Believe this: The parishioners of tiny Abiding Peace Lutheran Church in Kansas City, North–membership 45 people–didn’t want to be at the center of a national church debate on sexuality. For five years all they’ve wanted is a full-time pastor, something they were just too small to afford.
Well, they finally have one. And that’s where the trouble lies.
Last month, 35-year-old Donna Simon stood at Abiding Peace’s altar and was ordained as its new minister. When that happened, Abiding Peace committed an act of ecclesiastic disobedience. As a consequence, it could become the first Lutheran church in a decade to be suspended from its national church community, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
At issue: Simon’s sexuality. She is lesbian and won’t promise to be celibate.
Few church issues are as difficult to navigate today as those involving gay church members and clergy.
“In all the mainline Protestant churches and others, this is probably the most controversial issue of the last 10 years and will be for the next 10 years,” said Lutheran Bishop Paul Egertson in Southern California.
Had Simon promised lifelong celibacy, the Evangelical Lutheran Church would have little problem with her ordination. The ELCA, the largest branch of the Lutheran church with more than 5 million members, has long accepted celibate homosexuals as ministers, as have a few other denominations.
But according to “Visions and Expectations,” the Evangelical Lutheran church’s behavioral guidebook, the rules are clear:
Ordained ministers who are homosexual in their self-understanding are expected to abstain from homosexual relationships.
Simon decided years ago she could never honor such a vow. At age 30, while a student at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, Calif., Simon realized she was gay. She fell in love with another seminarian.
“My relationship with my partner,” said Simon, “was the most faith-filled and God-centered relationship I ever had.”
That relationship is over now. But Simon knew as she graduated from seminary that she desired a committed, loving relationship and therefore couldn’t promise to always be celibate. She told this to the committee that was screening candidates for ordination.
“I wanted to tell them what the truth of my life is,” she said.
The result: She was never approved for ordination and is not recognized as a pastor in the ELCA.
As a result of Simon’s ordination, Bishop Charles Maahs, head of the Lutheran Synod in Missouri and Kansas, may have no option but to recommend that Abiding Peace be suspended and perhaps expelled from the roster of Lutheran churches. Abiding Peace would become an independent church, cut off from the larger community of Lutheran churches and the programs, services and support the ELCA provides.
Not since 1990 has any church been suspended for such an offense. In San Francisco that year, First United Lutheran Church ordained Jeff Johnson, a non-celibate gay man. St. Francis Lutheran Church ordained Phyllis Zillhart and Ruth Frost, a lesbian couple. Both churches were suspended, then five years later expelled, for choosing to stand by their pastors rather than church rules.
Abiding Peace may go through the same wrenching process.
“I’ve met with these people,” Maahs said. “They’re wonderful people, but I have the responsibility of upholding the policy of the church. This is the bind.”
Certainly no one is caught more in that bind than the members of Abiding Peace. They say that in just a few months they have come to cherish and respect Simon, finding her devoutly spiritual and affable.
“I love her,” said churchgoer Valorie Bratcher, “as a mother, as a grandmother.”
To the people of Abiding Peace, Simon’s sexual preference makes no difference. When church members voted to offer her the pastor’s job, they knew she was lesbian.
“Personally,” said congregation president Lyle Jaeger, “I don’t understand why being male or female, gay or straight, young or old, black or white should make any difference to being a religious leader. Since she has arrived, her sermons, her activities, are just inspiring.”
The congregation, however, is well aware their dilemma goes beyond mere church politics.
The ” irregular ordination” of Simon has caught the attention of Lutherans nationwide. About 80 people from across the country attended the ordination to show their support for Simon and the issue of non-celibate gay clergy. Fifteen traveled from Ann Arbor, Mich., where she had interned.
In the Lutheran church, some even liken Abiding Peace’s ecclesiastic disobedience to the civil disobedience Rosa Parks showed when she refused to move to the back of the bus.
“Perhaps actions like that taken by Abiding Peace will urge the rest of us to deal with this issue and resolve it,” said the Rev. Richard Jeske, pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Prairie Village, Kan.
To be sure, Abiding Peace’s parishioners knew that by selecting a non-celibate lesbian, the church could be expelled. But they also thought they had little choice.
For years Abiding Peace sought a full-time pastor from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. There’s a shortage of Lutheran pastors nationwide and, even if there was not, Abiding Peace could afford to pay a salary of only $14,000.
“We wanted a full-time pastor. That was our goal,” Bratcher said.
The ELCA couldn’t help them.
So in May, Abiding Peace contacted Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries, a San Francisco-based group that financially supports churches that choose non-celibate homosexual pastors. The group sent Abiding Peace four candidates along with extra money for a salary.
Church members unanimously chose Simon. Now, even if the church is set adrift from its national community, members have no intention of letting Simon go.
“It is a matter of justice,” said church member Mary Gerken. “They have to do what they have to do. We have to follow the Gospel and what Christ would have done.”
Simon said of her members: “They are putting themselves at risk in a big way, and this is not a radical place. Every week when we finish worship I think these people are the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten.”
