Individual choices revisited: Non-heterosexual Christians in Poland

Abstract

Drawing on qualitative research among highly educated Polish lesbian, gay and bisexual Christians who do not wish to deny their sexual inclinations, seeking instead to integrate their sexuality and religiosity, the author addresses (1) their decision whether to continue to follow Roman Catholicism or seek religious traditions that support such integration, and (2) the choices related to participation in Penance and Eucharist sacraments by those who continue to follow Roman Catholicism. These decisions and choices are structurally conditioned: Christian seekers raised in multidenominational settings and people who are geographically and socially mobile are most ready to challenge the dominant Catholic views on homosexuality and its proscription of the participation of those who are homosexually active in certain aspects of religious practice. The author calls for recognition that, following Bourdieu, the religious field should be interconnected with other social fields, specifically with regard to the analysis of the relationship between religiosity and homosexuality.

This paper presents preliminary findings from my research project among LGBT-identifying Christians in Poland, LGBT standing for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. Using qualitative research methods, I study the lived experiences of those who consider themselves Christian believers and, at the same time, do not make efforts to suppress their non-normative sexuality or gender expression. This article aims to discuss a single aspect of the research: the choices faced by Polish non-heterosexual Christians as a result of their need to integrate their religiosity and sexuality. ¹ In particular, it addresses LGB people’s search for appropriate Christian traditions and their participation/non-participation in the Catholic sacraments of Penance and Eucharist.

The article questions the link between, on the one hand, the management of the conflict between religion and homosexuality and, on the other, the ‘working of the self’ (Yip, 2002: 207), the primacy of the self and individualistic approaches to religion – a link established by scholars who have studied religiosity among LGB people. Instead of highlighting individualistic values, it refers to Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social and religious capital and is concerned with the interdependence of the religious field and other fields of social practice. In adopting such a perspective, the paper draws inspiration from Matthew Wood’s (2007) work on New Age spiritualties. Wood noted that the disposition to participate in New Age practices relates to individuals’ shifting social status. Moreover, this shift transfers itself to attitudes towards authority and is therefore also related to the central status of possession in the New Age context. Although this paper is more concerned with the cognitive dimension of belief than with practices of possession and does not delve into the issue of authority, it resonates with Wood’s approach in that it rejects the highlighting of religious individualism that characterizes most studies on religion. Instead, it emphasizes the interdependence between the formation of a specific kind of religiosity that goes beyond what is sanctioned by tradition, on the one hand, and the social context, which includes shifts in social structure, on the other. It goes on to claim that patterns of spiritual seeking within Christianity among non-heterosexual Christians depend on the scope of experiences they had with various denominations in the years of their upbringing, and there is a correspondence between individuals’ readiness to challenge the dominant religious views on homosexuality and their geographical and social mobility.

Beyond the dominant academic views

The main current among the proliferating sociological studies on Christianity and non-heterosexuality over the last two decades (for a summarizing discussion see: Yip, 2010) focuses on the tension between religion and homosexuality and how that tension might be resolved. Such studies highlight various strategies employed by LGB Christians to achieve this aim. Among other things, they point to the reinterpretation of the Bible and the questioning of church officials’ authority (Thumma, 1991; Yip, 1997, 2005a, 2010), as well as LGB people’s reliance on positive personal experience of the sacred (Mahaffy, 1996; Yip, 1997; Wilcox, 2002), which may lead to a decline in identification with the Church (Yip, 2000, 2005b; Wilcox, 2009) or to withdrawal from collective religious practices (Gross, 2008). They also emphasize the spiritual seeking for religious communities or traditions that best respond to the need to reconcile the religious and sexual spheres of life (Rodriguez and Ouelette, 2000; Wilcox, 2003; Yip, 2000).

The studies rarely employ intersectional analysis involving social class. A focus on individual agency in overcoming religious discourses disinclined towards homosexuality dominates academic reflection. American scholars draw on seminal works by Wade Clark Roof (1999) and Robert Wuthnow (1998) and underscore the value of individualism, which informs the strategies used by LGB religious people (e.g. Wilcox, 2003, 2009; O’Brien, 2004). European researchers refer to Paul Heelas, who discussed the phenomenon of ‘detraditionalization’ (e.g. Heelas, 1996), that is, the shift from the ‘external authority’ embodied by traditional religious institutions towards the ‘inner authority’ located at the level of personal beliefs, own intuitions and experiences, a shift emblematic of contemporary Western culture (e.g. Yip, 2002; Yip and Keenan, 2004; Gross and Yip, 2010). A quote from Andrew Yip, one of the most prominent researchers of religion and homosexuality, is typical of scholarly considerations in this field. It refers to his extensive sociological research among British LGB Christians:

One crucial point is clearly reinforced by both the quantitative and qualitative data – the primacy of the self and the lack of influence of religious authority structures. The basis of their Christian faith was predicated on the employment of their own human reason in their interpretation of the Bible, within the framework of their personal experience, in the fashioning of their Christian faith and living. In this process, the working of the self eclipses the impact of religious authority structures on individual believers. … To explain this scenario sociologically, I personally find ‘detraditionalization’ a useful concept. … As this sample has shown, affiliation to the institutional churches does not automatically denote conformity and compliance with the religious authority structures. When it comes to an integral aspect of their lives, such as sexuality, the respondents found the space to distance themselves from the traditional stance. Some even challenged it by reinterpreting Christian doctrines and traditions. … This lends credence to the popular argument that, in late modern society, the religious landscape, as well as the construction and management of religious identities and expressions, are increasingly characterized by privatization, individuation, self-reflexivity, and a consumerist ethic. (Yip, 2002: 207, 210)

The working of the self is, therefore, at the heart of academic interpretations. In the case of spiritual seeking among various religious communities, scholars suggest that it is for individuals to decide which community best responds to their late modern search for authenticity. However, spiritual seeking seems to have little to do with an individual’s choosing from the buffet of religious culture, as it is perceived in the Anglo-Saxon countries, mainly the United States. Even there, although the pluralism of churches is culturally encouraged, structural limitations, individuals’ opportunities to find appropriate religious communities, and socially shaped attitudes towards their legitimacy strongly condition the choice. At this point, it is apposite to refer to Martine Gross (2008), who studied LGB Christians in France and noticed an important difference between the French and American religious contexts. She found that the dominant position of the Roman Catholic Church in France means that it forms part of the country’s religious and cultural heritage. Therefore, to get involved with any other religion means to break with that heritage. This therefore necessitates a process of conversion. Few decide to follow such a trajectory. Instead, the majority chooses to maintain a bond with the traditional Church, although some stop attending places of worship or at least remain critical of the Church’s stance on homosexuality. Still, in underscoring the individual dimension of dealing with the tension between religiosity and homosexuality, Gross fails to challenge the dominant academic views.

In what follows, I go a step further. While not completely denying the importance of individual agency, I focus on the structural conditions that govern individual choices. This is in line with Bourdieu’s views, which counter the idea, advocated mainly by adherents of rational choice theory, that the religious field is organized like an economic market and is characterized by the freedom to choose and consume religious goods (Bourdieu, 1990; Robertson, 1992). Like many scholars who employ the theory of practice, I draw on selected tools from the Bourdieu’s toolbox (cf. Rey, 2007). In particular, I refer to the concept of habitus, understood as the filter of one’s perceptions and the mould of one’s tastes, inclinations and dispositions. Habitus both structures and is structured by fields, that is, specific sites of social practice governed by struggles over pertinent forms of capital (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). In discussing the religious field, I argue for the durability of religious habitus once developed in specific social conditions. I also show the transferability of capital between fields (Bourdieu, 1986) – specifically, the flow from the economic field, where capital is related to class positioning, to the religious field. Finally, I draw on Bourdieu’s belief that there is a constant struggle between orthodoxy and heterodoxy: while the former monopolizes the legitimate production and administration of (religious) capital and exercises (religious) power over people, the latter, represented by those disadvantaged in the meta-field of power, challenges the monopoly (Bourdieu, 1977). This article transfers these concepts to the orthodox teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on homosexuality and the heterodox attitudes of those opposing the Church’s stance. It demonstrates that those disadvantaged by their social position, who nevertheless improve their status, have greater potential to challenge the orthodoxy than those who are well established and immobile in the economic field.

Research methodology and participants in the study

The research underpinning this article consists of biographical interviews and participant observations mainly among people associated with the newly established group Faith and Rainbow, the first Polish nationwide community self-defined as consisting of ‘LGBT Christians’. ² In late 2010, the group emerged as a closed discussion profile on Facebook, and soon afterwards, in 2010–2011, its members began to organize meetings in several Polish cities: Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan, Gdansk, Szczecin and Katowice. The community functions as a support group, but it also has reformatory aspirations – it calls for the revision of the Roman Catholic Church’s standpoint on homosexuality and attitude towards non-normative gender identities. In 2012 and 2013, I participated in more than 20 bi-weekly Faith and Rainbow meetings in Warsaw, as well as numerous informal meetings with group participants. I also joined in two Catholic retreats led by priests and organized by Faith and Rainbow in 2012 and one in 2013. The 2012 retreats gathered about 30 participants each, and the 2013 retreat more than 50. Furthermore, in 2012, I took part in retreats organized by the Episcopal Church, for the first time in Poland, in which nine of the twelve participants were associated with the Faith and Rainbow group.

In 2011–2013, I conducted 48 interviews with those who adhere to Christianity while having same-sex relationships and/or declaring themselves gay, lesbian or bisexual: 27 with men and 21 with women. These were thematic biographical interviews focused on issues related to religion and sexuality. My interviewees were aged between 19 and 77; those in their twenties and thirties predominated. All had university degrees or were in the course of university studies. They were originally from various towns and cities from across Poland, though almost all now live in big cities. Apart from using the Faith and Rainbow network to reach respondents, I used snowball sampling to contact 11 individuals who do not participate in the Faith and Rainbow community, but still declare non-heterosexuality and Christian beliefs. All 11 were highly educated and almost all were from Warsaw and still lived there. I did not extend my analysis to people with little education, nor, aside from a few exceptions, to those living in small towns.

Almost all my interviewees experienced strong religious socialization during childhood and adolescence with the vast majority were brought up in Roman Catholicism. This resulted in a strong habitus related to regular participation in Sunday mass and the Catholic sacraments, the Penance and Eucharist. As teenagers, many participated in parish activities and in-Church movements, such as the Charismatic Renewal and the Light-Life Movement, one of the most popular Polish Catholic initiatives for youth; many also took part in European Taizé meetings. Today, few remain involved with these circles. Some were excluded for their refusal to suppress their homosexuality, while others left the groups because they did not want to hide their homosexual orientation. However, their previous experience with religious communities has reinforced their personal devoutness.

Christian seeking and the reinterpretation of Roman Catholic doctrine

Faith and Rainbow was intended to be an ecumenical community, but it is in fact dominated by Roman Catholics. This is because Polish Christians who seek a denominational structure’s complete acceptance of homosexuality have very few suitable communities to turn to. No registered churches or religious associations bless same-sex unions or ordain ministers who declare themselves to be homosexual. There are only two small religious communities, each of no more than a dozen active participants, that are entirely open to sexual difference ³ : the United Christian Church (UCC), established by a gay activist in the early 2000s in Warsaw ⁴ , and the Reformed Catholic Church (RCC), established in 2007 in Poznan ⁵ , both drawing on the old Catholic tradition. Nevertheless, some of my interviewees had chosen to belong to Protestant denominations, e.g. Lutheran or Calvinist, for their perceived greater internal discussion of doctrinal matters and lesser efforts to control believers’ sexual lives than the Roman Catholic Church. Several others with whom I spoke merely sympathize with Protestant Churches and take part in their Sunday services from time to time.

Gross’s (2008) findings related to Roman Catholic Church dominance apply to the Polish case, where over 90% of the population declares its Catholic affiliation (Hall, 2012), and the Church has an unquestionably stable position within the cultural landscape: the shift to a non-Roman Catholic denomination demands an act of conversion. My interviewees usually preceded this act by a careful consideration of particular denominations’ doctrines. Three decided to study at the Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw, the most prestigious of the Polish universities educating theologians of Christian traditions other than Roman Catholicism. However, all resigned before completing their studies, one to focus on other studies already under way in another city, and two mostly because they found lecturers conservative. Indeed, the process of seeking for an appropriate denomination and community is far from being simple for these people. Even those advantaged by living in a city with many congregations of various Christian traditions face countless difficulties if they want to find a suitable religious space. Their high expectations meet a hard reality. An interviewee from Warsaw spoke about his peregrinations in the following way:

Until now, I haven’t been given any clear guidance [by Providence]: go to Calvinists, go to, I don’t know, Methodists, Lutherans. … [In the Calvinist church] I allegedly came across a terrible priest. I went to the Lutherans – and allegedly, I yet again came across a terrible priest. I wrote [a letter] to the Methodists – they didn’t answer. … once, with my ex, I went to an Anglican church, the English-speaking one in the Old Town. Something attracted me there, but the problem was that I don’t speak English. … I’ve been there once and I don’t know if I’ll go there again. So, the next in line are the Episcopalians. They came to Krakow, right? It seems like they want to establish something, but they don’t want to undermine the other churches – for instance, the Old Catholic Church. So it will take several years.

It should be noted, however, that spiritual seeking raises controversies among Faith and Rainbow community members, since it is associated with taking the path of least resistance and may therefore be viewed as betraying the organization’s mission of working towards the reform of the dominant Church. One interviewee was particularly vehement:

Homosexual people are also believers! They are religious, they are spiritual, right? And you can’t take it away from them! Simply: you can’t. The Church has no right to take it from anyone. And this is one of the reasons why I won’t join the RCC [the Reformed Catholic Church]. I won’t join any other community, the Protestant one or of any other kind. Because for me it is simply cowardice, isn’t it? … I am not going to exit the [Roman Catholic] Church, even if I’m cast out, even if they close the door on me. I’ll be their pain in the ass – that’s my goal. You know what I mean. This is the reason why I’m persisting in the Church, although no one understands it. Everyone thinks it’s stupid. But I say: no, it’s just cowardice to go elsewhere, here and there. What does it give you? For me, it doesn’t work.

It is no coincidence that those who undertake spiritual seeking within various Christian traditions share distinctive features. During my fieldwork I met seven people who were extremely interested in converting to other denominations, such as Lutherans, Calvinists or Episcopalians. Four had grown up in religious minority families but were now attracted to different denominations. Thus, a woman who converted to Calvinism had Greek-Catholic parents who worship in a Roman Catholic church for want of a Greek-Catholic church in the town where they live. The father of a man who is seriously considering joining the Episcopal Church is a Jehovah’s Witness. One of the two men who initiated the Episcopal community in Poland in 2012 comes from an Orthodox Christian family. The other man does not come from a religious family, although his mother had Lutheran roots and his father Mariavite roots. ⁵ The remaining three people who were trying to find their place within Protestant denominations, grew up in multidenominational settings and experienced religious diversity from their early years:

I come from Upper Silesia [a region in southern Poland], from a typical Upper Silesian family, where religions mix. … My mum and my dad are both Catholic. My uncles and my aunts, though, are Lutheran and Pentecostal. I grew up in this religious mixture.

This leads to a conclusion that religious upbringing is of great significance for the current pattern of engagement of Faith and Rainbow members with Christian denominations. The Christian seekers are those who have already experienced religious pluralism in their family or socio-geographic setting, and thus have developed a habitus that allows them flexibility in denominational adherence. Other Christians choose to remain within the Catholic Church, many even despite having experienced marginalization related to their non-normative sexuality. The habitus that they have developed drives them to perceive Roman Catholicism as the only horizon for their spiritual lives:

Catholicism is in my blood. I know it all by heart, all these chants … Sometimes people ask me, why I don’t change to another church. … But it is as if they had asked me: why don’t you change to another mum and dad? … Even a child that is beaten goes to its biological mum. She might be the worst, but … . It’s unexplainable.

They remain in the Church and employ a variety of strategies to integrate their religiosity and sexuality, strategies that are described by other scholars dealing with the subject. These translate into their involvement in religious practice. Many refer to the principle of primacy of conscience and do not perceive their sexual activity as a sin, especially if they are sexually active within a loyal, monogamous relationship. Consequently, they do not mention it during confession, focusing instead on sins they consider such, and after receiving absolution, they take Communion. They harmoniously combine the religious and sexual spheres of their lives. Involvement in Faith and Rainbow certainly contributes to their comfort in this field: they learn from colleagues who feel at ease with both their religiosity and their sexuality, and during retreats have the opportunity to meet Catholic priests who underscore the loving nature of God and work to diminish the believers’ sense of guilt related to their homosexual behaviour.

Catholic interviewees not engaged in Faith and Rainbow or any other gay-friendly community have more doubts as to their practice. Although they disagree with the Church’s stance on the issue of homosexuality, they have drawn conclusions from the Church’s unambiguous assessment of ‘homosexual acts’ as sinful and from confession requirements involving contrition, and have consequently ceased to participate in both sacraments, the Penance and the Eucharist: ‘I’m convinced it is a package. You just take the entire Catholic caboodle. … I don’t go [to Communion]. Those are the rules. Terrible shit.’

However, Faith and Rainbow is a unique community in terms of the social background of those involved. Of the nearly twenty people who regularly take part in Warsaw meetings, only three come from Warsaw, while the rest come from smaller towns. This suggests that those who are geographically mobile are more inclined to take part in gay-friendly religious group activity than those with significant social capital in their city of origin, founded on finding and co-creating social circles where they feel comfortable even if they differ from their friends in attitudes towards belief or the norms related to sexuality. Moreover, as well as changing their city of residence, the majority of participants in Faith and Rainbow have changed their social position: they undertook university studies and are better educated than their parents. Their shifting social status corresponds with their courage in challenging the orthodox Church views on homosexuality and the legitimacy of participation by those who are homosexually active in the sacrament of Eucharist. It seems that social and geographical mobility facilitates, first, resistance to the Church’s power, and subsequently, the successful integration of religiosity and sexuality:

I moved from my town to study. Here, I gained more self-esteem, grounded in studies and other things. And I found that I couldn’t allow the Church to treat me like that. … The priest is not the ultimate authority. My own convictions and my experience of God’s grace are equally important.

The less mobile who nevertheless participate in Faith and Rainbow’s activities retain more tension in that regard. A regular participant in Faith and Rainbow retreats who comes from Warsaw and lives there claims:

After my conversation with X, or confession with X or Y [priests cooperating with Faith and Rainbow], I felt that I could join the Eucharist. But as time passes since the retreats, I increasingly condemn myself. … This self-condemnation prevents me from going to Communion in the church. … It says to me: ‘No, no, you sin, you can’t.’

Hence, those privileged virtue of the fact that they come from families of considerable intellectual capital and live in large cities that provide access to substantial social capital, have significant difficulties in integrating their religiosity and sexuality. At the same time, their good position in the economic field has corresponded with their good position in the religious field from the years of their upbringing. An important feature of growing up in a large city such as Warsaw is access to numerous Catholic circles and priests representing different intellectual currents within Catholicism. This was particularly important in the interviewees’ adolescence, when they searched for answers to urgent questions about their faith and sexual inclinations. Unlike those who did not have such access, they plucked up the courage to speak with these priests about their concerns. Their good position in the religious field turned out to be a barrier to the harmonization of their religiosity and sexuality in that their religious perspective would have been shaped by members of the clergy who, however benignly disposed they might have been, presented views in line with the main current of Church teachings. Even if these priests did not particularly focus on the issue of homosexuality, they treated the adolescents as independent subjects, and consequently, triggered their respect for the Church and decreased their potential to challenge orthodoxy, the Church’s doctrine. An interviewee from Warsaw, referring to his teenage years, says that he stopped speaking with the rector of his parish about his homosexual concerns, since he was afraid of the rector’s reaction. Instead, he decided to share his secret with a monk of the Dominican order, since the widespread opinion of Dominicans was that they present an open attitude towards individual believers. The monk assigned a permanent confessor to him. The interviewee recalls the confessor in the following way:

He was a very wise man. For two years, he was a kind of therapist to me. … We met regularly. It was for confession, but after the confession, it was like, ‘How are you doing?’ Also, we decided I would write down any doubts, religious questions. And I came to him with them. He answered these questions and it was really great. … They were about everything; for instance, about what happened to Joseph at some point, etcetera. So, it was very important for me that I had a person I could completely trust.

Interviewees with similar experiences had developed a habitus that discouraged them from questioning the entire set of Church views on sexual matters and searching for representatives of the clergy who would somehow legitimate their way of life: ‘It would be so nice if he were to pat me on the back, but I have the impression that it’s somehow ridiculous to expect him to’. Those disadvantaged by their social position, who typically came from small towns and had limited access to the social and religious capital embodied by the clergy, did not benefit from reinforcing conversations with priests in their adolescence. As a result, at this crucial stage in their lives, they were forced to search for heterodox ways to reconcile the two spheres of their lives: their religiosity and their sexuality. The opportunity to move forward emerged in connection with their move to a bigger city and ascent to a social status higher than their families’. Both kinds of mobility have allowed them to acquire intellectual capital (by education) and social and religious capital (by participation in Faith and Rainbow and access to priests cooperating with the group), and, as a result, given them a sense of agency and growing self-esteem. These in turn have given them greater courage to challenge orthodox views.

Conclusions

Research among non-heterosexual Christians in Poland reveals that religious habitus strongly conditions spiritual seeking for a Christian denomination less severe in matters related to homosexuality than the Roman Catholic Church. Christian seekers are often those brought up in multidenominational settings. They have developed a habitus that enables them to deal with their religious minority status or, at least, to recognize minority denominations as legitimate. Those without such a background remain with Roman Catholicism, even if integrating their religiosity and sexuality demands extensive cognitive effort and involves challenging the official Church views on homosexuality. At this level, again, individual agency interacts with structural conditions. The geographically mobile, who take advantage of contemporary cultural changes to rise to higher social strata through education, are more inclined to seek new views on religion and sexuality than those who stay in their city of origin and retain a stable position within the social structure – particularly those who come from large cities and educated families (though the scope of this research excludes a study of those who retain a stable position within a lower social strata and/or live in small towns or rural areas). Those brought up in a big city had significant access to social capital and related religious capital, represented by intellectually oriented priests who shaped their worldview in line with orthodoxy, Church doctrine. Even if they subsequently questioned the Church’s stance on homosexuality, due to the habitus they had developed they retained respect for Church tradition, and are not inclined today to contest common Catholic rules related to the legitimacy of their participation in the sacraments of Penance and Eucharist. With regard to those growing up in small towns, their limited access to reverential priests during adolescence made them unsuccessful in finding satisfactory answers, presented in religious terms, to questions about their homosexuality. They became inclined to search for heterodox ways to integrate their religiosity and sexuality. However, they had limited opportunities to realize this inclination. Due to their subsequent upward shift (change in the city of residence and enhanced social status), they gained access to intellectual, social and religious capital – all interrelated. They also acquired a sense of individual agency, which made them ready to reinterpret Catholic doctrine and the tenets related to religious practice.

The research suggests that it is apposite to discuss the religious field in Bourdieu’s terms, as interconnected with other social fields. Individual choices in the religious realm depend on structural conditions to such an extent that putting the working of the self and the importance of individualism at the forefront of analysis eclipses rather than casts light on the issues related to the management of the conflict between religion and homosexuality. Within this process, social conditioning, access to various forms of capital, the cultural background influencing the upbringing, and cultural changes which increase social and geographical mobility, all emerge as crucial variables. Other factors worthy of consideration are undoubtedly gender, age and the clear transgression of social norms (for instance, by giving birth to a child within a lesbian relationship). These, however, demand separate discussion in another article.