Growg up, gay evangelils may have thought they had to be one or the other. It's different now. At one welg Baptist church Kentucky, a member says, gay ngregants "walk through the door."
Contents:
- COMG OUT AS A GAY EVANGELIL CHRISTIAN - LGBT+ HISTORY MONTH REFLECTN BY PAM GOLD
- WHO ARE THE GAY EVANGELILS?
- ACCEPTANCE GROWS, SLOWLY BUT STEADILY, FOR GAY EVANGELILS
- FIVE EVANGELIL PASTORS WHO BACK GAY MARRIAGE
COMG OUT AS A GAY EVANGELIL CHRISTIAN - LGBT+ HISTORY MONTH REFLECTN BY PAM GOLD
FOR LGBT+ History Month, Pam Gold, former Co-Convenor of the Evangelil Fellowship of Lbian & Gay Christians (EFLGC), and founr of two Open Table muni, shar her story of g out and beg an Evangelil gay out. I knew what others had said about ‘gays’ as I was growg up, but I uld fight no more, I prayed ‘please God if this is real then brg someone to speak to me’ my surprise the next week I got chattg to a patient (I’m an optometrist) and she me out to me - she said she felt that I need to hear .
It was at this pot that I started to look for other gay Christians. I ntacted an anisatn lled LGCM (Lbian & Gay Christian Movement, now OneBodyOneFah) and I was sent a bundle of urage my heart and hope for somethg new I went along to a gay Christian group Manchter, where I was the only woman!
Neverthels, they put me touch wh a uple of women and, through them, I went along to Metropolan Communy Church (MCC), also known as ‘the gay church’ first urageo steps set me on the path to disvery of beg an ‘out and proud’ lbian Christian wh a ep and meangful relatnship wh God. There were 30+ gay Christian anisatns om all over Europe, Wt and East. Back home the UK, I joed an anisatn lled the Evangelil Fellowship for Lbian & Gay Christians, affectnately lled EF.
WHO ARE THE GAY EVANGELILS?
For many at the weekend retreats, this would be the only ‘church’ they would have all ’s tough beg an Evangelil gay Christian.
ACCEPTANCE GROWS, SLOWLY BUT STEADILY, FOR GAY EVANGELILS
27, KalorkotiTHE anti-gay iology that has long held sway Amerin evangelilism seems to be cmblg. Conservativ’ sistence that the Bible proscrib homosexual acts and their claim that protectg gay rights g on their own relig liberty have pend on another assumptn not found Scripture: that homosexualy is not a blogilly rooted inty but a sful temptatn, an addictn that one mt noisy backlash agast the Supreme Court’s legalizatn of gay marriage nnot mask the signs that this assumptn is losg s grip. Alan Chambers, the print of the “ex-gay” mistry Exod Internatnal, apologized to L.
But some young Christians rist the notn that embracg queer sexualy as an inty — not a disease — perms them to embrace homosexual dissenters proudly ll themselv gay or queer or bisexual. They sist that the church should wele gay people, yet still nmn homosexual acts. This is, part, a untertuive legacy of tradnal ex-gay mistri.
Participants often acknowledged their stggl wh “relapse, ” and their ttimoni “pot to the stabily and changeabily of their own inti rather than serve as a ttament to heterosexualy, ” the ethnographer Tanya Erzen wrote her study of ex-gay mistri, “Straight to J.
FIVE EVANGELIL PASTORS WHO BACK GAY MARRIAGE
In an era when the right worships the nuclear fay and the left celebrat sexual thenticy and gay marriage, celibate gay Christians have no fortable home on eher si of the polil spectm.
”Many celibate gay evangelils look outsi the Prottant tradn and reach to ancient history for help thkg about lonels and sire. Wley Hill, an assistant profsor of biblil studi at Try School for Mistry Pennsylvania and a celibate gay Christian, told me he draws spiratn om Catholic thkers like the Dutch prit Henri Nouwen, who was attracted to Hill left his childhood nomatn, the Southern Baptist Conventn, for the Anglin Communn, which emphasiz s Catholic past and has a monastic tradn. In his most recent book, “Spirual Friendship, ” he followed the footsteps of historians like John Boswell, who argued that the medieval church was a surprisgly hospable place for gay Christians.