Edgehill and the Birth of the Reconciling Movement
I arrived at Edgehill one Sunday in September of 1979. In May of that year, I had graduated from Oklahoma City University. At the end of August, I loaded up my white Volkswagen Rabbit with all my possessions and moved from Oklahoma to Nashville, Tennessee to work for the Appalachia Service Project – my first full-time job. I heard about Edgehill from one of the other staff persons and I came to church.
At that time, the sanctuary (the big room) was about a quarter of the size of the current room. And it still looked like a garage (which it had been). In the back of the room near the door to the driveway, there were concrete stairs leading up to the kitchen. All the children and teens perched on the steps and watched over the services.
On the wall behind the lectern, there was a crayon drawing of God done by one of the grade-school-aged sons of Janet Wolf. The drawing was of a picture of God. It was half woman, half man. Half white, half black. It was awfully binary by today’s standards, but it was revolutionary to me! In this place, children lead the way to a congregation where everyone is welcome
Up until that point, I’d always been a member of whatever church my dad was pastoring. My worldview had been broadened during my summers working with poor folks in the mountains of eastern Tennessee and Kentucky. I felt called to work for God’s realm. But I had never seen a local congregation that lived out that calling.
Coming to Edgehill was amazing, exciting, mind-blowing! It wasn’t long until I joined this church, probably offering a gift of song to the congregation on the Sunday that I joined.
In this room we saw the great banquet lived out here on earth. All kinds of people in this place gathered around Christ’s table. Young and old, persons of different races and countries and economic statuses. There were people here who rolled their wheelchairs into this room from down the street.
And there were LGBTQ+ Christians here! I had never met gays and lesbians who went to church.
Being a part of Edgehill meant being on the edge – I remember riding the bus to church one Sunday morning. I told a fellow rider that I was heading to Sunday worship at Edgehill. They said, “I’ve heard of that place. Isn’t that that church where they smoke pot?”
Edgehill musicians - Mike Hodge, Dorothy Gager, Beth Richardson, and Robert Huber, 1980-ish
Coming Out in the BE/BI (Before Ellen/Before Internet) Era
There was a time – BE – Before Ellen. There was a time -- BI – Before Internet. When I was in college, I started realizing that I was different from other folks. I had never met anyone who was gay and had no idea how to find my people.
Those of us who were coming out during those days had to make our way, somehow, to find people like us. There were these hidden cultures. For us women, sometimes we found our people in the feminist movement. Sometimes we found our way by joining the community softball league. Some of us found people like us in the bars.
I was curious and went to my college library. The only book in the library was a sociological study about gay men. I read it, but it didn’t help me at all. I finally did find one lesbian in my dorm and learned from her about the bars. Later, I was surprised to find that there were gay and lesbian people even on my campus. But none of them went to church. So I both belonged and didn’t belong at all.
Sometime in the late 70’s, I found a tiny personal ad in the back of Ms. Magazine. The ad said, Gay? Methodist? Write this PO Box in Dallas, TX. I was so excited! I wrote for information … and a year later, I got a letter about this group called Affirmation: United Methodists for Lesbian and Gay concerns. This was an organization of – at that time -- mostly gay men and a few lesbians who had found each other and were beginning to work to change the church.
I got to meet “my people” at an Affirmation meeting in Indianapolis in the fall of 1979. I began to travel to each of the bi-annual meetings of Affirmation and General Conferences to try to combat the negative language that was being added to the Book of Discipline.
In 1984, Affirmation launched a new program called the Reconciling Congregation Program (RCP. Now it is called RMN – Reconciling Ministries Network). I teamed up with Mark Bowman to be the first co-coordinators for the program and served for three years in this capacity.
Edgehill’s Influence on the RMN
Beth Richardson and Mark Bowman, Co-Coordinators of the RCP, Washington Square UMC, NYC, 1984
When I arrived here at EUMC in 1979, the church was already welcoming to queer people like me. Edgehill was a “reconciling congregation” long before there was a program.
In the 70's, the Nashville Metropolitan Community Church (a church which ministers to and with the gay/lesbian community) approached Edgehill and asked about using our facility to hold worship on Sunday nights. Edgehill said yes and MCC shared the building with us.
When there was backlash against Edgehill for allowing gay people to worship in our facility, our church led the entire congregation in studying the issue of homosexuality and the Bible and our call to be inclusive. I believe this was the point that Edgehill became a reconciling congregation (program or not), celebrating the gifts of all people, no matter what race, gender, age, physical disability, or sexual orientation.
With the beginning of the Reconciling movement in 1984, Edgehill's history of intentional study, discussion, and discernment became the model for the processes we recommended to churches that were considering joining the program. As I worked with local churches and church leaders, I saw Edgehill faces and told Edgehill stories. Edgehill was one of the churches on which the Reconciling movement was built.
Edgehill’s First RCP Banner, 1985
In the first year after the launch of the Reconciling Congregation Program, 12 churches joined. Edgehill was one of those. Today there are over 1,400 reconciling ministries (churches, campus ministries, communities, and regional networks) and 45,000 individuals who have declared themselves Reconciling.
I helped create an Edgehill banner in those early days that hung in the big room for years. It declared Edgehill to be a Reconciling Congregation. We carried this banner in early Pride Marches. The banner displayed the original logo of the RCP. The United Methodist cross and flame intertwined with the pink triangle. (The pink triangle was initially used in Nazi Germany to mark homosexual men for imprisonment, torture, and murder in concentration camps. In the 1970’s the symbol was reclaimed as a symbol of liberation.)
These days, there are many welcoming churches in the Nashville area. I celebrate that. And I honor the history of this congregation which made a safe place for so many people like me for so many years.
I’m so grateful to Edgehill for shaping me – and for shaping our movement.