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Part of the process required for Reverend Stroud to announce her sexual identity was informing Bishop Peter Weaver of this decision. Over the course of a year she met regularly with Bishop Weaver to discuss her options regarding her legal standing within The United Methodist Church; this interview contains excerpts from their final informal meetings. Q: Can you share in anyway, what kind of decisions you had to make when Beth informed you that she was an ordained lesbian minister. Bishop Weaver: Well I think, this particular matter of homosexuality has often been treated just as an issue. It’s far more than that. It’s about people, it’s about relationships, it’s about congregations that are seeking to be faithful. It’s about a whole history of the community of faith seeking to discern what is the will of God for our lives. This is a period of discernment both for Beth as well as for me. I honor that process, the discipline, our legislation that sets the processes for our church, honors that, as a time of conversation, of caring for one another, as well as recognizing that both of us have accountability to a community of faith that’s larger then either of us. Q: Has this process been helpful to you? Beth: It has. I’ve been surprised by what our conversations have been like. I don’t know that I was very hopeful going into these conversations that they would be as civil or as caring or as respectful as they have been. I mean, the church discipline is very black and white when it comes to homosexuality and the ordination of gay and lesbian people as Pastors. I think under the church law there’s a variety of options but as I see them, they sort of boil down to 3. Now that I’ve been as open as I have been about my orientation and my relationship with Chris, one option would be that I would agree to be celibate and continue to serve. Another option would be that I voluntarily surrender my credentials as an Ordained Minister, either by transferring to another denomination that would be more welcoming or by saying I can continue to do similar work, not exactly the same but as a lay person, I can continue doing ministry and give up my credentials. So either to agree to be celibate, to voluntarily give up my credentials or the third path that’s open under the law is to go through a judicial process of a hearing and a trial, the end result of which will probably be that my credentials are removed. The way the laws are written, there’s just maybe the narrowest window of opportunity in the judicial process for me to retain my credentials and I’m not counting on that. I’m not expecting that. Q: Could you clarify to me what is the position of the Methodist Church? Bishop Weaver: We are not a church that believes in fallibility nor a church that believes that there is one person who makes decisions and then hands them off to others. We believe that along with prayer and bible study and the sacraments that, what we call holy conferencing, is a means of grace. That is a way in which we seek to discern the will of God and the guidance of God for our lives. And so our community of faith, through a representative process meets every 4 years in what’s called, the general conference which is a time of discernment and democracy. It represents persons from Africa and Europe as well as the United States, the Philippines. So that through a voting process then, each 4 years, the position of the United Methodist Church is stated by the general conference and the general conference is the only body which is empowered to determine the views of the United Methodist Church on any number of issues as well as the way we structure our life. That process around the question of homosexuality has been going on now for nearly 30 years. And the general conference over this 30 year period as they have been in discernment about the matter of homosexuality has gathered up many of those insights in one paragraph. That paragraph has 4 sentences. Interestingly often forgotten in this is that the 4 sentences are essentially affirming sentences. The first sentence in that paragraph affirms that homosexuals, no less than heterosexuals, are persons of sacred worth. The second sentence says that we all need the ministry of the church to be a caring fellowship where we can be reconciled with God, with one another and with ourselves. That’s the second sentence. The third sentence in the paragraph, the primary statement in that third sentence is that God’s grace is available to everyone. There is a prior qualifying clause in that sentence which is often the most quoted statement and that sentence begins by saying, “although we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider that practice incompatible with Christian teaching, we affirm that God’s grace is available to all.” And you notice it focuses on practice and we affirm that God’s grace is available to all even as we affirm that every person is a person of sacred worth and even as we affirm that the church is to be meeting the needs of all persons. The fourth sentence goes back to that issue and simply says, that we are committed to ministry for and with all persons. There are other implications as Beth has mentioned because we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and I might add that this statement is also in the larger context of our not condoning the practice of sexuality outside of marriage. We believe in celibacy in singleness, fidelity in marriage for all persons. A person who is single and not celibate, be they heterosexual or homosexual would not be ordained in our denomination and so there is a specific statement that prohibits the ordination of persons who’s lifestyle or practices is in the category of incompatible with the Christian teaching or are not celibate in singleness or fidelity in marriage. So that becomes the matter that particularly impacts Beth’s life in ministry. But it does not in anyway address her sacred worth or her wonderful ministry as a disciple of Jesus Christ, her place within the community of the United Methodist Church. Q: How does that affect you in the fact that in her entire congregation is supporting her? Bishop Weaver: Well, here again, I’m very sensitive to the needs of that congregation. I value the input of that church. I look forward to the opportunity to continue to be in conversation with them. The primary thing that draws us together is not that we all agree with each other, intellectually, but that we all come yearning for the deeper gifts of the spiritual life and what Christ offers us in terms of insight into the building of community that is not defined by our being of one mind but community that is defined by our being of one spirit and being open to learning from each other and the gifts that we can offer. But that takes a humility on the part of all of us it seems to me. One of our slogans in the United Methodist Church these days is, open minds, open hearts, open doors. The invitation to open minds is an invitation to everybody to have an open mind on this question. It may be that God is leading us to a place that none of us have yet imagined in terms of how we will live together around this question. But there is one thing for sure in my judgment and that is that we can live together around Christ even with our disagreements. And that’s important, not just for the church but what Beth is modeling and what I’m trying to model is that this is an important gift for the world, where there are lots of diverse opinions and too often that diversity drives people into fighting each other rather then sitting with each other and listening to one another and trying to discern a way that will bring reconciliation, will bring peace. So this isn’t just about the church for me, it’s about how we live together in the human family, where there’s great diversity. And I believe we can and I believe that FUMCOG , while they’re very committed on this issue to supporting Beth, I think they’re also committed to that larger vision of peace and reconciliation that touches many, many issues in our life together. We are all voluntary members of this community of faith called the United Methodist Church. I don’t think any of us are so arrogant to believe that we have all truth or all wisdom on this matter but the holy conferencing that has happened, has brought us, at this moment in our history to believe that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with God’s will for our lives or Christian teaching as the language used in the discipline. I think much like when we live in the United States, where there’s legislation that we may not agree with, I think then we need to wrestle with how do we live in the context of a community that has maybe taken positions that are different from our own personal belief. In Beth’s case, in the case of many persons of FUMCOG, or maybe all persons of FUMCOG, they disagree with the position of the United Methodist Church. We’re always in a discernment in a democratic decision making process. How do we contribute to that process of the discernment? Is it by leaving? Is it by staying? Is it trying to recognize as I would encourage Beth to think about, not just her own individual conduct but how is our individual conduct shaped by the larger community discernment of which we’re a part? There’s no problem in the United Methodist Church with open and honest debate and disagreement, conversation. But around many, many issues, we then, once the holy conferencing has happened, we do hold each accountable for living by the standards that the larger community has established. That is the community of faith, has established for our life as Christian’s and in this case, as ordained clergy. Beth: If I could sort of follow up on the image of the church being like the United States, that there’s a way that laws are created and there’s mechanisms to hold people accountable to these laws and it’s a part of what it means to be living in this democratic community. I agree with that and in my mind, in the church, it just isn’t civil society, sometimes there’s a law that’s wrong. And when you’re part of that community and you believe very strongly that a law is wrong or it’s discriminatory, there’s different things you can do. One way is to be part of an influenced debate and wait with patience until you’re able to convince other people and the law changes. And another approach, when a law is unjust, is to deliberately and publicly break it, to sit down at a segregated lunch counter, for black people and white people together, to ride a segregated bus and I think it’s not an exact analogy but that’s kind of the best way I could describe what I’m doing. And when you do that, you expect that there are going to be consequences. I think the process is unfolding in a way that I’ll be able to meet my goals which are to be faithful and to be honest and to be living with integrity and to help a variety of people to look at this issue in a different way. You know, at FUMCOG, we like to win. We like to fight battles and we like to win them and I think people are starting to see this may not be one that’s necessarily about winning in the way that we like to win. I think at FUMCOG, and interestingly also, at West Chester, another church that I served, people are a little bit innocent about the church law. I think people who haven’t been following the issue as closely are a little surprised at the level of discrimination. I’ve heard from people at the last church that I served that some of them have been kind of shocked and startled to hear that my coming out would mean possibly having to go through a hearing or a trial or lose my credentials Q: One of her choices is to go to another denomination as an alternative way of continuing her commitment to her faith. Do you have any comments about those ministries that welcome gay ministers? Bishop Weaver: There are a multiplicity of ministries in the body of Christ and denominations that have different views on many different things. But there’s one thing that’s clear right now and that is within the United Methodist Church, at this point in the holy conferencing and discernment process, this community of faith has concluded that ordain clergy should not be practicing homosexuality.
About Rev. Stroud's decision to annouce her sexual identity Her "Walking In The Light" sermon (including video excerpt) Bishop Weaver's interview about Rev. Stroud's decision The United Methodist Book of Discipline's stance on homosexuality Essay by Jamie Stroud, Ph.D. (Rev. Stroud's mother) Additional links for gay, bisexual, lesbian & transgender rights activism Visit Beth Stroud's own website (bethstroud.info) |   | ||||||||||
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