Helvetica1850,184F,1850  Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong November 9, 2005 It all began on October 6, 1968. On that day, twelve people gathered in a house in Los Angeles in response to an advertisement in a four-page magazine for homosexuals called “The Advocate.” This ad was addressed to gay men and lesbians who might want to be a part of a Christian Church in which they did not have to hide. The advertisement, signed by the Rev. Troy D. Perry, gave a specific address where this first service of worship would take place. Of the twelve who gathered on that date, two were a heterosexual couple, the other ten were homosexuals. One was African American, one Hispanic; seven were males and five were females. That was the founding moment for what came to be called The Metropolitan Community Church, which now has 330 congregations located in 22 countries. Troy D. Perry, then a 28-year old Pentecostal preacher, is now a world figure, the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, a person from whom presidents and presidential candidates have sought advice, a friend of Desmond Tutu and a religious leader invited to meet with John Paul II on one of his visits to the United States. On October 30, 2005 in the National Cathedral of the Episcopal Church in Washington. D.C., the place from which presidents have been buried, Troy Perry’s successor, The Rev. Nancy Wilson, was installed as the second Moderator of the Worldwide Fellowship of The Metropolitan Community Church. That setting and transition was in itself symbolic of the remarkable journey made by this incredible man, whose story needs to be told and whose contribution to the life of the Christian Church needs to be recognized. Troy Perry was born in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1940, the oldest in what was to be a family of five children. His mother was a Southern Baptist; his father a member of the Pentecostal Church of God, though that membership might have been compromised by his father’s profession. He was, what we called in the South in those days, ‘a bootlegger,’ one who made illegal whisky available to those who were willing to pay for this service. Even as a young child, Troy was deeply drawn to the church and yearned to be a preacher. In Southern evangelical circles, the call to preach was far more important than any academic preparation designed to equip one for that duty. It was quite enough to be “open to the Spirit.” Troy was a gifted boy who spoke well and by the age of 13 he had achieved a reputation of some significance. He preached to his classmates before school every Wednesday with more than a little interest being expressed by the crowds of students and faculty that gathered. Soon, he was given a preaching license by the Southern Baptists and became known in his expanding Bible Belt orbit of North Florida, Alabama and South Georgia as “the Teen-Aged Evangelist.” Like so many people of that era in the South, Troy had no idea what a homosexual was but he knew he had attractions toward other males his age. Fearing that there was something wrong with him, he consulted a written source provided by his church, which informed him that homosexuals were “sick people who wore dresses and molested children.” Since neither was true of him, he breathed a sigh of relief. Later when his fears did not go away, he turned to a Pentecostal preacher and was told that all he had to do was to get married and his fantasies would disappear. Troy responded by marrying that man’s 18-year-old daughter. It lasted five years and produced two sons. When the marriage ended, Troy went into the army. Vietnam was to be his destiny. As part of his medical examination, he was asked to check whether or not he had “any homosexual tendencies.” The question, he said, came right after cancer and tuberculosis. He checked ‘yes.’ Nonetheless, he was taken in, given top security clearance and became a computer expert. He served well, was given an honorable discharge and began to work for Sears. In time, he became a division manager. However, his heart still drew him toward his pastor’s calling, so back to being a Pentecostal preacher he went. By this time, however, he was quite sure he was a homosexual and had had gay liaisons. The church he was serving, however, was quite sure that homosexuality was sinful, depraved behavior. One survived in that atmosphere only by being dishonest. Hiding never works and Troy was discovered, banished from that church and his license to preach revoked. It was for him a moment of great despair. With the help of his first partner he coped with that rejection. When that relationship broke up, his depression was so deep that he slashed his wrists in a suicide attempt that failed. From somewhere, he says, in that moment of darkness, he found an overwhelming sense of God’s love for him. That, he concluded, was the heart of the Gospel – God loves me. He noticed when he read the Bible that even those who forsook, denied, betrayed, tortured and crucified Jesus were still the beloved of God. Aided by this conviction he began to form a new consciousness. His logic went like this: God loves me. I am gay. Therefore God must love gays. “The Lord is my shepherd, he knows I’m gay” became his theme. He still felt a great desire to preach but the churches with which he was familiar were not open to him in his new found honesty. Their fear and hostility toward homosexual people expressed itself in mistaken attempts to turn them into heterosexuals and, if that failed, to assure them that hell was their destiny. Troy understood that sexual orientation is not a choice for anyone; it is part of our identity to which we awaken. Mental health begins, he believed, in self-acceptance not self-rejection. So coming to the conclusion that there must be others just like himself who yearned to practice the faith in which they had been reared, Troy asked himself the question that would change his life: Could there be a worship community in the Christian tradition for those who are honest about their homosexuality? That was the moment when he placed the advertisement in “The Advocate.” To issue a public call for homosexuals to gather at a specific address was a bold act in 1968. Hate crimes were quite normal in that day. To sign that advertisement with one’s real name and to provide one’s telephone number was thought foolhardy even by Troy’s friends. Having no idea what a vast audience was waiting for this catalyst, he accepted the risk. There are today MCC churches in every major city in America and Canada; some of them bulging at the seams with members. Interestingly enough, their strength is primarily in the South, by which I mean that stretch of states that once constituted the heart of Dixie, from Texas to Florida. The MCC conducts an annual conference each year to which as many as ten thousand are in attendance. Today their pastors are trained in accredited seminaries like The Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Union in New York City, Harvard Divinity School, the Divinity School of the University of Chicago and the Vancouver School of Theology among others. This Church continues to grow and is beginning to attract young gay people who feel alienated from those churches that condemn what they know they are. I first met Troy Perry in 1991 when the Episcopal National Convention and the MCC National Conference were both meeting in Phoenix. My book, “Living in Sin?” had come out in 1988 and had placed me in the national eye since in that book I called for the State to make homosexual unions legal and for the Church to give these unions the blessing we bestow in marriage. I also challenged the Church to be honest about its gay clergy whose name was and is legion. Acting on this conviction, I ordained to the priesthood in December of 1989 America’s first openly homosexual person living in a publicly acknowledged, committed relationship. The hostility I absorbed was overwhelming. Hate mail poured in; abusive telephone calls, even death threats, were plentiful. The House of Bishops in September of 2000 had voted to disassociate themselves from me for this action by a slender 78-74 margin, with two abstentions, one of which was my own. I honestly did not know how to vote on whether or not I wanted to associate with myself! Prior to this vote, I had carried this battle to the airways of this nation with appearances on CBS This Morning, the Phil Donahue Show, the Oprah Winfrey Show, and even Bill Buckley’s Firing Line. Despite the rejecting anger that engulfed me, I felt compelled to see this battle through. When I prepared to go to the General Convention of my Church in1991 in Phoenix, I was sure the debate would be intense and that I would be abused again in speech after speech. When Troy heard that I was in town, he invited me to speak to his National Conference. Christine and I had dinner with him prior to my talk, at which time I could not help but be aware of the heavy security around him. One manifestation of this was his insistence that we ride in separate cars to the hall where his delegates gathered. When we arrived Troy led Chris and me onto the stage, but before any word of introduction had been spoken, the entire assembly rose as one and gave us a sustained, indeed a thunderous, ovation that lasted for ten literal minutes. It was like having all of our wounds bathed with healing love. We stood there teary eyed, taking it all in. If what we had done meant that much to this many, it was worth all the hostility we had absorbed. From that day to this, Troy has been a close friend. We have dinner with him when in Los Angeles. We consult on the phone on various strategies and opportunities and I have spoken in MCC churches in five countries. I was touched when he asked me to speak at his retirement. Troy Perry made the Church more whole, inclusive and yes more Christian. MCC had to be formed to show the rest of us how unwelcoming we had been to some of God’s children. Troy knew full well that when Christians sang, “Just as I am without a plea, O Lamb of God, I come,” they had to mean it. He knew that Jesus had said: “Come unto me all of ye,” not “some of ye.” I will always be grateful for the existence of The Metropolitan Community Church and for Troy D. Perry, its enormously talented founder and first moderator. ~  John Shelby Spong 0000,0000,0000 Helvetica1850,184F,1850Announcements Helvetica1850,184F,1850