People

Churches

Patrick Evans

Because my family went to almost every Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Falwell, Kenneth Copeland, Bob Larson, etc. meeting within 250 miles of Birmingham from the time I was 12 until i went away to college, I grew up knowing exactly who lgbt - folk were -- the only human souls whose sin was so egregious that it placed them outside the grace of God. They were so vile that God "gave them over" to their "reprobate minds."

This was almost all I knew about lgbt people - that they lived miserable lives and died tragic deaths, and that they placed themselves outside of God's love and in the path of God's vengeance. The only other thing I knew as this message was pounded into my skull - was that I was one of those people. That this was the early 80's and the beginning of the AIDS crisis only compounded the hysterical "wrath of God" message.

By the grace of God, I went away to college, and over the course of my four years in a little University town in the middle of Alabama, realized that I was gay, that that was just great, and that somehow I knew that God had not abandoned me nor "given me over."

As a music major, I had church jobs in college and graduate school in rural Baptist and Methodist churches, wealthy high church Methodist churches, and a liberal wealthy Episcopal church. (All occupied by only white folk)

Needless to say, my understanding of God and Faith and Grace grew and changed a great deal. During my 6 years of grad school, I was the music director for a small, rural, Methodist congregation in south Georgia. They were wonderful, loving people,(again, all white) and although I was not out to them, there were many who "knew." Still, towards the end of my time there, I had grown weary of being out six days a week and closeted on the seventh. I was also tired of surrounding myself with a diverse group of friends, and worshipping with only white people. No more church for me.

In 1994, ten years after I went off to college, I started my first full time academic gig in Delaware. Not needing a church gig anymore, I was looking forward to (for the first time in my life) having Sunday mornings free to sleep in or travel or whatever. The summer before I moved here, I had been contacted by a soon-to-be University colleague about taking a music director job at a Presbyterian church. A very polite "No way in hell" was my response.

I thought I'd maybe try an MCC church, but I didn't want to worship only with gay people. I was convinced that church and I were through.

Then, the second day I lived in Delaware (I knew maybe 5 people here, including my new landlord), the pastor of that Presbyterian church called to ask me to consider their position again. "We're a downtown, interracial, social justice-minded congregation committed to the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in our faith community."

???????? How did he know?? He didn't - it's who they were, and who they proclaimed themselves to be to anyone who asked.

I met him and his copastor wife, saw the clothing closet, the food pantry, the low-cost childcare center, and heard about the ministry of this church. This was what I'd always thought the church should be.

I hesitatingly agreed to serve as the interim while they continued their search, with the insistence that I would stay only until Christmas.

Three weeks into it, I knew this was, at long last, my home. They called off their search, and I called off mine.

These people, young and old and genetic Presbyterian and Baptist and Catholic and wealthy and nearly homeless and gay and lesbian and straight and African American, Asian-american and white, conservative and liberal have found that the Gospel call of Jesus required them to struggle with their own mysogyny, racism, classism, and homophobia.

In my years here, I have come to know the love of God again in community with these people. I have witnessed wonders in their midst, and I am in the church today because of these wonderful Presbyterians (Particularly the little old ladies who make cookies for our lgbt-straight youth alliance).

The short answer to your question is: I am in the PCUSA because this local congregation is doing the work of God in reaching out to LGBT folk.

Flaky as it may seem, the Presbyterian church (locally if not institutionally) has been the place I was able to put it together - the body and soul thing.

The Presbyterian church called me -literally - on the telephone - and said -come be with us and be gay.

I had no good choice but to answer.

So here I am, and here I'll stay.

Patrick Evans, Newark, DE

Emily Martin

Talking about personal faith in academic circles is almost as taboo as talking about sexuality is in religious circles. I do both.

Religion had very little place in my first year at Williams. There weren't any Presbyterian Churches in the area, I didn't feel comfortable in the student Christian fellowship available, and I had more Jewish and atheist friends than Christian ones. Yet, the summer after my freshman year I was selected to be the youth advisory delegate for South Alabama at the 2000 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA (PCUSA). Having attended several national youth conferences that had generated very little impact on my life thus far, I had fairly low expectations.

At the assembly, a proposed amendment barring same-sex unions was on the table, and Soul Force, an interfaith gay rights activist group, had notified the delegates and the police about their plans to protest peacefully. Appreciating the spirit of their approach, I decided to shake a few hands.

The first thing that struck me was the difference between the Soul Force protestors, who were all standing in a circle, wearing similar t-shirts, and smiling and shaking people's hands, and those who had come to protest the protest. These were shouting ugly, hateful things and carrying signs that said things like "God hates faggots" and "Hell is real. Ask Matthew Shepard."

Fortunately they were being herded off to the side by the police. My first thought was, "Hmm… Where is God here?" Certainly not with the hate group. So I turned to the people with Soul Force.

Nothing prepared me for what happened next.

As our hands met, their pain suddenly became real to me, and I recalled the words of Christ: "Whatever you do unto the least of these my brothers, you do unto me." I had never known anyone who was gay. I wasn't even sure I believed in Christ. And yet, tears were streaming down my cheeks. And the protestors were comforting me! One man even took the cross from his neck and placed it around mine. I had meant to only shake one or two hands, but I couldn't break away. I needed to look at every face because in every face I saw Christ.

The ensuing debates on same-sex unions and the even split of the votes suggested that there was no easy answer to the question of sexuality. But I found the debate disturbingly shallow, given that homosexuality had been "the issue" in the Presbyterian Church for more than 30 years. People were holding up the Bible and the Book of Confessions, a collection of historical catechisms and statements of faith, as if the mere sight of them would reveal the truth. I left the assembly determined to investigate further the Presbyterian and Biblical positions on homosexuality.

That journey of inquiry began my sophomore fall with an informal study of the Book of Confessions with the new Chaplain at Williams, a Presbyterian minister I met at the assembly. Each week, we met over dinner to discuss a different document, debating its relevance to the issue of homosexuality. This grew into a Winter Study project, for which I read a number of academic essays presenting both sides of the issue, visited More Light Presbyterian Churches (congregations who publicly affirm the gifts and leadership of bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender people) and produced a paper titled "One Student's Journey Toward Understanding: The Sexuality Crisis in the Presbyterian Church (USA)."

This independent study convinced me that those who supported the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians were not, as their opponents claimed, disregarding Scripture and our Reformed tradition—they just approached it differently. For them, taking the Bible seriously did not necessarily mean taking it literally. The Bible could be as much about our humanity as it is about our God. And evangelism could mean proclaiming a radical love and demanding freedom from oppression for all people—not threatening them with Hell.

With this transformation of religious perspective, I realized that I had a responsibility to speak up about the issue of same-sex love in the Church, and create opportunities for informed, sincere, and respectful discussion on such an uncomfortable and emotion-laden topic. This responsibility was all the greater for my being part of an institution whose polity contributes to sexual discrimination and prejudice in the United States and worldwide. And, fairly or not, because I am not gay, church members are more likely to listen to what I have to say and less likely to write me off as selfishly motivated.

In response to my new discoveries, I led a campus-wide, multi- faith discussion on religion and sexuality, attended by over 100 people. I marched in the annual Williamstown Pride Parade, carrying the banner of St. John's Episcopal Church, an inclusive church I was attending, and led a Pride Week lunch forum on the topic of religion and sexuality. The scariest aspect of tackling this controversy for me, however, was that the more I challenged religious attitudes toward homosexuality, the more I began to discern a call to the ministry. It is a call that few of my peers understand or admire.

It soon became clear to me that while writing an academic paper on an issue is one thing, wrestling with it as a faith community is something completely different. Because of this, I decided to co-lead with my pastor in Dothan, AL, a ten-session adult class on Biblical interpretation and sexuality that summer. My parents attended. So did my grandfather, my high school guidance counselor, and my former Sunday school teachers. There were gay sons that nobody knew about, childhood memories of same-sex molestation, stereotypes, and sincere concerns—all around the same table. I encountered hostility, but also thoughtfulness and compassion. I learned that justice work at the local level is more about planting seeds than moving mountains.

This past summer, I returned from nine months in Oxford to do it again in two different churches in South Alabama—this time sponsored by the Williams College Bi-, Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Alumni Association. In the meantime, I had become painfully aware of the extreme sensitivity and tension associated with sexuality in the Bible Belt. For example, one seminary student from South Alabama was denied candidacy for ordination because she preached a sermon to her home congregation in which she said, "In Christ there is neither gay nor straight." As a soon-to-be inquirer for ordination in that presbytery, events like these gave me pause. But they didn't stop me.

Leading these studies, I was challenged to condense ten sessions into four, so I adopted a fairly radical approach—none of the selected texts mentioned same-sex behavior at all. I focused instead on stories of conflict resolution, spiritual gifts, Christ's relationship to the law, and the controversial inclusion of the Gentiles. I soon saw, however, that teaching in a classroom setting is not enough. Principles of love, reconciliation, and justice need to be integrated into worship, service, and personal relationships, if they are to really take root in people's minds and hearts. So, I preached, wrote prayers, led children's sermons and workshops, and established relationships with Cornerstone MCC, a Metropolitan Community Church in the area.

This last unplanned element of my summer internship began with my showing up for worship at Cornerstone MCC one Sunday evening. I noticed in the bulletin that the congregation's usual Tuesday evening Bible Study class was cancelled for the month, so after the service I introduced myself to the pastor, explained my work with the PCUSA, and asked if I could take over the Bible study using the same texts I was teaching in the Presbyterian churches. She was surprisingly enthusiastic, and as a result I got to explore the texts with an amazingly diverse and dynamic group of individuals, most of them gay or lesbian and coming from Christian backgrounds other than Presbyterian. By the end of the month, the pastor of Grace Presbyterian (with whom I was living) had invited the pastor of Cornerstone MCC and her partner to her house for dinner. By the end of the month, both churches had agreed to follow up the Bible studies with a pulpit swap (each pastor would guest- preach at the other's church) and a joint service project. One member of Cornerstone MCC even made an anonymous donation to Grace Presbyterian Church upon hearing of their financial difficulties.

Getting to know the members at Cornerstone MCC made me mourn the loss of such people in Protestant denominations like my own that have rejected the leadership and relationships of non-celibate gays and lesbians. It also reinforced my belief that—even when studying the same Biblical texts—liberals have just as much to wrestle with as conservatives, heterosexuals as much as homosexuals. To me that's what makes the Bible so exciting, the current split between liberals and conservatives in the Presbyterian Church USA so sad, and the work of reconciliation so essential.

So here it is. Speaking out where there is silence in the church, fighting for justice, love, and respect for all people, seeking commonality in the midst of controversy—that is my story. That is my call.