The video opens in the church. There is singing, dancing, clapping and shouting. The quote on the screen is from Kenyan writer, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. It reads, “In struggle is our history, our language, and our being. That struggle begins wherever we are… then we become part of those millions dreaming to change the world.”
The church is The Cosmopolitan Affirming Church (popularly known as CAC) in Kenya. Unlike many other churches in Kenya, The Cosmopolitan Affirming Church is an LGBTQ+ affirming church — the first of its kind. The documentary, entitled ‘Kenyan, Christian, Queer‘, is an adaptation of a 2019 book by Adriaan van Klinken, a Professor of Religion and African Studies at the University of Leeds, with the same title.
After a long wait, the documentary finally premiered online today, at 9AM West African Time. In 20 minutes, the documentary takes a deep dive into the people whose lives and experiences characterize the Kenyan Queer Christian experience, their journey into finding hope, faith, love, and community. It explores how Kenyan Christian Queers are resisting homophobic government laws, resisting homophobic Christian ideologies, resisting a homophobic society and working to create a space for one another. One after the other (and very briefly too), the documentary tells us a story of the church, why the church has become necessary, how members have found their way into the church and the kind of support that LGBTQ+ members receive from the church. “For the first time, I felt the kind of love I’ve never gotten in church,” Kikie, a member of CAC says of her first time attending the church.
Five minutes into the documentary, the narrator explores the elephant in the room — the clobber verses. The clobber verses are the six verses of the bible that are often used as arguments by homophobic and non-affirming preachers to make a case for being anti-LGBT. Bishop Tolton, a mentor of The Cosmopolitan Affirming Church, takes a quick dive into the verses, explaining the context for the origin of the verses in the bible. “God is the architect of my gay,” he says.
Aiwan Obinyan, a Nigerian-British filmmaker who directed the documentary, said at the live chat with the cast and director earlier today that she was drawn to the project because she felt an urgency and importance in the need to tell the stories of the people creating safe spaces for LGBTQ+ persons even in Africa — home to some of the most draconian laws against LGBTQ+ persons.
“What sets us apart,”, David Ochar, the co-founder and lead pastor at the Cosmopolitan Affirming Church (CAC) says, “is that we recognize that the founder of this ministry — Jesus himself — ministered to all people.”
The video premiere is available via the online registration link here.
Watch the trailer for the documentary below:
