Rev. Bill Johnson was the first gay minister I met,
and he became a role model for me.
I took this photo in San Francisco in the fall of 1972.
In honor of Pride month,
this is the first of four posts adapted from a Meekhof Lecture I gave at
Newport Presbyterian Church in Bellevue (WA), January 11, 2014, regarding the
meaning of the LGBT movement for the broader church. You will notice some
references I’ve used before on this blog.
One
of the members of Newport Presbyterian Church has written a remarkable “coming
out” memoir, The Last of the Good Girls: Shedding Convention, Coming Out Whole. In it, she quotes poet Judith
Barrington: “The poet’s job is to write the truth. And then write the truth
below the truth.” And that’s what Mary Ann Woodruff has done in lyrical prose
and occasional poetry.
I
believe that was the job description of the biblical writers, “to write the
truth below the truth.” And I believe that’s the job description of preachers,
prophets, and professors, “to write or tell the truth below the truth.” And
that’s what I hope to do in this and the posts that follow: to talk about the
underlying truths regarding the LGBT movement within the church.
Now,
trying to tell the truth below the truth led in my seminary days to
demythologizing, and in today’s seminaries it has led to deconstruction. That’s
well and good if you have someone like the late Joseph Campbell, who could take
a myth apart and put it back together again in such a way that its meaning is
enhanced rather than diminished.
In the words of Kathleen Norris, “Human
beings, it seems to me, require myth as one of the basic necessities of life.
Once we have our air and water and a bit of food, we turn to metaphor and
myth-making,” she writes. To me, myth is not a story that is untrue, but a
story that carries a deeper truth that draws us in. As a 5-year-old once said,
a myth is a story that is true on the
inside. (Gertrud Mueller Nelson tells this in Here All Dwell Free.) Within the words is a Word with a capital
“W.”
So for me, this is an opportunity to
find the deeper truth of the LGBT Christian movement, and because I have
devoted my life to that movement, it’s very personal—it’s about the meaning of
my own life. And because the church has wrestled with the LGBT Christian
movement over the past forty years, it’s very personal for the church as well,
it’s about the meaning of church life.
What is the inside truth? What is the
truth beneath the truth?
Nelson Mandela’s death reminded us of a
segment of the South African population known as the “born freers,” those born
after the end of apartheid, who have little idea what separation of the races
meant, how oppressive was the domination of the white race.
It reminded me of the last book my
mother was reading before her death at age 84, Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation, a book lauding
my parents’ generation for enduring the hardships of the Depression and then
World War II. I had sent her the large
print edition of the book for Valentine’s Day because she had watched Brokaw’s
television special of the same name, telling me over the phone, “I’m glad our
generation is finally getting the credit it deserves.”
Timewise, I was in a like place as
South Africa’s “born freers,” having been born five years after the end of World
War II, having no direct experience of what my parents went through: separated
by the war, living on my father’s army pay, having goods rationed, losing
friends and family in far off battles or having loved ones return home with
physical and psychological wounds.
And now I have a similar experience,
along with today’s church, witnessing young people, “born freers” who will
never understand why we struggled so over homosexuality, why it seemed so
important, why the church resisted full membership and society resisted full
citizenship, why the church refused the ministries and marriages of its gay,
lesbian, bisexual, and transgender members, and why, when so many gay men were
falling to a pernicious disease, there was so much resistance to helping persons
with HIV and AIDS.
Younger people who watched this year’s
television series about the secular LGBT movement, When We Rise, remarked their surprise at what earlier generations
endured. “I had no idea what you went through,” one millennial told her mom.
This post will be the first of four
segments for LGBT Pride Month, not so much describing “what we went through” in
the church as much as discerning the “truth below the truth.”
What did it all mean, for God’s sake?
I urge you to make a
donation and/or attend these once-in-a-lifetime ingatherings of LGBT saints and
allies:
Oct 31-Nov 2, 2017
St. Louis Airport Marriott
Sept 8-10, 2017
Kirkridge Retreat & Study Center
Btw, the LGBT Religious Archives Network updated my bio earlier this year: https://www.lgbtran.org/Profile.aspx?ID=4
Btw, the LGBT Religious Archives Network updated my bio earlier this year: https://www.lgbtran.org/Profile.aspx?ID=4
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Copyright © 2017 by Chris R. Glaser.
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