Welcome to The Tuning Fork 1, a blog from Matt Algren (that’s me in the picture), where I offer opinions about Christianity (focusing on the United Methodist Church) and the struggle of gays for reasonable, complete inclusion in the church and society. More on that in a minute, but first a few words about me and my background.

Sit on it, Potsie!I’m a white guy living in rural southwest Ohio. I’m in my mid-30s and I sit behind a desk and hammer away at my computer keyboard all day. I sing, I act, and I run late more often than not.

I was brought up in a little country church where for a year or so, Dad was president of the Trustees and Mom was president of the UMW. We were there just about every time the church doors were unlocked. (Actually, that’s a bit misleading. We had our own key, so we were there even if the doors were locked.)

After 25 years of hiding, I began coming out of the closet on October 11, 2007, unaware of the significance of the date. My experience has been almost entirely positive.

Since I came out, I’ve become more interested in what the church, Methodist or otherwise, is saying about gays, and what it’s getting wrong. There was a recent close call in my jurisdiction when we nearly elevated a board member of the so called ‘Confessing Movement’ to the office of Bishop. My reaction to that mess can be found here.

Instead of continuing to drop political/religious bombshells on my other blog, which really wasn’t built for that, I decided to build a new place to put it. I’m one more voice in the wilderness, but my hope is that I’ll bring something unique to the conversation.

1 About the name: Funny thing about tuning forks. No matter how right you think the note you’re playing is, if you pay just the slightest attention to the fork, you’ll get back on track. The leaders of the Christian Church (Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, and most of the rest) have been off pitch for a very long time, and it’s well past time to restore the truth about LGTB folks to the Holy Bible and get in tune with God. That, in a nutshell, is what this blog is about. ⇧