Westlake church embraces gay founding member - Austin American-Statesman
Westlake church embraces gay founding member - Austin American-Statesman |
| Westlake church embraces gay founding member - Austin American-Statesman Posted: 03 Jul 2019 12:50 PM PDT On Pentecost Sunday, the day when Christians believe the Holy Spirit descended on the followers of Jesus, the Rev. Tracey Beadle delivered a fiery sermon on the debate over homosexuality that threatens to split the United Methodist Church. In the midst of denominational upheaval, Beadle, pastor of Westlake United Methodist Church, told the congregation that Methodists needed to call on the Holy Spirit for courage to confront discrimination against LGBTQ members. "We may feel like our heads have caught fire," she said. "We may feel like we're dying. I believe the church is being born again." In a pew near the front sat Louise Morse, a petite 93-year-old woman with cropped white hair and close-set eyes. Morse helped found the church in 1973 and has rarely missed a Sunday. Until recently, though, she'd kept her distance from her fellow church-goers because of a long held secret: Morse is gay. She confided her identity to Beadle and her Sunday school class a couple of years ago — the first time she'd ever shared her orientation with straight people. Then last year, Morse, who has skydived, bungee jumped and ridden a horse across Outer Mongolia, took what felt like the most terrifying risk of her life: She came out to the entire 680-member congregation. Some members say Morse's courage helped propel the church to affiliate with the Reconciling Ministries Network, a Methodist organization that promotes equality for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. For Morse, the positive response meant she could finally feel at home in her church. "I feel like that church belongs to me and I belong to the church," she said. "And we're all together." FROM 1999: Louise Morse, meeting challenges in the next millennium As a divided United Methodist denomination grapples with its stance on sexuality, Morse's experience underscores how church teaching has alienated LGBTQ believers — and spurred many to take a stand on their behalf. While other mainline Protestant denominations, including Presbyterians and Episcopalians, have opened the door to LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage, a slim majority of Methodists voted for the "traditional plan" at a special session of the worldwide church in February. That plan reinforces language in the Methodist Book of Discipline, which states that "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching" and prohibits the ordination of "self-avowed practicing homosexuals." But as Beadle noted in her Pentecost sermon June 9, many in the church are resisting. At a recent regional Methodist gathering in Corpus Christi, she said, most of the delegates chosen for next year's churchwide convention oppose the traditional plan. Churches around the country are hosting same-sex weddings, and bishops are ordaining LGBTQ clergy candidates in defiance of the policy, she added. Like the disciples of Jesus who found themselves speaking in tongues on the Pentecost, Beadle told the congregation, "in many different languages, we are speaking out against the traditional plan." "Hopefully they are hearing … that most United Methodists won't discriminate," she said. They were words that, for most of her life, Morse could never have imagined hearing in church. Growing up on a ranch near Copperas Cove in the 1930s, no one even acknowledged homosexuality, she said. In elementary school, Morse noticed she was drawn more to girls than boys but didn't know quite what to make of her attraction. When she moved to Austin to find work in the 1940s, she started hearing terms like "queer." "One time it hit me that that's what I was," she said. "I was shocked." Maybe she could change herself, she thought. In her 20s, she married a man. The union lasted 10 months. After that, Morse, a court stenographer who would later start her own court reporting company, presented herself as a busy professional woman who simply didn't have time for marriage. She wore lipstick and high heels and tried not to "act gay." It was exhausting. "Anyone would have to be a perfect moron who'd want to be gay," she said. Morse would eventually find her tribe — other gay people in Austin with whom she socialized, traveled and played softball and bridge. But the homophobic violence and discrimination she witnessed and heard about gave her constant anxiety. She knew a woman whose family forced her to undergo electroshock therapy to try to "cure" her homosexuality. The woman killed herself. By the time Morse reached her mid-30s, the shame and secrecy became unbearable. "I was tired of hiding and lying all the time," she said. She feared God hated her. At one point, she begged God to take her life. "It didn't happen," she said, adding that the details of what she now calls her "intervention" with God are too personal to share but that the experience was "absolutely awesome." Morse found peace in her relationship with God but still feared backlash from straight Christians if she was outed. Many, she said, subscribed to biblical passages that said homosexuality was sinful, an abomination. Beadle knows how painful those verses could be and has addressed them in her sermons. "It's really very few passages that seem to speak to this topic," she said. "And then when you dig into what lies beneath those particular texts, it's very easy to see what the writers of those texts were talking about in their own contexts is not what we're referring to today at all. They were not referring to a loving, mutual same-sex relationship." Morse said those who condemn homosexuality tend to overlook the love aspect, which she described as "all consuming." For years, she attended Westlake Methodist with her long-term partner Hilda (Hillary) Morris, though she was careful not to arouse suspicion. The two would arrive at different times and leave separately. They maintained separate residences as well. When Morris became ill, Morse did not leave her beside. Marina Sifuentes, a longtime Westlake Methodist member who sat in the same pew as Morris and Morse, remembers visiting the hospital and witnessing the devotion the women had for each other. That's when it dawned on her that they were a couple. After Morris died in 2008, Sifuentes worried about Morse. "She didn't seem particularly joyous at church," she said. "She obviously was worshiping ... but she kind of just kept to herself." Sifuentes invited Morse to join Journeys, a progressive Sunday school class that promoted LGBTQ inclusion. "I just couldn't imagine anyone going to our church and never being in fellowship with others," she said. Morse joined. She guessed Sifuentes had already figured out she was gay, so she confided in her. But it would be years before Morse came out to the whole class. In 2017, Beadle became pastor of Westlake Methodist. As a get-to-know-you exercise, she asked members of the congregation to write their name and a detail about themselves that would help her remember them. Morse still isn't sure what possessed her to do it — she thinks it could have been divine guidance — but there it was in ink on a slip of paper: "Louise Morse. I am gay." By this time, Westlake Methodist had begun exploring the idea of becoming a reconciling congregation. Founding member Robert Davis hoped the church could draw more young people if they officially welcomed LGBTQ members. But some were wary of affiliating with the Reconciling Ministries Network because they were unfamiliar with the Chicago-based organization. Others worried that taking a stand on what they saw as a political issue might drive members away. And some felt they didn't need to single out a particular group — they already welcomed everyone. Davis argued, "Well, the Methodist dicipline singles out the LGBTQ community, and it doesn't single out other communities. So that's a reason … for making this specific statement to them." Meanwhile, Morse had decided to come out to the church. With Beadle's help, she told her story in a video, which Beadle played for the church on Palm Sunday last year. The congregation responded with a standing ovation. "That was the most liberating experience that anyone could ever have in their life," Morse said, "coming out and seeing that I was accepted and people like me." Davis believes Morse's personal testimony tipped the scales. This year, the church voted overwhelmingly to adopt a welcoming statement and affiliate with Reconciling Ministries Network. "I think (the video) touched people," he said. "I think we would have done it anyway ... but it's easier in some ways when you're talking about a person you know than when you're talking about it in the abstract." Encouraged by the support, Morse, who keeps a busy schedule that includes teaching bridge and swimming laps in her pool, is now speaking to other church groups about her experience. And she's participating more in her own congregation, Sifuentes said. "She became really a part of our church," she said. "And she's a founding member of our church. It was just beyond me that all this time she couldn't be who she was — fully." At the end of the service on Pentecost Sunday, the band played a raucous hymn. Members clapped and danced in the pews. As Beadle greeted congregants on their way out, Morse stood in the entryway, beaming and surrounded by friends.  |
| Posted: 15 Jun 2019 12:00 AM PDT  We should deal with Westboro Baptist Church question right up front. Was the late Pastor Fred "God Is Your Enemy" Phelps, Sr., a Baptist? Certainly. He was a Baptist because his small, independent flock called itself "Baptist " and he was its leader. So there. Next question: Is former President Bill Clinton a Baptist? The odds are 100-1 that the answer remains "yes," since Clinton has been a member of many Southern Baptist churches during his lifetime. In 2018, Clinton made a Charlotte pilgrimage to view the casket of the late Rev. Billy Graham, paying homage to the Southern Baptist evangelist who was one of his heroes — as a Bible Belt boy and as a politico with a complex private life. So who gets to decide who is a Baptist and who is not? To adapt a saying by the great William F. Buckley, is there a way to definitively prove that Mao Zedong wasn't a Baptist? Here's the newsworthy, but related, question right now: Who gets to say who is a "Southern Baptist"? That's the topic that dominated this week's "Crossroads" podcast conversation — click here to tune that in — in the wake of the national Southern Baptist Convention meetings last week. That gathering in Birmingham, Ala., made lots of headlines because of the complicated, often emotional discussions of how to fight sexual abuse in SBC congregations. Since SBC churches are autonomous, leaders of the national convention — lacking the legal ties associated with the word "denomination" — can't order folks at the local level to take specific actions, including on issues linked to the ordination, hiring and firing of ministers. So how can the SBC get local pastors and church leaders to crack down on sexual abuse? That was the topic of a post I wrote called, "Kick 'em out? Southern Baptists seek ways to fight sexual abuse in autonomous local churches." Apparently, leaders at the national level have decided to adopt tactics that have been used at the "associational" (local or regional) level or in state conventions — "breaking fellowship" with congregations that cross controversial doctrinal lines. In the past, progressive Baptists protested when some associations and states used this tactic to deal with the ordination of women and, more recently, various LGBTQ ministry issues. Now this strategy will be used with churches that fail to meet certain standards linked to preventing sexual abuse, caring for victims and handling future accusations. Thus, I wrote:
So what happens if the SBC kicks a church out? That means it is no longer a "Southern Baptist" church. Does this really matter, in a "post-denominational age" in which some SBC congregations have taken the words "Southern Baptist" off the signs all over their megachurch campuses? At that point, an ex-SBC church is simply a stand-alone "Baptist" church, like thousands of others (hello Westboro), primarily on the far theological and cultural right. There are dozens of other "Baptist" groups out there, of various sizes . Do reporters know the difference? For that matter, do many journalists understand the various ties that bind Southern Baptists at the state, regional and local levels? It appears that many do not. But here's another question: Does the PUBLIC understand that "Baptist" is a label that can be attached to Protestants with radically different doctrines, histories and approaches to faith? We have a case unfolding right now here in East Tennessee that is an SBC leader's nightmare, in terms of the potential for the public to understand that "Baptists" come in all theological shapes and sizes. Click here and then here for Knoxville News-Sentinel pieces that cover the first chapters of this drama. What's the fuss about? Check out this headline: "Knox County DA 'looking into' detective's church sermon calling for execution of LGBTQ people." As you would expect, all kinds of believers — doctrinal conservatives and liberals — have freaked out over this story. As it turns out, Detective Grayson Fritts is also the Rev. Grayson Fritts and, you guessed it, he leads a "Baptist" congregation. Here's the top of a recent update (note: written by one of my former students):
OK, then there is this:
You guessed it: Fritts leads an "independent" Baptist church — sort of. Wait?!? You mean there are "networks" of "independent" Baptist congregations? Yes, there are. Legions of them. Thus, in another follow-up story, there is this background material:
Oh my. Say the name of that group several times, slowly, and let it all sink in — New. Independent. Fundamental. Baptist. Movement. Does this group have a website? It would appear so. As your GetReligionistas say all the time to people tiptoeing into the minefield that is the religion-news beat: Let's be careful out there. #SERIOUSLY  |
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