Asterisk

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland will be voting on the continued ministry of Rev. Scott Rennie tomorrow, May 23rd. Debate is being scheduled, but it sounds like the vote will definitely come before the sun sets.

In preparation for the vote and in support of Rev. Rennie, a group of evangelicals has submitted the following letter to The Herald (Glasgow). (Kirk=Church)

Faithful same-sex relationships do not preclude a relationship with God

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is faced with a difficult subject: homosexuality in the church. We want to assure the Kirk of our prayers. We are evangelicals who believe that Scripture does not condemn homosexual relationships. We are made up of heterosexual and homosexual Christians.

These are, of course, deeply personal questions. As a result of the traditional view on homosexuality, it has been our experience that many gay and lesbian Christians have been forced down a path of self-hatred, which all too often leads to loss of faith, breakdown or even suicide.

After much wrestling, prayer and heartache, we have come to understand that God affirms loving, faithful same-sex relationships.

As evangelicals, we believe in the authority and supremacy of Scripture, and wholeheartedly affirm “the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the word of God, the only rule of faith and obedience” (Westminster Larger Catechism 3) without question. We understand the various positions within the church and believe it is a difference of interpretation, not biblical authority, that characterises our debate.

We stand with the historic orthodox Christian teaching of “justification through faith alone” – that a person is made right with God because of the work of Jesus Christ and it is faith in Him that brings us into relationship with God.

This is the heart of the good news that Scotland and the rest of the world, whether gay or straight, needs to hear from the church.

No-one is excluded from a relationship with God (or service for Him) because they are in a relationship with someone of the same gender.

We affirm the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul that all the law is summed up in love for God and love for our neighbour (Mark 12; Romans 13). We can see nothing in Scripture or our calling as God’s people – both gay and straight – where a loving, monogamous same-sex relationship is inconsistent with this summary of the requirements to live a holy life. We pray that the General Assembly will follow the example of Jesus, who reached out to the marginalised, the suffering, the oppressed and those on the fringes, and who continues to do so today.

We are not just “out there”. There are thousands of faithful people sitting in pews, standing in pulpits, working in Kirk Sessions who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered.

We urge the assembly to embrace the message of transformational grace and inclusion, to stand for justice and mercy and signal the openness of God’s compassionate love to his children, straight and gay. A vast and growing number of evangelicals and others across the world do not exclude homosexuals but understand that the church has erred in its rejection of them. Will the assembly send a clear message of God’s love and welcome, or one of rejection and fear?

Dr Ralph Blair, Davis Mac-Iyalla, Martin Stears-Handscomb and Sarah Hill, Rev Colin Coward, Rev Benny Hazlehurst, Cindy McCarron, Jeremy Marks and Rev Ruairidh MacRae, 37 Annette Street, Glasgow.

(Representing 10 evangelical organisations.)

Whatever comes of this, here’s the part the Church most needs to hear: “There are thousands of faithful people sitting in pews, standing in pulpits, working in Kirk Sessions who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered.”

This isn’t a matter of keeping a certain kind of person out of the Church; we’re already there and we aren’t going away. This is a matter of allowing us to live open, honest lives as part of the Body of Christ.

Earlier this month, I mentioned Scottish minister Scott Rennie, who came out of the closet five years ago and now faces opposition as he moves to a new church.

Well, the battle within the Church of Scotland continues, including a sermon from Rennie’s chief Pharisee Ian Watson comparing the thought of The Homosexuals in church to Hitler taking France (Seriously, he makes a direct comparison.), we do seem to be on the winning end of this one. A vast majority of the Church’s ministers haven’t signed Watson’s petition, and the issue should be officially broached this week.

Meanwhile, I’d like to pull out a bit more from Rev. Rennie’s interview with OneKirk Journal. (pdf) He shows a remarkable understanding of scriptural complexity that his opponent can’t seem to grasp.

Rev. Scott Rennie, Church of Scotland

I take my lead from Jesus. If we want to see how Jesus treats Scripture we only need to see how he deals with the Sabbath laws. He makes clear that the law is there to serve God’s purpose of love, not to cause people harm. So in Luke 6 he heals someone on the Sabbath, showing the primacy of the command to love above Sabbath rules. When I compare the Levitical command to stone those who work on the Sabbath with what Jesus did you see the radical prioritising of love over the law. For Jesus ‘Love your God’ and ‘Love one another as yourself’ summarise the law.
 
You often hear the cry ‘hate the sin but love the sinner’. For me it is a false dichotomy. I can testify to the fact that it was impossible for me to experience this blanket condemnation of homosexuality as loving. Instead, it caused me to hate and fear a large part of myself—an experience gay and lesbian Christians around the world will relate to.
 
For me, when I encountered the Jesus who, first and foremost, loves and accepts us—the Jesus who prioritised love and healing people over the blunt imposition of law—it was a revelation. I realised that I had been caught up with—like the Pharisees—a restrictive legalism not grace. In denying my sexuality, I was rejecting Jesus’ unconditional love for and acceptance of me, and saying there was something wrong with the way God had created me.
 
One of the great themes of the Old Testament is the importance of covenant in relationships. I cannot believe that the destruction of committed relationships between people is what God wants, or what the Biblical authors had in their minds when writing.

The more I read, the more impressed I become with Rev. Rennie. Living out this understanding of complexity is surely more difficult than Rev. Watson’s approach. It certainly encourages more contemplation and compassion.

This blog tends to focus on issues in the United States, but the struggle to reconcile religion with sexuality can be found around the world. Today I found the issue in Scotland, where Reverend Scott Rennie of the Church of Scotland is facing opposition by an evangelical group within the church.

In the interview from the OneKirk Journal, Rev. Rennie discussed how he’s doing with the battle. There’s a lot more meat in the interview (pdf) that I’ll be touching on in the coming days, but this section caught my eye today, as Rev. Rennie pinpoints the dual problem that a lot of gay people of faith face. (BTW, Kirk = Church)

Rev. Scott Rennie, Church of Scotland

I feel both strong and at the same time battered. Battered by weeks of speculation about my private life, which no other minister would have—or should be expected—to endure. On the other hand, and for the greater part, I feel hugely strengthened and supported by the hundreds of messages I have received from people both inside and outside the Kirk.

Some of the correspondence I have received has been deeply moving: very often from gay people who are serving in ministry, or as lay people in their churches— and who feel caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they feel the church does not understand or appreciate them as gay people. And on the other, they are treated with suspicion within the gay community because of their Christian faith—no doubt, because of the negative treatment of gay people by the church throughout history.

Although the present discussion centres around my own response to God’s call, all the correspondence over the last few months has reminded me that there is a large body of people, like me, in a similar situation, in the Kirk.

Six weeks ago, I brought your attention to Presbyterian Amendment 08-B, which would open ordination to all called Presbyterians, including lesbian and gay members of the church. There had been an early indication of record numbers of Presbyteries voting to in favor of the amendment, but More Light Presbyterians, the denomination’s LGBT advocacy group, announced Saturday that the “no” votes have won the day.

This national vote continues until May 19, but the ratification decision became clear today as the “no” votes from presbyteries reached the majority number of 87.

More Light Presbyterians laments this loss of the 218th General Assembly’s Ordination Amendment 08-B that would have restored ordination standards based upon faith and character, not marital status and sexuality. Amendment 08-B reflects a Reformed understanding of ordination and put into perspective church membership and service by making faith in Jesus Christ central in ministry. Amendment 08-B gave our Church a faithful way to reconcile one’s faith and sexuality.

“More Light Presbyterians offer our deep gratitude for the thousands of Presbyterians who want the Presbyterian Church (USA) to be a Church for all of God’s people. So far, 48.6% of all votes cast supported a church that embraces and recognizes God’s image in every person,” said Michael Adee, Executive Director and Field Organizer.

As Michael points out, there is reason to hope for the future of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

In what has been a much closer situation than in 2002, 2 oppositional votes today meant defeat for the national ratification of 08-B. However, the good news is that 69 presbyteries have voted in favor with 14 presbyteries yet to vote. The final tally of support for policy change in 2002 was 42. It is important to recognize that 110 presbyteries out of the 155 presbyteries that have voted thus far demonstrate pro-LGBT equality shifts.

Change often comes more slowly than we “radicals” would like. It sometimes seems unconscionable that people who just want to participate in the life of their church are callously turned away, not unlike modern-day lepers. As my own United Methodist Church begins a similar process of declaring whether God’s church is inclusive or exclusive, I thank the minority of Presbyterians who voted for inclusiveness. With faith, hope, love, and a little bit of elbow grease, someday we’ll all be welcomed by our churches.

Good news from the Transylvania district of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in central/eastern Kentucky this week in a report from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The commissioners of the Presbytery of Transylvania, which includes 56 Central and Eastern Kentucky counties, voted 83-61 Tuesday to approve an amendment that, if supported by the majority of the presbyteries in the United States, would open the door for gays and lesbians to be ordained as pastors, elders and deacons.

The proposal is being considered by each of the nation’s 173 presbyteries. It would have to be accepted by a simple majority of them to take effect.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has considered such amendments to its Book of Order several times since 1996, when an amendment was put in place requiring church officers to live “in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.”

Keep in mind that the proposed amendment (labeled 08-B) doesn’t simply remove the language from 1996. Instead, it proposes replacing it with this:

Those who are called to ordained service in the church, by their assent to the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003), pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, striving to follow where he leads through the witness of the Scriptures, and to understand the Scriptures through the instruction of the Confessions. In so doing, they declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church. Each governing body charged with examination for ordination and/or installation (G-14.0240 and G-14.0450) establishes the candidate’s sincere efforts to adhere to these standards.

I’m still trying to figure out the structure of the Presbyterian Church (And I thought Methodists liked bureaucracy!), but from what I can tell, the inclusion of the amendment was voted on by the General Assembly last summer, passing with a fairly close vote of 380-325-3. The much smaller Church Orders and Ministry Committee passed the amendment on to the Presbyteries with a much clearer majority of 41-11-0.

You can see the full text of the amendment with comments from the minority in the Church Orders and Ministry Committee here. According to the More Light Presbyterians (MLP), the LGBT advocacy group in the Presbyterian Church, the odds seem stacked against us with the current tally 43-71 with 59 still to vote.

While the outlook is relatively bleak (but still hopeful!) for this amendment, MLP points out that there is evidence of a major shift since the last amendment attempt in 2002. Of the votes so far, 19 Presbyteries have flipped their vote in favor of LGBT inclusion, 83 have moved that way regardless of the outcome, and three of the ‘no’ votes are actually ties. You can see a full rundown of the statistics for the vote here.

You’re getting there, LGBT Presbies! Keep up the pressure!