Sister Paula: drag evangelist
I knew that the people in the church wouldn t accept me if
they knew about me, but / knew that God knew.
BY
KAMILA
AL-NAJJAR
elevision evangelism. Usually these
words evoke images of people such as
Oral Roberts or Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker
preaching the word of God to hundreds of lost
souls in a big studio church. Those words mean
condemnation of membership in a communist
party, of gay lifestyles and of the evil of wearing
only one earring.
But a new approach to evangelism is being
taken on Portland community-access cable tele
vision: A transsexual is helping to spread the
word of God with a not-so-typical video
approach. Sister Paula, who also works as an
entertainer at Darcelle XV and writes a column
for the gay newspaper City Week, comments on
her ministry:
Sister Paula: “ When 1 was 12 years old, 1
was converted and saved in a Baptist church, as
the traditional evangels do when you accept
Christ as your savior. From that time on, I felt
that my calling in life was to do the work of an
evangel. 1 have never questioned that call. I
received an experience called the baptism of the
Holy Spirit. which is what makes the Pentecostal
distinctive from other evangelical churches,
when 1 was in high school in 1954.
“ All through my growing-up years as a boy I
was very effeminate and was made fun of as far
back as I can remember. I've always been sexu
ally attracted to men and have always had an
awareness that I was different from most other
people.
“ We are talking about the ’50s, when the gay
community here in Portland was a couple of
bars, and that was it.
“ Even though 1 knew I was attracted to men.
I never questioned the religious experience that
I had when I was converted in the Baptist
church and was filled with the Holy Spirit. My
relationship with God was just as real, on a
one-on-one basis, as was any relationship with
any person; 1 never questioned it.
“ When I was a freshman in high school,
there was a lot of talk about Christine
Jorgensen, the first person whose sex change
was publicized When I read the stories of how
she had grown up. I related to it immediately.
For many years I wanted to have a sex change. I
never did, and now I am glad I did not.
“ In the early ’60s I went down to San
Francisco with hopes of becoming a female
impersonator at Finnochio’s. That didn’t turn
out as I had planned, but I did meet a transsex
ual who was beginning to live on hormone
therapy as a woman. On May 1, 1963.1 began
living as Paula and took hormone shots and
pills. With time. I stopped taking the shots
because of the adverse side effects.
“ At that time in San Francisco, I joined the
Assembly of God in Oakland. That was the first
acceptance I got in a heterosexual environment.
I prayed, *God, you can have Paula’ and I
re-dedicated my life to God. I knew that the
people in the church would not accept me if they
knew about me. but I knew that God knew. I
asked God for a couple of signs that I was doing
the right thing. I even prayed at the Assembly of
God that if I was living as a woman and if this
was wrong, I wanted the people in the church to
find out. They never knew.
“ As I was growing up and my femininity
became more apparent, I became more and
more of a disappointment to my father. My
relationship with my father, especially in high
school, was very estranged and distant. There
fore, I turned to God for fatherly comfort.
According to the traditional churches. Jesus
introduced the parent concept of God Of
course. Jesus was talking in the vernacular of
the culture in which he lived. Things like
inclusive language and the mother-concept of
God weren’t an issue then.
“ I believe God is all things to all people.
Paula Nielsen
Degendering is not a problem for me. I see God
as the loving parent; 1 feel that people can see
God as a father image or as a mother image —
whatever works for them.
“ I was taught that heaven is the place you
will go to when you die — if you have accepted
Christ as your savior. 1 grew up with that. Hell
— the Lake of Fire — was the place where bad
people went, I was traditionally taught. How
ever. God is infinite and you cannot define the
infinite totally on a finite level.
“ I do not believe that any finite system of
religious teaching has all the truth. All teach
ings have truth in them. Tne error of
fundamentalism is when they say “ this is the
truth” and that other systems of teaching or
interpretations of Scriptures or beliefs are in
error.
“ I believe the Bible was written under inspi
ration of the Holy Spirit. I do not believe, how
ever, that it was the only book written under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
“ You can take Scriptures and make the Bible
mean almost anything you want to — as in the
prophesies, for example, in Revelation. There
are many different interpretations of what the
symbols mean and what the prophesies are.
“ On television l am saying what has worked
for me, but if something different works for
you, that’s wonderful.
“ I believe that God loves all people and that
Jesus never mentioned homosexuality in his
teaching. I know from my own experience that
God accepts me for exactly what I am. God
looks beyond all of these external things and
accepts me for the person I really am inside I
believe this is true of all gay people.
“ Iam trying to reach church people. There
are some who are narrow-minded and bigoted.
But there are also some people in the evangeli
cal churches who are loving people, who can be
won over. I am also trying to reach gays and
lesbians who are afraid to come out — to give
them the message that God loves them and that
it is OK to be Christian and gay.
“ Ido not have any aspirations to build a
church or a following; I just want to get the
message out. Television is another step in
fulfilling my calling of getting the word out.
The Holy Spirit will draw the people in.
“ I may not live to see the kind of world I
would like to live in during this lifetime, but I
hope by the grace of God that future genera
tions, because of my efforts, will not have to go
through the hassles I grew up with.
“ Jesus said. The first two commandments
are “ Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart,
all thy soul and all thy mind” and “ Love thy
neighbor as thyself.” ’ Jesus said that if you
fulfill these two commandments, you have al
ready fulfilled all of the law and the prophets.
“ The bottom line is that if Christians would
learn to practice what Jesus taught. . . to love
our neighbors as ourselves — prejudice and
wars and all of the negative things in the world
would dissolve ”
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Just Out • 25 • January I4XX