Open Hands Vol 16 No 1 - The gOD of Violence

Open Hands Vol 16 No 1 - The gOD of Violence

16

1

2000

Summer

2 Open Hands
Vol. 16 No. 1 Summer 2000
Shaping an Inclusive Church
Affirming Congregation Programme
More Light Presbyterians
Open & Affirming Ministries
Open and Affirming Program
Reconciling Congregation Program
Reconciling in Christ Program
Welcoming & Affirming Baptists
Interim Executive Publisher
Marilyn Alexander
Editor
Chris Glaser
Designer
In Print—Jan Graves
Marketing Manager
Jacki Belile
Editorial Advisory Committee
Vaughn Beckman, O&A
Bill Capel, MLP
Ann Marie Coleman, ONA
Chris Copeland, W&A
Bobbi Hargleroad, MLP
Tom Harshman, O&A
Alyson Huntly, ACP
Bonnie Kelly, ACP
Susan Laurie, RCP
Samuel E. Loliger, ONA
Ruth Moerdyk, SCN
Caroline Presnell, RCP
Paul Santillán, RCP
Julie Sevig, RIC
Kelly Sprinkle, W&A
Kathy Stayton, W&A
Margarita Suaréz, ONA
Judith Hoch Wray, O&A
Stuart Wright, RIC
and Program Coordinators
Open Hands is the quarterly magazine of the
welcoming movement, a consortium of programs
that support individuals and congregations
in efforts to welcome lesbians, gay men,
bisexuals, and transgenders in all areas of church
life. Open Hands was founded and is published
by the Reconciling Congregation Program, Inc.
(United Methodist), in cooperation with the six
ecumenical partners listed above. Each program
is a national network of local congregations and
ministries that publicly affirm their welcome of
LGBT people, their families and friends. These
seven programs, along with Supportive Congregations
(Brethren/Mennonite [www.webcom.
com/bmc], Oasis Congregations (Episcopal),
Welcoming Congregations (Unitarian Universalist),
and INCLUSIVE Congregations (United
Kingdom)—offer hope that the church can be a
more inclusive community.
Subscription is $20 for four issues ($25 outside
the U.S.). Single copies and back issues are
$6; quantities of 10 or more, $4 each.
Subscriptions, requests for advertising rates,
and other business correspondence should be
sent to:
Open Hands
3801 N. Keeler Avenue
Chicago, IL 60641
Phone: 773/736-5526
Fax: 773/736-5475
www.rcp.org/openhands/index.html
Member, The Associated Church Press
© 2000
Reconciling Congregation Program, Inc.
Open Hands is a registered trademark.
ISSN 0888-8833
Printed on recycled paper.
NEXT ISSUE:
THE HEALING TOUCH—Pastoral Concerns
THE gOD OF VIOLENCE
The god of Violence 4
CHRIS GLASER
God’s “tough love” doesn’t care about control, coercion, or
conformity.
Toward a Nonviolent Understanding of Atonement 5
CARTER HEYWARD
God as a Spirit of “revolutionary patience” rather than
bloodthirsty judge.
Lament of Matthew Shepard 6
ELAINE BLANCHARD
A psalm of lament with no happy ending.
A Poem by J. Barrie Shepherd 8
The Biblical Word on Violence—Oppression vs. Liberating Justice 11
TOM HANKS
The perceived difference between violence and force.
They Know Not What They Do 13
MARTHA JUILLERAT
“Just kill them,” one delegate to the United Methodist General
Conference shouted.
Becoming Joseph 14
THOMAS KELSON LEWIS
A poem about transgender minister Joseph Lobdell.
No Excuse for Abuse 15
MICHAEL KINNAMON
Handling violence with grace.
The Sacrifice — A Short Story 16
D. S. CARLSTONE
Abe and Sara, we have a problem.
Real Presence 18
J. BARRIE SHEPHERD
A poem about gay pride and eyes of faith.
I Speak Today As One Black Gay Man 19
A Poem for the Millennium March
KEITH BOYKIN
Summer 2000 3
Publisher
Reconciling Congregation Program, Inc. (UMC)
Marilyn Alexander, Interim Coordinator
3801 N. Keeler Avenue, Chicago, IL 60641
773/736-5526
www.rcp.org
Ecumenical Partners
Affirming Congregation Programme
(United Church of Canada)
Ron Coughlin, Coordinator
P.O. Box 333, Station Q, Toronto, Ontario
CANADA M4T 2M5
416/466-1489
acpucc@aol.com
More Light Presbyterians (PCUSA)
Michael J. Adee, Coordinator
369 Montezuma Ave. PMB #447
Santa Fe, NM 87501-2626
505/820-7082
www.mlp.org
Open & Affirming Ministries
(Disciples of Christ)
John Wade Payne, Interim Coordinator
P.O. Box 44400, Indianapolis, IN 46244
941/728-8833
www.sacredplaces.com/glad
Open and Affirming Program (UCC)
Ann B. Day, Coordinator
P.O. Box 403, Holden, MA 01520
508/856-9316
www.coalition.simplenet.com
Reconciling in Christ Program (Lutheran)
Bob Gibeling, Coordinator
2466 Sharondale Drive, Atlanta, GA 30305
404/266-9615
www.lcna.org
Welcoming & Affirming Baptists (ABC/USA)
Brenda J. Moulton, Coordinator
P.O. Box 2596, Attleboro Falls, MA 02763
508/226-1945
users.aol.com/wabaptists
MINISTRIES
MARRIAGE
A Letter from Jimmy Creech 22
JIMMY CREECH
Reflections on the Second Jimmy Creech Trial 23
MARILYN ALEXANDER
Law vs. Truth 24
DAVID COOPER
Let Us Be Impatient With Prejudice 25
WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN
WELCOMING PROCESS
Conflict Resolution 26
DEETTE BEGHTOL
CAMPUS
Pacific School of Religion Opens Center for
Lesbian and Gay Studies 27
JANE AUSTIN
SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT
“Diversity” 28
A NEW SONG BY MARSHA STEVENS
WELCOMING COMMUNITIES ............ 30
MOVEMENT NEWS ............................. 31
Call for articles and columns for
Open Hands Spring 2001
DOWN ON THE FARM
Addressing Rural Issues
Theme Section: How is it for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people,
their families, friends, and congregations, in rural communities and towns?
How do agrarian congregations and governing bodies deal with issues of diversity
and inclusion, especially in the area of sexual diversity? And what are some
of the misconceptions of their urban brothers and sisters? For this issue, we
welcome a good mix of personal stories of individuals or individual congregations
(or church bodies) as well as analysis articles.
1000-2500 words per article, photographs welcome.
Ministries Section: Columns may include: Welcoming Process, Connections
(with other justice issues), Worship, Spirituality, Outreach, Leadership, Marriage,
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 December 1, 2000
Manuscript deadline: January 25, 2001
Chris Glaser, Phone/Fax 404/622-4222 or e-mail at ChrsGlaser@aol.com
991 Berne St. SE, Atlanta, GA 30316-1859 USA
4 Open Hands
In the film Dominick and Eugene,
the mentally disabled Dominick
witnesses child abuse firsthand,
perpetrated by a father on his son, a boy
whom Dominick befriended along his
garbage route. Seeking refuge in the
sanctuary of his Catholic church, a
priest approaches him to see if he can
be of any help. Tearfully Dominick
points to Jesus on the cross and passionately
says, “I would never let that happen
to my son!”
Even growing up as a fundamentalist
biblical literalist, the concept of a
bloodthirsty god who demanded the
death of his own son seemed out of kilter
with what I had otherwise been
taught about God. Singing hymns like
“There Is a Fountain Filled With Blood”
and “Washed in the Blood of the Lamb”
offered gruesome images. (I also wondered
how blood could make me
“clean” or “white as snow!”) And yet
there was some comfort in it. Jesus paid
the price that I deserved. But in turn,
that conjured up frightening possibilities.
What could I have done by the age
of six, when I was baptized, to deserve
crucifixion?
And though I was taught that Jesus
was crucified so others would not be, I
grew up recognizing that the crucifixions
had not stopped. Like the one of
the beloved volunteer youth worker in
my American Baptist Church who was
chased out of our congregation simply
for being homosexual (he himself
thought it was a sin and chose not to
practice) and then outed by our “pastor”
in three congregations he subsequently
tried to join. This spiritual abuse
would appear to the perpetrator mild
compared to the abuse God “required”
“his” own son to endure.
I write this on Maundy Thursday
evening in the year 2000 when most
self-respecting Christians are in church
observing Christ’s premonition of his
death and his offering of the first
eucharist, the last supper. They’re doing
the right thing being in church on
this holy anniversary of that event. But
I felt that my own devotion should be
spent in this exercise of exorcizing the
supposed violence of god.
For those who want a more detailed
argument in favor of a different understanding
of the atonement, I encourage
you to read Carter Heyward’s article that
follows—better yet, read the book from
which it’s excerpted, SAVING JESUS
From Those Who Are Right. And I have
the chutzpah to suggest my own book
Coming Out As Sacrament, which explores
traditional notions of atonement
in the light of LGBT experience and
René Girard’s school of thought regarding
the scapegoat mechanism. When
the Open Hands Advisory Committee
chose this theme, The god of Violence,
I knew I would have to put in my two
cents. I can’t remain silent in the slandering
of God.
Because I believe that, in the biblical
witness, even before Jesus comes
along, God comes out to us as One who
desires mercy and not sacrifice, justice
rather than solemn assemblies, kindness
and humility rather than sacrifice of the
firstborn, whether God’s or anybody’s.
God comes down from a mountain
of expectations (Mount Sinai) and descends
to a grave, a creed says even to
hell itself, to embrace us and our human
experience and vulnerability.
What kind of love is this? It’s the toughest
love— not the “tough love” some
parents and friends and congregations
practice toward their gay and lesbian
and bisexual and transgendered children
that pushes them away, but the
tough love that goes the extra mile to
embrace us.
This is a love that doesn’t care about
ancient Jewish or Roman or latter-day
American understandings of retributive
justice (“an eye for an eye” or a life for
a life), nor about cultural mores or governmental
or denominational laws, but
only about open hands, welcoming
arms, affirming hugs, reconciliation of
persons, and more light from the Spirit.
This is a love that doesn’t care about
control or coercion or conformity. This
is the love of the Good Shepherd, the
rabbi, the healer, the evangelist, the
Suffering Servant, the Messiah, that
leads, teaches, touches our wounds, proclaims
the Good News, is vulnerable,
and delivers us from oppression. This
is the love that is the power of God. As
humans, we have mistaken and limited
and distorted notions of power. We
think of it as control. But God’s power
is love, which is not about control but
about persuasion. When we really understand
ourselves as the beloved, we
are transformed, certainly, better able
to love ourselves and to love others. But
we are not asked to change our spots
anymore than the leopard. We are
called only to come out, to come out of
ourselves, and any confining space, to
love (with agape and eros) and serve
(providing hospitality) and celebrate
(thanksgiving).
Coming out is a sacrament, a sacred
act in which God’s presence is felt, not
because of the suffering it may cause
us, but because of the vulnerability we
offer and therefore invite. Coming out
begets coming out. And God is present
in vulnerability— that is, for those with
faithful vision and open hands and
hearts. God is there choosing life for us,
the abundant life Jesus promised. As
“living sacrifices,” the sacrifice is not the
goal but the life to be lived to its fullest.
Crucifixion is a product of human
evil. Resurrection is the promise of
God’s will.
The god of violence is a false god.
The God of loving vulnerability is the
one true God. God comes to us not as
an armored warrior, nor even a robed
cleric waving the Bible as a weapon. God
comes out to us as a naked lover, ready
to share his/her body. “This is my
body.” “You are the Body.” May we receive
the body with open hands.
Chris Glaser, M.Div.,
is the editor of Open
Hands and the author
of Coming Out As Sacrament
(Westminster
John Knox Press, 1998).
The god of Violence
Chris Glaser
Summer 2000 5
The Crucible
of Atonement
The historical context of evil is the
crucible of atonement. Wrong relation
between groups of people, in
which one group is violating and destroying
another, or in which people are
destroying other creatures and the earth
itself— this is the context in which right
relation with God always need to be
made. But what does such atonement
actually involve? And how does it happen?
We sometimes can image atonement
more easily if we have a personal picture
of God as “one of us”— anthropomorphized,
if only momentarily, so that
we can notice the relational dynamics
of atonement. In this spirit, let us image
God for a moment as one of us: She
is devastated that Her human friends
have betrayed her. Our response to
God’s call, historically and still today,
has been to turn away. We deny our
white privilege. We are oblivious to our
anti-Semitism. We trivialize our misogyny.
We justify our homophobia.
We make excuses, always excuses, for
ourselves.
What is God’s response?
As the source of justice-love, God is
also the wellspring of compassion, the
creator and liberator of all that is wise
and good. Because She knows the secrets
of our hearts and our wounded,
frightened places. She also understands
that we are not being true to ourselves,
one another, or Her. God knows that,
in this sense, we do not know what we
are doing. Still, She loves us and She
yearns for our well-being. She grieves
our violence against one another and
ourselves. In her yearning and grief, She
offer us Herself—as friend. Reaching for
us, She longs for us to reciprocate, to
meet Her as companion. This is her forgiveness—
the YES which is Her yearning,
Her grief, Her offering, Her reaching,
without ceasing.
God forgives us. But She knows that
we cannot “accept” this forgiveness,
because we do not experience it. And
we do not experience it because we have
not turned around to meet Her. We fail
to notice that She is with us. In our ignorance
or fear, we do not hear God,
we do not believe Her, and we don’t
yet know that we need Her. Instead, we
malinger in violence and confusion,
guilt and self-justification. Over time,
we languish, cut off more and more
from others, from ourselves, and from
the Spirit, descending to that “place”
in ourselves and our world that many
poets and religious teachers have called
“hell,” a place of utter isolation.
Our own experiences tell us that
nothing is sadder than to watch those
whom we love turn away from us and
slowly, or not so slowly, descend into
hell. So too with God, nothing could
be sadder for God than when we turn
away, knowing not what we do, and slip
away into hells of our own making.
How then, in this situation, is right
relation made? Where is atonement?
Like forgiveness, atonement has two
“moments.” The first is eternal: the
Spirit is constantly yearning, offering,
and reaching for us. There is never a
moment in or beyond time and space
in which this is not the case. In the second,
we are moved through solidarity,
community, friendship, prayer, and
other resources to go with God, to live
willingly in her Spirit. This often involves
our repentance, our commitment
to turn from the wrong we have
done and live differently by turning to
God and one another in the struggle for
mutuality. But turning to God, going
with God, choosing to live in the Spirit
of mutuality, has consequences.
For Christians, this is what the cross
represents: consequences. It is also what
the Empty Tomb points to. Going with
God, we suffer at the hands of those
who turn away from her. Yet mutually
involved with the Spirit of Life and love,
we are sustained a day a time through
friendship, community, prayer, and
other spiritual gifts. Living in the Sacred,
embodying its power, we ourselves become
agents of atonement, participants
in making right relation with God and
one another.
This is the historical and spiritual
process of incarnation. It is also the historical
and spiritual process of atonement.
It is what the Jesus story was all
about and still is, insofar as we embody
it in our lives. In the Spirit that sparked
Jesus, we too live. And we suffer because
we too live passionately with God.
The Problem With
Atonement Tradition
No one whose work I know has done
a clearer, fairer exposition of the
atonement tradition in Christianity
than D. M. Baillie. In response to “modern
man’s [sic]” question, “Why speak
of atonement at all?” Baillie sets out to
persuade the modern reader that the
good life is “bankrupt without the message
of the forgiveness of sins” and that
Excerpted from her new book, SAVING JESUS From Those Who Are Right
(Fortress Press, 1999). Please read the book for the full context of these excerpts.
Toward a Nonviolent
Understanding of Atonement
Carter Heyward
this message of forgiveness “must rest on a doctrine of divine
atonement.” I agree with both of these assumptions, but
Baillie’s understanding of “divine atonement” is very different
from mine. His position— a modern, neo-orthodox view—
illustrates what I believe to be the root problem with how
atonement has been presented in Christian tradition.
I strongly agree with Baillie’s understanding of our need
for God, not just better self-understanding. Except for his dismissive
attitude toward emotional trauma as a root cause of
human distress, I think he sees rather clearly the problem with
our attempts to get on with our lives without coming to terms
with our failures. We may be able to get on with our lives, but
our spirits cannot soar. We are weighted down with guilt and
shame from which there is no simply rational, psychological,
or physical release.
In the language of AA, we need “a spiritual awakening.”
We need to know the Sacred Power in which we live and
breathe and have our being.
Forgiveness is our way to God (our power in mutual relation).
Forgiveness is our way to god (verb).
Forgiveness is spiritual liberation from the shackles of the
past. It frees us to go forward, “not to shut the door on the
past” (to quote the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous) and
to know peace. Knowing ourselves forgiven by the Spirit of
life itself— empowered to go forth, unstuck and able to live
each new day with a sense of personal grounding in the Spirit—
we ourselves become God-bearers, agents of forgiveness, to
others. And that, of course, is atonement—making right relation
with God.
The problem therefore with the traditional and by far most
widely held Christian understanding of atonement as a “substitutionary”
and “sacrificial” act of God is that it drives a huge
and misleading wedge between how we experience God’s love
and suffering and how we experience our own love and suffering.
Most of what we humans actually experience as healing and
liberating— justice, compassion, children and family, human
love and friendship, beauty of creation, meaningful work,
enough to eat, a place to live, animal companions, self-confidence,
erotic pleasure and joy, mutuality in relation to others—
is assumed by most Christians to be human, not necessarily
divine, experience.
Whether God is actually present and active in our embodied
lives, most Christians believe, depends on the quality of
our faith in God through our faith in (the divinity of) His Son
Jesus Christ. We doubt human experience as a reliable source
of sacred meaning unless the particular experience is that of a
faithful Christian. Our hesitancy to recognize ourselves and
other humans and creatures— regardless of religious affiliations
and creeds— as sources of God’s love, power, and beauty reinforces
the God-over-and-against-us dualism that continues to
haunt us and generates our alienation from ourselves, one
another, other creatures, and God. It also allows us to imagine
that God, since we experience Him as wholly other than ourselves,
one “out there” beyond us, actually might be the author
of blood sacrifice traditions, ancient and modern.
Lament of Matthew Shepard
Elaine Blanchard
Based on Psalm 88, the only psalm that includes no praise or
assurance—only lament. Elaine Blanchard wrote this as part
of her study of the Psalms at Memphis Theological Seminary
in the fall of 1998. She graduated this year and plans to
serve in the United Church of Christ as an ordained minister.
O Lord, God who baptized me,
at St. Mark’s Episcopal
here in Casper, Wyoming…
it’s night
and I’m crying out to you—
strapped to a fence-post
and beaten
until my skull is crushed.
I’ve been burned
and I’m freezing in the cold—
snow is falling on my wounds.
Let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry.
For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
I am counted among those who
go down to the Pit;
I am like those who have no
help,
like those forsaken among the
dead,
like the slain that lie in the
grave,
like those whom you remember
no more,
for they are cut off from your
hand.
You have put me in the depths
of the Pit,
in the regions dark and deep.
Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with
all your waves.
Your blessed christian preachers
gather crowds to condemn me,
to wave signs for my destruction—
declaring you want me to die,
forgotten
and alone in the night—
bleeding into Wyoming’s soil.
I am shut in so that I cannot
escape;
my eye grows dim through
sorrow
and because the butt of the gun
has blasted the bone
of my forehead into splinters,
piercing the orbit of my eye.
Every day I call on you, O Lord;
I spread out my hands to you.
Will it be in death,
in the grave,
6 Open Hands
Baillie writes that it is not enough for us to love one another,
yearn for right relation, and struggle to go with the
Spirit in our daily affairs. This is fine, but for Baillie it is not
the spiritual or moral equivalent of putting our faith in a God
who loved us so much that he gave his only Son to be sacrificed
for us— to undergo a death that we, not he, deserved
(and deserve) as punishment for our sins (moral failures).
Baillie and with him much of Christianity maintains that it is
precisely God’s willingness to punish and be punished (for
remember that Jesus is God in this story, both Father and Son)—
as a surrogate, in our place— that reveals His relentless love for
us sinners.
For us to liberate human bodies and spirits through social
movements and personal transformation, to redeem one another
from bondage to past mistakes and violence, to temper
judgment with compassion and solidarity—this forgiveness is
not enough for most Christian teachers, preachers, and pastors.
For brothers and sisters to reach out to us, offering gifts of
their experience, strength, and hope, and for them to watch
sorrowfully as we turn away into isolation and despair—this
forgiveness is not enough for mainline Christians.
For God to wait— simply to wait—with us in faith, hope
and love—this forgiveness is not enough for Baillie’s “God.”
God as a Spirit of
“Revolutionary Patience”
Very early in the shaping of Christology, the “fathers”
(dominant theological forces) realized— rightly, I believe—
that our human experiences of justice-making and love, of
contrition and forgiveness, of vulnerability and compassion,
of loss and grief will not make a perfect world, one without
sin and evil. These theologians believed that the completion,
or perfection, of creation requires more than the struggle for
right relation, more than one another’s solidarity, more than
our faith in the power of God with us to change the world,
and more than the patience to wait with one another by the
power of this same Spirit. The fathers believed that the more
required to usher in the realm of God in its fullness is Jesus
Christ, and that this Jesus must be more than merely a good
(human) example or “moral influence” (Abelard). Thus, the
fathers taught that Jesus was not simply a human brother ablaze
with the spirit and love of God. He was God, and not just any
god but one who, in the sacrificial tradition of Israel, offered
Himself as a blood sacrifice “for the sins of the world.”
But why was and is such carnage the will of a God who is
love? Because, the fathers tell us, divine love is like that of a
really good friend. When we betray a true friend, Baillie notes,
we suffer for what we have done. We suffer because we realize
that we have violated a significant relationship. Moreover, the
one whom we have wounded suffers with us because those
who love suffer with those whom they love. It is in the very
nature of love— to suffer with others. This is true, of course.
But what Baillie and most Christian theologians seem not to
see is that such a truly beloved friend does not punish by
humiliating or destroying those whom he or she loves.
that you whisper a word
of hope for me?
Will it be in mourner’s clothes
my parents
will hear your word
of justice?
Look at them
under umbrellas,
standing under the snow
and icy screams of hate
from your righteous believers.
Look at my mother’s face.
Look at her, God.
And look into the hearts
of your preachers.
Are your wonders
made known
in a fanciful world
beyond the grave?
Has justice deserted
the earth?
But I, O Lord, cry out to you;
in the morning my prayer
comes before you.
Yet no ambulance has yet
arrived
for the pieces of my unconscious body.
O Lord, why do you cast me
off?
Why do you hide your face
from me?
Wretched, outcast and abused
by my peers
from birth—
I suffer the terror
no mother’s child should endure.
I suffer the terror
known to all
who are different…
not dominant,
not powerful or
armed.
I suffer the terror
of being attacked
for being who I am.
Should I thank God
for your work in me?
Should I thank you for
your righteous thugs who
picked me out—
pretended to appreciate
and want me—
Your devoted soldiers
marching in war
against
me…even to my grave?
Their assaults destroyed me.
You no longer live
if I no longer live.
Hope has been abandoned.
Hell is now
my home.
Summer 2000 7
8 Open Hands
No true lover injures or kills
the beloved as punishment for
wrongdoing. We do not have to
give up our deep sense of the
need for forgiveness, a yearning
that goes far beyond our capacities
to reason or work it out by
ourselves, to reject as morally
bankrupt the church’s atonement
tradition of humiliation and destruction.
We need to say no to a tradition
of violent punishment and to
a God who would crucify us—much
less an innocent brother in our place—
rather than hang in with us, struggle
with us, wait with us, and grieve for
us—forever and eternally if need be.
If God is our creative and liberating
power, then this same God is a Spirit of
“revolutionary patience,” as Dorothee
Soelle entitled her 1977 book. After all,
God’s creation is unfinished and imperfect.
We humans are unfinished and in
many ways raw and rough. In our ignorance
and fear, often not knowing what we are
doing morally or spiritually, we turn away
from God and break rank with the sacred
Spirit of mutuality. In this real life context, God’s healing
power is Her presence as a deeply sorrowful God who can do
nothing except continue to reach out to us through Her friends
and other sacred resources, one day at a time. Continuing to
reach out to us, steadfastly refusing to give up, relentlessly
pursuing us generation to generation— this is God’s forgiveness.
The deity we must reject is the one whose power over us is
imagined to be His love, the god who morally can destroy us.
Such a concept of deity is evil—a betrayal itself of our power
in mutual relation— in a world being torn to pieces by violence
done in the name of gods who demand blood sacrifice.
Such god-images feed twisted psychospiritualities that normalize
sadistic and masochistic dynamics, rape and intimate
violence, abuse of children, relationships of domination and
control, violence against people and all creatures, and wars
justified as holy.
Moreover, in the context of such distorted spiritualities,
violence often is experienced as passionately erotic. This is
because our erotic energy is at root a yearning for God as our
power to make and sustain mutuality. When this yearning
twists into a desire for domination or submission—which is
what patriarchal relations do to our sacred erotic energies—
the desire creates closets in which men (and sometimes
women) experience our erotic yearnings for God as violent
and often, for this reason, seek God in the convergence of sex
and violence.
The deep roots in Christianity of a psychosexual spirituality
that links sex and violence are being cultivated to this day
by a twisted understanding of atonement that is assumed by
most Christians to be right and central to Christian faith. Most
Christians do not realize that this central tenet
of our religion is steeped in our collective fear
of experiencing the power of mutuality—in
truth, our fear of God’s love for us and of our
love for God.
We fear this primary experience of God’s
incarnation— we fear living passionately. And
we fear atonement, which is our liberation
from the powers of evil through God’s passion
working in our lives. We fear our power
in mutual relation because if we go with it,
we—like Jesus—will suffer, perhaps even
die, at the hands of culture of violence that
demands our worship; moreover, we will
live.
[The traditional understanding of
atonement] reflects a god who is the
quintessence of patriarchal logic rather
than the wellspring of justice-love from
which we draw strength, hope, and our
experiences of forgiveness. This tradition,
as we see, has been associated
with the violence of bloodshed. In
Western patriarchal monotheism,
ruling class males have constructed
theologies in which the shedding of innocent
blood is assumed to be necessary to making right relation
with God. This seems to me an amazing thing! The suggestion
that, throughout human history and culture, men (I do
not use this word inclusively in this context) have concluded
that the only way to get right with the Source of love and
justice in history is to offer Him the blood of innocent “victims.”
Unfortunately, I am not embellishing one small problematic
theme in an otherwise liberating theological heritage. Nor
am I being too literal in suggesting that blood sacrifice has
been established spiritually and politically as the way to God/
god in Christianity.
Jesus Christ as Adversary
Alongside images of Jesus Christ as authoritarian Lord and
righteous moralist is another image often held sacred by
those Christians who are right: Jesus Christ as adversary,
fighter, and finally victor over his enemies, the evil ones who
oppose God. The christological image of a divine man who
casts opponents into hellfires diminishes our capacity as Christians
to imagine, much less experience, the healing power
generated not through shame and demolition but rather
through forgiveness.
But forgiveness is a badly misconceived notion—especially
among those Christians who spiritualize and individualize it,
reducing it to the level of a soft, morally vacuous, personal
feeling. This is probably what most of us do at least some of
the time. Those who go about piously “forgiving” others may
be among the least forgiving when it comes to exacting revenge
on those who hurt us personally. Moreover, “forgiveness”
so often is pared down spiritually to petty self-righteousness
(“See how good I am. See how I can forgive you!”). And
Strange
How bread
In breaking
Spreads
Shares
Itself divides
Distributes crumbs
All sundry
Take care your
Fair white linen
Not confine
The scattered seed
To virgin soil
Or all too narrow
Furrow
—J. Barrie Shepherd
Summer 2000 9
in the larger picture, on the front lines of history, countless
violent, brutal crusaders for what is right no doubt have experienced
themselves as godly, forgiving people in relation to
those whom they love.
The point is not simply whether we individually can let go
of our resentments toward those who have offended us; nor is
it simply whether we can accept the pardon of those whom
we ourselves have hurt. The larger question is whether together
we can reconstruct the world around and within us on
patterns of forgiveness rather than resentment, compassion
rather than retribution, peace rather than violence. The future
of our families and communities, cultures and societies,
religions and nations is at stake here. The future of our love
and work, of what we will do and of how we will do it, depends
upon our shared commitment to learn forgiveness as a
way of life. Indeed, the future of our species and of the earth
itself rests more than anything on our capacity, as an
earthpeople, to move morally beyond adversarial, hostile posturing
in relation to those whom we hate or fear.
Our salvation is not rooted in a Jesus who lords His righteousness
over us or a God who will beat us into submission
or cast us into a fiery furnace if we aren’t right. Whether we
are right or wrong in the specifics of lives and deeds, we will
be saved primarily by a capacity (that is innate to us all) and a
willingness (that can be learned with each other’s help) to
practice forgiveness precisely because, so often, we “know not
what we do.” The Jesus we need is the one we have in learning
how to forgive (for that’s where most of us are). We need him
to be what he is— through faith, our brother and ally, teacher
and friend, spiritual presence and ongoing resource of hope.
Could it be that Jesus himself, like probably every one of
us, had a hard time forgiving certain of his adversaries? When
he said, from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not
know what they are doing,” was he asking God to do something
that he, Jesus, could not do in the particular moment,
so anguished was he? (I am grateful to Diane Tingley for this
question.) Or was he bearing witness to the possibility that
only God, in God’s own mysterious ways, can forgive? That
the Spirit has to work out, over time and through history,
how to take away our sins and let the slate be wiped clean?
I am suggesting that, because God is our power in the
struggle for justice-love, we are indeed able to forgive, provided
we realize how truly empowered we are in and through
God.
Compassion and Nonviolence:
A Spiritual Path
None of us, including Jesus, needs to be destroyed so that
the rest of us can live holy lives. We are envisioning a
spiritual path that leads us away from blood sacrifice as in any
sense acceptable to the God whom Jesus loved.
[We are faced with] several problems with the mainstream
Christian atonement tradition:
1. It is steeped in the trivialization and deprecation of human
experience as ungodly.
2. For this reason, it represents a more radically dualistic apprehension
of the divine-human relation than most mainline
theologians will admit.
3. It is built around an image of a deity whose “inexorable
love” is experienced by human beings as punitive, shaming,
cruel, and even sadistic in relation to people whose
psychospiritualities have been shaped, to various degrees,
by images of a god whose love is violent— toward others,
toward His Son, and toward Himself.
4. It promotes blood sacrifice— that is to say, the sacralizing
of violence against others and oneself—as a (or even the)
way of spiritual liberation.
5. Finally, it reflects a deity made in the image of human impatience
with one another, ourselves and our Sacred Source.
In the best, most mutual relationships that have been broken—
relationships not only between individuals but also
supported by strong, respectful friends and community—
those who have been violated and those who have done
wrong often can find ways to restore what has been lost or
at least some significant part of it. In relationships more
like the one that most of us actually experience between
ourselves and God—in which time and again we turn away
from the vocation to love justice and show mercy in our
relations—it is hard to imagine how we might restore a
right relation with the Spirit of justice-love and compassion.
Furthermore, it is not hard to understand why so many
Christians, like Anselm, Baillie, and countless others, have
10 Open Hands
imagined that surely God had to exact a harsh penalty for
the terrible sins of the world.
What these Christian believers have lacked is faith in God’s
inexorable patience as a significant dimension of God’s love.
To be sure, the evil among us is rampant, exacting tolls too
high for many of us to pay or even imagine. And we humans
must do everything in our power to protect one another, ourselves,
and other creatures from the violence that invariably
results from the fear-based betrayals of our Sacred Power in
mutual relation. This means that, in this real world of ours,
we will always be looking for better ways of protecting ourselves
and one another from violent people and from others
whose fear, greed, dishonesty, or rage threatens to harm us or
disrupt the relative stabilities we are able sometimes to create
as communities and cultures.
But we must not confuse protecting ourselves and those
we love with inflicting upon our enemies the same torture
and brutality that they may have inflicted (or wished) upon
us. Contrary to the prevailing religious, moral, and political
sentiments on the Right today, might does not make right.
Justice makes right relation. Justice-love is right relation. We
do not need an “almighty” god, except insofar as God’s love—
Her justice-love, Her compassion—is Her strength and Her
power.
Putting our faith in God’s patience with us in this imperfect,
morally cluttered, and often evil world generates greater
social and spiritual space for us to be honest, gentle people
with ourselves and one another— space in which we are able
to cultivate humility rather than fear as the basis of our life
together and thereby become more deeply moral people. We
need more images of a patient God who loves the world so
much that She gives her people time and resources like history
and culture, human friends and animal companions, work
and play, mountains and water, food and music, memory and
reason, imagination and talents, and prayer and worship, and
as many chances as we in our fear may need to come to our
senses.
We need not sacrifice one more child to the bloody god
who needs innocent victims, one more person or creature to a
deity who must punish either us or himself in order to love
the world.
There is another way to god, in which compassion replaces
honor and even self-respect as the highest good and in which
nonviolence becomes a way of life, a liberating response to
the ongoing savaging of ourselves and one another.
[It is my belief] that these twin commitments—compassion
and nonviolence— are living sacraments, outward and visible
signs among us of an authentically liberative atonement
tradition.
Carter Heyward, Ph.D., is a professor of theology
at the Episcopal Divinity School in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also lives in a
small community of justice-workers and writers
in western North Carolina. She is the author
of many books, including, Touching Our
Strength—The Erotic as Power and the Love
of God.
Summer 2000 11
Influenced by literalist and decontextualized
misinterpretations of
the Book of Revelation, modern
interpreters have often concluded that
the New Testament portrays God as the
author of violence and even models violent
behavior for believers. William
Klassen shows that this common misinterpretation
rests on a literalist
reading of the book’s symbolism and a
failure to note the significance and centrality
of the slain lamb (Revelation 5)
for the book’s message (Klassen 1999:
393-410).
More fundamental for proper interpretation
of the Bible’s teaching on violence,
however, is the much neglected
doctoral dissertation of the late Jacques
Pons (Pons 1975/81). In his perceptive
pioneering work on the vocabulary for
oppression in the Hebrew Bible, Pons’s
starting point is the Hebrew term hamas
(violence; noun 60x; verb 8x), which he
demonstrates is fundamental to the
entire Hebrew semantic field for oppression
(some 20 words, occurring 555
times, by my later reckoning; Thomas
Hanks 1983:40).
Traditionally, theologians such as
Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin have
sought to distinguish between that
which is legal (“force”) and that which
is illegal (“violence”) and this distinction
remains common in modern cultures
and the media. However, as Pons
has shown, in the Hebrew Bible the distinction
is not between whatever may
be legal or illegal (in oppressive empires
and their colonies), but between force
used to oppress (injustice) and force
used to liberate from oppression (liberating
or saving justice).
Significantly, in the Hebrew Bible
God is never said to be the author of
violence: “Yahweh [the Liberator God
of the Exodus] tests the just and the
oppressor, and his soul hates the lover
of violence,” (Psalm 11:5; see Proverbs
3:31). Rather, God’s power manifests
itself in acts of liberating justice, while
“violence” is attributed only to human
oppressors (but compare Job’s rhetoric
in 19:7, presumably a false accusation).
The traditional distinction between legal
force and illegal violence has been
denied by some Christian scholars
(Jacques Ellul, Giulio Girardi, Paul
Tournier), but they neglect the possibility
of the biblical distinction between
unjust oppressive violence and the force
of liberating justice.
Violence in the Bible is one of many
terms that illustrate how the same word
can mean virtually opposite things.
During the decades of turbulence in
Latin America, the media commonly
labeled any activities of guerillas and
others who resorted to arms to overthrow
dictators as “violence.” However,
when dictators used such tactics, the
media only labeled it “force”— even
when Nicaragua’s Somoza bombed his
own civilian population! The current
Russian determination to label “freedom
fighters” as “terrorists” reveals the
same linguistic manipulation, echoing
Ronald Reagan’s success in labeling his
“terrorist” contras, who slaughtered
innocent civilians in Nicaragua, as “freedom
fighters.”
Similarly, “justice” in the Bible reflects
the cry of the oppressed poor for
God’s liberating justice, while in the
mouths of the oppressors it refers to a
kind of “law and order” that bolsters
their privileges and power. Another biblical
example is the vocabulary for “authority”:
in the mouths of the oppressors
it refers to their authority to
maintain a repressive regime, while the
Bible mainly applies it to such figures
as Moses, Jesus, and Paul, who represented
the “subversive authority” that
undermines oppressive regimes.
To a large extent, the failure of the
church to interpret Scripture properly
stems from its failure to use the perspective
of the oppressed as the appropriate
“hermeneutical wedge” for interpreting
biblical language. Elitist academics,
theologians and philosophers tend to
misinterpret the Bible as the discourse
of oppressors, rather than hearing in it
the subversive voice of the oppressed.
Remarkably, although the New Testament
centers on the violent act of crucifixion
that Jesus suffered at the hands
of imperial oppressors, explicit vocabulary
for violence is difficult to pinpoint
(see the Suffering Servant who “did no
violence,” Isaiah 53:9b). Perhaps the
clearest example is when John the Baptist
forbids soldiers (of the oppressive
occupation force) to “extort money by
violence” (literally, shake violently,
Greek diaseio, Luke 3:14). The “sword,”
literally or as metaphor, may represent
either legitimate “force” or oppressive
“violence” in the New Testament (Rom
13:1-7; Luke 22:35-38, 49-51). Only
when the context indicates the presence
of injustice or oppression would “violence”
be signified.
Other Greek terms sometimes rendered
violence (bia/biadzomai) actually
have a broader significance, including
legitimate “force” (Acts 2:2; 5:26; 21:25;
24:7; 27:41). In the New Testament’s
most controverted text on the subject,
Jesus refers to the Kingdom of God as
“suffering violence” (biadzomai, probably
with reference to persecution;
Matthew 11:12 // Luke 16:16), although
many have understood the term in a
more positive sense of “entering forcibly”
into the Kingdom (see NRSV vs.
NIV, their notes and the commentaries).
When Jesus cleansed the Temple
(Mark 11:15-19 // Matthew 21:12-17 //
Luke 19:45-46 // John 2:13-22) he employed
physical force that was both legitimate
(“my Father’s House”) and an
expression of liberating justice (“den of
thieves”). Commentaries and theologians,
however, ignoring the biblical
The Biblical Word on Violence
Oppression vs. Liberating Justice
Tom Hanks
12 Open Hands
distinction between the violence of
oppressors and forceful expressions of
God’s liberating justice, often leap to
the conclusion that Jesus resorted to
“violence” in the Temple purification.
When Moses killed the Egyptian
taskmaster in order to save the life of
an Israelite slave, the Bible avoids describing
his act as one of “violence” and
does not condemn Moses (Exodus 2:11-
15). That this distinction carries through
in the New Testament is evident from
Stephen’s speech in Acts: “And
[Moses], seeing one suffering injustice
(adikoúmenon) defended him and, striking
the Egyptian, wrought liberating justice
(ekdíkesin) for the one suffering oppression
(kataponoumeno; compare 2
Peter 2:7). Moses thought that his brothers
would understand that God was using
him to liberate them, but they did
not” (7:24-25). After Hebrews 11:23,
some Greek manuscripts (chiefly Western)
even add “By faith, Moses, when
he was grown up, destroyed the Egyptian
when he observed the humiliating
oppression of his brethren.” While this
is not the preferred reading, the textual
variant makes clear how differently
early Christians viewed Moses’ use of
force. In contrast, commentators since
the last century often suggest that God
punished Moses with forty years of exile
because he used “violence,” even
though neither Exodus nor the New
Testament indicate anything of the sort.
Similarly, the book of Judges in the
Hebrew Bible never condemns the charismatic
liberators (“judges,” empowered
by the Spirit) for killing foreign oppressors
in order to liberate the oppressed,
nor does it ever describe their actions
as expressions of “violence.” And in
Joshua 1-12, the bloody conquest of the
promised land is never described as
“violent” but as “holy war,” or more
accurately “the war of Yahweh, the Liberator
God.” In the late books of
Chronicles (circa 400 BCE) David, who
had fought as a guerrilla leader when
Saul was still king, could declare himself
“innocent...of any violence” (1
Chronicles 12:17).
What the Hebrew Bible condemns
frequently modern social scientists
would describe as “institutional violence,”
the violence employed by the
powerful and the institutions that represent
their interests, against the weak,
poor and marginalized: “Thus says
Yahweh, the Liberator God of the Exodus:
Enough, O princes of Israel! Put
away violence and oppression and do
what is just and fair. Cease your evictions
of my people, says the Liberator
God” (Ezekiel 45:9; see also 7:23; 8:17;
2.16; Amos 6:3; Micah 3:1-3; 6:11-12;
Jeremiah 6:7; 13:22; 20:8; Habakkuk
1:2-3,9; Isaiah 59:6; 60:18; Joel 3:19;
Obadiah 10; Zephaniah 1:9; 3:4; Malachi
2:16; Psalm 73:6).
In the text traditionally interpreted
as messianic, Jacob prophetically
condemns his sons Simeon and Levi
(“weapons of violence are their swords”),
but hopes for one to come who will exercise
just authority (Genesis 49:5,8-10).
In this tradition Psalm 72 portrays the
ideal king whose basic task is to free the
poor from the violence committed by
oppressors: “For he shall rescue the
needy when they call....From oppression
and violence he redeems their life;
and precious is their blood in his sight”
(12, 14; see 140:2,5,12; 18:48).
Recent New Testament studies remind
us of the oppressive imperial context
of Jesus’ and Paul’s teaching (Matthew
5:38-48; Luke 6:27-36; Romans
12:14-21), a context that rendered any
resort to arms futile and necessitated a
more subversive, creative confrontation
with oppressors. Traditional efforts to
elucidate an “ethic”— or even an “ethical
absolute”—of non-violence or abstention
from all military force fail on
several counts. First, because “ethics”
and “morals” are Greek universalist
philosophical categories alien to biblical
thought, which is ever grounded in
history and reflecting specific historical
contexts. Hence, we can seek and
expect nothing more (or less!) from
inspired texts than divine wisdom discerned
as appropriate to our own historical
context. Second, while the Hebrew
Bible often denounced violence,
the New Testament makes even clearer
the need to counter the violence of oppressors
(“enemies”) with the force of
love and persuasion rather than physical
force (however just).
The New Testament does not call the
weak and oppressed to passivity, but to
a militant struggle of faith. Not just
adult Jewish males, but persons of all
ages, nations, sexual orientations, and
genders are exhorted to “put on God’s
armor,” exercise prophetic gifts (including
denouncements of oppressors and
their violence), proclaim the Good
News of Jesus’ triumph, and create inclusive
communities of solidarity
amongst the weak and oppressed. The
“followers of the Lamb” discern clear
words of divine wisdom in the New Testament
(Ephesians 6:10-20; 2 Corinthians
10:3-5), but recognize that this way also
was anticipated in the Hebrew Bible
(Exodus 14:13; Zeph. 4:6; Isa 30:1-7, 15-
17; 31:1-4; 53; Daniel ).
Tom Hanks is the founder and executive
director of Other Sheep, Multicultural Ministries
with GLBT Persons, Their Families
and Friends and the author of God So
Loved The Third World—The Biblical
Vocabulary of Oppression.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arendt, Hannah (1969). On Violence (New York:
Harcourt, Brace & World).
Brueggemann, Walter (1997). Theology of the Old Testament
(Minneapolis: Fortress), 194-196.
Barr, James (1999). The Concept of Biblical Theology:
An Old Testament Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress).
Especially on “Genocide,” pp. 492-494.
Ellul, Jacques (1970). Violence: Reflections from a
Christian Perspective (London: SCM).
Girard, René (1977). Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University). (1986). The Scapegoat
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University).
Girardi, Giulio (1971). Amor Cristiano y Lucha de
Clases (Salamanca: Sígueme).
Glaser, Chris (1998). Coming Out as Sacrament (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox).
Guinness, Os (1974). Violence, A Study of Contemporary
Attitudes (Downers Grove: InterVarsity).
Haag, H. (1980). “chamas” [violence], pp. 478-487
in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, IV, G.
Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, eds.
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).
Thomas D. Hanks (1983/2000). God So Loved the
Third World: The Biblical Vocabulary of Oppression
(Maryknoll: Orbis/ Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock).
Klassen, William (1999). “The Ascetic Way: Reflections
on Peace, Justice and Vengeance in the Apocalypse
of John,” pp. 393-410 in Asceticism and the
New Testament, Leif E. Waage and Vincent L.
Wimbush, eds. (New York: Routledge).
Mauser, Ulrich (1992). The Gospel of Peace: A
Scriptural Message for Today’s World (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox).
Pons, Jacques (1975/81). L’Oppression dans L’Ancien
Testament (Paris: Letouzey et Ané).
Swartley, Willard M, ed (1992). The Love of Enemy
and Nonretaliation in the New Testament (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox).
Tournier, Paul (1978). The Violence Inside (London:
SCM).
Winter, James G. The Bible, Violence and the Sacred:
Liberation from the Myth of Sanctioned Violence (Valley
Forge, PA: Trinity Press International).
Yoder, Perry B. and Swartley, Willard M., eds. (1992).
The Meaning of Peace: Biblical Studies (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox).
Summer 2000 13
This has been one of the most exhausting
and painful weeks of
my life.
I am in Chicago this evening, half
way home to Minnesota from two
weeks at the United Methodist Church’s
General Conference in Cleveland [May,
2000]. For the past two days I have been
trying to put words around my overwhelming
feelings in response to what
happened there on Wednesday and
Thursday. For the most part, I am still
at a loss for words. But I, along with
many others, am beginning to sense
that what happened there was a watershed
event in this movement, and all
Christians must open our eyes and look
very carefully at every single event that
occurred there, from the polity problems
and lost legislative battles to the
protests and their dramatic outcome.
By now those of you who have followed
the media coverage have learned
that all of the legislative contests were
lost, consistently by about 2/3rds of the
vote. The remarkable thing is that the
body didn’t even “throw us a bone”
by passing one of those “don’t you dare
ordain or marry them, but at least be
nice to them in church on Sunday”
sorts of petitions. In fact, the vote margins
were slightly worse than they were
four years ago.
But the real story came in the very
carefully planned, non-violent response
to these votes. On Wednesday,
as the committees wrapped up their
work, Mel White’s Soulforce staged a
protest, a symbolic “blocking of the
entrance,” outside the convention center,
which resulted in the arrest of 191
people. Those participating in the action,
both as marchers and as those
who stepped forward to be arrested,
came from many different faith groups,
from Protestant to Catholic to Jewish.
We were able to identify four different
anti-gay groups near us, including
Fred Phelps and company. Sadly, his
contingent was mild compared to one
new group which shouted a constant
string of obscenities at us for three
straight hours barely stopping to take a
breath. We arranged ourselves in circles
of 15 to 20 people and sang loudly to
cover them up, with varying degrees of
success. Those arrested were people of
all ages and races, including a United
Methodist bishop, Gandhi’s grandson,
Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, and
the Rev. James Lawson, a United Methodist
minister who learned non-violent
methods from Gandhi himself and
taught them to King.
On Thursday, over 200 supporters
wore stoles [from the Shower of Stoles
Project— see author description] and sat
in the balcony of the convention center.
When the Faith and Order Committee
(which handled business related to
heterosexism) began its report, these
200+ people rose and began slowly
walking in silence in a long single-file
line around the middle aisle of the balcony.
People began leaving their seats
to join the line, until it stretched the
entire length of this very large balcony.
When the vote came, all stopped where
they were and held hands.
Polity wrangling ensued, along with
“points of order” that turned into
speeches, and we continued to stand.
The vote was lost, and immediately 27
of our people marched to the front of
the floor, in front of the podium, and
turned to face the delegates. The Presiding
Bishop (who did an AMAZING
and grace-full job of being fair and
“Just Kill Them,” one delegate shouted.
maintaining order) requested that they
leave, or face arrest. They refused to
leave, and after some time the Bishop
requested a 20 minute recess to talk
with their two spokespeople. We in the
balcony continued to stand, along with
about a quarter of the delegates on the
floor and 15 bishops.
After the recess, they suspended business
and had an orderly debate about
the possibility of at least calling a moratorium
on judicial proceedings. This
failed, and the body adjourned for
lunch. By now we in the balcony had
stood silently in one place for almost 3
hours.
After lunch, the 27 on the floor continued
to stand their ground as well,
eventually moving slowly and orderly
to a place that blocked the podium. At
this point they were finally arrested (including
two bishops). The presiding
bishop buried his face in his hands and
said that he couldn’t watch the church
do this to its people.
It was a deeply painful thing to watch
these arrests take place. All I can say is
this: We may have lost the vote, but they
will never forget that we were there. And
they will never, ever be able to take us
for granted again.
I have thought about the effects of
this for a long time. It has often disturbed
me that many people of faith—
particularly ministers—who would
never have hesitated to join a civil rights
march, find this sort of action to be inappropriate
for the GLBT movement, or
feel it necessary to put the unity of the
church above our demands. I can’t help
but think that if this had been about
race instead of sexual orientation, thousands
would have joined us, and the
demands would have been uncompromising.
At the end of the civil rights movement
I worked for a short time with a
civil rights group in Mississippi. One of
They Know Not What They Do
Martha Juillerat
14 Open Hands
our acts of civil disobedience was to simply
show up in church— one black person
and one white person together—
and sit in a pew, until we were asked to
leave. We would then be forced to leave
or face arrest. I saw no difference— felt
no difference in my gut— on Thursday
as I witnessed a church choosing to arrest
its members rather than invite them
in.
In Mississippi I remember people
shouting obscenities at us, and threatening
us. When we did dialogues in the
Presbyterian Church six years ago I remember
one elder telling us that he
would rather take us out into a field and
shoot us than talk to us. And on Thursday
we heard a delegate from Texas
shout to the 27 protesters, “Just kill
them.” I felt no difference in my gut
among these various incidents.
On the street Wednesday, people
shouted at us, “Don’t pull that ‘civil
rights’ stuff on us. Sex isn’t about civil
rights.” But what more basic civil right
is there than the right to companionship
and to love another person? It is,
indeed, the one thing that crosses all
racial, cultural and economic boundaries.
And perhaps that was the watershed.
Perhaps now, thanks to the descendants
of Gandhi and King, and thanks to an
African-American judge who “got it,” reducing
the charges and fines for all arrested
and quietly telling each person
to “keep up the good work”— perhaps
now the church will begin to see this
movement as more than just a “sex
problem.” Perhaps now they—and we—
will have to take this movement seriously,
as the legitimate civil rights cause
that it is. I know that I, for one, will
never see this movement in the same
light again.
Martha Juillerat
is cofounder with
her partner, Tammy
Lindahl, of the Shower
of Stoles Project, an ingathering
of ordination
stoles from GLBT
clergy and wouldbe
clergy who have
served and continue
to serve the church with commitment and
compassion.
Joseph Lobdell was born Lucy Ann Lobdell in 1829. Dressing as a man, Joseph
became a hunter, and married a woman. Lobdell served as a revivalist Methodist
preacher in upstate New York. Declared insane and institutionalized until death,
Lobdell was respectfully called “Reverend” in the published article of a psychiatrist
who practiced in the asylum. Lobdell wrote an autobiography entitled, The
Female Hunter of Delaware and Sullivan Counties.
–Based on Lesbian Lists by Dell Richards (Boston: Alyson, 1990)
pp. 188-189, and additional sources.
Becoming Joseph
If there had been a ritual,
you would have had a right.
You could have pointed to the Bible page
hand-writing family history
and joining it to scripture. Here
the date when I was born, and christened:
1829. The preacher wrote the names
Father Son and Holy
Ghost and Lucy Ann in water
on my forehead, but only Lucy Ann
in black ink in the Bible. Honoring
the old names with new bodies:
further up the page the previous Lucy,
there from another branch the earlier Ann.
The biblical begats list strange half-lineages,
sometimes a man, sometimes
a woman, never the complete life
story in the verses. One name
seeds one name, not growing in a script
flowering of family tree but in the holy wandering
vine that explodes modestly into sweet
close fruit. Joseph dreams his way awake
and out of slavery, feeds others
by saving himself. Midway
down the blank page of the new book you are writing
is black ink, your hand
writing Joseph back into history, honoring
old body with new name, re-baptizing: So,
here is the date when, self-begotten,
Lucy Ann is become Joseph, emerging
into new air, taking the breath
that remembers all life before
as nearly drowning.
—Thomas Kelson Lewis
Summer 2000 15
I had just finished making an
opening statement and the floor
was open for comments and
questions. The first man to speak— a
Disciples minister, I am told— started
out rather blandly. I was vaguely anticipating
where his remarks might go
when suddenly I heard him say, “After
all, these people [meaning gay men and
lesbians] are just worthless scum.”
This is awful enough [I still hear the
phrase rattling in my head]; but what
really haunts me is that I let him speak.
Indeed I never denounced him. Why?
In part, I suppose, because I was caught
off guard. At a deeper level, however,
the question strikes at the heart of my
identity and that of our churches. Like
our churches, I am deeply committed
to the ecumenical movement. My life’s
work centers around reconciliation, an
attempt to hold community together,
to insist on hearing all voices. But isn’t
there something fundamentally impoverished
about an understanding of reconciliation
that left me unprepared to
respond immediately and forcefully to
this man?
“Welcome one another, as Christ has
welcomed you, for the glory of God”
(Romans 15:7) states succinctly the basic
thesis of Paul’s letter. We are here at
the heart of the gospel, and I know of
no way to express it except by paradox.
We are called to welcome those whom
God, the universal creator, has welcomed;
and, for precisely that reason,
we are called to abhor those ways of
acting, those attitudes of mind, that
meanness of spirit which threatens or
devalues those whom God has welcomed.
To put it sharply, there is in the
writing of Paul a principled basis for
refusing to tolerate intolerance. Yes,
given our sinfulness, this always risks
betraying the very message we proclaim—
as when we end up denouncing
the ungenerous ungenerously. I am
now convinced, however, that this is an
unavoidable risk.
The importance of all this is underscored
by a second incident. I was met
at the door of a church by a man, a Disciples
licensed lay minister, who informed
me that he was going “to pin
back my ears”—whatever that might
mean. I told him he was free to say
whatever he wanted in the discussion,
at which point he said, “The trouble
with people like you is that you just
don’t believe anything.”
It would be malicious of me to
present this man as a spokesperson for
any wing of the church, but the assumption
behind his remark is widely held:
namely, that the newly public support
for gay rights is a sign of moral relativism,
the reflection of a culture of personal
preference that must be opposed
in the name of biblical truth. For too
long now, our society has acted as if
openness were a sign of weakness, as if
those with firm convictions about the
gospel will always want to draw firm
boundaries to exclude those who are
different. Thus, it is crucial that we understand
as clearly as possible the good
news proclaimed by our faith and take
our stand explicitly on that.
You see, what haunts me about the
earlier episode is that my actions there
did betray a certain kind of relativism.
“All voices need to be heard. We need
the witness of those who see things differently
from ourselves.” Yes—unless the
gospel of God’s gracious love for all
persons is threatened. At that point, my
response should have been: “Brother, sit
down! Such talk (referring to sisters and
brothers for whom Christ died as
‘scum’) has nothing to do with the good
news we proclaim. Such talk has no
place in a community of those who
know that they are redeemed only by
grace.”
What lessons did I learn from these
experiences? That one cannot stand
above the fray in the name of a reconciling
vision. That, while we are (in
Paul’s words) “ambassadors of reconciliation,”
we can speak the word of reconciliation
too early or too easily. That
in a dangerously narrow world, we dare
not be caught off guard. That the church,
by its very nature, must be an aggressive
counterculture to every society bent
on exclusion. That the bottom line of
all that we do and are is grace.
Michael Kinnamon lost his bid as General
Minister and President of the Disciples
General Assembly in 1991 because of his
membership in GLAD Alliance and his
support of lesbians and gay men. A professor
of theology at Lexington Theological
Seminary in Kentucky, he was recently appointed
as General Secretary of the Consultation
on Church Union (COCU), an
ecumenical cooperative
effort of nine denominations.
This article is
excerpted from the September
1993 issue of
The Disciple.
No Excuse for Abuse
Michael Kinnamon
16 Open Hands
Abe and Sara sat in the leather chairs in front of the
doctor’s big desk. A thick carpet covered the floor; the
heavy drapes were closed; plaques and certificates hung
on the dark paneling, nearly covering one wall. It could have
been a very relaxing room, but Abe surmised that it was designed
to dampen the effects of bad news. Sara had just completed
an examination and she and Abe waited, as they had
done several times in recent months, to talk to Dr. Simon
Hardy, her gynecologist and fertility consultant.
Abe, who took seriously his responsibility for the well-being
of his wife, always accompanied her to the doctor. Sara,
his wife of fifteen years, accepted without question or qualification
his conviction that the man served as the head of the
household, and that the wife stood in subjection to him. A
pale woman, she dressed very plainly, and wore no make up.
Keeping house for only her husband did not require much of
her time, but she spent her days mostly indoors, working on
any number of church related projects, such as sewing, or preparing
meals for shut-ins, or making posters for her husband.
There was only one problem with their marriage: Sara remained
barren.
Dr. Hardy entered, and greeted Abe. “I’m sure Sara told
you. There is still no success. I’m afraid that I have come to
the end of the road. We have done all the simple things—not
that they are all that simple. The only thing left to us is to
consider the more exotic solutions, such as embryo implants.”
“We’ve been praying for success, and my prayers led me to
believe that we would be successful this time,” Abe said. “With
all the advances of medicine in recent years, I thought that
something could be done. I guess that was foolish.”
“This is such a disappointment,” added Sara.
“Yes, I understand your disappointment and frustration.
Mr. Smith, you are right about this being a golden age of medicine.
So many important advances have been made just in the
past two years, effective treatment for some cancers, tremendous
advances in genetics, the understanding of the carcinogenic
effects of tobacco, a breakthrough in Alzheimer’s disease,
and many other things. In fertility studies alone we are
doing things that were not possible even last year, and without
the threat of multiple births. In the case of Sara, however,
I don’t know what to do, other than the more exotic treatments.
You indicated earlier that this is not an option for you.”
“No. I am convinced that God does not want us to use
these artificial means of conceiving a child. It is not for us to
interfere with God’s plan. Test tube babies are an abomination.
Man’s foolishness. Perhaps God is trying to tell us that
we should not have children.”
“Perhaps so, Mr. Smith. There is no guarantee that the exotic
methods would work, anyway. Sara’s condition being what
it is, I don’t know that she can ever conceive in the normal
sense. Even with a new breakthrough, I’m not certain that her
uterus is able to function properly. Perhaps, if she were
younger.... I think we have seen a uterine deterioration even
since we began this program. I’m sorry that I can offer little
hope.”
It was with a heavy heart that Abe and Sara left the doctor’s
office.
“I am so ashamed,” said Sara as they drove back to their
home. “What have I done, Abe? I wanted to be a good wife to
you, to have your children. Why has God done this? Am I
being punished for something? Are we being punished?”
Abe was silent for a long time before speaking. “We have
to follow God’s will. Our mistake was in going to all these
doctors in the first place. We have to have faith. Doctors can
help do certain things, but if we put our reliance upon them
instead of on God, we sin. That was our problem. We’d better
ask for forgiveness.”
That evening, Abe and Sara prayed together. They asked
for forgiveness for relying upon the wisdom of man, and asked
for God’s hand to heal the condition that kept Sara from conceiving.
Afterward, they were silent, as they listened for God
to speak to them. Nothing was heard.
The next evening Abe had a meeting at his house with the
elders of his church. Twelve years ago, he and four other men
had established a non-denominational congregation. In the
original plan, the five men would share the preaching tasks,
but as time progressed it became clear that Abe was the only
one with the gift of exhortation. He had no formal training in
theology, but he read the Bible, and he possessed the conviction
that it was God’s Word, and that it should be followed
exactly. In addition to maintaining a full-time job, Abe developed
into the preacher and the leader of the small body. Obedience
to the Law was central to his preaching. To Abe, obedience
called one to action. He believed and preached each week
that it was not enough to practice personal piety. God wanted
us to be involved in the fight against evil in the community.
There were many ways that his church could participate. Under
Abe’s leadership, the membership slowly grew, until today
the congregation of over 100 owned a small church building.
As always, Abe led the meeting of the elders. “This is the
month we planned to picket the School Board. We need twenty
members, each with a poster that tells of the evils of teaching
evolution.” Abe described some of his ideas for slogans to use
on the placards. He gave assignments to his elders.
“Then, in February it will be our turn to picket the abortion
clinic on Fourth Street. I told the Right to Life Committee
that we would take every Tuesday during the month. Robert,
will you start a list for names of volunteers? Thank you.
Mother’s Day comes in May. I suggest that we ask for special
contributions to put an ad in the newspaper to attack the feminist
movement as anti-family. Also that month, we will be
involved in the petition drive to stop the Lesbian and Gay
Parade that is scheduled for June. If the City Council does not
support our petition, we will protest during the parade.”
The Sacrifice
A Short Story
D.S. Carlstone
Summer 2000 17
Upon completion of the planning, Abe closed the meeting
with a request. “I have a sorrow to share. As you know, Sara
and I have been unable to have children. This has been one of
the great disappointments in my life and in Sara’s life. I must
confess that we have visited a fertility doctor, who tells us
now that there is nothing we can do. I confess our sin of relying
on the ways of man. We should trust only in God. I ask
you each to pray for us. Pray for our forgiveness, and pray that
Sara will conceive.”
That night a visitor came to Abe in the depth of his sleep.
Abe was so excited that he almost woke Sara to tell her the
good news, but he waited until morning. At the breakfast table
he made his announcement.
“Sara, an angel came to me last night. It was so wonderful.
Sara, you are going to conceive. You have already conceived,
if I understood it correctly. You are pregnant, Sara! Just believe!
Just believe, and everything will be all right!”
“Oh, Abe, can it really be? What did the angel say?”
“The angel said ‘Abraham, fear not. The Lord has heard your
prayer. Thy wife Sarah has conceived
and shall bear a son, who
shall be a blessing unto you.’
That’s the way I remember it.”
“The angel called you
Abraham, even though Abe is
just a nickname? Why didn’t he
call you by your real name,
Albert?”
“It doesn’t matter. Listen to the message.”
“You are right. Oh, Abe, this is wonderful. I am so thrilled.”
They said a prayer of thanksgiving together.
“What did the angel look like?” Sara asked, as she cleaned
up the breakfast dishes.
“I don’t know. I didn’t really see the angel. He— or she—
was just there. It was the announcement that I remember.”
“Abe, I still need to see the doctor.”
“Yes. We will allow Dr. Hardy to watch over the development
of the child.”
Six weeks later, Dr. Hardy confirmed Abe’s diagnosis.
“How do you understand it, doctor?” asked Sara.
“I really don’t understand it, Mrs. Smith. Things happen
sometimes that I can’t explain.”
“I say it’s a miracle, doctor. That’s all there is to it,” said
Abe.
“I suppose you are right,” said the physician. “However,
we need to watch this pregnancy very carefully. There have
been some amazing medical advances in the past year. By comparing
Sara’s blood with the blood we took before she became
pregnant, we can trace the development of the fetus.
We can look for problems at various points along the way.
Sara, remember, we took a sample of your blood at the very
beginning of your fertility treatment. We split it into several
samples, and froze them. Now we will take one sample of the
original blood and compare with your blood profile each visit.
From this, these new techniques allow us determine the health
of your uterus— one of our big concerns right now—and we
can look at the genetic profile of the fetus as well. All I need is
your permission to use the frozen blood samples.”
Sara looked at her husband, seeking theological guidance
as she always did. An immediate decision was needed. Abe did
not have time to pray about it and wait for an answer. “I think
that will be all right,” he said. “There’s no reason not to run
your tests, if it will make you feel better. This is God’s baby, so
we know everything will be all right.”
On their next visit, Sara again joined Abe in Dr. Hardy’s
office. The doctor followed her a few minutes later. “We have
mostly good news. It is a boy. Everything looks normal. I am
pleased about how well the uterus is holding up.” He drifted
into some technical talk that neither Abe nor Sara understood.
“There is just one problem. One thing you should know. The
blood comparisons show that the genetic composition of the
child is consistent with homosexuality. In fact, there is a 99%
probability that the child will develop some form of homosexuality.”
He again gave an exposition on the reasons for
that prediction, but neither Abe nor Sara heard him.
Abe felt as though a sledgehammer had hit him in the chest.
Sara sobbed beside him. Somehow, they made it out to the
car, and drove home. There was
a pall of gloom around the
house. Abe could not speak
about his feelings. Sara was not
given permission to do so.
The next few weeks were
filled with agony. Abe and Sara
felt that their world had come
apart. They could not understand why God had let this happen
to them. He had promised a child that would be a blessing,
a fulfillment of their deepest desires. But, now, they were
told, their child would be homosexual. That was impossible
to understand. It was an obvious contradiction of everything
they believed.
A few days later, Abe had another vision. Again, he described
it at the breakfast table.
“Sara, the angel came back last night.”
“Oh?”
“Sara, the angel said ‘God demands a sacrifice.’”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know what it means. What do you think it means?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Sara.
“I don’t know either. I shall have to pray about it.”
The angel return again that night. At breakfast the following
morning, Abe explained what had happened. “It was the
same message: ‘God demands a sacrifice.’ Sara, do you think
that God is asking us to sacrifice the child?”
“Oh, no, Abe. How could he?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know. The angel was not very
specific. It just seemed that he was talking about the child.”
The third night, the angel reappeared. Abe woke with a
start. Yes, he understood what the angel was saying. God demanded
that the child be aborted. This time he did not mention
the visit to Sara. It was still too frightening. How could
God, after promising a child, turn around and take that child
away? How could He expect Sara to abort the child? How
could he himself turn away from the values that he lived by?
It was too confusing.
‘Thy wife Sarah has
conceived and shall
bear a son, who shall be
a blessing unto you.’
Abe slept very poorly the next few nights. As he dozed off,
his subconscious would reawaken him with thoughts that he
was trying to suppress. These kept him awake, usually, until
the early hours of the morning. Just before dawn, several days
later, Abe had his answer. He explained it to Sara after breakfast.
“Sara, above all we must be obedient. God has demanded
that we sacrifice our homosexual child. Homosexuality is such
an abomination that it is better that the child be ripped out of
the womb than that he grow up to practice a life of homosexual
disobedience. That is the hard decision. That is our
burden. Perhaps we are being tested. We must do it, Sara. I
never thought that abortion was consistent with God’s will,
but maybe it is in some cases. I don’t know how I will ever
explain this to the congregation, but perhaps God will show
me a way.” Sara rose silently and left the table. Abe heard her
sobs coming from the bedroom.
Abe called Dr. Hardy. They met with him later in the week.
After a lengthy conference, a date was set for the abortion.
Abe and Sara hardly spoke the next few days. It seemed that
any talk, beyond the functional words of everyday living, was
too painful. They were unable to comfort each other.
The night before the abortion, the angel came again. “Look
in the thicket, Abraham,” she said. Abe awoke, startled. It was
5:30 a.m. What did the angel mean this time? Suddenly, he
understood.
“Sara! Sara! Wake up!”
“I’m awake, Abe. I’ve hardly slept all night.”
“Sara, God does not want us to sacrifice the child. He wants
me to sacrifice my attitude toward having a homosexual son.
We must cancel the abortion. Thank God. Thank you, Lord.
Fix breakfast, Sara. You eat, too. We must celebrate.”
Abe called Dr. Hardy’s answering service, and left a message.
Before long, the physician returned the call. “We are
canceling the abortion, Dr. Hardy.”
“I’m glad, Mr. Smith. God bless you.”
Abe and Sara sat at the breakfast table for a long time, reflecting
upon their experience. “Sara, as we sit and talk, it is
becoming clear. God is leading me into a new way of thinking.
A few days ago, I accepted the possibility of abortion—
something I thought I could never do. Now I must learn to
accept the possibility of homosexuality. I never thought I could
do that. It will not be easy. Is there more to come? Where is
God leading me? Perhaps God is telling me that I must look at
the Law and at obedience in completely new ways. This is
very frightening. How far am I expected to go? How far can I
go? Can I share this with my congregation? Do I dare? Can I
keep silent? Sarah, I think we must be prepared for some
changes in our lives. We must set out on a new adventure. I
don’t know where it might lead us.”
“Yes, Abraham,” she said.
And the angels sang.
D. S. Carlstone of Oklahoma holds a Ph.D. in
physics, and has recently retired after teaching
his subject for 31 years. He has a longtime interest
in the influence of science on philosophy
and theology.
Real Presence
J. Barrie Shepherd
Yes, a frilly pink tutu
was, more or less—more less
than more—all he wore,
that and a tall pair of teetering
stiletto heals and parasol—from tip
to toe in matching lurid pink,
strutting his jet-glow black and
body-built stuff from side to side
in flagrant full gay pride
parading down Fifth Avenue.
From giant urns outside our church
we plied the passers-by with plastic
cups “o’ kindness yet” on a hot June
afternoon—“in Jesus’ Name.”
Fully clothed, and more,
dark clergy suit, black shirt and
stiff white collar, I stood my ground,
clutching a tray of cooling draughts
to represent a welcome and a blessing—
at the least—as a child of God.
Beaming, he tripped across bestowing
smiles, spectacular, on all and sundry,
chiefly me. Daintily he took the cup
I offered, leaned perilous close—
those tipping heels!—and kissed me on one
startled cheek, his bristles coarse, lips—
generous smile notwithstanding—brushing
deep, appalled revulsion through my gut,
despite all my head was murmuring of
tolerance and Christian love.
“Oh Reverend,” laughed the lady
from the sewing circle,
“you should see the juicy kiss
mark on your cheek.” And as we both
collapsed in honest, healing mirth,
first head, then heart took over
from my gut and raised a prayer
of thanks for grace’s all-too-often
way of shoving me, still screaming,
toward birth.
J. Barrie Shepherd has served for the past eight
years as minister of the First Presbyterian Church
in the City of New York. The author of 13 books, his
poetry has appeared in many publications, including
The Christian Century and The New Republic.
A Britisher by birth, he was reared in England and
Scotland and, after service in the RAF, was educated
at The University of Edinburgh and Yale. Shepherd
serves on the national board of The Covenant Network, Presbyterian
churches committed to removing antigay restrictions in the denomination’s
Book of Order. Another of his poems appears on page 8.
18 Open Hands
Summer 2000 19
I Speak
I Speak
I Speak
A Poem for the Millennium March
Delivered in Washington, D.C., April 30, 2000
Keith Boykin
I Speak Because
Barbara Jordan
Langston Hughes, and
The Reverend James Cleveland
could not speak
I Speak for myself,
but I also speak for my uncle,
a black gay man
who could not be here
because he was murdered in his own
bedroom
I Speak to stop the violence
from Wyoming to Alabama
and all points in between,
and yes, in Texas and New York as well
I Speak to tell
George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani
not to pack your bags for Washington
because you will not be living here next
year
I Speak knowing that
the right-wing may vilify me,
closeted gay men may deny me
and religious demagogues may decry me
I Speak to tell Jesse Helms,
and Trent Lott,
and Strom Thurmond,
your days of division are numbered
I Speak Because
two homosexuals who share their lives
together
deserve at least the same rights
as two heterosexual strangers who met
last night on prime time TV
I Speak Because
James Baldwin
Lorraine Hansberry
Bayard Rustin
Audre Lorde
Glen Burke
Simon Nkoli, and
Bessie Smith
could not be here
I Speak as a member of the family
because there are problems in the family
that cannot be healed
by sweeping them under the sterilized,
sanitized rug
of homogenized homosexuality
I Speak Because
Martin Luther King
and Huey Newton
would support my cause
I Speak To Resist
the commercialization
and commodification
of a mainstream “gay lifestyle”
that enriches a privileged few
and impoverishes the masses
with a bankrupt culture of uniformity
I Speak Because
Alain Locke
Joe Beam
Essex Hemphill
Mickey Fleming
Greg Hutchings
Assoto Saint
Craig Harris, and
Alvin Ailey
could not be here
I Speak Because
two people sitting in a hotel room
should not be able to dictate
the entire lesbigaytrans agenda
I Speak Because
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman
Malcolm X, and
Frederick Douglass
have taught me the value of struggle
I Speak Because
our community has a right to know
how decisions are made,
and a responsibility
to hold our leaders accountable
I Speak Because
Patrick Kelly
Willi Smith
Joan Fountain
Countee Cullen
Josephine Baker
Mel Boozer, and
Marlon Riggs
could not be here
I Speak so that
my silence will not be interpreted as
complicity,
my concerns not discarded dismissively,
and my thoughts not represented
simplistically
I Speak Because
Coretta Scott King
Cornel West
Jesse Jackson, and
Nelson Mandela
have uplifted me
I Speak Because
my sheroes and heroes
and other good people of conscience
have chosen not to speak
I Speak to give voice
to their concerns
I Speak Because,
like Fannie Lou Hamer,
I’m sick and tired
of being sick and tired
I Speak to remind you, and myself, that I
can
hold my lover’s hand
in Anacostia or Harlem or South Central
or Oakland
if I choose to,
and I am not always found
in Dupont Circle or Christopher Street or
Santa Monica Boulevard or the Castro
I Speak to Honor
Me’Shell Ndege’Ocello
Ruth Ellis
Jewelle Gomez
Ruth Waters
Carl Bean
E. Lynn Harris
George Bellinger
“When I dare to be powerful—
to use my strength in the service of my vision—
then it becomes less and less important
whether I am afraid.”
Audre Lorde I Speak Today As One Black Gay Man
20 Open Hands
I Speak
I Speak
I Speak
Marjorie Hill
Carlene Cheatam
Maurice Franklin
Kofi Adoma, and
Peter Gomes
For Blazing A Path
In which I could follow
I Speak Because
not all blacks are straight,
and not all gays are white
I Speak to Honor
Mandy Carter
Nadine Smith
Cleo Manago
Barbara Smith
James Earl Hardy
Phill Wilson
Ron Simmons
Alvin Quamina, and
Kevin McGruder
I Speak so that you will ask
why these people are not on this stage
I Speak to Honor
RuPaul
Sapphire
Bill T. Jones
Ken Reeves
George C. Wolfe
Alice Walker
June Jordan and
Phill Reed
I Speak so that
the presence of people of color
will not be tokenized
and the absence of people of color
will not be trivialized
I Speak to Honor
Sabrina Sojourner
Samuel Delany
Angela Davis
Jaye Davidson
Cheryl Clarke, and
Nona Hendryx
I Speak to Enter These Names
indelibly in the record books
of this gathering
I Speak Because
Audre Lorde warns that
my silence will not protect me
any more from the anti-gay forces
than it will from the anti-black forces
I Speak to stand up
for the millions
of brothas and sistahs
whose area codes do not begin
with 202, 212, 213, or 415
I Speak Because
AIDS is not over,
in America or Africa,
despite what the privileged elite may write,
that people of color are at greater risk
than ever,
and that now is not the time to turn our
backs on this disease
I Speak so that
black gays and lesbians
can create our own organizations
to support our own needs
without having to answer the tired old
question
why are we “separating ourselves?”
I Speak Because your priorities
are not always our priorities,
but all of our priorities are important
and should not be casually dismissed
I Speak Because
affirmative action
and racial profiling
are part of my agenda
I Speak so that
a black family can get a home loan
and a black man can simply get home,
alone, without getting arrested
I Speak Because
I cannot stand the word “queer”
and feel excluded from the word “gay”
I Speak so that black leaders
will not forget us
and gay leaders
will finally learn to work with us
I Speak so that
white gays
and straight blacks
will no longer make decisions
that affect us
without including us
I Speak in a culture
that devalues our love
to say that the act of self-love
is an act of revolution in itself
I Speak to declare
that black men loving black men
is no longer a revolutionary act
but an everyday thing
I Speak to tell you
that I refuse to be
the only black person
in any meeting,
at any time,
at any point
ever again
I Speak so I can get a taxicab
not just when I leave this stage,
but when I leave the White House
or leave your house, after a fabulous
affair,
or any house on any street,
that I will not be judged by the color of
my skin
I speak Because
Alice Walker reminds me
that no person is your friend
who demands your silence
or denies your right to grow
I Speak Because
nobody else can speak for me
but me
I Speak to help
repair the breach
that has divided us
black from white
straight from gay
male from female
I Speak to help
repair the breach
that has excluded the voices
of youth and seniors,
the poor and middle class,
bisexuals, and transgendered people,
people with disabilities,
and all people of color
I Speak with hope
because Dr. King reminds me
that only when it is dark enough
can you see the stars
I Speak so that
Dennis Rodman can wear a wedding
dress,
that Carl Lewis can pose in track shorts
and high heels,
and that Little Richard can simply be
himself
I Speak so that
the famous rappers and runners and
writers
and Hip Hop heroes
on the DL
may one day decide
to speak as well
I Speak so that
all black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgendered teenagers
will one day be allowed
to live peaceably in their own family
homes
I Speak
Summer 2000 21
I Speak I Speak
I Speak
I Speak Because
we must broaden the movement
to see the intersection of
race, gender, class, religion, sexuality,
and ethnicity
I Speak not to get
my place at the table
but to demand a whole new table
arrangement
that welcomes all those who have been
excluded
I Speak not to gain privilege
but to challenge the whole concept
of privilege itself
I Speak to Invoke the Lessons of
Rodney King,
Abner Louima,
Amadou Diallo
James Byrd, and
Patrick Dorismond
lest they be forgotten
or thought to pertain strictly
to some other march
I Speak Because
we cannot prevail
against the Prop 22s
if we do not also fight
the Prop 187s and Prop 209s
I Speak Because
June Jordan tells me
that freedom is indivisible
or it is nothing at all
besides sloganeer-ing
and temporary,
short-sighted,
and short-lived
advancement for a few
I Speak to Say, unequivocally, once and
for all,
that blacks and gays are not the same,
that racism is not the same as homophobia,
and that the civil rights struggles are
not identical
I Speak Because
it matters not
which group is most oppressed,
or which was first oppressed,
or whether they are identically oppressed.
What matters is that no group or class of
people
should be oppressed
I Speak to Pray
for Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell
that they may learn
the true meaning of unconditional love
I Speak so that
one more black gay man or woman may
find the courage
to rise up in church today and challenge
a minister
who spews out the vicious bile of
religious-based homophobia
I Speak so that
Angie and Debbie
and Alveda and Reggie
may one day understand
that God is love
and love is for everyone
I Speak Because
I have no power to make these dreams
happen
unless someone, somewhere hears these
words as her own
and decides to act
I Speak
as a proud African-American
same-gender-loving
Christian-identified man
unashamed of who I am
unwilling to be divided into identity
camps, and
unbowed by the demons of hatred that
would incite me
to fear instead of love.
I Speak Because Audre Lorde tells me,
“When I dare to be powerful,
to use my strength in the service of my
vision,
then it becomes less and less important
whether I am afraid.”
I Speak Today
As One Proud Black Gay Man
Copyright ©2000 by Keith Boykin. All Rights Reserved.
Keith Boykin is the author of Respecting
the Soul: Daily Reflections for Black Lesbians
and Gays, and One More River to
Cross: Black and Gay in America. A
Harvard-educated lawyer, he is an adjunct
professor of government at American
University and former special
assistant to President Clinton.
Thanks to former Open Hands advisory
committee member Allen
Harris for alerting us to this speech,
and thanks to Keith Boykin for giving
us permission to print it.
I Speak
I Speak to remind you
that this march will soon be forgotten
if we do not take action
in our own lives
in our own communities
I Speak in the hope
that this gathering
will not become
just another circuit party
and that real people
may learn real lessons here
I Speak to shine the light
in Internet chat rooms,
online clubs,
glbpoc listserves,
and lgbt email chains
I Speak Because
the personal is political
every time we are not ashamed,
to go beyond our boundaries,
to express our love,
to come out,
to volunteer,
to make a donation,
to write a letter,
to forward an email,
to register to vote,
or simply to speak
Finally, I Speak to offer a choice
between fear and love
I Speak Because
fear is negativity,
scarcity,
and
falsity
I Speak Because
love is positivity,
abundance,
and
truth
I Speak Because
fear is unnatural and learned
and love is natural and innate
I Speak so that
my faith may be used as a tool for love,
and not a weapon of hate
I Speak Because
I refuse to worship
at the altar
of religious bigotry
and self-righteous piety
22 MINISTRIES Open Hands
But I grieve more for those who are being rejected, oppressed
and persecuted by the United Methodist Church because
of who they are and because of whom they love. The
ordination that has been taken from me is one that the United
Methodist Church has routinely denied and withdrawn from
gay people long before it was officially required to do so in
1984. Many gifted persons called by God have been denied
ordination because of their sexual orientation. Others have
been denied fellowship, if not membership in the UMC. Many
have been spiritually and psychologically abused by vicious
judgment and condemnation. I am only a casualty of the
church’s bigotry against bisexual, lesbian, gay and transgender
persons. They are the true victims and martyrs. I have been
punished only for what I’ve done. They are punished for who
they are and whom they love. The difference is profound. My
loss and pain is trifling in comparison.
I also grieve for the United Methodist Church. It has
wounded and crippled itself with bigotry, legalism and fear.
Until these impediments are purged from its soul, the United
Methodist Church cannot speak authentically of God’s love
in Jesus Christ. Every act and testimony toward that end will
be smudged with the evil of its prejudice and persecution of
gay people. We may be witnessing its death, at least the death
of the church we have loved and served. We can mourn the
church that dies; but, we cannot hold on to it and keep it alive
if its soul is dead. Instead, we must look for the new reality of
God’s presence in the world, the new expression and experience
of Christ’s body.
I believe it is important to understand my trial, along with
Greg [Dell]’s trial [See the Spring 1999 issue, Vol. 14, No. 4.]
and the judicial process against the Sacramento 68 in the California-
Nevada Annual Conference [Since dropped; see Winter
1999 issue, Vol. 14, No. 3.], as resistance within our denomination
to the movement of God toward Jesus’ vision of
an inclusive and just community. The trial resisted but did
not end the movement. Rather, it helped to bring clarity and
definition to it. It was not axial, but only another movement
in the redemptive process of God. It could be seen as a defeat,
the UMC’s further fall from grace, or it can be seen as a painful
event that opens up new possibilities for change toward
the new thing God is doing. I believe it is the latter. I believe
there is no way that God’s movement toward justice, freedom,
dignity and community can be successfully resisted and
denied.
I don’t feel defeated. I am now among the laity of the United
Methodist Church, called to the same ministry I’ve always
been called to honor, called to “resist evil, injustice, and oppression
in whatever forms they present themselves.” Called
“according to the grace given to [me, to] remain [a] faithful
member of Christ’s holy church and serve as Christ’s representative
in the world.” It makes no sense to me to leave one
habitation of the Christian church for another, just so I can
have the institutional favor and privilege of ordination. When
I was ordained, it was my privilege to serve the laity. It is now
my honor to serve with the laity.
In practical terms, I intend to become a member of a local
United Methodist Church. I intend to complete the book I’ve
started. It will include the 2000 General Conference, so I have
MARRIAGE
A Letter from
Jimmy Creech
On November 17, 1999, in Grand Island, Nebraska, a jury in a
church trial convicted Jimmy Creech of “disobedience to the
Order and Discipline of the United Methodist Church” for coofficiating
a holy union for two men on April 24, 1999. The
penalty imposed by the jury was the withdrawal of his credentials
as an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. Attending
in solidarity with Jimmy were representatives of the
Methodist Federation for Social Action, the Reconciling Congregation
Program, Affirmation, and In All Things Charity. In addition,
120 members of Soulforce, an interfaith coalition, were
present to make a strong witness that the trial was an act of
spiritual violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
persons. This letter was written two weeks later.
While I still need time to assess the significance and consequences
of the guilty verdict and the penalty, both for me
personally and for the movement toward justice and community
of which all of us are a part, there are a few things I am
clear about and want to share with you now.
First, I am immensely grateful for the support you gave to
me and for the witness that you made in various ways around
the country on behalf of justice and to affirm the dignity of
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons. I wish I had
some adequate and personal way to say to each of you, “Thank
you!” Your support strengthened and empowered me. I never
felt alone. I was always clear that I was only one small part of
a larger faithful community journeying together in this movement
of God in history. You are for me the sign of our Easter
faith, confirming our hope that justice, compassion and truth
will prevail over bigotry, injustice and death.
The trial brought to an end a twenty-nine year relationship
that I have had with the United Methodist Church as an ordained
minister. The ordination that was taken from me by
the jury was given to me by the United Methodist Church. It
belonged to the church and the church had a right to take it
back. It was not mine to claim; it is not an entitlement. That is
the basic meaning of ordained ministry.
However, the ordination that preceded it and cannot be
reclaimed by the United Methodist Church is the one that
came with my baptism, and the one confirmed by my call to
ministry. These belong to me still, and no institution, jury or
person has the authority or power to take them away. I will
continue to honor and live out this ordination in all that I do.
This is not to say that what the church revoked was unimportant
to me. There is nothing I love more than being a pastor
of a congregation. I know that I cannot be a United Methodist
pastor now. I will not dwell on it, but be assured that I
grieve what has been taken from me.
Summer 2000 MINISTRIES 23
at least another year of work on it ahead of me. I will continue
to accept speaking invitations. And, I intend to support the
work of Soulforce, the Coalition (MFSA, RCP, IATC and Affirmation)
in its effort to affect change at the General Conference,
and to support the Reconciling United Methodists in
North Carolina. And as time passes, I know God will call me
to other ministries I’ve not imagined.
God bless you! The journey continues, and we continue
together!
Jimmy Creech was an ordained United Methodist
minister for twenty-nine years, serving
churches in North Carolina and Nebraska.
Readers may contact him at 412 South Boylan
Ave., Raleigh, NC 27603-1910; telephone: 919-
755-3558; fax: 919-835-2182.
Reflections on the Second
Jimmy Creech Trial
Marilyn Alexander
“...For his eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me...I
sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, for his eye is on
the sparrow and I know he watches me.”
To say that the guilty verdict and the final penalty in the
trial of Jimmy Creech came as a surprise is not quite accurate.
Nor is it descriptive to say that we were prepared because we
could have almost certainly guessed the outcome. With all
our knowledge of the worst case scenarios, we are still a people
of hope and faith, both in God and in the essence of who we
are as a church. So when the verdict was spoken and especially
when the punishment was rendered, it was a shock to
the heart and soul. We live with a veneer of trust that we are
moving towards a more just and loving church. If we did not
have this faith, we would not still be here. It is times like these
though, when the reality of the ignorance and bigotry of the
church is so stark, that we feel the blow throughout our body
and soul. The naked truth rocks us to the core.
The trial moved beyond a mere assessment of whether or
not Jimmy disobeyed the church law (though certainly that
was the nuts and bolts of it). It wasn’t even about the institution
of marriage (though truly the wedding of two men was
the catalyst). As we moved through the day, starting from our
arrival at Trinity UMC around 8:15 a.m., huddling in the cool
morning air outside while we waited for the completion of
the jury selection going on inside the church, we were reminded
that this trial was sending a message to the world
about the integrity of the church’s message to seek love and
justice. Already the Soulforce group had held their peaceful,
nonviolent protest, had been arrested, and was returning with
the powerful feelings of their action. As one retired United
Methodist clergyman told me, “When the bishops stood in
front of us and told us to move, I could feel everyone pull
even closer together. It was an amazing feeling.” They wanted
the trial participants to know the lengths that they would go
to object to the trial, to the point of literally standing in the
way of their brothers and sisters in the faith and to say, “No
more.”
Fred Phelps and his bunch from Kansas were on hand with
the usual “cheerful” placards but they were kept outside the
main perimeter so they were merely background noise. The
same few protesters from the night before were closer. There
was something ironic about the sign that one held in her left
hand that said something about homosexuality being an
abomination while she smoked a cigarette with her right hand.
In addition, there was a large media presence. At one point I
looked down the sidewalk to see the Visitor Parking signs surrounded
by numerous camera tripods temporarily abandoned
(and parked there) by news teams. Each of these images were
reminders that the church was also on trial, whether it be in
the court of public opinion or in the hearts and minds of the
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.
The trial itself moved very rapidly. We were seated in the
sanctuary by 10:00 a.m. and dismissed just after 11:30 with
instruction we would not hear back from the jury before 1:15
p.m. By nearly 1:30 we had heard the verdict. It then took
until just before 4:00 before the penalty was announced. During
that last stretch of time, we sat in the sanctuary and wondered,
waited and weighed. Finally someone had the good
sense to start leading us in singing hymns. The words tumbled
over me, preoccupied my mind for a time but did not stick.
What did catch my attention (and that of all those around)
was the flight of a small sparrow. Into the lofty ceiling, down
by the organ pipes, across to the other side and out towards
the back— fast and furiously it flew. Just for a moment the
bird caught our imagination— even our hunger for a sign of
what was to come. Very soon after that, the jury returned, the
penalty was announced, a visibly grieving bishop said a word
of prayer, and we followed Jimmy out into the Nebraska sunshine
and the gaze of a crowd of cameras and microphones.
All along the way, Jimmy spoke eloquently, with passion
and compassion. He kept the focus on the church’s choice of
whether or not to embrace its calling to show God’s love and
to treat each person as one of sacred worth. To the very end,
he also kept the spiritual, emotional and physical pain of gay,
lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people and their families
at the forefront.
On the altar table inside the sanctuary lay a commonly
seen autumn harvest spread of a miniature hay bale, corn husks
and tiny gourds and pumpkins. The table was barely visible
behind the trial setting where the bishop presided, the jury
was seated, and the witness stand located, but it was still there.
It kept me wondering what the church would glean from this
trial, what we will reap from the seeds sown here in Grand
Island, Nebraska. In the short term, I see only rotten fruit growing
out of today’s seeds of ignorance and arrogance, but I
have to believe that this day did not bring the last word in the
struggle for an inclusive church. In the (oh so long) long run,
we must dig up today’s seeds of hope and faith and replant
them in fertile soil. We must use them in such a way as to
grow new life into the church. We must let our anger and
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24 MINISTRIES Open Hands
sadness fuel our future actions. Yes, we must grieve, but we
must also keep moving down the row—planting, watering,
weeding, even fertilizing. And we can sing, in low and high
voices, “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, for his
eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me.”
Marilyn Alexander is the interim Coordinator
of the Reconciling Congregation Program
and interim Executive Publisher of Open
Hands. With James Preston, she authored We
Were Baptized Too—Claiming God’s Grace
for Lesbians and Gays (Westminster John
Knox Press, 1996).
Law vs. Truth
David Cooper
I keep finding myself returning to it, the printed on green,
security-clad— Not valid unless machine numbered and signed
with multicolor ribbon on the reverse side—symbol of your passing.
CERTIFICATE OF DEATH, Issued by Marion County Health
Department, Indiana State Department of Health—it states. Looks
official. Must be legal. Having lived with you four and a half
years, I look for facts. The name is correct as is sex, time of
death, date of death, social security number, age: 34—so young!
Date of birth— yes, correct; birthplace: Columbus, Indiana—
correct, but fails to mention “Athens of the Midwest”— oh well,
we can let that pass. Skip to box 16: Marital Status (Specify):
Single. Lie!
I have made so many journeys to hospitals, mopped the
sweat from your head when you were delirious, scrubbed you
in the shower at home when your arm had to be encased in
plastic to protect the ganciclovir IV. How dare they state
“Single?” Isn’t legality about truth? Was it not my ear that
shared your innermost secrets and confessions? Didn’t you
first tell me the things you couldn’t even tell your father or
mother? Weren’t those my arms that cradled you when you
were ill and embraced you with joyous love during the good
days? Isn’t it the heart of your spouse that now lies shattered
and in ruins as it aches for simple recognition?
What were those rings we exchanged and solemn vows?
Death parted us, but not nearly as much as the State of Indiana
or the Marion County Health Department.
Shreds of truth are to be found on this official waste of
paper. “White.” Yes, your skin was white, especially on the
day that you transcended this small planet. White it was also,
the day the oncologist announced “liver tumor” and “cancerous”
and “small chance.” It doesn’t document your bravery,
though. True enough, you, the “decedent,” were not a U.S.
Veteran. You killed no one, but you did bleed many times.
How you dreaded the constant blood tests required to keep
an HIV-ridden body going. Even with macular degeneration
of the eyes, you saw the grim object poised to strike your vein.
Brave, too, you were when you decided upon intensive chemotherapy
in order to preserve a slim chance of our continuing
life together.
Immediate cause of death: respiratory failure. Approximate
interval between onset and death: 2 weeks. Both of these statements
may be true (I did not count the days), but my God,
what a long two weeks. Two weeks of wearing latex gloves
and gowns and masks (except when understanding nurses were
on duty) as I sat in the chair beside your bed, holding your
hand, assuring you that what we had nothing could destroy
or telling you of how sincerely I believed that we would be
together again, but in a more benevolent world. A world without
prejudice— what a thing for which to dream!
Running down hospital back corridors with you in the bed,
being transported in the night from coronary intensive care
back to oncology, helping with your oxygen because the nurses
and orderlies couldn’t possibly do all things at once, I never
dreamed that some day I would be left with this green, legal
lie. Or maybe I should be generous and call it a half-truth
since there is some fact?
If your husband or wife dies (it will happen some day),
how would you feel to read in the official record that your
only role was to be identified in box 20: Informant’s name
(type/print)? How would you feel the next time you sing patriotic
words like “home of the brave and the land of the free”
when your love, bravery, and freedom was denied in that
“home”?
Imagine for one moment how it feels to want to write for
your church newsletter your thanks to all of those who were
so kind during the final illness and passing of your _______.
What is the word that fills in that blank? You are only the
“informant”according to that legal document.
Feel the sting as well-intentioned people tell you they are
sorry about the passing of your “friend”! Yes, he was my best
friend, but oh, what a half-truth! How much more a spouse
he was than the woman a legal document said I was married
to for nineteen years! How much more a soulmate than the
person who bore those two wonderful products of our genetic
material.
Why is it so necessary and just to pass laws in defense of
marriage? I have never wished to deny two people the right to
marry. Are there only a limited number of legal certificates
waiting to be filled out granting legal sanction to what God
has joined together? Will the gays and lesbians be the first in
line and take all existing blank certificates and thereby deny
to heterosexual persons the right to make legal what their
hearts tell them is the truth? If you don’t want to allow us the
dignity of being married, for God’s sake invent something.
Call it what you will. Allow it not to offend or threaten your
sensibilities, but give us some legality.
A female nurse came to me one night in the hospital. She
said “I want to say ‘thank you.’ I have never seen a husband or
wife as devoted to the other as you have been to him.” I said,
“Thank you.”As the tears rolled down my cheek, I had an inkling
that some day I would merely be an “informant.”
Do something, please. Don’t do it for me. Do it for you.
Whenever any of us is treated as less than fully human, we are
all dehumanized. Don’t let there be another Matthew Shepard
(or the other hundreds whom you cannot name). Don’t cause
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Summer 2000 MINISTRIES 25
kids to commit suicide because you can’t fully accept them. Please
don’t leave another soul staring at a green sheet of legally wasted
paper realizing that he or she is merely an informant.
David L. Cooper (l.) describes
himself as “a United Methodist of
many years,” a member of Broadway
United Methodist Church in
Indianapolis. He and Steve (r.)
were united in a marriage ceremony
celebrated by the Rev.
Howard Warren on Dave’s 51st birthday, less than a week before
Steve died in 1999.
Copyright ©1999 by David L. Cooper.
Let Us Be Impatient
With Prejudice
William Sloane Coffin
Previously published January 20, 2000, in the Rutland Herald
of Rutland, Vermont. Printed here with the Herald’s permission.
An old adage reads, “Good things come in small packages.”
Vermont is clear proof. Ever since the Vermont Supreme Court
decision of December 20, the eyes of the nation are upon our
state. Many Americans consider the court’s decision a legal
milestone and a cultural turning point. But also, not surprisingly,
Montpelier is being flooded with thousands of out-ofstate
letters filled with inflammatory rhetoric and spurious
homophobic assertions, many of them written by Christians
who use the Bible much as a drunk does a lamppost—more
for support than for illumination.
I am reminded of the wise conclusion of William Penn:
“To be ferocious in religion is to be ferociously irreligious.”
Readers will remember the court ruled that the common
benefits and protection that flow from marriages under Vermont
law must be extended to same-sex couples but left it to
the Legislature to craft a remedy for the discrimination the
court had deemed unconstitutional. On the day following the
ruling, an editorial in the Rutland Herald suggested that “the
two obvious remedies are to broaden the definition of marriage
to include same-sex couples, or to create another form
of legally sanctioned domestic partnership that guarantees the
same benefits.”
It occurs to me that all Vermonters should take time out
from the clamor of life to become for a while as reflective as
possible. Thoughtful conversations need to take place in every
family, in every church, temple and mosque, in every field,
factory and office. Our representatives in Montpelier must hear
from us, but only the most carefully thought out reasons for
our positions. To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion
without the pain of thought.
For example, many letters sent our legislators enjoin them
to remember “the sanctity of traditional marriage.” Yet few
traditions have changed more over the years than marital ones.
For centuries, parents knew best— marriages were arranged.
For an even longer period of time, husbands had all property
rights including their wives and daughters themselves. Until
very recently interracial marriages often were forbidden, and
Bible readers should recall that the early biblical practice of
polygamy, although later abandoned, is nowhere in the Bible
explicitly forbidden.
In short, with so many traditions, we need both to recover
and to recover from them. All of which is not to take away
from the sanctity of marriage, for few things are more sacred
than an avowed commitment between two people to an intimate,
lifelong relationship.
People who say “same-sex marriage makes me uncomfortable”
should probably remind themselves that comfort has
nothing to do with the issue and that, often as not, change is
discomforting. I think those of us who are straight people really
need to sit down quietly and compare our own discomfort
with the discomfort of gays and lesbians who for years
have been excluded, isolated, silenced, abused and even killed.
The argument that gays threaten to destroy heterosexual
marriage is an assertion only, not an argument. If anyone destroys
marriage, it’s married people, not gays.
Finally, I think we need to examine carefully the position
shared by many thoughtful folk who are anxious that whatever
the legislators in Montpelier do “it must be everything as
good as marriage.”
In 1896 in Plessy vs. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court
found “separate but equal” to be constitutional in educating
black and white children. But in 1954 the court ruled that
“separate” inevitably meant unequal. Would not the same
inequality prove true were civil marriage reserved for straight
couples only while gay and lesbian unions were designated
otherwise? Further, if for all of us marriage is a profound symbol,
and for some of us a sacred one, what right have straight
people to deny it to gays and lesbians for whom it is altogether
as meaningful?
I think gays are right in insisting that marriage by any other
name just isn’t marriage. And isn’t it ironic that Vermont law
today recognizes gay and lesbian families, but has yet to legalize
the marriages which generally precede the formation of
families?
By recalling “our common humanity” the state’s Supreme
Court reminded us that all human relationships be judged by
their inner worth, not by their outward appearance. That being
the case, I believe the state should not hesitate to offer
gays and lesbians the same civil marriage available to straight
couples. Certainly the legal matter of extending rights would
be vastly simplified if the marriage language were uniform.
As a male I consider myself at best a recovering chauvinist. As
a white person I am a recovering racist, and as a straight person a
recovering heterosexist. To women, African-Americans, gays and
lesbians, I am deeply grateful for stretching my mind, deepening
my heart, and convincing me that no human being
should ever be patient with prejudice at the expense of its
victims.
William Sloane Coffin is a resident of Strafford, Vermont. An
author and activist, he has served as chaplain of Yale University
and pastor of Riverside Church in New York City.
○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
26 MINISTRIES Open Hands
The facilitators ask participants to put aside their urges to
persuade and to use the time together to ask questions about
which they are truly curious. The group accepts guidelines
about confidentiality, not interrupting, and using considerate
language. The first question posed by the facilitators focuses
on drawing out personal stories, allowing participants to hear
human emotion and pain and connect on a deeper level. An
exercise sometimes used is to ask participants to list on newsprint
the negative stereotypes they think others hold about
them. This gets at the stereotypes without either side feeling
like they are being attacked by the people present. The group
who created the list identifies which stereotypes are most inaccurate,
which are inaccurate but understandable, and which
are the most painful.
Later questions by the facilitators ask participants to share
their basic core beliefs on the issue and then their uncertainties
or dilemmas. After this foundation of trust has been established,
participants can ask questions of each other, keeping
in mind the guideline about curiosity not persuasion. Any
participant can decline to answer a question. This establishes
a non-coercive atmosphere where people can ask questions
without anyone feeling put on the spot. “Participants have
direct exchanges with one another only after they have had
the opportunity to be heard, without fear of rebuttal, attack
or interruption.” The session ends with questions posed by
the facilitators to help people reflect and learn positive lessons
from the dialogue.
Public Conversations Project has used variations of this
model in two dialogues about GLBT inclusion in the church.
The first began with leaders of the Massachusetts chapter of
Episcopalians United and a local bishop. The group of eight
people was balanced in terms of sexual orientation, clergy/
lay, and gender, and was racially diverse. The dialogue was
highly structured at first, placed a premium on asking questions
that would surface new information, and created patterns
of interaction that fostered receptive listening and intentional/
thoughtful speaking.
As a part of the dialogue process the participants decided
that they needed to better understand each other’s approaches
to scripture. Specific passages were selected by the participants
and one whole session was spent on understanding each other’s
interpretations. After four sessions, including a day-long meeting,
the group produced a consensus statement and a resource
book that outlines the dialogue process in detail. Both can be
obtained by contacting the Public Conversations Project, 46
Kondazian St, Watertown, MA 02472 or 617-923-1216 or
asubak@publicconversations.org. Recently Public Conversations
also facilitated a four-day dialogue for ten Anglican bishops
at the Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, NY. This conversation
was convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury and
organized by Bishop Frank Griswold.
A variation of Public Conversations’ original model was
used by the Portland, Oregon group People of Faith Against
Bigotry with a small group formed after Measure 9, the statewide
ballot measure designed to restrict civil rights of GLBT
people. After participation in several sessions with this group,
one of the participants from a fundamentalist Christian church
WELCOMING PROCESS
Conflict Resolution
DeEtte Beghtol
The structured conversation model developed by the Public
Conversations Project at the Family Institute of Cambridge,
Massachusetts was originally developed for discussing abortion.
But more recently it has been used for dialogue around
GLBT folks.
The developers of the model were skilled in working with
families in crisis. They adapted what they had learned from
helping families talk about difficult personal issues to conversations
on divisive public issues. They recognized that on
highly charged issues, “Each side considers its own position
to be so vital, and that of the adversary to be so dangerous,
that neither seems mindful of the costs of the battle.” Does
this sound familiar?
Public Conversations Project’s basic premise is that people
on opposite sides of an emotionally charged issue need a highly
structured setting in order to really listen to each other. Where
people are “stuck” in old patterns of talking about an issue,
the facilitators seek to bring understanding by introducing
new ways of talking to “the other side.” The facilitators of the
conversation groups carefully select participants for small
groups of 4 to 8 people, evenly divided between “pros” and
“cons.” Most of the groups have been composed of participants
who are not the “headliners,” the leaders who have a lot
at stake in remaining true to their public positions. People
less concerned with saving face can be more open to express
doubts and consider the validity of an opposing idea.
The facilitators do much pre-meeting contact: individual
interviews with each participant, phone calls, a confirming
letter, careful communications to establish trust in the facilitators.
The goals of the facilitators are to provide a safe context
in which people with different views can explore the values
and concerns underlying the public debate. In the
communications to participants, facilitators emphasize their
interest in each person’s unique personal views and invite her/
him to consider their uncertainties as well as their certainties.
Participants are invited to consider what they would genuinely
like to learn from those who do not share their ideas
and beliefs.
The original model began with sharing a meal together at
which the hot topic is off limits. Participants are asked not to
reveal what their “party line” is, thus allowed to see each other
first as human beings. After dinner participants are seated in a
circle alternating a “pro person” and a “con person,” so that
each person is physically located next to an opponent, not
opposite. It’s easier to see the humanity of your “enemy” if
you are sitting next to him/her without a barrier of a table
between you. It’s easier to express your own vulnerability when
the person next to you is also vulnerable.
Summer 2000 MINISTRIES 27
issues with congregations, denominations, and the general
public; develop curricula to prepare seminary students to provide
leadership on these issues in their faith communities;
and coordinate its efforts with existing gay and lesbian denominational
caucuses. The center will encourage the formation
of partnerships with other schools offering studies in gay
and lesbian issues and with gay and lesbian caucuses within
the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical
Literature.
Calling the center “an integral part of the educational mission
of PSR,” the school’s president, William McKinney, said,
“It will witness to the Christian belief in justice for all people
and challenge the injustice of institutional homophobia and
the prejudice surrounding different sexual orientations.”
Dr. Mary A. Tolbert, PSR’s George H. Atkinson Professor of
Biblical Studies, will be director of the new center.
“Through the generous support of the Carpenter Foundation,”
Tolbert says, “we have a unique opportunity to bring
the resources of contemporary theological education and scholarship
to bear on the present intolerant and even inhumane
treatment afforded to lesbians and gay men in both church
and state. From ballot initiatives to potential splits in major
Protestant denominations, the inclusion or exclusion of lesbians
and gay men from full civic or ecclesiastical participation
has become a touchstone for defining the political and
religious identity of many people worldwide.
“While these debates are often full of passion and drama,
they are just as often lacking in information, accuracy, careful
theological reflection, or the visible representation of persons
from the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities.
The overall mission of the new Center is to intervene forcefully
and positively in these debates by providing up-to-date
information, thoughtful research, effective education for leadership,
and a voice of advocacy for those who have been silenced
or made invisible simply because of who God created
them to be.”
Pacific School of Religion is a multi-denominational seminary
of the United Church of Christ with strong ties to the
United Methodist Church, the Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ) and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community
Churches. From its origins in 1866, PSR has educated
ministers for the changing needs of Christian churches in a
diverse world, informed by a commitment to inclusivity and
justice. PSR is also part of an ecumenical academic consortium,
the Graduate Theological Union (GTU).
The school has had a long-standing commitment to justice
for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. It graduated
its first openly gay student in 1971, opened its married
student housing to same-sex couples in the early 1980’s, and
provides domestic partner benefits to gay and lesbian faculty
and staff. Openly gay faculty, students, staff and Board of
Trustee members make significant and distinctive contributions
to all levels of the community.
Jane Austin is the Communications Director of the Pacific School
of Religion. For more information, contact the center at clgs@psr.edu
or 510/849 8206.
told the group that she had been asked to gather signatures
on petitions for another similar anti-gay ballot measure. She
refused to do it because she had come to know and respect
the gay and lesbian people in the group. Dialogues may not
change the core beliefs of participants, but they certainly make
mutual respect and tolerance more likely.
A structure that encourages telling personal stories and
speaking from the heart in a confidential atmosphere is basic
to such dialogue. Participants need to see their opponents first
as human beings—as children of God— and not primarily as
proponents of ideas or positions. Thus the dialogue becomes
multi-faceted, reflecting the complex bundle of ideas and feelings
we are. The result is that after the experience, participants,
even those who risk little, see the issues and their own
positions in less simplistic ways. To use a Quaker phrase, “that
of God” in each of us responds to our brother or sister no
matter how much we may disagree on an issue. If there is
hope for reconciliation or mutual acceptance of differences
between us, it needs to begin with such dialogue.
DeEtte Wald Beghtol, a former Presbyterian,
is bidenominational: a member of both a UCC
and a United Methodist congregation. She is
a mediator and trainer in private practice and
works for a community mediation service. She
thanks Laura Chasin, from Public Conversations
Project, for information for this article.
CAMPUS
Pacific School of
Religion Opens Center
for Lesbian and
Gay Studies
Jane Austin
Pacific School of Religion (PSR) in Berkeley, California, has
announced the establishment of the PSR Center for Lesbian
and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry, a new Center offering
educational resources, advocacy, and a progressive public
voice on issues of sexual orientation and religion. Supported
by a generous grant of $950,000 from the E. Rhodes and Leona
B. Carpenter Foundation, the Center will open its doors in
July 2000.
The center will undertake research and scholarship which
explores the theological, ethical, spiritual, biblical, psychological,
social, and historical dimensions of sexual orientation;
develop and share resources and information on these
28 Open Hands
DiversityDiversity Sustaining
the Spirit
&
#
8 6
Chorus
oe . oe oe oe oe oe
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Each of us in our di -
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j
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j
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har - mo - ny,
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oe j
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meant to be,
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oe oe oe oe . oe oe
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blend- ing at last in the
oe j
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we sing a - long,
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ma - ny the sing - ers but
3rd time to CODA
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one is the song.
&
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oe . oe oe oe oe oe
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1.
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2.
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pets
mothof
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sol -
earth
stice
with
that
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change
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by,
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pais
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crash -
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and
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plays,
sky,
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G G/F#
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vi -
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lins
wind
in
crosthe
ses
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Emin G/D
wil -
harp
low’s
and
sigh,
lyre,
Diversity
Marsha Stevens
Summer 2000 29
&
#
oe . oe oe oe oe oe
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you
co -
have
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com -
sound
posed
of
in
the
this
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birds
glow -
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fire,
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fense
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each
is
smile
the
a
touch
note
of
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love,
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rhyme,
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keep -
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time.
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we sing a - long,
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ma - ny the sing - ers
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ma - ny the sing- ers but
oe oe oe oe .
D G
one is the song!
Marsha Stevens is the author of the folk hymn, “For Those Tears I Died.” Christian
Century magazine has called her, “Conservative Christianity’s worst nightmare—a Biblebelieving,
God-fearing, Jesus-loving lesbian Christian.” She has given permission for
OpenHands readers to copy this song in its entirety (please include title and author
with every copy) and all of her songs may be copied under CCLI guidelines.
Order from her website (www.BalmMinistries.com) or on amazon.com, CDnow.com, or
by mail at P.O. Box 1981, Costa Mesa, CA 92628 (714)641-8968. Free downloads
from each album available at MP3.com Booking information: contact Beth Coombs at
(425)775-9579 (Pacific Time).
30 Open Hands
Welcoming
Communities OPEN AND AFFIRMING
Christ Congregation, UCC
Princeton, New Jersey
The 100 members of this dually affiliated (UCC and
American Baptist) church are a mixture of people who find
unity in their desire to hear and express the good news of the
gospel. The congregation has welcomed numerous young families
with children, which means an expanding Sunday School!
Outreach includes a Prison Visitation and Support program to
federal prisoners and a recent party for kids from “Rainbow
House” which provides housing for mothers with HIV/AIDS
and their children. The congregation declares its ONA commitment
in its bulletin each Sunday, is sponsoring an “out”
seminary student for ordination, and continues to discuss other
ways to keep ONA a part of the church’s witness.
Rincon Congregational Church, UCC
Tucson, Arizona
Again in 1999, this 585-member city church lived out its
commitment to compassion and hospitality through its annual
Mardi Gras festival, which celebrates both the light and
shadow sides of spirituality. Monies raised by the event were
divided between the LGBT Center (especially its domestic violence
program) and Casa de los Niños which provides care for
children in abusive situations. Church members participate in
“Outober Fest,” the area gay pride celebration (held in October
when it’s not so hot!), and “Rainbow Services,” Saturday
night worship done in cooperation with other welcoming congregations.
The church’s youth program focuses on music and
culture, and this season’s holiday presentation was a “Celtic
Christmas.”
RECONCILING IN CHRIST
Mount Olive Lutheran Church
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Mount Olive is an urban congregation of 470
members, and the October vote to become RIC was unanimous,
due to a strong community of gay and lesbian people
which has been growing over the last 15 years. “Every Sunday
someone is here because of it,” said Rev. Bill Heisley, senior
pastor. The church will continue to advertise in the local press
in order to reach out to the GLBT community.
St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church
Tallahassee, Florida
With 200 active members, St. Stephen’s is the only integrated
Lutheran church in the area. Church members became
interested in the Reconciling in Christ program through their
involvement with a local organization which cares for people
with HIV/AIDS. The church has had at least one family join
the congregation since its November vote to become RIC, and
plans to continue its outreach into the gay and lesbian community.
AFFIRMING CONGREGATION
PROGRAMME
Southminster-Steinhauer United Church
Edmonton, Alberta
A 200-member congregation located in southwest Edmonton,
this congregation became the first officially Affirming Congregation
in the province of Alberta in January 1999. Founded
in the 1960s, Southminster-Steinhauer has always placed social
justice at the heart of its ministry. For decades, the church
worshiped in school gyms and held meetings in members’
homes in order to dedicate money to mission rather than a
building. Recently, in an effort to be more visible and vital in
the community, the congregation voted both to embark on a
$1.4 million building campaign and become an Affirming
congregation! Both efforts have been successful, and the church
looks forward to expanding its witness for peace and justice
when it moves into a permanent home in November 2000.
OPEN & AFFIRMING MINISTRIES
Chalice Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ)
San Mateo, CA
Named after the symbol of the denomination, Chalice Christian
Church emphasizes the importance of Communion in
the congregation’s life and the radical yet reconciling nature
of Christ’s table. A newly recognized congregation in the Northern
California-Nevada Region, this community came into existence
as a result of a church split related to the use of inclusive
language in worship. Such commitments led the
congregation to decide to publicly proclaim itself “Open and
Affirming.” This three-year-old congregation is committed to
active witness and service in the wider community through
community organizing as well as hands-on service projects.
First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Boulder, Colorado
Established in 1878, First Christian Church has always valued
independent thinking and encouraged its members to
participate in activities which would bring justice to the larger
community. When the present building was erected, one of its
first ministries was the creation of a low income senior adult
facility nearby. On November 8, 1998 the congregation voted
to identify itself as an Open & Affirming congregation. Pastor
Terry Zimmerman affirms, “Our decision to become ‘officially’
O&A brings new opportunities and challenges to our members,
but if our future is anything like our past, we have many
wonderful, creative, fulfilling and purposeful days ahead of
us!” As leaders of the Open & Affirming Task Force, the Rev.
Glenn Johnson, a retired pastor, and his wife, Louise, were a
strong impetus behind this wonderful achievement.
Summer 2000 31
Movement
News
Southern Lutherans Become Reconciling;
Milwaukee Lutherans Affirm Gay Blessings,
and a New Resource of Welcome
Meeting in Nashville for an annual assembly Memorial Day
weekend, the Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America passed a historic statement of welcome to
gay and lesbian people and their families. The statement, which
passed by an estimated 2/3 majority, makes the Lutherans the
first Protestant denomination in the South to pass such a statement
at the regional level. On the same weekend the Southwest
Texas Synod of the ELCA passed a similar statement. Synod
assemblies are composed of pastors and lay representatives of
every congregation in that synod. They represent the highest
legislative authority at the synod level.
The “Resolution of Welcome” acknowledges that some gay
and lesbian Christians and their families have left the church
because they have not felt welcome in the past. It also states
that other gay and lesbian people have been active and faithful
members of the Lutheran church since the beginning of the
synod itself. The Southeastern Synod is composed of ELCA
congregations in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Southwest Texas includes San Antonio and the area south
to the Mexican border. Bob Gibeling of Atlanta, Program Executive
for Lutherans Concerned/North America, served as floor
leader for the resolution effort at the Southeastern Synod Assembly.
Earlier, on May 5, a synod of the ELCA approved the blessing
of same-gender relationships by pastors in that synod, a
historic first in the United States. By a vote of 141–103, the
Greater Milwaukee Synod passed a resolution which “ recognizes
and affirms the blessing of such committed same-gender
relationships by pastors of this synod after counseling of the
couple seeking such a blessing.” The Greater Milwaukee Synod
has been designated as Reconciling in Christ for several years.
The vote on recognition of gay and lesbian relationships came
after rejecting a move to study the issue further. More than
400 clergy and lay delegates make up the synod’s annual assembly,
which is its highest legislative body. There are 141 congregations
and 100,000 members in the Greater Milwaukee
Synod. Southeast Michigan Synod of the ELCA passed an almost
identical resolution by a clear majority on May 20.
Lutherans Concerned leaders are recommending use of a
landmark new gay and lesbian ministry resource written and
produced by the ELCA. The 40-page document, called “Congregational
Hospitality to Gay and Lesbian People,” is now
available from the Division for Outreach, which wrote and
produced it. Its contents include helpful ideas for congregations
who want to be more welcoming to gay and lesbian
people. The hospitality resource is being distributed by the
ELCA to all congregations which relate to the Division for
Outreach. These are primarily new congregations and congregations
undergoing a renewal of their mission and ministry.
Copies are available for a $3 mailing cost donation from the
Division for Outreach, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,
8765 West Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631. For more information
call 800-638-3522, ext. 2614.
RCP Disappointed But Not Defeated
The refusal of the United Methodist Church General Conference
(meeting May 2-12 in Cleveland) to change its polices
on gays and lesbians will not deter the Reconciling Congregation
Program, its board members have declared. [See also “They
Know Not What They Do” on page 13.] More than 4000 letters
favoring the goals of the reconciling movement were written
to the gathering; 16,500 Reconciling United Methodists have
been enrolled; 600 volunteers lobbied for change; more than
200 persons of color signed a new statement of support; 125
parents registered as part of the Parent’s Network; more than
200 stoles were collected for the Shower of Stoles Project; more
than 900 attended a Saturday rally; 800 gathered for worship
on Sunday; 2000 participated in multi-cultural Communion
services; and 220 persons were arrested in a Soulforce demonstration
led by the Rev. Mel White and a separate action of
those who protested the vote that retained the language in the
UMC Discipline that calls homosexuality “incompatible” with
Christian faith. RCP interim executive director Marilyn
Alexander, among those arrested in the second action, said, “It
has become increasingly clear that the system has been seized
by those whose hearts are hardened against us. We kept faith
with the system, trusted the process—but business as usual
could not continue—the system has failed us and failed the
larger church.” Rev. Dr. Gayle Felton, RCP board chair,
acknowledged that, despite the setback, those who participated
in the RCP presence at General Conference “were blessed with
rich experiences of God’s grace” and urged “Don’t allow
yourself to be pushed out by those who would be happy to see
you go!”
Presbyterian “Supreme Court”
Rules Favorably
Meeting in Baltimore Maryland May 19-22, the Permanent
Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church U.S. ruled
that Presbyterian ministers may perform same-sex union services
as long as they are not treated as marriages, because nothing
in the church constitution specifically forbids it. In a separate
case, the court ruled that a church session may accept a
gay man as a candidate for ministry, even while a ban on ordination
of openly gay ministers, elders, and deacons remains in
place. A third case of a congregation in Burlington, Vermont,
welcoming lesbians and gays as full church members, including
opportunity for ordination as elders and deacons, was deferred
until July. All three cases came from the Synod of the
Northeast, and are the first to challenge a controversial 1997
amendment that allows ordination only of married heterosexuals
or celibate singles.
32 Open Hands
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