Wesley Seminary Students Commemorate “Transgender Day of Remembrance”

on November 19, 2015

Students at United Methodist-affiliated Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC gathered Thursday for a special service to commemorate the lives of persons who identify as transgender.

The noontime “Transgender Day of Remembrance” service held November 19 at Wesley’s Oxnam chapel was sponsored by Of Sacred Worth, a student organization established to promote understanding of LGBTQ people in the church.

“The Transgender Day of Remembrance is more than just a memorial. It raises public awareness of hatred and violence against those in our transgender community, which often the media suppresses,” a speaker introduced. “It publicly mourns and honors the lives of those who might otherwise be forgotten, giving their silent lives new voices. It is an opportunity to meet hatred and indifference with love and respect. It offers us all an opportunity to stand together and say ‘no more.’”

During the time of communion, the approximately 40 participants were invited to light a candle “as a visible expression of prayer and memorial for those who have died”.

“Today, we remember our siblings lost at the hands of hatred, evil and violence because of their gender identity and expression,” read a student prayer leader. “Today we restore anew our commitment to protect, support and remember our transgender siblings.”

The scripture reading for the service came from Isaiah Chapter 56: “Preserve justice and do righteousness, for liberation is about to come and justice will be revealed. How blessed is the one who does this and the one that takes hold of it.” The reading continues with God’s promises to eunuchs, which LGBTQ activists conflate with persons who identify as transgender.

“God of transformations, set us free to change and grow,” read the prayer leader. “We rejoice in the lives of our transgender siblings: different, strong, dynamic and loved.”

During the communion liturgy, Wesley Professor and Episcopal Priest Sathianathan Clarke proclaimed: “It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, O Father and Mother, creator of all things old, new and in transition.”

“Even though we proclaim that Christ was sacrificed once for all, we seem to need and want victims of sacrifice,” Clarke lamented. “We ‘other’ people so that in some way they are dishonored and then we kill them so that in some way the logic of sacrifice will prevail.”

Clarke invited the congregation into a time of mourning the deaths of “those who wish to pursue the calling of sexuality that God has called them to” and to repent of “a refusal to accept difference, knowing that in the end, all difference is honored by God.”

Reciting the names of transgender persons lost to violence over the past year, Clarke named them “living beacons” of God’s “unending love here on earth.” During the administration of communion, a slideshow projected the images of persons who had died in the United States and Latin America, believed to have been killed for their transgender identity.

As the service concluded, participants prayed “God, we thank you that you have given us all a place to call home and that you have been with us on our journeys. Bring us even closer to you,” before departing in silence.

  1. Comment by Namyriah on November 19, 2015 at 7:25 pm

    “O Father and Mother.”
    I’m tolerant of someone whose religion is not Christianity, but isn’t this person getting paid a salary as a Christian professor.

  2. Comment by Mike Ward on November 20, 2015 at 11:19 am

    He should have said, “O Parent.” He’s discriminating against all of those of don’t identify as male or female. He should be sent to a reeducation camp.

  3. Comment by Paul Zesewitz on December 11, 2015 at 10:23 pm

    I am offended by prayers to a Father/ Mother God. Nowhere in the Bible is God addressed as ‘Mother’. But I have no problems with gender-neutral ones. He should have simply rendered it, “…….give thanks to You, O God, Creator of all things old, new and in transition….”

  4. Comment by Dan on November 19, 2015 at 8:57 pm

    Coming soon to a UMC church near you, maybe your church, one of these batty seminary graduates. What say do you have in this? Why none, you’re a UMC congregation so you get what the bishop gives you. Now shut up and pay all your apportionments so stuff like this can continue to be fully funded.

  5. Comment by S.Garland on November 20, 2015 at 12:27 am

    So very sad that they have departed so much from traditional orthodoxy. Who will be the salt when it has lost its savor and the so called people of faith are as worldly as the world.

  6. Comment by That Guy on November 20, 2015 at 9:58 am

    Sounds like an inspired service, wish I could have attended to mourn for our lost brothers and sisters.

  7. Comment by Mike Ward on November 20, 2015 at 11:16 am

    I think you mean “lost siblings.” “Brother” and “sister” are cisgender terms that ignore that gender is now a continuous spectrum and not just two extremes. Didn’t you notice that the student prayer leader avoid using these two un-PC terms?

  8. Comment by jjgrndisland on November 20, 2015 at 8:40 pm

    Indeed, “lost” is the word that comes to mind.

  9. Comment by AndRebecca on December 20, 2015 at 8:32 pm

    I’m sure you can mourn in private.

  10. Comment by Mike Ward on November 20, 2015 at 11:21 am

    “those who wish to pursue the calling of sexuality that God has called them to”

    From the whatever you desire it is God calling you to do it school of theology.

  11. Comment by AndRebecca on December 20, 2015 at 8:30 pm

    You sound like an Islamist hearing Allah calling him to cut off a head or rape the nearest woman. The God of the Bible is way more picky in His callings.

  12. Comment by Melissa Windom on November 20, 2015 at 1:25 pm

    Honestly, this man’s statements are just slanderous. He claims that “we” Christians are killing transgendered people? How can a chapel full of people who claim to be Christian sit still while someone proclaims such a blatant lie? Have we reached a point in our culture where Christians have become the scapegoats for every crime?

  13. Comment by HarrisonWellsII on November 20, 2015 at 5:54 pm

    Huh. From the sounds of it a moving service that mourns the lives lost to senseless violence, if only we could do things like this more often.

  14. Comment by Marla Hughes on December 12, 2015 at 6:17 am

    One problem with that is that there is no differentiation between men dressing as women because they hate women. Those types of ‘transgenders’ rape and even kill women due to their hatred. It is a group w/in the transgendered movement and we, as Christians, at least should recognize and differentiate between the victim and the perpetrator.

  15. Comment by Erin Swenson on December 12, 2015 at 10:55 am

    As a Presbyterian minister and a longtime member of the transgender community I take issue with your claim that there are people in the transgender community “dressing as women because they hate women.” I have moved within the transgender community across our country and in the UK for over two decades, and I have not once met someone in our community who could even remotely be described in this way. Please check facts before making assertions like this.

  16. Comment by Marla Hughes on December 12, 2015 at 12:13 pm

    You should check with some of the leaders in the feminist movement. Or, just check the most recent headlines. 52 year old man claiming to be a 6 year old girl, being adopted by a couple, his new ‘daddy’ having anal sex with him and still letting him play with their little granddaughter. He’s supposed to be a leader in the transsexual community. That’s just one. There’s plenty more.

  17. Comment by Marla Hughes on December 12, 2015 at 12:59 pm

    https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MarlaHughesFL/posts/eYqGLiEwaDT

    Follow the links.

  18. Comment by Semp on December 12, 2015 at 9:01 pm

    “Erin” is actually Eric.
    I’m surprised more of these people didn’t show up to post on this thread, as they seem to network together and spend lots of time on the web.

  19. Comment by Marla Hughes on December 12, 2015 at 11:09 pm

    Google alerts.

  20. Comment by Erin Swenson on December 13, 2015 at 9:11 am

    My error. I thought this was a discussion.

  21. Comment by Brad F on December 17, 2015 at 10:53 am

    We learned long ago that when an LGBTXYZ says “Let’s have a discussion,” they mean, “Sit there and nod while I scold and guilt-trip you till you grovel on the floor.”

  22. Comment by Semp on December 12, 2015 at 9:00 pm

    Your actual name is Eric, not Erin. Lying about one’s identity is very dishonest, and is very unbefitting a Christian minister. Christians are to be people of truth, not falsehood. We are not called to play along with people’s peculiar delusions. A man who dresses as a woman and insists that we refer to him as a woman is asking Christians to do something that is not right. Having surgery and getting shot full of hormones does not change a man into a woman, any more than botox and facelifts turn an old person into a young one. It is very wrong – downright evil, in fact – to use the Christian church as a tool in one’s fantasy world.

  23. Comment by Pastorsmate on December 31, 2015 at 9:26 am

    God help us all.

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