The UCC needs its ECOTs.

January 23, 2010 – New Braunfels, TX

Courage and rules

Last summer at the UCC’s General Synod in Grand Rapids, Lauryn Farris did something very courageous.  As a transgendered person, she ventured over to the display table for Faithful and Welcoming Churches (FWC), a coalition of UCC members summarized in the acronym ECOT – evangelical, conservative, orthodox, traditional.  Lauryn knew before she ventured to our table that FWC came into being following the 2005 General Synod’s endorsement of same sex marriage, and that many of the core values of the UCC’s Coalition for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) concerns are not shared by ECOTs.

Lauryn went anyway, not knowing exactly what she might encounter, or whom.  The person she met was my wife, Linda, and the conversation surprised both of them.  They were able to talk respectfully, even warmly, and closed the conversation with prayer.

That simple act of courage by Lauryn, accompanied by Linda’s irenic response, was more than anything else the primary catalyst for this day for my being here as the representative for Faithful and Welcoming Churches at a retreat sponsored by Spirit of Peace UCC.  Thank you to Rev. Rita Wilbur, pastor at Spirit of Peace, as well as Lauryn.

The invitation to the President of Faithful and Welcoming Churches reflects courage for to listen to someone with whom you are likely to disagree about some key principles.  I want to thank not only those of you who invited me, but those of you who came.  That is also courageous.  Our culture has an unwritten “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about most issues that are controversial – from religion to politics to sex, and our conversation touches all of them. 

When we do talk about hard subjects, we tend to be either defensive or offensive.  I do not intend to be either.  I appreciated the ground rules that were laid out for today – that no one is allowed to interrupt or raise voices.

May I suggest a few more ground rules –

·         No throwing coins (we prefer paper money).

·         No throwing shoes (just in case someone is from Iraq).

·         No burning at the stake (since we’re at a camp with the fire readily available).

I hope the spirit in which I say what I have to say will make all the ground rules unnecessary.  I am not here to argue.  As for interruptions, what I would like to suggest is a series of planned interruptions.  Rather than my speaking for a full hour and then taking questions, I would like to pause at several points so that you can clarify what I’ve said with a question or two, if necessary, and I can take a breather.

If I were in your shoes, it would help me to know where this is going overall.  Even though I will not be reading from a manuscript, the entire manuscript of what I planned to say will be on my blog, www.corinthpastorbob.com.  One reason I wanted to make these comments public is because I think it’s important that you know I don’t tell you one thing and my “base” (to use a political term) something else.

I will follow the outline that Rita and Lauryn suggested in a phone conversation last fall –

·         Who are ECOTs?  I will share my own story as well as give a description of those four terms.

·         Why do ECOTs stay in the UCC?  Many ECOTs have left.  What makes us different?

·         How can we have sacred conversations?  If we are to have a healthy dialogue, how can we make that happen?

·         How can the UCC provide a voice for ECOTs?  In other words, what is FWC asking of the denominational leadership and of ONA advocates? 

Who are ECOTs?

To answer this question, let me share my own story.  In many ways I am a very unlikely person to land in the UCC or to stay.  In other ways, I see the providence of God weaving together the details of my life to put me exactly where I am.

I begin with my parents.  My father was born to missionary parents in India serving under what is now the United Methodist Church.  He served in the Navy before enrolling in college with the intent of returning to India as a missionary.  My mother was born into a large and poor family in Chesapeake, Virginia, and raised in a country Baptist church.  She felt the call of God on her life to be a missionary as well, and her hometown preacher encouraged and assisted her to go to college.

The college where my parents met was Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, still today known as an Alamo of Christian fundamentalism and separatism.  However, as my parents were completing their college education and preparing for missionary service in the late 1940s, a division among more conservative American Christians arose.  The breakaway movement labeled itself “evangelicalism,” and it was intentionally less narrow, less defensive, and less separatist than fundamentalism.  Billy Graham quickly became the prototype for evangelicalism, and remained so for a half-century, even until today.

Mom and Dad served as missionaries in Pakistan for seventeen years, and I was the fourth of their five children. The majority of my first twelve years of life were spent as a missionary kid (MK) in Pakistan where we rubbed shoulders with missionaries and went to school with MKs from all over the English-speaking world and many different denominations.  During my adolescent years the family was stateside, based in Portsmouth, Virginia.  I was baptized in and heavily participated in a Southern Baptist church that was borderline fundamentalist/evangelical.

There was much about that heritage that I have had to rethink, but not all of it.  Although I struggled with doubt and with the stock Baptist answers to doubt, I did come to embrace fully the essence of the Christian faith – that God is and God loves me, that as a human being I am broken and estranged from God, and that only by God’s grace in reaching out to me through his Son, Jesus Christ, can I be reconciled to God.

When it was time to go to college, I was quite sure I would wind up in ministry of some kind.  My Southern Baptist pastor wanted me to go to a Baptist school, and warned me that opportunities in the Southern Baptist Convention would be very limited if I chose another path.  I did choose another path, and enrolled in Columbia Bible College (Columbia, SC).  The primary purpose of the school is to teach the Bible and train Bible teachers.

CBC was powerful in shaping my Christian experience, for several reasons.  First, within the evangelical umbrella, the school is interdenominational, so my circle of who and what I considered faithful to Christ widened.  Second, the school’s motto, “To Know Him and To Make Him Known” is lived out in its passion for faithful Christian living.  The imprint on my life was a determination to know God as best I could with my sinful and human limitations, and to please him with a life set apart to him.  I determined that I not only wanted to share good news with others – I wanted to finish well in terms of faithfulness to the Lord.  CBC also grounded that passion in a commitment to the integrity and trustworthiness of Scripture.

While I was a student at CBC, I met the love of my life, Linda, who had also grown up in a borderline fundamentalist/evangelical Bible church in Lancaster County, PA.  We married three weeks after we graduated, poor as dirt, and started our life together serving a church in Reidsville, NC in youth and Christian education ministry.  During our five years there, our son was born.  He is now married to our wonderful daughter-in-law, Mary Catherine, and working on a Ph.D. while living in Tampa, Florida.

We went to Reidsville in 1978.  The church was UCC, but that’s not why we went.  We didn’t know much about the UCC.  We knew the pastor was an evangelical and they supported many missionaries, which was important to us.  We knew the UCC was very liberal, but also knew the local church was autonomous.  A few years ago that church pulled out of the UCC.

Initially we believed the church in Reidsville would only be a temporary stop on the road to the mission field or some other kind of ministry.  While we were there, we met people from a lot of other UCC churches.  We began to see that there a lot of UCC churches who would be open to and would want a pastor committed to the historic faith.  Our calling into UCC ministry was not about changing the denomination’s direction.  It was about ministering in a local church that wanted someone like me. 

So we committed to the in-care process, returned to Columbia for seminary, where our daughter, Cara, was born.  She is now in graduate school at our alma mater preparing to be a clinical counselor and marriage & family therapist.

After seminary, we served Emanuel United Church of Christ in Thomasville, NC, where our third child was born.  Jeni is now student teaching as she prepares for a career in music education.  After five years in Thomasville, I was called to Corinth Reformed Church in Hickory, where we have been since March 1993. 

At several points I became connected to and worked with other more theologically conservative pastors and laity, but our focus has always been primarily in the local church, which is our love.  Linda is also employed at our current congregation as the Director of Adult Ministries.

For reasons I will explain in a moment, we have always believed that people like us should stay in mainline churches like the UCC.  The General Synod’s 2005 marriage equality resolution, however, brought the renewed threat and even actuality of a mass exodus – hundreds of churches, even the entire Puerto Rico Conference. 

Shortly after that synod, some of us who dissented gathered in Ligonier, PA.  We talked and prayed about what to do – with most of us having parishioners divided between loyalty to the denomination and a quick exit strategy.  We decided that whatever those individuals or churches did, there would always be ECOTs who would stay in the UCC, and we wanted to form an organization to be their voice and their network.  That organization became Faithful and Welcoming Churches.

FWC has attempted to be a distinct renewal group.  We are here to stay. We are want to be as constructive as possible.  We want to engage conversations positively and respectfully.  We will continue to be a presence at General Synod and wherever else we are invited.  Our last national gathering and next board meeting are at the UCC’s “church house” in Cleveland.  We want to stay in touch with the denominational leadership as we represent ECOT concerns.

One more note about our personal story.  Corinth Reformed Church voted in 2007 on whether to remain in the UCC.  The vote was 52% to leave, but that fell significantly short of the 2/3 necessary to change the bylaws.  I was the primary advocate for remaining in, and gave a passionate and persuasive speech about how the UCC needs us.  (I convinced 48% of the people!)  We had a very constructive and respectful process, and lost no members after the vote who were active before the vote.

With that background, let me explain briefly the four words in our acronym, and then pause for questions.

Evangelical.  When we use the term “evangelical,” we are not using the term in the sense that most UCC members use it.  As you know, the UCC was formed in 1957 to bring together four historic streams of the American church, including the German Evangelical tradition.  In the UCC, “evangelical” often refers to this “E” part of our heritage.  I would suspect most UCC churches in this area founded before 1934 are “E.”

“E” in ECOT refers instead to the way the term is used in American culture.  As I told my own story, I noted that evangelicals are distinct from fundamentalists, at least in our own mind, and find the word “fundamentalist” to be pejorative.  Our primary focus is the “evangel,” which means “gospel” or “good news.”

We believe the primary message of the Christian faith is that God has come into our world in the person of Jesus Christ who died for our sins and rose to give us eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).  Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation (John 14:6), and that salvation requires a personal response of repentance and faith (Romans 10:9-10).  The passion of the Christian’s life and of the church should be to spread that message of eternal life through Christ near and far (Acts 1:8).

Conservative.  It sounds like a political term, and for that reason evangelicals in general, but UCC evangelicals in particular, are likely to be divided about whether or not to own the term.  It is certainly true that some UCC members are proudly “conservative” in their politics – including many in the congregation I serve.  The word “conservative” has at its root “conserve,” and it means implies that we conserve – money, time, values.  In other words, most conservatives are not quick to change.

In FWC, we primarily use the term in reference to our view of Scripture.  Most of us resist what are considered “progressive” views of Scripture and theology.  We gladly place our complete confidence in the deposit of faith that is described in the preamble to the UCC’s constitution as “the Word of God in the Scriptures” and “the faith of the historic Church expressed in the ancient creeds and reclaimed in the basic insights of the Protestant Reformers.”  We believe that Jesus affirmed the authority of Scripture (Matthew 5:18; John 10:35; John 16:35), as did the Apostles Paul (2 Timothy 3:16-17), Peter (2 Peter 1:20-21) and John (Revelation 22:18-19).

Orthodox.  This does not refer to the Orthodox Church, obviously.  The lower case word “orthodox” means “right teaching,” and the New Testament repeatedly warns the church to be on the alert for teaching that, as the Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 2:8, “depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”

Here again is a place that we would distinguish ourselves from fundamentalists, whose circle of inclusion is very narrow and whose list of important doctrines is rather extensive.  We would follow the motto of the sixteenth century Lutheran, Rupertus Meldinius, “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.”  Thomas Oden defines orthodoxy this way: “integrated biblical teaching as interpreted in its most classical period” (The Rebirth of Orthodoxy, p. 29).  Christians during the first five centuries of the Church drew boundaries around what it means to be Christian, and those boundaries have remained largely intact across the years and around the world.  Not everything is essential, but some teachings are, and we believe it’s important to name and retain those boundaries.

Traditional.  This word probably means many things to many UCC ECOTs.  For some, music and worship must be traditional.  That’s not necessarily the case for all of us, of course.

For most of ECOTs, the language for God needs to be traditional because words like “Lord” and “Father” and “King” represent at least part of God’s self-revelation in the Bible. 

For others, traditional marriage would also come under this umbrella if not already covered under the “conservative” view of the Bible.

So that’s the first section – “Who are ECOTs?” – told in both first person and a general overview.  This would be a good time to pause and ask if you have questions.  I would suggest that you limit your questions to clarification questions – as in, “What did you mean when you said….?”

Why do ECOTs stay in the UCC?

For me personally, the answer to this question is a sense of calling.  I have often pointed to 1 Corinthians 7 as key text on calling.  The Apostle Paul says, “Each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him” (v. 17).  He goes on to illustrate that point in talking about circumcision, marriage, and slavery.  The default choice is to stay where you are.  That is not to say “never,” and Paul himself advocated circumcision for Timothy (Acts 16:3), marriage for some who were unmarried (1 Corinthians 7:36), and freedom for slaves if they had the chance to gain it (1 Corinthians 7:21).

As someone who believes God is actively involved in directing my life, I believe he called Linda and me into the UCC and we should stay until he makes it clear he wants us to leave.  Had our church voted out, we would have gone with them as an indication that this was God’s leading.  But they didn’t, and we are still here.

As I said to my congregation during our discernment process, I believe the UCC needs us.  I also told them I believe we need the UCC.  Ever since the Protestant Reformation, we in the western church (meaning that part of the church that has its roots in western Europe) have a long heritage of separatism when we disagree.  Every one of the branches of the UCC can trace its roots back to some decision by a body of Christians to sever its ties to a mother church.

The UCC was born out of a desire to reverse that trend.  Richard Niebuhr and others in the early twentieth century saw the downside of denominationalism and believed that Christians who say they follow Christ and believe the Bible should fulfill the prayer of Christ in John 17:21, “That they may all be one.”

Although I am not at all sure there’s a better system than freedom of choice when it comes to religion (and I certainly don’t advocate coercion or a state church), we need to acknowledge that the system of religious freedom America pioneered and the rest of the world has copied to one degree or another has not only splintered the church irreparably, it has made us all rather arrogant about what we believe.

Church in our time works sort of like this:  “I know I’m right, so I’m going to associate with people who are as right as I am.  If those I go to church with are not right enough, I will find another body that is more right, or maybe start my own group.”  Then as we gather with those who are right enough to hang around on a weekly basis, we are simply affirmed about how right we are because we never come into meaningful contact with those who think differently. 

There’s something very troubling about that system although, as I said, I haven’t come up with a better one.  The only alternative seems to be forcing everyone into the same church that declares itself to be the only right and true church. Rome’s experiment with that over a thousand-year period didn’t go very well either, nor did mini-versions of the experiment such as those attempted in the early American colonies.

I was reared in an evangelical heritage for which I still give thanks; its basic principles I still affirm.  But evangelicalism had and has its blind spots, and being in the UCC for over thirty years has made me a stronger, better, humbler, more compassionate Christian.  It’s foolishness to think that all of God’s truth is confined to one person, church, or movement. 

If you and I disagree about something, there are only three possibilities – either I need to learn from you, you need to learn from me, or we need to learn from each other – none of which will happen if we avoid each other.  The Apostle Paul instructed the Colossians to “teach and admonish one another” (Colossians 3:16), and we can’t do that if we go our separate ways.

That’s why I believe ECOTs need to stay in the UCC, and it’s also why I believe that the UCC needs its ECOTs.  What has troubled me most about the pervasive ONA emphasis in the UCC, the same sex marriage resolution, and the Still Speaking campaign is that the cumulative effect is denominational realignment along ideological lines.  In so many words, we convey the message, “This is what the UCC is – and we want everyone who agrees with us to leave their churches and come here – and everyone who disagrees to leave the UCC and go somewhere else.”  I believe that’s just as unhealthy as the approach of Christian fundamentalists who refuse contact with anyone but their own except for the purpose of converting them.

It is also why I see this retreat as a healthy step in the right direction.

What you’re going to find in general among ECOTs who have chosen to stay in the UCC is that your stereotype of what an ECOT is will be shattered.  Obviously I cannot speak for all, but in general we will be more open to dialogue, more prone to listen, more respectful in terms of language use, more willing to listen and learn, and more open to hearing your story and caring about it.  There will always be exceptions, of course, but in general you will find a positive spirit, if sometimes wounded, among UCC ECOTs.

Last fall I had the opportunity to preach at the annual meeting of the Western North Carolina Association of the UCC.  I chose as my text Ephesians 4:1-6, where Paul urges unity and says, “Be completely humble and gentle.”  The title of my sermon was, “I Could Be Wrong.”  (See http://corinthpastorbob.com/2009/10/i-could-be-wrong/ for the manuscript.)

I really don’t know how many ECOTs I speak for, but I am willing to say on the issue of human sexuality – or many, many other issues, “I could be wrong.”  What I mean by that is that as a student of church history (as much as time affords) I am certainly aware of times when an entire generation of the church shared and reinforced major blind spots.  They really believed they were following the Bible and pleasing the Lord.  Only time revealed their lapse in judgment.  Words like indulgences, Crusades, anti-Semitism, and slavery come to mind. 

I will share in a moment why I don’t think that my understanding of human sexuality is wrong.  But my willingness to admit, “I could be wrong,” means that I want to share my heart humbly and be willing to listen to those who believe that I am wrong.

UCC ECOTs are often able to see the blind spots of a more conservative Christian culture because they are not as invested or as isolated.  So whether it’s a counterproductive evangelistic strategy or a failure to care for the environment or have compassion on the poor, or an eschatology that is informed more by the Left Behind series of novels than the Bible, we UCC ECOTs are better able to recognize it.

We also have our own perspective on American history and culture.  It seems to me that being a UCC ECOT enables me to notice more than most an extreme Narcissism in America – a self-absorption with “the pursuit of happiness” that affects the land from one coast to the other, old and young, liberal and conservative, Christian and non-Christian – every one of us, including me.  Sometimes our faith and churches are only additional means to find personal happiness – the evidence being that as soon as our churches stop adding to our happiness we find another one.

We are collectively absorbed with demanding our rights and finding ourselves, and sometimes I want to scream to all of America, “How’s that working for you?”  Are we really happier when we get what we thought we wanted – the latest toy, the next promotion, a new partner, a sensual pleasure?  We can’t seem to figure out that the ladder of our pursuit of happiness is leaning against the wrong wall.

One final perspective on why ECOTs stay in the UCC.  There are ECOTs in all mainline churches, of course, but within the UCC you’ll find something else as well.  While ECOTs in other mainline denominations are still fighting to win their battles, we in the UCC are generally not naïve enough to think we somehow are going to “take over.”  That’s not why we are here.  We realize we are overwhelmed numerically, at least in terms of leadership and policy-making bodies.  (It is worthy of note, however, that only about a fourth of UCC churches in a survey a few years ago identified themselves as “liberal” – one fourth as “conservative” and one-half as “moderate.”  I would consider “moderate” and “conservative” as generally sympathetic to ECOT concerns – or at least a significant number of members.)

So why do we stay?  We stay because we believe God called us to be here.  We stay because the body of Christ should not be fractured along ideological lines.  We stay because we have something to learn.  And we stay because we have something to give.

Let’s take another pause for some clarification questions.

How can we have sacred conversations?

One of the reasons that I am here is that you have expressed a genuine interest in listening to ECOTs.  Linda and I are here as their representative.  We have all experienced difficulty in even having conversations because there is a lot of mistrust.

How can we overcome that?  Here are some possible strategies. 

First, let’s agree to give the benefit of the doubt that we are all sincere in our desire to obey the great commandments.  Jesus said, “Love God and love your neighbor” (Mark 12:30-31).  I choose to believe that is your heart, and I hope you choose to believe it about me.

A second strategy is to live out the prayer attributed (probably wrongly) to St. Francis of Assisi – “Grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand.”

I want to listen to LGBT people.  Over the years I have read a number of books presenting the case for a different view than my own on human sexuality – books written by such authors as Virginia Mollenkott, Letha Scanzoni, and David Myers.  I have also engaged in conversation with gays, lesbians, and ONA advocates in my own congregation as well as my own conference, the Southern Conference.  In 2006 I served on a year-long task force we called the “Committee of Twelve” – made up of six persons openly favoring the ONA position and six favoring the FWC position.  I thought our group did some good work on listening and proposing constructive ways to move forward.

More recently, I read Crisis, edited by Mitchell Gold, who lives very close to me in North Carolina.  Mitchell’s book recounts painful first-person experiences of growing up gay in America, including the stories of some rather prominent people such as Martina Navratilova and Barney Frank.  Linda and I sat down and watched the film, “Prayers for Bobby,” after a gay man in our congregation told me that it was so close to his own story he wept all the way through the movie.  We ate dinner with Lauryn and her partner, Kerry, and exchanged life stories.  We are here not only to be understood but to understand.

My role in this retreat is to help you understand ECOTs.  How it is that a person who does listen, who does care, who does not wish to avoid and exclude, can nevertheless still hold a position that opposes the ordination of practicing homosexuals, opposes same sex marriage, and believes that erotic behavior outside of heterosexual marriage is wrong in God’s sight?  You disagree with that, and may even find it hurtful.

How can we have conversations on very difficult subjects without condescension?  How can we have a healthy, God-honoring respect for each other?

A third strategy is to use language carefully.  I am certainly preaching to the choir when I tell you that words can hurt and that can erect barriers.  You do not need me to rattle a litany of words and phrases that, far from being descriptive of gay and lesbian people, are intended to hurt and exclude.  I have often asked myself – and others – why it is that people who believe that gays and lesbians need to repent would use language and tones which make them feel unwanted and unloved.  That doesn’t even touch the horrible injustices of physical violence and other acts of hate.

What I would like to add to that conversation, however, is that words that exclude and belittle can go both ways.  I already mentioned the “f word” (“fundamentalist” – why is it that there are so many “f” words that are profane or hateful?).  It’s one I hear regularly, and its use is designed simply to label, assign guilt by association, and dismiss anyone who opposes acceptance of homosexual practice as the Christian version of an Islamic terrorist.

Fourth, we can all actively choose against guilt by association.  On both sides of this issue, there are people who are deliberately hateful or divisive or even critical with a sharp tongue.  We may even consider some of them friends and allies in certain contexts or on certain issues, but that doesn’t mean we share all our perspectives or agree on methods.  Let me say it this way: I choose not to judge you by your friends.  I hope you won’t judge me by mine.

Fifth, we can resist generalizations.  Again, it goes both ways.  There are also those who say or imply that anyone not on board with the ONA cause must be uneducated, rural, inarticulate, and backward.  It just ain’t so, y’all!  There are advocates on all sides of this issue with equivalent levels of knowledge and experience in the Bible, theology, history, social sciences, and psychology.  When someone suggests that I believe what I believe because I’m stuck in the Neanderthal age, it shuts down the conversation.

Sixth, we can abstain from Bible abuse to make a cheap point.  It’s unfair to use Genesis 19 as a proof text.  There is certainly legitimate debate and conversation about some other texts.  But I came here keenly aware that you don’t need someone to point out to you the so-called “clobber passages” of the Bible about homosexuality.  In the same way, I don’t need anyone to tell me that certain parts of the Bible also condemn eating a pork chop or having sex with a menstruating woman or wearing clothing of mixed fibers.  Most of us sympathetic to the ECOT point of view know about those texts, and if you’d like to have a conversation about them, we can.  But to point them out feels to me parallel to what reading Leviticus 18:22 feels to you.

Let me see if I can put all of those points together in explaining what I see as the key difference between the ONA perspective and the ECOT perspective on human sexuality.

The ONA perspective seems to say that we best love God by loving people.  If God made all human beings in God’s own image, then our role should be to listen, understand, care, validate, empathize, and protect every single person.  Unconditional acceptance of who another person is and where he or she comes from is the best way to love God.  If God made them who and how they are, I should love them just like that without asking them to change.

The ONA person believes we listen best to God by listening to people, because “God is still speaking,” What God is saying now, from the ONA perspective, may well trump what God has said in the past.

The ECOT perspective, by contrast, is that we love people best by loving God.  We also believe that God is still speaking to us, but God does not vacillate in what God wants from us.  The Bible is a trustworthy record of God’s self-revelation, even if we as human beings cannot fully grasp it or sometimes fight over its meaning. 

The best way to love God, from an ECOT perspective, is to read God’s Word, try humbly to discern what it says, then trust, obey, wait, and try to be God-like, distinct from the world around us (“holy”). 

God has given us instruction on what God-honoring love for others looks like.  Love has boundaries.  I love people best when I love God by listening to what God has spoken in the Bible. 

We don’t “worship the Bible,” as we are sometimes accused of.  My wife, Linda, shared a good analogy on this point with me yesterday.  Back in the days we were dating we wrote a lot of letters.  Anyone remember those?

If I treasure the letter from the one who loves me – read it carefully and repeatedly, I have not substituted loving a letter for loving a person.  But I show my love for the person by honoring the communication.

For ECOTs, loving God will always mean giving priority to God’s self-revelation in the Bible over what confusing and conflicting contemporary voices may say.

I will never achieve full understanding of God’s Word or full obedience to God in this life, but I do not want to give up that goal.  If and when I find it difficult, I will assume the problem is with me.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, is credited with identifying four sources of authority for what Christians believe and how we live.  It’s called the Wesleyan quadrilateral, although the five-syllable description wasn’t coined until the 20^th century –

·         Scripture (Old and New Testament)

·         Tradition (two millennia of church history)

·         Reason (logic and sense)

·         Experience (personal and also communal)

For Wesley, and for ECOTS, the order is significant – particularly that Scripture must be primary.  Sometimes one or more of the other areas of authority will cause us to re-examine Scripture, but the Bible must always trump every other authority.

 

 

 

When I read, for example, Mitchell Gold’s book, it seems to me that experience is clearly the ultimate authority.  The premise of the book (in addition to making the very valid point that Christians and the church have been guilty of reinforcing stereotypes and actively or passively spreading hate) seems to be that if I have these feelings of attraction toward the same sex, and particularly if they began early and are common to others, then they must of necessity be right and God-given.  Therefore the most authentically human, even Christian, thing to do is to accept that’s how I am and act on those desires. 

Again, if I have misunderstood, I am certainly open to listening.

An ECOT arrives at a different conclusion because the starting point is different.  If the authority is Scripture, then my quest to live my life in a way that pleases him begins with seeing the Book as God’s self-revelation.  God did not leave himself without witness, and did not leave humanity floundering for answers in how we can please him. 

My role is to search the Scriptures to see what it is that pleases him.  Again, in doing so many of us – all of us – end up seeing what we want to see.  And we particularly like to find and point out the sins of others.  I am astounded at times at the hypocrisy of heterosexuals who condemn homosexual practice while excusing all sorts of heterosexual infidelity and unhealthy behavior in themselves and others. When we piously condemn sins that are not only not our sins but not our temptation, we are not faithfully biblical Christians. 

My heart wants all of me to be under the control of the Holy Spirit and under the authority of God’s Word.

On the issue of sexuality and the Bible, for me at least it certainly isn’t only about a half-dozen proof texts.  I really have gone back and looked at the Scripture to see if I’ve missed something, as I and so many other Christians have done on, for example, the issue of women in leadership.  But when I come back to the text, I don’t need the “clobber passages” to see a consistent sexual ethic that God’s design in his creation is one man and one woman joined for life – with celibacy as the other viable option.  There are certainly many, many violations of that norm in the Bible – from polygamy to adultery to rape to incest to homosexual practice – but I can’t find any hint in the Bible that suggests if I want to please God I should engage in them.  Sex outside of marriage is rather symptomatic of human brokenness and estrangement from God.

One final point in terms of how we engage these conversations.  As a Christian, and even more so as a Christian in the Reformed tradition, it’s helpful to me to remember that it’s not by job to change people.  God chooses to use us to represent him – but I don’t have to force the issue of when and how God gives me opportunities.  I’m enough of a Calvinist to believe that God is the one who changes minds and transforms lives.  On the assumption that you believe mine is the mind that needs to be changed, I ask you to extend me the same grace. 

It is incredibly freeing as an ECOT – or non-ECOT – to get my hands off the rudder of other people’s lives and stop trying to take the place of the Almighty.

OK, another pause for questions and comments.

How can the UCC provide a voice for ECOTs?

I don’t know who in this group has the ear of the powers-that-be, but here is my take on what ECOTs in the UCC would like to see.

First, and most of you know exactly what I mean when I say this, we want to be included at the table in meaningful conversations.  About 15% of UCC churches have declared themselves to be Open and Affirming, which means that 85% have not.  But the power structure of the church – from staff in Cleveland to conference staff to General Synod delegates to Church and Ministry Commission members – overwhelmingly those groups are underrepresented in terms of ECOT voices. 

We are not trying to “take over” anything.  But we would like to be heard and valued and represented.  If your conference leadership is making a decision that affects the wider church and there is no one around the table representing an ECOT perspective, go find someone – maybe several someones.  If you can’t find anyone, ask yourself why.

Second, we in FWC passionately believe that churches who want an ECOT pastor should be able to have one.  The goal should not be to find pastors who will change an ECOT congregation to an ONA congregation.

Having said that, there is a shortage of pastors and seminarians who are ECOT.  We would love for association staff and Committees on Ministry to actively encourage young people who are ECOT to consider ministry, and to encourage a new generation of ECOT pastors to join the UCC and serve those churches.  Otherwise many churches are destined for a generation of conflict which often causes decline.

Finally, I agree with Rita who said that the resolution process in the Synod and in many conferences needs a serious look.  The process creates winners and losers, and simply reinforces power politics and control issues.  My hunch is that very little has ever been accomplished by a resolution, but a lot of harm has been done to the unity of the Body.  There is a legitimate place for resolutions, but in my view we should never pass a resolution that wouldn’t win near-unanimous support – not only by those at the Synod but by those in the pew.  Let our public statements unify, not divide.

One of the reasons this gathering impresses me is that people who have a solid hold on power rarely concede anything to those out of power.  Witness the current Congress.  Once you have the White House and a majority in the House of Representatives and sixty votes in the Senate, you don’t really care what the other party thinks, right?  The current party in control is re-learning what both parties have experienced in the past – what most Americans want is for our leaders not to be tied to their base but to listen to and value both sides of the aisle. 

You who are LGBT and their advocates certainly know what it’s like to be out-of-power and excluded in your families and in society at large.  But in the UCC, you have the White House, the Senate, and the House – overwhelmingly.  For you to be willing to listen to and value someone on the other side is certainly counterintuitive, and very much appreciated.

 I don’t know where this goes from here, but I’m glad to be here and get started.  Thank you for the invitation.