You will know them by their fruits (Part I)
Becoming honest about the behaviors our beliefs produce
CONTENT WARNING: This essay mentions suicide. If you need help, please text 988. You are worthy of care. You are wanted and needed here.
Have you noticed the whisper roaming the world? Even the trees know it is time for oppressive systems to die. — Jaiya John
Toxic theology kills people.
Nex Benedict was a 16-year-old, Two-Spirit person of Choctaw heritage who made straight-As and loved animals.
They were consistently bullied — targeted by peers who mocked Nex’s genderqueer identity. In February, Nex was horrifically beaten by classmates in a bathroom at their Oklahoma high school. The next day, they died. An autopsy revealed a lethal mix of antihistamines and antidepressants in Nex’s system — a death of despair provoked by immense cruelty and hate.
There has been much coverage of Oklahoma’s restrictive bathroom law, its censuring of the only nonbinary state legislator in 2023, and the influence of the demagogic TikToker turned literary advisory board member who cruelly targeted teachers and librarians in Nex’s district. All of these policies and practices profoundly impact teens like Nex.
For the purposes of this newsletter, I want to talk about a phenomenon even more profound than policy, specifically, how beliefs become behaviors. I am interested in how our theology — our beliefs about God — translates to the way we treat our fellow human beings.
Anti-trans bullying is the rotten fruit of a purity culture rooted in “disgust psychology” — so dubbed by Richard Beck in his book Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality. Disgust is a basic survival mechanism — our ancestors learned to eat what was palatable and safe, and to spit out what was rotten or poisonous. The problems begin when this psychological impulse gets linked to a hierarchy of human worth.
That process goes something like this:
Our brains by default are energy-savers, which tend to take the path of least resistance. It doesn’t take a massive mental leap to connect what is safe and palatable with the moral valuation of “goodness.” Same deal with associating rotten or poisonous things with what is bad or evil. (Relatedly, I am thankful for those teaching us to see food as just food, with different nutrients to offer, rather than the shame-based view of “good” foods and “bad” foods).
Once these categories are established, like buckets in the brain, it’s mentally convenient to sort people into them: good/clean v. bad/unclean. Since people labeled “bad” fall into the same mental bucket as what is considered “disgusting",” the psychological impulse is to expel: to get what is perceived as dangerous as far from the body as possible.
Then you add theology to the mix. Since it takes very little energy to make god in one’s own image, wouldn’t you know, a lot of people end up worshipping a god who happens to hate all the people they hate. When a whole community takes on a view of god as the arbiter of purity, that god’s worshippers tend to become the police officers tasked with enforcing this punitive system. The resulting culture is one quick to label who is in and who is out, with some people portrayed as less than human, as undesirable, as disgusting — usually because they are different, misunderstood, or resistant to the status quo of deferential homogeneity. Such people are spit out — disposed of in the name of theological and cultural purity.
In the aftermath of Nex’s death, Senator Tom Woods epitomized this theo-psycho-social phenomenon. Referring to the LGBTQ+ community, he said, “We are a religious state. We are going to fight to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma, because we’re a Christian state.” (emphasis mine)
This explicit linkage of disgust and religious belief makes clear what is hiding right under the surface in much of our society: a death-dealing theology of disgust. Nex’s death is just one example of the impact of this culture of deified disgust. One LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention hotline has seen a 238% rise in calls from youth in Oklahoma over the last month. This crisis of safety and well-being for so many of our young people should compel us to uproot and examine the beliefs that manifest as anti-trans policy and bullying behavior.
I’m reminded of Jesus’ warning to his disciples:
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-20, NRSV)
Toxic theology kills. That’s the bad news. But there is good news: healthy theology saves lives.
This weekend I had the opportunity to visit Jubilee Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas — a vibrant, welcoming church that describes itself as not just queer-affirming, but queer-celebratory. LGBTQ+ folks are at the heart of this community, enthusiastically conveying its mission of joyful justice.
Worship included a prayer for the repose of the soul of Nex Benedict, as well as a deeply moving anniversary blessing for a gay couple. And, we celebrated the Eucharist, with everyone welcome to the table to receive the body and blood of Christ.
The Eucharist, in a sense, is altogether ordinary — it is at the heart of Christian worship and is a central component of the Episcopal liturgy. Yet it is also extraordinarily resistant to systems of oppression, not least of all because it counteracts and even transforms the disgust response. The practice of ingesting the bread and wine — understood to be the body and blood of Christ — is a powerful antidote to the weaponization of disgust against other human beings.
By taking Christ’s body and blood into our own, we counteract the basic impulse to reject the consumption of human flesh (an important safeguard to prevent — you know — cannibalism), while subverting the narrative that suffering and death are to be avoided at all costs.
That God would die as someone despised by society — on a lynching tree, as James Cone has written — is already an inversion of what most disgusts human beings — death itself. Rather than avoiding the reality of death, the invitation of the Eucharist is to commune with Godself in this death, while trusting that in humility and love, God has overcome the powers of death through resurrection. There is no place where God in love is not present — even death itself.
We consensually partake of Christ’s suffering and accept the shame of the cross, even as we simultaneously subvert the power these things have over us with the belief that it is through entering into Christ’s suffering that we open ourselves to a new, transformed way of living. In this way of life, binaries like good people vs. bad people break down. There are only beloved people — all of us welcome to share in the radical grace of a God whose boundless love cannot be stopped by anything, even death itself.
(This wasn’t going to be an Easter sermon, but clearly I have that on my mind!)
Regardless of whether you are a believer or not, this first-century psychological override is a remarkable, resistant technology. This embodied practice subverts the disgust mechanism while catalyzing the transformation of those theologies that can otherwise hold participants captive to a cult(ure) of death. Eucharistic theology and practice invites a movement from exclusive, punitive, shame-based values systems toward inclusive, compassionate liberative ways of being together.
We are not stuck with the death-dealing belief systems that produce the rotten fruit of hate and fear. We are not destined to disgust. We can courageously choose transformation.
Reflecting on her grandchild’s life, Nex’s grandmother said, “I was so proud of Nex. They were going some place, they were so free.”
May we all be so free.
Thanks for reading Part I. Next week I’ll get into another sticky belief system that requires subversive soul work to transform.
Rev. Lauren,
I shared your wonderful reflection with several folks in our Believe Out Loud leadership team at Christ the King parish and with a Nonviolence Conversations group I am working with. My wife, Rachel, pointed out something I overlooked. You used the word “lethal” in conjunction with the drugs found in Nex’s system. I’ve assumed that their death was caused by the head trauma they endured in the beating, as their family had concerns about. Rachel’s observation led me to do a Google search. I found that the medical examiner released a report yesterday with the finding that the cause of death was suicide.
(silence)
While the finding only points to the physical cause of death, it says nothing about the mental abuse perpetrated by individuals before the altercation in the bathroom, the neglect of school leadership, the justification of individuals in positions of authority in Oklahoma, or of the systemic hate that were the true causes of death. I hope at least one of these individuals takes responsibility for this and others’ deaths.
Daniel
Love this. "Not just queer-affirming, but queer-celebratory" - yes. For non-queer folks - we can move beyond congratulating ourselves for accepting people for who they are, and move toward honoring their leadership and recognizing we are all so much better for having their gifts among us!