church home
At the annual post-Easter brunch that Reindel and Sosa host at their apartment building, dozens of guests gather in the lounge, where deviled eggs and chocolates are laid out on tables.
Reindel takes a break from introducing guests and decorating mimosas to join in a conversation about faith and queerness. One of her friends brings up the Old Testament commandment against eating shellfish and asks Reindel about her approach to the Bible.
Mr. Reindel then mentioned the part of the Bible's Old Testament law in which God commanded the Israelites to put balustrades, or protective railings, on their roofs. At that time, people often slept on the roof on hot nights, and there was a risk of falling while sleeping.
Reindel says there is no need for a parapet now. He encourages his friends to consider the intent of this passage rather than take it literally. God wants us to take care of ourselves and our loved ones, whether it's a rooftop railing in Biblical times or checking the tires on a minivan for today's parents. He says we can learn a lot from the Bible without taking everything literally.
Reindel's views on the Bible sometimes made it difficult for him to find a place in the church. After dropping out of seminary in 2018, he and Sosa spent several years church hopping to find what they call a “unicorn church,” a place that believes in the authority of the Bible but affirms LGBTQ people. I had a hard time.
In early 2021, they visited the uptown church of the new United Methodist congregation gathered at the House of Blues for the first time.
“We felt it before the music started, before we sat down,” Reindel said. “It just felt like home.”
Uptown pastors encouraged Reindel to return to seminary, telling him there was a place for him in the United Methodist Church, even though people in same-sex relationships were not allowed to be ordained. In 2022, Reindel enrolled at Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology and began an internship at Uptown. There he and Sosa led a small group of couples.
One of the members of that group was Eddie Hearn, a gay man and the son of a nondenominational pastor. After going through conversion therapy when he was younger, he says he began using drugs and was homeless for a time. Like Reindel, he believed for a long time that he was broken.
By meeting Reindel, a gay man convinced of his call to ministry, Hahn was able to heal a part of himself he didn't know needed healing. “It changed everything for me,” says Hahn, now 46. He still keeps a copy of his book. god and gay christiansThe book that Reindel had recommended to him was on his nightstand.
Sosa, 31, is proud of her husband's ministry and knowledge of the Bible. He jokingly refers to Reindel as his “resident pastor” and is his go-to person for questions about God. “He's very good at finding the part or parts of the Bible that can completely answer your question,” Sosa says. “I think he can be a good role model for people who feel like they don’t belong.”
The Rev. Elizabeth Moseley, one of the United Methodist pastors who encouraged Reindel to return to seminary, said she was thrilled to see the denomination lift its ban on LGBTQ pastors. She said, “I am filled with gratitude as I think about the fact that Aaron and others like him now have the opportunity to fulfill their missionary callings within the United Methodist Church, just like everyone else.'' is.”
As part of her training, Reindel is working as a missionary assistant at First United Methodist Church in downtown Dallas. He will also receive a master's degree in theology from SMU this month. He and Sosa married in 2022 at a small chapel in Edgewood, about an hour outside of Dallas.
Reindel considers himself fortunate to be a part of what he calls a historic moment in the United Methodist Church.
“Not all queer people who feel called and want to do missionary work have had the opportunity to do so, or have the full support, love, and support of their denomination to do so. “I wasn’t able to do it,” he says. “It felt really special to see it happening now when I expected it to happen a year or a few years from now.”
enough
HISTORY One month before the church vote, on a cold, sunny morning in April, Reindel was squirming in a plastic chair on the manicured lawn of the First United Methodist Church. Reindel was fidgeting with his hands and bouncing his feet up and down while the kids at recess next door laughed and argued. He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and stayed up until 2 a.m. preparing for a 15-minute sermon that he would give that morning. He was scheduled to address First United's clergy and staff, including his superiors and leaders.
This will be his first sermon since affirming his queer identity.
“I was overwhelmed. To say I was intimidated is an incredible understatement,” he began his sermon. His hands were shaking and he slipped them in and out of his pockets. “For many years of my life, I wondered if I would ever be able to stand here and preach.”
Reindel preached John 13:1-17, which tells the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. He said what he learned from years of praying next to statues depicting this story.
People in ministry should not help others to prove their worth to God, he said. The image of Jesus washing the feet of his disciple Peter reminds us that God loves us, even in our dirt and confusion, and that we are good enough.
Reindel finished his sermon with a confident smile. As the audience applauded, he wordlessly put his arm around him and headed straight for Sosa. The crowd began to sing a hymn together, and Reindel's hands slowly stopped shaking.
Joy Ashford covers faith and religion in North Texas for the Dallas Morning News through a partnership with Report for America.
