A long time coming - A Methodist's journey towards gracious inclusion, by OTN Patron Barbara Glasson

Rev Dr Barbara Glasson is a Methodist Minister currently teaching pastoral theology at the Queens Foundation in Birmingham. As the founder of The Bread Church in city centre Liverpool, she has a passion for the transformation of the church in ways led by people who have experienced discrimination and exclusion.

Barbara has written a number of books, including The Exuberant Church: Listening to the Prophetic People of God, which reflects on the process of ‘coming out’ as both profoundly human and deeply of God, and those who experience this as prophetic voices who invite us into a new way of understanding mission and the Church.

Her latest book is Reflections on the Water, a daily resource for the season of Lent, drawing on Barbara's recent time as the President of the Methodist Conference in Britain, her insights from around the world, her interfaith work in Bradford and her experiences during lockdown in Derbyshire.

PHOTO: Alex Baker Photography

WATCH Barbara’s message to the Open Table Network [2.5 mins].

WATCH Barbara’s Q&A with OTN Coordinator Kieran Bohan [60 mins].

LAST MONTH Methodist Conference, the governing body of the Methodist Church in Britain, passed a vote to allow same sex marriages conducted on Methodist premises or by Methodist office-holders, making it the largest denomination in the UK to make this change.

Former President of the Methodist Conference, Barbara Glasson shares a personal response:

It’s been a long time coming. It’s been a long slow journey for the Methodist Church, and it has been a transformative, personal journey for me too.

In 1993 I was training for the Methodist ministry and had to select a pastoral placement. We lived near Grimsby at that time, a depressed and bleak former fishing town and, in what my tutors considered to be a daring choice, I decided to attend ‘the gay support group’.

And so it was I drove down to a working men’s club on the dock road leading to the derelict fish market one wet and windy night. The place was filled with thick smoke, there were people dressed as women, others who appeared to be men that were women, women embracing women... I remember thinking that I should go to the toilet and re-group my brain, and then the toilet simply added to my internal confusion.

I had already defined myself as an open-minded liberal type of a Christian - my mother had talked about ‘homosexuality’ in hushed tones as something we ‘just shouldn’t dabble in’, like witchcraft or extra-marital sex. I was a child of the 60’s, the world was re-inventing itself, I wanted to be open minded and accepting, but that night I ran the deepest of baths and submerged my whole self into it.

The following weeks attending the group I learned a few things. First, people didn’t trust me - was I from the police? Saying I was from the church seriously didn’t help! After a few weeks, I found someone that would look out for me, wanted to talk, wanted to know more - we began to trust each other. I realised that, as a straight woman, my head needed to have a chat with my heart. It was no good thinking I was liberal, I needed to have a seismic shift in the way I felt about things. I needed to learn!

Then in 1993 the matter of human sexuality was brought for discussion to the Methodist Conference. We needed to re-visit our understanding of human relationships, to think what God was saying to us as a Church. The debate was charged with both conviction and emotion - many jumped to their feet to express strong opinions on one side or the other. Most contested was the way we understood, used and interpreted Biblical material. That was seen as the heart of the matter. The Conference made two resolutions that actually contradicted each other - as a Church we decided to live with these contradictions and to give things time. This time seemed an eternity for those hungry for change - it cost too much pain and sorrow and too many good people have been hurt or decided to leave the church, but maybe time was wise.

I was ordained in 2000 and began to work in Liverpool city centre in a new expression of church that baked and shared bread. We had an open table around which anyone could gather to bake the loaves - this bread was wonderful and shared widely and became a means of transformation for many, including me.

To this table came Storm, who were heading up some work at the University for LGBT+ Christians, and also came Quest, a social and support group for LGBT+ Catholics, and through these organisations arrived a rich and varied bouquet of humanity whom I quickly came to respect and love. I learned that being LGBT+ can hold so much joy and wildness and laughter and exuberance as well as anguish and self-doubt. I learned of the deep spiritual journeys many had made in coming out. I was nourished by the wisdom of a whole group of remarkable Christians who were holding on to their faith despite the nonsense they had received from the church. I learned that the Bible should never be used as a weapon.

Pivotal in all that was the baptism of a transgender woman who had become part of the bread-making community and who sought God’s blessing of her new identity. Then there was the blessing of a same-sex couple’s relationship - two women dressed as brides and more confetti on the pavement outside than I have ever seen in a church! Then a funeral service for someone who had died of AIDS - and so it went on. I realised that it wasn’t me with my liberal benevolence that was including others, but rather others were graciously including me and enabling me to be transformed by their company.

As I left Liverpool ten years later, the Storm and Quest groups held a party for me, and we laughed a lot at our journey together, and I began to see that they had not only transformed my understanding of myself but also of how the Church could be if it also could ‘come out’. And that is when Kieran, who was Convenor of the Quest group and is now Coordinator of the Open Table Network, and I wrote a book together. The Exuberant Church: Listening to the prophetic people of God explored what the Church might become if it could listen and learn from prophetic communities like these LGBT+ Christian groups.

And so, the debate about marriage and family life returned to Methodist Conference, and a report was commissioned entitled God In Love Unites Us. A working party was put together of people who held radically different views, and this group listened and learned from one another at personal cost over a number of years. I was not a member of this group, but I was President of the Methodist Conference when they reported back.

As I sat in big red chair of John Wesley, founder of Methodism, and listened to the voices of so many LGBT+ members of the Methodist Church giving testimony to their pain, struggle and deep faith, it was deeply moving. It was also moving to hear from those for whom this conversation rocked the whole basis of their faith and Biblical understanding. We knew that the only hope we have as Methodists is to hold these contradictory convictions together in love, and to live within a fellowship of controversy.

This year, the Methodist Church resolved that it would be possible to hold same-sex marriages on Church premises. This will be the decision of the local church council and the minister with pastoral oversight - if either has an objection on grounds of conscience then they must refer the couple to a neighbouring church. For some, this still feels like a cop-out, for others it feels too radical by far. I am convinced that this is not only the right decision, but it is also a Biblical decision and I rejoice that I have seen it come to fruition.

I am thankful for so many LGBT+ Christians who have both educated me and informed me along this road, and I am sorry for my narrowness of mind and for the Church’s failure to listen in the past.

Yes, it’s been a long time coming, but I pray that now we will all discover the rich gift of diversity, which has nothing to fear and offers us all abundant life.