The Warren Wilson Presbyterian Church is somewhat different than most Presbyterian churches in that it serves a dual role as both a college chapel and a Presbyterian Church with its own congregation of parishioners. Certainly the two do overlap, but since attendance of services is entirely voluntary and the majority of students are not Presbyterian, the vast majority of the members of the congregation are not students at the college. That is not to say that the college and its students do not flavor the church, because the effect of the two on each other is certainly felt. The college has traditionally been one of the most, if not the most, progressive Presbyterian colleges in the country. Warren Wilson was the first white college in a former Confederate State, for instance, to admit black students. The college has a very strong stance against homophobia on campus. Although separate institutions, the student body does exert a great influence on the church. For instance, if the church were to present doctrines which were too out of step with the attitudes of the student body, for instance toward gay and lesbian issues, the student body would most certainly exert its considerable influence to change this.
I chose to look at the Warren Wilson Presbyterian Church for several reasons. From a logistical sense, the location and familiarity of the church made conducting the research much easier considering I have no vehicle. More importantly, however, the church is in an exciting phase of exploring and examining social issues in general and gay and lesbian issues specifically. The fertile ground of socially motivated individuals within the congregation has been carefully nourished and fertilised by Rob Martin, the minister and Roger Smith, the Director of Spiritual and Social Ministries, as well as many others. You will get to hear more from Rob and Roger later.
To get a sense of what the experience of attending the Church for a lesbian or gay person, I would like to start by taking a look at the experiences of one lesbian church member.
Nancy Matthews
Nancy Matthews has been attending the church for almost two years and has been a member for about one year. Like many of the congregation, Nancy has strong ties to the college itself. She is a graduate of the college and her partner, also a graduate, currently works in the college admissions office.
Nancy was raised Presbyterian, I wanted to know what that experience was like for her. She told me that, "it was a nightmare. My parents wanted me and my sister to go to church every Sunday and really then it was a Sunday morning fist fight. I went until I was seventeen and I finally put my foot down and said I wasn't going any more. I didn't enjoy it, I hated youth group. I called confirmation 'confiscation', cause you had to memorise all this stuff, and I didn't enjoy doing it. Every time I would bomb a test, like on memorising all the books, my parents would take away my bicycle, or my freedom, my Friday afternoons. I didn't enjoy it at all, and in the ninth grade, we moved to a new church, Covenant Presbyterian Church which was downtown, in Charlotte, and it's extremely intellectual, and I had much more of an experience there that finally led me to go on to a mission church."
Nancy had no insights as to the stance of her childhood church as far as gay and lesbian relationships were concerned. "It was much like the Army," in that they had a "don't ask, don't tell" attitude toward the issue. It simply was not something that people talked about. I suppose that this would be a better situation than my own childhood church, which did talk about the issue and made quite clear it is wrong.
After age seventeen, Nancy didn't go to church very much at all. Like most Warren Wilson Students, the thought of getting up early on a Sunday morning was probably an abomination, so she never really attended the church while in college, but did go, "on a mission trip to Mexico when I was twenty one, to the Yucatan and stayed in a Mayan village. I just wanted to go to Mexico. I went for all the wrong reasons. But in return, had some incredible revelations, that I worked into my thesis for my B.A."
After graduation, Nancy started to attend the church. When I asked what first attracted her, she replied that, "I knew that I wanted to be a minister, so I was thinking about it... much like you I could walk there, because I only live a quarter mile away. It's nice to walk to church, it's nice to be able to slink in the back door. I could be making furniture so I could be covered with sawdust so I would slink into the back door and leave after the service and be undisturbed and I enjoyed that. The second thing I enjoyed were the quotes that were on the top of the bulletin. I was always struck and moved by them. I was touched and moved by the service in the same way. More than anything people's friendliness and love, Rob's [Martin the minister] friendliness and openness."
Nancy told me that being lesbian has never really been an issue for her at the church, "just because they are very nice and they are very wonderful. I don't know who knows I am gay. I know that Rob [Martin], of course, knows and my close church friends, they know. They serve as a very supportive network for me, network of friends. And Rob is incredible, Rob has made it comfortable, without a doubt."
I got a feeling that to a certain extent, that the Warren Wilson church suffered a slight case of the same "don't ask, don't tell" thinking which she described in her earlier congregation. Rob, the minister, has made a point, however, to make the issue a focal point from the pulpit. Nancy tells me, however, that, "people get tired of hearing about it from the pulpit. It's exhausting. It's probably a lot like if you were alive at the time of the Civil Rights Movement, and you went to an all white church that actually cared about equality." She does think, though, that "the members of the church do care about the gay community. There are major announcements, like fifteen minute announcements that have to do with AIDS or Gay Pride, and the importance that the church should march during Gay Pride... mostly just to be a church which says this isn't bad."
Dealing with these issues has been a struggle for the church. Nancy feels like, "the church is wrestling through it, much like the rest of our culture. I know that the church is very private, they're not very boisterous, so I think that if they do have problems, they keep those problems to themselves. I haven't had anyone say anything to me. Then once again, I feel like I am in 'the Bubble' - the Warren Wilson Bubble, I haven't had any problems being gay since I have been here, no problems."
The mythical Warren Wilson Bubble, where everyone recycles, you can wear whatever you want, no one is going to harass you and things like homophobia and sexism are banished. Inside the Bubble you are safe. Inside the bubble you are comfortable. I asked Nancy, "Do you ever think that people feel,'we're in the bubble, so we don't have to worry about things like that?'"
"Yeah, totally... you're effected by your surroundings... it's largely how you gauge your life and your actions in your life. So, you really are not concerned by it... it's not in your face at all, here. I can't imagine fighting that battle so blindly too... it's sorta like preaching to the choir. But it also encourages us, that we can spread that message to others, and Carter Hayward said some really great... I thought it was great what she said about her brother... her brother and mother were at the Y and some guy was busting on Clinton because Clinton was supporting gay people and her brother was like, 'hey, that's not ok, my sister's gay, and .....' I think that is important, because a church is community, that our community does extend beyond our doors, it is brought into our families and our larger families. It's hopeful that our strength from the pulpit and our immediate community will spread out to the community at large."
Being "in the Bubble" made at least some aspects of coming out, the never ending process in which you can express to yourself and others your most authentic self, easy for Nancy. With her family, it was more difficult when her, "mom jerked me out of the closet, or rather my sister slammed the door open and said 'look!'." Both her parents are involved with the church and her father is an elder. She describes her father as being more spiritual and her mother is more intellectual. "My mother is supportive of me, which is very interesting. I told her I wanted to be a minster, and she was like, 'what are you going to do about being gay?' And I was like... 'I don't know ... I feel like it's no one's business.' In the first place, I am pissed off beyond belief that it is anyone's business, and then from there... I have no desire to wave flags and stir things up and get everything absolutely frenzied. That makes her very happy, because I think she has a view that gay people are just very loud and obnoxious and spend their whole life beating straight people up side their head, 'I'm gay, I'm gay, I'm gay'."
Nancy seems somewhat willing to conform to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in that she will be open about who she is if asked, but won't make an issue of it if you don't want to talk about it. She has chosen to stay within the Christian tradition because, "it is what I was handed... If I was born Buddhist, then I would do what I could do within the Buddhist faith, but because I was handed Christianity, Christianity is the tool that I will work with. I feel that I am a very spiritual person, and extremely inspired by God... and to spend my life in such fashion. And the strength that is found there, it's a lot like Jesus wandering around a lonely place to get his batteries charged, to get his shit together so he could go out and get pummelled again. So I guess I look at my relationship with Christianity and the Church and being gay... not only is it a political battle or this mass of patriarchal crud that you have to fight through, but the truth of it is that it is a spiritual journey. And the reservoir of strength is no greater than there... so bring it on."
I asked her if she has ever had any internal conflicts with the Christian religion, "with it being traditionally anti-gay, the passages of the bible that condemn it, and what not... has that been a big conflict for you?"
"That is why I want to go to seminary to study and to try to find interpretations for myself and ways to interpret the bible as a piece of social justice. So, for all the crap and crud that is in there that slams on gay people... the ignorance is amazing to me, and the notion of love is so important, and it is so crucial to it all and for me, being gay is really... it puts love tangibly in my hand. You know, Shakespeare didn't write about it because it was easy, he wrote about it because it was hard to understand. So all that crap in there, it is just crap. The bible is crap."
Like many who stay within the Christian tradition who are lesbian or gay, she does not have a literal view of scripture. To her, what is more important is "the path." She sees Christianity as just one of God's many paths. Her goal is, "to know what the Christian path is, and in its purest form and to live that. Every day that I wake up, I know that I'm gay and I know that the love that I feel for women is stronger than I can control. It moves with me through such force that it is not something that I can hide. I'm concerned that Christianity is too dualistic to have a path, and that is extremely unnerving. I love parts of Islam because of the erotic relationship with God. We have pushed sexuality and sensual things so far away from us that it is going to be a very long journey to get back there. Walt Whitman rocked. He rocked harder not because he was gay or he was straight, he slept with men, he slept with women or because he was a nut, but because he loved. And he could love in the most pure of ways. If it's Mohammed, if it's Buddha if it's Krishna if it's Vishnu or Jesus, whatever, it is to get back to that original love and the power of that love. The day that we do that is the day that people won't get so freaky about gay stuff. I have to find out myself to work through it on my own and establish an erotic relationship with God because I think very much so that it is part of the journey because its such a foreign notion. I can't imagine what I'm in for. I know what I want to do. I know that I want to preach and I know that I want to spend my life in service. And I would like to think that I could have a church, a husband, kids and all the shit, but I don't think it is going to go down that way, at all."
Nancy wants to become a Presbyterian minster, but the Presbyterian Church is currently saying that would not be allowed.
Nancy replied, "Yeah, they are. I think that its tied up in semantics. Its such a joke. One of Carter Hayward's friends is a UCC minister, United Church of Christ because she's gay, she was an Episcopalian. She couldn't handle it, so she backed out and she went that route. And she said, 'you know what, it's still hard to find a church.' And I just think, it totally flew all over me, they're willing to back out and to run over to another place, you still want to be a minister, you still want to serve, you still want to establish a community and do all these things and, oh but its hard to find a church. I always hope that people will see me for more than just being gay. And I met this other minister who is gay and she is celibate. That to me is really weird too because then you are getting backed into a whole other corner. It's just weird to think of that, but at the same time, the only reason I'd be celibate, which is appealing also, it because like, fuck it. Not in a bad way or in a good way, but to abandon the erotic relationship with God, to abandon a sensual existence, abandon that fever or that passion. I don't think that's right to do. I think that's dumping Whitman, that's dumping Shakespeare... it is a dumping this absolutely incredible existence. And the other irony on top of all of that is being a woman. I don't think in the Bible it says anything about lesbians, just about gay men.
So that makes it really crazy too... like I have escaped some bizarre loophole in the Big Black Book. But that's not true either, just another reason to stay awake till three o'clock in the morning thinking about weird shit. [laughs]
If she got through seminary and they told her, "no, we're not going to ordain you," she says that, "I think that I would tell them that I would live a life of celibacy and .... I met this priest once, and he is really cool. He teaches in D.C. in some big school. I can't remember his name now, he's a really fascinating man. And his favorite trick, and he does it all the time, is he is married, he has a wife... drives the Catholic Church nuts. He teaches, he is a professor. They are always trying to kick him out, but he creates such an uproar and such a massive stink, and he's a professor. They try to keep him, but at the same time try toss him out. He has become very well known for turning the Catholic Church on its ear in D.C. in a really great way. So I think it is really important to stay for the fight. I have never been afraid to lie."
It is Nancy's hope to find a congregation that would be accepting of her, "I don't want to be somewhere that wouldn't be accepting of me, unless I was there to help them work through it." She feels that she will be able to find such a congregation because she feels Presbyterians are intellectual. "They're addressable on a cerebral plane. Don't strike them in the heart, you get them too freaky. You can get a Baptist worked up into a frenzy real quick. A Presbyterian is harder to frenzy." But of course, being from Scottish decent... what would you expect? She expects it to be an uphill battle and adds that, "being a woman is an added feature to it all, it's a classic nightmare. I had to speak to the board of visitors, and when I got done, this woman who is on the board of church visitors, she came up to me and shook my hand . She said, 'I just want want you to know, more power to you, but you are going to be in for a rougher time as a woman going into ministry.' ... It's already a tough road every single day of my life."
So it is clear that, although the WWCPC is a much more accepting place of gay and lesbian people, it perhaps has a way to go still before it is a totally welcoming place. I wanted to talk with the man that had been instrumental in bringing about the changes that have happened, the church's dynamic new minister.
Rob Martin and Roger Smith
It was a busy day, for all of us, when I met with Rob Martin in his office in the College Chapel. He was between meetings, which turned out well for me because I managed to grab Roger and get him to add his thoughts to the conversation as well. Rob arrived at Warren Wilson about three years ago to fill the position of Pastor of the Church and Chaplain of the college.
I started by asking Rob about where he thought this congregation was at right now as far as accepting people of different orientations.
Rob
started by saying that, "the fascinating has been to discover
that this is a congregation that has always been open and welcoming
of anyone who came. The problem is, it has not been a congregation
that has been willing to publicly and verbally make a statement about
it being a welcoming congregation. I think for some folk who have
been here for a very long time, who have been here since the doors
opened, this is a whole new reality for them."
Roger interjected, "like a don't ask, don't tell."
"Folk who have become part of this community in the last four to five years know from staff and know from me about where we are as a congregation in regards to the issue. So the folk who are here now new are very vocal and open about their position. So I think we are in transition as a congregation and moving rapidly toward, in fact I am hoping my this spring, being able to formulate a clear statement of welcome and hospitality and inclusion as a church. Now, the flip side to that is denominationally, we suck when it comes to the whole issue of welcome and inclusion within the gay and lesbian community. For folk who are gay and lesbian, they have to find a community, like this one, that's willing to make it clear that we're welcoming and open and that every office position is open to you. Which is against where the denomination is at the present time."
We discussed for a bit some issues of congregational polity and what congregations could do as far as hiring gay and lesbian people. Roger asked, "but a congregation can do that" to which Rob replied, "sure, sure." Roger wanted to know about ordination. Rob explained that, "ordination of elders and deacons occurs within the congregation, but you are ordained into the Church. You're not ordained as an elder at Warren Wilson Presbyterian Church, you're ordained as an elder within the Presbyterian Church, USA." I asked if an individual church could choose to ordain an openly gay or lesbian minister. Rob related that, "ordination for minister of the word and sacrament is a Presbytery issue, and that becomes much more of a sticky wicket." Roger explains that it is another, "don't ask, don't tell issue" but the official policy is that you won't be ordained. This all seemed clear as mud, and it seems indicative of the fact that this issue is one that the Presbyterian denomination is thrashing out at this time. Rob thinks that "what is going to ultimately happen is we are going to end up splitting." Roger asks, "over this issue?" To which Rob responds, "you see, the problem is it's not over this issue. The issue that is core to all of this stuff, whether it is ordination of folks who are gay or lesbian or women reimaging God, the issue is authority of scripture and interpretation of scripture. That is what we are going to split over."
Rob made reference to a round table discussion which I had moderated and he was one of the panellists in which the panel of Christian ministers spent most of their time argueing the fine points of this issue. This division is an important to gay and lesbian issues with Christian denominations. Those who take a literalist view of scripture seem unmoving in their condemnation of homosexuality as a sin. Those who take a more interpretative view of scripture are willing to overlook certain passages in favor of the overall message of the Christian faith. Rob said at the round table that he believes it is important to note that the only command that Jesus issued was to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. This forms the basis of his faith and everything else is open to debate and interpretation. He sees the Christian faith as one that is based on social ministry and this is the message he delivers from the pulpit and in his classes. This includes welcoming all people, including gay and lesbian folk, and providing assistance to those in need. Sometimes his stance is at odds with a congregation, such as the church he served before coming to Warren Wilson where his views on racial justice and service to urban poor were at odds with some of the congregants who held racist views.
When I asked if the church has many gay and lesbian members, Rob said yes, and Roger interjected that, "have always had." I was curious to know if people felt more comfortable being open in the congregation now, for example, gay couples being listed together in the church directory. Oddly enough, women living together have always been listed together in the directory because, "they've lived with each other for the last forty years who are now eighty five years old now." The gay couples may not have been explicitly defined that way, and you may not have, in the past, done things such as celebrate an anniversary. Every would have known, to be sure, but in good Southern manner, you wouldn't talk about it. It seems that church members, even today, wish to have a certain amount of privacy about their lives. Rob explained that, "It is interesting, a lot of folk in the congregation who are gay and lesbian, when we were looking at this whole issue of inclusion and welcome, didn't want their sexuality to be the focal point of our statement."
I wondered if gay and lesbian people chose a church like WWCPC specifically because it wasn't a "gay church". Roger and Rob explained that there are several reasons that some one may have chosen this church, such as already being a member of the college community and theological differences with places like M.C.C. (Metropolitan Community Church, a mostly gay denomination), who may be more theologically conservative than this church. Rob also noted that, "there are a lot of people that grew up Presbyterian, grew up Methodist, grew up in the reform tradition, who have been deeply hurt and rejected by the churches they grew up in because of their sexual orientation. Here, for a lot of folk, is a reconnect into a tradition they loved but did not feel comfortable or welcome in. We're pretty mainstream. Our liturgy is pretty formal," Roger added, "formal, but not traditional." "Right, but for people that grew up in the tradition, it's not off-putting, for older [congregants] too. I don't think they realise we're using inclusive language or that we call God "God". We're don't call God, she, I don't believe in that either."
The Church definitely felt like a traditional church. Some one had started practising on the organ in the background and I wondered if I would be able to hear Rob and Roger on the tape later. I wondered how far this church was willing to go in their inclusively. The Unitarian Universalist guide for becoming a "Welcoming Congregation" notes that there is a difference between being a tolerant congregation, which may not throw you out, but don't talk about it, an accepting congregation, which may make statements about welcoming gay and lesbian people and an affirming congregation. An affirming congregation would not just welcome gay and lesbian people, but also particularly appreciate and value having them there. When moving from a level of tolerance to one of acceptance and affirmation, many churches reach a phase in which their toleration is pushed to the limit. Perhaps more and more gay and lesbian people start attending and people begin to worry that "we are going to be known as a 'gay church' now."
I asked if members of the congregation perhaps were reaching this stage. Roger said that, "Presbyterians are terribly nice to one another, so to bring up and deal with issues which are controversial is difficult, I think. It is difficult for people in this congregation to speak to and deal and be a part of controversial issues." Roger thought for a bit, and felt that his last statement wasn't exactly right. Rob added that, "they are very good at doing that in a general way, but when it becomes personal, specific, they have difficulty." In the South, traditionally one would have referred to those two women who lived together for the last forty years as "two old maids living together." Roger says that now, they would definitely be treated as a couple, but "no one would ask them, 'are you a lesbian couple?' They would not be comfortable if that was discussed, even the lesbian couple would not be." Rob notes that it is interesting that the folk that participate in things such as the gay pride marches from this church are heterosexual and are also the ones to start discussions about gay and lesbian political issues. Gay and lesbian people coming to this church may have been activists in the greater community, but "here they wanted to remain anonymous and that worship was.." "...very private, very separated from..." "...it helps, very separated from the gospel. Careful, don't quote that part," Rob said as Roger laughed. "It was a lecture and a concert. I think what is troubling is that, some folk, a small small group of folk, mostly folk who come out of professional ministry, meaning retired ministers, retired missionaries, people like that, that the who issue of social justice and social gospel is a tough thing for them to swallow. I don't know what else the gospel is if it is not that. They have a hard time with that issue. When you begin to talk about communal reality, their focus is on directed, self focused reality."
This group of mostly retired people who are uncomfortable talking about social things is in contrast to newer members of the church who have been attracted by Rob's message of social justice and social ministry. Rob says that you can see a real separation in the congregation between these two groups, and that there is some tension there. I asked if the difference between the groups was that the newer group came in energised to save the world, whereas the older group felt they had already spent much of their life trying to do that. "Been there, done that, lets fry some chicken now," Rob would say. Roger felt, however, it just wasn't "just saving the world. It is being willing to invest time and energy here among church members and to be active, to be doing things, tending to projects, being involved in activities that are part of the church work." They have trouble with some of the other things which Rob has started. For instance, rather than giving cheques to local charities, Rob has started a program whereby they take that money and members of the church and students from the college would take that money and do something with it, hands on projects. "It is a whole new reality for them. It's called passive benevolence giving. And it is reflective of their worship style," Rob explained. I responded, "and all that has changed since you have gotten here?" "Yeah, that is where the tension is. It's moving along, it's not a bad thing. I will say, about the sexuality issue, if we were ordaining an elder, lets say, who is gay and someone raised the issue, called the Presbytery in, or something like that, this congregation would fight to the death. Which I think is interesting too. They are more reactive than proactive. I wish they are more proactive, but in a reactive sense, man, they would have a fit. Which is good, but before they have the fit, they should have been more proactive and affirming. And the new folk are. The newer members are proactive and the older members are more reactive.
Roger Smith
One of the most proactive changes in the WWCPC since Rob has gotten here is his bringing in Roger Smith in to serve the congregation. Roger is the Director of Spiritual and Social Ministries for the Warren Wilson Presbyterian Church, a position he has held since the beginning of the semester, 22 Aug. Roger had been affiliated with the College before, serving as a College counsellor and teaching some classes. Roger went away for a year to study at the seminary where Carter Hayward teaches. I had a chance to meet with Roger on a Sunday afternoon after a church service and one of Carter's presentations, on a park bench near Gladfelter Cafeteria. The day was rather warm and we sat in the shade.
The first thing I wanted to know about is his personal background, what life events might have brought him to where he is now.
Roger replied, "I got involved with this particular church because of Rob's [Rev Rob Martin] advocacy stance about homosexuality - one that goes against the denomination. He has been very vocal with both in liturgy and from the pulpit. The church tries to include everyone, especially sexual minorities, so that is why." Misunderstanding or mishearing the word "denomination" - instead thinking he had said "congregation", I asked how Rob's stance was in opposition to the congregation. "The PCUSA (Presbyterian Church, USA) takes the stand that one has to be celibate or switch to heterosexuality in order to be ordained. In other words, 'unrepentant self proclaiming homosexuals' cannot be ordained," Roger said. He went on to say that, "My own interests... some time ago I realized my life is a spiritual journey. I have been a member of a church for a long time. It has been a love-hate relationship because of my own sexuality. In my own southern small town conservative church, homosexuality was especially thought of as an abomination. In the midst of that, part of my being here is doing something about the hatred and oppression that sexual minority folks face. For the past 10 years or so, I have struggled with "what is the spiritual life" for me, and can it be done inside an organization. In this religious setting, can I make a difference in standing against the insanity of oppression by being a member of a church? I hope so. I try to maintain spirituality within the context of a church and work for justice and inclusion of all people - particularly gay folks."
A question that I wanted to ask everyone that remained in a main line denominations was, "why did you decide to become a member of a denomination that is perhaps not fully supporting of gay and lesbian people instead of perhaps becoming a member of a denomination like MCC, which ministers specifically to gay and lesbian folks." Roger explained that it was, "primarily theology. The M.C.C. church is theologically very conservative. I guess I have accepted the fact that to make changes in social justice, you have to put yourself in situations where you can be among the that have those beliefs." Roger paused for a while and then continued. "And I am committed to diversity. The Presbyterian Church believes in freedom of conscience. By virtue of that principle it will mean disagreement and social struggle. This Presbyterian Doctrine, at least on paper, provides a forum for disagreement and diversity."
One of the major projects that Roger is working on now is a program for the church to become more inclusive. He explained that, "it is a social action, social issues adult study class. The name is 'Embracing and Inclusive Justice Ministry: Extending our Circle of Caring.' We are examining prejudice and hatred from a Biblical and historical perspective, for many different groups, not just homosexuals. But the sexuality issue is going to be interwoven even as we discuss things such as racism or ageism. I am going to try to look at it when we look at different periods of history. The focus may be on immigration during the 20's and 30's, but we also want to look at what is going on with sexuality and racial issues. All these oppressions are interwoven. While highlighting a particular group - trying to make connections."
I could tell by some yawns that it had been a busy day for Roger and that maybe we should end it here for now. We went back to the chapel to get some materials he had written up for the program. On the way, I discussed with him the ideas from a Unitarian Universalist program that a church may be tolerant or even accepting, but not really what you would call "affirming". For instance, proclaim to be gay friendly, but members starting to feel uncomfortable when the visible presence of gay and lesbian people starts to grow beyond a few "tokens" and they become afraid that they will become known as the "gay church". He thought that those issues really hadn't been "shaken out" yet, but believed that put to this sort of test, the church would be affirming rather than just tolerant.
The day I met with Roger, the church had one of the meetings of Roger's class in what is called, "the fishbowl" in our college cafeteria. I felt slightly self conscious slipping in there in my "just woke up on a Sunday morning, threw something on to get to the cafeteria before it closes" clothes. Carter has been very involved with the project that Roger is doing, gives lectures and talks on campus, is a guest lecturer in many of the college's religion classes, and this day was leading a discussion on gay and lesbian issues for members of he congregation, and any students who saw them in the fishbowl and wandered in. The discussion was definitely cerebral. The Presbyterians definitely wanted to discuss this issue on an intellectual level. Carter was definitely a good person to be presenting these issues. She spoke the language of the theologian. She could express these things in a way that would make the people of the congregation feel comfortable.
Carter Hayward and Angela Maloney
I got the chance to talk with Carter one day when she was on campus for a day or so, and was the featured speaker in several classes that day. I managed to grab her between her classes and mine. She was with a friend who lives in Australia who is a Catholic nun and helped to start a feminist center there, so I was blessed by being able to talk with Sister Angela as well.
I
started with a long question and a description of what I was trying
to do with my research, asking, "as gay and lesbian people,
where do you go to get your spirituality. Where to do you go refill
that part of yourself? For a lot of people that I know, who they are
conflicts so strongly with what they have been taught by the
traditional faith of their childhood that they leave it altogether. I
have been looking at different groups that have been trying to
reconstruct something because they feel an emptiness in their lives.
I guess from your aspect, you are staying in the faith of your
childhood and that is the focus I wanted to talk about today. I first
wanted to ask, did you ever have... I know in my life I had a point
where I said, 'to hell with all this stuff.' Did you ever have a
point where you just said, 'to hell with all this stuff?'"
Carter responded, "yeah, I would say that most of my college years kind of embodied 'to hell with all of this'. Certainly institutionalised religion. I wasn't paying much attention to the Church, I wasn't going to church. I still don't go to church very often, quite frankly, so we can talk about that later if you want to. By the time I was eighteen, nineteen, twenty I was becoming very aware of how utterly hypocritical, it seemed to me, the Church as I knew it tended usually to be when it came to matters of love and justice. Seeing as how at the white protestant churches of the South, there was almost no interest being shown in civil rights, for example. By the very people that talked the most about love. So I was bored with that. I was angry with that. But I was interested, I was becoming interested in religion as an intellectual resource, really, and a political resource. I have said several times in settings where we have been together, Mark, I find the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his work really really helpful to me in college as an example of a Christian whose life really did matter and his faith and actions did go together as I understood that. And certianly into the 1960's Bonhoeffer was probably the most prominent Christian martyr figure for my generation of younger people in the U.S. who were struggling with issues of faith and politics. Martin Luther King certainly would become another one, but he was still alive and therefore was very much a part of our struggles and it's terribly true that we usually appreciate people after they're gone much more fully than when they are with us. That was true of Bonhoeffer, it is also true of Martin Luther King. Such Christian figures as that are, to this day, people that I would look at and say, 'it's there, it's those particular threads in the history of Christianity that give me some sustenance.' As someone that does believe that the heart of God, or the sacred has to do with making the world a more hospitable place for all people and all creatures. But, yeah, I became very disaffiliated after High School when I went to college and became to come face to face with how absolutely passive and non-responsive most of the churches that I knew best had been throughout most of the civil rights movement."
I was curious to see if Carter had ever had any notions of joining a different faith, as so many gay and lesbian people do when they don't feel particularly welcome in their own faith: "You mentioned a little bit about what might have brought you back, did you ever have a time when you might have explored other faiths?"
Carter responded: "I was interested intellectually with other religions. One of the most interesting courses I took in college while I was a junior was world religions. Like a smorgasbord course, kind of dipped into the religions of the world, and I found it totally fascinating. But it was very much at an intellectual level and not so much at a spiritual level, not really being personally moved, although those are not totally separate of course. I was certainly informed and excited by what I was learning about different streams of Buddhist thought and Judaism and Hinduism and Sikhism and Islam... all of these really being patriarchal religious traditions. That's what was considered at the time, at the college community where I was, as the world's great religions, all these patriarchal religions. But I wasn't, other than time to time, other than going to Synagogue with a Jewish friend... [pause] I suppose when I was in college, UU [Unitarian Universalist] would have been an "other" and somewhat esoteric religion. And also the Society of Friends. So there were times when I would think, 'maybe I'm a Unitarian,' or 'maybe I'm a Quaker.' I knew, at some level, that I was in some ways more Jewish, theologically, than I was Christian, in terms of my understandings of Jesus and God's activities in history, and so forth. Before Jesus, as well as after. Not having Jesus not having been the center of it, but a step along the way. But I never thought actively about joining another religious tradition and I think in the 60's, most of what people in my generation were being exposed to, in terms of Eastern religious traditions were coming in the form of what we would somewhat dubiously referred to as cults. The Hare Krishnas and the Children of God. I would have associated Buddhist, for example, with guys with shaved heads and saffron sheets wrapped around them with tambourines in the town square. It was a little off-putting to me. I thought this was really escapist and strange. So I was not tempted to get closer to it."
I told Carter a little more about some of the research I had been doing, telling her that, one of the groups I have been looking at is the Radical Faeries who would say, "we're going to chuck all of this and start over from scratch." What do you think of that approach. I ponder if Christianity is too far gone. I remember this old Lakota bull dyke, that is the only way I know how to describe her. Years ago, I attended pagan gatherings that were held twice yearly at a secluded site in Virginia as part of the Unitarian pagan group I belonged. It was sort of a "gathering of the tribes." We got to meet and worship with groups from all over Virginia which came together in one giant circle. One group from Newport News was known as "the Bridge" and was an eclectic mix of pagans and Indians. They were particularly blessed to have many wise old crones in the group, as well as some younger people. This woman was part of the group. She was a bit scary to some people. Here is this big woman in several deer's worth of leather and a big old hatchet at her side. The first time she spoke to me was when I was rambling on to some one about "all this Native American Spirituality crap" to a friend who turned suddenly white faced when he saw her standing behind me. She asked me what I meant by that, and I remember just turning around and telling her how I thought that White folk wanting to embrace Indian religions thinking it was all "lets all romp in the woods and become one with Nature and make dream catchers" was a load of bull. It never took into account such sentiments as "this is a good day to die." She just looked at me for a moment, nodded her head and replied, "I can live with that." She had decided to take me under her wing at that point. Around a campfire one night, a few years later I asked about some one that was in her group. The group of crones sort of looked at each other and said, "we don't talk about him anymore." He had done something, I think it may have involved molesting children or something like that. She looked at me, in the dim glow of the firelight, her face took on that expression that Elders get when they are about to tell you Something Really Important. "There are some people that are broken, and just can't be fixed."
Sister Angela and I must have been on the same wavelength, because she and I both said at the same time, "do you think there are some religions..."
Carter thought for a moment and said, "It is interesting that you ask this question because I was just last week down in Orlando at the American Academy of religion with Mary Daly, do you know her work? The philosopher..."
I have read Daly before, and nodded to Carter.
Carter continued: "That's certainly her opinion of Christianity, and it has been for thirty years. To hell with Christianity. It's just broken and can't be fixed. My disagreement with her, to this day, has to do with our different perceptions about how deeply broken it really is. I think the woman is brilliant. I think she is extraordinarily right in her perceptions about so much of the Church. I don't think she is right about, Angela you might understand this even better because you are Roman Catholic, I think that Catholic woman have a particularly stark experience of how difficult it is to experience ourselves as change agents of the institution."
Sister
Angela nodded in agreement with Carter, as she continued. "Which
pays no mind at all to... I mean it is blasphemous to me that Roman
Catholicism won't recognise as theologians at all people like
Rosemary Radford Luther (?) or Mary Daly, of course. I think that,
yes, the Church is in a bad, bad way. But I think that we are,
myself, others of us, countless others, in the process of
reformation. I don't think that fundamentalist Christians or the
passive liberal Christians have, by any means, a monopoly on what
Christianity is. I am not sure that in our lifetimes that we will see
it all that different in many ways. The institution will croak on the
way it is. Right wing Christianity may continue to grow and thrive,
particularly the mega-churches , the multi-media, big sort of showy
churches, while the smaller pockets of justice makers work in a more
ecumenical way, usually. I think that is what happens, real
ecumenical, not only among Christians, but people in general who have
any kind of spiritual root. The real excitement, to me, is happening
around the edges, and the boundaries between the various religious
traditions. So that, Mark, you and I, may have lot more in common and
could well do a lot more together in life and in the world than
either of us could with a lot of the people that certainly in the
past we would have been associated with as our religious people.
Maybe even in the present. There's certainly feminist women with whom
I would agree on a lot of things about religion that I would part
company with when it comes to women who definitely don't care about
queer stuff, or not too much. Or white people who don't care about
racism very much. I mean these are people I may like, and be able to
relate to in the world, but they're not people whose own passion
generates mine the way some people do. I think the real living
Christianity, the short answer to the question you asked me, is no, I
don't think it is hopeless. I don't think it is too cluttered to be
fixed, but I don't have any great hope that the institutions will
reflect what I am saying. At least not in my lifetime. But I do think
the movement from the edges is already reflective, because I think I
reflect the movement. It's not that I am doing this, it's that I am
part of something that is happening. For example the Sophia Centre...
"
Carter's last point is well taken, as far as her being a reflection of the institution. Were she could say all the same things she is saying now in a total vacuum of support from anyone within her religious community, she simply would be forced out completely. I think of the pastor that was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s immediate predecessor at the church he served. I forget his name, and history indeed has also all but forgotten him for, although he said much the same things that King did, the parishioners and indeed the world was not ready to hear him. Similarly, Thurgood Marshall was greeted with almost hostility when he began his work. Carter may be at the cutting edge of Christian thinking, but she at least has managed to put a wedge in the door of intolerance by finding at least some of her fellow church members to listen.
When Carter mentioned the Sophia center, a project that Sister Angela is nurturing, I turned to her for her opinion of the fixability of Christianity. Sister Angela responded, in her beautiful melodic voice that, "sometimes it seems like that, that it is broken beyond repair. Other times it seems that life is happening, like in our Center Sophia. We have women from all traditions, not only Christian traditions, that come there to nurture their spirituality. If that's happening in pockets, which I believe it is, all over the world, really. On my hopeful days, I think that's going to keep growing and the institution is going to become so barren that it will kill itself off."
I told Carter and Sister Angela about my childhood experiences of the Catholic Church. I didn't understand anything that was going on, it was the closest thing I could think of as no religion at all. From these experiences, I formed an idea in my head of the Catholic Church as being like that, a barren place. So it is very odd that now one of my greatest heroes is Roman Catholic priest who has made it his life's mission to work for justice in Latin America, mainly by forming an organisation which is working to shut down a US Army training center which is known in Latin America as the "School of Assassins". He, and other Christians, have helped to reform my view of what Christians can be like. I told them about the recent School of Americas protest and vigil that I, and eighty other people from my college, attended. "There are few times, with this logical cold heart of mine, that I can say I have truly felt a spiritual experience and that was one of them. The most intense one for me ever was the 1993 March on Washington. There was about 4,000 Unitarian Universalists there, the largest gathering of UUs that I have ever seen. It was quite a feeling, knowing this is my church and they are standing here with me. I felt so incredibly proud at that moment. I think that is one of the things I couldn't handle in a church in which I had to make lots of compromises: knowing that they aren't going to be standing behind me. Do you ever feel like you would like to have that?"
I could tell I struck a cord with Carter, she responded immediately that, "as you're talking I am aware that I feel some grief that I have never experienced that, in terms of the denomination I certainly experience my people, as opposed to my church. My people are the ecumenical movement: primarily women but also queer men and radical men. Closest most people in my church, that is the Episcopal Church, come is up to the edges of the kind of life that we around this table share, these kinds of passions we are talking about and kind of say, 'oh, it's so wonderful you are doing what you are doing, this is great that you are doing this.' But they can't come out there too. Most Episcopal priests, for example, that are lesbian and gay don't come out, can't come out. I don't blame them individually, their livelihoods usually prevent them from doing that. They, for various reasons, can't or won't move that, decide to live in a different kind of way. I really don't mean that in a judging way, I am just trying to be descriptive of how live is for most people. By the time people assume any kind of significant leadership in the churches, they have so compromised themselves... which is why they assume the leadership. Also true of Roman Catholicism, it is a Protestant, Catholic, human reality. To get that kind of authority in an institution you have to have given away some of your soul, I think, even if you don't realise what you have done. So, I have some really lovely friends, personally, who are Bishops, for example now, in a way that I didn't say ten years ago. We could talk about the world we'd enjoy, but I know for a fact that when push comes to shove, out in the world, they aren't going to be where I am. It's not because I am such a great person, nor because they are not because things can be said pro and con about all of us individually, but because their choices and mine about accountability and what is right and what isn't are very different. So that I don't think for a minute that they will be there. The thought of having that kind of group of Episcopalians marching in 1993 is completely unthinkable. I mean that just wouldn't happen. Although undoubtedly there were, in the March on Washington in 1993, thousands of Episcopalians, who were scattered all over the place and most of us were not there as Episcopalians, we were there as gay, lesbian, bi, transgender, whatever people. Many of us may have been there with our schools, in fact that how I was there. I was there with my mother and with the two women, at the time, that were important significant others in my life. And my mother, and sister and brother, who are straight, so it was quite a little gathering of my family. And then EDS, my divinity school, was there, a number of us. And that was good and I also think the march was great, particularly because my mother was there."
I then turned to Sister Angela, who had been sitting quietly listening to Carter and I talk on, and asked her if she had ever participated in anything of that nature. She told me that she had "not in the public arena, no. But I have been to acceptance meetings at our Catholic church. I did go to the Imagining Love Conference, that was a United Church gathering for gay, lesbian and transgendered people."
I related how I felt that gay and lesbian issues have become something that every major denomination was having to deal with now, and related a story of something that had happened to me the past summer. I was walking down Princes Street - the major shopping district in Edinburgh and I was distracted by a group marching down the street chanting, "we're here, we're queer, we're NOT GOING SHOPPING!" I thought, "I have to join up with these people." It was a group of students from the University that were wanting to draw attention to the fact that Mr. Blair had yet to follow through with one of his campaign promises pertaining to gay people. They marched to the top of the hill where the old Parliament met and the Church of Scotland was having their General Assembly. Following them into the centuries old courtyard, I watched as dog-collared clergy stared in bewilderment as the chants echoed off the ancient walls. "I couldn't do it myself, but I am often very grateful that there are people on the inside that can talk to others. I realise that for a lot of people, they have to take baby steps in trying to come around. Asking someone who is making that first step to talk to, say a Radical Faery, and they are wearing a big purple wig, that it is just going to stop there."
Agreeing with what I was saying, Carter said, "that's why it's a good thing that there are so many of us in different places within the movement, because you are right, none of us can be everywhere. With luck, we have a whole spectrum of locations among us, and we are able to communicate well with each other. I think that is always my hope as a feminist activist, and lesbian feminist, that we can keep channels among ourselves clear and uncluttered enough that we are not a cross purposes, or feel that we are betraying one another, or that my being in somehow is slapping you're being out."
What Carter and I are suggesting makes much sense to me now, but it did not always. I can remember a time in which I would definitely, if not look down upon, at least look in bewilderment, those who choose to stay within an institution that has traditionally and currently condemned us. I asked, "do you ever have any other gay people that seem to relate to you, 'you are crazy, what are you doing, why are you in this church?'"
Both Carter and Angela laughed and responded simultaneously, "all the time." Carter went on to say that it's, "one of the wonderful, and sometimes painful, but usually just awesome facts in my life is that most queer people think that a person who is still a practising Christian is nuts. Why in the world would a self affirming queer activist woman be still be a Christian."
I told her that, "I've heard some people equate it with a Jew wanting to be a Nazi, or a black person wanting to be in the KKK."
"Or at the very least, it is like being in an abusive marriage. Lots of post-christian women say that. That's not an entirely faulty analogy, I think. I think there is a kind of harmful, or potentially harmful, dimension of our staying on, in any way, as Christian women. And then inside the Churches, I and people like me are seen as hopelessly radical. 'Why would you stay in the Church if you don't believe that Jesus is the son of God?' Not necessarily a fundamentalist take on things, but that, nonetheless, a fairly conventional understanding of Jesus and God. Why stay if you don't believe these things? So you get it from both sides. So I think my own vocation, you see, is as a bridge in and out. This is not an original image, there is a wonderful book written by a woman of color called, This Bridge Called My Back, in which women of color were saying that they experience themselves bridges between while women and communities of color. They were paying the price, because people would walk on them to get back and forth. I often identify, it feels like that. I don't want to rip off my sisters of color, but there is a way in which that is true, of various people, myself included, who are sort of betwixt and between, sort of boundary people..."
"Edgewalkers," I interjected.
"Yes, edgewalkers, exactly. One of the things I do in my work as a teacher in the Episcopal seminary, where most people who come still are in the churches, which is why they come to the seminary, and most of them are seeking to be ordained in the Episcopal Church. A significant minority of them wind up leaving the church once they get to seminary and start to study feminist and queer and liberation theologies. It's hopeless. They say exactly what you asked, Mark, why bother, this is corrupt and ridiculous. As often as not, it has been classes that I and other feminists have been teaching that help them walk that bridge out. So we are the bridge which they have walked to go out. So it is like escorting your students out of the church that you yourself are still in. Conversely, sometimes people come who are post-christian or Jewish or UU or pagan, or whatever who, for whatever bizarre reasons, decide they want to be Episcopalians once they get there. And then you help them walk in, with some integrity, keeping their whole selves together and help them to use the church they way they need to, for whatever reasons. Holding together, as best they can, their sanity, their integrity, their passion... whatever.
That doesn't happen nearly as much. But there are lots of people who do come who do stay, and helping those people learn how better to stay with integrity so that they can be justice workers, using the Church's language, rituals, employment opportunities or whatever as a vehicle for justice making. And that is very important to me. I love being a resource for people to come in or out, but it does mean that learning that I have to keep my own bearing by bending and dancing along at the edge. Because I can never be too much in to be able to also keep connected with what is not in, and vice versa. So you learn to bend and sway. Maybe this is why I have this thing about all this 'rightness' being a problem."
I have talked with people before who have chosen to remain within a particular religion which required them to make some compromises in their lives. I must say that Carter's approach is unique, at least amongst those whom I have spoken about this issue. Many of the people I have spoken to about why they stay within a church that isn't supportive of gay and lesbian issues seem to relate that they remain mainly because it is simply convenient to do so. Church, to them, doesn't seem to be all that important part of their lives and they may go simply because they think it is something, "you ought to do." They may even hear anti-gay sermons and not think much of them. In this situation, you are not only not very committed to the Church, but also not very committed to the plight of gay and lesbian people, or their own freedom, for that matter. Often, they are in comfortable positions in life, financially and so on. A Unitarian friend related to me that she had some new neighbours move in, a gay couple, that acted very coldly to their overtures of friendliness mainly because she and her husband's Unitarian activism made them uncomfortable. They attended a Protestant Church, had good jobs and kept a low profile. She called them, "the log cabin boys" (in reference to the Gay Republican group, the Log Cabin Society, a reference to Lincoln I believe) and they perhaps did not want to tarnish any of their white male privilege by becoming active. It is ironic that, even though they are in the same institutions, they are light-years apart from people like Carter and Roger Smith, who remain where they are for diametrically opposite reasons: they have a strong commitment to both the Church and gay and lesbian issues.
The
trick for people like Roger and Carter, is to expend the effort to
find the right place to be in which they can function and maintain
their dignity and integrity both theologically and as queer folk.
When talking with Carter, I used the analogy of finding a calmer
place in the river... a place that would not tear you to pieces. She
related that, "the reason I am not torn to pieces is that I have
extraordinarily supportive network of friends, all over the world,
who are where I am. So it's not like I am there alone at all. I know
that even when I am physically alone in a room, or in a convention or
a class, that there are people like Angela and yourself, and
countless other people, but including a large handful that I know
very well who are there too, and have been in generations past."
I wanted to know more about the Sophia Centre that Sister Angela had mentioned, and asked her about it. The centre is located in Australia. She told me that, "I guess it's one of the fruits of Vatican II. We spent about twenty years rediscovering ourselves as women and then we began to think, 'well, what's happened to women generally in Christian tradition.' We spent a year looking at the history of the Church, theology, liturgy and scripture. At the end of that year we decided that we needed to take a new focus as community and our new focus was to be Christian feminists and to nurture and honor women, including ourselves. If it were possible, we would try to empress that in a corporate venture. At the end of four years, to our amazement, we had a new building standing. It wasn't my amazement, I was the community leader at the time and it was a lot of difficult work to find a means to do it. It meant our sisters had to move out of what we called 'the mother house' into a different kind of residence and we had to find the money to do all of that. But, somehow, it all came together, despite the difficulty. We didn't have a blueprint for what we were going to do at it, or in it, we just knew it was going to be a space where women's voice and stories were going to be honored. We said it will grow organically. It was difficult because some of our people were logical, linear thinkers and they wanted everything down in writing before we started and the rest of us were saying, 'no, it has to grow, it has to be different and new.' So in that place, where women come, as I said before, from various traditions and a lot of women who come are alienated from the churches. They breathe a sigh of relief that they've found a space where they feel at home and comfortable. Even the design of the building, we wanted that to be a symbolic expression that this is something different, so it is a spiraling building. We broke down the division between culture and nature. We do various things, from dancing, to poetry creating, to women writing their stories, feminist liberation theology, scripture studies, lesbian spirituality. We are venturing even do some sexuality work. We have personal growth counsellors and spiritual companioning. We have a feminist library growing there. So it's not big in numbers, but it's significant symbolically, I think, throughout Australia. We have people from all over now that know that Sophia exists. They come to see it. And we bring guest speakers from overseas. Carter has been there, many many people. We have a Jewish scholar coming next year too.
Listening to Sister Angela speak about the Sophia Centre and thinking of the "Warren Wilson Bubble" made it so very clear to me how important it is to people who have been marginalised in the world, such as women or queer folk, to find spaces in which they feel comfortable to express their true selves, to explore their spirituality, to express their sexuality and to feel safe from being attacked for who they are.
The next group that I would like to tell you about has set about doing just that, creating a space, a sanctuary in which gay men can find a space that is safe to express these things.
© 1998 K. Mark Demma