Open and Affirming
As a member of the UCC movement of Open and Affirming Churches, First Church welcomes gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender women and men to our community of faith, and affirms the full inclusion of all God's people in the life and ministry of the church. Our congregation also strongly supports the civil right of all free and consenting adults to marry, and we gladly offer our sanctuary and our ministers to all who wish to be married here (see a pastoral letter on "equal marriage," below).First Church Statement of Openness and Affirmation
This statement was adopted at the end of a congregational discernment process on January 27, 1991
WHEREAS, "In Christ Jesus we are all children of God, through faith. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female; for we are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3:26, 28); and
WHEREAS, we believe that our value as human beings is given to us by God, and that God calls us to relate to each other as whole persons, with love, responsibility, accountability, trust, and mutual nurture; and to work for justice and wholeness in the world; and
WHEREAS, we recognize that our individual and collective fears or prejudices about other people are dispelled by the grace of God and the commandment to love our neighbors; and
WHEREAS, our Covenant Testimony calls us to foster community across every barrier and division;
THEREFORE:
1 We declare that First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, U.C.C. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is an open and affirming congregation which does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, race, gender, age, nationality, ethnicity, economic class, marital status, or physical/psychological differences; that we welcome all who would participate with us in Christ's mission; and
2 We commit ourselves to the struggle against homophobia, racism, and all individual and systemic attitudes and acts of injustice, discrimination, violence, and hatred that work against peace and wholeness.
A Letter Regarding Same-Sex Marriage
Dear Friends in Christ:
After prayerful reflection, the lay leaders of First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, United Church of Christ, have agreed to declare their support of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision affirming the right to marry of gay and lesbian citizens of our Commonwealth. They have also determined to oppose all attempts to limit those rights by means of an amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution. I wholeheartedly concur with this declaration.
As followers of Jesus, we believe that we are commanded to “seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness” in which the first are last, and the last, first; and so we are also bound to love and respect all people, to practice radical hospitality, and to stand with all who suffer indignity, injustice and violence in any form.
As people of the Bible, we rejoice in its diverse wisdom, we recognize its emphatic trajectory of justice and compassion, and we experience its liberating and reconciling power; and so we are bound to resist employing particular texts of Scripture to condemn, divide, discriminate, or deny equal protection under the law.
As members of the United Church of Christ, we believe that God is a living God, that God is always doing a new thing, and that God is still speaking; and so we are bound always to be listening, alert for new words that lead us in new directions of justice and generosity.
As inheritors of a great legacy of faith and conscience, we look also to the example of our Congregationalist forbears who spoke and acted for justice in their own day, often ahead of public opinion and at the risk of public disdain. Those men and women helped establish our nation; they sacrificed greatly to guarantee the rights and liberties we enjoy today.
They ordained the first African American to the ministry of a major Christian denomination in 1785. They advocated for the rights of women in society and for women’s higher education. They were the first to ordain a woman in 1853, and in 1972 they also ordained the first openly gay man. They were among the New England abolitionists who aided the Amistad captives in 1839, an act of conscience that led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s first civil rights ruling in 1840. That captives’ appeal was argued by John Quincy Adams, whose father, John Adams, framed our Commonwealth’s Constitution within the walls of the second meeting house of First Church in Cambridge, our own congregation. This precious and humbling legacy of bold speech and public action compels us also to speak and to act.
Therefore, because we regard marriage between consenting, qualified and responsible adults as both a civil right and a divine calling, gift and blessing, we wholeheartedly endorse the right of gays and lesbians to marry legally and to enjoy all the rights, responsibilities, benefits and comforts of marriage.
We commit ourselves to continue to act and speak on behalf of this right as long as there is any threat posed to it in this Commonwealth. We oppose all attempts to amend the Massachusetts Constitution to define marriage as only the union of one man and one woman.
We commit ourselves also to advocate on behalf of the national extension of this right, until the day comes when marriages between same-sex partners in one State are recognized in every State.
We further declare our intention to witness to God’s ever-widening embrace by welcoming and assisting to the best of our ability gay and lesbian couples who wish to marry in a Christian church, seeking God’s blessing and the peace of Christ. We shall, therefore, joyfully open our church’s doors for this purpose after the Supreme Judicial Court decision takes effect on May 17, 2004.
These commitments represent the strong consensus of the Deacons, Executive Council, and the Ministers of First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, United Church of Christ, one of the oldest continuing Protestant congregations in America, and an Open and Affirming, Just-Peace community.
I trust that you will give this matter your prayerful consideration, and if your conscience urges you to do so, that you will join us in this important witness.
Courage and peace be with you all,
Mary Luti, Senior Minister
May, 2004