Open Hands Vol 17 No 4 - How I Changed My Mind: Profiles in Grace and Courage

Open Hands Vol 17 No 4 - How I Changed My Mind: Profiles in Grace and Courage

17

4

2002

Spring

2 Open Hands
Shaping an Inclusive Church
The Ecumenical Quarterly
of the Welcoming Movement
Executive Publisher
Marilyn Alexander
Editor
Chris Glaser
Designer
In Print—Jan Graves
Editorial Advisory Committee
Jeff Balter, RIC
Vaughn Beckman, O&A
Daphne Burt, RIC
Ann Marie Coleman, ONA
Chris Copeland, W&A
Jocelyn Emerson, W&A
Gwynne Guibord, MCC
Tom Harshman, O&A
Alyson Huntly, ACP
Bonnie Kelly, ACP
Susan Laurie, RCP
Samuel E. Loliger, ONA
Paul Kozlowski McComas, RCP
Ruth Moerdyk, SCN
Mark Palermo, MLP
Caroline Presnell, RCP
Kathy Stayton, W&A
Margarita Suaréz, ONA
Judith Hoch Wray, O&A
and Program Coordinators
Open Hands is the quarterly magazine of the
Welcoming church movement, a Christian consortium
of denominational church programs in
Canada and the United States whose ministries encourage
and assist individuals and faith communities
in welcoming and affirming lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender people and their families
and friends. Open Hands was founded and is
published by the Reconciling Congregation Program,
Inc. of the Reconciling Ministries Network
(United Methodist), in cooperation with the six
ecumenical partners listed on page 3. 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), as
well as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan
Community Churches—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@RMNetwork.org
www.RMNetwork.org/openhands/index.html
Member, The Associated Church Press
© 2002
Reconciling Congregation Program, Inc.
Open Hands is a registered trademark.
ISSN 0888-8833
Printed on recycled paper.
Welcoming Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People
VVooll.. 1177 NNoo.. 44 SSpprriinngg 22000022
HOW I CHANGED MY MIND
Profiles in Grace and Courage
editor’s word
4 How I Changed
CHRIS GLASER
columns
19 2002 Guest Columnist
IRENE MONROE
20 My Turning Point
CATHERINE SAGER-BOHNERT
28 How I Do Sex (NEW!)
ERWIN C. BARRON
30 Movement News
“You are a Christian only so long as you constantly pose critical questions
to the society you live in.…so long as you stay unsatisfied with
the status quo and keep saying that a new world is yet to come.”
—Henri Nouwen
changed lives
8 A Parent:
MARILYNN Y. MILLER
9 A Spouse:
HEDY LODWICK
13 A Friend:
LILA FRAIZER
7 A Networker:
FRAN NYCE
26 An Advocate:
YOUTHA HARDMAN-CROMWELL
feature articles
5 Would I Want This Person
as My Minister?
EARL B. STEWART
10 Changing Strategies
to Change Minds
AMANDA UDIS-KESSLER
15 Because I Came to Know Jesus,
I Found the Courage to Speak
PEGGY CAMPOLO
21 Conversion,
The United Church of Canada Way
ALYSON HUNTLY
24 From Falwell’s Liberty College
to Gay Pride’s Grand Marshall
VAUGHN F. BECKMAN
Spring 2002 3
Publisher
Reconciling Congregation Program, Inc. (UMC)
Reconciling Ministries Network
Marilyn Alexander, Coordinator
3801 N. Keeler Avenue, Chicago, IL 60641
773/736-5526
www.RMNetwork.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
www.affirmunited.org • 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)
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
www.wabaptists.org
Call for articles for Open Hands Winter 2003
Monogamy to Polyamory
The Range of Relationships
Theme section: Both freedom and oppression have influenced how we imagine
and create our relationships. In the past and still today, GLBT people could enjoy
discrete casual relationships with less fear of reprisal from the church and society
than when forming visible, ongoing same-gender marriages. For straight and gay
alike, serial monogamy rather than “till death do us part” has become common
practice. The bisexual, or the gay partner in a heterosexual marriage, may want a
relationship in addition to a primary partner. Now the “cool” word among academics
and sexual theorists is “polyamory,” relationships that involve more than
two people. It represents a “shift in the paradigm” in thinking about sexuality
within narrow, confined expressions. Sexuality, especially when unrelated to
procreation, is freer to come out and play, so to speak. But then, what about rightrelation,
mutuality, Christian ethics? What about the strategy of seeking samegender
marriage rights? Should we emphasize our acceptance over experimentation?
Is it legitimate to “think outside the box” of the traditional “couple”? Give
us your thoughts in letters, personal stories, analysis, and so on. Are you
involved in a polyamorous relationship? A monogamous relationship? An open
relationship? Are you angry that we would even entertain such notions on the
pages of Open Hands? 50-1500 words. See below for further instructions.
Columns: My Turning Point (how you changed your mind on the issue), How I
Do Sex (how you reconcile or integrate sexuality and spirituality), My Church (an
extended profile of your welcoming congregation), In Solidarity (with other justice
issues), You’re Welcome (how to be welcoming), Worship, Spirituality, Retreats,
Resources (books and videos), Outreach, Leadership, Marriage, Health, Youth,
Campus, Children, and Family. These brief articles may or may not have to do
with the theme of the issue. 750 words.
Contact with ideas as far before deadline as possible.
Manuscript deadline: September 30, 2002
An article should be accompanied by the author’s two to three sentence selfdescription,
a photo (snapshot okay—we can crop to face), contact information
including e-mail, plus any other photos helpful to the article. E-mail article
as a file attached to an e-mail explaining its contents, or paste in e-mail.
E-mail digital photos separately.
E-mail to:
Chris Glaser
ChrsGlaser@aol.com (No “i” in “Chrs”)
www.ChrisGlaser.com
sustaining the spirit
17 Virginia, My Soul Sister, a true story
MALCOLM BOYD
23 God’s Wide Embrace, a hymn
W. J. MATSON
NEXT ISSUE:
RACISM: OUR INCOMPLETE RAINBOW
4 Open Hands
editor’s word
This issue’s theme of changing minds and hearts may
remind us of the internet joke series circulated endlessly
(confirming Nietzsche’s myth of eternal return)
about how many people of various faiths it requires to
change a lightbulb. The answer of one group may fit all
Christians: “Change? You want us to change?” Inertia may
be a greater culprit than ignorance and homophobia in
church resistance to the change required to fully welcome
the membership, ministries, and marriages of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender Christians.
I once had a phobia and prejudice about a segment of
the population. It was based in personal knowledge and
experience, thus the more deeply rooted. I’d been bitten just
too many times by this particular minority to welcome
them into my life. No matter their personal stories nor
public celebrities. I respected those who stood up for their
rights, and believed they deserved them. And yes, I believed
some could be good and loyal friends, but I wouldn’t want
one as a neighbor or a friend, let alone a family member.
Even the Bible spoke of them derisively, lumping them with
degradation, sin, and heresy.
Slowly, however, I changed. First I learned how to keep
them at bay, so that my phobia decreased. Then, in college,
I came into my liberal phase of acceptance. I lived with one
in a household, even took him to church and introduced
him to friends, rather proud of myself for how accepting I
was. We’d play ball together, and I grew to respect his skills.
But I was not ready to generalize my experience to “his
people.”
Then I met one who would radically transform me. I met
him in a shelter for the homeless, asleep on the hard, cold
concrete floor. Another nameless statistic till that moment,
we brought him home with us to live. Now he was part of
the family. I watched him grow up, learned how to view
things from his perspective. He ate with us, worked with us,
slept with us. Today I thoroughly enjoy and love him. Now
I am a “dog person” forever.
Though I was an avid watcher of Lassie and Rin Tin Tin,
those celebrities could not touch me deeply enough to
change me. My brother’s dog had bitten me too many
times. Though I read dog literature through the years,
positive, firsthand experiences were necessary to transform
my mind and heart. Animal rights activists could persuade
me that dogs deserved to be treated justly, but I could not
enthusiastically welcome dogs into my home or church
until I met Smokey in college. I learned that biblical writers
wrote of dogs metaphorically and were culturally inclined
to disapprove of them. And though I came to believe
humans could develop deep attachments with dogs, I did
not know such was personally possible until I fell in love
with Calvin, and then Hobbes, a dog Calvin and I found lost
or abandoned in the local park.
If I could overcome my dogphobia, Christians can
overcome our homophobia. If I can keep working on my
humanonarcissism, Christians can keep working on our
heterosexism (and all the other “isms” that divide us).
We have an array of very fine articles describing how
individuals (including several evangelicals) as well as a
denomination (the United Church of Canada) changed their
minds. And Peggy Campolo explains how her mind has
never changed, but Jesus gave her the power to speak her
mind! As editor, I confirmed two writers’ decisions to
capitalize Evangelical when referring to evangelicals who as
a group tend to oppose us to differentiate them from
evangelicals generally, into which category even we fall.
At least one article analyzes our strategies for change.
Amanda Udis-Kessler’s research findings should give all
denominational strategists pause, though her case study is
of United Methodists. Are we politicizing our movement in
detrimental ways? Are we creating our own marginalization
toward the periphery of our denominations? Are we
sacrificing our welcome and the possibility of changing the
structure from within (subversion)?
On the other end of the spectrum, queer theorist Erwin
Barron challenges us to think way outside the church box in
a new column introduced in this issue, “How I Do Sex.”
Hopefully this issue of Open Hands will disturb the waters
of our movement as well as the church. Remember the pool
of Beth-zatha of John 5:1-9: whenever an angel disturbed its
waters, healing was possible!
How I Changed
Chris Glaser
Hobbes, Chris, Calvin. Calvin’s most recent book is entitled,
Unleashed: The Wit and Wisdom of Calvin the Dog, by
Calvin T. Dog, translation by Chris Glaser (Westminster John
Knox Press, 1998). Mrs. Hobbes is an aerobics instructor for
squirrels. Chris is their servant.
Spring 2002 5
I have discovered to my surprise (perhaps
even shock) that there is more
than one kind of experience of
“coming out.” That reality has resulted
in a fundamental change in my thinking
as it relates to the ordination of gay
and lesbian Christians to the Gospel
ministry. That difficult change within
me has taken place in the context of a
question I have not been able to ignore.
“How can I withhold my love and support
from anyone whom God loves and
for whom Jesus died?” I cannot and I
will not. That is my conclusion now.
But, it hasn’t always been that way.
First, An Issue
My journey began in 1969 in my first
year of seminary. During that year Time
magazine published a major article on
homosexuality and the struggle of gays
and lesbians to gain acceptance. Reading
that article convinced me that this
issue would be one that we seminarians
would have to face and struggle with
once we became ordained. I spoke
about this issue before a seminary class
which required each of us to speak on
a topic we believed important to the
church. In doing so, we were asked to
give our own view on the topic.
Homosexuality was a difficult topic
for me to speak on. It was not an issue I
wanted to deal with. I wanted to deal
with evangelism, a topic I loved and still
do. For me, homosexuality was a distraction
that would stir up deep emotions
and divisions. But, it was also an
issue that would not go away and I knew
that I would need to prepare myself to
address it. So would my peers. So would
the Church. That is what I said before
my peers and professor on that day in
1969.
During the 1970’s the Presbyterian
Church (both north and south) began
to wrestle with the request of gay and
lesbian Christians to be ordained to the
Gospel ministry. At that time I was convinced
that homosexuality was a sin
that barred gays and lesbians from ordination.
I said so from the pulpit. I said
so on the floor of presbytery. I read literature
on both sides of the issue. I studied
Scripture pertaining to it. I examined
my heart and mind to see if I was
fearful of gays and lesbians and to discern
if I hated them. I did not. Whatever
view I held I wanted it to be an
honest conviction, not an irrational reaction.
I asked my session and church to
include funds in the budget for me to
attend the Presbyterian General Assembly
each year so that I could become
better informed on both sides of this
and other issues. They agreed and I began
attending each year that I could. At
these gatherings I spent many hours listening
to both sides plead their case. I
began to appreciate the General Assembly
process of debate.
Then, the Families
In the late 1970’s I found out that
two families in the church I was serving
had sons who were gay. I sensed a
deep hurt within those parents who felt
isolated and alone. I understood that
they needed my love and support. They
did not need words of judgment from
their pastor. I realized that my words
could either offer healing or deeper pain
for those families. I decided to do what
I could to help. I loved them that much.
I brought these families together for
a time of sharing and mutual support.
The tone of my attitude softened and I
found a part of me that wanted to be a
presence of healing and support to these
families. I had lunch with one of their
sons and discovered myself wanting to
reach out to him with genuine love and
support instead of words of judgment.
Yet, my views about the issue did not
change. I became aware that my convictions
about an issue and my genuine
feelings toward people whom I
knew and loved were at odds with each
other. I hoped that time would resolve
that dilemma within me. I began realizing
that there was a battle between two
paradigms within me struggling for
dominance. One dealt with my honest
convictions about issues. The other one
focused on my genuine love for people.
My dilemma was that I could not reconcile
these two paradigms within me.
I discovered that when I study an issue
(such as homosexuality) I can come to
an honest conviction about that issue
as I understand it from Scripture. However,
when I relate to people across the
“table of life,” I often come to a different
conclusion.
During the 1980’s I went through
some major and difficult changes in the
way I understood issues related to life
and faith. It started with a two-year program
in Clinical Pastoral Education
(CPE). That experientially-focused
learning program enabled (forced) me
to look within myself, deep within. As I
began to learn more about my unexplored
self, I found myself backing off
from the dogmatic mindset I had developed.
Working as a hospital chaplain
in Houston, Texas enabled me to
experience a side of myself that was
more interested in people than dogma.
My interest in pastoral counseling led
me to a program in ego psychology and
object relations. It was during that time
that I was elected a commissioner to the
General Assembly that met in Wichita,
Kansas in 1994.
My Motion Against
Gay Marriages
At that G.A., I was assigned to the
committee that addressed an overture
from the Presbytery of Southern New
England. The overture dealt with the
question of pastors conducting commitment
services that blessed same gender
relationships. The only people who
showed up to address the committee
were those who were in favor of the
overture. Most of those who spoke told
the committee that the ceremony be-
“Would I Want This Person as My Minister?”
An Evangelical Change of Heart and Mind
Earl B. Stewart
ing debated was the only “wedding”
ceremony they would have and that
they considered it the same as a wedding
ceremony.
The committee was divided on the
issue and sent a majority report to the
G.A. favoring same gender-blessing ceremonies.
I felt that the Assembly would
be as ambivalent on the issue as it had
been for many years, with no side winning
a convincing vote. I decided that I
wanted us to settle the issue by a clear
vote. I was against pastors performing
same-gender blessing ceremonies because
it was considered a wedding ceremony
by those who spoke for it.
During the debate on the Assembly
floor, I made a motion that “ministers
are not permitted to perform same sex
ceremonies” for the reason I have indicated.
I told the commissioners I would
like them to vote on a motion that was
unambiguous. My motion passed and,
when there was a call
on the floor to reconsider
the motion, it
passed again.
But while people
on the floor were applauding
the passing
of my motion to forbid
pastors from conducting
same sex ceremonies, I suddenly
became aware of a deep and
ominous feeling within me that caused
me to utter the words, “My God, what
have I done?” Though the presbyteries
would later fail to ratify the prohibition,
my motion has haunted me ever since.
My action has been the cause of a lot
regret within me. That surprised me.
Meeting My Better Self
Shortly after I returned from G.A., I
began training in Jungian psychology.
As part of that training, I saw a Jungian
analyst twice a week for three years.
That journey led me further into my
inner being, where I was able to meet
the shadow side of myself. I learned
about the meaning of my dreams. I also
encountered the entrenched thinking
that had become my paradigm for
thinking and believing. I did not like
that part of me. I wanted to free myself
of the entrenched thinking and faith
understanding that hindered my development,
but feared it was an impossible
goal.
In the mid 1990’s, the hospitals in
the University of Texas Medical Center
began to downsize. Our department
would have to let a couple of chaplains
go. At that time I was certified as a pastoral
counselor and served in that capacity
at the hospital where I worked. I
was also serving as a part-time interim
in churches going through transition. I
noticed that my counseling background
and interest was influencing the way
that I related to people, the way that I
preached, and the way that I was changing
in my understanding of faith.
Simply put, my interest in helping
people grow spiritually and to move
away from self-judgment was more important
than whatever theological understanding
I had developed. I became
aware that people’s experience of God
often mirrors their experience of self,
and people’s experience of self is often
projected on how they experience God.
In fact, I recognized that my theological
understanding was growing because
of the counseling training I had received.
In July 1995 I became the Director
of the Career Development Center of
the Southeast, a Presbyterian counseling
center started by Columbia Theological
Seminary, the Presbytery of
Greater Atlanta, and the Synod of South
Atlantic. One-half of our clients are
ministry candidates going through an
assessment program at the Center as
well as clergy seeking greater effectiveness
in ministry. It was while ministering
at the Center that I met my better
self.
There are times when ministry candidates
and clergy, who are either gay
or who are trying to come to terms with
their sexuality, come through our Center.
Our clients range from conservative
Southern Baptist to very liberal Unitarian
Universalists. In ministering to them
in our programs of assessment, I made
an unexpected discovery. At the end of
their assessment programs, I ask myself
the same questions: “Would I vote to
ordain this candidate? Would I be
willing to serve alongside this minister?
Would I want this person as my
minister?”
What I discovered was that I have
always said “yes” to those who are gay,
not because they are gay, but because
they have been both psychologically
and spiritually suited for ministry. I
began to realize that I would not vote
to refuse ordination to someone who
was gay and who had a genuine call
from God to the ordained ministry. I
recognized that one paradigm was winning
over the other: that God calls
people to ministry, not entrenched attitudes.
In January 2002, Greater Atlanta
Presbytery met to vote on Amendment
A. A “yes” vote would
allow presbyteries to determine
whom to ordain
as was the case
prior to 1978. As the day
approached to vote on
the issue, I experienced
a lot of ambivalence
within me. I also knew
that I needed to vote my conscience.
Prior to the motion being voted on,
there was time for people to share their
views. For the first time, I shared my
change in thinking on this issue with
the presbytery. I told them that my experience
at the Center, where I conduct
assessment programs for ministry candidates,
convinced me that my thinking
was wrong and that I was willing to
change the way I voted. I also indicated
that doing so would not eliminate the
ambivalence and ambiguity and sometime
contradictions that I was aware of
within me about this issue.
But, as I shared with them, I was no
longer willing to say “no” to Chris
Glaser, whom I remember praying at
the 1978 G.A. of the former United Presbyterian
Church. I was impressed with
the depth of commitment and love that
Chris and Janie Spahr and a whole host
of other gays and lesbians have for the
Presbyterian Church and their genuine
love for Jesus as Savior and Lord. There
are times when my commitment and
I became aware that people’s experience of God often
mirrors their experience of self; and people’s experience of
self is often projected on how they experience God.
6 Open Hands
faith pale in comparison to theirs. I wish
I had their courage. In speaking to them
I have found them to be full of grace
and love.
Will I Change More?
I wish that I had come to this understanding
before now. It has taken me
thirty years to change what had been
an honest conviction. That which I once
was against, I now am for. I still have
problems related to this issue. I still
believe that sexual relationships should
be restricted to marriage between a man
and a woman. I do not endorse same
gender marriages. Yet, I do not believe
that someone should be rejected for
ordination because they are gay, especially
when they love Jesus and are answering
a call to ministry. If God truly
calls persons to the ordained ministry,
and if they are both psychologically
healthy and spiritually suited for ministry,
who am I to say “no” to them,
even with my ambivalence, ambiguity,
and sometime contradictions?
Will I change my thinking further
on the subject? Will I someday support
gay marriages? The question intrigues
me. It even bothers me. I confess to
wanting it to go away. However, I know
that it will not. In the same way that I
know that, when the Holy Spirit moves
in God’s direction, it is an impossible
movement to ultimately defeat. I will
leave the future in God’s hands. I will
trust my journey to God’s care. I will
also pray that I will be open to change
whatever thinking within me that hinders
God’s movement among the
people of God. I can do no less.
Earl B. Stewart, a
graduate of Baylor University
and Dubuque
Theological Seminary,
has a D.Min. in pastoral
counseling and a
Ph.D. in pastoral psychology
from Graduate
Theological Foundation
of Indiana. He has served as a church
pastor, a missionary in Taiwan, a hospital
chaplain, and has recently retired as director
of the Career Development Center
of the Southeast in Decatur, Georgia. He
is married and has one son.
Changed Through Solidarity
Fran Nyce
During a Church of the Brethren Annual Conference in Indianapolis, psychologist
Martin Rock led what I believe must have been the first public meeting at
an annual conference on the issue of homosexuality and the church. I remember
walking out of that evening Insight Session when it was barely begun because I was
so upset with the hostile responses to Martin. Now I wish I had had the words and
the courage to stay and speak up in his support.
It was primarily the Womæn’s Caucus in the Church of the Brethren that was the
catalyst for my growing sensitivity about various oppressions in the church, not just
in relation to women but also in relation to non-heterosexual persons.
Even my awareness of oppressive attitudes toward women evolved slowly. I am
grateful for the influence of the Brethren feminists of the 60’s and 70’s who nurtured
my sensitivity toward injustice. But what propelled me headlong into active
involvement in the women’s movement in the church was a dramatic personal experience
during the Dayton Annual Conference, where, for the first time, I strongly
felt discriminated against as a woman, in the church that I had loved from early
childhood.
At Dayton, I became aware of the inappropriateness of all-male leadership on the
platform. I heard the maleness of the words of the hymns, the prayers, the scripture
readings, the sermons. I sensed exclusion as a woman at a painful emotional level
during that entire Conference week, and I resolved to work actively to help restore
women to our rightful place in the church.
Sometime later, Womæn’s Caucus leaders began embracing the emerging movement
for acceptance of lesbians and gays in the church. Even though I was sympathetic,
I was at first reluctant for the Caucus to become advocates because I feared
our feminist cause would suffer as a result.
I don’t remember what changed my mind. It was not as dramatic a conversion as
the one around the advocacy for women. But the Spirit was working. It became
personal when I saw how my non-heterosexual friends were being excluded and
oppressed by the church, with even more blatant injustice and cruelty than that
demonstrated against women. I wonder if change can only occur when personal
relationships or experiences affect the heart as well as the mind?
Now I am coming to see a relationship between sexism and homophobia, along
with racism, as symptoms of a shared disease. The illusion of straight, white male
supremacy has been with us a long time, and it is still hurting and weakening the
Body of Christ.
But I have been encouraged by signs of hope. During my tenure as a board member
of On Earth Peace, I was happy to participate in the decision of that board to
partner with both the Womæn’s Caucus and the Brethren Mennonite Council (for
GLBT concerns). It was clear to me that we needed to offer this support to such sister
agencies to be consistent with our position of working for justice, even though we
understood that it might mean a loss of some financial support.
I celebrate the decision of BMC leadership to claim the rightful place of all Christian
GLBT persons in the church, and the continuing mission of dissolving the walls
of separation. My own growth in understanding and acceptance has been nurtured
by BMC’s events for education and celebration. There I have felt a welcome athome-
ness, as well as a sense of the healing presence of the hospitable Spirit that I
hope may someday permeate the entire church. ▼
Fran Nyce is a church volunteer who previously served on the training
staff of the Brethren Volunteer Service, and is currently a member of the
Westminster Church of the Brethren. A water color painter, she lives in
Westminster, Maryland.
Spring 2002 7
8 Open Hands
That moment, and the days and weeks which followed, propelled
me into a sea of anguish and searching. As my son told
us of his years of solitary agony, his pleas to God to “change”
him, his terror of discovery, his hurt, anger, and the temptation
of suicide, my heart broke and bled.
His utter aloneness as a gay adolescent with no one to whom
he could turn for understanding, encouragement, or compassion,
was reminiscent of the landscape of desolation I had
visited several times in my own wars with clinical depression.
I, too, had experienced a terror and aloneness that enveloped
me in the blackness of emotional devastation. But in that existential
bleakness, I was surrounded by the unconditional love
of family and friends. My son was not. I was not there for him.
That knowledge was my greatest source of grief.
My deep love for my son, coupled with the knowledge that
my then current theological position in regard to same-sex
orientation demanded celibacy, compelled the beginning of
my search to learn, understand, and find answers. I grieved
the loss of the future I had envisioned for my son: mind-pictures
of him surrounded by his own children blurred into blank
grayness stamped with question marks. A father with his young
son toddling along beside him unleashed such hurt that I often
found myself sobbing.
I asked myself so many questions! My mind debated endlessly
with itself. So often I fondly remembered a dear friend I
had had in high school and college who revealed his gayness
to me when we were in our late twenties. He was and is gifted,
loving, generous, compassionate, well-adjusted—one of the
loveliest and least judgmental people I have ever known. I
had never understood the fear, disdain, and loathing directed
toward GLBT people that I had often witnessed revealed in
the words and attitudes of various people in the church and
denomination I attended. As I heard my gay friend repeatedly
grouped with reprobates, child molesters, and amoral deviants
by laypersons, clergy, and church leaders alike, I found
myself rejecting the validity of their convictions because I knew
this did not represent my friend but rather the fear and ignorance
reflected by the people who held them. And yet I still
believed any type of erotic homosexual love was immoral:
the feelings were fine; acting on them was not.
Thus, in my search to come to terms with my love for my
son, the biblical imperatives that I had previously accepted as
unquestionable, and my understanding of who God is and
what the love of Christ compels us to do, I began the process
of seeking God’s peace and coupling it with Christ’s compassion
while also wrestling with my own doubts and fears.
I read. First, Mel White’s Stranger at the Gate, which my son
had given to my husband and me. I read the decades-old Kinsey
Report. I read all the biological and other scientific information
I could gather about GLBT people. I read the opinions of
psychologists and psychiatrists. I called Ralph Blair of
Evangelicals Concerned and spoke with him personally. I
searched for biblical perspectives different from those taught
by my own church denomination in regard to passages used
to revile homoerotic love, and thought and prayed about the
possibility of their verity. I read and re-read the passages themselves
and did the same with the gospels. The most moving
and beautiful book and the greatest influence on my life was
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott’s original edition of Is the Homosexual
My Neighbor? I began to see the contradictions in what
the church taught and what it actually practiced.
I read life stories written by GLBT Christians and marveled
at the strength of faith revealed by people who were battered,
rejected, cast out, and reviled by “righteous” believers, yet
continued to cling to Christ and their faith. I sought and talked
to other parents of gay and lesbian children and listened to
them as they shared their journeys with me. I heard the suffering
in their words and saw it in the tears of the GLBT people
themselves. I talked to Christian advocates for GLBT brothers
and sisters and was encouraged and given hope through our
conversations, especially when they honestly and openly told
me how they, too, struggled to arrive at a place of peace where
they trusted and believed that God called them to be advocates
for inclusion. I found that GLBT people were from all
walks of life and learned that many were an unrevealed presence
in my church conference.
Finally, for me, the most powerful witness to the call of
compassion, welcome, and inclusion was and is the Spirit of
God. Months after my son told me he was gay, I attended a
service at a local Metropolitan Community Church. Here I
experienced the undeniable presence of the Holy Spirit. Among
the men and women of this congregation, my husband and I,
who attended as a couple, were welcomed and embraced without
question, without suspicion, without bitterness. As one
lesbian woman, weeping, held me, a stranger, in her arms after
we had shared Communion, she said, “You don’t know
what it means to me that you and your husband are here.” As
a representative of the “straight” majority, I was received in
fellowship, welcomed, embraced, appreciated, and loved, in a
congregation that would have been justified in feeling suspicion
at the very least, and I knew, at last, that God was telling
me, “I am here. You are among my own.”
Marilynn Miller grew up a Roman Catholic in
Buffalo, New York, but has been a member of
the Mennonite Church (Lancaster Conference)
for 26 years. She and her husband have lived in
southeastern Pennsylvania since 1973, and have
four sons and two daughters. (Shown with her
newborn grandson.)
Changed by Love and Knowledge
A Parent’s Story
Marilynn Y. Miller
In January of 1999, my then 20-year-old son told my husband and me that he was gay.
Spring 2002 9
I have considered myself Christian
from a very early age when my
grandmother told us Bible stories.
My family’s background was Swiss Reformed,
Salvation Army, and Quaker.
But the Riverdale Presbyterian Church
was nearby when we moved in 1941
and it was there I went to Sunday School
and was welcomed into Westminster
Youth Fellowship. There I was baptized
and joined the Presbyterian Church at
age 13. It was the pastor of this church
who took those young people whose
parents allowed it, and many did not,
to an interracial youth dinner in Washington,
D.C. in 1943 or 44. Early I
learned about challenging the status
quo because of Christian convictions.
This church, through its scholarship
fund, saw to it that I was able to earn
my college and seminary degrees. I was
fortunate to have had college and seminary
professors who encouraged questioning
and thinking outside the box.
Very likely, it is this background that
helped me affirm the majority report
that went to the 1978 General Assembly
permitting ordination of openly gay
ministerial candidates, only to be replaced
by the minority report which
opposed such ordination. I was sad, but
at that time, I did not feel too involved.
I didn’t know any gay or lesbian persons
and told this to Bob, my husband,
when he returned from General Assembly,
shaken to the core by what had
happened there.
“Oh yes you do,” he said, naming a
neighbor, a young man of whom we
were both very fond. Then he added,
“And some of them are married.” Silently,
I gasped, and wondered, “Are
you?” But we were getting ready to
move to Europe, one daughter was planning
her wedding, the other was getting
ready to move across the country
with a boyfriend. I had no time to entertain
such thoughts. The truth came
out shortly thereafter, however, and the
world I thought was ours came crashing
down around us.
I was shaken, scared, angry— but, surprisingly,
and unlike other straight
wives I have come to know, I was not
so much angry at Bob but at our church:
for treating sexuality as something not
to be discussed, for being so secretive
that I had no idea to whom to turn for
help throughout this upheaval, for having
made Bob feel sick and evil, a Dr.
Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, for so many years. He
was one who had learned such negative
ideas about who homosexual persons
were that he did not even recognize
his own orientation until well after
we married. How he was able to serve
the church so well during all this time
is still mystifying to me—and to be a
caring husband and father too!
We did realize that our marriage was
built on much more than sexual attraction.
When the truth was known, we
decided that family, our history, deep
caring, shared friendships, and service
to our church as a team in ministry,
were too important to end. Since that
time we have learned more about ourselves
and about a host of others struggling
with the same issues. And we have
tried in various ways to help the church
come to new understanding.
While in Europe, it was my good
fortune to find feminist friends. When
reading Mary Daly together, I became
fascinated with her image of the bound
feet of Chinese women. When this custom
became outlawed, those formerly
bound feet could no longer grow to
normal size. Have not minds been
bound in like manner, making it hard
to open them to new thinking?
When I made my discovery about
Bob’s and my situation, the two persons
with whom I could share told me, “We
hear your pain, but don’t
know what to say.” It was
then that everything I heard,
read, thought, and sang began
to have messages for me.
Somehow God was there “in
the deep waters” and was
not going to let us drown in
“the rivers of sorrow.” I believe God is with
the church now in these deep waters.
Once I heard a missionary from
China tell us that we need to be careful
what we sing, for if we make promises,
we need to keep them. When we sing
“Oh Jesus, I have promised, to serve
Thee to the end”— we had better mean
it! We should also remember the words
that follow: “I shall not fear the battle
if Thou art by my side, nor wander from
the pathway, if Thou wilt be my guide.”
It does seem like too long a time for
our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
friends to be truly welcomed in
an inclusive church, but progress has
been made in the past 25 years. I believe
that those of us whose minds and
hearts have been opened need to keep
on working—until all churches everywhere
move beyond this fixation on
sex, until a person’s sexual orientation
is as much a non-issue as left-handedness
is today, until we can focus on what
our God requires, “to do justice, love
mercy, and walk humbly with our
God.”
I believe we must stay in our church,
on our own terms, as agents of transformation,
and, like my feminist friends,
I intend to stay, but will “defect— in
place.”
Hedwig (Hedy) Lodwick graduated from
McCormick Seminary in 1951. She served
as a Director of Christian Education in
Hammond, Indiana before being commissioned
with her husband, Robert, by the
Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.). Together they
served in the North of France, Egypt, and
finally, 15 years in Europe, based in Switzerland.
There Hedy worked extensively
with the Ecumenical Women’s Group in
Geneva, the Swiss Federation
of Protestant Women, and the
Ecumenical Forum of European
Christian Women. Retired
in California, Hedy and
Bob are still very active in the
church.
Defecting in Place
A Spouse’s Change
Hedy Lodwick
10 Open Hands
At the halfway point between General
Conference 2000 and General Conference
2004, LGBT United Methodists
and supporters find ourselves caught
between hope and fear. Despite the courageous
witness shown in 2000, the legislative
prognosis for 2004 doesn’t look
very good for inclusion-minded Methodists.
What should we inclusionists1
be doing now to change hearts and
minds? Perhaps more importantly, what
shouldn’t we be doing?
While not a United Methodist, I have
had the opportunity to delve into this
question for the past several years as the
result of writing my doctoral dissertation
on the inclusion struggle in the
United Methodist Church. I watched
caucuses on both sides at work at General
Conference 2000, observed committee
and plenary debates and votes,
ate with the Evangelicals and prayed
with the inclusionists. I also interviewed
a number of delegates, including Evangelicals
and moderates. Finally, I read
literally thousands of pages, from denominational
history to caucus websites,
including every possible position
on the issue. This article discusses some
of my findings about resistance to full
LGBT inclusion in the denomination,
and offers suggestions for what we
should do next.2 The analysis and suggestions
presented here will be painful
and politically problematic for many of
us. They will force us to confront, individually
and communally, whether our
priorities should be gaining access or
bringing about a revolution in the denomination,
and will offer different prognoses
depending on these priorities.
Our first impulse when we think
about resistance to inclusion is to think
that the Evangelicals, led by such caucuses
as Good News, are engaging in a
power play. My research certainly supported
this way of thinking about the
problem, but it directed me to another
way that I think is powerful and largely
undiscussed, and that (if correct) has
important implications for how we
should work to win over the people in
the pews. Put simply, it is that we should
be focused on what the sexuality conflict
has to do with the denomination
as an institution: with the kind of language
and logic3 that most United Methodists
find appropriate to the institution,
and with the need of most United
Methodists to support the institution as
it currently exists.
Institutional Priorities:
Ours and Theirs
We can start with the obvious point
that our language and logic is dramatically
different from that of the
Evangelicals. We talk about inclusion
at the heart of the Gospel, second-class
citizenship in the Kingdom of God, institutionalized
homophobia and heterosexism,
full participation in the life of
the church, singling out a class of people
as ineligible, being welcome or unwelcome,
discrimination and oppression,
and the protection of pastors’ rights. We
sing, “We Shall Overcome” and compare
heterosexism within the church to
racism within the church. We define the
condemnation and exclusion of LGBT
people as a justice issue, as a matter of
fairness and equality.
Even when (frequently) we use religious
justifications, these justifications
tend to be politicized and to have an
anti-institutional feel to them. Jesus is
brought into the picture as one who
Changing Strategies to Change Minds
What we can learn from United Methodists
Amanda Udis-Kessler
Editor’s Note: As a good sociologist, the
author focuses on one denomination for
this article, the basis of research for a
doctoral dissertation. Yet it is not to
single out United Methodists for criticism,
because what is described is essentially
the same for most of our denominational
LGBT groups as we approach
our legislative bodies. In addition, the
Reconciling Ministries Network has historically
approached the United Methodist
Church with multiple strategies
that have included ministries of presence,
education, and reconciliation, especially
in local congregations and districts.
The suggested shift of strategy may
be one of emphasis rather than kind.
The greatest vulnerability of Christian activism is that it is enmeshed
in organizations dedicated to Christian worship. Conservative
rhetoric of “God,” “salvation,” and “faith” has more
currency in such places than talk of “human values,” “justice” and
“service,” which occupies the high ground of secular discourse. (Warner
1988: 268)
We should be stepping back and trying to assess
how the United Methodist middle feels,
how the people in the pews can best be reached.
Footnotes:
1 I use this term to denote LGBT United Methodists, heterosexual allies, and LGBT supporters
outside of Methodism (such as myself).
2 While my research focused exclusively on United Methodists, some of the ideas presented
here may be relevant for inclusionists in other mainline denominations.
3 By “logic,” I mean values, experiences and priorities. The idea behind this section is that
there is a logic that most Methodists take as basic to their connection to the faith tradition,
and that inclusionists challenge this logic by “bringing politics into it.”
Spring 2002 11
focused on the oppressed, broke down
barriers, and held up love over against
the law. Moreover, we make use of rallies
and civil disobedience, support the
work of Soulforce and indeed join that
group, and in some cases perform holy
unions in part as a matter of protesting
the denominational prohibitions.
In contrast, both Evangelicals and
those moderate delegates I spoke with
who voted against inclusion appealed
to what would be considered more classically
Christian moral claims. They focused
on the Bible and on tradition as
authoritative. They spoke at length of
Wesleyanism, holiness, perfection,
morality, and doctrine. They were very
concerned about sustaining the church,
and about the importance of maintaining
a distinctive denominational identity.
Consider the following quotes from
post-General Conference interviews
with delegates:
There are times when I think people are
confusing the constitution and the Bill
of Rights with holiness. It’s as though
there’s not a right or a wrong, but only
a matter of discrimination. I get a feeling
that we’re confusing civil rights issues
with theological issues.
–“ Dennis,” a conservative delegate
My role as a General Conference delegate
is to do what is in the church’s
best interest…to preserve, protect and
defend the United Methodist Church.
And I do not think that it is in the best
interests of the United Methodist
Church right now to [remove the
prohibitions]…I know the church back
home here. I know what the church is
like in other places… where the Methodist
Church is at its strongest, and I
do not think I’m being a good steward
of the church if…I vote to change what’s
in there…[To] the lives of the people
whom our stance affects, I know that
it’s crucially and critically important.
I’m not trying to sell that short. But
our main role in the world is to call
people to Christ and to help them be
formed in His image and that’s what
we’re here for and everything else that
detracts us from that is to our
detriment.
–“Karl,” a moderate delegate
It’s not about civil rights, it’s about
holiness.
–“Clarence,” a moderate delegate
For these delegates and many others
with whom I spoke, the political framework
of the inclusionists was simply
unconvincing. These are not people
who generally oppose LGBT civil rights
in the public square. Nonetheless, they
experience the church as being an institution
where there are different rules
about what’s right and what’s acceptable.
For them, not only is homosexuality
not acceptable in the church, the
politicized nature of the inclusion
struggle is not appropriate for the
church.
Now no one, including us, would
deny that our inclusionist work is political
in nature. And how could it not
be? How else could we possibly interpret
the prohibitions in the Book of
Discipline except through an inequality
lens? The LGBT identity developed
in a context of oppression, devaluation,
and violence, and the post-Stonewall
LGBT movement based its strategy on
1960’s civil rights activism. We still face
opposition— cultural, structural, and
interpersonal. Our movement and our
identity are both inherently politicized.
What should we be doing if not witnessing,
demonstrating, disrupting
business as usual to hold the church
accountable?
The People in the Pews
One possible answer to the question
is that we should be stepping back and
trying to assess how the United Methodist
middle feels, how the people in
the pews can best be reached. Consider,
for example, the different language and
logics described above. Which imagery,
which priorities, which values are likely
to appeal to the majority of United
Methodists?
Another doctoral dissertation, carried
out by sociologist Dawne Moon
(2000), helps answer this question.
Moon, studying inclusion issues in local
Methodist congregations, found that
her respondents tended to have an
understanding of church in which
“church” and “politics” were opposites.
Moon’s respondents appeared to construct
marriage and the church as unmarked
“zones of innocence” standing
not just apart from, but in contrast to,
issues of politics and inequality. Just as
the home has been understood to be a
“haven in a heartless world,” the church
was a haven from the secular world for
the Methodists Moon interviewed. The
relevance of Moon’s work for us is heartbreakingly
clear in the following quote:
A major stumbling block for gay people
in the church is that homosexuality is
equated with politics, fallenness, and
secularity—in short, things most
churchgoers consider to be the opposite
of church…When [LGBT] members
begin to demand “rights” in the church,
they bring in a language of political
struggle, of civil rights. In other words,
they import a language that many believe
pertains to the world rather than
God, to bodies rather than spirits, to
politics rather than innocence. (Moon
2000: 110, 116)
Moon’s work, and my own, suggest
that the United Methodist middle is
likely to prefer the Evangelical approach
over ours. Because of the institutional
meaning that Methodism has come to
have for many moderates, the Evangelicals
simply seem like better Methodists
than the inclusionists. The
inclusionists seem “extreme,” “radical,”
and “unreasonable.” The Evangelicals
seem normal, temperate, and reasonable.
Inclusionists who want to keep up the good fight in the
most strategically useful way should deprioritize working
at the legislative level of General Conference and focus
instead on local churches and grassroots networks.
12 Open Hands
Loyal to the Church As It Is
The following claims and points should
be familiar to most inclusionists:
• Legalism should be rejected since
Jesus put people above the law.
• Business as usual has no right to go
on if it is destroying the dignity of
children of God.
• This is a matter of lives, not issues;
it’s personal, not abstract.
• Since the church has not given
inclusionists any legitimate way to
seek access, they should feel free to
be irritating to those who refuse to
acknowledge them.
• Jesus was an indiscriminate lover, a
boundary-breaker, and a destroyer of
walls between people.
• Methodism should be a community
without laws, boundaries, defenses
or outsiders, where everyone is welcome
and to which everyone belongs
regardless of how others feel.
• Faithful Christians do disagree on
this issue, therefore the church ought
to be able to be honest and say so.
However much we might agree with
the above statements and find them
moving, they all involve at least some
degree of anti-institutionalism. They
may be true, but they put personal experience
above institutional survival.
They may capture powerful images of
Jesus, but they miss basic sociological
wisdom about the need of institutions
for boundaries in order to remain secure.
My research suggests that inclusionists
could become a lot more attentive
to how troubling many Methodists
find arguments such as those above.
Inclusionists are not winning over the
middle with such approaches, and we
may be driving them into the open arms
of the Evangelicals. Consider the following
quote:
A lot of us in the middle…do trust the
Discipline, do trust the process…maybe
people in the middle are voting the way
they’re voting because of their loyalty
to the Discipline.
–“Reggie,” a moderate delegate
To the extent that Reggie is typical
(and his quote was certainly representative),
the most heartfelt witnessing of
the inclusionists may be failing because
we fail to grasp how we are coming
across to those we wish to influence.
The degree of Methodist loyalty to
the denomination as an institution, and
resistance to (real or perceived) attacks
on it, leads to one last point. Inclusionist
strategies at General Conference 2000
may have had the unintended consequence
of suggesting that inclusionists
are cultivating or exacerbating their
outsider status in the denomination. For
example, voting on petitions is as political
an action as demonstrating. However,
at General Conference 2000, the
politics of voting was rendered invisible
before the politics of demonstrating,
probably because voting is institutionalized
in the denomination whereas
demonstrations represent disruptions
and challenges to the institution.
Similarly, because of the way that
“average” delegates dressed, the suits
and ties of the conservatives were normalized
when compared to the plethora
of LGBT symbols (again, emphasizing
gay politics outside the church) exhibited
by the inclusionists. The rainbow
gear marked off the inclusionists as different,
even as the suits and ties of the
Evangelicals suggested continuity with
traditions of dressing respectfully for an
event that is at the heart of the denomination
and therefore worthy of respect.
I own more than my share of rainbow
iconography and wear it proudly, but
if my goal were to assure a moderate
that I was more like her than different
from her, I would probably do well to
leave the rainbows home for the day
and dress like the moderate in question.
What, then, should we do now to
win hearts and minds? How can we
honor the truths we know, yet meet the
goal of changing the denomination
from within?
Spring 2002 13
A Matter of Priorities
What we do next may depend on
whether acceptance within the denomination
or radical change is more important,
and this decision may differ among
inclusionists. We need, however, to be
very clear about one thing: given the
conservative lock-hold at the legislative
level, our best hope now rests closer to
home.
Practically speaking, this means that
those of us for whom a radically, structurally
inclusive church is the priority,
and for whom activism is a central strategy,
face exceptionally hard choices. It
may be time to ask whether political
activism is as strategically useful as we
want it to be. As already suggested, witnessing
and protesting firmly link the
idea of full LGBT participation in the
life of the church with a logic that “the
church,” rightly or wrongly, sees as different
from its own.
If the Methodist middle conceives of
politics and church as opposites, the
inclusionist movement may do better
to distance itself from politics and to
identify more closely with spiritual transcendence
in order to raise its chances
of being seen as worthy of inclusion.
Given how politicized homosexuality
is, any political action on behalf of inclusion
has the unintended effect of
amplifying LGBT difference from “normal,”
“reasonable” Methodism in the
same way that a fun house mirror simultaneously
magnifies and distorts the
image of the person in front of the mirror.
A final problem on this front: when
moderates feel pushed they “hold the
line,” and my interviews suggest that
they feel far more pushed by us than
by Good News, the conservative faction.
I’m not suggesting that any of us
forget who we are or where we came
from, that we deny the existence of
homophobia and heterosexism, that we
suppress our pain or our rage. I am suggesting,
however, that the expression of
our pain and our rage as a form of witness
to the denomination is currently
strategically problematic, and seems
likely to remain so in the near future.
When we offer up what we know to be
true by demonstrating, we alienate
enough moderate United Methodists to
hinder our efforts, at least at the legis-
Changed About “Changed” Homosexuals
Lila Frazier
Her name, Darlene. We met at a week-long writing camp in 1978. She told us of
her struggle. For years she lived as a promiscuous, homosexual thief. Then God
found her, but in a setting which told her the sin of thievery was mild compared to
her sin of homosexuality. She and those around her prayed for change. Through
hypnosis and healing services, she was transformed.
I had never thought much about homosexuality. Intrigued by her story, I decided
if Darlene wasn’t happy as a homosexual, and if she could change under God’s
direction, then others could, too. I spoke out about the church needing to listen to
“former” homosexuals. In my mind I labeled two outspoken homosexuals from our
conference as “the enemy.”
More than ten years later, in the processing room of the library where I worked, a
book crossed my desk: Stranger at the Gate: to be Gay and Christian in America, by Mel
White. I knew him! Mel, a keynote speaker at one of our writing camps, is a strong
Christian and a good writing teacher—and a homosexual? I read the book immediately
(a perk of working in a library!). Mel told of his years of struggle to not be a
homosexual. But Darlene and others I’d met had changed. I wrote Darlene asking if
some homosexuality was physical and some psychological. She wrote back saying
she didn’t think so, with no explanation.
Later she wrote to tell me she’d met and fallen in love with a woman. She now
believes her “transformation” was wishful thinking. However, her acceptance of
God did bring about transformation in her life. She stopped being a thief! She made
restitution for what she’d embezzled from her employer. She knows God loves her.
She and her partner are in a church which loves them as they are. ▼
Lila Frazier describes herself as a seventies-something, single, free-lance
writer, and member of Citrus Heights United Methodist Church in Sacramento.
An active Reconciling United Methodist, she proudly wears
her rainbow ribbon at her regional annual conferences and when she
lobbied for inclusion at the 2000 General Conference. She counts lesbians
and gay men among her friends, and contributes to our movement
through diversity workshops, letters to the editor, and opinion pieces.
lative level. If demonstrating is not the
best way of changing hearts and minds,
we need to make a decision about priorities:
is activist witnessing more important,
or is change more important?
Some will answer that there can be
no compromise, and that telling the
truth Soulforce-style is the only way to
maintain dignity and integrity. Those
who fall into this category must face the
heartbreaking truth that in the current
climate, the kind of witnessing done at
General Conference 2000 is not productive
and may be counterproductive. The
issue is not whether demonstrating
lacks moral valor and spiritual value,
but only whether it is efficacious in
terms of meeting the basic inclusionist
goal of gaining access. As this article and
the research on which it is based suggests,
I fear that political activism within
the church will not change enough
hearts and minds in the short-term to
effect positive legislative change.
If the primary goal is changing hearts
and minds, the following strategies
should be on the discussion table.
Strategies
Focus on the grassroots: One selfidentified
moderate told me that,
“stateways don’t change folkways.” Behind
this sociological jargon is the idea
that inclusionists who want to keep up
the good fight in the most strategically
useful way should deprioritize working
14 Open Hands
at the legislative level of General Conference
and focus instead on local
churches and grassroots networks. I
agree wholeheartedly. We should be
directing much of our energy toward
making individual congregations welcoming
and empowering for LGBT
Methodists. As the experience of the last
30 years suggests, it is possible to have
individually prophetic churches, even
with antigay rules on the books. Sociologist
Stephen Warner (1995:94) notes
the conclusion of many gay Christian
activists that the struggle for LGBT recognition
must move to the congregational
level. Similarly, UCC pastor and
sociologist Gary Comstock’s (1996:77)
study of LGBT United Methodists indicates
that, “local congregations can resist
and neutralize somewhat denominational
policy.” This is taking place in
U.S. Methodism, and should be supported
with all possible vigor.
Change the nature of witnessing:
James Wood, a United Methodist pastor
and sociologist, argues (2000:83-84)
that minds are changed about homosexuality
through the enlarging of personal
circles. This argument is supported
by research showing that
heterosexuals who know LGBT people
are more likely to be accepting. Perhaps
the most important thing that can be
done to make local congregations welcoming
on this front is for LGBT Methodists
to simply be present and engage
in church life while being as open— yet
relaxed— as possible about their sexuality.
Consider this quote from “Marty,”
a conservative delegate:
I don’t think [LGBT Methodists] should
stand on the corner and say I’m an
avowed gay homosexual and wave the
flag, because I think in a lot of people’s
thinking that closes a lot of doors. I
know within my own church we have
several people who I know are gay.
They’re in leadership roles. They don’t
go ’round carrying that chip on their
shoulder.
Marty’s suggestion and language
may be infuriating to many of us, but
sociologically speaking, he has a point.
If the goal of most inclusionists is a safe
and meaningful local worship experience,
Marty may be providing a sense
of how to meet that goal. As politically
unsatisfying as it may be, finding ways
to maintain one’s dignity without formally
seeking access could potentially
be the solution for at least some LGBT
Methodists.
Accentuate the normal: LGBT
United Methodists should continue to
demonstrate, both in word and action,
that they are as tired of this struggle as
the Evangelicals are, and that their local
church priorities are those of “normal,
reasonable” Methodists: worship,
Sunday School, evangelism and so on.
Indeed, my research suggests that many
LGBT Methodists already feel this way,
even as they remain committed to political
change strategies. Minimizing the
political language and logic could only
help: the more the average heterosexual
Methodist in the pew sees that the average
LGBT Methodist has “normal”
Methodist feelings about the church,
the more likely the heterosexual Methodist
is to treat the LGBT Methodist
“reasonably,” as a brother or sister in
Christ.
Evangelize: If inclusionists want to
change the way the United Methodist
Church views homosexuality, one key
strategy is to engage in major evangelizing
projects among heterosexual
progressives and LGBT people, whether
churched or unchurched. The denomination’s
inclusionist element is not
going to grow proportional to the denomination
as a whole without bringing
in more inclusionists from outside
the church.
Grieve: The denomination’s refusal
to repent of its homophobia and heterosexism
is heartbreaking, and we should
allow our hearts to be broken over it as
often as necessary. Most United Methodists
don’t have “hearts of stone,” as
was said by some after General Conference
2000, but most Methodists also
have not had the experiences we have,
and they don’t see what we see. Until
we fully and deeply grasp this fact and
mourn it, we will not be able to forgive
those who seem bent on misunderstanding
us. Until we forgive them, I fear
that we will not be able to meet them
where they are, rather than where we
want and need them to be. Until we can
meet them where they are, we run the
risk of making strategically problematic
decisions.
A Word of Hope
Following a discussion about my research,
some Presbyterian inclusionists
asked how, given this information, they
could offer a word of hope to other
inclusionists. As I have mulled over this
question, I have been strangely comforted
by the idea that God’s realm is
simultaneously now and not yet. Sociologically,
the news may be bad (though
it may also be more complicated than
the story I’ve told here). Nonetheless,
Jesus says that all things are possible
with God. One of my inclusionist
interviewees, a pastor, talked about a
professor in seminary who walked into
class on the first day, tore the back cover
off a Bible, and told the class that the
story wasn’t over yet. The inclusionist
story isn’t over yet either. I’d say it’s
only just beginning.
Amanda Udis-Kessler,
Ph.D., is a Unitarian
Universalist sociologist,
writer, and musician
completing a one-year
teaching assignment at
Grinnell College in
Iowa. Amanda’s work
(play?) ranges from
writing bisexual history and theory to composing
sacred choral music, and from training
speakers for Boston’s LGBT speakers
bureau to music directing Godspell. Her
work on Jesus as holy leper has appeared in
Open Hands (Summer, 1998; Vol. 14, No.
1), as have two songs (including an “open
the doors” song written for General Conference
1996) and a column on class justice
and queerness.
References:
Comstock, Gary D., Unrepentant, Self-Affirming,
Practicing (New York: Continuum,
1996).
Moon, Dawne, “The Limits of Christian
Love.” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of
Sociology, University of Chicago, Chicago,
IL, (2000).
Warner, R. Stephen, “The Metropolitan
Community Churches and the Gay Agenda.”
Religion and the Social Order 5: 81-108
(1995).
Warner, R. Stephen, New Wine in Old Wineskins
(Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1988).
Wood, James Rutland, Where the Spirit Leads
(Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000).
Spring 2002 15
Because I am an Evangelical Christian
and an activist who works
for justice for my GLBT sisters
and brothers, I am often asked questions
like, “What changed your mind about
homosexual people?” or “When did
you decide that being gay wasn’t bad?”
My answer is that I never had to
change my mind because I never
thought that being gay or lesbian was
bad. Later in my life, when I learned
that some people were bisexual or
transgender, I didn’t think there was
anything wrong with that either. For
me, having a different sexual orientation
was just that: different, not bad.
I liked some gay people and did not
care as much for some others, but
found all of those people whose sexuality
was different from mine interesting.
I also found it curious that so
many people I knew didn’t like them.
This always made me feel sad and
sometimes very angry.
It has been good for me to reflect
back and look for the reasons why I
never embraced the homophobia so
rampant in the Evangelical Christian
circles where I grew up. One reason was
the parents I was blessed to have. My
mother and father worked as hard not
to prejudge people as any two people I
have ever known. For them, neither
race, nor religion, nor anything else was
reason to judge a person before you really
got to know him or her.
It was not that my parents were particularly
enlightened on the subject of
homosexuality. Few people were, back
in the 1940’s when I was growing up.
The gift Mother and Daddy gave to me
was not in any enlightening words I can
remember from them on the subject of
homosexuality, but rather in the way
they showed grace and love, even to
those they did not understand. You did
not “bad mouth” people at our house,
and especially not whole groups of
people.
Bill, Eugene, and Tom
Then there was my brother’s friend’s
older brother Bill. At the age of 30, Bill
still lived at home with their widowed
mother. He was a gentle man, kind to
us children, and I liked him. One day
when I asked Mother why Bill was not
married, I was surprised to see her eyes
fill with tears. “Bill is one of those men
who is not attracted to women,” she
said. “He is very lonely and his life is
sad. You should always be especially
kind to Bill.” I learned from the other
kids that, not only was Bill not attracted
to women, but that he liked men. And I
wondered why he did not seem to have
any nice men like himself as his special
friends. Bill was so very, very lonely.
I heard other people say unkind
things and tell jokes about Bill, and I
was horrified that some of them didn’t
seem to care if he heard them. Bill’s tormentors
made me very angry and I felt
guilty because I didn’t have the courage
to tell them to stop. But courage
was something I didn’t have in those
days
During WWII, my father was a chaplain
in the Army Air Corps. I remember
coming home from kindergarten one
day to find Daddy sitting at the kitchen
table with Mother talking about something
very serious. That was the only
time I ever saw my father cry. My
mother explained to me later that
Daddy had been crying because the
young man who was his chaplain’s assistant
had come to him with a problem
and my father did not know how
to help him. Eugene, whom I knew and
liked, had told Daddy he was attracted
to men, not women, and that, even
though he had given his heart to Jesus,
promised God that he would work in
the church for the rest of his life, and
prayed as hard as he could, his feelings
had not changed. And my father had
cried because he knew of no way to
“fix” either the young man whom he
loved and respected or the people he
knew would ruin Eugene’s life if they
found out who he really was.
It was in high school that I more
personally felt the sting of the injustices
heaped upon those who are not
“straight.” Tom was a dear friend of
mine long before I knew that he was
gay. We were buddies. We talked every
day. Tom was bright, he was fun, and
he gave me the great gift of making me
feel understood. I understood something
about Tom too. He was different.
The way I would have said it then, and
would still say it now, was that Tom was
“special.”
So I didn’t like it when some of the
boys started to make fun of Tom. The
names they called him, “fag,” “queer,”
and “fairy,” were words I really did not
understand. I only knew that those
words hurt my friend. I watched, as
though in a nightmare, as the boys who
harassed Tom used those words so carelessly,
and then went on to whatever
else they were doing, leaving my dear
friend terribly, terribly wounded. I was
sure that those boys did not even think
about Tom after they had passed him
by, but it became increasingly clear to
me that Tom thought about them all
the time. He feared them, even though
their only weapons were words, and I
felt his fear every day.
As I watched the joy go out of Tom’s
life, I had questions for my parents.
They did not have all of the answers I
needed. Indeed, they had very few answers.
But it was made clear to me that
Tom’s tormentors were wrong, that
what they were doing to him was evil,
and that the right thing for me to do
was to go on being Tom’s friend. But I
already knew that. I knew too that I
should stand up for Tom and speak out
in defense of my friend. But I could not.
I did not have the courage to do it. All
that I seemed to have was a share of
Because I Came to Know Jesus,
I Found the Courage to Speak
Peggy Campolo
16 Open Hands
Tom’s great pain and a sense that something
was very, very wrong. It was not
until years later that I found what I
needed to give me the courage to name
that wrong.
I learned from my parents that the
way homosexual people were treated
was not right. And something within me
knew that what was really wrong had
nothing to do with who these people
were.
Accepting Jesus and
Rejecting Injustice
When my pastor father talked to my
Sunday School class of nine-year-old
girls about publicly accepting Jesus and
joining the church, I struggled with
what to do. I did not have any spiritual
feelings. God was not anything real to
me and I certainly did not feel “Jesus in
my heart.” But everybody in my world,
everybody I loved was a Christian, so it
was easier just to “go along” when all
the other little girls decided to be baptized.
God wasn’t part of the picture for
me, but I loved my father and didn’t
want to embarrass him. So I pretended
to become a Christian—for Daddy and
for everybody else I loved.
But I couldn’t always pretend for
myself. I simply learned to let other
people think I was different than I really
was because I feared that they
would not love the real me as much as
they would the Christian person I was
pretending to be. I have never forgotten
what that felt like, and these days it
helps me to understand why some of
my dear GLBT friends remain in their
closets. At the same time, I told myself
how good it was that I could admit to
myself that I didn’t believe in God. At
least I was honest with myself!
But sadly, what I liked to think was
“the integrity of my thinking” did not
translate either into my speaking out
on behalf of unfairly maligned GLBT
people or my asking honest questions
about Jesus of those who loved me and
would have tried to answer them. I may
have had convictions, but the courage
of those convictions was sadly lacking
in me.
The story of how I encountered the
Holy Spirit and met Jesus at the bedside
of a dying friend has been told in
more detail elsewhere. Suffice it to say
here that, in my desperation to help my
friend Helen, I cried out to the God in
whom I was not at all sure I believed.
And that day, I found not only what I
needed to help Helen in her dying, but
all that I myself needed for a life with
Jesus Christ, a life far richer and better
than I had known before.
Now I not only had a hand to hold
when I walked in difficult places; I
found something I had longed for all
of my life—the courage to speak out
about what I did and did not believe.
The last time I lacked that courage was
shortly after Helen died. Its importance
to me now is that it was the last time.
My husband and I were riding in the
back seat of a car on the way to one of
his speaking engagements. The couple
in the front seat were Evangelical Christians.
I am sure that is what they would
have called themselves. They wanted to
talk to Tony about what they thought
was wrong with this world, and guess
who was first on their list? As they began
to talk about “these people,” I
wanted very much to be somewhere
else. They were wrong, wrong, wrong,
these seemingly nice but terribly misguided
people. I sat in silent misery and
anger, doing what I had always done in
such situations: nothing! I had never
said anything to upset anyone when I
was with Tony on one of his speaking
trips. Indeed, never upsetting anyone
was part of the “pretend” religion I used
to have before I found the real thing!
Tony did his best to explain why they
were wrong, but my own silence was
so loud in my ears that I cannot remember
what he said. I thought about Tom
and others I knew who were victims of
the words I was hearing. That ride
seemed interminable, but it ended too
soon, and I was left with the guilt of
my silence. That night, miserable and
ashamed of myself, I asked God for forgiveness
and for another chance to
speak out for my GLBT brothers and
sisters.
God answered that prayer and I
found myself not only able to speak up
for God’s GLBT children, but quite unable
to be silent in the face of any untruths
spoken about them. Advocating
for understanding and justice for these
brothers and sisters was the first thing
that changed for me after Jesus Christ
became part of my life.
Welcoming Myself by
Welcoming Others
Then, very soon, I discovered that
you can’t learn to stand up for other
people without also gaining the cour-
Order from Chalice Press
www.chalicepress.com
(800) 366-3383
“Reading this book was a profoundly freeing experience.”
Tom Moore, Director of Psychological Services,
University Of Illinois at Champaitn-Urbana
The Bible: Faith’s Family Album
lays open the Bible’s organizing
theme: the call to live together in
communities of peace and justice.
This overview of scripture is designed
for individual or group study.
The author, Jack Good, recently retired as
pastor of Community United Church of
Christ of Champaign, Illinois, a Peace and
Justice, Open and Affirming congregation.
Spring 2002 17
age to stand up for yourself. That was
new for me, and it felt good. I am sure
that part of the reason for my deep affection
for God’s GLBT children is because
it was through them that I found
out who God had created me to be.
Some of my most precious worship
experiences have been in so-called “gay
churches.” Nowhere is God more real
than among those who have been told
that God does not want them, but who
have persevered to find that, not only
does God want them, but Jesus died for
them, and the Holy Spirit stands ready
to walk anywhere with them.
“Witnessing” used to be a term I
found ”icky.” I thought that “witnessing”
meant that I had to tell people they
were going to hell unless they said, in
exactly the right words, that they believed
in Jesus. So it was a very happy
thing for me to find out that “witnessing”
was something I really loved, something
I already was doing. “Witnessing”
was simply telling other people about
the hand that held mine as I walked
through life, about how it was easier for
me to show grace and understanding
to other people now that I was happily
aware of the grace that God had shown
to me in Jesus Christ.
I started to seriously read the Bible
for the first time in my life, and I confess
that one of the big reasons for doing
that was because some of those who
were hardest on my GLBT friends said
that the Bible was the reason for their
words and actions. I didn’t see how this
could be true, and after much reading
and studying, I found that it was not true!
Volumes have been written on both
sides of the argument about the Bible
and homosexuality by scholars far more
learned on the subject than I am. I have
a modicum of sympathy for those misguided
people who honestly believe
that the Bible says we should shut out
God’s GLBT children, but am angry with
that larger group in the church who
speak the truth in private but lack the
courage to stand up publicly for their
excluded and persecuted sisters and
brothers. One of the joys of my life is
to belong to a Welcoming and Affirming
church where nobody has to wear a
“costume” to be part of us.
I think of the story Jesus told about
the ninety and nine sheep when I am
Virginia, My Soul-Sister
Malcolm Boyd
I was so scared…so alone, so unattractive…in high school. All I had were my
books…and the opera broadcasts Saturday mornings…and my fantasies, and my
dreams of the beautiful world that awaited me—somewhere.
Virginia was my friend. She was sophisticated, beautiful, sure of herself; had a
theatrical cigarette voice and drove a red convertible. Virginia was outrageous…went
to bars, had black friends, said clever things that were quoted.
She’d pick me up and take me to the Pencol drugstore for a coke. The Pencol was
where the beautiful people went for a coke. Virginia wasn’t ashamed to be seen with
me. I was so unattractive in high school.
Virginia was in med school. Sometimes I’d visit here at home. She wore pants,
and her shirttail out. Virginia had lots of records. I played “The Man I Love.”
She got married in a big wedding. It was a scandal. Three weeks later, when her
husband left, I heard he was, well, a homosexual. She got kicked out of med school.
They said she was a lesbian.
I grew up, went away to school, never came back.
But once I paid a visit. Virginia was older, of course, but still so beautiful, so
sophisticated, so kind. She still loved me. I was still alone and scared, but not so
unattractive. She took my hand in hers, held it, said my hand was a lovely hand, the
loveliest hand. She knew a man who would love to know me, would love me. The
three of us could go away together for a while. I was scared. I said no, but wanted to
say yes.
Years later I returned for my last visit. Virginia’s old family home had once been
aristocratic and in the best part of town. Now it was in a slum, a dangerous
neighborhood…the paper left on the porch was stolen unless picked up right away.
On that porch, on my last night, Virginia gave a dinner party for me. She had an
old card table. A fancy, faded tablecloth. The old, good silver. There was Virginia.
Me. A dyke nurse, an old lover of hers. A dyke army sergeant, an old lover of hers.
We ate on the porch in the slum. Candlelight flooded the scene. Virginia had suffered
a stroke, spoke with difficulty, used a cane.
It was a glorious dinner. We laughed, cried. Tennessee Williams would have loved
it. Geraldine Page could have played it. The next morning I left. Heard the next year
that Virginia had died.
I was so scared, so alone, so unattractive, in high school. Virginia
took me to the Pencol drugstore for a coke. Virginia was my
soul-sister. ▼
Malcolm Boyd, has just published Simple Grace: A Mentor’s Guide to
Growing Older (Westminster John Knox Press, 2001). An Episcopal
priest, poet, spiritual director, and author of 25 books, he writes
regularly for Modern Maturity.
asked whether or not anyone has left
my beloved home church, Central Baptist
in Wayne, Pennsylvania, because we
have GLBT members and bless their
committed partnerships. And I am at
peace in the knowledge that any of the
“ninety and nine” who have left us can
find hundreds of churches to welcome
and affirm them, while some of those
whom these people would allow to remain
excluded have found a home with
us. What is not right is that anyone
should have to drive as far as some of
our GLBT members to find the place in
God’s Church on earth that Jesus died
for them to have.
I have no words that can fully express
the great joy that my ministry of
advocacy has brought and continues to
bring me every day of my life. It is a gift
to me to be able to say to a mother who
wants to love and fully accept a lesbian
daughter that she is right and that the
Bible says nothing to the contrary, to
affirm a young gay Christian by telling
him that he should not, indeed must
18 Open Hands
not do as his pastor has suggested and
seek to “marry the right woman” in
order to try to change the sexuality God
has given him, to see the joy in the eyes
of a man or woman who has been in a
committed relationship for many years
when I refer as “spouse” or “partner”
to that dear one whom he or she has
never dared to refer to publicly other
than as “friend,” and to write and speak
about how real family values, like monogamy
and commitment, are for all
of God’s children.
When I sit in my living room with a
college student who is struggling to accept
his gay sexuality, I so appreciate
being able to share my library of books
written and videos made by those good
men and women who have themselves
been where he finds himself and have
taken the time to set down their own
journeys toward those places where God
intended them to be. To see hope and
possibility bloom in the heart of one
who thought he would die of pain is a
privilege I would not trade for the
world. And what a blessing it is to turn
to the church list that Open Hands publishes
annually when a frightened person
who wants to come out of the closet
wants to worship in a safe place.
Of all my speaking opportunities, my
favorite ones are when I meet with parents
of GLBT children. Some of them
may be confused and upset, but most
of those I meet are actively seeking ways
to understand and support their children.
One of my best memories is of a
strong-looking Mennonite farmer
standing with his arm around his gay
son as our group sang the old hymn,
“Come, Come Ye Saints.” Each verse
ends with the refrain, “All is well, all is
well.” That father had had a long and
difficult journey to this place of understanding.
And now he sang with reverence,
yet his body language said in no
uncertain terms that things would be
as well for his son as he could make
them no matter what anybody else said
or did.
Evangelism
How could anyone not love taking
good news to people? I thank God every
day for giving me a ministry wherein
I can give the good news of God’s love,
acceptance and grace to people all the
time. And our GLBT brothers and sisters
have good news for the rest of the
church too. They know in ways that
most of us cannot, that Jesus really is
all you need, because many of them
have lived through times when Jesus
was all they had. They have lost their
jobs, been evicted from their homes,
been asked to leave the colleges they
attended, and even been told they were
no longer welcome in their own families.
There is a spirituality in the Christian
gay community that runs deep. My
most wonderful worship experiences
have been with them.
It was because I came to know Jesus
that I found the courage to speak what
my mind and heart already knew about
these special children of God. I never
did have to change my mind about how
I felt about my GLBT sisters and brothers,
but my ministry with them has certainly
opened my mind to the wonder
and the power of the grace of Jesus
Christ.
Peggy Campolo was born in Salem, New
Jersey, where her father was pastor of the
American Baptist Church. She taught first
grade prior to spending a number of years
as a full-time wife and mother. A writer
and editor, she has spoken at churches,
colleges, and conferences throughout the
United States. She serves as an active member
of PFLAG (Parents, Families and
Friends of Lesbians and Gays), Evangelicals
Concerned, the Council of Welcoming and
Affirming Baptists, Soulforce, and Central
Baptist Church of Wayne, Pennsylvania,
a Welcoming and Affirming congregation.
She and her husband
Tony live in St. Davids,
Pennsylvania, and
have two grown children
and four grandchildren
with whom
they spend as much
time as possible.
Spring 2002 19
On Palm Sunday, April 16, 2000, history was made at
Union United Methodist Church, a predominately
black mainline church in Boston’s South End. On
that day, the bishop of the Boston Area of the United Methodist
Church (UMC), the Rt. Rev. Susan Hassinger, and the superintendent
of the Metro Boston South District of the UMC, the
Rev. Dr. Jerome King Del Pino, celebrated with Union United
Methodist Church its becoming a Reconciling and inclusive congregation.
Why is this significant?
No mainline black church or predominately black church
in this country had previously made such a bold step to include
its lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender population into
its fold.
And the reason is because sexuality has never been a comfortable
topic of discussion in the African American community—
largely due to slavery first, and then, after slavery, to
what we African Americans appropriated from the dominant
culture about sexual behavior in order to deem ourselves human
in the eyes of our oppressors.
First bred as cattle during slavery, only to be later touted
either as sexual sirens or sexual predators, black sexuality has
never had a chance to evolve in a milieu free of abuse, violence,
and stereotypes. The raping of black women and the
lynching of black men in this country by white men also diminished
a sense of control over our own bodies. Many African
Americans have carved out an essentialist racial identity
at the expense of leaving our bodies and sexualities behind.
Often embracing a fundamentalist Christianity that fosters
an asexual theology, African American bodies and sexualities
that were once systematically usurped by white slave masters
may now be ritually harnessed by the black church.
However, Union United Methodist Church, located in one
of Boston’s heavily gay-populated areas, began to ask questions
about its LGBT population, especially in this era of AIDS.
And it all began in late 1996 when Hilda Evans, a retired registered
nurse and a member at Union for over 50 years asked
the now retired Rev. Theodore L. Lockhart during a membership
class, “Where does the United Methodist Church stand
on the issue of homosexuality?”
Within both the larger lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
population and the larger black population, African
American LGBT people are the most under-served and least
understood population. What is known is more anecdotal than
analytical. And what we see of this segment is seldom viewed
through the understanding lenses of how white queer racism
and black compulsory heterosexism exact a toll on our lives.
As a fractured group politically, socially, and religiously,
African American LGBT people live as resident aliens enduring
bifurcated existences in these respective communities.
While our black skin ostensibly gives us residence in our black
communities, our sexual orientation most times evicts us from
Amazing Courage
Irene Monroe
them. And while our sexual orientation gives us residence in
the larger LGBT community, racism constantly thwarts efforts
at coalition-building, weakening the larger movement for
sexual equality.
With the black church’s theological qualifier to love the
sinner— us, but to hate the sin— our sexual orientation, we are
permanent souls of the black church, but we are never fully
welcomed. To be only tangentially aligned to these communities
dangles our lives precariously by a thin thread, having
the nagging feeling of marginalization if not complete dispossession.
The marginalization of African American LGBT people became
a concern for Hilda Evans. In the spring of 1997, a task
force was formed to explore her question, and every Wednesday
evening for two years a Bible study class convened on the
theme, “Just what does the Bible really say about homosexuality?”
In the fall of 1999, the task force drafted and circulated a
statement to the entire church body for discussion on becoming
a Reconciling and inclusive congregation. The following
January, the task force sent their resolution to the church council
for vote. “When we took this issue to the church body for
a vote, it was not unanimously yes,” Evans told The Washington
Blade. “There were some reservations. But we are Christians
and Christ did not refuse anyone. This is the stand we’re
taking.”
During Black History Month, on February 15, the church
council of Union voted to become a Reconciling and inclusive
church body. The statement affirms, “Union United Methodist
Church is a predominately African-American congregation
within the church universal, The Body of Christ…We seek
to address and advocate the rights, needs and concerns of gay
men and lesbians in our church and society…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.”
I never thought in my lifetime I would witness this moment
in a black church. When I got up to speak from the
pulpit at Union’s celebration I was fighting back my tears and
joyously thinking of the many African American LGBT people
who now have a place to worship in Boston. And I considered
the amazing courage it took for Union United Methodist
Church to struggle against the torrential waves of homophobia
still current in the black church.
Irene Monroe, named one of Boston’s “50 Most Intriguing Women”
by Boston Magazine, is a graduate of Wellesley College and New
York City’s Union Theological Seminary. She is
a doctoral candidate in the Religion, Gender,
and Culture program at Harvard Divinity
School. The Editorial Advisory Committee invited
her to be the first annual columnist for
Open Hands.
OPEN HANDS COLUMNIST FOR THE YEAR 2002
20 Open Hands
We welcome 800-word submissions to “My Turning Point,” a regular feature of Open Hands,
told in first person, about how you changed your mind about lesbian, gay, bisexual, or
transgender people. Please include a snapshot of yourself and a brief self-description.
My Turning Point
Catherine Sager-Bohnert
Passion for social justice has always been an earmark of
my faith. In a seminary paper, I once described Jesus as
the “Liberator” who came to set us free from all forms
of personal and societal bondage so that we could give ourselves
fully to the task of loving God and neighbor. This image
of Jesus as Liberator came to shape my theology and practice
of ministry.
I first recognized incongruity between my beliefs and the
official position of my denomination when I was a novice
ministry candidate. Through the working of the Spirit I was
paired with a candidacy guide who pastored a Reconciling
congregation and introduced me to the Reconciling movement.
As part of the process we spent some time examining
the Social Principles in the United Methodist Book of Discipline,
and I stumbled over this passage: “Homosexual persons
no less than heterosexual persons are individuals of sacred
worth…. Although we do not condone the practice of
homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with
Christian teaching, we affirm that God’s grace is available to
all.” It struck me as contradictory and presumptuous to profess
the sacred worth of all persons only to imply that some
were decidedly less holy than others. I began to question the
United Methodist Church’s stance.
Resolution to my doubts and questions came when the
Spirit provided a catalyst in the form a woman in one of my
classes who embodied everything I thought a Christian and
pastor should be. She was gentle, kind, and intuitive, with
gifts of empathy, honesty, and humility that both shamed and
inspired me. One day she confided that she was a lesbian. Her
revelation caused me no discomfort; rather, I experienced it
as I would any intimate detail about a friend. I was touched
by her trust and moved by her story of struggle to live with
integrity in a culture that all too often offered only suspicion,
fear, and hateful rejection. Because she was my friend, her
pain became my pain.
But I took it a step farther and felt the anger she had moved
beyond. I was angry with any and all persons, especially Christians,
who would judge and condemn her on the basis of her
identity. And that is, for me, precisely where the issue hinged.
It was a matter of identity, not the misleading terms of “choice”
or “lifestyle.”
During my remaining days in seminary, my disenchantment
with narrow-minded religion grew. I discovered that the
ugliest form of prejudice was the kind hiding insidiously under
a veneer of religious self-righteousness. In a pastoral care
class, several students admitted their reluctance to counsel
persons who might be gay or lesbian. Then, two of my friends
who were seeking student pastorates were turned down by
their prospective churches; one rejected for being female and
the other because of his interracial marriage. Each of these
events shocked and outraged me, but I wanted to believe that
they were isolated incidents and did not reflect the nature of
the institution. I clung to the hope that the church would
humble itself and be cleansed of its “isms”—racism, classism,
sexism, and heterosexism—so that it could move forward, healed
and whole, into a new era of fairness and equality for all.
Any illusions I may have had along such lines were shattered
by the decisions made at the denomination’s General
Conference in the spring of 2000. By a strong majority, the
delegates voted to retain the discriminatory language regarding
homosexuality in the Book of Discipline, including the
prohibition of “practicing” gays and lesbians from ordained
ministry. I took a long, hard look at the church, and saw an
institution unwilling to embrace all with the same kind of
gratuitous love that Jesus displayed, an institution that decried
injustice and intolerance all the while using criteria such
as race, gender, and sexuality to determine who would and
would not be allowed to fully participate.
As I struggled to comprehend, the United Methodist Church
announced a nationwide media campaign to promote its “open
minds, open hearts, and open doors.” I was in disbelief over
the church’s hypocrisy. I also could not help wondering how
I could, with any sense of integrity, represent a denomination
that seemed opposed to my most deeply held commitments.
The turmoil that I felt was one factor in my decision to
leave the candidacy process for ordained ministry in the UMC
and explore the possibility of membership and ministry in
other, more progressive, churches. I felt comfortable with
Unitarian Universalist principles and attended services at a
local church, but the emphasis on rationalism left me cold. I
then ventured into the Unity church and found some solace, but
could discern no meaningful outlet for mission and ministry.
I despaired of finding a place where I could truly feel at
home. But the Spirit brought persons into my life who encouraged
and guided me. Amazingly, each of these persons
had a connection to the Reconciling congregation that had
once been pastored by my former candidacy guide. I found
myself returning over and over again to this small but thriving
church and always receiving a genuinely warm welcome.
Their sincere commitment to “do justice, practice kindness,
and walk humbly with God” won me over and I became a
member. Even though I still sometimes wonder if I belong in
the United Methodist Church, I have found a congregation
where I have no doubt that I do.
The time has come to recognize that sexual orientation
and gender identity are lived realities just as race and gender,
not just “issues.” Empowered by the Spirit, we must call the
church to forsake its distraction with transient and illusory
concerns. Liberated from idolatry, the church will then be free
to give itself wholeheartedly to the work of loving God and
neighbor.
Catherine Sager-Bohnert is a graduate of the
Methodist Theological School in Ohio and is a
member of Central United Methodist Church,
a Reconciling congregation in Toledo, Ohio. She
dreams of the church becoming a community
that celebrates God’s diverse world and lives in
harmonious relationship with all of creation.
Spring 2002 21
Conversion,
The United Church of Canada Way
Changing a Denominational Mind
Alyson Huntly
Some conversions happen in a
flash of blinding light. Some
don’t. For example, I’ve never had
a once-for-all-time “moment.” Instead, my
own conversion has happened over decades.
Personal experience, challenge, encounter,
the movement of God’s spirit
in my life—all this has drawn me over
and over again into a new ways of seeing
myself, God, and the world. Feminism,
coming out, waking up to racism
and economic injustice, spiritual reawakening—
all these have been ongoing
conversions.
I think my own denomination, The
United Church of Canada, is a bit like
me. The United Church didn’t become
converted to a queer-positive stance in
a blinding flash. In fact, the United
Church doesn’t seem to do anything in
a blinding flash. Maybe it’s our Canadian
nature, maybe it’s our history,
maybe it’s the climate, who knows. But
we seem to move slowly to new ways
of seeing and being.
In August 2000, The United Church
of Canada renounced a forty-year old
resolution that had declared homosexuality
as sin. The General Council, the
United Church’s highest elected body,
made the decision after three hours of
serious but respectful debate and personal
sharing. The General Council also
encouraged all church members and
church courts to offer healing for the
damage caused by the church’s historic
stance on homosexuality. It affirmed
that all human sexual orientations are
a gift from God. It affirmed gay and lesbian
partnerships and agreed to work
for their civil recognition as well as to
honor them in services of blessing. And,
it encouraged the congregations of the
United Church to enter into the Affirming
congregation study process. (The Affirming
congregation program is the
welcoming movement within The
United Church of Canada.) And so, The
United Church took a few more small
steps towards inclusion and justice for
GLBT people.
In the Beginning…
It has been a long journey. In the
mid-1970’s the United Church sweated
and debated and studied some more,
as it struggled to come to terms with
emerging understandings of sexuality—
human sexuality in general, feminism,
and homosexuality in particular. After
almost a decade of deferrals “for further
study” the United Church finally
faced up to the issue of sexual orientation
and ministry, declaring in 1988
that all people, regardless of sexual orientation,
could be members of the
United Church and that all members
were eligible to be considered for ordered
ministry.
Even though the secular media declared
the ordination of homosexuals
a done deal in 1988, this decision by
no means ended the debate. Two years
later the church revisited, and confirmed,
its decision on ministry. And in
the years that followed, new issues entered
the arena: the blessing of samegender
relationships, civil rights for gay,
lesbian, and bisexual people, the situation
of gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth
in Canada, and the experiences of gay,
lesbian, and bisexual people in ministry.
The United Church continues to
work on the issues, with national standing
committees, study and action programs,
and, for those congregations in
the Affirming congregation program,
study and reflection. The process goes
on—personal stories, study and debate,
and changes in society and individual
“conversions” all combine to challenge
and change the church.
“Change isn’t as dramatic as
sudden conversion.”
Gary Boratto, a United Church minister
from Waterloo, Ontario, was a delegate
to the 2000 General Council. “For
most of us, change isn’t as dramatic as
sudden conversion,” he says. “I can’t
point to any one moment when my
former self suddenly wasn’t what it was
supposed to be.” Gary thinks it’s like
that in the church, as people and institutions
slowly grow and move.
He points to a danger in making the
church’s decisions in 2000 seem overly
dramatic or heroic. “I think we’re finally
catching up to where the world is,” he
says. “I don’t think we should try to
make ourselves sound noble just for
doing what we should be doing. I don’t
think there is anything particularly
noble about my own congregation deciding
to become an Affirming congregation.
I am proud of them but they
are only doing what they should be doing.
Places where there is repression—
those are where the real bright lights are.”
Gary doesn’t think the decisions of
the 2000 General Council were hard for
the church. “For all their nonsense, the
media has helped. The immense amount
of media coverage, and even the sitcoms,
have normalized gay and lesbian relationships.
Even the Simpson’s had an episode
about a gay man! The comfort levels
have increased, so I don’t think it was
such a terribly difficult thing for the
church to do.”
Some parts of the process are more
difficult, however. The imperative of the
issues still calls people to speak out because
they simply cannot remain silent.
Gary recalls the bravery of people who
told personal testimonies at the General
Council meeting. “There was a
young man who stood up and talked as
22 Open Hands
a gay man, knowing that he could lose
his job.” It may not be a single blinding
flash, but there is still something
remarkable about the change that continues
in the United Church.
These many little conversions
that have opened the church
Teresa Moysey, also a United Church
minister, was another a delegate to the
General Council in 2000. Even two
years later there are moments that stand
out in her mind. Events that have occurred
in one form or another each time
the church has debated homosexuality
still have a ring of the miraculous about
them.
“As folk lined up at the microphones
to debate the resolution (renouncing
the statement that homosexuality is a
sin), one of the folks who had been
vocally anti-gay in the past said his
name. Even those who didn’t know him
by appearance recognized the name.”
Teresa recalls. “He began talking about
the history of where we’ve been on this
issue and how we pledged to continue
to walk together whatever our opinion.
People thought he was going to say that
we’d failed to do that, or something,
but he didn’t. He said, ‘I think this is
the next step we need to take.’ The room
went dead silent.” It has happened
many times before, these many little
conversions that have opened up the
church, but it is still awesome when it
happens.
It’s a reminder of the movement of
God in the conversion process. Time
and again as the United Church has
debated the hard issues of human sexuality,
people have commented on the
profound spirituality of the experience.
This debate was no exception.
“There was an enormous sense of the
Spirit in what was going on,” Teresa
says. “The Spirit allowed us to listen to
one another and in the midst of that to
discern God’s presence. There was
strong debate but always in a very respectful
tone. That commission was a
blessing to those of us who were able
to be part of it.”
In Teresa’s home congregation in
Winnipeg, Manitoba, the issue of
whether or not to become an Affirming
congregation has been on and off
the table for a few years now. It’s back
on the table at the moment, with a committee
looking at it once again. Some
think it’s a good idea, some think it’s
passé, what with all the changes in legislation
that have happened in that
province. Some people are pretty sure
lesbians and gays would be welcome in
the church regardless of what is decided.
“This is all good discussion to have. It’s
what we’ll be talking about,” says
Teresa. “I think we’re moving on and I
think on the whole we want to be more
open and understanding.”
Teresa thinks her congregation is
fairly typical of other United Churches
in her area. It’s probably quite typical
of the church as a whole. Slow and
steady, a bit on the cautious side, but
moving. It’s what you’d call conversion,
United Church of Canada style.
Alyson Huntly is a United Church
diaconal minister. She
is the author of many
books and resources on
justice and spirituality,
including Daring
to Be United: Including
Lesbians and
Gays in The United
Church of Canada;
The Gentle Dark; and Naomi’s Daughters:
Bridging the Generations. She lives
in Ottawa, Canada.
PLEASE SEND MONEY
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both major and minor donors to survive,
and someday, come back into print.
Please give generously. Invite your
congregations or groups to give
generously and to include Open Hands
in their annual budgets.
Please send donations payable to Open Hands / RMN
to Open Hands, 3801 N. Keeler, Chicago IL 60641.
THANK YOU!
Spring 2002 23
God’s Wide Embrace LAKEWOOD
L.M.
Words: W J Matson
Music: W J Matson
24 Open Hands
More than 15 years have passed since
I attended Liberty, and I must say that I
have been honored to become a “champion”—
but one very different than
Christian fundamentalists ever imagined.
I grew up in a very religious family
on the island of Deer Isle, located off
the Maine coast. My father passed away
in a car accident when I was six years
old, and I spent much of my early childhood
days living with my grandparents.
They were a religious couple, slow to
preach, but quick to practice love and
acceptance. That example was powerful
as I pondered God’s call to serve others
through ministry.
During my high school years, my
grandfather’s walking disability often
prevented him from attending church.
His Sunday mornings were devoted to
listening to TV evangelists. His favorite
was Jerry Falwell. It is hard to explain
how intriguing Falwell can be. His personality
can be infectious to many.
Falwell was just beginning a Christian
college, and in 1978, with the encouragement
of my grandfather, I enrolled
in Liberty Baptist College (now Liberty
University).
I loved it at Liberty. The rules were
incredibly strict, but there was an excitement
in working hard to prepare to
serve God. Not only did I get a solid
liberal education, I got some of the best
teaching in the Bible, theology, biblical
languages and church growth. By the
time I finished Liberty Baptist Seminary,
I was recognized as the top student in
the field of theology.
Liberty went through formative
changes when I was in attendance. In
1979, Falwell started the Moral Majority.
Nothing would ever be the same as
we were encouraged not just to reach
others for Christ, but to work hard to
return a moral sensibility to a needful
nation. Like most others at Liberty, I
bought into that rhetoric and world
view.
Sitting in the pew, listening to Jerry
Falwell preach each week, can put one
in a tremendous state of denial. I experienced
affectional attraction toward
other guys, thoughts I always remember
having, but I chose to put those feelings
aside and squelch them. I knew I
was called to be a minister and I believed
that with enough faith, God
would solve my problem.
I journeyed from Virginia with an
offer to work in Christian Education at
a Baptist church in Waipahu, Hawai‘i.
That was a great year, but in 1985, I was
offered a more fulfilling position working
for a Baptist church in San Jose,
California. I loved my work, but there
continued to be an undercurrent of
struggle regarding my sexual orientation.
I tried with every ounce of strength
to get rid of this desire with an inordinate
amount of prayer and abstinence.
I began attending an ex-gay ministry.
Nothing seemed to work.
I was lost. I was defeated. In 1989,
after many years of great frustration, I
“threw in the towel” and walked away
from the ministry. I walk away from the
world of fundamentalism, starting my
whole life over, knowing I could not
change, no matter how much others
said I could. I had given it my best. I
finally had to come to terms with the
fact that I was gay.
I had a background in education and
I started teaching in a middle school
while working toward a graduate degree
in administration from the University
of San Francisco. In 1990, I saw an advertisement
in a gay paper for an “Open
& Affirming” congregation called First
Christian in San Jose, California. I visited
for nearly a year. In 1991, I was
formally welcomed as a member of this
new church.
God began to open my eyes to a
whole new view of ministry and service.
I committed myself to the issues of justice
and peace, and I began to truly
understand what it meant to stand
alongside those who are marginalized.
In 1994, after working in preparation
with the Northern California Region of
the Disciples of Christ, I was ordained.
I had no intention of going back to my
“closeted” days as a Baptist, and made
it very clear that I was to be ordained
“openly” gay.
I entered the pastoral search process
for churches. I applied for several years,
but soon realized that most Disciples
churches were not “ready” to hire an
openly gay pastor. Many Disciples’ regions
would not ordain gays or lesbians.
I had moved forward by leaving
fundamentalism, but I had no idea how
narrow the road would still be.
The years I was not considered for a
pastoral position were painful, but they
still were good years. I had the joy of
becoming a school principal, and then,
most surprisingly of all, I became the
executive director of the Council of
Churches of Santa Clara County in July,
From Falwell’s Liberty College
to Gay Pride’s Grand Marshal
Vaughn F. Beckman
Jerry Falwell constantly reminded us at Liberty University and Liberty
Baptist Seminary that we were being trained to be “Champions
for Christ.”
Vaughn with his grandmother at his
graduation from Liberty Baptist College
(now Liberty University) in May 1981.
Spring 2002 25
1997. There is some irony in heading a
coalition of 100 congregations, many
of which I could never pastor.
The Council accomplished much,
including programs on homelessness,
economic justice, youth assets, violence
prevention, and gay ministries. We
organized more than 50 affirming
churches into the “Alliance of Welcoming
Ministries” and held powerful gay
pride worship services. I joined the
Steering Committee of the Interfaith
Council in Silicon Valley, was appointed
to the City of San Jose Human Rights
Commission and to the County of Santa
Clara Human Relations Commission. In
1998, the County awarded me one of
the first “Unity in Diversity” Awards,
and in 1999, I was named Grand Marshal
of the San Jose Gay Pride Parade. I
was honored.
I look back and am amazed at how
much I have grown and changed over
my many years since leaving Liberty.
Thanks be to the Divine for opening me
to see, hear, and understand all people.
In 2000, I began to work part-time as
Director of the San Jose Peace Center
while making a commitment to re-enter
the pastoral search process again.
Amazing things do happen! On September
9, 2001, I was installed as the
senior pastor of the First Christian
Church of Honolulu, Hawai‘i. The journey
toward answering the call to be a
church pastor was finally fulfilled.
It has been a long and unexpected
road from Liberty to Honolulu. Not an
easy one, but one I would not change.
In the midst of this difficult and painful
journey, I have found “wholeness”
about who I am, but even more importantly:
I have been given the gift of
sharing and teaching that wholeness to
others.
Vaughn F. Beckman
is senior pastor of First
Christian Church, Honolulu,
Hawai‘i, an
Open & Affirming Disciples
of Christ congregation.
He serves on the
Council of GLAD (Gay, Lesbian, and Affirming
Disciples Alliance) and the Open
Hands Editorial Advisory Committee.
Vaughn as Grand Marshal in the
1999 San Jose Gay Pride Parade.
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26 Open Hands
I am a reconciling United Methodist. I want to tell you why.
In 1991 while my husband Oliver and I were visiting Berlin. In one of the museums we saw these
words of Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller from 1945:
First they came for the Communists,
And I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for socialists and trade unionists,
And I didn’t speak up, because I was neither.
Then they came for the Jews,
And I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
And I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
And by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
More than anything else that I read on that trip, those words have remained in my consciousness and
shaped my understanding of my witness in the world.
Being a woman of African descent in the United States, enjoying the measure of opportunity and
freedom that I have, I know that to be able to do so is contrary to the history of persons like myself in
this country. Someone helped to change the course of that history. Someone who was not a person of
African descent stood against slavery. Someone who was not a woman stood against oppression and
exclusion of women. Someone stood up for me when I was not present or able to stand up for myself.
It is a gift from each one who made that choice for which I can only express gratitude by doing the
same for someone else. I experience this gift from others especially in my role as an ordained person,
an opportunity that, at times in the history of the church, was denied to blacks and to women.
Time has vindicated those who stood against the exclusion and oppression in the wider society and
in the church of those of African descent and those who happen to have been born female. Yet there
remain those who would resist full inclusion in the life and ministry of the church of either women or
blacks or both. Even though the sins of racism and sexism still stain the garments of Christians, they
are widely recognized as sins, incompatible with the Gospel. That has not always been so. Christians
in the past were wrong and they justified their sin of racism or sexism by both the Bible and Christian
tradition.
In 1993, I officiated at the funeral service of my cousin, who died as a result of being infected by the
AIDS virus. The pastor of the church where he had been an active member for many years should have
led that service, and it should have been held in the sanctuary where my cousin had worshiped and
sung in the choir until he felt excluded. But when a new pastor was selected, my cousin no longer felt
welcomed and stopped attending.
At one family reunion, he and I had stood together in my mother’s kitchen making homemade ice
cream and trying to identify a church where he might feel both welcomed as a gay man and nourished
spiritually. He had already tried all the congregations I knew anything about, but he had not found a
new congregation to call home. He could not be buried from a church that had nurtured his relationship
with God and to which he had given so much of his personal time and resources.
Because I was on the staff of Howard University School of Divinity, his memorial service was held
in the chapel there. In that reality, I experienced much pain and regret that his community of faith, my
sisters and brothers in Christ, could reject him in this way.
I had come a long way from my days of innocence, ignorance, and confusion about what it meant
for persons to be gay or lesbians. (When I entered seminary, I was not even able to get my mind
A Letter
to My Sisters and Brothers in Christ
By Youtha C. Hardman-Cromwell
Spring 2002 27
around the concepts of bisexuality and transgendered realities.) But I had the experience of my cousin,
musicians in the church of my childhood, and others whose paths had crossed mine. More persons
widened my experience, proving an intellectual challenge to my thinking.
I first wrestled with the issue of homosexuality being a choice. How could or would someone
choose to be treated with such disdain? Why would one choose a life that led to so much pain for the
person and one’s family? To do so would be to act insanely and clearly there was no other indication
that these people I knew were insane. I had to take a closer look at this issue. There had to be another
explanation for the existence of homosexuals in the world. For me the fact that they were created a
minority did not argue for their not being a variation in God’s creative plan.
I thought about my mother who is clearly ambidextrous if not a left-handed person. She uses her
left hand for all those things we teach: writing, cutting with scissors, and the like. When she was a
child, left-handedness was unacceptable. Children who were left-handed were forced to learn to use
their right hands instead. Some people asserted that left-handedness was evil, associated with the
devil. But my mother is naturally left-handed. She is not evil. She is and was and has always been a
window to God for me. Through her life and love, I am able to get a glimpse of who God is. Those who
made her write with her right hand were wrong. To be left-handed is not wrong. All that God has
created is good, even when it is not the norm and is not understood by us. “And God saw all that had
been made and it was very good.” It is not coincidental that homosexuals were once commonly, in the
black community at least, referred to as “left-handed.”
So it must be for all God’s children: we are all created good. I am black. I did not choose it. I am a
woman. I did not choose to be female. But I love being a black woman, child of God, ordained minister
of the Gospel. God did not make a mistake with me. I do not believe that God was mistaken when God
created some of us gay, some lesbian, some transgender, some bisexual, and some straight. Some of
us are left-handed. The mistake, indeed the sin, is in our misjudgment and in our fear of that which is
different and of that which we do not understand.
How, then, can I look into the eyes of my gay brothers, lesbian sisters, bisexuals, transgenders or
transsexuals, and other of my brothers and sisters who may know themselves to be sexual persons in
ways that I do not experience or fully understand? How can I see their exclusion and oppression and
turn away uncaring? How can I leave them without my assistance, support, and love to resist those
who would exclude them from the circle of God? I cannot stand by to watch them try to open doors of
the church and not lend my being to the effort. I must take a stand against their exclusion and
oppression.
I must stand for my own sake and for the memory of my cousin and for the health and faithfulness
of the church and for our shared belief in the love of God for all persons. We understand our racism and
sexism better now than we did in the past. I believe that someday we will understand our homophobia
and heterosexism better for what they are—sin. I want in my lifetime to have been on the right side of
this issue—God’s side—affirming as good all God has created. Instead of exclusion, the energy of the
church family should be directed at how we can affirm each other in all our created variety and how
we can construct and live by a moral system that helps us all be more faithful to God’s purpose for our
sexual energy and desire. This must be an ethic that includes the behavior of us all: heterosexual,
homosexual, bisexual, transgender, or ….
When they came for me—black woman who sought ordination—someone had been there for me.
What if they should come again? What if they come for you or for your children?
Your partner in the work of our Lord,
Youtha C. Hardman-Cromwell
Youtha C. Hardman-Cromwell is the director of the Practice in Ministry and
Mission Program at Wesley Theological Seminary. She created and taught “Sexual
Issues in Parish Ministry” while on the faculty at Howard University School of
Divinity, and now teaches that course at Wesley Theological Seminary. Youtha
serves as the Program Chair for the Reconciling Ministries Network.
Am I normal?
It’s a constant question for most gay, lesbian, transgender,
bisexual, and sexually questioning people. Our bodies and
desires constantly raise the issue, “Am I normal?”
I certainly don’t fit the standards of normality set by heterosexual
society. In every magazine, on every billboard, everywhere
I look, I see men with women in passionate embraces.
Heterosexual marriage is expected of almost everyone;
just ask my grandma who is constantly concerned that I don’t
have a “little woman” in my life. Heterosexuality is assumed.
One of the first questions anyone asks when meeting me is,
“Are you married?” Every form I fill out asks for sex and marital
status, and I don’t fit any of the boxes provided. So, no, I
am not normal, not “heteronormal.”
But, am I queer?
This debate is raging in gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered
communities. Most of us GLBT folks are fairly ordinary people,
especially those of us who are Christian. People who take on
the name “queer” are often the flamboyant and radical fringe,
and few would want to identify with them. Most of us would
be happy to accept conservative, gay writer Andrew Sullivan’s
description of himself as “virtually normal” in his book by
that title. We realize that we may not be completely “normal,”
but we don’t want to think of ourselves as “queer.” We
want to fit into ordinary society and ordinary churches, be
treated fairly, and just blend in.
Gay writer David Link describes this feeling well after a
wonderfully welcoming Thanksgiving with his family:
I have wrestled with myself over whether, as a gay man, I
am queer. I have decided that I am not. Queer is the word
of the other, of the outsider, I do not feel as if I am outside
anything due to my sexual orientation.” (Link, p. 271)
Yet, aren’t we outsiders? How can GLBT people not be outsiders?
We can’t just “decide that I am not queer,” because that designation
is something that others decide for us! Gay, lesbian,
transgender, and bisexual people are the “other” in a
heteronormative society. Heterosexuality is expected, is seen as
normal, so then by definition of that society, a GLBT person is
abnormal or queer. Queer theory recognizes and accepts that reality
and works from there. It has little to do with flamboyance or
radical politics. Describing ourselves as “queer” is simply recognizing
the very real nature of heteronormativity in our culture.
Gay writer and historian Bruce Bawer has argued eloquently
against using the word “queer” and against what he understands
as queer theory and politics. His book A Place at the
Table argues for gay and lesbian inclusion in “normal” society
and against queer theory/gay studies. He says:
Gay Studies scholars are inclined to agree with anti-gay
reactionaries on one point— namely, that gays will never
be accepted as full and equal members of society, will
never be allowed their places at the table. Indeed, these
scholars tend to dismiss the idea of society as consisting,
metaphorically speaking, of a single big table.
(Bawer, Table, p. 210)
And in another book, Beyond Queer, he quotes a lesbian,
queer activist, “We don’t want a place at the table—we want
to turn the table over.” (Bawer, Beyond Queer, p. 18)
Bawer is concerned that radical queer politics harms the
cause of gay and lesbian civil rights, overturning the table. He
insists that most gay and lesbian folks are not radical, but are
quietly quite ordinary. Bawer suggests that we are just like
everyone else, so we deserve our rights and our place at the
big, happy American table.
No one would argue with the politics of civil rights for
GLBT folks, but queer theory does challenge Bawer’s presuppositions.
Can anyone really be “normal”? Everyone is unique
in some way. Queer theorists dare to suggest that there is no
“normal”! This great, big, welcoming table does not exist in
American culture. We have become much too diverse,
multicultural, multi-racial, and differently sexualized. Instead
of trying to be accepted into “normal” society, just like everyone
else, “queer” folks are trying to rethink the whole structure
of how we construct our society.
Queer activist Michael Warner writes in his book Fear of a
Queer Planet:
Many people in the last two or three years...have shifted
their self-identification from “gay” to “queer.” The preference
for “queer” represents, among other things, an
aggressive impulse of generalization; it rejects a
minoritizing logic of toleration of simple political interest-
representation in favor of a more thorough resistance
to regimes of the normal. (Warner, p. xxvi)
These “queers” want to challenge the entire “regime of the
normal,” not settle for mere toleration or simply working for
political interest representation. They want to explore how
the whole of society is permeated by sexuality and diversity,
and not settle for a nice “normal” smile and a pat on the head.
Radical queer feminist Pat Califia talks about the same idea
more colorfully as she describes traditional lesbian writers:
It was almost as if on some level they were still hoping
to have Mom or the parish priest pat them on their heads
and say, “There, there, I understand now. Being a lesbian
is a good thing. You’re not a sexual misfit. You’re a
freedom fighter.” (Califia, p. 15)
That’s a beautiful dream, a dream where we all completely
accept each other as equals, seeing no differences, recognizing
every single person as “good.” But, that has never happened,
and it is not going to happen! Majority society has a
powerful need to create an “other” by which it can define
itself and justify its practices. Women, minority races, poor
people, the disabled, and especially GLBT folks have been
forced into this role as “abnormal other,” and the “normals”
“How I Do Sex” is a feature of Open Hands that explores how the writer reconciles or integrates sexuality and
spirituality. Submissions should be 800 words and accompanied by a photo and brief self-description.
An Essay in Queer Christianity
Erwin C. Barron
How I Do Sex
28 Open Hands
feel free to ostracize, ridicule, oppress, pity, and even to kill people
in these groups, thereby, giving themselves more power.
We don’t have to be flamboyant queens or leather dykes or
radical fairies to be queer. No, we just are queer. By calling ourselves
“queer” and exploring queer theory, we are deconstructing
the idea of what is “normal.” As post-normal queers, we free
everyone, both “normal” and “abnormal.” When we escape the
tyranny of the “normal” we prepare the world for a kind of radical
new inclusiveness where we celebrate real differences, where
we refuse to categorize and we recognize the queer in everyone.
We can find there a totally new kind of community. There we
find the radically queer Reign of God
Perhaps Jesus had that in mind in his strange story about the
wedding banquet in Luke 14:16-24. All the “normal” people were
invited to the banquet. The places at the table had been set for
the respectable, good, “normal” people. But, they refused to come!
They had good “normal” things they needed to take care of. One
had just been married, so the good heterosexual man could not,
of course, come to the banquet. Instead, the host is forced to
invite the sick, the disabled, the sinners—the queer, in a word.
But not enough of them would accept the invitation. Perhaps
they had trouble with being called “queer.” So, the host invited
yet others to come to the table. And then, most amazingly, he
declared that none of the “normal” people would be allowed to
sit at this table, which believers equate with God’s kingdom!
That is a radically different kind of banquet. That is a new
kind of community, accepting differences in a radically new way.
That is a queer banquet table, where there are no “normals.”
And yet it is still the Lord’s table! May we all be compelled to
come to God’s queer table just as we are, to enjoy the feast, welcomed
by God’s loving arms!
Erwin Barron is a Presbyterian minister living in
the San Francisco Bay area with his life partner,
Asher. Erwin is completing his Ph.D. in ethics and
social thought at the Graduate Theological Union
in Berkeley. He is also Director of Christian Education
of Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco,
where he tries to help folks think of themselves
as being just a little “queer.”
References:
Bawer, Bruce, “Introduction,” Beyond Queer, Bruce Bawer, ed. (New York:
The Free Press, 1996), ix - xv.
Bawer, “The Road to Utopia,” Beyond Queer, Bruce Bawer, ed. (New York:
The Free Press, 1996), 16-19.
Bawer, A Place at the Table (New York: Touchstone, 1993).
Califia, Pat, “Introduction,” Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex (Cleis Press,
1994), 11-26.
Davis, Lennard, “Constructing Normalcy,” Disability Studies Reader, Lennard
Davis, ed. (Routledge, 1997), 9-28.
Donley, Carol and Sheryl Buckley. The Tyranny of the Normal: An Anthology.
(Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 1996).
Fiedler, Leslie. Tyranny of the Normal (Boston: David R. Godine, 1996).
“It’s Normal to Be Queer,” The Economist, January 6, 1996, 68-70.
Link, David, “I Am Not Queer,” Beyond Queer, Bruce Bawer, ed. (New York:
The Free Press, 1996), 266-278.
Warner, Michael, “Introduction,” Fear of a Queer Planet, Michael Warner,
ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), vii - xxvii.
One Change
Leads to Another
Bob Brashear
Excerpted from a sermon, “Reformed and Reforming,” delivered
October 28, 2001 in New York City.
It was a day that changed everything. Not a day of
violence, like we know so well, but a simple act that
changed everything. October 31st, 1517. Martin Luther
went to the Cathedral at Wittenberg and nailed his 95
theses to the door. What was it that drove him to do
that, that day?
There was a new Cathedral to be built: St. Peter’s
basilica in Rome. And in these pre-bingo days, the best
fundraising scheme was the sale of indulgences, the
idea that saints could pray to get our loved ones out of
purgatory, shorten their stay. And for so many days on
the dollar, those prayers could be sold. This didn’t sit
right with Luther. And the problem is, once you start
asking questions, one leads to another.
His questions about the sale of indulgences led him
to question the whole idea of saints, to reinterpret the
communion of saints as being that gathering of all
believers at Eucharist. So the day he chose to nail his
theses was chosen deliberately, All Hallows Eve, the
night before the feast of All Saints, the day commemorating
all the little saints not big enough for their own
day.
His thoughts about saints led him to believe that
there was a priesthood of all believers— that all believers
had their own ministry, whether seminary-trained,
ordained or not. And if all believers had their ministry,
then the Bible needed to be in the language of the
people, in the hands of the people. So he translated
the Bible into German. And so the internet of his day,
the printing press, was used to get the Bible into the
hands of the people. And if people needed to read the
Bible, then they needed to be able to read., thus the
Reformation’s emphasis on education.
His thoughts went to worship as well. If the Bible
should be in the vernacular, then music should be in
the vernacular too. He believed that on Sunday morning,
people should worship with the same music they
drank and caroused to the night before. Drinking songs,
songs of the streets would become the source music
for new hymns.
Even though at the start, he had no more desire to
start a new denomination than Jesus did a new religion,
his action had political and
theological implications that create
change to this day. ▼
Bob Brashear, a graduate of Yale Divinity
School, is pastor of West Park Presbyterian
Church in New York City.
Spring 2002 29
30 Open Hands
The second Witness Our Welcome gathering has been scheduled
on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia
August 14-17, 2003. The campus is readily accessible to
the city’s historic district, cultural centers, and gay community.
The WOW2003 Coordinating Committee is seeking recommendations
for speakers, topics, and workshops. Visit the
website (www.wow2k.org) and mark your calendars.
Chicago Theological Seminary hosted a public reception April
26 to launch its new Gay & Lesbian Religious Archives Project
(www.glra.org). The GLRA will coordinate and support the
preservation of the history and records of the GLBT Christian
movement in the U.S., stimulating and enabling scholarly research
in the field. Founder and former publisher of Open
Hands Mark Bowman serves as GLRA’s coordinator. Funding
has been provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter
Foundation and the Riverside Church Sharing Fund.
Reconciling Ministries Network announced a new online
ministry on its website (www.rmnetwork.org) that will provide
devotional material “to help you in your Reconciling journey.”
Minneapolis-based AHS Foundation announced funding
for RMN in its efforts to enlist United Methodists in
northern jurisdictions who want to reclaim the Wesleyan tradition
of a fully inclusive church.
More Light Presbyterians expressed disappointment at the
defeat this year of Amendment A to the Presbyterian Book of
Order that would have deleted its anti-gay ordination provision.
In the wake of the defeat has come a flurry of more than
a dozen court judicial cases against individuals who are gay
and lesbian or have ordained gays and lesbians, most initiated
by an individual layperson living in Virginia but holding
membership in a conservative church in southern California.
Bishop Paul Egertson, spouse Shirley Egertson, and Rev.
Reinie Heydemann were honored with the 2002 Jim Siefkes
Award by Lutherans Concerned at a banquet during the Biennial
Assembly of Lutherans Concerned/North America,
held July 18-21 on the campus of Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore. The Egertsons, long active in our movement in
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, were recently
featured in a video on parents of gay or lesbian children produced
by Lutherans Concerned. In April, 2002, Bishop Egertson
participated in the ordination of Rev. Anita Hill in St. Paul,
Minnesota (see her story in Open Hands, Winter 2002, issue
[Vol. 17, No. 3]). Heydemann, of Edmonton, Alberta, has been
a leader of our movement in the Evangelical Lutheran Church
in Canada, strengthening Lutherans Concerned within that
denomination. The Siefkes award recognizes nongay advocates
and is named for Pastor Jim Siefkes, who initiated the meeting
which led to the founding of Lutherans Concerned in 1974.
The Brethren Mennonite Council has welcomed Gloria
Kroph Nafziger of Kitchner, Ontario, to serve as the first
Director of the Supportive Congregations Network
Ministries. From her local Publicly Affirming congregation
and broader Mennonite Church leadership to the board of
Christian Lesbians Out Together (CLOUT) and chair of the
BMC, she has been an energetic contributor to the Welcoming
movement, speaking and publishing widely. Nafziger will
be providing support and resources to SCN congregations,
pastors, and others who are supportive. Creating this position
frees up other staff to focus on GLBT outreach, and was made
possible by a challenge grant from the Gill Foundation of
Colorado (www.gillfoundation.org) and BMC donors. The Gill
Foundation, with an endowment of $260 million, is the largest
funder of LGBT organizations in the U.S.
Movement News
God’s Sense of Humor —The rainbow banner celebrating
Gay Pride in Columbus, Ohio, was mounted on the city’s light
posts alongside Presbyterian banners commemorating the
denomination’s annual legislative session meeting there in
June. General Assembly was relatively quiet on LGBT issues
this year; but pro-GLBT meals, meetings, and worships were
very well attended. The More Light Presbyterian luncheon
focused for the first time on transgender and bisexual concerns
with speakers Rev. Erin Swenson of Atlanta and Rev. Susan
Halcomb Craig of Los Angeles.
Jack Hartwein-Sanchez
Spring 2002 31