A Love That Won't Let Go

IT FEELS PARTICULARLY APPROPRIATE that I should be writing this article during Holy Week, because coming out of the closet has been a resurrection experience. Every time the stone of fear is rolled away, and I can step out of the shadows of invisibility and silence into the light of daring to be seen and known and heard as a lesbian, I know once again in my bones that resurrection is real.

When I am able to act on the conviction that neither rejection, nor hatred, nor rupture of friendships, nor loss of a job, nor threatened violence can separate me from the love of God, I am living from a resurrection faith. I know that Easter is real. And I know what Richard Niebuhr meant when he once said: "I do not believe that death has been conquered because I know that Christ rose from the dead. I believe that Christ rose from the dead because I know that death has been conquered." No amount of teaching, preaching, or theologizing will convince us of the reality of resurrection unless we ourselves have walked into the valley of the shadow of death and experienced a presence that did not let us go.

It also feels appropriate that I should be writing this for Sojourners magazine, even after requesting two years ago that my name be removed from the masthead as a contributing editor. At that time I could not, any longer, be associated with the magazine that had published in 1985 the article by Richard Foster and had not adequately offered a rejoinder to that article.

I was outraged and offended by Foster's article because he suggested that lesbians and gay men within the Christian community have only two "moral" options: They can change their sexual orientation or they can embrace celibacy. By saying this, Foster had not only impugned my integrity as a Christian who joyfully affirms her sexual orientation, he had presumed to call my partnership with a woman "sinful," a partnership I knew to be not only healthy but grace-filled.

When I say that it feels appropriate now to write again for Sojourners, I say this for two reasons. After spending a day with the Sojourners staff last summer talking honestly and directly about this matter, I am convinced that this dialogue is being entered into with openness and integrity on all sides. It is also true that the publication of the Foster article proved to be a kairos moment in my own life -- a turning point, a time when the crisis I had sought to avoid became inescapable. But I am getting ahead of the story. Let me back up and relate some of the chronos that led to the kairos.

1977: In my last year of seminary, while preparing for the ordained ministry, I fell in love with a woman, and I knew that my life would never be the same again. Even though I had not, previous to that experience, ever seriously entertained the possibility that I was lesbian, falling in love with Christina felt like coming home to myself. This relationship enabled me to give expression to my deepest nature, sexually and emotionally. Because it felt so right, it also seemed suddenly strange to me that I had never known this about myself before.

I was fully aware that some people (were they to discover this about me) would say that my intention of being ordained should now be reconsidered. Their objections to my ordination would most likely be defended by quoting certain biblical passages. I began to study those passages with some fear and trembling because I felt happier about myself than I had ever felt -- having come home to this knowledge of my sexual orientation, and being very happily in love with a wonderful human being.

I had had some previous experience wrestling with scripture by the time I was in my last year in seminary. I had entered seminary originally to do intensive study of Hebrew, Greek, and the two testaments with special focus on scriptural references to women.

Prior to transferring to Yale Divinity School in New Haven, I attended Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary near Boston for two years. I chose this conservative, evangelical setting because I knew I would encounter people who would offer resistance to feminism on biblical grounds. I decided that if I could engage in study and dialogue in such a setting and still come out believing that I was called to ministry, I would be able to speak with authority both about my call and about scripture. And indeed, many of the students at Gordon-Conwell confronted me daily, Bible in hand, quoting 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2 and questioning how I could consider ordination as a woman.

I studied every Pauline passage in depth, wanting to believe that Paul was being misinterpreted by these students. While I believe there was some misinterpretation, I also concluded that I could not make Paul say everything I wanted him to say. I had to acknowledge that he shared the patriarchal worldview of his contemporaries. Even though there are countervoices within scripture that challenge sexism and patriarchy, I also had to concede that, as Phyllis Trible says, "the patriarchal stamp of scripture is permanent."

The male-dominated character of the Bible is indisputable. It is men, not women, in the Bible who do the naming, the blessing, the buying, the selling, the storytelling, and the recording of the stories for later generations.

Having come to these conclusions, I lost neither my fervor for biblical study nor my love of scripture. I was, however, both forced and freed to adopt a new hermeneutic that moved beyond proof texting. I was no longer confined by those passages that specifically mentioned "women" or the "role of women."

The central biblical stories of oppression and exodus, exile and homecoming, death and resurrection, took on new meaning as I claimed a feminist hermeneutic. To say that the scriptures have an undeniable patriarchal stamp is not to say that patriarchy and sexism are divinely ordained or morally defensible. With a feminist hermeneutic, I did not stop with the question, What does the Bible say about women? but moved on to ask, What do women have to tell us about the Bible?

I came to similar conclusions with regard to homosexuality and the Bible. Even though there are but a handful of scriptural references to same-gender sexual activity, and even though those verses refer to same-gender acts rather than same-gender orientation, I cannot deny that the scriptures have a heterosexual bias. Yet, just as with sexism in the Bible, the pervasive stamp of heterosexism does not mean that it is divinely ordained or morally defensible.

Racism is the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance. Sexism is the belief in the inherent superiority of one sex over the other and thereby the right to dominance. Heterosexism is the belief in the inherent superiority of one sexual orientation over the other and thereby the right to dominance (from Sister Outsider, by Audre Lorde). All three, at different times in our nation's history, have been defended by reference to the Bible.

As a lesbian, I will no longer be put on the defensive, called to account for the heterosexist bias of scripture any more than I am willing to be called to account for the sexist bias of scripture. In the 1800s, African-American slaves and abolitionists were told they had to defend their right to be free in light of such biblical injunctions as, "Slaves submit to your masters as to the Lord." We understand in retrospect that the burden of proof should have been on the side of the oppressors.

We also know that African-American people in slavery were sustained by other biblical stories. They didn't need to proof text to know that God was with them as friend and liberator. In spirituals and stories, they wove a rich tapestry of biblical images about Moses, Daniel in the lion's den, the land across the Jordan, and Jesus, the man who knew their sorrow like no other.

Most discussions about the Bible and homosexuality are limited to a handful of passages and the subject is viewed as a moral issue in which the burden of proof is placed on lesbians and gay men to defend our right to be who we are in light of those passages. If we approach scripture understanding that heterosexism, like sexism and racism, is a justice issue, then we move to a different plane of inquiry.

We might then understand that what is at stake in questions of sexual morality is not sexual orientation per se but rather the rightful or wrongful use of sexuality whatever our orientation. Sexual sins can occur in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships wherever people are exploited, abused, neglected, or treated as objects. On the other hand, love, commitment, tenderness, nurture, respect, and communication can be expressed in both homosexual and heterosexual relationships.

As I come to scripture with a lesbian feminist hermeneutic, the stories of oppression and exodus, exile and homecoming, death and resurrection take on new meaning. Our scriptural study will be stunted if we stop our inquiry only having asked, What does the Bible say about homosexuality? and fail to ask, What do lesbians and gay men have to tell us about the Bible? How do the biblical stories come alive in fresh ways when they are read, seen, and heard by lesbians and gay men?

1978: When I was ordained, I did not dare to seriously entertain the idea of being out as a lesbian. At that time, I thought I had but one choice: to keep the circle of people who knew about me and my relationship very limited. I was called to a small-town church, and I chose to tell no one, not wanting to put anyone in the position of having to lie for me. I also knew that with a slip of the tongue my ministry could be jeopardized. Christina and I pursued a long-distance relationship, both because she was finishing doctoral study in her native country, the Netherlands, and because we knew that she would not be able to live in the parsonage with me.

I was often asked if I was "single," and every time I nodded my head or uttered a yes, I knew I was betraying myself and my relationship. Yet I did not want to face the toll that such betrayals were taking on me. I rationalized away my efforts to pass as an "unmarried heterosexual" because I wanted to pursue the work that I was trained for, good at, and loved. I knew that my denomination, the United Church of Christ, had gone on record as being open and affirming of lesbians and gay men. I also knew that my colleagues who were openly gay or lesbian could not, for the most part, find work as pastors.

1981: I moved to the Netherlands to be with Christina. As an American in a foreign land, I was often asked, "Why have you come to the Netherlands, and how long are you staying?" Had my spouse been male, I could have simply answered, "I am married to a Dutch man." End of explanations. Instead, I told an elaborate story about wanting to do doctoral study in a foreign country. I was, indeed, engaged in doctoral study. In that sense, I was not lying. I had come to the Netherlands, however, because of my female spouse and the study had been a result of that move rather than the cause.

In other words, the story I told, day in and day out for the five years I lived there, was not exactly my story. Or better said, it was my story with a hole in the middle. A gaping hole. That I could not, or would not, share my joy and delight about my relationship with Christina left another hole, a wound, deep inside me.

1982: I was serving as a contributing editor for Sojourners, writing articles about the Dutch peace movement and feminism. To that extent, I was willing to speak in my own voice, but I silenced myself as a lesbian.

In the summer of '82, I responded to a short article in the magazine that warned of the dangers of the Family Protection Act that was then before Congress. This act would, among other things, deny gay and lesbian Americans social security benefits. Sojourners exposed the act for what it was, but also added a qualifying word about homosexuality, making it clear that by condemning the Family Protection Act, they were not condoning homosexuality.

I wrote a three-page response expressing my dismay at the position taken with regard to lesbians and gay men. I spoke about my concern for lesbian and gay "friends" who would hear the message that they were not welcome at the Sojourners Community. I did not have the courage to speak in the first person.

1983: In conjunction with a thesis I was writing about the theology of resistance, I conducted interviews with people across the United States involved in the peace movement, the sanctuary movement, and efforts to advocate for the homeless. I visited a Christian community where I had lived in the early '70s, as well as other communities that I had come to know over the years.

As an unofficial, "off the record" part of my interviews, I asked if lesbians and gay men would be welcome as volunteers or members of the various communities. A couple of people responded that the question had never arisen. Several people expressed that their communities would not be open to "practicing" (non-celibate) lesbian and gay members -- the answer I received at the community where I had once been a member.

After that particular interview, I walked out into the countryside alone and sobbed. This community, which had become one of my homes, and had been a safe haven over the years for war resisters, refugees, people of color, and exiles from the institutionalized church, was no longer a safe place for me now that I knew I was lesbian.

1984: I was called to serve a Reformed congregation in the Netherlands. I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the discrepancies between what I was preaching and what I was living. I had been ordained to preach the good news that fear need not have the last word in our lives, and yet my silence about being lesbian was an unmistakable concession to fear.

It was becoming intolerable for me to stand in the pulpit and preach that resurrection and the commonwealth of God can be present-tense realities in our lives when I was unwilling to act on that conviction. It was becoming intolerable for me to encourage people to tell their stories when I was unwilling to tell my own.

I have always believed that my Christian faith and my preaching must address contemporary issues. I spoke out against the placement of cruise missiles on Dutch soil. I condemned the United States subversion of the Sandinista experiment in Nicaragua. I worked on behalf of refugees seeking sanctuary in the Netherlands. Yet for fear of being seen and identified, I systematically avoided contact with lesbian and gay organizations.

Occasionally, I addressed justice issues for gay and lesbian people in sermons. Those allusions were mostly illustrative and quickly passed over as one in a series of other violations of human dignity. I was careful not to speak about lesbian and gay persons as "them" (thereby completely distancing myself), and yet I could not, would not, talk about "us" or "me." I didn't want to face the fact that I was experiencing a crisis of pronouns.

1985: When the July 1985 issue of Sojourners arrived, I could not avoid the crisis any longer. I wanted to respond to Richard Foster's article and express my shock and outrage. I could not bear once again to write in the third person about "lesbians I have known." Yet I was not ready to write in the first person, letting the people at Sojourners know that Foster had been speaking about me.

I had to face the fact that I had lost my voice. I could no longer write or speak with integrity without saying "I" or "we." I had lost my voice and I had alienated myself from my people. I was filled with confusion and shame. In retrospect, this proved to be a decisive turning point, a time of kairos.

1986: After eight years together, Christina and I separated and I returned to the United States. I considered applying for both pastoral and teaching positions, but I no longer wanted to live a bifurcated existence. Before accepting a new job and building a life in a new community, I knew I had to have it out, once and for all, with fear.

I went into retreat for a year of solitude and reflection. I took with me the writings of women such as Barbara Demming, Carter Heyward, Adrienne Rich, and Audre Lorde. I tried to identify and name the messages and threats that fear had so long whispered in my ear.

I discovered that the fundamental message that fear had communicated was this: "Whatever you do Melanie, DON'T TALK ABOUT IT." That is the primary sin in a heterosexist society: talking openly about being lesbian or gay. Talking openly is seen as disruptive, flaunting, distracting, and indelicate. It is a private matter, we are told. It is a "bedroom issue."

During that year of solitude, wrestling with the demon of fear, I began to find my voice and to say out loud that I am a lesbian. For I cannot tell my story and account for my life choices without saying that I am a lesbian. I cannot explain to you why I live here rather than there, why I am doing the work I am doing, and why I love the person I love without telling you my sexual orientation. I cannot tell you what the Christian faith means to me, who Jesus and God are for me, and what the scriptural stories say to me, without revealing my life context of oppression and liberation as a lesbian.

1986: While visiting a friend in Cleveland, I revealed to her that I am lesbian. She responded with kindness but also deep concern: "What you have told me does not change how I feel about you. I just hate to think how much pain you will have to suffer."

"It is worth every bit of the pain," I exclaimed. "I would not have it any other way. Besides, it is not all pain by any means. I feel pride, I feel joy, knowing who I am."

1987: During a retreat that I was leading with my mother, a woman came to me to tell me that she was the mother of a lesbian daughter. Quite spontaneously, and by no means flippantly, I responded, "How wonderful for you!" The woman's eyes filled with tears and a smile spread across her face. "You are the first person who has ever responded in that manner," she said. "I have told my closest friends, but they all express concern about how difficult it must be for me. I feel blessed to have a lesbian daughter as one of my children. Through her, I have come to see the world in new ways."

1987: In October, my friend and colleague Cyril was forced to leave the congregation he had served for six years solely because he is gay. In the aftermath of that dismissal, I suggested to Cyril that the time had come for us to start a "base community" that would be truly welcoming and liberating for all people, including lesbians and gay men.

1988: On February 17, Ash Wednesday evening, 18 people gathered in Cyril's living room in Kalamazoo, Michigan to begin conversation about forming a new congregation. We chose the name Phoenix Community Church as a symbol of the hope that gave birth to this church. The phoenix is a mythological bird that rises out of its own ashes to new life. This Egyptian myth was appropriated by the early Christian church as a symbol of resurrection. The people in Kalamazoo who gathered to form a new church also appropriated this myth as a symbol of our belief that resurrection is possible out of the ashes of discrimination, self-hatred, and oppression.

Resurrection continues to be a central theme at Phoenix. On Easter each year, people are invited to share their own personal stories of death and resurrection. "Coming out" stories are told, stories of recovery from chemical dependency or abuse, and stories of new life after a time of despair and self-hatred.

The initial vision of forming an inclusive church that recognizes and respects differences has continued to be at the heart of our ministry and mission at Phoenix. The Apostle Paul declared: "In Christ there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free." In Paul's religious and historical context, this was a liberating message that proclaimed equality and justice. In subsequent generations we have discovered that the proclamation that we are all "one" can sometimes blur our differences and serve to reinforce the norms of the majority.

At Phoenix, we might reword Paul's declaration by saying, "In Christ, there is male and female, old and young, disabled and temporarily able-bodied, lesbian, gay, and heterosexual." Such a declaration can be liberating for those who have seldom, if ever, heard their names explicitly spoken in a church context. At Phoenix we celebrate the fact that each of us has particular gifts for ministry and mission not in spite of, but precisely because of, our particular gender, age, race, orientation, and abilities.

1991: As I bring this story of my sojourn to a close, I want to say something about the gifts that lesbians and gay men have to offer the Christian community.

The perspective from life at the margins.

In relation to the church, I feel myself to be on the margins, on the edge, both because I have been put there as a woman and a lesbian, and because I choose to be there. Marilyn Fry, a lesbian who teaches philosophy at Michigan State University, has helped me embrace this marginality as a place of power, insight, and clarity. She says: "It is the particular blessing both of gay men and of lesbians that in many ways we are both Citizen and Exile, member of the family and stranger. Most of us were raised straight; many of us have been straight, and many of us can and do pass as straight much of the time. Most of us know that straight world from the inside and, if we only will, from its outer edge. We can look at it with the accuracy and depth provided by binocular vision."

This dual vision as citizen and exile is not limited to gay men and lesbians. People of color have this binocular vision. Handicapped persons and women have it. With the knowledge available to us from the margins of the institutionalized church, we can envision new structures, relationships, and forms of leadership within the church.

My experience at Phoenix Community Church also tells me that life on the margins and the experience of being an exile can lay the foundations for an open and welcoming church community. That was the wisdom of the ancient prophets who reminded Israel to welcome the stranger and the sojourner because "you know what it is to be a stranger and a sojourner in Egypt."

We give more than lip service to hospitality at Phoenix because we know what it is to be a stranger, an exile, and invisible within many churches. We know how it feels not to hear our true name spoken in a church or not to have our experiences validated as real and normal. Therefore, we provide braille bulletins at Phoenix and we avoid language, both spoken and sung, that is hurtful or excluding.

Breaking the silence about human sexuality.

Despite the fact that lesbians and gay men are too often reduced to their sexuality and nothing more by heterosexual people, our presence in the church opens up the whole subject of human sexuality that is so often hushed up and walked around in our churches. Lesbians and gay men have a unique perspective to offer as contemporary Christians seek to heal the tragic split between body and spirit that has been our spiritual heritage.

The spiritual discipline of confronting fear.

Gay men and lesbians have gifts to offer and stories to tell from our experience of confronting fear and learning to act and speak with increasing boldness even when we are afraid. Those stories can be revelatory and inspiring for others in the church because there are many varieties of closets, many secrets borne in shame and fear, many people waiting for a chance to be heard and welcomed into the light of love. My experience is that when I risk visibility as a lesbian, other people feel freer to open up and share their stories with me.

Witnessing to the power of resurrection.

Lesbians and gay men also have powerful stories of resurrection to share, for we have experienced the deadness of silence and invisibility. We have known the paralysis of fear that is wound around us as tightly as a gravecloth. We have also, like Lazarus, been confronted with the challenge to come out, to choose life, to leave the grave and the closet behind, and join the community of faith.

To hear that call and respond to it, believing that we are loved, is to know gratitude that is boundless. For when we stand up and walk toward that which is calling us to live again, we know we are walking not by our own strength alone, but by the power of love that fear could not destroy; a love that will not let us go. I call that grace. I call that resurrection.

Melanie Morrison was an ordained United Church of Christ minister, serving as co-pastor of Phoenix Community Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and co-director of Leaven, Inc., in Lansing, Michigan, which offers resources, workshops, and retreats in the areas of spiritual development, feminism, and sexual justice, when this article appeared.