I can't date Jesus

Dogma is but one reason that I prefer to call myself the generic “Christian” rather than a practitioner of any particular denomination of church I have attended in my lifetime - because as I grow and change, my faith also has to grow with me, or risk stagnating and falling away. And I totally understand why it does for a lot of people, when faith no longer seems to fit one's own truths. In that way, my growing up “un-churched” I think has actually helped me, because through attending a variety of different types of church, I've been able to see elements that some churches have embraced that others haven't, and know that even though all Christian denominations similarly claim One Way (Jesus), the actual practice of faith can work in a lot of different ways.

And although I think Arceneaux is semi joking about Beyonce being his lord and savior, I'm glad that it seems that he's come to peace with his own faith through the writing of this book, per the epilogue. Even when that means your faith is different than that of your parents.

I enjoyed this a lot, particularly because Arceneaux (seems? / seemed?) to have a strong faith background, and I don't feel like that's a story that gets told a lot in secular environments, about grappling with the faith of your family and also the way your family has either failed in their own faith or failed YOU in their version of faith. (And whoooo boy do I feel that last one in particular, in the light of the last oh 5-ish years.) I don't think I'm wording this quite right, but will try anyway: Even when not actively addressing the topic of “sinfulness,” there's an undercurrent of anxiety about homosexuality's “sinfulness” despite that being a part of his identity, and Arceneaux tends to gloss over that instead of challenging it head-on (likely because he was raised Catholic, where there was/is not room for pushing against the bounds of Church dogma). Like, I've learned to ask - what if something that is inherently who you are is not sinful? What might that mean, and how can that work with the ground that's already been laid? These kind of things are interesting to me.

Arceneaux is a great writer and I enjoyed his style a lot. I'll keep an eye out for more of his writing in the future.

{And in reading this over again before hitting publish, I have to say - writing about religion with clarity is hard, yo.}

This is an alternatingly funny and sad read, but I appreciate the messy honesty of Areceneaux's path. He also states multiple times how he is not interested in framing his work for a white audience–I still got a lot out of this but suspect it's a book that a queer black reader is going to appreciate even more.

Though I've never read any of the author's previous work, I still wanted to try reading this and it was a very entertaining read. Michael's style is very conversational, like he is just talking to us about all his feelings. His issues about his father's abuse, his very religious mother, his paranoia about intimacy - all heavy topics are written in a very humorous way. I was obviously expecting a little more political commentary since Michael is very opinionated, but the book concentrates more on his many unsuccessful dating attempts quite graphically. This book definitely wouldn't have worked for me if not for his quick wit and self-deprecating nature while discussing the most impactful situations in his life. I would definitely recommend it.