Friday, January 21, 2005
METHODISTS REJECT LESBIAN CLERGYWOMAN WHO OUTS HER LIVING ARRANGEMENT
From the New York Blade Online:
ON DEC. 2, 2004, a jury of Methodist clergymen, in an official church trial, voted that Elizabeth Stroud, the associate pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Germantown in Philadelphia, had violated the church’s Book of Discipline when she acknowledged to her congregation that she is a lesbian and living in a committed relationship with another woman.
Later the same day, the same jury withdrew Ms. Stroud’s ministerial credentials. ...
Within the Methodist Church, and most other Christian denominations, what Stroud did is a no-no. A gay man or a lesbian cannot be an ordained minister if they acknowledge being in a same-sex relationship.
Like the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military, the Methodists were happy to have Ms. Stroud’s services as long as she was willing to keep her mouth shut and live a lie.
But, ironically, the price of honesty and integrity is the loss of her membership in the clergy club. The message is clear to all gay and lesbian clergy, of which there are thousands, and to all who aspire to joining their ranks.
No, the message is not clear, but some of the fog is lifting. Christianity teaches that sexual relations are confined to a marriage between a man and a woman, and that the purpose of those relations includes the establishment of a family, which is the basic unit of society. Sexual activity outside of this well-defined husband-wife-family structure are prohibited. That means a woman who is not married to a man may not participate in a sexual relationship, and vice versa. That includes single men and women, divorced men and women, widowed men and women. Married men and women who are not engaging in sexual acts with their spouse. Sexual relations have a limited arena for moral use.
The price of this minister's "honesty and integrity" is that her activities have been defined as sinful and ongoing in the Christian moral view, and that this continued sinful activity with no intention of repentence makes her ineligible as a moral leader.
The congregation woke up to the Christian moral law. Somewhat late, but nevertheless it happened. Ideally this would have happened immediately after her living arrangement became apparent to the congregation. There are rules. She broke them. She has every intention of continuing to break them. That is what her "honesty and integrity" demonstrated. In this case coming out was a slap in the face delivered to her congregation. What reaction did she expect?
