They do both in numbers that might
surprise you: A new survey of 9,000 gay, lesbian,
and bisexual Americans from George Barna, a well-known evangelical pollster,
showed that 70 percent of gay adults describe themselves as Christian and 60
percent say their faith is "very important" in their lives. Granted, those
figures are lower than the population as a whole, which register 85 and 70
percent on those rankings, respectively. But Barna, himself a Bible-believing,
born-again Christian, points out that the numbers demonstrate that "popular
stereotypes about the spiritual life of gays and lesbians are simply wrong."
"People who portray gay adults as godless,
hedonistic, Christian bashers are not working with the facts," Barna said. "A
substantial majority of gays cite their faith as a central facet of their life,
consider themselves to be Christian, and claim to have some type of meaningful
personal commitment to Jesus Christ active in their life today."
Moreover, while Barna's data indicate that
homosexual believers tend to avoid active participation in an institutional
church, both anecdotal evidence and some research shows that gays and lesbians
who are involved in their churches and denominations are often more committed to
the church and more involved in ministry than their straight
brethren.
To Scott Thumma, a sociologist of religion at the
Hartford Institute for Religion Research and co-editor of the volume, "Gay
Religion," Barna's results are no surprise. Thumma has been studying gays in
churches since the 1980s and he has found gay congregants in every denomination
-- including evangelical and Mormon congregations and other conservative
churches.
Why is this so? Both research and gay Christians
point to several factors. The most obvious is that homosexuals
find the same things in the church that heterosexuals do: community, family, and
a place to live out their calling -- their vocation -- to help others even as
they find their faith enriched. "While I am not going to be ordained in my home
denomination of the Reformed church because they have yet to recognize my
calling, that doesn't mean I am going to give up," said Ann Kansfield, who
co-pastors a Reformed congregation in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her partner, also a
lesbian.
(Kansfield's father, former head of the national
seminary of the Reformed Church in America, lost his position in 2005 because he
presided at his daughter's wedding.)
"Nothing is going to keep me from serving the people
God has called me to serve, which is something I don't think a lot of people
understand. The Reformed Church has been really horrible to me and my family . .
. But if I were to leave this congregation in the lurch, I think I would be
committing a sin," she said.
Thumma notes that most gay Christians -- like most
other Christians -- join congregations because they like the pastor or the music
or the community, with "denominational pronouncements" carrying less weight. In
most churches, the attitude toward gays is one of "live and let live," or, quite
often, "don't ask, don't tell."
It is when gays and lesbians come out publicly, or
seek the affirmation of sacraments such as ordination or marriage, that
conflicts occur.
There are also other factors at work that may be
particular to the Christian LGBT -- lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgendered --
community and psychology.
One of the more controversial theories came in
a study some years ago by sociologist
Darren E. Sherkat, who compared the rates of religious activity of straights and
gays and found that gay men showed significantly higher levels of religious
involvement than heterosexual men. (And they were more religiously active than
lesbians and bisexuals.) Gay men, Sherkat argued, attend church "without having
to be dragged to services by female partners -- as is the case for heterosexual
men."
Among the factors Sherkat cited to explain this
phenomenon was a desire by gay men to "avoid the risk of eternal punishment by
gravitating towards religious consumption -- much like heterosexual women do."
Sherkat also wondered whether gay men gravitate to a male-oriented religion with
a male savior, Jesus. There are other, perhaps more satisfying, explanations as
well.
One is that gays and lesbians are drawn to
ministering to others as a result of their own experience, and that the
Christian journey of forgiveness and redemption and acceptance resonates deeply
with them. "One reason that homosexuals are drawn to service in the church is
that many of these people have been wounded themselves. They know what it's like
to feel broken, and they want to help others in whatever way they are hurting,"
said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author, who knows gays and
lesbians who work in ministry despite the fact that they cannot openly identify
as homosexual. "The Christian paradigm of the scapegoat -- the marginalized one,
the one who suffers unjustly -- is quite powerful, especially for gay
people."
In a similar vein, others cite Christian de la
Huerta's powerful book on gay religiosity, "Coming Out Spiritually," and his
argument that gay people are, among other things, forced to mediate across the
gap between their sexuality and spirituality, a divide straight Christians do
not have to negotiate. So that makes LGBT people especially adept at helping
others navigate a world of binaries, in particular the frontier between the
physical and spiritual worlds.
Moreover, the process of coming out as a homosexual
is often seen as analogous to the Christian pilgrimage of self-discovery and
acceptance. "I have a theory that once you discern one call -- that God has
created you to be gay -- that you are more adept at understanding God's call in
other ways, as into ministry," said Kansfield.
Homosexuals who have come to terms with their
sexuality also tend to be active in church, and especially in lobbying to change
church policies on homosexuality, for the same reasons they are involved in
these causes in the secular sphere: because they want Christianity, and America,
to live up to their stated beliefs.
"I am deeply invested in the United States, as a
country, living up to its constitutional ideals, and the vision of democracy we
espouse is deeply moving to me," said the Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, a lesbian and
United Church of Christ pastor, who leads faith outreach efforts for the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "Likewise, part of my DNA is as a
Christian, as a member of the United Church of Christ. The vision of what the
church stands for and espouses really is my identity." (Voelkel notes that many
of the toughest skeptics come from within the LGBT community, which
understandably equates organized religion to organized opposition to its agenda
and its very identity.)
The presence of homosexuals in the Catholic Church
can be especially confounding to outsiders, as Catholic leaders are not only
sworn foes of gay marriage, but church teaching denounces homosexual acts as a
"grave depravity" (and that is some of the tamer language). Moreover, such
negative rhetoric crops up despite the longstanding, and some say growing,
presence of homosexuals in the clergy and hierarchy and despite new Vatican
policies against allowing self-identifying gay men to enter the
seminary.
What gives? In addition to all the factors cited above, there
is the sacramental view of baptism as sealing Catholics to the church in a bond
no one can dissolve. "So the question is not so much why should they feel part
of the church, but why shouldn't they?" said Father Martin.
Others note the esthetic synchronicities between
Christian culture and gay sensibilities, especially in the old-line traditions
like Catholicism. Mark Jordan, a scholar of gay religion at Harvard Divinity
School and author of several provocative books, such as "The Silence of Sodom:
Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism," has argued that this sense of
drama in the Mass makes churches a favorite stage for "Liturgy Queens," an
epithet that Jordan reclaims as a badge of honor. "The liturgy creates its own
divas, on both sides of the communion rail. It is a show that makes for ardent
gay fans," he writes. "Liturgy Queens need not be members of the clergy, but
they are typically found in the vicinity of the altar – or at least in the choir
loft." Or, as Father Martin noted somewhat more benignly, Michelangelo was
likely gay: "If we didn't have gay Catholics we wouldn't have the Sistine
Chapel."
Perhaps the simplest and most convincing explanation
for the dedication of gay Christians is found in their very high, and highly
orthodox, view of the theology of human dignity -- that God created them as they
are.
"Once you experience God's grace, nothing on earth
could make me give up the faith that has allowed me to experience the
life-changing power of God's grace," said Kansfield. "No homophobe, no one who
wants to beat us up or get us out of the church, nothing is going to chase me
away from loving God, and being grateful for the gift of God's grace." (Being
trained in the Reformed tradition -- and possessing a wicked sense of humor --
Kansfield also likes to frame the argument as one of Calvinist predestination:
"When you're among the elect, being gay, I mean, why give that
up?")
The upshot is that gay Christians are not going away
anytime soon, and thus neither are the arguments and divisions and the
often-overheated rhetoric.
At their General Convention in July, for example, clergy
and laity in the Episcopal Church USA decisively ended a moratorium on electing gay
bishops (and approved blessings for same-sex couples) just weeks after a potent
faction of conservatives split from the main body over the growing acceptance of
homosexuals by the church. The splinter group hopes to form a new American
province of the worldwide Anglican Communion, perhaps under the jurisdiction of
a conservative African prelate.
In June, regional bodies of the largest Presbyterian
Church rejected a plan to allow the ordination of homosexuals, the third such
defeat in 12 years. This one was by a narrower margin than ever, however,
signaling that the struggle will continue to roil the PCUSA.
The United Methodist Church has been similarly
divided. It announced last month that its
regional bodies had failed to approve amendments (passed the previous year by
church leaders) that would have opened church membership to any professed
Christian regardless of sexual orientation. The proposal grew out of a 2005 case
in Virginia, in which a pastor rejected a gay man for membership because the man
would not agree to change his sexuality.
Meanwhile, representatives of the nation's main body
of Lutherans will convene in Minneapolis this month to debate a controversial
proposal -- crafted after years of divisive arguments -- to allow a kind of
"local option" for churches to ordain openly gay clergy. ("Openly gay" or "in a
relationship" are key phrases, as some churches will ordain homosexuals as long
as they foreswear sexual activity.)
Add to this ferment Rome's increasing efforts to
exclude gay men from the Catholic priesthood, where some fear a "lavender mafia"
is taking over. Moreover, the demographic center of gravity in Christendom is
rapidly shifting to the Southern Hemisphere -- to Asia and Latin America and, in
particular, Africa, where sentiments against homosexuality are especially
strong. As those churches gain influence in their worldwide denominations, they
may force churches in North America to choose between a global church or their
gay congregants.
On the other hand, Christianity has throughout its
history faced crises over whom to include and how to include them -- from the
disputes among the apostles over welcoming gentile believers, to the split in
the Reformation, to divides over race and roles for women. "Each one is in my
mind an opportunity for the church as a whole to make the decision: Are we going
to choose extravagant welcome and hospitality and justice as that which guides
us as a community? Or are we going to choose fear and inhospitality?" said
Rebecca Voelkel. "Over and over again, when the church chooses extravagant
welcome and hospitality, it makes itself stronger and truer to its core
Gospel."
Besides, as the orthodox George Barna noted in his
survey, while most homosexual Christians have rejected elements of traditional
church teaching in order to remain in the fold, they do so "to nearly the same
degree that the heterosexual Christian population has rejected those same
teachings and principles."
"Although there are clearly some substantial
differences in the religious beliefs and practices of the straight and gay
populations," Barna concludes, "there may be less of a spiritual gap between
straights and gays than many Americans would assume."
Perhaps we all have
something to learn from each other.
Don't miss the pro-LGBT faith event of the
year! Make your plans now to join your pro-LGBT Presbyterian family and
community at "God's Whole Family!" The National Welcoming and Affirming
Presbyterian Conference, September 4 - 6, 2009, hosted by Second Presbyterian
Church, Nashville, Tennessee and produced by More Light Presbyterians.
Online registration & conference information
at www.mlp.org 
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