Open Hands Vol 11 No. 2 - Valuing Difference, Part 1: Untangling Prejudice & Privilege

Open Hands Vol 11 No. 2 - Valuing Difference, Part 1: Untangling Prejudice & Privilege

11

2

1995

Fall

2 Open Hands
Open Hands is a resource for congregations
and individuals seeking to be in
ministry with lesbian, bisexual, and gay
persons. Each issue focuses on a specific
area of concern within the church.
Open Hands is published quarterly by
the Reconciling Congregation Program,
Inc. (United Methodist) in cooperation
with More Light Churches Network
(Presbyterian), Open and Affirming
(United Church of Christ), and Reconciled
in Christ (Lutheran) Programs.
Each of these programs is a national
network of local churches that publicly
affirm their ministry with the whole
family of God and welcome lesbian and
gay persons and their families into their
community of faith. These four programs—
along with Open and Affirming
(Disciples of Christ), Welcoming (Unitarian
Universalist), Supportive Congregations
(Brethren/Mennonite), and Welcoming
and Affirming (American
Baptist) programs— offer hope that the
church can be a reconciled community.
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© 1995
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ISSN 0888-8833
w Printed on recycled paper.
Vol. 11 No. 2 Fall 1995
Resources for Ministries Affirming
the Diversity of Human Sexuality
Valuing Differences, Part 1
Untangling Prejudice and Privilege
EXPOSING ROOTS OF OPPRESSION
Making Tangled Roots Visible 4
MARY JO OSTERMAN
How are prejudice and privilege connected? What are the
roots and subroots of oppression?
What Is Your Risk Factor? 7
Get a quick reading of your level of risk for human rights
violations and your level of privilege.
Heterosexuality: A Privileged Place 8
PATRICIA BEATTIE JUNG
Explore the prejudice generated by heterosexism and the
privilege enjoyed by heterosexual persons.
Identifying Race Privilege: From One White to Another 10
JENNIFER SIMPSON
What is white privilege and what is a responsible
response to it?
Coming Out Old: Issues of Ageism and Privilege 12
DOROTHY JEAN FURNISH
What is aging? Age privilege? How is the church ageist?
Gender Privilege: A Rural Clergy Couple’s Conversation 14
MITCHELL HAY AND BARBARA LEMMEL
Listen in on this couple’s dialogue about privilege and
who is called to “midwife” changes.
Exploring Disability and Privilege 16
FRED BERCHTOLD
A ‘temporarily able bodied’ pastor makes connections
between the disability rights movement and the gay/
lesbian rights movment.
Fall 1995 3
The Elite and the Other: Thoughts on Classism 17
ROSEMARY RADFORD RUETHER AND KAREN L. BLOOMQUIST
Two religious leaders comment on how classism plays into
the struggle for the liberation of all persons.
PLANTING SEEDS OF DIVERSITY
Transforming Despair into Hope 18
MELANIE MORRISON
A preacher invites us to turn one another’s “despair
into hope.”
To Denominational Gate Keepers: A Call to Action 20
HOWARD B. WARREN, JR.
Denominational executives are called to do as early
Christians did—to turn the world upside down.
The People of the Eyes 22
JOHN SUMWALT
A storyteller explores discrimination and privilege in a
fictional three-tiered system.
Diversity, Privilege, and Faith: Studying Connections 24
BEN ROE
A local church examines orientation privilege and its
connections with race privilege.
SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT
A Litany for Freedom 25
RANDY MILLER
Through spoken word and song, this litany weaves
phrases of “Lift Every Voice” into a call for freedom.
ONE MORE WHAT DO SELECTED MOVEMENT
WORD YOU THINK? RESOURCES NEWS
26 27 28 29
Next issue:
Valuing Differences, Part 2
Weaving Community
Publisher
Mark Bowman
Open Hands Editor
Mary Jo Osterman
Illustrations
Chris Wild
Layout / Graphics / Typesetting
In Print – Jan Graves
Program Coordinators
Mark Bowman
Reconciling Congregation
Program, Inc.
3801 N. Keeler Avenue
Chicago, IL 60641
312/736-5526
Ann B. Day
Open and Affirming
Program
P.O. Box 403
Holden, MA 01520
508/856-9316
Judy Bond
Reconciled in Christ
Program
1722 Hollinwood Drive
Alexandria, VA 22307
703/768-4915
William Capel
More Light Churches
Network
123R West Church Street
Champaign, IL 61820-3510
217/355-9825
Editorial Advisory Committee
Ann Marie Coleman, ONA
Dan Hooper, RIC
Derrick Kikuchi, MLCN
Samuel E. Loliger, ONA
Dick Poole, RIC
Caroline Presnell, RCP
Irma C. Romero, ONA
Paul Santillán, RCP
Martha Scott, RCP
Stuart Wright, RIC
The Double Taproot
“Why do people discriminate against other people?” That is a major question
asked of program staff as they travel across the country doing welcoming and
reconciling ministry work. Why do people discriminate? What are the roots of
people’s oppressive behavior? As I probed the answers, I began to doodle.
Roots are underground, unseen for the most part, tangled, tenacious. Roots
grow in a soil of certain characteristics. Roots emerge into specific kinds
of plants. Root systems have taproots and subroots.
The root system of oppression has two taproots. The first taproot—
prejudice—is fed by a whole subroot system of feelings,
attitudes, beliefs, and actions (illustration 1). These subroots
include fear and mistrust of those different from us and
the blaming of them for things that really are part
of us. Digging deeper down the taproot of prejudice,
we find that fear, mistrust, and blaming
are fed by ignorance of who the “other”
really is and is not. Digging even deeper,
we uncover subroots of hatred all
Making Tangled Roots Visible
By Mary Jo Osterman
A “perfectly reasonable” explanation existed in the minds of the people making
the decisions or statements above. In each case, however, their traditions and
biases, prejudices and privileges, became tangled in the decision. They tapped
into the root system of oppression and kept it in place one more time. What
happened was discrimination. ❙ ❙
❚ A CEO reviews two equally qualified candidates and hires the man,
not the woman.
❚ A local church committee turns down a possible new pastor who
seemed a good match for the congregation, but is blind.
❚ Judicatory delegates promise their votes to a gay candidate, but the
numbers never add up.
❚ A plumber directs his comments to a 50-year old housemate rather
than to the 70-year old owner of the house who had called him.
❚ A middle-class women’s support group says, “Well, we tried, but Doris
just doesn’t fit in.”
❚ A lesbian coming out group shuts out Paula, a transexual lesbian
who used to be Paul.
❚ A white congregation says “We’re open, but the African-Americans
in town just won’t come to our church.”
4 Open Hands
tangled up with subroots of violent actions.
Finally, we come to a root of anger.
These are subroots of prejudice familiar
to most of us working in the
welcoming church movement.
When I tried to determine what feeds
the anger, I discovered a second taproot—
privilege—which is connected to
prejudice (illustration 2). The anger
feeding prejudice also feeds privilege.
What feeds the anger of prejudice is fear
of loss (or perceived loss) of control of
one’s life, a fear that comes from the
system of privilege.
One of the primary subroots that
feeds privilege is power over others. A
“power-over” position of dominance is
conferred on us (by society or its institutions
such as the church) due to some
advantage we have from our gender, orientation,
race, age, ability, or class.
Power-over is an unearned advantage.
Having such unearned power, we are fed
by fear; we might lose our power. We
are also suspicious of others’ motives
and abilities to wrest power from us.
Other subroots of privilege include
unearned advantages, feelings of superiority,
and actions which maintain that
superior status. Although by our actions
we may appear to feel superior, underneath
we may fear the loss of power and
benefits that go with it. Because of these
fears, we exercise our privilege by excluding
others or somehow denying
them equal privilege and benefits. We
demonstrate our power by patronizing
some, dehumanizing others, controlling
still others. We shore up our power by
controlling decisions and decision-making
processes and by controlling money,
real estate, and goods. All of these behaviors
are designed—consciously or
unconsciously—to help us maintain our
own privileged status, whatever that
happens to be.
Connecting the Roots
Now I rapidly began to connect the
two taproot systems (illustration
3). For example, the ignorance of prejudice
is fed by a dehumanization subroot
of privilege. The mistrust of prejudice
is fed by the suspicion fostered by privilege.
The patronizing attitude of someone
who is privileged is fed by fear of
loss of control and in turn feeds the dehumanizing
process which feeds ignorance
and mistrust and fear. Tangles and
more tangles, which erupt in different
forms of oppression—“weeds” of racism,
sexism, ageism, ableism, heterosexism,
classism.
While we may see the common root
system of these products of oppression,
it is more likely that we are caught up
in the struggle to dismantle one specific
form of oppression—the one closest to
our own experience. We sometimes try
to prioritize forms of oppression in an
effort to get others to join our cause:
racism is the basic oppression; no, sexism
is basic; no, heterosexism is basic;
no, classism is basic.
Yet some of us cannot separate the
effects of the root system of oppression.
A poor, Native American gay man who
is hearing impaired simultaneously experiences
the effects of prejudice and
privilege in the form of classism, racism,
heterosexism, and ableism. An old,
black, blind, poor, lesbian woman potentially
experiences six different kinds
of oppression in our society because of
who she is: ageism, racism, ableism,
classism, heterosexism, and sexism.
Their experiences cannot be separated
out and prioritized since they are the
experiences of whole persons. These
persons will refuse (rightly) all demands
to separate out any aspect of their oppression
from their whole selves.
more ➟
Fall 1995 5
Because of who they are, we do not
have the luxury of working only on “our
oppression.” If we are working for the
full liberation of all people, we will want
to make the connections and to stand
in solidarity with all people, working
actively and simultaneously against all
forms of oppression. For, ultimately,
every form of oppression comes from
the same two taproots: prejudice and
privilege.
Our focus in this issue of Open Hands
is on understanding privilege, the taproot
much less known and acknowledged.
Who Are the Privileged?
Our social system confers privilege
on some of us by freeing or exempting
us from something. As a white
person, I am freed from having to learn
in detail the customs, values, and realities
of other races of people in order to
survive among them. As a lesbian, however,
I am not exempted from the need
to understand the heterosexual world in
order to survive within it. If I do not
conform, I reap a host of penalties, from
loss of career to threats against my person.
As a person without physical disabilities,
I am freed or exempted from
having to plan ahead to be sure I will be
able to get into a building or have access
to bathrooms, pay phones, drinking
fountains, or usable work or leisure
equipment. As a woman, however, I am
6 Open Hands
tion and without thought. An oppressor
is both Hitler and the CEO who
chooses the male candidates over equally
qualified female candidates. An oppressor
is both the Klan and the lesbian coming
out group who excludes a transexual
lesbian.
Given this definition of oppression,
chances are we all are oppressors of
somebody. The biases with which we
were raised, the beliefs we were taught,
and the privileges we enjoy because of
who we are (and the power that comes
with those privileges) almost guarantee
that somewhere, sometime—maybe often—
we will use authority unjustly. No
matter who we are. Having advantages,
and the unearned authority that comes
with them, puts us in the potential pool
of oppressors of other people who have
fewer advantages and less power.
We may also be among the oppressed
because society denies us basic rights
and discredits our earned authority
based on some aspect of who we are.
And we may be part of the solution because
we are actively working against
prejudice and oppression. However, if
we glide over the fact that we are oppressors
because of privilege conferred
on us, we are in danger of missing part
of the “big picture.” We stay mired in
romantic (liberal and conservative) notions
of diversity that conveniently give
not exempted from the need to understand
our male-dominated society. If I
do not learn to operate within, and remain
generally subservient to, male ways
of naming and male styles of leadership,
I will be penalized.
Who are the privileged ones? In the
United States, as Audre Lorde has said,
it is the “white, thin, male, young, heterosexual,
Christian, and financially secure”
person who is most privileged.
Each of us is gifted with privilege—or
threatened with vulnerability to human
rights violations—according to how
closely we fit this norm.1 (See “What is
Your Risk Factor?”, p. 7.)
Rights vs. Privileges
Not all privilege is harmful. Some
privileges are really basic rights
which need to be seen as “unearned entitlements”
available to all.2 These include
such rights as health, well-being,
a decent education, safe neighborhoods,
clean water, breathable air, enough food
to eat, shelter, a livable wage, the pursuit
of happiness, loving relationships,
and being treated decently by others. Be
clear: these are basic rights, not “special
rights.” Those of us who enjoy these
rights as privileges and deny them to
others find ourselves in the group called
oppressor.
Acknowledging Ourselves
as Oppressors
Are you saying, “Now, wait just a
minute! I’m not an oppressor.
Those people in the illustrations at the
beginning of the article are not oppressors.
Oppressors are people like Hitler,
dictators in Central America, Soviet
communists taking over a country, or
the Klan.”
If this is your response, you are not
alone. Most of us recoil from naming
ourselves “oppressor.” Oppressors are
usually defined as those who keep others
down by severe force. It is this image
of oppression that leads us to think
of Hitler or the Klan. However, oppressors
are also those who unjustly use their
privilege or authority to deny equal access
or benefits to others. These people
may act with intention, motivated by
ignorance, religious belief, or fear and
anger. Or they may act without intenFall
1995 7
us permission to retain our own privilege
and to hoard our power. For example,
we will be in danger of supporting
equal access to jobs only as long as
it does not affect our own status or job
security. We will refuse to see that if jobs
are to be equally accessible and if unemployment
is to be spread equally
across race and gender, then fewer white
men will hold top level jobs, fewer white
women will hold middle management
jobs, and more white people will become
unemployed. Once we see how we
participate in economic oppression—
and if we decide to do something about
it—we will make ourselves vulnerable in
the job market, competing equally for
jobs. We will risk losing out to a woman
or someone of another race without calling
it “reverse discrimination.”
Likewise, if we skip over understanding
ourselves as oppressors in the
church, we are in danger of missing the
whole point of ministry: being in ministry
with those whom we may have
oppressed. Once we see the unjust use
of authority in ministry—which is fed
by privilege and power and erupts in oppression
of others—we no longer only
minister to others whom we feel are less
than we; we become willing to be ministered
to by those who have been
marginalized by our unearned privilege.
If we are to value human differences,
untangling the form our own privilege
takes is where we will need to start—no
matter what our race, gender, age, orientation,
class, ability, or religious beliefs.
In the rest of this issue of Open
Hands, writers explore specific forms of
privilege as a beginning step toward
untangling roots of oppression and
moving toward valuing human differences.
▼
Notes
1Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and
Speeches (Trumansburg, New York: Crossing
Press), p. 116.
2Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking
the Invisible Knapsack”
Peace and Freedom
(July/August
1989), p. 11.
Mary Jo Osterman,
Ph.D., is editor of
Open Hands and a
freelance writer.
Fourth: Where do others stand?
Using different colored markers, calculate the risk factor score for:
(1) an African-American lesbian, 62, with a disability, making minimum wage.
(2) a white, heterosexual man, 63, with disabilities, living on welfare payments.
(3) a Mexican-American, heterosexual man, without disabilities, 45, making
$18,000.
(4) a Native American lesbian, 61, without disabilities, making $36,000.
-6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6
High Moderate Low Risk/ Moderate High
Risk Risk Low Privilege Privilege Privilege
First: Who are you?
In the left column, put a plus (+); in the right column, put a minus (-).
( + ) ( – )
___ White __ Person of color
___ Male __ Female
___ Heterosexual __ Bisexual, lesbian, or gay
___ Age: Under 60; over 17 __ Age: 60+; under 18
___ Without disabilities __ With disabilities
___ Above poverty level __ At/below poverty ($11,570-family of 3)
Second: What is your score?
Calculate your score by filling in the blanks and subtracting.
___ the number of pluses you marked
subtract ___ the number of minuses you marked
= Your Score: ___ this is your risk factor for human
___ violations or for privilege
Third: Where do you stand?
Circle your risk factor score on the continuum below.
What is Your Risk Factor?
How much are you at risk for human rights violations?
How much privilege do you enjoy?
8 Open Hands
A Privileged Place
Heterosexism pervades most dimensions
of our cultural life. This “system”
of privilege and discrimination
shapes our legal, economic, political, social,
interpersonal, familial, historical,
educational, and ecclesial institutions.2
Heterocentrism lies at the heart of this
system of prejudice. It is the conviction
that heterosexuality is the normative
form of human sexuality. Within such
a framework, the potential for gender
role complementarity and procreativity
evident in heterosexual couples becomes
the measure by which all other sexual
lifestyles are judged. It also becomes the
measure by which a place of greater
privilege is granted to heterosexual persons
and to those “closeted” as such.
Of course, there is nothing wrong
with being heterosexual. That is not the
point. The problem lies with turning
differences in kind into better or worse
representatives of a single norm. If human
sexual reality is pluriform in orientation,
then the imposition of any
uniform norm will produce dehumanizing
patterns of discrimination for
some and unfair privilege for others.
A closely related example may illuminate.
Within traditional patriarchal
cultures people believe that the normative
form of humanity is male. This
androcentrism produces a system of discrimination
against females and generates
a system of male privilege. Together
these patterns of male privilege and
prejudice against females create and sustain
sexism.
Heterocentrism works in a similar
manner. Interdependent patterns of
privilege for heterosexual people and
prejudice against bisexual and homosexual
people generate an incredibly
pervasive system of discrimination
called heterosexism. Evidence of this
system is everywhere. It is most obvious
of course in the mounting violence
against the gay community. It is also
expressed in our ridiculing language
Heterosexism is a reasoned system
of bias resulting in differential
treatment based on sexual orientation.
It denotes privileged status for
heterosexual people and connotes prejudice
against bisexual, and especially, homosexual
people. By describing it as a
reasoned system of prejudice and privilege,
we do not mean to imply that it is
rationally defensible. Rather we mean
to suggest that heterosexism is not
grounded exclusively or even primarily
in emotional fears or other visceral responses
to variations in sexual orientation.
Instead, heterosexism is rooted in
a constellation of ideas.
Roots of Heterosexism
Human sexuality is thought to be
designed to foster individual fulfillment
by drawing persons of different
genders into relationship. As the saying
goes, “a man without a woman” is
believed to be like “a ship without a
sail”—obviously incomplete and dysfunctional.
(Corollaries are proposed for
women.)
This theory of gender complementarity
is reinforced by the belief that
human sexuality is designed essentially
(if not exclusively or primarily) for reproductive
purposes. Within this framework,
it is “reasonable” to question the
personal maturity and sexual identity
of men and women who do not serve
the family, nation and/or species by
having children, particularly if this is a
matter of choice. Indeed, in some versions
of procreationism, one’s status as
a “real” woman or “real” man hinges
significantly upon one’s reproductive
potential and/or performance. Operating
within this framework, it is also “reasonable”
for society to confer status and
privilege on heterosexuality and to respond
to homosexuality either with
homophobia or heterosexism or both.
There is a complex relationship
between this set of ideas and some common
emotional responses to homosexuality.
Some people might be homophobic
because images of male same-sex
activity suggest that men can be physically
vulnerable, subject potentially
even to rape. Images of female same-sex
activity may suggest to some that
women can be powerful, free of male
control, potentially independent of men
altogether. These images of male vulnerability
and female strength evoke in
some people feelings of terror and rage.
In a heterosexist culture like ours, they
make everyone uncomfortable because
they challenge the heterosexist myth to
which we have all grown accustomed.
Although heterosexism is often accompanied
and reinforced by homophobia,
no necessary connection exists
between the two. They don’t always go
together. A gap is commonly found
within persons between their ideas and
feelings. We can be “out of sync,” as it
were, with ourselves. So, it is possible
for people who are homophobic not to
be heterosexist; and for those who are
heterosexist not to be homophobic.
HETEROSEXUALITY: A Privileged Place
By Patricia Beattie Jung
I had lived at the same address behind the drugstore for six years. I
made it a point to use local businesses whenever possible and had
been a regular customer at that drugstore. After my partner and I
opened a joint checking account, I stopped at the drugstore to have
a prescription filled. I wrote out a check for the amount of the prescription,
but the clerk refused to accept my check, not because of
any problem with my account, but because there were two female
names on the check. In the clerk’s words, “Two female names on
the account just couldn’t be right.”1
Fall 1995 9
about (and demonizing stereotypes of)
gays. It is also expressed in civil statutes
which discriminate against gays and lesbians
in regard to military service, employment,
housing, adoption, and insurance
practices. Finally, it is expressed in
ecclesial policies that deny gay and lesbian
couples blessings for their unions
and permit the ordination of only
tightly closeted gay people committed
to lifelong and total sexual abstinence.
Indeed it is not an exaggeration to say
that heterosexism seeks to erase gay
people. It seeks to allow no privilege at
all.
No Place at All
Cultures develop many structures to
keep people “in place” in various
aspects of their lives. For example, in patriarchal
cultures women have a rightful,
albeit private, place of activity in
their father’s or husband’s home. One
might imagine that bisexual and homosexual
people could have a similar
“place” in heterosexism. Of course this
place would have to be carefully circumscribed
like every other kind of ghetto.
It would have to reflect as well the subservience
and inferiority of gay people
to the heterocentric norm.
But the fact is gay people have no place
within heterosexist cultures, except their
“closet.” Gay couples cannot safely celebrate
their love in public. Indeed, their
identity must be invisible in our public
institutions. They may not enjoy their
relationships— hold hands, for example—
at school, at the local ice rink,
at work, at supper clubs, or on the street.
Those few places which allow such expression—
openly gay neighborhoods
and bars—routinely experience all manner
of violence, from trashings to bombings.
Heterosexism demands that gay
people keep their sexual identity hidden.
Why? Because no one should publicly
parade what is not fully or normatively
human (natural).
It is not enough that bisexual and
homosexual people keep their sexual life
private. Gay people have no safe haven
in our culture, not even the protection
and safety usually associated with the
private sphere, the home. We also silence
them in our circle of friends, as well as
in other semiprivate spheres, such as the
parish. The only acceptable, safe place
and heterosexual privilege. Christian
teachings contribute to the cultural climate
in which these tenets flourish without
serious question. Church tradition
in effect sanctifies the routinization of
this form of discrimination and reinforces
the invisibility of heterosexual
privilege.
Since all persons are made in the
image of God, however, Christians also
recognize that those who discriminate
bear the burden of proof. The time has
come for Christians to think critically
about the credibility of heterosexism,
the adequacy of traditional biblical
interpretations cited in support of
heterosexism, and the social costs of
heterosexism. The time has come for
heterosexual Christians to look seriously
at the unearned privilege that comes
from their orientation. If this evaluation
invites the renewal of church teaching,
the faithful must accept this challenge
and be prepared to confront, dismantle,
and move beyond all the expressions of
heterosexism found both in church and
society. ▼
Source
This article is excerpted and adapted from
Heterosexism: An Ethical Challenge by Patricia
Beattie Jung and Ralph F. Smith. New York:
SUNY, 1993. Used with permission. Ralph
Smith died in a car accident in November,
1994.
Notes
1This vignette is a true story.
2Over two decades ago lesbian feminists recognized
the institutional dimensions of
heterosexism and began to describe the coercive
nature of this system. See Adrienne
Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian
Existence (1980),” in Blood, Bread and
Poetry: Selective Prose 1979-1985 (New York:
W.W. Norton, 1986).
3Gordon Allport, The Nature of Prejudice
(Cambridge, Mass.: Addison Wesley, 1954).
4Rich, op. cit., p. 29.
Patricia Beattie Jung, a Roman Catholic
laywoman, is an Associate Professor of Theology
at Loyola University in Chicago. She
has published many
scholarly articles and
co-edited with Thomas
A. Shannon an
anthology on Abortion
and Catholicism:
The American
Debate.
Heterosexism seeks to
erase gay people
for bisexual and homosexual people is
the “closet.” That is where heterosexist
prejudice requires such “scandalous
skeletons” be kept.
In contrast, most heterosexual people
simply take the authenticity of their
sexual identity for granted. Very little
blocks their becoming self-conscious of
their authentic sexual feelings to begin
with and the culture reinforces their
integral (if not always responsible) expression
of these attractions. They also
give no thought at all to the great range
of privileges that come to them simply
and only because they are heterosexual.
In our culture we invite heterosexual
adolescents to an awareness of, a mature
openness about, and even celebration
of, their burgeoning sexuality.
Straight people are rarely frustrated or
demeaned by norms that would require
they inhibit a celebration of who they
are and/or whom they really love—unless
these affairs are adulterous or incestuous.
We do not provide such support
and encouragement for teenagers
or adults who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
At best we encourage them to
closet themselves and to make announcements
about their sexual identity
that are not consistent with their
sexual orientation and/or activities.
In his now classic text on discrimination,
The Nature of Prejudice, Gordon
Allport noted over thirty-five years ago
that the most deep-rooted prejudice in
the United States was directed against
homosexual people, who, if they could
be more easily targeted, would suffer
even greater violence.3 This discrimination
is widespread. It has been present
since the early colonial period. “As early
as 1656,” writes Adrienne Rich, “the New
Haven Colony prescribed the death penalty
for lesbians.”4
A Challenge for the
Church
The fact that North Americans accept
the tenets of heterocentrism so
uncritically is, arguably, the most significant
contributor to antigay prejudice
10 Open Hands
Five years ago, an African American
student at the seminary I was
attending spoke her mind and I
was fortunate enough to be there when
she did. “I have been waiting for the day
when white folks start to deal with their
own racism.” Her words—spoken in a
room full of students, faculty, staff, and
seminary board members—still have the
power to remind me of my position and
responsibility when it comes to racial
matters.
Because she was talking about racism
among white people at the seminary, her
words unsettled me. She was not talking
about “racism out there” (Proposition
187 in California, police brutality
against African American or Latino men,
or the wiping out of affirmative action
programs at the University of California).
She was talking about racism
among whites at our seminary. Suddenly,
I was implicated in a form of oppression
with which I had never before
identified.
Since then, I have worked hard to see
myself as always white and therefore
privileged. While I have come to understand
a little more of what it means to
be white in this country, the depth of
my ignorance on racism means I have
barely started the task of addressing my
own racial identity. I still slip, trip, and
sometimes take a wrong turn in addressing
my own privilege. I am also glad I
am on the road at all.
Naming Race Privilege
Race privilege refers to a range of advantages
people receive because of
skin color. In the U.S. it often works according
to a “ranking” of persons from
darker skin (less privilege) to lighter skin
(more privilege). Race privilege also supports
race-based stereotypes (for example,
the idea that most Asian Americans
were not born in the United States).
White people routinely benefit from
race privilege.
A friend’s frustration with racism
marks my white privilege: “You know, I
went into that same bookstore yesterday,
and I noticed right away I was followed.
He started immediately after I
got in the door. Following me—up and
down the stairs, back and forth through
the aisles. All I wanted was a book! Why
can’t I do some shopping without being
followed?” I immediately realize
this is the first time I have even slightly
felt the absence of an employee following
me. “You know,” my African American
friend continues, “it doesn’t matter
where we are, how we’re dressed,
what we’re doing—you white folks assume
we’re thieves. I am tired.”
Peggy McIntosh, in an article linking
male privilege and white privilege,
lists twenty-six “daily effects of white
privilege” in her life. Those of us who
are white can look at the TV or newspaper
and see people of our race “widely
represented.” We can be fairly certain
our skin color will not mark us as a financial
risk when using checks, credit
cards, or cash. We “can take a job with
an affirmative action employer without
having co-workers on the job suspect
that [we] got it because of race.” We can
also swear or dress sloppily without
having people attribute this behavior to
our race. We are never expected to speak
for “all the people of [our] racial
group.”1
Race privilege: a range
of unearned advantages
people receive because
of skin color.
To understand my own privilege, I
have had to realize that I am always
“raced.” The fact that (white) employees
do not follow my (white) body at a
local bookstore is an example of race
privilege. Although I am often quick to
assume that race is a factor only in the
presence of people of African, Asian,
Latin, or Native American descent, race
can be an issue among groups of white
people (for example when I am not followed
by white employees at a bookstore).
Racial issues are present regardless
of the race of the people in that
situation. As a white person, I am concerned
first of all with white peoples’
participation in race matters.
Historically and currently in the
United States, whiteness has been considered
the norm. It needs no explanation
or defense. In contrast to my Latin
American friend (who rarely finds Latin
American authors on reading lists), I
have never had to search the syllabus
for white authors. I am not slotted into
categories such as “model minority” (a
common stereotype applied to Asian
Americans), or “thief” (as my African
American friend was). As a person committed
to anti-racism, I want to unlearn
ways of living that perpetuate my white
privilege and leave no space for the wellbeing
and wholeness of people of African,
Asian, Latin, and Native American
descent.
Making Connections with
Heterosexism
Racism and heterosexism are connected;
but the two are never the
same. Understanding heterosexism may
serve as a window into understanding
racism, but never a mirror.
While white people rarely have to
consider the privilege of our whiteness,
most heterosexuals spend little time reflecting
on the benefits they receive
because they are heterosexual. Racism
forces people of African, Asian, Latin,
and Native American descent to explain
their values and choices against white
“norms.” Heterosexism ensures that
straight people rarely have to explain,
defend, or justify their existence in ways
that les/bi/gay and transgendered people
do on a daily basis. Despite most forms
and applications, my gay friend in a
long-term relationship is neither “married”
nor “single”; my mixed-race friend
is neither only “Hispanic American” nor
only “Caucasian.”
IDENTIFYING RACE PRIVILEGE:
From One White to Another
By Jennifer Simpson
Fall 1995 11
Responding Out of White
Privilege
Unraveling our racial privilege often
surfaces feelings of guilt or blame.
If I had responded, “It’s not my fault
the employee followed you” my friend
might not have been surprised. However,
she and other people of African,
Asian, Latin, and Native American descent
I know have no use for such pleas
of innocence. Further, it is not my
friend’s responsibility to help me process
my ambivalence about the situation.
I listened to what she had to say
and I am still realizing the lessons of
not being followed. I am slowly learning
to listen to my friends’ stories about
racism without becoming defensive.
Absolving my guilt (“I’m not racist!”)
or removing myself from blame (“You
can’t put all that history on my shoulders.
. .”) was often my initial (if unspoken)
response in discussions about racism.
Such reactions miss the point. I am
convinced that growing up and living
with race privilege ensures my participation
in racism. Moving beyond blame
and guilt means I take seriously the significance
of my socialization as a white
person.
Understanding the social significance
of living as a white person leads me to a
serious concern with racism and a commitment
to work against it. Racism always
hurts. It leaves emotional and
physical scars. It has caused and continues
to cause immeasurable amounts of
pain. And it always affects bodies and
relationships. I hope that churches committed
to addressing heterosexism can
express (or already are expressing!) a
similar concern for racism. Both kinds
of work seek more just ways of living
and relating—and more informed and
compassionate choices. Unlearning racism
and heterosexism are tasks that can
benefit from and support each other.
I work on being anti-racist because I
am interested in my own well-being. I
do not want my racism to visit my
friendships. Recognizing the regularity
of white privilege reminds me of my potential
for racism. I am wary of my own
capacity for racist behavior and concerned
with the race dynamics in my
relationships. When my racism does
spill into my friendships, I want to notice
it, question its presence, and consider
how I might act differently.
Anti-racism work—the most appropriate
response to unraveling one’s
white privilege—is about changing our
minds. It is also about feeling the assault
on our own dignity each time we
observe or experience white privilege
and turn our backs on its destruction. I
am concerned with everyday racism—
the fact that I am not followed in a bookstore—
because I have learned it affects
my friends. I have begun to see the profound
difference it makes going through
life white, or black, or brown. I also see
the connections between my everyday
privilege and institutional racism. How
can that person who followed my friend
in the bookstore separate his rationale
for following her from any input he
might have in hiring an African-American?
The racism that hurts my friends
routinely gives me advantages—and I am
dis-eased with that contradiction.
Overcoming White
Privilege
Anti-racism work requires much effort
and commitment. It is always
risky. The predicament of our privilege
is intricate and evasive. I often find the
following guidelines (in box) helpful in
confronting white privilege in myself
and others. These guidelines are meant
especially, but not exclusively, for white
people. It is often people of African,
Asian, Latin, and Native American descent
who have brought them to my attention.
Dealing with my own racism has
never been easy. The racism I continue
to disregard regularly visits my friends.
The stories I hear remind me of my mind
and body ignorance on matters racial.
In addressing my privilege, I often trip
on my ignorance and silence with my
arrogance. But five years after hearing
the words of an African American
woman, I also say with a sense of urgency:
”It is time for white folks to deal
with our privilege.“ ▼
Note
1Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking
the Invisible Knapsack,” Peace and Freedom
(July/August 1989), pp. 10-12.
Jennifer Simpson, a Ph.D. student in social
ethics and cultural studies at Garrett-
Evangelical Theological
Seminary and Northwestern
University in
Evanston, Illinois, is affiliated
with the Evangelical
Lutheran Church
in America.
Anti-Racism Guidelines
1. Do not assume race awareness. Society has not socialized and educated white people to
recognize racism. It has trained us to not notice or understand our own race privilege.
2. White people need to “do our homework” before we assume the nearest person of Asian,
African, Latin, and Native American descent has time to educate us. We can learn from
the increasing number of books, videos, and literature addressing race privilege, racism,
and the realities of people of African, Asian, Latin, and Native American descent.
3. Do not expect to receive “Racism 101” over one cup of coffee or one education hour.
White people will not hear stories about race privilege “on demand,” or only at our convenience.
We may hear stories about racism from people of Asian, African, Latin, or Native
American descent after we have risked sharing our race ignorance and risked publicly
noticing the white privilege present in our local contexts.
4. Do not fold racism into non-racial oppression. Race privilege is never exactly the same as
privilege based on gender or sexuality. (Saying “I know exactly what you mean” to a Latin
American man’s story about racism—and proceeding to tell him your experience as a lesbian—
will most likely cut off any discussion of racism.)
5. Expect hard work. Commenting, “I feel so bad about all the racism at church headquarters”
is nice, but working to change it is better. For example, setting aside funds for antiracism
training for your own church council, or setting up a study group on local race
issues, would be a start to addressing race privilege.
6. Do not expect people of African, Asian, Latin, or Native American descent to celebrate
your discovery of white privilege. White people addressing race privilege may be rare, but
it is never an heroic act. —Jennifer Simpson
12 Open Hands
“You’re 74 years old? Impossible!
You don’t look a day over 60!” I
smile with evident pleasure, blush
ever so slightly, and reply, “Aren’t
you kind! Thank you for saying
that! I really don’t feel old.” Everyone
is happy. My friend has been
gracious by underestimating my
age. And my sense of being a “special
person”—not like other old
people—has been reinforced.
What is wrong with this picture? First, I
have been evaluated by a set of stereotypes
about old people that may, or may
not, apply to me. Second, I have failed
to grasp an opportunity to address the
issue of “ageism” and “age privilege.”
Aging vs. Ageism
Aging is an experience shared by every
living creature from the moment
of birth. If we are children, we are
said to be “growing up.” If we are youth,
we are “maturing.” But if we are adults,
we are “getting old.” So we begin the
ritual of our culture: we spend time,
money, and psychic energy trying to
“stay young.” In the process, we deny
our identity. We say we are aging, or we
are not as young as we used to be, or
we are getting older. We are reluctant
to say, “I am old.”
Children “grow up” eagerly looking
forward to adult privileges. Young
people “mature” with the anticipation
of sharing adult power. As adults, however,
we resist “coming out old” even
to ourselves because it often signals the
end of both privilege and power, as well
as the reluctant recognition of our own
mortality.
Ageism—and its personal impact—is
a reality shared by almost every old
person, although many of us are socialized
not to recognize it. It has been defined
as “the systematic discrimination
and oppression of people solely because
they are old.”1 Illustrations can be found
on a continuum all the way from “irritating”
to “life demeaning.”
An old man leaves his umbrella in
the car and is called a “forgetful old
man.” An old woman does not recognize
the need for changes in societal
structures and is called “out of date.”
An old man takes his umbrella with him
in case of rain and is called a “fussy old
man.” An old woman speaks out against
the status quo and is called “disruptive
and feisty.” Old men and women are
voted out of public office solely on the
basis of their age. Same sex partners, one
old and one younger, are dining out. At
the end of the meal the table server
pointedly gives the check to the younger
of the two. At the grocery store, obviously
able-bodied, white-haired customers
are asked if they need assistance with
their groceries. Able old people lose their
jobs in order to make way for the young.
(See also “It Is Ageist To ...”, page 13.)
Ageism is alive and well when all of
one’s being is defined by a single characteristic—
the number of years one has
lived. Ageism is based on a deeply ingrained,
negative stereotype of what old
people are really like. It is used to rationalize
discrimination and to confuse our
discussions about rights and privilege.
Human Rights vs.
Privilege
Human rights are the goods of life
to which everyone has a right simply
because they are human beings, created
by God. “Everyone” means everyone:
the young, the old, the in-between,
the abled and those with disabilities,
men and women, whites and people of
color, heterosexuals and lesbigays. In the
United States we have historically identified
these rights as “life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.”
Privilege, on the other hand, is the
expectation that these human rights will
automatically be enjoyed by particular
groups of people solely because of factors
of birth. Thus privilege, and therefore
power, is automatically bestowed
upon those of a certain economic class,
gender, race, or sexual orientation. In
our American culture such privilege is
most often granted to middle and upper
class persons, and within these
groups, to white heterosexual males.
Others, including women, people of
color, the poor, those with disabilities,
and lesbigay persons achieve certain
human rights only through advocacy
and special legislation. However, in the
general course of human affairs, those
discriminated against for any reason
usually do not have access to either
power or privilege, making it difficult
to become advocates on their own behalf.
Even when human rights are legislated,
those who have enjoyed “systemic
privilege”—usually without even noticing
it—often interpret such basic rights
as “special rights” or as “privilege unfairly
bestowed” on undeserving groups.
Relationship Between
Ageism and Privilege
Old people have few privileges in our
society. The ones they have are primarily
monetary, based on a stereotype
that all old people are poor. (Some of
these are euphemistically referred to as
“senior discounts.” However, the
middle-aged “poor” do not receive
“middle-aged” discounts!) The fact of
the matter is that many of the old are
living at or below the poverty line,
where senior discounts, while appreciated,
do not represent a solution.
In our culture the image of “old”
tends to thwart the probability that the
old can pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
To describe someone as old conjures
up a picture of poor, sick, alone,
senile, physically disabled, out of touch
with the real world, hopelessly traditional,
and gainfully unemployed. In
other words, useless. When the old are
viewed in this way, little is expected of
them. For all intents and purposes they
have been marginalized and rendered
invisible. If this stereotype becomes the
lens through which all old people are
viewed, the status and power of the old
are diminished almost to the vanishing
COMING OUT OLD:
Issues of Ageism and Privilege
By Dorothy Jean Furnish
Fall 1995 13
point—and the “privilege” of mid-life
adults is confirmed and legitimized.
Issues for the Church
For the old, the death of spouse, partner,
or close friends is a common experience
and expectation. These losses
are deepened by modern mobility that
frequently results in children and intimate
confidants living many miles away.
Fortunately, the church community often
becomes “family ” for otherwise isolated
persons. The context may be an
adult Sunday School class, a women’s
or a men’s group, the choir, or a Wednesday
night Bible study. When retirement
from the work force or fading physical
energies result in a sense of disengagement
from life, participation in these
church groups can provide a much
needed sense of connection.
But the “church family” is not immune
to the dangers of ageism and age
privilege!
✦A church is ageist when it regrets the
inability of the old to climb the stairs
to the sanctuary, but fails to provide
accessibility.
✦A church is ageist when it takes public
pride in the “new young families”
who are attending church activities,
but takes for granted the “old folks”
who have supported the church
through many years.
✦A church is ageist when it forgets its
active old members and leaves ministry
with the old to the retired minister
on the church staff whose task
is to visit the shut-ins.
✦A church is ageist when it assumes
that old people no longer want leadership
roles.
✦A church is ageist when it acts on the
assumption that in order for younger
people to become involved in the
church the active and able old members
must be expected to step aside.
✦A church is ageist when it makes plans
for an “older adult ministry” without
consulting the ones to whom and
with whom they plan to minister.
✦A church is ageist when it “honors”
the old but treats them in a condescending
and patronizing way.
✦A church is ageist when it puts all of
the hearing aids in one pew, down
front.
✦A church is ageist when it assumes
that old people will always resist
change.
The issue before the church is that
of ensuring equal accessibility (both to
building and to leadership), equal visibility,
and equal respect. In other words,
the issue is to identify and rectify any
“over-privileged” status which currently
benefits middle-aged adults, youth, or
children in our churches.
Rarely does a church consciously discriminate
against the old. Often the old
themselves are unaware that they are the
targets of ageist thinking, but assume
that feelings of uselessness and invisibility
are simply the lot of persons who
are growing old.
When actions associated with ageism
are accompanied by behaviors that
arise out of one or more of the other
“isms”—heterosexism or racism, for example—
people are faced with double
jeopardy! Double jeopardy belongs on
a television game show, not in the
church! ▼
Note
1Old Lesbian Organizing Committee,
Facilitator’s Handbook: Confronting Ageism
(OLOC, 1992). PO Box 980422, Houston, TX
77098.
Dorothy Jean Furnish, an old 74-year-old
professor emerita of Christian education
at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
in Evanston, Illinois, is now growing
older in Colorado.
IT IS AGEIST...
...To consider “young” a compliment and “old” a derogatory synonym for ugly, decrepit,
out-of-date. (“You don’t look your age.”)
...To speak/do for Old People instead of letting them speak/do for themselves. To
assume they need help. (To restaurant staff: “Dad would like a table by the window.”)
...To view an Old Person either as a burden or a role model rather than an equal with
whom a reciprocal relationship is desirable. (“When I get old, I want to be just like
you!”)
...To patronize a courageous Old Person by trivializing their anger as “feisty.” (“She’s a
feisty old gal. Don’t take her too seriously.”)
...To categorize an outspoken Old Person as “complaining,” “difficult,” or “crotchety.”
(“He’s a crotchety old man. If he doesn’t like something, he lets you know!”)
...To be ready to force the segregation of Old People into an “Old People’s Home” and
feel good about it. (“We’re putting mother into a retirement home. She’ll be happier
with people her own age.”)
...To assume automatically that an Old Person is asexual. (“Getting married? At their
age?”)
...To be unsupportive of an Old Person looking for a partner, or disrespectful of an Old
Person’s choice to be single. (“She doesn’t really know what she wants!”)
...Not to confront ageist remarks because they are not “really” meant “that” way! (“I
just try to hold my tongue. People mean well!”)
This list is adapted from “Ageism—What Is It?” in OLOC, a brochure of the Old Lesbian
Organizing Committee, PO Box 980422, Houston, TX 77098. Used with permission.
14 Open Hands
Mitchell: How do we find a working
definition for gender privilege? Obviously
it is based in patriarchy...
Barbara: ...and it deals with social structures.
“Privilege” means access to
power—access to the means to acquire
and keep power.
Mitchell: So “gender privilege” would
be the social and economic structures
that enable males as a class to hold and
keep power over others—those “others,”
of course, meaning women?
Effects of Gender Privilege
Barbara: Yes. And one of the greatest
powers of gender privilege is the sheer
inertia of the structures themselves.
Male privilege doesn’t have to be overtly
enforced because it is part of the lifecurriculum
in our families, schools, economic
systems, and churches.
Mitchell: Yeah, the power of the patriarchal
status quo is immense—men tend
not to think about the privilege afforded
them because the system just is. And
women find critiquing the system difficult
because women are not in positions
of power to change the system from
above.
GENDER PRIVILEGE:
A Rural Clergy Couple’s Conversation
By Mitchell Hay & Barbara Lemmel
Barbara: Also, the effect of gender
privilege in the church is as real as in
any secular institution. The church is a
hierarchical model of organization, a
bastion of male privilege for years and
years. Over a millennium of patriarchal
inertia exists. No wonder changing it
feels like banging your head against the
wall.
Mitchell: In the mid-part of this century,
the Methodist Church and several
other mainline denominations began
to allow women into the ordained ministry,
but I don’t know if the structures
of male gender privilege have changed
all that much.
I think the church structure uses
some subtle and not-so-subtle tools to
keep down the voices that call for systemic
change. Remember when we were
in seminary in the 1980s, about half the
student body were women? Since then
we’ve seen so many friends—bright, articulate,
talented women with calls to
ministry leaving the institutional
church, feeling beaten and abused and
burnt out. I can’t think of any men we
knew in seminary who have left the ordained
ministry.
Barbara: When I attended the 1991
United Methodist Clergywomen’s Consultation,
we spent a great deal of time
talking about positions of privilege, particularly
in terms of gender and color.
After one plenary, a district superintendent—
a man in his fifties—looked
around his discussion circle at all the
clergywomen, including me, and said,
“I don’t really understand why there is
so much talk about the system not working
for women. I’ve been in the United
Methodist Church all my life and the
system has always worked for me.”
I thought, “This man is clueless with
a capital K.” I had assumed that since
he was attending the Clergywomen’s
Consultation, he would have some basic
awareness of power structures within
the church. I must say, though, that he
was a very attentive listener as we tried
to explain to him that the system worked
for him because it had been designed
by men like him, for men like him.
Mitchell: Again, that’s the power of the
status quo—those who benefit from the
system really have a hard time seeing
how it marginalizes others. We see that
in all the “isms” of our society: capitalism
marginalizes the poor but the
Imagine a quiet rural town in upstate New York and a large parsonage next to the
church. We are drinking coffee in our living room on a Saturday afternoon, having
just put our eight-month old baby down for a nap. In the midst of this domestic
scene, we found ourselves in serious discussion about gender and privilege.
Fall 1995 15
middle class and wealthy don’t see it;
racism marginalizes people of color, but
whites don’t understand it; heterosexism
excludes gay men, lesbians, and bisexual
people, but heterosexual people explain
it away.
Connections with
Heterosexism
Mitchell: I had an illuminating experience
when we lived in Vermont of how
gender privilege and heterosexism were
intertwined. I was guest-teaching a 10thgrade
class on homophobia at the high
school. The boys in the class were loudly
proclaiming how homosexuals made
them “sick” and how they wanted to
“beat the crap out of one if he ever
touched me.” It was obvious the boys
were only thinking about and fearing
male homosexuality. One of the young
women quietly asked the young men
what they thought about lesbian sexuality.
The boys got predatory grins on
their faces and talked about the heterosexual
pornography they had seen that
utilized simulated lesbian love scenes.
“Why does that homosexuality turn you
on when male homosexuality makes
you afraid?” she demanded.
While the young men grew silent, I
could see the light bulbs turning on in
the minds of the young women. They
were making the connections between
patriarchy’s control and objectification
of women’s bodies and homophobia,
which in this case, was expressed as male
fear of being made the object of male
sexuality. The girls began to understand
that heterosexism has its roots in sexism.
I don’t know if the boys ever made
that mental leap.
Transforming Privilege
into Equality
Barbara: That’s a good example. I know,
too, that some excellent scholars have
made clear in their studies the connections
between racism and classism and
patriarchy and the other “isms” we
struggle with. However, the point is to
change patriarchy into something more
equitable and humane, not just describe
it. Yet, even when we talk about how to
change systems of oppression, the reality
of privilege shows up.
Mitchell: The reality of gender privilege
is that those who are privileged are least
at risk in critiquing and making changes
to the status quo.
Barbara: Right. As a white woman, I’m
safer critiquing the racism of the church
than I am critiquing the patriarchy of
the church. If I talk about feminism and
changing the patriarchy, I am dismissed
as working in my self-interest, whereas
men working to save the patriarchal status
quo are heralded as true believers
or savers of religious tradition (no selfinterest,
there, of course!).
Mitchell: True. As a white, heterosexual
male, I’m fairly safe critiquing all the
“isms” of the church and culture—or
ignoring them—because the patriarchal
system is there to affirm who I am and
keep my privileges in place for me. That
safety is precisely why white, heterosexual
men are called to critique and
break down the structures that exclude
so many people we love.
Jean Audrey Powers’ “coming out”
speech this summer (see p. 31) made
my role in the system of gender privilege
more clear to me. She said that in
the biblical tradition there are a limited
number of roles one can take in the face
of injustice. One can stand back and do
nothing, one can be an active perpetrator
of injustice, one can be a passive
resister of injustice, or one can work
actively on behalf of the marginalized.
Jean Audrey gave the example of the
fourth role: the midwives, as active resisters,
lied to Pharaoh to save the lives
of the Hebrew children. It is crucial, Jean
Audrey said, to “fear God more than
unjust authority.”
Barbara: That reminds me of when we
were doing a little “midwifing” of gay
rights legislation at the State House in
Vermont. I was completely bewildered.
Testifying before these House members
were gay and lesbian teachers, nurses,
and state workers who were risking their
safety, their housing, and their very careers
to get a law passed that would include
sexuality as a protected status. A
whole state house full of people risking,
and where was the church on their behalf?
You and I were the only clergy to
testify on behalf of the bill. The nearly
monolithic “Christian” voice at the
hearing was that of the radical right.
Where were the bishops? The heads of
the church boards and agencies?
Mitchell: Well, there are some prophetic
voices among the bishops and
agency chairs, and that’s great, but
changing the hierarchy isn’t our main
focus. We’re looking for true systemic
change, for justice at a very basic level,
and that won’t work on a top-down basis.
What we need are more lay and ordained
persons in local churches who
are committed to speaking out and
working against oppression, whatever
forms it may take.
Barbara: And, generally, those of us
with the most privilege and power need
to do the most speaking out—not because
less powerful folks are voiceless,
but because they need all the allies they
can get. Letty Russell calls it using our
social position to betray the very structure
that put us here.1
Mitchell: Well, I’m just glad that we’ve
moved beyond any semblance of gender
privilege in our own relationship.
Barbara: I hear Micah stirring in the
bedroom. I bet he’s wet. Could you go
change his diaper?
Mitchell: Umm, is it my turn already?
▼
Note
1From a Letty Russell lecture on Inheriting
our Mother’s Garden.
Mitchell Hay and Barbara Lemmel are
United Methodist pastors of five small congregations
in the Adirondacks of New York.
They are the parents of Micah Scot
Lemmel-Hay.
16 Open Hands
While attending the National
Convocation of Reconciling
Congregations in July, I was
struck by similarities in the movements
to open church doors for persons with
disabilities and for person who are gay,
lesbian, or bisexual. Official proclamations
of most denominations say we
must minister to these persons. However,
allowing them a full share in the ministry—
allowing them to minister to us—
ah, that’s another thing! Church laws
still say that some persons are not fit
for ordination because of their disabilities
or their nonheterosexual orientation.
The right and privilege of ordination
presently belong to heterosexual
persons without disabilities.
It appears we still believe that the
standard for the ministry should be
Leviticus 21:17-20: “None of your descendants
who has a defect may come
near to offer the food of his God. ...no
[one] who is blind or lame, disfigured
or deformed; no [one] with a crippled
foot or hand, or who is hunchbacked or
dwarfed, or who has any eye defect, or
who has festering or running sores or
damaged testicles.” (NIV) Even ministry
to those with disabilities often does
not occur. Older church buildings with
their many stairs seem to have been built
with Leviticus in mind.
Persons who are viewed as “untouchable”
feel pressured to hide the reality
of who they are—to stay “in the closet.”
A friend of mine with a learning disability
tells of an experience in seminary
when she publicly described her dyslexia.
Another student asked to talk to
her alone. During their conversation, he
became clear that he also had dyslexia.
He told her, “Don’t talk so loud. I’m sure
that’s what I must have, but I don’t want
anybody to know about it. ...And how
would I ever tell my parents...?”
Those of us without disabilities often
take our ability for granted. We may
or may not be aware of how the everyday
world is structured to favor us physically,
psychologically, socially. That is
ability privilege. With our privilege
comes power to set societal customs,
pass laws, and retain church policy statements
which silence, shun, or shut out
those with disabilities.
A Few Words about Words
“Sticks and stones can break my bones,
but words...”—words such as faggot,
dyke, four-eyes, cripple, deaf and dumb,
or stupid can stab our spirits, opening
wounds that are harder to heal than broken
bones. “Specially challenged” is a
euphemism that doesn’t really clarify
what is being spoken of. “Physically
challenged” does not include persons
with learning disabilities, mental retardation,
or emotional problems. While
language is still evolving, most within
the disability-rights movement prefer
the word “disability.”
Persons are not “disabled persons.”
They are persons with disabilities. Persons
are only “handicapped” if things
are not available to help them overcome
the limitations of their disabilities:
glasses, hearing aids, wheel chairs,
ramps, elevators, large print bulletins,
sign interpreters, TDD telephones, and
special teaching techniques for persons
with learning disabilities. The church
handicaps persons when it will not
change to meet people’s needs. Society
handicaps persons when it places a
stigma upon anyone who is different
from “the norm,” when it says “you
must conform to what we say is standard”—
or face the consequences of less
accessibility, fewer basic rights, less privilege.
Making Connections
At least fifty percent of all people will
some day have either a temporary
or permanent disability. Percentages for
gay men are even higher when AIDS is
considered a disabling condition. The
quest of the welcoming church movement
and the disability-rights movement
is the same—the full inclusion in
all areas of the life of the church for all
God’s children.
This is the goal for the local church I
pastor. In January 1995, we adopted the
statement: “Our mission is to proclaim
to our church family, our neighborhood,
and the world that the reign of
God is at hand in which each person
will be seen as God’s special beloved
child...we are open to persons abled and
disabled of all races, ages, men and
women, and persons who are homosexuals
being a full part of our congregation
and all its programs and ministries.”
We are doing better at living out
some parts of this mission than other
parts. We are an older congregation,
with few young people. We are in a
mostly white neighborhood, which is
reflected in our membership. We have
one openly gay man, who grew up in
our congregation and is now our lay
member to annual conference. We still
have a long flight of stairs up to our
sanctuary, but we do have large print
bulletins, hymnals, and Bibles for those
who are visually impaired, a hearing
assist system, and a Braille printer.
A Final Thought
When any of God’s people are excluded,
the church becomes a
body that has a disability. It is as if a
hand has been amputated or a part of
the heart cut out. Christ wants his body,
the Church, to be whole. That means
all must be present. ▼
Fred Berchtold, who identifies himself as
“temporarily able bodied,”
is chair of the
Northern Illinois Conference
Accessibility Advocates
Association
and pastor of Norwood
United Methodist
Church in Chicago.
Exploring Disability and Privilege
By Fred Berchtold
Braille Printing Services Offered
A church may fax or mail material they want
in braille to Norwood United Methodist
Church. The church will mail back a braille
copy of the material. For more information,
contact Rev. Fred Berchtold at 6109 N.
Northcott, Chicago, IL 60631. 312/775-4161.
Fall 1995 17
Concentrated Wealth:
The Underlying Division
By Rosemary Radford Ruether
Powerful Language:
Elaborated Code
By Karen L. Bloomquist
The use of language is one pervasive
way through which power
is exercised over those of a lower
class position. Those of a higher class
position, and with higher levels of formal
education, tend to use language
that is different from the language of a
lower class and/or educational level. It
is more nuanced, reflective, analytical,
abstract, and able to deal with ambiguities.
In contrast to this “elaborated
code,” the language of working-class
persons tends to be of a “restricted
code.” Statements are simple, direct,
concrete, emotive, and often take the
form of commands. “The way things
are” is taken for granted without questioning
why. There are unambiguous
boundaries, especially in matters of
morality. A given behavior is either
right or wrong.
These class differences are evident
in many discussions of homosexuality.
The case for a greater acceptance of
persons who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual
typically is made using language
of a more elaborated code. This often
provokes reactions reflective of a more
restricted code, as well as resentment
toward these “higher-ups” who are perceived
as telling them what they should
believe or feel. By too quickly labeling
such reactions simply as “homophobic”—
without also examining dynamics
of classism embedded in
them—we may reinforce the domination
of classism rather than searching
for more effective ways to inter-connect
with yet another struggle for justice. ▼
Karen L. Bloomquist, Ph.D., an ordained
clergywoman, is director for studies in the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
In this capacity, she has staffed ELCA
work on a sexuality statement. She is the
author of The Dream Betrayed: Religious
Challenge of the Working Class.
Attention to injustices based on
race and gender is vital for a
fuller vision of a just society,
but I suspect we have swung too far in
the direction of an “identity politics”
that focuses primarily on race and gender
group self-esteem in a way that
fragments each group against the others.
Perhaps it is time to look again at
the overall class structure of American
society as a way of recognizing the
common framework in which these
various divisions are interconnected in
one social economic system, a system
that uses all these distinctions to divide
and conquer.
American society is more deeply divided
economically than at any time
since the era before the Depression. By
1987, about 32.5 million Americans
lived below the poverty line, twothirds
of them white. Only 21 percent
of them received welfare benefits.
Most had one employed person in the
family, some had two, but the pay level
was too low to permit them to climb
out of poverty. Gender and race are
major determinants of income; however,
this doesn’t mean that most white
males are doing well or that many
white men are not found among the
poor and the homeless.
The real issue is the group that owns
or controls the commanding heights
of the American economy. Andrew
Winnick estimates that 90 percent of
Americans own only 33 percent of the
wealth, mostly in homes and cars,
while the top 10 percent own 67 percent
of the wealth in the form of businesses,
stocks, bonds, and money market
accounts. At the top of this elite
group are the Forbes 400 wealthiest
Americans who collectively own 40
percent of the fixed capital. This polarization
of wealth and poverty is
more extreme in the United States
than in the nine top industrialized
countries of Western Europe.1
We need to look carefully at this
richest 10 percent of our population
who control the wealth and power that
define the government, military,
economy, and media of the whole society.
We need to consider how to define
a social vision that can unite the
other 90 percent in a common
struggle to make the system more just
for the great majority. It is time to knit
back together our various distinctions
of gender and ethnic identity, important
as those are, and to find common
bonds and a common base of struggle
around projects of economic and political
democratization. “Identity politics”
just plays into the hands of those
who would divide and control us all.
▼
Source
This article is excerpted and adapted from
“Beyond gender, race, U.S. divide is economic,”
National Catholic Reporter (March
25, 1994), p. 28. Used with permission of
author.
Notes
1Andrew J. Winnick, Toward Two Societies:
The Changing Distribution of Income
and Wealth in the United States since 1960
(New York: Praeger, 1989).
Rosemary Radford Ruether, Ph.D.,
teaches theology at Garrett-Evangelical
Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.
Her latest book is Gaia & God: An
Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing.
THE ELITE AND THE OTHER: Thoughts on Classism
American Myth: Class has no relevance to our struggles for justice in this society.
18 Open Hands
than the all-male supper in the upper
room, represents the inclusive table fellowship
at the heart of Jesus’ ministry.
Eating in certain places and with certain
people can be a dangerous, even
revolutionary, act. Just talk to anyone
who had hot coffee poured on their
heads in the 1960s while seeking to integrate
the lunch counters at Woolworth’s.
Talk to people who attend Glide
Memorial United Methodist Church in
downtown San Francisco where the hungry
and the well-fed meet one another
in the soup lines after the Sunday service.
Eating with lepers, women, tax collectors,
and sinners was just one of the
many ways Jesus broke down dividing
walls and proclaimed peace to those who
were far off and those who were near.
This table fellowship was one of the
many inviting, maddening, playful,
healing, and subversive ways he disrupted
conventional wisdom about who
was near and who was far off.
Those meals were visible enactments
of the commonwealth he preached. He
scandalized people by saying that if you
want to understand the reign of God,
then you need to learn from those
whom the dominant culture labels sinners,
strangers, aliens, and outcasts. He
said that the faith they exhibit in their
social location at the margins of the
community reveals God’s spirit and
God’s realm. Jesus didn’t call people to
move from the margins into the mainstream
as a pre-condition to forgiveness
and participation in the commonwealth
of God. In fact, he did the opposite—he
called people to move from the mainstream
to the margins, from the temple
to the streets, from the safe confines of
the sanctuary to the ditches where victims
lie bleeding.
That is where we find him again and
again: with those considered far off. He
was there listening to them as well as
preaching to them, learning from them
as well as giving to them, being served
Poet/prophet Adrienne Rich’s question
frames a window through
which we might look at what it
could mean to live believing that we are
no longer strangers and aliens, that the
dividing walls have been abolished and
hostility put to death. What would it
mean to live in a country whose people
were changing each other’s despair into
hope? What would it mean for the
church to stand on the first page of the
end of despair? It will undoubtedly
be a journey crossward, upstream,
against the grain of a
culture that is hungry for
scapegoats.
From Mainstream to
Margin
The gospel story of the meal in
Bethany (Mark 14:3-9) is a story of
people turning one another’s despair
into hope. It offers us a narrative and
an image of what we might expect if we
ourselves dare to change life, dare to
stand on the first page, dare to live from
the conviction that no one is a stranger
or an alien. Let’s revisit Simon’s table
and listen for clues.
The first thing we notice is those who
are present. Simon, the host, is a man
considered unclean (a leper) by tradition
and scriptural law. At least one
woman is there, one who performs a
prophetic and pastoral act of anointing.
Presumably those who traveled with
Jesus from town to town are also there.
I have long wished that we could ritually
remember the meal at Bethany on
Tuesday evenings during holy week,
as we remember the last supper
on Maundy Thursday.
The table in Bethany,
more adequately
...What would it mean to live
in a city whose people were changing
each other’s despair into hope?—
You yourself must change it.—
... Though your life felt arduous
new and unmapped and strange
what would it mean to stand on the first
page of the end of despair?
Adrienne Rich1
By Melanie Morrison
Fall 1995 19
by them as well as serving them. Simon,
a leper, was his host. A woman anointed
his body, which Jesus spoke of as something
to be remembered in the whole
world wherever the good news is proclaimed.
What happens at the table in Bethany
goes farther and deeper than Jesus using
such occasions as so-called teaching
moments. It goes farther and deeper
than Jesus welcoming every one, even
women and lepers. These are people
turning each other’s despair into hope.
Jesus is “the Christ” because the God he
incarnates touches the lives of others
through him and because he is open to
being touched by people like Simon and
the woman, who incarnate God for him.
As Rita Nakashima Brock has pointed
out, “When Jesus is oppressed by the
principalities and powers of the world,
he reveals the incarnate power of God
as he does through much of his life and
at his death. But when Jesus has structural
power over another, [for example,
as a man in relation to women], divine
power confronts Jesus from those at the
margins...[they are] the incarnation of
God to Jesus.”2
From Despair to Hope
Jesus, in his flesh, broke down the dividing
walls and created one new humanity
through his openness to the
transformative power of the Spirit embodied
in those abused by domination
and injustice. With Jesus, we can both
embody this Spirit and be transformed
by it. Many of us have experienced
something of both positions—sometimes
oppressed by power that privileged
ones wield against us; sometimes
inheritors of power granted us by privileges
associated with our skin color, gender,
sexual orientation, or citizenship in
this country. To quote Brock again,
It is up to us to be alert to our
own uses of power so that we are
able to resist abuse and to resist
abusing; to resist oppression and
to refuse oppressing others...
When we take responsibility, we
can use our power to love, to nurture,
to enable freedom and willfulness
of others, incarnating the
love of God.3
To be a people changing each other’s
despair into hope occurs when we can
endure the grace and self-scrutiny that
reveal how, in the web of complex relationships
in which we live, none of us
is only near or only far off. That is hard
to acknowledge. We tend to assume that
we are the ones who are most near, most
in touch with God’s realm. We assume
we are near by virtue of our inherited
power and privilege, by virtue of our
faith that we believe grasps the heart of
the matter, or by virtue of our experience
of oppression. We tend to assume
that they— from whom we are estranged—
are the far off who must be
brought near.
But what if being “in Christ” depends
on our movement and our transformation
as well as the movement and transformation
of our enemies? What if being
“in Christ” means risking the
arduous, new, unmapped journey of
staying awake not only to when we are
near but also to when we are far off?
What if it means staying awake to when
we have a word of truth to speak and to
those times when the truth shakes us to
the core? What if it means staying awake
to when we can and should reveal the
incarnate power of God from our place
at the margins and to those times when
divine power is confronting us, calling
us to confess our misuse of structural
power?
As a lesbian, I experience a kind of
double jeopardy in the church and the
world due to sexism and heterosexism.
This experience of oppression, however,
does not make me immune to oppressing
others. My white skin affords me
privilege and power that people of color
are denied. I have had educational and
economic opportunities that have been
denied to many. If I really take to heart
the good and radical news that we are
no longer strangers or aliens, my deepest
commitment is not to creating communities
“safe” for people like me. My
deepest commitment must be to the
work of transformation so that every one
is safe and no one a stranger. Transformation
involves not only changes in
heart, attitudes, and behaviors, but also
changes that bring about fundamental
redistribution of power.
It is more imperative than ever—in
the midst of these frightening times—
that we nurture communities of faith
where we can sit down and weep, where
we can engage in the difficult and exhilarating
work of learning from our
differences, where those of us who have
been silenced are encouraged to speak
in our own voice, where those of us who
hold power and privilege are called to
account and allowed to change, where
we can actively and tenderly care for
ourselves and each other, and where we
can celebrate even the smallest breakthroughs
with exuberance.
With Christ as the cornerstone, we
can be a dwelling place for God—a
people changing each other’s despair
into hope—asking always: For whom is
the world, the church, not yet safe? Who
is the stranger, the alien, in our midst?
▼
Source
This article is adapted from a sermon
preached at the closing worship of the 20th
General Synod, United Church of Christ,
July 4, 1995, Oakland, California. Used with
permission. The full text can be obtained
by writing Melanie Morrison, PO Box 23233,
Lansing, MI 48909.
Notes
1Excerpts from Adrienne Rich, “Dreams Before
Waking,” Your Native Land, Your Life
(New York: Norton, 1986), p. 46.
2Rita Nakashima Brock, “Reflections on Mirrors,
Motheroot, and Memory,” delivered on
November 6, 1993 at the Re-Imagining Conference,
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
3Ibid.
Melanie Morrison, Ph.D. candidate, is an
ordained United Church of Christ minister
and co-director of Leaven in Lansing,
Michigan. She is the
author of a new book,
The Grace of Coming
Home: Spirituality,
Sexuality, and the
Struggle for Justice
(Pilgrim, Fall 1995).
Ephesians 2:13-22 (NRSV)
But now in Christ Jesus you who once
were far off have been brought near....
For he is our peace; in his flesh he has
made both groups into one and has broken
down the dividing wall, that is, the
hostility between us.... So then you are
no longer strangers and aliens, but...a
dwelling place for God.
20 Open Hands
In the midst of our work of building
a truly inclusive church where lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender
persons will join hands with heterosexuals
in full membership, we have said
little about our experience with denominational
executives who go by many
titles but see themselves in this struggle
mainly as gate keepers or peace keepers.
Has it been your experience that we
get smiles, pats on the back, private conferences—
all very sincere—from these
executives, but little translation of this
private aid into open support or action?
As our passion has escalated, denominational
executives have developed a
distance apparently born of a perceived
need for “scrupulous fairness,” a need
for “balanced discussion,” or a call to
“study both sides of the issue.” Such
“fairness” and “balance” translates into
little or nothing getting past the gate
keepers into the judicatory process.
As a Presbyterian, I see this so clearly
in our General Assembly’s three-year
mandate for judicatory dialogue on homosexuality
and ordination. Little dialogue
has taken place and some of this
has to do with our paid personnel. We
hear over and over that 20 percent of
Presbyterians are liberal, 20 percent are
conservative, and the rest in the middle
want to get rid of divisive issues. We have
been turned into “an issue.” We are not
an issue. We are Presbyterian people.
A constant attempt is made to thwart
large public meetings. A “play it down
mentality” has developed in the Presbyterian
Church which translates into
“let’s not bring in Janie Spahr or Chris
Glaser who will speak eloquently on
behalf of gay and lesbian people. Public
meetings with publicity will just stir up
this divisive issue.”
When a meeting is convened, it must
be scrupulously fair, with equal time
given both sides. Yet those who would
limit our rights have been speaking for
almost 2,000 years; we have been sharing
our experiences for only ten to
twenty years. What is fair?
This “fairness” approach grows out
of that hollow scream of the Old Testament
false prophets: “Peace, peace, when
there is no peace” (Jer 6:14, NRSV). Our
gate keeper executives are screaming:
“Let’s keep it within limits, not let it
destroy the denomination.”
How can there be peace when people
are not free? How can denominations
continue when their children, youth,
and adults who are not heterosexual are
made second class members with no
chance of up-grade to first class in spite
of having earned thousands of “frequent
flyer” bonus miles? Not only is the
“don’t ask; don’t tell” policy prevalent
in our denominations, this insidious denominational
control called “fairness”
is stifling what dialogue might occur.
In the Presbyterian denomination, as in
so many others, “judicatory dialogue”
is truly an oxymoron.
A Reminder and a Story
Denominational executives who advocate
peace where there is no
peace—because justice and freedom do
not yet exist for all God’s people—will
ultimately self-destruct. For example, the
end result of the struggle for power in
the Southern Baptist denomination between
the moderates and conservatives
was that denominational executives and
seminary professors who tried to “be
fair” were fired at the same rate as those
who spoke out more boldly.
Rebecca Prichard, currently assistant
dean of Christian Theological Seminary,
was in the spring of 1991 the associate
executive in the San Francisco
Presbytery when the Presbyterian Human
Sexuality report Keeping Body and
Soul Together was to be voted on at General
Assembly. A TV station did a program
which included an interview with
Jane Spahr (an open ordained lesbian),
a minister who disagreed with Spahr’s
and the report’s position, and Rebecca
Prichard, who was asked to speak on
“the Presbyterian point of view.”
Prichard was very much in favor of the
new human sexuality report. She says,
“In retrospect, I wish I would have supported
it fully since I felt so positive
about it. I got as much negative flack by
being mild as I would have gotten had I
spoken my conscience, which fully supported
the report.”1
A Call to Action
We hire executives not only for
their program and administrative
expertise, but also as people of God. We
seek their honest opinion on all matters
of faith. We expect them to keep people
open to Jesus who in thirty-three years
fully opened the church to all God’s
wonderful rainbow of creation. Our
executives must be visionary, a breath
of fresh air, wind of the Holy Spirit. They
must not be bound by the “Peace, peace
when there is no peace” school of denominational
training.
If our denominational bureaucracy
would translate their beliefs openly into
their daily work, they might break the
deadlock occurring in most denominations
today. What if our executives objected
to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and
transgender persons being labeled a divisive
issue? What if they referred to us
as people, not “an issue” or “a divisive
issue”—and objected when others used
that language? Words can help.
We are people who seek to replace
eight isolated biblical verses being
hurled at us as a weapon with a gospel
message of welcome. We are a people
who are included in the Beatitudes, John
By Howard B. Warren, Jr.
Fall 1995 21
3:16, the Great Commandment—where
no silent asterisk says, “for heterosexuals
only.”
I want to say this to denominational
executives:
So many of you believe what we
are saying. As executives, so many
of you have opened the gate for
us in small and large ways. Hear
our plea as God’s people and use
your power, privilege, ability, and
ecclesial authority to move your
denominations to reflect the passion
of Jesus who made it a point
to let the outsiders in. How far we
have come in several decades; yet
we sense walls being built, doors
slamming shut. Some of this wall
building and door slamming
comes from your fears as denominational
personnel. If this is so for
you, do as Jesus would, as Peter
would. Open yourself to the Holy
Spirit. Become as those early
church people touched by the
Holy Spirit who are “turning the
world upside down” (Acts 17:6,
NRSV). Early church folks who
sought to open the love of God to
all were considered trouble makers
(NEV, TEV), much as we are
What We Expect from our Denominational Executives
1) Active and open honesty
2) A process that is not closed and filled with fear
3) An attitude that sees us as people, not an “issue”
4) A realization that preaching and administering “Peace, peace, when there is no
peace” will self-destruct, developing bitterness which will spread in all directions,
including toward themselves
5) Prophetic leadership.
—Howard B. Warren, Jr.
tions. Let us all use our calling by God
to share this Good News that all Christians
are “first-class flyers”! ▼
Notes
1Story is used with Prichard’s permission.
2Carl Jung as quoted by Chris Glaser in The
Word is Out, (San Francisco: Harper, 1994).
Howard B. Warren, Jr.
is director of pastoral
care at the Damien
Center in Indianapolis,
Indiana, and an
ordained clergyperson
in the Presbyterian
Church, USA.
today when we seek to open the
doors of the church.
Let’s do it again. Let’s all turn the
world upside down. Let’s become true
gate keepers for Christ’s Good News that
all are welcome at God’s table! Otherwise,
in the next decades of the new millennium,
we will only reinforce Carl
Jung’s observation that “Religion is a
defense against the experience of God.”2
We have experienced and been called
by God in our diverse sexual orienta22
Open Hands
nce upon a time, a
millennium or two
ago, on a volcanic island
that has long since been covered
by the waters of the sea, there existed a
small nation known as the People of the
Eyes. The Eyesonians were distinguished
by their large round eyes and by the fact
that they valued seeing clearly more
than anything else. At the center of their
city, on the highest hill overlooking the
sea, stood a beautiful temple which had
been carved in the shape of an eyeball.
The windows and turrets of the temple
were gilded in gold and on the pinnacle,
which pointed outward and upward over
the sea, was the pupil of the eye: a large
observatory enclosed in dark, tinted
glass. Every day seventeen priests in
burgundy robes climbed a long, elliptical
staircase to the center of the eye and
took their places in the holy seers’ chairs,
where they read the clouds that passed
before them over the waves. Their readings
were recorded in the Scroll of Visions
to be read and interpreted by the
high priest on Seeing Days.
The faithful ascended the hill once
every week on these Seeing Days to pay
homage to the All Seeing One, the Great
Eye, whom they believed to be the giver
of all life. They passed first through the
Hall of Benefactions to lay down their
tithes of silver and gold. Then those who
were deemed worthy—those who had
clear seeing eyes and thus pure hearts—
were admitted into the Visionarium to
offer prayers to the All Seeing One and
to listen as the high priest read from the
Scroll of Visions.
Ironically, the persons with the most
status and power in this society that
valued seeing clearly above all things
were those who had just one eye. Only
the One-Eyes were permitted to be
priests, political leaders, healers, teachers,
and merchants. It was believed that
they possessed a clarity of vision unequaled
by persons who had two eyes
or three eyes.
Two-eyed people worked in lower
level jobs in the fishing fleet, in the
marketplace, and as managers of the
households of their one-eyed masters.
They were given no formal education
and could not vote in the elections, but
were allowed to enter the temple and to
offer their prayers from a roped off section
in the back of the Visionarium.
Three-eyed persons, who made up
only about 10 percent of the population,
were considered to be unclean—an
abomination in the eye of the deity and
unfit to enter the temple on any occasion.
Their extra eye was believed to distort
their vision, preventing them from
seeing clearly. The Two-Eyes lorded over
them and forced them to do the most
menial and undesirable tasks. They were
shunned altogether by the One-Eyes.
Marriage was forbidden to them and,
according to a strictly enforced law, they
were not to look a two-eyed person or a
one-eyed person in the eye. Any group
of three one-eyed persons or six twoeyed
persons could, upon the word of a
single witness, have a three-eyed
person’s eyes put out for as much as
glancing at their better’s face. Hundreds
of three-eyed persons had suffered this
miserable fate. They made their living
by begging outside the gates of the
temple on Seeing Days.
This cruel three-tiered caste system
grew harsher with each passing year.
Whenever a three-eyed baby was born—
always to two-eyed or one-eyed parents
because three-eyed persons were not
allowed to give birth—a day of mourning
was declared and the child was taken
to a sanitarium on the edge of the island
to be raised and schooled in the
ways of his or her own kind. Some parents
resisted this forced parting and
managed to keep their three-eyed children
for a time, but the authorities always
found them out. Then the parents
were taken in chains before the high
priest to be admonished. “You are not
seeing clearly,” he would say. “Our ways
are the will of the Great Eye. The All
Seeing One’s words are written in the
Scroll of Visions. Let all eyes be open to
the truth of the way.” So the oppression
and the persecution went on for centuries,
until one day there came a new vision.
A young priest was reading the clouds
that day from his perch in the pupil-
shaped observatory on the pinnacle
of the temple when he happened to see
a most unusual formation passing before
him. A large, dark cloud, which appeared
to have three eyes, was swallowing
up two smaller clouds. One of the
smaller clouds had one eye and the other
had two eyes. After a time, the three
clouds separated and floated along together,
equal in size, until they disappeared
over the horizon.
When the young priest reported his
most unusual sighting to the other
priests, they agreed that the message was
unmistakably clear. He was about to
record in the Scroll of Visions what he
had seen when the high priest intervened,
saying, “I cannot deliver a message
like that to the people. It is more
than they will be able to accept. They
will not believe it is from the All Seeing
One. Many of them will be angry with
us and they will stop coming to the
By John Sumwalt
Fall 1995 23
people are ready, then we shall share this
new vision with them.”
So the new vision was not recorded
in the Scroll of Visions.
On the very next Seeing Day, just as
the high priest stood up to read
from the scroll, the temple was struck
by a bolt of lightning which shattered
the glass in the pupil observatory high
above the Visionarium where the worshipers
were seated. A single shard
of the broken glass fell straight
down into the center of the
Visionarium, piercing the heart of
the high priest, and he fell down
dead. All of the people, including
the sixteen remaining priests, were
terrified. No one moved and not a
word was spoken for several moments.
At last, one of the younger
priests, the one who had sighted
the startling cloud formation,
stepped forward.
“Be calm. Have no fear,” he said
as he looked out on the frightened
worshipers. “We have a new vision
to share with you. We had planned
to keep it from you until a later
time, but now it is clear that we cannot
hide what the All Seeing One wishes
you to see.” Then he told them exactly
what he had seen in the clouds and announced
that three-eyed, two-eyed, and
one-eyed people should all be considered
equal, as it had been declared by
the Great Eye. In the same moment, the
eyes of the three-eyed blind beggars outside
the temple gates were healed and
they rushed into the Visionarium, fell
on their knees, and began to give thanks
to the All Seeing One for their deliverance.
From that day on, everyone among
the People of the Eyes saw clearly and
lived in peace and harmony together.
▼
Source
This story is reprinted from
Lectionary Stories, Cycle A by
permission of CSS Publishing
Company, 517 S. Main Street,
PO Box 4503, Lima, OH 45802-
4503.
John Sumwalt is senior pastor of
Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist
Church in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. He and
his wife Jo Perr y-
Sumwalt, Christian
education director at
the same church, are
co-authors of a new
book, Life Stories: A
Study in Christian
Decision Making
(CSS Publishing),
1995.
temple on Seeing
Days. How will we operate
the temple without
their tithes of silver and
gold? Surely the All Seeing
One would not want us to
read a vision from the Scroll
that would cause our people to
turn away.”
“But what, then, shall we record in
the Scroll of Visions?” one of the youngest
priests inquired.
“We shall say that there was no new
vision this week. I shall simply read one
of the old visions as I have often done
in the past when no new vision was
given. When the time is right, when the
24 Open Hands
Session 1: A Question of Diversity
Introduced idea that racism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism
are about privilege, prejudice, and power.
Discussed a provisional definition of heterosexism:
“the assumption that all people are heterosexual, that
being heterosexual is normal, and that heterosexuality
is either the best way or the only way to be, along with
the institutional supports for these assumptions.”
Discussed what heterosexuality is and suggested a definition:
“the attractions that individuals have for persons of the
‘opposite’ or ‘other’ gender, the willingness to act on
these attractions under appropriate circumstances, the
structures that support the relationships that develop:
dating, romance, marriage, family, school, church, law,
culture, arts, speech, medicine; and the lifestyles that
are associated with these relationships.”
Introduced concept of sexual orientation with handout of Klein
grid which suggests seven parts to sexual orientation (attractions,
sexual behavior, fantasies, emotional and social preferences,
self identification, and lifestyle) and allows individuals
to rank themselves using Kinsey scale (0=other sex only to
6=same sex only).1 Participants took exercise home to fill out
in private and reflect on their own experience.
Showed 40-minute excerpt from movie Word is Out.2 Introduced
by noting these were people whose lives had been greatly affected
by heterosexism. Movie intercuts interviews of twentysix
gay men and lesbian women into a story of oppression,
hope, and triumph. At one point, group wanted to stop viewing;
the oppression was so painful it was hard to watch.
Discussed group’s feelings; acknowledged need for ministry.
Last March my church discovered a new word!
One General Conference petition presented to our administrative board called
for regional and national meetings on “Heterosexism and the Mission of the
Church.” This petition generated significant discussion because the word
heterosexism was new to most people present. Our church affirmed this petition—
with the condition that we study heterosexism by the time Annual Conference
met in early June. In May, I offered the three one-hour sessions outlined below.
Session 2: A Question of Privilege
Opened with discussion of previous week’s session.
Repeated suggestion that the “isms” have to do with privilege,
prejudice, and power.
Suggested, through use of article “White Privilege: Unpacking
the Invisible Knapsack,” that a set of unconscious and invisible
privileges are attached to being white in American culture.3
Read quickly through a handout of twenty-six realizations from
article.
Challenged group to modify each statement to make it true for
heterosexual privilege. For example, “I can if I wish arrange to
be in the company of people of my race most of the time”
became “I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people
of my orientation most of the time”—a privilege heterosexual
people regularly enjoy. Never made it to all statements. Discussion
seemed enlightening.
Session 3: A Question of Faith
Discussed petitions church had affirmed.
Offered overview of the larger church debate on homosexuality.
Identified and discussed Warren Church’s present ministry of
hospitality. (“A Community of Reconciliation Serving Capitol
Hill” is posted on our bulletin board though we are not a Reconciling
Congregation.)
Closed with excerpt from videotape of musical Home: The Parable
of Beatrice and Neal, exploring idea that God’s grace is
available to all.4
Diversity, Privilege, and Faith:
Studying Connections
By Ben Roe
Fall 1995 25
Participant Reactions
Jane Riecke (new pastor): “Part of the
obstacle was the amount of time we
needed just on the definition of heterosexism.
It reminded me of talk when I
was growing up about just what prejudice
was.”
Kate Rose: “We shouldn’t run away
from the discomfort others have; it’s OK
just to let them be uncomfortable. We
need to treat each other with gentleness
in the midst of the discomfort.”
David Dunn: “We need to learn how
to relax with our anxieties so they don’t
blow us into our minds but deeper into
our hearts. …The exercise on racism and
heterosexism transformed the dialog by
recasting the discussion, taking it out
of the realm of gender into an area
equally difficult but a bit more comfortable.”
Next time I would
✚offer at least four sessions.
✚replace the videos with real people if
possible. As it was, three or four participants
shared some of their gay/
lesbian-related experiences.
✚choose a room more conducive to the
intensity of the subject than our
large, open Adult Forum space.
✚plan a biblical study to focus on hospitality,
diversity, and ministry, as
well as on biblical interpretation of
passages commonly associated with
homosexuality. ▼
Notes
1Fritz Klein, Barry Sepekoff, and Timothy
Wolf, “Sexual Orientation: A Multi-Variable
Dynamic Process” in Two Lives to Lead: Bisexuality
in Men and Women (New York:
Harrington Park Press, 1985).
2Video rental stores with a gay clientele may
carry it.
3Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking
the Invisible Knapsack” Peace and Freedom
(July/August, 1989), pp. 10-12.
4Videotape is quite usable with other denominations.
See p. 32.
Ben Roe is a United Methodist clergyman
living in Denver.
Sustaining
the Spirit
A Litany
for Freedom
By Randy Miller
Soloist: “God of our weary years”—
People: How long shall we wait, O God, and when shall we be free?
Leader: We are your people, scarred by prejudice and disfigured by privilege,
Seemingly forgotten by all save Jesus.
People: When shall we be free?
Soloist: “God of our silent tears”—
Leader: Trapped in closets not of our own making
Caught in ghettos not of our choice
Our silent tears still flow, O God;
Our cries rise up to you.
People: We are weary, bleeding, bruised, and tired,
Tempted to lay down our burdens and softly steal ‘way home.
Soloist: “Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way”—
Leader: And lovingly called us yours,
And sweetly whispered our names:
People: Not oppressor and oppressed but “wholly redeemed”
Not privileged and deprived but “child of God”
Not master and slave, but “disciple of Christ.”
Soloist: “Lest our feet stray from the places our God where we met thee.
Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world we forget thee.”
Leader: Locked in power struggles we cannot escape
Blindly turning privileges to our advantage.
People: Our daily fears enslave us, O God
When shall we be free?
Soloist: “Shadowed beneath thy hand,
May we forever stand”—
Leader: And not only stand, O God, but dance—
For your daughters have visioned it,
And your sons have dreamed it.
People: Someday we all shall be free!
Soloist: “True to our God, true to our native land.”
Leader: And to your New Earth, O God.
People: True to ourselves as you have seen us.
Leader: True to the vision of a brighter day to come.
All: Amen.
Source
Solo is excerpted from verse 3 of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Full text and music can be found in Songs
of Zion (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981). Spoken parts are adapted from a litany originally published in
Open Hands in Spring 1987. It may be reprinted for local worship events with full credits attached.
26 Open Hands
Editorial
One More Word
If you would like to write an article, contact Editor, RCP, 3801 N. Keeler, Chicago, IL 60641
On Valuing Differences
Valuing human differences is a major aspect of the ministries
of our growing ecumenical welcoming church
movement. Within the movement, more and more of
us identify our call to Christian discipleship as a call to embrace
all of God’s people because of race or ethnicity, gender,
orientation, age, ability, class, and religious belief. Not “regardless
of...” Not “in spite of...” But “because of...”!
We are not asking each other as Christians to “hate the sin,
but love the sinner.” We are asking sisters and brothers in Christ
to “welcome and affirm the presence of les/bi/gay persons of
faith” among us. We are not asking for “tolerance of gay, lesbian,
and bisexual persons” as second-class church members
with partial rights and privileges. We are inviting all persons
into communion, membership, and ministry with full rights
and privileges. We are not asking persons to hide or lie about
their identities—or to leave our presence—in order “keep the
church from splitting.” We are inviting each other to engage
in a hard process of reconciling our conflicts and differences
while inviting everyone to the table.
Beyond these steps, however, the welcoming church movement
is also challenging each of us, whatever our personal
beliefs, to value all persons equally as beloved daughters and
sons of God. To value someone because of their differences is
very different from tolerating them or even accepting them
into “our circle.” To truly value differences is to recognize each
person’s gifts and graces and to claim joyfully the richness
that those different gifts and graces bring into the human circle.
To truly value human differences is to seek out various people
for their unique experiences and insights, knowing that without
them we ourselves remain less than whole. To truly value
human differences is to treat each person as a beloved daughter
or son of God—and a beloved friend of our own!
If we are to truly begin to value human differences, we will
need to do our homework on the issues and realities of oppression
in our society and in our church, for oppressive systems
systematically devalue some persons and overvalue others
based on their race or ethnicity, or their age, ability, gender,
class, or orientation. We will need to explore such questions
as: How does oppression really “work” in our society? How do
the dynamics of privilege feed the destructive forces of prejudice.
Why aren’t human differences valued equally? Who decides?
How does privilege play into a devaluing of some human
beings and an over-valuing of others? How do we either
actively oppress others or aid and abet a society and church to
continue its oppressive ways? How do our church traditions
and personal beliefs contribute to on-going oppression? (This
issue of Open Hands offers a beginning exploration of these
questions and concerns.)
To continue a ministry of valuing differences among God’s
people, however, requires more than a focus on the crucial
problems of prejudice, privilege, and oppression. It also requires
a vision of God’s people working, playing, praying, singing,
crying, and weaving its way into holy community. And it
requires processes that will help move us from a society and
church that are stuck in the dynamics of privilege and prejudice
toward the vision of God’s community of persons who
value differences. (The winter issue of Open Hands will focus
on this vision and process).
Working with God toward God’s wild and wonderful, allinclusive
commonwealth involves committing ourselves to the
nitty-gritty daily work of naming and untangling prejudice
and privilege. It also calls us to dismantle oppressive systems
and processes wherever and whenever we encounter them. Finally,
it requires us to weave or reweave a glorious human
fabric of the communion of all God’s beloved people who bring
unique and valuable gifts to the
table...because of their race, ethnicity, gender,
orientation, age, ability, class, and religious
beliefs. What a weaving that will be!
Issue Year Working Title
Spring 1996 Living with/Learning from Conflict
Summer 1996 Airing Out Closets: Individual, Congregational, Denominational
Fall 1996 Gender/Transgender Issues and Stories
Winter 1997 Welcoming Voices in the Wilderness
Spring 1997 Marriage: Civil and Sacred Issues
Summer 1997 Baptism & Communion: The Rites of the Right to Be Here
Call for articles
for
Fall 1995 27
▼?▼?▼?
Quotes We Wanted to Share on Prejudice
“It is an affront...to categorize a segment of the human family
for the sole purpose of exclusion.”
—Martin Deppe, pastor of Irving Park United Methodist Church (RCP),
Chicago, Illinois From Shalom to You, Nov-Dec. 1994, p. 3.
“We as Black people ought to reach out to people and say, ‘I
don’t care who you are; I know what it’s like to be cast out.’ If
we’re a church of love, we should love everybody!”
—Cecil Williams, pastor of 3,000-member Glide Memorial United
Methodist Church, San Francisco, speaking to a March 1994
meeting of Black Methodists for Church Renewal. From
The United Methodist Newscope, April 8, 1994, p. 1.
Why is it that...
...people often speak of the traditional clothing of persons
from other nations as “costumes”? Clothes are clothes. Setting
up that which we are particularly familiar with as the
generic “clothes”—the universal definition of clothes—is arrogant
to say the least.
...only European music is marketed as classical music? Why
is Nigerian and Bolivian music labeled folkloric? Why isn’t
there such a thing as Nigerian classical music or Bolivian classical
music? Who gets to define this?
...some still think it awkward and offensive as a white person
to call attention to someone else’s race or ethnic origins?
Is it assumed that the person of color doesn’t know he or she is
a person of color? Come on, now!
—From the Racial Justice Newsletter, Racial Justice Working
Group, Prophetic Justice Unit, NCC of Christ
(as found in Wheadon UMC newsletter).
On Images of God
Dear Elizabeth Andrew,
I read your beautiful article, “My-God-Who-Is-Like-a-River”
in the Spring 1995 issue. I wanted to let you know that I thought
your writing was wonderfully clear and powerfully moving. I
grew up along the Delaware River in the Pocono Mountains
and felt the joy of nature as a boy. My favorite place to be is the
cool, clear pool of water and waterfall created by a small (unnamed)
stream following through the mountain. It is there
that I experience the renewal of God.
The God I experienced in my early church was a punishing
God, but Jesus was the warm, accepting Being I urgently needed
for comforting. I have since been able to see God as nurturing
also.
Comments & Letters
My worshiping community is a pro-lesbian/gay, feminist
house church where we are continuing to explore images of
God. As you stated, it is a continuous personal and collective
journey of faith. May God bless all of our journeys. Thank you
for sharing yours.
—Michael Siptroth, Seattle, Washington
On our 10th Anniversary Issue
“What a great issue! I got it today and read it cover to cover!”
“I’m a fairly new reader and it was great to read about how
the magazine got started.”
“A wonderful issue. The magazine just keeps getting better
and better!”
“Loved the ‘family album’ look of the summer issue!”
“Even though I knew most of the magazine’s history, I found
it very interesting.”
“Photos and comments from early readers were very inspiring!”
“Loved all the photos!”
“It’s great. I’m a newer subscriber and I really appreciate the
history of the magazine. I didn’t know a lot of it.”
“What an excellent issue—every bit of it! I took it to work
the morning I got it and read it cover to cover!”
On our Magazine
Dear Friends,
Enclosed is my renewal of subscription for Open Hands. Your
magazine is a comforting word for the fevered brow—and that
image is good even when the Midwest isn’t being fried by extremely
high summer temperatures and humidity!
Here in the very conservative state of Indiana there is ecclesial
sensitivity to gay and lesbian Christians, but, like everywhere,
there also is an enormous amount of hostility and ambiguity,
ambivalence, and avoidance. While hostility is a constant, perhaps
the worst time of it is in the places where “acceptance” or
“tolerance” is ambiguous, ambivalent, and thinly-veiled avoidance.
I feel worn, depleted, fatigued by the difficulties of wrestling
with issues in such a half-light.
While I remain the member of a local associated church’s
panel on peace and justice education, I have been so exhausted
by the tasks that I’ve virtually stopped attending and contributing
to that group. And there’s my particular challenge. I am
aware that I lack an immediate and local support system of gay
people who are invested and active in church. Efforts to find
support systems haven’t been fruitful. I try not to take it personally.
So, for me, Open Hands is utilized for meditation and prayer,
for power and energizing faith of those who witness therein—
and I save every issue. Thank you.
—Robert M. Zahrt, Fort Wayne, Indiana
Readers Invited to Respond
Send us your comments on past themes and articles or your
concerns about particular struggles in the welcoming church community.
Write a short personal reflection piece on one of the themes
for upcoming issues (see box on page 26). Send to Editor, 3801
N. Keeler, Chicago, IL 60641. Fax: 312/736-5475.
What Do You Think?
28 Open Hands
Selected
Resources
Hawley, John Stratton. Fundamentalism and Gender. New York:
Oxford Univ. Press, 1994. Examines “connection between
fundamentalism and gender” in a global perspective through
case studies on American Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and
the New Religions of Japan. A must read book!
hooks, bell. Yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston:
South End, 1990. Warns that the current infatuation with
words like difference or Other detaches us from real struggles
of racism, sexism, and cultural imperialism more appropriately
described by words like oppression, dominance, exploitation.
(p. 51)
Jung, Patricia Beattie and Ralph F. Smith. Heterosexism: An Ethical
Challenge. New York: SUNY Press, 1993. Explores and
dismisses the prevailing sexual ethic. Examines how
heterosexism both “grows out of and supports” this ethic.
Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. Oxford: Oxford Univ.
Press, 1986. Provides a “grand historical framework...about
women’s place in the world” and “origins of the collective
dominance of women by men”—based on serious historical
research reaching back to pre-biblical times.
Macdonald, Barbara and Cynthia Rich. Look Me In the Eye: Old
Women, Aging and Ageism. Exp. ed. San Francisco: Spinsters,
1991. Mystery writer Carolyn Heilbrun writes of this book:
“Even for those not yet on the edge of old age, this voice
must be heard.”
Ratti, Rakesh, ed. A Lotus of Another Color: An Unfolding of the
South Asian Gay and Lesbian Experience. Boston: Alyson, 1993.
Through essays and poetry, gay men and lesbians from
Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan,
and Sri Lanka tell of coming out and challenging prejudice
from both South Asian and gay cultures.
Riggs, Marcia Y. Awake, Arise & Act: A Womanist Call for Black
Liberation. Cleveland: Pilgrim, 1995. Uses a womanist approach
based on Beverly Harrison’s “sociohistorical ethical
method”; explores interconnections of race, gender, and
class, moving reader away from realities of class competition
toward images of communal liberation.
Segrest, Mab. Memoir of a Race Traitor. Boston: South End, 1994.
Through stories of her journey, both intimate and political,
a southern white lesbian weaves realities of racism, sexism,
heterosexism, and classism.
West, Cornel. Race Matters. Boston: Beacon, 1993. Goes beyond
liberal and conservative rhetoric of most race discussions;
tackles “some of today’s most urgent issues for black
Americans,” breaking “taboos of silence in the black community”
while keeping readers accountable to realities of
race in America.
FOR CHILDREN
Every Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Prejudice and Discrimination.
Grades 2-5. “Through specific and realistic examples, children
learn about opinions—how they’re formed and how
they impact prejudice and discrimination.” (catalog) Order
from American Guidance Service. 1-800-328-2560.
ON PREJUDICE, POWER, AND PRIVILEGE
Anzaldua, Gloria, ed. Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and
Critical Perspectives by Women of Color. San Francisco: Aunt
Lute, 1990. Poems, short stories, and essays addressing racism,
silencing techniques of white people, and alliances.
Amott, Teresa L. and Julie A. Matthaei. Race, Gender & Work: A
Multicultural Economic History of Women in the United States.
Boston: South End, 1991. Outlines diversity of women’s work
contributions (paid and unpaid) to U.S. economic history;
explores processes of exploitation and oppression; highlights
transformations in gender, racial-ethnic, and class hierarchies
accompanying capitalist economic expansion.
Baird, Robert M. and Stuart E. Rosenbaum, eds. Bigotry, Prejudice
and Hatred: Definitions, Causes & Solutions. Buffalo:
Prometheus, 1992. See Elliot Aronson’s “Causes of Prejudice”
and Paula Rothenberg’s chapter on implications of
difference for progressive work in 1990s. Explores themes
using race, gender, and orientation.
Bulkin, Elly; Minnie Bruce Pratt; and Barbara Smith. Yours in
Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and
Racism. Reissued ed. Ithaca: Firebrand, 1988. Ashkenazi Jew,
white Christian-raised southerner, and Afro-American
women speak for themselves.
Eiesland, Nancy L. The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology
of Disability. Nashville: Abingdon, 1994. Proposes that
we celebrate the disabled God (Christ) in Eucharist.
Frankenberg, Ruth. The Social Construction of Whiteness: White
Women, Race Matters. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press,
1993. Examines results of life history interviews with white
women; discusses ways race privilege affects white women;
explores how privilege works in the larger social structure.
Frye, Marilyn. The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory.
Trumansburg, New York: Crossing, 1983. A feminist classic.
Explores realities of oppression, sexism, “the problem that
has no name,” power, being white, and gay male supremacy.
Gioseffi, Daniela, ed. On Prejudice: A Global Perspective. New
York: Anchor, 1993. Explores “fundamental nature and expression
of human prejudice from global and historical perspectives”
as expressed in racism, ethnocentrism, and environmental
racism. Also helpful to those addressing
homophobia.
Fall 1995 29
OPEN AND AFFIRMING
Movement News
Introducing our New Welcoming Churches
We welcome these six new churches to our growing movement.
Christ Congregational UCC
Silver Spring, Maryland
Started by the Congregational Christian Church, this 700-
member faith community is now celebrating fifty years of
ministry. Silver Spring is located in the lower eastern part of
Montgomery County which is experiencing rapid urbanization.
The area around the church is growing in ethnic diversity.
Efforts to embrace diversity are not new to the church,
however. It was the first church in the area to integrate racially
in the 1950s and has been a leader in developing open housing
ordinances and setting up services for the homeless. The
congregation has also participated in exchange/work programs
with Russia and Latin America. It continues to explore ways to
publicize and implement its ONA commitment.
Fremont Congregational Church
Fremont, California
Located in the San Francisco Bay area, this 120-member
church continues its long history of social justice and mission,
including support of a local homeless shelter and outreach
to those living with AIDS. It was the first congregation
in the area to offer space in its building for AIDS ministry. The
children’s summer service project provided food, cards, and
other greetings to thirty AIDS clients. The church is also building
relationships through monthly intergenerational worship
services.
Hingham Congregational Church
Hingham, Massachusetts
This suburban congregation of 450 members strives to create
a strong sense of community and to reach out in mission
and witness. Its active Youth Work Camp sent young people
to Kentucky this year. In 1996, the program’s tenth year, participants
will travel to Montana. The church also supports a
children’s hospital in Haiti. In keeping with its ONA commitment
and its desire to be welcoming to a wide range of people,
the congregation will be discussing what it is like “to be the
WELCOMING CHURCH LISTS AVAILABLE
The complete ecumenical list of welcoming churches is
printed in the winter issue of Open Hands each year. For a
more up-to-date list of your particular denomination, contact
the appropriate program listed on page 3.
other” and wants to continue to explore the place of politics in
the church and the meaning of “reconciliation.”
The First Church in Oberlin
Oberlin, Ohio
Steeped in a tradition of advocacy for the rights of women
and minorities, this small college town church of 500 members
is challenged to carry on that heritage as it moves into the
21st century. It expressed that commitment recently by offering
its facilities for a student production of “Bent,” a drama
about gay men in the Nazi camps. The church has just funded
the first Heifer Project in South Africa which will provide cows
for families in the improverished community of Fort Beaufort.
For the past few years, First Church has led its Association in
giving for Our Church’s Wider Mission.
Malibu United Methodist Church
Malibu, California
Located across the street from the beach, this church of 95
members is known as the “small church with the big heart.”
The congregation is comprised of young families with many
children and youth. The worship style is informal and innovative,
involving frequent intergenerational activities. Malibu’s
RC decision in June was the culmination of two years of education
by the RC Committee which will continue its educational
efforts as the congregation learns to live out its RC commitment.
Morningside United Methodist Church
Salem, Oregon
Located in a suburban residential neighborhood of Salem,
Morningside was founded forty years ago. Its 500 members
are largely middle-class professionals. Two Sunday worship experiences
are offered—one contemporary and one more traditional.
The congregation has long expressed concerns for peace
and justice through its soup kitchen ministry and the Salem
Outreach Shelter. This summer nineteen youth and adults traveled
to Honduras to work in a children’s nutrition center and
to build homes. The congregation is beginning to explore ways
to let the larger community know of their RC decision and
their openness to gay and lesbian persons.
RECONCILING
30 Open Hands
RCP Calls on UMC to “Open the Doors”
The Reconciling Congregation Program has launched a campaign
to call on the April 1996 General Conference of The
United Methodist Church to Open the Doors.
Recognizing that past General Conferences have
sought to pronounce moral judgment upon homosexuality,
Reconciling Congregations are calling
on the church to offer words of welcome and
hospitality to lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons
and their families and friends.
The goals of the Open the Doors campaign are: 1) 9,600 persons
in 1996 to publicly declare themselves as “Reconciling
United Methodists” and 2) General Conference to include
“sexual orientation” in its nondiscrimination policies for membership
in local churches and other church bodies.
Regional training and planning events—“Knock-Ins”—are
being held in six cities to develop Open the Doors plans for
local churches and annual conferences. Knock-In dates and
cities are; October 14 in Chicago and Denver; October 21 in
Dallas and New York; October 28 in Atlanta and San Francisco.
To enroll as a Reconciling United Methodist or to find out
how you can be part of the Open the Doors campaign, contact
the RCP office at 312/736-5526.
New ONA Program Committee Formed
With 170 United Church of Christ congregations now listed
as Open and Affirming, the United Church Coalition for Lesbian/
Gay Concerns Council has approved a new structure, the
ONA Program Committee, to be added to the existing ONA
leadership with the intent of further strengthening ONA outreach
in the UCC. This new committee was the recommendation
of the ONA Structure Committee after over a year of planning.
It will be made up of five volunteer Program Associates
who will work with ONA issues in the following areas: UCC
Conferences, UCC Associations, Higher Education, Ecumenical
Relations, and Resource Development. Each Program Associate
will work directly with the ONA Coordinator and consult
as necessary with the four-member ONA Advisory Committee
which was formed in 1992 to advise the Coordinator.
“The Coalition views this new leadership structure as an
exciting experiment in widening the ONA witness throughout
our denomination! We’ll get this up and running and then
be willing to make adjustments as we go along. Our goal is to
make the ONA Program increasingly effective and responsive
to the needs of our churches and other bodies interested in the
ONA process,” said Ann B. Day, ONA Program Coordinator.
The ONA Advisory Committee will appoint the Program
Associates. Persons interested in more information about the
Program Associates positions may write to: ONA-UCCL/GC,
PO Box 403, Holden, MA 01520.
W&A Baptists Join Open Hands Venture
The council of the Association of Welcoming & Affirming
Baptists (W&A) voted in September to join in the ecumenical
publishing venture of Open Hands. There are currently twentyseven
W&A congregations, four other organizations, and approximately
fifty W&A individuals. W&A Baptists join the
Reconciling Congregation Program, (United Methodist founding
group), the More Light Churches Network (Presbyterian),
Reconciled in Christ program (ELCA), and Open and Affirming
program (United Church of Christ).
Watch for an American Baptist presence starting with the
winter 1996 issue of Open Hands! For more information, contact
Brenda Moulton, Association Coordinator, P.O. Box 2596,
Attleboro Falls, MA 02763-0894.
Ecumenical Ties Celebrated
The Open Hands Advisory Committee and national program
leaders, representing seven denominational welcoming programs,
held their joint annual meeting on September 16-17.
Meeting in the new national office space of the Reconciling
Congregation Program in Chicago, the two groups evaluated
the magazine, planned new themes, and thoroughly enjoyed
engaging in theological discussion on an ecumenical basis.
In a separate meeting, the national coordinators celebrated
the continued growth of each of our programs and reviewed
plans to develop an ecumenical curriculum for adult study of
selected biblical passages and welcoming themes. Co-producers
include the Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists,
the Brethren/Mennonite Council for Lesbian/Gay Concerns,
the O&A Ministries Program of GLAD Alliance, the ONA
Program of the United Church Coalition for Lesbian/Gay Concerns,
and the Reconciling Congregation Program. Other groups
are also considering joining in this ecumenical project.
“Dancing at the Wall” Draws Ninety
A two-day event, Dancing at the Wall: Re-Imagining the
Church, was recently sponsored by the Church of the Brethren
Woman’s Caucus and the Brethren/Mennonite Council for
Lesbian and Gay Concerns (BMC). Held in Charlotte, North
Carolina, the event was designed as a liturgy of reflection and
celebration. Participants explored the theme through drama,
art, biblical and theological reflection, music, dance, and ritual.
Two powerful visual images, a wall of bricks and a tapestry
woven during the conference, graphically symbolized the tension
between the pain of exclusion and the joy of faith. Prior
to the 1996 Church of the Brethren Annual Conference in Cincinnati,
the BMC Supportive Congregations Network will sponsor
an event on the theme “Dancing at the Table: Re-imagining
the Church.” For more information, contact Jim Sauder, BMC
Coordinator, at 612/305-0315.
Worship I & II (Thurs. & Fri.) ...........................$25
Worship III & IV (Sat. & Sun.) .........................$25
Forums I & II (Fri. & Sat a.m.) ........................$25
Forum III (Fri. p.m.) .........................................$25
Forum IV (Sun. a.m.) ......................................$25
Biblical Reflections (Fri., Sat., Sun.)...............$25
Saturday Night Celebration ............................$25
(Recognition of leaders & HOME)
Order RCP Convocation Videos Now!
SPECIAL - ALL 7 TAPES @ $150
Order from: RCP, 3801 N. Keeler, Chicago, IL 60641
VISA/MASTERCARD possible. Call 312/736-5526.
The fourth national Convocation of the Reconciling Congregation
Program (United Methodist), meeting from July 13-16 on the Augsburg
College campus in Minneapolis, drew 375 persons from across the United
States, along with representatives from England, Australia, and Canada.
FAVORITE PASTTIME:
Browsing and buying resources1
Fourth National RCP Convocation Is a Huge Success!
Our paths may diverge—but they’ll finally merge
When we get to the Promised Land.
Pat Nunn, Beaver Memorial UMC, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania
From poem, “In the Wilderness,” written at convocation
DAILY BIBLE STUDY:
Bishop Roy Sano (Los
Angeles Area) relaxes after
his daily presentation.1
Fall 1995 31
STRONG YOUTH PRESENCE: Youth, with leaders Melany Burrill (left)
and Chip Aldridge (right), share some of their activities and learnings.
Prior to the Convocation, 45 youth, students, and young adults gathered
in a pioneering rally to address reconciling ministries in school settings.1
THE CALL: During opening worship,
leaders call for witnesses from west,
east, south, and north. Participants
from those regions stand as candles
brought from home churches are lit.1
PROMINENT UNITED
METHODIST ‘COMES OUT’:
The Reverend Jeanne Audrey
Powers, Associate General
Secretary of the General Commission
on Christian Unity and
Interreligious Concerns, UMC,
preaches on the resistance of
the midwives in Exodus. Powers, drawing media attention,
invited the UMC to engage with her over the next year about
her public declaration of being a life-long lesbian.1
LOCAL TOURS:
Members of
Twin Cities RCs
provide gracious
hospitality.2
I cried, feeling sad and replenished. I laughed
more than I have in months. I felt at home
more fully than perhaps ever before. Here
were people who honored all of me—gay and
Christian. —David Shallenberger, Euclid Avenue
UMC, Oak Park, Illinois
...it’s not what I take home, but what I
leave here—fear and a bit of ignorance and
a bunch of broken stereotypes... — Tiffany
Taylor, Wesley Club, Seattle, Washington
I came here thinking I would gather some helpful
information for my congregation, meet some
interesting people, then go home. I did not expect
such a profoundly moving experience...I knew the
cause was great, but I did not realize how urgent it
was... —Danielle Massey, Ballardvale United Church,
Andover, Massachusetts
1Photos by
Nancy Carter
2Photo by
Howard Johnson
A PARABLE OF GOD’S
GRACE: HOME: A Parable of
Beatrice and Neal, written and
produced by Tim McGinley
and James Giessler, was a
Saturday night highlight!1
OPEN THE DOORS: RCP launches an enthusiastic
witness to the 1996 General Conference.1
FAVORITE T-SHIRT:
Self-avowed practicing
United Methodist1
BOUND for the
PROMISED LAND
32 Open Hands
Send to: RCP, 3801 N. Keeler Avenue, Chicago, IL 60641 Phone: 312/736-5526 Fax: 312/736-5475
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Discount offer expires
December 31, 1995
Can this be home—
for everyone who needs a place?
Home—a place where all
can share in grace?
—from finale
A stirring musical drama which offers
the church as “home” for gays and
lesbians
An Inspirational—and funny—
portrayal of struggle and faith
HOME:
A Parable of Beatrice and Neal
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Open Hands
Get all of your friends and
church colleagues to read this
unique ecumenical magazine!
Explores lesbian and gay
concerns in the church
Offers substantive and practical
helps for churches’ welcoming,
affirming, and reconciling
ministries
Give special gifts this Christmas!
Put HOME and Open Hands under the tree!