wfn.org | Fight over gay/lesbian ordination hasn't exploded in European

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Note #6735 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

churches
2-July-2001
01222

Fight over gay/lesbian ordination hasn't exploded in European churches

Issue is not as divisive as in the PC(USA)

by Luca Negro

LOUISVILLE - Gay ordination is a hot issue for Protestant churches in
Europe, but it is not nearly as divisive and polarizing there as in the
United States.

The debate arrived on the old continent years after it ignited in the
States, giving society and churches more time to deal with it. The European
churches have responded thoughtfully and pragmatically, projecting an
attitude of openness and of respect for others' Biblical understandings and
theological principles.

So the geography of gay ordination in Western Europe is like a leopard skin,
with islands of "gay" color scattered here and there in the sea of the
dominant culture.

The prospects of an openly gay candidate for ordination vary widely from
country to country.

The Netherlands

Laurens Hogebrink, a Dutch Reformed pastor, manages the Europe and North
America office of the Uniting Churches in the Netherlands (UCN), a merger of
the Lutheran church and the two main Reformed Churches in the country. With
more than 2.7 million members, it is the largest Dutch Protestant church.

Hogebrink attended the recent General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
(USA) here as an Ecumenical Advisory Delegate, and witnessed first-hand the
gay-ordination debate before the Assembly Committee on Ordination Standards.
"I must confess that I was not expecting to take part in this discussion,"
said Hogebrink, who is not gay. "So, instead of talking about global issues,
which are my expertise, I surprisingly found myself talking all the time on
gay ordination. I was impressed by the strongly emotional impact of the
debate, but at the same time by the true effort of the concerned parties to
listen to each other."

"For many years, we do ordain homosexuals," Hogebrink explained. "There's
nothing in our Book of Order to single out a particular category as being
more sinful than another. Of course, we expect the lifestyle of our
ministers to be compatible with the Gospel, but we are aware that we are all
sinners."

He said the UCN doesn't regard homosexuality as a sin, nor distinguish
between sexual orientation and practice.

"This is our national policy," Hogebrink said, "but at the local level the
congregations may have different points of view. In our church order system,
it's left to local congregations to take into account the personal
lifestyles of their ministers, elders and deacons."

Hogebrink said women's ordination has created a similar situation. While the
majority nationwide favors it, a good percentage of congregations do not
accept women as pastors.

"In this case, and also in case they don't want a homosexual pastor, we
believe we cannot force them," Hogebrink said.

The national policy of equal rights of all church members, including the
possibility of ordination, was clearly expressed in 1979 by the Synod of the
"Re-reformed Churches" (Gereformeerde Kerken, one of the partners in the
UCN). Together with controversies about doctrinal matters, this decision,
according to Hogebrink, "has caused some troubles to the ecumenical
relations of the 'Re-reformed Churches', particularly with other Reformed
denominations and organizations, such as the (international) Reformed
Ecumenical Council, and, in the USA, with the Christian Reformed Church in
Northern America."

Hogebrink said his own church, the Reformed Church (Hervormde Kerk), has not
felt ecumenical repercussions because of its policy on homosexuality.

"We had a difficult time within our own church, when in the late 1980s a
local congregation refused to give communion to a gay couple," he said. "Our
Synod then rejected disciplinary measures by local congregations because of
homosexual orientation or practice. After a wide debate, the Synod
reconfirmed in 1995 that heterosexuals and homosexuals have fully equal
rights as church members. Today the issue is much less controversial, except
when it comes to the blessing of homosexual couples. But the fact that
recently one of the three co-moderators of the UCN Synod happened to be a
self-affirming homosexual has hardly been seen as something special." The
Dutch Lutheran Synod affirmed already in 1972 that homosexuals could be
ordained.

Hogebrink said his participation in the PC(USA) Assembly "has convinced me
that the real issue is not homosexuality. It's how you read and understand
the Bible. The theological question is the same that emerged with the issues
of slavery and of the place of women in church and society. It's at the same
time an ecclesiological and a theological question. It's a challenge to
check how open and inclusive we are, and how, really, we do believe in
justification through faith only."

Germany
 
The German Evangelical Church (EKD) is an alliance of the regional churches
known as Landeskirchen, which may be Lutheran, Reformed or United. About 38
percent of Germany's 83 million citizens are Protestant. The EKD position on
homosexuality is detailed in a lengthy document approved in 1996, titled
"Living with Tensions." A whole chapter is devoted to the issue of gay
ordination. It says that as a general rule it isn't wise to ordain
homosexual pastors, but it is permissible in some individual cases, provided
that certain criteria are fulfilled.

"As a matter of fact," explained Kerstin Soederblom, a woman pastor in
Frankfurt, "several regional churches are much more liberal. The 1996
document is already an old text, and opinions are rapidly changing. Some
regional churches, particularly in the East and the South of the country,
still hold a conservative position, but the majority of the 'Landeskirchen'
do admit homosexual pastors, provided that they do not promote or too openly
proclaim their homosexuality.

"For example, in the city of Frankfurt about 25 percent of the pastors are
gay or lesbian persons," Soederblom continued. "This is no coincidence: It's
easier to be homosexual and a pastor in a city than in the countryside.
There are no obstacles for an affirming homosexual to be ordained, but the
local congregation has the right to say no."

In her case, Soederblom said, the majority of the Session was in her favor,
but some members had doubts. So they created a three-month trial period - a
departure from normal practice. "After that period I was fully hired," she
said. "I was also allowed to live in the manse with my partner".

"Knowing that I am an affirming lesbian, influenced by feminist theology,"
she continued, "probably someone feared that I would turn the church into a
gay/lesbian center. But this did not happen: We are a Christian church,
inclusive and welcoming. Of course many people who in the past had distanced
themselves from the church are now coming, knowing that the pastor would
respect them as they are."

Asked how church members have responded, Soederblom replied, "They like us.
They often invite us as a couple for dinner. I think we give a good picture
that it's possible to live in a committed and loving relationship as a
homosexual couple."

Soederblom said homosexual pastors in Germany are in a precarious situation.
"I'm happy here, but I wonder what will happen if for some reason something
goes wrong," she said. "As a matter of fact, we do not have the same legal
rights as heterosexual ministers. We have to be twice as good as them to
prove that we are qualified pastors. Therefore we must still work to clarify
our position in the church."

Some church leaders also would like to make church legislation
crystal-clear.

At the recent "Kirchentag" (a mass rally of 100,000 German Protestant, held
in June), the president of the Synod of the Evangelical Church of
Kurhessen-Waldeck, Ute Heinemann, said the criterion for homosexual
applicants for ordination should not be their sexual orientation, but their
ability to faithfully serve the church. Heinemann also spoke in favor of
blessing ceremonies for homosexual couples.

Church people fear that the issue could stir up old tensions. 

Germany's Parliament has just passed a bill that would extend to homosexual
couples to officially register their partnerships. The EKD council, while
not opposing the legislation, has made clear that it wants to maintain the
distinction between homosexual partnerships and marriage. Now the churches
are facing another quandary: what to do if a gay or lesbian church employee,
or even a pastor, registers his or her homosexual relationship. The churches
are pondering the issue and expect to make official statements by the end of
the summer.
 
Austria
	
One church that has a clear-cut position about the issue in Europe is the
Austrian Protestant Church (APC), which represents five percent of the
population in the predominantly Catholic country.

Peter Proeglhoef, an ordained  pastor since 1990, lives in Salzburg  with
his male partner, also a pastor. In 1992, he recalled, "a conservative group
presented an overture to our Synod, asking to ban the ordination of
homosexual persons.

"The Synod then asked its theological committee to engage in an extensive
study, which resulted in 1994 in a declaration affirming that there are no
fundamental theological arguments against homosexuality."

The document was sent to all congregations, and in 1996 the Synod voted
overwhelmingly in favor of a three-point policy:
	
* Homosexual believers are brothers and sisters, and should not be
discriminated against in our congregations.

* The State should give legal recognition to homosexual couples. 

* The criterion for the admission to ministry is not sexual orientation, but
responsible sexual behavior.

"This decision," Proeglhoef said, "opened the way to my partner's
ordination."

Of course, not everybody in the Church was pleased with this decision,
Proeglhoef said, "but the Church leaders clearly and openly supported me.
They welcomed my partner - who was then a candidate to ministry in Germany -
to serve in our church."

Some Catholic bishops criticized the Synod's decision. The bishop of
Salzburg, for instance, declared that the APC was "getting away" from the
ecumenical fellowship. But no church in the country reacted officially.
Later, the Old Catholic Church in Austria had its turn at the
homosexual-ordination debate, and decided to open the way to gay clergy.

Proeglhoef served as pastor of a small Protestant congregation in Salzburg
for 13 years, and now works in the office of the Salzburg Protestant Church
district as a school inspector. His partner is a pastor. They have been
together for 10  years, and last year they moved into the manse.
"This was not a problem for the congregation," Proeglhoef said. "The Session
asked us to sign an agreement that regulates various aspects of our living
in a flat belonging to the church. The same rules (that apply to) married
heterosexual couples. That's all."

Italy
 
Less than one percent of Italians are Protestant. But Protestant churches
have been in the forefront of defending the rights of minorities. So, in the
late 1970s - when homosexuality was essentially taboo in Italy - the
Waldensian Center of Agape, in Northern Italy, opened its doors to gay
believers, and since then has sponsored an annual conference on faith and
homosexuality.

The Waldensian Church has become so popular in Italy's gay community that
the national gay and lesbian organizations officially invite their members
to sign up for the Waldensian Church when they pay taxes. (Italian law
allows taxpayers to allocate a small percentage of taxes, 0.008 percent, to
churches of their choice).

The majority of gay and lesbian Christians who attend the Agape conferences
are Roman Catholic. But in 1998, members of the Waldensian, Baptist and
Methodist Churches - clergy and lay people, men and women, straight and gay
or lesbian - founded the Italian Protestant Network on Faith and
Homosexuality.

"It was not enough to be perceived as a 'liberal' church, said Giorgio
Rainelli, the national coordinator of the Network. "The fact is that our
churches do not have an official and clear position on homosexuality, and we
felt the need to deepen our understanding of inclusiveness, to work out our
theological awareness and to be more effective in pastoral care for sexual
minorities."
As a result of the network's efforts, last year's General Assembly of the
Baptist, Methodist and Waldensian churches agreed to set up a theological
commission on homosexuality, which will produce materials for congregational
study and report to the next joint Assembly in 2005.

"The ordination of homosexual ministers has never been a real issue in our
churches," said Rainelli, a gay man who is actively engaged in his
congregation as Sunday School director. "We have a certain number of gay and
lesbian pastors, and their case has been dealt with by keeping a low
profile. The church leaders are clearly supportive of their ministry, but
usually recommend being as discreet as possible. What they mostly fear are
the possible repercussions on ecumenical relations, not only with Catholics
but also with other Evangelical Churches, like the Pentecostals."
 
Rainelli, who lives in partnership with a male pastor, said: "Almost
everyone in the Church  knows that we are committed to each other. They
accept us as a couple - at least unofficially. But to be honest, after so
many years, I am getting tired of caution. Late this year, we will celebrate
our twentieth anniversary, and my desire is to tell everybody how happy we
are, and how blessed has been our relationship - even without an 'official'
church blessing."

 "The time has probably come to be more bold," he added, "which doesn't mean
to be needlessly provocative, but to dare openly proclaim the wonders of
God's inclusive love."

(Luca Negro is the communications officer for the Federation of Protestant
Churches in Italy. He has spent the last month in Louisville as part of the
Mission to the U.S.A. program of the Worldwide Ministries Division, assigned
to the Presbyterian News Service.)

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