Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage of a man and woman, or in chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of Word and Sacrament.
Amendment B, soon to be officially adopted by the 209th Presbyterian General Assembly
Many of us in the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Community have struggled with issues of faith. Caught between religious truths born in childhood, and the violent denouncement of our lives from spiritual leaders of every faith and culture, we are challenged to make painful decisions about how and what to believe.
Some of us have chosen to sit quietly in synagogues and churches, transposing pronoun and hanging onto whatever truth we can, while the leaders demean us. Some of us have created lesbian/gay factions and support groups within traditional religious structures, circumventing what alienates and hurts us. Others have created completely separate institutions.
We have completely forgone organized religion in favor of a spiritual seeking of our own making, missing sometimes, a spiritual community that supports us.
And many of us, for many more reasons, have abandoned faith altogether.
As early as 1978, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA began to formally discuss the impact of "practicing homosexuals" on and within the church's ministry. The conversation centered most heatedly on the question of whether or not self-acknowledged, and thus "non-repentive," homosexual people should be ordained as ministers, elders or deacons. A moratorium on the discussion was called in 1992, and each presbytery [geographical region] was asked by the General Assembly to study the issues on its own for three years. At the end of the three year period, overtures to change church law would be received, and each presbytery would vote on any proposed amendments.
Rev. Dr. John W. Dean, minister of the Westminster Presbyterian Church here in Rehoboth Beach, was appointed to lead Newcastle Presbytery's Task Force on Sexuality. The Newcastle Presbytery includes churches in Delaware and on the Maryland Eastern Shore.
What is extraordinary about this situation is not that Rev. Dean had been decidedly prejudiced against lesbian and gay people in the ministry before taking this assignment. It is not even that after more that thirty years in parish ministry, he had never done any formal outreach to lesbians and gay men, had never visited the CAMP office or attended a fundraiser in support of our community. What is extraordinary, however, is that Rev. Dean saw this as an opportunity to seriously question his long-held beliefs and in doing so, came to believe that there was something inherently wrong with the way he thought about lesbian and gay people, particularly in the ministry.
"I was as prejudiced as the next person. On the surface, it appears in the Bible that homosexuality would preclude people who are homosexual from ministering in the church. But once I began to look a little deeper, I saw that what we had taken as literal interpretation of Biblical text was just that: interpretation. As an ordained minister, I am asked to be guided by our holy books, not ruled by them."
Although there was no lightning-bolt conversion for Rev. Dean (and he insists, almost apologetically, that there was not), there was a remarkable shift in his thinking after he read Mel White's Stranger at the Gate, the widely-acclaimed story of a man struggling to reconcile his Christian faith and his homosexuality while working for people like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Ollie North.
"This man was well-respected within these very conservative organizations for years. Yet when he comes to a point of honesty in his own life, comes to terms with his homosexuality, they completely turn their backs on him. I thought: Here is a man who is honest and open and they turn away from him. That changed my mind around this whole thing. He was no different before he told them than he was after, but they chose to see him as "less-than" simply because they knew something more about him. That seemed so wrong to me. I knew then that although I might be in the minority when the time came, I would vote against the adoption of any amendments disallowing gay and lesbian people from ministry."
John Dean began preparing the congregation last June when he delivered a series of sermons called "Let's Talk! Let's Pray! Let's Love!" By this time, Amendment B had been created (with the blessing of the General Assembly) and presbyteries across the country were beginning to vote. In his sermons, John introduced the issues and doctrine surrounding the church's stand on homosexuality and essentially put his job on the line by preaching from the pulpit that he disagreed with the way the church was opting to stand.
"In our desire to be so holy, so righteous, I believe the Presbyterian Church USA is guilty of inflicting scars on people rather than accepting people and letting God rule their hearts. I will not support the selective nature of our ethics. It seems that when we become concerned about morality, we forget everything else about our Christian faith." The Reverend John Dean.
"In our desire to be so holy, so righteous, I believe the Presbyterian Church USA is guilty of inflicting scars on people rather than accepting people and letting God rule their hearts. I will not support the selective nature of our ethics. It seems that when we become concerned about morality, we forget everything else about our Christian faith."
"In all my years of parish ministry, I have never found anyone whose life was totally secure and without need. People today are struggling to make some sense out of their existence. We will never be able to face the future by frantically holding on to the past and to ways that didn't work then and will not work today. Instead of facing the harder difficulty and challenge as to how to better enable people to experience the love of God, to experience the presence of God in their lives, we opt to spend time legislating people out of the church."
On April 12, 1997, the Newcastle Presbytery voted 89 to 43 against the adoption of Amendment B. Although a majority of presbyteries across the country have voted in favor of this amendment, Rev. Dean, along with Parish Associate Rev. Jenny Warren, continue to speak adamantly against the amendment in their sermons.
Rev. Warren's sermon entitled "Presbygate," delivered last Sunday, continues the dialogue that is very much alive. "There are those who believe that with this kind of amendment, the door is closed," says Rev. Warren. "And in fact, it isn't. This dialogue will continue." Rev. Dean agrees.
"I can understand why same heterosexual people can't accept homosexual people. I was there. But now, I can't just stand by and let them degrade gay people in front of me. The Presbyterian Church has participated in excluding people in the past. Women. People of Color. I think we are doing the same thing with this amendment. I say to these people: 'Your God is too small.'"
Rev. Dean's office is overflowing with books and papers. It's clear that he is an active scholar and takes his commitment to uncovering the presence of God in his life and in the lives of the parishioners seriously. "I've already been told that there is no room in the Presbyterian Church USA for people who think like I do. I do not know what my future holds, but I know that adopting this amendment has made life more complicated for all of us."
Jenny speaks with great respect for John. "He has spoken out with great risk to his standing in the church and the community. He is very brave and very clear about the way he sees this. I've stood next to him at the door after church while the parishioners file out. This is an older group of people. They have lived in Rehoboth and come to this church for a long time. They've said to John that he is very brave. They told him that he has really given them something to think about. I had assumed that there would be a very different reaction on the part of the congregation." She laughs, and continues. "We all make assumptions."
We've come to expect that an organization with the word Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender on its door will generally support us and respect us and be on our side.
Yet there is somehow even more reassurance that as we knock and push up against the doors of so many other places, these same doors are also being unlocked from the inside.
Sunday sermons (one week delay) of Revs. Dean and Warren ore broadcast on WGMD-FM (92.7), Sundays at 7:30 a.m. You can hear Rev. Warren's "Presbygate" sermon Sunday, April 27, 1997.
Many thanks to Barry Becker and Beth Hochholzer for their help with this article.
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4/25/97 Issue. Copyright 1997 by CAMP Rehoboth, Inc. All rights reserved.