"What the fuck is going on?"
The man in front of me bristles, and my head feels too light.
Then Pearl is there. She's beckoning me toward the TV, where I hear Luke talking soft but steady. My eyes widen as I realize that a man from the crowd is being held by security guards.
Luke shifts his weight, and I can tell he’s pretty keyed up from the tension in his body. His voice is flat but even as he says, into the microphone, "This is Mike, and he wants to know why you should take my advice on these issues, because he thinks I'm biased. That's the summary," he says, and I can hear a slight edge in his voice. "We're going to keep our grip on him since he came at me," Luke says, and I realize Sky is standing in the aisle between the pews. "But I'm going to give an answer.” I can see Sky’s shoulders rise and fall. He’s trying to breathe.
Just breathe, baby.
“What do you do for a living, Mike?" he asks the man.
After a brief pause, during which Luke leans a little toward the man, he says to the crowd, "Mike is an electrician."
There’s a sound of interference with the mic, like Sky bumped it on something. "So, Mike knows his way around wiring and lighting. Blueprints and homes. I don't know about those things. Interpreting the Bible is what I do for a living. I've been studying the Bible since I was a kid. When people—experts—write about it, giving their interpretations, I read their thoughts. And think about it. Kind of like a hive mind, if you will. Of experts.
“I've read almost everything written about the Bible. I would do that even if this wasn't my job, because that's my passion. And it's what I'm good at. This is what God called me to do. I'm not good with carpentry or wiring, diagnosing medical conditions or arguing in a courtroom. But I'm pretty good at analyzing text, and thinking about what things mean. And seeing what other people think this book means, and talking about it. And I've been working to have a relationship with God for a long time.
“I'm not always good at it. In fact, I'm almost never good at it. But I know how to try. And that's what we're all called to do. To try our best. So...I'll say. I've been speaking what I feel is the truth about LGBTQ people and the morality of loving who you love, for a long time. I was talking about it way before it was as 'popular' and commonplace, as it is now. I talked about it—in a way that didn’t relate to me, of course—when I was afraid of being found out. When I thought it brought personal risk to me. When I never planned to come out. It would have been safer for me to condemn. But I couldn't do that. Because a loving God doesn't condemn people for loving who they love. I'll never think He does. The Bible doesn't back that up.
“We know the one most important rule is love your neighbor like you love yourself. And everybody is a neighbor. We're called to love, support, and serve each other. Never to judge. I'm going to link to a variety of books on this topic, and write something of my own. But at the end of the day, everyone is able to make their own choice. And if people choose to interpret the Bible in a different way than I do—even though I do this for a living—that's okay. They can go another direction. That make sense, Mike?"
We can't hear the man's answer. But I can tell he does something, because Luke flinches back.
Security constricts around him, and the man is dragged down the aisle, starfishing his body, trying to grab onto other people, screaming two offensive F-words I can tell Luke feels because his body bristles visibly.
Everything is in slow-motion as Luke walks to the front of the church again and steps back onto the stage.
"We'll be back to questions in a minute," he says, and then the mic is off.
Sky doesn’t move, though. I turn to Pearl. "What's going on?"
She has a mic in her right ear. She closes her eyes. "Yes? Are you sure?" she murmurs. "Okay."
She turns to me, looking weary. "He's just going to keep going. But he's not going to leave the stage again. Security says no."
"I fucking—" I inhale deeply then blow the breath out. "I hope not."
I find a slit in the curtains and watch Sky as he takes the next question, which is about translations and the ‘original text’.
The next question, someone asks if he's okay. "Scripted person, off-script question," Pearl murmurs to me.
Sky waits a beat to answer. Then he shocks me by saying, "I don't know." He gives a laugh that seems to shake a little, and my heart twists so hard that it makes my stomach hurt.