When You Believe

I was going to try and attempt to write my feelings on Kobe Bryant’s passing. Given the man was the same age as my older brother and he has a three year old daughter, coupled with the fact that I am extremely close to my father and I couldn’t comprehend my life without him, I know I don’t have the range to quantify my feelings right now. It’s all too terrible and too much.

Instead, I’m going to excise my feelings on a rando coming into my mentions to be loud and wrong on each of his tweets.

Sorry! Spoiler alert 🚨 If you haven’t seen Sex Education Season 2 STOP READING NOW!

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Eric Effiong is my favourite character by far and away. He’s from a Nigerian/Ghanaian family who like most West African families attend church and are close knit. Eric’s pride in his sexuality culminated last season with his very African very religious father stating openly how proud he was of him. So this season in complete contrast to the last one, Eric has a boyfriend - the dangerously sexy and worldly Rahim. We don’t know a whole much about Rahim but he seems to know a lot. Except, it seems, how to behave around other people with tact and humanity.
After pushing for an invitation (Eric did buoy it up with singing and plantain how can mandem resist?) Rahim attend a church service with Eric and his family.
It’s a blackity black church - gospel choir in robes and traditional clothing.
After being asked whether he is Muslim, Rahim announces that he’s atheist and doesn’t believe in God. Awkward sitting in the church you pressed to attend, but okay! The pastor welcomes Rahim and says “Jesus is with you.” Rahim says “I’m sorry I don’t believe in Jesus.”
Bear with me, it gets worse. Then as they’ve left the church (forty five hours later) Rahim declares Eric’s family as “sweet because they think the ‘God stuff is real’ and obviously Eric only pretends to go along with it to ‘keep the peace’.
If that isn’t telling that Rahim has no idea as to who Eric is - man who showed up to his prom in a gelee, a full face of glittery makeup and false lashes - would go to church and believe in God ti keep the peace, I don’t know what else. Eric states boldly that he does believe in God. The response is “how can you believe in a God that doesn’t think you should exist?”
Pause - I’m getting there.
He then adds that, “My family had to leave their country because of religion. Doesn’t make any sense to me.”
And ends the conversation with “we’ll agree to disagree.”
Let me start at the beginning: Rahim has no home training. His family moved to France from where? We don’t know, we’re never told. But they had to leave because of religion. You would have therefore had some modicum of a religious upbringing to understand the implications of not believing - especially as Rahim is supposed to be a teenager. Not practising your faith ie not praying with your classmates or work colleagues or not attending services with extended family members. You would have in the past to know the rituals and to explain your reasons for leaving the country. To understand the risks of non conformity - what it will cost you and your family to follow a different path - you would have started out conforming before the divergence. With any history of religious upbringing there is undoubtedly respect for places of worship and leaders of said worship. That doesn’t become undone by fleeing from persecution - it reinforces it. I know - I’ve made those applications for those seeking asylum. Just as I would cover my head in a mosque, I wouldn’t rush to the Iman and say “nah don’t get any of this business.” It blew my mind that he said to a pastor’s face “I don’t believe in Jesus.” Are you without sense?
At base level, having been welcomed by the members of the congregation - it was plain rude. High key, why are you embarrassing your boyfriend like this? Why would you do that? He’s finally sharing an important piece of his life with you and this is how you react. And people were okay with this?
Then the side swipe “you don’t believe in this stuff.”
Why would you assume that having left the church your boyfriend expressed so much joy and enthusiasm for? If you are an atheist it’s very difficult to explain to someone what faith can give you. If you are someone who has turned away from faith because your beliefs do not align with your former religion it’s even harder to understand why you would embrace something that has effectively rejected you. Rahim wasn’t there when Eric was being bullied. The church was. It was a constant. A distraction. A time separate from school to be at peace.
I like to visit places of worship when I travel and feel that same sense of peace in me when I sit and sit in stillness. When the world moves at a hundred miles an hour, that stillness can be glorious and uplifting in the same way meditation is.
Eric can pour his effervescence his spirit his joy into the music. Gospel is music for the soul and no one can tell me otherwise. Eric isn’t known for peacekeeping. Eric pushes boundaries and served looks while he did so. He boldly proclaimed “take me as I am or do one!” In nail polish, in traditional clothing, in lengthening mascara, to his beautifully presented core.
Ultimately, Eric’s belief in God is none of Rahim’s business. God and church are separate entities. If they weren’t, the things that man has done in the name of God would have made me an atheist too. Man told woman she couldn’t spread the word of the Lord (according to the church) and this never sat right with me considering women were the first ones to discover that Jesus had risen from the tomb. Man has dictated a lot of “should and should nots” protecting violent men from rightful persecution and lining their pockets with blood money. This is still separate from a person’s relationship with God. If anyone can point to me where in the bible Jesus says “you don’t exist gays! Begone!” I’d be grateful.
If God is where Eric finds his comfort, his faith, his steady path - why is Rahim questioning that? Why would you question that of someone you love? If it doesn’t make any sense to you are you even willing to listen? You want everyone to know you don’t believe in God and your partner is foolish for doing so. The patronisation irked my soul. No two Gods are the same or even share the same name.
I always come back to the scene in Atonement. The soldiers at Dunkirk singing Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind, knowing they’re stranded, that they may be bombed to death at any moment and yet they sing. Because they believed. They prayed in song for deliverance or God’s peace on their souls. Would someone like Rahim rush up to them and say “why are you singing when your God has abandoned you?”
Probably he would - just to show he knows better because religion cost him his home. Religion didn’t. Man did. Man’s terrible interpretation and lack of simple humanity did.
Having filled out enough divorce petitions for people whose faiths took different paths while believing they could maintain a marriage, I know how important it is to have respect for what the other believes. If you can’t respect your partner’s understanding and commitment to God, you won’t enjoy the same in your own relationship.
There are some things that doom a relationship. There were many in Rahim and Eric’s but his casual dismissal of something that had been present in Eric’s entire life was the beginning of the end. I said so and a bitch was right.
Now, I’m not saying that the church doesn’t have a whole bible of work to do in being more inclusive and welcoming all people; this is undeniable. Look at what the Church of England put out recently reserving sex for married hetero couples when the creator of the Church of England literally did it so he could divorce his first wife and marry several others. Further that the Church has been complicit in abuse and protecting perpetrators. There are gay Christians and this is your message to them? Doesn’t sound Christ-like at all. That’s what I mean by God and man being separate. And it doesn’t change Eric’s love of his God and his church because his boyfriend thinks he’s trying to keep the peace by believing. Gays are not a monolith. As a worldly teen (supposedly) Rahim should know that.
Man didn’t even like musicals! He had to go!
That was my beef and distraction today. And today of all days is not the one to question a person’s faith. In an undeniably cruel world where children are killed with their parents in senseless accidents, faith can be all there is that pulls you through until tomorrow. Never underestimate or deny that power. It’s not your place and if you truly love someone, you never will.