Keystone Awards
Ongoing News
First Place - Michael J. Mishak & James Sturdivant, Chestnut Hill Local
Two stories from the Methodist Church Minister series by Michael Mishak and James Sturdivant.
August 12 , 2004
Lesbian minister to face trial
The Rev. Irene “Beth” Stroud, associate pastor of First United Methodist Church of Germantown, came out to her congregation last year. Officials voted last month to prosecute her, citing church law prohibiting gay and lesbian clergy.
by MICHAEL J. MISHAK
In April 2003, the Rev. Irene “Beth” Stroud delivered a sermon that could forever change her place in the faith she has called home.
The risk and uncertainty on that Sunday morning brought her back to an experience that had torn the bonds of her family 13 years earlier, when she came out as a lesbian to her parents. Though their relationship was ultimately strengthened, there was pain.
Now, Stroud, 33, faced sharing that information at the pulpit with an audience of 1,000 congregation members belonging to a family as important in her life as her own parents: the United Methodist Church.
With her congregation at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown (FUMCOG) as witness, Stroud came out of the closet as a lesbian pastor in a “covenant relationship” with another woman.
“I knew from the beginning that there might be consequences,” Stroud said in an interview with the Local last Friday.
Though many knew of her sexual orientation, Stroud’s sermon marked the first time she publicly addressed the entire congregation.
FUMCOG, known for its diversity and all-inclusive ministries, fully supported Stroud. Many congregation members saw their pastor as “courageous” and her coming out as “admirable.” The United Methodist Church’s Eastern Pennsylvania Conference did not.
For the denomination’s officials, Stroud’s revelation represented a violation of church law, which precludes “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed as clergy in the United Methodist Church.
Bishop Peter D. Weaver, head of the Philadelphia area conference, filed a complaint and oversaw a yearlong review of Stroud. According to a statement from the conference, “When that process did not resolve the complaint, Bishop Weaver, continuing to follow church law, referred the matter to the Committee on Investigation.”
Last month, that committee met in a closed session to consider evidence in the case, voting 5-3 to send it to church trial, the date of which has yet to be set.
If found guilty, Stroud could lose her ordination credentials.
Stroud’s march to her public outing was a slow and deliberate one, consisting of at least a year’s worth of prayer and consultation with congregation members and church leaders, she said.
“I didn’t want to shock, startle or frighten anyone,” Stroud said. “I wanted to do it in a loving and caring way that showed love and respect for the congregation and the larger church.”
Shortly before her April 27 sermon last year, Stroud met with FUMCOG’s special administrative council to notify them of her intentions. The council unanimously supported her decision.
She sent letters to the congregation’s approximately 1,000 members and met with Bishop Weaver. “We wanted to do this together,” she said of her FUMCOG colleagues. “It’s in keeping with our mission as a congregation.”
Since 1990, FUMCOG has been a Reconciling Congregation, part of a movement within the United Methodist Church that supports full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in both ordination and ministry. The congregation voted to join the growing network of reconciling ministries after the denomination’s 1988 General Conference, an international meeting held every four years, developed strident policies against homosexuality.
Through a two-year process of study, prayer and discussion, FUMCOG discovered a need to develop its understanding of sexuality and its relation to faith. The church still maintains a special committee to study the issue. Chestnut Hill United Methodist Church is also a Reconciling Congregation.
“It was hard not to feel that I wasn’t being fully truthful about who I was,” Stroud said.
She described the reaction to her coming out sermon as “amazing. …There was an incredible outpouring of love, support and joy.”
In response to Stroud’s sermon, Bishop Weaver filed a complaint.
At issue is whether gay and lesbian Methodists can be ordained and serve in the church.
Weaver and Stroud met several times throughout the year for what Stroud characterized as “an honest reality check of where church law stands” on the issue of homosexuality. She said the two discussed “possible options,” and that Weaver was “caring and respectful toward me throughout a prayerful and long process.”
When asked about her conversations with Weaver, Stroud gave a measured response, only saying the overview was a “personal process.”
When that process did not “resolve the complaint,” according to a statement from the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, Weaver referred the case to an investigating committee, which ruled on July 23, “reasonable grounds exist for a church trial.”
When asked about what she’ll do in the event of a guilty verdict, Stroud said she doesn’t spend her time thinking about possible outcomes, but instead focuses on her ministry. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” she said.
Despite the denomination’s stance, Stroud maintains she “felt called” to join the ministry. She graduated from New York’s Union Theological Seminary in 1996 and has been at FUMCOG since 1999.
“At every moment throughout my life I’m trying to listen for what God would have me do,” Stroud said. “I asked myself, ‘How could my gifts and graces best be used? What is it that God wants me to do in this world?’ I felt led, even with some uncertainty.”
“I feel in love with ministry,” added Stroud, whose service includes visiting sick and dying congregation members, leading youth groups and teaching bible classes. “I’ve found it such a live-giving and life-fulfilling profession.”
“It is painful for our congregation to be brought face to face with the discrimination of the larger church in such a direct and clear way,” Stroud said. “It’s painful for us to go through this together.”
Congregation support
Dick Cox, a 30-year FUMCOG member, sees the congregation’s support as a natural extension of the church’s long history of fighting various social injustices. For decades, church officials kept African-Americans from service participation, Cox said, with “proof texting,” the practice of using one bible passage to prove a position.
“This is just another injustice perpetrated on God’s children,” Cox said of the impending trial. “For her credentials to be threatened is unthinkable.”
For Cox and many FUMCOG members, sexual orientation is seen as “an innate, born condition … not something to be healed.” FUMCOG has pledged its full support of Stroud, and guarantees her employment as a lay worker in the event she loses her ordination credentials. The congregation has also started a legal defense fund, and its member-lawyers have offered legal services on a pro-bono basis.
“It’s not surprising the congregation rallied around Beth as a person and as an issue,” Cox said. “God’s desire is for people to be themselves as they were created. We don’t consider homosexuality as a disqualifier,” he said. “Gays and lesbians are human beings and should be seen as such.”
“She’s courageous,” Cox said of Stroud and her coming out. “She didn’t have to do what she did. We all live our lives with little skeletons in the closet. This was the big gorilla in the living room and she wanted to acknowledge it publicly.”
Grace Glen, a 20-year FUMCOG member, also admires Stroud for her courage. “The only way to live your life is to be authentic,” she said. While avoiding the organizational and political implications of the case, Glen acknowledged the tension between FUMCOG and the larger church. “She had a right to do what she did,” Glen said of Stroud. “But [the church] has to follow their rules,” she said pausing, then added, “But sometimes rules are meant to be broken, especially if they are unfair and unjust.”
Glen said Stroud’s case represents what attracted her to FUMCOG more than two decades ago: inclusiveness and diversity. “The church is not about buildings, rules or organizations. It’s a body of people. The diversity is its strength. If you live your entire life in one small corner, you’re never going to grow.”
“The United Methodist Church, along with society in general, is in the process of learning how to deal with the differences in people,” said Jonathan Hale Sills, a congregation member for 21 years. “These charges stem from rules and policies that have grown out of ignorance. The church is suppressing what they are afraid of,” he said.
Instead of “persecuting” Stroud for her sexual orientation, Hale Sills said, the church should accept it as “another aspect of humanity.”
A ‘family’ in crisis
Through FUMCOG is a church known for its protest marches and vocal fights against social injustice, the congregation has taken to prayer and quiet dialogue with Stroud’s opponents.
In her sermon last year, Stroud encouraged the congregation to use the conflict as an opportunity for unity, asking them to offer “a witness of learning, more and more, how to love one another,” instead of “choking on our own righteous anger.”
“We’re learning that the way to come through this is with love, compassion and respect for colleagues who are trying to be the church. I think it’s hard for them,” she said of her prosecutors in last week’s interview. “It’s important for us to remember we’re part of a family. Even very deep differences does not change our place as brothers and sisters in Christ,” she said.
Earlier this year, a lesbian pastor in Washington state was acquitted of the same charge Stroud faces, namely engaging in “practices declared by the United Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teachings.”
While sustaining the Rev. Karen Dammann’s position as a “self-avowed practicing homosexual,” the jury did not find sufficient evidence to uphold the charge.
The case hinged on whether homosexuality was a “chargeable offense,” declared in the denomination’s Book of Discipline. Bishop Jack Tuell, widely considered an expert on United Methodist Church law, testified in the Dammann case, emphasizing no such declaration existed.
While the verdict in the Dammann case did not change denomination-wide policy, it did spur church officials to clarify their position on homosexuality. The Judicial Council, meeting at the denomination’s General Conference in May, found that the Book of Discipline’s current language constitutes a declaration.
That finding effectively eliminates the legal defense used by Dammann in future cases, said Tuell, in a phone interview from his Des Moines, Wash. home.
It remains unclear if a similar defense will be available to Stroud. Church trial cases are typically tried on the laws that exist at the time of the offense, Tuell said. Laws adopted by the General Conference generally take effect the following January, unless a specific clause specifies the law is to be enacted immediately, he said.
Tuell, a retired clergyman and former practicing attorney, said church trials are a recent development in the United Methodist Church, becoming more frequent in the last 25 years. Most have centered on the issue of sexual harassment, he said. A trial over a pastor’s sexual orientation is “extremely rare,” he said.
Tuell, 80, said that while the General Conference’s findings may have announced a narrow view on homosexuality, the climate for change throughout the denomination is evident.
Hundreds of Christian demonstrators staged a “witness for a more inclusive church” at the conference, which did not go unnoticed by delegates and bishops, Tuell said.
“In the long run, as knowledge of the nature of homosexuality becomes better known by more people, there will be a shift of attitude in the church about the appropriateness of homosexuals serving in positions of leadership,” said Tuell.
On Sunday, the FUMCOG congregation worshipped under a rainbow banner that bears the words “One Spirit,” “Justice” and “Inclusive.” The banner marks the date the church became a Reconciling Congregation, “February 11, 1990.”
Stroud received hugs of support from worshippers after the service.
Robert Longenecker, a retired pastor who served for 40 years in the United Methodist Church, said he hopes FUMCOG’s support of Stroud will be seen by other congregations as “the course to take” on the issue.
Longenecker, also a FUMCOG member and the church’s self-described “handyman,” said he first observed the rumblings of a Reconciling movement at the denomination’s General Conference in 1972, the first year he attended as a voting delegate.
“Can’t we soon see the light and get on with the real work of the church,” he said after Sunday’s service.
Meanwhile, Stroud remains optimistic. Conscious of her obligations as a pastor, she said she has been careful not to let her case overwhelm her duties.
“I trust that God will be with us in the midst of whatever happens,” she said. “I hold the belief that God created me the way I am, and called me to be in ministry.”
December 9, 2004
For local supporters, trial a chance to stand publicly behind minister
by JAMES STURDIVANT
Neither bad weather nor the harsh exposure of national media attention could prevent local residents and parishioners from coming out to show their support for Beth Stroud during her church trial near Pottstown last week.
Among the colorful group of demonstrators that held signs, sang songs and talked to reporters during the two-day trial were members of the First United Methodist Church of Germantown, wearing buttons reading "...and Beth is my pastor," and of the Chestnut Hill United Methodist Church.
Germantown residents and FUMCOG members Deb Clarke and Cheryl Bruttomesso made the hour drive to Camp Innabah in Northwestern Chester County Wednesday morning with their two young daughters to show their support for someone they consider a pillar of their faith community.
"For us as a family, Beth is our pastor. To deny her that just because of her sexual orientation doesn't make sense," Clarke said. "We felt it was needed to come as a total family -- days off from work, days off from school, the whole bit."
Prompted by Bruttomesso, 6-year old Samantha Bruttomesso-Clarke repeated something she had said earlier to her parents: "Well, the church is just not being nice."
Holding a wind-whipped rainbow banner, Chestnut Hill United Methodist Church co-pastor Linda Noonan decried the "structural decrees" that prevent practicing homosexuals from serving as ministers in the church.
"It is a really important issue for our congregation," she said. "We have a lot of gay and bisexual members -- it's a safe place for them, and a lot of churches aren't safe."
Noonan said she agreed with the message of a national group, Soulforce, demonstrating nearby with placards reading, "stop spiritual violence."
"It's violence against your soul if you're told that God loves everyone except you," she said. She called the "love the sinner, hate the sin" doctrine espoused by some church groups "hypocrisy."
"Jesus' message was one of radical love. He embraced all people, and the church should also do that," Noonan said.
Both CHUMC and FUMCOG are Reconciling Congregations, part of a movement within the Methodist Church seeking to promote openness to gays and lesbians and full participation by homosexuals in the life of the church.
Chestnut Hill United Methodist released a statement in support of Stroud just before the trial began. "As a Reconciling Congregation, our congregation is outraged at the attempts of the larger United Methodist denomination to silence and negate the leadership of Rev. Beth Stroud ... We will work as long as it takes, at the regional and national levels, to heal the brokenness within the United Methodist Church that denies the full participation of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people," it reads in part.
Emerging to talk to reporters Wednesday after a difficult morning of jury selection, Bill and Jamie Stroud, Beth Stroud's parents and owners of Penguin Photo on Germantown Avenue, expressed thanks for the support they have received from the community.
"I feel really good about the support. A lot of people have been coming into the shop, and her church has been enormously supportive," Bill Stroud said.
Asked about his daughter's chances of being acquitted, he noted that the jury had been selected based on their willingness to uphold the church's discipline, "but we could be surprised."
"We would love to be surprised," Jamie Stroud added.
In the end, the jury would vote to defrock Stroud for violating the Methodist Book of Discipline, which bars "self avowed, practicing homosexuals" from the ministry. Thursday afternoon's verdict, while not unexpected, prompted a strong reaction from local church members.
"I'm so ashamed of my church," retired Methodist pastor and FUMCOG member Robert Longenecker said of the guilty verdict. "Sexual orientation is a private matter. It's not affecting anyone else. The church has always had a hang-up about sex. They find it easier to sweep it under the rug and say it's not their problem.
"Would I join a church like this today? No. I don't want to be a part of that narrow-mindedness."
Peggy Chittick, a member of the Chestnut Hill United Methodist Church, said that she was "disappointed and angry."
"This is discrimination. They're defining a person exclusively by their sexuality," she said. "The jury had no choice. They had to vote on the narrow basis of church law. There was no room for conscientious objections. I think that's stacking it."
"I'm saddened, not shocked," FUMCOG member Ann Perrone said of the verdict. "The church has the very narrow view of 'Is she or isn't she? End of story.'"
Perrone called the trial "part of the ongoing journey of our church." Recalling the long discussions among congregation members just before FUMCOG became a Reconciling Congregation, Perrone said many came to support the stance after deciding that the Methodist Church's current view means exclusion. "Until people encounter an outstanding gay person they don't realize the damage this causes," she said.
Both Bill and Jamie Stroud said Wednesday that their daughter was holding up very well under pressure.
"She strongly believes in what she's doing. She's doing amazing," Bill Stroud said.
Jamie Stroud said that understanding how her daughter was able to go through the trauma of a nationally-publicized trial was difficult until she read a comment Beth made to the Inquirer last week about being a witness to one's beliefs.
"When I read that, I thought, 'Oh, OK.' I understand better how she is able to be as strong as she is."
Seeing a daughter and sister go through the trial ordeal has, however, been tough on this close-knit family.
"It sort of messed up Thanksgiving," Jamie Stroud confessed. Brought close to tears at several points during the morning's media interviews, she nevertheless revealed her own measure of strength as the sun finally broke through the clouds above the wooded hills surrounding the Methodist camp.
"I've got the sun with me," she said, referring ostensibly to the blue sky and clouds printed on the inside of her umbrella. "I've got blue skies wherever I go."
Reporter Michael J. Mishak contributed to this article.
Letters | Opinion | News | LocalLife | This Week | Sports | News Makers | About Us