In God's House - June 17, 2007

June 17, 2007
Ohana Metropolitan Community Church
Honolulu, HI

On June 17, 2007, "In God's House" premiered in Honolulu, Hawai'i. Through the hospitality of Rev. Dr. Jonipher Kwong of the Ohana Metropolitan Community Church and Rev. Sky St. John of the Unity Church of Hawai'i who offered both worship and gathering space for the event, the premiere drew nearly 20 people from various faith communities. The film was received positively and encouraged discussion around gender and the role that churches bear in providing places of welcome. Rev. Nobuko Miyake-Stoner of Harris United Methodist Church offered an inspiring and articulate testimony about the tenuous spaces occupied by LGBT faithful within churches that have yet to openly affirm their presence and full inclusion to these communities' ministerial life. Mrs. Susan Roth of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries echoed Rev. Miyake-Stoner's efforts by sharing her own initiative to encourage churches to be reconciling towards LGBT people of faith.

At the conversations that followed, several attendees observed how the tensions that define the intersection of gender, faith, and ethnicity among API communities in the Bay Area did not easily translate to their own experience in Hawai'i. Indeed, many remarked how the "lived diversity" of the islands fostered a different engagement among LGBT API Christians. Thus, while LGBT people of faith have had to assert spaces of inclusion in church, these spaces were not necessarily tied to explicitly ethnic spaces as well. As one attendee claimed, the prevailing hapa —or "mixed"—cultures that constitute Hawai'i's ethnic life are embedded deeply within the islands' church life. Difference serves therefore as a necessary ingredient to authentically life-giving encounters. Indeed, Rev. Kwong ennobled the very eloquence of these divergent voices in the evening's liturgy: incorporating traditional Hawaiian, Buddhist and Christian rituals, the faithful generously shared familiar and new spaces of worship. It was a surprisingly consoling embrace of dissonance, blurring the artificial boundaries that determined who and who did not belong in community.

The premiere generated interest both in the film and the desire to further cooperate in creating spaces of welcome for LGBT API people of faith. Rev. Kwong expressed well the sentiment of many who attended: "It was truly an amazing evening... It was a great crowd last night and I'm glad we had the discussion we had! People seemed very receptive to the movie. I know it's just a starting point for a much deeper conversation."

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