People always said Rev. Beth Stroud had been called to the ministry by a higher power. She was devoted to her faith, congregation and church.
But when she rose to her feet one morning in December 2004, it became clear to Stroud that her faith in God and dedication to the United Methodist Church was no longer enough.
Before an audience of colleagues and congregants, the church to which Stroud had given her life charged her with engaging in "practices incompatible with Christian teachings" as a "self-avowed, practicing homosexual."
United Methodist Church doctrine considers homosexual acts to be incompatible with Christianity and denies practicing homosexuals the right to be ordained or appointed by the church.
Stroud visited Princeton Sunday and delivered at the University Chapel a sermon on her struggle to reconcile her sexuality with her religion. The sermon was part of Sunday's gay pride service, which coincides with the University-wide gay pride month and the Religious Life Council's Interfaith Day of Service.
Coming out to herself
Stroud grew up in "a very religious family, which was also a liberal family," she said in an interview. "Our faith affected all the choices we made."
Though there was pressure to send children to private schools in the Philadelphia community in which she grew up, Stroud's parents chose to send her and her siblings to public school. "They wanted to expose us to as much diversity as they could."
Stroud found her childhood Methodist church "a very nurturing environment" where she "felt like I had all the aunts and uncles and grandparents I needed even though both of my parents were from Arkansas, and our relatives were there."
Church was a "big part" of her life from an early age, and once at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, Stroud continued to attend services frequently.
But at the same time as she felt the pull of her faith, Stroud saw herself changing sexually. "I had boyfriends but those relationships always felt kind of awkward," she said. "But the first time I had a girlfriend, it felt very natural, and I said, 'All right, this is who I am'."
At Bryn Mawr services, she encountered people who were racist or homophobic and discovered that the campus Christian groups were "not welcoming of someone who said homosexuality might be okay." She stopped going to services and disassociated herself with the Christian group she had be active in.
But with a lesbian friend Stroud "search[ed] to find a place to belong, where accepting my sexual orientation could be seen as a natural outgrowth of my faith."
It was challenging for her to find the right church community but she stumbled upon one just two miles from where she had grown up - the Methodist church her parents had considered "too political" to join in the 1970s.
Each week she spent two hours on buses traveling to the First United Methodist Church of Germantown in Philadelphia so that she could attend services and teach Sunday school classes in an egalitarian environment.
Prompted by her involvement with the church and the religion classes she took during college, Stroud decided to enroll in Columbia University's Union Theological Seminary.
Yet while in seminary, Stroud "had a lot of back and forth, deciding if, in fact, I was called to the ministry." She dropped out of seminary for a few years but returned when the pull of her calling to the ministry was too powerful to ignore.
Associate Dean of Religious Life Paul Raushenbush met Stroud while in seminary. "Even back then. . . Beth was one of those really bright students," he said. "She was one of those very innovative people, and I was excited to see where her career would take her."
"She is inspiring to us today and was inspiring to me when we were in seminary," Raushenbush added.
Coming out in church
Eighteen months before her church trial, Stroud was a closeted lesbian member of the clergy as an associate pastor at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown in Philadelphia.
Then, one Sunday, Stroud stripped away the heavy layers of secrecy that had shrouded her life as a lesbian member of the clergy. After months of deliberation with parishioners, she decided she was ready to officially come out in a sermon about her life as a Methodist and as a lesbian.
In front of a congregation "packed into the church like it was a holiday," Stroud traced her life from her baptism to the present. She talked about the evolution of her faith and the realization of her sexuality. Stroud revealed she was in a longterm relationship with a woman to whom she was deeply committed.
But she also told her congregation that she worried about how they would handle an official declaration of homosexuality from one of their religious leaders.
"I love you," she said in the sermon, "and I have no doubt that you will continue to accept and embrace me."
The chapel erupted into applause that led to two standing ovations.
Though the congregation embraced her, Stroud knew they were worryied about her wellbeing. "Congregants were telling me they were afraid that the trial might become something terrible like the Inquisition," she said. "But I still didn't feel the impact."
Trial by a jury of peers
Before coming out to her congregation, Stroud met with Bishop Peter Weaver, the leader of the United Methodist Church's Philadelphia-area congregations and informed him of her plans.
Weaver said he had no choice but to file a complaint against her unless she was willing to take a vow of celibacy –– and thus become an nonpracticing homosexual –– or not make public announcements in the forms of the sermon and a letter to her congregation.
But Stroud knew coming out "would be the most faithful thing to do" in accordance with her own relationship with God. "I thought of kindness and respect under church law as an extension of my faith . . . I knew God loved me and that sometimes people can make mistakes in what they think God would do."
After the sermon Stroud and Weaver spent almost a year discussing possibilities of resolving the situation. But on March 31, 2004, the bishop filed his complaint against Stroud, charging that she had violated the church's Book of Discipline by engaging in homosexual activities.
At a hearing in July the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Committee on Investigation voted five to three in favor of a church trial –– the "last resort" to resolving conflict.
Officials realized they had made technical mistakes in organizing the first hearing and held a second one in October. At that hearing the committee voted unanimously in favor of a church trial.
After a two-day trial, Stroud was found guilty by 12 of the 13 clergymen on the jury. Then, in a 7-6 vote, the jury voted to defrock her.
"It wasn't until the day after the trial that I really started to feel the impact," she said. "But now that I've seen the footage on film I know that when they read the verdict I looked like I had been punched in the stomach."
An appeal will be tried on April 28.
The aftermath
The trial stripped Stroud of her ability to preside over baptisms and communion services and forbid her from wearing Methodist pastoral robes.
Though she can no longer perform the holiest services of the church, the First United Methodist Church of Germantown rehired Stroud as a lay minister immediately after she was defrocked. "Remarkably, not much has changed in my work," she said. "I'm doing 90 to 95 percent of the same things."
But Stroud has felt the pain of losing privileges she once savored. "It's very strange to walk into worship wearing street clothes," she said. "It's kind of like one of those bad dreams where you walk into a crowd of people completely naked."
She also said she struggled to get through her first Easter as a defrocked pastor. "I was kind of sad and let down during that service."
Since being defrocked Stroud has preached at a variety of Methodist churches on the east coast, as well as at Yale Divinity School and Pennsylvania State University.
Requests for speaking engagements have been overwhelming, but she has enjoyed them, especially when speaking to churches she "would describe as sort of middle of the road," she said. "It is really meaningful when I can reach people who aren't sure about what to think about homosexuality and the church."
Before being defrocked Stroud considered leaving the Methodist church. "I had always thought that if I lost my credentials, then I would turn around and get re-credentialed in another church so that I would have all the rights and responsibilities of a minister," she said.
She has since decided to stay in the United Methodist Church even if she "totally loses the appeal."
"I like my job and love my congregation," she said. "My partner and I would like to have children and live a comfortable, settled life."
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