Open Hands Vol 16 No 2 - Our Healing Touch

Open Hands Vol 16 No 2 - Our Healing Touch

16

2

2000

Fall

2 Open Hands
Vol. 16 No. 2 Fall 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
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
openhands@rcp.org
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:
WHAT ABOUT US KIDS?
OUR HEALING TOUCH
Lachrymal of Healing 4
SUSAN QUINN BRYAN
Tears—anointing an ally and redeeming the church.
Healing Communities of Faith 6
JORETTA L. MARSHALL
Healing your congregation despite denominational divisions.
Pious Injustice 8
Reflections on the Presbyterian General Assembly
DONN CRAIL
An “orgy of niceness” can still produce injustice.
Healing from the Heart 11
KATHLYN JAMES
The transforming power of our lives and our stories.
Suf fer the Little Children… 12
DONALD R. PURKEY
Last issue’s “god of Violence” vs. this issue’s God of healing.
Keeping the Church Together in a Pluralistic World 14
DOUGLAS JOHN HALL
Remembering our tradition can re-member the church.
Restless Church 16
ANN FREEMAN PRICE
A poem about the recent United Methodist General Conference.
Do You Want to be Healed? 18
Not Getting Stuck in Our Woundedness
IRENE MONROE
As the gay faith healer says, “Get over it, Mary!”
SUSTAINING THE SPIRIT
Our Organist 20
A SHORT STORY BY MICHAEL LINDVALL
Fall 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.UCCcoalition.org
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
CHILDREN
Teaching Children About Healing 23
ALLEN V. HARRIS
PARENTS
When a Child “Comes Out” 25
RON GRIESSE
WELCOMING
A Long Journey into Welcome 26
RACHEL C. WILSON
CONNECTIONS
Not “Privileging” Our Oppression 28
ROBERT E. GOSS
WOW 2000
1000 at WOW 2000 30
The Very Much Later Acts of the Apostles
CHRIS GLASER
MOVEMENT NEWS & NEW RESOURCES ........... 32
Call for articles and columns for
Open Hands Summer 2001
YOU ARE THE BELOVED!
Healing Self-Rejection
Theme Section: Internalized homophobia and heterosexism continue to influence
our view of ourselves, one another, and our community. We know the
basic fear and self-loathing that kept many of us in closets. But what about the
little doubts that plague our self-worth and sense of well being? And how do our
doubts about our belovedness affect our view of the congregations that welcome
us—like Groucho Marx, do we resist or doubt organizations that would
have us as members? How does our faith make us whole? What spiritual disciplines,
religious experiences, scriptures, books, and people have helped us better
understand that we are God’s beloved? How do media and cultural stereotypes,
LGBT community expectations, and denominational disapproval affect
our sense of worth? Personal stories, anecdotes, prayers, poems, meditations,
analytical articles—all are welcome for this issue.
1000-2500 words per article, photographs welcome.
Ministries Section: Columns may include: Welcoming (the process of becoming
welcoming), 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 February 1, 2001
Manuscript deadline: April 1, 2001
Contact:
Chris Glaser, Phone/Fax 404/622-4222 or e-mail at ChrsGlaser@aol.com
991 Berne St. SE, Atlanta, GA 30316-1859 USA
www.ChrisGlaser.com
4 Open Hands
The day that the church I pastor,
A Community of the Servant-
Savior, PCUSA, became the 100th
More Light Presbyterian Church, was a
powerful Pentecost Sunday, June 11,
2000. We had an intergenerational Sunday
School, lunch on the breezeway,
and the service was delayed until 2 pm,
so that all of our friends from other
churches could join us. The Rev. Janie
Spahr preached, the music was heavenly,
and there was so much joy in
the hearts of everyone present! That
evening, we would continue the celebration
at Houston’s Interfaith Gay
Pride Worship Service.
And yet, I found myself near tears,
and in spite of the joy, a deep feeling of
grief began to overwhelm me. I decided
to stay with the pain, and as I moved
toward it, I found myself crawling deep
in my past where I discovered a story
that had been written on my heart years
before. It was like finding cave drawings
that helped me understand why
this day was so very important to me—
why I felt almost driven toward it.
Almost twenty years ago, I lived in a
smaller town here in Texas, and was a
Director of Christian Education at the
church. I had not been there long—
about six months— when an older
woman in the church asked to paint my
portrait.
I agreed (though I was mystified)
and, during the sittings, it became clear
to me that she was testing me in some
way—feeling her way to a safe place to
share something important. The minister
I worked with counseled me to just
be patient and let things unfold naturally.
After many sittings, she finally
opened up.
She and her husband had three children,
twin boys and a girl. Her husband
was very excited about the little girl
(we’ll call her S.), but as she grew, she
was not the sweet, petite, little lacy girlygirl
the dad had in mind. She was largeboned
and athletic and a tomboy—and
a disappointment. Dad and S. had a lot
of conflicts. As she headed into junior
high, high school and college, she
found lots of things to help her avoid
the pain: alcohol, tobacco, drugs. She
had bouts of depression and suicidal
tendencies. She was hospitalized over
and over and given electric shock treatments.
Finally, near the end of college, she
had a breakthrough with a wonderful
counselor: S. was a lesbian. The counselor
did not treat this as a disease, but
a difference. And S. began to thrive. AA
helped with the alcohol and drugs. But
the biggest thing was coming
home to herself. The truth does
set people free. She could live
with this. She wasn’t alone. She
found some other lesbians and
discovered she wasn’t crazy—
just different. She finished college.
She was an artist, and her
work moved from being dark
and suicidal to being bright and
vivid. A few years later, she met
the love of her life. They committed
their lives to one another.
She decided to tell her parents. So
they went home to visit. Dad went ballistic.
Kicked them out of the house, and
said he no longer had a daughter. Told
his wife that as far as he was concerned,
she was dead— and to never speak her
name to him again. The mother arranged
a weekly telephone call while
the dad was at a meeting. But the relationship
was strained. Over time, the
mom grew in her understanding of her
daughter and her love for K.
The daugher, S., and her lover, K.,
moved out of state, and bought a house
in the country. K. was teaching in the
local elementary school, and they
joined a local church. They worked with
the youth. Everyone loved them— especially
the youth, and the youth group
grew. They were on committees and
helped mow the church lawn, bake
cookies, teach Sunday School. They
were blissful.
Then, one day, they were called into
the pastor’s office, and, with a few
elders, they were confronted: rumor had
it that they weren’t just roommates, but
lesbians, and even if that wasn’t true,
they couldn’t work with the children
anymore. And no one wanted them on
their committees anymore, either. The
pastor was sorry, but, well, we all know
what the Bible says. And he was worried
what people would think of the
church.
They drove home, realizing that if
that rumor was going around the
church, it was only a matter of time
until K. lost her teaching job, and their
steady income. S. couldn’t paint, if that
was the case. They knew there was no
place to run.
A few days later, when the mother
didn’t get her weekly phone call, she
was worried. A few more days passed,
and still no word. The mother began to
panic and risked her husband’s ire by
Lachrymal of Healing
Susan Quinn Bryan
Lachrymals were small vials in which women of ancient times
stored their tears, often worn as an amulet or sacred charm.
Fall 2000 5
calling her daughter herself—no answer.
It was summer, the teacher wouldn’t be
at school, and they never took a trip
without telling her where they were
going. The mom knew something was
dreadfully wrong.
The mother and one of the twins
drove the thousand miles to the
women’s home—to discover the bloated
and rotting corpses of her beloved child
and the woman she loved. In despair
and desperation, they had written a letter
and taken their own lives.
As the mother told me this story, I
was sobbing. She handed me a lace
trimmed handkerchief, with which I
mopped my wet face, wiping away tears,
mascara, foundation, and blusher.
She continued, telling me that she
and the two boys had the bodies cremated
and scattered them near a place
special to the two women, as per their
request. No minister officiated.
Then she reached out her hand for
the handkerchief. I demurred. “No, let
me launder it, it’s soaking. I’ve made a
terrible mess of it. Let me take it home
and wash it and then I will give it back
to you.”
“These are the only tears shed by anyone
in the church for my child.”
“Please, don’t wash it,” she said, as
she gently pried it from my fingers, and
pressed it to her heart. “These are the
only tears shed by anyone other than
her brothers and me for my daughter.
These are the only tears shed by anyone
in the church for my child. I want
to save this handkerchief. These tears
mean the world to me. They mean God
has heard my pain.”
She could not tell her story in her
own church because homosexuality was
not discussed.
The story, buried deep within me,
had been the thing that had been motivating
my activism all these years. Too
traumatic to deal with on a conscious
level, the injustice, the shame, the terror
of this story had been moving me
toward a different kind of church. A
church not marked by shame, but by
love and inclusion.
Shame on the church. Shame on a
church that condemns loving and tolerates
violence and disfellowshipping
and silence— murderous silence.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and selfcontrol.”
On Pentecost, we tasted the
fruit of the Spirit as the dark bitter seed
of prejudice and ignorance and exclusion
had grown into something that
would be life-giving, instead of lifethreatening.
Susan Quinn Bryan is pastor of A Community
of the Servant-Savior, PCUSA, in
Houston, Texas, a church given the Inclusive
Church Award by More Light Presbyterians
at the June, 2000 General Assembly
meeting in Long Beach, California,
because its entire Session (Board of Elders)
“self-accused” under a provision of the Presbyterian
Book of Order that rejects behavior
not sanctioned in The Book of
Confessions, a provision that is being used
against lesbian and
gay people. She told
this story in accepting
the award on behalf
of her congregation,
ending with an apology
for “not being there
sooner.”
6 Open Hands
How to Begin?
The local church I grew up in is like
many others. As a congregation it is
well-intentioned and loving toward
those who walk through its doors, especially
those whom they have raised
as children and young adults. Like many
small churches in rural communities
there is a common knowledge of the
multiple generations of families who
live in this place. It would be fair to say
that this congregation of less than seventy-
five members does not embody
considerable cultural diversity. Yet, I
know of at least two persons who grew
up in that rural community during the
1960’s and who later moved to cities
where they were able to live out their
lives with significant gay and lesbian
partners. Neither of these persons, nor
their families, felt comfortable sharing
with their church the fullness of their
lives. Instead, there was hurt, sadness,
pain and fear that the conversation
about homosexuality in the church
would create deep divisions within the
community. Hence, the topic was rarely
addressed.
This small church has been on my
mind during the past spring and summer
as many denominations once again
have debated and struggled to honor
the gift of bisexuals, transgenders, lesbians,
and gays in their congregations.
The story of this church represents the
many levels of brokenness present in
our congregations and denominations.
Church members fear that their relationships
with one another will be damaged
by the debate over homosexuality.
As a result, they avoid entering the
conversation, keeping secrecy and respectful
silence alive. Those who have
lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender
children find themselves silent for fear
that they will be judged by their friends
when it comes to light that their children
have been blessed with an orientation
other than heterosexual. Those
who are not sure what to think about
all of the debates remain quiet, fearful
that any conversation will disrupt the
uneasy calm they have currently. Those
who are impatient for the church to
open its doors feel deeply disappointed
and hurt.
At the same time, this congregation
embodies the potential for healing
among its members and, ultimately,
within the larger denomination and
culture. What is sad is that this community’s
possibility for healing, or for
being an agent of healing, is overshadowed
by contentious and uncompromising
controversy. Denominational
debates rarely equip congregations with
the theological, spiritual, or pastoral
tools to respond to the diversity that
comes with those whom they love. As a
result of the theological ambiguity of
the denomination, they are left wondering
how to begin the healing process.
Dissatisfying
Denominational Debates
It is clear that in the clamor to be
heard, most denominational debates
leave people feeling dissatisfied. The religious
right rarely feels heard by the
liberal left, while the latter group assumes
there is little reason for conversation
when the right does not listen.
The quality and level of our public debate
leaves persons and communities
with feelings of anger, hurt, distrust,
depression, despair, and deep suspicion.
We cannot always depend on our denominations
to lead us toward healing.
Given this ethos, what would it mean
for the church to be healed as a community
of faith? What would it mean
for congregations to become agents of
healing within the larger denominations
or communities? What might
healing look like for communities of
faith where deep transgressions and sins
have been committed in the name of
healthy debate? What would healing require
from those of us ready to embrace
transgenders, bisexuals, lesbians and
gays as blessings to the community?
These are the questions with which
many of us continue to struggle. At the
same time, many of us are convinced
that healing is one of the essential missions
of the church.
What Does Healing
Look Like?
Healing is multi-layered and more
complex than we would imagine
from the outset. Simply stated, healing
acts are those that invite and encourage
individuals, families, and communities
to move away from brokenness
in physical, spiritual, emotional, or relational
terms. Seeking wholeness in the
body, whether physical or metaphorical,
healing can include such things as
restoration of right relationships, reconciliation
between enemies, or acts of
justice. To participate in healing means
to access and utilize the necessary tools,
perspectives, and gifts that lead to
greater wholeness with one another in
the context of God’s love and grace. As
individuals, families, congregations,
Healing Communities of Faith
Joretta L. Marshall
Denominational debates rarely equip congregations with
the theological, spiritual, or pastoral tools to respond to
the diversity that comes with those whom they love. As a
result of the theological ambiguity of the denomination,
they are left wondering how to begin the healing process.
Fall 2000 7
and other communities begin to heal
they, in turn, become healing agents
within the broader culture of the church
and community.
Relationships at individual and communal
levels are essential to living a life
of faith. Ultimately, the quality of our
relationships as individuals, as families,
and as communities will determine the
way in which we participate either in
perpetrating further damage to the souls
of individuals and to the church or in
nurturing healing. From our personal
experiences we know that even the best
relationships require tremendous work
and hold the potential for eliciting deep
feelings of joy as well as pain.
The same is true for the church and
those who are related through it. Healing
is not simply for individuals or families
or isolated congregations. The
promise and hope of healing is available
to the whole community of faith.
In fact, without moving toward wholeness
in the larger community, individual
healing is more difficult. Genuine
healing occurs when communities
honor and respect all the children of
God. The healing of individuals enhances
the life of the community and
brings it to greater fullness. Healing in
the church depends upon mutual relationships
where all persons are understood
to be blessings of God and where
individuals and families of all kinds feel
significant support and sustenance
within the community.
Misconceptions
About Healing
At least two common misconceptions
about healing run counter to
movements toward wholeness. First,
there is an assumption that agreement
is the same as healing. Some contend
that if we could find a place of common
understanding about homosexuality,
bisexuality, or transgender issues,
we would also find healing. As a result,
we attempt either to convince others
about the rightness of our positions
through the eloquence of our arguments,
or we attempt to destroy others
through the brutal force of our debate.
In so doing, we often miss opportunities
for healing. While agreement is not
the ultimate goal, healing does require
a willingness to be moved in one direction
or another, away from the ultimate
edges of a debate and toward some
more reconciliatory stance. Since we
live in a world of multiple truths no one
perspective captures the entire reality
of any issue.
A second misconception suggests
that tolerance is equivalent to healing.
The result of this assumption is that we
often settle for less honesty in our relationships
and less clarity about God’s
call to our community than is required
in faithful living. While greater tolerance
for diversity of opinion might lead
to healing, it is not in and of itself the
goal of healing. Indeed, tolerance may
be a first step in the healing process for
some individuals, families, or communities,
but it should not be the last word
in relating fully and faithfully.
While there are many strategies that
invite individuals, families, and communities
into wholeness, I would like
to suggest four specific avenues for healing.
While these may seem self-evident,
they are nonetheless essential if we are
to move beyond the hurting and killing
of one another’s spirit and, instead,
move toward the healing of the soul of
the church. Each strategy can be advanced
in congregations through specific
activities appropriate to that community
of faith.
Naming
Theological Differences
The first strategy is often overlooked,
for it appears to be abstract and
theoretical. However, one cannot dismiss
the importance of recognizing and
naming theological differences within
families, congregations, and denominations.
If we are to make progress toward
wholeness we must begin to articulate
clearly our theological claims. Every
theological position carries consequences
arising from its perspectives on
God, human beings, and the nature of
faithful living. Some theological positions
support a God of grace and justice
who is concerned about life-giving
and life-sustaining, faithful behaviors.
Other theological perspectives are based
on a God concerned with the legal
systems that control and monitor our
existence.
As we name our theological diversity
we must also move beyond thinking
that every theological expression is
valid and equally appropriate for the
church. We have struggled in the last
decade to honor the multiple truths of
our world, our culture, and our God.
Now we must begin to articulate the
meaning and consequence of various
perspectives, creating clear criteria for
considering a theological position to be
faithful to the God whom we call upon
to bless us. It is time for us to be clear
about our theological convictions.
Delwin Brown, theologian and the
former Dean of Iliff School of Theology,
recently delivered a powerful and
provocative message to the Iliff community.
He reminded us that it is important
to know and understand the
theological position of the “other side”
if one is going to engage honestly and
faithfully in conversation and dialogue.
Without a commitment to know the
other side it is easy to attack the simplistic
side of theological arguments,
missing the richness that might be discovered
in the conversation. Hanging
on to the rigid edges of our theological
diversity keeps us from discovering
theologies that are potentially healing
and transformative. It is a rare gift when
theological convictions are heard in
order to understand them rather than
to convince others of the rightness of
our perspective.
Recognizing the Pain
A second strategy is one with which
many of us are comfortable, while
others are not. Recognizing and claiming
the pain and devastation that many
within the LGBT community, friends,
and families experience as a result of
the church’s inability to affirm and bless
them is essential if we are to find healing
in our churches.
Most of us recognize too well the
pain of the women and men who live
in silence and in fear, wondering how
the church would respond if they really
understood who they were. We also
know the pain of wanting the church
that raised us to affirm our choices and
lives as faithful transgenders, bisexuals,
lesbian women, or gay men. Many of
us want meaningful relationships with
our families, including with those who
8 Open Hands
are not as certain about affirming our
orientations and choices.
Families carry pain as they struggle
to find a language to talk about their
feelings in a church that rarely discusses
the issue of homosexuality without incredible
emotion. The loss that families
and churches sometimes experience
when the children whom they love
grow up and turn out differently than
imagined is sometimes minimized by
those of us who want to be affirmed.
Many families live in churches that
are as theologically mixed as the denominations
they represent. As congregations
struggle honestly to make their
way through the controversies and debates,
members recognize that some of
their best friends in the church are on
the opposite side of the debate. Often a
congregation’s life seems to depend
upon its ability to sustain relationships
through pain, trauma, and disagreements.
Whether my particular denomination
affirms it or not, I am convinced
that God has called us to live as a sexually
diverse, responsible, and caring
community of faith. But, because we
live in community, we need to acknowledge
the pain of others around us, including
the pain of those with whom
we most deeply disagree. Our community
is being destroyed by our inability
to reconcile not only our theological
convictions, but by our insistence that
there is a hierarchy of pain and oppression.
Persons on all sides of the debate
feel as if the soul of the church is at
stake. We need the humble awareness
that even those whom we believe to be
on the wrong side of the debate love
the church as much as we do. The pain
belongs to the community, not only to
individuals.
Healing requires from those of us
within the LGBT community, its allies,
and advocates that we listen deeply and
imagine the pain that is not voiced or
is not heard. Recognizing the pain, fear
and loss on the “other side” offers us
the opportunity to engage in vigorous
debate and conversation with a sense
of honesty and respect. The mutual re-
The annual legislative gathering of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) met in Long
Beach in June. Due to a self-imposed moratorium,
actions related to LGBT ordination
were deferred till next year’s meeting
in Louisville, but the assembly endorsed
developing materials for ministry with
LGBT people and “former” gays and lesbians(!).
An attempt to amend the church
constitution to add “sexual orientation”
onto a list of those not to be excluded from
membership was defeated in favor of an
amendment that no one should be excluded
on any basis other than profession
of faith. The final evening, the assembly
narrowly passed (51% to 49%) a prohibition
of ministers and churches blessing
same-gender relationships. Both amendments
must be ratified by over 50% of the
presbyteries during the coming year. A previous
attempt to prohibit ministers from
blessing gay relationships was not ratified
by presbyteries. Rev. Crail offers an analysis
of that final Friday evening debate.
Friday night, the General Assembly
was fairly wallowing in piety.
Those who spoke in favor of the
ban on holy unions almost always prefaced
their comments with statements
about how they love gay and lesbian
people, how we are all sinners, how
everyone is welcome, how we need to
do this so people will seek healing for
their “sexual brokenness,” etc. etc.
We’ve heard it before—ad nauseam.
There were prayers and hymns fore and
aft of everything, and moments of silence—
and I’m not against hymns and
prayers and silence—but I do not like
them as cover for the doing of injustice,
or constant pleading for God to
sustain the battered. There was a fair
orgy of “niceness.” I was sick at my
stomach. The Bible was constantly invoked—
though not much quoted—as
though its very mention would make it
self-evident that homosexual unions are
sin, and The Book of Confessions was very
present in many speeches, mentioned
not as the confessions of various Christians
in various times, but as an updated
book of Leviticus.
Why? What burns in the hearts of
those who go to the trenches so that
the love between two men or two
women will never be thought of in the
beatific terms they reserve for their own
relationships— and sexual activity—
“sacred,” “holy,” “beautiful,” and
“blessed.” Why will they struggle passionately
so that the loves of others will
be classified as disgusting; and so that
families created by others of whom they
do not approve will never be validated
by society or the Church as “real” family?
I think we need a far deeper analysis
than we have of why they feel so
deeply compelled to try and put boundaries
around others that they would not
tolerate being put around themselves.
51% is not a victory. 49% is not a
defeat. And if it had gone the other way,
51% on “our” side would not be a victory,
and 49% on “their” side would not
be a defeat. This isn’t basketball, is it?
This split— basically right down the
middle of our denomination—on a fundamental
issue of conscience, reveals a
Pious Injustice
Reflections on the
Presbyterian General Assembly
Donn Crail
Fall 2000 9
denomination that sometimes seems
held together by not much more than
its exterior paint. Is that salvageable? It
is not easy after so many years to believe
that it is. Our model is not propping
up a corpse, but new life coming
into dry bones. Can these bones live
again? Where are the sinews that connect
us? the flesh of our common humanity?
the breath of life? A 2% change
this way or that will not constitute new
life. That is too meager a hope, and is
more lifedraining than lifegiving.
There is a fundamental problem in
the perception of many that this is a
simple pro and con debate on particular
issues. That is not what is going on.
Some Christians are working diligently
to impose their conscience on the conscience
of others—yet the reverse is not
true. We are not trying to force others
to act according to our conscience on
these issues. We are not trying to force
others to bless same-sex unions that
they believe are wrong. We are not even
trying to require congregations to elect
and ordain particular persons as elders
and deacons. We maintain only that
individuals in all churches should be
allowed to vote and act according to
their conscience.
It is the idea that half of our denomination
should be allowed to impose its
conscience on the other half that is
untenable and offensive. I am a lifelong
and faithful Presbyterian but my conscience
belongs to God, and if forced
to choose between them I will not
choose the PC(USA). As Luther said, “To
go against conscience is neither right
nor sane.” To give up our conscience is
to give up our very selves. What persons
and relationships I invoke God’s
blessing on belongs to my conscience,
not to the denomination. The denomination
may have my gifts of ministry,
my support, service, loyalty, and
prayers. It may not have my conscience,
which will not and cannot be subject
to whatever majority makes up a particular
General Assembly.
We desperately need the affirmation
of a general theological principle to deal
with these issues. That principle is that
within our denomination persons may
differ in matters of conscience and no
group of Presbyterians— because they
are a majority— may impose their will
on other Presbyterians in ways that
would require them to forfeit their conscience.
If our denomination cannot
affirm that, then it must divide so that
individuals may find that community
wherein they can live their lives with
integrity. I know that the issue would
be raised that what is a matter of conscience
for one is only a matter of the
ordering of ministry for another. But
what is a matter of conscience must be
according to the person(s) who feel their
conscience violated. Even our military
makes provision for conscientious objectors.
As for how existential this struggle
is for “allies” of LGBT persons in the
church…please, I hope we will not go
there. There is enough pain in this
struggle without our inflicting it on
each other. If someone believes this
struggle costs allies nothing except intellectual
angst—then they have not
been there— just as we have not been
where you are. ▼
Donn Crail is the Director
of The Lazarus
Project, a ministry of
reconciliation between
the church and the
LGBT community in
Southern California.
Donn spent over 30
years in pastoral ministry in the Presbyterian
Church. He and his wife Helen live in
Claremont, California.
cognition of our common pain can invite
us to new levels of healing and conversation.
From a broader perspective,
the question is not how does my story
of pain affect the church, but how does
the community’s pain assist us all in
moving toward wholeness together?
How does the pain of the “other” have
an impact on God’s story as it is embodied
in our communal life?
Maintaining Hope
Third, we are called not to abandon
hope but to maintain hope in the
midst of despair. Hoping is sometimes
a difficult path when persons around
us leave the community of faith, when
families feel the oppression of denominational
inconsistencies, when denominations
appear to be moving away from
redemptive possibilities. We are called
to affirm individuals and families as
they discern if, when, and how to stay
or leave a local congregation or a denomination.
For their own spiritual
health, some persons need to stay while
others need to leave particular communities.
At the same time, some may need to
take a sabbatical so that they may return
later to continue the struggle toward
justice. This ebb and flow can be
part of our communal healing. As individuals
seek greater wholeness, whether
inside or outside of the context of the
church, the soul of the community is
enhanced. Hope is sustained as we
imagine what God calls the church to
become, not settling for what it currently
has chosen to be. To keep hope
alive we need one another; we need our
allies and advocates to speak on our
behalf when we have been silenced or
are too tired to continue the journey;
we need others to listen to our stories
and our visions for the community of
faith; we need places to grieve and to
be cared for when the churches we
would normally turn to for support
abandon us or negate our being. Hope
is a communal venture, not an individual
goal.
But, how can those of us who are
lesbians, gay men, transgender or bi10
Open Hands
sexual persons, advocates and allies
continue to live faithfully in a church
that is so divided and so destructive to
those whom we love? How can we forgive
the inadequacies and disappointments
of families, of local churches, or
of denominations? Herein lies the
fourth strategy, that of forgiveness.
Healing Requires
Forgiveness
Healing requires forgiveness because
we are relational beings. There is
little doubt that as we live in relationships
with others we experience the
pain of being disappointed, the hurt of
being rejected, or the sadness of incredible
loss. We get hurt in our community,
for this is part and parcel of our
relating to others. Forgiveness is not
something we do simply to be nice to
others; rather it is a gift that we give to
ourselves and to our communities.
Forgiveness, much like healing, is
misunderstood at times. Some would
suggest that forgiveness is a turning of
the other cheek without taking account
of the injury or hurt that has been inflicted.
Instead, forgiveness is just the
opposite as it functions as a structure
of accountability, requiring individuals,
families, and communities of faith to
be honest about hurt and pain. Forgiveness
offers persons the opportunity to
name an experience of injury as well as
to acknowledge one’s participation in
the infliction of pain. As we remain
steadfast to the forgiveness process, an
often slow and long journey, we hold
on to the hope for transformative and
graceful ways of relating to one another.
It would be easy, at this point, for us
to talk simply about how we need to
forgive the religious right for destroying
our lives and the lives of people
whom we love, and indeed this is part
of the process. But, we must also talk at
this point about how others need to
forgive us for the arrogance we sometimes
carry, for our infliction of pain in
the midst of debates and controversies,
or for our complicity and complacency
at not demanding justice in appropriate
and faithful ways. Forgiveness requires
an honesty that sees fault not
only in the other, but that also looks
internally at places where we have fallen
short of the call to be faithful. The question
related to forgiveness is not how
are we going to forget that hurt and pain
occurred, nor is it how are we going to
move beyond it. Rather the question is
how are we going to use the forgiveness
process to assist us in the healing
of our individual lives, our relationships,
and our communities?
Bringing Healing Home
Let me return to the small church I
mentioned at the beginning of this
article. What would it mean for that
church, or churches like it, to begin to
experience healing? What would it require
of me or of the denomination of
which I am a part?
First, this congregation and others
like it must continue to articulate its
theological perspective. It should not
allow others to name the core of its
theological convictions. In the process
of such theological conversation
churches and congregations need to listen
carefully. Ultimately, however, they
need to take a stand of some kind. I am
not certain how much longer we can
wait for churches caught in the middle
to make up their minds about what is
central to their theological conviction.
Second, healing requires a constant
attentiveness to the levels of pain in
myself and in others. There are times
when it is easy for us to deny the pain
of the debates in the church and its direct
effect upon our souls. However, if
we are to invite the church into healing
we must be willing to find safe
places to express our hurt and anger. At
the same time, we need to assume that
persons “on the other side” also experience
some pain and hurt.
Third, honest relationships within a
community of faith require that we continue
to hope. As I discern if and how
to stay or leave the community of faith
of which I am a part I must do so in the
context of friends and community. For
the moment I have decided to stay and
to work for change from within. I do
this not because I feel any sense of immediate
hope, but because I am convinced
that the church to which I belong,
the United Methodist Church,
deserves to do better than what we currently
articulate as our theological
claims. However, I am also aware
that there are sisters and brothers
around me who need to leave, or
who need to take a sabbath rest
from the activities of the church
so that they may find their soul
once again. I remain steadfast with
them in their journey toward
wholeness.
Finally, healing requires of me
the honest recognition that I have
hurt others in this process, just as I have
been hurt by the actions and theologies
of others. I know that I cannot work
the forgiveness process on my own, but
I must engage the community of faith
in its work. Communities of faith are
potential places for healing. They can
also become healing agents in the community
around us.
Joretta Marshall teaches pastoral care and
counseling at Iliff School of Theology and
is the author of Counseling Lesbian Partners.
She and her
partner live in Denver,
Colorado.
We must also talk about how others need to forgive us for
the arrogance we sometimes carry, for our infliction of pain
in the midst of debates and controversies, or for our
complicity and complacency at not demanding justice in
appropriate and faithful ways.
Fall 2000 11
What is the best way to begin
the conversation on homosexuality?
It’s not by presenting
a logical line of argument. That’s
how you begin a debate, not a conversation!
The best way to begin a conversation,
in which you want others to feel
free to speak their mind, and no perspective
to be silenced, is simply speak
from your heart, out of your own experiences.
So let me set aside all my research
and share with you my own
journey.
It really wasn’t until seminary, when
I was thirty years old, that the issue of
homosexuality acquired a human face
for me. Her name was Sally.
I was a commuting student at Vancouver
School of Theology, with a job
and a husband and three children in
Seattle. I drove up to Vancouver on
Mondays and came home on Wednesdays,
so I needed a place to stay two
nights a week. Sally had a studio apartment
on campus that she was willing
to share in return for pro-rated rent.
Over the next three years, Sally and I
became fast friends.
I had never met anyone like Sally.
For one thing, she was much more disciplined
in her spiritual life than I was.
She got up at 5:00 every morning, which
I thought of as an ungodly hour, and
left the apartment for a walk or a bike
ride, during which she would pray. She
bought all her clothes at Goodwill and
had only five changes of clothing and
two pairs of shoes in the closet. She
spent several days a week volunteering
in a soup kitchen downtown. She kept
a prayer journal. Basically, she put me
to shame. But the most appealing thing
about Sally was that she loved God. She
laughed easily, loved life, loved people,
was funny and fun.
One night, as we were going to bed—
each of us in a single bed lined against
the wall, our heads in the corners and
our feet toward each other— she asked
Healing from the Heart
Kathlyn James
if I wanted to pray. I had never prayed
with another person before— at least,
not like that, opening our inner lives
before God, in each other’s presence—
and at first I was halting and shy. But
over time we made a habit of praying
together, and it was in the course of
those years of praying, of being honest
as possible with ourselves in the presence
of God, that Sally came out to herself
as gay.
It was no problem for me that Sally
was discovering this— and I have to add
here, that like most people, Sally discovered
her sexual orientation; it wasn’t
something she decided. Isn’t that true
for you, that your sexual orientation is
something that just seems “given”? It
wasn’t as if Sally woke up one morning
and thought, “All things being equal, I
think I’d like to be a member of a despised
minority.” It was more a process
of discovering and owning the truth
about her make-up as a human being.
But I soon learned what a traumatic
discovery that would be. Sally came out
first to herself before God, then to her
family, then to the seminary, then to
the church. I accompanied her in that
process. When the Presbyterian Church
kicked her out of the ordination process,
I was stricken; how could they say
that Sally was not qualified to be a pastor?
She was the best student in her
class, and a better Christian than I ever
expect to be. I knew that she had been
gifted and called to the ministry.
Then Sally was fired from her job as
the Youth Director at the church, because
someone sent the pastor a letter
saying that she was gay. All I could think
at the time was; this is absurd, this is
evil. Sally is great with those kids; why
would people assume she is not safe to
work with them? Why did they think a
heterosexual man or woman would be
safer?
Things came to a head for me one
morning when I was standing in the
kitchen, pouring a glass of orange juice,
and listening to Sally cry her eyes out
on the bed. She often did, in those days.
Finally I went over to her, sat on the
edge of the bed, and began to stroke
her hair. I was filled with helpless rage
at the world, and fierce tenderness for
my friend. I heard myself saying, “Sally,
I don’t know what being gay is. But if
it’s part of who you are, and if God made
you this way, I say I’m glad you are who
you are, and I love who you are, and I
wouldn’t want you to be any different.”
As soon as those words were out of
my mouth, I realized something. I had
taken a stand. I knew where I stood on
this issue. Sally did not deserve to be
despised and rejected; it was the church
which was wrong.
After seminary I was appointed to
serve Wallingford United Methodist
Church in Seattle, which had decided
some years earlier to become a Reconciling
congregation, a congregation that
publicly states it is open and affirming
toward all people, regardless of sexual
orientation. From that point on, my
learning curve was steep! One of my
first pastoral calls was to a young man
who had just slit his wrists with a razor
blade. He explained that he was a Christian
and couldn’t deny it, that he was
also gay and couldn’t deny that either,
even though he had tried. He had been
told he couldn’t be both. His father had
called him “human garbage.” He was
not fit to live. All I could do in response
12 Open Hands
was to get down on my knees and ask
for forgiveness for the church for communicating
to this young man that he
was beyond the reach of God’s love.
In the five years that followed, I had
many such experiences. I had young
men with AIDS look up at me with hollow
eyes and ask, “Do you think I am
an abomination?” I sat with young men
calling for their parents as they died,
parents who never came. These experiences
had a profound impact on me. I
kept going back in my mind, again and
again, to my earliest Christian training;
the message that God loves everyone,
and that Jesus said to love your neighbor
as yourself. He didn’t say, “love your
neighbor, unless he or she happens to
be homosexual.” He never said one
word about homosexuality at all.
Jesus spent his whole life going to
the poor, the marginalized, the persons
who were called unclean by their society,
and demonstrating that God’s love
included them. He treated them with
compassion. His own harshest words
were for the Pharisees who believed that
they were righteous in God’s eyes, that
others were not, and that God’s judgments
and opinions were identical to
their own.
When I was pastor at Wallingford, I
put biblical and intellectual foundations
under my “heart” experience of knowing
Sally. In those years I also came to
appreciate a community in which both
gay and straight Christians could worship
together, serve on the trustees, sing
in the choir— simply be human together,
trying to grow in the capacity
to love God and neighbor without fear.
Kathlyn James, Ph.D., is senior pastor of
First United Methodist Church in Seattle.
She has received the national church’s Circuit
Rider Award for excellence, and recognition
from the Church Council of Greater
Seattle for her ministry with persons living
with AIDS. Named “one of the five best
preachers in Seattle”
by The Seattle Times,
she has preached on
television and national
radio. She is the
mother of three children
and the grandmother
of two.
Much of my childhood behavior
was motivated by fear. I did
things or refrained from doing
things based on what I surmised would
be my father’s visceral response. But
there was no predicting. I could never
be sure what would prompt his violent
outbursts and result in a severe strapping,
often with the buckle end of the
belt. Then the cruelest blow of all would
fall. The beating would persist until I
stopped crying. Too early on I had to
learn the hard lesson that “boys don’t
cry.”
But there were islands of respite in
this sea of turmoil. One refuge came
from my maternal grandfather, who was
truly a gentle-man. In his affectionate
embrace and sharing of stories and
songs of the Appalachian hills, I felt secure
and able to return his affection
without the usual specter of fear.
Another critical person in my development
was my Sunday School teacher
at the Hunt Avenue Pentecostal Church
of God. Emily Bryant was just a bit taller
than the children in her primary class.
So deformed by osteoporosis that she
was bent almost double, her gaze was
persistently downcast. I suspect that her
nickname, Tinsie, had been given in
derision. To me, at the age of five, it
was one of the most beautiful sounding
names I could imagine. She taught
me and the others who huddled around
her each Sunday morning the value of
children as she became an incarnational
witness of Christ’s words, “Allow the
children to come to me, for of such I
am creating my realm.” She embodied
the primary revelation in our memory
verse, “God is love.”
Thus, my image of God the Father
was one that was seriously conflicted
and compromised. If Father God were
like my father, then one responded in
fear. If God were like my grandfather
and Tinsie then he could be trusted,
trusted to love you eternally regardless
of your persona or your behavior. Because
of Tinsie’s teachings I did, as a
child, often ignore the pulpit imprecations
which focused on the wrath of
God. It wasn’t until I was an adolescent
that the full impact of the sermons on
the violence of God struck.
Pentecostal tradition held that children
were saved by “saved” parents
until they reach the “age of accountability.”
This age was closely tied to
puberty, when one was moving into full
bloom as an adolescent and could do
sinful sexual acts. This moment occurred
for me just prior to my twelfth
birthday. The summer of 1947 in southwest
Ohio was marked by high temperatures
and humidity. I was dragged to
every revival in town. On a particularly
muggy night I was taken to hear a 19-
year-old evangelist from the hills and
hollers of Kentucky. Like most of the
evangelists, he preached on his favorite
topic, hell. It wasn’t until much later
that I realized just how clever he had
been in delivering his destructive diatribe:
If God were to send a bird to earth
every million years and that lone
bird were to remove one grain of
sand and carry it to the farthermost
part of the sky— when the whole
earth had been removed, that will
be your first split-second of burning
in hell.
This image was meant to “scare the
hell” out of a person and it achieved its
purpose in me. I became hysteric. Tears
and sobs racked my body. Convinced
Suffer the
Little Children…
Donald R. Purkey
Fall 2000 13
that I had been convicted of my sins,
those around me dragged me forward
to the altar. I was thrown to the floor
and around me and over me were hot
sweaty bodies. I could feel persons’
hands on me and could not escape their
loud prayerful pleadings that God save
me from the flames of hell. I recall an
increasing fear; but then a realization
emerged that if God were really like the
God who used fire and brimstone to
eternally punish the sinner, I wanted
nothing more to do with such a God.
What happened that hot, humid evening
was not that I was “saved,” but that
I became an adolescent atheist. I could
not believe in the God of my church
anymore. I left the Pentecostal Church
never to return.
It wasn’t until I entered the university
that the images of a God of
love and grace re-emerged— an image
reclaimed from the recesses of my
memory of my grandfather and Tinsie—
and I was able again to renew my faith
struggle. On that journey I was accompanied
by numerous persons who by
their witness again helped me to believe
that “absolutely nothing can separate
us from the love of God.” I moved from
being an atheist to an agnostic to a venture
of faith which continues even now.
It led me to seminary and then ministry
in the United Presbyterian Church
in 1961. And it led me to affirm that no
one is outside the purview of God’s
grace, and that God’s judgment finally
is understood best in the “wideness of
God’s mercy.”
It was 25 years after my ordination
that I had what I consider to be my only
direct revelation from God. I was driving
to the hospital to make a pastoral
visit to a young man critically ill with
HIV/AIDS. I was reflecting on televangelists
proclaiming that this disease was
a visitation of God’s wrath on abominable
sinners who would burn forever
in hell, when I heard a voice speaking
clearly and succinctly, but with a tenderness
fraught with healing love:
I take no pleasure in punishing my
children. I love them and I will welcome
them home. If it were otherwise
I would be the eternal child
abuser.
Donald R. Purkey has recently retired
after 39 years of ministry in the Presbyterian
Church. He served in a wide variety
of ministries, the latest as interim pastor
of Desert Palms Presbyterian Church
in Sun City West, Arizona. He is co-moderator
of the Grand
Canyon chapter of
More Light Presbyterians.
He and his wife,
Carol Ann, have long
been involved in the
struggle for justice for
LGBT people.
JOB POSTING
Executive Director
Reconciling Congregation Program
Chicago
RCP is seeking a leader to share
from the heart and mind with those
seeking justice. Lead this growing
ministry working for full inclusion—
especially of LGBT persons—
in United Methodist Churches.
Qualifications:
• Committed to Christianity and
knowledgeable of UMC mission
and polity.
• Passion for inclusiveness in Christ
and ability to lead staff in collegial
style.
• Articulate in speech and writing.
• Demonstrated fundraising skills.
Send resume and cover letter to
WDB
First United Methodist Church
Oneonta, NY 13820
Salary and full benefits, total
commensurate with experience.
14 Open Hands
Introduction
Though it would be ludicrous for
serious Christians to boast about the
20th Century, one of its few positive accomplishments,
surely, has been a
greater sensitivity towards “the other”—
the racially, culturally, economically,
sexually, and religiously “different.” It
is a sensitivity that is far from complete,
but those of us who are over fifty know,
if we are honest enough to know that
we know, that by comparison with the
earlier decades of the century this consciousness
of difference has grown and
even, here and there, matured. Gradually,
painfully it has inserted itself into
the Christian mainstream and, as I do
not have to say to you readers, it has
created—predictably enough—a backlash,
which, in turn (also predictably
enough), has led to polarization and
exaggeration. Like most of you, I surmise,
my sympathies are with the Christian
Left and not the Right (though I
dislike this terminology rather intensely).
I believe, however, that those
of us who find ourselves in that camp
have a responsibility that we have not
yet adequately discharged: namely, to
demonstrate that our disposition is
based, not on purely personal liberality
or the various ideologies
of tolerance, but
on theological grounds
evoked by scripture
and apostolic tradition.
Since we have not repressed
the awareness
of the actual multi-
Keeping the Church Together
In a Pluralistic World
Douglas John Hall
cultural, pluralistic, patchwork-quilt
character of our world, but have taken
it with the utmost seriousness, we have
the greater responsibility to address the
question: How shall we be able to fashion
our life as the community of Christ’s
disciples (after all, our only raison d’être),
and how shall we carry on as a missionary
faith, in this kind of world?
“One”
We believe in one…church.” The
unity that ought to characterize
the Body of Christ is set over-against the
militant and the subtle disunities, divisions,
and alienations that characterize
human life under the conditions of
historical existence. The dividing walls
of hostility are being broken down;
forgiveness and mutuality are being
learned; reconciliation and koinonia are
being experienced as real possibilities
and not mere ideals. We are speaking
here of the most central things of this
faith.
But it is not for nothing, either, that
every internal questioning of the Christian
church, including the Reformation
of the 16th century, has evoked in the
powerful of Christendom the plea not
to destroy the unity of Christ’s Body.
There is, in short, a way of appropriating
oneness that very effectively rules
out any kind of diversity, dialectic, or
even dialogue, and lends itself, for that
purpose, especially to those persons and
forces within the community whose
power is great enough to sustain their
own particular version of Christian
unity. If the oneness of the church
means that there is only one way of
being the church, only one way of expressing
Christian truth, only one way
of living the Christian life, then this
mark of the church must be considered
one of the most oppressive of Christian
teachings. Nothing could lend itself to
totalitarian systems or authoritarian religions
more readily than a unity-principle
that permits of no plurality in its
expression and realization.
We know from Scripture and from
the best doctrinal traditions of the faith,
however, that the Nicene Creed’s affirmation
of the church’s oneness could
not legitimately be taken to endorse
such an undialectical conception of
Christian unity. Paul’s application of the
unity principle to the church in his soma
Christou metaphor not only necessitates
the distinction between the Body and
its Head, Christ, but also distinctions
within the membership (the eye is not
the hand, and so forth). Jesus’ dialogue
with his disciples in the final chapter
of John, where the risen Christ in effect
tells the aggressive Peter, the Rock (!),
to mind his own business, recognizes
the marked differences among the disciples,
their gifts and their vocations.
And the doctrine of the Trinity, which
Excerpted from an address, entitled, “The Church: Beyond the Christian Religion,” given
to the November 1999 conference of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, held in
Atlanta, Georgia and is used by permission. The full text can be found on the Covenant
network website, www.covenantnetwork.org.
If the oneness of the church means that there is only one way of being
the church, only one way of expressing Christian truth, only one way
of living the Christian life, then this mark of the church must be
considered one of the most oppressive of Christian teachings.
“
“We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church…”
—From the Nicene Creed
Fall 2000 15
Luther did when he cried, “If you really
examined a kernel of grain thoroughly,
you would die of wonderment”
(Works, Weimar Aufgabe. 19:46, 11.).
But this mark of the church is also
gravely subject to distortion [when it
seems to end] by pitting the doctrine
of salvation against the doctrine of creation,
as if to be saved is to be saved out
of creaturehood, not for it. I do not see
how the biblical narrative, beginning
with its strong affirmation of the goodness
of creation and culminating in its
testimony to the incarnation and crucifixion
of the Word made flesh, can
be caused to support any concept of holiness
that, both in theory and in practice,
militates against the astonishing
world-orientation of this whole narrative.
Yes: there is something wrong with
the world, and with us—all of us! But
the righting of the wrong is not accomplished,
according to this story, through
by-passing what is in favor of a new,
spiritual realm in which wrong is programmed
out. The salvation of the
world, if we believe this gospel, implies
the exceptional courage of some—
beginning with “the Pioneer of our
faith”— to enter even more completely
into this world, to the very heart of its
darkness, than ordinary human bravery
makes possible. That is our holiness.
And it is never, strictly speaking, ours.
ture with creature. It is indeed the otherness
of the other that makes such
oneness necessary, but it is also the otherness
of the other that makes such
oneness possible. For the oneness desired
by this gospel is the oneness of
love, and love presupposes otherness
even while it counters the alienation
and estrangement that prevents love’s
realization.
“Holy”
We believe in one holy…church.”
Here we are on even more dangerous
ground. It is not accidental that
“holiness” had become, already in John
Wesley’s England, a term of derision;
for its misappropriation far outshines
its legitimate use. To reclaim the latter,
we should once again ask what this
mark of the church is intended to negate.
Speaking contextually, I should
say that holiness is posited of the church
because and insofar as it rejects the onedimensionality,
secular flatness, and
business-as-usual mentality of jaded
worldliness. It does not, however, infer
otherworldliness, but on the contrary
bears witness to a new and grace-given
affirmation of this world in all of its concreteness
and physicality. It affirms the
extraordinariness of the ordinary, the
spirituality of matter, the mysteriousness
of the natural and expected—as
“
United Church of Canada theologian
Douglas John Hall states, “Our disposition
[toward being inclusive] is based, not on
purely personal liberality or the various
ideologies of tolerance, but on theological
grounds evoked by scripture and
apostolic tradition.”
certainly wanted to affirm the monotheism
of the parental faith, interpreted
the unity of God through its exegesis of
three distinctions.
Oneness, in this tradition, is therefore
not an ontic, static givenness but a
dynamic mutuality that is glimpsed and
struggled toward in the honest encounter
of Creator with creature, and crea16
Open Hands
we are the restless ghosts
the past
present
God forbid—future
some walk the balcony
some seize the floor
we wear the stoles
that tell the stories of
gifts postponed
we wear the stoles
of those now dead
or living and hidden
rejected
by the church
because of who they are
created
created gay
born lesbian
transgendered
bisexual
others stumble
over the words
as we walk
the balcony
pray and hold the floor
movement stops
as fingers push buttons
the screen declares
inclusion defeated
again
people beneath the stoles
sigh and sing
trade stoles of beauty
for torn ones
ripped from fabric
as we are torn
all of us
body of Christ
once more
separated
severed from
a gentle weaving
of hope
now
delayed
we are the restless ones
past
present
© Ann Freeman Price
Restless Church
Ann Freeman Price
The poet reflects on our movement’s presence at the recent United Methodist
General Conference in Cleveland. The stoles are from the Shower of Stoles,
representing the ministries of LGBT people in the church.
Ann Freeman Price is a laywoman from Saint Paul’s United Methodist
Church in South Nyack, New York. She has worked for the Northern New
Jersey Conference Board of Church and Society, and has been a member of the
General Board of Church and Society. Her four children and eight grandchildren
testify that she has always been a social activist. She was a volunteer at
General Conference (her first) for the Methodist Federation for Social Action
and AMAR, the coalition of Affirmation, Methodist Federation for Social
Action, and the Reconciling Congregation Program.
“Catholic”
We believe in one holy catholic…
church.” Clearly, the negative
reality over which the Nicene
ecclesiology sets the confession of the
church’s “catholicity” is the tendency
of all human communities, including
religious as well as national, racial,
sexual, and other communities, to build
protective walls against “the outsider,”
and so to become parochial, provincial,
chauvinistic, narrow. Catholicity applied
to the Christian Movement embodies
the kind of boundary-lessness
that is implied in the Johannine declaration
of God’s love for “the cosmos” as
the rationale of the cross; and it embodies,
too, the transcendence of all natural
and historical boundaries that, however
real, entrenched, and even humanly
necessary, stand in the way of the
communication of that divine agape.
“Catholic” is thus integrally related to
both the previous marks of unity and
holiness.
To be concrete: I happen to belong
to a denomination that has tackled the
question [of gay and lesbian ordination]
openly, carefully, prayerfully, and I even
venture to say (though I would not say
this of very many issues in my denomination)
wisely. The United Church of
Canada (an ecumenical Protestant
merger of 1925) at its 32nd General
Council in l988, after much study and
years of hot debate, made the kind of
decision in the face of this issue that
ought at least to be considered by other
ecclesial communities facing it. The
decision was offensive to some, and a
no-doubt significant minority (the current
estimate is 3.5% of the total membership
as of 1988) left the denomination,
temporarily or permanently. But
the question was in some real sense
“settled,” and, while it is still “around,”
it has (Deo gratia!) ceased being the tail
that wagged the whole ecclesiastical
dog! Since that time, while many internal
divisions persist, the United Church
of Canada has been able to get on with
other things, including great global concerns
of social justice that must have a
certain priority over personal morality
and church polity.
The decision of 1988 is incorporated
in a larger statement entitled “Member-
“
Fall 2000 17
continuously given, continuously rejected,
continuously renewed.
As you may have gathered, I like
nearly everything in your “Call to Covenant
Community” manifesto; but
most of all I appreciate [the Covenant
Network’s] ecclesiastical statement,
“The church we seek to strengthen is
built upon the hospitality of Jesus.” In
reclaiming this important biblical term,
“hospitality,” and linking it with the
content that it must have when it is associated
with that Name, you have (in
my view) correctly interpreted for our
context the meaning of “apostolicity.”
We are not “inclusive” in our own
names, or in the name of the Christian
religion, or in the name of some humanitarian
ideology. We are to receive
others, as we ourselves have been received:
sola gratia, per Christum solum.
Cleansed a little of our inhibitions and
our clannishness, we are being sent out
with the beginnings of a new openness
and a new nonchalance about ourselves.
One knows that when people in
churches today resort to the buzz-word
“inclusivity,” they are intending something
right and good— especially when
it is heard, as it must be, over-against
the militant “exclusivity” that characterizes,
not only so much historical
Christianity, but the Christianity of our
own North American context. Yet
“inclusivity” is a terribly inadequate
term, and one that begs a great many
questions. It has perhaps the right intent,
but it is poor in content—especially
biblical and theological content. No
serious reader of the gospels could deny
that it is better to include than to exclude.
But what is the basis of this
inclusivity, and what its nature? To be
included in a community that is inclusive
tells one very little. And what of
the people who resist this all-embracing
“inclusivity” because they fear, often
with reason, that it will end by swallowing
them whole?
To be included in a community that is inclusive tells one
very little. And what of the people who resist this allembracing
“inclusivity” because they fear, often with
reason, that it will end by swallowing them whole?
ship, Ministry and Human Sexuality.”
It addresses the question of ministry and
sexuality orientation in two consecutive
clauses, whose division into two is crucial:
(1) “That all persons, regardless of
their sexual orientation, who profess
Jesus Christ and obedience to Him, are
welcome to be or become full members
of the Church; (2) All members of the
Church are eligible to be considered for
ordered ministry.” In other words, to
state it negatively [in my own words],
membership in the church is not predicated
on a person’s meeting of certain
physical and psychological conditions
extraneous to the foundational confession
of faith; and no one is barred a
priori from consideration for ordered
ministry who is a member of the
church.
I do not say that every other denomination
should follow suit, but I do think
that the claim to ‘catholicity,’ if it is
more than merely rhetorical, ought to
mean that in our present context such
decisions, undertaken by a part of the
Body, together with the consequences
and experiences surrounding them,
ought to be examined knowledgeably
by other parts of the church universal.
“Apostolic”
Finally, “We believe in one holy catholic
and apostolic church.” This,
surely, points to the theological foundation
that is presupposed by all the
other “marks of the church.” It is a
people that is sent, sent out into the
world, and sent there with a message
and a mission not of its own devising.
Its unity, insofar as it manifests such, is
not the result of its members’ genius
for togetherness; its holiness, if it exists,
is not the consequence of a superior
spirituality; its catholicity, such as it is,
has not come about because it has risen
above narrow loyalties and achieved an
enlightened global outlook. All of these,
together with any other virtues that
could be named, are gifts of the Sender,
Hospitality— yes— presupposes a
host; and hosts can be overwhelming,
excessively directive, intrusive. But our
Host, by whom we are all received, does
not leave the definition of hospitality
open to such misappropriation. And if
we are sent by this Host to exercise his
hospitality in the world, we are not at
liberty to impose upon the church and
its mission, patterns of hospitality that
are the products of our racial, ethnic,
class, gender, or other personal backgrounds—
including our sexual orientation.
The question for the church that
knows itself to be “sent” is not, “What
kind of community would we like to
be?” but “What kind of community are
we called to be?”
The Truly Indispensable
Mark of the Church
To conclude: Luther—and in our own
time several others, notably (I would
say) Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Simone
Weil—insisted that the truly indispensable
mark of the church is (in Luther’s
language) “the mark of the holy cross”:
that is, that the disciple community
must experience in real and concrete
ways the suffering of the world that is
the anthropological background of the
gospel of the cross. If this is missing, then
all the other marks are thrown into gravest
doubt.
This is not a masochistic teaching—
unless it, too, is distorted (which of
course it has often been). There is no
special interest in suffering here. The
only special interest, as Bonhoeffer insisted,
is in discipleship. There is suffering
in the world— perhaps the 21st
Century will see its increase; certainly
it will see its greater and more complex
proliferation. Jesus Christ will be where
there is suffering. The people who covenant
with Him must be there too.
Douglas John Hall
is Emeritus Professor
of Christian Theology
at McGill University,
Montreal, Quebec,
Canada.
18 Open Hands
Jesus said, “I have come that you
may all have life and have life
abundantly” (John 10:10). Healing
is about restoring life. Healing is
about accepting all parts of yourself, not
just the parts you like, but those parts
you don’t like. Healing is also the process
of eliminating old patterns, habits,
thoughts and attitudes that you have
been carrying around for a long time
that have perhaps flung you into a state
of dis-ease.
We can also think of healing in terms
of liberation— a liberation from our cultural
addiction to woundedness. By cultural
woundedness I mean the narcissistic
aspects of despair that leave us
broken as a society, hostile as a people,
and alienated not only from each other
but also from ourselves.
The New Testament scriptures are
replete with examples of healing. We
have Jesus healing a man with leprosy,
a quadriplegic, the blind. He makes the
deaf hear and the mute speak. Jesus
heals a man possessed with demons,
Peter’s mother-in-law bedridden with
fever, and a woman who hemorrhaged
for twelve years. In all these stories Jesus
restores these people to physical and
spiritual health and soundness. He
cleanses them of their sin, their grief,
and their anxiety.
However, these stories could lead
you to believe that Jesus is the only
healer, and that the wounded, the sick,
and the shut-ins where not co-actors or
agents in their own healing. Yet over
and over Jesus tells those who find healing
in his presence, “Your faith has
made you whole.” It is in these simple
but empowering words that we begin
to understand the power we possess
within ourselves to heal. Do we want
to be healed?
Toni Cade Bambara’s 1980 novel The
Salt Eaters is a story about a community
of African Americans in a fictional
town in the South who search for the
healing properties of salt and witness
an event that changed their lives for
ever. Some of them are healthy and
therefore centered. Some are so off-balance
they do not know they are ill. Some
are frightened and thus are perpetually
stuck in a state of denial, and some court
danger to heal their fright. The novel
depicts the narcissistic aspect of human
brokenness and the tremendous personal
responsibility that comes with
physical, spiritual, and mental healing.
The novel opens with these words: “Are
you sure sweetheart, that you want to
be healed?...I like to caution folks, that’s
all. No sense us wasting each other’s
time if you don’t want to be healed.”
We are a wounded people. Our differences
have been used to divide us
instead of unite us, so consequently we
reside in a society where human brokenness,
human isolation, and human
betrayal are played out everyday. Many
people feel that their wounds define
who they are as opposed to what they
have experienced. They helplessly view
every new encounter and every new
experience— good or bad— through the
lens of their wounds. In other words,
all their past experiences distort their
new encounters, and therefore it dims
the possibility for their healing. They
see a half of a glass of water as only half
empty and not also as half full. There
are even some people who think that if
they do not have some type of woundedness
they do not have any legitimacy
to their lives.
Our culture of woundedness has
bound us in our brokenness. The sharing
of words to describe and honor our
pain has created a new language of intimacy,
a bonding ritual for us to talk
across and among our pains. The trust
and understanding we cannot easily
create in our wholeness as healed
people we can easily do in our brokenness
as wounded ones. The seductive
power of our wounds has an accepted
status and social currency in our culture
in which healing is not the objective.
What prevents us from healing?
When we look for the answer we assume
it is far-reaching and beyond our
grasp, and that the answer is something
mystical, mysterious, and unobtainable.
However, the biggest obstacle to our
healing is ourselves. We oftentimes fail
to heal because many of us are more
frightened of healing than we are of our
familiar state of brokenness. Our fears
Do You Want to be Healed?
Not Getting Stuck in Our Woundedness
—A Lesson Applicable to Individuals, the LGBT Community, and the Church
Irene Monroe
“Are you sure sweetheart,
that you want to be
healed?…I like to
caution folks, that’s all.
No sense us wasting each
other’s time if you don’t
want to be healed.”
We are a wounded people.
Our differences have been
used to divide us… Many
people feel that their
wounds define who they
are as opposed to what
they have experienced.
Fall 2000 19
SShaapiing SSaanccttuaarryy
Proclaiming God’s Grace
in an Inclusive Church
A collection of essays, sermons, liturgies,
and hymns from the Welcoming movement.
Valuing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender persons as an integral part of
the Body of Christ. Exploring themes of
embodiment theology, integrating spirituality
and sexuality, and inclusive worship.
Includes an eight-week group study guide.
$14.00
cause us to deny or to delay the changes
we need to make. However, for healing
to take place change must happen. Most
of us do not like change, and most of
us do not like to change. As human beings
we are creatures of habit. We like
everything to remain fixed and familiar,
even in difficult and dysfunctional
situations.
We need three things in order to
make change an easy process.
First, we need our rational mind to
help us along the journey. When we
leave our panic and frenzy behind, our
rational mind helps us recognize the
beauty in change. We come to realize
that change allows us to experience life
more abundantly. We affirm that we do
indeed have the power to heal ourselves
and to choose the thoughts and actions
that create our future.
Second, we need flexibility. We
must understand that God gives us the
ability to change and to flow with the
vicissitudes of life. We need to realize
that we can bend and stretch, always
knowing that we will come back to our
center standing on our feet. However,
we must choose the thoughts and actions
that will strengthen our ability to
be supple and malleable with the seasons
of life.
The third thing we need is the
strength to let go. In letting go we can
joyfully release all irritation, criticism,
and condemnation from others or ourselves.
Our consciousness is then
cleansed and healed. Everything in our
life is in Divine Right Order, and it is
only in letting go we come to understand
that what happens in our life is
for our highest good and greatest joy.
In letting go life then agrees with us.
We can easily take in each new moment
of every day and trust
life to feed us what we
need.
A friend of mind
was ill for a long time.
Her medicine and doctors
could not help her
any longer. She spent
most of her sick time
running to a new doctor
or chasing a new
cure. After running out
of both energy and
money she was forced to be still for
awhile. I am delighted to report that my
friend is better now. I asked her one day
while we were walking our dogs what
cured her. She said she discovered the
doctor within herself, and in discovering
the doctor within her every morning
she would find a quiet space in her
house and say this prayer:
Dear God,
In this space I am at peace.
In this space I am light.
In this space I am joy.
In this space I am loved.
In this space I am a divine idea
in the mind of God
sharing the peace, light, joy,
and love of God.
In this space I will heal.
Dis-ease and woundedness often
make us be still with ourselves. It is only
then we discover our innate power to
heal ourselves.
In his novel Farewell to Arms, Ernest
Hemingway wrote that the world breaks
us all, but some of us grow strong in
those broken places. God wants us to
grow strong in our broken places because
they hold lessons for us to learn.
Our walk with God is designed to heal
our broken places, to become whole
and have abundant life. This is God’s
will for us, embodied in the healing
ministry of Jesus. However, we must remember
that healing requires that we
take personal responsibility for the process.
Responsibility helps us to rediscover
and to deepen the spiritual part
of ourselves.
With God’s help, our faith will make
us whole.
Irene Monroe, M.Div., is the head teaching
fellow of the Rev. Peter Gomes and a
doctoral cnadidate at Harvard Divinity
School. A Ford Foundation
Fellow, she views her life’s
work as public theologian,
and writes a biweekly column
called “The Religion
Thang” for In Newsweekly,
the LGBT newspaper circulated
widely in New England.
ISBN # 0-9701568-0-4
Order from your denominational Welcoming organization or from www.rcp.org
Don’t miss this opportunity to “help the rest of the church rediscover its soul.”
—from book review by James B. Nelson
20 Open Hands
When the Minnesota State Road map was published
this year, the town of Carthage Lake was not there.
Nobody from the State Highway Department wrote
to tell the dozen folks who fancied they lived in Carthage
Lake, Minnesota that there was—officially speaking—no longer
going to be such a place. North Haven may be withering year
by year as are so many of the little towns on the plains, but
even our town dwarfs Carthage Lake, which has withered bone
dry: seven weathered frame houses, only five of them inhabited,
plus the church. First Presbyterian of Carthage Lake was
named, I suppose, in the fond but unfounded hopes of the
settlers of the last century that the place would be great enough
one day to afford a second. There is no post office, no gas
station; there never was a bar.
The last minister left Carthage Lake in 1939. He blew away
with the dust bowl and the depression, and with him went
most of the town— but not all. A faithful remnant—fewer and
fewer every year, but the more tenacious for their smaller numbers—
have saved it from the dread fate of so many country
churches— becoming an antique shop, a warehouse of memories
for sale, an old church full of rusty saws and wood-planes,
Admiral radios from the fifties that don’t work, stacks of old
National Geographics. Saddest of all in such places are the old
family photos and Bibles. Around here they are often in Swedish
or German with the births and deaths noted between the
Testaments. They were left behind when the farm was sold
and the last grand-niece moved to Mankato and didn’t think
to take them with her.
Come every summer these relics are casually venerated,
touched, examined and sometimes purchased by pilgrims from
the Cities, good people from places like Brooklyn Park whose
children sit impatiently on the front steps and yell, “mom!”
into the musty dimness of the old church. The father, also
inside, picks up an old glossy black-and-white photo of some
big-eyed baby in a sun-bonnet staring soberly out of 1921. He
touches his wife’s arm to show her the photo of the baby.
They smile, and he puts the photo back in the box. It’s not
their child, after all, and the frame has a chip in the corner.
Sustaining
the Spirit
Our Organist
A Short Story
Michael Lindvall
It is a stalwart few who hold this fate at bay and keep First
Presbyterian of Carthage Lake still a church with pews where
people worship the living God on a Sunday, but not every
Sunday anymore. It’s only one Sunday a month, and soon I
would guess, it will be every other month, and then after a
few funerals, the pews and the two stained-glass windows will
be auctioned off, and maybe an antique dealer will buy the
building for his shop. But for a while yet, a visiting minister
comes once a month, usually a visiting minister who has already
preached his sermon that morning to his own congregation
and has been cajoled by Lloyd Larson to preach it again
at noon in Carthage Lake to the eleven souls who will always
be there barring bad colds or worse than usual rheumatism.
Lloyd has been the Clerk of Session for the last 31 years and
when he calls, he always says, “Yep, dere ain’t so many of us
no more, but you’ll have 100% attendance, preacher.”
I was invited to preach at Carthage Lake this last Sunday,
my second invitation in the last ten years. I had turned the
first one down because Annie’s family was in town for the
week. And North Haven is a good fifty miles from Carthage
Lake, a fast dash on Minnesota back roads in the hour between
our service and theirs. It was Tuesday morning early
when Lloyd called looking for a preacher for the Sunday coming,
the Day of Pentecost. A whisper of desperation leaked
from his practiced bonhomie. He offered his routine confession
and promise as: a small group, but a faithful one. And he
promised me an organist, the same organist Carthage Lake
had been promising guest preachers for the last 60 years:
Lloyd’s sister-in-law, Agnes Rigstad.
I said I’d be pleased to preach in Carthage Lake, but cautioned
him that I might be a little late arriving. Lloyd said late
was fine; they’d wait church on me. Next morning I called
back to give him the title of the sermon and the hymns for
Agnes. No answer and no answering machine; octogenarians
by some shared wisdom never seem to have answering machines.
I asked Maureen, our volunteer church secretary to try
again later, or maybe just drop him a note with the hymns
and the sermon title.
Come Sunday, I arrived late, five minutes after noon, that
being the odd hour at which once-a-month church has been
scheduled these last decades for the benefit of preachers doing
second shift. The church was a white frame building, freshly
painted with a truncated mock-Norman tower in one corner.
On the walls to either side of the steeple were two large and
sentimental stained-glass windows: one of Jesus the Good
Shepherd, lamb in one arm, staff in the other. The second
Exclusive to Open Hands from a forthcoming book,
Leaving North Haven.
Copyright © 2000 by Michael Lindvall. All rights reserved.
“Welcome one another, therefore,
as Christ has welcomed you.”
Romans 15:7
Fall 2000 21
showed Jesus praying alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, his
eyes lifted toward heaven. There were two cars and a pick-up
in front of the church; I assumed that most of the eleven worshipers
rumored to be present every Sunday had walked.
Inside there were twelve people, all but Lloyd seated in the
front two pews of the little Akron-style sanctuary. Lloyd, whom
I recognized from the presbytery meetings he doggedly attended
on behalf of “Carthage Lake First,” was standing beneath
the pulpit in the far corner. At eighty years, he was perhaps
the youngest of the congregation save one, a young man
sitting at the end of the second pew. Lloyd was slowly reading
the denomination’s adult education program leader’s guide
to the others who were listening attentively as the old man
worked to breathe life to didactic prose that outlined the development
of Medieval, Reformation and modern theories of
the atonement. He was just finishing reading through
the discussion questions, all five straight through
without a pause for response in between.
This, clearly, was the adult Sunday
School class.
“Well, that’s that,
then,” he said, closing
the pamphlet, “Next
week we do the Trinity.
Hello, Reverend, perfect
timing.”
The class stood up
slowly, all except the young
man, and moved to what I
assumed were their accustomed
places for worship, stations
to which they had habituated
themselves decades
ago when the sanctuary might
have been half full. But now,
numbers thinned by moves and
death, they were oddly scattered about the room. One very
old lady in what was obviously a wig slightly askew on her
head, mounted the chancel steps and went to the organ bench
to the right of the pulpit. She looked my way and presented
me with a broad and surprisingly toothy smile. Lloyd pulled
me over and offered the same soto voce instructions he had
given a hundred visiting ministers before me: talk loud, there’s
no mike and some folks don’t hear as well as they used to. As
Lloyd whispered this instruction into my face with coffee
breath, I could not but notice one elderly couple settling into
the very back pew.
“Doubtless the deafest of the lot.” I thought to myself, “They
always sit in back.”
Then Lloyd added: “And we don’t do a Sunday bulletin
anymore; can’t get parts for the Gestetner, so you just gotta
tell us when it’s time for a hymn.”
With that Lloyd made a grand sweeping gesture to the heavy
carved mahogany chair behind the pulpit with a padded seat
of burgundy velvet. Then he went to the second pew and sat
next to the young man.
I prayed silently before I stood to speak the call to worship,
prayed for dwindling flocks and their shepherds. Then I stood
and said, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and
be glad in it.” Let us join together in singing hymn number
204. I glanced over to Agnes to make sure she had heard this
last. She smiled back her gleaming smile and launched into
the hymn. She had not played but a measure before I realized
that she was not playing “Spirit of God, Descend Upon My
Heart.” It took me another moment to recognize “What A
Friend We Have in Jesus.” I furrowed my brow and stood up
well after the little congregation had risen to sing. They sang
well for eleven old
people and one young man. He was the only one with a hymnal
in his hand, the others were clearly singing from memory.
“Maybe Agnes didn’t hear,” I whispered to myself.
I read the New Testament lesson in a voice that was just an
inch this side of a shout. The Pentecost text I had chosen was
some of Jesus’ many words from John’s Gospel, words that he
spoke to his little band of followers on the eve of his death.
John records an extraordinary number of last words, about
five chapters worth. They include his promise to send the Holy
Spirit, the “Counselor,” that Pentecost protagonist. “I will not
leave you desolate,” John’s Jesus promises them.
I also read some of the words from the next chapter, Jesus’
injunction, spoken several times more as a fond wish, that his
followers might love one another after he was gone: “This is
my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved
you.” Not exactly Pentecost words, but they seemed fit words
for Carthage Lake, a little band of disciples as beleaguered as
that first one, alone in a place on the cusp of desolate. Nobody
to love them but Jesus and each other. This is what I said
in the sermon, more or less, a teachy sermon about the
Johannine community for which the Gospel was written, a
22 Open Hands
sermon about love and the power of the Spirit abiding among
those who love each other.
But as I preached I must confess that love was more on my
lips than in my heart. After reading the scripture and before
preaching the sermon, I had announced the middle hymn,
“Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” a hymn that I had carefully
chosen for this sermon. I announced it very loudly and
rather too pointedly, looking Agnes in the eyes. She smiled
back before diving at the organ keys and launching into “I
Love to Tell the Story.”
After the sermon I prayed, prayed for the old and the sick
especially, as well as the young and confused. I prayed for this
bewildered world and I prayed for Carthage Lake. Having
prayed some of this once before that day, I found my soul
taking a detour from the prayer notes on my yellow legal pad.
My detoured but unspoken prayer, floating above my leaden
words was more of a cry than Presbyterians usually permit
themselves: “Why, O God, why?” my heart wandered. “Week
after week, we come to you with these same prayers, the same
words plus or minus, again and again. We pray for peace and get
another dose of war. We pray for health and greet death. We pray
out our hopes and yet we wither. Why?”
When it came time to announce the last hymn, I looked at
Agnes and thought better of it. I took two steps over to the
organ bench, bent down and whispered loudly in her ear,
“Agnes, what are we going to sing?” She smiled her denture
grin, said not a word, and began to play, “Just As I Am, Without
One Plea.”
After the service was over, I greeted at the door. Agnes smiled
broadly as she pumped my hand, but said nothing beyond
“Nice sermon, Reverend.” Lloyd and the young man were at
the front of the church when I went back to gather up my
notes. Lloyd gave me a sheepish look, the young man a knowing
glance that recognized my chagrin.
Lloyd spoke quickly to get the first word: “Forgot to tell
you about Agnes,” he said. You don’t need to tell us what the
hymn is, only when. Agnes only knows those three hymns, so
we always sing ’em.”
“How long has she been your organist?” I asked, my voice
rising with the question.
“Well,” Lloyd looked down at the worn carpet at the foot
of the pulpit, “since ’37 when old Rev. Simmons left. Rev.
Simmon’s wife, she played the organ for us back then, and
when she was gone, there was nobody, so Agnes learned to
play.”
“Good God, Lloyd, you mean to tell me you’ve been singing
the same three hymns every month for 60 years!”
He was concentrating on the carpet more intently. “We
like those hymns well enough, and we know ’em by heart.”
And then he raised his eyes from the floor and met mine. He
said, almost defiantly, “and she is our organist. You want some
coffee, Reverend? I got a Thermos out in the truck.”
He disappeared out the door and across the road to a rusty
brown Ford pick-up. The young man advanced into my bewildered
silence, and offered a hand and a deliberately strong
grip.
“My name is Neil Larson. I’m Lloyd’s grandson, I’ve been
living with him for the last few months. Moved up here from
Texas in March. You have to understand about Agnes. She’s
my late grandmother’s little sister, Lloyd’s wife’s baby sister.
Agnes has never been quite right. ‘Don’t have both oars in the
water,’ is the way Lloyd puts it. She never says more than a
few words, and usually the same words. But she learned to
play those three hymns in one week 60 years ago. It was a
moment of musical emergency. Anyway, she hasn’t been able
to learn another one since. Playing the organ this one Sunday
a month means the world to her. Sometimes I think it’s mostly
for her that they keep the church open. Aunt Agnes lives for
the first Sunday of the month.”
We both watched as Neil played with the frayed carpet with
the toe of his loafer. Lloyd was standing in the doorway of the
church with a Thermos and some paper cups, letting Neil talk
to me alone.
“They asked me to play, of course. They had to ask. But
Grandpa knew I’d say no when he asked. I remember how he
sighed with relief when I said no, then he slapped me on the
back.”
“You’re an organist?” I asked.
“Eastman, class of ’84. I’ve had some big church jobs, the
last one down in Texas, big Baptist church in the Houston
’burbs. Brand new Cassavant— 102 ranks. Four services a Sunday.
Then I got sick. I’ve been HIV-positive for six years, but it
wasn’t till last fall that I got sick. The personnel committee of
the church figured it out, the weight loss, all the sick days, not
married. They told me it would be best if I were to move on,
but not till after Christmas, of course. My parents live in St.
Paul, but my father and I haven’t spoken since I was 19. I’m
on the cocktail, not sick enough for the hospital, but I’m just
too tired most of the time to work. I really had nowhere to go.
My grandfather said I could move in with him and Agnes. To
tell the truth I kinda feel right at home in a town of 80-yearolds.”
He looked up from the carpet, held my eyes and said, “You
know, pastor, that was a fine sermon, but I think that they got
it a while ago. I think they’d heard already, I mean the ‘love
one another’ part. And they have not been left desolate.”
He paused and went on, “They keep Agnes, and they took
me in. And since I moved up here, most every night either
Lloyd or old man Engstrom from down the road opens up the
church for me. If it’s cold they lay a fire in the wood stove.
And then I play the organ. It’s a sweet little instrument, believe
it or not. Lloyd’s kept it up. These last weeks, it’s been
almost warm in the evenings, so they leave the doors and the
windows of the church open and everybody sits out on their
front porches and they listen to me play— Bach, Buxtehude,
Widor, Ruger, all the stuff I love. And they clap from their
porches, even Agnes claps.
Michael Lindvall is pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of
Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the edge of the University of Michigan
campus. An adaptation of this story served as the sermon of a
morning worship at the recent Presbyterian General Assembly. It is
chapter 12 of Leaving North Haven, a soon-to-be-published sequel
to The Good News from North Haven (Doubleday/Pocket
Books).
Fall 2000 MINISTRIES 23
Teaching Children About Healing
Allen V. Harris
The natural rhythm of childhood is a perfect place from
which to draw examples and illustrations that can help to
broaden a child’s understanding of healing. From everyday
“boo-boo’s” to the playground taunts of classmates, children
are routinely exposed to hurt as well as the possibility for
healing.
A time of reflection on the topic of healing can be planned
to give children a fuller awareness of what healing is and might
possibly be. It can serve as either the “children’s sermon” during
worship or, if expanded, as a church school class session.
The primary objective of such a time would be to help link a
child’s experience of hurt and healing with the concept of
healing as understood in a larger context, particularly within
the church. A secondary objective would be to nurture an
awareness in children that not everything which some people
see as needing healing in fact does. Using their basic sense of
what is fair and unfair, children can be encouraged to develop
this idea in relation to competing perceptions persons have
on a variety of human characteristics.
This time with the children might begin with showing, or
even handing out to each child, a sterile adhesive bandage.
The teacher could engage the children in a discussion about
why and how bandages are used and how they increase the
likelihood and speed of healing. Share with the children how
a scab is God’s/nature’s way of providing a “bandage.” Even
so, by our cleaning a wound, putting antiseptic ointment on
it, and then covering it with a bandage the natural healing
processes are accelerated. Perhaps a child might be willing to
show a bandage she or he has or tell about a recent wound
which needed one.
Explore with the children which injuries or physical characteristics
need bandages and which do not. For example, most
bruises don’t have broken skin and therefore are not aided by
a bandage. Ask the children if moles, freckles, or skin blemishes
need bandages. Ask the children if hair that is red, nappy,
or curly needs a bandage, or a child who is from another country
or has an accent needs a bandage.
For older elementary children this could easily lead into a
conversation about how some boys and girls are made to feel
bad because something about them which doesn’t need healing
is treated like it does. In particular, children have a difficult
time relating to others with physical attributes which are
unique or out of the ordinary, such as an exceptionally short
person or someone with unusually large ears. Likewise, differences
in economic class or family configuration are often
points of ridicule for children.
Ask the kids if they’ve ever experienced other children
making fun of a child because of a quality or characteristic
she or he exhibited. This creates a different kind of hurt, one
that we oftentimes feel deep inside ourselves and certainly
can’t be bandaged. This inner kind of hurt may also be caused
by other circumstances, such as a friend moving away, a pet
dying, or someone calling us a bad name. Sometimes, though,
we don’t know the cause of our inner aches and pains.
At this point a teacher could connect the physical healing
that is aided by a bandage with the healing frequently talked
about in church and the healing which Jesus offered. While
much of the healing Jesus offered was for injuries and physical
ailments (ex. Mark 7:31-37, Luke 13:10-17, Luke 18:35-
43), he offered even more healing for the kind of hurt that
people feel deep inside themselves (ex. Matthew 19:13-15, Luke
10:29-37, Luke 19:1-10, John 41-42). While we don’t have the
power to actually make hurt go away, either outside or inside,
we can act like bandages and help to nurture people and speed
up healing. We help people heal by caring for them in many
ways. Children of all ages can grasp this basic thought, albeit
with different nuances depending upon their age.
Use a specific example of a person being taunted about
something for which she or he could not be healed or did not
need healing. Ask the children to share how they could be
“bandages” helping such people to heal. What could they say?
What might they do? Can you help someone by not saying a
word or doing anything? In an extended session a teacher
could invite the children to tell stories of how they may have
helped to heal another person’s hurt. Suggest they act out the
stories, individually or in groups— scenes of helping/healing
for one another. Preschool children enjoy this dramatization
as long as the scenes are extremely simple, such as returning a
lost ball or sharing a game with a lonely classmate. Alternatively,
the children could draw pictures of such scenes.
If your congregation has regular services of healing, ask
the children about their experiences of them. Describe the
different parts of the service and what they mean, such as the
anointing with oil and/or the laying on of hands. Read through
the order of a healing liturgy and allow the children to ask
questions about difficult words or concepts. If the parents
approve, you may wish to take older children to a healing
service. Make sure to prepare the pastor for your visit ahead of
time.
The teacher must be careful—some children, including children
with disabilities, children who live in poverty, or children
of single or same-gender parents, may have experienced
a great deal of hurt. Do not push a child to share more than
she or he wishes to. And do not assume a child is always cognizant
of her or his difference! Be prepared for a child to show
emotion. Respect a child’s need either to be silent or objectify
an obviously personal situation as if it were someone else’s
experience.
End the session with a brief prayer for
each of the children, for healing when they
are in need, and for their ability to be a
means of healing for others.
Allen V. Harris is an ordained pastor in the
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
CHILDREN
24 MINISTRIES Open Hands
When a Child “Comes Out”
A Basic Primer on Care
Ron Griesse
This article uses the term care-receiver as the person needing
pastoral care and caregiver as the person giving the pastoral
care. A caregiver may be a pastor or a lay person. A carereceiver
may be anyone who comes to a pastor or to a lay
person regarding issues of faith, suffering, or other reasons.
The Stephen Ministry is a lay training program for volunteer
ministry in congregations, named for the Stephen of Acts,
chapters 6 and 7.
A woman who had learned her son is gay and was struggling
with the related religious issues called the local
Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)
asking if she could talk to someone with a Christian point of
view. She was very concerned about maintaining her anonymity.
She had asked her pastor for assistance and when he proved
unresponsive, she explained to him that surely there must be
others in their church who had had a similar experience. The
pastor claimed he was unaware of any, even though he had
had discussions with two families within the past few years,
one of which was accepting of the gay family member and
one in which the gay person attempted transformation.
This case illustrates the difficulty in finding pastoral care
for someone of faith who has learned that a loved one, relative,
or friend, is gay.
In this particular case, the woman went to her pastor who
was unable to help primarily because of the perceived conflict
between the Bible or church dogma and her real life situation.
The pastor was further unable to help because this is an
emotional issue in which there does not appear to be much
room for error. Had the son been sick, prayers would have
been requested, a Stephen or lay minister would have been
assigned, and visits by the pastor would have been expected.
Yet if the pastor had properly provided her with pastoral care
and conservative forces learned of this, his job may have been
in jeopardy. Certainly it would be inappropriate for the pastor
to relate another family’s experience without their permission.
However, his statement indicates that there were none
as opposed to offering to ask the families if he could relate
their experience to others.
The pastor’s own convictions and ignorance may well lead
to a judgmental response as opposed to a compassionate, pastoral
response. He may also be a compassionate person who
feels strongly that in this case judgment is the correct response.
It is unlikely that a lay minister would be assigned to this carereceiver
because of the request of the care-receiver to be anonymous.
The care-receiver was sensitive to others finding out
about her family and enduring the associated public stigma.
The purpose of pastoral care is to enable the person in need
of care (care-receiver ) to find the grace and love of God in the
situation in which they find themselves. Pastoral care is to be
with a person who needs the comfort of one who is willing to
walk in his/her shoes through the minefields of judgment,
doubt, fear, ignorance, and paradox. In this particular case,
the situation is one in which a close relative or dear friend has
come out of the closet as gay or lesbian.
The person providing pastoral care (caregiver) attempts to
help the care-receiver through attentiveness, active listening,
asking open-ended questions, and talking about feelings. The
goal is not to lead the care-receiver, but to assist the care-receiver
in finding his/her own way. It’s of course best if the
caregiver were trained in pastoral care or the Stephen Ministry.
But at least the following guidelines may prove helpful.
Seeking Pastoral Care
In most churches, homosexuality is rarely discussed and
when it is discussed, it is most likely discussed in the most
derogatory terms. The exceptions are of course the many welcoming
churches which take a stand publicly supporting gay
rights and providing pastoral care to all regardless of their
sexual orientation.
In my own situation, my own pastors, both of whom were
very compassionate persons in the case of my recent, serious
illness, were unable to move beyond their defense of their
biblical understanding and the doctrinal position of the church
when it came to homosexuality. Their defensiveness precluded
effective pastoral care. Others have expressed to me that they
have had similar responses from clergy. One person who was
in need of pastoral care received the suggestion to start a ministry
for AIDS, which is like asking a doctor in need of medical
assistance to start a clinic. Another pastor told the friends of a
homosexual person never to talk to him again. Others have
been referred to a welcoming church, which if pastoral care is
not available in their home churches, is an honest response to
the need for pastoral care. Referral to other organizations which
support homosexual persons, such as PFLAG (Parents, Friends,
& Families of Lesbians & Gays), SMYAL (Sexual Minority Youth
Assistance League), and others, is a practical response.
The mainline denominations’ negative stands on homosexuality
as well as a pastor’s negative opinion will prevent
many people from seeking pastoral care from their church.
However, church members may still believe their pastor capable
of compassion and their congregation capable of rallying
around them in their need. You may conclude that in
those denominations that are more open to gay issues, a carereceiver
would have a better chance. While that may be true,
there is no guarantee as long as the denomination rejects homosexuality.
The Care-Receiver’s Situation
When the care-receiver is a parent, answers to the following
questions are useful in responding to the felt needs. How
did a parent learn her/his child was homosexual? Was it the
result of learning that he had AIDS? Was it the result of learning
that he/she was the victim of verbal or physical abuse at
school? Was it suspected and then confirmed by the homosexual
person? How long has the care-receiver known?
PARENTS
Fall 2000 MINISTRIES 25
Similarly what is the current situation? Is the homosexual
person living at home? Is the homosexual person suicidal? Is
he/she clinically depressed? Is the homosexual person completely
out of the closet? Is he/she dependent on the family
for college costs? Is he/she professionally independent and
self supporting? Does he/she need or want family support?
All of these situations will greatly affect the care-receiver.
With more stressful situations, the care-receiver will require
more frequent attention. In a situation where the gay person
is independent, the urgency for pastoral care may be less.
If the care-receiver has just learned that his/her beloved
child is homosexual, surprise and disbelief may still be factors.
For the family which has nurtured and loved their child
or sibling, there may be real conflict which can only be reconciled
with the command to love without reservation.
Parents sometime feel guilty, believing they have done
something wrong to cause their child to be homosexual. Of
course, lesbian daughters and gay sons are born to both good
and bad parents, in a variety of family systems with differing
rules and expectations.
The care receiver may be experiencing a sense of loss. Although
the child is the same person as always, the life of the
child will most likely be different
from that anticipated
by the parent. The anticipation
of grandchildren or of
the big wedding may seem
remote or impossible. There
is fear of the dangers of
one’s child living in a hostile
society (and church).
Each time a parent or sibling
hears of a case of physical
or verbal attacks of gay
people they may wonder,
“Will it happen to my family
member?”
The Caregiver’s Approach
The caregiver must be aware of the tendency to be judgmental.
Judgment only reinforces the guilt that may be felt by
the care-receiver. It takes a lot of effort and discipline for the
caregiver to avoid judgment. Imagine telling the mother of a
gay young man, who carried her baby for nine months, nurtured
him as child, that her child is an abomination! Or telling
the father of a lesbian daughter who held her on his knee,
coached her in softball, helped her with her math, that his
daughter is unfit for the kingdom of God!
Central and vital to pastoral care is to love the care-receiver.
We are commanded to love one another, as God has loved us.
The caregiver must exemplify this by putting himself or herself
in the position of the care-receiver. A caregiver must be
aware of where he/she stands with regard to the homosexuality
of one of his/her own family members. It is not for the
caregiver to decide what the care-receiver should do. The
caregiver’s role is to help the care-receiver find for him/herself
the grace of God on whichever path the care-receiver or
their gay relative proceeds. There is going to be enough conflict
for the care-receiver between knowledge of the gay person
and the opposing doctrine of the church.
The caregiver should ask the care-receiver about the life of
the loved one who is lesbian or gay. This may encourage the
care-receiver to reflect on the dissonance between their knowledge
of their family member and the condemning church
doctrine. For parents who have raised their children essentially
the same way, why is one homosexual and the other
not? Why would this person who has met all of the requirements
of the church be homosexual? It’s not expected that
these are questions to be answered, but only to give voice to
the feelings of the care-receiver.
Chances are likely that the caregiver has had little knowing
exposure to homosexual persons, nor any specific knowledge
of church doctrine or biblical understanding relating to homosexuality,
except for the general understanding that it is
believed wrong. Relatively few congregations have studied homosexuality
and most are reluctant to acknowledge openly
that there are gay and lesbian members, while other needs for
pastoral care are dealt with publicly and may even be the topic
of a Sunday School class or discussion from the pulpit.
Churches that have dealt with the topic may have done so
very negatively. I know of one case in which a woman worked
very closely with a pastor but was unable to discuss with him
that her son was gay until he was very near death from AIDS.
Pastoral care was unavailable to her until the very end.
Key information that a caregiver should know include these:
1. A person’s sexuality is not chosen.
2. The Bible is not literally interpreted, e.g. “slaves obey your
master.”
3. The entire Bible applies to lesbians and gays, not just the
parts that are said to address homosexual behavior. God’s
promises and love are available to all.
4. Although there has been research, the etiology of any
sexual orientation is inconclusive.
It takes a lot of courage for a person to seek pastoral care
after learning that a loved one is homosexual. The chances
are that the results will be very negative. Yet a number of
churches, while not endorsing full support for gay people,
have emphasized the need for compassion. As more and more
families and friends come out and stay active in the church,
the situation will get better. Churches must take a stand and
publicly support those who are gay and lesbian, as well as
supportive family and friends. They must recognize their limitations
and ask for outside help when required. God’s grace is
available to all and we are to be the conduits of that grace to
all who are in need.
Ron Griesse, the parent of a gay son, has been
a volunteer hospital chaplain, a Stephen leader,
and is a graduate of the Art of Pastoral Care
class of the Washington Pastoral Care and Counseling
Centers. He is a member of St. Matthew’s
United Methodist Church in Annandale, Virginia,
where he was instrumental in establishing
the Agape Ministry (Pastoral Care).
26 MINISTRIES Open Hands
A Long Journey into Welcome
Rachel C. Wilson
It was in 1995 that I boldly voiced a prediction and a promise
when I took a “one minute at the mike” privilege at the
General Assembly of Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ)
meeting in Pittsburgh. “Jerry Falwell’s hometown will one day
have a church which is Open and Affirming: First Christian
Church, Lynchburg, Virginia!” I knew our history around the
issue. Our ministers, David and Kaye Edwards, had introduced
the subject to our historic congregation. The approximately
400 members represent a cross section of Lynchburg’s population—
professionals, blue collar, liberal, conservative—in theology
and politics; cohesive family units worshiping in a beautiful
sanctuary, involved in a strong education program,
dedicated to outreach.
The local newspaper covered the story of this beginning
after learning that our ministers had invited Allen Harris,
openly gay and associate minister at Park Avenue Christian
Church in New York City, along with his partner, Craig
Hoffman, to spend four days in dialogue with our congregation.
At about the same time, the mother of a young child
with AIDS, who had been denied access in one church, asked
if she could enroll her daughter in our Vacation Church School.
Kaye, as minister of education, called the parents together to
make the decision, which was overwhelmingly in favor. The
membership welcomed another person with HIV: Tim, who
had also been cast out by his church. In a short time, we
mourned the death of both of these precious people.
Small group discussions and individual conversations kept
the subject alive and there were some who had awakened to
God’s tugging on their souls, and determined to persist. In
the “in-between- time,” it seemed that we would not be called
to make any decisions regarding the question, for our pastors
were leaving us. We were focused on an interim ministry and
the search for a new leader. But, in so doing, we were having
to look at who we were and what we wanted our congregation
to be, and surveys revealed that diversity was important
to us.
For about 12 years, a group of women have been gathering
in the church parlor each Wednesday morning for Bible study
as well as other reflective studies and prayer. These women
have, from time to time, been an ecumenical group, representing
various faiths in our city. In the last several years, however,
the group has become one which reflects the membership
of our church: young mothers as well as senior citizens.
Eight or ten members of this group have maintained a concern
for the church and homosexuality. Accordingly, we have
read and debated Brian McNaught’s On Being Gay, kept a scrapbook
of news stories, articles, resources from differing points
of view, and made the book available through the library.
It was when we elected to study the curriculum, Claiming
the Promise, edited by Mary Jo Osterman, that things began to
happen. We agreed and disagreed as we poured over the pages
and its recommended scriptures. Preparing for the final session,
I firmly resolved to call our church to a reckoning. The
second question under “What Do You Think?” asked, “What
is the next step you personally want to take in regard to the
church and homosexuality? Explore not what you think you
ought to do, but what you want and intend to do.” I shared
my answer with the group. “Ask specifically the elders to study
the issue and make recommendations.”
Shortly thereafter, I wrote a letter to the elders, asking that
they, as spiritual leaders of the congregation, study where we
were, where we wanted to be, and requesting that they consider
our becoming an Open &Affirming (O&A) congregation.
They invited me to meet with them, to explain myself more
fully. I presented my concerns, saying that we had waited long
enough, and offered my services as to resources, both written
and embodied in persons. Periodically, I was asked for assistance.
When they seemingly slowed down, I sent prodding
letters.
And then, Mel White came to town. It was October, 1999
and Mel was seeking a host church for Soulforce. Our mayor
at that time, Pete Warren, an ordained Disciples minister, just
happened to greet Mel and suggest that our congregation might
do this. The rest is history. Our church served as the group’s
“sanctuary,” as Mel termed it, and other churches, synagogues
and colleges, as well as other institutions, helped us provide
housing, food, transportation, love, and support for the three
days when some 200 gays, lesbians, transgenders, bisexuals,
parents, and friends celebrated, remembered, learned what
non-violence can mean and practiced the same.
The “Lynchburg 200,” as Rodney Powell, a civil rights
leader, labeled it, were amazed at what they experienced from
this community. They could not thank us enough and we too
felt inadequate as we tried to express our gratitude for the
opportunity. Several of our church members were among the
200 that met with the same number of people from Falwell’s
congregation to discuss the treatment of those of different
sexual orientations. Sandy Knodel, our education director,
declared that she now knew why she was led to our congregation
when she moved from Buffalo. Minister Roger
Zimmerman termed it a “life-changing event.”
Eighteen months after I sent my original letter, the elders
of First Christian Church of Lynchburg sent the letter on the
opposite page to every household of the congregation, signed
by all 12 elders.
Our church has not yet completely arrived but I tell you,
we are on our way!
Rachel C. Wilson, is a widow, mother, and
grandmother, retired public school teacher, lifelong
member of the Christian Church (Disciples),
and region coordinator for GLAD. Since
retirement, she has published a book of fiction,
as well as several poems, and is using
her writing skills more frequently to address
justice issues.
WELCOMING
Fall 2000 MMIINNIISSTTRRIIEESS 227
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Disciples of Christ
Lynchburg, Virginia
June 19, 2000
Dear Member and Friend of First Christian Church,
As the elders reported to you earlier, more than a year ago we were approached by a member of our
congregation with the request that we study the possibility of First Christian Church becoming an “Open
and Affirming Congregation.” The elders determined that this was an issue needing to be examined, and
so since that time, we have been engaged in a process of study of scripture and contemporary literature,
prayer, and discussion in an effort to discern what God is calling us to do. We have struggled, both
individually and as a group, with this difficult issue. We believe the time has come for us to share our
thoughts with you.
As a group, the Elders are not of one accord in the matter of the church adopting the GLAD terminology:
Open and Affirming Congregation. We are, however, of one accord in the following beliefs:
We believe that gay and lesbian persons, being created by God, are children of God and are
loved by God.
We believe that gay and lesbian persons are called to discipleship just as God calls to
discipleship those persons who are not gay or lesbian.
We believe that gay and lesbian disciples need the nurture and support of the community of faith
and the fellowship of believers in precisely the same way as disciples who are not gay or lesbian.
We believe that through the ages the church universal has not only sanctioned and supported,
but indeed has often mandated attitudes of cruel rejection, bigotry, and hatred against
homosexuals.
We believe that such attitudes, having been blessed by the church universal, have contributed to
and even caused much of the violence that has been perpetrated against homosexuals.
We believe that violence and the attitudes that foster violence, rejection, bigotry and hatred are
contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ and offensive to the God who created us all.
In light of the historical rejection and persecution of homosexuals by the church universal, we
believe that God calls us to be specific in our welcome to gay and lesbian persons and to be
intentional in our ministry to the gay and lesbian community who seek “to grow in faith,
knowledge and love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ” and “who desire to join us on this
journey.”
The Elders have found that our study has contributed significantly to our own spiritual growth and to our
understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Through our study, we have also come
to believe that there are other ways we have failed to be welcoming as God welcomes us. For that
reason we are proposing opportunities for learning, growth, and dialogue on the issues of welcoming and
hospitality be available to all members of First Christian Church. We will work with others in the church
to plan for a program of study entitled, “As God Welcomes, We Welcome” for the fall. We encourage all
members of the congregation who desire to participate in this process of discernment to be a part of
these study opportunities. If you would like to be a part of this planning process or have resources you
would like to see studied, please let us know. As we study, pray and talk together, we must always keep
before us this question: What is God calling us to be and to do as the body of Christ in the world?
The Elders of First Christian Church
Letter from Rachel Wilson’s church
MINISTRIES 27
28 MINISTRIES Open Hands
Not “Privileging” Our Oppression
Robert E. Goss
Lesbian theologian Sheila Briggs has noted, “Our sexuality
embodies the injustice of society.” I take her comment to
mean that social injustice is somehow reflected in our sexual
practices and lives. What does it mean for us to understand
sexuality as a justice issue? Too often LGBT Christians identify
their struggles for sexual justice with fighting the radical
right for our basic human rights. The radical right under the
leadership of Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, James Dobson, and
others certainly target our sexuality for their hate campaigns
in a litany of legislative initiatives from the Colorado Amendment
to the Defense of Marriage Act. We easily understand
homohatred as injustice as we struggle for rights to marry,
have families, and equal rights in housing and employment.
Oftentimes, we are too focused on our own oppression and
exclusion, and that is understandable with the increased violence
and demonization from religious conservatives. I remember
when the LGBT community in St. Louis struggled against
a ballot initiative similar to Colorado Amendment Two. There
was a common expectation that the African-American community
would naturally support our efforts when we had a
need against the religious right. Such expectations were presumptuous,
and I questioned where the white LGBT community
was when the African-American community needed us
on various public issues. We privilege our oppression at the
expense of African-Americans. Why is our oppression more
important than the racism suffered by African-Americans?
We run the danger of privileging our oppression over the
oppression of others unless we begin to widen our notions of
sexuality and justice. Few understand the connections of the
hate campaigns of the religious right that link abortion and
homosexuality or how racism, sexism, and homophobia are
interconnected. Homophobia (I include biphobia and
transphobia as well) is a system of bias regarding sexual orientation
which favors heterosexual people and is prejudiced
against LGBT people. It is analogous to sexism, racism, and
other “isms.” Such homophobia destroys all alternative possibilities
of sexuality.
Can we within the LGBT community expand our understanding
of sexual fear and dread to envision the connections
between homophobia and misogyny, the hatred of women?
Patriarchal Christianity and late twentieth century capitalism
have eroticized domination; they restrict sexuality to exchanges
of domination and violence. Men are socialized to enjoy “lording
over” women and less powerful men. Homophobia envisions
all sexual deviancy from normative heterosexuality as
violating gender codes: males become like females, and females
become like men. Homophobia reinforces gender injustice
by targeting gender transgressions and restricting gender
blurrings. Homophobia is connected to the hatred and
fear of women. It does not allow women to be equal and punishes
those males who are “lesser” males and who sleep with
other males like a woman.
Can our social analysis comprehend how patriarchal culture
has intertwined our sexuality with late capitalism? Late
capitalism has commodified sexual bodies into objects that
can be marketed and sold. In our consumerist society, sexual
bodies have become disposable like many our commodities.
Sexual disrespect characterizes our society but has a long history
in the body and sexual negativity ingrained in Christianity.
Our society devalues certain women’s bodies and values
others. It values anorexic bodies over less than perfect bodies
and muscled bodies over non-muscular bodies. It devalues
HIV+ bodies, queer bodies, overweight bodies, old bodies, poor
bodies, bodies of people of color, physically challenged bodies,
and the body of the earth.
Patriarchal sex diminishes our capacity for just, open, mutual,
and loving relationships. Our sexual attitudes and practices
are polluted by other interlocking forms of social oppression.
Our sexuality is intertwined with racism, abilism,
and environmental abuse. Let me give a few examples to
illustrate.
Stereotypes of women’s sexuality have been shaped by the
mythic image of Eve. Eve represents a woman whose sexuality
is out of control and who brings sin and death into the
world. Christianity has long understood the story of Eve as
justifying male control over women. It has feared women’s
sexuality and reproductive freedom. All such stereotypes of
immoral and independent women contribute to an ideology
of male supremacy, and many stereotypes are extended to
women of color who represent a primal connection to nature.
How our society has treated women’s bodies has a direct correlation
to how it treats the earth, which is identified as Mother
Earth or Mother Nature. Just as social and physical violence is
used to control women’s bodies, so our society rapes, exploits,
and dominates the body of the earth. Environmental abuse
has a direct link to the violence committed against women
and how we perceive the earth as female.
CONNECTIONS
Fall 2000 MINISTRIES 29
African-American sexuality, likewise, is stereotyped as exotic,
chaotic, primal, outside the power of white control. It is
associated with the jungle and nature, requiring domination,
enslavement, and control. The African-American cultural critic,
Cornel West observes, “Americans are obsessed with sex and
fearful of black sexuality.” White Americans have continuously
stereotyped the sexuality of black bodies promoting racism.
Our own community certainly has not remained immune
from those cultural stereotypes of black sexuality. The stereotypes
of black sexuality emerge from our racial fears.
Abilism often desexualizes those who are physically and
mentally challenged. I remember a man and woman who were
physically challenged with cerebral palsy. They both were
wheelchair bound and had speech impairments. They were
mentally alert and in love. Family and state social workers
desexualized and infantilized these two lovers. They were not
allowed to be sexual; they were robbed of voice and power.
The presumption was that sexuality was reserved for the ablebodied,
not the disabled.
The desexualization of physically challenged persons reflects
our cultural obsession with perfect bodies. Our society
does not want to imagine people who are weak, sick, old, gay
or lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered having sex. Nor does it
want to picture interracial sex. All those people who engage
in so called non-normative sex have frequently internalized
oppressions of compulsory heterosexuality. They receive cultural
messages that they should not engage in sex or that no
one should find them sexually attractive. How often we have
heard that from homophobic televangelists!
From these cursory reflections, we in the LGBT community
must build on our sexual marginality not as a privilege
but as a means to make connections with other oppressed
groups. This means we need to engage in conversation with
other oppressed peoples and even the earth’s oppression, listen
to their narratives of struggles, and respond with a commitment
to liberate them from violence, domination, and injustice.
We need to place other marginalized peoples, including
racial minorities and poor women and men, at the center of
our Christian discipleship. We must develop an ethic of sexual
justice that rules out all relationships in which persons and
the environment are abused, devalued, exploited, dominated,
and violated. Our just sexuality can empower us to just love
and relocate ourselves in society in a more Christ-like fashion.
Is this not Christ’s call to justice-love and the reign of
God?
Robert E. Goss, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Comparative Religion
and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Webster
University. He is also a UFMCC Clergy on staff at MCC of Greater
St. Louis. He is the author of Jesus ACTED
UP: A Gay & Lesbian Manifesto (1993), coeditor
of Our Families, Our Values (1997)
and Take Back the Word (Pilgrim Press, Fall
2000), an anthology of LGBT readings of the
scriptures. He has numerous articles and book
chapters on queer theology.
QTY BACK ISSUES AVAILABLE
___ The god of Violence (Summer 2000)
___ For All the Saints (Spring 2000)
___ Liberating Word: Interpreting the Bible (Winter 2000)
___ Wholly Holy (Fall 1999)
___ Creative Chaos (Summer 1999)
___ Welcoming the World (Spring 1999)
___ Why Be Specific in Our Welcome? (Winter 1999)
___ A House Divided: Irreconcilable Differences? (Fall1998)
___ Bisexuality: Both/And Rather Than Either/Or (Summer 1998)
___ Treasure in Earthen Vessels—Sexual Ethics (Spring 1998)
___ We’re Welcoming, Now What? (Winter 1998)
___ From One Womb at One Table (Fall 1997)
___ Creating Sanctuary: All Youth Welcome Here! (Summer 1997)
___ Same-Sex Unions (Spring 1997)
___ Transgender Realities (Fall 1996)
___ Remembering…10th Anniversary (Summer 1995)
___ The God to Whom We Pray (Spring 1995)
___ Reclaiming Pride (Summer 1994)
___ Aging and Integrity (Fall 1992)
___ Our Spirituality: How Sexual Expression and Oppression
Shape It (Summer 1992)
___ The Lesbian Spirit (Summer 1991)
___ Lesbian/Gay Reflections on Theology (Spring 1991)
___ The “Holy Union” Controversy (Fall 1990)
___ Journeys toward Recovery and Wholeness (Spring 1990)
___ Images of Family (Fall 1989)
___ The Closet Dilemma (Summer 1989)
___ Lesbian & Gay Men in the Religious Arts (Spring 1989)
___ Living and Loving with AIDS (Summer 1988)
___ Sexual Violence (Fall 1987)
___ Minorities within a Minority (Spring 1987)
___ Images of Healing (Fall 1986)
___ Our Churches’ Policies (Summer 1986)
❑ Please send me the back issues indicated ($6 each; 10+ @ $4).
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Ministry & Outreach
30 MINISTRIES Open Hands
1000 AT WOW 2000
Just over 1,000 Welcoming
people of faith gathered
on the sleepy campus of
Northern Illinois University
in the cornfields south of
Chicago for the first-of-itskind
Witness Our Welcome
conference for Welcoming
congregations in Canada and
the United States. Meeting
August 3-6, participants represented
eight countries and 27 denominations and traditions.
Featured preachers included the Rev. Drs. Carter Heyward,
Michael Kinnamon, Joan Martin, Janie Spahr, and the Rt. Rev.
Steven Charleston. Morning prayer and meditation using a
variety of devotional practices began each day. The first 15
chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, which describe Pentecost
and the early days of the Christian movement, served as the
scriptural basis for the conference— discussed in early morning
Bible studies led by a broad spectrum of biblical scholars
and interpreted in worship through dance, song, sermon, and
humor. The afternoons were devoted to workshops that ranged
from practical tips for welcoming congregations to cultivating
one’s spirituality and sense of justice. Evenings included
an all-women’s concert on Friday night, late night coffee house
performers, and a Saturday night dance.
The organizing committee, ably chaired by Rev. Jacki Belile,
drew together a wide racial and ethnic spectrum of plenary
speakers, worship and workshop and Bible study leaders. Even
so, the predominantly white gathering was criticized by several
speakers for not adequately reaching out to racial minorities,
encouraging their attendance. A few speakers blamed
the white majority for failing to express solidarity with or
sensitivity toward people of color; others viewed the need of
multiracial participation as a mutual responsibility, shared
by minorities and majority alike. Still others believed that
LGBT issues are not yet a priority in racial minority congregations—
thus work needs to be done at the grass roots. Despite
disagreement as to the causes of the lack of participant racial
parity, those gathered seemed united in the cause of encouraging
such diversity if and when a similar conference is
scheduled.
Missing or under-represented among the presenters were
political conservatives, Canadians (especially for a binational
gathering), bisexual people, and straight women (strangely,
since they are often our strongest allies). Lesbian preachers,
plenary speakers, Bible study and workshop leaders were more
plentiful than their gay male counterparts.
One of two highlights in terms of participation was a parallel
gathering held for LGBT and questioning youth and
young adults and their allies which included a meeting with
Welcoming program leaders, focusing on youth concerns. The
other was the visible presence of open transgender persons,
one of whom was plenary and workshop leader, the Rev. Dr.
Erin Swenson, whose ministry was “sustained” by Greater Atlanta
Presbytery (of the Presbyterian Church USA) after her
transition from Eric to Erin. The closing worship included a
blessing on another transgender person’s renewed call to
ministry.
Mark Bowman, conference coordinator, offered a brief history
of the Welcoming movement during the Saturday evening
banquet, describing it as the fastest growing lay movement in
the church today, adding one to two congregations weekly.
That evening’s offering for a future event netted $40,000 in
contributions and pledges. Kelly Turney premiered an outstanding
new worship resource she edited for the conference
entitled, Shaping Sanctuary—Proclaiming God’s Grace in an Inclusive
Church. Beautifully designed by Open Hands’ own Jan
Graves with artwork by Jan Richardson, it is a 424-page collection
of essays, sermons, liturgies, litanies, prayers, and
hymns from the Welcoming movement. It may be ordered
($14.00 plus $3 shipping) through most of the welcoming
programs listed on the Open Hands masthead, or by contacting
the Reconciling Congregation Program at www.rcp.org.
As might be expected, “doing a new thing” on so grand a
scale had its rough edges in terms of organization, administration,
and communication. But the spirit of the volunteers
and staff as well as of the leaders and participants more than
made up for any challenges— a Spirit that mirrored that of
Pentecost, where everyone heard the Gospel in her or his own
language and a new movement was born.
When the days of the WOW 2000 Conference were come,
all the Welcoming programs were together in one place. And
suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of nonviolent
wind, and it filled the entire Holmes Student Center of Northern
Illinois University where they were meeting. Fired up with diverse
perspectives, opinions, and strategies, God’s glory rested on each of
them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak
in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Christians from every denomination under
heaven represented there. And at the sound the crowd gathered
and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking their
language. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these
who are speaking lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and their
straight allies? How is that we hear, each of us, in our own
language?—Lutheran, United Methodist, Disciples, UCC, MCC, United
Church of Canada, Brethren and Mennonite, Episcopalian, Roman
Catholic, Orthodox, AME, Baptist, Presbyterian, Mormon, Reorganized
Church of Latter Day Saints, Other Sheep, Unitarian Universalist, and
more, and still others who are youth and even those who are
unchurched. In our own words we hear them speaking of God’s
glorious deeds, of God’s good news in Jesus Christ. Are they drunk
or just nuts?” (Based on Acts 2:1-13)
Fall 2000 MINISTRIES 31
Welcoming programs never stop saying things against the church
and the law; for we have heard them say that Jesus will destroy
the church and will change our customs.” And all who sat on these
church courts and governing bodies looked intently at these Welcoming
movements, and they saw the faces of angels.
The next sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the
word of the Sovereign. But when the nonwelcoming straight Christians
saw the crowds of LGBT Christians and welcoming straight
Christians, they were filled with jealousy; and blaspheming, they
contradicted what was spoken by Joan Martin, Mary Hunt, Carter
Heyward, Michael Kinnamon, Janie Spahr, and so many others. Then
we all replied, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken
first to you nonwelcoming straight people. Since you reject it and judge
yourselves to be unworthy of the Gospel we have to share, we are
now turning to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and the transgendered
community. For so the Sovereign has commanded us saying, “I have
set you to be more light for LGBT people, their families and friends,
so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.” When
LGBT people heard this, they were glad and praised the word of
God; and many became believers. Thus the word of the Sovereign
spread throughout the region. And the disciples were filled with joy
and with the Holy Spirit. (This paragraph is based on Acts 13:44-52.)
We have enjoyed revisiting the early mission of the church
during the WOW conference, as described in the first fifteen
chapters of Acts. Yet there is another mission field described
in chapter 16. At the beginning of this I mentioned one of two
scriptures from Acts that I used when I first preached on the
inclusion of gay people in the church. The second is the story
of Paul and Silas in jail, when the earthquake comes and unfastens
their chains. The jailer, thinking his prisoners have
escaped, prepares to kill himself. But Paul shouts out in a loud
voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” I used the
story to illustrate that, though LGBT people now may experience
freedom, we still remain within the church. This may
lead to the conversion of our jailers, our oppressors, as it does
in the text. That’s a further step of our mission, our evangelism.
We proclaim our Good News of God’s welcome not just
to LGBT people, but to the whole church.
For those of us who come from a Reformed heritage, personal
salvation is not what we seek. Personal salvation or liberation
may even be selfish. We seek salvation for the world,
and in this case, the church. The commonwealth of God is in
our midst. WOW!
—Chris Glaser’s remarks from the closing plenary
panel of the WOW 2000 Conference, August 6,
2000.
Chris Glaser is the editor of Open Hands
and the author of seven books, including The
Word Is Out and Coming Out as Sacrament.
Visit his website at www.ChrisGlaser.com.
Acts 2:1-13 on which this “Very Much Later Acts of the
Apostles” reading was based was one of two texts from Acts I
used in the very first sermon I preached that included gay and
lesbian people in 1972, twenty eight years ago. I was in college
and working as a youth minister in a United Church of
Christ, and I was describing my first visits to the Metropolitan
Community Church of Los Angeles and Glide Memorial United
Methodist Church in San Francisco. When I stretched my own
and my listeners’ comfort in speaking from the threshold of
my closet about something so near and dear to my heart, I
never would have imagined an event such as this. Those who
are discouraged by occasional and even continual setbacks in
our movement must hold onto how far we have come!
Tucked away in our conference text of Acts 1-15 but not
highlighted is the story of the man born unable to walk, placed
at the steps of the temple to beg, a text I have more recently
used to explain the experience of LGBT people in the church.
In Acts 3 the name of Christ gives him the ability to walk, thus
enabling a person not welcome in the temple because he had
a disability (and thus was “unclean”) to not only walk into
the temple, but to leap and praise God— to dance his way into
God’s sanctuary. And that’s the miracle of the Welcoming
movement in the church—empowering formerly “poor beggars”
like us outside the “Beautiful Gate” of the temple the
opportunity to enter and praise God. But like that man, whose
whining voice adjured passersby for alms, exploiting their guilt,
it will take us awhile to lose the whining tone to our own
pleadings of the church, and to speak firmly, unapologetically,
God’s truth. This gathering was another step in that direction.
Another reading from The Very Much Later Acts of the
Apostles, in which echoes of Acts 6 and the ministry of deacons,
especially that of Stephen, may be heard:
Now during those homophobic days, when the disciples
were barely keeping the church together, LGBT people and their
allies complained against the largely straight church because their
own ministries and their own marriages were being neglected in
the daily distribution of good works. So the hierarchy decided, “It’s
not right that we should neglect the Bible in order to serve these
queers. So let ten Welcoming programs of good standing, full of the
Spirit and of wisdom, do the work for us while we return to prayer.”
Thus the word of God continued to spread; the number of the
disciples increased greatly, especially in urban areas with large
LGBT populations.
Each of these Welcoming programs, full of grace and power, did
great wonders and signs among the people. But some Christians,
full of law and institutional power and privilege, argued with these
Welcoming programs. But they could not withstand the wisdom and
the Spirit with which the Welcoming programs spoke. Then they secretly
instigated some people to say and report in reactionary denominational
tabloids, “We have heard them speak blasphemous words
against Jesus and God.” They stirred up the people and brought charges
against them in church courts and governing bodies, saying, “These
32 Open Hands
New Program Leaders
The Brethren Mennonite Council Board of Directors has
selected Amy Short as its new Executive Director, following
interim Anna Dennis. As such, she will also lead BMC’s Supportive
Congregations Network. For 18 months, Short has
served as a full time volunteer, which included reaching out
to youth, attending denominational conferences, and providing
administrative support. Greg Lichti, former BMC Board
President, has been contracted Development Consultant for
the group.
John Wade Payne, retired pastor of New York City’s Park
Avenue Christian Church and longtime advocate for justice, is
serving as Intentional Interim Open & Affirming Ministries
Program Developer. O&A is the welcoming program of the
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). During his 20-year tenure
at Park Avenue, Payne oversaw the hiring of openly-gay
Allen V. Harris (who was previously program leader) and sponsored
him for ordination, as well as leading the congregation
through the Open & Affirming process.
Episcopalians Acknowledge Fidelity
Outside Marriage
Meeting in Denver, Colorado in July, the General Convention
of the Episcopal Church in America stopped short of calling
for the preparation of specialized rites but recognized that
there are “couples in the Body of Christ and in this Church”
who live in “life-long committed relationships” outside traditional
marriage. The resolution adopted emphasized that the
church expected such relationships to be “characterized by
fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful,
honest communication, and the holy love which enables those
in such relationships to see in each other the image of God.” A
study on the theology of human sexuality was endorsed. Stressing
the importance of clergy and lay people working together
on that study, Bishop Hays Rockwell of Missouri quoted Karl
Barth describing theology as “taking trouble over mystery.”
“Taking trouble over mystery is the work of the whole people
of God,” he said.
Solidarity Sunday October 8
The sixth annual interfaith Solidarity Sunday will be observed
October 8, 2000. It is always held the Sunday before
National Coming Out Day, October 11. Solidarity ribbons and
prayer cards are distributed, and people of faith are encouraged
to take the Solidarity Pledge to work for civil rights, end
unkind language, speak out against violent language and
violence against LGBT people. For information and materials
for distribution, contact SolSunday@aol.com or www.dignity
usa.org.
Movement
News
First Black Reconciling Congregation
Early this year, Union United Methodist Church of Boston
became the first all-black congregation to adopt a Reconciling
statement that welcomes gays and lesbians, including rights to
be chosen for leadership. The decision followed four years of
study and dialogue that began at the suggestion of Hilda Evans,
a 50-year member of the congregation. Evans thought it was
needed because gays had been active members in the past, and
the church is in the South End, where many gay people live. In
its discussion, the congregation welcomed local gays and lesbians
to tell their stories. The resulting statement affirmed,
“Given their particular invisibility within the African American
community, we further affirm the full participation of all
Black lesbians and gay men and all other homosexual persons
who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in all aspects of
our life together as a congregation.”
Congregations in Conversation with the UCC
As well as including new church starts, the ONA Program
of The UCC Coalition for LGBT Concerns has begun listing
Open and Affirming “Congregations in Conversation with the
UCC” on its website (www.UCCcoalition.org).These are already
existing faith communities, perhaps affiliated with other denominations,
that are exploring a relationship to the United
Church of Christ. For more information, visit the website or email
program leader Ann B. Day at ONAABDAY@aol.com.
NEW RESOURCES
Blessed Bi Spirit: Bisexual People of Faith. The first such anthology
in which 32 bisexual persons speak for themselves of
their spirituality, reflecting a wide spectrum of religious traditions
and spiritual paths. Edited by Deb Kolodny. For information
and ordering, contact Continuum International, PO
Box 605, Herndon, VA 20172, 800-561-7704, contin@tiac.net
or visit the website http://www.continuum-books.com/. If
mailing,enclose a check for $24.95 plus $4.00 for the first
book for shipping and handling, and $1.50 postage for each
additional book.
Expanded Reconciling Congregation Program Online Bibliography.
Latest resources and where to get them online and
around the country. Website: http://www.rcp.org/papers/
bibindex.html.
Congregations Coming Out! A Strategy for Outreach to Sexual
Orientation Minorities. This one-year consultation for congregations
reaching out to the LGBT community is provided
by Jim Bailey, social marketing consultant and former editor
and publisher of Second Stone, a national newspaper for LGBT
Christians. For information contact him at 504/394-7470 or
visit his website: http://home.earthlink.net/~jbailey777.
New Video for Black Churches Seeking to be Inclusive. “All
God’s Children,” produced by Woman Vision Productions,
is an excellent 26-minute video featuring African-American
pastors, leaders, lay people (including parents), and an interracial
gay and lesbian gospel youth choir discussing the layers
of acceptance and inclusion of LGBT people in congregations.
$39.95 from Woman Vision, 3145 Geary Blvd. Box 421,
San Francisco, CA 94118. Message only phone: 415/273-1145.