Love between Women

Bernadette Brooten

In thanksgiving for the life, ministry, advocacy, and friendship of the Rev. Kathy (Young) Lancaster, who served the Presbyterian task force on homosexuality as its staff person.

The last two posts of May unconsciously began a series of personal reflections on the LGBT Christian movement that is continuing each Wednesday of June, LGBT Pride Month. For those unfamiliar with this blog, be assured that I will return to other topics next month!

Many years before Brandeis University professor Bernadette Brooten published her extraordinary 1996 work, Love between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism, she attended a Lazarus Project conference I organized featuring John Boswell, author of Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality. Today these books stand side by side on my bookshelves.

I was so taken by her work unearthing evidence of females in relationship in antiquity, that I suggested she return as a co-presenter with Boswell at another such event.

Initially she was responsive to that idea, but upon reflection, she graciously but firmly explained to me that it wouldn’t work out. The introduction to her later book may explain her hesitancy: while crediting Boswell with gathering more on female homoeroticism in the Roman period than many previous scholars, she and other feminists criticized his book’s lack of gender analysis.

So I suggested she co-present with my friend Ann Matter, who was doing similar work with women loving women in the Middle Ages. Their collaboration, “Lesbians in Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” was a big success, drawing more lesbians than any previous Lazarus gathering, though one couple left early, disgruntled to discover the material presented had to do with religion.

I had met Ann Matter while in seminary in 1974 when, together, we introduced the need for ministry among LGBT Yalies to the Yale Religious Ministry, an interfaith gathering of campus chaplains led by the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, a progressive Christian who would later describe himself (as many of us could be described) as “a recovering racist, sexist, and homophobe.”

The year after Brooten’s book appeared, she joined me and other presenters to lead an LGBT-oriented conclave at the Presbyterian conference center at Stony Point, New York. Attendees were blown away by her insightful and well-researched, well-documented presentation—the most scholarly of any of our presentations.

But it was only when, during the Q&A that followed, she was asked about her personal history, that she launched into a story that mesmerized her audience. The story is still hers to tell, but suffice it to say it explained her personal passion for her work as well as the struggles she faced in doing it.

Bernadette had not come intending to tell her own story, but that was also needed to inspire us.

Somewhat ironically, the final sentence of Love between Women, intended as a cap for remembering “the ancient traditions that have diminished and debased the lives of lesbians, bisexual women, and—indeed—all women” may also serve as a reason to rehearse our personal stories:

“By understanding our past, we may progress toward a more humane future, one in which we acknowledge the sacredness and holiness of a woman expressing her love for another woman.”

Under which in my copy of her book I wrote, AMEN!

To see previous posts in this series, click on this link or copy in a browser, http://chrisglaser.blogspot.com and scroll down to earlier posts.

Please support this blog ministry by clicking here and scrolling down to the donate link below its description or by mailing to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Copyright © 2016 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

A Crowd of Witnesses

Rock Stars and Prophets "Ordain" Chris Glaser

From the outside, and our need to simplify, especially in the media, key figures seem to be responsible for movements. Sometimes they are suffering scapegoats and sacrificial lambs, sometimes charismatic leaders and compassionate saints.

But from my vantage perspective of more than four decades devoted to the LGBT movement, I repeatedly realized that our movement is a collective and mutual inspiration. Perhaps that is why we have achieved relatively so much so quickly—plus the fact that we and our allies are in every family and neighborhood, every race and culture, condition and class, every vocation, business, and organization, of every political and religious stripe.

That realization was confirmed once again by last week’s ingathering of some eighty souls of the LGBT movement in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. at the church’s conference center in Stony Point, New York. The denomination’s presbyteries have recently approved a constitutional change permitting same-gender marriage, and we had every reason to celebrate.

Thanks to the organizational skills of That All May Freely Serve’s current evangelist, Rev. Ray Bagnuolo, and a host of volunteers, a major contribution from a pastor as well as donations from others, and the enthusiastic hospitality of Rick and Kitty Ufford-Chase and their staff as well as the volunteers of the center’s multi-faith community (which included a three-tiered wedding cake and the tastiest and healthiest food I’ve enjoyed at any retreat or hotel facility), Rock Stars and Prophets: Generations of Justice and Love will be remembered not only as a historic event, but one that was healing and hopeful and just plain fun. Of course TAMFS’s founding evangelist, the Rev. Janie Spahr, and its former Regional Partnership Coordinator and later Minister Coordinator, the should-be-Rev. Lisa Larges, were also responsible for the event’s success.

And I will remember it as the place of my fourth ordination, thanks to the Rev. Katie Morrison, who, along with Ray, were the first openly lesbian/gay persons to be ordained by their respective presbyteries years before the prohibition on LGBT ordination was lifted.

Rev. Laurene Lafontaine, who recently reclaimed her calling as a pastor in the Presbyterian Church, passed to Katie a beautiful, needlepoint stole created in 1993 by the late Louise Thompson for the first openly LGBT person to be ordained in the denomination. Spontaneously, Katie decided it should go to me, and she led the gathering in a blessing of my ministry with the laying on of hands.

I had approached the four-day gathering eagerly but with reservations, fearing what feelings might arise. During the planning, I urged that everyone who attended should hear from everyone there. I spoke on a panel of activists from the early days of our movement, and the next morning took my turn for a brief videotaped interview conducted by Warren Cooper, a gentle and kindly videographer. As I left the taping, involuntary tears came to my eyes.

Now, as I stumbled toward Katie, those tears returned, and I had a sense of unreality. At a time when I might feel vindication, I instead felt stunned and unworthy. I looked in Katie’s smiling face as people gathered around and laid hands on me. She then led us in a blessing. 

My first ordination was as an elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Van Nuys, California, in 1972. I had almost walked out, because the interim pastor mistakenly used the old questions for ordination that included the “infallibility” of scriptures. But I stayed, privately assenting only that the Bible served as God’s word to me, the newer version of the ordination vows.

My second ordination was a surprise, at the hands of the annual LGBT retreatants at Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center in Pennsylvania, led by the Rev. Darlene Garner, a fellow speaker, and now, three decades later, the Elder who oversees MCC’s Emerging Ministries that includes this blog! They did so because I had been dropped as a candidate for ordination by the Presbyterian Church in 1978 when its policy prohibiting the ordination of openly gay and lesbian ministers was instituted.

My third ordination came in 2005 when I served as interim pastor of Christ Covenant MCC of Decatur, Georgia. The MCC Moderator, my friend, the Rev. Nancy Wilson, gave the sermon and led the ceremony, and several of the people at last week’s gathering came from afar to participate. In giving me the charge, the Rev. Erin Swenson had encouraged me to “dance with the one who brung you,” in other words, serve faithfully within MCC, whose polity allows my dual affiliation as a Presbyterian. I was taken by surprise when the gathering offered a prolonged ovation.

As I look at the photo Believe Out Loud’s James Rowe took of my fourth ordination, I am pleased to see very little of me in the picture. Instead you see all the people around me, reaching out their hands in blessing, representing all those who have shaped my soul throughout my life, including those who have passed on.

I am grateful for such a crowd of witnesses!

Reading this New York Times article made me think of the “incandescent souls” who  help make us who we are: “A Moral Bucket List—What Kind of Adventures Produce Goodness, Rather than Build Résumés?”

Please support this blog ministry by clicking here or mailing to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by readers’ donations. It is an authorized Emerging Ministry of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination welcoming seekers as well as believers. This year, I offer a signed gift copy of my book, Communion of Life: Meditations for the New Millennium, to each one who donates $100 or more (at once or in installments) over the course of 2015.

Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

"It Is Finished"

Jesus’ Seven Last Words, sayings offered from the cross, may serve as guidance for the spiritual life. You are invited to contemplate each saying during the seven Wednesdays of Lent and Holy Week.

Not to demean the abject nature of Jesus’ final words, according to John—but how nice to be able to say, “It is finished.”

I have often written that, in the spiritual life, there is no finish line. And that believing you’re done or that you’ve arrived is spiritually dangerous. Lillian Hellman’s memoir title, An Unfinished Woman, is more realistic. (Though given the way Hellman apparently tended to fictionalize her own life, she may have been referring to a future version of her life events!)

Personally I fantasize about being able to say “I’m done” and go off to lie on a beach of a tropical island with a full library and an open bar.

You might say, “in your dreams!” but even my dreams will not let me rest in peace. In one speech I gave during what author and friend Mary Ann Woodruff has humorously christened my “legacy tour,” I said: 

If my dreams are any indication, I have much unfinished business with the church as well as with my colleagues in the LGBT movement; also with the organizations and congregations I have served. I’m hoping this opportunity to talk about the meaning of the movement might be an occasion to exorcise some of the demons and heal some of the wounds inflicted by the friction between what I consider a movement of the Holy Spirit—perhaps even an uprising of the Holy Spirit—and the inertia inherent in any longstanding institution, such as the church. 

More than sixty longtime Presbyterian catalysts of change on LGBT inclusion will gather next month at Stony Point, New York, to compare such notes at “Rock Stars and Prophets” following the recent denominational approval of same-gender marriage.

In recent months I have revisited almost every significant venue of my “uncommon calling” in my dreams. Sometimes I am welcomed back with grace and gratitude, more often with reservations and resistance. I’ve also revisited every place I’ve lived and all my significant relationships with people, partners, and relatives—again, with mixed results. It reminds me of those cartoon images of a character’s life passing before his/her eyes while falling off a cliff. I’m not dying, at least not in any way we aren’t all “dying.” I’m aging, and looking back on a life sometimes well-lived and sometimes not so well-lived. Many of you either share that experience or will share that experience.

If we can claim Jesus as a “Christian,” which may be a stretch, he was the first Christian interim or transitional minister. In three short years he revolutionized the way we view power, privilege, tradition, government, religion, spirituality, ourselves, and God. In the Gospels’ telling of the story, he lived and breathed and taught the common spiritual wealth we have from God. But he also sacrificed for it: he risked his well-being, his family, his religion, his very life, and he did so with grace, forgiveness, generosity, resistance, and love—above all else, love.

And that love has never finished.

For those who would like daily readings for this week of Lent, click here and scroll down to the end of “The Double Feature.”

My book, The Final Deadline: What Death Has Taught Me about Life was mentioned in a current column by Kay Campbell.

Please support this blog ministry by clicking here or mailing to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Progressive Christian Reflections is entirely supported by readers’ donations. It is an authorized Emerging Ministry of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination welcoming seekers as well as believers. This year, I offer a signed gift copy of my book, Communion of Life: Meditations for the New Millennium, to each one who donates $100 or more (at once or in installments) over the course of 2015.

Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.