“If I were to ask myself four years ago today: do you think you will ever be in chapel talking about the innermost parts of your life? I probably would’ve had an anxiety attack,” Joe Miner ’18 laughed as he reflected on his journey the past four years. On January 12th, Miner continued to fortify his natural role as a student-leader in sharing his faith journey in Wesley Chapel. Miner gracefully and courageously shared his journey thus far as a celibate gay Christian.
As he recalled his freshman and sophomore years at Houghton, Miner explained that he struggled to find helpful resources as he was “coming to terms with my sexuality and how that would play a role in my faith.” He decided he would share his experience in the hopes that other people would find it helpful, too. “I figured there was probably a lot of people who were in my shoes, so even though I didn’t have most of the answers, I was just going to say what I was thinking and hope that would open up more conversation,” Miner said.
Adding to a conversation rather than creating one is both what Miner prefers, and also what he has found. “Now that I know I’m just adding to a conversation rather than creating one, it takes so much pressure off my shoulders,” he said. “It gives me more confidence to just speak out and be willing to write and share my experience.”
When Miner stepped into an RA position his junior year, he met more and more people who were wrestling with their sexuality and their faith. “I feel like I’ve heard so many stories of people who have expressed to me that they’re gay, but they don’t want to tell their parents because that would ruin their relationship, and other students who don’t want to go home on breaks, and others who just wouldn’t feel safe if they were to tell people across campus,” Miner shared. “That breaks my heart.”
Miner’s motivation for speaking up and out about hard issues is to “try and provide a voice for those people who can’t talk to anyone or are afraid to go home. There are a lot of people who don’t feel loved or accepted. I want to be able to speak — maybe not exactly for them, but be there as someone to say, ‘Hey, you’re not alone. God does love you and I am so sorry that you’ve been burned by the church in this way.’”
Miner is passionate about growing in the habit of embracing everyone, “even if we have disagreements.” His desire is to open up the conversation, challenge hearts, “and encourage people to ask each other: “Are you being loved? Do you have people in your life showing you the love of Christ? Because if you don’t, that needs to change.”
Miner adds his experience, wisdom, and insight to more conversations than just one. In addition to his active involvement in seeking to help the church reconcile with the LGBT community and also enlighten the understanding that “there are overlaps in the two, meaning, it’s not just the LGBT community and the church, it’s the LGBT community within the church plus the LGBT community outside it,” Miner is also an advocate for racial reconciliation on this campus, and beyond it.
On MLK Day, Miner led a discussion entitled, “Speak Up, Listen Hard: Becoming An Advocate for Racial Equality.” With the eloquent use of current events, Scripture passages, statistical data, and personal experience, Miner stated early in his discussion, “I believe there is still work to do today.”
The major focus of the session was learning how to live out the lessons of Dr. King in our daily lives. “I love the idea of celebration for Dr. King and I think it is something that should be had, but I also think that if we don’t take practical lessons from him and apply what he preached so many times to our daily lives, then what is the point of celebrating him in the first place?” Miner asked. In the hour session he posed a variety of practical ways we can advocate for justice in our everyday lives. “So much of the work is done through community. Sometimes that’s on a one-on-one level and sometimes it’s through small group, and if we are serious about racial reconciliation in the church, I think we need to be serious about speaking up, even in the little moments when it doesn’t seem to matter.”
Miner will no doubt continue to serve as an active and powerful voice in the Houghton community and beyond it. To all those who have the opportunity to hear his heart displayed, he challenges us, saying, “Justice cannot be taken down by ignoring it.”