Franklyn Schaefer - Defrocked: How a Fathers Act of Love Shook the United Methodist Church

Defrocked is either the saddest book about the church Ive read or the most hopeful. Its certainly real. Schaefer brings a pastors heart and a pastors wounds to his history-making memoir. There are times when I think that if we could just kick all the human beings out of the church, we could really do this Christianity thing. But of course thats the whole point. Defrocked reminds me why real Christian community matters, why it is hard to sustain and why it is still heroic to strive for.

Lillian Daniel, Author of When Spiritual But Not Religious Is Not Enough, Senior Minister, First Congregational Church, Glen Ellyn, Illinois

If the heart of the gospel is unconditional love, then why do we punish those who actually practice it? Our faith was born of resistance to loveless legalism, and Frank Schaefers loving act of resistance is the essence of faith itself. Would that more fathers loved their sons this much. It might just save the church.

Robin Meyers, Senior Minister, Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ, Oklahoma City, Author of The Underground Church: Reclaiming the Subversive Way of Jesus

What Frank Schaefer and his family suffered at the hands of their denomination is tragic. Be warned. Defrocked is a painful, close-up look at the United Methodist Church struggling to end its not-so-civil war against homosexuality and homosexuals. However, also be warned that if you dont read Defrocked, you will miss a rare and deeply moving opportunity to watch a truly Christian family stand united against scientific ignorance and biblical misuse and never stop loving God, their Church, their family, and even their enemies.

Mel White, Cofounder of Soulforce and Author of Stranger at the Gate

Schaefers conviction to compassionately balance his conscience with family, LGBT social justice, and religious practice was admirable. Where many talk about the need for change inside our religious institutions, Schaefer took personal responsibility to live out his principles at great cost. Though defrocked, Schaefers action honors the Gospel one hopes Christs inspiration encourages us all to follow. That we would turn toward our neighbor in love rather than against and let love be the law that binds us all.

Jennifer Knapp, Singer/Songwriter

As more and more people in mainstream America support the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people, its easy to forget the heroes who stood up, spoke out, and paid a price to bring us to this point. Rev. Frank Schaefer and his family faced an unjust choice: affirm their sons commitment to the man he loved or affirm their commitment to the United Methodist Church they loved. Franks unquestionable commitment to his faith and his courage to stand against unjust policies make him a prophetic leader of our age. Read about his remarkable journeyand find your own prophetic voice along the way.

Cameron Trimble, Executive Director and CEO, The Center for Progressive Renewal

In Rev. Frank Schaefers book Defrocked we meet a humble minister who, in calmer times, would have quietly lived out his faith in small town Lebanon, Pennsylvania, attending to the needs of his flock. These, however, are not those times. Faced with a gay son who asked him to preside at his wedding, Frank took a road that is still, in the Christian church of 2014, less traveled. Whether it is apparent or not, every church in America today that continues to view LGBT as equal but also separate is filled with division and inner tension: Rev. Schaefers book gives an inside view to this conflict and how it will continue to play out for many years to come. Rev. Schaefer shows the way forward in this story with his simple, steady commitment to follow in His steps to the best of his ability, each and every day.

Randy Roberts Potts, Freelance Writer, Photographer, and out gay grandson of Oral Roberts

Confronting our traditional beliefs about faith as it intersects sexual orientation and gender identity is a difficult process. While many of us in conservative churches are aware of the injustices suffered by LGBT believers, it seems too big a task to take on those traditions. So we comply in our actions and with our mouths, while our hearts and spirits yearn to seek truth. Until we are pushed, most of us remain complacent. More and more often, the push is coming from the gay and transgender children of conservative believers. This challenge is happening in every denomination and every state. Imagine if you are the pastor and your gay child comes to you, and, beyond loving and accepting them, requests that you perform their wedding. You are then pushed to the edges, to speak out from your silent place against the injustice. Pastor Frank Schaefer found himself in that place.

Kathy Baldock, Author of Walking the Bridgeless Canyon

Frank and Brigitte Schaefer with their childrenTim, Kevin, Deborah, and Pascalin 1999.

How a Fathers
Act of Love Shook
the United Methodist Church

Franklyn Schaefer

with Sherri Wood Emmons

Copyright 2014 by Franklyn Schaefer.

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Cover art: Photo copyright 2014 by Kimberly Kunda.

www.ChalicePress.com

Print: 9780827244993
EPUB: 9780827244986 EPDF: 9780827244979

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data available
upon request.

The United Methodist Church is a part of the church universal, which is one Body in Christ. The United Methodist Church acknowledges that all persons are of sacred worth. All persons, without regard to race, color, national origin, status, or economic condition, shall be eligible to attend its worship services, participate in its programs, receive the sacraments, upon baptism be admitted as baptized members, and upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith become professing members in any local church in the connection. In The United Methodist Church no conference or other organizational unit of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member or any constituent body of the Church because of race, color, national origin, status or economic condition All people may attend its worship services, participate in its programs, receive the sacraments and become members in any local church in the connection.

Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church,
Article IV, Inclusiveness of the Church

The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church... Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.

Book of Discipline of the United Methodist Church,
paragraphs 304.3, 341.6.

ON NOVEMBER 19, 2013, I sat in the witness stand of a makeshift courtroom at a church camp in Eastern Pennsylvania, the same camp my children had attended years earlier. The day before, a jury of my fellow pastors had found me guilty of performing a same-sex marriage and of violating the order and discipline of The United Methodist Church.