LGBTQ Inclusion in the Church - a moderate viewpoint

Thinking about the inclusion/conditional inclusion/exclusion question.

George Epp

January, 2015

The following are my personal ponderings on the LGBTQ question that threatens to divide us while seeming at the same time to admit of no compromise. My observations are based on my personal history of trying in fits and starts to practice what Christ taught, my growing up in Eigenheim, my participation in the Thompson United Mennonite Church for 15 years,  25 years of work in public schools, 3 years of service in the European Mennonite communities under MCC, a great deal of reading on related subjects and two years as MC SASK moderator during which time I had opportunities to visit numerous congregations and listen to their expressions of faith. I would also add that 7 years as chair of the RJC board working with the staff was enlightening; RJC has evolved as a school that tries very hard to take young people as they are when they come and to build on the possibilities each presents. 

My present position on the question of LGBTQ inclusion in the church is generally called liberal or moderate. I favour attitudes and practices that assume unconditional inclusion in church life for committed Christian LGBTQ persons. I personally do my best not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. How I got here, despite the usual struggles with sexuality during growing up years, is what I'm concerning myself with here. 

Right at the outset, I would say that the most important insight of my life in thinking about LGBTQ matters has been this: my life has been wonderfully enriched through an intimate relationship with a companion who loves me, and that's true of most of my friends and acquaintances. I personally don't believe it to be just to deny any other human being the joy of committed, faithful companionship.  

I have also known many LGBTQ persons through the years and their experiences have taught me that discrimination based on orientation has no up side, and that it opens the door to debillitating psychological suffering. Over time, we have moved from stoning or burning LGBTQ persons to ridiculing, segregating and persecuting them to recognizing finally that their condition is not chosen and is no determiner of worth to the fabric of community. True, the gathering of LGBTQ persons into ghettos has presented a dark side, but the need to ghettoize is a direct result of persecution by society and must stop.

These are my convictions today.  

Some Definitions first 

How we talk about these matters should begin with ensuring that the we attach the same meaning to the words we're using. (Thanks to Wikipedia for helping me with these definitions.) I'll begin with the LGBTQ designation that I've used frequently in the following pages:

L - lesbian: a female homosexual: a female who experiences romantic love with or sexual attraction to other females.

G - gay: a male homosexual: a male person who experiences romantic love with or sexual attraction to other males.

B - Bisexual - a male or female person who may experience romantic love with or sexual attraction to either males or females.

T - Transgender - a person who is identified as male or female at birth but feels him/herself to be misplaced in that identity (eg. a person with male genitalia who identifies as female.)

Q - queer - a catch-all phrase originally meaning unusual, off centre and referring to a member of a minority of people who present and/or identify themselves as having sexual attributes unlike the majority.  

For this essay, I am using the following three descriptors a lot: 

Inclusive - following Dr. David Schroeder's use of the word in a talk noted below, it refers here to policies and practices that don't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Exclusive - policies and practices that deny participation, particularly to a specific group, i.e. persons who are openly LGB or T.

Inclusive with conditions - Attitude and practices of discriminating in some areas of participation while extending equality in others, e.g. allowing people who are LGB or T to participate equally as long as they remain celibate. (My reading is that many of our MC Canada/MC Sask members identify with this category at present.) 

We also use "coming out" in our dialogue to refer to the time in LGBTQ people's lives when they acknowledge their orientation to be their permanent condition, and share this acknowledgement with others. It's short for "coming out of the closet," meaning stepping out of hiding into the light.

 Marriage - "a legally recognized relationship, established by a civil or religious ceremony, between two people who intend to live together as sexual and domestic partners." (Encarta Dictionary) For our purposes here, church-officiated marriage is being considered; civil marriages no longer discriminate against same-sex unions in Canada. (A question could arise regarding the status in the Mennonite Church of same-sex marriages performed by an officer of the state as opposed to church marriages.) In effect, all marriages being performed in churches are civil marriages with a church blessing; the recognition for legal purposes of any marriage rests with the state.   

First, a confession

There's merit in the maxim that says one ought to take the plank from one's own eye before attempting to pick a sliver out of a brother's. When asked what Mennonites could do to help bring healing to First Nations, Harley Eagle suggested we begin with our own healing. This suggestion opened my eyes to a real possibility: when I think about and reach out to members of a minority who are hurting, do I automatically assume that as a majority member I am healthy, and that the objective of my help is to enable them to be like me? 

Our sexual woundedness—both in and outside the church—runs deep and broad, the symptoms break out in many ways. We have become extremely adept at hiding our own feelings of despair in the area of sexuality; the risks of doing so are very high especially since we learned at our mothers' knees that sin and nakedness belong together and that transgression in that general area can get you thrown out of Eden. Addressing questions of sexuality, therefore, has generally been cloaked in euphemism and still makes us more than a little uncomfortable, even fearful. 

Also relevant here are our inherited attraction/revulsion sensitivities about sexuality. During our "high hormone" years (teens and early adulthood particularly) the biological urge to copulate is in a near-constant struggle with taboos and inhibitions relating to possible social censure, personal humiliation, sin and/or possible pregnancy, abandonment, loss of favour with community and peers. Attractive as sexual intimacy is to us individually, as natural as the biological urge for it appears, the contemplation of other peoples' sexual needs can be particularly revolting. In my imagination, my parents never had s*x, neither did my brothers and sisters or my teachers. And most especially, s****l attraction between my two best friends on the softball team surely couldn't exist! Yuck!

I admit, therefore, to being homophobic. But I've come to recognize that its an extension of a broader category that could be called sexophobia, a very general, almost free-floating anxiety about my own sexuality along with its partner, knee-jerk suspicion about the sexuality of others.

The point is this: we are poorly equipped to be healers and helpers to a community or individuals searching for peace when the presenting hurdle is sexual. We are therefore also poorly equipped to stand in judgment over one another's sexual life beyond those criteria that we hold in common, which are not in dispute and which we can talk about without our pandora's box of sexual anxiety bursting out. Peace-giving, justice-practicing, mercy, honesty and faithfulness in relationships aren't negotiable. The life-giving principles they encourage would not be excluded from the sexual arena except that we've hived off that particular sphere as if it were separate from normal, Christian discourse.

By what authority?

I've been told over and over that the Bible resolves all issues relating to sexuality. For some, it apparently does; for me it doesn't. I read my Bible globally and see it as a library rather than as a book. I am also aware that where it addresses the church, it is the early church and is necessarily bound by the cultural and literary practices at the time of writing, the body of knowledge available then and the degree to which it can be assumed to have arrived intact and complete over two centuries. It obviously has the power to change lives—this has been shown over and over again—but my impression is that it does that best as a book of teaching/learning stories and maxims more than as a law book.        

An essay by Ron Sider (Canadian Mennonite, January 19, 2015) does a brief theological summary of the Bible as support for conditional inclusion. It's an argument I've heard before and assumes that trends apparent between the two Testaments can provide a reliable indication of legitimate shifts in theological thinking, like women's status in the church, circumcision becoming optional, etc. Sider's main point is that there is no such trend toward the legitimacy of same sex intimacy; in other words, the Bible is consistently opposed to same sex unions and in order to be faithful, same-sex attraction must remain no more than attraction.  

The argument sounds convincing, and it is certainly supportive of an exclusion or inclusion with conditions stance. It fails to recognize, however, the glaring "begging the question" logical error in its assumption that an apparent Biblical trend can be extrapolated confidently to the present, even putting aside the problem of citing a few selected passages as proving the existence of a describable trajectory with confidence.  

I personally find no contradiction in adding to the Biblical body of knowledge insights that have come to us since early apostles chronicled the life and teaching of Jesus, or to add to it stories of our own journeys of faith as teaching stories to be cherished, studied and passed on alongside the Biblical record. Genetics, Biology and the social sciences have discovered much about human sexuality that was not available to any of the Biblical writers; we would be remiss if this knowledge was excluded in our discussions relating to the subject.  

All this implies a more liberal reading of scripture than we're used to; some of us feel threatened by this and I understand that for them, this represents a challenge to the authority and the sanctity of scriptures. Their views must be respected because they effectively have no choice; we all represent somewhat different accumulations of experience, have been influenced by a variety of  theologies in this "global village," grew up in home environments that were unique, were influenced by different teachers, preachers, neighbours.  

For me, the above means that on the LGBTQ question there ought to be an openness to the possibility that what is Biblically described in one way may well have been so to the writers of the time, but that the flame ignited by Christ is surely as alive in our time as then, even though the landscape it illuminates looks vastly different. Shouldn't we be open to hearing calls for us to rethink what we previously took for granted, particularly now that we know sexual orientation is not a chosen attribute, is not a "problem that we never used to have" (as one person put it to me), can be suppressed but not "cured," and that—at least in my experience—numerous Christians who are openly gay or lesbian have shown themselves to be as dedicated and competent as anyone in that work we normally consider kingdom work . . . if given a chance and support? 

There is surely legitimate authority in the sincere searches of a Christian community. Throughout our struggles with these questions, we have focussed in excruciating detail on Article 19 of the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective; we have not given nearly as much attention as we should to Article 16.

What about unity? 

 At MC Sask Annual Delegate Sessions in Swift Current in 2002, we debated some issues relating to homosexuality and church membership. Dr. David Schroeder was our guest speaker and in the course of one of his talks, he said:  

One such alternative might be to declare that we are not yet ready to give a final answer to the problem of inclusion or exclusion of Christians who have made a same-sex covenant. We would declare this is something that we are working on, and that people need to search together for that which would be salvific[i] for all. The assumption implicit in this option is that we do not know and will not know what this salvific solution is for some time. It assumes that with time we will come to know the leading of the Spirit if we are committed to bind ourselves to that which is of the Spirit. We need time to work at a new theology based on the Scriptures and on our understanding of the nature of the gospel. 

Unity was very much on our minds—as it has been at virtually every ADS since—and Dr. Schroeder was prophetically warning us that legislating in one direction or another while we are pretty much split on a particular issue would be worse than doing nothing beyond searching for as long as necessary for the Spirit to help us find clarity.  

MC Canada has tried valiantly to initiate the necessary discussions and study to bring about some kind of unifying consensus through its "Being a Faithful Church" process. Numerous dedicated leaders have put massive amounts of work, study, prayer and meeting time into this attempt. Whereas some churches did considerable congregational work in support of this effort, others, unfortunately did not take up that challenge. My impression is that the anxiety I spoke of above made contemplating such discussions just too traumatic.   

In a few years following Dr. Schroeder's caution, several large congregations decided that they had no intention of waiting. After the defeat of one congregation's  resolution directing MC Sask to discipline churches declaring themselves open to inclusion of LGBTQ persons, that congregation withdrew. A year or two later, another large congregation followed suit. Since then, several others have apparently come to the point of deciding whether to stay or withdraw. Nutana Park Mennonite Church and Osler Mennonite Church seem also to have decided not to wait for Dr. Schroeder's third option either: a same-sex marriage recently performed clearly attests to that.   

As a potential for hard feelings, recriminations and accusations, we have been dealt "the perfect storm." The frustration has in no way abated, especially since "the third way" appears no closer today than it did in 2002. 

The temptation is, of course, to say that if all this "trouble" inevitably follows the choosing of one way or the other, is it not sheer folly to allow individual congregations to take a position or an action that carries so much disapproval? The fact in Mennonite conferences is, however, that there is no way to stop them, even if there were a will to do so. They effectively operate independently; MC Sask/MC Canada are, in fact, rather loose unions of congregations joined in order to do camping, educational, credentialing, training, outreach, etc. activities together. Our conferences are cooperatives, not corporations.

So we have this to consider in our discussions: is it possible for a horizontal alliance of churches to go on being light and salt in the world together even if some congregations are inclusive and others conditionally inclusive or exclusive? Present reality is apparently telling us it's not. I find the assumption that it can't be done bewildering, or what was Jesus hoping for when he prayed in Gethsemane for unity among his followers?  

Can those congregations and individuals who have concluded that they are being called to practice inclusion  reverse their thinking because of the threat of withdrawal by their brothers and sisters? It's a real dilemma for them.  

Could a congregation that clearly feels inclusion must be conditional, reverse its thinking if the majority of fellow congregations should opt for unconditional inclusion? It's a real dilemma for them as well. 

How we have proceeded in the discussions of LGBTQ status in the Mennonite Church is noteworthy. A description of what consensus ought to mean in church polity can be found in the commentary on Article 16 of the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective (p. 63). "Consensus is reached when the church has come to one mind on the matter, or when those who dissent have indicated that they do not wish to stand in the way of a group decision. Consensus does not necessarily mean complete unanimity." It appears to me that in my area church, at least, we are at a stage where majority and minority understandings have consistently emerged, but where the minority has not "indicated that they do not wish to stand in the way of a group decision." Actions have shown very clearly that the minority is adamant that it wishes indeed to "stand in the way of a group decision," an indication of how strongly convictions are held.

The Righteous Mind 

Jonathon Haidt writes in The Righteous Mind[ii] that when it comes to moral thinking, there are at least five major areas evident in the formation of a person's  "moral matrix," the eyes through which an individual sees and judges actions and events. 

He proposes a liberal/conservative spectrum that can be characterized by the following questions a person might ask him/herself when faced with a moral decision (I've paraphrased these for clarity): 

·         Does it coincide with that which I hold to be sacred or does it degrade what I consider holy?

·         Is it supported by that which I consider authoritative, or does it subvert legitimate authority?

·         Is it consistent with the value of loyalty to others, or does it betray their trust?

·         Is it fair and does it seem to be fair, or does it advantage one person over another unfairly?

·         Does it show care for everyone involved, or does it potentially harm others? 

Haidt's contention is that those exhibiting liberal tendencies typically rate the last two higher than the other questions, and that conservative responses to moral questions tend to rank the first two higher. This is, of course, not an exact, scientific assessment but it's consistent with my experience in Mennonite Church Saskatchewan. An example would be an exchange I witnessed between a conservative and a liberal on the question:

            C. "So you think yours is the only acceptable opinion (inclusion)."

            L. "I don't care what opinion anyone holds. But if their actions cause harm to a person, I   will object."

The most conservative members on this issue tend to appeal to the authority of scripture as their support and they have ample reason for this stance in the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective; more liberal members tend to talk about the harm that exclusion causes to gay and lesbian members and point out that there are scriptures as well to support their convictions. Based on their individual criteria for making moral judgments, both are entirely right . . . all of the time. The problem may be that when we go straight to decisions or to hard and fast stances without honestly dealing with the "why" of our differences and without acknowledging our own need for healing, we end up arguing heatedly, saying things to each other that we would never say when working together on, say, planning a year's Sunday School program.

We currently seem to be at a point where calcified opinions can't visualize the possibility of a satisfactory compromise.  

We all believe ourselves to have "righteous minds." Unfortunately, we easily extrapolate from that to the conclusion that those who disagree with us must have, well, unrighteous minds.  

Why can't we debate without arguing? 

We have a pretty long history by now of talking past each other on LGBTQ issues. My belief is that we don't debate well because we've never learned. "Die Stille im Lande" has roots; people who have historically been persecuted, hounded from country to country, martyred and/or have been forced to live in profound apprehension regarding the future may develop enduring defensive mechanisms, one of which includes holding one's tongue lest what is said might cause offense, might invite recrimination or generally, might land everyone in trouble.

Engrained cultural habits are passed down from generation to generation.  

To illustrate this, I offer the observation that the 1870 to 1900+ migrations to Canada (when Mennonite reserves in Manitoba and Saskatchewan were settled) consisted  primarily of people of the lower-middle class in the the Russian colonies, people who were economically marginalized, were hungry for land of their own, were not particularly well educated and as a result, lacked the self-esteem and self-confidence that the landowner and successful entrepreneur classes in the colonies had.  

Upon arrival, the first-generation immigrants quite naturally felt they had to be obsequious to a fault—for safety's sake; a new start in a new place among English-speaking neighbours and authority figures would have had to reinforce habits of deference.  

We don't all share that history, of course, but even with our current, somewhat mixed make-up, I think we all recognize the difficulty we have tackling difficult conversations with the confidence that we will get past them undamaged, maybe even stronger and more united. Our annual meetings are snooze fests compared to the energetic debating that characterizes similar events in some cultures. We sometimes hold off saying things in a meeting that should have been said . . . and then share these thoughts "in the parking lot," and we have a peculiar penchant for wanting secret ballot votes on even uncontroversial decisions! Conflictophobia piled on top of sexophobia.

I shudder to think that we might be forced to conclude the question of inclusion/conditional inclusion/exclusion given the current weaknesses in our debating/discussing/deciding skills. We need help, we need healing and I suggest that a "full-body" course in constructive dialogue and decision-making with professional resource persons in order to prepare for such conversations would not be a bad idea. There are good ways and less good ways to do these things; in local churches and in MC Sask/MC Canada generally, we've done a job so far that is . . . well, less than stellar.  

It's likely that we will end up disagreeing fundamentally and finally; what could follow a possible vote on what’s become a contentious quarrel would bring us no closer to unity.  

So What's the Question? 

Some of us have framed the relevant issue in this way: since we have agreed to adhere to the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective--which is clear on the parameters of Christian marriage--our direction has to be obvious. There really is nothing to discuss.

Article 19 of the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective includes a belief statement on the nature of marriage as follows: We believe that God intends marriage to be a covenant between one man and one woman for life. Christian marriage is a mutual relationship in Christ, a covenant made in the context of the church. Taken as written, this sentence states what we as Mennonites believe God's intentions to be regarding marriage. The Confession is, however, not a policy document binding Mennonites to a particular set of parameters regarding church polity, church marriage in this case, but it is clear that it assumed when written that in the Mennonite context (1995), same-gender marriages, polygamous[iii] or polyandrous marriages would fall outside of God's intent for us. The question for some at this time is, more or less, whether or not we would favour changing " . . . between one man and one woman . . ." to, possibly, " . . . between two persons . . . " as Canadian law and the law in 36 states now does. The change would mean, basically, that in 2016, we accept that God's intention for marriage might include the possibility of same-gender Christian marriage.  

The disturbing observation for many is that we have (in MC Sask and MC Canada) signed various covenants committing to an acceptance of the authority of the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective: we require employees to affirm their compliance with the content of the Confession and in various ways and in various documents like local church bylaws, statements of purpose, faith statements, the Confession is mentioned as being our common understanding of God's will for us in the world.  

This part of the confession obviously raises other questions as in the " . . . for life . . . " phrase. We've been through a time of uncertainty about the status of divorced persons and particularly those that wish to remarry. Neither divorce nor remarriage after divorce are seen as falling within the bounds of "God's intent" according to the Confession, but we have by now ceased to debate generally about that and both divorces and the marriage of previously divorced persons are recognized as legitimate . . . generally.  

The Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective was published in 1995 with a substantial introduction that every member should read carefully and in detail. It gives a history of the development of faith confessions in the life of Anabaptism reaching back to the beginnings of the Anabaptist reformation (pp. 7 & 8). It includes a paragraph on the reason for and the use of such Confessions: 

How do Mennonite confessions of faith serve the church? First, they provide guidelines for the interpretation of Scripture. At the same time, the confession itself is subject to the authority of the Bible. Second, confessions of faith provide guidance for belief and practice. In this connection, a written statement should support but not replace the lived witness of faith. Third, confessions build a foundation for unity within and among churches. Fourth, confessions offer an outline for instructing new church members and for sharing information with inquirers. Fifth, confessions give an updated interpretation of belief and practice in the midst of changing times. And sixth, confessions help in discussing Mennonite belief and practice with other Christians and people of other faiths.[iv]

The primary argument given for resisting a change in our understanding of marriage in MC Sask has been the commitment to existing covenants that bind us to the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective definition. Actually, though, it turns out not to be a definition in the normal sense. It's an update for the prevailing insight of its time. The fifth point above acknowledges that confessions are moving documents, that they are subject to "updated interpretations of belief and practice." The argument that a rethinking of the spiritual imperatives governing Christian marriage is not possible because it defies the covenant implied in the Confession is somewhat disingenuous and doesn't address the fluid nature of such a document. The second point makes clear that "confessions of faith provide guidance for belief and practice . . . [but] a written statement should support but not replace the lived witness of faith." In other words, confessions of faith develop and change following insights gained through the normal course of faithful communities living through changing times. If this were not true, the Schleitheim Confession of 1527 might still be our Confession.  

The difference in viewing confessions and earlier covenants as binding or not binding is explained by Haidt's spectrum: a conservative viewpoint that readily sees a deviation from what is considered authoritative—possibly even sacred—has little possibility of admitting a change like the one contemplated by some moderates. A more liberal viewpoint accepts that where earlier understandings may create harm or unfairness, the willingness to rethink has to be a part of a possible, maybe inevitable progression.  

Our debates, discussions on LGBTQ issues have been dominated by harm-or-care vs. authority-or-disobedience perspectives. Only time, seems to me, could possibly bring us to a common stance on the current question as time once brought us to the point where gender equality in church leadership ceased to be as divisive as it could still be if current insight had not been given place beside ancient inspiration.   

So, if MC Canada were to ask us as members to express our view on changing or keeping the relevant part of Article 19 of the Confession, would there be a chance for a strong, united statement from us? And if 60% of us were to vote in favour of the current wording and 40% were to favour a change (or v.v.), would that be a satisfactory, decisive outcome for us? And if we were to sense through the course of discussions that the issue had become so divisive that our future as Anabaptist fellowships would be in jeopardy, should we resign ourselves to that? 

The general disinterest in revisiting/revising the Confession might well reflect the possibility that we don't generally consider it to be inflexibly, literally authoritative. Or it may just be a consequences of the fact that the vast majority of us have never read it, or have focused only on the parts that support our "moral matrix?"

Whose problem is it anyway? 

I've come—through whatever experiences and influences have crossed my path—to be a harm/care guy in Haidt's paradigm. When someone declares that a certain act is a sin I tend to ask, "Who's the victim?" not "Where is it written?" People who have come to me with concerns about how this all will end have been pessimistic about our ability to weather this without breaking apart, without losing all the great things unity allowed us to do and be in the past: Youth Farm/camp/nursing home; Shekinah; RJC; MCC; SMYO; CMU; etc,; etc. They describe it as "our problem."

An illustration of our misuse of the word problem in this context: Mennonite Nursing Home board are currently working at gathering the means to establish a personal care home at the Mennonite Youth Farm. The problem for care givers and families is that they find no suitable home for elderly persons too frail to be on their own, not frail enough to qualify for nursing care. 

But wait. Is it really care givers and families, the MNH board and MC Sask that have a problem, or is it 85-year old Mrs. D who needs help that either isn't available or that she can't afford?  

I think we make a similar mistake on the LGBTQ front; as churches and conferences we speak of the inclusion/inclusion with conditions/exclusion question as if it were our problem when it is, in fact, a problem only to those of our number who are trying to make their place in a world and in a church that endlessly debates their status. To churches and conferences, it's not "our problem," it's our challenge. We need to change the way we think about this. 'Til today, we have shown ourselves to be unready or unwilling to face this . . . as a challenge.  

A member of another MC Sask congregation said that "we never used to have this problem." I heard in his sincere expression the longing for a time before the inclusion/inclusion with conditions/exclusion subject "came up" and became so stressful for so many people. We long for peaceful lives.

I've tried to visualize the possible outcomes of our attempt to arrive at a consensus on the status of LGBTQ Christians. In my church, what seems like a horde (possibly because of their limitless energy) of children  congregate during the service to hear a story. I've wondered from time to time what the individual children's futures hold, particularly the ones who grow up "different." Will they wear that difference like a soiled garment for life? Will their problem be taken up as our challenge?

To Whom do our Actions Need to Answer? 

Things never occur in a vacuum. Congregations that have withdrawn over the LGBTQ inclusion/inclusion with conditions/exclusion question as well as those that have run ahead of consensus seem to have come to the conclusion that their actions need answer only to themselves, their local community or fellowship. True, in MC Sask/MC Canada, individual congregations can do this; the proof has been in the pudding. Withdrawing or dissenting congregations have never been required to justify their choice before "a higher body." Our autonomy is a strength in many ways; not honouring others' local autonomy can expose a weakness.

What is also clearly true is that pastors and councils of local churches must answer to a membership that can terminate their tenure, so leadership is obviously answerable to whatever constituency it serves.   

We have also been warned that "running ahead" could jeopardize our relationships with Christians here and abroad who hold conservative views on sexuality. This implies that we are morally—if not legally—answerable to the recipients of our service efforts, to relationships with other Christians, other Mennonites.   

There are certainly accountability matters to be considered: if a local congregation withdraws from MC Sask, for example, has it then excused itself from obligations to programs it helped to initiate?  Should an alimony arrangement be required? Sounds absurd, but only because we're organized as we are. As already said, we have no way of directing local congregations and no way of making them conform to a given standard. We exist as conferences as outgrowths of brother\sisterhood, good will and a determination that we do more and we do better together than we do separately.

So when it comes down to cases, is a local church answerable to a Christian community abroad, for instance when it's dealing with a request by a lesbian member to help with the youth group? Is congregation A answerable to congregation B when it considers a request from two men to have their commitment to each other recognized in a marriage ceremony? Is every congregation answerable to LGBTQ members regarding the question of equality? What about to their parents who are struggling to understand and nurture as they ought?  

And if we are answerable . . . obligated to others . . . which obligations take precedence?  

And When the Time Comes . . .? 

If we were to dialogue seriously about changes to the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective or to the inclusion/inclusion with conditions/exclusions question generally, should we not at the very least begin with an honest determination to make that dialogue as fruitful and honest as possible? Let me propose a few questions that might point in that direction: 

1.      Have the events so far—the sometimes-heated conversations included—coloured my ability to be objective about this subject, to talk about it without anger getting in the way?

2.      Have I done as much reading and study as I need to do?

3.      Have I been open to talking frankly and listening carefully to the voices of those directly affected, namely the LGBTQ people in our neighbourhood? Have I sought opportunities for such dialogue?

4.      In our conversation, will I make it my first commitment to listen actively to all viewpoints and to assume that they are given with at least as much sincerity and integrity as any contribution I might make?

5.      Will I make a commitment not to withdraw from the fellowship, not to threaten to withdraw or encourage others to think that withdrawal belongs in this conversation? Will I continue to insist that "this is my home; you are my people?"

6.      If it should come to a vote after some time of discussion, will I feel enough has been done to prepare me?
 

7.      Will I continue to be supportive of missional endeavours in my local church and in MC Sask/MC Canada, endeavours that have long served to unite us, to give our worship a meaning beyond ourselves . . . no matter what we conclude regarding the inclusion/inclusion with conditions/exclusion discourse and/or proposals that might come to us regarding the Confession?  

Finally

Finally, evidence tells me that unity will not come through one side or the other "changing its mind," thereby making us unanimous. Some have suggested that "agreeing to disagree" is the only model out there that has any hope. They might be right. Unfortunately, this choice would herald a bleak future for some of our members, particularly those directly affected. It would continue to mean that some members will need to switch congregations in order to feel genuinely accepted. We go where we are loved; we leave when love is withheld.

There will be a future in our churches that will be different from the past and present. History shows that change has always been progressive and cumulative, that new plateaus have emerged after periods of turmoil, at their best plateaus that were compassionate, tolerant, more unifying than the previous status quo. Our experience with the trend toward women's equality in the church, toward the de-formalizing of worship, toward de-emphasizing dress, hair style, etc., as markers of devotion should surely teach us this.

A time may be coming when sexual orientation discussions will be held in memory as only one of many difficult times; conversations with teens and young adults today suggest that they consider current turmoil odd and unnecessary. They are growing up in an age that has been called "post modern," a dangerous time for them in many ways because it's so now and here oriented, lacking perspective on both the past and--more importantly--the future. Unless we model for them leadership that is unrelenting in its insistence on love, unity, justice and mercy, we won't be helping them set their tone for a future whose shape is known only to God.

Today, this is our greatest challenge.

 

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[i] Salvific: having the intent or power to save or redeem

[ii] Haidt, Jonathan. The Righteous Mind; Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion: New York, Pantheon Books, 2012

[iii] Polygamy - one husband, multiple wives; polyandry - one wife, multiple husbands.

[iv] Herald Press, Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective. p. 8