Helene H. Loper

Rev. Helene Hibbard Loper, Pastor
Cornerstone MCC, Mobile, Alabama

There are some of us still in the PC(USA) but I am one who left.  The PC(USA) was my primary church experience.  I was baptized in it as an infant, raised in its Sunday Schools, confirmed into its membership at age 12, married in its sanctuary and well on my way to being accepted as a gifted leader… until someone thought I was a lesbian.  After some very hurtful (and out of order) experiences with a Committee on Preparation for Ministry, I realized that, in order to follow my calling of God, I would have to leave the denomination in which I had come to know God's grace and love.  After coming out to the truth, which I did not learn in PC(USA) teachings, my "choice" boiled down to following God and being who God created me to be or to yielding to the restriction of a human institution, this particular denomination.

My gifts and calling, my passion and commitment are in pastoral ministry.  God's people, all of us, need gifted and qualified leadership.  I might have move from my deep south homeland to the west coast to follow my calling to ministry, but that would have limited it and left my brothers and sisters in the southeast in their woundedness and pain.  So I left the PC(USA), who I now regard as my abuser, and have formed a relationship with another denomination as partners in ministry in God's Church.  I do not intend to leave a good relationship to return to my abuser.  My ministry now includes many of your outcasts.  These, who have been so turned away from the God you preach that they refuse to ever darken the door of a church again, often wander for years before they find a church where they can be who God created them to be.  When they come to the church where I now serve God, my ministry is to spend much time and energy teaching, healing, and preaching the good news of God's love for them.  They too are gifted, deeply spiritual people who seek to serve God faithfully and my role is to equip them for their ministries.

I went through deep grief over leaving my spiritual heritage and I hurt for the pain of God's people who choose to remain in places where they are not fully accepted as God accepts them.  I have great respect for those who are called to be advocates for truth within the PC(USA) and other denominations that refuse to accept all people who come in faith as God's chosen ones.  The PC(USA) may wrestle like Jacob with God over this matter, but in the morning God will not leave you unscathed.  Your limp will be the leaders and members you lost in the struggle.  It may also include the loss of others who are unable to let God be God in creation and each of our callings.

Yet we are all still God's one Church and I am glad that whatever divisions have happened in the Church here in this life are not the last word on our unity in Jesus Christ in eternity.  There are some Christians who will be very surprised at who their neighbors, their peers in God's grace, are in heaven.  In eternity I will not be segregated from my parents, my children, my brothers and sisters and my friends who continue to be active and faithful members and leaders in the PC(USA).  I just wish that this could have happened before I had to leave the PC(USA).  Maybe it will for others who have not yet been forced to make a choice between their calling of God and the rules of this denomination.  But that depends on the actions of the PC(USA).  Will you let God be creator of all, Jesus savior of all and the Spirit uniter of all?
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[Addendum, sent to the Shower of Stoles Project in August, 2003]

A decade later…
The "Hapiru" were a mixed multitude that left Egypt, along with the descendants of Abraham, to go into the wilderness to worship God.  They were included in the covenant and were never singled out as more sinful or more faithful than any other person or group among the people of God.

Yet there is a feel to being a "Hapiru" that I have come to understand as the years have passed since leaving the Presbyterian Church (USA).  Leaving the tradition of one's birth for an unknown future in another community of faith has its moments of blessing and pain.

For me the blessings have been freedom to worship and serve God in new ways.  They are in finding new relationships.  They are in personal growth, deeper faith and a clearer focus on living the gospel rather than preserving  institutions, habits or beliefs that are incompatible with a life of faith.

The pain is here too.  This experience is much like a divorce.  There must be a complete break with the old before a commitment to anything new is possible.  The point of giving up hope for the first relationship is like the moment when one's heart finally breaks so deeply that there is no going back.  While the old relationship may have some healing and even become friendly or collaborative, one can not go back and retie the cords of trust or repair the levels of intimacy that were broken.

Looking at my experiences of ministry over the past decade since leaving the PC(USA), I also find that after that first "divorce" it becomes easier to let go of other relationships when they become unhealthy.  The gift of a clearer focus on the gospel daily reminds me of what it costs to let go of other things in order to be a healthier person.  These are the mixed feelings of a Hapiru.  Now I find myself living with looser ties to things and institutions in this life as I seek truth and the realm of God.  This process is necessary as God creates an exodus community of faith that will include all people in eternity.

Today Christian Hapiru are mixed within denominations and sprinkled about in independent churches.  But not everyone is called to become a Hapiru with respect to his or her original faith tradition.  The Israelites were not asked to give up being the children of Abraham.  They were told to show hospitality to the strangers among them.  They are to remember that they too were once wandering Arameans.

Therefore it is important for people to not easily let go of hope for repentance and healing in their tradition.  When a return to faithfulness, justice and mercy is needed, God usually calls Hebrews to be the prophets to the Hebrews.  So to those who yet remain in difficult places, I speak urgently of keeping your hope.  While some of us are called to live as Hapiru in order to minister in God's name among the wanderers, some of you are being called to be prophets to your own people.  The outcome of our mutual faithfulness will be the fulfillment of God's promise of salvation for all of us.

-- Rev. Helene H. Loper

This stole was one of the original 80 stoles that were on display on Sept. 16, 1995 when I set aside my ordination before Heartland Presbytery (see stole #1 for details).  For many years it was the only stole in the collection from Alabama, and one of very few from the Deep South.

 Helene is one of many "spiritual exiles" represented in the Shower of Stoles collection who left a denomination with discriminatory policies and renewed their ministries in a welcoming church -- in Helene's case, the Metropolitan Community Church.  Like so many others, however, Helene continues to have mixed emotions over her departure from her church of origin, and holds out hope that it, too, will someday become a welcoming place.

Martha Juillerat

Founder, Shower of Stoles Project

2006