SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — A prominent evangelical Christian church has announced it will no longer ask members who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) to remain celibate.
“We will no longer discriminate based on sexual orientation and demand lifelong celibacy as a precondition for joining,” wrote Pastor Fred Harrell Sr. and six board members of City Church, San Fransisco, one of the largest members of the Reformed Church in America denomination, in a letter emailed to members March 13.
The church has about 1,000 members and meets at two San Francisco locations. It has long welcomed LGBT persons to attend but has required lifelong celibacy of those LGBT persons seeking membership.
The letter stated, “Imagine feeling this from your family or religious community, ‘If you stay, you must accept celibacy with no hope that you too might one day enjoy the fullness of intellectual, spiritual, emotional, psychological and physical companionship. If you pursue a lifelong partnership, you are rejected.’ This is simply not working and people are being hurt. We must listen and respond.”
In January GracePointe Church, Nashville, and EastLake Community Church, Seattle, Wash., reversed their celibacy policies.
Laura Turner, communications coordinator for City Church, said City Church’s leadership spent nine months debating the new policy as well as reading the gospel, books by evangelical theologians and social science research.
“Churches are slowly coming to recognize that if God is bringing people to them who are LGBT they have to meet them where they are and not demand that they change,” Turner said. “Telling LGBT people they have to change before they can become Christians is leading to depression, suicide and addiction and we won’t do that anymore.”
(RNS)
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