Welcoming, Inclusive, or Affirming?
Have you ever gone to a church’s website and closed your computer browser still unsure if they are inclusive towards LGBTQ+ individuals or not? You dug deep into their “about us” page and they say that they are welcoming but it is not clear on who they are exactly welcoming to. Some churches use words like "inclusive" or even "affirming", but what does that really mean?
This is often a search that starts happening when people undergo a pretty big change in their life. They want to find a new faith community because they recently came out, or are moving physical locations or because they painfully experienced that their previous faith community is not as affirming as they thought they were. Right now, this is a very common predicament for those who are Methodist, researching Methodist Churches to determine whether they are staying United Methodist or going Global Methodist.
Sometimes, seeing the lack of clarity is the answer some of us need when we are on our search and we move on. Some others live in more rural locations in which options may be limited and they take what they can get. It is always a good step to check out the resource available at churchclarity.org to see if the church is reviewed there. At the end of the day, meeting with a church leader directly to inquire whether their church is welcoming, inclusive, or affirming sometimes may be the way to go. This may be daunting and it may be hard to know what to ask.
In our Relational Guide for Clergy, Rev. Danny Cortez describes how language can be misleading or downright harmful when congregations describe the extent to which they are open and affirming. Read the full blog post for excerpts from the first chapter in the Clergy guide titled, Welcoming, Affirming, Inclusive, & Third Way Spaces, that can help give us clarity in what these terms really mean when we are looking to join a new beloved community.
“When exclusionary theology is hidden behind the word welcoming, LGBTQ+ people experience a bait and switch.”
Welcoming Churches
Many churches state on their websites or in their Sunday morning bulletins they are welcoming of either all people or specifically of LGBTQ+ people. It’s difficult to generalize what this means, since churches use the word welcoming with many different meanings. That being said, typically, if welcoming isn’t coupled with the word affirming, it usually means, “We welcome LGBTQ+ people to attend, but they can’t become members, Sunday school teachers, or ministry leaders here, and we won’t officiate their weddings.”
Churches like these typically maintain a theology that believes marriage is only reserved for a man and a woman, and that identifying as a transgender person is a disorder. Since this theology is the basis of their practice, they refuse to officiate same-sex weddings. They prevent LGBTQ+ people from serving in positions of leadership, counsel transgender people away from transitioning, and communicate in various ways from the pulpit that LGBTQ+ people need to change and are unacceptable the way they are.
Affirming Churches
Affirming churches, on the other hand, treat LGBTQ+ people with full equality. There isn’t a different set of standards or rules for cishet (cisgender and heterosexual) people than for LGBTQ+ people. LGBTQ+ people aren’t barred from serving communion, teaching Sunday school, getting ordained, being members of the church, or getting married in the sanctuary.
Church leaders strive to use affirming and inclusive terminology. Language supports nonbinary (people who don’t exclusively identify as a man or a woman) and transgender identities. Bisexual people are seen for who they are. Samesex couples needn’t think twice about displaying the kind of physical intimacy that straight couples don’t think twice about.
Basically, affirming churches hold to a theology that affirms that God created each person the way they are, and that LGBTQ+ members don’t need to conform to cisgender, heteronormative social and religious constructs. Affirming churches tend to be very clear on their teachings regarding gender and human sexuality. Simply put, there is full and unqualified acceptance in their congregations, which gives LGBTQ+ people the ability to flourish and live as their true selves.
Inclusive Churches
There is, however, another category that is distinct from welcoming churches and affirming churches. Inclusive churches are similar to affirming churches, in that there is full and unqualified participation of LGBTQ+ people. They are granted membership and the ability to participate in the sacraments and leadership positions of the church. What makes inclusive churches distinct is that inclusive churches intentionally allow for differences in beliefs among their members, as long as those differences aren’t being used to deny LGBTQ+ people their rights.
Inclusive churches allow people to live out their personal convictions as long as those in privileged positions (straight and cisgender people) don’t force their beliefs on anyone else. This “do no harm” principle is key. If there is harm incurred by a vulnerable person based on another’s personal conviction, this is problematic. The reality is, though, that many of the spaces we occupy day to day--workplaces, family homes, and schools--are inclusive spaces. We often operate within relationship circles that encompass different perspectives politically, theologically and socially.
Third-Way Churches
It should be noted that there are many churches now that identify as Third Way. This term enjoys broad usage, in the same way that welcoming does, in that there are many ways in which Third Way churches express their theological positions. What they have in common is that they are somewhere in between an exclusionary church model and an affirming church model. It should be pointed out that in many Third Way churches, LGBTQ+ couples may become official members or serve as leaders, but there are also limits imposed upon them. Usually the limit centers around whether the pastor can officiate a same-sex wedding or whether the ceremony could occur inside the church sanctuary.
Next Steps
You can read more about the identity markers that churches take on when they identify their worshiping community as welcoming, inclusive or affirming by downloading our free Relational Guide for Clergy, featuring Rev. Danny Cortez.
