Mennonite Church USA has made great progress on queer dignity, but there’s more work to be done

I was ordained in MC USA in January and am proud to be among the few queer pastors of color who have been ordained. It is a wonderful privilege, one that has been fought for by many people and organizations before me. I owe them a debt of gratitude.

I learned over time how the advocacy group Pink Menno was key to paving the way for my ordination, along with the Brethren Mennonite Council for LGBT interests and its Supportive Communities Network. BMC continues to advocate for queer people, and one of SCN’s functions is organizing queer-affirming congregations and helping queer people know which Anabaptist churches will welcome them.

In addition to Pink Menno and BMC is the work of Germantown Mennonite Church in Philadelphia. Hundreds of years after its founding as the first Mennonite congregation in North America, it was kicked out of Eastern District and Franconia conferences for affirming queer people. Germantown’s brave witness was a crucial part of MC USA becoming an affirming denomination. To this day, Germantown has not been welcomed back into membership and has never heard an apology.

Another church crucial to my path to becoming a queer pastor is Hyattsville Mennonite Church, a member of Allegheny Mennonite Conference. Hyattsville was disciplined nearly 20 years ago for bringing a gay delegate to annual assembly. They stayed in Allegheny under discipline for 10 years but couldn’t vote in delegate assemblies. They stood strong until the conference finally voted to remove them from discipline.

I am grateful for the people who have made MC USA a more welcoming, and thus more Christlike, denomination. This hard work culminated in the 2022 Resolution for Repentance and Transformation, which named clearly the harm MC USA caused its queer members. I’m indebted to those who worked to make this possible. Without their efforts, I wouldn’t be able to be a pastor in MC USA.

I attended a workshop at this summer’s MC USA convention that offered an update on the resolution. Though I wish MC USA itself had offered an update, I was glad BMC and the Queer Leadership Coalition hosted this workshop.

Presenters offered the successes and progress we have made since the 2022 resolution. Among them was a Queer Mennonite Visioning retreat and a queer Anabaptist gathering in Philadelphia called Fabulous Fierce and Sacred. Sixteen Mennonite churches have joined the Supportive Communities Network since 2022. On the conference level, Central District, Western District, Indiana Michigan and Pacific Northwest conferences have taken steps of reparative action. Two elder gay pastors, Keith Schrag and John Linscheid, have been recredentialed. Camp Friedenswald and BMC engaged in organizational repair related to harm that happened 20 years ago. The Queer Leadership Coalition formed and is represented at MC USA’s Constituency Leaders Council.

I was blessed by Shana Green of New Creation Fellowship Church in Newton, Kan., who offered a reflection on queer theology and how to make our theology and language queer-­affirming and intersectional, which is called for in the 2022 resolution. Green noted that as a Black, queer-­expansive pastor looking into the predominantly White audience, they didn’t see themselves. Green noted that often in our churches we aren’t sure if we even have queer people present. So, when we need to imagine how to include or care for people, Green named themselves as someone that people could imagine.

Many of these efforts have taken place at the grassroots, congregational and conference levels. There are still not enough denominational initiatives on LGBTQ+ justice. There has not been an MC USA statement about violence and threats the Trump administration poses to trans people (although similar statements have been made about migrants). 

Some accountability and repair have happened, but more must be done, including an apology to Germantown. MC USA must document and publish the history of queer and trans people in Mennonite history, as well as the history of BMC’s advocacy. The denomination needs to lead us against the pitting of immigrants and queer people against each other, as if our interests are mutually exclusive. As a queer person of color, my own lived experience is evidence against this simplistic and harmful binary.

My call to MC USA is to continue the work it started in 2022. I hope and trust our leaders can rise to this occasion.