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Non-Avoidance
Abstract: Former ELCA Presiding Bishop acknowledges the "unavoidable truth".
If you don't live in the Twin Cities, you probably missed the recent exchange of opinion pieces in the Star Tribune. It began on Sept. 16 with An Unavoidable Truth, a heartfelt meditation by Charlotte Sullivan on the painful havoc that results when gay and lesbian people are so demonized by the surrounding culture that the simple, unavoidable truth of being gay becomes unacceptable.
It's been a hell of a journey to get to the place where I could write this... In spite of all the pain and upheaval I've experienced this past year, I've never felt freer in my life. I finally know who I am. I am not ashamed. And, oddly, I feel born again.
It's kind of like that one guy said: "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."
You have probably heard stories like Ms. Sullivan's before, perhaps you have lived such a story yourself, and you know how rare it is that any religious leader could even acknowledge being touched by such a story, let alone respond graciously.
And yet, one week later, in the pages of the Star Tribune, there appeared a piece titled Change is hard, but it will come, an open letter responding to Ms. Sullivan's meditation by former ELCA Presiding Bishop Herbert W. Chilstrom who did not avoid the unavoidable and offered a word of hope that the church can, and ultimately will, learn to accept people irrespective of gender identity or sexual preference.
