Outspoken: Coming Out in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa

By Liz Lightfoot

"In 2007, I underwent a crisis of sexual identity. I was married, with two young children, when I became attracted to another woman. The hostility I encountered at the Anglican church I was attending made me curious about other people's experiences. It seemed to me imperative that stories of being gay in the Church be heard, especially in the context of the current maelstrom within the Anglican community in which the Church has been encouraged to undergo a 'listening process'. This book is the result." Outspoken presents the narratives of eleven people who have come out in the Anglican Church in New Zealand, including two ordained church members. The author has written a general introduction, plus an introduction to each individual story and reflections on it. The book closes with a postscript that discusses truth and the Church; community, belonging and rejection; ideas about hell and damnation; the theology of denial; and the implications and ramifications of the "Don't ask, don't tell" approach. The author notes that "People's lives are sacred ground and the area of sexuality is one where people are arguably at their most vulnerable." She hopes that this research will contribute to community building within the Anglican Church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Otago University Press
• Release date: Dec 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781988592275

Book preview

Appendix

INTRODUCTION

In 2007, I underwent a crisis of sexual identity. I was married, with two young children, when I became attracted to another woman. While that attraction did not lead to any other action, it triggered the end of my marriage. The hostility I encountered at the Anglican church I was attending made me curious – and concerned – about other people’s experiences. I wondered what kind of reaction someone who has a partner of the same gender might elicit in the Church and what impact that might have on a person’s life and faith.

I decided to return to the middle-to-high* Anglican church I had earlier been a part of and found worshipping there to be a source of great strength and healing. Fortunately, I had encountered a broad spectrum of approaches to worship and doctrine within the Anglican Church. On reflection, I wondered how my faith might have been affected if evangelical or literalist Anglicanism had been the only Christian world I had known and where that might have left me with regard to my faith community.

At my church I exercise a ministry as a liturgist. This involves leading the congregation in the prayers of confession and intercession and administering the chalice. It is an immense privilege, accompanied always – regardless of how I am feeling – by a sense of God’s presence.

Most liturgists in the Anglican diocese in which I live are licensed; I am not, but it occurred to me to ask what the process would involve. Would the same restrictions that apply to those who have a call to the ordained ministry apply to liturgists, who are considered lay people? Would I have to be either in a heterosexual marriage or celibate? If I were to enter a same-sex relationship, would I have to relinquish my licence and duties? The answer was that if I did enter a same-sex relationship, I would not be able to continue as a licensed liturgist. I could occasionally, at my vicar’s discretion, say some prayers or read a lesson, but I would not be able to administer the chalice.

Soon after this experience, I became privy to the stories of several Christians in similar situations. Their stories illustrated the painful and long-lasting damage that coming out in the Church can have on one’s psyche. Others I spoke with had more positive experiences. It seemed to me imperative that stories of being gay in the Church be heard, especially in the context of the current maelstrom within the worldwide Anglican community, in which the Church has been encouraged to undergo a ‘listening process’.

Encouraged by others to gather the stories of gay and lesbian people in the Church, I looked into the possibility of doing that as part of a university degree. One academic I talked to was Dr John Paterson, who was then Chair of the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of Waikato’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and who teaches research methodology and regularly supervises graduate research projects. John has roots in Christianity and an interest in issues of social justice. I knew that I wanted to do the project under his supervision but academic regulations prohibited me from doing even an Honours-level paper in his department. In the end, with the help of a scholarship from Te Kotahitanga, the Trust Board of St John’s Theological College, I undertook the study independently, not as part of a degree. Dr Paterson kindly offered to supervise this project and to provide me with advice throughout.

From the outset, things have fallen into place. It is as if the research was waiting to be done and thanks to a strange, unplanned and completely unanticipated sequence of events both personally and with regard to people who have crossed my path, it has proved possible to do it. Nonetheless, I could not have begun the work without the guidance, support and encouragement of Dr Paterson and the unflagging back-up of cheerleading friends and family in New Zealand and well beyond. I gratefully thank and acknowledge each one of them.

Aims

‘Some truths are not worth the pain they cause. Others might be necessary for the pain they can prevent.’ – Herbert & Irene Rubin, Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data

By presenting a number of personal histories of the experience of coming out as a lesbian or gay person in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, my intention is to give voice to those most affected by the debate in this country. My application to Te Kotahitanga stated:

The aim is to document typical stories as well as to provide some indication of the variety of participants’ experiences. I will work to let participants’ stories be heard from their own perspective, as a contribution to the listening process upon which the Anglican Communion is embarked.

I am interested in such dimensions as the individual’s place in the Church, the role of the local church community, the meaning of Christian commitment in relation to sexual identity, experiences of support and tension, and the impact on the participant’s relationship with God and on their involvement with the Church.

I hope thereby also to contribute to the thinking about pastoral care by conveying the implications of the outworking of a range of theological stances on the lives and faith journeys of lesbian and gay people.

People’s lives are sacred ground. The area of sexuality is one where people are arguably at their most vulnerable. In the Anglican Communion, fractured as it is by disagreements on this topic, it is my hope that this research will constitute a community-building exercise.

Preparation

At the beginning of 2009 I undertook an intensive two-month course in research ethics and methodology under the direction of Dr Paterson. The principal ethical concerns were to ensure the protection of participants and to give participants control over their stories. After determining the aims, ethical framework and scope of the research, I wrote an introductory letter outlining the project (see Appendix). I asked the coordinator of the New Zealand branch of Changing Attitudes, a group ‘drawn by God’s love to work for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the Anglican Communion’, to circulate an email request for participants in a project in which I wished to interview people about their experience of coming out in the Anglican Church in New Zealand. One person on the list contacted two people he knew, of whom one decided to participate. Another list member got in touch with me directly. Two members of clergy reprinted the ‘ad’ in their pew sheet, with one contacting me:

Before I use my position to send your request to gay and lesbian members of the congregation I need assurance that their stories will be heard sympathetically and non-judgementally. (The opposite unfortunately has happened in the past – even though supposedly under the direction of a university.) In short, I need someone to vouch for you.

I referred the clergyperson to my vicar, who provided a phone reference.

The pew sheet call for participants resulted in two further people contacting me. I also sent an email request for participants to members of Auckland Community Church (ACC), a worshipping community of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and straight people that has been meeting for over thirty years in St Matthew-in-the-City Anglican church in Auckland. Four members responded positively. I approached three participants of whom I had heard by word of mouth. Several interviewees suggested other potential participants, all of whom I had incidentally already interviewed.

The Interviews

I undertook in-depth interviews with the participants between May and July 2009. There was one main interview with each person, lasting between one and two-and-a-half hours each. In all cases, I went back to the participant to clarify or gain further information.

I recorded the interviews on a digital recorder, transcribed the sound file and provided each participant with a copy of both recording and transcription. Participants have had full editorial rights over all material directly relating to them.

Before starting the interviews, I drew up a list of topics I planned to cover and questions for information-gathering and prompting/probing. My initial plan had been to interview people in the Dioceses of Waikato and Taranaki and Auckland. I broadened the scale of my interviewing to all of New Zealand, in order to better protect the identity of participants and their families.

When I began the research, I gave participants the option of remaining anonymous or of choosing to identify themselves. As the project progressed, it became clear to me that in order to protect the participants as much as possible I had to keep everybody anonymous. In all cases I have therefore used pseudonyms for all people involved, including third parties, as well as fictitious place and church names. (The sole exception is Auckland Community Church, which retains its true name.)

The resulting narratives are presented with a common structure:

Introduction to each narrative

I have written an introduction placing the interviewee in context, providing information such as their age bracket and where the interview took place. I have included in each introduction the answer to the one question that I asked of each participant, and with which I more often than not opened the interview: why they chose to take part in the project.

The participants’ stories

In the interests of readability and clarity, I have not simply reproduced the transcripts of the interviews. Instead, in most cases, I have opted to quote from the transcript. In two instances I have edited the participants’ words, without interspersing my own, as this seemed to best suit their style and story. In all cases, participants have read and agreed that the end result reflects their story accurately.

Reflections

Following each narrative are some reflections in which I have included material that is not part of the interview itself but which illuminates an otherwise obscure or hidden aspect. It is in this section that I put any impressions that I consider might help the reader’s understanding of the participant’s experience. I recognise that by placing them here there is a danger that the reader will be left with my perspective rather than the participant’s words. The reflections follow the story, however, in order that the reader arrives ‘fresh’ to the narrative.

Coming out

The research topic presented to participants and which accordingly shaped their telling of their stories was ‘Coming out in the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand’. Coming out is a term used to describe the disclosing of one’s sexual identity as other than heterosexual. It is one thing to identify as something other than straight in silence or covertly, but it is another for that fact to be generally known or discovered. The words ‘coming out’ might suggest it to be an event that took place at a particular time on a particular day in a particular place. Rather, it is a process. Unless you stand up in church one day and make an announcement to all your fellow Christians and churchgoers, that process is gradual.

Coming out as an Anglican is the focal point of some narratives. In others it is more peripheral. The Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand is not a monolithic entity. In most, if not all of these narratives, there has been at least one Anglican who has supported the individual in crisis and at least one Anglican who has expressed overt hostility, as distinct from simply holding a different theological viewpoint. The Anglican Church is a broad church: theological standpoints and opinions cross all divides.

Terminology

There are people who describe themselves as being attracted to a person of the opposite sex who have loved or could love either a man or a woman. There are also men and women who have not ever been attracted to someone of the opposite gender, and those who find themselves in love with someone of the same gender after presuming themselves to be ‘straight’ and living accordingly. The participants reflect these variations.

Some see sexuality as being fixed and innate, while some consider individuals to inhabit a space on a continuum which has heterosexual on one end and homosexual on the other. Others prefer to see being gay, lesbian or bisexual as a choice. More than one gay person has assured me that men and women differ completely in their experience and attitudes.

Variations abound in the vocabulary used to describe members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) community, both by that community and by those outside it. As an example, the word ‘queer’, once pejorative, has been assimilated by some members of the LGBT community.

Some Christians reject the labels of ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’ or ‘bisexual’ in favour of ‘same-sex attracted’ (SSA) which sees attraction to someone of the same gender as not intrinsic to the person. Attraction to the same gender is seen as a set of behaviours or temptations. When there is seen to be a choice, then the territory is one of a battlefield against the temptation of exercising that choice.

Most conservative Anglicans would, however, subscribe to the theory that it is not the experience of attraction towards someone of the same gender but the acting on that attraction that constitutes the sin.

Limitations

To the best of my abilities, I wanted each story to retain its integrity. It would have been possible to take a thematic approach to the material gathered from the interviews: to treat the main themes that emerged across the accounts and which are therefore isolated to some extent from the context of the participant’s story. I decided that would detract from and perhaps undermine each individual’s account.

These stories are snapshots. This is ‘it’: this person’s story as presented to me during this two-hour slot on this day of this month of this year. I would have liked, with their permission, to have interviewed members of the participants’ families and churches. I would have liked to have talked with the interviewees for longer, too, and to have visited them again after a couple of months to ask whether they still saw things in a similar way. How can one person’s experience be summed up? Often the longer we know someone, the more we realise the less we know of them. Perhaps, however, not knowing the interviewer enables interviewees to show aspects of themselves that those closest to them might have a vested interest not to see.

It would seem that we want to be or feel in control of our stories but we are not and cannot be, as they involve others. We do not occupy any skin but our own. To varying degrees, we are all naive when facing a situation involving another person. However well we know someone, we are not in possession of all the facts or facets of the other person’s existence – they themselves may not even be conscious of those, either. We are therefore not in possession of all the facts in our own story. All we can do is to hope for as much understanding as circumstances permit, to try to make the pieces fit together and to stand in our own space. That requires a certain humility, a groundedness in God. In the Christian context, we abandon ourselves – hearts, soul, body and mind – in trust to God, to ‘divine providence’. Our lives are not lived for or by ourselves but in God.

The weather, the state of the traffic, our mood and state of health, the amount of sleep we have had, the number and nature of the stressors we contend with, whether we have had a recent argument with someone close to us: all these everyday variables impact on how we tell our own story. We all differ in terms of levels of disclosure to self and others. Some of us are more prone to analysis than others, more or less comfortable with emotions, whether it be experiencing or expressing them. Some of us seek the approval of others. These and other traits, foibles and strengths come to bear upon our account of ourselves. In that too glibly strewn-about truth, ‘Only God knows the heart.’

Our motives are perhaps the most obscure and least accessible aspect of us. There are decisions that we have made that we wish we had not. We need to be able to live with ourselves and, in the name of that imperative, resort sometimes to self-justification. By definition, we are not aware of our blind spots. Such complexities affect our view and narration of ourselves and our stories.

The events that participants describe are by their nature likely to be accompanied by intense stress. Stress affects our memory: recall of periods of strain can be blurred or vitally sharp. Variables relating to the events themselves will contribute to the shaping of the narrative; for example, how recently they took place impacts not only on memory but on perspective. Strong emotions are often distilled over time. That distance can transmute suffering. Recounting and sharing our stories changes us and them, sometimes subtly, sometimes radically. ‘Because obviously I’m sort of revising everything all the time’, one of the participants commented with regard to his interview.

I had myself interviewed, partly to gain insight into the process. The person who interviewed me is someone I know who has a dry and wry sense of humour. I found that unconsciously I highlighted the almost farcical aspects of my story. I tended to use distancing techniques such as self-deprecating humour. Perhaps I had not wanted to look ridiculously melodramatic. Perhaps I had wanted to shield my interviewer from turgidity or boredom.

As with any conversation, an interview is a two-way process. The interviewer’s relationship with the interviewee and whether there is a rapport or sense of understanding are crucial to the evolution of the conversation and therefore interview. How at ease or not the participant feels, how trustworthy they estimate me to be, whether or not I remind them of someone they know, whether they connect or not with my sense of humour, how they feel about English accents, all act as prisms. Had the participant told their story to another interviewer, it would have been different again. They might have revealed other aspects had I been older, had I been younger, had I been a man. The emphasis might have differed had I been ordained. The list of factors that will have affected the interview with me is endless.

The reader brings as much to the story as the narrator and the writer. A reader from a conservative theological background will read the stories in a different way from a reader from a more liberal background. Words will be decoded differently. The text is likely to raise a different set of questions. The reader might look for clues to explain why a person might have same-sex attractions. They might be looking for holes in the interviewee’s theology: ‘errors of thinking’. There is a different theological framework.

Someone from a more liberal theological background will bring to the text a different set of assumptions. They might assume that there will be a direct correlation between a more evangelical belief system and a negative approach to the ‘gay issue’. That reader might read from a position of hostility towards certain sections of the Anglican Church, just as another reader might be suspicious of other sections.

The reader has a unique advantage as they have the possibility of returning to the stories and, in doing so, mining something different each time.

There are differences in register between the spoken and the written word. One participant described one of the comments he had made as ‘cheesy’. Had he been writing his account he would not have used the words he did. He did not mind retaining the comment: ‘It’s just one of the downsides of putting the spoken word down on paper.’

Words constitute a small part of communication. As my supervisor puts it, a transcript is ‘very thin’. To focus solely on words is to miss perhaps the heart of a communication: no tone of voice, no body language, no facial expression. What we believe about ourselves is in a certain sense beyond words and sometimes in spite of the words we do use.

Biases

The nature of independent qualitative research is that the reader sees the individual’s story as filtered through the interviewer’s lens and prejudices. I cannot claim, nor would I want to claim, neutrality on this issue. I am well and truly an ‘insider’. I do not come to this subject purely from an academic perspective. As an Anglican priest’s daughter and active member of my local Anglican parish, I am familiar with the Church’s theology, culture and politics. I have had my own experience of coming out in the Church. To some degree, these factors are strengths when undertaking research into a topic such as this. They can also be considered biases. While participants opened up to me in a way that they might not have done so readily had I not been an insider, there are also disadvantages to this status.

Inevitably, the dilemma of how much to tell participants about my own experience, and at what stage, arose early on. Because I was interviewing people about such a personal area, I decided that I owed it to those whom I invited to participate to refer briefly to my own experience and to be prepared to discuss that experience with participants, should they ask me to do so.

I was aware that knowing something of my story might influence the course of the interviews. However, not being open seemed to come into the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ category. Moreover, it may have been on the basis of my being an insider that people agreed to talk with me. In my introductory letter I therefore gave a brief outline of what had led me to do the research. I answered any questions about myself that arose after the interview had finished. In the event, fewer than half the participants asked for my story and fewer again for my views. One participant asked straight out, ‘Are you gay?’ on meeting me. Another asked for my story as soon as I sat down. Some have not asked me any questions at all.

One disadvantage of being open is that it could establish a sense of complicity or collusion with those I interviewed. The participants would have assumed (rightly) that I do not see a contradiction between homosexuality and Christianity and am therefore ‘on their side’. As an insider I also run the danger of the assumed, of taking aspects of the terrain of this research for granted because I am familiar with some of the territory.

Another disadvantage of being an insider is that during the interview process I might verbally or non-verbally pursue avenues of questioning that particularly interest me and on which the interviewee might otherwise not have focused in such depth. Conversely, when I feel less comfortable, I might unconsciously signal reluctance to remain with that aspect of a person’s experience. To offset such skews, as well as using open-ended questions as often as possible during the interview, I gave the transcript of their interview to each participant in addition to the write-up. I hoped thereby to provide a way for the participants to approach the account of their story from different aspects. I have tried to minimise the impact of my biases overall by granting complete right of editorial decision to the participants. It has been a privilege to do that.

In some instances, my input seemed almost immaterial: compiling a list of questions to make an interview guide was a useful exercise, but each interview took its own shape in its own style and answered its own questions.

I believe this research to be primarily about justice and about what is done, how people are treated in the name of God. To me, to have a gospel bias is to have a bias to the oppressed and towards justice, a bias to the suffering and towards healing, a bias to the captives and towards liberation. On the issue of homosexuality, the definitions of justice, healing and liberty are up for debate. Within the Anglican Church there are some voices who would see healing as freedom from attraction towards someone of the same gender, who would see liberty as freedom from the desire to express that love physically. For them, justice might be seen as providing gay and lesbian people both with the information that there is the possibility of change and also the imperative not to act on feelings. For some Anglicans, justice would be expressed in sexuality posing no barrier to being a full member of the Anglican Communion, including in an ordained capacity. And there are voices in between. There is no one viewpoint of the Anglican Church on this subject.

It is my hope that those who might have found themselves outside the boundaries of the Church because of condemnatory voices might hear that there are elsewhere in the Church voices of welcome. I hope that those who may have had negative experiences might realise that the Anglican Church has a variety of theological standpoints on the issue of homosexuality. This is sometimes confusing, and often infuriating, but in this situation, for people who have been damaged, perhaps a sign of hope. God is beyond theology, and sexuality is no barrier to God’s love.

Perhaps for me the main trigger for undertaking this research was the accounts of women who have been rejected by their communities of faith and whose relationships with the Church and often with God had been marred and sometimes completely severed: several have not been back to church since. While church attendance is not to be confused with faith in God, to feel cut off from belonging to a community of worship and from what in my case was a profoundly healing experience of liturgy is an outrageous irony. The means are thwarting the ends. And that is to put aside, if it were possible, the psychological and social damage that is suffered. We can toss or sometimes sling theology back and forth but, as Jesus said to the group of religious leaders who, following faithfully the custom of the time, were about to stone a woman caught in adultery, ‘Let the one among you who has no sin cast the first stone.’

Reactions

This area of research has elicited strong emotion. Before I started it, an ordained minister from another denomination commented: ‘No one who was being paid by the Church could do this. You’re standing up and saying, Shoot me.’

A friend in another country who is ordained and in a committed same-sex relationship, out to only a select few in the Anglican Church there, told me that, were someone to ask them to participate in research parallel to mine, while they would want to help and would applaud the fact that it was taking place, they would decline to take part. The risks would be too great.

Notwithstanding, then, the possibility that clergy would not want to risk being interviewed, I was interested in hearing what happens when Anglicans in general, both laity and clergy, ask and tell. In the event, I present the narratives of two members of the clergy, neither of whom is employed traditionally as an ordained priest, nor paid by the Church. It is possibly not coincidental that they are the only members of the clergy who have participated. A retired bishop informed me, ‘Many of the gay clergy I know are very careful about coming out in the current climate and as their former bishop I’d be uneasy about contacting them for this study.’

There has been a degree of anger from some potential interviewees. A participant suggested that this perhaps reflects the absence of an arena within the Church to express that anger. One person, appalled that I had not walked away from the institutional Church, remarked with feeling: ‘You haven’t lived it. You’re green. The Church is completely corrupt. There is no one of any integrity left in it.’

All the participants have taken a risk by giving permission for this material to be published, not only by speaking about experiences that are deeply personal but also because they are speaking into controversy, into an arena where much of the debate has been harsh and some of it derisive of people whose sexuality does not fall into the heterosexual category. Several participants hoped that their children might glean a better understanding of them through reading their stories at some stage. One interviewee plans to circulate the written-up version of their story to friends and relatives by way of explanation of what has happened in their life.

Many participants seemed relieved to be able to talk about their experiences and spoke afterwards of the positive impact it had: ‘It’s strange how, in the telling of one’s story again, one can re-live so much emotion, but also release some of the negative aspects of it.’

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*The Anglican Church incorporates a wide range of beliefs and practices which are traditionally grouped into low, middle/broad and high. Low Church is evangelical and more Protestant, High Church is close to the Roman Catholic Church in its practice and belief that it is part of the Church universal. The Broad Church’s distinguishing feature is its liberal theological stance. Within all categories there are subgroupings.

EDWARD

Edward, who is fifty, offered to participate in this project over a cup of tea after a church service, having heard another person ask me about it. He was easy to communicate with: friendly, open, direct.

When I arrive in his street for the interview, Edward is sitting outside his house to make sure that I find it, having not been able to contact me by phone to confirm the arrangement. As the time we’d arranged had been vague, I was touched by this. I comment on the appeal of the higgledy-piggledy street with its old villas. Edward explains that he has just found a new place to live, the current flat having not turned out to be all that the landlord promised. He relies on an internet phone to keep in contact with his family. Advertised as part of the rental, the internet connection has turned out to be subject to the whim of the landlady and her family.

Half-way through the time I spend with Edward, his flatmate returns. He introduces us, and quickly puts us both at our ease. They have known each other several decades and clearly hold each other in great respect and affection.

After the interview, Edward promises to send me copies of some writing that he did when he was in the process of coming out. Later that evening, we coincide at a church service. Edward hands me the promised documentation, having gone into work especially to sort it out for me. The papers are encased in a plastic wallet. Among them, I come across a letter he had referred to during our conversation, which he drafted for his own peace of mind. It is watermarked: ‘This document was not sent.’ I am not naturally organised or tidy, and people who are both quite often make me slightly nervous and prone to