Holiness Today

The following is an email I sent into Holiness Today in reply to an article printed in the September/October 2011 issue. You can read the full text of the article here:

http://www.ncnnews.com/nphweb/html/ht/article.jsp?id=10010813

11/1/11

Dear Mr. David J. Felter, Editor-in-Chief:

I’m a long time subscriber and reader of Holiness Today.

I disagree with many of the points you made in your reply to the question. I would hope that your presence at the wedding would show your support to your friend, just like it would for your heterosexual friends. The very fact that we ask this question shows us, the Church of the Nazarene, how very little we know, and understand about homosexuals. The church, by policy and its members, treat homosexuals as second class members [of society]. Chances are the last wedding you went to both the bride and the groom ‘sinned’ at one point in their lives. But there were no hang ups in the crowd. The very asking of the question reveals there is bigotry in the Church. What better place, then that moment-at the same-sex wedding, would be a better opportunity to show them grace, dignity and holy love, all while reducing bigotry.

Also to the matter of heresy. Who are the heretics to you refer? All homosexuals? The homosexual-Christians in the Church? Or the Church that recognizes that homosexuals? I am not offended at being called a heretic. I am however offended that it was dropped so casually and lightly. This word has a very loaded history, with life and death consequences. A heresy in the early Church meant schism. I do not want to split off from the Church of the Nazarene at all; therefore, I am not a heretic. Please don’t burn me at the stake.

Further along in history we find it switches to mean “against orthodoxy”. You may have caught me there, I am anything but Orthodox. I’m a Nazarene after all, and we were begot by a long line of parent denominations. All thinking their kids were heretics. Everyone but the Roman Catholics are heretics. And even the Eastern Orthodox think both the Protestants and Roman Catholics are heretics. And to belabor the point more, the Jews think Christians are just a Jewish heresy anyway.

The established Church has also called women pastors heretics, and yet the Church of the Nazarene has always supported female pastors. So “He who is without Hersey…”

Let’s be very clear on this: homosexuality is not a heresy.

The Church of the Nazarene has NEVER issued a Manual Statement or a “Pastoral Perspective” saying homosexuality is heretical. And furthermore, we do not believe that other Christian Churches are heretics when their beliefs differ from ours. For example, we do not believe that those who speak in tongues are heretic just because we do not speak in tongues.

Homosexuality is a word that has shifted meaning over time too. So please, I ask you to update your dictionary, homosexuals are no more a threat to Christians, civilization, marriage, or the Church of the Nazarene than a gain of sand is to a tire on the road.

I may not have changed your mind, but I hope that I have shed some light on a subject that is dangerously under discussed.

Respectfully submitted,

-A Gay Nazarene

The Invisible Line

You aren’t really sure where that line is until you’ve crossed it. I hope I haven’t here with this letter. I am admittedly short-tempered. (It will be my downfall.) I know I should be “like a duck” and let it roll off me, as I was taught in Youth Group but it is hard for me to be silent when I read such an obvious examples of bigotry, and discrimination.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe I misunderstood him. Maybe this wasn’t a battle worth picking. Maybe I should let more things go than I do. Maybe I sweated a small thing. I guess in the end it boils down to how I ‘pick my battles’ so to speak. If I was [too] rude, I apologize. But we [The Church of the Nazarene] have got to be very careful about the advice we give and think of the implications.

But this is the very thing that we are trying to eliminate. Is there going to be a question “Should I let my kids play with kids of same-sex couples at the park?” or “Should I tip my openly gay waiter at Applebee’s?” Very extreme, but you get the idea. At what point does it end? Who is supposed to speak out when the Church crosses the line?

Maybe my temper flared just a little higher than the Chick-Fil-A Spicy Chicken sandwich, because the question and Mr. Felter’s answer hit a little too close to home. I want to get married someday. I want all my family and friends to be there, and I want all my husband’s family and friends to be there too. Do the relationships I have with my Nazarene-friends and family members not supersede the rhetoric coming out from behind Nazarene pulpits? Again another example of when people put a face to the hate it makes it much harder for them. A fact I am preparing to deal with in the near future.

Maybe I did cross the line. My prayer is that my family and friends and, chiefly, the Holy Spirit will call me out when I do. Speaking the truth in love is a fine line to walk down, and I don’t want to fall off it. Maybe someday I’ll learn better what battles to pick. But maybe someday, and I hope soon, this whole issue will be over with because we as a Church have made the right call. (I’m starting to sound like Little Orphan Annie with all these ‘maybes.’) Below is the reply I got from Holiness Today.

11/7/11

Dear Neal:

Thank you for your letter to the editor and insights into the “Q & A” column in September/October.

We appreciate your feedback.

Sincerely,

The Holiness Today Editorial Staff

Californication

With the repeal of Proposition 8 in California, and the upcoming vote in New York on marriage equality the question posed to the Church of the Nazarene is… When?

When will a Nazarene pastor preform a marriage on two people of the same sex, in a Nazarene Church? The fact that marriage equality legislation does not force clergy to do so doesn’t rule out the possibility that a pastor can still love  two gay people enough that said pastor would want to marry them just like he or she would for his or her straight friends.

Of course this is a purely hypothetical, but let’s play around with the idea of what would lead it into becoming reality. A possible future where the conditions are just right and the relationship scales get tipped. The question isn’t if this will happen, but when. What would make that happen?

Fun With Numbers

For starters, we can look to math to solve part of the equation. As more and more states pass marriage equality legislation more homosexuals will want to get married. Another factor is our culture is changing. People are becoming more educated about what homosexuality is and isn’t, which leads to greater acceptance in mainstream culture. The portrayal of gays and lesbians in television and film is becoming less comical and more grounded. Moving from support cast to principal role increases the number of positive gay and lesbian role models for the younger generations.

There is more to this complicated equation in order to predict when that perfect storm will hit the Church of the Nazarene. Now let’s take a look at the age-old question. How many gay people are there in the world? Plug that same question into Google and you get a myriad of answers. The 1948 Kinsey study used the number 10%. Appalled by that high of a figure the conservatives countered by saying 2-4%. Is that 2-4% just referring to males who identify as gay? Meaning additional percentages would have to be added for those who are bisexual, lesbian or transgender. Furthermore many transgender people don’t identify as gay or lesbian, but as straight.  The truth is no one knows. The US Census only provides estimates, but those are only based on people’s willingness to identify as gay or lesbian. We do know the total population, so we can estimate and get a range. Don’t take this as scientific fact, but as a best estimate.

How many LGBT people are in the world?
If there are 7 billion people in the world, and we took the low end estimate of 2% are LGBT identifying, that would be around 140 million LGBT people in the work. This shows us that there are more LGBT people in the world then there are Nazarenes.

How many LGBT Christians are in the world?
If there are 7 billion people in the world and 2/3’s of the world’s population identifies as Christian that gives us 4.6 billion. Using the same (lower end) percentage of estimated LGBT people per population group (2%) we can estimate how many gays are in the Christian. This gives us a number of 92 million. (280 million at 4%) (That’s still more LGBT Christians than all the Nazarene’s in the world). The percentage of the world’s population that is Church of the Nazarene 0.042857142857%. Not too shabby, but As much as we’d like to think of ourselves as the starters for Varsity Team Protestant, we Nazarene’s are more like the alternate water boys for the Pee-Wee Team. We just aren’t that big yet.

How many LGBT Christians are Nazarene?
If there are 2.4 million Nazarenes world wide, and using our same (lower end) percentage (2%) we get 48,000 LGBT identifying Nazarenes. (If we use the higher end percentage we get up to 96,000.) So roughly 48,000-96,000 Nazarenes worldwide consider themselves to be LGBT.

How many of those 48,000-96,000 LGBT Nazarenes are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender?
Again, there really is no way to know for sure but we can use our best guess to assume a few things, based of general population statistics.
1) 51% of the 48,000 are going to be males. So 24,480 could be gay, bisexual or transgender males.
2) 49% of the 48,000 are females. So 23,520 could be lesbian, bisexual or transgender females.

Going off of a 2011 study by the Williams Institute which found that 3.8% of a population set is LGBT (91,200 LGBT Nazarenes) broke it down like this: .3% of a population identify as transgender, 1.7% identify as gay or lesbian, 1.8% as bisexual. So out of all Nazarenes there could be up to 7,200 people who identify as transgender, 40,800 gays and lesbian, 43,200 bisexuals. If we used our 2% estimate, we would get numbers slightly lower.

Explain to me how is the Church of 4.6 billion threatened by the granting of rights to 92-280 million again? Likewise why do 2.4 million Nazarenes feel the need to deny rights to up to only 96,000 Nazarenes?

This fun little experiment is meant to point out that I am in a minority group.  The numbers in the above don’t factor in realities that would make the numbers increase or decrease. The point is that we can use these numbers to get a better picture of the people and the lives that are affected by not allowing them to be a part of the church. Let me put it another way. That’s 48,000-96,000 families that aren’t writing checks to Nazarene Universities… Think about that.

The Perfect Storm

But what would it take for a perfect storm of events that would lead a Nazarene pastor to officiate a marriage between gay or lesbian couples in a Nazarene sanctuary.

Imagine with me this case study. David and John are gay. Both grew up in a Nazarene Churches and homes. Became members in 6th grade after being Caravan Breese Award winners. They met in the University group at First Church, when they both came out at different points during their senior year at Nazarene University. They texted then talked, and soon their friendship had turned into a relationship. After a year and 8 months of dating John proposed to David. 3 months later they wanted to get married in the church where they met, by their college pastor who had been their friend, mentor, ally, and now marriage counselor. The state where they live passed marriage equality long ago. Being members of the Church, they get a discounted rate, which really helps their wedding budget. What should their pastor, who has been with them through every step of the way in their relationship, do?

The Forecast

As of November 2014, 35 states have marriage equality; 5 states have had their band struck down in courts, and rulings are stayed; 4 states have had bans upheld; 6 have yet to have band upheld or struck down. Over 80% of Americans live in marriage equality states.

That scenario might be dramatic for 2011, but I’m predicting it won’t be by the end of this decade. Another plausible scenario might be a Nazarene pastor has a LGBT sibling or family member or close friend, and that friend asks him or her to officiate the wedding in a non-Nazarene Church location. What happens then? (Update: Since time of post Holiness Today editor David Felter discouraged members from even “attending same-sex marriages of their friends”. And went on to call LGBT allies “heretics”. His comments are here: http://www.ncnnews.com/nphweb/html/ht/article.jsp?id=10010813 Holiness Today has decline to comment. Nazarene Ally’s reply can be found here: Holiness Today)

Weddings are a time of celebration, not a time of fear of losing your job. Clearly my bias is that it shouldn’t be a big deal, and two consenting adults should be able to marry. Equality is simple. If one side has something the other side doesn’t have that inequality.

One thing I know is that it is a matter of when, not if. This will happen. Let’s make it sooner rather then later. Let’s stay on the right side of history. We can wait; and for now we will wait… But I will do everything I can to hasten that date coming. I pray that the leadership of the future Church of the Nazarene will correct past mistakes that have been made on this issue so that we can become more like the Church God designed us to be.