In a move that could ultimately affect
Presbyterians throughout the United States, the San Geronimo Community
Presbyterian Church on Sunday installed Rev. John Scott, a gay man,
as their pastor. Rev. Scott is the first openly gay pastor to be hired
at a Presbyterian church in the state of California, and only the second
nationwide.
The other is Rev. Ray Bagnuolo, who was hired at Palisades
Presbyterian Church in New York just last month. His installation, combined
with the nearly simultaneous hiring of Rev. Scott, is a landmark in
the intensifying battle over gay rights in the Presbyterian Church.
Among Protestant denominations, the church takes a
middle-of-the-road stance toward homosexuality. It does not permit the
ordination of gay ministers, as do the United Church of Christ and Episcopalian
Church. But neither does it bar gay worshippers from joining its congregations
– or seek to "cure" them through therapy, as do Southern
Baptists and Mormons.
Debates over scripture and sexuality have resulted
in increasing polarization among Presbyterians, some of whom favor reforming
church doctrine to allow gay people full participation in all levels
of religious life. Others want to maintain the church’s traditional
stance against homosexuality, based on a literalist interpretation of
passages in the Old and New Testaments.
This conflict was played out during the debate over
Rev. Scott’s installation at Redwoods Presbytery, the Northern
California association of Presbyterian clergy and lay leaders. More
than a quarter of presbytery officials voted against hiring him; Rev.
Bob Conover, clerk of the presbytery, said the discussion had caused
"some disappointment, some sadness, and in some cases, some anger."
Rev. Scott had overwhelming support, however, from
his new congregation: only two of the 61 parishioners at San Geronimo
voted against him.
"Our little rebel San Geronimo Church said we’re
going with Jesus’ laws and not with man’s laws," said
parishioner Toni Shroyer of Novato, a member of the church’s Pastor
Nominating Committee.
At the installation ceremony that marked Rev. Scott’s
assumption of his pastoral duties, references to the conflict over his
sexual orientation were oblique – until the sermon of Rev. Frank
S. Hamilton, a retired minister from Santa Rosa.
"A small church in Marin County decides to call
a man to be its pastor, a man some said was not qualified because he
was gay," Rev. Hamilton said. "That church was following the
promptings of God’s spirit. Who knows what change in our time will
happen because of this act?"
Some openly gay pastors have been ordained after leaving
seminary, but failed to find posts in mainstream churches. Others avoided
the subject of their sexual orientation when hired. The rules governing
installation of a minister, which state that homosexuality must be "self-acknowledged,"
have created what some clergy describe as a "don’t ask, don’t
tell" policy in the Presbyterian Church.
"So much of the ministry is counseling people
about their personal relationships and their success and failure in
their careers," Rev. Scott said. "Often there are issues of
how authentically we present ourselves to the world – do we present
a shadow version of ourselves or do we present who we really are? I’ve
lived enough of life where I want to be accepted for who I am."
Rural Ohio To rural Marin
Such forthrightness was not a part
of Rev. Scott’s upbringing in the small city of Canton, Ohio, where
open discussion of sexuality – let alone homosexuality – was
taboo.
"Sexuality was not talked about in any way on
almost any level," Rev. Scott said. "In rural Ohio, there
are a lot of things that are best thought of as secrets. When I was
young, we didn’t even talk about the fact that some people were
divorced – that was too risqué. That was the atmosphere
in which I was raised."
After attending seminary at Princeton University,
Rev. Scott was ordained in 1970. He worked as a pastor at churches in
Fort Wayne, Indiana and Chicago, marrying and having two daughters.
But after 18 years of marriage, Rev. Scott came out to his family, leading
to his divorce.
"It was a very painful thing to come to grips
with this," he said. "I loved married life, my wife and I
were very good friends. But I also had to acknowledge where my feelings
tended to be. We finally felt it was too great a conflict to stay together."
Rev. Scott left his church for a large hospital in
Chicago, where he was a chaplain for a year before moving to Santa Fe,
New Mexico. There he helped found Hope House, a hospice-care program
for HIV/AIDS patients. In Santa Fe, Rev. Scott met his partner, David
Loren Bass, a landscape painter. The couple has now been together for
12 years.
Bass, who appeared at Rev. Scott’s installation
ceremony wearing elegant tortoise-shell glasses, domino cufflinks, and
a vintage Hermès necktie depicting Hopi Kachina dolls, identifies
himself as "a heathen." He was born in Toadsuck Ferry, Arkansas,
but lived for years in Morocco, where he was part of a group of American
expatriates that included writer Paul Bowles.
Rev. Scott applied for his position at the San Geronimo
Church last summer. The congregation had been without a full-time pastor
for 37 years.
"John just wants to come in and be our minister,"
said Pastor Nominating Committee chair Sue Loar. "He’s not
trying to make this a big to-do about being gay. That’s a minor
thing, to him and to us. He just seemed to be the perfect person for
this little church."
Scratching heads over scripture
Redwoods Presbytery voted to approve
Rev. Scott’s installation by a vote of 87 to 31.
"This is the first time our presbytery has had
a situation with this kind of openness," Rev. Conover said. The
decision to install Rev. Scott, he added, came from "the presbytery
as a whole believing that this pastor has an abundance of ministerial
gifts, that sexual orientation and having a partner should not be an
impediment to the ministry."
Some pastors were vocal in their objections to the
decision. When the results of the vote were announced, two ministers
– Rev. Dale Flowers of the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa,
and Rev. Sherry Budke of the First Presbyterian Church of Ukiah –
announced their formal dissent.
"I would hate to keep people of any orientation
from feeling like they didn’t belong in the church," Rev.
Budke said in a telephone interview this week. "There’s a
difference between being a leader, especially in a religious organization,
and being a member. When you’re in a leadership position, especially
as a pastor, you need to be a model." Any gay person who is "acting
out their homosexuality" is in sin, she said, though "if they’re
in a celibate lifestyle, then that’s fine."
The first woman pastor ever to serve her Ukiah church,
Rev. Budke said she didn’t draw a connection between women’s
rights (ordination of Presbyterian women began in 1956) and gay rights
within the church.
"Scripture condemns homosexuality, and any [sexual]
act out of marriage," she said. "It doesn’t condemn people
for being born women."
But some question whether the Bible in fact prohibits
homosexuality. Conservatives base their arguments against gay sex on
passages in the New and Old Testament such as Leviticus 20:13 ("If
a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them
have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death")
and Romans 1:27 ("And likewise also the men, leaving the natural
use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with
men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that
recompence of their error which was meet"). Such passages could
have been intended to combat ill-regarded practices that have little
in common with gay life today, said Michael Adee, field organizer for
More Light, a national Presbyterian gay-rights group.
"It’s talking about masturbation, it’s
talking about rape, it’s talking about temple prostitutes,"
Adee said. "These old historical notions and practices have nothing
to do with same-sex, adult, loving relationships. In the ancient world,
there wasn’t language for those relationships."
Schism?
Tension among Presbyterians over
gay rights has led some to speculate that the denomination could eventually
split over the issue. Parker Williamson, editor and chief executive
officer of The Layman, a 430,000-circulation newspaper that espouses
conservative Presbyterian views, said that for practical purposes, the
split has already taken place.
"There is a schism in the church. It is a de
facto reality," Williamson said, although the division "doesn’t
show itself right now institutionally."
Williamson noted that the Presbyterian Church has
lost 1.8 million members since 1965, and is currently losing members
at a rate of 55,000 a year. In contrast to gay-rights advocates such
as Adee, who see these statistics as a symptom of the church’s
failure to embrace more liberal social views, Williamson said shrinking
membership is a result of Presbyterianism’s move away from traditional
values. Parishioners are fleeing, he believes, to more conservative,
evangelical branches of Christianity.
"People seem to be hungry for certainty and for
biblical values, and they seem to be gravitating towards those denominations
or non-denominational groups that are emphasizing those aspects of the
faith," Williamson said.
In 2006, the Presbyterian General Assembly will debate
whether to strike the by-laws banning installation of gay ministers
from the church’s constitution. More than a dozen presbyteries
have officially urged the assembly to take such an action.
"We would never argue that those who are seeking
lawfully to change the constitution are doing anything wrong,"
Williamson said. "But those who are out-and-out defying the constitution,
in our judgment, should be disciplined." A local church or presbytery
installing an openly gay minister, he said, "has really violated
the constitution, and should be called to task for that."
‘A certain idolatry’
Disciplinary action from within the
church over Rev. Scott’s installation could come against either
the San Geronimo congregation or Redwoods Presbytery. Both groups could
also face lawsuits. The presbytery is already dealing with one lawsuit,
over a pastor’s performance of a same-sex marriage in Canada.
"Sadly, I do believe that there is a possibility
that someone might file a judicial complaint," Adee of More Light
said. "John’s installation comes after a terrible season of
discrimination. The controversy and the judicial cases have really come
to a boiling point in recent times."
Since 2001, Adee noted, when a group of elders and
deacons came out on the floor of the General Assembly, some two-dozen
complaints have been lodged against individuals because of their sexual
orientation. The fees associated with such cases, Adee said, can cost
up to $50,000 – an amount in excess of Rev. Scott’s salary.
Adee’s group has already promised financial and legal support to
the San Geronimo congregation.
Amid talk of punishments and divisions, there is fear
that the battle over gay rights could undermine what some see as a great
strength of the Presbyterian Church – the unity, through worship
and association, of people with different values.
"We’re a relational body, in every aspect
of our life," Rev. Conover of Redwoods Presbytery said. "We
have to work hard at that. Relationships don’t just happen. There’s
a certain idolatry – and I don’t just mean religious idolatry
– that comes from only associating with likeminded people."