![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldTowleroad recently linked to an article by the Orlando Sentinel's Jeff Kunerth, "Generation gap imperils gay church". Young queers just aren't joining the church any more.
Many older queers I know won't have any truck with religion. Given how badly they were treated by religious people, when they came out and tried to live their lives, particularly when the HIV/AIDS epidemic hit, I don't blame them. Why collaborate with evil? A non-trivial number of queers do find succor in Christianity, many taking part in the queer-oriented Metropolitan Community Church that includes that congregation and also includes a church in Toronto. Younger queers haven't suffered as badly, I think, but they have suffered from religious homophobia and partake in the general shift in high-income countries away from religion regardless. Why should either demographic join any church, no matter how queer-oriented it may be?
And then there is, as Stephens and Williams note, the fact that it's quite possible to be out and to be spiritually active in any number of established Christian churches. I've explored my own spirituality in the context of Anglicanism, having lost interest in the strongly queer-tolerant United Church of Canada of my birth. I don't even know where the Metropolitan Community Church is. I'm just happy to have the luxury of not having my sexual orientation being imposed as my primary identity by the outside world; I'm lucky that, in dealing with matters spiritual, my interest in matters spiritual is recognized as my primary identity.
All this, of course, relates directly to the decline of many queer-specific institutions. I'm not sure what is to be done; I'm not sure that much needs to be done, or should be done.
Thoughts?
The pews were nearly full for the early Sunday service at Joy Metropolitan Community Church, but just about everybody in the sanctuary was male and most were middle-aged.
Started in 1979, the predominantly gay Orlando church is imperiled by its inability to attract a younger generation of gay and lesbian worshippers. Only about 20 of the 250 people who regularly attend the church are in their 20s and 30s, said the Rev. Lisa Heilig, interim pastor.
"The truth of the matter is the church is either going to stretch and grow — or die," Heilig said.
The lack of young people at Joy MCC isn't unusual in itself. Only about a fourth of Americans 18 to 29 years old attend church regularly, according to the latest survey by LifeWay Research, a research organization associated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
Mainline Protestant denominations such as Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans and Methodists are dealing with the same doomsday demographic of aging congregations. But the gay church faces not only fewer young people attending church, but also a greater acceptance of gays in other churches.
Moreover, gay churches don't have the built-in ability to attract families with children, teenagers with youth programs, and young people with church services like rock concerts. There are no "crying rooms" for babies at Joy MCC or Sunday-school classrooms or a day-care center during the week.
"Joy MCC is going to have to change and adapt or they are not going to be around," said Randy Stephens, executive director of Orlando's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center of Central Florida.
Young people are more fluid about their sexuality and less defined by their sexual orientation, Stephens said. They neither need nor crave the sanctuary that the gay church provided previous generations.
"What I'm finding is they don't want to go to a church where they are segregated by their sexuality," said the Rev. Jenn Stiles Williams, who has about 50 young gays in her contemporary service at St. Luke's United Methodist Church in Orlando. "Their relationship with God is first, but they want a church where they can be who they are and not have to hide it."
Many older queers I know won't have any truck with religion. Given how badly they were treated by religious people, when they came out and tried to live their lives, particularly when the HIV/AIDS epidemic hit, I don't blame them. Why collaborate with evil? A non-trivial number of queers do find succor in Christianity, many taking part in the queer-oriented Metropolitan Community Church that includes that congregation and also includes a church in Toronto. Younger queers haven't suffered as badly, I think, but they have suffered from religious homophobia and partake in the general shift in high-income countries away from religion regardless. Why should either demographic join any church, no matter how queer-oriented it may be?
And then there is, as Stephens and Williams note, the fact that it's quite possible to be out and to be spiritually active in any number of established Christian churches. I've explored my own spirituality in the context of Anglicanism, having lost interest in the strongly queer-tolerant United Church of Canada of my birth. I don't even know where the Metropolitan Community Church is. I'm just happy to have the luxury of not having my sexual orientation being imposed as my primary identity by the outside world; I'm lucky that, in dealing with matters spiritual, my interest in matters spiritual is recognized as my primary identity.
All this, of course, relates directly to the decline of many queer-specific institutions. I'm not sure what is to be done; I'm not sure that much needs to be done, or should be done.
Thoughts?
