Seattle Church Oks Pastorship For Gay Couple By Wide Margin -- `Wonderful,' Say Some; `Abomination' To Others

Shortly before 1:30 p.m., Julie Davis slipped into the side office of University Congregational Church and placed a call to a private home three blocks away. Anxiously, the Rev. David Shull picked up the receiver, listened to what Davis, head of the pastoral-search committee, had to say, then gasped, "Oh, my God."

Moments later the news was announced to the church congregation. The shouts and applause that erupted from the sanctuary could be heard outside on 16th Avenue Northeast, next to the University of Washington campus.

By an overwhelming 76 percent majority vote, University Congregational yesterday became what is believed to be the first mainline church in the country to call a gay couple - Shull, 35, and the Rev. Peter Ilgenfritz, 32 - to share an associate pastorship.

The vote was more lopsided than some members had anticipated. One member, sick with worry that the church would reject the pair, left with tears in his eyes before the balloting was complete. But inside, the Rev. Gail Crouch, the church's other associate pastor, wept tears of joy after the results were reported.

"It's wonderful," she said between hugs of other church members.

Carolyn Stark, the church's moderator, or lay leader, said the decision shows "our church is a just church, we welcome everyone, and we are about (doing) Christ's work."

Longtime church member Bob Barrick wrote out a check to the church for $10,000 while he sat in the pews. "This is a church that I have complete trust and faith in," he told Crouch as he handed her the donation from him and his wife, Elaine.

While the prospect of a church hiring a gay couple as ministers elicited praise from some of the area's more liberal churches, it drew reactions of horror from some of the more conservative, evangelical pastors. The vote comes at a time when signatures are being gathered on two anti-gay-rights ballot measures, Initiatives 608 and 610.

"In my opinion, it is an abomination unto the Lord and to everything that is decent," said the Rev. Bob Moorehead, pastor of Overlake Christian Church in Kirkland, the region's largest Protestant church and one that believes the Bible is the inerrant word of God. Moorehead says throughout the Bible the practice of homosexuality is held up as a sin.

According to members who took part in yesterday's closed-door business meeting at University, the debate within the congregation was civil and thoughtful. But some had concerns about hiring a gay couple.

"I feel there is a conflict," said David Bivins, a church member who voted against the nomination. "You have two guys as ministers extolling the virtues of the Bible. What they say and what they do conflicts."

Another member said before the vote that people were concerned that a gay couple was not the right role model for children in the church. Still others felt the church should hire a new senior pastor first. That top spot has been open for almost two years.

But church member Russ Browne noted that University Congregational is on record as being an open and affirming congregation, meaning it welcomes and supports gays and lesbians in all aspects of church life. To not support the hiring of a gay or lesbian pastor, he said, would mean the church's policy is "a liberal password with no guts to it."

Browne was one of the 474 members who voted yes. There were 143 no votes and 7 abstentions.

The vote was being monitored by religious leaders across the country.

"We are all watching with great interest to see whether a congregation would make this kind of decision, which would certainly be stretching the policies of most denominations," said Bishop Calvin McConnell, head of the Washington-North Idaho office of the United Methodist Church. The United Methodists do not ordain clergy who are gay.

The Rev. Peter Raible of University Unitarian Church said it would have been "gross hypocrisy" for University Congregational to adopt an "open and affirming" statement for its membership and then reject ministers because of their sexual orientation. The Unitarian Universalist Association has a number of gay clergy and several gay couples who serve different churches, but no couple that serves the same church.

University Congregational is part of the United Church of Christ, which has some of the oldest roots of any church in the United States - stretching back to 1648 in colonial New England.

In 1972, the UCC was the first mainline denomination to ordain a gay pastor, the Rev. Bill Johnson, who was working in California at the time. A number of its churches have declared themselves "open and affirming" to people of all races, orientations and abilities. Seattle, with six such churches, has more open and affirming UCC congregations than any city in the United States, according to Samuel Loliger, national co-cordinator of the United Church Coalition for Lesbian/Gay Concerns. New York City has only three, Chicago four, San Francisco two and Los Angeles one.

A spot check of mainline churches in the area indicated the hiring of Shull and Ilgenfritz, both graduates of Yale Divinity School, should not give Seattle's major churches difficulty working with University Congregational.

As for the more conservative churches, Moorehead, the Overlake pastor, says he doubts his church will cross paths with University Congregational.

"It is a liberal organization," he said. "We are a fundamental church. We have no basis of fellowship with them.

"Frankly, it nauseates me, it just really hurts my spirit to think that someone under the name of the church would sanction sin."

The Rev. Richard Vicknair, pastor of the North Seattle Christian Fellowship in Northgate, said he couldn't find language strong enough to describe his reaction. "It is appalling to me," he said. "It is so tragic we have fallen this far from the biblical standard of morality.

"One of the sad things," Vicknair said, "is evangelical Christians have been portrayed as practicing hate because we stand against the practice of homosexuality. We do not hate homosexuals.

"It's also sad that in our culture now, right has become wrong, wrong has become right, and it is wrong to say wrong is wrong."

On the other side of the debate, the Rev. Jeff Spencer, pastor of the Tolt Congregational United Church of Christ in Carnation, says the Bible is unclear where God stands on homosexuality.

Spencer, who is gay, said, "God has embraced me and accepted me in my totality, including the fact that I am gay."

Shull and Ilgenfritz will share ministerial duties and a compensation package of about $40,000 a year, including benefits. Their division of duties has not been worked out. They expect to begin work in August. Shull is a medical social worker for the Hospice of the Great Lakes in Chicago. Ilgenfritz is a resource associate, or grant writer, for the Chicago Rehab Network, a coalition of nonprofit affordable-housing developers. He also is a fund raiser for the HIV Coalition in Chicago.

Davis, who chaired the search committee, says Shull and Ilgenfritz were the best-qualified applicants among the 50 applications the 12-member panel screened. "Their sexual orientation was entirely beside the point," she said. "They are the most outstanding human beings I have met in a long time," added Shirley Morrison, a church member.

However, both Shull and Ilgenfritz were forthright about their orientation during interviews and meetings this past week. They have been together for eight years.

Asked about the Bible's holding of homosexuality as a sin, Ilgenfritz contended the Bible addressed heterosexuals engaging in homosexual acts during pagan rituals. He said people in biblical times did not understand about homosexuality as an orientation - "as being part of the created self."

Speaking before a standing-room-only crowd of 800 worshipers - many of whom were visitors and not voting members - at the 10 a.m. service, Ilgenfritz said fear need not be the final word when a group faces change. Shull picked up the remainder of the sermon and said that word should be trust.

Shull recalled how St. John of the Cross, a 16th century Spanish monk, was preparing for a journey and asked a man at the gate for a light to show him the path.

The man replied, "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be a better light, and safer than a known way."

And with that, the congregation began its debate and vote.