I’ve been a church musician my whole life, and I used to be an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church. I am no longer. In late 2016, someone, whose identity was concealed from me (the church doesn’t have to follow due process), filed a complaint against me with the Bishop of the Annual Conference of which I was a member. I was forced to resign my orders on January 30, 2019 or face a church trial for having sex while single and promoting false doctrine (you can read a poem about this here).
Rules are rules, however out of touch with the modern world they might be; I broke one. That chapter of my life ended, freeing me to do other things.
When I met my lover R and she found out I was ordained, in early 2017, she dubbed me ‘Slut of the Cloth’ as a play on the old expression for preachers, ‘Man of the Cloth’. Some people are triggered or offended by the word ‘slut’ but it is being reclaimed by parts of the polyamorous community the same way the Sister Goddess community of Regina Thomashauer is reclaiming the word ‘pussy’. I am a slut in this sense, proudly. I have multiple lovers. I love sex. I am a polyamorous, pansexual, genderfluid-primarily-masculine-expressing man, and while I do not do what are now called ‘hookups’, preferring to be in relationships with depth rather than simply meeting someone for sex, I have no shame about how I live and have a desire to help others shed their shame about everything sexual.
So I am keeping this designation, as ‘Slut of the Cloth’; my theological stance is that ordination is an action of the Divine, not of people, and so, like baptism, can’t be repeated or undone. I lost my credentials and recognition and title from the United Methodist Church. But I do not consider that my ordination was surrendered; like in baptism, God doesn’t make mistakes, and the Divine called me to be in ministry. I am still set apart for this and my calling has become clearer and clearer to me over time. So I am retaining this title, and will continue to consider myself a (now non-denominational pastor) as I begin to form a sex-positive, kink-friendly, LGBTQIA+-affirming, fully welcoming spiritual community. I am post-religion; what I care about is how people treat each other, not doctrine or beliefs.
As of 7/24/21, I will own I have not been very active forming this spiritual community, but if you are interested in being part of hat, here is the location:The Body Gathering, a non-judgmental spiritual community
I currently have multiple lovers. I will be writing on this site about the difficulties and joys of that. If you want to comment, just know I will not allow dismissive, abusive, or any other kind of worthless comments.
In this article I am “Michael”.
Find out about my coaching work here….
Find me on FetLife as Slutofthecloth.
Slut of the Cloth 