A much needed book providing a perspective of how the church burdens its LGBTQ+ members and makes it harder for them to feel loved and included in the family of God.

A thoughtful, well-researched book that focuses more on how the church can care for and welcome our LGBTQ brothers and sisters and how we have failed to love them well than the typical culture war framing. Rivera, who is a celibate lesbian, provides convicting words on past failures and new pathways forward to include LGBTQ Christians in the Kingdom work as is their calling.

This book is well worth reading and thinking through for Christians today, regardless what they believe on this topic. Rivera addresses core ways that the modern, Western church tends to harm LGBT people, and includes stories from people from diverse backgrounds about their experiences, instead of only writing from her own experiential perspective. She also incorporates research and historical context for how some ideas about sexuality and gender that Christians tend to hold were socially constructed at particular hinge points in history and aren't necessarily biblical. She covers such a wide range of topics and issues that the book felt overwhelming to me at times, and I don't think that she provides enough argumentation for some of her conclusions, especially when it seems like she is using someone's personal story as an argument.

Personal stories are significant, but people who disagree with her in different directions could find moving personal stories to support their points, too, and there are times where she makes very controversial or assertive statements and then quickly moves on without fully unpacking her perspective or shoring up her argument with enough evidence. I respect Rivera's choice to write about so many deeply controversial issues while knowing that people on both sides of the debate will strongly disagree with her on certain points, but I felt that some of her arguments and conclusions focused on the weakest, most poorly thought out arguments from one side or another. There were many times where I would have a thought or counterpoint that she would never address, focusing instead on more generalized, shallower ideas that are common in church culture.

Ultimately, I think that is the biggest weakness of the book. Rivera focuses a lot on shallow, poorly thought out beliefs and their harmful implications, but the people who are most likely to read this book will already be reflective and well-educated on the subject, and will have already long moved past these beliefs in one direction or another. This book is academic enough that the average churchgoer isn't likely to read it, and people who have already thought, studied, and prayed tremendously about this issue will find her sometimes speaking more to the average churchgoer than to them. Ultimately, this book is well worth reading, because Rivera has a lot of significant points and provides helpful historical context to several issues, but it's not as strong as I hoped it would be.

Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church (Brazos Press, 2021) by Bridget Eileen Rivera (@travelingnun)

The author describes how status quo teachings and practices within evangelicalism (and elsewhere in Christianities) do harm to LGBTQ+ people. Typically by establishing cishetero norms as sanctified sexuality, leaving no viable options for people outside of those norms.

The book makes some notable strides toward representing a group of people who are marginalized and maligned within evangelicalism, and my hope is that this may make people more conscious of ways that their beliefs and practices have a negative effect on others.

She's trying to move evangelicalism from within, basically.

When you put these burdens on LGBTQ+ people, it either pushes them inward (shame, isolation, duplicity) or pushes them out of the church so they do not have the opportunity to grow in faith themselves or help a community grow in their understanding.

So I see it being useful for people who are trying to make steps away from the assumptions and rhetoric that maintain exclusion- this could be a first book along that path and I would recommend pairing it up with something more directly affirming, such as

Family of Origin, Family of Choice (Hays)
Gospel of Inclusion (Robertson)
Queer Virtue (Edman)

Heavy Burdens may also be healing for marginalized people to see their experience seen and shared by another. The evangelical church is not a safe place for LGBTQ+ people to share openly or to receive care, so this book may be an opening to help those within evangelicalism understand what people are unable to communicate.

My primary critique of the book is that it does not go far enough in challenging the root causes of exclusion or advocating for a more dynamic transformation.

There is a lot of emphasis on how a message is communicated (and received) in exclusionary ways. At times, this leads to just updating the language to be more opaque but it doesn’t get to the heart of changing the error of belief/practice that produces exclusion. (TBF, she does say that she is not writing an argument *for* inclusion but to express how harm manifests.)

Same-sex attraction and expression is consistently contrasted with "traditional Christian ethics", which seems to be euphemistic, since her historical analysis of theological understandings of sexuality emphasize the evolving (and fairly recent) dynamics at work. She also makes note to put herself within the bounds of a “traditional” ethic, by which she means celibacy.

Challenging these assumptions is simply to move from "sexuality and gender is clear" to "it's complicated" is an improvement, but there is so much malignant theology concerning sexuality that there needs to be more direct challenge to the structures that maintain exclusion and harm.

This leaves out an entire spectrum of ways that LGBTQ+ Christians can find joy in relationships and sexuality or spiritual communities that fully affirm them.

There is NO mention of churches that are already affirming. It's evangelicalism=the church, so even as she is advocating for churches to somehow withhold judgement and wrestle with issues, she doesn't mention who might be able to help.

But despite these reservations, I would still recommend this book to my evangelical peers (especially straight ones) as a way to bring the experience of many in the queer community into proximity. Even if this is just incremental growth, it is progress toward repentance, harm-reduction, and inclusion.

This is an important book. It is also heavy and difficult to read at times, especially if you are part of the LGBTQ community and you have experienced religious trauma firsthand. But Rivera does a great job at laying out the facts and statistics that don't lie when it comes to how LGBTQ people have been so badly treated by the church for so long. I certainly don't agree with her about everything. She describes herself as a "side B" celibate, gay, Christian, committed to the "traditional" view of biblical sexual ethics. I firmly landed on "side A', or fully affirming theology when it comes to LGBTQ people and their relationships. But her book isn't really about that debate. Her book is about trying to get non-affirming Christians to treat LGBTQ people as beloved children of God, made in the image of God, and stop putting heavy burdens on their backs that God never wanted them to put there in the first place.

Heavy Burdens is both hard to read and very inspirational. I can't even say whether I "agree" with everything Bridget wrote because the goal of her book is not to argue that God supports gay marriage or that the very existence of gay people is a sin. Rather, using both personal anecdotes and objective data, Bridget illustrates how very wrong the Christian church has been in how they treat LGBTQ folks. There must be a better way. Spoiler alert, "hating the sin and loving the sinner" is not it.

My heart ached at the stories of folks who sought fellowship and comfort in the church only to be turned away or driven to suicidal ideations at the hate they encountered. This is not the way of Jesus.

Bridget's mic drop point is 100% how inconsistent the American church is regarding sexual ethics. On the one hand, you have churches unwilling to come down on whether divorce is ok or birth control or any number of other "matters of conscience," yet say without blinking that the Bible is clear on other matters of sexuality that doesn't affect heterosexual relationships, namely how it applies to LGBTQ folks. I was inspired by the stories of gay Christians who pour over Scripture to seek truth in a way most heterosexual Christians would never to address their own questions of sexuality.

I also think Bridget makes a great point about how heterosexual Christians gate-keep the Gospel and act like the grace and love of God cannot extend to those "they" determine to be unforgivable. How very unacceptable.

Anyway, I went into this book pretty much already agreeing with the premise, but I have come away with renewed conviction. I think all Christians, especially those in leadership and ministry, ought to read this book.

Full disclosure, the author Bridget was a college classmate of mine and we have stayed connected over social media in the years after graduation. That definitely affected my review because I think she is just a wonderful and wise human.

Thank you to Netgalley, Brazos, and the author for the eARC in exchange for my review.

Bridget Eileen Rivera is a prominent figure in the LGBTQ+ conversations happening in the Christian church of the West. I first encountered her work through her blog, Meditations of a Traveling Nun, while I was working through that "reconciliation" stage for followers of Christ engaging with the LGBTQ+ communities/issues/identities. Her writing was refreshing and thoughtful, balancing personal accounts with academic and theological reflection. While in so many other Christian spaces that I, coming from a conservative Protestant background, have run into (and continue to encounter) posit that a Christian cannot be LGBTQ+ or think favorably of LGBTQ+ individuals, Bridget provided a different perspective that acknowledged her personal convictions and extended grace in interpretation and practice toward others.

After months combing through the archives of her blog, I was delighted to find out that Bridget would be publishing a book - this book, Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church - that brought the many thoughts expressed or alluded to in her blog and in her social media accounts into one unified whole. After months of waiting for the release date, I received a copy of Heavy Burdens at the beginning of October and, in less than two days, had read all of it.

Heavy Burdens did not disappoint! Bridget writes with compassion for both LGBTQ+ Christians in the Church and non-LGBTQ+ Christians navigating this conversation. It is known that Bridget is "Side B," meaning that she, as a gay woman, ascribes to the "traditional sexual ethic" of Christianity that sexual intimacy is reserved to be between one man and one woman. She explains at a couple of points in the book, as in other writings online, that she came to this conclusion by taking Scripture holistically, rather than by proof texts. However, the focus of Heavy Burdens is not on proselytizing any side of the LGBTQ/Christian debate. Bridget's focus in Heavy Burdens is the treatment of LGBTQ+ Christians, regardless of "side," in the local Christian church. To this end, she describes seven burdens placed on LGBTQ+ Christians, this terminology drawn from Matthew 23:4 on religious leaders of Jesus's day tying heavy burdens on people that they do not impose on themselves, and spends two chapters on each of them. The burdens include the celibacy mandate imposed, implicitly or explicitly, on LGBTQ+ Christians (and the fact that even celibacy isn't enough sometimes), the insistence that what is biblically complex for straight Christians is biblically simple or clear for LGBTQ+ Christians, and the reduction of LGBTQ+ Christians to nothing more than their sex (despite the human beings exaltation as images of God).

Bridget draws from ancient and Christian history and from Christian theological traditions to build her arguments around these seven burdens. She also considers the influence of political power and psychological theories, especially in the 20th century, in considering the current treatment of LGBTQ+ Christians in the Church today. A semi-academic book in its engagement with these various fields, Heavy Burdens is intended for a general audience, so citations and additional notes appear as endnotes. (My preference is footnotes, as it is faster to check sources when the information is right at the bottom of the page in question, but I understand why endnotes were used instead.) Heavy Burdens combines serious reflection with anecdotes that humanize the issues being discussed; a common shortcoming of conversations in the Christian church regarding LGBTQ+ issues is the removal of the person and a focus on "the issue," which often ends up treating people as issues instead of, well, people. Bridget avoids this by placing the stories of the people harmed by these burdens at the front of each chapter. The people featured come from a range of backgrounds in general demographics (gender, race, etc.), in the LGBTQ+/Church conversations (different sides), and in the LGBTQ+ communities (gay, bisexual, asexual, etc.). I appreciated the way Bridget presented these individuals and weaved them through the rest of the chapters, linking the people to the burdens she argues that LGBTQ+ Christians face in the Church.

Even after digging into these issues for years, there were points that Bridget covered that I hadn't known about. For example, she spends a chapter on 1 Corinthians 6:9, which has been translated to read "Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites...will inherit the kingdom of God" in the 1982 New King James Version of the Bible. She notes how the word "homosexual" hadn't replaced the previously used word "effeminate" until the 1946 RSV, which I knew about. What I didn't know was the historical background of ancient Roman social relations as they related to that word "effeminate." Bridget pokes at the arsenokoitai/malakoi debate among biblical scholars to show that - look - it being a debate implies that the supposed clarity of Scripture on this issue doesn't exist. I liked Bridget's conclusion on this point: "In my own experience, the Bible was only 'clear' about homosexuality for as long as I was willing to never go beyond the surface. The minute I set aside my own worldview and studied the text in the context of its time, things got a lot more complicated."

Bridget doesn't leave readers under the weight of burdens' reality. In her final three chapters, she considers what the Church can do moving forward to create at atmosphere in which LGBTQ+ Christians can flourish.

While reading Heavy Burdens, a semi-conversation I had with someone about LGBTQ+ individuals in the Church kept coming back to me. In response to my suppositions, my interlocutor opened Google, searched for Bible verses related to homosexuality, read a couple to me, and called it clear. Heavy Burdens is a book that I think would be a great benefit to Christians like that peer. It would be a great benefit, moreover, to any Christian in the West in the 21st century. I echo the endorsement of Wesley Hill that "every Christian who reads this book will no longer be able to ignore the real harm that has been done in the name of the gospel--or to avoid grappling afresh with the repentance and justice-seeking that the gospel continues to ask of us all."

I did not finish. Her non affirming stance (seeing celibacy as the way forward for LBGTQ persons) was not in line with my affirming stance. Her overuse of the term “homosexuality” which has pathological connotations is also problematic.

Heavy Burdens, by Bridget Eileen Rivera, is an amazingly informative book. A combination of case studies for what it’s like to find yourself out of the inner circle of stereotypical, heterosexual believers. It’s condemning. It’s excluding. It’s rejecting…. It’s a recipe for disaster. Here’s a quote from the Introduction (p. 16):

“Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth contemplate suicide three times more often than heterosexual youth and are 8.4 times more likely to attempt suicide if they experience family rejection. Forty percent of transgender adults have attempted suicide at least once in their lifetime, and of that number, 92 percent attempted suicide before the age of twenty-five. Of all teen suicides from 2013 to 2015, nearly 25 percent were LGBTQ. Of all homeless youth in the United States, 40 percent are LGBTQ. In the span of a year, an estimated 1.8 million LGBTQ youth between the ages of thirteen and twenty-four will seriously contemplate suicide. LGBTQ people are also more likely to be the target of hate crimes than any other minority group in the United States today, surpassing Jewish, Muslim, and Black people. For most people, religious involvement reduces the risk of suicide. But when gay and lesbian college students engage more heavily in their faith communities, their risk of suicide only goes up. Gay and lesbian students are 38 percent more likely to contemplate suicide if they are heavily involved in faith communities. Lesbian students, counted separately from gay male students, are 52 percent more likely to contemplate suicide if they are heavily involved in faith communities. 8 How can that be? How is it that going to church would be a factor in keeping straight people alive but pushing gay people toward death?”

If that doesn’t get your attention, I don’t know what will. So read on…

Rivera presents a collection of case studies of believers who are LGBTQ and their struggles to find acceptance (at any level!) and fellowship in the church (nearly any church). She combines over a dozen of these real-life examples with great historical, exegetical, and sociological studies discussing sexuality and the church. It’s absolutely remarkable the level of hypocrisy that the church has displayed toward those outside of its definition of “acceptable norm,” even to the point of incorporating Freudian categories into Bible translations. How can it be that those who were rejected by the religious elite but were drawn to Jesus in life changing ways are being both rejected and condemned by those who claim to follow him?

To be clear, though, this book is NOT an attempt to push an LGBTQ affirming agenda. This book is a demonstration of where and how the Church is getting it wrong – not necessarily theologically but in practice. What I mean is that Rivera is NOT pushing any particular interpretive agenda (whether affirming or “side B,” progressive or traditional). She is exposing and redirecting the Church to be the Church – the body of Christ.

After 14 chapters of easy to read, highly informative descriptions of 7 “burdens,” she concludes with a 3-chapter section called “A Better Way.” Here, Rivera lays out some steps to take, directions to go, for the Church in embracing LGBTQ believers. She does not claim to have “all the answers.” She is just wanting to do what she can to help the Church live out the love of Jesus to all who need him, which simply means everybody.

So my recommendation is to buy this book, read it, reread it, pray about it – that God would help you understand and to love without feeling compelled to compromise your conscience. Then share it. Get the word out. Do what you can to help make the Church a true representation of the body of Christ.

I am a straight white cis-gendered pastor who holds to Side B/ the traditional sexual ethic. You will probably want to filter my review with that understanding. I am weirdly the target audience for the book and also the audience that might be the least receptive.

The book tries hard to straddle the line between affirming and non-affirming. Rivera is Side B(non-affirming) and is celibate herself. She tries hard to avoid the discussion and several times emphasizes that the book is not about that particular debate. However, by the end of the book she places the entire discussion as a non-essential one. She compares it to baptism as something that believers can disagree about and still follow Jesus. That will be a difficult pill to swallow for many. I'm not convinced on that point, but she makes her argument well.

Most of the book focuses on the seven ways LGBTQ people have been harmed in the church. She lays out the arguments with two chapters each explaining how the church has gone beyond the bounds of Scripture in various ways. It is hard to debate, and shouldn't be, that Christians have been ungodly towards LGBTQ people. This needs to be confronted and repented of. The book does a good job of laying out various ways that this has happened.

Some of the burdens were better explained than others. As the book went on I found myself disagreeing more and more in places. I agree with her overall point, but found myself nitpicking here and there. Most Christians should be able to agree with a lot of these burdens even if they disagree with others.

I find myself conflicted on the book. I am uncomfortable with framing the discussion as a completely non-essential issue. But there is a lot of wisdom to be found here. Those who are non-affirming and not apart of the LGBTQ community may struggle more with the book. But I think it is still worth reading and wrestling with. If nothing else to listen to the perspective of someone who agrees with you largely, but is trying to point out what you got wrong. I imagine those who are more affirming will be really enjoy this book and find it healing.

In the end people should read it. It effectively makes the case that Christians have harmed LGBTQ people even if you disagree with some of the particulars. It is especially strong for a debut in a difficult topic.

Introduction
Burden 1: Sex . . . err . . . Celibacy Is Great!
1. The Protestant Sexual Revolution
2. The New Sexual Order
Burden 2: Sinners Saved by Grace
3. Perverted Identity
4. Freud's Lasting Influence
Burden 3: Folk Devils
5. Political Christianity
6. Hellfire and Judgment
Burden 4: The Bible Is "Clear"
7. Culture and Context
8. Double Standards
Burden 5: "Real" Men, "Good" Ladies
9. Effeminacy
10. Emasculation
Burden 6: Made in the Image of God Sex
11. Gender Essentialism
12. More Than Just Monkeys?
Burden 7: Jesus Saves Damns
13. Vessels of Wrath
14. Grace for Me but Not for Thee
A Better Way
15. Recentering the Gospel
16. Setting Down the Burdens
17. Weights of Glory

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for a review.

I want every straight person in ministry to read this book. I want every straight person to read this book! I want everyone to read this book!!
Heavy Burdens is somehow both accessible and well-researched, highly readable while still taking its subject seriously. Bridget Eileen Rivera has managed to thread the needle of keeping her book approachable while keeping her readers accountable. Anecdotes set the stage for each chapter, highlighting different issues LGBTQ Christians face in the church. Rivera draws on history, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and theology throughout the book, in addition to offering tangible ways to support LGBTQ Christians and resources for further reading.
This book is not an argument for or against same-sex marriage, so don't expect that theology debated here. Instead, prepare to be drawn in by the stories shared, shedding light on the real harm done at the hands of the church.

I'm going to be pondering over this book for quite a while. The vast majority of it is well reasoned and convincingly argued. The stories of the devastation caused to LGBTQIA+ people by Christians and the Church are completely heartbreaking. It infuriates me that so many of my fellow Christians are proud of the despicable, inhumane ways they treat queer people. I found Rivera's approach to the book - largely declining to engage in the major debates that church positions on LGBTQIA+ people tend to circle around, but focusing instead on the grievous harm done by traditional conservative teaching and the consequent behaviour - helpful and clarifying.

This book is a great introductory level to church members who haven't thought about queer Christians much. If you have studied queer theology or theology academically, you will find areas of this book lacking. It is a great book to share with your parent, friend, church member, etc., who says they don't care and won't choose a side on the fight for queer inclusion.

Seeing this book listed for review I thought it would be a great chance to see how the church can better encounter those in the LGBTQ community, as admittedly much of what Bridget Eileen Rivera has encountered is an honest review of the culture within a church.

There are 7 experiences listed within the book and each one is well thought out in it’s discussion. However there is much lacking here. I was really hoping, as a release under the academic brand of Baker books, this book would give a deep look into the biblical structure and give us a better understanding of how the church can respond to the needs and experiences of the community focused on.

That just wasn’t the case. Yes we need to do much better, but only one chapter focused on the biblical ideals and how we have done poorly. Instead each chapter reads like a “bone to pick” instead of honest discussion, and are in fact the issues LGBTQ people will face in the culture at large not just inside a church setting. Even while I read the book recording artist Da Baby was guilty of perpetrating one of these experiences.

The content wasn’t lacking it just didn’t serve well to help direct me as a church leader on a better path. Even a few of the sources the author chose to use in pointing out the problems are ones, we have for years known as those one should not read. It made it difficult to evaluate and appreciate the point being made when there has been such critical issues with the sources referenced.

Overall I found myself challenged by a few of the chapters but it’s a not a book I would recommend to others.

*This book was given to me free in exchange for an honest review. These are my personal thoughts.

An Instagram influencer that I follow recommended this book, and I had to check it out. "Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church", by Bridget Eilleen Rivera, is a well-written and thought-provoking esposé into the ways churches harm those in the LGBTQ community. While this is an important read, it's obviously not very easy to read. I didn't agree with everything I read in the book, but I do agree that the church needs to do a better job of ministering to those who are struggling with their sexual identity.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.