Open Hands Vol 14 No 4 - Welcoming The World

Open Hands Vol 14 No 4 - Welcoming The World

14

4

1999

Spring

Vol. 14 No. 4
Spring 1999
Reports from Mexico, Argentina, Fiji, Australia, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, and England
2 Open Hands
Vol. 14 No. 4 Spring 1999
Resources for Ministries Affirming
the Diversity of Human Sexuality
Open Hands is a resource for congregations
and individuals seeking to be in
ministry with lesbian, gay, and bisexual
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 the Affirming Congregation Programme
(United Church of Canada),
the Association of Welcoming & Affirming
Baptists (American), More Light
Presbyterians, Open & Affirming Ministries
(Disciples of Christ), Open and
Affirming Program (United Church of
Christ), and the Reconciling in Christ
Program (Lutheran). 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 seven programs—along with
Supportive Congregations (Brethren/
Mennonite), and Welcoming Congregations
(Unitarian Universalist)—offer hope
that the church can be a reconciled
community.
Open Hands is published quarterly.
Subscription is $20 for four issues ($25
outside the U.S.). Single copies and back
issues are $6. Quantities of 10 or more,
$4 each.
Subscriptions, requests for advertising
rates, and other business correspondence
should be sent to:
Open Hands
3801 N. Keeler Avenue
Chicago, IL 60641
Phone: 773 / 736-5526
Fax: 773 / 736-5475
Member, The Associated Church Press
© 1999
Reconciling Congregation Program, Inc.
Open Hands is a registered trademark.
ISSN 0888-8833
Printed on recycled paper.
Publisher
Mark Bowman
Editor
Chris Glaser
Designer
In Print—Jan Graves WELCOMING THE WORLD
Jesus Somehow Became Chinese 4
HONG TAN
Adjusting to an Anglophile world—a sermon for the WCC Padare
in Zimbabwe.
Mexico City’s Missionaries of the Realm of God 6
PERSONAL STORIES FROM MARILÚ GONZÁLEZ, ALVARO OLVERA,
AND EDUARDO GONZÁLEZ.
Coming Out as a Sacrament in Argentina 9
A Personal Path to Reconciliation
ARIEL BARRIOS MEDINA
A life signed by sacraments: baptism, reconciliation, first
communion, confirmation, marriage—eventually final unction—
and coming out.
PFALyG—Padres, Familiares y Amigos de Lesbianas y Gays 11
IRMGARD FISCHER
“You owe your children gratitude.”
Women Loving Women in Fiji 12
MELINDA MADEW
Reclaiming the pleasures and joys of our bodies, our sexuality,
our culture.
Daring to Fly With Wings Like Eagles 14
The Uniting Church in Australia and Homosexuality
DOROTHY MCRAE-MCMAHON
Not to decide is to decide—at least, for now.
Colonialism’s Anti-Gay Legacy 17
A Case in Point: Singapore
YOU-LENG L. LIM
An analysis of Southeast Asia’s politics and religion in regard
to homosexuality.
Saint Francis in Singapore 20
TUCK-LEONG ANDREW LEE
Queer Singapore cathedral protestor identifies with Saint Francis.
The images on the cover/page 5, page 8, and page 9 are displayed in the sanctuary at
Wheadon United Methodist Church in Evanston, Illinois. These items were donated
to the church by members who had traveled to other countries, often doing mission
work, and serve as a reminder of the church’s global connections.
Spring 1999 3
Program Coordinators
Mark Bowman
Reconciling Congregation
Program, Inc. (UMC)
3801 N. Keeler Avenue
Chicago, IL 60641
773/736-5526
www.rcp.org
Ron Coughlin
Affirming Congregation
Programme
(United Church of Canada)
P.O. Box 333, Station Q
Toronto, Ontario
CANADA M4T 2M5
416/466-1489
acpucc@aol.com
Ann B. Day
Open and Affirming
Program (UCC)
P.O. Box 403
Holden, MA 01520
508/856-9316
www.coalition.simplenet.com
Bob Gibeling
Reconciling in Christ
Program (Lutheran)
2466 Sharondale Drive
Atlanta, GA 30305
404/266-9615
www.lcna.org
Dick Lundy
More Light Presbyterians
(PCUSA)
5525 Timber Lane
Excelsior, MN 55331
612/470-0093
http://www.mlcn.org
Brenda J. Moulton
Welcoming & Affirming
Baptists (ABC/USA)
P.O. Box 2596
Attleboro Falls, MA 02763
508/226-1945
http://users.aol.com/
wabaptists
Open & Affirming Ministries
(Disciples of Christ)
P.O. Box 44400
Indianapolis, IN 46244
http://pilot.msu.edu/user/
laceyj/
Editorial Advisory Committee
Vaughn Beckman, O&A
Howard Bess, W&A
Ann Marie Coleman, ONA
Bobbi Hargleroad, MLCN
Tom Harshman, O&A
Dick Hasbany, MLCN
Alyson Huntly, ACP
Bonnie Kelly, ACP
Susan Laurie, RCP
Samuel E. Loliger, ONA
Tim Phillips, W&A
Lisa Ann Pierce, SCN
Caroline Presnell, RCP
Paul Santillán, RCP
Julie Sevig, RIC
Kelly Sprinkle, W&A
Margarita Suaréz, ONA
Judith Hoch Wray, O&A
Stuart Wright, RIC
Next Issue:
Creative Chaos
Movement News ............................................ 30
Welcoming Communities ............................... 31
Call for articles for Open Hands Winter 2000
LIBERATING WORD
Interpreting the Bible
Theme Section: Scripture is liberating when liberated from monolithic interpretations—
even our own. Articles will focus on liberating the Bible from preconceptions
and prejudices, as well as focus on the Bible as liberating and restorative and
empowering. A variety of biblical interpretations will be acknowledged and represented,
utilizing the focused lens of the Gospel.
Ministries Section: We seek columns describing practical experience and suggestions
in the following areas: Welcoming Process, Connections (with other justice
issues), Worship, Outreach, Leadership, Health, Youth, Campus, Children. These
brief articles may or may not have to do with the theme of the issue.
Contact with idea by September 15, 1999 Manuscript deadline: December 1, 1999
Chris Glaser, Phone/Fax 404/622-4222 or e-mail at ChrsGlaser@aol.com
991 Berne St. SE, Atlanta, GA 30316-1859
No Longer an Alien in the Household of God 21
Growing Up as a Gay Christian in South Africa
DOUGLASS JOHN TORR
Coming out as gay, Christian, priest.
What Will John Calvin Think? 23
Gay and Lesbian Christians in Geneva
ALFRED A. MANUEL
Not so much what he thinks, as what his church welcomes.
The United Reformed Church’s Debate on Ordination in the UK 25
KEITH RIGLIN
A view from a minister and chaplain.
MINISTRIES
Leadership
Individual Integrity vs. Institutional Injunction 26
Two Responses to a Ban on Same-Gender Blessings
LESLIE PENROSE AND GREG DELL
Connections
For the Least of These 28
The Current Class Divide and the Obligations of
Christian L/G/B/Ts
AMANDA UDIS-KESSLER
SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT
Christian Haikus 29
PHILIP W. GILMAN
4 Open Hands
I was seven when my family came to
England. It was hard for the English
to say my name, Hong Tan, especially
the Hong part. Once, a press report replaced
the G with a K: Honk! My favorite
was when they took the Honk and
replaced the O with a U: Hunk Tan.
There is a God! But the different sound
of my name and the names of my
brother, Heng, and of my sister, Tian,
caused another difficulty at the primary
school we attended in London. On the
first morning break, in the playground,
other boys and girls came up to us
shouting the words “chinks go home”
and “slitty eyes.” They pinched us and
spat on us. My sister had beautiful pigtails
and they pulled her hair.
The teacher stood nearby and
did nothing about these taunting
words.
And what were we to do? I
realized very quickly that we
were the only people who
were not white Caucasians; we
were different. My brother Heng, the
butch one in the family, had had
enough and when the next boy came
to pinch me, he punched the boy. After
break, I went to art class. Suddenly, as I
was painting, the headmistress came in
and told me to stand up in front of the
class. She took a ruler and hit my legs
hard. I cried. I was to blame for the children
pinching and spitting at us. I was
to blame for my brother striking out. She
left saying nothing.
It got so bad for our family that we
left London to take refuge in one small
room in the poorest part of Liverpool
where we found people like us—people
who welcomed us, who saw the beauty
in us. We had traveled halfway across
the world, and it seemed that our
names, our very beings, were nothing—
valueless, of no worth, made poor.
I grew up in a Christian family. But I
thought, how can I sing What a Friend
We Have in Jesus? The same Jesus to
whom the headmistress and the spitting
children sang? How could I see the
words of God, of Jesus, as anything
vaguely Chinese, as relevant to me? All
I saw were images of a beautiful Renaissance
blue-eyed blond Jesus and of porcelain-
skinned Madonnas that had
more to do with the headmistress than
my mother.
My mother cradled us when we came
home crying about what happened.
Chinese make up 20% of the world’s
population. Chinese, like gays, lesbians,
bisexuals and transgendered persons,
are everywhere! But the names Hong and
Tan are British slang for compost or
muck. When my mother taught us to
sing the mantra of survival, “Sticks and
stones may hurt your bones, but names
and words will never hurt you,” I started
to look in the Bible—and what did I
find?
Words and names are important.
Words are the cause of both life and death;
names reveal the special relationships biblical
characters had with God.
Just for example, think of the high
priest’s death-dealing words to Jesus,
“Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of
God. He has uttered blasphemy. He
deserves death.” And they spat in his
face, and they struck him and slapped
him (Matt 26:63). These were the people
to whom Jesus eventually cried on the
cross with the life-giving words “Abba,
God, forgive them, for they do not
know what they do.”
Jesus’ words made sense to the sevenyear-
old Chinese boy in tears. The Cosmic
Word, Jesus, was not just any word.
God loved us so much that the Word
was made in our flesh, made human,
to feel, to live and to be an example for
us. For me, Jesus somehow became
Chinese. I knew it all along. And Jesus
became real for a seven-year-old Chinese
boy.
Remember the words of a Pharisee
to Jesus, “Which is the greatest commandment
in the law?” to which Jesus
replied, “‘You shall love God with all
your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind.’ This is the great
and first commandment. The second is
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
On these two commandments depends
all the law and the
prophets.” The welcome of
Jesus is to all neighbors,
nearby and globally, not just
the favored few.
As Jesus did, we need to
embrace our own belovedness
as children of God to
love others. Remember the words of
South African martyr Steven Biko, “The
most potent weapon in the hands of the
oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
A Zulu proverb sums it up this way: “He
who hates, hates himself.” We are called
not to be victims but to be victors in Christ.
An Ahsanti proverb says, “If you understand
the beginning well, the end
will not trouble you.” If we understand
“In the beginning was the Word, the
logos, the Christ—”, if we truly understand
and embrace Jesus, and not the
Pharisees and Sadducees, the end will
not trouble us.
Jesus Somehow
Became Chinese
Hong Tan
Excerpted from a sermon for UFMCC’s worship during the World Council
of Churches Padare (“marketplace” of ideas) December 11, 1998 at the
University of Zimbabwe in Harare, Zimbabwe. (For more information on
the WCC meeting, see the Connections column in the Fall 1998 issue and
the story in Movement News in the Winter 1999 issue of Open Hands.)
All I saw were images of a beautiful Renaissance
blue-eyed blond Jesus and of porcelain-skinned
Madonnas that had more to do with the [unjust]
headmistress than my mother.
Spring 1999 5
Why? Because nothing can separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
There is more that binds us together
than that which separate us. We need
to forgive— especially our enemies.
The real issue here is more than world
debt, it is more than racism, sexism,
homophobia, ethno-nationalism, ableism,
ageism. We can try to remove
these, but the underlying causes will still
be there. “The real disease is fear of life,
not death” (Haguib Mahfouz). The
greatest obstacle to life, to love, is fear.
It has been the source of all defects in
human behavior throughout the ages
(Mahmoud Mohammed Taha). Humiliation,
slavery, and fear have perverted
us to the bone; we no longer look like
men and women. Humans must be
granted the respect due to them
(Mohammed Dib).
I am an optimist. I believe God’s
Spirit has blown through this WCC Assembly,
inspiring millions of new visions
in all of us. Dare we give words,
voices, spirit to these? Or do we kill the
visions by the death of silence? Conrad
Raiser challenges us, “Any vision which
does not inspire new forms of acting
remains a distant utopia.”
Our gospel words come abruptly
alive in the flesh of Jesus, who shockingly
redeems all, forgives all, welcomes
all, hopes for all, gives new life for all.
The words of God transform as they tell
of miracles that happen, of mountains
that move, of lives forever changed, of
temple tables of power turned over, of
curtains of status quo torn open forever.
All things are possible.
To paraphrase the words of Desmond
Tutu, my humanity is bound up
in yours, for…we shall be free only together:
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered,
and heterosexual. We shall
survive only together: lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgendered, and heterosexual.
We can be human only together:
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered,
and heterosexual Christians.
Hong Tan is the founding
pastor of Metropolitan
Community
Church of North London,
England, and a
member of the Board of
Elders of the Universal
Fellowship of Metropolitan
Community Churches. He is Director
of London’s Globe Centre, which provides
health care and community support to persons
living with HIV and AIDS.
6 Open Hands
Marilú González
Marilú González, 42,
was born in Cuamila
Tlaola in the state of
Puebla. She studied two
years in a Pentecostal
Bible institute and later
obtained a bachelor’s
degree in electronic engineering.
In a career change, while an instructor
in engineering, she is now halfway
through medical school and hopes to
specialize in homeopathic medicine. She
is a board member of Génesis.
My first recollections concerning
my attraction toward
women are of when I was
nine years old, and I liked some of my
older sisters’ friends very much.
My father was an atheist and didn’t
permit us to attend any kind of religious
meetings. Nevertheless, when I was
about to turn 16 and my father was no
longer with the family, I discovered by
personal experience that God loved me.
That was how my conversion to Christ
occurred, in a Pentecostal church.
A year later I decided to study in the
Bible institute sponsored by our movement
because I wanted to learn more
of Jesus and to serve him. The institute
was a boarding school, and when students
finished the first year they were
sent out to do missionary work for two
months. We went out in pairs, two men,
two women. In those two months I became
aware of the attraction
I felt for the
young woman I was
working with.
At the beginning of
the second year a woman 15 years older
than me came to the institute to work
as a secretary in the administrative offices.
I fell in love with her and we
maintained a special relationship during
that year, although she insisted that
we were not lesbians. When those
around me found out, they reacted with
a “nothing’s going on here” attitude,
but I then lived the greatest isolation of
my entire life because my roommates
and classmates withdrew from me.
At the end of my second year two
things happened that involved my
sexual orientation. In the graduation
ceremony—those who finished the second
year graduated as Christian workers
and those of the fourth year as pastors—
I was to graduate first in my class
because of my grade point average and
I was also to be awarded a scholarship
for my third year of studies. Although
my name appeared as such in the invitations
to graduation, in the ceremony
first place was awarded to another person
and I heard nothing about the
scholarship.
Second-year graduates were to go out
for one year of mission service, and
when the time of departure came, I
asked to speak to the highest authority
of the movement, a woman. She told
me that I could go to the mission field
only if I promised to never see my girlfriend
again. I didn’t accept such a condition
and left the institute, although
not my church. Nevertheless, I was stigmatized
and more than once in the ensuing
years the women in the church
who were my friends were “warned” by
the pastor to be very cautious of me.
I believe that these experiences have
been the most painful of my life, and
added to them were my feelings of guilt
for being attracted to other women and
of thus failing God. I struggled against
this internal conflict for a period of
some 15 years and lost all hope of growing
spiritually, since I had the feeling
that being a lesbian was not acceptable
to God. I considered myself defeated,
although I never renounced my faith
in Christ and continued to at least attend
church. But neither could I accept
myself as a lesbian. Finally, when I was
36, I met some people with whom I
could openly talk about what was happening
and what I was feeling. I talked
and gave vent to my feelings as many
times as necessary and it was in this way
that I was able to accept the fact that I
am a lesbian.
I met Diana 10 months ago and had
the blessing of loving her and being
loved. For the first time in my life I experienced
a full, meaningful relationship
with another woman, although the
Rev. Gerard Cleator, O.P. (Catholic) and John Doner (former Free Methodist
and MCC) work with lesbians and gays in Mexico City under the
auspices of the St. Louis-based organization Other Sheep, of which the
Rev. Dr. Tom Hanks (Presbyterian) is the executive director and Chris
Glaser is an advisory board member. One of their ministries in Mexico
City is a weekend retreat during which participants explore the relationship
between their homosexuality and their Christian faith. Génesis is an
ecumenical Christian support group for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transsexuals
formed two years ago as a follow-up to these retreats. The group
has grown and now 50-60 gays, lesbians, transsexuals, and heterosexuals
meet every Sunday evening for a time of song, prayer, reflection, and fellowship.
Three of the group’s leaders give their testimonies here.
I could go to the mission field
only if I promised to never
see my girlfriend again.
Mexico City’s
Missionaries of the
Realm of God
Personal Stories from Genesis
Spring 1999 7
relationship lasted only a few months.
Six months ago I was invited to a
meeting of the group Génesis, which
for me is a space where I can live my
faith in Christ and at the same time be
totally who I am. Never before had I
received understanding and acceptance
of my sexuality in a Christian environment.
In the way of conclusion and in an
attitude diametrically opposed to that
of the authorities of my church, I can
say this: The denial of our sexual orientation
is NOT the best solution.
Alvaro Olvera
Alvaro Olvera was
born in Mexico City.
Trained in Catholic
schools, he spent five
years in religious communities
and has the
equivalent of an associate
degree in theology.
The past five years he has been working
as a social worker with the Daughters
of Charity, the last two in an AIDS service
center in a depressed area of Mexico City.
He lives an option for the poor.
I am a Catholic Christian, 28 years
old, and I am a homosexual. Some
time ago I attempted to be more
radical in my following of Jesus and decided
to enter a religious community. I
wanted to be a priest. I entered the seminary
and it didn’t take me long to discover
that what the church writes about
the acceptance of the homosexual person
is very good, but the persons leading
the church must not have read these
statements. I was publicly accused of
being a homosexual. No one believed
me when I explained that even though
I was gay I was living a celibate life. They
threw me out. My presence alone was a
threat.
They thought that in this way they
were liberating the church from homosexual
priests. The truth is that gay seminarians
hide in the closet and make
homophobia their credo so as to avoid
any suspicion.
I am thankful to God that I realized
that as a lay person I had the same responsibility
and the same right as the
Pope to work for the building of the
Kingdom of God. It is not easy in my
tradition where all authority comes
from being “consecrated” as a priest or
a religious [as in an order].
At the present time I minister to persons
who live with AIDS or HIV in the
poorer areas of the city, giving special
attention to homosexuals. I am about
to begin the program “Frassati” in a
Catholic parish. The mission consists in
three parts:
1. Education about AIDS and HIV in
order to eliminate fear concerning
the disease and those who have it;
2. The development of “Christian
Companions” to assist the sickest in
their needs;
3. Aiding people to accept their homosexuality
and to live it from the perspective
of their Christian faith.
Sometimes I also perform other pastoral
activities. Friends invite me to help
them in their groups even though they
know I am gay. In June I will work with
the coordinators of youth groups in the
diocese. I know that in this way I am
opening space in the church for me and
other homosexuals who will come after
me.
I believe that I am partly responsible
for the lack of acceptance of homosexuals
in the church because I am still in
the closet. I ask myself if my failing to
come out is because I still think it is
shameful to be a homosexual. I think
that if I accepted myself totally as a gay
man and as a Christian, that it would
not bother me that people knew my
“secret,” and that I would be able to bear
the rejection which some in the church
would surely show me. I would accept
that situation as part of the Cross I
would carry because I was truthful and
authentic. I am neither a priest nor a
religious, so the reality is that any rejection
would not be that strong, and
would be even less so from the authorities.
Despite that, I don’t dare to come
totally out of the closet. At the same
time, I have not found the answer to
the question, “How can I convince my
faith community that being homosexual
is not bad if I am hiding?”
I am convinced that if I do not fully
accept myself I cannot cry because others
reject me. Even though I am making
progress toward my freedom, I have
not yet conquered all my fear. I ask God
for strength and courage to come out
of the closet within my church because
I think it is necessary. When I do, I will
be able to show, with my life of service
to the poor and sick, that the Holy Spirit
blows wherever it will, and can even fill
a young homosexual, making him a
missionary of God’s Reign.
Eduardo González
Also born in Mexico
City and also 28,
Eduardo González
studied computer programming
and currently
works free lance
in graphic design. He
formerly worked as a
lay missionary among indigenous groups
in mountainous areas of Mexico. He coleads
the Other Sheep retreats with Jerry
Cleator and is the chairperson of
Génesis; he also edits the group’s fledgling
magazine.
My name is Eduardo and I try
to follow Jesus. In the beginning,
my experience as a homosexual
Christian was a struggle. I was
baptized in a Protestant church when I
was 17, and I had the good fortune of
knowing the love of God and homosexual
love through the same person, a
pastor of the church. I helped him when
It didn’t take me long to discover
that what the church writes about the
acceptance of the homosexual person
is very good, but the persons leading
the church must not have read
these statements.
8 Open Hands
they invited him to preach in the rural
regions of the country, and also when
they invited me he would come along
to assist me. It was a very full and satisfying
experience. I am proud to say that
we even formed a church together in
the mountains near Monterrey. It was
a wonderful blessing to bring so many
people to a personal relationship with
God and to baptism.
The pastor and I had lived together
for around four years when Armando
died in an automobile accident. At that
time the church discovered that we were
homosexuals, and I had to appear before
a disciplinary committee and
defend a person who had worked hard
for God. They wanted to
take away part of his being,
his sexuality. I had to confront
a committee who
wanted to excommunicate
me. They gave me time to
think about it: I could continue as a homosexual
but remain celibate, or I could
get married. These were really very difficult
times for me. I hadn’t yet gotten
over the loss of my partner and now I
had to face an even greater loss, my relationship
with God. Or at least that was
what these people were suggesting
would be the case if I didn’t follow their
guidance because their concept of God
would not allow me to express love
physically as a homosexual.
I decided to go as a missionary to
the mountains in Michoacan, teaching
people to read and write. Two years
went by. I had time to reflect on my
relationship with God and the promise
I had made to God when I
was baptized: “I promise to
serve You and to make You
known among the people
so that they can love You.”
It was at this time that I really
accepted myself as a homosexual,
that is, that I belonged to a community.
I refused the conditional offers of my
church not to expel me, and I faced my
family concerning my sexual orientation.
I defended my right to have a relationship
with God and to maintain it
regardless of the opinion of any church.
And when I felt that my ministry
would be curtailed by a few human
beings, I discovered the “Iglesia de la
Comunidad Metropolitana” (MCC)
through an ad in a gay magazine, and I
saw that it was possible to have a relationship
with God without my homosexuality
being a barrier. I also saw the
tremendous spiritual need within the
les-bi-gay community and I felt a new
call from God to work with sexual minorities.
I worked for almost five years
in MCC and entered the student clergy
program, preparing myself to minister
and to deal with the special needs of
my community. I began to see the necessity
of creating another option due
to the large number and different needs
of gays in Mexico City, and now I am
working in Génesis and Other Sheep.
I am not affiliated with any institutional
church; I am affiliated with God.
I do not believe in the church as an institution
and the holder of a monopoly
on God; I believe, rather, in a personal
relationship with God. I feel comfortable
and take communion in any
church. Before defending a church or a
doctrine I defend God and Christ. I am
not in conflict with any church; in fact,
I sincerely believe that for many people
a church is necessary. The only thing
which makes me angry is when church
people want to snatch from homosexuals
their right to know and serve God.
Churches have done that. There are
people who leave their churches fighting
with God because of the irresponsibility
of their ministers.
The advice I give to my brothers and
sisters is, do not let others take away
your relationship with God. Churches
should be fountains of living water, not
faucets to shut off that water. We must
remember that the One who will judge
each of us is God, and woe to that person
who proves a stumbling block to
the smallest of God’s children.
I defended my right to have a relationship
with God and to maintain it regardless of
the opinion of any church.
Spring 1999 9
Spreading the Word
U. S. Roman Catholic bishops first published
a pastoral letter to parents of
homosexual children in December
1997. In Argentina, however, our Catholic
leaders have provided no such document
to guide and orient us regarding
God’s gift of sexuality. When I first read
the document I was deeply moved even
by the title: “I Am Gay, But Before All a
Son.” I took the English copy to a Catholic
publisher here and tried to convince
them to translate and publish the document,
but to no avail.
In 1998, however, Dignity sent me a
copy of the document already translated
into Spanish. So again I visited the
Catholic publisher, this time with the
Spanish edition in hand, to see if they
would now publish it in Argentina. Two
weeks later, the publisher called to tell
me that they had decided rather to publish
an announcement about the publication
in their Sunday leaflet (which
includes the lectionary scripture lessons
and comments and is distributed free
each week to all who attend mass in all
our Catholic parishes)— and give my
name, address and phone to permit interested
readers to request a copy from
me directly! With Argentina’s 30 million
population, some 90% Roman
Catholic, what kind of response should
we prepare for?! The announcement
was published the third Sunday of January,
1999.1
Soon the requests began pouring in,
mainly from the interior, by phone, fax
and letter—more than 150 to date—from
parents, catechists, priests, and seminarians,
many with moving expressions of
need:
• “I need this document to be able to
give some answers and above all
words of hope.”
• “I’m praying for you, your plans and
family.”
• “I need a copy for my husband, because
his brother is gay and he wants
to understand him better.”
• “May God put his good hand on you
to bless you for undertaking this
ministry.”
Many who received the document
wrote again:
• “Profound thanks from a mother
who loves God and her son very
deeply.”
• “The document is beyond reproach.”
Coming Out: A Sacrament
of Reconciliation
As I reflected on this outpouring of response
I recalled how from infancy my
life had been signed by sacraments: baptism
at birth, penance and my first communion
when I was eight (penance was
also known as reconciliation), confirmation
when I was 13, marriage when I
was 27, and the expectation of final
unction before death. However, only
when I came out as gay did I come to
know fully God’s gift of the sacrament
of reconciliation. And it is concerning
this gift of reconciliation that the U. S.
bishops’ letter speaks.
This “coming out” stage of my life,
providentially, was marked at the beginning
with another gift from God.
Initially in December, 1991 the Argentine
Supreme Court upheld an appellate
court decision denying legal status
to the Community of Argentine
Homosexuals (CHA), at that time, our
country’s only gay rights organization.
That decision provoked such a national
and international scandal that our President,
Carlos Menem, removed the
director of the government office
involved, whose replacement then
granted the legal status solicited by the
CHA.
That entire conflict, at times thunderous,
was amply covered by the media.
However, throughout the entire
process the medical establishment, psychologists,
and lawyers, along with their
professional societies, maintained absolute
silence about the case. Why such
total silence?
In face of this deafening silence on
the part of university researchers, I began
to voice my complaints and demand
an explanation from the secretaries
of research in various faculties in
Coming Out
as a Sacrament
in Argentina
A Personal Path to Reconciliation
ArielBarriosMedina
10 Open Hands
the University of Buenos Aires— and
even managed to get an article published
in an intellectual journal denouncing
the shameful silence.
The only professor who owned up
to the situation and answered my complaints
responsibly was Enrique Oteiza,
who directed the Center for Research
of the School of Social Sciences. “The
absence of research in this area is a sign
of backwardness, and lack of professional
ethics,” he asserted, and committed
his Health and Human Rights Section
to prepare a research project on
homosexuality.
The resulting project, Homosexuality
and Human Rights in the City of Buenos
Aires, was prepared by a team of investigators
in May, 1994, to be carried out
from 1994 to 1997, and was approved
with the highest classification by the
University’s Secretary of Science and
Technology. In 1997 this investigation
of gay and lesbian identity, homophobia,
and human rights was completed
on schedule, published the following
year, and remains the only such university
investigation in this area in Argentina.
When I read my name in the preface
and was presented with a copy of
the new publication I sensed that my
coming out in my university had resulted
in a kind of sacrament of reconciliation
with my profession as researcher.
Finding Love:
Reconciliation with Myself
Another dimension, however, proved
more painful. In 1992 I was finishing
my doctoral thesis in the School of Pharmacy
and Biochemistry. This put me in
an odd situation as a philosophy graduate
student working on a history thesis
in physiology, but I was glad for the
company of other doctoral students on
scholarship. One of them discovered
that he could converse freely with me
about AIDS, photography, the death of
his grandfather and various situations
in the university that bothered him. Our
intimacy increased without my realizing
it. But one day, when I realized that
I was thinking of him constantly, I realized
I had fallen in love. I had to recognize
the truth in the assertion that often
we don’t realize we are gay until we
fall in love with someone of the same
gender.
In March, 1994 I was able to tell him
that I was in love with him, but he responded
with surprise, “So that’s what
this was all about!” and recalled all the
care and concern I had been showing
for him. He also seemed to recognize,
without being able to admit it openly,
that I had touched his own deepest secret.
My confession proved too great a
challenge and turned out to be the last
of our conversations.
However, by falling in love with this
person I was able to receive the gift of
reconciliation with myself, experience
inner healing from my own interiorized
homophobia, and stop denying God’s
gift of my sexual orientation.
Already, in mid-1993, my wife and I
had initiated a divorce by mutual consent,
a judge rapidly dissolved the marriage,
and I left the house I had shared
for 15 years with her and my two children.
When the divorce was over I felt
that I could begin to speak more freely
with those who were still family, even
though we no longer lived together.
However, when I began to share with
them my experience of falling in love,
both my daughter and her mother were
devastated, and their homophobic anxieties
separated them from me in a way
the judicial sentence had never accomplished.
Reconciliation with
My Faith
On that occasion my son, then 13 years
old, expressed solidarity with me and
reprimanded his mother and older sister,
reminding them that Paul’s letter
to the Galatians says “In Christ Jesus…
the only thing that counts is faith expressing
itself through love” (Gal 5:6).
Later, when I was able to converse more
tranquilly with him to see how he felt,
his response was still firm: “How could
I feel ashamed of my father for being
honest about who he is. I’m really proud
of you!”
That solidarity I experienced as a sacrament
of reconciliation with the fundamental
elements of my faith.
When our discussions about homosexuality
appear to cancel each
other out from the beginning with a
Catholic who insists “The Catholic
Church says that…,” we need to ask
where our Catholic friend is coming
from, since he or she also is church.
With such an exchange both the affirmation
and response represent a cry
for reconciliation.
When I explained to my mother my
sexual orientation, she responded that
OTHER SHEEP
International Ministries with Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual,
and Transgendered Persons, Their Families and Friends
Rev. Dr. Tom Hanks, Executive Director
Lavalle 376-2DE, 1047 Buenos Aires ARGENTINA;
phone/fax 54-1/314-5989;
e-mail: thanks@thanks.wamani.apc.org
Websites:
www.othersheep.org (English)
www.swiftsite.com/otrasovejas (Spanish, pastoral)
webs.satlink.com/users/t/thanks (Spanish, academic)
Other Sheep has addresses in Argentina, Mexico,
Germany, and the United States.
For a brochure, contact:
Other Sheep, 319 N. 4th St. Suite 902, St. Louis, MO 63102 USA;
phone: 314/241-2400; fax: 314/241-2403; e-mail: giherzog@aol.com
OR
Otras Ovejas, Apdo. Postal 6-1040, 06600 Mexico, D.F.-MEXICO;
phone/fax: 52-5/553-2103; e-mail: jpdoner@acnet.net
Spring 1999 11
she really didn’t care whom I slept with.
The conversation went in other directions
and then we parted. But days later
I began to feel angry about the indifference
my mother had expressed. With
her language my mother had now affirmed
her indifference to my spiritual
welfare, although years before this had
been very important to her when she
had attended my wedding. After that
exchange, for almost three years I had
little contact with my mother, who lived
in another city. Then in 1998 my
mother visited family members in
Buenos Aires, and when I heard from
my daughter that she wanted to see me,
we arranged to meet. I was able to remind
her about our last conversation
and expressed my resentment about her
attitude. She insisted that the Bible
backed her up. Sensing that we had to
agree to disagree, I let the matter drop.
I accompanied her to the train station
for her trip back home and she said she
planned to return in two months for
Christmas and the New Year, so we
would see each other soon.
But my mother then died suddenly
just a week before Christmas. When I
heard, I was glad I had listened to my
daughter’s exhortation to meet with my
mother again and not let resentment get
in the way of our reconciliation. That
was the way I experienced the sacrament
of reconciliation with my mother
and the mercy I hope to receive from
God.
When in 1992 I had criticized my
fellow scientists for their irresponsible
complicity in the Supreme Court’s homophobic
judicial decision against the
CHA, I really began a process of spiritual
revelation communicated to us in
the sacrament of reconciliation.2 Because
in reality, what I was doing was
to exhort myself to accept God’s grace
present in my life now and to trust in
the unfailing mercy of Jesus and begin
to walk the road of reconciliation with
myself in order to experience reconciliation
with others.3
Ariel Barrios-Medina, Ph.D., (shown
here defending this doctoral thesis) is on
the scientific advisory board of Other
Sheep—Mult icultural Ministries with
Sexual Minorities. He lives in Argentina.
Notes
Notes
1El Domingo El periódico que nos une como
iglesia, Instituto Pía Asociación San Pablo,
Domingo 3° durante el año, 24 de enero de
1999.
2McFeeley, T., “Coming Out as Spiritual Revelation,”
Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review,
vol. 3, Nr. 4, pp. 9-11, 1996.
3Always Our Children, Conclusion.
PFALyG
Padres, Familiares y Amigos
de Lesbianas y Gays
Irmgard Fischer
The group PARENTS, FAMILIES AND FRIENDS OF LESBIANS AND GAYS began in
Buenos Aires in July 1996. It is member of the American PFLAG organization and
is included in the Public Referral Directory under Argentina.
The road towards the building of this kind of group was not easy. Parents
find it difficult to let their situation be known, especially in Latin America.
But little by little, as I let my situation be known through TV, radio, magazines,
and newspapers, other parents, families, and friends joined the group.
We meet twice a month, with an average attendance of eight persons. We
have participated with workshops in congresses and the Pride Week of the
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community. We have a close relationship
with other lesbian and gays groups in Buenos Aires, Montevideo,
and Santiago de Chile, and with groups of parents and friends that are related
to them.
Several times we have been asked for help by Latin Americans who found
our address in the Public Referral Directory. We have little literature in Spanish
for the Parents Groups, so we are translating what we get from English and
German sources for our own group and for all Latin American people who
need help.
We do not only receive calls from parents and families, but also of young
gays and lesbians. For just the experience of sharing with us their burden
many have expressed immense gratitude. Also our appearances aim to open
minds, overcome deep prejudices and teach acceptance. The help we can give
in every respect is enormous.
We have begun to experience and feel what is said in an article addressed
to parents:
“Persons who have suffered in their lives and have drawn their lessons
from this suffering are of great value. These persons have become new and
more mature beings. Are you conscious of how much you owe your gay children
in this respect? You owe your children gratitude.”
Irmgard Fischer is a 63-year-old widow and retired biochemist
(Bayer) of German descent, active all her life in the Lutheran
church. Three years ago Robert, her gay son who lives in Germany,
came out to her and gave her a booklet for parents of gay
and lesbian children, which she says opened her eyes, revolutionized
her life, and enabled her to find God’s call to ministry
for her retirement years.
12 Open Hands
Last year poet-philosopher Pio
Manoa, speaking before a university
based group of gays and lesbians
in Fiji commented, “Long before
the North Americans discovered the
pleasures of sex and began carrying
placards declaring love not war in the
l960s, Pacific Islanders already understood
their bodies and the pleasures and
joys of free sex centuries ago.”
This he said in a tolerant grandfatherly
tone encouraging young people’s
continuing responsibility to respect and
understand their bodies, both nature
and functions. He conveyed the healthy
attitude with which forebears in the
South Pacific regarded male and female
sexuality. Could there have been more
freedom in exploring and expressing
one’s sexual inclinations in the past,
when elders in the community educated
the young on responsible roles as
sexual partners? Could there have been
acceptance of crossing male-female gender
roles before Western prescriptions
of compulsory heterosexuality were
ever imposed by church and western
education? For even today, we witness
the traditional place of fafafines in
Polynesian society.
The Female Body: Male
Playground and Political Arena
There is a widely accepted formula that
female sexuality is male-directed, meaning
that female sexuality exists for men.
The images they give of “good women”
are the quiet youngish looking innocent
sexless virgin or the mother procreator
replenishing the earth with her offsprings.
When a woman does not fit
into either of these models, she is bad.
More so if she talks sex, including its
wide diversity of expressions. Bad
women talk sex, want sex, need sex,
enjoy sex.
Men also claim right to take pleasure
from women’s bodies. Male fashion
lords define ideal female proportions;
the face she must have; the behavior
she must cultivate. How many women
feel diminished self-pride and increased
self-loathing at their inability to meet
male-imposed standards of sexiness?
Out of 3.5 billion women the world
over, only ten qualify as supermodel.
For whose pleasure is cosmetic surgery,
killer diet schemes and rejuvenating
regimens? Is it to make female bodies
attractive male playgrounds?
As women begin exercising greater
autonomy in decisions over their sexual
lives, the reality of male violence is ever
present. Silent submission is a mode of
behavior for most women to guarantee
domestic peace. Not only is the female
body a male playground, but a political
arena as to who exerts control over
female behavior and sexual expression.
How many women would admit that
they have been battered by their male
partners because they had refused sex?
How many women have been assaulted
in the streets, and blamed for it because
they were wearing sexy clothes? Male
violence is a weapon of control.
Reclaiming Our Sexuality
Yet there is a resurging political power
realized by women as they reclaim their
sexuality— it is like coming home to
one’s self. Of course, this is a threat to
men who once thought they owned
women’s bodies. When women define
their right to sexual self-determination,
it is a personal and political decision as
to who is the subject of our affection
and choice of its expression.
The female body finds its core expression
in our sensuality and sexuality.
Female sexuality is a powerful force
undergirding our day to day behavior
and motivations. If this is so, then how
much power and control do women
have in determining the expressions of
their sexuality? Do women actually take
ownership of their right to sexual selfdetermination?
The effective way for dominators to
wield power is to keep the dominated
in a state of blissful ignorance or
terrorized fear. This means setting systematic
mechanisms of keeping the
dominated in traps of silence, misinformation
and isolation— systematic because
it is institutionalized and long
term. Men wield power by control and
influence over societal institutions such
as the economy, church, mass media,
government and private homes. To this
day, women in our villages still refuse
to speak about their experiences unless
it is with permission from male family
elders such as a husband or father-inlaw.
“Sexual Orientation” in Fiji’s
Bill of Rights
The right to sexual orientation is enshrined
in Fiji’s Bill of Rights:“A person
must not be unfairly discriminated against
directly or indirectly on the ground of his
or her actual or supposed characteristics,
including race, ethnic origin, color, place
of origin, gender, sexual orientation, birth,
primary language, economic status, age or
disability.” But this right is threatened
with a parliamentary amendment to
retain the penal law citing male consensual
sex as a felony.
There is no legal reference to women
loving women. While this non-reference
may put women of minority sexual
orientation on seemingly safe legal
ground, this at the same time reveals a
dismissive attitude regarding women’s
love for other women as inconsequential.
While this may spare us any form
of legal sanction, it also shows how truly
Women Loving Women
in Fiji
Melinda Madew
Spring 1999 13
invisible woman are. I hasten
to add here that invisibility is
not really a guarantee to safety.
Keeping invisible the ability
of women to love other
women, thereby denying this
as a healthy normal form of
sexual expression, is a culturally
institutionalized practice
of marginalizing women. Love
between women is disallowed
because the only possible form
of female sexual expression is
male-directed.
Our experience at the
Women’s Action for Change
tell us that there are women loving
women in Fiji and definitely elsewhere
in the South Pacific. We know that these
marginalized women are driven underground
by social censorship. There are
women who occupy high profile positions
in church and society, but would
not speak in defense of the right to
sexual expression, fearing sanctions and
social ridicule. There are women who
throughout their lives knew they were
different from their peers, but could not
find anyone who could help them understand
why this is so. Believing they
are possessed by devils or born with a
dreaded disease, they suffer in self-condemning
fear, isolation and silence.
Then there are those who move away
from mainstream social community,
establishing a subculture of sports, bars,
kava or beer sessions and fluid association
with each other. We see them struggling
to keep jobs; struggling to train
in economically marketable skills; struggling
to find answers to complex questions;
struggling against insidious or
pronounced social discrimination. Bereft
of family support, denounced by
churches, shunned by community, rendered
socially unfit and neglected by
social institutions; they are where they
are—but survivors nevertheless. They
are women known to each other, but
not to the rest of the world.
Characteristics of Women
Loving Women in Fiji
Women’s right to minority sexual expression,
as raised earlier, is often
wrapped in mystery and taboo. In my
conversations with sexual minorities in
Suva and elsewhere in Fiji, I have been
privileged to learn characteristics of
their lifestyle:
• Often, women are not in monogamous
relationships.
• There is longing to be in a stable relationship
with a partner, but often
pressure from family, job and community
contribute to destroy relationships.
• Woman have dealt with questions
about their sexual orientation in isolation
and fear.
• Until very recently, there has been
no support group or support organization
offering services for women
sexual minorities.
• The threat of AIDS and STDs is something
not thought about because
these are diseases of heterosexual
women and homosexual/heterosexual
men.
• Young women often resort to sexual
experimentation with each other
because “nobody else will teach
[them] what to do.”
• Harassment from employers and
blackmail from colleagues exist.
• Women have experienced physical
bashing from police who suspect
them of “indecent acts in public.”
The Right to be Protected by
UN Instruments
In the formulation of international
commitments, the most contentious
topic is often anything related to the
right of women to sexual expression.
International documents such
as the Beijing Platform of Action
explicitly uses the word
“sexual expression” whose expanded
meaning carries the
right of women to choose
their sexual partners. Feminists
who lobbied their governments
know how it took
the whole assembly a full
hour of intense debate to permit
this in the final document.
The Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW) identifies reproductive
health to mean the “ability to practice
and enjoy sexual relationships and
to be safe in having sex.” Furthermore,
CEDAW also identifies the right of
women to “set the terms of their sexual
activity.” For sexual minorities who
were actively present in the drafting of
these two documents, these inclusions
carry the expanded meaning to include
the right of women to love other
women in a sexual manner. Furthermore,
the CEDAW does not limit its application
only to women of heterosexual
orientation.
Inclusivity is a value that permeates
the relationship of women in the movement.
This value transcends differences
in class, color, language, place of origin,
and thus even sexual orientation.
Excluding women of a minority
sexual orientation from the coverage of
CEDAW goes against the very spirit of
the convention, which calls for the
elimination of discrimination.
The Women’s Tribune based in New
York has recently identified Sexual Orientation
as a UN Emerging Right. For
many feminists, this is regarded as the
last legal frontier to win. This has happened
successfully in many countries
with strong democratic traditions. We
hope Fiji joins the ranks of these countries.
Melinda Madew is a lesbian activist working
in Fiji as a research consultant on issues
involving gender violence. Formerly a
project officer for NGO (Women’s Action
for Change), she now associates with the
Fiji Women’s Crisis Center.
14 Open Hands
In the Beginning…
A Favorable Ruling
The Uniting Church in Australia was
inaugurated in 1977 with a union of the
Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian
Churches. Its first open discussion
of the issue of sexuality was in 1982
when a presbytery (regional council)
asked the Assembly Standing Committee
(national council responsible for
matters of doctrine, among other
things) for a ruling on whether it could
ordain a “practicing” lesbian. I happened
to be a member of the ASC when
it unanimously ruled that “Sexual orientation
is not of itself a bar to ordination.”
I recall being surprised at the
time!
That ruling created turmoil in the
church and, soon after, the ASC decided
to initiate a study on homosexuality and
the church. It drew together a range of
people into a task group and after some
consultation in the church, the task
group produced a rather ambiguous
booklet for general distribution. It was
radical enough for a conservative on the
task group to insist on the right of a
minority statement at the back, but it
was not radical enough to give the
church much in the way of clear guidance.
In response to this, there was further
outrage by some church members
and councils.
In 1991, the full Assembly of the
church resolved to set up a “Sexuality
Task Group” which was to consult even
more widely in the church through a
series of hearings and the circulation of
a questionnaire through which church
members could make comment on the
issues. The intention was to have a wide
discussion on human sexuality in general,
but of course, in the end, the focus
was on homosexuality and, in particular,
ordaining homosexual people.
After the Task Group issued a reasonably
radical interim report to the church
for comment, there was a flood of responses
disapproving of homosexual
people being ordained. The conservative
wing of the church was highly organized,
especially in rural areas. Where
people attended the hearings and dialogued
together, there was usually a
greater recognition of ambiguities and
fewer people holding black and white
positions.
Because it was not a referendum or
plebiscite approach, the statistics from
the questionnaire responses were not
valid for the drawing of conclusions.
Among other factors, it was evident that
when people agreed with the Interim
Report, they were less likely to make
comment. However, the conservatives
commonly claimed that, because the
majority of questionnaire responses
were negative on ordination of homosexual
people, that the majority of
church members held that position.
The Sacrifice of
Indecision
The Task Group formally reported to
the 1997 Assembly of the church. Even
though its composition was diverse, its
recommendations were careful but radical.
By this time the church had shifted
into a form of consensus decision-making
for all its major councils. The Assembly
is a body of about 250 voting
members elected from all the presbyteries
and synods of the church.
During the 60-second speeches
which were invited to open up the debate,
I “came out.” Seeing I was the
National Director for Mission of the
church (I suppose the second most senior
officer of the church, although we
try not to think hierarchically), this was
seen as a significant moment. There
were also speeches from others like
Jenny Byrnes, a highly regarded woman
minister who had come out earlier in
her state synod, when she was standing
for its moderator, losing by a handful
of votes. One of the conservatives told
another church officer that he thought
it most unfair that people were brought
into a debate which should really be
more objective!
It was clear during the lead period
of discussion that the Assembly was
swinging in the radical direction. However,
we are a multicultural church with
special congregations for newly arrived
migrant groups, mainly from Asia and
the Pacific, and we have a commitment
to Indigenous people. These groups in
the Assembly asked for more time to
discuss the issue of homosexuality and
expressed concern. Without appearing
to be patronizing nor ignorant of the
cultural issues, I believe that this was
Daring to Fly With Wings
Like Eagles
The Uniting Church in
Australia and Homosexuality
Dorothy McRae-McMahon
Dorothy
McRae-McMahon’s
latest book is
Everyday Passions
(ABC Books, 1998),
and is available for
purchase on the
Internet from:
www.shop.abc.net.au
Spring 1999 15
partly about our church reaping what
it had sown in conservative missionary
activities. In the end, the Assembly decided
to defer a decision on homosexuality
and ordination and referred the
church to its 1982 Standing Committee
resolution in the meantime.
There was then a strong protest from
the conservatives about the lack of decision,
in spite of the fact that no conservative
member of the Assembly
called for a formal vote at the time— a
permitted part of our process, if consensus
cannot be reached. This was
probably because it was obvious that
the radical position would have been
overwhelmingly carried, had the Assembly
agreed to vote. However, the radicals
in the Assembly wanted to respect
Indigenous and minority culture concerns.
We were all only too well aware
of the injustices and racism that stood
between us. One sign of the majority
will of the Assembly was that it elected
Jenny Byrnes to its 20 member Standing
Committee and sent her as one of
its 4 representatives to the World Council
of Churches Assembly in Harare. It
also made no moves to remove me as
Moderator of the WCC Assembly Worship
Committee.
As soon as I returned to my work, it
became clear to me that my position
was rapidly becoming untenable. Had
I been a parish minister, I probably
could have stayed, but the Director for
Mission has a national representative
role. The conservatives began to threaten
withholding of funding for the work
which came under my jurisdiction,
work in the areas of human and Indigenous
rights and national social justice,
work which I held dear. I decided that
to stay there heroically would be pointless
for me and not advance our cause
in the process. At the meeting of the
next Assembly Standing Committee I
offered my resignation. After a two-hour
discussion, it was accepted. I then retired,
somewhat earlier than I had
planned. After this, there were two disciplinary
efforts to withdraw recognition
of my ordination on the grounds
of my sexuality. Both of these attempts
failed.
AD
16 Open Hands
Resistance Builds
During the Assembly, the debate and
discussion was possibly one of my best
experiences of the church. It was honest,
costly and faithful. It was as though
we were really walking the way of the
cross with an agony of heart as we tried
to respect many things about ourselves.
Since then we have gone downhill considerably.
There has been a huge and
organized push by the conservatives
who, as usual, have money and seem
to have a commitment to work on nothing
else except this issue, unlike the rest
of us.
Some time ago the conservatives
formed themselves into a group called
EMU (Evangelical Members Uniting).
They have made “hit lists” of ministers
who are single, most especially women,
and have begun various forms of harassment.
Their latest move is to ask
congregations to declare themselves as
“Evangelical Uniting Churches” with
“evangelical” on their notice boards
outside the church. These congregations
would also have a special statement
of faith which indicates they don’t
approve of homosexuality and a commitment
not to call ministers who don’t
agree with this and to withhold funds
from councils of the church which
support homosexual persons. I understand
that the Assembly Standing Committee
at its most recent meeting has
ruled that EMU may not put “Evangelical”
on their church notice boards, regarding
this as excluding some people
from the church.
There had been an earlier move by
the conservatives to form an association
of “Transforming Congregations,”
which was countered by a suggestion
for an association of “Open and Affirming
Congregations.” The Standing Committee
asked us not to proceed to divide
the church in this way and the
radical arm of the church honored this
request but it is clear that the conservatives
never did.
A presbytery has recently refused me
permission to take responsibility for a
parish within its bounds for a few weeks
while its minister is away, on the
grounds that it has on its books the wellknown
resolution regarding the expectation
that ministers will be faithful in
marriage and celibate in singleness. I
think this came from the U.S. originally—
thank you folks! It has been rejected
twice by our national Assembly
as an inadequate formula for describing
human relationship and sexuality,
but a number of our church councils
have passed it and our polity is so complex
that we get bitten in all sorts of
ways. Anyway, I am now fighting this
ruling on the grounds that it is a de facto
withdrawal of recognition of my ordination.
Trying to Keep the
Church Together
The leadership of the church is trying
rather desperately to hold things together.
The Assembly Standing Committee
has put out a relatively strong
statement about hate, rejection and
harassment, but there has been little
evidence of the effectiveness of that
move. It is as though, because the
church has deferred its decision, those
who are radical are expected to respect
differences of opinion and the dialogues
in process and refrain from moving
positive resolutions. Meanwhile the
conservatives are busy moving negative
resolutions and cutting off dialogue.
There is a commitment now to organize
retreats for the discussion of
sexuality before the next Assembly in
2000. These retreats may be somewhat
safe, if well run, for people who are already
out, but we do not trust them as
safe for those who are not. We are finding
all along that we are handicapped
by the fact that so many people whose
voices we need are not free to speak
because they cannot take the risk of
exposing themselves. We also find that
many of our supporters are brave in
private and relatively gutless in public.
This leaves the field to the conservatives
who often terrorize people into silence,
especially in smaller congregations.
We are also always battling with the
tyranny of a small group of people
spread over a huge continent. Having
said that, because of the response of the
Australian community to my stand,
(which was covered widely and sympathetically
by the secular media) I am
often invited and financed to move
around the country leading discussions
on life and faith. I believe I have more
significant opportunities for mission
than I ever had as Director for Mission!
This gives me, at least, the chance to
network with our people.
The best strategy we have for
strengthening our church life is to have
a national “Daring” conference every
two years. The themes for this conference
are, for example, “Daring to speak,
daring to listen,” “Daring to live.” Each
conference is larger in numbers than the
last. We study the Bible together, hear
from international and national speakers,
have workshops and generally celebrate
our lives. In between conferences
we have an e-mail network, a newsletter
and state networks which arrange
various activities.
Finally, we are finding that, because
they do not seem to have the same ethical
constraints on their behavior as we
do, and because the Christian imperatives
to love and to tell the truth seem
not to apply to them, the conservative
forces in our church in the end often
reveal who they really are. However, the
cost to us in holding to all those Christian
values is high indeed. But we have
hope, for God is with us. The theme for
our 2000 “Daring” conference will be
“Daring to fly” from the text: “They
shall rise up with wings like eagles, they
shall run and not be weary, they shall
walk and not faint” (Is 40:30).
Our prayers and love go out to you
all around the world— our sisters and
brothers in the struggle for the lifting
up of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for all
people.
Dorothy McRae-McMahon was a minister
with the Pitt Street Uniting Church in
Sydney for 10 years and then for five years
on the national staff of the Uniting
Church. The community
has recognized her
work over the years
with a Jubilee Medal
from the Queen for
work with women in
NSW (1977), an Australian
Government
Peace Award (1986),
the Australian Human Rights Medal
(1988) and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters
from Macquarie University (1992).
Spring 1999 17
Framing the Questions
In Singapore, economics is everything.
To maintain economic survival, the government
argues that political stability
is paramount. Preventing conflict between
Singapore’s four racial groups
around ethnicity and religion is a top
priority. To achieve this, governmental
policies forbid civic organizations, including
churches, from any social commentary,
for this is viewed as a challenge
to the government. The acceptance of
this status quo by Roman Catholics and
Protestants has led to a Christianity that
is pietistic rather than prophetic, failing
to offer social critique from either
left or right.
Given such a compromise of Christianity’s
traditional social witness, how
is the public crusade led by the Anglican
Church of Singapore against homosexuality
and homosexual persons in both
the domestic and international arena to
be understood, when such social activism,
were it over another issue, would
have been considered by the government
political involvement and hence
prohibited?
Curtailing Social Activism
In 1987, several citizens, including a few
prominent lawyers, linked up with some
lay and ordained members of the Roman
Catholic Church to organize for the
rights of Filipina women, then working
as domestic help in Singapore. This
came to an end when 16 of the organizers
were arrested by the government under
the Internal Security Act (a piece of
law left over from British colonial days,
which provided for the detention without
trial of political subversives) and
charged with conspiring to overthrow
the government.
In the ensuing months, the government
said that all social commentary
was political. As such, professional
groups (like the law society) and civic
groups (like the church) which were not
political parties were prohibited from
commenting on social and political issues.
In a television broadcast of a meeting
between the Roman Catholic Archbishop
Gregory Yong and then Prime
Minister and founding father Lee Kuan
Yew, the Catholic Church accepted
these parameters. In an Independence
Day speech later that year, Lee said:
“I urge that…all those who claim
divine sanction or holy insights,
take off your clerical robes before
you take on anything economic
or political. …Come out as a citizen
or join a political party and it
is your right to belabor the government.
But use a church or a
religion and your pulpit for these
purposes and there will be serious
repercussions.”
The government is not only concerned
with the left but also with right
wing activism of the church. Take abortion
for example. The Singapore government
in the 1970s embarked on a
comprehensive family program (whose
success also contributed to higher economic
growth), of which cheap and
accessible abortions (costing about
US$3) was a mainstay. Eventually, abortion
became the preferred form of contraception
among women, because it
was cheaper than the pill, and it did not
require the negotiation with the male
partner that a condom would otherwise
have necessitated. Nevertheless, rampant
abortions provoked no public
commentary from Protestant or Roman
Catholic church leaders, thus indicating
their quiescence.
Consider another right wing or evangelical
issue: converting people of other
faiths to Christianity. In Singapore,
though one is free to practice any religion,
one may not always be at liberty
to convert someone else. The proselytization
of the indigenous Malay minority
(16% of the population), who are
almost entirely Muslim, is prohibited.
(This is true in Malaysia as well.) The
reasons are several, but mainly have to
do with preventing a reoccurrence of
the riots of the 1960s between the Malay
Muslims and Chinese (non-Muslims).
Cosmic Battleground of Spirits
Both Roman Catholics and Protestants
(10% of the population) are mainly
made up of ethnic Chinese (76% of the
population). Several studies done by the
National University of Singapore in the
1980s showed that younger Chinese
people had converted from the traditional
and syncretized Taoism-Buddhism
(which is the majority religion)
to Christianity. They had found the latter
to be more rational and systematized
than the magical superstitions of the
former. This comparison may come as
a surprise to people living in the West
where Buddhism is often considered a
sophisticated philosophy. However, it
is important to note that the Buddhism
and Taoism of the immigrant overseas
Chinese are a folk, rather than a scholarly
tradition. Magic and evil spirits are
major elements in the Buddhism-Taoism
of Chinese Singaporeans.
When the Chinese person converts
to Christianity, this basic orientation of
a cosmic battleground where hierarchies
of spirits do battle continues. In
the previous generation, their parents
sought a more powerful temple deity
to combat a lesser deity. In Christianity,
these new converts have found the
King of Kings, Jesus Christ, to be the
Colonialism’s
Anti-gay Legacy
A Case in Point: Singapore
You-Leng L. Lim
Taken from a much longer and thoroughly-documented background
paper for last year’s Lambeth worldwide conference of Anglican bishops,
originally entitled, “Homosexuality: How the economics and politics of
Singapore have shaped the Anglican Diocese and its role in the Province
of South East Asia.”
18 Open Hands
supreme deity. Nevertheless, lesser spirits
continue to work even in the lives
of baptized Christians. This henotheistic
rather than monotheistic orientation
explains why a few years ago an antique
table with Chinese dragons— symbols of
benevolence in Chinese culture, but
confused with the dragon of Revelation—
at the Anglican Cathedral was
hacked to pieces. By tapping into a culturally
real vocabulary of evil spirits,
charismatic Christianity has thrived.
One consequence of seeing the
working of spirits is that genuine psychological
(and sometimes physiological)
variations and dysfunctions are
given a demonic interpretation. Homosexuality,
infertility, behavioral and
medical problems are often interpreted
as oppression by evil spirits. Why does
a sophisticated Western educated population
believe more in evil spirits than
in psychological analysis? First, most
Chinese people do not think of mental
illness as a disease but as the disgraceful
and stigmatized condition of “madness.”
Secondly, analytical psychology
argues that a lack of wholesome parenting
is a principal cause of personal
dysfunction. This lays too much responsibility
on parents, and directly undermines
Chinese Confucian values of filial
piety. Thirdly, the important psychological
concept of individuation is often
confused with the rightly criticized
Western social concept of individualism.
The net effect is that exorcism,
whether by the church or by any other
religion, is often preferred to therapy.
The Church’s Campaign
Against Homosexuality
If the churches have been quiescent in
social and political issues of both the
left and right, how does one explain the
public nature of the church’s campaign
against homosexuality and homosexuals?
A precursor circumstance in the
Anglican Church was that the charismatic
movement that began in the
1970s served to renew what had become
a moribund and elitist ex-colonial
church. The renewal of worship was a
breath of fresh air, but now the pendulum
has swung the other way, so that
the vast majority of parishes (with the
exception of the cathedral) have done
away with Anglican forms of Prayer
Book liturgy and have adopted a freeform,
spontaneous, non-liturgical charismatic
style. Then, in the last decade,
the Anglican Church of Our Savior invited
the U.S. organization Exodus to
Singapore. The precipitating factor was
the frequency of sex-change operations
in Singapore, mistakenly seen as a homosexual
issue. The local press gave this
ex-gay ministry ample coverage, and
church leaders were able to use overt
religious precepts to condemn homosexuality.
This religious publicization of a private
social issue would appear to be a
violation of the political settlement
separating private beliefs and public
commentary. Nevertheless, led by Anglicans,
the churches’ anti-homosexual
activism in both the domestic and international
scene has grown. One can
only conclude that such activism is possible
because it exploits an already existing
social antagonism and stigmatization
of homosexuality.
Colonialism’s Construction of
Heterosexism
But whence this stigmatization in Asian
cultures? The Harvard scholar Brett
Hinsch has shown that homosexuality
was prevalent, accepted, and sometimes
celebrated throughout the different
Chinese dynasties. Nevertheless, he suggests
that in the colonial encounter,
national humiliation led China to both
question its collective masculinity, and
then to adopt the Victorian Christian
mores against homosexuality. Interestingly
enough, the anti-sodomy laws in
Singapore, which provide for life in
prison, were likewise inherited from the
British colonialists. Today, such stigmatization
is considered an Asian value.
Prior to colonialism, sexuality and
gender varied greatly among Asians.
Among the Bugis people, now part of
the Indonesian nation, a third gender
consisting of men dressed in women’s
clothes— akin to the Native-American
berdache—was accepted. The Minangkabao
people, also now part of Indonesia,
were a matrilineal society. Among
the Chinese, polygamy was practiced.
Everyone lived in families that were
multi-generational. I do not mean to
suggest that these arrangements were
better, but the situation was more diverse
and complex. Homogeneity came
with the advent of colonialism and industrial
capitalism— abetted by Protestantism,
Max Weber would say—so that
today sexuality and family and gender
roles have become monogamous, patriarchal,
single-generational, and exclusively
heterosexual.
Asian family values of today are
therefore historically relative and socially
constructed. That these values
may yet be reshaped by governmental
legislation was given a rather strange
twist in 1984. Then Prime Minister Lee
Kuan Yew, a Cambridge-trained lawyer,
bemoaned the ironic success of family
planning, especially the lowered birth
rates of the higher educated (and economically
more productive) classes.
This had come about because women
with graduate degrees were choosier
and getting married later, or not getting
married at all. Lee extrapolated
from this and held forth the specter of
national economic decline. At the National
University, he then publicly ruminated
about the wisdom of having
abolished traditional Chinese polygamy
in favor of Western monogamy. Social
values are socially constructed, and
must in the end serve the economy.
How to Define Ourselves?
What of the charge that Western values
are contaminating Asia? In recent
years, the government has variously
encouraged more freedom of expression—
particularly when it has felt that
a vibrant arts culture would attract
expatriate professionals to work in
Singapore, hence adding to the economy—
and opposed such freedom when
it has deemed such expressions to be
too Western and permissive and thus
detrimental to stability. In any case, that
which is “Western” is alternately emulated
or castigated, with the government
playing the role of arbiter.
This same process of simultaneously
assimilating and rejecting the West
applies in the Anglican Diocese of
Singapore. Several gay and lesbian
Christians, who have been educated
abroad— some hand-picked by the government
and sent on scholarships to
“Oxbridge” and the American Ivy
League—had encountered a more tolerant
Christianity while there. The
Spring 1999 19
Internet had also connected gay Singaporeans
with gay Christian groups from
around the world. All these interchanges
have been considered harmful
Western influences. Nevertheless, the
diocese’s own active courting of the
American based ex-gay Exodus is likewise
an instance of Western, albeit conservative,
influence. Theologians from
conservative seminaries advise the diocese
on church growth.
The larger question in Singapore is
whether there is anything that is not
foreign. The laws that provide for private
property, detention without trial,
and caning are British inheritances.
Multinational corporations and freetrade
are American influences. All religions
and all races, apart from the indigenous
Malays, are imports. It follows
that a nation of immigrants whose success
comes from the utilization of imported
ideas and imported capital must
necessarily go through bouts of anxiety
about its own identity. In this process
of self-definition, it must define itself
against the “Other,” and the foreign
becomes either something to emulate
or to castigate.
All Christian denominations have
been part of the establishment: originally
of the colonial classes, later of the
English educated professionals. Where
there have been losers in the economic
game, the churches, in sync with colonial
and post-colonial governmental
policies, have performed its work of
charity. But the structural defects of
capitalism— the endless labor restructuring,
the monotony of repetitive work,
the susceptibility of the weak and ignorant
to systemic abuse, etc.— are not
even discussed (except to say God controls
the monetary system), let alone
questioned. A vulnerable and small island
state—230 square miles and 3 million
people— that also happens to be
rich will have the odd mix of spiritual
determinism, material drive, and social
apathy.
The confidence of Singapore and
other South East Asian countries in
matters of politics, economics, and
church is accompanied by its shadow:
the fear of subversion, deflation and
heresy. This is not peculiar to Asia. The
United States has the same phenomenon.
The mistake is for any commu-
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nity to completely externalize this into
an international “clash of civilization,”
or to be cast into a Manichaean
struggle of heretics and the orthodox.
Walking the Anglican middle path with
a measure of consciousness for the complex
and symbolic might well provide
a welcomed sobriety for all.
You-Leng L. Lim was
born and raised in
Singapore, educated at
Princeton University
and Harvard Divinity
School. Ordained as
an Episcopal priest, he
shares a home with his
performance artist partner Hung Nguyen
and cat Toey. Following Virginia Wolfe’s
advice that one should have a room of
one’s own and 550 sterling pounds a year
(adjusted for inflation and exchange rate
fluctuations) in order to achieve one’s vocation
and voice in the world, he is enrolling
in the MBA program at the Harvard
Business School next winter. And proving
that gay priests can be butch, he spent the
summer of 1998 summitting three
unclimbed peaks in Alaska.
20 Open Hands
The world’s lowborn and despised,
those who count for
nothing, were chosen by God
to reduce to nothing those who were
something. In this way no one should
boast before God. God has given you
life in Christ Jesus— our wisdom, our
justice, our sanctification and our redemption”
(1 Cor 1:27-30, Inclusive New
Testament).
On the feast of St. Francis of Assisi
(Oct. 4) I found myself reading a short
biography of him. It both inspires
and troubles me. Giovanni Francesco
Bernardone lived in the time of the
Crusades in a feudalistic society. The
norms of the world were such that
might makes right and even the church
had taken on such values in conquering
lands for God. Francesco himself
was a wealthy merchant, an exuberant
party-goer and a soldier. Yet it was the
rebel-personality in him that proved to
be his redemption.
In Spoleto, where he fought in the
Papal Army, he had a conversion experience
which caused him to return to
Assisi and sell his father’s cloth and
horse to build a local church.
His father was enraged, and followed
him to a cave where he was hiding and
locked his own son in a dungeon for
his crime. Francesco was then put to
trial before the bishop, at which time
he stripped naked in public. Here we
have a Francis who dared to challenge
the norms of the day. He renounced
wealth and security for the value of
poverty, power for lowliness, and respectability
for derision.
Put in our modern context, he would
have been accused of the same crimes
that we lesbian and gay people are accused
of, of being individualistic and
refusing to fit into societal norms and
even daring to disrupt the majority way
of life. And as queer persons, we have
the privilege of being in the class to
which Francis belonged, the outcasts
and the rejects. This was the very status
that Jesus belonged to as well. He was
born the bastard child of an unwed
mother and hounded to his death by
the religious institution of his days. The
fact that Francis now is deemed a leader,
a reformer, a peacemaker, and one of
God, and that Jesus is risen and seen as
God Godself, we can have the hope that
our outcast status is one that will show
the face of God, not by being converted
into respectability but by being the
transforming force of God’s love.
Francis’s renunciation was complete.
Not only had he renounced wealth, he
renounced any expectation of respectability,
of favor with society and church.
I think there is a lesson there that matters
much to us queer people. Can we,
like him, give up on whining about how
the church and our society not only
look down upon us but also participate
in our oppression? If the church or our
communities have problems with our
presence, then it is their problem and
they have a long way to go in the process
of learning.
Our task is to witness to God’s love
in communities that do not comprehend
such love, and I trust that God will
sort the rest out as God did with Francis.
Francis was a happy pauper and this was
a fascinating sight to the people then,
proving a great power towards their
conversion. Perhaps with our own renunciation
of expectations, we too can
be happy with our status and cause
people to question and wonder.
Francis not only identified with the
poor but with all outcasts. We read of
how he went out to kiss the lepers, the
medical outcasts. By his example, I believe
we are compelled to leave our gay
ghetto and go out into the wider world
of the powerless. This might have extremely
frightening implications for a
St. Francis in Singapore
Tuck-Leong Lee
With five other queer protestors, Tuck-Leong Lee unfurled a gay pride flag
during the liturgy of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Singapore (Anglican) and
carried it with him to receive the Eucharist. A card attached to the flag read,
“God loves all Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, and Transgendered Persons too!” Ironically,
the theme of the worship that day was “the suffering community” and
the gospel reading was Matthew 10:16-22, which reads in part: “I am sending
you out like sheep among wolves. So you must be as clever as snakes, but
as innocent as doves. Be on your guard. People will haul you into court, they
will flog you in the synagogues. For my sake you will be dragged before rulers
and governors as witnesses…”
“
Spring 1999 21
This is a purely personal reflection
on the experience of being
an Anglican (Episcopalian) priest
and of being a homosexual in South
Africa. In writing it I should from the
outset say that I have only come out of
the closet in my thirties. My experience
is one for the most part of repressing
and denying my sexuality. I will therefore
focus most of my account on why
I believe this has been the case, and then
I will explain some difficulties that currently
face me.
I grew up in a middle class white family.
Attending church, being involved
in church activities, and practicing the
Christian faith was part and parcel of
family life. My mother believed in sex
education for her children, but this
never included any discussion of homosexuality.
So the model I grew up with
was that of heterosexual sex being the
accepted norm.
I attended an all-boys white high
school that was a perfect example of
white macho political dominance,
thinking, and ideology during the apartheid
era. We marched around playing
at being soldiers, were compelled to attend
first team rugby matches, and were
given moral preparedness lessons on
how to cope with terrorist attacks! In
this world there was quite clearly no
room for discussions on homosexuality,
nor indeed any acceptance of gay
people. If one was weak, or different in
any sense one was labeled a “fairy” or a
“moffie.” The church too was not a
great deal of help in that it only discussed
issues in terms of the evils of premarital
sex, which was assumed to be
heterosexual sex. An issue that bothered
me during my teens was, why were my
peers going out with girls while I was
not? This led to a great deal of questioning
as to whether I was normal or
not. Thinking back on this time I believe
that if there had been someone in
whom I could have confided, or a
broader discussion on sex and sexuality,
I would have come to terms with
my sexuality much earlier than I have.
It was in fact only when I went to
university to study theology that there
was space for homosexuality to be discussed.
This, however, did not make me
more sympathetic to homosexuals, at
least not in my first year. I remember
writing a very moralistic and judgmental
letter to a school friend of mine who
had gone into the army and had written
to me about his being gay. In my
second year, however, I developed a
deep friendship with one of my colleagues,
which now with hindsight I can
acknowledge as a love affair, at least
from my point of view. I never discussed
my feeling with him, nor mentioned my
sexual attraction for fear of loosing the
friendship.
Later when I attended theological
college I remember discussing the question
of my sexuality with a friend who
was a psychology honors student, but
of being too frightened of the consequences
of being gay to do anything
about it. I certainly was not prepared to
do anything more. I was not prepared
to be vulnerable and reveal the fact that
I was gay to anyone at theological college.
Somewhere along the road in my
theological studies I had worked out
No Longer an Alien in
the Household of God
Growing Up as a Gay Christian
in South Africa
Douglas John Torr
number of us, but it is not a step
untrodden. Jesus did it, and so have
many who have followed. This is a
tough call, certainly for me personally,
but perhaps we need to begin by allowing
ourselves to be bothered by it. Whatever
our discomfort in opening wide
our solidarity, I urge us to follow this
spirit of Christ and Francis and work
toward ministries that reach beyond our
own narrow interests.
We must answer the plaintive cry to
God from a character in Radclyffe Hall’s
book The Well of Loneliness: “‘God’ she
gasped, ‘we believe; we have not denied
You, then rise up and defend us. Acknowledge
us, O God, before the whole
world. Give us also the right to our existence!’”
I believe Jesus and Francis provided
the answer to her cry. Do not be afraid,
know that God is intimately tied up
with you, an outcast. Do not be too attached
to the acknowledgment of your
existence, God will take care of that.
Open up your love to those who are
likewise marginalized, and know that
you are not alone, and others will see
your love and glorify your Father-
Mother in heaven. “Those who try to
save their lives will lose them, and
those who lose their lives will
save them” (Luke 17:33, Inclusive New
Testament).
Tuck-Leong Lee lives in Singapore and
helps with the liturgy of Garden City Christian
Community (Congregation at St
Gregory’s) in the Anglican Diocese of
Singapore, a small, welcoming community
that includes several gay members. Professionally,
he works as an education officer.
22 Open Hands
that being gay was not really acceptable
to the church, and so I decided that I
definitely wasn’t gay! Since coming out
I have heard of instances of other candidates
being refused ordination because
they are homosexual, or being
made to promise by their bishops that
they will be celibate. It seems that Anglican
bishops have forgotten that celibacy
belongs to the Catholic rite of ordination.
Just recently a colleague of
mine was made assistant of a parish of
which he may only serve as de facto rector
because he is gay, and according to
his bishop cannot be the rector.
Through my work in the field of
HIV/AIDS education and counseling I
was forced to confront my sexuality and
own it for what it is. This has not been
an easy process and has definitely been
complicated by my priesthood. Since
the Anglican Church has for the most
part in South Africa taken a “fence-sitting”
position or at times rather condemnatory
stand when it comes to homosexuality,
it places those of us who
are homosexuals in the church in a very
difficult position. The bishops are technically
committed to dialogue, and condemn
homophobia, but are not willing
to allow blessings of same sex couples
to take place. In South Africa, unlike
Lambeth, bishops have not said they
will not ordain homosexuals, but again
this differs from bishop to bishop.
Given this prevailing situation it is
no wonder that being a homosexual
and a priest can be and is for many a
very lonely experience. We do not easily
reveal our identities to other church
people, never mind one another. We
probably fear the consequences of what
such a revelation might be. Nevertheless
one is constantly confronted by
one’s sexuality. Before I came out more
publicly I was at a fraternal meeting of
ministers during which a colleague
from another denomination urged us
to take note of how promiscuity and
homosexuality were endangering our
society. I wanted to say “Yes, just look
at how dangerous I am,” but I didn’t.
Recently I could not bless a couple
who had been together for 16 years
owing to my church’s ruling on same
sex relationships. One partner was dying
of cancer. I referred the blessing to
someone from another denomination
who can do blessings. As a priest and a
gay activist in a country with a constitution
that protects the rights of homosexuals
I felt quite ashamed of myself,
and this has again led me to question
my position in the church.
What has helped me in coming out
to my bishop and my previous congregation,
and now more widely through
writing an article for a book dealing
with gay and lesbian experiences in the
church in South Africa, was a powerful
experience of God’s love. I was on retreat
wrangling with my sexuality while
meditating in front of an image of the
Christ figure. The image was that of the
heart of Jesus, and it seemed to me that
the love of Jesus embraced and overwhelmed
me—I felt accepted just as I
am. It was as if God was saying “go
ahead, tell your bishop—it will be all
right,” and it has been.
My coming out to the congregation
was emotionally exhausting, with me
doing the explaining, supporting of others,
etc. Pastorally there was very little
support for me at the time, and it made
me reflect on how it has been easier for
my own family to accept my sexuality
than the “family of God” I feel called
to minister to and be a part of. The incredible
experience of God’s love has
continued to give me courage and hope
at times when ministry feels very isolated,
and particularly during those
times when the church’s inability or
unwillingness to deal with human sexuality
becomes an enormous burden.
As I have become more involved
with gay and lesbian people I find that
there is a real need for the church to
move from rejection, fence-sitting, and
indifference to real affirmation of us. It
needs to do this not because we are a
minority with a different sexual orientation
to the heterosexual norm, but
because we are people who, throughout
the ages, have brought a richness
to the church’s life and mission by using
our creative talents and ministry.
We present the church with both a
pastoral challenge and a unique blessing.
The question that remains for me
is whether the church is open to the
challenge of listening to the guidance
of the Holy Spirit by not only accepting
lesbian/gay/bisexual people, but
also affirming their gifts and ministry,
or will it simply forego the blessing. This
was the question the World Council of
Churches began to face in Harare, Zimbabwe,
and it is my hope that through
dialogue and through the experience of
our witness as gay/lesbian/bisexual
Christians the church may learn to
embrace us and accept the blessings we
bring.
The alternative is for the church to
continue rejecting us and to lose that
dimension of spirituality and life we
have to offer. We cannot forever remain
aliens in the household of God! I hope
and pray that the church will choose us
and in so doing choose life.
Douglas John Torr is
an Anglican priest
working in the Diocese
of Johannesburg in
charge of a small parish,
St Margaret’s
Noordgesig, as well as
serving as social responsibility
coordinator for the diocese. Involved
in justice issues for years, he has
focused on issues related to demilitarization.
Currently he has been given the responsibility
by the National Coalition for
Gay and Lesbian Equality of South Africa
to create a network among Christian
churches to do advocacy and support work
around gay and lesbian sexuality.
Spring 1999 23
Eleven years ago in Geneva, the
Group C+H was created. This
may seem a strange and obscure
name for a group of gay and lesbian
Christians! It’s not so strange if one remembers
that the designation for Switzerland
is CH, standing for Confederatio
Helvetica, the original Latin name of this
country, and if one realizes that C+H
stands for Chrétiens et Homosexuels
(Christian and Homosexual). Some
would say that homosexual is not an adequate
word. It is probably true that, in
English, the word gay is preferred. But
many whose native tongue is not English
are reluctant to incorporate Anglicisms
in our language. This hesitancy
works well in the present case: C+H has
a little flavor of CH in it and the acronym
is inclusive, as homosexual includes
lesbians as well as gay men.
Eleven years ago, AIDS was devastating
the life of many gay men in Switzerland,
which had one of the highest
rates of HIV/AIDS within Western countries.
Maybe it is not a coincidence that
Dialogai, the gay association in Geneva,
felt the need to have a Christian group
among the other services and activities
offered to the gay community. Dialogai
invited a minister of the Reformed
Church of Geneva, created by John
Calvin, to speak about “The Bible and
Homosexuality.” Openness describes
the meeting of this pastor in the midst
of these mostly lay folks, some very
angry and opposed to the church. Openness!
We shall meet it more than once.
C+H was born after the visit of this pastor,
invited by an open-minded gay association.
The first meeting of C+H gathered
fewer than 10 people but the group
developed rapidly to its present size: a
community of about 30 persons (remember
that Geneva, although important,
is a small city of only 300,000 inhabitants)—
gays, lesbians, bisexuals as
well as their straight friends and relatives.
Openness is the key word here
too. The group welcomes all who want
to join: Roman Catholics, Old Catholics,
Reformed, Lutherans, Orthodox. Some
members are Buddhists, some have broken
the links with their churches. The
guests who are invited to meet and
speak to the group come from all these
religious origins and even more (Jewish,
Muslim, and others). Most are ministers
but the group makes a strong
point to be in close contact with secular
society by inviting journalists, politicians,
social activists, etc.
The life of the group is centered
around faith, friendship and sharing of
concerns. Concerns include personal
development, struggles with sexual orientation,
faith, loneliness, illness, and
the homophobia of the church and society.
The members of C+H seek to promote
inclusiveness in church and society.
Not surprisingly, these 11 years
have been very rich for the members of
C+H.
Some examples will illustrate the life
of C+H. Beside the monthly meetings,
there are celebrations at Christmas and
other special days. Also, once a year, a
spiritual retreat is organized in a monastery
in our region or with another
Christian community. These special
events nurture the faith of the attendees
and reinforce the bonds which link
the group together.
On the side of activism, the members
of C+H wrote a 40-page booklet—
unique in French— discussing the issue
of homosexuality and Christian faith.
Written by more than one individual
and widely debated within the group,
the construction of this booklet was a
fascinating experience. For the first
time, the authors were forced to face
acutely their beliefs and doubts, to express
their deep feelings with clarity, to
make themselves coherent in their personal
debates. This work was a source
of growth, received with gratitude as a
gift of God. The first edition (500 copies)
of the booklet was sold out in two
months! The second edition is also out
of stock.
The booklet was sent to all the ministers
of the Reformed Church of
Geneva, to the local authorities of the
Roman Catholic Church, to many
churches in French-speaking Switzerland,
France and Belgium. It triggered
a number of interesting contacts. The
general tone of the booklet— non aggressive
and modest— was usually appreciated
by the readers who would
have been turned off by the sharp
voice of an angry minority. They were
surprised and impressed in reading
the profession of faith of a group of
humble human beings challenged by
their particularity.
What will be the next concerns of
C+H? First, there is the everlasting debate
on the integration of gays and lesbians
in the ministry of the church. Secondly,
there is also debate on the
wisdom of creating a welcoming gay
and lesbian church instead of working
in the traditional churches for more
openness. Thirdly, the issue of blessing
gay and lesbian couples is on the
agenda, boosted by the wide national
discussion in nearby France about the
PACS (Civil Pact of Solidarity—domestic
partnerships). Finally, C+H should
not only make its voice heard and speak
to the Christian community, but also
to the lesbigay community who believe
Christians and Christian communities
can share very little that is worthwhile
or appropriate for their lives. Such
reaching out would be to strengthen
gays and lesbians in their search for an
authentic spirituality.
These are subjects in which a group
like C+H has to make its voice heard in
a clear way. This is not simple, as its
members are not all on the same wave
length. Consider the benediction of
What Will
John Calvin Think?
Gay and Lesbian Christians in Geneva
Alfred A. Manuel
24 Open Hands
same sex couples. While everybody
agrees that it should be part of the life
of the churches, there are large divergencies
about the form. Should it be a
marriage or have a different form? In
Switzerland, the German-speaking region
is more in favor of a marriage and
some churches have already included
this practice in their life. This position
is coherent with the culture of Northern
Europe, where same sex marriages
are already a reality in some countries.
French-speaking Switzerland is more
oriented toward the Latin tradition,
where marriage is thought to be
uniquely devoted to heterosexual
unions. Same sex couples could possibly
be blessed with a different ritual,
still to be invented. For Geneva, being
at the border of the two cultures, the
advice is quite divergent. Let’s hope that
openness will operate once more so that
gay and lesbian couples will, in the near
future, be welcome in the churches,
breaking a de-facto discrimination.
The issue of gay and lesbian ministers
is a major concern of the local
lesbigay community. In Geneva, little
effort is made to dialogue on this subject
with the Roman Catholic church.
There are obvious reasons for that. The
Reformed Church of Geneva has a position
based on openness which makes
the dialogue unnecessary. It does not
consider the sexual orientation of ministers
in discerning effective ministry:
The Reformed Church of Geneva does not consider
the sexual orientation of ministers in discerning
effective ministry: the human and professional qualities of the
candidates are what count. But, as this position is neither
written in the constitution nor in the regulations,
the situation is of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” variety.
the human and professional qualities
of the candidates are what count. But,
as this position is neither written in the
constitution nor in the regulations, the
situation is of the “don’t ask, don’t tell”
variety, not the most healthy and secure
policy.
C+H must keep an eye open for future
developments, working toward a
more open era for gay and lesbian Christians,
not only in Geneva but with their
brothers and sisters worldwide.
Alfred Manuel is a physicist at the University
of Geneva. Married with four children,
he is a volunteer of the Geneva AIDS
Support Group and member of the Reformed
Church of Geneva. He is one of
the founders of C+H, whom he thanks for
their comments and advice on this article.
On March 26, 1999, the Reverend Gregory Dell, pastor of Broadway
United Methodist Church in Chicago, was found guilty in a church trial
and suspended from his ministry for violating the law of his church
by blessing a homosexual union.
“We express our gratitude and admiration for the witness
of Greg Dell, and we hope for the day when the ministry
he performs will not be the occasion for division within the church.”
— Resolution adopted April 14, 1999,
by the Board of Directors
Protestants for the Common Good
Gratitude, admiration
and hope for the day . . .
Protestants for the Common Good
People of faith advancing justice in public life
200 N. Michigan, Suite 502, Chicago, Illinois 60601 • (312) 223-9544
Spring 1999 25
The Lesbian & Gay Christian
Movement (LGCM) of the
United Kingdom has planned a
series of regional meetings for congregations
to consider joining a list of “inclusive
churches.” (See Movement
News, Winter 1999 issue.) The church
of which I’m minister, St Columba’s,
Cambridge, is hosting the last of these
in December for interested congregations
in the east of England. The elders
of the congregation agreed some time
ago to permit the blessing of same-sex
unions, provided the minister used the
same care and preparation as for a heterosexual
wedding. After a long debate
they agreed to this unanimously, which
impressed me as, in other ways, they’re
fairly cautious, even conservative. Since
the formation of the United Reformed
Church (URC) in 19721 we also have
“church meeting” at least four times a
year. If I had taken it to a full church
meeting, I might have had a slightly
different result, but the elders believed
that it was the “session” (as we’re not
called anymore!) to decide matters of
worship.
In 1997 the Assembly of the URC
set up a number of working groups to
consider the matter of human sexuality,
especially in relation to the ordination
of ministers. The working groups’
reports (and that of the “core group”)
are to be presented to the Assembly this
year. What concerned the conservatives
is that the 1997 Assembly passed a resolution
(number 19) affirming that,
“during the process of further reflection
and discussion…the fact of a homosexual
relationship shall not be the
ground for rejecting a candidate for
ministry during the process of selection,
assessment, entry to a college or course
of ministerial training.”
Candidates for the ministry (“ordinands”)
are accepted as such by the
national church at the very beginning
of their three or four years of theological
education; ordinands/ministers receive
their “call” from a local congregation
or group of congregations, which
then needs the concurrence of the district
council (presbytery) for it to proceed,
and it is the council which conducts
the ordination/induction service.
The conservatives took resolution
number 19 to mean that the URC had
adopted a new policy which accepted
the ordination of lesbians and gay men.
In fact, as the clerk to the General Assembly
(who happens to be a member
of my congregation!) pointed out, the
resolution was simply clarifying what
has always been the case—i.e., that, as
we have never used a person’s sexual
orientation as a means to bar before,
we needed to make it clear that during
the period of study the status quo would
remain in effect.
In the two years since, the conservatives
have mobilized well (the URC is,
in general, a “liberal” church), with
threats from a few congregations and
ministers to leave. The General Assembly’s
“mission council” (not a council
of the church but the Assembly’s executive
or central committee) is so frightened
of disunity and threats to leave
that it has come out with a new resolution
for this year’s Assembly which
reads, “…the URC affirms and welcomes
people of homosexual orientation
within the life of the church and society,
but does not believe that there is a
sufficiently clear mind within the
church at this time to affirm the acceptability
of homosexual practice,” and has
invited the national church to accept
this as policy.
This is an ambiguous statement
which pacifies the conservatives and
seems to be not as inclusive as resolution
19 of 1997. If passed at this year’s
Assembly it will be sent to the other
councils of the church—provincial synods,
district councils, and local church
meetings. If more than a third of any of
these pass a resolution stating “the statement
be not accepted” then the resolution
will not go to the General Assembly
2000 to be voted on as policy. To
many, the whole process seems full of
holes! LGCM is therefore working to
amend or defeat it either with a simple
ammendment making clear that the
national church is divided (amending
“to affirm” to “to affirm or deny”) or
with an alternative fully inclusive resolution.
1The URC was formed in 1972 by the union
of the Presbyterian Church of England and
the Congregational Church in England and
Wales. In 1981, the Churches of Christ
joined (known as Disciples of Christ in
Canada and the USA), and in 1999-2000 the
Congregational Union of Scotland joins.
The URC, like the Church of Scotland, is a
Reformed church.
Keith Riglin is minister of St. Columba’s
Church, Cambridge, England (URC), and
of the Church of Scotland chaplaincy to
the University of Cambridge.
Debate on Ordination
in the
United Reformed Church
of the UK
Keith Riglin
26 MINISTRIES Open Hands
Individual Integrity vs. Institutional Injunction
Leslie Penrose
It is with prayers for its future
well-being that I initiate the
process of withdrawing from
the United Methodist Church.
The primary reason for my withdrawal
after 18 years of ministry
is the increasing focus on
complaints and charges regarding
my ministry of blessing
same-sex covenant relationships.
It seems that the options
have finally been reduced to either withdrawing or preparing
for trial. I simply will not participate in putting God’s grace—
or my privilege as a pastor to bless and celebrate any and every
relationship where the fruits of the spirit bear witness to that
grace—on trial. Nor will I hide or lie about the ministry I do.
From the time six years ago when I was sent by the Oklahoma
Conference to create a reconciling base community
ministry in Tulsa, those who gathered to become the Community
of Hope have worked to be honest about who we are
and what our ministry is, without insisting that others agree
with or embrace our ministry. We have consistently insisted
Greg Dell
On March 26 the Trial Court
of the Northern Illinois Conference
found me guilty of “disobedience
to the Order and Discipline
of the United Methodist Church”
because I had celebrated a service
of Holy Union for a gay couple in
our congregation. The imposed
penalty was for me to be suspended
from pastoral office. The
suspension begins July 5, 1999 and continues until either I
sign a statement that I will not do such services or until the
restriction prohibiting them is lifted. If we appeal the decision
of the trial court and the appeal is successful, that could
also result in the suspension being modified or lifted.
Since the verdict my wife and I have received hundreds of
communications, the overwhelming majority from people who
are supportive. They are people in and well beyond our congregation,
clergy and lay, gay and straight, old and young, of
every color in God’s human rainbow. What they have in common
is a deep support for this congregation, me, and the ministry
we and others like us represent.
In every category they were about equally divided in their
passionate advice that I either should or should not sign the
statement of agreement. Those who wanted me to do so said
that we had already made our point and that there was no use
in further injuring my or the congregation’s ministry. Some
of them also felt that the issue of Holy Unions was not the
issue to “go to the mat” over in the struggle around sexual
orientation.
On the other side were those who argued that all would be
meaningless if we “caved in” to a demand for a loyalty statement.
If I signed, the church could once again ignore or cynically
minimize the cost its exclusionary pronouncements exact.
I finally decided that while I couldn’t ignore what people
were saying I had to go to a deeper place to come to an answer.
As I said in October at the beginning of all of this, I did
not conduct Karl and Keith’s service in ignorance of what its
political or practical consequences might be. But those consequences
were not what were most important. I did what I did
In the aftermath of Jimmy Creech’s trial
(See the Leadership column of the Spring
1998 issue.) and 95 United Methodist
clergy blessing a lesbian couple in the
California Nevada Conference (See
Movement News of the Winter 1999
issue.), two other United Methodist
clergy have responded in uniquely faithful
ways to their denomination’s ban
on the blessing of same-gender relationships.
In March, Leslie Penrose turned
in her credentials to the Oklahoma Annual
Conference, and Greg Dell, found
guilty of “disobedience” in a church
trial, has resisted signing a statement
that he will not perform same-gender
blessings. Here are their letters written
to friends and colleagues.
L
E
A
D
E
R
S
H
I
P
Photo: Dale Fast
Spring 1999 MINISTRIES 27
that ministries of healing and hope, and not gay advocacy, be
our focus; while at the same time naming homophobia and
inhospitality as antithetical to the Gospel, refusing to be silent
in the face of them. We have asked only for tolerance and
respect, and have tried to offer the same. However, increasingly,
the goodness and dignity of gay and lesbian persons
and their loving, committed relationships are so consistently
and officially devalued and dishonored within in this conference
and by this denomination, that I can no longer maintain
my affiliation with integrity.
Secondly, I have decided to withdraw because the ministries
of justice and compassion, to which God’s church has
been called and in which this congregation is engaged, are
too urgent and too important for us to faithfully allow any
more time or energy to be diverted by denominational arguments
about whether or not gay and lesbian persons are part
of the body of Christ. Since the day this congregation was
called into existence, gay and lesbian persons have been being
the body of Christ— offering their gifts and graces, their
time and energy, their hearts and hands, in loving service to
God and neighbor—while the broader church has debated their
acceptability.
“Anyone who does the will of God is my brother or sister,”
Jesus said (Mark 3:35). That debate was settled long ago. And
yet, women, men, and children in Oklahoma, in the U.S., and
around the world continue to be robbed of life every day by
hunger, homelessness, abuse, addiction, and violence, while
the UMC spends more and more of its time and resources
fighting over who is allowed to love whom. Internal struggles
over control and authority have seduced the broader church
into forgetting its call to be the bearers of God’s gospel of
hope and love to a hurting world. I am weary of the forgetting
and of the fighting, and want my life and our ministry as a
community of faith to once again be about remembering Jesus
in ways that honor the life he lived among and for us.
Leslie Penrose is in the process of transferring her clergy credentials
from the United Methodist Church to the United Church of
Christ. A graduate of Phillips Theological Seminary, she has served
in parish ministry for 18 years. Since 1986 she has facilitated annual
trips to Central America for groups seeking reconciling partnerships
with communities in Guatemala and Nicaragua. Her two
children are grown, and she and her husband are delighted to have
an 18-month-old granddaughter, Emily (in the photo with Leslie).
guided by what I felt I would or wouldn’t be as a pastor, as a
Christian, and as a human being by doing or not doing it.
That meant that for that decision and now this one, I needed
to pray, think, feel, and try to listen to my heart, which, biblically,
is where God always speaks. I decided I could not sign
the statement.
On April 14 we had a church council/congregational meeting
attended by over 60 persons. At that meeting the staffparish
relations committee presented a proposal to respond
to the situation of suspension. After considerable, spirited discussion
a proposal was adopted unanimously by the church
council. There was a lot of pain, even more excitement, and a
few disagreements, but I didn’t sense a contentious or hostile
moment in anything that took place. [The result was a decision
to hire] me as director of “In All Things Charity.” I.A.T.C.
is a national movement begun in 1997 to protest the
denomination’s negative policies on sexual orientation. Its
work is directed toward influencing the United Methodist
General Conference in May of 2000, and is currently in coalition
with the three other national groups in our denomination
which are working on this issue. In 1998 Broadway
Two Responses to a Ban on Same-Gender Blessings
adopted the movement as one of its ministries and it is funded
under Broadway’s tax exempt status.
On Sunday, April 11, we began a new membership exploration
series. Normally the spring offering of this opportunity
has the smallest enrollment— usually four to 10 persons. On
that day— a few weeks after the verdict and only three months
from the beginning of the suspension— 27 persons came together
to consider being part of this church! They did that, I
believe, because they see this church as “on the way.” I agree
with them. We have only just begun.
Greg Dell has served as a United Methodist pastor for 29 years
and has been married for 31 years. He will now serve as director of
In All Things Charity, a gay-affirming program supported by
Chicago’s Broadway United Methodist Church, and will serve as a
consultant to Broadway’s interim pastor. On April 14, the church
council and congregation adopted a statement of support for their
pastor and their “celebration of their diversity” that reads in part,
“the ministry of Greg Dell has been a blessing to all in our congregation
and community.”
28 MINISTRIES Open Hands
For the Least of These
The Current Class Divide and the
Obligations of Christian L/G/B/Ts
Amanda Udis-Kessler
Class divide? What class divide? Don’t the major
newspapers say that our country’s economic
situation is the best in years? Aren’t we mostly
doing well individually? Given that we have
to deal with homophobic violence, rejection
in many churches, and conservatives stifling
legalized same-sex marriage, can’t we at least
breathe a sigh of relief that things are going
well on the societal financial front?
Unfortunately, we can’t.
Economic inequality (in wages, income and
wealth) has been increasing since the early
1970s, and its effects are causing profound
damage to the physical, mental and spiritual
well-being of those on the bottom. Downsizing,
wage and benefit cuts, and the closing of factories
are examples of business reneging on the
social contract that sustained working-class
America from the 1950s into the 1970s. In the
1980s, “bottom line” mentality won out over
generosity of spirit, and Wall Street made a religion of greed.
Corporations are becoming less accountable, more powerful
locally, and more global in their reach, and are increasingly
able to have an impact even on those government entities
that ought to favor the well-being of the poor over worship of
the market.
Accordingly, the notion of public responsibility is losing
its credibility as previously public (governmental) functions
are privatized. Our municipal, state and federal governments
are literally withdrawing from taking care of “their” publics.
Among the many results of these shifts, one out of every four
American children lives in poverty. Communities that relied
on manufacturing jobs to move from poor to working- and
lower-middle class are finding themselves in trouble as the
jobs are automated, or simply moved overseas. The poorest
are barely surviving physically, let alone spiritually.1
How can those of us who are flourishing materially be unaware
of such troubling social patterns? One important answer
is the increasing physical divide between the rich (and
sufficiently well-off) and the poor (and almost-poor). The most
successful persons flee to suburbia or buy safety in gated communities,
withdrawing their money from towns and cities
desperately in need. In the meantime, the quality of life, and
the range of life chances, shrink in areas where there are not
enough resources to provide sufficient safety nets, let alone
opportunities to flourish. It is impossible to love our neighbors
if they are invisible, which the spatial separation between
rich and poor more or less guarantees. At the same time, both
the well-off and the poor are spiritually devastated by the physical
and moral barricading.2
If we are to follow Jesus’ command to love our neighbors,
we must take this situation seriously and develop a compassionate
gospel response, as difficult as that may be. It’s worth
remembering that Jesus was a peasant, and that his teaching
and healing mostly took place among other peasants, whom
he called blessed. His commands to turn the other cheek, offer
one’s coat as well as one’s shirt, and “go the extra mile”
(Matt 5:38-41) were not about being kindly; they were survival
instructions to a humiliated, financially strapped, occupied
people. His valuation of the socially devalued, including
his open table fellowship, challenged the socioeconomic inequality
of his day; his parable of the sheep and the goats
reminds us that we serve the Rabbi now by serving those in
need today. Who are today’s “peasants”? Inner-city youth?
Those people in rural areas cruelly insulted as “trailer trash”?
Who else might need our economic neighborliness? We are
called to take care of them—structurally, as well as personally.3
What does this have to do with lesbian/gay/bisexual/
transgender people? Even if we are doing well economically,
we share a certain kinship with the poor of Jesus’ time and of
our own: our limited life chances in a heterosexist society,
which have to do with our status devaluation as sexual minorities.
We would be able to marry legally, be ordained, and
live free of the fear (or experience) of attack, were we were not
a socially devalued group. We would not risk the loss of jobs,
housing, or family approval. Everyone on the underside of
the great economic divide faces their own kinds of diminished
opportunities4; perhaps even those of us who are not financially
struggling can see from our own experiences how diminished
life chances for anyone damage the spirits of everyone.
What, then, are we to do concretely? God’s House is built,
not just with our prayer and personal kindness, but with our
money, votes, activist energy and will to confront what theologian
Walter Wink calls “the Powers that be.” We are called
to educate ourselves and others; to buy, invest and vote in
socially just ways where possible; to call our politicians and
our corporations to accountability; to organize5; and to use
our economic privilege on behalf of those without. We have a
place in healing the class divide, and a commandment—or
two Great Commandments—to get to work.
Amanda Udis-Kessler is a writer, sociologist
and musician in greater Boston.
Notes
1See Charlie Derber, Corporation Nation (New
York: St. Martin’s, 1998); James Galbraith, Created
Unequal (New York: Free Press, 1998);
Jonathan Kozol, Amazing Grace (New York:
HarperCollins, 1995); Holly Sklar, Chaos or Community?
(Boston: South End Press, 1995).
2See Edward Blakely and Mary Snyder, Fortress America (Washington,
DC: Brookings Institute, 1997); Mike Davis, City of Quartz (New
York: Vintage, 1990); Michael Sorkin, ed., Variations on a Theme Park
(New York: Noonday Press, 1992).
3Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (New York:
HarperCollins, 1995); John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary
Biography (New York: HarperCollins, 1995); Walter Wink, The Powers
That Be (New York: Doubleday, 1998).
4As do women and people of color more generally. I don’t mean to
ignore the various overlapping and interwoven kinds of inequality,
nor to suggest that all l/g/b/t people are well-off.
5United for a Fair Economy, my suggested starting point, can be
reached at 617-423-2148, stw@stw.org (email), or www.stw.org (web
site).
CONNECTIONS
Spring 1999 29
“Lord, if you were here…”
we cry, helpless, forgetting
“Greater works than these….”
Christian
Haikus
Philip W. Gilman
Sustaining
the Spirit
Philip Gilman is a retired land surveyor, long-time student of the
Bible, an elder and deacon of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),
and the “token gay” for Monmouth Presbytery (NJ) since 1973.
Skills of rhetoric,
clever arguments, do not
proclaim the gospel.
Salt and light can be
used to fester wounds and blind,
or to cure and guide.
“Behold, I’m making
a new heaven and new earth.”
“No need, Lord. I’m saved.”
“Who will go for us?”
God pleads. We decline: “I’m on
my way to worship.”
On the first day of
creation, God said: “Light, be!”
Then Jesus: “Be light.”
If Christ died just once,
why must I be baptized twice:
Red Sea and Jordan?
“I am who I am,”
God said. “By God’s grace,” said Paul,
“I am what I am.”
Christian, why do you
struggle for supremacy
and control, not love?
30 Open Hands
[For news on the trial of UMC minister Greg Dell,
see Leadership column, p 26.]
National L/G/B/T Religious Leaders
Roundtable Forming; International
Ecumenical Coalition Proposed
Over 70 representatives of l/g/b/t-affirming religious organizations
met in Washington, D.C. in late January to plan for
the future of a new interfaith coalition. The Public Policy Institute
of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and Equal
Partners in Faith convened the Religious Roundtable in July,
1998. Its purpose is to develop stronger relationships among
leaders of groups addressing our concerns in religious contexts
and to provide a stronger religious voice in the public
forum advocating for justice. During the recent meeting, a
steering committee was designated to refine the group’s mission
statement and to develop a plan for the operations and
staffing of the Roundtable. The next meeting in Colorado
Springs in August will include a public education event.
Independently, a call for an Ecumenical Coalition for International
Human Rights in regards to Sexual Orientation has
emerged from discussions among churches sponsored by The
United Church of Canada at the 8th Assembly of the World
Council of Churches in Harare, Zimbabwe, in December, 1998.
The Coalition would be an informal grouping of denominations
and religious organizations which support protections
for g/l/b/t people within the framework of international human
standards and agreements. The group would facilitate
communication between churches and governments, as well
as advocacy on issues related to our concerns, including much
needed study by the UN Human Rights Commission of our
need for human rights. The proposal is being circulated for
responses, and may be obtained in full from The United Church
of Canada, ATTN. Dr. David G. Hallman, 3250 Bloor St. W.,
Toronto, Canada M8X2Y4; Fax 416/232-6005; Phone
416/231-5931; 24hr voicemail 416/231-7680 x 5051; e-mail:
dhallman@web.net
Open Hands Begins Process of
Independence
Open Hands, founded and funded initially by the Reconciling
Congregation Program, has entered a new phase of its
growth and development. Though the RCP currently underwrites
one-third of publication expenses, six ecumenical partners
have begun in recent years serving on the Advisory Committee
and contributing to the quarterly’s financial support.
At its fall meeting, publisher Mark Bowman initiated talks on
increasing independence of the publication from the RCP. The
RCP also discussed this possibility at its fall meeting. During a
special meeting of the Open Hands Advisory Committee in
Chicago April 9-10, a tentative initial phase was developed for
Movement
News
comment from the leadership of the sponsoring welcoming
programs. This is intended to be a slow and careful process
that may take years to realize, intended to improve Open Hands’
editorial content, marketing, and business administration, while
freeing up some RCP resources to address other needs.
Presbyterian Official Tries to Block Award
to Janie Spahr
The Rev. Jane Adams Spahr, known affectionately as a “lesbian
evangelist” in her role as executive director of That All
May Freely Serve, a l/g/b/t-affirming ministry of a More Light
congregation (Downtown Presbyterian Church of Rochester,
N.Y.), has been named one of three recipients of the prestigious
Presbyterian Women of Faith awards for 1999. But not
without difficulty.
A committee representing five official Presbyterian women’s
groups selected Spahr, along with Elder Jane Dempsey Douglas,
a retired professor at Princeton Theological Seminary (who
has voiced support for gay rights in the church) and Elder Letty
Russell, a professor at Yale Divinity School, liberation theologian,
and feminist, who recently came out as a lesbian and
resigned from her presbytery as a minister, declaring herself
“in, but not of, the Presbyterian Church.”
But the Rev. Curtis A Kearns Jr., head of the National Ministries
Division (NMD), parent to the Women’s Ministries Program
Area, the umbrella group sponsoring the award, directed
the NMD steering committee to “review” the award because,
he said, “To recognize her would appear to endorse the position
for which she’s been advocating”—i.e., the full acceptance
of l/g/b/t Presbyterians. That committee also rejected the honor
for Spahr. Significantly, Spahr received word that the award
had been denied her on Good Friday, April 2, well before the
NMD steering committee had been consulted, according to
the Presbyterian News Service. Typical of her pastoral and prophetic
style, she then initiated a meeting with Kearns to discuss
the attitudes that prompted his opposition.
In an apparent rebuke to Kearns and the NMD steering committee,
however, the executive committee of the General Assembly
Council voted 9-2 on April 26 to reverse their decision.
The award will be presented to the Rev. Spahr during the
women’s breakfast at the annual Presbyterian General Assembly,
meeting this June in Fort Worth, Texas.
UCC Outreach to LGBTQ Youth
The UCC Coalition for LGBT Concerns has begun a new
listing called “ONA-Spirited Youth.” Its intention is to recognize
and celebrate the “ONA Spirit” of many of the youth and
young adults in the United Church of Christ. Groups of youth
and young adults may submit any event, action, or activity
which raises awareness or extends a welcome to lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people.
Through this listing in publications and on the Web, it hopes
to spread the word in the UCC, the wider church and society
of the inclusive thoughts and actions of the denomination’s
young people. For information contact: Tim Brown, Youth &
Young Adult Program, The Coalition, P.O. Box 428, Greeley,
CO 80631 or e-mail: gayyouth@ecunet.org
Spring 1999 31
Welcoming
Communities
RECONCILING IN CHRIST
Holy Spirit Lutheran Church
Kirkland, Washington
Sometimes success comes out of an apparent setback.
The idea of welcoming gay and lesbian people was introduced
to this 1,000 member suburban Seattle congregation at
their synod assembly. Although a Reconciling in Christ resolution
introduced at the synod assembly did not pass, it gave
visibility to the program and planted the seed of an idea. Members
of Holy Spirit took the idea back to the congregation for
study. The pastor was concerned that it would cause too much
controversy. The lay people, however, were enthusiastic and
moved forward. The pastor wanted to move slowly but the
church council said, no, we’re ready now. They took a congregational
vote which was overwhelmingly positive. Only one
family left as a result of the vote. The pastor now leads a fourweek
series of discussions on welcoming people of all sexual
orientations, intended to help members better understand the
significance of their affirmation of welcome.
Urban Servant Corps
Denver, Colorado
This local service organization is composed of 10 young people
who live in Christian community for a year at a time. They are
placed in social justice agencies in Denver and are paid a small
stipend for their volunteer work. The Urban Servant Corps was
started by a Lutheran pastor and has a board of directors from
local Lutheran congregations. After attending a workshop on
the Reconciling in Christ program sponsored by the Rocky
Mountain Synod (ELCA) last fall, members of this group took
the idea back to consider how it would apply to them. The
community discussed the meaning of adopting an affirmation
at their weekly Monday night community time, and, after
a few months, presented a proposed statement to the board
of directors. The board approved the affirmation to welcome
g/l/b/t people to their community. In addition, the board agreed
to place a future volunteer with the local chapter of PFLAG
and Equality Colorado, a local faith-based justice organization
which focuses on gay rights issues.
RECONCILING CONGREGATIONS
John Street United Methodist Church
Camden, Maine
John Street UMC was formed 10 years ago by
the merger of two United Methodist churches. The merged
congregation built an attractive, new church facility. Since it
is located in a resort area of Maine, many of John Street’s 230
members do not live there the whole year round. A strong music
program attracts many persons to John Street. The congregation
supports a food pantry and other local missions.
UPCOMING GATHERINGS
June 18-20
First Welcoming Lutheran Conference: “Tough Faith
for Tough Times: Equipping Our Communities for Justice,
Peace, and Reconciliation.” Campus of Augsburg
College, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Keynoter: Dr. Walter
Wink, professor of Theology at Auburn Theological Seminary,
author of the widely-read booklet, Homosexuality and
the Bible. Jointly sponsored by Lutherans Concerned/North
America, Lutheran Human Relations Association, and the
Lutheran Peace Fellowship. Other speakers include Rev.
Gladys Moor, Assistant to the Bishop, New Jersey Synod,
ELCA; and Barb Rossing, professor of New Testament,
Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.
October 8-12
GLAD Alliance 20th Anniversary Gathering in conjunction
with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
150th General Assembly in Cincinnati. Worship, celebration,
socializing, eating, and fun. Hospitality suite at the
Regal Hotel for information. For G.A. registration and housing,
contact G.A. online at www.disciples.org/ga99/
index.htm
POSITIONS AVAILABLE
Marketing Manager for Open Hands magazine. This parttime
contract position works with the Open Hands Advisory Committee
to develop strategies and activities to promote subscriptions
to the magazine and to oversee implementation of this
work. $500 per month (25-30 hours) plus expenses; provide
own office space and equipment; begin in September 1999.
Worship Resource Coordinator to publish ecumenical welcoming
worship resource book. This part-time, temporary
contract position works with the leaders of eight welcoming
church programs to solicit, compile and edit worship resources
from welcoming churches and to oversee design and publication
of this new resource. $7,500 plus expenses; provide own
office space and equipment. Publication by late spring 2000.
To apply for either position, send letter of interest
and resume to RCP office; fax: 773/736-5475; e-mail:
mark@rcp.org.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS NOW!
Witness our Welcome 2000: God’s Promise is for You
Mass Ecumenical Gathering of Welcoming Congregations
Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois
August 3-6, 2000
DON’T MISS THIS HISTORIC EVENT!
Sponsored by:
• Affirming Congregations (United Church of Canada)
• Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists
• More Light Presbyterians
• Open & Affirming Ministries (Disciples of Christ)
• Open and Affirming Program (UCC)
• Reconciling Congregations (United Methodist)
• Reconciling in Christ Churches (Lutheran)
• Supportive Congregations (Brethren/Mennonite)
32 Open Hands
St. John’s United Methodist Church
Lubbock, Texas
A university church located across the street from the campus
of Texas Tech University, St. John’s is noted for its excellence
in worship and music and has a long history of being a leader
in the city and annual conference on social justice concerns.
This racially diverse congregation of 575 members is largely
comprised of persons working in educational, medical and legal
fields. St. John’s provides food vouchers for poor persons.
It sponsors a pro bono legal clinic and a chapter of Parents,
Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). St. John’s
motto is “Open Hearts, Open Arms, and Open Minds.”
St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
Ithaca, New York
St. Paul’s is a historic church which has been in its present
location since the early 20th century. The trademark of this
congregation of 750 persons is that it is a community with an
“open and welcoming heart.” Ithaca is a university town, so a
large number of students are included in this intergenerational
congregation. Congregational life seeks to integrate spiritual
development with being in mission. Educational programs
explore spiritual gifts and the Bible. A Volunteers in Mission
group will travel to Lithuania this summer. A strong Reconciling
Ministries group has held numerous educational events in
the community and is planning a g/l/b art show this fall.
St. Stephen United Methodist Church
Mesquite, Texas
St. Stephen UMC was formed in the 1950s in an area of new
suburban development. Its unusual building, modeled on the
catacombs, was dedicated in 1962. The congregation was active
in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s
and 70s. Its current membership of 325 persons includes working
and middle class families with some racial diversity. St.
Stephen currently engages in three primary ministry areas:
music, youth, and anti-hunger. Youth will go on a mission trip
with Habitat for Humanity this summer. Members volunteer
in different feeding programs in the Dallas area and participate
in the CROP Walk. The congregation is currently exploring
options for ministry as a Reconciling Congregation.
Uncasville United Methodist Church
Uncasville, Connecticut
Uncasville UMC was formed 21 years ago as a live-in church
community or house church in southeastern Connecticut, near
New London. The concept of the community was to pool time
and resources in order make a significant impact in one area
of mission. Currently sixteen adults and children live in seven
apartments in three buildings. Other persons who do not live
in the Uncasville community participate in the mission. The
mission focus for the past fourteen years has been Nicaragua.
Uncasville is in covenant with a Nicaraguan church body working
together to help villages become self-supporting. Uncasville
supports one community worker who lives in Nicaragua and
regularly sends volunteer workers. Uncasville also supports a
community transformation project in rural Maine.
OPEN AND AFFIRMING PROGRAM
Tolt Congregational Church,
United Church of Christ
Carnation, WA
The 105 members of this rural-becoming-suburban
church have as their motto: “Journeying in faith—Growing in
the Spirit.” Desiring to nurture adults and youth in their connection
to God, they have developed active Christian education
and children’s ministry programs. Desiring to strengthen
their relationships with each other, the congregation is exploring
consensus decision-making and related listening and problem-
solving skills. With its ONA commitment stated in bulletins,
publications, and on the church sign, it continues to
proclaim this part of its identity.
United Church of Hayward
Hayward, CA
Located across the east bay from San Francisco, this congregation
which “grew up with the neighborhood” from the 1950s
is celebrating its 40th anniversary! Its 100 adult members are
largely older persons who, over the years, have come to know
church youth and some of their own grandchildren who are
gay or lesbian. So when it came to ONA, they wanted to be
clear that the church is a place for “all God’s children”! It shares
this message (along with other area churches) in regular street
demonstrations—standing at the busiest intersection during the
afternoon commute with signs reading “No room for racism,”
“No room for homophobia” etc. (They get a lot of “thumbs
up”!) The congregation is now attracting some new younger
members who like its spirit of inclusiveness and its great choir.
Fauntleroy Church, United Church of Christ
Seattle WA
In an older suburb of Seattle, this is a growing church of some
500 members. With more than 120 children in Sunday School,
they are eagerly seeking a new Director of Christian Education.
Members represent a wide spectrum of opinions on political
and social issues. Thus, theirs is a Christian community
where people can learn to care for one another even as they
disagree. Although members have differing opinions on the
issue of “same-gender marriage,” the church recently declined
to sign a “marriage agreement,” which a number of other area
churches supported, because of its implied bias against same
gender commitments.
MORE LIGHT PRESBYTERIANS
First Presbyterian Church of Cottage Grove
Cottage Grove, Oregon
The decision to become a More Light Church is an
expression of the Cottage Grove Church’s years of involvement
with issues of social justice and human rights. The congregation
of approximately 150 members was active in the
Sanctuary Movement and has a continuing involvement with
the struggle for affordable housing. Its pastor, the Rev. Ben
Dake, describes the church as the liberal option in its rural
community.