Resources on Pride, LGBTQIA+ Persons and the Church
Resources from the Forum
Reading
Walking the Bridgless Canyon by Kathy Baldock
It’s a retrospective study regarding biblical history, science, and todays culture on LGBT life and discrimination, and how to repair the breach between church and LGBT persons.
More information on this book here.
Finding Home: Stories of Roman Catholics Entering the Episcopal Church
In many chapters, former Roman Catholics made the switch to the Episcopal Church because of LGBT issues.
Film
1946
The film addresses the Greek translations to add homosexual in the Bible in 1946 and the damage caused.
Watch this film here.
Descriptions prepared by Joe Poisson.
Scriptural References and Resources
As Anglicans, we draw from Scripture, Tradition, and Reason as we think theologically. Our reading of Scripture understands the text to be multivalent, rich with meanings, and ever inspired by the Spirit to lead us into all truth. Scripture for us is neither a rule book nor a dead document declaring once and for all how we ought to understand and live out our faith.
The passages cited below offer spaces in which we might revisit long-held interpretations and open up dialogue with Scripture in our own time and place. The reflections here are not intended as final conclusions nor dogma but rather as possibilities held out by the text itself. They do not close (or even invite) a debate, but rather demonstrate some of the many ways in which all Christians can be faithful followers of Jesus.
The Ethiopian Eunuch: Acts 8:26-40
Suggested reading: Sean D. Burke. “Queering Early Christian Discourse: The Ethiopian Eunuch” in Teresa J. Hornsby, Ken Stone, eds. Bible Trouble : Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship. Society for Biblical Literature, 2011, 175-189.
Burke argues that the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch is the interpretive key to the whole book of Acts. As a person with a highly ambiguous identity (a Gentile “God Fearer,” a high-status slave, a castrated man), the eunuch’s conversion represents the work of Christ through the Spirit in the Church to break down all barriers to inclusion among God’s people.
Gentiles included in the Church: Acts 11:1-18
The early followers of Christ were all Jews. Based on their understanding of Scripture, tradition, and practice, they initially assumed that, should Gentiles enter the Church, they would do so by first converting to Judaism. This passage shows God’s clear leading of the Church to include those they had understood to be outsiders. God in fact needed to use a bullhorn (Peter’s remarkable vision, and God’s gift of the Spirit to previously unconverted Gentiles) to shock the disciples into recognizing what God was calling them to do. Sometimes we need to get our noses out of the book and see what the Spirit is already moving ahead of us to do in the world!
In Peter’s vision, God clearly says, “Do not call ‘unclean’ what I have made clean.” Peter understands this to mean not simply the meat he is shown in his vision, but Gentiles, with whom the disciples had been unable to share table fellowship.
Today, many Christians call LGBTQIA+ persons “unclean.” They can defend their stance by pointing to certain Bible passages (which are contested and far from clear). Meanwhile, LGBTQIA+ Christians are living lives evidently filled with the Holy Spirit. Can the Church recognize what God is already doing in the world? Here in Acts, Luke gives us a clear precedent.
“Incarnation and Incarnations”
Suggested reading: Chapter 2 in Voelkel, Rebecca M. M. Carnal Knowledge of God: Embodied Love and the Movement for Justice. Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2017.
Voelkel observes that the Incarnation of God as a first-century Jewish man does not merely sanctify that one way of being human in the world, but rather sanctifies all ways of being human—our many incarnations. As the Word made flesh, Jesus demonstrates God’s “promiscuous” love for all:
God became embodied in order to have a human experience, in order to become intimate with us, in order to hallow the body. The incarnation is both an act of intimacy between God and humanity and a blessing of all of our incarnations. (21)
Creation in God’s image: Genesis 1:26-27
Suggested reading: Genesis 1:26-27 commentary in Walton, John H., Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. IVP Academic, 2000.
In Genesis, we are told God created humankind—male and female—in God’s “image” and “likeness.” In antiquity, an “image” or “likeness” represented the authority of the one whose image was borne: a king, for example, might set up a statue of himself in a newly-conquered territory, or place his likeness on coinage used throughout his realm. Idols used in temples were not actually believed to be the gods themselves, but were images that mediated the presence of that god in that place. Our being made in God’s image does not necessarily refer to any quality or characteristic stamped on us, but rather our calling to mediate God’s presence in the world, to exercise “dominion” as God does, in God’s name.
The creation of humans as “male and female” parallels other seemingly-rigid categories in the Genesis 1 poem about creation. God creates light and darkness; day and night; sea and dry land; and creatures that dwell in the sea, on land, and in the sky. None of this means that shadows, dusk, dawn, marshes, rain forests, crocodiles, or water fowl don’t exist. Neither does “male and female” in this passage restrict all human ways of being to a simple sex or gender binary.
This section prepared by Dr. Elaine Belz.
Ways to Get Involved
Join the Cathedral Church of St. Paul at Motor City Pride!
We are excited to announce our presence and support of Motor City Pride being held each year in June! Volunteers, individuals, groups, and families can sign up for 4-hour blocks to host our booth. Information for this event becomes available in May. Please check our newsletter, Living Stones, for the most up to date information.