My name is Heather Grantham. I grew up in a conservative Presbyterian church in rural Oklahoma. I’ve had the privilege of working with the Presbyterian Church (USA) in various capacities: local churches, national office, mission field, to name a few. My love for the church runs deep through my veins. However, I’m disappointed with this institution. Instead of sharing the love of Christ with all of God’s children, we are denying a specific group of people from sharing in the fullness of the church.
I did not consciously know of any Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer (LGBTQ) folks growing up. Being “gay” was something that we did not talk about in my household. Gay people were projected in the media as something “different” or “other” or even “gross.” Any education about the subject was from the media. Our sex ed curriculum in Middle and High school only covered STDs and abstinence. I was ignorant to the spectrum of sexuality. I remember the first time I even talked about LGBTQ issues was in High school when a young man I was in love with told me he was gay. After digesting what this man told me, I went to the church to see its opinion. Up to that point I had accepted most of what the church told me to believe. However, the propaganda espoused by our church body left a bad taste in my mouth. How could God be love, yet reject a certain group of people? When I asked this question to a Christian group I belonged to in college, the answer was “God hates fags.” This is illogical when placed up against the inclusive phrase, “God is love.”
God does not hate LGBTQ folk. All of God’s children are wonderfully made! God calls each of us - regardless of sexuality - to be in full communion with our Parent. So why does the PC(USA) still reject LGBTQ people from the pulpit? Why does it reject the covenantal relationship between two same gendered people? I don’t have the answers to these questions. I only know that this is against the message of Christ to be an intentional, covenantal, loving, and inclusive community.
I joined the New Church (R)evolution simply because God is inclusive. God is love. We in the PC(USA) need to be inclusive of LGBT individuals who hear the call of God in their life. We need to listen to the Holy Spirit and follow the lead of Jesus Christ. We must change our stance on ordination because it is the fair and loving thing to do.
Showing posts with label Heather Grantham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Heather Grantham. Show all posts
22 June 2008
20 June 2008
Why it's not "trendy" for churches to support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality
Last summer, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (which, despite its name, is the largest and most liberal Lutheran body in the U.S.) voted recently at their bi-annual Churchwide Assembly to allow their bishops the leeway not to remove or punish gay clergy in committed relationships. It was a major step forward, as it basically allows liberal bishops in the church to ordain openly gay clergy as they see fit.
Here was Cal Thomas' reaction, as published in the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section:
“The Evangelical Lutheran Church bishops have embraced trendiness and abandoned the very scriptures that are their basis for evangelizing. If these bishops choose to
violate God's instruction book, church members have two choices, should they wish to continue to honor the authority of scripture and its Author: They can remove the bishops from office or they can leave the denomination. To remain in the denomination and do nothing makes members co-conspirators in the bishops' apostasy."
We’ll leave aside for the moment that his theology of the bible is indistinguishable from that of a seven year-old—or Christopher Hitchens. What I’d like to comment on is his denunciation of the denomination’s “trendiness.”
As an evangelical and a former spokesperson for Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, Thomas is not expected to have attended a national meeting of a liberal protestant denomination like the one where the Lutherans made their decision. These conferences happen during the summers on annual or bi-annual or tri-annual schedules. Thousands of Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Congregationalists get together in massive convention halls in a protestant-palooza of worship, meetings, and committees. The proceedings usually resemble Congress more than church, with measures and counter-measures being voted on, reports being issued, and bishops and moderators elected. For the last 15 to 20 years, the pressing issue at these national mainline meetings has frequently been gays.
What Thomas doesn’t know (or chooses to ignore) is that these mainline denominational meetings are full of good, mainline people. Red state and blue state people. The kind of people that, as Bill Clinton used to say, “work hard, pay their taxes, and play by the rules.” And these good people agonize over the place of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in their churches. Should they be ordained? Should they be married? What does this say about the state of the family in our church and in society? And good people disagree—often speaking on the floor and voting with tears in their eyes—then hugging members of the side that has “lost” the vote. These are not trendy people. They’re not hippies smoking pot and handing out condoms to teenagers. They’re mostly white, middle class, increasingly aging, and rending their Polo shirts trying to make a decision that is just, compassionate, and Christian.
The reason they struggle is you can’t go to one of these national meetings without getting to know the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender members of the church. Gay rights affinity groups in the denominations have made a distinct effort for the last 20 years to make themselves known in their churches. What these gay Christians are doing is telling their churches who their ministers, organists, Sunday school teachers, and deacons really are. And how they live their lives. And who they really love.
And you can’t be a member of any church, whether liberal protestant, evangelical, or Roman Catholic, without knowing about the tragedies. Like Reverend Brent Dugan, beloved pastor of 18 years at Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon, Pennsylvania, who checked into a motel room in November of 2006, took a bottle of aspirin and washed it down with alcohol. Before he died, he left a note speaking of his "profound sorrow and sadness, and sense of solemn grief and embarrassment, about what he thought would come to be known about his personal life." His former lover was threatening to expose him as a gay man to the local media. As a Presbyterian I can tell you the Presbytery of Pittsburgh is one of the most conservative in the country. No sir, they’re not trendy. They know what’s what. Thank God they never gave into the “gay agenda” long enough to let Reverend Dugan come out of the closet. He might have gayed up the whole damn church.
Responding with compassion to the tragedy of those who have died because of their struggle with their sexuality is not licentiousness. Looking at a public servant like senator Larry Craig taking a ridiculous risk because he is so desperate for the touch of a man and wondering if maybe there’s something wrong with society, not with him, does not go against the Gospel. Listening to members of your church who are sharing a profound spiritual truth about themselves is not being trendy, that’s loving people. You know, like Jesus did.
But the Cal Thomases of the world will continue to sneer at the mainline churches for going down the path to cultural accommodation. They will insulate themselves from the very real struggles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their churches by calling it “trendy.” They will shake their heads ruefully as they chalk it all up to meta-theories of a hedonistic society run amok. Meanwhile, gay people will fight for their lives.
from the desk of Richard Lindsay
Here was Cal Thomas' reaction, as published in the Washington Post’s “On Faith” section:
“The Evangelical Lutheran Church bishops have embraced trendiness and abandoned the very scriptures that are their basis for evangelizing. If these bishops choose to
violate God's instruction book, church members have two choices, should they wish to continue to honor the authority of scripture and its Author: They can remove the bishops from office or they can leave the denomination. To remain in the denomination and do nothing makes members co-conspirators in the bishops' apostasy."
We’ll leave aside for the moment that his theology of the bible is indistinguishable from that of a seven year-old—or Christopher Hitchens. What I’d like to comment on is his denunciation of the denomination’s “trendiness.”
As an evangelical and a former spokesperson for Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, Thomas is not expected to have attended a national meeting of a liberal protestant denomination like the one where the Lutherans made their decision. These conferences happen during the summers on annual or bi-annual or tri-annual schedules. Thousands of Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Congregationalists get together in massive convention halls in a protestant-palooza of worship, meetings, and committees. The proceedings usually resemble Congress more than church, with measures and counter-measures being voted on, reports being issued, and bishops and moderators elected. For the last 15 to 20 years, the pressing issue at these national mainline meetings has frequently been gays.
What Thomas doesn’t know (or chooses to ignore) is that these mainline denominational meetings are full of good, mainline people. Red state and blue state people. The kind of people that, as Bill Clinton used to say, “work hard, pay their taxes, and play by the rules.” And these good people agonize over the place of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in their churches. Should they be ordained? Should they be married? What does this say about the state of the family in our church and in society? And good people disagree—often speaking on the floor and voting with tears in their eyes—then hugging members of the side that has “lost” the vote. These are not trendy people. They’re not hippies smoking pot and handing out condoms to teenagers. They’re mostly white, middle class, increasingly aging, and rending their Polo shirts trying to make a decision that is just, compassionate, and Christian.
The reason they struggle is you can’t go to one of these national meetings without getting to know the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender members of the church. Gay rights affinity groups in the denominations have made a distinct effort for the last 20 years to make themselves known in their churches. What these gay Christians are doing is telling their churches who their ministers, organists, Sunday school teachers, and deacons really are. And how they live their lives. And who they really love.
And you can’t be a member of any church, whether liberal protestant, evangelical, or Roman Catholic, without knowing about the tragedies. Like Reverend Brent Dugan, beloved pastor of 18 years at Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon, Pennsylvania, who checked into a motel room in November of 2006, took a bottle of aspirin and washed it down with alcohol. Before he died, he left a note speaking of his "profound sorrow and sadness, and sense of solemn grief and embarrassment, about what he thought would come to be known about his personal life." His former lover was threatening to expose him as a gay man to the local media. As a Presbyterian I can tell you the Presbytery of Pittsburgh is one of the most conservative in the country. No sir, they’re not trendy. They know what’s what. Thank God they never gave into the “gay agenda” long enough to let Reverend Dugan come out of the closet. He might have gayed up the whole damn church.
Responding with compassion to the tragedy of those who have died because of their struggle with their sexuality is not licentiousness. Looking at a public servant like senator Larry Craig taking a ridiculous risk because he is so desperate for the touch of a man and wondering if maybe there’s something wrong with society, not with him, does not go against the Gospel. Listening to members of your church who are sharing a profound spiritual truth about themselves is not being trendy, that’s loving people. You know, like Jesus did.
But the Cal Thomases of the world will continue to sneer at the mainline churches for going down the path to cultural accommodation. They will insulate themselves from the very real struggles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their churches by calling it “trendy.” They will shake their heads ruefully as they chalk it all up to meta-theories of a hedonistic society run amok. Meanwhile, gay people will fight for their lives.
from the desk of Richard Lindsay
02 June 2008
Heather Grantham - (R)evolutionary
Heather Grantham is a Middler at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
She is originally from Oklahoma and is an inquirer with the Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery. After a year in the Philippines with the Young Adult Volunteer Program and a year working at the Presbyterian National Office with Women's Advocacy, Heather followed the call to SFTS. She currently works at Noe Valley Ministry PC(USA) in San Francisco as the Director of Family Ministry.
She is originally from Oklahoma and is an inquirer with the Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery. After a year in the Philippines with the Young Adult Volunteer Program and a year working at the Presbyterian National Office with Women's Advocacy, Heather followed the call to SFTS. She currently works at Noe Valley Ministry PC(USA) in San Francisco as the Director of Family Ministry.
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