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Of Markets and Missions: The Early History of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Melissa M. Wilcox
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Extract

“It seems to me, now,” reflected Troy Perry, four years after founding a successful new Protestant denomination, “that it must have been a matter of timing, and I think that it was fate, too! God chose me for my mission at a time when He knew the world would respond, once the need was made clear.” While the question of divine ordination is a bit outside the scholar's jurisdiction, the question of timing is a crucial one for historical inquiry, and Perry's remarks show an insightful awareness that the success of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC) was due in large part to timing. As with any successful religious group, however, the seeds of the UFMCC germinated, sprouted, and grew as a result of a multitude of interconnected factors, including both external back-ground factors in American society at large and internal factors within the UFMCC itself. This article relates the history and early growth of the UFMCC to this constellation of factors in order to gain a clearer understanding of both the denomination itself and the social changes of which it was an integral part.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , Winter 2001 , pp. 83 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 2001

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References

I am indebted to Catherine L. Albanese and Wade Clark Roof for their comments on earlier versions of this essay.

1. Rev. Troy D. Perry, as told to Charles L. Lucas, The Lord Is My Shepherd and He Knows I'm Gay (Los Angeles: Nash Press, 1972), 192.

2. FitzGerald, Frances, Cities on a Hill: A Journey through Contemporary American Cultures (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986)Google Scholar.

3. See ibid., 20, 386.

4. For an in-depth discussion of the state of the UFMCC in the early 1970's, see Enroth, Ronald M. and Jamison, Gerald E., The Gay Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974)Google Scholar. Aside from this book, sources for the early history of the UFMCC are primarily denominational. They include: “The Possible Dream,” In Unity 2, no. 8 (September 1971): 10-32; Perry and Lucas, The Lord Is My Shepherd; Birchard, Roy, “Metropolitan Community Church: Its Development and Significance,” Foundations: A Baptist Journal of History and Theology 20 (April-June 1977): 127-32Google Scholar; and Perry, Troy D. with Swicegood, Thomas L., Don't Be Afraid Anymore (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990)Google Scholar. UFMCC is the official denominational name for Perry's church; individual churches are referred to as Metropolitan Community Churches (MCCs). Because the denominational organization took shape in 1970, references to the churches as a whole before that date also use the term “MCC.”

5. The Advocate, which is currently one of the foremost nationally published news magazines of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in the United States, was first printed in September 1967.

6. Perry and Lucas, The Lord Is My Shepherd, 82.

7. After a first mission attempt in Orange County, California, collapsed due to lack of leadership, MCC instituted stricter requirements for mission formation. New congregations in the UFMCC began as missions and offen were organized by local pastors or laypeople; some, such as MCC-San Francisco, were led by former members of the Los Angeles church. Missions became churches through a petition process. In Unity carries many reports of this transition for early missions.

8. See Perry and Swicegood, Don't Be Afraid Anymore, 206-29.

9. Data for this estimate come from worship directories and new mission reports printed in In Unity.

10. The extensive UFMCC web site can be found at http://www.ufmcc.com.

11. Bauer, Paul F., “The Homosexual Subculture at Worship: A Participant Observation Study,” Pastoral Psychology 25, no. 2 (Winter 1976): 115-27Google Scholar; Warner, R. Stephen, “The Metropolitan Community Churches and the Gay Agenda: The Power of Pentecostalism and Essentialism,” in Sex, Lies, and Sanctity: Religion and Deviance in Contemporary North America, ed. Neitz, Mary Jo and Goldman, Marion S. (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1995), 81–108 Google Scholar.

12. See, for instance, Perry and Lucas, The Lord Is My Shepherd, 121-25 and 222-23; the sermon by the Reverend Brad Wilson that appears in In Unity 2, no. 7 (August 1971): 6-20; Perry and Swicegood, Don't Be Afraid Anymore, 41-42 and 345; and the denomination's documentary video, God, Gays, and the Gospel: This Is Our Story (Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, 1984).

13. Bauer, “The Homosexual Subculture,” 118. “Homophile,” as Bauer uses it here, is an older synonym for “homosexual.” It was coined in the 1950's with the goal of shifting emphasis from sexual attraction to the importance of same-sex love in homosexual identity.

14. This assertion is somewhat problematic because the gay liberation movement was already in full swingby the mid-1970's. This movement's message of pride and visibility would have provided, for many, a strong challenge to earlier conditioning.

15. Warner, “The Metropolitan Community Churches,” 84-85. It is worth noting that a lesbian subculture also had been growing since the Second World War, and some of its members, too, although fewer initially than the men, were attracted to UFMCC.

16. Ibid., 82, 86, 87.

17. As MCC pastor Denis Moore has pointed out to me, contemporary MCC congregations embrace a wide range of theological approaches, from evangelical to metaphysical. A few congregations, in fact, are known for incorporating the teachings of other world religions into their services and for experimenting with alternative forms of ritual. This vast variety makes generalizations about the current theological shape of denomination difficult to make. The argument made here, however, refers to the founding years of the UFMCC, when it was less theologically complex. It is fair, therefore to characterize the early UFMCC as being predominantly (though by no means entirely) evangelical. On contemporary MCC congregations, see Melissa M. Wilcox, “Two Roads Converged” (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Santa Barbara, 2000).

18. See, for example, “Hymn for Gay Freedom” (which is intended to be sung to the melody of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”), In Unity 2, no. 7 (August 1971): 13; the sermon by Brad Wilson, ibid., 6-20; and Howard Wells's sermon, ibid., 29-32.

19. Perry, Troy, “From the Pulpit,” In Unity 1, no. 2 (May 1970): 3 Google Scholar; Perry, Troy, “Freedom and Justice for All?” In Unity 2, no. 6 (July 1971): 2 Google Scholar.

20. Charles David, “A Response to Editor, The Prodigal, MCC-San Diego,” In Unity 2, no. 9 (October 1971): 18-19; Joanie Kettles, “Fulfillment of My Impossible Dream,” In Unity 2, no. 6 (July 1971): 5.

21. “Gays and the Gospel: An Interview with Troy Perry,” Christian Century 113, no. 27 (September 25,1996): 896-901.

22. UFMCC, God, Gays, and the Gospel; David, “A Response to Editor,” 18.

23. “Gays and the Gospel,” 897-98.

24. See Perry and Swicegood, Don't Be Afraid Anymore, 175-205 (a chapter tellingly entitled, “The Freedom Train”).

25. Perry and Lucas, The Lord Is My Shepherd, 126.

26. Kettles, “Fulfillment of My Impossible Dream,” 17; UFMCC, God, Gays, and the Gospel.

27. Roof, Wade Clark and McKinney, William, American Mainline Religion: Its Changing Shape and Future (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987), 23 Google Scholar (see also 19).

28. This innovation is mentioned in UFMCC, God, Gays, and the Gospel; according to an interview I conducted with an MCC minister in 1995, it is still a central topic of discussion at UFMCC General Conferences.

29. Fosdick, Harry Emerson, On Being a Real Person (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1943)Google Scholar, cited in Comstock, Gary David, Unrepentant, Self-Affirming, Practicing: Lesbian/Bisexual/Gay People within Organized Religion (New York: Continuum, 1996), 4 Google Scholar. For a full discussion of the historical development of Christian responses to homosexuality, see also Melton, J. Gordon, The Churches Speak on Homosexuality (Detroit: Gale Research, 1991)Google Scholar.

30. Bailey, Derrick Sherwin, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (London: Longmans, Green, 1955)Google Scholar; see also Comstock, Unrepentant, Self-Affirming, Practicing, 4.

31. “Toward a Quaker View of Sex” (Society of Friends, 1963), excerpts printed in Melton, The Churches Speak on Homosexuality, 181-200. In light of the document's reference to “sexual disorders,” it is useful to keep in mind that the American Psychological Association classified homosexuality as a mental disorder until 1974.

32. “The Methodist Social Creed” (United Methodist Church, 1968), excerpts printed in ibid., 240.

33. Although the Stonewall Riots were not the first protest against unequal treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, they have become an important cultural symbol. See below for a füll discussion of this incident.

34. “Resolution on Homosexuals and the Law” (United Church of Christ, 1969), excerpts printed in Melton, The Churches Speak on Homosexuality, 203-4; “Statement on Homosexuality” (Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1969), excerpts printed in ibid., 255-58; “Discrimination against Homosexuals and Bisexuals” (Unitarian Universalist Association, 1970), excerpts printed in ibid., 265-66; “Sexuality in the Human Community” (United Presbyterian Church in the United States, 1970), excerpts printed in ibid., 147-49; “Sex, Marriage, and Family” (Lutheran Church in America, 1970), excerpts printed in ibid., 112-13.

35. Useful sources on the pre-Stonewall and immediately post-Stonewall history of the LGBT community include Marotta, Toby, The Politics of Homosexuality (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981)Google Scholar; d'Emilio, John, Making Trouble: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and the University (New York: Routledge, 1992)Google Scholar; Katz, Jonathan Ned, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A., rev. ed. (New York: Meridian, 1992)Google Scholar; Adam, Barry D., The Rise ofa Gay and Lesbian Movement, rev. ed. (New York: Twayne, 1995)Google Scholar; and Kaiser, Charles, The Gay Metropolis, 1940-1996 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997)Google Scholar.

36. See Marotta, The Politics of Homosexuality, 17.

37. Ibid., 67.

38. Katz, Gay American History, 417.

39. Marotta, The Politics of Homosexuality, 162-95.

40. Ibid., 236n. LGBT people of color encountered similar problems within both the gay liberation movement and the feminist movement, resulting in a double or even triple bind: their sexuality was not accepted within their own cultures, and their ethnicity was not affirmed within the LGBT Community. Lesbians of color, furthermore, encountered sexism in addition to racism and homophobia in their communities.

41. Weber, Max, “The Sociology of Religion,” in Economy and Society, ed. Roth, Guenther and Wittich, Claus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 439-50Google Scholar.

42. Perry and Swicegood, Don't Be Afraid Anymore, 48.

43. See, for example, ibid., 34-35.

44. Warner, “The Metropolitan Community Churches,” 86.

45. UFMCC Committee on Evangelism, General Conference Report, reproduced in In Unity 3, no. 1 (February/March 1972): 15; Perry and Lucas, The Lord Is My Shepherd, 130.

46. Perry and Lucas, The Lord Is My Shepherd, 202.

47. See Melton, The Churches Speak on Homosexuality, xviii-xix; and Comstock, Unrepentant, Self-Affirming, Practicing, 9.

48. Enroth and Jamison noted this tension over identity in 1974 (Enroth and Jamison, The Gay Church).

49. Farrell, C. Shawn, “Viewpoint,” In Unity 2, no. 9 (October 1971): 4 Google Scholar; “Ten Golden Rules for a Happy Gay Marriage,” In Unity 2, no. 11 (December 1971-January 1972): 12.

50. It would be interesting to discover whether this experience holds true for MCC members in regions with a higher Christian population, such as the southern churches. San Francisco is home to many alternative religions that have attracted gays and lesbians, such as the neopagan Radical Faeries and Dianic Witchcraft, as well as various New Age groups and Eastern religions; this alternative religious climate may contribute, in part, to antiChristian sentiment.

51. The interview appears in UFMCC, God, Gays, and the Gospel; see also Perry and Swicegood, Don't Be Afraid Anymore, 102-19.

52. Perry and Swicegood, Don't Be Afraid Anymore, 117.

53. The most comprehensive coverage I have found of the UFMCC's international efforts appears in Perry and Swicegood, Don't Be Afraid Anymore, 206-29.

54. FitzGerald, Cities on a Hill, esp. 407-14.

55. Ibid., 409.