Two decades ago, after coming out to her United Methodist congregation, Beth Stroud was brought up on charges of defying the Book of Discipline by being a “self-avowed practicing homosexual.” This was in spite of the fact that her congregation fully supported her continuing in ministry, even going as far as raising money for her legal defense.
Still, in 2004, the Judicial Council, which is like the Supreme Court of the United Methodist Church (UMC), defrocked her.
A recent story by the Associated Press explains the financial impact of Stroud’s having to switch career paths and how different her life might have been if she had been allowed to spend these intervening decades continuing to grow in ministry.
After last month’s vote at the UMC General Conference to repeal the ban against LGBTQ clergy, the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference voted to reinstate Stroud’s standing as an “elder in full connection.”
At her reinstatement, Stroud laid hands on the soon-to-be-retired bishop, who laid hands on Stroud at her own ordination. It sounds very “full circle” and healing.
I have written some version of this commentary dozens of times in the past few weeks, but Rev. Dr. Stroud’s story finally broke me.
As a college senior, I watched closely as the UMC stripped Rev. Dr. Stroud of her standing. Her story inspired me to write my senior thesis on liberation theology and LGBTQ inclusion.
It was the moment I knew I would have to make hard choices about serving God and fulfilling my call. (Incidentally, it also led me all the way through Melissa Etheridge’s musical catalog; she was the first light on my path to coming out.)
From the bottom of my heart, I hope this restoration of Stroud’s standing provides some measure of healing after all these years. She certainly deserves it. For me, though, it is complicated.
All of us queer folk in the UMC have had to make choices—about if we should stay or go, about how and where to serve, about whether the institution is worthy of our loyalty to the point of self-sacrifice. I have educational debt I would not have had if I had not spent so much time trying to figure out how to stay in the UMC and how to parlay a seminary degree into some other non-ordained vocation within that institution.
I have missed time with friends, family and loved ones in the Arkansas Conference of the UMC because I could not, in good conscience, make ordination vows to uphold the Book of Discipline.
There has never been a perfect solution for any marginalized person in an institution that prioritizes money and power over human dignity. That goes for all sorts of systems. I begrudge no one for their choices to survive and serve God within the UMC or without.
I made the choices I did because I needed to be true to my own system of values. This system has certainly evolved, and if I had to do it again, I would have no idea what decisions I would make.
I also know the beautiful life and deep ministry I now enjoy are the outgrowths of all the pain and separation that led to and resulted from my own choices as Spirit guided me.
What is most complicated for me right now is all the celebration of a decision that is the result of waiting out schism and, as best as I can tell, holding a vote from committee with little or no discussion.
There is now much self-congratulatory posturing, as though this is the end of something and not the beginning. I have to imagine those who are still affiliated see the writing on the wall of a dwindling mainline denomination, with each generation more and more open to fluidity of sexual orientation and gender expression.
Beloveds in the UMC, don’t forget us who live in diaspora. Don’t forget those who were edged out or made sacrifices to stay.
Don’t let this whisper of a vote be simplified into shouts of victory. Don’t cheapen the real victory that could exist for future generations by pretending the delayed justice is someone else’s fault. Don’t let the sacrifices of those like Rev. Dr. Stroud be in vain by fooling yourself into believing that the present justifies or erases the past.
Honor the complexity of what is by remembering the struggle of what has been—not just for LGBTQ folks but for communities of color and the disability community, and and and.
Let this be only one step and do the real work of equity by having the hard conversations about what happens next.
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Pastor, Pilgrimage United Church of Christ in Marietta, Georgia. Rev. Jones has degrees from Hendrix College and Boston University School of Theology. She lives with her spouse, toddler and three rescue dogs.
