Why Australian Pentecostals Will Embrace GLBT People

It’s inevitable that Australian Pentecostal Churches will welcome gay and lesbian Christians. Let me say that again. It’s inevitable that Australian Pentecostal Churches will welcome gay and lesbian Christians.

When I first made that statement to a church leader in 2005 he laughed. ‘That will never happen’, he replied. At that stage I had nothing to base that statement on except two things.

1. A faith in a God that can transform His people and that His church so they can be as He intended; a place of love and acceptance not condemnation and judgement.

2. A faith in Pentecostal people. I’ve been involved in Pentecostal circles for four decades now and in essence I know that they are good people, not evil. They may not always have got it right but my belief is that in the end sanity will prevail re sexuality as it has about numerous other issues. (see below)

I firmly believe that the question is no longer a matter of ‘if’ Pentecostals will welcome GLBT people, but ‘when’ and ‘how’. I keep reminding church leaders, who are prepared to dialogue with me that it’s about how we manage the change. What can we learn from other denominations that have made the shift successfully as well as those who are splitting at the seams, like the Anglican Church? What aided the transition? What created polarisation and caused the damage?

A substantial number of people in Pentecostal congregations now believe that homosexuality is a sexual orientation not a sin. I’ve spoken to or received emails from so many people who have gay men or lesbians as friends and relatives and know, without a shadow of doubt, that homosexuality is not a ‘lifestyle choice’. They would not expect them to change who they are and it’s offensive to them to even consider such a thing.

Australian Church Life Survey Reveals the Shift

Traditional teaching about homosexuality within Pentecostal churches in Australia was quite simple: it’s a sin, demonic and lifestyle choice. Pentecostal people, like mental health professionals in the 50’s & 60’s, believed that homosexuality could be cured or healed. It’s not that long ago that if you asked anyone in Australian Pentecostal churches these two questions the answer would be a resounding, non-equivocal NO.

1. Should homosexuals be appointed to leadership positions in the church on the same basis as heterosexuals?

2. Should homosexuals be accepted as members in the church on the same basis as heterosexuals?

In 2001 a survey was conducted by the National Church Life Survey, across a number of denominations, to gauge congregant’s attitudes towards homosexual people. In that survey, when asked anonymously, 21% of Pentecostals said YES to the first question and 54% said YES to the second question. Things are no longer as they were.

Australian Pentecostal Churches Will Embrace GLBT People

A Little History about Pentecostalism in Australia

Christianity in Australia was imported initially from England and Europe. The buildings, style of worship, rituals etc were from a different culture. Whilst this flourished for a while, these churches and denominations are mostly in decline and congregations aging; the average Australian, particularly youth, finding them irrelevant to life in the 21^st century.

One of the themes of my preaching in the 80’s was the need to create a unique breed of Aussie Christianity that was not influenced by Europe or the US. Nowadays there are many growing and successful movements within Pentecostalism in Australia including Hillsong, Christian City Church (3C), The Edge, Planet Shakers and Christian Outreach Centres. Australia now has many mega-churches. Whilst the Pentecostal style of worship is not everyone’s cup of tea it seems that they have tapped into something that many Aussies relate to; the vibrancy of a rock concert and the energy of a football match. The uniqueness of these expressions of Christianity are currently getting global attention and people come from other countries to learn from their success.

The Way We Were (8 things that no longer exist)

If you can find someone who was a part of the Pentecostal movement back in the 60’s they will tell you exactly what Pentecostal Christianity was like then. It was basically a holiness movement that had little more than cult status; frequently put in the same basket as Jehovah Witnesses.

I set foot in my first Pentecostal Church, Petersham Assemblies of God, in 1969. This is the way things were then.

1. Dress:

• Everyone dressed conservatively as this was considered a sign of holiness (ie being separate from the world). Men wore suits to church
• Women wore hats. The bible says it is shameful for a woman to have her head uncovered.
• No jewellery or makeup. The bible says dress modestly and not adorn yourself with jewellery. Women who wore excessive makeup were called Jezebels or considered harlots.
• Women were not allowed to wear slacks or jeans as that was men’s clothing. The bible says that you can’t wear the opposite genders clothes.
• Long hair was out for Pentecostal young men. The bible says that demons came out of the pit of hell with faces of men and hair of women.
• No tattoos or piercing. The bible banned them.

2. Music:

• Any form of music apart from Christian music was banned. You couldn’t listen to the radio or buy a pop record.
• Later on rock music was considered demonic and some even preached that secret messages had been implanted in the music which could be heard if it was played backwards.
• Anything that sounded contemporary at all was conforming to the world. This included folk music.

3. Worship Style:

• Services were extremely conservative formalised and structured. Although Pentecostals felt that they gave liberty to the Holy Spirit to move and they were not like traditional ritualistic denominations, an unwritten liturgy still existed.
• Only hymns and simple repetitive choruses were sung
• There were usually two or at the most messages in tongues and then the interpretation. The bible gave clear directions about the use of the gifts of the Spirit in church meetings. This only happened in the morning service as the evening service was a gospel service for the unsaved and the bible once again gave clear directions about such displays in front of non-believers.
• In most churches the only instruments were piano and/or organ. Introducing drums could be enough to split a church over the issue.
• After the charismatic movement of the 70’s & 80’s some within the Pentecostal world wanted a more vibrant and expressive style of worship. This issue nearly divided the Assemblies of God. The main issue being whether people were allowed to dance in church and should singing extemporaneously in the spirit be permitted.

4. Lifestyle:

• No one was allowed to go the cinema. It was called the SINema.
• At church camps men and women swam separately. The bible says that it was not good to cause your brother to stumble by placing temptation in front of them.
• Going to dances was banned. This was ‘worldly’ and the bible said to not put yourself in a vulnerable position of temptation and two people holding each other closely could incite sexual arousal. It was also considered pagan and tribal and therefore demonic. When Moses came down from the mountain he found the people worshiping a golden calf and they were dancing.
• The Sabbath (Sunday to Pentecostals) was meant to be a holy day. Therefore you couldn’t play sport, go to the beach, watch TV or even read the Sunday papers.

5. Alcohol:

Everyone abstained totally from any form of alcohol (even in cooking). The bible says not to be drunk and one glass could be the first step on a slippery path to debauchery. The Australian Christian Churches (ACC, formerly the Assemblies of God) conference this year removed the statement in the ministers’ code of ethics that they must abstain from all alcohol or they would lose their credential. Most Pentecostals these days don’t see a problem drinking socially but not excessively.

6. Ministry:

• No real social action programs such as working with the unemployed, homeless or the poor. This was considered to be the work of missionaries in foreign third world countries. It was never really done as an act of charity but with strings attached. Eg you must attend this service, hear the gospel, then we’ll feed you.
• Indigenous Australians were ministered to on missions and expected to reject their culture entirely and adopt a western holiness lifestyle.
• No programs that dealt with important life related issues such as mental health, personal development, leadership, sexual abuse etc. This was the Holy Spirit’s job to sort these things out.
• Congregations were basically white Anglo-Saxon. Today though congregations are multicultural and many ethnic churches exist.

7. The Role of Women:

• Although there were many women preachers and church planters in the early days (1930’s) of Pentecostalism in Australia, over a few decades it had become totally male dominated and patriarchal.
• Women were not allowed to preach. The bible says not to let a woman teach of have authority over a man.
• Women were not allowed leadership positions. The bible says that women are more susceptible to spiritual attacks as demonstrated by Eve in the Garden of Eden.
• The expected role was very much that women are to bear children, be housekeepers and submit to their husbands authority

Today 26.41% of credentialed pastors are female (up from 24.6% in 2006). It’s a growing trend. 5.74% of senior pastors in sole leadership are female (5.09% in 2006). Pastor Melinda Dwight (Imagine Church Melbourne) was the first female to sit on an Australian Christian Churches (ACC) national board and the first women to be elected to a State Executive. This year (2009), Pastor Donna Crouch (from Hillsong) was elected to the ACC National Executive. Some believed this would never happen.

8. Divorce:

• Once divorced you could never remarry. The bible says so. Some wouldn’t ever get divorced because of the shame and remained in dysfunctional or abusive marriages.
• Those that did divorce either left the church or remained in the congregation living with a sense of shame and were often treated like lepers.

Realising the previous stand of divorce was impractical and caused unnecessary suffering; the ACC Executive began amending its policy on divorce. This year (2009) it was formally passed. Even though there is a gospel record of Jesus saying there are never any grounds for divorce, the ACC has allowed it on the grounds of adultery and abuse. This has separated Australian Pentecostals from many of their brothers and sisters in other countries.

There’s much more I could talk about, but I think you get my drift.

If we were able to transport a Pentecostal from the 60’s into the morning service of your average Pentecostal church today they would be horrified. It would be totally unrecognisable to them and they would believe that the movement had lost its way. Within the space of forty years the Pentecostal world in Australia has evolved and shed every single one of these things I’ve mentioned above. The verses that created the culture, practices and beliefs are still there in the bible but the old interpretations are now considered irrelevant. Some Pentecostals in Australia have realised that the six passages in the bible, assumed to talk about homosexuality, were written in another time and culture and not talking about same sex orientation as we know it today. This has not happened to the same degree in other countries. There is something about our unique Aussie culture that has contributed to these significant shifts.

So if there is any denomination or Christian group in Australia that has the potential to evolve, transition and re-invent itself then it’s Pentecostals. What has occurred in a few decades in the Pentecostal world here has not happened in other areas of Christendom for centuries.

The recent message preached by Pastor Rob Buckingham ‘Real Christianity – the accepting Church’ at Bayside church in Melbourne is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only is the message a global first, the entire congregation gave him a standing ovation at the conclusion of the message. Bayside is to be congratulated for their courage in being the first to say “Bayside Church is a place where everyone is welcome. We believe that God loves everyone and that He sent His Son Jesus to bring salvation (through His death and resurrection) to all of humanity. A study of the life of Jesus clearly reveals His love and care towards those who are often marginalized by the rest of society. Bayside Church welcomes GLBT people to find God’s love and grace and to worship Him freely within our community.”

The gay press welcomed the news warmly.

Church advocates for gay acceptance

'World first' as Pentecostals welcome gays

First Bayside, then another church will take the step, then another, then another, till we reach the tipping point and an entire Pentecostal denomination welcomes GLBT people.

My belief is that Australia will lead the way with this issue. For many of us though it can’t come soon enough because every day we wait people suffer unnecessarily and lives are lost through suicide.

Bishop Spong - The Debate is Over

Bishop Spong released this today.

Interestingly I came to a similar decision only recently....to only engage with those who are questioning.....to never publicize or comment on the opponents comments or activities.... to avoid using the names of their organisations.... and to no longer allow any contrary comments to appear on my facebook. I deleted the people who repeat those negative tired arguments. Life is too short...and there are too many good people out there to engage with who are genuinely looking for answers instead of those who have made up their minds already and are so sure they are 'right'. We will not allow them to hold us in the past or waste our time.

This entry on my blog might also be of interest to you.http://alifeofunlearning.blogspot.com/2008/07/celebrating-our-future.html

Anthony Venn-Brown
Co-founder & Convenor of Freedom 2 b[e]
Honoured to be on the inaugural list of the 25 Most Influential Gay & Lesbian Australians


A Manifesto! The Time Has Come! October 15, 2009

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is "an abomination to God," about how homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle," or about how through prayer and "spiritual counseling" homosexual persons can be "cured." Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy. I will no longer dignify by listening to the thoughts of those who advocate "reparative therapy," as if homosexual persons are somehow broken and need to be repaired. I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people. I will no longer take the time to refute the unlearned and undocumentable claims of certain world religious leaders who call homosexuality "deviant." I will no longer listen to that pious sentimentality that certain Christian leaders continue to employ, which suggests some version of that strange and overtly dishonest phrase that "we love the sinner but hate the sin." That statement is, I have concluded, nothing more than a self-serving lie designed to cover the fact that these people hate homosexual persons and fear homosexuality itself, but somehow know that hatred is incompatible with the Christ they claim to profess, so they adopt this face-saving and absolutely false statement. I will no longer temper my understanding of truth in order to pretend that I have even a tiny smidgen of respect for the appalling negativity that continues to emanate from religious circles where the church has for centuries conveniently perfumed its ongoing prejudices against blacks, Jews, women and homosexual persons with what it assumes is "high-sounding, pious rhetoric." The day for that mentality has quite simply come to an end for me. I will personally neither tolerate it nor listen to it any longer. The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone. An old civil rights song proclaimed that the only choice awaiting those who cannot adjust to a new understanding was to "Roll on over or we'll roll on over you!" Time waits for no one.

I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.

In my personal life, I will no longer listen to televised debates conducted by "fair-minded" channels that seek to give "both sides" of this issue "equal time." I am aware that these stations no longer give equal time to the advocates of treating women as if they are the property of men or to the advocates of reinstating either segregation or slavery, despite the fact that when these evil institutions were coming to an end the Bible was still being quoted frequently on each of these subjects. It is time for the media to announce that there are no longer two sides to the issue of full humanity for gay and lesbian people. There is no way that justice for homosexual people can be compromised any longer.

I will no longer act as if the Papal office is to be respected if the present occupant of that office is either not willing or not able to inform and educate himself on public issues on which he dares to speak with embarrassing ineptitude. I will no longer be respectful of the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to believe that rude behavior, intolerance and even killing prejudice is somehow acceptable, so long as it comes from third-world religious leaders, who more than anything else reveal in themselves the price that colonial oppression has required of the minds and hearts of so many of our world's population. I see no way that ignorance and truth can be placed side by side, nor do I believe that evil is somehow less evil if the Bible is quoted to justify it. I will dismiss as unworthy of any more of my attention the wild, false and uninformed opinions of such would-be religious leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Albert Mohler, and Robert Duncan. My country and my church have both already spent too much time, energy and money trying to accommodate these backward points of view when they are no longer even tolerable.

I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us. Homosexual marriages will become legal, recognized by the state and pronounced holy by the church. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dismantled as the policy of our armed forces. We will and we must learn that equality of citizenship is not something that should ever be submitted to a referendum. Equality under and before the law is a solemn promise conveyed to all our citizens in the Constitution itself. Can any of us imagine having a public referendum on whether slavery should continue, whether segregation should be dismantled, whether voting privileges should be offered to women? The time has come for politicians to stop hiding behind unjust laws that they themselves helped to enact, and to abandon that convenient shield of demanding a vote on the rights of full citizenship because they do not understand the difference between a constitutional democracy, which this nation has, and a "mobocracy," which this nation rejected when it adopted its constitution. We do not put the civil rights of a minority to the vote of a plebiscite.

I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.

The battle in both our culture and our church to rid our souls of this dying prejudice is finished. A new consciousness has arisen. A decision has quite clearly been made. Inequality for gay and lesbian people is no longer a debatable issue in either church or state. Therefore, I will from this moment on refuse to dignify the continued public expression of ignorant prejudice by engaging it. I do not tolerate racism or sexism any longer. From this moment on, I will no longer tolerate our culture's various forms of homophobia. I do not care who it is who articulates these attitudes or who tries to make them sound holy with religious jargon.

I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection. I do not converse with people who think that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as punishment for the sin of being the birthplace of Ellen DeGeneres or that the terrorists hit the United Sates on 9/11 because we tolerated homosexual people, abortions, feminism or the American Civil Liberties Union. I am tired of being embarrassed by so much of my church's participation in causes that are quite unworthy of the Christ I serve or the God whose mystery and wonder I appreciate more each day. Indeed I feel the Christian Church should not only apologize, but do public penance for the way we have treated people of color, women, adherents of other religions and those we designated heretics, as well as gay and lesbian people.

Life moves on. As the poet James Russell Lowell once put it more than a century ago: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." I am ready now to claim the victory. I will from now on assume it and live into it. I am unwilling to argue about it or to discuss it as if there are two equally valid, competing positions any longer. The day for that mentality has simply gone forever.

This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration. I believe that such a public outpouring will help cleanse both the church and this nation of its own distorting past. It will restore integrity and honor to both church and state. It will signal that a new day has dawned and we are ready not just to embrace it, but also to rejoice in it and to celebrate it.
– John Shelby Spong

Being Gay in a Heterosexual Marriage

Coach and Author Anthony Venn-Brown speaks on Australia's national breakfast show, Channel 7's Sunrise about being gay but in a heterosexual marriage.

For many of us, being gay, lesbian or bisexual in a heterosexual marriage was not a choice of intentional deception. Our marriages were the result of the pressure to conform. Some of us grew up in a society where homosexuality was considered a perversion or psychological illness. When we married, we did so believing it was the right thing to do and expecting it would change what we perceived was faulty within us. Was the current knowledge on sexual orientation available to us then, our choices would have been different.



and here on Sydney Morning Heralds Sexperts

"I'd rather be rejected for who I am, than accepted for who I'm not"

"When we choose to live authentically, we chip away at others' prisons of pretend"

"It's better to live one day on this planet being true to yourself, than an entire lifetime which is a lie"

www.anthonyvennbrown.com