by Jim Petrie

     Although the Vermont Conference of the United Church of Christ voted to declare itself Open and Affirming by 270 votes to 93, the Guilford Community Church, affiliated with the UCC, wants to take a year to discuss the matter.
      “There is quite a bit of controversy over it through the churches throughout Vermont,” says Patricia Houghton, a coordinator of the congregation’s discussions and a former long-time deacon of the Guilford Church. “They want churches to get together and discuss this and try to see how people feel. Some churches are discussing it, some don’t want to discuss it at all.”
      By declaring itself Open and Affirming, a church is stating that it will “admit homosexuals to all aspects of the church – becoming pastors, teaching Sunday school, everything,” according to Tom Ragle, another of the discussion coordinators. “Affirm,” says Ragle, “means to affirm the right of an individual to his or her own sexual orientation.”
      Rather than accept the preference of the state conference, “This church has voted to do a study on it ourselves,” says Houghton. “Each church that Tom has spoken with has said to really go slow on this and get both sides of the issue; don’t get into something very quick because it’s so controversial, and many feel it might split the church.”
      These discussions have been a long time coming. According to Ragle, the national church of the UCC first began to look into Open and Affirming in 1969, in relation to the civil rights and anti-discrimination movements of that time. In 1972 a gay man was ordained as a pastor in California, and thereafter at nearly every biennial meeting of the national synod of the UCC, a resolution was presented for the declaration of Open and Affirming. It wasn’t until 1985 that the synod passed the resolution and declared itself Open and Affirming.
      Part of the premise of the traditional New England Congregational Church is that outside organizations may not impose rules or requirements on any individual church. Instead, the members of each church’s congregation decide its policies. Therefore, once the national synod passed the Open and Affirming policy, it could only recommend that state conferences and individual churches do likewise.
      The Vermont Conference of the United Church of Christ has been discussing the question of Open and Affirming over the past year. “The more conservative members of the UCC, in answer to Open and Affirming, set up their own task force,” says Ragle. “The pastors and others formed something called ‘Welcoming and Transforming.’ What it means is that anybody is welcome to worship in our church, but we hope the Holy Spirit will transform them from homosexual to heterosexual.”
      Although the Welcoming and Transforming panel was never recognized by the conference, it was acknowledged as an independent body of members who had something to say. When the final vote on Open and Affirming came up at the Vermont Conference of the UCC this June, an amendment to replace it with Welcoming and Transforming was proposed and defeated.
      But it wasn’t just the fact that the national synod and the Vermont Conference were dealing with the issue that led the leaders at Guilford Community Church to address Open and Affirming. “I personally would like to be able to bless Civil Unions in the Church,” says Pastor Lise Sparrow. “Two couples have come to ask me if that was a possibility. It happens that neither couple was somebody that the church knew. One couple approached me on the internet from California, when [the legislature] first passed the Civil Union law.”
      Since Sparrow was an interim pastor at the time, the church council told her that she could not bless the union in the church, but they would not object to her using her discretion outside the church. Pastor Sparrow thought it best to recognize the council’s position, and declined the request.
      The second request came shortly after Sparrow was made ‘settled’ pastor of the church. “Again, it was someone who did not come from our church. I ran it by the lay-leaders, and a red flag went up,” says Sparrow. She then took the question to the church council, and there were definitely people in the church who strongly opposed the idea. Then a decision was made to open the question up to the congregation. In the meantime, however, the pastor would follow the precedent that there would be no Civil Unions in the church until a policy was established by the whole congregation.
      “That was the thing that allowed people to stand the idea of going through this [discussion and decision] process,” she explains. “So, we’re going along with precedent, which has been that it’s never happened before, and until something changes, it won’t happen.”
      Recognizing that people in the Guilford church are split, the church council decided that the study should not be done in haste. “We’re taking our time with this,” says Ragle, “to let people adjust, to see the lay of the land and make up their mind.”
      The coordinators have begun the process with plenary sessions, large meetings to discuss different aspects of the greater issue, being careful to present both sides. The first plenary session was held in May, on the topic “What does the Bible have to say about homosexuality.” The panel consisted of a pastor from Hartford, Connecticut who was speaking for Open and Affirming, and a pastor from Wilmington, Vermont who spoke about why he felt it should not be passed.
      Another plenary session was held on June 20, titled “Is sexual orientation fixed or changeable?” The speakers were a doctor from Dartmouth and a speaker from Exodus, an organization that promoting “freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ,” according to the organization’s website.
      In future plenary sessions, Ragle hopes to include speakers from the homosexual and bisexual communities, those who have been ‘transformed’ to heterosexuality, and perhaps parents of gay and ‘transformed’ individuals. “In the fall, we will have a panel of people representing the Welcoming and Transforming group and a panel representing Open and Affirming,” says Ragle. “Tom has meetings planned to the end of this year and into the first of next year,” adds Houghton.
      Between the plenary sessions, church members are holding small, neighborhood meetings to discuss the topic further. “These small group sessions are not intended to try to convert anybody,” explains Ragle. “They are not debates, they are not arguments – nobody wins. The point is to listen, to hear what other people say and know where they’re coming from.”
      Elaine Petrie, a long-time member of Guilford Community Church (and this reporter’s mother), has been attending the meetings and has been impressed with the atmosphere of understanding. At the neighborhood meeting she attended last week, she shared with the group that two of her five children are homosexual. “It was the first time I had ever told anyone,” she explained. “No one had ever even asked me.”
      Everyone seems to agree that the issue is generally split demographically, with older members of the congregation tending to be more against the Open and Affirming declaration than the younger churchgoers. According to Pastor Sparrow, approximately 35% of the congregation is over 60, with the majority of the balance being between 30 and 60. Says one member of the church, “We have a lot of young and middle-age people in our church. I feel that it would pass easily if we voted on it tomorrow, but we do not wish to drive out of the church long-term senior members, who are much loved and respected.”
      Another churchgoer carries it a bit further. “People who have had a higher education tend to think more about biblical issues and theology, and have thought more critically about the bible. People without [education] tend to interpret the bible more literally.”
      “I have been very im-pressed by the discussions,” states Pastor Sparrow. “They have not been embattled, people are really trying to listen hard, because we really are split in the church, and people realize that. If nothing else, “ she continues, “ we want to feel like we’ve been as thoughtful to each other as possible as this goes on. We’re really digging in and trying to figure this out.”
      According to the pastor, there are at least two lesbian couples who attend church regularly, but no gay men have identified themselves to her. “I think that [the lesbians] were surprised,” comments Sparrow, “because the way you feel at Guilford Church is that you would just assume it would be fine. When this came up, it had never occurred to them that it wouldn’t be okay.”
     “I’ve always thought we were an Open and Welcoming church,” says Houghton, “but they want to be affirming of everything, and some don’t like that because of their convictions and beliefs. That’s the real issue, I think, in our church.”
     “I'm not sure what form the final motion will be,” says Ragle. “The motion could be simply that we accept blessing Civil Unions in the church. It could be a broader issue that we declare ourselves an Open and Affirming Church. But it will minimally address the issue of Civil Unions within the church.”

Jim Petrie is a native Vermonter who grew up in Guilford and now lives in Leicester.