Augustine's presentation to Bill 18 Hearing

Augustine United  Church Support for Bill 18

August 2013

Audience gathered on evening of Augustine's presentation (Source: CBC News)

Good evening.  Thank you for this opportunity to speak.  My name is Kathleen Venema and I am here today representing Augustine United Church, where my husband and I are long-time members.  Many of you likely know Augustine as an architectural landmark near the corner of River and Osborne, and one of Winnipeg’s historic churches, originally established in 1887.  Many people may also know that Augustine was the first Affirming United Church in Canada.  Let me provide just a bit of background to explain that designation.  Almost 30 years ago, in 1984, after extensive theological study and discussion, the United Church of Canada specifically affirmed its recognition that all human beings, regardless of sexual orientation, are made in the image of God.  At that point, it issued a call for repentance for the church’s collective history of rejecting homosexual persons.  In 1988, after four more years of study and discussion, the United Church’s General Council affirmed that “all persons, regardless of sexual orientation […] are welcome to be or become full members of the church,” and specifically articulated its readiness to ordain gay and lesbian clergy

[http://www.united-church.ca/exploring/orientation/timeline]. 

In 1995, having been open and supportive of gays and lesbians since the late 1970s, Augustine became the first Affirming United Church Congregation in Canada.  From that point on, Augustine has “intentionally and publicly welcom[ed], recogniz[ed], support[ed], and accept[ed] lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, two-spirited, [and heterosexual] people as full and equal participants in all aspects of life, work, and worship” (2011 JNAC 10).  And we are not alone:  by now there are over 75 Affirming Congregations across Canada [http://www.affirmunited.ca/english/looking.htm]. 

I’ve taken time to sketch this history because we are very aware, at Augustine, of the ways in which some other Christian groups and individuals have characterized and articulated their opposition to Bill 18. 

"Sermon rips anti-bullying bill" (Headline & photo: WFP)

Those oppositions, ostensibly in the name of Christianity, have received a great deal of media attention and for that reason, we agreed that we would take this opportunity to speak to you, and to outline our quite different understanding of Christianity and the Bible.  As Christians, we seek to follow the example of Jesus, whose life, as we learn about it through the New Testament, was characterized by an ethic of love, a radical inclusion of, and standing with, the people in his society who had the least power:  women, children, people impoverished by unjust economic structures, people rendered marginal because of illness and disability, people reviled and disadvantaged because they were from other cultures and religions. 

Photo source:  CTV.News

We understand Jesus to have willingly engaged with these people and to have expressed his allegiance with them.  Indeed, having studied these issues for over thirty years, we understand that our religious and spiritual heritage necessitates our support for the Bill, as part of our active engagement in bringing about a world that welcomes, honours, and supports all the diversity of creation.  

We are also acutely aware of the many ways in which the institutional church has been complicit, throughout history, with wrong, hurtful, and oppressive beliefs and actions.  The Bible is a rich and fascinating and complex historical text, and it has been used and misused many times to defend and sanction social practices that we now recognize as clearly insupportable, among them slavery, sexual slavery, polygamy, the subservience of women, the treatment of women as property, and corporal punishment, of children and others.  We understand current attempts to use the Bible to justify homophobia to be similarly misguided.  As members of an active, searching, studying Christian community that depends for its richness and its vitality on all its diverse individual members, we at Augustine support school cultures where equity, acceptance, respect, and support are extended without prejudice, and where all students’ gifts and energies can be nourished and celebrated.

In closing, we would like to note that we think it is likely that if Jesus were a 21st century Canadian, he would not only support gay-straight alliances, he would be helping to organize the meetings.  For all of these reasons, we would like to unequivocally register our support for Bill 18.  Thank you.

- Submitted by Kathleen