Winter is coming
God, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
These are words uttered in agony, a plea for grace amidst the most profound betrayal. I have started asking the question of “who” Jesus was talking to a lot these days. Was it just the soldiers, the crowd, the leaders who condemned him? Or was it a broader, more sweeping forgiveness for all of humanity’s blindness? Especially in light of the onslaught of hate and outright evil that is being slung at our community today by the religious “reich” and the mainline church itself, this question feels urgent.
For so many of us in the LGBTQ+ community, betrayal is not a distant concept. It is a wound we carry. It is the silence from a parent when you share your truth. It is the friend who disappears, unable to reconcile their doctrine with your existence. It is the nation that legislates against your love, your body, your right to simply be. These are not small cuts; they are deep gashes inflicted by the very people and institutions that were supposed to offer unconditional love and protection.
How many of us have sat in a church pew, listening to a sermon that paints our love as an abomination? We are told we are broken, sinful, and unworthy, all while being asked to tithe into the collection plate. This is the message of the “Christian church” to its LGBTQ+ sisters and brothers: Your money is welcome, but your soul is damned. What a stunning, painful hypocrisy. We are betrayed by the spiritual homes that should be our sanctuary.
We live in a country where our lives are debated by politicians who will never walk a day in our shoes. Morals, ethics, and spirituality take a back seat to political power and control. They use our identities as bargaining chips, stoking fear and division to secure their own positions.
From the Stonewall riots, where our siblings fought back against police brutality, to the ongoing legislative attacks on our transgender family, the betrayal is systemic. It is the quiet cruelty of a society that claims to value freedom while actively trying to extinguish ours.
The pain is real. It is a heavy cloak we are often forced to wear. So, what do we do with it? What do we do with the anger, the grief, the feeling of being utterly alone?
This brings me back to that moment on a hill two thousand years ago.
God, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Could it be that this ancient plea is not just for a long-gone crowd but also for us, right here, right now?
Yes, my friends, each of us is sitting on our own hillside, wounded and bleeding, and listening to these words. The one on the cross in fact is speaking to each and every one of us. We are the “who”! The instruction is for us.
This is not a call for cheap grace or a demand to forget the harm done.
Forgiveness, in this context, is not about absolving those who hurt us. It is not about saying, “It’s okay.” It is not okay. The betrayal was real, the injustice is real, and the pain is valid.
Instead, this forgiveness is a radical act of self-preservation. It is taking our lives back, taking back the conversation. It is about us.
It is the moment we decide that we will no longer allow their ignorance to poison our spirit. When we forgive them for “not knowing what they do,” we are acknowledging their blindness, their fear, their indoctrination. We are recognizing that their hate is a reflection of their own brokenness, not ours.
To forgive in this instance is to cut the cord that binds our emotional well-being to their acceptance. It is to take back our power. It is to declare that our peace will not be held hostage by another’s prejudice. This is a fiery, defiant act. It is looking at the family member who rejected you, the friend who abandoned you, the politician who demonized you, and saying, “Your inability to see my light will not extinguish it. I release the hold your ignorance has on my heart. You cannot erase me!”
This is how we find peace with ourselves and the world. Not by waiting for an apology that will never come, but by liberating ourselves.
Our community has always been masters of this alchemy. We take the stones of hatred thrown at us and build monuments of love and resilience. We transform pain into art, protest, and chosen family. We create spaces of such vibrant beauty and acceptance that they shine a light on the drab conformity of our detractors.
Look at us. We are a symphony of identities, a testament to the infinite expressions of love and being. We are the survivors of plagues, of persecution, of laws designed to erase us. And still, we love. Still, we dance. Still, we create. Still, we thrive.
Let us hold our righteous anger against the injustice. But let us not allow the bitterness of their betrayal to curdle our souls. Let’s practice this radical forgiveness — not for them, but for us. For our own peace. For our own liberation. Forgive them, for their ignorance is vast, but our capacity for love is vaster still. And in that love, we find our ultimate, unbreakable strength.
A pastor from my local community once referred to me and my husband as nothing more than “liberal snowflakes” that will be gone in the spring of Jesus’ arrival — some old-fashioned name-calling that I would like to now put into the correct context.
Talk about some good old-fashioned schoolyard name-calling! To which I think the self-styled “kindness advocate” Houston Kraft has voiced a tremendous response that shows just how gravely the religious and political right underestimate us.
I am not a liberal snowflake. My feelings aren’t fragile, my heart isn’t bleeding. I am a badass believer in human rights. My toughness is in tenderness. My strength is in the service of others. There is nothing more fierce than formidable, unconditional love. There is not a thing more courageous than compassion. But if my belief in equity, empathy, goodness and love indeed makes me snowflakes, then you should know winter is coming.
Those who would do us harm would do well for themselves to decide where they will be standing when the snowstorm arrives and the avalanche comes. And remember, we have been here since the beginning!
Editor-in-Chief of Whosoever and Founding and Senior Pastor of Gentle Spirit Christian Church of Atlanta, Rev. Paul M. Turner (he/him) grew up in suburban Chicago and was ordained by the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches in 1989. He and his husband Bill have lived in metro Atlanta since 1994, have been in a committed partnership since the early 1980s and have been legally married since 2015.