Gay student may get chance at love, ministry
Carrie Draeger
draegecl@plu.edu
From Left: PLU Campus Ministry Program Specialist Kyle Franklin,Senior University Congregation President Kelly Ryan, Senior University Congregation Vice President Emily Isensee and the Rev. Dennis Sepper, one PLU's campus pastors, discuss the ELCA's decision to allow gay men and women in committed relationships to serve as clergy.
Thomas Voelp is used to people looking at him funny when he tells them he is gay and wants to be a Lutheran pastor.
“People don’t really know what to do with me,” the sophomore said.
Some tell him that he should not go into ministry; others tell him he is not “gay enough.”
“Homosexuals should not be afraid of religion, and religion should not be afraid of homosexuals,” he said.
Voelp realized that he wanted to be a pastor at 11– about the same time he realized he was gay.
His grandparents and mother brought him into the Lutheran faith at a very young age.
“My grandparents were very largely into the church,” he said. “They showed how warm and inviting the church can be.”
He did not come out until he was 17.
When his mother and twin brother found out they were very supportive.
“I think the only person who had a problem with it was me,” he said. “I didn’t understand myself.”
Voelp, 20, has come a long way since he was 17.
“If someone says I’m wrong (because I’m gay) I say, ‘No I’m wrong for you,’” he said. “I have no problem reconciling my faith and my religion with sexuality.”
PLU campus pastor Dennis Sepper said that the main issue with homosexuality in the church is in Biblical interpretation.
“There appears to be people who are more geared towards a literal interpretation of Scripture versus those who see the Bible as a ‘Living World,’” Sepper said. “That has been a conflict and a tension going back for centuries.”
PLU is one of 28 colleges and universities owned by congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
This summer, members of the ELCA voted to allow “Lutherans in publicly accountable, lifelong monogamous same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA associates in ministry, clergy, deaconesses and diaconal ministers.”
The assembly also passed a social statement that talked about human sexuality as a whole.
“It talks about human sexuality as a whole and how the Lutheran Church sees it,” Sepper said.
The process took over nine years from start to finish, Sepper said.
“Its not just willy-nilly,” Sepper said. “There’s a certain social structure [to these decisions].”
More than 1,000 voting members attended the churchwide assembly. The ministry policies’ decision passed by a narrow majority of 55 percent.
Sepper watched the assembly on the ELCA’s live video feed the day the ministry policies passed.
He said he was impressed by how the voting members handled themselves.
“They took the issue seriously,” he said. “You can’t say that the ELCA took this issue cavalierly.”
Sepper has struggled with the issue as well.
“I’ve wrestled with this,” he said. “I’ve prayed on both sides of this (and) I think this is the right move.
“It’s a matter of justice; it’s a matter of Gospel inclusion.”
The decision was not an easy one, Sepper said.
Sepper was a voting member at the 2000 assembly where the issue of gay clergy in committed relationships was first introduced to the ELCA.
He said that many of the arguments in 2000 were the same as this year, with people lined up on both sides of the issue. “I saw people who were not listening to each other, [but] we’ve danced around this issued enough,” he said. “For some congregations it’s been a very painful issue.”
The ELCA has already lost congregations because of this decision, including its tenth largest congregation in Glendale, Ariz.
“It breaks my heart that it’s as divisive as it is and I think the ELCA is going to take its lumps,” Sepper said. “This is a time where we need to come together.”
Sepper added that there are prospective students, donors and alumni who are struggling with PLU being a university owned by Pacific Northwest congregations of the ELCA, but there is not much PLU can do about it.
“We don’t have the option of pulling out (of the ELCA) like congregations do,” he said. “In that sense its kind of a moot question.”
PLU is a very “open-minded” campus, Sepper said, and he doesn’t see the ELCA’s decision being a major issue. However, he has had prospective students talk to him about not coming to PLU because of the decision.
“If they’re not happy with it then they are not going to be happy with PLU,” he said.
Sepper said the church and the ELCA should see the decision as a positive opportunity to move forward.
For Voelp, the decision is the next step towards becoming a pastor.
“It was sort of God’s way of saying go forward with this,” he said. “I’m very proud to be a Lutheran right now.”
