A Conversation with a Progressive Pastor
Jenny is a pastor of a progressive congregation. During our conversation Pastor Jenny talked frankly about her spiritual journey to reconcile her love of God, her lifelong devotion to ministry, and her identifying as being gay.
(As a secularist I do not hold the same beliefs as Pastor Jenny. However, I believe her story is worth telling.)
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Mt. Toll Productions: So, tell us a bit about yourself.
Jenny: I’m ordained in the United Church of Christ, and have my doctorate degree from Fuller Seminary.
MTP: Ministry is your profession, right?
Jenny: Yes, ministry is my profession and I have felt called into ministry in terms of preaching the gospel and working toward a more just and generous world since I was 16. I felt God’s calling on my life to help other people understand how much God loves them since I was 16 or 17 years old. And I spent a big chunk of my young adulthood working for another ministry organization, a much more conservative organization, where I learned a lot, and grew a lot, but I don’t really identify with them anymore. And I spent the last 12 years here serving as co-pastor. And I love it, absolutely love it.
I was probably 12 years old when I began to feel like I’m different.
MTP: You’re gay, right?
Jenny: I am gay.
MTP: So, when did you begin to understand that you were different?
Jenny: I was probably 12 years old when I began to feel like I’m different. The way I framed it then was, there is something wrong with me. Other young girls my age were having crushes on boys, and I really wasn’t. So, I felt like there’s something wrong with me that I kind of have to hide.
MTP: Did you grow up going to church?
Jenny: I did! I grew up Catholic. All three of my siblings grew up, obviously, in the same little Catholic Parish I did, and they ended up turning away from the church completely. But I loved the church. Yeah, the Catholic church did not hurt me. The Catholic church encouraged my faith.
MTP: Did you ever consider becoming a nun?
Jenny: I did. I thought about it a lot, because that is the only role that women can take professionally as a calling in the Catholic Church. But I didn’t want to wear the dresses they wore, and I wanted to preach the gospel. I wanted to preach the good news. So, I couldn’t find myself as a nun, at all. And (laughing) I was afraid that I might be attracted to them.
MTP: You mean the other nuns?
Jenny: Yeah! (laughing) So I stayed away from that, but I remained Catholic for a long time.
MTP: Evangelicals talk of a conversion experience. Catholics don’t really have that do they?
Jenny: You know, Catholics have a different understanding of conversion than we do as Protestants, and I think that I have always had a Protestant understanding, even when I was Catholic. So, I was about 10 years old, maybe 11, standing in the back of our little Catholic church, and looking up at the cross, which is a Crucifix in the Catholic Church, so Jesus is hanging on it. And I remember looking up at him, on the cross and thinking, if he did that, if he died, he must love me so much. So, I see that as my conversion moment. My journey with God began somewhere during that year of my life, that I’m aware of.
MTP: You’ve had a passion for ministry almost your whole life?
Jenny: Yes, since I was 16.
MTP: Could you tell us more about how you felt called into ministry?
Jenny: Sure! I first went to college, as a musician, as a percussionist and a drummer. I went to a very expensive school, so even though I felt called into ministry, I thought I should follow through with my degree. So, I spent a year teaching high school music, but just couldn’t resist the call into ministry much longer than that. So, I went into ministry from then until now.
MTP: How old were you when you began working in ministry?
Jenny: I was 22 or 23.
MTP: But you hadn’t come out yet?
Jenny: That’s true, I had not come out yet, and in fact was trying to hide and not even able to use the word “gay”. It just felt like… I don’t know… like a really heavy, negative, bad thing. I was not out at all, but I was in and out of relationships with women, that I had to keep hidden.
I lived a double life.
MTP: Would you say you were exploring?
Jenny: I was exploring. Like all 20-year-olds, I was following my attractions and my desires. And I had to hide all that. I wish I didn’t.
MTP: What do you mean by that?
I wish I could have talked with somebody about my desires and my dreams.
Jenny: I wish I hadn’t lied to myself. I wish I hadn’t pretended that I was something I wasn’t. I wished that I could have been in a place like this Church, which didn’t exist back then, so my wish was wishful thinking. I wish I could have talked with somebody about my desires and my dreams, but I couldn’t.
MTP: You didn’t have anybody?
Jenny: Nobody!
MTP: So, did you feel that who you were as a person was unacceptable in Christian circles?
Jenny: Yeah, it was unacceptable in all the Christian circles that I was walking in, at that time. It was like I was duplicitous. I lived a double life. And that has taken a toll on me.
MTP: So, when and how did you come out?
Jenny: I didn’t really, honestly come out publicly, and to myself completely until I was 40 or 41.
MTP: What was that like?
Jenny: Well, I came out to myself first. You know, I had to first acknowledge, to myself, that there’s not something wrong with me, and, that I am what I am. I am gay. So, the first piece was coming out to myself and finding peace with God. And then I came out to my family, who were all very loving and receptive and embracing of who I was. And then slowly over time I came out to friends who really believed that I was lying to myself. Whereas I had been lying to myself for – I don’t know – twenty-five years.
MTP: You have a partner, right?
Jenny: I do, yes!
MTP: Are you guys married?
Jenny: We are not married. We like to say we’re living in sin. (Laughter) I say that as a joke, right? We aren’t married yet, in part because, we’re not sure we trust… marriage. We trust God, and we have a beautiful community that supports us, but I’m not sure that getting married would make us any more committed to each other than we already are.
MTP: You were walking in conservative circles at that time. Were there people who weren’t as receptive to your coming out?
Hundreds of people felt the need to disassociate from me and to disown me.
Jenny: I had lots of friends in my life at that time, who felt like I’d be going straight to hell if I embraced being gay. So, that part was traumatic, in some ways, because many, many people felt the need to disassociate from me and to disown me. I mean literally hundreds of people. Hundreds of people did not want to be in relationship with me because I was naming that I was gay. We would say today, “defriended me”, but Facebook wasn’t around then. They just did not want to have any relational connection with me. They were condemning me for being gay.
MTP: How did you handle that?
Jenny: Oh gosh! At the time I just had to walk away from it. I had to just walk away. I stopped answering phone calls. I stopped responding to emails.
MTP: Were people trying to fix you?
It was like I was now one of the fallen.
Jenny: Yeah, trying to fix me, or correct me, or communicate their disappointment in me. That was probably the hardest thing. I was almost at a VP level in this organization, so I knew hundreds of people around the country. And I was well liked and well respected. It was like I was now one of the fallen. But I did not see myself that way at all. I saw myself as beginning to tell the truth. People in that particular ministry could not support the direction I had taken spiritually, theologically… personally. So, there was quite a bit of rejection in that. But at the same time, I was partnering with the woman I’m partnered to now, Christy. So, it was bitter sweet, right? Because I found myself falling in love, and feeling a deep commitment to someone.
MTP: You were 40?
I was furious with God, because I’m thinking, “I shouldn’t be gay.
Jenny: Yeah, 41 or 42. I’d started to think about it for the years before that, of course. Throughout my 20s and 30s I kept hearing God say to me, “I love you. Stop lying.” It just took me a long time to realize God wasn’t saying, “Stop being gay.” God was saying, “Stop lying to yourself about this. I know who you are and I love you exactly the way you are.” It took me a long time to hear that. So, when I met Christy and started to fall in love, at first, I was furious with God, because I’m thinking, “I shouldn’t be gay.” That’s what I thought. “And You brought this person into my life that I have fallen head over heels in love with?” I was mad at God. And then Christy said, “I’m not going to hide in the closet with you. You’ve got to work this out with God.”
MTP: Had she already had come out?
I studied hard because I wanted a family relationship with Christy.
Jenny: Yes, she had already come out, and was very much at peace in her faith and with Christ and with her family. So, she said, “I’m not going to hide. You have to figure this out with God. Then we can decide if we can be committed to each other.” So, I did! I found lots of theologians who were saying that we have been wrong about these passages of scriptures that we’ve been interpreting as a punishment and as an indictment on gay people. I just all of a sudden, found theologians, who really understood the scriptures, who were like, “No, it’s okay that you are gay.” So, I studied hard because I wanted a relationship… I wanted a family relationship with Christy. It took a long time to even be willing to think that I might have been wrong about how I understood the bible.
MTP: In one of your sermons, you talked about “clobber passages”. What is meant by that?
Jenny: There are seven passages, that we sometimes call the clobber passages, and they, at first glance, look like they are condemning homosexuality. But I really don’t think that’s what those passages are about. And it took me a long time to get there.
MTP: Can you tell us more about “clobber verses”?
Jenny: Clobber verses are six or seven really short sentences or paragraphs from the bible that have been used to clobber gay people, and try to tell them that they shouldn’t be that way. They should repent. That they should stop being homosexual. There are so many more passages in the bible about poverty, right? But we ignore those and focus on those six or seven. They’re called clobber verses because they’ve clobbered people for so many years.
MTP: Have you used those verses to clobber yourself?
Jenny: I did use those to clobber myself. Because for a long time, my hermeneutic, the lens through which I read the scriptures, told me that those six or seven passages should be followed literally. So, when Romans condemns homosexuality, it was condemning me. So, I beat myself up with those passages. I clobbered myself.
MTP: Tell us more about that. Were other people shaming you for being gay?
Jenny: I’m not sure if it only came from other people. I think some of the shame came from inside me because of the way that I was reading the scriptures. My hermeneutic told me that I was wrong, that being gay was wrong and I should either be celibate my whole life or pray that God would heal me so I could be heterosexual. And that was my understanding of the scriptures. So, I was as much the one shaming myself as other people who agreed with me. It took a change in how I understood the scriptures for me to not feel shame.
MTP: Tell me more.
I felt some shame because I thought I was broken, because I was gay or different.
Jenny: So, I’m reading the scriptures and thinking that I’m wrong… that there’s something wrong with me, not just that I’m doing something wrong. So, the guilt is feeling like I’m doing something wrong and the shame comes from thinking there’s something wrong with me. And so, I felt some shame because I thought I was broken, because I was gay or different. I couldn’t even say the word “gay” back then. It was like embarrassing. It was like a curse. It isn’t anymore. I freely tell people I’m gay. But back then, in my 30s, it felt like a curse that I couldn’t get away from, no matter what I did. I begged God to heal me.
MTP: Did you ever go to conversion therapy?
Jenny: It wasn’t really conversion therapy, but yes, I did go into therapy. I had a few really good therapists who took me at my word, and I said, “I don’t want to be this. I don’t want to be gay. Can you help me get rid of this?” They were not reparative therapist. They were good christian therapists, so I never felt hurt by those people. I felt like they were trying to help me grow and move in the way I wanted to. It didn’t work. But it did work to help me grow closer to Jesus. It really did!
MTP: In what way?
“There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Jenny: Well, I felt from these therapist… what they tried to tell me was… you know… there are some passages in Romans that are very difficult for conservatives to think about homosexuality.
MTP: Romans 1?
Jenny: Yes, Romans 1. But there are other passages in Romans that are beautiful, and you don’t even need to interpret them. Romans 8:1 says, “There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” And I had one therapist who, that was the only thing he wanted me to know. That no matter what I felt, no matter what I thought, no matter what I became, because of Christ there is no condemnation. I’ll never forget that. So, that helped me grow closer to God and lessen some of the shame. So, I don’t have any war stories of conversion therapy. In fact, I was part of an organization that’s now gone, so I’ll tell you the name of it. It was called Living Waters. And they were helping gay people like me get healed. So, I went through their program, and they recognized some of my gifts for ministry, and teaching and leadership and asked me to be a leader in their program and I was… while I’m having a relationship with a woman on the side. (Laughing) And, I find out later, so were all of them… having homosexual relationships. It was like such a mess. (Shaking head)
MTP: And now…?
I’m not lying anymore. I’m not living a double life.
Jenny: Since being partnered with Christy… so Christy and I have been together 16 years, I’m not lying anymore. I’m not living a double life. I’m really grateful for that. But, some of the people when I left that former Evangelical organization, I had several people say to me, “I liked you better when you were lying.” So, they wanted me to stay in their community, but I could only do that if I was lying. And I think that’s what they wanted. So, at that point, I’m like, “I know for a fact, that this is not what God wants from me… to keep lying.” God has made that clear to me, almost in an audible voice, “Honey, stop lying. I love you!” So, when somebody said that to me, within evangelicalism, I felt free to leave, because I know for certain that is not what God wants for me.
Jenny: Can I share a quick story about that?
MTP: Of course, you can.
Jenny: My sister, who is a few years younger than I am, is also gay. And she came out 10 to 12 years before I did… before I was ever ready to even think about it. And I condemned her so badly. I even said to her things like, “You might go to hell because you are gay.” I was the evangelical church in this situation. I remember privately thinking, “God, how can you let her have that and I can’t?” So, that’s why I was so hard on her.
MTP: Was it like, “How can You let her be happy and not me”?
Jenny: That’s privately what I said to God, but what I said to her was, “You better not do this.”
MTP: Was she in a relationship?
Jenny: (Laughing) She was, and that made it even harder on me. We have since completely reconciled and she has forgiven me, but for a while I was really mean to my little sister, trying to figure myself out.
MTP: Final thoughts?
Being gay is not a mistake that we have to fix.
Jenny: Once I worked through the passages of scripture and prayer too, I felt God’s blessing on me as a gay person. And what I understand to be God’s blessing is God’s affirmation. I mean, I felt God saying to me, “Honey, I love you, and I made you this way… I made you this way.” It’s not just okay. God made me this way. This is what God wanted. This is not a mistake that we have to fix.
MTP: Thank you for your time.
Jenny: You’re welcome. It’s been a pleasure!
From Where I Stand
Pastor Jenny is one of the most genuine believers I have ever encountered. She is courageous in the face of evangelical criticism and passionate about sharing “God’s Love” with anyone who is willing to accept it. The fact that she was rejected by so many of her evangelical friends says more about their beliefs than it does hers.
“I feel God’s blessing on me as a gay person. It’s not just okay, God made me this way. This is what God wanted. This is not a mistake that we have to fix.”
For more information about “clobber verses” visit Colby Martin’s “The Bible does not condemn LGBTQ people“.
For information about contacting Pastor Jenny, email us at mt.toll@comcast.net
Coming next:
It’s one thing to call someone a false christian and it’s quite another to prove it. We’ll return to our discussion about the hate message that was taped to the door of the progressive church and examine the validity of the verses used to shame them.
From Where I Stand
Dale Crum