Articles & Papers

To Denominational Gate Keepers: A Call to Action

By Howard B. Warren, Jr.
Originally published in Open Hands, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Fall 1995)

In the midst of our work of building a truly inclusive church where lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons will join hands with heterosexuals in full membership, we have said little about our experience with denominational executives who go by many titles but see themselves in this struggle mainly as gate keepers or peace keepers.

Has it been your experience that we get smiles, pats on the back, private conferences—all very sincere—from these executives, but little translation of this private aid into open support or action? As our passion has escalated, denominational executives have developed a distance apparently born of a perceived need for “scrupulous fairness,” a need for “balanced discussion,” or a call to “study both sides of the issue.” Such “fairness” and “balance” translates into little or nothing getting past the gate keepers into the judicatory process.

As a Presbyterian, I see this so clearly in our General Assembly's three-year mandate for judicatory dialogue on homosexuality and ordination. Little dialogue has taken place and some of this has to do with our paid personnel. We hear over and over that 20 percent of Presbyterians are liberal, 20 percent are conservative, and the rest in the middle want to get rid of divisive issues. We have been turned into “an issue.” We are not an issue. We are Presbyterian people.

A constant attempt is made to thwart large public meetings. A “play it down mentality” has developed in the Presbyterian Church which translates into “let’s not bring in Janie Spahr or Chris Glaser who will speak eloquently on behalf of gay and lesbian people. Public meetings with publicity will just stir up this divisive issue.”

When a meeting is convened, it must be scrupulously fair, with equal time given both sides. Yet those who would limit our rights have been speaking for almost 2,000 years; we have been sharing our experiences for only ten to twenty years. What is fair?

This “fairness” approach grows out of that hollow scream of the Old Testament false prophets: “Peace, peace, when there is no peace” (Jer 6:14, NRSV). Our gate keeper executives are screaming: “Let's keep it within limits, not let it destroy the denomination.”

How can there be peace when people are not free? How can denominations continue when their children, youth, and adults who are not heterosexual are made second class members with no chance of up-grade to first class in spite of having earned thousands of “frequent flyer” bonus miles? Not only is the “don’t ask; don’t tell” policy prevalent in our denominations, this insidious denominational control called “fairness” is stifling what dialogue might occur. In the Presbyterian denomination, as in so many others, “judicatory dialogue” is truly an oxymoron.

A Reminder and a Story

Denominational executives who advocate peace where there is no peace—because justice and freedom do not yet exist for all God’s people—will ultimately self-destruct. For example, the end result of the struggle for power in the Southern Baptist denomination between the moderates and conservatives was that denominational executives and seminary professors who tried to “be fair” were fired at the same rate as those who spoke out more boldly.

Rebecca Prichard, currently assistant dean of Christian Theological Seminary, was in the spring of 1991 the associate executive in the San Francisco Presbytery when the Presbyterian Human Sexuality report Keeping Body and Soul Together was to be voted on at General Assembly. A TV station did a program which included an interview with Jane Spahr (an open ordained lesbian), a minister who disagreed with Spahr’s and the report’s position, and Rebecca Prichard, who was asked to speak on “the Presbyterian point of view.” Prichard was very much in favor of the new human sexuality report. She says, “In retrospect, I wish I would have supported it fully since I felt so positive about it. I got as much negative flack by being mild as I would have gotten had I spoken my conscience, which fully supported the report.”1

A Call to Action

We hire executives not only for their program and administrative expertise, but also as people of God. We seek their honest opinion on all matters of faith. We expect them to keep people open to Jesus who in thirty-three years fully opened the church to all God’s wonderful rainbow of creation. Our executives must be visionary, a breath of fresh air, wind of the Holy Spirit. They must not be bound by the “Peace, peace when there is no peace” school of denominational training.

If our denominational bureaucracy would translate their beliefs openly into their daily work, they might break the deadlock occurring in most denominations today. What if our executives objected to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons being labeled a divisive issue? What if they referred to us as people, not “an issue” or “a divisive issue”—and objected when others used that language? Words can help.

We are people who seek to replace eight isolated biblical verses being hurled at us as a weapon with a gospel message of welcome. We are a people who are included in the Beatitudes, John 3:16, the Great Commandment—where no silent asterisk says, “for heterosexuals only.”

I want to say this to denominational executives:

So many of you believe what we are saying. As executives, so many of you have opened the gate for us in small and large ways. Hear our plea as God’s people and use your power, privilege, ability, and ecclesial authority to move your denominations to reflect the passion of Jesus who made it a point to let the outsiders in. How far we have come in several decades; yet we sense walls being built, doors slamming shut. Some of this wall building and door slamming comes from your fears as denominational personnel. If this is so for you, do as Jesus would, as Peter would. Open yourself to the Holy Spirit. Become as those early church people touched by the Holy Spirit who are “turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6, NRSV). Early church folks who sought to open the love of God to all were considered trouble makers (NEV, TEV), much as we are today when we seek to open the doors of the church.

Let’s do it again. Let’s all turn the world upside down. Let’s become true gate keepers for Christ’s Good News that all are welcome at God’s table! Otherwise, in the next decades of the new millennium, we will only reinforce Carl Jung’s observation that “Religion is a defense against the experience of God.”2 We have experienced and been called by God in our diverse sexual orientations. Let us all use our calling by God to share this Good News that all Christians are “first-class flyers”!

What We Expect from our Denominational Executives:

1) Active and open honesty

2) A process that is not closed and filled with fear

3) An attitude that sees us as people, not an “issue”

4) A realization that preaching and administering “Peace, peace, when there is no peace” will self-destruct, developing bitterness which will spread in all directions, including toward themselves

5) Prophetic leadership

—Howard B. Warren, Jr.

Notes

1 Story is used with Prichard’s permission.

2 Carl Jung as quoted by Chris Glaser in The Word is Out, (San Francisco: Harper, 1994).

Howard B. Warren, Jr. is director of pastoral care at the Damien Center in Indianapolis, Indiana, and an ordained clergyperson in the Presbyterian Church, USA.

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