by Bishop Bill Gohl
When love has flow'red in trust and care,
build both each day that love may dare
to reach beyond home's warmth and light,
to serve and strive for truth and right.
My thoughts in these last days have been with one of my beloved alma maters, and a gathering storm around a leader's former work (TW: conversion therapy) that, while painful for them after a journey toward a different understanding and experience of the diverse ways that love iterates in relationships, was work done in the name of God that did violence to an already marginalized community within the Body of Christ. The pain of the leader, I suspect, is crushing; the pain and concern of siblings in the body is unbearable. It’s a quintessential "damned if you do, damned if you don’t" moment filled with guilt, compassion, confusion and a desperate hunger for clarity – not for what has been, but for those who have been told that they are safe in our ELCA community.
When love is tried as loved ones change,
hold still to hope though all seems strange,
till ease returns and love grows wise
through list'ning ears and opened eyes.
While transformation is possible and has obviously occurred in the heart and ministry of this particular leader; the lack of disclosure of this information and the institutional silence in the process of election and installation represent a complicity-by-omission with those who continue to do theological, emotional, psychological, and physical harm to the LGBTQ+ community.
I don't support the calls for this particular leader's head on a platter. Instead, I want our church — and its many expressions of leadership — to model the adaptive leadership skills we hope to raise up for the future and vitality of the Body of Christ alive in the world.
Recently, one of our fine pastors challenged me, saying: "Everything I know about reconciliation work requires honest and open dialogue. Being open and affirming requires it too."
When love is torn and trust betrayed,
pray strength to love till torments fade,
till lovers keep no score of wrong
but hear through plain love's Easter song.
We can't sweep a devastating chapter of a person's life and ministry under a rug simply because it's painful for them to relive and address, then offer statements of support, saying that we believe there's an obvious genuine change of heart, and expect the very people who have been at the hands of the same devastating chapter in their own lives to simply believe us and our assessment of the circumstances without transparency, clarity and mutual conversation as a community of faith.
But more than anything in all of this, I want the LGBTQ+ community to actually be safe — in every way — in our church. We've got a long way to go there, and it breaks my heart that we are further marginalizing their voices even when the conversation is about their welfare and safety, not just the devastating personal pain of one who was an oppressor turned ally.
Though my thoughts are turned toward one particular community at the moment, this is not an uncommon experience in many iterations of the Body of Christ. And though in this case it is about the LGBTQ+ community, it could just as easily be about people of color, women, Native peoples, refugees, and a whole host of others who have been done injury by this same church that we love and serve.
I'm sure that there will be right and renewed apologies as part of the church's ongoing discernment and disclosure processes; but today I feel compelled to write as a bishop and teacher of the church to say that it's not all right, we cannot continue to sacrifice marginalized on a false altar of unity – and our silence just won't do.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. – I John 1:5-9
Hymn verses from When Love is Found, by Brian Wren © 1983, Hope Publishing Company