Today will be Day 2 of 2 for the Roman Catholic conference Gay In Christ: Dimensions in Fidelity. I’m in attendance with several of my friends from the Spiritual Friendship blog: Ron Belgau, Wesley Hill, Kyle Keating, and Gregg Webb. I got to meet Matt Jones for the first time which has been a real treat. I also spent a lovely evening catching up with Chris Damian (whom I’d met before), talking with Melinda Selmys, and meeting Eve Tushnet for the first time.
Touchdown Jesus approves of this conference.
Yesterday’s sessions focused on the importance of understanding the theological tradition. I live-blogged the sessions at #gayinChrist.
One of the first questions posed by the conference is this:
Has the Church been good at receiving the gifts of gay/lesbian Xians who adhere to church teaching? #gayinChrist
— David Gill (@SeminaryGuy) October 31, 2014
And of course, I think the answer is an unfortunate no. I’m really grateful that Dr. John Cavadini and the speakers at this conference are trying to move the Catholic Church in the direction of “yes.” I also hope that the Church Universal will take their cue from some groundwork which is being done here at this conference at Notre Dame.
Something which really stood out to me in Ron Belgau’s presentation last night was this observation:
Pastoral care these days is either rooted in Freudian understanding of sexuality or in the 12-step movement. #gayinChrist
— David Gill (@SeminaryGuy) October 31, 2014
Ron observed that on Sunday, Catholic members of Courage would confess the Creed on Sunday (which has, as you may recall, many specific things about God which are to be believed) and then meet together on Tuesday nights and talk about a higher power in the broadest of terms– “as you understand it,” even.
I am not opposed to using the common grace of psychology to aid others in becoming more human. However, I think Ron’s point here is well-placed. One thing which Catholics have over many, many Protestant congregations is that they confess the Creed each Sunday, keeping the essentials of the Trinitarian faith in front of them. How much more harmful is it to adopt a 12-step model uncritically and without modification in churches where Trinitarian faith is oftentimes assumed or deemed irrelevant to the weekly worship of the King?
Time to leave for Day #2. Follow the live tweeting here!
Gay and Evangelical 
Glad you’re having fun! Btw Anglicans/Episcopalians recite the whole Nicene Creed every Eucharist. Thought you should know.
Oh yes… I worked for an Episcopalian church for four years in my undergraduate days. I learned to live liturgy with the Book of Common Prayer.
Not only is the church not good at recognizing the gift of the gay and lesbian community members who live holy lives, it also is hesitant to offer the grace and peace of Christ to those same people, unless they testify to a change of orientation. We have a ways to go, but I’m hopeful because of conferences like this.