Liberal Christian denominations

[Pontifex Geronimo 13]

Thyatira.

 

[GeoFee]

“Let the one with no sin cast the first stone” comes to mind.

 

[BetteTheRed]

If you're a same sex couple, come in to your local United Church, where you'll receive a warm welcome and help in planning the wedding of your dreams.
Offer available only at participating locations.

And therein lies the value of the Affirming logo/registration right there. People get 'interested' in churches around weddings, baptisms, funerals, etc. Sometimes they stick around afterwards. If you're an LGBTQ couple who wants to get married in a church, what better way to figure out quickly which one will marry you than to look up the list of Affirming congregations? Beyond that, you'd have to contact them individually. In Toronto, that could take a while...

 

[Pontifex Geronimo 13]

“Let the one with no sin cast the first stone” comes to mind.

Good one!
That was the one without sin.

 

[revsdd]

And therein lies the value of the Affirming logo/registration right there. People get 'interested' in churches around weddings, baptisms, funerals, etc. Sometimes they stick around afterwards. If you're an LGBTQ couple who wants to get married in a church, what better way to figure out quickly which one will marry you than to look up the list of Affirming congregations? Beyond that, you'd have to contact them individually. In Toronto, that could take a while...

I never said there was no practical value to being "Affirming." I said there are various reasons a church might choose not to be "Affirming." And the very existence of such a list is of value to LGBTQ couples who have no church connection but who want to be married in a church and can easily find one through the list. Which is great.

Although it occurs to me that what would be even more helpful (because it would open up many more possibilities for LGBTQ couples) would be to post a list of churches that have completely open and equal marriage policies, regardless of whether or not they've gone through the "Affirming" process.

 

[BetteTheRed]

I never said there was no practical value to being "Affirming." I said there are various reasons a church might choose not to be "Affirming." And the very existence of such a list is of value to LGBTQ couples who have no church connection but who want to be married in a church and can easily find one through the list. Which is great.

Although it occurs to me that what would be even more helpful (because it would open up many more possibilities for LGBTQ couples) would be to post a list of churches that have completely open and equal marriage policies, regardless of whether or not they've gone through the "Affirming" process.

And who could/would compile that list? Seems like it would be something of a duplication of effort. If you, as a congregation, want your church to appear on a list that exists that identifies "affirming" congregations, it might be as easy an idea to just work through the existing process. As I said, we didn't find it particularly onerous.

 

[Mendalla]

I have never looked around to see how many UU congregations are "Welcoming", the equivalent designation to "Affirming" in UU'ism. I know London is for sure because I joined shortly after they completed the process but I've never looked to see how widespread it is. I don't recall Hamilton being "Welcoming" during the couple years we attended there but maybe they did it after I moved to London. Might be interesting to compare but also not sure it would tell us much. With our small numbers (1 UU church in London vs. probably a dozen or more UCCan), we would probably almost inevitably have a higher percentage.

 

[Mendalla]

And who could/would compile that list? Seems like it would be something of a duplication of effort.

The initial work of compiling the list could probably be done by a competent co-op student in a semester or two. It's the maintenance work of keeping it up to date that would be the bigger question. It's useless if it ends up constantly being out of date.

 

[revsdd]

And who could/would compile that list? Seems like it would be something of a duplication of effort. If you, as a congregation, want your church to appear on a list that exists that identifies "affirming" congregations, it might be as easy an idea to just work through the existing process. As I said, we didn't find it particularly onerous.

Again - you're equating "performs same sex marriage" with being "Affirming" - or, more precisely, with "joining Affirm."

The list wouldn't be a duplication. The list of churches the perform same sex marriage wold be much larger than the list of churches that have joined Affirm. The only duplication would be that those who have joined Affirm would appear on both lists. The larger list, in my opinion, would be more valuable.

Such a list could be compiled by simply asking congregations if they wanted to be listed as churches with an open and equal marriage policy. You would simply need someone with the time to compile and maintain such a list.

 

[revjohn]

If you're a same sex couple, come in to your local United Church, where you'll receive a warm welcome and help in planning the wedding of your dreams.
Offer available only at participating locations.

That is the gist of what I was saying.

There is a proviso. And that is that there is a disconnect between the big picture denomination and the small picture congregation. We are seeing it play out here on this thread and it is not likely something which surprises the denomination's clergy.

The United Church of Canada prides itself on its social justice stance on just about every issue. It rarely invests the time and energy necessary into making sure that the social justice stance is warranted. So the denomination, the conference and the Presbytery can claim this is where we stand on issue X while congregations can refuse to touch issue X with a 15 foot pole.

If the denomination/Conference/Presbytery took a longer view and say with respect to Affirming designations decided that a Presbytery could not become Affirming until 75% of the congregations in its bounds were Affirming then the expectations generated have a greater chance of being met. Same for Conferences they need 75% of the Presbyteries they oversee to become Affirming. and the Denomination would require 75% of all Pastoral Charges.

But that would take a long freaking time some will say.

Yes, that is actually the point. And with that kind of investment you eventually turn out a product which has a higher degree of uniformity from congregation to congregation and reduces the disappointment of not meeting specific expectations.

Is it more important to be the first to make a specific declaration or to make sure that when we say Presbytery X has become an Affirming Presbytery that we know at least 75% of the Pastoral Charges within that Presbytery can meet the expectations that Affirming suggests?

This is not a problem that congregations make for the denomination. It is a problem that the denomination made for itself by making statements that do not have the actual support necessary. Making our math skills little better than those of Doug Ford. Wish all you want the numbers aren't lying.

Affirming Pastoral Charges have made a commitment because 75% of the membership committed to being something.
Affirming Presbyteries have made no commitment because the Presbyters from each congregation know that they aren't committing their Pastoral Charges to the Affirming process. Affirming Conferences the same thing. Easy, feel good statements that require no actual change from the Pastoral Charge is not social justice. It is a social smokescreen.

 

[revjohn]

And that, as Martha used to say, is a good thing.

It can be. It is not of necessity a good thing.

Failing to live up to the expectations of others rarely ends with the individual with the expectations agreeing that their expectations were too high and agreeing to bring them down a notch.

Particularly in a society which is increasingly consumer driven.

Now if you fail to live up to the expectations of the other it is a bad review and maybe some considerable piling on.

If the denomination is responsible for people forming certain expectations then the denomination better be doing a whole lot more to ensure that those expectations can be met rather than letting congregations take the fall for not being what the denomination suggested that they would be.

The variation, in theory allows for folk to shop about and find the congregation with a better fit. The reality is that in a number of communities you do not actually have that varied a buffet to choose from and when we start to consider the rural reality we are forced to recognize that where there is only one UCCAN for miles around no buffet (as far as the UCCAN goes) actually exists.

 

[Jaebius]

If you're a same sex couple, come in to your local United Church, where you'll receive a warm welcome and help in planning the wedding of your dreams.
Offer available only at participating locations.

We in the Fellowship will also give a warm welcome.

 

[Jaebius]

And therein lies the value of the Affirming logo/registration right there. People get 'interested' in churches around weddings, baptisms, funerals, etc. Sometimes they stick around afterwards. If you're an LGBTQ couple who wants to get married in a church, what better way to figure out quickly which one will marry you than to look up the list of Affirming congregations? Beyond that, you'd have to contact them individually. In Toronto, that could take a while...

Not really Bette. Most Christian leaders in the 6 either perform same-sex marriages themselves, or else know who does.

 

[Mendalla]

We in the Fellowship will also give a warm welcome.

But you won't marry them and you will probably eventually kick them out for having sex without being married.

 

[Jaebius]

But you won't marry them and you will probably eventually kick them out for having sex without being married.

We as a denomination won't marry them, and we'll hope they in time repent of their same-sex behavior.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

That brings up another point. If a single LGBT person, relatively new to UCCan, were to move to a small town where there were one or two congregations that were non affirming and did not have an open marriage policy - they may make the assumption that the UCCan is open to it everywhere having been somewhere else that was - why would they necessarily even think to look into the marriage policy? Assuming the town congregation is open to welcoming new neighbours whether they know all the ins and out of the UCCan or not.

I don’t imagine it would feel very welcoming to find out after making a few friends, that you are welcome to be included there in nearly everything, but if you ever meet a partner and would like to get married, tough luck, we don’t support that.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

The initial work of compiling the list could probably be done by a competent co-op student in a semester or two. It's the maintenance work of keeping it up to date that would be the bigger question. It's useless if it ends up constantly being out of date.

I think it might take them a week or two of focused work. That said, I don’t think new LGBT potential members and couples are responsible for the perceptions that the United Church puts out there, to them. And, with respect to them, the congregations are as responsible for those perceptions as Presbytery Charges. (New person: “What the bleep are Presbytery Charges?”)

 

[Mendalla]

I think it might take them a week or two of focused work. That said, I don’t think new LGBT potential members and couples are responsible for the perceptions that the United Church puts out there, to them. And, with respect to them, the congregations are as responsible for those perceptions as Presbytery Charges.

I wasn't saying they were. My expectation would be that the church would be the one hiring this student and publishing the list.

In the end, it could be argued that the only way to solve the problem is for the United Church to become universally Affirming and cut loose the congregations that don't get with the program. But their polity won't allow that. They aren't quite congregational, but they are still highly decentralized.

 

[Kimmio Laughterlove]

I wasn't saying they were. My expectation would be that the church would be the one hiring this student and publishing the list.

In the end, it could be argued that the only way to solve the problem is for the United Church to become universally Affirming and cut loose the congregations that don't get with the program. But their polity won't allow that. They aren't quite congregational, but they are still highly decentralized.

Oh, I know. I just don’t think it would have to take a semester or two. In United Church time maybe.

It creates confusion is all. And I don’t think outsiders looking to come in are responsible for sifting through all that confusion if the church is putting a particular perception out there.

The UCCan has a lot of positive aspects. And I thought that being nearly universally (across the country) affirming, aside from a small number of congregations, was one of them. Even if the open marriage policy congregation numbers, together with the officially affirming numbers, reflected 500% the number of affirming congregations. That would still only be 1000 out of 3000 congregations. If it was 1000% that’s just 2/3.

 

[Mendalla]

It creates confusion is all.

But that isn't the only area that creates confusion. Imagine someone reading about Gretta and then showing up at their local UCCan to find a minister preaching a traditional message of salvation. It can happen. The United Church's relative openness means they are diverse and unpredictable in a number of areas, not just the approach to LGBT issues. It's a strength in some ways to be sure, but it's also definitely a marketing problem at the national or even conference level. How do you sell the UCCan when you don't really have tight control of the "brand"?