LOUISVILLE (Outlook) Now that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has said “yes” – yes to ordaining gays and lesbians in relationships and to allowing its ministers to perform same-sex marriages – what’s ahead for LGBTQ people in the church? What needs attention now?
Meeting in Louisville Sept. 18-20, More Light Presbyterians gathered around the theme “Living into God’s Abundance: A Queer Church Beyond Inclusion.”
“We’re at this beautiful moment where we have an abundance of possibilities,” said Alex Patchin McNeill, More Light’s executive director, during a plenary session Sept. 19. He suggested there is more than one answer to the “what’s next?” question – and that answers will emerge from conversation and local contexts.
To start that process, three More Light leaders each told a piece of their stories – using that as a jumping off place for small group conversations.
Alex Patchin McNeill: When he was in seminary, McNeill – a transgender man – wrote an email to a congregation where he was serving as an intern. “Subject line: ‘A rose by any other name,’ ” he said. At the time, he was a woman, and “I was telling the congregation I wanted to go by a new name. I wanted to be called Alex.” McNeill sent the email, closed the computer and walked away.
A few days later, he arrived at church for worship – not sure what to expect. “Almost every person walked up to me to say ‘Welcome, Alex.’ It was one of those moments that I knew God was there. No one asked me to defend my choice… . That church showed me what inclusion can look like, and what abundant welcome means.”
Among the questions he posed for small group discussion: When did you feel truly included? Why is inclusion important to you and the church?
Among the answers:
- Inclusion means “you don’t have to explain yourself.”
- “You’re finally able to live into your calling with God.”
- “Jesus sought out the oppressed.”
- “If it’s not good news for everybody, it’s not good news for anybody.”
- “As we are healed, the church is also healed.”
Robyn Henderson-Espinoza: Henderson-Espinoza, More Light Presbyterians’ director of communications, recounted a struggle to be ordained in the American Baptist tradition – including by a congregation that said “yes, but” and by another which invited Henderson-Espinoza to seek ordination, but then backed away. “I had never identified as lesbian or gay,” Henderson-Espinoza said. “I had always identified as queer.”
At the congregation which had issued the invitation, Henderson-Espinoza was called in a week before the ordination and “the person in power said to me, ‘because you don’t identify as lesbian or gay, we really think you have an allergy to yourself,” Henderson-Espinoza recounted. They suggested that Henderson-Espinoza needed more spiritual formation, “because you don’t identify within what we can understand.”
Henderson-Espinoza was a lifelong Baptist, “deeply committed to following the ways of Jesus,” and “I left the church because the institution kept failing me.” Henderson-Espinoza told a friend that night: “No longer will I put myself in these spaces that say no to me.”
Among the questions: How does the intent to be inclusive sometimes conflict with the message that really gets sent?
Among the answers:
- The people in power define what inclusion means.
- Some churches say “come on in, but don’t change a thing.”
- Inclusiveness needs to be expansive, not binary, not defined by just a few particular categories.
- “They welcome until you don’t fit into a box.”
John Russell Stanger. Stanger, executive director of Parity, a faith-based LGBTQ organization in New York, told of his experience, before seminary, as a (then) closeted gay man and a young adult volunteer in the state of Kerala in the south of India. “That year I held the hands of many men, and I hated it,” Stanger said. In that culture, “holding hands between the same gender is not seen as sexual, it’s seen as a normal, affectionate thing you do, on the way to tea, on the way to breakfast, on the way with my friends to see the next Bollywood film.”
But he’d grown up in Texas, in a ranching family – what he described as a hyper-masculine culture – and Stanger was uncomfortable and uncertain about touching that was outside the cultural norms with which he was familiar.
Among the questions: How are we all limited in ways we might not recognize until we step out of that context? What new things might the spirit be calling us towards?
Among the answers:
- Instead of encouraging people to move from the margins of the church towards the center, consider that “the center itself is fluid,” one participant said. “The whole church is on a journey where people are invited in, and every time that happens, the center shifts and the whole community is moving in a new direction.” It’s like being, he said, in “a church of pilgrims.”
- Think of mutuality, humility, accountability and grace.
- “Be open to God’s mystery,” to the new language and the new ways of that come when new people walk in.
