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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Are GLBTs more high church or low church?
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LutheranChik
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# 9826
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Posted
Here in outstate (i.e, north of the Detroit-Grand Rapids line) Michigan, one would be hard-pressed to find a "low" gay-friendly church...at least in my perception as a lesbian.
Locally, I know that LGBT people are welcome in our local ELCA, UCC and Episcopal congregations and the local Presbyterian congregation. We also have a tiny MCC church in the closest "big city," about a half-hour drive, and a tiny Quaker community in the nearest university town that's also LGBT-friendly.
The only really low gay-friendly churches in our state seem to be a couple of Baptist and Pentecostal congregations in metro areas like Detroit. I can also think of a Reformed congregation in a resort town outside Grand Rapids -- I'm sure it was RCA, not CRC -- that got kicked out of its denomination several years ago when the congregation voted to become open and affirming.
I can't speak for my gay brothers around here, but the perception among lesbians we know is that all the local churches hate and fear them. (DP and I try to explain to our friends that this isn't so, but there's still a lot of anxiety about even visiting a church on a given Sunday -- as if the Gay Police are waiting at the door to intercept them. And for all I know that may be true at some of the more conservative shacks in the area.)
I think the general conservative mentality in the community contributes in large part to the assumption that every church is going to reflect that.
I think, though, that there's less a correlation between the highness/lowness factor of a church's worship and its appeal to gay folk than the church's manner of engaging Scripture. And at least in this country, contextual/nuanced reading of Scripture tends to happen in liturgical and "broad" churches.
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Simul iustus et peccator
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Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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Cottontail
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# 12234
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Posted
I am quite surprised to see Lutheranchik describe
the UCC and a Presbyterian church as 'high'. In comparison at least to the Episcopals and Lutherans, I would have classed them as 'low' - even High Presbyterian probably still seems low to the Episcopals.
If I am reading her correctly, Lutheranchik seems to mean by 'low church' those churches which are more loosely-structured, informal, high-energy and 'contemporary' in their approach to worship.
I am wondering therefore if there is a pond difference re. what we mean by 'low church' in particular. In my church (mainstream Presbyterian), 'low church' doesn't mean 'contemporary' or loosely-structured; it means a style of worship that does not use a set liturgy, prefers lectio continua to the Lectionary, tends to avoid responses, and works at keeping ritual simple and minimalistic. Such churches can be formal or informal.
So comparing two low churches that I have attended in my time: The first was very informal: praise band, words projected on a screen, lots of interaction between minister and congregation (though no responses!), plenty participation from lay people. The second church would have been horrified by the like! It used traditional hymnbooks, classical organ music, had a choir (though not a robe in sight, and no processing!), and the congregation wouldn't even reply to the minister's 'Good morning'.
So their two styles were utterly contrasting - but both were low church. Theologically, both were what I might call moderate evangelical. And both had a few LGBT members. While technicallly the churches were probably supposed to disapprove, it wasn't something they felt a need to make a fuss about most of the time. I guess they avoided the issue, which is far from ideal, but there were certainly no denunciations from the pulpit, nor any party-line that I ever heard.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
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LutheranChik
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# 9826
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Posted
Cottontail: I wasn't describing our Reformed friends as "high"; "broad," for a lack of a better term. At least in my part of the world Presbyterians and Congregationalists still have a liturgical shape to their worship.
Interestingly, United Methodists around here are almost indistinguishable from local Baptists in terms of their worship and general pov. I've been very surprised to attend Methodist religious services around here and not experience worship as described by Methodist friends elsewhere in the world. The local Methodist churches also don't reflect the moderate/progressive point of view that many people would associate with Methodism in general.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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Cottontail
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# 12234
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
Cottontail: I wasn't describing our Reformed friends as "high"; "broad," for a lack of a better term. At least in my part of the world Presbyterians and Congregationalists still have a liturgical shape to their worship.
Thanks, Lutheranchik. I was thinking that you were working within the categories proposed by the OP, but now I read you again, I see you weren't quite doing that.
In fact, from what you have observed, maybe it isn't so much about being 'high' or 'low', as about having a kind of rootedness in a well-established tradition. I suppose that means that individual churches have a stability which makes them less likely to swing to one extreme or another. And maybe it also means that they have an experience of theological and liturgical breadth which means that not everyone in a single congregation has to agree, let alone every church throughout the denomination. They are simply more used to living with difference than would be an individual gathered congregation with a single powerful leader setting the agenda.
It distresses me greatly that such broad and mainstream churches have recently become so factionalised over their inclusion or otherwise of LGBT people. Our breadth was our strength, and I fear that we are losing it.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
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LutheranChik
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# 9826
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Posted
I think also coming from that "high" or "broad" or small-c catholic branch of Christendom is an experience of/awareness of Church history that gives us a greater perspective of how people through the ages have engaged Scripture. In other words, we understand the process of people in community wrestling with Scripture; we acknowledge that this is in fact how it's always been, first in Jewish and then in Christian history, pious wishes to the contrary; and we have room in our theology for the notion that "God is still speaking" when it comes to how we apply Scripture to current social issues.
On one hand, IMHO in more authoritarian churches there's less room for debate/discussion, more pressure to get behind the party line both in terms of doctrine/practice and in terms of understanding Church history. On the other hand, in Christian communities that have effectively cut themselves off, through ignorance and/or design, from the larger history of Christian thought -- there's no room for debate/discussion either, since their perception seems to be that they are some sort of righteous remnant of a "pure," conservative Christianity that somehow bypassed the rest of Christendom. And since that belief seems to go hand-in-hand with a literalist, "plain meaning" understanding of Scripture -- at least "plain meaning" according to the head kahunas of all these little groups and churches -- well, discussion/debate about that is tanatmount to arguing with God, and we can't have that.;-) (And so the ends of the circle meet!)
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Simul iustus et peccator
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Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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Knopwood
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# 11596
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
I can also think of a Reformed congregation in a resort town outside Grand Rapids -- I'm sure it was RCA, not CRC -- that got kicked out of its denomination several years ago when the congregation voted to become open and affirming.
First CRC of Toronto (I'm not sure if we have RCA up here - certainly CRC is far and away the largest of the "continental" Reformed bodies) was the first CRC to call a woman minister, and later got into hot water with the Toronto classis for resolving to provide for the ordination of qualified monogamous gay members as deacons or elders, but not ministers. This had to be withdrawn in order to evade denominational repercussions.
[ 08. April 2011, 04:59: Message edited by: LQ ]
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Knopwood
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# 11596
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Posted
(NB that their welcome statement nevertheless remains very much intact with respect to pewfolk).
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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iGeek
Number of the Feast
# 777
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Posted
I'm involved with the gay christian network which is represented in the majority, I think, of Christians who harken from the more conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist contexts. Lots of ex Southern Baptists, AoG, classical and classical pentecostal denominations. Lots of overlap in membership between GCN and Evangelicals Concerned (both flavors), TEN and pentecostal fraternities though the demographics of GCN folk tend to be younger.
There are some who affiliate with more liturgical traditions but are in the minority, I think.
I spent most of my adult live in "low church" contexts, no liturgy, strongly evo, contemporary worship and so forth. However, once I came out (late in life - 47), I found myself drawn to more liturgical worship.
Like Matariki, I belong to an affirming Methodist congregation -- the original reconciling congregation in Houston. It's fairly high church (use of the lectionary, robes, bells, no smells, eucharist every service, etc.). I found the CoE services I attended in the UK quite similar and felt very much at home there.
Posts: 2150 | From: West End, Gulfopolis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Yerevan
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# 10383
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Posted
quote:
On one hand, IMHO in more authoritarian churches there's less room for debate/discussion, more pressure to get behind the party line both in terms of doctrine/practice and in terms of understanding Church history.
I know I've argued this before, but I think plenty of churches of all flavours are intolerant of dissent or of questioning regarding core issues. There are plenty of theologically liberal churches here in the UK where someone who was (for example) conservative on LGBT issues, spectical regarding climate change, willing to stick up for certain 'conservative' views on the atonement or scripture or an active Conservative would be as welcome as Elton John at a Southern Baptist Convention. There are people in all sections of the church who just can't accept alternative ways of being Christian as valid.
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
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TubaMirum
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# 8282
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Posted
After having watched the efforts of evangelicals over the past 30 years to attempt to take over the U.S. government and put their explicitly anti-gay agenda into action - and after spending a good part of those 30 years arguing with them over homosexuality both online and IRL, I was totally turned off and would never have considered going "low-church" when I joined the church (only about 7 years ago).
I must admit, though, that I went to Quaker meeting for awhile, and to a liberal low church (which are very, very thin on the ground around here - maybe everywhere?) at first. But I hand't discovered "High Church" at that point.
However, the newer generation of evangelicals has changed, somewhat, on the topic, and I do find some aspects of their theology attractive. I also find that some "High-Church" proponents really are more interested in form than in substance - by no means all, but some.
So at this point, I actually have no particular prejudice in favor of one over the other, I'm surprised to find myself saying. I can find value in both things - and am more interested in what's actually being taught in a church than in the form of its worship.
I'd say I still lean a bit towards the "high," though. I'm thinking I'd really like "High Church" - smells, bells, and monotone singing (not necessarily Gregorian!) - along with occasional dancing in the aisles.
Well, good luck to me....
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
(And I'm in total agreement with Alogon about "incarnational theology." That's a must-have, for me - along with heavy emphasis on Grace. I'm pretty mixed up at this point, obviously....)
Posts: 4719 | From: Right Coast USA | Registered: Aug 2004
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
quote:
On one hand, IMHO in more authoritarian churches there's less room for debate/discussion, more pressure to get behind the party line both in terms of doctrine/practice and in terms of understanding Church history.
I know I've argued this before, but I think plenty of churches of all flavours are intolerant of dissent or of questioning regarding core issues. There are plenty of theologically liberal churches here in the UK where someone who was (for example) conservative on LGBT issues, spectical regarding climate change, willing to stick up for certain 'conservative' views on the atonement or scripture or an active Conservative would be as welcome as Elton John at a Southern Baptist Convention. There are people in all sections of the church who just can't accept alternative ways of being Christian as valid.
This is very true. Liberal churches can be just as intolerant as conservative churches. In TEC, liberal low church is simply MOTR done tacky. For what its worth, Rush Limbaugh paid Elton John a cool million dollars to play a set at his wedding to wife number four.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
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Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Yerevan
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# 10383
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Posted
quote:
I must admit, though, that I went to Quaker meeting for awhile, and to a liberal low church (which are very, very thin on the ground around here - maybe everywhere?) at first.
Here in the UK the United Reformed Church is easily the most liberal of the mainstream denominations and is low church with mixed Presby/Congregationalist roots. Methodism is also more liberal as a whole than Anglicanism and there are also some very liberal Baptists out there, particularly in Wales.
The United Church of Canada would be another obvious example of low churchy liberalism, as would (I think?) other churches in the uniting tradition. I don't think there's necessarily any particular correlation between liberalism and high church worship internationally.
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
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Devils Advocate
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# 16484
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Posted
As an out gay man when I was preparing for confirmation at the age of about 22 ( Rather late I know but when I was in the choir we had a new vicar who was low church evangelical and all confirmation candidates had to go to Sunday School and at the age of about 13 I wasn't having anything to do with that) the Parish Priest at the Anglo Catholic Church I was attending said to me when I told him I was gay said "All sexuality is God Given its what you do with it that counts" My late partner was a lapsed RC, the product of a Christian Brothers Education in Northern ireland, and he wouldn't have anything to do with organised religion. As he lay in his hospital bed it was I, a High Anglican that ensured he had a 'Good Death" Not only for his sake but the sake of his family and especially his Mother and it was I who arranged his Requiem Mass and the committal ( though he was cremated) and it was I that carried his remains back to N Ireland and then went through the whole thing again except this time I was his "Friend and long term carer" as opposed to his partner ( which is how Id been refered to here. my only involvement in the interment of the ashes was to throw in the first clump of earth. We were together 17 years and probably more "right" living than a lot of "Straight Couples" Im now regularly attending church again ( Agin Anglo Catholic) and have gained a great deal of consolation from it
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"Oh I have wrought much evil with my spells"
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I agree with Yerevan, I don't think that liberalism and 'High Church' styles of worship necessarily go hand in hand ... but all the liberals I know DO tend to go for reasonably traditional forms of worship ... whether 'catholic-lite' in the form of 'liberal catholics' or standard format non-conformist hymn-prayer-sandwiches only with fairly liberal content in Free Church circles.
Most Liberals I know love the 1662 Prayer Book or more traditional forms of worship - they don't seem to go in for Alt.Worship that much other than as an occasional variant ... at least not the ones I know.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
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PD
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# 12436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I agree with Yerevan, I don't think that liberalism and 'High Church' styles of worship necessarily go hand in hand ... but all the liberals I know DO tend to go for reasonably traditional forms of worship ... whether 'catholic-lite' in the form of 'liberal catholics' or standard format non-conformist hymn-prayer-sandwiches only with fairly liberal content in Free Church circles.
Most Liberals I know love the 1662 Prayer Book or more traditional forms of worship - they don't seem to go in for Alt.Worship that much other than as an occasional variant ... at least not the ones I know.
My own observations would tend to support the contention that liberals tend to be liturgically conservative. I have some folks in the parish who are well out in the long grass in left field in terms of what they believe politically and religiously, but attend what is probably the most traditional liturgical church in town. This inspite of the fact that they must find my preaching hard going as there is no missing that I am a reasonably intelligent, conservative, middle-to-high Anglican.
I find gays scatter themselves all over the shop in terms of church affiliation. Traditional there have been a lot of gay men in Anglo-Catholic parishes simply because homosexuality was regarded as a fit topic for the confessional, and nowhere else, especially not the pulpit. They were just ministered to with the other outcasts, eccentrics and "normal" people. We are all made in Gd's image after all. Liberal-MOTR and Liberal-Low also have their share now that there is not the same degree of social taboo as there used to be, but that is a development of perhaps the last thirty years. I remember my vicar - who was MOTR and Liberal-lean - discussing suitable theological colleges saying to me "Oh, you'd better avoid going to Chichester unless you like keeping your back to the wall." He wasn't over keen on Staggers either.
PD
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Posts: 4431 | From: Between a Rock and a Hard Place | Registered: Mar 2007
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PD:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I agree with Yerevan, I don't think that liberalism and 'High Church' styles of worship necessarily go hand in hand ... but all the liberals I know DO tend to go for reasonably traditional forms of worship ... whether 'catholic-lite' in the form of 'liberal catholics' or standard format non-conformist hymn-prayer-sandwiches only with fairly liberal content in Free Church circles.
Most Liberals I know love the 1662 Prayer Book or more traditional forms of worship - they don't seem to go in for Alt.Worship that much other than as an occasional variant ... at least not the ones I know.
My own observations would tend to support the contention that liberals tend to be liturgically conservative.
Yep.
In a moment of cosmological serendipity I posted this on another thread before I'd even read this one:
quote:
We've got a tendency to map the 18th century Low-church:High-church:Broad-church parties onto the 19th & 20th century Evangelical:Anglo-Catholic:Liberal tendencies. But of course its more complicated than that.
The Anglican evangelicals were in many ways the institutional successors of the old tolerant Broad Church on the 18th century -it wasn't atheists the Broads had wanted to tolerate (never mind, God forbid, Catholics) but other Protestant denominations who from an Evangelical point of view were no less real churches than the Anglicans were.
And many of the early Anglo-Catholics had been brought up as evangelicals.
And later in the 19th century liberal theology was more at home with formalist, legalistic, erastian, High Church style than with either low-church evangelicalism or the more extreme AC ritualism.
In England at any rate, things might be different in the US, evangelicals (Anglican and otherwise) tend to assume that all "High Church" is theologically liberal. Things may be different in other countries.
Also theological liberalism and political liberalism are not particularly associated in this country.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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PD
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# 12436
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Posted
I would tend to map most determined C of E liberals as being MOTR to MOTR-High in churchmanship. This is a bit of a headache to me as I am MOTR in churchmanship, but very conservative in terms of theology with many of the positions I take on the Scripture, PSA, Justification being recognizably conservative Evangelical. I am only a bit weird from that point of view when you get to Baptismal Regeneration and the Real Presence where I am a hell of a lot closer to Luther than Calvin.
In the USA the Liberals tended to be Low Church. Basically Evangelical who had had the fizz let out of the them, then embraced mainstream liberal protestant theology. The major difference here was that the theologically liberals were a bit more likely to be political liberals; through there were still some Anglo-catholic Socialists.
The most reliably conservative group were the old-fashioned High Churchmen, whose style straight-faced liturgical style appealed to those who were trying to avoid revivalism, Popery, and actvism. When we did have a Evangelical party in the USA (as opposed to AMIA and ACNA's neo-Evangelicalism) it tended to be Republican in politics in the days when that was a Centerist party.
PD
(ed for trypo)
[ 07. July 2011, 16:01: Message edited by: PD ]
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