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United Church of
Christ President Issues Letter on Gay Rights and Inclusion in the Church
Now, No Condemnation
The Rights of
Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Persons in Society
and their Membership and Ministry in the Church:
A Pastoral Letter to the United Church of Christ
The Rev. Paul H. Sherry, President
United Church of Christ
November, 1998
There is therefore now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
(Romans 8.1)
In recent months we have witnessed
the continuance of hate crimes against gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons, while
in the church discussion about their civil rights and the appropriateness of
their membership and ministry in the life of the church has intensified. Several
denominations in the United States, as well as some churches and bishops around
the world, have adopted or reaffirmed policies that exclude gay, lesbian, and
bisexual persons from sharing fully in the ministry of the church. Other
Christian leaders have harshly suggested that gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons
have no place at all in the life of the church and that their human rights do
not deserve the full measure of legal protection. In addition, some political
leaders, usually claiming religious support, have vigorously opposed efforts to
secure these very rights. Sometimes these anti-gay positions have been justified
by flawed scientific understandings of the nature of homosexuality. Underlying
many of these convictions is the assumption, frequently untested, that the Bible
in general, and Christianity in particular, teach that homosexuality is a sin.
In my role as pastor to the United
Church of Christ, and in this season of theological reflection on "The
Inclusive Church," I offer this Pastoral Letter to remind all of us that
the church is to be a place where all are welcomed, where the gifts of all are
recognized and received, and where the rights of all are defended and promoted.
When so many in our society would reject and exclude, it is critical that we of
the United Church of Christ bear witness to the conviction that it is possible
to be deeply faithful to the Bible, profoundly respectful of the historic faith
of the church and of its sacraments, and at the same time support the full
inclusion and participation of all God's children in the membership and ministry
of the church. Likewise, there can be no compromise that all persons in this
society must enjoy equal protection under the law.
I write in deep gratitude for the
journey of discernment and action that the United Church of Christ has taken
over the past several decades. For all our difficulties and challenges, I
believe the United Church of Christ is uniquely equipped to take on this complex
but crucial vocation both in the public arena and among our ecumenical partners.
Informed by the actions of several General Synods, by Biblical and theological
reflection, and above all by countless pastoral encounters with members of our
church, I am convinced that there must be and will be no turning back from our
commitment, especially in the face of the current prejudice and misunderstanding
prevalent in both the church and the society.
Contrary to what some assume or
allege, the conviction of the General Synod of the United Church of Christ,
along with the witness of many conferences, associations, and local churches, is
not a superficial response to changing cultural norms or an easy reaction to
certain social opinions. At their best, our commitments have grown out of a
profound reflection on the meaning of our baptism and our participation in the
sacrament of holy communion. Our commitments have grown as we have responded
pastorally to the needs of many of our members and their families who have been
the victims of prejudice or who have experienced rejection in the church.
We have been confronted and gifted
by the presence in our church of gay, lesbian, and bisexual Christians who have
been baptized in our sanctuaries, confirmed before our altars, and ordained by
our associations. We have been confronted and gifted by men and women faithfully
attentive to the Word, diligent in their sacramental life, forthright in their
Christian witness and compassionate in their service. We have been confronted
and gifted by parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers, daughters and
sons, faithful members of our church, whose embrace by a loving God has enabled
them to accept a gay, lesbian, or bisexual family member, and who yearn for that
same loving embrace to be extended by the church to their child, their
grandchild, their brother or sister, their parent. We have been confronted and
gifted by faithful, mature, and able members who
have experienced God's call to the
ordained ministry of Word and Sacrament, who have sought and received the
recognition and authorization of the church. We have been confronted and gifted
by ordained men and women who have served faithfully and well for many years and
who now wish to minister among us with renewed vitality openly affirming their
same gender orientation. We have been confronted and gifted by gay, lesbian, and
bisexual persons who have found love in the physical, emotional, and spiritual
embrace of another, and are living in committed covenantal relationships of
fidelity and trust which they yearn for the church to bless and the society to
respect and protect. And we have been confronted and gifted by members of our
church and those of other churches who have known the pain of rejection, the
anguish of exclusion, and the fear of abuse, yet who remain faithful to their
baptismal vows, seek to be fed at Christ's Table, and desire to be engaged in
the mission of Christ's reconciling love in the world.
Confronted and gifted by these
baptized persons, members of the United Church of Christ have been challenged to
read the Bible again with new eyes and listen to the Holy Spirit with new ears.
We have had to reexamine long held assumptions about those few passages of
Scripture that appear to speak about homosexuality in the light of transforming
interpretations from widely respected Bible scholars and teachers, and we have
begun to recognize how our fears of those who are different, and our society's
deeply entrenched bias against homosexual persons has often distorted and nearly
silenced the Bible's liberating and inclusive voice. At the same time,
encounters with hurting and excluded sisters and brothers have caused us to look
to the whole of Scripture which speaks of a God who continually reaches out for
those who are cast out for any reason, those who live at the margins of our
lives. We have been reminded of our identity as disciples of the One who often
ate with those rejected by the religious norms of the day, the One who sets
before us all the Table of God's inclusive love, mercy, and grace.
In these encounters, we have
remembered our own history, recalling ways we have been led to expand the
church's welcome to others who have been excluded. We remembered the Amistad and
the story of our forebears, both enslaved and free, who rejected Biblical
interpretations that supported slavery and whose new appreciation for the
Gospel's mandate led them to fight for freedom for all. We remembered Japanese
Americans driven from their homes during the Second World War, and those of our
churches who spoke out for their rights. We remembered many women who refused to
submit to a misuse of the Bible that denied them places of leadership or that
conspired in their abuse, and who found affirmation and encouragement in our
churches, our colleges, and our seminaries. We remembered ancestors of our
Hungarian sisters and brothers whose witness to the Reformed faith led to their
persecution as galley slaves and martyrs, as well as those who fled oppression
in 1956 to find safe haven among our churches.
More recently we remembered our
church's call for self-determination for Puerto Rican people, the championing of
the rights of Chicano farm workers, the call for respect for the dignity of
Native American people demeaned by caricature and stereotype, the recognition of
the rights of Indigenous Hawaiians deprived of their land and culture, and
solidarity with those who declared that the apartheid system erected and
supported by other Bible reading Christians was idolatry, a denial of the very
integrity of the church's confession. All of this has helped us discover that
our church's concern for the rights and dignity of gay, lesbian, and bisexual
people is not a break from our past, or a departure from Scripture, but is
informed by our moments of greatest fidelity to the prophetic voice of the Bible
and the Gospel's embrace for those who, with Christ, have been despised.
The encounters in our own church
with each other over the subject of sexual orientation have not been easy and,
for some, remain profoundly disturbing. We have experienced conflict; the
covenants that bind us together have been tested. At times we have felt isolated
from and misunderstood by some in the ecumenical community. But we have also
experienced marvelous surprises:
...the growth and vitality of many
local churches that have declared themselves open to and affirming of the gifts
of gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons; ...the gracious perseverance of The
United Church Coalition for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns
which, for twenty-six years, has been a prophetic presence in our church,
clarifying concerns, challenging stereotypes, providing leaders for every
setting of the church's life, gently and persistently changing hearts and minds,
providing a refuge for those who have suffered wounds of prejudice and exclusion
in church and society; ...the gratitude and encouragement of Christians in other
churches who have found in our church's journey to new understandings a sign of
hope amid discouragement; ...the growing self-esteem of lesbian, gay, and
bisexual youth in our church who are able to worship in congregations that
respect their full humanity, as well as the heterosexual youth in our churches
who have found themselves called to confront the anti-gay prejudice so prevalent
in their schools; ...the renewal that springs forth as we discover, again, that
we are not trapped by the past but are part of a living tradition that is
"reformed, yet always reforming," a people whose only comfort in life
and in death is that they belong to Christ.
In these days we dare not be
arrogant. The story of our pilgrimage with our gay, lesbian, and bisexual
members at times has been marked by hesitation, fear, and frequent failures of
nerve. At times prophetic voices, whether heard from inside or from outside the
church, have been resisted. We have not always been properly respectful, or
sought to understand with sincerity, those sisters and brothers among us who do
not share our understanding or conviction or witness. At the same time, we have
sometimes failed to recognize how the Bible has been used by some to perpetuate
prejudice and to justify violence against homosexual persons.
But in these days we dare not be
silent, either. I believe our voice among the churches and within our society is
urgently needed, bearing witness to the belief that God cherishes all and
dignifies all, and to our experience of gay, lesbian, and bisexual persons as
gifts of God, called with us by their baptism into the fullest participation in
God's mission of reconciliation in the world. I am convinced this voice will
have power insofar as it is a voice shaped by the language
of faith and the experience of
worship, a voice in which the liberating truth of the Bible can be heard, and
the courageous spirit of the saints will be echoed. By that voice, I believe,
our churches will be renewed. More importantly, in that voice, I believe, the
lonely will be called to companionship, the frightened will find comfort, the
abused will know safety, and those sisters and brothers in Christ who have lost
hope will rediscover the blessing of their baptism: Child of God, disciple of
Christ, member of Christ's Church.
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