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Janie Spahr: “Lesbyterian”

In 1991, Rev. Janie Spahr received a call to return to parish ministry, but then the gatekeepers and an overreaching Presbyterian “Supreme Court” stepped in.

She had been ordained a Presbyterian teaching elder (minister of word and sacrament) in 1974 and had previously served in parish ministry in Pennsylvania and California , but then she came out: first to herself, then her family, and then her congregation. She and her husband amicably divorced and remained close friends (she refers to herself as “wife emerita”), but her Oakland congregation asked her to leave. For the next two years, because her own denomination didn’t quite know what to do with this “lesbyterian,” she worked with the Metropolitan Community Church in San Francisco’s Castro district. In 1982, Pastor Spahr co-founded the Ministry of Light, which became the Spectrum Center, in Marin County, California, and she continued to serve as director.

The Presbytery of the Genesee Valley approved the 1991 call to serve as co-pastor of Downtown United Presbyterian Church of Rochester, NY, but then a coalition of one elder, fourteen pastors, and the sessions of nine congregations of the presbytery brought charges, which ultimately wound their way to the Presbyterian “Supreme Court.” At that time, the policy of the Presbyterian Church was summed up in the “definitive guidance” dating to Bill Silver’s failed attempt at ordination and the actions of the 1978 General Assembly. This 1978 “definitive guidance” stated, “homosexuality is not God’s wish for humanity” and “unrepentant homosexual practice does not accord with the requirements for ordination.” Yet, as part of the same assembly and the same action, a “grandparent clause” had been added that said that the definitive guidance “shall not be used to affect negatively the ordination rights of any United Presbyterian deacon, elder, or minister who has been ordained prior to this date.” Rev. Janie Spahr had been ordained four years “prior to this date.” Despite the clear language and intent of the “grandparent clause,” the ecclesiastical court blocked the call to parish ministry by ruling that the clause only applied to repentant homosexuals, who would receive “amnesty for past acts but not license for present or future acts.”

Undeterred, the congregation called Spahr to be a roving evangelist for the cause of full inclusion, and she became the Presbyterian poster lesbian going forward, building and leading an organization/movement called “That All May Freely Serve.”

In the following decade, Spahr would again have her ministry litigated by the Presbyterian courts, and the reason was her persistent willingness to officiate at same-gender weddings. To summarize the winding trail through the thicket of Presbyterian jurisprudence, the Presbyterian Supreme Court issued its final decree, calling upon her local Presbytery of the Redwoods to censure her. The presbytery meeting was scheduled for May 16, 2012. The presbytery voted 74 to 18 to defy the determination of the highest Presbyterian court. The presbytery would not censure the Rev. Dr. Jane Adams Spahr and instead voted to support her. It would be the most extreme act of ecclesiastical disobedience in the entire history of the PC(USA). Never before had a presbytery openly defied a ruling of the highest court.

At the next General Assembly of the church in Detroit in 2014, marriage equality will be front and center of the plenary sessions.

The book is now available!

This is the sixteenth installment in the series Cast of characters countdown, which are biographical snippets and summaries of the stories of the iconic pilgrims and prophets on the road to full inclusion who are featured prominently in Queer Clergy. As with all these posts, this is merely a summary of the full story, which is woven into an overarching narrative in the book. This is the first installment following the release of Queer Clergy, which is now available here or from your favorite online bookstore.

Here’s the list of prior posts:

1968 Troy Perry (founder of the MCC)

1970 Robert Mary Clement (gay priest who marched in the first Gay Pride parade)

1972 William Johnson (first out gay man to be ordained by a traditional denomination)

1974 James Siefkes (Lutheran pastor behind the formation of Lutherans Concerned)

1974 David Bailey Sindt (founder of More Light Presbyterians)

1975 Steve Webster (organized the first gathering of gay Methodists)

1975 Dr. Louie Clay (founder of Episcopal Integrity)

1976 Chris Glaser (longtime Presbyterian activist)

1977 Ellen Marie Barrett (first out lesbian ordained to the Episcopal priesthood)

1978 Loey Powell (early UCC lesbian pastor and activist)

1980 Mark Bowman (founder and leader of RMN and editor of Open Hands Magazine)

1982 Melvin Wheatley (Methodist bishop and straight ally)

1987 Ann B. Day (Led the UCC ONA for twenty years)

1990 Jeff Johnson, Ruth Frost, Phyllis Zillhart (Extraordinarily ordained Lutherans)

1990 John Shelby Spong (leading straight ally in the Episcopal House of Bishops)

The first review is in!

Under the title, “An incredible story, an incredible resource.”

“Holmen takes on a topic much discussed but seldom told in story with such care and attention.”

“This book is nothing less than magisterial.”

“Holmen does the church an incredible service by offering this book.”

These words come from reviewer, Rev. Clint Schnekloth, on the book’s Amazon page and also on his highly popular Facebook page entitled, “ELCA Clergy” (closed group).

Twin Cities, Northfield, and Chicago appearances

Here are details for the initial author appearances to follow the release of Queer Clergy: A History of Gay and Lesbian Ministry in American Protestantism, which will finally occur in the next couple of days.

Tuesday evening, February 11, 7:00 pm, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, 700 Snelling Avenue S, St Paul, Minnesota

Gloria Dei is the largest church of the St. Paul Area Synod and a Reconciling in Christ congregation. Senior Pastor Bradley Schmeling is an out-gay man who was defrocked following a 2007 ecclesiastical trial in Georgia, where he served an Atlanta congregation. His trial was a significant factor in later ELCA policy revisions. Pastor Bradley and his partner, Pastor Darin Easler, were the first clergy to be reinstated to the ELCA roster following the 2009 revisions to ministry policies, and his call as senior pastor to Gloria Dei, a “high steeple” flagship congregation of the Synod, marked a first.

Saturday morning, February 15, 10:00 am, Bethel Lutheran Church, 1321 North Avenue, Northfield, MN

Bethel Lutheran was our congregation and Northfield was our home for three years. Northfield is a delightful college community, and I was privileged to participate in and speak at numerous community, congregational, and St. Olaf College events. This will be a homecoming.

Friday evening, February 21, 6:00 PM, Augustana Lutheran Hyde Park, 5500 S Woodlawn Ave, Chicago

Augustana Hyde Park is a Reconciling in Christ congregation that serves the Hyde Park neighborhood on the near Southside of Chicago. Augustana also hosts Lutheran Campus Ministries for several colleges, including the University of Chicago, and is located just a block or two away from the Lutheran School of Theology and McCormick Theological Seminary.

Saturday evening, February 22, 5:00-7:00 PM, wine and cheese with the author (public welcome), hosted by Mark Bowman, Director LGBT Religious Archive Network, 5352 N. Kenmore Avenue, #3, Chicago

Mark Bowman is one of the iconic, prophetic figures featured in the book. He was a founder of the Methodist Reconciling Ministries Network and served as its director for many years. As part of his duties, he was editor of the award-winning Open Hands Magazine. More recently, he has been project coordinator for the LGBT Religious Archives Network. He will host a wine and cheese party on Chicago’s Northside, and the public is welcome.

Sunday morning, February 23, 9:00 AM, Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, 1234 N. Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights

I was a member of this Reconciling in Christ congregation during my 2011-12 sojourn in greater Chicago. Our Saviour’s has been especially intentional in its LGBT welcome. Senior pastor Dan Hoeger was called in part because he was a willing straight ally, and the congregation voted overwhelmingly in 2011 that they would host same-gender weddings, two years before marriage equality came to Illinois. It will be good to see old friends.

Sunday afternoon, February 23, 3:00 PM, Congregational UCC (St. John UCC & First United Methodist co-sponsors), 1001 W Kirchhoff Rd, Arlington Heights

Two UCC Open and Affirming congregations, also members of the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Congregations, and a Methodist Reconciling Ministries congregation will co-sponsor my appearance. St. John UCC was within walking distance of my Arlington Heights home, and Pastor Jeffrey Phillips became a friend and helped with UCC research contacts. I met Congregational UCC pastor Rex Piercy at the 2012 gathering of the UCC Coalition at nearby Elmhurst College, and his church will host this Sunday afternoon event. First United Methodist of Arlington Heights was served by head pastor Bonnie Beckonchrist at that time, but Pastor Bonnie has since retired but continues as Chair of the RMN board of directors.

The wait is (nearly) over & a radio interview

I’ve been frustrated the past couple of months when the target date for release of Queer Clergy moved from Nov 15 to Dec 1 to Dec 30 and then to Jan 15. Thus, I was relieved when I received an email late yesterday from my contact at Pilgrim Press, announcing, “Great news – advance copies of your book are here, so yes, they should be available by Jan. 15.” What has seemed hypothetical and elusive is about to become real.

About the same time, I received an email from Presbyterian clergyman and radio host, Rev. John Shuck. When I first started this blog nearly five years ago, his blog, Shuck and Jive, appeared on my first blog rolls. Last November, he moved his efforts to his new Religion for Life website that was centered around his public radio program of the same name. Religion for Life is carried by a handful of radio stations in Tennesee (Pastor Shuck’s home), Virginia, and Nebraska. Pastor Shuck uses his radio program to conduct interviews, and his impressive list of luminaries includes: Bishop John Shelby Spong, Reza Aslan (the Muslim author of the popular book, The Zealot), Barbara Kingsolver, Marcus Borg, Kathleen Norris, NT Wright, and many others.

And now me.

The email received from Rev. Shuck included a link to the interview he conducted with me that aired a week or two ago that is now available in podcast format. For better or worse, here it is. Click this link to listen to the interview.

Bishop John Shelby Spong: straight ally

In 1976, the Episcopal Church revised its canons to allow women to be ordained as priests. That same year, the Episcopal Diocese of Newark consecrated Rev. John Shelby Spong to be its bishop. For the next twenty-five years, Bishop Spong would be an outspoken leader of the progressive wing of the Episcopal Church, especially regarding LGBT issues.

Bishop Spong’s advocacy as a straight ally came to the fore in the late 1980s when he penned the progressive view in a running dialogue in the official Episcopal magazine, The Episcopalian. A gay man from Texas responded to the series by challenging the bishop to ordain him. Although there had been previous gay ordinations by sympathetic bishops, this one would prove different. Never a shrinking violet, Bishop Spong encouraged press scrutiny, and he carefully stepped over television camera cables during the December, 1989 ordination. CNN looped the story as its lead every half hour.

The following year was marked by reaction and fallout. “The seeds of anarchy are sown,” charged eight bishops in the Midwest. An “open and deliberate violation … a blatant disregard of the teaching of the Church Catholic,” cried a Texas bishop. A Florida bishop accused Spong of “an act of arrogance,” and the bishop of Northern Indiana suggested Bishop Spong was motivated by “publicity and little else.” At their fall meeting, the House of Bishops voted to disassociate from the ordination, but the four vote margin proved to be much closer than the conservatives expected. Following the vote, Bishop Spong blistered his opponents in a speech to the House of Bishops that he characterized as “forty-five minutes of what surely must be described as passionate purple oratory.” Late that night, two of his fellow bishops separately appeared at his hotel room door to confess that they were closeted gay men, one of whom had actually voted against Bishop Spong. “I am so afraid,” he said, “that I will be exposed. I cover that fear by being negative and harsh on this issue on every public occasion.”

At the 1994 General Convention, conservatives succeeded in watering down a document called the “Pastoral,” and Bishop Spong encountered the tearful leaders of Integrity (including Dr. Louie Crew) in the hallway outside his hotel room. Bishop Spong spent the night penning a response in longhand on a legal notepad. As dawn creeped through his hotel window, he awakened his wife and asked her to go the hotel business center to type up the document, which he called a “Statement of Koinonia.” At the plenary session of the House of Bishops the following day, Bishop Spong asked to raise a point of personal privilege. When the presiding officer recognized him, he strode past the floor microphones and proceeded to the main microphone at the platform, and he began to read the document as his wife and others distributed copies to the floor and to the press and visitors. After a few minutes, the presiding officer attempted to cut him off, but Bishop Spong held up his hand like a traffic cop and continued reading. When he finished, Bishop Mary Adelia McLeod of Vermont stepped forward saying she wanted to sign the document. Other bishops did the same disrupting the business of the day. Eventually eighty-five bishops signed the document, representing the largest dioceses in the nation and the greatest number of church members.

There is so much more to be told, and my book, Queer Clergy, does precisely that. Bishop Spong has written one of the endorsements that appears on the book’s back cover, and he states, “It is a story that had to be written … Obie Holmen tells this story in a gripping and fascinating way.”

This is the fifteenth installment in the series Cast of characters countdown. I will continue to post biographical notes about the iconic pilgrims and prophets on the road to full inclusion who are featured prominently in my soon-to-be-released book, Queer Clergy.

Here’s the list of prior posts:

1968 Troy Perry (founder of the MCC)

1970 Robert Mary Clement (gay priest who marched in the first Gay Pride parade)

1972 William Johnson (first out gay man to be ordained by a traditional denomination)

1974 James Siefkes (Lutheran pastor behind the formation of Lutherans Concerned)

1974 David Bailey Sindt (founder of More Light Presbyterians)

1975 Steve Webster (organized the first gathering of gay Methodists)

1975 Dr. Louie Clay (founder of Episcopal Integrity)

1976 Chris Glaser (longtime Presbyterian activist)

1977 Ellen Marie Barrett (first out lesbian ordained to the Episcopal priesthood)

1978 Loey Powell (early UCC lesbian pastor and activist)

1980 Mark Bowman (founder and leader of RMN and editor of Open Hands Magazine)

1982 Melvin Wheatley (Methodist bishop and straight ally)

1987 Ann B. Day (Led the UCC ONA for twenty years)

1990 Jeff Johnson, Ruth Frost, Phyllis Zillhart (Extraordinarily ordained Lutherans)

Jeff Johnson, Phyllis Zillhart, Ruth Frost: Lutherans on trial

The predecessor bodies of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) did not experience the conflict and controversy over LGBT issues that colored the sister denominations in the ’70s and early ’80s. In the early years, Lutherans Concerned (The Lutheran LGBT advocacy group) maintained a collegial posture toward the church with optimism that the soon-to-be-merged, egalitarian church body would be all things to all people. However, the great expectations that accompanied the formation of the ELCA (Jan 1, 1988 as the result of merger of predecessor Lutheran bodies) evaporated within months.

In the fall of 1987 (just before the merger), three senior seminarians from California came out, and their path to ordination was not immediately blocked. In fact, all three were certified for ordination by the appropriate committees late in 1987, with the expectation that the ELCA would routinely continue the process. But, it was not to be. One of the three, Jeff Johnson, quipped in February, 1988, that public attention “turned out to be a little bigger deal than I thought it would be.” Meanwhile, the first presiding bishop of the newly-merged ELCA, Herbert Chilstrom, suggested that the pending ordinations “set off an avalanche of letters and phone calls to parish pastors, synodical bishops and our church-wide office here in Chicago.” The fledgling denomination caved under public pressure, and the ordination approvals were withdrawn.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, a lesbian couple that had met while seminarians at Luther Seminary of St. Paul also had their path toward ordination blocked. Ruth Frost, the daughter of an esteemed professor at Luther, and Phyllis Zillhart, from Southwestern Minnesota, worked in non-ecclesiastical jobs after seminary graduation.

Then, ecclesiastical disobedience came to the ELCA, in the form of extra ordinem (extraordinary) ordinations. A pair of San Francisco congregations, part of a larger grouping of Bay area congregations (predecessor to what later become Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries–ELM), risked denominational punishment by calling and ordaining Jeff Johnson to one congregation and Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart to a shared call at the second. Here is a video that recounts these events of 1990, borrowed from the ELM website.

Following a highly dramatic ecclesiastical trial, the two congregations were initially suspended and later expelled from the ELCA. The ad hoc disciplinary committee that conducted the trials felt compelled to follow church policy, but their official decision called on the ELCA to reconsider the policy. Referring to the two senior pastors of the congregations who dared to call the gay and lesbian ordinands, the disciplinary committee chair wrote:

I could not help but believe that if Christ were with us now, in body as well as spirit, we would find him seated at their table. I regard myself fortunate to be part of a church that counts them as pastors.

Pastors Johnson, Frost, and Zillhart—and their congregations–provided pastoral comfort to the San Francisco gay community at the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, offering their amens to the dying and their families even as the wider church was absent.

The postscript to the story includes the festive Rites of Reception of these three, and others, to the official clergy roster of the ELCA in 2010, as well as the invitation from the ELCA to the two expelled congregations, St Francis Lutheran and First United Lutheran, to rejoin the denomination, which both congregations accepted.

This brief account fails to do justice to this poignant story; Queer Clergy: A History of Gay and Lesbian Ministry in American Protestantism offers a greatly expanded retelling.

Methodist gays and lesbians surge forward on a rising tide

My soon-to-be-released book, Queer Clergy: A History of Gay and Lesbian Ministry in American Protestanti sm, chronicles the journey toward full inclusion in the five, principal mainline denominations of the US, including the United Methodist Church. Of the five, the Methodists have lagged behind, and I attended the 2012 General Conference in Florida, hoping to witness history and to be able to write a fitting final chapter for the book. However, a legislative breakthrough was thwarted due to the alliance of domestic gatekeepers with a swelling international contingent. Thus, my final chapter became How Long, O Lord?

Early chapters of the book chronicle the pan-denominational ecclesiastical disobedience that spurred change, including the irregular ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven. In 1974, eleven women challenged 2,000 years of church patriarchy and were ordained to the Episcopal priesthood, despite church canons to the contrary. In the buildup to that historic event, a rousing sermon of Dr. Charles Willie called for bishops to step forward.

And so it is meet and right that a bishop who believes that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, ought to ordain any … person who is qualified for the Holy Orders. A bishop who, on his own authority, ordains a woman deacon to the priesthood will be vilified, and talked about, but probably not crucified. Such a bishop would be following the path of the Suffering Servant, which is the path Jesus followed. It requires both courage and humility to disobey an unjust law.

The church is in need of such a bishop today.

My book suggests that Methodist progress would similarly require the ecclesiastical disobedience of the UMC episcopacy.

At a gathering in the makeshift “Tabernacle” that housed the allied progressive Methodist groups that trumpeted change during that 2012 General Conference, retired bishop Melvin Talbert issued a call reminiscent of Dr. Willie’s sermon 38 years earlier. “Biblical obedience demands ecclesiastical disobedience,” he intoned, calling forth his own experience in the civil rights movement.

Each day, it seems, a new Methodist story of ecclesiastical disobedience hits the newswire. The list of clergy who have defied church policy against officiating at same-gender weddings includes: the retired dean of the Yale Divinity School, a collection of Pennsylvania clergy who jointly officiated at a same-gender wedding, and Rev. Frank Schaefer, whose ecclesiastical trial resulted in defrocking. Just in the last week, we witnessed the wedding of Methodist clergy, Rev. Joanne Carlson Brown and Rev. Christie Newbill in Seattle, and the officiant was none other than their district superintendent. Dr. Brown was the first (and only?) out-lesbian ordained as UMC clergy in 1982, which resulted in the 1984 General Conference enacting a restrictive ordination policy that remains in effect today.

Methodist ecclesiastical disobedience has moved upstream from pew to pulpit to district and now to the episcopacy itself. Though the Conference of Bishops voted to institute judicial proceedings against one of their own, retired bishop Talbert for officiating at a gay wedding in Georgia over the wishes of the local bishop, individual voices in the episcopal wilderness are crying out.

Sitting bishops Peggy Johnson, Rev. Schaefer’s Pennsylvania supervisor, and Minerva G. Carcano, bishop of the California-Nevada Conference, have openly decried the discrimination written into the Book of Discipline.

Listen to Bishop Johnson:

Several statements in our Book of Discipline are discriminatory (forbidding ordination of homosexual persons, forbidding the performing of same-gender marriages, and considering the practice of homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching). There appear to be contradictions between the many affirming statements (mentioned earlier) and these statements.

In a watershed moment that goes beyond words to action, Bishop Carcano has invited the defrocked Rev. Schaefer to come and join the ministry of the California-Nevada Conference. Defying the action of the church court, this invitation amounts to ecclesiastical disobedience at the highest level. In issuing the invitation, Bishop Carcano writes:

[The UMC Book of Discipline is] an imperfect book of human law that violates the very spirit of Jesus the Christ who taught us through word and deed that all God’s children are of sacred worth and welcomed into the embrace of God’s grace. I believe that the time has come for we United Methodists to stand on the side of Jesus and declare in every good way that the United Methodist Church is wrong in its position on homosexuality, wrong in its exclusion of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, and wrong in its incessant demand to determine through political processes who can be fully members of the body of Christ. Frank Schaefer chose to stand with Jesus as he extended love and care to his gay son and his partner. We should stand with him and others who show such courage and faithfulness.

Legislative change in the UMC remains uncertain. The General Conference will not meet until 2016, and the political alliance between international delegates and domestic gatekeepers may remain insurmountable. In the face of such realities, policy change must come through alternate avenues, including the direct action of local clergy, district superintendents, and conference bishops.

Ecclesiastical history is unfolding before us. In the words of Episcopal Priest, Dr. Carter Heyward, one of the irregularly ordained Philadelphia Eleven,

I believe (as do many others) that, for the Church to change, the Church must act its way into new ways of thinking. The Episcopal Church will not be able to think its way successfully toward an inclusive gay-affirming reimaging of Christian marriage until there are gay and lesbian Episcopalians who are married. People act–only then do laws change. The canons and liturgies catch up with people’s lives over time. That’s how laws get changed inside and outside the church.

So, too, the Methodists. Godspeed.

Dr. Louie Crew (Clay): founder of Integrity

In October 1974, a few select Episcopalians around the country discovered a newsletter in their mailboxes bearing a postmark from Fort Valley, the county seat of Peach County, Georgia. The newsletter was called Integrity: Gay Episcopal Forum and was circulated solely by Louie Crew, a young gay man just beginning his career as an English professor.

Almost immediately, Crew received two calls from interested persons; coincidentally, they were both from Chicago although they were strangers to each other, one a priest and the other a lay person. With Crew’s encouragement from afar, those two and other gays from Chicago organized the first chapter of Integrity during a meeting in December 1974. The following summer, the first national gathering convened in Chicago.

Crew’s salary as a young English professor at a small state college was minimal, but he had the benefit of paid airfare to attend seminars and conferences. He would pocket the airfare and travel to the conferences by Greyhound, stopping frequently along the way to network with bishops and others. The road toward full inclusion included bumpy bus rides.

By the 1976 General Convention in Minneapolis, Integrity had spread across the country with chapters in many cities; representatives of Integrity had been well received by official church spokesmen; and church leaders were accommodating to Integrity during the convention. In addition to the momentous revisions to the canons to allow women’s ordination to the priesthood, the 1976 General Convention also acted favorably on LGBT measures, including a resolution stating:

that homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church.

A “full and equal claim” is pretty heady stuff, but following the ordination of lesbian Ellen Marie Barrett in January, 1977, the pendulum swung. Big time. Dr. Crew called the 1979 General Convention, “the height of homophobia.”

Dr. Crew continued as an Integrity leader/activist over the years, often serving as a deputy (delegate) at conventions. After the 1994 General Convention adopted an odious resolution, his weeping conversation with Bishop Spong in the hotel hallway inspired the bishop to write through the night, and the resulting “Statement of Koinonia” marked a breakthrough. When the Episcopal progressives were getting pummeled at Lambeth 1998, Dr. Crew arranged for flowers to be delivered to London. When gay Bishop Gene Robinson was consecrated in 2003, Dr. Crew was one of the laity presenters. He has received several honorary doctoral degrees. At the 2012 General Convention, Integrity honored him for his lifetime of service, and the line at the reception for folks to have their picture taken with him wound around the room. And, of great importance to me, Dr. Crew served as my principal Episcopal source and fact-checker.

About the same time that he sent out his first Integrity newsletter, he fell in love with Ernest Clay, and they have been a happy couple to the present. They recently were married, and Louie Crew is now Louie Clay.

This post is part of the series Cast of characters, which are biographical snippets and summaries of the stories of the iconic pilgrims and prophets on the road to full inclusion who are featured prominently in Queer Clergy. As with all these posts, this is merely a summary of the full story, which is woven into an overarching narrative in the book. Here’s the full list of these posts:

1968 Troy Perry (founder of the MCC)

1970 Robert Mary Clement (gay priest who marched in the first Gay Pride parade)

1972 William Johnson (first out gay man to be ordained by a traditional denomination)

1974 James Siefkes (Lutheran pastor behind the formation of Lutherans Concerned)

1974 David Bailey Sindt (founder of More Light Presbyterians)

1975 Steve Webster (organized the first gathering of gay Methodists)

1975 Dr. Louie Clay (founder of Episcopal Integrity)

1976 Chris Glaser (longtime Presbyterian activist)

1977 Ellen Marie Barrett (first out lesbian ordained to the Episcopal priesthood)

1978 Loey Powell (early UCC lesbian pastor and activist)

1980 Mark Bowman (founder and leader of RMN and editor of Open Hands Magazine)

1982 Melvin Wheatley (Methodist bishop and straight ally)

1987 Ann B. Day (Led the UCC ONA for twenty years)

1990 Jeff Johnson, Ruth Frost, Phyllis Zillhart (Extraordinarily ordained Lutherans)

1990 John Shelby Spong (leading straight ally in the Episcopal House of Bishops)

1992 Janie Spahr (Presbyterian leader of “That All May Freely Serve”)

1994 Ross Merkel (defrocked Lutheran allowed to remain on call with a “wink-and-a-nod” from his bishop)

1996 Walter Righter (Episcopal Bishop whose heresy trial opened the door for queer clergy)

2000 Jimmy Creech, Greg Dell, Joseph Sprague, and Jack Tuell (Methodist trials to punish clergy who performed covenant services for same-gender couples)

2001 Anita Hill (extraordinarily ordained Lutheran)

2003 Gene Robinson (gay bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire)

2004 Karen Dammann and Beth Stroud (Methodist clergy put on trial for being lesbians)

2007 Bradley Schmeling and Darin Easler (defrocked Lutheran clergy who were the first to be reinstated)

2011 Scott Anderson (first gay Presbyterian to be ordained following policy change)

2011 Amy DeLong (out, partnered Methodist minister on trial)

2012 R. Guy Erwin (gay professor elected as ELCA bishop)

Steve Webster and the first gathering of gay Methodists

I first met Methodist Steve Webster at the 2010 Wisconsin Annual Conference gathering in La Crosse, Wisconsin. It was sheer serendipity. I was there hawking my novel about Paul the apostle, and the exhibit hall organizer happened to place me next to Kairos CoMotion, a Wisconsin-based Methodist LGBT group. Webster and his husband, Jim Dietrich, set up the booth and returned regularly between plenary sessions; we had plenty of time to become acquainted.

Two years later, I was researching the formation of the first Methodist LGBT activist group for Queer Clergy. In Chicago, I met with Morris Floyd, who had been present at the 1978 gathering of gay and lesbian Methodists, and with Mark Bowman, whose involvement began in 1980, but I knew that the first gathering of LGBT Methodists occurred at a church near Northwestern University in 1975. Who had been there? Who knew about the initial formation of the gay Methodist caucus?

Steve Webster’s name came up. The same Steve Webster I knew from Wisconsin?

I arranged to have brunch with Steve and Jim near their home in Madison, Wisconsin. Yes, it turns out, Steve had been there. In fact, he had organized that first gathering of gay Methodists!

In 1974, a New York Times headline stated, “Methodists Reject Homosexual’s Ordination Bid.” Steve Webster was that rejected Methodist, and the roadblock in his journey to ordained ministry diverted him into the ministry of an activist.

“I got a hold of one of those old mimeograph stencils and rolled it into my Smith-Corona typewriter and carefully typed up a flyer about the meeting.”

Using return addresses from the letters of support he received after the NY Times article, he mailed the flyer as an invitation to an organizational meeting. That 1975 meeting of around twenty gay Methodists at Wheadon UMC in Evanston, Illinois, marked the birth of “The United Methodist Gay Caucus,” soon to be renamed “Affirmation,” and “The Reconciling Congregation Project” would be a later outgrowth in the 1980s.

Hundreds of UMC congregations across the country and many regional annual conferences are now members of the Reconciling Ministries Network, the offspring organization of that initial gathering in Chicago. Though there have been significant local and regional advances, national LGBT policy remains oppressive due to the overriding conservatism of international delegates to UMC General Conference. At the last General Conference in Tampa in 2012, 38% of the delegates were international, and they formed a solid bloc to prevent change in the oppressive denominational policies.

Over the decades, Webster’s beard, pony tail, and rainbow bandana have become well-known at regional and national Methodist conferences; he has participated in “direct action” protests organized by Soulforce; and he has penned letters to UMC leaders.

I saw Steve and Jim at the 2012 General Conference. Jim said to me, “We’ve been together for over twenty years, and I have only seen Steve cry once. This week, when it became clear that our church was going backwards, not forward, I saw him cry again.” Jim’s own eyes misted. “At a worship service of our gay community, Steve said, ‘I won’t see it happen in my lifetime,’ and then he bawled like I’ve never seen.”

1968 Troy Perry (founder of the MCC)

1970 Robert Mary Clement (gay priest who marched in the first Gay Pride parade)

1972 William Johnson (first out gay man to be ordained by a traditional denomination)

1974 James Siefkes (Lutheran pastor behind the formation of Lutherans Concerned)

1974 David Bailey Sindt (founder of More Light Presbyterians)

1975 Steve Webster (organized the first gathering of gay Methodists)

1975 Dr. Louie Clay (founder of Episcopal Integrity)

1976 Chris Glaser (longtime Presbyterian activist)

1977 Ellen Marie Barrett (first out lesbian ordained to the Episcopal priesthood)

1978 Loey Powell (early UCC lesbian pastor and activist)

1980 Mark Bowman (founder and leader of RMN and editor of Open Hands Magazine)

1982 Melvin Wheatley (Methodist bishop and straight ally)

1987 Ann B. Day (Led the UCC ONA for twenty years)

1990 Jeff Johnson, Ruth Frost, Phyllis Zillhart (Extraordinarily ordained Lutherans)

1990 John Shelby Spong (leading straight ally in the Episcopal House of Bishops)

1992 Janie Spahr (Presbyterian leader of “That All May Freely Serve”)

1994 Ross Merkel (defrocked Lutheran allowed to remain on call with a “wink-and-a-nod” from his bishop)

1996 Walter Righter (Episcopal Bishop whose heresy trial opened the door for queer clergy)

2000 Jimmy Creech, Greg Dell, Joseph Sprague, and Jack Tuell (Methodist trials to punish clergy who performed covenant services for same-gender couples)

2001 Anita Hill (extraordinarily ordained Lutheran)

2003 Gene Robinson (gay bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire)

2004 Karen Dammann and Beth Stroud (Methodist clergy put on trial for being lesbians)

2007 Bradley Schmeling and Darin Easler (defrocked Lutheran clergy who were the first to be reinstated)

2011 Scott Anderson (first gay Presbyterian to be ordained following policy change)

2011 Amy DeLong (out, partnered Methodist minister on trial)

2012 R. Guy Erwin (gay professor elected as ELCA bishop)

David Bailey Sindt: Is anybody else out there gay?

Is Anybody Else Out There Gay?

Rev. David Bailey Sindt, a gay Presbyterian pastor, provoked the 1974 General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church when he asked this question with a sign held high. Pastor Sindt’s sign was no mere whim. It was part of a calculated strategy, a “ministry of presence,” that Sindt and other LGBT activists within the ecumenical denominations would pursue. By their openness and their presence, they implicitly proclaimed, “We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re Presbyterian (or Lutheran, or Episcopalian, or Methodist, or UCC), but we’re not merely the gay issue; we’re flesh and blood human beings.”

Pastor Sindt’s assertive coming out serves as the pan-denominational theme for the seventies, and his courageous action at the General Assembly is credited as the birth of More Light Presbyterians. In the heady movement days of the early seventies, Sindt and Rev. Bill Johnson served on a task force originating with the San Francisco Council on Religion and Homosexuality and recognized by the National Council of Churches. The task force served as resource for the startups of denominational advocacy groups. In 1975 Sindt met with the organizers of the first gathering of gay Methodists, and Sindt was present as resource person during the first national gathering of Integrity, the Episcopal advocacy group, that same year. Three task force members served as resource persons at the 1974 Minneapolis gathering that birthed Lutherans Concerned.

As the decade wound down, Sindt was joined by gay seminarians Bill Silver and Chris Glaser as leaders of More Light Presbyterians. Silver’s request for ordination in the New York Presbytery was kicked upstairs to the General Assembly for “definitive guidance.” The General Assembly responded with the creation of a task force that included Glaser as a member. The task force eventually submitted a gay-friendly report to the 1978 General Assembly, but commissioners (delegates) rejected the report and overwhelmingly rendered definitive guidance that stated, “homosexuality is not God’s wish for humanity” and “unrepentant homosexual practice does not accord with the requirements for ordination.” Subsequent decades would witness ecclesiastical trials that extended the scope and effect of this “definitive guidance.”

Pastor Sindt continued his advocacy efforts until his life was cut short as an early victim of the AIDS epidemic in 1986. David lived alone, but his church friends formed a team to care for him in his home during the last months of his life. Each evening, someone prepared dinner, and they shared the meal. His former congregation continues this ministry by taking a Sunday evening meal to the residents of a Chicago House facility. David’s own home became the first Chicago House residence owned by the agency. More Light Presbyterians has named their annual service award after Pastor Sindt. He was one of 13 persons inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame at a ceremony on Wednesday, October 25, 1995, at the Cultural Center in Chicago.

1968 Troy Perry (founder of the MCC)

1970 Robert Mary Clement (gay priest who marched in the first Gay Pride parade)

1972 William Johnson (first out gay man to be ordained by a traditional denomination)

1974 James Siefkes (Lutheran pastor behind the formation of Lutherans Concerned)

1974 David Bailey Sindt (founder of More Light Presbyterians)

1975 Steve Webster (organized the first gathering of gay Methodists)

1975 Dr. Louie Clay (founder of Episcopal Integrity)

1976 Chris Glaser (longtime Presbyterian activist)

1977 Ellen Marie Barrett (first out lesbian ordained to the Episcopal priesthood)

1978 Loey Powell (early UCC lesbian pastor and activist)

1980 Mark Bowman (founder and leader of RMN and editor of Open Hands Magazine)

1982 Melvin Wheatley (Methodist bishop and straight ally)

1987 Ann B. Day (Led the UCC ONA for twenty years)

1990 Jeff Johnson, Ruth Frost, Phyllis Zillhart (Extraordinarily ordained Lutherans)

1990 John Shelby Spong (leading straight ally in the Episcopal House of Bishops)

1992 Janie Spahr (Presbyterian leader of “That All May Freely Serve”)

1994 Ross Merkel (defrocked Lutheran allowed to remain on call with a “wink-and-a-nod” from his bishop)

1996 Walter Righter (Episcopal Bishop whose heresy trial opened the door for queer clergy)

2000 Jimmy Creech, Greg Dell, Joseph Sprague, and Jack Tuell (Methodist trials to punish clergy who performed covenant services for same-gender couples)

2001 Anita Hill (extraordinarily ordained Lutheran)

2003 Gene Robinson (gay bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire)

2004 Karen Dammann and Beth Stroud (Methodist clergy put on trial for being lesbians)

2007 Bradley Schmeling and Darin Easler (defrocked Lutheran clergy who were the first to be reinstated)

2011 Scott Anderson (first gay Presbyterian to be ordained following policy change)

2011 Amy DeLong (out, partnered Methodist minister on trial)

2012 R. Guy Erwin (gay professor elected as ELCA bishop)