Coming Full Circle: Celebrating 40 Years of Ordination

On Nov. 27, 2023, I celebrated my 40th anniversary of my ordination as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). I first celebrated this on Facebook, and now here. I’m smiling as I typed it in as text, especially as an out gay pastor, one of four in the state of New Mexico, which was the similar status as when I lived in Oregon. I was one of three out gay and lesbian Presbyterian pastors. We are still a novelty, but hopefully growing number.

In 1983, I was a younger 28 year old pastor. I was a student at Harvard Divinity School (ThM), and called to serve First Presbyterian Church of East Boston, MA as an Assistant Pastor. I was married to a woman. No children yet. I had graduated from Princeton Seminary (M.Div), and my job at the church was to sit on many boards that were around the geographical area, serving the needs of the Laotian community who were far from home, and Italian Bostonians who had fled South Boston because of the rise of tourism. I was clearly on an academic track, with an unquenchable thirst and love of learning. My ordination service was held at Valley Community Presbyterian Church in Portland, OR, and my installation service at the church in East Boston, MA. Two vastly different worlds, and churches. Valley was all suburban upper-middle class savvy, and East Boston was urban with lower class taste and swag. I was firmly entrenched in my gay closet. Scared. Silent. Hidden. 

I then served churches as stated supply or interim pastor when I went to school (PhD) at the Univ. of NC-Chapel Hill and Duke, in the time that I worked at Whitworth College, and when I was Director of Religious Life at Devereux Hospital and Children’s Center in Florida. Married. Children now. Safely in my gay closet.

And then we moved back to NC, and I was appointed Assistant Professor at Duke Divinity School. Married. Two children. On track to be tenured.

Then I came out and was outed as a gay man. The puzzle pieces of life left my hands, flying upward to the sky, and then reassembled themselves in a wholly/holy new pattern as an out gay Presbyterian pastor who was shunned at Duke Divinity School because I was gay. One year I was Duke University’s Humanitarian of the Year (1999), and the next year, I was kicked out of the high education elite tower in Durham. 

I still remember when my then-Presbyter Exec in the Presbytery of New Hope in NC talking to me after my book, On Being a Gay Parent, had been published in 2008, and after I was outed as a gay man by my erstwhile mentor, running partner, friend, and colleague at Duke Divinity School, in which I was then let go and denied tenure because I am gay (they say it was because my fifth book wasn’t up to tenure.). She said that “I’ll protect your ordination, but I promise you will never, ever be a pastor in a church again, not that you are out.” She also told me that my then-partner, Dean, and I couldn’t hold hands or kiss in public, because you never know who is looking. And if we had a big window in the front of our house, we were to close the blinds and draw the curtains so no one saw us kissing. Fun times in the PCUSA! 

With deep gratitude to my then-spouse and former partner, who were very supportive during the most challenging days in those years. Their love sustained me and gave me the courage to go forward. 

Off and on I have had charges pending against me in the PCUSA because I am gay. 

Thankfully, most of this changed when the Presbyterian Church (USA) changed it’s Constitution in 2011, and then such charges were dropped.

My then-Presbyter Exec was half wrong. My ordination was saved, but I have since been interim pastor of another church, started a 1001 New Worshiping Community, Community of Pilgrims, and pastored an ELCA church, Portsmouth Trinity Lutheran Church, before I received a call and was installed as the pastor of La Mesa Presbyterian Church in ABQ, NM. As for the Presbyter Exec and erstwhile toxic mentor? They both are retired. 

Since time with the Presbyter Exec and Duke, I have started a religious non-profit, School of the Pilgrim, and still go on pilgrimage annually. I’ve written five more books, with three more coming. I loved teaching ethics and world religions at NC Central University. 

I also found my “sport,” dragon boat paddling. 

Thankful for my current congregation, La Mesa Presbyterian Church. And I’m married to my handsome husband, Christian Halstead. life is good. Dreams and hopes do come true. Honesty and love prevail and win. 

And I’m still ordained.

Coming around to a full circle to that day in 1983 when I was first ordained. 

Thanks be to God.