Gay churchgoers more likely to quit mainstream religion

Lesbian, gay and bisexual Christians have quit mainstream religion at a much higher rate than the general population, according to a Massey University study.

The report's author, Mark Henrickson, said the results showed it appeared many Christians had resolved disagreement between their identities and religion by leaving their religion.

"Christian religions by and large have done an excellent job in communicating that a Christian identity and a homosexual identity are incompatible, or at least difficult to reconcile," Dr Henrickson said. The Auckland campus social work lecturer said that of the 2269 gay, lesbian and bisexual participants in the survey, 73 per cent said they were raised as Christians and 22.5 per cent not raised in any religion. But only 15 per cent of raised Christians were practising their religion, while 73 per cent were non-religious.

.......

"What we can say is that whatever negative messages that organised religions want to communicate - they're working," said Dr Henrickson, an Anglican priest who stressed he was not speaking in his role as a clergyman.

"In an era of declining mainstream church participation, churches may want to examine the way they're coming across," he added.



http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=301&objectid=10423608

There are these pius pinheads telling them that they are not right with God.
edit:these, not this

and I totally understand why they might feel like they don't belong. I, however, engage in behavior that the church (Roman Catholic in my case) considers sinful. There are many priests who understand their plight. It isn't all fire and brimstone when it comes to sexual sins, and I hate to see people feel unwelcome. I believe that everyone should feel the same at church: unworthy of atonement, yet warmly embraced. I also recognize that not everyone shares that feeling, and there are a lot of people whose judgementalism or, worse, hate, truly makes various people feel unwelcome in their churches. There are certain individual churches that are better and certain that are worse. But, I firmly believe that we all need to worry about our own sins and our own relationship with God (this is in regard to theists, obviously) rather than "condemning" or speaking out in ignorance about others.

Sadly, things don't always work that way, and we end up with stories such as this OP. :(

She reported on the 2004 election as seen at the "Christian" churches (non-Catholic, Biblical...). Her observation was:

1. The GOP was making tight ties with the Catholic conservatives
2. RW harassment of Jews was embarassing to the GOP
3. Ken Mehlman had an outreach to the Black churches to make them more conservative. It was obvious that the GOP would not rail against these three groups as they had routinely been doing, especially the KKK/Militia hatred of the Jews, so
4. They needed a new object of their hatred--Fags*

Like a switch being turned on, the call against the evils of homosexuality was heard from the pulpits all around this once-great country of ours. This was not common before the Rove-Mehlman-Bush era. A pox on them all.

Note that I am an existentialist atheist. Just keeping my family sane and protecting the planet is a big enough task for me to tackle in my scant decades.

*I don't think Goldberg used the word "fags".

did this, even strategically. And I know that certain Catholics are courted by the RW, but I've never understood how Catholics would want to be in cooperation with people who have spouted hatred for Catholics for years.

Anyhow, it's sad that religion and politics have become so entwined for so many in our country. Neither elevates the other. I'm political, and I'm religious. But neither go hand and hand. I separate them. They are two different parts of my life, and rarely do they meet.

People don't stick around where they aren't wanted.

because I know there are very liberal churches out there who would welcome them and offer a lot of social support when they need it.

Religion doesn't have to be used like a battering ram. There really are good people out there who got the point and some of them have founded and kept whole congregations going.

Belief or unbelief is nobody else's business. It only becomes out business when it's used to hurt other people.

www.uua.org

The Unitarians have no problem with gay people. They have a special designation, in fact, as an "including congregation", I think it's called.

Yes, we UU's certainly aren't perfect, but we deliberately exclude nobody from our little "communion of the free spirit," except (as one of our early leaders William Ellery Channing proclaimed almost two centuries ago) "except by the death of goodness in his/her own breast." One of my old UU friends, a Georgia farmer now deceased once wrote this in a magazine, and I still think it just about says it all...

"To me, religion should include everybody and be concerned with everybody. The more I learn about the actions of human beings, the more sure I am that any activity that pits one individual, one group, one nationality or one race against another is wrong, and is not good religion."

I still believe that...religiously.

I'm not gay. I'm a straight divorced female, and I recently and reluctantly left my church in part because of the way supposedly loving people treat people who are labeled "different."

And I'm not a fundie, I was in a mainstream prostestant church (Presbyterian USA).

What begain to bother me was mainly in two parts.

1) Like many people, I returned to the church 10 years ago after my parents' deaths searching for some solace and understanding after being away from it for most of high school and into my 30s. Because of this, I began to not only pick up church teaching again, but also to do some independent study on my own. (I was reading people like Marcus Borg and Matthew Fox and The Jesus Seminar) They were saying things that had been on the periphery of my mind my entire life but didn't know that someone had given voice to. What a relief! On the other hand, I begain to chafe at the repitition coming from the pulpit (same sermons, or topics, at te same time each year - Advent at Christmas, Christ the King Sunday, etc, the marks of the liturgical year)

I began to see a distinct lack of depth in what we were being taught. A sort of theological, this far, but no more, mentality. And it bothered me that I didn't feel comfortable discussing the material I was reading with my fellow congragents. This dispite the fact that PCUSA is all about its clergy being well-educated and requiring an MDiv (Including the study of Koine Greek and Latin) to be a minister. So I know for a fact my minister was familiar with this material.

2) I begain to realize that the "this far and no more" mentality spills over into other areas, even to the type of people a given church will recruit for membership. Churchs, like all groups, focus on a particular kind of person. In my case, the typical church member is married, small or grown children, mildly affluent (not hurting in other words) and white. The church is split about 50/50 liberals/conservatives. So what's the problem? I found the conformity discouraging rather than comforting. We had one spanish-speaking lady, and the choir director was gay. That was the extent of diversity in that small, rural congregation. There was sort of a nodding admittance that yes, the world is a diverse place with many people and lives, but you sure wouldn't know it by looking at that group. And they will probably continue on their merry little way like that.

At some point I will probably join another church, I do like the social connection and all the rest. But there are particular things that I want to focus on, like more social justice work, that weren't a part of that church. So yes, sadly they do an excellent job of telling people "who don't belong."

After all that study, I did come to one conclusion that is sure to rankle more conservative folks. That the theology that we have inherited, maybe isn't what was intended originally. In the early days of the church before the Conference at Nicea in 324 (?) there was great diversity of thought about who Jesus was, what the crusifiction meant, and how we could all get along at Our Lord's Table. Today, it's all about finding a niche audience and catering to them, rather than really providing illumination.

I left church at age 20, when I was told, by a hospital chaplin, after I had been gay bashed that maybe God was trying to tell me something. There are accepting and welcoming churches out there but there are many which aren't.