With Wonder

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” says the Bible (Galatians 3:28) – and yet if one reads more contemporary sources, such as the popular press, one sees Christianity framed in opposition to all sorts of life experiences, not least being LGBT. It’s a difficult situation because as people grow up and come to terms with a minority sexual orientation or gender experience, religious belief doesn’t just go away. Almost a fifth of LGBTQ+ people in the UK are Christian, and around the world the proportion is much higher. How do these people navigate perceived clashes within their own identities, and find a home within the Church?

Focusing on LGBTQ+ people of colour in Jamaica, the US and UK, With Wonder sets out to answer these questions, finding a diverse set of stories which contain their share of tragedy and suffering but are ultimately uplifted by hope. Its participants have not only held onto their faith, but each of them has found a way to reach out and influence the world. The joy they find in their faith and in helping others suffuses the film. There is nothing pushy about this – it’s equally engaging if one has a different religious creed, or none – but naturally the film has been made with a specific audience in mind: one whose members rarely see themselves on the big screen.

The Reverend Jide, who works in UK organisation House of Rainbow to provide a fellowship and place of safety for other LGBTQ+ Christians, talks about growing up as the son of a Nigerian immigrant in the UK, and clashing with his father as both of them sought to live moral lives. For him, becoming a minister began with a need for honesty about every aspect of who he was; coming out of the closet brought him closer to God. This is a story echoed by Winnie, who talks about the freedom she felt when recognising herself as a lesbian, and clearly feels that it has informed her ministry. To her, self acceptance is part and parcel of the process of accepting God’s love.

There are others. Phyll is a Black British woman doing support work in Jamaica. She acknowledges that it’s different for her, and doesn’t want to decentre the lives of the people she works with, but what she does have to say about her experiences still informs the film. Local lesbians Jessicka and Tanya are less articulate, but the love they have found in their community just shines out of the screen. Maurice, a local gay man, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of LGBTQ+ issues in the island nation and could easily carry a documentary himself, but director Sharon Lewis is careful to balance these varied stories. Perhaps what comes through most strongly from Maurice’s story is the understanding he has managed to reach with his parents.

Not everybody has been so fortunate. Pastor’s daughter Serena talks about growing up under that special pressure often faced by young members of minority communities, expected to be a good representative of all Chinese Americans. That didn’t leave much room for coming out as a lesbian, and although she retains hope for reconciliation, she’s had a hard time as a result. For D’Lo, a trans man who is part of the Tamil diaspora in the US, the situation has been still more difficult. There’s an angry aspect to his stage performances, and his retention of his faith comes across as an act of resistance, a refusal to let that, too, be taken from him, even as he talks of Jesus as the friend who saw him through when no-one else was there.

Structurally, Lewis keeps it simple. Her subjects speak to camera in locations which have been important to their journeys. Several of them know each other – these are small communities – and sometimes we see them working together. This serves as a reminder of the importance of faith as a means of bringing people together. No LGBTQ+ Christian viewer will leave this film feeling that they are alone in the world.