Category Archives: Religious News

We’re all part of the same body, except you

Rejected by the People

A martyr for the cause

”I’ve learned that marriage is a kind of vocation too — my ministry wouldn’t be the same if I hadn’t married her,” Jodi said in her interview with Kari.

Listen to Kari tell the rest of the story.

Linus and Lucy, two beagles, greeted me at the front door. Jodi introduced her dogs and herself, and Rochelle joined us. An acorn-colored wall framed the red suede couch they sat on, and I noticed exotic percussion instruments from various countries resting on floor speakers. A muted French horn on public radio played in the background. One thing was almost immediately apparent: They are both musicians.

Jodi is a professional church musician and has been for most of her life. She was born and baptized in a Lutheran church in Rockford, Illinois.

“I was a good, church-music kid,” Jodi said. “I started leading church music at a very young age and never really stopped. I loved God, and I loved to sing, and something about those two things together exponentially increased meaningfulness for me. I think that the seeds of music and of
love, planted in me early, were both expected to bear fruit,” Jodi said. “Both are needed for
me to be the person God wants me to be, and to deny either of them is to live half a life and
to ill-serve my call.”

Jodi’s love of music was tempered by perfectionism. “I’m the elder of two daughters, and as such am the classic people-pleasing overachiever. I wanted to do everything just right as a kid.” she said.

She became conflicted when she started having crushes on girls at school because it didn’t necessarily match what she had been taught.

“I started to suspect there was something different about me, but back in the Jurassic period I didn’t have the language to talk about it.”

After working several years as a corporate trainer, Jodi eventually decided she needed to do something more meaningful.

“I was a good Lutheran young woman who wanted to leave the world better than I found it.” Her life changed when a friend brought her to hear the National Lutheran Choir in concert. “I
don’t think I breathed for the entire first half of the concert . . . later, through singing in that wonderful, professional choir, I came in touch again with the seeds of music God had planted in me. Inspired by the experience, I entered Luther Seminary’s Master of Sacred Music (MSM) program.”

Entering seminary posed a dilemma for Jodi. She knew her sexuality wasn’t exactly celebrated at her new school, but she couldn’t suppress her calling to the program. “I had decided that being single could be just fine — God had work for me, and what could possibly be as important? Like many well-intentioned people before and after me, I took refuge from myself in the idea of a life
of service. Celibacy didn’t seem like much of a price to pay for sanctity,” Jodi said, “except
for one thing — God had a different idea.”

“Despite my happiness in my seminary work, I still had such a longing for love. Whenever those feelings surfaced, I tried to change them, to channel them into my work or friendships or volunteer projects . . . entering seminary was, in a way, the ultimate expression of my desire to hide from myself. Except seminary has a way of making you extraordinarily honest with yourself — you can’t hide.”

Jodi continued to struggle with her calling to ministry and her sexuality. She eventually came out to John, a fellow MSM student. She told him one day at lunch that she was gay.

He said, “Oh honey, I knew.”

Jodi, a little surprised, asked, “How?”

John said, “Your shoes.”

Jodi remained single for a while, but by the end of her first year in the program, she found love.

“Love came to me in the form of a National Lutheran Choir friend, Rochelle. She had also been to grad school and took it upon herself to cheer me on and help me through the initial stresses of school,” Jodi said. “As much as we had in common, we were also very different in our worldviews.
I was a hopeful, liberal progressive, and she a pragmatic, conservative Biblical literalist. I was intrigued; before too much time passed, I was sure we were meant for each other.”

The giddiness of early love was quickly overshadowed with Jodi’s fears and frustrations.

“I felt as if I had lost God because I had received two callings, equal in strength, that were entirely incompatible. This seemed like a cruel curveball from the infinitely loving God I thought I knew. It was an untenable situation. Did I really have to choose between spending my life with this wonderful woman and doing the work I’d been given?”

In chapel one day she became very angry with God because of her vocational and relationship
issues. They seemed to have become mutually exclusive. The passage for the day was the story about a woman with a long term hemorrhage, which made her ritually unclean, an impoverished outcast from her community.

“Jesus called the woman ‘daughter’ . . . I realized right then that I was not simply a spectator of the Bible anymore — I am still God’s kid, and that maybe this sexuality stuff isn’t as important as that. It’s difficult enough to follow a vocation, but it’s especially hard to do so in a community
that doesn’t fully embrace you for who you are. It takes intestinal fortitude.”

Rochelle went through a similar crisis after realizing she was in love with Jodi. Rochelle’s
father was a Missouri Synod pastor, and his fundamentalist theology deeply influenced Rochelle’s sense of self.

“I grew up knowing it wasn’t OK to ask questions that were controversial,” Rochelle said. “From age three I knew the ‘right’ words to explain to anyone what it meant to be a Christian, even
if I didn’t know what some of those words really meant or that I always believed my own story. I just hoped everyone else would.”

She grew up in one parish for most of her life and was used to having a big reputation in a small town. She knew that anything she did could potentially reflect on her family and her father’s ministry.

“My brothers, sisters, and I did what we were supposed to do; we didn’t really have the bad reputation of pastors’ kids.”

After graduating from college, Rochelle got her master’s degree in statistics and then had a vocational crisis. She decided to do missionary work in Papua New Guinea, through a non-profit Lutheran organization. Midway through her service there, she discovered she was very uncomfortable sharing her faith.

“I kept on having to tell it to other people even if I didn’t believe it, and I began to really struggle.”

Her faith struggles in a foreign country led her to a dark place.

“I don’t know if my depression is a part of this story, but it’s a part of me,” Rochelle said. “I told my family I was struggling with depression and was seeing a counselor, and their first reaction was, ‘I hope you’re seeing a Christian counselor.’ It seemed to me that their concern was less
focused on my depression itself, than that I seek the ‘right’ kind of care.”

Rochelle eventually moved to the Twin Cities and became involved in music and the arts, including the National Lutheran Choir, where she met Jodi. The two were instantly good friends and spent a lot of time together. Rochelle didn’t quite understand what was happening at first.

“Being gay was something I never thought about,” Rochelle said. “Jodi and I joke that we dated for three months before I realized that we were dating.”

After realizing they were in love, they decided to let their relationship grow. Knowing that this information would be a substantial challenge for her very conservative family, Rochelle waited until she and Jodi had been together for six years to tell her first family member, a sister.

“That didn’t go well,” said Rochelle.

It was another two years before she told her parents.

“It was very painful,” Jodi said, “for both of us. Before Rochelle’s parents knew we were more than
roommates, I could sit and talk liturgy with her dad for hours. We all got along famously until we told them the full truth.”

Rochelle started crying and gently stroked Linus, who sat on the couch next to her. Jodi lightly laid her hand on top of Rochelle’s. Jodi paused for a brief moment then said,

“It seems that Rochelle’s parents think they have a choice between only two options: God or their daughter. As a result, Rochelle actually does have only two options: her family of origin or the family she has built. I just can’t imagine that God would want that. They have constructed a theology in which anything that doesn’t fit that picture isn’t acknowledged,” Jodi said. “If I were a
guy, I think I’d be their dream for marrying their daughter, but as I am a woman, I don’t fit in the picture of their theology. I recognize that it’s a lot to ask of them, that it challenges their theology in a deep way, but they’ve known the full truth for three years now and there’s been no movement at all. Rochelle is still in hopeful conversation with her family, but every overture I’ve made has been either ignored or rebuffed.

“It’s hard to figure out how to act in a loving way here,” Jodi continued, “how to support my wife, keep my integrity and still remain open to a relationship that thus far has offered no hope of growth or understanding or even acknowledgement. I want to believe that love can win over fear here.”

“A part of it is they’re concerned about their image,” Rochelle said. “They have big reputations in a small town. When my mother first found out about Jodi and me, she said to me, ‘Think of the congregation members who supported your ministry in Papua New Guinea. They’d be so hurt by
this.’”

Again, Rochelle felt that her parents’ first concern was for something other than her well-being.
The rejection and judgment of Rochelle’s parents is difficult, but the knowledge that Rochelle and Jodi aren’t legally bound to one another is almost unbearable. They have tried to get as many legal protections as possible because Jodi fears that if anything were to happen to Rochelle, Rochelle’s family would shut out Jodi in an instant.

“That’s frightening and painful,” Jodi said.

Fortunately, Jodi’s parents and extended family have quite a different attitude than Rochelle’s.

“Honestly, it was more of a problem for my family that I didn’t drink coffee than that I was a lesbian,” Jodi said and grinned. “Coffee is a serious thing to Scandinavian Lutherans.”

Jodi recalled her mom defending those who were “outside of the circle” since Jodi could remember, and Jodi’s parents continue to fight for the rights of their daughter, as do her aunts, uncles, and cousins.

“Luckily my beautiful partner is a full member of my Lutheran family, and I am thankful.”

Jodi’s friends were not too fazed by her sexuality either.

“It was weirder for my friends that I was so involved in church than that I was gay. The secular world (particularly some of my LGBT friends who have been hurt by the church) finds me weird
because I’m in church, but the church finds me weird because I’m gay. I’m fine with being
in the church and being gay; but it’d just be nice to be recognized as more than those two things.”

A year ago last October, Jodi and Rochelle got married in the company of 175 loved ones. Only one immediate family member from Rochelle’s side came, and, according to Rochelle, “he seemed very
unhappy being there.”

Despite the absence of most of Rochelle’s family of origin, the pews of the Minneapolis church were brimming. Jodi currently directs a 30-member choir at a Minneapolis church, and every single member was present to sing at the wedding, along with many other members of that church community.

“They threw us a wild wedding shower that even had live chickens,” Jodi said, “but that’s a whole other story. It was an absolutely beautiful experience,” she said. “It shaped the way I see family. Before the wedding we were committed. We bought rings and made lifelong promises to one another, but there was something about that public promise — in front of loved ones and God — there’s something about that experience that changes you. The vow is sanctified in a richer way, and the community promises to help us carry it out.”

They received a standing ovation.

“Over the past 12 years I’ve been with Rochelle,” she continued, “I’ve learned that marriage
is a kind of vocation too — my ministry wouldn’t be the same if I hadn’t married her. While being married I’ve learned that I can screw up and still be loved; that is the model of God’s grace. We learn how to be more fully God’s children by loving each other. I’m a child of God. Everything about my life is committed to loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to loving my
neighbor as myself. My relationship with my partner has taught me much about how to do that. She calls me to be my best and bravest self. By living with her and loving her, I’m blessed and
challenged, convicted and forgiven, but most of all, I’m loved. I’m happy and feel set down
in the center of God’s love and grace.”

#Goodsoil09

We’re all part of the same body, except for you: LGBT faith story number eight

“We work our butts off, take care of our family, go to church, knit, and fall asleep before the ten o’clock news is on. That’s the gay lifestyle.” Recently married in California, John and Kyle have been affirmed by friends, family, and their local Lutheran church community, but they remain frustrated by the reticence of the national church (ELCA) to become fully inclusive. “I’m tired of being debated,” says John.

Kari Aanestad tells the story of John and Kyle in today’s installment of LGBT faith stories. The Joint Synod Inclusivity Committee of the Minneapolis area and St Paul area synods of the ELCA offers these ten stories in a booklet as a download on their website.

On Monday, August 17th, the ELCA meets in Minneapolis for the commencement of its 2009 church wide assembly. The convention will be closely watched for action on gay marriage and gay clergy. I will be in attendance and will offer live blog updates from the hallways.

Here are links to the earlier stories in this series:

Introduction: Listen to the stories of gay Christians

Introduction: Listen to the stories of gay Christians

Rejected by the People

A martyr for the cause

“We have been used by many groups to divide, drive wedges, and scare people, and I’m emotionally drained,” John says. Listen to the story of John and Kyle.

Kyle Hanson answered the door dressed in light jeans and a tan, button-up shirt. His partner, John Stumme, stood up holding their two-year-old daughter, Sofie, and walked toward me. Sofie insisted on wearing a light pink swimming suit over her polka-dotted turtleneck and green pants. Looking at her light blond hair, large blue eyes, and rosy red cheeks, there’s no denying she’s cute. She is introduced to me.

“Kari,” she repeated back. “Snowman!” she exclaimed, offering me a stuffed snowman. “Kari and snowman,” she began singing while dancing around the living room. I sat down and their dog JD jumped up onto the footstool of the chair in which I sat.

“So,” I began, “what’s your story?”

John started to speak, but only barely. His hands and voice shaking, he was full of emotion.

“I can’t really talk about this without getting upset,” he said. “It’s just too personal for me when it’s an issue of the church. I grew up in the Lutheran church. Both of my parents and my sister are Lutheran pastors. My dad also worked many years with the former American Lutheran Church
Headquarters and in several academic settings. My mom was ordained later in her life and now serves a multicultural parish in North Minneapolis.”

“Being a Lutheran is, sometimes unfortunately, an inextricable part of who I am,” John continued. “There have been times when I’ve wanted to walk away from anything Lutheran because I’m tired of the whole debate [about homosexuality in the church], I’m tired of being debated, but I can’t just walk away. Lutheranism really is an integral part of who I was as a boy growing up and who I
am now.”

John said he “always felt different from other boys” but did not question his sexual identity until college. He got married shortly after graduating from college and said, “I didn’t have the courage and didn’t expect to find the support I would need to come out at that time.”

He and his wife Mona had three sons together and were married for almost 13 years when they both realized they needed to end their marriage relationship.

“Mona knew I had always been questioning my sexual identity. To some extent she always knew she had married a gay man.”

John met Kyle about seven years after his coming out and divorce. Kyle was singing in a cabaret in Saint Paul one very hot July evening. While on stage Kyle joked, “It’s so hot out; I’ll go home with anyone who has air conditioning.”

After the show John approached Kyle to thank him for his music and said, “Oh by the way, I have air conditioning.” They laughed, clicked instantly and began seeing each other.

“I really knew we were perfect for each other when I was at John’s house for the first time,” Kyle said “and I saw the Lutheran magazine sitting on his counter.”

They’ve been together seven years this July. As is it for John, Lutheranism is also a core part of who Kyle is.

“I grew up in rural Minnesota — Willmar to be exact. My entire family was a part of the Lutheran
church. For us, the church wasn’t just a place for Sunday activities; it was our social life too. We even got out of school on Wednesdays to go to church.”

Kyle moved to South Dakota to attend Augustana College and began grappling with his sexual identity. He received some support from a few professors and a small group on campus, but his coming out experience was mostly a painful one. Immediately after graduating from college Kyle became a youth pastor in the Twin Cities and helped lead contemporary worship services. During
that year he finally talked to his friends, family and staff about being gay. After coming out to his church, the staff gave him two options: he could either leave his position as youth pastor or he could tell the congregation on Sunday and let them decide.

“I had just come out to my friends and family and, well, myself,” Kyle said. “There was no way I was going to stand up in front of all of those people on a Sunday morning and come out.”

Kyle decided to leave his position, but continued playing piano for the congregation. “It was a very painful experience because I was very involved in the lives of some of those kids, and they were really confused that I had to leave, but I couldn’t be honest with them as to why. They would see me playing piano every Sunday and wonder why I wasn’t doing my other jobs. I just think it’s sad that church staff were comfortable with me as a pianist but not comfortable with me as a leader.”

Kyle quit going to church for quite some time after that. “I didn’t feel welcomed or respected.
If the church that I loved so much didn’t respect who I was, how on earth could I respect the church? ”

Soon after leaving the Lutheran church Kyle moved to California and began worshiping at an Episcopal church. “It was actually quite a painful experience to start worshipping again. I would often cry during worship. The Episcopal church left many times for silent prayer during the service. I was able to sort of make peace and find a way to reconnect with God during those times.”

He eventually returned to Minnesota and after learning of his return, the church that had previously asked him to leave, asked him back to be music leader. For the past seven years John and Kyle have been active in John’s mom’s church in North Minneapolis, which has a large Hmong community. Kyle is the music director, and John ran a Saturday program for Hmong children there for many years.

“Snowman!” Sofie shouted. She ran toward me and again offered her stuffed snowman. Sofie came into John and Kyle’s lives two years ago when they decided to adopt through Lutheran Social Services (LSS). They met for an initial interview and were told they might have to wait longer than
most couples because they were “different.” In September of 2007 they wrote a four page profile and submitted it to a database filled with about 50 other profiles of hopeful parents. The next month LSS contacted them about a pregnant couple who had read their profile and wanted to interview John and Kyle, along with two other straight couples. Soon after the meeting LSS called John and Kyle to tell them the couple had chosen them to be the parents of their baby. By November, Sofie was born.

“We were told it could take years, and then within two months we had our daughter,” Kyle said.

In addition to Sofie, John’s 16-year-old son, Gabe, lives with them in their beautifully renovated Minneapolis home. Mid-interview, Gabe came down the stairs and introduced himself to me. His thin frame and kind blue eyes resembled John’s. Gabe started a Gay-Straight Alliance at his middle school when he was only in 7th grade.

“Hey Dad,” Gabe said, “I just found out the alliance I started is still going on at that school.”

John smiled and said, “The only time Gabe ever got into a fight was when someone teased him for having a gay dad.”

John and Kyle, along with their families, flew out to California to get married this past October. John has six Lutheran pastors in his immediate family alone, four of whom were present at the wedding.

“In fact, my mom performed our wedding ceremony,” John said. “Our wedding day was incredible.
The ceremony was held on a beautiful vista overlooking the bay and Golden Gate Bridge. It was so sad, however, to see many other couples being married at city hall, without family surrounding them to share their special day. We received all sorts of wedding cards,” John said. “We even received one with a man and a woman’s hands intertwined on the cover.”

“What’s even funnier than the cards is we actually can’t legally get divorced,” Kyle said, looked at John and laughed. “The state of Minnesota doesn’t recognize that we’re married, and the state of California won’t divorce us unless one of us is a legal resident there.”

After the trip to California John and Kyle held a blessing service and celebration at their church in Minneapolis, which was followed by a potluck put on by their friends and many of the older church women.

“It was really powerful to have people affirming who we are as a couple in a church setting, all singing hymns together. It really meant a lot to us,” Kyle said. “We were simply celebrating the love and commitment between two people.”

When the newly married couple returned home from California, they found a giant banner on their door reading “Just Married! John and Kyle, husband and husband.” It was hand-painted and decorated by their neighbors and neighbor’s children. John reached for a photo album to show me a picture of the banner. He flipped through other pictures from their wedding day. One picture showed John and Kyle holding hands. Standing behind John is a row of family members, three of whom are wearing clerical collars. In the picture below it Kyle is placing a wedding ring on John’s
finger. Both men are crying. Despite the love and support they receive from their Lutheran families and communities, John and Kyle struggle with the greater Lutheran church’s hesitancy to accept and recognize them.

Kyle works in a building in downtown Saint Paul that houses the offices of a Christian church. “The church has this new advertising campaign. They’ve made all of these giant banners where in one corner is a picture of children, another corner is a picture of people of all ethnicities, another picture is a nun with children, and the final picture is a gorgeous mom, dad, and baby. In the center it says ‘We’re all one body.’ There’s about ten of these lining the hallway of our shared building. I walk past them every day. Each time I chuckle to myself and think, ‘We’re not all one body because there’s not a picture of me and my family up there.’”

“The church likes to say ‘We’re all a part of the same body, except for you.’ I’m tired of being the exception,” John said. “We have been used by many groups to divide, drive wedges, and scare people, and I’m emotionally drained.”

“Even despite the movement of individual churches toward being welcoming, the past eight years it has been very painful to be a part of the Lutheran church,” Kyle said. “Both John and I attend these debate forums they have at synod assemblies. We listen to some people talk using terminology such as ‘the gay lifestyle’ and ‘those gays’ and ‘them’ without knowing we’re sitting in the room right with them. They talk like they’re authorities when they have no clue about our
lives or our relationships. We work our butts off, take care of our family, go to church, knit, and fall asleep before the ten o’clock news is on. That’s the gay lifestyle.”

A martyr for the cause: LGBT faith story number seven

Today’s story features Tina, an activist for LGBT inclusion in honor of her brother Jon who died of HIV/AIDS nearly two decades ago. ”We bless boats, we bless yards, we bless animals, but why don’t we bless people?” Tina asks.

The ELCA church wide assembly begins a week from today. As we walk toward the convention and the momentous votes regarding gay clergy and gay marriage, we continue our series of ten LGBT faith stories. Tina’s story is installment seven. The Joint Synod Inclusivity Committee of the two Minnesota metro synods of the ELCA offers these ten stories in a booklet as a download on their website. Kari Aanestad, a seminary student from Luther seminary, authored the stories.

Here are links to the earlier stories:

Introduction: Listen to the stories of gay Christians

Rejected by the People

Tina Fahnestock is a slender woman with a runner’s body. Her sandy gray hair is cut in a short, pixie style. The bright pink walls and tablecloth in her living room match her pink turtleneck, Norwegian sweater, and rimmed glasses. She brings me into the kitchen to show me her backyard. A tall, pruned tree stands in the back corner and a large ornament reading “GIGGLE” in vertical, metal letters hangs from one of its branches.

“We keep that tree lit up with lights all year round,” Tina says, “and my husband keeps it really pruned in honor of Jon because he was so tall and slim. That’s the tree Jon gave our son Erik when he was baptized.”

In 1992 Tina lost her 39-year-old brother, Jon, to HIV. Ever since that loss Tina and her entire family have continued to live out their faith by walking alongside those who have experienced pain, loss, rejection, and hardship.

“Jon has been our family’s legacy,” Tina said. “He was an early martyr for the cause.”

Jon contracted HIV around 1983. Even though he didn’t show physical symptoms until 1990, his health quickly degraded and he died within 18 months. Jon’s death was hard on the family, but not necessarily for obvious reasons.

“My other brother was a pastor in Montana, and on Palm Sunday in 1992 he stood in front of his congregation and said, ‘I have to go — my brother is dying, and he is dying of AIDS,’” Tina said.

Tina remarked that Montana had a sort of “macho cowboy” culture. Her brother was worried that by acknowledging he had a gay brother, he could face negative repercussions from his church community.

“Yet he had so many families come out and support him, and their support was a huge turning point in his ministry. He had so many cowboys come to him and say, ‘I have a brother’ or ‘I had a friend who is gay.’ After that he knew the only way to be was open.”

After making the announcement to his church about Jon, Tina’s brother and family drove home to Minnesota for Easter.

“On Easter evening my brother Jon started having a seizure and he never came back. Three days
later he died, and we buried him in Winona, his home town. We had a funeral at his church that he helped to organize for LGBT folks here in Minneapolis.”

Painfully aware of the anti-gay demonstrations that had been plaguing funerals of HIV/AIDS victims in the early 1990s, Tina’s entire family worried that Jon’s funeral could be targeted.

“When my brother died, I was so afraid for my mom that the funeral would be protested,” Tina said. “We sat my mom down and said, ‘We hope there won’t be any hateful demonstrators, but if there are, we’ll be here to hold your hand.’”

Fortunately, Jon’s funeral was not protested. In fact, Tina’s family experienced quite the opposite of hate:

“The outpouring of love and support from Jon’s community and all of our family’s communities was unbelievable . . . so I can say there was grace there. He was a proud gay man, and he loved his church, and he was a faithful follower of Jesus. He was a giant in that. His faith was so incredible,” Tina said. “As a result I’ve done a lot in standing for the LGBT population as a straight parent, as a sister, and as a daughter. I believe that the LGBT population continues to struggle because we reject them. We reject them at schools, at church fellowships, at workout clubs, at work and family functions. How can we turn away people who are followers of Jesus? I continue to struggle with that. So in honor of Jon’s legacy my family really, really, really fights for including all of God’s children.”

Jon had definitely experienced rejection. When he began showing early symptoms of HIV, he was fired from his job as an art teacher in a public high school. While Jon lost the battles against the
school authorities and HIV, his sister continues to fight in honor of his legacy every day. One way in which Tina honors Jon is in her work. Fittingly, Tina serves as a speech therapist for three schools in the Twin Cities area. Both literally and figuratively, she helps give a voice to the voiceless in her work.

“I’m in communities where kids are so incredibly vulnerable — not only to the gang issues but also to drugs and hardness because they’re at poverty levels and their families have all experienced hardships. So that’s where I see my faith. I see how I can help make others’ lives a little more comfortable. I think it’s important to feel good about yourself.”

Tina’s advocacy for struggling and rejected people extends beyond her work and into her fulfillment of lay leadership roles in her church. When her church first considered becoming a Reconciling in Christ (RIC) church, a program that publicly recognizes churches who openly welcome gay and
lesbian believers, Tina said, “My family was at every function for two solid years. Whenever
there was a gathering of people we went to stand in support and to say, ‘We won’t lose
members — we’ll gain because we’re reaching out.’” The vote passed unanimously, and
the church became RIC.

“The following year we started asking, ‘Why aren’t we allowing blessings? We bless boats, we bless yards, we bless animals, but why don’t we bless people?’”

The church voted on whether to allow the ministry staff to perform same-sex blessings, and only ten people either abstained from voting or voted “No.” So the church began allowing the staff to perform same-sex blessings.

Some people left the church, but, according to Tina, “All the people who left the church have since come back. I can’t tell you how many people drive by our church and see our sign that says we’re an RIC congregation, and say they want to worship at our church. I just got a call from a school group yesterday who wants to host a large spaghetti dinner there. They said the school has a number of gay families that don’t go to church, but they find our church welcoming.”

“Our church is really prospering and serving with the purpose of loving, caring, and healing. And that’s my job right there. We must constantly be asking ourselves, ‘Who should I serve? What can I offer? How do I open up?‘”

Tina does not judge whether others are answering those questions correctly. Instead, she wants to provide “a welcoming, loving community for kids, for people who are of color, for people who are sick, for people who are homosexual, for people who need a refuge. That’s what I think our church is about. That’s where Jesus walked.”

Tina’s efforts to welcome those who have experienced pain and hardship have been an inspiring success. Within both her church and her family, she has brought healing to places where traditionally there was pain, unity where there was division, and love where there was hate. As a good leader, she herself not only does good work, but she also encourages others to do the same.

In respect to the debate about homosexuality in the church, Tina said, “There are times in life when we all have to forgive and, oh boy, I have had to work through a lot of that. I’m trying to hear the different sides of the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender issue, but it’s all based in fear. The only way to move beyond that fear is to reach your hand out. If you put your hand out, the fear won’t
necessarily subside, but you’ll be able to share the journey with someone who needs you. So
that’s my family’s story in loving legacy of my brother Jon, whom I deeply miss.”

Rejected by the people: LGBT faith story number six

The ELCA church wide assembly is a week away, and today we offer installment six of ten from Kari Aanestad’s booklet. The seminarian from Luther Seminary has compiled ten stories reflecting the twin cities Lutheran, LGBT experience. The Joint Synod Inclusivity Committee of the two metro synods of the ELCA offers the booklet as a download on their website.

Here are links to the earlier stories:

Introduction: Listen to the stories of gay Christians

Today, we meet Keith and John who found a Lutheran church that accepted them after the churches of their youth did not.

Keith Johnson is a phenomenal artist in his early 30s whose illustrations of favorite book and movie characters arguably surpass the work of their original creators. He grew up in a conservative household and attended a moderate Baptist church. Equipped with movie-theater-style seating, stage lighting, and music and drama teams, the church satisfied Keith’s need for the arts and creative expressions of his faith.

“I was on the stage every Sunday in some fashion. I’m a very faithful person. I’m also a theatrical person and I’m gay; imagine that!” Keith said and laughed.

In high school Keith began to explore his sexual identity and soon came out to his parents and his sister. His mother requested that Keith talk to one of the pastors and to a psychologist. Keith agreed.

“I went to talk to this pastor, who was really nice. He was a little bit more open than I had expected him to be. He told me he thought being gay was a sin, but he was willing to see that I was on a journey and acknowledge that maybe for a while I needed to be gay.”

After talking to this pastor, Keith began to see a psychologist, whom Keith refers to as “Dr. Will.” In the first session with Dr. Will, Keith revealed he was gay. Dr. Will told him that he did not see a problem with that and then asked Keith what he wanted to achieve in their sessions together.

Keith replied, “I want to find the Keith that God made me to be — whether that Keith is gay or not, so be it. I just want to find the person I’m supposed to be.”

Keith continued seeing Dr. Will for a while.

“I really think Dr. Will helped me become a lot more confident. One of the things he taught me was to not take responsibility for other people’s feelings. I’d be sitting there thinking, ‘I can’t be gay because it hurts my family so much.’ I learned to respond to that idea by saying, ‘So, fine! Don’t be gay, and your family is happy — but what are you?’”

Keith’s parents funded these therapy sessions for a while. His mother hoped the sessions were going to help her son realize he was not gay. At one point his mother even said to both Keith and Dr. Will,

“I just feel God is telling me that Will is going to be the one to help you.”

She continued to believe Dr. Will was helping her son until she came to one of his sessions at the request of Dr. Will. At this meeting Dr. Will told her that he didn’t think homosexuality was a sin.

Keith’s parents eventually “pulled the funding. Even when God is talking to them,” Keith said, “if
it’s not what they want to hear, then it’s not from God anymore.”

In response to the parents’ decision, Dr. Will allowed Keith to continue seeing him for a while at no cost. Eventually, instead of charging the regular $70 for a session, he charged only what Keith himself earned in an hour, $14.50.

“I don’t want to villainize my parents. It sounds like it could be one of those stereotypical stories where I’m gay and my family cast me out and had nothing to do with me. It’s not like that at all … They’re just trying to put God first. I believe God celebrates them for putting Him first. I believe God’s up in heaven saying, ‘Wow, they love me so much that they’d put me before their own
child.’ I think that’s terrific and I will always celebrate them for that because I don’t want
their love for me to get in the way of their love for God.”

“With that being said, however, even though I believe their hearts are in the right place, I think that if Jesus were here today he’d be doing some radical things they wouldn’t want to know about. They wouldn’t want to know him or have anything to do with him. He would just freak them out, and I think that’s sad. I don’t think my parents are even open to the notion that they could be wrong, and because of that, they’ve got shields up that just won’t let anything in. It’s a difficult struggle because I try to be humble myself and say I don’t have all of the answers. I find myself
often telling them that I’m doing the best I can. When I know better, I’ll do better.”

Keith eventually had to leave his beloved home church. Knowing where his church stood on the issue of homosexuality made his coming out even more difficult.

“I wasn’t forced out of the church by any means. I left of my own accord, but only because I knew down the line I wouldn’t be allowed to participate in the same way any more. They’d claim they weren’t going to reject me, but if you’re living a life of sin, according to them, you can’t participate in church. I didn’t think my voice was strong enough to change them. So I stepped away, and it was incredibly difficult. When I first came out, I joined a gay chat room online so I could have a community to talk about some of these issues. I remember one time I mentioned to a few people that I was a Christian. Almost unanimously they responded ‘I believe in God but I don’t believe in organized religions.’ That’s a very common thing among gay people because it’s not God that has rejected them — it’s the people.”

Around the time Keith left his church, he met his partner, John Nickolaus. “One of the things that endeared John to me was that he had a heart for God and that he was a Christian. John grew up in a Methodist church having never heard anything about homosexuality either way. It wasn’t until he was in his late 20s that someone asked him how he could worship a God that hates him.

“Growing up, I had no clue that I was supposed to be disliked and ‘an abomination’ in God’s eyes. It didn’t dawn on me that people actually do believe this, would justify it using their own interpretations of Scripture, and base entire religions on it,” John said. “They make this ‘sin’ the most horrible thing in the entire world. You could murder your entire family and still have a better chance of going to heaven than the homosexual living down the street.”

John’s encounter with this theology did not dissuade him from attending church. When Keith and John officially became a couple, one of the first things they decided to do together was find a church.

John said, “We were going to go find a church, we were going to do it together, and we were going to make it a priority in our relationship. We looked at a bunch of churches, many that were inclusive and open, but that was almost a problem. They were almost too much about the gay
thing. They were only playing church — but they were really about being gay. It was like ‘Gay! Gay! Gay! Oh yeah, and Jesus.’”

“We tried Episcopal,” John continued. “We didn’t try Catholic because we knew where that would get us. We tried Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Lutheran was the most common and open. We had to filter through a few Lutheran churches. We eventually found one we liked and began attending the
new members’ classes together. We were the only gay couple in those classes.”

John and Keith decided they wanted to commit to each other before God, their friends, and family. A few years previous to John and Keith’s commitment ceremony, their church had decided to perform blessings in response to three gay couples who had requested them in the same week.

“They all looked at it as a sign from God,” John said. “They had never even had to consider blessings before as an issue. It’s not like they were against it — it just had never been addressed.
So they researched it, formed committees, and it went on for over a year because they were taking it very seriously. By that time the couples had already moved on.

“But it was an emotional moment for many in the room when the congregation voted unanimously to allow same-gender blessings. And it was a year after that that we were the first couple for whom they performed a blessing. They treated us exactly as they would a heterosexual couple. They made us take the same tests, which was hilarious. Those tests are specific to heterosexual couples so one of us had to be the woman and the other had to be the man. We’d get questions like ‘Should the man be the head of the household?’ ‘Should the woman be the child-bearer? ’ and
so on. We were sitting there in the conference room laughing and saying, ‘What’d you put for number five?’”

“They did what they could to honor us. As much as we would like to have it legalized so that we can get the benefits, the most important thing for us was that we did it in front of God, for God, and with our friends and my family there. To us, we’re married; to them, we’re married. That’s what’s important. They acknowledge us as a couple and not as the two homos in the third pew.”

“We don’t want any special treatment,” John said. “We just want to be included and accepted like everybody else in the church, rather than being made to feel special. We want to love and worship God in ways we were created to do and by being who we were made to be.”

Lesbian feels unsafe and unvalued in church: LGBT faith story number five

Michelle’s story of feeling disillusioned and uprooted from her Lutheran heritage is the fifth installment in a series of ten LGBT faith stories. Here are links to the earlier stories:

Introduction: Listen to the stories of gay Christians

Kari Aanestad, a seminarian at Luther Seminary in St Paul, has compiled ten LGBT faith stories into a booklet that may be downloaded from the website of the Joint Synod Inclusivity Committee of the two ELCA metro synods in Minnesota.

Michelle Morse’s gray angora sweater seems to match her soft, yet articulate voice. Now 27 years old, she has spent most of her life internalizing the views of a society that continually suggests and sometimes even proclaims that there is something wrong with her. Even more painful, she now feels unsafe in the Lutheran Church.

“I used to feel centered, peaceful, and trusting,” Michelle said. “Now I feel as if that has been
taken from me.”

Michelle grew up attending a Lutheran church in Shoreview, a St. Paul suburb. Her family was and still is intimately connected to this church; her father was confirmed there and her mother has worked there for the past 10 years as a financial secretary. Michelle was also baptized and confirmed there. In high school she taught Sunday-school music and confirmation. She even received a leadership award from the congregation.

At Augsburg College, Michelle received both a performing arts scholarship for orchestra and a Lutheran leadership scholarship. While there, she majored in religion and was active in Fellowship of Christian Athletes and campus ministry. Her first year out of college, she became a youth director at a North Minneapolis Lutheran church and stayed there for two years. On her last Sunday as youth director, Michelle met her partner Lauren in an unexpected way — through the sermon at the early service.

Michelle said, “It felt very divinely orchestrated.”

Michelle helped out with the hip-hop service, so she normally didn’t attend the early service. This Sunday, however, she was asked at the last minute to lead a Bible study before the traditional service. Michelle led the Bible study and rushed into the traditional service, sitting down right as the pastor began delivering his sermon. The pastor started talking about a woman who felt called to go to seminary but was questioning the call, especially because she is gay.

“I kept thinking the pastor was talking about me, because I was considering seminary at the time,” Michelle said. “Then he said the woman was about to move to New York, and I was shocked. I realized that he wasn’t talking about me, but that he was talking about Lauren. I’d seen her in church, but had no idea she was gay.”

Michelle wasn’t only shocked because of Lauren’s sexual orientation; a part of her shock was her internal knowledge that her life was about to change.

“I always envisioned meeting my partner through the church and I remember thinking while listening to that sermon, ‘Is this that moment? ’ I had an immediate recognition of something I had always been hoping for. I ended up e-mailing Lauren to tell her I was struggling with some of the same things she was. We began e-mailing back and forth, and our relationship grew that way for eight months.”

Three years later, the two have set a potential wedding date. Even though they are both excited to share their lives, they talk about it differently with other people.

“If Lauren were here she’d say without hesitation, ‘We are about to be engaged; we are getting married May 15. It’s Michelle’s responsibility to propose, and she knows it.’ I just can’t do that. I’m so afraid of what people will think. I know they’re going to be thinking, ‘Oh, they’re being ridiculous. They’re getting “fake” married.’ They can’t take us seriously — and there’s even a part
of me that can’t take us seriously because we’re so challenged in the world. I’m so tired of fighting for something I shouldn’t have to fight for. I’m so tired of having to constantly explain and defend myself.”

Ironically, Michelle has worked part time as a wedding videographer for the past four years.

“Coincidentally, all of the people whom I employ for this work are gay. None of us can actually get married.”

Michelle and Lauren have more than legal obstacles and the judgment of others complicating their relationship. Lauren is a recent graduate of Luther Seminary. She received a Master of Arts degree, but her candidacy for ministry was postponed. She informed her candidacy committee that she
was in a same-gender relationship, which prohibits her from being consecrated as a diaconal minister in the ELCA.

“Lauren has run into some problems with her candidacy. She’s not denied but she’s not approved.”

While Lauren has found a way to be herself in spite of others’ opinions about her, Michelle has not been able to brush off her critics as easily. This difference has become a sore spot in their relationship.

“Lauren’s very bold. When I go into a situation I think of every possible outcome. Lauren, on the other hand, will go into a situation and introduce me as her girlfriend at least three separate
times until people get it. I just can’t do that.”

I got disillusioned by fighting the fight. Lauren has a few seminary friends who have not been able to get past her sexuality. Lauren shrugs and is friends with them anyway,” Michelle said. “It’s hard because I want to be a part of her life, but it’s difficult for me to be around those friends. I don’t like being around people who think there’s something wrong with me.”

Michelle and Lauren pose an interesting balance for each other. Lauren didn’t grow up in the church but was always fascinated by it. She wasn’t confirmed until college and didn’t come out until after college. She did two years of volunteer work and then attended Luther Seminary. Michelle, on the other hand, was baptized in the church, confirmed in the church, and completely brought up in the church. She grew up internalizing the church’s negative responses to varying expressions of human sexuality. In college, Michelle was very outspoken and tireless in her efforts to help educate church leaders and members. She was a part of a Lutherans Concerned committee, sat on panels, talked, and told stories to help educate people about the complexities of sexual identity. After years of working for change and not seeing enough happen, Michelle’s energy is drained.

“I got disillusioned by fighting the fight. Lauren has a drive that I’ve lost. She wishes I was sitting next to her on Sunday mornings, but I can’t fight for a change within a church in which I don’t feel safe and valued. It’s really hard because I don’t connect with the gay community either . . . I think my sexuality is so much bigger than ‘gay’ or ‘straight.’ I know a lot of people say that’s just a phase, but it’s been seven years and I still don’t sit well with the labels. I’ve been given a label, and the church has questioned me. So I started questioning the church, and once I started questioning one thing about the church, I began to question many things in the church.”

All the questioning has led Michelle to a loss of faith and trust in the Lutheran church. Losing trust in something that was so intimately a part of her identity for her entire life has left her feeling unbalanced.

“Spiritual trust is a very intimate thing; without it, we feel uncentered. I fear critics would say I’m
feeling uncentered because of my relationship with Lauren; if I just give up my relationship
I’ll go back to being centered. I can’t do that. It doesn’t make any sense; it just doesn’t seem
like living fully. If God is a God of relationships, why would giving up my relationship be the answer?

Living in a world that tells me there’s something wrong with me has driven me to impress others. I work so hard to make sure people like me and are impressed, so that when they do find out that I’m in a same-gender relationship, they will still like me. It wears me out. I constantly censor my language surrounding my relationship with Lauren. I intentionally avoid conversations that might lead to questions about my personal life and I conveniently leave her out when I am retelling a story about something we did together. ‘We did’ suddenly becomes ‘I did’, etc. It’s exhausting. I sometimes wonder if I’m this capable when I am putting so much energy into watching what I say, what could I do if I could be myself? ’That’s tragic. I want to live my life according to the best model of possible goodness, and I’m trying to do that. It stresses me out that this is the only life I have to live, and it might be like this for the rest of my life.”

In hopes of reclaiming her faith, Michelle recently bought a notebook and titled it her “creed book.” She writes down everything she believes in an attempt to find her spiritual center again. So far she has not been able to reclaim her spiritual trust in the church or find spiritual nourishment. Michelle hopes one day she can return to the church or at least rebuild the spiritual trust of which she feels she has been robbed.

“It’s just very difficult for me now to attend, support, and feel comfortable in a place that questions what my role in it is. Yeah, the Church is making progress, but it is still not sure what my role is, or if my relationship should be recognized or my partner should be a leader.”

Editor’s note: Before their story went to press, Lauren and Michelle emailed some news that they
are happy to share. They have gotten engaged, and are planning a spring 2010 wedding.

Braaten responds to Chilstrom’s letter: ELCA war of words heats up #CWA09

Esteemed elder, Carl Braaten, has been a leading Lutheran theologian for the past fifty years. He was instrumental in drafting the original Lutheran Core open letter to which former Presiding Bishop Herbert Chilstrom responded. See my original blog post on the exchange. To get to the point, Lutheran Core opposes the proposed gay marriage and gay clergy resolutions that will come before the ELCA in ten days, but Chilstrom supports their passage.

Now, Braaten has responded to Chilstrom’s response. Braaten’s letter to Chilstrom is posted on the websites of the Lutheran Forum and the Institute of Lutheran Theology. Neither is an official arm of the ELCA. The independent promoters and authors from each organization hail from multiple Lutheran denominations including the ELCA, Missouri Synod (LCMS), and other smaller Lutheran denominations.

For Braaten and his web hosts, ecumenism means moving toward the LCMS and the other lesser Lutheran groups and away from other mainline Protestant denominations. Braaten laments that for a generation the ELCA has been “moving in the direction of liberal Protestantism on many fronts.” He mocks the ELCA for rejoicing that “finally Lutheranism is making it on the big stage of American religion, like the other mainline Protestant denominations.” He would prefer a return to “the ancient traditions which shaped the development of catholic orthodoxy, which I believe our Lutheran Confessors affirmed in a positive way.”

Look back, not forward.

Yet, I think Braaten profoundly understands that the issue for the conservatives is not about sex at all. Gay marriage and gay clergy merely provide a convenient rallying point to try to stem the tide of modernity, to hold back the waters that erode the shores of orthodoxy, to return to “the good old days” when the Bible meant something black and white, void of nuance. That Braaten’s letter rambles from one remembrance to the next is telling.

Look back, not forward.

Braaten says, “the theologians who signed the CORE Letter (around 60 of them) hold the same views concerning the slide of the ELCA toward liberal Protestantism … It is clear that what ails the ELCA, in our view, is not all about sexuality. It is about the underlying pervasive theological condition … the ELCA is falling off a cliff into heterodoxies and heresies of its own … a Social Statement that is a theological embarrassment to anyone or any church that claims to be faithful to the Lutheran Confessions … God may well answer your prayer, however, by sending the ELCA into another Babylon, into exile.”

Whew! I guess we’ll be in exile with the Episcopalians, the UCC’ers, and soon others but definitely not the LCMS.

Could Gay Clergy be coming to Lake Woebegone?

Of course, Minnesota is home to Garrison Keillor and his mythical Lake Woebegone. The Lake Woebegone Whippets baseball team sometimes pops up in the skits and monologues of A Prairie Home Companion, including reports of their contests with the Upsala Uff da’s (pronounced oopsala in the show). Many years ago, when Keillor was still doing the Mn Public Radio Morning Show from St John’s University, I corresponded with him to report that there really was a ball team called the Uff da’s that played in Upsala … it was my University of Minnesota intramural softball team, which we called the Uff da’s, that journeyed to my hometown of Upsala for a weekend tournament. [for any non-Scandinavian readers, Uff da is Swedish/Norwegian for “oy ve!”, or “no s..t!”, etc.]

But I digress…

I have posted frequently about the upcoming ELCA convention in Minneapolis beginning August 17th in which gay marriage and gay clergy will be the hot legislative items. I will be present during the convention offering “graceful engagement” in the hallways on behalf of Goodsoil, the umbrella organization for a number of LGBT friendly constituencies. Watch this space for regular blog updates from the convention.

We also have a report that the Episcopalians have chosen a lesbian as one of three candidates to become the IX Bishop of the Minnesota Diocese.

In today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune, the leading newspaper of Mn, comes the headline that asks and answers a question: How gay is Minnesota? Really, really gay, according to columnist Andy Birkey who blogs from Eleventh Avenue South:

Folks from out of town are often shocked to find huge and vibrant lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities this far from the coasts. It shouldn’t be a surprise given Minnesotans’ long-standing commitment to tolerance and human rights, and the fact that Minneapolis is the last stop before Seattle. Most of us are from small towns in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and the Dakotas who didn’t want the hassle and cost of Chicago or found Madison and Iowa City a bit too "small town."

There are a lot of us.

According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA, the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area ranks 8th in terms of LGBT people per capita and Minneapolis is fourth among major cities for percent of LGBT people in the population. Minnesota ranks 10th in the nation for number of same-sex couples, and same-sex couples reside in every county of the state … Each year, Minneapolis’ Loring Park hosts the third largest free Pride festival with over 400,000 attendees.

I think I know what Pastor Ingqvist of Lake Woebegone would say: UFF DA!

“Mom and Dad, I’m gay”: LGBT faith story number four

Booklet cover

Here is the fourth installment in a series of LGBT faith stories. Today’s story is about Rob and Laura, parents of a lesbian daughter. Here are links to the earlier stories: