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.
