Christian Hope and Nymphia Wind at the Presidential Palace

CW: These are unformed thoughts about Christian faith and my brief involvement with marriage equality campaign in Taiwan.

President Tsai Ing-Wen leaves office in 4 days. Today, Nymphia Wind, the first East Asian winner of Drag Race performed at the presidential palace. It's 1am and I've had a really long day, but I'm still thinking about the magnitude of this moment. I'm going to spend some time first exploring one of my favourite articulations of the Christian faith and its narrative power when looking back on my memories of LGBTQ activism in Taiwan.

Bryan S. Massingale articulates an hermeneutic* of "Christian Hope" in his essay On the Challenge of Idolatry in LGBTQ Ministry. Friends close to me have definitely heard me quote this incessantly because it's so central to everything I believe. Massingale, a Queer, Black Catholic Priest, articulates his vision for a just church, one that sees him in all of his humanity and affirms each one of his identities. He concludes by asking us to reflect on the distinction between hope and optimism.

Finally, we must cultivate a sense of hope. Hope is not the same thing as optimism. Optimism is an American virtue. The American myth is that good always prevails over evil, the good “guys” always win, and sooner rather than later. Optimists believe that the victories are low-cost. Optimists believe that all difficulties will work out well.

Hope is very different. Hope believes that good ultimately triumphs over evil . . . but not always. And that the victories often come at a terrible cost; in the process many will pay a very high price. In the words of Arthur Falls, an African American civil rights activist and a member of the Chicago Catholic Worker in the 1960s, when asked what gave him hope in the struggle for justice, he replied: “When you work for justice, you don’t always lose.”

You don’t always lose. That’s Christian hope. Christian hope is grounded in the resurrection. The resurrection was not the last minute rescue of Jesus, a narrow escape from death or a close brush with tragedy. Jesus died – as too often Black trans women die, and as LGBTQI asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants too often die. The resurrection is about what God can bring forth out of tragedy, failure, and death. That’s the faith which sustains us in this slow, frustrating, and even dangerous work for a more just world and a holier church. That’s what gives us hope.

You don't always lose.

Six years ago, shortly after I finished university, I was back in Taiwan during the 2018 referendum on marriage equality. As a newly minted liberal arts college graduate, I spent some time canvassing for the marriage equality campaign. A group of middle school kids walked by us and thanked us for what we were doing because they couldn't vote. We spent some time chatting with them and one of them suddenly said "I have friends who are angels now because of the [anti-marriage equality campaign]".

A hushed silence fell over our conversation.

The kids turned to each other and they realized they all knew someone who had died by suicide because of the pressure that had come from the referendum.

Thanks to patriarchy, I don't cry that often, but I remember going home and sobbing for hours and hours. Here I was, a holder of a college degree, undoubtedly a newly-minted adult. I could not help but feel that I was letting these kids down. Was adulthood just going to be futile battle-after-battle? Trying our best to move the needle ever-so-slightly in the direction of justice?

You don't always lose.

It's been 6 years since that awful referendum. Nymphia Wind, a Taiwanese drag queen, performed in front of the president. The president gave a speech congratulating Nymphia. Her example, Tsai says, will "give courage to many young people in Taiwan to be themselves". All I can think about are the young people who didn't get to witness this moment. Time feels so long and so short. It's been a mere 6 years and LGBTQ rights in Taiwan have become so seamlessly accepted that a drag queen can be celebrated in the presidential palace. This victory came at a terrible cost.

I think about the invisible children who never made it past middle school. We sit in the tension of the hermeneutic Massingale articulates. Out of tragedy can come justice, but it's too late for some. There is no easy way out of the heavy complexity of these feelings.

So today, of all days, I am reflecting on the arc towards justice that good people have been tirelessly bending for years and years. Today, I'm "sustained", as Massingale writes, by a sign of a more just world to come. We take these small victories and we cherish them, because they're what are going to bring us closer to the kingdom of God.

*= Hermeneutic is a fancy word that means "biblical interpretation" approximately