A Church of England theological college has expressed regret after trainee priests held a service in the antiquated gay slang language Polari.
The service at the chapel of Westcott House in Cambridge was to commemorate LGBT history month.
The congregation was told the use of the lexicon was an attempt to “queer the liturgy of evening prayer”.
But officials said it had not been authorised and was at variance with the doctrine and teaching of the church.
Polari is thought to have originated in Victorian London but fell out of use as homosexuality began to be decriminalised in England in the 1960s.
Its words, however, were brought to wider public attention in the same decade by comedian Kenneth Williams in the BBC radio series Round the Horne.
‘Fantabulosa Fairy’
One person present at the service told BBC News it was led by an ordinand – a trainee priest – rather than a licensed minister.
The congregation was also made up of trainees.
While they had been given permission to hold a service to commemorate LGBT history month, a Church of England source said the college chaplain had not seen the wording of the service.
The translation was based on the Polari bible, a work compiled as a project in 2003 by the self-styled Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
The scripture and liturgy were printed on to an order of service.
An Old Testament reading from the Prophet Joel which says “rend your heart and not your garments, return to the Lord your God” was printed in Polari as “rend your thumping chest and not your frocks – and turn unto the Duchess your Gloria: for she is bona and merciful”.
Instead of the traditional “Glory be to the father, and to the son, and the Holy Spirit” the prayer offered was: “Fabeness be to the Auntie, and to the Homie Chavvie, and to the Fantabulosa Fairy”.
‘Hugely regrettable’
Services in the Church of England are legally required to be conducted using the church’s approved liturgy.
The principal of Westcott House, the Rev Canon Chris Chivers, said the liturgy of the service had not been authorised for use.
He said: “I fully recognise that the contents of the service are at variance with the doctrine and teaching of the Church of England and that is hugely regrettable.
“Inevitably for some members of the house this caused considerable upset and disquiet and I have spoken at length to those involved in organising the service.
“I will be reviewing and tightening the internal mechanisms of the house to ensure this never happens again.”
First United Methodist Church to publicly apologize
First United Methodist The Rev. Justin Elliott Lowe of Kenosha\’s First United Methodist Church, center, stands with members of the reconciling committee, from left, Jessica DeBoer, Len Wojciechowicz and his wife Laura. The church is welcoming back to Kenosha a gay clergy member who was outed and ousted from the congregation more than 30 years ago.
BY DANIEL GAITAN
The Rev. Kevin Johnson was outed and forced out of First United Methodist Church in Kenosha when he affirmed his gay orientation in 1981.
Now more than 30 years later, the church, 919 60th St., will publicly apologize for its actions during its Weekend of Reconciliation.
Johnson, 63, and his husband, Michael Shear, will travel from Palm Springs, Calif., to Kenosha for the Feb. 4-5 festivities, which will include plenty of preaching, prayer and tears.
“The invitation to host my husband and me was a long time coming. It was welcome, though it will not be easy,” Johnson wrote in an opinion piece published in The Desert Sun, the Palm Springs newspaper.
‘Devastated’
“More years have passed since my dismissal than my age when I first entered the church’s doors,” Johnson said. “Their 1981 rejection devastated my career dreams. I had to build a new life in the business world.”
For 20 years, Johnson said he was separated from his professional calling.
“That hurt badly. But I was never separated from my faith. I always sensed God’s love,” he said.
That helped him co-found Bloom in the Desert Ministries in 2002.
He said this is the first time since 1972 — when the United Methodist Church said, “The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” — that a local church is reconciling publicly with a former pastor affected by the decree.
News of Johnson’s return has sparked warm headlines across the nation.
“Times have changed, and young gay men are more confident in themselves,” Johnson told the Kenosha News.
Opposition
Official United Methodist Church law prohibits gay clergy, but the Kenosha church is one of a growing number of congregations now fighting it.
First United overwhelmingly voted last summer to identify as a Reconciling Ministries Congregation. It decided to welcome the LGBTQI (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Intersex) community, despite official restrictions still imposed by the church’s official disciple book.
“I’m thrilled to be able to come back and spend time with friends and meet new people having an influence on the congregation to be more inclusive,” Johnson said. “I am coming back with a full heart.”
Outed and ousted
The Rev. Kevin Johnson
Johnson said being outed and publicly forced out of a job in his late 20s devastated him.
He said a private conversation with a church member who questioned his sexuality was made public, which triggered the backlash against him.
“For years, it was very difficult for me to be a part of a church organization,” Johnson said.
“It was very difficult for the first decade after. I barely went to church at all. I had lost all confidence in human beings who claimed to be loving persons in the Christian church.”
Although Johnson made a career in business around the turn of the millennium, he felt called to launch his own ministry.
Bloom in the Desert Ministries in Palm Springs is designed to be a safe space and sanctuary for anyone experiencing spiritual abuse and religious discrimination related to gender identity, sexual orientation or ethnic heritage.
“I hope other churches who dismissed pastors for this very reason will do the same thing and decide that they want to be reconciled with the people they wronged in the past,” Johnson said.
Johnson left the Methodist Church and joined the United Church of Christ.
Accepting all Christians
The Rev. Justin Elliott Lowe, pastor of First United, said he is proud of his congregation for its support of Johnson.
Lowe said homosexuality and Christianity are not incompatible, so reaching out to this community is honoring Christ.
“I think the whole idea of sexuality in the Bible and what kind of gets explained as the ‘Christian’ understanding of sexuality isn’t quite accurate and isn’t quite theologically grounded,” Lowe said, adding that the Bible fails to offer a clear-cut set of teachings regarding sexuality, gender and even marriage.
He said the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality are far more complex than a sound bite or single verse pulled out of context during Sunday service.
“People just say ‘(homosexuality) is in the Bible; here’s what it says,’ when there are so many layers and things are misinterpreted between Greek and Hebrew to English,” Lowe said. “You can be a Christian and be gay — and practice your sexuality.”
At the core of Christianity, Lowe said, is a spirit of radical reconciliation.
Welcoming everyone
Jessica DeBoer, a member of the church’s Reconciling Committee, said the church has made a commitment to welcome everyone as equals.
“It’s very exciting,” DeBoer said. “I think as more people know about it, it will help bring people in. It’s really important that we welcome everybody.”
DeBoer said few members of the church were around when Johnson was forced out, but the “wound” remains in the minds of many.
“This is absolutely a huge part of our past as a church family,” DeBoer said. “It was the elephant in the room, especially now that we have openly become this accepting congregation.”
The Church of England is considering plans to stop asking its gay clergy whether they are living a celibate lifestyle.
Under the new proposal by Anglican bishops, gay priests are still expected to remain celibate, but they will no longer be asked about their personal lives when they join the church, Premier reported.
Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, who is in a civil partnership, criticized the proposal as it would still require the clergy to be celibate.
“It is progress for them to stop asking the celibacy question but it still leaves the Church of England policy based essentially on dishonesty and encouraging its clergy to lie,” Bradshaw said, according to the Daily Mail, citing Sunday Times.
Under the current rules, gay and lesbian clergy are required to vow celibacy when they seek ordination or promotion to positions such as a bishop.
The Church has been debating the subject of homosexuality since same-sex marriage was legalized by the Parliament in 2013. The clergy members are still forbidden from performing same-sex marriage services or marrying their same-sex partners.
The recommendation put forward by the House of Bishops will be considered by the General Synod next month.
Bradshaw suggested that the government could intervene in the affairs of the church if change does not come soon.
“There is a growing sense that if the church can’t sort this out for themselves, then parliament may have to do it for them,” he said.
The proposal came just a few months after the gay clerics alleged that 11 bishops were gay in September. That same month, Nicholas Chamberlain, the Bishop of Grantham, admitted that he was gay and in a celibate same-sex relationship. His admission came after a Sunday newspaper threatened to reveal his sexuality.
“It was not my decision to make a big thing about coming out. People know I’m gay, but it’s not the first thing I’d say to anyone. Sexuality is part of who I am, but it’s my ministry that I want to focus on,” Chamberlain told the Guardian.
An increasing number of priests have married or expressed plans to marry same-sex partners in defiance of the current policies of the Church.
“Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.”
Same-sex couple chosen by church for their ‘gifts, talents and experience’
Married couple are now co-pastors at a church in DC
What’s better than having an LGBTI religious leader of faith at your progressive church? How about two?
A historic church in Washington DC has named a married lesbian couple, Sallay Sarratt and Maria Swearingen, as their newest co-pastors.
Calvary Baptist Church in northwest DC announced the hiring during morning worship on 8 January, where they were approved by the congregation.
‘We have found it so easy to fall in love with Calvary and its longstanding commitment to be a voice of justice and compassion for those who perpetually find the wholeness of their humanity disregarded and maligned,’ Sarratt and Swearingen said.
The progressive church, an affiliate of American Baptist Churches USA, severed its ties with the Southern Baptist Convention in 2012 over the denomination’s opposition to same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay clergy.
Carol Blythe, chair of Calvary’s Ministerial Selection Committee, said: ‘As we met and talked with Sally and Maria about their vision for pastoral leadership at Calvary, we were struck by their deep faith and commitment to being part of a gospel community.
‘We were impressed with how their gifts, talents, and experience matched our ministry priorities — and we are thrilled about their upcoming pastorate and the versatility the co-pastor model will provide our congregation.’
The couple, who met and later ordained at First Baptist Church of Greenville, South Carolina, take over as co-pastors on 26 February.
