Lesbian Rev. Could Be Forced from Church
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| Wed, 12-01-2004 - 9:16am |
Posted on Sun, Nov. 28, 2004
Her life's dream goes on trial
From an early age, it was clear Beth Stroud would become a minister. Her coming out may end that.
By Eils Lotozo
Inquirer Staff Writer
When Beth Stroud was just 4 years old, her mother was already certain she would grow up to be a minister.
"From the time she was tiny, she baffled her Sunday-school teachers with her questions," Jamie Stroud said of her daughter, a prodigy who could read at 3 and who, at 8, asked for a King James Bible for Christmas.
Stroud proved her mother prescient. The youngest person in her seminary class, she was ordained at 27. Two years later, in 1999, the Mount Airy native became an associate pastor at First United Methodist Church of Germantown, where she has forged a busy life preaching, leading Bible studies, shepherding youth groups, and ministering to the sick and dying.
All that could soon be over.
On Wednesday, Stroud goes on trial before the United Methodist Church. She is charged with violating church law against the ordination and appointment of "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals." With gay-rights struggles raging in American society, the trial, to be held at a Methodist retreat center in Pughtown, Chester County, is making national headlines, and will be open to the public at Stroud's behest.
The retired bishop and 13 ordained elders who make up the trial court will hear testimony from both sides. If they find Stroud guilty, she could lose her minister's credentials.
A curly-haired, fresh-faced woman who looks younger than her 34 years, Stroud put herself on a collision course with the Methodist hierarchy when she gave a sermon in April 2003 disclosing that she lived with a female partner, Chris Paige.
Stroud's orientation was no secret to most of the congregation, a feisty, diverse group known for its progressive politics. In fact, Stroud first found her way to the Germantown church, known by its acronym FUMCOG, as a Bryn Mawr College student after she came out as a lesbian and no longer felt at home in her parents' United Methodist church.
FUMCOG is part of a splinter movement of Reconciling Congregations that dissent from the denomination's position that homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian teaching. The church has rallied around Stroud, raising money for her legal defense, trying to lighten her workload so she can prepare for the trial, and promising that she will still have a job even if she loses her ministry credentials.
"That would be a shattering thing, because Beth loves being a minister," said George Herold, a 50-year member who attended Stroud and Paige's "holy union" ceremony in 2000 at the West Philadelphia church where Paige is an elder.
But the Methodist Church is not as liberal as the congregation.
"Many of us looking at this case see it as pretty much open and shut," said the Rev. James V. Heidinger, publisher of Good News magazine, which promotes a more orthodox view of United Methodism. Heidinger pointed out that the church's rule barring homosexuals who are not celibate from the ministry has been challenged at every quadrennial convention since it was passed in 1972: "But each time it has held and been reaffirmed."
Stroud acknowledged that things did not look good for her. A church jury in Washington state acquitted another lesbian minister of similar charges in March - finding that homosexual practice, while condemned in the denomination's Book of Discipline, is not specifically listed among the "chargeable offenses." The verdict caused an uproar in the national church, and the denomination's judicial council, its highest court, has ruled against using the controversial avenue of argument in future cases.
The only other Methodist trial dealing with homosexuality occurred in 1987. It ended with the jury's voting to defrock the Rev. Rose Mary Denman.
Stroud would not disclose her defense team's strategy during an interview in her Germantown Avenue church office, where children's drawings and snapshots of the youth groups and confirmation classes she has taught decorate the walls.
"I feel I'm doing the best I can to be faithful, and either outcome I'm prepared for and can accept," she said, adding that she would accept a non-ministry job at FUMCOG if she were defrocked. Still, she said, she could not help getting emotional when Senior Pastor Fred Day suggested changing the schedule this month so she could serve Communion before the trial for what could be her last time.
Stroud hesitated at the offer. She didn't want the focus to be on her, and there was another reason: "I didn't want to cry. I'm famous for crying at sacraments, especially baptisms. My voice will break and I'll have tears streaming down my face. And not pretty, telegenic tears. I snort."
Thankfully, there was no snorting at the Communion service, said Stroud, who is quick to laugh and seems able to maintain an ebullient humor despite the pressure of the trial.
This was an ordeal she could have easily avoided.
Because of the United Methodist Church's de facto "don't ask/don't tell" stance and FUMCOG's tolerance, "I probably could have served with my sexual orientation and my relationship with Chris sort of a half-secret forever," Stroud said. "I probably could have made it to retirement that way."
Paige, former publisher of a progressive Christian magazine and now a consultant to nonprofits and small businesses, lives with Stroud in a Germantown house along with two cats and a dog. While the two were happy at home, Stroud felt increasingly uneasy about the shadow of secrecy she lived under.
A Bible-study class Stroud was teaching pushed her to act, she said. The curriculum, which urged people to use Scripture to reflect on their lives, asked a series of probing questions.
Recalled Stroud, "One question was, 'Is there anything holding you back in your faith?' And I thought, 'If I am not sharing the whole truth about my life, I am not being a faithful witness to what I believe.'
"What I believe is that God loves me just as I am. And God's love for us is so profound, there is nothing we can do to deserve it and nothing we can do to get away from it," Stroud said.
"That's what I believe, but I wasn't living that way. I was living as if holding on to my credential as an ordained pastor was more important than my faith."
Day said he admired the way Stroud had handled the charged situation. In her pivotal sermon, she warned the congregation of the trial she would likely face, and urged them to resist their tendency to stage protests. She asked them, instead, to pray.
She also asked people to share casseroles as a way to "support and care for each other" during the ordeal. That led to a flurry of casserole-recipe postings on the support Web site www.bethstroud.info.
"It's pretty evident to me, knowing of the gifts and graces she has for ministry, and seeing how she has caused people to grow spiritually, she is called by God to do this," Day said.
Bishop Marcus Matthews, head of the denomination's Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, was not available for comment. In a message last month, Matthews asked area congregations to hold prayer vigils Dec. 1, the day the trial starts.
"The trial and accompanying media attention," he said, "offer us an opportunity to live out the call to conduct ourselves in a 'consistent Christian manner,' even as we passionately voice theological arguments on both sides of the debate."
Stroud's mother, Jamie, who runs a Chestnut Hill photo-finishing shop with her husband, Bill, won't be joining those vigils. She left the United Methodist church over its decision to put her daughter on trial.
"I'm furious," she said. "How does the denomination teach these things to children about God's love and acceptance and then turn around and say, 'We can't accept you?' "
Most Methodists don't share that fury, said Heidinger, the Good News publisher.
"I think there is a classic misread today on this issue of Christ affirming us as we are," he said. "God does not leave us as we are when he calls us to discipleship. He calls us to change and to conform our lives to a biblical norm."
Heidinger said he questioned Stroud's decision, knowing that she was a lesbian and knowing the church's teachings, to be ordained in the United Methodist Church in the first place.
Stroud acknowledged that she could have pursued ordination in a more welcoming denomination. But the United Methodist Church is her spiritual home, she said.
"I was raised in this church," she said. "I'm a Methodist. That's who I am."
© 2004 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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Kim
"If I can say God made me as I am, a heterosexual,
then homosexuals can say God made them as they are.

Sandr
It's a sad day for Christianity.
CL-Nursepam2000 aka
I am going to be very eager to hear the result of this case, though I have a strong feeling that I know what it will be. Very sad, she seems like a wonderful person and a real asset to that church. The website that her partner has up for her is really great. They have the full text of her coming out sermon, among others, that was a really great read.
~C
I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sick of it. I've been ranting a bit earlier on the feminist board, the in the news one, and off iV about bigots, etc. This country is in an ugly place right now... those who harbour such ill will are emboldened, some calling for banning mention of gays in public documents and libraries (Alabama) with the marriage amendment, the Washington Post insert, NBC and CBS declining pro gay ads...
I've had enough.