Erin: “My pastor disowned me because I didn’t make Jesus white.”[/caption]
Interview on April 2, 2025, with Erin, who is studying film and animation, near the library at Chabot College in Hayward.
Listen to Erin explain how the Bible has led to homophobia.
Do you consider yourself religious?
Erin: It’s a hard question because I’m not very religious, but I do believe that there is something out there. I was raised as a Christian, but my perspective is that we are all looking at the same thing, but in different lenses according to our cultures. In a way we all believe in the same thing, but we interpret it differently.
At what point did you decide that you’re not a Christian?
Erin: I was kind of disowned by my own church. Not even because I’m gay, because I don’t think they even know that I’m gay. But when I was 16, I painted Jesus for Easter, but my pastor disowned me because I didn’t make Him white. And then in 2024, I went into a really big argument with a person I thought was a friend, who was also Christian. We argued about if it’s ethical for Israel to do what it’s doing towards Palestine. She’s like, “You’re not even a real Christian because you support Gaza over everything else.” And I was like, “No, I’m just a human being, I have actual empathy.” And then she brought up, “Well, you weren’t even Christian to begin with because you’re gay.” So I was like, “You know what? That’s it.” But overall, I feel like us as human beings, we’re not big enough to see what’s actually out there. I feel like all religions are right in one part of it, but they don’t have the full picture. So it’s not that I discredit Christianity, it’s just that that’s just one piece of the puzzle. I want to be more open-minded.
Do you think the Bible is important?
Erin: Despite my own beliefs and experiences, I feel like the Bible is very important to a lot of people. It’s the main reason for people to have hope. If that is their main source of hope in humanity, then that should continue. However, it’s in our human nature to take things like the Bible and weaponize it against each other. Because it’s been translated throughout history, things get lost in translation and it leads to things like homophobia, transphobia because they get the wrong message from the Bible. But the Bible itself is inherently good.
Do you think there’s any authority who could say what the Bible actually means?
Erin: God. Who gives me the right to say that’s not true? But also who gives anybody the right to teach the Bible this way? I feel like the only person that’s valid to back up the Bible is God Himself. And God is such a complicated creature that for Him to confirm it, we’d have to die first.
Where does the Bible come from?
Erin: From spiritual experiences and different accounts throughout history, and stories told through other people, and then one day they decided to write it down. I mean, I wasn’t there. I can’t say if it did or if it didn’t happen. I guess it comes from all these other people.
What do you think about the morality of abortion?
Erin: We shouldn’t force people to do anything, and if someone wants to have an abortion, they want to have an abortion. If they don’t, then they don’t, because it could be completely the other way around where someone doesn’t want to get an abortion, but somebody else says, “No, you should get an abortion.” That works both ways. I believe in choice. For God, He’s such a huge creature, a cosmic being, or heavenly being, He’s not going to stop the entire universe because someone decided to get an abortion. But God is the reason for everything existing, so choice was created by Him. The Bible introduces choice in the story with Adam and Eve. All of us as human beings, we all have the right to choose. And humans, no matter what, we only can control ourselves. We shouldn’t control others. That’s the philosophy that I believe in.
Do you believe in any sort of life after death?
Erin: That’s a good question. I would like to say, yes. No matter what, if I go to heaven or Nirvana or whatever, or I get recreated, whatever the other religions describe the afterlife as, I just hope I can turn into something else. Or if I don’t exist at all anymore, that’s totally fine, because that’s what makes life so precious, because it only happens once. Even if I do die and there’s no afterlife, there’s still evidence of me ever existing. So I never stop existing in that sense. But yeah, I’d like to believe that there’s an afterlife.
This gay-centric young woman equates abortion as a “choice created by Him”. What a deep thinker, says no one. 😒
This young woman is sadly ill-informed and in need of catechizing. She is so typical of our many of our young adults in America. She needs compassionate help.
The Bible : “Choose Life” Jesus said, I came that you may have life and that you may have it more abundantly” I trust Jesus, The Way, The truth and the Life”
The only thing this young woman says that is correct is that God gives us choices. He allows us to decide every minute of every day to follow Him and His commandments or to sin. So the choices we make do matter, and he knows what are decision have been. We will each answer for them one day.
There are some really twisted and crazy Christians in the world, even in our own Church.
She says: “..God, He’s such a huge creature…”. That’s a huge giveaway that she was, in fact, not raised Christian. She was never catechized properly. The first thing every Christian knows is that God is the Creator of all, but He is not a creature. God always was, always will be.
What is your metric for deciding whether or not someone is “raised Christian”? There are many people who do not have the faintest idea what Christian truths are, but this is a biggie.
I guarantee you she voted for Kamala. All the people that think like she does vote for Dems.
Mushy thinking.
No journalist in all the world, would desire a job, wasting their precious time, writing pitifully poor articles, based on interviews featuring losers—- the very worst students in a school— who don’t deserve an interview, for an article in a publication, about them and their accomplishments. It is always the norm, for good publications to print articles based on interesting and intelligent interviews with outstanding people. In this case– to print articles based on interviews of outstanding Catholic young people, featuring their great accomplishments, and future dreams and goals.
Beats being a parish catechist. At least you get to travel.
What is wrong with interviews of students like Erin? They are cautionary tales about life without God. Somewhere a reader may be inspired to create a rebuttal to this poor girl’s thinking and put thoughts to paper. How beautiful if one of the many Erins of the world would stop and read such a forthright defense of the gospel.
Daniel, that is just plain silly, for a Catholic site– or maybe this site should be renamed– removing the term, “Catholic.” So many Catholics give up and leave the Church, because it seems hopelessly damaged– with no hope for the future. How about some good, positive Catholic news stories– to give people hope? If you want, you can go catechize Erin, or Nancy Pelosi, or Joe Biden, or Cardinal Robert McElroy, or Jesuit Fr. James Martin, or ex-Jesuit Fr. Marko “Rapenik” Rupnik, or a Planned Parenthood leader, or whomever you want.
I disagree. We need to learn what other people are thinking, how they arrived at their beliefs, especially if their views are the opposite of ours. One doesn’t learn new ideas by only reading authors with whom we agree.
Christianity is a very difficult thing in which to believe. It is by faith alone.
If one doesn’t have faith, one likely doesn’t believe.
Is ChatBot College real?
” my pastor disowned me because I didn’t make Him white.” Erin uses the word “disown” several times. The word implies rejection by her pastor due to a quite trivial reason. I do not therefore find her stating of the situation credible. It seems more likely that she herself pushed away from Christianity due to racial hatred of whites and due to her lesbianism. In the end she doesn’t want the “control of others” over her life.
Agreed. I sniffed that out right away. She’ll be permanently aggrieved due to her lesbianism and will project her petty biases onto innocent people.
I’ve had to deal with gays who used to be friends of mine. Before I knew they were gay things were fine. When they said they were gay or later became visibly trans and I told them I wouldn’t approve of gay behavior or trans identity, they cut off contact because I wouldn’t approve of what they were doing.
They desperately want approval. Don’t give that to them. Be masculine in the face of such effeminancy.
Erin looks chinese. I’m boycotting Chinese restaurants because of the trade war.
A big issue with legitimate criticism of the Israeli terror state is that your comments end up being drowned out by barely-informed college students who appeal to vague morality rather than concrete moral stances on war, Palestinian Christian history, etc.
same with illegal immigration invaders
Why not book reviews instead of this feature?
These interviews of the last several years are a sad, sad confirmation of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
I believe it’s time to move on to greener pastures.
Actually, she sounds pretty thoughtful and honest compared to many non-religious college students from just 5 to 10 years ago. I will definitely pray for her. She deserves a profound encounter with Christ’s unconditional Love. May God send the right people into her life.