All Are Welcome: Inclusion and Mainline Protestantism in the United States

Abstract

All Are Welcome: Inclusion and Mainline Protestantism in the United States focuses on LGBTQ+ inclusion in church life and ministry in Christian congregations that belong to mainline Protestant denominations. Mainline Protestants have been historically viewed both as progressive in their attitudes on social issues like LGBTQ+ equality and as the most “mainstream” of American faith groups, although their cultural influence and membership have waned in recent decades. I explore how queer people advocate for themselves by intervening in debates about theology, community, and language in these congregations, and how belief and practice are reconciled with inclusive actions at the local level. While mainline congregations possess the potential to be uniquely transformative spaces by welcoming queer people, they are also volatile crucibles beset by internal conflict and debate about what queer inclusion looks like. Institutionally, these congregations have both the capacity and the resources to help alleviate prejudice and help queer folks heal. But they also sometimes offend, underserve, or reinforce systems of LGBTQ+ exclusion. I delve into how LGBTQ+ individuals work within congregations to make their communities more accepting, thereby becoming agents in religious meaning making in ways that have important ramifications for our understanding of LGBTQ+ religiosity and agency. Queer mainliners not only participate in their churches’ ministries, but they also build relationships with each other and with heterosexual/cisgender congregants, disrupting the boundaries of who belongs in Christian worship spaces. Many scholars have neglected both LGBTQ+ Christians and mainline Protestants as topics of study because of the prominent role “conservative” Christian groups (e.g., evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants) play in LGBTQ+ exclusion, and due to assumptions of LGBTQ+ identity and Christianity being mutually exclusive. Compared to the treatment of LGBTQ+ people by those conservative groups, finding welcome (or at least an openness to debate) is not at all a typical experience LGBTQ+ people have with religious institutions. I offer an analysis of what is Christian about mainline debates, policies, and processes of inclusion, areas of focus where scholarly attention is not only feasible, but vital. Such analysis is critical to understanding queer politics in the United States and the ways in which queer people of faith influence theology and religious praxis. This dissertation is grounded in two years of ethnographic fieldwork in three Michigan congregations from different mainline denominations: The Episcopal Church, The Presbyterian Church (USA), and The United Church of Christ. By examining queer participants and affirming non-queer congregants in these institutions, I build on existing studies of queer activism and policy making in religious bodies, histories of Christian attitudes towards queerness, and ethnographies of individual congregations in the midst of division or disagreement. Studies of religious conflicts often focus on traditionalist members, who are often more vocal/forceful than their progressive counterparts. These studies thus downplay the complex negotiations by affirming church members to make faith communities inclusive to LGBTQ+ people. I concentrate on the interventions of supportive congregants, queer and non-queer alike, to uncover the agency and religious motivations people of faith employ in changing their institutions. In highlighting these actions, I place particular emphasis on queer contributions to church policies, and how queer members build and express their religious beliefs and commitment to their churches.