Curtis, Christianity

On Music

“I’m not that religious, ” Curtis confesses in the first five minutes of our conversation, and I laugh. Later, he adds that “If Beethoven was a religion, I would be that.”

Curtis @cheardyheard is a breathtaking composer for the choir of the @firstchurchlb First Congregational Church of Long Beach - one of the first churches in America to ordain gay ministers he tells me. He’s also been a music and musical theatre high school teacher for 31 years.

“The church was the faith tradition I was born into,” he explains. “ I could have found my place in any other faith.”

Growing up, Curtis went to church for the music. He still finds beauty and meaning in being a part of it. But he questions what others might consider cornerstones of Christian ideology.

“My minister put it best,” he chuckles, when I ask how his Church reconciles homosexuality and Christianity. “Too many people take the Bible literally on homosexuality and metaphorically when it comes to money.”

He later plays me one of his original compositions and I swoon.