Back in my Colorado days, I spent lots of time covering the Iliff School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary that was and is known as a hub for liberal Christian theology. A student — in the late 1980s — estimated that the student body was close to 50% gay and lesbian.
The problem, of course, was that there weren’t enough “urban” churches in Denver to handle all the students who needed to work part-time, serve in parish residency programs or be placed in their first pastoral positions (if they wanted to say in that regional conference). I once heard a feminist lesbian student, near tears, describing her attempts to preach to a small-town congregation out on the high plains of eastern Colorado. Some people even believed in hell.
What I realized was that this was not a story with two sides — liberal clergy vs. old-school locals. It was a story with, at least, three sides — liberal clergy, conservative laity and seminary/denominational officials caught in the middle. The liberal powers that be, you see, wanted to help the graduates, but they couldn’t afford to run off legions of ordinary church members. They had to be careful, for reasons linked to institutional survival.
I thought of those stand-offs while reading the recent Religion News Service feature — I am not sure that it is a “news” story — that ran with this headline: “As seminaries welcome openly transgender students, church lags behind.” Here is the overture:
When Austen Hartke arrived at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, he knew it was the only Lutheran seminary that didn't participate in his denomination's LGBTQ+ welcoming program. But as his awareness grew that he was transgender, so did his conviction that Luther was the right place for him.
Hartke, who had come out as bisexual years before applying to seminary, had specifically picked the school, he said in a recent interview, so he would learn to navigate his identity and ministry while being exposed to “the Midwestern attitudes I lived with every day.”
Still, said Hartke, who today runs the Transmission Ministry Collective, a community that supports transgender and other nonbinary Christians, “I didn’t come out as trans until I was holding my diploma, because I didn’t know what would happen.”
Hartke is one of a growing number of openly transgender students graduating from mainline and non-denominational Christian seminaries, many of which have made strides over the past decade toward welcoming them to explore their spirituality. But even as the mainline denominations have largely come to welcome LGBTQ individuals, transgender seminarians are still encountering hurdles to ordination and being called to a church, challenging liberal church attitudes about acceptance and often finding new paths for service.
By the way, has Hartke been ordained? Shouldn’t this be “the Rev. Austen Hartke”? I wondered about that all the way through this feature. If Hartke has not been ordained, that’s important.
The dilemma covered in this feature is remarkably similar to the one I wrote about 30-plus years ago in the Rocky Mountain West.
Once again, the cutting-edge clergy are having trouble coexisting with the people in the pews and, it would appear, leaders of the progressive “Seven Sisters” of liberal Protestantism are stuck trying to handle the situation.
So this is a story with, at the very least, three sides.
As you would imagine, it would appear that folks in the edgy denominational powers that be are not anxious to address these issues on the record. That was the case in the 1980s and I would assume that remains the case today.
So what kinds of voices were included in this RNS feature? Do you really need to ask?
Once again, it appears that this is a story with only one side. Why talk to all of those ordinary folks in the pews and hospital rooms who just can’t seem to catch up with the Spirit of the Age?
“Queer and trans folks are really helping to lead this next stage of the reformation,” said the Rev. Alex McNeill, executive director of More Light Presbyterians, an LGBTQ education and advocacy group, "reforming what ministry can be and what worship can look like."
Mainline U.S. denominations, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Episcopal Church, began striking down prohibitions against the ordination of LGBTQ candidates more than a decade ago, but, as in other sectors, the acceptance of transgender people has lagged behind that of gay and lesbian clergy.
“We have a church still grappling with how limiting the binary is," said McNeill. "It wasn’t until 2018 that we had the first overture passed by the General Assembly that specifically named trans and non-binary folks as beloved by God, as worth advocating for in the public square.” In 2019, McNeill and the Rev. Jess Cook, who also works for More Light Presbyterians, were the first two openly transgender ministers ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
This isn’t to say that the story doesn’t contain interesting information and even potential story hooks for journalists who are willing to talk to people — in pews and in administrative positions — about what is happening at pew-and-pulpit level.
For example:
The ELCA, PCUSA and Episcopal Church all require anyone seeking ordination to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Sometimes these evaluations describe being transgender as a form of sexual deviancy.
Ah! There might be some interesting documents are out there. Here’s a question: How are those forms worded? Notice the word “sometimes.” Readers might find it interesting to read some of the language used on both sides of that divide.
Then again, there is this issue:
Clinical Pastoral Education, another typical requirement for seminarians for ordination, commonly involves a field placement as a hospital chaplain. Hospitals, however, have strict dress codes or simply prefer those who fit traditional gender expectations and are often quick to dismiss transgender applicants.
But anyone who wants to know where RNS appears to stand, theologically, on the issues covered in this feature simply needs to read the following passage of reporting.
Remember, this story contains zero voices from the world of small-o Christian orthodoxy, in terms of centuries of moral theology. And there are zero voices from seminary administrators who, I would predict, want to help — but they have survival issues to consider, as well.
Meanwhile, out in the heartland:
Many seminaries, even those governed by denominations with inclusive policies, have yet to welcome transgender students fully, and systemic racial barriers to admission make seminaries less accessible to Black transgender applicants.
But even Duke Divinity School, affiliated with the United Methodist Church, which has yet to approve ordination for openly gay people, has recently added a queer theology course.
Last year, Luther Seminary invited Hartke, who has written a book on transgender Christians, to return to campus as a guest speaker in chapel. “I got to preach on the story of Jesus raising Lazarus, the idea of coming out and being unbound. And there was a really good reaction to that,” said Hartke.
There are important stories here — on both sides of this issue, and in the middle.
Just saying.