It simply isn’t an issue - by Sarah Walker Cleaveland

August 1, 2008

I actually don’t know that I ever changed my mind about LGBT relationships and people. I don’t remember it being an issue when I was growing up, but I grew up in a very liberal family and in a very liberal church where LGBT relationships were accepted as normal, at least from my perspective as a child and youth.

It wasn’t until I was in seminary that I felt a need to defend my position on this issue; it wasn’t until seminary that it even became an “issue.” To be honest, I get a little self-righteous about this one. From my perspective, it simply isn’t an issue: the right choice, the right stance is so obvious to me I am frequently, honestly, baffled by why other people simply don’t seem to “get it.” My reading of the Bible, which admittedly is not always obsessively detail-oriented or filled with ready-at-hand-quotes, paints the picture of a God and a Savior who were/are all about love. While I have my issues with Jesus, particularly the ways in which he is appropriated by the Religious Right, what I love about Jesus was his willingness to completely upturn the norms, accept those who weren’t accepted, and change his community’s worldview.

For myself, I don’t think LGBT relationships are sinful, but even if I did, I believe the Church’s unwillingness to accept LGBT people and relationships is sinful. If we follow the path of Jesus, we accept all people, whether or not we think they are sinners or deserving of God’s love. The Church needs to recognize the scientific work being done that shows homosexuality is genetic, and not a choice, which moves us toward recognizing LGBT people are created by God as LGBT people and, therefore, not sinful. But recognizing that may take awhile longer.

The Church is called to be a prophetic witness, following in the steps of Jesus by welcoming those who are outcasts and making room at the table even for those they believe are sinful. The Church is not a place only for those who are pure and perfect, nor is the ordained position set aside only for those who are sinless. The Church established a long time ago that God works through the Church and through pastors and ministers despite their shortcomings. To not ordain people we believe are sinful would mean we ought not ordain anyone, for we all fall short.

I’ve moved away from personal experience, but as I said at the beginning, for me this has never been an issue, and it was only being in a theologically-charged environment like seminary that forced me to put words and ideas around what I intuitively trust to be true: LGBT people are created by God and loved by God, and we are also called to love and accept LGBT people, even if we do not understand. In the end, isn’t better to err on the side of loving and accepting too much than closing doors God would not even close?

Sarah Walker Cleaveland is a PhD student at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA studying Christian Spirituality. Her specific field of study is the interaction between spirituality and pneumatology (theology of the Spirit). She graduated from Columbia Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity (MDiv) and Princeton Theological Seminary with a Master of Theology (ThM) and is married to the infamous blogger, Adam Walker Cleaveland of Pomomusings. She is an avid book reader and does some blogging herself (albeit sporadically) at Serendipity.

Posted by Tony Posted in Guest Writers Re: 'Coming Out', Posts by Guest Writers