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My sister's resignation from the church
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I was touched by this and just wanted to share it with you guys. My oldest sister Cathy is a divinity student at Boston University, and previously at Wake Forest. She was Dean of Students at VA Tech and Director of Planning and Student Affairs as well before moving to her current position at Bridgewater State in Massachusetts.
My dear friends,
Linda has written to ask about budgeting aid for my seminary expenses next year. I am grateful for the offer, but I must decline.
The Presbyterian Church is connectional, which means that I am connected to the whole history of Reformed faith as well as to the denomination as it exists now. The Book of Order and the historic confessions of the Church inform my faith. I have valued this connection, especially when the collective wisdom of the Presbyterian Church has run counter to my own judgments. I have appreciated the discipline of listening prayerfully to voices with which I disagree and trying to find the deeper kernel of truth that binds us together. The connectional nature of the Presbyterian Church has kept me honest, so to speak. On the issue of ordination for gay men and lesbians, however, I cannot be guided either by the Church's historical positions or by its present stance.
I have come to this point through personal relationships with friends and colleagues, and particularly through the experience of my brother. Frank was the happiest baby I have ever known. He would lie in his crib and giggle at some personal baby joke that only he understood. When he was a pre-schooler my family took a long vacation, driving from Texas to California in our un-air-conditioned 1958 Chevy station wagon, Frank entertained us for hours on that long, hot ride, using nothing more than his teddy bear and a red bandana. He was a cheerful child, who knew for sure he was loved and loveable.
I went off to college when he was only four. When he and I returned to each other's lives several years later, he had changed. He was dark and sad and so sure that he was not loveable that he had made himself so. This was more than an ordinary adolescent passage. My brother had come to understand that he was gay, and he had introjected all the negative stereotypes that our culture associates with homosexuality. Because many of these negative messages came in one way or another through the church, he came to believe that he was irretrievably broken and that even God could not love him. He is forty years old now and still feels broken. I ache for him, for the loss of that effervescent child, and I am furious that my own church (and here I mean the congregation of my childhood, but also the larger Presbyterian Church) was party to the pain in his life.
I understand that Northside has joined the Covenant Network, and for this I am grateful. I am a member also. But as I consider ordination, I find that this is not sufficient for me. I feel myself being called out of the Presbyterian Church toward a more inclusive denomination. It feels sinful to go where my brother is excluded, to accept an ordination that would be denied to him.
Dave and I have been looking for a church here that would fit us, and it has not been an easy search. Northside is a tough act to follow. Just this week we have decided to join the Eliot United Church of Christ in Newton, about 45 minutes from our home. It is a warm and wonderful community of faith, with good preaching and a magnificent pipe organ. Most importantly for me, this church is "Open and Affirming." That is, they have adopted this statement of inclusion, which they publish widely and whose meaning they live out every week:
Eliot's membership is diverse. We affirm that all people are children of God. We honor and warmly welcome everyone, and we are committed to being a uniting church that embraces the rich diversity of God's creation. We recognize, celebrate, and give thanks for the many gifts of all of God's children. We encourage those of every race, gender, age, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, economic circumstance, marital status and physical or developmental ability to join us in the full life and ministry of Eliot church.
It grieves me to withdraw from the Presbyterian Church and from Northside in particular. I love you all. I still feel like the Northside choir is my very own. It is a little frightening to move toward ordination with a denomination whose polity, frankly, escapes me. But this is what I must do.
I am grateful beyond words for the warm welcome you gave me when I joined, at a difficult transition in my life. Thank you so much for the spiritual and financial support you have given me in my road toward ministry. I am particularly thankful for the presence of Linda and Dick Bauman as I have struggled with this decision. You will always be in my prayers.
Cathy
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