CLGS

To deal with diversity is to accept an open invitation to be as inclusive as possible in developing welcoming and reconciling communities of faith. To deal with diversity is to enter into covenantal choices that can bind us together as congregations whose confessions, convictions, and commitments honor the differences which enhance us as uniquely Christian human beings.

Zion United Church of Christ in Henderson, Kentucky knows the tension between honoring a congregation's rich history and hearing a call toward progressive ministries. Organized in 1871, this little downtown German Evangelical congregation still worships in its original historic sanctuary built in 1873. This year, we are celebrating 125 years of ministry and service.

I am an evangelical Christian. I use that word, not in the context of present national political divisions, but in the context of a particular movement in the Protestant Reformation. We evangelicals believe our tradition is firmly rooted in the Bible.

Two years ago a closeted lesbian pastor of a small, rural American Baptist congregation in Rhode Island was challenged by one of the deacons to disclose her sexual orientation. After a series of ...

"You're 74 years old? Impossible! You don't look a day over 60!" I smile with evident pleasure, blush ever so slightly, and reply, "Aren't you kind! Thank you for saying that! I really don't feel old." Everyone is happy. My friend has been gracious by underestimating my age. And my sense of being a "special person"—not like other old people—has been reinforced.

American Myth:Class has no relevance to our struggles for justice in this society.

Concentrated Wealth: The Underlying DivisionBy Rosemary Radford Ruether

Attention to injustices ...

Patricia Beattie Jung, a Roman Catholic laywoman, is an Associate Professor of Theology at Loyola University in Chicago. She has published many scholarly articles and co-edited with Thomas A. Shannon an anthology on Abortion and Catholicism: The American Debate.

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.

Once upon a time, a millennium or two ago, on a volcanic island that has long since been covered by the waters of the sea, there existed a small nation known as the People of the Eyes. The Eyesonians were distinguished by their large round eyes and by the fact that they valued seeing clearly more than anything else. At the center of their city, on the highest hill overlooking the sea, stood a beautiful temple which had been carved in the shape of an eyeball.

Five years ago, an African American student at the seminary I was
attending spoke her mind and I was fortunate enough to be there when she did. "I have been waiting for the day when white ...

While attending the National Convocation of Reconciling

Imagine a quiet rural town in upstate New York and a large parsonage next to the church. We are drinking coffee in our living room on a Saturday afternoon, having just put our eight-month old baby down for a nap. In the midst of this domestic scene, we found ourselves in serious discussion about gender and privilege.

Mitchell: How do we find a working definition for gender privilege? Obviously it is based in patriarchy...

... What would it mean to live
in a city whose people were changing
each other's despair into hope?
You yourself must change it.

... Though your life felt ...

CEO reviews two equally qualified candidates and hires the man, not the woman.
A local church committee turns down a possible new pastor who seemed a good match for the congregation, but is ...

The following text is based closely on a talk given by Ralph Hexter on November 16, 1994, at the Koenig Alumni Center of the University at Colorado at Boulder. It was sponsored by CU-Boulder's GLB Resource Center and its LesBiGay Alumni Association.

Finally, all we have is relationships. We stew about what to do with institutions, particularly what to do about "the church." Shall we challenge it? Shall we nurture it? What really matters are ...

The New Testament provides little ammunition to those wishing to condemn modern homosexuality. Compared to the much more certain condemnations of anger, wealth (sometimes anything but poverty), adultery, or disobedience of wives and children, the few passages that might be taken as condemning homosexuality are meager. It is not surprising, therefore, that the interpretation of two mere words has commanded a disproportionate amount of attention. Both words, arsenokoités and malakos, occur in a vice list in 1 Cor. 6:9, and arsenokoités recurs in 1 Tim.

Ain't I a Woman? . . . No, boo, you're a lesbian! [PDF]