IN 1988, NATION AND INTERNATIONAL NEWS MEDIA watched and reported on the proceedings, debate and vote of The United Church of Canada. At that time, we were wrestling with questions around gay and lesbian membership and ministry in our communities of faith.
IN MAY OF 1988, four hundred and fifty-five persons and groups of the United Church and beyond pooled their resources to purchase a double-page advertisement in The Observer Magazine. The statement read, "We believe that, as a church, we have erected barriers which have caused the exclusion of many people. In their voices, we hear God's summons to repent. We need to change, to embrace the ministries, ordered and lay, of all who respond faithfully to God's call, and who seek to live in relationships of love and trust. We recall our heritage as a united and uniting church."(*)
"The present discussion about the ordination and commissioning of gay and lesbian people... leads us to consider what kind of church we are and are called to be."
~ 1988 Statement to the Church
But 1988 wasn't the first time that United Church members spoke publicly and explicitly about welcoming and affirming homosexuals (as the LGBTQ community was then called back then). In 1974, the Toronto Star newspaper reported that "Rev. Bruce McLeod, moderator of the United Church of Canada, said in an interview that Christians should not prejudge homosexuals. 'Some of the great people in the earth's history from Michelangelo on have been homosexuals. We would all be poorer without them,' McLeod said." (Toronto Star, Saturday ed., 9 March 1974, p. H4).
Considering the post-1988 United Church, how do we remember this these times in our history? Were you one of the 455 who signed the statement for the Observer? What was the back-story to such an action? What were the hopes, fears and community dynamics we lived through in 1988 concerning gay and lesbian people in membership and ministry? How did our resulting 1988 vote play out (or not play out) in our churches back then and over the last 30 years? These are the questions the Iridesce project is posing... to you.
WE HAVE COLLECTED a variety of television reports and newspaper coverage of our 1988 vote. (And welcome more, if you have them.) It is fascinating to look back and place ourselves in those times. You can find all of these links on the News page of our website.
Will you consider sharing your memories? That is what the Iridesce project is all about. Remembering, lamenting and sharing together... so we can challenge ourselves—as our 1988 fore-friends did before us—to "consider what kind of church we are and are called to be." Please be in touch at livingapology@gmail.com
~ Aaron Miechkota,
Iridesce Project Coordinator
(*)See the full statement and more 1988 news links, on the News page of our website, or click here.
