Open Hands Vol 15 No 3 - Liberating Word: Interpreting the Bible

Open Hands Vol 15 No 3 - Liberating Word: Interpreting the Bible

15

3

2000

Winter

Vol. 15 No. 3
Winter 2000
2 Open Hands
Vol. 15 No. 3 Winter 2000
Resources for Ministries Affirming
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Chris Glaser
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LIBERATING WORD
Interpreting the Bible
Take Back the Bible 4
IRENE MONROE
Not a battle about biblical inerrancy—a battle of who’s in
charge.
Beyond the Human Point of View 5
PETER J. GOMES
We are the future of a vital church, the “evangelistic seed for the
church of the next millennium...where Christ always wanted his
church to be.”
Maturity and the Church of the Holy Spirit 10
JOHN J. MCNEILL
“The church is twenty going on twenty-one, which is the age of
maturity.”
Outing the Bible 11
A Queer Biblical Agenda
NANCY WILSON
From Derrick Sherwin Bailey to Judy Grahn, the Bible cries out
for new interpretations.
The Bible and Love Between Women 15
BERNADETTE J. BROOTEN
“Natural” intercourse in biblical times meant penetration of a
subordinate person by a dominant one.
Breaking Open Tradition 18
ANN M. AMIDEO
“At twenty-one, I received the dreaded ultimatum: conform with
our traditions or you are no longer a member of our family.”
Scripture, Homosexuality, and the Nature of Christianity 20
DANIEL A. HELMINIAK
Does Christianity itself stand or fall with lesbians and gays?
The answer appears to be, Yes.
QUESTION (Biblical) AUTHORITY! 24
Free in the Spirit, Not Shackled by a Text
T. LYNN STOTT
Questioning the whole enterprise of biblical interpretation for
LGBT people.
Resources .............................................. 19
Annual Welcoming List ........................ 26
Winter 2000 3
Program Coordinators
Marilyn Alexander (Interim)
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
Michael J. Adee
More Light Presbyterians
(PCUSA)
369 Montezuma Ave. PMB #447
Santa Fe, NM 87501-2626
505/820-7082
www.mlp.org
Brenda J. Moulton
Welcoming & Affirming
Baptists (ABC/USA)
P.O. Box 2596
Attleboro Falls, MA 02763
508/226-1945
users.aol.com/wabaptists
John Wade Payne (Interim)
Open & Affirming Ministries
(Disciples of Christ)
P.O. Box 44400
Indianapolis, IN 46244
941/728-8833
www.sacredplaces.com/glad
Editorial Advisory Committee
Vaughn Beckman, O&A
Howard Bess, W&A
Ann Marie Coleman, ONA
Bobbi Hargleroad, MLP
Tom Harshman, O&A
Dick Hasbany, MLP
Alyson Huntly, ACP
Bonnie Kelly, ACP
Susan Laurie, RCP
Samuel E. Loliger, ONA
Ruth Moerdyk, SCN
Tim Phillips, W&A
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:
FOR ALL THE SAINTS
Stories of the Welcoming Movement
Call for articles, litanies, and columns for
Open Hands Fall 2000
THE HEALING TOUCH
Our Pastoral Concerns
Theme Section: How have we and how can we, as church, provide healing for
those hurt by church policies and effect reconciliation among those with differing
opinions? How does the church repent of its sin of exclusion? How will
our faith heal the church, making us whole? How do LGBT people let go of
victimhood, once a church welcomes them? How do they graciously “accept”
being “accepted”? What about LGBT families and friends and advocates in this
long struggle? And what about our opposition?
1000-2500 words per article. Liturgies and litanies welcome too.
Ministries Section: Columns 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.
750-1000 words.
Contact with ideas by June 1, 2000 Manuscript deadline: July 15, 2000
Chris Glaser, Phone/Fax 404/622-4222 or e-mail at ChrsGlaser@aol.com
991 Berne St. SE, Atlanta, GA 30316-1859 USA
WE APOLOGIZE!
We apologize for mailing delays of
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Thank you!
4 Open Hands
Determining which messages
are discarded and which are
upheld is not a battle about
biblical inerrancy or God’s will.
It is an unmitigated battle
of human will.
The authority of scripture does
not lie in what God said.
It lies in the hands of those
in power who determine
what God ought to say.
The Bible has always been a
troubling text in our culture.
Though it should serve as a
balm in Gilead to soothe the sick and
protect the weak, the Bible has also
functioned throughout centuries as a
controlling device, and its authoritative
status in our society makes us all wonder
if there is truly a separation between
church and state. For example, it took
the end of American slavery for both
the state and church to marry African
Americans. Prior to the end of the Civil
War, my ancestors had to “jump over a
broom” in front of their slave masters
to legalize their nuptials. As for us
queers, there is no broom for us, but
we are jumping over state and church
loopholes in order to protect and consecrate
our unions.
Used as a controlling device, the
Bible continues to promulgate moral
and political agendas. The right wing
Christian groups—the Family Research
Council, the Christian Coalition, and
Americans for Truth About Homosexuality—
have advised their members to
cease using the King James Version of
the Bible because historians have
proven that King James I of England was
gay. Gary Bauer of the Family Research
Council and candidate for the Republican
presidential nomination has said,
“I feel uncomfortable that good Christians
all over America, and indeed the
world, are using a document commissioned
by a homosexual. Anything that
has been commissioned by a homosexual
has obviously been tainted in
some way.”
Supposedly the Bible contains the
will of god, and many Christians, both
blacks as well as whites, believe only
heterosexuals are elected to do God’s
will. Gospel singers Angie and
Debbie Winans released a single last
year titled, “Not Natural,” in which
they self-righteously denounced our
queer lifestyle. When queried by
newscaster Travis Smiley on BET
Tonight what compelled them to do
so, Debbie Winans stated, “We
don’t come as Angie and Debbie.
We come as messengers of God doing
his will.”
“Doing God’s will” is a prodigious
task and unmistakably a human
enterprise. Thus doing God’s will is invariably
subject to error because it is
based in the human act of interpreting
the Word of God. Interpreting
scripture as the Word of God is always
subjective and is always suspect
in intent, whether it is being done in
the ivory towers of seminaries or
within the holy walls of sanctuaries.
Interpreting scripture with menacing
messages—and with litanies of dos
and don’ts—is not about embracing
and empowering all people, but about
authority and power over certain
groups. The authority of scripture does
not lie in what God said. It lies in the
hands of those in power who determine
what God ought to say.
The Bible is replete with contradictory
and damning messages to all
people. Determining which messages
are discarded and which are upheld is
not a battle about biblical inerrancy or
God’s will. It is an unmitigated battle
of human will. For example, there are
two creation myths in the Bible in the
first two chapters of Genesis. The first
says that God made woman and man
simultaneously. The second is our “rib
story,” in which Eve is born from a rib
of Adam. This story has ribbed and
poked at Christian women throughout
the centuries, since it is the authoritative
text for substantiating gender inequity
in society.
The curse of Ham (Genesis 9:18-27)
and the apostle Paul’s edict to slaves
(Ephesians 6:5-8) served as the “scientific”
and “Christian” legitimization for
the enslavement of people of African
ancestry. The Sodom and Gomorrah
narrative (Genesis 19:1-29) is one of the
most quoted scriptures to argue for
compulsory heterosexuality. Yet is it the
will of God to devalue the lives of
women, people of African ancestry, and
queers?
As LGBT people, many of us allow
the power of God’s will to be interpreted
and executed by heterosexuals by not
knowing the Bible ourselves. Our ignorance
about the Bible, whether we are
practicing atheists or recovering Christians,
perpetuates our oppression and
makes us participants in this climate of
queer hatred. Our strategy to stop queerbashing
has to be on both biblical and
legal fronts. Much of our failure with
right wing organizations results from
our refusal or inability to argue for the
biblical legitimation of our rights. The
success of the Civil Rights Movement
was because my people employed both
strategies.
The intent of white slave owners giving
us the Bible was to keep us docile,
Take Back the Bible Irene Monroe
Winter 2000 5
to keep us fearful of God and them, and
to keep us enslaved. However, our
“hermeneutic of suspicion” told those
of us who could and could not read that
the words printed on the pages of the
Bible meant more than what our slave
owners told us, that black life was sacred
and reflected positively in and
throughout those pages, and the God
we served was always on the side of the
oppressed. The Bible became our talking
book, our road map, our Declaration
of Independence, our Bill of Rights.
In other words, the Bible was used as a
subversive tool to form and to frame a
new world order. The Bible told us how
to do what must be done. And in so
doing, Nat Turner revolted against slavery,
and Harriet Tubman conducted a
railroad out of it.
Today even the Southern Baptists,
who used the Bible to support its bigoted
stance against my people, not only
know that it is illegal to discriminate
against African Americans, but that it is
also morally wrong and against God’s
will to do so. They, too, now interpret
the Bible with a filter against racism.
As more and more lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender people unabashedly
take back the Bible, we must
ask ourselves questions of each text like
I ask myself: “Do I tolerate this text or
do I accept it? What about this text is
liberating and truth-telling, and what
about it is oppressive, damning, and
damaging? How is my existence as
black, female, and queer, embraced,
skewed, or made invisible by Christians
using this text? And how has our use of
this text created a welcoming world?”
Irene Monroe, M.Div.,
is the head teaching
fellow of the Rev. Peter
Gomes and a doctoral
candidate at Harvard
Divinity School. A Ford
Foundation Fellow, she
views her life’s work as
public theologian, and
writes a biweekly column called “The Religion
Thang” for In Newsweekly, a LGBT
newspaper circulated widely in New England.
The Vitality of Scripture
A conundrum that I face frequently in
my courses on the interpretation of
scripture, and in my general commerce
across the country, is being addressed
by people in any one of my privileged
minority statuses, including that of a
gay man, a black man, an unmarried
man, a Harvard man, a Baptist man—
any one of them, choose your label—as
people ask, “How can you keep loyal to
a book which is used to do in every one
of your distinctions? How can you
maintain fidelity, when it would make
so much more sense just to chuck the
whole thing, or do what Thomas
Jefferson did and rewrite it, editing out
all the things you’d rather not have in
it?” Why are we so committed to that
which on a superficial basis would appear
to be the instrument of our own
destruction or our own inhibition?
I was in a debate once with a very
distinguished member of the Nation of
Islam, one of the black Muslims, who
argued that Christianity is so unnatural
for black people, that the religion of the
slave master and the oppressor is one
that does more harm than good, and
that that is why the only natural religion
for a black person in the modern
world is the Nation of Islam. How does
one respond to that, at so many other
levels, at so many particular divisive levels?
It strikes me, as I think about how to
answer that question each time it’s put
to me, that I’ve never thought of myself
as apart from the community of
scriptural experience, scriptural inter-
The Rev. Peter J. Gomes gave this presentation to the Covenant Network of Presbyterians
during a luncheon at the 211th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, June 21, 1999. The Covenant Network was formed in 1997
to replace or remove what is considered the antigay provision (ratified that year) of the
denomination’s constitution, The Book of Order, in an attempt to allow “sessions and
presbyteries more discretion in discerning God’s call for ordained office on particular people,
within clear Biblical and confessional standards.” Its larger purpose is “to articulate and
act on the church’s historic, progressive vision and to work for a fully inclusive church.”
This is excerpted from the full presentation reproduced on its website (www.covenant
network.org) with the permission of the Covenant Network and the Rev. Peter J. Gomes,
with many thanks from Open Hands. The introduction and some specific references were
deleted so that you, the reader, may hear the speech addressed personally to you. An
audiotape of the Covenant Network Luncheon including this address is available for $10
from the Covenant Network Administrative Office, c/o Calvary Presbyterian Church, 2515
Fillmore St., San Francisco, CA 94115.
It is my church, my faith, my book, it belongs to me
as I belong to it, and the notion just beggars credulity
that I should chuck the whole experience
or reconfigure my experience to conform to it
because there are parts of it which do not describe
the world as I now know it or as I have experienced it.
Beyond the
Human Point of View Peter J. Gomes
6 Open Hands
pretation, and scriptural authority. It
has never been mine to look at from
the outside, for I was born into the faith
of my fathers and my mothers, and I
was nourished by it and continue to be
nourished in it. I am not there on probation;
I am not an on-looker. It is my
church, my faith, my book; it belongs
to me as I belong to it, and the notion
just beggars credulity that I should
chuck the whole experience or reconfigure
my experience to conform to it
because there are parts of it which do
not describe the world as I now know it
or as I have experienced it. It simply
does not make sense, nor has it ever
made sense for the people of God.
This makes me realize what our evangelical
friends refer to as the “perspicacity
of scripture,” and realize what a
dynamic and vital book it is, that in
every age and in every place and in every
clime it has the capacity, without
changing one jot or tittle, to include
within its gracious orbit people who
heretofore or in other circumstances
would have no way of being included.
It is a book that invites, that opens,
that compels, that consoles, that comforts,
that redefines our relationship to
ourselves, to each other, and to God.
And the book that is capable of doing
that is the book to which I am prepared
to devote all the powers and skills and
graces that God has given me. The Bible
in its dynamic way is an inclusive book,
and our ancestors understood that. Our
earliest Christian ancestors understood
that the Jewish book was a book that
was capable of accommodating a different
revelation; and as they moved
through their human experience they
discovered the capacity of this book to
draw them in. It certainly was true of
our ancestors at the time of the Reformation,
and it has been the experience
of Christian people throughout the
world ever since. This is not a book that
belongs to somebody else, or to some
prior period, or to some particular
school of interpretation or exegesis. And
every attempt to put a fence around this
book, to keep it from change, and to
keep people from it, has gone down to
defeat.
The history of the interpretation of
scripture is a history of the capacity of
God’s word to speak in many tongues
and in many ways, and to draw all
people into its gracious embrace. It
strikes me that that is perhaps the most
compelling and exciting case for what
we would call the ‘authority’ of scripture.
It does not mean bowing down to
some inert text or to some absolute
school of exegesis, but in this case
means recognizing in the history of the
people in the book and in the encounters
of the peoples of the world with
this book, the experience of people who
have been called to new life and who
have recognized in that experience and
in that relationship the vitality of their
own image created in the image of God.
It is from that book that that operating
principle comes. Therefore I affirm the
authority of scripture, in the sense of
its exemplary model, its authority for
us in describing the relationship that
God intends for us to have, and for all
of us to share. And I recognize that the
authority of scripture is based on one
fundamental principle of modesty
which acknowledges the fact that God
knows more about human vocation and
salvation than we do.
That is a very important principle for
my fellow exegetes, my fellow historians
of interpretation, my fellow biblical
scholars and expositors: it is very
important to remember that God knows
more about vocation and salvation than
we do. This principle requires that the
church take the unaccustomed position
of a certain generosity and a certain
modesty in imputing its values upon the
values of scripture and God. That is the
first thing that we must remember. We
are committed to the vitality of scripture,
we take the book seriously, we take
the history of the book seriously, we
take the interpretations of the book seriously.
But we understand that the
book is but a means and not an end.
We do not worship this book. If you do
worship it, you are in the wrong church
and in the wrong tradition. There are
other places in which to worship books,
such as in the Morgan Library in New
York City; or you might visit any fine
collector of rare bindings. You can worship
books there, but you can’t worship
books in the house of God.
The Power of
the Holy Spirit
The second thing that I want to affirm
is the affirmation of the Holy Spirit, the
power of the Holy Spirit which makes
us believe, and makes us know that God
speaks, not simply that God spoke. God
speaks in the present tense, and the
great question that we always have to
be alert to is what the Spirit is saying to
With his usual flair and wit, the Rev. Peter Gomes addresses the Covenant Network of
Presbyterians at the 1999 Presbyterian General Assembly.
Photo by Danny Bolin, General Assembly News.
Winter 2000 7
the churches today. It is interesting to
know what the Spirit was saying to the
churches in Antioch, in Calcedon, and
even what the Spirit was saying to the
churches in Geneva; but it is equally
important to ask what the Spirit is saying
to the churches today. What does
the Spirit require? In order to hear what
the Spirit is saying to the churches, we
have to listen, and that is a rather unfamiliar
posture to so many of us in the
Protestant and Reformed versions of
Christ’s catholic church. We are not
good listeners. We tend to stop speaking,
which is not the same thing as listening,
for usually we stop speaking in
order to prepare our next set of remarks
rather than to listen to what is being
said.
You may sometimes feel inhibited
or strapped in by the notion that one
of your tasks is not so much to convert
or to triumph immediately, but simply
to be heard, simply to be listened to.
That is a long and tiresome vocation;
but it is the vocation that has been
thrust upon you, and it is the vocation
that you have chosen. We know
through the history of our experience
as believers in this country, and in the
world, that if we really do hear what
the Spirit is compelling us to do, we will
be forced to change our ways. We may
hear things that we’d rather not hear. I
suspect that’s one reason why public
worship in the great generality of Protestantism
is such a noisy enterprise. On
Sunday mornings at ten o’clock or
eleven o’clock in most churches, I
would be willing to bet, there is not
three minutes of unstructured sound in
the services. If somebody is not speaking,
somebody is singing; and if somebody
is not singing, somebody’s about
to sing or the organ is playing or somebody
is strumming on a guitar: we desperately
block out the silences for fear
that we might hear something that
might make a difference.
You are in the business of both listening
and hearing what the Spirit has
to say; and then by your example, by
your witness, by your perseverance, you
are persuading others to listen to what
the Spirit is saying to the churches. Now,
we realize that we’re fighting tremendous
odds in any effort to bring the
church from where it has been to where
we think it ought to be, for the church
exists in this wonderful conundrum. It
is an agent for change created out of
the most powerful elements for change
that one can imagine. The Creation is
certainly an element for change, the
Incarnation is certainly an element for
change, the Resurrection is certainly an
element for change, the coming again
of our Lord is certainly an element for
change—we are built for change. And
yet the church by itself is probably the
most conservative institution short of
private banks.
We are terrified of change. We have
been dragged kicking and screaming
into every positive and constructive
movement that the world has faced, and
our track record of change is not very
good. Show me where we have stood
on the frontlines and I’ll applaud it, but
there won’t be many such instances. If
one were to be judged this moment on
the church’s position on women, or the
church’s position on race, few would
be able to stand. “If Thou shouldst judge
iniquity, O Lord, who could stand?” I
believe that the question of the full inclusion
of homosexual persons in the
ministries of the church will have the
same kind of indicting quality when the
question is asked, “Where were we,
where was the church, when the movement
came, the moment to affirm the
gifts which God has laid upon those
people whom he has called into his
ministry?”
My friend Will Willimon, a Methodist,
and dean of the Duke Chapel,
reminds me that it is clearly within his
memory that forty years ago, as he was
entering theological school and the
ministry, the vast majority of Methodist
preachers were still, in tall-steeple
and no-steeple churches, holding onto
the inherited racial orthodoxies of a
1958 South Carolina. Now, he says,
many of those people are still in the
ministry, and the great terrifying question
always concerns where they were
thirty years ago on this issue, or even
twenty years ago. It is possible that God
does move in mysterious ways, but
sometimes God takes a very long time
to do it; and you and I and the church
have to give an account of our stewardship
on these matters.
It would be nice to think that on the
issue of sexuality, the church finally
might get it right; but my researchers
tell me that you have been debating this
subject since the 70’s at more or less
every one of your conferences. On the
one hand one should congratulate you
for your consistency and your steadfastness,
and on the other hand one could
“I yearn for the day when you will all be free of textual harassment,” Peter Gomes told
the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, established to recover the “center” of the
church from those on the far right.
Photo by Danny Bolin, General Assembly News.
8 Open Hands
think that you’re obsessed with sex, and
that what you like about sex is never
coming to any conclusion. My great
hope is that for the sake of the rest of
the church you will finally come to
some conclusion, and our prayer is that
it will be the right conclusion. Resistance
to change is natural and persistent.
And you are devoted to order, as
is well known around the world, not
because you are orderly but because you
are chaotic; and that is why you do everything
decently and in order—like the
person who washes three times a day:
either he is very dirty, or he is very clean.
There is something of that with you,
and those of us on the outside just can’t
wait for some of you to hang up the
wash. The work of the Spirit may at
times seem chaotic, risky, and very dangerous.
Although Trinitarians, many
tend to place two-thirds of their emphasis
on two-thirds of the Trinity, that is,
on the first two members. The third
member is a little loosey-goosey, a little
hard to define and very hard to orchestrate
or corral.
The important thing to remember
about the Spirit’s work at Pentecost, for
example, is not the ecstasy which is usually
invoked on Pentecost Sunday, the
confusion and the excitement and the
high energy level. That’s an interesting
point, but if that were preached in my
sermon course I would say that it’s a ‘B’
point, not an ‘A’ point. The ‘A’ point is
the Spirit-induced understanding. That
was the thing that the Spirit did, and
that was how the people could say that
they each heard in their own language
the wonderful works of God. The work
of the Spirit is designed to foster understanding
and ultimate reconciliation.
You are about that work.
The Future Vitality
of the Church
The final thing I want to say to you is
that you are in my opinion the future
of the church, and that I think most
people recognize that. I think that is
why you encounter as much resistance
as you do. Most people recognize that
this is the way of the Spirit. You can
play King Canute if you want to and
vote not to allow the tide to come in;
you can do it and you may even prevail
in that vote. You can play Dame
Partington and command the waters to
recede by a majority vote in a clean procedural
action; but the water will not
recede.
You are the future of the church because
you represent the kind of hospitality,
openness, and lively reading of
the word of God that in the long run is
going to be the evangelistic seed for the
church of the next millennium; and it
is to that that you should be lending
your energies. You are witnesses to the
sure conviction that we must transcend
the world of which we are a part. You
must not be driven by the agenda of
the secular world, you must not be
driven by fashion or custom or convenience.
You are driven by conviction,
and most Christians realize that there
are times when conviction crosses in a
very jagged way the cultural consensus.
You cannot be the church of the cultural
consensus, for we do not need
another denomination to bless the status
quo, or another group of people who
pander to the fearful anxieties of our
culture. We do not need that: America
has enough churches of that order and
you ought not to be among them.
That leads me to my concluding remarks,
which bring me back to where I
started. This talk had a title that somehow
got mangled in transmission. The
title you have been given is “The Human
Point of View,” and I read one of
your notes saying that you weren’t quite
sure what that was all about. Well, the
reason you weren’t quite sure what it
was all about is that it wasn’t accurate.
The title is “Beyond the Human Point
of View,” which makes a very big difference,
especially if you’re taking as
your text 2 Corinthians 5:16, which
says, “From now on, therefore, we regard
no one from a human point of
view.” Remember, this is that dead
white male Paul speaking to his community
about the fact not only that did
he not know Jesus after the flesh, but
that the knowledge of Jesus after the
flesh is now irrelevant.
“We regard no one”—including
Jesus—“from a human point of view,”
says St. Paul, for we have been brought
into “a new creation,” a new relationship.
New standards obtain. “Beyond
the Human Point of View” is where
Christ has always wanted his church to
be. And it seems to me that that is the
point of view you are trying to affirm
and represent.
When I looked at the last Baptist of
whom I knew to speak to a group of
Presbyterians, I realized that it had cost
him something. My old friend Harry
Emerson Fosdick was very wise to
preach to you but not to join you, for
your predecessors would have done him
in. You can’t do me in, because I’m not
joining. But in his great sermon, “Shall
the Fundamentalists Win?” the tone
towards its close becomes actually electric.
Remember when he says that the
times are too important for these petty
little divisions within the church to
obsess the church, to curtail the mission
of the church in a needy and dying
and dreadful world? We should not
be obsessed with these “lesser matters
of the law,” as Dr. Fosdick says, quoting
scripture.
I hope the day passes when your
denomination is defined by its sexual
politics. I yearn for the day when you
will all be free of textual harassment,
which is not a bad way, I think, of describing
the enterprise. It is a good Presbyterian
professor, Diogenes Allen, who
said, “The only way forward is forward,”
for there is no other place to go. You
cannot go backward and you cannot
stay here. They know that, and that is
why they are so concerned about how
you carry on your business. The only
way forward is forward.
Three Things to Remember
in the Struggle
Well, three things for you to remember.
The cause is just, you are on the
Lord’s side. The cause is just, the record
is clear, the experience of the gospel is
in your direction, you are sailing with
the wind of the Holy Spirit. If you feel a
little grim about that from time to time,
remember, “Blessed are ye when men
shall revile you and persecute you, and
shall say all manner of evil against you
falsely, for my sake...for so persecuted
they the prophets which were before
you.” That’s the first thing.
The second thing is that the struggle
is real. This is not a metaphorical enterprise,
this is a real battle. Fear and ignoWinter
2000 9
rance must never be underestimated,
and there is always more money for fear
and ignorance than for their opposite.
Just look around and you will find that
that is true.
So, the struggle is very real, which
means that patience is the most important
witness—which is the third thing.
Patience is the most important witness.
How does the old hymn go?
Not to the strong goes the battle,
Nor to the swift goes the race;
But to the true and the faithful,
Victory is promised through grace.
Does that mean that I’m optimistic?
No. I am not optimistic. We live in a
fallen world ruled by totally depraved
people who do not understand the sovereignty
of God.
I am not optimistic, but I am hopeful.
What is the difference? Optimism
cannot stand the bright heat of the
noonday reality: mere optimism wilts
and has no inner resources with which
to combat the seeming hosts of evil all
around it. Optimism fades very quickly;
but the hopeful are the ones who, in
spite of the circumstances, in spite of
apparent reality, in spite of the moment,
understand that hope endures all things
and ultimately carries all before it in
God’s time. When we had Nelson
Mandela at Harvard last fall, somebody
asked him whether in prison he had
been optimistic that this day would ever
come. He said, “I never was optimistic,
but I never lost hope.”
You must remember that God knows
where you are. God knows what you
are doing. God honors the witness and
the ministry that you are making. And
while God may not deliver victory into
your hands on your timetable or when
you think you deserve it or want it, you
are on the Lord’s side. You must never,
ever give up. Never give up, never go
away, never cease to work for the goal
of a whole church, a whole ministry
which reflects the image of God in all
of its splendor, all of its diversity, and
all of its glory.
Speakers/leaders to include:
Steve Charleston
Jimmy Creech
Chris Glaser
Carter Heyward
Grace Imathiu
Mary E. Hunt
Michael Kinnamon
Eric H. F. Law
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott
Melanie May
Melanie Morrison
Jeanne Audrey Powers
Janie Spahr
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
Mel White
Walter Wink
an historic ecumenical gathering of Welcoming Churches and their allies
in the U.S. and Canada
August 3-6, 2000
Northern Illinois University (outside Chicago)
Worship * Workshops * Bible Study * Performances
Celebrations * Denominational Gatherings * Youth Program
Sponsored by:
Affirming Congregation Programme (United Church of Canada), Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists (American
Baptist), More Light Presbyterians, Open & Affirming Ministries (Disciples of Christ), Open and Affirming Program (United
Church of Christ), Reconciling in Christ Program (Lutheran), Reconciling Congregation Program (United Methodist), and
Supportive Congregations Network (Brethren/Mennonite).
Major funding provided by:
The American Missionary Association of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, Broadway United Church of
Christ (New York), E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, and First United Church of Oak Park (Illinois).
For more information on this gala event or
to find out how you can support WOW2000, contact:
800-318-5581 • www.wow2k.org
WOW2000 •5250 N. Broadway • PMB#111 • Chicago, IL 60640
That is the work that you have chosen
for yourselves. But perhaps more
insistently, that is the work that has
been chosen for you.
“From now on, therefore,” my brothers
and sisters, “we regard no one from
a human point of view.” We have
moved beyond that. And by God’s grace
we will reach that moment, that place
and time, when all of this will be seen
as a mere prelude to the great ministry
and work to which all of God’s people
have been called.
Peter J. Gomes is the Plummer Professor
of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in
The Memorial Church of Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the
author of Sermons—Biblical Wisdom for
Daily Living (William & Morrow and Co.
Inc., 1998; Avon paperback, 1999), and
The Good Book—Reading the Bible With
Mind and Heart (William & Morrow and
Co., Inc., 1996).
10 Open Hands
Jesus said, “It is necessary that I should go away in order
for the Spirit to come.” Jesus was pointing out that his followers
must detach themselves from their dependence on
his external presence and prepare themselves to receive the
Spirit of Christ who will dwell in their hearts. Again he said
to them, “But because I have said these things to you, sorrow
has filled your hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth:
it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go
away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will
send him to you. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will
guide you into all the truth”(John 16:6-13).
Paul sees the gift of the Holy Spirit as a fulfillment of
this prophesy of Jeremiah: “This is the new covenant I will
make after those days. I will put my law within them, and I
will write it on their hearts: and I will be their God, and
they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one
another, or say to each other, Know the Lord. For they shall
all know me from the least to the greatest, says the Lord;
for I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins
no more” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).
Notice that Jeremiah foresees the new covenant where
every human being from the least to the greatest will have
direct access to a God who dwells in each heart. This access
to God will not be the privilege of a few who are gifted
with extraordinary intelligence, or ritual rank, or even special
holiness. The Holy Spirit is a thoroughgoing respecter
of democratic process.
We must grow out of a passive dependent role in the
church to an active and creative one. We have a special
need to become mature, self-motivated, autonomous
people, no longer dependent on outside sources for a sense
of our identity and well-being. We must not let our enemies
outside ourselves define us; we must let the Spirit of
love that dwells within our hearts define us. If we approach
church authorities, it should not be to get an approval which
they cannot and frequently will not give us. Rather, it should
be to bear witness to what the Holy Spirit is saying to us
through our experience. ▼
John J. McNeill began his ministry within the GLBT community
as a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist, helping to found
Dignity/NYC. He has published four books: The Church and
the Homosexual (1976), Taking a Chance on God: Liberating
Theology for Gays, Lesbians, and
their Lovers, Families and Friends (1988)
and Freedom, Glorious Freedom: The
Spiritual Journey to the Fullness of Life
for Gays, Lesbians and Everybody Else
(1995). In 1998, Westminster John Knox
Press published his autobiography, Both
Feet Firmly Planted in Midair: My Spiritual
Journey.
Maturity and the Church of the Holy Spirit
John J. McNeill
Excerpted from a presentation entitled, “Achieving Spiritual Maturity:
A Necessary Step in the Pursuit of Global Justice,” dedicated
to the memory of his sister, Sister Mary Sheila, OSF, at
the Roman Catholic Call to Action National Conference meeting
in Chicago, Nov. 5-7, 1999.
Aprophetic Cistercian Abbot in Italy named Joachim
of Flores in the early thirteenth century foresaw
the total transformation of the church as it existed
in his time and the dawn of an extraordinary outpouring
of the Holy Spirit. He prophesied that that there would be
a new form of spiritual life in which the Holy Spirit would
speak directly to the human heart without ecclesiastical
mediation. He believed that there is a sequence of historic
stages in the Trinitarian God’s self-revelation over time. The
first stage of that self-revelation was the stage of the Father,
the law of Moses, and the people of Israel. The second was
the stage of the Son, the New Testament, and the church.
He said the third will be the age of the Holy Spirit, when
the church “becoming superfluous would in time dissolve.”
I think that this third stage is what is going on in the
church today. I don’t see the church dissolving, but I do
see it being transformed into a church of the Holy Spirit, a
purely democratic church. The task of anyone who has a
leadership position in the church of the Holy Spirit is to
listen, just listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying through
the people of God.
During the years of my psychotherapy practice with gays
and lesbians, I made the discovery that the Holy Spirit was
most powerfully present with the twelve-step groups working
miracles of healing and curing in the basement of the
church, and very seldom did I find the Holy Spirit as effectively
present upstairs in the sanctuary. Why is the Holy
Spirit there? Because these people meet together as equals,
men and women, gay and straight. There is no hierarchy.
They share from the heart and they listen to each other
with respect and act as total equals.
What I see as the most important movement of the Holy
Spirit in today’s church has to do with the development in
the church of mature spirituality based on [such equality,
which leads to] freedom of conscience and discernment of
spirits. This insight is the primary fruit of over thirty years
of ministry to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered
men and women.
How can we develop a mature spiritual life? I want to
put the emphasis on mature because as I see the new millennium,
the church is twenty going on twenty one, which
is the age of maturity. There is not just our individual growth
to maturity; there is the development of humanity and the
church into a mature stage, and I believe that is happening.
The possibility is opening up of a real spiritual maturity
for every human being on the face of the earth.
Winter 2000 11
Stirrings of the Spirit
in Biblical Research
We need a pilgrimage.
In 2005, gays and lesbians and our
allies should make our pilgrimage to the
birthplace of the late Derrick Sherwin
Bailey in the United Kingdom. Dr.
Bailey was the author of Homosexuality
and the Western Christian Tradition, published
in 1955. It will be the 50th anniversary
of that book—the first book written
on the subject of homosexuality and
the Bible in the history of the church.
I was five years old in 1955, and
could have had no way of knowing how
important its publication would be to
me and millions of others. In fact, when
I came out of the closet and in to
UFMCC in 1972, his was still the only
book in print on the subject. There were
essays like Robert Treese’s “Contemporary
Biblical Perspectives on Homosexuality”
in an anthology on gay liberation
and the church, and there was the Rev.
Troy Perry’s early treatment of the subject
in his book, The Lord is My Shepherd
and He Knows I’m Gay. But Bailey’s
was the only book focused on biblical
interpretation and homosexuality for
two decades.
Now, of course, there are shelves of
books, by Roman Catholics and Protestants,
fundamentalists and liberals, and
new, emerging queer interpretations of
the Bible that Bailey could have never
imagined. There are articles in respected
biblical journals and commentaries, as
well as an explosion of writings by gays
and lesbians. The subject of homosexuality
and the Bible has become mainstreamed
in less than 50 years.
The first writers, besides Bailey, who
wrote books on the subject were not
biblical scholars. They were literary
scholars (e.g., Virginia Mollenkott and
Tom Horner), or pastoral counselors
(like Jesuit John McNeill), or historians
Outing the Bible A Queer Biblical Agenda
Nancy Wilson
(like John Boswell). The first biblical
scholars “in the guild” on the scene of
this subject were heterosexual, or, assumed
to be, like Byron Shafer, Robin
Scroggs, Victor Paul Furnish and others.
One of the best summaries of this
scholarly work is former Catholic priest
and present-day therapist Daniel
Helminiak’s What the Bible Really Says
About Homosexuality, a book that, years
after publication, still keeps flying off
the shelves of GLBT bookstores, revealing
our community’s profound interest
in the subject.
UFMCC, much too busy in the
trenches to be doing extensive biblical
scholarship, instead produced pamphlets
on the subject. Our most popular,
“Not a Sin, Not a Sickness: What
the Bible Does and Does not Say about
Homosexuality,” has been reprinted
dozens of times. More than half a million
copies have been distributed over
the past 20 years. Other groups did the
same. The Quakers produced “Toward
a Quaker View of Sex,” and Evangelicals
Concerned cleverly created a pamphlet
whose cover read, “What Jesus Said
About Homosexuality,” and the inside
of the pamphlet was blank! On the back
it said, “That’s right, Jesus said absolutely
nothing about homosexuality.”
The implication was that if Jesus didn’t
say anything bad about it, how bad
could it really be for Christians to be
gay? Of course, some of us would now
dispute the idea that Jesus said nothing—
more about that later.
We’ve done such a good job in our
biblical apologetics, whether in book or
pamphlet form, that many fundamentalists
and so-called “ex-gays” seldom
want to engage us on the topic. Their
conferences instead focus on bogus psychology
and group therapy. They have
grown weary in realizing that we often
know the Bible better than they do, and
have answers to satisfy anyone, from a
fundamentalist to a liberal feminist
scholar. Essentially, I believe, the intellectual
battle over the “texts of terror,”
our “clobber passages” as we call them,
has been won. (Those passages, of
course, are the Sodom and Gomorrah
story in Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22 and
20:13; Romans 1:26 and 27; 1 Corinthians
6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10).
We have thoroughly disconnected
Sodom and Gomorrah from the present
day reality of gay and lesbian relationships,
and addressed Leviticus, Romans,
1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy ad nauseam.
We have studied the Hebrew and
Greek texts, and, with the help of D.S.
Bailey and others who have followed,
traced the sad story of the homophobic
layers of interpretation that burden
the texts.
The problem is, of course, that almost
no one knows this except gays and
lesbians who care about the Bible, and
our self-appointed opposition. Most
mainstream or nominal Christians, or
people who aren’t religiously identified
at all, know little or nothing about biblical
scholarship on the subject of homosexuality.
That is because the church
is afraid to teach what its own scholars
know. And because the religious right
continues to intimidate politicians and
the public with their homophobic
rhetoric based on their misreading of
the Bible. Much of that misreading is
now without excuse. It is not credible
for them to keep claiming ignorance.
New Translations
Down the Road?
Over a decade ago, the U.S. National
Council of Churches held the first nationwide
consultation on the subject of
homosexuality and the Bible in a joint
effort with MCC churches. I served as
co-chair of the “Dialogue Committee.”
12 Open Hands
We attempted at first to structure a debate
among scriptural scholars “in the
guild,” who would debate whether or
not the Bible condemns homosexuality.
Interestingly enough, the NCC
members of the committee reported
back that they could not find a biblical
scholar to say that the Bible unilaterally
condemns homosexuality. We in
MCC provided them the names of
scholars we knew who had gone on
record that the Bible condemned homosexuality.
We knew who they were
because we had had to confront and
debate them. The NCC folks told us that
none of those scholars were respected
by the leadership of the NCC. I remember
the moment of shock when I first
heard this. “The battle is over,” I
thought to myself.
That was in 1987. We ended up simply
holding a consultation with scholars
from mainstream NCC churches and
seminaries that essentially upheld
MCC’s point of view, which, of course,
people (many of whom would not attend
the consultation) then said was
“biased.” During that consultation, it
was Byron Shafer of Fordham University
who said, “No serious scholar of
scripture today would claim that the
Bible condemns loving, mutual, respectful
homosexual relationships.” I would
have thought that would have been
front page news. But, for the NCC, it
spelled division and disaster, and they
buried the report during a time of difficult
leadership transitions.
The leadership and hierarchy of the
church knows the truth about homosexuality
and the Bible. Unfortunately,
they believe it is a truth that they cannot
politically or economically afford
to know or teach or embrace.
But, the truth will will out, eventually.
Dr. Gwynne Guibord, Ecumenical
Officer for the UFMCC, recently reported
on the 1999 annual General
Board meeting of the National Council
of Churches, which holds the copyright
on both the Revised Standard Version
(RSV) and New Revised Standard Version
(NRSV). She stated that during its
50th anniversary General Assembly
meeting in Cleveland, the NCC “affirmed
that the ‘five-seven’ biblical passages
often cited in discussions of homosexuality
need to be considered for
reevaluation, for clarification and possible
retranslation. The process of making
changes in translations is a lengthy
one, often taking a ten year ‘start to finish’
journey. There is a definite movement
afloat and gaining ground that is
aware that the current translations and
annotations are often inaccurate, soulmurdering
and damaging to the entire
faith community as they separate us
from one another.”
The day in 1983 that the NCC refused
to declare MCC eligible for membership
in the NCC, though we met all
their stated criteria, was the same day
The New York Times announced that the
Pope had taken the first steps to acknowledge
the church’s error in dealing
with Galileo. I figured that was
God’s little encouraging message to us
that day. At the least, it put things in
perspective. It can make 10 years not
seem so long.
Will we really have a Bible within
10 years that actually does not use annotations
with the word “sodomy,” or
that actually takes the last 50 years of
scholarship, from D.S. Bailey to Peter
Gomes, and use it to retranslate and
reinterpret those troublesome texts of
terror we are so weary of explaining? I
think we may. And that is a miracle.
The Politics of Biblical
Interpretation
I have often tried to help lesbian and
gay people understand the politics of
biblical interpretation. Why do some
passages get studied and not others?
When women and people of color are
not educated and empowered to read
the Bible for ourselves, we cannot undertake
to reexamine the passages that
have been misused to oppress us. The
same is true with gays and lesbians.
Biblical scholarship is an extremely
conservative field. It will be years before
there are many openly gay biblical
scholars in the “guild.” There are closeted
ones who dare not write or speak
up. But there are gay and lesbian scholars
who cross over and do biblical work
from a cross-disciplinary perspective, as
well as amateurs like me, who struggle
to study and understand and interpret
for the thousands of people we come
in contact with who need a friendlier
Bible.
Peter Gomes said something which
gave me great hope in The Good Book. A
section discusses race and slavery under
the rubric “Fixed Text and Changed
Minds.” Gomes claims that the scholarship
around passages about slavery in
the Bible did very little to change prevailing
opinion. Ultimately, the “texts
of terror” about slavery still stand, relatively
unchallenged. But scholars and
preachers and freedom fighters began
to measure those few, difficult texts
against broad Biblical principles of love,
freedom, hope, the Exodus, and the new
Body of Christ that was neither “Jew nor
Greek, slave nor free, male nor female”
but all one in Christ Jesus. As hearts and
minds began to change, the interpretation
of the Bible changed, not the other
way around. The big picture won, and
the embarrassing texts once trotted out
to support slavery are no longer honored
or lifted up except by the most
crazed of racists.
There is a lot more scholarship available
to debunk the texts historically
believed to condemn homosexuality.
Biblical passages about sexuality were
not studied much at all, and we have a
“No serious scholar of
scripture today would
claim that the Bible
condemns loving, mutual,
respectful homosexual
relationships.”
-Byron Shafer of Fordham University
The institutions that
support biblical
scholarship are often
homophobic, though
some are changing.
We cannot afford to run
from them, we need
to be running them.
Winter 2000 13
lot of catching up to do. But the process
seems to be picking up speed now,
and that is hopeful and exciting. Walls
supported by Biblical ignorance are
about to come crumbling down once
and for all. Can I hear an “Amen”?
Biblical scholarship takes money, libraries
and classrooms, and political
and religious support. Biblical scholarship
has not been the favorite charity
of most gay people! But maybe it should
be. The institutions that support biblical
scholarship are often homophobic,
though some are changing. We cannot
afford to run from them, we need to be
running them.
Our Own Biblical Canon
Another agenda that needs our attention
is the expansion of the gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgendered “canon
within the canon.” In my book, Our
Tribe, I repeated Virginia Ramey
Mollenkott’s thesis that every “interpretive
community” has its own “canon
with the canon” of the Bible. These are
the biblical stories and passages that
speak to us—that, in essence, re-tell our
own tribal story, stories to which we can
relate. It is very new for us to see ourselves
as an interpretive community of
the Bible, but we are and must be. We
cannot simply stick to the passages that
are comfortable or familiar. We have
to branch out and boldly go where no
LGBT biblical scholars have gone before.
It is time.
Virginia Mollenkott’s point has been
that we should not stay stuck in our
canons (!), but build interpretive
bridges. That is why it is important for
gay and lesbian scholars to understand
the biblical interpretive histories of
people of color, African Americans, and
women. They paved the way for this
work, and we benefit from their methods
and successes.
Gay and lesbian people now have
layers of this interpretive history ourselves.
The first interpretive layer has
been simply to de-toxify the Bible from
those “texts of terror.” But then we
moved on to the obvious—to the stories
of Jonathan and David (or, perhaps
more accurately, Saul and Jonathan and
David) and Ruth and Naomi, obvious
candidates for stories of same-sex relationships
in the Bible. And there has
begun a quiet uncovering of many possible
gay or lesbian references: the story
of the centurion’s slave (the Matthew
8:5-13 version), Paul’s troublesome relationships
with men, and less obvious
same-sex biblical couples (Tryphena
and Tryphosa, for example, mentioned
in Romans 16:12).
But we have gone deeper than that.
In Our Tribe, I posited (and I was not
the first to do so, only the first to do so
in great detail, I think), that the term
“eunuch” is really a generic term for
men and women who do not reproduce,
and not simply men who were castrated.
The Anchor Bible Dictionary no longer
interprets eunuch in that narrow way,
but understands the term more inclusively.
When I started to study eunuchs
in the Bible, I only could name one or
two. I now have identified nearly 50.
Gradually I came to see that at least the
God-given role of male eunuchs was
apparently to save the lives of the
prophets, kings, and queens favored by
God. A eunuch saves Joseph, Esther’s
uncle Mordecai is a eunuch, a eunuch
saves Daniel and his friends, (Daniel
may have been a eunuch in training),
Nehemiah is a eunuch, an Ethiopian
eunuch saves the life of Jeremiah, and
three eunuchs save Jesus’ life (the Magi).
These are only a few examples.
An Ethiopian eunuch becomes the
first African Christian, and, according
to John McNeill, the first gay Christian.
I believe that the passage in Isaiah 56:3-
5 that pairs gentiles and eunuchs of
both genders is our liberation passage.
It prophesies our inclusion by the welcome
of “eunuchs who keep the Sabbath,”
also affirmed by Jesus in Matthew
19:12, and in the story of the Ethiopian
eunuch in Acts 8:26-39. Note that the
eunuch in Acts 8 was reading from
Isaiah 53, about a Suffering Servant who
would be “cut off” from his people (in
the verse from Isaiah immediately following
the quoted text in Acts), just like
all eunuchs would have been, without
heirs, no longer connected to the people
of God (See Isaiah 56:5.). Jesus was a
defacto eunuch. Philip used this passage
to preach the gospel to the Ethiopian
eunuch, and “nothing” could prevent
him from being baptized: not being a
eunuch, or a gentile, or a homosexual
(which most eunuchs were by nature
or by default).
Lydia the Seller of Purple
And there is Lydia of Acts 16, that seller
of purple, our color, for many good reasons
documented by Judy Grahn in her
amazing book Another Mother Tongue.
When I juxtaposed Grahn’s literary and
historical/mythological research with
the Bible, I learned amazing things.
Lydia, the seller of purple in Philippi,
who became the first European Christian
(and the first lesbian Christian?),
who led a women’s prayer group, had
her own business and was the head of
her own household in a partriarchal
culture. Six hundred years before, during
the time of Sappho the lesbian poet,
the poet Homer wrote that the art of
making purple dye was invented by two
women from Thyatira, Lydia’s hometown.
Lydia was the heir of an ancient,
possibly lesbian, art, the making of
purple dye. And she was totally enchanted
with Paul’s preaching of this
14 Open Hands
Jesus whose love included and empowered
everyone. She is one of my favorite
candidates for a lesbian in the Bible.
My experience over the last 10 years
is that the Bible is full of amazing, surprising
details like this one that I believe,
at some level, have been left in
the Bible for us to find. If we are everywhere,
we gay and lesbian people, then
we lived in biblical times, too, and we
are in the Bible. Our only task is to discover
ourselves, as well as those who
are bisexual and transgendered. I believe
that queer scholars have to start
boldly lifting up the many possibilities
of our presence in scripture.
Our work has barely begun. It is not
enough to simply detoxify the Bible and
make it safe from overt homophobia. I
believe we have to go way beyond that
and aggressively seek and find ourselves
in the Bible, outing biblical characters,
speculating about others. It will make
the Bible more interesting to gay and
lesbian people, which, mostly, today, it
is not.
The truth is, we are in the Bible and
have always been. Biblical closets have
to be opened—sometimes gently, sometimes
not. Some people will accuse us
of going too far, and I say, “So what?” I
haven’t come this far in my life as a lesbian
Christian preacher to be afraid of
“going too far.” I fear we will not go far
enough, and that we will not fully claim
ourselves as included among the people
of God. We’ve got a millennium of work
ahead of us.
Nancy Wilson is the
pastor of Metropolitan
Community Church of
Los Angeles, a bilingual,
multicultural
MCC congregation in
West Hollywood, California,
in the heart of
the gay and lesbian community. She also
serves as Vice Moderator of the Universal
Fellowship of MCC Churches worldwide.
Nancy is an author, a civil rights activist,
and ecumenist.
Winter 2000 15
The Bible and Love Between Women Bernadette J. Brooten
(Leviticus 18:22; 20:13), but not between
females. Some have argued that
Ruth had a lesbian relationship with her
mother-in-law, Naomi (see e.g., Ruth
1:14, “Ruth clung to her [i.e., Naomi]”),
but this is speculation, and ultimately,
Ruth married a man, Boaz (Ruth 4:13).
Within the New Testament, the gospels
do not present Jesus as addressing
the question of same-sex sexual expression,
but the apostle Paul does condemn
relations between both females and
males. In his Letter to the Romans, chapter
1, Paul states that idol worshipers
could have known God through observing
God’s created works. He argues that
God punished idol worshipers by giving
“them up to the lusts of their hearts
to impurity, to the degrading of their
bodies among themselves” (Romans
1:24), and that “God gave them up to
degrading passions. Their women exchanged
natural intercourse for unnatural,
and in the same way also the men,
giving up natural intercourse with
women, were consumed with passion
for one another” (Romans 1:26-27).
Such persons “deserve to die” (Romans
1:32).
Some scholars have argued that Romans
1:26 refers to intercourse between
a woman and an animal (prohibited in
Leviticus 18:23; 20:16), to intercourse
during a woman’s menstrual period
(prohibited in Leviticus 18:19), or to
anal intercourse between a woman and
a man (not prohibited in the Jewish
Bible and allowed by the majority of
ancient Jewish rabbis). Romans 1:27,
however, introduces sexual relations
between males with the term “in the
same way,” thereby specifying that the
females’ unnatural intercourse was of
the same type as that of the males. Further,
other ancient sources also depicted
sexual relations between women as
unnatural (Plato [5th-4th C. BCE], Seneca
the Elder [1st C. BCE-1st C. CE],
Martial [1st C. CE-2d C. CE], Ovid [1st
C. BCE-1st C. CE], Ptolemy [2d C. CE],
Artemidoros [2d C. CE], probably
Dorotheos of Sidon [1st C. CE]).
Paul’s Sexual Attitudes
Culturally Determined
We can best understand Paul’s response
to sexual relations between women in
the context of the culture of the Roman
Empire and its assumptions about
proper sexual relations. While Romanperiod
non-Christian writers disagree
on whether to condone sexual relations
between males, nearly all of these writers
condemn sexual relations between
women. Against the background of the
common cultural assumption that
sexual relations should naturally occur
between two unequal parties (e.g., a
man and his wife, a male slave owner
and his male or female slave, a man and
his mistress, a man and a prostitute),
such writers as Seneca the Elder, Mar-
Greek and Latin writers in his culture agreed with
Paul that a woman was to be “under a man” (Romans
7:2, where the Greek word for “married” is literally
“under a man”), thereby the passive object of sexual
activity, and not a sexual subject who actively
pursues her desires with other women.
The voices of any early Christian
women who may have romantically
loved other women have
not come down to us. Instead, we have
the early Christian voices who treated
such love with contempt. The apostle
Paul declared that same-sex unions
shared between women disturbed the
natural order (Romans 1:26-27). Paul’s
understanding of sexual love between
women overlaps closely with the general
conceptions of sexual relations
found throughout the ancient Mediterranean
world. Greek and Latin writers
in his culture agreed with Paul that a
woman was to be “under a man” (Romans
7:2, where the Greek word for
“married” is literally “under a man”),
thereby the passive object of sexual activity,
and not a sexual subject who actively
pursues her desires with other
women. Paul’s teaching on this subject
proved foundational for the condemnation
of same-sex sexual expression by
later Christian writers who argued variously
that it was unnatural, impure, dishonorable,
shameful, sinful, and rendered
the participants deserving of
punishment in hell. Further, Paul’s
negative portrayal of female homoeroticism
not only influenced the early
church fathers’ treatment of the issue,
but has also remained influential into
our own century.
In what follows, I am focusing on
erotic relations between women, but I
want to note that Mary Rose D’Angelo
has applied Adrienne Rich’s concept of
a “lesbian continuum” to early Christianity
to denote bonding between female
partners, regardless of erotic
involvement (e.g., Romans 16:12;
Philippians 4:11). Early Christianity did
provide both women and men with
opportunities for close bonding with
members of their own sex.
The Jewish Bible explicitly prohibited
sexual relations between males
16 Open Hands
tial, Soranos (1st-2d C. CE), and Lucian
(2d C. CE) depicted women who had
sexual relations with other women as
having become like men. They applied
the term tribades (cf. the later term “tribadism”)
to such women and represented
them as trying to transcend the
passive, subordinate role accorded to
them by nature and attempting to take
on a dominating, penetrating role. Ancient
medical writers went as far as to
prescribe a selective clitoridectomy,
apparently for women whose clitorises
were ostensibly capable of penetration
(Soranos, as excerpted in Caelius
Aurelianus [5th C. CE], Mustio [perhaps
5th or 6th C. CE], and Paulus of Aegina
[7th C. CE]). Paul’s condemnation fits
in well with the greater awareness of
sexual love between women documented
in the Roman world.
Paul’s earliest readers, the early
church fathers, read Paul as a man of
his time; they saw him as condemning
homoeroticism for the same reasons
that others of their culture did. Paul
used the terms “impurity,” “to degrade,”
“to exchange,” “natural,” and
“unnatural” in the ways that others in
the ancient world employed these
terms. In ancient Mediterranean culture
generally, “impurity” meant a blurring
of boundaries, in this case, of the
boundaries between femaleness and
maleness. Just as, according to the Book
of Leviticus, impure animals were those
that did not conform to delineated categories,
the people about whom Paul
was speaking were not maintaining the
clear gender polarity and complementarity
necessary for a specific social
order. Thus, taking seriously Paul’s description
of homoeroticism as “impurity”
helps us to see it as a societal, rather
than a private concern.
The term Paul uses for “degrade” can
also be rendered “dishonor.”Paul’s use
of this term demonstrates his conviction
that the treatment of female and
male bodies should differ, especially
with respect to honor. Men were accorded
honor because their sex occupied
a superior and dominant station
that afforded them that right. Paul asks
in his First Letter to the Corinthians
11:14, “Does not nature itself teach you
that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading
to him?” This required gender
differentiation in hair length points to
bodily appearance as a primary basis for
distinguishing between women and
men. In 1 Corinthians 11:3, Paul asserts
that the man is head of woman. According
to 1 Corinthians 11:7, short hair and
the lack of a veil signify the male body,
as God’s image and glory; the opposite
conditions, long hair and veil, apply to
the female body, marking the woman’s
subordinate status as the glory of man.
In this hierarchical framework, a noncompliant
woman brings shame upon
her husband. Against the background
of the gendered cultures of the Roman
world, Paul’s earliest readers saw him
as condemning men who had relinquished
the honor due to the male sex
and had become effeminate and women
who did not conform to Paul’s model
of the man as head of woman.
Paul used the word “exchanged” to
indicate that people knew the natural
sexual order of the universe and left it
behind. Some scholars contend that
Paul was referring to heterosexual persons
committing homosexual acts,
rather than to lesbian and gay persons
(e.g., Boswell) or that he did not have a
concept of sexual orientation at all (e.g.,
Goss). While ancient constructions of
the erotic differed from our own, both
ancient astrological and medical texts
attest to the concept of life-long erotic
orientations, caused, e.g., by the constellation
under which one was born,
by the male and female seed not mingling
well at conception, or by inheritance.
Thus, Paul could well have been
familiar with the concept of erotic orientation,
without accepting that as a
valid reason for homoerotic expression.
Similarly, astrologers saw female homoerotic
orientation as astrally determined,
but nevertheless “unnatural”
(e.g., Ptolemy).
“When in Rome...”
If we read Romans 1:26-27 against the
backdrop of a broad range of ancient
sources, “natural” intercourse means
penetration of a subordinate person by
a dominant one. Other Pauline texts
further demonstrate that Paul shared
common cultural assumptions of the
Roman world, for example: Romans 7:2,
in which Paul speaks of a married
woman as “under a man,” and 1 Corinthians
11:2-3, in which Paul calls man
“head of woman.” The shapers of
Graeco-Roman culture saw any type of
vaginal intercourse, whether consensual
or coerced, as natural (including, e.g.,
between a man and his slave). Thus the
“natural intercourse” that the females
of Romans 1:26 gave up include such
forms of vaginal intercourse as marital
relations, adultery, rape, incest, prostitution,
and sexual relations between an
adult male and a minor girl.
These understandings of “natural
intercourse” derive from ancient understandings
of nature generally. Two principal
ways of conceptualizing nature
were available to Paul: (1) nature as the
order of creation, which would refer to
the naturalness of marriage between
women and men, based on Genesis 2,
according to which God created woman
from man (see Paul’s use of Genesis 2
in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16); or (2) the
ancient concept that women have a different
nature from men. Either concept
entails a gender hierarchy. According to
either concept, sexual relations between
women are “unnatural,” because a
sexual encounter necessarily includes
an active and a passive partner, and
women cannot naturally assume the
active role, thus rendering natural
sexual relations between women impossible.
Like Paul, the early Christian writers
of the second through the fifth centuries
that have been passed down to us
vigorously condemn sexual relations
between women. Thus, Christian apocalyptic
visions of hell echo Paul’s teaching
that these women “deserve to die”
(Romans 1:32). These visions include
images of homoerotic women suffering
torture in hell for their sin: being forced
to cast themselves off a cliff (Apocalypse
of Peter [2d C.]), burning in hell (Acts of
Thomas [3d C.]), and running in a river
of fire (Apocalypse of Paul [3d C.]).
Tertullian of Carthage (2d-3d C.) derides
homoerotic women as outsiders to polite
society, associating them with prostitutes,
and states that one would not
want even to take a sip from such a
woman’s cup (On the Pallium; On the
Resurrection of the Flesh). John Chrysostom
(4th-5th C.) argues that female homoeroticism
is “far more disgraceful” than
male homoeroticism, “since they ought
Winter 2000 17
to feel more shame than men.”
Chrysostom, arguing that women
have a different nature from men and
that by nature woman was commanded
to be man’s helper, sees
homoeroticism as overturning the
social order, which is protected by
nature: “nature knows her own
boundaries.” Chrysostom attacks
homoeroticism with such invectives
as: “whatever transgression you
speak of, you will name none equal
to this lawlessness”; “there is nothing
more irrational and grievous than
this outrage”; and “how many hells
will suffice for such people?” (Homilies
on Romans).
Marriage Between
Women
In spite of tremendous opposition by
Christians and others, sources demonstrate
that women in this period
engaged in what they saw as womanwoman
marriage. Clement of Alexandria
(2d-3d C.) responds to women
who had long-term relationships
with other women that they defined
as marriage (Instructor). (Ptolemy,
Lucian, the rabbinical commentary
known as the Sifra [before ca. 220
CE], Hephaistion of Thebes [4th-5th
C. CE], and possibly Iamblichos [2d
C. CE] also refer to woman-woman
marriage. Further, in a papyrus letter
from Egypt [probably 3d C. CE],
a mother refers to her daughter’s wife
[Papyrus Oxyrhynchos 4340].) Clement
argues that such marriages were unnatural
because they defied God, who created
woman from man in order for her
to receive men’s seed and to help him;
that they prevented the male seed from
finding a proper field; that the uteri of
the two women were calling out to be
filled with the male seed; that humans
should not imitate such lascivious animals
as the hare; and that Paul called
female homoeroticism unnatural in Romans
1:26-27.
Hippolytos of Rome (2d-3d C.) reports
on a group of Gnostic Christians
called the Naassenes (defined by
Hippolytos as heretical), who rejected
“natural intercourse” between women
and men on the belief that androgyny
characterized the world above. We do
not know whether they promoted samesex
love, but they did interpret Paul in
Romans 1:20-27 as speaking about an
“unspeakable mystery of blessed pleasure”
(The Refutation of All Heresies).
Ironically, even though early Christians
generally opposed homoeroticism,
they themselves created homosocial environments
in which it could occur, a
fact that did not escape Christian monastic
leaders. Egyptian monk Shenute
of Atripe (4th-5th C.) explicitly warns
nuns against same-sex sexual contact
(On the Monastic Life) and describes the
beating of two nuns as punishment for
having had such contact (Letters). In a
similar vein, Augustine of Hippo (4th-
5th C) instructs that nuns go out in
groups of three (Epistles).
Are All Biblical Traditions
Created Equal?
How can Christians of today respond
to this early Christian tradition of
condemning sexual love between
women? While some Christians
might want to downplay it or to see
it as just a reflection of ancient culture,
I suggest that this horrific vilification
of such women requires careful
theological reflection. Do we
want to perpetuate all biblical traditions
that have persisted through the
centuries? Do we agree with Paul that
such love is unnatural, with the Acts
of Thomas that such women should
burn in hell, or with John Chrysostom
that women ought to feel more
shame than men? These are Christian
traditions, but are they traditions
of which we can be proud? Christian
citizens have a special responsibility
to rethink Christian teachings that
have historically led to physical torture
and even death. For example, an
American colonial statute in New
Haven placed sexual love between
women under the death penalty,
explicitly quoting Romans 1:26 as
support (New Haven’s Settling in New
England: And Some Lawes for Government).
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgendered persons can greatly
contribute to a moral reform of Christianity
by soberly facing our past and
creating theologies for the future.
A version of this article will appear in the
Encyclopedia of Lesbianism, Bonnie
Zimmerman, editor (Garland Publishers).
Bernadette Brooten (brooten@mind
spring.com), author of Love Between
Women: Early Christian Responses to Female
Homoeroticism and their Historical
Context (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1996), teaches at Brandeis
University. As a MacArthur Fellow and a
Fellow in Law and Religion at the Harvard
Law School, she is currently working on
feminist religious
sexual ethics. She envisions
a church that
works to prevent sexual
abuse, rather than opposing
lesbians, gay
men, bisexuals, and
transgendered persons.
18 Open Hands
ditional marriage, child rearing, family
values, moral rectitude, and of course,
traditional Christian values.
The erroneous assumption of this
propaganda insinuates that traditions
are immutable and sealed with the holy
stamp of God. On the contrary, sacred
scripture has astonished me with numerous
occasions where God alters,
confronts or terminates time honored
traditions. What follows are some
examples.
Deuteronomy and
Exclusion
Deuteronomy states, “No one who is
emasculated or has his male organ cut
off shall enter the assembly of the
Lord”(Deuteronomy 23:1). The eunuchs
were cast as a spiritual aberration
to God because he lacked power to
transmit life. However, further on in the
Book of Isaiah we encounter a dramatic
shift in this tradition of exclusion. The
prophet Isaiah declares, “To the eunuchs
who keep my Sabbath and
choose what pleases me, and hold fast
to my covenant, to them I will give in
my house and within my walls a memorial,
and a name better than that of
sons and daughters. I will give them an
everlasting name which will not be cut
off”(Isaiah 56:4-5).
God not only welcomes eunuchs
into the assembly, but rewards their vibrant
faithfulness with a memorial. Israel
is directed by God to cease a tradition
excluding those who are innately
different, yet abundant in faithfulness.
How much more should the church
today honor the faithfulness of gay and
lesbian people? In this unprecedented
era, whereby the charitable spiritual
gifts of gay and lesbian are visible, why
do sanctions remain?
Amos and Oppression
The prophet Amos delivers a sobering
message to the decaying religious traditions
of the Israelites. They are
charged with oppressing the poor,
crushing the needy, and distressing the
righteous. Amos unmasks a total disregard
for human rights and social justice.
God denounces the manipulation
of religious traditions to extort material
wealth and status: “I hate, I reject
your festivals, nor do I delight in your
solemn assemblies. Even though you
offer up to me burnt offerings and grain,
I will not accept them”(Amos 5:21-22).
The power of this text is jarring. Outwardly
pious religious traditions will
not compensate for inner hypocrisy.
What does God desire from God’s community
of chosen people? The answer
is revealed in a subsequent verse, “But
let justice roll down like waters and righteousness
like an ever-flowing stream”
(Amos 5:24). According to Amos, traditions
must honor God’s people or they
do not honor God.
Matthew and Hypocrisy
The New Testament reveals a disquieting
confrontation between Jesus and
religious tradition. The Pharisees and
Scribes question Jesus regarding his disciples
“transgressing the tradition of the
elders”(Matthew 15:2). They did not
wash their hands before a meal—a
tradition which marked ceremonial purity
as noted in Leviticus 22:46. Jesus
responds, “And why do you transgress
the commandment of God for the sake
of your tradition?”(Matthew 15:3). Jesus
hurls a revolutionary accusation at religious
authorities. He exposes a tradition
which deliberately opposes the commandment
to “Honor thy father and
mother” (Exodus 20:12).
Jesus knows religious authority can
manipulate tradition for selfish gain. He
reveals that inner purity supersedes
ritual piety: “The people honor me with
their lips, but their hearts are far from
me”(Matthew 15:8). I am reminded that
gay and lesbian people are the contemporary
scapegoats for religious fingerpointing
brigades. Yet, a comforting
paradox emerges. We are also the beneficiaries
of solace knowing that Jesus
protects the innocent by holding a mirror
to the pointing finger.
Matthew and Family Values
The next time you are assaulted by wellintentioned
Christians with the phrase
“traditional family values,” direct them
Each step closer to the front
door of my parents’ home intensified
the pounding of my
heart. The long impending spiritual
battle had at last arrived. The stage was
set to unveil my sexual orientation to
my traditional Roman Catholic parents.
Two pensive faces greeted me at
the kitchen table. St. Jude’s tattered
novena card was propped up against
the napkin holder. A deafening moment
of silence lingered. Mom impulsively
rose to her feet. “You can’t expect
us to accept your lifestyle! This is
against every tradition of church and
family we hold dear,” she asserted with
rare authority. At 21, I received the
dreaded ultimatum: conform with our
traditions or you are no longer a member
of our family.
Within 24 hours, all my essential
belongings were crammed into my
rickety old Ford Escort. Turning the key
signaled the birth of my exile. This injurious
fracture in family life stirred a
frenzy of unsettling questions. Technically,
Mom was correct. Being a lesbian
was not aligned with my family’s
normative traditions. But does change
in tradition always constitute a sacrilegious
act? Do time-honored family and
religious traditions ever mutate with
age...even cease? I earnestly hungered
for answers. This cataclysmic event ignited
a life long spiritual sojourn and
study of sacred scripture.
Ten lonesome years elapsed before
my parents and I arrived at a compromise
resolution. Still, the word tradition
remains an Achilles heel for myself
and many other gay and lesbian
Christians. Right wing religious and
political groups continue their disingenuous
application of the phrase “traditional
values” with propaganda that
demonizes gay and lesbian people. Like
a weapon, the word “tradition” is surreptitiously
aimed at gay and lesbian
people to defend the status quo of exclusion.
Rhetoric is manipulated to cast
gays and lesbians as the enemy of tra-
Breaking Open Tradition
Ann M. Amideo
Winter 2000 19
SELECTED RESOURCES
ON THE BIBLE
VIDEO
Panelists: Homosexuality and the Bible, featuring
Dr. Robert Goss, author of Jesus
ACTED UP, New Testament scholars Dr.
Dale Martin and Dr. Deirdre Good , and
Hebrew scholars Dr. Sam Olyan and Dr.
Ken Stone. $12 from Other Sheep, c/o
Gordon Herzog, Suite 910, 319 N. 4th
St., St. Louis, MO 63102.
BOOKS
Biblical Ethics & Homosexuality: Listening
to Scripture, edited by Robert L. Brawley.
Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality:
Gay People in Western Europe
from the Beginning of the Christian Era
to the Fourteenth Century, John Boswell.
The Church and the Homosexual, John J.
McNeill.
Coming Out as Sacrament, Chris Glaser.
Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the
New Testament and Their Implications
for Today, L. William Countryman.
The Good Book: Reading the Bible With
Mind and Heart, Peter J. Gomes.
Homosexuality and the Western Christian
Tradition, Derrick Sherwin Bailey.
Jesus ACTED UP: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto,
Robert Goss.
Jonathan Loved David: Homosexuality in
Biblical Times, Tom Horner.
Love Between Women: Early Christian
Responses to Female Homoeroticism,
Bernadette J. Brooten.
Our Tribe: Queer Folks, God, Jesus, and the
Bible, Nancy Wilson.
Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism:
A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture,
John Shelby Spong.
Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John
Boswell.
Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays
Christianity, Bruce Bawer.
What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality,
Daniel A. Helminiak.
The Word Is Out—Daily Reflections on the
Bible for Lesbians and Gay Men, Chris
Glaser.
FROM THE OPPOSITION
Scripture & Homosexuality: Biblical Authority
and the Church Today, Marion L.
Soards.
to Matthew 12:49-50. Again, Jesus upsets
the status quo of tradition by raising
the perplexing question, “Who is
my mother, and who are my brothers?”(
Matthew 2:48). In the context of
Jewish tradition, blood lineage is an
essential requirement for property inheritance,
marital arrangements, religious
community, and societal status.
Depending on bloodline, you were either
in or out. Jesus answers his own
rhetorical question pointing to the
multitudes of people (not bloodline)
stating, “Behold my mothers and my
brothers. For whoever does the will of
my Father who is in heaven, they are
my brother, sister and mother” (Matthew
12:49-50).
Jesus has the audacity to announce
faith and love, not biology, as the primary
defining characteristics of family.
His words shatter the ironclad tradition
of family defined by correct gender,
ethnicity, and DNA. This text offers profound
liberation, not only for same-sex
families, but all creations of domestic
life built upon Gospel values. Christcentered
family values will embrace
foster children, adopted children, single
people and their friends, single parent
families, interracial and interfaith marriages.
Our potential to plumb the
depths of family intimacy will be actualized
only when we recognize our common
spiritual bloodline.
A Living Tradition
The illumination of these four biblical
texts welcome all people of faith to
breathe a healing sigh of relief. Our God
does not stagnate in tradition. An adjustment
in tradition may be imminent
when the love of God, coupled with the
love of neighbor, are foremost. The insights
gleaned from these texts challenge
the alleged immutable nature of
tradition.
• Religious traditions are abolished,
replaced, maintained, or renovated
upon God’s command. We must
avoid idolizing tradition.
• God honors tradition relative to its
ability to reflect the divine nature of
mercy, compassion, love, justice, and
inclusivity.
• God is not honored by tradition that:
~ serves to exclude those who are
faithful, yet different, poor, or
marginalized;
~ extorts material wealth for selfish
gain;
~ judges or condemns the innocent;
~ manifests disingenuous religiosity
in an attempt to camouflage hypocrisy.
It is not my intention to cajole anyone,
least of all my family, into abandoning
the traditions they esteem valuable.
Analogous to the prophet Isaiah, I
am hoping my family of origin and faith
can create room in the assembly. I
would prefer to herald in the breaking
open of tradition as opposed to breaking
tradition. All four texts cry out for expansion
and growth. We must be willing
to hold our traditions with open
hands rather than tight fists.
I am not holding my breath waiting
for conservative religious authorities to
acquiesce to my conclusions. Surprisingly,
Mom has since conceded to her
fear: fear of losing her security, fear of
being humiliated, fear of failing as a traditional
parent, fear of tainting the family
reputation with deviant outsiders,
fear of the unknown. Love has begun
to replace fear with welcome. Joyfully,
Mom and Dad are still celebrating their
traditions. I am discovering the delight
of creating new ones. We are both learning
to surrender our ideas about tradition
to God. But most of all, we are both
rejoicing that we are no longer slaves
to tradition.
Ann M. Amideo
(Angel368@aol.com)
holds a Master’s Degree
in Theology from
the Seminary of the
Immaculate Conception
in New York, and
was instrumental in
initiating a ministry
for Catholic/Christian Parents of Gay/Lesbian
Children in the Roman Catholic Diocese
of Rockville Centre. A speaker on sexuality
and religion, her writings have most
recently appeared in The Other Side and
the National Catholic Reporter.
20 Open Hands
What does the Bible teach? In
practice, it depends on what
people happen to hear in it.
Different listeners hear different things.
“Interpretation” is central to talk of biblical
teaching. Add questions about
sexual ethics and the discussion becomes
more complicated, for sex is
emotionally charged, and emotions
cloud thinking.
At stake in the Christian debate over
homosexuality is the nature of Christianity
itself. Fundamentalists and
mainline Christians would likely agree
with this statement. However, and most
revealing, they are also likely to differ
on sexual ethics. But more important
than anyone’s opinion are the broad
implications of this debate.
On the conservative pole stand Evangelical
Christianity and Biblical Fundamentalism.
Though sometimes very
different religious emphases, when homosexuality
is the topic, these two
groups rely on what is basically a literal
reading of the Bible. Thus, in Romans
1, F. LaGard Smith sees Paul
condemning lesbian and gay sex as unnatural,
degrading, and shameless, and
R. B. Hays and Thomas Schmidt see gay
sex as an affront to the very order of
God’s creation.
In what appears to be one of the
most common mistakes in interpreting
this passage, that reading runs together
the verses on sex (26-27) and the verses
that follow (28-32). As a result, samesex
behaviors are associated with a long
list of egregious offenses: evil, covetousness,
malice, envy, murder, strife, and
so on, which even have a death penalty
attached. The conclusion is that the
Bible condemned gay sex in ancient
times and that the condemnation remains
as strong today as ever.
Scripture, Homosexuality,
and the Nature of Christianity Daniel A. Helminiak
Originally presented at First United Methodist Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for a regional meeting of Reconciling
Communities and published in unabridged form in Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 47, 1999, pp. 261-271, with full documentation.
Across mainline denominations,
contemporary biblical scholarship uses
a more critical method of interpretation.
It insists on reading Paul’s words in the
context of his own time and place. As a
result, the “historical-critical method”
comes to a more permissive ethical conclusion.
Yet even then, there is a variety
of opinions.
Some, like Victor Furnish and
Bernadette Brooten, believe that Paul
was indeed condemning same-sex acts.
But, they point out, his reasons for condemning
them do not hold today and
his understanding of same-sex acts was
simply not what we speak of today—
homosexuality as a component of the
personality, probably biologically determined,
beyond personal choice, fixed
in early childhood, and linked not just
to sex acts, but to a person’s very capacity
for bonding and affection. Taking
into consideration the findings of
today’s medicine, psychology, and sociology,
these scholars conclude that the
Bible’s teaching never addressed today’s
questions and current ethical answers
must be based on something other than
scripture.
Still relying on a critical reading of
the historical evidence, but coming to
an even more liberal conclusion, L.
William Countryman and I have argued
that Romans 1 did not condemn the
same-sex behaviors of Paul’s day.
Rather, Paul saw sexual practices as a
matter of purity in the sense that the
Jewish Law understood the matter.
In Romans 1:24, Paul announced the
topic of his discussion of sexual behavior:
akatharsia, impurity. This topic
stands in contrast to the topic of that
long list of sins in verses 28-32: ta me
kathekonta. This latter phrase, translated
“things not to be done,” is a technical
Stoic term for clearly unethical acts.
Paul intended to contrast impurity with
sin. Moreover, Paul used another technical
Stoic term, para physin. It is usually
translated “unnatural,” but this
translation makes no sense in 11:24
where the same term refers to acts of
God. So according to Paul’s usage, in
contrast to the Stoic, this term should
be translated “atypical.” As Brooten has
shown, Paul was using the popular, not
the technical, meaning for this term,
and like the other two descriptors in the
passage on same-sex acts, degrading and
shameless, it implies no ethical condemnation.
Rather, Paul painted a picture
of social disapproval and disdain. He
was talking about ritual impurity, not
immorality or wickedness.
Religious Purity and
Cultural Categories
Irrelevant in Christ
Paul deliberately opened his letter to the
Romans with a contrast between ritual
impurity and wickedness. His purpose
was to make one of the main points of
his letter: the purity requirements of the
Old Law have become irrelevant in
Christ, and Jewish and Gentile converts
should not splinter the Christian community
by bickering over matters of
custom and culture. Unless they are otherwise
wrong, sexual practices in themselves
are ethically neutral.
B. Barbara Hall provides further support
for this interpretation. Coming
from a completely different direction
and apparently unaware of Countryman’s
interpretation of Romans 1, she
concluded that Paul would not be concerned
about differences in sexual orientation
today.
According to Hall, Paul’s vision of
Christianity was revolutionary. GalaWinter
2000 21
tians 6:11-16 and 2 Corinthians 5:16-
21 present a picture of a new order in
Christ. In it, all standard polarities and
cultural categories are superseded and
become irrelevant. Galatians 3:28 gives
a specific list and shows how radical
Paul’s thought actually was: “There is
no longer Jew or Greek, there is no
longer slave or free, there is no longer
male and female, for all of you are one
in Christ.” 1 Corinthians 7 illustrates
that in Paul’s mind there is no one right
way for Christians to live out their sexuality.
Paul is open to all the options of
his day. What matters for Paul is not
one’s specific lifestyle, but the Christian
virtue one expresses through it.
There is solid argument that Paul did
not even condemn the same-sex behaviors
of his day. Granted this interpretation,
the scriptures themselves would
certainly allow loving gay and lesbian
relationships today.
Same-Gender Couples
in Scripture
Finally, pushing that conclusion a step
further, there is an even more liberal
reading of the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality.
One could argue that, not
only does the Bible not condemn samesex
behaviors per se, but it actually supports
them in some instances. Two cases
are apropos.
First, in Jonathan Loved David, Tom
Horner argued persuasively that these
two Old Testament heroes were sexual
partners. Described in 1 Samuel, their
relationship fits the model of noble
military lovers. Such relationships were
common and well-known throughout
the ancient middle East.
Second, James Miller and others suggest
that Jesus’ healing of the centurion’s
servant, recounted in Matthew
8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10, reestablished
the relationship of two male lovers. The
provocative alternation between two
Greek terms for servant, pais and doulos,
in those passages; the consistent quotation
of the centurion referring to the
sick servant as pais; and Luke’s comment
that the servant boy was entimos (dear,
valuable) to the presumably wealthy
centurion, easily allow that there was
an important emotional bond between
the two. In addition, as John Boswell
pointed out, pais was sometimes used
to mean male lover. It would be wrong
to conclude that, by not condemning
this relationship, Jesus approved of it.
Still, in light of the often heard claim
that homosexuality is the paradigmatic
rejection of God’s plan for creation, it
is peculiar that Jesus never spoke out
against same-sex behaviors, especially
when he was face-to-face with the Roman
centurion.
In any case, in order to dramatize the
overall point, it can be argued that the
Bible actually endorses homosexual
love.
There is an array of opinions about
the Bible’s ethical teaching on gay sex.
Either the Bible condemns it outright
and totally, or the Bible condemns
same-sex acts but not in terms of homosexuality
as we know it today, or else
the Bible does not condemn same-sex
acts in themselves but is neutral on the
matter, or finally, the Bible, in part, actually
endorses same-sex love.
A similar state of affairs applies to
other ethical questions like divorce, the
status of women in marriage and society,
or the acceptable way to raise and
discipline children. And on numerous
current questions— like genetic engineering,
cloning, nuclear energy, computer
technology, environmental responsibility—
it is hardly to be expected
that the ancient texts of the Bible express
any opinion at all. Thus, when the
Bible is to be the source of answers
about ethical questions, no clear and
simple answer is forthcoming.
The only honest response in this case
seems to disqualify appeals to the Bible
regarding ethical questions. If the biblical
teaching is so ambiguous that consensus
on the teaching is nearly impossible
to achieve, the teaching cannot be
helpful. It must be disregarded. Ethical
questions must be resolved in some
other way.
This is a disturbing conclusion for
Christians. Where does Christianity
stand if the scriptures are irrelevant to
Christian living?
The Question of
Interpretation
The teaching of the Bible is not to blame
for that disturbing conclusion. Actually,
the principles of interpretation that
were brought to bear on the Bible explain
the differing opinions. So, attention
needs to turn to interpretation.
The line of demarcation in the previous
array of opinions fell between the
literal and the historical-critical approaches.
Only the literal approach resulted
in the absolute condemnation of
homosexual relationships. In one way
or another, the critical approaches all
allowed room for acceptance. Therefore,
not the scriptures, but the mind
that one brings to them, is what determines
ethical conclusions. This point
needs to be emphasized.
Our human minds are both a blessing
and a burden. Self-aware and capable
of reflection, we have become
historically, psychologically, and hermeneutically
sophisticated. This is to
say, we now take for granted the need
to get behind mere words. We routinely
ask, “What is their context?” “How are
they used in this case?” “What is the
concern of the speaker?” “What is his
or her real intent?” And thus, we cannot
but ask, “What do the words really
mean?”
We are aware that the meaning is the
key and that, like a smile or a nod, the
same words can carry very different
meanings in different situations. In all
things human, the human subject is the
bottom line. We create our own worlds.
We make our own interpretations. And
more and more, we all know this. (See
P. Berger and T. Luckmann, The Social
Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the
Sociology of Knowledge [New York:
Doubleday, 1967].)
Today, no one can hide from the
awareness that the base of life has
shifted. No longer do authority, convention,
cultural inheritance, or tradition
restrict individuals and societies. Rather,
we routinely appropriate and adjust
these, applying them to our own situation
according to our own best judgment.
And we realize that such a process
of inheritance and adaptation was
also behind the very traditions that we
are now adapting. We are more aware
of this process than any previous
generation.
A religion that relies on texts must
admit that the ground has shifted. As
22 Open Hands
Bernard Lonergan suggests, the thinking
mind, not the text or the inherited
religious teaching, is now rock bottom.
Some take this realization to mean that
anything goes. To this striking position
they apply the name post-modernism.
The implication is that we have entered
a new era, and indeed we have, but what
remains to be seen is how this new era
will go down in history. One rendition
is that the certainties of the past, and
even the hope for certainty, have given
way to thorough-going relativism.
Nothing is absolute. Nothing is sacred.
There is no right and wrong. All depends
on what one wants to make of it.
People concerned about ethics
rightly shudder at that position. It is
grossly mistaken and dangerous. The
difference between truth and falsehood
is real. Even the relativists must tacitly
accept this fact, for they indulge in truth
claims. Their claim that there are and
can be no firm truths is a statement
about what is supposedly the case. They
do not walk their talk.
Besides, if our own creative minds
are a critical factor in our construction
of a meaningful world, our construction
also depends on factors that are
independent of ourselves. For example,
the density of matter remains. Gravity
continues to make things fall. Emotions
eventually show themselves. Hatred is
inevitably self-destructive. Falsehood
forebodes an unstable future. In fact,
we cannot make things into whatever
we would like. There are unavoidable
regularities in the universe.
With regard to the Bible, its verses
do say something; its words and sentences
do impose limits on what one
could claim the Bible teaches. Though
determination of the biblical teaching
depends on the human mind, the Bible
also has a mind of its own.
Overall, the Bible fosters a spirit of
wonder, praise, humility, thanksgiving,
faithfulness, personal integrity, honesty,
justice, welcome, concern, compassion,
forgiveness, change of heart, reconciliation.
These notions express the mind
of the Bible, and their validity is everlasting.
Only the devil could question
their ongoing relevance to ethical decision-
making.
When the focus is on attitudes, the
biblical teaching remains completely
relevant to human living. Scripture still
have an important role to play when
we make ethical decisions. The biblical
mind informs our own minds and thus
influences whatever we do.
The same point can be made in more
technical terms. Alasdair MacIntyre discussed
this matter in detail. If we return
to the classical concern for aretaic ethics—
that is, ethics build on virtue, excellence,
and character formation—the
scriptures remain fully relevant. But if
our intent is the modern preoccupation
with deontic ethics—that is, ethics that
would spell out in legal fashion every
act that is to be performed—the scriptural
teaching becomes moot, for it is
controverted. The array of opinions
about biblical teaching on homosexuality
provided an example.
Four Intimations
of a New Christianity
1. The biblical mind actually corresponds
to the mind of the critical
thinker. Biblical wonder, questioning,
dedication, honesty, personal integrity,
and commitment to truth are the very
qualities that come to fruition in current
critical thinking. Indeed, the biblical
attitude, along with the contribution of
the Greeks, is behind Western civilization’s
achievement of modern science.
And in the humanities, this scientific
mentality shows itself in the
emergence of the historical-critical
method.
Thus, when one attends to the attitude
of the Bible and not to its specific
pronouncements, the historical-critical
method turns out to enjoy biblical endorsement,
and the literalism of Biblical
Fundamentalism appears to be
unbiblical. By the same token, in one
way or another, the liberal ethical conclusion
regarding homosexuality turns
out to be the biblical teaching.
2. The biblical mind also corresponds
with the mind of naturalistic ethics. The
Bible fosters an unreserved commitment
to good and the ongoing pursuit
of justice and love in every situation.
These are the same attitudes that motivate
any person of good will who seeks
to know what is the right thing to do.
Ethical people attend to all the evidence,
look to personal experience, consult
the experts of the day, apply their
best reasoning, and collaborate with
other honest seekers. Thus, they arrive
at ethical decisions. In doing these
things, they are also implementing the
mind of the Bible. They are embodying
the holy attitude that the Bible enshrines.
Whether they conceive the
matter in these terms or not, they are
acting “as God would want,” they are
doing “what Jesus would do,” they are
being “led by the Holy Spirit” in their
present situation. Heard with both a
secular and religious ear, the biblical
teaching on ethics can be summarized
in the words of St. Augustine, “Love, and
do what you will.”
3. Attention to the mind of the Bible
brings insight into the relationship between
Scripture and Tradition. The
Bible is not to be read as a cookbook
for Christian living. The Bible was not
intended to provide ready-made answers
to our ethical questions. Rather,
the Bible is a record of paradigmatic
examples of how godly people live. Our
task is to learn a lesson from the examples
and apply it in our own lives.
That way of approaching the scriptures
presupposes that the Bible
emerged from within the Christian
community. The Bible did not descend
pristine and pure directly from heaven.
It was not transcribed by an entranced
scribe responding to divine dictation.
Rather, the Bible is the historical record
of people’s experience of God. To be
sure, the Bible is the record of a privileged
era. However, in that era the early
Christians were facing their ethical questions
just as Christians do today. The
same process of ethical decision-making
operates throughout.
Recognition of that consistent process
blurs the distinction between Scripture
and Tradition. If tradition means
the ongoing teaching of the churches,
then the scriptures are a part of this tradition.
But because of the Scriptures’
privileged position, they inform whatever
else comes later. They inform future
decisions precisely by enshrining
the attitude that keeps the ongoing tradition
on track.
Thus, the old Protestant-Catholic
debate over Scripture and Tradition dissolves,
and the opposing sides fall toWinter
2000 23
gether. The historical-critical method
and the mind of the Bible bring Christianity
back into unity. By the same token,
the nature of Christianity, at least
where ethics are concerned, is clarified,
and in the process, the literalism of biblical
fundamentalism disqualifies it as
a Christian religion. Mountains crumble.
Valleys are filled. Monumental
shifts are occurring.
The Christian approach to ethics is
complex and nuanced. The scriptures
play a role, but they are only one part
of a bigger picture. The Methodist
“quadrilateral” usefully depicts that
whole picture: Christian decision-making
appeals to scripture, tradition, reason,
and experience. Those four are the
very elements that, in varying configurations,
the other Christian churches
also invoke. There is appreciable consensus
on these matters across denominations.
More and more, this consensus
defines the Christian way.
As for lesbian and gay relationships,
the broad picture seems to include
them. Evidence continues to mount. Most
recently, we hear that the physiological
functioning of the lesbian’s inner ear
differs from the non-lesbian’s and that
this difference is a biological given. As
the findings of medical and social science
and the experience of gay Christians
accumulate, the critical reading of
the scriptures gains more and more
credibility, and the on-going teaching
of the churches, Tradition, gravitates
toward a new equilibrium. All the
pieces—scripture, tradition, reason, and
experience—converge to interlock and
confirm one another. Christianity takes
another transformative step forward on
its life-giving mission through history.
4. The final implication is that the biblical
mind is open to all religions and
peoples. Insofar as the biblical mind corresponds
with the mind of critical thinking
and the mind of naturalistic ethics,
the biblical mind also corresponds with
that of authentic humanism. The openness,
questioning, honesty, and good
will that the Bible requires are the very
same qualities that, according to Bernard
Lonergan, define genuine humanity
in any of its cultural expressions.
The emphasis is on “genuine” because
an alternative is possible. We can
deform and misshape ourselves. In religious
terms, we can sin. Still, the presupposition
is that the human spirit in
all of us, fortified by the Holy Spirit, is
geared toward what is right, true, and
good. In religious terms, it is geared
toward God. So again with St. Augustine,
we could pray, “Lord, you have
made us for yourself, and our hearts are
restless till they rest in you.” And this
statement holds true whether a person
believes in God or not, for this statement
is about the human heart.
A Christianity that attends to the
mind of the Bible rather than to its
specific ethical prescriptions is a Christianity
that is open to a global and religiously
diverse society. Thus, Christianity
steps into and remains relevant in
the third millennium. Such Christianity
affirms and embraces any person of
good will. And all this is said without
any prejudice to the distinctive Christian
beliefs about God, Jesus, the Holy
Spirit, and the Christian church. Although
these Christian specifics do
color the expression of the authentic
humanism represented in the biblical
mind, they do not reshape it in any way
that would exclude non-Christians from
human communion. True Christianity
is ecumenical Christianity because it
includes authentic humanism, and the
inclusion of authentic humanism entails
the reconciliation of religion and
the human sciences. Gays and lesbians
are not the only class of people that a
new Christianity would embrace.
At Stake:
The Nature of Christianity
The very nature of Christianity is at
stake in the current discussion of gay
and lesbian love. Claims about biblical
teaching on homosexuality are linked
with people’s positions on how to interpret
the Bible, and the positions on
biblical interpretation are linked with
differing conceptions of Christianity.
The present discussion envisions a
Christianity that is ecumenical in the
broadest sense—open through our
common humanity to all peoples in
their good-willed and wholesome living
even while retaining the specifics
of Christian belief for those who are
Christian. The present discussion envisions
the integration of Christianity and
psychology.
On the basis of that logic, as suggested
here and argued elsewhere, biblical
fundamentalism has abandoned
authentic Christianity. Yet by turning
condemnation of homosexuality into
a litmus test of Christianity, fundamentalism
reveals a correct intuition. It fears
the loss of Christianity, and its apprehension
is justified. But it is mistaken
and superficial to identify homosexuality
as the threat.
On the contrary, this analysis suggests
that the loss of Christianity will
occur only if everyone adopts the literalism
of biblical fundamentalism. Apart
from that, not the loss of Christianity,
but its transformation is at stake. The
pain of this transformation is the apprehension
that Fundamentalists and
Christians alike are feeling. Changing
attitudes toward homosexuality are
merely an expression of this deeper process.
Still, the fundamentalist alarm is a
useful reminder that mammoth shifts
are underway and that churches need
to be careful about how far they allow
things to shift. Surely, it is myopic to
tie these shifts simplistically to homosexuality
and other culturally-conditioned
biblical prescriptions. But if one
insists on doing so, nonetheless, a disconcerting
but unavoidable question
arises: Does Christianity itself stand or
fall with lesbians and gays? In light of
the present analysis, the answer appears
to be, Yes.
Daniel Helminiak is
an adjunct professor in
the humanistic and
transpersonal psychology
program at the
State University of
West Georgia. He
holds Ph.D.’s in both
theology and psychology. He is author of
the best-selling What the Bible Really Says
about Homosexuality (Alamo Square
Press, 1994) and more recently published
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.
24 Open Hands
It was with eagerness that I first contacted
Open Hands about writing an
article for this issue. As a lesbian and
a New Testament scholar who has felt
alienated by the religious traditions that
helped shape my commitments and as
someone who has (until lately) had to
remain closeted in my family and my
workplace, I thought this would be an
excellent forum for me to make a contribution
by suggesting models of interpreting
the biblical texts in ways
which, as stated in the call for papers,
“focus on liberating the Bible from preconceptions
and prejudices and reading
it as restorative and empowering.”
As I began to prepare an article, however,
I found my resolution crumbling.
Sure, I can offer new readings of the
biblical texts that have been used to legitimize
the oppression and exclusion
of LGBT people from church life and
church blessing. However, I’m forced
to acknowledge the existence of great
segments of the Bible that are repressive
and exclusionary. In addition, most
biblical texts can be interpreted in a
variety of ways. One can overlay them
with different concepts of history, understandings
of authority, perceptions
of Jesus and Judaism in the first century,
linguistic perspectives, and theoretical
approaches and produce a host
of viable interpretations. Some interpretations
will support the beauty and sanctity
of the lives and relationships of
LGBT folks, some will condemn those
lives (as many have).
In considering how I might offer a
liberating interpretation of a tiny section
of a Bible of which many parts can
legitimately be used to support non-liberating
stances, I began to see my questions
and concerns cluster around a different
issue. Why do we persist in
supporting the Bible as an authority for
our lives? Why does this set of myths,
legends, and community foundation
documents from the Ancient Mediterranean
world exercise such a strong in-
QUESTION (Biblical) AUTHORITY!
Free in the Spirit, Not Shackled by a Text
T. Lynn Stott
fluence in our consciousness and sense
of self-worth as children of God? How
does adherence to any concept of biblical
authority (however defined) further
the justice needs of LGBT folks in 21st
century American churches and society?
I should pause here to assure you
that I am not opposed to the Bible, per
se. I grew up in denominations deeply
rooted in the Bible (Free Will Baptist
and, later, Southern Baptist); I grew up
loving its stories, memorizing its passages,
finding in its pages comfort, spiritual
inspiration, and calls to pursue justice.
I have dedicated more than a
decade of my adult life to studying and
teaching the Bible. I have struggled time
and time again to help students see its
elegance, its artistry, its windows into
ancient cultures and mindsets, its views
of God and of humanity’s place in God’s
creation, its understandings of justice,
its potential for liberation, its potential
for oppression, and its relevance to our
lives as participants in Western cultural
traditions. I speak from close in, not
from some “safe” distance.
The Bible’s Limitations
The truth of the matter is that while I
can see parts of the Bible as spiritually
inspiring, comforting, and insightful
with regard to models of justice and
human nature, I always also see other
parts of it as oppressive and exclusionary.
After my years of graduate study
and college teaching, I find it difficult
to champion the Bible as a source of
authority in any generalized fashion.
Even in my desire to use my experience
and knowledge to the benefit of Queer
communities, I come up short regarding
what I believe I can, in good conscience,
suggest people do about interpreting
the Bible as a source of authority
for modern ethics or social policy.
The Bible, you see, is a collection of
ancient texts from far away cultures to
which very few of us can claim ancestral
heritage. It was written in languages
most of us have never heard and few
can read. There was no direct, uninterrupted
transmission of divinely guided,
sacred, and perfect ancient texts. Our
translations are made from hand-written
copies of still more ancient handwritten
copies.
The texts of the Hebrew Scriptures
reflect grand mythic visions of a creator
god and mythologized histories of that
god’s interactions with certain (usually
select and exclusive) groups of human
beings. God is a god who chooses, abandons,
judges, protects, vindicates, and
destroys. The stories are written in the
cultural languages of ancient, patriarchal,
and often militaristic cultural
groups. They include frequent imagery
of “us versus them” and generally assume
the inferiority of women and accept
slavery as a given institution.
The texts of the Christian New Testament
are the foundation documents
of a first century Jewish sect which became
a major Gentile religious movement.
The gospels represent four distinct
interpretations of Jesus’ life, his
work, and his purpose in the grand
scheme of things. They also represent
differing views of who the true followers
of Jesus are and what they can expect
in the future. Paul’s writings (as
well as those of later writers whose work
depends on Paul’s) struggle to identify
Christians as the new “chosen ones” of
God. By the time of the later epistles,
Christian writers have claimed a fairly
rigid rule of appropriate behavior, social
structure, and exclusion of “undesirables”
that parallels, in some ways,
the “us versus them” language of the
Hebrew Scriptures and calls, not for a
radical new social order (which some
would consider Jesus to have called for),
but for an order in which the status quo
of the Roman world is dutifully replicated.
This view also assumes slavery
and the “natural” inferiority of women.
Certainly, there are passages in the
Bible that portray the inclusive nature
Winter 2000 25
of God, the grace of the spirit, and a
radically egalitarian vision of God’s
reign. These passages, which I imagine
formed the religious views and social
commitments of many of us, are, however,
always in the company of the sections
of the Bible that portray God as
judgmental, exclusionary, vindictive,
and jealous—passages which are interpreted
by many as justifying “Christian”
domination of the earth and of any
group which can be deemed “outside
of God’s will,” LGBT folks included.
No Biblical Unity or Purity
The texts of the Bible are not unified in
one homogeneous message and everyone
(and I mean everyone, literalist/fundamentalist
and liberationist alike) who
wishes to grant an authoritative place
for the Bible in Christianity must pick
and choose which parts of the Bible to
emphasize and which ones to ignore.
The passages or stories one holds dear
demonstrate one’s own theological vision
and Christian self-understanding.
However, someone else can select a different
set of passages and stories (or a
different interpretation of the same passages)
and end up with a completely
different (and sometimes oppositional)
vision of the same God.
This clash of interpretations of the
same sets of material is particularly interesting
when one considers that one
of the motivations driving the desire for
a canon of Christian scripture in the
second to fourth centuries (and one of
the reasons for Paul’s writing some of
his letters in the mid-first century) was
the desire for unity and relative uniformity
of Christian belief. This ancient
selection of a collection of texts to be
deemed Christian, however, has not led
to a uniformity of beliefs as the centuries
have passed, but to a diversity even
more wide-ranging than that of the earliest
Christians. Many of us Queer folk
encounter aspects of the range of Christian
interpretations in a painful way
when our experiences of ourselves as
children called by God conflicts with
the possibilities allowed by our families,
our church communities, or our
denominational hierarchy. After all, if
Jesus loves “all the children of the
world,” why isn’t there room for us in
his church?
And so I ask, why do we feel it necessary
to find biblical authority for the
persons we are and the lives we lead?
Generations have come to rely on the
texts of the Bible as somehow revelatory
of God’s will for humanity—a will
that for some reason God revealed to
the ancients in a more direct way than
God reveals it to modern people. Many
Christians read the Bible as conservative
Muslims are taught to read the
Qur’an, as God’s revealed will and word,
divine, immutable, clear and precise.
Not only does this approach ignore the
historical development, transmission,
and canonization of the texts which
comprise the Bible, it has forced the issue
of interpretation to become an effort
at unlocking the secrets in this
mysterious “Word” that God intends for
us and our society. This attitude is not
limited to literalists (a.k.a. “fundamentalists”),
it shows up among Queer folk
as well. After all, these ancient, foreign
texts are often obscure and confusing.
We believe, however, that if we only
look hard enough, with the light slanted
just so, and use the right interpretive
trick, then we will be able to prove irrefutably
that the Bible speaks God’s word
of liberation to us and shame to those
who would exclude us.
The gyrations of mind and hermeneutics
required for this task are immense.
The results of our efforts at liberating
interpretation, while they can
be tremendously inspiring, are often
fragile and tenuous, easily shot down
by more conservative, traditional approaches
to the text. After all, the tradition
and cultural presumptions of much
of the Bible are not particularly liberating
at all. What is the problem then?
The problem is our approach to the
Bible itself. We have bought into the
myth of the Bible as mysteriously divine
and as foundational to the practice
of modern Christianity. We have
forgotten the role of experience of spirit
in our own sense of belonging and in
our practice of our faith and commitments
to justice.
Keeping a Perspective
I would argue that though many of us
experience the liberating, life-giving
spirit of Christ in our lives, our work,
and our call to be our truest selves, our
desire to find legitimation for our lives
in the texts of the Bible places us in
collusion with the efforts of those who
would deny us that same legitimation.
Adherence to any theory of biblical authority
supports the efforts of those who
would designate the Bible as the sole
source of authority (fully negative) in
determining the legitimacy of our lives
as Christian LGBT folks. That is very
wrong. If we limit “legitimate” witness
of the grace and mercy of God to the
interpretation of biblical texts, even if
those interpretations are our own, we
help weave the rope with which others
wish to strangle us.
The Bible as a whole will never be
completely on the side of what most of
us understand as liberation. It is a text
which covers too many cultures, time
periods, and political ideologies to provide
any consistent guidance for modern
questions of social ethics.
I suggest we hold the Bible near, but
in perspective. It is a rich and important
text to Christianity, but it is not
the voice of God. It is the voice of many
human attempts to envision God.
Sometimes those ancient visions provide
inspiration and guidance for our
struggles in this day and age; sometimes
they don’t. I suggest that we loosen our
grip on this grand old tome, recognizing
its cultural, historical, and ideological
limitations, and turn to it not for
authority, but for comfort, inspiration,
positive and negative models of action,
metaphor, and for just some good old
stories. Let us, like some of the earliest
Christians, value in ourselves the living
spirit that called us and follow that
spirit’s guidance as we seek life, justice,
and a model of a new way.
Lynn Stott has an M.A. and Ph.D. in Biblical
Studies from Vanderbilt University
and an M.T.S from Harvard Divinity
School. She grew up in North Carolina, but
now lives in Oakland, CA with Mary, her
partner of nearly 10 years. She has recently
turned her career
interests from college
teaching to writing and
web design for online
learning, informational
sites, and non-profit
organizations.
26 Open Hands
WELCOMING MOVEMENT TOPS 1000!
Since 1978, 1,046 churches, 45 campus ministries,
34 judicatories, and seven national and
international ministries have publicly declared
themselves welcoming of lesbian and gay people.
These 1,069* welcoming communities are found
in ten denominations in 46 states and the District
of Columbia of the United States and in
five provinces of Canada. The complete list (as
of January 26, 2000) follows. The affiliation of
each is designated by the following codes:
CONGREGATIONS
UNITED STATES
ALABAMA
Huntsville
UU Church (WEL)
ALASKA
Anchorage
Immanuel Presbyterian (ML)
UU Fellowship (WEL)
Palmer
Church of the Covenant (W&A)
Sitka
UMC of Sitka (RC)
ARIZONA
Mesa
Celebration of Life Presbyterian (ML)
Phoenix
Asbury UMC (RC)
Augustana Lutheran (RIC)
Faith Lutheran (RIC)
Shadow Rock Cong. UCC (ONA)
Scottsdale
Scottsdale Cong. UCC (ONA)
Tempe
Desert Palm UCC (ONA)
University Lutheran (RIC)
Tucson
Church of the Painted Hills (ONA)
First Christian (O&A)
Rincon Congregational UCC (ONA)
Santa Cruz Lutheran (RIC)
St. Francis in the Foothills UMC (RC)
ARKANSAS
Little Rock
Pulaski Heights Christian (O&A)
CALIFORNIA
Alameda
First Christian (O&A)
First Congregational (ONA)
Albany
Albany UMC (RC)
Altadena
Altadena Congregational (ONA)
Christ the Shepherd Lutheran (RIC)
Baldwin Park
First Presbyterian (ML)
Belmont
Congregational Church UCC (ONA)
Benicia
Community Congregational (ONA)
Berkeley
Berkeley/Richmond Intercity Min. (O&A)
Epworth UMC (RC)
First Baptist (W&A)
First Congregational (ONA)
St. John’s Presbyterian (ML)
Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran (RIC)
Trinity UMC (RC)
University Lutheran Chapel (RIC)
University Church (O&A)
Campbell
First UMC (RC)
Carlsbad
Pilgrim Congregational UCC (ONA)
Carmel
UU of Monterey Peninsula (WEL)
Chatsworth
West Valley UMC (RC)
Chico
Congregational Church (ONA)
Claremont
Claremont UMC (RC)
Claremont UCC, Congregational (ONA)
Cloverdale
United Ch. of Cloverdale (ONA)
Concord
First Christian (O&A)
Danville
Danville Cong. UCC (ONA)
Peace Lutheran (RIC)
Davis
Davis UMC (RC)
El Cerrito
Christ Lutheran (RIC)
El Cerrito UMC (RC)
Mira Vista UCC (ONA)
Northminster Presbyterian (ML)
Eureka
First Congregational (ONA)
Fair Oaks
Fair Oaks UMC (RC)
Fairfax
Fairfax Community (ONA)
Fremont
Fremont Congregational (ONA)
Niles Congregational UCC (ONA)
Fresno
College Comm. Cong. (ONA)
First Congregational (ONA)
Wesley UMC (RC)
Fullerton
Fullerton Congregational (ONA)
Gardena
First UMC (RC)
Geyserville
Geyserville Christian (O&A)
Guerneville
Community Church, UCC (ONA)
Hayward
Eden UCC (ONA)
New Fellowship UCC (ONA)
United Church (ONA)
Westminster Hills Presbyterian (ML)
Hollywood
Hollywood Lutheran (RIC)
Hollywood UMC (RC)
Hope Lutheran (RIC)
Irvine
Irvine UCC (ONA)
Kensington
Arlington Community UCC (ONA)
Lafayette
Lafayette Christian (O&A)
Laguna Niguel
Shepherd of the Hills (ONA)
Larkspur
Redwoods Presbyterian (ML)
La Verne
Church of the Brethren (SCN)
Long Beach
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
First UMC (RC)
Resurrection Lutheran (RIC)
Trinity Lutheran (RIC)
Los Alamitos
Community Congregational UCC (ONA)
Los Angeles
Bethel Lutheran (RIC)
Mt. Hollywood Congregational UCC (ONA)
United University (ML, RC)
Westwood Hills Congregational (ONA)
Wilshire UMC (RC)
Los Gatos
First UMC (RC)
Skyland Community (ONA)
Malibu
Malibu UMC (RC)
Marin City
St. Andrews Presbyterian (ML)
Martinez
Martinez UMC (RC)
Milpitas
Sunnyhills UMC (RC)
Modesto
College Avenue Congregational (ONA)
Napa
Emmanuel Lutheran (RIC)
Newark
Holy Redeemer Lutheran (RIC)
North Hollywood
St. Matthew’s Lutheran (RIC)
Toluca Lake UMC (RC)
Oakland
Beacon Presbyterian Fellowship (ML)
Faith American Lutheran (RIC)
First Congregational (ONA)
First Lutheran (RIC)
Lake Merritt UMC (RC)
Lakeshore Avenue Baptist (W&A)
Lutheran Peace Fellowship (RIC)
Montclair Presbyterian (ML)
Plymouth UCC (ONA)
St. Paul Lutheran (RIC)
Orinda
Orinda Comm. Ch. UCC (ONA)
Palo Alto
Covenant Presbyterian (ML)
First Evangelical Lutheran (RIC)
First Presbyterian (ML)
St. Andrew’s UMC (RC)
University Lutheran (RIC)
Pasadena
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
Portola Valley
Ladera Community Church (ONA)
Richmond
Grace Lutheran (RIC)
Riverside
First Congregational (ONA)
Sacramento
Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer (RIC)
Parkside Community (ONA)
Unitarian Universalist Society (WEL)
San Bernardino
First Congregational Church, UCC (ONA)
San Bruno
Peace Lutheran (RIC)
San Diego
First Lutheran (RIC)
First Unitarian (WEL)
Pacific Beach UMC (RC)
University Christian (O&A)
San Francisco
Bethany UMC (RC)
Calvary UMC (RC)
Christ Church Lutheran (RIC)
Church of the Advent (OAS)
Ch. of the Incarnation (OAS)
TOTAL
AC Affirming Congregation Programme (United Church of Canada) .... 15
ML More Light Presbyterians ................................................................... 95
OAS Oasis (Episcopal) ................................................................................ 58
ONA Open and Affirming (United Church of Christ) ............................. 310
O&A Open & Affirming (Disciples) ............................................................44
RIC Reconciling in Christ (Lutheran) ..................................................... 186
RC Reconciling Congregation Program (United Methodist) ................. 188
SCN Supportive (Brethren/Mennonite) ..................................................... 26
W&A Welcoming & Affirming (American Baptist) ..................................... 39
WEL Welcoming (Unitarian Universalist) ................................................ 107
*This total is lower than the sum of the numbers listed above and on the right because some welcoming communities are multiply designated and affiliated with more than one denomination.
Winter 2000 27
Church of St. John the Evangelist (OAS)
City of Refuge (ONA)
Dolores Street Baptist (W&A)
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
First Mennonite Church (SCN)
First St. John’s UMC (RC)
First Unitarian Society (WEL)
First United Lutheran (RIC)
Glide Memorial UMC (RC)
Grace Cathedral (OAS)
Hamilton UMC (RC)
Noe Valley Ministry (ML)
Pine UMC (RC)
Seventh Avenue Presbyterian (ML)
St. Aidan’s Church (OAS)
St. Francis Lutheran (RIC)
St. John the Evangelist Episcopal (OAS)
St. John’s UCC (ONA)
St. Mark’s Lutheran (RIC)
St. Paulus Lutheran (RIC)
Temple UMC (RC)
Trinity Church (OAS)
San Jose
Almaden Hills UMC (RC)
Alum Rock UMC (RC)
Christ the Good Shepherd Lutheran (RIC)
1st Cong. Ch. of San Jose UCC (ONA)
First Christian Church (O&A)
New Community of Faith (ONA, W&A)
St. Paul’s UMC (RC)
San Leandro
San Leandro Comm. Church (ONA)
San Leandro Community (W&A)
San Mateo
Chalice Christian Church (O&A)
College Heights UCC (ONA)
First Christian (O&A)
San Rafael
Christ in Terra Linda Presb. (ML)
Faith Lutheran (RIC)
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
First UMC (RC)
Santa Barbara
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
La Mesa Community (ONA)
Santa Cruz
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
First UMC (RC)
Grace UMC (RC)
Santa Monica
The Church in Ocean Park (RC)
Santa Rosa
Christ UMC (RC)
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
UU Fellowship of Sonoma Co. (WEL)
Saratoga
Grace UMC (RC)
Sausalito
First Presbyterian (ML)
Sebastopol
Community Church (ONA)
Simi Valley
United Church of Christ (ONA)
Stockton
Central UMC (RC)
First Christian (O&A)
St. Mark’s UMC (RC)
Sunnyvale
Congregational Community (ONA)
Raynor Park Christian (O&A)
St. John’s Lutheran (RIC)
Sunol
Little Brown Church (ONA)
Tiburon
Community Congregational (ONA)
Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran (RIC)
Westminster Presbyterian (ML)
Vacaville
St. Paul’s UMC (RC)
Vallejo
Fellowship UMC (RC)
First Christian (O&A)
Walnut Creek
Mt. Diablo UU (WEL)
Walnut Creek UMC (RC)
West Covina
Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran (RIC)
West Hollywood
Crescent Heights UMC (RC)
West Hollywood Presbyterian (ML)
Yucaipa
Faith Lutheran (RIC)
COLORADO
Arvada
Arvada Mennonite (SCN)
Aurora
Parkview Congregational UCC (ONA)
Boulder
Boulder Mennonite (SCN)
Community UCC (ONA)
First Christian (O&A)
First Congregational (ONA)
First UMC (RC)
Mount Calvary Lutheran (RIC)
Colorado Springs
All Souls Unitarian (WEL)
First Congregational (ONA)
Denver
Capitol Heights Presbyterian (ML)
Fireside Christian (O&A)
First Universalist (WEL)
Our Savior’s Lutheran (RIC)
Park Hill Congregational UCC (ONA)
Sixth Avenue United (ONA)
Spirit of Joy Fellowship (SCN)
St. Paul’s UMC (RC)
Washington Park UCC (ONA)
Englewood
First Plymouth Cong. UCC (ONA)
Evergreen
Wild Rose UCC (ONA)
Fort Collins
Fort Collins Mennonite Fel. (SCN)
St. Thomas Lutheran Chapel (RIC)
Grand Junction
Koinonea Church (SCN)
Greeley
Family of Christ Presbyterian (ML)
Longmont
First Cong. UCC (ONA, W&A)
Pueblo
Christ Congregational, UCC (ONA)
Telluride
Christ Presbyterian (ML)
CONNECTICUT
Coventry
Second Congregational (ONA)
Ellington
First Lutheran (RIC)
Fairfield
First Church Cong. (ONA)
Glastonbury
First Church of Christ Cong. (ONA)
Guilford
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
Hamden
Spring Glen Church, UCC (ONA)
U Society of New Haven (WEL)
Hartford
Central Baptist (W&A)
First Church of Christ, UCC (ONA)
Madison
Shoreline UU Society (WEL)
Mansfield Center
First Church of Christ Cong. (ONA)
Middletown
First Church of Christ Cong. (ONA)
New Haven
Church of Christ in Yale Univ. (ONA)
First Church of Christ (ONA)
First & Summerfield UMC (RC)
United Church on the Green (ONA)
Noank
Noank Baptist (W&A)
South Glastonbury
Congregational Church (ONA)
Stamford
St. John Lutheran (RIC)
Storrs
Storrs Congregational (ONA)
Uncasville
Uncasville UMC (RC)
Waterbury
South Congregational (ONA)
Westport
Unitarian Church (WEL)
Windsor
First Church UCC (ONA)
DELAWARE
Newark
New Ark UCC (ONA)
Wilmington
West Presbyterian (ML)
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Washington, D.C.
All Souls Unitarian (WEL)
Augustana Lutheran (RIC)
Christ Lutheran (RIC)
Christ UMC (RC)
Community of Christ Lutheran (RIC)
Dumbarton UMC (RC)
First Congregational (ONA)
First Trinity Lutheran (RIC)
Foundry UMC (RC)
Georgetown Lutheran (RIC)
Grace Lutheran (RIC)
Lutheran Church of the Reformation (RIC)
New York Ave. Presbyterian (ML)
Riverside Baptist (W&A)
Sojourner Truth Cong. UU (WEL)
St. Paul’s Lutheran (RIC)
Westminster Presbyterian (ML)
FLORIDA
Clearwater
UU Church of Clearwater (WEL)
Gainesville
United Church (ONA)
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (WEL)
Key West
Holy Trinity Lutheran (RIC)
Lake Mary
Grace UMC (RC)
Miami Beach
Miami Beach Community (ONA)
Riviera Presbyterian (ML)
St. John’s UMC (RC)
North Palm Beach
First Unitarian (WEL)
Orlando
First Unitarian (WEL)
Pinellas Park
Good Samaritan Presbyterian (ML, ONA)
St. Petersburg
Lakewood UCC (ONA)
Sunrise
Christ the King Lutheran (RIC)
Tallahassee
St. Stephen Lutheran (RIC)
United Church (ONA)
Tampa
First United Church (ONA)
John Calvin Presbyterian (ML)
Unitarian Universalist (WEL)
GEORGIA
Athens
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (WEL)
Atlanta
Clifton Presbyterian (ML)
Grant Park-Aldersgate UMC (RC)
Ormewood Park Presbyterian (ML)
Trinity UMC (RC)
Marietta
Pilgrimage UCC (ONA)
HAWAI‘I
Honolulu
Calvary By the Sea Lutheran (RIC)
Church of the Crossroads (ONA)
Honolulu Lutheran (RIC)
Kalaupapa
Kanaana Hou-Siloama, UCC (ONA)
IDAHO
Boise
First Cong. UCC (ONA)
ILLINOIS
Aurora
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer (RIC)
The N.E. Cong. UCC (ONA)
Carbondale
Church of the Good Shepherd (ONA)
Champaign
Community UCC (ONA)
McKinley Memorial Presbyterian (ML)
St. Andrew’s Lutheran (RIC)
Chicago
Albany Park UMC (RC)
Augustana Lutheran (RIC)
Berry Memorial UMC (RC)
Broadway UMC (RC)
Christ the King Lutheran (RIC)
Christ the Mediator Lutheran (RIC)
Ebenezer Lutheran (RIC)
Epworth UMC (RC)
First UMC (RC)
Gladstone Park Lutheran (RIC)
Grace Baptist (W&A)
Grace UMC (RC)
Holy Covenant UMC (RC)
Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran (RIC)
Immanuel Lutheran (RIC)
Irving Park Christian (O&A)
Irving Park UMC (RC)
Lake View Lutheran (RIC)
Lincoln Park Presbyterian (ML)
28 Open Hands
Lord of Light (RIC)
Mayfair UMC (RC)
Nazareth UCC (ONA)
Norwood Park UMC (RC)
Park View Lutheran (RIC)
Peoples Church (ONA)
Resurrection Lutheran (RIC)
St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran (RIC)
St. Paul’s UCC (ONA)
Trinity Lutheran (RIC)
United Church of Rogers Park (RC)
University Church (ONA, O&A)
Wellington Avenue UCC (ONA)
Elmhurst
Maywood House Church (RIC)
Evanston
Lake Street Church of Evanston (W&A)
Hemenway UMC (RC)
Wheadon UMC (RC)
Hazel Crest
Hazel Crest Community UMC (RC)
Jacksonville
Congregational Church, UCC (ONA)
La Grange
First Congregational (ONA)
Naperville
First Congregational Church (ONA)
Normal
New Covenant Community (ML, ONA,
O&A)
Oak Park
Euclid Avenue UMC (RC)
First United Church (ML, ONA)
Good Shepherd Lutheran (RIC)
Oak Park Mennonite (SCN)
Pilgrim Church (ONA)
Park Forest
UU Community (WEL)
Rockford
Unitarian Universalist (WEL)
Streamwood
Immanuel UCC (ONA)
Waukegan
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
Wheaton
St. Paul Lutheran (RIC)
Wilmette
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
Winfield
Winfield Community UMC (RC)
INDIANA
Bloomington
St. Thomas Lutheran (RIC)
Unitarian Universalist (WEL)
Goshen
Circle of Hope Mennonite Fellowship (SCN)
Indianapolis
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
Northeast UCC (ONA)
North Manchester
Manchester Church of the Brethren (SCN)
South Bend
Central UMC (RC)
First Unitarian (WEL)
Southside Christian (O&A)
West Lafayette
Shalom UCC (ONA)
IOWA
Ames
Ames Mennonite (SCN)
Lord of Life Lutheran (RIC)
University Lutheran (RIC)
Cedar Rapids
Faith UMC (RC)
Peoples Church UU (WEL)
Clinton
Clinton-Camanche, Iowa MFSA (RC)
Davenport
Davenport Unitarian (WEL)
Des Moines
Cottage Grove Avenue Presbyterian (ML)
First Unitarian (WEL)
Plymouth Congregational UCC (ONA)
Trinity UMC (RC)
Urbandale UCC (ONA)
Iowa City
Faith UCC (ONA)
KANSAS
Kansas City
FaithWorks Community (O&A)
Rainbow Mennonite (SCN)
Olathe
St. Andrews Christian (O&A)
Topeka
Central Congregational UCC (ONA)
KENTUCKY
Henderson
Zion UCC (ONA)
Louisville
Calvary Lutheran (RIC)
Central Presbyterian (ML)
First Unitarian (WEL)
Third Lutheran (RIC)
Mount Prospect
Grace and Glory Lutheran (RIC)
LOUISIANA
New Orleans
St. Mark’s UMC (RC)
MAINE
Bath
UCC, Congregational (ONA)
Camden
John Street UMC (RC)
Ellsworth
Unitarian Universalist (WEL)
Mt. Desert
Somesville Union Meeting House (ONA)
Portland
Woodfords Cong. UCC (ONA)
Rockland
The First Universalist (WEL)
Saco
First Parish Cong. Ch. of Saco (ONA)
Waterville
Universalist Unitarian (WEL)
MARYLAND
Adelphi
Paint Branch UU (WEL)
Baltimore
Brown Memorial Park Ave. Pres. (ML)
Dundalk Church of the Brethren (SCN)
First & Franklin Presbyterian (ML)
Govans Presbyterian (ML)
St. John’s UMC (RC)
St. Mark’s Lutheran (RIC)
Bethesda
Cedar Lane Unitarian (WEL)
River Road Unitarian (WEL)
Westmoreland Cong. UCC (ONA)
Columbia
Christ UMC (RC)
Columbia United Christian (O&A)
Columbia United Christian (ONA)
St. John UM-Presbyterian (ML, RC)
UU Congregation (WEL)
Gaithersburg
Christ the Servant Lutheran (RIC)
Lanham
Good Samaritan Lutheran (RIC)
Rockville
Rockville Presbyterian (ML)
Silver Spring
Christ Congregational UCC (ONA)
Silver Spring Presbyterian (ML)
Takoma Park
Takoma Park Presbyterian (ML)
MASSACHUSETTS
Acton
St. Matthew’s UMC (RC)
Amherst
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
South Congregational (ONA)
Andover
Ballardvale United (ONA, RC)
Unitarian Universalist (WEL)
Athol
South Athol UMC (RC)
Auburn
Pakachoag (ONA)
Boston
Arlington Street (WEL)
Church of the Covenant (ML, ONA)
Old South Church (ONA)
Braintree
All Souls Church (WEL)
Brewster
First Parish (WEL)
Cambridge
First Church, Congregational (ONA)
Harvard-Epworth UMC (RC)
Old Cambridge Baptist (W&A)
University Lutheran (RIC)
Concord
West Concord Union (ONA)
Danvers
Holy Trinity UMC (RC)
Framingham
Grace UCC (ONA)
Greenfield
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
Hingham
First Parish Old Ship (WEL)
Hingham Congregational (ONA)
Holliston
First Congregational (ONA)
Jamaica Plain
Central Congregational (ONA)
Lincoln
The First Parish in Lincoln (ONA)
Malden
The First Ch. in Malden (ONA)
Marblehead
St. Stephen’s UMC (RC)
Marshfield
Marshfield UMC (RC)
Middleboro
First Unitarian Society (WEL)
Needham
First Parish UU (WEL)
Newburyport
Belleville Congregational UCC (ONA)
First Parish Society (WEL)
People’s UMC (RC)
Newton Highlands
Congregational (ONA)
Northampton
First Baptist Church (W&A)
First Church of Christ (ONA)
Unitarian Society (WEL)
Osterville
United Methodist (RC)
Penbroke
First Church in Penbroke (ONA)
Provincetown
Universalist Meeting House (WEL)
Reading
Unitarian Universalist (WEL)
Roxbury
Ch. Of United Community (O&A, ONA)
Salem
Crombie Street UCC (ONA)
Shrewsbury
Mt. Olivet Lutheran (RIC)
Somerville
Clarenden Hill Presbyterian (ML)
First Cong. of Somerville (ONA)
South Hadley
UMC of Holyoke, S. Hadley, & Granby
Springfield
First Ch. of Christ Congregational (ONA)
Stowe
First Parish Ch. of Stowe & Acton (WEL)
Sudbury
The First Parish (WEL)
Memorial Congregational UCC (ONA)
Waltham
First Presbyterian (ML)
Wayland
First Parish of Wayland (WEL)
Wellesley
Wellesley Congregational (ONA)
Wendell
Wendell Congregational (ONA)
West Newton
First Unitarian Society (WEL)
Second Church in Newton UCC (ONA)
West Somerville
College Avenue UMC (RC)
Williamstown
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
First UMC (RC)
Worcester
Bethany Christian United Parish (W&A,
ONA, O&A)
United Congregational (ONA)
MICHIGAN
Ann Arbor
Amistad Community Church, UCC (ONA)
Church of the Good Shepherd (ONA)
First UU (WEL)
Lord of Light Lutheran (RIC)
Memorial Christian (O&A)
Northside Presbyterian (ML)
Bloomfield Hills
Birmingham Unitarian (WEL)
Detroit
Truth Evangelical Lutheran (RIC)
Douglas
Douglas Congregational UCC (ONA)
East Lansing
Edgewood United Church (ONA)
UU of Greater Lansing (WEL)
Ferndale
Zion Lutheran (RIC)
Winter 2000 29
Grand Rapids
Plymouth Congregational, UCC (ONA)
Kalamazoo
Phoenix Community UCC (ONA)
Skyridge Church of the Brethren (SCN)
Lansing
Ecclesia (O&A)
Lansing Church of the Brethren (SCN)
Pilgrim Congregational UCC (ONA)
Port Huron
St. Martin Lutheran (RIC)
Southfield
Calvary Lutheran (RIC)
Williamston
Williamston UMC (RC)
Ypsilanti
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
MINNESOTA
Becker
Becker UMC (RC)
Burnsville
Presbyterian Church of the Apostles (ML)
Duluth
Gloria Dei (RIC)
Edina
Edina Community Lutheran (RIC)
Good Samaritan UMC (RC)
Falcon Heights
Falcon Heights UCC (ONA)
Mahtomedi
White Bear UU (WEL)
Mankato
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
Maple Grove
Pilgrims United (ONA)
Minneapolis
Christ the Redeemer Lutheran (RIC)
First Congregational (ONA)
First Unitarian Society (WEL)
First Universalist (WEL)
Grace University Lutheran (RIC)
Hennepin Avenue UMC (RC)
Hobart UMC (RC)
Holy Trinity Lutheran (RIC)
Judson Memorial Baptist (W&A)
Lyndale UCC (ONA)
Lynnhurst Congregational (ONA)
Mayflower Community Cong. UCC (ONA)
Minnehaha UCC (ONA)
Our Savior’s Lutheran (RIC)
Parkway UCC (ONA)
Praxis (RC)
Prospect Park UMC (RC)
Spirit of the Lakes (ONA)
St. Andrew’s Lutheran (RIC)
St. Peter Lutheran (RIC)
University Baptist (W&A)
Walker Community (RC)
Wesley UMC (RC)
Zion Lutheran (RIC)
New Brighton
United Church of Christ (ONA)
Northfield
First UCC (ONA)
Robbinsdale
Robbinsdale UCC (ONA)
Shoreview
Peace UMC (RC)
St. Cloud
St. Cloud UU Fellwoship (WEL)
Univ. Lutheran of the Epiphany (RIC)
St. Paul
Cherokee Park United (ML, ONA)
Dayton Avenue Presbyterian (ML)
Macalester-Plymouth United (ML, ONA)
St. Anthony Park UCC
St. Paul Mennonite Fellowship (SCN)
St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran (RIC)
Wayzatta
St. Luke Presbyterian (ML)
MISSOURI
Kansas City
Abiding Peace Lutheran (RIC)
All Souls Unitarian (WEL)
Country Club Congregational (ONA)
Fountain of Hope Lutheran (RIC)
Kairos UMC (RC)
St. James Lutheran (RIC)
St. Mark’s Lutheran (RIC)
Trinity UMC (RC)
Van Brunt Blvd. Presbyterian (ML)
St. Louis
Centenary UMC (RC)
Epiphany (ONA)
Gibson Heights United (ML)
Lafayette Park UMC (RC)
St. Marcus Evangelical UCC (ONA)
Tyler Place Presbyterian (ML)
University City
Bethel Lutheran (RIC)
MONTANA
Billings
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
Mayflower Cong. UCC (ONA)
Butte
United Congregational Church (ONA)
Missoula
University Congregational UCC (ONA)
NEBRASKA
Lincoln
Unitarian Church (WEL)
Omaha
First Lutheran (RIC)
Reconciling Worship Community (RC)
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord
South Congregational, UCC (ONA)
Exeter
Congregational (ONA)
Hanover
Our Savior Lutheran (RIC)
Jaffrey
United Church (ONA)
Milford
Unitarian Universalist Congregation (WEL)
Pelham
First Congregational (ONA)
Plymouth
Plymouth Congregational (ONA)
Sanbornton
Sanbornton Congregational UCC (ONA)
NEW JERSEY
Belleville
Christ Church Episcopal (OAS)
Belvedere
St. Mary’s Episcopal (OAS)
Bloomfield
Christ Episcopal (OAS)
Boonton
St. John’s Episcopal (OAS)
Chatham
St. Paul’s Episcopal (OAS)
Cherry Hill
UU Church (WEL)
Chester
Church of the Messiah Episcopal (OAS)
Clifton
St. Peter’s Episcopal (OAS)
Closter
First Cong. Ch. UCC (ONA)
Denville
Church of Our Saviour Episcopal (OAS)
East Brunswick
East Brunswick Cong. UCC (ONA)
Englewood
St. Paul’s Episcopal (OAS)
Exeter
Congregational Church (ONA)
Fort Lee
Church of the Good Shepherd (OAS)
Hackensack
Christ Episcopal (OAS)
Hackettstown
St. James’ Episcopal (OAS)
Harrington Park
St. Andrew’s Episcopal (OAS)
Hasbrouck Heights
Church of St. John the Divine (OAS)
Haworth
St. Luke’s Episcopal (OAS)
Hawthorne
St. Clement’s Episcopal (OAS)
Hoboken
All Saints Parish (OAS)
Jersey City
Grace Lutheran (RIC)
Grace Van Vorst Episcopal (OAS)
St. Paul’s Episcopal (OAS)
Kearny
Trinity Episcopal (OAS)
Leonia
All Saints Episcopal (OAS)
Lincoln Park
St. Andrews Episcopal (OAS)
Madison
Grace Episcopal (OAS)
Maplewood
St. George’s Episcopal (OAS)
Mendham
St. Mark’s Episcopal (OAS)
Millburn
St. Stephen’s Episcopal (OAS)
Montclair
St. John’s Episcopal (OAS)
St. Luke’s Episcopal (OAS)
Unitarian (WEL)
Montvale
St. Paul’s Episcopal (OAS)
Morristown
Church of the Redeemer (OAS)
St. Peter’s Episcopal (OAS)
Unitarian Fellowship (WEL)
Mt. Arlington
St. Peter’s Episcopal (OAS)
New Brunswick
Emanuel Lutheran (RIC)
Newark
Cathedral of Trinity and St. Philip (OAS)
Grace Episcopal (OAS)
Norwood
Church of the Holy Communion (OAS)
Oakland
St. Alban’s Episcopal (OAS)
Parsippany
St. Gregory’s Episcopal (OAS)
Passaic
St. John’s Episcopal (OAS)
Paterson
St. Paul’s Episcopal (OAS)
Plainfield
First Unitarian Society (WEL)
Pompton Lakes
Christ Church (OAS)
Princeton
Christ Congregation (ONA, W&A)
Ramsey
St. John’s Episcopal (OAS)
Ridgewood
Christ Episcopal (OAS)
South Orange
First Presbyterian & Trinity (ML)
Sparta
St. Mary’s Episcopal (OAS)
Summit
Calvary Episcopal (OAS)
Christ Church (ONA)
Teaneck
St. Mark’s Episcopal (OAS)
Tenafly
Church of the Atonement (OAS)
Towaco
Church of the Transfiguration (OAS)
Titusville
UU of Washington Crossing (WEL)
Union City
St. John’s Episcopal (OAS)
Upper Montclair
St. James’ Episcopal (OAS)
Verona
Holy Spirit Episcopal (OAS)
Wantage
Good Shepherd Episcopal (OAS)
NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque
First Unitarian (WEL)
Santa Fe
Christ Lutheran (RIC)
First Christian Church (O&A)
Unitarian Church (WEL)
United Church (ONA)
NEW YORK
Albany
Emmanuel Baptist (W&A)
First Presbyterian (ML)
Binghamton
Centenary-Chenango Street UMC (RC)
UU Congregation (WEL)
Blooming Grove
Blooming Grove UCC (ONA)
Brookhaven
Old South Haven Presbyterian (ML)
Brooklyn
All Souls Bethlehem (O&A, ONA)
Church of Gethsemane (ML)
First Unitarian Cong. Society (WEL)
King’s Highway UMC (RC)
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian (ML)
Park Slope UMC (RC)
St. John-St. Matthew-Emmanuel
Lutheran (RIC)
Buffalo
Westminster Presbyterian (ML)
Churchville
Union Congregational (ONA)
30 Open Hands
Copake
Craryville UMC (RC)
Cortland
United Community Church (W&A, ONA)
Dobbs Ferry
South Presbyterian (ML)
Fairport
Mountain Rise UCC (ONA)
Gloversville
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
Grand Island
Riverside Salem (ONA)
Henrietta
John Calvin Presbyterian (ML)
Huntington
UU Fellowship (WEL)
Ithaca
First Baptist (W&A)
First Baptist Church (W&A)
St. Paul’s UMC (RC)
Marcellus
First Presbyterian (ML)
Merrick
Community Presbyterian (ML)
Mt. Kisco
Mt. Kisco Presbyterian (ML)
Mt. Sinai
Mt. Sinai Congregational UCC (ONA)
New York City
Broadway UCC (ONA)
Central Presbyterian (ML)
Good Shepherd-Faith Presbyterian (ML)
Grace & St. Paul’s Lutheran (RIC)
Holy Trinity Lutheran (RIC)
Jan Hus Presbyterian (ML)
Judson Memorial (ONA, W&A)
Madison Avenue Baptist (W&A)
Metropolitan-Duane UMC (RC)
Our Savior’s Atonement Lutheran (RIC)
Park Avenue Christian (O&A)
Riverside (ONA, W&A)
Rutgers Presbyterian (ML)
St. Paul & St. Andrew UMC (RC)
St. Peter’s Lutheran (RIC)
Trinity Lutheran (RIC)
Trinity Presbyterian (ML)
Unitarian Ch. of All Souls (WEL)
Washington Square UMC (RC)
West-Park Presbyterian (ML)
Oneonta
First UMC (RC)
UU Society (WEL)
Palisades
Palisades Presbyterian (ML)
Plattsburgh
Plattsburgh UMC (RC)
Poughkeepsie
Unitarian Fellowship (WEL)
Riverhead
First Congregational (ONA)
Rochester
Calvary-St. Andrews (ML)
Downtown United Presbyterian (ML)
First Unitarian (WEL)
Lake Avenue Baptist (W&A)
Third Presbyterian (ML)
Westminster Presbyterian (ML)
Saratoga Springs
Presb.-New Eng. Cong. (ML, ONA)
Saratoga Springs UMC (RC)
Sayville
Sayville Congregational UCC (ONA)
Schenectady
Emmanuel Bapt.-Friedens UCC (ONA)
First UMC (RC)
First Unitarian (WEL)
Sea Cliff
UMC of Sea Cliff (RC)
Slatehill
Grace UMC of Ridgebury (RC)
Slingerlands
Community UMC (RC)
Snyder
Amherst Community (ONA, O&A)
Syosset
The Community Church (ONA)
Syracuse
Plymouth Congregational UCC (ONA)
Troy
First United Presbyterian (ML)
Utica
Unitarian Universalist (WEL)
Williamsville
UU of Amherst (WEL)
Yorktown Heights
First Presbyterian (ML)
NORTH CAROLINA
Chapel Hill
Church of the Reconciliation (ML)
Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist (W&A)
United Church (ONA)
Charlotte
Holy Trinity Lutheran (RIC)
Durham
Eno River UU Fellowship (WEL)
Pilgrim UCC (ONA)
Raleigh
Community UCC (ONA)
Pullen Memorial Baptist (W&A)
Wilmington
UU Fellowship (WEL)
Winston-Salem
Parkway UCC (ONA)
UU Fellowship (WEL)
NORTH DAKOTA
Fargo
St. Mark’s Lutheran (RIC)
OHIO
Brecksville
United Church of Christ (ONA)
Chesterland
Community Church (ONA)
Cincinnati
Clifton UMC (RC)
Mt. Auburn Presbyterian (ML)
Cleveland
Archwood UCC (ONA)
Euclid Ave. Congregational UCC (ONA)
Pilgrim Congregational UCC (ONA)
Simpson UMC (RC)
Trinity UCC (ONA)
West Shore UU (WEL)
Zion UCC (ONA)
Cleveland Heights
Church of the Redeemer (RC)
Noble Road Presbyterian (ML)
Columbus
Calvary Lutheran (RIC)
First English Lutheran (RIC)
First Unitarian Universalist (WEL)
North Congregational UCC (ONA)
Redeemer Lutheran (RIC)
St. Mark Lutheran (RIC)
Dayton
Congregation for Reconciliation (ONA)
Cross Creek Community (ONA)
Faith UCC (ONA)
Miami Valley Unitarian Fellowship (WEL)
Granville
First Baptist (W&A)
Lakewood
Cove UMC (RC)
Liberation UCC (ONA)
Norton
Grace UCC (ONA)
Oberlin
First Church in Oberlin (ONA)
Shaker Heights
First Unitarian of Cleveland (WEL)
Toledo
Central UMC (RC)
St. Lucas Lutheran (RIC)
OKLAHOMA
Oklahoma City
Church of the Open Arms, UCC (ONA)
Epworth UMC (RC)
Tulsa
Fellowship Congregational, UCC (ONA)
UM Community of Hope (RC)
OREGON
Ashland
United Church of Christ, Cong. (ONA)
Beavercreek
Beavercreek UCC (ONA)
Beaverton
Southminster Presbyterian (ML)
Bend
First Presbyterian (ML)
Corvallis
First Congregational Church (ONA)
First UMC (RC)
Estacada
Estacada UMC (RC)
Eugene
First Congregational, UCC (ONA)
Unitarian of Eugene & Lane Co. (WEL)
Forest Grove
Forest Grove UCC (ONA)
Gresham
Zion UCC (ONA)
Klamath Falls
Klamath Falls Cong. UCC (ONA)
Lake Oswego
Lake Oswego UCC (ONA)
Milwaukie
Clackamus UCC (ONA)
Milwaukie UCC (ONA)
Portland
Ainsworth UCC (ONA)
First Congregational (ONA)
First UMC (RC)
Metanoia Peace Community (RC)
Peace Church of the Brethren (SCN)
Southwest United (ONA)
St. James Lutheran (RIC)
St. Mark Presbyterian (ML)
University Park UMC (RC)
Salem
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
First Unitarian Society (WEL)
Morningside UMC (RC)
Springfield
Church of the Brethren (SCN)
PENNSYLVANIA
Allentown
Muhlenberg College Chapel (RIC)
St. John Lutheran (RIC)
Devon
Main Line Unitarian (WEL)
Harrisburg
Unitarian Church (WEL)
Lansdale
Trinity Lutheran (RIC)
Levittown
United Christian Church (O&A, ONA)
Lewisburg
Beaver Memorial UMC (RC)
Norristown
Olivet-Schwenkfelder UCC (ONA)
Philadelphia
Calvary UMC (RC)
First UMC of Germantown (RC)
Germantown Mennonite Church (SCN)
Holy Communion Lutheran (RIC)
Old First Reformed (ONA)
St. Michael’s Lutheran (RIC)
Tabernacle United (ML, ONA)
Univ. Lutheran of the Incarnation (RIC)
Pittsburgh
First Unitarian (WEL)
Sixth Presbyterian (ML)
St. Andrew Lutheran (RIC)
State College
Univ. Baptist & Brethren (SCN, W&A)
Upper Darby
Christ Lutheran (RIC)
Wayne
Central Baptist (W&A)
RHODE ISLAND
East Greenwich
Westminster Unitarian (WEL)
Newport
Newport Congregational (ONA)
Pawtucket
Park Place Cong. UCC (ONA)
Providence
Mathewson Street UMC (RC)
SOUTH CAROLINA
Charleston
Circular Congregational (ONA)
Columbia
Gethsemane Lutheran (RIC)
SOUTH DAKOTA
Erwin
Erwin UCC (ONA)
TENNESSEE
Chattanooga
Unitarian Universalist (WEL)
Knoxville
Tennessee Valley UU (WEL)
Memphis
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
Nashville
Brookmeade Congregational UCC (ONA)
Edgehill UMC (RC)
First UU Church (WEL)
Hobson UMC (RC)
TEXAS
Austin
First English Lutheran (RIC)
First UU Church (WEL)
Winter 2000 31
St. Andrews Presbyterian (ML)
Trinity UMC (RC)
College Station
Friends Congregational (ONA)
Corpus Christi
St. Paul UCC (ONA)
Dallas
Bethany Presbyterian (ML)
First Unitarian (WEL)
Midway Hills Christian (O&A)
Northaven UMC (RC)
El Paso
St. Timothy Lutheran (RIC)
Fort Worth
St. Matthew’s Lutheran (RIC)
Houston
Bering Memorial UMC (RC)
Comm. of the Reconciling Servant (ML)
Covenant Baptist (W&A)
Faith Covenant (ML, ONA)
First Congregational (ONA)
Grace Evangelical Lutheran (RIC)
Lubbock
St. John’s UMC (RC)
Mesquite
St. Stephen UMC (RC)
Plano
Dallas North Unitarian (WEL)
San Antonio
Spirit of Life (RIC)
UTAH
Salt Lake City
Holladay UCC (ONA)
Mount Tabor Lutheran (RIC)
South Valley UU Society (WEL)
VERMONT
Bennington
Second Congregational (ONA)
Burlington
Christ Presbyterian (ML)
College Street Congregational (ONA)
Middlebury
Congregational UCC (ONA)
Putney
United Church (ONA)
Rutland
Rutland UMC (RC)
Thetford
First Congregational Church (ONA)
VIRGINIA
Alexandria
Hope UCC (ONA)
Mount Vernon Unitarian (WEL)
Peace Lutheran (RIC)
Arlington
Clarendon Presbyterian (ML)
Unitarian Church (WEL)
Charlottesville
Sojourners UCC (ONA)
Harrisonburg
Sanctuary UCC (ONA)
Oakton
Fairfax Unitarian (WEL)
Roanoke
Unitarian Universalist (WEL)
WASHINGTON
Bellevue
Eastgate Congregational UCC (ONA)
First Congregational, UCC (ONA)
First UMC (RC)
Bellingham
First Cong. of Bellingham (ONA)
Carnation
Tolt Congregational, UCC (ONA)
Chelan
Fullness of God Lutheran (RIC)
Edmonds
Edmonds UU (WEL)
Ellensburg
First UMC (RC)
Everett
First Congregational (ONA)
Federal Way
Wayside UCC (ONA)
Kirkland
Holy Spirit Lutheran (RIC)
Leavenworth
Faith Lutheran (RIC)
Marysville
Evergreen UU Fellowship (WEL)
Medical Lake
Shalom UCC (ONA)
Mountlake Terrace
Terrace View Presbyterian (ML)
Olympia
Comm. for Interfaith Celebration (ONA)
Pullman
Community Congregational UCC (ONA)
Reston
Washington Plaza Baptist (W&A)
Richland
Shalom UCC (ONA)
Seattle
Alki Cong. UCC (ONA)
Broadview Community UCC (ONA)
Central Lutheran (RIC)
Fauntleroy UCC (ONA)
Findlay Street Christian (O&A)
First Baptist (W&A)
Gethsemane Lutheran (RIC)
Immanuel Lutheran (RIC)
Keystone Cong. UCC (ONA)
Magnolia UCC (ONA)
Normandy Park Cong. UCC (ONA)
Pilgrim Congregational (ONA)
Plymouth Congregational (ONA)
Prospect UCC Cong. (ONA)
Ravenna UMC (RC)
Richmond Beach Cong. UCC (ONA)
Trinity UMC (RC)
St. Paul’s UCC (ONA)
University Baptist (W&A)
University Christian (O&A)
University Congregational (ONA)
University Temple UMC (RC)
Wallingford UMC (RC)
Spokane
Unitarian Church (WEL)
Suquamish
Community Congregational (ONA)
Vancouver
East Vancouver UMC (RC)
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
White Salmon
Bethel Cong., UCC (ONA)
WEST VIRGINIA
Wheeling
UU Congregation (WEL)
WISCONSIN
Brown Deer
Brown Deer UCC (ONA)
Delavan
Delavan UMC (RC)
Eau Claire
University Lutheran (RIC)
Green Bay
Union Cong. UCC (ONA)
Madison
Advent Lutheran (RIC)
Community of Hope UCC (ONA)
First Baptist (W&A)
First Congregational UCC (ONA)
James Reeb UU Congregation (WEL)
Lake Edge Lutheran (RIC)
Orchard Ridge UCC (ONA)
Plymouth Congregational UCC (ONA)
University UMC (RC)
Milwaukee
Broken Walls Christian Comm. (W&A)
Cross Lutheran (RIC)
Pentecost Lutheran (RIC)
Plymouth UCC (ONA)
Reformation Lutheran (RIC)
Village Church, Lutheran (RIC)
Racine
Our Savior’s Lutheran (RIC)
Sheboygan
Wesley UMC (RC)
Waukesha
Maple Avenue Mennonite (SCN)
CANADA
ALBERTA
Calgary
Calgary Inter-Mennonite (SCN)
Edmonton
Southminster-Steinhauer United (AC)
Unitarian Church (WEL)
BRITISH COLUMBIA
Burnaby
St. Paul’s United (AC)
Vancouver
First United Church (AC)
Trinity United (AC)
Unitarian Church (WEL)
MANITOBA
Winnipeg
Augustine United (AC)
First Unitarian Universalist (WEL)
Young United (AC)
ONTARIO
Kingston
Sydenham Street United (AC)
Thunder Bay
Lakehead U. Fellowship (WEL)
Toronto
Bathurst United (AC)
Bloor Street United (AC)
Glen Rhodes United (AC)
Metropolitan United (AC)
Trinity-St. Paul’s United (AC)
Waterloo
Olive Branch Mennonite (SCN)
Westminster United (AC)
SASKATCHEWAN
Regina
St. James United (AC)
Saskatoon
King of Glory Lutheran (RIC)
St. Thomas-Wesley United (AC)
CAMPUS MINISTRIES
Key:
LCM=Lutheran Campus Ministry
LSC=Lutheran Student Center
LSM=Lutheran Student Movement
UCM=United Campus Ministry
UMSF=United Methodist Student Fellowship
UNITED STATES
CALIFORNIA
Cal-Aggie Christian House, UC-Davis (RC)
UCM, UC, Riverside (RC)
UCM, USC, Los Angeles (RC)
Wesley Fdn., UC-Berkeley (RC)
Wesley Fdn., UC-Santa Barbara (RC)
Wesley Fdn., UCLA, Los Angeles (RC)
COLORADO
LCM, CU-Boulder (RIC)
Wesley Foundation, U. of Denver (RC)
DELAWARE
Wesley Fdn., UD, Newark (RC)
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
UMSF, American U. (RC)
ILLINOIS
Agape House, U. of Illinois, Chicago (RC)
Ill. Disciples Fdn., UI, Champaign (O&A)
UMSF, Ill. Wesleyan, Bloomington (RC)
UCM, No. Illinois, DeKalb (RC)
University Christian Ministry, Northwestern,
Evanston (RC)
INDIANA
LCM, IU, Bloomington (RIC)
IOWA
LCM, UI, Iowa City (RIC)
Stud. Cong., Luther Coll., Decorah (RIC)
KANSAS
LCM, KSU, Manhattan (RIC)
United Methodist CM, UK, Lawrence (RC)
KENTUCKY
Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
(ML Chapter)
MICHIGAN
Guild House, UM, Ann Arbor (O&A)
Wesley Fdn., Central Mich. Univ., Mt.
Pleasant (RC)
Wesley Fdn., U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor (RC)
MINNESOTA
LCM in Minneapolis (RIC)
Stud. Cong., St. Olaf, Northfield (RIC)
NORTH DAKOTA
Univ. Lutheran Center, NDSU, Fargo (RIC)
OHIO
UCM, OU, Athens (O&A, RC, W&A)
OREGON
LCM in Portland (RIC)
Wesley Fdn., UO, Eugene (RC)
PENNSYLVANIA
Christ Chapel, Gettysburg College,
Gettysburg (RIC)
LSC-LCM, Kutztown U, Kutztown (RIC)
TENNESSEE
Wesley Fdn., Vanderbilt, Nashville (RC)
TEXAS
LCM, UT, Austin (RIC)
VIRGINIA
Campus Christian Community, MWC,
Fredericksburg (RC, RIC)
WASHINGTON
The Common Ministry, Washington State
U., Pullman (RC)
LCM, WWU, Bellingham (RIC)
32 Open Hands
Wesley Club, UW, Seattle (RC)
UM Fellowship, UPS, Puget Sound (RC)
WISCONSIN
LCM, UW, LaCrosse (RIC)
LCM, Metro Milwaukee(RIC)
LCM, UW-Stout, Menomonie (RIC)
Wesley Fdn., U. of Wisconsin, Madison (RC)
CANADA
SASKATCHEWAN
LSC, LSM, Saskatoon (RIC)
JUDICATORIES
which have passed welcoming resolutions
Conferences (ONA)
California/Nevada N.
Central Atlantic
Central Pacific
Connecticut
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
New Hampshire
New York
Ohio
Rocky Mountain
Southern California
Conferences (RC)
California-Nevada
New York
Northern Illinois
Oregon-Idaho
Troy
Wisconsin
Regions (O&A)
Northern California/Nevada
Synods (ML)
Synod of the Northeast
Synods, ELCA (RIC)
Eastern North Dakota
Eastern Washington-Idaho
Greater Milwaukee
Metro Chicago
Metro New York
Metro Washington, D.C.
Minneapolis Area
Pacifica
Rocky Mountain
Sierra-Pacific
Southeast Michigan
Southeast Pennsylvania
Southern California–West
St. Paul (MN) Area
NATIONAL MINISTRIES
which have passed welcoming resolutions
Disciples Justice Action Network (O&A)
Disciples Peace Fellowship (O&A)
Gen’l Commission on Christian Unity &
Interreligious Concerns (RC)
Lutheran Student Movement—USA (RIC)
Methodist Fed. for Social Action (RC)
Urban Servants Corps (RIC)
INTERNATIONAL
MINISTRIES
Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America
(W&A)
QTY BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE
___ Wholly Holy (Fall 1999)
___ Creative Chaos (Summer 1999)
___ 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)
___ Transgender Realities (Fall 1996)
___ 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)
___ 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)
___ Sexual Violence (Fall 1987)
___ Minorities within a Minority (Spring 1987)
___ Images of Healing (Fall 1986)
___ Our Churches’ Policies (Summer 1986)
❑ Please send me the back issues indicated ($6 each; 10+ @ $4).
❑ Send me Open Hands each quarter ($20/year; outside U.S.A. @ $25).
❑ Send the current issue to name(s) attached. ($6 each).
❑ Send Open Hands gift subscription(s) to name(s) attached.
Enclosed is my payment of $ _______ OR
Charge $ _____________ to my VISA MASTERCARD (Circle one)
# __________________________________________ Expiration _____/_____.
Name on Card ____________________________________________________
Signature ________________________________________________________
My Name ________________________________________________________
Address _________________________________________________________
City/State/Zip _____________________________________________________
Daytime Phone (______) _____________________
Local Church _____________________________________________________
Denomination _____________________________________________________
Send to:
Open Hands, 3801 N. Keeler Avenue, Chicago, IL 60641
Phone: 773/736-5526 Fax: 773/736-5475
Published by the Reconciling Congregation
Program in conjunction with
Affirming Congregation Programme, More
Light Presbyterians, Open and Affirming
Ministries, Open and Affirming Program,
Reconciling in Christ, and Welcoming &
Affirming Baptist programs.
A Unique Resource on
Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual
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