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10. Vital Conflicts
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265 10 Vital Conflicts The Mainline Denominations Debate Homosexuality Wendy Cadge introduction For the past thirty years, the mainline churches have been thinking about, talking about, and quite often arguing about homosexuality. In the past ten years, the debates have increased in intensity and been broadcast on the front pages of religious and secular newspapers across the country. The upswing in mainline churches’ activities around homosexuality come at a time when Americans’ attitudes toward homosexuality are gradually softening .1 While 67 percent of people in 1976 believed sexual relations between people of the same sex were always wrong, only 56 percent of people in 1996 agreed, and aside from their opinions about the morality of homosexual behavior, increasing numbers of Americans support the civil rights of homosexual people.2 Homosexuality is a controversial issue for mainline members, ministers , and denominational leaders in part because it is a prism through which all of the denominations’ central questions and issues can be seen to reflect and refract. For these reasons, participants see a lot at stake in these discussions and debates. Homosexuality is about Scripture: How is the Bible to be read, interpreted, and understood? It is about creation: How are the people that God creates intended to behave sexually? It is about families and reproduction: Who can be married? bear children? adopt children? raise children? What should those children be taught about sexual behavior? Homosexuality also raises important questions about who can serve the church and how those people and the church are to act in the world. In their struggles and debates around all of these questions, the mainline churches have added and continue to add a range of voices and perspectives to public dialogues about homosexuality occurring in society at large. 266 / Wendy Cadge This chapter describes discussions and debates about homosexuality that have occurred since 1970 in the United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Episcopal Church, and American Baptist Church. This research is based primarily on the policies, reports, studies, and church court cases of the mainline churches and related special-interest groups as well as on interviews with relevant leaders. The issue of homosexuality has caused a great deal of pain for many people inside and outside of the mainline churches: gay and lesbian clergy have lost their jobs or not been ordained, congregations have divided, and countless hours have been spent in civil and not-so-civil debate. While I acknowledge the “dark,” or conflictual, side of the homosexuality issue, I disagree with those who see the issue as a sign of mainline churches’ weaknesses or who believe that the churches are spending an unnecessary amount of time on the subject. Rather, I argue in this chapter that the mainline churches have been successful in their struggles with homosexuality not in their resolution of the issue—it has by no means been resolved—but in their continued commitment to be in dialogue and debate about the topic. These ten- to thirty-year-old discussions are the marks of vital denominations comprised of people who are strongly committed to their churches and to ongoing, often difficult, conversations about homosexuality . The first half of this chapter describes mainline churches’ actions concerning homosexuality since they first addressed the issue in the early 1970s. In the second half, I argue that the mainline churches have added their voices to more public debates about homosexuality in two important ways. First, mainline churches have provided forums in congregations and in denominational meetings in which public discussions about homosexuality can occur. Indeed, the mainline churches are one of few places that Americans not actively involved with gay or ex-gay organizations can meet and talk about homosexuality. Second, by recognizing the issue, the mainline churches have opened up discussions about homosexuality to a broader range of the U.S. population and granted legitimacy to all sides of the debate. As sociologist Robert Bellah points out, the “public church” has almost never spoken with a single voice, but this has not diminished “its significance in our common life.”3 By speaking about homosexuality with a plurality of voices, the mainline churches have added substantially to public dialogue and conversation about the issue for the past thirty years. [34.229.110.49] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 05:49 GMT) Vital Conflicts / 267 history Before 1970, leaders of mainline churches had started to talk about homosexuality , but no formal policies on...