Sexuality and Church Growth

Does welcoming lgbt people spell disaster or promise for a church hoping to expand its mission?
By Colleen O’Connor

Helen Havens walked a very fine line when she interviewed for the position of rector at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Tex. Located in what’s considered a conservative diocese, St. Stephen’s is also in the heart of a neighborhood called Montrose, home to a vibrant lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (lgbt) community. "I wanted to answer their questions truthfully, but I didn’t want to scare them," she says. "I’m sympathetic to gay persons, and I felt the Holy Spirit within me answered the questions."

After landing the job, Havens moved slowly with her new ideas. "I was welcoming to gay people, and I also tried to be sensitive to families," she says. "From time to time, some of the regular guys would say, ‘If the church goes gay, I’m outta here.’"

She gently but firmly reiterated her commitment to welcoming all people. Today, membership at St. Stephen’s is almost half gay and half straight. The church advertises in gay newspapers, and each year participates in the Gay Pride parade. Recently, their first openly transgender person joined the congregation (see Moroney commentary, p. 13).

"The wonderful thing is that over the years we really have become a marvelous community," Havens says. "Sure, some people have left, but not in droves and not even in handfuls. What’s incredible is to see the close relationships that some of the elderly people have with some gays and lesbians."

One church member, who died recently at age 96, developed many friendships with gay and lesbian parishioners. In her late 80s she spent much time at the local hospital’s intensive-care unit where a gay church member was dying of AIDS. She wiped his brow with a damp cloth, and sat by his side in true companionship. Later, as she grew older, her gay and lesbian friends took care of her.

"What a beautiful thing, the blessings she got from them," says Havens. "They took her out to dinner, or came to her house and cooked for her."

St. Stephen’s, guided by its progressive values, is thriving. They’re buying new property, growing their day school, and opening a new community center. "Inclusion has lead to growth," says Havens "A lot of people who come here say, I want to raise my children in a church that accepts women in positions of key leadership and really includes gay and lesbian people."

Conservative churches ahead by 19 percent

Havens’ church keeps her so busy that she only has time to do this telephone interview at home, after dinner, on the very same day that some very interesting news hits the papers – news that directly contradicts the success story that she’s just described. On this day a new 10-year study is released and swiftly picked up by major newspapers across the country. Titled "Religious Congregations & Membership: 2000," the study says that socially conservative churches – like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the conservative Christian Churches – grew faster than other religious denominations over the past decade, by about 19 percent. Conducted by the Glenmary Research Center and sponsored by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, this study is considered by some scholars to be the most comprehensive analysis of religions available because the U.S. census doesn’t ask about religion.

The topic of church growth, however, is becoming as controversial as sex and politics. "We always talk about church growth, but I talk about church depth," says Paul Wilkes, founder of Pastoral Summit, the University of North Carolina group that conducted a two-year study which resulted in the publication, Excellent Protestant Congregations: The Guide to the Best Places and Practices. "Your numbers are not really as important as the message lived out in your hearts. If you’ve grown from 1,000 to 5,000 members who are bigoted and hateful, who the hell cares?"

With this in mind, many Episcopalians who value the Episcopal Church’s reputation as a denomination that tolerates a wide range of beliefs believe that for the Episcopal Church to have a future, it must become not more socially conservative, but more progressive. They see how dioceses and congregations treat lgbt people as a potent outward and visible sign of whether that is occurring.

A church running out of time?

"I fear the church is running out of time," says Kim Byham, a former president of Integrity, and one of the organizers, along with representatives from Oasis ministries and Beyond Inclusion, of this month’s "Claiming the Blessing" conference aimed at promoting Episcopal Church approval of rites of blessing for committed same-sex couples. "The critical thing is not to lag several years behind society because then we cease to take the prophetic role. If you’re going to catch the attention of generations under 40, you have to do something that both manifests love and speaks to the gospel message."

Critics, however, warn that authorizing rites of blessing could split the church because conservatives will walk out. They point to the turmoil this past summer when some conservative leaders left the annual synod meeting in the Anglican Church of Canada’s Diocese of New Westminister immediately after the diocese’s bishop, Michael Ingram, announced that a motion had passed to allow individual parishes in the diocese to bless committed same-gender unions. Immediately, conservative Anglican leaders worldwide – in Africa, England, South America, Asia, Australia and the U.S. – condemned the vote, saying that the entire Anglican Communion could suffer serious damage if the diocese doesn’t revoke the decision.

Such warnings are familiar to people like William Swing, the Episcopal Bishop of California, who says he’s ordained more gays and lesbians than any other bishop in the history of the Episcopal Church. At the Episcopal Church’s General Convention in 2000, however, Swing voted against developing liturgies for committed lgbt relationships. After the vote failed, he told a reporter that he disagreed with almost everything opponents had said, and agreed with almost everything proponents had said – but that he’d voted against rites of blessing because "in the Episcopal Church we have a chance to go together in a unified way."

Now, two years later, he gives a behind-the-scenes look at what happened. "At the last General Convention, I made a speech on the floor and said, ‘There is not a bishop who does not know where we will be 10 years from now. The issue is how do we get there from here, and stay in unity.’ No one stood up to challenge that, or challenged me personally afterward. I think the trajectory of conferring complete humanity will finally be extended to homosexuals, just as we had to wrestle with whether black people were really people, and whether women were really people. Now the issue is whether homosexuals are really people. Ultimately, that has to do with incarnation. If God is with us, God is with black people, with women, with gay and lesbian people. If this is so, then in what areas must the church stand and be counted in order to declare its insight?

"The issues in my mind are not issues of ultimately what do we think is right, because I think everyone knows where we’re going to end up. The issue is one of timing and inclusiveness in terms of bringing the whole family along, rather than leaving an awful lot of people behind. At the last General Convention there was great fear that if we did something, then the AMiA (Anglican Mission in America) would separate itself further from the Episcopal Church and use that vote as the occasion for them to drive the wedge of schism deeper into the church. At the last convention we showed constraint, and they did it anyway. Therefore the credibility of their position marched out the door."

‘We have other things to do’

As the battle over same-sex blessings continues, some say the church should take a time-out on the issue. "I’m one to say, ‘Forget the voting, let’s draw a truce and let’s discover what our sense of mission is,’" says Mary MacGregor, senior mission coordinator for the Diocese of Texas. "We have valued the fight a lot more than we’ve valued the mission, and it’s torn us up.

"The real issue," she continues, "is not about church growth, but a Christian community being convicted by their sense of core values and respecting their neighborhood Episcopalian church that may feel just a little bit differently. The reality is that we have a heck of a lot in common."

Still, church growth is very important to the Bishop of Texas, Claude Payne, who assumed leadership in 1995 and is known for his passionate focus on evangelism. "He made a very big point of not focusing on the issue of sexuality," says Carol Barnwell, editor of The Texas Episcopalian, the official newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. "Mission became our focus, and everything we’ve done hinges on that, reaching the unchurched."

Critics may claim that, under the guidance of Payne, these churches are simply ducking the sexuality issue. But that’s incorrect, says Barnwell. She cites a conference on sexuality held at Camp Allen in Texas where Robert Ihloff, the liberal Bishop of Maryland, and the Diocese of South Carolina’s conservative bishop, Edward Salmon, both gave their opinions. "We had 700 people, and everyone listened, and it went great," Barnwell says. "But I don’t think a whole lot of people changed their minds, and we had some disgruntled folks because people weren’t saying things their way. We aren’t putting a lid on it and not talking about it, but it doesn’t take a lot of our energy. It’s just that we have other things to do."

His diocese’s focus, says Payne, is on making "disciples, not just church members. Discipleship is defined for us in the five promises of the baptismal covenant: developing community, personal spiritual health, evangelism, outreach and working for a more just society. The challenge is daunting and we continue to work for more comprehensive ways to make our missionary outposts (congregations) centers for the making of disciples."

Payne freely admits his traditionalist posture on the sexuality issue, but says he affirms those who differ with him – presumably St. Stephen’s Helen Havens, for one – and condemns internal fighting. "My own personal view," he says, "is that the issues which divide will be addressed successfully in God's economy of time by the new disciples being formed and by the broadening of existing disciples as they experience the Holy Spirit’s power though reaching outward to others."

At St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Franklin, Tenn., which is thriving, the broadening that inclusiveness brings is key, says the church’s rector, Bob Cowperthwaite. The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee is by reputation a conservative diocese and St. Paul’s spans the political spectrum – some parishioners don’t show up on the Sundays when a woman preaches and others come only on the Sundays that an African-American retired priest takes the pulpit.

"We have gay folks, but this is big Republican country here," says Cowperthwaite. "Part of what I try to do is to be very welcoming to everybody. We have a lot of good adult programs, with a lot of diversity things. So you might sit down and talk to someone and later find out that this person is very different from you. If a very conservative person finds out they’re in a group with a gay person, it’s too late because they already have started a relationship, so they’re able to overcome some of their forgone conclusions."

Cowperthwaite would like to perform rites of blessing for same-sex couples, but his bishop has not approved this. "We have people in this congregation who’ve had their unions blessed and I have been present at the ceremony. They understood the position I’m in here, but they invited me to be present. I’d like to be able to do this but I know that people in this congregation would probably leave the church if they found out I was doing that."

‘We Are One Family’

If careful toleration of different viewpoints about sexuality is creating a climate conducive to church growth in conservative dioceses like Texas and Tennessee, upfront approval of same-sex blessings seems just as favorable an approach despite conservatives’ repeated warnings that such approval will lead to schism. In the Diocese of Delaware last year, Bishop Wayne Wright approved same-sex rites of blessing after six years of committee study and debate, writing in a letter to diocesan priests that it "represents growth for our church," and is "an opportunity to reach the broader community."

St. Peter’s in Lewes, Del., is one of the churches in this diocese. Bettylee Carmine, a former vestry member and 50-year parishioner, says the bishop’s decision greatly helped their church. "We’ve grown in leaps and bounds," she says. "Maybe we lost three or four people, but we gained far more. The church has never been this crowded before."

Likewise, embracing rites of blessing for same-sex unions, as part of their holistic policy of inclusion, dramatically spiked the membership at the Church of the Redeemer in Morristown, N.J. "If not for us being who we are, we’d be dead," says the church’s rector, Phillip Wilson. "I’m confident that the only reason we’re alive now is because of this."

When Wilson arrived in 1987, the Church of the Redeemer was on the brink of death. Membership had dwindled to just 40 people in the pews, pledging $40,000. "There were two Episcopal churches right across the street from each other, and I thought that unless we created a whole new way of doing business, we may as well go out of it," he says.

Fifteen years later, membership is 400 people who are pledging $300,000. The great growth spurt started in the late 1980s when Eric Johnson, the son of two church members, was diagnosed with AIDS.

"The church owned the fact that ‘AIDS is us,’ and a number of people took AIDS buddy training," Wilson says. "We realized we wanted to make this the ministry of the parish." After Eric Johnson died in 1990, the church decided to create the Eric Johnson House, a hospice to help people who are homeless as a result of contracting AIDS. They also created a new vision.

"We moved to define ourselves as liberation community," he says of his congregation, which now intentionally prizes both social and economic liberation.

The sign in front of the church says it all: "We Are One Family." That declaration is followed by a description of people who are welcome: male, female, children, senior, gay, straight, infants, liberals, dreamers, white, black, Christian, non-Christian, questioners, partnered, single, conservative, in recovery, searching, and youth.

Inside the church, there are two flags: the black liberation flag and the gay pride flag. There’s an AIDS chapel, and a picture of Jesus Christ wearing the AIDS ribbon. A major parish celebration takes place on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. Same-sex unions are blessed, and there are also same-sex weddings. Both gay and straight members support a men’s group and a partners’ group. The Inter-Racial Dialogue Group meets monthly to name racism and white privilege in our society, and to promote racial healing. The Adult Forum has invited people of Jewish, Islamic, Voodoo, Buddhist and Native American traditions to speak.

In 2001, the Church of the Redeemer was named one of 300 outstanding Protestant parishes in America in a study funded by the Lilly Foundation. "There’s a whole group of disenfranchised people who’ve either been bored to death or been brutalized by traditional Christianity," says Wilson. "But they’re still spiritually hungry and looking for a community formed around their values of justice."

‘Non-standard people welcome here’

Many churches are building their growth strategies on attracting young people. It’s an obvious market niche. Statistics prepared by the Gallup organization, published in 1990 in The Spiritual Health of the Episcopal Church, show that nearly 70 percent of church members are over 45 years old. While some youth are attracted to the certainties of conservative evangelicalism, different young people have different beliefs, says Sam Portaro, Episcopal chaplain at the University of Chicago. "To a significant extent, some young adults who are themselves at a very tentative and searching stage in their own lives, respond very favorably to a sense of openness that is communicated by an open attitude to all people," he says.

This past September Portaro explored the effects of the church’s generation gap in a two-part lecture called "Mind the Gap: Forming a New Generation of Leadership for an Aging Church," delivered at Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Tex. He drew heavily on the work of Richard Florida, professor of regional economic development at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University. Florida is author of The Rise of the Creative Class, which explores why cities like Pittsburgh, Buffalo, New Orleans and Louisville have suffered an economic exodus of talented young tech workers to cities like Austin and Seattle.

"Professor Florida asks a question now familiar to many of us in the church," Portaro told his audience. "Why do some places attract creative people and their vitality while others don’t?"

Florida discovered a high correlation between geographical centers of creativity and another researcher’s list of geographical centers of gay men and lesbian women. Defining diversity to include different kinds of music, different kinds of food and unfamiliar kinds of people, Florida notes that the creative class craves real experiences in the world. His conclusion is that talented people seek an environment open to differences.

"Many highly creative people, regardless of ethnic background or sexual orientation, grew up feeling like outsiders, different in some way from most of their schoolmates," Portero noted. "When they are sizing up a new company and community, acceptance of diversity and of gays in particular is a sign that reads ‘Non-standard people welcome here.’"

‘Freeing up the Episcopal Church to be public about its inclusive nature’

At St. George’s Episcopal Church in Glenn Dale, Md., membership tripled after the rector, Michael Hopkins – another of the organizers of the "Claiming the Blessing" conference – began performing rites of blessing. "In terms of inclusivity, one of the things that blessing means to people is that our commitment to inclusivity is not just words on paper," he says. "We’d never use the word marriage, and we haven’t ever sought any publicity for what we do, and we don’t do it with any explicit permission from the bishop or anybody."

At St. George’s, members literally walk their talk. In October, St. George’s Youth Group participated in the annual AIDSWALK in Washington D.C. "Young people who come here certainly want it to be a place where that whole issue is over with, because in the world they live in, sexuality is not much of an issue anymore," he says. "For me, the same-sex blessing movement is not just about this issue. The larger picture is about freeing up the Episcopal Church to be public about its inclusive nature, rather than continuing to project a very tentative image, and a conflicted one."