"Before I Take It Back (I'll Add More To It)": Eddie Long, Same-Gender-Love, and Damage Within Black Church Theology
by Kenyatta Dorey Graves

“I’m coming. I’m on my way.” – James Baldwin, Go Tell It On The Mountain

Folks are already making a lesson of Atlanta-area pastor Eddie Long’s death. Recent pictures of Long evinced a body withering in physical decline, thin and gaunt, a stark contrast to common knowledge of Long’s preference for a muscular physique and a dedicated gym regimen. Facebook eulogies and Twitter obituaries include some referential combination of sin’s wages, a little Old Testament “see, told you, God busted that ass” for his apparently predatory behavior, or other internet encomiums in praise of Karma. In 2010, several young men made public allegations and subsequently filed a lawsuit that the pastor had developed sexual relationships with them that they deemed exploitative and resulted in actionable emotional distress. One or more of the men described a pattern in which Long served as mentor while the men were minors, then transitioned into sexual relationships the moment the teens reached the age of legal sexual majority; in one case, an accuser stated that Long first initiated sexual contact during the weekend when the teen reached 16 years-old, the age of legal consent in the state in which he lived. Long denied the allegations in an unspecific response, a coda to a sermon about the vulnerable resisting the powerful. He and the church settled civil court cases. And church membership, rocked by the allegations that their married pastor engaged in sexual contact with males, dwindled. Long was never charged with a criminal offense. And so in Long’s early death at 63, Black Twitter and Black Facebook users are taking this opportunity to remember these allegations and, in some cases, subtly identify the instigator of Long’s death as God’s final assessment in a lesson on the evils of homosexuality (oddly, rather than the evils of youth predation).

I inter from the years-old controversy surrounding Long’s homoaccusations, different chickens, a different home-going roost: black church communities remain dangerous spaces for same-gender-loving black men and boys, whose spirits suffer a theological assault that rapes wellness, soils self-esteem, and transmutes silence with faith at a magnitude and violence that far supersedes anything of which Pastor Long was accused. Saints run the aisles in wanton praise of God’s grace while the choir makes of song holy testimony, typically as a brother with “suspect hand gestures” directs the choir, a “confirmed bachelor” takes the tenor lead, or “a queen” wears out the piano or organ at the pulpit’s well. An objective observer of black religious experiences might assume churches represent safe spaces for black males uncommitted, unbothered by, or unaware of strict gender and sexuality expectations. Clockable ushers help the late ones find seats, thoughtful willing workers adorn the sanctuary to align with the season, a brother reads the bulletin’s announcements with an articulate precision rivaling an Olivia Pope monologue in an episode of _Scandal_; none of these are atypical phenomenon—nor is an accompanying sermon, emphasizing biblical displeasure with homosexuality, dragging the church politic through a Plantation Christianity tradition further from the mount of civil rights.

Elsewhere, I have long argued that raising a child inside a black church tradition is, most often, child abuse. And I remain astounded that violent, terroristic stories of unavoidable death by drowning, burning, molecular reconstitution as sodium chloride, digestion in ocean mammals, or the flesh-tearing teeth of Roman lions, not to mention the three-day long starvation and evacuation of every drop of blood at the wrists and ankles that describe the crucifixion, is acceptable, age-appropriate narrative for children. No conscientious parent would resist covering a child’s eyes, ears, banishing them from the tv room, or sending them to bed to avoid such adult film or tv plotlines. No teacher who covets a paycheck would invite children to identify main idea, theme, or locate vocabulary words in such texts. And yet the fear that these tales embed in children’s consciousness is never questioned when encountered in pews. All children are vulnerable to this long-suffering, but the threat to same-gender-loving children is often multiplied. I have never heard a sermon decrying murder. Perhaps it’s common sense that murder is wrong; homicide rates in black communities might suggest a reminder from a spiritual guide couldn’t hurt. But I’ve heard innumerable homophobic sermons in a life that, gratefully, didn’t actually include a thorough commitment to Sunday services. By volume, one can assume the greater threat to salvation is homosexuality rather than homicide. Or worse, same-gender-loving males often hear the highly offensive and absurd declaration that “we have all sinned,” and that “no sins are greater than others;” such rude comments make a comparative analysis between falling in love and adultery, theft, murder, or help-me-Savior, cussing out your mama. The informal interviews I’ve conducted during the last two decades confirm that same-gender-loving males internalize this messaging and construct notions of self that locate desire in shame, embarrassment, regret, dishonesty, and disgust. Men who remain caught in the embrace of Black Plantation Christianity can prefer furtive emotional behaviors research has indicated contribute to unhealthy sexual practices; they can internalize and revisit this damage on others as they seek to occupy the pulpit space that left them broken; they can marry women who lack the spiritual sorors who refuse to limit themselves to serving as mute, listening friends. And unfortunately, black church communities which prove disinterested in rooting out the homosexual menace are as yet an ineffectual stop-gap, as black church traditions are multi-vocal, interdependent, and culturally inscribed. Denominations notwithstanding, if you are a black same-gender-loving male who grew up in church, you were taught that hating yourself is righteous. So whither, child, shall ye go?


Eddie Long built a church congregation numbering in the thousands. Media reports congregants greeted the news of his passing with acute sorrow. Some are remembering the pastor as God’s instrument, a healing presence in their lives. And I wonder what might a similar shepherd—one who translated a loving God’s embrace into a joyful relationship with his husband—what might he have accomplished with that gift for leadership had no one given homophobia an outlet through theology? Recently gospel singer Kim Burrell gave a sermon in which she repeatedly described homopeople as “perverted,” suggesting that they are under the malevolent manipulations of a “delusional spirit.” Her comments made brief reference to Eddie Long, seeming to suggest his physical suffering was proof of God’s displeasure with homosexuality (the public explanation for Long’s decline in health: an aggressive cancer). Reactions from same-gender-loving brothers, a large demographic within her fan base, was swift and biting, prompting Burrell to quickly walk back the tone of some of her comments (without disavowing the content). I have neither a heaven nor hell to put Eddie Long in and in truth I don’t believe that either exist in ways that are typically understood in spiritual traditions. I didn’t live in the room of his life; I never had to choose from among its doors and windows. Inasmuch as I found the allegations that Long strategically preyed upon teenaged boys and young men he clocked as same-gender-loving (in some cases, perhaps before they substantively came to accept that truth themselves) infuriating, I place that fury in context. I think of that allegedly abhorrent behavior along a continuum of damage black church traditions do to men and boys like me. And I know that Burrell’s sermon, cosigned, publicized, and lionized in many black church communities damaged more same-gender-loving teens than anything of which Long was ever accused.

For now, once one enters the vestibule, it’s still all pathology.

So peace on the next phase of your journey, Eddie Long, as you cross that river of light to ancestral spaces. And peace on the next phase of your journey to all the same-gender-loving brothers who found rivers to cross away from troubled black church experiences that make misery of even their most innocent desires for love-life.

------
Kenyatta Dorey Graves
15 January 2017

*note: Eddie Long’s public accusers were all male. And the lens of my analysis is filtered through my own experiences inside black religious spaces, a male attracted to other males. While my experiences suggest that black same-gender-loving women and girls may share similar experiences in these same spaces, this personal reflection leaves that discussion beyond my sphere of knowledge, while not at all beyond my sphere of concern. However, the gender-specificity of these thoughts is, therefore, deliberate.