Mercy Outside The Mainstream -- Growing Tacoma Church Helps Gays Keep The Faith With New Outgoing Attitude

-- TACOMA

After 15 years of helping members come out of the closet, Tacoma's New Heart Metropolitan Community Church is doing a little coming out itself.

Short of funds and fearing harassment, the mostly gay and lesbian congregation for years met on folding chairs in a downtown basement.

But now the group has moved into a bona fide church, complete with pews, altar and stained glass.

And the once-struggling group of 20 or so has grown to more than twice that - despite AIDS, threatening telephone calls and what the group's pastor, the Rev. Don Magill-Knitig, calls "a hostile world."

"We are trying not to keep a low-profile anymore," said Magill-Knitig. "It doesn't do any good to remain in the closet. Sure, there'll always be some fundamentalist who'll call you up and condemn you to hell. You deal with it."

The more outgoing attitude of the church is symbolized by its new location. New Heart's century-old Hilltop church, purchased this year from the United Church of Christ, looks mainstream, even if the congregation isn't.

On a recent Sunday, with the late morning sun streaming in through the windows, Magill-Knitig stood before his parishioners, most of whom sat with an arm flung over the shoulder of a same-sex partner.

Bouncing on his heels with intensity, the 35-year-old pastor repeated a central tenet of New Heart's creed:

"God did not send Jesus into the world to judge," he proclaimed. "God's house is a house of prayer for all people."

The rise of this Tacoma group to something approaching mainstream respectability coincides with the emergence of such Metropolitan Community Churches nationwide.

Its new visibility comes at a time when interest in homosexual issues is on the rise in mainline churches.

"This feels like a historical moment," said the Rev. Kit Cherry, an ecumenical director in the denomination's California national office. "So many churches are dealing with the issue of homosexuality. It can't be avoided any more."

Since its founding in 1968 by a gay minister in Los Angeles, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches has grown quietly from 12 to 27,000 members in 16 countries, according to the church.

A Seattle congregation counts 52 members, according to its interim pastor, the Rev. Anne Hulse.

Although not strictly a "gay church," the strength of the church's membership derives from gay and lesbian Christians who feel alienated from mainstream churches, Magill-Knitig said.

Many tell stories of being rejected - even excommunicated - by the churches they grew up in.

"My old reverend announced he was going to a conference to speak against admitting gays," said recent New Heart member Matt Zolman, 19, a former Congregationalist. "That's when I decided my church wasn't for me. I prayed for a long time. I wondered, why was I gay? Why did God do this to me?"

Others talk of the singular form of alienation they face living in what they say is the mostly irreligious atmosphere of the gay community.

"When we are with other Christians we are in the closet about being gay. When we are with other gays and lesbians, we hide the fact that we are Christians," said Cherry, the ecumenical director.

To Cherry and other members of the church, the idea that homosexuality and God don't mix is nonsense.

On the contrary, she says, there's a spiritual link between coming out of the closet and being born again.

"Both are processes of self-discovery. One is discovering your attraction for the same sex, the other is realizing there is a God," said Cherry. "Both involve assimilating and celebrating your newly claimed identity."

That link, and the fact that many gays feel they are part of an oppressed minority, make for a natural marriage between homosexuality and Christianity, Cherry said.

Despite this, and an overall growth in membership, the church's history has been fraught with difficulty.

Beset on one side by the AIDS epidemic, and on the other by anti-gay hostility, the church in many areas has experienced rapid shifts in membership and morale.

"I have done more funerals in the past five years than the mainline clergy do in a lifetime," said Magill-Knitig. The recent news that his own lover of nine years has been diagnosed with a terminal AIDS-related illness has given his ministry a personal dimension.

"It's hit home now. This makes me able to see how it affects people personally," he said. "I've had 10 friends die of AIDS in the last year. Sometimes I think if I've got to do one more funeral, light one more candle . . . I don't know. It gets hard."

Magill-Knitig said five people were buried by his church last year, and as many as half the male members of his congregation may carry the human immunodeficiency virus that can trigger AIDS.

In Seattle, the death from AIDS-related illness last year of the Rev. Ron Russell-Coons led to a sharp decrease in membership in that Metropolitan Community Church congregation. The church is just now starting to grow again, said Hulse.

"Death and dying - right now that's a primary issue for us," said Val Valrejean, an early leader of the Seattle congregation and now a member of the Tacoma group.

"Most churches . . . don't talk about the reality of a slow death, of chronic recurring illness, of wasting away," she said. "But AIDS has made our Christianity simpler. I don't worry about picky things anymore. Now it's just loving your neighbor, and meaning it."

Nationwide, about 4,500 Metropolitan Community Church members have died of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), said Cherry.

The church's acceptance by other churches has grown in recent years, she said, but there are still those who regard the pairing of homosexuality and Christianity as an offense.

The Rev. J. Murray Marshall of the First Presbyterian Church of Seattle said, "It's unfortunate that they choose to use homosexuality as a reason to form a church."

"The Bible condemns homosexuality," he said. "There are a lot of things we persuade ourselves are innocent and of no consequence. But you have to go by the Book."

Such views are echoed by the Rev. Jon Lindenauer, of Burien's St. Elizabeth Episcopal Church.

"I don't think we can recognize a church that teaches it's all right to redefine sin, and to circumlocute Biblical authority and Christian tradition," he said. "As fellow Christians we should hear them and defend their right to exist, but I certainly wouldn't defend their lifestyle."

Its not a message that's likely to be heeded soon by Metropolitan Community Church members, many of whom express relief to have found a church where they can worship without guilt.

"When I came out at 21, I was afraid," said a 26-year-old member of the Tacoma church, who would only identify himself as "Rick".

"I was in the Army then, and I snuck out of the barracks to come here. It's held against you, but I believe in God and I didn't want to be a fake. I want to be me."