Open Hands Vol 15 No 1 - Creating Chaos

Open Hands Vol 15 No 1 - Creating Chaos

15

1

1999

Summer

2 Open Hands
Vol. 15 No. 1 Summer 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 CREATIVE CHAOS
Creative Chaos 4
How God Did it and Does it
CHRIS GLASER
God mudwrestles with chaos—material, moral, and ecclesiastical.
Chaos, Uncertainty, Relativism 7
How Do They Speak to People of Faith?
D.S. CARLSTONE
From the Clockwork Universe to Chaos Theory, science
influences our theology.
When Love Stirs the Swamp of Our Psyches 10
Restructuring Spiritual Understandings
DANIEL A. HELMINIAK
Spiritual fecundity in personal chaos.
Hannah’s “Disorder” 11
Her Faithful Response to Chaos
ALLEN HARRIS
“God’s fierce whimsy” seen in Hannah’s and LGBT experience.
Gracious Chaos in the Early Church 13
God’s Radical Grace
JUDITH HOCH WRAY
Early Christianity’s challenges to rethink the family of faith.
Turning the Church Rightside Up to Bless Same-Gender Love 14
ALICE G. KNOTTS AND JOANNE CARLSON BROWN
God said, “Do not call unclean anything that I have made.”
Turning the World Upside Down 16
A Gay Jewish Perspective
JEFF MOSES
Order in chaos, even if not readily apparent.
Homoerotic Mysticism 17
Finding God in Unexpected Places
MICHAEL POZAR
Chaos to some is mystery to the mystics.
Disorderly Conduct: Doing a New Thing 20
Reflections on Ordination
LISA ANN PIERCE
Seeking the transformation of the church rather than a place at
the head of the table.
Summer 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:
Holy/Wholly
Movement News ............................................ 30
Welcoming Communities ............................... 31
Call for articles for Open Hands Spring 2000
FOR ALL THE SAINTS
Stories of the Welcoming Movement
Theme Section: Lest we forget the foundations on which we build, a look back
at individuals, organizations, themes, and issues that have emerged in our movement
to welcome LGBT people into the church, on the occasion of the 15th
anniversary of the magazine. Ideas, personalities, anecdotes, and photos are
welcome along with articles.
Ministries Section: We continue to expand the themes of these columns, which
now may include: Welcoming Process, Connections (with other justice issues),
Worship, Spirituality, Outreach, Leadership, Health, Youth, Campus, Children,
and Parents. These brief articles may or may not have to do with the theme of
the issue.
Contact with idea by January 1, 2000 Manuscript deadline: March 1, 2000
Chris Glaser, Phone/Fax 404/622-4222 or e-mail at ChrsGlaser@aol.com
991 Berne St. SE, Atlanta, GA 30316-1859
Troubling the Waters of Gender Expectations 22
Religious and Queer Vocations
LUDGER H. VIEFHUES, S.J.
How celibates, virgins, and queers threaten a reality
ordered by gender.
MINISTRIES
WELCOMING PROCESS
God Is Up to Something, Even in Congregational Conflict 25
Listening Leaders Bear Fruit
PAT TAYLOR ELLISON
PARENTS
How Can We Reach More Parents? 26
PAUL BEEMAN
SPIRITUALITY
Profound Holiness at the Heart of Gay Love 27
Meeting AIDS Honestly and Lovingly
DANIEL A. HELMINIAK
SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT
A Litany for Worship 28
RON COUGHLIN
4 Open Hands
Creative Chaos
In recent years, more than once
during my morning prayers on
our backyard deck overlooking a
kudzu-covered ravine dotted with
hundred-year-old oaks, I marveled
at how wonderful the life God had
given me was. Everything was going
so well, I could hardly believe
my good fortune. I thanked God
with great joy, and told God it just
didn’t seem like I deserved to be
so happy.
Then chaos struck. I grieved the
loss of my spiritual mentor, Henri
Nouwen. I grieved the loss of my
denomination to those who would
codify their inhospitality (the true
sin of Sodom according to one Rabbinic
midrash). Earlier this year, I
grieved the death of my mother,
my chief fan, best friend, and
earthly and spiritual anchor.
Then I was astonished and devastated
by the loss of my lover,
who announced his desire for
separation. Now I cried to God,
how could it get worse? What
is this all about?
It seems only yesterday I had
it all together.
I’ve always been an existentialist,
but now, more than
ever, I take life one thing at a
time, to paraphrase the 12-
step slogan. “One day at a
time” seems like more than
I can handle.
And I realize that whatever
comes from this chaos,
nothing will remain the
same. My re-reading of
Henri’s work continues to
bear fruitful change in my
life, from his In Memoriam, about his
own mother’s death, to The Inner Voice
of Love, about his own disappointed
love. If my church and I ever reconcile,
both of us will need to change a great
deal. My mother’s death has deepened
my relationships with my sister and
brother and other family members,
bringing us closer than we have been
since we all shared a home. And if my
partner and I are to live together once
more, both of us will need to change
and the relationship transformed—or
we will have to go our separate paths,
forever changed by our encounter as
well as our farewell. Our next relationships
at least have an opportunity to
avoid the same mistakes.
Chaos, to whatever degree, leads to
change.You’re not going to believe this,
but at the end of the last paragraph I
was interrupted by a phone survey. One
of the self-descriptions to which I was
asked to respond on a scale of one to
five, one being, “No, I don’t see myself
that way” and five being, “I view myself
that way” was: “I like change.” I
answered “four,” but I wonder how
honest that was. I am so habit-oriented
that my friends in California were astonished
when I agreed to move to Atlanta
six years ago. I like change “out
there,” perhaps— I’m politically progressive.
But “in here,” close to me, I should
have answered a “two.”
Not all change is creative. Creativity
is the artful response to chaos.
Chaos, Creativity, and the
Word of God
A ny of us who vacation in natural
surroundings this summer, whether
the shore or the mountains or a national
park, will return with the conscious
or unconscious confirmation
that God made an artful response to
chaos, when the divine Spirit blew over
its shadowy substance and called the
Chris Glaser
Chaos and Creativity
A nyone who’s seen my desk
when I’m putting together an
issue of Open Hands has witnessed
creative chaos. I’d be embarrassed
if the magazine’s methodical
designer, Jan Graves, or its former meticulously-
organized editor, Mary Jo
Osterman, ever saw the disarray from
which emerge the computer files I
e-mail to Jan for design. “Phoenix
resurgens,” could be not only the motto
of the city in which I live, much of
which was burned by General Sherman
in that “war of northern aggression,”
but the mess from which arises yet another
issue of Open Hands. Hey, lest any
of you dare throw the first stone, I’ve
seen many pastors’, professors’, and students’
and home and business offices
that make my office look like Spic N’
Span.
My thought process is not dissimilar.
I have a mess of ideas and facts rolling
around in my head and a myriad
of feelings coming from my heart from
which I choose bits and pieces when
sitting down to write or organize anything.
Sometimes my working with
words feels like mudwrestling: I slip and
slide and try to grab hold of that evasive
word or thought or metaphor or
analogy or analysis or broader outline.
I’m not a person who outlines—I sit
down and write, and the outline reveals
itself and then I whack those things that
stick out into line. I understand the
notion of “automatic” writing, even of
those self-proclaimed channelers who
give voice to ancient spirits. Except I’m
giving voice to something in me “that
loves a wall,” that loves order brought
from chaos.
There was a New Yorker cartoon
with an elderly couple seated in highback
chairs in front of a fireplace, presumably
a husband and wife at home.
One says to the other, “It seems like
only yesterday I was on the verge of
getting it all together.”
How God Did It and Does It
Summer 1999 5
cosmos and creatures into being. Obviously,
creation and creature come from
the same root as creativity; so the cosmos
and we ourselves are creative responses
to chaos. As a writer, I have
great affinity for a God who called
things out of chaos by speaking a word,
such as “Let there be light…and there
was light.”
The Bible is testimony to the faith
that creation was not God’s last word.
Moral chaos was swept away by a chaotic
flood, while creatures were saved
in an orderly fashion two by two on an
ark designed by God. The chaos of injustice
in Egypt was relieved by the
Hebrews’ liberation, and the potential
for social disorder in the wilderness and
the yet-to-be-achieved promised land
was diminished by the covenant on
Mount Sinai, in which God called forth
communal harmony and individual
integrity through the Law given to
Moses. The judges adjudicated chaotic
differences among the people, the
priests facilitated atonement (overcoming
chaotic division) between Yahweh
and the community, and the prophets
proclaimed a new order in the face of
the institutionalized chaos of injustice
even in our “best-laid plans” and social
orders.
Then God spoke the last Word for
Christians, the Word (logos=action)
made flesh among us, full of grace and
truth: Jesus. This to deliver us from ultimate
chaos: sin and death, separation
from God in this life and the next. That
Word echoed in the whisper of the
breath of Jesus on his disciples after the
Resurrection in John and the mighty
wind of the Spirit at Pentecost in Acts,
to call out a new community of faith
(ecclesia: the called out ones), a new order
to proclaim the gospel of God’s
commonwealth in word and deed.
Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the church
was and still serves as God’s artful response
to the mess we were making of
God’s creation, even the sacrificial mess
of religion, with its insider/outsider,
pure/impure mentality.
into something beautiful, meaningful,
or useful.
In Romans, where Paul’s discussion
of things working together for good
takes place (chapter 8), the apostle earlier
(5:3-5) proclaims “suffering produces
endurance, and endurance produces
character, and character produces
hope, and hope does not disappoint us,
because God’s love has been poured
into our hearts…” Even the world’s
chaos is viewed as giving birth to a new
thing as “the whole creation has been
groaning in labor pains until now…”
(8:22).
What’s born are the children of God,
the dawning realization of our “adoption”
as God’s beloved, like Christ and
through Christ, as “the first fruits of the
Spirit.” Remember in Acts 1 the first
fruits of this Spirit lead to the apparent
chaos of Pentecost, the babbling in
tongues from which strangers nonetheless
heard the Gospel in their own languages—
and then to Acts 17 where
“those who have turned the world upside
down have come here also.” The
marginalized and disempowered and
disfranchised and excommunicated
suddenly were “blessed” with a
Gospel message that they were beloved
children of God, joint heirs
with Christ, and citizens of the
commonwealth of God because
the commonwealth of God was already
in their midst, albeit with
more to come. Women, lepers,
fishermen, eunuchs, tax collectors,
prostitutes, the poor could
all take their place at the right
and left sides of Jesus at a common
table that took no regard
of class, condition, or various
forms of condemnation.
Chaos, Creativity, and
Biblical Spirituality
T homas Moore, the author of the
bestselling Care of the Soul, contrasts
spirituality and soulfulness. Spirituality
for most people means rising above
one’s personal chaos, gaining perspective
to see that ultimately “all things
work together for good,” recognizing,
as the once popular song goes, that
“from a distance” (where “God is watching
us”!) everything is okay—a revisiting
of the cliché that our experience of
the world is like seeing the backside of
a beautiful tapestry that God can see
from the front. For Moore, soulfulness
is to be preferred over spirituality. Instead
of rising above one’s personal
chaos, one embraces life’s challenges
and opportunities, allowing one’s chaos
to transform the soul into a healthier,
stronger, and wiser entity.
Thus, the contrast between (supposed)
spirituality and soulfulness is
like that between hanggliding and
mudwrestling (my metaphors, not
Moore’s). I agree with Moore’s concept
of spirituality insofar as it is descriptive
of what many people in our culture
think about spirituality. But I believe the
spirituality of the Bible is more akin to
mudwrestling than hanggliding. From
a Hebrew God who wrestles mud into
the first human form to a Christian God
who wrestles into human flesh, the
paradigm for the divine-human encounter
is “hands on” not “flighty,”
“down home” not “above it all.”
“All things work together for good”
for those “who are called, according to
God’s purpose” because what matters
is “not what goes into a person,” i.e.
not what happens to a person, but
“what comes out of a person’s heart,”
i.e. how personal chaos is transformed
within a person’s heart (See Matthew
15:1-20). For those who are called out
according to God’s purpose, all things
work together for good, because “nothing
can separate” them from the love
of God; indeed, everything can connect
them to the love of God— every bit of
personal chaos may be an opportunity
for us to become co-creators with God,
getting down-and-dirty shaping chaos
6 Open Hands
God turned chaos upside down and
created a world. Jesus turned the world
and its religion upside down as he
reached to touch and to heal the spiritually
abused. The Holy Spirit turned and
turns believers upside down so that yet
more strangers may be included in the
common spiritual wealth of God.
That’s the kind of chaos that has always
frightened the church. But that’s the
kind of chaos out of which the church
was created and is re-created.
In the new edition of my first book,
Uncommon Calling, I concluded with this
story:
During a retreat at the Presbyterian
Conference Center of Ghost Ranch,
New Mexico, I visited a church in Taos
named for St. Francis of Assisi. Its thick
adobe walls of brick covered by mud
and straw were made famous by a
painting by Georgia O’Keefe. I learned
that every year the church members
gather to restore the mud on the walls
after the rainy season. Someone once
offered them a permanent solution—
a substance that could be put on the
adobe to keep it from being worn
away. But what they discovered was
that the new material prevent the
walls from breathing, and the interior
brick walls, which are the foundation
for the adobe’s mud and straw, began
to crumble. In order to keep the
church standing, the church had to
remove the “permanent” solution and
return to its annual re-formation of
the church.
What a spiritual metaphor! It’s a
dirty and arduous task, but we must
keep re-forming, remolding, reshaping
the church. As much as we might
want walls and boundaries and divisions
to be permanent, churches are
stronger if they are permeable—open
to the breath of the Spirit, which
blows where she will and blesses
love where she finds it.
Chris Glaser is the editor of
Open Hands and the author
of seven books, including his latest,
Communion of Life—
Meditations for the New Millennium.
AD
Summer 1999 7
Chaos,
Uncertainty,
Relativism
Determinism. Uncertainty. Absolutism.
Relativism. Order.
Chaos. The words could be extracted
from a textbook on modern
physics. However, they also reflect issues
that face post-modern society. On
the one hand are traditionalists, who
see the world in terms of certainty, absolutism,
and order. On the other are
the post-modernists to whom the world
is by no means so certain and clear. To
the latter, the world is filled with uncertainty,
relativism, and chaos. Conflict
arises between the two groups
because of their fundamentally different
frameworks of perception.
It is not surprising that the terminology
employed above has
been borrowed from physics. Science
has always deeply influenced
philosophy and theology, from the
time of Aristotle, and the geocentric
views that emerged from his teaching,
through the helio-centric system
of Copernicus, to Newton and his view
of the universe, and to the present
where concepts of modern physics—
relativity, quantum theory, and chaos—
are beginning to influence our thought.
The Clockwork Universe
Modern thought, it might be argued,
begins with Isaac Newton
and his famous synthesis in which he
showed that the laws that govern the
motion of the heavenly bodies are the
same as those which act on earth. His
work changed the way we think about
the universe, and ourselves. The structure
that evolved is sometimes referred
to as the “clockwork universe.” Start the
universe on its path, with gravity connecting
the bodies, and it evolves in a
clockwork-like, deterministic motion.
More generally, if the initial conditions
of any physical system and the influences
which act between the different
bodies (in physics such influences are
called forces) are known, then, in principle,
the future behavior of the system
can be determined. Hence Newtonian
Determinism refers to the supposed certainly
of the determination of the evolution
of a system of bodies. Of course
the mathematical problem is
formidable. Even in the immediate post-
Newtonian era it was realized that the
general mathematical problem could
not be solved except for very special
cases. Still, the notion of determinism
survives.
Newton assumed that space and absolute
time are absolute. He meant that
fundamental measurements of length
and of time (and presumably mass, as
well), taken in his laboratory, should
agree with those taken in an identical
laboratory, regardless of the relative
state of motion between the two.
The Newtonian world, which came
into being after Galileo helped eliminate
certain unfortunate Aristotelian
influences, therefore, is in many ways
a very comfortable and safe world to
us. It is a world of cause and effect, in
which bodies move predictably according
to the influences exerted upon
them. Space and time are absolute;
motion is deterministic.
The moral equivalent of such a
world, perhaps, is one of absolute certainty
in which truth is always clearly
spoken, and in which some actions are
always wrong. It is the world in which
many of us have been nurtured. This is
not necessarily a bad world. Indeed we
can find many good things in this philosophy.
Yet, it is not a realistic world.
Just as physicists have found severe limitations
on the Newtonian perspective,
our interactions with the world have
shown that many of the assumptions
with which we were raised are no longer
valid, and new principles must be stated
if we are to live effectively. Not surprisingly,
conflict arises when new paradigms
come into conflict with tradition.
Relativity and the
Quantum Theory
The first threat to Newtonian thinking
came at the turn of the twentieth
century when Einstein showed that
the Newtonian assumptions on absolutism
did not hold. According to the special
theory of relativity (and we will not
consider the General Theory), space and
time (and mass) measurements made
D.S. Carlstone
How do they speak
to people of faith?
The Newtonian world… is in
many ways a very comfortable
and safe world to us. It is a
world of cause and effect,
in which bodies move
predictably according to the
influences exerted upon them.
8 Open Hands
by two different observers depend upon
the relative motion of the two systems.
It is incorrect to say Einstein showed,
as we sometimes hear, that “everything
is relative.” Certain invariants (absolutes
in that every observer will measure the
same value for these quantities regardless
of the state of uniform motion) do
occur in the theory. Nonetheless, our
world of absolute thinking has been
shattered.
Quantum theory imposed an almost
simultaneous assault upon Newtonian
physics. (Einstein was deeply involved
in formulating some of the fundamental
concepts, although he later rejected
many of the notions that came out of
quantum theory.) Through a series of
agonizing, almost unbelievable, discoveries,
it finally became accepted that
determinism did not apply on the small
scale, at the level of atoms and molecules.
Newtonian mechanics has been
replaced with a probabilistic theory
known as quantum mechanics. For example,
the quantum theory recognized
that it is not possible to measure the
trajectory (path)— a deterministic concept—
of an atom or subatomic particle.
Only the probability of finding a particle
in a certain region of space could
be measured. Determinism has given
way, on the small scale, to probability.
In such a theory, no longer is it possible
to say with certainty how a particle
or a system of particles will behave.
There are other consequences of
quantum theory. The Uncertainty Principle
(or Indeterminacy Principle) is a
statement of the fundamental limitations
which nature imposes upon our
knowledge of any physical system. Neils
Bohr, the Danish physicist who formulated
the concept of complementarity,
introduces us to a dualistic world in
which it is impossible to simultaneously
claim absolute knowledge about certain
complementary quantities. In the physical
realm, examples would be: position
and momentum, or time and energy.
The concept has been generalized. Bohr
was once asked what is complementary
to Truth. His answer: Clarity. (If a statement
is perfectly clear, it cannot be completely
true. If it is “absolutely” true, it
will be filled with ambiguity.) This is
the nature of the world which we are
now beginning to perceive.
When the quantum theory is combined
with relativity, the view of the
immutability of matter also breaks
down. Atoms, at one time thought to
be immutable objects, decay. Even
those objects thought to be fundamental
(absolute in some sense) have lost
that status as the concepts of process
have come into play.
Process Thought and
Theology
Alfred North Whitehead, a mathematician
as well as a philosopher, is
sometimes said to be the first philosopher
who understood the claims and
implications of relativity and quantum
mechanics. They deeply influenced his
thinking. His book Process and Reality
was published in 1929, when the structure
of quantum mechanics was still
emerging. The result has come to us as
Process Theology. It is
impossible to provide
more than a few of
the aspects of process
thought here. It is a
way of thinking about
God that in some ways
parallels how physics
describes the nature of
reality.
Process Theology
(PT) is concerned with the nature
of change. Reality is seen more in terms
of process than in substance. (Roughly
speaking, the physicist may see a system
not so much as a collection of particles,
but in terms of the reactions between
them.) As an illustration, perhaps
it would be accurate to say that the Bible
is seen not as the Rule Book that governs
all of life, but rather as a source of
wisdom. Beliefs are important not as absolute
statements but as they invoke
thought that influences what we become.
Through the process of interaction
with the Scriptures and doctrines,
we may be changed into something
new, and, hopefully, better. Instead of
viewing God as the Cosmic Moralist, the
Lawgiver, the one who zaps us when
we stray, the emphasis in PT is upon
God’s Divine Love. This implies that we
are created in order to enjoy God. (Lest
it be misunderstood, PT provides no excuse
for amoral behavior. It is understood
that for us to enjoy God, all others
must also have the opportunity of
doing so. Perhaps the greatest enjoyment
is that of striving toward a life that
incorporates the highest of the ideals
that are imparted to us through our interaction
with Scripture. Therefore, the
process person must assume a commitment
that others, too, may be permitted
to enjoy God.)
Process theology challenges many of
the traditional concepts of a theistic
god. In attempting to deal with theodicy
(the question of why a loving God permits
evil in the world), process theologians
picture God as “shrinking” in order
that mankind may have free will.
In doing so, God gives up omniscience
in that he neither knows nor controls
the future. He is no longer seen as the
Controlling Power of the Universe. In
this sense, “God is responsible for the
evil in the world, but not indictable for
it.”1 The future is affected by all the
decisions that you and I make today.
(This thought, too, is greatly influenced
by quantum theory, in which it is understood
that the design of the experiment
affects the observation. The observer
can no longer be regarded as
completely objective. In this sense, we
create our own universe.) Whitehead
saw time not so much as a continuum,
but as a sequence of events, or actions.
God does not control the decisions that
we make, nor does God act coercively.
God acts to persuade us to make decisions
that are consistent with the greater
good. Of course, human beings frequently
make the wrong choices, and
hence evil in the world is purely our
responsibility, not God’s.
If a statement is perfectly clear, it cannot
be completely true. If it is “absolutely”
true, it will be filled with ambiguity.
This is the nature of the world which
we are now beginning to perceive.
Summer 1999 9
These concepts are perhaps difficult
to communicate in our culture. “God
is in control” is frequently heard in our
churches. Part of our emerging mythology
includes the notion of a
“Force” which possesses a definite
will, and determines that nothing
happens by chance. Unfortunately,
the language we use often
reinforces such concepts.
Chaos Theory and the
Butterfly Effect
The third event in the Twentieth
Century that provided a challenge
to Newtonian mechanics is so-called
Chaos Theory. Even in the post Newtonian
world it was recognized that the
clockwork universe was an ideal that
could not be achieved. As indicated, the
mathematical problem was too immense
to solve. Since the invention of
the computer— even the hand calculator
works nicely in many situations— it
has been discovered that the behavior
of certain systems, under a special set
of initial conditions, is not predictable.
(Certain nonlinear equations exhibit
this behavior.) This is often described
as a state of chaos.
The word chaos usually describes a
state of total disorder. It has been known
since the nineteenth century that all
systems, left to themselves, proceed
from a state of order into disorder, or
chaos, but today the word has come to
have a different meaning. Chaos, as the
word is used today in physics, represents
an unpredictable, deterministic state.
The apparent contradiction may be resolved
as follows:
Two apparently identical systems are
never, in reality, absolutely identical.
Their initial states of motion may be
unmeasurably different, and if conditions
are just right, then very slight differences
in the initial conditions can
have a profound effect on the resulting
motion of the two systems. Such behavior
is often referred to as The Butterfly
Effect. One way of stating the principle
is the following: the beating of the
wings of a butterfly in central Asia in
June may influence the weather in the
U.S. Midwest in July. The statement is,
of course, a metaphor, implying that
under proper conditions small affects
may accumulate and become significant.
The irony is that chaos theory is deterministic,
but not predictable. It is
deterministic in that if two identical
systems, under identical influences, are
set in motion identically, they will behave
identically. However, as observed
above, the slight differences in their
initial conditions are such that after a
short time their trajectories begin to
diverge and will continue to do so: they
will follow different paths. Chaotic systems
also are seen to possess an inherent
order that may emerge under proper
circumstances. The reader is invited to
ponder the possible influence that such
behavior might have upon philosophy.
Process theology may also apply in
the discussion of chaos. However, as
observed above, the word chaos has
more than one meaning in physics, and
so it becomes more difficult to draw
conclusions. In general usage, chaos is
seen as bad, order as good. These are
obviously imprecise statements. However,
in physics a chaotic state may have
an underlying order. In Process Theology,
even a chaotic situation may have
intrinsic value. The process of evolution,
in which order is extracted from
chaos, is seen as an expression of God’s
creative action in which God expresses
God’s redeeming love for the world. The
work of Whitehead occurred long before
the invention of chaos theory, or
the big bang theory, but it seems to be
amazingly consistent with recent scientific
discoveries. There is clearly more
to be understood.
Science & Religion
Great intellectual battles have occurred
in science as new discoveries
threaten old ways of thinking, and
new, and sometime outrageous, theories
have been proposed to explain new
knowledge. It is the same, of course, in
theology and philosophy. John Shelby
Spong, the controversial Episcopalian
bishop, has warned that unless the
In physics a chaotic state may have an underlying order.
In Process Theology, even a chaotic situation may have
intrinsic value. Chaotic systems are seen to possess an
inherent order that may emerge under proper circumstances.
The reader is invited to ponder the possible influence
that such behavior might have upon philosophy.
10 Open Hands
The potential for renewal is
what makes chaos welcome.
When Love Stirs the Swamps of Our Psyches
Restructuring Spiritual Understandings
Daniel A. Helminiak
church begins to recognize that modern
science has changed the way we
regard the world, and hence God, it
stands in danger of being judged as
hopelessly obsolete.2 We are still trying
to accommodate the impact of
twentieth century physics into our
thinking. It will happen, but only as a
result of conflict (another process).
Therefore, it is appropriate to ask:
How do Relativism, Uncertainty, and
Chaos affect our understanding of the
world? There is much room for speculation.
Those who possess the biblical
vision of hope might dream that understanding
of these concepts will help
bring on a new era, one in which:
• A tolerant, healing community replaces
our sense of absolute right
and wrong.
• Humility replaces our need for theological
certainty.
• Aspects of Liberation Theology that
remind us of “God’s preferential
option for the poor and oppressed”
replace the greed and pride which
motivate much of what we do.
• Elements of Process Theology,
which understands God to allow the
laws of probability to work, and as
being present in all the decisions we
make, good and bad, replace our understanding
of a fixed, unalterable
Will of God.
Changing paradigms can be frightening,
but rather than fear them, we
should strive to understand them so
that we can help direct thinking in the
right direction.
D. S. Carlstone of Oklahoma
holds a Ph.D. in physics,
and has recently retired
after teaching his subject
for 31 years. He has a longtime
interest in the influence
of science on philosophy
and theology.
Notes
1Couch, John B. Jr, and David Ray Griffin,
Process Theology, The Westminster Press,
Philadelphia (1976).
2Spong, John Shelby, Why Christianity Must
Change or Die, HarperSanFranciso (1998).
Oftentimes our two steps forward lead to one step back. To continue our
progress, we need to retreat. Only when things “fall apart” can we reassemble
them in better form. Having proposed a stage theory of healthy normal development,
Freud left room for times of “regression in the service of the ego”—
backward steps that in the long run contributed to mental stability.
Our growth is always precarious. Our most recent achievements remain fragile.
Move to a new city, break up with a lover, lose your job or start a new one, face
a health crisis, and you find your old dysfunctional behaviors emerging again.
Your patience wears thin. Your foolish fretting returns. Your moodiness takes
over. Your sleep and eating patterns go erratic. Your use of alcohol or drugs
becomes a problem. When bedtime is long past, the five-year old begins to act
like three. We all fall to lower levels of functioning when we are under stress.
Setbacks provide occasions to redo growth work we thought we had finished.
Renewed attention to old habits in a challenging time allows us to refine
and consolidate our growth. Tried and tested, our tentative growth then becomes
stable enough to support a next forward step.
Love and sex tell a similar story. They bring out the childish and
primitive in us. The roller coaster of romance
strips off our polished social
facades. Conflicting feelings,
old hurts, vicious jealousies,
foolish fancies, irrational fears,
overwhelming needs are suddenly all hanging out. Making love releases memories
that were locked away for decades. Passion looses near-violent intensity
that we did not know was in us.
Christian thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas allowed sex only for procreation
because, as they saw it, one loses one’s rationality at the climax, and it is
wrong for people to risk their humanity without sufficient reason. Current psychological
understanding recognizes that such “regression” is rather one beauty
of sex. Like meditation or a retreat, lovemaking offers a holiday from our, oh,
so heady daily living. A break in our rigid control makes room for healthier
perspectives. When love stirs the swamps of our psyches and the debris comes
to the surface, we have a chance to clean up our emotional environment. Then
free from unconscious bias, our rationality turns crystal clear. Then we are more
open to transcendent experiences. Not wary repression but an integrated psyche
and a free-flowing inner life best serve the flowering of our spiritual potential.
Regression into chaos can be positive. The polymorphic complexity of a
human being often finds healing in the caldron of turmoil. But in our fastchanging
and fragmenting world, giddy with new found freedoms, we must
remember that chaos is not valuable in itself. Unfettered whim, intoxicating
fervor, love without law, is not the road to human salvation. The potential for
renewal is what makes chaos welcome. The challenge is to dip into the chaos
without being permanently sucked down. Even in the depths, we need to follow
the high road.
Daniel Helminiak is a psychotherapist and educator in Atlanta.
He is author of What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality
(Alamo Square Press, 1994) and more recently, The Human
Core of Spirituality: Mind as Psyche and Spirit (1996) and Religion
and the Human Sciences: An Approach via Spirituality
(1998), both from State University of New York Press.
Summer 1999 11
Hannah’s “Disorder”
Her Faithful Response to Chaos
Allen Harris
new life born of that bedlam (1 Samuel
1:4-20).
Hannah comprehends the powerful
holy character of disorder. Hannah’s
“disorderly” barrenness marks her as a
person outside of the normal expectations
of her society. She is a blessed
woman, and yet she cannot bear the
child which her community demands
of her and of all women, specifically a
male child. Even in the face of the
passage of years, the ridicule of her
husband’s other wife, the pity of her
husband, and the misunderstanding
of the temple priest, she remains
faithful to God. Hannah comprehends
chaos firsthand and accepts
it as a part of her lot in life. “What’s
the plan, Hannah?” Her response
is to pray and wait.
Hannah does not choose her
“disorder.” Neither do we. Even
so, we see in Hannah’s response
that the chaotic aspects of life
are part and parcel of our existence
and can be occasions for
new life.
This reestablishment of the
sacred place of chaos in life is
fundamentally a creative process.
In the book, God’s Fierce
Whimsy, African American
theologian Bess Johnson recognizes
the spiritual aspects
of chaos. She reflects,
I often say to myself— I
love to say this to myself
over and over— “In the beginning
was chaos, and
then the Word…” It makes me respect
the chaos so much as a part of
creation… I’ve been afraid of the
chaos… I’ve begun to really understand
that creation can only come
out of chaos and that chaos is the
mother of creation and the source
of our validity. This has been a great
learning for me, and it’s one of the
resources I use.2
Chaos and the LGBT
Community
C ertainly none of us escape the effects
of chaos in our day. With each
turn of the season it seems like our local,
state, and national lawmakers decide
a different conclusion for our fate
as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
folks. I feel paralyzed, unable to plan
anything when, at least in my own political
perspective, the forces of intolerance
and division are in power. Like
Hannah, I feel barren, as if my actions
on behalf of justice for all people, community
values, and tolerance have
yielded nothing. Like Hannah, out of
my great anxiety, I am simply compelled
to pray.
As persons outside the perceived
norms of our culture, we queer folks
know chaos as a constant companion.
Few of the usual tools of social life are
readily accessible to us. We feel like we
recreate a new order to life every day.
As I counsel couples for Holy Unions, I
oftentimes feel as if we are giving birth
to the very first same-gender ceremony
ever. We want to invoke the sacred rituals
that are so important to our histories,
but we simply cannot regurgitate
the patriarchal and heterosexist models
so often recreated unthinkingly.
There are no maps for how to “do it
“This Year Was Lousy, but
at Least It’s Familiar”
Change represents chaos for most of
us. We find change troublesome,
even threatening. The cartoon characters
Calvin and Hobbes are walking in
the snow in a memorable New Year’s
Eve comic strip. Hobbes asks Calvin,
“Are you making any resolutions for the
new year?” Calvin replies, “Nope! I
want everything to stay the same as it
was this year.” “Everything?” the stuffed
tiger asks. “Right,” says Calvin, “This
year was lousy, but at least it’s familiar.”
The boy goes on to say, “I hate
change! It’s too disruptive! When
things are different, you have to think
about the change and deal with it! I like
things to stay the same, so I can take
everything for granted! Besides, things
keep changing for the worse! The longer
I live the more complicated everything
gets! I say let’s stop here before life gets
any harder! From now on, no more
change!” They both ponder that thought
for a moment and then, running off into
the snow, Calvin concludes, “I’m bored.
Let’s do something different.” Hobbes
replies, “Some things don’t change.”1
In spite of our resistance, or perhaps
because of it, we are called to explore
the sacred nature of change, and
its constant companion chaos, for
throughout the biblical narration there
exist strands of sacred transformation
woven into the fabric of the lives of
people of faith whose existence is
steeped in turmoil. As an example, consider
the moving story of Hannah,
mother of the prophet Samuel, which
focuses on the chaotic disruption of one
individual’s life and the possibility for
12 Open Hands
of the cross. Most of us who are white
and of Anglo-European descent must
necessarily enter the cycle at this point.
For those of us who span several different
categories, each with their own
unique degrees of power, we must be
especially attuned to the fact that we
may exist at various points along the
cycle. For example, a woman who is
white can challenge herself to nurture
her power as a female, but may need to
monitor her power as a white person of
privilege.
It is in this shifting of power
that Hannah’s weakness becomes her
strength. Hannah, a pariah in her family
and her community of faith because
of something beyond her control, is
given a new chance to claim her own
authority and power. She will give birth
to a son, who will be a great leader of
her nation. She sings, “The bows of
the mighty are broken, but the feeble
gird on strength… The Lord makes
poor and makes rich; [the Lord]
brings low [and] also exalts. [The
Lord] raises up the poor from the
dust” (Samuel 2: 4, 7-8). This song
may very well have served as an
inspiration to Mary’s Magnificat
(Luke 1:46-55).
For those of us born and raised
on the principles of democracy,
this usurping of the powerful
may seem politic to us, but certainly
not fair. God’s capriright,”
so we march with fear and trembling
into uncharted territories to make
a new way for ourselves and those who
follow us.
What is it that allows chaos to have
such command over our lives? Why
does the simple thought of disorder
make so many people weak in the knees
and nauseous in the stomach? My life
as a gay man, particularly as an openly
gay pastor, has led me to a realization
that chaos challenges people’s basic assumptions
of power. Power involves our
ability (or at least our perceived ability)
to be in control of situations and
people, to have influence over others,
and to have access to certain prerogatives.
Disruptions in life force us to reassess
the dynamics of power. For someone
with extensive access to power, this
may mean giving up power. For someone
with limited access to power, this
may mean obtaining and accepting
power. Both the giving up and the
gaining of power are fear-filled processes.
Even so, as Audre Lorde, black
lesbian poet and activist, reminded us,
“When I dare to be powerful— to use
my strength in the service of my vision,
then it becomes less and less important
whether I am afraid.”3
Eric Law, a Chinese-American clergyperson
within the Episcopalian tradition,
has written an extraordinary little
book entitled, The Wolf Shall Dwell With
The Lamb: A Spirituality For Leadership
In A Multicultural Community (St. Louis:
Chalice Press, 1993). In it, Law proposes
a useful premise which invites people
of faith into the chaos of power and
powerlessness so that our communities
might be made more whole. Using images
from the Passion of Christ, Law
encourages us to understand more fully
the cyclical nature of power. In what
he terms the “Cycle Of Gospel Living,”
the powerless are called to embrace the
empty tomb and accept the power of
the resurrection. In innumerable instances
in our society, it is persons of
color and other marginalized folk who
enter at this point and who are invited
to nurture qualities of empowerment,
endurance, and faithfulness.
Meanwhile, the powerful are called
to give up power and choose the way
ciousness in this instance is somewhat
offensive and definitely confusing. Such
chaotic actions on the part of the divine
can only become meaningful when
we allow ourselves to dive into the swirling
creative waters of possibility which
surround most of God’s actions. Here,
in this Alice In Wonderland-like world,
the lame can walk, the captives are set
free, and the foreigner becomes hero.
Here, a barren woman gives birth to a
child and a wayfaring band of disciples
survive to become the Church Universal.
When we allow that redemptive
cycle of cross and resurrection to course
through our veins, we shall know in our
hearts that God is acting on behalf of
all of creation. Our times of disorientation
become periods of giving new
birth. We loosen our hold on the
present so that we might take hold of a
new future which may break in upon
our lives at any given moment.
As followers of the Christ we are
urged to recognize that it is right and
good that the powerless be made strong
and those in power be made humble,
and that the resulting chaos is, in fact,
where God works God’s wonders most
fully. There is no easy resolution for any
of us. Our hearts and our minds (not to
mention our entire social fabric) will
resist it completely. As the comic strip
character Calvin admitted, “I like things
to stay the same, so I can take everything
for granted!” But our God-stirred
hearts know differently. This tumultuous
cycle of death and life, cross and
resurrection, will be the saving grace of
our existence. May we find the courage
to trust each other and God as we are,
time and time again, plunged into the
birthing waters of chaos.
Allen V. Har ris is se nior pastor of Park
Ave nue Christ ian Church (Disciples of
Chr ist) in New York City.
Notes
1The Times Leader, Wilkes Barre, PA, Sunday,
December 26, 1993.
2Johnson, Bess B. et al, God’s Fierce Whimsy,
The Mud Flower Collective, New York: The
Pilgrim Press, 1985, p. 122.
3From a postcard, Syracuse Cultural Workers,
Box 6367, Syracuse, NY 13217.
Summer 1999 13
Gracious Chaos
in the Early Church
God’s Radical Grace
In the Acts of the Apostles we
witness the church’s dawning
recognition of God’s radical
grace, as well as the struggles of
the early Christians to live into
that reality. Much like today,
early Christians had difficulties
adapting to the realization that
the Good News of God’s grace,
manifested in Jesus the Christ,
was being received and celebrated
by persons from cultures
different from their own. God’s
grace served as a chaotic disruption.
Their God and the God of their
parents and grandparents and ancestors
Abraham and Sarah and
Hagar, of Isaac and Rebecca, of
Jacob and Rachel and Leah (and
Zilpah and Bilhah) was transforming
the lives of non-Jews
through Jesus the Christ! That
meant that their spiritual community—
those who gathered
to break bread and pray and
worship together in the
name of Jesus the
Christ— had to rethink
their definitions
of the
family of faith.
First-century Christians
had to learn how
to embrace as sister-andbrother-
in-Christ the one who
is different.
As the stories unfold in Acts,
many cultures thrive in the firstcentury
Roman empire. Commerce
and transportation facilitated
communication and
interaction with persons of different
languages, different ways of
thinking, different family configurations,
different rituals, different ideals
and goals. Different.
In the midst of that multicultural
world, small pockets of faithful persons
tried desperately to maintain their cultural
and religious values. Those who
followed Jesus at first maintained their
own cultural and religious Jewishness,
which included faithfulness defined by
ritual purity and avoidance of that
which was different.
In Acts, which is the second part of
his gospel narrative, Luke carefully unfolds
the transforming experiences and
theological debates within the early churches.
Time and time again the young churches
faced the question, What do we do with the
fact that God seems to keep changing the rules
about who is in and who is out?
Reading Acts from the perspective of the
early churches’ experiences with God’s persistent
inclusivity offers an opportunity for
reflection and action in today’s churches.
Within these chapters we discover multicultural
stories— accounts of different languages,
different traditions, different definitions
of purity, different races, different
sexualities, different classes, all brought together
in the church by Holy Spirit who keeps
blowing wherever she wills!
Moving Out from Jerusalem
Acts begins in Jerusalem. Jesus orders
these Jewish disciples to stay home
until they are baptized with the Holy Spirit.
From the beginning of this story of church
growth and development, however, the followers
of Jesus hear that, as witnesses, they
cannot remain insular. “Start in Jerusalem
and move out from here, to Judea and
Samaria and to the ends of the earth,”
they are told.
While they waited, they
prayed. And they consolidated
the home front,
choosing one who had
also walked with Jesus to
replace the lost Judas, to reestablish
the necessary quorum for
a valid Jewish prayer meeting. Yet
never again is Matthias mentioned, nor
does the ministry remain dependent on
an “officially” designated twelve. Holy Spirit
is ready to move this safely homogenous
group of Jewish followers of Jesus beyond the
single-culture boundaries that have defined
their lives until now.
God’s Grace
Judith Hoch Wray
continued of page 15➤
14 Open Hands
We are clergy who believe in doing covenant services of blessing for samegender
couples from our congregations. About 1150 rights and privileges
are accorded to couples who marry. People who love someone of their own
gender cannot access these rights because in our culture they are not permitted
to marry. It’s time for Christians to articulate why they support these
blessings— with the blessing of Christian tradition.
When the apostle Peter began his career as a minister of Jesus Christ, his
powerful preaching won converts from many nations. One day a stranger
came to his door asking Peter to come explain to his master the power of
God’s work in the world. Now Peter had just had a dream about how God
measures morality differently than did Peter and the other Christians. God
showed Peter all kinds of animals that Peter labeled either “clean” or “unclean.”
God said, “Do not call unclean anything that I have made.”
Peter had this dream, and then heard the knock at his door and the request
that he be a minister to a man that he previously thought would defile
him by association. Peter responded to the call and witnessed his ministry
expand and his life become enriched.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Methodist missionaries from the U.S.
found that women in India lived in zehennas in total seclusion from the
world. Confined to their homes, not allowed to attend meetings or social
gatherings, and permitted to visit only with women or male relatives, they
could not attend church. Missionaries developed woman-to-woman networks
that shared the Bible, Christian faith, and literacy. But because Methodists
from the U.S. ordained only men, and because men could not minister to
women in India, converts could not be baptized or take the Lord’s Supper.
Women missionaries appealed to the church for the right to be ministers,
but their calling was denied. The church said that the Bible and tradition
only allowed ordination of men. The rules didn’t fit the situation where God
called the church to be in ministry.
These two stories remind us that God calls us to see that we do not live in
a comfortable neighborhood with people who are like us, who basically believe,
live and act as we do. We live in relation to people who are different
from us, whether or not we personally know them. They are part of God’s
world and God’s creation; part of our world.
All too often people who deplore the conduct of clergy who engage in
ecclesiastical disobedience to bless same-gender relationships do not deplore
the conditions that have brought clergy to the point of risking their careers.
It is unfortunate that most denominations have left pastors with no other
conscionable alternative than to bend or break an unjust law. Covenant services,
charges, trials, and legal decisions all feed a new ecclesiastical chaos.
Some say that direct action of performing banned blessings “poses serious
harm” to the church. But is this logical? This assertion is like blaming
the victim of domestic abuse for the violence in the home. It’s like arresting
the boy who declares the truth about the emperor’s new clothes. It’s like
condemning Jesus for following God’s will to the point of being crucified. Is
there not serious harm in being a church that fails to follow the biblical call
to do justice? Is there not a fundamental flaw in being a church that fails to
do as Jesus did, living its way into a new social order where all are welcomed?
Does not grace supersede law?
Turning the Church Rightside Up
—To Bless Same-Gender Love
Alice G. Knotts and
Joanne Carlson Brown
Alice Knotts
(pictured) is the
pastor of Talent
United Methodist
Church in Talent, Oregon
and the author of Fellowship
in Love—Methodist Women
Changing American Racial
At titudes 1920-1968. Joanne
Brown is the pastor of United
Church in University Place, a
UCC-UMC congregation in
Tacoma, Washington.
Summer 1999 15
In Acts 2, the great Jewish feast
of Pentecost brought Jews from
all over the world to worship in
Jerusalem. Parthians, Medes,
Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia,
Judea and Cappodocia,
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and
Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya and
Rome: all these had come to worship
the Giver of Torah; among
them both Jewish-born and converts,
different cultures and skin
colors and languages. Into this
magnificent multicultural setting,
the Holy Spirit comes.
The group that followed Jesus
the Christ would never be the
same again. Luke tells us that
three thousand persons were baptized
that day! For the time being,
all followers of Jesus were
Jewish, whatever other cultural
identifications they may have
brought with them from the far
reaches of the known world. Yet
from the first day of the new
Spirit-filled church, difference
defined the community which is
the body of Christ.
An Equal Opportunity
Gospel
In Acts 8, we are told another
amazing story about the way
that Holy Spirit was working in
the new church. On the surface
it reads as “Deacon Philip
meets an Ethiopian eunuch.” At
a deeper level, we listen as Luke
offers Theophilus (Acts 1:1) and
all lovers of God a parable about
the radical inclusivity of God’s
grace in Jesus Christ.
The Ethiopian eunuch, though
not Jewish by birth, feared God
and had come to Jerusalem to
worship. In the Ethiopian eunuch,
Luke incorporates about as
much multi-cultural diversity as
can be present in one human
being. He belonged to a privileged
class, a member of the court
of Queen Candace of Ethiopia, in
charge of the entire treasury of
that country. By race he was African,
noticeable darker than the
dark-skinned Jews of Judea. Having
chosen to be a eunuch, he was a
sexual minority. (Note that, while being
a eunuch was a socially approved
option for a gay man in that ancient
culture, it did not remove all social and
religious prejudice.) As a eunuch, he
was defined by law as impure and not
allowed full access to the temple.
In the text from Isaiah, the eunuch
was probably hearing his own story, a
story of rejection and grief, cut off from
his own generation. “About whom was
the prophet speaking?” he asks Philip.
With that opening, Philip proclaims to
this one who is different the good news
about Jesus, the One rejected in order
that others will be included! The Ethiopian
eunuch is baptized and the church
is challenged anew by the boundarychanging
love of God.
Who’s In and
Who’s Out
In Acts 10, Peter receives a revelation
about God’s inclusivity and an opportunity
to move beyond theory to action,
preaching to and baptizing Gentiles.
God has changed the definitions
of what is clean, of who can be counted
as holy in God’s “kindom.”
Cornelius, an Italian centurion stationed
in Caesarea and a God-fearer, has
a vision in which he is instructed to
send for Peter. While his servants and
soldier were on the way to Joppa to request
Peter’s visit, Peter, in a trance, sees
“the heaven opened and something like
a large sheet coming down.” In it were
all kinds of “unclean” animals, things
forbidden to faithful Jews, the kind of
faithfulness still maintained by Peter
and most of the early church. Three
times he hears a voice instructing him
to kill and eat. Three times he protests
that he would never eat anything unclean.
Three times he hears the retort,
“What God has made clean, you must
not call profane.”
The messengers arrive, Peter travels
with them, preaches to Cornelius and
his household, and watches the Holy
Spirit fall on these uncircumcised folk
while he is still preaching. He baptizes
the household and stays with them
for several days. Peter will never be
the same again. And neither will the
church.
Or will it? Old prejudices die slowly.
Acts 15 recounts a Jerusalem council meeting,
called to deal with the question of who
can be saved. Certain individuals still believed
that “unless you are circumcised according
to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”
Paul and Barnabas, who had been preaching
to Gentiles, go to Jerusalem to join in the debate.
On the way, they stop in all the churches
along the way to report, with great joy, the
conversion of many Gentiles. (What a great
political strategy! A forerunner perhaps of the
welcoming congregations movement?)
By the time they arrive in Jerusalem, the
word is out that Gentiles are being saved. Already,
those believers who belonged to the
sect of the Pharisees had to change their strategy.
Conceding that some Gentiles had been
saved, they still insisted that it is necessary
for them to be circumcised and to keep the
law of Moses. Peter recounts his earlier experience,
that “God, who knows the human
heart, testified to them by giving them the
Holy Spirit, just as to us; and in cleansing their
hearts by faith, God has made no distinction
between them and us.”
What a radical concept! No distinction
between “them” and “us.”
This story is told twice in the New Testament:
by Luke (Acts 15:1-21) and by Paul
(Galatians 2:10). The endings are different.
According to Luke, the new Gentile believers
were required to “abstain only from things
polluted by idols and from fornication and
from whatever has been strangled and from
blood.” According to Paul, the Jerusalem leaders
ask only that the poor be remembered.
Obviously, the church did not easily move to
being a non-judgmental, culturally inclusive
community.
One thing is clear: God keeps disturbing
the church’s cultural exclusivity. Then and
now. The challenge to live into the seemingly
chaotic grace of God remains.
Judith Hoch Wray holds a Ph.D. in New Testament
Studies from New York’s Union Theological
Seminary. She has taught homiletics at New
Brunswick Theological Seminary and is a regular
columnist for The Living Pulpit,
for which she serves as
assistant editor. Widely published,
she serves on the advisory
committee of Open
Hands. This article originally
appeared in The Disciple and
is used by permission
16 Open Hands
Turning the World Upside Down A Gay Jewish Perspective Although I’m Jewish, I got involved with Seattle’s University
Baptist Church in 1996, when it offered counseling to
conscientious objectors who were in the military during the
Gulf War. Those days, I didn’t even know the differences
between American Baptists and other Baptists. Now, I’m the
office manager here, as well as a practicing Jew— and gay.
Despite this mix, I don’t think of myself as “turning the
world upside down.” From the Jewish perspective, it was
the Romans who did that. And as a gay person, I tend to
view Christians as the folks who “turned the world upside
down” by elevating homosexual acts from improprieties to
major sins; by forgetting agape in their obsession with lust.
But perhaps this is a good working definition of chaos: a
situation in which it is no longer clear which way is “upside
down.”
We Jews live “in the world.” We assume that our understanding
of God’s law is not perfect, but evolving, and we
depend upon our evolving understanding to navigate on
our journey through that world. Not surprisingly, we keep
finding ourselves in unknown waters. So, from adolescence
to marriage, from birth to death, we keep having to try to
apply God’s law to new problems.
We Jews are not comfortable with chaos. When Albert
Einstein declared that “God does not play dice with the universe,”
he was articulating a Jewish conviction that there is,
in fact, an Order to things, even if it’s not immediately apparent.
Here’s an analogy: imagine yourself wandering
through a fun house with distorting mirrors, dark passages,
disorienting noise— chaos. Now, imagine yourself looking
down on the fun house from above, with the roof conveniently
pulled back. What seems chaotic from inside looks
quite logical from a different perspective.
When our world feels like a chaotic fun house, what we
need is a different perspective. What we need is information
from people who’ve seen things from a different angle.
Progressive Christians and Jews have long benefited from
each other’s perspectives; now heterosexuals have available
to them the different perspectives of the gay/lesbian/bisexual/
transgender community. Sadly, it’s a view not everyone
appreciates. The outlaws were exiled over the hill, to
the unknown lands beyond. But we have come back to tell
you what we have seen of those undiscovered countries.
Several years ago, two same-sex couples in Hawaii filed a
lawsuit, saying that the state’s refusal to grant them marriage
licenses violated Hawaii’s constitutional ban on sex
discrimination. The courts agreed, and triggered an intense,
nationwide debate about what constituted a “marriage.” That
debate is not yet resolved, either legally or, for many folks,
religiously. But the voices—the perspectives— of sexual minority
Christians have come out.
It seems to me that heterosexual couples have been given
the opportunity to benefit mightily from this debate. From
the GLBT perspective, the concepts of “male and female,”
Jeff Moses
the reproductive process, and the cultural definitions of “gender-
appropriate behavior” are distractions—fun house gimmickry.
The important issues involve such questions as “what
constitutes a healthy relationship?” “What are the ethics of
dating and marriage?” “What is moral parenting?”
Similarly, those of us who advocate for hate crimes legislation
are frequently met with the argument that “all crimes
are hate crimes.” Another national debate is in process, and
out of it could come different, and more productive, understandings
about hatred and crime, about bigotry and criminals.
For example, is every crime a hate crime? Is inducing
someone to hate itself a “hate crime,” or is it free speech?
What are the limits of personal responsibility for one’s actions?
Even the process of deciding whether or not to become a
“Welcoming and Affirming” church offers immense benefits.
Forced as I was by my circumstances to learn about
human sexuality, I am surprised (and sometimes, frankly,
embarrassed) by the lack of knowledge displayed by some
heterosexuals. Forced as I was to learn to talk about sexuality,
I am still surprised at how difficult even talking can be
for some heterosexuals. They seem to have been deprived
of even the necessary basic vocabulary.
It is easy to be “morally superior” at a distance: to live in
Minnesota and condemn racism in Georgia; to live in the
90’s and condemn the anti-Semitism of the 40’s. But the
homosexual is neighbor, if not son or daughter, brother or
sister, fellow worker or volunteer. Being welcoming and affirming
puts me in the room with you, up close and personal.
By its very nature, such proximity cannot always be
comfortable. But we have seen wonders, over the hill. We
are eager to share, and perhaps what we have seen will help
you in your quest for order.
If there is a fundamental order to our universe, if God’s
laws are as much description as mandate— “operating instructions,”
if you will— then chaos is a temporary state: order
will reassert itself. Another analogy: chaos is like shuffling
and dealing a new hand in a card game. Some players
may be foolish enough to try to continue to play as if they
still held their old hand; others may accept the new cards
but stick to an old strategy. But the successful players will
recognize new opportunities, confident that the rules of the
game still apply.
Jeff Moses is the office manager at University
Baptist Church, a welcoming and affirming
American Baptist Church in Seattle, Washington.
He’s also a member of Congregation Tikvah
Chadashah, Puget Sound’s gay and lesbian
synagogue where all are welcome, and helped
create an interfaith service for Seattle’s Pride Celebration
in June. He and his life-partner of 13
years live in a house they’re renovating in central Seattle.
A Gay Jewish Perspective
Turning the World Upside Down
Summer 1999 17
Homoerotic
Mysticism
If the concept of “mysticism” is often misunderstood by
the average person, the idea of an erotic Christian mysticism—
not to mention a homoerotic Christian mysticism—
could be downright shocking to some. Even though mysticism
has been a part of Christianity throughout its history,
many people don’t understand the term very well and may
not have imagined mysticism in connection with Jesus or the
Christian tradition.
In my forthcoming book I have attempted to expose mystical
elements in Jesus’ own teachings. For the moment, however,
there is only space to provide a basic definition of mysticism
and to point out some examples of erotic—and even
homoerotic— mysticism that have come down to us as part of
our Christian spiritual heritage.
What is Mysticism?
The word, mysticism, is itself related to the word mystery.
In I Corinthians, St. Paul said, “Listen, I will tell you
a mystery.”1 What was he saying? He was saying, “Listen, I
will reveal that which has heretofore been a mystery even
though it should perhaps have been obvious all along.” Thus,
mysticism is not about hocus-pocus or razzle-dazzle. Nor is it
religious escapism or faddish, self-indulgent spirituality. Rather,
it is about sensing God’s presence in the midst of the ordinary.
It is about discovering the divine simplicity within the
complexity of the everyday world. It is about appreciating the
mystery of the divine without leaving terra firma. It is about
seeing that God has been right in front of us all the time.
This is also what Albert Einstein was talking about when he
said, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.”2
A story from the Hebrew Scriptures will provide a useful
metaphor to help us begin to understand this. After receiving
a host of instructions and teachings, including the Ten Commandments
(which, in Hebrew, are really called the “Ten Sayings”
not the “Ten Commandments”), Moses is conversing
with God and says,
“Show me your glory, I pray.” And [God] said, “I will make
all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before
you the name, ‘YHWH’ [often pronounced Yahweh or Jehovah];
and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and
will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” [God]
said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and
live.” And the Lord Yahweh continued, “See, there is a place
by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my
glory passes by I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and I
will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I
will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my
face shall not be seen.”3
This narrative is somewhat jerky and a little difficult to
follow, partly because it is a translation of the very ancient
form of Hebrew in which this part of the Old Testament is
Note:
This article is excerpted and adapted by the author from his forthcoming book,
The Mystical Side of Jesus: “The dominion of God is within you.”
Because it does not fit our limited
understanding and categories, an encounter
with God is an encounter with
chaos, with mystery. And yet, from that
chaos, from the burning bush, from
the cloud by day and pillar of fire at
night, even from a cross, God creatively
reaches out to call us, guide us, and
offer us grace.
Michael Pozar
Finding God in
Unexpected Places
18 Open Hands
written. But, the main points are clear. Moses wants evidence
of God’s abiding presence. God tells him that no one can see
God per se [i.e., “see God’s face”] but that he will be allowed to
encounter God in the only way possible for a human being.
Moses had to squeeze into a cleft in the rock on Mt. Sinai and
God would “cover” Moses so that Moses could not see God.
Then God would pass by and uncover Moses just in time for
him to see God’s “back.” Moses was allowed to see God’s back
but not God’s face, or, it might make more sense to say that
Moses was allowed to see the “afterglow” of God’s glory as an
indication of the divine presence.
Moses saw God’s glory, in a certain manner of speaking,
but did not see God per se because God cannot be limited to
any form or representation that can be humanly comprehended.
This is the aim of the mystics, to “touch” or “see”
God’s glory and thereby to come as close as possible to sensing
and touching God right in the midst of our ordinary world.
When these mystics touch God’s glory, they do so with the
understanding that God is the ground of that glory (indeed, is
the ground of all being whatsoever). God, as God, is completely
remote from the human experience. We cannot really
see God or comprehend God or even adequately imagine God.
But, the mystics teach us that it is possible to see or touch God
in a certain sense. In the story of Moses in Exodus, this is
described as the possibility of seeing or experiencing God’s
glory (seeing God’s afterglow, if you will) but not actually
seeing God. However, we don’t have to be on Mt. Sinai to
have a similar experience and it doesn’t need to be nearly so
dramatic.
In his ever-insightful lectures on The Varieties of Religious
Experience, published in 1902, William James indicated four
minimal qualities of mystical experience: “ineffability” (i.e.,
It is an experience that cannot be expressed in words.), “noetic
quality” (i.e., It has a knowledge content, even if the insights
of that knowledge cannot be reduced to logical propositions.),
“transiency” (i.e., For most people, mystical
experiences are fleeting, although some mystics have been
said to live for long periods of time in the mystical state.), and
“passivity” (i.e., “The mystic feels as if his own will were in
abeyance, and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and
held by a superior power.”).4
James also offered a simple, almost rudimentary example
of mystical experience from the writings of Martin Luther:
When a fellow-monk one day repeated the words of the Creed:
“I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” I saw the Scripture in
an entirely new light; and straightway I felt as if I were born
anew. It was as if I had found the door of paradise thrown
wide open.5
Luther was not describing the “born again” experience that
neo-evangelical fundamentalists sometimes try to impose on
others, in which non-believers in the fundamentalistic God
are induced to have an emotional experience of repentance
that leads them to become believers in fundamentalistic doctrine.
Such events may have some value, and may occasionally
even yield genuine mystical experience in which genuine
enlightenment occurs, but they are just as likely to be manufactured
experiences designed to lure people into the legalism
of fundamentalism.
Luther had been a devoted Christian for most of his life.
Nonetheless, the mystical experience of insight that he is describing
here made him feel as though he had become a “new
creature” with new insight into that which he had more-orless
known all along. More than that, it seemed to him that he
had broken down the barrier between himself and the transcendent
realm of the divine, at least momentarily. That is, he
seemed to be “touching God,” or, if you will, “seeing God’s
glory,” in the sense we are here using those terms.
Mystical teachings, therefore, are aimed at helping us to be
ready to discover and appreciate an immediate awareness of
the mystery (i.e., the glory) of God. God will always remain—
to some degree— a mystery to us. Yet, we can be open to an
experience of that divine mystery, and in touching the mystery
we are, in a certain sense, touching God. Mystical teachings
are meant to help make this possible. Indeed, this is exactly
what Jesus’ mystical teachings do.
This is not something that is easy to understand. That is
perhaps why people have frequently overlooked the mystical
teachings that have come from Jesus. We have no record of
Jesus talking about touching God, seeing God’s afterglow, or
intuiting God’s glory (at least not in the canonical texts).6
However, at least part of the time that Jesus was talking about
the kingdom or dominion of God, he was pointing us in the
direction of a similar mystical experience. Some of the teachings
of Jesus, especially certain of the “kingdom teachings”
were designed to point us towards the possibility of touching
God’s glory and somehow coming to realize that God is the
ground and basis for the glory that we are touching.
Erotic and Homoerotic Mysticism
One of the basic insights of all mysticism is that God is the
ground of all being and yet is somehow mysteriously
present in all things. When Jesus said, “The dominion of God
is within you,” he was pointing to this insight. God is present
in all persons, all beings, in a way that cannot really be explained.
As Martin Luther once said, “God’s...own divine nature
[is] wholly and entirely in all creatures and in every single
individual being, more deeply, more inwardly, more present
than the creature is to itself.”
Mystics before and after Jesus have explored many ways of
trying to make this insight explicit. They have also offered us
advice and metaphors which were designed to draw us into a
deeper understanding of the divine mysteries.
A few have even used erotic metaphors in describing their
mystical experiences. We don’t usually think of it this way,
but that is exactly what the Song of Solomon is about:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love
is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your
name is perfume poured out; therefore the maidens love you.
Draw me after you, let us make haste. The king has brought
me into his chambers. We will exult and rejoice in you; we
will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love
you.7
This is erotic love poetry and religious metaphor all mixed
together. Over the centuries, interpreters have tended to rob
Summer 1999 19
the Song of Solomon either of its eroticism or else rob it of its
profound mystical implications. But, it is filled with truly erotic,
mystical metaphors that are meant to draw us potentially into
an experience of the divine that we might not have otherwise.
The erotic is lifted to the realm of the sacred, or, better put,
the erotic is shown to participate in the sacred because God is
in the erotic in the same way God is mystically in all things.
Even more explicitly erotic language appears at times in
the mysticism of St. Teresa of Avila:
Often when the soul least expects it, our Lord calls her [the
soul] suddenly. She hears very distinctly that her God calls
her, and it gives her such a start, especially at the beginning,
that she trembles and utters plaints [lamentations]. She
feels that an ineffable wound has been dealt her and that
the wound is so precious in her sight that she would like it
never to heal. She knows that her divine Spouse is near her,
although He does not let her enjoy His adorable presence,
and she cannot help complaining to Him in words of love.
The voice of the Well-Beloved causes in the soul such transports
that she is consumed by desire, and yet does not know
what to ask, because she sees clearly that her Lord is with
her. What pains could she have? And for what greater happiness
could she wish? To this I do not know what to answer;
but that of which I am certain, is that the pain penetrates
down to the very bottom of the bowels, and that it
seems that they are being torn away when the heavenly
Spouse withdraws the arrow with which he has transpierced
them. As long as that pain lasts, it is always on the increase
or on the decrease, it never remains at the same intensity. It
is for that reason that the soul is never entirely on fire; the
spark goes out and the soul feels a desire stronger than ever
to endure again the love-pain she has just experienced.8
Unfortunately, many interpreters of Teresa have managed
to ignore or even deny the rather blatant-sounding erotic elements
in her writing. They have often observed the deep mystical
insights of the writing while, at the same time, shielding
their own awareness from the erotic elements contained
therein.
Even more did the interpreters have to shield their spiritual
“eyes” from the homoerotic mysticism of Teresa’s pupil,
St. John of the Cross. In an excerpt from Dark Night of the
Soul, one of the greatest mystical texts of all time, John gives
us a description of his encounter with God in a way that carries
a clearly homoerotic tone:
STANZAS OF THE SOUL
1. On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings—oh,
happy chance!—
I went forth without being observed, My house being
now at rest.
2. In darkness and secure, By the secret ladder, disguised—
oh happy chance!—
In darkness and in concealment, My house being now
at rest.
3. In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that
which burned in my heart.
4. This light guided me More surely than the light of
noonday
To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting
me—
A place where none appeared.
5. Oh, night that guided me, Oh, night more lovely than
the dawn,
Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed
in the Beloved!
6. Upon my flowery breast, Kept wholly for himself alone,
There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him,
And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.
7. The breeze blew from the turret As I parted his locks;
With his gentle hand he wounded my neck
And caused all my senses to be suspended.
8. I remained, lost in oblivion; My face I reclined on the
Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself, Leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.9
Orgasm, a poem written by the 20th-Century lesbian poet,
Elsa Gidlow, is even more explicitly erotic and yet the following
excerpt is clearly mystical in perspective:
…Enter, O, enter
The inmost Holy Place;
At the altar, self-anointing
And anointed, dance
Your dance.
Till flesh, transfused
With burning breath becomes
Veil of the Goddess; and
Earth heaves. ...10
Enter,
O, enter
The inmost
Holy Place
20 Open Hands
Although there are mystical strains in all religions, and a
few of them seem to touch on the erotic, it is the incarnational
emphasis of Christianity that makes Christianity specially susceptible
to the development of an erotic mysticism among
some of its mystics. God is everywhere, yet we say that God
was especially manifest as a human being, a human being
who was truly human with a truly human physical, sexual,
compassionate, and intellectual nature.
The churches of the Reformation have been especially good
in finding God amidst the intellectual pursuits of theology.
However, especially now, as theology seems to be less and
less compelling for many people, a more mystical approach
to God seems more and more relevant.
The method of mysticism is to confront us creatively with
God’s presence in those places where we least expect to encounter
it, and that includes our sexuality. Under the best of
circumstances, it can be difficult to find God’s presence amidst
the chaos of the world. Therefore, we are specially indebted
to those sages and mystics who have challenged us to see God
in those very places—right in front of us—where we most
often forget to look.
Michael Pozar is a Lutheran pastor, musician, and writer
living in San Francisco. He is the founder of the Lutheran
AIDS Network (LANET) and is cofounder of Acción Luterana,
a network of Spanish-speaking Lutherans involved in the
AIDS epidemic.
Notes
11 Corinthians 15:51
2Albert Einstein, What I Believe
3Exodus 33:18-23
4William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (first
published in 1902), New York: The New American Library,
Inc., 1958, p. 293-294.
5Luther’s Works 37:60
6Ed. Note: This to be distinguished from stories
about Jesus, such as hearing God’s affirmation of
his belovedness at baptism, being ministered to
by angels in the wilderness, and talking with
Moses and Elijah and being transfigured as witnessed
by several of his disciples in a mountain
top experience.
7Song of Solomon 1:2-4
8St. Teresa, The Interior Castle. This translation
is from J. H. Leuba, The Psychology of
Religious Mysticism, New York: Harcourt,
Brace & World, 1925, pp. 150-151.
9St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the
Soul, trans. and ed., with an introduction,
by E. Allison Peers, New York:
Doubleday, 1990, pp. 33-34.
10Elsa Gidlow is quoted in: Andrew
Harvey, The Essential Gay Mystics,
New York: HarperCollins, 1997,
pp. 272-273.
The word “ordain” emerged from the Latin ordo, connoting
order or an orderly succession. My
experience with the issue of ordination, however, has
been anything but orderly.
I am not able to differentiate between my lesbian identity
and my sense of call to ministry. I came out and was called out
in the same breath. The Spirit was inspiring and conspiring with
me and my community to make a new creation.
I first found my calling in the Western Plains District of the
Church of the Brethren, where I was licensed to the “set-apart
ministry.” I was an out lesbian in my community and some on
the District Ministry Commission were aware of that fact. Politely,
we all approached my licensing with an implicit “don’t ask, don’t
tell” policy. I was frank in my disagreement with the Church of
the Brethren statement on sexuality, but I did not share my sexual
orientation or my growing love for the woman who would become
my life partner.
I accepted this omission because I felt, then, that my sexuality
was not relevant to my gifts for ministry. It was only later that I
came to understand how profoundly fractured I was by that division
in my identity. The Spirit had given me a gift: an identity where the
fullness of my being was intricately woven in wholeness—spirituality
and sexuality; body, mind, and soul. In silencing one aspect of my
identity, I consented to the disintegration of the Spirit’s gift.
My license as a “set-apart minister” was no consolation for this
deep loss. The local Brethren, after all, could no more separate my
sexuality from my gifts for ministry than I could. An awkward silence
arose around my sexuality, and that silence became a void of shame
which no one could cross.
How, then, could I carry out the charge of my license: to practice and
develop my gifts for ministry? And how could the congregation carry
out their charge to test and nurture these gifts? Less than two years after
being licensed, I intentionally allowed my license to expire. No one asked
me why. I exited from my hopes and dreams for ministry in that community
in the same silence by which I entered.
The frustration of my sense of vocation gave way to an enduring depression
from which I am still healing. Nonetheless, my frustrated attempt
to pursue licensed ministry did not keep me away from seminary. Soon I
found myself the only Anabaptist— but not the only out lesbian— pursuing
a Master of Divinity degree at United Theological Seminary of the Twin
Disorderly Conduct:
Doing a New Thing
Lisa Ann Pierce
Reflections on Ordination
Reflections on Ordination
Summer 1999 21
Cities. And though I had moved to the Twin Cities from Kansas
in order to put some distance between myself and the
church, I found myself warmly embraced by, and soon a member
of, Saint Paul Mennonite Fellowship.
Over the four years of my studies at United, the Fellowship
gave me a wide berth to practice my gifts, test new learning,
and express my sense of vocation. They accepted the role that
my previous community had relinquished: they nurtured me
with love and tenderness. And best of all, they chose not to
take my gifts and treat them as “set-apart.” My gifts, rather,
were viewed in close relation to the wide variety of gifts in the
congregation. They honored the unique gifts that I brought
and valued my seminary education, and also saw me as one
member of a congregation with a vibrant lay ministry.
Meanwhile, I was surrounded in my seminary education
with questions of pastoral identity. My head was spinning with
the question, “What will it mean to be a lesbian, feminist
Anabaptist with a Master of Divinity?” After more than three
years of struggle with that question, I came to the orderly conclusion
that pastoral ministry was neither my calling nor my
direction in life.
Some three months later the Fellowship called me to serve
for one year as interim pastor. I accepted. So much for orderly
conclusions.
This disorder has always been the Fellowship’s best gift to
me. Over the years of my membership and my one year as
interim pastor, the community has disassembled my sense of
ministry even as it has reassembled my sense of wholeness. It
is this sense of re-found wholeness which has allowed me to
examine my understanding of ministry and to bring to bear
my cultural and spiritual identity as a lesbian feminist. My
beliefs about ordination have shifted profoundly in the process.
I am coming to believe:
• Ordination functions as a status when it is limited by factors
other than readiness for ministry— factors such as sexuality
and gender.
• Our focus on licensing and ordination frequently detracts
from the depth of our conviction to be a priesthood of all
believers.
• Ordination (in its current practice) does not function as an
accountability structure. I have witnessed too many acts of
injustice involving Anabaptist clergy (who were never held
accountable) to believe that ordination is helping people
in our churches move toward right relationship.
• Ordination can be a weapon. I have seen ordination credentials
withheld or threatened in an effort to control individuals.
(Those who want to change the church often
find that having nothing to lose can be a great freedom.)
Sometimes, when we are working toward the inclusion of
GLBT people in the institutions of the church, I think we have
to ask ourselves, “What are we trying to join and why? How
does this institution fit our values?”
Increasingly, I want to work for the transformation of the
church rather than my own inclusion in its current structures.
How can GLBT perspectives challenge the structures of ordination
in the church? What kind of church might we become
if the language of vocation, calling, and commission became
the language of all God’s people in all the places they work
and give?
We have been striving for this kind of possibility at the
Saint Paul Mennonite Fellowship. After more than fifteen lifegiving
years with our founding pastor, and one year with me
serving as interim pastor, we have been called to a new creation.
We have reorganized our congregation and no longer
pay a pastor. Rather, we have become pastors to one another.
It has not been easy—and it certainly has not been orderly—
but it has been an honest and courageous struggle toward
mutual ministry in a priesthood of all believers. We are trying
to live into a church transformed.
Lisa Ann Pierce lives with Karen, her partner of eight years, in
Saint Paul, Minnesota. She has been a member of St. Paul Mennonite
Fellowship since 1995 and served as interim pastor from 1997
to 1998. Currently, she serves as Co-Director of Women Against
Military Madness in Minneapolis.
Increasingly, I want to work
for the transformation of the church
rather than my own inclusion
in its current structures.
22 Open Hands
Tr oubling the Waters of
Gender Expect ations
Excerpts (a mere taste of a 21-page essay) from a thorough
treatise that argues that, “since gendering is a key
feature in our attempts to create epistemic order, destabilizing
gender in turn destabilizes our epistemic
attempts to create an ordered reality. Gender trouble
leads to epistemic trouble.” Epistemology is the study
of how we come to have knowledge, so, in others words:
separating the genders gives order to our knowledge.
Those who “trouble the waters” of gender give rise to
disorder and chaos in how we know the world.
In the following article, the author refers to the “vowed
religious” by which he means those in the Roman Catholic
Church who take a vow of chastity to serve in religious vocation.
In respect of the author’s sense of reverence around the
name of God (parallel to the Hebrew’s reference to YHWH),
G*d has been left as in the original text. Though in
these excerpts the author does not specifically mention
transgendered or bisexual folk, “queer” encompasses
them.
This paper was delivered during the 20th anniversary
conference of Harvard Divinity School’s GABLE,
the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered student organization,
April 23-24, 1999.
Resurrection of the Body
I don’t aspire to make generalizations about “the
essence of queerness” or the “essence of religious life.”
Rather, I wish to invite you to see whether there are experiences
in your lives that bear a certain “family resemblance”
with the case presented. This case is a limited
one, since I want to reflect on my life as a queer
vowed religious man in the Catholic Church. I will
do so by focusing on the body as the site of theological
knowledge and, more specifically, by exploring
what the queer body and the religious body
share in common.
I remember vividly a conversation I had while
working in Frankfurt as a nursing assistant in a
hospice for people living with and dying from AIDS.
“Frank,” with whom I used to talk at nights, had lived
for years on the streets. His body was fully covered
with tattoos. Using these tattoos, the stumps
of the two toes he had lost during freezing nights,
his scars, and his dark yellow fingers, Frank told
me the stories of his life. His body had become
a living map of his experiences. This conversation
was healing for me because it started a process
in which I rediscovered my own body— its
marks, its desires. Frank helped me to discover
my body which had become a neglected depository
of pain, lust, and memories that I had tried to
avoid for so many years. It helped me to see how
my body was a map of the counter-reality of my declared
identity.
I mention this healing encounter with Frank because
it points to a simple but often overlooked
reality: The body doesn’t go away, and the body
is the receptacle for all these things in our lives
that don’t go away even if we try so hard to
make them disappear. In my case, it was, among
other things, my love for men that I tried to
avoid, the fuzzy feeling in my stomach when I
was together with certain men. All this was
stored in my body, rejected with it, but kept alive
by it. In a sense Frank had helped me to experience
a resurrection of the body. What stepped out
of the tomb was my very individual and personal history.
I should mention as well that this resurrection
would not have been possible without years of
bodily spiritual exercises: Praying while lying
stretched out on the floor and meditating about
the ways in which G*d’s love carries me; receiving
the Eucharist; and walking on pilgrimages
without money or shelter. Unknowingly these
exercises had prepared me for the experience
that what stepped into the light, embraced by
G*d’s love, was not only my personal history
but also my personal contradictions and ambiguities.
Ludger H. Viefhues, S.J.
Religious and Queer Vocations
Summer 1999 23
Virginity Threatens Patriarchal
Church Leadership
The body is stylized by the ascetics to realize
social and theological goals. Jo Ann Kay
McNamara’s Sisters in Arms provides an interesting
example.1 In her analysis of the early virginity
movement, McNamara shows how vowed life enabled
women to step outside of the social constraints
of accepted gender roles and to defy the
sexual labor of procreation imposed on them by the
Antique Roman patriarchy. “Sexual renunciation was
the key to the new time, with women acting as a metaphor
for all the humble and meek destined to inherit the
earth” (p 23). Virginity became not only a symbol for G*d’s
power overcoming the evil of this world but further, a
sign for female power and strength and a breakdown
of social gender structures. McNamara writes “virginity
broke the continuum of sexuality, denying
the universal definition of women as imperfect men
that rendered a balanced and complementary relationship
with men ludicrous” (p 24). Thus, the
movement of virgins, although highly praised by
the male and married episcopate, nonetheless remained
a threat to the patriarchal church leadership.
Renouncing Penetration and
Maleness
The chaste vowed religious man is basically a man who
refuses to penetrate. Penetration and the illusion
of power and activity that often accompany it, is still
an important feature for the creation of
male identity in our culture. In history we can detect
many variants of the “penetration code,” the idea
that active penetration is a sacrament for maleness
and power. In Roman Antiquity this code meant
that “a wealthy and powerful adult male citizen…at
the top of the status hierarchy could penetrate any
other person without loss of social status.”2
The very act of publicly renouncing penetration
stylizes the renunciant’s body into a culturally meaningful
symbol. In a culture that defines maleness and
power through the act of penetration, the symbol of
the male body that is stylized by the absence of penetration,
while also retaining other codes of maleness,
questions and potentially destabilizes the order of gender
and sexuality.
Now, this seems to be too good to be true, since
there are too many male religious who engage
overtly or covertly in pure power trips, men who
shift from living out their penetrative role in
sexual relations to living it out in power relations.
Nevertheless, this observation does not
challenge the thesis that vowed religious life undermines
the core understanding of what it
means to be male.3
On a very fundamental symbolic level, my
body is stylized as non-male (non-penetrating). It
isn’t, however, stylized as fundamentally female either.
My body can neither be clearly subsumed under
“male” nor “female” in the current economy of gender.
My “gender-troubled” body becomes homeless,
a vagabond in a no-man’s-land of gender. This
body can assume two functions: a symbolic function
outwardly, and an experiential function inwardly.
Outwardly this body as cultural symbol questions
and destabilizes a fundamental religious
and cultural ordering scheme. Gendering reality,
separating, and demarcating maleness and
femaleness are important tools that religious traditions
use to create an ordered space, a reality
that can be known, and acted upon. Mary Douglas
Gendering reality, separating, and
demarcating maleness and femaleness are
important tools that religious traditions use
to create an ordered space, a reality that
can be known, and acted upon.
24 Open Hands
in her classic Purity and Danger writes: “It is only by
exaggerating the difference between within and without,
above and below, male and female…that a semblance
of order is created.”4 A body that cannot be
subsumed under these oppositions symbolizes the
fact that our ordering of reality, which relies on
these symbolic oppositions, is only a semblance of
order. Stanley Cavell observed that this lack of solid
ontological grounding involves a realization of horror:
Horror is the title I am giving to the perception
of the precariousness of human identity, to the
perception that it may be lost or invaded, that we
may be, or may become, something other than we
are, or take ourselves for; that our origins as human beings
need accounting for, and are unaccountable.5
Queer Bodies
So far I have used feminist and queer discourse
to repoliticize the body of the vowed religious.
The body of the vowed religious male is a queer
body. As such it symbolizes the fragility of our acts
of knowledge and ordering. Resurrecting the queer
body in vowed religious life means to make visible
and tangible for the church the shadow in which
we search and find G*d. Thus, queer and feminist
discourse is a gift for the church. It is a gift that can
help us to free the religious body from the confinements
of a discourse that focuses either on evanescent
spirituality or on wholeness and individual psychology
without seeing the cultural and therefore political dimensions
of the chaste body.
The queer body is religiously meaningful. It can
be an instance of learning about G*d, about ordering
and knowing reality, about the horror and joy
of trust. The queer man, who is open for penetration,
or the penetrating woman, stylize their bodies
in a way that takes them outside of our current
gender economy. They represent the fact that our
categories, like the fundamental categories of male
and female, are not expressions of an underlying
objective reality that we passively receive. Proliferating
gender identities— bringing categories to their breaking
point and reminding us of the fundamental fluidity
of all our structures— this is the grace of the
queer body. This frees us from a conventional
framework of understandings, making new interpretations
and creativity possible.
The queer body involves the overcoming of
any social and intellectual framework that focuses
primarily on clear-cut, binary oppositions,
like male-female, or straight-gay. The insistence
on the fragility of our epistemic frameworks
implies a critique against any attempt to establish
totalizing categories. In that sense, I think the
queer body can help us uncover an appreciation for
vagueness.
Our queer body can draw us deeper into the troublesome
awareness that identity, order, and knowledge
are fluid. It points to and makes us experience the
breakdown of our symbolic world and brings us
into solidarity with others who experience such
breakdowns. The realization that G*d is beyond
our epistemic reach, that He is neither male nor
female, that She is neither not-male nor notfemale,
and the fundamental uncertainty on
which all our knowledge rests is symbolized by
and experienced through the queer body. This is
the positive grace that we as queer men and
women contribute to the church; we are pointing
to the fundamental reality of uncertainty and the
troubling necessity of trust. We can echo the lover of
the Song of Songs: “On my bed at night I sought him
whom my heart loves—I sought him but I did not
find him. I will rise then and go about the city; in
the streets and crossings I will seek him whom
my heart loves” (3:1-2a NAB).
Ludger H. Viefhues, S.J., from Germany, is a Ph.D.
student in the School of Arts and Sciences at
Harvard University in Boston. He has been involved
in ministry with those in jails and prisons.
Notes
1McNamara, Jo Ann. Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns
Through Two Millennia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1996.
2Boswell, John. “Concepts, Experiences, and Sexuality.” In
Que(e)ring Religion—A Critical Anthology, ed. Gary David
Comstock, 121. New York: Continuum, 1997.
3It is important to note that this line of thought depends
on traditional understandings of maleness. I further
believe that an emphasis on the heroic self-control
involved in a chaste life is an echo of the “males are
in power” idea. I take it that an awareness of the
inherent gender instability is at the heart of this and
other exaggerations.
4Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts
of Pollution and Taboo. London; Boston: Ark Paperbacks,
1984, 4.
5Cavell, Stanley. The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism,
Morality, and Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New
York: Oxford University Press, 1979, 418. Emphasis mine.
This is the positive grace that we as queer
men and women contribute to the church;
we are pointing to the fundamental reality
of uncertainty and the troubling
necessity of trust.
Summer 1999 MINISTRIES 25
God is Up to Something,
Even in Congregational Conflict
Listening Leaders Bear Fruit
Pat Taylor Ellison
At some points along their journey all congregations, if
they’re healthy, need to have tough conversations. Perhaps
the members are concerned about how money is being spent,
or how the building is being maintained— or perhaps the congregation
has discovered that, over the years, they are faced
with different ministry challenges and different persons to
serve than they when they were founded.
New people with new needs live at their doorstep. Does
the congregation continue unchanged? Or do they change
the way they live the life of faith for the sake of the neighbor?
These are tough questions that all dynamic, life-filled congregations
encounter.
But what happens? People need to speak frankly with one
another for the congregation to maintain or strengthen its
healthy relationships among the members and especially with
the community. Do they do so? Sadly, as often as not, the
answer is no. Does your congregation speak frankly? Of course
you know you should do it, but how do you do it? What if
people disagree with one another? What if feelings are hurt?
What if the congregation’s mission or vision is questioned?
And how does our congregation have this tough conversation
in such a way that it is grounded in our faith?
Really fruitful conversations in healthy congregations are
often led by surprising folks, folks who may not be paid staff
members or even congregational officers. Such conversation
is led by the great listeners of the congregation, “listening
leaders” we call them, people who know that a safer place has
to be established, a welcoming set of ground rules and habits
have to be lived out, so that anyone who is alive in faith can
participate. What follows is what we have learned over the
past decade at the Church Innovations Institute (Minnesota)
from experiences of congregations, large and small, throughout
North America.
Components of Capacity
In any enterprise that people undertake, four Components
of Capacity help them create the climate for that enterprise
and enable them to become good at it. Aristotle said these
were the four things that separated the novice from the accomplished
person, whatever the field of endeavor. The four
Components of Capacity are: attitudes and beliefs, a “just
enough” knowledge base, a few skills, and a set of habits that
can be passed along to others.
A woodcarver, for example, has attitudes and beliefs about
the wood, the tools, the article to be created, and its uses. The
woodcarver has just enough knowledge of what sort of wood
behaves in what way, what moisture and tools do to change
the wood, and so on. The woodcarver has learned a set of
skills particular to the trade and has developed a set of habits
for his or her life that allow for the pursuit of craftsmanship,
usefulness, and beauty.
Hosting fruitful disputes doesn’t seem much like woodcarving,
yet we know that listening leaders who discover and
master these four components for their work, appropriate to
their setting, can make a huge difference in the way congregations
encounter and even embrace differences and disagreement
as they grow in mission and service to their neighbors.
In congregations which encounter tough issues and need
open, honest, frank conversation that really bears fruit, the
effective listening leaders we have met demonstrate these specific
gifts under each component of capacity:
EFFECTIVE LISTENING LEADERS
Attitudes and Beliefs
• Your hope is not in your persuasive skills but in God’s promises
and God’s love.
• When you disagree with others faithfully, you discover
newness and surprise.
• You have a preference for action: you’d rather forge ahead
than hide.
“Just Enough” Knowledge Base
• You know the tradition of your faith community that is
having the conversation.
• You have a working knowledge of the Bible, especially Bible
stories that form the Christian imagination of those taking
part in the conversation and welcome rather than foreclose
talk.
• You have some method for interaction (understand how it
works, where it goes awry, etc.).
Skills
• You are good at adapting and inventing ways of interacting
with people.
• You use your Christ-inspired imagination to encourage great
conversation.
• You can bring people back again and again to a common
vision for their conversation.
Habits
• You embody hospitality.
• You are a living listener whose whole body and mind encourages
others to speak.
• You encourage honest disagreement so that new thinking
can be heard and tested.
These are the gifts we see in the leaders of great faith-based,
fruit-bearing moral conversation. Perhaps, reading them, you
are saying to yourself, “Yes, of course. But what do they look
like in the heat of a dispute?” As you read the following example,
look for the gifts listed above.
An Example of Listening Leadership
A congregation was wrestling with whether to acknowledge
a longstanding gay and lesbian fellowship group in its
WELCOMING PROCESS
26 MINISTRIES Open Hands
new congregational brochure. Most members were cordial to
the group’s being part of the church’s ministry— it was this
moment of going public that was at stake. The church’s leadership
knew that a frank, public conversation with as many
persons as possible was necessary before a fruitful decision
could be made. The conversation would have to be one in
which people could free one another up enough to speak their
minds and hearts on the issue, so that, whatever the outcome,
everyone could claim to have been part of a public comingto-
terms with the future not only of the brochure but of their
shared ministry.
The listening leader knew the issue and knew the arguments.
She knew that people would have to feel safe enough
to speak. She knew that the congregation valued persons for
their unique gifts and talents. She knew how to appeal to
people’s imaginations of service and welcome in Christ’s name.
She began with Bible study, encouraging people to dwell in a text
(a particularly good one is the “Christ Hymn” in Philippians 2,
which urges believers to have the same mind that is theirs in
Christ, who became a slave in order to free others) to open
people’s imaginations to God’s promises and to remind them
of their shared faith. She walked participants through a userfriendly
brainstorm structure that encouraged them to think
of their tradition, especially Scripture, the needs and messages
of society and culture, and their own experience as faithful
people, both individually and corporately. She honored
everyone’s contributions equally. She returned to the text for
new insight when talk halted for one reason or another.
The listening leader paid attention to body language. She
encouraged people to picture their ministry with and without
publicly listing the group in question, and listened as they
spoke the old and the new arguments. After a little while the
gathered folks were talking to one another directly, no longer
through her as mediator. She tested this lowered reliance on
her presence once the conversation was floating by leaving
the room. The talk continued on into the evening, and in the
end, the decision was reached: the group was listed publicly.
Of course there was still some fallout. And it must be said that
not everyone who could and maybe should have attended the
conversation actually came. Yet those gathered that evening
experienced a sort of coming to terms without coming to
blows, a hospitality that they were not expecting.
The dwelling in a scriptural text that invites listening and
even slavehood in service of freeing the neighbor, the brainstorming
model, the space and time for an ensuing “floating”
conversation, the encouragement of civil if passionate debate
that honors all comers— these activities demonstrate the list
of gifts under each component of capacity. The listening leader
had a grasp of something crucial within each category: particular
attitudes and beliefs, a minimum knowledge base to
work from, a set of skills, and basic habits that, when placed
in service of that congregation during that time, permitted
them to put their disagreement to work to bear fruit. The model
that was used is called Growing Healthier Congregations, or How
to Talk Together When Nobody is Listening developed by Church
Innovations, based on experiences exactly like this one. We
created it because of our deep belief that God is up to something,
even in conflict. A trusted listening leader from your
congregation, with tools like this and the Holy Spirit’s guidance,
can help create safer spaces to tackle
tough issues, to have fair and fruitful fights,
and to discover more energy for mission.
Pat Taylor Ellison, Ph.D., a Lutheran, is associate
director of research of the Church Innovations
Institute in Saint Louis Park, Minnesota.
How Can We Reach More Parents?
Paul Beeman, National President, PFLAG
Hurray! So you and your congregation have taken a year
to study homosexuality in light of your faith. With fear and
trembling, you took The Vote. To your relief, your congregation
voted to become a welcoming congregation.
Congratulations! But what now?
Quite a few people have said with a trace of sorrow, “Since
we took the vote in our congregation, not much has changed.
The flood of new gay members that some predicted/feared/
hoped would blossom, hasn’t happened. Except for a couple
of activists, most member families we know, or suspect may
have a gay child still have not stepped forward. We don’t wish
to “out” people or families, but we expected and hoped for
more results. What more can we do? How is a Welcoming
congregation supposed to…well, to Welcome people who don’t
come? How can we reach out to more parents?”
Having been pastor of several congregations where LGBT
persons and their families could be totally open, here are a
few suggestions.
First, be careful of the “We”-“They” pronouns.
In a welcoming congregation, “We” are not inviting
“Them.” It is different now. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered,
questioning, straight, parent, child, male, female,
lay, clergy— all of us are “We.” One faith, one baptism, One
Body. No more “Theys.” Jamie Henderson, son of former
PFLAG President Mitzi and Tom Henderson, is from a long
PARENTS
For an in-depth yet user-friendly approach to dealing with
tough congregational conversations, you can train yourself
using:
Growing Healthier Congregations, or How to Talk Together
When Nobody’s Listening, a video workshop. Pat Keifert,
Pat Taylor Ellison, Ron Duty. Church Innovations Publishing,
Inc., 1997. A 124-page, 2-video training kit for
congregational groups of all ages and sizes, meant to grow
a set of healthy habits for taking our faith seriously as we
tackle tough issues.
To order this resource or to be trained by an associate of
Church Innovations Institute, contact the Institute at
1-888-223-7631.
Summer 1999 MINISTRIES 27
line of Presbyterians. But he warned, “Healthy people don’t
stay in abusive relationships, and the church has been abusive
to its gay and lesbian members. I was tired of always justifying
my presence in my church, of always being The Gay
member, not just myself.” In a Welcoming congregation, no
person or group is singled out. We are all One.
Second, take time for prayer and celebration as One.
You have taken a gigantic and historic step of faithfulness
in becoming a welcoming congregation. Don’t stop now. But
don’t feel discouraged if the world, or even your small part of
it, doesn’t change instantly. Take time to catch your collective
breath and offer thanks for gains made. There are lots of
ways to celebrate: some devout, some communal, some raucous.
What fits your congregation’s style? Some celebrations
need to be renewed every year. One congregation uses St.
Valentine’s Day annually to combine all three, with a prayer
vigil for thanks and guidance, a Valentine’s Day dance, and a
press conference outlining their plans for action in a related
LGBT issue. Your local PFLAG chapter would be delighted to
share with you in planning and to participate in such events.
Third, do visioning together.
What do you and your gay and straight colleagues want
your welcoming congregation to look like in the years ahead?
In studying prehistoric petroglyphs (rock carving) and pictographs
(rock paintings) near where we winter in Arizona, I
learned of the ancient peoples’ “sympathetic magic.” They
believed if, in your sacred place, you draw what you want to
happen, that will make it happen. Draw an elk on the cave
wall before you go hunting and you will find one. Good advice
in hunting for more church participants. What brought
in those of you already active? What is or could become special
about your congregation to make LGBT’s and their families
feel safe and welcome?
Fourth, speak up on gay and other minority issues.
Without becoming one-sided, let these topics become an
easy part of your casual personal conversations, with friends
and in social gatherings. Draft statements and occasional position
papers for use in committee meetings, administrative bodies, announcements,
sermons and news releases. I have often spoken
about sexual minority or gender identity issues in a sermon or a
large group. Almost invariably someone comes to me afterward,
feeling I have given them permission to speak openly
about a long-hidden topic in their lives or their families.
Fifth, declare your congregation to be a discriminationfree
zone.
After a period of study and soul-searching, a congregation
in Tacoma, Washington, declared itself to be a Bigotry-Free
Zone. That notation appears on its signboards, worship bulletins,
newsletters and letterheads. Progress has been deliberate,
but some members admitted they have gay daughters and
sons. A few new LGBT persons began to attend and some have
joined. Soon the church opened its facilities for a newly-organizing
PFLAG chapter.
Sixth, be sure LGBT persons are in responsible and visible
positions.
At Advent and Christmas Eve services I always asked families
to light the Advent Candles, along with their reading of
scripture and prayer. As far as I know there was hardly a blink
when a long- term member-family consisting of two gay men
did the lighting one Christmas Eve. That the highly qualified
chair of our education committee happened to be lesbian was
equally irrelevant.
Seventh, participate in your denomination’s pro-gay
caucus.
In my denomination, representatives of our Reconciling
Congregations— lay and clergy, gay and straight—meet regularly
in clusters, to support one another and to help sympathizers
in other congregations take the first steps toward becoming
welcoming. Our representatives meet occasionally as
a statewide coalition to strategize for getting pro-acceptance
lay and clergy elected to our regional and national law and
policy-making bodies. We all need these relationships, for
support, for sharing information, for conceiving together our
congregation’s future, and to influence our denominations.
So get together and start drawing pictures on your cave
walls, depicting what you hope for in your congregation. And
happy hunting!
Paul Beeman has served as pastor of United Methodist churches
large and small, as a district superintendent, and as a Director of
Public Relations for Methodist conferences in
Washington State and in the Dakotas. He and
his wife, Betty, have four children: two straight,
one lesbian and one gay. The Beemans helped
organize the PFLAG chapter in Olympia,
where they have retired. He has been a
PFLAG national board member since 1993,
and became its president in 1998.
SPIRITUALITY
Profound Holiness at the Heart of Gay Love
Meeting AIDS Honestly and Lovingly
Daniel A. Helminiak
Richard Hardy has written a powerful book about the spiritual
experience of gay men whose partners have AIDS. Loving
Men: Gay Partners, Spirituality, and AIDS (Continuum, 1998) is
authoritative. He knows AIDS and he knows spirituality. He
did in-depth interviews with thirteen gay partners of PWAs,
and he understood their experience: his own partner died of
AIDS. Besides, he was professor of spirituality at St. Paul University,
Ottawa, and is currently adjunct professor of spirituality
at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley.
He truly presents the spiritual depths of gay couples living
with AIDS. He chronicles what many find inconceivable: profound
holiness at the heart of gay love.
The book begins with a fine chapter on spirituality: what it
is, how it necessarily includes the body, why it need not be
religious. The remaining six chapters treat in turn various facets
of the experience of loving a man with AIDS, and Hardy
highlights the spiritual dimension of each facet. This is not a
book of stories about men with AIDS, though it does tell parts
28 MINISTRIES Open Hands
of their stories. It is rather an analytic portrayal of how their
stories are deeply spiritual. The topics include their meeting
(some in bars, some in churches), the risks they took, the personal
development they pursued, the communities that supported
and rejected them, their images of God and their prayer
experiences or lack thereof, and the hope they found in the
midst of the plague. Hardy shows how God and spiritual pursuit
were at stake all along the way.
If ever there is an argument for gay marriage, this book
must be it. Talk about heroic love “in sickness and in health,
until death do us part”! Here are gay men who made wellweighed
commitments to one another, “vows,” and lived out
their commitments in the face of overwhelming odds. These
gay relationships are as profound and real as any heterosexual
marriage. And they are as holy. “The great mystics…,” Hardy
writes, “constantly remind us of the mystery of the sacred in
all that is human…. To enter into the fullness of love—which
sexual lovemaking is at its best—is to find at its very core the
God who made it so” (p. 137). This gay love is real love; it
must be. As one man, Frank, phrased it, “You have to be able
to love to get through it” (p. 159). End of discussion.
The power of this book is that it does not talk around the
subject. It presents it up front, the actual words from the lips
of these men. Those who have lived this experience will surely
recognize themselves in this book. Those who have not will
come to understand, perhaps to actually feel, what AIDS means.
Reading this book, all will recognize occasions for holiness at
every turn in the course of AIDS.
Indeed, this book shows us some contemporary saints. They
are not saints, of course, “if one envisions saints as characters
living out of this world. But they are saints if one sees saints as
people who live and love passionately, each in their own way,
place and time” (p. 183). These men became saints by dealing
honestly and lovingly with AIDS. Their minds were opened
and their love expanded. Very challenging circumstances
forced them to dig down deep and to reach for life’s core.
They simplified their perspective. They learned to cherish each
moment. They came to know themselves and their love as
part of a marvelous universe. The usual word to name this
achievement is mysticism. By living with AIDS and loving as
gays, these men became mystics.
Loving Men documents that fact, so Hardy has made an important
contribution. Too long has body-denying and gay-bashing
religion dominated the spiritual scene. In contrast, Hardy
presents a picture of “authentic spirituality” (p. 163). He spells
out what spiritual growth is about—healthy and wholesome
human development, in the body yet open to transcendence.
And he highlights this very thing in the lives of the gay men
he studied. Rich in detail, profound in understanding, instructive
about the meaning of spirituality, this
book deserves a thoughtful reading.
Daniel Helminiak, formerly a Roman Catholic
priest and presently a psychotherapist and
educator, is the author of several books, most
recently, Religion and the Human Sciences:
An Approach via Spirituality (State University
of New York Press, 1998).
A Litany
for
Worship
Ron Coughlin
This litany was written for a Pride Day Service of Worship in the Canadian
context. You are encouraged to adapt it to your own situation
and context.
Litany of Confession
(Readers will come up to the Table one by one, read their parts and
then extinguish one candle. As each reader returns to her/his pew,
the next reader will come forward.)
Reader 1 We remember the sorrows of the thousands and thousands
of gay men, lesbian women and bisexual persons
who were murdered as heretics, condemned as
witches, gassed in Nazi concentration camps, shocked
in mental asylums, labeled sinful or sick, and robbed
of self esteem and dignity. Confessing our society’s
oppression we extinguish this candle.
Reader 2 We recognize that our world has not responded with
compassion and urgency to the crisis of people living
with HIV and AIDS. Many people who suffer from this
illness are still being treated as lepers in our society.
Confessing our society’s oppression we extinguish this
candle.
Reader 3 We express sorrow and outrage for the many men and
women who have been beaten up or murdered on the
suspicion of being gay, lesbian or bisexual. We acknowledge
that in some countries of our world a lesbian
or gay relationship is against the law and is considered
a crime punishable by a jail sentence. Confessing
our society’s oppression we extinguish this
candle.
Reader 4 We pray for the many ministers who have lost their
positions because they have been open about their
sexual orientation or because they were suspected of
being gay or lesbian, or because they presided at a
covenanting service of holy union. We remember the
congregations which have been disfellowshipped because
they were an open and welcoming congregation
to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons.
Confessing our society’s oppression we extinguish
this candle.
Sustaining
the Spirit
Summer 1999 MINISTRIES 29
Reader 5 We recognize that in this country gay and lesbian
couples do not enjoy the same privileges and rights as
other couples. These couples are denied health benefits,
pension payments, and the right for access to
our loved ones in hospitals. Confessing our society’s
oppression we extinguish this candle.
Reader 6 We are appalled by the statistics which show that the
largest number of young men who commit suicide are
those who are gay. People who struggle with self-acceptance
and society’s lack of acceptance of gay
people often see no hope and give up. Confessing our
society’s oppression we extinguish this candle.
Reader 7 We recall the times when we have heard a racist, sexist
or homophobic joke or story and did not speak up.
Confessing our society’s oppression we extinguish this
candle.
Silence We say together:
All: Amen.
Prayers of Thanksgiving
(Readers will come up to the Table one by one, read their parts and
then light one candle. As each reader returns to her/his pew, the next
reader will come forward.)
Reader 1 In thanksgiving, we remember the many signs of hope
that boundaries will be broken and that real acceptance
and justice will be offered to all people regardless
of sexual orientation. We remember the Stonewall
protests in New York in 1969, a significant milestone
in the struggle for gay and lesbian rights. 1969
also was the year when then Justice Minister Pierre
Trudeau removed homosexual activity between consenting
adults from the Criminal Code of Canada. In
thanksgiving for these signs of hope we light this
candle.
Reader 2 In 1977 sexual orientation was added to the Charter of
Human Rights by the Province of Quebec. This forbids
discrimination in employment, housing, and community
services for individual gay men and lesbians.
Since that time, similar laws have been passed by
Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario,
Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, the Yukon
and the Northwest Territories. Our courts have written
these human rights into the laws of Alberta. In thanksgiving
for these signs of hope we light this candle.
Reader 3 The United Church of Canada, since 1980, has advocated
for the acceptance of and justice for all people,
regardless of their sexual orientation. In 1988 and 1990,
the right of all people to be considered for ordination
and commissioning was affirmed. We celebrate the
tenth anniversary of this decision and acknowledge that
currently there are 30 openly gay or lesbian ministers
in parish ministry across our church. The United Church
has settled 7 openly gay or lesbian ministers in their
first pastoral charge and has created a safer place for
candidates to acknowledge honestly their sexual orientation.
In thanksgiving for these signs of hope we
light this candle.
Reader 4 We give thanks that recent court decisions have supported
the rights of gay and lesbian persons. We recall
that in Nova Scotia recently, the courts have upheld
the rights for same-gender couples to have the
same spousal benefits as other couples. In thanksgiving
for these signs of hope we light this candle.
Reader5 In 1982, a group of men and women meeting in
Montreal founded Affirm: Gays and Lesbians in The
United Church of Canada, now known as Affirm United.
This group of dedicated justice- seekers have assisted
our church over many years through dialogue, study
and calls for justice. In thanksgiving for these people
and the many others who work in their own milieu for
justice and hope, we light this candle.
Reader 6 For the new acceptance of positive images of lesbians,
gay men and bisexual persons in the press, on
our stages, on television and in modern films, we give
thanks. We think of Ellen Degeneres, KD Lang, Melissa
Etheridge, Rupert Everett, George Michael and
many others. We welcome the new understanding that
sexual orientation is a fact of God’s creation, like being
left-handed. In thanksgiving for these signs of hope
we light this candle.
Reader 7 We give thanks for the many quiet signs of support—
the encouraging word, the remembrance of anniversaries,
the joining in the Pride Day parade, the firm
comment that homophobia is not accepted here. These
and numerous other ways of showing support are signs
of God’s love and acceptance. In thanksgiving for these
signs of hope we light this candle.
Silence We say together:
All: Amen.
Ron Coughlin is the program leader for the Affirming Congregation
Programme of the United Church of Canada, the newest ecumenical
partner of Open Hands.
30 Open Hands
Movement
News
POSITION AVAILABLE
Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) Job Opening
FOR, a national interfaith peace and justice organization seeks
a Nonviolence Education and Training Coordinator to organize
and lead nonviolence education and training programs. Application
deadline: Oct 1, 1999. Starting date: Jan 3, 2000. Send
resumes and contact Yvonne Royster for application form: The
Fellowship of Reconciliation, Box 271, Nyack, NY 10960. (914)
358-4601. Fax: (914) 358-4924.
Mark Bowman Leaves RCP and Open
Hands; Jim Sauder Leaves BMC Council
The cofounder and publisher of Open Hands and the executive
director of the Reconciling Congregation Program within
the United Methodist Church left both posts as of the sixth
national RCP convocation at the end of July. Mark Bowman
oversaw the shaping of the RCP ministry and Open Hands
magazine, published by the RCP in cooperation with ecumenical
partners in six other denominations. Few, if any, national
GLBT leaders within the welcoming congregations movement
have served as creatively, passionately, and lovingly with such
stamina and longevity as Bowman. Open Hands editor Chris
Glaser praised Bowman “as a friend, a prophet, a pioneer, and
a wonderful person to work with— always supportive, encouraging,
trusting.” [Look for Mark Bowman’s reflections on his
twenty-year effort to bring reform to the church in the Fall
issue of Open Hands.]
Earlier this year, Jim Sauder resigned his decade-long leadership
role as coordinator and then executive director of the
Brethren/Mennonite Council for Lesbian and Gay Concerns.
He represented the Council’s Supportive Congregations Network
on the Open Hands Advisory Committee, and his participation
will be greatly missed.
Allen Harris Honored by UCC Coalition
Nearly 300 people gathered at the Westin Hotel for the UCC
Coalition for LGBT Concerns luncheon during the General
Synod held in Providence, Rhode Island, in July. The Coalition
honored a colleague, the Rev. Allen Harris, for his nine
years of leadership as developer of the Open and Affirming
(O&A) Ministries of the Gay, Lesbian, and Affirming Disciples
Alliance (in the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ), a leadership
position Harris left this past year. Certificates were also
presented to the 76 UCC congregations which had been listed
as Open and Affirming since the General Synod in 1997.
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)
ML Presbyterians Name Field Organizer
More Light Presbyterians has hired its first national field
organizer, Michael J. Adee. The addition of a full-time staff
person marks the commitment of the new organization—a
merger of the former Presbyterians for Lesbian & Gay Concerns
and the More Light Church Network—to training and
working with congregations, chapters, and presbyteries. A lifelong
Presbyterian, Adee’s background includes parish and campus
ministry, chaplaincy, hospice work, overseas missionary
service, political organizing, diversity training, social change
programs and university teaching. He holds an M.Div. from
Southwestern Seminary and a Ph.D. in Communication from
Louisiana State University. He has served as an elder in two
Presbyterian churches. Formerly he was the executive director
of the Stonewall Cincinnati Human Rights Organization, and
more recently, the executive director of The Experience, a national
non-profit educational organization serving the gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender community. Adee can be
reached at 505/992-1919 or mjadeemlp@aol.com.
Founders of Catholic Ministry Silenced
Jeannine Gramick, a nun who organized weekly masses for
gay Catholics as early as 1971, and Robert Nugent, a priest who
joined her, forming New Ways Ministry in 1977 to connect the
gay community and the Catholic Church, have been ordered
by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to
stop their ministry of 25 years. They had been told in 1984 to
include in their ministry “the church’s teaching regarding the
intrinsic evil of homosexual acts.” But both Gramick and
Nugent continued to serve the broader church as prophets urging
changes in attitudes toward gay people, while serving gays
and lesbians and their families as pastors. They also produced
two books on the subject. A written statement from Nugent
indicated compliance with the mandate not to speak but perhaps
to write on the subject (apparently not specifically forbidden),
and to continue counseling and the sacrament of reconciliation
on a private, personal basis. Francis DeBernardo,
executive director of New Ways Ministry (based in Mount
Rainier, Maryland), told The Washington Blade, “The silencing
of them is an impotent act on the part of the Catholic Church
because I think the discussion about gays that they have sparked
has already blossomed.”
Summer 1999 31
Welcoming
Communities
More Churches Declare Welcoming Stance
Annual listing of welcoming congregations (Winter 1999) erratum:
Christ Church United Methodist instead of Christ UMC in Santa Rosa,
California.
OPEN AND AFFIRMING PROGRAM
Parkway United Church of Christ
Minneapolis, Minnesota
This urban congregation of 500 members has a
strong commitment to local mission (food pantry, clothing
drive, etc.) and, with the capable leadership of two lay members,
a growing ministry with youth. Following a year of study,
the church became ONA with 98% of those voting favorably.
The church now announces events like LGBT Pride and the
area AIDS Walk and is designing a banner that church members
might use when participating in such events. Last summer
the congregation held a series of summer potluck discussions
on “Equal Rights in Covenant Life” and then developed
a statement supporting same-sex marriage. This summer they
plan another series on violence in America.
RECONCILING CONGREGATIONS
Alum Rock United Methodist Church
San Jose, California
Alum Rock UMC was chartered in 1951 as a suburban
neighborhood church serving the east side of San Jose.
The presence of several different ethnic groups in this 250-
member congregation has made it known as a diverse congregation.
Alum Rock has a strong history in refugee ministry
and is preparing to welcome a family from Kosovo. Alum Rock
is engaged in ecumenical ministry with other churches through
People Acting in Community Together (PACT), a faith-based
community organizing project which is working on education
and traffic safety issues.
Central United Methodist Church
Stockton, California
Central UMC was founded in 1849 during the earliest period
of the California Gold Rush. In 1964 the congregation
dedicated a new building known for its dramatic architectural
style across the street from the University of the Pacific. The
860-member congregation is comprised largely of educators
and is quite cosmopolitan with persons from Africa, Europe,
and Asia. Central took three years to study what it would mean
to become a Reconciling Congregation with many forums and
study groups. The affirmative vote by the congregation was
about 80%.
Clifton United Methodist Church
Cincinnati, Ohio
This 107-year-old congregation has a rich history of ministry
in a university neighborhood. Clifton helped start a Korean
congregation and a ministry with Cambodian refugees.
Increased participation by students in recent years has led the
congregation to become more involved in campus ministry.
Clifton has long been known as a community which appreciates
diversity of thought and theological perspective. The congregation
of 170 members includes many folks from other faith
and denominational backgrounds who have found a home there
as well as a place to explore their faith and ask questions. Gay
and lesbian persons have worshiped at Clifton for several decades
and new persons are now coming because of the decision
to be a Reconciling Congregation.
Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Harvard-Epworth UMC is located in Harvard Square and is
surrounded by Harvard Law School. The 300-member congregation
draws persons from throughout the metropolitan Boston
area. Harvard-Epworth is known for its excellent preaching
and music program and as a community with as many
singles as couples. The congregation has a long tradition of
involvement in social justice issues and has had a significant
number of gay and lesbian members for many years. After a
long pastorate of 33 years, the congregation is in the midst of
redefining its identity.
Peace United Methodist Church
Shoreview, Minnesota
Peace UMC is about thirty years old and is located in an
affluent suburb of St. Paul. This high-energy congregation has
been growing fairly rapidly in recent years and now includes
about 750 members, mostly younger families. Peace United
Methodist Church’s strong emphasis on inclusivity has been
spearheaded by its Committee on the Status and Role of
Women. Peace has a dynamic music ministry and has recently
developed partnership ministries with a couple of inner-city
churches.
St. Stephen’s United Methodist Church
Marblehead, Massachusetts
This historic congregation was founded in 1791 after Jesse
Lee visited with a group of men and women in an upper room
in Marblehead. St. Stephen’s is located on the seacoast in an
affluent suburb north of Boston. The 300-member congregation
is largely professional and is experiencing a renaissance
of younger couples with children. The congregation is known
for its friendliness, its excellent music program, and its pastor’s
unconventional style. St. Stephen’s is engaged in a number of
local and international missions. The Reconciling Congregation
decision was made unanimously.
32 Open Hands
A gay Roman Catholic priest
speaks out for what he believes—
“John McNeill is one of
my heroes. He will be
remembered as the gay
saint in the twentieth
century who initiated a
Catholic Stonewall
while the Church in fear
tried to closet him and finally
expelled him because he believed that Christianity
is fundamentally about kindness and inclusion.”
—Rev. Dr. Robert Goss, author of Jesus Acted Up and
co-chairman of the Gay Men Studies in Religion Group of
the American Academy of Religion
At your bookstore,
your Cokesbury bookstore or
call (800) 227-2872 • www.wjk.org
Both Feet Firmly
Planted in Midair
My Spiritual Journey
John J. McNeill
Paper $18.00
RECONCILING IN CHRIST
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church
Charlotte, North Carolina
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church has hosted a pediatric
day care for children with HIV/AIDS for the past three
years. The program has evolved into a ministry for parents,
siblings, friends and supporters of PWA’s in general. The RIC
decision came out of the mission statement to be a welcoming
community to people whom the world has marginalized. GLBT
people have been assuming more and more positions of leadership
in the congregation, and the church has an interest in
advocacy for physically handicapped people as well.
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer
Aurora, Illinois
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, located in an urban setting,
has about 100 members. The church hosts one of the
most successful Hispanic-Anglo partnerships in the ELCA. The
decision to become RIC was laity-led, and grew naturally out
of a sense of the importance of diversity in the congregation’s
members. There will be ongoing discussion of how to address
issues of justice around race and sexual orientation.
QTY BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE
___ Welcoming the World (Spring 1999)
___ Why Be Specific in Our Welcome? (Winter 1999)
___ A House Divided: Irreconcilable Differences? (Fall1998)
___ Bisexuality: Both/And Rather Than Either/Or (Summer 1998)
___ Treasure in Earthen Vessels—Sexual Ethics (Spring 1998)
___ We’re Welcoming, Now What? (Winter 1998)
___ From One Womb at One Table (Fall 1997)
___ Creating Sanctuary: All Youth Welcome Here! (Summer 1997)
___ Same-Sex Unions (Spring 1997)
___ Untangling Prejudice and Privilege (Fall 1995)
___ Remembering…10th Anniversary (Summer 1995)
___ The God to Whom We Pray (Spring 1995)
___ Reclaiming Pride (Summer 1994)
___ Aging and Integrity (Fall 1992)
___ Our Spirituality: How Sexual Expression and Oppression
Shape It (Summer 1992)
___ The Lesbian Spirit (Summer 1991)
___ Lesbian/Gay Reflections on Theology (Spring 1991)
___ Youth and Sexual Identity (Winter 1991)
___ The “Holy Union” Controversy (Fall 1990)
___ Journeys toward Recovery and Wholeness (Spring 1990)
___ Images of Family (Fall 1989)
___ The Closet Dilemma (Summer 1989)
___ Lesbian & Gay Men in the Religious Arts (Spring 1989)
___ Living and Loving with AIDS (Summer 1988)
___ Building Reconciling Ministries (Spring 1988)
___ Sexual Violence (Fall 1987)
___ Minorities within a Minority (Spring 1987)
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