That’s Rather Remarkable, and Sad
I met with a church member last week who spoke about being traumatized by a church in the state in which she previously lived. The more she talked, the more I knew which church she was talking about. It is one of the respected larger congregations from my former denomination. The lead pastor, a sweet guy, was once president of our national convention. Though it has been a long time, it is a church at which I have spoken.
It is not the first time I’ve had someone at Envision Community Church tell me about being wounded by a church with which I used to be affiliated. In fact, the chair of our board attended one when she was in high school. Lots of people move to Colorado from lots of places, so I am not surprised at the breadth of states in which these churches exist: Arizona/Washington/Texas/California/Indiana Kentucky/Ohio/Pennsylvania/New Hampshire/Florida/Illinois/Colorado. I am probably missing one or two states. Three states have multiple churches on the list. They are Colorado, which given where my church is located, is to be expected, plus Indiana and Kentucky.
Our little church has only been in existence for five years, yet already I have had individuals talk with me about their wounding experience at churches affiliated with my former denomination in twelve different states. That is rather remarkable, and sad.
Most are megachurches. None of the people at my church knew of my former affiliation with the denomination. Over coffee or dinner they simply told me how hurt they were when they found out their church did not accept LGBTQ+ people. Sometimes it was in a very public way, spoken by the pastor from the pulpit. Other times the church would not be forthcoming about their stance on LGBTQ+ people, even when the person asked directly. A few times LGBTQ+ issues were not the cause of the harm. It was teaching the substitutionary atonement, specifically that a blood sacrifice is necessary to appease an angry God.
I loved my former denomination. Best I can figure, I am the fifth generation of my family to have been a part of it. Among church historians it is referred to as the Stone/Campbell movement, and I had connections on both sides of it. My mother was a Stone from Bourbon County, Kentucky. And yes, it appears Barton W. Stone is on my family tree. My father’s mother was baptized in Brush Run Creek, where Alexander and Thomas Campbell established a church in what is now northern West Virginia.
My denomination has no headquarters or church hierarchy, though pretty much everybody knows who the fifty or so most influential leaders are. Most would have included me on that list. I served as Vice-President of the national convention, and on its executive committee for a number of years. For those who know the Stone/Campbell movement, I was a part of the middle branch of the movement, the Independent Christian Churches, not the non-instrumental Churches of Christ, or the Disciples of Christ, a more liberal denomination.
Should I be surprised when these folks tell me their stories? Truthfully, no. After all, I knew well over one thousand people by name within the denomination. Post transition, I’ve heard from about 20 of them, and spoken more than once with just six. I am only in regular contact with two. The great majority discarded me faster than you can say “excommunicated.”
Yet still, I am surprised. My love for these churches runs deep. The pastor mentioned by the woman with whom I met last week is someone I have always respected. He has an irenic spirit and is a person of character. Yet he left my church member traumatized (her words, not mine.) And no, he is not one of the 20 people who have reached out to me since my transition.
I, too, once believed that gay relationships were wrong and the substitutionary atonement was true, though I was never comfortable with either doctrine. I read an article challenging the substitutionary atonement in the mid-80s, and kept it in a prominent place in my filing cabinet. I struggled with where I stood on that doctrine until after my transition. I had changed my position on LGBTQ+ issues in the late 80s. I did not go public, other than within my book club of Roman Catholic friends in New York. I thought that was okay at the time. It was not.
I am sure that I, too, traumatized people unknowingly, by not speaking out in support of queer people, or in support of what most call universal salvation, the notion that God loves everyone just as we are, no changes demanded to get into heaven.
One of the most difficult things about being transgender is the discontinuity between my life as Paul and my life as Paula. It is exacerbated by the fact that my ostracization from my denomination was total and unequivocal. The truth is that it would have been just as complete had I only changed my theology, not my gender. I imagine more than six people would have had conversations with me, but based on what has happened to others, my theological shift alone would have still brought about the loss of my denomination.
I think of how different it would have been had I been a part of the Disciples of Christ, the more liberal side of the Stone/Campbell movement. It would have been marvelous to have continuity in my religious community, to have folks who could say, “Do you remember when we changed the magazine from a weekly to a monthly?” or “The first time we met was at that CIY conference in the late 70s. Remember that?” But alas, any possibility of continuity within my denomination is gone.
Integrating the two halves of my life has proven to be quite difficult. My former church world certainly has done nothing to help. And it sure does hurt when time and again church members tell me of their wounding by a church in the denomination I once loved. It’s all hard, really hard.
And so it goes.
