Interview With Marsha Stevens-Pino, November 14, 2019

Tessa Loftis: My name is Tessa Loftis and I'm interviewing Marsha Stevens-Pino. And I'm just going to go ahead and get into it. Okay. So the first question is kind of a three parter. So first I kind of wanted to ask, what is BALM ministries? Why did you start it and what do you do with it? And then also what part of your personal biography or background led you t feel called to do this and led you to this leadership position?      Marsha Stevens-Pino: That's more than three. [sic] BALM ministries is an outreach to marginalized people. And we say it's an outreach to share the gospel of Jesus Christ to marginalized people through songs, stories and service. So that part's really nice because it kind of covers a lot of ministry opportunities. And you know, right now it's pretty small because it's just me writing songs, my spouse and I telling stories. And then CJ sponsors a lot of service work for herself and for other people, mostly through our church, but through some other churches and other organizations too. But when it started out, when I was 16, I wrote my first song that was actually picked up and published and you know, not something that you sing to your kid sister, although I did sing it first to my kid sister. But, I really, I was a brand new Christian. I'd never heard any of the typical things that you think of like "Jesus saves" or "God sent his son for all of us." I thought Jesus was a cool guy who lived a long time ago, kinda had long hair, like a hippie, said a lot of cool things like, you know, do unto to others as you would have them do unto you.      MS-P:  But you know, even the whole thing about resurrection, I just thought, well, so they believe that even though he was killed on a cross, he lives in heaven just like your grandma does after she died. I didn't know that any reasonable adult person thought that he actually raised from the dead. I didn't have any idea that that was a thing. So it was, you know, it's kinda hard to come into that all of a sudden and think, I need to share this with my friends. And I'm in Southern California where religion in general was already falling off. So I thought the only way I could do this was to write a song. And I figured if I could get the story to three verses, then everybody would have to wait until the end of the song to argue with me. And what I was surprised about though, I mean, I wrote about my own heartbreak, and how important it was to me. It wasn't, meaningful to me yet that Jesus died for my sins, but I knew that Jesus lived and died so that he could experience everything I experienced so that I had a savior who has been through everything I went through and was powerful enough to overcome it, you know? And so that's really what I wrote about. And that song,    MS-P:  I don't know, went around the world. I mean, Pat Boone called my house. I was a kid back when you had to ask your parents for permission to make a long distance phone call cause it was so expensive. So having Pat Boone call your house was like, bizarre. And um, he said, he wanted to know if he could sing my song. And I wanted to be like my mom and go, I don't know, can you? You know, what do you mean, Can you sing it? Go ahead. You know. But um, anyway, so he recorded it and other people started to record it and eventually my high school choir director told me to get it copyrighted and I said that was ridiculous. So he made it my senior class project in high school to get it copywrited. And since I've made many, many thousands of dollars in royalties since then, it was, it was good information.      MS-P:  But what happened is that, so then when companies started actually doing contemporary Christian music, that was the first song that was written that was called that. And so all of a sudden Word Records and Sparrow and some of the ones that are still around now in gospel music started picking up more modern songs. And so mine was one of the first ones they picked up and I saw, you know, people said, well why did you let them publish it? Cause you give them half your royalties and you do that. It's hard. It's hard to keep up with orders and copyrights and who wants to use it and how, it's a lot of paperwork and a lot of busy work. And back then we didn't have internet to do it either, you know. So I was really grateful to have a publishing company that published all my music, ultimately.      MS-P:  And you know, until 1980. From 1969 to 1980 they published all my music. And then when I came out of the closet, nobody wanted to publish my music anymore. And I thought, you know, for awhile I thought I won't sing anymore cause you know, I've sort of given up the right to do that because I'm not, I don't live the way people think I should live. Um, but I just couldn't. I, you know, I went to a church one time and somebody said they found a button for me and they actually pinned it on me before I could read it. And it said, "born again lesbian." And the only thing I thought was, if somebody made a button that says that, there's a bunch of us. there's a whole bunch of people that are left out of the gospel of Jesus Christ, then you know, like, it's not just me.      MS-P:  I'm not just weird. So I started finding that, you know, people who are divorced felt left out. I had one guy who sings with Bill Gaither tell me that he felt completely ostracized because he still smoked cigarettes. You know what I'm just thinking, we need to open up the gospel. You know, we need to get this out. And so in the middle of the eighties I thought, you know, I'm not going to be able to convince any of the record companies or publishing companies or ministries to publish my songs. But by then I'd, you know, I'd done it for 11 years, so I knew enough to start it. And so I started it and you know, got all the paperwork done and all the, you know, you have to get a board of directors and one of the people that was on my board of directors then, is still on my board of directors, but other people have changed over the years.      MS-P: And then I found out that there were other people writing music and other people needing ministry. You know, during the 90s a lot of it was to people with AIDS and there were just whole groups of people that, you know, back then if you got HIV, you died, you know, and I'm a nurse. I got my RN license just because in that gap there between the time everybody stopped publishing my music, I thought, well, I better, I need something to support my kids. And so then I was able to have BALM ministry support me as I traveled with people with AIDS. There are people that have never seen the grand Canyon, people who hadn't said goodbye to their father, who lived in Dallas and they'd never even told him they were sick and now they're dying and they had to say goodbye.      MS-P:  And I could travel with people because I was an RN. And so, you know, BALM ministries did a lot of that, um, work with AIDS patients for a while. And then a lot of the churches started to reach out and say, "how are we losing young people? How are we not reaching out to everyone?" Then I started writing more songs that were for conferences and we started having whole groups of people come under BALM ministries. And we did music ministry training schools and talked about how important it was that we had a core set of beliefs that, you know, you weren't just a good singer and so this was your excuse to get your foot in the door, but you really had a message to bring. And we talked more about stories than we did about the songs. And about service.      MS-P:  And so a lot of the people who kinda came in thinking, well this will be my big break and I'll be famous ended up touring a lot of old folks homes and a lot of prisons and one of them became the pastor at a prison. And you know, we really tried to say, this is more important than being famous. So we started doing group albums and we had lots of people write for them. And at one point we had like 84 people audition to either write or sing on one of the albums. And so BALM ministries would support the album and bring the people in and help them understand how you did music in a studio and talk about how to share your story in ways that are constructive, not just political, you know, and then they could buy the albums at half price and go out and sell them to support their own ministries.      MS-P:  And that was really powerful because then when we were in Nashville and a lot of the musicians that played in the studios in Nashville ended up praying with us. In fact, one guy came out, he wouldn't pray with us while he was in the studio, came out afterwards after we'd done a long day and said, so is that option to pray with you guys still open? Well of course it is. And he said, you know, I left the church years ago over hypocrites, but if you can find your way back to God, surely I can. He ended up being a friend. He plays at Brentwood United Methodist church once a year. And really turned his life around, you know, so we found that there were people that were marginalized for just so many reasons. One of the people from that, from that first album was the one that became a minister of the prison.      MS-P: Um, some of them went on to get their [sic] master's in theology and ordained ministry. Um, and some of them have just gone on to do some of their own ministries. And then we started doing reach-outs where people traveled. And so sometimes when they traveled in the United States, Cindy joined the ministers, CJ, joined the ministry in 2000. and so in 2000, we raised almost $300,000 to send people out to do mission work, to do ministry, to do sharing. They took some of the, I call them kids, anybody half my age is a kid, some of them less than half my age, um, took the bus out and they took the bus and they picked up people along the way on their tour. We just booked the tour where they can do service work, where they can share stories, where they could do ministry. Um, and then we, we started doing classes where we could have people come in for like, you know, a weekend then a week then a weekend. So people only had to get a week off work, but it ended up being nine days. And those were real intensives that were really profound and getting people to get involved in ministries and in ervice work and in mission work in their own areas and communities    MS-P: So does that answer that one little simple three part question?  

 

TL: 

Yeah it does. What experiences have you had that most shaped you as a leader?  

MS-P:  

Well, I was, I was really blessed because, you know, I didn't grow up obviously, in computer culture. And in 1984 I took a computer class that was so basic. I mean, it was, this is what a word processing program is and this is how it works. At the time it was Lotus one two three, it was before Excel, this is how, this is how you do a spreadsheet. And so I set up everything in BALM ministries on spreadsheets and stuff that year. That was in 1984 and Cindy, who's got a master's in business administration, and a master's in healthcare informatics, you know? Yeah. But I was so grateful because I met her in about 98 or 99 and she looked at my books and said, well, it's very unconventional the way you've saved it, but I can certainly see where every dollar went.      MS-P:  Where every bill came in, where every bill was paid, where every royalty was always wherever your royalty was paid. And so I, you know, I felt good about that. Like I felt like it was more about being super responsible then knowing what I was doing. But I was really glad that somebody with an MBA could come in and like kind of goat cake. I mean, this was before we started doing the group projects, so she said, I can absolutely see where every penny is coming and wherever it pays, run out, everything ties out. I'm just going to do it in a way that's more typical so that, you know, a bank could see it or whatever. We've never had to do anything with a bank, but still, um, so that if anybody ever audited it, I think we were audited. The mind spoke was fine. Um, and so I felt good about that.      MS-P: But, you know, I don't, I don't really feel like that much of a leader. I feel more like I like more people included. Oh, leader in a lot of different spheres, like as in like marginalized groups but also in the church. And like, I think you've kind of combined those groups really well and like lead that path forward together. And that's kind of why I asked you to do this. Cause like, that's definitely how I see you as a leader in that way. Um, cause I get nervous with him doing something all by myself. I get really nervous. I love having a group doing it. I'm like all good about doing a duet. I'm all good about singing with the choir, you know?  

 

 

TL: 

Yeah. I was actually gonna ask you, um, if you felt like it was important to delegate and how you do that successfully and like delegating different tasks out.      MS-P:  I feel like I've, I mean [inaudible] you know, we went to a Zeus at Pacific, which at the time was just as is a Pacific Bible college. Now it's a zoo, a specific university. But the very first year there, um, I sang in a group with two of my friends and my sister, but we wouldn't have called it a quartet. We called it the band, but you know, probably today it would have been a folk quartet. Um, cause we just had like piano, guitar and bass. And, um, they booked a tour all through Europe, seven countries in Europe. And we sang it, the first Jerusalem conference on biblical prophecy. And because my songs were the first that had been published in the choir, sang, they had us sing a little, you know, set in the middle between the two choir sets. So we sang for about a half hour in the middle of the break kind of thing.      MS-P:  And so we, I mean we get to travel all over the world. Very first thing []. And you know, these like enormously famous people. And I think part of what was good about that was that because it was also new then, you know, there was a real sense of comradery. I don't know if you know who Andre Crouch was, he's passed away, but, um, he did a lot of gospel music, black gospel music. And when we sang at, this one big hoopla in Explo 72. You can look it up on Google or Wikipedia or whatever, but there were 100,000 people and all of us who were young singers and young Christian bands sang and everybody knew our songs and sang along with this. And Billy Graham preached every night and Kris Kristofferson saying, and you know, like everybody was just us.    MS-P:  You know, there really wasn't, um, really weren't stars of the show, you know. Um, and I think that was just such a wonderful kind of little setting to grow up in because there really weren't stars. In fact, even the church that we went to at the time, um, was a lot of young people, mostly young people. And at one point they put in shag carpeting, that's how old I am. I think shag carpet is coming back. Anyway, they told us we couldn't come in to church anymore in bare feet and we were all a bunch of hippies, you know. And so the pastor heard the ushers telling us not to come in with bare feet and we weren't even offended. We just wondered if anybody had some flip flops in their trunk and the pastor said, everybody stay in their seat after the service.      MS-P:  We're all going to have a congregational meeting. And he said, I heard the kids saying that they couldn't come in anymore in bare feet, so we're going to stay and tear off the carpeting. And if the rivets on their blue jeans scratch the new pews returning those out too. And that's, I mean, it was just such an egalitarian, an egalitarian way to grow up in that. I know that it must have seemed like we were famous singing in front of 100,000 people and half of us being on the cover of time magazine and stuff, but we didn't feel that way. We just felt like all of us as us. So it was really, that was really formative in how I wanted to go forward. I never felt like a solo act or, I don't know, I never felt like I was out there on my own.  

TL: 

So because of that, those experiences and what you're doing, how would you define leadership? What does leadership mean to you? 

MS-P: 

the best leader I know is my wife. Um, I mean CJ does amazing things and people don't even know she's done, you know, like people at her work at her secular workplace, all go out and feed people lunch on Fridays and, and it's all because she set it up and stuff. Nobody even knows who set it up. They just know that they all go to Metro ministries lunches on Fridays. You know,      TL: she's a servant leader.     MS-P:  Yeah. And I think, um, so I think most of leadership that I appreciate is people who have some kind of strength that has brought them into some kind of notoriety or whatever, notice who immediately invite other people in. And that's really kind of, that's nice for me because that's really what I'm comfortable with. I'm not comfortable just standing up and doing my shtick and you know, saying I met, you know, I, I really love having everybody feel a part.  

 

TL: 

So how do you go about empowering others and putting people into action?  

 

Well, finding people who are really good at what they do is fun. Um, and sometimes it's about finding people who are fairly good at what they do and really willing to learn. And so some of the people that have been the most successful, like the lady that went on to become a minister that she know women's prison, she was just so excited to be on this group album with us and she said, you know, all my life people have been telling me I had a good voice, but you know, it doesn't mean anything like okay thanks.      TL:  And, and she said so many people have said you should make an album cause we flew her out like we did everybody to do the album in Nashville she just said "I couldn't even get excited about it until I was here cause I just thought people wouldn't sign this my whole life." But she was so willing to learn. She was ready to learn. She was so ready to be involved. She was like a puppy dog with two tails. She wanted all the musicians in Nashville to tell her what they did and how they play these instruments and what their stories were. I mean, she was just such a careful listener that, you know, when people go out to do vocals, you've probably seen being from Nashville, you've probably seen how it's actually done, which is not, the whole band goes and plays everything altogether, you know, as it goes down.      MS-P: And then the singers come in one at a time and headphones on and sing. And so usually you sing something 10, 12 times to get it right. She came in and she was so intent on learning that by the time she came in to do her part, she did it through one time and stopped to listen to what the feedback was. And the engineer, the Nashville engineer said, well, she can do it different, but she couldn't do it no better. But that's how eager she was to learn. But by the time she got up to the mic and it was her turn and she was ready, she was on it. And those kinds of people are the people that you see that they're pretty good, but they're willing to really work to be great, you know? So she's, she's just an amazing person.      TL:  Do you think you use music as a way to get people to listen to what you have to say?      MS-P: Yeah, I think you can say much more dramatic things in music than you can... I, you know, if you do say poignant things, just speaking, it usually ends up, you can only kind of get it in one line before you kind of have to break the tension and laugh about it or something, you know? But I think, um, I've always loved poetry because, and, unlike a lot of people who are very advanced in poetry and have poetry that doesn't rhyme. I love poetry that rhymes because it has that final say, you know? Um, like, uh, one of the things that got me through when I had a son who was just, he's wonderful now he's got his masters in divinity and he's a fabulous father and a great guy. But for awhile in his, when he was between 12 and 15, he was just, I mean, people told me that he has that thing where you don't have a conscience that he was a psychopath and had no conscience and I just was like, you know, I mean, counselors told me this. People with authority said, you need to make him a ward of the state because he doesn't have a conscience and he never will.      MS-P:  And the thing that got me through was this little six line poem by Ruth Bell Graham, Billy Graham's wife. It said, and again, you could only make this punch with a poem. Um, "they felt good eyes upon them and shrank within undone. Good people had good children and they all wandering one. The good  folks never meant to act smug or condemn, but having prodigals just wasn't done with them. Remind them gently, Lord, that you have trouble with your children, too." like see you can see it in a poem. But if I, if I just said, well, I know you're having problems with your kids, so does God, it just wouldn't have the same effect.      TL:  What have you learned from obstacles and challenges faced?  [laughter] I'm sure a lot    MS-P:  Oh golly. I was not good at traveling alone even when I was just traveling with AIDS patients always a much, much better traveling with AIDS patients. Um, you know, I think, um, when one time I was traveling alone and, um, I was supposed to sing at a Wesley Chapel on the, on a campus in Louisiana and they knew who I was. They had my albums, they had my story, you know, um, what's it called? Uh, Christian Century had written a whole story about me and called me Conservative Christianity's worst nightmare, a Bible-believing God-fearing Jesus-loving lesbian Christian. So they knew who I was, but for some reason they went ahead and booked it. And then when I was driving out there alone in the cold in the winter in Louisiana, um, I got a call from the newspaper that said, how do you feel about your concert being canceled?      MS-P:  And I was like, I didn't know that, you know? And she said, well, what are you going to say to them? And I was like, what do you say, you know, I'm, I'm really sorry that they felt they had to do that and you know, and the Methodist Bishop had canceled it. And um, so I still had to pull out there and I pulled into the Walmart where I was going to park my motor home overnight. Cause then I, you know, I wasn't going to ask them to pay for me to go to the campground or whatever. So I was trying to figure out what to do. And the front page of the Sunday morning paper in front of Walmart said "Gay Singer Banned. And I thought, wow, well, you know, with that kind of a headline we could get a lot more people to the concert.     MS-P:  So the Lutheran church let us have a concert in their, fellowship hall and we actually had a lot more people that night. And it was so hard to just, I dunno, to let go of it and not be proving a point and not being in any way relating to why they had to cancel it, you know? Cause I just wasn't any, that wasn't my business. That was how they felt and that's what they did. So at the end I had to let go of it. But what was really cool is that the next day the, um, I was still on the front page, but I wasn't on the headline anymore. And, and it said, um, reporter said, uh, "the concern was that Stevens was recruiting people to become gay. As far as this reporter could, could see, Stephens was not recruiting straight people to become gay, she was recruiting gay people to become Christian. I thought, okay, well there you go. They got it, you know? Yeah. And so sometimes that stuff really comes through and sometimes you just don't know. You just have to do it anyway and hope, but every so often something like that is really affirming, you know, to go. Okay. So they totally understood what that was all about. Right. It was about bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ. And um, so some things like that I really remember because they do help you at a time when you're trying really hard not to react negatively to, I just drove out here from California, you know, and clearly it's not gonna work, but it was certainly much easier after CJ went on the road with me. I do much better in teamwork.  

 

TL: 

How would you personally measure success?  

 

MS-P: 

Oh wow. I don't, I mean, I really feel like I'm awfully lucky because I really haven't had to do that in my life. It's really, I don't know, it's really come to me, you know? Um, and I try to remember to pass that on. So I've tried to remember when other do things to really let them know what an impact they had or how powerful something was or how helpful something was. But I've had, you know, I had this, one woman came, I did a concert at a women's community. Like it's a neighborhood that only has women living in it. And I was a little awkward about singing there cause I thought, I don't like anybody to be excluded, you know, so, and men were not allowed there, so I would, I don't know, I felt bad about that, but I thought, well, you know, they invited me and it's not likely to be very much of a big deal, that men aren't there.      MS-P:  And just like I thought the woman from the Wicca group there came up and said, well we're not coming to your concert cause we know you're a Christian. But we took up a collection and here's 20 bucks for, you know, thank you for coming out. And I thought basically that's what it was going to be like, you know. But instead there were like 200 women at the concert and they stayed for the whole thing. And I was talking to people for 45 minutes afterwards and this one woman waited till the very end of the line. I'm gonna make it's gonna make me cry just to think about it. Cause she said, "you know, um, I, uh, I was raped and, uh, tied to the bed and left for dead for three days. And, um, and I, I just, I can't even tell you, it wasn't even so much that I was afraid I was gonna die, but it was even humiliating to be found, you know?"      MS-P:  And she said, " just, I just thought, I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna get in a bed again, you know, I'm never gonna sleep again. I'm never going to be okay." And she said, "for the first year, I, every night I would just get up and walk around the city and she said, one night I was walking around the city and there was, I could hear somebody playing music in a church at like three in the morning" and miraculously the door of the church was open and she went in and it was the organist practicing music. And she said, "can I ask you something? Um, isn't there a song about Jesus being with you when you cry in the night?"    MS-P:  And the guy at the organ said, "Oh yeah, it's in our hymnal. Um, I can't, I'm not allowed to copy it for you, but I can give you a hymnal. And so she took the hymnal home and she just played that song, my song, one of my songs every night until she went to sleep. Like, wow, you can't, you can't look at that and say, well, how would I [inaudible] we measure success, you know what I mean? So some of the stories have just been so huge that basically what I learned from them is I need to be careful to pass that along to other people when they're meaningful to me and to other people when they just meet me at a moment when it was so important. Yeah. How do you handle that when people just come up to you and just like, I do now, you know, I just hug them and cry and go, wow, isn't God cool to weave us all together like this?      MS-P:  Isn't it amazing? You know?  

 

TL: 

Sometimes that's better than words.  

MS-P: 

Well, what can you say. And people, then other people say, I'm sure you hear this all the time, like, like that might get old, you know, like a story like that. You might go, Oh yeah, I've heard that a lot, you know? Yeah.  

TL: 

You know, that's true. I kind of, yeah, I kind of qualify compliments like that a lot of times to people too. But you know, it matters every time, no matter how many times someone hears it.  

MS-P: 

Yeah. And I, and I try, when I do give other, you know, like I'm really stupid when I meet super famous people, I get really like liking music, like whatever, they're senior [inaudible] and music or they wouldn't be, you know, but I try to dial that back and say something really specific that meant a lot to me.      MS-P:  Why I liked their music, what it was, because I think that's a bigger gift. And that's mostly what I take away from it is how I can pass that along. Because all of us have those people that just come sideways into our lives, you know, God moments or whatever you want to call them, where the Holy spirit just goes "psst, I'm right here," you know? And so I try to make sure that I pass along. That's really the most, mostly what I get out of that is that I need to be sure to pass that.  

TL: 

Have you ever had kind of a very brief encounter with someone that like changed your life?  

 

 

MS-P: 

Gosh, I mean, even the pastor who said they were going to tear out the carpeting. I mean, I just thought what a fabulous place to be when you're a teenager, learning about God that you would be in a place where that would be the most important thing, that it's way more important that you're welcome here than anything else, you know?      MS-P:  Um, but yeah, I've had all kinds of moments like that. Um, meeting Billy Graham's wife was like that and I got to be kind of friends with their oldest daughter, Gigi. So that was sweet because she knew all her mother's poems just like I did. But, you know, I got to tell her what her mom's poems meant and why that was so important to me when I had a kid who was like off the charts and one time the social worker gave me a thing that said, check off the things that he does. And I'm like, wow, I can, I just, the only one he doesn't do, he steals, takes drugs, drinks. I mean, just down the checklist. I said, he doesn't wet the bed. Let me just check that off. That's the only one he doesn't do. Okay. I mean, I was just like, yeah. You know. So it's, it's nice when you get to share those moments with the person who sent them, you know? 

TL: 

Yeah. That's so cool. That's so cool.  

MS-P: 

Um, especially because with Gigi, everybody wants to talk to her about her dad, Billy Graham, you know, she was like, Oh, you actually my mom.       TL:  That's gotta be cool. Um, I had a question I was going to ask. Oh yeah. So do you feel like you were called to do this or does that have more to do with, you know, your held convictions? Or do you feel like you fell into it? Like how purposeful and how much of like a faith based call was this?     MS-P:  I, I really feel like I have the gift of faith. And I mean that in the very most basic sense. Like I know that faith is also a fruit of the spirit. And you know, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, sorry, I speak fluent King James, but there's also a gift of faith and I, and I really feel like I have that just because it's not that I've doubted, but then Jesus has come through anyway. I really have never doubted. I've thought, I've doubted myself a lot. You know, whether I was letting God down or whether I was doing the right thing or whatever, or the times that I know that I've done the wrong things, I feel like having been given the gift of faith where I just from the moment I met Jesus, I knew that I knew and I never doubted again. And I understand why people doubt, I get that and had arguments with God, you know, but just never doubted again. So it just really feels like a gift. So I feel like for sure it was a calling, but it was, I was so young that I didn't,      MS-P:  it wasn't until later on when somebody, you know, who is like in their mid twenties or close to 30 said to me, well at least you know what you're supposed to do with your life. And I thought, Oh, I guess that's true. You know, I never thought about that. Of course, I know, but I never thought about the fact that that would be something that people wouldn't know because I was 16 years old and I just, you know, right into it. Wow.  

 

TL: 

Yeah. I have no idea what I want to do with my life and I'm 20 so for you to know at 16 and be sort of sure is incredible. 

MS-P: 

Well, yeah, but like I said, I didn't know. I didn't know where there was a question. I didn't think about the fact, you know, and probably that's very self centered, but this was me is what I do.      TL:  That's so cool. This is kind of a little off topic, but what advice do you have for, you know, trying to work with people who disagree with you or who are different from you and trying to get on the same level and have an agreement?      MS-P:  Well, I always tell people that the best, the best argument that there can be gay Christians is to go be one. So a lot of people when they talk to me and go, what can I tell my Baptist grandfather? I'm like, nothing that you're going to tell your Baptist Grandfather is going to change his mind. You know, you need to walk in Jesus, you need to be a Christian, go, go do it. You know? And that's the best thing. But I do think, and sometimes I think that people underestimate, you know, I joke about speaking fluent King James, but the Bible does tell us to be ready to give an answer for the help that's within us. And I think that that's important. I was just at a conference this last weekend in Seattle and there were people there from many different perspectives. Um, some of them think that homosexuality is something that you're born with, but it's like alcoholism.      MS-P:  You shouldn't give into it. But they were very respectful in their way that they presented that and why they felt that way. And then there were people there who like were biblical scholars who were heterosexual, but they were biblical scholars and they were talking about how the word homosexual isn't even, it's not even a single language. It's like a thrown together word people made up in I think the 1890s or something, but the first part is Greek homo, the same. And the last part is, um, Latin sexualitatis. So it's like a Greek and Latin half and half word put together that only gave, only was given the meaning that somebody said it was given, you know, it wasn't a thing. And so in the fifties, when the revised standard version was written, it was the first time that a Bible had ever used that word in the Bible.      MS-P:  No translation had ever used that word in the Bible before. And so these scholars from Yale went through their library and through their, um, places where they did the study on how to translate through bystander version. And they took, they went through 90 boxes of notes, but they found the part where they were trying to decide what, where do you use there? Because I'm King James had said abusers of themselves with mankind and they used the word homosexual. And this young seminarian had written them a three page document that said, this is why you shouldn't use this word. First of all, it's a portmanteau word. It's a put together word. And, and these are the other places that these words were used in contemporary literature and it's why you shouldn't translate it this way and all this stuff. And that they had written back to this young seminarian and said, um, and they had all these documents, they're like under glass for you to look at, um, and written back and said, you know, after we read all that and looked at everything you wrote, we think you're right.      MS-P:  But we have told the publisher since this was such an expensive project to put out the revised standard version of the Bible, that we wouldn't make any revisions for the first 10 years. So that wasn't until 1971 when it wasn't the new revised standard version. It was just the first revision came out that they had taken out that word. But in that intervening time, the new international version NIV had come out and they had used that word and they found their notes that said they use that word because the revised standard version was such a scholarly work and that had used, they had used that word, so it was a history of how that word even got into the Bible, but it was all just everybody was sharing information. And the young seminarian who wrote that in 1950 something was there. He's 82 years old now.      MS-P:  He's a pastor in the United Church of Canada and he hadn't even signed his real name, but they did all this detective work to figure out who had written it. And so he was there at 82 years old, talk to me about his history. And it was really, I don't know, everybody came with different agendas. There were straight people, there were gay people. There are people who think it's okay to be gay, but not to act on it. All these different people. But everybody was very interested in each other and each of the stories, and I thought, you know, there's some kind of a way that we can do that where we can elevate the conversation from an argument to oh really, well this is how I see it. I mean, I've asked people that about Donald Trump. I can't imagine how anybody votes for Trump. And I've really asked people why they voted for him and not to have a discussion.      MS-P: Just to really understand, you know, to, to understand where they're coming from. And I think that's valuable too, to ask people, you know, a lot of people say, well, I just have to go with what the Bible says, and the Bible says marriage is between one man and one woman, which of course the Bible never says so it's really hard for me not to go, Oh, come on, have you read it? You know, but, but I have to just go. So you know, if people are willing to discuss, I do say, where do you feel like that comes from? You know, I don't know where they think it says that, but I don't know when you can have a discussion. I think it's, I, I've had, I answer all my hate mail, every single piece. And I know my friend, um Heggie Campolis says you should, every, every year you should put up a little note on your webpage that says Marshall is taking a three month hiatus from hate mail.      MS-P:  Please write again in November. You know, but I answer it all. And part of the reason I answer it, a lot of people don't read it and a lot of people, um, delete it. But part of the reason I answer is because it doesn't bother me. So because it doesn't bother me, I feel like I'm a good word to answer it, you know? So when people write to me and say, you will not pass go, you will not collect $200 you will go straight to hell and we will be in heaven rejoicing and watching you burn. And I write back to them and go, well first of all it sounds like you're really worried about me. And you said you were praying for me so please don't stop because I certainly want your prayers. But I really want you to explain to me why that would make you happy in heaven to see people burn, wouldn't that kind of break your heart, you know?      MS-P:  And then we start a conversation and I mean most of the time, over three quarters of the time they write back some version of, well I didn't mean it like that, you know? And then we can start talking.  

 

TL: 

People say crazy things when their emotions are so high and they feel like they're right.  

MS-P 

But I've had lots of people that have taken the whole journey around with me and our friends. Now. There was one woman that was ready to kill herself over her daughter being gay and, and her husband is a professor of theology at a seminary in New Jersey and they started writing to me, you know, negatively at first and they're good friends. I mean the girl's mom, the one who came out, the mom who was suicidal is such good friends with CJ now. Like they come to Nashville and she takes them out to the Johnny Cash museum and whatever.      MS-P:  And they've really made the whole circle.      TL: Wow. You know, so it can be done and it gives me a lot of hope because a lot of times it feels like people are so set in their ways.      MS-P:  Well, some people are. But I think I have to think that by the time somebody actually reaches out to me, I am supposed to give an answer for the hope that's within me. So it says to do it with respect and I try to do that with respect. But Timothy says that he, I mean Paul's letter to Timothy says that you should do that with respect. And I tried to do that.      TL:  My last question is: what do you want your legacy to be?      MS-P:  I go back and forth on that. I mean, I always think about, you know, when the saints go marching in and thinking, I do want to be in that number, you know, not just in the sense of I hope I'm saved. Of course I know that I'm one of God's own. But, um, I do want people to know that     MS-P:  I left it all on the table, sort of, you know, that whatever I had to do, whatever needed to be done, whatever I could do, I did. And I hope what it does is, you know, help other people. I mean, just like the guy who wanted to pray with us at the studio, he just won a dove award for his Christian writing now. So, I mean, I hope that it goes on and on like that, that people that didn't know that they could do the things that they could turn their lives around or that they could have a positive relationship with God, that that's how it goes on and on and on.      TL:  Thank you so much. That's very inspiring. 

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