CLGS

On Sunday, May 17, 2009, CLGS was pleased and honored officially to receive the Rev. Chris
Glaser Collection into the CLGS Archives, which also includes invaluable documents from the
pioneering work of the Lazarus Project, which Rev. Glaser directed for many years.

Author and activist, Chris Glaser has published eleven books, including Uncommon Calling,
Coming Out to God, and Coming Out as Sacrament. His newest book is As My Own Soul: The
Blessing of Same-Gender Marriage (Seabury Press, 2009). In 2007 he wrote two curricula for
The Human Rights Campaign, both available free online at www.hrc.org.

Chris is a frequent speaker and retreat leader across denominational boundaries throughout North
America on issues ranging from sexuality to spirituality. He served as the only openly gay member of the Presbyterian Task Force to Study Homosexuality (1976-78), the majority of which voted to recommend the ordination of lesbian and gay people; that recommendation was rejected by the Presbyterian General Assembly.

After graduation from Yale Divinity
School in 1977, he served as director of a first-of-its-kind ministry of reconciliation between the
church and the LGBT community, The Lazarus Project, located at the West Hollywood
Presbyterian Church. He has worked for almost forty years to affect Presbyterian policy
regarding the welcome and ordination of openly gay and lesbian ministers. He also works for full
inclusion of bisexual and transgender people in the church.

In recent years he has served as Spiritual Leader of the interfaith Midtown Spiritual Community
in Atlanta; interim pastor of Christ Covenant MCC in Decatur, Georgia; interim pastor of MCC
San Francisco; and presently as interim/transitional pastor of Virginia Highland Church, a Baptist
and UCC congregation in Atlanta. He was ordained to the ministry in MCC on October 2, 2005.
A native Californian, he now calls Atlanta home. His family includes his partner Wade Jones and
their golden retriever lab, Hobbes.

On May 17, the event held at West Hollywood Presbyterian Church to celebrate the official
reception of the Rev. Chris Glaser Collection, featured the following guest speakers who paid
tribute to Glaser’s pioneering work and the significance of the Lazarus Project in LGBT religious
history.

Linda Culbertson became involved with the West Hollywood Presbyterian Church in 1979, while working with the Mary Magdalene Project, a ministry with prostitute women. Linda served as a deacon and an elder at WHPC, and as a member of the Lazarus Project Board. She pursued the call to ministry under the care of WHPC’s session. In 1986, she received an M.Div. from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. The Rev. Culbertson is the General Presbyter of the Presbytery of the Pacific, PCUSA. She has served on the staff of the presbytery since 1992.

Jim Mitulski is pastor of New Spirit Community Church (MCC, UCC, DoC) on the campus of
Pacific School of Religion. He has been ordained for 27 years in the Metropolitan Community
Churches, and has served pastorates in New York City, San Francisco, Guerneville, CA and
Glendale, CA. Jim also served for 6 years on the denominational staff as Director of Clergy
Development, and as an Elder. Jim holds an M.Div. from PSR, was a Merrill Fellow at the
Harvard Divinity School, and is currently working on a D.Min. at Episcopal Divinity School, and
has an honorary doctorate from the Starr King School for the Ministry. He is a member of the
Board of Trustees of Pacific School of Religion.

Dan Smith has been the Pastor of West Hollywood Presbyterian Church since 1984. He was
called to serve the congregation in what was one of the most “unique contexts of ministry” in the
Presbyterian Church. West Hollywood Church, which was founded November 2, 1913, is a
church that has always been at the forefront of social change. As early as 1964, five years before
“Stonewall” which is often viewed as the beginning of the GLBT civil rights movement, West
Hollywood Church began hosting a gay men’s “rap group” and a separate mid-afternoon worship
service. Through the work of the Lazarus Project, West Hollywood Church became a ministry in
transition. By 1984 the Church was ready to call a full time Pastor and their preference was for a
gay pastor. The Rev. Dan Smith was called and became the first openly gay pastor serving, what
was at that time, a predominantly gay and lesbian congregation in the Presbyterian Church.

Dan served on the Presbyterian Church’s “Special committee to Study Human Sexuality” and
was one of the major contributors to the committee’s report, “Keeping Body and Soul Together:
Sexuality, Spirituality and Social Justice (1991).” Dan is a graduate of Princeton Theological
Seminary, Princeton, NJ and served for 6 years at the First Presbyterian Church of Geneva, NY
before coming to Los Angeles. He is a cofounder of the Los Angeles GLBT Interfaith Clergy
Association and was one of the first religious leaders in Los Angeles to provide spiritual care and
support to persons with HIV/AIDS. Dan continues to be a leader in the progressive Christian
movement, GLBT spirituality in the context of parish ministry, and contemporary worship and
ministry with young adults.

Janie Spahr was the founding director of Spectrum Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender Concerns in San Anselmo, CA for over ten years and retired after 17 years as the
minister director of That All May Freely Serve of the Downtown United Presbyterian Church in
Rochester, New York and Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tiburon, California. Janie has
been on trial in the Presbyterian courts several times for her ministry and support for LGBT
equality. Before coming out in 1978 she had served churches in Pittsburgh, PA, San Rafael, CA,
and Oakland CA where she was the director of the Oakland Council of Presbyterian Churches.

The Rev. Chris Glaser and Lazarus Project Collection is currently being processed and
catalogued. CLGS will make an announcement when this collection is accessible for research.